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He isn’t sure how he’s gotten here, but Brendon feels himself sober up as his thumb hangs heavy over his phone screen. He wets his lips, and realizes in an instant how impossibly dry his entire mouth is. A few beers shouldn’t have landed him here; Shut in his bedroom with his ex-boyfriend’s name glowing on his screen like a taunt.
It’s been years since he’s actually talked to Ryan beyond a sentence or two. That was the point though, wasn’t it? When you break up with someone? You’re not supposed to constantly find yourself staring at their contact photo, or sitting on the floor of your closet with a box full of polaroids wishing things had been different. Brendon knows that much. He knows how hurt Sarah would be if she knew, too.
And yet here he is. His thumb shakes just a bit as he comes back into his mind, any buzz he had now completely melted off. He takes his lower lip between his teeth and bites. Maybe it’ll wake him from the dream this surely must be. No such luck.
He wets his lips again, but his dry tongue only sticks to the ridges. Words already dance among his tastebuds. Words he would really rather leave unsaid. Words he can’t just let go.
Skin hits glass and Brendon slams his eyes closed as the phone rings.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
“Hey…”
Brendon’s heart skips a beat.
“You’ve reached my phone, but uh- I guess not me. Try again or leave a message, I’ll try and text you or something. Thanks.”
God damn him. God damn Brendon and god damn Ryan. Stupid voicemails always getting his hopes up. A beep pulls Brendon from his short sulk.
“Shit- um- Hi, Ryan… It’s- It’s been a while, I know. Um. I know I sound drunk, and I am- but- but like just a little bit, y’know? Fuck, sorry. I just,” His tongue felt bigger than his mouth. “I’m going out to the lookout tonight. The same one that we used to hit up back then… I’ll bring a few extra beers in case you wanna come too. Um. No hard- um- No hard feelings if not, though. I hope you’re alright.”
He has to cut himself off there before he says everything that sits on his chest. Brendon promises himself that if Ryan shows, then he can talk about it. He’s not confident either way. He shoves his phone into his pocket before he can think for even a second longer, and gets up to make his venture.
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He feels like an idiot, and maybe he is. Ryan didn’t even pick up the phone, in what universe would that have been a sign? Still, Brendon had to hope. He’d told Ryan where he was going to be. Who would he be to stand him up if he did show?
Brendon pulled his car into the lot. It was so much emptier than he remembered it. When he was a teen, this spot had essentially become known as the place to ditch a football game and make out, but kids didn’t really do that anymore, he assumed. He turned the key, and the glow of his dashboard died.
He wasn’t even really sure what he wanted if Ryan showed. To talk? To kiss?
Something more?
He’d better not think about it for too long, he decides. Instead, he gets out of the car and parks himself on the hood. It’s far less comfortable than his plush interior, but the biting air feels like what he deserves. It’s only now that he lets his mind go back to the possibility of Ryan actually taking him up on the offer. What would he do? What would he say? “Hi, I know we ended on bad terms and we haven’t talked in seven months, but I missed seeing your face and listening to the way your voice quirks when you’re trying not to smile, and your fake transatlantic accent.” Ew. Well? Maybe.
He looks down at his hands. Fuck, he could use a cigarette. As he stares, a halo of warm halogen glow wraps itself around him. Without thinking, he turns to look.
Ouch.
Once his eyes readjust from his brief moment of blindness, Brendon realizes what he was looking at. A car. Maybe this place wasn’t incredibly dead after all.
It’s almost too dark to make out, but after the car has stopped and its headlights gone dim, a figure gets out from the driver’s side. The thought of this being Ryan Ross only barely crosses Brendon’s mind. Mostly, he’s just stuck in place, mouth agape.
The figure starts towards him. As long, gangly limbs catch the dull moonlight, Brendon finally lets himself believe that this is Ryan, in the flesh.
“I got your call.” Ryan says plainly. It’s almost like this is normal to him. Like his heart isn’t beating loud enough to drown out the cold that’s settled into Brendon’s bones.
“That’s good.” It’s all he can think to say.
Ryan crosses the dirt and plants himself next to Brendon. He folds his arms. Maybe he’s cold too. Brendon thinks maybe it’s better he doesn’t invite Ryan into his car just yet.
“How have you been, man?” Brendon tries to match Ryan’s apparent lack of chalance.
Ryan shrugs at first. “Probably not as good as you. Congrats on the albums.”
“Oh,” He blinks. “Thank you. It’s- I don’t know if it’s like anything you ever wrote, but I’m trying.”
“Yeah, I actually have heard a little bit of it.” Ryan lets out a breath, and Brendon can hear his voice doing the thing. “You’re kind of impossible to get away from right now.”
“Is that a good thing?” Brendon quirks his head to look at Ryan, who has his nails between his teeth already.
Ryan shrugs. “I don’t hate it, if that’s what you mean.” He pulls his hand from his mouth. “It’s pop.”
Now it’s Brendon’s turn to shrug. “I said that’s what I was going to do. You still write like a Beatle.”
Ryan’s eyes flick over to Brendon for a moment, but then back down to his hands. His eyes are so much duller than Brendon remembers. Has it really been that long?
“I listened to your album. Has Jon been alright?”
“You haven’t talked to him?”
“Not really. I don’t think we were ever as close as me and Spence.” He pauses and rolls his tongue around his mouth. “Or you and I.”
Ryan sucks his cheek into the negative space of his mouth. Brendon can’t help the way his eyes trace along the other. He’s not sure how he could have expected to feel any other way about this.
“What did you actually invite me out here for?”
“Can you tell me why you decided to come, first?”
Ryan’s arms cross again. And they uncross. And cross again. Brendon thinks he looks like he’s hugging himself. A mirror of all the times Brendon has held him.
“I didn’t want to be alone.”
Brendon’s almost taken aback by how much more open Ryan has become since they last talked. So many hours of fighting could have been saved, he thinks. Or maybe Ryan has always been so open, and Brendon just didn’t look close enough to realize it.
Ryan continues, “I guess I thought that it was just fame, and pressure, and being in the public eye but– honestly? I think I’ve always been the problem.”
“I think you might have been mine, too.” Brendon says without thinking.
“What?”
“I’m sorry every song is about you.” It’s all Brendon needs to say, he thinks. The way Ryan looks at him says otherwise. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I could fill ten more albums full of lyrics about you.”
Ryan opens his mouth, then closes it. Then opens it again. “You would get sick of me eventually. I know you would, because you have.”
“That’s not what that was, Ryan.” It was, just a little bit. He sputters for a moment, as he realizes he’s gone into the next sentence with no plan to back up his statement. “Things are different now. We’re older and more experienced– I like to think I’m less of a dick now.”
“Maybe a little bit.” A small laugh breaches Ryan’s countenance. “But seriously, what are you trying to get at right now?”
Brendon pushes off of the hood of his car and moves to stand in front of Ryan. He offers up his hands to Ryan, who takes them with a moment’s hesitation.
“I miss you, Ryan.”
“Don’t you have a girlfriend?”
“Has that ever stopped you before?”
And within the second, the two have pounced on each other like animals.
It’s a mess, and not even really a good kiss, but it’s all Brendon could have ever asked for. Teeth and spit and tongue. Hands find hair or skin, and it’s just like Brendon remembers.
When the two part, the air seems to have become infinitely heavier. The cold air doesn’t have nearly the effect it did on Brendon’s still-warming skin. It’s almost as intoxicating as the beers he had earlier in the night. Honestly? He prefers this.
Ryan pulls back after a minute and is already practically panting. He folds over like a cheap lawn chair and lets his head come to rest on Brendon’s shoulder, and it feels right. Brendon wraps his arms around Ryan.
And then Ryan starts to laugh.
His back rises and falls under Brendon’s hand, and he’s not sure what to do or say until Ryan finally pulls himself together just enough to speak.
“You know, I was really going to do it tonight.” He giggles the words out of his perfect mouth. Brendon’s heart hits his stomach like a grand piano to a cartoon character. “I was ready. I was going to. And then I checked my phone!”
“Ryan…”
“I checked my phone, and now I’m here in my only ex-boyfriend’s arms, on the hood of his fancy car, and I-” Ryan picks his head up. His eyes and blown out wide and the grin stretched across his face is almost unlike anything Brendon’s ever seen him wear before.
Brendon brushes his fingers through Ryan’s hair, just trying to think of anything at all to say. “You know you can always call me, Ry,”
Ryan shakes his head. “I can’t. You have a life. A girlfriend. A job. You know who you are and you can do it all the time. I’m not gonna bother you with all that bullshit.”
“I want you to bother me, Ryan.” Brendon moves his hands from Ryan’s waist to grip his shoulders. “I lost you once, I can’t ever lose you like that too.”
Thin hands come up to wrap around Brendon’s wrists. “I’m glad you called me, Brendon. Even with your stupid perfect life, you can’t get rid of me. Just like I can’t get rid of you.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
Ryan shook his head before letting it slump forward again. He let out a few remaining giggles and shook it again. “No. No it’s not. I just can’t get rid of you no matter how hard I try. And it keeps me stuck here.”
“I’d rather have you stuck here than trying to leave, Ryan, and I’m sure Spencer would say the same, and Jon too. I know we didn’t work out, but you do have people who love you.”
Ryan hoists his head back up to make eye contact again. “Do you?”
Brendon narrows his eyes a second before relaxing his face again. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all night, Ryan. Ever since I left that voicemail; It’s all been ‘I love you.’”
Their lips are meeting again before Brendon can even think of saying another word. His brow furrows, but Ryan’s kiss is hungry, like maybe he actually wants Brendon. He can’t help but melt into the contact.
Ryan’s skin is so much hotter than the air around him. Brendon almost wonders if he might put off steam. He lets himself lean against Ryan more once he realizes that he must feel the same way.
“You can’t just keep doing this,” Brendon says between kisses.
“Tell me if you want to stop.”
Brendon doesn’t. Instead, he says, “You aren’t helping yourself. This never works for you.”
Teeth hit Brendon’s lower lip before they let go again. “Not with girls. You’re different.”
Brendon has to shift to hold himself up, and lets his hands come to rest beside Ryan’s hips. “So do you admit it now?”
“Shut up.”
And he does, for a few minutes. He can’t even really help himself. It’s been seven months of silence, and now Ryan’s practically under him and actually answering his questions? Brendon would be a fool to let the opportunity pass him by. So he doesn’t.
“Did you ever figure yourself out?”
Ryan groans, and Brendon can tell he’s rolling his eyes even though his own are shut. “Maybe. I don’t need to tell you that.”
He’s got a point, Brendon must admit. But that alone is enough of an answer for him to drop it. Honestly, it’s kind of a first for him.
Ryan doesn’t really seem to know how to handle it, either. There’s two quick kisses, and then Ryan folds his tongue in his mouth in a way that only Brendon Urie would recognize as contemplation. Brendon can see the words as they dance around, but he actually manages to keep quiet for now.
“Yeah. Yeah, I did, actually.” Ryan shifts a bit and drags his thumb across his nose.
Oh, yeah, it’s really fucking cold out, isn’t it? Brendon remembers. “Hey- Do you wanna move inside my car? You’ve gotta be freezing right now.”
A smile breaks across Ryan’s face. “And you aren’t? It’s like, 40 degrees out man.”
“I didn’t even realise until just now. C’mon, I can meet you in the backseat.”
“Where’d you get my manners from?” Ryan teases as Brendon steps back from him. “Won’t you be a gentleman and get my door?”
Brendon rolls his eyes dramatically, and his hand is already touching the door when he says, “Fuck off.”
As expected, Ryan slides past him with a shit-eating grin. But he doesn’t just stop there, he slides all the way to the far side of the car, leaving room for Brendon to climb in after him. Brendon obliges, crawling in and shutting the door behind him.
The proximity is electric. Brendon is holding himself up over Ryan, who’s laying under him. For this moment, he feels like he did the last time they came out here so many moons ago. When they were different people entirely. Before they knew how things would end.
Brendon’s eyes meet Ryan’s dark ones, and he flashes his perfect upside-down smile for what very well might be the last time, and everything comes undone.
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