PatD Fic: Stop and Admire The View (Brendon/Jon/Ryan)
Title: Stop and Admire The View
Author: battie_hattie
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Jon/Brendon/Ryan
POV: Third, Brendon
Summary: Brendon loses his ablity to speak and Ryan and Jon both play caretaker.
Disclaimer: So not even.
Author Notes: ~9,000 words. Seriously, Brendon I think has one line in the whole thing. Do you know how hard that is to write? As always, thanks to sneaky_sena and tanisafan for working with me on this.
It had been a long couple of shows, a long stretch of weeks on the road, punctuated by short stays in motel rooms. But, mostly, it was the bus where they made their home.
And they were used to it. They could tell the sounds of each other, knew when to turn a deaf ear when one of the members needed some ‘personal time’. They knew when someone was close by.
Ryan was all limbs, and he knew it. It wasn’t news to him in the slightest; long legs, gangly arms and fingers that went on forever. So, the band knew that when he said he was sore and needed to stretch out that they should probably leave the room.
Brendon had been in the back of the bus, watching a movie when Ryan had announced that he was sore, because if Brendon had heard it, he probably would have offered to give Ryan a neck rub or something. But he hadn’t heard it, and instead, Brendon wanted a Red Bull. And getting a Red Bull meant that he had to get to the little kitchenette in the front. Past Ryan, who was bent over, touching his toes.
Brendon stopped in the hallway for a moment to just sort of admire the view, which he did from time to time, and he was certain by this point in their friendship that Ryan was well aware of the fact that he did it.
It was when he stopped admiring and took a step forward that it happened.
Brendon didn’t really remember much, because there was suddenly a lot of pain, and not enough air, and he falling to his knees. And then the dark.
“Shhhh,” Brendon heard someone whisper. “He’s coming around.”
Brendon blinked his eyes and thought that it was way too bright, and it smelled weird.
“Brendon?” It was Jon. Brendon knew this, even if he couldn’t see Jon.
“Don’t try to move,” Jon said. Brendon still wasn’t sure where Jon was, and he wasn’t really aware that he was trying to move. But he stayed still.
“I’ll get the doctor.” That voice is Spencer. Brendon couldn’t tell if Ryan was there too.
Brendon opened his mouth to say something, but there was no sound. Just a little squeak of air moving through his throat and out of his mouth. And it hurt.
“Stop that, Brendon.” It was Jon again, and he’d moved close enough that Brendon could see him out of the corner of his eye.
He wanted to ask ‘stop what?’ but seeing how futile his last attempt at speech was, he figured that he shouldn’t try.
“You’re in the hospital,” Jon said. “You blacked out.”
Brendon lifts up one hand and points to his throat, the source of the greatest amount of pain, though there’s a good bit of that going on in his lungs and his head too.
“Ryan…” Jon started. There was a snort from across the room, but Brendon couldn’t see who it was.
“I’m sorry, alright?” Ryan said sharply. “I didn’t know he was there!”
“Ryan,” Jon said, “no one’s blaming you. It just sort of happened, ok?”
Brendon can hear Ryan moving around, but he can’t see him. Mostly because even if he could move his head, it would hurt too much.
“You’ve got a neck brace on,” Jon told him. “They’re just making sure.”
Brendon can hear the door open, but he was growing increasingly infuriated that he couldn’t see anyone. What he can see is a water-stained piece of ceiling and nothing else.
“Brendon,” the new voice said. “I’m Doctor Thompson.” There was a rustling of papers and then Brendon could see the doctor. A nice, sort of portly man in his fifties with a handle bar mustache and glasses. Brendon sort of coveted his mustache for some reason.
“Hold on,” Dr. Thompson said. He reached around and undid the brace around Brendon’s neck. “How are you feeling? It’s probably time for your next bit of pain medicine soon. You’ve been out for quite a while.”
Brendon wanted to ask if he was supposed to feel like an elephant was sitting on his throat, but he couldn’t. He was just glad that he could move a little bit now. He used his arms to prop himself up.
Spencer was at his side, clicking the little buttons to make the bed raise up so that Brendon could sit. Brendon tried not to think about how much experience Spencer had with operating hospital beds. Which made him think about how much he didn’t want Ryan to be there right now.
But, he couldn’t say any of that. He tried to make a noise to let everyone know he was in pain, but even that didn’t come out.
“Brendon,” Dr. Thompson said, “I’ve let your friends stay here while you rested because your…” he paused and looked to the door. “Your Zack fellow is outside and he insisted, but I think you and I should have a talk.”
Brendon wanted to shake his head, but he couldn’t. He wanted to yell out that they couldn’t go, because if they did, how the hell was he going to explain to them later what was wrong with him. But he couldn’t do that either. Instead, he just made grabby hands at Spencer and Jon. He would have made grabby hands for Ryan, but he only had two hands, and Ryan was way over by the door.
“We’re not leaving,” Spencer said with the authority of someone who’d been in this situation before.
The doctor sighed. “Alright, what you have is severe bruising of the larynx. Which is why you can’t speak. And you’re not going to be able to do anything strenuous, because it’s constricting your airway.”
Brendon zoned out for a moment, knowing that anything important the doctor said, the guys would remember. He was more focused on trying to remember how it was that he got a bruised larynx in the first place.
“And we’re going to need to you to talk… er, write, with a social worker,” the doctor finished up.
Ryan jumped from his seat in the corner. “What? Why? It was an accident, I didn’t mean it!”
Spencer went over to Ryan’s side. “Seriously, he just caught an elbow to the throat. He’s our fucking singer, do you think that we’d purposefully let something like this happen to him?”
“Guys,” Jon said firmly, holding his hands out. “We just need to calm down. Everyone knows that it was totally an accident. Ryan would never hurt Brendon. It’s just a formality, right?” he asked, turning to the doctor.
“Yes,” Dr. Thompson replied. “I understand that your situation is unusual and this clearly seems like an accident, but we have to just make sure.” He looked over at Brendon. “She’ll be in shortly, and I’ll make sure that your prescriptions are with your discharge papers.”
Brendon wanted to ask what’s unusual, but then he realized it. They didn’t… well; they look normal for them. But Ryan still had some blue eyeshadow on and he was wearing a scarf and Jon looks like he’s about to star in some movie about college frat boys. And Spencer… well, Spencer was just that pretty.
Earlier, Brendon had been wearing his dinosaur sweater, so he didn’t really think that there was anything weird about that.
There was a knock at the door. “Hi, I’m Elizabeth Slate,” she said kindly. “I need to talk to Brendon.”
“He can’t talk,” Spencer told her flatly.
“Yes, I know,” she said, holding up a pad of paper. “His larynx is damaged due to severe trauma. That’s what I need to talk to him about.”
“I didn’t mean it!” Ryan exclaimed. He put his weight on Spencer and sagged his shoulders.
“Dude, we know,” Spencer said. “We all know. Even Brendon knows.”
Brendon gave him a weak smile, even though he still wasn’t quite sure how this was all Ryan’s fault. He knew Ryan well enough to know that if it was Ryan’s fault, he didn’t mean it.
“Scoot,” she told them. “I just need Brendon to tell me what happened and then we all can move on with our lives.”
The guys left and Brendon does his best to write out what he remembers, which consists of watched movie, wanted Red Bull, saw Ryan stretching, hospital.
She asked if anyone ever hit him before or if he ever felt threatened, so he wrote fangirls, but that’s why we’ve got Zack.
She seemed to think that this is enough, which really, it should be. There was nothing weird about the situation, and she had a lot of other work to do.
Brendon wanted to talk to the guys again, but a nice nurse came in and stuck a needle into his IV drip and that was the last thing he remembered for a while.
….
Brendon was not pleased to find that in the morning, he was very limited in what he could do. At least now he could look at something other than the water spot on the ceiling, but other than that, he really was limited.
Doctor’s Orders: No solid foods, no exertion, no speaking, no fast movement, etc. Really, it should have been called the Big List of Everything Brendon Loves To Do But Can’t Anymore.
Which meant that the tour was off, at least for the foreseeable future. There was no telling when his voice would be back.
Ryan seemed to be in charge of getting Brendon back to the bus, which Brendon was ok with, except the fact that Ryan was making him wear the collar. But he couldn’t take it off himself, because the clasps were in the back, and raising his arms over his head was just too painful, even with the happy pills the doctor prescribed.
“I want a nap,” Spencer announced. “Hospital visiting makes me tired.”
“Shit, I was going to take the first nap,” Jon groused.
Ryan glared at both of them. “Well, that’s fine, because I’m not taking a nap, so there’s no reason that you both can’t go right now.”
“And, uh, leave you alone with Brendon?” Spencer asked.
Ryan’s glare turned a little harder. “I can fucking take care of him.”
Brendon wanted to say something along the lines of he’s not six and he doesn’t need a babysitter, but he didn’t really want to be alone. And there was still the whole not able to talk thing to contend with.
“You’re not…” Spencer leaned in and whispers something that Brendon couldn’t hear.
“I can take care of him, damn it!” Ryan snarled. “Leave me alone.”
Jon threw his hands up and walked back to the bunk. He knew better than to get in the middle of things. Spencer just let out a long-suffering sigh and vanished as well.
Ryan sat down next to Brendon and stared for a long moment. “I’m sorry I elbowed you in the throat.”
Brendon started to put the pieces together then. The stretching, and Ryan’s long limbs and then the hospital. Ryan’s got really sharp elbows and impressively strong arms. No wonder he hurt so badly.
Ryan blinked again, and Brendon realized that maybe he was waiting for something. Brendon didn’t really know why Ryan was so adamant about taking care of him, because Ryan wasn’t that guy. He’s the guy that when someone is sick, he might throw them a box of tissues, if it wasn’t that far. And only if the sniffling was really bothering him.
Brendon decided that he must feel really guilty. Or, he’s really mad that the tour is off indefinitely because now Brendon’s a mute.
Brendon really wished that Ryan would stop staring at him. It was getting creepy. He lifted his hand and made a drinking motion.
“You want a drink?”
Brendon thought about nodding, but he still had the brace on, so he gave Ryan a thumbs up instead.
“What do you want?”
Brendon just looked at him.
“Ok, maybe we need… paper? Should I get you a notebook?”
Brendon rolled his eyes.
“Ok, notebook. Where did I leave my notebook?” Ryan scratched his head and looked around the lounge. “I had one earlier, I was writing in it.” He bent over and scrounged under a seat. “Here,” he said triumphantly. “Wait, no, we can’t use this one. Damn it.”
Brendon slumped back against the couch and contemplated getting his own damn bottle of water.
Ryan rummaged for a minute more and came up with another notebook. “Yeah, ok, we can use this one,” he said, handing it to Brendon.
Brendon took it, then looked at Ryan.
“What? What do you want?”
Brendon drummed his fingers against the notebook.
“Write down what you want to drink, or I can’t get it for you!”
Brendon opened the notebook, pretended to hold a pen, and then pretended to write. When that didn’t work, he shook his pretend pen.
“Oh! Fuck, ok, you need a pen.” Ryan bit his lip. “Ok, where did I leave the pen?”
Brendon wanted to scream that they were in the drawer, where they always put the pens that Ryan left all over the bus because if they left them on the floor, someone was going to slip and die.
Ryan finally remembered that the pens were in the drawer and pulled one out. He handed it to Brendon.
Water. Cold.
“Yeah, I can do that.” He went to the little fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. He undid the cap and handed it to Brendon.
Brendon stared at the water bottle. He was really thirsty. Too bad he couldn’t tip his head back to drink from a bottle.
“What, is that water not good enough? Do you want… I don’t know, Evian or some shit?”
Brendon pursed his lips and tried to think of a good way to drink it. He found none, and couldn’t remember if they even had straws on the bus. He was pretty sure that they did. Or at least some sort of funky novelty straw that they had picked up at a truck stop somewhere.
“Damn it, Brendon. I got you your water, why won’t you drink it?”
He put the bottle down on the back of the bench. Straw? he wrote, and then held the paper up for Ryan.
“Oh, yeah.” Ryan frowned. “Maybe they shouldn’t have left me alone with you. Do we even have a straw?” He looked at Brendon expectantly. “This is so fucking hard when you can’t talk.”
Ryan went to the cupboard and finally extracted a novelty straw that they had picked up somewhere in Texas. “Here,” he said, holding it out.
Brendon rolled his eyes again. Finally he just took the straw, went to the sink and rinsed it with hot water himself.
“You’re supposed to be resting.”
Brendon wanted to point out that it wasn’t his fault his caretaker was retarded, but it would have taken a lot of effort.
“Is it time to take your pills?”
Brendon was pretty sure he was about to punch Ryan in the throat, but then they’d have two mutes to take care of. don’t know he wrote before discarding the notebook in order to drink his water.
“Fine.” Ryan hesitated for a moment and then went back to the bunk area. There was light conversation and some hissing between him and Spencer, and then Ryan came back. “Yes. And I need to make a chart. Do we have any poster board?”
Brendon rolled his eyes again. It was really all he had. That and the thumbs up or down approach. He just hoped that Ryan would remember to give him his pills before starting the chart project, otherwise, Brendon was going to end up in pain and generally annoyed.
“Ok, pills.” Ryan went over to where Spencer had left the pharmacy bag on the counter. “Do I have to mash them?”
Brendon squeezed the water bottle in his hand until a little bit splashed onto his legs. Ryan is too busy carefully reading the instructions to notice.
“I think you can take it whole,” Ryan announced, tipping a pill into his hand. “Here,” he said, holding it out to Brendon.
Brendon leaned forward and took the pill with his tongue and sipped on his water.
“You just licked me,” Ryan said, rubbing his fingers on his pants. “You couldn’t just take it like a normal person?”
It would have been too much movement, Brendon thought to himself. Plus, he always liked the way Ryan tasted.
Ryan just gave him a weird look and set about making his chart.
….
Brendon woke up to Ryan explaining, in detail, how to use the new chart that he’d made to Jon and Spencer.
“So, if you give him a pill, you have to write it down and initial here,” he said pointing to the neat set of lines.
“You know our handwriting, Ryan,” Spencer said. “Why do we have to initial?”
“To make sure. We don’t want him to accidentally overdose or something. Or forget a dose, because he could die,” Ryan said fatalistically.
Brendon didn’t like the way that Ryan said die, but he couldn’t say anything, so he focused on getting himself up from the uncomfortable position he passed out in.
“Brendon, don’t,” Ryan said when he saw him trying to get up. “You’re going to hurt yourself.” He didn’t, however, move forward to help.
Brendon stopped himself mid-way, hanging on the edge of the bench.
“Jesus, Ryan,” Jon said as he stepped forward and put a hand on Brendon’s back, pushing him up. “Don’t tell him he can’t do it and then don’t help him. You put him in a neck brace!”
“I didn’t mean to!”
Brendon clawed at his brace, finally popping it free. He liked it off, he could actually breathe better.
“I don’t think you should take it off,” Ryan told him.
“The doctor said he could,” Spencer said. “He doesn’t really need it, it’s more for protection if it gets bad.”
Brendon snapped his fingers and three heads turned to look at him. It was like having a magic power. He smiled and rubbed his stomach.
“I think he’s hungry,” Jon said.
“Don’t talk about him like that, it makes him sound like a dog or something,” Spencer said.
“Guys, he’s sitting right there,” Ryan added.
Brendon gave them all a small wave.
“What does he want?” Spencer asked.
“Make him write it,” Ryan told him.
Brendon snapped his fingers again and looked for his notebook. Smoothie.
“He wants a smoothie,” Ryan told them.
“We can read, Ryan,” Spencer snapped.
Jon sat down next to Brendon and carefully put his arm around him. “We’ll get you a smoothie, Bden. It’ll be ok. And maybe, if you’re extra good, I’ll let you leave Ryan and Spencer there.”
Brendon made a face.
“Ok, in theory we need Ryan for lyrics, but, you know there, are like 200 notebooks lying around this place. It’d be a little work, but I think you and me could make a record alone.”
Spencer and Ryan’s heads snapped in their direction. “That’s treason, Jon Walker,” Ryan said.
Jon ran his hand up and down Brendon’s back. “Maybe you and Spencer should take your conversation into the back, and I’ll take care of Brendon.”
Brendon leaned into Jon’s shoulder, trying to indicate that that seemed like a very good plan to him.
Spencer made his patented bitchface, but then grabbed Ryan and headed to the other end of the bus.
“How you doing, Bden?” Jon asked, stroking Brendon’s hair. “You can just give me a thumbs up or down.”
Brendon put his thumb in the middle and waggled it around.
“Ok.” Jon paused and listened to Spencer and Ryan’s raised voices for a minute, and the sound of something being thrown. “Are you in pain? Same rule still applies with the thumb.”
Brendon gave him a thumbs up.
“Ok, there’s a start. Now,” he moved so he could grab Ryan’s chart. “You’re not supposed to get another pill for 30 minutes… but, I’m pretty sure we could give you one now?”
Brendon gave him another thumbs up and a weak smile.
“Hey, you know what Ryan didn’t tell anyone? He didn’t tell anyone where he put your pills.” Jon searched around the area for a moment before Brendon snapped at him and then pointed.
“I don’t know what Ryan was bitching about,” Jon said, retrieving the pills. “You’re not hard to understand at all.” He pressed the pill into Brendon’s palm. “Now you need a water and a straw.”
Brendon snapped his fingers again and shook his hand from side to side.
“Not water.” Jon paused and tapped his forefinger against his chin in thought. “Capri Sun?”
Brendon gave him a thumbs up.
“I think Ryan might be retarded,” Jon said idly, handing the juice to Brendon, who could neither agree nor disagree.
….
By the time they had gotten back to Vegas, Brendon had decided that Ryan was the worst caretaker ever. He never could understand what Brendon wanted, and even when he did, it took forever. And he was just so apologetic for everything.
Brendon knew that there was nothing to apologize for. Jon had filled him in on what had happened, and clearly, Brendon should have known better. If Brendon could have said so, he would have totally told Ryan that he was to blame, not Ryan. There was a clear rule that if Ryan had to stretch, then Ryan was given that space. Brendon was the one that violated it. It wasn’t Ryan’s fault that he had such bony elbows and freakishly strong arms.
Brendon just wished that Ryan would stop looking so sad about it all the time.
He was dozing quietly on the couch in his apartment when someone pulled on one of his toes. He nearly jerked upright, but stopped after flinching sent spirals of pain through his body.
“Shit, Bden, I’m sorry.” It was Jon.
Brendon raised his hand.
“Ryan called me. I guess he’d been on the internet finding new things that he could put in the blender for you and he wanted to go to the store. To, you know, buy the things. And I think to buy you a blender. I wasn’t totally listening.” He picked Brendon’s feet up and sat down, putting them in his lap.
Brendon shifted slightly and raised his eyebrows. He lifted his hand and stuck his pointer finger and middle finger together and arched them through the air.
“Nah, I decided that I wasn’t going to fly back to Chicago. Not until we started to get things settled with you.”
Brendon waggled his toes happily.
“It’s really weird, you know, with you all quiet,” Jon said. “It doesn’t feel the same. Plus, that bruise on your neck is really alarming. Ryan keeps wanting to cover it with something, but I told him that it would probably make it worse somehow.”
Brendon raised an eyebrow at him.
“Like, it would draw attention. Though, that shade of purple and yellow on you doesn’t really do much for your skin tone. Maybe Ryan should dress you in some scarves or something.”
Brendon gave him a thumbs down.
“Well, it’s not like you can really leave the house or anything.” He rubbed at Brendon’s feet. “Pain pills still knocking you out all the time.”
Brendon gave him a thumbs up and rested his head back against the pillow. “You want a smoothie?”
Brendon looked up again and gave a tentative thumbs up.
“I don’t have to go anywhere to get it. Well, to the kitchen, where I left it. Though, I’m not really sure why I left it there.”
Brendon rubbed his stomach happily.
“You got it, kid,” Jon said, rising up to get it. “Need anything else?”
Brendon gave him a thumbs down and wished that Jon could be his permanent care taker and that Ryan would go take his brooding somewhere else.
Brendon sipped happily on his smoothie until it was gone, sometime in the middle of Homeward Bound, which he was only half watching because Jon was giving him the best foot massage of his life.
He blinked drowsily when he heard the front door open and close.
“We’re busted,” Jon whispered. “Pretend like I didn’t give you your pain pills early again. If Ryan finds out I messed up his chart again, he might actually shit a brick.”
“Jon?” Ryan’s voice was harried. “Jon, I need you to help me. I… I maybe bought too much stuff.”
Jon gave Brendon’s foot one last rub and then went off to find Ryan. Brendon fell back to sleep.
….
Brendon decided on day two of his house arrest with Ryan that Ryan had beautiful eyes. He wrote it down to tell Ryan that, and then Ryan muttered something about a possible overdose and maybe said ‘fucking Jon Walker’. Brendon wrote down that he wasn’t fucking Jon Walker.
“Brendon, I know you’re not Jon. And I know you’re not fucking him. I’m just thinking that maybe Jon is being a little too free with you pain medicine.” He surveyed his chart carefully. “I think that if I counted your pills and matched everything up with the chart… well, I don’t think that they would match. And I think maybe it’s Jon’s fault. Maybe I should ask Spencer to watch you when I have to go out.”
Brendon wrote Spencer is slutty on his notebook and held it up for Ryan.
“Spencer can come watch you. No matter what, or who, he’s doing. Which reminds me that I need to talk to him about it. He seems happy to be back in Vegas. Well, not happy of why we’re here.” Ryan stopped and sat down in the armchair. “Fuck, I’m so fucking bad at this. I’m sorry, Brendon, I’m so fucking sorry.”
Lemme see that ass Brendon wrote, waggling his eyebrows.
“You fucking perv,” Ryan said, laughing. “That’s what you were doing, wasn’t it? Before I hit you? You jackass.”
Brendon smiled. It seemed like maybe Ryan was getting over his guilt.
….
On the fourth day of his house arrest, Brendon started to find that the pain medicine wasn’t throwing him into an instant coma as much as before and he could actually enjoy being awake and not being in pain.
“Hey,” Jon said, letting himself into Brendon’s place. Brendon wasn’t sure how he’d gotten the key, but he was pretty sure it probably had something to do with Spencer. “Ryan’s gonna take off for a bit and go back to his own place. I brought some movies and ice cream. It’s caramel. Which, dude, you don’t know how long I had to search for plain fucking caramel without any sort of chunks or anything.”
Brendon smiled as Jon kicked off his flip-flops and pulled a sweaty container out of the plastic bag. “You want it now, or save it for later?”
Brendon gave his a thumbs up and then held his hands out.
Jon placed the container in Brendon’s hands and disappeared into the kitchen, returning with two spoons. “You have to share,” he told Brendon.
Brendon clutched the container to his chest and stuck his tongue out at Jon.
“Share, Bden, or I won’t give you a spoon.”
Brendon yanked off the top of the container and held it in front of his face, tongue inching out slowly.
“You licking it is not going to stop me from forcing you to share.”
Brendon tentatively touched his tongue to the ice cream.
“Not going to work, Brendon. It’s no different than sharing a soda or a sandwich with you.”
Brendon swirled his tongue around.
“Still not bothering me.”
Brendon pulled his tongue back and made room for Jon to snug up behind him on the couch.
“You can have a spoon then,” Jon said, handing him one and taking his place behind Brendon. “So, Legally Blonde is going to be on TBS. You in?”
Halfway into the movie, Brendon’s feet started to twitch.
“Brendon?”
Brendon reached for the pad of paper. I want to move around.
“Nope. No strenuous physical activity. You know what that could do.”
Death?
Jon placed his hand over Brendon’s. “You’re not going to die. You just need to take it easy.” He let out a shaky breath. “Fuck, Brendon, you don’t even know. We just; we have to be careful with you for a little bit. It was scary.”
Brendon automatically moved in so he could better snuggle Jon.
“You were in the hospital. You… you stopped breathing for a little bit. So, yeah, we’re going to be protective of you. So, no you can’t… I don’t know what you want to do, but you’ve got to just sit here and watch movies.”
Brendon clasped his hand with Jon’s and rubbed his thumb over Jon’s knuckles. He didn’t want to watch any more movies, but he tried to think about Spencer or Ryan or Jon being in the hospital. And yeah, he was certain that he would be pretty upset wouldn’t even cover what he’d be feeling.
Terminator? he wrote with his free hand.
“Oh, yeah, we can do that.”
….
“I gave him ice cream,” Jon said.
Brendon cracked his eyes open. He didn’t remember falling asleep on the couch, but it happened a lot, so he wasn’t surprised.
“Oh, so you gave him something with milk in it and that has no nutritional value,” Ryan replied.
“He had like three spoonfuls. It’s not going to kill him, and it’s sure as fuck not going to affect his voice at this point.”
Ryan sighed loudly. “He needs something nutritious.”
“Dude, you’re not going to make him that broccoli thing I saw taped to the refrigerator. That’s going to make him so sick.”
“It’s got lots of good things in it.”
“Ryan, it’s basically a broccoli smoothie.”
“He needs vegetables.”
Brendon blinked his eyes open and tugged on the back of Jon’s pant leg. When Jon turned to look at him, Brendon gave him a thumbs down.
“See,” Jon told Ryan. “He doesn’t want it. Thumbs down means no.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “I know what a thumbs down is.”
“If you’re worried about his nutrient intake, maybe we should just go to GNC or something and get some of that powder shit and put it into all the fruit smoothies.”
Brendon tugged on Jon’s leg again and gave a thumbs up.
“See?” Jon said.
“Fine,” Ryan conceded. “You want some ice for your throat, Brendon?”
Brendon gave him a thumbs up and Ryan went into the kitchen. Jon sat down on the floor in front of the couch. “Spencer came by to see you earlier.” He reached onto the coffee table and grabbed a small brown teddy bear. “His new… girlfriend? I don’t know, anyway, she got you this.”
Brendon made grabby hands for the bear and clutched it to his chest when Jon passed it over.
“You’re way too easy,” Jon said, tapping Brendon’s knee lightly.
Ryan returned with an ice pack wrapped in a towel. “Here,” he said, passing it to Brendon. “Are you hungry?”
Brendon gave him a thumbs up. Being on a liquid diet always left him hungry.
“Let me do it,” Jon said, raising to his feet.
Ryan just nodded and took Jon’s spot on the floor. “I miss you being able to talk,” Ryan confessed. “I know that I always wished you’d just shut up for five seconds some times, but now I miss your stupid voice.”
Brendon couldn’t help but smile. He nuzzled his new bear into Ryan’s hair.
Ryan chuckled softly. “So, when you can talk again, I promise that I’ll never complain about it again. And if I do, you have my permission to remind me of this conversation.” Ryan turned around and kissed Brendon’s cheek. “Now you know better than to be a lurking pervert, though at the same time, I really don’t think that you’re really actually going to learn anything from this, other than to be more careful in your lurking.”
The blender roared to life in the kitchen as Brendon petted Ryan’s hair.
“OK, I’ve got a Jon Walker special coming right up,” Jon called from the kitchen.
“There’d better not being any weed or booze in that, Walker.”
“Nah, you know, but I did blend up a couple of his ‘scripts just to see what it would do to him.”
Brendon made a face.
“You better not have,” Ryan said gravely.
“Oh come on,” Jon replied, handing the drink to Brendon. “You know that even I know better than to do that. Giving him a pill a half-hour early is one thing. Overdosing him is actually called murder in this state.” He paused. “In all states, actually.”
“If there’s malicious intent, of course,” Ryan countered.
“Clearly.”
Brendon would have complained if his smoothie hadn’t been so delicious.
….
A few days later, the swelling started to subside and he could make feeble sounds. Mostly grunts, but at least it was sound. He didn’t have to constantly snap his fingers to get attention. And he could throw away the stupid neck brace.
Jon and Ryan were talking in the bathroom, and Brendon could hear them. He didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but he had to pee and that’s when he heard them.
“Jon,” Ryan said. “I don’t know. I - this is just weird. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t ever, you know, but it was just being a kid, right?”
Brendon could hear Jon shuffle around the room. “When did it start?”
“I don’t know.” Ryan’s voice was soft. “I mean, it’s kind of been going on forever, but you can never tell with him. He’s got no sense of personal space.”
“Tell me about it,” Jon replied. “The first time I met him he threw himself into my lap and declared his undying love for me.”
Ryan laughed. “Yeah, I remember that. Fuck, I think I was jealous.”
“Is that why there was all that underlying hostility?”
Ryan didn’t respond for a long moment. “This is so fucked up, really. I mean, we can’t both… and I’m not going to fight you for him.”
“What, he’s not worth fighting for?”
“No, it’s not that.” Brendon could hear Ryan sigh. “It wouldn’t be good for the band. You know, if you and me both decide to make this a thing. I don’t want this to be a thing.”
“What if we…” Jon trailed off and said something so quiet that Brendon couldn’t hear him.
“Yeah, that could work.”
“Well, we’d have to talk to him. This is kind of messed up, making plans that he doesn’t even know about. He could end up not feeling the same way about us.”
Brendon blinked twice and then stepped away from the door. Clearly, they were having a conversation that he only half understood and he didn’t know if he wanted to. Instead, he went and peed in the kitchen sink, cleaned it up with some of that Clorox spray Jon had bought for him and went back to bed.
….
The next day, it was Jon and Ryan looking after him, which was both wonderful and frustrating. Like they were trying to one up each other in the awesome things they could do for him. Jon made the best smoothies, but Ryan, surprisingly, made the best pillow. Jon could understand his vague hand gestures better, but Ryan gave better back massages.
Brendon was simultaneously in heaven and hell.
Brendon rolled slightly so that he could tuck himself in the space between Ryan and the couch, careful to not kick Jon, who was holding both their feet in the process.
“You cold?” Jon asked.
Brendon laid his arm across Ryan’s chest and hummed happily, both because he was happy to be able to hum again, and because he was actually just generally happy. He mock shuddered a bit.
“He’s cold. Me too, actually,” Ryan responded for both of them. “Do you think you could get us a blanket?”
Jon carefully slid from beneath their feet and went to Brendon’s linen closet. “It’s because you two are way too skinny,” he said, tossing the blanket over them. “You maybe produce the body heat of a normal person between the two of you.”
Ryan scoffed. “This couch isn’t big enough for the three of us.”
Brendon lifted his head slightly.
“I’m staying,” Jon announced. “You too, Ryan?”
Ryan nodded. “And Brendon’s just got the one bed. I guess it’s going to be crowded.”
Brendon smiled brightly and raised himself up on one elbow so he could clasp his hands together and squirm them around.
Ryan stared for a moment. “I don’t get it.”
“He wants to know if we’re going to have a cuddle pile,” Jon translated.
“Oh, yes. Yes, we are.”
“We could turn on the heat,” Jon suggested.
Ryan pursed his lips and frowned. Brendon mimicked the expression.
“Ok, heat stays off.”
Brendon sat up and clapped his hands happily.
“Come on, dork,” Jon said, reaching out for Brendon’s hand. “Don’t hurt yourself from excitement. You’re going to end up taking one of your pills and drooling on Ryan’s shoulder. It’s going to be very uneventful for you.”
Brendon snuggled immediately into Jon’s chest. “I’m not going to carry you,” Jon said firmly, but Brendon snuggled in harder. “Fine,” Jon said, picking Brendon up. “You’re lucky you’re little. But you’re going to make Ryan jealous.”
Ryan made a soft sound from the couch, but then got himself up and walked ahead of them to the bedroom, flicking off the lights as they passed and turning on the one to Brendon’s bedroom.
Jon put Brendon down gently on the bed. “OK, Ryan’s in charge of de-dressing. I’ll get Brendon’s medicine.” He left, flicking on some of the lights that Ryan had just turned off.
Brendon sat up and raised his arms.
“You can undress yourself,” Ryan told him, taking off his own shirt. “You’re not broken.”
Brendon grunted softly and kicked his feet against the side of the bed.
“Fine,” Ryan said with a long sigh. He pulled off Brendon’s shirt and then wrapped his fingers along the top of Brendon’s sweats. “Lay down and lift you hips.”
Brendon did, and Ryan let out a soft gasp as he pulled off Brendon’s pants. “You know you’re supposed to wear underwear, right?”
Brendon just shrugged and climbed naked under the covers.
“If you have guests, you’re supposed to at least wear boxers,” Ryan said.
Brendon watched as Ryan’s Adam’s apple jumped noticeably in his throat.
“I’m back,” Jon announced, holding a glass of water in one hand and Brendon’s pill bottle in the other. “What’d I miss?”
“Brendon’s naked in there,” Ryan said, still staring at the bed.
“Oh,” Jon said softly. “Should we?”
Ryan shrugged and stepped out of his own pants and then, after a moment’s hesitation, he pushed off his boxers.
Brendon’s eyes went wide and he licked his lips. Ryan Ross naked was awesome. Better than ogling him with clothes on. He’d seen Ryan mostly naked before, but it wasn’t the same as having Ryan actually naked and crawling on the bed to him.
“He needs his medicine,” Jon said from across the room. “Because of the swelling.”
Ryan leaned forward and placed the gentlest kiss possible on the worst of the bruising on Brendon’s neck. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.
Brendon reached his hand forward and stroked gently on Ryan’s shoulder. He wanted to say that it was ok, that all was forgiven, because if it hadn’t happened, then what was actually happening wouldn’t.
Jon came to the side of the bed and looked at Brendon. “You have to take it,” he said, holding out the pill.
Brendon looked mournfully at it, knowing that it would knock him out. And he really didn’t want to be knocked out, considering that he had a naked Ryan practically in his lap. He gave Jon a thumbs down.
“That’s not an option, Bden,” Jon told him. “You have to take the pill.”
Ryan slipped under the covers and spooned against Brendon’s side, half-hard cock knocking against Brendon’s hipbone. Brendon gave Jon a very severe thumbs down.
“If you don’t take it, I’ll make Ryan sleep on the couch.”
Brendon took the pill.
Jon stripped down to his boxers and climbed in on the other side of Ryan. Brendon wrung his hands. “No,” Jon said. “I’m sleeping in my boxers. You and Ryan can be naked.”
Ryan gave him a look, but snuggled in close to Brendon and kissed a long pattern across his chest.
Jon reached over and turned off the light. “Be good, you two,” he said.
….
Brendon wasn’t sure what time it was when he woke up, but the slight haze to his vision told him that he was at a very good place in his medication cycle. The light from the bathroom confused him. As did the sounds that were coming from his left.
“Fuck, yeah, fuck.” That was Jon.
Then there was the slurping.
Brendon cautiously turned his head so that he didn’t hurt himself or draw attention to the fact that he was awake.
“Fuck, I’m close,” Jon moaned.
Brendon moved slightly again and could see the top of Ryan’s head bobbing over Jon’s dick. There were people having sex in his bed and he wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t one of them at all.
But on the other hand, Ryan was blowing Jon in his bed. Which was clearly the best hallucination of his life. He slipped his hand down to his dick and got in one quick rub before he fell back to sleep.
….
The next morning, Brendon wanted to ask what had happened. Because part of him thought that the pain pills just made him see something that didn’t exist, and the other part of him thought that maybe Ryan really was blowing Jon last night.
He raised an eyebrow at Jon from across the table. Jon looked at him. “Yeah?”
Brendon brought his hand to his mouth, fisted it up, and then made a jerking motion while pressing his tongue to the side of his cheek.
Jon dropped his spoon into his cereal bowl.
“What?” Ryan asked. “Do you want a popsicle or something? I think there’s only grape left.”
Jon shook his head. “Brendon, did you… uh, did you wake up last night?”
Brendon gave him a thumbs up and then repeated the hand gesture.
“Oh, fuck.” Jon put his head into his hands.
“What?” Ryan looked confused for a moment and then pushed his breakfast away from him. “I, uh, I have to go talk to Spencer. You know, I forgot, about that thing at the place that I have to be at like now.” He hastily got up from the table, threw on a shirt and some shoes and left.
Brendon stared at Jon and snapped his fingers.
Jon picked up his and Ryan’s cereal bowls and cleaned them out before putting them in the dishwasher. “I don’t know what to say.”
Brendon looked at him expectantly and then tapped his fingers over his heart.
“I don’t know if it’s that,” Jon confessed. “Last night was the first time. It just sort of happened, ok?”
Brendon started to make another hand gesture, but Jon cut him off. “Look, we need to have a talk about it. First, me and Ryan and then the three of us. I’m not sure I’m comfortable talking about it without him here.”
Brendon frowned but turned his attention back to his cream of wheat.
“Bden, you think you’ll be ok on your own for a bit? The three of us tend to just blow through groceries, even with you on a liquid diet.”
Brendon gave him a slightly less than enthusiastic thumbs up.
“Ok, I’ll be back in a bit.”
Then, for the first time since the accident, Brendon was alone.
….
“Brendon,” Jon said firmly, “the doctor said no physical exertion.”
Brendon pouted and played with the top of his sweats.
“I’m not going to blow you. And how did this even come up? Ryan was the one blowing me, remember?”
Brendon’s eyes lit up.
“Ryan’s not allowed to blow you either.”
Brendon frowned.
The front door clicked open and closed. “Jon? Brendon?”
“In here,” Jon called back.
Ryan entered the living room. “So, I think I broke Spencer’s brain today.”
Brendon looked up from his place on the couch and drew a question mark in the air.
“I told him. You know, about what me and Jon did last night.”
“Shit,” Jon said. “What did he say?”
“He said that it couldn’t really technically be any weirder than the fact that he’s now hooking up with this lesbian barista.”
Brendon sucked some Capri Sun down the wrong pipe and coughed.
Jon rushed to his side. “You ok? Breathe.” He rubbed his palm on Brendon’s back. “Should we?” he looked at Ryan.
“Bden?”
Brendon caught his breath and gave Ryan a tiny thumbs up. He made two scissors with his fingers and knocked them together.
“Huh?”
“He wants to know more about the lesbian,” Jon said.
Ryan blinked. “That’s what he wants to know more about?”
Brendon gave him a thumbs up.
“Fine, I wanted to talk about the blowjob, but if you want to talk about the lesbian, then fine.”
Brendon looked clearly torn.
“Do the lesbian first, then the other stuff second,” Jon said, speaking for Brendon.
“OK,” Ryan said, sitting on the other side of Brendon. “So, apparently, they met before we left. Like, she was his barista. Anyway, they did this whole flirting thing, and then he came back because of this and they got to talking. I don’t really know, but then they ended up making plans, and then there was the sex. Apparently, she didn’t tell him that she was a lesbian until after they did it, but she’s something or other on this scale that lets her sometimes fuck guys. Apparently she’s kind of crazy, but Spencer likes that, plus, she brings him coffee.”
Brendon wrung his hands expectantly. Ryan just stared at him.
“He wants to know if there’s been any hot threesome action. God, Ryan, haven’t you figured him out yet? You don’t even need to know his hand motions to know that he’d want to know that,” Jon said.
“No, but apparently there’s talk.”
Brendon grinned and then pointed from Jon to Ryan.
“So, the other thing,” Ryan started.
Brendon pulled on Jon’s arm and then held his fingers to his eye and pulled the lid wide.
“Yeah, ok, next time, we’ll wake you up,” Jon said.
“Seriously, how do you do that?” Ryan asked.
Jon shrugged. “Anyway, Brendon, we… fuck, Ryan, do you think maybe you and I should talk about this first?”
Ryan shrugged. “I…” he paused and looked at Brendon. “God, I wish that you could like, fuck. I mean, if you… this is coming out all wrong.” He ran a hand over his face, pulling on the skin of his cheeks. “Jon and I were wondering if… well, if we said that we were attracted… would you feel the same way?”
Jon made a sound, but didn’t actually say anything. Brendon pointed from Jon to Ryan again.
“Well,” Ryan said. “Yes, me and Jon,” he stopped and looked at Jon. “That’s what he means, right?”
Jon nodded and Ryan started again. “Jon and I, we’re exploring. Because we both like you. Like you like you.”
Brendon’s eyes widened and he pulled on Jon’s arm frantically.
“What, Brendon?” Jon asked.
Brendon flailed his hands.
“Ok,” Jon said, “even I don’t know what the hell that means.”
Brendon flailed his hands again and Ryan handed him the notepad. “Write it, Brendon. Neither of us get what you want.”
Hot threesome action 4 Bden?
Jon and Ryan looked at each other. “Yeah,” Ryan said slowly. “Yeah, if you want to.”
Brendon bounced. NOW???
“Maybe we should have waited to tell him,” Jon said. “We can’t do it now. Not until the doctor says that he’s ok, which should happen around the time you get your voice back, Brendon.”
Brendon made his most pitiful puppy-dog face. Ryan kissed him on the cheek. “Later, Brendon. We promise,” he said gently. “It’s going to be really, really fucking good, but you have to wait.”
Brendon pouted and pulled Jon to him. “Brendon, what are you doing?”
Feel fine, he wrote and then tossed the notebook aside. He placed one hand at the back of Ryan’s neck and then the other at the back of Jon’s pushing them together slightly.
Jon kissed Ryan, soft at first over Brendon’s lap, then growing stronger with each passing moment. Brendon rubbed the back of Ryan’s hair softly and licked his lips.
“Fuck,” Ryan said softly against Jon’s mouth. “We should…”
Jon licked Ryan’s lip. “What?”
Ryan looked up at Brendon. “Maybe Brendon wants to watch.”
Brendon nodded as much as his neck would allow.
“Do you have any?” Ryan asked.
Brendon leapt to his feet and disappeared to the bedroom, returning with a half-used bottle of lube and a condom. He presented them to Ryan. Ryan looked at Jon and passed the items over.
“Yeah, I think if you want?” Jon said.
Ryan nodded. “Here? Or should we move into the bedroom?”
Brendon clapped his hands.
“I think that means just do it already,” Jon said, a gentle grin playing on the side of his lips. “Brendon?”
Brendon gave him a thumbs up.
Ryan extracted himself from the couch and stretched out. “Watch,” he told Brendon. He lifted his shirt over his head and tossed it onto the armchair. Then he slowly undid his pants and pushed them to the floor. He licked his lips and shoved his underwear down.
“Fuck,” Jon breathed. “So fucking hot.”
Ryan kicked his pants to the side and knelt in front of Brendon. He rubbed his fingers over Brendon’s thighs. “God, I bet you want to talk so bad, don’t you?”
Brendon placed his hands over Ryan’s and looked over at Jon.
“Yeah,” Jon said, standing up to take off his own clothes. “Yeah, let’s do this.” He knelt behind Ryan, naked and hard as he reached his hand up to the small of Ryan’s back. “Fuck, I didn’t ask, you know, earlier, Ryan. But have you? You know? Before?”
Ryan nodded. “A few times, but it’s been a really long time, so be careful.”
Jon placed a gentle kiss on Ryan’s shoulder. “I’d never hurt you.” He moved and kissed Brendon’s thigh. “Or you,” he added.
Brendon ran a thumb over Jon’s cheek before Jon moved away and retrieved the lube. “Bend a little more, Ryan.”
Ryan complied and Jon carefully slipped his index finger inside. Ryan moaned loudly and rested his head in Brendon’s lap. “Move it, please, Jon.”
“You’re really tight,” Jon breathed hotly against Ryan’s ear.
“I told you it’s been a while.” Ryan grimaced slightly as Jon inserted a second finger. Brendon’s hand clamped tightly over Ryan’s
Ryan’s hips moved away from Jon’s hand. “Slow down,” he snapped. Brendon let go of one of Ryan’s hands in order to cup Ryan’s face gently. The hand slid to Ryan’s hair as Ryan leaned in and mouthed Brendon’s cock through his sweatpants.
“Ryan,” Jon said softly. “I’m going to add a third. I need you breath deep for me. Are you ready?”
Ryan rested his cheek against Brendon’s thigh. “Yes,” he breathed. “I’m ready.”
Jon pushed a third finger in and Ryan breathed shallowly across Brendon’s lap. Jon rested his chin on Ryan’s shoulder. “Tell me it’s good. Tell me you’re ok.”
“Good,” Ryan panted, rubbing his cheek along Brendon’s thigh. “More lube though.”
“Yeah, shit, sorry.” Jon uncapped the bottle and poured down his fingers and into Ryan. “Better?”
Ryan flinched for a second. “Little cold,” he admitted and let Jon rub it in. “Yeah, that’s perfect.” He turned his head and gave Jon a little nod. “I’m ready.”
Jon slowly withdrew his fingers and fumbled for the condom. He looked up at Brendon when Brendon’s breath hitched. “You doing ok?”
Brendon licked his lips and nodded, pupils blown.
Jon rolled the condom on and took his place behind Ryan. “Spread your legs a little more,” he said, nudging a gentle hand between Ryan’s thighs. “Lean into Brendon.”
Ryan wrapped his fingers around the top of Brendon’s sweats, pulling the material down and releasing his cock as he leaned in. He kissed tentatively at the side of Brendon’s cock. “Come on, Jon.”
Jon lined himself up behind Ryan, pushing in slowly until he was deep inside. “Good?” he asked, voice cracking slightly.
“Good,” Ryan responded, leaning his head on Brendon’s thigh and slowly jacking him off. “You can stop being so gentle now.”
Jon wrapped his fingers around Ryan’s hips and fucked him, slow at first, but gaining momentum each time that Ryan moaned.
“Fuck,” Jon panted. “Fuck.”
Ryan moved Brendon’s leg in closer so that he could rub against it as Jon fucked him. “Brendon,” he said. “Come,” he demanded, jacking him as fast as he could as his whole body shook. “Come for us,” he pleaded.
Brendon leaned back and let out a low moan, the loudest sound he had made since the accident and came across Ryan’s shoulder. Jon leaned in and lapped it up. “Yeah,” Ryan breathed. “So good.”
“You next,” Jon muttered across Ryan’s skin. “You next.”
“Hand,” Ryan begged. Jon reached around and pulled on Ryan’s cock. “Like this?”
Ryan nodded into Brendon’s thigh and came with a choked sigh.
“Yeah,” Jon said, watching them. He slammed into Ryan hard and yelled through his own release.
They stayed still for a long moment before Jon pulled out and tied off the condom. “Brendon? Are you still breathing?”
Brendon gave him the thumbs up.
“See, he’s good to go,” Ryan commented lazily against Brendon’s thigh.
“He wasn’t supposed to participate,” Jon said.
“You shouldn’t have put my face so close to his dick,” Ryan teased.
“OK, point.”
“Awesome.” Brendon blinked, surprised to hear his own voice, low and raspy.
Ryan grinned. “You can talk again!”
Brendon shook his head and then pinched his fingers together.
“Only a little bit, apparently,” Jon translated. “But it’s good.”
Brendon just smiled down both of them.
Author: battie_hattie
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Jon/Brendon/Ryan
POV: Third, Brendon
Summary: Brendon loses his ablity to speak and Ryan and Jon both play caretaker.
Disclaimer: So not even.
Author Notes: ~9,000 words. Seriously, Brendon I think has one line in the whole thing. Do you know how hard that is to write? As always, thanks to sneaky_sena and tanisafan for working with me on this.
It had been a long couple of shows, a long stretch of weeks on the road, punctuated by short stays in motel rooms. But, mostly, it was the bus where they made their home.
And they were used to it. They could tell the sounds of each other, knew when to turn a deaf ear when one of the members needed some ‘personal time’. They knew when someone was close by.
Ryan was all limbs, and he knew it. It wasn’t news to him in the slightest; long legs, gangly arms and fingers that went on forever. So, the band knew that when he said he was sore and needed to stretch out that they should probably leave the room.
Brendon had been in the back of the bus, watching a movie when Ryan had announced that he was sore, because if Brendon had heard it, he probably would have offered to give Ryan a neck rub or something. But he hadn’t heard it, and instead, Brendon wanted a Red Bull. And getting a Red Bull meant that he had to get to the little kitchenette in the front. Past Ryan, who was bent over, touching his toes.
Brendon stopped in the hallway for a moment to just sort of admire the view, which he did from time to time, and he was certain by this point in their friendship that Ryan was well aware of the fact that he did it.
It was when he stopped admiring and took a step forward that it happened.
Brendon didn’t really remember much, because there was suddenly a lot of pain, and not enough air, and he falling to his knees. And then the dark.
“Shhhh,” Brendon heard someone whisper. “He’s coming around.”
Brendon blinked his eyes and thought that it was way too bright, and it smelled weird.
“Brendon?” It was Jon. Brendon knew this, even if he couldn’t see Jon.
“Don’t try to move,” Jon said. Brendon still wasn’t sure where Jon was, and he wasn’t really aware that he was trying to move. But he stayed still.
“I’ll get the doctor.” That voice is Spencer. Brendon couldn’t tell if Ryan was there too.
Brendon opened his mouth to say something, but there was no sound. Just a little squeak of air moving through his throat and out of his mouth. And it hurt.
“Stop that, Brendon.” It was Jon again, and he’d moved close enough that Brendon could see him out of the corner of his eye.
He wanted to ask ‘stop what?’ but seeing how futile his last attempt at speech was, he figured that he shouldn’t try.
“You’re in the hospital,” Jon said. “You blacked out.”
Brendon lifts up one hand and points to his throat, the source of the greatest amount of pain, though there’s a good bit of that going on in his lungs and his head too.
“Ryan…” Jon started. There was a snort from across the room, but Brendon couldn’t see who it was.
“I’m sorry, alright?” Ryan said sharply. “I didn’t know he was there!”
“Ryan,” Jon said, “no one’s blaming you. It just sort of happened, ok?”
Brendon can hear Ryan moving around, but he can’t see him. Mostly because even if he could move his head, it would hurt too much.
“You’ve got a neck brace on,” Jon told him. “They’re just making sure.”
Brendon can hear the door open, but he was growing increasingly infuriated that he couldn’t see anyone. What he can see is a water-stained piece of ceiling and nothing else.
“Brendon,” the new voice said. “I’m Doctor Thompson.” There was a rustling of papers and then Brendon could see the doctor. A nice, sort of portly man in his fifties with a handle bar mustache and glasses. Brendon sort of coveted his mustache for some reason.
“Hold on,” Dr. Thompson said. He reached around and undid the brace around Brendon’s neck. “How are you feeling? It’s probably time for your next bit of pain medicine soon. You’ve been out for quite a while.”
Brendon wanted to ask if he was supposed to feel like an elephant was sitting on his throat, but he couldn’t. He was just glad that he could move a little bit now. He used his arms to prop himself up.
Spencer was at his side, clicking the little buttons to make the bed raise up so that Brendon could sit. Brendon tried not to think about how much experience Spencer had with operating hospital beds. Which made him think about how much he didn’t want Ryan to be there right now.
But, he couldn’t say any of that. He tried to make a noise to let everyone know he was in pain, but even that didn’t come out.
“Brendon,” Dr. Thompson said, “I’ve let your friends stay here while you rested because your…” he paused and looked to the door. “Your Zack fellow is outside and he insisted, but I think you and I should have a talk.”
Brendon wanted to shake his head, but he couldn’t. He wanted to yell out that they couldn’t go, because if they did, how the hell was he going to explain to them later what was wrong with him. But he couldn’t do that either. Instead, he just made grabby hands at Spencer and Jon. He would have made grabby hands for Ryan, but he only had two hands, and Ryan was way over by the door.
“We’re not leaving,” Spencer said with the authority of someone who’d been in this situation before.
The doctor sighed. “Alright, what you have is severe bruising of the larynx. Which is why you can’t speak. And you’re not going to be able to do anything strenuous, because it’s constricting your airway.”
Brendon zoned out for a moment, knowing that anything important the doctor said, the guys would remember. He was more focused on trying to remember how it was that he got a bruised larynx in the first place.
“And we’re going to need to you to talk… er, write, with a social worker,” the doctor finished up.
Ryan jumped from his seat in the corner. “What? Why? It was an accident, I didn’t mean it!”
Spencer went over to Ryan’s side. “Seriously, he just caught an elbow to the throat. He’s our fucking singer, do you think that we’d purposefully let something like this happen to him?”
“Guys,” Jon said firmly, holding his hands out. “We just need to calm down. Everyone knows that it was totally an accident. Ryan would never hurt Brendon. It’s just a formality, right?” he asked, turning to the doctor.
“Yes,” Dr. Thompson replied. “I understand that your situation is unusual and this clearly seems like an accident, but we have to just make sure.” He looked over at Brendon. “She’ll be in shortly, and I’ll make sure that your prescriptions are with your discharge papers.”
Brendon wanted to ask what’s unusual, but then he realized it. They didn’t… well; they look normal for them. But Ryan still had some blue eyeshadow on and he was wearing a scarf and Jon looks like he’s about to star in some movie about college frat boys. And Spencer… well, Spencer was just that pretty.
Earlier, Brendon had been wearing his dinosaur sweater, so he didn’t really think that there was anything weird about that.
There was a knock at the door. “Hi, I’m Elizabeth Slate,” she said kindly. “I need to talk to Brendon.”
“He can’t talk,” Spencer told her flatly.
“Yes, I know,” she said, holding up a pad of paper. “His larynx is damaged due to severe trauma. That’s what I need to talk to him about.”
“I didn’t mean it!” Ryan exclaimed. He put his weight on Spencer and sagged his shoulders.
“Dude, we know,” Spencer said. “We all know. Even Brendon knows.”
Brendon gave him a weak smile, even though he still wasn’t quite sure how this was all Ryan’s fault. He knew Ryan well enough to know that if it was Ryan’s fault, he didn’t mean it.
“Scoot,” she told them. “I just need Brendon to tell me what happened and then we all can move on with our lives.”
The guys left and Brendon does his best to write out what he remembers, which consists of watched movie, wanted Red Bull, saw Ryan stretching, hospital.
She asked if anyone ever hit him before or if he ever felt threatened, so he wrote fangirls, but that’s why we’ve got Zack.
She seemed to think that this is enough, which really, it should be. There was nothing weird about the situation, and she had a lot of other work to do.
Brendon wanted to talk to the guys again, but a nice nurse came in and stuck a needle into his IV drip and that was the last thing he remembered for a while.
….
Brendon was not pleased to find that in the morning, he was very limited in what he could do. At least now he could look at something other than the water spot on the ceiling, but other than that, he really was limited.
Doctor’s Orders: No solid foods, no exertion, no speaking, no fast movement, etc. Really, it should have been called the Big List of Everything Brendon Loves To Do But Can’t Anymore.
Which meant that the tour was off, at least for the foreseeable future. There was no telling when his voice would be back.
Ryan seemed to be in charge of getting Brendon back to the bus, which Brendon was ok with, except the fact that Ryan was making him wear the collar. But he couldn’t take it off himself, because the clasps were in the back, and raising his arms over his head was just too painful, even with the happy pills the doctor prescribed.
“I want a nap,” Spencer announced. “Hospital visiting makes me tired.”
“Shit, I was going to take the first nap,” Jon groused.
Ryan glared at both of them. “Well, that’s fine, because I’m not taking a nap, so there’s no reason that you both can’t go right now.”
“And, uh, leave you alone with Brendon?” Spencer asked.
Ryan’s glare turned a little harder. “I can fucking take care of him.”
Brendon wanted to say something along the lines of he’s not six and he doesn’t need a babysitter, but he didn’t really want to be alone. And there was still the whole not able to talk thing to contend with.
“You’re not…” Spencer leaned in and whispers something that Brendon couldn’t hear.
“I can take care of him, damn it!” Ryan snarled. “Leave me alone.”
Jon threw his hands up and walked back to the bunk. He knew better than to get in the middle of things. Spencer just let out a long-suffering sigh and vanished as well.
Ryan sat down next to Brendon and stared for a long moment. “I’m sorry I elbowed you in the throat.”
Brendon started to put the pieces together then. The stretching, and Ryan’s long limbs and then the hospital. Ryan’s got really sharp elbows and impressively strong arms. No wonder he hurt so badly.
Ryan blinked again, and Brendon realized that maybe he was waiting for something. Brendon didn’t really know why Ryan was so adamant about taking care of him, because Ryan wasn’t that guy. He’s the guy that when someone is sick, he might throw them a box of tissues, if it wasn’t that far. And only if the sniffling was really bothering him.
Brendon decided that he must feel really guilty. Or, he’s really mad that the tour is off indefinitely because now Brendon’s a mute.
Brendon really wished that Ryan would stop staring at him. It was getting creepy. He lifted his hand and made a drinking motion.
“You want a drink?”
Brendon thought about nodding, but he still had the brace on, so he gave Ryan a thumbs up instead.
“What do you want?”
Brendon just looked at him.
“Ok, maybe we need… paper? Should I get you a notebook?”
Brendon rolled his eyes.
“Ok, notebook. Where did I leave my notebook?” Ryan scratched his head and looked around the lounge. “I had one earlier, I was writing in it.” He bent over and scrounged under a seat. “Here,” he said triumphantly. “Wait, no, we can’t use this one. Damn it.”
Brendon slumped back against the couch and contemplated getting his own damn bottle of water.
Ryan rummaged for a minute more and came up with another notebook. “Yeah, ok, we can use this one,” he said, handing it to Brendon.
Brendon took it, then looked at Ryan.
“What? What do you want?”
Brendon drummed his fingers against the notebook.
“Write down what you want to drink, or I can’t get it for you!”
Brendon opened the notebook, pretended to hold a pen, and then pretended to write. When that didn’t work, he shook his pretend pen.
“Oh! Fuck, ok, you need a pen.” Ryan bit his lip. “Ok, where did I leave the pen?”
Brendon wanted to scream that they were in the drawer, where they always put the pens that Ryan left all over the bus because if they left them on the floor, someone was going to slip and die.
Ryan finally remembered that the pens were in the drawer and pulled one out. He handed it to Brendon.
Water. Cold.
“Yeah, I can do that.” He went to the little fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. He undid the cap and handed it to Brendon.
Brendon stared at the water bottle. He was really thirsty. Too bad he couldn’t tip his head back to drink from a bottle.
“What, is that water not good enough? Do you want… I don’t know, Evian or some shit?”
Brendon pursed his lips and tried to think of a good way to drink it. He found none, and couldn’t remember if they even had straws on the bus. He was pretty sure that they did. Or at least some sort of funky novelty straw that they had picked up at a truck stop somewhere.
“Damn it, Brendon. I got you your water, why won’t you drink it?”
He put the bottle down on the back of the bench. Straw? he wrote, and then held the paper up for Ryan.
“Oh, yeah.” Ryan frowned. “Maybe they shouldn’t have left me alone with you. Do we even have a straw?” He looked at Brendon expectantly. “This is so fucking hard when you can’t talk.”
Ryan went to the cupboard and finally extracted a novelty straw that they had picked up somewhere in Texas. “Here,” he said, holding it out.
Brendon rolled his eyes again. Finally he just took the straw, went to the sink and rinsed it with hot water himself.
“You’re supposed to be resting.”
Brendon wanted to point out that it wasn’t his fault his caretaker was retarded, but it would have taken a lot of effort.
“Is it time to take your pills?”
Brendon was pretty sure he was about to punch Ryan in the throat, but then they’d have two mutes to take care of. don’t know he wrote before discarding the notebook in order to drink his water.
“Fine.” Ryan hesitated for a moment and then went back to the bunk area. There was light conversation and some hissing between him and Spencer, and then Ryan came back. “Yes. And I need to make a chart. Do we have any poster board?”
Brendon rolled his eyes again. It was really all he had. That and the thumbs up or down approach. He just hoped that Ryan would remember to give him his pills before starting the chart project, otherwise, Brendon was going to end up in pain and generally annoyed.
“Ok, pills.” Ryan went over to where Spencer had left the pharmacy bag on the counter. “Do I have to mash them?”
Brendon squeezed the water bottle in his hand until a little bit splashed onto his legs. Ryan is too busy carefully reading the instructions to notice.
“I think you can take it whole,” Ryan announced, tipping a pill into his hand. “Here,” he said, holding it out to Brendon.
Brendon leaned forward and took the pill with his tongue and sipped on his water.
“You just licked me,” Ryan said, rubbing his fingers on his pants. “You couldn’t just take it like a normal person?”
It would have been too much movement, Brendon thought to himself. Plus, he always liked the way Ryan tasted.
Ryan just gave him a weird look and set about making his chart.
….
Brendon woke up to Ryan explaining, in detail, how to use the new chart that he’d made to Jon and Spencer.
“So, if you give him a pill, you have to write it down and initial here,” he said pointing to the neat set of lines.
“You know our handwriting, Ryan,” Spencer said. “Why do we have to initial?”
“To make sure. We don’t want him to accidentally overdose or something. Or forget a dose, because he could die,” Ryan said fatalistically.
Brendon didn’t like the way that Ryan said die, but he couldn’t say anything, so he focused on getting himself up from the uncomfortable position he passed out in.
“Brendon, don’t,” Ryan said when he saw him trying to get up. “You’re going to hurt yourself.” He didn’t, however, move forward to help.
Brendon stopped himself mid-way, hanging on the edge of the bench.
“Jesus, Ryan,” Jon said as he stepped forward and put a hand on Brendon’s back, pushing him up. “Don’t tell him he can’t do it and then don’t help him. You put him in a neck brace!”
“I didn’t mean to!”
Brendon clawed at his brace, finally popping it free. He liked it off, he could actually breathe better.
“I don’t think you should take it off,” Ryan told him.
“The doctor said he could,” Spencer said. “He doesn’t really need it, it’s more for protection if it gets bad.”
Brendon snapped his fingers and three heads turned to look at him. It was like having a magic power. He smiled and rubbed his stomach.
“I think he’s hungry,” Jon said.
“Don’t talk about him like that, it makes him sound like a dog or something,” Spencer said.
“Guys, he’s sitting right there,” Ryan added.
Brendon gave them all a small wave.
“What does he want?” Spencer asked.
“Make him write it,” Ryan told him.
Brendon snapped his fingers again and looked for his notebook. Smoothie.
“He wants a smoothie,” Ryan told them.
“We can read, Ryan,” Spencer snapped.
Jon sat down next to Brendon and carefully put his arm around him. “We’ll get you a smoothie, Bden. It’ll be ok. And maybe, if you’re extra good, I’ll let you leave Ryan and Spencer there.”
Brendon made a face.
“Ok, in theory we need Ryan for lyrics, but, you know there, are like 200 notebooks lying around this place. It’d be a little work, but I think you and me could make a record alone.”
Spencer and Ryan’s heads snapped in their direction. “That’s treason, Jon Walker,” Ryan said.
Jon ran his hand up and down Brendon’s back. “Maybe you and Spencer should take your conversation into the back, and I’ll take care of Brendon.”
Brendon leaned into Jon’s shoulder, trying to indicate that that seemed like a very good plan to him.
Spencer made his patented bitchface, but then grabbed Ryan and headed to the other end of the bus.
“How you doing, Bden?” Jon asked, stroking Brendon’s hair. “You can just give me a thumbs up or down.”
Brendon put his thumb in the middle and waggled it around.
“Ok.” Jon paused and listened to Spencer and Ryan’s raised voices for a minute, and the sound of something being thrown. “Are you in pain? Same rule still applies with the thumb.”
Brendon gave him a thumbs up.
“Ok, there’s a start. Now,” he moved so he could grab Ryan’s chart. “You’re not supposed to get another pill for 30 minutes… but, I’m pretty sure we could give you one now?”
Brendon gave him another thumbs up and a weak smile.
“Hey, you know what Ryan didn’t tell anyone? He didn’t tell anyone where he put your pills.” Jon searched around the area for a moment before Brendon snapped at him and then pointed.
“I don’t know what Ryan was bitching about,” Jon said, retrieving the pills. “You’re not hard to understand at all.” He pressed the pill into Brendon’s palm. “Now you need a water and a straw.”
Brendon snapped his fingers again and shook his hand from side to side.
“Not water.” Jon paused and tapped his forefinger against his chin in thought. “Capri Sun?”
Brendon gave him a thumbs up.
“I think Ryan might be retarded,” Jon said idly, handing the juice to Brendon, who could neither agree nor disagree.
….
By the time they had gotten back to Vegas, Brendon had decided that Ryan was the worst caretaker ever. He never could understand what Brendon wanted, and even when he did, it took forever. And he was just so apologetic for everything.
Brendon knew that there was nothing to apologize for. Jon had filled him in on what had happened, and clearly, Brendon should have known better. If Brendon could have said so, he would have totally told Ryan that he was to blame, not Ryan. There was a clear rule that if Ryan had to stretch, then Ryan was given that space. Brendon was the one that violated it. It wasn’t Ryan’s fault that he had such bony elbows and freakishly strong arms.
Brendon just wished that Ryan would stop looking so sad about it all the time.
He was dozing quietly on the couch in his apartment when someone pulled on one of his toes. He nearly jerked upright, but stopped after flinching sent spirals of pain through his body.
“Shit, Bden, I’m sorry.” It was Jon.
Brendon raised his hand.
“Ryan called me. I guess he’d been on the internet finding new things that he could put in the blender for you and he wanted to go to the store. To, you know, buy the things. And I think to buy you a blender. I wasn’t totally listening.” He picked Brendon’s feet up and sat down, putting them in his lap.
Brendon shifted slightly and raised his eyebrows. He lifted his hand and stuck his pointer finger and middle finger together and arched them through the air.
“Nah, I decided that I wasn’t going to fly back to Chicago. Not until we started to get things settled with you.”
Brendon waggled his toes happily.
“It’s really weird, you know, with you all quiet,” Jon said. “It doesn’t feel the same. Plus, that bruise on your neck is really alarming. Ryan keeps wanting to cover it with something, but I told him that it would probably make it worse somehow.”
Brendon raised an eyebrow at him.
“Like, it would draw attention. Though, that shade of purple and yellow on you doesn’t really do much for your skin tone. Maybe Ryan should dress you in some scarves or something.”
Brendon gave him a thumbs down.
“Well, it’s not like you can really leave the house or anything.” He rubbed at Brendon’s feet. “Pain pills still knocking you out all the time.”
Brendon gave him a thumbs up and rested his head back against the pillow. “You want a smoothie?”
Brendon looked up again and gave a tentative thumbs up.
“I don’t have to go anywhere to get it. Well, to the kitchen, where I left it. Though, I’m not really sure why I left it there.”
Brendon rubbed his stomach happily.
“You got it, kid,” Jon said, rising up to get it. “Need anything else?”
Brendon gave him a thumbs down and wished that Jon could be his permanent care taker and that Ryan would go take his brooding somewhere else.
Brendon sipped happily on his smoothie until it was gone, sometime in the middle of Homeward Bound, which he was only half watching because Jon was giving him the best foot massage of his life.
He blinked drowsily when he heard the front door open and close.
“We’re busted,” Jon whispered. “Pretend like I didn’t give you your pain pills early again. If Ryan finds out I messed up his chart again, he might actually shit a brick.”
“Jon?” Ryan’s voice was harried. “Jon, I need you to help me. I… I maybe bought too much stuff.”
Jon gave Brendon’s foot one last rub and then went off to find Ryan. Brendon fell back to sleep.
….
Brendon decided on day two of his house arrest with Ryan that Ryan had beautiful eyes. He wrote it down to tell Ryan that, and then Ryan muttered something about a possible overdose and maybe said ‘fucking Jon Walker’. Brendon wrote down that he wasn’t fucking Jon Walker.
“Brendon, I know you’re not Jon. And I know you’re not fucking him. I’m just thinking that maybe Jon is being a little too free with you pain medicine.” He surveyed his chart carefully. “I think that if I counted your pills and matched everything up with the chart… well, I don’t think that they would match. And I think maybe it’s Jon’s fault. Maybe I should ask Spencer to watch you when I have to go out.”
Brendon wrote Spencer is slutty on his notebook and held it up for Ryan.
“Spencer can come watch you. No matter what, or who, he’s doing. Which reminds me that I need to talk to him about it. He seems happy to be back in Vegas. Well, not happy of why we’re here.” Ryan stopped and sat down in the armchair. “Fuck, I’m so fucking bad at this. I’m sorry, Brendon, I’m so fucking sorry.”
Lemme see that ass Brendon wrote, waggling his eyebrows.
“You fucking perv,” Ryan said, laughing. “That’s what you were doing, wasn’t it? Before I hit you? You jackass.”
Brendon smiled. It seemed like maybe Ryan was getting over his guilt.
….
On the fourth day of his house arrest, Brendon started to find that the pain medicine wasn’t throwing him into an instant coma as much as before and he could actually enjoy being awake and not being in pain.
“Hey,” Jon said, letting himself into Brendon’s place. Brendon wasn’t sure how he’d gotten the key, but he was pretty sure it probably had something to do with Spencer. “Ryan’s gonna take off for a bit and go back to his own place. I brought some movies and ice cream. It’s caramel. Which, dude, you don’t know how long I had to search for plain fucking caramel without any sort of chunks or anything.”
Brendon smiled as Jon kicked off his flip-flops and pulled a sweaty container out of the plastic bag. “You want it now, or save it for later?”
Brendon gave his a thumbs up and then held his hands out.
Jon placed the container in Brendon’s hands and disappeared into the kitchen, returning with two spoons. “You have to share,” he told Brendon.
Brendon clutched the container to his chest and stuck his tongue out at Jon.
“Share, Bden, or I won’t give you a spoon.”
Brendon yanked off the top of the container and held it in front of his face, tongue inching out slowly.
“You licking it is not going to stop me from forcing you to share.”
Brendon tentatively touched his tongue to the ice cream.
“Not going to work, Brendon. It’s no different than sharing a soda or a sandwich with you.”
Brendon swirled his tongue around.
“Still not bothering me.”
Brendon pulled his tongue back and made room for Jon to snug up behind him on the couch.
“You can have a spoon then,” Jon said, handing him one and taking his place behind Brendon. “So, Legally Blonde is going to be on TBS. You in?”
Halfway into the movie, Brendon’s feet started to twitch.
“Brendon?”
Brendon reached for the pad of paper. I want to move around.
“Nope. No strenuous physical activity. You know what that could do.”
Death?
Jon placed his hand over Brendon’s. “You’re not going to die. You just need to take it easy.” He let out a shaky breath. “Fuck, Brendon, you don’t even know. We just; we have to be careful with you for a little bit. It was scary.”
Brendon automatically moved in so he could better snuggle Jon.
“You were in the hospital. You… you stopped breathing for a little bit. So, yeah, we’re going to be protective of you. So, no you can’t… I don’t know what you want to do, but you’ve got to just sit here and watch movies.”
Brendon clasped his hand with Jon’s and rubbed his thumb over Jon’s knuckles. He didn’t want to watch any more movies, but he tried to think about Spencer or Ryan or Jon being in the hospital. And yeah, he was certain that he would be pretty upset wouldn’t even cover what he’d be feeling.
Terminator? he wrote with his free hand.
“Oh, yeah, we can do that.”
….
“I gave him ice cream,” Jon said.
Brendon cracked his eyes open. He didn’t remember falling asleep on the couch, but it happened a lot, so he wasn’t surprised.
“Oh, so you gave him something with milk in it and that has no nutritional value,” Ryan replied.
“He had like three spoonfuls. It’s not going to kill him, and it’s sure as fuck not going to affect his voice at this point.”
Ryan sighed loudly. “He needs something nutritious.”
“Dude, you’re not going to make him that broccoli thing I saw taped to the refrigerator. That’s going to make him so sick.”
“It’s got lots of good things in it.”
“Ryan, it’s basically a broccoli smoothie.”
“He needs vegetables.”
Brendon blinked his eyes open and tugged on the back of Jon’s pant leg. When Jon turned to look at him, Brendon gave him a thumbs down.
“See,” Jon told Ryan. “He doesn’t want it. Thumbs down means no.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “I know what a thumbs down is.”
“If you’re worried about his nutrient intake, maybe we should just go to GNC or something and get some of that powder shit and put it into all the fruit smoothies.”
Brendon tugged on Jon’s leg again and gave a thumbs up.
“See?” Jon said.
“Fine,” Ryan conceded. “You want some ice for your throat, Brendon?”
Brendon gave him a thumbs up and Ryan went into the kitchen. Jon sat down on the floor in front of the couch. “Spencer came by to see you earlier.” He reached onto the coffee table and grabbed a small brown teddy bear. “His new… girlfriend? I don’t know, anyway, she got you this.”
Brendon made grabby hands for the bear and clutched it to his chest when Jon passed it over.
“You’re way too easy,” Jon said, tapping Brendon’s knee lightly.
Ryan returned with an ice pack wrapped in a towel. “Here,” he said, passing it to Brendon. “Are you hungry?”
Brendon gave him a thumbs up. Being on a liquid diet always left him hungry.
“Let me do it,” Jon said, raising to his feet.
Ryan just nodded and took Jon’s spot on the floor. “I miss you being able to talk,” Ryan confessed. “I know that I always wished you’d just shut up for five seconds some times, but now I miss your stupid voice.”
Brendon couldn’t help but smile. He nuzzled his new bear into Ryan’s hair.
Ryan chuckled softly. “So, when you can talk again, I promise that I’ll never complain about it again. And if I do, you have my permission to remind me of this conversation.” Ryan turned around and kissed Brendon’s cheek. “Now you know better than to be a lurking pervert, though at the same time, I really don’t think that you’re really actually going to learn anything from this, other than to be more careful in your lurking.”
The blender roared to life in the kitchen as Brendon petted Ryan’s hair.
“OK, I’ve got a Jon Walker special coming right up,” Jon called from the kitchen.
“There’d better not being any weed or booze in that, Walker.”
“Nah, you know, but I did blend up a couple of his ‘scripts just to see what it would do to him.”
Brendon made a face.
“You better not have,” Ryan said gravely.
“Oh come on,” Jon replied, handing the drink to Brendon. “You know that even I know better than to do that. Giving him a pill a half-hour early is one thing. Overdosing him is actually called murder in this state.” He paused. “In all states, actually.”
“If there’s malicious intent, of course,” Ryan countered.
“Clearly.”
Brendon would have complained if his smoothie hadn’t been so delicious.
….
A few days later, the swelling started to subside and he could make feeble sounds. Mostly grunts, but at least it was sound. He didn’t have to constantly snap his fingers to get attention. And he could throw away the stupid neck brace.
Jon and Ryan were talking in the bathroom, and Brendon could hear them. He didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but he had to pee and that’s when he heard them.
“Jon,” Ryan said. “I don’t know. I - this is just weird. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t ever, you know, but it was just being a kid, right?”
Brendon could hear Jon shuffle around the room. “When did it start?”
“I don’t know.” Ryan’s voice was soft. “I mean, it’s kind of been going on forever, but you can never tell with him. He’s got no sense of personal space.”
“Tell me about it,” Jon replied. “The first time I met him he threw himself into my lap and declared his undying love for me.”
Ryan laughed. “Yeah, I remember that. Fuck, I think I was jealous.”
“Is that why there was all that underlying hostility?”
Ryan didn’t respond for a long moment. “This is so fucked up, really. I mean, we can’t both… and I’m not going to fight you for him.”
“What, he’s not worth fighting for?”
“No, it’s not that.” Brendon could hear Ryan sigh. “It wouldn’t be good for the band. You know, if you and me both decide to make this a thing. I don’t want this to be a thing.”
“What if we…” Jon trailed off and said something so quiet that Brendon couldn’t hear him.
“Yeah, that could work.”
“Well, we’d have to talk to him. This is kind of messed up, making plans that he doesn’t even know about. He could end up not feeling the same way about us.”
Brendon blinked twice and then stepped away from the door. Clearly, they were having a conversation that he only half understood and he didn’t know if he wanted to. Instead, he went and peed in the kitchen sink, cleaned it up with some of that Clorox spray Jon had bought for him and went back to bed.
….
The next day, it was Jon and Ryan looking after him, which was both wonderful and frustrating. Like they were trying to one up each other in the awesome things they could do for him. Jon made the best smoothies, but Ryan, surprisingly, made the best pillow. Jon could understand his vague hand gestures better, but Ryan gave better back massages.
Brendon was simultaneously in heaven and hell.
Brendon rolled slightly so that he could tuck himself in the space between Ryan and the couch, careful to not kick Jon, who was holding both their feet in the process.
“You cold?” Jon asked.
Brendon laid his arm across Ryan’s chest and hummed happily, both because he was happy to be able to hum again, and because he was actually just generally happy. He mock shuddered a bit.
“He’s cold. Me too, actually,” Ryan responded for both of them. “Do you think you could get us a blanket?”
Jon carefully slid from beneath their feet and went to Brendon’s linen closet. “It’s because you two are way too skinny,” he said, tossing the blanket over them. “You maybe produce the body heat of a normal person between the two of you.”
Ryan scoffed. “This couch isn’t big enough for the three of us.”
Brendon lifted his head slightly.
“I’m staying,” Jon announced. “You too, Ryan?”
Ryan nodded. “And Brendon’s just got the one bed. I guess it’s going to be crowded.”
Brendon smiled brightly and raised himself up on one elbow so he could clasp his hands together and squirm them around.
Ryan stared for a moment. “I don’t get it.”
“He wants to know if we’re going to have a cuddle pile,” Jon translated.
“Oh, yes. Yes, we are.”
“We could turn on the heat,” Jon suggested.
Ryan pursed his lips and frowned. Brendon mimicked the expression.
“Ok, heat stays off.”
Brendon sat up and clapped his hands happily.
“Come on, dork,” Jon said, reaching out for Brendon’s hand. “Don’t hurt yourself from excitement. You’re going to end up taking one of your pills and drooling on Ryan’s shoulder. It’s going to be very uneventful for you.”
Brendon snuggled immediately into Jon’s chest. “I’m not going to carry you,” Jon said firmly, but Brendon snuggled in harder. “Fine,” Jon said, picking Brendon up. “You’re lucky you’re little. But you’re going to make Ryan jealous.”
Ryan made a soft sound from the couch, but then got himself up and walked ahead of them to the bedroom, flicking off the lights as they passed and turning on the one to Brendon’s bedroom.
Jon put Brendon down gently on the bed. “OK, Ryan’s in charge of de-dressing. I’ll get Brendon’s medicine.” He left, flicking on some of the lights that Ryan had just turned off.
Brendon sat up and raised his arms.
“You can undress yourself,” Ryan told him, taking off his own shirt. “You’re not broken.”
Brendon grunted softly and kicked his feet against the side of the bed.
“Fine,” Ryan said with a long sigh. He pulled off Brendon’s shirt and then wrapped his fingers along the top of Brendon’s sweats. “Lay down and lift you hips.”
Brendon did, and Ryan let out a soft gasp as he pulled off Brendon’s pants. “You know you’re supposed to wear underwear, right?”
Brendon just shrugged and climbed naked under the covers.
“If you have guests, you’re supposed to at least wear boxers,” Ryan said.
Brendon watched as Ryan’s Adam’s apple jumped noticeably in his throat.
“I’m back,” Jon announced, holding a glass of water in one hand and Brendon’s pill bottle in the other. “What’d I miss?”
“Brendon’s naked in there,” Ryan said, still staring at the bed.
“Oh,” Jon said softly. “Should we?”
Ryan shrugged and stepped out of his own pants and then, after a moment’s hesitation, he pushed off his boxers.
Brendon’s eyes went wide and he licked his lips. Ryan Ross naked was awesome. Better than ogling him with clothes on. He’d seen Ryan mostly naked before, but it wasn’t the same as having Ryan actually naked and crawling on the bed to him.
“He needs his medicine,” Jon said from across the room. “Because of the swelling.”
Ryan leaned forward and placed the gentlest kiss possible on the worst of the bruising on Brendon’s neck. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.
Brendon reached his hand forward and stroked gently on Ryan’s shoulder. He wanted to say that it was ok, that all was forgiven, because if it hadn’t happened, then what was actually happening wouldn’t.
Jon came to the side of the bed and looked at Brendon. “You have to take it,” he said, holding out the pill.
Brendon looked mournfully at it, knowing that it would knock him out. And he really didn’t want to be knocked out, considering that he had a naked Ryan practically in his lap. He gave Jon a thumbs down.
“That’s not an option, Bden,” Jon told him. “You have to take the pill.”
Ryan slipped under the covers and spooned against Brendon’s side, half-hard cock knocking against Brendon’s hipbone. Brendon gave Jon a very severe thumbs down.
“If you don’t take it, I’ll make Ryan sleep on the couch.”
Brendon took the pill.
Jon stripped down to his boxers and climbed in on the other side of Ryan. Brendon wrung his hands. “No,” Jon said. “I’m sleeping in my boxers. You and Ryan can be naked.”
Ryan gave him a look, but snuggled in close to Brendon and kissed a long pattern across his chest.
Jon reached over and turned off the light. “Be good, you two,” he said.
….
Brendon wasn’t sure what time it was when he woke up, but the slight haze to his vision told him that he was at a very good place in his medication cycle. The light from the bathroom confused him. As did the sounds that were coming from his left.
“Fuck, yeah, fuck.” That was Jon.
Then there was the slurping.
Brendon cautiously turned his head so that he didn’t hurt himself or draw attention to the fact that he was awake.
“Fuck, I’m close,” Jon moaned.
Brendon moved slightly again and could see the top of Ryan’s head bobbing over Jon’s dick. There were people having sex in his bed and he wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t one of them at all.
But on the other hand, Ryan was blowing Jon in his bed. Which was clearly the best hallucination of his life. He slipped his hand down to his dick and got in one quick rub before he fell back to sleep.
….
The next morning, Brendon wanted to ask what had happened. Because part of him thought that the pain pills just made him see something that didn’t exist, and the other part of him thought that maybe Ryan really was blowing Jon last night.
He raised an eyebrow at Jon from across the table. Jon looked at him. “Yeah?”
Brendon brought his hand to his mouth, fisted it up, and then made a jerking motion while pressing his tongue to the side of his cheek.
Jon dropped his spoon into his cereal bowl.
“What?” Ryan asked. “Do you want a popsicle or something? I think there’s only grape left.”
Jon shook his head. “Brendon, did you… uh, did you wake up last night?”
Brendon gave him a thumbs up and then repeated the hand gesture.
“Oh, fuck.” Jon put his head into his hands.
“What?” Ryan looked confused for a moment and then pushed his breakfast away from him. “I, uh, I have to go talk to Spencer. You know, I forgot, about that thing at the place that I have to be at like now.” He hastily got up from the table, threw on a shirt and some shoes and left.
Brendon stared at Jon and snapped his fingers.
Jon picked up his and Ryan’s cereal bowls and cleaned them out before putting them in the dishwasher. “I don’t know what to say.”
Brendon looked at him expectantly and then tapped his fingers over his heart.
“I don’t know if it’s that,” Jon confessed. “Last night was the first time. It just sort of happened, ok?”
Brendon started to make another hand gesture, but Jon cut him off. “Look, we need to have a talk about it. First, me and Ryan and then the three of us. I’m not sure I’m comfortable talking about it without him here.”
Brendon frowned but turned his attention back to his cream of wheat.
“Bden, you think you’ll be ok on your own for a bit? The three of us tend to just blow through groceries, even with you on a liquid diet.”
Brendon gave him a slightly less than enthusiastic thumbs up.
“Ok, I’ll be back in a bit.”
Then, for the first time since the accident, Brendon was alone.
….
“Brendon,” Jon said firmly, “the doctor said no physical exertion.”
Brendon pouted and played with the top of his sweats.
“I’m not going to blow you. And how did this even come up? Ryan was the one blowing me, remember?”
Brendon’s eyes lit up.
“Ryan’s not allowed to blow you either.”
Brendon frowned.
The front door clicked open and closed. “Jon? Brendon?”
“In here,” Jon called back.
Ryan entered the living room. “So, I think I broke Spencer’s brain today.”
Brendon looked up from his place on the couch and drew a question mark in the air.
“I told him. You know, about what me and Jon did last night.”
“Shit,” Jon said. “What did he say?”
“He said that it couldn’t really technically be any weirder than the fact that he’s now hooking up with this lesbian barista.”
Brendon sucked some Capri Sun down the wrong pipe and coughed.
Jon rushed to his side. “You ok? Breathe.” He rubbed his palm on Brendon’s back. “Should we?” he looked at Ryan.
“Bden?”
Brendon caught his breath and gave Ryan a tiny thumbs up. He made two scissors with his fingers and knocked them together.
“Huh?”
“He wants to know more about the lesbian,” Jon said.
Ryan blinked. “That’s what he wants to know more about?”
Brendon gave him a thumbs up.
“Fine, I wanted to talk about the blowjob, but if you want to talk about the lesbian, then fine.”
Brendon looked clearly torn.
“Do the lesbian first, then the other stuff second,” Jon said, speaking for Brendon.
“OK,” Ryan said, sitting on the other side of Brendon. “So, apparently, they met before we left. Like, she was his barista. Anyway, they did this whole flirting thing, and then he came back because of this and they got to talking. I don’t really know, but then they ended up making plans, and then there was the sex. Apparently, she didn’t tell him that she was a lesbian until after they did it, but she’s something or other on this scale that lets her sometimes fuck guys. Apparently she’s kind of crazy, but Spencer likes that, plus, she brings him coffee.”
Brendon wrung his hands expectantly. Ryan just stared at him.
“He wants to know if there’s been any hot threesome action. God, Ryan, haven’t you figured him out yet? You don’t even need to know his hand motions to know that he’d want to know that,” Jon said.
“No, but apparently there’s talk.”
Brendon grinned and then pointed from Jon to Ryan.
“So, the other thing,” Ryan started.
Brendon pulled on Jon’s arm and then held his fingers to his eye and pulled the lid wide.
“Yeah, ok, next time, we’ll wake you up,” Jon said.
“Seriously, how do you do that?” Ryan asked.
Jon shrugged. “Anyway, Brendon, we… fuck, Ryan, do you think maybe you and I should talk about this first?”
Ryan shrugged. “I…” he paused and looked at Brendon. “God, I wish that you could like, fuck. I mean, if you… this is coming out all wrong.” He ran a hand over his face, pulling on the skin of his cheeks. “Jon and I were wondering if… well, if we said that we were attracted… would you feel the same way?”
Jon made a sound, but didn’t actually say anything. Brendon pointed from Jon to Ryan again.
“Well,” Ryan said. “Yes, me and Jon,” he stopped and looked at Jon. “That’s what he means, right?”
Jon nodded and Ryan started again. “Jon and I, we’re exploring. Because we both like you. Like you like you.”
Brendon’s eyes widened and he pulled on Jon’s arm frantically.
“What, Brendon?” Jon asked.
Brendon flailed his hands.
“Ok,” Jon said, “even I don’t know what the hell that means.”
Brendon flailed his hands again and Ryan handed him the notepad. “Write it, Brendon. Neither of us get what you want.”
Hot threesome action 4 Bden?
Jon and Ryan looked at each other. “Yeah,” Ryan said slowly. “Yeah, if you want to.”
Brendon bounced. NOW???
“Maybe we should have waited to tell him,” Jon said. “We can’t do it now. Not until the doctor says that he’s ok, which should happen around the time you get your voice back, Brendon.”
Brendon made his most pitiful puppy-dog face. Ryan kissed him on the cheek. “Later, Brendon. We promise,” he said gently. “It’s going to be really, really fucking good, but you have to wait.”
Brendon pouted and pulled Jon to him. “Brendon, what are you doing?”
Feel fine, he wrote and then tossed the notebook aside. He placed one hand at the back of Ryan’s neck and then the other at the back of Jon’s pushing them together slightly.
Jon kissed Ryan, soft at first over Brendon’s lap, then growing stronger with each passing moment. Brendon rubbed the back of Ryan’s hair softly and licked his lips.
“Fuck,” Ryan said softly against Jon’s mouth. “We should…”
Jon licked Ryan’s lip. “What?”
Ryan looked up at Brendon. “Maybe Brendon wants to watch.”
Brendon nodded as much as his neck would allow.
“Do you have any?” Ryan asked.
Brendon leapt to his feet and disappeared to the bedroom, returning with a half-used bottle of lube and a condom. He presented them to Ryan. Ryan looked at Jon and passed the items over.
“Yeah, I think if you want?” Jon said.
Ryan nodded. “Here? Or should we move into the bedroom?”
Brendon clapped his hands.
“I think that means just do it already,” Jon said, a gentle grin playing on the side of his lips. “Brendon?”
Brendon gave him a thumbs up.
Ryan extracted himself from the couch and stretched out. “Watch,” he told Brendon. He lifted his shirt over his head and tossed it onto the armchair. Then he slowly undid his pants and pushed them to the floor. He licked his lips and shoved his underwear down.
“Fuck,” Jon breathed. “So fucking hot.”
Ryan kicked his pants to the side and knelt in front of Brendon. He rubbed his fingers over Brendon’s thighs. “God, I bet you want to talk so bad, don’t you?”
Brendon placed his hands over Ryan’s and looked over at Jon.
“Yeah,” Jon said, standing up to take off his own clothes. “Yeah, let’s do this.” He knelt behind Ryan, naked and hard as he reached his hand up to the small of Ryan’s back. “Fuck, I didn’t ask, you know, earlier, Ryan. But have you? You know? Before?”
Ryan nodded. “A few times, but it’s been a really long time, so be careful.”
Jon placed a gentle kiss on Ryan’s shoulder. “I’d never hurt you.” He moved and kissed Brendon’s thigh. “Or you,” he added.
Brendon ran a thumb over Jon’s cheek before Jon moved away and retrieved the lube. “Bend a little more, Ryan.”
Ryan complied and Jon carefully slipped his index finger inside. Ryan moaned loudly and rested his head in Brendon’s lap. “Move it, please, Jon.”
“You’re really tight,” Jon breathed hotly against Ryan’s ear.
“I told you it’s been a while.” Ryan grimaced slightly as Jon inserted a second finger. Brendon’s hand clamped tightly over Ryan’s
Ryan’s hips moved away from Jon’s hand. “Slow down,” he snapped. Brendon let go of one of Ryan’s hands in order to cup Ryan’s face gently. The hand slid to Ryan’s hair as Ryan leaned in and mouthed Brendon’s cock through his sweatpants.
“Ryan,” Jon said softly. “I’m going to add a third. I need you breath deep for me. Are you ready?”
Ryan rested his cheek against Brendon’s thigh. “Yes,” he breathed. “I’m ready.”
Jon pushed a third finger in and Ryan breathed shallowly across Brendon’s lap. Jon rested his chin on Ryan’s shoulder. “Tell me it’s good. Tell me you’re ok.”
“Good,” Ryan panted, rubbing his cheek along Brendon’s thigh. “More lube though.”
“Yeah, shit, sorry.” Jon uncapped the bottle and poured down his fingers and into Ryan. “Better?”
Ryan flinched for a second. “Little cold,” he admitted and let Jon rub it in. “Yeah, that’s perfect.” He turned his head and gave Jon a little nod. “I’m ready.”
Jon slowly withdrew his fingers and fumbled for the condom. He looked up at Brendon when Brendon’s breath hitched. “You doing ok?”
Brendon licked his lips and nodded, pupils blown.
Jon rolled the condom on and took his place behind Ryan. “Spread your legs a little more,” he said, nudging a gentle hand between Ryan’s thighs. “Lean into Brendon.”
Ryan wrapped his fingers around the top of Brendon’s sweats, pulling the material down and releasing his cock as he leaned in. He kissed tentatively at the side of Brendon’s cock. “Come on, Jon.”
Jon lined himself up behind Ryan, pushing in slowly until he was deep inside. “Good?” he asked, voice cracking slightly.
“Good,” Ryan responded, leaning his head on Brendon’s thigh and slowly jacking him off. “You can stop being so gentle now.”
Jon wrapped his fingers around Ryan’s hips and fucked him, slow at first, but gaining momentum each time that Ryan moaned.
“Fuck,” Jon panted. “Fuck.”
Ryan moved Brendon’s leg in closer so that he could rub against it as Jon fucked him. “Brendon,” he said. “Come,” he demanded, jacking him as fast as he could as his whole body shook. “Come for us,” he pleaded.
Brendon leaned back and let out a low moan, the loudest sound he had made since the accident and came across Ryan’s shoulder. Jon leaned in and lapped it up. “Yeah,” Ryan breathed. “So good.”
“You next,” Jon muttered across Ryan’s skin. “You next.”
“Hand,” Ryan begged. Jon reached around and pulled on Ryan’s cock. “Like this?”
Ryan nodded into Brendon’s thigh and came with a choked sigh.
“Yeah,” Jon said, watching them. He slammed into Ryan hard and yelled through his own release.
They stayed still for a long moment before Jon pulled out and tied off the condom. “Brendon? Are you still breathing?”
Brendon gave him the thumbs up.
“See, he’s good to go,” Ryan commented lazily against Brendon’s thigh.
“He wasn’t supposed to participate,” Jon said.
“You shouldn’t have put my face so close to his dick,” Ryan teased.
“OK, point.”
“Awesome.” Brendon blinked, surprised to hear his own voice, low and raspy.
Ryan grinned. “You can talk again!”
Brendon shook his head and then pinched his fingers together.
“Only a little bit, apparently,” Jon translated. “But it’s good.”
Brendon just smiled down both of them.