P!ATD - Fic - Avert Your Eyes
Title: Avert Your Eyes
Author: lady_deathangel
Fandom: Panic! At The Disco (which makes this bandslash oh my God)
Pairing: Erm, flavoured with some Ryan/Brendon but mostly gen
Rating: M
Warnings: Well, it's RPS so there's that. Also, language and it's sort of about Britney Spears' vagina which warrants a warning all its own.
Summary: Brendon sees a picture on the internet and Britney Spears' vagina gets around (which I'm sure is nothing new to her).
Disclaimer: This never happened. I'm making no profit off of this.
A/N: My very firstest bandslash fic ever (but not my first RPS oddly enough, I've written Dan/Rupert before). I really don't know what this is or where it came from and if it sucks, just pretend it doesn't. But maybe you'll like it. I certainly hope you do. Leave feedback! Enjoy! *runs and hides*
It’s actually kind of quiet for once, which should have been Ryan’s first clue. Really, if Brendon is anywhere present, chances are you can barely hear yourself think. Which is annoying enough, but it’s Brendon and Ryan’s pretty much used to it. Or at least resigned to it. But at least if Brendon’s in the same room as everyone else making noise, he’s not by himself. Ryan doesn’t trust Brendon when he’s by himself. Shit, none of them do. Jon tends to care the least but that’s because he’s Jon. Most of the time he actually thinks Brendon’s funny. But Ryan and Spencer have known Brendon long enough to be well aware of the fact that Brendon alone is dangerous.
Usually he’s just sort of dangerous to himself but it happens often enough that whatever it is he gets up to sets off a chain-reaction that leaves no one untouched.
If Ryan weren’t desperate for the quiet, he might have noticed Brendon’s absence and prevented the whole thing. But Ryan isn’t Brendon’s babysitter and besides, Spencer’s the only one who can actually stop Brendon from doing something stupid so really, Ryan doesn’t blame himself when there’s a girlish shriek from somewhere in the back of the bus.
“Oh my GOD!” And that’s Brendon’s voice cutting through the silence.
Ryan, Spencer and Jon all look up just as he comes rushing toward them looking vaguely ill. He’s practically shaking and Ryan entertains the thought that it’s something serious. In fact, he’s almost convinced Brendon is turning green which, yeah, maybe they should call a doctor or something?
Spencer, of course, isn’t one to panic so he just looks at Brendon and asks, “What is it?”
“Are you dying?” Jon cuts in, eyeing Brendon closely. “‘cause you kind of look like you might be.”
Brendon’s mouth opens and closes and sort of flaps around and he’s stuttering something and turning at the waist to point behind him and Ryan stares at him like . . . well, like he’s just said he’s quitting the band to go to hairdressing school.
“Brendon,” Ryan says in his calmest tone. “What the fuck?”
As if he hadn’t noticed him before, Brendon’s eyes skitter toward Ryan and he breathes an exaggerated sigh of relief, moving toward the other boy so fast it’s like he’s a mutant or something.
“Oh, Ryan!” Brendon says, falling dramatically into Ryan’s lap. “Oh my God, it was horrible. I mean . . . you have never . . . shit, you know . . . argh! Horrible!”
Jon is watching this all with an expression of amused fascination. He generally does that whenever Brendon flips his shit over something just because Brendon tends to do so like a fucking queen. Spencer, on the other hand, looks torn between amusement and annoyance.
“Brendon!” Spencer finally snaps. “Spit it the fuck out, okay?”
Brendon looks over at Spencer and then at Jon and finally at Ryan before sitting up on Ryan’s knees and nodding.
“Okay,” he says, pushing his hair out of his face and visibly steeling himself. “Okay. Okay so . . . I was, I was checking my email, right? I mean, that’s normal. That’s safe. I thought I was safe,” he adds, his eyes going a little wide. “So I’m checking my email and this friend-“
”You have friends?” Jon cuts in.
Spencer and Ryan snort but Brendon just looks affronted and pissy at having been interrupted.
“Yes,” he says to Jon with a roll of his eyes. “I have friends. Although I’m never speaking to this one again. I mean, seriously, Jesus it was . . . fuck.”
They wait for Brendon to continue, Spencer impatiently, Jon with a look of reluctant interest and Ryan with that resignation that this is just Brendon and is, therefore, nothing to get worked up over. Even if he is a warm, almost too-heavy weight on Ryan’s lap and even if he is beginning to pant for breath like a porn star.
“It was,” Brendon gasps. “It was . . . I can’t say.”
“Fucking shit, Brendon, what the fuck did you see?” Jon finally bursts out.
Brendon hangs his head, his hair flopping into his eyes, and gives a great shudder. Ryan feels it reverberate through his own body and suddenly he’s not sure he wants to know. Brendon’s good at acting and exaggerating but Ryan thinks that he’s kind of serious this time. Or as serious as he can be.
“There’s this picture on the internet. I didn’t know. I just clicked the link and . . . there it was. Britney Spears’ vagina.”
There is a beat of silence. And then there is another. And then Spencer cracks up and Jon follows suit and even Ryan can’t hold a snicker behind his teeth. Brendon looks up sharply.
“I’m not joking! It was . . . it was horrible. I mean . . . there were scars. And it was just . . . there and all . . . out.”
“But,” Jon says between chuckles. “I thought you liked pussy, Brendon.”
Brendon’s eyes go wide. “Well yeah! But, like, not pop star pussy.”
"There’s a difference?” Spencer teases and Ryan grins at the look on Brendon’s face.
“Wha- yes!” he sputters. “There’s a big difference.”
“No,” Jon insists. “There’s really not. Pussy is pussy.”
Brendon makes a growling sort of sound and stands up. He’s sort of pouting but mostly glaring at all of them and Ryan recognizes that look. That’s
a look that promises retribution.
“You’ll see,” Brendon tells them ominously. “Oh, you will see.”
And then he stalks out and Jon practically collapses in laughter and Spencer can’t stop snickering. Ryan rolls his eyes. He knows, and Spencer knows too, or will know when he can keep a straight face long enough to think about it, that this is not good. Brendon’s going to do something drastic and there’s no stopping him.
::
Brendon gets Ryan first, possibly because he knows that if he plays his cards right he can rope Ryan into helping him get Spencer and Jon. Ryan is not particularly surprised, just extremely disgusted, when he wakes up to Brendon’s voice urgent in his ear and the glowing screen of his sidekick disturbing Ryan’s sleep.
“Brendon?” Ryan hisses, blinking rapidly and trying to focus on what’s going on. “What are you- holy fucking shit!”
Ryan scrambles back into the corner of his bunk and slams his eyes shut.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Brendon, what the fuck? I mean . . .” Ryan’s eyes open of their own accord and the picture is right there. “What the FUCK?”
“Pop star pussy,” Brendon says, his tone laced with a bit of sympathy but mostly vindication.
“It’s just . . . Jesus. I mean, seriously? That can’t be real. That’s gotta be, like, fucking Photoshop or something.”
“No, no,” Brendon says, finally putting the sidekick away. “I do believe that is the real thing.”
Ryan feels sort of sick but can’t get the image out of his head. Just . . . gross. And so fucking wrong.
“What’s going on?” Jon’s voice calls sleepily from the bunk above Ryan’s. “Somebody dying?”
“No,” Ryan says back, still shuddering to himself. “But . . . I just saw that picture Brendon was telling us about.”
He waits for a response but all he gets is a sleepy snort and then it’s pretty obvious Jon’s sleeping again. And Spencer, the bastard, never even woke up. Which is just not fucking right because Spencer is Ryan’s best friend! They share things like this together. And at the very least, Jon could have pretended to care. Trauma such as this shouldn’t be kept to yourself and Ryan realizes with a jolt that Brendon isn’t even going to have to convince him to go along with whatever his crazy mind had scheming.
Brendon must have noticed too because Ryan can see him grin in the dim light, a Cheshire sort of grin, and then he’s crawling into Ryan’s bunk. He has actually made a habit of this, something that Ryan attributes to the close confines of sharing the same living space way before they’d even set foot on a tour bus. It’s definitely part of the reason Brendon has made it his goal in life to forget that Ryan has a personal space. Brendon used to be wary of Ryan, of touching him and getting close, but they sort of bonded or whatever and so now Brendon has no problem crawling over Ryan, curling their bodies together and propping himself on one elbow, completely unfazed.
Ryan raises his eyebrows up at Brendon who just smirks in response.
“So,” Brendon says in a low voice laced with his usual dramatics. “We’re in this together now. You can’t back out. It’s done.”
“Uh-huh,” Ryan says, but he’s more wry than skeptical and so Brendon’s smirk broadens into a grin. Brendon says that he’s been thinking and Ryan opens his mouth to be a smartass, but doesn’t get the chance because Brendon actually glares at him. Which, okay, Brendon’s not scary or anything but that was a real glare, not the fake shit he’s used to from the other boy.
“I’ve been thinking,” he says again. “About ways to get back at Spence and Jon.”
Ryan feels, for a moment, like he should defend Spencer. That’s his best friend, after all. “Not Spence,” he should say, but he doesn’t because Spencer needs to feel his pain. Shit, Ryan’s stomach still hasn’t settled. He’s not in a terribly forgiving mood.
“All right,” Ryan says. “What do you have in mind?”
::
Spencer knows something’s up. He just has that ability to know when something’s up (Brendon calls it his ‘spidey sense’) but neither Brendon or Ryan are surprised by this. In any case, it doesn’t ruin their plans in any way and so Brendon continues to act suspicious and Ryan acts pretty much like he always does and Spencer stares at both of them in that way of his that means he’s trying to get them to admit that they’re up to something without actually using words.
“You’re not gonna crack, are you?” Brendon asks in a quiet voice, his lips brushing Ryan’s ear.
Ryan shivers and shakes his head. “Of course not, dumbass. I grew up with Spence, I know how to handle him.”
Brendon gives him an assessing look and then nods.
“Yeah, okay. Just . . . if he threatens to take a hammer to your fingers and it looks like you’re gonna break, I’ll have to shoot you.”
He says it completely seriously, so seriously that Ryan grins and shoves him.
“Whatever, Bren,” he says and Brendon makes a face.
“Fuck you, Ry,” he shoots back and they’re still pushing each other when they walk into they’re dressing room.
Spencer and Jon are already inside. Jon sort of grins when he sees Ryan and Brendon come and Spence smiles at Ryan but his eyes are still guarded which means he still thinks something’s up. Which is just as well. The thing is, Ryan is really kind of evil when he wants to be and this is all part of the plan. He wants to draw it out as long as possible. Which probably won’t be very long at all since Brendon is not patient. At all. But they’ve sort of met in the middle.
Everything’s normal that night, nothing out of the ordinary, and Ryan can tell after the show that Spencer’s even more on edge than he was before. Ryan just smiles reassuringly at him which, as he knew it wouldn’t, doesn’t help matters much. Brendon is practically bouncing off the walls in his excitement, but that’s normal so even Spencer can’t say that Brendon’s acting suspicious. Ryan’s acting normal, too. Watching Brendon bounce off the walls and rehashing the show with Jon, what went well and what didn’t go as planned. It was an awesome show, like always, so Ryan’s almost not thinking about revenge when they all fall into their bunks exhausted.
He’s half asleep when he hears a rustling outside his bunk and then the curtain parts and Brendon makes a spectacle of climbing in with Ryan. It’s cramped, even more now because Brendon has commandeered Spencer’s laptop, and Brendon and Ryan end up twisted together in a way that’s almost uncomfortable, but is more embarrassingly intimate than anything.
“All right,” Brendon says happily, opening the laptop and turning it on. “Let’s do this.”
The glow of the screen is almost too bright, at least until Ryan’s feeling less drowsy. Getting into Spencer’s desktop is disgustingly easy and Brendon looks maniacal as he gets into his email account and looks for the link to the offending pictures. He glances at Ryan before clicking and ugh, it’s just as bad the first time. But it’s like roadkill. Neither of them can look away.
“Just . . . ew,” Brendon says after a moment and then giggles a bit madly. “This is gonna be awesome. Okay.”
Brendon sets to work and Ryan watches for a few minutes. It’s not all that exciting, though with the way Brendon keeps bursting into insane, quiet chuckles you would think they were pulling the best prank ever.
“Awesome,” he whispers and Ryan’s tired and really quite content to let Brendon handle all of the evildoing. “This is going to be so awesome.”
Ryan makes a noise of agreement and lets his head fall onto Brendon’s shoulder.
“Hey,” Brendon tells him distractedly. “No falling asleep, okay? You’re, like, fucking impossible to wake up and I have to get out of here and put Spence’s laptop back where I found it or we’ll be so fucking busted. Not so awesome.”
“I’m not falling asleep,” Ryan shoots back, but he’s pretty aware of the fact that he wishes he could. Revenge is important, but not as important as sleep.
After what feels like hours but is really only twenty minutes, Brendon makes a triumphant sort of sound and Ryan smiles at him.
“Done?”
“Indeed,” Brendon says.
“Good. Now I can go to sleep.”
Brendon mutters something about how can you be tired with all the adrenaline and Ryan might say something back about letting Brendon have all the adrenaline so he can sleep, but he’s not sure. He’s vaguely aware of long limbs tangling with and straddling his as Brendon makes his way out of the bunk, and then it’s blissfully quiet and Ryan closes his eyes. He grunts when, not more than five minutes later, Brendon’s back, climbing all over him again and then squeezing in with him. There are arms around Ryan’s waist and a nose pressed against the side of his neck.
“Brendon,” he says. “What are you doing?”
“You’re comfortable,” Brendon answers.
Ryan wants to ask something else or say something about how Jon and Spencer will tease them for a week about this like they did the last time, but Brendon’s warm and his breathing is soft and even against Ryan’s skin so he falls asleep before he can say anything else.
::
Spencer and Jon aren’t exactly well-known for their consistency or anything, but they are more predictable than, say, Brendon (who is only predictable because you know that whatever he’s going to do is probably going to be stupid and loud). They also have this strange habit of logging onto their laptops at roughly the same time every day. It’s weird but works well to Ryan and Brendon’s advantage.
Brendon’s attacking Guitar Hero like it’s his fucking job and Ryan’s reading when they overhear a conversation that goes something like this:
“Spencer?”
“Yes, Jon?”
“Why?”
“Why what, Jon?”
“Why did you send me an email with Britney Spears’ vagina plastered all over it?”
“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me.”
“Spence . . . you definitely emailed it to me. Why?”
“No, seriously, it wasn’t me! Look at this shit, it’s all over my fucking desktop and it was the first thing I saw when I logged onto the internet.”
“Spencer?”
“Yes Jon?”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
::
There is no screaming which catapults Brendon into a five minute sulk during which he loses spectacularly at Guitar Hero two times in a row just because he's throwing a Urie Bitch Fit and usually when that happens he has to be losing at something. Ryan, however, is more than satisfied with how things have turned out because for the rest of the day, all he has to do is walk up to Spencer or Jon and start humming Baby One More Time in their ears and they start cussing and threatening to kill him.
Once Brendon picks up on it, he takes it to new levels, using every euphemism in his arsenal (which, considering it’s Brendon turns out to be quite a lot) to bring pussy into the most innocent of conversations, and when he gets tired of just that he starts singing old Britney Spears hits, with a lot of lewd lyrics interposed with the old ones. Jon eventually starts to think it’s pretty damn funny because it’s Jon and probably he’s the kind of guy who would manage to find the humor in any situation just because he’s that dude, but Spencer isn’t as amused.
“You’re a horrible sadist, you know that,” he tells Brendon.
Brendon waggles his eyebrows and says, “You’re lucky. Usually I charge extra for that.”
Both Jon and Ryan snort and Brendon shoots a grin at them. Spencer grumbles and pouts and Ryan wanders over to poke his best friend in the head.
“Come on Spence,” he says with a smirk. “It’s just basic anatomy.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Brendon says, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Dude, we should, like, totally print out pictures and label everything and, like, tape ‘em to the front of the bus and put them in the girl’s dressing room and shit. Spread the love.”
“You’re fucking sick,” Spencer says, but he sounds amused and Jon’s definitely perked up.
“Hey, yeah,” Jon says. “Everyone should feel our pain.”
Brendon nods. “Totally. It’s, like, our civic duty to do this.”
::
So they do. And everyone wants to hate them for weeks but it ends up lasting for maybe twenty minutes before they pull a Pay It Forward and suddenly there is pop star pussy everywhere. Traveling the globe, to be hyperbolic. Quite possibly the most disappointing reaction was when they decided to get Fall Out Boy and Pete called them up five minutes after they sent the pictures and said, “Dude, it’s just pussy. I’ve seen worse.”
Which they probably should have expected.
Eventually it all dies down. It doesn’t take that long, actually, and a few weeks later it’s all a distant memory. Or at least parts of it are, like the pictures and also the part where Ryan got his bunk to himself. Because for some reason, Brendon has refused to sleep by himself.
“Don’t tell me you’re scared of the dark,” Ryan teases even though he knows it’s way different than that.
“Pfft,” Brendon says. “I’m not scared of the dark. You’re just really cuddly. I mean, in the places where you aren’t all bony. You’re really kind of bony, Ryan.”
“Wait, did you just pfft me?”
“I believe I did, yes.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“I love you, too.”
Ryan rolls his eyes but lets Brendon curl up against his side and maybe Ryan sort of curls up against him too because Brendon lets out a little sigh and says, “I knew you loved me.”
Ryan snorts, already falling asleep. “No, you’re just really cuddly.”
“Mmmm, yep, you love me. So much.”
Ryan doesn’t say anything, just throws an arm over Brendon’s waist and pulls him closer. He’s already asleep.
Author: lady_deathangel
Fandom: Panic! At The Disco (which makes this bandslash oh my God)
Pairing: Erm, flavoured with some Ryan/Brendon but mostly gen
Rating: M
Warnings: Well, it's RPS so there's that. Also, language and it's sort of about Britney Spears' vagina which warrants a warning all its own.
Summary: Brendon sees a picture on the internet and Britney Spears' vagina gets around (which I'm sure is nothing new to her).
Disclaimer: This never happened. I'm making no profit off of this.
A/N: My very firstest bandslash fic ever (but not my first RPS oddly enough, I've written Dan/Rupert before). I really don't know what this is or where it came from and if it sucks, just pretend it doesn't. But maybe you'll like it. I certainly hope you do. Leave feedback! Enjoy! *runs and hides*
It’s actually kind of quiet for once, which should have been Ryan’s first clue. Really, if Brendon is anywhere present, chances are you can barely hear yourself think. Which is annoying enough, but it’s Brendon and Ryan’s pretty much used to it. Or at least resigned to it. But at least if Brendon’s in the same room as everyone else making noise, he’s not by himself. Ryan doesn’t trust Brendon when he’s by himself. Shit, none of them do. Jon tends to care the least but that’s because he’s Jon. Most of the time he actually thinks Brendon’s funny. But Ryan and Spencer have known Brendon long enough to be well aware of the fact that Brendon alone is dangerous.
Usually he’s just sort of dangerous to himself but it happens often enough that whatever it is he gets up to sets off a chain-reaction that leaves no one untouched.
If Ryan weren’t desperate for the quiet, he might have noticed Brendon’s absence and prevented the whole thing. But Ryan isn’t Brendon’s babysitter and besides, Spencer’s the only one who can actually stop Brendon from doing something stupid so really, Ryan doesn’t blame himself when there’s a girlish shriek from somewhere in the back of the bus.
“Oh my GOD!” And that’s Brendon’s voice cutting through the silence.
Ryan, Spencer and Jon all look up just as he comes rushing toward them looking vaguely ill. He’s practically shaking and Ryan entertains the thought that it’s something serious. In fact, he’s almost convinced Brendon is turning green which, yeah, maybe they should call a doctor or something?
Spencer, of course, isn’t one to panic so he just looks at Brendon and asks, “What is it?”
“Are you dying?” Jon cuts in, eyeing Brendon closely. “‘cause you kind of look like you might be.”
Brendon’s mouth opens and closes and sort of flaps around and he’s stuttering something and turning at the waist to point behind him and Ryan stares at him like . . . well, like he’s just said he’s quitting the band to go to hairdressing school.
“Brendon,” Ryan says in his calmest tone. “What the fuck?”
As if he hadn’t noticed him before, Brendon’s eyes skitter toward Ryan and he breathes an exaggerated sigh of relief, moving toward the other boy so fast it’s like he’s a mutant or something.
“Oh, Ryan!” Brendon says, falling dramatically into Ryan’s lap. “Oh my God, it was horrible. I mean . . . you have never . . . shit, you know . . . argh! Horrible!”
Jon is watching this all with an expression of amused fascination. He generally does that whenever Brendon flips his shit over something just because Brendon tends to do so like a fucking queen. Spencer, on the other hand, looks torn between amusement and annoyance.
“Brendon!” Spencer finally snaps. “Spit it the fuck out, okay?”
Brendon looks over at Spencer and then at Jon and finally at Ryan before sitting up on Ryan’s knees and nodding.
“Okay,” he says, pushing his hair out of his face and visibly steeling himself. “Okay. Okay so . . . I was, I was checking my email, right? I mean, that’s normal. That’s safe. I thought I was safe,” he adds, his eyes going a little wide. “So I’m checking my email and this friend-“
”You have friends?” Jon cuts in.
Spencer and Ryan snort but Brendon just looks affronted and pissy at having been interrupted.
“Yes,” he says to Jon with a roll of his eyes. “I have friends. Although I’m never speaking to this one again. I mean, seriously, Jesus it was . . . fuck.”
They wait for Brendon to continue, Spencer impatiently, Jon with a look of reluctant interest and Ryan with that resignation that this is just Brendon and is, therefore, nothing to get worked up over. Even if he is a warm, almost too-heavy weight on Ryan’s lap and even if he is beginning to pant for breath like a porn star.
“It was,” Brendon gasps. “It was . . . I can’t say.”
“Fucking shit, Brendon, what the fuck did you see?” Jon finally bursts out.
Brendon hangs his head, his hair flopping into his eyes, and gives a great shudder. Ryan feels it reverberate through his own body and suddenly he’s not sure he wants to know. Brendon’s good at acting and exaggerating but Ryan thinks that he’s kind of serious this time. Or as serious as he can be.
“There’s this picture on the internet. I didn’t know. I just clicked the link and . . . there it was. Britney Spears’ vagina.”
There is a beat of silence. And then there is another. And then Spencer cracks up and Jon follows suit and even Ryan can’t hold a snicker behind his teeth. Brendon looks up sharply.
“I’m not joking! It was . . . it was horrible. I mean . . . there were scars. And it was just . . . there and all . . . out.”
“But,” Jon says between chuckles. “I thought you liked pussy, Brendon.”
Brendon’s eyes go wide. “Well yeah! But, like, not pop star pussy.”
"There’s a difference?” Spencer teases and Ryan grins at the look on Brendon’s face.
“Wha- yes!” he sputters. “There’s a big difference.”
“No,” Jon insists. “There’s really not. Pussy is pussy.”
Brendon makes a growling sort of sound and stands up. He’s sort of pouting but mostly glaring at all of them and Ryan recognizes that look. That’s
a look that promises retribution.
“You’ll see,” Brendon tells them ominously. “Oh, you will see.”
And then he stalks out and Jon practically collapses in laughter and Spencer can’t stop snickering. Ryan rolls his eyes. He knows, and Spencer knows too, or will know when he can keep a straight face long enough to think about it, that this is not good. Brendon’s going to do something drastic and there’s no stopping him.
::
Brendon gets Ryan first, possibly because he knows that if he plays his cards right he can rope Ryan into helping him get Spencer and Jon. Ryan is not particularly surprised, just extremely disgusted, when he wakes up to Brendon’s voice urgent in his ear and the glowing screen of his sidekick disturbing Ryan’s sleep.
“Brendon?” Ryan hisses, blinking rapidly and trying to focus on what’s going on. “What are you- holy fucking shit!”
Ryan scrambles back into the corner of his bunk and slams his eyes shut.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Brendon, what the fuck? I mean . . .” Ryan’s eyes open of their own accord and the picture is right there. “What the FUCK?”
“Pop star pussy,” Brendon says, his tone laced with a bit of sympathy but mostly vindication.
“It’s just . . . Jesus. I mean, seriously? That can’t be real. That’s gotta be, like, fucking Photoshop or something.”
“No, no,” Brendon says, finally putting the sidekick away. “I do believe that is the real thing.”
Ryan feels sort of sick but can’t get the image out of his head. Just . . . gross. And so fucking wrong.
“What’s going on?” Jon’s voice calls sleepily from the bunk above Ryan’s. “Somebody dying?”
“No,” Ryan says back, still shuddering to himself. “But . . . I just saw that picture Brendon was telling us about.”
He waits for a response but all he gets is a sleepy snort and then it’s pretty obvious Jon’s sleeping again. And Spencer, the bastard, never even woke up. Which is just not fucking right because Spencer is Ryan’s best friend! They share things like this together. And at the very least, Jon could have pretended to care. Trauma such as this shouldn’t be kept to yourself and Ryan realizes with a jolt that Brendon isn’t even going to have to convince him to go along with whatever his crazy mind had scheming.
Brendon must have noticed too because Ryan can see him grin in the dim light, a Cheshire sort of grin, and then he’s crawling into Ryan’s bunk. He has actually made a habit of this, something that Ryan attributes to the close confines of sharing the same living space way before they’d even set foot on a tour bus. It’s definitely part of the reason Brendon has made it his goal in life to forget that Ryan has a personal space. Brendon used to be wary of Ryan, of touching him and getting close, but they sort of bonded or whatever and so now Brendon has no problem crawling over Ryan, curling their bodies together and propping himself on one elbow, completely unfazed.
Ryan raises his eyebrows up at Brendon who just smirks in response.
“So,” Brendon says in a low voice laced with his usual dramatics. “We’re in this together now. You can’t back out. It’s done.”
“Uh-huh,” Ryan says, but he’s more wry than skeptical and so Brendon’s smirk broadens into a grin. Brendon says that he’s been thinking and Ryan opens his mouth to be a smartass, but doesn’t get the chance because Brendon actually glares at him. Which, okay, Brendon’s not scary or anything but that was a real glare, not the fake shit he’s used to from the other boy.
“I’ve been thinking,” he says again. “About ways to get back at Spence and Jon.”
Ryan feels, for a moment, like he should defend Spencer. That’s his best friend, after all. “Not Spence,” he should say, but he doesn’t because Spencer needs to feel his pain. Shit, Ryan’s stomach still hasn’t settled. He’s not in a terribly forgiving mood.
“All right,” Ryan says. “What do you have in mind?”
::
Spencer knows something’s up. He just has that ability to know when something’s up (Brendon calls it his ‘spidey sense’) but neither Brendon or Ryan are surprised by this. In any case, it doesn’t ruin their plans in any way and so Brendon continues to act suspicious and Ryan acts pretty much like he always does and Spencer stares at both of them in that way of his that means he’s trying to get them to admit that they’re up to something without actually using words.
“You’re not gonna crack, are you?” Brendon asks in a quiet voice, his lips brushing Ryan’s ear.
Ryan shivers and shakes his head. “Of course not, dumbass. I grew up with Spence, I know how to handle him.”
Brendon gives him an assessing look and then nods.
“Yeah, okay. Just . . . if he threatens to take a hammer to your fingers and it looks like you’re gonna break, I’ll have to shoot you.”
He says it completely seriously, so seriously that Ryan grins and shoves him.
“Whatever, Bren,” he says and Brendon makes a face.
“Fuck you, Ry,” he shoots back and they’re still pushing each other when they walk into they’re dressing room.
Spencer and Jon are already inside. Jon sort of grins when he sees Ryan and Brendon come and Spence smiles at Ryan but his eyes are still guarded which means he still thinks something’s up. Which is just as well. The thing is, Ryan is really kind of evil when he wants to be and this is all part of the plan. He wants to draw it out as long as possible. Which probably won’t be very long at all since Brendon is not patient. At all. But they’ve sort of met in the middle.
Everything’s normal that night, nothing out of the ordinary, and Ryan can tell after the show that Spencer’s even more on edge than he was before. Ryan just smiles reassuringly at him which, as he knew it wouldn’t, doesn’t help matters much. Brendon is practically bouncing off the walls in his excitement, but that’s normal so even Spencer can’t say that Brendon’s acting suspicious. Ryan’s acting normal, too. Watching Brendon bounce off the walls and rehashing the show with Jon, what went well and what didn’t go as planned. It was an awesome show, like always, so Ryan’s almost not thinking about revenge when they all fall into their bunks exhausted.
He’s half asleep when he hears a rustling outside his bunk and then the curtain parts and Brendon makes a spectacle of climbing in with Ryan. It’s cramped, even more now because Brendon has commandeered Spencer’s laptop, and Brendon and Ryan end up twisted together in a way that’s almost uncomfortable, but is more embarrassingly intimate than anything.
“All right,” Brendon says happily, opening the laptop and turning it on. “Let’s do this.”
The glow of the screen is almost too bright, at least until Ryan’s feeling less drowsy. Getting into Spencer’s desktop is disgustingly easy and Brendon looks maniacal as he gets into his email account and looks for the link to the offending pictures. He glances at Ryan before clicking and ugh, it’s just as bad the first time. But it’s like roadkill. Neither of them can look away.
“Just . . . ew,” Brendon says after a moment and then giggles a bit madly. “This is gonna be awesome. Okay.”
Brendon sets to work and Ryan watches for a few minutes. It’s not all that exciting, though with the way Brendon keeps bursting into insane, quiet chuckles you would think they were pulling the best prank ever.
“Awesome,” he whispers and Ryan’s tired and really quite content to let Brendon handle all of the evildoing. “This is going to be so awesome.”
Ryan makes a noise of agreement and lets his head fall onto Brendon’s shoulder.
“Hey,” Brendon tells him distractedly. “No falling asleep, okay? You’re, like, fucking impossible to wake up and I have to get out of here and put Spence’s laptop back where I found it or we’ll be so fucking busted. Not so awesome.”
“I’m not falling asleep,” Ryan shoots back, but he’s pretty aware of the fact that he wishes he could. Revenge is important, but not as important as sleep.
After what feels like hours but is really only twenty minutes, Brendon makes a triumphant sort of sound and Ryan smiles at him.
“Done?”
“Indeed,” Brendon says.
“Good. Now I can go to sleep.”
Brendon mutters something about how can you be tired with all the adrenaline and Ryan might say something back about letting Brendon have all the adrenaline so he can sleep, but he’s not sure. He’s vaguely aware of long limbs tangling with and straddling his as Brendon makes his way out of the bunk, and then it’s blissfully quiet and Ryan closes his eyes. He grunts when, not more than five minutes later, Brendon’s back, climbing all over him again and then squeezing in with him. There are arms around Ryan’s waist and a nose pressed against the side of his neck.
“Brendon,” he says. “What are you doing?”
“You’re comfortable,” Brendon answers.
Ryan wants to ask something else or say something about how Jon and Spencer will tease them for a week about this like they did the last time, but Brendon’s warm and his breathing is soft and even against Ryan’s skin so he falls asleep before he can say anything else.
::
Spencer and Jon aren’t exactly well-known for their consistency or anything, but they are more predictable than, say, Brendon (who is only predictable because you know that whatever he’s going to do is probably going to be stupid and loud). They also have this strange habit of logging onto their laptops at roughly the same time every day. It’s weird but works well to Ryan and Brendon’s advantage.
Brendon’s attacking Guitar Hero like it’s his fucking job and Ryan’s reading when they overhear a conversation that goes something like this:
“Spencer?”
“Yes, Jon?”
“Why?”
“Why what, Jon?”
“Why did you send me an email with Britney Spears’ vagina plastered all over it?”
“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me.”
“Spence . . . you definitely emailed it to me. Why?”
“No, seriously, it wasn’t me! Look at this shit, it’s all over my fucking desktop and it was the first thing I saw when I logged onto the internet.”
“Spencer?”
“Yes Jon?”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
::
There is no screaming which catapults Brendon into a five minute sulk during which he loses spectacularly at Guitar Hero two times in a row just because he's throwing a Urie Bitch Fit and usually when that happens he has to be losing at something. Ryan, however, is more than satisfied with how things have turned out because for the rest of the day, all he has to do is walk up to Spencer or Jon and start humming Baby One More Time in their ears and they start cussing and threatening to kill him.
Once Brendon picks up on it, he takes it to new levels, using every euphemism in his arsenal (which, considering it’s Brendon turns out to be quite a lot) to bring pussy into the most innocent of conversations, and when he gets tired of just that he starts singing old Britney Spears hits, with a lot of lewd lyrics interposed with the old ones. Jon eventually starts to think it’s pretty damn funny because it’s Jon and probably he’s the kind of guy who would manage to find the humor in any situation just because he’s that dude, but Spencer isn’t as amused.
“You’re a horrible sadist, you know that,” he tells Brendon.
Brendon waggles his eyebrows and says, “You’re lucky. Usually I charge extra for that.”
Both Jon and Ryan snort and Brendon shoots a grin at them. Spencer grumbles and pouts and Ryan wanders over to poke his best friend in the head.
“Come on Spence,” he says with a smirk. “It’s just basic anatomy.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Brendon says, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Dude, we should, like, totally print out pictures and label everything and, like, tape ‘em to the front of the bus and put them in the girl’s dressing room and shit. Spread the love.”
“You’re fucking sick,” Spencer says, but he sounds amused and Jon’s definitely perked up.
“Hey, yeah,” Jon says. “Everyone should feel our pain.”
Brendon nods. “Totally. It’s, like, our civic duty to do this.”
::
So they do. And everyone wants to hate them for weeks but it ends up lasting for maybe twenty minutes before they pull a Pay It Forward and suddenly there is pop star pussy everywhere. Traveling the globe, to be hyperbolic. Quite possibly the most disappointing reaction was when they decided to get Fall Out Boy and Pete called them up five minutes after they sent the pictures and said, “Dude, it’s just pussy. I’ve seen worse.”
Which they probably should have expected.
Eventually it all dies down. It doesn’t take that long, actually, and a few weeks later it’s all a distant memory. Or at least parts of it are, like the pictures and also the part where Ryan got his bunk to himself. Because for some reason, Brendon has refused to sleep by himself.
“Don’t tell me you’re scared of the dark,” Ryan teases even though he knows it’s way different than that.
“Pfft,” Brendon says. “I’m not scared of the dark. You’re just really cuddly. I mean, in the places where you aren’t all bony. You’re really kind of bony, Ryan.”
“Wait, did you just pfft me?”
“I believe I did, yes.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“I love you, too.”
Ryan rolls his eyes but lets Brendon curl up against his side and maybe Ryan sort of curls up against him too because Brendon lets out a little sigh and says, “I knew you loved me.”
Ryan snorts, already falling asleep. “No, you’re just really cuddly.”
“Mmmm, yep, you love me. So much.”
Ryan doesn’t say anything, just throws an arm over Brendon’s waist and pulls him closer. He’s already asleep.