DAMN YOUR KISS; ryden

Chapter Nineteen: Everything I Do Is Bittersweet

Go find him. Speak to him. 

Yeah, right.

Ryan gripped the steering wheel harder, forcing himself to stare straight ahead. He could feel a migraine coming, booming like distant thunder across his temples. Not to mention the bruise on his cheek from where that guy had punched him, swelling up like a sum bitch. He wasn’t particularly bothered by how it made him look … just that he’d have to explain – at least to Z – how he’d gotten it.

Or I could just drive. Drive back home and leave this fucking place far behind me. Z’s pretty resourceful, I’m sure she’ll find a way back.

But Ryan felt bad as soon as he thought that. He couldn’t just ditch his closest friend all alone in a different city.

But he did want to go home. As soon as.

God! How could I have been so stupid! Ryan cursed himself. Maybe Brendon really is straight … and that night had been a pity fuck. A mistake. A blip on the radar of Brendon Urie’s otherwise heterosexual, normal life.

An … experiment.

Ryan knew he really didn’t have any place of higher moral superiority, considering he’d slept with people before out of pity, and to get them to just shut up … but now that he was on the receiving end… well, he wanted to call all his old ex-partners, one night stands and flings that he’d ever done it to and apologise profusely.

Ryan shook his head, before stopping and wincing as sharp pain sliced across his injured cheek.

He flicked on the radio in an effort to calm the angry buzzing of the thoughts inside his head, distract himself, but it was some annoyingly catchy and bouncy hip-hop pop number with an almost whiny male vocal and a word-per-half-second rapper that only increased the oncoming migraine, so he quickly switched it off.

Alone, with those thoughts again.

And so his mind wandered, wondered back a few years, far enough back that he was Ryan Ross, Panic! At The Disco’s guitarist, a fresh-faced twenty year old living in the suburbs of Vegas on his own for the first time, and suddenly … he was seeing a nineteen year old Brendon, splayed out across the couch, his beloved battered guitar resting haphazardly at his feet, holding a can of beer, one knee bouncing.

His hair was a dark, unstyled mop, and despite the fact his skin had the teenage curse of acne, it was fading, fast, and he looked … well, super cute. Especially in that tight black shirt that hugged his skinny torso, black ripped up jeans, and bare feet.

And he was drunk. After leading a relatively sheltered childhood, alcohol was a new thing for the boy, and every time he’d be around at Ryan’s, he’d be like a bouncing puppy, asking excitedly if he could have beer. And as Ryan recalled, it had either made him super talkative and filled with boundless energy, or lolling and sleepy. This time, it was a mixture of the both.

“Hey, Ry.” A voice said, startling past-and-present Ryan, and he turned to see young, chubby-cheeked Spencer, hair also an unstyled mop, standing at the pool table, Brent on the other side, both of them clutching their own beer cans. Brent had a scowl on his face – but when did he never? – and Spencer grinned. “I’ve thought of a dare.”

“A dare?” Past Ryan inquired, voice higher than his present self. Present Ryan thanked his lucky stars this memory didn’t contain a mirror.

“Yeah.” He laughed. “Kiss… kiss Brendon. On the lips. For thirty seconds.”

Beside him, Brendon, who’s head had started to loll, groaned good-naturedly, and he shot Spencer a dorky grin, and stuck his finger up at him. “Dude, not cool. Why me?”

Spencer’s reply was instant. “Because you lost the bet to ding dong ditch our dear ex-principal.”

Ryan glanced at Spencer, then back at Brendon. Brendon gave him a soft, wasted smile. “I’m down if you’re down. Bet it’ll get Spencer off.”

“Will not!” Spencer retorted, and Brent snickered.

“You’re the dude that wants to see two dudes kissing,” Ryan laughed. “But fine.”

So Brendon inched over, until the two were side by side, knees knocking together. Ryan’s heart raced. Should it be racing? I mean, it was a bet. And it wasn’t like he was gay. He was into girls. Super into girls. Just a bet.

But he fell in love with Brendon the moment their lips touched for the first time, in that drunken bet.

And Brendon … Brendon just pulled away after the thirty seconds, laughed, and threw himself back down. “That was gross. But hey, you kiss better than that girl I went on a date with last week.”

“Hannah.” Brent’s gruff voice reminded him, bitterness in his tone, the reason for that being that Brent had had a thing for the girl, and had (attempted) to flirt with her all night … before she’s giggily asked Brendon to go to dinner the next night.

“Oh, yeah.” Brendon laughed, shaking his head.

“Dude, she picked Chuck E. Cheese for your first date. That was doomed from the start.”

Brendon laughed more, before slapping a hand to Ryan’s shoulder – who had been sitting quietly with his thoughts racing, and jumped at the contact – and giving him a sloppy wink. “Well, you kiss better than Hannah, the Chuck E. Cheese girl.”

Why, oh why, of all memories, did Ryan remember that one? A memory that had conveniently slipped Spencer, Brent and Brendon’s minds the next morning, when Ryan had laughed and said “That was some bet last night!”

He pushed a hand through his hair, and gripped it in his fist.

You know what? That awful pop song might just be more preferable than a trip down the dark alley that was Ryan’s memory lane.