Ryden Oneshots

The Rules

The Rules. || brendon/ryan ||

‘ryan <3’s brendon’ he writes in an accurate imitation of Pete’s handwriting. He pauses for a second, as if reconsidering his response, before re-capping the pen and continuing his journey to bed. 

The note appears on the fridge door one morning somewhere between Illinois and Indiana. No-one knows how it got there and no-one really questions it. The title reads ‘RULES’ and a series of numbers are written in a jagged line down the left-hand side of the page. It remains empty for just over a week and each morning, as Ryan stands before the fridge in search of milk for his morning coffee, he’s reminded of that quote ‘the rules are, there are no rules’ and drinks his coffee with a quite smile behind the pages of his truck-stop newspaper.

It’s somewhere over the course of the next week that the first rule appears in a dirty scrawl of blue pen. ‘The first rule of the rules is, you do not talk about the rules.’The next day another, the same hand, a different pen. ‘The second rule of the rules is, you do not talk about the rules.”

Ryan smiles as he reads these new additions, once again standing in front of the fridge, before hurrying to fumble around his bunk for a working pen. He glances around the bus as he moves back towards the kitchen, as if this paper were actually a secret and neatly prints his first rule. ‘No more Fight Club references.’ He chews the pen between his lips absentmindedly as he considers what else to write, but within a moment has remembered his quickly cooling coffee and hurries to collect his milk.

Over the course of the tour more rules are added in a rainbow of colour and legibility. ‘No eating of the last pop tart- punishable by death’ in Spencer’s tidy handwriting, followed by the customary ‘no sex on the bus’ rule which had ignited a discussion of sorts between an untidy-red pen and its loopy-blue partner. ‘Unless rydon sex of course.’ ‘All the cool kids are doing it.’ ‘This is true.’ ‘3pm on the bus?’

Ryan grins at the giant black letters of Spencer’s angry ‘NO SEX ON THE BUS, GEEZ!’

Soon there are numerous numbers and replies scratched over the diminishing page and it becomes less an order of rules and more an object of communication until it’s not a ‘panic at the disco thing’ but a ‘fueled by ramen and associated bands and managers thing’.

Gabe has been there, Ryan thinks, judging by the bold ‘COOOOBRAHHH!!’ written across three separate numbers and Pete makes himself known with the small fragments of broken verse he spends his time perfecting in his neat, purple writing. There’s a ‘mikeyway was here,’ followed by a ‘brendon urie was here first,’ followed by a ‘Pete was here before your mommas were even considering your scrawny asses, yo!’ Which was then preceded with a ‘Jesus was here before all you motherfuckers and he wants y’all to stfu!’ This last statement was followed by two full lines of ‘ahahahahahaha’s and a smiley. 

It becomes a kind of message board and Ryan wonders vaguely as he chews around a mouthful of toast, reading last night’s additions to the list, how he’s never noticed any of these people on his bus, writing on his fridge. He shrugs in defeat of logic and bends forward to tell Brendon, he was pretty sure that was Brendon’s handwriting, that anyway you cut it John Travolta was a lot hotter in Grease than he was in Pulp Fiction, thank you very much.

It’s at about the midway point of the tour that Ryan decides the list was a God-send in disguise. And adamantly argues this point with a red, cursive handwriting until he’s ready to start drawing nasty little pictures all over his enemies responses, because he’s sure this piece of paper has prevented a whole damn lot of arguments over the course of this tour, more than ‘Patrick’s healing hands’ by a long stretch. Sheesh.

‘Has anyone seen my left nike?’ ‘Under your bed.’

‘Has anyone bought coffee in the past two weeks? ‘It was Brendon’s turn.’ ‘It was not.’ ‘Yes it was, stfu.”

‘Has anyone seen Frank?’ ‘No Donnie Darko references. Rule 26.’ ‘No, seriously. I’ve lost my guitarist’ ‘O. Checked under your bed?’

It’s late on a Wednesday evening, just after he’d decided to call it a night that he heads past the kitchen on his way to the bunks. He stops momentarily to check up on the ‘gabe v. travie ultra-rap tournament’which doesn’t make much sense but is amusing enough to follow. It’s then that he notices the small pink writing added next to a number 59. ‘does ryan ross like brendon urie?’ He frowns, he doesn’t remember seeing that one last time he checked, somewhere between a Star Wars marathon and a takeout dinner. He doesn’t recognize the handwriting, but people had become very talented at changing and mimicking styles the further they moved down the page.

He glances to the kitchen bench at his right and the assortment of pens and pencils that had collected there and picks one up with careful consideration. Remembering rules one and two, and with a small nod of assurance he picks up an obnoxious sparkly, green pen and bends forward towards the page.

‘ryan <3’s brendon’ he writes in an accurate imitation of Pete’s handwriting. He pauses for a second, as if reconsidering his response, before re-capping the pen and continuing his journey to bed.

He’s forgotten about his response by the time he wakes the following day to embark on his morning coffee ritual until he notices the bright yellow message drawn below his green. ‘brendon <333’s ryan back.’ He bites his lips in response, considering the possibility of this being a joke. He frowns for a moment, before reaching again for the green pen he used last night, deciding that whether this was a joke or not, at least it was an anonymous one.

‘ryan is glad. ryan is very glad he met brendon when he did.’ It was sappy and it was romantic and it was ridiculously green and Ryan finishes his coffee in a nervous fumble.

He finds his eyes increasingly drawn towards the page over the following days as the messages are flipped back and forth between the two, finding more and more ways to make his way past that fridge. It’s on his approximately eighteenth journey towards the bunks that he notices the latest addition of the day. ‘Brendon would like to know how Ryan would feel about Brendon invading his personal space on a more regular basis?’

Ryan smiled, it was like flirting, without the nerves of a face-to-face rejection, it was easy. ‘Ryan would consider Brendon an idiot if Brendon didn’t join Ryan in his bed tonight.’

He knew everyone was talking about them, if the numerous printings of ‘WOOOOHOOOO!! Ryan you dog’  in a range of different colours and fonts was anything to go by and as the day came to a close he found himself wishing that perhaps this all wasn’t just mindless flirting, that maybe Brendon’s grin widened at Ryan’s compliments the same way Ryan blushed at Brendon’s flattery. Hoping that Brendon felt the same warmth and barely-there butterflies as they passed each other on stage after a day of back and forth comments. That maybe Brendon felt something also.

He’d slipped away early, ready to call it a night, glancing at the fridge as he passed, a movement that had become habit and paused as he noticed a reply to his latest remark, blushing as he read. ‘Brendon would appreciate it if everyone could vacate the bus between the hours of 8pm and morning as he does not wish others to cramp his style in any way. Brendon has no care for the rules. Brendon shall be having some hot rydon sex and S. S. you cannot stop him.’

Ryan reached for a pen blindly before leaning forward to write near the bottom of the page. ‘Amen.’ Before continuing his way into the bunk area, none at all surprised to feel arms circle his waist from behind as he walked in slow steps towards the bunks.

“You bed or mine?” Brendon asked and Ryan smiled. Definitely a God-send.