"No way!" Emily shouts through the phone, and Brendon is smiling brightly from ear to ear. "I'm so happy for you. Did you guys pick a date yet? Are you planning a big wedding?"
"We said we'd do it today, but he got called into work. So we were thinking this weekend. And no, we're not having a big wedding. Just a few people and maybe a small party afterward. I'm not totally sure yet." Brendon replies, staring at the silver band on his finger. He hasn't been able to take his eyes off of it for more than five minutes all day. "Do you think you'd be able to make it here this weekend? I'd really like for you to be there."
"I can try. If not, then I'm really sorry and I'll make it up to you."
"Just let me know. If you need a ride, I'm sure I could come -" Brendon pauses when he hears a knock on the door. It was slow, four soft knocks on the wood. "Hey, let me call you back. I think someone's here."
"Okay, I'll talk to you later."
Brendon and Emily say bye and Brendon sets his phone on the kitchen counter and makes his way to the front door.
He peeks through the peephole on the door and his eyebrows furrow at the hooded figure standing there, their back to the door and a beige purse hanging off of their shoulder.
Brendon opens the door slowly.
"Can I help you?" He asks, and the woman turns around, her brown eyes widened and her mouth agape. "What the fuck." He says, his heart pounding loudly in his chest.
"You look so grown up," she says, tears in her eyes, a few rolling down her cheeks. She reaches out with her right hand and places it softly on Brendon's left cheek. "oh, Brendon."
Brendon moves away from her touch and she retracts her arm back, a saddened expression taking over her features.
She looks older too, Brendon thinks, and maybe it's just from old age or maybe it's from the stress and worrying about where her sons been for the past almost three years. She even looks older than she did when he made the mistake of going back home just a few months ago.
"Can I come in?" She asks softly. Brendon says nothing. He steps to the side and opens the door for her to come in. "This is nice," she says approvingly, looking around at the small amount of photos on the wall. "you don't live alone then?" She asks, her eyes landing on the photo of Brendon and Ryan that was taken years ago at Ryan's old house.
"How'd you find me?" Brendon asks, because that's the only important question right now. Nothing else matters.
"I had to search for you online," she sounds upset and disappointed. Brendon is trying not to look at her. "there's a website, it's called people finder. A friend told me about it so I thought I'd try it. I typed your name in the search bar and I think it took about ten minutes for me to bring myself to actually press the search button."
Brendon's mom takes a seat on the couch, picking up the photo of Ryan and Mollie from the side table. She only looks at it for a few seconds before setting it back down. Brendon stays near the door, his arms folded over his chest and his eyes looking everywhere else but at her.
"There's a lot more Brendon Urie's in the world than I thought, but thankfully it shows an age next to the name. You're the only Brendon Urie who is eighteen years old. Clicked your name and your drivers license showed up on the screen with your address. Took my a week to build up the courage to come here. Half an hour to start the car. But here I am."
"Did you need something?" Brendon asks, his voice angry and icy.
"Brendon, I just wanted to see you." She stands up and slowly steps toward Brendon who's trying not to cry. "I had no idea what happened to you when you were gone for that month. I was so worried about you."
Brendon shook his head and held back a laugh.
"Okay, seriously. What are you doing here?" Brendon looked her in the eye and threw his arms up, letting them them fall to his sides. His mother's eyes followed his left hand.
"Are you married?" She asks, stepping closer and reaching for his hand. Brendon takes a step back. "You got married and you didn't bother to tell me?"
The hurt in her voice is genuine and her eyes are glistening once more with tears.
"No, I'm not married. Not yet anyway." Brendon replies, and his mom wipes her eyes again. "And when I do get married, don't count on being there." He walks to the door and opens it, holding it open and staring at the floor.
"Honey, I -"
"Leave."
"Brendon, please don't do this. I'm sorry for everything. I should have accepted you for who you are, I just didn't want you to ruin your life."
Brendon full on laughs at her and slams the door. She jumps and takes a step back.
"You didn't want to ruin your life. Your reputation in the town. You and dad were all about being perfect and having the perfect family, you didn't care about shit. You certainly didn't care about me. How are Olivia and Evan? The only two kids you did care about. I bet they don't even give a shit that I haven't been around. And dad," Brendon laughs again, despite the tears on his cheeks. "I hate him. He made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. Was that the plan all along? When I turned eighteen, you guys were just gonna kick me out anyway?"
"Brendon, your dad was just upset. He loves you and he misses you. You just need to give him some time. With you being gone for so long, it's really done some damage to us."
"Were you homeless for half a year?" Brendon asks and his tears are still spilling from his eyes. "Did you have a place to sleep and eat and shower? Even brush your teeth? I didn't. I slept in parks for six months, saving every single check I earned from working part time at a pet store. So I don't wanna hear that you guys are damaged over me leaving. That's bullshit." Brendon's mother stares at him in shock. She had no idea. Of course she wouldn't.
She takes a cautious step forward, trying to reach her hand out to her son. Brendon shook his head and stepped back.
"I'm sorry Brendon, I wish I could take it all back and help you."
"Help me with what?" He asks in a demanding tone, his brows furrowed. "With being gay? Would you have tried to send me off to a conversion camp to fix me?"
The front door opens and Ryan walks in, slowly and now nervous because Brendon's mom is standing in his living room.
"Hello." He says, closing the front door. "Bren, you okay?"
Brendon only nods his head and wipes his cheeks.
"Are you Ryan?" She asks, and Ryan nods his head. Brendon's mom huffs and shakes her head, a disappointed expression on her face. "Are you the one who took my baby from me?"
"Jesus Christ, no one took me from anyone!" Brendon shouts, face red with anger. "I left willingly! If you don't remember, I've tried running away before! He just so happened to be there when I was hitchhiking. So don't go accusing him of anything because he did nothing wrong!"
"Hey," Ryan moves closer to his fiance and wraps his arms around him. "calm down. You're fine, just calm down." Ryan whispers into Brendon's ear, gently petting his hair.
Brendon takes in a shaky breath and buries his head into Ryan's neck.
"How old are you?" Brendon's mom asks.
"I'm twenty seven," Ryan glares at her and if looks could kill, he'd be the one dead on the floor.
"Disgusting," she says under her breathe. "Do you know how much trouble you could get in?"
Brendon untangles himself from Ryan and gets in his mother's face.
"Get out," he growls, eyes burning with anger. "Get out of our house and don't ever come back."
Ryan puts his hands on Brendon's shoulders and pulls him back.
"Look," Ryan says, standing where he just pulled Brendon from. "Grace is it? Brendon is an adult. He can do whatever he wants and no one can tell him any different. I'll admit that I helped him leave, but the only reason I did that was because he told me he was eighteen when we met. My hand to God. If I had known he was lying about his age at the time, I wouldn't have helped."
Ryan was telling the truth, but Grace didn't seem to believe him.
"It's still illegal to pick up hitchhikers," she says sourly.
"Well it's in the past. Just let it go. Brendon had his reasons for leaving and I can't say I blame him."
"Were you sleeping with him?" She averts her gaze to Brendon, and his eyes widen.
"I'm not talking to you about my sexual life," Brendon says, and he knows that just him being gay is enough to disgust her, let alone her having a visual of him in the act with another man. "but yes. I was, and I still am. I lied to him about my age and when he found out, I left. We only just met again a few months ago and no one is taking him from me. You need to leave."
Brendon opens the front door and Grace walks out into the hallway, turning around to face Brendon one more time."
"Brendon, I'm -" The door gets slammed in her face, and Brendon locks the deadbolt faster than he ever has before.
"What the fuck?" Ryan asks, letting out a breath he was holding. "How the fuck did she know where you were?"
"The internet," Brendon says as he walks to the kitchen. "Guess there's a website that helps you find someone you're looking for. I'll never be able to hide from them. They'll always know where I live." Brendon opens the cabinet where all of Ryan's alcohol is and he grabs the bottle of whiskey, Ryan's favorite kind, and he twists the cap off, letting it fall to the floor, and he takes a swig of it. His face scrunches at the taste and burn in his throat.
"Babe," Ryan takes the bottle from him and sets it on the counter. He pulls Brendon into his arms and Brendon sobs against Ryan's chest. "You're okay baby. We can move, okay? I'll find us a nice house somewhere and we can live there for the rest of our lives. If any of them find out where we live, we can just get restraining orders. If we run every time they find you, then they're the ones in control and calling the shots. We can't let them win. And besides, they don't know my last name, so when we get married and you change your name, they can't find you anymore."
"I'm sure I'll still show up if they search my name. Even with a different last name."
Ryan sighs, feeling defeated, and he kisses Brendon's forehead.
"Let's go lie down," Ryan takes Brendon's hand and guides him to their bedroom, leaving the opened whiskey bottle on top of the counter.
They get in bed and Ryan holds Brendon close to him, hoping to calm him down some more.
-
"We can't buy a house," Brendon retorts, feeling beyond frustrated at Ryan. "I can't get a loan. I'm too young. And still, neither one of us can afford it right now. Our best bet is to rent something for now."
Ryan groans, throwing his head back on the couch.
"Brendon. If you'd just listen to me -"
"I am! You wanna buy a house. I don't think that's a good idea. Would you even be able to get a loan for it? How would be pay the mortgage? I'm just trying to -"
"I still have the money from selling my house," Ryan interrupts, and Brendon closes his mouth. "I put it in a savings account and it's been building interest. Almost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Tell you what?" Ryan asks, furrowing his brows.
"That you had that much money."
"It's for buying a house. Nothing else."
"I'm not stupid, I know that. Still, it'd have been nice to know."
Ryan sighs and rolls his eyes.
"Now you know. There's no reason to get pissed off about it." Ryan says.
"Are you hiding anything else from me?" Brendon accuses, and Ryan laughs.
"I wasn't hiding anything from you to begin with."
"You were! How do you not tell the person you're going to marry that you have a savings account with a shit ton of money in it?"
"I already planned on buying a house!" Ryan shouts, getting to his feet. "It was supposed to be a fucking surprise, but thanks to your mom, it's not anymore. I'm not hiding anything from you Bren, but thanks for thinking so low of me."
"Ryan -"
"Now you know how much there is for a house," Ryan says, picking up his keys from the coffee table. "Find something you like and we'll look at it. I'm going to get dinner."
Brendon stares after Ryan as he walks out the door and he sighs to himself, feeling ignorant for acting so immature.
He opens up Ryan's laptop and starts searching for a house for them.
-
After dinner, which was Chinese take out, Ryan gets up from the dining room table, putting his left overs in the refrigerator and he heads to the bathroom to shower. Brendon is sitting alone at the table, picking at his food. He's only taken a few small bites in the last half an hour.
He puts his container on top of Ryan's in the refrigerator and he turns off all the lights and goes into the bedroom where he puts on a pair of sweatpants and a gray t-shirt. Brendon climbs on bed, picking up Ryan's laptop and opening it. The screen lights up and Brendon types in the pass code.
While Ryan was getting dinner, Brendon found a house that he felt kept calling his name. He still looked at a ton of other options, but this one stood out to him.
Brendon lied in bed with the laptop in front of him, waiting for Ryan to get out of the shower.
Ten minutes later, Ryan appears in the bedroom, a pair of boxer briefs on and he's toweling his hair.
"Hey," Brendon says quietly. He feels like an idiot for overreacting earlier about the money.
"Hi." Just when Brendon feels like Ryan isn't in the mood to talk to him, Ryan says, "did you find anything?"
Ryan tosses the towel into the hamper and he picks up his phone from the top of the dresser and plugs it into the charger, then joining Brendon on the bed, but only sitting on the side and keeping his back to Brendon.
"Yeah. Do you wanna look?" Brendon asks, sitting up a little more and pressing a key on the laptop to make the screen light up.
Ryan turns and sits up by the pillows next to Brendon.
Brendon turns the laptop toward Ryan so he can see the screen a little better, and then he rests his head on Ryan's shoulder after lightly pressing a kiss to his bare skin.
"It's got three bedrooms," Brendon says softly as Ryan moves his finger on the touch pad. "the master bedroom has a bathroom, and there's a basement. The houses around it are all spread out, so there's a lot of room in the front and back yard. We could have a garden or something."
Ryan hums and continues looking at the pictures.
It's a really nice house.
Beige walls in the living room, dark red walls in the dining room, hardwood floors in every room. The kitchen is Brendon's favorite. There's an island counter in the middle and still a lot of room. The counter tops are white marble. The counters are a dark wooden color.
The master bathroom has both a stand up shower and a jacuzzi tub. White tiled walls and light blue tiled flooring. There are two sinks, one big mirror covering the wall, and Brendon instantly visualized himself and Ryan standing in front of it, both of them fresh out of the shower, or the tub, brushing their teeth and smiling at each other in the mirror.
"I was thinking we could paint the master bedroom. Like have an accent wall or something. And the other two bedrooms we could set up like guest rooms or. I don't know." Ryan hums again and Brendon wants to give up on talking anymore. "Do you want kids?" Brendon suddenly asks, catching Ryan's attention quickly.
"What?" Ryan looks over at Brendon just as he lifts his head from Ryan's shoulder.
"Do you want kids." Brendon repeats, and Ryan looks blown away.
"Um," he looks back at the computer, still scrolling through photos but not paying any attention to them. "Do you?"
"I don't know, I'm only eighteen."
"Why are you asking?"
"Because you're nine years older than me. I'm sure you envisioned yourself having a family by now. Married, kids, in a house like this maybe," Brendon says, pointing at the laptop. "I want you to be happy and I don't want you to feel like you can't have kids if you want them because of me."
"Bren, I don't even. I don't know what to say." Ryan feels dumbfounded. The last thing on his mind right now was having kids. He's been more focused on marrying Brendon and spending time with him, making him happy, and protecting him. He never put kids into that equation.
But now that Brendon brought it up, he's starting to rethink things.
He's going to be twenty eight this year. Brendon will only be nineteen in a couple months. If Ryan plans on having kids, he doesn't want them when he's in his late thirties. He would want them now. But Brendon's still young and if they had kids, then Brendon would have to forget about anything he wants to do and help Ryan take care of their kids.
"I just want you to know that I love you and no matter what you wanna do, kids or no kids, I'll always be by your side. I want whatever you want." Brendon leans into Ryan and sighs against Ryan's neck.
"You would want a kid right now?" Ryan asks, and Brendon shrugs.
"How hard could it be?" Brendon asks, and Ryan can't help but laugh. "If you wanna have a kid right now, I'm all for it. I don't want you to miss out on something because of me."
"And I don't want you to miss out on being young because of me." Ryan replies.
"How about we don't think about it right now? Let's get married and get a house first before we decide on anything."
Ryan agrees and he runs his forefinger over the touch pad again.
He puts in a request to view the house and closes the laptop, placing it on the floor and under the bed.
"I'm sorry about earlier," Brendon says when they lie down. "I know I was being stupid about it. I just felt left out. If that makes sense."
"Let's just sleep," Ryan says, not wanting to talk about a fight anymore.
He pulls Brendon closer to him and Brendon pulls the comforter up and snuggles against Ryan.
"I love you," Ryan says, leaning in and kissing Brendon's lips.
"I love you more," Brendon kisses back and then lies his head down on Ryan's chest.
---
Maybe I'll just keep it going, idk