fic: First Tell Me Which Road You Will Take (PATD, Brendon/Ryan AU)
First Tell Me Which Road You Will Take
maybe this is what it’s like when you fall out of love or the one where Ryan and Brendon chose to make it better. Brendon/Ryan. AU [10,000]
This is for marksykins in a holiday fic exchange.
So this is how they tell the story (though they don't tell it often anymore, there's not as often anyone new to tell it to). They met in college; Brendon was Ryan's childhood best friend's freshman roommate. Ryan was majoring in Creative Writing and hiding out in his friend's room. They didn't see Brendon the entire first half of his freshman year as he was too busy with band rehearsals. They started dating. Ryan decided to get an M.A. and Brendon followed him to Graduate school. They bought the small white house on the corner near the University because they were tired of living next door to Ryan's students and so Brendon could rehearse or study for his Phd in peace. Brendon's still got the card his high school band students made him when he became Dr. Urie and not Mr. Urie anymore.
And that's how they got to where they are now. They take two weeks every summer between Maymester but before Brendon has to start getting the marching band ready for football season to go somewhere. Brendon is used to answering phone calls from panicked freshman during finals week worried if they're gonna be able to pass Ryan's intro class. Ryan's spent way too many Friday nights bundled up at football games or curled up in school bus seats chaperoning horny band nerds on the way to all-state orchestra competitions.
**
Saturday night is the night they watch whatever is on TiVo from the rest of the week and get pizza from a place on the square near a bar they used to go to when they first moved here, before Brendon started teaching. They fucked in the bathroom and smoked up with the shitty bands after the show.
That was forever ago. Now Brendon goes out in his sweats and jacket to pick up pizza, bringing it back to Ryan, who is staring blankly at a stack of essays from his British Lit I class. The stack of "don't even bother wasting my time"s next to Ryan's feet is usually a gauge for how many beers Brendon ought to bring back from the kitchen. The one on top has "I know how to use the internet!" written on it in giant red marker.
Brendon just brings the case back out of the kitchen with him.
**
Somehow, Ryan has had to teach Wednesday night classes every regular semester for the past six years. Brendon doesn't ever schedule band practice later than 4:30 on Wednesdays, because that gets in the way of Church and parents get antsy when that happens. During the winter there's Jazz ensemble, but even then he's got the kids bundled up, out of the building, and on their way by the latest 4:45.
Ms. Salpeter always gives him a hard time about it. She has the show choir dancing and singing themselves stupid every day until she feels like it during show season.
"Have you ever been to a band booster meeting? Those parents are brutal." Brendon doesn't have the stacks of papers other teachers have to grade, instead he has to make sure that the charter buses for the playoff game are paid for and that the sixth graders are going to sign up for beginner band in seventh grade, and he has to call back Stacey McGatha's mother and explain why Stacey didn't get to be first chair flute this year, but yes he'll still write that recommendation for her to state honor band, and would Mrs McGatha mind working the concession stand next Friday, it's Homecoming and he's running short on parents for that.
"You have to be vicious. Also, that's why you have student teachers." Greta props her feet up on his desk; it rocks back and forth a bit, the metal of the desk clanging against the cement bricks of the wall. It's chipped grey beneath the sea green from the years of his desk being a piece of shit.
Brendon comes home and throws in something for dinner as he finishes laundry that Ryan started the night before. He takes the dogs out for a walk. When Ryan comes in, throwing his shit on the couch next to the front door, Brendon is in the back of the house at the piano. Ryan just sits down next to him, watching his fingers fly across the keys.
Ryan still loves watching Brendon play, the way his shoulders tense and relax, his posture still teacher's pet perfect. Brendon finishes with a flourish, looking over to Ryan before leaning his head against Ryan’s shoulder.
"Hey."
"Hey. Long day?" Ryan plays with a loose thread on Brendon's jeans. There's a hole in the knee and Ryan works his fingers under the fabric. They aren't the skin tight pants Brendon wore when they first met. Back then, Brendon was an explosion of post-parental college rebellion. He let Ryan draw eyeliner lines on his face, writhing under him in girl jeans and t-shirts so tight, Ryan could see how the muscles of his stomach moved as he breathed. Now he mocks Ryan's vests and dress shirts while digging through the laundry for a clean pair of jeans or dress slacks. He has a suit he wears for recitals and a tuxedo for orchestra competitions.
He leads Ryan to bed. Ryan throws on some sweats and socks; Brendon complains about Ryan's feet being cold if he doesn't. Brendon still sleeps naked, tossing and turning and Ryan's gotten used to waking up warm smelling of Brendon just from spending the night with him pressed against his chest. Brendon reminds Ryan that the tags on the Accord are going to expire Friday and Ryan said he was going to go to the DMV tomorrow since he only has morning office hours and Brendon has a meeting with his student-teacher during his lunch period and special practice with the drum line after school. Ryan grunts a little, holding his tongue from snapping at him about nagging. Instead he just slides his arms around Brendon's waist, pulling him in closer.
The next day Ryan gets busy grading papers and then the head of the department needs help understanding the new registration system and then asks him to coffee afterward and it's 5:30 by the time he realizes that he fucking forgot to go to the DMV for the new tags. He spends an hour trying to figure out how to make something that will look like the little sticker for the car before he realizes that would be completely stupid and he'll totally just do it tomorrow or something.
**
Brendon starts to leave Friday morning and notices the car tag still has the expired stickers. He looks in the glove compartment and the registration is still this year's. He doesn't have time to go back into the house and ask Ryan if he remembered. Instead he spends all day with it nagging him in the back of his head. When he gets home, Ryan is on the phone and standing in front of the fridge. He's just staring at the contents of the fridge and doing that thing where he bends his leg, propping one foot against his knee and balancing against the fridge door.
Brendon reaches around him and grabs a beer before stomping out back. He feeds the dogs and sprawls out on one of the lawn chairs on the deck. It's still not quite Spring yet, but it's still light enough that he doesn't have to turn the light on to see where he's going and make sure he doesn't step on the loose board. Brendon hears the door bell ring, but he's on his second cigarette. Masie is curled up on his feet barking at squirrels. He's maybe almost asleep when he feels Ryan's toes poking him in the side.
"Hey, hey!" His voice is low, soft.
"Dude, get your creepy alien toes away from me." Brendon rolls over anyway looking up to Ryan carrying paper plates and a giant bag from his favorite Chinese take-out place. Brendon doesn't say anything about the car tag and when Ryan kisses him later, he swallows his annoyance down for the moment.
**
Sunday they have lunch with Jon and Spencer. Krysta is running around the yard chasing their dogs, she keeps begging Jon and Spencer to get one, but Spencer says he's afraid for her to get attached to something else in case she doesn't get to stay with them.
"We're going to the lawyer's again this week." Spencer crosses his legs and smiles, watching Brendon rolling around in the yard, letting the six year old pin him to the ground before flipping her over and making her squeal so loudly that Hobo gets grumpy and wanders away, settling at Ryan's feet. She's too old to deal with Brendon, a kid, and a puppy at the same time.
Jon opens another beer and sighs, "Her caseworker says she thinks it will go through." Ryan nods, watching as Brendon throws Krysta, all dirty blond curls and kicking feet, over his shoulder and comes up to the deck.
"I'm hungry, who wants nice fresh burnt hot dogs?" Krysta is pounding against his back, yelling,
"Me! Krysta! Krysta! Put me down, Uncle Brendon."
When Jon and Spencer first took Krysta in, she didn't talk much at all. She was barely three and pointed to get things and screamed and hit to get attention. Ryan's watched them spend the past three years with lawyers and social workers and counselors. They've taken parenting classes and opened up their home to a revolving door of case workers. Jon quit his job at the paper so he could stay home with her when she was booted out of daycare for being "too aggressive."
Krysta and Brendon make hot dogs on the grill for everyone and then she begs him to let her play on the piano.
"Only if you go wash your hands really good, okay?" She nods and runs into the house. Jon has to call her back to get her to shut the screen door without slamming it. She comes back a few minutes later, her hands held up in the air for Brendon's inspection. Brendon nods and then picks her up, taking her into the den with the piano where he spends the next hour playing "Chopsticks" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb" with her. Jon follows them in soon afterward with his camera. Ryan knows there will be a link to their Flickr in a few days in his inbox demanding he go look at the pictures.
Ryan talks about his students and getting ready for finals. Spencer tells him about a waiter he had to fire and a meeting he's worried about with a contractor for an addition to the restaurant.
"I feel shitty because Jon has talk to Krysta's teachers by himself this time, but..." he shrugs and takes a final pull from his beer. Ryan nods. Inside there's a clamoring of feet as Brendon and Krysta chase one another through the house. "She always sleeps like the dead when we leave here." Spencer smiles, big and open. "Like, passes out in the car."
"She's a cool kid." Ryan nods and it makes something in his stomach flutter at the way Spencer's face softens at that. "You're such a fucking sap."
"Fuck you." Spencer laughs and there's a loud banging of the screen door as Krysta runs out nearly tripping over her own feet. Masie is hot on her feet, yelping and nipping at her heels. They sit, watching them roll around on the ground for a minute before Spencer laughs low, "Never thought it would be like this you know?"
Ryan shrugs at him, the words rolling around in his mind.
"Just, kids and Jon sending me texts about dry cleaning and fucking parent-teacher conferences. You and Brendon. I mean..." Spencer waves his hands at the house. "Brendon's a teacher for fuck's sake and you guys are all..." Spencer waves his hands again, "nothing's how we thought it would be, right?"
Ryan shrugs again, feeling his heart beat a little faster, completely opposite the big grin that's on Spencer's face.
**
Jon and Spencer leave carrying Krysta. She's passed out and dirty from where she and Ryan found Popsicles in the fridge. Ryan watches them from the porch as they pull away from the curb. He stands there smoking a cigarette. It's almost completely dark when he finally goes back inside.
Brendon is collapsed on the couch, typing something on his laptop while an episode of Law & Order plays low on the television. Brendon doesn't look up to speak to him when Ryan settles down in the arm chair next to the couch, putting his feet up on the big matching tan ottoman.
"Evaluation for my student teacher. I totally fucking blanked on it until I checked my email and saw the reminder about it. He's totally going to expect it in the morning."
"You always last minute those things anyway." Ryan shrugs. Masie jumps up on his lap, sniffling at his neck before finally settling with her legs on Ryan's lap. She keeps going back and forth between them until Brendon finally gives her a look and tries to protect his laptop from her. Brendon doesn't look up, just cracks his knuckles as he stretches his arms up above his head. The dog grumbles about being moved.
"I just want to do this kid right, you know?" Brendon takes his glasses off, rubbing the bridge of his nose a little. "I don't know why the fuck he's doing music ed; he could be doing... anything else."
"You did music ed." Ryan's flipping through the dvr tv guide. He's not sure that he's looking for anything in particular, though he doesn't want to let Brendon look. It drives him crazy when he flips from channel to channel; Ryan will ask him if he's looking for anything and Brendon will just shrug and say, "It's the surfing part of the channel surfing" and keep flipping until he ends up exactly where he started at or gets tired and turns the tv off to play a video game.
"What? Oh, well. That's..." Brendon waves his hand, still staring at his computer screen in concentration.
"It's what?"
Brendon looks up finally and he takes his lip in for a minute thinking. "It just is." he says finally, there's a line that tenses in his shoulders. "This guy should be in a band in making music videos or some shit. Not trying to herd horny musical cats."
Ryan used to love to sit and watch Brendon practice. He would bring his homework and sit on the floor, his jacket spread out beneath him while Brendon spent hours preparing for piano recitals or working on material for composition classes. Ryan used to wish he could draw or was able to take the sort of photographs Jon does so he could capture everything about those moments that made something in Ryan's skin buzz just a little, that let him sit there and easily fall asleep in the middle of the room, his head on his book. Instead, he wrote pieces of poetry in the margins of his books about music and savage beasts, muscles that concentrate and bend everything and everyone. All of them scared Ryan later with how awkward and bare they were. Nothing about them hid what they meant.
Ryan would drive them home afterward and he never could get the door shut behind them before he would start kissing Brendon, feeling the way Brendon would give over to him, would take Ryan the same way. Brendon always giggled in his kisses back then, smiling up at Ryan, still a little amused and awed by everything about the two of them.
They would fuck and then Brendon would sprawl across the bed, rubbing one of his hands absently against the sheets.
"Bed nice." He'd murmur, lips pressing against Ryan's shoulder. Even exhausted and fucked out, Brendon's hands still kept a steady pace of tapping out rhythms against Ryan's skin, tracing lines up and down the sheets and Ryan's thigh. Ryan loved how eager Brendon had been for everything, but especially for him. He wanted anything and everything right then and now and seemed to act like Ryan could give it all to him.
Ryan goes to bed first that night, tucking himself deep beneath the blankets even though he knows that when Brendon does finally collapse into bed, he'll pull them all away, kicking them into the floor and Ryan will wake up freezing in the middle of the night and have to pull back on the bed and away from Hobo.
Brendon curls up next to him sometime after Ryan drifts off to sleep, he feels the slight dip of the bed, hears Brendon whispering good night to the dogs. He falls back to sleep with the warmth of Brendon’s back comfortably against his.
**
Monday, Ryan gets a text just after his first class from Brendon.
left blue binder on table. need after school. could you bring it 2 me?!
Ryan just nods and sends back a "y." He stops by the house to get a big blue binder that Brendon's been carrying around that has all the stuff in it for the band's trip to Disney World in a few weeks. There are sheets detailing bus and room assignments and order forms for boots and flags with little doodles in the margins along with phone numbers and dollar signs.
The band room door itself is open, but it's dark, something up on the screen. Brendon is sitting in the dark next to a guy, boy with curly black hair. They're watching a reel of the kids practicing with the sound turned off. Brendon is pointing a light pointer at the screen, quickly circling some of the trumpets in the back of the formation that are out of step. The kid takes Brendon's hand circling his fingers around his wrist and moving the pointer across the screen to where two flags are moving out of sync with the rest of the line.
Ryan coughs, stepping farther enough into the room that he's fully out of the shadows created from the hallway light.
"Oh hey!" Brendon grins, pulling away from the kid next to him. He jumps over some of the chairs between them and gives Ryan a hug before taking the binder from him. "Thanks! I promised to order the boots for the danceline by today so we can get them next week, and that's with the charge for a rush order." Brendon turns quickly on his heels and runs to his office, slamming the door behind him. Ryan can see him digging through the papers on his desk to get to his phone through the plastic windows.
The video is paused and the kid is playing with the pen light, drawing little figure eights and smiling faces on the screen. They stand for another minute awkwardly and Ryan almost turns and just goes back to his car. He can stop at the Starbucks just off the interstate and he needs to hit Target for some dog food. Instead he stands in the darkness a little longer watching Brendon through the window with the phone cradled on his shoulder.
"Hey, I'm Ian. You must be Ryan." The kid is standing, walking toward Ryan and extending his hand.
"What? Yeah, I'm Ryan." Ryan shakes his hand back, a little startled.
"I'm learning a lot from Brendon."
"Huh?" Ryan doesn't understand why he's suddenly grown hard of hearing.
"I said I'm learning a lot from Brendon."
"Oh, yeah, he's a great teacher. What do you play?" Ryan rubs his hand behind his ear, tucking wisps of hair that haven't been there for years.
"Ugh, I guess my thing would be guitar and some piano, but a little of some different things."
"Right."
They fall into awkwardness again, Ian dances the pen light across the cement brick walls.
They both flinch when Brendon comes out of his office, flicking the lights on. In the light, Ryan can see the light stubble across Ian's face and the hint of a tattoo peeking out around the collar of his shirt; he looks a little older in detail.
"Ryan, this is Ian, my student teacher this semester. Ian, this is Ryan." Brendon bounces on his heels, setting the binder down on the metal podium, already piled high with papers and confiscated items from the day.
"I'm just gonna..." Ryan thumbs toward the door and Brendon nods.
"Yeah, I better get out there. If you leave the majorettes alone for too long they start to get ideas." Brendon laughs a little bit as he walks behind Ryan outside, his hand barely brushes against his elbow as he opens the creaking metal door.
**
Tuesday, Ryan stays late marking through rough drafts of freshman papers and grading his American Lit II's drama essays. It's a stack full of desperation; most of them seem to be Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with a few Death of a Salesman essays thrown in. Those are the ones that are easiest to find movies of. Normally he'd take these home with him. He'd sit in front of the tv or let Brendon throw something onto the stereo and they'd eat dinner. Instead of just packing everything in his bag and going home, he just stays. He tells himself it will be easier to get though them this way. That he's suddenly that worried about getting behind just before the end of the semester.
Brendon's not home when he gets back. There's a text on his phone, "stopped by jons" from several hours before. Ryan finds some left over take out and watches The Hills by himself. He falls asleep and when he wakes up, Brendon is already in bed.
**
Wednesday, Ryan comes home, and Brendon's in the back of the house playing saxophone. He picked it up seriously last year after saying he wanted to "expand more into the woodwinds."
"Did you feed the dogs?" Ryan sticks his head into the room; it takes Brendon a few moments to realize Ryan is there talking to him.
"Huh?" he looks down at his watch, "Shit, no I..."
"Oh, I'll get it." Ryan turns down the hallway, he can hear Brendon setting things down as carefully as he can and still catch up with him.
"No, I forgot, I'll get it. It's cool." Brendon is behind him, crowding him in the hallway.
Brendon stomps into the laundry room, Ryan can hear him climbing on top of the dryer to get to the dog food and then fussing at Masie to just give him a second.
When he comes back in, he throws himself down at the kitchen table, he’s going through a stack of envelopes from the mailbox, tossing junk mail into a pile and other stuff going into the little box he keeps for that stuff on the fridge.
Ryan looks at the calendar.
"The art department is doing it's spring show tomorrow night. I told Gerard and Lin-" Ryan starts and Brendon lets out a big sigh.
"Ugh, I hate those things. And we've got rehearsal tomorrow."
"What, do you want those kids to be playing in their sleep?"
"Yes, and the concert is Sunday and we go to Orlando in less than two weeks. Fuck, in a week ."
"Right. Oh, didn't we tell Jon and Spencer we'd go to Krysta's graduation thing Friday?"
"She's in Kindergarten, what is there to graduate from?" Ryan pours some Fruit Loops into a bowl and pushes himself up on the counter.
"She's a daisy in the play. Jon's spent the past week trying to get the costume just right."
"Right. So tomorrow night."
"I'll try. If we get out of rehearsal on time. I'll have to come by here and change-"
"Whatever you wore to school will be fine." Ryan's sharper than he means to be. Brendon sighs.
"Fine."
Brendon tosses the junk mail into the garbage can under the sink and returns to the back of the house.
**
Brendon throws a jacket from the backseat on over his shirt, hoping that will cover up the sweat and ketchup stains from lunch. He hates it when it's his week to supervise the music kids in the cafeteria.
It's later than Ryan wanted him there. Maybe he stayed a little later than he had to; he just kept finding reasons to put off leaving. There was a freshman flute player whose mom was late coming to pick her up, he wanted to get some paperwork out of the way and up to the main office before the morning. He maybe straightened the rows before leaving. His white board really needed to be cleaned with those new Clorox wipes Greta bought.
The jacket has been sitting in the back seat of the car too long and smells a little of stale coffee and fast food. He hopes the art department crowd holds to its usual standards of personal hygiene and no one will notice.
Brendon grabs a cup of punch and the last handful of sugar cookies left on the refreshment table. It's easy enough to find Ryan in the crowd, he's by the wall talking to someone intently pointing out something in a photograph in front of him.
He gets another glass of punch for him before heading across the room, making his way between nervous students and put-upon professors. Ryan glares at him when he sees him coming.
"Everything okay?" Ryan smiles and slides away from the student.
"Yeah, yeah. Told you things might run over." Brendon shoves the glass of punch in his hand.
"It's almost 7:30." Ryan keeps his voice low, almost a hiss in Brendon's ear. There's a slight curl at the end of Ryan's usual monotone.
"I can tell the fucking time." Brendon snaps, and smiles when someone waves at them from across the room.
They spend the next half-hour tensely holding back annoyance. Brendon hates these things on principle. He listens to Ryan talk to people about things that bore him to death. He used to find it charming to listen to Ryan drone pretentiously. Now he finds himself restraining sarcastic laughs and having to stare at his shoes to keep from rolling his eyes.
He doesn't go straight home when they leave. He drives around town and ends up at Jon and Spencer's. It's after eight and he knocks on the door quietly just in case Krysta is already asleep. Spencer answers, he's shirtless, and his sweatpants are soaking wet.
"Bath time?" Brendon walks in, following him down the hall where he can hear Jon trying to explain to Krysta that her bunny pjs are dirty, and maybe she should choose another pair from the closet.
"Just got done."
Krysta is huffing, pulling on a pair of blue and yellow striped pjs, her hair is pulled back in an old white and brown towel. She smiles when she sees him, running past Spencer and clinging to Brendon's leg before she looks around him toward the door.
"Where's Uncle Ryan?"
"He's at home with Hobo and Masie."
"Oh, okay. Tell him I said hi." She goes back down the hallway yawning, stretching her arms above her. Spencer follows her.
"They're about to start the argument about how long she's going to stay up watching a video before she goes to sleep." Jon lowers his voice, "It doesn't really matter because she always falls asleep 30 minutes in anyway."
He grins and leads Brendon back down the hallway, passing through the kitchen and grabbing a glass of water and tossing Brendon a beer before they wind back through to the living room. There's a giant daisy costume taking up most of the couch.
"Ryan's being a fucktard."
Jon crooks an eyebrow.
"Whatever."
They sit in silence for a while until Spencer comes back down the hallway in a fresh pair of sweats and a t-shirt.
"She's nervous about tomorrow." He sits down on in the big arm chair across the room. "Told me that if she messes up, it's the fault of the boy standing next to her because he smells gross."
"Just be glad she hasn't started coming home telling you how the boy next to her is so fine oh my goooooood." Brendon laughs.
"That's not funny and you're a horrible evil person." Jon frowns.
"Do you remember that week we spent in my parents' van that one Spring Break?" Jon nods and Spencer laughs. It sometime in the time just after Ryan and Brendon had crossed over from flirtation and dancing around one another to being RyanandBrendon.
They had all stayed in various states of drunk and high at the time, Brendon was banned from driving after the first night when Spencer wrestled the keys from him and yelled that he "didn't care if this is your van, go in the back and fuck around with my best friend, kill puppies, whatever. But never ever again am I riding with you in a vehicle. Not even a go-kart."
Jon had frowned a little and said quietly, "Puppies."
They had slept in the van and drank underneath the stars in the woods. Ryan complained about bugs and sometime in the blur of that week, it stands out for Brendon how much he wanted to wrap himself up in Ryan back then. Ryan wasn't just new or smart. He was different from other people Brendon knew when he was a kid. He (and Jon and Spencer) were Brendon's friends, but even more than that, when Ryan looked at him it was full of burning and desire. Ryan pulled Brendon closer to him and when Brendon clung to him he didn't jerk away or sigh in exasperation. Even the things that quickly stopped being new like kissing, holding hands, falling asleep together, felt new every time. Some times it was simply that back then Brendon had been amazed he was allowed these things, he kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.
He'd stopped having that knot in his stomach years ago. He took Ryan's words to heart about Brendon being everything he wanted, needed. Brendon meant what he'd said in return, about being there for Ryan and forgiveness and all that. He remembers getting high and stupidly slow dancing to Bob Dylan underneath the streetlights in the yard behind their last apartment.
He thinks maybe that was some other them.
"I don't..." Brendon picks at the label on the beer bottle, swishing around the remains at the bottom, "I don't know what's going to happen anymore." His words break a little on the way out and he doesn't realize how fucked up he feels until Jon is sliding over next to him, pulling him into a hug.
**
They sit through Krysta's graduation. Afterward, Ryan and Brendon play with her while Jon and Spencer talk to the principal and school counselor.
"I hated those talks when I was a kid." Brendon nods over to them, the way Spencer is nodding along with the counselor as she talks. "Everyone acts like you're not even there." Ryan just nods at him, bouncing Krysta on his knee.
After, they follow Spencer and Jon to Burger King so Krysta can play in the big indoor playground. Brendon goes inside to refill his drink; he automatically takes Ryan's with him when he goes and Ryan doesn't think to argue with him.
It's awkward for a second, Spencer moving his onion rings around in a mound of ketchup as he keeps a careful watch at Krysta bouncing around in the ball pit.
Finally, Jon coughs a little, "It... you remember the first time we got Krysta back?" Ryan's not sure who Jon is talking to at first. It's either him, Spencer, or no one in particular. Spencer's mouth is full but he nods a little.
Ryan finally mutters an affirmation and Jon continues, "She was only gone two weeks before they pulled her away from her grandmother. She..." Jon stops for a second, staring at his hands before continuing, "I thought it was going to be too much. She was so... and none of the daycare places would take her because she kept screaming and hitting the other kids. I quit work to stay and..."
Ryan remembers a lot of visits where Jon and Spencer both looked tense and tired. At the time, Ryan had read it as the stress of having a kid back in the house or the change of routine. Everything he's pulling up now is colored by the present; it just seems like fragments of reality.
Spencer finally says, "We almost didn't make it."
"I was staying home with a kid who flipped out about anything and Spencer was working more. We were both freaking out about what happens the next time they pull her from foster care and-"
"If any of this is what we wanted." Spencer finishes for Jon and takes a long sip from his drink.
Brendon comes out then and sits down. He sets Ryan's soda down next to Ryan's hand. He expects to feel Brendon's leg against his as he bounces his feet beneath the table or to feel Brendon's fingers brushing his when he steals the last of the french fries from him. Instead, he keeps a polite distance.
"Was it?" Ryan says quietly when Spencer and Brendon are distracted with getting Krysta's shoes on.
Jon smiles a little, "I didn't know it, but yeah. It is."
**
It's like they're living in a different house. Brendon spends the rest of the weekend closed up in the back of the house. Ryan's reading with the stereo turned low when Brendon comes to bed naked Saturday night. It's not unusual at all and Ryan wants to reach over and slide his hand around Brendon's hip and let his fingers slide down until Brendon is bucking back into him and moaning his name. He wants to let his hand trail down Brendon's back and slide down his ass, fingering him open until he's shaking and fucking himself up into Ryan's hand and demanding he hurry the fuck up.
Brendon looks at him for a moment before he pulls the sheet up around himself and turns over.
"You're still coming tomorrow, right?"
"Yeah."
"'Kay."
They sleep as far as they can from one another while still being in the same bed. In the past, Ryan would sleep at Spencer and Jon's when things were really ugly or they would sleep on the couch for a night after yelling and screaming and slamming doors for a couple of hours.
Ryan wakes up in the night thinking he feels Brendon's hand ghosting over him, but when he stirs wanting to put his hand on top of his, the feeling is gone and he looks over his shoulder. Brendon is curled tightly, shoulders small and tense beneath the sheet.
**
The concert goes off with only a few hitches. One boy in the Jr. High Choir nearly passes out and the girl next to him yells, "That's why you don't lock your knees!" The jazz ensemble gives Brendon a case of Red Bull, a gift card to the local record store, and a big glittery card that the lead alto saxophone makes sure everyone knows she made. The show choir does a tribute to Sweeney Todd that is a little trippy coming from a group of fresh faced kids in sparkly blue and black outfits. The senior choir members present Greta with a book about serial killers and a pair of plastic handcuffs that she says are going up in her office as a warning to others.
Ryan hangs around helping Brendon, Greta, Greta's husband Bob and the students clean up afterward. It's turning dark when Brendon finally locks the auditorium up, tossing the key to Greta to give to the principal on Monday.
They're about to turn on to the interstate when Ryan makes a face as Brendon changes lanes.
"What?"
"Nothing. I'd just be nice if you would actually look before you ended up merging us into an 18-wheeler."
"You wanna drive? I mean you can drive if you want; I just wanted to get home sometime before I died of old age." Brendon's voice is raising up above the radio loudly, and as he and as he gets angrier, he drives faster.
"I'd like to be able to live to old age, " Ryan snaps loudly.
Brendon swerves the car over to the side of the road. It's all too dramatic for what they're yelling about, but that's not what this fight is about.
Brendon throws the keys across the seat to Ryan and they land with a thud at his feet. He throws himself in the backseat.
"Drive the fucking car," Brendon snaps when Ryan just sits there staring at the keys. Ryan gets out and finishes the drive back to the house.
Brendon locks himself in the back of the house; he stays back there the rest of the night and Ryan can feel his restlessness. He keeps changing instruments, styles. At first, it's just the tapping as he pounds drum sticks against a practice pad.
Ryan sits in the kitchen and rolls a joint while Hobo curls up at his feet. He goes to bed early and wakes up alone. Brendon is curled up in the living room watching tv.
"You can come to bed.," Ryan stays standing in the hallway, leaning against the wall so he's hidden mostly from Brendon.
Brendon sits for a moment and Ryan thinks maybe he actually is asleep.
"I don't want to."
Later though, Ryan wakes up to see Brendon curled up in the corner of the bed and he doesn't know if that makes it better or worse.
**
Tuesday night it all falls apart. Brendon comes home late and collapses on the couch across from Ryan. The Daily Show is on and the slamming of the door woke up the dogs. Ryan sighs.
"If you're gonna wander in all hours of the fucking night, you could be less of a douche about it."
"It's ten fucking fifteen. I slammed the door without thinking because I had a long day at work and it made the dogs bark. Sorry to irritate your delicate sensibilities, mom."
"I don't know of any high school teachers that work until ten at night." Ryan turns the tv up, as if they aren't both priming to fight instead of settling in.
Brendon looks at him, confused and he rubs his nose, cradling his face in his hands before he says anything, "Not all of us can spend our time rambling at drunk college kids five hours a week and call it a job."
"Still more of a job than hanging all over our 'student teachers' that we suddenly find so fascinating."
"That's what this is about? You think... oh fuck you, Ryan. Just-"
"I go to every football game, every recital, I listened-"
"Because you wanted to. Because that's what we do. I go to-"
"You couldn't even show up on time for something for me! What-"
"I told you-"
They can't even hear what the other is saying anymore. Ryan knows his face will be pink from anger and the dogs are barking loudly, Hobo circling their feet and Masie thinking it's a game.
Finally Ryan screams loud enough for Brendon to stop, "If you want to leave, just fucking leave already."
Brendon stands surprised for a minute before he squares his shoulders. "I.. no, this is mine too. This is... no." It's the same push and pull they've always done. Pushing the other as far as they'll go to see who will break first, to prove every stupid thing they think right. Brendon always thinks if he stands his ground firm enough, Ryan will give in and Ryan is always pushing to see how far he can push things before Brendon finally breaks.
Ryan takes his jacket from the arm of the couch and his keys from the rack and leaves.
**
Brendon sleeps in an empty bed for the first time in more years than he can remember. When Ryan goes to see his mom and step-dad, Brendon is with him. When they fly to Vegas for Brendon's family, Ryan is there. Even though he knows they've spent nights apart the past 15 years, nothing has ever felt as lonely as this.
He's never felt like it's something he'd have to get used to again.
The next day he's running the numbers for kids to chaperones and confirming everything when two of the parents drop out. Their younger kids are too sick to stay with any of the relatives. Brendon had already crossed Ryan off the list of chaperones, but now he's two down and those kinds of numbers make him a little uneasy.
Ryan is staying with Spencer and Jon, so Brendon goes by after work. Ryan is sitting in the floor helping Spencer and Krysta put together a puzzle when Jon opens the door.
"Hey, uh, can I talk to Ryan for a second?" Spencer looks hopeful and that makes Brendon feel like a giant douche. Ryan joins him on the stoop.
"Look, I don't know if you've already got plans for the weekend, but I had parents cancel for me last minute and so I'm short chaperones and you try..."
"I'll do it." Ryan doesn't look at him, but Brendon smiles anyway.
He wants to ask Ryan how he's doing or say anything that he thought might fix all the little things Brendon pretended weren't broken. Instead he just smiles a little more and reminds him that they're leaving from the high school after school Thursday.
When Ryan's back in the house, Brendon whispers "thank you, " at the door before getting back in his car.
**
Ryan takes a stack of papers and books with him and his iPod is fully charged. The ride four hours before stopping for dinner and to stretch at a big truck stop and gas station that has a KFC, Subway, and Taco Bell in it. When they stop, Ryan demands that the bus becomes "Girls on one side, boys on the other, and I'm not playing around!" before they get off. There are a lot of pissed off kids when they walk off, but Ryan's tired of having to split kids up and soothing traumatized seventh graders.
He goes into Subway and he's paying for his order before he realizes that he's already ordered Brendon's usual as well. He just takes the extra sandwich and fills up the cup with Mountain Dew anyway. Brendon is standing at the end of the line for sandwiches trying to keep a watch on a cluster of kids in front of him. When he spots Ryan walking toward him he gives a small wave.
“Hey, I…” Ryan hands him the sandwich and drink.
“Oh, thanks.”
“I didn’t mean to-“
“Here,” Brendon digs into a plastic bag and pulls out a large bag of Sour Patch Kids and some pretzels. “I just got them-“
“Didn’t mean to?” Ryan laughs a little and tucks them under his arm. “We had to separate the boys and girls on our bus.”
“I heard. Yeah, you’re a fascist, Ryan Ross.” Brendon moves himself out of the line and starts sipping from his cup. Ryan knows Brendon will refill right before the buses pull out of the lot.
“Right, um, well, thanks.” Ryan turns quickly and goes to stand outside his bus, helping one of the moms check kids off the list as they come back on the bus. He helps another mom chase down some of the majorettes that hung back flirting with the counter guy at the gas station.
**
“I forgot. I honestly would have done something else, I just didn't think about it with everything going on.” Brendon hands Ryan a keycard to the hotel room and it takes Ryan cutting him off to get him to stop apologizing.
“It’s not like we haven’t shared a room before.” Ryan takes the keycard and slides it down his back pocket.
“It’s different.” Brendon stares at his shoes when he says that, voice barely making its way through the din of people around them.
Ryan’s too tired to find a way to argue with him.
**
The first day is all competitions and performances. Brendon gets up at five so he can start gathering the Jazz Ensemble for their performance at eight. Ryan wakes up a little as Brendon is sitting on his own bed tying his shoes.
“Good luck,” Ryan mumbles, face still planted firmly in his pillow. Brendon feels strange having this conversation sitting across from him. When he says, “Thanks,” he leans over to kiss Ryan on the back and stops himself a little and ends up just patting Ryan between the shoulder blades.
“I’ll see you at ten with the orchestra kids, right?”
Ryan just mumbles in agreement.
They spend the rest of the day like that. Brendon has to remind himself every time he finds himself stepping back into Ryan’s space that he doesn’t think he’s welcome there anymore. There are moments where he thinks he’ll have to break his hand to keep from wanting to brush it against Ryan’s and others where he wants to scream and pick a fight just to get under Ryan’s skin again.
That night, Brendon has to break up a fight between two drummers and has to pull two girls from another school’s band out of some of their rooms. There’s a drunk boy in one room that he spent an hour at the front desk trying to figure out who he belonged to until finally a panicked parent from the hotel down the street came in and claimed him.
He hits the bed exhausted. Ryan’s sitting on the other bed cross legged, watching tv and eating pizza. He’s in a t-shirt and shorts and Brendon smiles a little at the sight.
“I got two.” Ryan says and lifts his own box up to reveal a box of mushroom and pepperoni.
“Oh, thank God.”
“Nah, just me.” Ryan takes another bite to hide the smile Brendon knows is there.
**
Day two is one of their two days of being able to actually enjoy the park. Sure, they have a parade later that night followed by the awards banquet, but the kids are up ridiculously early sitting outside. When Brendon finally wanders down, Ryan is already down there helping the parents get a head count and making lists of kids.
“This is seriously the quietest I have ever seen them,” Ryan whispers to Brendon when he walks up.
“I thought they were supposed to be too old and cool for Disney World.”
“I don’t think you have any room to talk.” Ryan remembers Spencer telling him, “No, really, the dude is obsessed with Disney. It’s like a fetish. He got high and sung the entire Aladdin soundtrack with the RA the other night. He knew all the words.”
“Aladdin is awesome,” Brendon mutters before clapping his hands and starting to order kids around.
**
Ryan wanders around the park, meeting up with parents and kids at the designated times and places. He spot checks to make sure no one’s doing anything that they shouldn’t be. He remembers the first time he helped Brendon with one of these things. The parents had just looked at him funny and the kids kept trying to buy weed from him.
“Why do they think I smoke pot?” he had asked Brendon and Brendon just raised an eyebrow. “Okay, why do they think I would smoke pot with them?”
It’s easier now. He doesn’t feel like another kid ordering kids around and he’s just “Dr. Urie’s friend,” or whatever it is everyone thinks of him as to Brendon. Boyfriend Husband Significant Other.
He sees Brendon a few times, but he knows that he’s mostly running around in conferences with the other band directors and staying busy on his cell checking in with parents or trying to calm down his high-strung drum major. They don’t really meet up again until after the parade. Brendon’s changed into his sports jacket and corduroy slacks. Ryan applauds when the Jazz Ensemble wins first place and the marching band gets second. The orchestra earns all ones. Every time Brendon’s school is called out, he looks more relieved than anything else. When the applause dies down, Brendon leans in close to him, whispering,
“I was so afraid of letting them all down.”
“You wouldn’t.” Ryan answers back and brushes his fingers against Brendon’s knee.
**
Brendon socializes afterward. He’s used to having Ryan next to him for these things. It’s not that he’s bad with people; he’s not. It’s more he feels like Ryan keeps him focused, makes him feel easier in his skin. When it’s finally over, Brendon makes sure the parents have a handle on the kids and heads back to his room to collapse. He’s zoned out when Ryan finally comes tumbling in. He can tell Ryan thinks he’s being quiet because he swears when he trips over his own shoes and falls face first into the bed.
Brendon rolls over. “Are you seriously wasted?”
“Drunk. Wasted is an ugly word.” Ryan straightens himself before sitting down on the bed with forced poise.
“You’re drunk at Disney World.” Brendon smiles a little and turns up the light on the lamp. Ryan’s hair is sticking up all over, his eyes red and wide.
“You are a hypocrite, Brendon Urie.” Ryan shakes his finger at him and giggles.
“That’s dirty pool.” Brendon pulls himself up to face Ryan.
“Nope. I remember someone insisting it would be awesome to trip and do the Pirates of the Caribbean.”
Brendon laughs, remembering Ryan claiming for hours afterward that he could “seriously steal the pirate gold;” and his elaborate plans for them to find pirate gold and live on an island where all they had to do all day was fuck and get wasted.
“That was a long time ago.” Brendon finally says with a sigh. He pulls his knees up to his chest.
“Yeah.” Ryan fumbles over, pushing his lips into Brendon’s and it hurts when Brendon pulls himself away.
“Ryan, no. Ryan, you’re drunk, that’s all this-“
Ryan just stares at him for a moment before standing up, straightening his shirt.
“I can’t even… what the hell, Brendon?” Ryan’s fumbling in his pockets looking for his cigarettes but the box is empty and he throws it down. “Fuck. Just, fuck it.”
“You’re drunk and it doesn’t fix anything.” Brendon stands up, squaring his shoulders, trying to raise himself to Ryan’s height and meet him in the eye.
Ryan walks away, throwing his fist against the wall. “I’m tired of everything… just fuck it. Why do we keep doing this?” His voice isn’t angry, not like it was, it’s tired and all the things Brendon’s been feeling for weeks, months maybe.
“Maybe this is what it’s like when…” he can’t finish it. He can’t let the rest of the words that have been circling his head every day out: maybe this is what it’s like when you fall out of love.
“When we get back, maybe one of us should, you could stay in the house. I’ll find somewhere.” Ryan says finally and Brendon nearly falls over. He feels like the blood is gone from his body.
“If that’s what you want,” is all Brendon can manage. He steps away from Ryan. He needs a drink. He needs out of this room. He needs to be anywhere other than right here so he can pretend he isn’t having this conversation.
“I think you’d be happier that way.” Ryan’s deflating in front of him, slumped shoulders and his words are slurred a little and slow. He crumples down on the foot of the bed, his head in his hands. It raises something in Brendon though, he doesn’t realize how tightly his hands have fisted up until he feels the scratch of his nails pressing into skin.
“That’s bullshit, Ryan. I’m not… you make me crazy and you make me miserable, but I’m not happier without you.”
Ryan looks at him a little, eyes blinking, “It's not been that way for a while now. You don’t know what it’s like to watch… maybe this is just... you don’t act like it.” he finally decides on.
“I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean.” Brendon kneels in front of Ryan, he takes one of Ryan’s hands in his, letting their fingers wind together gently.
“Doesn’t it scare you to know you wake up every day to the same fucking person and the same bullshit and that’s all this is? That it’s feeding the dogs and coming home and arguing about what to have for dinner and falling asleep knowing you’re going to do it all again tomorrow?”
Brendon tightens his fingers a little around Ryan and studies the lines of Ryan’s thin wrists, the tattoos that he remembers Ryan getting back when they were both other people. “Yes.”
“I don’t feel like you’re there anymore.” Ryan says finally.
“I’m…” Brendon could have this argument. He could pick a fight and they could end up yelling so loud that the people next door end up calling hotel security. Ryan would go out and get even more wasted and Brendon would spend the night wishing he didn’t have to be a responsible fucking adult so he could do the same. But it would just be another argument after another, one after another fight and maybe none of that’s the point.
He leans in, kissing the side of Ryan’s face first. Ryan finally turns into the kiss, letting their lips press together.
“I miss you,” Brendon says against Ryan’s face, and he can feel Ryan nod in agreement before they pull apart.
Brendon stands and pulls Ryan with him into the bathroom. He pushes himself up on the counter and pulls Ryan between his legs while he digs in the inside pocket of Ryan’s jacket until he produces the cheap metal cigarette case that Ryan always keeps his traveling stash in. Ryan takes out a carefully rolled joint and lights it with the lighter from Ryan’s front pocket. He lets his fingers linger, exploring longer than he needs to. Brendon takes his first hit from the joint hard and finally exhales, blowing smoke into Ryan’s face with a smile. His free hand slides down Ryan’s chest; his fingers pushing in between the buttons of his shirt. Ryan tries to take the joint from him and Brendon pulls it away. He takes a second hit, and on his third he holds his breath and then breathes the smoke into Ryan’s mouth.
“This is really really fucking stupid.” Brendon wants to blame Ryan and everything else for the fact that he’s getting stoned in the bathroom while on the job. He locks the door and turns on the bathroom fan. Ryan doesn’t answer him though, instead he lands a kiss between Brendon’s shoulder and neck and Brendon moans a little in response.
It’s been way too fucking long since Brendon was good and stoned and even longer still since he did any of this. Everything feels good and he can’t stop himself from just rubbing his body up against Ryan. He loves the way Ryan’s fingers feel holding his hips down as Ryan takes him in his mouth. The lights of the bathroom are bright when Brendon opens his eyes, but everything feels so fuzzy and half-real that he has to see this and know it’s happening. Ryan’s eyes are closed and Brendon knows this is sloppy for him; he’s all tongue work and pulling back. He stops and laughs, looking up at Brendon before he slides one of his hands down and one of his fingers ghosts around Brendon’s ass.
“Fuck, Ryan.” Just as Brendon bucks back, Ryan takes him back down in his mouth. He’s tired and stoned and just the light feeling of Ryan’s fingers moving in the crease of Brendon’s ass has him feeling shaky and ready. He pulls on Ryan’s hair, trying to warn him but Ryan stays, swallowing as Brendon collapses back a little against the sink. Ryan kisses him and misses his lips. He licks along Brendon’s cheek and the edge of his mouth before he pulls away and leads him back into the dark bedroom. The television's still on from earlier. They stand between the beds for a second, unsure where they belong. Finally Brendon sits down on his and pulls the blankets back, inviting Ryan.
Brendon falls asleep with his head pressed against Ryan’s chest and it’s the closest he’s felt to normal in a while.
**
Ryan wakes up with a light headache and the sound of Brendon singing in the bathroom. He hits the chorus as he comes out shaking his wet hair,
“There will always be a spare in my parking lot when you need a little coke and sympathy. Well we all need- Oh, morning.” He’s naked still and he drops the towel in the floor and walks to the mini-fridge and tosses Ryan a Mountain Dew and a pack of pop-tarts.
Ryan tries and fails at opening them with one hand until Brendon sits down on the bed and opens the soda for him. “You’re on your own with the food.” Ryan smiles and finally sits up, downing most of the can in one go. Brendon steals a corner of Ryan’s pop-tart before bouncing off the bed to get dressed.
“I’ve got some official last day stuff to do while you guys are doing check-out. I’ll meet up with you at the park, okay?” His words are muffled as he pulls the shirt over his head, but he’s smiling at Ryan when he looks over at him.
“Yeah, I’ll meet up with you.”
**
They eat overpriced hamburgers late in the day just before rounding everyone up to leave. Ryan doesn’t stiffen when Brendon’s fingers brush against his, and Ryan feels himself smiling a little easier. Ryan buys Brendon an Aladdin t-shirt on their way out of the park, shoving it down in his bag to give him later.
They get home Monday afternoon and collapse into bed. Ryan wakes up and checks his messages. He calls Spencer and they talk about the trip before falling back asleep. When he wakes up again, he can hear Brendon in the living room talking to the dogs and playing video games. Ryan pulls himself out of bed and grabs a glass of water before sitting down on the floor next to Brendon.
“Want in?” Brendon pauses his game long enough to look over at him. Ryan waves him off and instead lets Hobo crawl up into his lap.
Tuesday is back to normal. Brendon gets home earlier though, smiling because, “Grading is seriously the easiest time of the year for a band director. Do you know how hard a kid has to fuck up to get anything other than an A in band?” He hands Ryan a box of wings that he ordered earlier and a beer. They sit out on the deck drinking and talking until late. They go to bed buzzed and make out and jerk each other off.
Wednesday, Ryan calls Brendon and asks him if he remembers scheduling a Vet appointment for the dogs for that afternoon and Brendon curses into the phone. The argue about taking them or rescheduling, until finally Brendon snaps and says he’ll leave after his last period today and take them and hangs up.
Thursday and Friday blur into one another. Ryan spends Saturday freaking out about the stack of papers he still needs to grade and the exams he needs to write.
“Can’t you use the ones you did last year?”
“No, that’s what they expect you to do.” Ryan looks almost devious when he answers him and Brendon lets out a laugh. “You don’t do exams, you don’t understand. These kids are animals.” Ryan spends the day slamming doors around the house and even Hobo incurs his wrath when she curls up on top of his laptop bag. Brendon takes the dogs for a walk and tells Ryan to get the fuck over himself by the time he comes back. When he returns, he takes Ryan’s laptop from him and straddles his lap. They kiss and as Brendon’s hand starts to slide down the front of Ryan’s jeans, Ryan pulls back.
“I seriously need to finish writing this exam.” Brendon sighs and leans his head against Ryan’s shoulder, laughing before settling on the couch next to him. They watch tv and Ryan takes a break to make some pasta while Brendon gives him a play-by-play of what’s happening on Big Brother. Later they tumble into bed and fuck. Brendon slides himself down on Ryan and rides him until they’re both weak-legged and Brendon comes all over Ryan’s stomach. They fall asleep filthy and in the morning they bitch one another out because neither of them remembered to let the dogs outside before they went to bed.
They meet Spencer and Jon for brunch at Spencer’s restaurant. Krysta wears the mouse ears that they got her the entire time and beams at the pictures Brendon made sure to get of Minnie Mouse. They go home and Ryan grades papers and Brendon plays some stuff on the piano and talks idly about buying a new guitar he saw the last time he was at the music store or maybe taking up the clarinet.
Ryan’s in bed reading when Brendon finally joins him, feet bouncing beneath the sheets and Ryan instinctively reaches over to still him. Brendon turns his iPod on before slumping back against the headboard.
“I think things are better,” Brendon says finally and when Ryan looks over at him, Brendon's staring up at the ceiling biting his lip. He won’t look over at Ryan. He slides closer into Brendon and goes back to reading. Even when he starts to sweat along his neck from the heat of Brendon’s arm wrapped around him, he curls himself up in closer.
“Yeah. I want them to be.”
(the end)
Further notes: Lies, fiction, most false of facts. This was started with the Brendon interview where he mentions something about if he hadn’t been in a band he would have gotten his Doctorate in music and a joke about Brendon Urie: High School Band Director. Title is from "Landlocked Blues" by Bright Eyes. Thanks to F & G for the cheerleading and last minute work on this for me.
maybe this is what it’s like when you fall out of love or the one where Ryan and Brendon chose to make it better. Brendon/Ryan. AU [10,000]
This is for marksykins in a holiday fic exchange.
So this is how they tell the story (though they don't tell it often anymore, there's not as often anyone new to tell it to). They met in college; Brendon was Ryan's childhood best friend's freshman roommate. Ryan was majoring in Creative Writing and hiding out in his friend's room. They didn't see Brendon the entire first half of his freshman year as he was too busy with band rehearsals. They started dating. Ryan decided to get an M.A. and Brendon followed him to Graduate school. They bought the small white house on the corner near the University because they were tired of living next door to Ryan's students and so Brendon could rehearse or study for his Phd in peace. Brendon's still got the card his high school band students made him when he became Dr. Urie and not Mr. Urie anymore.
And that's how they got to where they are now. They take two weeks every summer between Maymester but before Brendon has to start getting the marching band ready for football season to go somewhere. Brendon is used to answering phone calls from panicked freshman during finals week worried if they're gonna be able to pass Ryan's intro class. Ryan's spent way too many Friday nights bundled up at football games or curled up in school bus seats chaperoning horny band nerds on the way to all-state orchestra competitions.
**
Saturday night is the night they watch whatever is on TiVo from the rest of the week and get pizza from a place on the square near a bar they used to go to when they first moved here, before Brendon started teaching. They fucked in the bathroom and smoked up with the shitty bands after the show.
That was forever ago. Now Brendon goes out in his sweats and jacket to pick up pizza, bringing it back to Ryan, who is staring blankly at a stack of essays from his British Lit I class. The stack of "don't even bother wasting my time"s next to Ryan's feet is usually a gauge for how many beers Brendon ought to bring back from the kitchen. The one on top has "I know how to use the internet!" written on it in giant red marker.
Brendon just brings the case back out of the kitchen with him.
**
Somehow, Ryan has had to teach Wednesday night classes every regular semester for the past six years. Brendon doesn't ever schedule band practice later than 4:30 on Wednesdays, because that gets in the way of Church and parents get antsy when that happens. During the winter there's Jazz ensemble, but even then he's got the kids bundled up, out of the building, and on their way by the latest 4:45.
Ms. Salpeter always gives him a hard time about it. She has the show choir dancing and singing themselves stupid every day until she feels like it during show season.
"Have you ever been to a band booster meeting? Those parents are brutal." Brendon doesn't have the stacks of papers other teachers have to grade, instead he has to make sure that the charter buses for the playoff game are paid for and that the sixth graders are going to sign up for beginner band in seventh grade, and he has to call back Stacey McGatha's mother and explain why Stacey didn't get to be first chair flute this year, but yes he'll still write that recommendation for her to state honor band, and would Mrs McGatha mind working the concession stand next Friday, it's Homecoming and he's running short on parents for that.
"You have to be vicious. Also, that's why you have student teachers." Greta props her feet up on his desk; it rocks back and forth a bit, the metal of the desk clanging against the cement bricks of the wall. It's chipped grey beneath the sea green from the years of his desk being a piece of shit.
Brendon comes home and throws in something for dinner as he finishes laundry that Ryan started the night before. He takes the dogs out for a walk. When Ryan comes in, throwing his shit on the couch next to the front door, Brendon is in the back of the house at the piano. Ryan just sits down next to him, watching his fingers fly across the keys.
Ryan still loves watching Brendon play, the way his shoulders tense and relax, his posture still teacher's pet perfect. Brendon finishes with a flourish, looking over to Ryan before leaning his head against Ryan’s shoulder.
"Hey."
"Hey. Long day?" Ryan plays with a loose thread on Brendon's jeans. There's a hole in the knee and Ryan works his fingers under the fabric. They aren't the skin tight pants Brendon wore when they first met. Back then, Brendon was an explosion of post-parental college rebellion. He let Ryan draw eyeliner lines on his face, writhing under him in girl jeans and t-shirts so tight, Ryan could see how the muscles of his stomach moved as he breathed. Now he mocks Ryan's vests and dress shirts while digging through the laundry for a clean pair of jeans or dress slacks. He has a suit he wears for recitals and a tuxedo for orchestra competitions.
He leads Ryan to bed. Ryan throws on some sweats and socks; Brendon complains about Ryan's feet being cold if he doesn't. Brendon still sleeps naked, tossing and turning and Ryan's gotten used to waking up warm smelling of Brendon just from spending the night with him pressed against his chest. Brendon reminds Ryan that the tags on the Accord are going to expire Friday and Ryan said he was going to go to the DMV tomorrow since he only has morning office hours and Brendon has a meeting with his student-teacher during his lunch period and special practice with the drum line after school. Ryan grunts a little, holding his tongue from snapping at him about nagging. Instead he just slides his arms around Brendon's waist, pulling him in closer.
The next day Ryan gets busy grading papers and then the head of the department needs help understanding the new registration system and then asks him to coffee afterward and it's 5:30 by the time he realizes that he fucking forgot to go to the DMV for the new tags. He spends an hour trying to figure out how to make something that will look like the little sticker for the car before he realizes that would be completely stupid and he'll totally just do it tomorrow or something.
**
Brendon starts to leave Friday morning and notices the car tag still has the expired stickers. He looks in the glove compartment and the registration is still this year's. He doesn't have time to go back into the house and ask Ryan if he remembered. Instead he spends all day with it nagging him in the back of his head. When he gets home, Ryan is on the phone and standing in front of the fridge. He's just staring at the contents of the fridge and doing that thing where he bends his leg, propping one foot against his knee and balancing against the fridge door.
Brendon reaches around him and grabs a beer before stomping out back. He feeds the dogs and sprawls out on one of the lawn chairs on the deck. It's still not quite Spring yet, but it's still light enough that he doesn't have to turn the light on to see where he's going and make sure he doesn't step on the loose board. Brendon hears the door bell ring, but he's on his second cigarette. Masie is curled up on his feet barking at squirrels. He's maybe almost asleep when he feels Ryan's toes poking him in the side.
"Hey, hey!" His voice is low, soft.
"Dude, get your creepy alien toes away from me." Brendon rolls over anyway looking up to Ryan carrying paper plates and a giant bag from his favorite Chinese take-out place. Brendon doesn't say anything about the car tag and when Ryan kisses him later, he swallows his annoyance down for the moment.
**
Sunday they have lunch with Jon and Spencer. Krysta is running around the yard chasing their dogs, she keeps begging Jon and Spencer to get one, but Spencer says he's afraid for her to get attached to something else in case she doesn't get to stay with them.
"We're going to the lawyer's again this week." Spencer crosses his legs and smiles, watching Brendon rolling around in the yard, letting the six year old pin him to the ground before flipping her over and making her squeal so loudly that Hobo gets grumpy and wanders away, settling at Ryan's feet. She's too old to deal with Brendon, a kid, and a puppy at the same time.
Jon opens another beer and sighs, "Her caseworker says she thinks it will go through." Ryan nods, watching as Brendon throws Krysta, all dirty blond curls and kicking feet, over his shoulder and comes up to the deck.
"I'm hungry, who wants nice fresh burnt hot dogs?" Krysta is pounding against his back, yelling,
"Me! Krysta! Krysta! Put me down, Uncle Brendon."
When Jon and Spencer first took Krysta in, she didn't talk much at all. She was barely three and pointed to get things and screamed and hit to get attention. Ryan's watched them spend the past three years with lawyers and social workers and counselors. They've taken parenting classes and opened up their home to a revolving door of case workers. Jon quit his job at the paper so he could stay home with her when she was booted out of daycare for being "too aggressive."
Krysta and Brendon make hot dogs on the grill for everyone and then she begs him to let her play on the piano.
"Only if you go wash your hands really good, okay?" She nods and runs into the house. Jon has to call her back to get her to shut the screen door without slamming it. She comes back a few minutes later, her hands held up in the air for Brendon's inspection. Brendon nods and then picks her up, taking her into the den with the piano where he spends the next hour playing "Chopsticks" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb" with her. Jon follows them in soon afterward with his camera. Ryan knows there will be a link to their Flickr in a few days in his inbox demanding he go look at the pictures.
Ryan talks about his students and getting ready for finals. Spencer tells him about a waiter he had to fire and a meeting he's worried about with a contractor for an addition to the restaurant.
"I feel shitty because Jon has talk to Krysta's teachers by himself this time, but..." he shrugs and takes a final pull from his beer. Ryan nods. Inside there's a clamoring of feet as Brendon and Krysta chase one another through the house. "She always sleeps like the dead when we leave here." Spencer smiles, big and open. "Like, passes out in the car."
"She's a cool kid." Ryan nods and it makes something in his stomach flutter at the way Spencer's face softens at that. "You're such a fucking sap."
"Fuck you." Spencer laughs and there's a loud banging of the screen door as Krysta runs out nearly tripping over her own feet. Masie is hot on her feet, yelping and nipping at her heels. They sit, watching them roll around on the ground for a minute before Spencer laughs low, "Never thought it would be like this you know?"
Ryan shrugs at him, the words rolling around in his mind.
"Just, kids and Jon sending me texts about dry cleaning and fucking parent-teacher conferences. You and Brendon. I mean..." Spencer waves his hands at the house. "Brendon's a teacher for fuck's sake and you guys are all..." Spencer waves his hands again, "nothing's how we thought it would be, right?"
Ryan shrugs again, feeling his heart beat a little faster, completely opposite the big grin that's on Spencer's face.
**
Jon and Spencer leave carrying Krysta. She's passed out and dirty from where she and Ryan found Popsicles in the fridge. Ryan watches them from the porch as they pull away from the curb. He stands there smoking a cigarette. It's almost completely dark when he finally goes back inside.
Brendon is collapsed on the couch, typing something on his laptop while an episode of Law & Order plays low on the television. Brendon doesn't look up to speak to him when Ryan settles down in the arm chair next to the couch, putting his feet up on the big matching tan ottoman.
"Evaluation for my student teacher. I totally fucking blanked on it until I checked my email and saw the reminder about it. He's totally going to expect it in the morning."
"You always last minute those things anyway." Ryan shrugs. Masie jumps up on his lap, sniffling at his neck before finally settling with her legs on Ryan's lap. She keeps going back and forth between them until Brendon finally gives her a look and tries to protect his laptop from her. Brendon doesn't look up, just cracks his knuckles as he stretches his arms up above his head. The dog grumbles about being moved.
"I just want to do this kid right, you know?" Brendon takes his glasses off, rubbing the bridge of his nose a little. "I don't know why the fuck he's doing music ed; he could be doing... anything else."
"You did music ed." Ryan's flipping through the dvr tv guide. He's not sure that he's looking for anything in particular, though he doesn't want to let Brendon look. It drives him crazy when he flips from channel to channel; Ryan will ask him if he's looking for anything and Brendon will just shrug and say, "It's the surfing part of the channel surfing" and keep flipping until he ends up exactly where he started at or gets tired and turns the tv off to play a video game.
"What? Oh, well. That's..." Brendon waves his hand, still staring at his computer screen in concentration.
"It's what?"
Brendon looks up finally and he takes his lip in for a minute thinking. "It just is." he says finally, there's a line that tenses in his shoulders. "This guy should be in a band in making music videos or some shit. Not trying to herd horny musical cats."
Ryan used to love to sit and watch Brendon practice. He would bring his homework and sit on the floor, his jacket spread out beneath him while Brendon spent hours preparing for piano recitals or working on material for composition classes. Ryan used to wish he could draw or was able to take the sort of photographs Jon does so he could capture everything about those moments that made something in Ryan's skin buzz just a little, that let him sit there and easily fall asleep in the middle of the room, his head on his book. Instead, he wrote pieces of poetry in the margins of his books about music and savage beasts, muscles that concentrate and bend everything and everyone. All of them scared Ryan later with how awkward and bare they were. Nothing about them hid what they meant.
Ryan would drive them home afterward and he never could get the door shut behind them before he would start kissing Brendon, feeling the way Brendon would give over to him, would take Ryan the same way. Brendon always giggled in his kisses back then, smiling up at Ryan, still a little amused and awed by everything about the two of them.
They would fuck and then Brendon would sprawl across the bed, rubbing one of his hands absently against the sheets.
"Bed nice." He'd murmur, lips pressing against Ryan's shoulder. Even exhausted and fucked out, Brendon's hands still kept a steady pace of tapping out rhythms against Ryan's skin, tracing lines up and down the sheets and Ryan's thigh. Ryan loved how eager Brendon had been for everything, but especially for him. He wanted anything and everything right then and now and seemed to act like Ryan could give it all to him.
Ryan goes to bed first that night, tucking himself deep beneath the blankets even though he knows that when Brendon does finally collapse into bed, he'll pull them all away, kicking them into the floor and Ryan will wake up freezing in the middle of the night and have to pull back on the bed and away from Hobo.
Brendon curls up next to him sometime after Ryan drifts off to sleep, he feels the slight dip of the bed, hears Brendon whispering good night to the dogs. He falls back to sleep with the warmth of Brendon’s back comfortably against his.
**
Monday, Ryan gets a text just after his first class from Brendon.
left blue binder on table. need after school. could you bring it 2 me?!
Ryan just nods and sends back a "y." He stops by the house to get a big blue binder that Brendon's been carrying around that has all the stuff in it for the band's trip to Disney World in a few weeks. There are sheets detailing bus and room assignments and order forms for boots and flags with little doodles in the margins along with phone numbers and dollar signs.
The band room door itself is open, but it's dark, something up on the screen. Brendon is sitting in the dark next to a guy, boy with curly black hair. They're watching a reel of the kids practicing with the sound turned off. Brendon is pointing a light pointer at the screen, quickly circling some of the trumpets in the back of the formation that are out of step. The kid takes Brendon's hand circling his fingers around his wrist and moving the pointer across the screen to where two flags are moving out of sync with the rest of the line.
Ryan coughs, stepping farther enough into the room that he's fully out of the shadows created from the hallway light.
"Oh hey!" Brendon grins, pulling away from the kid next to him. He jumps over some of the chairs between them and gives Ryan a hug before taking the binder from him. "Thanks! I promised to order the boots for the danceline by today so we can get them next week, and that's with the charge for a rush order." Brendon turns quickly on his heels and runs to his office, slamming the door behind him. Ryan can see him digging through the papers on his desk to get to his phone through the plastic windows.
The video is paused and the kid is playing with the pen light, drawing little figure eights and smiling faces on the screen. They stand for another minute awkwardly and Ryan almost turns and just goes back to his car. He can stop at the Starbucks just off the interstate and he needs to hit Target for some dog food. Instead he stands in the darkness a little longer watching Brendon through the window with the phone cradled on his shoulder.
"Hey, I'm Ian. You must be Ryan." The kid is standing, walking toward Ryan and extending his hand.
"What? Yeah, I'm Ryan." Ryan shakes his hand back, a little startled.
"I'm learning a lot from Brendon."
"Huh?" Ryan doesn't understand why he's suddenly grown hard of hearing.
"I said I'm learning a lot from Brendon."
"Oh, yeah, he's a great teacher. What do you play?" Ryan rubs his hand behind his ear, tucking wisps of hair that haven't been there for years.
"Ugh, I guess my thing would be guitar and some piano, but a little of some different things."
"Right."
They fall into awkwardness again, Ian dances the pen light across the cement brick walls.
They both flinch when Brendon comes out of his office, flicking the lights on. In the light, Ryan can see the light stubble across Ian's face and the hint of a tattoo peeking out around the collar of his shirt; he looks a little older in detail.
"Ryan, this is Ian, my student teacher this semester. Ian, this is Ryan." Brendon bounces on his heels, setting the binder down on the metal podium, already piled high with papers and confiscated items from the day.
"I'm just gonna..." Ryan thumbs toward the door and Brendon nods.
"Yeah, I better get out there. If you leave the majorettes alone for too long they start to get ideas." Brendon laughs a little bit as he walks behind Ryan outside, his hand barely brushes against his elbow as he opens the creaking metal door.
**
Tuesday, Ryan stays late marking through rough drafts of freshman papers and grading his American Lit II's drama essays. It's a stack full of desperation; most of them seem to be Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with a few Death of a Salesman essays thrown in. Those are the ones that are easiest to find movies of. Normally he'd take these home with him. He'd sit in front of the tv or let Brendon throw something onto the stereo and they'd eat dinner. Instead of just packing everything in his bag and going home, he just stays. He tells himself it will be easier to get though them this way. That he's suddenly that worried about getting behind just before the end of the semester.
Brendon's not home when he gets back. There's a text on his phone, "stopped by jons" from several hours before. Ryan finds some left over take out and watches The Hills by himself. He falls asleep and when he wakes up, Brendon is already in bed.
**
Wednesday, Ryan comes home, and Brendon's in the back of the house playing saxophone. He picked it up seriously last year after saying he wanted to "expand more into the woodwinds."
"Did you feed the dogs?" Ryan sticks his head into the room; it takes Brendon a few moments to realize Ryan is there talking to him.
"Huh?" he looks down at his watch, "Shit, no I..."
"Oh, I'll get it." Ryan turns down the hallway, he can hear Brendon setting things down as carefully as he can and still catch up with him.
"No, I forgot, I'll get it. It's cool." Brendon is behind him, crowding him in the hallway.
Brendon stomps into the laundry room, Ryan can hear him climbing on top of the dryer to get to the dog food and then fussing at Masie to just give him a second.
When he comes back in, he throws himself down at the kitchen table, he’s going through a stack of envelopes from the mailbox, tossing junk mail into a pile and other stuff going into the little box he keeps for that stuff on the fridge.
Ryan looks at the calendar.
"The art department is doing it's spring show tomorrow night. I told Gerard and Lin-" Ryan starts and Brendon lets out a big sigh.
"Ugh, I hate those things. And we've got rehearsal tomorrow."
"What, do you want those kids to be playing in their sleep?"
"Yes, and the concert is Sunday and we go to Orlando in less than two weeks. Fuck, in a week ."
"Right. Oh, didn't we tell Jon and Spencer we'd go to Krysta's graduation thing Friday?"
"She's in Kindergarten, what is there to graduate from?" Ryan pours some Fruit Loops into a bowl and pushes himself up on the counter.
"She's a daisy in the play. Jon's spent the past week trying to get the costume just right."
"Right. So tomorrow night."
"I'll try. If we get out of rehearsal on time. I'll have to come by here and change-"
"Whatever you wore to school will be fine." Ryan's sharper than he means to be. Brendon sighs.
"Fine."
Brendon tosses the junk mail into the garbage can under the sink and returns to the back of the house.
**
Brendon throws a jacket from the backseat on over his shirt, hoping that will cover up the sweat and ketchup stains from lunch. He hates it when it's his week to supervise the music kids in the cafeteria.
It's later than Ryan wanted him there. Maybe he stayed a little later than he had to; he just kept finding reasons to put off leaving. There was a freshman flute player whose mom was late coming to pick her up, he wanted to get some paperwork out of the way and up to the main office before the morning. He maybe straightened the rows before leaving. His white board really needed to be cleaned with those new Clorox wipes Greta bought.
The jacket has been sitting in the back seat of the car too long and smells a little of stale coffee and fast food. He hopes the art department crowd holds to its usual standards of personal hygiene and no one will notice.
Brendon grabs a cup of punch and the last handful of sugar cookies left on the refreshment table. It's easy enough to find Ryan in the crowd, he's by the wall talking to someone intently pointing out something in a photograph in front of him.
He gets another glass of punch for him before heading across the room, making his way between nervous students and put-upon professors. Ryan glares at him when he sees him coming.
"Everything okay?" Ryan smiles and slides away from the student.
"Yeah, yeah. Told you things might run over." Brendon shoves the glass of punch in his hand.
"It's almost 7:30." Ryan keeps his voice low, almost a hiss in Brendon's ear. There's a slight curl at the end of Ryan's usual monotone.
"I can tell the fucking time." Brendon snaps, and smiles when someone waves at them from across the room.
They spend the next half-hour tensely holding back annoyance. Brendon hates these things on principle. He listens to Ryan talk to people about things that bore him to death. He used to find it charming to listen to Ryan drone pretentiously. Now he finds himself restraining sarcastic laughs and having to stare at his shoes to keep from rolling his eyes.
He doesn't go straight home when they leave. He drives around town and ends up at Jon and Spencer's. It's after eight and he knocks on the door quietly just in case Krysta is already asleep. Spencer answers, he's shirtless, and his sweatpants are soaking wet.
"Bath time?" Brendon walks in, following him down the hall where he can hear Jon trying to explain to Krysta that her bunny pjs are dirty, and maybe she should choose another pair from the closet.
"Just got done."
Krysta is huffing, pulling on a pair of blue and yellow striped pjs, her hair is pulled back in an old white and brown towel. She smiles when she sees him, running past Spencer and clinging to Brendon's leg before she looks around him toward the door.
"Where's Uncle Ryan?"
"He's at home with Hobo and Masie."
"Oh, okay. Tell him I said hi." She goes back down the hallway yawning, stretching her arms above her. Spencer follows her.
"They're about to start the argument about how long she's going to stay up watching a video before she goes to sleep." Jon lowers his voice, "It doesn't really matter because she always falls asleep 30 minutes in anyway."
He grins and leads Brendon back down the hallway, passing through the kitchen and grabbing a glass of water and tossing Brendon a beer before they wind back through to the living room. There's a giant daisy costume taking up most of the couch.
"Ryan's being a fucktard."
Jon crooks an eyebrow.
"Whatever."
They sit in silence for a while until Spencer comes back down the hallway in a fresh pair of sweats and a t-shirt.
"She's nervous about tomorrow." He sits down on in the big arm chair across the room. "Told me that if she messes up, it's the fault of the boy standing next to her because he smells gross."
"Just be glad she hasn't started coming home telling you how the boy next to her is so fine oh my goooooood." Brendon laughs.
"That's not funny and you're a horrible evil person." Jon frowns.
"Do you remember that week we spent in my parents' van that one Spring Break?" Jon nods and Spencer laughs. It sometime in the time just after Ryan and Brendon had crossed over from flirtation and dancing around one another to being RyanandBrendon.
They had all stayed in various states of drunk and high at the time, Brendon was banned from driving after the first night when Spencer wrestled the keys from him and yelled that he "didn't care if this is your van, go in the back and fuck around with my best friend, kill puppies, whatever. But never ever again am I riding with you in a vehicle. Not even a go-kart."
Jon had frowned a little and said quietly, "Puppies."
They had slept in the van and drank underneath the stars in the woods. Ryan complained about bugs and sometime in the blur of that week, it stands out for Brendon how much he wanted to wrap himself up in Ryan back then. Ryan wasn't just new or smart. He was different from other people Brendon knew when he was a kid. He (and Jon and Spencer) were Brendon's friends, but even more than that, when Ryan looked at him it was full of burning and desire. Ryan pulled Brendon closer to him and when Brendon clung to him he didn't jerk away or sigh in exasperation. Even the things that quickly stopped being new like kissing, holding hands, falling asleep together, felt new every time. Some times it was simply that back then Brendon had been amazed he was allowed these things, he kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.
He'd stopped having that knot in his stomach years ago. He took Ryan's words to heart about Brendon being everything he wanted, needed. Brendon meant what he'd said in return, about being there for Ryan and forgiveness and all that. He remembers getting high and stupidly slow dancing to Bob Dylan underneath the streetlights in the yard behind their last apartment.
He thinks maybe that was some other them.
"I don't..." Brendon picks at the label on the beer bottle, swishing around the remains at the bottom, "I don't know what's going to happen anymore." His words break a little on the way out and he doesn't realize how fucked up he feels until Jon is sliding over next to him, pulling him into a hug.
**
They sit through Krysta's graduation. Afterward, Ryan and Brendon play with her while Jon and Spencer talk to the principal and school counselor.
"I hated those talks when I was a kid." Brendon nods over to them, the way Spencer is nodding along with the counselor as she talks. "Everyone acts like you're not even there." Ryan just nods at him, bouncing Krysta on his knee.
After, they follow Spencer and Jon to Burger King so Krysta can play in the big indoor playground. Brendon goes inside to refill his drink; he automatically takes Ryan's with him when he goes and Ryan doesn't think to argue with him.
It's awkward for a second, Spencer moving his onion rings around in a mound of ketchup as he keeps a careful watch at Krysta bouncing around in the ball pit.
Finally, Jon coughs a little, "It... you remember the first time we got Krysta back?" Ryan's not sure who Jon is talking to at first. It's either him, Spencer, or no one in particular. Spencer's mouth is full but he nods a little.
Ryan finally mutters an affirmation and Jon continues, "She was only gone two weeks before they pulled her away from her grandmother. She..." Jon stops for a second, staring at his hands before continuing, "I thought it was going to be too much. She was so... and none of the daycare places would take her because she kept screaming and hitting the other kids. I quit work to stay and..."
Ryan remembers a lot of visits where Jon and Spencer both looked tense and tired. At the time, Ryan had read it as the stress of having a kid back in the house or the change of routine. Everything he's pulling up now is colored by the present; it just seems like fragments of reality.
Spencer finally says, "We almost didn't make it."
"I was staying home with a kid who flipped out about anything and Spencer was working more. We were both freaking out about what happens the next time they pull her from foster care and-"
"If any of this is what we wanted." Spencer finishes for Jon and takes a long sip from his drink.
Brendon comes out then and sits down. He sets Ryan's soda down next to Ryan's hand. He expects to feel Brendon's leg against his as he bounces his feet beneath the table or to feel Brendon's fingers brushing his when he steals the last of the french fries from him. Instead, he keeps a polite distance.
"Was it?" Ryan says quietly when Spencer and Brendon are distracted with getting Krysta's shoes on.
Jon smiles a little, "I didn't know it, but yeah. It is."
**
It's like they're living in a different house. Brendon spends the rest of the weekend closed up in the back of the house. Ryan's reading with the stereo turned low when Brendon comes to bed naked Saturday night. It's not unusual at all and Ryan wants to reach over and slide his hand around Brendon's hip and let his fingers slide down until Brendon is bucking back into him and moaning his name. He wants to let his hand trail down Brendon's back and slide down his ass, fingering him open until he's shaking and fucking himself up into Ryan's hand and demanding he hurry the fuck up.
Brendon looks at him for a moment before he pulls the sheet up around himself and turns over.
"You're still coming tomorrow, right?"
"Yeah."
"'Kay."
They sleep as far as they can from one another while still being in the same bed. In the past, Ryan would sleep at Spencer and Jon's when things were really ugly or they would sleep on the couch for a night after yelling and screaming and slamming doors for a couple of hours.
Ryan wakes up in the night thinking he feels Brendon's hand ghosting over him, but when he stirs wanting to put his hand on top of his, the feeling is gone and he looks over his shoulder. Brendon is curled tightly, shoulders small and tense beneath the sheet.
**
The concert goes off with only a few hitches. One boy in the Jr. High Choir nearly passes out and the girl next to him yells, "That's why you don't lock your knees!" The jazz ensemble gives Brendon a case of Red Bull, a gift card to the local record store, and a big glittery card that the lead alto saxophone makes sure everyone knows she made. The show choir does a tribute to Sweeney Todd that is a little trippy coming from a group of fresh faced kids in sparkly blue and black outfits. The senior choir members present Greta with a book about serial killers and a pair of plastic handcuffs that she says are going up in her office as a warning to others.
Ryan hangs around helping Brendon, Greta, Greta's husband Bob and the students clean up afterward. It's turning dark when Brendon finally locks the auditorium up, tossing the key to Greta to give to the principal on Monday.
They're about to turn on to the interstate when Ryan makes a face as Brendon changes lanes.
"What?"
"Nothing. I'd just be nice if you would actually look before you ended up merging us into an 18-wheeler."
"You wanna drive? I mean you can drive if you want; I just wanted to get home sometime before I died of old age." Brendon's voice is raising up above the radio loudly, and as he and as he gets angrier, he drives faster.
"I'd like to be able to live to old age, " Ryan snaps loudly.
Brendon swerves the car over to the side of the road. It's all too dramatic for what they're yelling about, but that's not what this fight is about.
Brendon throws the keys across the seat to Ryan and they land with a thud at his feet. He throws himself in the backseat.
"Drive the fucking car," Brendon snaps when Ryan just sits there staring at the keys. Ryan gets out and finishes the drive back to the house.
Brendon locks himself in the back of the house; he stays back there the rest of the night and Ryan can feel his restlessness. He keeps changing instruments, styles. At first, it's just the tapping as he pounds drum sticks against a practice pad.
Ryan sits in the kitchen and rolls a joint while Hobo curls up at his feet. He goes to bed early and wakes up alone. Brendon is curled up in the living room watching tv.
"You can come to bed.," Ryan stays standing in the hallway, leaning against the wall so he's hidden mostly from Brendon.
Brendon sits for a moment and Ryan thinks maybe he actually is asleep.
"I don't want to."
Later though, Ryan wakes up to see Brendon curled up in the corner of the bed and he doesn't know if that makes it better or worse.
**
Tuesday night it all falls apart. Brendon comes home late and collapses on the couch across from Ryan. The Daily Show is on and the slamming of the door woke up the dogs. Ryan sighs.
"If you're gonna wander in all hours of the fucking night, you could be less of a douche about it."
"It's ten fucking fifteen. I slammed the door without thinking because I had a long day at work and it made the dogs bark. Sorry to irritate your delicate sensibilities, mom."
"I don't know of any high school teachers that work until ten at night." Ryan turns the tv up, as if they aren't both priming to fight instead of settling in.
Brendon looks at him, confused and he rubs his nose, cradling his face in his hands before he says anything, "Not all of us can spend our time rambling at drunk college kids five hours a week and call it a job."
"Still more of a job than hanging all over our 'student teachers' that we suddenly find so fascinating."
"That's what this is about? You think... oh fuck you, Ryan. Just-"
"I go to every football game, every recital, I listened-"
"Because you wanted to. Because that's what we do. I go to-"
"You couldn't even show up on time for something for me! What-"
"I told you-"
They can't even hear what the other is saying anymore. Ryan knows his face will be pink from anger and the dogs are barking loudly, Hobo circling their feet and Masie thinking it's a game.
Finally Ryan screams loud enough for Brendon to stop, "If you want to leave, just fucking leave already."
Brendon stands surprised for a minute before he squares his shoulders. "I.. no, this is mine too. This is... no." It's the same push and pull they've always done. Pushing the other as far as they'll go to see who will break first, to prove every stupid thing they think right. Brendon always thinks if he stands his ground firm enough, Ryan will give in and Ryan is always pushing to see how far he can push things before Brendon finally breaks.
Ryan takes his jacket from the arm of the couch and his keys from the rack and leaves.
**
Brendon sleeps in an empty bed for the first time in more years than he can remember. When Ryan goes to see his mom and step-dad, Brendon is with him. When they fly to Vegas for Brendon's family, Ryan is there. Even though he knows they've spent nights apart the past 15 years, nothing has ever felt as lonely as this.
He's never felt like it's something he'd have to get used to again.
The next day he's running the numbers for kids to chaperones and confirming everything when two of the parents drop out. Their younger kids are too sick to stay with any of the relatives. Brendon had already crossed Ryan off the list of chaperones, but now he's two down and those kinds of numbers make him a little uneasy.
Ryan is staying with Spencer and Jon, so Brendon goes by after work. Ryan is sitting in the floor helping Spencer and Krysta put together a puzzle when Jon opens the door.
"Hey, uh, can I talk to Ryan for a second?" Spencer looks hopeful and that makes Brendon feel like a giant douche. Ryan joins him on the stoop.
"Look, I don't know if you've already got plans for the weekend, but I had parents cancel for me last minute and so I'm short chaperones and you try..."
"I'll do it." Ryan doesn't look at him, but Brendon smiles anyway.
He wants to ask Ryan how he's doing or say anything that he thought might fix all the little things Brendon pretended weren't broken. Instead he just smiles a little more and reminds him that they're leaving from the high school after school Thursday.
When Ryan's back in the house, Brendon whispers "thank you, " at the door before getting back in his car.
**
Ryan takes a stack of papers and books with him and his iPod is fully charged. The ride four hours before stopping for dinner and to stretch at a big truck stop and gas station that has a KFC, Subway, and Taco Bell in it. When they stop, Ryan demands that the bus becomes "Girls on one side, boys on the other, and I'm not playing around!" before they get off. There are a lot of pissed off kids when they walk off, but Ryan's tired of having to split kids up and soothing traumatized seventh graders.
He goes into Subway and he's paying for his order before he realizes that he's already ordered Brendon's usual as well. He just takes the extra sandwich and fills up the cup with Mountain Dew anyway. Brendon is standing at the end of the line for sandwiches trying to keep a watch on a cluster of kids in front of him. When he spots Ryan walking toward him he gives a small wave.
“Hey, I…” Ryan hands him the sandwich and drink.
“Oh, thanks.”
“I didn’t mean to-“
“Here,” Brendon digs into a plastic bag and pulls out a large bag of Sour Patch Kids and some pretzels. “I just got them-“
“Didn’t mean to?” Ryan laughs a little and tucks them under his arm. “We had to separate the boys and girls on our bus.”
“I heard. Yeah, you’re a fascist, Ryan Ross.” Brendon moves himself out of the line and starts sipping from his cup. Ryan knows Brendon will refill right before the buses pull out of the lot.
“Right, um, well, thanks.” Ryan turns quickly and goes to stand outside his bus, helping one of the moms check kids off the list as they come back on the bus. He helps another mom chase down some of the majorettes that hung back flirting with the counter guy at the gas station.
**
“I forgot. I honestly would have done something else, I just didn't think about it with everything going on.” Brendon hands Ryan a keycard to the hotel room and it takes Ryan cutting him off to get him to stop apologizing.
“It’s not like we haven’t shared a room before.” Ryan takes the keycard and slides it down his back pocket.
“It’s different.” Brendon stares at his shoes when he says that, voice barely making its way through the din of people around them.
Ryan’s too tired to find a way to argue with him.
**
The first day is all competitions and performances. Brendon gets up at five so he can start gathering the Jazz Ensemble for their performance at eight. Ryan wakes up a little as Brendon is sitting on his own bed tying his shoes.
“Good luck,” Ryan mumbles, face still planted firmly in his pillow. Brendon feels strange having this conversation sitting across from him. When he says, “Thanks,” he leans over to kiss Ryan on the back and stops himself a little and ends up just patting Ryan between the shoulder blades.
“I’ll see you at ten with the orchestra kids, right?”
Ryan just mumbles in agreement.
They spend the rest of the day like that. Brendon has to remind himself every time he finds himself stepping back into Ryan’s space that he doesn’t think he’s welcome there anymore. There are moments where he thinks he’ll have to break his hand to keep from wanting to brush it against Ryan’s and others where he wants to scream and pick a fight just to get under Ryan’s skin again.
That night, Brendon has to break up a fight between two drummers and has to pull two girls from another school’s band out of some of their rooms. There’s a drunk boy in one room that he spent an hour at the front desk trying to figure out who he belonged to until finally a panicked parent from the hotel down the street came in and claimed him.
He hits the bed exhausted. Ryan’s sitting on the other bed cross legged, watching tv and eating pizza. He’s in a t-shirt and shorts and Brendon smiles a little at the sight.
“I got two.” Ryan says and lifts his own box up to reveal a box of mushroom and pepperoni.
“Oh, thank God.”
“Nah, just me.” Ryan takes another bite to hide the smile Brendon knows is there.
**
Day two is one of their two days of being able to actually enjoy the park. Sure, they have a parade later that night followed by the awards banquet, but the kids are up ridiculously early sitting outside. When Brendon finally wanders down, Ryan is already down there helping the parents get a head count and making lists of kids.
“This is seriously the quietest I have ever seen them,” Ryan whispers to Brendon when he walks up.
“I thought they were supposed to be too old and cool for Disney World.”
“I don’t think you have any room to talk.” Ryan remembers Spencer telling him, “No, really, the dude is obsessed with Disney. It’s like a fetish. He got high and sung the entire Aladdin soundtrack with the RA the other night. He knew all the words.”
“Aladdin is awesome,” Brendon mutters before clapping his hands and starting to order kids around.
**
Ryan wanders around the park, meeting up with parents and kids at the designated times and places. He spot checks to make sure no one’s doing anything that they shouldn’t be. He remembers the first time he helped Brendon with one of these things. The parents had just looked at him funny and the kids kept trying to buy weed from him.
“Why do they think I smoke pot?” he had asked Brendon and Brendon just raised an eyebrow. “Okay, why do they think I would smoke pot with them?”
It’s easier now. He doesn’t feel like another kid ordering kids around and he’s just “Dr. Urie’s friend,” or whatever it is everyone thinks of him as to Brendon. Boyfriend Husband Significant Other.
He sees Brendon a few times, but he knows that he’s mostly running around in conferences with the other band directors and staying busy on his cell checking in with parents or trying to calm down his high-strung drum major. They don’t really meet up again until after the parade. Brendon’s changed into his sports jacket and corduroy slacks. Ryan applauds when the Jazz Ensemble wins first place and the marching band gets second. The orchestra earns all ones. Every time Brendon’s school is called out, he looks more relieved than anything else. When the applause dies down, Brendon leans in close to him, whispering,
“I was so afraid of letting them all down.”
“You wouldn’t.” Ryan answers back and brushes his fingers against Brendon’s knee.
**
Brendon socializes afterward. He’s used to having Ryan next to him for these things. It’s not that he’s bad with people; he’s not. It’s more he feels like Ryan keeps him focused, makes him feel easier in his skin. When it’s finally over, Brendon makes sure the parents have a handle on the kids and heads back to his room to collapse. He’s zoned out when Ryan finally comes tumbling in. He can tell Ryan thinks he’s being quiet because he swears when he trips over his own shoes and falls face first into the bed.
Brendon rolls over. “Are you seriously wasted?”
“Drunk. Wasted is an ugly word.” Ryan straightens himself before sitting down on the bed with forced poise.
“You’re drunk at Disney World.” Brendon smiles a little and turns up the light on the lamp. Ryan’s hair is sticking up all over, his eyes red and wide.
“You are a hypocrite, Brendon Urie.” Ryan shakes his finger at him and giggles.
“That’s dirty pool.” Brendon pulls himself up to face Ryan.
“Nope. I remember someone insisting it would be awesome to trip and do the Pirates of the Caribbean.”
Brendon laughs, remembering Ryan claiming for hours afterward that he could “seriously steal the pirate gold;” and his elaborate plans for them to find pirate gold and live on an island where all they had to do all day was fuck and get wasted.
“That was a long time ago.” Brendon finally says with a sigh. He pulls his knees up to his chest.
“Yeah.” Ryan fumbles over, pushing his lips into Brendon’s and it hurts when Brendon pulls himself away.
“Ryan, no. Ryan, you’re drunk, that’s all this-“
Ryan just stares at him for a moment before standing up, straightening his shirt.
“I can’t even… what the hell, Brendon?” Ryan’s fumbling in his pockets looking for his cigarettes but the box is empty and he throws it down. “Fuck. Just, fuck it.”
“You’re drunk and it doesn’t fix anything.” Brendon stands up, squaring his shoulders, trying to raise himself to Ryan’s height and meet him in the eye.
Ryan walks away, throwing his fist against the wall. “I’m tired of everything… just fuck it. Why do we keep doing this?” His voice isn’t angry, not like it was, it’s tired and all the things Brendon’s been feeling for weeks, months maybe.
“Maybe this is what it’s like when…” he can’t finish it. He can’t let the rest of the words that have been circling his head every day out: maybe this is what it’s like when you fall out of love.
“When we get back, maybe one of us should, you could stay in the house. I’ll find somewhere.” Ryan says finally and Brendon nearly falls over. He feels like the blood is gone from his body.
“If that’s what you want,” is all Brendon can manage. He steps away from Ryan. He needs a drink. He needs out of this room. He needs to be anywhere other than right here so he can pretend he isn’t having this conversation.
“I think you’d be happier that way.” Ryan’s deflating in front of him, slumped shoulders and his words are slurred a little and slow. He crumples down on the foot of the bed, his head in his hands. It raises something in Brendon though, he doesn’t realize how tightly his hands have fisted up until he feels the scratch of his nails pressing into skin.
“That’s bullshit, Ryan. I’m not… you make me crazy and you make me miserable, but I’m not happier without you.”
Ryan looks at him a little, eyes blinking, “It's not been that way for a while now. You don’t know what it’s like to watch… maybe this is just... you don’t act like it.” he finally decides on.
“I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean.” Brendon kneels in front of Ryan, he takes one of Ryan’s hands in his, letting their fingers wind together gently.
“Doesn’t it scare you to know you wake up every day to the same fucking person and the same bullshit and that’s all this is? That it’s feeding the dogs and coming home and arguing about what to have for dinner and falling asleep knowing you’re going to do it all again tomorrow?”
Brendon tightens his fingers a little around Ryan and studies the lines of Ryan’s thin wrists, the tattoos that he remembers Ryan getting back when they were both other people. “Yes.”
“I don’t feel like you’re there anymore.” Ryan says finally.
“I’m…” Brendon could have this argument. He could pick a fight and they could end up yelling so loud that the people next door end up calling hotel security. Ryan would go out and get even more wasted and Brendon would spend the night wishing he didn’t have to be a responsible fucking adult so he could do the same. But it would just be another argument after another, one after another fight and maybe none of that’s the point.
He leans in, kissing the side of Ryan’s face first. Ryan finally turns into the kiss, letting their lips press together.
“I miss you,” Brendon says against Ryan’s face, and he can feel Ryan nod in agreement before they pull apart.
Brendon stands and pulls Ryan with him into the bathroom. He pushes himself up on the counter and pulls Ryan between his legs while he digs in the inside pocket of Ryan’s jacket until he produces the cheap metal cigarette case that Ryan always keeps his traveling stash in. Ryan takes out a carefully rolled joint and lights it with the lighter from Ryan’s front pocket. He lets his fingers linger, exploring longer than he needs to. Brendon takes his first hit from the joint hard and finally exhales, blowing smoke into Ryan’s face with a smile. His free hand slides down Ryan’s chest; his fingers pushing in between the buttons of his shirt. Ryan tries to take the joint from him and Brendon pulls it away. He takes a second hit, and on his third he holds his breath and then breathes the smoke into Ryan’s mouth.
“This is really really fucking stupid.” Brendon wants to blame Ryan and everything else for the fact that he’s getting stoned in the bathroom while on the job. He locks the door and turns on the bathroom fan. Ryan doesn’t answer him though, instead he lands a kiss between Brendon’s shoulder and neck and Brendon moans a little in response.
It’s been way too fucking long since Brendon was good and stoned and even longer still since he did any of this. Everything feels good and he can’t stop himself from just rubbing his body up against Ryan. He loves the way Ryan’s fingers feel holding his hips down as Ryan takes him in his mouth. The lights of the bathroom are bright when Brendon opens his eyes, but everything feels so fuzzy and half-real that he has to see this and know it’s happening. Ryan’s eyes are closed and Brendon knows this is sloppy for him; he’s all tongue work and pulling back. He stops and laughs, looking up at Brendon before he slides one of his hands down and one of his fingers ghosts around Brendon’s ass.
“Fuck, Ryan.” Just as Brendon bucks back, Ryan takes him back down in his mouth. He’s tired and stoned and just the light feeling of Ryan’s fingers moving in the crease of Brendon’s ass has him feeling shaky and ready. He pulls on Ryan’s hair, trying to warn him but Ryan stays, swallowing as Brendon collapses back a little against the sink. Ryan kisses him and misses his lips. He licks along Brendon’s cheek and the edge of his mouth before he pulls away and leads him back into the dark bedroom. The television's still on from earlier. They stand between the beds for a second, unsure where they belong. Finally Brendon sits down on his and pulls the blankets back, inviting Ryan.
Brendon falls asleep with his head pressed against Ryan’s chest and it’s the closest he’s felt to normal in a while.
**
Ryan wakes up with a light headache and the sound of Brendon singing in the bathroom. He hits the chorus as he comes out shaking his wet hair,
“There will always be a spare in my parking lot when you need a little coke and sympathy. Well we all need- Oh, morning.” He’s naked still and he drops the towel in the floor and walks to the mini-fridge and tosses Ryan a Mountain Dew and a pack of pop-tarts.
Ryan tries and fails at opening them with one hand until Brendon sits down on the bed and opens the soda for him. “You’re on your own with the food.” Ryan smiles and finally sits up, downing most of the can in one go. Brendon steals a corner of Ryan’s pop-tart before bouncing off the bed to get dressed.
“I’ve got some official last day stuff to do while you guys are doing check-out. I’ll meet up with you at the park, okay?” His words are muffled as he pulls the shirt over his head, but he’s smiling at Ryan when he looks over at him.
“Yeah, I’ll meet up with you.”
**
They eat overpriced hamburgers late in the day just before rounding everyone up to leave. Ryan doesn’t stiffen when Brendon’s fingers brush against his, and Ryan feels himself smiling a little easier. Ryan buys Brendon an Aladdin t-shirt on their way out of the park, shoving it down in his bag to give him later.
They get home Monday afternoon and collapse into bed. Ryan wakes up and checks his messages. He calls Spencer and they talk about the trip before falling back asleep. When he wakes up again, he can hear Brendon in the living room talking to the dogs and playing video games. Ryan pulls himself out of bed and grabs a glass of water before sitting down on the floor next to Brendon.
“Want in?” Brendon pauses his game long enough to look over at him. Ryan waves him off and instead lets Hobo crawl up into his lap.
Tuesday is back to normal. Brendon gets home earlier though, smiling because, “Grading is seriously the easiest time of the year for a band director. Do you know how hard a kid has to fuck up to get anything other than an A in band?” He hands Ryan a box of wings that he ordered earlier and a beer. They sit out on the deck drinking and talking until late. They go to bed buzzed and make out and jerk each other off.
Wednesday, Ryan calls Brendon and asks him if he remembers scheduling a Vet appointment for the dogs for that afternoon and Brendon curses into the phone. The argue about taking them or rescheduling, until finally Brendon snaps and says he’ll leave after his last period today and take them and hangs up.
Thursday and Friday blur into one another. Ryan spends Saturday freaking out about the stack of papers he still needs to grade and the exams he needs to write.
“Can’t you use the ones you did last year?”
“No, that’s what they expect you to do.” Ryan looks almost devious when he answers him and Brendon lets out a laugh. “You don’t do exams, you don’t understand. These kids are animals.” Ryan spends the day slamming doors around the house and even Hobo incurs his wrath when she curls up on top of his laptop bag. Brendon takes the dogs for a walk and tells Ryan to get the fuck over himself by the time he comes back. When he returns, he takes Ryan’s laptop from him and straddles his lap. They kiss and as Brendon’s hand starts to slide down the front of Ryan’s jeans, Ryan pulls back.
“I seriously need to finish writing this exam.” Brendon sighs and leans his head against Ryan’s shoulder, laughing before settling on the couch next to him. They watch tv and Ryan takes a break to make some pasta while Brendon gives him a play-by-play of what’s happening on Big Brother. Later they tumble into bed and fuck. Brendon slides himself down on Ryan and rides him until they’re both weak-legged and Brendon comes all over Ryan’s stomach. They fall asleep filthy and in the morning they bitch one another out because neither of them remembered to let the dogs outside before they went to bed.
They meet Spencer and Jon for brunch at Spencer’s restaurant. Krysta wears the mouse ears that they got her the entire time and beams at the pictures Brendon made sure to get of Minnie Mouse. They go home and Ryan grades papers and Brendon plays some stuff on the piano and talks idly about buying a new guitar he saw the last time he was at the music store or maybe taking up the clarinet.
Ryan’s in bed reading when Brendon finally joins him, feet bouncing beneath the sheets and Ryan instinctively reaches over to still him. Brendon turns his iPod on before slumping back against the headboard.
“I think things are better,” Brendon says finally and when Ryan looks over at him, Brendon's staring up at the ceiling biting his lip. He won’t look over at Ryan. He slides closer into Brendon and goes back to reading. Even when he starts to sweat along his neck from the heat of Brendon’s arm wrapped around him, he curls himself up in closer.
“Yeah. I want them to be.”
(the end)
Further notes: Lies, fiction, most false of facts. This was started with the Brendon interview where he mentions something about if he hadn’t been in a band he would have gotten his Doctorate in music and a joke about Brendon Urie: High School Band Director. Title is from "Landlocked Blues" by Bright Eyes. Thanks to F & G for the cheerleading and last minute work on this for me.
