new fic: The mirror stage [Pete/Ryan]
The mirror stage
Fall Out Boy/Panic at the Disco, Pete/Ryan. Explicit. 10,000 words.
A phase in which the subject is permanently caught and captivated by his own image. Or: Halloween is the new Valentine's Day.
For fluffontop, who said she loves Pete enough to dress up like him, which is where this all started. And for Pete, who actually does love Ryan enough to dress up like him. Thanks for ruining my story, seriously.
Disclaimers: Cut-tag and quotes below are taken directly from Pete's and Ryan's journals. With all apologies for my extremely lay understanding of Lacan and the general hand-waving around tour schedules, weddings and broken bones. When I started this last August I had no idea Pete would beat me at my own game. I should have known better.
Pete: i may be a camera whore. but its just cause i keep getting fucked by flashes.
Ryan: everypicturetakesapieceofme.
*
"What are you wearing?"
Brendon pokes his toe into Ryan's shin. "You said I could borrow it!"
Ryan taps his finger against the sidekick's screen, reading the message again, this time only to himself.
What r u wearing
If Pete were there, were sitting right next to him instead of on some bus thousands of miles away, Ryan would think about flicking him between the eyes, just hard enough to make him stop asking questions they both know Ryan isn't going to answer. He would think about it, but he wouldn't do it. He and Pete have a complicated set of rules about how they touch each other. Ryan's not entirely sure on any given day why the line falls in one place instead of another but they don't waste it on anything like that.
Pete would do it, not to Ryan but to almost anybody else, to Andy or Joe or maybe even Patrick. Pete would do it a million times in a row to Dirty and Dirty would, inexplicably, let him. Dirty is the kid who never stopped putting his hand on the burner. Ryan is the kid who learned how to duck.
Brendon snatches the phone out of his hands. "What -- oh." He giggles and elbows Ryan in the ribs. Sitting on a couch with Brendon is a full-contact sport. "I'm gonna tell him you've got on nothing but your gloves."
"The fuck you are," Ryan says, and Brendon pretends to struggle before handing over the sidekick. He knows better than to get between Ryan and Pete.
Ryan's phone buzzes again.
Better yet send pix
"What, what," Brendon says, and cranes his neck. Ryan doesn't tilt his hand but allows Brendon to see. "Hah! Yeah, because we all know how fucking secure the Wentz mobile plan is. Can you, is there a way to send him back his own dick?"
"No."
"No you won't let me or no there's no way? I'm pretty sure there's a way."
Ryan drums his thumbs over the keys. He types, No way.
*
"C'mon," Pete says, and doesn't care how much he's whining. "What happened to the days when all you needed was your camera and a mirror? I miss those days. The internet misses those days. Your public needs you to get back to your roots."
"I thought you said that no one would ever, ever see these. You said I could track you down and eat your brains with a dull spoon if my totally clothed, completely respectable, theoretical self-portraits were ever shown to anyone whose name is not Pete Wentz."
Pete lays on the seat, walking his bare feet in a crooked smudged line up the bus window. "Ever ever," he says. "No one. Come on."
Ryan makes a low scoffing sound and Pete gets hit with this huge surge of regret that nine times out of ten he lets shitty text messages pass for friendship when at the very least it could always be like this, a couple of boys on the phone on the road to nowhere.
"You could put a bag over your head," Pete offers. "Or a sheet! Like Halloween. Send me Casper photos, dude."
"Then how will you even know it's me?"
"I'll know," Pete says. "I'll always know. You can't hide from me. I could identify your body by your toes."
Ryan is quiet for a minute. "You've never even seen my toes," he says, thin and tight, and while Pete is searching for proof that he's wrong, of course he has, Ryan has fucking awesome toes and Pete's the guy who can swear to it, Ryan says, "Hey, I gotta go," and hangs up.
*
Ryan doesn't actually have anywhere to go until Friday and, as fucked up as it is, he's annoyed Pete didn't call him on it.
Pete can always tell when Ryan doesn't have the right words for how he's feeling. Pete will tilt his head towards Ryan and keep talking, more and more quietly, until it's like they're whispering secrets even when they're just talking about the most mundane shit. On the phone it's too easy to end the conversation, but he still can't pretend Pete hasn't always known where Ryan hides himself away, or that he won't come looking.
That first night they talked, Ryan had lain awake forever before getting up to read it again, the words carefully cut and pasted and saved away on his computer.
Yeah fuck get some to me
Every time he read them Pete's words sounded hotter, more urgent, like Pete might not stick around if Ryan didn't give it to him right away, like he might not survive if he didn't get what he wanted.
Ryan had whispered it to himself, soft and scratchy, and the words sounded even more like porn out loud than in his head, the kind of porn Ryan had only found a few times, real shit he felt almost guilty for watching, and he would flush just remembering it existed, his breath caught in his throat.
He opened his email and typed without looking at the screen. Just until we get the band pics, hope it's not too weird. Three clicks through his gallery and he was done.
In the morning, there was Pete's name in his inbox, like it belonged there. Ryan hadn't dreamed the whole thing after all.
Whyd youleave out all the good ones
He'd printed out his English paper, turned off the computer and gone to class, barely bothering to hide the stupid grin he felt stretching his face. He should have known Pete could find them if he really wanted to.
When he got home, there was another email.
This ones my favorite anytime u want ot model our merch just ask
*
From the day Pete first saw Ryan's picture until -- well, it hasn't stopped, exactly, so much as shifted with the winds to match whatever foul mood Pete is trying to outrun from his pirate brain -- all this time there's been one image in his head of Ryan that will always get the job done.
Ryan's in his bedroom, in his dad's house, sitting on the edge of his bed. There's a faded square of wall behind him and a Fall Out Boy poster rolled up and shoved on a top closet shelf, because those were the days Ryan was still bad at hiding how worried he was Pete wouldn't like him, would somehow change his mind and take it all back.
Pete never has to ask, doesn't need to beg or goad or do anything but lean against the door as Ryan slides his hand into his shorts, as he pushes them down off his hips to get a little more room. He doesn't usually watch Ryan's fist on his dick, long fingers that wrap all the way around and then some. He looks at Ryan's fluttering eyelids, at his hitching chest, at the way his stupid hair gets sweaty and falls over his face, puffing out with each shaky breath.
He stares at this kid who knew so fucking much what he wanted to do with his life he found the one dude he thought could help and wouldn't let him alone until he got what he wanted. That kid, who could do that and barely even realize how that made him one in a million, but who couldn't see that Pete would do anything else he asked, too.
He stares at that kid, his mouth dry and his wet hand on his dick in some bunk or bed or shower, and eventually he shoves away from the door, he strips off his clothes and walks over and pushes Ryan onto his back and crawls between his legs and fucks him until it's done, until they're both done. In his head he never asks, he never has to ask because Ryan knows, Ryan is sure, Ryan knows that Pete can't see anything but him.
Pete's said a million pieces of crazy shit to Ryan, all of it true in one way or another. He's said he loves him and he needs him and he wants him and without him the world would be a flat ugly yellow color no one would ever put in a crayon box. He's meant every word but he's never been sure Ryan actually heard.
*
"So? What did you think? You gotta admit it was pretty fucking rad, right?"
Wherever Ryan is, it's noisy and yet Pete can still hear him sigh in what sounds a lot like disappointment. "Yeah," he says. "Brendon says now next Halloween we have to dress up like you, in revenge or whatever."
Pete sits on the counter with his legs crossed and his back against the mirror. Dressing rooms are really fucking perfectly depressing settings for scenes about getting your hopes dashed. He squeezes the toy-sized Snickers bar in his fist until it's a gooey mess leaking chocolate out the corners of the wrapper. "Flattery, imitation, you know," he says eventually. "You've got a sweet life. Can't blame a guy for wanting a piece, you know?"
After another long, shitty silence, Ryan says, "It -- it was always a costume. The makeup, I mean."
Pete wipes his hands on his pants. "I know that."
"No, look," Ryan amends, like Pete sounds extra pathetic. "It was a nice idea."
Pete pretends he's laughing at someone other than himself.
"You're the one who --" Ryan starts, and now he's pissed, and Ryan is never pissed at Pete, not even when Pete deserves it. "You said it wasn't fun when everyone expects it, when they think they know what it means."
"So what does it mean," Pete snaps.
"You don't get a piece of me just because I live on a fucking stage." It's curiously flat, resigned.
Pete knocks the back of his head against the mirror, testing its resistance and mumbling, "sorry, fuck."
"Not, I don't mean you. I mean -- all of them. I mean them, Pete."
"Sorry," he says again, because one day he'll remember in advance that Ryan's sense of humor is buried beneath miles of defensive wounds.
Ryan sighs again, but lighter this time, like the storm has passed. "You made Brendon's year, seriously. Halloween is his favorite holiday."
Pete closes his eyes and listens to the hum from the hallways of a show coming together. "Mine too," he says.
*
All week Ryan turns his head away as he passes his reflection. He stares down at the carpet instead of the mirror hung over his dresser. When he gets his oil changed, he looks back over his shoulder to avoid the polarized glass at the car dealership. At the new sushi place where he meets Spencer for lunch, he flicks a penny into the fairytale-perfect reflection pond and the fish scatter.
"And then she asks how our label is reacting to us taking quote unquote so long to finish." Spencer stabs at a piece of eel with his chopsticks and rolls his eyes. "I made Pete swear to say something really obscene."
"Do you think," Ryan asks, careless, and then it's not like Spencer is going let him off that easily. He'll have to finish the sentence now one way or another. He sighs and drags a piece of ginger through his soy sauce. "Sometimes I think Pete -- I mean, don't you think he has. I don't know."
Spencer stares at him, cool and even. He has this thing about how Ryan needs to actually articulate the shit that freaks him out, at least the first time, before they can figure out how to handle it.
"What if he gets tired of waiting. If he decides he's already gotten what he --"
"What he --" Spencer presses one palm flat to the table, leaning forward. "Ryan," he says. "You have had that guy wrapped around your little finger since forever. You know it, we all know it." He sits back in his chair, throwing his napkin over his plate. "He'd beg for scraps before he gave up trying."
Ryan stares down at his food and, when the check comes, snatches it out from under Spencer's hand. "Sorry for being stupid," he says as they walk out to the parking lot.
"Because that's such a rare occurrence I have no idea how to handle it," Spencer says, and hauls Ryan into a one-armed hug.
*
"Yeah," Pete says, "right there. That's good, baby, yeah. Just hold that pose."
He clicks the button, digital shutter coming down with a loud, fake snap, and Hemingway barks, waddling off in his new t-shirt. "Fuck, come back, come on," Pete pleads, trying to tuck Hemmy under one arm without dropping the camera. The dog wriggles free and Pete sits down hard on the floor.
Bested by a squat little runt of a pup in a closed space the size of a toaster oven. "Guess I should be rooting for you anyway, you underdog dog," he mutters, and waves lamely at Joe as he comes out from his bunk.
"Photo shoot over already?"
"The model went on strike."
Joe laughs and sits at the table, scrounging through the junk. "Maybe he doesn't like how he looks today. Maybe he's got self-esteem problems."
"There has never been a dog with such high self-esteem. He totally stole all of mine, for one." Pete rolls on one side to extricate Joe's pipe from under the edge of the bench seat, handing it up.
"Awesome, I knew that had to be around here." Pete closes his eyes and lies back, watching himself in the mirror on the ceiling and listening to Joe flick the lighter and take a hit. "Maybe," Joe says, voice tight, "you gave him a complex, you know, from putting his face all over everything."
Pete snaps a shot of the bottom of the table, which is maybe the cleanest part of their whole fucking bus.
"Maybe he didn't want to be a household name," Joe breathes out in a rush.
Pete immortalizes Joe's foot and then scrolls through the old pictures on his phone. There's one of Patrick throwing Doritos at him. Dirty with a drumstick stuck up each nostril. Ryan holding Hobo backstage in Vegas.
"Nah," Pete says, "he was born to be a star."
"The little fucker gets at least as much mail as I do now, you know."
Pete pushes himself up and heads back to his room, phone still open in his hand. "Wake me up when he figures out how to write back."
*
Ryan drives home from lunch with the radio off. He feels sweat collect on his brow from the car to the front door, takes a cold shower, puts on clean clothes, eats a nectarine over the sink and thinks about what Spencer said.
Then he goes back to the bathroom, stands in front of the mirror and closes his eyes. He slides his shirt off over his head and holds the fabric against his chest, covering everything but his shoulders. When he breathes in and out he can feel the rise of his ribcage against his palms, but it's muffled by the shirt, so he drops it, soft cotton wafting across his stomach before landing on the floor.
He opens his eyes. Now when he inhales and exhales he can feel his skin tingling against his fingertips, the rocketing thunder of his heart underneath. He looks surprised, but steady, like he opened the wrong door but recognizes the world on the other side. He rests his thumbs on his belt, but -- no, this is better, this is like how it was. He stands still and stares and tries to remember how that felt, why he did it, why he needed so desperately for other people to see him like that, so open and exposed, so thoughtlessly put on display. He barely remembers that boy.
He wraps his arms around himself, fingers playing across his back, up as far as he can reach before his shoulders strain and crack from the angle. One hand on his hip, cocked towards the mirror, the ledge of a rivet on his jeans balanced on the lip of the sink, and he thinks about how many cameras there are around, right at this very moment: His sidekick (still in the pocket of his other pants, kicked at the end of the bed in the next room). The new Nikon Jon helped him pick out, on top of his dresser. The built-in on his laptop, plugged in down at the kitchen table. One of the Polaroids from the tour in a box in the spare closet. There's a security camera above his car, and another one on the awning over the main doors. A red light camera polices the corner. Somewhere in space there's a satellite idly spinning its wheels, looking for trouble.
Pete is the only one who gets away with so much as mentioning the existence of those old pictures, though he doesn't seem to appreciate his free pass. Ryan's not an idiot. He knows he didn't delete things soon enough. He knows nothing ever dies on the internet, or at least he knows enough to nod when Pete says so, over and over, like somehow it will feel like less of a fucking violation this time how people think because they've seen him in his own mirror that they know who he is inside. He still goes out on stage every night he can and plays his guitar, still lets stylists primp him for shoots and still enjoys it more than he knows how to rectify.
And he does believe Pete when he says he wouldn't show anyone, or wouldn't mean to, or wouldn't realize what he'd done until it was too late and it was reposted on a million websites. Pete never means to show the world his worst side. He doesn't try very hard to show most people his good side, either, and it's the fact that with Ryan he actually seems to want to that makes Ryan wish he could give Pete something back for the effort.
Pete still obsesses over Ryan's lyrics, stares at Ryan's mouth while he talks and tugs on his sleeve to get his attention at a table full of people having a million more important conversations. Pete works hard to memorize the details for all the times later when they're so far apart, and Ryan lets him, turns his cheek to the best angle, cranes his neck and bites his lip and holds the pose until he can almost feel the click of Pete's mind.
Ryan knows exactly what kind of picture Pete wants, what brand of eager smirk Pete would like to see staring back at him any time he's in the mood. He knows Pete wants it for the right reasons, and that alone should be enough.
He just doesn't know why he would want to let Pete rely on a snapshot when he could be forced to remember Ryan instead, to deliberately summon him up or, better yet, to seek him out.
He bends down and picks up his shirt, tugging it over his neck, and smiles at his clothed self in the mirror, grinning wide and fake and then thin and surly. He thinks about Pete sliding his arm up Ryan's back, hand slipping between his shirt and his jacket, and forces himself to freeze, to study his own face in the sharp light. He stays like that until he hears his phone beeping from the other room.
*
Once he's in bed, Pete manages to hold Hemmy on his lap long enough for a group shot, four of the new shirts bunched up between his chest and the dog. He sends it to Ryan: For you & hobo, you two, too cute. You too
He reads six chapters of his third Houdini biography and gets through half a sound check before Ryan responds.
You know where we live. Viewings available by appointment only.
His phone rings with an actual call then, but it's not Ryan, it's someone from the label connecting him to a reporter for an interview he allegedly knew was scheduled but apparently forgot. He kicks his toe into a speaker stack until it goes numb and vaguely recalls, now that he's got her nasal voice in his ear, that Spencer had warned him this chick was a pain in the ass.
"I'm glad they took the year to figure their shit out," he says. "I mean, whose brilliant fucking idea was it that a band is gonna make its best music on an annual calendar?"
Dirty rolls up on a BMX bike he probably stole off some kid waiting in line and lets Pete climb on his back. He does the rest of the interview like that, waiting for the inevitable slick slam of his skull into concrete. He tries not to feel too bummed out when it never comes.
*
"I have a brilliant idea," Pete says later.
He's so fucking up right now, totally wired from a great show even if he did accidentally kick Patrick in the middle of a spin, but mostly, fuck yeah, great show. His brain is, like, on Mars. It's got the best view, all their world spread out below in a perspective that makes sense. Pete's corner of that world is apparently populated with teeny tiny little dudes with self-esteem issues visible from space.
"I'm going to have a costume party," he tells Patrick, "after the tour. And for a change everyone is actually gonna fucking dress up this time, for real, like, they can't get in the door otherwise. And maybe we'll even have a contest or something, give away some really cool shit, whatever, the presents are just a bonus. The costumes are gonna be great."
"All right," Patrick says. He pokes at his laptop with one hand, peeing the bandaid off his knee and putting it back on at a slightly different angle.
Pete drapes himself over Patrick's lap and kisses his battle wound better. "Un-Halloween at Pete's house. Better start planning your costume now."
"Yeah, you too."
"Oh no," Pete says, and calmly shakes his head. "I already know who I'm going to be."
*
It takes less than a day for Pete to break.
"Fine, jeez, if you promise to rescind your stupid threat to leave me on the side of the road in Arkansas wearing nothing but my eyeliner. I'm going as Ryan."
Patrick sighs and says, "Didn't we do this already?"
Joe holds out his hand until Andy slaps a twenty in it. "I don't know why I even took that," Andy mutters. "That was the stupidest bet --"
"I mean, look at this," Pete says, stabbing a finger at the computer screen. "This is what I should have been going for."
Patrick idly turns toward the monitor, jerking back when he gets a good look. "Oh, Pete, Jesus, come on. I thought you promised not to show those to people any more."
"Well, not new people." He scrolls through to his favorite, Ryan biting his lip and looking down like he's shy. "He wanted to take these. Nobody hacked in and stole them. He got up one day and said, you know, I would like to take off my shirt and get my camera and post them in my livejournal and see what people think."
"Pete," Patrick says, and his voice is sad, and slow, like he's got really bad news. "People need attention. Kids -- you know this -- more than anyone kids need attention. They go looking for it if they have to."
Pete thinks, and thank God he had to, but he has the feeling maybe that isn't such a cool thing to say out loud.
"And unlike, uh, some people," Patrick says, "Ryan seems to have grown up into the kind of guy who likes to actually, you know. Distinguish which parts of his life he lets everyone see."
"Now he gets all shy," Pete says, and slumps back in his seat, pushing the computer away. "That kid -- when Ryan was like that, back then. He didn't run and hide because people wanted a piece of him. He wanted them to want him."
"Yeah, and then they did."
Pete shuts up for a while, because once he's ruined a good conversation there's usually no climbing back out of it. He stares out bus windows as they hurtle toward another meet and greet, another fawning interview, another crowd with their cellphones in the air like if they trap the night in there it will mean something bigger. Finally he says, "It's okay to want them to want you. He should -- Ryan should know that."
Patrick sits down with a sigh, putting his arm around Pete's back. "This, um, costume? It sort of sounds like an intervention. Or, like, some kinky fantasy you've been working on for years."
"Well," Pete says.
*
It always takes longer to get the dog groomed than they say it will. The idea of having time to do boring errands was a lot more appealing to Ryan when he was trying to remember on what day and in which state he was playing the same twelve songs.
Now he brings his sidekick and resigns himself to perching on a hard plastic chair for the better part of an hour, flicking through emails and news and old text messages. At least on the bus there was always someone to entertain him, even if it meant he had to trade stationary sleeping surfaces and having his own bedroom for the pleasure of watching Brendon bounce off the walls and Spencer try to act like he didn't find it adorable.
Spencer texts him about the new Spin piece and Ryan stares at the link for a while, glare from the gross overhead lights making a weird reflection on his phone's screen. He hates this part. He tries to skip this part, whenever possible, or only do it when he can curl up next to Jon on a couch somewhere and let him read the worst parts aloud in a silly voice. Pete told him once to act like he was reading about a character, about a guy in a band named Ryan. It sounded stupid, and it didn't work. It's Pete's voice he hears in his head when he reads his own bastardized quotes, Pete going, "'It was supposed to be a concept album, a love story,' said Ross."
"Mr. Ross?"
The girl is leaning over the counter. He isn't going to correct her.
"Almost, sorry," she says. "We're so behind today!"
Ryan crosses his legs and sighs and clicks over to read the article. This is the worst part, the part where no matter how carefully he chose his words at the time he has to watch what's been done with them. He skims, sick to his stomach. He doesn't sound too stupid. Spencer sounds smart, like always, and annoyed, like always. Everyone has an opinion on when the album's going to be done and what it should sound like. Pete sounds --
Pete. Pete said --
"I can't imagine anyone hearing those songs, those lyrics, and fucking forgetting them," Wentz says. "They might hate them or call them stupid schoolyard names, or they might fall in love with them and sing along to every word. But they're not going to forget them."
He's still staring at the quote when his phone rings. Jon is laughing too hard to speak and after a while Ryan stares up at the wall-mounted TV and quits trying to follow the closed captioning on some show that turns out to be in Spanish. Finally Jon says, "I just heard the most fucked-up thing."
"The article wasn't that bad," Ryan says.
"What? I don't know what you're talking about. What I'm talking about is how I just ran into Bill, who said that Travis said Patrick said Pete is having some, like, masked ball at his house next month? What the fuck?"
Ryan's invitation to Pete's un-Halloween is sitting neatly on his kitchen counter. It's not Pete's handwriting on the envelope, and he hasn't decided yet if he's going, even though it's more than likely just a regular Pete party dressed in sheep's clothing. He wasn't even sure if anyone else from the band is invited.
There's a familiar, sharp bark and then the girl is chirping, "Here's your little Hobo!"
On the phone, Jon is still laughing. "Dude," he says. "Pete is dressing up like you."
*
It's not that Ryan never thinks about Pete when he's getting off. He does. He thinks about a lot of things: Brendon standing on his tip-toes and Spencer's forearms flexing and the soft line of Jon's jaw as he laughs. He thinks about the first girl whose tiny breasts he ever touched and the first boy whose bare back across a locker room made him blush and turn away. He thinks about Keltie's hair in the sunlight and Pete's nose peeking out from under a hat pulled far down over his face. It's hard to tell what's going to work, really, and there's no shame in trying.
The rest of the fantasy he'd never share, not with anyone, not even Spencer. The only person he thinks might understand is Pete, and Ryan obviously isn't going to tell him.
It's the morning after and Pete makes a not-quite-cryptic post about their night together, with mussed-hair pictures of their cheeks so close together on one shared pillow. Like what he gave to Ryan by accident, sleepover princes and pancakes, but more than just one page torn out of an epic fairytale.
For Ryan, that's just the beginning. Then there are the endless sequels once they've both gone back to the real world. The besotted haiku; the wish-you-were-still here outtakes from the cameraphone; the tragic, easily translated love letters that paint his name across Pete's chest as plainly as any ink.
He's reading Picture of Dorian Gray again but all he can hear is Jude Law in the movie, whispering in the old man's ear: "I want everyone to say, there goes Wilde and his boy."
*
"Are you sure this is one of my required best friend duties?" Spencer looks even more skeptical than he sounds.
"It's a stupid game," Ryan says. "We've been playing a stupid, silly game for all these years."
"Yeah, I think it's called foreplay."
"Shut up, it's --" Ryan swallows down a giggle. Just because it's true and he's almost stoned enough to admit it doesn't mean he has to give Spencer the satisfaction. "Just shut up and help me with my costume."
"I'm sure this is a desperately uncool point to make in the face of such a brilliant plan, but does anyone we're talking about here remember he has a girlfriend?"
Ryan smoothes out a t-shirt on the bed, hands passing over the tiniest of wrinkles. "Keltie and I don't believe that love is expressed through the possession of other people," he says.
After a while it becomes clear that Spencer is not, unfortunately, going to swallow his own tongue. He rolls around on Ryan's carpet like seizures are going out of style.
"Whatever," Ryan says, talking loud over the continued braying, "Ashlee says just because Pete likes to play dress-up more than she does doesn't mean she has to rearrange her schedule every time."
Spencer sits up, wiping his eyes. "I get it. True love means never telling your boyfriend he can't be at his boyfriend's beck and call. True love is so hard."
"Shut the fuck up," Ryan says. "I mean it this time."
Spencer reaches a hand up and Ryan rolls his eyes but helps him to his feet. Spencer squeezes Ryan's arm, hard enough that it hurts, and he's not laughing any more. "Really, this time? For real?"
Ryan smiles, feels his lips stretch wide across his teeth. "I'm sure."
The hold on his arm loosens and Spencer steps back. "At least you have plenty of options," Spencer says, and starts pawing through the clothes on the bed. He holds up one battered, stained pair of jeans and wrinkles his nose. "Uh, no." Then he squints at Ryan, his head tipping to one side. "We're definitely going to have to do something about the hair."
*
The phone won't fit in the pocket of his jeans no matter how Pete readjusts himself.
One last look in the mirror -- long hair flopped over his eyes, heavy studded belt hanging around his hips, soft red shirt he dug out of a battered merch box in his parents' basement riding up on his belly. Nothing to do about his black hair or brown skin or tattoos and for all these months of work now it seems like a half-assed joke he could have thrown together because the costume shop forgot his actual order.
He straps hard leather bands on each wrist and touches a finger to his cool, clean cheek. At least he took a shower, scrubbed hard at each reservoir of grime until his skin was shiny, translucent and young, trying all the time not to think about Ryan having once done the same, getting ready to come to a show, washing up and dolling up and swallowing down eager hopes about meeting the band. It's the last picture known to man he remembers Ryan actually, at one point, being proud of, so it's got to be the right one.
He doesn't manage to shake the image but it makes it easier to bite his lip and cock his chin, to stare wide-eyed at himself as he reaches across the sink for the phone. Just one for the record books.
*
Ryan gets dressed alone in his hotel room. Everyone else had eventually been invited and sent their regrets. Jon is still in Chicago. Haley is with Spencer's family on his annual summer camping trip, a tradition Ryan is all too happy to hand over. Brendon is stuck at the reception for some temple thing he's not allowed to actually attend but is apparently obligated to celebrate after the fact.
So Ryan drove on his own, turning down Pete's offer to stay at the house, and spent a cloudy day lying by the pool, staring down at Los Angeles like it might wave back at him. When he's all put together, hair and make-up and clothes in place and he either looks ridiculous or amazing and no one's around to tell him which, Ryan heads to the house.
He has to show his invitation to get in the door, held at arm's length by some burly bouncer he's never even seen before. It's disconcerting, almost enough for him to turn away, to have to ask for permission to be let into a place Pete's all but handed him keys to. The man looks at his list and back up at Ryan, smiling grudgingly. "Hard to tell when everybody's all pimped out," he says, and holds the door open.
The hallway is lined with mirrors -- funhouse mirrors, Ryan realizes, that make him look short and squat or long and wavy. There are life-sized cardboard cut-outs of half the people Pete's ever been on stage with, almost real enough to look like ghosts hovering over his shoulders. Ryan makes his way to the main room, eyes straight ahead.
Pete is holding court at the DJ booth he's set up on the balcony, laughing and ducking his head to shout into some girl's ear. His cheekbones cast long shadows across his clean-shaven face, and the collar of his old Fall Out Boy Is For Lovers t-shirt covers his tattooed collarbone. The song ends and Pete hands over control to Dan, waving off a few disappointed shouts and glad-handing a path through his friends. With every step he takes his shoulders come down a notch, his hair clings more closely to his face and his confidence just seems to bleed out into the atmosphere.
The air is almost cold around Pete as comes nearer, the party chilling in some subtle, unexpressed manner as his mood so obviously spirals. Ryan feels the fact of what they're about to do settle in his spine, tingling down the backs of his knees, and he positions himself so that Pete's trajectory will lead him right to Ryan, right into this thing they could keep dodging around forever.
Pete's chin comes up and Ryan takes a step forward.
*
"Holy shit," Pete says, and the sound of the party comes crashing back into his head, the mute button released, the cave in his mind he'd been retreating to blown to smithereens. Ten minutes ago he was convinced Ryan wouldn't even show, was heading up to find his phone and send a pathetic text message asking if he was maybe coming late, and now here he is. Now look at him.
Ryan is wearing the new Clan jeans and one of the old white belts and a burnt orange shirt that maybe looks familiar and a skinny charcoal hoodie with a black fur collar that definitely looks familiar, because it's definitely Pete's. It went missing off his bus and Pete wrote it off to his own usual shitty packing or some deranged fan but there it is, zipped snug around Ryan's chest, hood pulled up and brushing his face like it's been holding him forever.
"Hi," Ryan says, not quietly, not shy at all. "I'm Pete."
Pete stares at him, holy shit holy shit holy shit.
Ryan is him, is dressed like Pete, and that means someone in Pete's band is a lying rat-faced motherfucker who can't keep a secret for shit, but Pete really, really doesn't care right now. Pete will buy that rat-face a fucking Ferrari tomorrow but right now, Jesus Christ, right now he wants to drag his thumbs through Ryan's eyeliner, wants to destroy the carefully, artfully smudged lines along the lids.
He doesn't. He just stares.
Ryan simply waits, way less twitchy and nervous than Pete would be or feels right now but, man, who gives a fuck. This is the best fucking present he's ever been given and even he is not too much of an idiot or an asshole to mistake it for anything else.
Pete lets his hair fall across his face, hiding his giddy grin, and talks softly down at his feet. "I know who you are."
"Good," Ryan says, and grabs him by the hand. "Come on."
Ryan leads him upstairs, smiling boldly at everyone they pass, nodding and saying hi like Pete's friends are his friends. And they are, Ryan knows them, should know that what's Pete's is his anyway. Ryan's just usually more of a not speaking until spoken to kind of guy, and Pete's scrambling for how he should be reacting in kind, or maybe in opposite.
The hood falls down across the nape of Ryan's neck and Pete stops breathing for a second, then pushes up closer against Ryan's back to be sure. Ryan's hair is dark and stiff, flat-ironed and waxed into place.
He dyed his hair.
Pete adjusts his belt and tries not to lick the back of Ryan's neck. His arms tremble at the restraint, fine little shakes as Ryan continues pulling him down the hall, dragging Pete along like an unmoored anchor.
Ryan won't take a simple snapshot of himself but he'll do this in front of a party full of loudmouths, friends who know just enough to think they know what's going on. They part for Ryan's shameless parade and Pete feels a sick, greedy thrill at it, at the display they make, Ryan-as-Pete and Pete-as-Ryan disappearing so obviously into Pete's bedroom, Ryan closing the door behind them with a sure, soft snick.
It's exactly the kind of thing Pete would do, if he were at all capable of thinking like himself right now. It's exactly what he'd hoped this whole party would do for Ryan, even if he never quite imagined it like this.
Ryan turns them until Pete's back is against the wall and stares down, because he can dye his hair and steal Pete's clothes but there's no way he can be short, especially not when he thinks being Pete seems to require standing up straighter, shoulders squared like he's expecting a fight.
He smirks down at Pete like he's done this a hundred times, like Pete has, seen something he wanted and just gone after it. "Did you enjoy the show?" he asks, and Pete swallows and nods. Ryan leans in, his lips barely brushing Pete's ear. "You looked like you were really into it."
Pete makes a noise, not really a word, not quite a moan, some mutant offspring of the two, and Ryan pulls back. Is that how Pete looks, defensive and I-dare-you and defiant all at the same time?
"You were at the last one, too. I remember."
Pete's got a lousy memory for most things and almost all people, but that much wasn't a come on. Ryan hadn't believed him then, either, so Pete stares him in the eye like he's calling bullshit and says, "I'm Ryan."
"I remember, Ryan from the Summer League." Ryan's lip twitches. "Want me to go find Patrick so we can talk about writing songs again?"
"No." Pete presses his palms flat against the door. They slide a little, sweaty and nervous. He barely even knows what game they're playing, and he has even less idea why he thought he'd come out on top. Ryan has been a step ahead of him since the first time they ever talked.
"Well," Ryan says, and his voice is impatient, edgy like Pete on a day when all the trains in his head are running a little too fast, screeching along the tracks like they might come off the rails. "Do you want --"
Pete lets his legs buckle how they've been threatening all night. Ryan stops talking. He undoes Ryan's belt and opens his jeans, yanking at the zipper he tugged up and down on a thousand samples but never so desperately as now. "I want --" He looks up to be sure and lets the question come through in his voice. He needs to be sure. "I -- I want to do this."
Ryan exhales, breathes back in big and greedy, and nods. "Yes," he says. "You did." He runs one finger along Pete's jaw, slipping it inside as Pete's mouth falls open. "You would have done anything I asked."
Pete pulls his head back, licking the web of Ryan's hand and pressing his forehead to Ryan's hip. "So ask," he says, voice ragged like he's already worn himself out begging for more. Ryan could definitely say something like that and never look away. But he's not Ryan. He didn't know what to do with him then and he barely knows what to do with him now except wait, kneel and ask to be told what happens next.
Ryan's fingers dig into Pete's shoulders, hauling him up, nails scraping his skin through the thin red cotton, and he slams Pete's head back into the door as he kisses him. He's fast and hard about it, hungry, and Pete isn't sure if this is how Ryan kisses now or just how he thinks Pete would go about it. It's been a while since he executed a successful sneak attack make-out session with Ryan, and for all his talk, for all their friends being so sure it's already happened, Pete's never actually gotten into Ryan's pants.
He's looked, yeah, and lusted, sure, and taunted and teased and wondered when was going to be the right time so long that whatever they were waiting for seemed to have come and gone and come back and gone again. Even tonight, getting dressed, he hadn't thought it would be any different, had expected another round of anticipation with no real payoff, had planned for the inevitable aching angst almost comforting in its familiarity, had already half-written the obvious, un-funny punchlines he'd blog the next day, the who's that pretty girl in the mirror there riffs, the always a bridesmaid never the bride of Frankenstein jokes.
Instead Ryan is attacking his lips, biting and licking, and Pete kisses back as best as he can, trying to keep up. And then Ryan pushes him back down, his knees falling onto Ryan's toes before slipping the last inch to the carpet. The jeans are still open, shiny silver zipper staring Pete right in the eye, hard flesh behind it, and Pete tries to tell himself it's okay that he's never done this before. Maybe -- hopefully, Christ -- Ryan didn't know either, not back then, wouldn't have known what to do or else he would've just done it, would have done what he wanted instead of simply staring wide-eyed at Pete and waiting for Pete to ask for something he didn't think he deserved. God, how in the world did he ever get so fucking lucky as to have this.
Ryan says, "Well?" impatient but fond, and then his knuckles are hitting Pete's nose as he pulls himself out, guides his dick between Pete's lips. Pete feels his mouth water around Ryan's cock and a kick of guttural lust makes him moan. He pulls back enough to get his hand around the base, letting himself drool a bit over the head before he takes it back in. It's not like going down on a chick at all, not in the way it counts, in how it burns at the base of his own back, how he can suddenly feel his jeans where they rub against his ass. It's fucking terrifying, deep down there where it counts, but Ryan gasps, high and shocked, almost every single time Pete does anything at all.
That's not how Pete sounds during sex in the slightest, not that Ryan would know. Pete's a low, stuttering, swearing groaner, which isn't something he's proud of so much as got used to a long time ago, like the curve of his dick or the taste of his come or the stupid fucking faces he makes anytime a flash goes off. He'd be cursing now if he wasn't busy trying to keep a rhythm of sucking and tugging, and if his coordination was that good he'd have become a fucking world-class drummer instead of a shitty bassist.
But Ryan's whining a little now, in between the gasps, and he thrusts forward once so hard the back of Pete's head hits the door, which is this whole other shocking reminder that Pete's on his knees, pressed against a wall in his own bedroom, letting a dude fuck his face. That should make it less hot, maybe, but it doesn't, it just makes him more desperate to make Ryan come so he can get off himself, or let Ryan get him off, and he can't think about that and concentrate on where his teeth are at the same time so he tries not to think of anything, to make his mind blank. Of course that means all he can think of is the obvious, cock cock cock suck cock, and he'd laugh at the absurdity of it but then Ryan is sucking in deep gulps of air like he might die and scrambling to push Pete's forehead away and coming all over the front of Pete's shirt. Ryan's shirt. Pete's Ryan shirt.
Ryan takes a step back, ribs heaving as he tries to calm himself down, reel himself in. Pete can see it happening right there in front of him as Ryan tucks himself away, the breathing steadied, control reconfigured, the costume so carefully reassmbled. No no no no no no. They did not get this far for it to end like that.
Pete stands up straight, shaking out his legs, and strips off his messy shirt, catching Ryan around the waist and hauling him in for a dirty kiss. "I always wanted to know if we taste the same," he says, licking at Ryan's lower lip as his mouth falls open on a weak, shaky sigh.
Pete leans away a little, shaking his hair out of his eyes, and runs his hands up Ryan's sides and down his chest, pulling open his hoodie as he goes. Ryan chuckles, low and sort of shocked. "You look," Ryan says, and Pete has to kiss him again, stripping the layers off until Ryan's chest is bare.
"Show me," he says.
*
He pushes Pete -- Ryan, he has to do this right, keep them straight in his head, or he won't be able to do this at all -- he pushes Ryan into the bathroom and only lets go to turn on the light.
There they are in the mirror, the two of them, so much smooth skin, bare stomach to back, arms and belts and hair colliding.
They look --
"We look so fucking beautiful," says Pete -- says Ryan as he tilts his head back, arching his neck until there's no choice, really, no other thing to do but to lick it, to bite it, to gnaw on his chin and slide hands down his chest, ignoring the tattoos, ignoring all the differences. It's easier to keep going, to undo his belt, shove his jeans down over his hips, to linger over the surprisingly gentle cut of his hips and down around his cock.
They keep their eyes open.
It doesn't look like his dick, but they knew that already, years of running naked through buses and dressing rooms before the pictures were everywhere, were sent to his sidekick by dozens of people just to make sure he knew what they thought he was getting himself into.
He stands there so long, just looking, that another hand wraps around his, squirms its way under.
They hold the cock, pull it, and that should look familiar, should seem like something they've all seen a million times, too. But it doesn't. It's different, something about the clean, smooth skin, the warm yellow light of the bathroom, the way he's leaning back into Ryan's chest as he jerks himself off. Into Pete's chest, but, no, he can't, he can't, he doesn't want to keep breaking them in two like that, doesn't want them to be one or the other, his and his, Pete and Ryan, he just wants --
Pete falls forward suddenly, catching himself with a palm braced on the mirror, and doesn't stop moving their hands on his dick. Ryan is trying to catch his breath, trying to keep up, trying to remember his own fucking name and not just do what his body wants.
He opens his pants, struggling with the wrong hand to pull himself out. When he thrusts against Pete's back, Pete moans dark and low. "F-fuck," he stutters, and groans, bending his face into his arm for a second, but that's not fair, they have to look, they both have to look. Ryan uses his free hand to push Pete's face back up and Pete's mouth falls open, snarling to the side like he's posing for a picture but catching Ryan's fingers instead, biting them closer, sucking on them as they both stare, mouths open, hands moving, eyes wide.
And then Pete spits them out. "Did you ever take a picture like this?" he gasps.
Any way he answers that, for either of them, it's yes. Instead he slides wet fingers down the ridge of Pete's tail bone and says, "Is it how you always imagined?"
Pete grunts and shove his ass back, shoulders shaking as he puts all his weight on the mirror, and Ryan's hand slides down. "Yesss," Pete sighs, and then his head snaps up. "No, no, it's not, I had no idea, I --"
Ryan stops both his hands and digs his nails into the soft flesh of Pete's ass. "You did," he says, and his voice is lower and steadier than he'd expected. "You thought about it a lot. You just didn't know how to make it happen."
"Oh fuck," Pete swears, like it's kicked out of him. He shakes his hair out of his eyes, one long piece sliding across Ryan's face, and their reflections stare back them, flushed and sweaty. They're not going to stop this now. They don't want to. For once they want to finish what they've started.
Ryan licks his fingers himself this time, wrapping his other hand back around Pete's cock as he pushes in, just the tip of one finger, just far enough to tease. He wants to see if maybe, if he might be able to make him --
"Fuck, please, Ryan, please --"
Pete pleads and cajoles and whines and nags all day every day, but he doesn't beg like can't help it, like Ryan is making him, like Ryan can make him do whatever he wants, and Pete wants him to.
"Not Ryan," he whispers, "Pete," lips against Pete's ear, and Pete nods eagerly, moving their hands faster, and says it back, moans his own name until Ryan pushes in all the way, pulls out and adds another finger.
"Pete, please, fuck," he says. Ryan's hand shakes, he's fucking him so hard now, faster and deeper and his own dick is skidding up and down Pete's hip, almost enough, almost. "You can, fuck, anything you want," he says, and Ryan swallows down a pocket of hysteria because he can, they really can, he can have anything he wants from Pete. He can have this, fuck him against his bathroom sink, make him keep begging up until the moment they let him come.
It's okay that Pete could have him like that, too, strung out on sex and desperate and completely fucking vulnerable, he could have Ryan like that with one real question, one direct request, no fucking around, no joking. The only way either of them have managed to say no for years is to just walk away, to make it a joke, drawing boundaries around body parts like child's play. Do not color outside the lines. Do not go beyond this belt. Do not fuck up a good thing.
If he simply asked, Ryan would, and once he was like this, like Pete is now, so fucking needy, if Pete wanted to take pictures, if he wanted to put the whole fucking thing on buzznet, Ryan would let him.
"Please, fuck," Pete groans. "I'm so fucking close, please, do you, will you just, just fucking fuck me, please." Pete holds his head up as high as he can, and in the mirror he's already a mess, hair everywhere, chest heaving. He swallows hard and looks at Ryan and says, very clearly, "Pete, please, I want you to fuck me now."
Ryan fits himself against Pete's back. Their hands are still loosely wrapped around Pete's cock, but they're both watching each other's faces. "Where," Ryan says. "Where's your camera."
Pete's dick actually fucking jumps and he laughs, looking a little ashamed for the first time all night. "It's not," he says, "usually quite that well-trained."
"I get to hold it," Ryan clarifies.
"You -- hold anything you want, you can -- anything, really." Pete tilts back and brushes a soft kiss to Ryan's jaw. If he's going to be like that, be that nice, Ryan has to look down, away, try to pull his shit together, do this right. He stares at the lotion on the counter, convenient, good, and right next to it is Pete's phone. He reaches forward to grab both.
"Make this work," Ryan says, and Pete takes the phone, scrolling through pages until the screen is picking up a camera feed. He brings it up like he's going to take a shot and Ryan grabs his wrist. "I get to," he reminds Pete, and thrusts the lotion towards him instead.
He takes the phone and lets go of Pete's cock so he can shove his jeans all the way down to his ankles. Pete's greasing up his hand, pushing his fingers into his ass without any hesitation, leaning his hips on the counter as he works himself open.
Ryan takes a picture. Pete's hips jerk at the shutter sound effect. The pixels arrange themselves in neat lines, red green blue white black, Pete bent over and begging. Ryan raises his eyes from the screen and watches Pete fingering himself, licking his lips as he pants out, "You know how to save?"
Ryan thumbs the buttons, hovering over his choices. This one they'll keep. "That's a good look on you," he says, slicking his cock. Pete's hand falls uselessly by his hip, and he tilts his forehead against the mirror, eyes doubled as he watches Ryan line up and push in.
"Picture," Pete moans when Ryan's hips are snug against his ass, and Ryan holds his arm out and aims in their general direction, clicking to take the photo. He thrusts in hard and clicks again to delete. In, out, click, delete, in, out, in, out, click, delete.
In. Out. Click. Delete.
He needs two hands to do this right and on the next push lets the phone slide out of his grasp and clatter into the dry sink.
Ryan buries his nose against Pete's temple and presses lips to his ear. "I always wanted this," he whispers, and Pete clenches and groans and comes fast and hard, all over the mirror, all across the counter. His palms skid through the slick mess as Ryan keeps fucking him, their slippery reflections shaking and shimmering like a mirage as Ryan gasps and gives in, lets go.
He wraps an arm around Pete's chest as they catch their breath, blinking back and forth like they'll somehow find the words to say what they've just done. Pete looks down at the phone, a smirk on the corner of his mouth, and Ryan digs his nails into Pete's ribs, turning him around until they're pressed together, chest to knee.
"You want to see?" Ryan asks.
Pete kisses his neck and sighs, "Yeah." He drags his mouth across Ryan's collarbone, lashes fluttering against skin. "Look at us," Pete says, and Ryan rests his cheek against Pete's hair, closing his eyes.
END
Credits: jae_w always did like boys who like mirrors. deliberatehips likes these two in particular. rossetti calls this story CAMWHORES IN LOVE, which is as good a summary as any. Here, I've even delicioused all the photo posts and blog entries Ryan and Pete made that helped inspire it.
Fall Out Boy/Panic at the Disco, Pete/Ryan. Explicit. 10,000 words.
A phase in which the subject is permanently caught and captivated by his own image. Or: Halloween is the new Valentine's Day.
For fluffontop, who said she loves Pete enough to dress up like him, which is where this all started. And for Pete, who actually does love Ryan enough to dress up like him. Thanks for ruining my story, seriously.
Disclaimers: Cut-tag and quotes below are taken directly from Pete's and Ryan's journals. With all apologies for my extremely lay understanding of Lacan and the general hand-waving around tour schedules, weddings and broken bones. When I started this last August I had no idea Pete would beat me at my own game. I should have known better.
Pete: i may be a camera whore. but its just cause i keep getting fucked by flashes.
Ryan: everypicturetakesapieceofme.
*
"What are you wearing?"
Brendon pokes his toe into Ryan's shin. "You said I could borrow it!"
Ryan taps his finger against the sidekick's screen, reading the message again, this time only to himself.
What r u wearing
If Pete were there, were sitting right next to him instead of on some bus thousands of miles away, Ryan would think about flicking him between the eyes, just hard enough to make him stop asking questions they both know Ryan isn't going to answer. He would think about it, but he wouldn't do it. He and Pete have a complicated set of rules about how they touch each other. Ryan's not entirely sure on any given day why the line falls in one place instead of another but they don't waste it on anything like that.
Pete would do it, not to Ryan but to almost anybody else, to Andy or Joe or maybe even Patrick. Pete would do it a million times in a row to Dirty and Dirty would, inexplicably, let him. Dirty is the kid who never stopped putting his hand on the burner. Ryan is the kid who learned how to duck.
Brendon snatches the phone out of his hands. "What -- oh." He giggles and elbows Ryan in the ribs. Sitting on a couch with Brendon is a full-contact sport. "I'm gonna tell him you've got on nothing but your gloves."
"The fuck you are," Ryan says, and Brendon pretends to struggle before handing over the sidekick. He knows better than to get between Ryan and Pete.
Ryan's phone buzzes again.
Better yet send pix
"What, what," Brendon says, and cranes his neck. Ryan doesn't tilt his hand but allows Brendon to see. "Hah! Yeah, because we all know how fucking secure the Wentz mobile plan is. Can you, is there a way to send him back his own dick?"
"No."
"No you won't let me or no there's no way? I'm pretty sure there's a way."
Ryan drums his thumbs over the keys. He types, No way.
*
"C'mon," Pete says, and doesn't care how much he's whining. "What happened to the days when all you needed was your camera and a mirror? I miss those days. The internet misses those days. Your public needs you to get back to your roots."
"I thought you said that no one would ever, ever see these. You said I could track you down and eat your brains with a dull spoon if my totally clothed, completely respectable, theoretical self-portraits were ever shown to anyone whose name is not Pete Wentz."
Pete lays on the seat, walking his bare feet in a crooked smudged line up the bus window. "Ever ever," he says. "No one. Come on."
Ryan makes a low scoffing sound and Pete gets hit with this huge surge of regret that nine times out of ten he lets shitty text messages pass for friendship when at the very least it could always be like this, a couple of boys on the phone on the road to nowhere.
"You could put a bag over your head," Pete offers. "Or a sheet! Like Halloween. Send me Casper photos, dude."
"Then how will you even know it's me?"
"I'll know," Pete says. "I'll always know. You can't hide from me. I could identify your body by your toes."
Ryan is quiet for a minute. "You've never even seen my toes," he says, thin and tight, and while Pete is searching for proof that he's wrong, of course he has, Ryan has fucking awesome toes and Pete's the guy who can swear to it, Ryan says, "Hey, I gotta go," and hangs up.
*
Ryan doesn't actually have anywhere to go until Friday and, as fucked up as it is, he's annoyed Pete didn't call him on it.
Pete can always tell when Ryan doesn't have the right words for how he's feeling. Pete will tilt his head towards Ryan and keep talking, more and more quietly, until it's like they're whispering secrets even when they're just talking about the most mundane shit. On the phone it's too easy to end the conversation, but he still can't pretend Pete hasn't always known where Ryan hides himself away, or that he won't come looking.
That first night they talked, Ryan had lain awake forever before getting up to read it again, the words carefully cut and pasted and saved away on his computer.
Yeah fuck get some to me
Every time he read them Pete's words sounded hotter, more urgent, like Pete might not stick around if Ryan didn't give it to him right away, like he might not survive if he didn't get what he wanted.
Ryan had whispered it to himself, soft and scratchy, and the words sounded even more like porn out loud than in his head, the kind of porn Ryan had only found a few times, real shit he felt almost guilty for watching, and he would flush just remembering it existed, his breath caught in his throat.
He opened his email and typed without looking at the screen. Just until we get the band pics, hope it's not too weird. Three clicks through his gallery and he was done.
In the morning, there was Pete's name in his inbox, like it belonged there. Ryan hadn't dreamed the whole thing after all.
Whyd youleave out all the good ones
He'd printed out his English paper, turned off the computer and gone to class, barely bothering to hide the stupid grin he felt stretching his face. He should have known Pete could find them if he really wanted to.
When he got home, there was another email.
This ones my favorite anytime u want ot model our merch just ask
*
From the day Pete first saw Ryan's picture until -- well, it hasn't stopped, exactly, so much as shifted with the winds to match whatever foul mood Pete is trying to outrun from his pirate brain -- all this time there's been one image in his head of Ryan that will always get the job done.
Ryan's in his bedroom, in his dad's house, sitting on the edge of his bed. There's a faded square of wall behind him and a Fall Out Boy poster rolled up and shoved on a top closet shelf, because those were the days Ryan was still bad at hiding how worried he was Pete wouldn't like him, would somehow change his mind and take it all back.
Pete never has to ask, doesn't need to beg or goad or do anything but lean against the door as Ryan slides his hand into his shorts, as he pushes them down off his hips to get a little more room. He doesn't usually watch Ryan's fist on his dick, long fingers that wrap all the way around and then some. He looks at Ryan's fluttering eyelids, at his hitching chest, at the way his stupid hair gets sweaty and falls over his face, puffing out with each shaky breath.
He stares at this kid who knew so fucking much what he wanted to do with his life he found the one dude he thought could help and wouldn't let him alone until he got what he wanted. That kid, who could do that and barely even realize how that made him one in a million, but who couldn't see that Pete would do anything else he asked, too.
He stares at that kid, his mouth dry and his wet hand on his dick in some bunk or bed or shower, and eventually he shoves away from the door, he strips off his clothes and walks over and pushes Ryan onto his back and crawls between his legs and fucks him until it's done, until they're both done. In his head he never asks, he never has to ask because Ryan knows, Ryan is sure, Ryan knows that Pete can't see anything but him.
Pete's said a million pieces of crazy shit to Ryan, all of it true in one way or another. He's said he loves him and he needs him and he wants him and without him the world would be a flat ugly yellow color no one would ever put in a crayon box. He's meant every word but he's never been sure Ryan actually heard.
*
"So? What did you think? You gotta admit it was pretty fucking rad, right?"
Wherever Ryan is, it's noisy and yet Pete can still hear him sigh in what sounds a lot like disappointment. "Yeah," he says. "Brendon says now next Halloween we have to dress up like you, in revenge or whatever."
Pete sits on the counter with his legs crossed and his back against the mirror. Dressing rooms are really fucking perfectly depressing settings for scenes about getting your hopes dashed. He squeezes the toy-sized Snickers bar in his fist until it's a gooey mess leaking chocolate out the corners of the wrapper. "Flattery, imitation, you know," he says eventually. "You've got a sweet life. Can't blame a guy for wanting a piece, you know?"
After another long, shitty silence, Ryan says, "It -- it was always a costume. The makeup, I mean."
Pete wipes his hands on his pants. "I know that."
"No, look," Ryan amends, like Pete sounds extra pathetic. "It was a nice idea."
Pete pretends he's laughing at someone other than himself.
"You're the one who --" Ryan starts, and now he's pissed, and Ryan is never pissed at Pete, not even when Pete deserves it. "You said it wasn't fun when everyone expects it, when they think they know what it means."
"So what does it mean," Pete snaps.
"You don't get a piece of me just because I live on a fucking stage." It's curiously flat, resigned.
Pete knocks the back of his head against the mirror, testing its resistance and mumbling, "sorry, fuck."
"Not, I don't mean you. I mean -- all of them. I mean them, Pete."
"Sorry," he says again, because one day he'll remember in advance that Ryan's sense of humor is buried beneath miles of defensive wounds.
Ryan sighs again, but lighter this time, like the storm has passed. "You made Brendon's year, seriously. Halloween is his favorite holiday."
Pete closes his eyes and listens to the hum from the hallways of a show coming together. "Mine too," he says.
*
All week Ryan turns his head away as he passes his reflection. He stares down at the carpet instead of the mirror hung over his dresser. When he gets his oil changed, he looks back over his shoulder to avoid the polarized glass at the car dealership. At the new sushi place where he meets Spencer for lunch, he flicks a penny into the fairytale-perfect reflection pond and the fish scatter.
"And then she asks how our label is reacting to us taking quote unquote so long to finish." Spencer stabs at a piece of eel with his chopsticks and rolls his eyes. "I made Pete swear to say something really obscene."
"Do you think," Ryan asks, careless, and then it's not like Spencer is going let him off that easily. He'll have to finish the sentence now one way or another. He sighs and drags a piece of ginger through his soy sauce. "Sometimes I think Pete -- I mean, don't you think he has. I don't know."
Spencer stares at him, cool and even. He has this thing about how Ryan needs to actually articulate the shit that freaks him out, at least the first time, before they can figure out how to handle it.
"What if he gets tired of waiting. If he decides he's already gotten what he --"
"What he --" Spencer presses one palm flat to the table, leaning forward. "Ryan," he says. "You have had that guy wrapped around your little finger since forever. You know it, we all know it." He sits back in his chair, throwing his napkin over his plate. "He'd beg for scraps before he gave up trying."
Ryan stares down at his food and, when the check comes, snatches it out from under Spencer's hand. "Sorry for being stupid," he says as they walk out to the parking lot.
"Because that's such a rare occurrence I have no idea how to handle it," Spencer says, and hauls Ryan into a one-armed hug.
*
"Yeah," Pete says, "right there. That's good, baby, yeah. Just hold that pose."
He clicks the button, digital shutter coming down with a loud, fake snap, and Hemingway barks, waddling off in his new t-shirt. "Fuck, come back, come on," Pete pleads, trying to tuck Hemmy under one arm without dropping the camera. The dog wriggles free and Pete sits down hard on the floor.
Bested by a squat little runt of a pup in a closed space the size of a toaster oven. "Guess I should be rooting for you anyway, you underdog dog," he mutters, and waves lamely at Joe as he comes out from his bunk.
"Photo shoot over already?"
"The model went on strike."
Joe laughs and sits at the table, scrounging through the junk. "Maybe he doesn't like how he looks today. Maybe he's got self-esteem problems."
"There has never been a dog with such high self-esteem. He totally stole all of mine, for one." Pete rolls on one side to extricate Joe's pipe from under the edge of the bench seat, handing it up.
"Awesome, I knew that had to be around here." Pete closes his eyes and lies back, watching himself in the mirror on the ceiling and listening to Joe flick the lighter and take a hit. "Maybe," Joe says, voice tight, "you gave him a complex, you know, from putting his face all over everything."
Pete snaps a shot of the bottom of the table, which is maybe the cleanest part of their whole fucking bus.
"Maybe he didn't want to be a household name," Joe breathes out in a rush.
Pete immortalizes Joe's foot and then scrolls through the old pictures on his phone. There's one of Patrick throwing Doritos at him. Dirty with a drumstick stuck up each nostril. Ryan holding Hobo backstage in Vegas.
"Nah," Pete says, "he was born to be a star."
"The little fucker gets at least as much mail as I do now, you know."
Pete pushes himself up and heads back to his room, phone still open in his hand. "Wake me up when he figures out how to write back."
*
Ryan drives home from lunch with the radio off. He feels sweat collect on his brow from the car to the front door, takes a cold shower, puts on clean clothes, eats a nectarine over the sink and thinks about what Spencer said.
Then he goes back to the bathroom, stands in front of the mirror and closes his eyes. He slides his shirt off over his head and holds the fabric against his chest, covering everything but his shoulders. When he breathes in and out he can feel the rise of his ribcage against his palms, but it's muffled by the shirt, so he drops it, soft cotton wafting across his stomach before landing on the floor.
He opens his eyes. Now when he inhales and exhales he can feel his skin tingling against his fingertips, the rocketing thunder of his heart underneath. He looks surprised, but steady, like he opened the wrong door but recognizes the world on the other side. He rests his thumbs on his belt, but -- no, this is better, this is like how it was. He stands still and stares and tries to remember how that felt, why he did it, why he needed so desperately for other people to see him like that, so open and exposed, so thoughtlessly put on display. He barely remembers that boy.
He wraps his arms around himself, fingers playing across his back, up as far as he can reach before his shoulders strain and crack from the angle. One hand on his hip, cocked towards the mirror, the ledge of a rivet on his jeans balanced on the lip of the sink, and he thinks about how many cameras there are around, right at this very moment: His sidekick (still in the pocket of his other pants, kicked at the end of the bed in the next room). The new Nikon Jon helped him pick out, on top of his dresser. The built-in on his laptop, plugged in down at the kitchen table. One of the Polaroids from the tour in a box in the spare closet. There's a security camera above his car, and another one on the awning over the main doors. A red light camera polices the corner. Somewhere in space there's a satellite idly spinning its wheels, looking for trouble.
Pete is the only one who gets away with so much as mentioning the existence of those old pictures, though he doesn't seem to appreciate his free pass. Ryan's not an idiot. He knows he didn't delete things soon enough. He knows nothing ever dies on the internet, or at least he knows enough to nod when Pete says so, over and over, like somehow it will feel like less of a fucking violation this time how people think because they've seen him in his own mirror that they know who he is inside. He still goes out on stage every night he can and plays his guitar, still lets stylists primp him for shoots and still enjoys it more than he knows how to rectify.
And he does believe Pete when he says he wouldn't show anyone, or wouldn't mean to, or wouldn't realize what he'd done until it was too late and it was reposted on a million websites. Pete never means to show the world his worst side. He doesn't try very hard to show most people his good side, either, and it's the fact that with Ryan he actually seems to want to that makes Ryan wish he could give Pete something back for the effort.
Pete still obsesses over Ryan's lyrics, stares at Ryan's mouth while he talks and tugs on his sleeve to get his attention at a table full of people having a million more important conversations. Pete works hard to memorize the details for all the times later when they're so far apart, and Ryan lets him, turns his cheek to the best angle, cranes his neck and bites his lip and holds the pose until he can almost feel the click of Pete's mind.
Ryan knows exactly what kind of picture Pete wants, what brand of eager smirk Pete would like to see staring back at him any time he's in the mood. He knows Pete wants it for the right reasons, and that alone should be enough.
He just doesn't know why he would want to let Pete rely on a snapshot when he could be forced to remember Ryan instead, to deliberately summon him up or, better yet, to seek him out.
He bends down and picks up his shirt, tugging it over his neck, and smiles at his clothed self in the mirror, grinning wide and fake and then thin and surly. He thinks about Pete sliding his arm up Ryan's back, hand slipping between his shirt and his jacket, and forces himself to freeze, to study his own face in the sharp light. He stays like that until he hears his phone beeping from the other room.
*
Once he's in bed, Pete manages to hold Hemmy on his lap long enough for a group shot, four of the new shirts bunched up between his chest and the dog. He sends it to Ryan: For you & hobo, you two, too cute. You too
He reads six chapters of his third Houdini biography and gets through half a sound check before Ryan responds.
You know where we live. Viewings available by appointment only.
His phone rings with an actual call then, but it's not Ryan, it's someone from the label connecting him to a reporter for an interview he allegedly knew was scheduled but apparently forgot. He kicks his toe into a speaker stack until it goes numb and vaguely recalls, now that he's got her nasal voice in his ear, that Spencer had warned him this chick was a pain in the ass.
"I'm glad they took the year to figure their shit out," he says. "I mean, whose brilliant fucking idea was it that a band is gonna make its best music on an annual calendar?"
Dirty rolls up on a BMX bike he probably stole off some kid waiting in line and lets Pete climb on his back. He does the rest of the interview like that, waiting for the inevitable slick slam of his skull into concrete. He tries not to feel too bummed out when it never comes.
*
"I have a brilliant idea," Pete says later.
He's so fucking up right now, totally wired from a great show even if he did accidentally kick Patrick in the middle of a spin, but mostly, fuck yeah, great show. His brain is, like, on Mars. It's got the best view, all their world spread out below in a perspective that makes sense. Pete's corner of that world is apparently populated with teeny tiny little dudes with self-esteem issues visible from space.
"I'm going to have a costume party," he tells Patrick, "after the tour. And for a change everyone is actually gonna fucking dress up this time, for real, like, they can't get in the door otherwise. And maybe we'll even have a contest or something, give away some really cool shit, whatever, the presents are just a bonus. The costumes are gonna be great."
"All right," Patrick says. He pokes at his laptop with one hand, peeing the bandaid off his knee and putting it back on at a slightly different angle.
Pete drapes himself over Patrick's lap and kisses his battle wound better. "Un-Halloween at Pete's house. Better start planning your costume now."
"Yeah, you too."
"Oh no," Pete says, and calmly shakes his head. "I already know who I'm going to be."
*
It takes less than a day for Pete to break.
"Fine, jeez, if you promise to rescind your stupid threat to leave me on the side of the road in Arkansas wearing nothing but my eyeliner. I'm going as Ryan."
Patrick sighs and says, "Didn't we do this already?"
Joe holds out his hand until Andy slaps a twenty in it. "I don't know why I even took that," Andy mutters. "That was the stupidest bet --"
"I mean, look at this," Pete says, stabbing a finger at the computer screen. "This is what I should have been going for."
Patrick idly turns toward the monitor, jerking back when he gets a good look. "Oh, Pete, Jesus, come on. I thought you promised not to show those to people any more."
"Well, not new people." He scrolls through to his favorite, Ryan biting his lip and looking down like he's shy. "He wanted to take these. Nobody hacked in and stole them. He got up one day and said, you know, I would like to take off my shirt and get my camera and post them in my livejournal and see what people think."
"Pete," Patrick says, and his voice is sad, and slow, like he's got really bad news. "People need attention. Kids -- you know this -- more than anyone kids need attention. They go looking for it if they have to."
Pete thinks, and thank God he had to, but he has the feeling maybe that isn't such a cool thing to say out loud.
"And unlike, uh, some people," Patrick says, "Ryan seems to have grown up into the kind of guy who likes to actually, you know. Distinguish which parts of his life he lets everyone see."
"Now he gets all shy," Pete says, and slumps back in his seat, pushing the computer away. "That kid -- when Ryan was like that, back then. He didn't run and hide because people wanted a piece of him. He wanted them to want him."
"Yeah, and then they did."
Pete shuts up for a while, because once he's ruined a good conversation there's usually no climbing back out of it. He stares out bus windows as they hurtle toward another meet and greet, another fawning interview, another crowd with their cellphones in the air like if they trap the night in there it will mean something bigger. Finally he says, "It's okay to want them to want you. He should -- Ryan should know that."
Patrick sits down with a sigh, putting his arm around Pete's back. "This, um, costume? It sort of sounds like an intervention. Or, like, some kinky fantasy you've been working on for years."
"Well," Pete says.
*
It always takes longer to get the dog groomed than they say it will. The idea of having time to do boring errands was a lot more appealing to Ryan when he was trying to remember on what day and in which state he was playing the same twelve songs.
Now he brings his sidekick and resigns himself to perching on a hard plastic chair for the better part of an hour, flicking through emails and news and old text messages. At least on the bus there was always someone to entertain him, even if it meant he had to trade stationary sleeping surfaces and having his own bedroom for the pleasure of watching Brendon bounce off the walls and Spencer try to act like he didn't find it adorable.
Spencer texts him about the new Spin piece and Ryan stares at the link for a while, glare from the gross overhead lights making a weird reflection on his phone's screen. He hates this part. He tries to skip this part, whenever possible, or only do it when he can curl up next to Jon on a couch somewhere and let him read the worst parts aloud in a silly voice. Pete told him once to act like he was reading about a character, about a guy in a band named Ryan. It sounded stupid, and it didn't work. It's Pete's voice he hears in his head when he reads his own bastardized quotes, Pete going, "'It was supposed to be a concept album, a love story,' said Ross."
"Mr. Ross?"
The girl is leaning over the counter. He isn't going to correct her.
"Almost, sorry," she says. "We're so behind today!"
Ryan crosses his legs and sighs and clicks over to read the article. This is the worst part, the part where no matter how carefully he chose his words at the time he has to watch what's been done with them. He skims, sick to his stomach. He doesn't sound too stupid. Spencer sounds smart, like always, and annoyed, like always. Everyone has an opinion on when the album's going to be done and what it should sound like. Pete sounds --
Pete. Pete said --
"I can't imagine anyone hearing those songs, those lyrics, and fucking forgetting them," Wentz says. "They might hate them or call them stupid schoolyard names, or they might fall in love with them and sing along to every word. But they're not going to forget them."
He's still staring at the quote when his phone rings. Jon is laughing too hard to speak and after a while Ryan stares up at the wall-mounted TV and quits trying to follow the closed captioning on some show that turns out to be in Spanish. Finally Jon says, "I just heard the most fucked-up thing."
"The article wasn't that bad," Ryan says.
"What? I don't know what you're talking about. What I'm talking about is how I just ran into Bill, who said that Travis said Patrick said Pete is having some, like, masked ball at his house next month? What the fuck?"
Ryan's invitation to Pete's un-Halloween is sitting neatly on his kitchen counter. It's not Pete's handwriting on the envelope, and he hasn't decided yet if he's going, even though it's more than likely just a regular Pete party dressed in sheep's clothing. He wasn't even sure if anyone else from the band is invited.
There's a familiar, sharp bark and then the girl is chirping, "Here's your little Hobo!"
On the phone, Jon is still laughing. "Dude," he says. "Pete is dressing up like you."
*
It's not that Ryan never thinks about Pete when he's getting off. He does. He thinks about a lot of things: Brendon standing on his tip-toes and Spencer's forearms flexing and the soft line of Jon's jaw as he laughs. He thinks about the first girl whose tiny breasts he ever touched and the first boy whose bare back across a locker room made him blush and turn away. He thinks about Keltie's hair in the sunlight and Pete's nose peeking out from under a hat pulled far down over his face. It's hard to tell what's going to work, really, and there's no shame in trying.
The rest of the fantasy he'd never share, not with anyone, not even Spencer. The only person he thinks might understand is Pete, and Ryan obviously isn't going to tell him.
It's the morning after and Pete makes a not-quite-cryptic post about their night together, with mussed-hair pictures of their cheeks so close together on one shared pillow. Like what he gave to Ryan by accident, sleepover princes and pancakes, but more than just one page torn out of an epic fairytale.
For Ryan, that's just the beginning. Then there are the endless sequels once they've both gone back to the real world. The besotted haiku; the wish-you-were-still here outtakes from the cameraphone; the tragic, easily translated love letters that paint his name across Pete's chest as plainly as any ink.
He's reading Picture of Dorian Gray again but all he can hear is Jude Law in the movie, whispering in the old man's ear: "I want everyone to say, there goes Wilde and his boy."
*
"Are you sure this is one of my required best friend duties?" Spencer looks even more skeptical than he sounds.
"It's a stupid game," Ryan says. "We've been playing a stupid, silly game for all these years."
"Yeah, I think it's called foreplay."
"Shut up, it's --" Ryan swallows down a giggle. Just because it's true and he's almost stoned enough to admit it doesn't mean he has to give Spencer the satisfaction. "Just shut up and help me with my costume."
"I'm sure this is a desperately uncool point to make in the face of such a brilliant plan, but does anyone we're talking about here remember he has a girlfriend?"
Ryan smoothes out a t-shirt on the bed, hands passing over the tiniest of wrinkles. "Keltie and I don't believe that love is expressed through the possession of other people," he says.
After a while it becomes clear that Spencer is not, unfortunately, going to swallow his own tongue. He rolls around on Ryan's carpet like seizures are going out of style.
"Whatever," Ryan says, talking loud over the continued braying, "Ashlee says just because Pete likes to play dress-up more than she does doesn't mean she has to rearrange her schedule every time."
Spencer sits up, wiping his eyes. "I get it. True love means never telling your boyfriend he can't be at his boyfriend's beck and call. True love is so hard."
"Shut the fuck up," Ryan says. "I mean it this time."
Spencer reaches a hand up and Ryan rolls his eyes but helps him to his feet. Spencer squeezes Ryan's arm, hard enough that it hurts, and he's not laughing any more. "Really, this time? For real?"
Ryan smiles, feels his lips stretch wide across his teeth. "I'm sure."
The hold on his arm loosens and Spencer steps back. "At least you have plenty of options," Spencer says, and starts pawing through the clothes on the bed. He holds up one battered, stained pair of jeans and wrinkles his nose. "Uh, no." Then he squints at Ryan, his head tipping to one side. "We're definitely going to have to do something about the hair."
*
The phone won't fit in the pocket of his jeans no matter how Pete readjusts himself.
One last look in the mirror -- long hair flopped over his eyes, heavy studded belt hanging around his hips, soft red shirt he dug out of a battered merch box in his parents' basement riding up on his belly. Nothing to do about his black hair or brown skin or tattoos and for all these months of work now it seems like a half-assed joke he could have thrown together because the costume shop forgot his actual order.
He straps hard leather bands on each wrist and touches a finger to his cool, clean cheek. At least he took a shower, scrubbed hard at each reservoir of grime until his skin was shiny, translucent and young, trying all the time not to think about Ryan having once done the same, getting ready to come to a show, washing up and dolling up and swallowing down eager hopes about meeting the band. It's the last picture known to man he remembers Ryan actually, at one point, being proud of, so it's got to be the right one.
He doesn't manage to shake the image but it makes it easier to bite his lip and cock his chin, to stare wide-eyed at himself as he reaches across the sink for the phone. Just one for the record books.
*
Ryan gets dressed alone in his hotel room. Everyone else had eventually been invited and sent their regrets. Jon is still in Chicago. Haley is with Spencer's family on his annual summer camping trip, a tradition Ryan is all too happy to hand over. Brendon is stuck at the reception for some temple thing he's not allowed to actually attend but is apparently obligated to celebrate after the fact.
So Ryan drove on his own, turning down Pete's offer to stay at the house, and spent a cloudy day lying by the pool, staring down at Los Angeles like it might wave back at him. When he's all put together, hair and make-up and clothes in place and he either looks ridiculous or amazing and no one's around to tell him which, Ryan heads to the house.
He has to show his invitation to get in the door, held at arm's length by some burly bouncer he's never even seen before. It's disconcerting, almost enough for him to turn away, to have to ask for permission to be let into a place Pete's all but handed him keys to. The man looks at his list and back up at Ryan, smiling grudgingly. "Hard to tell when everybody's all pimped out," he says, and holds the door open.
The hallway is lined with mirrors -- funhouse mirrors, Ryan realizes, that make him look short and squat or long and wavy. There are life-sized cardboard cut-outs of half the people Pete's ever been on stage with, almost real enough to look like ghosts hovering over his shoulders. Ryan makes his way to the main room, eyes straight ahead.
Pete is holding court at the DJ booth he's set up on the balcony, laughing and ducking his head to shout into some girl's ear. His cheekbones cast long shadows across his clean-shaven face, and the collar of his old Fall Out Boy Is For Lovers t-shirt covers his tattooed collarbone. The song ends and Pete hands over control to Dan, waving off a few disappointed shouts and glad-handing a path through his friends. With every step he takes his shoulders come down a notch, his hair clings more closely to his face and his confidence just seems to bleed out into the atmosphere.
The air is almost cold around Pete as comes nearer, the party chilling in some subtle, unexpressed manner as his mood so obviously spirals. Ryan feels the fact of what they're about to do settle in his spine, tingling down the backs of his knees, and he positions himself so that Pete's trajectory will lead him right to Ryan, right into this thing they could keep dodging around forever.
Pete's chin comes up and Ryan takes a step forward.
*
"Holy shit," Pete says, and the sound of the party comes crashing back into his head, the mute button released, the cave in his mind he'd been retreating to blown to smithereens. Ten minutes ago he was convinced Ryan wouldn't even show, was heading up to find his phone and send a pathetic text message asking if he was maybe coming late, and now here he is. Now look at him.
Ryan is wearing the new Clan jeans and one of the old white belts and a burnt orange shirt that maybe looks familiar and a skinny charcoal hoodie with a black fur collar that definitely looks familiar, because it's definitely Pete's. It went missing off his bus and Pete wrote it off to his own usual shitty packing or some deranged fan but there it is, zipped snug around Ryan's chest, hood pulled up and brushing his face like it's been holding him forever.
"Hi," Ryan says, not quietly, not shy at all. "I'm Pete."
Pete stares at him, holy shit holy shit holy shit.
Ryan is him, is dressed like Pete, and that means someone in Pete's band is a lying rat-faced motherfucker who can't keep a secret for shit, but Pete really, really doesn't care right now. Pete will buy that rat-face a fucking Ferrari tomorrow but right now, Jesus Christ, right now he wants to drag his thumbs through Ryan's eyeliner, wants to destroy the carefully, artfully smudged lines along the lids.
He doesn't. He just stares.
Ryan simply waits, way less twitchy and nervous than Pete would be or feels right now but, man, who gives a fuck. This is the best fucking present he's ever been given and even he is not too much of an idiot or an asshole to mistake it for anything else.
Pete lets his hair fall across his face, hiding his giddy grin, and talks softly down at his feet. "I know who you are."
"Good," Ryan says, and grabs him by the hand. "Come on."
Ryan leads him upstairs, smiling boldly at everyone they pass, nodding and saying hi like Pete's friends are his friends. And they are, Ryan knows them, should know that what's Pete's is his anyway. Ryan's just usually more of a not speaking until spoken to kind of guy, and Pete's scrambling for how he should be reacting in kind, or maybe in opposite.
The hood falls down across the nape of Ryan's neck and Pete stops breathing for a second, then pushes up closer against Ryan's back to be sure. Ryan's hair is dark and stiff, flat-ironed and waxed into place.
He dyed his hair.
Pete adjusts his belt and tries not to lick the back of Ryan's neck. His arms tremble at the restraint, fine little shakes as Ryan continues pulling him down the hall, dragging Pete along like an unmoored anchor.
Ryan won't take a simple snapshot of himself but he'll do this in front of a party full of loudmouths, friends who know just enough to think they know what's going on. They part for Ryan's shameless parade and Pete feels a sick, greedy thrill at it, at the display they make, Ryan-as-Pete and Pete-as-Ryan disappearing so obviously into Pete's bedroom, Ryan closing the door behind them with a sure, soft snick.
It's exactly the kind of thing Pete would do, if he were at all capable of thinking like himself right now. It's exactly what he'd hoped this whole party would do for Ryan, even if he never quite imagined it like this.
Ryan turns them until Pete's back is against the wall and stares down, because he can dye his hair and steal Pete's clothes but there's no way he can be short, especially not when he thinks being Pete seems to require standing up straighter, shoulders squared like he's expecting a fight.
He smirks down at Pete like he's done this a hundred times, like Pete has, seen something he wanted and just gone after it. "Did you enjoy the show?" he asks, and Pete swallows and nods. Ryan leans in, his lips barely brushing Pete's ear. "You looked like you were really into it."
Pete makes a noise, not really a word, not quite a moan, some mutant offspring of the two, and Ryan pulls back. Is that how Pete looks, defensive and I-dare-you and defiant all at the same time?
"You were at the last one, too. I remember."
Pete's got a lousy memory for most things and almost all people, but that much wasn't a come on. Ryan hadn't believed him then, either, so Pete stares him in the eye like he's calling bullshit and says, "I'm Ryan."
"I remember, Ryan from the Summer League." Ryan's lip twitches. "Want me to go find Patrick so we can talk about writing songs again?"
"No." Pete presses his palms flat against the door. They slide a little, sweaty and nervous. He barely even knows what game they're playing, and he has even less idea why he thought he'd come out on top. Ryan has been a step ahead of him since the first time they ever talked.
"Well," Ryan says, and his voice is impatient, edgy like Pete on a day when all the trains in his head are running a little too fast, screeching along the tracks like they might come off the rails. "Do you want --"
Pete lets his legs buckle how they've been threatening all night. Ryan stops talking. He undoes Ryan's belt and opens his jeans, yanking at the zipper he tugged up and down on a thousand samples but never so desperately as now. "I want --" He looks up to be sure and lets the question come through in his voice. He needs to be sure. "I -- I want to do this."
Ryan exhales, breathes back in big and greedy, and nods. "Yes," he says. "You did." He runs one finger along Pete's jaw, slipping it inside as Pete's mouth falls open. "You would have done anything I asked."
Pete pulls his head back, licking the web of Ryan's hand and pressing his forehead to Ryan's hip. "So ask," he says, voice ragged like he's already worn himself out begging for more. Ryan could definitely say something like that and never look away. But he's not Ryan. He didn't know what to do with him then and he barely knows what to do with him now except wait, kneel and ask to be told what happens next.
Ryan's fingers dig into Pete's shoulders, hauling him up, nails scraping his skin through the thin red cotton, and he slams Pete's head back into the door as he kisses him. He's fast and hard about it, hungry, and Pete isn't sure if this is how Ryan kisses now or just how he thinks Pete would go about it. It's been a while since he executed a successful sneak attack make-out session with Ryan, and for all his talk, for all their friends being so sure it's already happened, Pete's never actually gotten into Ryan's pants.
He's looked, yeah, and lusted, sure, and taunted and teased and wondered when was going to be the right time so long that whatever they were waiting for seemed to have come and gone and come back and gone again. Even tonight, getting dressed, he hadn't thought it would be any different, had expected another round of anticipation with no real payoff, had planned for the inevitable aching angst almost comforting in its familiarity, had already half-written the obvious, un-funny punchlines he'd blog the next day, the who's that pretty girl in the mirror there riffs, the always a bridesmaid never the bride of Frankenstein jokes.
Instead Ryan is attacking his lips, biting and licking, and Pete kisses back as best as he can, trying to keep up. And then Ryan pushes him back down, his knees falling onto Ryan's toes before slipping the last inch to the carpet. The jeans are still open, shiny silver zipper staring Pete right in the eye, hard flesh behind it, and Pete tries to tell himself it's okay that he's never done this before. Maybe -- hopefully, Christ -- Ryan didn't know either, not back then, wouldn't have known what to do or else he would've just done it, would have done what he wanted instead of simply staring wide-eyed at Pete and waiting for Pete to ask for something he didn't think he deserved. God, how in the world did he ever get so fucking lucky as to have this.
Ryan says, "Well?" impatient but fond, and then his knuckles are hitting Pete's nose as he pulls himself out, guides his dick between Pete's lips. Pete feels his mouth water around Ryan's cock and a kick of guttural lust makes him moan. He pulls back enough to get his hand around the base, letting himself drool a bit over the head before he takes it back in. It's not like going down on a chick at all, not in the way it counts, in how it burns at the base of his own back, how he can suddenly feel his jeans where they rub against his ass. It's fucking terrifying, deep down there where it counts, but Ryan gasps, high and shocked, almost every single time Pete does anything at all.
That's not how Pete sounds during sex in the slightest, not that Ryan would know. Pete's a low, stuttering, swearing groaner, which isn't something he's proud of so much as got used to a long time ago, like the curve of his dick or the taste of his come or the stupid fucking faces he makes anytime a flash goes off. He'd be cursing now if he wasn't busy trying to keep a rhythm of sucking and tugging, and if his coordination was that good he'd have become a fucking world-class drummer instead of a shitty bassist.
But Ryan's whining a little now, in between the gasps, and he thrusts forward once so hard the back of Pete's head hits the door, which is this whole other shocking reminder that Pete's on his knees, pressed against a wall in his own bedroom, letting a dude fuck his face. That should make it less hot, maybe, but it doesn't, it just makes him more desperate to make Ryan come so he can get off himself, or let Ryan get him off, and he can't think about that and concentrate on where his teeth are at the same time so he tries not to think of anything, to make his mind blank. Of course that means all he can think of is the obvious, cock cock cock suck cock, and he'd laugh at the absurdity of it but then Ryan is sucking in deep gulps of air like he might die and scrambling to push Pete's forehead away and coming all over the front of Pete's shirt. Ryan's shirt. Pete's Ryan shirt.
Ryan takes a step back, ribs heaving as he tries to calm himself down, reel himself in. Pete can see it happening right there in front of him as Ryan tucks himself away, the breathing steadied, control reconfigured, the costume so carefully reassmbled. No no no no no no. They did not get this far for it to end like that.
Pete stands up straight, shaking out his legs, and strips off his messy shirt, catching Ryan around the waist and hauling him in for a dirty kiss. "I always wanted to know if we taste the same," he says, licking at Ryan's lower lip as his mouth falls open on a weak, shaky sigh.
Pete leans away a little, shaking his hair out of his eyes, and runs his hands up Ryan's sides and down his chest, pulling open his hoodie as he goes. Ryan chuckles, low and sort of shocked. "You look," Ryan says, and Pete has to kiss him again, stripping the layers off until Ryan's chest is bare.
"Show me," he says.
*
He pushes Pete -- Ryan, he has to do this right, keep them straight in his head, or he won't be able to do this at all -- he pushes Ryan into the bathroom and only lets go to turn on the light.
There they are in the mirror, the two of them, so much smooth skin, bare stomach to back, arms and belts and hair colliding.
They look --
"We look so fucking beautiful," says Pete -- says Ryan as he tilts his head back, arching his neck until there's no choice, really, no other thing to do but to lick it, to bite it, to gnaw on his chin and slide hands down his chest, ignoring the tattoos, ignoring all the differences. It's easier to keep going, to undo his belt, shove his jeans down over his hips, to linger over the surprisingly gentle cut of his hips and down around his cock.
They keep their eyes open.
It doesn't look like his dick, but they knew that already, years of running naked through buses and dressing rooms before the pictures were everywhere, were sent to his sidekick by dozens of people just to make sure he knew what they thought he was getting himself into.
He stands there so long, just looking, that another hand wraps around his, squirms its way under.
They hold the cock, pull it, and that should look familiar, should seem like something they've all seen a million times, too. But it doesn't. It's different, something about the clean, smooth skin, the warm yellow light of the bathroom, the way he's leaning back into Ryan's chest as he jerks himself off. Into Pete's chest, but, no, he can't, he can't, he doesn't want to keep breaking them in two like that, doesn't want them to be one or the other, his and his, Pete and Ryan, he just wants --
Pete falls forward suddenly, catching himself with a palm braced on the mirror, and doesn't stop moving their hands on his dick. Ryan is trying to catch his breath, trying to keep up, trying to remember his own fucking name and not just do what his body wants.
He opens his pants, struggling with the wrong hand to pull himself out. When he thrusts against Pete's back, Pete moans dark and low. "F-fuck," he stutters, and groans, bending his face into his arm for a second, but that's not fair, they have to look, they both have to look. Ryan uses his free hand to push Pete's face back up and Pete's mouth falls open, snarling to the side like he's posing for a picture but catching Ryan's fingers instead, biting them closer, sucking on them as they both stare, mouths open, hands moving, eyes wide.
And then Pete spits them out. "Did you ever take a picture like this?" he gasps.
Any way he answers that, for either of them, it's yes. Instead he slides wet fingers down the ridge of Pete's tail bone and says, "Is it how you always imagined?"
Pete grunts and shove his ass back, shoulders shaking as he puts all his weight on the mirror, and Ryan's hand slides down. "Yesss," Pete sighs, and then his head snaps up. "No, no, it's not, I had no idea, I --"
Ryan stops both his hands and digs his nails into the soft flesh of Pete's ass. "You did," he says, and his voice is lower and steadier than he'd expected. "You thought about it a lot. You just didn't know how to make it happen."
"Oh fuck," Pete swears, like it's kicked out of him. He shakes his hair out of his eyes, one long piece sliding across Ryan's face, and their reflections stare back them, flushed and sweaty. They're not going to stop this now. They don't want to. For once they want to finish what they've started.
Ryan licks his fingers himself this time, wrapping his other hand back around Pete's cock as he pushes in, just the tip of one finger, just far enough to tease. He wants to see if maybe, if he might be able to make him --
"Fuck, please, Ryan, please --"
Pete pleads and cajoles and whines and nags all day every day, but he doesn't beg like can't help it, like Ryan is making him, like Ryan can make him do whatever he wants, and Pete wants him to.
"Not Ryan," he whispers, "Pete," lips against Pete's ear, and Pete nods eagerly, moving their hands faster, and says it back, moans his own name until Ryan pushes in all the way, pulls out and adds another finger.
"Pete, please, fuck," he says. Ryan's hand shakes, he's fucking him so hard now, faster and deeper and his own dick is skidding up and down Pete's hip, almost enough, almost. "You can, fuck, anything you want," he says, and Ryan swallows down a pocket of hysteria because he can, they really can, he can have anything he wants from Pete. He can have this, fuck him against his bathroom sink, make him keep begging up until the moment they let him come.
It's okay that Pete could have him like that, too, strung out on sex and desperate and completely fucking vulnerable, he could have Ryan like that with one real question, one direct request, no fucking around, no joking. The only way either of them have managed to say no for years is to just walk away, to make it a joke, drawing boundaries around body parts like child's play. Do not color outside the lines. Do not go beyond this belt. Do not fuck up a good thing.
If he simply asked, Ryan would, and once he was like this, like Pete is now, so fucking needy, if Pete wanted to take pictures, if he wanted to put the whole fucking thing on buzznet, Ryan would let him.
"Please, fuck," Pete groans. "I'm so fucking close, please, do you, will you just, just fucking fuck me, please." Pete holds his head up as high as he can, and in the mirror he's already a mess, hair everywhere, chest heaving. He swallows hard and looks at Ryan and says, very clearly, "Pete, please, I want you to fuck me now."
Ryan fits himself against Pete's back. Their hands are still loosely wrapped around Pete's cock, but they're both watching each other's faces. "Where," Ryan says. "Where's your camera."
Pete's dick actually fucking jumps and he laughs, looking a little ashamed for the first time all night. "It's not," he says, "usually quite that well-trained."
"I get to hold it," Ryan clarifies.
"You -- hold anything you want, you can -- anything, really." Pete tilts back and brushes a soft kiss to Ryan's jaw. If he's going to be like that, be that nice, Ryan has to look down, away, try to pull his shit together, do this right. He stares at the lotion on the counter, convenient, good, and right next to it is Pete's phone. He reaches forward to grab both.
"Make this work," Ryan says, and Pete takes the phone, scrolling through pages until the screen is picking up a camera feed. He brings it up like he's going to take a shot and Ryan grabs his wrist. "I get to," he reminds Pete, and thrusts the lotion towards him instead.
He takes the phone and lets go of Pete's cock so he can shove his jeans all the way down to his ankles. Pete's greasing up his hand, pushing his fingers into his ass without any hesitation, leaning his hips on the counter as he works himself open.
Ryan takes a picture. Pete's hips jerk at the shutter sound effect. The pixels arrange themselves in neat lines, red green blue white black, Pete bent over and begging. Ryan raises his eyes from the screen and watches Pete fingering himself, licking his lips as he pants out, "You know how to save?"
Ryan thumbs the buttons, hovering over his choices. This one they'll keep. "That's a good look on you," he says, slicking his cock. Pete's hand falls uselessly by his hip, and he tilts his forehead against the mirror, eyes doubled as he watches Ryan line up and push in.
"Picture," Pete moans when Ryan's hips are snug against his ass, and Ryan holds his arm out and aims in their general direction, clicking to take the photo. He thrusts in hard and clicks again to delete. In, out, click, delete, in, out, in, out, click, delete.
In. Out. Click. Delete.
He needs two hands to do this right and on the next push lets the phone slide out of his grasp and clatter into the dry sink.
Ryan buries his nose against Pete's temple and presses lips to his ear. "I always wanted this," he whispers, and Pete clenches and groans and comes fast and hard, all over the mirror, all across the counter. His palms skid through the slick mess as Ryan keeps fucking him, their slippery reflections shaking and shimmering like a mirage as Ryan gasps and gives in, lets go.
He wraps an arm around Pete's chest as they catch their breath, blinking back and forth like they'll somehow find the words to say what they've just done. Pete looks down at the phone, a smirk on the corner of his mouth, and Ryan digs his nails into Pete's ribs, turning him around until they're pressed together, chest to knee.
"You want to see?" Ryan asks.
Pete kisses his neck and sighs, "Yeah." He drags his mouth across Ryan's collarbone, lashes fluttering against skin. "Look at us," Pete says, and Ryan rests his cheek against Pete's hair, closing his eyes.
END
Credits: jae_w always did like boys who like mirrors. deliberatehips likes these two in particular. rossetti calls this story CAMWHORES IN LOVE, which is as good a summary as any. Here, I've even delicioused all the photo posts and blog entries Ryan and Pete made that helped inspire it.