Ryden Oneshots 【2】

Etude In Blue

Summary: Brendon doesn’t want to think about work or bills or how he had woken up this morning supremely awkward, wondering if he had ruined a new friendship by letting his sleep deprived mouth run away from him again.

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Brendon is lying flat on his back, his muscles relaxing against the hard mattress. He has been on his feet all morning, all afternoon too, making smoothies, so the tension seeping out of him aches as he stretches. It’s Saturday, the end of another week, and Brendon thinks that this one went by just as slowly as the one before. They’re all the same.

He’s staring up at the ceiling, counting the crack and bumps marring the plaster, and he’s grateful that he’s on the top floor since he figures that he could withstand the roof falling in on him. A whole other apartment – probably not. Still, he stores away that tiny fleeting gratitude for living on the top floor to take out and contemplate the next time he’s heaving a large bag of groceries or something else heavy up the stairs.

The apartment is quiet, though there’s a low humming in Brendon’s ears still from the massive rush around three o’clock when all the mothers in Vegas apparently decided en mass to take their children to get ‘healthy fruit smoothies’. You’d think that mothers would tip well, but Brendon has learned that an oversized coffee mug sitting next to the register often gets overlooked.

Brendon sighs, thinking of that stupid coffee mug and the six dollars that it held at the end of his shift and wonders when his next apartment payment is due. He has it marked on the calendar, but that’s all the way across his (admittedly rather small) apartment. Too far, especially when his body is just starting to relax.

Instead, Brendon reaches out next to him, hand feeling around blindly since he’s still staring at the ceiling, and when he knocks against a cylindrical tube, he pulls it up against his chest. He pops open the lid to the Pringles and pulls out a chip. The curve of the chip digs into the soft roof of his mouth, but it crunches and breaks satisfyingly as his tongue presses in against the Pringle. He smiles. Simple pleasures.

There’s really nothing that’d he’d rather be doing right now than lie flat on his mattress, stare at the ceiling, and eat Pringles. Well, there are things that he’d rather be doing. Many things, a million things, but none of them are options right now. He had given up a life of options so that he could have a life of choices.

Brendon brushes off his thoughts, too exhausted to doubt the last several weeks, and he lets out a whoosh of air that almost sounds like the E above middle C, so of course, naturally, he starts to hum, breaking free after only a couple of muted notes to sing quietly under his breath. He lets his mind wander, get lost in the notes. Brendon doesn’t want to think about work or bills or how he had woken up this morning supremely awkward, wondering if he had ruined a new friendship by letting his sleep deprived mouth run away from him again.

He has a pretty simple melody going, but he stops abruptly when he hears a crashing noise in the hallway quickly followed by a grumbled stream of swearing and his ears pick up.

He leans up slightly on the mattress, elbows propping him up, and he turns towards the front door, only a couple of feet away, really. Again, the grumbles float under the crack, and Brendon pushes himself off the mattress to make his way across the apartment, a smile playing at his mouth at the familiar tone, and it doesn’t even dim as pain shoots down Brendon’s back at a particularly hard step down. It doesn’t even dim as Brendon remembers Ryan’s eyes the night before, that startled look in them that he had held before he had darted out.

When Brendon opens the door, the site that greets him is more than a little comical, but the laugh that escapes him is soft and gentle, more because of who is there lying amongst the wreckage of plastic bags, their contents spilling out, than because of his self restraint. Ryan has a tendency to take things personally - especially now, when every little thing seemed to be setting him off, but Brendon knows better. He knows that Ryan’s more frequent visits have more to them than their quickly intensifying (confusing?) friendship. But still, he can’t help but wonder, can’t help but hope.