Ryden Oneshots

Oranges

He hears something of a chuckle from Ryan—the kind he only ever lets sound when he thinks he’s alone and unheard—and silently curses his imagination, but apparently Ryan’s convinced he’s blushing in his sleep because he doesn’t poke him and say ‘quit faking it, you ass’. Ryan’s voice in Brendon’s mind is warmer and nicer than Ryan’s voice in reality, and Brendon kind of wishes he could make dream-Ryan love him, because then at least he’d have some version of Ryan to himself.

Brendon’s jolted from the hazy images of Ryan in his mind when real-Ryan is getting up, or at least what Brendon thinks getting up sounds like. He expects Ryan to walk out and leave him to his love affair with dream-Ryan, but the sounds of movement stop and Brendon waits with shallow breath to hear the footsteps fading away. Instead, he feels the soft whoosh of warm air tickle his cheek, and he think it rather feels like someone breathing and oh.

Brendon stops breathing because he’s fifty percent sure Ryan is literally inches from his face, and fifty percent sure he’s finally slipped into a dream because Ryan would not have any reason to get this close, and Brendon figures if you stop breathing in dreams, it doesn’t matter. When his chest starts to hurt, Brendon starts breathing again because this means really fucking close Ryan is real, and he doesn’t want anything fucking up this moment because Ryan’s breath had shifted from his teeth to his lips and if Brendon’s brain is working right, that means he's two seconds away from being—bzzzzz.

Totally, completely fucked. Brendon’s eyes jump open and Ryan is rushing away from him faster than he can even see, and his hands fumble awkwardly for his phone, his motherfucking evil phone that is trapped between two layers of denim and won’t shut up. He glances for a second at the screen to know who, exactly, he has to kill later for fucking this up, and then his eyes dart to Ryan and startle him another few inches back into the side of the bus.

Ryan is the epitome of a deer that’s about to be hit by a truck, or better yet, a freight train. Brendon only realizes he’s the train when he lifts his hand half a foot and Ryan jerks back like he’s just been shocked. Brendon stares without moving, his hand frozen limply in mid-air, terrified to move or breathe or blink because the second Ryan leaves this bus, this moment shatters and Brendon knows he’ll never get another chance to bring it up.

When the staring does nothing more than keep them both exactly where they are, Brendon moves his hand slowly down as something of a warning and stutters with parched breath, “Um—” Ryan seems to shake at the word, but his fists clench the edge of the seat and he turns himself to stone. “That was—You were just—” when Brendon realizes he has no idea what Ryan was actually doing, because Ryan wouldn’t kiss him, he just wouldn’t, he changes course and asks flatly “What were you doing?”

Ryan stares for one moment, blushes faintly in the next, and sputters around monosyllabic speech for awhile before getting out “Nothing—Just, I mean—It’s not. I wasn’t—I don’t—Nothing. Right.” He stands up too fast and sways for a moment before stalking off toward the front of the bus, and Brendon doesn’t even know where that desperate gasp of “no” comes from but he’s thankful for it, because it’s just strong enough to stop Ryan in his tracks, one hand clutching the metal bar at the front of the bus with white knuckles, like it was the only thing keeping him upright. Brendon thinks it probably is.

“Don’t.” Brendon hopes it’s enough of an explanation as he stands up and takes a few tentative steps toward Ryan. Brendon thinks he looks tiny and skittish, which is something he usually only thinks about himself, and his eyes dart up to meet Ryan’s gaze without meaning to. Brendon feels his throat burn when he sees the fear there, trapped behind a piercing brown with streaks of hazel, and he wonders how any more raspy words make it out because he certainly doesn’t think he’s capable of speech right now, not when Ryan’s here and three moments ago was there, about to— “You were going to kiss me.”

“I—” Ryan croaks out and swivels for the door, but Brendon gets his hand around Ryan’s arm and pulls him back with every ounce of strength he has, nearly tumbling forward in the process because Brendon is very, very small and Ryan is not. Brendon looks up and their faces are way closer, and his breath hitches because he doesn’t know if he’s ever seen Ryan this close before, or if he ever will again.

Ryan’s eyes are glassy and wide, terrified of him, of Brendon, and Brendon doesn’t think anyone’s ever found him terrifying before. He doesn’t like it, and he’s trying to figure out how to fix it but his eyes wander to Ryan’s lips and that’s all it takes for his brain to stall, eyes stuck uselessly on the only thing he can think about right now.

It takes maybe a second longer for Ryan to register where Brendon’s looking, and maybe another second for his breath to stop, too, plunging them into complete silence and stopping time for just a fraction of a second.

Somewhere in that fraction of a second, Brendon decides the only way to get himself breathing again is by dipping his head forward those last few spaces and then Ryan.

They both sort of lull helplessly, motionless, lips pressed together but not moving yet, until Brendon remembers oh yeah, kissing and he starts breathing and moving his lips again. That thing beating in his chest decides to play hopscotch when his brain registers the he’s kissing me back part, and for a moment Brendon feels light headed and dizzy, so he reaches a hand around the back of Ryan’s head and rests it there, pulling only enough for him to feel it.

Ryan’s tongue barely touches the bottom of his lip and Brendon’s parting his lips and letting Ryan in, tongues playing against each other and lips pressed hard between their teeth and Brendon thinks Ryan tastes like oranges and vodka. Brendon feels a pair of hands, Ryan’s hands, burn marks into the side of his hips. He leans forward into the kiss, saying yes, yes repeatedly in his mind as Ryan’s tongue darts in circles around his, and it’s messy and hungry and absolutely everything and nothing like Brendon thought it would be, all those times he got caught up in Ryan’s gaze or stared at his mouth when he laughed and smiled and was too drunk to notice.

Brendon’s in the middle of trying to pinpoint the one area of his mouth Ryan’s taste hasn’t pervaded yet when there’s burning, dry, tasteless air rushing into his mouth and cold spots on the sides of his hips. His eyes dart open unwillingly and Ryan’s staring at him with the same eyes he had minutes ago, wide and terrified and screaming no, no, no just louder than the desperate yesspinning through Brendon’s mind.

His mouth doesn’t recall how to speak until Ryan’s disappeared completely from his sight, leaving an empty space in front of Brendon as the words “don’t go” tumble uselessly from his lips, reaching nothing but the dead air around him, fading into silence that fails to shut out the screeching protests in Brendon’s mind.

Brendon stands frozen there for the better part of five minutes until he can barely taste Ryan’s oranges and alcohol anymore, and he stumbles back to the couch, his entire body melting into the sticky leather as he glares at the chinese food sitting on the table across from him, desperate to cling to Ryan’s taste even though he knows it’s already gone.

His stomach wins over after a ten minute battle, and he tries to keep from choking on orange chicken as his body cries against his will, shivering in ninety degree weather as the memory of two hands, fitted perfectly around his hips, burns into his skin, just painful enough for Brendon to know it was real.