"Is that a compliment, or....?"
"You can take it in whatever way you want to, pal. Doesn't matter to me."
Brendon ran out of responses to use; he merely stayed silent until there was a change in conversation.
Now he was really beginning to wonder where Ryan was taking him. They'd been walking for quite some time, marching down the twists and turns of the abandoned streets. Nothing was open at this time of night, so where was Ryan going? Unless there was some kind of secret underground club that Brendon wasn't aware of, he couldn't even begin to imagine where this night owl was leading him.
"Just through here," Ryan said, more to himself than Brendon, as he approached an old plank resting against the back wall of a building. He pulled it away to reveal a small hole in the bricks, but definitely large enough to crawl through. This wasn't sketchy at all.
"You want me to crawl through that?" Brendon questioned. He was starting to think that following Ryan out here wasn't a smart idea after all. This guy was nuts.
But Ryan only shrugged, seeming unbothered by the fact that he wanted Brendon to fit through a hidden hole in the wall of a building. This was a normal thing for him, apparently. "Unless you wanna walk all the way back home by yourself. In the dark. Alone. In New Orleans. At night."
Sly bastard.
"I get it, I get it." Brendon rolled his eyes, crouching down to crawl through the hole in the wall. "I swear to God, Ross, if you're trying to get me murdered...."
"Oh, that's definitely my plan," Ryan shot back without a moment's hesitation. So he was witty, too. Brendon just couldn't find a reason to dislike him, no matter how hard he tried.
After Ryan followed suit and pulled the wooden plank back over the entrance, Brendon stood and brushed the dust off his slacks. He wasn't prepared to see the sight that flooded his vision once he glanced up.
A small dock jutted out from the sand underneath their feet and into the shoreline of the sparkling ocean. Waves delicately lapped against the wood, and the water that didn't reach the dock brushed up against the sand in gentle, ebbing tides. The moon loomed overhead, appearing much larger than it did in the streets, and it looked absolutely divine. Bright and white and casting a magnificent glow down upon them, it made the ocean glimmer. It illuminated the dock and the sand, and it made their skin shine like diamonds. The area was bijou, but it screamed serenity. Brendon was in love.
"Nice place, isn't it?" Ryan remarked, his voice soft as he stood at Brendon's side.
Brendon, on the other hand, could only nod in agreement, all his words having abandoned him. He was too in awe, too amazed at this wonderful little place to fabricate a proper sentence. Now he understood why Ryan was so eager to bring him here. It was absolutely breathtaking.
Ryan ambled toward the dock's edge, taking a seat and letting his legs dangle over the side. His feet were in danger of touching the water, but he didn't seem to care. He merely patted the spot next to him, and Brendon didn't hesitate to join him.
"Pop used to bring me here all the time when I was younger," Ryan said, his gaze locked on the never-ending ocean ahead of them. It looked gorgeous under the moonlight, and the gentle lapping of the waves was beginning to lull Brendon to sleep. "It was sort of our thing, I guess. Whenever he had the time, he'd bring me here, and we'd just talk. We'd sit and talk and eat and watch the ocean and talk about our dreams. Lame, I know, but it was the coolest thing when I was a kid." He turned his gaze to Brendon now, his eyes suddenly warm and subdued. "Did you ever do anything like that with your folks?"
YOU ARE READING
Mad as Jazzmen |1930s Ryden AU| ✔️
Fanfiction"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing." * * * The Great Depression was, by far, one of the worst tragedies in the history of the world. People drowned in debt. Banks were ruined. The stock market was broken and unreliable. But one...
