Ryden Oneshots

Days Gone By - 2

Days Gone By [2/2]

Dec 14, 2008 20:18

Title: Days Gone By
Author: selectivelyurie
Beta: killinglocals, my precious
Rating: R
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon
POV: Third
Summary: Crack!fic in which Ryan turns into Brendon's favorite stuffed animal, Waffles the Penguin.
Disclaimer: Not true at all.
Author Notes: So after fucking forever I finally post something. Title, subtitles/cut text belong to Gavin Mikhail's 'Days Gone By'. Go listen, it's glorious. 

I Took For Granted That You Were In My Life 

Ryan/Brendon
R
5,300 

It was after the first day that Ryan learned screaming was useless. 

His broken, aching howls pleading for discovery had fallen upon deaf ears and gone unnoticed. He realized that no one could hear him except himself and it only made him feel like he was ripping his esophagus in half every time he cried out for someone, anyone to notice him. 

Ryan. The little lost boy that isn’t lost at all. The boy that knows exactly where he is. 

Ryan. Brendon’s poor, misplaced lover that isn’t misplaced at all. He’s exactly where Brendon left him: in his bunk. 

When Brendon had manage to pull himself from his sheets and trudged to the bathroom, leaving Ryan sleeping --fitfully, mind you-- in the wrinkled sheets of his bed the morning after Ryan’s “disappearance”, tucked up safely on his pillow, Ryan awoke, noticed he was left alone again and began screaming. Screaming so loud and hard and passionate that he was sure he would wake the dead. 

Brendon had returned a moment later, feet dragging and eyes bloodshot and puffy from a tearful, sleepless night, the first of many. He slid back into bed, still clothed in his pajamas as he had been all day the day before and immediately wrapped his arms his stuffed animal, clinging. 

And Ryan had melted, melted right into Brendon’s chest and his touch and his scent and just. He wasn’t screaming, at least, and for the first time since he became an…inanimate thing, he felt like he was in his own skin again, wrapped up in Brendon and everything felt normal. 

---- 

“Jon, I’ll be in my bunk ,” Brendon says and it’s been three days since Ryan vanished. 

It’s been three days filled will tears and restlessness; frustration and slow, agonizing hours of silence; long, knowing glances between Jon and Spencer and worried, gnawed bottom lips. 

It’s been three days since Brendon’s seen, heard, felt Ryan solid and real in front of him and he tells Waffles as much. 

Slow days on the bus are a rarity during touring, but since Ryan’s disappearance, these days that are usually embraced and welcomed with thankful smiles are now much longer than they should be. Or so it seems. Days where the bus is quiet and mellow, when the four of them are either sleeping or reading or catching up with folks back home via internet or phone. Days when there’s no rush or anxious nerves due to a show later that night. Days when everything is carefree and Ryan-filled. 

Brendon feels like he’s been trapped in one of these slow days for the past three days, at least as far as the quiet factor is concerned. The bus is as silent as a morgue and it’s a thought that makes Brendon’s blood run cold and his heart heavy. The eerie silence is what makes the confessions he makes, tucked away in Ryan’s bunk, even more significant.