Hallucinogens (Ryden)

XV

"Brendon, I'm telling you. Something's off about him."

Brendon shook his head, "he's gone through a rough time. There's nothing wrong with him."

She sighed, "look I'm not saying there's something wrong with him.. He just seems absent," Brendon opened his mouth but she continued before he could get a word in, "after all, you don't even know what happened to him, shit, you hardly know anything about the guy."

"I'm waiting for him to tell me what's happened, I'm not going to force it out of him when he's not ready."

She sighed, "I know.. And that's good of you, really, but you need to see it from my perspective. Here comes this guy you met at a party, most likely drugged up to hell, and you let him into your home, let him sleep in your bed- for weeks now -and none of us know anything about him. Jesus, I only met the guy by accident." She breathed out audibly and collected herself, "It's just not quite.. right and I don't want anyone to take advantage of you."

Brendon ran a hand through his hair. She was right really, but he liked Ryan. He liked Ryan more than he cared about the mysteries that surrounded him. He knew Ryan, or at least he'd like to think so, he was just a bit broken, that's all. Ryan was no danger to him. At least not physically. Mentally, Ryan had already managed to dig himself all the way to Brendon's heart, intentionally or not. Brendon just wanted to take care of him.

"B?"

Brendon snapped out of his thoughts, "yeah, uh sorry, I get everything your saying but.. you don't feel what I feel. I know he's no danger to me. And, Hayley, I think I really like him."

Hayley played with a strand of her, tightly wrapping it around her finger. "I trust you B, but if he so much as touches one of the hairs on your head I will personally make sure he doesn't see the light of day ever again."

"Hey! Spence!" Ryan shouted over the blaring music.

Spencer turned his head and caught sight of Ryan and slowly made his way over, "long time no see! How've you been? 'heard Bryar fucked off and left you."

"Yeah, the dickhead just left from one day to the next. I'm staying with a different friend now," Ryan explained.

"Good, stay safe dude."

"Thanks- now talking about staying safe-"

Spencer interrupted with a small chuckle and passed him a pill after quickly popping his own, "enough chit-chat Ross, let's go join the others, I'm sure they'll be glad to see you again."

See, Ryan had a downwards spiral of sorts after Hayley's surprise visit, of which he'd had far too many in his lifetime. She seemed to have noticed too much. He suspected it wouldn't be all to long until Brendon threw him out like many had done before. Of course, Ryan's solution to this problem had been the same one he had been resorting to for years now. And I think everyone would be able to guess it. It wasn't exactly rocket science- but it sure as hell was a lot of other science.

In Ryan's state, his thoughts kept drifting back to the boy he had met properly only a few weeks ago. He hated how he felt about him. Ryan itched to live his life without emotional ties of any sort. At some point Brendon would notice Ryan wasn't good enough. Ryan wanted to go now, let go, not have Brendon figure it out himself. After all, it'd only kill Ryan in the end. Possibly a bit too literally.

Ryan's life was going all too well at the moment. The thought caused him too accept far too many unknown chemicals. And when the party migrated over to Spencer's place, he went with them. He also never said anything about the hand slowly creeping up his thigh.

He found himself back at Brendon's door the morning after the party. He didn't remember much. His head was pounding and he had the suspicion the high was not completely gone yet. As he opened the door he found himself met with hurried walking and then a very anxious looking Brendon.

"Where've you been?" Brendon voice sounded all too concerned. Ryan would be lying if that didn't confuse him.

Immediately his defences went up, "out," he answered vaguely.

Brendon ran a hand through his hair and stepped closer to Ryan. "I was worried about you," his voice came out soft and caring.

"There was no reason to be worried." Ryan walked past Brendon and let himself fall on top of the sofa in the living room. 

Brendon slowly followed him, "doesn't mean I can't be worried about you."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"No.. no, it does. What doesn't make sense is how you're struggling to understand why I was so worried," Brendon crouched down next to where Ryan was lying.

Instead of answering, Ryan chose to simply turn his head to look at Brendon, he couldn't deny how beautiful he looked. It was easier to admire than to speak.

Brendon searched Ryan's eyes for an answer but found nothing. He let his hand fall to cup Ryan's face ever so gently and stared back at the boy he found himself falling in love with.

"You're so important and you have no idea," Brendon muttered almost inaudibly. 

Ryan moved forward, too scared to make the last step. He was so close he could feel Brendon's warm breath on his face. Both their eyes were on the others lips.

Brendon moved forward ever so slowly, flickering his gaze up to Ryan's eyes one last time before sealing their lips together.