A Dangerous Face and an Almost Illegal Taste

Ryan and Gerard were leaning against the side of a building. The silence between them was no longer awkward; it was intense. The things Gerard didn’t say were heavy with arousal and hardly hidden sexual attraction. The things Ryan wasn’t saying were words of knowing, of a boy thinking he was so smart. He could Gerard’s eyes on him, knew that later Gerard would jerk off to him.

There was that dirty yet desired feeling again. Ryan was secretly thrilled when he felt his cell phone vibrating his pocket, a distraction from deciding if it was normal to enjoy feeling like a whore. He pulled his cell phone out and flipped it open. Coming back anytime soon? Ryan’s eyes widened slightly at the time near the end of the message. He’d been with Gerard for almost two hours.

“I need to go.” he said, punching in some keys on his phone. In a few minutes. he typed, answering Brendon’s message. He looked up and almost flinched. Gerard’s face was suddenly inches from his own. He could feel the older man’s warm breath against his skin, smell the cigarette smoke, practically taste the way he would sweat under bed sheets, count his eyelashes.

Then Ryan blinked, breaking the spell. When his eyes opened Gerard was in his former position. “Calling it a night then?”

Night. “Shit.” Ryan said, unaware that he had spoken the word out loud. Fucking sleeping pills. He rested his forehead on his hand, cursing under his breath. Another night without sleep and with entirely too much to think about.

“Should I leave you alone to talk to yourself?” Gerard asked, amused.

Ryan looked up at him. “No, I—Sorry, I just . . . I was supposed to go pick up sleeping pills and I didn’t.” He blushed scarlet, thankful for the camouflage of darkness.

There was a pause. “I have Valium.” Gerard said.

Ryan looked at him slightly confused, before realization hit him. “Thanks, but . . .” He stood up, letting his sentence trail off. “I need to go.” He dusted off his jeans. “See you.” He left without looking back. He knew what was happening. He wasn’t that stupid. But he wasn’t that strong either.

He was stepping into the bus a few minutes later. Brendon and Jon were watching TV and Spencer was listening to his iPod and reading on his bunk. Brendon tossed something at Ryan when he walked in. He looked at it, fingers tracing the words on the box. “Thanks.” he said quietly.

“Welcome.” Brendon said, trying to pull of a casual smile and failing. Ryan didn’t notice. He took a few steps and pulled open the refrigerator, opening a bottle of water. He was in bed fifteen minutes later, hoping the pills would work. He didn’t need to think about eyelashes or cigarettes or amber eyes. He didn’t need to. He didn’t know if he didn’t want to.

Instead he dreamed about girls with snakes for fingernails and worms for hair, a man with rotting teeth, two fairies with red eyes and razor-sharp fangs, a decaying corpse, and his own grave.

He slept until 10:30, however, later than any of his band mates. He pointed at Brendon when he came out of the bunk area. “You put acid in those pills or something.”

“If I had acid I wouldn’t waste it on your sleeping pills.” Brendon retorted, chuckling. “Did you hallucinate or something?”

“Fucked up dreams.” Ryan sat down on the couch. “I had a dream that a zombie was chasing me around our high school and I was wearing roller skates.”

The four of them stared at each for a moment before they all erupted into hysterical fits of laughter, picturing Ryan skating through a school with a zombie chasing him. “Well, I think you should take them again.” Spencer said, grabbing Ryan’s arm through his laughter. “Just so we can keep hearing about your zombie dreams.”

Ryan gave a mock pout, crossing his arms. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Watch out for the undead!” Brendon called, snorting. He only laughed harder when Ryan gave him the finger.

In the shower, shoulders relaxed, Ryan could distantly hear the ring tone on his phone that signaled a new text message. For a moment Gerard’s face flashed through his mind. Yeah, right. You fucked that one up, Ross. But what exactly had he fucked up. Was there anything to fuck up? He didn’t realize it, but his shoulders had tensed up once more.

He dried off and changed into jeans and a tee shirt. The bus was set to head out in about and hour and he wanted to spend it outside while he could He opened his cell phone after he stepped out of the bus.

Did I scare you off last night? It was Gerard.

The honest answer, of course, was ‘yes’ but Ryan wasn’t about to admit that. No. Bren was just having a crisis. It was easier to lie when there was no face or voice to the words. Ryan brought a hand up and ran it through his hair, standing there. Just standing there, waiting for a text from a guy he hardly knew. He reminded himself of a pathetic teenage girl. ‘Is he ever going to call me back? I love him.’ And swoon.

Ryan snorted. Well, he wasn’t quite that pathetic. His heart skipped a beat, however, when he heard his cell phone ring. A phone call, not a text. “Hello?”

“. . . what are you wearing?”

Ryan’s eyes widened and his mouth opened slightly. “I . . . I, uh . . . what?”

There was a pause before barking laughter on the other end of the call. “I’m kidding, Ryan. God, the look on your face must have been priceless.”

Ryan’s face flushed and he stared at his feet, shuffling them. “I knew you were joking.” he said quietly.

“Uh huh.” Gerard’s voice was one of humored disbelief. “Getting fresh air before the zillion hour long bus ride?”

“How’d you know I was outside?” Ryan asked, swatting a mosquito away from his arm. Fucking insect vampires.

“I’m watching you through the window.” The younger boy immediately spun in a circle, narrowing his eyes at every tinted tour bus window. It was ridiculous and he knew it. “It’s like a scary movie, isn’t it?” Gerard asked.

“Should I be worried about you coming after me with a butcher knife?” Ryan asked, resisting the urge to stick his tongue out.

“You know I’d never do anything to scar that pretty face.” There was that lust-filled pause again, dripping with intent and inevitability. “Poison maybe.”

Ryan was almost impressed with the way Gerard was trying to control the situation. Letting the dripping-with-sex silence linger before immediately picking the conversation back up, trying to make Ryan wonder what was going on. Ryan knew what was going on, but he’d been friends with Brendon long enough to know how to humor someone. And humoring Gerard would hopefully give him time to figure out exactly what to do about the situation.

There was a beep on the phone and Ryan held it away from his face to look at the caller ID. “I’ve got to take this call.”

“All right. I’ll text you later, kid.” There was that ‘kid’ thing again. “Bye.” Gerard hung up without giving Ryan a chance to respond.

Shaking his head to clear away thoughts that weren’t there, Ryan answered the other call. “Hello?”

“Ry, darling, baby, sweetheart.”

“Shalisa . . .” Ryan said, his voice slightly stern.

“Okay, okay.” The girl laughed, voice slightly less high pitched. “So I’ve been running around like crazy looking at every damn apartment that fits the one you want because you’re so fucking picky, babe, and I found a few. I sent some pictures to you email, but since you hardly ever check the fucker I thought I’d give you the heads up.”

Ryan had, about two weeks before Warped Tour started, decided he didn’t like the apartment he was living in. He wanted something roomier and with two bedrooms instead of one. So he had asked Shalisa, a friend of his since junior high and the woman who house sat for him while he was on tour, to look for one. Shalisa, however, suffered from what Spencer called ‘Pep-itis’, an affliction that meant she was one of the peppiest, bubbliest, fastest talking women most people had ever met. That meant that any conversation with Shalisa was almost guaranteed to make your head spin.

“Shalisa, that’s great. Thanks a lot. I’ll send you an email when I look at the pictures, okay?” Ryan couldn’t deal with additional head spinning at the moment. If he couldn’t keep up with himself how was he supposed to keep up with a babbling brook?

“I can take a hint.” she said laughing. “Email me, give the boys my love, don’t drink too much, don’t—“

“Good-bye, Shalisa.”

“Bye, Ryan.”

The boy shut his cell phone and put it in his pocket, eyes scanning the numerous tour busses in the vicinity. Suddenly being outside didn’t seem as freeing as it had before. Voyeurism always had it’s problems, especially when you weren’t the voyeur. Sighing, slightly agitated, Ryan made his way back to the bus.

Maybe it was an omen that he should have paid more attention to. Maybe the fact that Gerard was damn near forcing Ryan back to his bus wasn’t a good thing. Maybe if Ryan had paid more attention . . .

But it wouldn’t have done any good. He had been damned the night before. Amber eyes, cigarette smoke, offers of Valium. He was going to hell. Soon.

Ryan stepped into the bus, looking up and immediately locking eyes with Spencer. Spencer knew. He had to know, even if it wasn’t in the conscious part of his brain it was hidden away and would appear at the very moment Ryan didn’t want it to. How could Spencer not know? Spencer knew everything.

Ryan didn’t know anything except that he was in way over his head. He wasn’t ready for what he knew was unavoidable, was going to be one of the biggest mistakes of his life, was making the heat rise up in his face at that very moment, was making his fingers slip into his jacket pocket and grip his phone tightly.

He was fucked.