Maple Syrup (Part 2 of 3)
Title: Maple Syrup
Author: xojemmaxo
Rating: R
Pairing: Ryden, Joncer
POV: Third, the center of it changes
Summary: So, the plot hath thickened... eth. Panic! are still at the mysterious cabin. Brendon has got himself lost in the woods, along with Ryan. Will romance happen between them? (duh.) What are Spencer and Jon up to? More importantly, can I be bothered to finish it???? (Yeah.)
Disclaimer: I do not own Panic! At The Disco, The Young Veins, Brendon Urie, Ryan Ross, Spencer Smith, or Jon Walker. Jon Walker's awesomeness would be way too awesome to contain, anyway.
Beta: hooray4irony
Author Notes: I'm sorry for the very, very, very late update with this story. you can thank hooray4irony for nagging me and nagging me to get another chapter up. The next chapter, will, this time, be posted in an acceptable time-frame.I'm also sorry if there are any miner spelling mistakes. There wouldn't be, but I typed the bigger part of this on NotePad... Yuck. No spellcheck. Oh, and thanks to everyone who read and commented. I love youse all. <3
“Hey, has anyone seen Brendon?” Ryan’s question went unanswered while the meaning of the words slowly sunk into Jon and Spencer’s consciousnesses.
“Fuck. I dunno, man.” Jon blew out a mouthful of smoke and passed the bong to Spencer, who quickly took a hit.
“Not since breakfast,” added Spencer, smoke curling out of his mouth with every word.
“Shit,” said Ryan. “What if he wandered off into the woods and got lost, you guys?”
“He’ll come back when he gets hungry,” muttered Spencer, eyes shut against the glare of the sun.
“What if he doesn’t?” worried Ryan. “He was pretty pissed off.”
“Jesus, calm down, Ryan,” said Jon. “You’re ruining my high, God.” He attempted to hand the bong to the other man, but Ryan swatted it away. It fell out of Jon’s slack fingers and rolled into the grass. Spencer picked it up and took another hit, settling back lazily on the ground.
“Ryan, if you’re so worried about precious little Brenny, go fucking look for him,” he said. “I’m telling you, he’ll be back when he realises he left Pooky here.” Pooky was Brendon’s teddy bear.
“Maybe I will,” said Ryan. Jon, Spencer, and the scratchy grass all were getting on his nerves anyway. He savoured one last hit, stealing the bong from Spencer, before marching into the trees, falling flat on his face in a ditch on the way. Spencer and Jon laughed, and Spencer offered the last of the bong to Jon, who politely refused it.
Miraculously making it INTO the first sets of trees, Ryan glanced around, searching for Brendon. Knowing him, he would probably just be sulking behind a tree trunk or something.
After a few minutes of walking, Ryan realised that wasn’t the case and perhaps he didn’t know Brendon as well as he thought he did.
Twenty minutes later and still no sign of Urie. How far had the idiot walked?
After about an hour, the weed had completely worn off Ryan, and he was beginning to get worried again. He hoped Brendon was okay… maybe he had just gone a different way.
Ryan kept walking, just in case.
The sun was tilting lazily towards the horizon when Ryan came to a lake. It was massive, and he wondered idly how they hadn’t come across it before. He hoped Brendon had had enough sense to walk around it, if he actually came this way, of course, because if he hadn’t Ryan would never find him.
Five more minutes, Ryan kept thinking as he trudged through the sludge at the shore of the lake. Five more minutes and he can go fuck himself; I’m going home.
At least twenty minutes later (Ryan never was good with keeping track of time) he heard a strange noise. Well, forests were usually filled with strange noises, but this noise didn’t sound like it belonged in a forest. It kind of sounded… like Brendon snoring.
Ryan walked quickly toward the sound. He soon found Brendon asleep pretty much on the shore of the lake, one Converse clad foot drifting in the water. Ryan knelt down and poked Brendon’s shoulder.
“Brendon. Get up,” he said.
Brendon just grunted and kept sleeping.
“Brendon,” said Ryan. He got no response.
“Brendon." Poke.
"Brendon." Poke, Poke.
"Brendon." Jab.
"BRENDON!"
Brendon screamed like a little girl and sat up too quickly, pitching face-first into the lake. He thrashed around while Ryan stared, amused.
“I’m drowning!” cried Brendon, obviously not quite awake. “I’m gonna get eaten by sharks! Save me, someone!”
Brendon stopped screaming and flailing when he realised he could, in fact, stand up in the shallow water. He glared at Ryan, who was laughing on the shore.
"What the fuck is your problem?" he snapped, hands on his soggy hips. He had not forgiven Ryan for the incident at the breakfast table this morning. He would never forgive Ryan for that.
"What's my problem?" spluttered Ryan, clutching his (very dry, the bastard) sides. "What's your problem, Sharkbait?"
Brendon thought back to last night, when he had seen Jon saying Spencer's name while jerking off, and shuddered. He knew what his problem was, why he was so bitchy today. It was all Jon's fault.
However, he muttered "Your face is my problem," to Ryan as he squished past him onto the bank instead of anything else. He didn't know if the could trust Ryan to not tell Spencer what Jon had done. Spencer was Ryan's BFFL, and Ryan told him everything.
No, Brendon might just keep this little bombshell for another time, perhaps when Jon was hogging all the weed or some other ample opportunity. Blackmail. Brendon like the thought of that.
"My face is better than your face," Ryan was proclaiming. He smirked at Brendon. "And your clothes are going to take forever to get dry. Ha, ha."
"Whatever," said Brendon. "We have bigger things to think about."
"Yeah," agreed Ryan. "Like how we're at least a three hour walk from the cabin." He pulled his phone out of his pocket to call Spencer and complain to him about his current situation, but frowned when he saw there was -
"No reception," he told Brendon glumly, then checked the time. "And it's almost six o' clock."
"Really, Einstein?" asked Brendon sarcastically, pointing to the sun, which was quickly disappearing behind the mountains in the distance.
"Shut up. You should be grateful I was nice enough to give up valuable getting high time to come save you," said Ryan, in a self - righteous voice.
Brendon snorted. "I'd have woken before nightfall."
"Are you joking? You were practically passed out. A bear could have come along and mated with you and you would have slept through it," mocked Ryan, stepping away from Brendon and crossing his arms.
"Doubt it," said Brendon. He knew he was losing, so he added, "If a bear came and mated with you while you were lying in the woods, you would pretend to keep sleeping so you wouldn't disturb it 'cause you liked it so much," which was the best thing he could think of in the appropriate come-back time.
"Dude," said Ryan, "that was so lame." He glanced to the sun. There was only an edge of it left peeking over the horizon; it would get dark soon.
"Come on, we'd better get going," he said, trying to end the arguement, which was getting ridiculous.
"No," said Brendon.
"What? Why?" asked Ryan. "It's going to get dark soon, and don't think I don't know how scared you are of the dark."
"I'm not moving," said Brendon, plonking himself down in the grass and staring up at Ryan stubbornly, "until you admit that you're an asshole."
"But I'm not an asshole," said Ryan.
"You're being one now, and you were being one this morning. You really pissed me off at breakfast, and you'd better apologize right now or else," said Brendon.
"I'm not apologizing," said Ryan. "I don't even know what I did."
"You laughed at me," protested Brendon.
"I laugh at you all the time, dumbass," said Ryan. "Come on, get up, we've got to go."
"No," said Brendon. "I'm not fucking moving until you say sorry for laughing at me because of the... maple syrup."
"Oh my God, Brendon. Are you even serious? I'm not even going to apologize for that. That is so stupid, I can't believe it. I'm going to leave without you."
He turned to go, but Brendon had a firm hand clenched around the boot on his left foot.
"Hey, let that go. Those shoes are Italian."
"Nope. And I will burn every article of clothing of yours when we get back to civilization if you don't stay right here until you apologize."
Ryan could see Brendon was serious from the tone in his voice and the look in his eye. Besides, he had been known to burn people's things when he got unreasonable like this. Jon's favourite pair of flip - flops, Spencer's best pair of drumsticks, Ryan's rosevest... so much unnecessary violence. He feared for the life of his wardrobe. But he was not about to apologize.
"I suppose I'll stay here, then," he said, "because I'm not apologizing." He sat down carefully next to Brendon.
"Fine," said Brendon. He looked mad. "We'd better make a fire, then, because otherwise we'll freeze to death."
"I'm not helping to make you a fire," said Ryan nastily. He got up and headed over to another clearing, close to where Brendon was sitting. "I'm making my own. And since I'm the only one here with a lighter, I'd like to see how you make yours."
Brendon looked on with a deep - set scowl as Ryan collected twigs and small sticks for his fire. He was making a large pile of them, and they were starting to lose colour and shape as the sun sank fully below the mountains, dimming the light. By the time Ryan had finished collecting kindling and had started a lengthy search for his lighter, Brendon could hardly see the other man for shadows.
"Fuck," said Ryan, before re-checking his pockets more vigorously than before. Then Brendon saw his shoulders slump.
"What's wrong, Ryan?" he asked innocently. "Can't find your lighter?"
"Shut the fuck up," Ryan told him. He remembered, now, leaving the lighter in the grass with Jon and Spencer on his way into the forest.
He gave an odd sort of growl and kicked the sticks out of the clearing, making a space to sit. He folded his legs close to his body and glared at Brendon, who was doing the exact same thing a few feet away.
ABCDEFGHIJKennelmennelbeeee....
It got stupidly dark in the forest. There were no streetlights, no windows, no cars, nothing that made light, just the moon, obscured by clouds, and Ryan's Sidekick. Ryan was playing Solitaire on his Sidekick. He had the sound turned on and Brendon could hear the irritating music, playing over and over again. He wanted to get up, snatch the Sidekick out of Ryan's grip, and throw it in the lake. He wanted to throw RYAN in the lake.
Brendon wanted clean, dry clothes, his iPod, the cabin, and one of Jon's bearhugs. Brendon was making a mental list of all the things he wanted right at that moment when Ryan's Sidekick's battery ran out and he heard Ryan curse.
Brendon didn' t say anything. He wanted to laugh at Ryan's misfortune, but he had a feeling Ryan was at the end of his tether and any further snide comments or actions could be Brendon's last. Instead he smirked to himself and threw a pebble into the lake.
About an hour later, or ten minutes, whatever, Brendon began to get nervous. He had been thinking about movies, but then his mind had wandered inevitably to the scariest one he had ever seen, of course. The movie happened to be the Blair Witch Project. Brendon hadn't been able to sleep for days after that.
Now he was straining his ears for any sound of faint gunfire, or whatever the fuck the popping noise had been in the movie. He was certain he had heard some just a second ago. His heart was beating in his throat, making it hard to breathe. He heard a noise in front of him and he snapped his head towards the sound, trying to look through the darkness and failing. He curled in on himself and whimpered, trying not to cry. What if they had upset one of the witch's piles of rocks when they had sat here? What if she has hanging around, just waiting for them to sleep? Brendon's stomach turned over.
"Ryan?" he whispered, just to make sure he wasn'r dead. Though, of course, Brendon wouldn't care if he was. He just. Didn't want to be alone with a corpse.
"What?" Ryan's loudly spoken reply shattered the silence, making Brendon jump. He whimpered again, just quietly.
"What's wrong, Brendon?" Ryan sounded exasperated.
"Just - just - if I die tonight, if the Blair Witch gets me, I want you to know you still owe me an apology."
"Oh my God, Brendon. You do know the Blair Witch Project was just a movie, right?"
"Don't say the name of it!" Brendon hissed. "And they said it was a documentary."
Brendon could almost hear Ryan rolling his eyes. "Brendon. If it was real, do you really think the parents would have allowed the deaths of their children to be shown in, like, every cinema in the world?"
"Maybe," whispered back Brendon. "Maybe the parents died before the tape was even found."
"Why would they have died?" asked Ryan, with amusement lifting his tone.
"The... the You Know Who Witch."
"The Blair Witch got them?"
"Don't say the name!!" Brendon said hysterically, before starting to cry. Vaguely he heard Ryan move towards him, then a hand appeared on his shoulder. Brendon almost screamed a little. Ryan sat next to Brendon and put his arms around him, shifting the hand on Brendon's shoulder to his waist.
"Don't cry, you dumbass," he said affectionately into Brendon's hair.
"The - witch - " Brendon got out, because he had that type of crying where you took really shallow breaths and couldn't speak properly.
"There is no witch, Bren," said Ryan softly. "It was a movie, directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez."
"Really?" sniffled Brendon. His nose was dripping all over Ryan's shirt.
"Really, Bren." Ryan pulled away a little. "Are you okay now?"
"Yeah," Brendon said in a small voice. Ryan made to stand up and head back over to his clearing, but Brendon's voice stopped him.
"Wait."
"What?"
"Can you." Brendon chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, wiping the tears from his cheeks with the back of his wrist. "Can you stay here with me?" He expected Ryan to laugh and call him a wuss or something, but the older man just made a soft noise of assent and settled again beside Brendon.
"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked Brendon. Brendon smiled waterily before realizing Ryan couldn't hear him. "I'm fine," he said, biting off a 'now that you're here' because it would have sounded corny and ridiculous.
"No," said Ryan. "I meant about before. You know. You seemed pretty pissed off." Brendon didn't say anything, waiting. Eventually Ryan sighed and said, "I'm sorry, Bren. I shouldn't have laughed at you this morning, especially since you already seemed to be worrying about something - " Jon said Spencer's name while jerking off, thought Brendon ' - "And it wasn't a nice thing to do."
Brendon leaned a little closer to Ryan and Ryan pet his hair softly. Damn, he knew how much Brendon liked having his hair petted.
"So, friends?" asked Ryan.
Brendon let out a noisy breath. "Yeah, okay," he agreed. Ryan smiled and continued petting Brendon's hair and Brendon closed his eyes in bliss.
"Are you going to tell me what was bothering you this morning?" asked Ryan. He stopped petting Brendon. Brendon frowned.
"Apart from the maple syrup?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Well."
"Was there any more to that statement, or...?" Ryan sounded amused again.
"Shut up," said Brendon. "I don't know if I can tell you."
"Why not?" asked Ryan.
"Because you might tell Spencer, and... this is pretty big."
"Ooh, I'm dying to know," said Ryan sarcastically.
"Seriously, though," said Brendon. "It's this big unexpected thing, and I didn't know anything about it, and then suddenly it just happened - " Ryan cut him off with his laughter.
"Sorry, you just sounded like you were talking about a fart, or something," he snorted, trying to calm himself down. "Anyway, go on."
"Anyway," said Brendon. "So last night I heard these noises, right? Like... groaning. And I thought that maybe the cabin was haunted or something like that. So I went to go investigate. And the groaning noises were coming from Jon's room -"
"Oh my God," said Ryan. "You walked in on Jon jerking off. Oh my God. That's hilarious."
"The groaning noises were coming from Jon's room," said Brendon. "So I walked in - he had the door wide open, by the way - and he was jerking off, and I heard him... I heard him moan Spencer's name."
There was utter silence after this bombshell. Brendon was pretty sure Ryan had stopped breathing.
"What?" he said, in a perfect monotone.
"I heard Jon moan Sp-"
"I heard," snapped Ryan. Brendon felt Ryan shift, and guessed that the other man had put his head in his hands.
"Oh my God," Ryan lamented into his palms.
"I know!" agreed Brendon.
"I really didn't need to know that right now," said Ryan. "I really, really didn't."
"Oh, said Brendon. "Sorry?"
Ryan ignored this. "Are you sure it was Spencer's name, and not his girlfriend's?" he asked Brendon hopefully.
"I don't think so," Brendon replied glumly. "'Spencer' doesn't sound anything like 'Cassie.'"
"I know," groaned Ryan.
There was quiet for a few minutes, in which Ryan probably thought about the whole situation and what he should do and Brendon wished he hadn't told Ryan anything now he knew what his reaction would be.
"Are you mad at me, Ryan?" he asked tentatively.
"No, Bren. I'm just figuring out what I should do."
"Please don't tell Spence," Brendon said at the same moment Ryan said "I have to tell Spence."
"Don't tell Spencer!" said Brendon. "He'll tell Jon, and then I'll be in trouble for telling you!"
"Seriously, Brendon," said Ryan. "You are a five year old."
About an hour and a half and no solution to the whole 'Jon moaning Spencer's name while jerking off' thing, Brendon was feeling sleepy. His eyelids kept slipping closed, and he had to keep forcing them back open to stay awake.
"Go to sleep," Ryan told him, after Brendon rubbed his eyes for the ten millionth time.
"No," said Brendon. "Something might creep up on you in the night, and -"
"Just lie down and sleep," Ryan said firmly. "Nothing will get you. I'm right here."
"Okay," said Brendon begrudgingly. He lay down uncomfortably in the dirt and sighed deeply.
After his breathing became even and deep, Ryan's hand found it's way to Brendon's shoulder and stayed there.
Author: xojemmaxo
Rating: R
Pairing: Ryden, Joncer
POV: Third, the center of it changes
Summary: So, the plot hath thickened... eth. Panic! are still at the mysterious cabin. Brendon has got himself lost in the woods, along with Ryan. Will romance happen between them? (duh.) What are Spencer and Jon up to? More importantly, can I be bothered to finish it???? (Yeah.)
Disclaimer: I do not own Panic! At The Disco, The Young Veins, Brendon Urie, Ryan Ross, Spencer Smith, or Jon Walker. Jon Walker's awesomeness would be way too awesome to contain, anyway.
Beta: hooray4irony
Author Notes: I'm sorry for the very, very, very late update with this story. you can thank hooray4irony for nagging me and nagging me to get another chapter up. The next chapter, will, this time, be posted in an acceptable time-frame.I'm also sorry if there are any miner spelling mistakes. There wouldn't be, but I typed the bigger part of this on NotePad... Yuck. No spellcheck. Oh, and thanks to everyone who read and commented. I love youse all. <3
“Hey, has anyone seen Brendon?” Ryan’s question went unanswered while the meaning of the words slowly sunk into Jon and Spencer’s consciousnesses.
“Fuck. I dunno, man.” Jon blew out a mouthful of smoke and passed the bong to Spencer, who quickly took a hit.
“Not since breakfast,” added Spencer, smoke curling out of his mouth with every word.
“Shit,” said Ryan. “What if he wandered off into the woods and got lost, you guys?”
“He’ll come back when he gets hungry,” muttered Spencer, eyes shut against the glare of the sun.
“What if he doesn’t?” worried Ryan. “He was pretty pissed off.”
“Jesus, calm down, Ryan,” said Jon. “You’re ruining my high, God.” He attempted to hand the bong to the other man, but Ryan swatted it away. It fell out of Jon’s slack fingers and rolled into the grass. Spencer picked it up and took another hit, settling back lazily on the ground.
“Ryan, if you’re so worried about precious little Brenny, go fucking look for him,” he said. “I’m telling you, he’ll be back when he realises he left Pooky here.” Pooky was Brendon’s teddy bear.
“Maybe I will,” said Ryan. Jon, Spencer, and the scratchy grass all were getting on his nerves anyway. He savoured one last hit, stealing the bong from Spencer, before marching into the trees, falling flat on his face in a ditch on the way. Spencer and Jon laughed, and Spencer offered the last of the bong to Jon, who politely refused it.
Miraculously making it INTO the first sets of trees, Ryan glanced around, searching for Brendon. Knowing him, he would probably just be sulking behind a tree trunk or something.
After a few minutes of walking, Ryan realised that wasn’t the case and perhaps he didn’t know Brendon as well as he thought he did.
Twenty minutes later and still no sign of Urie. How far had the idiot walked?
After about an hour, the weed had completely worn off Ryan, and he was beginning to get worried again. He hoped Brendon was okay… maybe he had just gone a different way.
Ryan kept walking, just in case.
The sun was tilting lazily towards the horizon when Ryan came to a lake. It was massive, and he wondered idly how they hadn’t come across it before. He hoped Brendon had had enough sense to walk around it, if he actually came this way, of course, because if he hadn’t Ryan would never find him.
Five more minutes, Ryan kept thinking as he trudged through the sludge at the shore of the lake. Five more minutes and he can go fuck himself; I’m going home.
At least twenty minutes later (Ryan never was good with keeping track of time) he heard a strange noise. Well, forests were usually filled with strange noises, but this noise didn’t sound like it belonged in a forest. It kind of sounded… like Brendon snoring.
Ryan walked quickly toward the sound. He soon found Brendon asleep pretty much on the shore of the lake, one Converse clad foot drifting in the water. Ryan knelt down and poked Brendon’s shoulder.
“Brendon. Get up,” he said.
Brendon just grunted and kept sleeping.
“Brendon,” said Ryan. He got no response.
“Brendon." Poke.
"Brendon." Poke, Poke.
"Brendon." Jab.
"BRENDON!"
Brendon screamed like a little girl and sat up too quickly, pitching face-first into the lake. He thrashed around while Ryan stared, amused.
“I’m drowning!” cried Brendon, obviously not quite awake. “I’m gonna get eaten by sharks! Save me, someone!”
Brendon stopped screaming and flailing when he realised he could, in fact, stand up in the shallow water. He glared at Ryan, who was laughing on the shore.
"What the fuck is your problem?" he snapped, hands on his soggy hips. He had not forgiven Ryan for the incident at the breakfast table this morning. He would never forgive Ryan for that.
"What's my problem?" spluttered Ryan, clutching his (very dry, the bastard) sides. "What's your problem, Sharkbait?"
Brendon thought back to last night, when he had seen Jon saying Spencer's name while jerking off, and shuddered. He knew what his problem was, why he was so bitchy today. It was all Jon's fault.
However, he muttered "Your face is my problem," to Ryan as he squished past him onto the bank instead of anything else. He didn't know if the could trust Ryan to not tell Spencer what Jon had done. Spencer was Ryan's BFFL, and Ryan told him everything.
No, Brendon might just keep this little bombshell for another time, perhaps when Jon was hogging all the weed or some other ample opportunity. Blackmail. Brendon like the thought of that.
"My face is better than your face," Ryan was proclaiming. He smirked at Brendon. "And your clothes are going to take forever to get dry. Ha, ha."
"Whatever," said Brendon. "We have bigger things to think about."
"Yeah," agreed Ryan. "Like how we're at least a three hour walk from the cabin." He pulled his phone out of his pocket to call Spencer and complain to him about his current situation, but frowned when he saw there was -
"No reception," he told Brendon glumly, then checked the time. "And it's almost six o' clock."
"Really, Einstein?" asked Brendon sarcastically, pointing to the sun, which was quickly disappearing behind the mountains in the distance.
"Shut up. You should be grateful I was nice enough to give up valuable getting high time to come save you," said Ryan, in a self - righteous voice.
Brendon snorted. "I'd have woken before nightfall."
"Are you joking? You were practically passed out. A bear could have come along and mated with you and you would have slept through it," mocked Ryan, stepping away from Brendon and crossing his arms.
"Doubt it," said Brendon. He knew he was losing, so he added, "If a bear came and mated with you while you were lying in the woods, you would pretend to keep sleeping so you wouldn't disturb it 'cause you liked it so much," which was the best thing he could think of in the appropriate come-back time.
"Dude," said Ryan, "that was so lame." He glanced to the sun. There was only an edge of it left peeking over the horizon; it would get dark soon.
"Come on, we'd better get going," he said, trying to end the arguement, which was getting ridiculous.
"No," said Brendon.
"What? Why?" asked Ryan. "It's going to get dark soon, and don't think I don't know how scared you are of the dark."
"I'm not moving," said Brendon, plonking himself down in the grass and staring up at Ryan stubbornly, "until you admit that you're an asshole."
"But I'm not an asshole," said Ryan.
"You're being one now, and you were being one this morning. You really pissed me off at breakfast, and you'd better apologize right now or else," said Brendon.
"I'm not apologizing," said Ryan. "I don't even know what I did."
"You laughed at me," protested Brendon.
"I laugh at you all the time, dumbass," said Ryan. "Come on, get up, we've got to go."
"No," said Brendon. "I'm not fucking moving until you say sorry for laughing at me because of the... maple syrup."
"Oh my God, Brendon. Are you even serious? I'm not even going to apologize for that. That is so stupid, I can't believe it. I'm going to leave without you."
He turned to go, but Brendon had a firm hand clenched around the boot on his left foot.
"Hey, let that go. Those shoes are Italian."
"Nope. And I will burn every article of clothing of yours when we get back to civilization if you don't stay right here until you apologize."
Ryan could see Brendon was serious from the tone in his voice and the look in his eye. Besides, he had been known to burn people's things when he got unreasonable like this. Jon's favourite pair of flip - flops, Spencer's best pair of drumsticks, Ryan's rosevest... so much unnecessary violence. He feared for the life of his wardrobe. But he was not about to apologize.
"I suppose I'll stay here, then," he said, "because I'm not apologizing." He sat down carefully next to Brendon.
"Fine," said Brendon. He looked mad. "We'd better make a fire, then, because otherwise we'll freeze to death."
"I'm not helping to make you a fire," said Ryan nastily. He got up and headed over to another clearing, close to where Brendon was sitting. "I'm making my own. And since I'm the only one here with a lighter, I'd like to see how you make yours."
Brendon looked on with a deep - set scowl as Ryan collected twigs and small sticks for his fire. He was making a large pile of them, and they were starting to lose colour and shape as the sun sank fully below the mountains, dimming the light. By the time Ryan had finished collecting kindling and had started a lengthy search for his lighter, Brendon could hardly see the other man for shadows.
"Fuck," said Ryan, before re-checking his pockets more vigorously than before. Then Brendon saw his shoulders slump.
"What's wrong, Ryan?" he asked innocently. "Can't find your lighter?"
"Shut the fuck up," Ryan told him. He remembered, now, leaving the lighter in the grass with Jon and Spencer on his way into the forest.
He gave an odd sort of growl and kicked the sticks out of the clearing, making a space to sit. He folded his legs close to his body and glared at Brendon, who was doing the exact same thing a few feet away.
ABCDEFGHIJKennelmennelbeeee....
It got stupidly dark in the forest. There were no streetlights, no windows, no cars, nothing that made light, just the moon, obscured by clouds, and Ryan's Sidekick. Ryan was playing Solitaire on his Sidekick. He had the sound turned on and Brendon could hear the irritating music, playing over and over again. He wanted to get up, snatch the Sidekick out of Ryan's grip, and throw it in the lake. He wanted to throw RYAN in the lake.
Brendon wanted clean, dry clothes, his iPod, the cabin, and one of Jon's bearhugs. Brendon was making a mental list of all the things he wanted right at that moment when Ryan's Sidekick's battery ran out and he heard Ryan curse.
Brendon didn' t say anything. He wanted to laugh at Ryan's misfortune, but he had a feeling Ryan was at the end of his tether and any further snide comments or actions could be Brendon's last. Instead he smirked to himself and threw a pebble into the lake.
About an hour later, or ten minutes, whatever, Brendon began to get nervous. He had been thinking about movies, but then his mind had wandered inevitably to the scariest one he had ever seen, of course. The movie happened to be the Blair Witch Project. Brendon hadn't been able to sleep for days after that.
Now he was straining his ears for any sound of faint gunfire, or whatever the fuck the popping noise had been in the movie. He was certain he had heard some just a second ago. His heart was beating in his throat, making it hard to breathe. He heard a noise in front of him and he snapped his head towards the sound, trying to look through the darkness and failing. He curled in on himself and whimpered, trying not to cry. What if they had upset one of the witch's piles of rocks when they had sat here? What if she has hanging around, just waiting for them to sleep? Brendon's stomach turned over.
"Ryan?" he whispered, just to make sure he wasn'r dead. Though, of course, Brendon wouldn't care if he was. He just. Didn't want to be alone with a corpse.
"What?" Ryan's loudly spoken reply shattered the silence, making Brendon jump. He whimpered again, just quietly.
"What's wrong, Brendon?" Ryan sounded exasperated.
"Just - just - if I die tonight, if the Blair Witch gets me, I want you to know you still owe me an apology."
"Oh my God, Brendon. You do know the Blair Witch Project was just a movie, right?"
"Don't say the name of it!" Brendon hissed. "And they said it was a documentary."
Brendon could almost hear Ryan rolling his eyes. "Brendon. If it was real, do you really think the parents would have allowed the deaths of their children to be shown in, like, every cinema in the world?"
"Maybe," whispered back Brendon. "Maybe the parents died before the tape was even found."
"Why would they have died?" asked Ryan, with amusement lifting his tone.
"The... the You Know Who Witch."
"The Blair Witch got them?"
"Don't say the name!!" Brendon said hysterically, before starting to cry. Vaguely he heard Ryan move towards him, then a hand appeared on his shoulder. Brendon almost screamed a little. Ryan sat next to Brendon and put his arms around him, shifting the hand on Brendon's shoulder to his waist.
"Don't cry, you dumbass," he said affectionately into Brendon's hair.
"The - witch - " Brendon got out, because he had that type of crying where you took really shallow breaths and couldn't speak properly.
"There is no witch, Bren," said Ryan softly. "It was a movie, directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez."
"Really?" sniffled Brendon. His nose was dripping all over Ryan's shirt.
"Really, Bren." Ryan pulled away a little. "Are you okay now?"
"Yeah," Brendon said in a small voice. Ryan made to stand up and head back over to his clearing, but Brendon's voice stopped him.
"Wait."
"What?"
"Can you." Brendon chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, wiping the tears from his cheeks with the back of his wrist. "Can you stay here with me?" He expected Ryan to laugh and call him a wuss or something, but the older man just made a soft noise of assent and settled again beside Brendon.
"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked Brendon. Brendon smiled waterily before realizing Ryan couldn't hear him. "I'm fine," he said, biting off a 'now that you're here' because it would have sounded corny and ridiculous.
"No," said Ryan. "I meant about before. You know. You seemed pretty pissed off." Brendon didn't say anything, waiting. Eventually Ryan sighed and said, "I'm sorry, Bren. I shouldn't have laughed at you this morning, especially since you already seemed to be worrying about something - " Jon said Spencer's name while jerking off, thought Brendon ' - "And it wasn't a nice thing to do."
Brendon leaned a little closer to Ryan and Ryan pet his hair softly. Damn, he knew how much Brendon liked having his hair petted.
"So, friends?" asked Ryan.
Brendon let out a noisy breath. "Yeah, okay," he agreed. Ryan smiled and continued petting Brendon's hair and Brendon closed his eyes in bliss.
"Are you going to tell me what was bothering you this morning?" asked Ryan. He stopped petting Brendon. Brendon frowned.
"Apart from the maple syrup?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Well."
"Was there any more to that statement, or...?" Ryan sounded amused again.
"Shut up," said Brendon. "I don't know if I can tell you."
"Why not?" asked Ryan.
"Because you might tell Spencer, and... this is pretty big."
"Ooh, I'm dying to know," said Ryan sarcastically.
"Seriously, though," said Brendon. "It's this big unexpected thing, and I didn't know anything about it, and then suddenly it just happened - " Ryan cut him off with his laughter.
"Sorry, you just sounded like you were talking about a fart, or something," he snorted, trying to calm himself down. "Anyway, go on."
"Anyway," said Brendon. "So last night I heard these noises, right? Like... groaning. And I thought that maybe the cabin was haunted or something like that. So I went to go investigate. And the groaning noises were coming from Jon's room -"
"Oh my God," said Ryan. "You walked in on Jon jerking off. Oh my God. That's hilarious."
"The groaning noises were coming from Jon's room," said Brendon. "So I walked in - he had the door wide open, by the way - and he was jerking off, and I heard him... I heard him moan Spencer's name."
There was utter silence after this bombshell. Brendon was pretty sure Ryan had stopped breathing.
"What?" he said, in a perfect monotone.
"I heard Jon moan Sp-"
"I heard," snapped Ryan. Brendon felt Ryan shift, and guessed that the other man had put his head in his hands.
"Oh my God," Ryan lamented into his palms.
"I know!" agreed Brendon.
"I really didn't need to know that right now," said Ryan. "I really, really didn't."
"Oh, said Brendon. "Sorry?"
Ryan ignored this. "Are you sure it was Spencer's name, and not his girlfriend's?" he asked Brendon hopefully.
"I don't think so," Brendon replied glumly. "'Spencer' doesn't sound anything like 'Cassie.'"
"I know," groaned Ryan.
There was quiet for a few minutes, in which Ryan probably thought about the whole situation and what he should do and Brendon wished he hadn't told Ryan anything now he knew what his reaction would be.
"Are you mad at me, Ryan?" he asked tentatively.
"No, Bren. I'm just figuring out what I should do."
"Please don't tell Spence," Brendon said at the same moment Ryan said "I have to tell Spence."
"Don't tell Spencer!" said Brendon. "He'll tell Jon, and then I'll be in trouble for telling you!"
"Seriously, Brendon," said Ryan. "You are a five year old."
About an hour and a half and no solution to the whole 'Jon moaning Spencer's name while jerking off' thing, Brendon was feeling sleepy. His eyelids kept slipping closed, and he had to keep forcing them back open to stay awake.
"Go to sleep," Ryan told him, after Brendon rubbed his eyes for the ten millionth time.
"No," said Brendon. "Something might creep up on you in the night, and -"
"Just lie down and sleep," Ryan said firmly. "Nothing will get you. I'm right here."
"Okay," said Brendon begrudgingly. He lay down uncomfortably in the dirt and sighed deeply.
After his breathing became even and deep, Ryan's hand found it's way to Brendon's shoulder and stayed there.