Ryden Smut

For Other Meanings Of Tsunami, part 1/4

For Other Meanings Of Tsunami, part 1/4 By @ jocondite on LiveJournal http://jocondite.livejournal.com/126429.html

The tour starts in Florida, and Brendon’s on center stage under the hot lights with the screams starting up again, louder and louder every time he shakes his hips, and he’s missed this like oxygen. He can't help grinning helplessly over at Jon, who looks dapper in his dark coat; he can’t see Spencer without turning around, but he can hear him pounding away at the drums, and man, he kind of misses the old kit's light-up glow, but the new set-up’s kind of awesome, even though Spencer’s sitting so high up and far away. 

(“I don’t see a problem,” Spencer had said when this point was raised during planning, “we’re just, you know, setting things up like they should be.” “What, you should be up way above us, having to look down?” “Duh.”)

On his right, Ryan has his head down, focusing on his fingers as he finishes the bridge, cap shadowing his eyes. Brendon waits until he looks up, waits for the triumphant flick of his head that signals the change; Ryan grins at him, and Brendon beams, nervousexcited, back. 

He steps up to the mic again and starts to tell the audience about a dream, running through a field of flowers towards a lover. As he talks, he moves towards Ryan and the screams rise and rise, shock and surprise and sheer glee welling up into a wall of sound. Brendon hates to give credit but Spencer and Ryan were totally right about this.

He and Ryan play it out like in rehearsal: a certain amount of steps, a certain amount of closeness – he drives his hips forward, reaches out towards Ryan’s cheek – and then when Ryan jerks his chin at him incrementally, the sign, he snaps back, peeling away, and says dramatically into the mic, “But this is not that dream.”

* * *

It hadn't been Brendon’s idea, not really. Well, in a way, it kind of was, but only if you squinted and sort of tilted your head to the side. Brendon had been more of a muse, really, to Ryan the fucking insane artiste. 

Only, Brendon has the idea that muses are supposed to lie on couches all swoony and pale and passive, and stuff, sighing deeply every now and then. Or maybe they’re supposed to have really happening curls and do high-kicks on the side of pottery vases, but he might have picked that idea up from Disney, and he hasn’t really been able to trust them since they killed off Simba’s dad, because that was really, really harsh.

So maybe not a muse, then. Maybe the midwife to Ryan’s stupid, stupid ideas. Only, like, masculine. A mid-man. 

And now he’s thinking of himself holding Ryan’s hand while Ryan screams and swears in the throes of labor, and it’s like that horrible scene from Alien only with ABBA or Cher or whatever playing, and strobe lights, and then he has to scrub his brain, so maybe not a midwife, either.

But the point is, he was just the inspiration; this is in no way his fault.

(“BALLET DANCERS GETTING NAKED,” Jon wrote down carefully in his notebook, tongue caught in his teeth. He paused, squinted at the huge, blocky capitals, then uncapped the sharpie again and added “!!!”.

“Well, what else are we going to do?” Ryan said impatiently. “That’s good, but it’s not really different.”

Spencer had leapt in. “We could get a- ”

“We’re not having live animals on stage, and that’s final.” Ryan paused. “Brendon doesn’t count.”

“Oh, that’s not what you said in bed last night, Ross,” Brendon said, as a joke, a joke! And okay, maybe he then pursed up his lips and blew loud smacking air kisses in Ryan’s direction.