{✔️} ryden oneshots || lovely 🌹

Yoga *3*

oh my lord okay

yes
💛💛💛💛💛
Tbh I should make this a book

The real act of discovery is not in finding new lands, but in seeing with new eyes. (Marcel Proust)

Brendon wakes up Saturday morning to bright light bleeding through the wide bay window in his living room. His back cramps from being contorted into an awkward position on the futon, and he groans, unfurling his stiff limbs to stretch and rub feeling back into the tender places.

Over the course of about thirty seconds, Brendon's still sleepy brain registers three distinct thoughts: I am alone. I was not alone before. Ryan is gone.

He knows that Ryan's left the apartment because his boots, which Brendon lined up carefully near the door last night, are no longer there. There are no remnants of Ryan at all, in fact, in this room. The floor is still scattered with albums and CDs. Bobby Dylan still keeps watch from his perch on the far wall. The calendar in the kitchen still reads October in block letters under a picture of a girl straddling a Harley Davidson. There are still dishes to be done and crumbs embedded in the carpet, and the air still smells faintly of Frankie's cigarettes. This is still his apartment, but Ryan Ross is no longer here.

It's possible last night could have been all some elaborate hallucination Brendon's lovesick brain conjured up: the way their bodies moved together to BRMC's thumping bass; the way Ryan's hand clasped his hip, thin fingers tickling over bone; their frantic, graceless sex on Brendon's living room floor, and then Ryan's quiet revelations, spoken in a monotone as his eyes traced the bathroom tile, Brendon's hand light between his shoulderblades.

He holds up his hand, squinting at it, then turns it over and finds a smear of eyeliner on his thumb. He remembers: he used his thumb to smooth out the tension at Ryan's temples.

You're okay, Brendon had whispered. You're okay.

It was real, then, he thinks. His throat feels tight. He scrubs his hand across his face.

The way he sees it, he has a choice. He can think about this some more, dissect it, work it over in his mind until it makes some kind of sense.

Or he can get off this couch, take a shower, wash Ryan off his skin and make a fucking pot of coffee.

Brendon takes a deep, cleansing breath, centers himself and chooses option B. When he's dressed and puttering around the kitchen, Gerard stumbles in wearing jeans and one of Frankie's ratty t-shirts and looking half-dead.

"Coffee?" Brendon asks.

Gerard stares blearily up at Brendon, who hums softly as he pours coffee beans into the grinder. Other than Brendon, he seems to be the only one up. Brendon can still hear Frank's soft snores coming from his bedroom.

"Sure," Gerard mumbles.

"Coming right up," Brendon says cheerfully, and clicks the button, prompting an angry crunching noise from the grinder. Gerard winces.

"Where did your friend go?" Gerard asks.

Brendon's jaw tightens. "He had an appointment or something."

"Early on a Saturday morning?" Gerard cocks his head to one side.

Sometimes Gerard is too smart for his own good.

"Well, I'm teaching a class in an hour," Brendon says. "Some people do actually rouse themselves before noon on Saturdays, Gee."

Gerard makes a skeptical noise. "Why would you do that, what nonsense."

"I know, it's total insanity. How was the opening?"

"I don't remember,"Gerard says, sinking down into one of the dilapidated kitchen chairs. "It's all a blur."