Hand Covers Bruise - Bandom (Panic!), NC-17, Ryan/Spencer.
Title: Hand Covers Bruise
Fandom: Bandom (Panic! at the Disco)
Rating: NC-17.
Length: About 3160 words.
Characters/Pairings: Ryan/Spencer.
Disclaimer: Fictional, don't cross the streams, etc.
Summary: Spencer doesn't like hockey. The way hockey bruises Ryan's skin, on the other hand...
Notes: Written for this prompt on
bandom_meme. Ryan and Spencer's ages aren't specified in the story, but while they're in high school, I pictured Ryan as a senior and Spencer as a junior, so above the age of consent in Nevada.
Also on AO3 and DW.
Hand Covers Bruise
Spencer goes to Ryan's first hockey practice of the year only because they're going to write songs together afterward. Despite years of Ryan droning about power plays and high sticking and whatever else he fixates on, Spencer doesn't know anything about hockey. He figures he'll be bored, it'll be a disaster, and that'll be the end of it.
He's not entirely wrong. About the disaster part, anyway. Ryan skates like he's going to fall on his face any second, kicking his legs up behind him and flailing his arms. It's amazing he keeps holding onto his stick, much less that he makes it anywhere on the ice. It's even more amazing that he manages to be important enough to get slammed into the wall in front of Spencer not once, but twice, during practice. Ryan obviously knows nothing about getting the puck, even to someone as clueless as Spencer. But he gets it a couple times anyway, and the half of his teammates that he plays against give him hell right away.
"That hurt," Ryan says cheerily in the car afterward.
"So don't fucking do it."
Ryan sniffs like Spencer doesn't understand, which means it's a day ending in 'y', so whatever.
-
Hours later, after Spencer's thrown Ryan's thesaurus at his head twice, Ryan goes to the bathroom and comes back almost right away, eyes bright with excitement.
"Check it out, Spence," he says, and then he pulls down his pants and bares his ass.
Spencer practically pokes his eyes out in his haste to cover them. "Jesus."
"Come on. It won't kill you."
If Spencer doesn't look, Ryan will likely strip down completely and wait. He's done crap like that before, and Spencer would rather work on being a rock star than worry about Ryan rubbing his junk on Spencer's bed. So he lowers his hands.
Ryan isn't actually mooning Spencer. He's pointing to a dark purple mark on his hip, nearly as big as his hand.
"Must've been that second hit," Ryan says, eyes half-closed. His fingers circle the edge of the bruise, like he wants to touch but can't quite get himself there. "My arm took most of the first one."
"Uh-huh," Spencer says, because he has to say something. He has to do something other than watch Ryan's huge, bony hands framing the bruise on his hip. It's not what he would say normally, or anything that Ryan would probably expect, but he can't quite remember what either of those would actually be.
He shakes it off when Ryan pulls up his pants again. He hums a little under his breath, some riff that sounds vaguely familiar, and settles back down on the floor. "Where'd my thesaurus go?"
"Um. There. Behind you."
Ryan turns a little and leans behind him, then hisses. Spencer stiffens.
"Leaned on the bruise." Ryan eases up again. "I know, I'm stupid, I'm going to die of a concussion or a puck to the eyes, can we get back to work?"
Spencer nods.
He doesn't manage to talk again for ten minutes straight.
-
By the time Ryan's first game rolls around, Spencer's been to five of his practices. He would've gone to all of them, but as his mother says, he won't graduate if he skips his homework to dream about bruises on Ryan's skin. Okay, she doesn't say that last part, but it's the same idea.
Maybe it's because Ryan's so thin, but he bruises if someone breathes on him wrong. He gets some really wicked-looking marks after one practice, when he trips over the net at the back of one of the goals. Ryan's not as eager to share those with him - maybe because they're not some badge of honor; Spencer can't begin to understand - but Spencer sees them anyway when Ryan changes shirts after practice, an outline almost in the shape of his stick on his back. It's how he'd landed, and Spencer sucks his breath in when he sees it.
There's a decent crowd at the rink when Spencer makes it to the first game. It's only when they drop the puck and the game starts that Spencer realizes he still doesn't know anything about the rules, or how anything works.
But again, he doesn't need to know anything. Sadly, this time, it's because Ryan doesn't do a thing. He's on the bench for half the game, and the second half, he skates around the other team, nearly tripping them with his flailing stick. It doesn't appear to be an effective strategy because not only does the other team win by a large margin, but Ryan doesn't get hit once. He probably gets a lot of dirty looks, but the helmets make it impossible to tell.
Still, Ryan's red-faced and beaming when he meets Spencer after. The expression would look stoic on any other face, but Spencer can't help but like seeing a happy Ryan.
"It's still a stupid sport," Spencer mutters when they go to get smoothies.
"You just say that because you don't get it."
"Whatever." At least Ryan doesn't know the real reason Spencer glares at his smoothie the rest of the night.
-
Two more games, and Ryan spends them entirely on the bench. He sends baleful looks to Spencer for the entirety of both games, and he mopes at Spencer's house afterward.
"I should just quit," Ryan says, playing with the notebook on his stomach. "The band's more important anyway."
A couple months ago, Spencer would've agreed. He knows exactly how pathetic he is these days when he says, "You could sign up for goalie. In case your usual guy gets sick."
And have large projectiles flung at him on a regular basis, but Spencer keeps that part to himself.
Ryan's hand pauses. "We don't have a backup goalie."
"See, there you go. Now quit whining and get your guitar."
"Shut up," Ryan says, but he's definitely lighter on his feet than he was before. So is Spencer.
-
It takes a couple practices, but they put Ryan in the goal to try him out.
The thing is, he's actually not bad. He's not half as big as the usual guy, but he doesn't have to skate so much, and his general reflexes don't suck. Even the coach, who ignores Ryan more often than not, looks vaguely impressed.
But Spencer still ends up glowering from the second Ryan takes the ice. He never noticed that the goalie had so many pads before. Ryan takes a puck in the stomach once, and he barely flinches. Which is good - internal bleeding would be bad - but if the sensitive parts are so well-covered, bruises are probably a pipe dream.
Or so he thinks, until Ryan gets off the ice. He takes off the pads and pushes up his sleeve like he's looking for something, and sure enough, there's something darkening on the skin of his arm.
Spencer bites his lip so hard it nearly bleeds.
-
From then on, Ryan's always bruised. They're varying shapes and colors: the newer ones are darker and larger, and the older ones smaller and lighter. They even travel on his skin, which Spencer had heard about but hadn't seen before. It makes Spencer think of a skinny, bony lava lamp.
Spencer makes it to every game and almost every single practice. He compromises by taking his homework along with him; he sits opposite Ryan's goal every time he's at the rink, so his eyes can flick up from his papers every few seconds. He sees everything, and his grades even improve a little. Everybody wins.
He isn't doing his homework when the brute from the Huskies half-tackles Ryan on his quest to get the puck in the goal at their sixth home game. It's not hard to be bigger than Ryan, even with the goalie pads on, but this guy's seriously three times bigger, and it looks like Ryan takes all of his weight when he goes down.
The referee pulls the guy off and pushes him toward the penalty box. But Ryan doesn't move.
Spencer doesn't wait to see what happens. He climbs out of the stands and goes for the gap in the wall, sliding onto the ice. It takes him a few minutes to get across in his sneakers, but Ryan's still not moving when he makes it over.
He drops to his knees next to him, and the coach is on Ryan's other side.
"Ry?" Spencer touches Ryan's padded arm. He doesn't want to shake him. What if his neck's broken, or his brain's going to explode? Fuck. "Can you hear me?"
After a second, a voice muffled by the helmet says, "No. I can't hear you at all."
Spencer gasps a laugh, eyes stinging. "Asshole."
"Shut up and help me up."
The coach lays a gentle hand on Ryan's chest. "Not until the doctor gets here."
Apparently, the doctor was in the bathroom; she rushes out on the ice, slacks unbuttoned. She gets a couple of Ryan's teammates to bring out her stretcher, and it's only when they get onto solid ground again that Spencer realizes how fucking cold his jeans are.
"Ice hockey," he tells a bored and frustrated Ryan as they wait a couple more minutes for an ambulance. "How the hell did you decide that was a good idea?"
"Must be my brain trauma," Ryan says. "It's so bad, it's retroactive."
They ride to the hospital together, and the ER doctors say exactly what Ryan's been saying all along: he's fine. Of course, they say it because they have all kinds of machines to check for internal injuries, and Ryan was just saying it because he didn't want to have to be in a neck brace for another minute.
"Still, your dad or whoever should stay up with you tonight," the doctor says just before Ginger comes back from the cafeteria to take them back to Spencer's house. "I'm almost positive you don't have a concussion, but it's better to be sure."
"My dad's out of town." Spencer still doesn't know how Ryan can say that kind of thing so calmly. But Ryan's lips twitch when he asks, "Does this mean I don't have to go to school tomorrow?"
"It's Wednesday. I'd say, if your attendance is normally good, you should take the rest of the week."
Ryan brightens as the doctor walks out of the curtained area. Spencer hears the voice of his mom and the voice of the doctor talking, and then Ginger comes in.
"How are you?" she asks Ryan.
"Just banged up," he says brightly. "But I don't have to go back to school until next week."
That's when it hits Spencer: he gets a bruised Ryan to himself for the night. Probably until Monday. His dick jumps, but at least his stomach twists with guilt at the same time, so he's not completely soulless. Just mostly.
-
"I'm sorry," Spencer says when his mom leaves the two of them alone on the couch and goes to bed. He's sworn up and down that he will stay awake with Ryan until she wakes up. It's only fair after all.
Ryan turns away from the TV and frowns. "For what?"
"For pushing you into goalie."
"You brought it up. Once."
"But I..." Really wanted you to do it. As if Spencer wasn't being creepy enough.
Ryan rolls his eyes. "I probably would've gotten worse before now if I'd stayed where I was. And it doesn't matter. I'm done."
"What?" Spencer's voice actually cracks. It hasn't done that for at least a year. "But I thought you liked it."
"I like music better."
Spencer stares mournfully at the couch and plays with the blanket he's sharing with Ryan. He likes music better, too. Or he's supposed to.
Ryan shifts on the couch, bouncing until he's facing away from whatever trashy show's on the TV and looking directly at Spencer. "Okay. What is it."
"Huh?"
"You've been...weird about me playing hockey." When Spencer raises an eyebrow, Ryan says, "Weirder than usual. You complained about it constantly until you went to practice with me."
"I didn't--"
"And then you were always there, and now you're pissed I'm quitting?"
"I'm not pissed."
"Sure looks like it." Ryan's eyes narrow. "You don't magically like hockey."
"I could."
"Tell me how many guys went to the penalty box in tonight's game."
Spencer nearly swallows his tongue. "I...uh..."
"That's what I thought."
"You got hurt! I don't remember!"
"Really?" Ryan crosses his arms. "What's my favorite team? Pro team."
"The...uh...Los Angeles."
"What's their mascot?"
Spencer throws his hands up. "Like I can remember every single detail."
But Ryan's scowling at him, and Spencer knows he's not getting out of this one. Either he tells Ryan, lets him make fun of Spencer forever, and get over it, or he doesn't tell Ryan, and...he's never hidden anything from Ryan before. Fuck. This could mean the end of their friendship.
He takes a shaky breath. "It's stupid."
"So are you."
For the first time ever, Spencer doesn't disagree. He squeezes his eyes shut. "You get bruised when you play."
There's nothing but the quiet hum of the TV for a minute. Then Ryan says, "So?"
"So. That's it."
"You don't like me getting bruised? So why--" Ryan's breath hitches, and Spencer flinches even more. Maybe this is the end of their friendship anyway. God, why didn't he think? He could've come up with a lie, something better than--
Ryan's hand lays over Spencer's. Spencer opens his eyes.
"I got some new ones," Ryan says in a low voice. "Pretty much everywhere."
Spencer's mouth goes dry. "You did?"
"Wanna see?"
Oh god, Ryan's been Spencer's best friend forever, that question in that voice should not get him going. But then, neither should Ryan's bruises.
"Sure," Spencer says. He can be casual about this. Except how his voice doesn't sound casual at all.
Ryan lets go of Spencer and leans back. He takes off his shirt slowly, revealing every inch of his skinny torso, and Spencer's pretty sure he's going to die because Ryan's right. There's bruises everywhere.
When Ryan tosses his shirt behind him, he smirks at Spencer, dark-eyed and wicked. "You should see my favorite one."
He turns around and pushes down the waist of his sweatpants, and now Spencer really can't breathe. Just above the curve of his ass is a bruise so dark it looks black. It almost looks like...
"The puck," Ryan says, nodding when Spencer looks at him questioningly. "Landed right on top of it. It's why I was quiet for so long. It was..."
"Intense?"
Ryan nods. Then the smirk gets bigger. "You can touch it if you want."
That's it. Spencer's hard as a rock. If he was any kind of decent guy, he'd go whack it in the bathroom, then come back, put in Moulin Rouge or something, and never talk about it again. It's the smart thing to do.
Except. Ryan looks like he wants Spencer to touch.
Spencer reaches out. It's like his fingers are moving through water, they're going so slow, but Ryan's watching them eagerly, and he can't make himself stop. He feels the heat radiating off the bruise just before his fingers graze it, and...
"My parents." He drops his hand. "Fuck, the twins."
Ryan frowns. "What about them?"
"What about...we're in the living room, jackass." Ryan looks about as crestfallen as Spencer feels. But Spencer says hastily, "We could, uh. Go upstairs. My room has a closed door."
Ryan grins and kicks out of the blanket.
Spencer has plenty of time walking up the stairs to his bedroom to come up with a reason why this is a bad idea. Their not-quite realized band, for one. Possibly waking a relative, for another. Except that a little weirdness isn't going to stop Ryan's music career one way or another, and they can be quiet. Spencer's sure of it.
So when Ryan's on Spencer's bed and Spencer's got the door closed behind him, and Ryan says, "Take off your clothes, nerd," Spencer doesn't hesitate to do what he says.
Ryan's naked, too, and Spencer's completely distracted for a second by his giant dick. He knew Ryan was hung, but there's a different between soft and hard, and even though Ryan's halfway between them both, it makes a difference.
Luckily, the view's interrupted when Ryan rolls onto his stomach. Not as luckily - or more, depending on Spencer's point of view - his bruised ass is just as compelling right now.
"Come on," Ryan says, and he sounds like his usually bored self. Maybe a little breathier. "I don't have all night."
"Except you kind of do. You can't sleep, remember?"
"It's a phrase, asshole."
Spencer reaches forward quickly to shut Ryan up and presses two of his fingertips onto the bruise. Ryan hisses, but he presses back just the littlest bit. Both the sound and the motion go straight to Spencer's dick.
"Do you mind?" he asks, gesturing down at his lap.
Ryan smirks, but he stares at Spencer's crotch for a minute and rocks his hips down into Spencer's mattress a little, so it's having an effect on him, too. "It won't jerk itself off."
"That's what she said."
"I think you've - fuck - got that mixed." Ryan's eyes flutter closed as Spencer presses harder, using more of his fingers to do it. Spencer wraps a hand around his cock and starts to stroke.
"How does it feel?" Spencer asks, leaning on Ryan just a little harder.
"Good, like--"
"Quieter. Don't wake anyone up."
Ryan's given up arching into Spencer's touch because Spencer's following the bruise as he moves. He's rubbing himself off against Spencer's bed like he can't get enough of it. "Like every single one of my nerves is tingling, god, don't stop."
Spencer can't stop. He opens his hand and presses down with his palm, and that's apparently enough because Ryan jerks hard a couple times, covers his mouth with a hand, and comes. Spencer's just a couple minutes behind, the heat of Ryan's bruise still under his hand when he clenches his teeth shut and lets go.
They both pant quietly for a second, and then Spencer realizes how sticky the hand he jerked off with is. And then he realizes that Ryan just came all over his sheets. "Fuck. My bed's a mess."
Ryan rolls onto his back, smiling lazily. Some of his come is on his stomach. "Good thing you weren't going to sleep anyway."
"I am after you're okay to sleep, jackass." Spencer grabs a tissue with his clean hand and wipes up his gross one. "What the hell are we going to do for the rest of the night, anyway?"
His cheeks heat when Ryan's eyebrow lifts.
"I have a lot more bruises you should see," he says.
Spencer licks his lips. It's going to be a long night.
He can't wait.
Fandom: Bandom (Panic! at the Disco)
Rating: NC-17.
Length: About 3160 words.
Characters/Pairings: Ryan/Spencer.
Disclaimer: Fictional, don't cross the streams, etc.
Summary: Spencer doesn't like hockey. The way hockey bruises Ryan's skin, on the other hand...
Notes: Written for this prompt on
bandom_meme. Ryan and Spencer's ages aren't specified in the story, but while they're in high school, I pictured Ryan as a senior and Spencer as a junior, so above the age of consent in Nevada.
Also on AO3 and DW.
Hand Covers Bruise
Spencer goes to Ryan's first hockey practice of the year only because they're going to write songs together afterward. Despite years of Ryan droning about power plays and high sticking and whatever else he fixates on, Spencer doesn't know anything about hockey. He figures he'll be bored, it'll be a disaster, and that'll be the end of it.
He's not entirely wrong. About the disaster part, anyway. Ryan skates like he's going to fall on his face any second, kicking his legs up behind him and flailing his arms. It's amazing he keeps holding onto his stick, much less that he makes it anywhere on the ice. It's even more amazing that he manages to be important enough to get slammed into the wall in front of Spencer not once, but twice, during practice. Ryan obviously knows nothing about getting the puck, even to someone as clueless as Spencer. But he gets it a couple times anyway, and the half of his teammates that he plays against give him hell right away.
"That hurt," Ryan says cheerily in the car afterward.
"So don't fucking do it."
Ryan sniffs like Spencer doesn't understand, which means it's a day ending in 'y', so whatever.
-
Hours later, after Spencer's thrown Ryan's thesaurus at his head twice, Ryan goes to the bathroom and comes back almost right away, eyes bright with excitement.
"Check it out, Spence," he says, and then he pulls down his pants and bares his ass.
Spencer practically pokes his eyes out in his haste to cover them. "Jesus."
"Come on. It won't kill you."
If Spencer doesn't look, Ryan will likely strip down completely and wait. He's done crap like that before, and Spencer would rather work on being a rock star than worry about Ryan rubbing his junk on Spencer's bed. So he lowers his hands.
Ryan isn't actually mooning Spencer. He's pointing to a dark purple mark on his hip, nearly as big as his hand.
"Must've been that second hit," Ryan says, eyes half-closed. His fingers circle the edge of the bruise, like he wants to touch but can't quite get himself there. "My arm took most of the first one."
"Uh-huh," Spencer says, because he has to say something. He has to do something other than watch Ryan's huge, bony hands framing the bruise on his hip. It's not what he would say normally, or anything that Ryan would probably expect, but he can't quite remember what either of those would actually be.
He shakes it off when Ryan pulls up his pants again. He hums a little under his breath, some riff that sounds vaguely familiar, and settles back down on the floor. "Where'd my thesaurus go?"
"Um. There. Behind you."
Ryan turns a little and leans behind him, then hisses. Spencer stiffens.
"Leaned on the bruise." Ryan eases up again. "I know, I'm stupid, I'm going to die of a concussion or a puck to the eyes, can we get back to work?"
Spencer nods.
He doesn't manage to talk again for ten minutes straight.
-
By the time Ryan's first game rolls around, Spencer's been to five of his practices. He would've gone to all of them, but as his mother says, he won't graduate if he skips his homework to dream about bruises on Ryan's skin. Okay, she doesn't say that last part, but it's the same idea.
Maybe it's because Ryan's so thin, but he bruises if someone breathes on him wrong. He gets some really wicked-looking marks after one practice, when he trips over the net at the back of one of the goals. Ryan's not as eager to share those with him - maybe because they're not some badge of honor; Spencer can't begin to understand - but Spencer sees them anyway when Ryan changes shirts after practice, an outline almost in the shape of his stick on his back. It's how he'd landed, and Spencer sucks his breath in when he sees it.
There's a decent crowd at the rink when Spencer makes it to the first game. It's only when they drop the puck and the game starts that Spencer realizes he still doesn't know anything about the rules, or how anything works.
But again, he doesn't need to know anything. Sadly, this time, it's because Ryan doesn't do a thing. He's on the bench for half the game, and the second half, he skates around the other team, nearly tripping them with his flailing stick. It doesn't appear to be an effective strategy because not only does the other team win by a large margin, but Ryan doesn't get hit once. He probably gets a lot of dirty looks, but the helmets make it impossible to tell.
Still, Ryan's red-faced and beaming when he meets Spencer after. The expression would look stoic on any other face, but Spencer can't help but like seeing a happy Ryan.
"It's still a stupid sport," Spencer mutters when they go to get smoothies.
"You just say that because you don't get it."
"Whatever." At least Ryan doesn't know the real reason Spencer glares at his smoothie the rest of the night.
-
Two more games, and Ryan spends them entirely on the bench. He sends baleful looks to Spencer for the entirety of both games, and he mopes at Spencer's house afterward.
"I should just quit," Ryan says, playing with the notebook on his stomach. "The band's more important anyway."
A couple months ago, Spencer would've agreed. He knows exactly how pathetic he is these days when he says, "You could sign up for goalie. In case your usual guy gets sick."
And have large projectiles flung at him on a regular basis, but Spencer keeps that part to himself.
Ryan's hand pauses. "We don't have a backup goalie."
"See, there you go. Now quit whining and get your guitar."
"Shut up," Ryan says, but he's definitely lighter on his feet than he was before. So is Spencer.
-
It takes a couple practices, but they put Ryan in the goal to try him out.
The thing is, he's actually not bad. He's not half as big as the usual guy, but he doesn't have to skate so much, and his general reflexes don't suck. Even the coach, who ignores Ryan more often than not, looks vaguely impressed.
But Spencer still ends up glowering from the second Ryan takes the ice. He never noticed that the goalie had so many pads before. Ryan takes a puck in the stomach once, and he barely flinches. Which is good - internal bleeding would be bad - but if the sensitive parts are so well-covered, bruises are probably a pipe dream.
Or so he thinks, until Ryan gets off the ice. He takes off the pads and pushes up his sleeve like he's looking for something, and sure enough, there's something darkening on the skin of his arm.
Spencer bites his lip so hard it nearly bleeds.
-
From then on, Ryan's always bruised. They're varying shapes and colors: the newer ones are darker and larger, and the older ones smaller and lighter. They even travel on his skin, which Spencer had heard about but hadn't seen before. It makes Spencer think of a skinny, bony lava lamp.
Spencer makes it to every game and almost every single practice. He compromises by taking his homework along with him; he sits opposite Ryan's goal every time he's at the rink, so his eyes can flick up from his papers every few seconds. He sees everything, and his grades even improve a little. Everybody wins.
He isn't doing his homework when the brute from the Huskies half-tackles Ryan on his quest to get the puck in the goal at their sixth home game. It's not hard to be bigger than Ryan, even with the goalie pads on, but this guy's seriously three times bigger, and it looks like Ryan takes all of his weight when he goes down.
The referee pulls the guy off and pushes him toward the penalty box. But Ryan doesn't move.
Spencer doesn't wait to see what happens. He climbs out of the stands and goes for the gap in the wall, sliding onto the ice. It takes him a few minutes to get across in his sneakers, but Ryan's still not moving when he makes it over.
He drops to his knees next to him, and the coach is on Ryan's other side.
"Ry?" Spencer touches Ryan's padded arm. He doesn't want to shake him. What if his neck's broken, or his brain's going to explode? Fuck. "Can you hear me?"
After a second, a voice muffled by the helmet says, "No. I can't hear you at all."
Spencer gasps a laugh, eyes stinging. "Asshole."
"Shut up and help me up."
The coach lays a gentle hand on Ryan's chest. "Not until the doctor gets here."
Apparently, the doctor was in the bathroom; she rushes out on the ice, slacks unbuttoned. She gets a couple of Ryan's teammates to bring out her stretcher, and it's only when they get onto solid ground again that Spencer realizes how fucking cold his jeans are.
"Ice hockey," he tells a bored and frustrated Ryan as they wait a couple more minutes for an ambulance. "How the hell did you decide that was a good idea?"
"Must be my brain trauma," Ryan says. "It's so bad, it's retroactive."
They ride to the hospital together, and the ER doctors say exactly what Ryan's been saying all along: he's fine. Of course, they say it because they have all kinds of machines to check for internal injuries, and Ryan was just saying it because he didn't want to have to be in a neck brace for another minute.
"Still, your dad or whoever should stay up with you tonight," the doctor says just before Ginger comes back from the cafeteria to take them back to Spencer's house. "I'm almost positive you don't have a concussion, but it's better to be sure."
"My dad's out of town." Spencer still doesn't know how Ryan can say that kind of thing so calmly. But Ryan's lips twitch when he asks, "Does this mean I don't have to go to school tomorrow?"
"It's Wednesday. I'd say, if your attendance is normally good, you should take the rest of the week."
Ryan brightens as the doctor walks out of the curtained area. Spencer hears the voice of his mom and the voice of the doctor talking, and then Ginger comes in.
"How are you?" she asks Ryan.
"Just banged up," he says brightly. "But I don't have to go back to school until next week."
That's when it hits Spencer: he gets a bruised Ryan to himself for the night. Probably until Monday. His dick jumps, but at least his stomach twists with guilt at the same time, so he's not completely soulless. Just mostly.
-
"I'm sorry," Spencer says when his mom leaves the two of them alone on the couch and goes to bed. He's sworn up and down that he will stay awake with Ryan until she wakes up. It's only fair after all.
Ryan turns away from the TV and frowns. "For what?"
"For pushing you into goalie."
"You brought it up. Once."
"But I..." Really wanted you to do it. As if Spencer wasn't being creepy enough.
Ryan rolls his eyes. "I probably would've gotten worse before now if I'd stayed where I was. And it doesn't matter. I'm done."
"What?" Spencer's voice actually cracks. It hasn't done that for at least a year. "But I thought you liked it."
"I like music better."
Spencer stares mournfully at the couch and plays with the blanket he's sharing with Ryan. He likes music better, too. Or he's supposed to.
Ryan shifts on the couch, bouncing until he's facing away from whatever trashy show's on the TV and looking directly at Spencer. "Okay. What is it."
"Huh?"
"You've been...weird about me playing hockey." When Spencer raises an eyebrow, Ryan says, "Weirder than usual. You complained about it constantly until you went to practice with me."
"I didn't--"
"And then you were always there, and now you're pissed I'm quitting?"
"I'm not pissed."
"Sure looks like it." Ryan's eyes narrow. "You don't magically like hockey."
"I could."
"Tell me how many guys went to the penalty box in tonight's game."
Spencer nearly swallows his tongue. "I...uh..."
"That's what I thought."
"You got hurt! I don't remember!"
"Really?" Ryan crosses his arms. "What's my favorite team? Pro team."
"The...uh...Los Angeles."
"What's their mascot?"
Spencer throws his hands up. "Like I can remember every single detail."
But Ryan's scowling at him, and Spencer knows he's not getting out of this one. Either he tells Ryan, lets him make fun of Spencer forever, and get over it, or he doesn't tell Ryan, and...he's never hidden anything from Ryan before. Fuck. This could mean the end of their friendship.
He takes a shaky breath. "It's stupid."
"So are you."
For the first time ever, Spencer doesn't disagree. He squeezes his eyes shut. "You get bruised when you play."
There's nothing but the quiet hum of the TV for a minute. Then Ryan says, "So?"
"So. That's it."
"You don't like me getting bruised? So why--" Ryan's breath hitches, and Spencer flinches even more. Maybe this is the end of their friendship anyway. God, why didn't he think? He could've come up with a lie, something better than--
Ryan's hand lays over Spencer's. Spencer opens his eyes.
"I got some new ones," Ryan says in a low voice. "Pretty much everywhere."
Spencer's mouth goes dry. "You did?"
"Wanna see?"
Oh god, Ryan's been Spencer's best friend forever, that question in that voice should not get him going. But then, neither should Ryan's bruises.
"Sure," Spencer says. He can be casual about this. Except how his voice doesn't sound casual at all.
Ryan lets go of Spencer and leans back. He takes off his shirt slowly, revealing every inch of his skinny torso, and Spencer's pretty sure he's going to die because Ryan's right. There's bruises everywhere.
When Ryan tosses his shirt behind him, he smirks at Spencer, dark-eyed and wicked. "You should see my favorite one."
He turns around and pushes down the waist of his sweatpants, and now Spencer really can't breathe. Just above the curve of his ass is a bruise so dark it looks black. It almost looks like...
"The puck," Ryan says, nodding when Spencer looks at him questioningly. "Landed right on top of it. It's why I was quiet for so long. It was..."
"Intense?"
Ryan nods. Then the smirk gets bigger. "You can touch it if you want."
That's it. Spencer's hard as a rock. If he was any kind of decent guy, he'd go whack it in the bathroom, then come back, put in Moulin Rouge or something, and never talk about it again. It's the smart thing to do.
Except. Ryan looks like he wants Spencer to touch.
Spencer reaches out. It's like his fingers are moving through water, they're going so slow, but Ryan's watching them eagerly, and he can't make himself stop. He feels the heat radiating off the bruise just before his fingers graze it, and...
"My parents." He drops his hand. "Fuck, the twins."
Ryan frowns. "What about them?"
"What about...we're in the living room, jackass." Ryan looks about as crestfallen as Spencer feels. But Spencer says hastily, "We could, uh. Go upstairs. My room has a closed door."
Ryan grins and kicks out of the blanket.
Spencer has plenty of time walking up the stairs to his bedroom to come up with a reason why this is a bad idea. Their not-quite realized band, for one. Possibly waking a relative, for another. Except that a little weirdness isn't going to stop Ryan's music career one way or another, and they can be quiet. Spencer's sure of it.
So when Ryan's on Spencer's bed and Spencer's got the door closed behind him, and Ryan says, "Take off your clothes, nerd," Spencer doesn't hesitate to do what he says.
Ryan's naked, too, and Spencer's completely distracted for a second by his giant dick. He knew Ryan was hung, but there's a different between soft and hard, and even though Ryan's halfway between them both, it makes a difference.
Luckily, the view's interrupted when Ryan rolls onto his stomach. Not as luckily - or more, depending on Spencer's point of view - his bruised ass is just as compelling right now.
"Come on," Ryan says, and he sounds like his usually bored self. Maybe a little breathier. "I don't have all night."
"Except you kind of do. You can't sleep, remember?"
"It's a phrase, asshole."
Spencer reaches forward quickly to shut Ryan up and presses two of his fingertips onto the bruise. Ryan hisses, but he presses back just the littlest bit. Both the sound and the motion go straight to Spencer's dick.
"Do you mind?" he asks, gesturing down at his lap.
Ryan smirks, but he stares at Spencer's crotch for a minute and rocks his hips down into Spencer's mattress a little, so it's having an effect on him, too. "It won't jerk itself off."
"That's what she said."
"I think you've - fuck - got that mixed." Ryan's eyes flutter closed as Spencer presses harder, using more of his fingers to do it. Spencer wraps a hand around his cock and starts to stroke.
"How does it feel?" Spencer asks, leaning on Ryan just a little harder.
"Good, like--"
"Quieter. Don't wake anyone up."
Ryan's given up arching into Spencer's touch because Spencer's following the bruise as he moves. He's rubbing himself off against Spencer's bed like he can't get enough of it. "Like every single one of my nerves is tingling, god, don't stop."
Spencer can't stop. He opens his hand and presses down with his palm, and that's apparently enough because Ryan jerks hard a couple times, covers his mouth with a hand, and comes. Spencer's just a couple minutes behind, the heat of Ryan's bruise still under his hand when he clenches his teeth shut and lets go.
They both pant quietly for a second, and then Spencer realizes how sticky the hand he jerked off with is. And then he realizes that Ryan just came all over his sheets. "Fuck. My bed's a mess."
Ryan rolls onto his back, smiling lazily. Some of his come is on his stomach. "Good thing you weren't going to sleep anyway."
"I am after you're okay to sleep, jackass." Spencer grabs a tissue with his clean hand and wipes up his gross one. "What the hell are we going to do for the rest of the night, anyway?"
His cheeks heat when Ryan's eyebrow lifts.
"I have a lot more bruises you should see," he says.
Spencer licks his lips. It's going to be a long night.
He can't wait.