[fic] lullaby for the -
Lullaby for the -
Brendon/Ryan; pg13. 1852 words.
Title c/o The Faint.
They're backstage and Ryan, he's been sulking since halfway through the set and now it's worse. Now he's ignoring Brendon. Now he's staring at himself in a mirror looking angry.
"What the hell did I do?" Brendon's only half asking Ryan; mostly the question is directed at Spencer, who's been watching the whole time. Spencer grins, and for a moment Brendon's scared he's going to kill someone, he looks that evil.
Spencer says, "Look at your hand." He says, "No, your fingertips, I'm betting. There. That's MAC right there. That tiny little shiny spot, see."
"Oh, Jesus Christ, Ryan." Brendon ruffles his hair, which makes Ryan duck away and storm out of the room. "God damn. I touch his face and he freaks."
"Calm down. He'll get over it." Spencer pauses. "In a year or two. You smeared the sun, Brendon; can you forgive yourself?"
"I don't know. I mean, I just destroyed an important part of the solar system. I can forgive me, but can the universe at large?"
"No."
Brendon says, "I'm going after him. Seriously, I couldn't even tell looking at it that it was smeared." He says, "Yeah. Going after him."
He finds Ryan outside, flanked by security as he talks to fans. That Ryan would rather talk to the fans than hide out in the changing room, that's saying something. That he's more intent on being social with strangers he doesn't know than with his best friends, that's saying something. "Ryan," he says, flashing a smile at the girl currently getting her shirt signed. He waggles a few fingers at her in a tiny wave, and the girl next to her, that girl sort of squeals. "Come on. Ryan."
Ryan looks up at the girl and he tells her, "He ruined my makeup. Did you see that?"
"Oh, oh," she says, "In the middle of, uhm, the middle of Lying, right?" She says, "Did he? It looks fine."
The other girl, she says, "I was paying more attention to -- did he kiss you? Because from where I was, it definitely looked like a kiss, and I totally have to know. And your makeup is fine."
"Oh, fuck," Ryan says, rubbing at his temples. (Doing that, he smears some of the broad swath of iridescent green across his forehead.) "... Shit," he says again, when he sees what he's done. "I spent hours on this."
"By hours, you mean forty five minutes?" Brendon says, knowing he probably shouldn't. His reserves of tact are running low. He says to the girl, "Almost. He moved."
Ryan says, "You know, the reason people keep saying we're gay probably has something to do with you trying to kiss me on stage."
"Or the sleepovers with Pete Wentz," the girl chimes in. "That's pretty gay too. Although I guess that doesn't implicate Brendon."
"He makes good pancakes," Ryan says. "So shut up."
"Right." Both girls, they have their shirts signed, and the first one says, "Don't kill each other, okay?" and after that they leave, and for a while after that Ryan and Brendon just sign things. Jon comes out for a while and holds some actual conversations with the fans, though even he can't quite keep up with the manic ten year olds and their parents.
Then mostly everyone's gone, and Jon asks, "So we actually felt like talking to fans tonight? You guys should have told me when you were going out." He says, "And weren't you two fighting?"
"He's just pissed because I didn't kiss him," Brendon says, right as Ryan says, "He fucked up my makeup."
"Uh-huh." Jon says, "I'll leave you two to that, then."
-
The next night, the next show, Brendon keeps his hands away from Ryan's makeup. For most of the show, actually, he stays away from Ryan except at a few pre-scripted moments. For most of the show, the two of them are just a little off.
Brendon waits until the second to last song to drape himself over Ryan, arms around his neck and bodies pressed close together, waits until the second to last song to sing "Haven't you heard that I'm the new cancer?" right into Ryan's ear.
Ryan isn't any happier with him afterwards.
Brendon says, "So are you pissed about the makeup this time?"
Ryan doesn't look at him. Ryan keeps dabbing at his face with makeup remover. Brendon says, "Or is it the part where I didn't kiss you?"
Ryan looks up at that, stares at him for a while with this open-mouthed wide-eyed look, and Brendon, he takes that as an invitation. The chemical smell is strong and harsh when he leans in, and he wrinkles his nose a little in that nanosecond before kissing Ryan. One hand goes to Ryan's shoulder for balance.
He's seen Ryan kiss girls before and doesn't expect much at first. He figures maybe a few seconds wait for reaction.
He doesn't figure on nothing.
He doesn't figure on the same cold look when he finally gives up. He doesn't figure on Ryan saying “Jesus Christ, Brendon, fuck you,” and walking out. He doesn't figure on Spencer giving him that same look he used to give him back when he still drank.
“Well, that's,” Spencer says. “Did you seriously just kiss Ryan?” He says, “Honestly? I know I call you stupid sometimes, but you don't have to live up to it.”
“I thought,” Brendon says. “Okay. I didn't. Think. I mean, I just kind of presumed - and I mean, him and Pete, right?”
“Dude.”
Jon echoes Spencer's comment. “Dude.”
Brendon says, “So, Jon.” He shucks off his stage clothes and pulls on a t-shirt. “You want to see if we can score some beer?”
Spencer keeps giving him the same look.
“I don't know if that's such a.” Jon's sort of half-hiding behind the couch to change his pants. “I mean, you don't - I guess if you want.”
Spencer says, “So why didn't you ever tell us?”
“Tell you what?” Brendon pauses. “I thought you knew. Come on. We dress up like a circus, and I talk about hardcore fucking, and the, the guitar fellatio, and I thought it was just kind of a given.”
“That's a stage show, Brendon.”
“Well, yeah.” Brendon says, “And I mean, I knew he - but the Pete thing. I thought he, I thought we. I mean, we got signed awfully quick.”
“Dude,” Jon says. He's not helping, and nice as he is, Brendon kind of wants to hit him. Brendon would probably hit Gandhi right now. Brendon would hit Pope John Paul if he showed up with a basket full of kittens.
“It's not like it matters,” Spencer says, “I mean, we still love you and all, but maybe kissing Ryan wasn't the best plan. You know how he gets.”
“I know.”
-
Brendon sleeps with groupies every night for the rest of the tour. Every one of them, they're dark-haired doe-eyed scene girls dressed to the nines, draped in beads and drowning in nautical stripes. Every one of them, they've got cheap makeup in dark rings around their eyes like sleepy raccoons. Every one of them, they have names like Kay and Nana and Six, names that never should have stepped a foot out of Myspace.
He and Ryan don't talk.
The stage show, they change it up just enough, get rid of the bits where Brendon's supposed to wander over to Ryan's side of the stage. He struts back and forth in the middle, occasionally listing towards Jon's side but never getting too near him either.
He tries to talk to Ryan, once, says, “Look, I'm sorry, I just assumed,” and Ryan says, “Yeah, you did,” and that's it for the next two days except the necessities and the can you please get out of my ways.
Ryan's taken to changing in the girls' dressing room. It used to be, he'd go there for hair and makeup. Now it's everything, and he's only ever in the band's dressing room before they all go on. (The girls don't complain. The girls are apparently on his side.)
Brendon keeps watching Ryan, now, more than he ever did before, and he knows that that's just pissing Ryan off even more but he can't help it. There's something about him, and something other than the fact that he's straight and angry and won't even let Brendon try to defend himself.
So Brendon corners him one night, right near the end of the tour. He says, “Ryan.”
“I'm straight,” Ryan says. Brendon, he's left thinking in other bands' song lyrics; Brendon, he's left thinking of thousand-Fahrenheit hot metal lights behind your eyes. Ryan looks scared, almost; he and Brendon have fought before, and even though it's not usually serious Brendon usually wins.
“Shit, you think I don't know that. You're a genius. Seriously, Ryan,” Brendon says. “Seriously.”
“Seriously?” Ryan hasn't relaxed, is still bristling and angry and ready to walk off at any minute, like he has been. Ryan is still ready to defend himself. Like Brendon's honestly going to try something, with Zach in shouting distance and the rest of the band not far off and venue security all around.
“Look, I'm sorry. I like you, and not just like that, I mean as a friend, too, I like you. And I'm not ever going to try to kiss you again and I'm sorry I did and would you, just, shit. You know what it's like to get turned down. I'm sorry. Are you?”
Ryan maybe softens, a little. Not by much.
Brendon says, “This is stupid, Ross. Don't hate me. I mean it, I won't try it again.”
Ryan says, “I know.” Ryan says, “You thought I slept with Pete.”
“Shit.”
“You thought I slept with Pete to get us signed.” Ryan says, “Did you honestly think we were that bad, or - what? What logic did you use there?”
“Ryan. We hadn't played any shows.”
“I mean it. Shut up. I'm not talking to you.”
-
After the last show of the tour, right after the show, Spencer says, “So, okay, we've been having some problems lately.”
Ryan's next to him and not looking at anyone.
Spencer says, “So me and Ryan have decided maybe the band should take a break. Just for a while, to work things out.”
He says, “I mean, the second album can wait for a while. We should probably all just take some extra time off.”
Jon, all he does is nod along. Ryan keeps his quiet, keeps his stare at nothing, keeps his emotional detachment and his resentment.
It's only when they start to hurt that Brendon realizes his hands are clenched into fists, fingernails digging deep furrows into his palms. Brendon would probably hit the baby Jesus right now.
All Brendon does is say, “Yeah, okay.” Brendon is looking at Ryan when he says, “That's probably for the best.”
And Ryan keeps looking at the space between himself and the wall.
Brendon/Ryan; pg13. 1852 words.
Title c/o The Faint.
They're backstage and Ryan, he's been sulking since halfway through the set and now it's worse. Now he's ignoring Brendon. Now he's staring at himself in a mirror looking angry.
"What the hell did I do?" Brendon's only half asking Ryan; mostly the question is directed at Spencer, who's been watching the whole time. Spencer grins, and for a moment Brendon's scared he's going to kill someone, he looks that evil.
Spencer says, "Look at your hand." He says, "No, your fingertips, I'm betting. There. That's MAC right there. That tiny little shiny spot, see."
"Oh, Jesus Christ, Ryan." Brendon ruffles his hair, which makes Ryan duck away and storm out of the room. "God damn. I touch his face and he freaks."
"Calm down. He'll get over it." Spencer pauses. "In a year or two. You smeared the sun, Brendon; can you forgive yourself?"
"I don't know. I mean, I just destroyed an important part of the solar system. I can forgive me, but can the universe at large?"
"No."
Brendon says, "I'm going after him. Seriously, I couldn't even tell looking at it that it was smeared." He says, "Yeah. Going after him."
He finds Ryan outside, flanked by security as he talks to fans. That Ryan would rather talk to the fans than hide out in the changing room, that's saying something. That he's more intent on being social with strangers he doesn't know than with his best friends, that's saying something. "Ryan," he says, flashing a smile at the girl currently getting her shirt signed. He waggles a few fingers at her in a tiny wave, and the girl next to her, that girl sort of squeals. "Come on. Ryan."
Ryan looks up at the girl and he tells her, "He ruined my makeup. Did you see that?"
"Oh, oh," she says, "In the middle of, uhm, the middle of Lying, right?" She says, "Did he? It looks fine."
The other girl, she says, "I was paying more attention to -- did he kiss you? Because from where I was, it definitely looked like a kiss, and I totally have to know. And your makeup is fine."
"Oh, fuck," Ryan says, rubbing at his temples. (Doing that, he smears some of the broad swath of iridescent green across his forehead.) "... Shit," he says again, when he sees what he's done. "I spent hours on this."
"By hours, you mean forty five minutes?" Brendon says, knowing he probably shouldn't. His reserves of tact are running low. He says to the girl, "Almost. He moved."
Ryan says, "You know, the reason people keep saying we're gay probably has something to do with you trying to kiss me on stage."
"Or the sleepovers with Pete Wentz," the girl chimes in. "That's pretty gay too. Although I guess that doesn't implicate Brendon."
"He makes good pancakes," Ryan says. "So shut up."
"Right." Both girls, they have their shirts signed, and the first one says, "Don't kill each other, okay?" and after that they leave, and for a while after that Ryan and Brendon just sign things. Jon comes out for a while and holds some actual conversations with the fans, though even he can't quite keep up with the manic ten year olds and their parents.
Then mostly everyone's gone, and Jon asks, "So we actually felt like talking to fans tonight? You guys should have told me when you were going out." He says, "And weren't you two fighting?"
"He's just pissed because I didn't kiss him," Brendon says, right as Ryan says, "He fucked up my makeup."
"Uh-huh." Jon says, "I'll leave you two to that, then."
-
The next night, the next show, Brendon keeps his hands away from Ryan's makeup. For most of the show, actually, he stays away from Ryan except at a few pre-scripted moments. For most of the show, the two of them are just a little off.
Brendon waits until the second to last song to drape himself over Ryan, arms around his neck and bodies pressed close together, waits until the second to last song to sing "Haven't you heard that I'm the new cancer?" right into Ryan's ear.
Ryan isn't any happier with him afterwards.
Brendon says, "So are you pissed about the makeup this time?"
Ryan doesn't look at him. Ryan keeps dabbing at his face with makeup remover. Brendon says, "Or is it the part where I didn't kiss you?"
Ryan looks up at that, stares at him for a while with this open-mouthed wide-eyed look, and Brendon, he takes that as an invitation. The chemical smell is strong and harsh when he leans in, and he wrinkles his nose a little in that nanosecond before kissing Ryan. One hand goes to Ryan's shoulder for balance.
He's seen Ryan kiss girls before and doesn't expect much at first. He figures maybe a few seconds wait for reaction.
He doesn't figure on nothing.
He doesn't figure on the same cold look when he finally gives up. He doesn't figure on Ryan saying “Jesus Christ, Brendon, fuck you,” and walking out. He doesn't figure on Spencer giving him that same look he used to give him back when he still drank.
“Well, that's,” Spencer says. “Did you seriously just kiss Ryan?” He says, “Honestly? I know I call you stupid sometimes, but you don't have to live up to it.”
“I thought,” Brendon says. “Okay. I didn't. Think. I mean, I just kind of presumed - and I mean, him and Pete, right?”
“Dude.”
Jon echoes Spencer's comment. “Dude.”
Brendon says, “So, Jon.” He shucks off his stage clothes and pulls on a t-shirt. “You want to see if we can score some beer?”
Spencer keeps giving him the same look.
“I don't know if that's such a.” Jon's sort of half-hiding behind the couch to change his pants. “I mean, you don't - I guess if you want.”
Spencer says, “So why didn't you ever tell us?”
“Tell you what?” Brendon pauses. “I thought you knew. Come on. We dress up like a circus, and I talk about hardcore fucking, and the, the guitar fellatio, and I thought it was just kind of a given.”
“That's a stage show, Brendon.”
“Well, yeah.” Brendon says, “And I mean, I knew he - but the Pete thing. I thought he, I thought we. I mean, we got signed awfully quick.”
“Dude,” Jon says. He's not helping, and nice as he is, Brendon kind of wants to hit him. Brendon would probably hit Gandhi right now. Brendon would hit Pope John Paul if he showed up with a basket full of kittens.
“It's not like it matters,” Spencer says, “I mean, we still love you and all, but maybe kissing Ryan wasn't the best plan. You know how he gets.”
“I know.”
-
Brendon sleeps with groupies every night for the rest of the tour. Every one of them, they're dark-haired doe-eyed scene girls dressed to the nines, draped in beads and drowning in nautical stripes. Every one of them, they've got cheap makeup in dark rings around their eyes like sleepy raccoons. Every one of them, they have names like Kay and Nana and Six, names that never should have stepped a foot out of Myspace.
He and Ryan don't talk.
The stage show, they change it up just enough, get rid of the bits where Brendon's supposed to wander over to Ryan's side of the stage. He struts back and forth in the middle, occasionally listing towards Jon's side but never getting too near him either.
He tries to talk to Ryan, once, says, “Look, I'm sorry, I just assumed,” and Ryan says, “Yeah, you did,” and that's it for the next two days except the necessities and the can you please get out of my ways.
Ryan's taken to changing in the girls' dressing room. It used to be, he'd go there for hair and makeup. Now it's everything, and he's only ever in the band's dressing room before they all go on. (The girls don't complain. The girls are apparently on his side.)
Brendon keeps watching Ryan, now, more than he ever did before, and he knows that that's just pissing Ryan off even more but he can't help it. There's something about him, and something other than the fact that he's straight and angry and won't even let Brendon try to defend himself.
So Brendon corners him one night, right near the end of the tour. He says, “Ryan.”
“I'm straight,” Ryan says. Brendon, he's left thinking in other bands' song lyrics; Brendon, he's left thinking of thousand-Fahrenheit hot metal lights behind your eyes. Ryan looks scared, almost; he and Brendon have fought before, and even though it's not usually serious Brendon usually wins.
“Shit, you think I don't know that. You're a genius. Seriously, Ryan,” Brendon says. “Seriously.”
“Seriously?” Ryan hasn't relaxed, is still bristling and angry and ready to walk off at any minute, like he has been. Ryan is still ready to defend himself. Like Brendon's honestly going to try something, with Zach in shouting distance and the rest of the band not far off and venue security all around.
“Look, I'm sorry. I like you, and not just like that, I mean as a friend, too, I like you. And I'm not ever going to try to kiss you again and I'm sorry I did and would you, just, shit. You know what it's like to get turned down. I'm sorry. Are you?”
Ryan maybe softens, a little. Not by much.
Brendon says, “This is stupid, Ross. Don't hate me. I mean it, I won't try it again.”
Ryan says, “I know.” Ryan says, “You thought I slept with Pete.”
“Shit.”
“You thought I slept with Pete to get us signed.” Ryan says, “Did you honestly think we were that bad, or - what? What logic did you use there?”
“Ryan. We hadn't played any shows.”
“I mean it. Shut up. I'm not talking to you.”
-
After the last show of the tour, right after the show, Spencer says, “So, okay, we've been having some problems lately.”
Ryan's next to him and not looking at anyone.
Spencer says, “So me and Ryan have decided maybe the band should take a break. Just for a while, to work things out.”
He says, “I mean, the second album can wait for a while. We should probably all just take some extra time off.”
Jon, all he does is nod along. Ryan keeps his quiet, keeps his stare at nothing, keeps his emotional detachment and his resentment.
It's only when they start to hurt that Brendon realizes his hands are clenched into fists, fingernails digging deep furrows into his palms. Brendon would probably hit the baby Jesus right now.
All Brendon does is say, “Yeah, okay.” Brendon is looking at Ryan when he says, “That's probably for the best.”
And Ryan keeps looking at the space between himself and the wall.