the first of all pleasures

by >>Jae

"Man, that chick was pissed at you," Brendon said. "Did you knock her brother up or something?"

"No, I did not knock her brother up," Jon said. He let the door shut behind him a little harder than absolutely necessary, hard enough that Spencer looked up at him from the floor and even Ryan waved a questioning hand from where he was sprawled half on the couch with a magazine over his face.

"Well, you did something," Brendon said. "And who knows what kind of crazy life you led before you knew us? You're a man of mystery."

"Apparently," Jon said, "apparently I don't like the right color."

There was kind of a strange silence, and then Spencer said, carefully,

"Do you mean, like -- like a racial thing?"

Ryan lifted the magazine off his face with one finger and peered down the sofa at Jon.

"No, not a racial thing!" Jon said, and Ryan let the magazine fall again.

"Well, good," Spencer said.

"Okay," Jon said, "okay, let me ask you this: what's my favorite color?"

"Is this some sort of how-well-do-we-know-you quiz?" Brendon said. "Because if it is, we should just skip to the parts about your sexual habits and the weird things you do when you think nobody's watching, because that's where I'm going to rack up the points."

"Blue," Spencer said.

"You know that?" Brendon said. He looked at Jon. "Is he right?"

"You know that?" Jon said.

"It was a guess. I mean, how many colors are there? It's blue or red, maybe green. I just took a shot."

"What about orange?" Brendon said. "Or yellow. Or white. Or purple, or brown --"

"I don't even think I have a favorite color," Jon said, mostly just to stop the list.

"Then this quiz is really lame."

"It's not a quiz, and it's totally lame, but apparently at one point somebody asked me, or, no, at two points, because apparently I said one color one time and one color another time and that means I'm the biggest fucking liar in the world and it's totally okay to, like, accost me in a mini-mart."

"Just pick one," Spencer said. "It's not that hard, just pick one and stick with it. Here you go: blue. Your favorite color's blue. Problem solved, you're welcome."

"But what if that's not my favorite color? What if I don't have a fucking favorite?"

"Well, you could say that," Spencer said thoughtfully, "but you'd need to say you don't have a favorite because you like them all equally or something lameass like that."

"That's incredibly lame," Brendon said, "you totally have to start saying that. I'll give you twenty bucks if you start telling people that."

"But what if I just want to say I don't have a favorite?"

"Then you get accosted in mini-marts, I guess," Spencer said. "Why do you even care?"

"It's the principle of the thing," Jon said hotly, and Spencer and Brendon both started laughing. Ryan didn't move. Jon thought he might be asleep.

"So this is the hill Jon Walker picks to die on? Not an argument about art, or religion, or politics, or even, like, whether you're a big sell-out musically or anything," Brendon said. "No, you're totally fucking chill with any of that, but by God, the Man won't make you pick a favorite color!"

"That's not the point," Jon said.

"Oh, I totally can't wait to hear what the point is," Brendon said.

"It's just, like, any of those other things, art or selling out or whatnot, I mean, okay, you can see why somebody'd be mad if they thought you stood up for something big like that, something that's important to you and to them, and then it turned out you didn't really mean it. I mean, I can see why somebody'd feel betrayed. But who the fuck cares what my favorite color is? Even if I did decide to lie about it, if I decided to lie up a big old fucking storm about magenta and puce --"

"Puce," Spencer murmured happily. "I'm changing my favorite to puce."

"Is that like yellow-green?"

"No, I think you're thinking of chartreuse."

"Dibs on chartreuse --"

"Even if I did decide to lie about it," Jon said with dignity, "why would anyone care? It wouldn't mean anything, it would mean less than nothing, it would be totally stupid --"

"It would be totally interesting," Ryan said. At least, that's what Jon thought he said, although it was kind of hard to tell with the magazine muffling Ryan's mouth. He leaned over and pushed it away, but Ryan didn't sit up, just stayed where he was sprawled with one leg on the floor and his head jammed against the arm of the couch.

"For certain values of interesting, sure," Spencer said.

"Why would it be interesting?" Jon said.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, don't ask him that," Brendon said, and Ryan sat up and rubbed his hand through his hair. "Because black is white, up is down, illusion is reality and we're all going through the fucking looking glass."

"It would be interesting, Jon," Ryan said, although he wasn't looking at Jon, "because of why anybody would do it in the first place. I mean, it's totally obviously why you'd lie about something big -- because you were afraid somebody would find out and get pissed, or try to use it against you, or stop liking you -- like if you voted Republican, or belonged to some crazy religion --"

"Or if sometimes you snuck off and let boys fuck you in the bathroom," Brendon said. Jon and Spencer looked at him and Brendon looked back at them levelly.

"Like that," Ryan said, and this time he looked at Jon. "Anybody knows why you'd lie about something like that, but about your favorite color, or your first childhood memory, or, I don't know, what you ate for breakfast yesterday -- what's the reason you'd bother to lie about that? That's totally interesting to think about. More interesting than talking about whatever the stupid fucking truth was."

"It would be totally cool for somebody to talk about something interesting," Brendon said. "You know, for a change."

"And the weird thing is," Ryan said, and he was still looking at Jon but now it was like he wasn't doing it just so he wasn't looking at someone else, "that lying about stupid stuff like that would be more, like, truthful than the truth."

Brendon snorted, and Spencer said, "Okay, look, I'm not taking sides here, but I'm totally hiding your Oscar Wilde books."

"No, seriously, listen," Ryan said. He pulled one leg under him and leaned toward Jon, shaking his hair away from his face impatiently. "Lying about small stuff like that, stupid shit, it's totally more revealing than the truth, right? Because the truth -- that's just what happens to you, you know? It just is. But when you lie, you have to pick what you're saying the truth is. You have to choose. I bet if you only got to know stupid small stuff about somebody, like if you didn't really know them, not the big things, just little stuff, I bet you'd totally end up knowing what they were really like better if they lied about everything than if they told you the God's honest truth."

"Oh, you bet, do you?" Brendon said, and maybe Jon wasn't following Ryan's lies versus truth thing as carefully as he could have, but he was definitely following the Brendon versus Ryan thing. Something had been brewing for a couple of days now, maybe three, although Jon didn't know exactly when it had started, or even how they'd found the energy and the time alone to start something. Ryan always managed to find privacy on tour, though, which was something Jon had always been jealous of, although maybe not so much now that he knew what Ryan used it for was to have weird quiet fights and to think about stuff like this.

"Yeah, I bet," Ryan said. "Starting today, I'm gonna start lying --"

"Start?" Brendon said, light and brittle, and Spencer sat up straight and made a little huffing noise, which was Jon's cue to say,

"Come on, let's all stop being stupid."

"It's not stupid," Ryan said sharply. "I am, I'm totally going to start lying to people, interviews and everything, not big stuff but just, like I said, small stuff. Value neutral lies, stuff that doesn't matter, but I bet you, I bet that by the end I'll be the one who ends up looking more like I really am than all of you. Look like you really are, I mean. In interviews and shit."

"It's not like any of us are like we really are," Spencer said easily. "In interviews and shit."

"I'll be the most reasonable facsimile," Ryan said. He lifted his chin defiantly. "You taking the bet?"

"Oh, I'll take it," Brendon said. "Who else is in?"

"You'll need a judge," Spencer said. "If you're going to do it, somebody'll have to judge who wins, and that definitely sounds like the least work so I'll do that."

"What about you, Jon?" Ryan said. "You on my side?"

Jon was on the side of doing nothing and pretending the whole stupid game wasn't happening until the rest of them got bored and forgot about it, but he felt like if he said that Ryan would think he was on Brendon's side, which he wasn't. He was on nobody's side, but the thing about Ryan was that he never let you be on nobody's side. If you didn't pick him you were against him. The only one immune to that rule was Spencer, but that was because they all knew that no matter what side Spencer picked he would always end up being on Ryan's side.

"Um, what do we win?" Jon said finally. "I mean, if it's a bet --"

"I'll be happy just hearing Ryan admit that he pulled this theory out of his ass," Brendon said.

Ryan laughed, and then he stopped laughing. "Two hundred and fifty dollars," he said. "That's what I want when I win."

It didn't sound like anything, but Brendon was on his feet and Ryan was laughing again. "Fuck you," Brendon said, low, and then he walked out of the room and shut the door.

Ryan lay back down on the couch, still laughing. Jon stood up. "I'm just gonna," he said, and Ryan's leg stretched out and hooked around Jon's calf.

"You're gonna what?" he said, and looked at him until Jon shrugged. "You gonna do the bet with me, Jon?"

"I don't -- look, I just have to --" He started to take a step back but Ryan's leg was still wrapped around his. Finally Ryan laughed and let his foot fall to the ground.

"Maybe I'll talk you into it," Ryan said, and Jon turned toward the door.

As he walked out Spencer said, not angrily but evenly, "You look really fucking proud of yourself."

"I am," Ryan said behind him. "I'm really fucking proud."

Normally Jon would have just done his best to forget it, because more than likely everyone else would. Even whatever was going on with Brendon and Ryan was probably just road stuff, and the road made everybody crazy eventually. A month ago he'd had a huge fight with Spencer, of all people, about what speaking in tongues really meant, which was something that neither of them cared about but before they were done Spencer was red in the face and shouting, right in front of everybody in the diner, and Jon had pushed his chair back so hard that it fell over and then he stormed out into the parking lot before he realized that he didn't have anyplace to storm into and that he was totally visible standing around like an idiot to everybody inside. But by the next morning he and Spencer were sharing the last cherry Danish and they never fought like that again. It was true that nobody ever mentioned speaking in tongues in his hearing, but Jon wasn't sure how often people would have mentioned speaking in tongues without the fight anyway. People got crazy and then they calmed down, or else nobody in the history of the world would ever have survived a tour. Brendon and Ryan would calm down, and everybody would forget the whole stupid thing.

It got a little harder for Jon to forget about the whole stupid thing when Ryan walked into his room and shut the door behind him. He sat down right next to Jon on the bed, and that was a little strange because usually Ryan was a lurker and a lingerer at doors. He'd stick his head in and shout if he was in a hurry, but otherwise he hovered at the doorway. He liked to be invited in, like a vampire Spencer said, and sometimes you'd have to invite him two or three times and finally say, "In or out, freakshow," before he'd give up and come all the way into the room.

It got even harder still when Ryan shifted a little closer to him and leaned back on one hand, grinning up at Jon like he knew how much Jon wanted to avoid the question that was coming. Which he did know, probably.

"So you want me to talk you into it?" Ryan said, which wasn't the question Jon had thought was coming at all. Still, he wanted to avoid it. "I bet I can," Ryan said. "I bet I could do a really good job."

"I'm sure you could," Jon said. Ryan leaned in a little closer but Jon stood his ground. After a certain point you couldn't back down with Ryan. It wasn't that he'd walk all over you, it was that if you looked like you were going to let him he'd just walk away.

"You don't sound sure," Ryan said. "I think I'm gonna have to work really hard to convince you."

"No," Jon said, shaking his head hard enough that his hair brushed against Ryan's cheek. "No, that's okay."

"So you're on my side, then?" Ryan said, and there was the question Jon had been expecting. Unfortunately he hadn't used the extra time to think of an answer. He tried for a couple of minutes to find something safe to say, but all he could come up with was,

"What?"

Ryan laughed. "Are you gonna do the bet with me?" he said. "I'll totally make out with you if you do."

"What?" Jon said again, but in his defense he thought of it a lot faster this time.

Ryan laughed again, and then he stuck his tongue in Jon's mouth.

There were more graceful ways to say that, probably, and if Jon had thought about it before he would've thought Ryan would be graceful at this. He had a slinky way about him when he wanted. But this wasn't graceful at all, the way Ryan's tongue forced its way between Jon's lips, the way Ryan's mouth was hard against Jon's like there was something Jon was keeping from him, something secret that Ryan was going to find out no matter what he had to do. Ryan swung around suddenly so he was crouched over Jon, a knee on either side of him and one hand still on the bed. He was perched so precariously that Jon put a hand on his back, clutching Ryan's shirt right where it was sliding out of his pants. Just so Ryan wouldn't fall, that was all, and then Ryan bit Jon's lip and reached down, shoving his own shirt up so Jon was clutching Ryan's bare skin, hot and not quite slick with sweat.

"Listen," Jon said, pulling his head back, "listen," and Ryan bit him again and he wasn't playing around, a prickly pain flaring and Jon had never liked that kind of thing and fuck, was he bleeding? He put a hand up to see and Ryan's mouth closed around his finger, sucking hard and Jon said, "Listen, listen," but Ryan wasn't listening and Jon wasn't working too hard at making him.

Finally he dragged his finger away and Ryan breathed, "Fuck," low and long like Jon had dragged that out of him too. For a moment Ryan dipped his head, his forehead soft against Jon's shoulder, and just when Jon was starting to relax he turned his head and kissed the side of Jon's mouth, not rough this time but soft and sweet, almost shy, and Jon had to close his eyes and put his hands behind him on the bed to hold himself up.

"Listen," he said again, finally, and Ryan laughed. When he opened his eyes Ryan was still spread out over him. "You don't have to do this," Jon said.

"Oh my God," Ryan said, rolling his eyes. "Look, could you just not make this into a big fucking deal?" and Jon's mouth opened in sheer outrage because wasn't that this band's fucking motto, let's make a big fucking deal out of everything. Outrage must have looked like something else, though, because Ryan surged against him, grabbing one of Jon's hands and pressing it against his own back, clumsily and so hard it made a sound like a slap, and then kissed him, hard and fast like before. Jon didn't know if it was the sudden lack of support or the shock of Ryan's mouth, hot and sharp like pepper, or just the fact that Ryan wanted him to, but before he knew it he was on his back and Ryan laughed again, the way he did when he won a game it had looked like he was going to lose.

Ryan stretched out over him and shifted up a little, so his hips rocked against Jon's cock, and his tongue was moving hard and fast in Jon's mouth but his hips were moving so so slowly. Jon grabbed at his ass with his other hand and Ryan laughed, and then Jon slid his hands down into Ryan's pants and Ryan stopped laughing.

"Come on," Ryan said, soft and slow against Jon's mouth, so close and then his tongue licked against Jon's lips, short little licks that made Jon pull him closer. Ryan pushed his hand between them and unbuttoned his pants. Jon shoved his hand around Ryan's waist and then let it close around Ryan's cock. "Fuck," Ryan breathed, pushing his ass against Jon's hand and then thrusting back again, and Jon had him there between his hands, caught, and then Ryan's hand slid down Jon's cock and Jon threw his head back against the bed.

"Yeah," Ryan said, "yeah," and Jon lifted his head to kiss him but Ryan turned away. He let his head fall against Jon's shoulder and for a moment his mouth moved against Jon's shirt in the same rhythm as their hands. Then Ryan's lips pursed against the taste of the cotton and Jon would have laughed if he could have done anything other just what he was doing. Ryan dropped his head and pushed against Jon's neck, shoving at his shirt with his teeth, the side of his face, his chin, grappling desperately to bare Jon's skin. Finally Jon's shirt ripped and Ryan hissed against his skin, then bit down, not for play but for real and Jon didn't like that sort of thing but he arched up and came in Ryan's hand.

Ryan's open mouth slid against Jon's skin, over and over and then he came, his hips slipping fast against Jon's open hands.

Ryan's head fell back against Jon's shoulder for a minute, his hair drifting down over the side of his face. When Jon let go of him, Ryan pushed up on his hands and hovered over Jon for a minute. "So you gonna do the bet with me?" he said. He wasn't smiling.

"I kind of think I'd do anything with you," Jon said, and Ryan smiled then.

"I'll hold you to it," he said, and then he pushed himself off the bed and onto his feet. They'd gotten so tangled up that Ryan had to pull his pants down a little so he could pull them back up straight, and if Jon had seen that yesterday it would have been the hottest thing he'd ever seen in his life.

Ryan closed the door behind him quietly when he left, not saying goodbye, and Jon said, "Okay," into the empty room.

This was the kind of crazy it was going to be hard to forget when everybody calmed down.

Everybody calmed down fast enough, although maybe it was just Jon who had needed to calm down at all. Nothing had changed, it seemed. Even Ryan and Brendon seemed to be on decent terms. Brendon muttered something every once in a while but Ryan just looked right at him and smiled. Nothing had changed, except for the way Ryan pressed against him a little more closely than he needed to when he walked by backstage, and Jon might not have thought anything of that except for the way Ryan looked at the floor and smiled when he did it. That smile had changed.

Also, Ryan started lying.

He was shockingly good at it, lies slipping slow and easy out of his mouth while he smiled like he was thinking about letting them slide back in. It was the completeness of them that surprised Jon, the way Ryan spun a small distinct world out of something no one else would know was fake.

"Clouds," he said in response to another stupid question, and dipped his head charmingly. "Isn't that stupid? But when I was little I was totally afraid of them. They just seemed so foreign and faraway, but at the same time sometimes you looked up and they seemed so close, like they could surround you before you knew it and you'd be lost in all that white. And they looked so pure, and I don't know what it is but there's something terrifying about that kind of purity. It's something you could get lost in too. But then, and it's embarrassing but this wasn't that long ago, we were flying somewhere and we flew through this huge bank of clouds and, God, this is stupid, I can't believe I'm telling you this but I was kind of scared, but the plane just skimmed right through and they let us go. The ride even got a little smoother, like they were lifting us up, and then when we were out the other side everything was fine and I wasn't scared anymore. I guess you don't get lost in all that purity after all," he said, and the interviewer looked at him like he couldn't believe he'd never realized what an aphrodisiac fear of clouds was.

While the guy was packing up Jon said to Ryan, "Where were we flying?" and Ryan turned around and looked at him quietly for a minute.

"The bet," Ryan said finally. "It's not -- the bet," and Jon nodded.

"Right," he said.

"You believed it?" Ryan said, and Jon nodded.

"It was a good story, wasn't it?" Ryan said.

"Yeah," Jon said. "It was a good story."

Later Ryan caught up to him as he was wandering around backstage. "I told you," he said, "I said I was going to start."

"I know," Jon said. "I just -- I thought it would sound different."

"What, did you think I was going to put on a big funny accent or something?"

"No," Jon said. He leaned against the wall and let Ryan look at him. "I just thought I'd be able to tell, that's all."

"That's the point," Ryan said sharply, like he was annoyed. "You're not supposed to be able to tell." He walked away and then looked back over his shoulder. "Besides," he said, "aren't you supposed to be lying too?"

Jon was nowhere near as good at lying as Ryan was. More to the point, he didn't want to be. Jon was good at all sorts of uncanny things, and in his room that night he thought up a few stories that he could tell. They weren't as good as Ryan's, but they were good. He left them up in his room, though, when he came down. He didn't want to tell them.

There was another interview that day, just him and Ryan, and Ryan told a long looping story about all of them driving around looking for a taco place near the airport in Iowa. The thing Ryan got right when he lied was the sheer pointlessness of most true stories, the way they didn't arc around to a purpose or a perfect punch line, but slipped and shimmied around like a car on a snow-slicked highway. He got the mood right too, Jon thought, the wistful longing lingering around the matter-of-fact words, and then Ryan took a sip of water and Jon realized with a start that the story was true. They'd been there, he'd been there, driving around so late at night that it was morning for most people. He remembered slumping in the back seat with the wind rushing at him through Ryan's open window. He'd been so tired, all he had wanted to do was sleep but he was starving and all he wanted was a taco, a real one, and then they'd found this little house right on the side of the street with a hand-lettered sign in the window. You had to walk right into this lady's house, right through the living room with the TV blasting people fighting in Spanish, past the three shelves of ceramic cats in the hallway and into her kitchen and she made the tacos for them right there and then smiled down at them while they ate right at her kitchen table. Jon had had six tacos, the best he'd ever eaten, and she'd charged them eight bucks and Spencer had tried to leave a fifty on the counter when she wasn't looking but she'd chased after them with it. They wouldn't take it back, though, and she stood in the driveway waving at them and Ryan had waved back, his arm hanging out of the car as they drove into the sunrise.

"And then we never found anywhere to eat," Ryan said sadly, and the girl from MTV looked at him like she was trying to decide whether he was kidding with this shit. "We ended up having to go back to the airport and we got Taco Bell there, and airport Taco Bell isn't even as good as regular Taco Bell and I think that was the most unsatisfying night of my life."

"That's a sad story," the girl said, her voice flat so that if it ended up that they were fucking with her she didn't sound stupid, but if it turned out that they were serious they wouldn't be able to accuse her of making fun of them. "Do you have any sad food experiences you'd like to share with us, Jon?"

Ryan rubbed a hand over his mouth and glanced over at Jon. Behind his hand he smiled, so only Jon could see, and Jon said, "Did you know it's completely impossible to get broccoli when you're on tour? It's like my favorite food, and I see it in grocery stores and shit, but for some reason it's like they can't bring it into the venue or something."

"Union rules," Ryan said, nodding wisely, and the girl from MTV decided they were definitely fucking with her.

"You are a miserable liar," Ryan said as they walked back toward the dressing rooms.

"I'm a miserable liar? You weren't even lying for most of the story."

"That's the best kind of lie," Ryan said. "The kind that's so close to true you don't even know you've split off until the end, when you wind up someplace you never expected."

"I never thought of that," Jon said, and Ryan bumped against Jon's shoulder and then away again. Jon hooked a finger through his belt loop to keep him from wandering too far.

Jon never had thought of that, but he thought it was probably true. The reason Ryan was so good at lying was that he understood that instinctively, knew that the best lie was the kind that he wrapped around something true, like brightly colored tissue paper folded around a fragile gift to keep it safe. There were some things, maybe, that needed a little extra wrapping when they went out into the world.

When they reached the dressing room Ryan opened the door and shoved Jon inside. He shut the door and pushed Jon up against it. "You are a terrible liar," he said, "but A for effort." He dropped to his knees and started easing open the top button on Jon's jeans, using just his thumb, one slow, slow push.

"Hello," Jon said, although his hand was already knocking Ryan's out of the way to finish off the buttons, "people, outside, right outside, could walk in at any minute people --"

"Don't worry," Ryan said, "I'll make sure we make enough noise so no one will come in."

No one heard, and no one came in. Jon could hear people, though, right outside the door, and once he heard his own name behind him and he stuffed his hand in his mouth to hold back his noise when he came. He twisted his other hand in Ryan's shirt and Ryan sprang to his feet like that was all he'd been waiting for. "Hey," he said, and before he could wipe his mouth Jon kissed him. He always did that, the first time because he'd thought it was only polite and every time after that because it was so dirty hot, that taste in someone else's mouth and then his own.

"Hey," Ryan said again, softer, Jon's hand still clutching his shirt. He started prying Jon's fingers away and Jon said,

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know, I was just gonna walk around some."

"Hang out here," Jon said, and pulled him over to the couch. He thought they'd make out for a while but Ryan kept squirming around like he couldn't get comfortable, or didn't want to. "God, quit it," he said, but Ryan wouldn't stop moving until Jon tumbled over him and knelt next to the couch, holding Ryan's arms above him with one hand and jerking him off slowly with the other.

"All right?" he said, and he wiped his hand off on Ryan's pants. For once Ryan didn't argue. Jon sat back against the couch and tilted his head until he felt Ryan's leg behind him. "Tell me something," Jon said, and Ryan's leg shook a little behind him.

"Sure," Ryan said, "what do you want to know?" His voice was slower and lower than it had been during the interview, rougher, stripped of the charm and courtesy he put on for the camera. Jon wanted to climb inside it.

"No," he said. "It's not a question, I just wanted you to -- you pick," Jon said. "Something about you. Just tell me something."

"Did I ever tell you we tried to go back?" Ryan said dreamily. Jon looked over at him, sprawled across the couch with his shirt pushed up over his stomach. Then he closed his eyes and just let Ryan's voice drift over him, around him, until he felt like he was floating inside Ryan's story. "The taco lady, I mean. Me and Spence tried the next day, she was so funny and the house was so great and we just wanted to talk to her a little, maybe take a picture, but we couldn't find it again. We must have gotten so twisted around when we were driving the first time that we couldn't remember the way. It's funny, I was all mad that day but now I kind of don't mind. Some things, it's like maybe they're only meant to last as long as they last, you know? If we'd found her again maybe she would've been in a bad mood, or maybe her mean son-in-law would have been there and we would've felt weird, or she might have had a daughter who recognized us, or I don't know, there are so many things that could've gone wrong so I don't mind so much that we didn't find her again, you know? But I'm glad we went looking, you know, I'm glad we tried."

When Jon woke up Spencer was yelling for them through the door and Ryan was still asleep, flat on his back and drooling. Jon shook him awake and Ryan sat straight up and then lay back down.

"All right, Spencer, God," he yelled back, and Spencer banged once on the door and then they heard him walk away. Ryan started to sit up and Jon grabbed his shirt and pulled him the rest of the way.

"Listen," he said, and Ryan smiled once, quick. "Come to my room tonight, all right?"

"Why?" Ryan said, looking at him wide-eyed. "Do you want to have a party? Should we invite the other guys? Do you want to play cards, or watch a movie --"

"I want to hold you up against the wall and fuck you till we both fall down," Jon said, and Ryan's mouth dropped open like he was as shocked as Jon was by what he'd said. Then he smiled, slow and still open-mouthed, and through the door Spencer shouted, "Ryan!" as loud as he could.

"Fuck you, I'm coming!" Ryan yelled, and then he leaned in and kissed Jon quickly, his mouth closed.

Ryan came to Jon's room that night, and most nights after that, and if anybody noticed they didn't say anything to Jon. Jon didn't lie in any more interviews, and nobody noticed that either, although a bunch of people started sending him broccoli, which he would have thought was kind of sweet except that he hated broccoli and he felt like he couldn't throw it out because after all they'd made the effort. Ryan just laughed at him and wouldn't help him eat any.

Ryan kept on lying and that was another something nobody seemed to notice. Interviews started coming out and Brendon would deliver the papers to Spencer and wait with his arms crossed for the verdict.

"It seems like any other interview," Spencer said when he finished the most recent one. "Sorry, Ry, but it does."

"The effect is cumulative," Ryan said, and Spencer looked at him hard and didn't say anything for a minute. "No, it's okay. Seriously, it's going to take a little time, but I'm totally right about this. You'll see."

"That's a convenient excuse," Brendon said. "So, what, is this bet supposed to go on for the rest of our lives?"

"You can get out of it any time you want," Ryan said. "Just pay me my fucking money."

Brendon looked at him for a moment, frowning a little. "I'm never going to do that," he said finally. "I'm telling you."

Ryan just laughed and pulled Jon out of the room with him.

That night an old friend of Jon's came to the show. They'd made plans to go out after, just the two of them, and probably Adam could have been talked into some post-show ruckus with everybody else pretty easily, but it was nice sometimes just to hang out with someone he'd known from a long time ago, Jon thought, nice to be someone he'd been a long time ago, just for a couple of hours. It wasn't a big deal.

"What? Sure," Ryan said when Jon told him, not looking up from the book he was reading. "Fine, whatever. I'll do whatever everybody else is doing and we'll catch up in the morning."

It was exactly what Jon had wanted to hear but now that he heard it, it wasn't what he wanted to hear at all. "Wait for me," he said, and his voice was a little closer to a whine than he was really comfortable with. "Wait for me," he said again, louder, stronger.

"What, you think I got nothing better to do than wait around until you're done playing with your real friends?" Jon looked like he was thinking about that and Ryan laughed. "Maybe. Maybe if you're lucky, I'll be waiting for you."

Adam was great, Jon loved Adam, Adam was one of his best friends and so that meant Adam had to understand when Jon cut dinner short and made it back to the hotel two hours before he'd told Ryan he'd be there. When he let himself in the room was dim and quiet. He almost tripped over Ryan's pants and then he almost tripped over his own feet when he saw Ryan on the bed.

Ryan was still wearing the shirt he'd had on earlier, a white button-down undone halfway, but that was all he was wearing. Everything else was thrown down in a tangle at the foot of the bed, like he hadn't had time to get undressed properly, like he'd had someone waiting for him, someone he couldn't wait for. He was alone, though. He was alone, and he seemed like he was enjoying it, his naked legs spread wide and his hand moving deliberately over his cock. His eyes were open, but he wasn't looking at Jon. He was looking down at himself, biting his lip like he was concentrating, like he wanted to remember this.

"Hey," Jon said, but it came out hoarse and choked and he tried again.

Ryan didn't look up or answer. He tossed his head back and his hair was sticking to the side of his face and his mouth was open, and he was panting, breathing hard, and Jon came closer because all he wanted to do, all he wanted to do first, was lean over and lick the corner of Ryan's mouth, right where Ryan's tongue was rubbing back and forth in the same rhythm as his hand. But as soon as Jon touched him Ryan flipped over, his knees under him and his ass in the air, the tail of his shirt half hanging down over him and Jon's hand slipped across his hip, over his ass, and Jon knew who it was Ryan couldn't wait for.

Ryan was ready for him.

"You are such an incredible slut," Jon said, his voice low and strange in his own ears, and he wasn't shocked by the fact that he said it but by the fact that at that moment he believed every word.

"Yeah," Ryan said, and his voice wasn't strange at all. It was Ryan's voice, Ryan's voice Jon heard every day, and "do it," Ryan said, "come on, do it, you want, whatever you --" and Jon chased the last word away when he pushed two fingers into Ryan and he moaned, loud and long but it was still his voice, Ryan's voice and all Jon wanted was to hear it every day, almost all he wanted.

He shoved Ryan's shirt up high on his back and Ryan twisted a hand underneath his stomach, fingers quick over the buttons and Jon said, "No, leave it," but Ryan's hands kept working, button after button and his hips were working, too, hard against Jon's hand and Jon said, "I said, no, leave it," but Ryan wouldn't stop until Jon bent over him, pushed him down onto the bed and stretched his arms wide, held Ryan's wrists pinned to the mattress and thrust inside him.

Ryan moaned again, Ryan's voice under him, floating all around him, all he could hear, and all Jon wanted to do was live inside it, almost all he wanted to do. He bit at Ryan's shoulder, catching Ryan's shirt in his teeth and pulling up, up, until he could see a line of pink and then white around Ryan's neck where the collar was biting in as sharply as Jon's teeth. He was clutching Ryan's wrists so tightly that he could feel the pulse beating there, fluttering wild, faster and faster, and he could taste Ryan's sweat against the dull cotton of his shirt. When he came Ryan struggled against him but Jon pushed him down harder, stretching his arms out farther and Ryan choked,

"Fuck, fuck," and gave in, let his head drop against the bed and came, his cheek pressed against the mattress and his eyes wide open.

Both of them lay there for a few minutes, and then Ryan kicked lightly at Jon's leg and Jon rolled over onto his back. Ryan slid his fingers into his hair and rubbed at his forehead for a moment, then leaned over Jon, the top half of his body hanging off the bed and his ass across Jon's stomach. He reached for a glass of water on the floor and drank from it just like that, almost upside down. Drops of water spilled around the rim of the glass and down the side of Ryan's face, and he wiped them away with his arm.

"You want?" he said, and when Jon put his hand out Ryan gave him the glass and climbed back over him, splayed out flat on the bed with one leg still thrown over Jon's. Jon drank the rest of the water without lifting his head up, letting it drip down the side of his mouth, and Ryan reached over and wiped it away with the inside of his wrist. Then he licked his wrist clean.

"Jesus," Jon said, and Ryan looked over at him and then looked back up at the ceiling.

They lay there for a while. Jon thought about going to sleep and then he thought about fucking again but he was pretty happy just lying there. Then Ryan grunted and pulled his leg away, turning on his side and Jon turned his head to look at him. Ryan wasn't touching him but he was close enough that Jon could feel him breathing.

"Tell me something," Jon said, and Ryan didn't say anything, just gave him a small half-smile like he was thinking about something else, like he was thinking up something Jon wouldn't ever be able to imagine. "Come on."

"Now?" Ryan said. His voice was a little hoarse. "I don't want ..."

Ryan stopped for so long that Jon reached out and poked at his shoulder. "You falling asleep there?"

"I am tired," Ryan said smoothly as he stretched and yawned. "You tired me out, I guess. I can't think of anything to tell you."

"You don't have to think," Jon said. Ryan frowned a little. Jon knew he should probably just let the poor kid go to sleep, but really it was Ryan's own fault. He'd spoiled Jon with his stories, whispered close to Jon's ear every night. All Jon had to say was, "Tell me something," and Ryan would, Ryan would tell him something Jon had never known. It was strange the way you could know someone so long, the way you could spend so much time with him talking and arguing and working together but still learn the most about him in two-minute glimpses, not even real stories but just silly little scraps of his life that would've sounded stupid if they hadn't been sewn up in Ryan's words. Or maybe it was only people like Ryan that you learned about that way, people who had so much in them that you could only stand to look for a few minutes before you had to turn away from the brightness.

Maybe it was only Ryan.

"Don't think," Jon said again. "Just tell me something, anything, off the top of your head, please --"

"I can't," Ryan said. He turned his head away and then turned back to Jon. "Tell me what you want to hear, okay? I'm so tired -- you could just give me a hint."

"I don't know," Jon said. When Ryan frowned again he said, "What did you do tonight?"

Ryan said, "You saw," his voice low and drawn-out but it was like he wasn't telling something to Jon. It was like he was still thinking about whatever it was Ryan thought about when he looked like that.

"Before that, before, what did you do?"

"Oh, we're chatting now?" Ryan said. He rolled his eyes, but then he shook his head a little and said, "Nothing, I just got something to eat with Brendon, Spencer didn't want to come so we just went real quick and then I came back here."

"You and Brendon," Jon said carefully, "you're okay then?"

"Yes, God," Ryan said. He rolled his eyes again. "Everything is fucking okay with everybody, or it would be if people would just -- yes, everything's okay."

"Good," Jon said, "I was only -- okay, okay. I know what I want you to tell me."

Ryan looked at him warily.

"I mean, if everything's okay, then it shouldn't --"

"Yes, fine, just tell me what you want me to tell you," Ryan said, throwing his arm up over his head.

"Why two hundred and fifty dollars?"

Ryan just looked at him. "For the bet, I mean, if you --"

"I know," Ryan said.

"It's just, it's not that much money so I don't know why you -- but it seems, I don't know. It seems important."

"It's not," Ryan said. He rolled over for a minute, then came back. "Okay," he said again. "It's not important, that's the thing, it's just -- okay. It's just stupid, so don't -- I don't know, don't think about it too much. It's just -- like two months ago, right, when Brendon and I were kind of, you know," he said, and Jon nodded, although he hadn't known. "I mean, it wasn't some big deal, we weren't -- it was like us, but not, not as much maybe, because Brendon was always kind of weird about it, and, like sometimes he'd say we should stop but then he kept coming back and it was like he wanted me to make us stop but I didn't, and then finally he said he wanted to stop and he did and I mean, okay, fine, he can stop but just because he, that doesn't mean I have to and there was that guy, remember, the sound guy in Cleveland, the one who left, and Brendon had no right to be fucking pissed but he thought, he saw us and he said, he told me and it's stupid and I don't care, all right, and I didn't then but he told me I was a fucked-up whore and then he said I was worse because it's not even like I do it for the money and I told him if it'd make him feel better he could give me two hundred and fifty bucks to fuck him and he, like, totally ran out and then he was all, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it which I knew, God, it's so stupid, and then he got pissed because I don't know, I didn't want to hug and cry and let him talk about how sorry he was, and he's still kind of fucking weird about it but he'll get over it, all right, and we'll be okay, all right, we are okay."

Ryan stopped and Jon said, "That's so fucking shitty, I don't even know --"

"It's not," Ryan said, almost angrily. "He didn't mean it, I fucking knew that, and I didn't -- I don't care, and the whole reason I even brought it up for the bet was because he was being a bitch and also because, like, it's like a joke, it's not serious, we can make it into a joke and it's not a big fucking deal, all right?"

"No," Jon said. "No, it's really not all right, it's so not all right," and then he stopped and Ryan said,

"Oh my God, what now?"

"Nothing," Jon said, "it's just, I feel bad about what I said, before, I didn't -- I don't mean -- I'm sorry. For what I said. I'm sorry."

"God," Ryan said, blowing his hair out of his face with an irritated puff of air, "God, shut up, all right? I know you didn't -- I liked it, okay, you're being stupid, everybody's so fucking stupid about everything."

"Sorry," Jon said, and Ryan flipped onto his back and glared at the ceiling. After a few minutes Jon said, "Ryan," and Ryan said,

"Look, if you want to make it up to me could you just fuck me and not act like a big baby?"

"Oh, that's nice," Jon said.

"Well, maybe if you didn't act like fucking me was such a big imposition." Ryan slid his hand over Jon's cock and said, "well, a medium-sized imposition, maybe," and Jon laughed and closed his hand over Ryan's.

"Give me a minute, maybe," he said, and Ryan leaned against him, his mouth right next to Jon's ear.

"Don't think about things so much," he said.

It was weird advice coming from Ryan, Jon thought, but he also thought it was true. There were some things you couldn't think about too much or else you fucked yourself up. It was like the high dive at the pool. You couldn't think about it too much once you were up there looking down at the water so far away. If you did, you'd end up climbing clumsily back down the ladder while everybody looked at you, or else you'd end up jumping awkward and nervous at a bad angle, hitting the water much more painfully than you would have if you'd just closed your eyes and jumped. That was what you had to do sometimes, just stop thinking and step right off the edge.

"Come on," Ryan said, softly, and kissed the side of his mouth, just as softly.

Jon closed his eyes and fell.

He was weird with Brendon later. He couldn't help it, he knew it wasn't what Ryan wanted but it still felt weird. Brendon knew, or else he guessed, because sometimes Jon would catch him looking at him and Ryan like there was something he wanted to say that they wouldn't like. Jon didn't look back, because he didn't want to hear it. Eventually Brendon stopped looking at Jon. He still looked at Ryan, but it was less like there was something he wanted to say and more like there was something he was worried he'd hear and that was all right with Jon. Ryan might think it wasn't a big deal, but Jon knew different and he was glad that Brendon knew too.

They were sitting around one day after an interview, waiting for somebody to take them back to the venue, and sometimes Jon thought he played for free and got paid to sit around on his ass waiting for whatever they had to fucking wait for, which was everything, and it wasn't like they weren't touring every fucking day so you'd think someone would have gotten the schedule down by now, and it was cold and he was tired and annoyed and the most annoying thing was that Ryan wasn't annoyed at all. He just lay on the couch and poked at the back of Jon's head every once in a while.

"Aren't you bored?" Jon said. He was bored, sitting on the floor with his back against the couch, and Spencer was bored, batting idly at the fringe on one of the lampshades, and Brendon was sitting back with his eyes closed and his headphones on but he was probably bored, too, if he wasn't asleep.

"I can amuse myself," Ryan said. "I have inner resources."

It was true, but usually Ryan wasn't a good waiter. He liked to read, and write, and lie around staring into space thinking about whatever he thought about, but he generally liked to do those things on his own schedule.

"Amuse me," Jon said. He lowered his voice a little. "Tell me something."

"I hate your shirt," Ryan said, and he let his voice fall as well, like he was telling Jon something secret.

"Yeah, now I'm amused. What's wrong with my shirt?"

"I don't like the color. I hate that color."

"Orange?" Jon said. "You're crazy. Orange fucking rocks."

"When I was little orange was totally my favorite color, so many cool things are orange, and I had this shirt that I just fucking loved, really bright orange, I must have looked ridiculous but I thought I was the coolest thing ever when I wore it, I would have worn it every day. But finally it got too small and my dad said we should give it away to somebody less fortunate and I was totally not down with that. That was totally not happening, so every time he took it I kept finding it and putting it back in my drawer even though I couldn't even get it over my head anymore, and it kept getting taken back out and finally one day I was all alone and I found it and I totally cut it up, tiny little pieces, because if I couldn't have it I'd be damned if anybody else would. And then I totally freaked out because I was going to get into trouble, and I knew I shouldn't have done it and I wasn't supposed to use the scissors, so I hid all the pieces all over, places I thought nobody but me would find them, inside the pillow case and at the bottom of my drawer and in the secret compartment in my backpack. And for months and months afterwards, I'd have totally forgotten the shirt and then I'd find these little scraps of orange hidden all these places, these little ragged secrets and I totally couldn't believe that I'd loved that shirt so much, that I'd gone to all that trouble to ruin it. I ended up totally sick of them, by the end I was --"

"Wait a minute," Spencer said, and Jon's head jerked around because he'd almost forgotten he was there. He'd almost forgotten anyone else was there. Spencer's voice was totally flat, the way it only got when he was completely pissed off, and Brendon opened his eyes and sat up straight. "So you're doing this shit with us too?"

Jon kept looking at him stupidly. Brendon took off his headphones.

"This lying shit," Spencer said, "you're not just doing it with other people, then, because that didn't fucking happen to you, it happened to me, that was my stupid orange shirt, that was my story, there, except for the part at the end where you kept finding pieces left all over. I guess that's the kind of detail that makes it a Ross original, but I'd appreciate it if you kept your hands off my fucking life when you do this shit, all right?"

"Fuck, Ryan," Brendon breathed, and Jon said, stupidly,

"That was a lie?"

Ryan didn't say anything. He just stood up, not like he was in a hurry or anything, and walked to the door, not like he was running away, but like he'd always been expecting to leave then, like he had an appointment that he'd been reminding himself of for a long time. He walked out and the three of them looked at each other for a minute and then Brendon ran out after him.

"Spencer," Jon said, and Spencer shook his head.

"Don't talk to me right now."

"No, listen -- I need to ask you, do you remember that one time, you remember when we found that taco place, the one that was in that lady's house out in the middle of nowhere? Did you ever try to go back there, you and Ryan, did you ever go looking --"

"Don't ask me that shit, man," Spencer said. "I'm not the one you should be asking." His fist closed over the fringe on the lampshade, and suddenly he jerked his arm back and the lamp crashed onto the floor.

Jon left him looking stupidly down at the pieces, like he couldn't figure out how they'd gotten themselves broken.

In the hallway Brendon was talking softly, quickly, and Ryan was smiling at him. Even though Brendon had Ryan backed up against the wall, one hand circling Ryan's arm, Brendon was the one who looked trapped.

"Just stop it, all right?" Brendon said. "It's not -- it was never a game, Ry, and you need to stop it, stop lying," and Ryan said,

"You giving up?"

"Sure, whatever. That's what you want, fine. Fine. You win. I give up."

"Pay me my money, then," Ryan said, and Brendon let go of him.

"Look, I'm sorry," Brendon said. "I didn't mean it and I shouldn't have said it, all right, but it's enough, okay, just leave it --"

"Pay me my money," Ryan said, and he wasn't smiling any more.

"I won't," Brendon said, "because you aren't, you're not -- I'm sorry, all right, I was sorry then and I'm sorry now and I didn't mean it, like two seconds after I said it I didn't mean it and I wish I could take it back, but I can't, all I can be is sorry, if you'd just fucking let me be sorry --"

"Look, don't make such a big deal out of it," Ryan said. He crossed his arms and slid down a little against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest, one hand rubbing at his sleeve where Brendon had held him.

Brendon looked at him and Ryan looked right back. It was Brendon who looked away first.

"You know," Brendon said, and Jon thought he sounded as sad as he'd ever heard him, "you'd be twice as happy if you were half as good a liar as you are."

"I'm happy enough."

"Yeah, you're not that good a liar," Brendon said, and turned and walked back down the hallway.

He didn't look over when he passed Jon, but Ryan looked up right then. He tilted his chin up and smiled, and Jon turned around and walked back the way he came. Before he'd taken ten steps he turned back around and caught Ryan slumped against the wall, his arms squeezing his chest tightly, his hands clutching his sleeves. Jon walked back toward him.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he said, and Ryan laughed.

"Nothing's wrong with me. I told you, I told you exactly what I was doing, I said --"

"I thought you were making up stupid little stories to tell annoying reporters. I didn't think you were going to lie to me about everything and then fuck me stupid every time it looked like I might start to ask you a question," Jon said.

"Oh, is that what happened?" Ryan said. "Gee, I'm really sorry that such a bad thing just happened to you."

"That's not -- I didn't mean it like that," Jon said. "But I just -- I don't know what the fuck you thought you were doing. I don't know how you told yourself that was all right, to do, to me, that that was something you could do to me and I wouldn't --"

"You wouldn't what?" Ryan said, and he didn't sound angry then, or mocking. He sounded like he was interested.

"I wouldn't -- I don't know," Jon said. "I don't know what I was going to say," and Ryan looked down and nodded once, like he'd just gotten something he'd been waiting for, and then he looked back up.

"Look, you don't have to make --"

"If you tell me it's not a big deal I'll punch you in the mouth, I swear to God, Ryan," and Ryan's chin lifted again like he was going to make Jon follow through on it. Then Jon said, "It is to me, it's a big deal," and Ryan looked down at the floor.

"Look," Jon said, "I'm just a simple kind of guy, all right, so maybe I don't get all your theories and experiments or whatever, but I just don't understand, I don't know. I don't understand what the fuck you're so afraid of that you'd have to --"

"You know what I'm afraid of?" Ryan said. "I'm afraid of people who say shit like, 'I'm just a simple guy, man.' You didn't know, you didn't understand, this whole thing is so fucking crazy to you and I'm just a big fat fucking liar but you know what? You know when you started fucking me? You started fucking me when I started lying."

"That's not --" Jon wanted to say that wasn't true but then he thought back and he said, "That's just a coincidence."

Ryan laughed, and again it didn't sound angry or mocking but like he just couldn't help it. He put his hand up to his mouth and wiped it hard, like he was trying to rip the laugh out. "Okay," he said. "You want to think that? You go right ahead. You want, I'll even tell it to you like it's true, and we both know I can tell it so you'll believe it. Especially if you want to."

"I don't want you to tell me anything that isn't true," Jon said. "I never did."

"You didn't want me at all," Ryan said. "Not until -- you didn't want me, not till I started, when it was just me you didn't -- "

"It's not like you gave me a choice," Jon said. "I didn't even know you were, I didn't know till --"

"Sure," Ryan said, and he nodded again, like he had before. "You didn't know, it just happened to you, I just did it to you --"

"And I don't know why." Jon talked right over him because if he didn't Ryan would keep talking and by the time he was done Jon would wind up believing whatever he said. "I don't know why you'd do it, except just to fuck with me." Ryan's lips lifted, fast like a flinch, and Jon said, "But even now I just can't believe you'd do that, I just can't."

"Look," Ryan said, pushing a hand through his hair, and Jon turned away. Ryan said, "Jon," and then a door slammed down the hall and he heard Spencer's voice, and someone else's, and Ryan looked around wildly for a moment like he was going to run, and then he grabbed Jon's sleeve and pulled him five steps down to a door and pushed them both in. It was somebody's office, small, no windows, just a desk and a chair and Ryan slammed the door behind them and then stood braced against it. He stood there breathing hard, his hair falling down in front of his face and he looked like somebody in a movie, someone who'd just put his body in between the monsters and whoever he wanted to save and wasn't sure yet if it was going to work or if any minute the door would crash open behind him and everything he was afraid of would come pouring back in.

Ryan pushed his hair back out of his face and said, "Jon." Jon leaned against the desk and looked at him.

"Look, there's one thing I'm good at," Ryan said, and Jon hadn't even opened his mouth when Ryan said, "No, shut up, when I say I'm good at it I mean I'm good, really good, better than just about almost anybody in the whole fucking world, so you can stop looking at me like you just figured out I'm a secret cutter or something." Jon tried to make his face look like he would never think anything like that. He wanted to hear what Ryan was going to say. He wanted to be able to believe it.

"I'm really good at making things up," Ryan said. "I always have been, as long as I can remember, I can talk and I can write and I can make things up, really fucking beautiful things, raw things, real things, I can make them up so people believe them, so people want to believe them because they're so beautiful, so people want to climb inside and live in them. I can do that," he said fiercely, "I can do that so well."

"I know," Jon said. "I know you can."

"I can do that," Ryan said, "and so many people want to and hardly anyone can, and I can do it so well, I can make things up so anybody would want them, would want them more than anything, and if I can do that, and I can do it, why shouldn't I do it, why shouldn't I?"

"It's not that --"

"It's just, Jon," Ryan said, and his voice was almost pleading. "The me I can make up is so much better than the truth."

Jon shook his head desperately and Ryan said, "It is, though. I can make me so anybody would want me, so everybody wants me," and Jon shook his head again and Ryan said, "I can make me up so you want me."

"No," Jon said. "That's not what I wanted --"

"That's all you wanted," Ryan said. "I made you want me, I made up a me that you would want, that would be all you would want, I did that." He sounded so proud. Jon put his hand over his mouth and Ryan said, "I did that. I knew I could and I did. I told you at the beginning that I could talk you into it and I did, I did -- "

"No," Jon said. "No, that's not what I wanted," and when Ryan opened his mouth Jon talked right over him. "It's not, I don't want that, I don't want what you made up," and Ryan shut his mouth.

"I don't want what you made up," Jon said. "I never wanted that. I wanted you."

"Jon," Ryan said, "you didn't even know the difference."

"I know enough," Jon said, "and I don't want the you you made up," and Ryan's head turned against the door like Jon had slapped him. "I want you, though," Jon said, and Ryan stayed where he was, face turned away from Jon and his arms wrapped around himself, not tightly but there was a tension there still, like it was cold outside and he'd forgotten his coat and he was about to go out into the world with nothing else to keep him warm. "I don't know if that makes me stupid, or fucked up, or -- or I don't know what, but I do. I know you were lying to me, I know you knew just how to lie to me, and I still don't know what you made up and what's real but I know enough and I still want you. I don't know how to stop," he said, and then he shook his head because that was a lie and he didn't even know how to make himself believe it.

"I don't want to stop," Jon said.

Ryan looked at him, finally, and pulled his arms around himself tighter before he said, "It wasn't all a lie -- not everything, it wasn't all, sometimes ..." He stopped and took a breath. "Sometimes there was something true."

"I know," Jon said before he could think about it. When he had a chance to think about it he said it again. He wasn't shocked by the fact that it was true but by the fact that at that moment he believed every word.

Ryan took a step toward him and then stopped, glancing back like he wasn't sure he should leave the door unguarded. Then Jon put his hand out and Ryan came closer, close enough for Jon to grab his shirt and pull him closer still. Jon let go of him suddenly, almost shyly, and Ryan leaned into him hard and Jon kissed him.

It was no wonder, Jon thought, no wonder Ryan's words could be so wild and strange and beautiful, no wonder when his mouth was so wild and sweet. Jon pulled away for a minute, just a minute to catch his breath and for one dark moment he wondered if this was the first time, the first time he'd kissed Ryan for real, nothing made up but just Ryan and that was why it felt like this. Then Ryan kissed him again and it had always felt like this, hot and sweet and fucked up, ever since the first time when he hadn't known it was like this it had felt like this, not perfect or graceful but like it was the first time, like it was for real, and whatever Ryan's words knew how to do the rest of him couldn't lie. Jon rubbed his hand along Ryan's jaw and pushed him away a little. Ryan turned his face into Jon's hand, licking at his fingers but Jon moved his hand back around to Ryan's neck and held him still.

"You know what this is?" he said.

Ryan looked at him seriously, his tongue working at the corner of his mouth like he was thinking hard, like he needed to get this right. "True," Ryan said, not a question, and Jon kissed him, fast and sweet.

"This is a big fucking deal," Jon said, and kissed him again.