Written for Fuschia for the 2009 xmas_rocks exchange
| This story is a work of fiction and therefore completely untrue. No harm or libel is meant or implied about any of the individuals named within this work and it was written without their involvement or permission. No profit is being made. |
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Ryan's the palest out of all of them. No matter how much time he spends in the sun, his skin never retains color, not well. His wrists have stopped glinting in the daylight now, tattooed, the ink blending with the white of his skin, the flesh underneath harder to notice. Jon always notices.
Jon's always noticed. They're at the venue early, which is a little like saying the earth has stopped rotating in the right direction, but Zack glares when Jon says that, says, "I run a tight ship, Walker, shut your mouth." Jon laughs, creaking his eyes open in time to see Zack flipping him off. It only makes him laugh harder. "At least we stopped moving," Brendon says, voice softer than it usually is. His skin looks a little green and he's got an arm wrapped across his middle. His mouth is very red. "Long night?" Ryan asks. He's standing in the mouth of the kitchenette, mug of coffee clasped in his hands. His bracelets are multiplying today, but if Jon focuses enough, he can make out strips of his skin, just barely visible. "Shut up, Ryan Ross." Brendon looks a lot more tired than he usually does, but then again, it's just hit the point of tour where the sparkle has all but disappeared, and they're still a month away from home. Jon closes his eyes, tipping his head back against the couch and wonders, not for the first time, where he'll go after they play the last date. "Am I going to have to ask you to make me?" Ryan's asking, but there's no inflection in his voice. There never is, even though he's smiling, the corners of his mouth curling up on the sides. His eyes are twinkling, and if Jon weren't paying attention, he would have missed the flutter of his lashes, the wink that was meant for him and him alone. Jon still doesn't know what all of Ryan's facial cues mean. He's learning. "Why do you have to be such an asshole," Brendon mumbles, but it's not a question, and he crosses the room without much more talk, pressing his forehead to Ryan's shoulder quickly, a caress, before sliding his fingers over the handle of the mug and bringing it up to his lips. When he finishes drinking, his color is a little better, but there are still bags under his eyes, and Ryan moves away to top off the coffee again. They're all quiet. Brendon says, "It would be really hilarious if we left Spencer at the last venue," he's smiling a little, lips stretched tiredly across his face. Jon grins at the sight of Ryan's eyes going huge. He doesn't move though. Jon can tell he's not actually that worried. "I'm pretty sure he's just out stretching his legs, Brendon." Spencer spends a lot of their time at venues stretching his legs. Jon's pretty sure that means having phone sex with his girlfriend or talking to his drug dealer or using a bathroom that doesn't move. Jon's pretty content with sitting on this couch, trying to catch glimpses of the skin on Ryan's wrists. His legs are stretched enough.
Spencer comes back eventually, just like he always does, bottle of water in hand. Brendon's curled up on the couch, in a state between awake and asleep, and Jon plays with the short strands of hair on the back his neck. It's soft against his calluses and there's nothing bad about making Brendon sigh and hum in the back of his throat, like he'd purr if he could. "Did you get a hold of your drug dealer?" Jon asks and Ryan lets out a flat sound, a chuckle in monotone. He's got a notebook open on the table, but he hasn't really been writing anything, just absently sketching out patterns and drawing lines through preexisting words. "I don't actually think I want to know." Spencer slides into the booth recessed into the wall across from Ryan. They have a moment, unconsciously or not, where their eyes meet and Jon likes, in an odd way, that he can track the conversation. Spencer's eyebrows go up, you doing okay? and Ryan rolls his shoulders in a slight shrug, quirking the corners of his mouth, yeah, I'm fine. Ryan starts twirling his pen around his fingers, thumping against the pages of his notebook from time to time. His bracelets shift back and forth, clacking softly. The sound is oddly sharp in Jon's ears, but everything with Ryan tends to be slightly heightened. It makes him captivating, in an unconscious way. You don't realize you can't look away until long after you've decided you would never want to. The tendons in his wrist flex and jump. Jon notices. "Bren, are you going to be able to sing tonight?" The question is wry, coming from Spencer and, though Brendon extracts his arm long enough to flip him off, Jon knows it's without heat. They're all tired, caught in the strange point where there's no final burst of adrenaline to hold onto, and the initial buzz has long since faded. For a little bit, the road and venues and screaming crowds become a part of the steady ebb and flow of their life. Get up, go to work, go to bed; maybe Jon is too old for it, but he likes the comfort it brings.
Jon only remembers in increments of time. They used to wait to get dressed, Spencer and Ryan especially, waiting in their jeans and their sweats, waiting for some unintelligible sign to get them moving. It's not the same now. Their actions are more sluggish, but their tasks get completed more quickly. The stretch of Jon's jacket is just right across the expanse of his shoulders, and he's even gotten used to the material. He's the first one ready most nights, but that's because he doesn't worry about trying to find the right shoes. Brendon is sitting on the floor, rooting through his duffel. He has on his shirt and vest, but he's still wearing his pajama bottoms. There are dancing pieces of french toast holding cutlery zigzagging up and down the legs. He has on one shoe. "B," Jon says, and Brendon's head lifts up a fraction. He doesn't stop rifling, but the nod is so Jon knows he's listening, that he's paying attention while doing the other eight hundred things he needs to. "You know you have to put on actual pants first, right?" The line of Brendon's back softens before he's turning, twisting his legs so that they're folded in a pretzel, palms resting on his thighs. "What," he says, slowly, face carefully blank. "You don't think the fans'll like this style choice?" Ryan chuckles from behind them, signaling his reentry. Jon doesn't look, but he can feel Ryan doing just that, gaze lingering at the negative space between the two of them. He doesn't join Jon on the couch. "Zack said something about a shoe in the parking lot," he says, and Jon's still not looking, but he can hear Ryan munching on something. It sounds like it's a sandwich from the appreciative little noises he's making. They passed a Subway on their way into the venue, and Jon wonders if he braved the fans or had Zack go and get it for him. Zack always forgets to add extra mustard. "Are you missing one?" Ryan flicks his eyes between the two of them, and Brendon is up like a shot. He walks unevenly for a few seconds before kicking off the other shoe. He looks at the door for a second, contemplating just how much walking he'd have to do barefoot, and turns to Jon balefully, eyes big. "Please," he says. "Seriously, Jon Walker. What if there are hypodermic needles in the parking lot?" His voice is a little high, a little hysterical. Brendon's a bit of a hypochondriac. Jon kicks off his flip-flops without nodding and slides from the couch cushions onto the floor. The concrete is cold through the threadbare rug, and Brendon slams the door as he slides out, muttering something that sounds like, "Don't know how I fucking lost it." The words are muffled through the wood. Ryan is looking at him again. Jon can feel it when his eyes move. The room is oddly silent without Brendon's presence vibrating in it, creating sub-audible noise. Jon shifts, sitting back up on the couch. He pulls his legs up, folding them Indian style; Ryan keeps watching and Jon doesn't feel imposed upon, which is strange. He feels studied, almost appreciated, and that's just an added dimension to the things that Ryan can do. They're not alone very often. Which makes sense; Jon is very rarely alone anymore. Even laying in his bunk, he can always see between the spaces of the curtain, catching sight of a sliver of Spencer's back in his bunk, the bump of Brendon's knee poking out of his own. Sometimes, Ryan sprawls in his sleep and his arm will slide down. Jon sees his wrists and, more than once, has fallen asleep to the sight. Still. "Want to know a secret?" Ryan's still standing, bumping his hip against the line of the table. He's got his arms folded across his chest and the light from overhead bleaches out the color. Jon has a moment of missing the birds arched in a V across his cheek. Jon leans back and smiles. "Yeah, always." There's thudding outside the door and Jon knows Brendon is just about back from his jaunt into the parking lot. He's humming something sweeping and very nearly epic under his breath. Brendon is grand, in many senses of the word, and even Ryan grins. "I saw him drop his shoe," Ryan says, very nearly loftily. "I just didn't feel like picking it up." Brendon pushes open the door and, for a long moment, hovers there, staring at the pair of them laughing.
They're early enough that Jon manages to nap, and when he wakes, his lashes flutter open just enough to see Ryan moving away, all legs and wrists, the exposed skin of his arms as he changes. It's a pretty sight. This is one of the venues where they're holding a meet and greet, and Jon doesn't know if he's grateful that they're interspersed the way they are (only the few, the proud, the lucky get to meet the band this tour) or if he'd rather just have one every stop. It's almost worse, because he forgets about the searching questions, and the screaming fans - the one girl that tries to climb the table to get to Ryan. He almost forgets, but he doesn't, of course. Not really. "Jon," a girl says, hair swinging around her ears. "Jon, you're looking really great tonight." There are fewer people this time around, each participant gets a few seconds, gets to have something like a conversation before they get shuffled off again. "Well, thanks," he says, and beside him, Ryan snorts a little. The sound is so low that Jon can't be sure that he heard it, but it's Ryan. It's not something he actively doubts. "You're looking nice too." She tucks her hair behind her ear, widening her eyes in that way girls seem to learn at birth. "Are you - " she starts, but the girl behind her doesn't let her finish, shoving their shoulders together hard, settling her in front of Ryan. "Hi," she says, pretty and flushed. The rest of it goes by in a blur.
Something gets fucked up with Spencer's kit. It's not a big deal, not by a long shot, but it sends Spencer grumbling from the dressing room back to the stage to oversee its fixing before the show starts. Brendon says, "Here, I'll help," and shoots Jon a significant look as they leave. He can't quite read it, not with the overuse of eyebrows, but it makes Jon laugh anyway as he scoops up another handful of pretzels from the bowl on the table. He scrapes the salt off with his teeth before he bites down on the hardened twist. He wonders what Brendon was trying to say. Ryan's pacing back and forth, but it's not nervous gesture, just an expression of his internal rhythm. He drums a tattoo on his thigh and hums, low and tonelessly. His wrists keep flashing from the cuffs of his shirt and Jon licks his lips at he looks from the corner of his eyes. Ryan is lost in his own world, exuding his own brand of calm. Jon reaches out, unthinkingly, and lays a hand on Ryan's shoulder. "Okay?" "Yeah." Ryan goes still beneath Jon's hand, all the way through, and that's an interesting, unexpected reaction. Brendon is the touchy one, the one who always has somebody draped across him. It's deceptive, making it seem like they're all that physically, constantly connected when they're not. Ryan is warm. "Sure?" Jon traces the arch of his eyebrow and the cut of his cheekbones. Ryan was so sharp when they first met and it's not as if he's really softened of his own volition, like all the things that make him shimmer and shine have blunted by wear and tear. No, it's more like he's retracted the protective edges so that people can touch without fear of getting cut. Jon can't believe he's allowed to touch. "There's time," Ryan says, and the way the words fall past his lips is ominous. His eyes are huge and dark, luminous, and it catches Jon off-guard, a little, how quickly he gets hard, how his mouth goes dry. They've done this - they do this, and Jon's reaction is the same every time. He steps up on his tip toes, pressing Ryan against the wall with his hips, sealing their mouths together. It's easier, Ryan makes it easier by leaning his head down a little so that they lock together. Jon moans. He doesn't mean to, and the sound reverberates in the tiny room. He can feel Ryan smiling against his lips. "Want," Jon's not sure which of them actually says it. They're both panting, low grunts that manage to break free from the crush of their mouths, whimpers that sound more than a little desperate. Ryan pulls away, to breathe, to exhale, something with his mouth and the air surrounding them, and Jon makes a noise, ugly sounding and weak, tugging on the soft material of Ryan's shirt to get at his collarbones, sucking tiny little bruises into the visible skin. "Your fucking mouth," Ryan says, and Jon doesn't mean to look up, but Ryan's looking down, eyes burning with something Jon's never learned to read, no matter how many times they've done this. "Shit, Jon." Ryan looks at him reverently and benevolently and Jon still can't tell who is doing what for whom. He used to think it was pity and boredom that had Ryan biting half moon circles of bruises into his shoulders. Jon never got in the habit of one nights stands, which is almost funny, all things considered, and Ryan has always been the kind of person to test boundaries. They brushed against each other, bumped into each other, Jon used to think a collision every now and then was inevitable. Now he thinks maybe he was wrong. Ryan's fingers dig into the muscles of Jon's back; he likes to cling, to get as close as they can with slipping past skin and into each other. He's small enough, light enough, that Jon can catch his fingers under his ass and haul him up. Height works against them, but mass is in their favor, especially when they're both motivated. Naked is impractical, so they make due with Ryan's pants shimmied down and shoved aside in a puddle beside their feet, Jon's jammed down around his knees. They probably look ridiculous. Jon doesn't care. Hauled up, shoved against the wall, Ryan's elbows end up on Jon's shoulders, his fingers tangled tight in Jon's hair. There's an edge to what they do, a distinct lack of gentleness that Jon has always noticed, always liked, but has never really be able to explain. Somewhere along the way, it stopped being just about fucking. Maybe. Probably. It's not as though they've ever given words to this thing that snaps and crackles between them, an electricity that gets tamped down, and Jon has learned through the rush of broken noises and the tight flex of muscles that Ryan likes the stretch. Not dry, because that's another realm entirely, but he likes nothing more than two quick fingers and whatever's available and slick for lube. It's lotion this time, convenient in Ryan's pocket. He's picked up a few planning habits from Spencer. Jon lines up, one of Ryan's legs wrapped around his waist and the other pressed lightly against the floor, more for balance than anything else. Ryan presses his face into Jon's neck, mouthing words and lyrics and prayers (which are really the same thing, with the letters rearranged) and holds on tight. The first push in, the tightness of it, has Jon biting his bottom lip hard, almost to the point of tasting blood. Ryan shakes and shudders, falls apart around the edges in Jon's arms and that, that will never stop being beautiful. It's slow and fast, hard and easy, contradiction; Jon can't speak this language, but he understands it nonetheless. Ryan begs silently and Jon gives him what he has, past the point of everything and when he comes, it's buried inside as deep as he can go, "Ryan," escaping from the back of his throat.
The show is fantastic. Jon feels electric in his fingers and his toes, skin bare against the wood of the stage, bringing him all that much closer. The lights are blinding, the roar from the crowd trying to overpower the music, but Jon can't even complain, not really. Every person in the audience is there to see him, to experience them, and his ease into Ryan is a part of that magic. Brendon sings his final note, holds it out as the crowd screams, and when Jon looks across the stage, Ryan's eyes are already on him, mouth quirked in a smile.
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