User: jenish (posted by fizzyblogic) Date: 2007-08-16 13:18 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public Tags: fandom:bands:patd, ryan/brendon, spencer/jon

tonight tonight
{Panic! At The Disco RPS. R. Ryan/Brendon, Spencer/Jon. 100% untrue. Beta by Katrina.}

The bodies near him are warm. Brent is curled in a ball in his sleeping bag, breath stirring the hair that’s falling in his face. Brendon is on his side, back against the couch, snoring. Ryan can’t sleep like that, on the floor up against a couch or a bed or a chair; the kid inside him still gets spooked by the gap between object and floor.

Spencer’s head is on his shoulder and they’re half asleep, still playing the game, hands automatically working the controls. On the screen, things blow up and get shot, and Ryan watches the colours flicker. He doesn’t think about the song they need to work on some more tomorrow, doesn’t think about this house getting sold even though he can’t count the number of times he’s been here to see Spencer’s grandmother with him, doesn’t think about the game and what to do next. He just listens to Brent’s snuffles and Brendon’s snores and Spencer’s breathing and thinks, I could do this forever.

He goes to school on Monday and doodles words in the margins of pages. Says hey to the people he knows, slips his arm around his girlfriend and kisses her, gets a song stuck in his head. He gets a test back; B minus. “Working your way up from that C minus, I see,” and a wink from his teacher. “Let’s see if we can make that an A next time.” Ryan thinks this is reaching a little far; it’s not like this is guitar class. (That doesn’t mean he won’t try, books spaced out on the table in his kitchen while Spencer sits opposite and taps his pen against the wood.)

He counts the days he has before he can graduate. (But then there’s college, his dad reminds him, and yeah, okay, there’s that, but summer comes before it and Ryan likes the summer.)

And when it comes, it stretches. Ryan puts Twinkies in the freezer and invites the guys over. He and Brendon lie on their backs in the grass, looking up at the clouds and competing over who can make the dirtiest shapes out of them. To win points, the shapes actually have to qualify; you can’t just take two lumpy clouds and claim them as breasts, there have to be nipple-tufts for it to work. “Otherwise it’s ass,” Ryan explains, and Spencer, who is pulling grass up to their left, leans on Brent in a fit of giggles. Brendon grins and points out three guys going at it in a complicated formation, and Ryan hits him in the stomach. They roll, play fighting, while Brent throws blades of grass at them.

Ryan sits on the hood of his car with his girlfriend, one arm around her and the other in her hair, whole body tingling as she kisses him. She asks him what the stars are, and he makes it up. He isn’t really looking. She’s pressed against his side and he’s warm, even though he’s just wearing a shirt. Her arms are around him and her hair is so pretty, and he trails kisses in it and hopes September never comes.

~*~

Spencer is half asleep when his mother knocks on his door, saying “Spence? Ryan’s on the phone for you.” He takes the handset, squinting at it and putting it against his ear.

“Ry?” His voice is thick, and he clears his throat.

“Did I wake you?” Ryan sounds like he’s almost vibrating. Spencer sits up, letting the book that had been resting on his chest fall to the bed.

“Yeah, kinda. What’s up?” He rubs his eyes, hoping the world will speed up soon so he can keep up with the conversation.

“I have just,” Ryan announces, like his body can’t really quite exactly contain his excitement and the dust motes in the air around him are moving with it, “been talking online to Pete. Wentz.”

“What?” Spencer blinks and shifts into a bolt-upright position. “You’re shitting me. No fucking way.”

“Way,” Ryan grins, and Spencer wants to hug the phone. “He heard our songs. He liked them, Spence. He wants to come hear us play.”

“Fuck. Fuck.” Spencer bunches his hands in his pillow, bringing it to his chest. “Are you sure it was him?”

“Positive. He’s going to come to fucking Vegas, sit in on a practice.”

“Ryan,” Spencer says, and he has to sit up, has to rock on his knees, sit on the soles of his feet, has to move, “Ryan, Pete fucking Wentz.”

“I know,” Ryan says. Spencer tightens his grip on his pillow.

The practice goes well, to Ryan’s immense relief. Pete seems impressed, and tells them he wants to sign them. Brendon looks as if someone just punched him in the gut and then kissed his cheek. Brent lets out a wordless yell, and Spencer grips Ryan’s hand. “Shit,” he whispers in Ryan’s ear, and Ryan presses against him, agreeing wholeheartedly. Pete pulls them all into an awkward five-boy hug as soon as they get out of the car, and Ryan’s never seen him look so pleased, and maybe the fanboy in him is glad that, just for a minute, he made Pete Wentz that happy.

They call their girlfriends and throw a party the next night. A bunch of people turn up and Ryan doesn’t even care if he knows them or not, he just dances to the music they hook up on the stereo and makes out with his girlfriend under the coats. That night, the overriding thought is It’s good to be me, and Ryan sails on it, smile set to ecstatic and his friends around him and his band on the way, on the way to the studio, on the way out of Vegas, on the fucking way. And it’s really going to work.

It takes a month before he can drop out of college, a month of showing up to some of his classes (the ones that just interest him) and making excuses and trying to get it through to his father that honestly, his band has a record contract and this is worth leaving college for. He writes some more songs and every time he sees the other guys they can’t stop smiling at each other.

~*~

“I am so fucking done.” Brendon flops onto the couch beside Ryan, flinging his bag into the corner of the room. “Done, final, finito, no more. Last day of school, ever. Thank fucking God.”

“So you won’t miss it, then?” Ryan teases, fingers itching to tickle him but wait for it wait for it.

Brendon looks at him, and ah hah. Ryan starts tickling, and Brendon yelps and contorts, trying to get away. He wriggles enough that he just has the room, and retaliates, Ryan squirming out of his grasp.

“You two,” Spencer rolls his eyes at them.

“What?” Ryan asks, breathless, but Brendon uses this one moment of weakness to launch his final attack, and Ryan is lost in helpless laughter, squirming and tickling back just as hard.

“Get a room,” Brent calls, setting up a game on the Playstation.

“You get a – room,” Brendon pants, digging fingertips into Ryan’s side until he squeaks.

They only have a couple of weeks after that, and they go simultaneously faster and slower than any two weeks within living memory. Ryan sits on his bed and tunes his guitar the day his father comes in to tell him to make him proud. Ryan nods and says he will, just you wait. (He knows he won’t be believed, but he says it all the same.)

Brent sits next to him on the plane, and they spend the flight playing cards and trying to out-cheat each other, while Brendon snores in the seat across the aisle and Spencer taps his feet on the floor, headphones clamped to his ears. None of them take any notice of the in-flight movie, but they all (including Brendon, when he wakes up) pay attention to the air hostess. Brent makes a comment about her doing his safety checks any time, and Ryan snorts.

Maryland is cool when they get there, spring just beginning to open out into summer. The apartment they’re sharing is small, and cluttered, and they toss a coin to see who gets the bed. Ryan and Spencer get it for the first few nights, and they listen to Brendon and Brent play Grand Theft Auto in the living room and whisper together about what they did in the studio that day and how to improve on it in the morning. Ryan wakes with Spencer’s arm flung across him and moves it carefully, dead weight, and goes to take a shower. Brendon is still curled asleep on the couch, but Brent is on his way out of the bathroom.

“There’s hot water left, right?” Ryan asks, bleary. Brent nods and heads for the kitchen. The sounds of the percolator and the hiss of the shower gently prod Brendon and Spencer to consciousness. They groan, in unison, quiet enough that neither hears the other.

On the last day of recording, Spencer and Brent have the bed. Ryan sleeps on the couch, but wakes in the middle of the night to see Brendon watching him, chin on his folded hands inches from Ryan’s stomach.

“What?” Ryan mumbles, turning onto his side.

“Did we really make an album?” Brendon whispers, as though if he raises his voice he’ll be heard by something that notices because surely, surely this is too good to be true and the universe is going to do a double take when it sees and it’s going to revoke the anomaly instantly. Ryan closes his eyes.

“Yes, Brendon,” he sighs, smiling like he knows, “we really did.”

~*~

Nintendo Fusion Tour, Ryan thinks, we’re playing the fucking Nintendo Fusion Tour. What’s next, Warped? He blinks as he realises that hey, maybe, you never know. This time last year they weren’t even signed and now their album is coming out. They play to packed venues, and at first the reaction is just this side of lukewarm, but as time goes on and people are actually buying the CD, the crowds get that little bit more excited about them, until Brendon’s grinning on stage every night all through the set, and Ryan hears the kids singing along, and it’s perfect. He gets to hang out with fucking Fall Out Boy, and kids are buying his record and singing his songs. Magazines and websites start calling for interviews.

By the time winter comes, they have tour dates in Europe. The Academy are great guys; Pete introduces them before the tour, some party where it seems all of Chicago emptied to pay him homage, and Ryan ends up in a long conversation with William. They both wave their hands a lot, somehow managing not to upset their drinks in articulation. Brendon notices Spencer glancing over at a guy talking to Tom; Spencer blushes and Brendon makes a mental note to tease him later.

“So, who was that guy?” Spencer asks, when Tom makes his way over to say hi.

“Who, Jon? He was in a band with me last year, he’s our guitar tech now. Great guy, is Jon. Why?”

“No reason,” Spencer says, all casual and inclined hip, but Brendon is watching him and sees his hands shake. Definitely. Definitely going to mock him to death over this one.

Why not get an early start, he thinks, and leans in. “Hey Spence,” he says, as if he’s trying to be quiet and isn’t aware that his voice is kind of carrying, “you should go over and say hi. Ask him out, dude, what are you waiting for?”

Spencer digs a well-aimed elbow into Brendon’s rib cage. “Ass,” he says, but goes over anyway. Brendon grins through a wince. He leans back against a table to watch; feels a hand on his wrist and looks.

“Hey,” Pete says, “who’re you looking at?”

“I think Spencer has a crush on that Jon guy,” Brendon points. Pete follows his line of sight and lights up.

“Hell, everyone loves Jon Walker,” he grins, and saunters over to them. Brendon watches as Pete smacks Jon’s ass, and Jon jumps. Spencer laughs and Brendon can see the blush from here. Cute, he thinks, sipping his drink and going to find Brent.

Ryan pulls his hoodie around himself in the cold snap of London in January, and listens to the accents. They slant in the opposite direction to his, and he wants to catch it. In Glasgow, all he hears are snatches and gulps, and he listens to the music in it more than the words themselves. He and Brendon play a few acoustic songs to a crowded store, and the line afterwards for signing makes his wrist ache just to look at it. He looks in every face and sees excitement.

Brent falls asleep against his shoulder as they cross the border back into England. Ryan watches the landscape outside, and if it weren’t so emphatically different to home, he’d hardly believe that he is in Europe. There aren’t hills like these in Nevada, and he doesn’t want to sleep and miss a dip.

Brendon leans over Brent and murmurs, “They’ll still be here next time.” Ryan throws him a half-smile and lets his eyelids droop.

~*~

The day they kick Brent out, Ryan doesn’t say a word. He pulls his knees up and rests his chin on them, looking helplessly at Spencer as he dials. I know, Spencer looks back at him, but what can we do? Brendon puts his arm around Ryan and stares at the floor.

At first, it’s a little weird, but everything’s been increasingly weird for a while now and performing with Jon is becoming surprisingly like home. Not in a Vegas way, Ryan thinks in that blur the spotlights bring out in him, just in that it’s like they’ve been doing this longer than they have. He picks up his banjo and waits, a beat, two three four five and there – Brendon slinks over, shining with sweat, but his palm is somehow cool for the first half second it’s pressed against Ryan’s cheek. Ryan opens his mouth, and Brendon sings almost into it, and Ryan buzzes.

There’s always a line of kids waiting outside, and they stop on the way to the bus. Ryan stands beside fans, smiles, signs the pieces of paper held under his nose, asks how are you, what’s your name, thank you when they say great show. They get to the bus and Brendon holds a tub aloft. “We got cookies!” he announces, and they descend, pulling back the lid and breathing in the scent of the baked circles. Spencer grabs a handful at the same time Jon does, and they play tug-of-war with one cookie while Brendon and Ryan roll their eyes at each other and reach under the wrestling hands for their own shares.

They stay awake while the bus moves off, crowded on the couch talking, making noises about starting up a video game but thinking better of moving, and doze off. Ryan wakes with his head pillowed on Jon’s shoulder, Spencer’s nose in his lap and Brendon sprawled against his side. He closes his eyes and feels the rocking of the bus and listens to their even breathing, in and then out, in and then out, and a peace steals in, settling somewhere behind his lungs. He smiles, and forms a wordless thought that, really, just means Home.

~*~

It’s quiet in the middle of the night. They stop at an intersection, and the sudden loss of motion wakes Spencer up. He hears a sleeping snuffle come from Ryan’s bunk further down, muttering from Brendon’s above it, and complete silence from the bunk below his own.

He turns onto his back, heart pounding for no good reason, and closes his eyes. He thinks for a second he hears breathing from the bunk below; the kind of breathing that has I am not here, you cannot hear me, you didn’t see anythinnnnnng written all through it. He shakes his head.

The bus starts off again, and Spencer definitely, for certain this time, hears Jon exhale. Like he’d been holding his breath.

Spencer wonders if Jon’s awake. He contemplates opening his mouth to ask, maybe whisper down to him about the crazy dream he’d been having and can only half remember now, but he isn’t sure if he’s really awake enough to hold a conversation. Three heartbeats, and he still hasn’t made up his mind when he hears Jon exhale again.

Like he’d been holding his breath.

Breathing is nothing unusual, Spencer thinks, but he feels like he’s been flooded with something cold. Okay, measured breathing isn’t all that usual if you’re asleep, but. He listens, straining his ears and catching the ghost of a hitch on Jon’s inhale.

Fuck, he can’t be. Spencer bites his lip and twists his hands in the covers, anything to keep them up by his chin. He holds his breath, listening, and is almost certain Jon’s next exhale has the tiniest of sounds in it, like a whimper. Spencer breathes through his mouth, desperate to keep quiet, stretching out without realising it, toes pointed downwards and ears pricked. His fingers bunch the blankets.

Jon inhales, shaky, and mutters something inaudible. He is utterly silent for several seconds, which pass like lifetimes over Spencer’s skin, and then he lets out his breath in one long go, seconds and seconds and seconds and then the springs softly depress as he turns over. His breathing goes back to soft, in and out, just a hint of a sigh.

Spencer can’t move. He is actually incapable of it, pinned to the mattress, barely able to blink. Slowly, as the sounds from the bunk below melt into the other sounds of sleeping warm bodies, Spencer unfreezes. He’s shaking, and he feels hot and cold, everywhere, and he can’t, he won’t, he. He’ll call his girlfriend in the morning, he’ll. He’s going to turn over, right now, right now and go back to sleep and he won’t remember this in the morning and, really, what’s to remember? He heard Jon breathing. It’s not like he doesn’t hear Jon breathing every single day and oh shit how is he ever going to look him in the eye again when all he will be able to think about when he hears Jon exhale is that hitch and the sigh and Spencer is so not going to think about this. No. Not now, not ever, it is being filed under Things Not To Think About, At All, Ever, No Matter What Happens.

It’s another hour before he can sleep, and he doesn’t move a muscle. When he wakes up in the morning, he doesn’t remember until he’s in the tiny shower with the paper-thin walls, and he breathes through his nose as he carefully jerks off without a sound, twitching as pieces of the memory come back. He turns his face into the spray afterwards and tries to work out how soon he can see his girlfriend.

~*~

They get a call, further down the road, and cancel the next shows. “Take as long as you need,” Brendon says, and Ryan just nods. He doesn’t want to, he doesn’t, he just. Brendon looks at him, What can I, and Ryan hesitates and leans against him.

~*~

It’s hot in Vegas when they get back from tour, summer sticking to the walls. Brendon calls Jon to update him on the progress of their softball game, and Ryan spends as much time with Spencer as he can. They try calling Brent, but there’s no answer.

Ryan and Brendon lie on their backs in the grass, looking up at the clouds. “I wonder what it would be like if we hadn’t made it,” Ryan says.

“We’d still be playing,” Brendon muses, and Ryan agrees. “I guess we’d just be playing to less kids, huh?”

“Yeah, and they wouldn’t be screaming.”

“Or talking shit about us on the internet all day.”

Ryan smiles. “No, they’d do that anyway.”

“Only because you’re a loser.”

“And you’d be a hairdresser,” Ryan reminds him, punctuating it with a poke to the arm.

“Shut the fuck up,” Brendon pokes back. “I’d have been an awesome hair stylist.”

Ryan laughs. “You are so gay,” he says, shaking his head.

“Whatever, dude. I get chicks and you know it.”

“Yeah, but you’re still gay. Hair stylist?” Ryan’s still laughing, and Brendon joins in. “And don’t even get me started on your minivan.”

“Hey, hey, my parents gave me that,” Brendon protests, “and by the way, thank you for telling the entire world on television.”

“My pleasure.” Ryan bats his eyelashes, and Brendon rolls over to lie heavily on top of him. “Hey!” Ryan puffs.

Brendon pokes him in the stomach and rolls back. “Jerk,” he says, fondly.

~*~

Europe feels cool after the heat of the desert, and Ryan’s pleased to be back. They play a small show in London, and Ryan misses the windmill, misses the dancers, misses his vest. The roses made him feel more like there weren’t hundreds of eyes on him, expectant. They give interviews and sleep on the way up to the festivals, and Ryan steps out in front of the crowds, and they’re playing Reading.

When Brendon stops singing, it takes Ryan a moment to figure out what happened. Then Jon’s rushing over, and Ryan struggles out of his guitar strap and dashes, eyes meeting Spencer’s as they crouch over Brendon, surrounded by first aid, by security. Five minutes, and Brendon’s up again, and Ryan wants to fucking rock this joint, wants to show whoever fucking threw a fucking bottle as his fucking best friend that at least six people in this place have talent and don’t give a shit what some asshole thinks. He and Brendon share a look, extend it to Jon, glance up at Spencer, and nod. They pick up from where they’d got to, and they fucking rock. By the second song Ryan can feel it tingling in his fingers and vibrating from the floor, and this is why he does it, this is what it’s all about, and when Brendon beckons him over, the microphone between them, they sing, and it’s just them. Brendon takes up the entirety of his vision, and Ryan plays, and Brendon is alight, and this is a pretty great place to be, Ryan thinks.

They get off the stage and sling their arms around each other, walking four abreast. “I should probably learn to duck, right?” Brendon says, and Jon asks him if he’s sure he’s okay, really, and Brendon says he’ll be alright and it could have been worse. “At least it was just water,” he points out, and Ryan shudders.

~*~

The lights are bright and the winter sun is in Spencer’s eyes when they get to Seattle. He squints, not enough sleep and a jolting road, but he makes it through sound check okay and snatches a nap curled up in the bus in the late afternoon. Jon finds him there and throws a blanket over him, tucking his hair behind his ear so he won’t wake up with it in his eyes. Spencer breathes in the scent of apricot liquid soap over the faint whiff of Chinese food, and dreams of a restaurant filled with fruit, Jon laughing as Spencer tries to open an envelope, eventually ripping it and getting his hands covered in grey gunk. “Ew,” he mutters in his sleep, and Jon, who is walking past, chuckles.

Brendon wakes Spencer up by sitting heavily on his middle and saying, “Time to rise and shine, Smith! Show’s in an hour and a half, we’ve got to get ready.” Ryan laughs and hands Spencer a Starbucks cup. He looks up at them blearily, but he’s awake in plenty of time for the show, peeking out at the line of kids waiting to get in, gripping his drumsticks.

Jon and Ryan simultaneously walk towards each other during the fifth song, meeting in the middle. Ryan sinks to his knees, never breaking concentration, and Brendon is on Jon’s other side, and he follows Ryan’s lead, until Jon doesn’t know which way to angle his body. The crowd screams louder, and Brendon stands, puts the front of his body against Jon’s back, and winks at the audience as he sings into Jon’s neck. Ryan’s on his knees on the stage and the sound surrounds him and he hopes his makeup doesn’t run. He gets up, and Brendon comes around Jon to cup his cheek before they return to their respective sides of the stage. Ryan plays to the wall of sound in front of him, grinning at the girls in the front row who all have the look he has come to associate with near heart attack reactions.

Brendon wiggles his hips, and they scream even louder.

~*~

Somewhere between releasing the second album and touring for it, in a few blissful and rare days off, Ryan goes back to Vegas to see everyone. Someone throws a party, and then someone else does, and before he knows quite why he’s there, Ryan is sitting up on the counter in the kitchen of a friend’s girlfriend’s brother’s house. He knocks his heels against the cupboard doors and sips a cup of fruit juice. He can taste pineapple, and possibly mango, and it’s pleasant just to sit in here and be that kid, you know, a friend of my sister’s boyfriend, he’s in some band, whatever, have a drink. He doesn’t really know anyone here. He toys with his Sidekick, watching the other kids, wondering if he should call Brendon.

“Hey, what – uh, Ryan?”

Ryan looks up and has to blink a couple of times. “Brent?” He jumps off the counter and reaches out to pull Brent into a hug, but pauses as Brent steps away. “How’ve you been?”

“Good,” Brent says, and his eyes dart towards the door, “I’ve been good. You?”

“Good, yeah, me too,” Ryan says, and feels like apologising. He doesn’t know what he’d say, though, so instead he goes with, “What’s been going on?” at the same time as Brent opens his mouth to speak.

“I – you know, college. I’m doing real good there, I … where are the others?” He edges slightly away, and Ryan feels like someone is slowly letting the air out of his chest.

“Uh, they all have dates. We’ve got some time off, so, but I mean, I don’t have a,” he stops. “Yeah, I um, figured I’d come see what everyone was up to. I miss you guys,” he says, and he’s not wrong.

“I –” Brent is cut off by the girl who dashes into the kitchen and grabs his arm.

“Brent, you have to come, you – oh. Ryan.” Her tone switches instantly and Ryan wonders when the room acquired the giant block of ice and just why all of it is directed at him.

“I’ll, uh.” He leaves, throwing a half-smile at Brent, who quirks up a quarter of one lip in return. Ryan goes home and calls Brendon, tells his voicemail that tonight is just shitty, shitty, and there’s no one here, but he hopes Brendon is having fun. He hangs up, sits for a minute, and calls Pete. “Do you ever,” he starts, but sighs. “Never mind,” he says. “How’s it going?”

He listens to Pete talk, and speaks to Patrick for a few minutes, and crawls into bed.

~*~

When their third album goes platinum, Ryan doesn’t go back to Vegas. Pete throws a party for them and Ryan goes with his girlfriend and kisses her and tries to remember that summer before the band made it because her hair is the exact same colour as his girlfriend’s back then. Brendon and his date dance past, and Brendon winks at him. Ryan smiles, and feels like he’s made out of bubbles when the night ends with each of them being handed their own platinum disc.

His girlfriend sips champagne and he has his arm around her, his other arm looped over Spencer’s shoulders. The photographers crowd them all together, band and dates and Pete, Hemingway bounding up to get into the shot. Ryan laughs, and says something about him definitely being Pete’s dog, and Pete punches him on the arm, eyes alight, mouth stretched in a grin that’s more beam than anything. Patrick watches from behind the photographer and makes faces at Pete to get him to laugh.

Ryan dates a couple of actresses – okay, and at one point that statement is entirely and simultaneously true, and Spencer’s eyes are like saucers when Ryan tells him about it because seriously, dude, you’re dating two lesbians at once? Ryan points out that they’re bisexual, but Spencer waves that point aside and says yes but two at once. Ryan just grins. Nothing seems to last in this town, but he’s willing to just ride with it for now. It doesn’t have to last.

After another show, the stage lights perfect, the music spot on and the crowd insane, another tour over, Brendon suggests they go back to Vegas, touch base with the family, so to speak. Ryan visits Spencer’s parents with him, and it’s weird being back after so long. Nothing seems to have changed, and yet everything has. “I guess we’re the ones who’ve changed,” Spencer says, leaning against his shoulder. (Just like old times, just like nothing’s. Just like.)

He wakes up and hears the sounds of Spencer’s parents making breakfast downstairs, and wonders for a minute if any of it happened.

~*~

Ryan can never sleep when the house is empty but for him. He wanders, room to room, stopping at Spencer’s door, hand curled as if he’ll knock. There won’t be an answer.

Like a lot of the best things, it had been Brendon’s idea. “Guys, we’re fucking rich, we could – we could buy a fucking mansion out in the hills, live like rock stars!” Spencer had laughed, maybe a little bit giddy from the figure on the piece of paper in front of them. They were all a bit giddy, Ryan bouncing on the balls of his feet, Jon’s face all but split in two from his grin.

Brendon had looked at houses with Pete, and not told them until he drove them out there, one night after dinner. Their first sight of the house had been with the sweep of glittering lights around it, the view from its balconies, and Ryan had laughed, unable to believe for a few jolting seconds that this could possibly be his life.

Sometimes he’s still convinced that any minute he’ll wake up and he’ll still be thirteen and have to get up for school. In those moments he huddles down in warm clothing, wanting to feel something, warm, wanting to touch someone just to make sure it’s all real. (Just to make sure he’s real.)

He covers his hands with the ends of his sleeves and sits outside Brendon’s door. The carpet tickles his bare legs. He curls against the door frame, letting his hair fall in his eyes and if he pretends hard enough, maybe he can disappear behind it. His fingertips trace patterns on the frame, rocking against the edge of it over and over. Touch, he can still touch, this can’t be a dream.

He barely notices when he falls asleep.

He hears voices, and thinks it must be his dad, thinks it must be time to wake up, but he’s not ready, he wants to stay in the house in the hills with his best friends, he wants the world where he gets to live this and make music, he wants.

There are arms around him, and he clings desperately to them, mumbling, “It’s not time to wake up yet, Dad, not time.”

“It’s okay,” and that’s Brendon’s voice, and the dream isn’t over yet, and Ryan sags against him in relief. “It’s alright, Ry, come on. Let’s get you to bed.”

And Ryan thinks, If this were a dream, but he gets no further, because Brendon is pulling him gently to his feet and holding him upright and opening the door, and Brendon’s bed is soft, and Brendon smells like soap and wet grass. “I thought you were going out tonight,” Ryan murmurs, sinking against the mattress, not letting go.

“I did,” Brendon huffs against his ear, kicking his shoes off as he is pulled irrevocably downwards. “It didn’t – it didn’t go so well,” he finishes. “Ryan, can you – I have to get –” He moves, gentle, and breaks contact long enough to drop his shirt and pants to the floor, pulling on pyjama pants. They have tiny cartoon sheep on, Ryan notes sleepily, wondering if Brendon will ever grow up and concluding that, no, he probably won’t. He’ll still be wearing cartoon pj’s at ninety, he thinks, and smiles.

“What?” Brendon catches the smile and to Ryan, eyes half-open, watching, it’s like the sun just rose. (Maybe it did; he has no idea of the time, only that it’s late and he’s comfortable and he has never in his life felt more glad of Brendon’s presence.)

“Sheep on your pyjamas,” Ryan says, smiling wider. Brendon looks down at them, and chuckles. He slides into the bed and Ryan curls into his side, instinctive. He’s missed this.

“I’ll never grow up, I guess,” Brendon whispers into his hair.

“I know,” Ryan whispers back, settling his head on Brendon’s chest. “So tell me about tonight.”

Brendon sighs. “It’s definitely, yeah. She said something about a guy in Minnesota who actually listens to her. I told her good luck.”

“I’m sorry,” Ryan says, and means it.

“Yeah,” Brendon exhales, running his fingers through Ryan’s hair. “It was kind of going nowhere anyway. Do you know how long it’s been since I had this?” He looks down at Ryan, who shifts to look back up at him. “Just someone this close to me, physically?”

“We haven’t seen you lately,” Ryan mutters, dropping his eyes to Brendon’s chin. He watches how it moves when he speaks.

“I miss you guys.” Brendon runs one finger down Ryan’s cheek. “We’ve only had, what, a month of down time? And I’ve barely seen you either.”

“Well, you … I mean, you’ve been busy.”

Brendon laughs. “Yeah, trying to save a relationship that turned out not to work anyway.”

“Some things just, don’t.” Ryan settles back onto his chest. Brendon tilts his chin until Ryan is looking up again.

Brendon leans, and kisses his forehead for a second. “Why were you outside my door?” he whispers against the skin.

“I couldn’t find you,” Ryan says, not the answer. “I was … everyone was gone,” he tries, but no, that’s not right either. “Brendon,” he settles for, and yes. That’s it.

“I miss you too,” Brendon breathes, and he leans down, and Ryan leans up, and he can’t quite believe they haven’t done this before when their mouths meet. For all the times on stage, for all the touches and the hugs and all of it just friends, for all the moments writing songs when he’d look and he’d see, there had never been this. There had always been a background buzz of something, something, not yet, something. And he hadn’t even noticed. Lost time, he thinks, but no, he discards that, it’s not right. Our time, he thinks instead, and it doesn’t matter what hour of the morning it is, it doesn’t matter when the others will get back and find them sleeping like this, no spaces in between, molecules adhered, because this is their time, our time, and they use it well. One hand on the other’s cheek, other hand on their favourite patch of the other’s skin (for Brendon, hip; for Ryan, just behind his elbow), no movement but the rise and fall of their chests and the brush and press of lips against lips.

Spencer knocks on Brendon’s door the next morning and sees them, Ryan still with his hands curled on Brendon’s arms. Spencer smiles and closes the door softly, whispering to Jon and cooking breakfast quietly. Brendon is the first to wake up, but he doesn’t like to disturb Ryan; he wonders how many times he can count Ryan’s eyelashes before they stir. They fan out on his cheek, and Brendon reaches one fingertip to hover near them.

One, he breathes out, two, he breathes in, yes, Ryan murmurs in his sleep. He moves closer, closest. Close. Brendon brushes his lips against the skin right above the arch of Ryan’s eyebrow.

“G’morning,” Ryan mutters, and that’s definitely a smile.

“How long have you been awake?” Brendon asks.

“Minute,” Ryan answers, stretching until their legs are tangled together. “Was watching you watch me.”

“Sneaky,” Brendon observes. Ryan smiles.

“What do you want to do today?” Ryan asks, not because he wants to think about today, just because he likes this.

“I was thinking, maybe make out with you some more, have a swim, talk to you guys about when we’re going to start writing for the next record, and, yeah, maybe some more making out with you.” Brendon smiles at him.

Ryan chuckles. “Good plans.”

“I like them.” Brendon pauses. “You?”

“I like them too,” Ryan says.

“No, I mean – today.” Brendon strokes the flat of one palm lazily up and down Ryan’s side.

“Have a few songs in my head, could stand to get them out.” Ryan shivers at the contact, Brendon’s fingers curling around his hip. “And you,” he says, “was thinking of spending some time with you.”

“Okay,” Brendon murmurs, and kisses him.

Jon’s still in the kitchen when they go for breakfast. (Though it’s really more brunch time than anything.) “So, you two are like.” He stops. “What, are you going to Prom now?”

“Shut up,” Brendon grins, flicking a Lucky Charm at him. Jon deflects it with his spoon. “I got back last night from breaking up with my girlfriend, and, uh.” He glances at Ryan.

“And, I was there,” Ryan finishes for him. “So.”

“What, it took you this long?” Spencer calls from the games room.

“Ass, like it hasn’t taken you and Jon even longer,” Brendon calls back. “Have you even got to first base yet?”

Jon blushes and kicks him under the table, and Ryan smiles into his cereal. This, he thinks. Yeah, I could do this forever.

Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link