Ryden Oneshots

(Good In Bed But) Better With Chopsticks

(Good In Bed But) Better With Chopsticks

oddishly, softlyforgotten

Summary:

'Shut up,' Ryan said, 'I am totally a Chopstick Master.'

Notes:

Co-written with softlyforgotten on LJ.

Work Text:

1.

It was the last place Ryan would have expected to be open. He and Spencer used to pass by it every Friday night on their way to Spencer's place and pick up fried rice. It was run by the one family, though, and he would never have thought it would still be open for customers at ten o'clock on a Thursday night. Still, after they all stared at each other in disbelief when Pete Wentz - Pete Wentz - finally left, it was the first place that they stumbled across on their way to find something else to eat.

'I'm still starving,' Brendon had said, and then added, grinning, 'I thought I was going to throw up, sitting across from him, I couldn't eat properly,' and Ryan kind of agreed.

Still, weird or not, the Chinese restaurant on the corner of Nicholson Parade was still open, and when they came in awkwardly through the door, the woman behind the counter ushered them to a corner booth and brought out menus for everyone. Ryan took a moment to read them, still feeling remarkably dizzy, a little as though someone had just knocked him off a cliff and he'd realised halfway down that he could fly. He wondered if maybe there could be a song in that feeling. Maybe one that he could write. Maybe one that they could put on their album.

Holy shit, a record deal.

'Dude, you gonna order any time soon?' Brent asked, and Ryan shook his head, feeling a little bewildered. Brendon laughed, bright and cheerful, and after a moment Spencer very deliberately pressed his hand down on Brendon's knee. Abruptly, the table stopped shaking, and Ryan grinned stupidly. Brendon had managed to keep from bouncing his knee all through the meeting with Pete. Ryan was weirdly proud of him.

Ryan couldn't even remember what he'd ordered until it came; mixed vegetables and egg and noodles, and it smelled perfect, his stomach suddenly grumbling and reminding him how he really should have eaten something properly when the frontman of Fall Out Boy was paying. Brent's meal looked good, too - he eyed it out of the corner of his eye and wondered if Brent was going to eat it all.

He was distracted by the sudden discovery of chopsticks beside his bowl in the place of a fork. 'Um,' he said, and picked them up doubtfully. He hadn't used chopsticks since one disastrous Multicultural Lunch Day in elementary school, and he wasn't entirely sure that his skills had improved in the eight years since.

Still, food. 'Bon appetite,' Brendon said, because he was the biggest dork ever, and picked up his chopsticks easily. If Brendon could do it then Ryan definitely could, and he grasped them gingerly between two fingers, trying to work out how to get the right grip. They seemed oddly clumsy. He felt a little bit like a Transformer, though he couldn't say why.

'Um,' he repeated, and looked up to see Spencer and Brent likewise struggling with theirs. Spencer seemed to be trying to stab a dumpling with one stick, while Brent was just poking dismally at his noodles without much luck.

Brendon, on the other hand, was eating quickly, stuffing his mouth full with as little finesse as ever but a deftness in his movements. He didn't seem to be having any trouble at all picking up his food and carrying it to his mouth, and sometimes he even paused holding it there while he swallowed a mouthful. Ryan had a feeling that had he managed to get something between his chopsticks, he wouldn't be able to hold it there for longer than three seconds.