Ryden Oneshots

It's Not Repression, It's Denial

It took Jon a month to find out, and almost twice as long to work up the courage to ask Spencer about it.

“Hey, Spence? I, uh, need to talk to you about something,” he said, catching him in the front lounge. He chewed on his lip, hoping he would be doing the right thing by bringing it up.

Spencer put his Sidekick down. “Okay, what’s up?” He even went to great lengths to uncross his legs and lean forward, to show Jon that he had his undivided attention. It was clearly speak-now-or-forever-hold-your-peace time.

“Brendon and Ryan are sleeping with each other,” Jon blurted out without further preamble.

Spencer took the time to blink. And then he said, “Yes, they are. But what was it that you needed to talk to me about?”

This resulted in a period of silence that Jon was unable to break, because he was too busy gaping and making feeble hand gestures.

Spencer waited. And waited. “Or did you mean, like, right now?” he asked helpfully. “Because we do have that interview in half an hour. Do you think they’ll be done in time to get ready, or should I go stop them?”

“Yes. No. Um.” Mortification evidently made Jon especially articulate. “They’re not doing it right now, I don’t think. I don’t know. But yeah, I’d like it if you could make them stop.” He paused. “What the hell, you knew about this already?”

“Jon. I can only make people stop doing things if they’ve already started. Otherwise, it’s not called stopping, it’s called preventing,” Spencer explained, completely ignoring the very last question.

“Stop, prevent, whatever! Just don’t let them have sex with each other anymore!”

Brendon chose that precise moment to come in looking for a juice-box. “Are you guys talking about your girlfriends? Are they fucking each other while you’re away?” he asked with interest.

“No,” Jon and Spencer both replied at the same time, with roughly the same amount of exasperation.

“Oh. Well then.” He looked back and forth between them, and when no one offered any further information, he grabbed his juice, declared the two of them boring, and walked back to the bunks.

Jon immediately turned back to Spencer. “You can’t let them have sex with each other anymore. Seriously.”

“It’s not like I’ve been giving them my permission,” Spencer scoffed.

Jon hadn’t been in this band for very long, but it'd been plenty long enough to figure out that Spencer ultimately pulled the strings. If Brendon and Ryan were having sex with each other and Spencer knew about it, then it must’ve been unofficially sanctioned. Jon wanted that sanction revoked. At once.

“Okay, look, I’ve been in a few bands before, and I’ve learned the hard way that band members absolutely cannot sleep with each other. Everything is always going great until two idiots decide to hook up; after that, the original vibe is ruined and things get awkward, and the second they break up the band does too. So this thing with Ryan and Brendon? We need to nip it in the bud, fast.”

“Do you like the vibe we have right now?”

Of all the questions Spencer could have asked at that moment (such as, “Gee, why didn’t I think of that?” or “How did you get so wise and insightful, Jon?”) that one wasn’t exactly at the top of the Most Anticipated list. “What? Yeah, of course I do. That’s why we have to do something before it gets wrecked!”

“Well, if you think the vibe is fine, then don’t worry about it. They’ve been sleeping together since way before you joined the band.”

Beat. “Huh?”