Mini-fic for the Badass Engagement Elephant 'Verse: Brendon/Ryan Story
Title: Mini-fic for the Badass Engagement Elephant 'Verse: Brendon/Ryan
Author: Elucreh
Rating: PG
Pairing: Brendon/Ryan (background other)
Notes: This is an installment in the Badass Engagement Elephant 'Verse; in other words, this is the sandbox of sociofemme and liketheroad, and harriet_vane's sandcastle. They just let me shape the turret. Also, it will make no sense if you don't read the rest of the 'verse first. Go on, I'll wait.
It's a rainy day when Brendon knows he has to tell his parents.
They've been dancing around it for a while, he and Ryan, moments where they're standing too close together, touches that linger a little too long or get jerked back fast and scared. Spencer's been rolling his eyes a lot and Jon's got his most knowing grin and nobody, just nobody at Tune In can resist winking at them when they bend over the same guitar. (They are the worst-kept secret in the place, at least the five-year-old little newbies don't know about Jon and Spencer; last week when he was teaching Amanda to play the simple melody of "A Dream Is a Wish" on the piano she asked if his heart made a wish about Ryan when he went to sleep.)
But it's new (at the same time he's always known) and a little scary and he doesn't know what he's doing, here, and nothing's happened yet.
They stayed late, helping Bob and Brian close up for the night, and Spencer's their ride home, so they wait on the little sheltered stoop outside for him, huddled together a little. Ryan's just said something deadpan and hilarious about Nate hitting Spencer's drums, and Brendon cracks up.
Ryan smiles at him, pleased with himself, and Brendon catches his breath at the sight of that grin, at Ryan's face shining in the streetlight, spattered with rain. All of a sudden he thinks, I know what to do, I can do this, this is easy and he almost, almost just tries to catch Ryan's mouth with his.
But the other reason he hasn't done this slams up in front of his face, and he doesn't. He doesn't want his memories of this tangled up with the memories of what he has to do.
"Brendon?"
"I'm okay," he assures Ryan hastily. "I just remembered something I gotta tell my mom, that's all."
Luckily Spencer pulls up just then, and it's clambering into the car and fighting over the radio and pouting when they overrule him like they always do, and he gets home in one piece and marches straight in to the kitchen where his dad is helping his mom chop up vegetables for stir fry.
About half an hour later, he bolts out again, snatches up his bookbag, and storms out.
*~*~*~*
In that first flurry of being found out as a runaway and a disgrace, Ryan is awesome. Spencer and Jon are too, of course, and God, he'll never come close to repaying the Bryar-Toros in any way, but Ryan is just...amazing. He's just there, quiet but solid, the one thing Brendon feels safe in clinging to.
If he has Ryan, it's worth it.
He has to keep trying with his parents, though, he has to, because the thought of losing them makes his stomach clench up. He calls once a week, and every once in a while he tries going back to them, but after a few days have gone by they'll have missionaries or church officials "coincidentally" showing up to invite him to church or offer to pray with him and he'll lose patience and say that he doesn't want to change, goddammit, that he's happy, that this is who he is, and his mother will tear up and his father will go all stern and unhappy, and Brendon will slink back home, worn out, sad again.
Generally speaking, as soon as he's come back and spent a nice soothing half hour braiding Maddy's hair, D'Andre leaning against his side as he works, Jon and Spencer and Ryan will all "coincidentally" show up, just like the missionaries, but he likes the backup Bob and Ray call out much better. They all sprawl out in the living room and talk about nothing, like always, except that instead of being spread out like four nearly-grown people, across the room, somehow all of them wind up on the couch, everybody touching Brendon, at least a little.
One night it's a Friday when he gets back, and they can stay late because nobody has school in the morning. They talk for hours, until Brendon gets to the point where he's all tired and rambly. They were all busy with waffles and kids when he told Ray why he left, and they don't know if he's even said a word about his problems to anybody, so Jon subtly steers him to say stuff about his family. They all think he should be talking about it.
He talks for a while, about what he can understand and what he just can't, what he misses and how glad he is that at least he has people who do love him, and somewhere in that whole mess comes out, "it's just so stupid that after all the times I got lectured and then ignored when it came to my choice in music and my choice in going to church stuff they threw me out over being gay. I didn't choose that."
Brendon's pretty far gone by that point, and he doesn't notice the way Ryan stiffens up or the guilt-ridden expression on his face.
Neither do Spencer and Jon, because they're exchanging looks over Brendon's head. They all fall asleep in a pile again, and wake up when D'Andre jumps on top of Brendon and knocks the breath out of him the next morning.
Ray's cooking in the kitchen again, and they all wander in, sleepy-eyed and scratching, and offer to help, but Ray turns them down because they're so sleepy they'd burn the pancakes, and they settle at the kitchen table. Brendon automatically leans toward Ryan, to rest his head on Ryan's shoulder, and he nearly falls off his chair when Ryan isn't there. Ryan is clear over there and listening to Jon telling D'Andre about the noble and ancient Order of the Waffle Ninjas, and Brendon pouts a little, but it's a good story and he can see why Ryan would be leaning that way instead.
Only from then on Ryan always seems to be leaning some way that isn't towards Brendon.
It takes Brendon a couple of days to realize that it must be on purpose, because no way would Ryan just happen to want to help the little kids on Tuesday. Tuesday is their day, their duet day, because the two best guitars are always free and Jon has a break between two official classes and can play with them for half an hour instead of teaching. But today the second-best guitar (the prettiest guitar) is just hanging on its stand, sort of lonely-looking, and Ryan is across the room, in the little side-room with the eight-year-old guitar class.
Brendon sits there absently strumming for a little while, putting the pieces together, realizing Ryan hasn't touched him or even cuddled unless forcibly held down since Friday night. In the meantime, Spencer looks back and forth between Brendon and the door to the class, keeping a beat for Brian's class to follow and trying to figure out what the hell is going on. By the time Jon escapes his first class in the lesson room back by the office, Brendon's all but stopped playing.
Jon looks to Spencer first, of course, to grin hello, but Spencer's still glaring suspiciously at Brendon. He follows Spencer's gaze, and Brendon looks like he's lost at sea without any driftwood to keep him afloat. It takes Jon about three seconds to realize that the prettiest guitar is still on its stand, and he hurries toward Brendon, only shooting one more quick glance at Spencer.
When Ryan and Brendon fight, Jon always takes Brendon's side, partly because Ryan automatically gets Spencer and it's more fair, but mostly because Jon and Brendon adore one another in that mostly-platonic-but-devoted way that means they'll be just as close as Spencer and Ryan when they've had enough time to learn each others' quirks completely. Jon doesn't think he wants to call Spencer in for consulting until he's heard Brendon's side of it.
But Brendon doesn't have a side of it, really, and Jon snags Spencer as soon as Brian's class ends.
"What the hell--" they both ask at the same time, and stop, and make faces.
"He has no clue, okay?"
Spencer nods and goes to sit outside the guitar class door, and Jon goes back to snuggle up against Brendon's side.
But Ryan won't say anything, and when Spencer steals his lyrics notebook they're so obscure that Spencer has to give up in disgust.
They spend two days like that, Brendon trying really hard to pretend that he doesn't mind that Ryan won't be alone with him or touch him anymore and Ryan ducking his head and saying pretty much nothing whenever anybody talks to him, but following Brendon everywhere with his eyes. Jon and Spencer are going nuts, and the entire staff of Tune In are half watching it like a soap opera and half trying really hard to stop themselves from interfering. Bob, in particular, is having a really hard time restraining himself, and he finally gave up and made Pete promise to protect Ryan. He knows Pete will, because Ryan is his own precious star, and if there are sides in this thing Pete is automatically on Ryan's, just like Spencer. Pete gives his solemn vow and, okay, he's theatrical about it, but he keeps Bob away from Ryan when he's got Papa Bear written all over his face.
(Pete would probably have better luck interpreting Ryan's lyrics than anybody, but Ryan stole them back before Spencer could give the notebook to him, and they're back at square one.)
Thursday is the Bryar-Toro kids' day at Tune In. Both of the kids have been aware that Brendon is really sad, lately, a different kind of sad than his family makes him, and it only takes D'Andre about fifteen minutes of watching the room from behind a xylophone to go over and whisper to Maddy.
Maddy's little hands freeze on her guitar and she shoots just one, "Really?" glance at her brother before she's setting it aside and walking over to Ryan, where he's sitting in on Spencer's rhythm class for the seven-year-olds.
"Brendon's sad," she says, conversationally.
Ryan ducks his head and nods.
"Brendon's really sad," she repeats, meaningfully.
Ryan nods again.
She sighs with exasperation. "Why are you making Brendon be sad, Ryan Ross?"
"You wouldn't understand, Maddy."
"Oh, try me," she says, exactly like Bob, and Ryan can't help but grin a little.
"Look, Maddy, I promise, I promise he'll stop being sad in a little while. Okay? Give it a little time. Everything's gonna work out for him."
Maddy scowls. "That doesn't even make sense, Ryan."
"It's true, though."
She throws her hands up in disgust-again, exactly like Bob, which is ridiculously adorable-and marches off to the piano, throwing her arms around Brendon and glaring at Ryan. Brendon looks down and gives the top of her head that little unbelieving smile he always gives her when she's affectionate and goes on playing the complicated parts of "Once Upon a Dream" while Amanda plays the simple melody.
Ryan watches Brendon's hands for a long while before he can make himself look away. Spencer catches him at it.
"Everything's gonna work out for him, Ryan?" Spencer asks when the kids break for crackers and juice.
"It will." Ryan's got his pigheaded expression on.
"What about for you?"
"It's not important."
*~*~*~*
Brendon goes back to his family the next Saturday; his niece is getting baptized. It's just important to her, okay? But he comes to Tune In straight from the ceremony and sits huddled in a corner, miserable and quiet. Jon is busy in the back and doesn't see him, and Spencer just gives Ryan blank looks when Ryan tries to tell him to go over there with his eyebrows (Spencer cannot be on Ryan's side if it means being okay with Ryan hurting, all right?), so Ryan has to give in and go to Brendon himself. Only, you know, it is awkward, because omg Ryan has barely spoken to him in a week.
But Brendon just gloms onto him and holds on tight-tight-tight and buries his face in Ryan's neck, and Ryan is totally not proof against a Brendon who is this openly miserable, not even pretending to be all right, because who could be? Except his family who obviously suck.
Ryan hugs him back and thinks about that for a while, because really if they can resist giving Brendon cuddles when he's about to cry then maybe they're not very good for him, so maybe it's better if Brendon can just learn to do without them, instead of doing without Ryan? Because at least Ryan hugs Brendon when he needs it, and if Brendon had to pick then probably it was smart of him to pick Ryan, because Brendon needs cuddles more than food, more than air probably.
He looks down at Brendon, curled up against his side, with big sad eyes looking up at Ryan like he thinks Ryan can make things better, and maybe, just maybe Ryan can. A little.
He bends his head and kisses Brendon softly, and when he pulls back Brendon's whole face has lit up, and hey, Ryan did that, he made Brendon so happy, and he has to do it again, and they're kissing, really kissing, deep and strong and so eager. Distantly Ryan hears a whoooop and he gets that they're not really in their own tiny little world, they're having their first kiss in front of God and Spence and Pete and everybody, in the middle of the Saturday rush at Tune In, with an audience of like forty people including six people under the age of seven, but he so cannot even care, because he's kissing Brendon, and Brendon is happy like he hasn't been in months, just because Ryan is kissing him.
Author: Elucreh
Rating: PG
Pairing: Brendon/Ryan (background other)
Notes: This is an installment in the Badass Engagement Elephant 'Verse; in other words, this is the sandbox of sociofemme and liketheroad, and harriet_vane's sandcastle. They just let me shape the turret. Also, it will make no sense if you don't read the rest of the 'verse first. Go on, I'll wait.
It's a rainy day when Brendon knows he has to tell his parents.
They've been dancing around it for a while, he and Ryan, moments where they're standing too close together, touches that linger a little too long or get jerked back fast and scared. Spencer's been rolling his eyes a lot and Jon's got his most knowing grin and nobody, just nobody at Tune In can resist winking at them when they bend over the same guitar. (They are the worst-kept secret in the place, at least the five-year-old little newbies don't know about Jon and Spencer; last week when he was teaching Amanda to play the simple melody of "A Dream Is a Wish" on the piano she asked if his heart made a wish about Ryan when he went to sleep.)
But it's new (at the same time he's always known) and a little scary and he doesn't know what he's doing, here, and nothing's happened yet.
They stayed late, helping Bob and Brian close up for the night, and Spencer's their ride home, so they wait on the little sheltered stoop outside for him, huddled together a little. Ryan's just said something deadpan and hilarious about Nate hitting Spencer's drums, and Brendon cracks up.
Ryan smiles at him, pleased with himself, and Brendon catches his breath at the sight of that grin, at Ryan's face shining in the streetlight, spattered with rain. All of a sudden he thinks, I know what to do, I can do this, this is easy and he almost, almost just tries to catch Ryan's mouth with his.
But the other reason he hasn't done this slams up in front of his face, and he doesn't. He doesn't want his memories of this tangled up with the memories of what he has to do.
"Brendon?"
"I'm okay," he assures Ryan hastily. "I just remembered something I gotta tell my mom, that's all."
Luckily Spencer pulls up just then, and it's clambering into the car and fighting over the radio and pouting when they overrule him like they always do, and he gets home in one piece and marches straight in to the kitchen where his dad is helping his mom chop up vegetables for stir fry.
About half an hour later, he bolts out again, snatches up his bookbag, and storms out.
*~*~*~*
In that first flurry of being found out as a runaway and a disgrace, Ryan is awesome. Spencer and Jon are too, of course, and God, he'll never come close to repaying the Bryar-Toros in any way, but Ryan is just...amazing. He's just there, quiet but solid, the one thing Brendon feels safe in clinging to.
If he has Ryan, it's worth it.
He has to keep trying with his parents, though, he has to, because the thought of losing them makes his stomach clench up. He calls once a week, and every once in a while he tries going back to them, but after a few days have gone by they'll have missionaries or church officials "coincidentally" showing up to invite him to church or offer to pray with him and he'll lose patience and say that he doesn't want to change, goddammit, that he's happy, that this is who he is, and his mother will tear up and his father will go all stern and unhappy, and Brendon will slink back home, worn out, sad again.
Generally speaking, as soon as he's come back and spent a nice soothing half hour braiding Maddy's hair, D'Andre leaning against his side as he works, Jon and Spencer and Ryan will all "coincidentally" show up, just like the missionaries, but he likes the backup Bob and Ray call out much better. They all sprawl out in the living room and talk about nothing, like always, except that instead of being spread out like four nearly-grown people, across the room, somehow all of them wind up on the couch, everybody touching Brendon, at least a little.
One night it's a Friday when he gets back, and they can stay late because nobody has school in the morning. They talk for hours, until Brendon gets to the point where he's all tired and rambly. They were all busy with waffles and kids when he told Ray why he left, and they don't know if he's even said a word about his problems to anybody, so Jon subtly steers him to say stuff about his family. They all think he should be talking about it.
He talks for a while, about what he can understand and what he just can't, what he misses and how glad he is that at least he has people who do love him, and somewhere in that whole mess comes out, "it's just so stupid that after all the times I got lectured and then ignored when it came to my choice in music and my choice in going to church stuff they threw me out over being gay. I didn't choose that."
Brendon's pretty far gone by that point, and he doesn't notice the way Ryan stiffens up or the guilt-ridden expression on his face.
Neither do Spencer and Jon, because they're exchanging looks over Brendon's head. They all fall asleep in a pile again, and wake up when D'Andre jumps on top of Brendon and knocks the breath out of him the next morning.
Ray's cooking in the kitchen again, and they all wander in, sleepy-eyed and scratching, and offer to help, but Ray turns them down because they're so sleepy they'd burn the pancakes, and they settle at the kitchen table. Brendon automatically leans toward Ryan, to rest his head on Ryan's shoulder, and he nearly falls off his chair when Ryan isn't there. Ryan is clear over there and listening to Jon telling D'Andre about the noble and ancient Order of the Waffle Ninjas, and Brendon pouts a little, but it's a good story and he can see why Ryan would be leaning that way instead.
Only from then on Ryan always seems to be leaning some way that isn't towards Brendon.
It takes Brendon a couple of days to realize that it must be on purpose, because no way would Ryan just happen to want to help the little kids on Tuesday. Tuesday is their day, their duet day, because the two best guitars are always free and Jon has a break between two official classes and can play with them for half an hour instead of teaching. But today the second-best guitar (the prettiest guitar) is just hanging on its stand, sort of lonely-looking, and Ryan is across the room, in the little side-room with the eight-year-old guitar class.
Brendon sits there absently strumming for a little while, putting the pieces together, realizing Ryan hasn't touched him or even cuddled unless forcibly held down since Friday night. In the meantime, Spencer looks back and forth between Brendon and the door to the class, keeping a beat for Brian's class to follow and trying to figure out what the hell is going on. By the time Jon escapes his first class in the lesson room back by the office, Brendon's all but stopped playing.
Jon looks to Spencer first, of course, to grin hello, but Spencer's still glaring suspiciously at Brendon. He follows Spencer's gaze, and Brendon looks like he's lost at sea without any driftwood to keep him afloat. It takes Jon about three seconds to realize that the prettiest guitar is still on its stand, and he hurries toward Brendon, only shooting one more quick glance at Spencer.
When Ryan and Brendon fight, Jon always takes Brendon's side, partly because Ryan automatically gets Spencer and it's more fair, but mostly because Jon and Brendon adore one another in that mostly-platonic-but-devoted way that means they'll be just as close as Spencer and Ryan when they've had enough time to learn each others' quirks completely. Jon doesn't think he wants to call Spencer in for consulting until he's heard Brendon's side of it.
But Brendon doesn't have a side of it, really, and Jon snags Spencer as soon as Brian's class ends.
"What the hell--" they both ask at the same time, and stop, and make faces.
"He has no clue, okay?"
Spencer nods and goes to sit outside the guitar class door, and Jon goes back to snuggle up against Brendon's side.
But Ryan won't say anything, and when Spencer steals his lyrics notebook they're so obscure that Spencer has to give up in disgust.
They spend two days like that, Brendon trying really hard to pretend that he doesn't mind that Ryan won't be alone with him or touch him anymore and Ryan ducking his head and saying pretty much nothing whenever anybody talks to him, but following Brendon everywhere with his eyes. Jon and Spencer are going nuts, and the entire staff of Tune In are half watching it like a soap opera and half trying really hard to stop themselves from interfering. Bob, in particular, is having a really hard time restraining himself, and he finally gave up and made Pete promise to protect Ryan. He knows Pete will, because Ryan is his own precious star, and if there are sides in this thing Pete is automatically on Ryan's, just like Spencer. Pete gives his solemn vow and, okay, he's theatrical about it, but he keeps Bob away from Ryan when he's got Papa Bear written all over his face.
(Pete would probably have better luck interpreting Ryan's lyrics than anybody, but Ryan stole them back before Spencer could give the notebook to him, and they're back at square one.)
Thursday is the Bryar-Toro kids' day at Tune In. Both of the kids have been aware that Brendon is really sad, lately, a different kind of sad than his family makes him, and it only takes D'Andre about fifteen minutes of watching the room from behind a xylophone to go over and whisper to Maddy.
Maddy's little hands freeze on her guitar and she shoots just one, "Really?" glance at her brother before she's setting it aside and walking over to Ryan, where he's sitting in on Spencer's rhythm class for the seven-year-olds.
"Brendon's sad," she says, conversationally.
Ryan ducks his head and nods.
"Brendon's really sad," she repeats, meaningfully.
Ryan nods again.
She sighs with exasperation. "Why are you making Brendon be sad, Ryan Ross?"
"You wouldn't understand, Maddy."
"Oh, try me," she says, exactly like Bob, and Ryan can't help but grin a little.
"Look, Maddy, I promise, I promise he'll stop being sad in a little while. Okay? Give it a little time. Everything's gonna work out for him."
Maddy scowls. "That doesn't even make sense, Ryan."
"It's true, though."
She throws her hands up in disgust-again, exactly like Bob, which is ridiculously adorable-and marches off to the piano, throwing her arms around Brendon and glaring at Ryan. Brendon looks down and gives the top of her head that little unbelieving smile he always gives her when she's affectionate and goes on playing the complicated parts of "Once Upon a Dream" while Amanda plays the simple melody.
Ryan watches Brendon's hands for a long while before he can make himself look away. Spencer catches him at it.
"Everything's gonna work out for him, Ryan?" Spencer asks when the kids break for crackers and juice.
"It will." Ryan's got his pigheaded expression on.
"What about for you?"
"It's not important."
*~*~*~*
Brendon goes back to his family the next Saturday; his niece is getting baptized. It's just important to her, okay? But he comes to Tune In straight from the ceremony and sits huddled in a corner, miserable and quiet. Jon is busy in the back and doesn't see him, and Spencer just gives Ryan blank looks when Ryan tries to tell him to go over there with his eyebrows (Spencer cannot be on Ryan's side if it means being okay with Ryan hurting, all right?), so Ryan has to give in and go to Brendon himself. Only, you know, it is awkward, because omg Ryan has barely spoken to him in a week.
But Brendon just gloms onto him and holds on tight-tight-tight and buries his face in Ryan's neck, and Ryan is totally not proof against a Brendon who is this openly miserable, not even pretending to be all right, because who could be? Except his family who obviously suck.
Ryan hugs him back and thinks about that for a while, because really if they can resist giving Brendon cuddles when he's about to cry then maybe they're not very good for him, so maybe it's better if Brendon can just learn to do without them, instead of doing without Ryan? Because at least Ryan hugs Brendon when he needs it, and if Brendon had to pick then probably it was smart of him to pick Ryan, because Brendon needs cuddles more than food, more than air probably.
He looks down at Brendon, curled up against his side, with big sad eyes looking up at Ryan like he thinks Ryan can make things better, and maybe, just maybe Ryan can. A little.
He bends his head and kisses Brendon softly, and when he pulls back Brendon's whole face has lit up, and hey, Ryan did that, he made Brendon so happy, and he has to do it again, and they're kissing, really kissing, deep and strong and so eager. Distantly Ryan hears a whoooop and he gets that they're not really in their own tiny little world, they're having their first kiss in front of God and Spence and Pete and everybody, in the middle of the Saturday rush at Tune In, with an audience of like forty people including six people under the age of seven, but he so cannot even care, because he's kissing Brendon, and Brendon is happy like he hasn't been in months, just because Ryan is kissing him.