A Million Ways To Fall - Pt. VIII
It was obvious that Ryan was pissed. Ryan, when he was pissed, was worse than Jon. Jon was bad enough, giving the silent treatment and ignoring the existence of whoever had gotten him mad (often so effectively Brendon would be even more annoying to Spencer or Ryan just so they would talk to him, just so he could remind himself that he was still there). Ryan, though, he never yelled and he never threw things, but he got mean.
He was trying not to be mean with Brendon, that much was obvious. But even more obvious than that was the fact that he was livid.
“You should have called me,” Ryan said, glaring at Brendon.
Brendon was supposed to be taking it easy so he was on the couch in a nest of blankets and pillows, a pile of Disney movies and comedies waiting to be watched, but Ryan was fucking with the plan. He’d shown up, unannounced like always, pushing past Shane into the living room where he was currently standing with his arms crossed and his mouth turned down in a vicious frown.
Brendon struggled to sit up. “I was a little occupied,” he shot back, and he knew the words were a little unfair but it was true and Ryan wasn’t exactly being fair himself.
Ryan winced and ducked his head, all the anger just seeping out of him like it sometimes did when somebody said the right thing at the right time. “What if something had happened to you?” he demanded.
“You would have heard from Spencer,” Brendon said slowly. “Isn’t that who you’d want to hear something like that from?”
Ryan shrugged and looked up at Brendon. “I want to be there if something goes wrong. I don’t want a goddamn 3 a.m. phone call from Shane or Spencer or whoever telling me you’re in the hospital and it’s ‘probably not serious so don’t worry’.”
Brendon sighed. He was still feeling pretty exhausted after last night and he didn’t want to have this conversation with Ryan. “Sometimes it won’t work that way,” he pointed out, “and you can’t freak out every time that happens.”
Ryan’s lips pushed out into what looked a lot like a pout but he wasn’t angry anymore, and that was all that mattered. They stared at each other for a moment and then Brendon shifted around on the couch, found a corner of the blanket he was wrapped in and lifted it.
“Get in here,” he told Ryan, glancing over at Shane who was hovering in the doorway and adding, “you, too.”
Shane quirked a small smile and they all piled onto the couch, moving around until they were comfortable, Brendon in the middle with Shane’s arms around his waist and Ryan’s head on his shoulder.
“What are we watching?” Ryan asked, reaching down to lace his fingers with Brendon’s.
Brendon shrugged, warm and content. “Aladdin.”
He could practically feel Ryan roll his eyes, but it didn’t matter because he hit play anyway. They went through a catalogue of Disney movies, Brendon humming along the whole time. When they got to The Little Mermaid, Brendon felt the baby move. It was more than a flutter now. Brendon flattened his hand over his belly and on screen, Sebastian started singing. The baby kicked again and Brendon heard Ryan gasp next to his ear.
“What?” Brendon asked, because Ryan liked this movie, but not that much.
Ryan skated his palm over Brendon’s bump and whispered, “I think I just felt something. I’m not going crazy, am I?”
The chorus swelled and the baby kicked again, at Ryan’s hand this time, and Brendon shook his head with a grin.
Ryan exhaled long and slow and shaky and Brendon curled his fingers around Ryan’s and pressed his hand in a little harder. The baby responded with a small nudge and Ryan smiled so bright, Brendon’s heart stopped for a second.
“What are you two doing?” Shane asked curiously, peeking over Brendon’s shoulder.
“I felt the baby kick,” Ryan answered, voice light with awe.
Before Shane could respond, Ryan was grabbing his hand and pressing it to Brendon’s belly. They all waited for a beat. The baby moved again when the song neared the end, kicking at Ryan and Shane’s joined hands once and then again and then one more time. Brendon winced a little at the sensation but was so transfixed by the look on Ryan’s face and the way Shane had completely ceased breathing to care much about the gentle beating his insides were taking.
“That’s amazing,” Shane breathed into Brendon’s ear, and he suddenly remembered that Shane hadn’t felt it yet, not quite like this.
Brendon leaned further back against him and looked down at Ryan who was staring at his and Shane’s hands with a wide-eyed expression that Brendon couldn’t quite interpret. Later, after Shane left to pick up dinner for the three of them, Ryan sat practically in Brendon’s lap with his face nuzzled up against Brendon’s belly.
“I wish,” he muttered, but he didn’t finish the thought.
Brendon was feeling fuzzy, comfortable and warm and relaxed, but Ryan’s tone made his chest feel a little tight. “What?” he asked, looking down the length of his body to Ryan’s downturned face. “Ryan?”
Ryan shook his head a little and glanced up at Brendon with a soft, heartbreaking smile. “Nothing,” he said.
_._
Ryan, Brendon decided, was acting a little weird. It hadn’t been a big deal when it was just his constant presence and his willingness to rub Brendon’s back or shoulders or play with his hair or do crazy food runs to satisfy insane cravings. Maybe it should have been, but Brendon was too busy enjoying the attention to care. It had been a long time since he’d had Ryan’s undivided affection, if he ever truly had.
Spencer always had it, of course, because he was the best friend. And Ryan had bestowed it on Pete for as long as Brendon could remember, and on Bill for a week or two while touring together, and on Jon since their days in the cabin and on Keltie practically since meeting her. It was always interesting to watch the way that Ryan responded to the people he loved like that, whole-heartedly and with a certain softness that he always seemed wary of sharing with the world.
Ryan loved Brendon and Brendon knew that, but it seemed a little different. Their relationship had always been complicated and lacking in the ease that came with others. Part of it was in Brendon being Ryan’s voice, but Brendon had always wondered if maybe the other part of it was his own fault. He’d had a crush on Ryan since the first time he’d seen him. Back then, back when Brendon was still going to church and when the band thing was new and when he was only just beginning to realize how much music meant to him, he’d played it off as a hero-worship kind of thing.
Brendon’s first clue that it was more than that was easy to ignore. He had a wet-dream about Ryan and maybe he should have figured it out then, but he was able to logic it away easily enough. He didn’t even feel particularly guilty about it, but the dream was quickly followed by fantasies that wouldn’t leave Brendon alone and those were quickly followed by moments after practice or while hanging out when he kind of wanted to reach out and hold Ryan’s hand or lean over and kiss him or cuddle up next to him and have it mean something.
It was never any other guy. It was always just Ryan, so Brendon was okay with saying he had a crush because for one thing, it wasn’t like wanted every guy he saw or came into contact with, and for another, it was never going to be anything. Brendon thought maybe it could. When Ryan would let Brendon get close on stage, or when he would return the favor, Brendon wondered. Sometimes Ryan would flirt and the longer he and Brendon knew each other, the more physically comfortable Ryan got.
Brendon figured out pretty quickly that it was just Ryan’s nature to be that way. He wasn’t exactly unselfconscious, but he wasn’t always completely aware of what he was doing, either. Brendon never said anything about the crush and when it changed, when Brendon started noticing guys outside of Ryan, he never mentioned that, either. He wanted to tell Ryan because no matter what, they were close friends. Brendon could never be Ryan’s best, but he’d sort of always thought of Ryan as his.
But Ryan bounced from being blithely unimpressed by the labels people tried to put on him and vaguely defensive about his heterosexuality and Brendon didn’t think it would go over well if he brought up his own sexuality issues.
It had gotten easier to deal with over the years. Brendon fucked who he wanted to fuck and he didn’t think about Ryan too much. Ryan was with Keltie, anyway, and he was happy and that wasn’t something Brendon could possibly feel bad about. And then sometime in the last six months everything had gotten all fucked up and twisted again.
“Ryan’s acting weird,” Brendon said in passing, watching Shane carefully wrap a few last minute Christmas presents.
“How?” Shane asked, tongue poking out in concentration as he tried to get the paper to flatten just right.
Brendon shrugged and stuck an errant bow on top of Dylan’s dozing head. She shook herself but it stayed put.
“I don’t know. Just . . . haven’t you noticed how nice he’s being about this?”
“Maybe he’s practicing. He and Keltie might want to have a baby or something,” Shane said.
That was a possibility, but that didn’t seem quite right. Keltie, when Brendon saw her, didn’t give off any baby-envy vibes. And she and Ryan were domestic, but not quite to that stage, yet.
“Maybe,” Brendon muttered.
Shane paused and then glanced up. “Could be something else. You like him, don’t you?”
It seemed like Shane only made it sound like a question to be polite. His eyes were steady, like they already knew the answer, and Brendon floundered for a moment.
“I don’t know!” he said, throwing his hands up in the air.
And it was kind of the truth. Brendon had liked Ryan, but then Dan-or-Dave happened and then Shane happened. Brendon didn’t know anything anymore, about himself, about his sexuality, about how he felt. Shane stared at him and Brendon stared back and all he could think was that Ryan or no Ryan, he really, really wanted to kiss the man sitting in his living room with a roll of scotch tape in one hand and a half-wrapped Bowie cd in the other.
Brendon slid a little awkwardly to the floor and crawled over to Shane. Wrapping paper crinkled and ripped under his foot but he didn’t care. Shane sat still, watching Brendon carefully.
“Is it wrong if maybe I like you, too?” Brendon asked.
Shane blinked once and then again. He didn’t answer and the longer the silence stretched on, the more Brendon felt like he’d just monumentally fucked up. He was wondering if was too late to take it back when Shane sighed and reached out to cup Brendon’s cheek in one hand.
“Not if I’m the one who’s here with you right now,” Shane muttered before bringing Brendon’s lips to his.
The kiss was softer than any of the ones they’d shared before. Shane moved slow, taking his time, and Brendon let him. There was no real hurry, the urgency only simmering beneath the surface. Brendon gasped when Shane licked, slow and languorous, into his mouth. Shane smiled into the kiss and did it again, even slower this time.
They kissed for what felt like hours but couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Brendon’s knees and back started to hurt from being hunched over and when Shane broke the kiss to press his lips to the underside of Brendon’s jaw, he groaned, a little in pleasure and a lot in pain.
“We should seriously move to somewhere more comfortable,” Brendon said, his breath hitching when Shane scraped his teeth over the skin of his throat.
“Yeah,” Shane muttered, “yeah, okay.”
Getting up was a slow process, their hands getting caught in all of the dips and curves of bodies that they hadn’t touched in months and lingering there. When they finally got to their feet, Brendon felt a little awkward. He could only pull Shane so close with his belly sticking out as far as it was now and it made him feel impossibly round and heavy and strange in his own skin.
Shane kissed him lightly and whispered, “hey, stay with me, okay?”
He slid one hand up the inside of Brendon’s thigh and cupped his cock and it had been so fucking long since anyone else had touched Brendon like this, since Shane had touched Brendon like this. Brendon hissed out a breath and nodded, burying his face in Shane’s neck while his hips rolled into the touch. Shane rubbed his dick slowly. When Brendon reached between them to return the favor, Shane pulled away with a shake of his head.
“Wait,” he said, nudging Brendon back until he collided gently with the wall.
They’d barely made it inside of Shane’s room, closing the door on Dylan, and Shane didn’t seem interested in actually getting them to the bed. He dropped to his knees, his hands going to the waistband of Brendon’s sweatpants. He glanced up at Brendon briefly before tugging the clothing away.
Brendon had never been self-conscious about his body. He felt better when he was naked, more comfortable and completely at ease. That had changed recently, and Brendon felt himself flush just a little when Shane pushed Brendon’s t-shirt up and over his belly before leaning forward to kiss the inside of one thigh.
He wasn’t given a whole lot of time to feel uncomfortable. Shane didn’t hesitate, just gripped the base of Brendon’s cock in one hand and slid his mouth down the length a split-second later. Brendon’s head fell back against the wall with a thunk and he groaned. Shane sucked enthusiastically in response, the hot, wet suction of his mouth almost too much for Brendon to take. Just when Brendon thought this was going to be over embarrassingly fast, Shane pulled off to suck lightly at the head and tightened his grip on Brendon’s cock, holding him off.
Brendon’s knees shook and his breath came in fast pants. Shane licked over the slit and slid his mouth down again, farther this time. Brendon opened his eyes and looked down, but the swell of his belly obscured Shane’s mouth from view. It was obscene, bizarre, but it didn’t matter, not when Shane was sucking hard and making the occasional helpless noise, like he hadn’t ever wanted to be anywhere else. Brendon bit his lip and tried to keep his hips from thrusting forward, to keep from fucking Shane’s mouth like he desperately wanted to.
Shane wasn’t holding him back, but Brendon didn’t want to be rude. This wasn’t some girl he’d picked up with the express intention of fucking and leaving. This wasn’t a sure bet, either. This was Shane, Shane who Brendon was maybe a little in love with and Shane who still hadn’t said anything yet about how he felt. Brendon felt the need to be careful, to tread lightly, and even though his muscles quivered with the effort, he kept his hips mostly still.
Brendon wasn’t sure, but he thought maybe Shane rewarded him for his restraint when he cupped one of Brendon’s hips in his free palm and took Brendon in so far he bumped the back of Shane’s throat. Shane sucked harder and Brendon’s eyes fell shut, his hands gripping Shane’s hair, holding and not pushing, just seeking any kind of anchor at all.
It seemed to last forever, the sharp pleasure of being enveloped in Shane’s wickedly clever mouth. Brendon was moaning loudly, shapeless sounds punctuated by Shane’s name and a litany of curses. This time, when Brendon felt his orgasm begin to build low and fast, Shane didn’t try to put it off. He just sucked harder and when Brendon tugged on his hair to warn him, he didn’t move away.
Brendon bit down on his bottom lip and came with a strangled sound, his whole body shaking while Shane sucked him through it. Brendon’s knees felt like Jell-O when Shane got to his feet and swallowed. They stared at each other for a moment, both of them breathless, until Brendon realized Shane was waiting for him.
He reached out to grip the back of Shane’s neck and pull him in for a kiss that was wet and dirty and sloppy and perfect. Shane kept his body angled away from Brendon, like he didn’t want to scare him, but Brendon reached out and thumbed open Shane’s jeans easily. He pulled out of the kiss to lick his palm and then he was pushing his hand past Shane’s boxers to grip his cock.
It wasn’t the most coordinated Brendon had ever been, but he built up a hard, fast rhythm, twisting his hand on the upstroke and working Shane as well as he knew how. Shane had his mouth to Brendon’s shoulder, hips thrusting into the circle of Brendon’s fist. It didn’t last long; it was like Shane had been so worked up over blowing Brendon that it only took a few strokes before he was spilling into Brendon’s hand.
How Brendon remained upright after that, he couldn’t quite figure out. Between the wall at his back and Shane in his arms, he managed somehow. They stood, quiet, until their breathing evened out and then Shane tugged Brendon into the bathroom for a shower. It was strangely intimate, even moreso than what they’d just done, to let Shane wash his back and his hair and press wet, warm kisses to his belly.
After, they curled up in bed with Brendon on his side and Shane spooned up snugly behind him.
Shane said, “you’re not gonna have another crisis of sexuality and make me wake up alone again, are you?”
Brendon laughed and rubbed his face in his pillow before answering. “No, I don’t think so.”
Shane nodded, chin moving against the top of Brendon’s head. “What about Ryan?”
The question should have been more awkward than it was, but Shane had always been pretty in-tune with Brendon’s relationships with his band and their feelings for each other. Brendon was pretty sure that was part of the reason he always came back to them, because he found them interesting, because he got them on some level.
“That was never going to be anything,” Brendon answered.
Shane made a soft sound and they fell silent. Brendon was half-asleep and the words were soft, but he thought he heard Shane whisper, “I don’t know if anyone ever told him that.”
But by the time Brendon drifted off, he decided he’d made it up completely.
_._
Brendon got out of spending Christmas with his family by some kind of wacky luck. They’d made plans to go out of town and spend the holiday with one of Brendon’s brothers instead of sticking around and Brendon was invited, obviously, but that made it easier to feign sickness and opt to stay home. His parents called on Christmas morning anyway, and Brendon took the call while Shane made chocolate-chip pancakes.
It made his heart ache a little to not be with them, but it was for the best. Besides, Shane was here, and Spencer and Haley and Ryan and Keltie was in town, too. Brendon was, according to the calendar in the kitchen, officially six months and a few days pregnant. It was a little hard to believe, but he was beginning to feel almost confident about the next four months, like maybe he actually would make it and the baby would, too.
The day was pretty lazy as far as Christmases went. Brendon and Shane exchanged gifts and watched the Christmas movies that came on tv and were debating what to get for dinner when people started showing up. Spencer was first, Haley in tow, followed quickly by Ryan and Keltie. They’d all had Christmas dinner the night before with Spencer’s family.
“Tonight we’re all yours,” Spencer said with a smile. “What are we having?”
“General Tso’s Chicken,” Brendon said with raised eyebrows, “because I can’t pull a Christmas turkey out of my ass.”
They settled down in the living room with takeout menus being passed between them. While they decided what to order, Keltie sat next to Brendon and looked down at his belly. He was pretty obviously pregnant now, although when he wore his baggiest shirts he looked a little like he’d just gotten a really, really big beer-belly overnight. He was wearing a shirt that didn’t let him hide, though, because he didn’t really feel like he had to here.
“Can I?” Keltie asked softly, reaching out and stopping short of actually touching him.
Brendon nodded and grabbed her hand, pulling it the rest of the way. She touched him gingerly. The baby had been quiet most of the day, but Brendon felt a little movement when Spencer laughed loudly from where he was sitting. Keltie frowned a little, like she couldn’t quite feel anything, and Brendon smiled to himself, reaching down to press just the right spot and there, like it had been tickled, the baby moved again.
“Oh,” Keltie breathed, bringing her other hand up and flattening them both against Brendon’s belly. She pressed a little harder and there was more movement, a little roll, maybe, or a flip.
Her eyes were wide, her lips soft and parted, and when she looked up at Brendon her expression was completely open and overwhelmed.
“You’re beautiful. Can I take you home with me?” she asked.
“He’s kind of gassy,” Shane piped up, “so you probably don’t want to do that.
Brendon kicked out at him. “Shut up!”
“It’s okay,” Keltie said, leaning closer to him so that she was talking mostly to the baby. “I’ve spent the night with Ryan after he’s been to Taco Bell with the munchies. I can handle it.”
Brendon laughed and Keltie looked up. There was a curiosity in her eyes that Brendon had never noticed before and when he gazed back at her, it cleared and she smiled in some kind of understanding that Brendon didn’t quite get. She leaned back in and rubbed his belly once, breaking the moment, and Brendon let it slip to the back of his mind.
They called Jon in Chicago where it sounded like he was in the middle of a train station (“Just Walker Family Central,” he assured them.) and about ten minutes after the food arrived, there was a knock on the door. Shane rolled to his feet to answer and the entirety of The Cab piled in, bearing gifts and looking a little contrite. Brendon hadn’t talked to any of them since he and Shane had broken the news. It hadn’t gone over so well at the time. The only one who hadn’t said something stupid or reacted pretty violently to hearing about it had been Ian; Brendon figured that was probably because he knew Shane so well.
Ian was the first one through the door. He grinned at everyone in greeting wandered into the living room, finding a seat next to Ryan and peering into the endless array of food cartons.
“Oh, what’s for dinner?” he asked, reaching for Ryan’s plate.
“Yeah, no,” he said, leaning away, “nothing for you.”
Ian pouted at him and said, “I’ll get Spencer to feed me.”
Spencer snorted and tried to evade Ian’s gimme-grabby hands as the rest of the guys edged into the room. Cash and Singer were the two most reluctant to walk in. Brendon looked up at them and sighed, setting aside his food and getting to his feet. He walked over to where they were lingering on the outskirts of the room and let them stare in shock at his midsection.
“Crazy, huh?” Brendon said, stopping just in front of them.
“Yeah,” Cash said, voice low. He lifted his head slowly, heart on his sleeve like always, and said, “dude, I was such an asshole.”
It was the only kind of apology Brendon was going to get from him, but he took it for what it was and said, “whatever, it’s fine.”
Singer was biting his lip and when he finally spoke, it was a simple, “I’m sorry.”
And yeah, that was fine, too. They attacked Brendon with hugs when he smiled at them, careful of his belly but not so mindful of how tight they squeezed or where their chins and elbows ended up. It was nice. Brendon had missed them.
The night ended with all of them squished onto the couch and sprawled on the floor watching movies and picking up an eleven person commentary on whatever was on. It was a pretty unconventional Christmas, even for them, but it made Brendon feel more at home than he would have if he’d been stuck hiding his body away from his family.
It felt weird, sometimes, to think about but dozing off on Shane with Ryan and Spencer’s laughter warming the room and Ian and Johnson having some kind of tussle on the floor while Singer and Keltie mangled the lyrics of songs from A Chorus Line . . . having them all there, knowing Haley was pressed to Spencer’s side and that Cash and Marshall were close enough to touch and Jon was just a phone call away, it made Brendon realize he had more than one family. He always knew it, but in that moment it felt more real than anything had in a long time.
The baby gave a sleepy roll of agreement and Brendon pressed his smile to Shane’s shoulder.
_._
“Buying a house is fucking hard. How’d you do it?”
Brendon had the phone cradled between his shoulder and his ear and stared down at the papers strewn across the coffee table. They were all marked in different sets of handwriting. Ryan’s scrawl was discernible once or twice. Spencer’s was on a majority of them, along with notes and comments in the margins of the listings. Shane’s was even more prominent than Spencer’s, showing up on every single ad with more notes and comments and, sometimes, stick figures.
He could practically hear Spencer’s shrug. “Found a place that fit all my requirements and bought it. It wasn’t that hard.”
Brendon rolled his eyes. Of course it had been easy for Spencer, Spencer who was organized and good at this shit. It had probably been easy for Ryan, too, to find a place that suited his strange and somewhat abstract tastes. They’d been shopping with a different mentality than Brendon. He had to find a place and it had to be big enough and it had to be warm and open and inviting and it had to be perfect.
Brendon wasn’t sure, but he thought maybe he was in the early nesting stages.
“Do you think this is stupid?” he asked.
“Your place is kinda small,” Spencer hedged, even though they both knew it was more than big enough for two men to live in.
“You know what I mean,” Brendon said, eyeing one promising house in particular.
“I think it’s a good idea to keep your options open,” Spencer said slowly. “It never hurts to be prepared. But . . . you’ve already made your decision, haven’t you?”
Not really, Brendon wanted to say. Not at all. He felt like he hadn’t made a significant decision since telling everyone that there was no way in hell he was getting an abortion. But here he was, looking at houses instead of prospective, adoptive parents. He hadn’t told anyone, but he’d glanced at agencies and families and had spent a good two weeks on the road buried in his bunk, pretending to sleep but going over the option in his head.
Realistically, it was probably the best course of action, and certainly the least selfish. Brendon wasn’t qualified to take care of a kid. He was too young to know what the fuck he was doing and had no real experience with anything like this. He had his friends to help out, but none of them had a real clue, either. They were already flying blind, and Brendon knew that wasn’t going to change.
But he’d stopped looking at adoption as a viable option, making the excuse of avoiding having to make the decision, and now here he was, looking at houses with enough bedrooms and space and hunting down something with a fucking backyard because a kid had to have a backyard to play in and there was no way this was going to work out, but maybe Spencer was right. Brendon had made his decision.
“Clearly, I’m insane,” Brendon muttered.
“It’s all those baby-making hormones,” Spencer teased, pausing before adding, “is Shane moving in with you?”
Brendon flopped back on the couch with a gusty sigh. “We haven’t really talked about it but . . . yes?”
“Don’t ask me,” Spencer said.
It wasn’t something they’d discussed explicitly. Everything between them seemed to be largely unspoken, down to the part where Brendon had pretty much moved into Shane’s bedroom and they were . . . not quite dating, but not quite not-dating either.
Shane certainly seemed on board with keeping the current living situation. Brendon expected that would change eventually, when Shane realized what he was getting himself into. It was hard to imagine not living with Shane, though, especially after everything that had happened, and Brendon certainly didn’t want to be alone.
“Well, I’m pretty sure, yes,” Brendon said.
“That’s good,” Spencer said.
Brendon bit his lip and tapped his fingers against his knee. “Spence, if I told you Shane and I are kind of . . . together, what would you think?”
Spencer was quiet for a moment and then he said, “I wouldn’t freak out, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Yeah, but-”
“Brendon,” Spencer interrupted, “it’s not a big deal. If you’re happy, I’m happy. And I know Jon and Ryan would be with me on this.”
Brendon closed his eyes and nodded even though Spencer couldn’t see it.
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay,” Spencer said, and that was that.
Previous
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He was trying not to be mean with Brendon, that much was obvious. But even more obvious than that was the fact that he was livid.
“You should have called me,” Ryan said, glaring at Brendon.
Brendon was supposed to be taking it easy so he was on the couch in a nest of blankets and pillows, a pile of Disney movies and comedies waiting to be watched, but Ryan was fucking with the plan. He’d shown up, unannounced like always, pushing past Shane into the living room where he was currently standing with his arms crossed and his mouth turned down in a vicious frown.
Brendon struggled to sit up. “I was a little occupied,” he shot back, and he knew the words were a little unfair but it was true and Ryan wasn’t exactly being fair himself.
Ryan winced and ducked his head, all the anger just seeping out of him like it sometimes did when somebody said the right thing at the right time. “What if something had happened to you?” he demanded.
“You would have heard from Spencer,” Brendon said slowly. “Isn’t that who you’d want to hear something like that from?”
Ryan shrugged and looked up at Brendon. “I want to be there if something goes wrong. I don’t want a goddamn 3 a.m. phone call from Shane or Spencer or whoever telling me you’re in the hospital and it’s ‘probably not serious so don’t worry’.”
Brendon sighed. He was still feeling pretty exhausted after last night and he didn’t want to have this conversation with Ryan. “Sometimes it won’t work that way,” he pointed out, “and you can’t freak out every time that happens.”
Ryan’s lips pushed out into what looked a lot like a pout but he wasn’t angry anymore, and that was all that mattered. They stared at each other for a moment and then Brendon shifted around on the couch, found a corner of the blanket he was wrapped in and lifted it.
“Get in here,” he told Ryan, glancing over at Shane who was hovering in the doorway and adding, “you, too.”
Shane quirked a small smile and they all piled onto the couch, moving around until they were comfortable, Brendon in the middle with Shane’s arms around his waist and Ryan’s head on his shoulder.
“What are we watching?” Ryan asked, reaching down to lace his fingers with Brendon’s.
Brendon shrugged, warm and content. “Aladdin.”
He could practically feel Ryan roll his eyes, but it didn’t matter because he hit play anyway. They went through a catalogue of Disney movies, Brendon humming along the whole time. When they got to The Little Mermaid, Brendon felt the baby move. It was more than a flutter now. Brendon flattened his hand over his belly and on screen, Sebastian started singing. The baby kicked again and Brendon heard Ryan gasp next to his ear.
“What?” Brendon asked, because Ryan liked this movie, but not that much.
Ryan skated his palm over Brendon’s bump and whispered, “I think I just felt something. I’m not going crazy, am I?”
The chorus swelled and the baby kicked again, at Ryan’s hand this time, and Brendon shook his head with a grin.
Ryan exhaled long and slow and shaky and Brendon curled his fingers around Ryan’s and pressed his hand in a little harder. The baby responded with a small nudge and Ryan smiled so bright, Brendon’s heart stopped for a second.
“What are you two doing?” Shane asked curiously, peeking over Brendon’s shoulder.
“I felt the baby kick,” Ryan answered, voice light with awe.
Before Shane could respond, Ryan was grabbing his hand and pressing it to Brendon’s belly. They all waited for a beat. The baby moved again when the song neared the end, kicking at Ryan and Shane’s joined hands once and then again and then one more time. Brendon winced a little at the sensation but was so transfixed by the look on Ryan’s face and the way Shane had completely ceased breathing to care much about the gentle beating his insides were taking.
“That’s amazing,” Shane breathed into Brendon’s ear, and he suddenly remembered that Shane hadn’t felt it yet, not quite like this.
Brendon leaned further back against him and looked down at Ryan who was staring at his and Shane’s hands with a wide-eyed expression that Brendon couldn’t quite interpret. Later, after Shane left to pick up dinner for the three of them, Ryan sat practically in Brendon’s lap with his face nuzzled up against Brendon’s belly.
“I wish,” he muttered, but he didn’t finish the thought.
Brendon was feeling fuzzy, comfortable and warm and relaxed, but Ryan’s tone made his chest feel a little tight. “What?” he asked, looking down the length of his body to Ryan’s downturned face. “Ryan?”
Ryan shook his head a little and glanced up at Brendon with a soft, heartbreaking smile. “Nothing,” he said.
_._
Ryan, Brendon decided, was acting a little weird. It hadn’t been a big deal when it was just his constant presence and his willingness to rub Brendon’s back or shoulders or play with his hair or do crazy food runs to satisfy insane cravings. Maybe it should have been, but Brendon was too busy enjoying the attention to care. It had been a long time since he’d had Ryan’s undivided affection, if he ever truly had.
Spencer always had it, of course, because he was the best friend. And Ryan had bestowed it on Pete for as long as Brendon could remember, and on Bill for a week or two while touring together, and on Jon since their days in the cabin and on Keltie practically since meeting her. It was always interesting to watch the way that Ryan responded to the people he loved like that, whole-heartedly and with a certain softness that he always seemed wary of sharing with the world.
Ryan loved Brendon and Brendon knew that, but it seemed a little different. Their relationship had always been complicated and lacking in the ease that came with others. Part of it was in Brendon being Ryan’s voice, but Brendon had always wondered if maybe the other part of it was his own fault. He’d had a crush on Ryan since the first time he’d seen him. Back then, back when Brendon was still going to church and when the band thing was new and when he was only just beginning to realize how much music meant to him, he’d played it off as a hero-worship kind of thing.
Brendon’s first clue that it was more than that was easy to ignore. He had a wet-dream about Ryan and maybe he should have figured it out then, but he was able to logic it away easily enough. He didn’t even feel particularly guilty about it, but the dream was quickly followed by fantasies that wouldn’t leave Brendon alone and those were quickly followed by moments after practice or while hanging out when he kind of wanted to reach out and hold Ryan’s hand or lean over and kiss him or cuddle up next to him and have it mean something.
It was never any other guy. It was always just Ryan, so Brendon was okay with saying he had a crush because for one thing, it wasn’t like wanted every guy he saw or came into contact with, and for another, it was never going to be anything. Brendon thought maybe it could. When Ryan would let Brendon get close on stage, or when he would return the favor, Brendon wondered. Sometimes Ryan would flirt and the longer he and Brendon knew each other, the more physically comfortable Ryan got.
Brendon figured out pretty quickly that it was just Ryan’s nature to be that way. He wasn’t exactly unselfconscious, but he wasn’t always completely aware of what he was doing, either. Brendon never said anything about the crush and when it changed, when Brendon started noticing guys outside of Ryan, he never mentioned that, either. He wanted to tell Ryan because no matter what, they were close friends. Brendon could never be Ryan’s best, but he’d sort of always thought of Ryan as his.
But Ryan bounced from being blithely unimpressed by the labels people tried to put on him and vaguely defensive about his heterosexuality and Brendon didn’t think it would go over well if he brought up his own sexuality issues.
It had gotten easier to deal with over the years. Brendon fucked who he wanted to fuck and he didn’t think about Ryan too much. Ryan was with Keltie, anyway, and he was happy and that wasn’t something Brendon could possibly feel bad about. And then sometime in the last six months everything had gotten all fucked up and twisted again.
“Ryan’s acting weird,” Brendon said in passing, watching Shane carefully wrap a few last minute Christmas presents.
“How?” Shane asked, tongue poking out in concentration as he tried to get the paper to flatten just right.
Brendon shrugged and stuck an errant bow on top of Dylan’s dozing head. She shook herself but it stayed put.
“I don’t know. Just . . . haven’t you noticed how nice he’s being about this?”
“Maybe he’s practicing. He and Keltie might want to have a baby or something,” Shane said.
That was a possibility, but that didn’t seem quite right. Keltie, when Brendon saw her, didn’t give off any baby-envy vibes. And she and Ryan were domestic, but not quite to that stage, yet.
“Maybe,” Brendon muttered.
Shane paused and then glanced up. “Could be something else. You like him, don’t you?”
It seemed like Shane only made it sound like a question to be polite. His eyes were steady, like they already knew the answer, and Brendon floundered for a moment.
“I don’t know!” he said, throwing his hands up in the air.
And it was kind of the truth. Brendon had liked Ryan, but then Dan-or-Dave happened and then Shane happened. Brendon didn’t know anything anymore, about himself, about his sexuality, about how he felt. Shane stared at him and Brendon stared back and all he could think was that Ryan or no Ryan, he really, really wanted to kiss the man sitting in his living room with a roll of scotch tape in one hand and a half-wrapped Bowie cd in the other.
Brendon slid a little awkwardly to the floor and crawled over to Shane. Wrapping paper crinkled and ripped under his foot but he didn’t care. Shane sat still, watching Brendon carefully.
“Is it wrong if maybe I like you, too?” Brendon asked.
Shane blinked once and then again. He didn’t answer and the longer the silence stretched on, the more Brendon felt like he’d just monumentally fucked up. He was wondering if was too late to take it back when Shane sighed and reached out to cup Brendon’s cheek in one hand.
“Not if I’m the one who’s here with you right now,” Shane muttered before bringing Brendon’s lips to his.
The kiss was softer than any of the ones they’d shared before. Shane moved slow, taking his time, and Brendon let him. There was no real hurry, the urgency only simmering beneath the surface. Brendon gasped when Shane licked, slow and languorous, into his mouth. Shane smiled into the kiss and did it again, even slower this time.
They kissed for what felt like hours but couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Brendon’s knees and back started to hurt from being hunched over and when Shane broke the kiss to press his lips to the underside of Brendon’s jaw, he groaned, a little in pleasure and a lot in pain.
“We should seriously move to somewhere more comfortable,” Brendon said, his breath hitching when Shane scraped his teeth over the skin of his throat.
“Yeah,” Shane muttered, “yeah, okay.”
Getting up was a slow process, their hands getting caught in all of the dips and curves of bodies that they hadn’t touched in months and lingering there. When they finally got to their feet, Brendon felt a little awkward. He could only pull Shane so close with his belly sticking out as far as it was now and it made him feel impossibly round and heavy and strange in his own skin.
Shane kissed him lightly and whispered, “hey, stay with me, okay?”
He slid one hand up the inside of Brendon’s thigh and cupped his cock and it had been so fucking long since anyone else had touched Brendon like this, since Shane had touched Brendon like this. Brendon hissed out a breath and nodded, burying his face in Shane’s neck while his hips rolled into the touch. Shane rubbed his dick slowly. When Brendon reached between them to return the favor, Shane pulled away with a shake of his head.
“Wait,” he said, nudging Brendon back until he collided gently with the wall.
They’d barely made it inside of Shane’s room, closing the door on Dylan, and Shane didn’t seem interested in actually getting them to the bed. He dropped to his knees, his hands going to the waistband of Brendon’s sweatpants. He glanced up at Brendon briefly before tugging the clothing away.
Brendon had never been self-conscious about his body. He felt better when he was naked, more comfortable and completely at ease. That had changed recently, and Brendon felt himself flush just a little when Shane pushed Brendon’s t-shirt up and over his belly before leaning forward to kiss the inside of one thigh.
He wasn’t given a whole lot of time to feel uncomfortable. Shane didn’t hesitate, just gripped the base of Brendon’s cock in one hand and slid his mouth down the length a split-second later. Brendon’s head fell back against the wall with a thunk and he groaned. Shane sucked enthusiastically in response, the hot, wet suction of his mouth almost too much for Brendon to take. Just when Brendon thought this was going to be over embarrassingly fast, Shane pulled off to suck lightly at the head and tightened his grip on Brendon’s cock, holding him off.
Brendon’s knees shook and his breath came in fast pants. Shane licked over the slit and slid his mouth down again, farther this time. Brendon opened his eyes and looked down, but the swell of his belly obscured Shane’s mouth from view. It was obscene, bizarre, but it didn’t matter, not when Shane was sucking hard and making the occasional helpless noise, like he hadn’t ever wanted to be anywhere else. Brendon bit his lip and tried to keep his hips from thrusting forward, to keep from fucking Shane’s mouth like he desperately wanted to.
Shane wasn’t holding him back, but Brendon didn’t want to be rude. This wasn’t some girl he’d picked up with the express intention of fucking and leaving. This wasn’t a sure bet, either. This was Shane, Shane who Brendon was maybe a little in love with and Shane who still hadn’t said anything yet about how he felt. Brendon felt the need to be careful, to tread lightly, and even though his muscles quivered with the effort, he kept his hips mostly still.
Brendon wasn’t sure, but he thought maybe Shane rewarded him for his restraint when he cupped one of Brendon’s hips in his free palm and took Brendon in so far he bumped the back of Shane’s throat. Shane sucked harder and Brendon’s eyes fell shut, his hands gripping Shane’s hair, holding and not pushing, just seeking any kind of anchor at all.
It seemed to last forever, the sharp pleasure of being enveloped in Shane’s wickedly clever mouth. Brendon was moaning loudly, shapeless sounds punctuated by Shane’s name and a litany of curses. This time, when Brendon felt his orgasm begin to build low and fast, Shane didn’t try to put it off. He just sucked harder and when Brendon tugged on his hair to warn him, he didn’t move away.
Brendon bit down on his bottom lip and came with a strangled sound, his whole body shaking while Shane sucked him through it. Brendon’s knees felt like Jell-O when Shane got to his feet and swallowed. They stared at each other for a moment, both of them breathless, until Brendon realized Shane was waiting for him.
He reached out to grip the back of Shane’s neck and pull him in for a kiss that was wet and dirty and sloppy and perfect. Shane kept his body angled away from Brendon, like he didn’t want to scare him, but Brendon reached out and thumbed open Shane’s jeans easily. He pulled out of the kiss to lick his palm and then he was pushing his hand past Shane’s boxers to grip his cock.
It wasn’t the most coordinated Brendon had ever been, but he built up a hard, fast rhythm, twisting his hand on the upstroke and working Shane as well as he knew how. Shane had his mouth to Brendon’s shoulder, hips thrusting into the circle of Brendon’s fist. It didn’t last long; it was like Shane had been so worked up over blowing Brendon that it only took a few strokes before he was spilling into Brendon’s hand.
How Brendon remained upright after that, he couldn’t quite figure out. Between the wall at his back and Shane in his arms, he managed somehow. They stood, quiet, until their breathing evened out and then Shane tugged Brendon into the bathroom for a shower. It was strangely intimate, even moreso than what they’d just done, to let Shane wash his back and his hair and press wet, warm kisses to his belly.
After, they curled up in bed with Brendon on his side and Shane spooned up snugly behind him.
Shane said, “you’re not gonna have another crisis of sexuality and make me wake up alone again, are you?”
Brendon laughed and rubbed his face in his pillow before answering. “No, I don’t think so.”
Shane nodded, chin moving against the top of Brendon’s head. “What about Ryan?”
The question should have been more awkward than it was, but Shane had always been pretty in-tune with Brendon’s relationships with his band and their feelings for each other. Brendon was pretty sure that was part of the reason he always came back to them, because he found them interesting, because he got them on some level.
“That was never going to be anything,” Brendon answered.
Shane made a soft sound and they fell silent. Brendon was half-asleep and the words were soft, but he thought he heard Shane whisper, “I don’t know if anyone ever told him that.”
But by the time Brendon drifted off, he decided he’d made it up completely.
_._
Brendon got out of spending Christmas with his family by some kind of wacky luck. They’d made plans to go out of town and spend the holiday with one of Brendon’s brothers instead of sticking around and Brendon was invited, obviously, but that made it easier to feign sickness and opt to stay home. His parents called on Christmas morning anyway, and Brendon took the call while Shane made chocolate-chip pancakes.
It made his heart ache a little to not be with them, but it was for the best. Besides, Shane was here, and Spencer and Haley and Ryan and Keltie was in town, too. Brendon was, according to the calendar in the kitchen, officially six months and a few days pregnant. It was a little hard to believe, but he was beginning to feel almost confident about the next four months, like maybe he actually would make it and the baby would, too.
The day was pretty lazy as far as Christmases went. Brendon and Shane exchanged gifts and watched the Christmas movies that came on tv and were debating what to get for dinner when people started showing up. Spencer was first, Haley in tow, followed quickly by Ryan and Keltie. They’d all had Christmas dinner the night before with Spencer’s family.
“Tonight we’re all yours,” Spencer said with a smile. “What are we having?”
“General Tso’s Chicken,” Brendon said with raised eyebrows, “because I can’t pull a Christmas turkey out of my ass.”
They settled down in the living room with takeout menus being passed between them. While they decided what to order, Keltie sat next to Brendon and looked down at his belly. He was pretty obviously pregnant now, although when he wore his baggiest shirts he looked a little like he’d just gotten a really, really big beer-belly overnight. He was wearing a shirt that didn’t let him hide, though, because he didn’t really feel like he had to here.
“Can I?” Keltie asked softly, reaching out and stopping short of actually touching him.
Brendon nodded and grabbed her hand, pulling it the rest of the way. She touched him gingerly. The baby had been quiet most of the day, but Brendon felt a little movement when Spencer laughed loudly from where he was sitting. Keltie frowned a little, like she couldn’t quite feel anything, and Brendon smiled to himself, reaching down to press just the right spot and there, like it had been tickled, the baby moved again.
“Oh,” Keltie breathed, bringing her other hand up and flattening them both against Brendon’s belly. She pressed a little harder and there was more movement, a little roll, maybe, or a flip.
Her eyes were wide, her lips soft and parted, and when she looked up at Brendon her expression was completely open and overwhelmed.
“You’re beautiful. Can I take you home with me?” she asked.
“He’s kind of gassy,” Shane piped up, “so you probably don’t want to do that.
Brendon kicked out at him. “Shut up!”
“It’s okay,” Keltie said, leaning closer to him so that she was talking mostly to the baby. “I’ve spent the night with Ryan after he’s been to Taco Bell with the munchies. I can handle it.”
Brendon laughed and Keltie looked up. There was a curiosity in her eyes that Brendon had never noticed before and when he gazed back at her, it cleared and she smiled in some kind of understanding that Brendon didn’t quite get. She leaned back in and rubbed his belly once, breaking the moment, and Brendon let it slip to the back of his mind.
They called Jon in Chicago where it sounded like he was in the middle of a train station (“Just Walker Family Central,” he assured them.) and about ten minutes after the food arrived, there was a knock on the door. Shane rolled to his feet to answer and the entirety of The Cab piled in, bearing gifts and looking a little contrite. Brendon hadn’t talked to any of them since he and Shane had broken the news. It hadn’t gone over so well at the time. The only one who hadn’t said something stupid or reacted pretty violently to hearing about it had been Ian; Brendon figured that was probably because he knew Shane so well.
Ian was the first one through the door. He grinned at everyone in greeting wandered into the living room, finding a seat next to Ryan and peering into the endless array of food cartons.
“Oh, what’s for dinner?” he asked, reaching for Ryan’s plate.
“Yeah, no,” he said, leaning away, “nothing for you.”
Ian pouted at him and said, “I’ll get Spencer to feed me.”
Spencer snorted and tried to evade Ian’s gimme-grabby hands as the rest of the guys edged into the room. Cash and Singer were the two most reluctant to walk in. Brendon looked up at them and sighed, setting aside his food and getting to his feet. He walked over to where they were lingering on the outskirts of the room and let them stare in shock at his midsection.
“Crazy, huh?” Brendon said, stopping just in front of them.
“Yeah,” Cash said, voice low. He lifted his head slowly, heart on his sleeve like always, and said, “dude, I was such an asshole.”
It was the only kind of apology Brendon was going to get from him, but he took it for what it was and said, “whatever, it’s fine.”
Singer was biting his lip and when he finally spoke, it was a simple, “I’m sorry.”
And yeah, that was fine, too. They attacked Brendon with hugs when he smiled at them, careful of his belly but not so mindful of how tight they squeezed or where their chins and elbows ended up. It was nice. Brendon had missed them.
The night ended with all of them squished onto the couch and sprawled on the floor watching movies and picking up an eleven person commentary on whatever was on. It was a pretty unconventional Christmas, even for them, but it made Brendon feel more at home than he would have if he’d been stuck hiding his body away from his family.
It felt weird, sometimes, to think about but dozing off on Shane with Ryan and Spencer’s laughter warming the room and Ian and Johnson having some kind of tussle on the floor while Singer and Keltie mangled the lyrics of songs from A Chorus Line . . . having them all there, knowing Haley was pressed to Spencer’s side and that Cash and Marshall were close enough to touch and Jon was just a phone call away, it made Brendon realize he had more than one family. He always knew it, but in that moment it felt more real than anything had in a long time.
The baby gave a sleepy roll of agreement and Brendon pressed his smile to Shane’s shoulder.
_._
“Buying a house is fucking hard. How’d you do it?”
Brendon had the phone cradled between his shoulder and his ear and stared down at the papers strewn across the coffee table. They were all marked in different sets of handwriting. Ryan’s scrawl was discernible once or twice. Spencer’s was on a majority of them, along with notes and comments in the margins of the listings. Shane’s was even more prominent than Spencer’s, showing up on every single ad with more notes and comments and, sometimes, stick figures.
He could practically hear Spencer’s shrug. “Found a place that fit all my requirements and bought it. It wasn’t that hard.”
Brendon rolled his eyes. Of course it had been easy for Spencer, Spencer who was organized and good at this shit. It had probably been easy for Ryan, too, to find a place that suited his strange and somewhat abstract tastes. They’d been shopping with a different mentality than Brendon. He had to find a place and it had to be big enough and it had to be warm and open and inviting and it had to be perfect.
Brendon wasn’t sure, but he thought maybe he was in the early nesting stages.
“Do you think this is stupid?” he asked.
“Your place is kinda small,” Spencer hedged, even though they both knew it was more than big enough for two men to live in.
“You know what I mean,” Brendon said, eyeing one promising house in particular.
“I think it’s a good idea to keep your options open,” Spencer said slowly. “It never hurts to be prepared. But . . . you’ve already made your decision, haven’t you?”
Not really, Brendon wanted to say. Not at all. He felt like he hadn’t made a significant decision since telling everyone that there was no way in hell he was getting an abortion. But here he was, looking at houses instead of prospective, adoptive parents. He hadn’t told anyone, but he’d glanced at agencies and families and had spent a good two weeks on the road buried in his bunk, pretending to sleep but going over the option in his head.
Realistically, it was probably the best course of action, and certainly the least selfish. Brendon wasn’t qualified to take care of a kid. He was too young to know what the fuck he was doing and had no real experience with anything like this. He had his friends to help out, but none of them had a real clue, either. They were already flying blind, and Brendon knew that wasn’t going to change.
But he’d stopped looking at adoption as a viable option, making the excuse of avoiding having to make the decision, and now here he was, looking at houses with enough bedrooms and space and hunting down something with a fucking backyard because a kid had to have a backyard to play in and there was no way this was going to work out, but maybe Spencer was right. Brendon had made his decision.
“Clearly, I’m insane,” Brendon muttered.
“It’s all those baby-making hormones,” Spencer teased, pausing before adding, “is Shane moving in with you?”
Brendon flopped back on the couch with a gusty sigh. “We haven’t really talked about it but . . . yes?”
“Don’t ask me,” Spencer said.
It wasn’t something they’d discussed explicitly. Everything between them seemed to be largely unspoken, down to the part where Brendon had pretty much moved into Shane’s bedroom and they were . . . not quite dating, but not quite not-dating either.
Shane certainly seemed on board with keeping the current living situation. Brendon expected that would change eventually, when Shane realized what he was getting himself into. It was hard to imagine not living with Shane, though, especially after everything that had happened, and Brendon certainly didn’t want to be alone.
“Well, I’m pretty sure, yes,” Brendon said.
“That’s good,” Spencer said.
Brendon bit his lip and tapped his fingers against his knee. “Spence, if I told you Shane and I are kind of . . . together, what would you think?”
Spencer was quiet for a moment and then he said, “I wouldn’t freak out, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Yeah, but-”
“Brendon,” Spencer interrupted, “it’s not a big deal. If you’re happy, I’m happy. And I know Jon and Ryan would be with me on this.”
Brendon closed his eyes and nodded even though Spencer couldn’t see it.
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay,” Spencer said, and that was that.
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