fic: And underdressed [panic, brendon/ryan]
And underdressed
Panic! at the Disco, Brendon/Ryan. Explicit. ~8,000 words.
For deliberatehips, with thanks to jae_w, rossetti and runpunkrun. Some illustrative images can be found here.
"Get out. Get out right fucking now."
Brendon's back hits the door, shoulderblades dully complaining at the impact, but he can't make his hand reach for the knob.
"Brendon," Ryan says, and his voice is thinner now.
"Yeah," Brendon answers, because what the fuck else is he supposed to say.
Ryan has one leg in a pair of black lace underwear, girl underwear, and he's still wearing the thin t-shirt he'd put on after showering at the venue. Otherwise he's naked, dick half-hard and hanging out in the chilly hotel room air. What the fuck is Brendon supposed to say?
"This is my room, too," he tries, and then Ryan looks less like a wide-eyed barely legal porn star and more like the same cranky boy Brendon's done his best to dodge every morning until the coffee is ready.
"You said, you and Jon were going --" And Ryan sighs, tight and frigid. "This isn't," he starts, and squeezes his eyes shut. "Just get out," he says, small and scared again, and Brendon goes.
*
Brendon and Jon were supposed to go to some party. He really had only come back to the room to get a sweatshirt, but now -- he's not really in the mood for party people now.
He texts Jon to leave without him and wanders down the hall and around a corner, sitting by the fire stairs with his knees tucked up against his chin. His jeans press painfully against his erection with his thighs at this angle but Brendon doesn't move for a long time, staring down at the gold roses woven into the crimson carpet.
It's no big deal. So now he knows what Ryan looks like half-dressed in lace underwear. So what? That heady, hysterical edge of disbelief pounds in his temples, blood rushing in sympathetic synchrony with his throbbing cock.
So Ryan sometimes (only sometimes? all the time? could it be all the time and somehow Brendon had never noticed?) wears girls' underwear. And maybe sometimes he also wears bras or those fancy tank tops some girls like or who fucking knows, really, because Brendon barely knows what they're called. But every window display he's ever seen in a seedy city storefront or Victoria's Secret ad on TV or porn where people actually bother to wear clothes for a little while are all crashing together in his head like a hurricane of flesh and scraps of lace and Ryan. Ryan sometimes.
He slowly lowers his legs to the floor, pressing the heel of his hand hard into his lap. And, fuck, just like that he's coming before he can stop it, his other palm scraping hard against the carpet. Great. He's going to have some fucking awesome rug burn to go with the mess in his jeans and the images that won't leave his brain.
When he's ready to admit nothing about this situation is going to get less sticky or awkward the longer he sits in the hall, he creeps back to their room, pressing his hand to the door like he's testing for a fire. No fire. No smoke. No sounds at all, and if Ryan's asleep Brendon doesn't want to knock and wake him up and force an actual conversation about his apparent cross-dressing tendencies, so he just slips the key card in and out, wincing at the loud clank as the bolt unlocks.
The light between the beds is on, and the room is empty. Brendon takes a hot shower, does his best to wipe out the inside of his jeans with a washcloth, and has every intention of crawling under the covers when he trips over Ryan's bag. The zipper is gaping open and Brendon holds his clothes to his chest, trying to remember old Sunday school rules about respecting your bandmates' privacy. He doesn't recall anything that is specifically applicable in this kind of situation. His whole life is sort of off the charts of easy moral lessons.
He leans closer, peering into the bag but keeping his hot little hands to himself.
A crash in the hallway and a woman's drunken laugh surprises him so badly he falls backwards onto his ass, just like a cartoon, an object lesson in spying and the low-lifes who don't know when to leave (not-so-)well enough alone. He gives the bag one last vengeful kick and gets into bed.
*
Brendon's shoving his stuff back in his duffel the next morning when Jon opens the door, twenty minutes to bus call. He's scratchy and maybe still stoned, over-grinning as he nods at Brendon and peels off yesterday's clothes. He bends down to get a clean shirt and stares hard, puzzled, already wrist-deep in Ryan's bag -- in whatever it is that Ryan risked leaving behind when he clearly sequestered himself in Spencer's room.
"You shouldn't --" Brendon says, and Jon rolls his eyes and stands back up.
"I think my shit's still on the bus," he says. "Fuck."
Brendon wipes his glasses on his shirt. Jon is fuzzy beyond the edge of his clear vision. He shoves his frames in his hoodie pocket, picks up Ryan's bag and zips it with his eyes half-closed. "I'll see you down there," Brendon says, and hoists both his and Ryan's stuff over one shoulder.
*
Ryan stares down at the bag, which Brendon had set at his feet when it became clear he was unlikely to acknowledge Brendon had even boarded the bus.
"I didn't mean --" Brendon tries. "Last night," he says.
Ryan flips another page of his book.
"Look, dude, I'm sorry, okay? It's not that big a deal, though, seriously. Like, whatever, you know I don't give a shit what you -- what, like --"
Ryan looks up at him, blinking once like a warning.
"Fuck," Brendon mutters. He has no idea how the fuck he's supposed to apologize instead of asking any of the hundred thousand questions he has thought of in the last ten hours -- Is it all the time? What does it feel like? Does it make you hard? Can you even get hard when you're wearing tight little underwear like that or does your cock just pop right out the top? What does that feel like?
Or, fuck, worse, the obvious fucking questions he wants to ask more than anything in the world: Will you do it again? For me? Just us alone the next hotel night, you and me and I'll lock the door so no one can make us stop?
"I'm sorry," he says instead.
"You should learn to fucking knock," Ryan says, and goes back to his book.
*
When Brendon stopped posting to livejournal it was because he'd gotten too busy to write down every single one of his fucking thoughts. He was happy to trade an hour of sleep for the time spent angsting over kid shit on some site only assholes looking to prove a point about him and his band were interested in reading anyway.
But then he had a fight with his parents, the kind everyone on the bus heard every awful word of, and the last thing he wanted was to hash through it all again with the guys just to get his bitch on. He opened an email to tell his sister but what came out was so pissed off he ended up just sending it back to himself. Since then when he doesn't know what else to do about something, who else to tell, he curls up in the corner with his laptop and gmail and gets it all out.
He emails himself the list of questions he wouldn't ask Ryan, plus some important ones he'd forgotten, like whether there's a bra stuffed in that bag, too, if it matches the black lace underwear, if it's as hard to take off your own bra as it is someone else's, shit like that. When it comes back into his webmail -- no way he's saving anything important to a hard drive on a computer that sometimes gets left in green rooms for hours on end -- the sponsored ads on the right hand side are:
Irreverent Underpants
onecharmingmf.com
Fine French Lingerie
nancymeyer.com
You Have 2 Secret Crushes
DiscoverYourCrush.com
Bra Training For Men
BountifulBras.com
Mormon Underwear
TheguidetoMormons.com
He slams his laptop shut and sings "Holiday" at the top of his lungs until Jon throws a shoe at him. Then he opens the computer again and goes to look at Victoria's Secret's semi-annual sale. Whatever, he's a guy. Guys like looking at pictures of chicks in their underwear. This kid Marcus he had homeroom with in ninth grade used to steal his mom's catalogs and bring them in for all the guys to pass around. What's the big fucking deal, right? It's not even porn.
Brendon's never bought lingerie for a chick before, or gone shopping with a girlfriend or anything, and he had no fucking idea there were so many different options. He has to open a window with Google before he finally understands the difference between a demi-cup and full coverage -- you'd think Victoria wouldn't keep shit like that a secret, but you'd be wrong. At least they have a sizing chart, and after a little cross-referencing with the American Apparel site and a long history of stealing Ryan's clothes when his are all dirty, Brendon decides probably Ryan is a 28 or 30AA.
Except apparently you can't buy bras that small. Brendon can't really imagine Ryan using Kleenex or socks or what-the-fuck-ever girls in dumb movies do when they're too flat chested to impress the boy they like. He clicks to enlarge a photo of the skinniest, flattest model he can find on the site and the way the fabric hugs her ribs reminds him of Ryan one time when he got tangled up in a t-shirt, the hem caught around his torso just barely covering his nipples.
There's a lacy plunging one with ribbon edging in size 32A that he thinks would look good with the underwear Ryan was wearing. It has little red hearts sewn onto the cups, and the matching panties are pretty cute. If he wears a small in the unisex boycut shorts, probably a medium in girls' here would work for Ryan. He adds both to his shopping bag on the site and goes to find Zack to figure out where, if he were totally hypothetically interested in buying something online and having it delivered mid-tour, he could have it sent. For a friend. Hypothetically. Guys like to give chicks lingerie, right?
*
Zack says, "I don't even wanna fucking know, dude," and hands him the UPS box. "Just don't take any pictures, okay?"
"They're not for --"
"Don't wanna know," Zack says, and walks away.
Brendon doesn't open it, just slides it into Ryan's bunk. He's flipping channels in the lounge when Ryan comes in.
"Something came for you," he says, and holds out the box.
Brendon stares back at him. "Uh, no."
"It has your name on it," Ryan says, impatient, annoyed, and squints to look more closely at the label. "To: Brendon Urie care of blah blah blah. From --"
Ryan huffs out a hard breath and then throws the package on the couch. Its cardboard corner digs into Brendon's thigh.
"I am not putting on whatever is in that box for you to -- to whatever it is you're thinking."
"I'm not thinking anything!" Brendon argues, and Ryan rolls his eyes and says, "Clearly," as he stomps back to the bunks.
*
He's thinking:
Why the fuck did buying Ryan underwear seem like a good idea?
If the box showed up on Ryan's bunk again, would he maybe keep it this time? Would he try it on? Would he like it?
Does a guy who now bleeds Louis Vuitton and Mercedes and refuses to buy a TV for his new place if it's not currently available only in Japan maybe spend more than a hundred dollars on his lingerie?
He's thinking, why the fuck isn't there anyone other than Ryan to talk to about this kind of thing?
*
On a day off in LA, he swears on his left nut to Zack he's going to visit a cousin on his mother's side and is granted three hours on his own with a car service that waits at the curb. There's a store on Melrose that got really high ratings on a couple websites for luxury lingerie and, whatever, dumb movies on cable have convinced him that sometimes dudes like to pick out things for their girlfriends to wear. He probably won't be the only guy there.
He's the only guy there.
The saleslady, who is way too Suck-Up Clerk in Pretty Woman to even be believed, offers to have their models do a show with whichever pieces he prefers. That sounds like an even worse idea than coming here in the first place.
"Can I just, uh, look around?"
Of course he can, anything he wants, etc. Brendon waits until she at least pretends to turn her attention elsewhere before he begins pawing through the racks.
There's a wedding-white bustier with ruffled cups, a lace corset bodice and beaded straps. It's like Ryan's gloves, only shaped to fit his whole upper body. Brendon brushes his hand over the boning. His fingers look short and stubby next to the garment's long, fluid lines and he flushes, picturing Ryan's skin rising and falling underneath with every breath. It's perfect.
Unless it's a little too Madonna? Maybe he should have brought Spencer for second opinions, but then -- no, then Spencer would either tell him about all the years he's known Ryan was a secret cross-dresser, or Spencer would act like he'd known for years but really be pissed as hell at everyone involved that he didn't know. Or he could be grossed out, potentially, though that seems less likely.
On the next rack there's a black bra, and at first look it's too simple, just gathered satin or silk, maybe, with lace on the top half of the cup and something shiny woven into the thin straps. But it is elegant and delicate without looking flimsy, and Brendon hovers.
"That's couture stitching in the cups," the sales lady says, running a long nail across the gathers. Brendon's watched Project Runway. He knows that's a good thing. Also there's no way Heidi Klum would call this cheap. "And these," she says, significantly, pointing at the tiny shimmery jewels running in a line up the straps, "are Swarovski crystals. It's one of our most exclusive sets."
She smiles at him like he's done something right, like he has good taste. He knows Ryan likes nice shit, and that he wears it like he was meant to, like he isn't some asshole kid like the rest of them. Ryan wears lace like it was invented for him, like it was created just to slide between his palms and a guitar, like a caress.
"Do you know what size she is?"
Brendon swallows. He should probably ask an expert instead of just guessing. "We share a lot of clothes?" he says. If he can handle the dirty looks he gets buying girls' jeans at random malls in Ohio, this really shouldn't be that big a fucking deal. "Like, shirt wise, we're pretty much the same. Kind of, uh --" He smoothes a hand down his chest, hovering just a millimeter above his shirt.
"Probably an A cup," the lady says, diplomatically, and Brendon nods. "Thirty-two?" He nods his head yes again. "Let me wrap it nicely," she chirps, and he hands her his credit card.
*
This time he puts the package -- tied up in kimono-print silk, cream and black and delicate dark purple flowers -- under Ryan's pillow. He waits until a day when Jon and Spencer are off exploring, sneaks it into the bunk while Ryan is slurping down cereal in the front, and then settles himself on the back couch with Blue.
Juliette Binoche is in the pool, and he's trying not to get too turned on watching because the movie was just supposed to be a way to kill time until Ryan came and either kicked his ass or showered him with gratitude.
Ryan finally shows up, holding the package against his bare chest. He's wearing old gray boxers, loose and laundry-ragged, falling off his hips. There's an acre of flesh on display and it's about as sexy as Saturday morning cartoons, except where the smooth fabric slides against his skin, one crystal-studded strap dangling down like the string on a balloon.
Brendon is so hard now, between the DVD and Ryan, mostly Ryan really, and Ryan is staring at him like he can see through Brendon's skin, like he knows how still Brendon's sitting and how much he's itching to drag a pillow over his lap and give himself some kind of excuse. Then he remembers Ryan, one leg in the underwear, scared and stuttering at Brendon to get out.
He clears his throat and says, "I thought you might like it."
"Just because you saw me --"
"I know," Brendon says, "yeah, I get it." Ryan is staring at a square of couch behind Brendon's shoulder, and Brendon scoots over an inch until their eyes meet. "It has crystals," he says. "Like diamonds, almost, I don't fucking know. It just seemed like something you would like. That's all, Ryan, really."
Ryan lets the silk wrapping fall open, the lingerie still pinched between his fingers, and stares down at where it drapes against his body. Then he gathers it all up in his arms again, hugging it to himself. He whispers, "Thank you," and then, even softer, Brendon's name.
"You're welcome," Brendon says automatically, and swallows down everything else he wants and wants to ask and wants to say and wants to touch.
*
Three days later, Brendon's eating lunch at the tiny table on the bus when Ryan comes and sits next to him.
"So you like it when guys dress up in lingerie," Ryan says, voice casual, and Brendon breathes Red Bull up his nose. After they've dealt with that (a lot of Brendon gasping and Ryan smoothing his huge palm over Brendon's back, and maybe it didn't actually take Brendon quite as long to recover as he made it seem, maybe) Brendon still doesn't have a good answer. But if Ryan's willing to actually have a conversation about this Brendon's not going to let the opportunity pass.
"I don't know," he says honestly. "I don't really think I'd ever thought about it before?" Brendon sees Ryan nod slightly in his peripheral vision. "Do you? I mean, on other guys?"
Ryan breathes out, steady and even. "I don't know," he says. And then he gets up and leaves.
*
Ryan is staring out the window of the bus, fingers tapping on an open notebook, headphones on. Brendon watches him for a while, tries to discern whether there's a hard strap of a bra under his thin yellow shirt, decides no, then wonders whether Ryan ever does that, just wears shit under his clothes during a normal day or if he saves it for nights and weekends, for alone time, for someone else, someone special.
Fuck. If there were someone else he would know. Right? Nobody else is sending Ryan underwear. No way that shit would sneak by on a bus on a tour in their lives right now. Right?
There's nobody else he can ask that, either. He says Ryan's name, low, and Ryan doesn't turn, doesn't hear, doesn't seem to have a fucking clue that he's driving Brendon nuts just by sitting there in his mostly sheer shirt not wearing any lingerie at all.
Brendon walks as normally as he can back to the bunks, slides his curtain shut and jerks off fast and probably not so silent. He wishes he had kept the other set from Victoria's Secret just so he had something to touch, something satiny and smooth that he could rub over his dick. Then he could imagine he was pressing himself down on top of Ryan on a bed, someplace lit low and languid where Ryan would arch up beneath him and beg Brendon to fuck him, to strip him naked, or, fuck, maybe they could leave Ryan's bra on while they did it, the straps cutting into his shoulders, leaving little red stripes down his chest.
Brendon turns his face into his pillow and comes, cheap cotton rough against his mouth.
*
Something's wrong with the sound board and they're an hour behind the whole night, extra minutes counted off in the green room like molasses. Everyone else has wandered off. Brendon sits cross-legged in his dress pants and pokes around the Agent Provocateur site, giggling to himself because some of the girls, the way they're spread out on their backs with their hips tilted up and the satin clinging to their bodies, it almost looks like they've got something tucked away in there.
Not like on the sites for big burly guys who prefer fake tits and big, brash red garters and heels. None of those men look like Ryan, not at all, like they're from different planets, different species barreling through entirely different universes of lingerie. Ryan's people are slender and sleek and barefoot and maybe his hair hangs down a little so he can stare out doe-eyed from underneath, maybe he's painted his face, not like for the stage but not quite as casual as the post-show smudged eyeliner either. Maybe long, dark eyelashes and a soft, glossy pink mouth and shimmery body paint all over his chest, down his long legs, across his stomach.
He doesn't even hear Ryan come up behind him, doesn't realize he's not alone in the room until Ryan's hand comes down on his shoulder, laying flat across the bone like it simply floated down, a featherweight question.
"Uh, I --" Brendon starts, and raises a hand to close the screen. One of Ryan's fingertips digs in a little and Brendon puts his arm back down. He swallows. "This, uh, this site has some nice stuff," he says.
"Yeah?" Ryan says, soft, and kneels down beside the couch, hanging over the armrest and turning Brendon's computer on a few degrees until the glare disappears.
Brendon tries to choke back a laugh. It's not really funny, him and Ryan doing a little online lingerie shopping together until the show starts. It's not funny if he remembers how fucking hard he came again that afternoon just imagining the slide of his dick against smooth satin.
Ryan points at one model on the screen. "Are those pearls?"
Brendon blows up the description text so they can see that, yup, there are actual pearls all along the bottom of the cream-colored cups and across the back straps. Pale pink ribbons cross and re-cross the bra and panties like a maze, like a puzzle waiting to be solved.
Ryan's hand skates across the keys until he can steer the trackpad to the next page of pictures, the pressure of his hand making the hard edges of the laptop dig into Brendon's thighs. He double-clicks on a set in midnight blue, black lace layered over the bra and garter belt. "That's a good color," he says, and Brendon breathes out something he hopes sounds like yes. "On you," Ryan adds, and then stares down at the couch for a while.
"Oh," Brendon says eventually. "Okay."
Ryan pushes himself back up to his feet and smiles, a little, carefully, down at Brendon.
"Did --" Brendon covers his face with his hands for a second before managing to get his shit together. One question he has to ask, one he has to know the answer to. "Did they fit?" he asks. "The ones I -- were they the right size?"
Ryan's hands smooth across his hips, and Brendon's not sure he even knows he's doing it, that he's stroking an imaginary line where the underwear would have cut across his body. He tucks his thumbs into his pockets like that was their original destination and hunches his arms in on himself. "Yes," he says, and he probably means it to be simple, a statement of fact, a comment on the weather, but he's got that dreamy edge to his voice and the cloudy grin that means he's been pleasantly surprised. Brendon can remember every fucking time he's seen that emotion on Ryan.
"Oh, good," Brendon says, staring back at his lap. "That's good, good to know," he babbles, and when he raises his head he's alone in the room again.
*
At an antique store in Connecticut, Brendon finds a carved box, something between the size used for jewelry and a small trunk. The delicate old man running the shop calls it a valet, says it was for men to pack their watches and belts and ascots. While Ryan is distracted by a shirt made by a dead English tailor, Brendon buys the box, and when the next package comes, he folds Ryan's stuff carefully, arranging and rearranging each piece until they are all laid perfectly out on the dark green velvet lining.
He waits for a hotel night followed by a late call, the holy grail of tour schedules, and before they get off the bus, he puts the box in Ryan's bag. He leaves it right on top but zipped everything back up, a surprise but unmistakable as soon as it is opened.
Most of the evening is spent wandering between rooms on their floor, singing rounds with Jon for a while as Ryan tries to keep up on his banjo. Then he watches Iron Chef with Zack and Spencer, who can't cook for shit but likes to critique techniques he learned on the Food Network like he knows what he's talking about.
It's fucking cold in the hotel, and he goes back to his own room to find a hoodie and maybe gets a little distracted wondering whether Ryan has opened his present yet and whether he's tried anything on and if it would be weird for Brendon to ask how it's working out. There's a knock on the door and Brendon yells, "It's open," even though it almost never is unless they've really slept in and Zack is standing there with a key ready to kick their asses. So he stands up anyway and flips up the lock and pulls the door open.
"You have a key to this room too," he tells Ryan, and Ryan shrugs like the truth of that statement is still up for debate.
He doesn't wait to be invited in, though, just comes in and closes the door and locks it, both locks, and follows as Brendon backs away, toward the bed, wondering what the fuck is going on. The AC is in overdrive but Ryan is still way overdressed, even for Ryan, even for late fall.
"Aren't you hot?" Brendon has to ask eventually, because he's in a tiny t-shirt and jeans and he's suddenly sweating like a pig, he can feel the back of his shirt where it's clinging to his skin and he's not sure now why he thought he needed a hoodie. Ryan takes off his hat, setting it on the dresser, and starts to unwind his scarf, all the long threaded ends trailing over and around him like a veil. When he's finally broken free he folds it, long fingers turning the fabric into a neat stack.
"Where's yours," Ryan says, and Brendon thinks maybe he blanked out there for a bit, missed a conversation about Ryan showing up and taking off his clothes, maybe, hopefully all of his clothes, and maybe under his coat and his jacket and his shirt and long slacks he's wearing Brendon's present. "The ones you bought for yourself," Ryan says, and it's not remotely a question, and Brendon didn't miss anything, not exactly, except the whole part where he stopped having any idea what would happen next.
He flushes, feels the heat burn from the roots of his hair to the tip of his nose. Has Ryan been going through Brendon's stuff? Breaking into his email? Spying on him when he's fallen asleep with a tiny scrap of silk clenched between his fingers? (Only once, and since then Brendon's had a rule about always putting things away after, no matter how much he just wants to pass out in his own messy bunk.) Or was he just that sure that if he said what color Brendon would look good in, Brendon would buy them?
"Put them on," Ryan says, "and I'll take the rest of this off." He gestures loosely at his twelve million layers. "And then I guess we'll both know."
"Both of us?" Brendon has had a million pictures in his head of what this could look like but he was always behind that particular mental camera, Ryan front and center, Ryan on a bed, in a chair, leaning against a mirrored dresser like he is now but with way fewer clothes. "But," Brendon stutters, "doesn't that kind of, I don't know, defeat the purpose?"
"Why," Ryan says. "Is one of us trying to be the girl?"
"No. I mean. I don't know?"
"I want to see," Ryan says, slow and simple. "You've seen me, so I should get to see you."
"But I --"
Brendon's not sure why he's still arguing, why he isn't getting naked and doing absolutely anything Ryan wants because it may not be exactly what he's been imagining but it seems poised to be a fuck of a lot better.
"Do you like how it feels?" Brendon asks, finally. "When it's on, does it --"
"Yes," Ryan says, and when Brendon stares, waiting, he goes on. "I never forget about it. It's like it's always there, touching me, like it's whispering or saying something or reminding me of someone." He glares at Brendon like he's expecting to be laughed at and says, a bit desperately, "And you obviously like it, at least looking at it, so why can't you just --"
"Ryan," he says, and squeezes Ryan's arm above the elbow, the scratchy tweed of Ryan's coat prickly under his fingers. "I like it, I do, I --"
Ryan reaches up and holds Brendon's neck, fingers pressing against the back of his ear, and he presses a kiss to Brendon's mouth, hard and dry. Like a promise, Brendon thinks. "I want to see you," he says, breath on Brendon's lips.
"Okay, yeah," Brendon whispers, and strips off his clothes as fast as he can. He's naked before he realizes the things are stuffed in the bottom of his duffel in the big closet and never mind that Ryan's seen him buck naked a thousand times before, he feels like a fucking idiot strutting around now, undressed, not dressed yet, Ryan watching calmly as he stands in the center of the room.
He holds the closet door open with one shoulder and bends over, digging through dirty jeans and questionably clean hoodies to find the silk bag shoved into another bag at the bottom. The room is shaped like an L, so he's far enough around the corner that Ryan can't see him, but Brendon feels his stare all the same. Ryan's duffel is there, too, zipped tight.
"Bring them back here," Ryan calls, and so Brendon does, holding the midnight blue satin set out in front of him as he walks like a zombie.
Ryan laughs at that, so Brendon can too, and then it's okay, whatever this is they're doing, whatever it means, they're laughing about it together so it should be okay.
"Come here," Ryan says, and Brendon stops when his bare toes are layered on top of Ryan's dress shoes. Ryan tugs the bra out of Brendon's hands by one strap and after a minor tug-of-war, a tug-of-skirmish really, Brendon lets him win. "Put your arms out," Ryan says, and Brendon slides them through, the rest of the outfit still clenched in one hand.
Ryan wraps himself around Brendon, his coat scratching all along the front of Brendon's body as he fastens the clasps. Brendon starts to pull back, his chest and thighs itchy and his whole body tingling, but Ryan holds on, hugging him, palms sweeping above and below the strap, light at first and then with a firmer pressure, nails digging in on one wide pass over the skin. Brendon turns his nose into Ryan's neck, trying to stifle his moan against Ryan's throat, because even when he'd sort of realized this was it, that he and Ryan were going to stand there in their respective lingerie, he hadn't quite pushed through to what was going to happen next, how they'd touch, what it would feel like when Ryan touched his lips at the top of each strap, right over a tiny black satin rosette, his mouth hot and damp on the skin beneath.
The garter and panties slide in Brendon's sweaty grip and he pushes away enough to shove them at Ryan. Ryan hands him back the underwear and says, "Go ahead," so Brendon rests a hand on Ryan's shoulder as he steps in with one leg, then switches and does the other side, pulling them up as gracefully as he can. And actually he feels pretty fucking graceful, which is ridiculous, because his dick is totally hard and he has to wrangle it back under the waistband and it still looks like it won't stay there for long. Ryan is watching him wrestling his own cock, Ryan is watching everything, that same dreamy look on his face.
It makes Brendon want to preen, makes him want to spin around in front of a mirror like a model or sprawl out indecently on the bed. He must be grinning because Ryan's echoing a smile back, a real one, wide and happy, and Brendon has to kiss him, so he does. It's a real kiss this time, wet and deep, and it starts out giddy and turns dirty in the middle when Ryan wriggles his hands between them, every touch against Brendon's chest like fire. He undoes the buttons on his coat and the thin jacket beneath and Brendon pushes both off Ryan's shoulders.
"Fuck," Brendon groans, "how can you still be wearing so much?" He attacks the buttons on Ryan's shirt and Ryan lets him, standing there still and obedient and Brendon tries to concentrate, tries to stick to the task at hand instead of getting distracted kissing Ryan some more, kissing until Ryan pushes his arms out straight and Brendon is a few feet away again.
"Garter," Ryan says, and holds it out. Brendon's never actually put it on, has never managed to get more than the bra and panties barely hooked together before he had takes it all off and does his best not to shoot all over them in the process.
Brendon says, "You do it," and Ryan does, undoing the three tiny buttons and wrapping the garter around Brendon's hips like a low-slung belt. Ryan drops down to one knee, fingers still pushing the parts all back together, a tiny frown of concentration as he bites at the corner of his mouth. When everything's fastened he tilts his head back and Brendon supposes he's imagined this, too, Ryan kneeling before him, lips parted, eyes wide.
Imagining it wasn't the same at all.
"You," he coughs out, and tugs at Ryan's shoulder until he rises. "You too," he says, and Ryan must hear the rush in Brendon's voice because he kicks off his shoes at the same time as he unbuttons his shirt, weathered cotton falling apart to reveal a bone-colored bustier, delicate seams sweeping from his navel up to cups edged in the most delicate lace Brendon's ever seen. "That's --" he says, but he isn't sure how to say how beautiful it is, how pretty Ryan is.
Ryan unzips his trousers, giving them a little head start of a shove until gravity does the rest and he can step out of the legs. There are panties to match, of course, and a garter belt, more ivory lace fanning out across his hipbones.
And there are stockings clipped on, creamy, shimmery sheer fabric wrapped around each thigh, both calves, caressing Ryan's ankles and toes and it's a hard punch to the gut all over, harder than that first glimpse of Ryan in black underwear, sharper than the first time Brendon looked over at Ryan in the middle of a show and clearly, undeniably thought, I want him.
This time when Brendon pushes his body against Ryan's it's different, it's bare skin and the hard jut of boning in the bustier pressed to Brendon's chest. The kiss is full of intent, Ryan moaning into his mouth as Brendon puts his hands on Ryan's ass and holds them closer together. For a second Brendon thinks that's it, that's the game, they're zooming over a cliff, flying, they're going to get him out of these things even faster than they got them on. And then Ryan pulls back, breathing hard and saying, "Wait, wait --"
And Brendon's not an asshole, not when he wants something like this, so much, so long, so he stops. He waits. He shoves his dick back down into his underwear from where it's found its way free and swallows hard, reaching for oxygen. Ryan clings to him, fingers wrapped tight around Brendon's forearms as he reels himself in, too.
"I want," Ryan says eventually, but then shakes his head and starts over. "I have a plan," he says, and Brendon can't stop a laugh because of course he does, naturally Ryan has a plan, a handbook, a set of guidelines for this thing between them Brendon can't begin to name.
But then he realizes: Ryan has a plan, Ryan's been thinking about this just as much as Brendon has, at least. Ryan wants this to be good, to be more than a kinky experiment between friends, because he wouldn't bother to plan something like that, to orchestrate it. Ryan wants this to make a perfect picture, and Brendon looks at him, beautiful and elegant and -- this is what dressed to the nines must actually mean, even if they're half-naked.
He looks down at himself, at the black lace and blue satin and his skinny, sort of hairy bare legs, and flicks at the loose straps on his pale thighs. "I don't have --"
"Oh," Ryan says, and smiles, dropping one quick kiss on Brendon's lips. "Hang on." He disappears into the closet and comes back holding up two long sheer black hose. Brendon reaches out, but Ryan bats his hand away, pushing Brendon down to sit on bed, urging him back until he hits the headboard. "Let me," he says, kneeling on the mattress. He gathers one stocking up until it's just a little circle of stretchy silk and Brendon's seen women do this before, not like this, just women like his mom or dancers backstage before a show, and it's never been anything more than perfunctory, a chore like any other beauty regimen.
There's nothing perfunctory in the way Ryan tucks Brendon's toes into the foot and then hovers in front of him, climbing up inch by inch as he tugs the fabric over Brendon's calf, his knee, his thigh, straightening and clipping them in place. Then he slides down the comforter and does it all again on the other leg. Brendon tries to stay still, he does, but he feels himself slipping down, his elbows folding and his arms resting on the bedspread and when Ryan's clipped the last garter into place Brendon's back is flat on the bed.
He cranes his neck up for a kiss and Ryan slowly, gently, lowers himself on top of Brendon, one leg on either side of Brendon's. His skin is hot, scorching to the touch even through the stockings, hot and a little slick with sweat, except where it's covered in silk and lace. Brendon's nipples are rubbing the inside of his bra as they kiss and move against each other. He's never really felt anything like this, the creamy coolness of the lingerie on his own skin and between his fingers and Ryan's when they touch. He's never wanted sex so much, not just for the fucking, for the way it always feels better when it's someone else's body touching yours. He wants this, wants Ryan, Ryan and the lace gloves he shows the whole world and the lace lingerie that's only for Brendon's eyes, Ryan and all his answers to Brendon's million questions.
"Fuck," Brendon says, not meaning to speak at all but once it's out it's right, it's the only word that comes close to capturing how fucking overwhelming this all is. He kisses Ryan as deeply as he can from that angle until he has to flip them over and bear down hard, lips, chest, legs all pushing Ryan into the pillows, the mattress barely bothering to offer resistance. Neither does Ryan, liquid under every assault, a loose smile and happily lost look on his face.
"How, how do we --" Brendon loses track of the sentence as he kisses his way down Ryan's stomach. He feels like he's gasping his way around every word, around all the questions he still has, all the questions he has now he'd never thought to ask. How do we do this? What do you want? What's your plan? How do you like it? How do I know what I like? How do we --
Ryan threads his fingers through Brendon's hair and tugs. "What, how do we what."
"I don't want to fuck these up," Brendon says, testing to see how it feels if he tries to swallow Ryan's dick when it's still wrapped in silk.
"Don't care," Ryan chokes out.
Apparently it feels pretty fucking awesome on both ends of the equation, the taste of musky silk burrowing deep into Brendon's senses.
"Buy more."
Brendon raises his head. "What? More what?"
Ryan blinks, flicking hair out of his eyes. "Go ahead and fuck them up if you want," he says, and, oh, he's talking about the lingerie. Brendon raises himself up on his elbows a bit, staring up Ryan's long body. Ryan's hands are above his head, squeezing the edge of the pillow tight even though the rest of is body is still relaxed. He's pushing his knuckles back against the solid wood headboard, almost like he's looking for something stronger to hold onto, something he could hang on or pull against or --
"Hey," Brendon says, and his voice is way softer than the rush of blood in his head as he tries to think of a nice way to ask it. Ryan stares up at him and of course he's not nervous, all spread out in his ivory silk underwear. He looks about as patient as a guy with a hard dick barely constrained by a thin pair of panties could be expected to be. He's just waiting for Brendon to do what Ryan wants but isn't about to ask for.
Ryan doesn't really look like he's making a list of things to say no to, so Brendon pushes further up, dropping a kiss on Ryan's knees and sliding fingers around the back of one thigh, then the other, unhooking each stocking and drawing them down and off. He sits back on his heels and holds the fabric in both hands, the silk so light and translucent for a minute he thinks it won't work at all. But when he tugs a little the fabric is strong. It's sturdy enough.
Ryan lifts his head an inch. "Brendon?" he asks, still calm.
"There's nothing to tie your hands to but each other," Brendon says, and Ryan sucks in one tight breath.
Maybe he should have asked some more of his million questions, or said something about his sudden inspiration, or --
Ryan lays his head back down and rearranges his arms until he can intertwine his fingers above his head. "Like this?" he asks.
"I think," Brendon says.
It's not like Ryan doesn't know he's making this shit up as he goes along. Ryan would know if Brendon had ever done anything half this interesting in bed before, so he just climbs up, straddling Ryan's chest. He binds Ryan's hands together with the stockings, tying them over each other in slippery knots until it's hard to see where the silk ends and his wrists begins.
"You'll have to hold your arms up," Brendon says, and Ryan nods seriously. "Fuck," he says again. "Fuck, Ryan. I really like you." Once he starts it's easy to keep going, because it's true, it took the shock of lingerie and this secret between them but it's been there all along, sweet and simmering. "I like you, Ryan," he says again, "and it's not about what you wear under your clothes, I think it's --"
Ryan tilts his hips enough that Brendon slides down another few inches and shuts up. He comes to a stop with his crotch pressed to Ryan's unshaven chin, a prickling tingle through the panties quickly replaced by a damp pressure along the underside of his cock.
Ryan presses his shoulders back into the pillows, hands still above his head, until he can reach. He sucks the head of Brendon's cock in, then pushes up to take more. The edge of Brendon's panties are shoved down, pinning his balls to his body, and Brendon frantically tries to get them free, attempts to take a deep breath, sneaks a look down at Ryan's fluttering eyelashes and ends up hanging on to the top of the headboard, fucking into Ryan's mouth.
He's not sure how he got to that point, how he even got out of bed today when it was apparently all a part of Ryan's plan that they'd end up here, some version of here. Brendon turns his cheek into his shoulder, breathing choppily, focusing on holding most of his weight off Ryan's face as Ryan swallows him again and again.
There's a pale flash in the corner of his eye and he looks back, Ryan's long, bare legs twisting desperately on the bed, hips thrusting uselessly against air. Everything from the shoulders up is under Brendon's control, his mouth full of cock, his hands bound and willfully restrained, and below the waist he's wild.
"Oh fuck," Brendon gaps as he lifts up, trying to back his way out of Ryan's grasp, but Ryan holds his hips up and his jaw open wide and swallows him down again, one last time and Brendon's coming, jerking out of Ryan's mouth at the shock of how deep it all feels, how fucking intense. He lands back on Ryan's chest, the bony corset under his ass before he falls sideways and onto the bed, his head ending up somewhere around Ryan's knees. "Fuck, Ryan," he says.
Ryan clears his throat, a hybrid cough and laugh. "So you keep saying," Ryan says, but he sounds proud of himself, and amused. When Brendon rocks up a few inches to check, Ryan's holding his hands out. He waggles his fingers a little through the stockings and says, "Want to untie me so we can try that next?"
*
Brendon's trying to nap in his bunk. Ryan has a lengthy interpretation of the word next that includes many variations and positions but nothing remotely resembling rest, which had seemed like a really great idea at the time, but now they have a show in three hours and a lead singer too tired to sleep.
He's almost there when he feels Ryan's hand on his back, the same grip and span of fingers from shoulder blade to mid-spine he'd used to hold Brendon close while they were fucking. And then Ryan's leaning over, hair brushing Brendon's face as he whispers in his ear. "I really like you too, you know."
Brendon laughs into his pillow. "Yeah," he says. "I figured that part out."
"Well, I didn't say, and --"
Brendon can practically hear Ryan scrunching his face in annoyance. "Hey," he interrupts, and rolls onto his back.
"Hi," Ryan says, smiling down.
"Want to help me pick out what to wear tonight?"
"You have a costume," Ryan says. "Two, actually."
Brendon kicks his heel into the duffel he'd been too tired to stow anywhere but at his feet. "Under that," he says. "For after."
Ryan looks back and forth from Brendon to the bag.
"You have a couple to choose from," Brendon says.
"Oh," Ryan says, full of dreamy joy again. He plays with the zipper for a while but doesn't pull it open. Finally he bends in, kissing the corner of Brendon's mouth. He shrugs as he sits back up and says, "Surprise me."
Panic! at the Disco, Brendon/Ryan. Explicit. ~8,000 words.
For deliberatehips, with thanks to jae_w, rossetti and runpunkrun. Some illustrative images can be found here.
"Get out. Get out right fucking now."
Brendon's back hits the door, shoulderblades dully complaining at the impact, but he can't make his hand reach for the knob.
"Brendon," Ryan says, and his voice is thinner now.
"Yeah," Brendon answers, because what the fuck else is he supposed to say.
Ryan has one leg in a pair of black lace underwear, girl underwear, and he's still wearing the thin t-shirt he'd put on after showering at the venue. Otherwise he's naked, dick half-hard and hanging out in the chilly hotel room air. What the fuck is Brendon supposed to say?
"This is my room, too," he tries, and then Ryan looks less like a wide-eyed barely legal porn star and more like the same cranky boy Brendon's done his best to dodge every morning until the coffee is ready.
"You said, you and Jon were going --" And Ryan sighs, tight and frigid. "This isn't," he starts, and squeezes his eyes shut. "Just get out," he says, small and scared again, and Brendon goes.
*
Brendon and Jon were supposed to go to some party. He really had only come back to the room to get a sweatshirt, but now -- he's not really in the mood for party people now.
He texts Jon to leave without him and wanders down the hall and around a corner, sitting by the fire stairs with his knees tucked up against his chin. His jeans press painfully against his erection with his thighs at this angle but Brendon doesn't move for a long time, staring down at the gold roses woven into the crimson carpet.
It's no big deal. So now he knows what Ryan looks like half-dressed in lace underwear. So what? That heady, hysterical edge of disbelief pounds in his temples, blood rushing in sympathetic synchrony with his throbbing cock.
So Ryan sometimes (only sometimes? all the time? could it be all the time and somehow Brendon had never noticed?) wears girls' underwear. And maybe sometimes he also wears bras or those fancy tank tops some girls like or who fucking knows, really, because Brendon barely knows what they're called. But every window display he's ever seen in a seedy city storefront or Victoria's Secret ad on TV or porn where people actually bother to wear clothes for a little while are all crashing together in his head like a hurricane of flesh and scraps of lace and Ryan. Ryan sometimes.
He slowly lowers his legs to the floor, pressing the heel of his hand hard into his lap. And, fuck, just like that he's coming before he can stop it, his other palm scraping hard against the carpet. Great. He's going to have some fucking awesome rug burn to go with the mess in his jeans and the images that won't leave his brain.
When he's ready to admit nothing about this situation is going to get less sticky or awkward the longer he sits in the hall, he creeps back to their room, pressing his hand to the door like he's testing for a fire. No fire. No smoke. No sounds at all, and if Ryan's asleep Brendon doesn't want to knock and wake him up and force an actual conversation about his apparent cross-dressing tendencies, so he just slips the key card in and out, wincing at the loud clank as the bolt unlocks.
The light between the beds is on, and the room is empty. Brendon takes a hot shower, does his best to wipe out the inside of his jeans with a washcloth, and has every intention of crawling under the covers when he trips over Ryan's bag. The zipper is gaping open and Brendon holds his clothes to his chest, trying to remember old Sunday school rules about respecting your bandmates' privacy. He doesn't recall anything that is specifically applicable in this kind of situation. His whole life is sort of off the charts of easy moral lessons.
He leans closer, peering into the bag but keeping his hot little hands to himself.
A crash in the hallway and a woman's drunken laugh surprises him so badly he falls backwards onto his ass, just like a cartoon, an object lesson in spying and the low-lifes who don't know when to leave (not-so-)well enough alone. He gives the bag one last vengeful kick and gets into bed.
*
Brendon's shoving his stuff back in his duffel the next morning when Jon opens the door, twenty minutes to bus call. He's scratchy and maybe still stoned, over-grinning as he nods at Brendon and peels off yesterday's clothes. He bends down to get a clean shirt and stares hard, puzzled, already wrist-deep in Ryan's bag -- in whatever it is that Ryan risked leaving behind when he clearly sequestered himself in Spencer's room.
"You shouldn't --" Brendon says, and Jon rolls his eyes and stands back up.
"I think my shit's still on the bus," he says. "Fuck."
Brendon wipes his glasses on his shirt. Jon is fuzzy beyond the edge of his clear vision. He shoves his frames in his hoodie pocket, picks up Ryan's bag and zips it with his eyes half-closed. "I'll see you down there," Brendon says, and hoists both his and Ryan's stuff over one shoulder.
*
Ryan stares down at the bag, which Brendon had set at his feet when it became clear he was unlikely to acknowledge Brendon had even boarded the bus.
"I didn't mean --" Brendon tries. "Last night," he says.
Ryan flips another page of his book.
"Look, dude, I'm sorry, okay? It's not that big a deal, though, seriously. Like, whatever, you know I don't give a shit what you -- what, like --"
Ryan looks up at him, blinking once like a warning.
"Fuck," Brendon mutters. He has no idea how the fuck he's supposed to apologize instead of asking any of the hundred thousand questions he has thought of in the last ten hours -- Is it all the time? What does it feel like? Does it make you hard? Can you even get hard when you're wearing tight little underwear like that or does your cock just pop right out the top? What does that feel like?
Or, fuck, worse, the obvious fucking questions he wants to ask more than anything in the world: Will you do it again? For me? Just us alone the next hotel night, you and me and I'll lock the door so no one can make us stop?
"I'm sorry," he says instead.
"You should learn to fucking knock," Ryan says, and goes back to his book.
*
When Brendon stopped posting to livejournal it was because he'd gotten too busy to write down every single one of his fucking thoughts. He was happy to trade an hour of sleep for the time spent angsting over kid shit on some site only assholes looking to prove a point about him and his band were interested in reading anyway.
But then he had a fight with his parents, the kind everyone on the bus heard every awful word of, and the last thing he wanted was to hash through it all again with the guys just to get his bitch on. He opened an email to tell his sister but what came out was so pissed off he ended up just sending it back to himself. Since then when he doesn't know what else to do about something, who else to tell, he curls up in the corner with his laptop and gmail and gets it all out.
He emails himself the list of questions he wouldn't ask Ryan, plus some important ones he'd forgotten, like whether there's a bra stuffed in that bag, too, if it matches the black lace underwear, if it's as hard to take off your own bra as it is someone else's, shit like that. When it comes back into his webmail -- no way he's saving anything important to a hard drive on a computer that sometimes gets left in green rooms for hours on end -- the sponsored ads on the right hand side are:
Irreverent Underpants
onecharmingmf.com
Fine French Lingerie
nancymeyer.com
You Have 2 Secret Crushes
DiscoverYourCrush.com
Bra Training For Men
BountifulBras.com
Mormon Underwear
TheguidetoMormons.com
He slams his laptop shut and sings "Holiday" at the top of his lungs until Jon throws a shoe at him. Then he opens the computer again and goes to look at Victoria's Secret's semi-annual sale. Whatever, he's a guy. Guys like looking at pictures of chicks in their underwear. This kid Marcus he had homeroom with in ninth grade used to steal his mom's catalogs and bring them in for all the guys to pass around. What's the big fucking deal, right? It's not even porn.
Brendon's never bought lingerie for a chick before, or gone shopping with a girlfriend or anything, and he had no fucking idea there were so many different options. He has to open a window with Google before he finally understands the difference between a demi-cup and full coverage -- you'd think Victoria wouldn't keep shit like that a secret, but you'd be wrong. At least they have a sizing chart, and after a little cross-referencing with the American Apparel site and a long history of stealing Ryan's clothes when his are all dirty, Brendon decides probably Ryan is a 28 or 30AA.
Except apparently you can't buy bras that small. Brendon can't really imagine Ryan using Kleenex or socks or what-the-fuck-ever girls in dumb movies do when they're too flat chested to impress the boy they like. He clicks to enlarge a photo of the skinniest, flattest model he can find on the site and the way the fabric hugs her ribs reminds him of Ryan one time when he got tangled up in a t-shirt, the hem caught around his torso just barely covering his nipples.
There's a lacy plunging one with ribbon edging in size 32A that he thinks would look good with the underwear Ryan was wearing. It has little red hearts sewn onto the cups, and the matching panties are pretty cute. If he wears a small in the unisex boycut shorts, probably a medium in girls' here would work for Ryan. He adds both to his shopping bag on the site and goes to find Zack to figure out where, if he were totally hypothetically interested in buying something online and having it delivered mid-tour, he could have it sent. For a friend. Hypothetically. Guys like to give chicks lingerie, right?
*
Zack says, "I don't even wanna fucking know, dude," and hands him the UPS box. "Just don't take any pictures, okay?"
"They're not for --"
"Don't wanna know," Zack says, and walks away.
Brendon doesn't open it, just slides it into Ryan's bunk. He's flipping channels in the lounge when Ryan comes in.
"Something came for you," he says, and holds out the box.
Brendon stares back at him. "Uh, no."
"It has your name on it," Ryan says, impatient, annoyed, and squints to look more closely at the label. "To: Brendon Urie care of blah blah blah. From --"
Ryan huffs out a hard breath and then throws the package on the couch. Its cardboard corner digs into Brendon's thigh.
"I am not putting on whatever is in that box for you to -- to whatever it is you're thinking."
"I'm not thinking anything!" Brendon argues, and Ryan rolls his eyes and says, "Clearly," as he stomps back to the bunks.
*
He's thinking:
Why the fuck did buying Ryan underwear seem like a good idea?
If the box showed up on Ryan's bunk again, would he maybe keep it this time? Would he try it on? Would he like it?
Does a guy who now bleeds Louis Vuitton and Mercedes and refuses to buy a TV for his new place if it's not currently available only in Japan maybe spend more than a hundred dollars on his lingerie?
He's thinking, why the fuck isn't there anyone other than Ryan to talk to about this kind of thing?
*
On a day off in LA, he swears on his left nut to Zack he's going to visit a cousin on his mother's side and is granted three hours on his own with a car service that waits at the curb. There's a store on Melrose that got really high ratings on a couple websites for luxury lingerie and, whatever, dumb movies on cable have convinced him that sometimes dudes like to pick out things for their girlfriends to wear. He probably won't be the only guy there.
He's the only guy there.
The saleslady, who is way too Suck-Up Clerk in Pretty Woman to even be believed, offers to have their models do a show with whichever pieces he prefers. That sounds like an even worse idea than coming here in the first place.
"Can I just, uh, look around?"
Of course he can, anything he wants, etc. Brendon waits until she at least pretends to turn her attention elsewhere before he begins pawing through the racks.
There's a wedding-white bustier with ruffled cups, a lace corset bodice and beaded straps. It's like Ryan's gloves, only shaped to fit his whole upper body. Brendon brushes his hand over the boning. His fingers look short and stubby next to the garment's long, fluid lines and he flushes, picturing Ryan's skin rising and falling underneath with every breath. It's perfect.
Unless it's a little too Madonna? Maybe he should have brought Spencer for second opinions, but then -- no, then Spencer would either tell him about all the years he's known Ryan was a secret cross-dresser, or Spencer would act like he'd known for years but really be pissed as hell at everyone involved that he didn't know. Or he could be grossed out, potentially, though that seems less likely.
On the next rack there's a black bra, and at first look it's too simple, just gathered satin or silk, maybe, with lace on the top half of the cup and something shiny woven into the thin straps. But it is elegant and delicate without looking flimsy, and Brendon hovers.
"That's couture stitching in the cups," the sales lady says, running a long nail across the gathers. Brendon's watched Project Runway. He knows that's a good thing. Also there's no way Heidi Klum would call this cheap. "And these," she says, significantly, pointing at the tiny shimmery jewels running in a line up the straps, "are Swarovski crystals. It's one of our most exclusive sets."
She smiles at him like he's done something right, like he has good taste. He knows Ryan likes nice shit, and that he wears it like he was meant to, like he isn't some asshole kid like the rest of them. Ryan wears lace like it was invented for him, like it was created just to slide between his palms and a guitar, like a caress.
"Do you know what size she is?"
Brendon swallows. He should probably ask an expert instead of just guessing. "We share a lot of clothes?" he says. If he can handle the dirty looks he gets buying girls' jeans at random malls in Ohio, this really shouldn't be that big a fucking deal. "Like, shirt wise, we're pretty much the same. Kind of, uh --" He smoothes a hand down his chest, hovering just a millimeter above his shirt.
"Probably an A cup," the lady says, diplomatically, and Brendon nods. "Thirty-two?" He nods his head yes again. "Let me wrap it nicely," she chirps, and he hands her his credit card.
*
This time he puts the package -- tied up in kimono-print silk, cream and black and delicate dark purple flowers -- under Ryan's pillow. He waits until a day when Jon and Spencer are off exploring, sneaks it into the bunk while Ryan is slurping down cereal in the front, and then settles himself on the back couch with Blue.
Juliette Binoche is in the pool, and he's trying not to get too turned on watching because the movie was just supposed to be a way to kill time until Ryan came and either kicked his ass or showered him with gratitude.
Ryan finally shows up, holding the package against his bare chest. He's wearing old gray boxers, loose and laundry-ragged, falling off his hips. There's an acre of flesh on display and it's about as sexy as Saturday morning cartoons, except where the smooth fabric slides against his skin, one crystal-studded strap dangling down like the string on a balloon.
Brendon is so hard now, between the DVD and Ryan, mostly Ryan really, and Ryan is staring at him like he can see through Brendon's skin, like he knows how still Brendon's sitting and how much he's itching to drag a pillow over his lap and give himself some kind of excuse. Then he remembers Ryan, one leg in the underwear, scared and stuttering at Brendon to get out.
He clears his throat and says, "I thought you might like it."
"Just because you saw me --"
"I know," Brendon says, "yeah, I get it." Ryan is staring at a square of couch behind Brendon's shoulder, and Brendon scoots over an inch until their eyes meet. "It has crystals," he says. "Like diamonds, almost, I don't fucking know. It just seemed like something you would like. That's all, Ryan, really."
Ryan lets the silk wrapping fall open, the lingerie still pinched between his fingers, and stares down at where it drapes against his body. Then he gathers it all up in his arms again, hugging it to himself. He whispers, "Thank you," and then, even softer, Brendon's name.
"You're welcome," Brendon says automatically, and swallows down everything else he wants and wants to ask and wants to say and wants to touch.
*
Three days later, Brendon's eating lunch at the tiny table on the bus when Ryan comes and sits next to him.
"So you like it when guys dress up in lingerie," Ryan says, voice casual, and Brendon breathes Red Bull up his nose. After they've dealt with that (a lot of Brendon gasping and Ryan smoothing his huge palm over Brendon's back, and maybe it didn't actually take Brendon quite as long to recover as he made it seem, maybe) Brendon still doesn't have a good answer. But if Ryan's willing to actually have a conversation about this Brendon's not going to let the opportunity pass.
"I don't know," he says honestly. "I don't really think I'd ever thought about it before?" Brendon sees Ryan nod slightly in his peripheral vision. "Do you? I mean, on other guys?"
Ryan breathes out, steady and even. "I don't know," he says. And then he gets up and leaves.
*
Ryan is staring out the window of the bus, fingers tapping on an open notebook, headphones on. Brendon watches him for a while, tries to discern whether there's a hard strap of a bra under his thin yellow shirt, decides no, then wonders whether Ryan ever does that, just wears shit under his clothes during a normal day or if he saves it for nights and weekends, for alone time, for someone else, someone special.
Fuck. If there were someone else he would know. Right? Nobody else is sending Ryan underwear. No way that shit would sneak by on a bus on a tour in their lives right now. Right?
There's nobody else he can ask that, either. He says Ryan's name, low, and Ryan doesn't turn, doesn't hear, doesn't seem to have a fucking clue that he's driving Brendon nuts just by sitting there in his mostly sheer shirt not wearing any lingerie at all.
Brendon walks as normally as he can back to the bunks, slides his curtain shut and jerks off fast and probably not so silent. He wishes he had kept the other set from Victoria's Secret just so he had something to touch, something satiny and smooth that he could rub over his dick. Then he could imagine he was pressing himself down on top of Ryan on a bed, someplace lit low and languid where Ryan would arch up beneath him and beg Brendon to fuck him, to strip him naked, or, fuck, maybe they could leave Ryan's bra on while they did it, the straps cutting into his shoulders, leaving little red stripes down his chest.
Brendon turns his face into his pillow and comes, cheap cotton rough against his mouth.
*
Something's wrong with the sound board and they're an hour behind the whole night, extra minutes counted off in the green room like molasses. Everyone else has wandered off. Brendon sits cross-legged in his dress pants and pokes around the Agent Provocateur site, giggling to himself because some of the girls, the way they're spread out on their backs with their hips tilted up and the satin clinging to their bodies, it almost looks like they've got something tucked away in there.
Not like on the sites for big burly guys who prefer fake tits and big, brash red garters and heels. None of those men look like Ryan, not at all, like they're from different planets, different species barreling through entirely different universes of lingerie. Ryan's people are slender and sleek and barefoot and maybe his hair hangs down a little so he can stare out doe-eyed from underneath, maybe he's painted his face, not like for the stage but not quite as casual as the post-show smudged eyeliner either. Maybe long, dark eyelashes and a soft, glossy pink mouth and shimmery body paint all over his chest, down his long legs, across his stomach.
He doesn't even hear Ryan come up behind him, doesn't realize he's not alone in the room until Ryan's hand comes down on his shoulder, laying flat across the bone like it simply floated down, a featherweight question.
"Uh, I --" Brendon starts, and raises a hand to close the screen. One of Ryan's fingertips digs in a little and Brendon puts his arm back down. He swallows. "This, uh, this site has some nice stuff," he says.
"Yeah?" Ryan says, soft, and kneels down beside the couch, hanging over the armrest and turning Brendon's computer on a few degrees until the glare disappears.
Brendon tries to choke back a laugh. It's not really funny, him and Ryan doing a little online lingerie shopping together until the show starts. It's not funny if he remembers how fucking hard he came again that afternoon just imagining the slide of his dick against smooth satin.
Ryan points at one model on the screen. "Are those pearls?"
Brendon blows up the description text so they can see that, yup, there are actual pearls all along the bottom of the cream-colored cups and across the back straps. Pale pink ribbons cross and re-cross the bra and panties like a maze, like a puzzle waiting to be solved.
Ryan's hand skates across the keys until he can steer the trackpad to the next page of pictures, the pressure of his hand making the hard edges of the laptop dig into Brendon's thighs. He double-clicks on a set in midnight blue, black lace layered over the bra and garter belt. "That's a good color," he says, and Brendon breathes out something he hopes sounds like yes. "On you," Ryan adds, and then stares down at the couch for a while.
"Oh," Brendon says eventually. "Okay."
Ryan pushes himself back up to his feet and smiles, a little, carefully, down at Brendon.
"Did --" Brendon covers his face with his hands for a second before managing to get his shit together. One question he has to ask, one he has to know the answer to. "Did they fit?" he asks. "The ones I -- were they the right size?"
Ryan's hands smooth across his hips, and Brendon's not sure he even knows he's doing it, that he's stroking an imaginary line where the underwear would have cut across his body. He tucks his thumbs into his pockets like that was their original destination and hunches his arms in on himself. "Yes," he says, and he probably means it to be simple, a statement of fact, a comment on the weather, but he's got that dreamy edge to his voice and the cloudy grin that means he's been pleasantly surprised. Brendon can remember every fucking time he's seen that emotion on Ryan.
"Oh, good," Brendon says, staring back at his lap. "That's good, good to know," he babbles, and when he raises his head he's alone in the room again.
*
At an antique store in Connecticut, Brendon finds a carved box, something between the size used for jewelry and a small trunk. The delicate old man running the shop calls it a valet, says it was for men to pack their watches and belts and ascots. While Ryan is distracted by a shirt made by a dead English tailor, Brendon buys the box, and when the next package comes, he folds Ryan's stuff carefully, arranging and rearranging each piece until they are all laid perfectly out on the dark green velvet lining.
He waits for a hotel night followed by a late call, the holy grail of tour schedules, and before they get off the bus, he puts the box in Ryan's bag. He leaves it right on top but zipped everything back up, a surprise but unmistakable as soon as it is opened.
Most of the evening is spent wandering between rooms on their floor, singing rounds with Jon for a while as Ryan tries to keep up on his banjo. Then he watches Iron Chef with Zack and Spencer, who can't cook for shit but likes to critique techniques he learned on the Food Network like he knows what he's talking about.
It's fucking cold in the hotel, and he goes back to his own room to find a hoodie and maybe gets a little distracted wondering whether Ryan has opened his present yet and whether he's tried anything on and if it would be weird for Brendon to ask how it's working out. There's a knock on the door and Brendon yells, "It's open," even though it almost never is unless they've really slept in and Zack is standing there with a key ready to kick their asses. So he stands up anyway and flips up the lock and pulls the door open.
"You have a key to this room too," he tells Ryan, and Ryan shrugs like the truth of that statement is still up for debate.
He doesn't wait to be invited in, though, just comes in and closes the door and locks it, both locks, and follows as Brendon backs away, toward the bed, wondering what the fuck is going on. The AC is in overdrive but Ryan is still way overdressed, even for Ryan, even for late fall.
"Aren't you hot?" Brendon has to ask eventually, because he's in a tiny t-shirt and jeans and he's suddenly sweating like a pig, he can feel the back of his shirt where it's clinging to his skin and he's not sure now why he thought he needed a hoodie. Ryan takes off his hat, setting it on the dresser, and starts to unwind his scarf, all the long threaded ends trailing over and around him like a veil. When he's finally broken free he folds it, long fingers turning the fabric into a neat stack.
"Where's yours," Ryan says, and Brendon thinks maybe he blanked out there for a bit, missed a conversation about Ryan showing up and taking off his clothes, maybe, hopefully all of his clothes, and maybe under his coat and his jacket and his shirt and long slacks he's wearing Brendon's present. "The ones you bought for yourself," Ryan says, and it's not remotely a question, and Brendon didn't miss anything, not exactly, except the whole part where he stopped having any idea what would happen next.
He flushes, feels the heat burn from the roots of his hair to the tip of his nose. Has Ryan been going through Brendon's stuff? Breaking into his email? Spying on him when he's fallen asleep with a tiny scrap of silk clenched between his fingers? (Only once, and since then Brendon's had a rule about always putting things away after, no matter how much he just wants to pass out in his own messy bunk.) Or was he just that sure that if he said what color Brendon would look good in, Brendon would buy them?
"Put them on," Ryan says, "and I'll take the rest of this off." He gestures loosely at his twelve million layers. "And then I guess we'll both know."
"Both of us?" Brendon has had a million pictures in his head of what this could look like but he was always behind that particular mental camera, Ryan front and center, Ryan on a bed, in a chair, leaning against a mirrored dresser like he is now but with way fewer clothes. "But," Brendon stutters, "doesn't that kind of, I don't know, defeat the purpose?"
"Why," Ryan says. "Is one of us trying to be the girl?"
"No. I mean. I don't know?"
"I want to see," Ryan says, slow and simple. "You've seen me, so I should get to see you."
"But I --"
Brendon's not sure why he's still arguing, why he isn't getting naked and doing absolutely anything Ryan wants because it may not be exactly what he's been imagining but it seems poised to be a fuck of a lot better.
"Do you like how it feels?" Brendon asks, finally. "When it's on, does it --"
"Yes," Ryan says, and when Brendon stares, waiting, he goes on. "I never forget about it. It's like it's always there, touching me, like it's whispering or saying something or reminding me of someone." He glares at Brendon like he's expecting to be laughed at and says, a bit desperately, "And you obviously like it, at least looking at it, so why can't you just --"
"Ryan," he says, and squeezes Ryan's arm above the elbow, the scratchy tweed of Ryan's coat prickly under his fingers. "I like it, I do, I --"
Ryan reaches up and holds Brendon's neck, fingers pressing against the back of his ear, and he presses a kiss to Brendon's mouth, hard and dry. Like a promise, Brendon thinks. "I want to see you," he says, breath on Brendon's lips.
"Okay, yeah," Brendon whispers, and strips off his clothes as fast as he can. He's naked before he realizes the things are stuffed in the bottom of his duffel in the big closet and never mind that Ryan's seen him buck naked a thousand times before, he feels like a fucking idiot strutting around now, undressed, not dressed yet, Ryan watching calmly as he stands in the center of the room.
He holds the closet door open with one shoulder and bends over, digging through dirty jeans and questionably clean hoodies to find the silk bag shoved into another bag at the bottom. The room is shaped like an L, so he's far enough around the corner that Ryan can't see him, but Brendon feels his stare all the same. Ryan's duffel is there, too, zipped tight.
"Bring them back here," Ryan calls, and so Brendon does, holding the midnight blue satin set out in front of him as he walks like a zombie.
Ryan laughs at that, so Brendon can too, and then it's okay, whatever this is they're doing, whatever it means, they're laughing about it together so it should be okay.
"Come here," Ryan says, and Brendon stops when his bare toes are layered on top of Ryan's dress shoes. Ryan tugs the bra out of Brendon's hands by one strap and after a minor tug-of-war, a tug-of-skirmish really, Brendon lets him win. "Put your arms out," Ryan says, and Brendon slides them through, the rest of the outfit still clenched in one hand.
Ryan wraps himself around Brendon, his coat scratching all along the front of Brendon's body as he fastens the clasps. Brendon starts to pull back, his chest and thighs itchy and his whole body tingling, but Ryan holds on, hugging him, palms sweeping above and below the strap, light at first and then with a firmer pressure, nails digging in on one wide pass over the skin. Brendon turns his nose into Ryan's neck, trying to stifle his moan against Ryan's throat, because even when he'd sort of realized this was it, that he and Ryan were going to stand there in their respective lingerie, he hadn't quite pushed through to what was going to happen next, how they'd touch, what it would feel like when Ryan touched his lips at the top of each strap, right over a tiny black satin rosette, his mouth hot and damp on the skin beneath.
The garter and panties slide in Brendon's sweaty grip and he pushes away enough to shove them at Ryan. Ryan hands him back the underwear and says, "Go ahead," so Brendon rests a hand on Ryan's shoulder as he steps in with one leg, then switches and does the other side, pulling them up as gracefully as he can. And actually he feels pretty fucking graceful, which is ridiculous, because his dick is totally hard and he has to wrangle it back under the waistband and it still looks like it won't stay there for long. Ryan is watching him wrestling his own cock, Ryan is watching everything, that same dreamy look on his face.
It makes Brendon want to preen, makes him want to spin around in front of a mirror like a model or sprawl out indecently on the bed. He must be grinning because Ryan's echoing a smile back, a real one, wide and happy, and Brendon has to kiss him, so he does. It's a real kiss this time, wet and deep, and it starts out giddy and turns dirty in the middle when Ryan wriggles his hands between them, every touch against Brendon's chest like fire. He undoes the buttons on his coat and the thin jacket beneath and Brendon pushes both off Ryan's shoulders.
"Fuck," Brendon groans, "how can you still be wearing so much?" He attacks the buttons on Ryan's shirt and Ryan lets him, standing there still and obedient and Brendon tries to concentrate, tries to stick to the task at hand instead of getting distracted kissing Ryan some more, kissing until Ryan pushes his arms out straight and Brendon is a few feet away again.
"Garter," Ryan says, and holds it out. Brendon's never actually put it on, has never managed to get more than the bra and panties barely hooked together before he had takes it all off and does his best not to shoot all over them in the process.
Brendon says, "You do it," and Ryan does, undoing the three tiny buttons and wrapping the garter around Brendon's hips like a low-slung belt. Ryan drops down to one knee, fingers still pushing the parts all back together, a tiny frown of concentration as he bites at the corner of his mouth. When everything's fastened he tilts his head back and Brendon supposes he's imagined this, too, Ryan kneeling before him, lips parted, eyes wide.
Imagining it wasn't the same at all.
"You," he coughs out, and tugs at Ryan's shoulder until he rises. "You too," he says, and Ryan must hear the rush in Brendon's voice because he kicks off his shoes at the same time as he unbuttons his shirt, weathered cotton falling apart to reveal a bone-colored bustier, delicate seams sweeping from his navel up to cups edged in the most delicate lace Brendon's ever seen. "That's --" he says, but he isn't sure how to say how beautiful it is, how pretty Ryan is.
Ryan unzips his trousers, giving them a little head start of a shove until gravity does the rest and he can step out of the legs. There are panties to match, of course, and a garter belt, more ivory lace fanning out across his hipbones.
And there are stockings clipped on, creamy, shimmery sheer fabric wrapped around each thigh, both calves, caressing Ryan's ankles and toes and it's a hard punch to the gut all over, harder than that first glimpse of Ryan in black underwear, sharper than the first time Brendon looked over at Ryan in the middle of a show and clearly, undeniably thought, I want him.
This time when Brendon pushes his body against Ryan's it's different, it's bare skin and the hard jut of boning in the bustier pressed to Brendon's chest. The kiss is full of intent, Ryan moaning into his mouth as Brendon puts his hands on Ryan's ass and holds them closer together. For a second Brendon thinks that's it, that's the game, they're zooming over a cliff, flying, they're going to get him out of these things even faster than they got them on. And then Ryan pulls back, breathing hard and saying, "Wait, wait --"
And Brendon's not an asshole, not when he wants something like this, so much, so long, so he stops. He waits. He shoves his dick back down into his underwear from where it's found its way free and swallows hard, reaching for oxygen. Ryan clings to him, fingers wrapped tight around Brendon's forearms as he reels himself in, too.
"I want," Ryan says eventually, but then shakes his head and starts over. "I have a plan," he says, and Brendon can't stop a laugh because of course he does, naturally Ryan has a plan, a handbook, a set of guidelines for this thing between them Brendon can't begin to name.
But then he realizes: Ryan has a plan, Ryan's been thinking about this just as much as Brendon has, at least. Ryan wants this to be good, to be more than a kinky experiment between friends, because he wouldn't bother to plan something like that, to orchestrate it. Ryan wants this to make a perfect picture, and Brendon looks at him, beautiful and elegant and -- this is what dressed to the nines must actually mean, even if they're half-naked.
He looks down at himself, at the black lace and blue satin and his skinny, sort of hairy bare legs, and flicks at the loose straps on his pale thighs. "I don't have --"
"Oh," Ryan says, and smiles, dropping one quick kiss on Brendon's lips. "Hang on." He disappears into the closet and comes back holding up two long sheer black hose. Brendon reaches out, but Ryan bats his hand away, pushing Brendon down to sit on bed, urging him back until he hits the headboard. "Let me," he says, kneeling on the mattress. He gathers one stocking up until it's just a little circle of stretchy silk and Brendon's seen women do this before, not like this, just women like his mom or dancers backstage before a show, and it's never been anything more than perfunctory, a chore like any other beauty regimen.
There's nothing perfunctory in the way Ryan tucks Brendon's toes into the foot and then hovers in front of him, climbing up inch by inch as he tugs the fabric over Brendon's calf, his knee, his thigh, straightening and clipping them in place. Then he slides down the comforter and does it all again on the other leg. Brendon tries to stay still, he does, but he feels himself slipping down, his elbows folding and his arms resting on the bedspread and when Ryan's clipped the last garter into place Brendon's back is flat on the bed.
He cranes his neck up for a kiss and Ryan slowly, gently, lowers himself on top of Brendon, one leg on either side of Brendon's. His skin is hot, scorching to the touch even through the stockings, hot and a little slick with sweat, except where it's covered in silk and lace. Brendon's nipples are rubbing the inside of his bra as they kiss and move against each other. He's never really felt anything like this, the creamy coolness of the lingerie on his own skin and between his fingers and Ryan's when they touch. He's never wanted sex so much, not just for the fucking, for the way it always feels better when it's someone else's body touching yours. He wants this, wants Ryan, Ryan and the lace gloves he shows the whole world and the lace lingerie that's only for Brendon's eyes, Ryan and all his answers to Brendon's million questions.
"Fuck," Brendon says, not meaning to speak at all but once it's out it's right, it's the only word that comes close to capturing how fucking overwhelming this all is. He kisses Ryan as deeply as he can from that angle until he has to flip them over and bear down hard, lips, chest, legs all pushing Ryan into the pillows, the mattress barely bothering to offer resistance. Neither does Ryan, liquid under every assault, a loose smile and happily lost look on his face.
"How, how do we --" Brendon loses track of the sentence as he kisses his way down Ryan's stomach. He feels like he's gasping his way around every word, around all the questions he still has, all the questions he has now he'd never thought to ask. How do we do this? What do you want? What's your plan? How do you like it? How do I know what I like? How do we --
Ryan threads his fingers through Brendon's hair and tugs. "What, how do we what."
"I don't want to fuck these up," Brendon says, testing to see how it feels if he tries to swallow Ryan's dick when it's still wrapped in silk.
"Don't care," Ryan chokes out.
Apparently it feels pretty fucking awesome on both ends of the equation, the taste of musky silk burrowing deep into Brendon's senses.
"Buy more."
Brendon raises his head. "What? More what?"
Ryan blinks, flicking hair out of his eyes. "Go ahead and fuck them up if you want," he says, and, oh, he's talking about the lingerie. Brendon raises himself up on his elbows a bit, staring up Ryan's long body. Ryan's hands are above his head, squeezing the edge of the pillow tight even though the rest of is body is still relaxed. He's pushing his knuckles back against the solid wood headboard, almost like he's looking for something stronger to hold onto, something he could hang on or pull against or --
"Hey," Brendon says, and his voice is way softer than the rush of blood in his head as he tries to think of a nice way to ask it. Ryan stares up at him and of course he's not nervous, all spread out in his ivory silk underwear. He looks about as patient as a guy with a hard dick barely constrained by a thin pair of panties could be expected to be. He's just waiting for Brendon to do what Ryan wants but isn't about to ask for.
Ryan doesn't really look like he's making a list of things to say no to, so Brendon pushes further up, dropping a kiss on Ryan's knees and sliding fingers around the back of one thigh, then the other, unhooking each stocking and drawing them down and off. He sits back on his heels and holds the fabric in both hands, the silk so light and translucent for a minute he thinks it won't work at all. But when he tugs a little the fabric is strong. It's sturdy enough.
Ryan lifts his head an inch. "Brendon?" he asks, still calm.
"There's nothing to tie your hands to but each other," Brendon says, and Ryan sucks in one tight breath.
Maybe he should have asked some more of his million questions, or said something about his sudden inspiration, or --
Ryan lays his head back down and rearranges his arms until he can intertwine his fingers above his head. "Like this?" he asks.
"I think," Brendon says.
It's not like Ryan doesn't know he's making this shit up as he goes along. Ryan would know if Brendon had ever done anything half this interesting in bed before, so he just climbs up, straddling Ryan's chest. He binds Ryan's hands together with the stockings, tying them over each other in slippery knots until it's hard to see where the silk ends and his wrists begins.
"You'll have to hold your arms up," Brendon says, and Ryan nods seriously. "Fuck," he says again. "Fuck, Ryan. I really like you." Once he starts it's easy to keep going, because it's true, it took the shock of lingerie and this secret between them but it's been there all along, sweet and simmering. "I like you, Ryan," he says again, "and it's not about what you wear under your clothes, I think it's --"
Ryan tilts his hips enough that Brendon slides down another few inches and shuts up. He comes to a stop with his crotch pressed to Ryan's unshaven chin, a prickling tingle through the panties quickly replaced by a damp pressure along the underside of his cock.
Ryan presses his shoulders back into the pillows, hands still above his head, until he can reach. He sucks the head of Brendon's cock in, then pushes up to take more. The edge of Brendon's panties are shoved down, pinning his balls to his body, and Brendon frantically tries to get them free, attempts to take a deep breath, sneaks a look down at Ryan's fluttering eyelashes and ends up hanging on to the top of the headboard, fucking into Ryan's mouth.
He's not sure how he got to that point, how he even got out of bed today when it was apparently all a part of Ryan's plan that they'd end up here, some version of here. Brendon turns his cheek into his shoulder, breathing choppily, focusing on holding most of his weight off Ryan's face as Ryan swallows him again and again.
There's a pale flash in the corner of his eye and he looks back, Ryan's long, bare legs twisting desperately on the bed, hips thrusting uselessly against air. Everything from the shoulders up is under Brendon's control, his mouth full of cock, his hands bound and willfully restrained, and below the waist he's wild.
"Oh fuck," Brendon gaps as he lifts up, trying to back his way out of Ryan's grasp, but Ryan holds his hips up and his jaw open wide and swallows him down again, one last time and Brendon's coming, jerking out of Ryan's mouth at the shock of how deep it all feels, how fucking intense. He lands back on Ryan's chest, the bony corset under his ass before he falls sideways and onto the bed, his head ending up somewhere around Ryan's knees. "Fuck, Ryan," he says.
Ryan clears his throat, a hybrid cough and laugh. "So you keep saying," Ryan says, but he sounds proud of himself, and amused. When Brendon rocks up a few inches to check, Ryan's holding his hands out. He waggles his fingers a little through the stockings and says, "Want to untie me so we can try that next?"
*
Brendon's trying to nap in his bunk. Ryan has a lengthy interpretation of the word next that includes many variations and positions but nothing remotely resembling rest, which had seemed like a really great idea at the time, but now they have a show in three hours and a lead singer too tired to sleep.
He's almost there when he feels Ryan's hand on his back, the same grip and span of fingers from shoulder blade to mid-spine he'd used to hold Brendon close while they were fucking. And then Ryan's leaning over, hair brushing Brendon's face as he whispers in his ear. "I really like you too, you know."
Brendon laughs into his pillow. "Yeah," he says. "I figured that part out."
"Well, I didn't say, and --"
Brendon can practically hear Ryan scrunching his face in annoyance. "Hey," he interrupts, and rolls onto his back.
"Hi," Ryan says, smiling down.
"Want to help me pick out what to wear tonight?"
"You have a costume," Ryan says. "Two, actually."
Brendon kicks his heel into the duffel he'd been too tired to stow anywhere but at his feet. "Under that," he says. "For after."
Ryan looks back and forth from Brendon to the bag.
"You have a couple to choose from," Brendon says.
"Oh," Ryan says, full of dreamy joy again. He plays with the zipper for a while but doesn't pull it open. Finally he bends in, kissing the corner of Brendon's mouth. He shrugs as he sits back up and says, "Surprise me."