Ryden Smut

Stay With Me

Stay With Me by @ at_the_c_side on LiveJournal
http://at-the-c-side.livejournal.com/7430.html

"Hey, Ry," Spencer calls out from the couch when Ryan ducks back onto the bus from the convenience store, "we're having a Guitar Hero showdown. Wanna join?"

Ryan makes a face from the doorway. Guitar Hero hasn't exactly been top of his list of favourite pastimes ever since-- well. They don't talk of that now. He contemplates giving Spence a whole array of reasons why Guitar Hero is evil and should be banished to the furthest, dustiest corners of the universe, along with long queues and messy eaters (except Brendon, Brendon can stay); but he just distractedly replies, "no."

Lounging on the couch with his legs slung over the arm and his head resting on Spencer's legs comfortably, Jon looks pointedly at Ryan's hands and grins. "Brendon actually sent you to buy him Skittles?" he giggles. "You're like, totally his bitch. Even when he's on his deathbed."

Ryan rolls his eyes and the tips of his ears grow a little pink. "No, he didn't, I just thought he might want them. Um."

"Why would he want Skittles when he's got the flu or whatever?" Spencer interjects, raising an eyebrow at Ryan. "Wouldn't that just make him feel sicker?"

"Wait, you have met Brendon, right?" Ryan asks incredulously. "If Skittles are on offer, he'll have the damn Skittles. Both mental and physical health are irrelevant when they contain this many E-numbers." He shakes the red packet he's clutching in one hand and laughs, short and soft and fond.

Spencer dislodges a disgruntled Jon's head from his lap as he gets up and starts to set up the game, apparently losing interest in the conversation. "Mmkay. I think he might be sleeping, I don't know. Sleeping or wallowing in the depths of self-pity. Either way, he's in his bunk."

Ryan nods, mumbles, "try and keep it down, yeah?" and slips past them in the cramped space until he comes to the door to the bunks. The handle is kind of old, and it turns with a creak and a sharp click, and Ryan winces inwardly. If Brendon's sleeping he really doesn't want to disturb him, just maybe leave him with the Skittles on his pillow and a feather-light kiss on his forehead.

He steps into the room and keeps his eyes on his feet so he doesn't trip or do something equally as noisy and stupid, and he's so careful, he is. But he forgets about the time Brendon, high and giggly, demanded that Jon give him a faltering but enthusiastic piggy-back, running wildly and eventually tripping and catapulting them both across the bus, where they tumbled through the doorway and landed in a drunken heap on the floor, right here. The creak in the floor has been there ever since. And at this second, it apparently feels the need to remind Ryan of its existence, fuck.

"Ryan?" a small voice asks, and Ryan snaps his attention to the direction from which it came. The curtain of Brendon's bunk looks like it was hastily pulled across halfway before he just gave up and crashed. He can see Brendon lying spread-eagled on top of the bedsheets, wearing old, worn flannel pants and a grey t-shirt that's rucked up over the flat skin of his lower stomach and sticks close to his sweaty chest and arms. His hair is sticking up all over the place, with some stray strands clinging to his forehead, to his flushed cheeks, and his eyes are almost too bright and blinking at Ryan blearily. Ryan stands for a moment or two, letting his eyes roam and feeling the heat rise in him, before scolding himself inside his head for even thinking about how hot Brendon looks when he's so obviously uncomfortable. "Ryan?" he repeats, sounding weak and a little pathetic, and Ryan's heart surges when he hears it. He quickly crosses the room and perches on the edge of Brendon's bunk, near his head.

"Yeah. Hey, yeah, it's me," he murmurs, ghosting a hand over Brendon's forehead to sweep the hair away, barely touching yet feeling the heat radiating from his skin, pulsing through his body. Brendon leans into the touch, a content smile flitting across his face as he gazes up at Ryan, who finds himself getting lost in the other boy's eyes, just a little, just like always. "I got you these," Ryan tells him softly and he bites his lip, producing the Skittles from behind his back and presenting them to Brendon, whose feverish face splits into a wide grin.