KELTIE YOU SADDER BUT WISER GIRL YOU
So I've been working on this since a bit after finishing the other marching band fic, but it kind of got derailed by Black Parade: The Musical! and then I got all hung up on how creepy my Ryan was. RYANSPACE IS NOT A FUN SPACE.
But yeah. Now I have 7000 words of this nonsense. That's longer than one of my notfics, what the hell. Save me.
This Is Just The Overture
RATED PG-13 FOR I PROMISED MYSELF I'D NEVER WRITE MAKEOUTS AGAIN AGH.
Pairings: Ryan/Jon, Ryan/Keltie, Keltie/Katie Kay, Brendon/Spencer
Warnings: MAKEOUTS, ALL OF THE MAKEOUTS. Also weed.
Disclaimer: This did not happen, because there are age gaps and different schools and multiple other things that would not make sense at all if it did. Also don't Google yourself, please.
Summary: What happens on the band bus...ends in French films and stoned makeouts? Companion/parallel to The Sin In Sincere, which is also rather silly.
Notes: The following contains inaccurate depictions of: Makeouts, marijuana, high school relationships, and Jon Walker. The only half-accurate thing here is marching bands. Also, ONE DAY I WILL PROBABLY REWRITE THIS, BECAUSE IT IS POORLY EDITED AND INCOHERENT.
The second he saw the captain of the color guard, wearing hot pants and a Beatles shirt and swinging two chain flags over her head, her whole body stretched, Ryan knew he was fucked.
He’d seen Keltie around school before, knew she’d moved there his junior year, but he didn’t really register her existence until the first day of band camp. And there she was, demonstrating how to swing flags in specific patterns to some of the freshmen, smiling widely when they finally got it right, and Ryan was going to need to take a mental photograph of that smile and save it forever.
He didn’t acknowledge the fact that he was staring until Brendon’s voice came through Mr. Wentz’s megaphone: “Ryan Ross! Your presence is required at the 20 yard line! I know hot girls are important, but seriously!”
Oh. Right. Practice. Ryan scowled and barely managed to keep himself from flipping Brendon off as he walked over to his spot.
~~~
They didn’t actually talk until three days into band camp, during a water break.
Ryan had been rehearsing what to say in his head, down to the exact inflection of his voice when he’d say it and what to say to any of her possible responses, when Keltie had tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Hey.”
“…Hey,” Ryan said back, and his entire perfectly planned first conversation with her was erased as they worked their way into a discussion about 60s rock and roll.
They agreed to start “going steady” (as Ryan had put it, and Keltie had snickered a little but went along with it) by the last day of camp, so their first dates were in the lazy days between camp and school. They went to see an old arthouse film for the first one, but most of the other times they just liked to hang out at each other’s places, show off their bookshelves and music collections, and sometimes lie on top of each other on the couch and watch a movie.
Then, it was football season. The first few games they spent apart, with their usual groups of friends, but soon enough, they were in the back seat together. Ryan knew what it was going to look like to the rest of the band, but at this point, he didn’t care.
He kissed Keltie for the first time to the sound of Brendon cheering obnoxiously in the background.
~~~
Neither of them really noticed a problem until they started sticking their hands up each other’s shirts.
They were on the couch at Keltie’s place, kissing slowly and lazily to the score of some old film. Her parents were out of town, so it was the perfectly logical thing to do.
The other perfectly logical thing to do came to Ryan after several minutes of making out, which was probably much longer than it should have taken for him to think of it.
“Can I…” he asked slowly, just barely tucking his fingers under the hem of her shirt.
Keltie nodded, understanding, and Ryan reached up the back of her shirt. Her skin was smooth, warm, perfect, and he started running his hands up and down her sides, pressing just a bit with his fingertips when she made little happy noises. Then he started towards her chest, shot her a few nervous glances as he inched his hands forward until they were clutching her-
Huh. Breasts. Well, this was different.
Keltie cocked her head at him. “You all right?”
Ryan realized his expression was probably not the normal, blissful look most guys got just from talking about boobs. In fact, he was feeling more confused than anything. “Yeah, I’m…fine.” He gave an experimental squeeze. Nope, nothing.
Keltie giggled. Ryan ducked his head down, trying not to blush, and pulled his hands back. “Maybe we should go back to making out.”
“I’m all right with that,” she said, and then they were kissing again.
~~~
“So…tits,” Ryan said to Spencer at the next game, sipping at a Powerade and mooching off Spencer’s bag of chips. Brendon was off having a very serious discussion with the other band’s drum major, which, good, he didn’t need Brendon to hear this conversation.
“What about them?” Spencer grabbed his chips back, swatting at Ryan’s hand when he reached for them.
“Well…you like them.” Ryan wasn’t quite sure how to ask Spencer about this, or even what exactly he wanted to ask.
“…Yeah. And so do you, judging by the whole ‘making out with Keltie’ thing.”
“Yeah, but. Tits. What…why?”
“…What why what?”
“Uh. Just. Never mind.” He chugged the rest of his Powerade and started to get up, but Spencer followed.
“You do like tits?” Spencer put a hand on his shoulder, more as a concerned gesture than a means of stopping him, judging from the way Ryan could shrug him off so easily.
“Of course I do, just. Forget it, all right?” Ryan ignored Spencer’s protests and kept walking.
It was a home game, so he and Keltie didn’t get to sit on the bus together. He’d never admit it, but Ryan was sort of grateful.
~~~
They were at Keltie’s place, on Keltie’s bed, when she asked it.
“Are you sure you like me?”
Ryan blinked up at her. She had been straddling him, he was holding her waist with close to bruising force, and she had just broken off a very fantastic kiss to ask that. How the hell was he supposed to answer?
“Of course I do,” he stammered after a moment of stunned silence, and lifted his head up towards hers again. She pulled away.
“You’re sure? I mean, you’ve never-“
“Whatever you want, I’ll do it,” he said quickly, before he could really think about it. But it was true, he’d do a lot for Keltie, the beautiful, lovely, interesting Keltie. The Keltie who understood his music tastes and his love for old French films and him.
The Keltie who was grinning and rolling herself underneath Ryan, whispering “Really?” and guiding one of Ryan’s hands to her belt.
Ryan couldn’t move. He stared at the buckle, even gripped it for a moment with one hand, then let go and scooted back to sit on his heels, looking away.
Keltie sat up and put a hand on his shoulder. “Ryan…”
He still wouldn’t make eye contact. “Sorry,” he mumbled, and no, no, this isn’t how it was supposed to be. He had a chance, a chance to get laid, and he just…blew it.
“It’s okay, if you’re just not ready…” Keltie reached forward to pull him into a hug.
He hugged back. At least that was something he knew how to do. “Yeah, yeah, that’s it,” he said quietly, “Not ready, not right now.” Not right now, that was good. Better late than never, right?
~~~
They still made out in the back of the bus, every away game without fail. It was easy, familiar, and good, even with Brendon’s voice in the background. Talking was good, kissing was good, but anything beyond that just…didn’t work.
“How do you know when you’re ready?” Ryan had his own bag of chips this time, and two Powerades. Finding extra cash in his uniform was awesome.
“…Ready for what?” Spencer was concentrating on his cheese fries.
“Y’know. The. Sex thing.” It was kind of weird talking to his best friend about this, but Spencer had complained about his girl woes to him plenty of times. He was only returning the favor.
“…Dude, you mean you haven’t yet?”
Ryan started downing Powerade instead of answering.
“No, I mean, it’s not weird or anything, I just…kind of figured you did already.”
“I…we tried?” Ryan wanted this conversation to be over, but he really, really needed the advice.
“And…? Oh god, don’t tell me you need like, Viagra. I’m not helping you there.”
“No, it’s not-we just. I…I didn’t want to?”
“…Didn’t want to have sex.” Spencer raised an eyebrow far higher than he should have been able to.
“…Yeah.” Ryan pretended to be very interested in the nutrition facts on his chips. “Failure to dudekind, I know.”
“Well…a little, yeah. You’re sure you like tits?”
“Very sure.” Well. He liked Keltie, he knew that. Keltie was too awesome not to like.
“I mean, seriously. If you don’t, that’s totally fine.”
“It’s not that, all right? It’s just. I don’t know.”
“All right, then. Just…keep trying? Maybe? It sort of comes naturally.” Spencer shrugged, finishing off his own Powerade.
“Right. Naturally.”
~~~
He waited until their next home game before he did it. Right after the show was over, he took Keltie’s hand and led her under the bleachers.
She still had post-show giddiness and was grinning the whole time, apparently not noticing Ryan’s solemn look. “Y’know,” she was saying, “We’ve never made out under the bleachers before, this was a great ide-“
“I think we should break up.”
The smile dropped off her face. “…What?”
“I just. I don’t think it’s working. I’m sorry, just-“ He didn’t have anything else to say. He’d planned a speech, rehearsed it in his head even during the halftime show, but it dropped out of his head before he could even start it.
He was expecting her to protest, to cry, maybe, but she just sighed and started taking off her guard gloves. “I guess I was expecting this.”
“I’m sorry, seriously, I don’t know why I can’t-“
“No, no, it’s okay. You just don’t like girls, right?”
“That’s not-I wasn’t just-I really, really like you, Keltie, okay? I’m just. I don’t know.” He was still racking his brains for any scraps of his speech he could think of, but nothing was coming.
“It’s all right, okay? I can deal. We can still be friends, right?” She put a hand on his upper arm, smiling, but it looked forced.
“Well, actually…” He shrugged her hand away, looking at the ground. “I don’t…think we can.”
“…Why not? We can sit with your friends-I like Brendon and Spencer, y’know-and just talk. Like we used to. It’ll be great.”
“But. But it’ll be weird, and I still like you, and. We can’t.” He still wouldn’t look up.
“Ryan,” she started, putting a hand on his shoulder, but he practically shoved her away, and wait, not cool, not cool, he could’ve hurt her, but she only stumbled back a bit before recovering, and Ryan started to babble apologies, but she just sighed and put her gloves in her pocket.
“Ryan. It’s one thing to break up with me because you don’t want me, it’s another to deny it and give me bullshit reasons instead.”
Ryan finally looked up at her, and there were tears in her eyes. “I-“ He didn’t mean for it to go like this, really, but he didn’t know how he did mean for it to go. Anything but this.
But then Keltie was gone, rushing out from under the bleachers and probably into the arms of the color guard. Ryan stayed for a little while, trying to figure out what he could’ve done, how it could have gone so much better, until he heard the guard girls chattering in concerned whispers above him, and he couldn’t stand to stay under any longer.
~~~
He sat in his old seat in the front for the next few games, occasionally trying to make conversation with Mr. Wentz, but mostly sulking at the window. He didn’t actually notice that Brent had left the band until Brendon started trying to get the whole bus to sing a song of mourning for his departure. It didn’t sound very mournful.
~~~
“Uh, I’m Jon, just moved here from Chicago, and I’m a senior. Yeah.” The new kid shrugged and sat down in his seat next to Ryan.
The teacher thanked him and started on his lesson about the Great Depression.
Ryan pulled out his notebook and started taking notes, though his definition of “taking notes” just happened to be “scribbling down Blink-182 lyrics in different fonts” instead of the traditional sense of the phrase. Language changes.
“Good song,” the new kid-Jon-muttered, fifteen minutes into the class.
Ryan looked up to see Jon staring down at the notebook. Then Ryan smiled, nodded, and they had a half-mumbled, half-written conversation about music while the teacher blathered on.
“So, do you play anything?” Ryan asked when the bell rang, packing away his notebook.
“Guitar, a little. I’m better with bass, though.”
Ryan grinned. He was going to win points with Mr. Wentz for this.
“Ever thought about marching band?”
~~~
Getting Jon into band was a great idea, even if it meant getting death glares from William Beckett for a month. Suddenly, he didn’t need to sulk away the time on the bus, because Jon could sit next to him and listen to him and even talked back almost all the time, which was more than he could say for Spencer.
“No, really, you have to read this book,” he was telling Jon, on the way to his second game. “The way he uses words, you won’t believe it.”
“He wrote the one about the soap, right?”
“Yeah, that’s him. You’ve seen the movie? Everyone’s seen the movie, people forget that the book exists sometimes, it’s awful.”
It was like that for the rest of the ride, with Ryan rambling about literature and Jon promising to read Invisible Monsters as soon as Ryan finds his copy to lend to him (or buys a new copy, the old one was falling apart from being read so many times anyway). When they got to the school they were playing against, Ryan helped Jon unpack his bass so they could keep up the conversation.
The pregame show went off without a hitch, except for Ryan forgetting to play half a measure due to trying to look at Jon instead of his glockenspiel. Whatever, it wasn’t the melody anyway.
They spent the first half talking about The Kinks between touchdowns, and the third quarter arguing over which Beatles album was the best (they eventually agreed on “all of them”) over a box of cheese fries.
On the ride home, they sat together up front again. Brendon was talking at Spencer about how Alan Menken was going to be the next Bach or something, so Ryan and Jon were pretty much alone in their conversations. Ryan ended up leaning against Jon’s shoulder after the first twenty minutes, still answering Jon’s occasional comments but mostly just enjoying having such a nice-smelling pillow.
~~~
The next game, it was raining on and off the whole night. It started when they arrive at the stadium and it was a grass field, so they didn’t have to play their show, but it stopped by the time they finished unpacking, so they still had to stay in the stands. It was the middle of November and they were all cold and miserable, huddling together between songs-the guard especially, with their school-appropriate-but-still-pretty-skimpy outfits that really should have been designed with consideration for the time of year football season falls on.
Ryan and Jon ended up spending most of third quarter in the bathroom behind the snack stand, where it was warmer-though not quite warm enough to avoid holding onto each other for more heat.
Ryan wasn’t normally this tactile, really, that was all Brendon. With Jon, though, it just…didn’t seem as weird. They didn’t immediately jump away from each other if their hands brushed, or one of their knees got a little too friendly, or any other contact that would get him a smack in the back of the head from Spencer.
In fact, it didn’t seem at all weird when Ryan suddenly realized he and Jon were stomach-to-stomach, lying on the floor pressed against each other, their foreheads nearly touching. It was cold, that’s all.
Except-except then Jon was fitting his head between Ryan’s neck and shoulder, and sighing against the short little hairs that were starting to prickle up on his neck and okay, that knee was getting a bit more than friendly there, what with it being pretty close to Ryan’s crotch and all.
“Jon?” Ryan mumbled into his shoulder.
Jon didn’t seem to hear, and he just pulled himself closer, making a pleased little humming noise that seemed to vibrate its way through everything above Ryan’s shoulders, and-
And this should have been so much weirder than it was. But it was just. Nice. It wasn’t like cuddling with Keltie-there weren’t any boobs getting squished between them, and he never would have thought feeling stubble against his neck would be anything but itchy and uncomfortable, but there was something about it that was just…nice. That was the only word he could think of, in his whole SAT vocabulary he’d promised himself he wouldn’t forget just because college apps were finished. Nice.
“Jon-“ Ryan started again, but then there was the sound of a door opening, and Ryan looked up from the floor to see Spencer’s upside-down face glaring down at both of them.
“It’s two minutes to fourth quarter, we need to go. You still have some of those heating things, right?”
Ryan started to sit up, but he was still anchored to Jon, and he didn’t feel like moving just yet. “Yeah.”
Spencer rolled his eyes. “Up. You can cuddle later, Mr. Wentz is doing that twitchy thing he does when nobody’s played The Hey Song in a while.”
“I hate that song,” Ryan mumbled as he started to detach himself from Jon, instead of the logical response of We’re not cuddling. His brain was kind of malfunctioning. It must have been the cold.
“We all hate that song. But if you’re late getting back because you were busy rolling around on the bathroom floor, I’m not covering for you.”
They both eventually managed to get back on both feet, but they didn’t break contact all the way back to the bleachers. If anyone asked, Jon had an arm around his neck because it was freezing, all right?
~~~
“So, is it true what they say about the back of the bus?” Jon muttered in Ryan’s ear as they were handing things off to be put on the equipment bus.
Ryan froze, which probably wasn’t the best course of action while trying to shove a bass drum into a large vehicle, but someone picked up the slack and no instruments (or freshmen, but they weren’t as expensive anyway) were harmed.
When he turned around, Jon was smiling at him, one eyebrow raised in some sort of inquisitive amusement. Or something. Words kind of failed him around Jon sometimes, apparently.
“Well, uh. You weren’t around when it was getting most of its use, but, yeah.” Ryan tried not to smile back, he could feel his face trying to contort itself into that weird too-eager smile that really wasn’t appropriate right now.
“Yeah? Well…back seat’s empty right now, so if we’re quick…”
Ryan grabbed Jon’s hand and started toward the other bus before he could let himself think too much.
~~~
Nothing even really happened for most of the ride home. They picked back up on the conversation about the stark shift in Palahniuk’s style after the year 2000 that had been interrupted by a sudden need to cling to each other on the bathroom floor, and Jon’s hand sort of migrated to Ryan’s leg after a while, but he never pushed.
About half an hour later, they were leaning up against each other, avoiding the cold wall and window but also trying not to fall into the aisle. It was a delicate balance.
Ryan wrapped one arm across Jon’s shoulders, then the other around his neck. Jon turned his head towards Ryan, smiling softly, and oh god he was actually going to do this. He wanted to just say fuck it and lean in and get it over with, but he was stuck in place, and what if this didn’t work, what if he actually did like girls after all but not enough, what if-
“I can hear you thinking,” Jon said, and pressed his lips against Ryan’s, and oh. Oh. Now things made sense.
“I-“ Ryan started against Jon’s mouth, but then Jon was putting his hands on Ryan’s back, and Ryan let himself be pulled forward until he was halfway in Jon’s lap and there was hardly any space between their bodies, and this was not like kissing Keltie, not at all, it was all hard lines and rough edges and Keltie was kind of bony but this was different, and-and-
And he needed to stop thinking about Keltie right now, because Jon’s tongue was starting to join the party, and it’s not like Keltie was ever shy about being the first to shove her tongue in but-
Right, no Keltie, boys now, boys good. Fuck. His Jon-vocabulary needed work.
But then Jon was sort of nibbling at his lower lip and licking over where he’d bitten and yeah, no, words were gone again, Ryan was only comprehending tongues and teeth and lips now.
It was a little while before it occurred to Ryan that he might not have been kissing back all that much, which, no, that couldn't happen, because he was in fact a very good kisser, and he should prove this now.
So he tried, really, but Jon was doing this thing with his tongue against Ryan’s, and was playing with the hair on the back of his neck, so the extent of Ryan’s participation only ended up being his crawling further into Jon’s lap and pressing his whole body forward for more more more, and fuck, seriously, why hadn’t he tried this before?
They had to breathe eventually, and Jon was the first to pull away, his breath ragged, and wow, that was. Wow.
“Wow,” Ryan half-gasped, because seriously. Wow.
“Yeah,” Jon said back, still letting his fingers twirl around in Ryan’s hair. “You’ve…never kissed a guy before, have you.”
“Never,” Ryan said on his next exhale.
Jon just grinned at him. “So?”
“So…that’s what it’s supposed to be like, huh.”
“Yeah. Pretty much.” Jon probably didn’t know what Ryan was actually talking about, but it sounded like he understood. Jon seemed to have all kinds of insight into things he didn’t know all that much about, like that time he pulled out that theory about the symbolism in Survivor that totally blew him away.
Ryan would have commented on his brilliant thinking for about the millionth time that week, but then Jon was just kind of gently pressing on the back of Ryan’s head and leaning in, and oh, that was the signal to start up again, wasn’t it.
Well, it’s not like he was going to object.
~~~
After everything was off the bus and back in the band room, and Ryan was watching Jon start to drive home, Spencer walked over to where Ryan was standing in the parking lot, crossed his arms, and smirked.
“What.” Ryan turned away from Jon’s car to look Spencer in the eye. He knew it wasn’t all that threatening, but he could try.
“I knew it. I told you, and you didn’t believe me. You really need to listen to me more.”
“Is this about the not liking tits thing?” Because well, yeah, apparently Spencer was right, but how was Ryan supposed to know?
“Yes. And you were wrong, and I was right, and I really wish I’d put money on this, because my sneakers are getting kind of old and dirty.”
“Your mom’s old and dirty,” Ryan mumbled, but he still had the remains of the smile Jon had left on his face, and Spencer being right did not seem like all that much of a problem.
“My mom is awesome and is letting you and your Jon-germs into her house so you can sleep over, so shut up.” Spencer grinned and clapped a hand on Ryan’s back to lead him back to his car, and he was probably suppressing an “I was right, I was right!” song and dance, but Spencer was the best best friend of all best friends and kept his gloating pretty well-contained.
They were about halfway home when something occurred to Ryan. “This…this isn’t weird, right?”
Spencer didn’t look away from the road; he was kind of anal about responsible driving. “What isn’t?”
“Y’know, just. Me liking guys. You’re not freaked out or anything?”
Spencer snorted and made a face that would probably have had more of an impact if he were making eye contact. “Dude, I told you I’d be totally fine with it weeks ago. I mean, it’s not like you’re going to magically start hitting on me or anything just because you finally manned up and shoved your tongue down a dude’s throat.”
Ryan didn’t mention that it was mostly Jon doing the tongue-shoving. Ryan was more on the tongue-sucking side. But Spencer probably didn’t want to know that.
“Oh. Well, cool.” If it was hard to find words around Jon, it was twice as hard to find words to describe just how much he loved his best friend. Platonically, that is.
~~~
The next day was Saturday, so Ryan woke up with the realization that he had the opportunity to take Jon out on like, a date. Dinner, or a movie, or both. With a guy.
Well, actually, he woke up with the imaginary taste of Jon in his mouth and the uncomfortable morning wood associated with it, but once he was finished jerking off in Spencer’s bathroom (which would have been way more awkward if he hadn’t already done it a million times before), he got around to the whole “dating Jon” idea.
He was staring at his phone while eating a stack of Mrs. Smith’s famous waffles when Spencer said, “So you’re not having a big gay freakout or anything, then?”
“…No?” Ryan turned away from his contacts screen to raise an eyebrow at Spencer, who shrugged.
“I mean, you were pretty adamant about the whole being straight thing. I thought you might’ve flipped out a bit once you figured it out.”
“Well, I mean…I just never really thought about it, y’know? I was pretty secure in my tit-liking until, like…actually getting close to tits.”
Spencer just snorted and went back to his own waffle. Ryan reprimanded him for his insensitivity by not telling him about the syrup on his chin.
~~~
Ryan spent a good hour looking for possible movies to see, deliberating over which restaurant to go to, and he was just about to finalize a decision between either the Italian or the French film when Jon called him up to say “Hey, wanna hang out?”
Jon always made things much simpler.
They ended up playing Halo on Jon’s couch and ordering a pizza, since Jon’s parents were out of town and neither of them felt like interrupting their polygonal war for the sake of cooking. Jon beat him almost every time, but Ryan thought he was putting up a pretty good fight. He managed to not die for almost a full three minutes once.
Once the pizza got there, they shut off the game to see what was on TV. Ryan flipped through the channels until Jon burst out with “Wait, wait, go back!” and Ryan was flipping back to some infomercial for like, a life-changing blender or something.
Jon was snickering. “I’ve seen this one, it’s some funny shit,” he said, and while Ryan wasn’t normally one to watch bad actors pretend to need an appliance more than they needed air, he decided to trust Jon.
But after about five minutes, neither of them were exactly in stitches. “Huh,” Jon said, taking the remote from off the table, “Guess it was just funnier when I was high.” He shrugged and resumed the channel-flipping.
Huh. So Brendon’s throwaway theory that Jon Walker was the big stoner on campus was right after all.
“Of course, we totally could get high and watch something. I mean…” he scratched at the back of his neck and broke eye contact with Ryan, “If you want.”
“Uh.” He’d never really thought about it, but he’d also never really thought about the whole kissing dudes thing, and that seemed to have worked out all right.
“Forget it, if that’s not your thing-“
“No, dude, that’d be cool. Just never done it before, that’s all.”
Jon grinned, which had to be near the top of Ryan’s list of Things Jon Walker Should Do All The Time, and stood up. “I’ll be right back, then.”
~~~
Half an hour later, Ryan had learned several things.
One: Getting high was awesome. He was kind of nervous at first, what with the coughing and the weird smells and the wondering if it was anything like alcohol, which Ryan was so not down with, but once he’d finally managed to take a few hits without hacking up a lung, it was pretty awesome.
Two: Blenders really were a lot funnier while under the influence of marijuana. So were cartoons. And Jon’s hair.
Three: Making out while high was double awesome, and everyone should do it all the time. It had started with Ryan’s sudden fascination with Jon’s hair, and he was running his fingers through it until it was sticking up all over the place, but then he’d gotten bored and started moving on to playing with Jon’s sleeves, then back up to button and unbutton his shirt about twenty times, and then he’d noticed something about Jon’s eyes, or maybe his teeth, and he leaned in and everything after that was just a hazy blur of tongues and lips.
Jon was on top of Ryan, sort of caging him with his limbs but without making it seem too claustrophobic, kissing him at a slow, almost lazy pace while he started playing with those hairs on the back of his neck again, and yeah, that’s going on the Things Jon Walker Should Do All The Time list too, because seriously. All four of their hands were busy, grabbing or pinching or anything, Ryan just needed to touch, and it seemed like Jon did too, from the way he was touching Ryan like he was trying to memorize every texture. Everything was just a bit more with the pot in his head, and somewhere in the back of his mind Ryan was worried that he’d just ruined sober makeouts for himself forever, but the rest of his brain was a bit distracted by Jon Jon Jon.
They broke apart after about a week-or maybe five minutes, it was hard to tell-when Ryan suddenly remembered that the human body requires oxygen every so often. That’s actually how he worded it in his head, too: The human body requires-
Jon started snickering, and Ryan realized he’d been talking out loud.
“No three-syllable words after smoking up, it’s a rule,” Jon said, untangling himself from Ryan just enough so he could curl up next to him, pressing him into the back of the couch.
“Syllable has three syllables,” Ryan said into Jon’s neck, before giving it a quick lick. He tasted like boy. It was awesome.
“No counting, either.” Jon pushed himself forward a bit more, which was perfectly reasonable since he was going to fall off any second, but now Ryan was probably going to have weird marks all over his back from where the couch and his shirt were squished up against him.
“Maybe I like numbers,” Ryan mumbled, pushing back. Jon would be fine if he fell off the couch, the living room had carpet.
“No, you like words.” Jon pressed himself even closer, his hands moving from Ryan’s neck to the small of his back, and he was breathing hot and slow into Ryan’s ear, and if he tilted his hips up just a little more-
Ryan’s stomach growled.
There was silence for a few seconds, and then they both burst out laughing at the same time. “Dude,” Ryan groaned between gigglefits, “I’m starving.”
“There’s still pizza left. I think. Should we order another one?”
“Maybe. Unless you have ice cream. Or something.”
Eventually they decided against ordering more pizza and made a shitload of sandwiches instead. It was the best-tasting meal Ryan had ever had in his life, even better than the one he’d had at that expensive French restaurant Ryan was thinking of taking Jon to.
They pulled Halo back up, and Ryan spent the rest of the afternoon watching Jon kill bratty kids across the country, occasionally commenting into Jon’s microphone, until it was getting close to dark and Ryan remembered that he was going to start working on his history project today.
(Four: Ryan may or may not have been a little bit in love with Jon.)
~~~
It wasn’t until their third time in the back of the bus that Ryan actually looked over Jon’s shoulder to see Keltie and Katie sitting together, Katie nibbling on Keltie’s ear while Keltie giggled and ran her hands up Katie’s back.
“Huh.” Ryan stopped paying attention to Jon’s hands on his waist for a second, though it was a difficult feat.
“What?” Jon turned around to see what Ryan was looking at. “Oh. You didn’t notice?”
“Not really.” He’s been kind of distracted lately, to be fair. “I guess we both figured something out.”
“Dude, she never told you she was bi? I thought that was like, general band knowledge.”
“Oh, yeah.” She had, actually, it just wasn’t the first thing he remembered when he thought about Keltie.
Come to think of it, the fact that he hadn’t immediately thought “Keltie should make out with another girl and I should watch!” when he heard probably should have clued him in to his own sexuality a lot earlier.
“You’re doing that thinking thing again. Stop it,” Jon said, and moved into Ryan’s field of vision to start kissing him again.
Ryan didn’t complain.
~~~
The fight with Brendon threw things off a bit.
“That asshole, that fucking asshole,” Ryan hissed the second the door to the band room closed behind them, grabbing Jon’s wrist and dragging him down the hall.
“All right, tell me, what happened? You two were about three seconds from killing each other back there.”
“Later, just walk, we have ten minutes.” Ryan kicked the back door open (it didn’t really close properly, so you didn’t need to turn the knob) and pulled Jon into the empty smoker’s alley. Maybe he was a little rough, shoving Jon against the brick wall, but he at least tried to make sure he didn’t hit his head. Sort of. Safety was secondary to making out at the moment.
“Ryan-“ Jon kept trying to start, but conversation could fucking wait, Ryan needed to be as close to Jon as possible right now.
“Ryan.” Jon finally grabbed Ryan’s shoulders and shoved, holding him at arm’s length. “You’re freaking out. No freakouts, or no makeouts.”
“I’m fine, I’m just pissed, all right?” Ryan tried to struggle out of Jon’s grip, but dating a dude seemed to have some disadvantages after all.
“Talk to me. That’s what I’m here for.” Jon moved his hands from squeezing Ryan’s shoulders to just holding his upper arms. “Don’t take all your anger out on my face. I kind of need it.”
Ryan would have much rather pushed Jon back up against the wall and kissed him until he’d forgotten all his problems, but Jon had his Concerned Boyfriend look he got whenever Ryan said they should probably go out somewhere instead of to his house, or clammed up when Jon asked some offhand question about his parents. He never let himself give in to the Concerned Boyfriend look, never before, but then he was looking down at the ground and spitting out, “He was talking about my dad.”
“Oh.” Oh. That was all. And then Jon was pulling him into a hug, not even asking for any more, just holding him like all the anger and tension would seep out of him for Jon to absorb it. Maybe Jon could metabolize anger better.
They held onto each other for a few minutes, until Ryan didn’t feel like punching anything in particular and started to let go. “Come on, it’s fucking cold out. And we’ll be late for practice.”
Jon nodded, letting go the rest of the way before taking Ryan’s hand.
~~~
“The fuck did Brendon do now?” Spencer asked the third time Ryan started scowling at the mention of Brendon’s name. They were sitting on Spencer’s couch and watching The OC, a perfectly normal Ryan-and-Spencer activity, but Spencer had considered out loud the possibility of inviting Brendon, which, hell no.
“We’re not speaking.” Ryan sank into the squishy couch a few more inches. Maybe if he sank far enough, he’d go to an alternate couch-dimension with no Brendons.
“Is this about the drill? Because seriously, just because he suggested you take double time steps doesn’t mean he hates you.”
“It’s not the fucking drill, all right? Brendon’s just a jealous bastard who needs to keep his mouth shut once in a while.”
Spencer frowned. “Go on.”
Ten minutes of nonstop word vomit later, complete with multiple Homeric similes and a lot of words Ryan probably shouldn’t have been using with his best friend’s mother a few rooms away, Spencer finally shut him up with a hug and an “All right, all right, calm down already…”
Spencer always knew the right point to stop him, the point after he’d ranted and raved enough to get everything out but before he’d said enough that he started to collapse in on himself.
They held each other for a little while, silent except for the occasional deep breath, until Ryan finally mumbled, “You’re squishing me.”
Spencer snorted and let go. “Can’t handle my big, strong drummer arms?”
“You don’t even use your arms, you’re the one who told me it was all wrist.”
“I still have to hold my arms up for six hours a week.”
“Yeah, because those sticks are so heavy.”
They argued until Spencer’s mom announced that dinner was ready, and didn’t talk about Brendon for the rest of the night. Things would work themselves out later, right now he just needed to leave it alone.
~~~
A week later, Brendon walked up to him during a water break.
“Look,” he said, not making eye contact, “I know I was an asshole. But you were an asshole too, all right? So let’s just. Be assholes who aren’t mad at each other, okay?”
Ryan turned away and looked at Jon. “What were you saying about the British Invasion?”
Jon looked at him, then looked at Brendon, and for a second it seemed like he was trying to draw a line of friendship between them with his eyebrows or something, but then Ryan heard Brendon stalking off. Good.
“You have to talk to him eventually,” Jon said, instead of finishing his comment about the homogenizing of British and American rock, which was a damn shame.
“No, I don’t.”
Jon just sighed and went to go retune his bass, which was responding particularly badly to the cold weather. He had a habit of that, just stating something and then not even defending it when Ryan attacked him.
The problem was, he was usually still right.
~~~
Brendon tried to apologize again another week later, mumbling a “Sorry” at the floor in the hall. Ryan was pretty set on not answering at first, but he could already see Jon’s Concerned Boyfriend look in his head, and, okay, they both had been assholes. And maybe that whole “smirking at Brendon whenever Ryan caught him staring at him and Jon” thing was a little much.
“Yeah,” Ryan finally mumbled back. It was close enough.
When Jon entered the cafeteria that day to find Ryan sitting with Spencer and Brendon, laughing at some stupid joke Brendon had made, Jon gave him one of those smiles that made his heart feel like it was melting and fluttering at the same time (which should have been a pretty uncomfortable sensation, but it was Jon, so it wasn’t), and then sat down.
Ryan kind of liked this better, Ryan-Spencer-Brendon-Jon rather than Ryan-Jon and Brendon-Spencer. It just seemed more balanced, somehow.
(Later, when he tried to explain the concept to Spencer during practice, he’d asked, “Why not just Ryan-Jon and Brendon and Spencer? You’re the ones who’re dating.”
Ryan only shrugged. “You two have been hanging out a lot more since I started dating Jon. I dunno, you’re part of your own group.”
Spencer didn’t answer, just looked back up at the podium where Brendon was telling off a flute. “Mm.”)
~~~
The rest of the season went by pretty quickly. Jon and Ryan kept their spot in the back of the bus for the last few weeks, Katie and Keltie declared the other back seat to be the official Snuggle Seat, and rumors about Mr. Wentz and that other director from a rival school were circulating more than usual.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, Brendon and Spencer started dating.
“Yeah, thought so,” was all Ryan said, after Spencer told him.
“Was it that obvious?” Spencer asked, frowning, “We kind of need to keep it secret.”
“Yeah, well, his parents don’t see you two sitting on a bus together. That’s when it’s the worst, you’ll be fine.”
“When what’s the worst?”
“The giant crushes you’ve had on each other since sophomore year.”
“That’s a lie. That’s a lie and you know it.”
Ryan just snickered and tossed a grenade. He was getting better at Halo, thanks to Jon; he’d already killed Spencer at least three times today.
~~~
The last game was away, so it was also the last time they’d be on the band bus. Ryan and Jon had their usual seat, but Brendon had managed to con Katie and Keltie into giving up their Snuggle Seat, and he and Spencer spent both trips wrapped up in each other.
“Aren’t they just precious?” Jon cooed. Spencer flipped him off. Brendon didn’t even seem to hear.
“So, no big gay freakouts, Spence?” Ryan asked, grinning at them from behind Jon.
“Shut up,” Spencer grumbled, “At least I never denied it.”
“Careful, I hear once you’ve confirmed it back here, you’ll never be straight again.”
“Once you go back seat, you can never go back…” Brendon yawned into Spencer’s shoulder.
“You did not just say that.” Spencer made to shrug him off, but Brendon could cling like a spider monkey when he needed to.
Jon leaned back a bit, and Ryan wrapped his arms around his neck. They didn’t spend quite as much time in the back kissing the hell out of each other by now, but they didn’t really have to. The season was over, the only things left were a few events over the next six months, and then they were done. No more high school, no more band. A long, lazy summer before heading off to college.
“Are you thinking again?” Jon asked, rolling his eyes up to see Ryan from his angle.
“Yeah. About taking you to the movies this Sunday.”
“Oh, so you’re not leaving me now that you don’t need a seat buddy?”
“I still need a movie buddy.”
“You only want me for my weed and you know it.”
Ryan barked out a laugh, nearly choking Jon in the process, and then gave him an upside-down kiss on the forehead. “Your weed and your Halo lessons.”
“You guys are gross,” Brendon mumbled sleepily, all his limbs wrapped around Spencer by this point.
Ryan just leaned his head on Jon’s, shutting his eyes. “Nah. I just know what I like.”
But yeah. Now I have 7000 words of this nonsense. That's longer than one of my notfics, what the hell. Save me.
This Is Just The Overture
RATED PG-13 FOR I PROMISED MYSELF I'D NEVER WRITE MAKEOUTS AGAIN AGH.
Pairings: Ryan/Jon, Ryan/Keltie, Keltie/Katie Kay, Brendon/Spencer
Warnings: MAKEOUTS, ALL OF THE MAKEOUTS. Also weed.
Disclaimer: This did not happen, because there are age gaps and different schools and multiple other things that would not make sense at all if it did. Also don't Google yourself, please.
Summary: What happens on the band bus...ends in French films and stoned makeouts? Companion/parallel to The Sin In Sincere, which is also rather silly.
Notes: The following contains inaccurate depictions of: Makeouts, marijuana, high school relationships, and Jon Walker. The only half-accurate thing here is marching bands. Also, ONE DAY I WILL PROBABLY REWRITE THIS, BECAUSE IT IS POORLY EDITED AND INCOHERENT.
The second he saw the captain of the color guard, wearing hot pants and a Beatles shirt and swinging two chain flags over her head, her whole body stretched, Ryan knew he was fucked.
He’d seen Keltie around school before, knew she’d moved there his junior year, but he didn’t really register her existence until the first day of band camp. And there she was, demonstrating how to swing flags in specific patterns to some of the freshmen, smiling widely when they finally got it right, and Ryan was going to need to take a mental photograph of that smile and save it forever.
He didn’t acknowledge the fact that he was staring until Brendon’s voice came through Mr. Wentz’s megaphone: “Ryan Ross! Your presence is required at the 20 yard line! I know hot girls are important, but seriously!”
Oh. Right. Practice. Ryan scowled and barely managed to keep himself from flipping Brendon off as he walked over to his spot.
~~~
They didn’t actually talk until three days into band camp, during a water break.
Ryan had been rehearsing what to say in his head, down to the exact inflection of his voice when he’d say it and what to say to any of her possible responses, when Keltie had tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Hey.”
“…Hey,” Ryan said back, and his entire perfectly planned first conversation with her was erased as they worked their way into a discussion about 60s rock and roll.
They agreed to start “going steady” (as Ryan had put it, and Keltie had snickered a little but went along with it) by the last day of camp, so their first dates were in the lazy days between camp and school. They went to see an old arthouse film for the first one, but most of the other times they just liked to hang out at each other’s places, show off their bookshelves and music collections, and sometimes lie on top of each other on the couch and watch a movie.
Then, it was football season. The first few games they spent apart, with their usual groups of friends, but soon enough, they were in the back seat together. Ryan knew what it was going to look like to the rest of the band, but at this point, he didn’t care.
He kissed Keltie for the first time to the sound of Brendon cheering obnoxiously in the background.
~~~
Neither of them really noticed a problem until they started sticking their hands up each other’s shirts.
They were on the couch at Keltie’s place, kissing slowly and lazily to the score of some old film. Her parents were out of town, so it was the perfectly logical thing to do.
The other perfectly logical thing to do came to Ryan after several minutes of making out, which was probably much longer than it should have taken for him to think of it.
“Can I…” he asked slowly, just barely tucking his fingers under the hem of her shirt.
Keltie nodded, understanding, and Ryan reached up the back of her shirt. Her skin was smooth, warm, perfect, and he started running his hands up and down her sides, pressing just a bit with his fingertips when she made little happy noises. Then he started towards her chest, shot her a few nervous glances as he inched his hands forward until they were clutching her-
Huh. Breasts. Well, this was different.
Keltie cocked her head at him. “You all right?”
Ryan realized his expression was probably not the normal, blissful look most guys got just from talking about boobs. In fact, he was feeling more confused than anything. “Yeah, I’m…fine.” He gave an experimental squeeze. Nope, nothing.
Keltie giggled. Ryan ducked his head down, trying not to blush, and pulled his hands back. “Maybe we should go back to making out.”
“I’m all right with that,” she said, and then they were kissing again.
~~~
“So…tits,” Ryan said to Spencer at the next game, sipping at a Powerade and mooching off Spencer’s bag of chips. Brendon was off having a very serious discussion with the other band’s drum major, which, good, he didn’t need Brendon to hear this conversation.
“What about them?” Spencer grabbed his chips back, swatting at Ryan’s hand when he reached for them.
“Well…you like them.” Ryan wasn’t quite sure how to ask Spencer about this, or even what exactly he wanted to ask.
“…Yeah. And so do you, judging by the whole ‘making out with Keltie’ thing.”
“Yeah, but. Tits. What…why?”
“…What why what?”
“Uh. Just. Never mind.” He chugged the rest of his Powerade and started to get up, but Spencer followed.
“You do like tits?” Spencer put a hand on his shoulder, more as a concerned gesture than a means of stopping him, judging from the way Ryan could shrug him off so easily.
“Of course I do, just. Forget it, all right?” Ryan ignored Spencer’s protests and kept walking.
It was a home game, so he and Keltie didn’t get to sit on the bus together. He’d never admit it, but Ryan was sort of grateful.
~~~
They were at Keltie’s place, on Keltie’s bed, when she asked it.
“Are you sure you like me?”
Ryan blinked up at her. She had been straddling him, he was holding her waist with close to bruising force, and she had just broken off a very fantastic kiss to ask that. How the hell was he supposed to answer?
“Of course I do,” he stammered after a moment of stunned silence, and lifted his head up towards hers again. She pulled away.
“You’re sure? I mean, you’ve never-“
“Whatever you want, I’ll do it,” he said quickly, before he could really think about it. But it was true, he’d do a lot for Keltie, the beautiful, lovely, interesting Keltie. The Keltie who understood his music tastes and his love for old French films and him.
The Keltie who was grinning and rolling herself underneath Ryan, whispering “Really?” and guiding one of Ryan’s hands to her belt.
Ryan couldn’t move. He stared at the buckle, even gripped it for a moment with one hand, then let go and scooted back to sit on his heels, looking away.
Keltie sat up and put a hand on his shoulder. “Ryan…”
He still wouldn’t make eye contact. “Sorry,” he mumbled, and no, no, this isn’t how it was supposed to be. He had a chance, a chance to get laid, and he just…blew it.
“It’s okay, if you’re just not ready…” Keltie reached forward to pull him into a hug.
He hugged back. At least that was something he knew how to do. “Yeah, yeah, that’s it,” he said quietly, “Not ready, not right now.” Not right now, that was good. Better late than never, right?
~~~
They still made out in the back of the bus, every away game without fail. It was easy, familiar, and good, even with Brendon’s voice in the background. Talking was good, kissing was good, but anything beyond that just…didn’t work.
“How do you know when you’re ready?” Ryan had his own bag of chips this time, and two Powerades. Finding extra cash in his uniform was awesome.
“…Ready for what?” Spencer was concentrating on his cheese fries.
“Y’know. The. Sex thing.” It was kind of weird talking to his best friend about this, but Spencer had complained about his girl woes to him plenty of times. He was only returning the favor.
“…Dude, you mean you haven’t yet?”
Ryan started downing Powerade instead of answering.
“No, I mean, it’s not weird or anything, I just…kind of figured you did already.”
“I…we tried?” Ryan wanted this conversation to be over, but he really, really needed the advice.
“And…? Oh god, don’t tell me you need like, Viagra. I’m not helping you there.”
“No, it’s not-we just. I…I didn’t want to?”
“…Didn’t want to have sex.” Spencer raised an eyebrow far higher than he should have been able to.
“…Yeah.” Ryan pretended to be very interested in the nutrition facts on his chips. “Failure to dudekind, I know.”
“Well…a little, yeah. You’re sure you like tits?”
“Very sure.” Well. He liked Keltie, he knew that. Keltie was too awesome not to like.
“I mean, seriously. If you don’t, that’s totally fine.”
“It’s not that, all right? It’s just. I don’t know.”
“All right, then. Just…keep trying? Maybe? It sort of comes naturally.” Spencer shrugged, finishing off his own Powerade.
“Right. Naturally.”
~~~
He waited until their next home game before he did it. Right after the show was over, he took Keltie’s hand and led her under the bleachers.
She still had post-show giddiness and was grinning the whole time, apparently not noticing Ryan’s solemn look. “Y’know,” she was saying, “We’ve never made out under the bleachers before, this was a great ide-“
“I think we should break up.”
The smile dropped off her face. “…What?”
“I just. I don’t think it’s working. I’m sorry, just-“ He didn’t have anything else to say. He’d planned a speech, rehearsed it in his head even during the halftime show, but it dropped out of his head before he could even start it.
He was expecting her to protest, to cry, maybe, but she just sighed and started taking off her guard gloves. “I guess I was expecting this.”
“I’m sorry, seriously, I don’t know why I can’t-“
“No, no, it’s okay. You just don’t like girls, right?”
“That’s not-I wasn’t just-I really, really like you, Keltie, okay? I’m just. I don’t know.” He was still racking his brains for any scraps of his speech he could think of, but nothing was coming.
“It’s all right, okay? I can deal. We can still be friends, right?” She put a hand on his upper arm, smiling, but it looked forced.
“Well, actually…” He shrugged her hand away, looking at the ground. “I don’t…think we can.”
“…Why not? We can sit with your friends-I like Brendon and Spencer, y’know-and just talk. Like we used to. It’ll be great.”
“But. But it’ll be weird, and I still like you, and. We can’t.” He still wouldn’t look up.
“Ryan,” she started, putting a hand on his shoulder, but he practically shoved her away, and wait, not cool, not cool, he could’ve hurt her, but she only stumbled back a bit before recovering, and Ryan started to babble apologies, but she just sighed and put her gloves in her pocket.
“Ryan. It’s one thing to break up with me because you don’t want me, it’s another to deny it and give me bullshit reasons instead.”
Ryan finally looked up at her, and there were tears in her eyes. “I-“ He didn’t mean for it to go like this, really, but he didn’t know how he did mean for it to go. Anything but this.
But then Keltie was gone, rushing out from under the bleachers and probably into the arms of the color guard. Ryan stayed for a little while, trying to figure out what he could’ve done, how it could have gone so much better, until he heard the guard girls chattering in concerned whispers above him, and he couldn’t stand to stay under any longer.
~~~
He sat in his old seat in the front for the next few games, occasionally trying to make conversation with Mr. Wentz, but mostly sulking at the window. He didn’t actually notice that Brent had left the band until Brendon started trying to get the whole bus to sing a song of mourning for his departure. It didn’t sound very mournful.
~~~
“Uh, I’m Jon, just moved here from Chicago, and I’m a senior. Yeah.” The new kid shrugged and sat down in his seat next to Ryan.
The teacher thanked him and started on his lesson about the Great Depression.
Ryan pulled out his notebook and started taking notes, though his definition of “taking notes” just happened to be “scribbling down Blink-182 lyrics in different fonts” instead of the traditional sense of the phrase. Language changes.
“Good song,” the new kid-Jon-muttered, fifteen minutes into the class.
Ryan looked up to see Jon staring down at the notebook. Then Ryan smiled, nodded, and they had a half-mumbled, half-written conversation about music while the teacher blathered on.
“So, do you play anything?” Ryan asked when the bell rang, packing away his notebook.
“Guitar, a little. I’m better with bass, though.”
Ryan grinned. He was going to win points with Mr. Wentz for this.
“Ever thought about marching band?”
~~~
Getting Jon into band was a great idea, even if it meant getting death glares from William Beckett for a month. Suddenly, he didn’t need to sulk away the time on the bus, because Jon could sit next to him and listen to him and even talked back almost all the time, which was more than he could say for Spencer.
“No, really, you have to read this book,” he was telling Jon, on the way to his second game. “The way he uses words, you won’t believe it.”
“He wrote the one about the soap, right?”
“Yeah, that’s him. You’ve seen the movie? Everyone’s seen the movie, people forget that the book exists sometimes, it’s awful.”
It was like that for the rest of the ride, with Ryan rambling about literature and Jon promising to read Invisible Monsters as soon as Ryan finds his copy to lend to him (or buys a new copy, the old one was falling apart from being read so many times anyway). When they got to the school they were playing against, Ryan helped Jon unpack his bass so they could keep up the conversation.
The pregame show went off without a hitch, except for Ryan forgetting to play half a measure due to trying to look at Jon instead of his glockenspiel. Whatever, it wasn’t the melody anyway.
They spent the first half talking about The Kinks between touchdowns, and the third quarter arguing over which Beatles album was the best (they eventually agreed on “all of them”) over a box of cheese fries.
On the ride home, they sat together up front again. Brendon was talking at Spencer about how Alan Menken was going to be the next Bach or something, so Ryan and Jon were pretty much alone in their conversations. Ryan ended up leaning against Jon’s shoulder after the first twenty minutes, still answering Jon’s occasional comments but mostly just enjoying having such a nice-smelling pillow.
~~~
The next game, it was raining on and off the whole night. It started when they arrive at the stadium and it was a grass field, so they didn’t have to play their show, but it stopped by the time they finished unpacking, so they still had to stay in the stands. It was the middle of November and they were all cold and miserable, huddling together between songs-the guard especially, with their school-appropriate-but-still-pretty-skimpy outfits that really should have been designed with consideration for the time of year football season falls on.
Ryan and Jon ended up spending most of third quarter in the bathroom behind the snack stand, where it was warmer-though not quite warm enough to avoid holding onto each other for more heat.
Ryan wasn’t normally this tactile, really, that was all Brendon. With Jon, though, it just…didn’t seem as weird. They didn’t immediately jump away from each other if their hands brushed, or one of their knees got a little too friendly, or any other contact that would get him a smack in the back of the head from Spencer.
In fact, it didn’t seem at all weird when Ryan suddenly realized he and Jon were stomach-to-stomach, lying on the floor pressed against each other, their foreheads nearly touching. It was cold, that’s all.
Except-except then Jon was fitting his head between Ryan’s neck and shoulder, and sighing against the short little hairs that were starting to prickle up on his neck and okay, that knee was getting a bit more than friendly there, what with it being pretty close to Ryan’s crotch and all.
“Jon?” Ryan mumbled into his shoulder.
Jon didn’t seem to hear, and he just pulled himself closer, making a pleased little humming noise that seemed to vibrate its way through everything above Ryan’s shoulders, and-
And this should have been so much weirder than it was. But it was just. Nice. It wasn’t like cuddling with Keltie-there weren’t any boobs getting squished between them, and he never would have thought feeling stubble against his neck would be anything but itchy and uncomfortable, but there was something about it that was just…nice. That was the only word he could think of, in his whole SAT vocabulary he’d promised himself he wouldn’t forget just because college apps were finished. Nice.
“Jon-“ Ryan started again, but then there was the sound of a door opening, and Ryan looked up from the floor to see Spencer’s upside-down face glaring down at both of them.
“It’s two minutes to fourth quarter, we need to go. You still have some of those heating things, right?”
Ryan started to sit up, but he was still anchored to Jon, and he didn’t feel like moving just yet. “Yeah.”
Spencer rolled his eyes. “Up. You can cuddle later, Mr. Wentz is doing that twitchy thing he does when nobody’s played The Hey Song in a while.”
“I hate that song,” Ryan mumbled as he started to detach himself from Jon, instead of the logical response of We’re not cuddling. His brain was kind of malfunctioning. It must have been the cold.
“We all hate that song. But if you’re late getting back because you were busy rolling around on the bathroom floor, I’m not covering for you.”
They both eventually managed to get back on both feet, but they didn’t break contact all the way back to the bleachers. If anyone asked, Jon had an arm around his neck because it was freezing, all right?
~~~
“So, is it true what they say about the back of the bus?” Jon muttered in Ryan’s ear as they were handing things off to be put on the equipment bus.
Ryan froze, which probably wasn’t the best course of action while trying to shove a bass drum into a large vehicle, but someone picked up the slack and no instruments (or freshmen, but they weren’t as expensive anyway) were harmed.
When he turned around, Jon was smiling at him, one eyebrow raised in some sort of inquisitive amusement. Or something. Words kind of failed him around Jon sometimes, apparently.
“Well, uh. You weren’t around when it was getting most of its use, but, yeah.” Ryan tried not to smile back, he could feel his face trying to contort itself into that weird too-eager smile that really wasn’t appropriate right now.
“Yeah? Well…back seat’s empty right now, so if we’re quick…”
Ryan grabbed Jon’s hand and started toward the other bus before he could let himself think too much.
~~~
Nothing even really happened for most of the ride home. They picked back up on the conversation about the stark shift in Palahniuk’s style after the year 2000 that had been interrupted by a sudden need to cling to each other on the bathroom floor, and Jon’s hand sort of migrated to Ryan’s leg after a while, but he never pushed.
About half an hour later, they were leaning up against each other, avoiding the cold wall and window but also trying not to fall into the aisle. It was a delicate balance.
Ryan wrapped one arm across Jon’s shoulders, then the other around his neck. Jon turned his head towards Ryan, smiling softly, and oh god he was actually going to do this. He wanted to just say fuck it and lean in and get it over with, but he was stuck in place, and what if this didn’t work, what if he actually did like girls after all but not enough, what if-
“I can hear you thinking,” Jon said, and pressed his lips against Ryan’s, and oh. Oh. Now things made sense.
“I-“ Ryan started against Jon’s mouth, but then Jon was putting his hands on Ryan’s back, and Ryan let himself be pulled forward until he was halfway in Jon’s lap and there was hardly any space between their bodies, and this was not like kissing Keltie, not at all, it was all hard lines and rough edges and Keltie was kind of bony but this was different, and-and-
And he needed to stop thinking about Keltie right now, because Jon’s tongue was starting to join the party, and it’s not like Keltie was ever shy about being the first to shove her tongue in but-
Right, no Keltie, boys now, boys good. Fuck. His Jon-vocabulary needed work.
But then Jon was sort of nibbling at his lower lip and licking over where he’d bitten and yeah, no, words were gone again, Ryan was only comprehending tongues and teeth and lips now.
It was a little while before it occurred to Ryan that he might not have been kissing back all that much, which, no, that couldn't happen, because he was in fact a very good kisser, and he should prove this now.
So he tried, really, but Jon was doing this thing with his tongue against Ryan’s, and was playing with the hair on the back of his neck, so the extent of Ryan’s participation only ended up being his crawling further into Jon’s lap and pressing his whole body forward for more more more, and fuck, seriously, why hadn’t he tried this before?
They had to breathe eventually, and Jon was the first to pull away, his breath ragged, and wow, that was. Wow.
“Wow,” Ryan half-gasped, because seriously. Wow.
“Yeah,” Jon said back, still letting his fingers twirl around in Ryan’s hair. “You’ve…never kissed a guy before, have you.”
“Never,” Ryan said on his next exhale.
Jon just grinned at him. “So?”
“So…that’s what it’s supposed to be like, huh.”
“Yeah. Pretty much.” Jon probably didn’t know what Ryan was actually talking about, but it sounded like he understood. Jon seemed to have all kinds of insight into things he didn’t know all that much about, like that time he pulled out that theory about the symbolism in Survivor that totally blew him away.
Ryan would have commented on his brilliant thinking for about the millionth time that week, but then Jon was just kind of gently pressing on the back of Ryan’s head and leaning in, and oh, that was the signal to start up again, wasn’t it.
Well, it’s not like he was going to object.
~~~
After everything was off the bus and back in the band room, and Ryan was watching Jon start to drive home, Spencer walked over to where Ryan was standing in the parking lot, crossed his arms, and smirked.
“What.” Ryan turned away from Jon’s car to look Spencer in the eye. He knew it wasn’t all that threatening, but he could try.
“I knew it. I told you, and you didn’t believe me. You really need to listen to me more.”
“Is this about the not liking tits thing?” Because well, yeah, apparently Spencer was right, but how was Ryan supposed to know?
“Yes. And you were wrong, and I was right, and I really wish I’d put money on this, because my sneakers are getting kind of old and dirty.”
“Your mom’s old and dirty,” Ryan mumbled, but he still had the remains of the smile Jon had left on his face, and Spencer being right did not seem like all that much of a problem.
“My mom is awesome and is letting you and your Jon-germs into her house so you can sleep over, so shut up.” Spencer grinned and clapped a hand on Ryan’s back to lead him back to his car, and he was probably suppressing an “I was right, I was right!” song and dance, but Spencer was the best best friend of all best friends and kept his gloating pretty well-contained.
They were about halfway home when something occurred to Ryan. “This…this isn’t weird, right?”
Spencer didn’t look away from the road; he was kind of anal about responsible driving. “What isn’t?”
“Y’know, just. Me liking guys. You’re not freaked out or anything?”
Spencer snorted and made a face that would probably have had more of an impact if he were making eye contact. “Dude, I told you I’d be totally fine with it weeks ago. I mean, it’s not like you’re going to magically start hitting on me or anything just because you finally manned up and shoved your tongue down a dude’s throat.”
Ryan didn’t mention that it was mostly Jon doing the tongue-shoving. Ryan was more on the tongue-sucking side. But Spencer probably didn’t want to know that.
“Oh. Well, cool.” If it was hard to find words around Jon, it was twice as hard to find words to describe just how much he loved his best friend. Platonically, that is.
~~~
The next day was Saturday, so Ryan woke up with the realization that he had the opportunity to take Jon out on like, a date. Dinner, or a movie, or both. With a guy.
Well, actually, he woke up with the imaginary taste of Jon in his mouth and the uncomfortable morning wood associated with it, but once he was finished jerking off in Spencer’s bathroom (which would have been way more awkward if he hadn’t already done it a million times before), he got around to the whole “dating Jon” idea.
He was staring at his phone while eating a stack of Mrs. Smith’s famous waffles when Spencer said, “So you’re not having a big gay freakout or anything, then?”
“…No?” Ryan turned away from his contacts screen to raise an eyebrow at Spencer, who shrugged.
“I mean, you were pretty adamant about the whole being straight thing. I thought you might’ve flipped out a bit once you figured it out.”
“Well, I mean…I just never really thought about it, y’know? I was pretty secure in my tit-liking until, like…actually getting close to tits.”
Spencer just snorted and went back to his own waffle. Ryan reprimanded him for his insensitivity by not telling him about the syrup on his chin.
~~~
Ryan spent a good hour looking for possible movies to see, deliberating over which restaurant to go to, and he was just about to finalize a decision between either the Italian or the French film when Jon called him up to say “Hey, wanna hang out?”
Jon always made things much simpler.
They ended up playing Halo on Jon’s couch and ordering a pizza, since Jon’s parents were out of town and neither of them felt like interrupting their polygonal war for the sake of cooking. Jon beat him almost every time, but Ryan thought he was putting up a pretty good fight. He managed to not die for almost a full three minutes once.
Once the pizza got there, they shut off the game to see what was on TV. Ryan flipped through the channels until Jon burst out with “Wait, wait, go back!” and Ryan was flipping back to some infomercial for like, a life-changing blender or something.
Jon was snickering. “I’ve seen this one, it’s some funny shit,” he said, and while Ryan wasn’t normally one to watch bad actors pretend to need an appliance more than they needed air, he decided to trust Jon.
But after about five minutes, neither of them were exactly in stitches. “Huh,” Jon said, taking the remote from off the table, “Guess it was just funnier when I was high.” He shrugged and resumed the channel-flipping.
Huh. So Brendon’s throwaway theory that Jon Walker was the big stoner on campus was right after all.
“Of course, we totally could get high and watch something. I mean…” he scratched at the back of his neck and broke eye contact with Ryan, “If you want.”
“Uh.” He’d never really thought about it, but he’d also never really thought about the whole kissing dudes thing, and that seemed to have worked out all right.
“Forget it, if that’s not your thing-“
“No, dude, that’d be cool. Just never done it before, that’s all.”
Jon grinned, which had to be near the top of Ryan’s list of Things Jon Walker Should Do All The Time, and stood up. “I’ll be right back, then.”
~~~
Half an hour later, Ryan had learned several things.
One: Getting high was awesome. He was kind of nervous at first, what with the coughing and the weird smells and the wondering if it was anything like alcohol, which Ryan was so not down with, but once he’d finally managed to take a few hits without hacking up a lung, it was pretty awesome.
Two: Blenders really were a lot funnier while under the influence of marijuana. So were cartoons. And Jon’s hair.
Three: Making out while high was double awesome, and everyone should do it all the time. It had started with Ryan’s sudden fascination with Jon’s hair, and he was running his fingers through it until it was sticking up all over the place, but then he’d gotten bored and started moving on to playing with Jon’s sleeves, then back up to button and unbutton his shirt about twenty times, and then he’d noticed something about Jon’s eyes, or maybe his teeth, and he leaned in and everything after that was just a hazy blur of tongues and lips.
Jon was on top of Ryan, sort of caging him with his limbs but without making it seem too claustrophobic, kissing him at a slow, almost lazy pace while he started playing with those hairs on the back of his neck again, and yeah, that’s going on the Things Jon Walker Should Do All The Time list too, because seriously. All four of their hands were busy, grabbing or pinching or anything, Ryan just needed to touch, and it seemed like Jon did too, from the way he was touching Ryan like he was trying to memorize every texture. Everything was just a bit more with the pot in his head, and somewhere in the back of his mind Ryan was worried that he’d just ruined sober makeouts for himself forever, but the rest of his brain was a bit distracted by Jon Jon Jon.
They broke apart after about a week-or maybe five minutes, it was hard to tell-when Ryan suddenly remembered that the human body requires oxygen every so often. That’s actually how he worded it in his head, too: The human body requires-
Jon started snickering, and Ryan realized he’d been talking out loud.
“No three-syllable words after smoking up, it’s a rule,” Jon said, untangling himself from Ryan just enough so he could curl up next to him, pressing him into the back of the couch.
“Syllable has three syllables,” Ryan said into Jon’s neck, before giving it a quick lick. He tasted like boy. It was awesome.
“No counting, either.” Jon pushed himself forward a bit more, which was perfectly reasonable since he was going to fall off any second, but now Ryan was probably going to have weird marks all over his back from where the couch and his shirt were squished up against him.
“Maybe I like numbers,” Ryan mumbled, pushing back. Jon would be fine if he fell off the couch, the living room had carpet.
“No, you like words.” Jon pressed himself even closer, his hands moving from Ryan’s neck to the small of his back, and he was breathing hot and slow into Ryan’s ear, and if he tilted his hips up just a little more-
Ryan’s stomach growled.
There was silence for a few seconds, and then they both burst out laughing at the same time. “Dude,” Ryan groaned between gigglefits, “I’m starving.”
“There’s still pizza left. I think. Should we order another one?”
“Maybe. Unless you have ice cream. Or something.”
Eventually they decided against ordering more pizza and made a shitload of sandwiches instead. It was the best-tasting meal Ryan had ever had in his life, even better than the one he’d had at that expensive French restaurant Ryan was thinking of taking Jon to.
They pulled Halo back up, and Ryan spent the rest of the afternoon watching Jon kill bratty kids across the country, occasionally commenting into Jon’s microphone, until it was getting close to dark and Ryan remembered that he was going to start working on his history project today.
(Four: Ryan may or may not have been a little bit in love with Jon.)
~~~
It wasn’t until their third time in the back of the bus that Ryan actually looked over Jon’s shoulder to see Keltie and Katie sitting together, Katie nibbling on Keltie’s ear while Keltie giggled and ran her hands up Katie’s back.
“Huh.” Ryan stopped paying attention to Jon’s hands on his waist for a second, though it was a difficult feat.
“What?” Jon turned around to see what Ryan was looking at. “Oh. You didn’t notice?”
“Not really.” He’s been kind of distracted lately, to be fair. “I guess we both figured something out.”
“Dude, she never told you she was bi? I thought that was like, general band knowledge.”
“Oh, yeah.” She had, actually, it just wasn’t the first thing he remembered when he thought about Keltie.
Come to think of it, the fact that he hadn’t immediately thought “Keltie should make out with another girl and I should watch!” when he heard probably should have clued him in to his own sexuality a lot earlier.
“You’re doing that thinking thing again. Stop it,” Jon said, and moved into Ryan’s field of vision to start kissing him again.
Ryan didn’t complain.
~~~
The fight with Brendon threw things off a bit.
“That asshole, that fucking asshole,” Ryan hissed the second the door to the band room closed behind them, grabbing Jon’s wrist and dragging him down the hall.
“All right, tell me, what happened? You two were about three seconds from killing each other back there.”
“Later, just walk, we have ten minutes.” Ryan kicked the back door open (it didn’t really close properly, so you didn’t need to turn the knob) and pulled Jon into the empty smoker’s alley. Maybe he was a little rough, shoving Jon against the brick wall, but he at least tried to make sure he didn’t hit his head. Sort of. Safety was secondary to making out at the moment.
“Ryan-“ Jon kept trying to start, but conversation could fucking wait, Ryan needed to be as close to Jon as possible right now.
“Ryan.” Jon finally grabbed Ryan’s shoulders and shoved, holding him at arm’s length. “You’re freaking out. No freakouts, or no makeouts.”
“I’m fine, I’m just pissed, all right?” Ryan tried to struggle out of Jon’s grip, but dating a dude seemed to have some disadvantages after all.
“Talk to me. That’s what I’m here for.” Jon moved his hands from squeezing Ryan’s shoulders to just holding his upper arms. “Don’t take all your anger out on my face. I kind of need it.”
Ryan would have much rather pushed Jon back up against the wall and kissed him until he’d forgotten all his problems, but Jon had his Concerned Boyfriend look he got whenever Ryan said they should probably go out somewhere instead of to his house, or clammed up when Jon asked some offhand question about his parents. He never let himself give in to the Concerned Boyfriend look, never before, but then he was looking down at the ground and spitting out, “He was talking about my dad.”
“Oh.” Oh. That was all. And then Jon was pulling him into a hug, not even asking for any more, just holding him like all the anger and tension would seep out of him for Jon to absorb it. Maybe Jon could metabolize anger better.
They held onto each other for a few minutes, until Ryan didn’t feel like punching anything in particular and started to let go. “Come on, it’s fucking cold out. And we’ll be late for practice.”
Jon nodded, letting go the rest of the way before taking Ryan’s hand.
~~~
“The fuck did Brendon do now?” Spencer asked the third time Ryan started scowling at the mention of Brendon’s name. They were sitting on Spencer’s couch and watching The OC, a perfectly normal Ryan-and-Spencer activity, but Spencer had considered out loud the possibility of inviting Brendon, which, hell no.
“We’re not speaking.” Ryan sank into the squishy couch a few more inches. Maybe if he sank far enough, he’d go to an alternate couch-dimension with no Brendons.
“Is this about the drill? Because seriously, just because he suggested you take double time steps doesn’t mean he hates you.”
“It’s not the fucking drill, all right? Brendon’s just a jealous bastard who needs to keep his mouth shut once in a while.”
Spencer frowned. “Go on.”
Ten minutes of nonstop word vomit later, complete with multiple Homeric similes and a lot of words Ryan probably shouldn’t have been using with his best friend’s mother a few rooms away, Spencer finally shut him up with a hug and an “All right, all right, calm down already…”
Spencer always knew the right point to stop him, the point after he’d ranted and raved enough to get everything out but before he’d said enough that he started to collapse in on himself.
They held each other for a little while, silent except for the occasional deep breath, until Ryan finally mumbled, “You’re squishing me.”
Spencer snorted and let go. “Can’t handle my big, strong drummer arms?”
“You don’t even use your arms, you’re the one who told me it was all wrist.”
“I still have to hold my arms up for six hours a week.”
“Yeah, because those sticks are so heavy.”
They argued until Spencer’s mom announced that dinner was ready, and didn’t talk about Brendon for the rest of the night. Things would work themselves out later, right now he just needed to leave it alone.
~~~
A week later, Brendon walked up to him during a water break.
“Look,” he said, not making eye contact, “I know I was an asshole. But you were an asshole too, all right? So let’s just. Be assholes who aren’t mad at each other, okay?”
Ryan turned away and looked at Jon. “What were you saying about the British Invasion?”
Jon looked at him, then looked at Brendon, and for a second it seemed like he was trying to draw a line of friendship between them with his eyebrows or something, but then Ryan heard Brendon stalking off. Good.
“You have to talk to him eventually,” Jon said, instead of finishing his comment about the homogenizing of British and American rock, which was a damn shame.
“No, I don’t.”
Jon just sighed and went to go retune his bass, which was responding particularly badly to the cold weather. He had a habit of that, just stating something and then not even defending it when Ryan attacked him.
The problem was, he was usually still right.
~~~
Brendon tried to apologize again another week later, mumbling a “Sorry” at the floor in the hall. Ryan was pretty set on not answering at first, but he could already see Jon’s Concerned Boyfriend look in his head, and, okay, they both had been assholes. And maybe that whole “smirking at Brendon whenever Ryan caught him staring at him and Jon” thing was a little much.
“Yeah,” Ryan finally mumbled back. It was close enough.
When Jon entered the cafeteria that day to find Ryan sitting with Spencer and Brendon, laughing at some stupid joke Brendon had made, Jon gave him one of those smiles that made his heart feel like it was melting and fluttering at the same time (which should have been a pretty uncomfortable sensation, but it was Jon, so it wasn’t), and then sat down.
Ryan kind of liked this better, Ryan-Spencer-Brendon-Jon rather than Ryan-Jon and Brendon-Spencer. It just seemed more balanced, somehow.
(Later, when he tried to explain the concept to Spencer during practice, he’d asked, “Why not just Ryan-Jon and Brendon and Spencer? You’re the ones who’re dating.”
Ryan only shrugged. “You two have been hanging out a lot more since I started dating Jon. I dunno, you’re part of your own group.”
Spencer didn’t answer, just looked back up at the podium where Brendon was telling off a flute. “Mm.”)
~~~
The rest of the season went by pretty quickly. Jon and Ryan kept their spot in the back of the bus for the last few weeks, Katie and Keltie declared the other back seat to be the official Snuggle Seat, and rumors about Mr. Wentz and that other director from a rival school were circulating more than usual.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, Brendon and Spencer started dating.
“Yeah, thought so,” was all Ryan said, after Spencer told him.
“Was it that obvious?” Spencer asked, frowning, “We kind of need to keep it secret.”
“Yeah, well, his parents don’t see you two sitting on a bus together. That’s when it’s the worst, you’ll be fine.”
“When what’s the worst?”
“The giant crushes you’ve had on each other since sophomore year.”
“That’s a lie. That’s a lie and you know it.”
Ryan just snickered and tossed a grenade. He was getting better at Halo, thanks to Jon; he’d already killed Spencer at least three times today.
~~~
The last game was away, so it was also the last time they’d be on the band bus. Ryan and Jon had their usual seat, but Brendon had managed to con Katie and Keltie into giving up their Snuggle Seat, and he and Spencer spent both trips wrapped up in each other.
“Aren’t they just precious?” Jon cooed. Spencer flipped him off. Brendon didn’t even seem to hear.
“So, no big gay freakouts, Spence?” Ryan asked, grinning at them from behind Jon.
“Shut up,” Spencer grumbled, “At least I never denied it.”
“Careful, I hear once you’ve confirmed it back here, you’ll never be straight again.”
“Once you go back seat, you can never go back…” Brendon yawned into Spencer’s shoulder.
“You did not just say that.” Spencer made to shrug him off, but Brendon could cling like a spider monkey when he needed to.
Jon leaned back a bit, and Ryan wrapped his arms around his neck. They didn’t spend quite as much time in the back kissing the hell out of each other by now, but they didn’t really have to. The season was over, the only things left were a few events over the next six months, and then they were done. No more high school, no more band. A long, lazy summer before heading off to college.
“Are you thinking again?” Jon asked, rolling his eyes up to see Ryan from his angle.
“Yeah. About taking you to the movies this Sunday.”
“Oh, so you’re not leaving me now that you don’t need a seat buddy?”
“I still need a movie buddy.”
“You only want me for my weed and you know it.”
Ryan barked out a laugh, nearly choking Jon in the process, and then gave him an upside-down kiss on the forehead. “Your weed and your Halo lessons.”
“You guys are gross,” Brendon mumbled sleepily, all his limbs wrapped around Spencer by this point.
Ryan just leaned his head on Jon’s, shutting his eyes. “Nah. I just know what I like.”