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In the end it's all because of Brendon's pants, and probably not in the way you'd think.
Ryan catches Brendon after a show, when Spencer's in the shower and Jon's wandered off to chat with a tech, and says, "So you need different pants."
Brendon laughs, still high from the crowd, and says, "Hey, who made you the fashion police?"
"I have always been the fashion police," says Ryan, deadpan. "And your pants are falling off. It's getting kind of ridiculous."
"Oh, whatever. They're fine, honestly," says Brendon.
"At least pull them up, god. Do you really want to give every creepy fangirl ever an eyeful of your ass?"
"Well, if it makes them happy -"
Ryan rolls his eyes, steps into Brendon's space, grabs at the waistband of his pants, and gives one good, hard tug. Just as he expects, the jeans instantly slide down and bunch up around Brendon's knees. They're too tight to fall all the way to his ankles. "See?" says Ryan. "That's just precarious, Brendon."
Brendon looks at him for one long moment and then cracks up hard. "Oh my god," he crows. "Oh my fucking god, so you pants me? Ryan, Ryan, Ryan Ross, you are so weird."
Ryan raises an eyebrow. "We've known each other how long?"
"No, but," Brendon's giggling still, "some days it hits me all over again how amazingly, wonderfully weird you are."
"You're the guy standing there with his jeans around his knees," says Ryan. "Wearing orange boxers. Orange, by the way, is a shitty color on you."
"Whatever," says Brendon. "Anyway. You better get on with it."
Ryan blinks. "Get on with what?"
Brendon smirks at him, folding his arms. He looks really, really stupid with his jeans around his knees. "You pantsed me, Ross. Now you have to unpants me." He pauses. "Uh. I didn't mean that quite like it sounded. You pulled them down, you pull them up again. That's just fair play."
"I don't think so," says Ryan.
"Okay, but the alternative is I get to pants you," says Brendon, and lunges for Ryan's belt.
Ryan fends his hands off easily. "Stop - stop that! - oh my god, no you can't - Fine, fine!"
Brendon grins at him, shuffles back - he can't really walk properly with the fabric bunched around his knees - and waits.
Ryan tries not to be weird - well, weird about pulling another guy's pants up, he's prepared to admit it's a little weird, but whatever, it's not like they're not all in each other's space all the time. Ryan fell asleep with his head pillowed in Spencer's crotch the other evening and Spencer just made faces at him for drooling on his thigh. But Brendon's just standing there, and Ryan's right up close and personal, and it is kind of awkward. Plus, Ryan is struck all over again by how truly dreadful the orange boxers are. The color's worse close up.
He looks up to say, "Orange? Seriously?"
But instead he's caught out by Brendon staring at him, and his lip is tucked under his teeth on one side, he's chewing on it like he does when he's not thinking, distracted, and Ryan's looking up at him for once because he had to bend down to get at Brendon's pants in the first place.
They stare at each other. Ryan's oddly conscious of how he'd just have to move his hands a little bit and his fingers would be brushing the sides of Brendon's thighs.
Brendon gulps and giggles and says, "So, are we having a, a moment here?"
The tension breaks. Ryan snorts. "In your dreams," he says. "Tell you what, do up your own fucking pants." And he backs away.
Brendon hops a little and pulls his pants back up. Ryan rolls his eyes, because guys' jeans should not involve jumping and wiggling. But then, that sort of proves Brendon's point, not Ryan's, so he doesn't say anything. Brendon has to redo his belt, and Ryan tries not to watch, because that's probably in the realm of 'weird' again. Then Brendon grins and waggles his eyebrows - honestly, there's nothing sexy about that kid, seriously, Ryan doesn't know what all the girls are screaming about - and says, "If you wanted to get me out of my jeans, Ross, all you had to do was ask." His voice is kind of low and scratchy.
Okay. Maybe Ryan has some idea what they're screaming about.
But he manages to roll his eyes and laugh it off and then cleverly distracts Brendon by mentioning he's got the latest Gogol Bordello album on his iPod.
The issue - what the fuck, there's no issue, it's not an issue, whatever - doesn't come up again until a few days later when Brendon wanders in while Ryan is watching The Black Parade Is Dead on the bus TV. (Whatever, shut up, My Chemical Romance is not the kind of band you get over. It's actually still one of Ryan's fondest fanboy dreams to have an honest-to-god conversation with Gerard Way. And maybe to be his best friend a little bit. It worked with Pete, didn't it?)
"Ooh," says Brendon. "Is this a private party? Should I leave you alone?"
"Shut the fuck up," says Ryan. "Come here."
Brendon collapses onto the couch beside Ryan just as TV-Gerard passes his pink feather boa into the audience. "Too bad he didn't wear it," he comments, and then goes quiet as the band goes into "Mama". That lasts all of ten seconds and then Brendon's tapping his hand against the back of the sofa, humming along, and slumping sideways so his head's half in Ryan's lap. Ryan grins down at him. Brendon laughs around the words, we're all full of lies we're meant for the flies, and then breaks off and says, "So, hey, I hear My Chemical Romance makes you dance?"
Ryan just looks pointedly at where Brendon's now got one foot hooked over the back of the sofa and is tapping out the beat with the song.
"Oh, whatever," says Brendon. "I am totally allowed to make fun of you being fifteen and hilarious. Hey, you know what, we should cover one of their songs. The fans would go crazy for it." He mouths the words as Gerard-on-the-screen sings them, you should have raised a baby girl I should have been a better son and then grimaces and adds, "Not this one, though."
"I hate to break it to you," says Ryan, "but neither of us is Ray Toro."
"Spoilsport," says Brendon. One of his hands comes up to brush the side of Ryan's face. "I could be Ray Toro. You could be Ray Toro. You could grow your hair out for me, curls everywhere. I swear, it's like you don't love me at all."
Ryan blinks and says, "Are you flirting with me?"
He sees the disappointment flash across Brendon's face fast as lightning before Brendon snickers and says, "Dude, of course. You're just that special, I can't help it."
Ryan raises his eyebrows. Brendon manages to fling himself to his feet somehow - Brendon's ability to go from sprawled to standing in less than a second is one of life's great mysteries - and yells, "Hey, Ryan's special, right?"
Jon pokes his head around the door, and then comes to lean in the doorway, grinning. "Oh man, yes," he says. "Ryan is so special."
Ryan rolls his eyes hard, but honestly, he doesn't mind them making fun of him anymore. He used to, but life's been a lot better since he stopped caring so much about dignity or whatever. And Brendon flirting isn't new or anything. Brendon flirts with everyone. He flirts with Zack when he wants to stop for ice cream, he flirts with Spencer when he wants a turn on the drums, he flirts with Jon when no one else will play cards with him at three in the morning. He has even, in times of desperation, been known to flirt with girls, although it freaks Ryan out a little bit.
This is different, though. Ryan remembers when the flirting was the same as Brendon saying, Someone pay attention to me, someone love me. He's pretty much over that, which makes Ryan happy -- Brendon's so much happier now that he's not pretending to be happy -- but it means Ryan's not quite sure why Brendon was flirting. And he's not totally sure what the disappointed face was about.
Brendon gets distracted from making fun of Ryan almost immediately. That hasn't changed. Jon's playing guitar, so Brendon goes and gets Jon's bass to play around with, and after a minute Ryan pauses the video and says, "Wait, are you playing it like that? Play that again."
Jon plays something -- Ryan hates admitting that Jon's probably still better at guitar than he is -- and Ryan frowns, so Jon hands him the guitar and says, "Go ahead. Don't uh. Break anything." Ryan elbows him and tries the chords.
Brendon stops playing. "Ryan, you're not... You have to be closer to the bridge..." he says, and that's different, too, because there was a time when any kind of advice from Brendon made Ryan storm out of the room. Usually he retaliated by making Brendon sing everything seventy five times, with variations of, "Try it again, but maybe right this time," until Brendon was so angry he was almost in tears.
Now Ryan just shrugs and says, "My hand won't stretch like that."
"Sure it will, here," says Brendon, putting the bass down. He comes over and stands behind Ryan, wrapping his arms around so he can position Ryan's fingers better. "See?" he says. "You're doing it all funky. Who showed you this chord? Just put your hand here," he says, and his fingers press down over Ryan's.
Ryan shivers, and Brendon freezes.
Jon looks from one of them to the other and his eyebrows quirk a little bit, but he just says, "So, the song?"
"I - right!" says Brendon. "La la la. Song. We were messing around with -"
"No, I think this is something new now," says Ryan, looking over his shoulder at him. Brendon's watching Jon in a way that's kind of fixed, a way that suggests he might have been watching Ryan a moment ago. There's something - there's something -
Jon hums a few random notes and says, "Yeah, this is new. Come on, no one stop." He grins. "I'm in the zone now." He draws out the word long and slow, zoooooone. Ryan doesn't think he's stoned at all. He's just Jon. "Words?"
"Ask me later," says Ryan. "Music."
"I'll just -" says Brendon, making to stand up.
Ryan grabs for him, ends up getting his hand hooked in Brendon's belt, and says, "Oh no you don't."
Brendon still has this thing where he insists he's just not that creative. Ryan remembers it right from the very earliest days, when he'd started showing new stuff to Brendon first just because he knew that Brendon would be flatteringly big-eyed and impressed, knew that he'd mean it, that he'd say shit like I don't know how you do it, Ross, and mean you're so much better at this than I am. Ryan kind of needed that at the age of seventeen.
He doesn't anymore, though, and he knows perfectly well that Brendon's capable of writing some fucking excellent songs if you get the tone of encouragement just right, not too enthusiastic and not too dry either. And he's better at messing around with arrangements than either Ryan or Jon anyway. "Sit. We're writing," Ryan says, in a tone that means and don't argue.
Brendon laughs a little bit, murmurs, "Aye aye, Captain Ross." But he sits down where he is, close enough still that Ryan can feel his breath on the side of his neck.
Jon doesn't comment. Probably there's nothing to comment on. Ryan doesn't know why he feels like something's changed.
Brendon forgets to be self-conscious about it as soon as Ryan starts humming what he thinks might eventually be the tune. He must sing something flat, because Brendon gets his Oh, god, Ryan, can't you fucking hear? face on, and rolls his eyes. Ryan likes that face, although it tends to turn into an exasperated Just let me do it face if Ryan can't fix it.
Ryan used to worry about that a lot, about giving Brendon the tune and the words and wondering if he sounded awful singing backup, but now he just laughs and says, "Fine, you sing it." Brendon goes from eye-rolling to beaming and starts making up nonsense words, while Jon strums and Ryan follows along, and Ryan can almost hear what this song is going to be about. He's getting a picture.
Spencer comes by, eventually, looking sleepy and skeptical. Spencer always looks skeptical after he wakes up; usually it doesn't mean anything. After a minute he starts tapping a rhythm out against the wall, and Ryan grins at him, and Brendon bounces a little, laughing while he hums. He's close enough that when he bounces he almost knocks Ryan's hands away from the guitar, but Ryan's got a lot of experience with Brendon's unconstrained energy, so he just nudges Brendon with his knee.
"Okay, we're going to make that a real song," says Jon. "But first, I require snacks. Snacks and beer."
"I'll come with," says Brendon immediately, standing up, and then he turns around. "Want anything?" he asks. He probably doesn't need to be in Ryan's face to ask that, and he definitely doesn't need to flutter his eyelashes.
Ryan says, "You know what I like," and it's unintentionally flirty, but hey, Brendon started it.
"I do," Brendon assures him, winking, and makes a kissy-face.
He's probably joking.
Probably.
After he and Jon leave, though, Spencer raises an eyebrow and crosses his arms.
"What?" Ryan says.
Spencer just gives him a long look.
"What, it's nothing," says Ryan. He hesitates. "I mean, I'm pretty sure it's nothing."
Spencer raises his other eyebrow. Ryan spent a whole three weeks one time making faces at himself in the mirror, trying to figure out how it is that Spencer does that. "You're stupid," he says grumpily.
"You're stupid," Spencer replies, his voice affectionate and still sleep-rough. "You're stupid and your face is stupid and your hat is stupid."
Ryan lifts a hand defensively to his head before he remembers he's not actually wearing a hat at the moment. Spencer's mouth twitches.
"So I think he's flirting with me," Ryan says, except duh, Brendon was making kissy-faces a moment ago. "Well, like. More than usual? Or like, I don't know, like he means it?"
"He is," Spencer says. "You're encouraging him. I think that's pretty shitty of you." Ryan blinks, because his voice is neutral the way it only ever is when Spencer's serious. When they fight over little shit, unimportant shit, Spencer's as willing to snap and yell and blow up about things as any of them, but Ryan hasn't heard Spencer's even, unflinching, so you probably already know you're in the wrong but F.Y.I. tone in... quite a while.
"What the hell?" he says. "What did I do?"
Spencer rolls his eyes. "Just, you know, whatever."
"Okay, what the fuck," Ryan says, increasingly bewildered - not least because normally 'just, you know, whatever' would be more than enough to let him know what Spencer's going on about. "Once more with feeling, please. And in English."
"Well, I mean..." Spencer pauses and shrugs. "He already got over you once, you know? So give him a break."
Ryan feels his jaw drop. He says, "What?"
Spencer stares at him for a long moment, and then he walks over and sits down next to Ryan, where Brendon was a moment ago. He slings his arm around Ryan's shoulders and tugs him in close. "You know what? You can't be my best friend anymore," he says. "You're too dumb."
"I -" says Ryan, "wait, when?"
"Well, I don't know exactly," Spencer says. "Back on - how do you not know this, Ry, seriously - back on Circus, definitely, he had it bad -"
"Had it bad," mimics Ryan, because when he's making fun of Spencer he's not, oh, radically reconsidering every memory he has of that tour. Spencer punches him on the shoulder.
"Shut it, you know what I mean. And then, huh. There was that thing with Shane at the cabin -" Ryan blinks - "and then whatshername, with the bad hair -" Ryan remembers whatshername, "and then there was the thing with Cash." Ryan blinks again; apparently he's been missing half of Brendon's love life. "And I guess I thought he was over you," Spencer finishes. "But if he's not then you shouldn't be messing with him."
Ryan thinks about Brendon on Nothing Rhymes With Circus, the staged almost-kisses and the manic cheerfulness and the days when he and Ryan could barely stand to be in the same room, too much personality in one place, too many issues. "It's a good thing he didn't say anything then," he murmurs. His younger self would have said no at once, but Ryan knows he wouldn't have let it drop. He can see himself the way he used to be, needling, mocking, using everything he could think of with everyone he met to get control, and... and mostly he doesn't know how the hell Brendon could have fallen for that guy. He doesn't know how anyone ever fell for that guy, a guy Ryan didn't like very much even when he was busy being him.
Spencer elbows him in the ribs, startling him out of his reverie. "You weren't that bad, jerkface," he says. "You were still my best friend."
"Don't do that. It's creepy," says Ryan.
Spencer smirks at him. "Don't knock my Jedi mind powers, Ross. So what are you thinking now?"
Ryan stares at the TV so he doesn't have to meet Spencer's eyes. The paused DVD has switched itself off, and the screen is blank blue, electric. "What if I'm not messing with him?" Ryan says.
"Seriously?" says Spencer after a pause.
Ryan leans into him. "I don't know, Spence. I - maybe?"
Spencer rubs the side of Ryan's neck and says quietly, "If you aren't messing with him, then don't mess with him."
It seems, Ryan thinks, like good advice.
It's going to be easier said than done, though. Brendon flirts effortlessly because he is always flirting. They've always been a touchy band, and Spencer and Ryan have never had any personal space with each other, and then there was Brendon who didn't even understand the concept, and Jon fit in so well with them that Ryan hasn't stepped back and thought about it in a year at least. But it's different, he realizes, thinking back. Brendon sits on Jon's lap and demands hugs from Spencer, but he doesn't bat his eyes at them. He doesn't crawl into their bunks and demand bedtime stories about clowns that eat souls. He's been flirting with Ryan, and apparently he meant it, and Ryan... Ryan wants to flirt back.
He worries that it'll be awkward, because he has historically been bad at flirting.
But then Brendon throws himself on the couch and hands Ryan a beer. "All for you," he says, with a little wink -- god, he is so cheesy -- and Ryan hears himself say, "All for me?" automatically. His voice is a little deeper than usual, and he sees something flicker across Brendon's face. So he knows how to flirt with Brendon, at least, if the rising pink on Brendon's cheeks is any indication. Brendon stares for a second and then laughs. He gives Ryan a ridiculous, sunny smile and shrugs, but he wiggles a little closer on the couch.
"Jon," says Spencer. "Come get coffee with me."
"But beer!" Jon protests, holding up his can.
Spencer rolls his eyes. He doesn't even bother to argue, just grabs Jon's hand and pulls him off the bus.
Ryan's grateful, but he also didn't really expect to have to deal with this right now. "Weird," says Brendon, looking after them. "I thought we were writing." He pouts. "Oh well. You gonna put the DVD on?"
"No," Ryan hears himself saying. He has a weird surge of adrenaline, and he thinks, I'm going to do this. I'm actually going to do this.
"What do you mean, no? What kind of answer is that?" says Brendon, throwing his beer around a little. He glares suspiciously. "Are they planning a surprise birthday party for me? Is this another prank war? Are you messing with me?"
Ryan bursts out laughing. "Spencer says I shouldn't," he says, and leans over and kisses Brendon.
Brendon makes a soft surprised noise - no, not surprised, Ryan thinks, stunned - but kisses back at once. He doesn't kiss the way Ryan would have expected him to; the press of their mouths is dry, careful, slow. After a moment Ryan breaks away and says, "Is something wrong?"
"No," says Brendon. "No, definitely not, nothing wrong, I -" He hesitates, and then turns around and sets his beer carefully on the floor before he leans over and snatches another kiss. His mouth is quick and soft against Ryan's, and there's a slight scrape of stubble against his cheek. "Nothing wrong at all," Brendon says, smiling wide and only a little uncertain.
"That's good," says Ryan. He puts his hand on Brendon's shoulder to steady him while he shifts on the couch to kiss him again. Brendon's about to say something; his lips are parted under Ryan's, and Ryan hears his quick intake of breath and smiles into the kiss. Brendon's mouth is so soft and full, and the slide of their mouths is easier now than it was, wetter. One of Brendon's hands is on the back of Ryan's neck and it feels good there, familiar, warm, guitar-callused.
Brendon makes a little swallowed sound, halfway to a moan. Ryan breaks the kiss. "Like I was saying," he says, "That's good. It would be a real shame if you freaked out right now."
Brendon's still half-smiling, watching him closely, but at that his smile becomes an impish grin. "Oh, like I'm the one who freaks out around here," he says, and leans forward, twining both his arms around Ryan's neck as he kisses him, tongue teasing at the seam of Ryan's lips. "You're the diva, Ross," he adds, pulling back.
"I'm the diva?" says Ryan, leaning their foreheads together. One of his hands is still on Brendon's shoulder; the other has found its way to his hip, where his green underwear - fucking lime green, god - is visible for quite a long way above the waistband of those stupid tight pants. Ryan kisses Brendon, breaks away, murmurs, "I don't want to talk to the fans, Ryan," and kisses him again. Brendon opens his mouth to say something; Ryan takes advantage of the opportunity to lick his way in, enjoying Brendon's gasp. He breaks the kiss again and adds, "I don't want to do the interview, Ryan," grinning, and then kisses Brendon again. "You do it -" kiss - "I'll just sit there -" kiss - "maybe play with my hair a little -"
"Hey!" Brendon tries to protest, but it's muffled by Ryan's mouth. They're both panting a bit now, and any attempt Brendon makes to look annoyed by Ryan's teasing is kind of spoiled by the way he's grinning so hard every time Ryan stops kissing him to say something else. "Oh, and my pants are fine, Ryan," Ryan adds, hot on the heels of another kiss. "If anything they should be tighter -" kiss - "also, you should pull them up for me -"
"I didn't think you'd do it," Brendon manages to say. Ryan just kisses him again, pulls back, and grins. Brendon makes a growling noise which Ryan is never going to admit he finds adorable and definitely never going to admit he finds hot. "And I had no idea you were such a fucking tease, seriously," Brendon goes on, his hands carding through Ryan's hair. "Can you not just make up your mind and kiss me for real already or -"
Ryan pushes Brendon backwards on the couch and sticks his tongue in his mouth. Brendon gasps and shuts up, which is good, because Ryan's busy pressing their bodies together, kissing him as deep as he knows how. Brendon wriggles a little bit under him, pushing his hips up as he wraps his arms around Ryan and tugs him down, trying to pull him closer.
There's a thump as the TV remote falls off the couch.
The DVD switches itself back on and almost at once the sound starts going up. "I will not kiss you, no," warbles Gerard Way on the screen, louder and louder as Brendon leans desperately sideways off the couch, scrabbling for the remote. Ryan tucks his face against Brendon's shoulder as he flails and laughs and laughs and laughs.
"Cause the hardest part of this is leaving -" Gerard sings, and is cut off with a click. Brendon's managed to get the remote. Ryan smothers another giggle against his collarbone.
"Shut up, Ross," Brendon says, sounding grumpy. His hand is fitted around the curve of Ryan's skull, thumb stroking his hair. "It's your fault for liking bad makeout music."
"The first time I ever kissed someone there was My Chem playing in the background," says Ryan, pushing his head into Brendon's touch. It feels nice. Like being petted, sort of, not that Ryan is ever going to say that out loud. "'I'm Not Okay,' I think."
"I'm not woooah-kay-ee-yay-ee-yay," Brendon sings. "Wow, seriously? That is not sexy music, Ryan."
Ryan snorts. "You were not a sceney enough high schooler, then."
"I was a dork in high school. You know this."
Ryan pulls away and looks at him. Brendon's still holding onto the remote, tapping a nervous staccato beat on the underside. He bites his lip while Ryan watches and says, "So, hey, what we were just doing -"
"Making out," says Ryan helpfully.
Brendon sticks his tongue out at him. "Yeah, that. Is it going to be, um, a thing?"
That's a fair question, Ryan thinks, so he sits up. He's sitting on Brendon, but Brendon doesn't seem to mind, and Ryan doesn't want to move any farther away than that.
Two years ago he would have known that Brendon was nervous from the way his fingers are tapping, but he wouldn't have known what to do about it. Three years ago he might not even have noticed. He reaches over and takes the remote away from Brendon, tossing it on the other end of the couch so Gerard Way won't show up unexpectedly again. Brendon makes a face and starts tapping his hand against the base of the couch. Ryan pokes him in the side.
Brendon stops squirming, but Ryan thinks it's mostly uncertainty and surprise.
"Do you want it to be a thing?" Ryan asks, and he's proud of how calm he sounds. Brendon's kind of hot - Ryan has never not known this, but he's been able to pretend not to notice except when he needed a dozen reasons, a hundred, to convince Pete Wentz to give them a chance - Brendon's hot, and Brendon's t-shirt is riding up, and Ryan wants to slip his fingers down across Brendon's stomach where his stupid florescent underwear is showing.
"I. I mean. I don't--" Brendon starts, but he's not looking at Ryan so it doesn't count. Ryan considers for a second and then reaches down and tickles Brendon where a strip of pale skin is visible between his underwear and the hem of his t-shirt. Brendon squeals in protest and tries to curl up, batting at Ryan's hand. It's hard to get away with Ryan sitting on him, though. Ryan has been through lots of ticklewars with Spencer; he knows how to cheat.
"No lying," says Ryan sternly, or as sternly as he can manage when he's laughing a little bit. He stops tickling, but Brendon's still giggling and his hips are moving against Ryan's, and it's hard not to get distracted. "I want to know."
"Why?" Brendon asks. He's smiling, but he looks a little suspicious. "Why'd you kiss me? And why do you want to know now?"
Ryan has to stop and consider. He wants to tell the truth about this, but he hasn't had very long to figure out what that is. "I guess," he says slowly, "that I'm finally ready to. Does that make sense?"
Brendon's staring at him, eyes huge and mouth a little open. "It does," he says. "If you're... Are you sure?"
"Yeah," says Ryan. He's happy to realize it's true. He doesn't want to run away or get defensive or pretend he's not interested. He wants to make Brendon smile, and he wants to kiss Brendon and he wants to see where all that flirting was going. "So I guess, if you wanted to do this again, I'd be up for it. Uh," he says, as Brendon bursts out laughing. "I didn't mean it like that, shut up, Brendon -"
"You meant it exactly like that," Brendon says gleefully, and rolls his hips up against Ryan's.
Ryan swallows a small noise at the feeling, Brendon half-hard against him, so close. Brendon looks smug, and Ryan's not putting up with that. He leans down again and catches Brendon's hands, pinning them to the couch. "You still haven't answered the question about what you want," he says firmly.
Brendon stops laughing. His eyes are bright, but he's as still as he gets, and his voice is serious. "I... I want you. I kind of thought you knew that," he says.
Ryan doesn't miss the quaver in his voice. He kisses him again, pressing him down into the couch. It's slow and deep and hot and good, so good. Ryan should be kicking himself for not taking this years ago - except that he knows he couldn't have had this years ago. They had to get here first.
"That's good," he says softly, breaking the kiss. "I'm glad, Brendon."
And Brendon looks so fucking happy.
When he tugs Ryan down to crush their mouths together again the kiss is made pretty awkward by the way he can't stop grinning into it. It's okay, though. Ryan's smiling against his mouth too, smiling and trying to remember when being happy got so simple. Brendon licks into Ryan's mouth, his tongue eager and demanding, and tries to hook his leg around Ryan's waist. "No couch sex," Ryan murmurs. "Spence will kill us."
"Okay," says Brendon. "Bunk sex, maybe?" He sounds hopeful.
"Definitely," says Ryan, and there's a sparkle in Brendon's eyes right now which he suspects is mirrored in his own.
There's a sudden clatter, the bus door being kicked open, and Spencer's voice floats through: "Back, we got you coffee, and if you defiled the couch I will kill you!" Jon says something after that, but it's quieter and Ryan doesn't catch it.
Brendon makes a face. "Bunk sex later."
Ryan kisses him. "It'll be a good later," he promises. "Absolutely no Gerard Way."
Brendon grins. "Perfect," he says. "I think even my big stupid crush on you might be killed by a first time conducted to the strains of a song called 'Cancer.'"
And when Spencer and Jon come in with the coffee, both Ryan and Brendon are laughing so hard they nearly choke, and neither of them will say why.