Fic: Come Alive (Standalone)
Title: Come Alive
Author: skeletonwords
Rating: PG-13?
Pairing: Brendon/Ryan
POV: Third
Word count: 3,172
Summary: Ryan pushes Brendon's head below water and Brendon doesn't even fight it. He closes his eyes, holds his breath and stays still until his lungs burn and he sees white dots instead of nothing.
Disclaimer: I own nothing except the plot.
Dedications: For feverwords because she can be scary when she yells (and also pretty helpful in the process), and aintnoromance who read the ending to this before it even had a beginning.
The leaves on the trees are still, as is the wind. The air is moist and smells of flowers and summer, and Brendon sits on his bed, watching the reflection of the sun shining through the leaves on the tree outside through the mirror on his wall. He doesn't see himself, having positioned himself so he can't. One look at his features (pale skin, the dark strays of hair hanging down his forehead, chocolate coloured eyes) only brings back memories of harsh remarks and countless hours spent inside dark lockers and his growling stomach begging for food that was taken away from him.
He brings his knees to his chest, wraps his arms around them and rests his head on top of them, feels the hair on his arms sting slightly against his cheek.
He watches the sun in the mirror until it disappears. It's first when his room is completely dark that he closes his eyes, weak tears escaping through his eyelids, dripping down his cheeks and forming a puddle on his arm.
When he's at school (because he has to go, he needs an education) he hides in the bathroom or the supply closet or the basement or behind the bushes at the back side of the school building. It doesn't matter because he always has to turn up for classes anyway, or his parents would kill him.
Then one day, as it had been floating in the air for quite some time that something was going to happen, in PE, Danny aims a basketball at the back of his head and the ball crashes with his skull, a loud thud echoing through the room.
He gets a concussion and has to stay home from school for a while to make sure he doesn't, like, die, and even if he's mad and sad and hurt, he's also a little bit relieved he doesn't have to deal with other people besides his family for a few days.
"How are you feeling?" his mother asks, leaning her hip against the door frame, her arms crossed.
"Cold," Brendon mutters, pulling the blankets around his body closer.
For the next few days there are always someone watching over him, making sure he doesn't fall asleep. It only gets colder.
The first day back at school again, no one even bother speaking to him, let alone send a harsh remark his way. He is more than a little confused, but he doesn't complain, just walks down the halls and tries not to worry too much if the person walking behind him will stab him through the back or smash his face against the ground.
After third period he walks towards his locker and sees the bunch of guys normally hassling him, standing in a circle around a scrawny boy he's never seen before.
His chest tightens and his cheeks blush, his fingers trembling slightly, having trouble holding on to the books in his arms. The look on the boy's face is stone cold and he doesn't even flinch when one of the guys land a fist to his face. He doesn't fight it either, just stares at the older boys, stares and stands and takes every punch as it was a normal, everyday thing.
Students pass but don't do anything to prevent it. Either they don't want to get beaten up themselves or they just don't care.
Brendon stays frozen to the spot. It's only when the boys leave and the new kid lies on the floor with a blank expression gracing his features, angry-red bruises visible at the exposed skin on his arms and face, that Brendon takes a few hesitant steps forward, leaning down to have a closer look.
"Are you okay?" Brendon asks.
The boy blinks and nods. "I'm okay." His voice is monotone and dull and shockingly calm. Brendon smiles, introducing himself, heart fluttering inside his chest.
"Ryan," the boy says, lying sideways with the hard floor beneath him, hand extended. "I'm Ryan."
For the rest of the day, Brendon shows Ryan around and neither of them get into any kind of trouble. For the first time in years, Brendon doesn't sit alone at lunch and he even laughs, more than once.
Ryan fiddles with his hands in his lap, and avoids meeting Brendon's gaze too often. There's a grey hat on his head, with sharp edges and a single feather standing up from a hole in it. The hat sits crooked, its shadow hiding half of Ryan's face.
He doesn't talk much but he talks enough for Brendon to think that there's something about him that makes him worth knowing. Whenever Ryan smiles, all white teeth and sincerity, Brendon smiles too.
Over the next few days Ryan talks more. His voice is still dull but when Brendon learns that Ryan writes and asks him to tell him a story and Ryan tells a tale about a little boy whose mother abandoned him and her husband, he feels himself getting lost in the words and the way Ryan licks his lips, how they curl at the corner of his mouth everytime he half-smiles. Ryan tells stories about how the boy had to move because the father was unable to keep a job due to his drinking habits, how the boy grew up faster than he should have.
Ryan's voice roll out story after story about the little boy's adventures, and Brendon doesn't ask but he's pretty sure Ryan just told him his life story. That's okay though, Brendon thinks and curl his fingers hesitantly over Ryan's. Ryan smiles.
They're not friends, they're not enemies, but they're not just acquaintances either. Brendon thinks they're more like soul mates, but he doesn't voice this out loud and Ryan doesn't mention it at all.
The smoke swirls around their bodies as they watch the moon's reflection in the water, a howl's hoot breaking though the air, not sharp but soothingly. Everywhere they turn it's pitch black.
"And then," Ryan giggles and inhales once and long, his lips on the shrinking joint, "he fucking pushed me out of a speeding car." His laugh grows louder and Brendon lets out an amused laugh too, greedingly taking a drag as the spliff is sent his way.
Brendon's mouth forms an O as the smokes leaves his lips. "What did you do then?" he asks and passes it back to Ryan. Ryan inhales, "I don't know - I just lay there, I suppose. All I remember is waking up at the hospital. I stayed there for a while, quite a few days actually. He never showed up. When I got home he was passed out on the couch."
"Wow," Brendon laughs and takes in another breath of smoke. Still laughing, small clouds of grey joining the wind, he says, "My dad stopped giving me allowance every month when I got caught smoking this shit."
Ryan says, "Mine still beats yours by one million points."
Brendon nods and offers the spliff back to Ryan, who takes it and doesn't breathe until the glowing embers at the tip dies.
"I think I love you," Ryan whispers, crushing the joint against the ground until nothing but ash is left. He laughs, sadness and sorrow hidden behind it, truthfulness visible, cutting through the edges of each letter. "No I don't think, I - I love you."
Brendon is curled up on the grass, hands beneath his head, sleeping, gone.
His room is his emotional breakdown zone, but he doesn't know how it came to be that way.
This time when Brendon watches, the mirror mimics a world where darkness is folded across the sky, where streaming rain is hitting the ground with loud splashes, and blinding, sharp lightening jolts through the air every now and then. Thunder roams the sky, crashing with the walls of his house. It feels like it was meant for him.
"God, why do you hate me?" he whispers into the room, curls into a foetal position, not moving.
When he wakes up in the morning, he is greeted by the sun and Ryan's face through the window. Somehow, it doesn't seem as cold anymore.
School ends and they spend most of their time by the lake, enjoying each other's company.
Ryan pushes Brendon's head below water and Brendon doesn't even fight it. He closes his eyes, holds his breath and stays still until his lungs burn and he sees white dots instead of nothing. Ryan doesn't let him go until Brendon nudges his elbow lightly.
"So?" Ryan asks as Brendon breaks through the surface, gasping for air. Brendon leans back and floats on the barely-there waves.
"How was it?" Ryan asks. "Kind of like being reborn, huh?"
Brendon nods, but thinks, for him to get reborn, he needs more. Needs love. Needs Ryan.
"It was amazing," he says instead, in between breaths, and Ryan laughs into his neck, the slight hum vibrating and shooting jolts of something Brendon can't name through his body.
"It is," Ryan agrees, disappears below water and doesn't get back up until Brendon's heart aches with worry.
"Voila!" Ryan exclaims as harmless drops of water turns into sharp, deadly arrows when Ryan shakes his head violently with a toothy grin on his face. "I'm reborn!"
Summer turns into autumn, autumn turns into winter ("Why is it always so fucking hot here?" Ryan asks Brendon, lying on the purple hood of Brendon's parents' car. The sun in his eyes, his torso bare, his t-shirt behind his head. Brendon shakes his head, says, "I don't know," takes a drag of the joint in his hand, passes it to Ryan, removes his shirt too, and lies back, shivering), winter turns into spring and spring turns into summer.
Ryan's dad dies on June 16th and Ryan doesn't cry, but Brendon does.
(The doctors say it was his heart, but Ryan's pretty sure his dad just gave up.)
Brendon stops going out of his room - he doesn't eat, doesn't really sleep either. He doesn't even know why, it's not his dad, but.
Ryan keeps knocking on his window, short knock knock knocks when knuckles meet glass.
His mother stops and listens from outside the door, quietly. Brendon sees her shadow looming through the crack beneath the door, elevated by the hallway light.
"Come out," Ryan cries from outside the window, his hands clawing and banging on the glass, but it doesn't bulge, it doesn't crack or splinter, just stands still, locked up inside wooden frames.
Brendon doesn't crack, either.
"I'm not sad!" Ryan screams. "I'm not! I swear!"
Brendon sees his mom's shadow's feet walk away, and he clings to the sheet, rocks back and forth and stares in the mirror, at Ryan's form outside.
"Please, Brendon," mirror-Ryan says, and he's crying. "Please. I'm not - I swear I'm not sad, I - I miss you, I need you, come out, please."
Brendon closes his eyes and doesn't see Ryan breathing against the window, drawing a heart in the fog it created.
When Brendon finally does open them, Ryan's gone, an angry wipe through the fog left on the glass.
The funeral is on the 20th and Brendon forces himself out of bed with a groan. He flinches for a second, surprised at how warm it is in the room when he's not laid tucked up in layers of fabric.
He gets dressed with his back to the mirror. When he turns he's greeted with pale skin, a black suit hanging loosely on his thin body and big, dark bags below his eyes. The hair on his head is greasy. He grits his teeth, watches as more and more of his skin is revealed as he pulls the pieces of clothes off, one by one by one by one.
As Brendon unlocks and opens the door, it protests with a whine, like it has gotten used to resting, doing nothing but be. Brendon walks through the hallway in just his boxers, making his way to the bathroom. The tiles are hot under his feet and the skin sticks to them as he walks over to the shower. He stands under ice cold water for five minutes, eyes closed, barely breathing.
When he opens his mouth, nose and eyes fully, moving away from the freezing stream, he gasps and thinks, Rebirth. Then he removes his boxers and soaps and scrubs every inch of his body until ghost-white skin has turned angry-red.
Even if the water's still on, the weak "Ryan" making its way through Brendon's lips echoes loudly through the room, bounces off the walls, sideways, up and down, diagonal, ringing in no one's ears but Brendon's own.
Ryan sits by himself in the graveyard, leaned on a tombstone that's made of rough, grey stone, the inscription in black. Green moss are peeking out from various holes in it, making an uneven pattern across its surfaces. At the roof of the stone there's a dove. It's worn and tattered, small pieces of white paint shattered at its feet.
When Brendon sees him, he walks over and sits down. He doesn't say anything, just watches how the smoke dances and struggles in the wind each time Ryan takes a drag and blows out.
"You ignored me," Ryan says. His voice is rough, hoarse. He doesn't look at Brendon, but inhales and exhales, inhales, exhales.
At the bottom of Brendon's throat there's a slight scratch and his voice cracks when he says, "I'm sorry."
Ryan shrugs.
In complete silence they sit and watch people arrive outside the church in masses, with their backs pressed against the stone and asses digging down into the dirt, crushing the single flower (red petals, small, green leaves) growing in it. People enter the church, but always take a second to sweep the premises with their eyes - Where's his son? - and waving when they see him. Ryan closes his eyes and Brendon sees them mouth "Ungrateful, little..." or "Son of a bitch" or nothing at all.
"Thomas -" Ryan begins and turns to read the letters at his back. "- Brown, he only lived to be six years old."
"Wow," Brendon says, luring his hand towards Ryan's to steal the cigarette from his grip. "That's horrible," he says, inhales, exhales, hands it back.
"It's, like," Ryan continues, chews on his lower lip, "like a reminder that we should make the best of our time. You know? We shouldn't just-" And then Brendon just leans over, places a chaste kiss on his lips. He tastes like Ryan smells (clean, vanilla, chocolate, boy and cigarette smoke).
"What was that for?" Ryan asks, dumbfounded, kind of, out of place, definitely. Brendon grabs the cigarette again, inhales another mouthful of smoke and places it between Ryan's lips.
"I just made the best of my time," he shrugs. "Come on, it's time to go say farewell to your dad."
Brendon grabs the other boy's wrist and hoist him up, the small pile of old paint from the dove shattering in the air, a short speckle of magic and Brendon whispers, "Snow."
"It's always fucking hot here," Ryan laughs bitterly, tosses the cigarette butt to the ground, smashing it with his foot. He leans against Brendon's chest helplessly. "I don't want to do this."
Brendon's hand runs circles across Ryan's back. He shushes him, assures, "You have to; it'll be fine, you'll be fine," and Ryan nods, a river of tears running down his face.
"I'll miss him."
"I know."
They lay on the humid grass, a good distance between them and civilisation. The air is a cross between ice cold and burning hot and Brendon contemplates removing his jacket, but chooses to keep it on, just in case.
When they breathe, foggy, grey smoke blends with the dark carpet that is the sky. Brendon watches it float in the air for a bit, watches as it disappears, slowly, decreasing into nothing. He inhales air into his lungs more often, switches between blowing it out through his nostrils and lips.
When he looks over at Ryan, it seems that he doesn't breathe at all.
"Are you okay?" Brendon asks, and if he'd been high right now, he's sure the smoke would form the words he just spoke and not just clouds of nothing.
Ryan blinks, stares up at the sky, nods but says, "I almost killed him once."
Brendon doesn't reply, but something in his stomach knots itself.
"I just... He was drunk, again - well, I guess he never stopped being drunk - and I don't even know how, but suddenly I had a knife in my hand and I was hovering over his bed, ready to just jab once and that would have been the end of that." Ryan sighs. In the distance Brendon thinks he can make out the sound of speeding cars on the highway.
He asks, "What made you decide not to?"
Ryan pauses, wraps his arms around himself, moves (Brendon thinks, doesn't know if he imagines it, but he thinks Ryan scoots a bit closer to him, and his heart skips a beat), but doesn't reply immediately.
After a few minutes of silence, Ryan says, "He opened his eyes, looked at me and said, 'I'm sorry, Ryan,' and I just couldn’t do it. I don't even know if he meant it, can't ask him now anyway."
"He probably did," Brendon says.
"Yeah?"
"Mmm."
Ryan leans up on his elbows, gaze fixated at the sky. "It's kind of cold out tonight. I swear it never is."
Brendon makes a sound at the back of his throat. "It's kind of a mix," he says, "a little bit cold, a little bit warm."
Then, as in a dream, Ryan mutters, "Thank you," and connects his lips with Brendon's before he even has time to think, react.
Their lips move together lazily, in no rush for it to be more than just a way of appreciating the other, a way of saying I care. Brendon grabs Ryan's hand, strokes his thumb over his knuckles, and Ryan sighs into Brendon's mouth.
"Thank you," Brendon breathes when they pull away - not too much; Ryan's face is still close enough that Brendon's eyes cross slightly as they move over his face.
"For the kiss?" Ryan laughs, skips closer, throws his arm over Brendon's torso carelessly.
"No. No, for the - for everything, basically."
"Isn't it a little late to be all deep and shit?" Ryan leans down, burying his face against Brendon's chest. He breathes into the other boy's suit jacket, laughing still, Brendon running a lazy hand through Ryan's hair. He laughs, too.
"Probably. But, okay, just thank you for helping me making the best of my time."
Ryan nods.
"And, you know, thank you for the kiss too."
They smile; Brendon to the sky and Ryan into the fabric of Brendon's jacket. Ryan leans up and pecks Brendon on the lips, cheeks faintly blush. "For new beginnings," he says against the other boy's lips.
"For rebirth," Brendon agrees, smiling.
Author: skeletonwords
Rating: PG-13?
Pairing: Brendon/Ryan
POV: Third
Word count: 3,172
Summary: Ryan pushes Brendon's head below water and Brendon doesn't even fight it. He closes his eyes, holds his breath and stays still until his lungs burn and he sees white dots instead of nothing.
Disclaimer: I own nothing except the plot.
Dedications: For feverwords because she can be scary when she yells (and also pretty helpful in the process), and aintnoromance who read the ending to this before it even had a beginning.
The leaves on the trees are still, as is the wind. The air is moist and smells of flowers and summer, and Brendon sits on his bed, watching the reflection of the sun shining through the leaves on the tree outside through the mirror on his wall. He doesn't see himself, having positioned himself so he can't. One look at his features (pale skin, the dark strays of hair hanging down his forehead, chocolate coloured eyes) only brings back memories of harsh remarks and countless hours spent inside dark lockers and his growling stomach begging for food that was taken away from him.
He brings his knees to his chest, wraps his arms around them and rests his head on top of them, feels the hair on his arms sting slightly against his cheek.
He watches the sun in the mirror until it disappears. It's first when his room is completely dark that he closes his eyes, weak tears escaping through his eyelids, dripping down his cheeks and forming a puddle on his arm.
When he's at school (because he has to go, he needs an education) he hides in the bathroom or the supply closet or the basement or behind the bushes at the back side of the school building. It doesn't matter because he always has to turn up for classes anyway, or his parents would kill him.
Then one day, as it had been floating in the air for quite some time that something was going to happen, in PE, Danny aims a basketball at the back of his head and the ball crashes with his skull, a loud thud echoing through the room.
He gets a concussion and has to stay home from school for a while to make sure he doesn't, like, die, and even if he's mad and sad and hurt, he's also a little bit relieved he doesn't have to deal with other people besides his family for a few days.
"How are you feeling?" his mother asks, leaning her hip against the door frame, her arms crossed.
"Cold," Brendon mutters, pulling the blankets around his body closer.
For the next few days there are always someone watching over him, making sure he doesn't fall asleep. It only gets colder.
The first day back at school again, no one even bother speaking to him, let alone send a harsh remark his way. He is more than a little confused, but he doesn't complain, just walks down the halls and tries not to worry too much if the person walking behind him will stab him through the back or smash his face against the ground.
After third period he walks towards his locker and sees the bunch of guys normally hassling him, standing in a circle around a scrawny boy he's never seen before.
His chest tightens and his cheeks blush, his fingers trembling slightly, having trouble holding on to the books in his arms. The look on the boy's face is stone cold and he doesn't even flinch when one of the guys land a fist to his face. He doesn't fight it either, just stares at the older boys, stares and stands and takes every punch as it was a normal, everyday thing.
Students pass but don't do anything to prevent it. Either they don't want to get beaten up themselves or they just don't care.
Brendon stays frozen to the spot. It's only when the boys leave and the new kid lies on the floor with a blank expression gracing his features, angry-red bruises visible at the exposed skin on his arms and face, that Brendon takes a few hesitant steps forward, leaning down to have a closer look.
"Are you okay?" Brendon asks.
The boy blinks and nods. "I'm okay." His voice is monotone and dull and shockingly calm. Brendon smiles, introducing himself, heart fluttering inside his chest.
"Ryan," the boy says, lying sideways with the hard floor beneath him, hand extended. "I'm Ryan."
For the rest of the day, Brendon shows Ryan around and neither of them get into any kind of trouble. For the first time in years, Brendon doesn't sit alone at lunch and he even laughs, more than once.
Ryan fiddles with his hands in his lap, and avoids meeting Brendon's gaze too often. There's a grey hat on his head, with sharp edges and a single feather standing up from a hole in it. The hat sits crooked, its shadow hiding half of Ryan's face.
He doesn't talk much but he talks enough for Brendon to think that there's something about him that makes him worth knowing. Whenever Ryan smiles, all white teeth and sincerity, Brendon smiles too.
Over the next few days Ryan talks more. His voice is still dull but when Brendon learns that Ryan writes and asks him to tell him a story and Ryan tells a tale about a little boy whose mother abandoned him and her husband, he feels himself getting lost in the words and the way Ryan licks his lips, how they curl at the corner of his mouth everytime he half-smiles. Ryan tells stories about how the boy had to move because the father was unable to keep a job due to his drinking habits, how the boy grew up faster than he should have.
Ryan's voice roll out story after story about the little boy's adventures, and Brendon doesn't ask but he's pretty sure Ryan just told him his life story. That's okay though, Brendon thinks and curl his fingers hesitantly over Ryan's. Ryan smiles.
They're not friends, they're not enemies, but they're not just acquaintances either. Brendon thinks they're more like soul mates, but he doesn't voice this out loud and Ryan doesn't mention it at all.
The smoke swirls around their bodies as they watch the moon's reflection in the water, a howl's hoot breaking though the air, not sharp but soothingly. Everywhere they turn it's pitch black.
"And then," Ryan giggles and inhales once and long, his lips on the shrinking joint, "he fucking pushed me out of a speeding car." His laugh grows louder and Brendon lets out an amused laugh too, greedingly taking a drag as the spliff is sent his way.
Brendon's mouth forms an O as the smokes leaves his lips. "What did you do then?" he asks and passes it back to Ryan. Ryan inhales, "I don't know - I just lay there, I suppose. All I remember is waking up at the hospital. I stayed there for a while, quite a few days actually. He never showed up. When I got home he was passed out on the couch."
"Wow," Brendon laughs and takes in another breath of smoke. Still laughing, small clouds of grey joining the wind, he says, "My dad stopped giving me allowance every month when I got caught smoking this shit."
Ryan says, "Mine still beats yours by one million points."
Brendon nods and offers the spliff back to Ryan, who takes it and doesn't breathe until the glowing embers at the tip dies.
"I think I love you," Ryan whispers, crushing the joint against the ground until nothing but ash is left. He laughs, sadness and sorrow hidden behind it, truthfulness visible, cutting through the edges of each letter. "No I don't think, I - I love you."
Brendon is curled up on the grass, hands beneath his head, sleeping, gone.
His room is his emotional breakdown zone, but he doesn't know how it came to be that way.
This time when Brendon watches, the mirror mimics a world where darkness is folded across the sky, where streaming rain is hitting the ground with loud splashes, and blinding, sharp lightening jolts through the air every now and then. Thunder roams the sky, crashing with the walls of his house. It feels like it was meant for him.
"God, why do you hate me?" he whispers into the room, curls into a foetal position, not moving.
When he wakes up in the morning, he is greeted by the sun and Ryan's face through the window. Somehow, it doesn't seem as cold anymore.
School ends and they spend most of their time by the lake, enjoying each other's company.
Ryan pushes Brendon's head below water and Brendon doesn't even fight it. He closes his eyes, holds his breath and stays still until his lungs burn and he sees white dots instead of nothing. Ryan doesn't let him go until Brendon nudges his elbow lightly.
"So?" Ryan asks as Brendon breaks through the surface, gasping for air. Brendon leans back and floats on the barely-there waves.
"How was it?" Ryan asks. "Kind of like being reborn, huh?"
Brendon nods, but thinks, for him to get reborn, he needs more. Needs love. Needs Ryan.
"It was amazing," he says instead, in between breaths, and Ryan laughs into his neck, the slight hum vibrating and shooting jolts of something Brendon can't name through his body.
"It is," Ryan agrees, disappears below water and doesn't get back up until Brendon's heart aches with worry.
"Voila!" Ryan exclaims as harmless drops of water turns into sharp, deadly arrows when Ryan shakes his head violently with a toothy grin on his face. "I'm reborn!"
Summer turns into autumn, autumn turns into winter ("Why is it always so fucking hot here?" Ryan asks Brendon, lying on the purple hood of Brendon's parents' car. The sun in his eyes, his torso bare, his t-shirt behind his head. Brendon shakes his head, says, "I don't know," takes a drag of the joint in his hand, passes it to Ryan, removes his shirt too, and lies back, shivering), winter turns into spring and spring turns into summer.
Ryan's dad dies on June 16th and Ryan doesn't cry, but Brendon does.
(The doctors say it was his heart, but Ryan's pretty sure his dad just gave up.)
Brendon stops going out of his room - he doesn't eat, doesn't really sleep either. He doesn't even know why, it's not his dad, but.
Ryan keeps knocking on his window, short knock knock knocks when knuckles meet glass.
His mother stops and listens from outside the door, quietly. Brendon sees her shadow looming through the crack beneath the door, elevated by the hallway light.
"Come out," Ryan cries from outside the window, his hands clawing and banging on the glass, but it doesn't bulge, it doesn't crack or splinter, just stands still, locked up inside wooden frames.
Brendon doesn't crack, either.
"I'm not sad!" Ryan screams. "I'm not! I swear!"
Brendon sees his mom's shadow's feet walk away, and he clings to the sheet, rocks back and forth and stares in the mirror, at Ryan's form outside.
"Please, Brendon," mirror-Ryan says, and he's crying. "Please. I'm not - I swear I'm not sad, I - I miss you, I need you, come out, please."
Brendon closes his eyes and doesn't see Ryan breathing against the window, drawing a heart in the fog it created.
When Brendon finally does open them, Ryan's gone, an angry wipe through the fog left on the glass.
The funeral is on the 20th and Brendon forces himself out of bed with a groan. He flinches for a second, surprised at how warm it is in the room when he's not laid tucked up in layers of fabric.
He gets dressed with his back to the mirror. When he turns he's greeted with pale skin, a black suit hanging loosely on his thin body and big, dark bags below his eyes. The hair on his head is greasy. He grits his teeth, watches as more and more of his skin is revealed as he pulls the pieces of clothes off, one by one by one by one.
As Brendon unlocks and opens the door, it protests with a whine, like it has gotten used to resting, doing nothing but be. Brendon walks through the hallway in just his boxers, making his way to the bathroom. The tiles are hot under his feet and the skin sticks to them as he walks over to the shower. He stands under ice cold water for five minutes, eyes closed, barely breathing.
When he opens his mouth, nose and eyes fully, moving away from the freezing stream, he gasps and thinks, Rebirth. Then he removes his boxers and soaps and scrubs every inch of his body until ghost-white skin has turned angry-red.
Even if the water's still on, the weak "Ryan" making its way through Brendon's lips echoes loudly through the room, bounces off the walls, sideways, up and down, diagonal, ringing in no one's ears but Brendon's own.
Ryan sits by himself in the graveyard, leaned on a tombstone that's made of rough, grey stone, the inscription in black. Green moss are peeking out from various holes in it, making an uneven pattern across its surfaces. At the roof of the stone there's a dove. It's worn and tattered, small pieces of white paint shattered at its feet.
When Brendon sees him, he walks over and sits down. He doesn't say anything, just watches how the smoke dances and struggles in the wind each time Ryan takes a drag and blows out.
"You ignored me," Ryan says. His voice is rough, hoarse. He doesn't look at Brendon, but inhales and exhales, inhales, exhales.
At the bottom of Brendon's throat there's a slight scratch and his voice cracks when he says, "I'm sorry."
Ryan shrugs.
In complete silence they sit and watch people arrive outside the church in masses, with their backs pressed against the stone and asses digging down into the dirt, crushing the single flower (red petals, small, green leaves) growing in it. People enter the church, but always take a second to sweep the premises with their eyes - Where's his son? - and waving when they see him. Ryan closes his eyes and Brendon sees them mouth "Ungrateful, little..." or "Son of a bitch" or nothing at all.
"Thomas -" Ryan begins and turns to read the letters at his back. "- Brown, he only lived to be six years old."
"Wow," Brendon says, luring his hand towards Ryan's to steal the cigarette from his grip. "That's horrible," he says, inhales, exhales, hands it back.
"It's, like," Ryan continues, chews on his lower lip, "like a reminder that we should make the best of our time. You know? We shouldn't just-" And then Brendon just leans over, places a chaste kiss on his lips. He tastes like Ryan smells (clean, vanilla, chocolate, boy and cigarette smoke).
"What was that for?" Ryan asks, dumbfounded, kind of, out of place, definitely. Brendon grabs the cigarette again, inhales another mouthful of smoke and places it between Ryan's lips.
"I just made the best of my time," he shrugs. "Come on, it's time to go say farewell to your dad."
Brendon grabs the other boy's wrist and hoist him up, the small pile of old paint from the dove shattering in the air, a short speckle of magic and Brendon whispers, "Snow."
"It's always fucking hot here," Ryan laughs bitterly, tosses the cigarette butt to the ground, smashing it with his foot. He leans against Brendon's chest helplessly. "I don't want to do this."
Brendon's hand runs circles across Ryan's back. He shushes him, assures, "You have to; it'll be fine, you'll be fine," and Ryan nods, a river of tears running down his face.
"I'll miss him."
"I know."
They lay on the humid grass, a good distance between them and civilisation. The air is a cross between ice cold and burning hot and Brendon contemplates removing his jacket, but chooses to keep it on, just in case.
When they breathe, foggy, grey smoke blends with the dark carpet that is the sky. Brendon watches it float in the air for a bit, watches as it disappears, slowly, decreasing into nothing. He inhales air into his lungs more often, switches between blowing it out through his nostrils and lips.
When he looks over at Ryan, it seems that he doesn't breathe at all.
"Are you okay?" Brendon asks, and if he'd been high right now, he's sure the smoke would form the words he just spoke and not just clouds of nothing.
Ryan blinks, stares up at the sky, nods but says, "I almost killed him once."
Brendon doesn't reply, but something in his stomach knots itself.
"I just... He was drunk, again - well, I guess he never stopped being drunk - and I don't even know how, but suddenly I had a knife in my hand and I was hovering over his bed, ready to just jab once and that would have been the end of that." Ryan sighs. In the distance Brendon thinks he can make out the sound of speeding cars on the highway.
He asks, "What made you decide not to?"
Ryan pauses, wraps his arms around himself, moves (Brendon thinks, doesn't know if he imagines it, but he thinks Ryan scoots a bit closer to him, and his heart skips a beat), but doesn't reply immediately.
After a few minutes of silence, Ryan says, "He opened his eyes, looked at me and said, 'I'm sorry, Ryan,' and I just couldn’t do it. I don't even know if he meant it, can't ask him now anyway."
"He probably did," Brendon says.
"Yeah?"
"Mmm."
Ryan leans up on his elbows, gaze fixated at the sky. "It's kind of cold out tonight. I swear it never is."
Brendon makes a sound at the back of his throat. "It's kind of a mix," he says, "a little bit cold, a little bit warm."
Then, as in a dream, Ryan mutters, "Thank you," and connects his lips with Brendon's before he even has time to think, react.
Their lips move together lazily, in no rush for it to be more than just a way of appreciating the other, a way of saying I care. Brendon grabs Ryan's hand, strokes his thumb over his knuckles, and Ryan sighs into Brendon's mouth.
"Thank you," Brendon breathes when they pull away - not too much; Ryan's face is still close enough that Brendon's eyes cross slightly as they move over his face.
"For the kiss?" Ryan laughs, skips closer, throws his arm over Brendon's torso carelessly.
"No. No, for the - for everything, basically."
"Isn't it a little late to be all deep and shit?" Ryan leans down, burying his face against Brendon's chest. He breathes into the other boy's suit jacket, laughing still, Brendon running a lazy hand through Ryan's hair. He laughs, too.
"Probably. But, okay, just thank you for helping me making the best of my time."
Ryan nods.
"And, you know, thank you for the kiss too."
They smile; Brendon to the sky and Ryan into the fabric of Brendon's jacket. Ryan leans up and pecks Brendon on the lips, cheeks faintly blush. "For new beginnings," he says against the other boy's lips.
"For rebirth," Brendon agrees, smiling.