fic: Your Mouth is Wine
Title: Your Mouth is Wine
Author:
qtlymakingnoise
Rating: PG
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon
Summary: On Christmas, Ryan can't help missing Brendon.
Word Count: ~3000
Disclaimer: I own none of the people involved in this story, and none of it actually happened.
Author Notes: Much love to Tess, relaxrelapsex, for pushing me to write this, and then giving me feedback once I did. And to Ryan and Vicky for documenting their holiday hooliganry.
Ryan can hear the party even from inside Vicky's bathroom. There are candles everywhere, cranberry scented, something to remind everyone that it's Christmas, Jesus-is-the-reason-for-the-season, Happy Holidays, et cetera. It makes him think of Christmases in the Smith household, with gingerbread cookies and peppermint candy canes.
He remembers when he was thirteen and his father let him spend the day and night with Spencer and his family. He remembers already having a place at the table when he got there, even though he wasn't officially expected, and having almost as many presents under the tree as Spencer. He didn't have a stocking over the fireplace, but he kind of thought that the idyllic yule log and nativity scene in the corner made up for it.
He remembers when he was twenty, and Brendon was there. Spencer was, too, but Jon wasn't. Jon was in Chicago. He remembers the table, long and set out with more food than he had ever seen before, with him, Brendon, and the Smiths all crowded around it. Brendon wasn't there officially. He had already spent most of the day with his own family, but he had shown up tired looking and smiling forcibly, so Ryan opened the door and guided Brendon in with a soft hand at the small of his back. Smiling softer, Brendon had ran his fingers across his side while Ginger and the twins greeted him exuberantly.
They were never anything but welcoming.
But now, things are different. Spencer is visiting his family, back in Vegas, truckstops and statelines away from him, and Brendon was probably cuddled up with Sarah in their home.
Their home, he thought, and for a moment, he wondered how he could have shared that apartment with Brendon, back before recording Fever, and lived on a tour bus for months on end, and co-habitated in that cramped, homely cabin for an entire season, and yet none of them had been homes. They had never shared a home.
He had heard, once, that it's the people that make a house a home.
Shaking his head, he leans over the sink, turning the cold water on and splashing his face. He tries to shock his system into ignoring the pang of longing at the pit of his stomach. He tries to shake away the fact that he's spent every Christmas with Brendon since he met him. He tries to recognize that Vicky has thrown a great party, with some of his favorite people out there, singing and drinking and laughing, and those are all things he loves to do.
Pulling out his phone, he goes into his inbox. Merry Christmas! Mom misses you and sends her love. The text is from Spencer, a pleasant, though not entirely unexpected, surprise. He had sent back love and well wishes, and took a moment to be thankful that he was at least talking to Spencer again. There had been a few long months of resounding radio silence, something entirely unfamiliar to him. He had spent years in Spencer's pocket, making him coffee before he asked and passing milk and cereal over the table like it was a rehearsed dance. It had made him feel like his skin was too tight, like a favorite sweater had shrunk in the wash, but he couldn't bear to give it up.
But that was over, now. Now, he could send texts and pictures and emails, and they'd even meet up for dinner, if they were both conveniently without plans. It could be worse.
Brendon was a different matter. They were no longer giving each other the silent treatment, thankfully, though that had always been Brendon's go-to punishment for Ryan. It had been different with Spencer and Jon, less personal, just some expression of anger and apologies, then business as usual, but with Ryan, Brendon was different. He took everything more personally. And if Ryan had upset him, then Brendon was just that: upset. Quietly so. He'd stiffen his shoulders and straighten his back, and ignore, ignore, ignore. It frustrated Ryan to no end, because that wasn't Brendon. Brendon didn't do passive aggressive, normally he had no compunctions about articulating and expressing his feelings, wearing his heart on his sleeve. But not for Ryan. Ryan liked to pretend that that didn't cut a little deeply.
So Brendon was no longer giving him the silent treatment, but there wasn't the ease of communication as with Spencer. Ryan thought that it might have something to do with how they had left it, once the band had split. Ryan and Brendon hadn't discussed it at all, so prickly and angry with each other, roiling with turmoil and frustration, and an overwhelming, ominous sense of inevitable loss, like their time was coming to an end and they knew it, but they didn't know what to do about it, or even if they wanted to. Like their window of opportunity was closing.
But that didn't quite make sense, Ryan mused, because their window of opportunity, if they ever had one, had been long closed. Ryan was busy fucking everything up with Keltie, had been for years, and Brendon was steadily growing more and more defensive, more closed off and fuck you, I can do it myself. Ryan didn't even think he'd want an opportunity with that Brendon.
That didn't mean that the lack of contact from Brendon didn't sting.
When his thumb goes to Create a new text message and he types out, Hey. Merry Christmas, he decides not to think about it too much, not to think about how his heart is beating inordinately loudly, or how he can feel anticipation for a reply building in his stomach already. He stares at his reflection in the mirror, his newly straightened hair, his rounded cheeks, and wonders at the contrast between a year ago, when his hair was long and untamed, three years ago, when it was cropped short and harsh, five years ago when it was artfully sculpted.
His phone buzzes mutely and his heart stutters uncomfortably.
Merry Christmas. How are you?
He thinks about typing back, quickly and honestly, Lonely, but he remembers how in the last few months of their working relationship, Brendon had laughed harshly at his lyrics, had ignored him half the time. Instead, he types out, At a party. You?
There's a knock at the door, and Alex's familiar voice calling through the door, “Dude, you okay in there? I've gotta piss.”
He clears his throat and wipes his hands on the towel hanging off a rack, and goes to open the door, murmuring an apology as he passes Alex. Alex smells like pot and must, and Ryan remembers pressing his nose to his neck and laughing breathlessly as his hands tickled up his sides. He ignores the memory as he feels his phone vibrate against his thigh.
Not much. Bored. Watching Polar Express.
Ryan settles into an armchair in the corner of the living room before typing out, You hate that movie. The animation freaks you out.
He looks over to the other side of the room, where Zooey and Vicky are laughing at a story Brian's telling them, holding their drinks close to them to keep from sloshing around. His phones buzzes in his hand. He hadn't even bothered putting it away.
Don't remind me. I'll probably have nightmares.
Ryan feels a smile tug at his lips, thinking back to watching Polar Express with him the first time, how Brendon had spent the first ten minutes going, “This is creepy. Why are they so life like? Oh my God, seriously Ryan, can we please change it? It's freaking me out. Seriously. I might actually have bad dreams, also, holy shit, why is Tom Hanks everywhere?”
His thumbs tap out Come get coffee with me, and he presses send before he lets himself think about it.
The response is immediate. Starbucks on Sepulveda? Fifteen minutes?
There's a stab at his chest, somewhere, when he realizes how easy that was, just a single sentence command, and Brendon immediately acquiesced. He sends a simple, Y, and stands up to make his exit.
He tells Vicky, “I'm not feeling too well, actually, but thanks for the invite. I had a great time,” and kisses her on the cheek. He does the same for Zooey, and gives Brian and Alex short hugs, waving companionably towards the rest. He coughs on his way out the door, to make his story more believable, sending a quick thanks to himself for only having a single beer and planning on driving home. He's proud of his forethought, which he normally happily ignores.
The drive is a nervous affair, his fingers tapping on the wheel as he merges, glancing over his shoulder and turning his blinker off too early. It's one of the longer drives of Ryan's life, which is interesting, he thinks, since he has spent months straight on the road, and this is just to get coffee with a friend. With Brendon, he thinks, and somehow, that makes it different.
When he finally arrives at the coffee shop, Brendon is already there. The coffee shop is mostly empty, just an old man in the corner and a younger one with a mac book, besides Brendon. He's had a haircut, too, Ryan notices, one that suits him. He stays in the doorway for a moment, appreciating his familiar posture, his form. He feels a little like home.
Brendon looks up, before Ryan can bring himself to move, and raises his hand in greeting, or just in case Ryan hadn't noticed him yet. He smiles and nods towards the counter, indicating that he wants to get coffee first. Brendon lifts up one of the two cups on his table, smiling somewhat sheepishly. The knot in Ryan's chest loosens, and he breathes easily for the first time all day. As he walks over, he wonders what that says about him.
Brendon bites his lip as Ryan makes his way over, averting his eyes to the table, and Ryan thinks, No, no, look at me, look back at me, but doesn't say anything, just continues over to the second chair, across the table from Brendon, less than an arm's length away. Closer to Brendon than he had really been for years.
The other meetings didn't really count, compared to this, he decided. Before, it had always been perfunctory, close, but not because they wanted to be, near each other, but not because they had a choice. Otherwise, it was unplanned and awkward, tension thick enough to raise his hackles and defenses. No, the other meetings didn't really count at all.
As he sits down, Brendon greets him with, “Non-fat latte, right? No flavoring?”
“Yeah,” he says, settling into the modern chair, all clean lines and simplicity. “So. Why were you watching Polar Express when you and I both know it freaks you out?”
He shrugs and says, “Sarah likes it. It wasn't really worth the guff I would've got.”
Ryan doesn't like what that implies, so he shakes it off and says, “So you took an escape when I offered?”
Brendon grins the same carefree, toothy grin he's had since 2005 and he was still wearing polo shirts. “That and I couldn't wait for the pleasure of your scintillating company, Ryan Ross.” His smile dims. “I'm probably gonna get chewed out for ditching her, anyways.”
Ryan looks down at his hands, at the long fingers and the ungroomed, jagged fingernails. He looks across the table to Brendon's shorter fingers, his square palms and neatly trimmed nails. He remembers the feel of those fingers gently carding through his hair when he had had a bad day, or the callouses, a badge of honor among musicians, and how they felt against the back of his neck, screaming into a microphone in front of thousands of fans. He knew how those fingers felt at every hour of the day, doing any number of things. He had lived years in close contact with those hands.
“Trouble in paradise, huh?” He noticed how his voice was quieter, now. Perhaps more intimate. It wasn't intentional, at any rate.
Brendon's eyes drop. “I'm starting to think domesticity is overrated.”
Ryan smiles softly. “I never thought too highly of it, myself.”
“I remember,” he says, “But maybe I just need to go on tour again. Maybe I'm just stir-crazy. Getting too complacent.”
Ryan hesitates, worries about overstepping his bounds, before thinking, fuck it, and saying, “With our penchant for restlessness... It makes me wonder why you asked her to marry you in the first place.” He waits for an explosion, a loud declaration of their love, boundless and epic, the kind people write stories about, and instead receives a quiet sigh, thin and feeble sounding.
“We've been together for almost three years. She was starting to get annoyed. And, I mean, at this point, why not? It's easier to just... go along with it, get married, than to break up and have to start all over again with someone else.”
Ryan stares at him. “That's. That's a really shitty reason to ask someone to marry you.”
Ryan's heart jumps when he sees a flash of emotion in Brendon's eyes, more passionate than he had seen all day. “Better than asking and then cheating on her. At least my proposal had some semblance of sincerity.”
Ryan looks down at the table again, chided and stung. He already regrets the meeting, this whole incident. He should've known that Brendon couldn't leave the past in the past.
Because that really is in the past. His betrayal and Keltie's heartbreak are long gone. They're friends, again, as much as they really could be, and she's newly engaged. He's happy for her, even if there had been just the slightest ache when he heard the news. He wants her to be happy. He knows he couldn't give that to her, and they're both better off this way. She had loved the idea and romanticism of him, and he had loved how much she loved him.
Ryan stays silent.
“Shit, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that,” Brendon forces out, resting his head in his hands.
Ryan shrugs, hums noncommittally, and wants to say, “It's alright,” but it isn't, really. Nothing about this situation is alright. He lied to get out what should have been a great party, lied to some of his best friends, and Brendon bailed on his fiancee. His fiancee, to get coffee at ten o'clock at night with Ryan. Nothing about this was okay, despite the comfortable set of his shoulders and the familiar, inviting taste of coffee on his tongue.
“Maybe this wasn't a good idea,” he finally says to the happily buzzing muzak of the chain coffeehouse and the tense silence at the table. “I was just missing you. I remembered all the Christmases that we've... I just missed you.” He doesn't remember deciding to be that painfully honest. It makes him feel thin, weak, like a strong gust of wind would blow him away. He knows that he wouldn't ever say something like that to Alex or Thomas, or any number of his newer friends. He couldn't paint himself as vulnerable to them.
He and Brendon, however, never held a typical friendship. They had seen each other at their lowest points, Brendon, smarting and diminished from his family's blatant rejection, and Ryan, desperately clinging to any forms of escape from his father, from his home, from the bounds of everything in his life that spelled out mediocrity. He could be honest with Brendon. He could hold his hand and guide him into doorways and press kisses against his cheek, and it would be okay. It would be acceptable.
It would. Not anymore. Perhaps that had been his first mistake.
He hears a quiet, “I miss you, too,” and studiously doesn't look up to see if Brendon is looking at him, if he had a sparkle or hint of longing in his eyes that he had had, three, four, five, six years ago. He's not sure if he would be better off with that knowledge.
Then there's a cool, firm grasp on his hand, Brendon's recognizable hold, and Ryan has to look up. He has to.
“I miss you, too,” Brendon says again, and there's something in his eyes, something not entirely familiar, but not new. It's different, an amalgamation of the gazes he had seen and felt on himself too many times to count, had sent back to Brendon, but it's.
Better.
It's better.
Steadier, he thinks, less frenzied and youthfully passionate. It feels routine and ordinary, something he could get used to, something he could wake up to every morning and breathe happily against, something he could watch across a table, something like this one, for hours, and not lose interest.
Ordinary, and delightfully extraordinary, all rolled into one.
A little like Brendon, he thinks, and almost blushes at that, that saccharine musing, but he doesn't. For some reason, he doesn't mind being saccharine at the moment.
He takes a breath, swallows whatever doubt remained bitter in his mouth, and smiles. “You wanna get out of here?”
Brendon grins.
Author:
qtlymakingnoise
Rating: PG
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon
Summary: On Christmas, Ryan can't help missing Brendon.
Word Count: ~3000
Disclaimer: I own none of the people involved in this story, and none of it actually happened.
Author Notes: Much love to Tess, relaxrelapsex, for pushing me to write this, and then giving me feedback once I did. And to Ryan and Vicky for documenting their holiday hooliganry.
Ryan can hear the party even from inside Vicky's bathroom. There are candles everywhere, cranberry scented, something to remind everyone that it's Christmas, Jesus-is-the-reason-for-the-season, Happy Holidays, et cetera. It makes him think of Christmases in the Smith household, with gingerbread cookies and peppermint candy canes.
He remembers when he was thirteen and his father let him spend the day and night with Spencer and his family. He remembers already having a place at the table when he got there, even though he wasn't officially expected, and having almost as many presents under the tree as Spencer. He didn't have a stocking over the fireplace, but he kind of thought that the idyllic yule log and nativity scene in the corner made up for it.
He remembers when he was twenty, and Brendon was there. Spencer was, too, but Jon wasn't. Jon was in Chicago. He remembers the table, long and set out with more food than he had ever seen before, with him, Brendon, and the Smiths all crowded around it. Brendon wasn't there officially. He had already spent most of the day with his own family, but he had shown up tired looking and smiling forcibly, so Ryan opened the door and guided Brendon in with a soft hand at the small of his back. Smiling softer, Brendon had ran his fingers across his side while Ginger and the twins greeted him exuberantly.
They were never anything but welcoming.
But now, things are different. Spencer is visiting his family, back in Vegas, truckstops and statelines away from him, and Brendon was probably cuddled up with Sarah in their home.
Their home, he thought, and for a moment, he wondered how he could have shared that apartment with Brendon, back before recording Fever, and lived on a tour bus for months on end, and co-habitated in that cramped, homely cabin for an entire season, and yet none of them had been homes. They had never shared a home.
He had heard, once, that it's the people that make a house a home.
Shaking his head, he leans over the sink, turning the cold water on and splashing his face. He tries to shock his system into ignoring the pang of longing at the pit of his stomach. He tries to shake away the fact that he's spent every Christmas with Brendon since he met him. He tries to recognize that Vicky has thrown a great party, with some of his favorite people out there, singing and drinking and laughing, and those are all things he loves to do.
Pulling out his phone, he goes into his inbox. Merry Christmas! Mom misses you and sends her love. The text is from Spencer, a pleasant, though not entirely unexpected, surprise. He had sent back love and well wishes, and took a moment to be thankful that he was at least talking to Spencer again. There had been a few long months of resounding radio silence, something entirely unfamiliar to him. He had spent years in Spencer's pocket, making him coffee before he asked and passing milk and cereal over the table like it was a rehearsed dance. It had made him feel like his skin was too tight, like a favorite sweater had shrunk in the wash, but he couldn't bear to give it up.
But that was over, now. Now, he could send texts and pictures and emails, and they'd even meet up for dinner, if they were both conveniently without plans. It could be worse.
Brendon was a different matter. They were no longer giving each other the silent treatment, thankfully, though that had always been Brendon's go-to punishment for Ryan. It had been different with Spencer and Jon, less personal, just some expression of anger and apologies, then business as usual, but with Ryan, Brendon was different. He took everything more personally. And if Ryan had upset him, then Brendon was just that: upset. Quietly so. He'd stiffen his shoulders and straighten his back, and ignore, ignore, ignore. It frustrated Ryan to no end, because that wasn't Brendon. Brendon didn't do passive aggressive, normally he had no compunctions about articulating and expressing his feelings, wearing his heart on his sleeve. But not for Ryan. Ryan liked to pretend that that didn't cut a little deeply.
So Brendon was no longer giving him the silent treatment, but there wasn't the ease of communication as with Spencer. Ryan thought that it might have something to do with how they had left it, once the band had split. Ryan and Brendon hadn't discussed it at all, so prickly and angry with each other, roiling with turmoil and frustration, and an overwhelming, ominous sense of inevitable loss, like their time was coming to an end and they knew it, but they didn't know what to do about it, or even if they wanted to. Like their window of opportunity was closing.
But that didn't quite make sense, Ryan mused, because their window of opportunity, if they ever had one, had been long closed. Ryan was busy fucking everything up with Keltie, had been for years, and Brendon was steadily growing more and more defensive, more closed off and fuck you, I can do it myself. Ryan didn't even think he'd want an opportunity with that Brendon.
That didn't mean that the lack of contact from Brendon didn't sting.
When his thumb goes to Create a new text message and he types out, Hey. Merry Christmas, he decides not to think about it too much, not to think about how his heart is beating inordinately loudly, or how he can feel anticipation for a reply building in his stomach already. He stares at his reflection in the mirror, his newly straightened hair, his rounded cheeks, and wonders at the contrast between a year ago, when his hair was long and untamed, three years ago, when it was cropped short and harsh, five years ago when it was artfully sculpted.
His phone buzzes mutely and his heart stutters uncomfortably.
Merry Christmas. How are you?
He thinks about typing back, quickly and honestly, Lonely, but he remembers how in the last few months of their working relationship, Brendon had laughed harshly at his lyrics, had ignored him half the time. Instead, he types out, At a party. You?
There's a knock at the door, and Alex's familiar voice calling through the door, “Dude, you okay in there? I've gotta piss.”
He clears his throat and wipes his hands on the towel hanging off a rack, and goes to open the door, murmuring an apology as he passes Alex. Alex smells like pot and must, and Ryan remembers pressing his nose to his neck and laughing breathlessly as his hands tickled up his sides. He ignores the memory as he feels his phone vibrate against his thigh.
Not much. Bored. Watching Polar Express.
Ryan settles into an armchair in the corner of the living room before typing out, You hate that movie. The animation freaks you out.
He looks over to the other side of the room, where Zooey and Vicky are laughing at a story Brian's telling them, holding their drinks close to them to keep from sloshing around. His phones buzzes in his hand. He hadn't even bothered putting it away.
Don't remind me. I'll probably have nightmares.
Ryan feels a smile tug at his lips, thinking back to watching Polar Express with him the first time, how Brendon had spent the first ten minutes going, “This is creepy. Why are they so life like? Oh my God, seriously Ryan, can we please change it? It's freaking me out. Seriously. I might actually have bad dreams, also, holy shit, why is Tom Hanks everywhere?”
His thumbs tap out Come get coffee with me, and he presses send before he lets himself think about it.
The response is immediate. Starbucks on Sepulveda? Fifteen minutes?
There's a stab at his chest, somewhere, when he realizes how easy that was, just a single sentence command, and Brendon immediately acquiesced. He sends a simple, Y, and stands up to make his exit.
He tells Vicky, “I'm not feeling too well, actually, but thanks for the invite. I had a great time,” and kisses her on the cheek. He does the same for Zooey, and gives Brian and Alex short hugs, waving companionably towards the rest. He coughs on his way out the door, to make his story more believable, sending a quick thanks to himself for only having a single beer and planning on driving home. He's proud of his forethought, which he normally happily ignores.
The drive is a nervous affair, his fingers tapping on the wheel as he merges, glancing over his shoulder and turning his blinker off too early. It's one of the longer drives of Ryan's life, which is interesting, he thinks, since he has spent months straight on the road, and this is just to get coffee with a friend. With Brendon, he thinks, and somehow, that makes it different.
When he finally arrives at the coffee shop, Brendon is already there. The coffee shop is mostly empty, just an old man in the corner and a younger one with a mac book, besides Brendon. He's had a haircut, too, Ryan notices, one that suits him. He stays in the doorway for a moment, appreciating his familiar posture, his form. He feels a little like home.
Brendon looks up, before Ryan can bring himself to move, and raises his hand in greeting, or just in case Ryan hadn't noticed him yet. He smiles and nods towards the counter, indicating that he wants to get coffee first. Brendon lifts up one of the two cups on his table, smiling somewhat sheepishly. The knot in Ryan's chest loosens, and he breathes easily for the first time all day. As he walks over, he wonders what that says about him.
Brendon bites his lip as Ryan makes his way over, averting his eyes to the table, and Ryan thinks, No, no, look at me, look back at me, but doesn't say anything, just continues over to the second chair, across the table from Brendon, less than an arm's length away. Closer to Brendon than he had really been for years.
The other meetings didn't really count, compared to this, he decided. Before, it had always been perfunctory, close, but not because they wanted to be, near each other, but not because they had a choice. Otherwise, it was unplanned and awkward, tension thick enough to raise his hackles and defenses. No, the other meetings didn't really count at all.
As he sits down, Brendon greets him with, “Non-fat latte, right? No flavoring?”
“Yeah,” he says, settling into the modern chair, all clean lines and simplicity. “So. Why were you watching Polar Express when you and I both know it freaks you out?”
He shrugs and says, “Sarah likes it. It wasn't really worth the guff I would've got.”
Ryan doesn't like what that implies, so he shakes it off and says, “So you took an escape when I offered?”
Brendon grins the same carefree, toothy grin he's had since 2005 and he was still wearing polo shirts. “That and I couldn't wait for the pleasure of your scintillating company, Ryan Ross.” His smile dims. “I'm probably gonna get chewed out for ditching her, anyways.”
Ryan looks down at his hands, at the long fingers and the ungroomed, jagged fingernails. He looks across the table to Brendon's shorter fingers, his square palms and neatly trimmed nails. He remembers the feel of those fingers gently carding through his hair when he had had a bad day, or the callouses, a badge of honor among musicians, and how they felt against the back of his neck, screaming into a microphone in front of thousands of fans. He knew how those fingers felt at every hour of the day, doing any number of things. He had lived years in close contact with those hands.
“Trouble in paradise, huh?” He noticed how his voice was quieter, now. Perhaps more intimate. It wasn't intentional, at any rate.
Brendon's eyes drop. “I'm starting to think domesticity is overrated.”
Ryan smiles softly. “I never thought too highly of it, myself.”
“I remember,” he says, “But maybe I just need to go on tour again. Maybe I'm just stir-crazy. Getting too complacent.”
Ryan hesitates, worries about overstepping his bounds, before thinking, fuck it, and saying, “With our penchant for restlessness... It makes me wonder why you asked her to marry you in the first place.” He waits for an explosion, a loud declaration of their love, boundless and epic, the kind people write stories about, and instead receives a quiet sigh, thin and feeble sounding.
“We've been together for almost three years. She was starting to get annoyed. And, I mean, at this point, why not? It's easier to just... go along with it, get married, than to break up and have to start all over again with someone else.”
Ryan stares at him. “That's. That's a really shitty reason to ask someone to marry you.”
Ryan's heart jumps when he sees a flash of emotion in Brendon's eyes, more passionate than he had seen all day. “Better than asking and then cheating on her. At least my proposal had some semblance of sincerity.”
Ryan looks down at the table again, chided and stung. He already regrets the meeting, this whole incident. He should've known that Brendon couldn't leave the past in the past.
Because that really is in the past. His betrayal and Keltie's heartbreak are long gone. They're friends, again, as much as they really could be, and she's newly engaged. He's happy for her, even if there had been just the slightest ache when he heard the news. He wants her to be happy. He knows he couldn't give that to her, and they're both better off this way. She had loved the idea and romanticism of him, and he had loved how much she loved him.
Ryan stays silent.
“Shit, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that,” Brendon forces out, resting his head in his hands.
Ryan shrugs, hums noncommittally, and wants to say, “It's alright,” but it isn't, really. Nothing about this situation is alright. He lied to get out what should have been a great party, lied to some of his best friends, and Brendon bailed on his fiancee. His fiancee, to get coffee at ten o'clock at night with Ryan. Nothing about this was okay, despite the comfortable set of his shoulders and the familiar, inviting taste of coffee on his tongue.
“Maybe this wasn't a good idea,” he finally says to the happily buzzing muzak of the chain coffeehouse and the tense silence at the table. “I was just missing you. I remembered all the Christmases that we've... I just missed you.” He doesn't remember deciding to be that painfully honest. It makes him feel thin, weak, like a strong gust of wind would blow him away. He knows that he wouldn't ever say something like that to Alex or Thomas, or any number of his newer friends. He couldn't paint himself as vulnerable to them.
He and Brendon, however, never held a typical friendship. They had seen each other at their lowest points, Brendon, smarting and diminished from his family's blatant rejection, and Ryan, desperately clinging to any forms of escape from his father, from his home, from the bounds of everything in his life that spelled out mediocrity. He could be honest with Brendon. He could hold his hand and guide him into doorways and press kisses against his cheek, and it would be okay. It would be acceptable.
It would. Not anymore. Perhaps that had been his first mistake.
He hears a quiet, “I miss you, too,” and studiously doesn't look up to see if Brendon is looking at him, if he had a sparkle or hint of longing in his eyes that he had had, three, four, five, six years ago. He's not sure if he would be better off with that knowledge.
Then there's a cool, firm grasp on his hand, Brendon's recognizable hold, and Ryan has to look up. He has to.
“I miss you, too,” Brendon says again, and there's something in his eyes, something not entirely familiar, but not new. It's different, an amalgamation of the gazes he had seen and felt on himself too many times to count, had sent back to Brendon, but it's.
Better.
It's better.
Steadier, he thinks, less frenzied and youthfully passionate. It feels routine and ordinary, something he could get used to, something he could wake up to every morning and breathe happily against, something he could watch across a table, something like this one, for hours, and not lose interest.
Ordinary, and delightfully extraordinary, all rolled into one.
A little like Brendon, he thinks, and almost blushes at that, that saccharine musing, but he doesn't. For some reason, he doesn't mind being saccharine at the moment.
He takes a breath, swallows whatever doubt remained bitter in his mouth, and smiles. “You wanna get out of here?”
Brendon grins.