Archive of Our Own

When the phone rang Brendon heard it through several layers of sleep and heavy duvet. He squinted his eyes tight and burrowed deeper into the covers, tried to hold on to the last remnants of sleep. He'd been sleeping a lot since he moved out to L.A. His short stint at playing soundtrack writer with Patrick had turned from a one month job to two to three, but he didn't mind. He felt like he was catching up on thirteen years of missed opportunity by just being on his own. The phone stopped ringing and there was fifteen seconds of peace before it let out a high pitched beep that cut through sleep and all reason. Voicemail. Something had better be on fire. 

Brendon rolled over and flipped off the edge of the bed. He pushed his knees against the mattress in a Herculean effort to make his legs work and stretched his arms up over his head, tried to remind his muscles how to work. The alarm clock on his night stand glowed a steady, blue, 7:15AM. He took it back. Someone had better be on fire. 

He stumbled across the room, bleary eyed, and dropped to his knees in front of the laundry basket. He dug through it, looking for the jeans he'd been wearing the night before. Brendon gritted his teeth as the phone beeped again. He could feel the sound as it spiked its way through his skull. He found the phone and flipped it open in a rush. 

There was a text message and a voicemail waiting. The text was from Pete and simply said l8r?, which made Brendon chuckle. It came out weakly, his mouth thick and dry with sleep. Pete Wentz: just the other side of forty, smart as a whip, still sending text messages in chat speak like a fourteen year old girl. It was a comfort to Brendon that some things never changed. 

The missed call was from Ryan, and Brendon was too tired at the moment to discuss business, which was what it seemed like every conversation with Ryan inevitably turned to these days. He decided not to check the voicemail. Ryan, in contrast to Pete, was a person that seemed to constantly change, as if he was fighting any linear organization existence tried to place on him. Brendon just didn't have the energy to deal with it. 

He texted Pete back a quick yeah, scrolled the volume on the phone to silent and dropped it back into the pile of dirty laundry before he threw himself onto the bed to curl up on top of the covers. He was asleep again almost as soon as he closed his eyes. 

. . .

Brendon was almost finished doing a scene's worth of timing notations when there was a knock at his door. He didn't know how long he'd been at it, but it must have been a while, because he was starving. His stomach grumbled weakly as he stood and stretched. He wasn't expecting a visitor, but he was at the point in the planning stage where even a neighbor asking for sugar would probably be conned into coming in for coffee. He needed so badly to be distracted.

When he opened the door Ryan was leaning against the jamb lazily with his arms crossed and one ankle hooked around the other. He was looking down at his shoes. “So you're not dead,” he drawled, in lieu of a greeting, and ambled past Brendon and into the apartment without looking up. 

“No. And you're not in New York.” Brendon wasn't sure where the dead rumor could have come from, but he suspected it had probably started somewhere in the vicinity of William Beckett and had traveled down the line from there. He made a mental note to have Jon leave a flaming bag of something on Bill's porch. 

Brendon hesitated just inside his doorway as Ryan stood in the middle of the living room and looked with distaste at the mess of papers Brendon had strewn about. There was sheet music on the coffee table, the small piano, the couch, everywhere. Brendon closed the door and Ryan continued through to the kitchen. “Just make yourself at home,” he said. It came out as a mutter, and he punctuated the sentence by throwing the lock. He cleared his throat and, more loudly, he said “so, can I help you with something?” 

When Ryan reappeared he was sipping from a bottle of water with his brow was furrowed. “You could have, yeah, but you've outgrown that pesky phase where you call people back.” 

Brendon looked down at his bare toes as he wiggled them into the thick, beige carpet and systematically shot down every question he wanted to ask Ryan about why he was there. It wasn't a mystery where he'd gotten the address from. There were at least fifteen people who knew where Brendon was that Ryan could go to, but Ryan hadn't wanted to know before. Sure, he had called Brendon, but whenever they got into talking about anything other than music or other people there was suddenly something much more important that Ryan had to do. It was why Brendon had stopped returning calls to begin with. He felt the corner of his cheek twitch. 

“I've been busy.” It was his default answer these days, quick as a punch on the way out, even when it wasn't the answer he wanted to give. 

“For three weeks?” Ryan spun the cap from the water bottle around on his left index finger and Brendon was reminded of plates spinning high on rods. One wrong step, and everything would fall and shatter. 

“Yeah?” Brendon slipped his hands into his pockets and shrugged. He didn't know any more what he was supposed to say, what Ryan wanted to hear as an excuse. He used to be so good at that. 

“I expect radio silence from Spence, but it's not like-”

Brendon made a small, involuntary noise in the back of his throat and Ryan closed his lips around the mouth of the bottle. He managed to still make them look pursed. They both know what he'd drowned out. It was an insinuation that he and Ryan might be have been in the same boat. It was that Brendon didn't have a wife, or even a steady girlfriend at the moment. That he didn't need the time to decompress from working to slip back into a normal life, because let's face it, his life had never really been normal. Not since he joined the band, and for the most part he wouldn't have had it any other way. 

Brendon spent a few more seconds gazing helplessly at his toes before he looked up and caught Ryan's gaze squarely, jaw jutting out a little in pride. That's an unfair assumption, he wanted to say. What kind of answer are you looking for? Instead he said, “How long are you in L.A. for?”

Ryan pulled the bottle away from his mouth and slowly wiped at his bottom lip with the back of his hand. He held Brendon's gaze with steady, bored eyes. “I just have some things to go over with Pete that he wanted to do in person. I didn't know if maybe you'd wanna um, get some coffee or something.” 

That was new, that hitch in Ryan's thought process. Brendon had seen him be unsure about many things before—chord progressions, lyrics, the best way to beat Super Mario in eight minutes on the online simulator—but never coffee. Coffee was serious business. Brendon cleared his throat. “Couldn't hurt, I suppose.” 

Brendon couldn't stand dancing around subjects, not allowing himself to hurtle across the small space and wrap himself around Ryan. But the few strands of premature grey in Ryan's hair reminded Brendon that they were older now. It no longer felt right. The way Ryan was holding himself, carefully and straight. The way he hadn't just slumped onto Brendon's couch without asking like he would have several years before, even after the break up. The way that Brendon felt like even though he hadn't been answering calls, it was Ryan who had been avoiding him—avoiding really speaking to him—for many months. 

Something hand changed about their relationship and Brendon couldn't put his finger on when it had happened. He supposed that this was maturity coming, however belated. He had learned to dampen all of the thoughts that bubbled to the surface and didn't say everything out loud. He gave Ryan a small smile, trying it out, this subdued thing.

Ryan smiled back easily enough. Brendon watched as Ryan's eyes skated over some of the papers spread over the top of the piano. Ryan picked one up and wrinkled his nose. “Really? Those chords together?” He ducked just quickly enough that the pencil that Brendon threw at his head didn't take out an eye. 

Brendon looked down at his hand pondered the kind of maturity and wisdom that didn't hug, but allowed you to throw dangerous objects.

. . .

Coffee with Ryan soon turned into drinks with Pete and Patrick, and the four of them were holed up in a booth of some small bar near Brendon's apartment by eleven in the evening. It was a little early yet for regular patrons. The couple necking in the booth behind them kept turning around and shooting them dirty looks whenever Pete laughed, loud and sharp, at something that had been said. 

Brendon sipped his gin and had to admit to himself that he missed this in his downtime. His elbow brushed Ryan's whenever he moved and it sent a calming, familiar, warm feeling through him to the pit of his stomach. He was trying to learn to inhabit his own space, but the space of others was often more comfortable. It was especially comfortable when everything was hazy around the edges with alcohol. Drinking always made him feel like he needed to be touching someone else to ground him, for fear he might float away. 

Pete leaned across the table during a lull in conversation and knocked knuckles with the hand Brendon was holding his glass in. Some of the contents spilled out and Brendon watched it happen. It registered in slow motion. He knew he should slow down, that he was going to have to walk home and it wouldn't be practical to have Ryan carry him. He looked up at Pete's face, matching the grin he found there. 

“Is Mr. Stump here teaching you the cruel ins and outs of the soundtrack recording business?” 

Patrick rolled his eyes. He managed to look slightly more thoughtful than annoyed though, and took a long sip of his beer. Pete's attitude was infectious, and Brendon felt himself perk up again, his limbs and features uncoiling themselves from the tipsy reverie they had slipped into. He leaned across the table to meet Pete halfway and spoke with a stage whisper.

“Mm. He's a very good teacher too. I should give you a finder's fee.” To his left he could feel Ryan's knee knock his as Ryan laughed low in the back of his throat and resituated himself in the booth. 

“Please do not equate our serious work to any brothel you may have visited on tour in Europe, thank you,” Patrick said, but he had a small smile about his lips as he tried to flag the waitress down for another beer. 

Brendon waved Patrick off and continued to whisper loudly to Pete. “You know he only asked me to help because the whole storyline is just a longer version of the 'But It's Better If You Do' video.”

“That,” Patrick said as he popped open his beer bottle, “and Ross was busy.”

“I can't help it that my band is still in demand,” Ryan said, and took another sip of his beer. 

He'd been nursing it for some time and Brendon was sure it must be flat. “Hey, hey.” He leaned over and laid his head on Ryan's shoulder. The way Ryan was leaning into the wall made his side curve up perfectly so that Brendon could fit into it. Ryan was warm, and pliant, even if he was a little bony, and Brendon closed his eyes. “I can get you another one, do you want another one?” 

Brendon felt Ryan shake his head. “I'm good, thank you.” Brendon nodded and cracked his eye open to look at Pete, who was still chattering away happily at near top volume. 

“I do like to keep my lost boys busy. It's good for them. Helps them forget to grow up.” 

Patrick elbowed Pete lightly in the shoulder. “Yes, it's all for us. You are truly selfless and indulgent. Truly. When do we get to have our turn at Wendy?”

Pete stopped talking and turned to look at Patrick, his mouth open in shock In his muddled state Brendon couldn't tell whether they were joking or not, but he laughed anyway. It seemed like the right thing to do. The pantomime of dismay only lasted for a few seconds before Pete swooped in and stole the hat off Patrick's head. Patrick cursed and lunged for Pete who slipped away from his arms and scooted out of the booth, almost bowling over a couple of college aged kids before he pivoted and bolted for the bathroom. Patrick scrambled to his feet and took a deep breath, glaring in the direction that Pete had gone. He smoothed his hair down and walked calmly after Pete. 

Ryan laughed and Brendon closed his eyes again. He listened to the sound of the bar as the regulars started to pour in. Someone called his name in greeting and he smiled and nodded, but didn't open his eyes. He was so tired all of a sudden, the caffeine and liquor warring for control of his system. Ryan shrugged his shoulder a few times before he pushed at Brendon's head lightly. “Come on, let's get you home.” 

Brendon collected his thoughts and slid out of the booth. He clutched at the table end, trying to keep himself balanced. Leaning in, he rested his weight onto his hands and tried to decide whether he could hold himself up entirely with his arm strength. “Shouldn't we wait for them?” He pushed himself onto his tiptoes, ass hanging out in the walk way and someone bumped him as they went by. He jostled sideways and barely kept himself from falling to the floor. 

Ryan shook his head. “Pete's got to get home to that kid of his anyway, I'm sure.” 

Brendon nodded. He let Ryan push him through the growing crowd and out into the cool night air. They started up the street toward his apartment. Brendon took a misstep and faltered, and Ryan gripped Brendon's elbow to steady him. He shook Ryan's hand off. “You make me feel like a real tool, you know that?”

“Well, if the shoe fits,” Ryan said. 

“I mean, just showing up out of the blue, wanting to talk after I've run out of things to say. When you couldn't say anything useful for months before I moved out here.” Brendon stopped clumsily and wheeled around so that he was walking unsteadily backwards. “You'd almost think you missed me.” 

Ryan raised an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth quirked up. Brendon opened his mouth to say something else, but before he could get the words out the world seemed to drop out from under him. He stepped down heavily off a curb he hadn't seen and tripped backwards. Brendon flailed his arms as he fell and grunted when his ass made contact with the street. Son of a bitch, did that hurt. Ryan stepped up to the curb and folded his arms over his chest. “Yeah, if there's one thing I missed it was the clumsy drunk.” 

Brendon glared up at him. “Why don't you stop being an asshole and help me up.” 

Ryan looked down at him for a few more breaths, then he reached out and grabbed Brendon's hands, leaning up and backward to haul Brendon out of the street. Brendon tripped over the curb going forward and landed heavily against Ryan. He clutched at Ryan's shoulders to try and get his footing back. They were standing very close, sharing their exhalations, and all Brendon could smell was beer and gin and the smoke that clung to their clothing.

Before he could think about it he'd worked his feet under him and had wrapped his arms around Ryan's neck and pulled him closer. He was uncoordinated and tipsy still, and the hug was all angles and wild hair, but Ryan didn't struggle, which was a victory for Brendon in itself. They stood there for the space of five heartbeats before Ryan sighed impatiently and Brendon loosened his grip. He took a step back, careful of the curb this time. Ryan was looking down at his hands as if he'd forgotten something and Brendon closed his eyes, feeling the world gently tilt on the waves of his buzz. That used to be so normal and easy. 

“I should um, I should go home. I'm sure you have an early day with Pete tomorrow.” He started to turn around, but stopped when he heard Ryan mumble something. The words were barely a whisper, and not clear enough for him to understand. “I'm sorry?” 

“I said, what's the deal man?” Ryan's voice was low and weary, and Brendon knew Ryan wasn't drunk, so it couldn't be that he was feeling what Brendon was feeling, the tiredness that pulled at the backs of his eyelids and the slosh in his half drowned brain. “Have you entirely forgotten your friends? We're not in arms reach anymore so we're not worth the energy?”

“That's not it at all.” Brendon didn't know how to explain it to him. Didn't know how to tell him that he had a lot of work to do here, and the sooner that he and Patrick finished the sooner he could get back home. He also couldn't explain that he was still smarting from Panic's break up, from all those years they spent at odds before they finally made up. That the sooner he and Spencer could get back to killing time in casinos they didn't gamble in and seeing stupid movies and the sooner he could get back to not talking to Ryan about anything in particular, the sooner he could forget the regret that ran like a rapid river through the back of his mind. 

Fuck, what was it that Ryan was upset about? It's not like before Brendon'd come out here there'd really been anything for him to miss. How did Brendon tell him that he wanted to be a better person because of all of them, for them? That this was one of his chances and he didn't want to screw it up?

“Yeah, I'm sure.” Ryan grunted noncommittally and turned on his heel. He threw a wave over his shoulder at Brendon. “We miss you, asshole. I'll call you tomorrow, yeah? Answer your fucking phone.” 

“I miss you too, fucktard.” Brendon breathed the words, not wanting Ryan to hear them. He stood on the corner and watched Ryan walk back towards the bar—head down, hands shoved deep into his pockets, back hunched slightly. In his red, velveteen blazer, Ryan looked for all the world like a prowling fox. 

It had been so easy for Brendon to slip back into old habits, like he'd been on touching withdrawals. Sure here in L.A. he had Pete, who was affectionate, and Patrick, who would bear with the occasional shift of Brendon's weight into his, but it wasn't ever the same. They weren't his best friends. Tonight he'd been allowed to hang on Ryan and lean on Ryan and hug Ryan for no other reason than he impulsively wanted to. And Ryan hadn't shrugged him off, not once. Ryan, who curled into himself during hugs and had long ago stopped letting Brendon hold his hand or cling to him during shows and photo shoots and down times. Ryan, who liked his personal space, and Brendon had been in it all night. 

A sour taste formed in the back of Brendon's throat and he blinked a few times, trying not to fall asleep there on the curb. He turned and crossed the street and walked the three blocks to his apartment at an unsteady clip, running away from the need for more contact. Running back to the relative safety of his apartment. His space empty of other people and their expectations.

. . .

“You remember that time after your birthday when we were all hung over on the bus and Spencer and Jon almost came to blows fighting over who could puke in the back toilet?” 

Brendon was sitting on his couch, laptop open on the coffee table amidst the mess of papers, and loading some of his soundtrack work into GarageBand. “Yeah, I remember. Zack had to physically carry Spencer outside after he tried to close Jon's hands in the door.”

“Yeah, well, we needed those hands.” Ryan was across the room, sitting crossed legged and sideways on the small piano bench with his arms up and out. He teetered back and forth haphazardly, testing his balance. 

Brendon shrugged as he finished arranging the notes and loaded all the layers to play at one time. Ryan tilted his head to listen. When the song ended and Ryan nodded approvingly Brendon realized he'd been holding his breath.

“Not bad.”

It was as close as Ryan got to praise, and Brendon ducked his head to hide the smile. If Ryan saw he'd just take the compliment back and replace it with something more scathing. Brendon sent the file over to Patrick. 

When Brendon closed the laptop Ryan had turned his attention back to the piano and was shuffling through sheets of discarded music, trying to find the one that appealed to him most. Brendon sat down next to him on the bench and started playing the upper range of one of the lighter pieces. He'd decided not to use it because it reminded him too closely of something he'd heard in a silent movie once, and while no one else would probably have caught on, he'd know. He wanted to do this thing right. 

“So what now?” Ryan had dropped his hands into his lap and watched Brendon play. Brendon felt self conscious suddenly, and his fingers faltered on one of the notes. 

“You're the guest,” Brendon said. “A stranger in a strange land.”

“While I concede that L.A. is about as strange as it gets, I'm no stranger to it.”

Brendon hummed low in his throat. Ryan didn't say anything for several measures, just sat, watching Brendon's fingers. Then he broke in on the lower half of the keys, playing counterpoint. Brendon remembered when Ryan had started taking piano lessons. He'd tried to help him with his practice, but Ryan always got frustrated and sulky so he eventually gave up. That didn't ever stop Brendon from listening in if he could, silently placing Ryan's fingers on the right keys with his mind as if that would help. 

Brendon had never had Ryan the way Spencer had. Ryan had even been more open with Jon than he had been with Brendon. They never finished each other's sentences, they never shared knowing looks. They were friends, both of them knew what the other was thinking more often than not, but for some reason Ryan had chosen Brendon as the one to have to resist. They had always had it through the music though, and Brendon felt closest to Ryan when they weren't saying anything at all. 

When Brendon looked over, Ryan's mouth was pursed and his brow was furrowed softly. “I thought it was fine,” he said finally.

Brendon didn't answer, didn't want to scare away the train of thought, wherever it might be going. He merely moved on to an old arrangement of Karma Police when he had run out of his own notes, and Ryan pulled his hands away from the piano again. “For once I thought everything was fine. I wasn't being antagonizing, I didn't say anything about her stupid friends. I'm thirty-four, for the love of god, why can't I just do this like everyone else?”

“Why can't you do it like Spencer and Jon?” Brendon was pretty sure that was what Ryan wasn't saying. How come Spencer and Jon managed to juggle relationships and bands and jobs and everything else that people want in life and have it so easily? How come Ryan made everything an uphill battle? Brendon really, really wished he had an answer. He also wish he'd known that Ryan had been seeing someone at all, that he might have wanted to talk about whatever disintegrating relationship was bothering him now. 

Ryan frowned and crawled off the piano bench backwards. “Do you have any beer or anything? I can't answer any more inane questions without something that might impede my urge to punch you.”

Nail, meet hammer. Brendon wished the victory didn't feel so hollow. “No, I haven't had the need to have any in the apartment”

Ryan stopped in the door to the kitchen and raised an eyebrow. “And what do you use to ply the insane amount of Hollywood tail that Jon is positive you're getting?”

“My natural charm?” Brendon left out the fact that Patrick had been the only other person in the apartment in the time he'd been there, and he liked it that way. He gave Ryan one of the wide, toothy smiles he reserved for audiences as an example.

Ryan snorted softly and slipped his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “Yeah, because that's all it's ever taken.” 

“I'll have you know, I can charm pants off in under twenty minutes.” He added a flourish to the end of the song, running up the notes, and leaned over the edge of the piano toward where Ryan was standing. He raised an eyebrow and pouted, trying to pull his face into something that might resemble seduction. 

Ryan bit the bottom of his lip, and Brendon knew him well enough to know the laugh that was trying to escape. “I've been here for two hours, and mine seem pretty firmly in place.” 

“That's not fair, Ryan Ross, you're off limits.” Had been pretty firmly off limits too, since that time they'd all gotten drunk early in their careers, before Jon, and Brendon had tried to kiss Ryan. He hadn't even been thinking about Ryan and implications, he had just been thinking about how nice those lips had looked when Ryan licked them. Maybe that's what it was, why Ryan held Brendon at half an arm's distance away more than the others. 

Ryan raised an eyebrow of his own then, and Brendon was a bit jealous that the move was much more impressive on Ryan's narrow features. “Because I'm a man?” 

It was a challenge. Brendon dropped his hands into his lap and gripped at his knees with his fingertips, tried to remember a time when talking to Ryan had been such a prickly prospect. It really hadn't been like this since those first couple of months, when Ryan had been the one Brendon needed to impress to be able to stay. 

“Because you're you?” And there that was. Said out loud it it worried Brendon. He didn't really buy into the idea that being affectionate had to mean that you were trying to get into someone's pants. Ryan was Ryan and Brendon couldn't figure out quite why, under Ryan's steady gaze, he felt like a dog who had been sent outside alone for the night. 

Ryan crossed his arms over his chest and considered Brendon. “Spencer owes me twenty dollars.” 

Brendon almost succeeded in not rolling his eyes. “Don't you think you guys would have noticed by now if I was secretly in love with you? Like maybe during any of those periods in which we spent every second together for months?” 

“You never know. I'm sure lots of people can be secretly in love and have the power to not babble it aloud to people when they're drunk or whatever.” 

“Oh, like you can talk.” Brendon stood up and stretched, trying to make it look like a lazy movement. He decided that he didn't like how this line of questioning was going at all. Brendon got the distinct impression that he'd missed something. “Besides, since when have you known me to keep secrets?”

Ryan tilted his head back and studied the crown molding near the ceiling as if he was trying to remember the last time Brendon hadn't blabbed something that perhaps the whole world didn't need to know. 

“Why are you here, Ryan?” He'd been holding off on asking out of some misguided sense of politeness, but he should have remembered that this was Ryan. When you lived in such close quarters with someone for so long, polite became relative. 

“I'm here to see Pete.” Ryan's eyes widened a little and Brendon knew that there was another answer that was more true, one that he wasn't sure he really wanted to get at. He'd always pretty much disregarded that saying about the cat, though. 

“No Ryan, why are you here, in my living room, asking questions about a relationship we've had for sixteen years and trying to have girl talk like you haven't avoided any conversation having to do with your personal life for four months now? Why were you just sitting on my piano bench telling me about a relationship problem when you hadn't even told me you were in a relationship? Ryan, why are you here?”

Ryan only narrowed his eyes and didn't offer Brendon anything in the form of an answer. They stared each other down across the cramped living room. 

It was Brendon who gave first. He'd never been able to really say no to Ryan, had always looked to him for approval professionally and personally. It ate at him when he didn't get it, when he never seemed to rate higher than Jon or Spencer. Brendon scrubbed his face with his hands and crossed the cramped room in two wide steps, dropping onto the couch. “Right, whatever, you don't have to tell me, if it's—”

“No,” Ryan said softly. “You deserve to know.” He wandered over and sat down in front of Brendon on the floor with his legs tucked under him and looked toward the window, the piano, the open door to the kitchen. Anywhere but at Brendon.

“Are you,” Brendon looked down at the top of Ryan's head. “Are you breaking up your band to finally follow your dreams of being the first personal shopper to the polar bears? You know the scarves are going to be a detriment on that 400 mile hike out to the North Pole, right?” Ryan hadn't worn a ridiculous scarf in going on ten years, but he was certainly never going to live them down. 

Ryan turned and punched Brendon in the calf and Brendon jerked his leg up and under him. He rubbed at it absently, but grinned anyway. When Ryan spoke it was low, and Brendon had to strain to hear him. 

“You know how sometimes you know something? Sometimes you know something the instant it happens, but you fight it anyway, for whatever obtuse, purposefully bad reason you can come up with, and you cling to that?” Ryan's face was solemn, and Brendon was suddenly aware of all the places they were almost touching. His knee at Ryan's ear, his ankle a millimeter from Ryan's thigh, his bare toes near Ryan's heel. 

“Uh, what do you mean?”

“I mean. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the girl. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about a lot of things. I guess I've just been off, you know?” Ryan crossed his arms and leaned back, his shoulder pressed into Brendon's leg where it was draped over the edge of the couch.

Brendon did know, but then, he didn't imagine that Spencer and Jon didn't feel the same way. “It's okay, man.” 

“Yeah, it's not, but whatever. Like you don't expect me to be an ass sometimes.” 

Brendon nodded, even though Ryan still wasn't looking in his direction. “So tell me now.” He nudged at Ryan's shoulder with his knee. 

“There were two, actually.”

“Two chicks?” Brendon grinned and resisted the urge to slap Ryan on the back of the head in congratulations. “Was it at the same time? Who knew Ross had turned into Casanova? All the new songs are going to be about your juggling act then, yes?” 

“No.” Ryan looked down. “Not two women, not at the same time. And not two women at all. One man, and then one woman.” There was a pause, and when Brendon didn't say anything Ryan rambled on at twice the clip he'd been speaking before. “I mean, neither of them were what I keep convincing myself I deserve anyway. And why do I think I deserve anything? Why can't I just settle and then I could be happy like Spencer and Jon. Not that I think they settled, I like their girls a lot it's just that—”

“Ryan.” 

“—sometimes I worry that maybe Spencer got attached too early. Like of all the people in the world he chose that one and how do you even choose? Eight billion people or something and it's not like it's possible that only one of them will get along with you—”

“Ryan.” Brendon stretched out the 'y' sound, trying to stress some sort of inflection that would be heard over whatever was happening in Ryan's head, because he was pretty sure Ryan was broken. “Ryan you sound like me.”

Ryan craned his neck around and looked up at Brendon. He blinked. “Oh, sorry.” Then he turned back and starting picking fuzzies out of the carpet near Brendon's foot.

Neither of them said anything for a bit. Brendon sighed. “So uh, men huh?” 

Ryan glanced sidelong at Brendon, but didn't stop picking at the carpet. “Yeah.”

“What if Spencer owes me twenty dollars?”

“He doesn't,” Ryan said smugly. “He wouldn't make a bet he knew he'd lose.” 

And there it was again. Spencer knew and Brendon didn't. To be fair, Brendon hadn't exactly asked, but it wasn't something that seemed like it would be easy to keep from the rest of them, especially on the road. Secrets, huh. Brendon tried to think back to all the time he'd known Ryan and remember a moment when something would have changed. When Ryan would have gone from liking women to liking men. That wasn't the sort of thing that just happened, was it?

“And in the interest of full disclosure, Pete may have needed me out here about as much as he needed another hoodie.”

“Huh?”

“I mean, he actually said the words 'why don't you just fuck him already' and then he laughed in that stupid, chipmunk way he has, and I would have killed him if I didn't think Patrick might have the Chicago mob put a hit on me.”

Brendon's train of thought derailed. Fatally. Brendon could feel things shuffle up inside him as they tried to fall into place. “Fuck who?” He felt lost, and he'd never been more sure in his life that Pete Wentz was insane. 

Ryan furrowed his brow. “You.” 

“But, I. You're like my brother. Ryan, that's incest!” Brendon couldn't say that he'd never thought about what it would be like, with Ryan, but that was always less about curiosity and more the way your mind just wandered sometimes. He'd never really wanted to act on it. 

Ryan smirked. “Maybe. I didn't say it was a good idea.”

Brendon cleared his throat to fill the silence. “Yes, well.” He wasn't sure what to say, but he knew that if he stayed alone with Ryan any longer he might go permanently red from the blood he could feel rushing to his face.

Ryan climbed to his feet and looked down at Brendon thoughtfully. Brendon's face was warm, and he could feel the blush start to travel down his chest and arms. He stood up and tried to duck around Ryan to the kitchen. To be anywhere but under Ryan's scrutinizing gaze. Ryan caught Brendon's wrist and held onto it loosely with two fingers. Brendon could have gotten out of it if he really wanted. Which, he did, didn't he? He shook his hand lightly.

“So that's where we are.”

Brendon was looking at the doorway, the arm Ryan had a hold of extended behind him. “Ryan, I'm not—”

Ryan let out a breath and it whistled softly between his teeth. “I don't care what you are. You're just, you're my friend, right? And you and I are both sorely lacking this thing, so yeah? Pete's crazy, but it doesn't make entirely no sense.” His fingers tightened around Brendon's wrist. He tugged a little. “Fuck the labels man. I don't want to get married to you and adopt a dog.” 

“That's good, Shane would get jealous. I always told him I'd marry him first.” Brendon pulled back, stubbornly. Ryan didn't make miscalculated movements, and Ryan didn't waste time. All of the impromptu visits in Las Vegas, all of the start and stop phone conversations since Brendon'd been in L.A. Why had no one bothered to tell him that not only had Ryan taken to sleeping with men, but that he apparently also wouldn't have Pete institutionalized for suggesting he sleep with Brendon? Spencer was dead. 

Brendon would have been angry, if he wasn't so very confused. “But it's not just that. I'm trying to just—I'm trying to be me, okay? I can't be the boy who jaunts around the world on tour for the rest of my life. And. Sex complicates things.” He knew it was the lamest excuse in the history of excuses as soon as it was out of his mouth, but he didn't have anything else. 

“Not having sex complicates things.” 

And that was something Brendon knew too. “You're my friend.”

“You've had sex with friends before.”

“Female friends. Just. Dammit, Ryan.” He pulled his wrist harder and it slipped out of Ryan's grip. He wasn't expecting to be let go of, and ended up swinging his arm around and hitting his wrist on the edge of the piano. “Gah, fuck.” He grabbed his wrist with his left hand and held it close to his stomach. 

“You're an idiot.” Ryan moved around Brendon and pried the protective fingers from around his wrist. Ryan tilted Brendon's hand into the light and Brendon tried not to whimper. “All this talk about growing up,” Ryan said softly. “You're still just one of Pete's lost boys.”

Ryan's hands burned Brendon's skin where they touched. The whole conversation had been a Pandora's Box of impossible things and terrible ideas. Now that the word was out in the open, now that Brendon could feel Ryan's breath as it ghosted over his arm, it was all Brendon could think about. Images of Ryan in different and compromising positions flashed behind his eyes and he suddenly found it very hard to breathe.

“Brendon.” Ryan's forefinger was pushing into the space between Brendon's eyebrows. “God, if it really bothers you, just forget it.” 

And that was different, for Ryan to give something up to keep the peace. That had always been Jon's role. Ryan tried to turn around, and it was Brendon's turn to catch, to hold on. “Oh look,” Ryan whined. “You either get attention or you don't, but you don't just get to—”

Brendon leaned in and pressed his lips to Ryan's mid-sentence. Later he wouldn't know why he'd done it. Maybe that he just needed to know what it would be like after talking about it, and impulse control had never been his forte. It was awkward, because Brendon had kissed boys before, but not in earnest. Not while he was sober anyway, but he felt like it shouldn't be any different than kissing a girl. Except that it was Ryan, and it was.

At first Ryan's only response was to close his mouth over whatever words had been ready to come out. Brendon held his ground and Ryan parted his lips a little, began to return the pressure. 

Brendon didn't know how long they stood there, Ryan's hand in his, tentatively letting their lips slide together. The time stretched out before him and he felt like he might get pulled into it, caught in an infinite loop of an awkward kiss. Eventually Ryan pulled away. Brendon felt light headed, like he'd forgotten how to breathe. 

They stared at each other and Brendon couldn't think of what he was supposed to do next, even though he'd done it many times before with other people. Ryan ran his fingers lightly up to Brendon's elbows and gripped them, pulling Brendon closer. Their noses bumped this time, but they got it worked out and Brendon tilted his head to the right and Ryan leaned in the opposite direction and down to try and get closer. Brendon licked his lips and slid his tongue over Ryan's lips as well, because they were so close. Ryan parted his lips, the tip of his tongue brushing against Brendon's. 

Brendon dropped his hands down to Ryan's waist and was surprised when his fingers easily curled around to grip just above Ryan's hip bones. He pulled Ryan closer until they were flush in the front, their hips, stomachs, chests, pressed against each other. He dug the tips of his fingers in and Ryan responded by rocking his hips forward and opening his mouth wider. 

Brendon's body kicked into autopilot then, his hands came up to untuck and slide under the hem of Ryan's shirt and he took a step forward, pushing Ryan backwards toward the piano. Ryan tripped over the hem of his jeans and fell, pulling Brendon with him. They hit the edge of it hard and the piano rocked slightly as the blocks on it's wheels dug into the carpet. Papers scattered onto the floor and their teeth click together.

“Mffgh.” Ryan grunted against Brendon's mouth and pushed forward. He rolled them around so that the backs of Brendon's knees hit the edge of the bench and his legs collapsed. He fell down onto it and Ryan was jerked forward and down with him and their knees bumped together. Ryan leaned over Brendon awkwardly. 

When Ryan pulled away his hands were still resting at Brendon's waist, thumbs looped through the front belt loops. He scowled at Brendon.

“Maybe,” Brendon's voice hitched kind of high, like he was reaching for a note and wasn't sure where to find it. He turned his head to his shoulder and coughed into it, tried to regain his composure. “Maybe it's not a good idea.”

Ryan looked back at him in silence. 

“I mean, nothing against you. I'm, I'm sure you're a great lay and all, but maybe we just don't. Fit together. Like...” his voice trailed off. 

Ryan tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes, was looking at Brendon in a way that made Brendon shiver. He felt like a very small animal on a very vast, empty plain, being chased by a very large predator. With lots of teeth. He swallowed hard. 

“Quitter,” Ryan said.

It was a ploy Ryan has used before on all of them at one time or another. It had eventually stopped working on Spencer and Jon. 

“I'm not, I—” Brendon's stomach twisted, and the tips of Ryan's thumbs pushed into his pelvis.

“You've kissed me before,” Ryan said calmly.

“That was different, that was for—”

“The show? The girls? Attention? You've always loved attention. Well, you've got all of my attention right now.” 

Brendon frowned, but his breath caught as Ryan rested his knee on the bench between Brendon's legs and pushed them apart as he inched his knee up the inside of Brendon's right thigh. 

“It doesn't have to be love, you know? It's just sex. Is that, does it...does that bother you?” Ryan's tone was gentle, the way Brendon had heard Spencer ask Ryan about nightmares after his father's death. A vocal flinch that implied that he was afraid of the answer, but knew that he was obligated to ask. 

Brendon had never liked being coddled. And on top of his resentment for Ryan's tone, he also resented the question. His face burned now. He wanted to punch Ryan. 

He gave up on finding words and figured he'd try to answer with his lips, his teeth, his tongue. Brendon kissed Ryan back hard, annoyed. He wasn't the person he used to be, and while he knew that everyone grew up, everyone incorporated their changes into new and homogenized selves, he didn't know how to do that blending. There were some things he had learned faster being in the band, being thrust into the spotlight at such a young age, and some things he hadn't learned at all. He pulled away again and looked at Ryan's lips. 

“Not now,” Brendon murmured, and Ryan stepped back and away quickly, as if he'd been burned. Brendon let him slip away and stand upright. He lifted his thighs and sat on his hands, trying to retain some of Ryan's warmth. “Not never. Just not tonight. Let me finish. I just—”

Ryan cleared his throat softly and took a step back. “By all means. Don't let me get in the way.” 

Brendon watched as Ryan crossed to the door. “I'll be free tomorrow evening,” he said. “Our first treatment is due then and I'll have a few days before we need to start rearranging things.” 

“I'm going back home tomorrow.” Ryan toed his feet into his shoes and bent down to pull them over his heels all the way.

“Oh. Tell Jon I said hi then, yeah? Let him know I'm not dead in a gutter somewhere.”

“Or Pete's basement?” Ryan looked up and over Brendon's right shoulder, not making eye contact.

“Never know with him.”

“Indeed.” Ryan placed his hand on the doorknob and paused. “I'll call you, yeah?” 

“Yeah.” When the door clicked shut Brendon shivered and wiped his hands through his hair. 

Brendon puttered about the apartment pointedly not looking at the piano bench where the memory of himself was still straddling it, alone. His gaze ended up on the cell phone on the coffee table. He called Spencer, who answered sleepily, and told him that he hated him. 

“I hate you too, Brendon, is there anything else?” Spencer sounded amused and Brendon almost knew which smile he was using. It was weird the way the relationships had shifted when Jon and Ryan left Panic. The way they were still shifting. 

“No, that was all.” 

“Alright then, can I call you back? I'm kind of busy.” 

“Yeah.” Brendon hung up and stared at the phone for a moment before he called Jon and got his voicemail. “If you knew that Ryan was sleeping with men and didn't tell me, Jon Walker, you're dead to me.” He pulled the phone away from his face to hang it up, but thought better of it. “Also, can I have your mom's cookie recipe? Those ones she sent before were really good.” He snapped it shut, put the ringer on silent, and dropped the phone back onto the table.

He was full of nervous energy. Exhausted but not tired. He washed the few dishes that had been in the sink and then settled in to read on the couch. When he thought about it, he felt like he should be more unsettled by the sudden disappearance of boundaries and how empty his apartment felt now, than about the fact that Ryan just hadn't told him. The fact that he'd omitted something so important for god only knew how long. 

Brendon'd been with Ryan, so close to him and the rest of them, for so long that he was probably just restless alone. That had to be the explanation for how his lips were still a little numb and his pulse wouldn't slow. He tried to focus on the words, but couldn't find his place. He turned the page. 

Later that evening, when he got out of the shower and the condensation was fresh on the mirror, he wrote 'idiot' in it with his index finger and pretended Ryan left it there for him, like he used to do when they were on tour. 

. . .

The next night, unexpectedly, found Brendon out of the apartment for the second night in less than a week. He'd been standing in the cereal aisle of Albertson's and studying the relative merits of Count Chocula versus Special K with Red Berries when his phone rang. Patrick shouted something that was largely intelligible into the phone as Brendon answered and Pete laughed madly in the background. It took Brendon four tries to understand that their project, the movie, had been picked up by a major studio. Brendon wasn't surprised. Not with Patrick's connections and what he'd seen so far of the film. 

“So you're coming tonight!” That had been Pete, sounding far away, no doubt shouting into the phone from over Patrick's shoulder. 

“Coming where?” Brendon frowned and placed the Special K back on the shelf. 

“The party man,” Patrick said. Brendon looked down at his cereal and wondered if he would ever really escape this kind of thing. Probably not while he was involved with Pete and company. Not being able to come up with a good reason not to go, he purchased his few items and went home to change. 
. . .
Brendon soon found himself standing on the edge of a VIP room in a club he'd never heard of. The lighting was low and the booths around the outside had been draped in heavy fabric of golds and reds. 

The movie was about prohibition and Pete loved themes, so the waitresses were dressed as flappers and all of the guests were given ornate and intricate masks when they arrived. Pete walked purposefully toward Brendon and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, using the other hand to press a mask, with gold trim and music score inlay that heavily resembled a mask he'd worn fourteen years before, into Brendon's hands. 

“I'm glad you came. I was beginning to think we were going to lose you under the piles of paper Ross says are inside your apartment.”

Brendon shook his head and slipped the mask on. “That would devastate you I'm sure.”

Pete pulled his hand away in mock offense and sucked in a breath. “No wonder you can't keep a girlfriend, with an attitude like that.” He smirked.

Brendon pushed at Pete's ribcage. Pete laughed and took two steps sideways, barely missing a waitress who spun to the right and almost lost her tray. One of the glasses fell to the floor, spilling gold liquid onto the white carpet. “Oh, let me get that for you.” Pete dropped to his knees to collect the glass. He lifted it up to her and she brought her hand to her mouth, blushing and trying to hide her smile. Brendon shook his head and moved away, further into the crowd.

Patrick was standing on the other side of the room, talking to the DJ and a blond girl who Brendon pegged to be about twenty. Patrick's hands moved fast in front of him as if he was trying to illustrate what he was saying by using the air, could somehow condense it into something tangible. Brendon sidled up between Patrick and the blond as the Beastie Boys started to blare over the loud speakers. He ducked when Patrick gestured over his shoulder and missed Brendon's ear by a few centimeters. The blond laughed. 

“Sorry!” Patrick leaned into him and tried to be heard over the music without shouting. The DJ jumped back onto his small stage and Brendon watched as the blond waved him off. “Hey, have you seen Pete? Ryan keeps calling me and bitching about Pete's phone. I don't—” He stopped mid-sentence and reached into his pocket. When he pulled out the phone he frowned slightly and showed Brendon the display. The word 'Ross' was digitally inscribed in black against the blue light of the background. Brendon shrugged and pointed to where he'd last seen Pete. Patrick nodded and turned away, beginning to push his way through the crowd. 

He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned around to find the blond looking at him. He hadn't realized she was still there. “Hi,” she shouted.

“Hello.” Brendon smiled at her, trying to find something resembling charm to show her. “Fancy meeting you here.” 

She rolled her eyes and he could just see the quirk of her lip below her crimson mask. It had black spots like a lady bug. She grabbed his elbow. He started to protest, but she tugged him through the crowd and toward the bar. He couldn't complain about that when he was going to end up there anyway. She ordered two gin and tonics, and when they arrived she held one of them out to Brendon. He accepted it, for lack of anything else to do, and let her pull him again. 

He followed her to one of the booths, smiling and feeling every one of his thirty-three years as the actors and writers of the movie and their friends swirled around him. He'd had half the drink by the time she pulled open the curtain and pushed him inside, small hand between his shoulder blades. “I'm Bre—”

“Nope.” She slid a little closer to him as he situated himself against the far wall and placed a finger over his lips. “I don't want to know.” Her voice was soft, low. It seemed to slip through the music that was drafting in around and through the curtains. 

“I'm a friend of Patrick's?” He felt a little foolish, being in a booth with an anonymous stranger, sipping gin and trying to remember how he did this. How had it been so easy when he was younger? Wasn't this something that was supposed to come with age? 

“You're helping with the soundtrack, yes? I've probably heard your name, but I'm going to pretend I haven't. After all, a speak easy is a place for secrets, right?” She tilted her head and smiled again. 

“Yes?” Brendon couldn't think of anything else to say. He felt like he should feel incredibly lucky. Instead he only felt a little uncomfortable and like he was soon going to need quite a bit more alcohol. 

“Good, then this won't matter, much.” She leaned in close and he barely had time to register what was happening before her lips were on his and the edge of her mask was pushing his own into his cheek. 

Her lips were soft, and the dry taste of her lipstick reminded him of that first headlining tour. Reminded him of helping Ryan with his make-up and the smell of paints and powders and sweat. And she was right, technically it had been set up as a place for secrets, and he'd like to keep the fact that kissing a girl had just reminded him of Ryan a secret from himself for a while longer. 

She shifted again and the sparkle and gilt on her mask started to cut into his cheek. He brought his hand up and ran a finger slowly from her collar bone, up her neck to her cheek and pushed the mask up some so that it was out of the way. 

“Unfair.” She pulled back a bit and sighed. The air ghosted over his lips and chin. She pulled her feet up onto the bench and shifted so that she was facing him with her legs curled up under her, which made her taller than he was. She used both hands and slipped the tips of her fingers under the edge of his mask. She pushed it up and settled it on top of his head. He pushed hers off with his thumbs and it bounced onto the bench behind her with a small thud of the cushion. They looked at each other just long enough for him to have a sense of deja vu. It didn't last long though, because soon she was leaning over him and licking lightly at his lips. One hand balanced on his shoulder and the other combing through his hair. She played with the third button down on his shirt, her hand running down his chest and her tongue running along his jaw, when his pocket started to vibrate. 

He let his right hand fall from where it had been inching up under her tank top and he dug through his pocket without breaking away. When he got to the phone out and open he bit her lip softly and ducked back. She sat back on her heels and waited. The text was from Ryan. Pete's an idiot. Where are you?

Celebrating. Impatient with the speed at which he was texting the girl went back to work on his buttons and had another four undone by the time his phone vibrated again. 

At the party. Gonna kill Pete. Maybe Patrick too. Having gotten his shirt unbuttoned she slid her fingers under the hem of his under shirt and scratched her nails lightly down his sides. 

Brendon started to enter a reply when she plucked the phone from his hands and dropped it onto the table. He frowned slightly, but she moved her hands higher and brushed at his nipple with the tip of her thumb. He shivered and left the phone where it was. His eyes slipped closed. 

After what was probably five minutes the phone began to vibrate and dance its way toward the edge of the table. He ignored it until it fell off the table and into his lap. Then he pretended to ignore it for about thirty more seconds because it felt nice in conjunction with the hand that was sliding down the outside of his thigh. Brendon was pretty sure that wasn't what the vibrate setting was intended for. He answered begrudgingly it and pressed it to the ear that the girl wasn't nibbling at. “Yeah?”

“I'm not kidding, I'm going to kill him.” Brendon could hear the echo of the dance track as it bounced through Ryan's phone at what seemed like a nanosecond behind what it was actually playing at. It was a very disorienting effect, and he made a note to use it for later. 

“Why aren't you in New York?” he asked. The girl pulled back and raised an eyebrow. He mouthed a quick no oneand ran his free hand up her thigh to reassure her, catching the hem of her skirt and moving it up as well. 

“Pete told me not to leave yet. Said there was one more thing he needed me to do, but was playing coy with it. He's fucking ridiculous, did you know that?” Not even a hello. Brendon smiled. “And then when I'd made it back from the airport he wouldn't pick up and wouldn't pick up. And Patrick picked up, but he wasn't much more help. And now you've picked up. What is with you people? This is the lamest game of hide and seek ever.” 

“Pete? Yeah, he is fucking ridiculous, wouldn't be him if he weren't.” Brendon rolled his eyes exaggeratedly, making a show of it. The girl laughed. He heard a sharp intake of breath from Ryan and then nothing. The line on the other end was, it wasn't quiet, but it was conspicuously absent of Ryan's voice. 

“Where are you?” 

“I'm at the party, like I told you I was.” Brendon sat forward so quickly he almost bounced off the table edge with his ribs. “Ryan, is everything alright?” 

“Yeah, fine. Sorry to interrupt.”

“Ryan, no I—” And then there was silence, because Ryan had hung up on him. “Fuck.” 

“Well, I wasn't going to,” she said, leaning in close again and wrapping her arms around his neck. “In the interest of keeping the mystique up and all.” 

Brendon looked up at her face. She was nibbling her bottom lip, which would muss the lipstick in a way that he had mussed lipstick a million times. He curtailed the urge to make fun of her for it, like Ryan used to make fun of him. 

“I have to go. I'm sorry.” And as she pushed against him, pulling him into a hug, he was. He slid the phone back into his pocket and she pouted, rubbing her nose over his cheek for about five seconds before smiling again and scooting out to the end of the bench. 

“Me too, you're not a bad kisser, friend of Patrick Stump.” 

“You're not bad yourself.” He grinned at her and she leaned over, giving him a quick peck to the corner of his mouth. And with that she disappeared through the curtained opening at the end of the booth.

Brendon finished his drink in one gulp and tried to calm the flush out of his cheeks. He buttoned up his shirt, having to do it twice because the first time he misaligned them. Then he pushed through the fabric back into din and motion and smoke that was the main room. Ryan was standing fifteen feet away with his back turned, watching people dance with his arms folded across his chest. Brendon knew enough to know that his loathing was actually want. He stepped right up behind Ryan and placed a hand light on Ryan's hip, rocking it forward and back lightly in time with the music. “Care to join me?” 

Ryan spun around on his heels, eyes wide, and took a deep breath. “Oh, it's only you,” he said. Brendon didn't try to identify why the thought of being 'only Brendon' really bothered him at that exact moment. 

Ryan looked him up and down and pursed his lips. “You have lipstick on your collar,” he said. It was more damning that Brendon looked to check than it would have been if it had actually been true. 

Brendon shrugged. "So I'm warmed up already, let's dance." He looped his fingers around Ryan's wrist and started to pull him toward the crush of bodies.
Ryan pulled his arm away roughly. "Let me go." 

Brendon could barely hear him over the music and laughter and shouting. He turned around to find Ryan standing with his arms across his chest again, hip cocked, leaning away from Brendon and the throng behind him. "What now? Look, I know you're annoyed with Pete. But you're here, you might as well enjoy it."

Ryan opened his mouth, but looked like he thought better of what he was going to say. He balled his hands into fists against his forearms and shook his head. "Don't be ridiculous."

Brendon tried to keep the laugh down, he really did, because Ryan had his Serious Face on and that never boded well for anyone within arms reach. Ryan was lanky, but he was quick. None of it changed the fact that Ryan looked about as intimidating as a scrappy puppy. A giggle escaped Brendon's throat and he quirked the corner of his lip down around it. "Ridiculous? Really?" Brendon wanted to mention all the times they'd danced together before, when they were drunk or stupid or bored. All the times when it never really mattered. 

"Really. Don't you think you're a little old for this nonsense? Don't you think Pete is? Where the fuck is he anyway? Weren't you the one telling me yesterday about how you needed to find yourself, how you needed to grow up? And whatever other sort of bullshit you could spew. Why don't we start that now?"

It was Brendon's turn to open his mouth and have nothing come out. Not finding anything to say, he closed his mouth again, licked his lips, and stared at Ryan. "The fuck, man?" he managed finally.

"Exactly." 

Brendon was used to Ryan's arguments not making sense to him. Ryan fought in a roundabout way. He used metaphors as weapons and laid backhanded compliments like land mines in a rice field. This, however, took the cake. "Exactly? Exactly what? Last night you wanted to fuck me and now you won't even dance? Why are you here Ryan if you're not going to join in on the fucking party? Why didn't you just get on your plane anyway? You know Pete well enough to know whatever it was could wait. How many times have you been called at four in the morning and asked something retarded, like what color Cheetara's leotard was?"

Ryan glared at him. "That's not even. I don't."

"What are you waiting around for?" Brendon watched as Ryan's entire body tensed up. His shoulders hunched over slightly and he drew his elbows in. 

Ryan dropped his head forward and Brendon could barely see the look on his face around the hair falling into it. "That's a good question." He looked so small, so wounded. Brendon took a step forward, pulled by his innate need to fix things with touch. 

Ryan took a step back and looked up at him, bottom lip tucked between his teeth. Then he slanted his eyes and dropped his arms to his sides. "I have to go find a hotel room, since I'm stuck here for at least another night. Enjoy your party." He brushed past Brendon and waved his hand behind him as a way of parting. 

Brendon watched Ryan walk all the way to the fire exit before he could get his feet under him. He bolted forward and slammed into the closing door with his shoulder. Cursing the use of metal as a common construction material under his breath, he caught up with Ryan halfway down the stairs. Brendon dropped one hand on Ryan's shoulder and gripped the guard rail with the other so that he didn't pitch himself head first down the stairs. "Stop, don't you be ridiculous now too.” Ryan jerked his shoulder away and Brendon groaned quietly as the motion pulled against his already sore arm. “You can just stay with me for the night." 

Ryan looked up and over his left shoulder and up at Brendon. His face was carefully open. "Stop playing around." 

"Who's playing? Unless we're counting running down the stairs, which I'm pretty sure still counts as horseplay.” Brendon tried out a grin, hoping it would diffuse things some, but Ryan didn't seem amused. Brendon straightened his mouth and tried to reflect Ryan's disinterest. “Stop being such an asshole. How is it wrong for me to offer a friend a place to stay? You don't always have to owe people for the nice things they do, you know. If that's what you're worried about." 

Ryan continued to glare up at Brendon as someone exited the party upstairs. The music slipped out of the door and down the staircase around them as the person brushed by where they were hogging the middle of the stairwell. He didn't say anything until the door at the bottom was closed against the heavy bass beat coming from the regular club below. "Don't I?"

Brendon let out a slow breath. "No."

Ryan turned around and looked up at Brendon, his hands settling onto his waist. "An eye for an eye," he muttered.

"You know that doesn't really work the other way a—" but Brendon was cut off by Ryan as he reached up and grabbed both sides of Brendon's shirt collar with his hands. He tugged down and Brendon had to reach out and catch the other rail with his free hand to keep from taking them both down.

It was the second time they'd kissed in two days and it was less hesitant, but no less awkward. Brendon was still sure whatever Ryan thought about the two of them, whatever idea he had, was a terrible one. Brendon started to recount in his head all of the other terrible ideas he'd gone along with in his life and weighing the consequences of them all. None of them had ended in his death, so far as he could tell, so the stakes here seemed relatively light. 

Ryan pulled away and pushed Brendon back upright. “It was my turn, was all I meant.” He dragged the back of his wrist across his mouth and then licked his lips. “It doesn't have to mean anything.” 

Brendon watched the way Ryan's tongue ran across his lips and he couldn't remember ever wanting to be a pair of lips before. He'd fixated on Ryan's lips before, admired them when he was drunk or high and they were alone, which wasn't often. Somehow, the reality was different. Not worse, just not what he'd thought. “I think this officially makes me a one beer queer,” he muttered. Ryan's eyebrow shot up, questioning what he hadn't completely heard. “Nothing, nothing.” Brendon shoved Ryan's shoulder lightly and got him to turn around and finish heading down the stairs. 

Between his aborted make out session fifteen minutes before and the way Ryan was looking at him from under half lidded eyes, Brendon was aware that the heat rising in his neck was about to become painfully obvious elsewhere. The ride back to his apartment would take twenty minutes, and that was about twenty minutes too long, in his estimation. 

. . .

Neither of them said anything on the cab ride back to the apartment. Ryan leaned his forehead against the glass of his window and watched the lights of the city fly by them. Brendon tilted his head back against the back of the seat and closed his eyes, breathing evenly. He kept a steady count of the ins and outs and tried to ignore the way Ryan's elbow was grazing his thigh. 

When they shuffled into his apartment he didn't think to turn on the light, and once he got the door closed they stood ten feet apart, looking at each other in the glow from the street lights below. Ryan licked his lips. Brendon wondered if that had always been a compulsive habit of Ryan's. He licked his own lips and stared across the space between them. Brendon knew what he should do, but he couldn't force himself forward. 

It was Ryan who moved first, and he stopped in front of Brendon, looked him in the eye before lightly touching Brendon's jaw line with his fingertips. Brendon inhaled and he could smell something like coffee on Ryan's breath, something salty like chips on his fingertips. Brendon didn't move. Ryan leaned forward slowly, hesitantly, placed his lips on Brendon's mouth, as if he were afraid he did it too hard Brendon might pop. 

Brendon kissed him back and they stood like that, tentatively letting their lips touch, Ryan's fingertips ghosting Brendon's face the only other contact. Ryan slid his hands down Brendon's jaw, his neck, his shoulders, until he was wrapping his fingers into the fabric near Brendon's neckline and Brendon let his hands come up and rest on Ryan's waist. 

Every touch rediscovered an old part of their bodies. Brendon had long been familiar with the way Ryan's earlobe met the side of his face, which melted into his jawline, the way his fingers were quick and nimble, the way his chest rose and fell with heavy breaths. These things had never meant any more to Brendon before than the sum of the whole though, and he was slowly learning what they meant on their own. He tangled a hand in Ryan's hair and let the other settle on Ryan's lower back, pulling him closer. 

Ryan was pulling Brendon's shirttail from his pants and Brendon still wasn't sure he wanted this. Wanted Ryan. But it was nice and Ryan was warm and he'd spent so much time in his own fucking head lately that not thinking at all was starting to look pretty good. As was the way that Ryan's mussed hair curled around his ears and made Brendon want to lick just between the lobe and the fall of tangles. 

Ryan shifted his weight, pressing into Brendon with his right shoulder and playing with the first done up button on Brendon's shirt. Brendon's breath hitched and he took a step back. He slowly slid one hand down Ryan's back and the other up his side until they leveled out at Ryan's shoulders and he pushed Ryan gently away. When Ryan pulled back he had Brendon's bottom lip lightly between his teeth and the separation was slow, like tree sap, and Brendon felt his stomach clench as he broke off. 

Ryan's fingers were still on Brendon's shirt near his buttons and his eyes were half closed, which made it even more impossible for Brendon to read him in the dark. “Mmm.” The noise came from deep in Ryan's throat and he pushed his face forward and nuzzled lightly at Brendon's neck before Brendon pushed him away again lightly. Ryan blinked. “What, what is it?”

“Nothing, I just.” There was so much Brendon wanted to say that he found the words getting clogged in the back of his throat and he swallowed hard around them. “I've never—. With a—.”

Ryan nodded and looked down, concentrating on working the buttons of Brendon's shirt out of their holes. After he'd gotten them all loose he slipped his hands inside, running them up Brendon's torso and rucking up his under shirt in the process until he could slide his fingers into the shoulders of the over shirt and push it back and off. Brendon dropped his hands from Ryan's shoulders and stretched his arms back, letting the shirt fall. Ryan ran his hands back down the front of Brendon's chest and straightened the hem of his undershirt absently. “Don't worry about it. Fundamentally it's the same,” he said finally.

Brendon let his arms hang awkwardly at his sides, not sure what to do. “Who? With you? I mean—” 

Ryan huffed lightly and slid his fingers under the hem of Brendon's undershirt and skirted them around the waistband of Brendon's pants. “It doesn't matter.” 

“But do I? I mean.” 

Ryan looked up sharply at Brendon and hooked one finger into the front of Brendon's jeans. “I know what you mean, but it doesn't matter. You didn't. You don't know them.”

“Them?” It came out half strangled and barely a word. 

“Brendon?”

Brendon swallowed and shook his head slightly, trying to rid himself of the unfounded jealousy that was rising in his stomach. It had been more than just the last one, had maybe happened often, and still no one had told him. “Yeah?”

“Shut up.” Ryan kissed him again and then backed away to tug Brendon's under shirt up over his head. Then he backed up four steps and started to push his jeans down his thighs. 

Brendon could handle shutting up. It was an order as opposed to another question inducing statement. He had a deep desire, suddenly, to know what other men Ryan had deemed worthy of showing affection to. Or even just to get off with. Sometimes Ryan's priorities were a a little left-handed from everyone else's. Overriding that though, was his need to know why Ryan had never brought it up with him, why this was just another thing Ryan held away from him.

Their shirts and Ryan's jeans were on the floor and Ryan's fingers were dipping inside the waist band of Brendon's pants as he walked Brendon slowly towards the bedroom, lips never leaving Brendon's, not giving him half a chance to say anything and ruin it all. This, Brendon realized, was a smart move on Ryan's part. It didn't, however, stop Brendon from running into a wall in his own apartment and bumping their noses together, or from catching the zipper of his pants on his boxers in his haste. He sat on the bed, cursing under his breath and trying to work the cloth from between the teeth of the fly while Ryan stood over him in a bar of light from the window, arms crossed, half a smile ghosting over his lips like things were going as planned. And maybe they were, he'd known Brendon a long time, after all, knew what to expect. 

“Idiot,” Ryan said fondly. He knelt at the foot of the bed and swatted Brendon's hands away. It took him thirty seconds to get the zipper undone. Then he tugged hard on the thighs of the pants and Brendon fell backwards onto the bed and lifted his hips a little so that it took a little more than half that amount of time to have the pants clear across the room and out of mind.

Brendon stayed on his back and tried not to think anything about his current resemblance to a fifteen-year-old during his first time, the way his heart was beating in his chest at three times its normal rate. Ryan crawled up the bed and then dropped down over Brendon, his knees on either side of Brendon's thighs, his hands bracketing Brendon's head, his toes wrapped around the inside of Brendon's ankles. When he leaned forward to kiss Brendon's jawline the taut cloth of his boxers brushed against the head of Brendon's cock through his boxer briefs. It was all Brendon could do to bite back the moan. 

“You don't, we don't have to, you know.” Ryan's nose was centimeters from Brendon's face and Brendon could see how Ryan's pupils were dilated in the darkness. 

It hadn't occurred to Brendon since they left the club that he could stop, that Ryan could just pull his pants on and go home. He really didn't want to think about it either. Instead he nodded and pushed his head up so that the tips of their noses touched. Ryan gazed down at him for a moment longer, studying him, before he nipped at Brendon's earlobe and then worked a wet trail from the corner of Brendon's mouth to Brendon's left nipple with his tongue. “No it's,” Brendon's voice was tight in his throat. “It doesn't mean anything. Just animal tendencies.” 

Ryan grunted his assent and lowered his weight onto Brendon's body and blew gently on the saliva he'd just left behind at Brendon's collarbone. When his lips met Brendon's again the kiss was slow, languid. Ryan's tongue teased at Brendon's, circling around it and then pushing it back just enough to get Brendon to retaliate, so that their tongues were fighting the same war as their hips. Back and forth, gentle and steady, friction building and all of the tension from Brendon's body slowly draining from his limbs and pooling in his abdomen.

Brendon wasn't used to being coaxed and being led. Not that there had never been any sort of role reversal in his sex life, but that he couldn't remember the last time he truly felt out of control of the situation. He took a deep breath and laid a slightly trembling hand on Ryan's lower back, slipping the tips of his fingers under the waistband of Ryan's boxers. Ryan sighed appreciatively and spread his thighs wider, getting lower, closer. Brendon arched up into him. 

Ryan ran his hands down Brendon's sides, fingertips tracing intricate patterns across his skin from his ribcage to his hip bone. He slipped his fingers into Brendon's boxer briefs and nudged them down. Brendon arched up again, lifting his hips and Ryan pulled them down to his thighs, leaning back off of Brendon as he tugged. Brendon watched the way Ryan bit at his lip, the concentration on his face as he worked the material down to Brendon's knees, scooting down the bed backwards as he did. 

Brendon sat up, pulling himself up on the bed so that he could easily kick the underwear from around his ankles. Ryan dropped them off the foot of the bed and worked his way out of his boxers as Brendon crawled onto his knees and moved down the bed until he had a knee wedged between Ryan's open thighs. The head of Ryan's cock brushed against Brendon's leg. Brendon leaned forward, pushing his weight into Ryan, and Ryan pushed back. He wrapped his arms around Brendon's waist and pressed his lips to the crook of Brendon's neck, sucking lightly. 

Rocking forward, Brendon moaned as his cock brushed across Ryan's thigh. Ryan nipped and licked his way up Brendon's neck as he slid his hands down Brendon's back until he could flatten them on Brendon's ass cheeks, pulling Brendon forward, further up Ryan's thigh. 

Brendon fought the urge to shiver as goosebumps raised themselves along his back and neck. Everywhere he was touching Ryan he was hot. The foreplay itself, the lead up, felt pretty much the same physically as it ever had with a woman. There was touch, they had built a connection and were working on pulling it tight between themselves. The difference was, that with a woman Brendon was often focused on what to do right. He focused on how she wanted to be pleased, how she wanted to be touched, and his own body was often merely a vehicle for that reaction. He was important, but a means to an end. 

With Ryan, Brendon was hyper aware of everything he was doing. Ryan's skin under his fingers was smooth and warm. Ryan's tongue was rough as the tip of it rubbed over the nub of Brendon's nipple, tickling and teasing him and pushing so that as his shoulders moved back his pelvis moved forward for balance and his cock moved further up Ryan's side. He was aware that they had known each other for years, half a lifetime, and that they had both thought they'd known what there was to know about the other. This, this was extra, it was icing, and it was warm and good and it settled into the pit of Brendon's stomach like bubbles floating down in a curtain. Each new sensation popped an old belief. Each newly broken belief splashed an image in relief on Brendon's mind. 

Brendon rutted against Ryan's hip as Ryan ran his hands up Brendon's back and through his hair. He wasn't trying to set a pace, merely gain some friction to increase the building sensation of pleasure that he was thrumming with. Pulling one of Ryan's hands from his hair he held it in front of him, palm up, and looked at it. He brought it closer so that he could see the tattoo more clearly in the dim light of the L.A. evening. Mad as a hatter. The words jumped out at him and he stuck his tongue out, traced them as best he could. He felt Ryan's hand shake and reached to pat his thigh reassuringly. He miscalculated and laid his hand flat on Ryan's penis where it was pressed into Brendon's hip. Ryan's breath hitched sharply and Brendon moved his hand downward along the shaft lightly. He'd never done this to someone else before, but it had to be basically the same as his own, right?

With that contact Ryan snapped to attention. Where he'd been teasing Brendon before, simply playing, perhaps still afraid Brendon would run, he moved to pull reactions in earnest. Ryan pressed his mouth to Brendon's again and opened it wide, trying to move his tongue as far into Brendon's mouth as he could. As Brendon continued to timidly pet Ryan's erection, Ryan wrapped his long, dexterous fingers, the ones Brendon had admired for so long, around Brendon's cock and started to stroke it. 

Brendon choked momentarily, not prepared for the change in pace, but he adjusted. He canted his hips in time with Ryan's quick pulls and wrapped his own hand around the base of Ryan's cock, starting slow, but building up to a matching cadence. Ryan groaned into Brendon's mouth and Brendon couldn't help but moan in response. 

With no warning, Ryan let go of Brendon's cock and wrapped both his arms around Brendon's shoulders, pulling Brendon flush against him as he leaned up and then toppled them both so that they were laid out, Ryan's body on top of Brendon's, the weight settling pleasantly about Brendon's form. 

Ryan slid off to the side and skittered his fingers down Brendon's chest, stomach, abdomen, until they were lightly stroking at the inside of Brendon's thighs and Brendon couldn't do anything in answer but to open his legs wider and groan again. Ryan broke apart from the kiss and licked his way down Brendon's body, following the intricate journey his fingers had made moments before. Stopping in places to work out intricate curlicues with his tongue. Brendon realized that he wanted to taste Ryan the same way, and tried to push him onto his back with a firm hand on Ryan's shoulder, but Ryan merely batted him away. 

Ryan danced his tongue across Brendon's pelvis right at the edge of his pubic hair and Brendon rocked his hips forward, involuntarily. Ryan let the hand that had been stroking Brendon's thighs slide up and pause right at Brendon's scrotum. He looked up at Brendon for a moment, making sure he had eye contact. Then he slowly ran his tongue over his lips, and moved his head down so that he could swirl his tongue around the head of Brendon's cock. 

As he did this he slid his fingers down, past Brendon's balls, which he paused to fondle, and then he settled his fingers near the soft skin between the sack and Brendon's anus. Brendon tensed, not sure of what was going to happen. Ryan slid his lips down over Brendon's cock, not releasing eye contact. He took it all neatly, until his lips were buried in the tight curls of Brendon's pubic hair. Then, he gently nudged the knuckles of two fingers into the skin under the sack, pressing lightly at first, then doing it with more force as he began to move up and down on Brendon's cock, swirling his tongue at the top when he reached it. 

Brendon closed his eyes. He hadn't wanted to break the eye contact, but he couldn't help it. A wave of warmth separate from the pleasure already building moved through him and into his outer extremities. Behind his eyelids there was a burst of red with white sparks at the edges. “Ryan,” he started, but it leveled off into a long and deep moan as Ryan palmed his balls before pushing against that spot again. If he'd been in any state of mind to remember what he was thinking, he would have made a mental note to make sure that any person he slept with thereafter, man or woman, knew exactly where that spot was. As it is, he was lucky that he had the wherewithal to shove at Ryan's shoulder, to wrap his fingers in Ryan's hair and pull back to warn Ryan that he was close to coming. 

Ryan pulled away, sat up and licked his lips. He lightly ghosted his fingers over his own jaw, stretching it some. Brendon was cold suddenly, not being touched. He pawed at the top of his sheets and rolled sideways so he could pull them down and then roll over into them and cover himself. Ryan's eyes widened and a small grin drew itself up across his face. He looked like he wanted to laugh, but he didn't. He simply slipped under the sheet with Brendon and aligned himself next to Brendon's body so that his cock was laying across Brendon's hip. Brendon took a deep breath and rolled onto his side. 

“I want,” he said. He wasn't sure what he wanted, everything all at once. He wanted to taste Ryan on his tongue. Wanted to cool drying circular patterns of saliva on Ryan's skin. Wanted to smell every part of Ryan until he felt like he'd gotten to the root of his essence. It was a terrifying and marvelous thought, how much he needed Ryan in that moment, and not entirely because his erection was aching and rubbing against the sheet in a way that merely teased it and did nothing to help. He leaned forward and started to slip under the sheet. 

Ryan paused him with a touch to his neck. “You're not gay,” Ryan said. His lips were swollen from kissing and from being wrapped around Brendon's cock. His eyes were wide, pupil's dilated, and his eyebrows were knit together slightly, studying, waiting. 

Brendon shook his head and reached out under the sheet. He grabbed the head of Ryan's cock and squeezed lightly before sliding his fingers down around it. Ryan thrust forward into it and moaned. Brendon wanted to know what other sounds he could elicit from Ryan. But Ryan shook his head. 

“It doesn't matter, right?” Brendon said. “Just sex. This would be part of it. This would—” 

Ryan shook his head again and his breath hitched as Brendon twisted the head of his cock lightly. “No,” he gasped finally. “It's not that, it's just, this isn't about learning. This is about feeling. I don't want to teach you, I want ungh.” 

Brendon had reached his other hand down and pressed in behind Ryan's balls as Ryan had done to him. 

“Let's just...” He brushed Brendon's hand away and rolled over on top of Brendon so that his elbows framed Brendon's head against the pillow and their hips were pressed together. 

Brendon bucked up and Ryan spread his legs, straddling Brendon. He propped himself up with his left arm and then let his right hand drift down Brendon's body again. Brendon felt the tickle of the pads of Ryan's fingers raise every hair along the way and he squirmed a little underneath Ryan. 

Ryan tilted his hips so that his cock was flush against Brendon's and then licked a wide swath down his palm. He kept his eyes trained on Brendon's as he wrapped his hand around both of their cocks and began to stroke them together.

It was slow at first. He worked their precome around and between their erections and Brendon tried not to move too fast, tried to let the feeling that had waned some in the interim rebuild inside of him at a gradual pace. He lost the war with that though, and began thrusting against Ryan's cock, into Ryan's hand, fucking the tight space between them as quickly and deeply as he could. Ryan started to match the pitch, and as Brendon came between them and groaned Ryan's name, Ryan was just starting to really set a pace. He worked Brendon through the orgasm and then released Brendon's cock. He didn't move though. He remained straddled over Brendon as he jacked himself off rapidly. A few moments later he came as well, his semen mixing with Brendon's where it coated his hand and his cock and his stomach and Brendon's abdomen. Then he collapsed on top of Brendon. 

Brendon grunted as Ryan knocked the wind out of him, but didn't say anything. They were sticky, and covered in sweat, and had it been almost anyone else Brendon would have rolled them over and suggest they go take the first shower. But you didn't spend the better part of five years on a bus with someone and still remain wary of their bodily fluids, whatever those may be. Ryan had been right about one thing, there was a certain comfort level involved in the fact that it didn't mean anything. 

And it didn't mean anything, Brendon told himself, as he brushed sweaty and tangled bangs off of Ryan's forehead. Ryan took a deep breath and rolled off Brendon. He dropped one leg off the edge of the bed as if to get up. Brendon rolled onto his side and slung an arm over Ryan's chest. “You have somewhere to be?” 

Ryan yawned and shook his head. “Was just gonna. Couch.” He pointed toward the door, taking time to unwrap his hand clumsily from the sheets. 

“There's more than enough room here, as has already been proved.” Brendon used the layer of top sheet closest to him to wipe messily at his stomach and thighs, and then did the same to Ryan. After he'd done that he bunched it up in his hands, taking care to keep the duvet in place with his feet, and then slid if off the edge of the bed. 

Ryan nodded and rolled over on his stomach, wrapping his arms around the pillow Brendon usually used to sleep with and burrowing his head into the fabric, sighing. “Long day,” he said. It didn't escape Brendon's attention that Ryan was no longer looking him in the eye. 

“Definitely,” Brendon said. He rolled over on his side, facing away from Ryan, and pulled the extra pillow under his head. He didn't spend too much time awake, thinking about the way Ryan's name had sounded on his lips, or Ryan's hands on his thighs, Ryan's tongue in his mouth. He dropped off pretty quickly. And once he had, well, who could blame him for wrapping himself around Ryan in his sleep. For mistaking Ryan, obviously, for someone else. 

. . . 

“I'm thinking of maybe writing a book.” Ryan blew across the top of his coffee mug and watched Brendon from the other side of the table. 

Brendon wasn't a writer. Not like Ryan was, and always had been. Brendon didn't take in his surroundings or dissect situations for meaning and content. He didn't pull at the threads and unravel the memories so he could use the excess string to make something new and startling and truer than the thing that happened. 

“Really? About what?” He was straddling a chair that he'd flipped around so that it's back was pushed up against the side of the table. His arms draped over the top of it and he swirled the tea around in his cup, carefully not looking at Ryan. 

Brendon was most often far too busy being distracted, and all that picking at the frays, finding the right strings, was a fucking craft, because it took more energy than people even realized. 

“Short stories, probably. It's different, without the music though. It's taking some getting used to, finding the rhythm without help.” 

Even so, at that moment Brendon felt worn thin, like he'd been picking at that moment his whole life and Ryan just stared at him. Brendon imagined he was cataloging the looks on his face and their surroundings, which didn't help. At all. Brendon wasn't sure he wanted this particular moment remembered. He began to lightly bounce his heel, his knee bumping Ryan's under the table on every offbeat. 

Ryan frowned. "Hey asshole, look at me." He took a sip of his coffee. "If you're going to insist on being embarrassed I'm going to leave. And, we're never going to get to have this big, stupid conversation you so obviously think we need to have. Which we don't, by the way.” He paused for a moment and twisted his mouth in a moue before continuing. “You know, other people have actually slept with me and not been embarrassed about it." He stopped again and looked off and out the kitchen window. Before Brendon could reply he said, "why don't you buy some fucking food?"

"I went to the store yesterday! There's food."

"There's a box of granola bars, three boxes of Count Chocula, and hummus. That, is not food. You can't even eat hummus with Count Chocula."

Brendon flipped Ryan off across the table and drank some more of his tea. Ryan was trying to distract him, and it was working. The fucker. "We do, anyway. Because I. We." Brendon lost his momentum before it was even properly built, because Ryan had put his mug down and was leaning over it into the center of the table. 

"We didn't have sex." 

Brendon sputtered a little and stopped bouncing his leg. "But we did." He knew. He knew because he hadn't taken a shower yet and he could still smell it, feel it. He knew because he had been there, and while he wouldn't put it past his imagination to give him some fucking great dreams, he didn't quite think it would have pulled that one out on its own, latent fantasies about his band mate's lips or not. 

Ryan raised both his eyebrows for emphasis and tapped his finger lightly on the wooden table top, filling in for the motion Brendon had given up, which Brendon was thankful for. Those fifteen seconds of stillness were really starting to get to him. "We didn't, not technically, but you're not listening to me. We didn't. It's an out, if you need one."

Oh. Brendon was relieved, not because he was embarrassed to have slept with Ryan, and not because he wouldn't do it again, but because Ryan seemed to understand how very afraid he was now of screwing something up. He knew he should say something cool right then, but he'd never been cool, and instead the first thing that slipped out was, "Do you need outs often?" He spilled his tea when Ryan kicked him under the table. “That's gonna bruise, fucker. Ow.” 

Ryan held his hands and the coffee mug in front of his face, but Brendon could tell by the way his eyes crinkled at the corners that he was smiling. Maybe they didn't need to talk about it. It had just been a one time thing, after all. He was pretty sure at least. 

“Right.” Ryan pushed his chair away from the table and put his half full mug in the sink. “I have to get to the airport. Provided Pete hasn't left me twenty frantic messages about this thing that was so important that I stay for it.” 

Brendon was pretty sure Pete knew Ryan had gotten it already. The message had been relayed in full by Brendon's disappearance the night before and one jilted blond. He nodded and stood as well looking around for where he might have left some paper towels to clean up his tea with. “Wait for a moment. I'll drive you.” He gave up on the search and went back to his bedroom to put on some real clothing. He wished he couldn't feel Ryan's eyes on him as he walked out. 

When Brendon got back from dropping Ryan off he pulled out one of the boxes of granola bars and ate two of them for lunch in defiance. They were totally real food. After that he pulled the sheets off his bed and dropped them on top of the other dirty laundry. There was no reason to beat himself over the head with something that was in the past now. 

. . . 

Ryan was in LA the next weekend, and the one after that and the one after that. Pete wanted him to look at some design ideas, some designers, be at a convention to look for models, choose shoe designs. Brendon joked to Patrick one afternoon that Pete should just get Ryan his own place and keep him there. Patrick had looked across the piano at him, turned to look at the closet, where one of Ryan's blazers was hanging on the door knob, and then back at Brendon. Brendon, who was still counting in ¾ time, waited for 16 bars before saying “what?” He didn't think the fact that Ryan's jacket was there and not in his hotel room was telling. After all, there was nothing to tell. 

. . . 

Brendon slipped into the bookstore and let the quietness wash over him. He exhaled. The times between Ryan's visits had been punctuated by silence, which wasn't altogether unusual, but it felt heavier now. Brendon didn't like to think about it. Which was why he found himself escaping to places like this more often than not. He shoved his hands into his pockets and started off down the closest aisle. He never really bought anything, just roamed and touched things and soaked in the atmosphere. 

He was halfway through Religion and flipping through a book with a weirdly bloody cover when someone tapped him on the shoulder. “I wouldn't have taken you for the religious type.” 

Brendon turned around to find that there was a girl behind him. She looked vaguely familiar. He took her in and when it hit him he struggled with not smacking himself on the forehead. It was the girl he'd ditched at the party and not thought about since. Shit. He hadn't ever gotten her name, had he? “Well, I used to be.” 

She tilted her head to the side and pursed her lips. “What happened?”

Brendon shrugged. “Life,” he said, and smiled. She nodded and looked him up and down thoughtfully. They stood there for a few moments and Brendon started to feel antsy in the awkward silence. “Anyway...” he said, letting the last syllable trail off. 

“Oh sorry,” she held out her hand toward him. “I'm Lucy.” 

He took it and gave her fingers a quick squeeze. As sprawling and crowded as L.A. was, Brendon still had impossible run ins with people. It was a talent of his. “Brendon.” 

“I know,” she said, and smiled. 

“Well,” he faked looking over his shoulder for help, “that's just a little creepy.” 

“Now,” she said. “You can't say that, you're famous. And I asked your friend about you.” 

“I wouldn't even say I used to be famous, but,” he looked down and rubbed his hand over the back of his hair, “it's nice to meet you finally. For real, I mean.” 

“And you. So what are you doing? Besides loitering in the religion section and making more work for the poor employees by moving things around?”

“Just getting out. You know how it is when you stay cooped up working. Hard to create if there's nothing new going in.”

“Indeed. Hey, I was just about to wander down to the coffee shop and do some reading. You can come if you like. That is, if you know how to read.” She smirked. 

“Ms. Lucy, are you stalking me?” 

“Not even slightly. But sometimes things happen and you have to just go with them.” 

Brendon thought about it for a minute. He couldn't come up with a reason not to, and he felt like a heel for having ditched her before. “Sure, sure. Let me just uh...” He put down the book and moved around her toward the magazine rack. He didn't know what he was going to get, but he had to have something. 

. . .

Ryan rolled over onto his stomach and rested his chin on the back of Brendon's shoulder. He pulled the edge of the sheet with him, wrapping himself up in it and pulling it tighter around Brendon. “So, you've got a girlfriend,” he said. His voice was carefully empty of inflection.

“What?” Brendon picked his face up out of the pillow. He didn't think he had a girlfriend, but it had happened without him knowing before. 

Ryan hummed and Brendon felt the vibration where his face touched Brendon's back. “Don't you ever check the internet anymore?” 

“I don't Google myself, if that's what you're asking. Bill was right about that. Nothing but trouble.” 

“I saw an article,” he said. “Well, it was a stub. Hardly even a notice, really. But there was a lovely picture of a girl with blond hair leaning over your coffee and pretending to read out of your book.” Ryan draped an arm over Brendon's lower back. It felt territorial. 

“Oh, that'll be Lucy,” Brendon said. 

“I guess.” 

Brendon rolled his eyes and twisted around onto his side, disrupting Ryan's balance. Ryan opted folding his arms and propping his chin on them instead. He looked up at Brendon through his eyebrows.

Brendon sighed. “She's an actress and she's more famous than I am. It'd have been her name on the picture.” 

“Yeah then, Lucy.” Ryan cut his eyes away. “You should have told me.” 

“Why? Ryan, are you...jealous?” Brendon broke into a grin and bit down on his tongue softly so he didn't laugh. “That's downright adorable, is what that is.” He pinched Ryan's cheek and Ryan scowled and punched him in the thigh. 

“Don't be ridiculous.” Ryan said. He huffed a breath out angrily. “We're not exclusive or anything.” 

“Do you want to go steady, Ryan?” Brendon asked in a mock serious tone.

“Shut up,” Ryan said. His cheeks were going red.

Brendon leaned over and blew in Ryan's face. “Do you want to exchange promise rings?”

“Shut up. Shut up!” Ryan pushed himself off the bed and stalked to the bathroom. Brendon flopped onto his back and crossed his arms under his head. “I'll wear the dress at the wedding if you want me to!” he shouted. 

“I'm not your boyfriend!” Ryan shot back. When he came out of the bathroom there was a towel draped low around his hips. “And you're not mine,” he said. Calmer this time. 

Brendon cleared his throat. “No, I don't think I am.” It wasn't that Brendon hadn't considered it. He wasn't sleeping with anyone but Ryan, but Ryan didn't seem to want to be boyfriends. Whatever their arrangement was, it wasn't likely to turn into something long term. Brendon pushed down the uneasy feeling that caused in his stomach. “Anyway. Lucy's just a friend, Ryan.”

“You'll let me know if anything changes?” Ryan looked small framed by the bathroom door. His shoulders hunched and he seemed uncertain, like he was in a dream and he'd just realized he was standing mostly naked in front of an audience. 

“I'll let you know,” Brendon said. 

Ryan nodded and made his way back to the bed, taking the long way around the room rather than just crawling up from the bottom. He turned the lamp light out and Brendon watched his outline drop the towel. In the darkness Brendon felt Ryan climb in and lay down next to him. He draped one leg over Brendon's and crossed their ankles. 

“Pinky promise,” Brendon said, and ran his hand through Ryan's hair before he settled in to sleep himself. 

. . .

“I know it's short notice,” Lucy said. There was a dog yapping in the background. “But my other date can't make it, and I know we don't know each other that well yet, but I was just wondering...”

“Yeah, sure,” Brendon said. He was making a sandwich in the kitchen. “I'll have to dig up something suitable to wear but—”

“Oh, you're a musician. Just be charmingly ragamuffin.” 

“That I can definitely do.” Brendon smiled and closed the refrigerator door with his hip. 

“I thought you might be able to. I'll have the car come by and pick you up in an hour. Thank you so much.” 

“Sure,” Brendon said. He hung up the phone and ran his hands through his hair. This would be their second date. If they were dating. But he'd told Ryan they weren't and it hadn't been a lie. They just did things together on occasion, and Brendon just really enjoyed her company. There was nothing wrong with that. He wolfed down the sandwich and then went into the bathroom to start the shower. 

Fifty minutes later he'd pulling on his best looking jacket and was triple checking his hair in the mirror. It'd been quite some time since he'd had to dress for cameras. He was a little nervous in spite of himself. He should be able to do this, it should come back. Just like riding a bicycle or something. 

There was a knock on the door and when he got it open his breath hitched before he could stop it. “You're gorgeous,” he said, because she was. 

“Thank you,” she said, lifting the full and flowing skirt of her deep red gown and rushing past him into the apartment, “but right now I really need to pee.” 

“Oh sure, the bathroom's just that way.” He gestured lazily toward his bedroom and turned to find his phone. 

“No, I'm sorry,” she said. When he looked at her she seemed embarrassed. “I need help.” She turned around and he could see her bodice was a corset, tightly laced in the back. 

“I'm guessing just picking up your skirt is out of the question?” He mimicked the motion with his hands and she shook her head. 

“There's too much of it. I just need you to undo the top half so I can lower it down and step out of it.” 

“Uh, sure,” he said. She turned her back and he stepped toward her. She smelled wonderful. Something light and floral that Ryan would have hated and okay, he really needed to stop thinking about Ryan when he was close to her. 

And really, if he was not dating anyone he should be free to appreciate her smell or the way the bodice cinched in her waist and accentuated her hips. Or the way her hair was just as soft as the ribbon he was undoing down the back of the corset. Or the way the color of her dress offset the natural pink tinge of her skin so well. He took a deep breath and shook his head a little. “Okay, you should be good to go.” 

She looked back at him and flashed her wide, white smile. “Thank you.” She disappeared into the bathroom.

Brendon walked toward the kitchen, not wanting to hover outside the bathroom. There was little that killed mystery like listening to another person pee. He was wondering if he should put on some sort of sash over his jeans as opposed to his normal, boring belt, when his front door opened. He turned to see Ryan standing there, duffle draped over his shoulder. 

“You're looking a tad swank for a Sunday night in,” he said. 

“I wasn't, I was just.” Brendon stammered. Ryan closed the door behind him and raised an eyebrow. 

The bathroom door opened and Lucy stepped out, holding her top against her front. Brendon realized she wasn't wearing a bra. He felt his face go hot. “Can you please do me up?” she said. 

When she turned she noticed Ryan. He was standing with his hand still on the door knob, mouth slightly open. 

“Yes, of course,” Brendon said, because he couldn't just stand there looking at Ryan, and he was certainly not going to be evaluating the feeling of guilt rising up his throat. He didn't have anything to feel guilty about. He was looping the tie through the fifth hole up before Ryan said anything. 

“I didn't know I'd be interrupting, I—” 

This struck Brendon as oddly polite, given Ryan's usual way of handling his friends. Maybe the situation hadn't really caught up with him yet. 

“No, it's okay. Lucy, this is Ryan. Ryan, this—”

“She's the girl from the pictures,” Ryan said. There was a drop at the end that sounded a bit like resignation.

Lucy, to her credit, blushed. 

“Yeah, I'm sorry about that.” She'd turned her face so that she was saying it to Brendon. “Can't walk five feet in this town without falling over someone with a camera.” 

Ryan snorted. “Some of us can.” 

“No, it's okay,” Brendon said. He shot a look at Ryan over her shoulder. “We've had our fair share of time in tabloids. This is Ryan.”

“Ah,” she smiled. “I've heard quite a bit about you. I'd shake your hand, but I don't want to lose my dress.” She turned and presented Brendon with her back. “Can you pull it tighter, please?” 

“What have you heard?” Ryan said. 

“Just that you're one of my Brendon's best friends.” 

Ryan narrowed his eyes. “I am. One of your Brendon's very best friends. I just thought I'd come by. It had...been a while since I'd seen him.”

Brendon mouthed the word 'later' at Ryan and pushed against Lucy's upper back, cinching the corset tighter. “It is good to see you, Ryan. A shame you didn't think to call. Or knock.” 

“Oh, I'm sorry,” Ryan said. “ I guess it's impolite to surprise someone these days. You never know what you might come across.” 

Brendon yanked on the strings and tried to bore a hole in Ryan's skull with his eyes. “Too tight!” Lucy yelped, and Brendon pulled his hands away. 

“Sorry,” he said, not taking his eyes of Ryan. 

“It's okay,” she said. “I can get the rest.” She picked up her skirt and headed back to the bathroom. 

“It's not okay,” Ryan said. “What is she doing here? What is she doing here half naked?” 

“She just had to use the bathroom. Her dress was difficult. Would you prefer she be out of it entirely?”

“No, I wouldn't.” Ryan was mock whispering. “What the hell. You said you weren't together. You said you'd tell me!”

“We're not! She just needed someone to come to an awards show with her and I just—”

“Decided to prematurely audition for leading man?” 

Brendon crossed his arms. “What is your problem?” 

“You,” Ryan spat. Brendon hadn't heard that tone from Ryan in a long time. It was a three letter word, and it hurtled across the room and caught him between the ribs. “How many people are you even sleeping with?”

“Just you!” Brendon put his hands on his waist. “Just you, Ryan. And I'm beginning to think that's causing more problems than it ever fixed!” 

“But” Ryan's voice faltered. “We were talking again.” He looked down at his feet. 

“Pillow talk and communication are not the same thing. Is that what you thought? That we were so much closer now?” He cast about for more things he could accuse Ryan of screwing up, but Lucy spoke up first. Neither of them had even realized she was back. 

“I'm sorry,” she said. “ I didn't realize you had a boyfriend. I really like you, and I think you're cute, but I'm okay with just being friends if. I mean, it never came up that you had a boy—”

“He is not my boyfriend!” Brendon said roughly, and Ryan snapped his head up. “I'm not gay!”

In the silence after that statement, Brendon could almost hear the realization that maybe, yeah, he was a little gay for Ryan, sneak in through the window. But that didn't matter right now because Ryan was in the wrong here, having barged into Brendon's apartment uninvited and insulting his guest. Never mind all the times Brendon had been delighted to just see Ryan show up in his kitchen. 

Ryan pursed his lips. He turned and left Brendon's apartment without another word, slamming the door behind him.

Brendon realized he'd started grinding his teeth and brought a hand up to his jaw. 

“Look, I'm really sorry,” Lucy said. 

Brendon rubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes. “No, no. It's fine. I'm sorry you had to see that.”

She moved toward him and rested a hand on his forearm lightly. “If you don't want to—” 

“Can I not?” he said. He wanted to make some calls, and it was probably best to try and go after Ryan. If for no other reason than to make up for the many times Ryan had come after him. “I'd really like to though...in the future.”

She smiled. “Of course. You're at the top of the list.” 

He walked her to the door and opened it for her. She leaned in and kissed his cheek, smiled up at him. She looked like she wanted to say something else, but instead she shook her head. She swished past him and down the hall. He watched after her for a bit, watching the way her hips moved. She turned the corner and he stood there a minute longer, closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Then he went back into the apartment. 

Brendon finally found the cell phone, sitting on top of the fridge, and called Pete. 

“You're an idiot,” Pete said cheerily by way of greeting. 

“Thanks. So glad I called,” Brendon bit back. “Where is he now?” 

“Heading back to the airport. To LAX. Said there had to be at least three flights to New York he could try and be on tonight.” 

Brendon pulled his laptop off the piano and perched on the bench, balancing the computer in his lap. He brought up a web browser and did a quick search of flights leaving LAX. 

“I'm sorry,” Pete said, and it was genuine. 

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Brendon asked, exasperated. 

Pete laughed and Brendon grimaced. “No, I mean, this is my fault. I told Ryan to go after you, to get close to you again. He missed you, man.” 

“Yeah, I'm sure. I miss a lot of people, but I don't start flying across the country to sleep with them.”

“Exactly,” Pete said. 

Brendon made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. “You couldn't have warned me? Just had to go and play God with your boys more time?” 

“You know I get off on that, man.” It was a joke they threw back and forth all the time, and Pete's voice was light, but it had a serious edge. 

“There are flights leaving for New York in three different terminals. How the fuck am I supposed to know which one he's going to be in? And how do I get through fucking security? Why is everyone I know mental?” 

“Welcome to adulthood,” Pete said. And then, “Hey, I'll call you back in a sec, okay?” 

“Yeah, fine.” Brendon flipped the phone shut and thought about unsatisfying it was. He considered buying a house phone just so he could slam it on people. 

He banged about the apartment trying to find his keys and was out the door and down to his car in five minutes. 

. . .

The traffic on the 105 was backed up, which shouldn't have been a surprise. It's just that it had never mattered so much before. He'd never had quite as much to lose before. Brendon hadn't been late for something in years and he had forgotten how tense it made him. Every muscle in his body was taut. Every time the brake lights flared on the car in front of him he became just a little bit angrier. He could feel himself stretching out too thin. One more brake light and he'd Hulk out on everyone. It was a good thing he didn't know how to work a gun. 

His cell rang and he almost ran into the back of the Suburban in front of him trying to dig it out of the pocket of his jeans. “Yeah?”

“Terminal five.” It was Patrick. 

“Pete afraid I'll bitch at him?”

Patrick chuckled. “A little, yeah. And he's still on the phone with Ryan. Says he hasn't even purchased a ticket yet, so you might be able to catch him before he goes through security.” 

“Thank god for little miracles.” 

“I'll let him know you said so.” 

Brendon hung up and pulled into the far left lane, cutting off some girl in a convertible. She was flipping him off when he looked in the rear view mirror. He gave her a small wave, which only seemed to make her angrier. She tailed him all the way to the airport. Not that he minded since he was finally going over forty. 

He parked and bolted across the parking lot and into the terminal. Inside there were ticket and check in counters as far as he could see. At least a thousand people milled in the area, and the whole terminal served Delta, so he couldn't even narrow it down by airline. “Couldn't have worn a red and white striped sweater, could you have?” he said to no one in particular. The guy standing at the pay phone near him gave him a funny look. 

Brendon walked back and forth the length of the room a few times, keeping his eyes peeled. No luck. 

He called Pete. “He's not here.” 

“You sure he's not hiding in a Starbucks or something?” 

“Not on this side of security. This is ridiculous. I could just call him when he lands. He'll be bitchy, but it'll blow over in a few days. It always does.”

“It's not always this important,” Pete said. 

Brendon opened his mouth to answer, but couldn't find anything he wanted to say. This was important? He'd grown accustomed to Ryan, yeah, but he hadn't really thought about it. Yet here he was, standing in an airport terminal chasing after his lover and fuck. When had his life become a romantic comedy? “I'm an idiot,” he said, finally. 

“Told you so,” said Pete. “Anyway, I suggest you find him A-S-A-P.” He punctuated each syllable with a pause. “And bring a peace offering.” 

“A peace offering? Pete, he's the one who barged into my apartment and was rude to my guest.” 

“It's not for that. The fact that Ryan was rude to a stranger is not a surprise to anyone involved here. It's for you being so thick.” 

Brendon frowned and found an empty ticket line. “I'll call you back.” 

“I certainly hope not,” Pete said. Brendon closed the phone to the sound of Pete laughing.

He approached the counter and the woman looked up at him without pausing her typing. “I'd like a ticket, please.” 

“Where to?” The way she held herself slightly away from the desk indicated that she didn't have any time for his nonsense, whatever it was. 

“Anywhere? I'm not going to use it.” 

She frowned and Brendon realized how bad that sounded. 

“I mean, I'm not a terrorist or anything. I don't even have a bag I can hide stuff in.” He raised his arms into the air to prove just how incapable he was of having something dangerous on his person. “I just. My friend. My, boyfriend.” And boy, did that sound weird. And strangely okay. “Is getting on a plane to New York right now.” 

The woman remained unimpressed. 

Brendon dropped his arms to his sides. “And I kind of fucked up. And I want to catch him. And I—”

She nodded and started typing away at her keyboard, making heavy strokes that rattled the keys. “I can get you a first class seat to New York on the next flight.” 

“How long before that leaves?” 

“Twenty minutes. They'll be boarding soon. You'll want to hurry.” When she looked up she didn't smile at him, but her face settled, seemed less severe. 

“Thank you” he said. He let out a long breath. 

She printed out the ticket and he grabbed it from her hand. He walked quickly to security where he was pleased to find that the line wasn't that long. He bounced on his heels as he waited, watching the seconds slip by on the clock on the wall over the bag check. He finally stepped through the full body scanner and had the wand waved at him. The security officer had just stepped back when he bolted. 

Brendon rushed into the Duty Free and purchased a bottle of Glenlivet which he cradled in his arm as he ran down the wide aisle of the terminal looking at every face he passed. It wasn't hard, most of them looked up at him. He was down toward the end of the before he spotted Ryan, waiting in the premium line to board. Brendon stopped at the edge of the seating area, breathing hard. 

“Ry,” he tried, and swallowed hard. “Ryan!” 

Ryan stayed looking dead ahead at the person in front of him. Brendon could see by the way his grip tightened on his carry on he had heard him, though. 

Brendon took a few steps forward and hovered behind the line of passengers. “George Ryan Ross.” 

Ryan flinched and looked back at him. “Can I help you?” 

“You can get out of line and talk to me.” 

“You don't have a date to be on?” 

The people around them were watching to see what happened. Brendon tried to appear at ease with all of this. “Wouldn't you know, I'm finding myself uncharacteristically free.” 

Ryan rolled his eyes and excused himself as he stepped out of line. A few of his fellow passengers watched as he went and then turned back to their wait. “What do you want?” he whispered, approaching Brendon slowly. Brendon reached out to grab Ryan's elbow and lead him away, but Ryan flinched. “No, you don't get to touch me. What do you want? I'm going to miss my flight” 

“I want you to miss your flight,” Brendon said. “I don't want you to go.” It felt good to say it out loud. 

Ryan shook his head. “You don't know what you want.” 

“Not in the long run, no, but I never have.” He smiled weakly. 

Ryan huffed. 

“There are things I do know, though.” And fuck it, if his life was going to be a romantic comedy he might as well put all he could into it. He reached out and lightly rested his hand on Ryan's elbow. “I know I'm more focused when you're around. I know I can't talk to anyone like I can talk to you.”

Ryan looked down at Brendon's hand, but didn't move away this time. “I'm lacking in the boob department. Is that a problem?” 

Brendon squeezed Ryan's elbow. “I think you have an amazing rack.” 

Ryan looked around. He noticed the people watching them and his cheeks started to tinge red. He looked down. “Brendon, why are you carrying a bottle of booze?”

Brendon blinked. “Oh, here.” He shoved it over and Ryan clasped it in his free hand. “It was supposed to be a gesture.” 

“You're the worst boyfriend ever,” Ryan said. “I don't know how anyone ever put up with you.” 

“I'm not your boyfriend,” Brendon said and smiled. 

“Idiot,” Ryan said. 

“That I might be,” Brendon said, “but you like it.” He picked up Ryan's carry on and pulled Ryan back down the terminal towards the exit. 

“Still not gay?” Ryan asked. 

“Let's work on the boyfriend thing first and see where it takes us.”