Positive (Chapter 6)
Title: Positive
Author: xojemmaxo
Rating: Nc-17
Pairing: RyWalk
POV: Third
Summary: "Where are we going?" he asks as Jon locks the door with his spare key.
"I'm not telling," Jon says in a sing song voice, and leads Ryan down the hallway and out the door of the apartment building.
Disclaimer: I do not own Ryan Ross or Jon Walker. If this ever happened... no. It just wouldn't.
Beta: hooray4irony
Author Notes: I'm sorry for the late update. I went back to school a couple days ago and now with the onslaught of homework my teachers are already giving me, I don't have much time for writing. The next chapter will be up soon...ish. Expect it in about a week. (Plus, this chapter's kind of corny. :/ )
Ryan throws up again in the morning. Since Jon doesn't come running at the sounds of the retching, and doesn't rub Ryan's back and coo into his ear that it's going to be okay, Ryan deduces that Jon's no longer at the apartment. When he stops vomiting, rinses his mouth out and wanders into the kitchen in search for food, he finds a note on the kitchen table. He picks it up. In Jon's messy block letters it says:
Ryan,
Got called in to work early. I need to feed Clover after work, but I'm picking you up at around six. I want to take you out to dinner. Wear something nice.
Love, Jon.
PS. Look in the freezer.
After the writing is a big, curly heart. Ryan rolls his eyes, but his heart does a strange jumpy thing in his chest. He puts the note back down and checks the freezer. There is a massive tub of coconut sorbet in it. Jon went out at an ungodly hour to buy him sorbet. Ryan almost cries with happiness, gets a spoon, and eats half the coconut sorbet for breakfast. It is delicious.
The sorbet soothes his stomach (it does, okay, that's why he eats so much) and Ryan even feels like he might be in a sort of cheerful mood. That is, until he undresses for his shower and sees his reflection in the mirror.
The bump is noticable. He turns sideways in front of the glass and prods his rounded stomach miserably, imagining a cancerous jelly jean in there that's slowly draining his life force. He showers quickly and drips all the way into his bedroom, too lazy to get a towel. He wears the loosest shirt he can find and hopes the coffee shop apron will hide the bump. He doesn't know why he doesn't want anyone to know about the fetus. It seems too private, somehow, like they'll realize Ryan hates children and know it was an accident. He'll tell them eventually; he'll have to. But not now.
He's early into work, for once, and Frank is so surprised that he practically gapes at Ryan when he walks in the door. Gerard's there, too (Ryan wonders if he is ever at his bookshop, seriously), still looking sheepish after the mopping incident.
"Wow, Ryan," says Frank, when he's recovered enough to speak. "You look really good today. Almost like you're glowing or something."
Ryan nearly has a heart attack but smiles anyway, shrugging and escaping behind the counter where Frank can't get him.
Work is shitty. Apparently, Frank had a bright idea to recruit about ten thousand teenagers, and assigns the 'getting them settled' job to Ryan with an apologetic smile before disappeaing, once again, into his office with Gerard.
The new teenagers are stupid. There's no other way to describe them. They just fuck everything up. One of them keeps asking Ryan if what she's doing is okay, which usually wouldn't bother him, but honestly, he doesn't care how she's wiping down tables, as long as it's done. Another one keeps requesting him to repeat everything he says, then mumbles it quietly under his breath. Ryan thinks he should probably keep his eye on that one. He looks a little crazy. A boy, about sixteen, does a worse job of the mopping than Gerard, and Ryan sighs when he inspects the boy's efforts and does the entire floor himself. On Ryan's break, he goes out back once again.
Just one cigarette. Two a day, one in the morning, if Jon isn't staying the night, and one at work. Just one, he thinks, but he smokes three while he stands in the shelter of the building and only feels a little twinge of guilt.
Ryan buys a scarf on the way back to his apartment. He feels like shit; the smell of the coffee shop got to him worse today. He sees the scarf hanging to a display rack in a small store called 203, thinks 'fuck it', and goes in and buys it. He hardly ever buys anything for himself.
The scarf is pale beige, and it's soft on Ryan's skin when he wraps it around his neck on his way out the store. He thinks the only thing he isn't angry at today is his new purchase.
Jon isn't there when he gets home, and Ryan remembers the note. He wonders where Jon will take him.
The sorbet is waiting in the fridge and Ryan finishes it off (any weight he may gain can be blamed on the bump). He sticks the empty container in the garbage and glances at the clock; there's still about an hour until Jon will pick him up.
Ryan jumps in the shower, partly to get rid of the coffee smell and partly to kill some time, and stays in there for a little over twenty minutes. He doesn't wash himself. He hugs his arms loosely around his waist and just thinks. He hasn't been able to do that lately. After ten minutes of thinking, he starts to cry.
He feels good when he gets out of the shower. Ryan thinks everything might even be okay. If he'd known crying had this effect on him, Ryan would have done it ages ago.
Choosing his outfit takes another twenty minutes. He has to wear something thick, otherwise the bump will be noticable, stark against the outlines of Ryan's bony hips. He ends up wearing a shirt under a coat Jon bought him for his birthday once. It's his favourite. He tucks the new scarf around his neck and is fixing his hair in the bathroom mirror when he hears Jon open the apartment door and close it behind him.
"Ry?"
"M'here!" calls Ryan, struggling with a lock of hair that just won't go where he wants it to. Jon stands in the doorway to the bathroom, a smile hiding behind his stubble. Ryan looks up at him and raises his eyebrows.
"Ready to go? I got us a reservation," says Jon hurriedly.
"Um, yeah, just wait a second," says Ryan, then, "Why are you talking so fast?"
"Hm? Oh. I'm not," says Jon, noticibly slowing down his speech.
Ryan frowns. "Okay then. Freak."
Jon snorts with laughter. "Freak?"
"It's what you are," says Ryan breezily, finishing taming his hair and sweeping past Jon, who stops him abruptly when he grabs Ryan and holds him against his chest.
"Hey! Watch the hair!" says Ryan indignantly, struggling against Jon's bear-hug. He quickly realizes it's no use, however, and merely goes limp in Jon's grip and sighs impatiently when he feels his boyfriend nuzzle his nose into his hair.
"I love you," Jon mutters into the top of his head.
"I know," says Ryan. "And I like you enough to let you sleep in my bed occasionally."
Jon huffs out a laugh and lets Ryan go, who dusts imaginary dirt off his coat and attempts to fix his hair again.
"You look fine," says Jon, but he's smiling.
"Nope. Gotta fix it. Give me twenty minutes."
"I got us a reservation," says Jon. "Come on."
"Fine," says Ryan, striding into the front hall and opening the door. "Let's go. And I'll have you know I am extremely displeased with you right now."
"You'll change your mind later," says Jon. Ryan wonders what he means. Maybe Jon is going to blow him when they get home. He doesn't mention his suspicions in case it was meant to be a surprise.
"Where are we going?" he asks as Jon locks the door with his spare key.
"I'm not telling," Jon says in a sing song voice, and leads Ryan down the hallway and out the door of the apartment building.
It takes a while for Jon to drive them... wherever they're going. In fact, he drives for so long that they leave the suburban side of Las Vegas and are nearing The Strip when he pulls up to the curb in front of a little crowded place that Ryan's wanted to eat at for months, but never had the money to.
"Jon..." he says, when Jon gets out of the car and runs around to Ryan's side, opening the door before he can even reach for the handle.
"Jon, it's too expensive. We can go somewhere else, you know I don't care."
"You do," says Jon. "You've been wanting to go here for ages. I wanted to take you, it's okay."
"Jon..." says Ryan again, but he takes the hand his boyfriend offers him and allows himself to be helped out of the car.
"It's fine," Jon reassures, kissing Ryan on the cheek, his beard tickling Ryan's skin. Ryan smiles despite himself and lets Jon drag him into the restaurant.
The table that's reserved for them is toward the back of the restaurant, near a large window. They sit down, as they're invited to by the friendly waitress, and find themselves surrounded by couples, holding hands over other tables and sending loving looks in each other's direction. Ryan feels kind of uncomfortable, mostly because he's not the public affection type. Jon is. Jon grabs Ryan's hand from where it's folded with the other under the table and gently tugs it up until both their hands are resting on the tabe top next to the salt shaker. Ryan almost rolls his eyes but remembers Jon's paying a shitload of money just so Ryan can eat in a fancy restaurant, so he gives Jon a smile instead.
Ryan looks around. There's live music playing in the corner, under an arch type thing with fake sunflowers wound through it. There are fake flowers everywhere. Album covers of The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and other musicians hang in crooked frames all along the walls, along with drumsticks and guitar picks. It's pretty fucking awesome.
A waiter arrives to take their orders. Jon chooses some kind of pasta and Ryan scours the menu for something that isn't over thirty bucks while the waiter looks on patiently.
"Hey, it's okay. Get anything, you know I don't care how much it is," says Jon, smiling lopsidedly and giving Ryan's unrelinquished hand a little squeeze.
"Okay," says Ryan uncertainly. Then to the waiter he adds, "I'll have the ceasar salad, please." It's pretty cheap, considering the other things on the menu, anyway, but he likes ceasar salad, so Jon can't complain.
The waiter nods and leaves Ryan and Jon alone.
"This place is awesome," says Ryan, glancing around again at the surrounding restaurant.
"I know," says Jon. "Those guitar picks over there are Jimi Hendriz's. Where the fuck would they even get those?"
"Maybe they robbed his grave," says Ryan solemnly. "Or just stole them."
They talk about the origins of the various instruments on the walls until the food arrives. It's delicious. Ryan keeps stealing forkfuls of pasta from Jon's plate, but Jon retaliates by eating the tomatoes from Ryan's salad.
Dinner goes by in a flurry of laughter and wine, and small smiles intended for no one but each other. Ryan's actually rather surprised when all his salad has disappeared, but doesn't comment on it. They talk for a little while longer before Jon asks for the bill.
Ryan inhales sharply when he sees the price of the meal.
"Shit, Jon, I'm sorry," he says. "I should have ordered something less-"
"It's okay, Ryan," says Jon, as the waitress takes their plates from the table. "Think of it as an engagement gift." With that, he gets out of his chair and onto one knee before Ryan and says, "Will you marry me?"
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Cliffhanger! >:D Comments are very welcome, and I hope you're enjoying the story so far. :)
Author: xojemmaxo
Rating: Nc-17
Pairing: RyWalk
POV: Third
Summary: "Where are we going?" he asks as Jon locks the door with his spare key.
"I'm not telling," Jon says in a sing song voice, and leads Ryan down the hallway and out the door of the apartment building.
Disclaimer: I do not own Ryan Ross or Jon Walker. If this ever happened... no. It just wouldn't.
Beta: hooray4irony
Author Notes: I'm sorry for the late update. I went back to school a couple days ago and now with the onslaught of homework my teachers are already giving me, I don't have much time for writing. The next chapter will be up soon...ish. Expect it in about a week. (Plus, this chapter's kind of corny. :/ )
Ryan throws up again in the morning. Since Jon doesn't come running at the sounds of the retching, and doesn't rub Ryan's back and coo into his ear that it's going to be okay, Ryan deduces that Jon's no longer at the apartment. When he stops vomiting, rinses his mouth out and wanders into the kitchen in search for food, he finds a note on the kitchen table. He picks it up. In Jon's messy block letters it says:
Ryan,
Got called in to work early. I need to feed Clover after work, but I'm picking you up at around six. I want to take you out to dinner. Wear something nice.
Love, Jon.
PS. Look in the freezer.
After the writing is a big, curly heart. Ryan rolls his eyes, but his heart does a strange jumpy thing in his chest. He puts the note back down and checks the freezer. There is a massive tub of coconut sorbet in it. Jon went out at an ungodly hour to buy him sorbet. Ryan almost cries with happiness, gets a spoon, and eats half the coconut sorbet for breakfast. It is delicious.
The sorbet soothes his stomach (it does, okay, that's why he eats so much) and Ryan even feels like he might be in a sort of cheerful mood. That is, until he undresses for his shower and sees his reflection in the mirror.
The bump is noticable. He turns sideways in front of the glass and prods his rounded stomach miserably, imagining a cancerous jelly jean in there that's slowly draining his life force. He showers quickly and drips all the way into his bedroom, too lazy to get a towel. He wears the loosest shirt he can find and hopes the coffee shop apron will hide the bump. He doesn't know why he doesn't want anyone to know about the fetus. It seems too private, somehow, like they'll realize Ryan hates children and know it was an accident. He'll tell them eventually; he'll have to. But not now.
He's early into work, for once, and Frank is so surprised that he practically gapes at Ryan when he walks in the door. Gerard's there, too (Ryan wonders if he is ever at his bookshop, seriously), still looking sheepish after the mopping incident.
"Wow, Ryan," says Frank, when he's recovered enough to speak. "You look really good today. Almost like you're glowing or something."
Ryan nearly has a heart attack but smiles anyway, shrugging and escaping behind the counter where Frank can't get him.
Work is shitty. Apparently, Frank had a bright idea to recruit about ten thousand teenagers, and assigns the 'getting them settled' job to Ryan with an apologetic smile before disappeaing, once again, into his office with Gerard.
The new teenagers are stupid. There's no other way to describe them. They just fuck everything up. One of them keeps asking Ryan if what she's doing is okay, which usually wouldn't bother him, but honestly, he doesn't care how she's wiping down tables, as long as it's done. Another one keeps requesting him to repeat everything he says, then mumbles it quietly under his breath. Ryan thinks he should probably keep his eye on that one. He looks a little crazy. A boy, about sixteen, does a worse job of the mopping than Gerard, and Ryan sighs when he inspects the boy's efforts and does the entire floor himself. On Ryan's break, he goes out back once again.
Just one cigarette. Two a day, one in the morning, if Jon isn't staying the night, and one at work. Just one, he thinks, but he smokes three while he stands in the shelter of the building and only feels a little twinge of guilt.
Ryan buys a scarf on the way back to his apartment. He feels like shit; the smell of the coffee shop got to him worse today. He sees the scarf hanging to a display rack in a small store called 203, thinks 'fuck it', and goes in and buys it. He hardly ever buys anything for himself.
The scarf is pale beige, and it's soft on Ryan's skin when he wraps it around his neck on his way out the store. He thinks the only thing he isn't angry at today is his new purchase.
Jon isn't there when he gets home, and Ryan remembers the note. He wonders where Jon will take him.
The sorbet is waiting in the fridge and Ryan finishes it off (any weight he may gain can be blamed on the bump). He sticks the empty container in the garbage and glances at the clock; there's still about an hour until Jon will pick him up.
Ryan jumps in the shower, partly to get rid of the coffee smell and partly to kill some time, and stays in there for a little over twenty minutes. He doesn't wash himself. He hugs his arms loosely around his waist and just thinks. He hasn't been able to do that lately. After ten minutes of thinking, he starts to cry.
He feels good when he gets out of the shower. Ryan thinks everything might even be okay. If he'd known crying had this effect on him, Ryan would have done it ages ago.
Choosing his outfit takes another twenty minutes. He has to wear something thick, otherwise the bump will be noticable, stark against the outlines of Ryan's bony hips. He ends up wearing a shirt under a coat Jon bought him for his birthday once. It's his favourite. He tucks the new scarf around his neck and is fixing his hair in the bathroom mirror when he hears Jon open the apartment door and close it behind him.
"Ry?"
"M'here!" calls Ryan, struggling with a lock of hair that just won't go where he wants it to. Jon stands in the doorway to the bathroom, a smile hiding behind his stubble. Ryan looks up at him and raises his eyebrows.
"Ready to go? I got us a reservation," says Jon hurriedly.
"Um, yeah, just wait a second," says Ryan, then, "Why are you talking so fast?"
"Hm? Oh. I'm not," says Jon, noticibly slowing down his speech.
Ryan frowns. "Okay then. Freak."
Jon snorts with laughter. "Freak?"
"It's what you are," says Ryan breezily, finishing taming his hair and sweeping past Jon, who stops him abruptly when he grabs Ryan and holds him against his chest.
"Hey! Watch the hair!" says Ryan indignantly, struggling against Jon's bear-hug. He quickly realizes it's no use, however, and merely goes limp in Jon's grip and sighs impatiently when he feels his boyfriend nuzzle his nose into his hair.
"I love you," Jon mutters into the top of his head.
"I know," says Ryan. "And I like you enough to let you sleep in my bed occasionally."
Jon huffs out a laugh and lets Ryan go, who dusts imaginary dirt off his coat and attempts to fix his hair again.
"You look fine," says Jon, but he's smiling.
"Nope. Gotta fix it. Give me twenty minutes."
"I got us a reservation," says Jon. "Come on."
"Fine," says Ryan, striding into the front hall and opening the door. "Let's go. And I'll have you know I am extremely displeased with you right now."
"You'll change your mind later," says Jon. Ryan wonders what he means. Maybe Jon is going to blow him when they get home. He doesn't mention his suspicions in case it was meant to be a surprise.
"Where are we going?" he asks as Jon locks the door with his spare key.
"I'm not telling," Jon says in a sing song voice, and leads Ryan down the hallway and out the door of the apartment building.
It takes a while for Jon to drive them... wherever they're going. In fact, he drives for so long that they leave the suburban side of Las Vegas and are nearing The Strip when he pulls up to the curb in front of a little crowded place that Ryan's wanted to eat at for months, but never had the money to.
"Jon..." he says, when Jon gets out of the car and runs around to Ryan's side, opening the door before he can even reach for the handle.
"Jon, it's too expensive. We can go somewhere else, you know I don't care."
"You do," says Jon. "You've been wanting to go here for ages. I wanted to take you, it's okay."
"Jon..." says Ryan again, but he takes the hand his boyfriend offers him and allows himself to be helped out of the car.
"It's fine," Jon reassures, kissing Ryan on the cheek, his beard tickling Ryan's skin. Ryan smiles despite himself and lets Jon drag him into the restaurant.
The table that's reserved for them is toward the back of the restaurant, near a large window. They sit down, as they're invited to by the friendly waitress, and find themselves surrounded by couples, holding hands over other tables and sending loving looks in each other's direction. Ryan feels kind of uncomfortable, mostly because he's not the public affection type. Jon is. Jon grabs Ryan's hand from where it's folded with the other under the table and gently tugs it up until both their hands are resting on the tabe top next to the salt shaker. Ryan almost rolls his eyes but remembers Jon's paying a shitload of money just so Ryan can eat in a fancy restaurant, so he gives Jon a smile instead.
Ryan looks around. There's live music playing in the corner, under an arch type thing with fake sunflowers wound through it. There are fake flowers everywhere. Album covers of The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and other musicians hang in crooked frames all along the walls, along with drumsticks and guitar picks. It's pretty fucking awesome.
A waiter arrives to take their orders. Jon chooses some kind of pasta and Ryan scours the menu for something that isn't over thirty bucks while the waiter looks on patiently.
"Hey, it's okay. Get anything, you know I don't care how much it is," says Jon, smiling lopsidedly and giving Ryan's unrelinquished hand a little squeeze.
"Okay," says Ryan uncertainly. Then to the waiter he adds, "I'll have the ceasar salad, please." It's pretty cheap, considering the other things on the menu, anyway, but he likes ceasar salad, so Jon can't complain.
The waiter nods and leaves Ryan and Jon alone.
"This place is awesome," says Ryan, glancing around again at the surrounding restaurant.
"I know," says Jon. "Those guitar picks over there are Jimi Hendriz's. Where the fuck would they even get those?"
"Maybe they robbed his grave," says Ryan solemnly. "Or just stole them."
They talk about the origins of the various instruments on the walls until the food arrives. It's delicious. Ryan keeps stealing forkfuls of pasta from Jon's plate, but Jon retaliates by eating the tomatoes from Ryan's salad.
Dinner goes by in a flurry of laughter and wine, and small smiles intended for no one but each other. Ryan's actually rather surprised when all his salad has disappeared, but doesn't comment on it. They talk for a little while longer before Jon asks for the bill.
Ryan inhales sharply when he sees the price of the meal.
"Shit, Jon, I'm sorry," he says. "I should have ordered something less-"
"It's okay, Ryan," says Jon, as the waitress takes their plates from the table. "Think of it as an engagement gift." With that, he gets out of his chair and onto one knee before Ryan and says, "Will you marry me?"
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Cliffhanger! >:D Comments are very welcome, and I hope you're enjoying the story so far. :)