Possession 5/5
Jon and Brendon were avoiding each other and if that wasn’t awkward enough, being greeted by the sight of a blonde head bent between slim legs encased in skinny jeans in an uncomfortable position that was the picture of dejection on his couch was disturbingly surreal. Ryan stopped short in the doorway and then cleared his throat. The girl’s head jerked up and she looked around wildly before her gaze landed on Ryan.
She was attractive, Ryan mused. Her eyes were rimmed in red and she looked exhausted and frustrated and distraught, but Ryan could see the appeal. He wouldn’t have pegged her as Pete’s type, but she was pretty enough.
“You’re Ryan?” she asked and she sounded like she’d been crying, voice thick and rough, but her cheeks were dry.
Jon, Brendon and Spencer were a wall of solidarity at Ryan’s back but he felt completely alone. It was weird being faced with a piece of Pete’s life that he’d been kept so completely separate from. She didn’t move so Ryan took a step forward and nodded.
“Yeah,” he said a little unnecessarily.
Ashlee looked at him for a long moment and then glanced over her shoulder at his friends before getting to her feet. Her body lurched a little, like she was either going to fall over or take a swing, and Ryan fought back an unnecessary flinch.
“You’re. I didn’t expect you to be so.” She fluttered one of her hands in a useless gesture and Ryan raised his eyebrows.
“What?” he asked, waiting for her to say something cruel and give him an excuse to hate her.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “We’re pretty much exact opposites, right? I didn’t expect that.”
There were a number of things that Ryan could have said to that, especially about her stating the obvious, but he bit his tongue and Ashlee took advantage of his silence.
“I just don’t get what’s so special about you,” she said, and she sounded bitter and petty and lost. “I don’t get why he’d fall in love with somebody he can’t even let himself be seen in public with.”
Ryan’s jaw dropped and then snapped shut. He felt like he was doing an impression of a goldfish but he couldn’t help it. He had no idea what the hell she was talking about. Pete wasn’t in love and if he was he definitely wasn’t in love with Ryan. There was no reason he couldn’t have been and Ryan knew it logically. Their relationship had gotten so twisted up that it was hard to figure out where the real emotion ended and the fake began. But Ryan figured that if somebody was in love with him, he’d know, especially Pete. Love was hard to ignore and Pete was less than subtle.
“Pete’s not in love with me,” Ryan told her slowly.
She glared at him, probably feeling like Ryan was being demeaning, but he was just being honest.
“He’s in love with somebody,” she said. “And I know he comes to see you all the time. I’ve known for months.”
Ryan swallowed and shook his head. “Trust me, he’s not in love with me, okay?”
Ashlee studied him closely, her shoulders tense and her eyes bright. “Then who the fuck are you?”
“Okay,” Spencer said, taking a step forward until he was standing next to Ryan. “Just to clarify something here, this is Ryan’s apartment and you broke in. If you don’t want us to call the cops, maybe you should try being a little nicer.”
Ashlee bristled and crossed her arms over her chest. “Excuse you,” she said, “but I happen to be Pete’s girlfriend, okay? I just want to know who he’s been cheating on me with. I think I deserve to know.”
“I think maybe you could have just asked him instead of stealing numbers off of his phone and stalking his friends,” Spencer shot back.
“Spence,” Ryan said quietly with a sharp shake of his head. “We fuck,” Ryan told Ashlee calmly. “That’s it. We fuck and he supports me.”
For a second Ashlee’s features clouded with confusion. Supports you how? she was probably thinking. And then her eyes flicked away from Ryan to take in the apartment, the expensive furniture, the contents on the tables that she’d rifled through, and she gasped audibly.
“He paid for all of this?” she said, her tone somewhere between incredulous and horrified. She turned her gaze back to Ryan and grated out a harsh laugh. “Jesus. What fucking street corner did he find you on?”
Ryan felt Spencer’s hand clench around his arm and knew that Spencer wanted to slap her across her pretty face. Ryan felt the same way. He glared at her.
“Get out before I call the police,” he said, his voice cold.
She blinked at him and didn’t move except to let her arms fall to her side. “But-”
“You got what you wanted,” Ryan told her. “You know who I am and who I’m not, so just leave.”
He was holding himself rigid, feeling a little violated by her presence and the way she was looking at him and talking about him. She just stared at him, mouth slack and eyes wide. Ryan didn’t want to touch her, but he was determined to drag her out of the apartment by her hair if he had to when she finally spoke.
“I don’t have anywhere to go,” she said, looking down at her feet.
Ryan’s eyebrows flew up and he could hear a scoff from behind him, either Spencer or Brendon or Jon or all three, he couldn’t tell.
“You have a house,” Brendon said. “A huge one. I’ve seen it in the magazines.”
“I don’t want to go back there,” she said. “It’s crawling with people I don’t know and I don’t want to have to deal with that right now.”
“You have to have friends you can go to,” Jon said, his voice slightly soothing but still simmering with a shade of annoyance.
Ashlee lifted her slim shoulders in a shrug and Ryan cursed. Fucking Pete and his fucking girlfriend and this fucking apartment and Ryan’s own fucking life.
“I need a drink,” Ryan heard himself saying dimly.
He jumped when Jon clapped a hand over his shoulder and grinned. “What do you know, me too! Party in your living room?”
Ryan sighed and looked over at Ashlee who was looking anywhere but at the four of them. He could have kicked her out and felt perfectly okay with it, but she looked pitiful standing there in the middle of the room and Ryan was too tired to deal with this shit. He wished he was back at Spencer’s hotel, asleep and warm and safe instead of here, paying witness to yet another mess Pete had carelessly made.
“Yeah, okay,” Ryan said.
Spencer squeezed his arm and looked at him, eyes warm with concern. Ryan tipped his head forward to rest their foreheads together and then pulled away, leading his motley crew of friends and unwitting acquaintances into the apartment. Ashlee followed at a distance and Ryan hoped that she would change her mind and just go, but she perched on the arm of the couch as far from Brendon as she could manage and accepted the bottle of Jack that Ryan had been hording away for months when he held it out to her.
“Ladies first,” he said with a sardonic smile.
She eyed him closely, wrapped her lips around the mouth of the bottle, and took a long drink.
_._
The first time Ryan drank was on a beach in Miami with a dancer named Keltie. There wasn’t much of a story there. Ryan took a trip with Pete down to Florida and on a night that Ryan was left to his own devices, he wandered down to the beach and found Keltie. Or maybe Keltie found him. Either way, they ended up staring out at the ocean together, sitting close and talking like they’d been friends forever. There were bottles of beer that Ryan kept glancing at curiously but never touching and when Keltie offered, he shook his head.
She didn’t judge him and maybe that was part of what made Ryan realize how far removed from everything he was. He was sitting on a beach under a blanket of stars with Keltie’s voice joining the ebb and flow of the waves and he was free to make choices for himself. So he did. Ryan drank and Keltie didn’t judge him then, either.
In another lifetime, Ryan and Keltie probably could have been close. In this one, they went their separate ways that night, Keltie leaving with a kiss to Ryan’s cheek, and that was it. Just a chance encounter that Ryan didn’t like to think about anymore. It lingered a little too bittersweet in his memory.
He thought about it as he sat on the floor, leaning against Spencer and watching Brendon drunkenly attempt to braid an equally inebriated Ashlee’s hair. This time it wasn’t so much that Ryan felt far removed from the things that were holding him back (how could he when he was sitting in the middle of most of them?), just that he was ready to break free. Spencer had a hand closed around the nape of Ryan’s neck, gently massaging, and Ryan leaned into the touch.
“So, are you all gay?” Ashlee asked, arching her neck when Brendon sighed and raked a hand through her hair, dislodging the loose plaits he’d been working on and starting over.
They’d already played the introduction game, Ashlee spilling most of her life story after two shots and then looking around expectantly until the rest of them had dished on themselves. They’d kept the details to a bare minimum but Ashlee didn’t seem to care. She’d warmed up to them all really quickly, claiming Brendon as her favorite, and told them she was sorry she was such a bitch earlier.
“‘s how my agent says I should act,” she had informed them. “I mean, I’m not not a bitch, but I can be nice, I promise.”
She’d been hellbent on proving she could be nice for the last hour or so, asking random questions and getting excited over the answers, even when it wasn’t warranted.
“Um,” Brendon said, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth in concentration. “I mean, I’m mostly gay. I’d still do Jessica Alba though. Ryan’s totally gay. Spencer’s, like, Ryan-sexual. And Jon is straight. And he has a girlfriend.”
Ryan winced on Brendon’s behalf and then shot a look over to Jon who was folded up in the armchair, legs dangling over one side and his head resting on the other.
“Actually,” Jon said. “I’m not completely straight. I’m flexible.”
Brendon didn’t look up as he said, “but you’ve got a girlfriend, though.”
Jon’s hum was long and slow. “Not so much anymore, though,” he retorted.
“Ouch!” Ashlee said, giggling a little when Brendon pulled too tightly on her hair.
“Sorry,” he said absently, looking over at Jon. “Did Cassie dump you?” Brendon was too drunk to be able to school his features into any expression other than the gobsmacked and hopeful one he was currently sporting.
Ryan and Spencer followed Brendon’s gaze and Jon’s head lolled on the arm of the chair in their direction. He grinned, sloppy and wry, and shrugged.
“It doesn’t really matter,” he said, and Brendon made a noise that indicated it did matter.
Ryan was inclined to agree with Brendon and he frowned because if Jon was going to toy with one of his best friends, even drunk, Ryan was going to have to hit him or something. Spencer didn’t look particularly murderous though, and if anyone were going to know when it was a good time to defend Brendon’s honor, it would be him. Instead Spencer looked speculative and content to let them figure things out on their own.
“It wasn’t my fault, was it?” Brendon asked after a moment of silence, voice small. “‘cause I’ll explain to her if it was. I’ll tell her that it was my fault and you didn’t even-”
“B,” Jon interrupted. “It wasn’t your fault, I promise.”
He looked at Brendon for a long moment and then let his eyes slip shut and Brendon swallowed and returned to Ashlee’s hair. Ryan sighed, slightly exasperated, and curled a little further into the arm Spencer put around him.
“Hey, Brendon,” Jon said a moment later, “you’re not gonna run away like that again, are you? I’ll just track you down again if you do.”
Jon’s eyes were still shut so he missed the smile that broke across Brendon’s face. “I won’t run away from you again,” he said.
“Good,” Jon told the room at large. Minutes later he was asleep, face peaceful, one hand resting over his stomach, the other arm cushioning his head.
Ashlee yawned, wide and contagious, and Ryan smothered a yawn of his own against Spencer’s shoulder. The elegant clock on the wall opposite the entertainment set told Ryan it was closer to morning than night and the alcohol had reduced him to heavy limbs and a fuzzy brain. He felt good, calm and peaceful and at home and it had nothing to do with the walls around him or the city he was in. All of that was just details.
“You okay?” Spencer breathed into Ryan’s ear.
Ryan watched as Ashlee slid down on the couch and curled up with her head in Brendon’s lap and snickered at the look on his friend’s face.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think I’m good.”
Ryan could feel Spencer’s smile against his temple and they drifted off like that, alcohol softening the edges of reality just enough to ease Ryan’s sleep and make him feel invincible.
_._
Sometime during the deepest hours of night and the most fledgling hours of morning, it began to rain. It was the gentle pat-pat-patter against the window that woke Ryan up at some indeterminable hour. The blinds were closed so the gloom of the day was out of sight, but Ryan could feel it settle into his bones making him lazy and threatening to lull him back to sleep. He settled more comfortably into the circle of Spencer’s arms, aware of the fact that they were on the floor and would probably be stiff whenever they decided to move, but content to stay right where he was for the time being.
Ryan listened to the rain and to Spencer’s soft snores, Jon’s heavy breathing, and Brendon’s occasional sleep-fidgeting, and he was just dozing off when a more invasive sound prodded him awake again. It took a few seconds spent concentrating on just that noise for Ryan to be able to figure out what it was: the sound of someone crying and heaving in the bathroom. Ryan sat up and squinted into the dark. He couldn’t make out any details, but it wasn’t difficult to determine who the person in the bathroom was.
Spencer, Jon and Brendon were all still deeply enough asleep that they didn’t so much as stir when Ryan stood up and shuffled out of the living room. He rubbed at his eyes and paused just outside of the bathroom, looking down at the space between the floor and the door where yellow-white light was spilling across the carpet. Ryan bit his lip and knocked on the door softly, waiting for an answer. All he got was a muffled noise and he was opening the bathroom door before he could convince himself to leave Ashlee alone and go back to sleep.
The light in the bathroom, controlled by a dial that allowed everything from soft lighting to harsh, was turned up all the way. A headache bloomed sharp behind Ryan’s eyes and he had to blink a few times before he could even see anything clearly. He took the time to close the door behind him and when he turned around, he caught sight of Ashlee kneeling in front of the toilet, head bent over the bowl, her hair a tangled curtain keeping her face from view.
Ryan hesitated a moment. This particular scene was so familiar that something burst in Ryan’s chest and throbbed, sharp and hot against his ribs. She heaved again, the sound dry and painful, and Ryan went to her side and knelt next to her, sweeping her hair off of her shoulders and rubbing her back without thinking twice.
“Every time I think there’s nothing left to throw up,” she rasped, the words directed at the clear water in the toilet bowl. “I’m wrong.”
“You drank a lot,” Ryan told her.
“You’re okay,” she pointed out, turning her head toward him.
Her eyes were as damp and red as her cheeks and her breath was sour and foul, the smell of bile and alcohol a combination that Ryan had hoped never to experience again.
“I didn’t drink as much as you,” he said, and her eyebrows furrowed in a frown.
“Oh,” she said a little pitifully. “I feel really sick.”
Ryan held her hair when she convulsed over the toilet again, but it looked like she really was down to nothing but dry heaves. She sucked in a rattling breath when she was done and fell backward until she was sitting, legs splayed and head bowed, nose brushing the porcelain of the base of the toilet.
“I want to go home,” she said softly.
“I can call a cab,” Ryan told her and she shook her head slowly.
“No,” she told him, lifting her head and piercing him through with a gaze fierce in its loneliness. “I want to go home. I don’t. I don’t want this anymore. I want my daddy to go back to being my daddy and I don’t want to be laughed at and booed and hated. I want to have fun. This isn’t fun now. It’s just . . .” She trailed off, lifting one hand off the floor to wave in a limp circle. “Empty.”
The word hung between them and Ryan felt a tug of understanding in his chest. He released his hold on her hair but his hand lingered in the valley between her shoulder blades, the contact one of commiseration.
“So,” he said, “go home.”
Ashlee’s breath hitched on a tiny sob. “It isn’t there anymore. It’s just this now.”
Ryan thought of Spencer and nudged at Ashlee’s back until she looked up at him blearily. “So find your home and go.”
She stared at him and a series of emotions skittered across her face until she was left warring with hope and defeat. Ryan watched the battle and held his breath, remembering the way it felt inside of his own head. Finally she bit her lip and closed her eyes and said, “can I borrow your toothbrush?” When she opened her eyes again, her gaze was steady and Ryan knew she’d made up her mind about something. What, he didn’t know, but he nodded and helped her to her feet without asking. It wasn’t really his business.
Ryan left her to brush her teeth and stopped short when she reached out to squeeze his hand.
“I wish Pete was in love with you,” she said a little wistfully.
Once upon a time, so had Ryan. He didn’t say anything, but he thought his silence probably spoke volumes. She smiled a little crookedly at him and turned to the sink, leaving Ryan to make his way back to Spencer. He settled on the floor, tucking himself against Spencer’s side and resting his head on Spencer’s chest.
“Everything okay?” Spencer asked, voice fuzzy.
Ryan nodded and then inclined his head so that he could whisper into Spencer’s ear, “I’m going home with you.”
Spencer didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. He pressed a kiss to Ryan’s temple and pulled him in closer and those small actions were enough.
_._
Pete’s house looked pretty much the same way that Ryan remembered, a cozy place in Chicago’s suburbs, far enough to make a commute into the city interesting, close enough to allow the Chicago vibe to tickle at the edges of the property. The first time Ryan had seen this house, it had been dark outside and to Ryan’s tired and aching eyes, it had just been a hulking shape against the backdrop of a night sky. He remembered thinking it was bigger than he’d expected, or maybe smaller. It wasn’t the kind of place he would have expected someone like Pete the man to live, but it wasn’t the kind of place he would have expected Pete the mogul to live either.
It had never been Ryan’s home. Neither of them had ever even made the slip into referring to it that way. Pete rarely called it home and Ryan had never used the word to refer to either the house or to Pete. Maybe sometimes he’d thought of Chicago as home, but the rest was just a place to stay, a web he’d found himself trapped in before he could figure out how to disentangle himself. Looking at the nondescript door and the yawning windows, Ryan felt completely separate from it, not because he was being shut out but because he didn’t want in. The difference was sharp and bright and propelled Ryan the rest of the way to the front door.
He rang the doorbell and could hear the faint echos of it through the house. A minute later the door was jerked open by someone Ryan didn’t recognize right away. He was dressed in casual business attire, his red hair combed in such a way that, while it was still obvious he was balding, wasn’t too unattractive. He was short and round and Ryan squinted at him in confusion for a second before it dawned on him that Pete had pictures of this guy all over his house, or at least he had back when Ryan was still living with him.
“Um,” Ryan said, trying to remember his name and failing. “Is Pete around?”
The man’s eyes narrowed from behind the frames of his glasses and Ryan stood his ground, allowing himself to be scrutinized for an uncomfortable handful of seconds.
“You’re Ryan, right?” he finally asked, and at Ryan’s nod he stepped aside and ushered Ryan in.
The inside of the house was more or less dejà vu familiar, nothing exactly like Ryan remembered it but all of it a close enough approximation to remind him of how many times he’d walked down the hallways and into the rooms before. He glanced at the pictures on the walls, recognized Ashlee in a couple and Pete’s dog in others. Most of the pictures were of Pete and his friends, though; a guy with curly hair and blue eyes and another guy with what looked like an insane amount of tattoos and the guy who was leading him through the house. In all of those pictures, Pete looked about as happy as Ryan had ever seen him and as far as Ryan could tell, they were a tight-knit foursome.
It was weird to see that side of Pete peering out at him from behind a frame. Ryan knew Pete’s body inside and out, every blemish and every patch of perfect skin, every erogenous zone and every ticklish spot. Ryan could probably sketch out crude renderings of every one of the tattoos that Pete routinely covered up in the business attire he forced himself into every morning. Ryan had fucked Pete more times in the last two years than he could possibly count and it didn’t matter because it didn’t mean that he knew Pete at all.
Ryan caught sight of one picture, Pete’s arm around the shoulders of the guy taking him through the house, an unfamiliar look in those dark eyes, and he realized Pete was a complete stranger in all of the ways that counted.
“Hey,” the guy said, pausing just outside of the living room. He looked at Ryan with eyes that glinted hard and unforgiving. “If you’re here to fuck him over, maybe you should just leave now and let me pass the message on.”
Ryan frowned. “I just want to talk to him.”
The man was skeptical and Ryan couldn’t blame him, but he didn’t have time for this kind of bullshit either. He had other places to be, people waiting for him, people that he wouldn’t see again for a while and one that he planned on never walking away from again. Pete was important, but Ryan knew that with the way things stood between them, there wasn’t much left for them to do except say goodbye. And he was ready for that.
“Stop being a douche, Patrick,” Pete said from just inside the living room.
They both looked over to where Pete was standing, arms folded over his chest, mouth set in a carefully flat line. Ryan swallowed hard but Pete wasn’t looking at him. Instead he was staring at Patrick, something silent passing between them, something that made Ryan feel out of place. Eventually Patrick sighed and brushed past Ryan without saying another word, leaving him alone with Pete.
“Hey,” Pete said quietly, finally meeting Ryan’s eyes.
Ryan released a slow breath. “Hey, yourself.”
Pete’s lips quirked but he didn’t smile. He didn’t tear his gaze away from Ryan’s, either; just like earlier with Patrick, Ryan let Pete stare. It was hard to tell what was going on behind those eyes, but Pete kept them locked on Ryan’s, searching for something. Answers, maybe, or maybe something else entirely. Ryan bit his lip and stared back, trying to see what Pete was seeing or just figure out what he was looking for. It didn’t work. Pete was completely closed off. At some point he’d put up a wall to keep Ryan out and the sad thing was, Ryan couldn’t have said how long it had been there.
Eventually Ryan gave up trying to interpret the slip-slide of emotions and thoughts lurking in Pete’s gaze and took in the haggard set of his face, the way he looked like he hadn’t slept, like something was causing him an internal unrest. Ryan felt a pang of guilt about being that person, or at the very least contributing to the problem, but this was their problem to address and that was what Ryan was here for.
“You’re leaving,” Pete finally said, his voice even.
“I’m going home,” Ryan told him, and it was way more complicated than that, but it was a concept Pete probably understood on several different levels.
“Yeah?” Pete said, eyebrows lifting just a hair. “That’s. That’s good. For you.”
There were a lot of ways that this could go and Ryan had played all of them over and over in his mind in the time it took to get up, get ready and leave his apartment. They could end it the way they seemed to end everything else, with a couple of words and no eye-contact and the gentle click of a closing door. They could end it like they had the day before, with a lot of yelling and bitterness layered over all of the things they refused to say. Ryan wasn’t willing to let it happen like that, though.
Despite everything, despite all of the shit that he’d gotten himself into and despite the fact that Pete had been fine with letting it happen, there was something between them that didn’t deserve the things they’d done. Once upon a time, Ryan and Pete had been nurturing a real connection and yeah, it was over the internet, but that hadn’t made it any less real. Ryan had run to Pete when he’d had nowhere else to go, had shared parts of himself with Pete that he hadn’t been able to share with anyone but his closest friends, and sometimes not even then. Pete had taken care of Ryan, had saved him. Somewhere along the line they’d gotten everything ass-backwards and they’d fucked up, the both of them had, but before that there had been something important there.
“Pete?” Ryan said quietly, peering into Pete’s face and willing him to drop the walls just for a second.
Pete looked away, his jaw clenched stubbornly, but Ryan knew it was just because he didn’t want to be vulnerable. He didn’t want to be seen, but it was too late for that. Ryan hesitated for a split-second before he reached out and curled his fingers into the soft fabric of Pete’s hoodie. He had hundreds of them, Ryan knew. Ryan also knew this one, well-worn and faded, was his favorite. Ducking his head and pressing his nose to Pete’s shoulder, Ryan thought maybe they weren’t complete strangers after all.
“I’m sorry,” Pete said, lifting a hand and resting it against the back of Ryan’s neck, a gentle touch meant to hold but not to imprison. “I’m really sorry. It shouldn’t have gone this way. You deserve so much fucking better.”
Ryan inhaled slowly, the scent of fabric softener and a sleepless night and defeat raking at his nostrils, and he pulled back, breathing it all out quickly.
“Funny story,” he said. “Your girlfriend broke into my apartment last night. She says you’re in love with someone else. Maybe you should do something about that. You deserve better, too.”
Pete winced like he didn’t believe it, but Ryan wasn’t going to buy his bullshit. Underneath the asshole was a guy who liked shitty movies and who loved to cuddle on the couch during snowstorms, who remembered Ryan’s favorite flavor of ice cream and who had taken in a scared, fed-up, lost kid he’d never even seen in real life. Ryan didn’t hate Pete and maybe that had always been part of the problem, but it didn’t matter now.
“I really don’t,” Pete said, and then, before Ryan could retort, he swooped in and pressed their lips together.
The kiss wasn’t chaste, but it wasn’t hard and rushed, either. Pete kissed Ryan goodbye, careful pressure and a flutter of tongue, because he couldn’t say it out loud. Ryan broke the kiss after a moment and pressed his forehead to Pete’s briefly before taking two steps back.
“If I asked you to stay,” Pete said, eyes still closed and expression pained, “would you say yes?”
Ryan stared at him and felt something pull sharply at his heart. The answer hung heavy on the tip of his tongue and it took him a moment, but eventually he managed to push the word out on a steady breath.
“No.”
_._
Ryan barely had the door to his apartment open before Brendon was bouncing in front of him, grinning from ear to ear.
“I got your plane ticket,” he said in a hushed voice, obviously pleased with himself.
Ryan raised his eyebrows and glanced over Brendon’s shoulder. He could just make out the shapes of Spencer and Jon walking into the kitchen, heads bent together, and Ashlee dozing off on the floor in front of the tv.
“Don’t worry, they already know I bought it,” Brendon said, drawing Ryan’s eyes back to him. “And I want to give you something, if that’s okay?”
Ryan shrugged, trying hard to follow where all of this was going. He’d already been trying to figure out how he was going to pay his way back to Vegas without using the money Pete had given him. He hadn’t worked out a decent plan yet and he’d been worried that he’d be stuck in Chicago as long as it would take to find some kind of job and earn the money. The fact that Brendon had apparently bought him a plane ticket was a little mind-boggling, and relief warred with aversion in Ryan’s chest. He didn’t want people to take care of him anymore, least of all his best friends, but he didn’t know how to tell Brendon no, either.
Brendon grabbed his wrist and tugged him down the hall and into Ryan’s bedroom, closing the door behind them for privacy. Ryan flicked on a light and then blinked at Brendon, who was apparently trying to dig something out of his shoe. It took him a few minutes, Ryan watching in interest, but with a triumphant grunt Brendon finally managed to pull out a wad of cash, seemingly from nowhere.
“Brendon,” Ryan said when the roll of money was extended to him.
Brendon’s eyes flashed and he sighed. “Look,” he said, getting that serious tone that always threw Ryan off a little, “I get that you don’t want to take it. But will you, please?”
Ryan hesitated and Brendon bit his lip and pulled his hand back.
“I was never going to stay away long,” he said. “From home, I mean. I had enough money to run away for a little while and then catch a plane back. It wasn’t going to be permanent, it was just supposed to make a statement.”
“But?” Ryan prompted when Brendon didn’t say anything else.
Brendon shrugged helplessly. “I met Jon? I don’t know, I think that’s where it all changed. I love my family but. That’s not where I belong anymore. And I didn’t think I could belong anywhere else, but I can. I do. I mean, does that make any sense at all?”
Brendon looked a little confused and Ryan couldn’t bite back a smile. He reached out to brush his fingers over the back of Brendon’s hand, and when Brendon turned his palm over, Ryan took the money. Not because he couldn’t say no, but because Brendon was giving him something that meant more than just the bills he was handing off. Brendon was giving up every excuse that he had to walk away from Jon and Chicago and taking away every excuse Ryan had to stay.
“Can I ask a question?” Ryan said, hanging on to Brendon’s fingers, keeping them both where they were.
Brendon’s brow wrinkled a little bit and he nodded. “Yeah, sure.”
Ryan glanced away and then caught Brendon’s gaze and asked, “how did you know I was here?”
Somehow, the question had lost its importance in light of everything else. Ryan had wondered, off and on, for the first day or two but after that it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Spencer and Brendon had found him, and that Ryan wasn’t lost and alone anymore. But Ryan was suddenly hit with a wave of curiosity and he wanted to know. Brendon could have refused to answer and Ryan would have accepted that but he wanted an answer. Brendon’s face softened and he bit his lip.
“I saw you,” he said simply. “When I came to Chicago. I was walking down the street, right? And my mom was talking about something, probably asking about my future for the hundredth time, I don’t remember.” Brendon’s eyes shifted and he got a faraway look that made Ryan feel wistful just to see. “I remember rolling my eyes, but I didn’t want her to see me do it so I turned my head and there was this guy walking a few feet away, coming toward us and I knew it was you.”
Brendon got quiet and Ryan held his breath. When Brendon spoke again, he was smiling ruefully.
“You looked different,” he told Ryan. “Like, with the hair and the makeup and clothes but I knew it was you. And you were gone before I could say anything. I called Spencer to tell him and we worked for three straight days when I got back to Vegas tracking you down.”
Ryan licked his lips and swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “Why didn’t you call or something?”
Brendon’s smile went crooked. “You didn’t want to be found.”
Ryan shook his head. “I did. I just didn’t know it.”
Brendon leaned forward and kissed Ryan’s temple. “Well, we all found each other anyway. It was obviously meant to be.”
Ryan huffed out laugh and could feel Brendon’s grin against his forehead. A moment later, Brendon carefully folded Ryan’s fingers around the wad of cash and pulled his hand away, like he was worried Ryan would give it back, but he didn’t move any further than that.
“Thanks,” Ryan said simply.
Brendon pulled Ryan into his arms and held on tight. “You’re welcome,” he said into Ryan’s hair.
Ryan clutched at him; it took them almost ten minutes to let go.
_._
The thing about Spencer had always been that he was constant, a constant presence in Ryan’s life right up until the day Ryan had walked away from him. From the day they’d first met right up until that night, Spencer Smith had always been there for Ryan Ross. It was just a fact of life, the kind that other kids and parents and teachers didn’t quite understand at first. Maybe it was because of how fiercely protective of Ryan Spencer was, despite the age difference. Maybe it was because of how blindly loyal Ryan was when he refused to trust or believe in anyone else.
Whatever it was, nobody had ever really been able to comprehend it except for Ryan and Spencer. Sometimes Ryan didn’t know how he could have allowed himself to throw that all away on a whim and a selfish, desperate need. He’d never been able to regret leaving Vegas, but until Spencer had forgiven him, he hadn’t been able to stop regretting leaving his best friend behind. It was weird to be free of that, to be free of a lot of things.
Ryan had texted Pete to let him know that he was flying out the next day and that he was leaving everything behind. Pete replied with something lyrical and full of whimsy, words that Ryan remembered from one of the first blogs of Pete’s that he’d ever read. Ryan wrote something back in kind, something new and less cynical than anything he could have managed before, but no less fanciful. Pete said Ryan should start writing again, something he’d never quite managed to stop doing, but that he’d kept to the corners of napkins and the skin of his own arms for the last two years. Ryan said maybe he would, maybe Pete would be able to read his stuff on livejournal or something. Pete said probably not. Ryan said shut up, you can’t get rid of me that easy.
Ryan secretly thought it was kind of fucked up that now that he didn’t feel chained to Pete’s side, he felt like he owed it to himself and to Pete to attempt to rebuild something from the wreck of their relationship. It would have been stupid in any other case and if they were any other two people, but the thing was . . . Ryan wasn’t running away this time. He was leaving certain things behind, but he wasn’t running away. It was an important distinction for Ryan to make, even if it was just in his own mind and in gestures that Pete probably wouldn’t trust until Ryan saw them through.
The tap-tap-tap of Spencer’s fingertips on Ryan’s chest jerked Ryan out of his thoughts and he glanced down at the top of Spencer’s head. They were tucked against each other under the soft, cheap hotel comforter and sheets, awake despite the late hour. They’d spent most of the afternoon with Brendon and Jon after Ashlee had gone along her way. After Brendon and Jon had gone back to their apartment, promising to be back to the hotel to act as escorts to the airport and sharing looks that promised a pretty heated discussion as soon as they were in private, Ryan and Spencer had closed themselves in the hotel room, lapsing into silence.
It wasn’t an awkward kind of quiet, just the kind that developed when two people didn’t need words between them. They spoke in gasps and moans and whimpers, the occasional broken whisper or choked cry. After, they held each other and spoke in synchronized heartbeats and shared breaths. The rhythm of Spencer’s fingers against Ryan’s sternum sounded a little unsure, but Ryan was pretty sure it wasn’t Spencer who was worried. The tapping felt more like Ryan’s own apprehension than anything else.
“Are you scared?” Spencer asked like he could read thoughts (sounding like he already knew the answer).
“A little,” Ryan admitted. “It’s gonna be weird to go back.”
Spencer hummed a little and pressed a kiss to Ryan’s chest. They were silent again, but it was undisturbed now, by all of the things they didn’t need to say out loud. It just was, the air still, Ryan’s mind wandering, never lingering on any one thing for too long.
“Hey,” Spencer said after a moment, leaning up on his elbow, forearm strong and warm against Ryan’s ribs, “do me a favor?”
Ryan raised his eyebrows and nodded. Spencer looked at him for a few long seconds and then leaned down to kiss him lingeringly, eyes still locked on Ryan’s.
“Next time you decide to run away, just take me with you,” Spencer said softly.
The words buzzed across the skin of Ryan’s lips and he sighed. “I’m not going to,” he said.
Spencer shrugged. “But if you do.”
Ryan blinked and then nodded, curling his fingers into the skin of Spencer’s back. “Yeah.”
They kissed again, Ryan tipping his head back and Spencer leaning his forward. Their lips pressed together, hard and fast, their tongues sliding slick and hot over teeth and gums. Ryan gripped Spencer’s hips so hard he thought maybe he would leave bruises but Spencer didn’t shy away. I won’t let go Ryan was saying, and Spencer nipped at his bottom lip like he was saying I won’t let you. And Ryan believed him.
Chapter Index