Ryden Oneshots 【2】

Black and White Piano Keys [3]

*

Ryan heard Brendon before he saw him. Wandering through the halls of the music building to their usual practice room, Ryan could hear the calming sounds of a sweet piano melody filling the halls.

He paused in the doorway before going in, watching Brendon play. Brendon didn’t notice the second presence in the room as he played a soft classical piece. When Ryan thought about it, he realized Brendon didn’t play many contemporary tunes, though he claimed to love nearly every type of music.

Ryan had made the mistake of asking who his favorite band was once, and Brendon had gone on for an hour or more about Queen and how Freddie Mercury was the greatest singer/songwriter in modern times. Of course, then Brendon had added that whoever composed the soundtrack to Beauty and the Beast was a close second. Ryan could swear Brendon watched that movie every night and came up with new facts to tell him each day.

His train of thought was broken, though, when Brendon stopped playing and a silence settled over the room. He saw Brendon sigh, and when Brendon looked up, he took a step in.

"Hey," he greeted him softly.

Brendon jumped only slightly as he turned around. "Hey," he replied quickly. "How long have you been standing there?"

Ryan shrugged. "Just a minute or two." Stepping inside the room, he shut the door behind him and hesitated by his usual chair for a minute before sitting down in it. "So… I fixed the love song."

"Yeah?" Brendon asked, not looking at him, but staring at the piano.

"Yeah." Ryan nodded. "The lyrics were wrong." Brendon still wasn’t looking at him, and he sighed. Instead, he pulled out his notebook and flipped to the right page.

As he handed it to Brendon, he realized that this was one of the few times he’d ever let someone else look at his notebook. Even Spencer wasn’t allowed to read it. He was surprised at how easy it was to let Brendon take it from his hands and read his words, the words he worked so hard to perfect.

Brendon read the lyrics, his expression serious, contemplative. He stared at the page for a minute or two before blinking and lowering it. "It’s good."

Ryan waited, but nothing more came. "Uh, thanks." Usually Brendon was much more enthusiastic, no matter how bad the lyrics were. Obviously, Brendon was still affected by what had happened last time.

Brendon merely turned to his own notebook propped against the stand and scribbled in the changes, playing the melody they’d gotten worked out so far. Ryan had to admit it wasn’t half bad. Brendon was humming the song along as he played, the tune quiet in the room.

"Will you sing it?" Ryan asked suddenly.

Brendon glanced at him, the first time since he’d arrived, and hesitated. "I told you I’m not a singer."

"I like your voice," Ryan said simply and noticed the blush on the back of Brendon’s neck at his compliment.

Brendon rubbed the back of his neck and frowned slightly. "All right, but if I sing badly, you can’t get mad."

"I won’t get mad," Ryan promised, sitting forward in his chair a little.

Brendon shot him a careful glance, then smiled for just a second. Clearing his throat, his hands went to the piano, striking up the clear, graceful tone of the song.

"It’s in her eyes, it’s in her hair," Brendon sang slowly, "a secret that he doesn’t dare to let slip into the night or be divulged in warm sunlight…"

Ryan listened as Brendon sang his lyrics, almost as if they were his own. He watched Brendon play, his eyes closing slowly as he got more into the song. He listened to the music swell into crescendos and decrescendos. A part of him wished desperately that he understood everything musically as Brendon did. But another part of him knew he did, just in a different way.