Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I have a sleepless night lying on my back on the hotel bed with a local radio station on. I understand nothing of the host’s speech, but I think it’s one of those late night advice shows, a lot of ‘Liebe’ being thrown around, and I understand that much: ich liebe ihn nicht.

That’s not my problem – mine is of the other variety. And so I lie awake, feeling myself sober up as I gradually fill up the ashtray. I haven’t drawn the curtains, and the sun sneaks up on me, first weakly, then brighter and brighter, and soon I haven’t slept all night.

I haven’t gotten undressed, so I only need to roll out of bed when there’s a knock on my door. I left the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign hanging on the doorknob, just to give the world the right message. It’s only half past seven and bus call isn’t until ten, so my mind comes up with varied options as to who it is: a sobered and nauseous Sisky, maybe, or an angry Dallon wanting to check that I’m in my room and not in someone else’s. Or maybe Brendon with another suggestive invitation to go to his room, and my hands feel slightly sweaty at the thought of him, and there is no excuse for that.

It is Brendon, and I’m taken aback by it. He stands in the corridor, looking tired and not that good at all – sleepless night, contestant number two. At least he’s changed, the tight jeans now gone and replaced by flared maroon pants. He looks at me like he instantly realises that I haven’t been to bed at any point, his eyes quickly taking me in.

“Hey,” I say, my voice scratchy from having smoked too much.

“Hey.” His voice is hesitant. He looks worried. Concerned. The flirtatious air from last night is long gone. “Sorry if I woke you up but –”

“I wasn’t asleep. I, well. Couldn’t really sleep.”

“Me neither, really,” he says sheepishly. “I just wondered if you wanted to get some breakfast or- or something, I don’t know.” He says it too quickly. Twists his hands awkwardly. Shifts his weight from one leg to the other, and he doesn’t meet my gaze, but he’s never been the kind to be shy.

“Breakfast?” I repeat, having a hard time believing that this brings him to my door before decent hours.

“Yeah, I know,” he says, grimacing like his excuses are too thin even for him. “Okay, what I... what I really wanted to say is that I’m sorry about last night. I think I had too much to drink and I- I didn’t mean to come onto you, I just –”

“You didn’t.”

“Ryan,” he says very matter-of-factly, looking embarrassed. “Trust me. I came onto you.” And he says it like he knows what he wanted and what he was thinking, and heat flares up in my guts before I quickly suppress it.

“It’s fine,” I say, really not needing us to get into it. The mere thought of us talking about the ‘what if’ fills me with terror – that is not a good idea. “I had a few too many myself, I get it.”

“I shouldn’t have. It’s just, um.” He rubs his head, smiling awkwardly. “You, me and hotel rooms. Like memory, you know?”

“Yeah, exactly.” I’ve never been as quick to agree. “We have old habits and... Yeah, I get it. It’s fine,” I repeat for the umpteenth time. “We’re still learning to be friends, we’re both, uh, single and available, and you were upset about Dallon and –”

“It wasn’t about him,” he says, an almost frown appearing on his face.

“No, I – I just. I get it, man, and I’m past it, and.” Then I just nod plenty like that’s that.

I’m lying through my teeth, but we’re addressing the tension between us for the first time, and I know it’s been between us since – since Paris, Glasgow, Oslo, since I showed up at his door. But actually verbally acknowledging it makes my heart beat fast. It doesn’t seem like a good idea to admit that I’m still attracted to him, that on some level we probably want to fuck each other – we know that it’d be good sex.

“Look, Ry,” Brendon says, fidgeting. “I just –”

The door opposite mine opens just then, and I’m grateful for the interruption. Jon rushes out, throwing a jacket on as he goes, but he stops when he sees us, exhales. “Oh thank god, there you are!” He’s speaking to Brendon, who is slowly closing his mouth, swallowing words that I’m glad I now don’t have to hear. Jon is wide awake, and he’s not usually much of a morning person. He looks distressed. “Mike’s been calling your room, he –”

“Jon, you alright?” I ask because something’s wrong. I know that right then, I see it in his eyes.

“Mike’s at the police station.”

Brendon pales. “He’s been arrested?”

“No!” Jon rushes out. I exhale – okay, Mike isn’t in jail. Thank fuck. He doesn’t seem the type, anyway. “Bob and Quentin have been arrested,” Jon then says. A look of horror takes over Brendon’s features.

“For what?” I ask disbelievingly. When I went to bed, those two were still at that party, surrounded by a group of admirers. The morning paints a different picture. Hell, I talked back to a cop once, they took me in for that, but I can’t imagine what on earth Bob and Quentin could have done since I last saw them.

Jon looks dead serious but hesitates like he’s not sure how to say it. “Statutory rape and possession of drugs.”

Jon can barely even say it.

I can barely believe it.

“That is bullshit!” Brendon yells angrily when we return to the thankfully quiet lobby of the police station. Mike tries to hush him, saying that a scene will only make it worse, but Brendon doesn’t care.

They took us to a private room to avoid commotion and publicity, and after having waited for over an hour for a competent English speaker to fill us in, none of us have much patience left. We left the hotel in a hurry, and I came along because Jon and Brendon were panicking and I happened to be there to hear the news, so I came. Didn’t want to leave Brendon alone with this, wanted to know what the hell was going on. Jon’s been on the phone with Dallon, telling the guys to just stay put until we know what we’re doing.

Officers now look our way as Brendon vents, speaking in angry, loud whispers. “Bob and Quentin did not rape that girl – Quentin is gay, for fuck’s sake! He would not touch her!”

“It’s her word against theirs,” Jon says flatly like he’s accepted defeat. What more can we do?

“But we know that she’s lying!” Brendon insists.

“Of course we know that,” Mike says, tries to keep his frontman calm. In a single night, Mike’s gone from looking like a twenty-something man of the world to resembling a forty-something burnout. “That still doesn’t change the fact that she’s fifteen. Bob admits that he slept with her, but he didn’t rape her and he thought she was of legal age. We have a good case here, she was at an over eighteen party, her story keeps changing. But for... for now, the boys are being charged with rape, and the drugs on them aren’t helping. We can’t change what’s happened, Brendon.”

Brendon looks pained like he really wishes that he could.

Bob should have known better: he went back to her place. You never, ever do that. Quentin went too, but that makes sense because you shouldn’t let a band member wander off on his own. Mike’s given us their version: Quentin stayed downstairs, got kind of high, suddenly an angry middle-aged German man is yelling at him, then the guy is rushing upstairs, then there’s screaming and tears and the girl is pointing fingers, and then the police are there and our guys are being cuffed. That’s how it happened, that’s the truth: the girl’s dad caught her fucking a grown man and she can’t admit to that, so rape it is.

The masses of reporters outside were impressive when we got here, so I can’t imagine what it’s like now. They were setting up video cameras and everything – the girl’s dad is a German politician, apparently quite powerful from what we understand. That’s why this is hot news.

We are unbelievably fucked.

“At least they’ve agreed to set them out on bail,” Mike says. It’s taken all goddamn morning of lawyers coming in, us waiting around, figuring out our next move to get the boys out. At least there’s that.

“That girl just needs to confess,” Brendon sighs, exhausted.

“But that still won’t make the drugs disappear,” I say, adding insult to injury, but we all need to stick to the truth now. Say it like it is. No lies.

It’d be suicidal to go outside and face the press wanting a piece of us, of Bob and Quentin. Luckily the police agree – I think Mike’s in over his head with this and accepts the somewhat arrogant and reluctant help from the local police. Mike doesn’t know about law or ages of consent in random European countries.

Eventually an officer comes for us, asking us to follow him. We go downstairs to the parking hall where two cars are waiting for us, shiny black with tinted windows. They’re not police cars, thankfully, because leaving in one would make me feel like we’re all criminals. Mike and Jon get in the first one, and Brendon and I disappear into the second one.

In the silent privacy of the car, I can almost feel the anguished energy coming off of Brendon in waves. The driver’s seat is still empty, the rest of our party not having arrived yet. Brendon keeps sighing, his knees bouncing. He can’t sit still for a second.

I say, “Take it easy.”

He stops fidgeting. At least there’s that. “Easy?” he asks disbelievingly. “This band is fucking cursed! Ian overdoses, I nearly collapse on stage, Dallon is angry with me, and Bob gets arrested for statutory rape! Easy?! Fuck, what happens next? Jon gets hit by a car? Tell me who’s ever had as much shit luck as we have!”

“Buddy Holly.”

“At least he died quick,” he snaps and then sinks against the seat. He covers his eyes with his palm, letting out a deep breath. “I can’t believe this is happening. We try so hard, I try so hard and –”

“Hey, I know. It’ll be alright, I promise you.”

It seems that I’ve been telling him that a lot lately.

“Will it?” he asks, hand now dropping to his lap. “I knew Quentin’s got a habit of snorting snow, but Bob was there when Ian – And he still. Fucking idiot,” he swears, and he kicks the passenger seat in front of him. It catches me by surprise, but I let him kick out his anger if that helps him. “We’re over. This time we’re over, so we better admit defeat, pack up and go home. Fuck. You got any extra space up in Machias? I’ll come hide out there with you.”

“Now you’re just being overdramatic.”

He laughs bitterly. “The funny thing is that I’m not.”

The door opens on my left then, and Bob gets in the car quickly like he can’t stand being seen. He’s got the hood of his coat over his head, and he says nothing as he settles down, the door slamming shut. His shoulders are hunched, and he barely looks at us. A driver gets in and instantly starts up the car.

Brendon is staring at Bob. “Hey, man.”

Bob nods. Doesn’t lower his hood. His hands are in his lap, calloused and toughened drummer hands that are now idle and twitchy. They appear to be shaking just slightly.

The car takes off and drives up a ramp and out of the parking hall. When we exit the building, we’re expected – policemen are trying to keep back the reporters who are yelling out, taking flashing pictures. Bob flinches, Brendon flinches – Bob hangs his head and hides his face because even though the tinted glass protects us, we can see the press, can feel their attack. Brendon turns to me to hide, and I place a hand in his hair, instinctively pull him closer, and he breathes against my shoulder, hiding as the driver inches his way through the mob. People bang on the sides and scream in a language we can’t understand, and I gently massage Brendon’s scalp, hoping to calm him down.

Then the car breaks through the crowd and we start going faster. Brendon pulls back, and only exhaustion and defeat remain in his eyes. Bob slowly lowers his hood, and I’m taken aback by how unwell he looks: nothing physically, except for the tiredness and the reddened eyes, but the dead expression that he wears. Like there’s just nothing beneath his shell.

“You okay?” I ask, knowing it to be a stupid question. He shakes his head. Of course he’s not okay – he was arrested and accused of something he didn’t do.

“I can’t leave the country,” he now says. “Neither can Quentin.” On my right, Brendon swears and looks out of the window. “I’m sorry,” he adds.

“It’s not your fault,” I tell him because Bob looks like he’s on the verge of tears. I don’t want to see a grown man breaking down like that.

“What were you thinking?” Brendon, however, asks.

Bob looks at us both, blue eyes devastated. “She said she was eighteen. And she was so - so beautiful, and – I feel sick. I feel sick thinking that she’s only – only fifteen. I did not do what she claims, I am not a- I am not a rapist. I would never. My god. Fifteen.” For a second I think that Bob is going to be physically ill over it, but then he manages to breathe through it. I don’t blame him because the thought makes me nauseous. A child.

None of Bob’s good humour is there. None of his cocky yet charming demeanour. He looks like he’s disgusted by his actions, disgusted by the accusations, disgusted by humanity.

“It’ll be okay,” Brendon says quietly, voice dead. “We’ll cancel the tour.”

I ask, “How many shows are left?”

“Four,” Brendon sighs. Four. At least they’ve managed a memorable ending. “Four shows,” he repeats, and it’s obvious that he’s heartbroken over it.

I almost say, ‘But Quentin can take over’ – he’s the drum tech, he can easily do it. But then Quentin has been arrested too. Brendon’s already figured that out: their drummer and drum tech cannot leave Germany, certainly not to be wherever we’re meant to be tomorrow. Mike can’t play the drums, Sisky can’t play the drums – Brendon’s right. We’re cancelling the tour.

“I want you to know,” Bob now says roughly, looking at Brendon, “that those drugs weren’t mine. They took blood tests, that’ll show it. Ian nearly killed himself messing with heroin, and I know that- I didn’t always get along with Ian, but seeing him fucking himself up got to me. I didn’t take any drugs last night, Bren, you gotta believe me.”

Brendon is staring out of the window, unwilling to look at his drummer. “Okay.”

“Fuck,” Bob says, voice quivering. “I need you to believe in me. I need you to –”

“I do,” Brendon now says, the words rushed. He hangs his head in guilt but still won’t look at Bob. “Of course I do, but you fucked up, man. And now we’ll have to cancel the tour and go home with our tail between our legs. And that’s just fucking great.”

“Don’t be a dick,” I say because he’s being too harsh on Bob. I remember the girl in question too – she stood out because she was stunning. And I thought she looked like she was twenty. It was an easy mistake to make. The lies have just escalated, her politician dad is trying to make her into a rape victim, which she never was – she was just a groupie who got caught and regretted it. She’ll get caught in her lies eventually but that still won’t save the tour.

Brendon looks at me guiltily. He’s just upset, I understand that.

“I’m sorry, man,” Brendon now sighs.

“It’s okay,” Bob says meekly. “I’m sorry too.”

The rest of the drive passes in silence. I try to figure out how I could possibly fix this – get the girl to confess, get Bob’s name cleared, something that will save His Side the embarrassment of ‘His Side drummer charged with rape – tour cancelled’ headlines. I mean, those headlines are being printed anyway, but a ‘His Side drummer falsely charged with rape – band proceeds tour without’ would be a much kinder headline. I don’t want Brendon to suffer, especially now that I know how much this band means to him: a chance to save the world. Some bits of it, anyway.

Getting the band’s name tarnished like this is not something Brendon deserves. Having to go home, having failed in completing the tour, is even worse.

The car slows down and comes to a stop. The hotel we’re at is not the same one where we were this morning – going back there with the press waiting for us? No. Not a good idea.

Before we can get out, Bob’s door gets opened and Mike peers in. “Stay here, I’ll go see that it’s safe,” he says. Bob looks even more dispirited. Brendon looks heartbroken.

I can’t stand that.

I will not accept that.

There’s got to be a way. There is a way.

“So listen,” I say, attracting Brendon’s attention. “I kind of know a drummer.”

The house is a ninety minute drive from Innsbruck, along snowy, narrow roads through the Austrian Alps, during which Sisky declares that he’s not a religious man but he’ll pray for us all, anyway. Jürgen, however, is a great driver, managing to keep the bus going, the engine screeching but not giving up. And then finally we arrive, our persecution over; the bus stops outside a picturesque three story chalet that we can’t really bring ourselves to be that enthusiastic about. It only marks our escape from the public eye, hiding from reporters. It marks failure.

But also retaliation. Us not giving up yet.

“So how do you know about this place again?” I ask Mike as we leave the bus, our feet sinking into untouched snow, the cold wind brutally hitting us.

Mike shrugs. “A friend of mine owes me a favour. It’s his house.”

The enormous chalet is on a hill, around which mountains rise, white peaks visible. There’s a ski resort somewhere close by, but we’re not here for pleasure. The sun is setting behind the Western mountain ridge, making the tops look ominously black. I have to admit that maybe Mike’s not as bad a manager as I’ve always thought. He’s handled this well, all taken into consideration: this morning we woke up to Bob and Quentin having been arrested. The two have since been released and have the best lawyers available – the label and Vicky had to get involved, understandably. Vicky’s exclaimed that she is going to sue everyone from the German government to the owner of the bar who let an underage girl in if the charges don’t get sorted out. Our show in Vienna tomorrow has been cancelled nonetheless. The shows after that, however, will go ahead as planned, Mike’s making sure of that. And after a brief stop in Innsbruck on the way, we’ve finally arrived to a countryside hideaway. Out of Germany, into the mountains.

The location would be stunning weren’t our hearts so heavy.

Mike still deserves credit for keeping the band from collapsing. All in all, the guys are coping. Mike now rushes to the chalet’s door to let the guys in, shivering in the cold, exhausted after all that they’ve endured. I stay still, taking in the view.

“I’ve had band practice in worse places,” Spencer now says from beside me, suitcase still in grip. He’s got that well-worn look of a traveller, and he seems at ease, not out of place – you’d think that he woke up this morning expecting an emergency phone call, like his suitcase was ready and packed. That’s how he appeared when we picked him up at Innsbruck airport, too. “God, look at that view!”

“Aren’t you glad I saved you?” I ask, getting out a cigarette. I offer him one, but he declines with a shake of his head.

“Please, I’m saving you,” he says as I light up.

I blow out smoke, pocketing my lighter, and I watch the way the Alpine breeze ruffles his hair, watch the smile on his lips. Feel myself smile in return. “Aren’t you glad to be saving me?”

“You know what?” he asks, a boyish excitement in his eyes that he tries to hide because – well, the circumstances are unpleasant. “I kind of am.”

“Come the hell inside!” Mike now calls out from the front door. He’s motioning at us frantically. “The last thing we need is for our two fucking fill in members to freeze to death! And you’re not here for the view, you’re here for boot camp! Thirty hours and counting!”

Spencer rolls his eyes but kicks into motion, and I break into a grin and follow my best friend into the house.

The practice space is in the basement, or well, on the first floor – it depends on which level you’re entering the house. The room has enormous glass windows that face the valley below, but for most of the night we see nothing but pitch black. Brendon’s teaching Spencer the drumming parts to His Side songs Spencer’s heard only when he came to see us play. Brendon looks exhausted, his mind is clearly elsewhere, but he is seeing this through. Brendon keeps stopping Spencer, correcting him, then going back to the pink grand piano, decorated with fake diamonds.

Turns out that Mike’s friend who owes him a favour is Elton John. How the hell Mike knows him and how exactly does Elton owe him a favour, I’m mystified by. The house is a modest holiday home for the superstar, only has seven bedrooms I’ve been told, and for tonight His Side are Elton’s lodgers, desperately trying to get the live act back together.

“Okay, so from the chorus,” Brendon says again, for the hundredth time. “One, two, three, four –”

As we kick into the chorus, Mike jerks awake, having fallen asleep on the couch. It’s four in the morning, and we haven’t slept. Everyone looks exhausted except for Brendon and Spencer, both of whom seem to have something to prove.

After a few more goes, during which Jon is so dead beat that he drops a pick and Dallon forgets what we’re even playing, Mike tells us that we need to go sleep. Five hours should do it, then we’re back in this room, getting it right before getting back on the bus for an overnight drive to Rome. We had to leave Bob and Quentin in Munich, and the goodbye was awkward and angry. We’re not talking about it, however. There’s nothing we can do for them except offer our support and hope for the best.

“See you in the morning,” Dallon says as he leaves with Jon, his eyes lingering on the rest of us, but he’s been civil today. Bob’s entire life could be ruined because of one fuck up, so whatever anger and resentment Dallon feels for me, he’s kept it to himself. He’s not petty and he’s not a brat – he and Brendon would have been good together. I know that.

Brendon watches Dallon leave, but he seems too preoccupied with the band to mourn the premature dissolution of his and Dallon’s relationship. Still, I catch the uneasy vibes between them, and I try my best to stay out of it.

The crisis has also made Brendon coming onto me seem petty. So what? We were drunk. We’re both probably horny. It was either flattering or insulting that he wanted me, I don’t know. He finds me attractive, thinks that I qualify for a meaningless fuck. As long as I stay away until this tour is over, as long as I resist temptation, we’ll be fine.

“You too,” Mike now says to Brendon through a thick yawn, hand over his mouth. “You’re still a patient, Bren.”

“I feel fine,” he says, and he might be right. He looks as healthy as he did before.

“Roscoe,” Mike orders, pointing at him. “Out.”

Brendon mumbles under his breath but finally agrees to leave. Sisky rushes after him. Mike doesn’t tell me to go to bed, probably knows he has no authority over me, and so I stay and work with Spencer and Mike for a while longer.

Eventually Mike calls it a night for all. He slouches out of the room while Spencer tells me that he’ll go to bed in a minute, he only wants to run through one last song. “Fine,” I tell him, even when I know he’s lying.

The practice room is soundproofed, but I feel the vibrations of the drums as I ascend the stairs. The lights aren’t on in the spacious living room, but roaring flames rise from the fireplace, casting live shadows on furniture. I stop when I see Brendon on a plush couch, having thought he would be in bed by now. Everyone else most certainly is.

“Hey,” he greets me quietly. Then he says, “It’s snowing.”

He motions at the massive windows, and as the flames flicker I see specks of white floating past the glass. It’s breathtakingly beautiful.

“Why are you still up?”

Mike seemed insistent on his singer getting some rest after a horrible day. Brendon just motions at the coffee table in front of him though there’s nothing there – anymore, anyway. “Wasn’t tired so Sisky interviewed me some.”

“Yeah?” I ask, unsure of what to make of that. Brendon left the practice room forty... fifty minutes ago? Is that a long time? How much can you say in that much time? Can you get in depth? “You alright?” I then ask, referring to the loss of Bob and Quentin as well as the interview. Brendon shakes his head – of course he’s not alright.

“Just brought up some old memories,” he says, waving it off, but it seems like he can’t wave it off. Otherwise he wouldn’t be sitting here in the middle of the night, lost in his thoughts. He cards through his hair like he’s trying to process whatever is on his mind.

“Do you want me to leave?”

To my surprise, he shakes his head. “Sit down.”

So I do. I sit on the other end of the couch, finding that it’s soft and warm and inviting. Brendon is absently rubbing his right wrist.

“Too much playing,” he says. My fingers are stiff from playing for hours on end, but my wrists and, more importantly, both of my elbows feel just fine. Never as good as they once were, but healed nonetheless.

“We’ll be able to put on an alright show,” I say conversationally. “Spencer’s got half the songs down already.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “He’s really fucking good.”

“I know.”

My mind is on the interview that took place without my knowledge. I know that with Jon, Sisky did as he promised and focused on discussing the bands. And Brendon witnessed the downfall of The Followers and the rise of The Whiskeys, and as a key witness undoubtedly Brendon has plenty to say on the bands, but I can’t imagine Sisky not trying to pursue the more intimate angle between Brendon and me.

“Did Sisky behave himself?” I ask, and Brendon nods absently. Good. Otherwise I’d give Sisky a good talking to.

“It’s just a bit odd, saying some things out loud,” he muses, and I know exactly what he means. He half-smiles. “Remember that time you got arrested in Philadelphia, and you threatened to quit the band?”

I laugh embarrassedly, nod. I do remember it – vaguely. I was drunk as hell and keen to start a fight. I didn’t quit the band, though. I stayed. I remember Brendon and me on the bus the day after my arrest, our mouths bruising and angry. With every kiss I felt better, not that I admitted it then. But he kept fixing me.

“Those weren’t good times,” I reflect.

“I think they kind of were,” he says pensively, surprising me. “When compared to what was in store for you and me, anyway.”

He’s probably right about that. Those were preliminary rounds, us practising ways to really fuck each other up.

“Sisky didn’t ask about New York yet, but I’ve been thinking about it,” he says quietly. “Have you talked to him about it?”

“Some,” I admit.

He shakes his head and chuckles, but I don’t get what’s funny. “We’ll talk to someone else about it but not each other.”

“It’s easier.”

“But we should be able to talk about it,” he says emphatically. “So I’ve been thinking about it, us and what happened. And if Sisky asks about our affair, I know what I’ll tell him. I’ll say, ‘You want to hear something really fucked up?’ And he’ll say sure.” He looks at me intently like he’s repeating the question: do I want to hear something really fucked up?

Sure.

He’s specifically said that he doesn’t want to talk about the past. He shot me down the few times I tried to talk about it when I first got to Chicago. Now in the privacy of this house so early in the morning that we can’t even call it that, his tongue seems loosened. There’s a weird sense of loss to his voice even though he’s hardly even said anything yet, and I find myself holding my breath, dreading and yearning what comes next.

“I hated that Shane slept with you,” he states surprisingly calmly.

I immediately hang my head in shame of myself. I will never be able to live that down. “I know there was no excuse for –”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” he says. “I was furious with you both, but Shane doing that really shocked me. I never thought that he’d cheat on me. I know how hypocritical that is, but... I thought I knew him and I thought that he would never... So he broke my heart when he cheated, in some fucked up way he did. But you broke it too, and in the aftermath of it all, when I was angry and hurt, I realised that I was jealous. Thinking of you two, all these mental images haunting me, fuck, it made me so jealous. And that was the worst part. Not that Shane had cheated, but that it’d been with you. I didn’t want him to have you because you were... I guess I just thought that you were supposed to be mine, and I didn’t want others to have you.”

Something I can’t swallow has lodged itself into my throat. “Bren...”

“Listen,” he says, voice wavering slightly as he presses on. “Just let me- let me say this. When it came to Shane, that’s what hurt the most: being jealous of him. And when it came to you, what hurt the most was that – that you had done something so bad that you left me no choice. That I had to let you go. You were touring somewhere halfway across the world, and I left for LA, trying to write music that my label would like. And Ian was with me, sure, but I don’t think I’ve ever been that lonely in my life. And everyone asked about you all the time, people thought we were good friends, there were these – god, these constant reminders of you everywhere. But you had left me no choice, and it fucking killed me. Not that you would have even had me at that point, I know that,” he says quickly. “You kicked me the hell out of your life, and maybe I deserved it. But what you did was unforgivable. I couldn’t –” He runs out of breath and shakes his head. Takes a few moments to pull himself back together. “I couldn’t forgive you enough to...”

“I know,” I say roughly. That was the plan: destroy everything beyond repair.

He laughs sadly. “God, I just wanted to call you and make up so many times. And I knew that I shouldn’t have wanted that but I still did. And days turn to weeks and months and – and then you showed up in Chicago, and it was like – like I’d been waiting for you to show up, and it was hard to be mad at myself for that. I was mostly mad at you for making me wait. For dropping in on us in Montreal but not having the fucking courtesy to show your face, like you’re allowed to check up on me, but I’m not allowed to do the same. How was that fair?” he asks, and it never occurred to me that he might view it like that.

I don’t even know what to say, but then the truth breaks from my lips. “I stayed away because I assumed you hated me.”

“I don’t.”

“I couldn’t know that. You know you’d have the right.” I worry on my bottom lip, and I realise that I’ve never really said the most obvious thing that needs to be said: “I’m sorry for what I did to you.”

“I know that.”

But I don’t think he does know. I don’t think even I fully realise how truly sorry I am. And now he’s listening, so I say, “I just wanted to hurt you back. Shane had figured you out, that you’d cheated, and he was a mess, all upset, and I – It was easy and petty and wrong. But if I couldn’t have you, then I couldn’t let you go with him either. He wasn’t worthy of you,” I say quietly, hoping that somewhere deep down he knows I’m right. “You were settling. You were. And it was arrogant of me to think so, to assume that I knew what was best for you but... what I felt for you. I thought that’d be enough justification, enough reason. Turned out it wasn’t, and I didn’t handle that well. Understatement, I couldn’t handle it at all. And it seemed like such a perfect revenge, doing what I did. But I was repulsed by it. And I’m sorry that I put you through all that.”

“Maybe I deserved it,” he sighs. “After all I’d done to Shane.” He stares into space, and it occurs to me what a great number we did not only on each other, but on everyone. He wasn’t innocent, pearly white. God, us? We could never have been innocent. “After all I’d done to you too,” he then adds as an afterthought but sounds like he still means it. “I’m sorry for that, too.”

“I survived,” I shrug. That’s almost a lie, but I don’t want him to feel bad about that. He couldn’t help it. You can’t force yourself to care more about someone than you do, so. And I gave him no reason to choose me. None at all. “I know it doesn’t change anything, but it was the worst sex I’ve ever had. No offense to Shane.”

Brendon breaks into a broken smile and somehow manages to laugh. “None taken.” And I somehow manage to laugh, too, to shake my head at it. Brendon exhales and curls up on the couch. “Bygones now, though, I guess.”

“Yeah. Bygones.”

I’ve pictured alternative scenarios hundreds of times. Different ways to save us, to have him. But they’re daydreams, and daydreams are a waste of time.

“Better that it didn’t work out, really. It’d be a lifetime of hiding,” I then tell him. Had we worked out, him and me, we would always have to hide it. We could never let anyone know. I was too famous then, am too famous now, and these days Brendon Roscoe is gaining more and more fame. Double the attention.

I expect him to agree that it’s better this way, that at least now he doesn’t need to hide something as huge as having a man in his life. Someone who’s famous, too. After all he’s been through, his pride, his need not to be ashamed of who he is... He would never be okay with completely hiding it. But instead he shrugs slightly. “If it’s true, it’s worth anything.”

He’s probably right about that.

I never really stopped to wonder how he felt during the time we spent apart. Never let myself dream that he’d want to call me up, that he still wanted me around. Assumed that he didn’t. I know that a part of him wished that he hadn’t wanted that.

“I’m here now,” I say at length.

“I know.” The fire is slowly dying down, the flames low, coals glowing deep red. “I’m glad you are. Saved the band again.”

I figure he’s referring to Spencer, so I just shrug. I’m useful to have around.

“I just,” he starts, drawing in a breath. “Ever since you showed up, I constantly feel this. This odd sensation, like something is getting filled up. Especially recently, and it just makes me realise how much I’ve missed you. Like I didn’t even know it myself while you were gone. And I know I said this already, but,” he pauses. “I’ve really fucking missed you, Ry.” He’s looking into his lap, dark shadows dancing on his face. The pain in his words is unexpected, makes me feel guilty. It is different this time, him saying those words. They mean something different.

“I’ve missed you too.”

It’s not easy to say, but it’s true.

He smiles in relief, and that’s ridiculous. Like he somehow didn’t know how much I’ve missed him – just being around him, talking to him, seeing him, having him in my life. I reach out and pull a hand from his lap, and his fingers find mine, linking together, tracing the skin. His hand is dry and warm. He smiles a fraction wider, leaning into the couch. With no intention to run.

He looks at me, smiling carefully, and I return the smile, meeting his gaze.

He says, “I’m sharing my room with Dick, and he talks in his sleep,” and I say, “I think I’ll wait for Spencer to be done downstairs.”

And so we stay where we are, our fingers slowly tracing patterns, familiarising ourselves with what is already well known.

When I come to, it’s light, a hell of a lot lighter, and I’m lying on the couch – well half of me is, the other half is sticking out over the edge. Thankfully I haven’t lost my balance and fallen onto the floor, probably due to the weight on me which... is Brendon. He’s snugly fit himself between me and the back of the couch, draping over me in his sleep. I have an arm around his shoulders and he has an arm thrown around my waist, his head on my chest. He is warm and comfortable and smells good, and I want to press into the heat, pull him closer, fall back asleep but... we’re being watched.

Sisky is standing by the fireplace, staring at us with a knowing grin, and it’s kind of hard to fall back asleep with someone staring at you. Our eyes meet, and his grin becomes obnoxious, eyeing Brendon still asleep and all over me.

“Breakfast,” he whispers and winks. He then heads to where I can hear the sound of pots and pans being banged.

I let out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. I count to ten. Remember last night, what Brendon said, what I said. The last thing I remember is us sitting here, a comfortable even if poignant silence on us. I don’t remember falling asleep. I don’t remember us finding each other in the dark. Anyone could have walked past us, seen us, and here we are, canoodling like –

Brendon stirs slightly, murmurs nonsense, and I fucking love it when he does that.

He jerks awake, hums, and lifts his head from where it was resting on my chest. “Uhm,” he says, hands slipping on me as he pushes himself to rest on an elbow. He blinks at me tiredly like he’s trying to figure out how we ended up here. “Hello.”

“Hey.”

“I fell asleep.”

“Guess so,” I say, pulling my arm back from his shoulders.

His cheeks are slightly reddened from the warmth of sleep, reminding me of his fever dreams, of his hot skin when he fucks. His eyes linger on my face, and my stomach drops, not knowing what he’s thinking.

Further bangs sound from the kitchen. He turns his head. “Food?” This clearly interests him.

“Yeah.”

“Great.” He sits up, and I do the same, letting my feet touch the floor. My neck is stiff and my body aches from the confined space we shared, but somehow I feel well rested, my body relaxed. “Real food would be nice. I think I can swallow again.” He rubs his Adam’s apple but it’s hard to believe that that’s really the only thing running through his head just now. I wasn’t expecting to wake up like that. I doubt he was expecting it either.

He still gets up without further comments on us having shared the couch, but maybe we just don’t need to comment on it. I can’t decide if that’s because it’s taboo or it’s holy.

Brendon rolls his shoulders, trying to kick sleep out of his limbs. “You’re comfy,” he says over his shoulder.

“I am?” My eyes quickly move up from where they were moving lower and lower down his back. “I’m glad.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty surprised myself,” he says teasingly, sending a smirk my way, and I feel relieved by it. With just one smile, I somehow know we’re still okay. “I’ll join you in a minute.” He pads towards the bathroom. I watch him go and feel slight longing from the distance.

So we slept on the couch. After we sat here and... He said all these things. That he’s missed me, and I’ve missed him too. And that’s alright.

Others wouldn’t understand.

Thankfully, only Sisky and Spencer are in the kitchen, and I quickly figure out that the others haven’t gotten up yet. Waking up to the entire band and crew watching our sleeping embrace would have been more unnerving.

It’s ten in the morning, and I’m surprised that Spencer is up. He nonetheless seems rejuvenated somehow and doesn’t seem to be missing London one bit – apart from the girl, he said. And here I thought that he’d feel bad for walking out on The Police, but apparently I gave him an excuse to quit and to leave them to the recording of their own fucking album. Spencer’s exact words.

“Morning,” I say, and Spencer looks up from the omelette mixture he’s whisking.

“Morning, beautiful,” he retorts slyly. “See you managed to tear yourself away, then.”

So Spencer saw us too.

Sisky chuckles from where he’s setting the table, putting plates and forks in place. He keeps eyeing me, that grin permanently fixed on his face. Well, I’m not a creep who watches other people sleep, for fuck’s sake.

“Sisky, can you go see if Mike’s up yet?” Spencer requests, and Sisky is quick to obey Spencer, looking at him adoringly. It feels like sending the kid away so that the parents can talk. I play with my sleeves and hope that Spencer lets it be.

But it’s Spencer James Smith, and I’ve known the fucker since I was this tall. When has he ever let things be?

Spencer pours his egg mix onto a hot pan, the yellowy liquid sizzling. “This’ll be good,” he says confidently, and then he glances at me, and I try to clear my throat and appear casual and calm. “You back together with Brendon, then?”

There is no accusation in his tone, but I shake my head quickly anyway. “No.”

“No?” He sounds disbelieving. “Because you act like you are.”

“Well that’s your misinformed perception of it,” I scoff.

“Misinformed perception?”

“We just talked,” I say defensively even though a warm and fluffy sensation has settled in my guts, tension and excitement and nerves, but it’s far too early in the morning to acknowledge it.

“Hmm,” Spencer says like he now gets me. “Clearly wore you out. All that talking.”

I’m about to tell him to go fuck himself, but Brendon walks into the kitchen just then, eyes lighting up at the sight of the omelette. “So you drum and you cook.”

“I’m the full package,” Spencer smirks. Brendon smiles, and that’s a hell of a lot after all we went through yesterday.

“Morning,” Brendon then says, looking my way, and he says it like he means it – if you can somehow really mean saying ‘morning’ to someone, and I suppress the instinct to return the greeting and place a kiss in his tousled hair. And I get the strange feeling that Brendon wouldn’t bat an eye if I did just that.

“Morning,” I manage to return. Realise that maybe I’m crossing the line again, but it’s fucking hard to stay behind it when Brendon lets me cross it so easily. Like maybe he wants me to, and that sets off a distant alarm bell in my head, but it’s getting harder and harder to remember why it’s there.

Sisky now returns, looking miserable. “Mike told me to go fuck myself.”

“He’s never been much of a morning person,” Brendon says matter-of-factly. “I’ll show you how it’s done.”

Sisky smiles in relief and hurries back to wherever Mike’s sleeping – I don’t even know, I never made it past the couch. Brendon glances at me and smirks. “You should comb your hair, by the way.”

I blindly flatten my hair at the top, feeling it stick out randomly. Brendon goes after Sisky, and Spencer focuses on his omelette, not lifting his eyes from the pan as he says, “And he acts like it, too.”

“Tonight is for lovers,” Brendon tells the crowd in Rome the following night, and they cheer back enthusiastically. “So if you came to the show by yourself, I hope you’re not leaving alone. Look at the person next to you! Yeah, go ahead, look at them.” He waits for the audience to obey, and I tune my guitar as he speaks. Behind his drum kit, Spencer is laughing – he’s never heard much of Brendon’s banter before. I did nothing of the kind when we were in The Followers, I never sought to entertain, to connect, to change lives. “Does the person next to you look good? Do they look sexy? I bet they do. So cop a feel, man, grope them for me! Because tonight is for passion and for love and for sex –” They cheer even more, “– and this is our last song and it’s about all those sexy things and then some. It’s called Wandering Lips. We’re His Side, and we wish you a good night!”

Brendon turns around to face Spencer, and Spencer gets the hint and kicks into the song. Spencer’s got notes taped to the floor and to different parts of the kit, but so far he hasn’t fucked up. He won’t either – he is one of the best musicians I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.
For the guys, it might be weird to turn around and not find Bob playing the drums, but for me it feels natural to see Spencer. Who else would be there? And though it might be wrong, halfway through the set I’ve decided that the show’s my favourite of the ones we’ve played. Flowers decorate the stage floor, having been thrown on it during the set. Trust Romans to be romantics.

Brendon is back to his old self too, full of energy again, his voice sounding better. He sings, “You don’t taste like anyone else I know,” and a few girls in the front row look like they’re about to faint. He repeats the refrain, taking the mic off the stand – time to share it with Dallon, for their lips to get inappropriately close. But they haven’t done it recently because Brendon’s been stuck to his mic stand, not moving around nearly as much because he’s been ill. Now he starts his familiar trek towards me and Dallon.

“Oh, what did I say?” he asks the crowd, and we receive a bellow of “you don’t taste like anyone else I know”s back, and Brendon laughs mischievously, his cocky stage persona as strong as ever. In a lot of ways it’s not him, just some showmanship, but there is a kernel of Brendon there, just with an inflated confidence and a self-assuredness that comes with it. It’s fucking sexy and hard to ignore.

“Oh you, baby, you, you, you,” Brendon sings, but he doesn’t move past me and head over to Dallon. Instead he stays on my left and sings to the crowd, doubling over slightly as he goes for a high note. And when I glance at Dallon, he’s not expecting Brendon to come over. Foreplay over and done with as Dallon’s angled himself to face the far right, playing for the fans there in some attempt to ignore Brendon.

Standing between the two feels awkward, and I try not to look at either of them.

And then the song moves to the outro, the chance to sing together come and gone. But Brendon looks at me intently as I play the riff to the outro, and he’s smiling wide and happy, almost wild. It feels like he’s smiling at me, and I smile back – how can I not when it’s so damn contagious? His eyes sparkle, he is full of energy, and I know he’s enjoying this. And that’s saying a hell of a lot with his drummer and lead guitarist missing.

By now, of course, Bob’s arrest has been well advertised all over. Mike worried that it’d reflect on the crowd, our reputation ruined: it doesn’t. The fans are happy to see us and don’t seem upset that Bob is missing because when we finish the encore and Spencer stands up from his stool, the crowd is chanting his name. Spencer looks like he doesn’t know what to make of that, but he smiles a shocked and flattered smile, the good vibes radiating from him to the rest of us. Considering it’s the first His Side show ever played without Bob, it goes really well.

We’re all excited and relieved once it’s done. That could have gone badly, and we’ve had our string of bad shows already. But instead we were fucking good, and I don’t know what it is – that Spencer and I feel so comfortable with each other on stage, that Spencer’s just that good, that Brendon’s finally fully recovered from his pharyngitis, or all of the above. But we shone out there. And once backstage we sigh in relief and exchange hugs and pat each other’s backs. Thank fucking god.

“That was really great!” Spencer says brightly when we’re back in the dressing room, passing a bottle of whiskey along.

“You were better than we could’ve hoped for,” Brendon says while Mike is busy singing high praise. Brendon keeps looking my way – I think, I’m not sure. That fire that I saw on stage is still in his eyes, now making me feel uneasy. Is he looking my way because I keep looking his way? Who’s catching whom doing what?

I put on a smile and talk to Jon about the show. Ignore the butterflies in my stomach and the mantra of ‘what is going on?’ that rings in my head.

And not just that but how to avoid what is going on.

We’re playing another show in Rome tomorrow, but it’s a matinee show with an acoustic set, and we’ll be playing for a few hundred people. It’s an invitation only event for journalists and men about town by a local radio station that has organised a handful of competitions to let some real fans in, too.

So we’re not leaving town but we still need to pack up. The roadies – well, only Dick and Leo now, so Sisky and Dallon pitch in – stay behind to pack up while the rest of us head to our hotel. I get the distinct feeling that Dallon will take any excuse not to be around Brendon or me right now.

A limousine picks us up, which makes us feel overly important. We’re buzzed and a celebration feels imminent, but at the same time it would be inappropriate to make merry with Bob and Ian gone. We certainly don’t want to admit that the band works better with the current members than with the official ones. And so as we get to the hotel, Jon says that he needs to go call Cassie, and Mike needs to call Vicky to tell her how the show went without Bob. Spencer, however, is full of energy and insists on hanging out at least. The first show he and I have played together in four and a half years – it is worth celebrating. A quick drink at the bar, maybe, and then go to bed.

“Come up to my room,” Brendon says, and Spencer likes the idea. They’re both slightly drunk but not overly so.

“We don’t want to crash your place,” I say, trying to stall. I don’t think it’s a good idea.

“But we do,” Spencer just laughs, and I follow them warily. Brendon keeps chatting with Spencer and he keeps smiling my way in a friendly manner, and I wonder if it’s all just in my head.

We end up in Brendon’s hotel room, sitting on the massive bed, drinking and smoking. It’s hard for me to miss Bob much at all when Spencer’s around: a short-term acquaintance versus a lifelong friend. We play cards, and that’s alright, that’s not bad. Brendon’s brushed up on his lousy poker skills over the years because I soon owe him a hundred bucks. That stings as a matter of principle. He smirks and says that he wants my suit jacket.

“My jacket?” I ask disbelievingly.

“I like it,” he says, a cigarette hanging between his lips. It’s not like he hasn’t seen the jacket before on this tour, the wrinkled brown that matches the pants. He stares at me expectantly.

I take the jacket off, sitting cross-legged on the bed. “Fine, have it. But it won’t fit you as well, it’s tailored.”

“Yup, you’re gay,” Spencer mutters and eyes his cards. I glare at him.

“It’s a trophy,” Brendon muses, putting the jacket on with a pleased grin. To be fair, it looks good on him too, over the tight, white t-shirt he put on after the show. He then grins at Spencer. “Alright, Smith, you’re going down next.”

“Oh bring it on,” Spencer says, and to my satisfaction he proceeds to kick Brendon’s ass. “A shame you only needed me for three shows,” Spencer says when Brendon’s got his wallet out and is handing over a wad reluctantly. Spencer pockets the cash and says, “I could do this for a while – kick your ass at cards, I mean.” Brendon looks deeply offended. Spencer gathers the cards from the bed, a pleased grin still on his face as he gets ready to go.

“I’ll go with you,” I say, knowing that I should make most of a decent hotel night and get some good sleep.

“Yeah?” Brendon asks as I get up from the bed, the covers now wrinkled from us having sat on them. Brendon remains seated, and he looks at me with mournful eyes. “We’ve still got some wine.”

The bottle of complimentary red wine is on the nightstand, uncorked and two thirds empty.

“No, that’s alright. I’ll use your bathroom, though, if that’s okay.”

“Fine, spoilsport,” he says, and Spencer laughs.

I cross the room to the small yet clean hotel bathroom, mini hotel shampoos standing in a row on the counter. I close the door, hear Spencer and Brendon’s voices. There’s a plastic cup that I pick up, not at all sure if the tap water is safe to drink, but I pour myself a cup and drink it anyway. Wipe my face some, look at my messy reflection in the mirror: my dress shirt has stains on it – no such thing as fully clean clothes this close to the end of tour. My hair’s a mess, slightly slick at the roots from the show. I could do with a shower. My lower lip has got the faintest red smudges on it from the wine. I look restless – I feel restless.

Two more shows, and we’ll be on a plane back home.

I wonder what it’ll mean, now that we’ve admitted that we’ve missed each other. If he’ll come to Machias sometime, but it’s so hard for me to picture him there. And us completely on our own, that seems like asking for trouble.

No, crowded rooms, crowded bars. We can exist there. Talking. Sharing. Just being there, not missing each other. In Chicago, I’ll come visit. Jon’s there. Sisky’s there. Sure, I’ll come visit. Sleep on his couch or – maybe we’ll share the couch, and that’ll be fine. But only late at night and after a few beers, when we’re too tired to move. And we’ll never talk about it.

I’ll take it if he does.

When I come out, Brendon’s sitting on the bed, rolling his socks off, shoes having been kicked off.

“Did Spencer go already?” I ask, and Brendon nods. “Oh.”

He eyes me, some of his hair hanging in front of his eyes. He’s never kept it that long before.

He then habitually throws his shoes in the corner – not habitually for this room but for hotels at large.

“Spencer’s a great guy. I don’t remember him being that great,” he says, his tone now more serious than the light-hearted one he kept up while Spencer was here. Still there is an edge to his words that reminds me that leaving now is wise.

“Well, he improves as he gets older. Like wine.”

“He’s always been weird around me, though. Or started being like that on the day he walked in on us.” He smiles slightly, like the memory is a fond one now even though at the time it was painful. “But he’s alright with me now.”

“That wasn’t about you back then, that was about me. It took him time to adjust to the whole best friend liking cock thing.”

“Not that you admitted it then, of course.”

“No, that would’ve been far too easy,” I mumble. Somehow regret manages to seep into my words, and it’s too late at night for honesty. “Well thanks for the wine and company. And for stealing my jacket.” He’s still wearing it.

He shrugs like that’s no big deal, but there’s something more and I wait for it. He says, “You could stay.” His voice is soft, velvet even.

My stomach drops. For what? More wine? Unlikely. I know that tone, I know what he wants.

I thought he knew that this was off limits. I thought he understood that.

“No, that’s alright. I should try not to make a habit of falling asleep in random places, so.” I motion towards the door, try to make a joke out of it. How we’ve somehow started sleeping together again – literally – and how it’s not. It’s not healthy. It’s not something we should do, no matter how good it feels, and we cannot take it further because if we do – if we do, we’ll destroy one another.

“Hmm,” Brendon says, standing up. “You’re probably right.”

I know I am.

He follows me to the door, and I see that nailed to it is the hotel’s floor plan with emergency exits shown. There’s a little dot for his room, for where we are. That’s us. That should not be us, a single dot. Two dots, different rooms. Space. That’s the way it should be.

“The show was really good tonight,” he then says a bit too fast, and I nod in agreement. I have to get the hell out of here.

“It was. You were back to your usual self.”

“I am. Fully recovered.”

“Great. Okay.”

We’ve averted crises together and have managed to keep the tour going even when Ian overdosed, he fell ill and Bob fucked up. That’s no mean feat.

He says, “You were really good tonight too.”

“Yeah?”

I say it without meaning to, clearly wanting acknowledgment from him. I’m momentarily embarrassed and annoyed that he’s somehow keeping me here.

He stares at me intently. “Yeah, you were great.” He’s wearing my jacket, his stage jeans are still on, and his toes are bared. It’s a mix of me, his profession and him. He seems to like it, and my insides burn at the thought. “You tend to be great.”

“Well, I do what I can,” I mutter modestly. I feel pleased that he’s pleased with me, then feel nervous and know it’s time to go. Really. Now it’s time. Get out. “Enjoy the jacket.”

“Of course I will,” he says so matter-of-factly that it’s obvious I’m missing something and it’s required that I ask what it is. But I don’t. I don’t ask, and he waits for me to, but I don’t so he grows impatient. “It smells like you,” he says after a beat, and my stomach drops as I try to take that in. He laughs slightly – a desperate laugh, and he takes a step closer, eyes locked with mine, and he says, “I’ve missed that, the smell of you on me, and –”

“Bren –”

“– reminds me of us, what we had, whatever we were. We were good together.”

“We were a disaster.”

“Then why do I want you to stay?” he asks, and our words are lightning quick, an argument back and forth in which I can’t really think or speak because he’s stepping closer and closer, and everything he says is all I want to hear.

I say, “You’ve been drinking.”

“Barely.”

“You have.”

“I’m not drunk, Ryan.”

“Doesn’t matter. Friends don’t do this.”

“Do what?” he asks, his eyes purposefully moving to my lips – must be on purpose, must be. I’ve got the door and the wall behind me and nowhere to go as he corners me.

“Are you gonna make me say it?” I ask quietly, my voice treacherously raspy as I try to keep myself together. “Friends don’t seduce each other.”

Because that’s what it is. That’s what he’s doing, and if he just wants to get laid, then I am not the guy. If he’s just after some post-Dallon rebound sex, not that he ever had sex with Dallon but still, if – if that’s what this is, then I cannot be that guy.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he whispers, but it’s hot and promising. “Friends don’t do this. A good thing that I’ve never been your friend.”

And then he begins to lean in, and I react quicker than I knew possible, my hand coming to his shoulder and stalling him. My heart is beating wildly in my chest, every nerve end tensed up, but even then it seems like I can only focus on the shape of his shoulder under my hand.

“What are you doing?” I manage to ask though of course it’s obvious what he’s doing. But the bigger picture of it all, think of the bigger picture, try. The one that’s so hard to see right now when we’re alone in his hotel room in the middle of the night and he’s saying all these – these fucking things, the smell of me on him, how he wants that. I can’t think, the bigger picture is dissolving, and he is so tempting when he is this willing.

“How many times can I have the urge to kiss you and not act on it?” he asks, sounding mildly desperate. I don’t know. It’s a good question. A few hundred at least if my experiences are anything to go by.

And then he pushes my hand off his shoulder, fingers encircling my wrist roughly, and I should stop him but I don’t. I don’t. And then he’s stepped into my space and his lips are pressed against mine. An instant jolt of electricity runs through me. His lips, his perfect lips that I’ve kissed a thousand times.

Air leaves me. I totter backwards until the wall is there and he’s pressing me against it.

He loosens his hold of my wrist, and my hand moves to his side clumsily, to feel his shape, to hold onto something. He kisses me with determination, his pillowy lips against mine, both hands now in my hair. The kiss is wet and hot. Not asking but just taking whatever he’s after, my taste. I let him, can’t help the automatic response of kissing him back. Everything swirls, that bigger picture dissolves. Our mouths meet again and again, wanting more.

He pulls back, then, and we try to catch our breaths. Our noses press together, our hands on each other, desperate, our eyes staring in too deep.

A fire is spreading in me, barely constrained. The hunger I feel for him is greater than anything I’ve ever known.

“Fuck,” he whispers, his thumb brushing my jaw. Yeah. Yeah, fuck. Want so hot builds up in me that I can’t even swallow. Innocent, so innocent – not at all. I taste him, wine and cigarettes and him, feel the slight stubble of his jaw against my skin. It’s everything at once, too much, filling me with dark desire.

He’s got me. It occurs to me just then: post-show, mildly intoxicated, in his hotel room, pinning me against the wall. He fucking had me the second I agreed to come to his room, thinking it was safe because Spencer came too, and he knew he had me fooled.

I try to see past the red haze that’s clouding everything. “Bren...” It sounds like I’m asking. Am I?

“Yeah?” he says, our lips brushing again. His voice is heavy, like crimson pouring over me.

I don’t know what I wanted to say: that it’s been so long, maybe. It’s been so, so long, and now we’re here again. Fucking hell, baby...

Instead of saying that I fist his hair and pull him in. Our mouths crash together. My lips part and so do his, and I want more. His tongue meets mine, he tastes sweet, familiar, sweet again. Hot waves wash over my skin. He’s always been such a good kisser – still is, fuck, he’s an amazing kisser.

I swear I lose reason. The world slips away, and it’s only his hands, one in my hair, the other now on my hip, and his mouth meeting mine, so fucking hungry, graceless in its urgency but perfect in its execution. My lips soon feel raw, his taste in my mouth, and everything feels heated. I push closer to him and he pushes closer to me.

His heavy breaths are irregular, and I know he’s turned on, and the knowledge of that makes my stomach burn with want. Our noses brush together, our mouths finding perfect angles, our tongues shameless and yearning.

I’ve missed this so fucking much: touch. Contact. Him.

And as if he knows this, his hand shoots down, brushing over my stomach and then over my crotch. My guts twist. Yes, god, please. He presses the heel of his palm against my hardening cock, and he pushes his entire body closer, groaning at the back of his throat as he kisses me. I push into the pressure of his hand – god, I want his hands on me, I want my hands on him, our mouths, our bodies. All of him.

And I’m about to get all that.

The realisation of it feels like a shock to my system. After months and months of dreams and nightmares, I’m here. He’s here. Making out with me pressed against the wall. And soon we’ll be on the bed, naked, soon I’ll be back tasting his skin. And there is no going back from that. I cannot take that back.

I break the kiss, a dirty wet smack sounding as our bruised mouths part. I grab a hold of his wrist, stop his movements, stop him from touching me there. I gasp for breath, our foreheads pressed together. “Wait,” I manage, breathing heavily. “Wait.”

“What?” he whispers impatiently, sounding confused but his voice is heavy with arousal. He stares at me, perfectly shaped lips swollen, his eyes clouded by want that he feels for me.

“Shit,” I manage, trying to think. I want him. I want to have him, take him. I’ve thought about this, him on his hands and knees, on his back, how the memories stay fresh in my mind, assaulting me when I dream, when I’m horny. He set the bar. The others don’t come close.

But that’s animalistic. That’s instinct.

And he is so much more than that.

“We can’t do this. I can’t.”

Incomprehension flickers in his eyes but he doesn’t move away. “What’s wrong?”

“Fuck, I can’t- can’t do this like this, like it’s meaningless or for the sake of balancing tour hormones or –”

“It’s not meaningless,” he says, sounding wounded. I don’t know why I seem to be shivering, why honest to god shivers run through me. I breathe fast, feel him pressed against me, taste him on my lips. He cups the side of my face, holds me close. That helps with the shivering. That helps. “Not meaningless. Ry, it could never- Not with you, how could it even? Fuck, I’ll go insane if I...” His words linger between our mouths. Right then he’s asking. He never asks. Never used to. “I need you to touch me,” he breathes quietly, frantically. “Is that – Is that alright, can we just –”

I kiss him. He loses his breath, swallows hard. I move a hand to the back of his head, brushing through the strands. Pull myself together, the shivers subsiding. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

He’s asking. It’s a yes.

“Yeah. Of course, yeah, yes,” I slur, but it makes sense in my head.

And then I let go and kiss him. No bullshit, no pretence, no walls. No pity and no assumptions – just him. Beautiful, strong and needing, kissing me back, pushing against me. I yearn just then, the primitive feeling spreading to every cell of my body.

We get my jacket off him, now on the move and stumbling across the room, our mouths locked together, hands shoving and searching and pushing clothes out of the way. “Please,” he breathes feverishly, “please.”

He needs me. God, I need him to need me. Because how often do we ever truly need another person? How often do we ever feel like this, this burn and ache, knowing that nothing else will do and that the need will not subside until satisfied? Not often. And he will satisfy it. He is what I need, his restless sounds when I kiss his neck, fingers splayed on his chest – touching, must keep touching.

He has no patience for the buttons on my shirt so he rips it open with a few forceful tugs. I don’t care as we pull it off me, leaving my arms bare, and our mouths press together relentlessly, his hands settling demandingly on my hips, pulling my undershirt up to touch skin. The liquid burn in my guts feels hotter, and I’m so fucking hard, Jesus, my cock is so hard, he’s barely even touched me, it doesn’t make sense –

But then he makes this sound, lets out this turned on gasp as his fingers dig into my skin, and yes, it does. It makes sense.

My fingers tangle in his hair, and I kiss him wet and open, somewhere in between the door and the bed. “Off,” I tell him, pulling on his tight t-shirt, and he obeys, lifts his arms, and I get it off him, throw it away, and oh fuck. I stare at his flat chest and his taut, muscular stomach, and somehow I get even harder.

I get him pressed against the wall, my mouth on his collarbone. My turn, my fucking turn.

“Oh god,” he groans, his entire body thrumming as my mouth moves down and closes around a nipple, sucking hard. The bud hardens, and I lick over it, and he bangs his head against the wall. His hands are on my shoulders, blunt nails digging in. He practically squirms but isn’t trying to get away, and I kiss a trail to his other nipple, feel intoxicated by how smooth he feels. His skin feels so hot wherever I touch it, this skin I’ve thought of on cold winter nights, waves washing the shore somewhere in the dark where I can’t see.

I can’t see now either and I don’t care.

I kiss down to where his ribs end, want to go lower, want to get on my knees, kiss his stomach, breathe him in, but he’s pulling me up before I can, his mouth kissing me like he’s starving. He mumbles something against my mouth, something desperate, something like “God, Ryan, want you,” and yes, I know, I know. He pulls my undershirt off, he pushes me backwards, and then there’s the bed, an island in the middle, and I’m laying flat on it. He straddles me, leans down to kiss me, his hands greedily tracing my bared upper half.

But it’s not innocent, him straddling me, as he grinds against me. My hand reaches to cup his ass, and we rub against each other, our hips working together. I feel his hard-on, and fuck, I can’t swallow, can’t think – He’s so hard, and then he says, “You’re so hard, Ryan, fuck,” and he thrusts against me, and I try to breathe. He cups my cock through my pants, traces my length, and he says, “You’re leaking, fuck, you’re –” and I suppose I am, I’m throbbing almost painfully, my cock feels wet at the tip, soaking the fabric of the pant leg mid-thigh. No clean underwear left, so I go without.

And then Brendon’s kissing my stomach, moving lower. I relax against the mattress but keep staring down at him, and he looks at me with burning brown eyes, his hair a mess. He kisses my navel, and his hands have settled on my hips, fingers restless but not moving.

He sits between my parted legs. He’s flushed all over, and I see the bulge of his erection in his jeans, the outline so obvious. He’s out of breath but somehow, as if by magic, he now moves calmly. Calculatedly. Takes my shoe off, takes the sock with it. Does the same to my other foot. His hands settle on my raised knees, then slither upwards to the tops of my thighs. He’s staring at the bulge that’s left a wet mark – he’s not even trying to hide the fact that he’s staring.

“Fucking hell,” he breathes helplessly, like it’s beyond his control now. He sinks down between my legs, kisses my cock over the fabric. This sends a jolt through me, a nearly painful hiss as I get even harder – and I don’t know how that’s even possible, how anyone can be this hard. But he mouths my cock through my pants, and I feel his hot breath, the pressure of his lips and tongue. He wants to undo me. That’s the only explanation. He wants me to fucking come undone and beg.

But thankfully his shaking hands – shaking, are they really? – come to the fly of my pants, popping the button undone, sliding the zipper down. He only has to inch my pants down slightly before my cock frees itself from the tight confines. He stares at me. Eyes dark. Doesn’t move but pulls my pants down further, down to my knees, to my calves, to my ankles, off and out of the way. And then he kisses my left knee, his nose brushing the hair on my inner thigh as he nuzzles the skin, kissing his way up, right past my cock, which is cruel when I’m naked, my cock in plain sight, deep red and throbbing, pre-come glistening at the tip.

But he moves past it, his lips settling on my left hip bone. He kisses me there slowly, like he’s stalling. His breath is uneven, he seems unable to catch his breath.

“It’s okay,” I manage to say, try to sound dismissive. If he doesn’t want to. It’s okay, he doesn’t have to do anything like – really, it’s fine.

But he ignores me, tongue lazily swiping over the jutting bone. He places kisses towards my pubic bone, the shaft of my cock brushing the side of his face. He places a kiss at the very base of my cock, making me tense up. His nose brushes against me, and then I realise that he’s breathing me in: my scent. Not just anywhere, but he’s breathing in the scent of my cock, and I’ve smelled myself on him sometimes, the musky smell of my sex. And he’s placing slow kisses there, in the tangled mess of dark pubic hair, and that’s when I see that he’s got one hand down his body: he’s touching himself. He’s got his fly undone, his hand in his jeans, and he’s breathing in my scent, now placing kisses on the shaft of my cock, and he’s touching himself as he does it.

“Fucking hell, Brendon,” I breathe out, overwhelmed, and he looks up at me with wide, sex-driven eyes. He wets his lips. Pulls his hand back, curls it around the base of my cock instead. Takes one broad lick over the sensitive and swollen crown, pre-come getting spread on his tongue.

I jerk, all of me does, my eyes flying to the ceiling as my eyes roll to the back of my head without me having control over it. But I look back instantly, and pre-come is rolling down the side of my cock, towards his hand that is slowly fisting me. He doesn’t seem aware of me looking as he goes down on me. I’m not really aware of anything else either.

His mouth slips over my aching cock, his tongue pressing against the underside. It’s hard not to come right there. His eyes are closed, and he looks lost in it as he begins to move his hot mouth on me. As he sucks on my length, his mouth makes quiet and obscene suckling sounds that turn me on beyond reason. My knees are raised, my feet flat against the mattress, and he works between my legs, blowing me. My hand is in his hair as his head bobs up and down – I don’t try to control him, I just need to feel him. His mouth is hot and wet and perfect, sucking my cock, and when he pulls back slightly, he licks the head, shamelessly licks the slit to taste me, greedy fucking thing, tongue swirling around the crown, and then I’m back in his mouth, and he’s taking me in, taking more, his lips stretched, pre-come and saliva mixing, and my balls are so tight that they ache.

Every muscle feels tensed up below my navel: my thighs, my buttocks, my abdomen, everything is a swirl of hot build up. His lips meet his fist, and I groan, “Bren, holy shit,” and I can’t take how good his mouth feels on me – So good, so fucking good. He removes his fist, then, finger splaying over my pubic hair, and he looks me straight in the eye and – he swallows me down. The swear words I let out don’t make sense even to me. My fingers tangle in his hair so hard that I know it hurts, and he groans but it’s turned on.

There’s no gagging, he takes me down smoothly. He always has, but I’ve forgotten just how – His eyes water, that’s the only thing, wetting his cheeks as he keeps blowing me. He’s done it too fast, been too greedy. But he sucks even harder, moaning around my cock like if he could he’d be chanting yes from having all of me in his mouth. He’s slowly rubbing himself against the mattress as he blows me, and I can’t believe how turned on he is from this. Am so fucking glad that we’re both getting off on it.

“Oh god, that’s –” I suck in air, muffle a groan, bite on my lip. “Fuck, that’s so good, oh Jesus, that’s so good.”

He groans like he knows. My words must make sense to him; I don’t even know what spills from my lips. It’s so good, too good, fuck, fuck – It’s hot and wet around every inch, and he sucks hard on me, and I nearly come. But when my fingers twist in his hair hard enough, he pulls off, reading me perfectly. Knowing he needs to let me come down. I’m almost gasping for air, feeling wrecked. Holy fucking shit.

He places sloppy kisses down the underside of my erection, down to my balls, and then he kisses them both, licks, suckles, breathes hot air on them. I can’t fucking even, I just can’t.

When he sits up, he wipes his wet cheeks with the backs of his hands, his mouth flushed and swollen: blowjob lips. Somehow the burning desire to have him intensifies just then. His fly is undone, revealing a familiar trail of body hair leading into dark curls, the base of his thick cock bared.

He looks as far gone as I know myself to be.

I take a hold of the top of his undone jeans, snake my thumbs under the waistband of the briefs that have slipped down already, and I tug his clothes down to mid-thigh in one rough movement. He lets me, breathing hard as I take him in. I can’t believe how hard he is, how there are wet traces on the hair of his thigh, then on his stomach, where his cockhead’s rested. He looks so good, fucking irresistible. I sit up enough to kiss his stomach like I wanted to before. I pull him closer, and my hands cup his ass cheeks, oh fuck his perfect fucking ass, Jesus, the skin firm and hot, and I kiss his hipbones, feel his hands come down to my hair. And I do what he did, breathe in the scent of his sex as my nose presses to the base of his cock – the scent is so distinct, it’s so erotic, it’s so addictive. I kiss his navel and stare up at him, and he’s gazing down at me, his eyes wide and open like he’ll let me do anything to him. Like he can’t believe I’m in his bed, that this is happening again after a year and a half.

He resists none when I pull him down to lock our mouths, kiss his lips where I smell myself, flip us over so that I’m on top, and then I swiftly get him out of his jeans and underwear.

I settle between his parted legs, my now wet cock sliding against his. I keep up small thrusts, and we rub against each other, but mostly I focus on the heated making out. Our hands are everywhere, our mouths are everywhere, and my skin tingles and I feel like I could come so easily already but I can’t. Or won’t.

But he’s restless and needy, and I won’t have that. Won’t keep him waiting when we’re both so hard it’s painful.

“You got lube?” I ask, and he nods, mumbles, “Yeah,” against my lips, and I wonder if he has the lube because he expected to have sex on this tour, who with, or if he has it for masturbating, but then – Then I’ve got lube, too, back in my hotel room, hell you just carry some around when you’re a gay man, lube, wallet and keys.

When he’s tricked me into his bed and he is so hard that he’s leaking, the time isn’t right to be jealous of other men.

He has a hand greedily on my ass, pulling me in. “Want you so bad,” he breathes, almost in disbelief. And I kiss him to say that I feel what he feels – and the thought of that is dizzying, the thought that we both feel this, the burning sensation in our chests. That it’s shared.

My hips shift, my cock sliding between his legs. He lets out a groan, and I say, “Lube, Bren, fuck,” and he finally seems to snap out of his daze.

He slides from beneath me, getting out of bed. I roll onto my back to keep my gaze on him, on his perfect and pale ass. I reach for my cock, stroking it lazily without even meaning to. He staggers somewhat like his feet are difficult to operate, and he mutters curses as he searches the contents of the small backpack that he uses to carry stuff between the bus and other places. He wanders back towards the bed with the bag, finally finding the lube, dropping the bag, and then coming to a halt when he lifts his gaze and his eyes meet mine.

His chest is rising and falling, the skin flushed, and his cock is curved upwards, is pink and unbelievably hard. I don’t need to touch his cock to know that it’s throbbing, that I could feel his rapid heartbeat through the skin the way I can feel my heartbeat from where my hand is on my cock. His mouth is red and swollen, looks wet and perfect and asking to be kissed, and his hair is a mess that I made, and his eyes – most of all his eyes, the dark gaze that somehow feels like is running ahead the rest of his thoughts.

And I mirror him. I know I look the same.

And we take each other in at the same time, stalling slightly. My insides vanish, but they don’t, they crawl, they curl up into a tight ball, they radiate from my guts.

I can’t break the eye contact, can’t ignore the look in his eyes. It’s not a look of seduction or one of playful sex – there’s no smile in it. It’s darker than dark, deeper than deep, and with that fire in his eyes he gets back on the bed, straddles me as I rise to my elbows, and he presses his lips against mine, a hand in my hair, and he whispers, “I want to ride you.”

“Okay,” I say, nodding too much, but fuck.

He’s already pushing me back, and I get the hint.

We move to the top of the bed, and I pull a sturdy hotel pillow and place it between the headboard and me, leaning my back against it. Brendon hovers in my lap, stray kisses to my mouth as he pours lube onto his palm and reaches down to slick up my cock. I hiss when he touches me, moan when he curls his long fingers around my flesh.

But my own need to touch him is constantly growing, and I take the lube and pour some on the tips of my fingers, and then I reach down to touch his hole. His breathing hitches when I push two fingers against him. He grinds against my hand, wanting me there, inside, fucking hell, and I feel the muscles twitch. I teasingly circle my fingers around his hole, spread the lube. We get each other ready, his hand on me, my hand on him, our mouths locked. I press in the tip of my index finger to see how tight he is, and he nearly bites on my lower lip as he jerks and then groans. God, he’s tight, his perfect fucking ass is so tight, and I want to be in him, balls deep, want to feel him around every inch of me.

I don’t finger him – he doesn’t need that. I could as foreplay, but he doesn’t need it, and we both know that. No, we need something else.

He grabs my hand and pulls it away, but I drag my forefinger over his perineum and his balls, up the underside of his cock, the lube mixing with the pre-come that’s rolling down his length. It’s already fucking messy, come and lube, and I couldn’t love it any more than I do.

He adjusts himself, knees bracketing my sides as I lean back against the headboard. He kisses me harshly, one hand between us, holding my cock until his hole is pressed against the head. My hands are squeezing his hips so tight that I must be bruising him, but he doesn’t complain.

He stops then, breathing over my lips, and I kiss him softly, say, “Yeah,” and he echoes me in question, “Yeah?” And I nod. Yeah, yes. Fucking hell, yes.

He pushes down, the resistance is there, but my cock is slick – he could be slicker, but it’ll do. His muscles resist but then- Fuck, then the head of my cock pushes in, and from there it’s easy, from there it’s a smooth slide, and he goes for it faster than he should, pushing down until I am buried in him.

“Oh,” he manages, squeezing my shoulder, his forehead pressed against mine. His ass is hot and tight, and nothing’s ever felt this good, nothing feels as good as he does right now, in my lap, on my cock, in this hotel room in Rome. And the guys are who-knows-where, their rooms, bars, the venue, but he’s here. I am here. We’re taking each other, and it’s no one’s business but ours.

His eyes are shut and his mouth has fallen open, and I lazily stroke his cock as he adjusts, but my hand is shaking slightly, my breaths are shallow, completely irregular, and I’m in him, I’m in him – It’s all I can focus on.

And then he begins to move his hips, working himself on my cock. He’s so fucking tight that my cock is under constant, hot pressure. I feel his pulse through where we’re joined, and I know that he feels my pulse, and it’s rapid and manic.

We keep our mouths aligned, nonsense spoken that no one else ever needs to hear, somewhere between dirty talk and confessionals made, like “missed your fucking big cock”, “feels so good, don’t fucking stop”, “can feel you, your heartbeat”. My hands travel up his back where the skin feels slick, down his sides and over his ribs. He is all perfect angles, smooth, warm skin, dirty gasps and filthy words that are still soft around the edges.

“Brendon, fuck,” I say feverishly, and he goes a bit harder, taking a hold of the headboard as he rides my cock. “You feel so good,” I almost slur against his mouth.

“I’ve missed you.” His forehead presses against mine, and I hold his hips, words escaping me when all that’s left is how good it feels, how good we feel together. “Fuck, I’ve missed you,” he breathes, kissing me, and I fall right into it.

He’s so good at this, always has been. He moves his hand to my shoulder for balance, straightening up, and I love that, getting a better view of him, his leaking cock, the taut muscles of his stomach and thighs and how they flex and quiver as he rides my cock. His brows furrow together, and he doesn’t take his eyes off of me, like he constantly wants to see me. I pull him closer the little that I can, and I kiss his chest, his nipples, tasting him, moving to his armpit, down his side.

When he lets out a helpless groan, I’m unable to control myself any longer. I snatch the wrist that he has on my shoulder, keep my other hand firmly on the small of his back, and I roll us to the side, moving on top of him without slipping out.

He doesn’t object – he spreads his legs wider now that he’s beneath me. Dark want drips in me from now hovering over him, being inside him, having him at my will. That familiar echo of ‘no one, no one else’ is in my head when he’s far gone like this, vulnerable like this, needy like this. Not that I paint a better picture of control because I thrust into him without being able to help it. I pin his wrists above his head, kissing him as I begin to fuck him.

“That’s so good,” he breathes against my mouth, his cock trapped between us, feeling wet against my lower abdomen. His back arches, and I put space between us by lifting myself slightly with the help of one hand. My eyes move down to where I am in him, where I see my flushed cock, glistening with lube, reappearing from his hole, stretched to accommodate me, then disappearing into him again – and when I do, he lets out these fucking delicious sounds of pleasure, and it makes me fuck him harder.

I’m covered in slight sweat – I realise this hazily – salty droplets rolling down my back, my arms. Everything’s heightened, everything is pleasure. I snake a hand around his thigh, lifting his leg slightly, getting a different angle, going in deeper. His moans turn a whole new kind of desperate when I hit his prostate, which I do, again and again. I feel the energy building up inside him, feel it building up in me.

I keep his leg raised, pressed to my side, allowing me to lean down to kiss him, his jaw, his ear.

“Ryan,” he breathes against my earlobe, the word broken. His nails are digging into my back. “Ryan, you’re making me come. Shit, you feel too good. Baby, that’s so –”

I capture his lips, and his fingers slide up to the nape of my neck. He holds me possessively, his other hand between us, fisting his cock.

It catches me by surprise, when he comes. In my memory, I know him so well, can read him so perfectly, but now I haven’t realised how far gone he is. He stills, and I catch that moment, that exact moment when it hits him because his pupils dilate, and then he’s so fucking tight around me, muscles quivering, and hot streaks of come hit my stomach, spill between us. His head presses into the mattress, his hips bucking. Fat streaks of white drip over his knuckles, and he keeps fisting himself, keeps milking it out. And it doesn’t make sense, how much he comes, how long his orgasm lasts, but I keep fucking him through it, watch him come apart as I push into him.

“Fuck,” he groans, and I kiss his mouth, his cheeks, letting my hips slow down to a stop because I know how sensitive he is right now. He is still tight around me, tighter than before, and my cock is throbbing painfully, my orgasm just beneath the surface. But I breathe, just breathe, and I nose his jaw, his neck, leaving stray kisses as he comes down.

His hand moves to my ass, cupping me, keeping me from moving, keeping me in him. It’s messy and sticky between us, but I love him like this, coming down from an orgasm. The way he feels, the way certain muscles twitch, the way he smells – all of it is more intimate than anything I’ve ever known.

I want to know him like this. I want to be able to look across rooms, bars, studios, stages, clubs, knowing that I get to feel him like this. I want to know that he feels the same, and I want that feeling of security, of us both knowing that this is ours and that it’s there to stay.

“Fuck...” He stops to catch his breath, his nose pressing into my hair as he breathes me in. “God, this might be an inappropriate question,” he whispers in an uneven, rough voice as I’m busy nuzzling his right collarbone, tasting the salty skin. I look up at him, see how he’s struggling to even speak. He stares at me. “How do you keep getting better at it?”

I huff against his chin as I kiss him there, and he bursts out laughing – nonsensical laughter, and I notice that his cheeks are wet again. But I hiss instinctively because him laughing affects muscles in his body – and some of those muscles are squeezing my cock, and the sudden vibrations force me to thrust into the inviting heat, my erection still throbbing. This silences him effectively, produces an “oh” from his lips.

He’s still hard. Not as hard, but he hasn’t softened either.

I lick over his swollen lower lip, and he nudges my nose with his, wanting to find a better angle for us to kiss.

“I want to fuck you more,” I say against his mouth.

“Fuck,” he sighs restlessly, and he nods. Is asking.

But we’re almost lazy now, less frantic. I find a good, steady rhythm that works for us. Both of his feet are touching the mattress, his legs spread wide to accommodate me. He keeps a hand on my ass, as if to make sure I stay where he wants me, the other hand on my neck. The kisses are wet and deep, and I’m so fucking lost in his taste, the way he keeps pulling me in for more.

I begin to do a circular motion with my hips when I notice the reaction it gets from him. The angle constantly changes as I pull back, push back in. “You like that?” I ask because he goes almost quiet, only his unsteady, frantic breaths sounding between us. He’s more pliant now, having come already, but I’m so fucking turned on when I realise he is getting harder again.

He doesn’t even need to say yes, but he says it anyway. “Yes.” There’s something unbearably honest to the single word, like he is admitting something else entirely. He licks his lips. “Yes.” He sucks on my earlobe as I keep up the rhythm, and he says, “Fuck, I want your come in me, Ry, I want you to fill me up...”

He drifts off but he doesn’t need to finish the sentence, even. It has a nearly primitive effect on me, on the force of my thrusts. He wants me to, I want to – We both want it, need it. My mouth is worn out but he tastes so good, I cannot stop kissing him, and my cock sinks into him, aching for release, and he feels so fucking good that I could never, ever stop. The bed shakes with my movements, sweat rolls from my hairline down my face, and he- Fuck, he begins to move his hips to meet me, he moves to take my cock deeper.

“Bren, holy shit,” I manage, and he moves his hips with even more force, and the slow thrusts turn into hard ones, our bodies slamming together. And it stretches in me, stretches so thin, and it’s boiling and boiling, my balls are drawn up so tight, and he says, “Yeah, come on, fuck, wanna see you, you don’t even know how hot you are, holy shit, Ryan, oh shit, shit,” because then he gets there first.

He comes – no warning, no nothing. His hand has almost idly been stroking his cock but then he comes, semen shooting out, his body arching. He doesn’t come as hard, two streaks of come, then some dripping, but he’s so out of it that he shakes. And that’s when I follow, my mind nearly blacking out. I push into him almost violently, pushing him up the bed unintentionally. And I come in him, keep coming, keep fucking him as I empty myself. It takes forever, feels like it at least, but the feeling of it stays even after I’m done. And through a haze, I feel him kissing me, both of his hands in my hair. It rattles through me, splits me at the core, and nothing else makes sense just then, nothing except him.

Brendon seems more functional than me after we’ve both come, maybe because he didn’t come as hard the second time. I breathe against his cheek, trying to pull myself together. He kisses the corner of my mouth, then, and it’s so soft and loving that it tears me apart. His hand gently rubs the nape of my neck.

I collapse on him slightly, still in him, but he doesn’t complain. If anything, he welcomes it, and we burrow into one another, trading soft afterglow kisses.

“You okay?” he asks at length, and I nod after a beat, my brain taking time to process the question. As okay as I can be after that.

I absently kiss his chin, the only thing that truly makes sense being the yearning to keep touching him, kissing him, tracing the golden glow of his skin. “You?”

“I’m good,” he says quietly. Something about his tone makes my chest swell with heat.

I pull out after I’ve softened some, and he moans but doesn’t wince. I don’t mean to look between us but I do, see white semen rolling out of him in my wake. My spent cock shows an interest in getting hard again just from the visual but luckily knows better.

He’s a mess, though, drops of white on his chest and stomach, in his pubic hair, now between his legs. I attempt to wipe his stomach with my hand, but he shakes his head, takes my hand. “Leave it. It’s good.”

And if he says it’s good, then it must be. So I let it be, move to lie by his side on the bed. He turns to face me, our legs still tangled, our bodies still glued together. He studies my face quietly, hand brushing locks behind the shell of my ear, and his expression is open and soft in a way I don’t think I’ve ever seen it. It helps somehow, seeing how at ease he is, how content he seems. Something bubbles in me, something that has a lot of questions, but he smiles and it’s alright.

“What’s better than that,” he says quietly, “is that we get to do it again in the morning.”

When we wake up together.

“Oh you’ve got it figured out, huh?”

But he nods when my words were just teasing, not serious. His nose brushes mine. “I kinda do have it figured out.”

I want to believe him.

And when he kisses me, I kiss back, because it’s so easy, because it’s so tempting. Because it’s nice to believe that he really has got it figured out.

It’d be a first.

But the morning is hours away and some nights stretch beyond good measure. Long enough for the haze to clear, to suddenly jerk awake in a room that isn’t mine.

I’m not shocked to find myself in his bed, under the covers. I’m not taken aback to wake up with his arm securely around me, him pressed to my back, holding me to him, breathing against the nape of my neck. Why would I be taken aback when it’s good and it’s soothing and it’s perfect and it’s him? And the memories pour back in, and I can barely contain them. My smell is all over him, and his is all over me. Just like he wanted.

And I want to wake him up, kiss him out of sleep, slow and sweet. Take him again.

But I don’t know what time it is.

And that’s important, time. Because the morning is imminent, it will come, and there’s no stopping that. The sun will shed light on our worn out bodies. And we will rise. And he will smile. And we will kiss. And I will go for a shower. And then we’ll fuck again, and – and then what?

Because our time in this room will run out.

So we’ll get dressed and we’ll play a show and we’ll get on a bus and.

Then what?

Because tours end, and we’ll run out of hotel rooms and hiding places. We don’t even live in the same state, though distance exists to be crossed, I suppose, but that’s presumptuous. That’s treading and stomping all over something undefined, something that hasn’t even been truly acknowledged. He says that he has it figured out, but history speaks against it.

And we don’t have enough time to stop and see what this is.

He breathes evenly against my skin. I love him. It feels as if it takes over everything and becomes the core of my being. I love him when I share his bed, and I love him even when I don’t.

I love him even when I love alone.

I fucked up.

The realisation of it keeps me staring ahead of myself in the dark as time slips away, sweet time stealing his sweet breaths.

His hand rests on my chest, palm flat and warm against my skin.

His hold of me is tight and sure, I find, when I try to escape it, try to untangle myself. There’s a hot burn in my chest and a sickening burn in my stomach, and I can’t look at him, can’t bear to see him.

But I rouse him before I’ve managed to move much at all, of course I do, and he noses my shoulder affectionately. He sleepily whispers, “Where you going?” He kisses my shoulder with dry lips, mostly still asleep. And it’s soft and it’s loving, and it’s touch meant only for lovers, and I swallow it down.

“Bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

“Hmm, okay.”

And he lets me go.

My skin feels cold when I’m no longer under the covers, but it’s not just the loss of his warmth. The hairs on my skin stand up everywhere, and the nauseating burn in me is so strong that I have to sit on the edge of the bed for a few seconds to wait for my vision to clear. For the sickening pain to subside.

And it does. It fades. And I get out of bed, move quietly, not wanting to disturb him. He remains in bed, eyes closed, still asleep. Under the covers where it’s warm.

My pants are by the bed, and I pick them up.

I find my shoes and socks, and I pick them up.

I find my undershirt, and I pick it up.

I find my dress shirt, now with buttons missing, and I pick it up.

My brown jacket is on the floor near the door.

That’s his now. He can keep that.

I enter the bathroom, close the door, turn on the lights. Get dressed as the bright fluorescent lights above the mirror hurt my eyes, make them sting. And I get dressed swiftly but I still feel like I’m stuck in a dream where up is down and down is up, and my hands don’t look like my hands. But I don’t, I do not look at myself in the mirror. But I still see the man reflected there from the corner of my eye, a guy aged twenty-eight, brown locks of hair in a mess, the skin around his mouth reddened from kissing too much and too desperately, trying to button up a shirt that only has a few buttons left.

I will not look at him because that man did a stupid thing. He should have known better, he should have remembered.

Brendon, well – Brendon can’t think clearly. Not when it comes to me, isn’t that what I’ve been told? I’m his biggest weakness. I’ve been messing around with him for years now, and I’ve gotten as good as I’ve given. And I’m on tour with him, and he’s forgiven me, and I worry for his health and sleep on couches with him, I stay behind to talk to him, get us alone time – I’m still fucking with him, I’ve been leading him on. What was he supposed to think?

But I know better. I do. I slipped, but I swear I know better. And so it was up to me to make sure that we don’t relapse. With Ian and Dallon and Bob and all of it, Brendon’s been a mess, he’s not in a good place, and I know that. It was up to me to keep it civil.

And I failed.

Brendon’s still asleep when I step out. My eyes adjust to the dark, and I see that he’s hogged my pillow and is now sleeping curled around it. It’s peculiar how he’s started to do that, to hug things in his sleep. It’s new. I don’t quite understand it.

But the rest of it I do: lingering feelings, being on tour, being lonely, being horny, having a weakness, drinking some wine, me treating him special, letting him know that I will always think he’s special.

I understand how this happened, and I know what follows: the edge of a cliff with a steep, steep drop into something so dark and so devastating that we cannot do it again. I cannot. Because then we’re wading in depravity once more, and I’ll find myself on an icy winter beach with the wind whipping my face, even less of me intact, an even bigger part of me with him, and he won’t be there. He won’t. And he – God, I don’t even know where to start.

He asked how many times you can have the urge to kiss someone and not act on it. Only so many, we’ve established that.

But there is a strict number on how many times you can make the same mistake until one of you knows better, until one of you learns that there is no time for you two. There is no place for what you feel. There is no future there.

I know – it’s belated, but I know. I feel the weight of our stolen time on my shoulders. In truth we ran out of time years ago.

So it’s not fleeing or running away when I go to the door. It’s experience.

I open the door quietly, so quietly – the lock clicks open. Nothing happens. He doesn’t wake up. I don’t change my mind.

Nothing happens.

But there’s a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign hanging on the door knob, and I blink at it, see it then: him seeing Spencer to the door while I was in the bathroom, waving goodbye. Looking over his shoulder to check I hadn’t come out yet. Knowing he had me trapped. And then slipping the sign to hang outside, closing the door, locking us in.

He was never going to let me leave.

Stupid, so fucking stupid...

But I leave the sign there. Respect his wishes.

Close the door, walk away.

Disturb him no longer.