this is a love song in my own way

Summary: In which Ryan Ross is a girl. Has always been, will always be a girl. End of story.
Rating: NC-17.
Warnings: Swearing. Sex. Het. Yes. HET. *looks ashamed*
Word Count: 6000, give or take a few
A/N: Yes, I know it’s been done before. But this is my take on the situation. Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post and let me know they'd be reading! You guys inspired me to finish this.




“What’s it like being the only girl in a band with three boys?”

Ryan pretends to consider it for a second. Pretends, because in actual fact, it’s the seventy-sixth time she’s been asked this same question.

So you're not anorexic, after all? Can we get a shot of you eating something, then? What’s it like, are you dating anyone in the band, which of your bandmates would you sleep with –

“I honestly don’t think about it that much,” she lies. “I’ve known Spencer since we were kids and we’re all best friends.”

“Cool,” the interviewer says, and Ryan has a sinking feeling. She knows what’s coming. “If you had to sleep with one of the guys, who would it be?”

*

The photoshoot for the album is the weirdest day of them all.

When they take pictures they ask if they can paint her up and Ryan lets them, watching as they style her hair half over her face, lining her eyes thick and heavy. It’s disconcerting, because she looks nothing like she’s used to.

Ryan kind of likes it, and when she goes to the hairdresser next she gets it cut short, almost pixie-like except she’s got this fringe that sweeps across her forehead, and she can style the rest into a mohawk of sorts.

She paints her face with pretty colours and birds and dead trees, and delights in hiding behind newsboy caps and oversized sunglasses. She wears scarves and gloves and skinny jeans, prepared not to listen to what people think about it.

Except these days, she gets interviewed by girlie magazines and Rolling Stone and Teen Vogue.

*

Ryan is not surprised to find herself lounging around Fall Out Boy’s bus watching Mean Girls for the thousandth time.

There’s too many people on this tour, more add-ons tagging along, and some things are just inevitable, because there’s only so much alcohol people can drink, even if said people are the Academy boys.

“Are all girls that fucking airheaded?” William asks idly, studying the way Regina flicks her hair.

Pete cackles. “Can’t half tell you don’t have much luck with the ladies,” he says.

William throws popcorn at him.

“I figure it doesn’t matter,” Pete says, studying the tv. “I mean, with all the bouncing,” he says, making lewd gestures, “and all the jiggling, we can forgive them.” William cracks up watching Pete mime the action.

“I’m severely offended on behalf of my gender,” Ryan says, monotone not wavering in the face of William’s hysterics.

“You’re not a girl, Ross, not really,” Pete says, shit-eating grin firmly in place. “It’s not as if you’ve got anything to jiggle,” and the only thing stopping Ryan from punching him is his teasing tone and the fact that he’s Pete. “You’re just another Billy Beckett – just pretending to be.”

“Motherfucker,” William says, throwing the popcorn bowl at him.

*

Six and she has skinned knees and dirty hands and Ryan tackles Spencer, laughing as they both fall down in the mud. Because Spencer hates dirt, and maybe Ryan does too, just a little, but it’s worth it to see Spencer make that face.

‘Girls aren’t supposed to do that,’ Spencer says seriously, frowning at her as he stands and tries to clean himself off.

‘Who says?’

Spencer shrugs. ‘I dunno. Everyone? Girls aren’t supposed to play in the mud and climb trees. Girls like dolls and stuff.’

‘Maybe I’m not a girl, then,’ Ryan says, clambering to her feet.

‘You are too.’

‘Are not!’

‘Are too!’

‘Are not!’

‘What’s going on here?’ Spencer’s mom asks, stern but with smiling eyes.

‘Mom, is Ryan a girl?’ Spencer asks quickly.

Ginger looks amused. ‘Yes, Spencer, Ryan is a girl.’

Spencer pokes his tongue at Ryan.

Ryan feels like she’s about to cry. ‘But I don’t want to be,’ she says, bottom lip trembling.

Ginger’s face softens. ‘Oh honey,’ she says softly. ‘It’s alright.’

*

“What was it like when your Dad died?” the girl with the microphone in the studio crowd asks, eyes wide with pity.

Ryan wants to laugh in her face.

*

Thirteen and her father is drunk, more so than she’s ever seen him.

He’s stumbling around the living room, and Ryan freezes as her father fills the kitchen doorway, hands dripping wet and paused reaching for the next plate.

‘You were supposed to be a boy, you know,’ and Ryan knows he’s trying for casual but it comes out like an accusation, and she closes her eyes against it, glad he can’t see her face.

‘You were supposed to be a boy. When the nurses brought you out I thought they’d made a mistake. I was supposed to have a son, and instead I got you.’

‘Pity,’ Ryan mutters under her breath.

‘What did you say?’ her father demands. ‘You sassing me, girl?’

‘Never, sir,’ Ryan replies smartly.

George clamps a hand down on her shoulder and whirls her to face him.

‘You watch your mouth, girl,’ he says, shaking her, and Ryan can smell the alcohol on his breath. Whiskey, heavy and pungent.

She recoils, and watches his eyes darken. ‘You’re not even a girl,’ her father sneers, pulling his hand away. ‘ Don’t look like one, anyway.’

And oh, it’s always the softest words that crucify, isn’t it.

‘At least I don’t look like you,’ Ryan fires back, ducking the hand that swings in reply. She’s already halfway across the kitchen, up the stairs and behind her locked bedroom door.

*

Ryan always makes a point of changing around the guys, because hello, she’s comfortable around them; they usually share tiny dressing rooms, and though there’s often support acts and the Lucent Dossier girls in there, it’s Ryan and Jon and Spencer and Brendon that the journalists always watch like a hawk, observing everything and writing it down, ready to be twisted around in print later on.

The guy from Spin actually tries to take a photo of Brendon lacing up Ryan’s corset, before Zack steps in and confiscates his camera.

Not that Ryan minds, not really, she’s been filmed doing more compromising things with Brendon than him helping her get changed, but she just wishes people would stop making such a big deal out of it.

*

Whether it’s because she’s the only girl, or because she had her face in frame for a whole two seconds the first time around, Ryan doesn’t know, but either way she’s playing a bigger role in their new video.

She was quite into the concept of the 1930’s speakeasy, could deal with the fact that she’d be playing Brendon’s girlfriend - until they showed her the costume.

The first part is actually kind of fun – she gets all dressed and wigged up (she looks absolutely ridiculous with long blonde hair) and pouts at Brendon. They only get it on the fifteenth take because they both can’t stop cracking up.

In the second part Ryan has to put on the short little dress – luckily, she’s always been a sucker for a garter belt, and this one is especially pretty – and fishnets and heels. They plant this brown-haired monstrosity on her head and when Ryan puts her mask on and looks in the mirror, she’s pleasantly surprised.

The dress and its inserts give her some sort of shape, drawing attention to her impossibly long legs. The padded bra gives her A-cup figure actual breasts. She’s wearing a mass of black eyeliner and even more red lipstick and Brendon wolf-whistles when he sees her. Ryan grins and flashes her underwear at him.

Kissing Brendon is nothing new; they’ve done it before, lazy afternoons in the back of his old van, in the tiny apartment they shared. The kiss is easy and natural, and there’s not even any tongue.

Afterwards Ryan catches Spencer staring at Brendon with this intense, heated look on his face, and her heart sinks.

Does he have to be so obvious about it?

*

Ryan does soundcheck in sweats and an oversized hoodie she stole from Jon. Feminine grace can go to hell.

Ryan is bleeding, and her entire abdomen hurts like a motherfucker.

She doesn’t like taking painkillers, never has, so she just glares at Brendon when he tells her to stop whining and just take some damn aspirin already.

Spencer brings her chocolate and pretty ballet flats – black Keds with multi-coloured notes and treble clefs on them. He sits in her bunk and lets her curl up in his lap, playing with her hair until it’s time to get ready for the show.

Sometimes, Ryan thinks she really loves Spencer.

She kind of hates him for it.

*

Ryan’s thirteen years old and she’s never been this uncomfortable before.

Spencer’s mom is seated across the table, looking at her with an expression Ryan can’t quite identify. It makes her nervous.

“Now that you’re getting older, Ryan, you’re going to notice your body is changing,” she begins.

Ryan understands, suddenly. She blushes and looks down.

“I’ve had my period for three months,” she tells the tabletop. “I’ve pretty much got it down by now.” When she chances a glance upward, Ginger is beaming at her.

‘And you didn’t tell me,’ she says, shaking her head. But she has a huge smile on her face. Ryan’s not so sure what’s so great about it, really.

Later, Spencer asks why his Mom lets them order pizza and eat icecream and drink as much Coke as they like.

‘We’re celebrating,’ Ginger replies, a smile on her face. ‘Ryan’s becoming a woman.’

Spencer looks confused for a moment. Ryan can tell the very instant he figures it out, because his whole face changes.

‘Oh ew,’ he says. ‘Ry, I did not need to know that.’

Ryan wants to point out that she didn’t tell him, wouldn’t have told him, never in a million years.

But she doesn’t.

*

They’re speeding down the Interstate in the middle of Buttfuck, Nowhere, and Ryan thinks she’s going stir-crazy.

Because Brendon spends a whole day trying to successfully style Ryan’s hair and still fails, Jon is trying to re-create the entire Starbucks beverage list in their tiny kitchen and using up all their coffee supplies, while going eighty miles an hour, and Spencer -

Spencer breaks up with his girlfriend and they have a massive phone argument afterwards about why they broke up. Haley thinks he’s sleeping with Ryan. He never would, Ryan wants to say. He doesn’t want me like he wanted you, you stupid little girl.

*

She’s seventeen, almost a full year older than him but still so willing to hang out with him, be his friend, and how can Spencer deny Ryan anything, especially this?

She’s nervous, perched over him, afraid and expectant. She’s expecting him to shove her off, to say no.

Part of Spencer thinks he should. He should push Ryan away, should tell her they can’t do this, that they’re friends, that this’ll fuck up the awesome dynamic they have, because how is he gonna look her in the eye after this? How can Spencer possibly watch his best friend talk, watching those lips move and know they’ve – know they’ve been… there.

The other part of Spencer, the teenage boy who’s getting hard in his pants at the thought, wants to say yes. Wants to say yes to Ryan’s pleading eyes and ‘Please, Spence. I want to do it – I want to know what it’s like.’

But Spencer pushes her away, because he can’t, he won’t do this with Ryan. Not here, not now.

“No, Ry,” he says, not meeting her eyes.

When she leaves his house, Spencer doesn’t see her for a week afterwards, and when he does she shows up with a black eye. It breaks his heart that she only comes back to him because she’s got nowhere else to go.

*

Ryan takes a deep breath and reminds herself that she wanted this, wanted to be playing in a band and making music and be played on the radio. But she never thought it would be like this. It all happened so quickly, and Ryan had to retreat behind hats and scarves and elaborate makeup to keep some sort of distance.

Ryan's really surprised when the whole thing works. People like her eclectic style and strange androgyny. She has to fight off bitter anorexia rumors, but she doesn't mind being skinny. By the end, she's started to accept that she'll never look like a Barbie doll. She has no ass to speak of, but she looks awesome in skinny jeans, and later on, Jon often tells her so, because he's good like that.

It's strange, because for all the rumors about Ryan being anorexic, she's always fucking eating. Brendon, who can smell sugar a mile away, sticks close so he can steal from the bag of ever-present sour patch kids, so he can steal her M&M's. She's always eating, she's not fucking anorexic, she just has this fast metabolism, okay?

“Do you think this has changed you?” the man says, gesturing to the dressing room; the lights, the mirrors, the scattered bodies and items of clothing.

“No,” Ryan replies instantly, then has to mentally form a reason as to why. The truth is a bitch.

*

Sixteen, that was when things changed.

When Ryan realised what it meant to be a girl.

She spent countless hours studying her body in the mirror, twisting this way and that to study unattractive flesh.

She had no shape. At all. Just long legs and pale skin, sharp hipbones and no ass to speak of, no real chest whatsoever. A kind of deformed androgyny, where you couldn’t tell what sex the person was.

Sexless, that’s an easier way to describe it, she thinks.

Because they tell her she’s a girl but she looks more like a boy and she just wants to be one or the other.

She watches Spencer crush on Adam; the cute loner in Spencer’s Math class who’s so bony and so tall and so graceful and so male. Ryan tries to smile when Spencer gushes about what a good friend Adam was, how he was always there in Math to help Spencer figure his equations out.

And Ryan definitely does not go home and spend forty-five minutes in the shower crying, because Ryan Ross may be a girl but she Does. Not. Cry. Okay?

And if Spencer notices her eyes are all red-rimmed the next day, serious face asking if things are alright at home, Ryan will just shrug and let Spencer draw his own conclusions.

There are some things she’s never going to tell him.

*

“I’m sorry about Haley,” Ryan says, ambushing him when she’s carefully lining his eyes with black pencil. She knows he won’t move away, even if he wants to.

But his eyebrow twitches, and Ryan smiles, knows Spencer’s resisting the temptation to pull his favourite bitchface.

“Don’t be,” he says after a beat. “We weren’t really that serious.”

For some reason that little sentence hits Ryan harder than it should; that Spencer just fucks around with people for the sake of it, and that said person was busty and blonde and beautiful and everything that Ryan isn’t.

She was female, though, and that’s a new development.

It didn’t last long, though, and Ryan is willing to bet Spencer will stick to boys again from now on.

*

In hindsight, Ryan should have known something was up, because Spencer never gets sick, and when he does he bitches and moans like nothing else.

But Ryan had charmed the girl at reception into giving her a card for Spencer’s room – and it only cost her a signature and a photo – because for some reason Spencer asked not to share. So in her mind it kind of serves her right for catching Spencer fucking William Beckett.

It’s not the shock of seeing them together that glues her to the spot, watching as her best friend holds William down, one of his hands pinning two slim wrists to the bed, or the way Spencer thrusts so damn carefully, as if William’s going to break under him, the way Spencer traces the outline of William’s jaw with his other hand before reaching down to fist William’s cock.

It’s the litany of ‘beautiful, so beautiful like this’ that hurts her the most.

She backs out of the room silently and runs back to her own, Spencer’s breathy declaration echoing in her ears.

What she wouldn’t give to hear Spencer say those words to her, and mean them.

*

Ryan thinks it must be something in the air.

Because the next day when Keltie calls her, pissed Ryan didn’t answer his calls the day before, he accuses Ryan of being too busy sleeping with everyone from Spencer to the Merch guy, and dumps her. Ryan thinks that’s what she gets for dating a basketball player who gets annoyed when you don’t call before every game. She always hated the Nicks anyway.

Ryan is left red-faced and embarrassed afterwards, because she’s never quite mastered the art of turning the speakerphone off in the middle of a conversation, so of course Spencer heard, his bunk is right below hers.

When she heads for the tiny bathroom Ryan hears him get up to follow, and practically runs the rest of the way.

“You’re not a slut, Ryan,” Spencer says softly from behind her.

“Yeah, because you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” she snarls, shutting the bathroom door in his face.

She sits down on the edge of the closed toilet seat and tries valiantly not to cry.

*

It’s not that Ryan’s a slut, not really.

It’s not even that she particularly loves sex. More that she learned a long time ago that it could be fun, that it could be this easy kind of camaraderie where the other person doesn't care that she's too thin or has no shape, as long as they get off. Sex could be a way of getting what she wanted. And if that fun includes fucking Jon Walker in her bunk a whole twelve hours after she meets him for the first time, so be it.

Grinning against his mouth, she tilts her head back, arching into the brush of teeth over her jaw. The bite's unexpected, brings her upright, sharp and sudden, a flare of pure heat from breasts to groin, and the hand on her back slides to her ass, pushing her down--fuck.

Yes. Good. Very good.

She presses her thumbs to his collarbone, breathing out when he nips her jaw before tilting her head back down and kissing her. Still all lazy, slow heat that's building in her deliciously, and there's a startled second where the hand in her hair frees her, pulling back, and then somehow their positions are reversed.

On her back in the bunk, Jon kneeling on the bed between her legs, and lazy is gone. Sharp bite to her lip, hard, slick tongue taking her mouth. Rough, aggressive, no polished performance played out to impress her, but hungry. Studying her body with hands that are curious and searching. Someone who likes sex for its own sake, yeah, that's Jon, but someone who likes sex for what it is as well, whether you believe it or not. Connection. A place that's never as purely physical as you want it to be.

Afterwards Jon kisses her forehead and leaves, and the next day there’s no ribbing from the Academy guys, so Ryan can only assume he hasn’t told anyone.

There’s an easy camaraderie between them, after, as if they came to some unspoken agreement that it was never to happen again. Jon meets Cassie and falls head-over-heels for her, and Ryan’s genuinely happy for him.

*

Spencer and Ryan aren’t speaking the next morning when they all head off the bus for breakfast; Ryan won’t look at him and if eternally glad Jon and Brendon are there to run interference.

Brendon cracks lame jokes and draws on his plate in ketchup, and makes Ryan laugh.

Jon slings an arm around her shoulders when they head back to the bus, quietly asking her if everything’s okay.

Ryan pastes a tired smile onto her face. “Just tired, that’s all,” she tells him, and when she yawns it’s for real. “Keltie broke up with me last night, and I – uh, didn’t get much sleep.”

Jon hugs her to him and Ryan closes her eyes against the warmth, feeling tears prick at her eyes as she lets him guide her way.

“Well,” Jon says, and Ryan can feel his voice rumble through his chest, “You just let me know if you need someone to warm your bunk.” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively, and Ryan laughs.

*

Ryan sucks Pete Wentz’s dick the second time she meets him.

The first was after a show Fall Out Boy did in Vegas, where Ryan pressed herself so hard against the barrier she had bruises for a week, and Pete signed her shirt and told her to keep making music.

The second time, he came to listen to their music, and Ryan knew it wasn’t enough, that they weren’t together enough, that they needed another chance to play for him.

Ryan tells him so, in the cab on the way back to his hotel.

When they get there she follows him up to his room, shuts the door behind her and gets down on her knees before him.

Ryan gets her second chance.

Pete isn’t candles and love letters and songs written just for her. He’s a record exec from her favorite band who thinks she looks young and pretty on her knees. She doesn’t expect reciprocation, doesn’t get it. Because Ryan is from Vegas, and she has lived in Sin City long enough to not have stars in her eyes.

*

The tension between Ryan and Spencer has reached breaking point by the next night.

Doors are an hour away and Ryan isn’t even fully dressed yet when she literally runs into Spencer, colliding with him in the middle of the dressing room – larger, this time.

The room goes silent, and when Zack clears his throat and says we’ll just give you two a minute, everyone disappears.

Ryan notes the way Spencer won’t look at her, leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed and fingers tapping out an idle rhythm.

“I’m not apologizing,” Ryan blurts.

Spencer turns his piercing blue eyes on her. “What would you ever have to apologize for?” he asks innocently. “It’s not like you practically called me a slut when I tried to make you feel better, now, is it? It’s not like ‘Pot, meet kettle,’ or anything, no.”

The snark infuriates Ryan more than anything else in the world and Spencer knows it.

“I don’t fuck around,” she says, voice low.

“What about Wentz, then?” Spencer asks nastily.

“I never had sex with Pete,” Ryan says, yelling now, because who the fuck does Spencer Smith think he is?

“You got on your knees for him, though, didn’t you?” Spencer’s shouting also and he knows it’s a rhetorical question because he’s caught her at it. “Is that how we landed our record deal, Ryan? Did you have to whore yourself out to do it?”

“Oh fuck you,” she spits, moving closer. “He signed us because he liked the music. I sucked him off because I’m good at it, because he wanted me, unlike some people.”

Spencer ignores the last part and fires back sarcastically. “Because I’m sure he wanted you Ryan, not just someone willing to suck him off whenever he felt the need.”

“You fucking hypocrite,” Ryan hisses. That stung, because of course Spencer knows her weaknesses, her insecurities. He knows how to cut her to the bone with a few simple words, always has.

“Hypocrite?” And Spencer raises an eyebrow, bitchface perfectly in place, and Ryan explodes.

“You fucked Beckett – on a cheap hotel bed.” She’s furious now, because how can Spencer be so fucking composed? “Try telling me honestly that you fucked him because you liked him, not because you had stars in your eyes and he likes taking it from groupies.” She pokes him in the chest, shouting into his face now. “Go on, Spencer, tell me honestly that you fucked him because you love him, because he loves you back-”

“I fucked him because he reminds me of you!” Spencer yells.

Ryan freezes.

“What?”

Spencer doesn’t answer her shaky question. When he moves past her towards the door Ryan feels like he’s punched her, winded her. “But – but you like boys, Spence, you fuck boys…”

He pauses in the doorway, but doesn’t turn around.

“Maybe that’s because I’ve never found a girl that reminded me of you,” Spencer says softly. “I tried once, but no-one measures up.”

*

Spencer goes off onstage.

He is perfectly on-beat, all night, every song, and Ryan can’t seem to make her clumsy fingers curl around the guitar right.

Brendon shoots her worried looks in between flirting with the audience and Jon actually crosses the stage at one point, leaning in to Ryan’s mic when her voice wavers, covering the back-up vocals as if they’d planned it that way.

And all the while Spencer is perfect, brilliant, the best he’s ever played – fast, loud, angry.

Afterwards, he pushes past her silently in the dressing room, and doesn’t say a word.

Ryan avoids the guys when they get back to the bus, curls up in her bunk and yearns for easier days.

*

Spencer was seven, Ryan was eight.

The summer passed in a haze of warmth and laughter. Days spent riding bikes and exploring backyards.

‘We’ll be best friends forever, right Spence?’

‘Right,’ Spencer agrees loftily. ‘Forever.’

*

They’re in Seattle when Ryan’s phone rings.

When the officer on the other end of the line introduces himself, Ryan knows instantly why he’s called.

She takes the news silently, thanks him and hangs up, as if on autopilot. She doesn’t remember telling Jon, who tells Brendon and fetches Spencer.

Spencer, who folds her into his arms and rocks her softly, while they all crowd around her. Strangely, Ryan finds she can’t cry. She should feel bad at being happy Spencer’s there, because hello, her father just died, but the gesture is just too comforting to deny.

Finally, Ryan closes her eyes and sobs.

*

‘G’bye, kid,’ her father says gruffly.

Ryan watches him disappear into the distance as the bus pulls away. She’s glad to be leaving Vegas, but feels an odd nostalgia, and sadness at leaving her father behind.

He may not be the best, but he’s the only real family Ryan’s ever known, and he certainly tries his best.

Brendon is practically bouncing in his seat and Brent is staring moodily out the window, but Spencer sits quietly next to Ryan, hand in hers.

No, Ryan corrects herself. Spencer’s family. He’s hers.

*

The funeral is blessedly short.

Ryan speaks, talks for a short while about how her father always tried to do the right thing by her. Whether it’s actually true or not, she’ll never know, but she feels better when she says it.

The day is rainy and dark, and Ryan has never been so glad to get back to the bus. They all sit close to her as they watch Moulin Rouge for the thousandth time, and no-one says anything when Ryan cries at the end. They just hug her tighter.

Afterwards, they all fall asleep in the lounge. Ryan stirs when Spencer moves her to her bunk. She always forgets how strong he is.

“We’re stupid,” she says sleepily.

“You’re stupid,” he says, face serious. “Get some sleep.”

He goes to move away, but Ryan catches his hand.

“Could you stay?”

Spencer studies her for a moment. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he says finally.

“Oh,” Ryan says softly, and she thinks she can hear her heart breaking.

“I just – I can’t just lie next to you and pretend everything’s normal. Because it’s not, Ry, okay? I’ve loved you practically forever and now you know and we just buried your dad, for fuck’s sake-”

“Shut up, Spence,” Ryan says tiredly. “I love you too. Can we please just talk about it in the morning?”

Spencer rolls his eyes and crawls into the bunk next to her.

*

She decides at sixteen that she doesn’t want to love Spencer. He’s her best friend, right? And best friends can’t be in love. Not really. It’s probably about sex.

It’s all about sex these days. And Spencer likes boys, if Adam is any indication, so Spencer Smith is all about the cock. And Ryan doesn’t have one of those.

Ryan's just this strange, half-formed creature who almost looks like a boy but is growing into a woman in all the places that count.

*

Ryan awakes to realise her head is moving, following the soft rise and fall of Spencer’s chest, and that there’s fingers running through her short hair.

“Hey,” Spencer whispers.

They talk for a while, about little things, stupid things, like the next show and who ate the last of the gummi bears until Ryan gathers her courage and kisses him.

Spencer kisses back.

Ryan’s content to just lie there and kiss Spencer, let herself be kissed. It’s sweet and gentle and familiar. It feels like home.

Ryan’s content to lose track of time because of the way Spencer’s mouth tastes, the way he likes to nibble just under her jaw.

They’re both frustrated when Jon pulls back the curtain to tell them they’re half an hour away from having to do soundcheck.

Ryan groans and Spencer laughs and kisses her forehead. “Hotel tonight,” he says.

“Mmm,” Ryan says, monotone carefully noncommittal. “You looking forward to it?”

“I think that’s kinda obvious,” Spencer says, shifting against her so she can feel his erection against her thigh. Ryan gets a perverse thrill to know she did that.

She, Ryan Ross, is having this effect on Spencer Smith. She’s waited too damn long for this.

“Maybe I’m looking forward to it too,” she admits.

*


Thirteen; a guitar for Christmas.

They had sucked at first.

Blink 182 covers, at first, and later: really, really bad attempts at songwriting.

But it had been them, it had been something unique and special.

‘You and me, Spence. Forever.’

It was easy, no awkwardness or self-consciousness. They were just Ryan and Spencer.

*

Lust's easy. It's Jon, sweet and gentle and uncomplicated. When they shared a bed, it was always fun. Like sunlight spilling down in spring, simple and carefree and they drank their coffee together the morning after and went their separate ways. A purity to it she's always appreciated, always depended on.

Love's easier. It's Brendon, green and fresh in memory, fumbling first touches and first kisses. Vegas summer heat on her skin when he slid inside her, eyes huge and afraid and wanting. She can still smell the musty heat of his purple van, feel the prickle of carseat cover underneath her.

Ryan wants--something different. Harder. Darker, yet more familiar than anything. She needs the lust and memories and need and anger cycling through them both to be targeted, making it uncontrolled and furious and all about the body, rippling orgasm like a tide to tear through and never forget why.

Or who.

It's Spencer, laying her out on the hotel bed, tracing her body like he's reading braille. Marking time with fingers skimming her skin until her hands close over the headboard and Ryan's arching into his hands, his mouth, his fucking voice. The low, almost unintelligible murmurs.

He makes her feel beautiful. Spread out on the hotel bed, Spencer whispers things against Ryan’s stomach, fingertips hard on her thighs, pressing them apart.

The first touch of that skilled mouth sends her arching, and the callused hands on her hips are like steel. Spencer's writing his name into her body, inch by inch, word by word, touch by touch. Ryan doesn’t want to know where he learned how to do this, is just extremely glad he has. The tip of his tongue on her clit draws designs like art, and he could tell Ryan to do anything, anything at all, and she would do it.

So close, balancing on the edge of something huge and terrifyingly needed, Ryan breaks a nail on the wood of the headboard and doesn't care, heels skidding on cheap cotton sheets. Orgasm is electric and shakes every muscle liquid, and the aftershocks are shaking her thighs when Spencer slides between her legs. Through the thunder of her pulse, the sharp pant of her breath, she hears the condom being unwrapped and—

"Fuck." It's been a long time. Spencer stops, tensing just a little above her. Ryan pries her hands free of the bedframe, blindly seeking purchase, palms on smooth, sweat-slicked skin, digging her nails in, holding on.

"Do it." Post-orgasm lassitude can go to hell--Ryan wraps both legs around his waist, pulling him in--tight, full stretch, oh God, she'll feel this for years, her fantasies could live on just the memory, and when he settles inside her, she wants everything he can give her. Harsh breath against her temple, holding on by the barest thread and she can't take that. "Fuck me, Spencer. Don't--"

Spencer kisses her--tongue pushing Ryan’s mouth as open as her body, hollowed out, no sound, no need for it, he's telling her things with every smooth thrust that have never needed words. Hard muscle under her hands, and his eyes are wide and fixed on her, no denial, no escape, and this is sex. This is fucking. This is them. This is the reality of what's been practice and fun and play, like first crushes and first times and first love. Her thighs ache and her body's pushing for more and more and now, please, now, don't stop, don't you dare stop, Spence, not ever....

Lust's so easy. So simple. Ryan would wake up tomorrow and laugh about it, talk it over with Brendon or Jon, but Spencer has never been simple. The steady, impossibly hard rhythm, the hold of blue eyes that don't ever look away.

"Jesus Christ," he whispers, almost reverently, and something in her shivers. Ryan’s nails are drawing frantic patterns of need on his skin, so easily, and she can smell blood if she tries. Her heels push into his back when she arches, and Spencer swallows her moan with a kiss that goes on forever. "Beautiful--"

Ryan's not entirely sure when she comes, when it stops, all pure sensory overload and languid heat. When she slides down the bed, his hands threading through her hair, thumb brushing her cheek, chanting her name breathlessly, like a benediction or a promise, when she fucks him into her mouth and tastes them, familiar and strange and real. When she slides on top of him, pulling him deep inside her again, the flare of surprise even beyond the pleasure. The shock that shakes them harder than orgasm or lust ever could. Spencer cups her hips like he wants to leave fingerprints that won't ever disappear.

"Ry...."

Like whatever Spencer expected, this wasn't it. Like he knew she knew that, too.

Sweat cools sticky on Ryan’s skin when she stretches out after, ignoring the soft burn between her legs, holding his taste on the back of her tongue. She falls asleep with Spencer curled around her, mouth in her hair, hands on her skin like they'll never leave.

Tomorrow they have to get up and do it all again, the pretense and the false answers and the pretty smiles. But now, it’s just them, RyanandSpencer, twined together.

The end of forever is very far away.