A Perfect Proposal (Brendon/Ryan)
Some fic. It's kind of written as a pccf sequel, though it stands alone just fine.
A Perfect Proposal Bandom | Brendon/Ryan | PG-13 | one-shot | 1830 words
Brendon and Ryan get engaged. It kind of happens by accident.
A Perfect Proposal
“So, Spencer was telling me that I should start taking better care of my money,” Brendon says around noon one day. They're still sprawled in bed, half-empty cups of coffee cooling on the bedside table next to plates that used to be piled with toast. “Set up a pension fund and shit like that.”
Ryan makes an encouraging sound against Brendon's shoulder, still too boneless and sleepy from their post-breakfast activities to bother with actual words.
“Seriously, though,” Brendon goes on. “He sent me about a gazillion links for stuff I need to do. I don't know, have you sorted out all that? Should we-” He trails off. Ryan waits.
“Should we what?” he asks after Brendon's been silent for several minutes. Brendon rolls to his side, scooting down a little so that they're face to face.
“I thought, maybe,” Brendon says, and then bites his lip, as though he isn't really sure how to get the rest of the sentence out.
“Yeah?”
“Should we look into some of these things together? Like, joint accounts? That kind of thing?”
Ryan smiles. A couple of years ago, the thought of anything joint that wasn't an illegal substance would have triggered a whole set of defence mechanisms. Now he just smiles and cuddles a bit closer.
“Mhm.”
“Mhm?” Brendon asks, mildly incredulous. “Dude, I'm asking you to go all shared economy and 30 plus years pension funds, and your reaction is 'mhm'?”
“Mhm,” Ryan confirms, pressing a kiss to Brendon's neck. “Sounds good.”
He keeps pressing kisses into Brendon's neck and shoulder until he realises that Brendon has gone really still and quiet. Frowning a little, he leans back, opens his eyes. “Dude, you okay?”
Brendon is looking at him, a lot paler than he usually is. He looks-kind of freaked out, actually.
“We-” Brendon starts and then breaks off to blink about a dozen times and swallow heavily. “Dude, did we just decide to get married?”
***
They order rings that weekend, telling each other (themselves) that they're just going out to look. See what's available. No actual agenda. No big deal. They pass the bigger jewellery stores, looking at window displays and talking about lunch. The next album. Whether Bogart needs a new chewing toy.
They're on their way to a small Greek place when they spot it: just another door with a sign in front of it, window almost entirely covered by blossoming vines.
It's a smithy. Or whatever a place in LA that specialises in custom-made jewellery in their own little shop ought to be called.
Brendon looks at him, a big, goofy smile spreading across his face. Ryan is pretty sure his own face is mirroring the expression.
They go inside, actually having to bend their heads a little to get in the door. It's like going back in time, or being on a really cool set for a period piece. There's a long counter in the middle of the room, separating the customer area from the actual smithy, and holy shit, the tools. Old-fashioned and worn-looking, image perfected by a man in a grey beard and glasses in a corner, working away with a small hammer. Ryan can't stop staring.
The goldsmith finishes with the piece he's working on and comes up to the counter, wiping his hands on the apron he's wearing over his clothes. “Can I help you?”
Ryan looks at the walls, the old man, the counter with the glass top that's doubling for a display area. There isn't much on display, but every piece beneath the glass is interesting and original-a far cry from the mass-produced pieces they've seen in the bigger shops.
“We're looking for engagement rings?”
The man looks from Ryan to Brendon and back again. And then he smiles, open and friendly. “Well, then you're in just the perfect place, aren't you, now?”
Ryan looks at Brendon, who's smiling so big, he's starting to look like he swallowed the fucking sun or something.
Ryan nods.
***
They decide on simple gold bands. White gold, because Ryan likes how it looks against Brendon's skin, with a hammered finish that they both just kind of love as soon as they see it. No diamonds. They're not girls, and Ryan doesn't especially want to walk around with a ring that's worth more than his car on his finger every day of the week.
Everything goes smoothly until they've already paid a deposit and the goldsmith is jotting down the final details of their order in a small book.
“What date should I put in?”
Ryan looks at Brendon. Brendon looks just as puzzled as Ryan feels.
“For the inscription,” the goldsmith says. “Usually, people want the date of the engagement in their rings, but that's entirely up to you, of course.”
“Um...”
Brendon suddenly looks weirdly uncomfortable, and Ryan wonders why. Sure, they don't really have a date date, but it's not like they're going to be celebrating their engagement anniversary once they're married, and-holy shit, they're getting married. Jesus fucking Christ.
“Can we get back to you on that?” Brendon says, not really meeting Ryan's eye. “I mean, we don't really have a-I haven't actually-and I want to-Would that be okay?”
“Sure,” the goldsmith says, giving them another easy smile. “Call me anytime before you pick them up. I do inscriptions last anyway, but a 24 hours notice is always appreciated.” He hands a business card to Brendon, who blushes bright red and mumbles a 'thank you' as he puts it in his pocket.
Ryan ducks his head and bites his lip.
Trust Brendon to want to do a fairytale proposal.
***
“What's up?” Ryan says into the phone a couple of weeks later, holding it up with his shoulder as he adds another banana to the smoothie he's making.
“I was wondering,” Brendon says, voice slightly muffled by static, probably calling from his car. “Like, I had this whole plan, going up on mountains and eating strawberries in the sunset and stuff, and it was really romantic, but the more I thought about it, the more I started to freak myself out, and then all these things started to go through my head, like, what if you fell off a cliff, or I totally screwed everything up and we got in a car accident on our way there, or Southern California magically decided to have freak storms, with hail-or tornados, can you imagine tornadoes?-all of a sudden, and I just-Can we do it tonight?”
Ryan takes a moment to backtrack and comes up empty. “Um, what?”
“The date,” Brendon says, and Ryan can hear his voice waver a little. “In the, um, rings, you know? What if-would you be okay with-what if that was tonight?”
Ryan drops the peach he's peeling into the sink.
“Ryan?”
“Um, yeah,” Ryan manages, picking the peach back up and cleaning it off in cold water. “Yeah, sure. I mean, we could make dinner or something. Eat on the terrace.” He hopes the words make sense to Brendon. He can't really hear them over the sudden rush of blood in his ears.
“Great,” Brendon says, and he sounds nervous as fuck, but relieved at the same time, and Ryan pictures him there, in his car on the freeway, driving too fast like he always does.
Dinner. Right.
***
They burn dinner. Not because they're neglecting it, the way they often do because the counter tops in their kitchen just happen to be the perfect height for Brendon to lift Ryan up and slowly fuck his mind out, but because they're trying too hard, set on making an amazing three-course meal that requires four burners and two separate dishes in the oven simultaneously, when their usual level of skill stops at veggie lasagna.
It's kind of an epic fail.
In the end, they just look at the World War Three state of the kitchen and then at each other until the corners of Ryan's mouth start to twitch and Brendon convulses in laughter before reaching for the phone and calling their favourite Chinese place for take-out.
They eat on the terrace. They missed the sunset, too busy with trying to stop the kitchen from catching on fire and the friggin' white chocolate ice-cream swans Brendon tried to make from melting into little puddles on the plates.
Ryan reaches over to catch another piece of ginger/curry pineapple with his chop sticks, but stops kind of half-way, because Brendon is looking at him with the smile he usually only wears in bed-all dreamy and relaxed-before it suddenly tenses, interrupted by a sudden intake of breath.
He slides out of his chair. Down to one knee.
“Ryan, will you marry me?”
It shouldn't feel momentous, but it does. Brendon looks up at him, waiting, and no matter how many times Ryan has thought about this (and he has, even though he would rather die a very painful death than own up to it), he's completely unprepared for how it feels when it actually happens.
“Fuck, Ryan, say something.”
Ryan gives himself a mental shake and tires to focus, looking down at Brendon, who is growing steadily paler before him.
Ryan kisses him.
“Yes,” he breathes against Brendon's lips, wrapping both his hands tightly in Brendon's hair and pulling him even closer. “Fuck, yes.”
***
A picture is worth a thousand words, so they take one with Brendon's Sidekick-just two hands overlapping, matching jewellery shouting the message they want to convey loud and clear to whoever wants to listen.
They send it to Spencer and Jon first-the real family-then to Shane and Regan, Zack, Eric, Pete, Brendon's parents and siblings and Ryan's mom, message after message going out into cyberspace.
Finally, they post one picture to twitpic, adding the link to an entry on their real life blog that no one but their friends knows about.
Today, it says simply. Brendon presses 'send' and turns off his phone. He puts it down on the bedside table and leans back, watching Ryan hungrily as he strips out of his jeans.
Ryan smiles and climbs into bed.
Brendon meets him, surging up for a kiss before Ryan's even found his way in between the sheets. Brendon kisses him like he never wants to do anything else in his life, pulling Ryan with him into thoughts of forever, like it's the easiest thing in the world.
Ryan kisses back, letting Brendon roll him over on his back, and fists his right hand in dark hair as Brendon breaks away, trailing his lips and tongue down Ryan's chest like a slow promise.
Ryan spreads his legs. This part, at least, they know how to get just right.
THE END
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A Perfect Proposal Bandom | Brendon/Ryan | PG-13 | one-shot | 1830 words
Brendon and Ryan get engaged. It kind of happens by accident.
A Perfect Proposal
“So, Spencer was telling me that I should start taking better care of my money,” Brendon says around noon one day. They're still sprawled in bed, half-empty cups of coffee cooling on the bedside table next to plates that used to be piled with toast. “Set up a pension fund and shit like that.”
Ryan makes an encouraging sound against Brendon's shoulder, still too boneless and sleepy from their post-breakfast activities to bother with actual words.
“Seriously, though,” Brendon goes on. “He sent me about a gazillion links for stuff I need to do. I don't know, have you sorted out all that? Should we-” He trails off. Ryan waits.
“Should we what?” he asks after Brendon's been silent for several minutes. Brendon rolls to his side, scooting down a little so that they're face to face.
“I thought, maybe,” Brendon says, and then bites his lip, as though he isn't really sure how to get the rest of the sentence out.
“Yeah?”
“Should we look into some of these things together? Like, joint accounts? That kind of thing?”
Ryan smiles. A couple of years ago, the thought of anything joint that wasn't an illegal substance would have triggered a whole set of defence mechanisms. Now he just smiles and cuddles a bit closer.
“Mhm.”
“Mhm?” Brendon asks, mildly incredulous. “Dude, I'm asking you to go all shared economy and 30 plus years pension funds, and your reaction is 'mhm'?”
“Mhm,” Ryan confirms, pressing a kiss to Brendon's neck. “Sounds good.”
He keeps pressing kisses into Brendon's neck and shoulder until he realises that Brendon has gone really still and quiet. Frowning a little, he leans back, opens his eyes. “Dude, you okay?”
Brendon is looking at him, a lot paler than he usually is. He looks-kind of freaked out, actually.
“We-” Brendon starts and then breaks off to blink about a dozen times and swallow heavily. “Dude, did we just decide to get married?”
***
They order rings that weekend, telling each other (themselves) that they're just going out to look. See what's available. No actual agenda. No big deal. They pass the bigger jewellery stores, looking at window displays and talking about lunch. The next album. Whether Bogart needs a new chewing toy.
They're on their way to a small Greek place when they spot it: just another door with a sign in front of it, window almost entirely covered by blossoming vines.
It's a smithy. Or whatever a place in LA that specialises in custom-made jewellery in their own little shop ought to be called.
Brendon looks at him, a big, goofy smile spreading across his face. Ryan is pretty sure his own face is mirroring the expression.
They go inside, actually having to bend their heads a little to get in the door. It's like going back in time, or being on a really cool set for a period piece. There's a long counter in the middle of the room, separating the customer area from the actual smithy, and holy shit, the tools. Old-fashioned and worn-looking, image perfected by a man in a grey beard and glasses in a corner, working away with a small hammer. Ryan can't stop staring.
The goldsmith finishes with the piece he's working on and comes up to the counter, wiping his hands on the apron he's wearing over his clothes. “Can I help you?”
Ryan looks at the walls, the old man, the counter with the glass top that's doubling for a display area. There isn't much on display, but every piece beneath the glass is interesting and original-a far cry from the mass-produced pieces they've seen in the bigger shops.
“We're looking for engagement rings?”
The man looks from Ryan to Brendon and back again. And then he smiles, open and friendly. “Well, then you're in just the perfect place, aren't you, now?”
Ryan looks at Brendon, who's smiling so big, he's starting to look like he swallowed the fucking sun or something.
Ryan nods.
***
They decide on simple gold bands. White gold, because Ryan likes how it looks against Brendon's skin, with a hammered finish that they both just kind of love as soon as they see it. No diamonds. They're not girls, and Ryan doesn't especially want to walk around with a ring that's worth more than his car on his finger every day of the week.
Everything goes smoothly until they've already paid a deposit and the goldsmith is jotting down the final details of their order in a small book.
“What date should I put in?”
Ryan looks at Brendon. Brendon looks just as puzzled as Ryan feels.
“For the inscription,” the goldsmith says. “Usually, people want the date of the engagement in their rings, but that's entirely up to you, of course.”
“Um...”
Brendon suddenly looks weirdly uncomfortable, and Ryan wonders why. Sure, they don't really have a date date, but it's not like they're going to be celebrating their engagement anniversary once they're married, and-holy shit, they're getting married. Jesus fucking Christ.
“Can we get back to you on that?” Brendon says, not really meeting Ryan's eye. “I mean, we don't really have a-I haven't actually-and I want to-Would that be okay?”
“Sure,” the goldsmith says, giving them another easy smile. “Call me anytime before you pick them up. I do inscriptions last anyway, but a 24 hours notice is always appreciated.” He hands a business card to Brendon, who blushes bright red and mumbles a 'thank you' as he puts it in his pocket.
Ryan ducks his head and bites his lip.
Trust Brendon to want to do a fairytale proposal.
***
“What's up?” Ryan says into the phone a couple of weeks later, holding it up with his shoulder as he adds another banana to the smoothie he's making.
“I was wondering,” Brendon says, voice slightly muffled by static, probably calling from his car. “Like, I had this whole plan, going up on mountains and eating strawberries in the sunset and stuff, and it was really romantic, but the more I thought about it, the more I started to freak myself out, and then all these things started to go through my head, like, what if you fell off a cliff, or I totally screwed everything up and we got in a car accident on our way there, or Southern California magically decided to have freak storms, with hail-or tornados, can you imagine tornadoes?-all of a sudden, and I just-Can we do it tonight?”
Ryan takes a moment to backtrack and comes up empty. “Um, what?”
“The date,” Brendon says, and Ryan can hear his voice waver a little. “In the, um, rings, you know? What if-would you be okay with-what if that was tonight?”
Ryan drops the peach he's peeling into the sink.
“Ryan?”
“Um, yeah,” Ryan manages, picking the peach back up and cleaning it off in cold water. “Yeah, sure. I mean, we could make dinner or something. Eat on the terrace.” He hopes the words make sense to Brendon. He can't really hear them over the sudden rush of blood in his ears.
“Great,” Brendon says, and he sounds nervous as fuck, but relieved at the same time, and Ryan pictures him there, in his car on the freeway, driving too fast like he always does.
Dinner. Right.
***
They burn dinner. Not because they're neglecting it, the way they often do because the counter tops in their kitchen just happen to be the perfect height for Brendon to lift Ryan up and slowly fuck his mind out, but because they're trying too hard, set on making an amazing three-course meal that requires four burners and two separate dishes in the oven simultaneously, when their usual level of skill stops at veggie lasagna.
It's kind of an epic fail.
In the end, they just look at the World War Three state of the kitchen and then at each other until the corners of Ryan's mouth start to twitch and Brendon convulses in laughter before reaching for the phone and calling their favourite Chinese place for take-out.
They eat on the terrace. They missed the sunset, too busy with trying to stop the kitchen from catching on fire and the friggin' white chocolate ice-cream swans Brendon tried to make from melting into little puddles on the plates.
Ryan reaches over to catch another piece of ginger/curry pineapple with his chop sticks, but stops kind of half-way, because Brendon is looking at him with the smile he usually only wears in bed-all dreamy and relaxed-before it suddenly tenses, interrupted by a sudden intake of breath.
He slides out of his chair. Down to one knee.
“Ryan, will you marry me?”
It shouldn't feel momentous, but it does. Brendon looks up at him, waiting, and no matter how many times Ryan has thought about this (and he has, even though he would rather die a very painful death than own up to it), he's completely unprepared for how it feels when it actually happens.
“Fuck, Ryan, say something.”
Ryan gives himself a mental shake and tires to focus, looking down at Brendon, who is growing steadily paler before him.
Ryan kisses him.
“Yes,” he breathes against Brendon's lips, wrapping both his hands tightly in Brendon's hair and pulling him even closer. “Fuck, yes.”
***
A picture is worth a thousand words, so they take one with Brendon's Sidekick-just two hands overlapping, matching jewellery shouting the message they want to convey loud and clear to whoever wants to listen.
They send it to Spencer and Jon first-the real family-then to Shane and Regan, Zack, Eric, Pete, Brendon's parents and siblings and Ryan's mom, message after message going out into cyberspace.
Finally, they post one picture to twitpic, adding the link to an entry on their real life blog that no one but their friends knows about.
Today, it says simply. Brendon presses 'send' and turns off his phone. He puts it down on the bedside table and leans back, watching Ryan hungrily as he strips out of his jeans.
Ryan smiles and climbs into bed.
Brendon meets him, surging up for a kiss before Ryan's even found his way in between the sheets. Brendon kisses him like he never wants to do anything else in his life, pulling Ryan with him into thoughts of forever, like it's the easiest thing in the world.
Ryan kisses back, letting Brendon roll him over on his back, and fists his right hand in dark hair as Brendon breaks away, trailing his lips and tongue down Ryan's chest like a slow promise.
Ryan spreads his legs. This part, at least, they know how to get just right.
THE END
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