Brendon remembered the morning after they’d first slept together as well as the night itself- he remembered waking up to a room bathed in light slicing in through the open blinds, pressing himself flush against Ryan’s warm, scratched-up skin, wrapping his arms comfortably around him and trailing kisses wherever he could reach. He remembered watching as Ryan called Keltie, remembered blinking up at him, amused, as he tried to break up with her over the phone as Brendon was being as distracting as humanly possible. He remembered them both trying and failing to shift and stand up- Ryan’s hips were sore and his back was stinging, Brendon was aching all over and even sitting made his body protest. He remembered spending the entire subsequent day curled up together in bed, all hatred somehow dilapidated for those brief, sunshine-y hours, a tantalising glimpse into what could have been if they’d just tried a little harder to make it work. But no- after the famed show that night in Seattle, they got into an argument about guitar straps and regressed back to their usual antagonistic relationship. The difference this time was that, instead of settling it with a shouting match and then trying to ignore eachother for the next 24 hours, they slept together, funnelling the angry energy into some kind of remaining wanton. Brendon had been sure that one night was all he needed, then he could stop thinking about it. Apparently not.

And so they settled into that routine again, all thoughts of soft kisses and touches and gentle caresses in a bed that wasn’t theirs forgotten, left discarded and shut away in a bed in a three star hotel somewhere in Seattle. Nothing of that remained- their subsequent frequent sexual encounters were coarse and tense and mindless, and they remained that way for most of a month, until their ‘sessions’ almost dropped out of fashion in a way and Brendon was ignoring every pass that Ryan made, almost in an effort to fix himself from feeling so- well, expendable. Ryan might have been possessive, the bruises and the bites were evidence of that, but that didn’t mean Brendon felt desired. He felt like Ryan’s dirty little secret- maybe the feeling was mutual, who knew, but he found eventually that he didn’t like it, he wanted their kind of physical and intimate connection along with an emotional one, an actual caring relationship, someone he could call a lover, not someone who wasn’t even his friend. They were enemies with benefits, rivals who regularly fucked to relieve tension, satisfy, whatever; nothing more. That could be different. But it wasn’t. So when Brendon met Ian and they hit it off and by the end of the night they were kissing, and it felt good, not just in a physical way, but it was actually [i]nice,[/i] Brendon didn’t think of Ryan at all.

He felt no guilt when he faced Ryan then, either, just exasperation. He was wary, sure- Brendon knew from experience that Ryan was more than capable of physically moving or overpowering him, and there was a chance that would happen if he or Ian made the wrong move or said the wrong thing- but overall, he just wished that maybe Ryan had gone out with Spencer and Jon, or maybe stayed wherever he was, probably at some hipster cafe somewhere, drinking coffee alone and stealing the wifi so he could passive aggressively tweet and write down little snippets of lyric ideas that he came up with on the spot. Brendon was surprised with himself for a moment, how he conjured up that perfectly accurate picture without even thinking about it too hard. Brendon defiantly met Ryan’s glare for as long as it took for Ian to move and wind an arm around him comfortably, and then his attention shifted to his favoured companion, as they agreed that maybe him being there wasn’t exactly the best thing for any of them right now. Ryan looked smug as he left- Brendon wanted to wipe it off his face. Maybe Ryan won the battle, but Brendon knew he would win the war.

There was a brief, tense period of silence between them, and Brendon knew what they’d be doing usually, but somehow he felt that wasn’t going to happen in this situation, if Ryan really was as pissed as he seemed. A shame, really- Ryan had ruined his chances for the night elsewhere. Brendon blinked and raised his eyebrows as Ryan laughed, a harsh, short sound. [i]My fucking [/i]problem [i]is that anyone could have walked in.[/i] He rolled his eyes, thinking back to all of the times that they had done exactly the same on the bus, and how Ryan had no such concerns then, when it was him with Brendon in his lap and Brendon’s mouth on his. [b]”Oh, please,”[/b] He replied scornfully, [b]”Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have enjoyed the show.”[/b] Quirking an eyebrow slightly, trying to regain some footing in a situation that was quickly slipping out of Ryan’s control. Ryan, who seemed less sure of his own reaction with every passing second. [b]”Besides, we weren’t even [i]doing[/i] anything. Just kissing. You got a problem with me kissing other men, Ryan?”[/b] Of course he did, that was a rhetorical question. Brendon’s mouth was parted, he was still trying to repay the oxygen debt from when he’d been, admittedly, kissing Ian breathless.

[i]You’re being an inconsiderate asshole.[/i] [b]”And you’re being a cockblock, what gives?”[/b] Brendon turned, evidently bored of him, and glanced at the couch where Ian had shrugged off his jacket. He’d left it there, evidently forgotten in his rush to get away from this awkward situation. Brendon moved over and bent to pick it up, folding it over his arm and then crossing the floor towards a crookedly fixed mirror so he could examine his reflection, fix his appearance, run a hand through his dishevelled hair, study his growing number of visible hickeys and consider his own reddened lips. He tried to imagine exactly how Ryan was feeling, how it had been someone else to do this instead of him. [i]What, everytime you reject me lately you’re going to that asshole? What is it? Enlighten me.[/i] Brendon huffed, turned around. [b]”Yeah. I have. If you have a problem with that, please, by all means, let me know. But I have been going to him. He’s good. And- give him a break, you don’t even know the guy.”[/b]