Apparatus Theory (standalone)
Title: Apparatus Theory
Author: ivesia19 / Sara
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: vague vague vague Ryan/Brendon. More like wishful thinking. Sort of.
POV: 3rd limited
Summary: Ryan first saw him on a Tuesday.
Disclaimer: AU. The boys belong to themselves (and possibly each other)
Author Notes: Popped into my head today during Film Class. Doesn’t really have much to do with Apparatus Theory except for the part where my mind thinks it does. (oh, and obviously writer!Ryan makes me happy - I’m gonna play with him forever) Um… and it’s kinda creepy…
----
Ryan first saw him on a Tuesday.
The park was far less crowded than Ryan had thought it would be. After all, it was the first day since autumn that the temperature had risen high enough to forgo his slightly fraying winter jacket. The whole reason that Ryan had decided to go to the park that day, quickly running home from school to grab his notebook, was because he was sure that people would be outside taking advantage of the sun. Sun that actually warmed Ryan’s skin.
As it was, the park was nearly deserted, the bright green of the grass almost too much with the lack of bodies passing over it. Ryan sat by himself. A bench was situated not too far away, close enough that Ryan could see the jagged chips in the wood, but he had decided to sit down on the ground, the cold earth causing a chill to run through him, reminding him that spring was still in its early stages.
Ryan was sitting Indian style, his long legs twisted around each other, weight leaning back against his outstretched arms, his hands imprinted already with the faded green of the grass. In his lap, his notebook was open and a pen was fitting itself against the spiral, holding his pages, his thoughts, together.
The problem was that the pages were blank.
All during school, looking out the window into the bright sunlight, Ryan had thought about going to the park, observing the people. He had fantasized, dreamed almost, about having these bursts of inspiration that would make his words fly off the page. But the pages were still blank, his thoughts unwilling to transfer down their concrete meaning.
It was then, just when Ryan was getting frustrated with himself for thinking that he could go find inspiration, when the pages of his notebook had remained blank for so long, that he looked up and saw him.
The sun was bright in Ryan’s eyes as he looked away from the daunting white of his notebook, and he had to raise a hand up to block the rays, the overexposed figure on the bench slowly coming into full focus.
Sitting on the bench, on the bench that Ryan had opted against, on the bench that Ryan could see the curling wood, sat a boy.
From the look of him, from the curl of his hair, the curve of his mouth, the way he held his hands in his lap, he seemed to be around Ryan’s age.
From the way that he flipped his cell phone open and closed every so often, eyes sweeping down to look at the screen (Ryan could see the eyes, big, but he couldn’t make out the color, he couldn’t count the eyelashes) he was apparently waiting for someone.
Ryan stared at the guy, watching as he played with his phone, watching as he swung his legs back and forth and pressed his mouth together in a straight line, his lips smoothing, not as full as before, but Ryan could still remember their shape. The boy bobbed his head ever so slightly, legs kicking now in a rhythm, lips still in a line, and Ryan wondered if the boy was humming.
If he was humming, it was too low for Ryan to hear, but that didn’t mean that Ryan didn’t strain forward just in case the tiniest fraction of an inch would make a difference.
The bright sunlight of the first clear day in a while fell perfectly over the guy’s features, bringing them into a sharper focus than Ryan would have expected a cloudy day would do. Different shades and shadows danced across the lines of the boy’s body. Across his mouth and chest and legs. Across all of him.
Ryan looked down to his notebook, still open on his lap and picked up the pen, letting words run out: words about light and a faint tune that disappears in the breeze and waiting for something, the light from an opened cell phone paling in comparison to that of the sun.
He wrote until the feeling of all the words welling up inside him subsided, and when he looked up, the boy wasn’t at the bench anymore.
Ryan wondered if the guy had ever looked up from his cell phone, looked from his lap, from himself, and saw him in the open grass, head bent down, writing. Ryan wondered if the guy would even think to suppose that the words were about him.
---
The next day, when the weather was still nice, when the sun was still shining, Ryan ran home from school, throwing his bag down and scooping up his notebook in one fluid motion, and headed towards the park.
There were a couple of more people there that day, obviously realizing that the warm spell was there to stay, but the bench was still open.
Ryan headed back to where he had sat the day before, sitting down in the middle of the grass, directly across from the bench. He looked around himself and took in the people moving around him. Some people were jogging past, ponytails bouncing and breath becoming labored; some people were walking, talking and laughing.
The second that the boy walked into the park, Ryan saw him. He was wearing pants similar to the day before: tight jeans that were dark and fashionable, probably girl’s, looking at the cut. His shirt looked soft, but Ryan could neither see the well-worn fabric close enough nor feel it brush against his own skin to know for sure, so he was left with simple speculation.
Again, Ryan watched as the boy sat down at the bench, watching the slightest movements that the guy made. This time, however, Ryan was paying attention long enough, ignoring the itching of his fingers, to see another guy approach the one on the bench. The boy from the bench, the one that Ryan knew, or at least was beginning to know, smiled as the other guy approached.
Even from far away, Ryan could feel the force of the smile.
The boy from the bench stood up, nodding his head to something his companion said to him, his hair falling, disheveling, and he laughed.
Unlike the humming of the day before, Ryan could hear the laugh, and as he wondered in his own mind how he would even begin describing it, because surely musical wasn’t enough, he watched the boy walk away, laughing along with his friend.
Ryan noted that the way he walked. There was a jump with every step.
He wondered what that meant.
----
The boy’s name was Brendon.
Ryan learned this on the fourth day, when the friend that always came a couple of minutes after the bench boy sat down yelled it from across the park.
The name sounded in the air, and the boy from the bench looked up, smiling, responding to the name.
Brendon. Ryan tried the name out in his head. He wished that he could say the name, listen to it fall from his own lips, but he knew that he’d have to save that for later.
---
The first day that Brendon looked at him, actually looked straight ahead from where he was sitting on the bench and saw Ryan, he smiled. Brendon’s lips quirked up in a funny way, as if he had known that Ryan had been there all along.
Ryan quickly looked down to his notebook, nerves jolting, but he could see Brendon’s smile brighten at that before he looked away.
Ryan busied himself with words: with sentences and fragments about wishes and dreams and a movie projector rolling, transferring thoughts into motions. He wrote about nonsense and things that weren’t really fully formulated, not daring to even come close to the subject of Brendon, of the boy on the bench, just in case that look had meant something.
When Ryan finally had the nerve to look up again, Brendon was gone.
---
Sometimes, Ryan thought about sitting down on the bench. He wondered what Brendon would do. He wondered if Brendon would sit down next to him anyway. If he would smile and laugh and talk to him.
Ryan wondered what the picture would look like. If they would lean into each other. If they would make sense.
He wondered about a lot of things when it came to Brendon, but he didn’t ask.
That would defeat the purpose entirely.
---
Ryan didn’t expect it when Brendon was there first.
He had always been there before Brendon, but what he didn’t expect even more was that instead of sitting on the bench (because Brendon always sat on the bench, and he always was there five to seven minutes before his friend), Brendon was sitting in the grass, directly across from the bench. He was sitting where Ryan always sat.
Brendon looked up from his place on the grass when Ryan walked towards him, eyes squinting in the sunlight.
Ryan didn’t know what it meant. What it could mean.
From this close, from a couple of feet away from him instead of a wide bike path between them, Ryan could see everything. He could make out every freckle on Brendon’s face. He could see the way that every strand of Brendon’s hair fell.
He could see it all, and his mind was full of adjectives and imagery and words.
---
Other Stories
Author: ivesia19 / Sara
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: vague vague vague Ryan/Brendon. More like wishful thinking. Sort of.
POV: 3rd limited
Summary: Ryan first saw him on a Tuesday.
Disclaimer: AU. The boys belong to themselves (and possibly each other)
Author Notes: Popped into my head today during Film Class. Doesn’t really have much to do with Apparatus Theory except for the part where my mind thinks it does. (oh, and obviously writer!Ryan makes me happy - I’m gonna play with him forever) Um… and it’s kinda creepy…
----
Ryan first saw him on a Tuesday.
The park was far less crowded than Ryan had thought it would be. After all, it was the first day since autumn that the temperature had risen high enough to forgo his slightly fraying winter jacket. The whole reason that Ryan had decided to go to the park that day, quickly running home from school to grab his notebook, was because he was sure that people would be outside taking advantage of the sun. Sun that actually warmed Ryan’s skin.
As it was, the park was nearly deserted, the bright green of the grass almost too much with the lack of bodies passing over it. Ryan sat by himself. A bench was situated not too far away, close enough that Ryan could see the jagged chips in the wood, but he had decided to sit down on the ground, the cold earth causing a chill to run through him, reminding him that spring was still in its early stages.
Ryan was sitting Indian style, his long legs twisted around each other, weight leaning back against his outstretched arms, his hands imprinted already with the faded green of the grass. In his lap, his notebook was open and a pen was fitting itself against the spiral, holding his pages, his thoughts, together.
The problem was that the pages were blank.
All during school, looking out the window into the bright sunlight, Ryan had thought about going to the park, observing the people. He had fantasized, dreamed almost, about having these bursts of inspiration that would make his words fly off the page. But the pages were still blank, his thoughts unwilling to transfer down their concrete meaning.
It was then, just when Ryan was getting frustrated with himself for thinking that he could go find inspiration, when the pages of his notebook had remained blank for so long, that he looked up and saw him.
The sun was bright in Ryan’s eyes as he looked away from the daunting white of his notebook, and he had to raise a hand up to block the rays, the overexposed figure on the bench slowly coming into full focus.
Sitting on the bench, on the bench that Ryan had opted against, on the bench that Ryan could see the curling wood, sat a boy.
From the look of him, from the curl of his hair, the curve of his mouth, the way he held his hands in his lap, he seemed to be around Ryan’s age.
From the way that he flipped his cell phone open and closed every so often, eyes sweeping down to look at the screen (Ryan could see the eyes, big, but he couldn’t make out the color, he couldn’t count the eyelashes) he was apparently waiting for someone.
Ryan stared at the guy, watching as he played with his phone, watching as he swung his legs back and forth and pressed his mouth together in a straight line, his lips smoothing, not as full as before, but Ryan could still remember their shape. The boy bobbed his head ever so slightly, legs kicking now in a rhythm, lips still in a line, and Ryan wondered if the boy was humming.
If he was humming, it was too low for Ryan to hear, but that didn’t mean that Ryan didn’t strain forward just in case the tiniest fraction of an inch would make a difference.
The bright sunlight of the first clear day in a while fell perfectly over the guy’s features, bringing them into a sharper focus than Ryan would have expected a cloudy day would do. Different shades and shadows danced across the lines of the boy’s body. Across his mouth and chest and legs. Across all of him.
Ryan looked down to his notebook, still open on his lap and picked up the pen, letting words run out: words about light and a faint tune that disappears in the breeze and waiting for something, the light from an opened cell phone paling in comparison to that of the sun.
He wrote until the feeling of all the words welling up inside him subsided, and when he looked up, the boy wasn’t at the bench anymore.
Ryan wondered if the guy had ever looked up from his cell phone, looked from his lap, from himself, and saw him in the open grass, head bent down, writing. Ryan wondered if the guy would even think to suppose that the words were about him.
---
The next day, when the weather was still nice, when the sun was still shining, Ryan ran home from school, throwing his bag down and scooping up his notebook in one fluid motion, and headed towards the park.
There were a couple of more people there that day, obviously realizing that the warm spell was there to stay, but the bench was still open.
Ryan headed back to where he had sat the day before, sitting down in the middle of the grass, directly across from the bench. He looked around himself and took in the people moving around him. Some people were jogging past, ponytails bouncing and breath becoming labored; some people were walking, talking and laughing.
The second that the boy walked into the park, Ryan saw him. He was wearing pants similar to the day before: tight jeans that were dark and fashionable, probably girl’s, looking at the cut. His shirt looked soft, but Ryan could neither see the well-worn fabric close enough nor feel it brush against his own skin to know for sure, so he was left with simple speculation.
Again, Ryan watched as the boy sat down at the bench, watching the slightest movements that the guy made. This time, however, Ryan was paying attention long enough, ignoring the itching of his fingers, to see another guy approach the one on the bench. The boy from the bench, the one that Ryan knew, or at least was beginning to know, smiled as the other guy approached.
Even from far away, Ryan could feel the force of the smile.
The boy from the bench stood up, nodding his head to something his companion said to him, his hair falling, disheveling, and he laughed.
Unlike the humming of the day before, Ryan could hear the laugh, and as he wondered in his own mind how he would even begin describing it, because surely musical wasn’t enough, he watched the boy walk away, laughing along with his friend.
Ryan noted that the way he walked. There was a jump with every step.
He wondered what that meant.
----
The boy’s name was Brendon.
Ryan learned this on the fourth day, when the friend that always came a couple of minutes after the bench boy sat down yelled it from across the park.
The name sounded in the air, and the boy from the bench looked up, smiling, responding to the name.
Brendon. Ryan tried the name out in his head. He wished that he could say the name, listen to it fall from his own lips, but he knew that he’d have to save that for later.
---
The first day that Brendon looked at him, actually looked straight ahead from where he was sitting on the bench and saw Ryan, he smiled. Brendon’s lips quirked up in a funny way, as if he had known that Ryan had been there all along.
Ryan quickly looked down to his notebook, nerves jolting, but he could see Brendon’s smile brighten at that before he looked away.
Ryan busied himself with words: with sentences and fragments about wishes and dreams and a movie projector rolling, transferring thoughts into motions. He wrote about nonsense and things that weren’t really fully formulated, not daring to even come close to the subject of Brendon, of the boy on the bench, just in case that look had meant something.
When Ryan finally had the nerve to look up again, Brendon was gone.
---
Sometimes, Ryan thought about sitting down on the bench. He wondered what Brendon would do. He wondered if Brendon would sit down next to him anyway. If he would smile and laugh and talk to him.
Ryan wondered what the picture would look like. If they would lean into each other. If they would make sense.
He wondered about a lot of things when it came to Brendon, but he didn’t ask.
That would defeat the purpose entirely.
---
Ryan didn’t expect it when Brendon was there first.
He had always been there before Brendon, but what he didn’t expect even more was that instead of sitting on the bench (because Brendon always sat on the bench, and he always was there five to seven minutes before his friend), Brendon was sitting in the grass, directly across from the bench. He was sitting where Ryan always sat.
Brendon looked up from his place on the grass when Ryan walked towards him, eyes squinting in the sunlight.
Ryan didn’t know what it meant. What it could mean.
From this close, from a couple of feet away from him instead of a wide bike path between them, Ryan could see everything. He could make out every freckle on Brendon’s face. He could see the way that every strand of Brendon’s hair fell.
He could see it all, and his mind was full of adjectives and imagery and words.
---
Other Stories