fic: All Fires Have To Burn Alive
Fandom: Panic
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon
Warnings: kissing, drinking, cursing, blowjobs, makeouts.
Words: 15,247
Notes: So, I started writing this for frankkincense, oh, last spring sometime. Sometime Mayish, I bet. These days I am averaging a story per year, it seems. So although I thought this would be done by say, September, it was not. And I told myself it would be done before I went to New York in November, and it was not. And then I said it would be done by the end of the year, and it is JANUARY NINTH NOW, HOW DID THIS HAPPEN. Throughout, estei gave support and encouragement from the other side of the continent via happy green text and a willingness to overlook my foibles because she is a very, very, good person.
Summary: Post-split apocafic. Yes, it will pretty much take the end of the world to get this band back together.
When Brendon goes to the store he keeps an eye on the entrance.
It's just the little convenience store in the strip mall near the house. He's been there a thousand times. And eight hundred seventy-nine of those times Ryan was with him. They'd buy the plastic-wrapped sandwiches out of the cooler, construct neon rainbow slurpees in sizes designed for sugar crashes and brain freezes.
And now Brendon goes to pick up some frozen dinners and some beer - see, he'll tell Spencer, I contribute to the household, I plan ahead - and he watches the door the entire time. Because, he thinks. He never lets his brain finish that sentence: because Ryan could be hungry, too. Ryan could be driving by and stop for a two-day-old cheese sandwich. Because Ryan could walk in and they could lock eyes in the chip aisle.
Or some shit. Brendon doesn't know, exactly, what might happen. He's just waiting for it, is all.
Brendon brings his stuff up to the counter and roots around for the correct change. He smiles at the old man behind the counter whose face he knows but name he doesn't. The news on the radio is talking about the forest fires up in the northeast.
He steps back outside where the air is still, but not quiet. Cars on the freeway, trash in the parking lot. The sky has closed up on itself again, leaving the smoky air brownish and dull.
--
Spencer does not approve of frozen dinners. "You drove all the way down to the store, you couldn't get some carrots or something? "
"Carrots?" Brendon says into the fridge, where he is arranging beer bottles: warm at the back, cold at the front. He'll thank himself later.
"Yeah, like, vegetables? God." Spencer takes his car keys and walks out the door. He is gone an hour, and when he comes back he has real groceries: bread, milk, meat, vegetables. Four bags full to bursting of them. Brendon doesn't look too closely, but he doesn't see any cookie-box shapes in there. Nutrients only.
They're supposed to be writing songs, or something. Ever since they came back from Christmas, that's what they've been pretending to do. This afternoon is no different, except instead of even pretending Spencer spends another hour in the kitchen. Clattering things.
Brendon sinks into the couch beside Shane. Ian and his cloud of hair are in the chair opposite, behind a coffee table full of magazines and dirty dishes and their feet. Ian is visiting for a while. They invited him here for the same reason they invited him on tour: because he quit his other band and was just moping around in Seattle. Spencer says it's because he's the best guitar player they've ever met. Which is true, but not as important, probably, as the first thing.
It's not something they talk about, really.
The noises coming from the kitchen are loud, so they play some songs. Ian and Shane together know about eight hundred Queen songs, and Ian picks out the guitar solo in Who Wants to Live Forever in exact vibrato detail while Brendon busts out the high notes from his horizontal sprawl on the couch and Shane.
"I should go get the cello," Brendon says, after he's run out of lyrics. There are only three things to sing, anyway.
"And the timpani," Ian says.
"And the altar boys," Shane puts in. Shane has probably watched MTV's Queen retrospective more times than Brendon's sisters collectively saw Titanic.
"And the moustache," Ian adds.
"I could totally rock the moustache," Brendon says.
"Dude, you have rocked that moustache," Shane says. "I have photographic evidence."
"Oh yeah?" Brendon doesn't exactly recall. He has a foggy memory of Ryan with a luxurious black moustache backstage somewhere. Logic dictates that if Ryan was wearing one, he probably was too.
Spencer comes in from the kitchen. He's carrying a platter of raw meat with both hands, and he heads out the patio doors without saying a word.
"Are those steaks?" Shane says, head swiveling.
"Spencer is cooking us a feast." Brendon doesn't add: and is pissed off about it. Because probably Spencer will forget that he's pissed off once everyone starts telling him how amazing his Caesar salad is and open-mouth breathing on each other with their garlic breath. And drinking beers and playing music and calling friends and filling the house up until it's alive with people.
Spencer is just pissed off. And Brendon is just sad. That's the default. That's how it goes. That's why they need other people to keep the house warm and thrumming. Friends are a cure-all. And if you can't have friends, strangers will do fine.
--
In the morning, though, when you wake up with a headache and coffee table full of beer bottles and a phone full of pixellated pictures of dumbasses and bare asses, there are no new songs.
That's the problem.
That's the problem that sends Spencer into Brendon's room at ten minutes after seven, saying, "Are you gonna get up? C'mon."
And Brendon, who is awake, yes, but does not want to be, says, "Five minutes," and puts his head back under the covers and spends half an hour there.
And then he has a shower, and pours milk on a bowl of cereal and even collects some stray dishes out of the living room while he's waiting for his coffee to heat up in the microwave. God, how long has Spencer been up if the coffee's already cold in the pot?
Spencer is in the basement - Brendon can hear him through the soundproofing, about as loud as a really aggressive laundry machine - and if he had to guess, Brendon would say he isn't so much practicing as just wailing on his kit.
Spencer doesn't need people to keep him feeling warm and alive. He has his drums.
Brendon perches on the counter for another little while, and doesn't go downstairs till one of the pauses stretches into a break and he knows Spencer's banged himself out for a little while.
Their music room isn't much to look at - dirty beige carpet with stains and extension cords and bits of trash lying around, and enough gear that Brendon got the platinum house insurance plan, just in case. His cello is down here, every instrument he's ever loved and not lost or broken. The windows are sealed over with extra soundproofing so the neighbors don't complain and there are smudges of green sticky tack from the posters that Ryan used to put up. Their own old posters, sometimes. Sometimes photos he picked up in flea markets. Sometimes photos of them. But these days the walls are bare, beige as the carpet.
Spencer pulls his headphones off when he sees Brendon on the stairs. He is sweaty, hair pushed back and tshirt sticky, and Brendon can see that he's already broken a drumstick. It's in slivers on the floor.
"What was that, Blink?" he asks, as he hands Spencer his coffee. Then he pulls a banana out of his pants pocket, making a clownish face about it before handing it over, too. Got to keep the blood sugar up.
"Travis gave me a copy of his practice mix. It's fucking. You know." Spencer gestures with his sticks in his left hand, takes a sip of coffee from his right. "The man's an octopus. Did you microwave this?"
"Yeah," Brendon says. "It was cold."
"That's because it's from Friday," Spencer, grimacing, swallows three more mouthfuls in quick succession.
Brendon tips an eye at the mug in his own hand. The coffee looks thick and sticks to the sides of the mug when he sloshes it around. "Huh."
"Lord," Spencer rolls his eyes and sets the mug on the ledge behind him, where it joins a chorus line of half-empty glasses of indeterminate age. He says, "Do you want to practice?"
And Brendon nods even though he really, really doesn't. He wanders over and flicks his keyboard on. His stool is a crappy little thing and he always tries to sit with a leg folded up and it never works. Some major artery always gets blocked off so he gets pins and needles. With just his index finger he pecks out a Kelly Clarkson tune on the keys. He's also really good at Avil Lavigne's major works. She just hits an easy part of his range. Sometimes they sing covers to warm up: maybe Spencer will want to do one of Blink's songs. Brendon glances up, hopeful. "Stockholm Syndrome?" he suggests.
Spencer is frowning at him. "What about that one from yesterday?" he asks.
Brendon shakes his head, "Which one?"
"You know, the one that went na naaa na na-" and he taps out a perky little rhythm on the snare and hums the melody.
Brendon shakes his head, unenlightened, and Spencer repeats it three more times before realization hits and Brendon remembers writing it at four a.m. beside the pool last week. He didn't write lyrics down, or sing them out loud even.
The song's about the time that Ryan kissed him. The time that Ryan kissed him in his bedroom in his parents' house. And in the hotel pool in San Francisco. The first time. All the furtive times. It's about every time Ryan kissed him and as soon as Brendon remembers that he shakes his head and goes, "It's not - I don't remember that one. Let's do something else."
And he pretends he doesn't see that little flare of irritation in Spencer's face, the same expression he always sees when they try to work together now because Brendon knows he's always doing this, he's always taking two steps back for every half step forward. He may as well be saying let's work on Lying, let's work on Camisado.
There are no new songs, as far as Brendon's concerned. He's just not interested in them.
"Alright," Spencer says. "Fine."
They work on something else.
--
They have a lunch date with Pete. The restaurant is one of two in the city that are Hamptons themed, and they get confused, showing up at The Colony on North Cahuenga which serves vodka popsicles, only to find out that Pete is waiting for them at the Colony Café on West Pico which serves fancy hot dogs and frozen yogurt. Either way, the Hamptons theme apparently means that the lounge chairs are shaped like charming, rustic dinghies. And the pergola on the patio has weathered tow ropes coiled and buoys on display and everything's painted white or blue or gray. Brendon, whose experience of New England is almost entirely hotel rooms and stadiums and dense roadside foliage in the summertime, suspects it might be kitschy. They're nowhere near the beach, for one.
Pete seems to like it, though. He stands up to hug them while Spencer tries to apologize for being late, and the server shows up immediately to take their drink orders and Pete winks at her.
They don't talk business. They don't talk business at all anymore, just babies. Spencer seems to legitimately care, so out comes the iphone with the pictures of Pete's jungle child, and out it stays until their food comes. Pete ordered the Dirty Dog, which has chili and ranch dressing and cheese on it. Spencer went with the Lone Dog. Brendon, freaked out by all the toppings, ordered a panini, which seems to disappoint Pete somehow.
With all those condiments in him, Pete forgets the rules enough to say through a mouthful of sausage, "Guys, how's the album coming?" in the way that he might have before. Earnest and excited and curious, no sign of managerial tact.
But as soon as it's out of his mouth, before Spencer's face can cloud over or Brendon can jerk his eyes down to the burlap tablecloth and checkered napkins, Pete remembers himself and says, "No wait. God, fuck it. Like you guys need any pressure right now. Forget I asked. No seriously, forget it. You just come to me if you need anything. Okay? Any time. Whatever."
And Spencer is trying to say, "No, it's okay, don't even- we're not. It's actually going fine-" but is getting drowned under Pete's affirmations.
Brendon keeps quiet.
Pete keeps going. He orders them all another round - even though it's before noon and their cars are in the parking lot - and starts in low and confidential about how proud he is of them. He says it, shaking his head, looking from Spencer to Brendon and back again to make sure they're paying attention.
"Just, the way you're just soldiering through this. Take all the time you need. Because I have faith that whatever you do. Whatever you write. It's what you're supposed to write. You're becoming the band you're supposed to become. You're going the way you're meant to. It's all natural, it's a natural process."
He's beaming at them. He's smiling a tight-lipped smile and his eyes are shining and Brendon can't even meet his gaze.
Brendon cuts a bite out of his panini with his fork and knife. His napkin folded in his lap. He sips his vodka cranberry limeade with mint sprigs.
After, Spencer twists his key in the ignition and mutters, "God, I didn't know it was possible for Pete to be that depressing."
Brendon shrugs. Pete waves to them from his car as he pulls out ahead of them.
They drive home the short way. Freeways, no beaches. When they get to the house, Spencer goes inside and Brendon spends ten minutes sitting on the doorstep with his elbows on his knees, looking at the line of the ocean in the distance. It seems muddled, reflecting the strange brown sky back at itself. The horizon line is a smudge.
Eventually, he thinks of a melody. He goes downstairs, and offers it to Spencer.
--
A few days later Brendon's down at the convenience store again. He's looking for those candy cigarettes you used to get when you were a kid. They have such a specific taste, he can remember it. His parents hated them. He'd always get them from the five-cent bin at the corner store by the junior high. Later, it was the same corner store that Ryan would buy smokes at. Brendon would always tag along. That store never IDed. His folks were smart people, hating cigarettes, hating Ryan.
"I guess you don't sell those anymore, huh," he says to the guy at the counter. A different guy - middle-aged, collared shirt. The radio has nothing to say about the forest fires this time, it's just playing Christina Aguilera.
"No," the guy says. "I haven't seen them in forever. Maybe See's would have them."
Brendon cedes the clerk's attention to the woman in line behind him, and wanders back down the aisle. They need toilet paper. Spencer will be happy if he remembers the toilet paper.
The bell on the door jingles as the woman leaves the store with her lottery tickets.
The sky is dark with clouds - Brendon can see over the shelves into the parking lot - but it's early. Shane said something about his parents coming over for a barbeque tonight. They will definitely need toilet paper. They need to appear to be functional human beings when parents or girls come by.
Brendon's standing in the aisle under a florescent light that has somehow got brighter than the afternoon sun, trying to remember which brand is sitting in the closet, and wondering if the difference between two ply and three matters to anyone on the face of the planet.
The bell jingles again, someone comes in.
Brendon looks over, habit. He sees Ryan.
He sees Ryan walk up to the counter. He sees the back of Ryan's head, tipped in perfunctory acknowledgement of the clerk. Ryan's hair long enough to brush the collar of his shirt, and his skinny ass and stovepipe slacks. Ryan's hip cocked, one foot crossed over the other as he leans forward to specify the correct item. His palms on the rack of candy bars. His wallet in his back pocket.
Brendon stands there.
Ryan pays and as he pays he says something that makes the guy behind the counter chuckle, and then he turns to leave. Brendon realizes that he is waiting for Ryan to glance down the aisle - to sense his presence and look at him - but Ryan doesn't. He just walks back to the door, pushes it open. The bell jingles again.
"Hey, Ryan," Brendon calls, scaring himself with the sound of his own voice.
Ryan stops and looks down the aisle.
Outside the sky is browned over with cloud and it's three o'clock and the wind is picking up dirty food wrappers in the parking lot, scraping them over the asphalt, and tossing them in dusty breezes out into passing traffic.
Brendon thinks that Ryan, who is staring at him with black eyes, might just keep going. Walk out the door, get into his car. Go.
In fact, he knows that if he steps forward, Ryan will turn away. So he waits.
"Oh," Ryan says. Slow, flat.
Another customer is coming in from the parking lot, and just having to vacate the entrance pushes Ryan three, then six whole steps down the aisle toward Brendon. He shuffles like someone is herding him.
"How's it going?" Brendon asks. "How've you been?"
Ryan's lips part. His eyes widen like he might have something to say, something pleasant and true. "I forgot you came here," is what he says.
Eight hundred seventy-nine times, Brendon thinks. "It's so close to the house," is what he says, like he needs an excuse. He realizes, belatedly, that Ryan said it to hurt on purpose.
Ryan shrugs, "Yeah, same."
That's barbed, too. Like Brendon doesn't know where Ryan lives, like he's unfamiliar with the intimate details of Ryan's address. Brendon smiles to show he doesn't mind. "I know, Ryan."
Ryan casts a sharp sliver of a glance at the smile. "Well," he says. And his hand makes a sarcastic little flourish. A courtly fare-thee-well.
He is already turning to walk away and Brendon's voice is up in pitch, saying "Hey, so-" just to stall for time because he wants to look at Ryan's too-long hair and the way his eyes are a little sunken and his nails are chewed up and dirty. His clothes, which are precise, his shirt stretched across his narrow chest. Brendon wants to look at him. He can't stand watching him walk away.
It's been six months, it's been forever, and why hasn't he thought of a single thing to say to Ryan besides hey so? Ryan is paused, half-turned, chin tilted, mouth set.
Brendon can't breathe, his mind has gone blank. Hey, so.
The bell on the door is jangling.
The ground is shaking.
Brendon knows he is worked up, so he takes a breath to calm himself.
It's not just the ground. The shelves. The product on the shelves, the shelves on the floor. The whole fucking building, juddering like a freight train is screaming past on the other side of the back wall.
The plate glass window out to the parking lot is rattling in its frame, and Brendon, hey so still on his lips, grabs Ryan by the hand and pushes him up the aisle, away from it. Cans of food hit the floor and roll under their feet. Outside, the cars are rocking gently on their tires, like people are vigorously fucking inside them. The clerk is putting his hands up against the cigarette case, against cartons threatening to topple. The doors to the coolers at the back of the store swing open as their contents judder off the shelves and milk splatters on the floor. The toilet paper unit tips over entirely, smashes down onto the shelving opposite, kittens and bears everywhere.
Then it stops.
They're standing outside. Hand-in-hand.
Ryan breathes out. He pushes his hair out of his eyes.
Brendon looks back into the shop and sees the clerk poke his head up from behind the counter. The windows didn't break, after all.
"Holy shit," one of them says.
"Yeah."
"That was an earthquake," Ryan says. "I have never. I mean, not so you can feel it."
"Me either," says Brendon.
When Ryan takes his hand away from Brendon's it's not to tuck it under his other arm, defensively. He just jangles his keys in his pants pocket.
"Holy shit," Brendon can't help but repeat the sentiment.
Ryan shakes his head. He says, "Man oh man."
He looks at Brendon sideways, and Brendon catches him doing it and smiles and then laughs when Ryan rolls his eyes for no discernible reason.
They end up in Ryan's car. Ryan rolls a joint with the papers he just bought. And they sit and they silently pass it back and forth between them for half an hour.
Brendon keeps pressing his fingers to his jugular, reassured by how slow his heartbeat gets after a few drags. Before it was hammering, jumping in his neck like he'd sprinted a quarter mile, like he'd just come into his hand.
Ryan's car radio is reporting the damage. Which is none, so far. Probably some people got beamed on the head at home, Brendon bets. You could get seriously hurt if you'd been like, installing lighting fixtures at the time or something. They watch as traffic picks up out on the road.
"I should get going," Ryan says.
Brendon nods. It occurs to him that Spencer could've been installing lighting fixtures. Or cooking, or something equally dangerous. He should get home and check on the house, the dogs.
"It was nice seeing you," Brendon says, because he can't think of anything less lame.
"Thanks for saving me from the falling toilet paper," Ryan replies. He is smirking, he is starting the engine.
"Anytime," Brendon says.
He doesn't linger while Ryan pulls out into traffic. He adjusts his rearview mirror and drives home, heartbeat slow and calm, fingers tapping out a beat on the steering wheel.
--
At first Brendon thinks the house is empty, but then he finds Ian in Shane's bedroom, on his belly half-under the bed.
"Oh hi," Brendon says to Ian's ass and Ian's sneakers.
Ian says, muffled, "Brendon? Your dogs went crazy."
Brendon could hear the whining from the hall. He gets down onto his elbows and pokes his head under the bed-frame. In the far corner there is a shivering angry mess of freaked out dog-bodies that is curled up in a multi-limbed, many-headed ball of fur and whining. He can identify maybe four of them, but there are more ears and tails than that accounts for.
Ian, whose mass of hair is sweeping dustbunnies around the floor, says, "Dylan freaked out and then they all freaked out and now they're all under there."
"I guess it's their first big earthquake," Brendon says. "She doesn’t like thunder, either."
Ian says, "I don't actually know if I want them to come out. Penny tried to bite my face off when I grabbed her."
Brendon snorts. Penny is eyeballing them belligerently from her spot underneath Indie's hindquarters. "Go get the cheez whiz," he says.
Ian hauls himself off the floor and disappears down the hall.
Brendon coos to the pack, who are good dogs even if sometimes they forget they are housetrained and sometimes they like to gnaw on expensive things like shoes and guitar necks. He tells them he loves them anyway and they should all come out for treaties and fetch.
"I don't know where Spencer and Shane are," Ian says when he comes back with a wooden spoon and the designated jar, which is sticky and coated in dog hair and dried drool from various attempts at training Bogart to stop chewing his leash on walks. "But Spencer texted me right away, he's fine. When I tried to call Shane it told me the operator was down or it couldn't get a line or whatever."
"Oh," says Brendon. He didn't think to call. He hasn't even checked his phone. Probably Spencer will yell at him later for being a dick.
"Where were you?" Ian asks. "Were the roads okay or is it like, collapsed overpasses and firey chaos out there?"
"The store," Brendon says. "And fuck, I forgot the toilet paper."
The cheez whiz has to be pretty much inserted in front of Dylan's face before she will even consider licking it in her prim, delicate way - a half inch of tongue is all she'll give it, refusing to look enthusiastic - but then Brendon slowly backs out, and she shuffles forward after it, and pretty soon he has her on her back in his lap and all the other dogs, dust-covered and still a bit white around the eyes, are crowding around, snuffling for a turn with the magical spoon.
Brendon is smiling to himself as he gives belly rubs, and as soon as he realizes why he's smiling - it's not just the unconditional love - he sneaks a look at Ian out of the corner of his eye. I ran into Ryan, he could say, casual. I saved him from a rack of falling toilet paper.
Probably Ian wouldn't care. At least, not in the way that Spencer would, the way that is full of bristling and coded words and kneejerk judgment built up on years of baggage. Ian would just be like, oh weird, how is he? and then maybe one thing would lead to another and Brendon could say I've really missed him, you know? and Ian would give him sympathy because he lost his band, too. He knows how it is to feel two ways at once.
Brendon wants to tell him. His mouth is full of the words to do it. But Ian lives here. It wouldn't be fair, it would be complicated. And then Spencer would find out.
So Brendon keeps his words to himself. But he keeps smiling.
--
He texts Ryan two days later. A picture of Bogart lounging, his package rubbed right up against the sofa arm that he's splayed over. And Ryan responds in thirty seconds flat, so you're going to burn that couch right?
An hour later they're meeting at the convenience store again. Ryan mentioned slurpees. Brendon invited himself along.
Ryan didn't respond to confirm, which makes Brendon nervous, driving down. He monitors the sick feeling in his stomach. Wondering if Ryan will show or if he's pushing too hard. Why the hell is he pushing, anyway?
These are the mysteries of the universe.
But Brendon pulls into the parking lot and there he is. Black ray bans, a wool coat too heavy by half. But then, they're going to ingest sugary icewater, so maybe Ryan is dressed more appropriately than Brendon's thin blue t-shirt, his plaid pants.
Ryan doesn't acknowledge him until Brendon is within arm's reach, and then he shoves his hands deep in his pockets and says to the parking lot, "It's too fucking cold for slurpees."
Brendon doesn't argue. He smiles. He holds open the door.
Plastic cups in hand, they wander down the hill on the other side of the road and they hop a chainlink fence hung with warning signs and they find perches between silent black train cars parked parallel to the freeway. The cars are marked with indecipherable numbers and graffiti, each one identical except for tags and obscenities and garish cartoons. Ryan leans on the pitted black steel that links the cars together; Brendon hops up to sit on the grated step. Facing west, the sun is in their eyes, but Brendon's forearms have goosebumps from the breeze.
Ryan has a flask and he pours a generous few glugs into his plastic cup before offering it to Brendon.
"This is so high school," Brendon says, holding his cup forward.
Ryan smirks under his sunglasses as he pours. "Those were the days." There's something almost genuine in the way he says it, though. Something that runs counter to his usual dry angles.
Brendon doesn't press the subject. They all hated high school. No one misses it. Ryan's just upped his game to Level 8 irony, that's all. So sarcastic it sounds honest.
But Ryan's not offering any small talk, anyway. He caps the flask and tucks it back into his jacket and puts his mouth to his straw. Brendon can't see his eyes, and it makes him fidgety.
There is a long list of shit they can't talk about, and he's starting to think he should've started in on high school just because it's comparatively solid ground. They can't talk about the past; they can't talk about the future. What they're doing these days, even, is dangerous. And all that leaves is now, right now, sitting on this train looking at the ocean and the sun and the sky filled up with smoke from some burning distant forest.
"It's weird how it's so pretty," Brendon says. "You'd think all that smoke should be ugly."
There is a long pause where Brendon thinks maybe Ryan is going to get impatient or irritated with him for being boring and saying inane things about the weather. But instead, eventually: "I like it." Ryan chews on his straw. He always mangles them. "It looks like fog in the morning. It dries out the air like the desert."
"Yeah," says Brendon. It is a relief, to be agreeing about something.
The smoke makes the sun into an angry red hole in the clouds, which are torn up into molten gold and bleeding fire at the edges. It's turned the light thick and slow, the ocean wrinkled up into a hot dull pink. Brendon doesn't actually think it is pretty, he thinks it is breathtaking.
Soon, Ryan is checking his phone. He's draining the last of his vodka from the bottom of his cup, and Brendon is watching him do it and feeling like if all they have to talk about is right now then he should make right now as glorious as possible.
"I've got to get going," Ryan says. Maybe it's the light or maybe it’s the cream soda, but his mouth is fuchsia, lipsticky.
And Brendon, who knows how great it is to kiss Ryan Ross's sugary mouth, wants to kiss it now. So he does.
Ryan's lips are cold, and Brendon's are half-numb, too. Ryan's back is stiff and his hands don't move and the kiss is just one kiss. Or half of one, maybe, if that.
Ryan's face is blank under his sunglasses, when Brendon pulls back. Ryan opens his mouth and raises the back of his hand to wipe his bottom lip and then shuts it again. His sunglasses slip down his nose a fraction of an inch.
"I don't want you to go," Brendon says. "I think you should stay and finish the sunset with me."
Ryan's mouth, which is pressed flat with maybe irritation, maybe anger, doesn't quirk one way or the other. He seems to be considering, behind that blank wall. Running the numbers. Cost-benefit analysis. Risk assessment. It takes long seconds. But eventually one eyebrow goes up and he says, "Alright. If that's what you want."
He slithers out of his coat, lets it drape over the rusty steel, and pulls Brendon back into him. One knee hitched up so his thigh is in Brendon's crotch, his hips cocked to push in, his hands in Brendon's belt loops, up the small of his back, skirting his ribcage and back around to his shoulder blades.
Thirty seconds, and Ryan is all over him. Warm mouth, sugar kissed away, a pliant spine that arches in when Brendon grabs.
Ryan's mouth. Brendon's never kissed a mouth as perfect as Ryan's. Not since, not before. He is so, so happy to be kissing it right now.
"You should suck me off," Ryan says, teeth in Brendon's earlobe, tongue in Brendon's ear.
Brendon, face deep in Ryan's collar, doesn't let himself register the order for a second. Because it is - with Ryan it is an order. When Ryan is the one who is ready to walk away, then he is the one who gives the orders. Brendon can't say he is unfamiliar with the dynamics of the situation.
He is on his knees in the gravel between railroad ties. His left hand on Ryan's now-bare hipbone, his right at the base of Ryan's dick. Ryan's trousers peeled back, his shirt pushed up over his stomach. Ryan is so particular about how he likes it. Brendon can still remember the conversation: seventeen years old, his parents' minivan, Ryan took Brendon's fingers into his mouth and showed him exactly what to do, how hard to suck, where to use his teeth, how fast to go, how deep to take it.
Ryan's sunglasses are still black and blank when Brendon glances up to gauge his progress. Ryan's mouth slack, his breath clipped and short. Brendon has spit all over his hands, his jaw hurts, his neck hurts, rocks are digging into his knees, and Ryan is always so slow to come.
Brendon hates sucking Ryan off for that reason alone: while he's working to get Ryan to orgasm, Ryan always seems to be doing his utmost not to come. And the times when Brendon gives up? Wipes his mouth and rubs his jaw and abandons the attempt? Ryan seems more smug than disappointed. Somehow victorious.
This time, though, Ryan's breath gives out into a whine and his hips tense and jerk and Brendon, relieved, hums encouragement and swallows and licks up the mess.
When he rocks back on his heels and looks up, Ryan has pushed his sunglasses back up into his hair, which is damp at the temples. His eyes look hollow, and he laughs breathlessly down and says, "Fuck, Brendon, I missed your mouth."
Good, Brendon wants to say. We agree that we missed each other's mouths. But he doesn't.
Part 2
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon
Warnings: kissing, drinking, cursing, blowjobs, makeouts.
Words: 15,247
Notes: So, I started writing this for frankkincense, oh, last spring sometime. Sometime Mayish, I bet. These days I am averaging a story per year, it seems. So although I thought this would be done by say, September, it was not. And I told myself it would be done before I went to New York in November, and it was not. And then I said it would be done by the end of the year, and it is JANUARY NINTH NOW, HOW DID THIS HAPPEN. Throughout, estei gave support and encouragement from the other side of the continent via happy green text and a willingness to overlook my foibles because she is a very, very, good person.
Summary: Post-split apocafic. Yes, it will pretty much take the end of the world to get this band back together.
When Brendon goes to the store he keeps an eye on the entrance.
It's just the little convenience store in the strip mall near the house. He's been there a thousand times. And eight hundred seventy-nine of those times Ryan was with him. They'd buy the plastic-wrapped sandwiches out of the cooler, construct neon rainbow slurpees in sizes designed for sugar crashes and brain freezes.
And now Brendon goes to pick up some frozen dinners and some beer - see, he'll tell Spencer, I contribute to the household, I plan ahead - and he watches the door the entire time. Because, he thinks. He never lets his brain finish that sentence: because Ryan could be hungry, too. Ryan could be driving by and stop for a two-day-old cheese sandwich. Because Ryan could walk in and they could lock eyes in the chip aisle.
Or some shit. Brendon doesn't know, exactly, what might happen. He's just waiting for it, is all.
Brendon brings his stuff up to the counter and roots around for the correct change. He smiles at the old man behind the counter whose face he knows but name he doesn't. The news on the radio is talking about the forest fires up in the northeast.
He steps back outside where the air is still, but not quiet. Cars on the freeway, trash in the parking lot. The sky has closed up on itself again, leaving the smoky air brownish and dull.
--
Spencer does not approve of frozen dinners. "You drove all the way down to the store, you couldn't get some carrots or something? "
"Carrots?" Brendon says into the fridge, where he is arranging beer bottles: warm at the back, cold at the front. He'll thank himself later.
"Yeah, like, vegetables? God." Spencer takes his car keys and walks out the door. He is gone an hour, and when he comes back he has real groceries: bread, milk, meat, vegetables. Four bags full to bursting of them. Brendon doesn't look too closely, but he doesn't see any cookie-box shapes in there. Nutrients only.
They're supposed to be writing songs, or something. Ever since they came back from Christmas, that's what they've been pretending to do. This afternoon is no different, except instead of even pretending Spencer spends another hour in the kitchen. Clattering things.
Brendon sinks into the couch beside Shane. Ian and his cloud of hair are in the chair opposite, behind a coffee table full of magazines and dirty dishes and their feet. Ian is visiting for a while. They invited him here for the same reason they invited him on tour: because he quit his other band and was just moping around in Seattle. Spencer says it's because he's the best guitar player they've ever met. Which is true, but not as important, probably, as the first thing.
It's not something they talk about, really.
The noises coming from the kitchen are loud, so they play some songs. Ian and Shane together know about eight hundred Queen songs, and Ian picks out the guitar solo in Who Wants to Live Forever in exact vibrato detail while Brendon busts out the high notes from his horizontal sprawl on the couch and Shane.
"I should go get the cello," Brendon says, after he's run out of lyrics. There are only three things to sing, anyway.
"And the timpani," Ian says.
"And the altar boys," Shane puts in. Shane has probably watched MTV's Queen retrospective more times than Brendon's sisters collectively saw Titanic.
"And the moustache," Ian adds.
"I could totally rock the moustache," Brendon says.
"Dude, you have rocked that moustache," Shane says. "I have photographic evidence."
"Oh yeah?" Brendon doesn't exactly recall. He has a foggy memory of Ryan with a luxurious black moustache backstage somewhere. Logic dictates that if Ryan was wearing one, he probably was too.
Spencer comes in from the kitchen. He's carrying a platter of raw meat with both hands, and he heads out the patio doors without saying a word.
"Are those steaks?" Shane says, head swiveling.
"Spencer is cooking us a feast." Brendon doesn't add: and is pissed off about it. Because probably Spencer will forget that he's pissed off once everyone starts telling him how amazing his Caesar salad is and open-mouth breathing on each other with their garlic breath. And drinking beers and playing music and calling friends and filling the house up until it's alive with people.
Spencer is just pissed off. And Brendon is just sad. That's the default. That's how it goes. That's why they need other people to keep the house warm and thrumming. Friends are a cure-all. And if you can't have friends, strangers will do fine.
--
In the morning, though, when you wake up with a headache and coffee table full of beer bottles and a phone full of pixellated pictures of dumbasses and bare asses, there are no new songs.
That's the problem.
That's the problem that sends Spencer into Brendon's room at ten minutes after seven, saying, "Are you gonna get up? C'mon."
And Brendon, who is awake, yes, but does not want to be, says, "Five minutes," and puts his head back under the covers and spends half an hour there.
And then he has a shower, and pours milk on a bowl of cereal and even collects some stray dishes out of the living room while he's waiting for his coffee to heat up in the microwave. God, how long has Spencer been up if the coffee's already cold in the pot?
Spencer is in the basement - Brendon can hear him through the soundproofing, about as loud as a really aggressive laundry machine - and if he had to guess, Brendon would say he isn't so much practicing as just wailing on his kit.
Spencer doesn't need people to keep him feeling warm and alive. He has his drums.
Brendon perches on the counter for another little while, and doesn't go downstairs till one of the pauses stretches into a break and he knows Spencer's banged himself out for a little while.
Their music room isn't much to look at - dirty beige carpet with stains and extension cords and bits of trash lying around, and enough gear that Brendon got the platinum house insurance plan, just in case. His cello is down here, every instrument he's ever loved and not lost or broken. The windows are sealed over with extra soundproofing so the neighbors don't complain and there are smudges of green sticky tack from the posters that Ryan used to put up. Their own old posters, sometimes. Sometimes photos he picked up in flea markets. Sometimes photos of them. But these days the walls are bare, beige as the carpet.
Spencer pulls his headphones off when he sees Brendon on the stairs. He is sweaty, hair pushed back and tshirt sticky, and Brendon can see that he's already broken a drumstick. It's in slivers on the floor.
"What was that, Blink?" he asks, as he hands Spencer his coffee. Then he pulls a banana out of his pants pocket, making a clownish face about it before handing it over, too. Got to keep the blood sugar up.
"Travis gave me a copy of his practice mix. It's fucking. You know." Spencer gestures with his sticks in his left hand, takes a sip of coffee from his right. "The man's an octopus. Did you microwave this?"
"Yeah," Brendon says. "It was cold."
"That's because it's from Friday," Spencer, grimacing, swallows three more mouthfuls in quick succession.
Brendon tips an eye at the mug in his own hand. The coffee looks thick and sticks to the sides of the mug when he sloshes it around. "Huh."
"Lord," Spencer rolls his eyes and sets the mug on the ledge behind him, where it joins a chorus line of half-empty glasses of indeterminate age. He says, "Do you want to practice?"
And Brendon nods even though he really, really doesn't. He wanders over and flicks his keyboard on. His stool is a crappy little thing and he always tries to sit with a leg folded up and it never works. Some major artery always gets blocked off so he gets pins and needles. With just his index finger he pecks out a Kelly Clarkson tune on the keys. He's also really good at Avil Lavigne's major works. She just hits an easy part of his range. Sometimes they sing covers to warm up: maybe Spencer will want to do one of Blink's songs. Brendon glances up, hopeful. "Stockholm Syndrome?" he suggests.
Spencer is frowning at him. "What about that one from yesterday?" he asks.
Brendon shakes his head, "Which one?"
"You know, the one that went na naaa na na-" and he taps out a perky little rhythm on the snare and hums the melody.
Brendon shakes his head, unenlightened, and Spencer repeats it three more times before realization hits and Brendon remembers writing it at four a.m. beside the pool last week. He didn't write lyrics down, or sing them out loud even.
The song's about the time that Ryan kissed him. The time that Ryan kissed him in his bedroom in his parents' house. And in the hotel pool in San Francisco. The first time. All the furtive times. It's about every time Ryan kissed him and as soon as Brendon remembers that he shakes his head and goes, "It's not - I don't remember that one. Let's do something else."
And he pretends he doesn't see that little flare of irritation in Spencer's face, the same expression he always sees when they try to work together now because Brendon knows he's always doing this, he's always taking two steps back for every half step forward. He may as well be saying let's work on Lying, let's work on Camisado.
There are no new songs, as far as Brendon's concerned. He's just not interested in them.
"Alright," Spencer says. "Fine."
They work on something else.
--
They have a lunch date with Pete. The restaurant is one of two in the city that are Hamptons themed, and they get confused, showing up at The Colony on North Cahuenga which serves vodka popsicles, only to find out that Pete is waiting for them at the Colony Café on West Pico which serves fancy hot dogs and frozen yogurt. Either way, the Hamptons theme apparently means that the lounge chairs are shaped like charming, rustic dinghies. And the pergola on the patio has weathered tow ropes coiled and buoys on display and everything's painted white or blue or gray. Brendon, whose experience of New England is almost entirely hotel rooms and stadiums and dense roadside foliage in the summertime, suspects it might be kitschy. They're nowhere near the beach, for one.
Pete seems to like it, though. He stands up to hug them while Spencer tries to apologize for being late, and the server shows up immediately to take their drink orders and Pete winks at her.
They don't talk business. They don't talk business at all anymore, just babies. Spencer seems to legitimately care, so out comes the iphone with the pictures of Pete's jungle child, and out it stays until their food comes. Pete ordered the Dirty Dog, which has chili and ranch dressing and cheese on it. Spencer went with the Lone Dog. Brendon, freaked out by all the toppings, ordered a panini, which seems to disappoint Pete somehow.
With all those condiments in him, Pete forgets the rules enough to say through a mouthful of sausage, "Guys, how's the album coming?" in the way that he might have before. Earnest and excited and curious, no sign of managerial tact.
But as soon as it's out of his mouth, before Spencer's face can cloud over or Brendon can jerk his eyes down to the burlap tablecloth and checkered napkins, Pete remembers himself and says, "No wait. God, fuck it. Like you guys need any pressure right now. Forget I asked. No seriously, forget it. You just come to me if you need anything. Okay? Any time. Whatever."
And Spencer is trying to say, "No, it's okay, don't even- we're not. It's actually going fine-" but is getting drowned under Pete's affirmations.
Brendon keeps quiet.
Pete keeps going. He orders them all another round - even though it's before noon and their cars are in the parking lot - and starts in low and confidential about how proud he is of them. He says it, shaking his head, looking from Spencer to Brendon and back again to make sure they're paying attention.
"Just, the way you're just soldiering through this. Take all the time you need. Because I have faith that whatever you do. Whatever you write. It's what you're supposed to write. You're becoming the band you're supposed to become. You're going the way you're meant to. It's all natural, it's a natural process."
He's beaming at them. He's smiling a tight-lipped smile and his eyes are shining and Brendon can't even meet his gaze.
Brendon cuts a bite out of his panini with his fork and knife. His napkin folded in his lap. He sips his vodka cranberry limeade with mint sprigs.
After, Spencer twists his key in the ignition and mutters, "God, I didn't know it was possible for Pete to be that depressing."
Brendon shrugs. Pete waves to them from his car as he pulls out ahead of them.
They drive home the short way. Freeways, no beaches. When they get to the house, Spencer goes inside and Brendon spends ten minutes sitting on the doorstep with his elbows on his knees, looking at the line of the ocean in the distance. It seems muddled, reflecting the strange brown sky back at itself. The horizon line is a smudge.
Eventually, he thinks of a melody. He goes downstairs, and offers it to Spencer.
--
A few days later Brendon's down at the convenience store again. He's looking for those candy cigarettes you used to get when you were a kid. They have such a specific taste, he can remember it. His parents hated them. He'd always get them from the five-cent bin at the corner store by the junior high. Later, it was the same corner store that Ryan would buy smokes at. Brendon would always tag along. That store never IDed. His folks were smart people, hating cigarettes, hating Ryan.
"I guess you don't sell those anymore, huh," he says to the guy at the counter. A different guy - middle-aged, collared shirt. The radio has nothing to say about the forest fires this time, it's just playing Christina Aguilera.
"No," the guy says. "I haven't seen them in forever. Maybe See's would have them."
Brendon cedes the clerk's attention to the woman in line behind him, and wanders back down the aisle. They need toilet paper. Spencer will be happy if he remembers the toilet paper.
The bell on the door jingles as the woman leaves the store with her lottery tickets.
The sky is dark with clouds - Brendon can see over the shelves into the parking lot - but it's early. Shane said something about his parents coming over for a barbeque tonight. They will definitely need toilet paper. They need to appear to be functional human beings when parents or girls come by.
Brendon's standing in the aisle under a florescent light that has somehow got brighter than the afternoon sun, trying to remember which brand is sitting in the closet, and wondering if the difference between two ply and three matters to anyone on the face of the planet.
The bell jingles again, someone comes in.
Brendon looks over, habit. He sees Ryan.
He sees Ryan walk up to the counter. He sees the back of Ryan's head, tipped in perfunctory acknowledgement of the clerk. Ryan's hair long enough to brush the collar of his shirt, and his skinny ass and stovepipe slacks. Ryan's hip cocked, one foot crossed over the other as he leans forward to specify the correct item. His palms on the rack of candy bars. His wallet in his back pocket.
Brendon stands there.
Ryan pays and as he pays he says something that makes the guy behind the counter chuckle, and then he turns to leave. Brendon realizes that he is waiting for Ryan to glance down the aisle - to sense his presence and look at him - but Ryan doesn't. He just walks back to the door, pushes it open. The bell jingles again.
"Hey, Ryan," Brendon calls, scaring himself with the sound of his own voice.
Ryan stops and looks down the aisle.
Outside the sky is browned over with cloud and it's three o'clock and the wind is picking up dirty food wrappers in the parking lot, scraping them over the asphalt, and tossing them in dusty breezes out into passing traffic.
Brendon thinks that Ryan, who is staring at him with black eyes, might just keep going. Walk out the door, get into his car. Go.
In fact, he knows that if he steps forward, Ryan will turn away. So he waits.
"Oh," Ryan says. Slow, flat.
Another customer is coming in from the parking lot, and just having to vacate the entrance pushes Ryan three, then six whole steps down the aisle toward Brendon. He shuffles like someone is herding him.
"How's it going?" Brendon asks. "How've you been?"
Ryan's lips part. His eyes widen like he might have something to say, something pleasant and true. "I forgot you came here," is what he says.
Eight hundred seventy-nine times, Brendon thinks. "It's so close to the house," is what he says, like he needs an excuse. He realizes, belatedly, that Ryan said it to hurt on purpose.
Ryan shrugs, "Yeah, same."
That's barbed, too. Like Brendon doesn't know where Ryan lives, like he's unfamiliar with the intimate details of Ryan's address. Brendon smiles to show he doesn't mind. "I know, Ryan."
Ryan casts a sharp sliver of a glance at the smile. "Well," he says. And his hand makes a sarcastic little flourish. A courtly fare-thee-well.
He is already turning to walk away and Brendon's voice is up in pitch, saying "Hey, so-" just to stall for time because he wants to look at Ryan's too-long hair and the way his eyes are a little sunken and his nails are chewed up and dirty. His clothes, which are precise, his shirt stretched across his narrow chest. Brendon wants to look at him. He can't stand watching him walk away.
It's been six months, it's been forever, and why hasn't he thought of a single thing to say to Ryan besides hey so? Ryan is paused, half-turned, chin tilted, mouth set.
Brendon can't breathe, his mind has gone blank. Hey, so.
The bell on the door is jangling.
The ground is shaking.
Brendon knows he is worked up, so he takes a breath to calm himself.
It's not just the ground. The shelves. The product on the shelves, the shelves on the floor. The whole fucking building, juddering like a freight train is screaming past on the other side of the back wall.
The plate glass window out to the parking lot is rattling in its frame, and Brendon, hey so still on his lips, grabs Ryan by the hand and pushes him up the aisle, away from it. Cans of food hit the floor and roll under their feet. Outside, the cars are rocking gently on their tires, like people are vigorously fucking inside them. The clerk is putting his hands up against the cigarette case, against cartons threatening to topple. The doors to the coolers at the back of the store swing open as their contents judder off the shelves and milk splatters on the floor. The toilet paper unit tips over entirely, smashes down onto the shelving opposite, kittens and bears everywhere.
Then it stops.
They're standing outside. Hand-in-hand.
Ryan breathes out. He pushes his hair out of his eyes.
Brendon looks back into the shop and sees the clerk poke his head up from behind the counter. The windows didn't break, after all.
"Holy shit," one of them says.
"Yeah."
"That was an earthquake," Ryan says. "I have never. I mean, not so you can feel it."
"Me either," says Brendon.
When Ryan takes his hand away from Brendon's it's not to tuck it under his other arm, defensively. He just jangles his keys in his pants pocket.
"Holy shit," Brendon can't help but repeat the sentiment.
Ryan shakes his head. He says, "Man oh man."
He looks at Brendon sideways, and Brendon catches him doing it and smiles and then laughs when Ryan rolls his eyes for no discernible reason.
They end up in Ryan's car. Ryan rolls a joint with the papers he just bought. And they sit and they silently pass it back and forth between them for half an hour.
Brendon keeps pressing his fingers to his jugular, reassured by how slow his heartbeat gets after a few drags. Before it was hammering, jumping in his neck like he'd sprinted a quarter mile, like he'd just come into his hand.
Ryan's car radio is reporting the damage. Which is none, so far. Probably some people got beamed on the head at home, Brendon bets. You could get seriously hurt if you'd been like, installing lighting fixtures at the time or something. They watch as traffic picks up out on the road.
"I should get going," Ryan says.
Brendon nods. It occurs to him that Spencer could've been installing lighting fixtures. Or cooking, or something equally dangerous. He should get home and check on the house, the dogs.
"It was nice seeing you," Brendon says, because he can't think of anything less lame.
"Thanks for saving me from the falling toilet paper," Ryan replies. He is smirking, he is starting the engine.
"Anytime," Brendon says.
He doesn't linger while Ryan pulls out into traffic. He adjusts his rearview mirror and drives home, heartbeat slow and calm, fingers tapping out a beat on the steering wheel.
--
At first Brendon thinks the house is empty, but then he finds Ian in Shane's bedroom, on his belly half-under the bed.
"Oh hi," Brendon says to Ian's ass and Ian's sneakers.
Ian says, muffled, "Brendon? Your dogs went crazy."
Brendon could hear the whining from the hall. He gets down onto his elbows and pokes his head under the bed-frame. In the far corner there is a shivering angry mess of freaked out dog-bodies that is curled up in a multi-limbed, many-headed ball of fur and whining. He can identify maybe four of them, but there are more ears and tails than that accounts for.
Ian, whose mass of hair is sweeping dustbunnies around the floor, says, "Dylan freaked out and then they all freaked out and now they're all under there."
"I guess it's their first big earthquake," Brendon says. "She doesn’t like thunder, either."
Ian says, "I don't actually know if I want them to come out. Penny tried to bite my face off when I grabbed her."
Brendon snorts. Penny is eyeballing them belligerently from her spot underneath Indie's hindquarters. "Go get the cheez whiz," he says.
Ian hauls himself off the floor and disappears down the hall.
Brendon coos to the pack, who are good dogs even if sometimes they forget they are housetrained and sometimes they like to gnaw on expensive things like shoes and guitar necks. He tells them he loves them anyway and they should all come out for treaties and fetch.
"I don't know where Spencer and Shane are," Ian says when he comes back with a wooden spoon and the designated jar, which is sticky and coated in dog hair and dried drool from various attempts at training Bogart to stop chewing his leash on walks. "But Spencer texted me right away, he's fine. When I tried to call Shane it told me the operator was down or it couldn't get a line or whatever."
"Oh," says Brendon. He didn't think to call. He hasn't even checked his phone. Probably Spencer will yell at him later for being a dick.
"Where were you?" Ian asks. "Were the roads okay or is it like, collapsed overpasses and firey chaos out there?"
"The store," Brendon says. "And fuck, I forgot the toilet paper."
The cheez whiz has to be pretty much inserted in front of Dylan's face before she will even consider licking it in her prim, delicate way - a half inch of tongue is all she'll give it, refusing to look enthusiastic - but then Brendon slowly backs out, and she shuffles forward after it, and pretty soon he has her on her back in his lap and all the other dogs, dust-covered and still a bit white around the eyes, are crowding around, snuffling for a turn with the magical spoon.
Brendon is smiling to himself as he gives belly rubs, and as soon as he realizes why he's smiling - it's not just the unconditional love - he sneaks a look at Ian out of the corner of his eye. I ran into Ryan, he could say, casual. I saved him from a rack of falling toilet paper.
Probably Ian wouldn't care. At least, not in the way that Spencer would, the way that is full of bristling and coded words and kneejerk judgment built up on years of baggage. Ian would just be like, oh weird, how is he? and then maybe one thing would lead to another and Brendon could say I've really missed him, you know? and Ian would give him sympathy because he lost his band, too. He knows how it is to feel two ways at once.
Brendon wants to tell him. His mouth is full of the words to do it. But Ian lives here. It wouldn't be fair, it would be complicated. And then Spencer would find out.
So Brendon keeps his words to himself. But he keeps smiling.
--
He texts Ryan two days later. A picture of Bogart lounging, his package rubbed right up against the sofa arm that he's splayed over. And Ryan responds in thirty seconds flat, so you're going to burn that couch right?
An hour later they're meeting at the convenience store again. Ryan mentioned slurpees. Brendon invited himself along.
Ryan didn't respond to confirm, which makes Brendon nervous, driving down. He monitors the sick feeling in his stomach. Wondering if Ryan will show or if he's pushing too hard. Why the hell is he pushing, anyway?
These are the mysteries of the universe.
But Brendon pulls into the parking lot and there he is. Black ray bans, a wool coat too heavy by half. But then, they're going to ingest sugary icewater, so maybe Ryan is dressed more appropriately than Brendon's thin blue t-shirt, his plaid pants.
Ryan doesn't acknowledge him until Brendon is within arm's reach, and then he shoves his hands deep in his pockets and says to the parking lot, "It's too fucking cold for slurpees."
Brendon doesn't argue. He smiles. He holds open the door.
Plastic cups in hand, they wander down the hill on the other side of the road and they hop a chainlink fence hung with warning signs and they find perches between silent black train cars parked parallel to the freeway. The cars are marked with indecipherable numbers and graffiti, each one identical except for tags and obscenities and garish cartoons. Ryan leans on the pitted black steel that links the cars together; Brendon hops up to sit on the grated step. Facing west, the sun is in their eyes, but Brendon's forearms have goosebumps from the breeze.
Ryan has a flask and he pours a generous few glugs into his plastic cup before offering it to Brendon.
"This is so high school," Brendon says, holding his cup forward.
Ryan smirks under his sunglasses as he pours. "Those were the days." There's something almost genuine in the way he says it, though. Something that runs counter to his usual dry angles.
Brendon doesn't press the subject. They all hated high school. No one misses it. Ryan's just upped his game to Level 8 irony, that's all. So sarcastic it sounds honest.
But Ryan's not offering any small talk, anyway. He caps the flask and tucks it back into his jacket and puts his mouth to his straw. Brendon can't see his eyes, and it makes him fidgety.
There is a long list of shit they can't talk about, and he's starting to think he should've started in on high school just because it's comparatively solid ground. They can't talk about the past; they can't talk about the future. What they're doing these days, even, is dangerous. And all that leaves is now, right now, sitting on this train looking at the ocean and the sun and the sky filled up with smoke from some burning distant forest.
"It's weird how it's so pretty," Brendon says. "You'd think all that smoke should be ugly."
There is a long pause where Brendon thinks maybe Ryan is going to get impatient or irritated with him for being boring and saying inane things about the weather. But instead, eventually: "I like it." Ryan chews on his straw. He always mangles them. "It looks like fog in the morning. It dries out the air like the desert."
"Yeah," says Brendon. It is a relief, to be agreeing about something.
The smoke makes the sun into an angry red hole in the clouds, which are torn up into molten gold and bleeding fire at the edges. It's turned the light thick and slow, the ocean wrinkled up into a hot dull pink. Brendon doesn't actually think it is pretty, he thinks it is breathtaking.
Soon, Ryan is checking his phone. He's draining the last of his vodka from the bottom of his cup, and Brendon is watching him do it and feeling like if all they have to talk about is right now then he should make right now as glorious as possible.
"I've got to get going," Ryan says. Maybe it's the light or maybe it’s the cream soda, but his mouth is fuchsia, lipsticky.
And Brendon, who knows how great it is to kiss Ryan Ross's sugary mouth, wants to kiss it now. So he does.
Ryan's lips are cold, and Brendon's are half-numb, too. Ryan's back is stiff and his hands don't move and the kiss is just one kiss. Or half of one, maybe, if that.
Ryan's face is blank under his sunglasses, when Brendon pulls back. Ryan opens his mouth and raises the back of his hand to wipe his bottom lip and then shuts it again. His sunglasses slip down his nose a fraction of an inch.
"I don't want you to go," Brendon says. "I think you should stay and finish the sunset with me."
Ryan's mouth, which is pressed flat with maybe irritation, maybe anger, doesn't quirk one way or the other. He seems to be considering, behind that blank wall. Running the numbers. Cost-benefit analysis. Risk assessment. It takes long seconds. But eventually one eyebrow goes up and he says, "Alright. If that's what you want."
He slithers out of his coat, lets it drape over the rusty steel, and pulls Brendon back into him. One knee hitched up so his thigh is in Brendon's crotch, his hips cocked to push in, his hands in Brendon's belt loops, up the small of his back, skirting his ribcage and back around to his shoulder blades.
Thirty seconds, and Ryan is all over him. Warm mouth, sugar kissed away, a pliant spine that arches in when Brendon grabs.
Ryan's mouth. Brendon's never kissed a mouth as perfect as Ryan's. Not since, not before. He is so, so happy to be kissing it right now.
"You should suck me off," Ryan says, teeth in Brendon's earlobe, tongue in Brendon's ear.
Brendon, face deep in Ryan's collar, doesn't let himself register the order for a second. Because it is - with Ryan it is an order. When Ryan is the one who is ready to walk away, then he is the one who gives the orders. Brendon can't say he is unfamiliar with the dynamics of the situation.
He is on his knees in the gravel between railroad ties. His left hand on Ryan's now-bare hipbone, his right at the base of Ryan's dick. Ryan's trousers peeled back, his shirt pushed up over his stomach. Ryan is so particular about how he likes it. Brendon can still remember the conversation: seventeen years old, his parents' minivan, Ryan took Brendon's fingers into his mouth and showed him exactly what to do, how hard to suck, where to use his teeth, how fast to go, how deep to take it.
Ryan's sunglasses are still black and blank when Brendon glances up to gauge his progress. Ryan's mouth slack, his breath clipped and short. Brendon has spit all over his hands, his jaw hurts, his neck hurts, rocks are digging into his knees, and Ryan is always so slow to come.
Brendon hates sucking Ryan off for that reason alone: while he's working to get Ryan to orgasm, Ryan always seems to be doing his utmost not to come. And the times when Brendon gives up? Wipes his mouth and rubs his jaw and abandons the attempt? Ryan seems more smug than disappointed. Somehow victorious.
This time, though, Ryan's breath gives out into a whine and his hips tense and jerk and Brendon, relieved, hums encouragement and swallows and licks up the mess.
When he rocks back on his heels and looks up, Ryan has pushed his sunglasses back up into his hair, which is damp at the temples. His eyes look hollow, and he laughs breathlessly down and says, "Fuck, Brendon, I missed your mouth."
Good, Brendon wants to say. We agree that we missed each other's mouths. But he doesn't.
Part 2