Adore // Oneshots

Golden Days (Ryden)

CATEGORY: Fluff
FEATURING: childish!Brendon and mature!Ryan
TRIGGER WARNINGS: A cactus incident
PROMPT: Brendon and Ryan go on a hike together in the desert.
WORD COUNT: 1,826 

"Well, here we are, Ryan announced as he pulled into the dusty roadside parking lot. There was little to look at out in the middle of the desert, except for cacti and distant mountains.

"This is it?" Brendon asked, puzzled. "There's nothing to do out here." And he was right: there were no obvious attractions. All that was man-made was a port-a-potty, and a sign about ten feet away from the car.

"There's desert." Ryan got out of the car, and Brendon reluctantly followed, watching and glancing around as Ryan got two water bottles, small backpacks, and sun hats from the back of the car. From a plastic bag, he also pulled out a tube of sunscreen, and started lathering up his arms. "Bren, you need to put on some sunscreen."

Brendon frowned and crossed his arms, in a pouty sort of way. He didn't like sunscreen; it made his skin all slimy and greasy. "I don't want to."

"I'll put it on for you," Ryan coaxed in a sweet tone, the one Brendon could never say no to. He patted the back of the car. "Come on, sit."

Reluctantly, the other man sat down and let Ryan smear sunscreen on his arms, legs, neck, and face. Ryan did his face last, carefully rubbing the skin protector around Brendon's nose. When Brendon leaned away in protest, Ryan leaned closer. "Hold on, I think I missed a spot."

"I'm not a baby," Brendon said, reaching his hand up to rub in the sunscreen the rest of the way. Seeming satisfied, Ryan nodded to Brendon, and the other man hopped out of the car again.

Ryan slammed the back door, locking the car up with a click of the button on his keychain, and then led the way over to the sign Brendon initially spotted.

Hurricane Desert, the sign read. So-named for the massive hurricane that came over the land in 1856, which drove out the few residents of the land. In 1904, the area was chosen to be preserved as a national park by President--

Brendon stopped reading the sign. It was boring. He looked around the desert some more, hoping to spy a waterpark or carnival or something fun in the distance. Nope. All he could see was dust. And cacti. There was definitely a lot of that.

Ryan was still reading the sign, and Brendon wanted to tell him to hurry up, but Ryan was his boyfriend, and Brendon loved him quite a bit. So, he tried to occupy himself with other things while he waited. He scuffled his feet in the dust, but that only got his shoes dirty. He looked to the sky to see if there were any birds, but the sun was so bright that it hurt his eyes. He pulled out his phone to see if anyone was saying anything interesting on his Snapchat, but found that he didn't have a signal.

Just when Brendon thought he would die from boredom, Ryan finished reading the sign. He handed Brendon one of the small backpacks, a water bottle, and a sun hat. "Ready?"

The other man was still puzzled by all of this. "What are we even doing out here, anyway?"

"Hiking, silly." Ryan kissed Brendon's cheek; the latter wondered if he tasted like sunscreen. "Weren't you listening earlier?"

"I was listening to the stereo," Brendon admitted. Ryan had let Brendon choose the music for the trip, and he had brought every single Queen CD he owned. He wasn't sure how he felt about the idea of hiking, although really, he should have expected it. His boyfriend enjoyed outdoor activities.

Ryan rolled his eyes. "Of course."

"I'm a sucker for Queen, Ry, you know that." Brendon crossed his arms again. "Why are we hiking?"