The impossible has finally happened.
Jon asks again-without any sign that he minds having to repeat himself, "Would it upset you if I had coffee with Spencer and Brendon? Not as my bandmates?"
Ryan takes his hands off his guitar. He's not stupid, he knows his tells. "They invited you to coffee?"
"No, they invited me into their bed, but I told them I'm not that kind of boy."
"Really?" Ryan asks, because Jon doesn't seem particularly high-maintenance, and it's going to be more than a little ironic if Ryan-who is the most high-maintenance person Ryan knows-requires less from a sexual interlude than Jon does.
"Really." Jon smiles, and doesn't say anything else. Ryan hasn't noticed until now that Jon's smile can hide things; or, well, not hide, exactly. It's more like it has things waiting in it, things that Ryan could ask about, but he'd have to ask. Ryan considers it. This is new, this is an angle of Jon he's never seen, never guessed at, and it tugs at his curiosity, sharper than a comb at a tangle. In the end he asks, "Why would that upset me?"
Jon's eyes narrow fractionally. "Because there's four of us in this band, and three of us would be having coffees together. If I were the fourth, it might upset me."
There's something Jon's not saying. Ryan doesn't know how he knows, he just does. Jon can usually fly right under the radar of Ryan's built-in-okay, fine, long-honed-bullshit radar, but he's pinging it hard just now. Ryan wonders if he should ask, should find out what Jon knows, but if Jon knows the things Ryan wants and the things that are so clearly unavailable to him Ryan doesn't think he wants to have that information. It's far better to believe Jon is still just being cautious with them, still trying not to fuck up, still trying to have his name on a contract somewhere that declares him one of them. He says, "I get my coffee elsewhere."
Jon says, "You should try asking for it, sometime. The coffee. Before."
Ryan smiles at that, hoping it's sardonic rather than simply edged. "I'm not that kind of boy."
"Are you sure? Or is it just that you've never had the courage to try being him?"
Ryan's been called a lot names in his life: pussy, bitch, combinations thereof, asshole, lametard, the list goes on. Coward is a new addition, if only by implication. The worst part is, Ryan knows that the burn in his stomach isn't anger; it's shame. He looks Jon in the eye and tells him the biggest lie he has ever told anyone, including the time he told his mother he was straight, because it was clearly what she wanted to hear. "I'm sure."
"All right," Jon says softly. It's not judgmental, but there's something about it Ryan can't read. It leaves him uneasy. He doesn't need Jon seeing the things that Spencer's too close, knows him too well to see. He doesn't need Jon seeing the things that Brendon would simply prefer not to see. He doesn't need Jon destroying his lies, his perfectly safe, lyrical lies. Jon asks, "You want us to bring you back anything, when we go? Something sweet? Bitter? Bittersweet?"
Ryan makes himself laugh and writes down his very, very particular coffee order.
Oh, Ryan.
OH RIGHT. Plus, bonus points because this fic nearly made me fall in love with a het pairing. With Ryan. Like, this scene broke me:
Greta's from - another band whose name I can't remember at the moment. She's hot (but aren't they all).
"Look," Greta says to Ryan. They're hanging out in her hotel room, lying next to each other on her bed, looking up at the ceiling. "Not that it's really any of my business but if I'm going to take the high and noble road here and not seduce you, could you just tell me why it is you don't sleep with Spencer?"
Ryan lets his head fall to the side. His cheek lays on her curls, burnt blonde and perfect, despite the fact that he knows she doesn't really mess with it unless there's a show. "Why are you taking the high and noble road, here?"
"I asked first," she tells him.
"What are you, five?"
"I'm not the one actually avoiding the question."
"There's nothing to avoid. Spencer and Brendon are together and they're my friends."
"Mm, yeah, I can really see the Brendon thing getting in the way for you. Or the Jon thing, for that matter."
Ryan looks at her. She says, "Relax. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who can tell, and only because I pay attention. Or, well, I pay attention to you, which means paying attention to them, and I know how a band works, so- It's not obvious, okay? It's not. Except that I think we're pretty much friends at this point, and it gets pretty clear pretty quick the parts of you that are missing. I'm not sure how they don't see them."
"It's not like that," Ryan says. It's not. Spencer's just too close to the picture, like a man who has walked up to a Monet and can't see anything except the peaks of the dried oil paint. He knows every inch of the canvas, he just doesn't always see how it all fits together. Brendon's just lost in Spencer, and Jon, Jon sometimes seems like he knows too much, but is too polite to mention it to Ryan. Either that, or he feels like it might be slightly uncomfortable to bring the situation up to Ryan, seeing as how he came into Ryan's band with his flip flops and his hair and his hips and took everything Ryan ever wanted. Ryan's not sure. It makes it easier that Jon has the sense to stay quiet.
"It's sort of like that," she says quietly.
Ryan says, "Your turn," to see if she will be diverted. He doubts it.
To his surprise she says, "Because it would be pretty fucking easy to be seduced back. And I'm not in unrequited love all over the place, so that might be dangerous for a girl, see."
Ryan rolls the little way in needed to press his lips to hers, slow, but chaste. He says, "If I could choose, Greta. If I could-"
She kisses him back, managing to bite his lip and still have it be a gesture between friends. "That's good enough."
Ryan wishes he agreed.
I love the part where she says, Because it will be pretty fucking easy to be seduced back, where she means, I could fall in love with you, and Ryan understands, tells her that if only he could choose, he would too, and - the impossible thing is that, the stupidest thing is that he can't, they can't.
Arsenic also does lovely, poetic, original descriptions which tear your heart out.
When they don't smell like the show-sweat and the burning of lightbulbs and the dust of the stage-each of the guys has a very distinct scent. Brendon smells of Pantene Pro-V and sugar, usually Skittles or Twizzlers, but sometimes something more chocolate-y, M&Ms or Reeses Cups. Spencer smells like new shoes and the laundry detergent his mom sends him while they're on the road. Jon smells softly of varnished wood, the kind a person finds on a bass, and fresh air. He manages that last even when he's been on a bus for twenty hours, which Ryan thinks is sort of like a miracle. Ryan imagines he has his own smell as well, but he doesn't know it, has never had anyone he could ask. He wakes to the smell of a windy day, the smell of a bass-line unplayed. "Oh," he says. "I stole you."
And, the priceless Ryan/Spencer interaction.
Ryan went to Jon, asked for Jon, so Spencer's a little terrified that somehow the basic lines of knowledge and communication between he and Ryan have gone dead, been cut, been compromised in some way Spencer can't conceive of. Spencer can understand, somewhere in his mind, if he thinks about it really long and hard and with a concentration that throbs at his temples, that Ryan was probably just asking for what he knew he was allowed to ask for, but Ryan has always, always been allowed to take Spencer for himself and the fact that he no longer knows that-or chooses to ignore it for something else-makes Spencer feel as though he's going to bleed out without so much as a bruise to show for it.
Ryan just - breaks my heart over and over and over again.
Ryan looks at Jon. Jon has his mouth closed so tightly Ryan's worried that not even the temptation of the three of them is going to pry it open hereafter. Jon nods shortly. Ryan really wants to kiss him, to kiss both of them, to say, "He walked off, he walked off," because Brendon got up, he was fine, he was. Brendon's not going down to some shit-faced punk with lucky aim. Ryan really wants to siphon the last of the fear from Spencer with his hands, but that's Brendon's right, Brendon's job. And Jon will go to them tonight, of course he will, Brendon-Brendon whom Ryan would hold up, would support for the rest of this show if he just asked, just allowed Ryan to-will need Jon, and Ryan won't stand in the way of that, no. They will put each other back together, and Ryan will be fine, is fine, Ryan wasn't hit with a bottle. Ryan's boyfriend wasn't hit with a bottle. He's perfectly fine.
Then, near, but not quite the end:
Spencer pulls Brendon onto his lap in the cab on the way back to the hotel, and Brendon doesn't even try to get frisky, just shapes himself to fit. Spencer strokes along his back, buries his face in Brendon's shoulder, and doesn't say anything. There's nothing to say. He can try telling Brendon how fucking amazing he was, how hard he sparked despite being sore and a little jumpy, but the words will sound stupid in comparison to the deed, so he just keeps his hands on Brendon, keeps him close, says things with his body. Spencer can see where Jon has one of his hands wrapped over Brendon's calf, can see where Ryan is sitting across from them, clearly keeping his hands to himself.
Spencer looks at Ryan, looks and Jon's words from months before stick in his chest. They've never really left, not wholly and Spencer is nothing but the echo of, do you think we left him out? because Ryan isn't sitting on the cab bench in a state of solitary dignity. He is perched, perfectly composed. He is in the exact same position Spencer has seen him in a million times when Ryan's mom would ask if Spencer's could keep Ryan for a few days, or when Ryan would need Spencer to pick him up from his dad's, or sometimes after a hook up went badly. It is a posture that says, "unwanted, unwanted." And Ryan is carefully, stridently, looking at anything but the three of them.
Two last points I will make subtly. At various points during the fic, Ryan reminded me of myself. If that was true (and obviously I feel insulted that I am comparing Ryan Ross the God to my lowly, unworthy self), then I want a Spencer, a Brendon and a Jon. I would actually love a Ryan too, but. I think that stems from a systemic confusion between whether I feel more than Ryan or Brendon at certain moments. I think QWRF for me is like, the epitome of lovelimerence, and sex is not important. Or at least, not as important and life-changing in the transformation from a platonic relationship to an amorous one as conventional wisdom dictates it; the more I think about it, the more I feel that line is Darwinian and completely arbitrary (in the sense that Nature designated it, not us). Limerence is an interesting, interesting concept I still have not worked out properly yet; love feels too contaminated a word to use here.
I am not being succinct. Uh, my other point was. Oh, I remember flunking my Lit RA interview because I brought up fanfiction, and at that point I couldn't say what the significance of fanfiction to Literature was, but now I am realizing gradually. Fanfiction is - emblematic of modern, teenage angst, in a sense (although I am uncomfortable with using the word 'angst' because it has acquired negative, banal connotations); word fatigue, in a sense, like flu fatigue. But the point is, since 'teenage' and the concept of 'teenagehood' is relatively new (it's been around for only five decades, give and take one), literature on teenagers is severely limited, and classical and even contemporary prose deals with Big Issues, weighty ones but a lot of those have been talked out. People are more nuanced, subtle now; their emotions are harder to decipher, more felt than labeled, and fanfiction is a new form of literature reflecting that. I need to think about this.
On a last note, I realize that posting the longest post I ever had in the total existence of this LJ about bandslash does not very convincingly prove the point that I am over it, but - seriously, how can any fic ever top QWRF?
Ryan takes his hands off his guitar. He's not stupid, he knows his tells. "They invited you to coffee?"
"No, they invited me into their bed, but I told them I'm not that kind of boy."
"Really?" Ryan asks, because Jon doesn't seem particularly high-maintenance, and it's going to be more than a little ironic if Ryan-who is the most high-maintenance person Ryan knows-requires less from a sexual interlude than Jon does.
"Really." Jon smiles, and doesn't say anything else. Ryan hasn't noticed until now that Jon's smile can hide things; or, well, not hide, exactly. It's more like it has things waiting in it, things that Ryan could ask about, but he'd have to ask. Ryan considers it. This is new, this is an angle of Jon he's never seen, never guessed at, and it tugs at his curiosity, sharper than a comb at a tangle. In the end he asks, "Why would that upset me?"
Jon's eyes narrow fractionally. "Because there's four of us in this band, and three of us would be having coffees together. If I were the fourth, it might upset me."
There's something Jon's not saying. Ryan doesn't know how he knows, he just does. Jon can usually fly right under the radar of Ryan's built-in-okay, fine, long-honed-bullshit radar, but he's pinging it hard just now. Ryan wonders if he should ask, should find out what Jon knows, but if Jon knows the things Ryan wants and the things that are so clearly unavailable to him Ryan doesn't think he wants to have that information. It's far better to believe Jon is still just being cautious with them, still trying not to fuck up, still trying to have his name on a contract somewhere that declares him one of them. He says, "I get my coffee elsewhere."
Jon says, "You should try asking for it, sometime. The coffee. Before."
Ryan smiles at that, hoping it's sardonic rather than simply edged. "I'm not that kind of boy."
"Are you sure? Or is it just that you've never had the courage to try being him?"
Ryan's been called a lot names in his life: pussy, bitch, combinations thereof, asshole, lametard, the list goes on. Coward is a new addition, if only by implication. The worst part is, Ryan knows that the burn in his stomach isn't anger; it's shame. He looks Jon in the eye and tells him the biggest lie he has ever told anyone, including the time he told his mother he was straight, because it was clearly what she wanted to hear. "I'm sure."
"All right," Jon says softly. It's not judgmental, but there's something about it Ryan can't read. It leaves him uneasy. He doesn't need Jon seeing the things that Spencer's too close, knows him too well to see. He doesn't need Jon seeing the things that Brendon would simply prefer not to see. He doesn't need Jon destroying his lies, his perfectly safe, lyrical lies. Jon asks, "You want us to bring you back anything, when we go? Something sweet? Bitter? Bittersweet?"
Ryan makes himself laugh and writes down his very, very particular coffee order.
Oh, Ryan.
OH RIGHT. Plus, bonus points because this fic nearly made me fall in love with a het pairing. With Ryan. Like, this scene broke me:
Greta's from - another band whose name I can't remember at the moment. She's hot (but aren't they all).
"Look," Greta says to Ryan. They're hanging out in her hotel room, lying next to each other on her bed, looking up at the ceiling. "Not that it's really any of my business but if I'm going to take the high and noble road here and not seduce you, could you just tell me why it is you don't sleep with Spencer?"
Ryan lets his head fall to the side. His cheek lays on her curls, burnt blonde and perfect, despite the fact that he knows she doesn't really mess with it unless there's a show. "Why are you taking the high and noble road, here?"
"I asked first," she tells him.
"What are you, five?"
"I'm not the one actually avoiding the question."
"There's nothing to avoid. Spencer and Brendon are together and they're my friends."
"Mm, yeah, I can really see the Brendon thing getting in the way for you. Or the Jon thing, for that matter."
Ryan looks at her. She says, "Relax. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who can tell, and only because I pay attention. Or, well, I pay attention to you, which means paying attention to them, and I know how a band works, so- It's not obvious, okay? It's not. Except that I think we're pretty much friends at this point, and it gets pretty clear pretty quick the parts of you that are missing. I'm not sure how they don't see them."
"It's not like that," Ryan says. It's not. Spencer's just too close to the picture, like a man who has walked up to a Monet and can't see anything except the peaks of the dried oil paint. He knows every inch of the canvas, he just doesn't always see how it all fits together. Brendon's just lost in Spencer, and Jon, Jon sometimes seems like he knows too much, but is too polite to mention it to Ryan. Either that, or he feels like it might be slightly uncomfortable to bring the situation up to Ryan, seeing as how he came into Ryan's band with his flip flops and his hair and his hips and took everything Ryan ever wanted. Ryan's not sure. It makes it easier that Jon has the sense to stay quiet.
"It's sort of like that," she says quietly.
Ryan says, "Your turn," to see if she will be diverted. He doubts it.
To his surprise she says, "Because it would be pretty fucking easy to be seduced back. And I'm not in unrequited love all over the place, so that might be dangerous for a girl, see."
Ryan rolls the little way in needed to press his lips to hers, slow, but chaste. He says, "If I could choose, Greta. If I could-"
She kisses him back, managing to bite his lip and still have it be a gesture between friends. "That's good enough."
Ryan wishes he agreed.
I love the part where she says, Because it will be pretty fucking easy to be seduced back, where she means, I could fall in love with you, and Ryan understands, tells her that if only he could choose, he would too, and - the impossible thing is that, the stupidest thing is that he can't, they can't.
Arsenic also does lovely, poetic, original descriptions which tear your heart out.
When they don't smell like the show-sweat and the burning of lightbulbs and the dust of the stage-each of the guys has a very distinct scent. Brendon smells of Pantene Pro-V and sugar, usually Skittles or Twizzlers, but sometimes something more chocolate-y, M&Ms or Reeses Cups. Spencer smells like new shoes and the laundry detergent his mom sends him while they're on the road. Jon smells softly of varnished wood, the kind a person finds on a bass, and fresh air. He manages that last even when he's been on a bus for twenty hours, which Ryan thinks is sort of like a miracle. Ryan imagines he has his own smell as well, but he doesn't know it, has never had anyone he could ask. He wakes to the smell of a windy day, the smell of a bass-line unplayed. "Oh," he says. "I stole you."
And, the priceless Ryan/Spencer interaction.
Ryan went to Jon, asked for Jon, so Spencer's a little terrified that somehow the basic lines of knowledge and communication between he and Ryan have gone dead, been cut, been compromised in some way Spencer can't conceive of. Spencer can understand, somewhere in his mind, if he thinks about it really long and hard and with a concentration that throbs at his temples, that Ryan was probably just asking for what he knew he was allowed to ask for, but Ryan has always, always been allowed to take Spencer for himself and the fact that he no longer knows that-or chooses to ignore it for something else-makes Spencer feel as though he's going to bleed out without so much as a bruise to show for it.
Ryan just - breaks my heart over and over and over again.
Ryan looks at Jon. Jon has his mouth closed so tightly Ryan's worried that not even the temptation of the three of them is going to pry it open hereafter. Jon nods shortly. Ryan really wants to kiss him, to kiss both of them, to say, "He walked off, he walked off," because Brendon got up, he was fine, he was. Brendon's not going down to some shit-faced punk with lucky aim. Ryan really wants to siphon the last of the fear from Spencer with his hands, but that's Brendon's right, Brendon's job. And Jon will go to them tonight, of course he will, Brendon-Brendon whom Ryan would hold up, would support for the rest of this show if he just asked, just allowed Ryan to-will need Jon, and Ryan won't stand in the way of that, no. They will put each other back together, and Ryan will be fine, is fine, Ryan wasn't hit with a bottle. Ryan's boyfriend wasn't hit with a bottle. He's perfectly fine.
Then, near, but not quite the end:
Spencer pulls Brendon onto his lap in the cab on the way back to the hotel, and Brendon doesn't even try to get frisky, just shapes himself to fit. Spencer strokes along his back, buries his face in Brendon's shoulder, and doesn't say anything. There's nothing to say. He can try telling Brendon how fucking amazing he was, how hard he sparked despite being sore and a little jumpy, but the words will sound stupid in comparison to the deed, so he just keeps his hands on Brendon, keeps him close, says things with his body. Spencer can see where Jon has one of his hands wrapped over Brendon's calf, can see where Ryan is sitting across from them, clearly keeping his hands to himself.
Spencer looks at Ryan, looks and Jon's words from months before stick in his chest. They've never really left, not wholly and Spencer is nothing but the echo of, do you think we left him out? because Ryan isn't sitting on the cab bench in a state of solitary dignity. He is perched, perfectly composed. He is in the exact same position Spencer has seen him in a million times when Ryan's mom would ask if Spencer's could keep Ryan for a few days, or when Ryan would need Spencer to pick him up from his dad's, or sometimes after a hook up went badly. It is a posture that says, "unwanted, unwanted." And Ryan is carefully, stridently, looking at anything but the three of them.
Two last points I will make subtly. At various points during the fic, Ryan reminded me of myself. If that was true (and obviously I feel insulted that I am comparing Ryan Ross the God to my lowly, unworthy self), then I want a Spencer, a Brendon and a Jon. I would actually love a Ryan too, but. I think that stems from a systemic confusion between whether I feel more than Ryan or Brendon at certain moments. I think QWRF for me is like, the epitome of lovelimerence, and sex is not important. Or at least, not as important and life-changing in the transformation from a platonic relationship to an amorous one as conventional wisdom dictates it; the more I think about it, the more I feel that line is Darwinian and completely arbitrary (in the sense that Nature designated it, not us). Limerence is an interesting, interesting concept I still have not worked out properly yet; love feels too contaminated a word to use here.
I am not being succinct. Uh, my other point was. Oh, I remember flunking my Lit RA interview because I brought up fanfiction, and at that point I couldn't say what the significance of fanfiction to Literature was, but now I am realizing gradually. Fanfiction is - emblematic of modern, teenage angst, in a sense (although I am uncomfortable with using the word 'angst' because it has acquired negative, banal connotations); word fatigue, in a sense, like flu fatigue. But the point is, since 'teenage' and the concept of 'teenagehood' is relatively new (it's been around for only five decades, give and take one), literature on teenagers is severely limited, and classical and even contemporary prose deals with Big Issues, weighty ones but a lot of those have been talked out. People are more nuanced, subtle now; their emotions are harder to decipher, more felt than labeled, and fanfiction is a new form of literature reflecting that. I need to think about this.
On a last note, I realize that posting the longest post I ever had in the total existence of this LJ about bandslash does not very convincingly prove the point that I am over it, but - seriously, how can any fic ever top QWRF?