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On his way from their bedroom to the kitchen, Brendon passed by Ryan in the bathroom. He stepped inside to greet his boyfriend, but for a moment, the words wouldn’t come. Ryan stood in front of the mirror brushing his teeth, hair lying in random clumps, staring at himself in the mirror. Brendon wonders briefly if it’s out of sadness, a nit-picking kind of self-loathing. Ryan had just started hormone therapy two weeks ago, so the effects were minimal. Without wanting to antagonize his boyfriend by asking, Brendon placed his arms around his waist, pressing a kiss into his shoulders, making sure his lips didn’t touch his binder.
“Why are we doing this?” Ryan asks in a thin, tired voice. His words are muffled around the brush, and it makes Brendon smile.
“You wanted to get coffee,” Brendon says, resting his chin on Ryan’s shoulder and making eye contact with him via the mirror. “You wanted to go in the morning.”
“To beat the rush,” Ryan says slowly, remembering. He bends down to spit.
“To beat the rush,” Brendon says, wrapping his arms around Ryan’s stomach as he stands, pulling him close. He kisses Ryan’s neck before removing his arms. He catches Ryan grinning in the mirror.
“I’ll be ready in five,” Ryan says. He combs his fingers through his hair aimlessly and snaps the waistband of his boxers as he pulls them up. He then readjusts his binder, and Brendon is almost taken aback to see that he does so out of habit, no longer making him anxious or sad. He was finally unafraid to wander the house shirtless, wearing only a binder. It made Brendon ecstatic. Ryan had turned to leave, but Brendon pulls him in, taking his hand and then hugging him tight.
“Well,” Ryan laughs, “good morning to you, too.”
Brendon focuses on how Ryan’s waist feels in his arms, how his heart feels against Brendon’s bare chest. He’s suddenly filled with a warm admiration, full of the instinct to protect and worship and love. He wants Ryan to know just how much he loves him, how Ryan deserves everything, how he deserves to be nothing less than happy all the time.
When Brendon finally pulls back, slight confusion passes over Ryan’s face before leaving a small, warm grin behind. Brendon wipes his eyes quickly, laughing to rid the tears in his throat. He can’t believe how wonderfully in love he is.
“That’s literally the grossest shit I’ve ever seen.”
Brendon scoffs in exaggeration, replying in mock disgust. “How dare you criticize my aperitif.”
Ryan grins into his coffee but quickly drops it to continue this false altercation. “Aperitifs are alcoholic.”
Brendon shrugs, sipping at his saccharine concoction. “You don’t know what’s in here.”
“I know it’s far too much sugar to be healthy.”
Brendon sets down his cup, rolling his eyes. “Says the man who once ate nothing but Saltines and peanut butter for a week.”
He watches Ryan grin at the memory but also at Brendon using man, just one more repetition to make him even more comfortable and relaxed. “Don’t judge my dietary habits,” Ryan says softly, ostensibly hurt but complete prevarication. It makes Brendon beam.
“How the tables have turned,” Brendon says wistfully. Ryan flips him off, and he finds himself wanting to do nothing more than kiss him until he loses his breath.
Ryan pulls down the sleeves of his hoodie, wrapping his arms around himself. It was Brendon’s hoodie, actually, something old and ratty but something that Ryan loved. It was big on him, hanging off his thin shoulders in the most endearing way. Ryan had done his hair lazily, and it was still upright in unusual patches but different than the ones he woke up with. Brendon could only describe him as complementary to himself. The urge to lunge across the table and grab Ryan’s face surges up again, and he finds himself having to contain his love.
Ryan smiles at him lazily, and Brendon feels his stomach knot like they’re on a first date. Brendon really thought the endurance of this sweet, passionate kind of love was incredible, even after their five years together. He couldn’t believe he found himself falling in love with Ryan every day, over and over and over. He couldn’t believe how lucky he was.
The waitress walks over to them, pulling the notepad from her apron to take their orders. Brendon orders pie just to see what level of irony Ryan can be subjected to before collapsing into a fit of laughter. Ryan orders nothing, and it doesn’t phase Brendon; he ate plenty but sporadically. Brendon had caught him more than once sitting on the kitchen counter, eating cereal straight from the box at three in the morning, or eating frozen dinners as the sun was rising. He was more abstract than abnormal, and it was ordinary for Brendon now. Nothing about their morning had been out of the ordinary. Nothing until what the waitress said next.
As Ryan wrapped his hands around his coffee to affirm he wasn’t going to eat, she tutted at him playfully. “Don’t need to be watching your weight too closely, doll.”
Ryan smiled up at her, delighting in how she fit the cliched of a sweet older lady who treated all the customers with ubiquitous parental care. “Not very hungry,” he said through a laugh.
She points the end of her pen at Brendon, her words serious but not grave, floating on the positive atmosphere preexisting between Brendon and Ryan, grinning amiably: “Watch out for her. Skinny girls need to eat. Don’t let her leave without a bite of your pie.”
Brendon blinks at her. With every step away she takes, Brendon feels the dense fog of disbelief settle into his thoughts.
He looks over at Ryan, but Ryan’s face is red, eyes having plummeted to the table. Brendon watches him grip his coffee a little harder, fingers inching together a little more. Brendon immediately knows they can’t stay here any longer, so he throws down money, stands, and holds his hand out to Ryan. Fingers interlaced, Brendon leads Ryan out of the diner. He can feel Ryan squeeze his hand, feel his palm begin to sweat. Impossibly deep between his ribs, Brendon can feel his heart fall apart.
When they get home, Ryan is silent.
Brendon leaves him be.
He doesn’t know what to say to Ryan, and he’s far more afraid of causing more damage. He watches as Ryan retreats to their bedroom, and he doesn’t follow, even though his fingertips and toes almost feel magnetized to everyone of Ryan’s movements. Brendon knows the agony of isolation, and he doesn’t want Ryan to feel it. But he also is very aware that he was no ground to step upon to help him, no higher level to pull Ryan onto. He just can’t relate to Ryan.
Brendon walks into the kitchen. In the silence, knowing the loneliness he feels is only an echo of what Ryan is being dragged through, Brendon is overcome with sadness. The pain between his ribs ignites, forcing the air out of his lungs and pricking the back of his eyes. He is forced to stand by the wayside as the love of his life tries to not mentally tear himself apart. He feels completely useless, and he hates himself for it.
He hopes Ryan can’t hear him cry.
Brendon stays in the house as long as Ryan does, which ends up being a weekend. In some kind of muted horror, Brendon watches not as hours pass but as major events pass in which Ryan has still not left their bedroom. Every sunrise and sunset makes Brendon nauseous, but not as much as the deafening silence at three am. He is unsure of whether he should approach Ryan, but he didn’t know how much more he could take. Brendon needed to hold Ryan, to make sure he was okay, to make sure all of his heartache was actually for nothing, that his worry was misplaced. With fresh fingers prying his ribs apart, Brendon realizes this is why he hasn’t checked on Ryan: he knows Ryan isn’t okay, and he doesn’t know if he could handle seeing it. But after nearly forty-eight hours without food, he knows Ryan needs to be checked on.
The thought of Ryan collapsing--to become the epitome of helplessness--is enough to make Brendon enter their room. He had anticipated what he was going to do for hours, waiting for the seconds to creep along and bring him closer to this moment. But when he saw that Ryan was asleep, he knew he couldn’t crawl into bed with him. When he heard the light snore that meant Ryan wasn’t faking, Brendon knew he couldn’t ask Ryan to talk about what he was feeling. When Ryan didn’t stir at the flood of light let in by him opening the door, Brendon knew he couldn’t wake Ryan up. He knew he couldn’t disturb Ryan’s peace just to ensure his own.
Quietly closing the door behind him, Brendon headed back to the living room. He tried not to think of the worst, but he couldn’t help himself. He knew Ryan slept more when his depression was bad, and this was all he could focus on until it encompassed everything. Every mindless movie he watched only plummeted him further into his own worries. The desire to burst in and hug Ryan was overwhelming, leaving Brendon with wet eyes and shaking fingers. He wanted to crack his aching ribs open and make Ryan aware of the contents, but he also knew that wasn’t the best thing to do at the moment. Brendon didn’t need to relieve his own pain as much as Ryan needed to swallows down his own.
Briefly, Brendon wonders if he could take Ryan’s pain from him and keep it, like plucking a book from a bookcase. Once it crosses his thoughts, he fixates on it. He would give anything to make Ryan happy and carefree again.
After a few hours, Ryan finally comes out of their room. Brendon doesn’t know what to say.
Ryan looks at Brendon, eyes puffy, shoulders low. Brendon feels his throat tighten just at the sight. It was a look of defeat, Brendon thinks. Ryan was done fighting. He didn’t have the energy.
Brendon blinks back tears. He stands to greet Ryan.
“Hey, sunshine,” he says, voice thick around the tears in his throat. He wants to wrap Ryan in his arms and hug him until Ryan bores of it. He wants to hold Ryan close enough to make sure Ryan can never feel lonely again.
He wants to take away all of Ryan’s pain, but he knows he never can.
Ryan looks up at him. Brendon notices that he’s not wearing his hoodie anymore, but instead an old shirt. Brendon feels his chest hum with misplaced anger and betrayal, and guilt immediately crashes into him, dragging him under and leaving him struggling to breathe. He feels shitty and stupid and helpless. Gradually, Brendon’s anger begins to focus on himself, becoming the exact shade of self-loathing he imagines Ryan must have felt over the last few days.
Without any warning or anyway to stop it, Brendon’s heart breaks out of sympathy and frustration. Through the steady drip of his tears he watches Ryan’s eyes soften--maybe out of pity, Brendon thinks. Brendon rarely cried in front of Ryan by coincidence more than anything, but now he was by far the saddest he had ever been in his life. He was full of anguish and vitriol, and through the ceiling the stars pressed down into his shoulders like a million judgmental eyes. Ryan had never seen Brendon so unabashedly honest about anything in his life.
Brendon rubs his eyes, ridding them of the remaining tears, swiping away the tracks on his cheeks.
Ryan says nothing. He stares at Brendon with the shallow gaze of self-numbing.
When his breathing begins to level out again, Brendon forces himself to speak. “How--?”
Ryan reaches forward, crossing the few inches between them to take Brendon’s hand, and the words die on Brendon’s tongue.
There are a few moments of silence before Brendon pulls Ryan in for a hug.
He envelops Ryan as completely as he can, covering Ryan’s back and waist with his arms, burying his nose into Ryan’s neck. He hears Ryan begin to cry and feels his grip tighten on Brendon’s shirt, fisting the material like he’s afraid he’ll float away if he lets go.
“I love you,” Brendon mutters into Ryan’s skin between kisses. “I love you, sunshine. I love you.”
After a few minutes, Ryan pulls back, clearing the tears from his throat with a cough and surreptitiously wiping his eyes. “I can’t believe it,” he says.
Brendon feels his heart begin to break again, the unsettling of his very bones as he thinks again of Ryan’s discomfort and self-loathing and isolation and agony. It sends a new wave of panic through his veins.
“What?” Brendon asks in a tight voice.
Ryan’s eyes flicker in Brendon’s, searching, searching. “You never let me go.’
“Of course not,” Brendon says, blinking. “Of course not.”
Ryan offers a weak, tear-stained smile. “After--after every time I’ve fallen apart, you’re always there. You’re always willing to help me put myself back together.”
Brendon feels new, warm tears threaten to spill down his face. “Every reassembly is worth it. You’ll always be worth it, Ryan.”
Ryan licks his lips, swallowing. “I’m sorry,” he says, looking down, away from Brendon.
“For what?”
“For…” Ryan makes the self-mocking grin of someone trying not to cry. “For everything. You’re too wonderful. I’m too fragile for my own good.”
“Ryan,” Brendon says, taking one of Ryan’s hands and pressing it between both of his, “You’re not too fragile. You’re pliant. You can take it all, and eventually you find the strength to be okay again. I admire you for it every single day. You give me hope, you fill me with love…”
Ryan begins to smile, cheeks turning pink. Brendon feels his heart melt.
“Really, sunshine,” Brendon says, touching his palm to Ryan’s cheek. “I love you, and you’re always going to be worth it.”
He leans in and presses a kiss to Ryan’s forehead, and when he drops his chin, Ryan leans forward to kiss his lips. And they kiss for longer than usual, but it’s okay. In fact, it’s wonderful. It’s their conduit back into normalcy, back into bathroom rituals and early morning eating. It’s back to the odd crook of life they call their own. Brendon lets his fingers inch up under Ryan’s shirt, rubbing at the knobs of his lower back.
“You know, “ Ryan says, “maybe we can even get pie tomorrow.”
Like a switch flip, Brendon is suddenly able to laugh, deep and genuine and loud. He pulls Ryan even closer, maybe even to the point of his sternum hurting. But he doesn’t care.
“I love you,” Ryan says before pressing a kiss into Brendon’s cheek. “I love you.”
Brendon smiles against Ryan’s lips. He would gladly accept a lifetime of bruised ribs if it meant a heart this full of love.