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made out like bandits [bandslash, Bob Bryar / Brendon Urie]
SHHHHH IT'S TOTALLY THE 27TH NOW.
This story owes basically EVERYTHING EVER to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pearl_o, who let me write it at her in chat and then said, "right, great, now make the ending not suck," and then, when I sent it back to her again, said, "okay, yeah, better, but can it not suck?" Everything awesome in here was her idea; I'm seriously not kidding. Thanks also to my other three favorite ladies, angelsaves and shoemaster and lordessrenegade, who made squeaky noises in all the right places. All four of them deserve pie. Or possibly kittens.
title from josh ritter.
*
made out like bandits
Bob Bryar/Brendon Urie, NC-17
~6500 words
Notes: written forstrangecobwebs in a random fic exchange. Um. I wroted you a story?
&also: not real, never happened, don't google yourself.
*
Ultimately, it's all Patrick Stump's fault.
Patrick doesn't exactly throw parties, but he invites people over readily, easily, and he doesn't seem to mind when they colonize his couch or his kitchen or his guest bedroom for hours, days, weeks at a time. General opinion says that this is the direct result of overexposure to Pete Wentz, who takes personal space as a personal insult and is an annoying fucker besides.
"It's, like," Bob had said once, trying to explain the whole thing. "Like—you know turtles?"
"Yeah," Ray had said. "Turtles. What about them?" He'd narrowed his eyes, suddenly suspicious. "Is this about the furry thing again? Because I already know way more than I need to about that, thanks."
Bob had sighed. "No, just—like, turtles have a protective shell, to protect them from—I don't know, vicious predators and shit, you know?" Ray nodded. "Well, see, Patrick's just like that, only instead of a vicious predator he's got—"
"—Pete Wentz. Yeah," Ray had said, "yeah, okay, I get it." He hadn't really sounded like he'd gotten it—but at the same time, Ray tended to treat the entire Chicago scene like a terrifying Korean soap opera, so dubious agreement was pretty much the best possible result.
Patrick's apartment has a large, squashy couch, and a larger, comfier guest bed, and every musical instrument known to mankind, so all in all, it's a pretty good place to hang out. When Bob finds out that he's got ten days free on the west coast, he doesn't really think about flying back home; there's not time, and Patrick's guest bed is seriously amazing.
"Yeah, sure," Patrick says, when Bob asks. "Maybe I'll get some people together to jam or something."
The first day, Bob showers, sleeps, does laundry, sleeps, jerks off, sleeps, and takes another shower, just for the hell of it. When he makes it out to the living room, Patrick's sitting in the corner of the couch, laptop open, headphones hooked around his neck. He's talking animatedly to a guy with dark hair and ridiculous glasses; after a few seconds Bob identifies him as one of the dudes from Panic! at the Disco. Bob nods at them both, gets a grin and a distracted wave in return, and goes to see what kind of cereal Patrick has, these days.
He's standing in the doorway to the living room, holding a bowl of Lucky Charms and trying to decide whether he wants the floor or the table, when Patrick's phone buzzes, rattling its way across the table. He answers it, tipping his chair back on two legs; Bob pays attention enough to figure out that it's Pete and then goes back to picking out the cereal bits, leaving the marshmallows floating in the milk.
"No, yeah," Patrick says, "Yeah, I'll be there—give me, like—what time is it? Yeah, give me half an hour, okay?" He pauses, then grins. "Fuck you too, asshole." He puts the phone down and starts collecting stuff from the table, shoving it into a bag, then seems to remember that he's not actually alone.
"Um, yeah," he says. "That was Pete, and apparently he's having some sort of crisis? With, like," he shrugs, "I don't know, he said it was his dishwasher, but—anyway, I'm going to head over there, now." He stares at the phone in his hand, then shakes himself and stuffs it into his bag. "You two can," he gestures vaguely around the room, "entertain yourselves?"
"Yeah, sure," Bob says, and the dude from Panic! nods. It isn't until Patrick leaves that it occurs to Bob to ask what his name is, since the only one he can recognize on sight, outside the context of a show, is Jon Walker. It feels vaguely rude to ask, though—like, he clearly knows who Bob is, and there's no good reason for Bob not to recognize him, except for how Bob is kind of an asshole sometimes.
Eventually, though, he decides that he'd rather have another nap than figure out whether it's Brendon or Ryan or Spencer flipping through the stack of CDs on Patrick's kitchen table. Not-Jon-Walker looks up, wide-eyed, when Bob gets off the couch, then smiles when Bob tilts his head toward the bedroom and mutters something that could probably be an explanation.
"Yeah, sure," he says, "whatever."
*
The nap doesn't last long, and Bob's wandering around again in forty-five minutes. Not-Jon-Walker is on his phone, tucked into a corner of the couch with his legs draped over the back; he glances over and grins when Bob sits down on the other end of the couch.
"No, Spencer," he's saying, which narrows it down to two skinny emo boys. "No, come on—how can you say that to me? Spencer, Spencer, you're breaking my heart, do you want to break my heart?" He kicks his feet while he talks, not in any kind of rhythm, just back and forth, bouncing them off the back of Patrick's couch. There's another pause, a little longer, while Spencer answers the question, tinny and half-audible through the phone.
"Spencer!" Either-Brendon-Or-Ryan gives a Gerard-worthy dramatic gasp, kicks the couch good and hard, and lets his head hang over the edge, staring upside-down and tragic down the hallway. "I'm going to—I'm going to hang up on you, Spencer Smith, and I'm going to call Ryan, and he is going to agree with me—yes, yes he is!" Spencer apparently disagrees, and Brendon rolls his eyes at the phone. "I don't care that he likes you better, that's completely beside the point. He's going to be swayed by the truth of my argument—oh, fuck you, see if I care." He thumbs the phone off, then presses and holds a number, bringing it back to his ear, waiting for a few minutes before flipping it shut and letting it drop onto the floor.
"He's probably having sex with his girlfriend," he says, and it takes Bob a minute or two to realize that Brendon's talking to him, this time. "He does that a lot. Which, I mean," he shrugs, sideways and backwards. "I guess that's cool, if you're into that kind of thing."
"You didn't leave a message," Bob points out, and Brendon shrugs.
"He'll side with Spencer anyways," he says. "He always does." It doesn't seem to bother him, though, because as soon as he says that he's rolling off the couch and onto the floor, knee-walking across the room to poke at Patrick's collection of DVDs. Bob stares at him for a second, then shrugs to himself and grabs the newspaper that's sitting, still folded, on the coffee table.
*
Patrick doesn't get back until pretty late.
"Sorry," he says, "sorry, just—I don't even know." He's covered in dried soapsuds, a look that Bob recognizes from long and itchy experience. "What'd you two do?" Bob shrugs.
"Hung out," Brendon says, which is both true and not true. They'd spent the whole day in the apartment together, doing the same sorts of things—picking through Patrick's collection of music and books, messing around with his million-and-three instruments, raiding his fridge—but they hadn't done any of it together. It was more like two completely separate people hanging out, separately, in a store: same place, same time, same basic idea, but without any collaboration or cooperation.
Still. "Yeah," he says. "We hung out."
That seems to be good enough for Patrick, because the next day he leaves as soon as Bob is awake. Brendon's already there, curled up with the comics section. He doesn't look up, but he kind of nods when Bob goes past. Bob nods back, goes into the kitchen, pours himself the last of the coffee and sets the pot in the sink.
"It's Sunday," he says when Bob drops onto the couch. "There's two." He pokes the other one with his toes, pushing it towards Bob a few inches, and Bob grabs it. Most of the cartoons aren't really that funny, but he reads them all the same, blowing air across his coffee in between sips. When he finishes with his section, he offers it to Brendon, who shakes his head.
"I read it first," he says. "Hey, did you finish the coffee?" Bob starts to apologize, but Brendon just stands up. "It's cool, don't worry," he said. "I'll make more." Then he's gone, clanking around in the kitchen; Bob shrugs and grabs the other section of the comics. They aren't any better than the first set, but he reads them anyways.
The coffee Brendon brings him isn't really that good, either, but it's hot and it's caffeinated and Bob didn't have to fight down any members of his band to get it, which means that, by a lot of standards, it's pretty awesome.
The whole day is pretty much the same as the day before: Bob and Brendon rattle around Patrick's apartment, reading his comics and listening to his music and napping on his couch. Sometimes they reach for the same thing at the same time—in which case Bob usually gets it, on account of being shaped like a person instead of a miniature monkey—but for the most part they're just kind of vaguely in each other's space, quiet and lazy.
Around noon, Bob raids Patrick's kitchen for sandwich fixings. He gets it all out, spreads it out, looks at it, and then while he's thinking, Brendon jumps onto the counter.
"Oh, hey," he says, "can you make me a grilled cheese?"
"I'm not really okay with your ass being this close to my lunch," Bob says, but grilled cheese sounds pretty good, so he makes two. Brendon devours his in seven minutes exactly, and gives Bob an enthusiastic thumbs-up before disappearing back into the living room.
Bob drops the greasy plates into the sink, wipes his fingers on a towel, and goes back to the stack of comics he's been working his way through. A while later, Brendon sets a glass down on the table next to him. It turns out to be a smoothie, which explains the noise in the kitchen. It's not bad.
Later, when the light is slanting in soft and slow through the windows, Patrick comes home, and seems vaguely startled to see the two of them sprawled silently on the couch, feet just brushing in the middle.
"Patrick!" Brendon says, hurling himself off of the couch. "Patrick, hey, listen, what do you know about the tuba?"
"Um, well," Patrick says, and that's the last Bob hears from either of them until they surface for dinner.
"I'm sorry about all of this, dude," Patrick says, flopping down onto the couch with Bob. "This—the whole thing, you know? Abandoning you two all day." Brendon's in the kitchen, ordering dinner from the stack of menus by the phone; Bob glances over at him, then back at Patrick, and shrugs.
"It's cool," he says. "I mean—we get along okay." It's a little weird, rattling around in a strange place with a guy he doesn't really know, but Bob spends most of his time on tour these days, playing six states in seven nights, never knowing where the goddamn bathrooms are. This is—not bad.
Besides, he's a goddamn rock star. He can get a fucking cab if he needs one.
"Fine, Bryar," Patrick says, "you're a stone cold badass and I should never worry about you again."
"That's right," Bob says. "Come on, let's go see what's for dinner."
They get pizza, which Bob and Patrick bitch about and Brendon defends and they all devour. The next morning, Patrick's gone before Bob even wakes up; Brendon's sitting on the floor by the couch, sorting through a stack of CDs. Bob stares at him for a minute, then shrugs and goes to start some coffee.
It's just the same as the last two days: they rattle around Patrick's apartment, occupying the same space without talking. Brendon sits with his feet on Bob's thighs for a while, the newspaper draped across his face. Bob rolls his eyes and ignores it; they don't smell nearly as bad as Mikey's do.
After a while, Brendon rolls off the couch and wanders into the kitchen; Bob ignores him. He also ignores the sounds of pots and pans banging together, the weird little noise the fridge makes when you open it, Brendon muttering to himself, several muffled thumps, and a lot of swearing, and something that might easily be the sound of breaking glass.
When the radio comes on, though, Bob sets down his book and goes to stand in the doorway to the kitchen. Brendon's got flour in his hair and on his left elbow, smeared just below his rolled-up sleeve.
"What's up?" Bob asks, and Brendon glances over, grins quick and nervous.
"It's not broken," he says, gesturing at a glass on the counter, "only chipped. Totally still fine."
"Yeah, fine," Bob says, leaning against the doorjamb. "But what are you doing?"
Brendon grins again, and it seems a little easier. "Making pancakes," he says, holding up a spatula and sending batter flying across the room. "You want one?"
Bob wipes the batter off of his forehead and licks his finger. It tastes like he remembers pancake batter tasting, so he nods. "Coffee?" he says, and Brendon nods, focused on pouring the batter just right into the pan—like it even matters; pancakes are pancakes, but Bob's spent too much time around Gerard to argue with the Genius At Work.
The mugs are in a cupboard over the stove, and Bob has to reach past Brendon to get at them. He puts a hand on Brendon's shoulder while he does it, trying hard not to startle him, and Brendon—
—Brendon leans back, towards Bob, resting his weight against Bob's hand. He does something weird with his posture, too: he drops his hips and stretches his neck out, somehow, so that even though he's not really touching Bob, his whole body feels like it's arching towards Bob's. It's weird and familiar all at once, this arrangement, this touching-and-not-touching, the way Bob can feel every inch of the space between them, sudden and hot and weird.
"So, wait," he says. He's got two coffee mugs in one hand and his other hand on Brendon's shoulders. "Do you want me to fuck you? Is that it?"
Brendon turns around, still holding the spatula, and somehow manages to duck his head and stare up at Bob at the same time. On the one hand, it's completely ridiculous and Bob's going to get pancake batter on his socks. On the other hand—on the other hand, it's just like every girl who's ever leaned back against Bob and glanced up at him from under her eyelashes, coy and bashful and still not subtle at all.
"No, really," Bob says. His hand drops down, settles on Brendon's hip. "Do you?" His fingers dig in a little when he says it.
Brendon blinks twice.
"Okay," Bob says, when it's clear that that's all he's going to get. "Okay, no, seriously, use words." He's not going to negotiate sex with his eyelids; he has lines.
Brendon swallows, cracks his neck, looks away, shrugs. "Um, I mean," he says. "Yeah?" He glances up, then, meeting Bob's eyes. "Yeah," he says again, a little softer, and bites on his lip. Bob stares back, long enough that Brendon starts to fidget and Bob has to squeeze his hip—just once, not hard, mostly just holding him in place.
"The pancakes," Brendon says, eventually, "they're gonna—"
"Yeah," Bob says, taking a step back. "I'll get the plates."
The pancakes are a little scorched, but taste fine with syrup. It's been a while since Bob's had homemade pancakes, and he eats silently, sipping his coffee between bites. Across the table, Brendon's doing the same thing, except for how he spends the entire time staring at Bob's shoulder.
Brendon finishes first, but Bob doesn't have syrup on his shirt, which means that he's the real winner.
"I'll wash if you dry," he says; Patrick has a dishwasher, but it's tiny and cranky and kind of terrifying. Brendon helps him carry the dishes over, then grabs a towel and dries them as Bob hands them to him: plate, plate, mug, mug, bowl, fork, knife, fork, knife. Bob puts the frying pan in to soak, and when he turns around, Brendon is just standing there, staring at Bob without ever actually meeting his eyes.
Bob rolls his eyes, grabs Brendon by the wrist, and starts towing him into the living room. Brendon's slow, but not like he's reluctant; it's more like he's not entirely sure what's going on. He lets Bob push him down onto the couch, but then he just sits there, eyes wide, and blinks at Bob some more.
"Words," Bob says. "Seriously." Brendon opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, blinks, frowns; Bob gives up. "Do you not want to have sex? Because, I mean," he adds, "if you don't, that's fine too."
"No," Brendon says, sudden and vehement. "No—I mean, yeah. I want to, just—" He shrugs. "Like, then we didn't." He licks his lips, smiling just barely enough to be noticed. "But, yeah. Yeah, I want to."
"Of course we didn't," Bob says. "There were pancakes." Brendon stares at him for a long moment, blinking without any kind of communicative intent, then shrugs and laughs.
"Okay, yeah," he says. "Pancakes first, sex afterwards." He stretches out, swinging his legs up onto the couch and leaning back against the armrest. "It's afterwards now, right?"
Bob laughs. "Yeah," he says, kneeling on the edge of the couch. "Yeah, it is." He tucks one knee between Brendon's leg and the back of the couch, braces his hand above Brendon's head, and eases himself down.
The size difference is really apparent, like this: Bob's not a particularly big guy, but he's both taller and broader than Brendon, and probably heavier, too. He doesn't want to, like, crush the guy or anything—the headlines would be ridiculous, for one, and Patrick would be pissed—but Brendon just sighs a little and lets Bob do it, tilting his hips up and his head back. He's mostly hard already, pressing up against Bob's hip as Bob settles against him, sucking in air through his nose and biting his lip.
It's odd—being here, doing this. Not bad, but weird: he woke up wanting coffee and toast and maybe a Star Wars marathon, and now he's grinding down against Brendon Urie on Patrick Stump's couch, and he's not really sure what happened between those two things to make this all make sense.
At the same time, though, Brendon is hot and willing—desperate, even, maybe, thrusting up against Bob's hip and groaning, making little choked-off noises and digging his fingers into the arm of the couch, his arms still over his head. There may be some people who aren't interested in that kind of thing, and Bob wishes them the best in life, but he's so totally not one of them.
"What do you want?" he asks, pulling back enough to look at Brendon's face. His eyes are still shut, but he opens them when Bob stops moving, looking dazed, drugged. "What do you want?" Bob asks again.
Brendon blinks again, opens and shuts his mouth a few times, and does a weird little horizontal shrug. "I don't know," he says.
"No, really," Bob says, shifting over so he's mostly on his side, tucked down next to the back of the couch, sliding his hand down Brendon's chest. "Do you want me to jerk you off?"
The answer to that's pretty obvious just from looking, actually. Bob unbuttons Brendon's jeans, and Brendon moans, lifting his hips clear off the couch, shoving up against Bob's hand. The jeans are women's-cut, ridiculously tight and clinging to Brendon's hips; Bob gets them down enough to get at Brendon's dick and leaves them there while he jerks Brendon off, slow and tight, letting Brendon fuck his hand.
"Or do you want me to blow you?" Brendon shivers at that, head to toe, arching up against Bob's hand; Bob keeps the rhythm steady, not letting Brendon rush him along. "Or I could fuck you—" and Brendon jerks again and comes, warm and slick against Bob's fingers, sinking back into the couch with a sigh.
"Okay, then," Bob says, and wipes his hand off on Brendon's shirt. Brendon looks at him, quick and tentative, and reaches over to undo the button of Bob's jeans, resting his hand against Bob's stomach like he's asking a question. "Seriously, you should consider using words; I hear they're awesome."
Brendon rolls his eyes, then rolls off the couch and onto the floor, kicking his pants off as he goes. Bob stays where he is, watching, until Brendon rolls his eyes.
"Fine," he says, "Bob Bryar, will you pretty please come down here and fuck me?" He rolls over onto his stomach and wiggles his ass, grinning over his shoulder at Bob, and it shouldn't be sexy, but it really is, and Bob yanks his jeans off and kneels on the floor behind him, running a hand over Brendon's back, the smooth skin where his shirt is riding up.
"There's, um." Brendon moves around, getting his knees under him, turning his head until he's looking at Bob. "There's lube in my pocket." And there is, and that was two whole sentences in a row, almost, and Bob slides a slick finger into Brendon, slow and easy, waiting for Brendon to get used to it.
"Fuck," Brendon says, "oh, fuck, yes—" He lifts his hips, rocking back against Bob's hand while Bob fucks him with two fingers, trying to rush the beat again, get them off-tempo. Bob holds onto his hip with his free hand, though, and slides a third finger in, twisting them just a little. Brendon goes still, then, just shifts his legs a little wider and buries his face in his folded arms and babbles to himself, quiet and private, his face turned away, tucked in the crook of his elbow.
He moans when Bob pulls his fingers out, though, and straightens up a little, glancing back over his shoulder. He's got shirt-creases on his face, and his hair's a mess, and his eyes are simultaneously a million miles away and very very close. Bob rubs his back with his free hand, squeezes his ribs, presses down against the muscles along his spine.
"Condoms're in m'jeans," Brendon says, his eyes falling closed again. "Other pocket." He shifts in place. "You should fuck me now."
That's pretty unambiguous, and it also happens to be exactly what Bob wants, so he goes with it: wrestles a condom out of the ridiculously small pockets of Brendon's jeans, opens it, rolls it on, slicks himself up, and knee-walks over until he's behind Brendon. Pushing in isn't miraculous or heavenly or mind-blowing, but it's good, sweet and tight and hot, and Brendon shoves back against him, greedy and desperate, choking off noises against his forearms and the carpet.
This time when, Brendon pushes—starts jerking off, actually; Bob can't see anything but the motion of Brendon's arm is pretty hard to misunderstand—Bob lets him, goes with it, holds Brendon by the hips and fucks him faster, faster. Underneath him, Brendon goes stiff and taut, squeezing down on Bob's dick, and Bob thrusts a few more times before coming, wet and hot and messy, his fingertips against Brendon's hipbones.
Not mind-blowing, but good. Bob's a big fan of good.
They roll apart after a few minutes, both of them sweaty and sticky and vaguely shaky. Bob shoves the coffee table out of the way, so that they can both lie flat, and closes his eyes, breathing, feeling his heart rate slowing down. He hears Brendon get up, hears him walk across the floor, hears the water in the kitchen come on. When the wet washcloth smacks him in the shoulder, he's more grateful than surprised. He's starting to feel kind of gross.
"I'm gonna take a shower," he says, and doesn't wait for Brendon to weigh in, just heads for the bathroom. On the way, he strips off the condom and drops it in an empty chinese carton; he'll deal with the trash later.
When he comes back out, Brendon's got one of Patrick's accoustic guitars out, and is sitting on the couch in his boxers, frowning and picking out a melody Bob doesn't recognize.
"Oh, dude," he says. "Did you want the couch? I can, like," he waves his hands around, almost-but-not-quite whacking himself in the face with the neck of the guitar. "I can do this later, or—"
"Take the bedroom," Bob says, shrugging. "I'm just going to see what's on."
Brendon stands up, but doesn't move. "You sure? I man, this is, like, your home-away-from-home and all."
"Go for it," Bob says. "Seriously, the sound's a lot better in there anyways."
"Thanks," Brendon says, and then he's gone. Bob falls asleep on the couch before he's even picked a program to not-watch—he always does, now that he's not on tour anymore, now that there's not the constant hum of an engine under his feet.
When he wakes back up, he knows he's being stared at before he even opens his eyes; a few years of touring with the brothers Way has made him very aware of when he's being watched.
("Freakish," Frank calls it, "completely fucking freakish, Bob Bryar."
"Shut up," Bob always says, "just because some of us can adapt to situations." He may be a freak, but he never wakes up with sharpie on his face, either.)
"Patrick called," Brendon says. "He's going to be late, I guess—something with cactuses."
"Cactii," Bob says, automatically. Brendon nods, but doesn't say anything, just stands there and stares at his own feet and fidgets. Bob watches him for a while, then sighs and sits back up. "Yeah, fine, come here."
Brendon's head snaps up, and for a second Bob thinks he got it wrong—Brendon was being "oh, god, why did I sleep with you? that was a terrible idea"-awkward, not "hi, could you fuck me again?"-awkward—but then Brendon's moving forward, dropping to his knees, shouldering Bobs legs apart and breathing hot and damp against his crotch. It's almost too much, too soon, and Bob sucks in a breath, but then Brendon tugs his shorts down and licks the length of his dick, slow and wet and sloppy, and it's not too much, not too much at all. He sucks dick like it's a hobby, something he maybe doesn't get very much time to do but always enjoys; he's focused and careful but still kind of messy.
After a while, he lets go of Bob's left knee and starts jerking himself off, quick and sharp even while he's sucking Bob off with slow, steady motions. After a while, he pulls off, gasping against Bob's thigh, his shoulder shaking just a little. His other hand keeps going on Bob's dick, though, squeezing and twisting, and Bob's vaguely impressed: it's hard to keep that kind of rhythm up when you're getting off.
He should know.
"You okay?" he asks, after a moment. Brendon's still jerking him off, but he's also wiggling a little, his back arching and twisting, his eyes half-shut and all-unfocused.
"Mrrrgf," Brendon says, biting down on his lower lip. "Nyargh." He twists again, one shoulder dipping down. Bob only barely manages to put together the angle of his arm with the expression on his face before Brendon's standing back up and dropping himself into Bob's lap, knees on the couch, wrapping a come-slick hand around Bob's dick. There's a condom—although where that comes from when neither of them is wearing any pants, Bob doesn't know—and a few more rough, slick squeezes, and then Brendon's lifting himself up, positioning himself over Bob's dick, and sliding down, sudden and tight and amazing.
"Oh," Bob says, because Brendon Urie is not the only one who gets to be incoherent, here. He tries to thrust up, but Brendon's pinning most of his weight, and it's more of a wiggle than a thrust, really. When he tries again, Brendon pins his shoulders to the back of the couch and glares at him; Bob takes the fucking hint and lets Brendon do all the work. He's good at it, too, rising and falling over Bob's lap, all hot slick pressure and groaning in the back of his throat.
Eventually, though, he collapses forward against Bob's chest, his breath gusting out against Bob's neck.
"My legs fucking hurt," he says. "I always forget about that part."Bob nods in sympathy and wiggles his shoulders until Brendon lets him move his arms again, then thrusts up, short and sharp. Brendon takes it, riding the motion, bracing his hands on Bob's shoulders and grinding back down against Bob's hips, coordinated, syncopated.
"You have," he says, still fucking himself on Bob's dick, "really—" he swallows, hard, "nice hands." He's not asking Bob to jerk him off, since he's not hard at all; Bob's not really sure what to make of it.
"Thanks," he says eventually, "you have—" and then he's coming, sharp and sudden, holding Brendon against him.
Afterwards, he doesn't remember what he was going to say; he's pretty sure he didn't know then, either.
*
Over the next two and a half days, Bob learns the following things:
1. Brendon likes it hard. And fast. And everywhere. Bob has more athletic sex in more places in those two days than in the last two years of his life; if he's going to stay here, he's going to need to start working out.
(Against the wall is Bob's personal favorite; Brendon loves riding him.)
2. Brendon is kind of messy, and not all that coordinated. He always cleans up after himself, though, whether it's takeout containers next to the couch, towels on the floor, or come on the coffee table.
3. Brendon only gets quiet when he wants something specific. When he's getting what he wants, he doesn't shut up—but when he wants something, he clams up. Normally, Bob would hate that kind of guessing game, but it doesn't feel like Brendon's fucking with him, trying to make Bob prove himself. It just feels like Brendon has a hard time asking for what he wants in so many words, like he's used to just rolling over and smiling coyly and getting what he wants.
Bob's just as willing to go with nonverbal cues as the next guy, but he tries to get Brendon to talk more, all the same. It's a good habit to get into, just as a general rule—cuts down on bullshit across the board.
Plus, having Brendon arching up underneath him, gasping, "fuck me—fuck me hard, let me feel it, I want to, God, give it to me," —well. That's pretty awesome, too.
4. Brendon is a fucking ridiculous drunk. This one, Bob learns on the second night, when Patrick comes home just long enough to bestow upon them a six-pack of beer before leaving to deal with a crisis from his newest baby band. They split it equally, except for how Bob can hold his fucking liquour, which Brendon apparently can't.
"Bob Bryar," he says, leaning up against Bob's arm. "Bob, I'm going to do a seductive dance for you. What do you think about that, Bob Bryar?" He doesn't wait for an answer, just starts shimmying around the kitchen, shaking his ass and his shoulders until Bob catches him by the arm, brings him around and pins him against the wall and bites his neck.
"It's a great dance," he says. "I'm going to fuck you now, okay?"
(When Bob fucks him, that night, he cries—not a lot, just a hint of wetness at the corners of his eyes as he writhes in Bob's lap.
"You okay?" Bob asks. It hadn't been anything that rough, but—
"—fine, fine," Brendon says. "It's just—" he shrugs. "It's intense."
"Yeah," Bob says, because it is.)
5. Brendon doesn't really like kissing. He's not against it or anything, and he's certainly not bad at it—but he's always ready to move on to something else, usually something involving Bob fucking him.
Bob understands; it's not that he's an old man, but Brendon's young. Bob remembers his first relationship with regular sex, and how easy it was to skip over the preliminaries when he knew he could get to the good stuff, the real stuff.
(He remembers the plate Kathy threw at his head, too.)
Older and a little wiser, he does what he can to introduce Brendon to the joys of making out. During sex is a lost cause, but afterwards Brendon is usually calm enough to lie on the couch, curled up under Bob's arm, their legs twined together, kissing slow and lazy and almost sweet.
Predictably, that's what they're doing the day Patrick comes home early.
*
Once the initial shock wears off, and Patrick stops saying things like, "my couch!" and "fucking fucking mother of fuck," and "augh, my eyes!" and "on my couch, seriously?", Bob gets a Serious Conversation with Patrick. It's okay, really. He's basically been expecting it for the past three and a half days.
The Serious Conversation goes like this:
"Bob," Patrick says, "Bob, what the hell."
"Patrick," Bob says, "seriously, dude, what's your problem?"
Patrick's eyes go wide and he sputters a little bit. "My problem? You're the one who—and with Brendon Urie, for fuck's sake—"
"This wasn't your master plan?" Bob remembers, abruptly, that Patrick had to go to anger management classes.
"My what?"
Bob shrugs. "Me and Urie, all alone all day in an empty apartment with inadequate reading material and no porn?"
"I wanted to start a band," Patrick says, dropping his face into his hands.
"Really?"
Patrick sighs, staring out from between his fingers. "Yes, you idiot. I thought, you know, a side project, something different for all of us." It's actually a pretty neat idea—recording would be a bitch, what with all of them being a million miles apart even when they're staying in one place, and then tours and everything, but they could probably manage it. Still—
"—You left us alone for a week," he says. Patrick rolls his eyes.
"Fuck you, Bryar," he says, standing up. "Like you've never had a busy week?" He cracks his neck and stretches his arms over his head, then drops them with a sigh. "Fuck, I have to go talk to Brendon."
Bob stares at the door for a while, but they're in the music room, which has amazing soundproofing; eventually, he gives up and lies back on the couch, flipping halfheartedly through a magazine with Pete Wentz's face on the cover.
Eventually, the door bangs open and Patrick walks past Bob into the kitchen, shaking his head as he passes Bob. Bob just nods back, looking past him to Brendon, who's standing half in the hallway, hunched in on himself, awkward and suddenly subdued. When he looks up and sees Bob staring, he swallows hard and comes over to sit at the other end of the couch.
"I'm sorry, man," he says. "That was kind of inappropriate, I guess."
Bob shrugs. "It was fun, though, right?" Brendon's smile is only barely visible, sidelong and tired, and he doesn't look up from his hands. He's sitting still, for once without being fucked stupid immediately beforehand; Bob doesn't especially like the change.
"Patrick," he yells, keeping his eyes on Brendon. "Did you just tell Brendon not to have sex with me?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Patrick duck out of the kitchen. "No," he says, and Bob doesn't even have to look to know that he's pushing his glasses up his nose and making a face. "I told him not to have sex with you on my couch."
Brendon's shoulders lift, then relax, and he glances over at Bob, barely turning his head. Bob grins at him, and Brendon looks away again, back at his fingers.
"Your guestroom is fair game, though, right?" Patrick grumbles, but Bob just drags Brendon by the wrist into the guest bedroom, his home-away-from-home, with the suitcases he's living out of and the Hello Kitty travel clock Gerard gave him and the bed he's been sharing with Brendon Urie for the past three days.
Brendon's still twitchy, standing in the middle of the room, tugging at the edge of his shirt and shifting his weight. In quick succession, he stares at: his feet, Bob's feet, the curtains, the night table, Bob's suitcase, his fingers, Bob's left shoulder, the ceiling, the bed, and the picture over the dresser. Bob sighs and grabs him by the shoulder, steering Brendon towards the bed and sitting down next to him.
"So, hey," he says. Brendon doesn't look up, and Bob pokes him in the knee. "Hey, you know I was kidding about the fucking part, right? I mean, unless you want to." Brendon does look up, then, frowning at Bob, and Bob looks back, waiting. "You okay?"
"I—yeah," Brendon says, glancing away. "I just—" He straightens up, looks at Bob, and shrugs. "You're Patrick's friend."
Bob blinks.
"Um, yeah," he says. "That's news?"
Brendon sighs, shaking his head. "No, but—" He tilts his head, bites his lip, and then leans in to kiss Bob on the cheek, soft and dry and sudden. "Hi," Brendon says, sitting back again, blinking quickly.
"Oh," Bob says, "Oh."
It makes sense, all of a sudden, because this is—this is Brendon trying to have a Serious Conversation of his own, in his own way, all fidgeting and eyelashes, monosyllables and ellipses. Which is—kind of amazing, actually. Bob's a little bit proud.
He sits up a little straighter, stretching his back out. "I—I like you?" Brendon's looking him in the eye, now, serious and intent. "I like you," Bob says again, "and I like fucking you, and I like hanging out with you." He shrugs.
Brendon frowns a little. "And that's it? Not, like—I mean, that's all it has to be?"
"It is, yeah." Bob smiles. "That okay with you?"
Brendon grins back, slowly, looking a little bit surprised by it. "That's—yeah," he says, "yeah, that's good." He hesitates again, then adds, "also, I think you should blow me now."
Bob thinks about it. "That sounds good," he says.
He does; it is.
*
"Bob! Bob Bryar!"
That's all the warning Bob gets before he's got Pete Wentz plastered up against his side, breathing in his ear and hanging off his shoulder. Bob just shrugs, redistributing Pete's weight. It's been a while since he's had to deal with this particular form of Wentzian affection, but he still remembers how it works: Pete jumps on his back, Bob doesn't kill him.
It's not a bad tradeoff, in the end. Bob's seen what Patrick has to put up with; as long as there aren't any raw vegetables involved, he thinks he's ahead.
"Bob, come here," Pete says, tapping Bob's shoulder. "Come here, I have someone for you to meet!" Bob turns, dutifully, and comes face-to-face with Brendon Urie. Two years have treated him well; he's still small and skinny, but he looks calmer, more self-contained.
Brendon rolls his eyes, reaches past Bob to punch Pete on the shoulder.
"Dude," he says, "of course I know Bob, you doucheface." He grins. "Bob's awesome."
This story owes basically EVERYTHING EVER to
pearl_o, who let me write it at her in chat and then said, "right, great, now make the ending not suck," and then, when I sent it back to her again, said, "okay, yeah, better, but can it not suck?" Everything awesome in here was her idea; I'm seriously not kidding. Thanks also to my other three favorite ladies, angelsaves and shoemaster and lordessrenegade, who made squeaky noises in all the right places. All four of them deserve pie. Or possibly kittens.title from josh ritter.
*
made out like bandits
Bob Bryar/Brendon Urie, NC-17
~6500 words
Notes: written for
strangecobwebs in a random fic exchange. Um. I wroted you a story?&also: not real, never happened, don't google yourself.
*
Ultimately, it's all Patrick Stump's fault.
Patrick doesn't exactly throw parties, but he invites people over readily, easily, and he doesn't seem to mind when they colonize his couch or his kitchen or his guest bedroom for hours, days, weeks at a time. General opinion says that this is the direct result of overexposure to Pete Wentz, who takes personal space as a personal insult and is an annoying fucker besides.
"It's, like," Bob had said once, trying to explain the whole thing. "Like—you know turtles?"
"Yeah," Ray had said. "Turtles. What about them?" He'd narrowed his eyes, suddenly suspicious. "Is this about the furry thing again? Because I already know way more than I need to about that, thanks."
Bob had sighed. "No, just—like, turtles have a protective shell, to protect them from—I don't know, vicious predators and shit, you know?" Ray nodded. "Well, see, Patrick's just like that, only instead of a vicious predator he's got—"
"—Pete Wentz. Yeah," Ray had said, "yeah, okay, I get it." He hadn't really sounded like he'd gotten it—but at the same time, Ray tended to treat the entire Chicago scene like a terrifying Korean soap opera, so dubious agreement was pretty much the best possible result.
Patrick's apartment has a large, squashy couch, and a larger, comfier guest bed, and every musical instrument known to mankind, so all in all, it's a pretty good place to hang out. When Bob finds out that he's got ten days free on the west coast, he doesn't really think about flying back home; there's not time, and Patrick's guest bed is seriously amazing.
"Yeah, sure," Patrick says, when Bob asks. "Maybe I'll get some people together to jam or something."
The first day, Bob showers, sleeps, does laundry, sleeps, jerks off, sleeps, and takes another shower, just for the hell of it. When he makes it out to the living room, Patrick's sitting in the corner of the couch, laptop open, headphones hooked around his neck. He's talking animatedly to a guy with dark hair and ridiculous glasses; after a few seconds Bob identifies him as one of the dudes from Panic! at the Disco. Bob nods at them both, gets a grin and a distracted wave in return, and goes to see what kind of cereal Patrick has, these days.
He's standing in the doorway to the living room, holding a bowl of Lucky Charms and trying to decide whether he wants the floor or the table, when Patrick's phone buzzes, rattling its way across the table. He answers it, tipping his chair back on two legs; Bob pays attention enough to figure out that it's Pete and then goes back to picking out the cereal bits, leaving the marshmallows floating in the milk.
"No, yeah," Patrick says, "Yeah, I'll be there—give me, like—what time is it? Yeah, give me half an hour, okay?" He pauses, then grins. "Fuck you too, asshole." He puts the phone down and starts collecting stuff from the table, shoving it into a bag, then seems to remember that he's not actually alone.
"Um, yeah," he says. "That was Pete, and apparently he's having some sort of crisis? With, like," he shrugs, "I don't know, he said it was his dishwasher, but—anyway, I'm going to head over there, now." He stares at the phone in his hand, then shakes himself and stuffs it into his bag. "You two can," he gestures vaguely around the room, "entertain yourselves?"
"Yeah, sure," Bob says, and the dude from Panic! nods. It isn't until Patrick leaves that it occurs to Bob to ask what his name is, since the only one he can recognize on sight, outside the context of a show, is Jon Walker. It feels vaguely rude to ask, though—like, he clearly knows who Bob is, and there's no good reason for Bob not to recognize him, except for how Bob is kind of an asshole sometimes.
Eventually, though, he decides that he'd rather have another nap than figure out whether it's Brendon or Ryan or Spencer flipping through the stack of CDs on Patrick's kitchen table. Not-Jon-Walker looks up, wide-eyed, when Bob gets off the couch, then smiles when Bob tilts his head toward the bedroom and mutters something that could probably be an explanation.
"Yeah, sure," he says, "whatever."
*
The nap doesn't last long, and Bob's wandering around again in forty-five minutes. Not-Jon-Walker is on his phone, tucked into a corner of the couch with his legs draped over the back; he glances over and grins when Bob sits down on the other end of the couch.
"No, Spencer," he's saying, which narrows it down to two skinny emo boys. "No, come on—how can you say that to me? Spencer, Spencer, you're breaking my heart, do you want to break my heart?" He kicks his feet while he talks, not in any kind of rhythm, just back and forth, bouncing them off the back of Patrick's couch. There's another pause, a little longer, while Spencer answers the question, tinny and half-audible through the phone.
"Spencer!" Either-Brendon-Or-Ryan gives a Gerard-worthy dramatic gasp, kicks the couch good and hard, and lets his head hang over the edge, staring upside-down and tragic down the hallway. "I'm going to—I'm going to hang up on you, Spencer Smith, and I'm going to call Ryan, and he is going to agree with me—yes, yes he is!" Spencer apparently disagrees, and Brendon rolls his eyes at the phone. "I don't care that he likes you better, that's completely beside the point. He's going to be swayed by the truth of my argument—oh, fuck you, see if I care." He thumbs the phone off, then presses and holds a number, bringing it back to his ear, waiting for a few minutes before flipping it shut and letting it drop onto the floor.
"He's probably having sex with his girlfriend," he says, and it takes Bob a minute or two to realize that Brendon's talking to him, this time. "He does that a lot. Which, I mean," he shrugs, sideways and backwards. "I guess that's cool, if you're into that kind of thing."
"You didn't leave a message," Bob points out, and Brendon shrugs.
"He'll side with Spencer anyways," he says. "He always does." It doesn't seem to bother him, though, because as soon as he says that he's rolling off the couch and onto the floor, knee-walking across the room to poke at Patrick's collection of DVDs. Bob stares at him for a second, then shrugs to himself and grabs the newspaper that's sitting, still folded, on the coffee table.
*
Patrick doesn't get back until pretty late.
"Sorry," he says, "sorry, just—I don't even know." He's covered in dried soapsuds, a look that Bob recognizes from long and itchy experience. "What'd you two do?" Bob shrugs.
"Hung out," Brendon says, which is both true and not true. They'd spent the whole day in the apartment together, doing the same sorts of things—picking through Patrick's collection of music and books, messing around with his million-and-three instruments, raiding his fridge—but they hadn't done any of it together. It was more like two completely separate people hanging out, separately, in a store: same place, same time, same basic idea, but without any collaboration or cooperation.
Still. "Yeah," he says. "We hung out."
That seems to be good enough for Patrick, because the next day he leaves as soon as Bob is awake. Brendon's already there, curled up with the comics section. He doesn't look up, but he kind of nods when Bob goes past. Bob nods back, goes into the kitchen, pours himself the last of the coffee and sets the pot in the sink.
"It's Sunday," he says when Bob drops onto the couch. "There's two." He pokes the other one with his toes, pushing it towards Bob a few inches, and Bob grabs it. Most of the cartoons aren't really that funny, but he reads them all the same, blowing air across his coffee in between sips. When he finishes with his section, he offers it to Brendon, who shakes his head.
"I read it first," he says. "Hey, did you finish the coffee?" Bob starts to apologize, but Brendon just stands up. "It's cool, don't worry," he said. "I'll make more." Then he's gone, clanking around in the kitchen; Bob shrugs and grabs the other section of the comics. They aren't any better than the first set, but he reads them anyways.
The coffee Brendon brings him isn't really that good, either, but it's hot and it's caffeinated and Bob didn't have to fight down any members of his band to get it, which means that, by a lot of standards, it's pretty awesome.
The whole day is pretty much the same as the day before: Bob and Brendon rattle around Patrick's apartment, reading his comics and listening to his music and napping on his couch. Sometimes they reach for the same thing at the same time—in which case Bob usually gets it, on account of being shaped like a person instead of a miniature monkey—but for the most part they're just kind of vaguely in each other's space, quiet and lazy.
Around noon, Bob raids Patrick's kitchen for sandwich fixings. He gets it all out, spreads it out, looks at it, and then while he's thinking, Brendon jumps onto the counter.
"Oh, hey," he says, "can you make me a grilled cheese?"
"I'm not really okay with your ass being this close to my lunch," Bob says, but grilled cheese sounds pretty good, so he makes two. Brendon devours his in seven minutes exactly, and gives Bob an enthusiastic thumbs-up before disappearing back into the living room.
Bob drops the greasy plates into the sink, wipes his fingers on a towel, and goes back to the stack of comics he's been working his way through. A while later, Brendon sets a glass down on the table next to him. It turns out to be a smoothie, which explains the noise in the kitchen. It's not bad.
Later, when the light is slanting in soft and slow through the windows, Patrick comes home, and seems vaguely startled to see the two of them sprawled silently on the couch, feet just brushing in the middle.
"Patrick!" Brendon says, hurling himself off of the couch. "Patrick, hey, listen, what do you know about the tuba?"
"Um, well," Patrick says, and that's the last Bob hears from either of them until they surface for dinner.
"I'm sorry about all of this, dude," Patrick says, flopping down onto the couch with Bob. "This—the whole thing, you know? Abandoning you two all day." Brendon's in the kitchen, ordering dinner from the stack of menus by the phone; Bob glances over at him, then back at Patrick, and shrugs.
"It's cool," he says. "I mean—we get along okay." It's a little weird, rattling around in a strange place with a guy he doesn't really know, but Bob spends most of his time on tour these days, playing six states in seven nights, never knowing where the goddamn bathrooms are. This is—not bad.
Besides, he's a goddamn rock star. He can get a fucking cab if he needs one.
"Fine, Bryar," Patrick says, "you're a stone cold badass and I should never worry about you again."
"That's right," Bob says. "Come on, let's go see what's for dinner."
They get pizza, which Bob and Patrick bitch about and Brendon defends and they all devour. The next morning, Patrick's gone before Bob even wakes up; Brendon's sitting on the floor by the couch, sorting through a stack of CDs. Bob stares at him for a minute, then shrugs and goes to start some coffee.
It's just the same as the last two days: they rattle around Patrick's apartment, occupying the same space without talking. Brendon sits with his feet on Bob's thighs for a while, the newspaper draped across his face. Bob rolls his eyes and ignores it; they don't smell nearly as bad as Mikey's do.
After a while, Brendon rolls off the couch and wanders into the kitchen; Bob ignores him. He also ignores the sounds of pots and pans banging together, the weird little noise the fridge makes when you open it, Brendon muttering to himself, several muffled thumps, and a lot of swearing, and something that might easily be the sound of breaking glass.
When the radio comes on, though, Bob sets down his book and goes to stand in the doorway to the kitchen. Brendon's got flour in his hair and on his left elbow, smeared just below his rolled-up sleeve.
"What's up?" Bob asks, and Brendon glances over, grins quick and nervous.
"It's not broken," he says, gesturing at a glass on the counter, "only chipped. Totally still fine."
"Yeah, fine," Bob says, leaning against the doorjamb. "But what are you doing?"
Brendon grins again, and it seems a little easier. "Making pancakes," he says, holding up a spatula and sending batter flying across the room. "You want one?"
Bob wipes the batter off of his forehead and licks his finger. It tastes like he remembers pancake batter tasting, so he nods. "Coffee?" he says, and Brendon nods, focused on pouring the batter just right into the pan—like it even matters; pancakes are pancakes, but Bob's spent too much time around Gerard to argue with the Genius At Work.
The mugs are in a cupboard over the stove, and Bob has to reach past Brendon to get at them. He puts a hand on Brendon's shoulder while he does it, trying hard not to startle him, and Brendon—
—Brendon leans back, towards Bob, resting his weight against Bob's hand. He does something weird with his posture, too: he drops his hips and stretches his neck out, somehow, so that even though he's not really touching Bob, his whole body feels like it's arching towards Bob's. It's weird and familiar all at once, this arrangement, this touching-and-not-touching, the way Bob can feel every inch of the space between them, sudden and hot and weird.
"So, wait," he says. He's got two coffee mugs in one hand and his other hand on Brendon's shoulders. "Do you want me to fuck you? Is that it?"
Brendon turns around, still holding the spatula, and somehow manages to duck his head and stare up at Bob at the same time. On the one hand, it's completely ridiculous and Bob's going to get pancake batter on his socks. On the other hand—on the other hand, it's just like every girl who's ever leaned back against Bob and glanced up at him from under her eyelashes, coy and bashful and still not subtle at all.
"No, really," Bob says. His hand drops down, settles on Brendon's hip. "Do you?" His fingers dig in a little when he says it.
Brendon blinks twice.
"Okay," Bob says, when it's clear that that's all he's going to get. "Okay, no, seriously, use words." He's not going to negotiate sex with his eyelids; he has lines.
Brendon swallows, cracks his neck, looks away, shrugs. "Um, I mean," he says. "Yeah?" He glances up, then, meeting Bob's eyes. "Yeah," he says again, a little softer, and bites on his lip. Bob stares back, long enough that Brendon starts to fidget and Bob has to squeeze his hip—just once, not hard, mostly just holding him in place.
"The pancakes," Brendon says, eventually, "they're gonna—"
"Yeah," Bob says, taking a step back. "I'll get the plates."
The pancakes are a little scorched, but taste fine with syrup. It's been a while since Bob's had homemade pancakes, and he eats silently, sipping his coffee between bites. Across the table, Brendon's doing the same thing, except for how he spends the entire time staring at Bob's shoulder.
Brendon finishes first, but Bob doesn't have syrup on his shirt, which means that he's the real winner.
"I'll wash if you dry," he says; Patrick has a dishwasher, but it's tiny and cranky and kind of terrifying. Brendon helps him carry the dishes over, then grabs a towel and dries them as Bob hands them to him: plate, plate, mug, mug, bowl, fork, knife, fork, knife. Bob puts the frying pan in to soak, and when he turns around, Brendon is just standing there, staring at Bob without ever actually meeting his eyes.
Bob rolls his eyes, grabs Brendon by the wrist, and starts towing him into the living room. Brendon's slow, but not like he's reluctant; it's more like he's not entirely sure what's going on. He lets Bob push him down onto the couch, but then he just sits there, eyes wide, and blinks at Bob some more.
"Words," Bob says. "Seriously." Brendon opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, blinks, frowns; Bob gives up. "Do you not want to have sex? Because, I mean," he adds, "if you don't, that's fine too."
"No," Brendon says, sudden and vehement. "No—I mean, yeah. I want to, just—" He shrugs. "Like, then we didn't." He licks his lips, smiling just barely enough to be noticed. "But, yeah. Yeah, I want to."
"Of course we didn't," Bob says. "There were pancakes." Brendon stares at him for a long moment, blinking without any kind of communicative intent, then shrugs and laughs.
"Okay, yeah," he says. "Pancakes first, sex afterwards." He stretches out, swinging his legs up onto the couch and leaning back against the armrest. "It's afterwards now, right?"
Bob laughs. "Yeah," he says, kneeling on the edge of the couch. "Yeah, it is." He tucks one knee between Brendon's leg and the back of the couch, braces his hand above Brendon's head, and eases himself down.
The size difference is really apparent, like this: Bob's not a particularly big guy, but he's both taller and broader than Brendon, and probably heavier, too. He doesn't want to, like, crush the guy or anything—the headlines would be ridiculous, for one, and Patrick would be pissed—but Brendon just sighs a little and lets Bob do it, tilting his hips up and his head back. He's mostly hard already, pressing up against Bob's hip as Bob settles against him, sucking in air through his nose and biting his lip.
It's odd—being here, doing this. Not bad, but weird: he woke up wanting coffee and toast and maybe a Star Wars marathon, and now he's grinding down against Brendon Urie on Patrick Stump's couch, and he's not really sure what happened between those two things to make this all make sense.
At the same time, though, Brendon is hot and willing—desperate, even, maybe, thrusting up against Bob's hip and groaning, making little choked-off noises and digging his fingers into the arm of the couch, his arms still over his head. There may be some people who aren't interested in that kind of thing, and Bob wishes them the best in life, but he's so totally not one of them.
"What do you want?" he asks, pulling back enough to look at Brendon's face. His eyes are still shut, but he opens them when Bob stops moving, looking dazed, drugged. "What do you want?" Bob asks again.
Brendon blinks again, opens and shuts his mouth a few times, and does a weird little horizontal shrug. "I don't know," he says.
"No, really," Bob says, shifting over so he's mostly on his side, tucked down next to the back of the couch, sliding his hand down Brendon's chest. "Do you want me to jerk you off?"
The answer to that's pretty obvious just from looking, actually. Bob unbuttons Brendon's jeans, and Brendon moans, lifting his hips clear off the couch, shoving up against Bob's hand. The jeans are women's-cut, ridiculously tight and clinging to Brendon's hips; Bob gets them down enough to get at Brendon's dick and leaves them there while he jerks Brendon off, slow and tight, letting Brendon fuck his hand.
"Or do you want me to blow you?" Brendon shivers at that, head to toe, arching up against Bob's hand; Bob keeps the rhythm steady, not letting Brendon rush him along. "Or I could fuck you—" and Brendon jerks again and comes, warm and slick against Bob's fingers, sinking back into the couch with a sigh.
"Okay, then," Bob says, and wipes his hand off on Brendon's shirt. Brendon looks at him, quick and tentative, and reaches over to undo the button of Bob's jeans, resting his hand against Bob's stomach like he's asking a question. "Seriously, you should consider using words; I hear they're awesome."
Brendon rolls his eyes, then rolls off the couch and onto the floor, kicking his pants off as he goes. Bob stays where he is, watching, until Brendon rolls his eyes.
"Fine," he says, "Bob Bryar, will you pretty please come down here and fuck me?" He rolls over onto his stomach and wiggles his ass, grinning over his shoulder at Bob, and it shouldn't be sexy, but it really is, and Bob yanks his jeans off and kneels on the floor behind him, running a hand over Brendon's back, the smooth skin where his shirt is riding up.
"There's, um." Brendon moves around, getting his knees under him, turning his head until he's looking at Bob. "There's lube in my pocket." And there is, and that was two whole sentences in a row, almost, and Bob slides a slick finger into Brendon, slow and easy, waiting for Brendon to get used to it.
"Fuck," Brendon says, "oh, fuck, yes—" He lifts his hips, rocking back against Bob's hand while Bob fucks him with two fingers, trying to rush the beat again, get them off-tempo. Bob holds onto his hip with his free hand, though, and slides a third finger in, twisting them just a little. Brendon goes still, then, just shifts his legs a little wider and buries his face in his folded arms and babbles to himself, quiet and private, his face turned away, tucked in the crook of his elbow.
He moans when Bob pulls his fingers out, though, and straightens up a little, glancing back over his shoulder. He's got shirt-creases on his face, and his hair's a mess, and his eyes are simultaneously a million miles away and very very close. Bob rubs his back with his free hand, squeezes his ribs, presses down against the muscles along his spine.
"Condoms're in m'jeans," Brendon says, his eyes falling closed again. "Other pocket." He shifts in place. "You should fuck me now."
That's pretty unambiguous, and it also happens to be exactly what Bob wants, so he goes with it: wrestles a condom out of the ridiculously small pockets of Brendon's jeans, opens it, rolls it on, slicks himself up, and knee-walks over until he's behind Brendon. Pushing in isn't miraculous or heavenly or mind-blowing, but it's good, sweet and tight and hot, and Brendon shoves back against him, greedy and desperate, choking off noises against his forearms and the carpet.
This time when, Brendon pushes—starts jerking off, actually; Bob can't see anything but the motion of Brendon's arm is pretty hard to misunderstand—Bob lets him, goes with it, holds Brendon by the hips and fucks him faster, faster. Underneath him, Brendon goes stiff and taut, squeezing down on Bob's dick, and Bob thrusts a few more times before coming, wet and hot and messy, his fingertips against Brendon's hipbones.
Not mind-blowing, but good. Bob's a big fan of good.
They roll apart after a few minutes, both of them sweaty and sticky and vaguely shaky. Bob shoves the coffee table out of the way, so that they can both lie flat, and closes his eyes, breathing, feeling his heart rate slowing down. He hears Brendon get up, hears him walk across the floor, hears the water in the kitchen come on. When the wet washcloth smacks him in the shoulder, he's more grateful than surprised. He's starting to feel kind of gross.
"I'm gonna take a shower," he says, and doesn't wait for Brendon to weigh in, just heads for the bathroom. On the way, he strips off the condom and drops it in an empty chinese carton; he'll deal with the trash later.
When he comes back out, Brendon's got one of Patrick's accoustic guitars out, and is sitting on the couch in his boxers, frowning and picking out a melody Bob doesn't recognize.
"Oh, dude," he says. "Did you want the couch? I can, like," he waves his hands around, almost-but-not-quite whacking himself in the face with the neck of the guitar. "I can do this later, or—"
"Take the bedroom," Bob says, shrugging. "I'm just going to see what's on."
Brendon stands up, but doesn't move. "You sure? I man, this is, like, your home-away-from-home and all."
"Go for it," Bob says. "Seriously, the sound's a lot better in there anyways."
"Thanks," Brendon says, and then he's gone. Bob falls asleep on the couch before he's even picked a program to not-watch—he always does, now that he's not on tour anymore, now that there's not the constant hum of an engine under his feet.
When he wakes back up, he knows he's being stared at before he even opens his eyes; a few years of touring with the brothers Way has made him very aware of when he's being watched.
("Freakish," Frank calls it, "completely fucking freakish, Bob Bryar."
"Shut up," Bob always says, "just because some of us can adapt to situations." He may be a freak, but he never wakes up with sharpie on his face, either.)
"Patrick called," Brendon says. "He's going to be late, I guess—something with cactuses."
"Cactii," Bob says, automatically. Brendon nods, but doesn't say anything, just stands there and stares at his own feet and fidgets. Bob watches him for a while, then sighs and sits back up. "Yeah, fine, come here."
Brendon's head snaps up, and for a second Bob thinks he got it wrong—Brendon was being "oh, god, why did I sleep with you? that was a terrible idea"-awkward, not "hi, could you fuck me again?"-awkward—but then Brendon's moving forward, dropping to his knees, shouldering Bobs legs apart and breathing hot and damp against his crotch. It's almost too much, too soon, and Bob sucks in a breath, but then Brendon tugs his shorts down and licks the length of his dick, slow and wet and sloppy, and it's not too much, not too much at all. He sucks dick like it's a hobby, something he maybe doesn't get very much time to do but always enjoys; he's focused and careful but still kind of messy.
After a while, he lets go of Bob's left knee and starts jerking himself off, quick and sharp even while he's sucking Bob off with slow, steady motions. After a while, he pulls off, gasping against Bob's thigh, his shoulder shaking just a little. His other hand keeps going on Bob's dick, though, squeezing and twisting, and Bob's vaguely impressed: it's hard to keep that kind of rhythm up when you're getting off.
He should know.
"You okay?" he asks, after a moment. Brendon's still jerking him off, but he's also wiggling a little, his back arching and twisting, his eyes half-shut and all-unfocused.
"Mrrrgf," Brendon says, biting down on his lower lip. "Nyargh." He twists again, one shoulder dipping down. Bob only barely manages to put together the angle of his arm with the expression on his face before Brendon's standing back up and dropping himself into Bob's lap, knees on the couch, wrapping a come-slick hand around Bob's dick. There's a condom—although where that comes from when neither of them is wearing any pants, Bob doesn't know—and a few more rough, slick squeezes, and then Brendon's lifting himself up, positioning himself over Bob's dick, and sliding down, sudden and tight and amazing.
"Oh," Bob says, because Brendon Urie is not the only one who gets to be incoherent, here. He tries to thrust up, but Brendon's pinning most of his weight, and it's more of a wiggle than a thrust, really. When he tries again, Brendon pins his shoulders to the back of the couch and glares at him; Bob takes the fucking hint and lets Brendon do all the work. He's good at it, too, rising and falling over Bob's lap, all hot slick pressure and groaning in the back of his throat.
Eventually, though, he collapses forward against Bob's chest, his breath gusting out against Bob's neck.
"My legs fucking hurt," he says. "I always forget about that part."Bob nods in sympathy and wiggles his shoulders until Brendon lets him move his arms again, then thrusts up, short and sharp. Brendon takes it, riding the motion, bracing his hands on Bob's shoulders and grinding back down against Bob's hips, coordinated, syncopated.
"You have," he says, still fucking himself on Bob's dick, "really—" he swallows, hard, "nice hands." He's not asking Bob to jerk him off, since he's not hard at all; Bob's not really sure what to make of it.
"Thanks," he says eventually, "you have—" and then he's coming, sharp and sudden, holding Brendon against him.
Afterwards, he doesn't remember what he was going to say; he's pretty sure he didn't know then, either.
*
Over the next two and a half days, Bob learns the following things:
1. Brendon likes it hard. And fast. And everywhere. Bob has more athletic sex in more places in those two days than in the last two years of his life; if he's going to stay here, he's going to need to start working out.
(Against the wall is Bob's personal favorite; Brendon loves riding him.)
2. Brendon is kind of messy, and not all that coordinated. He always cleans up after himself, though, whether it's takeout containers next to the couch, towels on the floor, or come on the coffee table.
3. Brendon only gets quiet when he wants something specific. When he's getting what he wants, he doesn't shut up—but when he wants something, he clams up. Normally, Bob would hate that kind of guessing game, but it doesn't feel like Brendon's fucking with him, trying to make Bob prove himself. It just feels like Brendon has a hard time asking for what he wants in so many words, like he's used to just rolling over and smiling coyly and getting what he wants.
Bob's just as willing to go with nonverbal cues as the next guy, but he tries to get Brendon to talk more, all the same. It's a good habit to get into, just as a general rule—cuts down on bullshit across the board.
Plus, having Brendon arching up underneath him, gasping, "fuck me—fuck me hard, let me feel it, I want to, God, give it to me," —well. That's pretty awesome, too.
4. Brendon is a fucking ridiculous drunk. This one, Bob learns on the second night, when Patrick comes home just long enough to bestow upon them a six-pack of beer before leaving to deal with a crisis from his newest baby band. They split it equally, except for how Bob can hold his fucking liquour, which Brendon apparently can't.
"Bob Bryar," he says, leaning up against Bob's arm. "Bob, I'm going to do a seductive dance for you. What do you think about that, Bob Bryar?" He doesn't wait for an answer, just starts shimmying around the kitchen, shaking his ass and his shoulders until Bob catches him by the arm, brings him around and pins him against the wall and bites his neck.
"It's a great dance," he says. "I'm going to fuck you now, okay?"
(When Bob fucks him, that night, he cries—not a lot, just a hint of wetness at the corners of his eyes as he writhes in Bob's lap.
"You okay?" Bob asks. It hadn't been anything that rough, but—
"—fine, fine," Brendon says. "It's just—" he shrugs. "It's intense."
"Yeah," Bob says, because it is.)
5. Brendon doesn't really like kissing. He's not against it or anything, and he's certainly not bad at it—but he's always ready to move on to something else, usually something involving Bob fucking him.
Bob understands; it's not that he's an old man, but Brendon's young. Bob remembers his first relationship with regular sex, and how easy it was to skip over the preliminaries when he knew he could get to the good stuff, the real stuff.
(He remembers the plate Kathy threw at his head, too.)
Older and a little wiser, he does what he can to introduce Brendon to the joys of making out. During sex is a lost cause, but afterwards Brendon is usually calm enough to lie on the couch, curled up under Bob's arm, their legs twined together, kissing slow and lazy and almost sweet.
Predictably, that's what they're doing the day Patrick comes home early.
*
Once the initial shock wears off, and Patrick stops saying things like, "my couch!" and "fucking fucking mother of fuck," and "augh, my eyes!" and "on my couch, seriously?", Bob gets a Serious Conversation with Patrick. It's okay, really. He's basically been expecting it for the past three and a half days.
The Serious Conversation goes like this:
"Bob," Patrick says, "Bob, what the hell."
"Patrick," Bob says, "seriously, dude, what's your problem?"
Patrick's eyes go wide and he sputters a little bit. "My problem? You're the one who—and with Brendon Urie, for fuck's sake—"
"This wasn't your master plan?" Bob remembers, abruptly, that Patrick had to go to anger management classes.
"My what?"
Bob shrugs. "Me and Urie, all alone all day in an empty apartment with inadequate reading material and no porn?"
"I wanted to start a band," Patrick says, dropping his face into his hands.
"Really?"
Patrick sighs, staring out from between his fingers. "Yes, you idiot. I thought, you know, a side project, something different for all of us." It's actually a pretty neat idea—recording would be a bitch, what with all of them being a million miles apart even when they're staying in one place, and then tours and everything, but they could probably manage it. Still—
"—You left us alone for a week," he says. Patrick rolls his eyes.
"Fuck you, Bryar," he says, standing up. "Like you've never had a busy week?" He cracks his neck and stretches his arms over his head, then drops them with a sigh. "Fuck, I have to go talk to Brendon."
Bob stares at the door for a while, but they're in the music room, which has amazing soundproofing; eventually, he gives up and lies back on the couch, flipping halfheartedly through a magazine with Pete Wentz's face on the cover.
Eventually, the door bangs open and Patrick walks past Bob into the kitchen, shaking his head as he passes Bob. Bob just nods back, looking past him to Brendon, who's standing half in the hallway, hunched in on himself, awkward and suddenly subdued. When he looks up and sees Bob staring, he swallows hard and comes over to sit at the other end of the couch.
"I'm sorry, man," he says. "That was kind of inappropriate, I guess."
Bob shrugs. "It was fun, though, right?" Brendon's smile is only barely visible, sidelong and tired, and he doesn't look up from his hands. He's sitting still, for once without being fucked stupid immediately beforehand; Bob doesn't especially like the change.
"Patrick," he yells, keeping his eyes on Brendon. "Did you just tell Brendon not to have sex with me?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Patrick duck out of the kitchen. "No," he says, and Bob doesn't even have to look to know that he's pushing his glasses up his nose and making a face. "I told him not to have sex with you on my couch."
Brendon's shoulders lift, then relax, and he glances over at Bob, barely turning his head. Bob grins at him, and Brendon looks away again, back at his fingers.
"Your guestroom is fair game, though, right?" Patrick grumbles, but Bob just drags Brendon by the wrist into the guest bedroom, his home-away-from-home, with the suitcases he's living out of and the Hello Kitty travel clock Gerard gave him and the bed he's been sharing with Brendon Urie for the past three days.
Brendon's still twitchy, standing in the middle of the room, tugging at the edge of his shirt and shifting his weight. In quick succession, he stares at: his feet, Bob's feet, the curtains, the night table, Bob's suitcase, his fingers, Bob's left shoulder, the ceiling, the bed, and the picture over the dresser. Bob sighs and grabs him by the shoulder, steering Brendon towards the bed and sitting down next to him.
"So, hey," he says. Brendon doesn't look up, and Bob pokes him in the knee. "Hey, you know I was kidding about the fucking part, right? I mean, unless you want to." Brendon does look up, then, frowning at Bob, and Bob looks back, waiting. "You okay?"
"I—yeah," Brendon says, glancing away. "I just—" He straightens up, looks at Bob, and shrugs. "You're Patrick's friend."
Bob blinks.
"Um, yeah," he says. "That's news?"
Brendon sighs, shaking his head. "No, but—" He tilts his head, bites his lip, and then leans in to kiss Bob on the cheek, soft and dry and sudden. "Hi," Brendon says, sitting back again, blinking quickly.
"Oh," Bob says, "Oh."
It makes sense, all of a sudden, because this is—this is Brendon trying to have a Serious Conversation of his own, in his own way, all fidgeting and eyelashes, monosyllables and ellipses. Which is—kind of amazing, actually. Bob's a little bit proud.
He sits up a little straighter, stretching his back out. "I—I like you?" Brendon's looking him in the eye, now, serious and intent. "I like you," Bob says again, "and I like fucking you, and I like hanging out with you." He shrugs.
Brendon frowns a little. "And that's it? Not, like—I mean, that's all it has to be?"
"It is, yeah." Bob smiles. "That okay with you?"
Brendon grins back, slowly, looking a little bit surprised by it. "That's—yeah," he says, "yeah, that's good." He hesitates again, then adds, "also, I think you should blow me now."
Bob thinks about it. "That sounds good," he says.
He does; it is.
*
"Bob! Bob Bryar!"
That's all the warning Bob gets before he's got Pete Wentz plastered up against his side, breathing in his ear and hanging off his shoulder. Bob just shrugs, redistributing Pete's weight. It's been a while since he's had to deal with this particular form of Wentzian affection, but he still remembers how it works: Pete jumps on his back, Bob doesn't kill him.
It's not a bad tradeoff, in the end. Bob's seen what Patrick has to put up with; as long as there aren't any raw vegetables involved, he thinks he's ahead.
"Bob, come here," Pete says, tapping Bob's shoulder. "Come here, I have someone for you to meet!" Bob turns, dutifully, and comes face-to-face with Brendon Urie. Two years have treated him well; he's still small and skinny, but he looks calmer, more self-contained.
Brendon rolls his eyes, reaches past Bob to punch Pete on the shoulder.
"Dude," he says, "of course I know Bob, you doucheface." He grins. "Bob's awesome."