On those lonely nights (we can be twice as lonely together)
Title: On those lonely nights (we can be twice as lonely together)
Author: detourtoyou
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon
POV: 3rd
Summary: It felt marginally better now that Brendon had a name to put with him, like it wasn’t as immoral as it felt. Granted, it was still immoral and Brendon was pretty positive that he was going to go straight to Hell, but he liked that Ryan had a name.
Disclaimer: Fake, fake, fake. A pretty lie I created in my head.
A/N: My pledge for the album anticipation challenge at rydenrevival. Hope you guys enjoy, and congrats to Panic! on the release of Vices & Virtues!! :)
Fingers twiddling with the end of his tie, Brendon tied hard to keep his eyes front and center, hoping he didn’t appear as nervous as he looked. It was probably a vain hope considering he could already feel perspiration trailing down the back of his neck and into the collar of his white, white shirt, but he only needed to appear confident, not actually be it.
“Look, if you’re just going to stand here in front of me all night, at least do it so that other people can still see me.” The voice was apathetic at best, just enough clip to the tone for Brendon to startle out of his jumbled thoughts. He scratched the patch of skin behind his ear, nervous.
“Sorry,” he nearly stuttered, holding in the extra, repeat syllables. His hand dropped back down to his side, and he just sort of stared at the other figure, arms crossed and face devoid of any semblance of hinting to what was running through his mind. Brendon wished he knew. It would make this a hell of a lot easier despite what he had already been told and coached by Pete. (He didn’t want to know why Pete was so knowledgeable and seemed to know every detail.)
“Well? What’s it going to be?”
“I’m Brendon,” he introduced instead. Brendon didn’t offer his hand though; he wasn’t sure whether it would be considered proper etiquette, if there even was such at thing. His mouth flapped open and closed uselessly as he tried to find another line to hold on to. “What’s your name?”
He didn’t look impressed, eyes boring into Brendon as they sized him up. It was a long minute before he replied, reluctance pushing out the letters, “Ryan.”
It felt marginally better now that Brendon had a name to put with him, like it wasn’t as immoral as it felt. Granted, it was still immoral and Brendon was pretty positive that he was going to go straight to Hell, but he liked that Ryan had a name. That Brendon could call him by his name instead of referring to him in shady, impersonal nouns and pronouns. It reminded him that Ryan was just a person like himself too. “I’ve never actually done this before,” admitted Brendon finally, too much at a loss to even feel the prickle of embarrassment hot around his collar.
Ryan rolled his eyes, saying around a sigh, like he was used to this type of fumbled stupidity, “It’s not that hard. You offer me money to get into your car with you, and then depending on whether you have enough money or not, we go someplace, usually a shitty motel, and have sex.”
The frankness of his words stung Brendon a little unused to people speaking so bluntly and hid the noise of surprise. He cleared his throat a little. “Uh, right. So um. How much…?”
“Three hundred.”
Brendon sucked in a breath of air, eyes wide, and there was a smug look on Ryan’s face. Part of him wondered if this was some sort of scam to trick poor first timers like himself out of money, but another part of him ignored the hefty price tag, despite what Pete had told him; he made more than enough money to pay for an hour, more if he wanted to, and it wasn’t as though he would end up spending it on anything else. Why not let it go to a better cause than being used for crappy furniture from Ikea or something else equally useless? The decision was quick, hastily made before Brendon could chicken out.
“Okay.” He paused, chewing on the corner of his lip for a moment’s thought before asking, nerves still twisting with discomfort, “Then, how much for the whole night?”
Ryan didn’t even falter, blinking lazily at him. “Thousand five hundred.”
Now Brendon was certain that he was being cheated out of his money, but even still, he nodded solemnly, swallowing around the lump in his throat that he thought to be his morality. It was pushed deep down.
“Okay. Okay.” He breathed in; he could do this. “That’s fine. Um. Let’s go?”
Ryan raised an eyebrow at him, still staring and untangling Brendon’s nerves with the burn of his eyes, before tucking his own head into a nod. “Lead the way.”
Rubbing the back of his neck of the sweat, Brendon stumbled forward towards the car still sitting on the curb. Ryan slid into the passenger’s seat without any trouble or hesitation that Brendon would associate with riding in a complete stranger’s car to an unknown destination. In fact, Ryan looked entirely comfortable, waiting for Brendon to get in and drive. It unsettled his stomach.
Brendon was unable to hold his tongue as he started the engine, immediately asking with medium concern pouring earnestly through his words, “Aren’t you worried that I might be some sort of crazy lunatic who’ll chop you up into little pieces with an axe once we get to my house?”
Through quick, sideway glances, Brendon could see Ryan eyeing him with humored skepticism.
“Should I be?” Ryan spoke with just a garnish of sarcasm, nearly laughing when Brendon shook his head fervently. “Don’t be offended, but you look too meek to be a crazy, axe-wielding lunatic. I think I’ll be fine.”
They didn’t talk after that, and Brendon was glad for that. He didn’t think he could hold a proper conversation without suddenly panicking or freaking out and the last thing he wanted was to scare Ryan. Sucking in his bottom into his mouth, Brendon glanced over at Ryan, staring out the window without purpose, and pulled into the parking lot. He cut the engine, one hand on the door handle and the other reaching out to gather Ryan’s attention.
A hand shot out, grasping on tight to his arm and halting all movements. Brendon let out a tiny squawking noise at the sudden arrangement of limbs. Ryan was fast.
“Why are we here?” demanded Ryan, eyes flickering from the tasteful building granting entrance to smartly dressed patrons.
“To grab some dinner…?”
“You aren’t Richard Gere and I’m not Julia Roberts,” Ryan deadpanned, eyes narrowing too sharply as his fingers dug into Brendon’s jacket-clad arm. “So let’s just cut this bullshit while we’re ahead of ourselves, yeah?”
He released Brendon’s arm with a jerk, irritation crawling around his face. Brendon pulled his arm back, confused.
“Cut what bullshit?”
Ryan stared at him, eyes blank. He only gestured with his hand towards the window, towards the illuminated sign flashing brightly in the nighttime dark city and advertising out a restaurant. “This. I’m not a date, remember?”
“Yeah, but this is a date,” Brendon clarified, rolling up the windows of his car. Really, it sort of was if they just ignored the fact that there had been a monetary transaction beforehand. Just because Brendon was… paying for Ryan’s company and time didn’t make him any less important; he was going to treat Ryan with care and respect, just as if it were a real date.
“No, it’s not,” Ryan repeated with a hardness to his voice. He leaned forward, smirk curled around his words. “You paid to fuck me; I don’t need to be wined and dined.”
Again, Brendon winced at his choice of harsh, frank words. It wasn’t as though Brendon had forgotten about the fact (he did, actually) but more that he wanted to do this. He wanted to take Ryan out to dinner, invite him back to his home where maybe they could even talk, and spend the night with him. They didn’t have to have sex. Brendon just wanted someone there.
“I know, okay. I just thought.” Brendon stopped himself and tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “Since we’ve got the whole night together, we might as well as just do some other stuff too, y’know? Spend time to get to know each other a little.”
Ryan leaned back over to his own side, staring out the window and flicking the bangs out of his eyes. The smirk was wiped away from his face, the first hint of discomfort creeping into his otherwise blank face. “I’m not a date,” he repeated.
The air felt awkward all around them, and Brendon coughed quietly to the side, uncertain of how to approach this. He had just wanted to be nice, to treat Ryan like the person he was and not like some hooker who didn’t deserve even the slightest bit of respect shown to him.
“Would you rather just go back to my house then?” Earlier in the night, Brendon had promised himself that he wouldn’t be one of those people who just took advantage of Ryan and made him do anything he didn’t want. He respected Ryan as a human, just like himself, and if Ryan didn’t want to eat at a restaurant, then Brendon wouldn’t make him.
“Fine by me.” Slouching back against the seat, Ryan sat very still, one hand resting against his thigh while the other sat unmoving on the door handle. Brendon turned the car engine back on, backing out and heading back for the streets.
He forced his eyes forward and away from Ryan’s untouched visage, trying to focus on the road in front of them and not running into an oncoming car and killing them both instead of looking for subtle hints that would clue him in to what Ryan was thinking or even feeling. His fingers itched to turn on the radio to fill in the empty noise, but he was afraid it would somehow disturb Ryan. Instead, he pressed his lips together, wrapping his fingers more tightly around the wheel, and asked, “So, how come you’re, uh, in this profession?” He winched at his own wording and chanced a quick glance over. Ryan only looked amused, the early mishap already far behind them.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked in return, tone too light for Brendon. It didn’t settle well in his stomach. “I’m not exactly doing this out of the goodness of my heart.”
“I meant like,” Brendon paused, huffing out a thought. “What do you do? Or what did you do? Before you started… doing this, I mean.”
His fingers started drumming against his thigh, and Ryan hummed low, contemplative. “Does it really matter?” he finally said after a moment, the corner of his lip pushed into half of a smirk. “I think what’s more important for you to know is that I’ll do whatever you want me to.”
Brendon swallowed the sudden flood of saliva filling his mouth, still entirely too nervous to fully understand that he kind of definitely bought Ryan. He almost didn’t want to reach his home, afraid of what would happen once he was alone with Ryan. Completely alone. Easing up on the accelerator, Brendon turned into the driveway, braking.
By the time he had turned off the engine and took his keys out of the ignition, Ryan was already slamming the door shut. Brendon hurried after him.
He caught the way Ryan’s eyes shifted all around, taking in the neighborhood and his house discreetly. Frankly, Brendon thought his house to be one of the more modest ones on the block, more homey than showy, and felt mildly proud as he popped the door open. He let Ryan go in before him.
“What do you think?” he asked, turning on the lights as they moved along in to the house.
Ryan shrugged, brow raised as they passed by a whiteboard hanging from a hook with a to-do list jotted on it in blue expo. “Beats a motel.”
They ended up in the kitchen, Ryan taking a seat at the breakfast bar and picking up one of the apples in the fruit dish sitting on top of the granite. He didn’t eat it, just held it between his hands, fingertips grazing against the slightly waxy peel. Brendon stood on the other side, lulled into a sense of false security with a physical barrier between them.
“Do you want anything?” He caught the devious look filtering against Ryan’s face and quickly tried to elaborate before the other could get a word in. “Like, food or something to drink! Not anything else. Since we ended up not going to the restaurant.”
There was another silence skipping in between them, scratching at the nerves under Brendon’s skin and worrying him a little. Maybe he said something offensive to the other? Raising his brows, Ryan replied, “You’re an odd one, all right.” The comment was accompanied by a little laugh, not exactly pleasant but more entertained.
“Sorry,” he apologized uncertainly. “But really, would you like anything to eat? I’m kind of hungry myself, so if you want to join me, I’ve got some pizza or cereal or leftover spaghetti. I think I probably have some cans of soup too. Cream of chicken probably.”
Ryan let the apple roll off of his hands, springing into a clumsy dive back into the fruit bowl. He rested a cheek in the palm of his hand, head slanted. “I’ll take whatever you’re having,” came the lazy response.
Brendon nodded, mostly to himself. He moved around the kitchen with purpose, completely aware of Ryan’s eyes outlining his body and feeling self-conscious as he microwaved the leftover pasta dish. He wondered if it was possible to just spend the rest of the night in his kitchen, eating leftover junk food and talking about their lives or just anything that caught their interests long enough to facilitate a conversation and then maybe migrating over to the living room to watch a movie or two before falling asleep on the couch together. It sounded like a plausible scenario only in his mind. He didn’t want to have sex with Ryan, not really. It wasn’t what he was looking for. Although Brendon did have to admit that Ryan was attractive, sexy even.
The microwave let out a sharp ding, pulling Brendon out of his own head. Handing off the piping hot dish to Ryan, he hesitated before taking the stool next to him. Ryan didn’t eat immediately, seemingly examining the heated noodles as he poked at it with a fork.
“I didn’t make it, so it should be safe to eat,” Brendon informed him with a small smile. He took a bite himself to prove his point, chewing. It was only after he swallowed that Ryan let himself eat.
He ate slowly, very much unlike how Brendon would have imagined him to, possessing all the proper manners of any other normal person. It made Brendon feel guilty that he naturally assumed Ryan would be a starving, malnourished, poor boy unable to hold a proper job and selling himself to the night. He wondered what had happened to Ryan to bring him up to this point, sitting in a stranger’s house eating spaghetti and waiting for the moment they would go up to his bedroom. Brendon felt slightly sick.
The words were spewing from his mouth before he could grab a hold of them, lined with familiar pity and sadness.
“How did this happen?”
“Well, if you really want me to recount our evening so far. You walked up to me, paid me to stay with you for the night, I got into your car, and here we are now,” spoke Ryan sarcastically.
A small blush filled in his cheeks as Brendon shook his head, embarrassed despite having no reason to be. “I meant why are you doing this? What happened to you that made you go into this…” Brendon made an obscure hand gesture, hoping it would come through to mean Ryan’s profession. He twisted around in his seat so that he was facing Ryan properly.
Fork prongs scraping against the ceramic plate, Ryan stopped eating in favor of studying Brendon and his sudden question. He licked a bit of sauce from his lips.
“Do you normally go around picking up hookers and feeding them while asking them to recount their life story to you?” he asked, casual. Like there was nothing that could faze him anymore. “I don’t understand your fascination with my life. You paid to fuck me, not have a Lifetime movie inspiring conversation.”
“I didn’t do it to have sex with you,” admitted Brendon with quick, hushed tones, avoiding those same ugly words Ryan seemed to be able to so easily toss around like a lightweight. “And I’ve never done this sort of thing before. I just. I just wanted someone.”
“Everyone does,” Ryan chimed in offhandedly. “Everyone just wants someone one night and that’s where I come in.”
“I don’t want to have sex with you, Ryan!” Brendon insisted with the hope it would get through to the other. Ryan only looked offended. “I don’t mean that you’re not attractive because you are. You’re actually really attractive. I just meant that I didn’t do all this just to sleep with you.” Hand pushing back his hair, Brendon let out a puff of air, exasperated. “I don’t even know why I did this either. I just wanted someone to be with me tonight. Like, someone to eat dinner with and talk to without having to worry about them leaving right after because they have other things to do. I just wanted… someone to stay.”
Mouth snapping shut, Ryan sat quiet next to him, expression utterly blank. Brendon almost laughed at the thought that Ryan was more than likely creeped out by him now. After all, how many people paid him nearly two grand to sit in the dark with them just to watch a few movies and have meaningless conversation to fill the empty spaces? There was always an ulterior motive, and even if Ryan wasn’t suspicious of him yet, Brendon was suspicious enough of himself for the both of them.
“You’re fucking weird,” Ryan finally decided, brows creasing together with the outspoken thought.
Scrubbing a hand over his face, Brendon let himself laugh this time because it was funny. He was funny. “I know. I know I am.”
Ryan slid off of the stool, taking a step forward and placing himself between Brendon’s legs. His hands were warm against his thighs. “As long as you don’t have an axe,” he commented, and pushed forward on his tiptoes to kiss him.
“You don’t have to do this,” Brendon murmured, pulling away from Ryan’s mouth despite himself. “You don’t have to do any of this, Ryan.”
“Shut up. I know that,” Ryan muttered and pressed their lips more firmly together, easing his tongue between plump lips that parted without needing much persuasion. His fingers tightened around Brendon’s thighs, bunching the fabric underneath. Slowly, oh so slowly, his palms slid forward, fingertips dragging along his black slacks and catching only once on a small snag of loose thread.
Brendon gasped into his mouth, gripping Ryan’s shoulders hard enough to leave bruises even through the shirt. He forced them apart despite the build of yearning in his chest. Hopping down from his own seat, he took several uncertain steps away, eyes glazed over with confusion dotting his vision. He had to remind himself that Ryan was a person. And as a person, as a human with every bit of feeling, he respected Ryan. There was no way he was going to let this happen. Brendon let the thought play on repeat three more times before his self-control felt tight enough to not give away at the first touch of Ryan’s lips, of his hands, hot and heavy against his skin.
“Look, Ryan,” Brendon said, briefly closing his eyes as he sucked in a noisy breath. “I don’t think… I didn’t mean for this to happen. You really don’t have to do this. You can just stay here for the night, and we don’t have to do anything. We can listen to music together or watch movies or just eat some more and talk about the weather or something. Or if you even want, I can go away or stop talking to you. You can just sleep in the guest room, and I won’t touch you.” He looked up, pleading now with the other. “Please, Ryan?”
Brendon knew how he sounded, how utterly insane he probably sounded to Ryan. It had sounded that way the first time, it was most likely only worse the second, more saturated with crazy. He was more than certain that he was scaring Ryan now with this pathetic desperation.
“No.”
“No?”
Ryan took one step forward just as Brendon took one back. “No,” he repeated simply. “I’m not here for free. You paid for me, and unfortunately, I’m not nice enough to just take your money and leave. It’s not how this works.”
The sheer obstinacy of Ryan’s demands and strings of logic baffled Brendon to no other end, and he had to stifle the hoarse laughter bubbling in his throat.
“I don’t get why you won’t just stay with me,” Brendon pleaded. “I’m not asking for you to give up anything by staying here with me. Just stay the night with me.” Ryan looked unconvinced, so Brendon took it a notch lower, hating himself already for what he was about to say, for what he was implying with these words. “You said that you’d do whatever you wanted me to, right? Well, I want you to stay the night with me, Ryan. Just stay with me tonight and don't do anything. That’s all I’m asking for.”
Closing his eyes, Ryan breathed through his nose, face unwaveringly vacant of expressions. Again, Brendon wished he knew what Ryan was thinking because fuck if he knew what he was thinking anymore.
“You paid for the whole night,” Ryan said plainly, eyes fluttering back into view. The eases of discomfort were fleeting and unnoticeable. Ryan faltered for only a second. “What do you want to do?”
The weight of his nerves, twining and looping together since the onset of the evening, gently eased up and off of his chest where it had sat, dampening and tight. Leaning forward with a bold step, the first taste of confidence for all the night, Brendon kissed him, soft and quick on the lips, muttering a very out of placed, “Thank you.”
*
When Brendon woke up the next morning, eyes heavy and limbs rearranged uncomfortably to accommodate the cramped space of the couch, he could already feel the lack of warmth from last night pressing against his body. Eyelids peeling back, Brendon blinked the muddle haze of sleep from his eyes as he stared at one spot to hasten the clearing, idly wondering if he would ever see Ryan again.
There was a neat bundle of money, his money, lying on the coffee table, and even though there wasn’t a note attached to it, Brendon was certain, even without counting, that every penny of that thousand five hundred was there, untouched.
Author: detourtoyou
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon
POV: 3rd
Summary: It felt marginally better now that Brendon had a name to put with him, like it wasn’t as immoral as it felt. Granted, it was still immoral and Brendon was pretty positive that he was going to go straight to Hell, but he liked that Ryan had a name.
Disclaimer: Fake, fake, fake. A pretty lie I created in my head.
A/N: My pledge for the album anticipation challenge at rydenrevival. Hope you guys enjoy, and congrats to Panic! on the release of Vices & Virtues!! :)
Fingers twiddling with the end of his tie, Brendon tied hard to keep his eyes front and center, hoping he didn’t appear as nervous as he looked. It was probably a vain hope considering he could already feel perspiration trailing down the back of his neck and into the collar of his white, white shirt, but he only needed to appear confident, not actually be it.
“Look, if you’re just going to stand here in front of me all night, at least do it so that other people can still see me.” The voice was apathetic at best, just enough clip to the tone for Brendon to startle out of his jumbled thoughts. He scratched the patch of skin behind his ear, nervous.
“Sorry,” he nearly stuttered, holding in the extra, repeat syllables. His hand dropped back down to his side, and he just sort of stared at the other figure, arms crossed and face devoid of any semblance of hinting to what was running through his mind. Brendon wished he knew. It would make this a hell of a lot easier despite what he had already been told and coached by Pete. (He didn’t want to know why Pete was so knowledgeable and seemed to know every detail.)
“Well? What’s it going to be?”
“I’m Brendon,” he introduced instead. Brendon didn’t offer his hand though; he wasn’t sure whether it would be considered proper etiquette, if there even was such at thing. His mouth flapped open and closed uselessly as he tried to find another line to hold on to. “What’s your name?”
He didn’t look impressed, eyes boring into Brendon as they sized him up. It was a long minute before he replied, reluctance pushing out the letters, “Ryan.”
It felt marginally better now that Brendon had a name to put with him, like it wasn’t as immoral as it felt. Granted, it was still immoral and Brendon was pretty positive that he was going to go straight to Hell, but he liked that Ryan had a name. That Brendon could call him by his name instead of referring to him in shady, impersonal nouns and pronouns. It reminded him that Ryan was just a person like himself too. “I’ve never actually done this before,” admitted Brendon finally, too much at a loss to even feel the prickle of embarrassment hot around his collar.
Ryan rolled his eyes, saying around a sigh, like he was used to this type of fumbled stupidity, “It’s not that hard. You offer me money to get into your car with you, and then depending on whether you have enough money or not, we go someplace, usually a shitty motel, and have sex.”
The frankness of his words stung Brendon a little unused to people speaking so bluntly and hid the noise of surprise. He cleared his throat a little. “Uh, right. So um. How much…?”
“Three hundred.”
Brendon sucked in a breath of air, eyes wide, and there was a smug look on Ryan’s face. Part of him wondered if this was some sort of scam to trick poor first timers like himself out of money, but another part of him ignored the hefty price tag, despite what Pete had told him; he made more than enough money to pay for an hour, more if he wanted to, and it wasn’t as though he would end up spending it on anything else. Why not let it go to a better cause than being used for crappy furniture from Ikea or something else equally useless? The decision was quick, hastily made before Brendon could chicken out.
“Okay.” He paused, chewing on the corner of his lip for a moment’s thought before asking, nerves still twisting with discomfort, “Then, how much for the whole night?”
Ryan didn’t even falter, blinking lazily at him. “Thousand five hundred.”
Now Brendon was certain that he was being cheated out of his money, but even still, he nodded solemnly, swallowing around the lump in his throat that he thought to be his morality. It was pushed deep down.
“Okay. Okay.” He breathed in; he could do this. “That’s fine. Um. Let’s go?”
Ryan raised an eyebrow at him, still staring and untangling Brendon’s nerves with the burn of his eyes, before tucking his own head into a nod. “Lead the way.”
Rubbing the back of his neck of the sweat, Brendon stumbled forward towards the car still sitting on the curb. Ryan slid into the passenger’s seat without any trouble or hesitation that Brendon would associate with riding in a complete stranger’s car to an unknown destination. In fact, Ryan looked entirely comfortable, waiting for Brendon to get in and drive. It unsettled his stomach.
Brendon was unable to hold his tongue as he started the engine, immediately asking with medium concern pouring earnestly through his words, “Aren’t you worried that I might be some sort of crazy lunatic who’ll chop you up into little pieces with an axe once we get to my house?”
Through quick, sideway glances, Brendon could see Ryan eyeing him with humored skepticism.
“Should I be?” Ryan spoke with just a garnish of sarcasm, nearly laughing when Brendon shook his head fervently. “Don’t be offended, but you look too meek to be a crazy, axe-wielding lunatic. I think I’ll be fine.”
They didn’t talk after that, and Brendon was glad for that. He didn’t think he could hold a proper conversation without suddenly panicking or freaking out and the last thing he wanted was to scare Ryan. Sucking in his bottom into his mouth, Brendon glanced over at Ryan, staring out the window without purpose, and pulled into the parking lot. He cut the engine, one hand on the door handle and the other reaching out to gather Ryan’s attention.
A hand shot out, grasping on tight to his arm and halting all movements. Brendon let out a tiny squawking noise at the sudden arrangement of limbs. Ryan was fast.
“Why are we here?” demanded Ryan, eyes flickering from the tasteful building granting entrance to smartly dressed patrons.
“To grab some dinner…?”
“You aren’t Richard Gere and I’m not Julia Roberts,” Ryan deadpanned, eyes narrowing too sharply as his fingers dug into Brendon’s jacket-clad arm. “So let’s just cut this bullshit while we’re ahead of ourselves, yeah?”
He released Brendon’s arm with a jerk, irritation crawling around his face. Brendon pulled his arm back, confused.
“Cut what bullshit?”
Ryan stared at him, eyes blank. He only gestured with his hand towards the window, towards the illuminated sign flashing brightly in the nighttime dark city and advertising out a restaurant. “This. I’m not a date, remember?”
“Yeah, but this is a date,” Brendon clarified, rolling up the windows of his car. Really, it sort of was if they just ignored the fact that there had been a monetary transaction beforehand. Just because Brendon was… paying for Ryan’s company and time didn’t make him any less important; he was going to treat Ryan with care and respect, just as if it were a real date.
“No, it’s not,” Ryan repeated with a hardness to his voice. He leaned forward, smirk curled around his words. “You paid to fuck me; I don’t need to be wined and dined.”
Again, Brendon winced at his choice of harsh, frank words. It wasn’t as though Brendon had forgotten about the fact (he did, actually) but more that he wanted to do this. He wanted to take Ryan out to dinner, invite him back to his home where maybe they could even talk, and spend the night with him. They didn’t have to have sex. Brendon just wanted someone there.
“I know, okay. I just thought.” Brendon stopped himself and tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “Since we’ve got the whole night together, we might as well as just do some other stuff too, y’know? Spend time to get to know each other a little.”
Ryan leaned back over to his own side, staring out the window and flicking the bangs out of his eyes. The smirk was wiped away from his face, the first hint of discomfort creeping into his otherwise blank face. “I’m not a date,” he repeated.
The air felt awkward all around them, and Brendon coughed quietly to the side, uncertain of how to approach this. He had just wanted to be nice, to treat Ryan like the person he was and not like some hooker who didn’t deserve even the slightest bit of respect shown to him.
“Would you rather just go back to my house then?” Earlier in the night, Brendon had promised himself that he wouldn’t be one of those people who just took advantage of Ryan and made him do anything he didn’t want. He respected Ryan as a human, just like himself, and if Ryan didn’t want to eat at a restaurant, then Brendon wouldn’t make him.
“Fine by me.” Slouching back against the seat, Ryan sat very still, one hand resting against his thigh while the other sat unmoving on the door handle. Brendon turned the car engine back on, backing out and heading back for the streets.
He forced his eyes forward and away from Ryan’s untouched visage, trying to focus on the road in front of them and not running into an oncoming car and killing them both instead of looking for subtle hints that would clue him in to what Ryan was thinking or even feeling. His fingers itched to turn on the radio to fill in the empty noise, but he was afraid it would somehow disturb Ryan. Instead, he pressed his lips together, wrapping his fingers more tightly around the wheel, and asked, “So, how come you’re, uh, in this profession?” He winched at his own wording and chanced a quick glance over. Ryan only looked amused, the early mishap already far behind them.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked in return, tone too light for Brendon. It didn’t settle well in his stomach. “I’m not exactly doing this out of the goodness of my heart.”
“I meant like,” Brendon paused, huffing out a thought. “What do you do? Or what did you do? Before you started… doing this, I mean.”
His fingers started drumming against his thigh, and Ryan hummed low, contemplative. “Does it really matter?” he finally said after a moment, the corner of his lip pushed into half of a smirk. “I think what’s more important for you to know is that I’ll do whatever you want me to.”
Brendon swallowed the sudden flood of saliva filling his mouth, still entirely too nervous to fully understand that he kind of definitely bought Ryan. He almost didn’t want to reach his home, afraid of what would happen once he was alone with Ryan. Completely alone. Easing up on the accelerator, Brendon turned into the driveway, braking.
By the time he had turned off the engine and took his keys out of the ignition, Ryan was already slamming the door shut. Brendon hurried after him.
He caught the way Ryan’s eyes shifted all around, taking in the neighborhood and his house discreetly. Frankly, Brendon thought his house to be one of the more modest ones on the block, more homey than showy, and felt mildly proud as he popped the door open. He let Ryan go in before him.
“What do you think?” he asked, turning on the lights as they moved along in to the house.
Ryan shrugged, brow raised as they passed by a whiteboard hanging from a hook with a to-do list jotted on it in blue expo. “Beats a motel.”
They ended up in the kitchen, Ryan taking a seat at the breakfast bar and picking up one of the apples in the fruit dish sitting on top of the granite. He didn’t eat it, just held it between his hands, fingertips grazing against the slightly waxy peel. Brendon stood on the other side, lulled into a sense of false security with a physical barrier between them.
“Do you want anything?” He caught the devious look filtering against Ryan’s face and quickly tried to elaborate before the other could get a word in. “Like, food or something to drink! Not anything else. Since we ended up not going to the restaurant.”
There was another silence skipping in between them, scratching at the nerves under Brendon’s skin and worrying him a little. Maybe he said something offensive to the other? Raising his brows, Ryan replied, “You’re an odd one, all right.” The comment was accompanied by a little laugh, not exactly pleasant but more entertained.
“Sorry,” he apologized uncertainly. “But really, would you like anything to eat? I’m kind of hungry myself, so if you want to join me, I’ve got some pizza or cereal or leftover spaghetti. I think I probably have some cans of soup too. Cream of chicken probably.”
Ryan let the apple roll off of his hands, springing into a clumsy dive back into the fruit bowl. He rested a cheek in the palm of his hand, head slanted. “I’ll take whatever you’re having,” came the lazy response.
Brendon nodded, mostly to himself. He moved around the kitchen with purpose, completely aware of Ryan’s eyes outlining his body and feeling self-conscious as he microwaved the leftover pasta dish. He wondered if it was possible to just spend the rest of the night in his kitchen, eating leftover junk food and talking about their lives or just anything that caught their interests long enough to facilitate a conversation and then maybe migrating over to the living room to watch a movie or two before falling asleep on the couch together. It sounded like a plausible scenario only in his mind. He didn’t want to have sex with Ryan, not really. It wasn’t what he was looking for. Although Brendon did have to admit that Ryan was attractive, sexy even.
The microwave let out a sharp ding, pulling Brendon out of his own head. Handing off the piping hot dish to Ryan, he hesitated before taking the stool next to him. Ryan didn’t eat immediately, seemingly examining the heated noodles as he poked at it with a fork.
“I didn’t make it, so it should be safe to eat,” Brendon informed him with a small smile. He took a bite himself to prove his point, chewing. It was only after he swallowed that Ryan let himself eat.
He ate slowly, very much unlike how Brendon would have imagined him to, possessing all the proper manners of any other normal person. It made Brendon feel guilty that he naturally assumed Ryan would be a starving, malnourished, poor boy unable to hold a proper job and selling himself to the night. He wondered what had happened to Ryan to bring him up to this point, sitting in a stranger’s house eating spaghetti and waiting for the moment they would go up to his bedroom. Brendon felt slightly sick.
The words were spewing from his mouth before he could grab a hold of them, lined with familiar pity and sadness.
“How did this happen?”
“Well, if you really want me to recount our evening so far. You walked up to me, paid me to stay with you for the night, I got into your car, and here we are now,” spoke Ryan sarcastically.
A small blush filled in his cheeks as Brendon shook his head, embarrassed despite having no reason to be. “I meant why are you doing this? What happened to you that made you go into this…” Brendon made an obscure hand gesture, hoping it would come through to mean Ryan’s profession. He twisted around in his seat so that he was facing Ryan properly.
Fork prongs scraping against the ceramic plate, Ryan stopped eating in favor of studying Brendon and his sudden question. He licked a bit of sauce from his lips.
“Do you normally go around picking up hookers and feeding them while asking them to recount their life story to you?” he asked, casual. Like there was nothing that could faze him anymore. “I don’t understand your fascination with my life. You paid to fuck me, not have a Lifetime movie inspiring conversation.”
“I didn’t do it to have sex with you,” admitted Brendon with quick, hushed tones, avoiding those same ugly words Ryan seemed to be able to so easily toss around like a lightweight. “And I’ve never done this sort of thing before. I just. I just wanted someone.”
“Everyone does,” Ryan chimed in offhandedly. “Everyone just wants someone one night and that’s where I come in.”
“I don’t want to have sex with you, Ryan!” Brendon insisted with the hope it would get through to the other. Ryan only looked offended. “I don’t mean that you’re not attractive because you are. You’re actually really attractive. I just meant that I didn’t do all this just to sleep with you.” Hand pushing back his hair, Brendon let out a puff of air, exasperated. “I don’t even know why I did this either. I just wanted someone to be with me tonight. Like, someone to eat dinner with and talk to without having to worry about them leaving right after because they have other things to do. I just wanted… someone to stay.”
Mouth snapping shut, Ryan sat quiet next to him, expression utterly blank. Brendon almost laughed at the thought that Ryan was more than likely creeped out by him now. After all, how many people paid him nearly two grand to sit in the dark with them just to watch a few movies and have meaningless conversation to fill the empty spaces? There was always an ulterior motive, and even if Ryan wasn’t suspicious of him yet, Brendon was suspicious enough of himself for the both of them.
“You’re fucking weird,” Ryan finally decided, brows creasing together with the outspoken thought.
Scrubbing a hand over his face, Brendon let himself laugh this time because it was funny. He was funny. “I know. I know I am.”
Ryan slid off of the stool, taking a step forward and placing himself between Brendon’s legs. His hands were warm against his thighs. “As long as you don’t have an axe,” he commented, and pushed forward on his tiptoes to kiss him.
“You don’t have to do this,” Brendon murmured, pulling away from Ryan’s mouth despite himself. “You don’t have to do any of this, Ryan.”
“Shut up. I know that,” Ryan muttered and pressed their lips more firmly together, easing his tongue between plump lips that parted without needing much persuasion. His fingers tightened around Brendon’s thighs, bunching the fabric underneath. Slowly, oh so slowly, his palms slid forward, fingertips dragging along his black slacks and catching only once on a small snag of loose thread.
Brendon gasped into his mouth, gripping Ryan’s shoulders hard enough to leave bruises even through the shirt. He forced them apart despite the build of yearning in his chest. Hopping down from his own seat, he took several uncertain steps away, eyes glazed over with confusion dotting his vision. He had to remind himself that Ryan was a person. And as a person, as a human with every bit of feeling, he respected Ryan. There was no way he was going to let this happen. Brendon let the thought play on repeat three more times before his self-control felt tight enough to not give away at the first touch of Ryan’s lips, of his hands, hot and heavy against his skin.
“Look, Ryan,” Brendon said, briefly closing his eyes as he sucked in a noisy breath. “I don’t think… I didn’t mean for this to happen. You really don’t have to do this. You can just stay here for the night, and we don’t have to do anything. We can listen to music together or watch movies or just eat some more and talk about the weather or something. Or if you even want, I can go away or stop talking to you. You can just sleep in the guest room, and I won’t touch you.” He looked up, pleading now with the other. “Please, Ryan?”
Brendon knew how he sounded, how utterly insane he probably sounded to Ryan. It had sounded that way the first time, it was most likely only worse the second, more saturated with crazy. He was more than certain that he was scaring Ryan now with this pathetic desperation.
“No.”
“No?”
Ryan took one step forward just as Brendon took one back. “No,” he repeated simply. “I’m not here for free. You paid for me, and unfortunately, I’m not nice enough to just take your money and leave. It’s not how this works.”
The sheer obstinacy of Ryan’s demands and strings of logic baffled Brendon to no other end, and he had to stifle the hoarse laughter bubbling in his throat.
“I don’t get why you won’t just stay with me,” Brendon pleaded. “I’m not asking for you to give up anything by staying here with me. Just stay the night with me.” Ryan looked unconvinced, so Brendon took it a notch lower, hating himself already for what he was about to say, for what he was implying with these words. “You said that you’d do whatever you wanted me to, right? Well, I want you to stay the night with me, Ryan. Just stay with me tonight and don't do anything. That’s all I’m asking for.”
Closing his eyes, Ryan breathed through his nose, face unwaveringly vacant of expressions. Again, Brendon wished he knew what Ryan was thinking because fuck if he knew what he was thinking anymore.
“You paid for the whole night,” Ryan said plainly, eyes fluttering back into view. The eases of discomfort were fleeting and unnoticeable. Ryan faltered for only a second. “What do you want to do?”
The weight of his nerves, twining and looping together since the onset of the evening, gently eased up and off of his chest where it had sat, dampening and tight. Leaning forward with a bold step, the first taste of confidence for all the night, Brendon kissed him, soft and quick on the lips, muttering a very out of placed, “Thank you.”
*
When Brendon woke up the next morning, eyes heavy and limbs rearranged uncomfortably to accommodate the cramped space of the couch, he could already feel the lack of warmth from last night pressing against his body. Eyelids peeling back, Brendon blinked the muddle haze of sleep from his eyes as he stared at one spot to hasten the clearing, idly wondering if he would ever see Ryan again.
There was a neat bundle of money, his money, lying on the coffee table, and even though there wasn’t a note attached to it, Brendon was certain, even without counting, that every penny of that thousand five hundred was there, untouched.