Ryden Oneshots

Hand On Your Arm

Title: hand on your arm
Author: jezzabe
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Brendon/Ryan, Jon/Spencer
Disclaimer: I own no one and nothing mentioned in this story. If you found this by googling your name, or the name of someone you know, do us all a favour and hit the back button. Please. 
Summary: An AU where Brendon is blind, interviewers are morons, and Pete is Pete. 
A/N: This happened after a dream i had in which Brendon was blind. It has to be said that the finished product bears no relation to my dream. Thanks to sinous_curve & shihadchick for the handholding and betas along the way. 

Brendon can remember playing hide and seek with his cousins when he was little. He sat on the couch in plain sight, confident that he wouldn’t be found. He was devastated when he was the first one tagged out, an older cousin poking painfully at his shoulder. 

"You're not hidden!" The boy said scornfully. 

"Yes I am! I can't see you, so you can't see me!" Brendon shot back, stung by the thought that there was a flaw in his idea. 

The cousin, like most children, wasn't very tactful. "If that was how it worked, no-one would be able to see you like, ever, freak," he snapped, leaving to find some better hidden playmates. 

Brendon sat on his mom’s plastic-covered sofa and bawled until his cousin was found and forced to apologise. It didn't fix anything though, and every time he was asked to play afterwards, he said no. 

No one could hurt him if he didn't let them. 

:: 

Brendon wakes up overheated, legs twisted in his sheets with his pillow a hard lump under his right ear. Brent grumbles quietly in the bunk above Brendon, the frame creaking as he rolls over and settles. Brendon scratches the back of his neck as he slides out of bed, carefully shuffling across the floor with practiced ease to keep from tripping and waking Brent up. 

Trailing his fingers gently along the wall, he counts the numbers of steps from his bunk to the kitchen. Spencer greets him when he wanders into the kitchen, voice still husky from sleep. He smells like sweat and sex, and Brendon wrinkles his nose. 

"You didn't shower after the show last night, did you?" Brendon asks as he flicks on the coffee maker. The sun is warm on his face, and he guesses it must be about ten in the morning. There's the familiar thrum of wheels turning under his feet, so they’re still on the way to the venue. He's so used to the constant movement that they live in now he's like a sailor when he gets back onto stationary ground. 

Spencer snorts as Brendon pulls out his coffee mug, running a finger around the inside to make sure there are no crusty bits in it. He always washes it, but tour lowers everyone's hygiene standards, and Brendon doesn't really enjoy drinking the dried bits of Ryan’s experimental cooking. "No, I didn't. We didn't have time, and I wanted to talk to Haley." 

"Yeah, or have phone sex with Haley," Brendon sniggers. He pours his coffee carefully; there have been accidents before, and he doesn't particularly enjoy the blistering sensation of boiling coffee spilling over his hands. 

"Shut up," Spencer says lazily and Brendon wrinkles his nose. It’s a pretty poor comeback, but it’s early still. 

The pervasive scent of vanilla and weed heralds Ryan’s arrival in the kitchen. "What's on the schedule today, anyway?" Ryan asks. He wraps a warm hand around the back of Brendon's neck, fingers gently massaging as he automatically steals Brendon's coffee. 

"Your mom," Spencer says absently. Ryan snorts into Brendon's coffee, but doesn’t respond. "We've got an interview. I can't remember who with. And then we're free until the show."