On your knees // Bandom

18. Over at Frank-ensteins place

Ryan Seaman was actually having fun, even though Dallon had disappeared somewhere, Pete, Patrick and Ray had included him into their game of never have I ever. Ray was winning.
"Kissed a girl." Ryan said, and he had never actually come out to them, but they'd figured out him and Dallon from the start.
All three lost a life.
"Married someone," Rays go again. "Including for a dare or a joke."
Patrick and Pete caught eyes and lost a life each.
"Had a crush on someone with blue eyes."
Pete was going into specifics to keep his one life left.
"Does Dallon have blue eyes?"
"I don't know, man, shouldn't you?"
"They change..."
"Just lose a life, Ryan."
"Fine." He grumbled and dropped a finger to match Patricks.

"Walked in on a family member having sex." Patrick had some sort of advantage being an only child, but he didn't know about Ryan.
Ryan only had one family member he knew of, and his fathers status of single seemed pretty permanent.
Ash was still a child, and Hillary would bring a date home over her dead body, so Pete had walked in on his parents naked, but never together, and never anything more than that, thankfully.
Ray had seen his older brother have sex with his girlfriend a couple of months ago, and his parents about a year ago. They were both traumatising experiences, and he never brought them up, but he did lose a life, and almost enjoyed the disgusted looks on his friends faces.

~

Jamia and Frank were cooking pizza, well, Jamia had put them in the oven and was now timing them, and Frank had played the important role of sitting on his kitchen countertop and talking about his boyfriend.

In the living room, a wall away, Dallon was attempting to apologise. Brendon was too, they were both sitting on the sofa, letting their guilt tumble out of their lips in a way that suggested it had been held in for too long.

"I shouldn't have fucked you." Brendon admitted.
"Probably, it was fun though, right?"
"It was."
"But then there's Ryan."
"Mine or yours?"
Dallon laughed softly. "Both."
"Its not just that, of course I wouldn't cheat, but I also don't need you anymore."
"Harsh."
"I mean- I want to be friends again, Dall, but I don't want to hookup. Think we can do that?"
"I wasn't the one who initiated it."
"Dallon just stop-"

Thats when Dallon made a mistake. Though it wasn't a mistake when he did it, it was another step in his casually cruel plan, but in the end it doomed everything, and if blame was to placed, it was weighted in his favour.

Brendon felt Dallons hand on his cheek a moment before the kiss, and he could have pulled away, but his instant reaction would never be to push Dallon away, and he kissed back. He knew no different. Like two planets in orbit, like magnets, like a river endlessly splitting and merging back into itself.

Then the atmosphere changed as someone walked in, no, not just someone, Ryan Ross, and Dallon pushed him away, taking his breath through his lips one minute and forcing it out the next.
"What the fuck Brendon why did you just kiss me?"

Ryan was pissed. Understandably.
Dallon had left, his feet a little to loud and his face cold, because he loved to wreck havoc, and he had pulled this off. Now he just needed to pretend to be mad about Brendon forcing himself on him, because that's exactly what happened.

"Please just trust me, Ryan." Brendon was begging, not the greatest basis for a healthy relationship.
"I'm trying to."
"He kissed me!"
"And then pushed you off him, when you were clearly into it?"
"It just... It was a flashback for a moment. I'm sorry."
"Because you were the sort of couple that kissed lovingly in causal places? Because he meant the world to you?"
"Ry,"
"What? What do you have to defend yourself."
"I don't want Dallon, I don't love Dallon. You are my world and that will never change."
"I wish I could believe you. I really do."
"Can't you just fucking trust that I wouldn't cheat."
"I thought it was uncontrollable, that it just happened?"

As soon as he said it, Ryan regretted it, he regretted it as he thought about what he was saying and he regretted it as Brendons face crumpled. There was a line and he had crossed it.
"You brought Audrey into this?" Brendons voice was broken.
"I'm sorry."
"Leave. Please."
"Brendon..."
"LEAVE!" He was a singer, but this was a note he couldn't hold, that one word held so much emotion that it smashed.

So Ryan left, he didn't say goodbye to Frank, he just walked into the late October night, and he started the walk home he promised his mum he wouldn't do alone. It was just past the time of trick or treaters, and candy wrappers were on the ground, lights still brightened the lower floors of friendly houses.

A boy in a Cookie Monster costume walked step by step into the night, letting the glow of streetlights and houses illuminate the tears running down his cheeks. He'd fucked up this time. He'd fucked up so badly.

~

The pizzas were done, and Frank brought them into the back yard. They were all Margaritas, because the fairy lights carefully strewn across the walls was enough to show off their made up faces and spooky costumes, but too dim to distinguish pizza toppings.

Ray noticed first.
"Brendon? You ok?" It was quiet enough that only the two of them could hear it.
"A little high." Brendon admitted. Not exactly true, but it was easier to explain his issues with drug abuse than actually talk about the ninety nine problems that followed him around.
"That's it?"
"Yeah."
"Because you seem upset."
"Its a party, Frofro, relax."
"Im just looking out for you."
"I don't need to be looked for, I'm right here."
Ray believed him. He was far too good at this, at playing high, at acting fine.

Mikey was a lightweight, and was definitely drunker than he had intended to get, but Pete was there. Pete would look after him.
But Pete was talking to Patrick, laughing as he ate pizza and sober Mikey wouldn't interrupt, even tipsy Mikey would probably just admire his boyfriend from a distance, but Mikey at Franks party needed something.

He couldn't walk along a straight line, so he absolutely couldn't articulate whatever he was feeling, but there was a sort of hollowness, an unexplainable sense of rejection. So he went over to Pete, climbed into his lap and kissed him. Pete kissed him back, because it was a fun night, and bad decisions were allowed to happen, there was a blanket immunity of Halloween. At Franks birthday party where everything smelt of pumpkins and everyone tasted of pizza and cheap beer.

"I love you." Perhaps proclamations of love would provide whatever Mikey needed.
"No?" Pete faked surprise "Never would have guessed."

Patrick was still awkwardly third wheeling, and he tried not to think about his dreams of Pete. They were not things he wanted to happen, or to remember imagining. His subconscious had been playing tricks on him, twisting his feelings.

"Is it too cold for me to steal your shirt?" Mikey remained oblivious.
"Yes."
"I'll keep you warm..."
And at that Pete stiffened, because Mikey meant nothing by it, but he couldn't help feeling like he was meant to be horny right now, and he, of course, wasn't.

"Mikey,"
"Petey?"
"Im not taking my shirt off outside in October."
"We can go inside?"
"You're drunk."
"You're cute."
"You're cute too, Mikeyway, but not tonight?"
Mikey nodded and Pete put his arms round him, because he wanted for them to be okay, but he wasn't sure they were, and it was his fault. He rested his head on Mikeys shoulder and watched Dallon and Ryan kiss, fairy lights tangled around Dallon in a way that was probably dangerous. He closed his eyes.

An// This is the last birth-ween chapter i promise.
How was y'alls halloweens?