waiting in the wreckage

Chapter Text

There's a place I wanna take you
But I'm not quite there myself

It’s a hot day out, skies a blinding shade of blue, overwhelming in a way even the weather isn’t. They’re riding busted boards with chipped paint and half-loose trucks in deserted parks—carefree, empty-headed kids on a mission.

Which mission is yet to be decided, though, but it’s fine. Can’t ask them too much, can you?

Bryan should be watching the road. Bryan should be minding his own ride at the risk of crippling injury, but his eyes are fixed on the back of Noah’s elegant neck, fascinated by the way his hair blows to the wind. And because he’s been staring at him like a freak for the entire time, he witnesses the exact moment when Noah eats the f*cking concrete.

Aw, sh*t.

The wheel of his skate catches a rock and he crashes down, barely bracing for impact, rolling several times until he ends sprawled on his back, in some real Looney Tunes fashion.

Then he’s half-cursing, half-yelling, a funny yet ridiculous sort of spectacle. “Bitch of a pebble,” Noah’s rambling, and Bryan can’t help bursting into full-blown laughter.

“Are you dead?” he asks as he jumps off his own board, leaning down to check for any substantial fracture. Grinning still, too amused, because tall people always fold in such bizarre ways the second they lose balance.

Plus, maybe Bryan enjoys towering over Noah for once a little too much. Just maybe.

“f*cking wish I were,” Noah groans, still lying there like dead fish, eyes closed.

Hair tousled, half in his mouth, cheeks flushed a pretty shade of red. Color looks good on him, but it’s a rare occurrence. He’s some stupid sort of vampire who flees the sun and likes to hole up in his room days on end, barely ever getting any tan.

And there’s the scraped elbows, Bryan notices; blood on the right, but not just that. When Noah lifts a leg to test his joints the holes in his black jeans reveal cuts on both knees, tiny stones encrusted deeply into bruised skin. He’s lost a f*cking shoe too, the stupid man.

Bryan shields his eyes from the sun, his smile unwavering. “Need a hand?”

“Only if you’re offering to jack me off,” Noah replies offhandedly, dusting off his ass as he gets up with the same groan a 67 years old would make. “Man, my back is so f*cked,” he whines, stretching.

Bryan’s eyes absolutely do not look at the exposed belly when his shirt rides up. And when Noah pops a few vertebrae after that, moving his head right to left, back to front, Bryan certainly does not stare (once again) at the long and delicate column of his neck.

Nope. Not at all. Not one f*cking bit.

“Anyway,” Noah says, suddenly too close, bumping against him, grinning wide. All teeth, eyes crinkling at the corner, brighter than the sun itself. Or, whatever. Urgh. “I’m f*cking starving. I know a guy who makes the meanest f*cking tamales in town. What d’you say?”

“sh*t, I was supposed to be with the guys tonight,” Bryan mutters.

Fishes his phone out to look at messages, and sure enough Noah’s nosy ass leans down to peek at his screen to, elbow resting on his shoulder. Bryan tries not to freak out, but it’s hard when you have your vision and your nose full of Noah’s hair, and the warmth of his body so, so close.

“Tell them to f*ck off,” Noah laughs. Tilts his head towards Bryan, looking at him through his pretty lashes. “Here, you little puss*, lemme do it for you.”

He snatches the phone straight out of his hands, successfully managing to flee because Bryan’s still thinking about the tip of his freckled nose and the way he smells to react. And when he does it’s too f*cking late—Noah’s already skating away, crackling, and Bryan realizes with horror that the guy’s got full access to his phone.

Unlocked.

With all the messages and pictures he’s sent to his girlfriend about—

Him.

“Noah, you f*cking asshole—”

He’s scrambling back to his own board, yelling. But it’s over.

It’s so f*cking over.

See, Noah knows the kind of guy he is.

He’s been him for the past 28 years, has come to know and to terms with the exact breed of motherf*cker he’s turned out to be.

He knew this would end him.

He knew it’d happen the second he faced Bryan Garris for the first time, years and years back when the guy called him a huge ass bitch under his breath for bumping into him that one time in Warped Tour. He knew it’d happen as they started hanging out, realizing they were both in bands, sang and played the guitar, growing closer. Later, when their paths split, and still he found himself thinking about him, so very often.

He knew it’d happen one way or another, only a matter of time—some f*cking ten years and counting—and when it did, he’d be a dead guy walking.

And he was right. He was damn right he’s actually pissed about it. Unresolved-anger-issues-and-punching-walls kind of mad, at his grown age no less. He hasn’t yet, thank f*ck, but it’s coming, he can just feel it.

Because it’s over, it’s so damn over for him, for his sanity, hell, for everyone around him who’s gonna have to deal with this. Nearly two months of touring left and he’s got no damn clue how he’d manage. f*ck, he probably won’t. He’ll die before. He’s already halfway to his grave and not a day goes by without someone asking him what the f*ck is up with him.

Why does he look like that, specifically.

Noah should be offended, maybe. But it’d be a cold day in hell when Davis isn’t a dick to him unprompted—well, if you don’t count the sh*t Noah usually says to him in turn or before—so he lets it pass, ignores them all when they ask him why his phone unlocks directly onto Bryan Garris’ IG. Or why he’s listening to Knocked Loose like a man possessed by the spirit of a teenager with a dedicated Twitter fan account all of a sudden.

He wishes he could say he f*cked Bryan Garris once and it’s ruined him forever.

He wishes he could say he could’ve done that years back, probably, but let that chance go and it’s haunted him ever since.

He wishes he could say that he’s stumbling around with his dick chaffed raw after beating it senseless every free second he has for himself without anyone around.

He wishes he could just scream at the entire world, beyond and below, that he’s looking and acting like that because he needs to have Bryan on his lap once more before his brain melts out of his ears but, alas, it’s not happening anytime soon—or ever, for that matter—and it’s killing him.

f*ck. He’s so f*cked.

But he knew, he just knew, and can’t blame anyone other than his own reckless self for actively seeking things he can’t have and suffer through the consequences.

And, sh*t. If only this thing stopped at the raw physical aspect of it. If only he could spend one single day without remembering how wide Bryan used to smile, the crass mom jokes he had by the dozens, the nights they spent smoking their brains off. If only he didn’t live with memories flooding his mind as his chest hurt with the kind of longing he thought he had stuffed in a box and forgot about long ago.

f*cking yearning like he doesn’t know any better. Like he hasn’t been in that headspace before and hated every single second of it.

The pain is deserved, at this point. Self-inflicted misery at its finest.

Noah thinks whatever, on and on and on.

It’s just that he never f*cking learns.

“f*ck off, I’m not gay,” Bryan grunts.

“How do you know?”

“What?”

Noah pokes him in the chest. “How do you know, smartass? Ever tried?”

“It doesn’t f*cking work like that,” Bryan says, wondering why even he even bothers or why entertains this stupid debate. “How do you know rain gets you wet?”

“Because you get rained on at least once,” Noah laughs.

“It’s not— ”

“How do you do this?”

Bryan’s gonna regret this. He’s gonna f*cking regret this, because Noah’s already laughing. “Do what?”

“Be this f*cking stupid.”

“It’s your fault,” Bryan snaps; he doesn’t yell, but he’s also not not yelling. “You make everyone f*cking stupid just breathing around them. I can’t f*cking stand you.”

Noah’s laugh only doubles in volume and intensity. It usually does, around Bryan, which makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Bryan isn’t even that funny. Scratch that, he’s not funny at all.

Maybe Noah’s right. Maybe he’s just being stupid.

He’s most definitely being plain f*cking stupid.

Noah’s got his dick his in his hands and filthy visions of Bryan behind his lids when the door bursts open and the other Bryan stomps inside, yelling his f*cking head off.

“Oh you've gotta be kidding me.” By the tone of it, Bryan’s actually furious. Watches Noah’s naked figure with a frown barring his face, like it's the most normal thing in the world, like he's the one in the right barging in like that. “Dude.”

Noah bangs his head against the wet tiles hard enough to knock himself unconscious, gives a half-annoyed, half-pained groan that doesn’t do justice to what he’s really feeling right now. Desperate. God, he was so close. “f*cking–urgh. Bathrooms are private spaces you—f*ck—you asshole.”

“Excellent point, dude. So tell me why the hell you've been jacking off for the entire week and wasting all of the damned hot water?”

In his f*cking defense—well, nothing. He doesn’t have anything to answer.

He just keeps his eyes closed and lets water (that’s, by the way, barely lukewarm, so f*ck Bryan for painting him as the inconsiderate asshole who wastes hot water on tour because of the selfish and unnoble act of masturbation) and waits for his raging boner to slowly die down. Which is, well, already more than halfway dead anyway, because this Bryan’s screams are nowhere near as sexy as the real Bryan’s.

Not that his friend isn’t real, but. You know. No man’s ever as real as when Noah’s balls deep inside of him, or something like that.

“That’s what I thought,” Bryan says, spiteful still. Crosses his arms like some ungrateful, asshole kid.

Him basically just getting an eyeful of his ass is nothing new—not when he has the guy's face tattooed on his calf and has seen in turn more of him than he’d ever like—and whatever, he can just keep hanging around if he wants, Noah doesn't even f*cking care anymore. Not now that his org*sm just slipped between his fingers.

He cranes his neck right, flips Bryan off. Looks at him with as much spite as he can muster that instant. “Either hop in here and suck me off or let me f*cking shower in peace.”

Bryan pulls a face. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that? Fine. Whatever. Keep playing with your dick in there. Not like anybody else will.”

He storms off before Noah can actually get offended. It’s f*cking true, alright, but Bryan didn’t have to say it like that.

“Bitch,” he mutters.

Noah stands under water that turns colder by the seconds for the next twenty minutes, feeling like a moron. Being one, too.

Well, so much for jerking the demons (Bryan Garris) away.

You’d think it wouldn’t get any worse than this.

You’d think Noah would drag his sorry bones around singing Counting Worms in the most pathetic way ever, jack off some more and only stop when he gets blisters all over his hands.

You would f*cking think.

But suddenly it’s April 23th and Suffocate by Knocked Loose drops and everyone only ever speaks about it and Bryan’s face and voice are everywhere and Noah kind of f*cking loses it.

The song is good. Of course it is. And Moriah kills it, as expected. But also, also , it gives him more Bryan material, which given Noah’s current situation is a) amazing b) horrifying.

“I don’t care if something good happened to you, it should’ve been me ,” is the first thing he says to Moriah when they manage to see each other in between packed schedules.

She—Noah’s sleep paralysis demon and greatest advisor both—sips her macchiato, clearly unbothered.

“Stealing your little boyfriends one hit song at the time, hell yeah. You just sit back and watch.”

He stops dead in his tracks. “Be honest. Do you honestly want me to kill myself?”

Moriah throws her head back and laughs a comically evil laugh like the witch that she is.

“Back of the car.”

“My own? Sure. The tour van? Hell no.”

“At the movies.”

“Yeah. Classic sh*t. Everyone does it anyway.”

“Public space. Like, say, a park.”

“Ew.”

“Your parents’ bedroom.”

“Even more f*cking ew, man.”

“Bathroom club.”

“We don’t even go to the club. And it’s nasty anyway.”

“Urgh. Alright, quickies in public restrooms?”

“This sh*t is just getting worse and worse, isn’t it?”

Noah stuffs the last of his burger in his mouth, and chews a bit before saying, in a very serious tone, “You could use being a little freakier, you know.”

Bryan’s blue eyes narrow suspiciously. His own plate is forgotten about, and when Noah asks him if he can have the rest of his potatoes, he just pushes the plate towards him and makes a ‘whatever’ sort of gesture.

“Thanks for the suggestion,” he replies flatly, “but honestly? I think people who f*ck in public restrooms should be actually jailed.”

“Live laugh love,” Noah snorts. “Try having fun. You know. Smile a bit.”

“Nothing to smile about in my life,” Bryan says automatically, and they look at each other for a second before they burst out laughing.

They eat in silence for a bit. Or rather, Noah devours the leftovers, Bryan drinks 3L of water, both scrolling on their phones, sometimes sending each other memes and replying through text even when they’re literally facing each other, just because. The usual.

Bryan’s munching on his paper straw. Thinking. Thinking about stuff he shouldn’t think about. Curiosity might’ve killed the cat, but it hasn’t got Bryan’s ass yet, so here he f*cking goes with questions he knows he will regret ever asking about.

“So, public restrooms, huh.”

Noah smiles. Glances at him for one second, holds his gaze for a bit and the stuff that’s in there makes something shift weirdly in Bryan’s belly.

“Yeah. Few times.”

“Nasty,” Bryan rushes to say, so he doesn’t lose composure.

So it doesn’t look like he’s fishing for details—the nosy kind—and that he’s dying to know more. Bryan’s done his fair share of questionable stuff, but he’s never been a party/club kind of guy, didn’t frequent girls who were into it either. And he and Taylar—well, they’ve got the stuff they like to do, the stuff they hate. f*cking in a filthy public bathroom is most definitely falling into the ‘hate’ category.

“My dick led me to worse places, trust me,” Noah says in between bites, laughing.

Oh, Bryan f*cking does, and that’s a problem. Noah could say just about anything and Bryan would feel compelled to believe him, eat his words right up, for reasons that go beyond common sense.

“You can’t say that and leave it at it,” he breathes, entirely too invested now.

“You want the details over food? Really, man?”

Noah looks at him pointedly, raising a brow, and Bryan realizes how this sounds like, asking another dude stuff about his sex life. Alright, it’s highly questionable, inappropriate, honestly a bit gross too when they’re eating, but Bryan himself has been thinking a sh*tton of questionable and inappropriate and gross stuff lately.

About himself. About other people. About his wants. About—

He kicks Noah’s shin under the table. “Teach me your ways. Y’know, so I can try having fun, too.”

Noah laughs again. And that bubbly laughter in particular does a very specific thing—changing his entire expression, smoothing out the lines, turning him into a youthful, boyish figure; one that he already is, but free from the anxiety always so damn clear on his features.

Bryan hates that he notices. That he knows exactly which eye crinkles more than the other, but he likes knowing that it happens because of him. It’s something. It’s definitely something.

“Remember when you said you weren’t gay?” Noah grins.

“Yeah, and there’s still a lot of heterosexuality in me,” he says, and means it despite—well, despite everything.

“Hold on to that sh*t, then. Because I’m about to get gay and gnarly as f*ck and you can’t say anything about it cuz you asked.”

Whatever Bryan said about curiosity and getting out alive? Yeah, he can probably stuff it where it simply never shines.

It gets to such a point that Noah has to send a couple dozen of messages in one single setting to Clint and hope for the f*cking best.

Clint's a nice lay, see. The easiest one of Noah's life too—pretty much just stumbled on his lap like some glorious offering straight from the heavens one night during the first tour they did together, cherry-red lips blabbering about 7 strings, lovely lashes batting up, basically just begging to be brought back to Noah’s place and wrecked.

And, well, what kind of man would Noah have been not to do exactly that?

Years down the road Clint's inbox is still the one Noah's desperately bombing every time he needs to blow off some steam. And Clint, bless his precious heart, is always up for the same kind of fun Noah’s got in mind, as they find ways to work around their sh*tty schedules to meet each other halfway.

And isn’t it just a godsend to have both ERRA and Bad Omens around Dallas during the same dates this time?

(Knocked Loose, too. But Noah desperately tries not to think about that one too hard at the risk of popping so many blood vessels he might just f*cking die).

Clint’s a nice lay, and a nice dude, and he doesn’t even ask Noah why he’s that desperate when he replies with laughing and open-eyes emojis.

And, obviously:

you can drop by tonight, guys are out drinking :)

God f*cking bless.

Noah practically runs to him. Answers absolutely none of the guys’ questions when they see him dress up with three different items that should never go together but still end up in one outfit as Noah basically just throws on anything for the sake of it and bolts the f*ck out.

He’s got f*cking places to be and nobody to impress, so.

Clint greets him with half his shirt ridden up, scratching his belly. Grins, the sly little creature, eyes half-lidded, a lazy, feline sensuality that he always carries about. Damn tease.

Noah’s a simple man, really. His mouth dries and his pulse beats, and alright, whatever, maybe he acts like an animal, maybe he should be ashamed, but he can’t even manage a single hello before pushing Clint inside, latching onto his mouth like a man starved.

They knock stuff around, bottles clinking and falling as Noah cages Clint against the kitchenette’s counter. Grips him by the hips to hike him up, standing between his open legs; Clint lets out the cutest little whimper of surprise, melts against him the second their chests are flush. He loops his own around Noah’s neck, and kisses right back with the same hunger.

Making out like horny teenagers right by the bus’ door—that’s still open, mind you—as Noah’s hands slip underneath Clint’s tank to brush his sides, thumb pressing against his nipple.

Clint gasps, keens a bit when he twists the piercing. Says with a voice that’s too damn needy already, “f*ck, good evening to you too, I guess.”

“Hi,” Noah whispers roughly against his neck. “I kinda need to be inside you right now or I’ll f*cking lose it.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” Clint’s little laugh turns into a low whine when Noah sucks the spot under his ear, “Just—”

He never gets to finish that sentence. They never make it to the bunks, either. They almost don’t remember to close the door and shut the blinds (not that they’d care, not that they’d mind, really).

They do it fast and messy on the couch that fits neither of them, let alone both of them. Too long-legged, too much of their combined limbs, but f*ck, they make it work, end up a tangled mess of body parts, kissing and rutting like animals in heat on a pile of crumpled clothes and discarded packs of cigs.

Noah has Clint naked and bucking and moaning underneath him so quick you’d think he’s speedrunning this, and look, he kinda is. For his own f*cking sanity, that is. But since the universe offered him the pretty and talented and lovely Clint Tustin on a silver platter—who cries out everytime Noah’s fingers press and dig on his soft flesh, who lets him suck bruises on his neck and begs so, so sweetly for more—it’d be a f*cking shame not to do this the way he’s dying to.

And, well, maybe Clint needs it just as badly as he does. Maybe that’s why he replied so quickly, let him in unquestioned, and is already so far gone Noah eventually just has to take some measures.

“You good?” Noah kisses and laps at the freshly-left bruises on Clint’s collarbone, wiping his lube-soaked fingers on the bare thigh, straightening up a little.

“Good,” he nods, head falling to the side as he exhales, chest red, already coloring so pretty with teeth marks around his nipples. Rising and falling quickly as he breathes hard, already half a mess. “Noah, please.”

Noah’s inside coil deliciously. f*ck, Clint’s a treat, isn’t? Always so quick to fall apart, begging to be taken, the kind of guy wet dreams were made of, custom made for you to whatever the hell you wished. Actually perfect.

“Noah,” he whines again, writhing underneath him, and this time Noah lifts both of his legs, folding him in half easily, because of course Clint’s a yoga person too, soft and supple in the right places, his spine basically nonexistent.

“Tell me what you want,” Noah murmurs, just to feel that razor-sharp edge of lust stabbing his guts again. Can barely f*cking still his own hips, so damn hard it hurts, has to conjure some superhuman will not to start pouding him right there and then. “I need you to speak to me.”

“Come on, you know, just give it to me—”

Noah’s right hand brushes against his sides again, finds the pierced nipple, gives it a little twist. “Clint, baby, you’ve gotta tell me. Use your words. I can wait all day.”

(He can’t, to be perfectly honest, but Clint doesn’t need to know it.)

“f*ck me, f*ck me, f*ck me,” Clint cries out again when he flicks at his nipple. “Noah, please—f*ck—I want you to f*ck me. Please .”

“Good boy,” he says as he leans in to kiss him again. “I hear you.”

For how discreet and quiet Clint usually is, he lets it all go when Noah presses his co*ck inside. Bottoms out with a shuddering gasp, before slamming back in; not really holding back anymore. No point, when Clint so sweetly asked for it, and mostly, when Noah wouldn’t have managed to anyhow. And it’s good, as always, it’s f*cking perfect, each time he sinks into that slick and tight heat it feels right , and Clint’s noises only add fuel to the heat that’s pooling inside of Noah’s guts.

Yet something’s off, too.

Something’s not right, which Noah only puts his finger on when he realizes he’s got his eyes closed and face pressed against Clint’s sweat-clad neck instead of looking at him like he usually does, and—sh*t, he knows why.

He knows all to f*cking well why he’s not looking at his friend when f*cking him, and why he soon covers his mouth.

Why he still doesn’t take a look when Clint gasps and presses back against him until he can’t go any further, looks a proper wreck, the kind Noah loves .

Because there’s someone else on his mind. The echo of another voice begging close to his ears.

f*ck . Noah’s thinking about Bryan again. When is he not? Haunted by the ghost of him even when with another guy, and it takes him right over the edge the second he imagines that it’s Bryan he’s pounding and not Clint. org*sm almost damned instantaneous, the feeling pooling into his veins like liquid fire, igniting every nerve. Pressure unbinding so suddenly it makes him roll his hip forward with so much force Clint jolts and shudders, clenching down unbelievably around him.

It’s really some sort of miracle that Noah manages not to say Bryan’s name out loud when he comes.

He nearly collapses forward, catching himself at the last second so he doesn’t crush Clint, who, by the looks of it, wouldn’t have noticed anyhow. The second his hand is off Clint’s mouth a long raspy whine escapes him, as he breathes deeply.

“Still with me?” Noah brushes the damp black strands away from Clint’s face, leaning down to touch his lips to his.

“You didn’t…” Clint never finishes that sentence, just cants his hips away from Noah’s, who only now realizes that in their (his) haste they (he) forgot all about condoms, and, god—that’s a whole new thing. Something they should’ve discussed. Come trails after Noah’s dick when he moves and he winces a bit, even though Clint just laughs. “You’re unbelievable,” he whispers. “Get me off.”

Noah nods fervently, desperate to atone even a bit, mouthing at his neck, his chest, his stomach. “Yessir.”

After a phenomenal blowj*b Noah puts his entire soul and skill in because that’s all Clint ever deserves, they somehow manage to find enough energy in their bones to move to the back of the bus, where a bigger bed is. Jesse’s, actually, because he’s the sort of man-princess who needs his own personal space, one way or another, or everyone else will hear about it.

Noah would feel bad if it were anyone else’s bed in ERRA, but it’s f*cking Jesse’s, what is Jesse’s is basically Noah’s, so there .

“Alright, spill,” Clint says, yawning as he stretches his arms over his head. “Who’s the guy?”

Oh no .

Noah feigns utter confusion. “What guy?”

“You know who,” Clint laughs softly.

Noah is not going to talk about the whole Bryan situation with the guy he kind of sort of totally used as a direct replacement.

Maybe if he could distract him. Maybe if he just f*cks him again even harder, he might forget.

Noah’s a fine war strategist.

But—Clint’s smiling, no malice on his face, nothing but genuine curiosity, eyes teasing. He looks even prettier than usual like that, hair mussed up, cheeks flushed. Lips red, bitten right through. He looks really, really pretty, and Noah realizes how f*cked it is to be lying next to a man like Clint and still wish it was somebody else.

He’s a terrible person.

He’s a piece of sh*t, actually.

He must be making a face, because Clint shuffles closer for comfort, looks up at him through his lashes. Rests his head on Noah’s outstretched arm, chuckling again.

“Look, we don’t have to talk about it. I don’t care. Just wanna know if the dude you’re pretending is me is at least someone I can tolerate.”

“You don’t… deserve this. I’m sorry,” Noah mutters. Leans in to kiss Clint to complete his apology, something nice and slow and sweet that he really, really means, because he likes him. As a lover, yes, but mostly as a friend, someone he trusts and appreciates. “I might have a stupid f*cking—urgh. Jesus. f*ck me. A— crush . It’s driving me crazy. So, yeah. Sorry, man.”

“‘s fine,” Clint says. Closes his eyes, groggy and content, nestling closer against Noah who loops an arm around him, kisses his neck. “Happens to the best of us. He’s in the scene?”

“Unfortunately.”

“That’s rough. Do I know them?”

Noah thinks about it real quick. Calculates the risks of actually revealing everything, half tempted to just f*cking spill the beans, get them off his chest.

From the days Bryan and he were stupid kids with stupid hair and thought they had riffs up their sleeves that could shake the scene, to when both their bands debuted and they started losing sight of each other, crossing paths from times to times only to act like shy animals, to drifting apart completely, until—that damned festival.

Where they had (partially terrible) sex, and it kind of changed every f*cking thing ever for Noah.

It’s just—

His throat closes up. Even if he wanted to, he just couldn’t . Never did. Words from his mind have always had thorns that dug in his lungs and throat and he’d just bleed all over if he ever tried speaking.

“You probably do, yeah,” he replies quietly. Hides his face against Clint’s shoulder, breathing him in to settle his heart. “Doesn’t matter. It’s just stupid.”

“Alright, man. If you say so.” He shifts a bit, propping himself on his elbow, hoving right above him with a little grin. Brushes his lips against Noah’s. “Backshots so you can really pretend I’m somebody else?”

God definitely sent Clint down as an apology for creating the pathetic rest of them, didn’t he? Noah’s hand skim over his flank, goes up his spine until it rests on his nape, pulling him down for another kiss. “You’re a menace, you know?”

Clint winks at him.

He’s about to make his ever-so-stealthy escape when Isaac’s voice suddenly blooms from the back of the van, lethally loud even when he’s only whispering, and startles him badly.

Out there? It serves their sets perfectly. Right now? Bryan’s bladder almost f*cking fails him.

“Where do you think you're sneaking out like that, you suspicious f*ck?”

Bryan stalls a bit before sliding the van’s door back open, putting his head inside begrudgingly. Like a kid caught red-handed—and absolutely pissed about it— he mutters, “That’s, like, none of your business. f*ck back off to sleep.”

Light flashes and floods the otherwise dark vehicle for a second as Isaac stares at his phone’s screen. “It's like, close to 1 am. We gotta ride at 5. Don't be stupid.”

Stupid? f*ck, if Isaac knew, if only he had the slightest idea of what's been going with Bryan these past days. Worse, the things he’s been literally haunted by ever since one random lanky twink ran right into him. And for a short, electrifying second he considers telling the truth—I’m being so f*cking stupid it’s getting closer to mental deficiency at this point—but he figures this is the sort of thing that one should figure out on one’s own before coming clean with it.

Plus, Isaac isn’t even top 5 on the hierarchy of people Bryan would actually confess his crimes to in case of emergency. So he swallows back the words, flips him off.

Just because.

“I’m not taking advice from five-year olds,” he says, and doesn't wait for an answer before sliding the door shut.

He flees instantly, then. Slides both straps of his backpack on his shoulders and drops his skate to the ground. Noah’s place is kinda far, but it’s nothing when you’ve got three Redbulls down your neck and enough dopamine to last for the next couple of years.

Noah’s already smoking when he gets to his place. Smiles with all his teeth as he opens the door and lets Bryan inside, wearing the usual XL band shirt that dwarfs his entire skinny frame and some stained white shorts. Hair longer than the last time, like it had a mind of its own and grew every time Bryan wasn’t looking.

“Ever thought about washing your damned hair?” he says in lieu of a hello, bumping right into Noah’s bony shoulder.

“Huh, pot and kettle?” Noah snorts, hand instantly tugging on some of Bryan’s very own unwashed, way too long strands.

Already bickering like old people in the hallway, as Bryan ducks and groans, swatting Noah’s long, freaky fingers away from his hair. Petting his hair back into place as he tucks some of it behind his ears, flipping off Noah.

“f*ck off, I washed it yesterday. You just ruined it with your greasy disgusting hands.”

Noah just laughs. Shepherds him inside, where a bunch of his friends/housemates are already hanging out, some Bryan knows, others he’s never seen around.

There are dogs chilling around and beer cans piling up everywhere and instruments abandoned in every corner of the room. It looks and smells funky. It’s full of useless crap, some obviously stolen, others you could only buy in the deepest and darkest pages of the Facebook marketplace.

Bryan’s fascinated.

Noah is happily showing him around, his hands either gesturing wildly or moving Bryan from one place to the other. Fingers wrapped around his elbow, or biceps, or between his shoulder blades; dragging him back and forth by the wrist or just leaning against him when he starts long ass rants about whatever it is that suddenly pops in his mind.

Touchy. Too damn touchy.

Bryan focuses on everything other than Noah to distract himself. And it’s some sort of dream, isn’t it? Living with your people like that, all of them part of the scene one way or another. He’s never had that, except in the form of a cramped touring vehicle where his friends and girlfriend all pile and stack on each other for extended and exhausting periods of time, praying to god everyday that nobody gets sick or that their ride doesn’t give out its last breath.

A home sounds—good. A home to share. A home to rest, replenish, create. A home to find love and laughter in.

“Anyway,” Noah wraps an arm around his shoulder, and Bryan blinks furiously back into reality. “Didn’t you say you’d bring your guitar?”

“‘twas a pain in the ass to move, so no,” he says, trying to ignore how warm Noah always is. A damned furnace, when Bryan feels like his bones are frozen solid even when the sun is out. “I’ve got my laptop, though. I can… show you some stuff,” he finishes hesitantly, blinking again.

Noah’s grin widens even more. “Dude, hell yeah. Let’s go to my room.”

Oh no, Bryan thinks.

Oh no .

Noah’s not exactly awake.

“Clint, buddy, rise and f*cking shine—oh. Huh. Oh my god.”

He’s not awake but there are unfortunately still enough active neurons in his brain to understand that the next fifteen minutes are going to be amidst the top 10 most embarrassing moments of his life.

He unwillingly and hesitantly cracks one blurry eye open.

Jesse Cash himself—the light of Noah's life, the greatest dude ever, his dearest friend—stands right by the bed, mouth hanging wide open. “Good… morning?” he wheezes out, a confused gasp.

Eyes flickering between both their bodies, and, well, yeah, there’s no not getting what happened here. Noah’s lying on his stomach, Clint’s wrapped all over him and basically sleeping on top of his body, cheek pressed against his back, and they’re only wearing their tats.

And also—

“Is that—holy sh*t. Is that the Omens dude?”

Wait. Noah recognizes that voice, like, from somewhere in the back of his mind. He obviously does, but can’t place it right now and it’s kinda terrifying given his situation, so he cranes his head back, blinks a few times to bring his vision into focus and regrets it instantly.

Isaac. Isaac Hale’s standing right behind Jesse, his bald head peeking and shining behind Jesse’s shoulder, eyes wide and crazy.

Noah enters flight or fight mode so f*cking suddenly and quickly he almost dashes out of that room like a man guilty of the worst sins on Earth, and not just like, bedding a friend casually. He sees Isaac there and panic floods in him and he thinks oh my god Knocked Loose motherf*cker oh my god Bryan’s here which is kind of stupid but still makes a hell of a lot of sense in his mushy brain.

He’s not doing anything wrong. It’s not like Bryan would care. It’s not like they owe each other anything. It’s not even like Bryan’s actually here. But—

“Really, man?” Jesse sighs the deep disappointed dad sigh, does the head shake that goes with the typical hands on hips pose. “f*cking my guitarist in my own bed? Again?”

Isaac makes a strangled sound. “ Again ?”

Noah takes a second to answer. He’s alone in this, because Clint’s still softly snoring, unbothered and uncaring about their situation. He waits with his heart racing in his chest for Bryan to appear behind Isaac, but he never does.

Alright. Alright, he might not be here. Good. Excellent. Well, not exactly, because he still gotta deal with Isaac’s evil presence, but it’s a start.

“Free country,” Noah mutters. Digs the heel of his hand against his eyes, swallows, jaw flexing as he tries to bring back some moisture in his too-dry mouth. “I’m naked, by the way. And like, kinda bricked up.”

“Bet you are, you nasty, nasty person,” Jesse hisses with the face of revolted disgust. Goes as far as to take a step back, snapping his fingers a few times as he then says, “Clint. Clint! Wake up, buddy. Is he dead? Oh my god, please don’t tell me you’ve f*cked my beloved and newly found guitarist into an early grave.”

“That’s…”

Too damn early for this, for starters. Some serious accusations are being thrown right there too, when really, Clint’s just the kind of guy who could sleep right through a Meshuggah set undisturbed. Sleepy f*cker.

Noah tries to sit up, which is basically impossible when you have Clint Tustin octopus-wrapped around your body and hugging tighter the more you try to move. He only manages to roll on his back, straighten a bit.

Doesn’t miss the scorching look Isaac sends his way, or how he’s tweaking so hard you could basically just feel his bad mood filling up the air, turning it sour . Too f*cking early for that, Noah thinks again, and smartfully chooses to ignore the guy and his rancid vibes.

He glances back to Jesse, meets the big brown saddened doe eyes, and instantly feels guilty of terrible, terrible sins. Something about making Jesse Cash even remotely upset simply feels like a ticket straight to hell.

Noah sighs. “Can we, like, dress? Please? Pretty please, Jess?”

“What, playing coy in your old age? Think I haven’t seen your scrawny ass before?”

You’ve got to wonder why every single one of his friends has seen his ass one way or another over the course of their friendship. Noah groans into the pillow, and tries not to think about the fact that another person—Isaac f*cking Hale—is very soon getting added to the list of people he’s intentionally or unintentionally flashed in his life.

He’s in the process of conjuring every single bitchy cell in his body to redirect them at his dearest friend when Clint finally, finally wakes up.

“Why are you all so loud,” he mutters, hiding behind Noah’s back, which is cute and so deserving of a nice morning f*ck if they didn’t have a couple of assholes just hanging about. “It’s 7 in the f*cking morning.”

Isaac finds his voice again, apparently. A prickly, strained, overall very strange voice. “It’s not, really. It’s past noon.”

Noah feels Clint’s entire body tense suddenly, then freeze. Woah. It’s kinda weird, but it gets so much worse; Clint’s breathing shifts rapidly, and he literally just disappears underneath the covers without a single word.

The morning—or mid-day, f*ck you Isaac Hale—is getting weird and weirder by the second. Noah’s so confused he just looks back and forth between the bed and Jesse, who in turn is looking at him with murder in his eyes.

“Clint?”

When he gets no answer, Jesse decides the witch hunt is on .

“You broke my friend,” he wails like the dramatic f*ck that he is, while Isaac just stands behind, unmoving, unblinking, a mute and scary statue, an dear god why does Noah feel like he’s the only persona acting normal at that very instant?

Maybe he’s the crazy one.

Maybe he’s skipped some important lore between ERRA and Knocked Loose.

Maybe having a f*ck buddy is suddenly not a thing normal people do anymore and he’s missed the memo.

Maybe Isaac Hale’s mere existence is the reason why everything’s f*cked up in the world.

Noah could just keep his mouth. He really could. But he feels compelled by divine power to say, while making sure he’s looking straight in Isaac’s eyes, “What can I say? I’ve got that magical almighty dick.”

The guy’s face falls so f*cking hard Noah’s got to bite his tongue not to crackle. Then he’s just out of the room, and out the bus too by the loud banging sound of it.

“Now you’ve really done it,” Jesse sighs.

Turning heels too, making an exit as noisy and theatrical as his entry.

The silent shape beside Noah shuffles a bit, skinny arms wrapping around his middle. There’s a long moment of nothing where he only feels hot and steady breathing on his skin, both of them too stunned and weirded out for anything else, before Clint speaks up carefully.

“You should go, I think.”

“Good thinking,” Noah says.

He pats the top of Clint’s head, then disentangles himself from his grip to get up.

He dresses up haphazardly, not even entirely because half his clothes are somewhere else, which he’d feel slightly ashamed of if the morning hadn’t been this embarrassing already.

Before he goes, he leans down to plant a kiss on Clint’s cheek, asking to text him and tell him what the f*ck was all this about. Receives a weird little sound of approval in return, the guy still tightly wrapped and hiding under the covers, probably in some incredibly huge trouble.

Poor thing. At least Noah can run from the crime scene. At least Noah’s free the second he’s out of here.

“I’ll tell Nick everything, you back-stabbing, bed-stealing, friend-f*cking little rat ,” Jesse calls after him when he makes his grand exit bare-chested and crusty-eyed, and Noah can only accept it.

He’s brought it all upon himself, really.

f*ck you, f*ck your stupid unwanted opinion, and f*ck your ugly dog too. you know what? f*ck your deceased gra—

Noah is furiously typing on his computer some heated message to yet another Internet moron on Reddit speaking ill of Courtney Laplante when his phone buzzes once.

Unknown number.

Most times he ignores those, deleting the text without ever looking but tonight of all nights, he feels a weird feeling on his nape and can’t help but give in. Opens his phone, clicks on the message, and—

Almost has a f*cking heart attack.

It’s—

God, it’s a Bryan Garris mirror selfie with a Bad Omens flocked hoodie.

One so old you wouldn’t even find it on any reselling site, because it’s never been commercialized. One so old even Noah has trouble knowing when exactly it’s from.

Most importantly, one that comes with a “who wore it better” text that has Noah’s brain freezing.

He forgets about his hateful message to the stupid Redditor. He forgets about the 89 open Chrome tabs trying to look for that /one/ sample he needs in a song he couldn’t remember the name of to save his life. He forgets about the now-cold ramen he had already forgotten about.

He forgets about everything, scrambles to his feet, and runs to Nick’s side of the bus.

“I’m killing myself,” he declares as he pushes his phone in his friend’s face, who just sighs deeply. “I have literally no choice but. Nick, I’ve gotta die now. Look.”

“Hold f*cking still, I can’t see,” Nick hisses. Snatches the phone from his hand, eyes narrowing as he looks at the picture, the text. “Ah,” he says.

“Don’t ah me, motherf*cker. This is a crisis,” Noah whisper-yells.

“Isn’t that fake Shein merch?”

“No, look,” Noah takes his phone back in hand, zooms in a specific spot on the picture, where they used to hand-sew the dotted O back in the very beginning when they only made clothes for themselves. “It’s literally from before we debuted. We never sold it.”

Nick stares at it for a bit longer, whistling. “That’s definitely from your wardrobe then. Holy sh*t. Talk about some desperate mating call.”

Noah’s eyes go big and round. “Shut up, it’s not, it’s just—”

“It’s just what?” Nick prompts with a raised brow, quite unimpressed. “Nevermind. I don’t want to hear it. Also, I think he meant this.”

He digs around on his own phone, then presents his screen that’s showing his text messages with Conor from ERRA, punctuated by pics and videos. One of them includes a very clear shot of Clint wearing the same BO hoodie Noah was wearing when he went to his place, and f*ck, he must’ve forgotten it there when he rushed out that day in fear of dying by the hands of Jesse Cash.

The texts that follow make Noah want to scream .

brother you will never believe this. look

you shoudlve seen isaac and bryans faces when clint pulled up to the function wearing noahs sh*t

i think there are some points made that i do not know the full history of

“This isn’t real,” Noah says. “This is fake. You’re lying. You’re both lying.”

Nick shrugs, drops his phone on his chest. “You already know what I think of it, buddy.”

He does; they’ve spoken about it enough. Hell, Noah melted Nick’s ears off since the very beginning about Bryan, enough to have anyone else being sick of it.

Nick knows. He knows everything.

You always go for the unavailable, don’t you? Knowing you won’t have them, ‘cause you’re convinced you don’t deserve them anyway. ‘Cause it’s easier to deal with the inevitable loss. Oli, Bryan. Both belong, married. And you’re always just, what? Collateral damage each time? Left to bleed with your heart out? Aren’t you tired, Noah? Isn’t this enough?

“I can’t just do… nothing,” he says, struggling a bit. Looks away, feeling that obnoxious pull in his chest again. “I can’t ignore it.”

“I don’t think you should, either.” Nick’s eyes soften a bit around the corners, and he smiles. “You’ll manage?”

f*ck no, Noah thinks. He can’t manage. He can’t handle this. There’s a part of him, the terrified, cowardly bit, that wants to run and hide, never reply. But if Bryan’s reached out first, if he made the effort to contact him after—and despite—it all, then Noah owes him just as much.

“I have to,” he whispers. “I just have to.”

“Godspeed, man.”

Noah isolates himself in the far back of the bus, which every other soul around collectively avoids because it’s usually where he holes up to write and produce, forgetting everything about hygiene and sleep. It’s not exactly dirty, but it’s not exactly clean either; just the right amount of coffee cups and empty Red Bull cans before it gets unlivable.

The “bed”—a bunk that’s slightly bigger than the other ones—is unmade, full of pages and pages of lyrics he’ll never look at again. Noah flops there, groaning.

“ f*ck .” He spends too f*cking long obsessing over a proper. Panicks and actually considers calling either Witt or Oli for help, because what the hell is he actually supposed to reply?

He stares too long at the picture. Bryan’s face, that f*cking hoodie. The fingers holding the phone. They used to send each other these pictures all day long—every angle, everywhere, with captions that would’ve landed their asses in the psych ward—and this one doesn’t feel any different.

Except it is. Except there are years between the last one Noah received and the current one.

Before he can regret it, he types in quickly:

cold water at 3 am

2014 warped tour

2010 bring me the horizon

He regrets it almost instantly. Almost. He could’ve just said you look good. He could’ve been a normal, functioning human being and said I like your hair. He could’ve actually replied to the question with you always wear anything better than anyone.

But he didn’t, yet his phone buzzes again.

gonna sell your sh*tty hoodie for 10k cash and say you’ve slept in it one week straight

Noah drops his phone twice—once right on the bridge of his nose, which f*cking hurt —trying to reply.

if you say you also slept in it you can stack another 20 grand on it

Bryan doesn’t really reply to his text. He calls him. Straight up just—calls him, like the old man that he is. God, is this what turning 30 does to you? Steals your common sense and replaces it with the sort of annoying unbothered attitude much older middle-aged people have that makes them call instead of f*cking text?

“f*ck, what the f*ck .”

Phone’s still ringing. Noah watches it like one would a time bomb, with a pending sense of doom slowly and irrevocably dawning on him.

Bryan is calling.

He hasn’t done that in a thousand years.

Noah’s not f*cking used to it anymore. He needs time, a rail of co*ke, a manual, and—

f*ck, maybe Bryan’ll wait for another thousand if he doesn’t answer right now.

“Hi,” he squeaks when he accepts the call—instantly cringes and hates himself for it, but f*ck it. “I take it back. Please don’t sell my hoodie. It—” Noah’s gonna die of a f*cking heart attack at this point, “—it looks perfect on you.”

Hearing Bryan’s laugh right off the bat feels like winning at life entirely. Looseens all the tensed muscles in his body, and Noah smiles at absolutely no one in the room, feeling all sorts of gushy.

“Wasn’t gonna,” he says. “Maybe in ten years when I’m poor and half-crippled because years of HC pits and non-stop touring will finally catch up to me.”

“Ten? You’ve got at least twenty in you still.”

“ Twenty ? Brother, at this rate, we’re both dead in 5 years,” he says with a short laugh.

Well, that’s most probably true. Noah always forgets about the damn soul-sucking EU festivals until he’s gotta pack for them without breaking down crying.

He rubs a hand on his face, suddenly feeling every exhausted bone in his body. “Don’t remind me.”

“Anyway,” Bryan says, “tell your boyfriend to stop parading around with your sh*t. I might do something drastic if I have to hear Isaac complain about it one more f*cking time.”

“Hold on,” Noah sputters, “hold the f*ck on. Repeat that?”

“Which part?”

Bryan sounds amused, and there might’ve been another little breath of laughter too. Noah can’t tell over the alarms going off in his f*cking head. His boyfriend? Isaac complaining about—about what?

“Wait,” he says with an urgent whisper. “Wait. You mean—oh my god—Clint and—Isaac?”

The worst thing is that he can actually believe it. He can see it. He thinks about it. Clint, you whor*, he thinks petulantly, just the tiniest bit annoyed. Maybe jealous. Maybe possessive. Which is insane, isn’t it? Which is totally insane.

“Yeah. Are you surprised?”

Not surprised. Definitely annoyed, though. In Noah’s humble opinion, Isaac doesn’t deserve Clint like that, but everyone always said he’s a terrible judge of character, so he’ll keep his opinion for himself this time.

Asks instead, “Doesn’t he have a girlfriend?”

“Everyone does. Except you.”

“Why am I catching strays like that?”

Bryan only laughs. Again. “Why, thought you were the only one he was seeing?”

Noah opens his mouth once, twice. Stammers a bit. “No—I mean maybe, but not like that, not with Isaac —”

“Guitarists, man,” he snorts. “f*cking slu*ts.”

Well, ain’t that just about right. Bryan and he are also guitarists, too. Bass and rhythm, two sides of the same slu*tty coin, so maybe he has a damned point about that common denominator amongst them.

He licks his lips. Cannot take the image of Clint with Isaac out of his head, and Clint with—

“Have you?”

“Have I?”

“You know. Clint and you.”

Bryan groans a bit. “Why would we ever do that?”

Because you’re both hot and you two f*cking would be so f*cking sexy I would absolutely sell a member of my band to the local cartel to watch , he wants to say, but keeps that thought for himself. Changes his phone to the other ear, and f*ck, the room’s somehow grown hotter now. He swallows.

“Are you thinking about it?” Bryan asks, voice definitely lower. Suggestive, too.

“Yeah.”

“Caveman behavior. You’re predictable.”

“Can you blame me? I’d kill to have you both.”

“Mh,” Bryan hums—that sound simply shouldn’t be allowed coming from him. “Greedy f*cker. What makes you think you could have both of us?”

“I have great hair and I ask nicely? I’m tall?”

“Clint’s taller.”

“f*ck off, he isn’t.”

Noah would know. They spent hours and hours debating this with the guys, and Jesse had them both stripped to their boxers one fine and absolutely chaotic evening after a show, both ERRA and Bad Omens drunk out of their minds, to see exactly who was taller. Noah won by a few precious millimeters.

“How would you even know that?” Noah asks.

“I know a bunch.”

“Know what I’d do if I had you both for myself only?”

“Jesus. You’re really into this, aren’t you?”

“Have you seen Clint? Have you seen yourself , Bry? C’mon. Any guy’d kill for either of you. Together? Don’t even get me started.”

“Choose.”

“Choose what?”

“Either one of us. Choose.”

Noah groans. “Do I have to?”

“Yes,” Bryan replies, flatly. There’s something else there too, but Noah can’t quite place his tone, and phone calls mean he can’t see his face either, so whatever. “World crumbles to sh*t, Clint and I are both infected, you’ve got only one antidote. Choose.”

“This is stupid,” Noah says. “Why are you making me kill my friend in your f*cked up little scenarios?”

“So you choose me.”

There’s a smile in his voice that you can hear very so clearly it unleashes the entire f*cking zoo inside Noah’s chest. Just like it used to, so very long ago. Noah would do anything to have Bryan close to touch right now, and that too kills him.

“Always, I guess,” he says, meaning it wholly.

Bryan’s Bryan. One of the very first real friends Noah’s made, and maybe more. f*ck, the way his heart thuds, definitely more.

“Clint should be allowed to hunt you down for sports, by the way.”

“I mean, f*ck yes, but Jesus. Why?”

“ I would hunt you down for sports if you were f*cking me only because you couldn’t f*ck somebody else.”

“This ain’t that. He’s a close friend. Clint and I were f*cking before you and—”

He stops there, for no other reason than his mouth drying up realizing that he has, in fact, f*cked Byran Garris.

Silence stretches for a bit. Bryan snorts.

“Cat got your tongue?”

“You did,” Noah mutters. Pulls at the loose thread of his shirt, feeling his entire face heat up in seconds.

Like, f*ck. He’s a grown man, but speaking to Bryan like that, with a late night phone call, lying on his bed and rolling around like some lovesick teenager is too much to handle. Puts him in a f*cking state.

He breathes a long breath out.

“Look,” Bryan suddenly says, and his voice wavers instantly, both falling into another silence that stretches a tad bit longer, until he speaks up again. “I don’t regret it. But it shouldn’t have been like that.”

Like that. In a damned bathroom stall, late at night, half drunk, half high, with so much they should’ve discussed before. Noah too scared, Bryan too angry, neither of them really understanding the full weight of acting on decade-old feelings. Not a f*cking day Noah spent without thinking about that night, remembering each detail, each word they said, each sound Bryan made. Desperately grasping at the memories of Bryan’s touch, how he’d clung to him. Almost sobbing.

Out of it. So damned out of it.

“I shouldn’t have…”

Bryan trails out again. Shouldn’t have? Of course. Noah’s chest hurts.

“I didn’t want it like this. I didn’t want to—” He stops again. “I pushed you. Pushed you too much. I shouldn’t have.”

“I wanted it,” Noah counters weakly. He did, and still does. So bad, so f*cking bad it wrenches his heart straight out of his chest and makes him lose his mind daily. “You’re good, Bry. It just happened. Don’t be sorry.”

“Shut up. It’s not you who caused that scene. It’s not you who broke edge after so many years, who drank and smoked and f*cking threw yourself at some guy. Begging. And it’s definitely not you who got f*cked like some cheap whor*.”

He sounds angry, then, but it’s not spontaneous, it’s not explosive; it’s the sort of finely-aged feeling that’s been nursed in one’s chest long enough to be a part of oneself. It’s tired. Bryan’s tired. Noah’s chest burns with how f*cking badly he wants to reach out, but he thinks—it wouldn’t be welcome.

Bryan wouldn’t want that, because no matter what, he’s still just some guy.

Some f*cking guy, nothing more.

“Cheap whor*, huh,” Noah forces himself to say, bouncing back on something that’s lighter, easier to deal with. Closes his eyes to keep potential tears at bay. “What does that make me ?”

“Just a whor*,” Bryan replies, with his usual monotonous, deadpan voice. Which would be funny, which it actually is, if Noah didn’t feel both too sad and too horny.

It’s the most confused boner he’s had in a long, long time.

“I’d do it again, y’know. Like, anytime. Like, right now.”

“whor*,” Bryan says again, and maybe there’s something absolutely wrong with Noah’s brain, maybe he’s looking desperately for connection where he shouldn’t, but to him it sounds a little affectuous, a little sensual.

sh*t, maybe Bryan’s right, maybe Noah’s really just a whor*, because despite the sadness—despite the pathetic yearning, just this is all he needs to feel his guts coil again. Veins alight, and pulse beating.

“What d’you say?” he asks, raspy.

Taking his chances, f*ck it. Maybe Bryan would just keep calling him names, and Noah could rub one real quick, get off to the sound of Bryan’s voice when he’s pouring all sorts of degrading things right in Noah’s ears to cover the sound of his heart breaking.

It sounds hot, actually. It sounds depraved, exactly what he needs.

“Are you alone?”

Oh.

“Yeah,” he chokes a bit.

“Are you touching yourself?”

Oh .

His dick twitches in his shorts. “Not yet.”

“Good,” Bryan says. “Don’t start. I’ll hang up. I f*cking suck at phone sex. I don’t even know how you’re supposed to do it.”

Noah’s immense disappointment is only countered by the hilarity of it all, and really, it’s the only reason he doesn’t start crying right there and then. Bryan’s doing his utmost best to drive him all sorts of crazy, but at least he’s being funny about it.

Noah respectfully takes his hand away from his underwear, sighing a bit.

“You’ve never done it?” he asks anyway.

“Never.”

“How do you and Tay do?”

Bryan grunts. Shuffling sounds from the other side of the line, then, “why do you think she’s always around? Stitched to my damned hip? We can’t f*cking do the long distance stuff. I’d just kill myself.”

“Checks out,” Noah nods to himself, because yeah, that sounds like the typical Bryan/Taylor codependent behavior—back then it was borderline psychotic from an outside perspective, and it wasn’t even a jealousy thing.

Then something pops in his mind, and it shoots right out of his mouth before he can actually think about it. “She ever f*cks you?”

There’s a long pause there. sh*t, he thinks. He bites his lip, pulse racing, waiting for an answer he knows has the full potential of completely destroying him.

“I,” is all Bryan replies.

“Yeah?” he presses, curious, too damn curious.

Another long, long pause. sh*t, Noah thinks again, because— I think the silence speaks volumes , something something, While She Sleeps ft. Oli Sykes of Bring Me The Horizon, circa 2017. Now we march to our own drums : the downright worrying beat of his heart against his ribcage waiting for Bryan to answer a very, very important question.

“She…” He breathes in sharply. “She does, sometimes.”

“That’s, uh, hot,” Noah stutters, voice a bit strained because he’s trying so damn hard to focus on not letting the filthy visions of exactly how hot he thinks it is flashing behind his lids consume him hole. “It’s really, really hot.”

God. Oh god. Taylar f*cking Bryan. Some things you just have to not ask about, otherwise—well, look at him now, hard again. As horny as he’d been starting this week, thinking he might just die like that. And, sh*t, he’s made it so far, successfully managed to steal answers straight out of Bryan, he can’t help but push his luck a little further still.

“Not to act like a caveman again, but, uh, think I could watch? Better. Think we could both f*ck you?”

“No. Die. Touch her and you die.”

Well. That’s also a freaky answer. He’ll take that. Noah smiles. “Alright, Terminator, put that gun away. No threesome ever. Got it. You can f*ck people but she can’t?”

“I—f*ck off. It’s not… I don’t f*ck anybody else, and I don’t like sharing.”

Nobody else, Noah thinks. Oh. So just him. Just silly old him. There’s something else in Bryan’s tone too, right there, a certain bite to his words which can’t be mistaken for anything other than reproach. Noah goes a little crazy. Laughs, incredulous, all sorts of mixed emotions washing over him.

“You’re jealous of Clint.”

“f*ck you.”

“That’s cute. For the record, I like my name better when you moan it.”

“Noah, shut your f*cking mouth.”

He’s flustered, god. Bryan Garris is flustered. His voice is a bit strangled, but definitely pissed too—Noah’s smiling stupidly, kind of just rolling around on the bed from one side to the next, this freaking close to start kicking his feet in the air. He could press on, really, but he thinks he might just lose his own composure, and he’s already hanging on by a single f*cking thread.

So, he changes tactics. Goes back to another important matter, even if this might also crucify him for good. Ignores his co*ck again, so very sadly.

“Right. So Tay f*cks you, huh.”

“She’s my girlfriend, you prick. Who else should be f*cking me?”

Me, he yells in his mind, so loud he wonders if he didn’t say it out loud in truth. Memememememe .

“Don’t make me say it.”

“Don’t say it.”

Noah obeys. He’s mature, see. He listens. “Even back then?”

“sh*t, especially back then. We did it because—”

Bryan falls into another one of those long, haunting silences that do nothing but absolutely fry Noah’s nerves to sh*t.

“Bryan?”

“You,” he says it like it burns his tongue, like the word tastes sour. Pulls a face to go with it surely too, Noah can imagine it too easily, the way he can imagine Bryan melting under his girlfriend’s touch. “Because of you. I wanted—I thought—you were right there—I needed to know—she was the first and only until—”

“Bryan,” Noah cuts him off because he’s the one losing his sh*t in its entirety right now—cannot believe what he’s hearing. Absolutely f*cking spiralling.

“Goddamn it. Until you.”

He can’t say much. He can’t say anything at all. His mind’s filled with memories that now make so much f*cking sense, realer than ever, and he has half a mind to just hang up on Bryan and relive them one by one by one. All the missing pieces, the ones he spent hours and hours agonizing over, they all fall into place, and he can’t believe how obvious it was in retrospect.

“The festival,” he whispers. “You didn’t tell me—god, you could’ve warned me—”

“About what? I’m not a damn virgin. There was nothing to tell.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You just did.”

“You f*cking asshole,” Noah’s pissed, now. Tastes something like regrets on his tongue for an event way out of his control. “I was your first? And you just… you just…”

He eats the rest of the words up, swallows them whole and hopes they don’t ever come back.

You cut me up and left me in f*cking pieces there. You were a wreck and left me in much worse shape.

“Look,” Bryan starts quietly, sounding a bit distant still, evasive, and Noah screws his eyes shut. “I never knew—I don’t like men—I really don’t, you’re the only one I’ve ever—there’s nobody else that made me… Taylar helped a lot, alright? Back then. When we hung out, and you were so f*cking—god. Tay helped me know these things about myself—sort this f*cking need out, and—”

“Bryan, stop,” feels too raw, too vulnerable, too heavy, stuff they should be telling each other late at night tucked in a corner of reality somewhere, too close to touch. Not like this. “Don’t make us do this over the phone.”

“Why? Because we’re not on speaking terms anymore?”

Here comes resentment, now. Maybe hurt. Too much f*cking hurt. The years gone by and nothing to ever justify why they did.

“Yeah,” Noah replies softly.

And where Noah doesn’t push, Bryan pulls. A rabid dog. “But we’re on f*cking terms?”

“We would be if you yelled at me very meanly and very loudly right now and it made me nut but you won’t either, so.”

Bryan’s breathing comes out a bit rushed too. He snorts, then laughs. It sounds a little wet, like his nose is full because he’s trying hard not to cry. “God. I hate you.”

“I don’t.” How could he ever? “I miss you. I miss you everyday, Bry.”

And it’s not the horny, caveman parts of his brain speaking. It’s everything else. Heart, mostly. Body, too, remembering all too well the days they spent huddled close in Knocked Loose’s sh*tty van, sweating their asses off but still refusing to put distance between them as they worked on unserious songs that were deleted instantly after, or the nights they fell asleep on strangers’ couches, high off their minds, waking up groggy and disoriented but at least together, always together.

The night they f*cked in way they should’ve never, finding each other again after so long apart, both hurt and changed beyond measure.

Everything else. Every little thing. When no answer comes, Noah moves under the covers, hides under them just to have something weigh down on him—the comforting, glorious warmth of plaids he’s been hoarding and stealing all tour like a maniac.

Because he can’t have the real thing. What he really, really wants. He waits, he just waits. He’s been waiting for a lot of things in his life, so it’s fine. Or not, but it barely matters.

“Yeah,” Bryan finally says, his voice quieter than ever. Sounds far, far away, even if he most probably has the phone close. “Miss you too.”

Noah smiles at a pitiful little thing. Shakes himself away mentally from that horrible and sad part of his mind. “You could sound a little more convincing.”

“Urgh. This is why we can’t have nice things.”

“You’re pretty nice, for starters. And I’ve had y—”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Bryan cuts him off, but still laughs a bit. “You’ve been hanging out around Oli a lot, haven’t you? You’re mouthier than you’ve ever been.”

Caught red f*cking handed, it seems. Maybe Noah’s learnt a thing or two around the Sykes—the man himself, the legend, the rizz master and his menace of a wife who flirts more than she breathes—and he can’t say they haven’t rubbed off on him. In every possible way, really.

“You could… say that,” he says, idly scratching his chest.

“whor*,” Bryan says immediately, and—what the hell.

Noah didn’t say anything incriminating and still Bryan just knew that he and Oli were not just hanging out. Is it weird that Noah thinks it’s nice? Maybe. Is it even weirder than it makes him happy like some smitten idiot this time? Definitely.

“Didn’t you?”

“f*ck my headliner? No, Noah. That’s just you.”

“First of all, everyone f*cks their headliners. Also, c’mon—not even Keith Buckley?”

Bryan’s reply is a muffled little f*ck off than Noah knows is some sort of admission—not that Bryan actually did bed one of his idols the way Noah unshamfully did, but that there was definitely more than mere admiration back in the days when he used to go on obsessive rants about Every Time I Die.

Noah’s chest squeezes a bit. Thinking back, reminiscing so much of what they used to share, realizing how much he’s missed this exactly, the long talks over the phone or on voice chat as they both destroyed their KDA on Call of Duty just because they were laughing too damn hard to actually play the game.

Noah’s missed it like hell.

“You used to think you’d never make it,” he says. “Played every horrible venue in the country and still thought it’d lead you nowhere. But it did. You guys toured with ETID, Bring Me, all the greatest. That’s f*cking huge, Bry.”

“Yeah,” Bryan says quietly. “It’s… yeah. Don’t know how we managed. It’s still… f*ck, it’s terrifying.”

He sounds like he is, too; he sounds unsure, like Knocked Loose’s success, and everything that it entails, is still too big for him to handle, and all he can do is cradle it carefully against his chest, desperately holding on. And Noah knows that feeling—he can relate, just as terrified everything is temporary (or worse, a fluke; a glitch; entirely fake)—but he’s never known that side of Bryan.

The Bryan in his mind is larger than life; bigger than any insecurity, and f*cking fearless. Didn’t care about success, reputation, or any goddamn thing. But it’s been years. So, so many years. The Bryan in Noah’s mind and the one he is speaking to are not the same anymore, and it’s—

f*ck, it’s killing him.

“Do you want to,” he starts, and bites his damned tongue. Can’t say the words he actually wants to say, ask for something as silly as just hanging out.

See each other again, on better terms. No need for any physical proximity, no need for anything other than the two of them.

Bryan’s silent, but even like that he’s a comforting presence; listening to him breathe is enough to soothe out some, if not all of his own anxiety.

“Are you finishing that thought, or can I finally sleep?”

Oh. He’s stayed up to speak to him, Noah thinks. When was the last time they did this? When was the last time he’s spoken to anyone like that, for so long?

His heart hammers against his chest. He feels small. He feels 17 years old all over again, afraid of what the future holds for him, smoking and drinking so he doesn’t have to think.

“Still no phone sex?” he asks—more as a distraction than anything, really.

Bryan isn’t laughing this time, but it’s a close thing. “Goodnight, Noah.”

Noah’s gotta get fully burrito style under the covers to deal with this. With everyone that’s happened tonight, but especially for having to say goodbye again after so long.

“Night,” he manages to croak out.

He doesn’t sleep, after all. Of course not. Just lies in his pile of junk, basks in his misery like the loser that he fundamentally is.

“I’m not crying,” Noah says, and—sniffs loudly.

“You actually are.”

“I’m f*cking not. Die. f*ck off. Die die die.”

But he is. He’s crying stupidly over stuff that surely barely matters. Bryan’s looking at him like one would a lion in a cage, sad but fascinated still, afraid to move to not upset an already agitated beast. They stay like that for a long while; Noah’s tears falling uselessly, Bryan stuck inside of his own body, unable to help him.

To reach out.

Bryan wishes he knew how to comfort people. He wishes he had anything other than prayers to offer. He wishes he knew how to convey emotions without screaming them.

He wishes for a lot of f*cking thing, and makes sure to kill all hope before it takes root in his chest.

They text more, after that.

Not that often, but if Noah’s gotta send a hateful message to a Redditor, he runs it by Bryan first to make it ten times worse. Nobody would ever believe you if you told them Bryan Garris had the meanest, filthiest, rudest mouth, but he did, and it was perfect when you needed to make sure someone would never dare post on the Internet again.

Sometimes Bryan would call before a show. Sometimes there’d be Nicko, Kevin 1 or Kevin 2 in the midst of heated arguments in the background. Sometimes Taylar would be there when they facetime, and it felt nice speaking with her again, reconnecting, hearing her laugh. The three of them, like they used to.

Most times, like tonight, Bryan sends him something (a random picture of himself during his day with the most unholy caption ever) that makes him lose his entire f*cking mind and stare at it so long his eyes sting and his brain freezes.

Right before a f*cking show too where he needs both, that is.

“So, Nicholas snitched,” Clint says, appearing out of thin air and royally seating himself down on his lap.

Noah’s brain is not quite all there yet, so it takes him a ridiculous amount of time to assess the situation. He’s still reeling over the last message Bryan sent him, phone between his hands, while also having the Clint Tustin in his lap telling him his best friend’s a filthy crook who just betrayed him.

It’s a lot to deal with all of a f*cking sudden.

“He… snitched,” Noah tries, blinking a bit. Looks for clues on Clint’s face, but there’s nothing but his signature little smile, the way hair falls down on his eyes, shadowed by the cap on his head.

The You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To cap.

“Oh my god, he snitched,” Noah says again as the realization dawns on him with pure horror.

“He sure did,” Clint laughs, too joyous for a guy that he will have no choice but to murder so he doesn’t go around spilling his shameful little secret.

Clint’s attention suddenly falls on Noah’s phone, undoubtedly seeing the contact’s name, the message. Eyes flickering back up to meet Noah, he grins a little bit more.

“Nick was about to spill everything, but I told him I’d rather hear it from the guy who was thinking about another guy f*cking me.”

“Don’t say it like that,” Noah whines, feeling his cheeks burn—he tries to squirm away from Clint, but it’s no use when he’s basically making a hostage of him at that instant.

While laughing. While absolutely enjoying the fact that he’s torturing him. “Buy me dinner and give me all the funny details and I might forgive you for not doing it sooner.”

“I can’t,” he squeaks. “I’ll buy you dinner. But the funny details might just kill me, Clint. Like, genuinely. Like, totally.”

Clint winks.

“That’s exactly why I want them. Tonight , Noah.”

“I’ve gotta go back home for a bit, visit an uncle,” Bryan says, voice wavering a bit.

Stumbling on words, tone almost suspicious, and it always sounds like he’s lying, but only if you don’t know him. Noah recognizes it as what it truly is—vulnerability. Bryan doesn’t want to say this. He doesn’t want to share that sort of truth, of pain; has to dig inside of himself forcefully in order to do so.

Noah can only wait.

“I... sh*t.”

The line goes quiet for a bit, with only the sounds of cars rushing by. Bryan’s most likely walking outside, trying to clear his thoughts—called Noah either impulsively, or because he was thinking about him. Either way it makes something flip in Noah’s belly, and he has to in turn go sit outside his house, closing the glass door behind him for more privacy. Not that any of his friends would eavesdrop, but it feels like he owes Bryan this.

He owes Bryan a whole lot, actually.

“Taylar coming with you?”

“Not this time. I need to do this on my own. I need… I don’t know. Gonna be alone.”

Noah walks to the far back of their little garden, pacing uselessly, a weird feeling in his chest. It’s too hot to be wearing a hoodie, and the temperature change from his AC-frozen room to the humid and hot outside is kind of killing him, but he endures.

He kicks a rock, laughs a bit. “Didn’t you say you guys were stitched by the hip?”

“That’s exactly why I gotta go solo. We’re together all day, everyday. 24/7. I don’t mind. Will never mind, actually. I lose it when she’s not around, but you know that. The festival, remember? Anyway, it’s just—sometimes it goes like—I need to go away, so I can learn to miss you again. I need to be without you, so I can learn to be with you again.”

He stays quiet. Something heavy lodges itself in Noah’s chest, and he’s got to breathe deeply to make room for it.

“My bad. f*ck, don't mention Tay around me or I just—I get sappy as hell.”

“I know,” Noah smiles. “I remember. It’s…”

It tugs at the heart, really; something that fills his veins with warmth and envy both. A love like that—a love like what 80% of them write about as a full-time job—is a lifetime of work. He’s seen it firsthand, years back, how much Taylar and Bryan meant to each other, two souls so intertwined you’d have trouble mistaking them for anything other than lovers who found each other in every universe, lifetime after lifetime.

“It’s good, Bry. I’m glad you guys have each other.”

“Yeah, well. Yeah.”

It’s too hot outside. Noah could go back inside, chill in his room, which wouldn’t change a thing, but he’s buzzing with anxious energy at the mere idea of speaking to Bryan, can’t f*cking stay put for one second.

In case he needs to scream. In case he needs to start running. In case—f*ck, in case anything happens.

“Look, man,” Bryan says, and stops right there, once again. Never crosses that line—just retreats, disappears.

Leaves Noah hanging, waiting behind.

Like there’s something he wants to say, but is unable to. Like he’s called specifically for that, but is already regretting. So Noah waits. He’s waiting, like he’s been all this time, for something he knows won’t ever come.

His throat closes up unexpectedly. It gets harder, this whole thing. Being on speaking terms again, and—

Nothing else. Nothing from Bryan on the other side, again.

Noah can’t really do this, today.

“I’ve gotta go,” he manages to say as steadily and casually as he can; trying to make it sound like he’s got things to do, places to be. To sound normal. “Text me, about your uncle. And the trip.”

“Sure,” Bryan sounds breathless. Unlike himself. “You’ll be around.”

Noah can’t decide if it’s a question or an affirmation. Can’t decide if he wants to hang up and never answer the phone again when Bryan calls so he never feels that thing snaking around his heart or if he wants to stay right there and listen to Bryan make no sense for the next hour, day, week. Can’t decide if wanting to yell his own lyrics from bad decisions in the middle of a conversation is corny as hell or the realest thing he’d ever do.

Can’t decide a damned thing, so he says, “always,” and doesn’t wait for Bryan’s reply before hanging up.

He doesn’t look at his phone for a long, long time after that.

Bryan's laptop is an old and battered MacBook that refuses to cooperate nine times out of ten. As a show of either complete pettiness or stupidity, he refuses to change it unless it wheezes out its very last breath. He shouldn't, really, not when it's full of songs and lyrics and compositions that if lost would probably drive him straight to self elimination, but whatever; right now it's the one and only thing that grants him an evening with Noah to speak about music, and he hopes to every god, above and below, that his laptop survives at least this next hour.

“Don't expect sh*t,” he says as an introduction. Hands shaking a bit over the keyboard, because f*ck, he’s showing Noah his stupid, stupid songs; an integral part of himself.

Noah’s got the headphones already on his head, barely listening to what Bryan’s got to say. “Yeah, whatever. Bring the sauce in.”

God, it’s unnerving. Noah’s eyes are bright and wide and focused, and he’s buzzing at the mere idea of listening to Bryan’s sh*tty music, and it’s—it’s a lot to process. So when Bryan finally presses play and lets him listen to the demos he’s worked on sleep-deprived and so f*cking high it was a miracle he was conscious at all, his heart pounds and his hands shake and he feels like running away but he stays dutifully put, and waits.

He doesn’t look at Noah. He doesn’t think he can. But he does hear him curse excitedly or yell duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude or move his feet in beat. Bryan’s sweating and barely breathing and frankly kind of losing his sh*t but Noah’s reaction is so genuine that he just about manages not to throw up everywhere.

“This is insane,” Noah’s blabbering; rocking back and forth excitedly on the bed, where they’re both sitting side by side.

“Uhm, I mean, they’re just like, they’re nothing.” Bryan’s making no sense; can feel himself grow more and more embarrassed by the second, close to imploding. Noah’s contagious joy doesn’t help much either, cause he ends up laughing too despite the anxiety clogging his veins. “Haven’t shown the guys yet. They’ll think it’s ass,” he adds after a bit, sighing.

“Are you insane? Just wait until you all jam to this sh*t together. The album’s gonna be f*cking huge.”

Bryan blinks a few times, glances away. The damned album. Recording on the road isn’t exactly easy, but they’re making it happen, and Laugh Tracks is closer to completion than it has ever been.

“These aren’t for the album,” he adds, voice dropping a bit. “They’re—it’s more…” Personal. They’re personal, and he’s not quite sure he wants to share with anyone else too, but Noah is Noah; there isn’t much Bryan wouldn’t tell him.

Except—

“sh*t’s nuts either way,” Noah shrugs. “But f*ck, man. How do you scream like that?”

He’s leaning closer, features all scrunched up together, like some confused, cute little beast that's as interested as it is scared of you. A feral stray cat you could pick up off the streets and give a lovely home to.

Bryan's heart kicks a bit in his chest. Noah is—too close. He tries not to notice the light freckles on his nose, the strange smell of his hair, half chemical flowers and half pot, the tattoos peeking out from his wide collar.

“I dunno,” he says, then shrugs too. “I just—it just comes out like that.”

“Lucky. Wish I could say the same.”

“You're the better singer,” Bryan blurts out too quickly, too sincerely; and he means it, so much that when Noah blinks in surprise and his expression slowly morphs into one of genuine happiness, earnest, he thinks that if he were to die right in the next second, he'd be just fine with it.

Noah knocks his knee hard enough to leave bruises. It instantly makes Bryan retaliate with a punch to the shoulder that's more pure instinct than deliberate action and Noah yelps before it turns into a giggle.

“You scream like a f*cking banshee but you still punch like a girl,” Noah says, a sh*t-eating grin on his face that makes Bryan’s chest do weird f*cking things.

Sitting too close still, radiating warmth, the actual sun next to Bryan's cold limbs.

This is stupid, Bryan thinks. He shouldn't feel so rattled by Noah's mere presence next to him. Not now, or ever; like this, or in any other way. He’s got a girlfriend, for f*ck’s sake, one that he loves and cherishes more than anything. Yet—

Except—

“I’ve gotta go,” he closes his laptop shut a little too violently, jumps to his feet.

“We’re ordering food in like, twenty,” Noah says, looking at him with his brows furrowed, confused. “Sure you don’t wanna stay?”

“Nah, it’s fine. Tomorrow we’re hitting the road at like, 5, so yeah. Can’t f*ck around too much.”

“Yeah, I get it.”

Noah flops back down on his bed, hands crossed on his chest as he looks at him move at the speed of light, stuffing his laptop in his backpack, putting his hoodie and cap back on. Bryan, on the other hand, does his best not to meet his eyes, afraid of what he might find there, but even worse, afraid he’ll cave in and stay.

Noah gets up from his bed when he’s ready, goes to open the door for him. Bryan just stands silently there for a short, breathless while, looking at Noah’s long figure leaning against the door, waiting for him.

It suddenly feels like the hardest thing he’ll ever have to do—leaving.

Leaving Noah, specifically.

“Not sure when we’ll hit Cali again,” he says hesitantly, fingers digging into the straps of his backpack. Chewing on the inside of his mouth, feeling a mix of every emotion on earth at that instant. Weird. So f*cking weird.

“Touring, man,” Noah sighs, then shrugs. “It’s like that.”

It’s a little clipped, a little distant; Bryan doesn’t like how it makes him feel, and wishes there was more. Wishes Noah would say and do more. That he’d react differently to the news of not seeing each other again for a long time. That he’d f*cking look at Bryan, for once, and not examine the chipped black paint on his nails like it’s the most interesting thing in the room right now.

Bryan’s here. He’s right f*cking here.

Still wishing that Noah would say something. Do something, anything. Reach out, bridge the distance. Because Bryan’s stuck inside of his own mind and body, because he’s unable to do anything but hope.

Even when he promised himself he wouldn’t.

And what for, anyway? Hope, for f*cking what? Bryan hates it. He hates wanting helplessly for the nameless, shapeless thing he longs for. He hates the confusing whirlwind of thoughts and emotions in his head. He hates the twisted, crooked need he feels looking at Noah. A guy. A friend. He hates himself, for straying so damn far away from the right path there’s no f*cking light anymore.

And he hates that Noah still isn’t looking at him.

“Talk to you soon?” he says around the lump in his throat. “I’ll text.”

“Sure,” Noah nods.

That’s it, then. Bryan forces motion into his body, despite feeling like his limbs are filled with concrete, rooted into place. When he passes Noah he opens his mouth to say something, but before he can even try he’s engulfed into the warm, comforting heat of a set of arms, and his chest caves in on itself.

Bryan won’t cry. He f*cking won’t. And if Noah hears him suddenly gasp and make the most pathetic sound ever, he doesn’t comment on it.

“Don’t be a stranger,” Noah tells him, face buried in his hair. “And don’t be a dick when you get popular.”

Bryan barely manages one syllable out, but even then it cracks under its own weight. “Yeah.”

“Dude,” Jordan says.

“Look, man. I can explain.”

He can’t, not really. There’s like 0 explanation that wouldn’t sound desperate and insane and frankly kind of pathetic. Jordan looks at him for a long, long time, then sighs. Pats his shoulder like one would a sick dog’s head.

“Your therapist is a con artist and you should consider doing drugs again.”

“That’s just f*cking mean,” Noah replies, but Jordan’s already gone, busying himself in the parlor’s adjacent room.

Noah lies back down on the tattoo bench and tries not to regret this before they even started. Alright. Alright, so maybe he’s being an idiot. Maybe this is too much, maybe this is ridiculous, a hasty decision he’ll lose sleep over by the time he actually realizes what he’s done, but f*ck it, whatever.

Sometimes an album f*cks you right up and you need to carry it with you forever.

Sometimes a tattoo will save you.

Even if your dick of a friend is being an asshole about it.

Jordan comes back with gloves on, kicking a stool closer to Noah’s bench. “I’ll make you pay for this one, you know?”

“You’re a prick,” Noah grumbles. Settles back more comfortably, hands crossed behind his neck, closing his eyes so he doesn’t have to see Jordan actually apply the stencil on his skin.

Which he does silently. Doesn’t say anything else after as he starts working the lines on the tat, and doesn’t take long wrapping it up either, adding another one of his artworks on Noah’s already heavily painted body.

“Looks good,” he says.

Noah trusts him. No need to look to know it’s exactly what he wanted, doesn’t think he can either. Jordan eyes him suspiciously, quirking a questioning brow at the way he makes no move to go to the mirror.

“Nick knows?” he asks, smiling as he takes the gloves off.

“Nick does not know,” Noah answers, pushing hair away from his face. “He’s gonna kill me for sure, but like, whatever. I’m a grown man and I’m allowed to be stupid in my free time.”

“Sure thing, bud,” Jordan laughs. “Wanna touch up the Jesus tat a bit?”

Noah only thinks about it for one second. “Not yet.” He gets up, dressing up quicker than he probably should, wincing when the saniderm pulls on his skin. “Thanks, Jord.”

Despite what he said earlier, Jordan doesn’t make him pay. They hang out a bit, eat together; Jordan’s going away soon for his honeymoon, Noah’s touring, so he makes sure he gets some quality time with a close friend.

Later that week when he’s backstage after a show, sweaty and tired and in the process of undressing, he snaps a quick picture of his tattoo—that is also half a thirst trap, let us be honest here—and sends it to a group chat he shares with both Sykes. Captions it is this too much and waits for the inevitable.

He gets a reply from them both almost instantly, the pair always in sync.

happy pride month c: from Alissa, and fa*ggot from Oli.

Charming as always in their own special way. Noah stares at his screen for a long, long time.

It’s definitely too much, then.

Bryan mulls over it for way too f*cking long before he manages to open his mouth and say a single word. And even then, his voice breaks.

“I think I’m going crazy, Tay.”

She looks up from her phone, shifts a bit against him. They’re slouching in the back of the van, just the two of them tonight, the rest of the band probably getting sh*tfaced somewhere. Taylar reading on her phone, Bryan slowly losing his mind.

“I’m listening,” she says, clicking her phone shut. Features softening the more she looks at him; Bryan’s heart twists painfully in his chest. “Is it, you know…”

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s. f*ck. I think I—”

She straightens a bit so she can loop one arm around his shaking frame, pulling him to her chest. Bryan buries his face against her neck and just breathes, in and out. On and on.

“You’ll be alright,” she tells him. Rakes her fingers on the back of his neck, slowly. “It’s hard knowing yourself. Or, at least, learning to know yourself.”

“I’m sorry,” he’s choking on his words now. Overwhelmed in so many ways he doesn’t know how to untangle one feeling from the other. But he’s got Taylar; she’s here, so he knows he’ll be just fine. “I didn’t want it to be like that.”

“Oh, baby. Trust me, I’ve seen it coming,” she laughs. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll help. You know I always will.”

He trusts her. He trusts her with everything, always.

He’ll be fine—they’ll figure it out. That’s all that matters.

It happens one fine Sunday evening when everyone is pretty much just killing time in stupid ways.

There’s a knock on the door nobody’s willing to answer for at least five good minutes, even though there are literally three of them right by the f*cking driving seat, chatting and eating.

Who the f*ck would come knocking at their damned tour bus door on a f*cking Sunday in the middle of goddamn Ohio?

“Jesus, alright,” Noah yells from the absolute back of the bus.

Noah’s forced to actually move because all of his bandmates are assholes, and he’s barely even clothed when he makes his angry way to the doors and opens it wide with an annoyed frown barring his face.

“Hi,” Bryan says.

And smiles.

Bryan’s right there, smiling.

And Noah’s standing in front of him stupidly. In shorts only, sun-burnt, pissed, tired.

“Bryan,” he says breathlessly, and—

Kind of just feels every single one of his worries evaporate in an instant. Kind of just feels the weight of the world lift up his shoulders. Kind of just feels like he can do tomorrow, and the day after, the ones weeks away from now. He feels happy, in a way he hasn’t felt for a long time, and kind of just forgets about everything and everyone as he leaps down the steps that separate him from Bryan and wraps his arms around him whole.

Holds him so, so tight.

“Jesus,” Bryan groans. “You’re kinda suffocating me here.”

“I don’t care,” Noah chokes a bit. “What the hell are you even doing here?”

“Getting smothered to death by tall sweaty naked men, apparently.”

Noah’s about to smother him even harder when all his friends get out of the bus, fresh clothes and sunglasses on. He detaches himself from Bryan only because there is definitely something going on that he is not aware of. Something fishy. Something—

“Thought you’d never make it,” Matt sighs, as everyone either claps Bryan on the back or one-arm hug him under Noah’s round, incredulous eyes.

Damn it all, Bryan’s sheepish smile is still everything to him. “Ohio f*cking sucks. Got lost twice.”

So they knew. Everyone was fully aware Bryan would come, and by the complicit looks they all exchange, the knowing smiles and happy glances; the way Jolly’s tries his best to stifle his laugh while Folio’s smokes quietly, without comment for once, to Nick and Bryan chatting with one another while looking pointedly at Noah; f*ck, they all prepared this.

They don’t intend on staying either. Giving them the space to hang out, private, cozy. Giving them the time to catch back the years they lost.It’s a nice gesture. It’s—a lot, actually.

Water fills his eyes, slightly, but just enough to make his vision blurry. If anyone notices it, they don’t comment, and if anyone has anything to say about it, they keep their mouths zipped shut for once. It’s silly, but it means the world to him.

They wave their goodbyes. Give Noah very, very meaningful looks before going, too, Jolly telling him to be a responsible adult for once, while Nick just gives him a thumbs up.

Then it’s just him and Bryan, and it’s awkward as hell.

“Uh, so, yeah,” Noah mutters, scratching the back of his head. “Wanna come inside, I guess?”

Bryan’s lips curl. “Sure. I’ll come inside.”

Noah ignores the look on his face and the way he says that, spinning around to rush to the bus.

Bryan follows, and unceremoniously throws his backpack on the driver’s seat, not asking before he makes himself comfortable in the little foyer, fishing his phone out. Noah disappears for a second only to come back with a shirt on.

Bryan looks him up and down, and laughs. “What was the point of that?”

Noah’s cheeks flush a bit. He doesn’t exactly know why he felt the urge to dress up, only that he did—maybe because Bryan’s around, maybe because Noah doesn’t feel as comfortable as he used to wearing nothing but his skin, whichever.

It’s not worth thinking about, and he’s got no answer, so he busies himself with rummaging through whatever food they have left.

“Beer?”

“Nah, water’s fine.”

Noah takes too long deciding what he wants. He’s buzzing with indescribable energy at the mere fact of being in the same vicinity as Bryan Garris once more and feels like he needs something to dull that edge, but he doesn’t want to end up as sh*tfaced as he was at the festival. Doesn’t want to embarrass himself, even if a blunt right now would be so f*cking welcome.

Water it is, then. He walks back with two freezing cold bottles, handing one over.

“Water,” he says.

Nice conversation skills there, Sebastian, he thinks, cursing himself internally.

Bryan glances up at him from where he’s sitting, stares for longer than necessary, still smiling a bit. Noah doesn’t think the red on his cheeks has ever gone, because he still feels them burn even just looking in his eyes. His pulse is quickening, too, and when Bryan finally lifts a hand to accept the bottle, he doesn’t take it, rather reaches for Noah’s wrist—wrapping his fingers around and pulling slightly.

“Show me,” he says.

It’s like Noah’s tongue loses all f*cking function. And his brain, too. He looks at where Bryan’s fingers are touching his skin, and rasps, “show you what?”

“My song,” Bryan makes Noah spin on himself a little, then reaches with his other hand for the hem of his shirt. “On your body.”

Noah’s heart pounds. Oh f*ck. f*ck, the tattoo—Noah’s forgot about it. And he was shirtless, just minutes ago, so there’s no way Bryan missed it or mistook that thing for anything other than what it is.

How could you, when you knew? When you wrote that song yourself ?

“Maybe it’s not your song,” Noah whispers, still not trusting his voice. Feels his knees go weak when Bryan’s fingers skim the skin of his hip, just lightly. “Maybe you’re either blind or delusional or both.”

“It’s not?” Bryan’s eyes crinkle a bit. “Prove it, then. Take your shirt off.”

“It’s not—it’s nothing, really, it’s just—f*ck. Damn it.”

Having Jesus tattooed on his back looks rad as f*ck and surely is of great assistance when he’s in desperate need of guidance, but right now even the Christ himself couldn’t help him out of that situation.

What the f*ck was he even thinking, going to Jordan that day? Knowing that Bryan would inevitably see it one day—whether directly or because a picture of him shirtless would be shared online, one way or another?

Noah doesn’t particularly regret it, but holy sh*t. He thought he’d have more time. He thought the tat would at least have time to settle on his body—and mind—before Bryan got to see it.

He just never f*cking expected the man to drop by unannounced right in his bus.

“Don’t get all coy with me now,” Bryan’s voice drops a bit, as he pulls on Noah’s wrist again. “Not after everything.”

Noah’s belly flips. He’s not going to survive this, is he? He’s not going to make it out alive tonight.

“f*ck,” he says, and—takes his damned shirt off.

Bryan’s eyes go immediately to the tattoo; on his flank, side of his right pec, where there was some blank space left. The new design’s eating up a bit of his chest tat, but it fits just perfectly with the theme; even if Noah didn’t specifically ask for it, he remembers the way his heart skipped, how his breath caught when he saw that Jordan had understood.

Noah’s scared to look at Bryan’s face, now. He keeps his eyes closed, breathes through his nose, and just waits. Shivers hard when he feels the cold touch of fingers on skin.

“And all the wines will find their way,” Bryan recites slowly, “through the dirt and hardened decay…”

There’s a hollowness in his voice that’s only matched by the empty space inside Noah’s ribcage; there’s a reverence in the way he touches his skin that Noah offers too when he puts his own hand over Bryan’s, and finds the courage to open his eyes and look at him.

“The wind and rain will force decay,” he murmurs. “Moss covers all.”

It’s a simple tattoo. A house, wines, moss. What used to be a home. If Bryan remembers those days, he’ll recognize the façade; he’ll know why these two songs hit harder than the others on an album that overall left Noah feeling so, so raw.

“You’re a lot to deal with, you know that?” Bryan asks, hands dropping down. “You’re…”

Noah feels like crawling out of his own skin. And it’s not the intensity of Bryan’s eyes that undoes him, nor the tangible emotion in his voice when he speaks, but something else entirely.

Something with roots that go way, way deeper. And he’s not exactly insecure about his body, it’s not a visceral physical reaction; even if he used to be, years and years back. Until the void in his chest got so bad it didn’t even matter anymore what the outside looked like; until he grew, put on mass, and the same thing gnawed at his insides.

He used to be, when he first met Bryan. But even then it never felt like he had his entire heart on display, beating right outside of his chest. Bleeding all over. It never felt like this.

sh*t. Everything’s changed, hasn’t it? They have changed. No matter how much it felt like going back in time with the silly texts, the calls; no matter how much Noah tried to think what they shared could be brought back into its former shape; they’ve changed.

Moss got to them, too.

The realization hits him like a freight train, his chest knifed right open.

“I can’t—I can’t do this,” Noah says, and—crumbles.

Stumbles back, sitting down before he actually falls under the pressure in his chest. Trying to breathe. Trying so damn hard to just breathe, and it feels like he still doesn’t know how to f*cking live inside of his own body. With his body, nevermind close to someone else’s.

“Noah—”

Bryan reaches for him and Noah’s immediate reaction is one of terror. “Don’t,” he says, f*cking struggles to.

He almost recoils, shudders with the force of trying to keep that movement inside of him, not back away from what he yearned for so, so desperately. Because he’s terrified of falling apart if Bryan touches him now. He’s terrified of getting what he wants, because he wouldn’t know how to ever let go after.

f*ck.

This is f*cking stupid, he thinks. Wants to scream and scream and scream. Bryan actually came; he’s taking the time to visit him, his friends all kindly deserted the place so they could have the bus for themselves, and Noah’s already in over his head.

He's spinning, losing control. Suffocating. “Don’t hurt me,” he says weakly.

Full circle, isn’t it? Bryan had reached out for him last time, put his entire trust into him, knowing he wouldn’t let him fall, knowing he would be there even as his entire world blew to sh*t. And Noah had been. Rock solid. Now it’s Noah who falls apart, afraid, so afraid of more hurt.

And he doesn’t think Bryan’s willing to catch him.

“How could I ever?” Bryan whispers, sounds just as wounded. “You’re… Noah, you’re my—”

Noah cuts him off before he finishes that sentence, too aware that he would’ve had to pick himself back in pieces hearing it in full. Whatever word, whichever way, he wouldn’t have made it out alive.

“Why have you come? Why would you come? What’re you doing here, Bryan?”

“Visiting a friend,” Bryan blinks. Seems confused at first, then hurt, then angry, but it all washes out almost instantly, gets replaced by exhaustion.

“Are we?”

“You’re being… Jesus, Noah. What’s happening?”

Noah laughs through the lump in his throat, pushes a hand against his face.

“I have no idea. It’s fine. I’m happy, Bry. Everything’s fine. I just feel f*cking jaded when I think too much about you. And it’s just—it’s too much. You’re too much. You can’t just drop by and expect me to not feel…” He laughs again, a wet sound. “Knocked the f*ck loose.”

This time, when Bryan moves, it doesn’t feel as terrifying. He settles on the floor beside Noah, even if the BO tour bus is a damn nice vehicle with couches and seats and one actual bed they could just move to. But it feels safer to do, grounded. It feels better like that.

“We can’t go back,” Bryan says. Rests his head against Noah’s shoulder, closes his eyes. “But we can’t go on either. So what now?”

“I start bawling on your lap and you pet my hair,” Noah says, only half sarcastically.

He could do that. He could just do that. Half of him wants to. The other half is still terrified this is the last real time he’s ever seeing Bryan; it feels too much like goodbyes, like wrapping up loose ends. Except theirs have never been loose to begin with—they just disappeared, went with the winds, the same way they went around the globe forgetting about each other.

“Go on, try gayer,” Bryan snorts. “You can always outdo yourself.”

“We could f*ck and hate ourselves for it. We could not f*ck and still hate ourselves for it.”

“We should’ve done so when you had prettier hair and weren’t this depressing.”

“I used to cry myself to sleep listening to Losing Dogs because of you, don’t f*cking talk to me about how depressing I am now when you’ve never seen how real this sh*t gets,” Noah snaps, and it sounds hysterical to his own ears even if he barely raise his voice.

He knows Bryan’s going to laugh before hearing it; can see it in the way his face creases, the slight shake of his shoulders. And when he does, he laughs with his entire body; presses his face against Noah’s shoulder to muffle it, but still it resonates in the bus and makes Noah’s chest a little lighter and nothing sounds as serious and bad as he convinced himself it was.

“I love you,” Bryan says, after laughter, smiling. “As my closest friend, and as whatever more it is that I still know f*ck all about. But I love you. And I will as long as these stupid lungs breathe oxygen. I just don’t think there’s a way to do it without hurting you.”

Noah doesn't believe in fate, in the stars. Never had. The only thing that's ever written down and absolute are the words he sings every night, and at times even those sound like lies. But despite his lack of faith in everything, Bryan’s words could never be lies. Had never been. And he clings to them, holds on tight.

“Would you go back?” Noah asks quietly.

Feels his heart break to pieces again in his chest, but it doesn’t hurt as bad as it used to. Feels mandatory, the way any other muscle would in order to grow back stronger after an effort.

Bryan hands slips in his. Cold, as usual, but still the weight of it fills Noah’s veins with warmth. “I don’t think so. I don’t regret it. I don’t regret you.”

Noah breathes in deep.

He never expected that night to be anything other than what it was; a misstep, a dent in both their realities. One that shouldn’t have happened, as it didn't mend what they once had, didn't bring them back together, or closer. They’ve never stopped being friends—just forgot to be. And now they can’t be anymore, ‘cause they grew up way outside their bodies and minds.

They’ve got careers, friends, partners, issues. Being on speaking terms is fine, but it’s not enough. Feels both like too little and too much at the same time. And Noah can carry Bryan on his skin and in his heart, but he can’t keep him around, not anymore.

“Closure’s fine,” Noah says, voice heavy with all that he can’t dig out of himself. “Closure’s good.”

And he means it. Sitting there, holding Bryan’s hand, he thinks—it’s fine. It’s alright. They can have this, and maybe a little more in the future when being around each other doesn’t feel like the end of the world.

“I would’ve hated your guts for this some years back, you know,” Noah says. Smiles a bit, pressing his face against Bryan’s hair. Breathes in. “I got so much worse when you went touring.”

“I know,” Bryan laughs. “I kept… track, best I could. The streams, your stupid tweets, all that sh*t.”

“f*ck, that’s embarrassing,” Noah mutters. “ Every stream?”

“Every single one.”

“I’m going to lose sleep over this, just so you know.”

Bryan smiles. Looks at him for a bit, blue eyes open, genuine, so much clearer than they were that awful festival night.

“You know you’re doing much better now, right? You’re in better shape, better health. You look like it too. It’s—good. It’s f*cking good, Noah.”

“Yeah, guess so,” he says.

It’s a lie he doesn’t believe in.

Noah got sharper, tougher, bigger because he had no choice but. He needed a way, any way to protect himself. And it’s like, what was even the point? Too f*cking fragile still underneath the pounds of newfound muscles. Tried so hard, but in the end it didn’t even matter, changed close to nothing—at least going to the gym helps to keep his mind occupied and gives his body new ways to channel energy, get rid of the excessive amounts of stress he’s got no place to store within anymore.

Bryan found other ways to let go. Aged just fine, softer, rounder, but that’s exactly what happens when you spend every day with the person you cherish and love the most, doing what you were born to do. Surrounded by love and laughter, by family, by friends.

To be loved is to be changed.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Bryan says. “Shut up. I said it’s good. You’re doing good. And you’ll be fine. We’ll be f*cking fine.”

Noah thinks about his family’s house covered by moss, that one old and washed out Bad Omens hoodie Bryan still wears; he thinks about all the resentment and yearning they carried in their hearts for so long, and how it had grown into wild flowers inside their chests, ones that more often than not hurt and choke them. About how chests aren’t made to be gardens, and flowers aren’t supposed to be locked away to wither, shielded from the sun in a cage of bones.

He thinks about how they should hold onto their hearts, because it’s gotten them here this far; and it can guide them together further along, somewhere better, somewhere safer.

He thinks it’s fine to let go.

Because he won’t do it alone; because Bryan’s right here, holding his hand, and they can do it together.

“We’ll be fine,” he whispers, and believes it wholly.

waiting in the wreckage - lqbys (2024)

Chapter Text