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Last In Line
{Panic! at the Disco RPS. PG. Ryan/Brendon, Spencer/Jon. AU. 100% untrue. Beta by Jamie. For Jz.}
In the little town of Modest, it was ten thirty in the morning. The toilet paper factory the town's economy rested upon was up and running, steam billowing from tall towers rising high above the entire town. The ranchers up on the hill looked down at the towers, billowing thick white smoke, and squinted into the sun as they looked for the horse that was grazing too far from the rest. The children were in school learning their lessons, their parents were at work, and in the small flower shop on Baker Street, Ryan was starting to think longingly of caffeine. He'd been up since some ungodly hour of the morning tending to the stock, making sure they were all growing healthy and happy, buds unfurling in due course. He was by this time of day, however, usually engrossed in a crossword puzzle, and it took him a moment to look up when a man about his age walked into the shop wearing three things Ryan noticed in succession: a white hoodie, his dark hair swept off his face to the side, and an expression of exasperation. “Can I help you?” Ryan asked as the door swung back onto the bell and closed.“Hey, do you want this?” The man held out a Starbucks cup. Ryan eyed it.
“Is it coffee?” he asked.
“If it was coffee, I’d be drinking it. No, stupid Bill, he gave me tea when I asked for coffee. You want tea, you can have this.”
Ryan took the cup. “Thanks. It’s just, I can’t have coffee, my doctor – yeah, it’s not good.” He took a sip. “This, however, is good.”
“You can’t have coffee?” The man looked horrified. “Oh man, I wouldn’t survive if I couldn’t have coffee. I work there.” He pointed at the cup. “All baristas turn into caffeine junkies. Known fact.”
Ryan nodded. “I can see how that’d happen. So, is there anything I can help you with today?” he asked, deciding it was time to change the gears of this conversation.
The man’s hair had fallen in his eyes, and he pushed it back with one hand. “Do you have any yellow tulips?”
Ryan moved out from behind the counter to weave between the displays of flowers. “Are you looking for bouquet ideas or arrangements, or did you want just tulips?”
“I read this thing,” the man fidgeted, “online, about the meanings of flowers? And yellow tulips mean ‘there’s sunshine in your smile’, so, I guess just those.”
“How many would you like?” Ryan carefully removed one from the bucket.
“Uh, just the, just the one. Is that okay? With like, a note tied to it?”
Ryan smiled with one corner of his mouth. “Of course. What would you like the note to say?” He ducked back behind the counter, laying the tulip down and measuring out a length of paper and ribbon, opening his scissors.
“Um.” The man paused. “Actually, could you just give me a blank card? It’s – I don’t want to write anything on it, just. Uh, just draw.”
“I can draw,” Ryan looked up from wrapping the paper carefully around the tulip so the stem was tastefully hidden and the petals splaying gently over the top. He tied the ribbon in a tight knot. “If you wanted me to draw something, I could.”
“I – can you draw birds? Like, a flock of birds flying?” The man fidgeted.
Ryan smiled, properly this time. “Yes, I can do that.” He finished tying a bow in the ribbon and picked up a blank card. “What’s your name?”
“Spencer. Smith, it’s – it’s on my cup, dude. But don’t put that in the note,” Spencer added quickly as Ryan’s pen made to touch the surface of the card. “I – it’s an anonymous, um, tulip.”
“Oh, I see. Well, who’s it for? It’s usually best to put the name of the recipient.”
“Um.” Spencer ducked his head and was, very possibly, blushing. “J- It’s, uh – Jon, his name’s Jon.”
“With or without an H?” Ryan glanced down at the card, curling a large letter J.
“Without.”
Ryan added an O and an N, then took his pencil and sketched a flock of birds in mid-flight, wings outstretched. “Why the birds?” he asked, as he filled the shapes in with ink.
“It’s uh, it’s kind of how we met. There was uh, this falcon, at the fair, remember, a month or so back?” Ryan nodded, and Spencer continued, “That’s where I met Jon, so.”
Ryan just nodded, dabbing the pen on the tips of the birds’ wings. He threaded the ribbon through the punched hole in the card and handed the completed tulip to Spencer. “That’ll be twelve ninety five, please.”
Spencer dug his wallet out of his jeans, counting out a ten and two singles, and Ryan rang up the change. “Thanks,” Spencer said, taking the tulip and crossing the shop in two strides.
“Any time. My name’s Ryan, by the way, and thanks for the tea.”
Spencer smiled as he opened the door, the bell dinging. “You’re welcome, Ryan.” He paused, biting his lip as though trying not to laugh. “Which is above the door, you know,” he added, and then he was gone.
Ryan should have known who would be next in. He only had ten minutes to enjoy his tea and prune a couple of dead rose heads before Pete walked in.
“Gooooood morning, Ryan,” he beamed, all elongated vowels and circles under his eyes.
“Hi, Pete,” Ryan returned, taking the shears out of Pete’s hands and putting them back on the counter. He thought better of it a second later and slid them under it. “And what can I do for the most charismatic man in all of Modest? Been made Mayor yet?”
If Pete had been wearing suspenders, he would have hooked his thumbs into them. As it was, he just drew himself up to his full height. (Which was five feet seven inches, but it was the effort that counted.) “Mr. Ross, you flatter me. You know I’m far too busy with the factory for all that crap.”
Ryan tried very hard to keep a straight face as he said, “Well, if you ever ran, you know you’d have my vote. And to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”
“Business, business, you always have to get to business. Can’t a guy just visit his favourite florist to talk for a while, hang out, shoot the breeze?”
“I’m not giving you flowers for free, Peter.”
Pete sighed. “Fine, fine. I want a bunch. Yellow chrysanthemum, begonia, what’s that one – oh yeah, pink larkspur.”
“Everyone’s a fucking expert,” Ryan muttered under his breath as he collected the flowers together. “She know what these mean?”
“She’s the one who gave me the fucking book,” Pete snapped. He stopped, and sighed. “Sorry, I just – god, she’s being such a bitch.”
Ryan said nothing.
“Put a couple evening primroses in there while you’re at it, okay?”
“What’d she do this time?” Ryan arranged the bunch and rolled a length of paper over it, running the scissors up and snapping them closed loudly.
Pete opened and closed one fist at his side, then yanked his arm back and slammed it down, stopping just shy of the counter and pulling a closed palm back into his side. “Sorry, man, I almost – I forgot, Ry, how’s your heart doing?”
“It’s okay. Doctor says I’ll be fine, as long as I avoid getting too excited or anything.”
“Fuck, I could do with a little of that kind of life.”
“It’s why I moved here.” Ryan shrugged. He grabbed a card and his pen. “What should the note say?”
“How about, ‘Next time don’t use our fucking bed to fuck some dude on’?”
Ryan carefully printed the letters. “Shall I sign it Pete, or do you want to leave her guessing?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like – sign it, okay.” He tied the note to the bouquet. “Twenty nine forty six, please.”
“Put it on my tab?”
Ryan fixed him with a stare. “You don’t have a tab, Pete. There are no tabs in my shop. There are just flowers, which I arrange and you give me money for.”
“Alright, alright, just – can I come back this afternoon and pay?”
Ryan sighed. “I know where you live, Pete.”
Pete grabbed the bouquet. “I’ll be back.”
“You’d better,” Ryan called as the door shut behind him.
Pete did come back later.
He brought the money, but he also brought something else.
“What the hell is this?” Ryan asked, looking at the flyer Pete had shoved into his hand after the money was in the till and Pete was still leaning against the counter and not, by the looks of things, leaving.
“It’s an act of charity, is what it is.” Pete smiled at him from behind his hair. Ryan used to have the fucking monopoly on that look, he knew that look inside out and Pete was using it on him now.
“You can’t use that look on me, Peter Wentz, you’ve tried it before and it doesn’t work, okay? I’m not going to – what even is this, anyway?”
“A kissing booth.”
“A kissing booth, are you fucking kidding me? A fucking kissing booth?”
“Come on, the money's for a good cause, think of the town! You’re young, you’re pretty, it’s a safe level of non-excitement, right?”
“I’m not sure what my doctor would say about an intense sense of dread,” Ryan said, staring at the flyer. It was pink, and the font was overly jaunty.
“Oh, go on,” Pete bumped his shoulder against Ryan’s arm. “You never know who you might meet.” He winked.
“Did you just – seriously, you just winked at me, didn’t you?”
Pete rolled his eyes. “Shut up and say you’ll do it.”
“You winked at me. Get out of my shop.”
“Not until you say you’ll volunteer for the kissing booth.”
“Will it get you out of my shop?”
“Yes. Please, Ryan.” He brought out his Winning Smile. “I’ll buy a kiss, make you feel right at home.”
Ryan fixed him with a stare. “And I was about to say yes, too.”
“Come on,” Pete cajoled.
“Fine,” Ryan sighed. “If it’ll get you to leave me alone, I will volunteer for the stupid kissing booth.”
“Yes,” Pete brought his fist down to his chest. “Thank you, Ryan, oh thank you.”
“Get out,” Ryan rolled his eyes.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at the market,” Pete grinned over his shoulder.
“See you later tonight for the purple hyacinths,” Ryan called after him.
“Not this time,” Pete called back. “I am not fucking apologising.” The door closed behind him.
* The market at Modest came every two weeks, attracting citizens from the towns for fifteen miles all around, and the ranchers who lived in between. Every couple of months a fair stopped by, setting up rides and booths and stalls.
Ryan sat in one of a row of booths under the large ‘$1 FOR A KISS’ banner as five thirty finally rolled around, picking at the ends of his sleeves. The line in front of him consisted of five women and three men. The first woman barely pecked him on the lips, the second woman tried to stick her tongue down his throat, and the third woman licked his lips and winked at him.
It was definitely a relief when he saw who the first man was. “Hi, Spencer,” he smiled, as Spencer slipped a dollar into the box sitting at Ryan’s elbow.
“Hey Ryan,” Spencer smiled back. “I might, uh – I’ll be back at the shop, probably, on Monday maybe, what’s – uh. What’s a good flower for saying you’re interested in someone?”
Ryan’s smile slid over to the left half of his mouth, tilting. “Gardenia. I’ll put some aside for you.”
“Thanks.” Spencer licked his lips and leaned down to press them against Ryan’s for a moment. It was pleasant, and Ryan was still smiling when Spencer moved away again. “See you on Monday. I’ll bring tea.”
“Okay. See you then.”
Pete stepped up as Spencer left. “You know that guy?”
“Customer. You don’t have to buy a kiss,” Ryan said quickly, as Pete slotted his dollar into the box.
“Oh, but I want to,” Pete grinned, and leaned down. He was a little rougher than Spencer, and took Ryan’s top lip between both of his, gently licking at it. Ryan leaned back as soon as he felt it polite to, and wiped the back of his hand against his mouth.
“Are you – are you okay?” Ryan asked, as Pete started walking away. “You look like – dude, do you have a limp or something?”
Pete turned back and leaned down again, mouth near Ryan’s ear as he whispered, “This is my punishment. She told me I had to wear a garter belt.”
Ryan raised an eyebrow and snuck a glance at Pete’s wife, who was eating candy floss. The sunlight glinted off her septum piercing. “I thought you weren't going to apologise,” he said.
“Yeah. Well. Maybe she wasn't the only one who used the bed.”
“Patrick, right?”
“Shut up,” Pete said, a little too quickly.
“Hey,” came a voice from behind Pete. “Are you done yet? Because I think it’s my turn.”
Ryan eyed Pete sharply. “Don’t. Even.”
Pete turned around, movements careful and slow. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll see you later, Ry.”
“Forget-me-nots?”
“Yeah.” Pete shot one last glare at the man who’d stood behind him in line, and walked carefully back to the candy floss booth.
“Was that asshole bothering you?” the last man in line asked.
“He’s not an asshole,” Ryan said, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. “He’s – he’s just Pete. He’s okay.”
“Alright, well. Sorry. And uh, hi. I’m Brendon.”
Ryan took a proper look at Brendon. Sincere brown eyes, mussed up long brown hair that probably hadn’t seen a comb in a while. Lips – well, those were pretty much lips to die for, Ryan had to admit. And Brendon’s smile. And his – Ryan’s brain stopped working somewhere around Brendon’s chest, and his shoulders, and Ryan had to forcibly drag his eyes back up to Brendon’s. “Hi. I’m, um, I’m Ryan.” He swallowed.
Brendon slapped a twenty dollar bill down on the table. “I would like to buy twenty kisses, Ryan.”
Ryan swallowed again. “Twenty?”
“Yeah. And it’s the end of the day and everyone’s packing these booths up, so how about I put the money in the box and we go take a walk by the river and I get my twenty kisses while the sun sets?”
Ryan raised his eyebrow.
Brendon shrugged. “I’m a romantic, what can I say.” He grinned.
“Okay then,” Ryan agreed. Brendon slid the twenty into the box, and Ryan took it to William, who was packing the booths up. He walked back to where Brendon was waiting, behind the booth.
“So, out of interest, what are you doing later?” Brendon looked down at his own shoes, scuffing them lightly against the ground, then looked back up at Ryan.
“I open late after the markets,” Ryan replied, his eyes going over Brendon’s checked shirt and leather chaps. “You’re a rancher,” he observed.
“Correct. Me and my buddy Jon, we got the ranch up at Imagination Creek. What do you do?”
“I’m a florist. I own the flower shop in town.”
“Oh, the one that says ‘Ryan Ross’ over the door? That your name, Ryan Ross?”
“Yeah.” Something clicked. “Is your buddy Jon with or without an H? In his name?”
Brendon’s eyebrows went up. “You ask a lot of questions, Ryan Ross.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“Ooh, burn,” Brendon put his hand over his chest. “You got me. I’m a curious kinda guy, Ryan Ross.”
“Why d’you keep saying my name like that?”
Brendon scuffed his toe again. “I just like it. Ryan Ross.” He rolled the r’s around on his tongue. “’S a good name.”
“I – thanks? It’s the only one I have.”
“It’s good,” Brendon repeated, and stopped walking. He leaned down slowly, until Ryan had stopped walking too. The river chattered on next to them.
Brendon kissed him, a soft press of lips, almost hesitant. Ryan kissed back, his lower lip coming up to cup Brendon’s. They moved together, little by little, until their arms were wrapped around each other's waists and all Ryan could taste was Brendon and all he could feel was warm.
Brendon made a soft sound as it ended. “First kiss,” he whispered, breath across Ryan’s skin.
Ryan swallowed. “You gonna count all of them?”
Brendon exhaled. “Until it gets to so many hundred I lose my place,” he sighed, pressing one to Ryan’s cheek, then his eyebrow, then the tip of his nose. “Two, three, four,” he whispered, and Ryan brought one hand up to cup his cheek.
“Brendon, I – come to the shop, tonight, after I close.”
“Okay. Okay.” Brendon leaned down and kissed him again, and Ryan, who hadn’t been kissed like this in all of his life, Ryan kissed back, not caring about what his doctor might say about how fast his heart was racing, not caring about how late he’d be opening the shop tonight, not caring if he closed earlier than usual to spend time with Brendon, not caring about anything but this.
* Brendon was standing with Ryan behind the counter when the bell dinged and Jon walked in.
Actually, Brendon was playing with Ryan’s hands, running his fingertips over the palms to make Ryan squirm, when the bell dinged and Jon walked in.
“Hey, so uh,” Jon began, trying to pretend Brendon wasn’t nuzzling Ryan’s neck in front of him, “I’ve been finding, um, flowers, all over the ranch, for a couple months now. And uh. And I looked them up, because Brendon said you had some books or something, like, they have meanings and shit? And I found this site online and uh.”
“Do you know who’s sending the flowers?” Ryan asked, swatting Brendon away.
“I –” Jon scratched the hair at the nape of his neck. “Yeah. I saw – I mean, I don’t know his name, but I saw him leave one of them, and I think I’ve seen him before. At the, at the Starbucks? I think he works there. And uh. What’s a good – I want to know what’s a good thing to send back. Flower-wise, I mean. To - to leave at the Starbucks, like, with just a note or something?”
“Well,” Ryan said, “what do you want to say with it?”
“That maybe – okay, Brendon, seriously, stop that, this is a public place, what the fuck, it’s bad enough when Ryan comes over for dinner and I have to watch the foreplay over the table –”
“You should see what we’re doing under the table,” Brendon tipped a grin at Ryan, who pushed him gently in the shoulder. He couldn't help glowing a little, though. These months with Brendon had been the happiest of his life, going up to the ranch for dinner every night, Brendon coming down to the town in the mornings or afternoons to just spend time with him in the shop. He'd slept so many nights in Brendon's bed, they both kept saying he might as well just stay there.
Jon held his hands up. “Don’t want to know. So yeah, as I was saying, I want to send him something that – do you know his name?”
“I do. Go on.”
“Okay.” Jon took a deep breath. “I – well, I think he’s cute, and I’d like to actually, y’know, talk to him, instead of trying to decipher messages in floral arrangements. So, uh, something that says that.”
Ryan smiled. “I’ll get you some rose leaves.”
“I – rose leaves? Really? What do they mean?”
Ryan couldn’t help smiling over at Brendon as he gathered a handful of the leaves. “You may hope.”
Notes:
i. Flower information from here.
ii. Trying to write cliched romance is quite the challenge, since I never read romance novels. I only hope I did okay and that you enjoyed it <3
Things That Didn't Fit Into The Story:
i. Jon and Brendon grew up on neighbouring farms, and were friends since childhood. They bought the ranch together when they both graduated from agricultural college, and plan to ranch together for the rest of their lives. BFF, yo.
ii. Ryan and Brendon dated for a year before Ryan moved into the ranch. He communted to the flower shop.
iii. Spencer came into the shop a few days after the rose leaves turned up at Starbucks, to thank Ryan. He and Jon sometimes went on double dates with Ryan and Brendon, and the four of them ended up living in the ranch together.
iv. Pete had an affair with the manager of his factory, Patrick, that lasted twenty years before he and his wife divorced and Patrick moved in. Jeanae got the dog.