When he was younger, back when they were teenagers, Brendon would do anything to impress Ryan. Ryan was older, cooler, independent and sarcastic. He was everything Brendon wanted to be during his rebellious adolescence. It wasn’t until they where older, and closer as friends, that Brendon understood he’d impressed Ryan the moment they met. Brendon had be direct and care free, unguarded and unafraid to get hurt if it meant a small change at happiness. That was everything Ryan had wanted to be.
It had taken them a shockingly short amount of time to grow close, considering how protective and closed of Ryan was. Still Brendon learned to read him quickly, mostly out of necessity. They where both kicked out of their respective homes before they’d even graduated high school. Sharing a shit hole of an apartment in Las Vegas taught Brendon how to handle Ryan when he was upset or scared, hurt or confused. He’d learned what things what things would make him laugh, when it was okay to sit close, when hugs and snuggles would do the most.
This second sense of Ryan developed even more when the graduated and got the fuck out of Vegas. New York was cool, New York was wet and it was everything home hadn’t been. Their apartment was nicer, and Ryan was happier then Brendon had ever seen him. Brendon had been worried at first, that they’d drift apart when Ryan didn’t constantly need Brendon to keep him sane. But they had actually gotten closer, and Brendon had learned how to be around Ryan when he’s happy too. They’d both enrolled in college and Brendon had got a job at a publishing company.
It was about 3 months after the moved to New York that Brendon realized he was maybe a little bit in love with his best friend. Brendon had come home from work one day to find Ryan curled into a ball on the couch, his entire slender frame shaking. It was when Ryan looked up at him, pleading eyes wet with tears, and desperately held out his arms to Brendon, it was then that Brendon got it. It was as Brendon folded Ryan in against his chest, that he knew he would do anything in the world to get Ryan whatever the fuck he needed.
As it turned out, Ryan had gotten an drunken, angry phone call from his father. It cut him up for days, he had been a wreck. Brendon was there the whole time, there for snuggles when they where needed, or to sit quietly next to Ryan and say nothing at all. It was hard for him that week, trying to help Ryan the way he needed when all Brendon wanted to do was hold him and keep him safe forever.
It got easier as time went on, and they settled back together the way they always did. They made new friends, both from college and from work. The two of them got a dog, a beautiful little beagle puppy, who immediately stole Ryan’s heart. Brendon would have been jealous if Ryan didn’t look so utterly happy laying curled up with the little wriggly ball of fur.
All in all, Brendon couldn’t ask for a better life. He had Ryan, in some sense anyway (because living without Ryan in any form wouldn’t really be living at all to him), he had Hobo, he had a scholarship for school and a job he liked. Coming from where he had, he couldn’t imagine a better place too be.
* * *
It’s late November when they get the next phone call. Phone calls from home are never good, and Brendon resigns himself to walking on broke glass for the rest of the night the moment he sees the Las Vegas area code.
He isn’t, however, prepared for the look on Ryan’s face when he walks into the living room where Brendon is sitting, writing a paper for his English Lit class. He glances up quickly when he hears the foot steps on the soft carpet and his heart nearly shatters. Ryan’s posture is stiff, so ridged it looks like he might snap in half. His hands are clenched tightly at his side, his face is impassive.
But Brendon knows how to read him, and it’s his eyes that nearly rip Brendon apart. There’s a pain in Ryan’s eyes that makes it hard for Brendon to breath. It feels suddenly, absurdly, like Brendon is actually physically feeling the pain he can see in Ryan’s eyes.
“...Ry?” It’s tentative, like just speaking might hurt Ryan.
And for a second, he thinks that maybe it fucking does because Ryan just crumples, his entire body giving out as he collapses in a wave of sobs. Brendon only manages to spring off the couch in time to catch him before he hits the floor painfully. They ended up in a tangle of limbs in the middle of their living room, but Brendon doesn’t notice or care as he clutches Ryan’s shaking body as close to him as is physically possible. His mind scrabbles frantically to keep up with everything, but he can’t do anything but whispered softly in Ryan’s ear. The older man’s fingers are curled tightly into Brendon’s hair and tshirt, clutching to him like Brendon’s the only thing tying him to reality.
Ryan’s ragged sobs attracted Hobo’s attention and she comes scampering into the living room. She sniffs at them, whimpering slightly like she can tell that something’s wrong. Her distress seems to be enough to pull him back to himself though, and Ryan rolls over in Brendon’s arms so he can sooth her. He doesn’t pull away from Brendon though, so Brendon holds on. He’s not 100% sure he could let go anyway.
“What... Ry, what’s up?” Brendon asks cautiously,
Ryan takes a deep, shuddering breath, pushing back into Brendon’s arms. The younger man’s not sure if Ryan knows he’s doing it, but he tightens his arms around Ryan’s waist none the less.
“My dad...” Ryan’s voice is faint, watery, and it makes Hobo whimper again. Brendon thinks the puppy is doing a pretty good imitation of how he himself feels. Ryan reaches out, pulling Hobo gently to his chest. He seems to draw strength from the dog, because his voice is a little bit stronger when he speaks again. “He just said some stuff. Bad stuff.”
Brendon fights to keep his voice even as he asks “What kinda stuff?”
Ryan’s laugh is bitter, and it maybe breaks Brendon’s heart a little bit more. “Just the usual. I’m a failure, I’m not worth it, no one could possibly ever want to love me.”
Brendon’s blood boils and he has to bite his tongue, hard, to stop the words from flowing out of him before he can control them. “Bull. Shit.” he manages to grit out. Ryan sighs, his whole body suddenly going limp in Brendon’s arms, melting in and falling back against him.
“I figured you’d say something like that.”
His voice is quiet, tired, and Brendon doesn’t know how to react. He’s laying in the middle of his apartment floor with an arm full of upset, snugly, pliant Ryan and all the time he’s spent playing this game hasn’t prepared him for this. The words are on the tip of his tongue, and he has to make a serious effort to hold them back. But Ryan speaks first.
“I love you, you know...”
It takes Brendon a minute process the words, because he gets distracted by Ryan’s tone. He sounds resigned, like he’s already been hurt so much that it’s not worth trying to fight back honesty in order to try and protect himself from more pain. It almost kills Brendon.
But then the words catch up to him, and wait, what?
“You do?”
Ryan hums an affirmative in the back of his throat. “Uh huh. Have for a while...”
Brendon’s still having problems processing this, because, fuck, Ryan’s in love with him and how did he not notices this? “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Ryan half shrugs, arms still curled around their puppy. “No one could ever love me.”
Brendon can’t breath, can’t breath at all. He moves forward, burying his face in Ryan’s neck, feeling the soft hairs there, and that really shouldn’t help, but it does, it really does. His arms tighten around Ryan’s waist again, and he moves his head forward slightly to whisper in Ryan’s ear “No one is ever gonna love you more than I do.”
Brendon doesn’t know what to expect, but Ryan smiles, and leans back into him pressing their bodies together back to front. Maybe, he thinks, maybe he’s okay with that. His hand moves from Ryan’s waist, slipping down his arm so their fingers lace together on top of Hobo’s small chest. Maybe he’s okay with not knowing.