Fic: Excerpt
Title: We Have Seen Better Days Excerpt
Rating: PG
Fandom: P!atd (Brendon/Ryan)
A/N: Can anyone tell me if this is worth continuing? Coz I genuinely have no idea.
*
“Do you believe in love at first sight?”
The question hangs in the air like Ryan’s mother’s wedding dress. A large, imposing thing, it collects dust in the space between her apron and her business jacket, between Brendon and Ryan. She bought it too early, never wore it, and Ryan; he’s just said this at the wrong time. He runs a hand through his hair and tries not to turn around, tries too hard not to twist and stare as Brendon shifts his feet, shuffles around in that forever of a space behind him.
“I guess not,” Brendon says, whispers, mumbles. Ryan can’t put a word to that tone of voice, that quiet, humble thing, no force, no adamant justification. Brendon wasn’t meant for this character.
“Me neither,” Ryan replies, and he stares across the field, this paddock, this block of long grass and ladybugs. In this light, he thinks that in this light, in the way the moon casts a hazy dusk on everything, the way it brings parts of the field to life, maybe it really does look like gold. So much of it looks rich and deep that it’s too easy to ignore the patches of dead grass, the thousands of insects that swarm over the decaying rabbit not three feet away from him. Nighttime hides this though, the darkness, it’s a secret keeper and it’ll keep the field and this conversation locked deep in her clutches.
“Ryan,” Brendon says, and it’s that same tone of voice, the one that isn’t very Brendon at all.
“Well,” Ryan says, “really I don’t believe in love at all.”
“Ryan,” Brendon tries again, and he’s even quieter, the nighttime whisks his voice away, holds it deep to her heart before it can reach Ryan’s unaware ears.
“How can I believe in it if I don’t know what it is?”