The thing is, Ryan didn’t actually mean to lie to his father on his fucking death bed. It just kind of happened.

The last couple of weeks before he finally gave into the cancer, he’d been so hopped up on morphine that only a small fraction of what came out of his mouth made any sense at all. Not that Ryan had been around for most of that. He’s been in the basement smoking weed and strumming away at his guitar.

Then his mother had appeared at the top of the basement stairs and said in this quiet, broken little voice that sent chills down Ryan’s spine, "You need to come say goodbye, honey.”

Ryan really hadn’t wanted to go up the stairs to the living room. It wasn’t like he’d ever been that close to his dad to begin with, so why try now? He was a hard ass, career military fucker who thought his only son being a pansy ass hippie was nothing short of criminal.

But the bastard was Ryan’s father and that meant something.

The worst part was how much the emaciated, dried out little husk of a body laying on the bed didn’t look like Ryan’s dad.

The guy in the bed was shrunken and small and so weak he couldn’t even fucking take care of himself. He had oxygen tubes in his nose and plastic IVs in his arms and even breathing came with a painful whistle.

Ryan really, really fucking wanted to go back into the basement.

"Come here,” the Colonel said weakly, "I’m dying.”

No shit, Sherlock, Ryan thought.

"I tried hard with you,” he whistled, fixing Ryan with a state he recognized. That hard look said he could see past the headbands, the tie die, the sermons about peace and love, straight to the secret Ryan kept locked away in his chest. There’s rebelling and there’s rebelling, and Ryan had no desire to get kicked out for more than a night or to be a victim of filicide. "Don’t know what I did wrong.”

He coughed and Ryan flinched.

"Promise me you’ll do something.”

"Yeah. Sure.” Ryan exhaled hard. "I promise.”

The colonel nodded and closed his eyes. “You gotta do something for your country for once.”

Ryan’s stomach twisted.

"There’s a war going on, Ryan.” Yeah, Ryan fucking knew about the war, knew about Vietnam. Hadn’t Spencer, the only friend he had the entire fucking world, already been drafted? "You gotta enlist.”

Ryan opened his mouth to tell his father, dying or not, to fuck off and go to hell. Before he could, the asshole went and died.

So, long story short; Ryan didn’t mean to lie to his father on his deathbed, it just kind of...happened. Because fuck if Ryan’s going to Nam. People are fucking dying over there.

No fucking way.

*

Except, stupid as it seems even to Ryan, he can’t get the goddamn promise out of his head.

There’s a difference between promising your healthy, vital, asshole father you’ll fill up the tank before you bring the car back and promising your dying father you’ll carry on a fucking stupid family legacy and enlist.

Thing is, Ryan’s no soldier.

He doesn’t do war, doesn’t do fighting, doesn’t do death. Bad enough the fucking government wants to send Spencer over to the jungles of Nam for a war that doesn’t make any damn sense, hell if Ryan’s going to die for no damn reason.

Promise be fucking damned.

*

He’s sitting on the roof outside his bedroom window smoking with Spencer.

Spencer’s leaning against the wall, legs stretched out in front of him, joint dangling loosely from his fingers. His hair’s already shaved off, and he looks a little strange. Ryan kind of wants to brush his knuckles against the short, soft bristle of hair on Spencer’s skull, but he doesn’t.

Spencer knows about the deathbed promise thing.

He jokes that Ryan should do a speed enlist so they can ship out together and keep tabs, maybe if they’re lucky even end up the same place, but it’s a joke, just a joke. Except Ryan can see the fear in Spencer’s eyes, the way he presses his palms to his thighs to keep his hands from shaking and it’s not funny, it’s not funny at all.

Ryan sees Spencer smile and it kind of breaks him that when Spencer comes back, because he is fucking coming back, that smile probably won’t come back with him.

"Maybe I should just enlist,” Ryan muses, staring up the thin smattering of stars visible in the early night sky. “Maybe it’s better to enlist before they fucking draft me.”

"Don’t be stupid.” Spencer elbows Ryan in the side. Hard. "You’re too small to be a soldier, Ry. They’d break you in half. And, anyway, your dad was higher on morphine than you’ve ever been. He didn’t mean it. Stop fucking worrying about and go back to writing songs about the fairy nymphs invading the circus.”

They lapse into silence, lazy curls of smoke spiraling away in the dark, mingling and touching on the breeze. Ryan wants to touch Spencer’s head, wants to hold his hand, kiss him. Not because he’s in love with Spencer, not anymore, but because he needs to know that Spencer is alive and breathing and not dead. Ryan thinks he’d die if he lost Spencer.

“I’m gonna miss you,” Ryan says suddenly, blushing and looking away.

Spencer smiles softly and bumps their foreheads together. "I’m coming back, Ry.”

Ryan knows that, he does. It’s just...some aren’t. Some aren’t coming back.

*

Two weeks later, Ryan stands at the bus stop and hugs Spencer so tightly he thinks he’s going to break him and, really, he’d be okay with that because it means Spencer wouldn’t have to go.

"I’ll be okay,” Spencer murmurs in his ear and for once no one glances at them sideways because everyone understands that boys are leaving and not coming back.

"I know,” Ryan mumbles, pressing his face to Spencer’s neck, "I know, I know.”

He waits on the corner as the bus pulls away. When it’s out of sight, he walks back home, gets in his father’s car and drives and drives until dark falls and he figures out what he’s going to do.

*

He’ll join the motherfucking peace corps.

*

It’s not nearly as easy as he thought it’d be.

He has to fill out applications and get a physical and talk to a shrink. He has to make them believe that he wants to help the world and save the whales and be a good person and not just get his father’s fucking ghost to shut up and be distracted enough to not obsessively look for Spencer’s name on the list of dead.

He gets more shots in the ass than he ever would have thought possible. He gets a passport and the name of a country with a couple pages of background about rural development.

He gets his mother’s blessing one morning as they sit in the kitchen. She looks at him, eyes heavy and sad, still mourning the less of a husband and nods her head once. Ryan feels a little guilty for leaving, but this leaving at least guarantees he’s coming back not in a coffin with a flag draped on top.

He gets letters from Spencer about basic and, God bless the bastard, he sugarcoats it for Ryan to make it sound like nothing more than a rough week at summer camp.

Ryan feels a little like his neat little life is spinning away. He’s the rebel, the flag burner, the protester, the weed smoker. It’s all still safe and he knows he has a home to go to and a dick father and a best friend, or he did. But not anymore.

*

A month later he’s in fucking Zambia. He’s hot, sweaty, thirsty,  jetlagged and exhausted, crammed in the back of a jeep speeds toward the middle of fucking nowhere and Ryan thinks maybe he should have though this shitty little plan through a little more.

**

Zambia’s hot and fucking humid and standing there, staring at the little village as the jeep lurches away in the jungle, Ryan feels a deep panic like he’d never known before.

Big mistake, the thinks, tightening his grip on his battered guitar. Big damn mistake.

**

The guy who is ostensibly in charge is named Pete and it takes Ryan all of two minutes to decide he’s a little batshit.

He walks up in cut off shorts and sneakers with the ragged remains of a tee shirt wrapped around his head. Tattoos spread down his arm with a line of what looks like spiked vines along his collarbone and a bat thing beneath his bellybutton.

He throws his arms around Ryan’s neck and says, "Jesus fuck, I am so glad to see you.”

Ryan believes in free love, he really fucking does, but that’s no reason to violate the personal bubble when he’s already freaking the fuck out.

"Come on,” Pete says, circling his fingers around Ryan’s wrist. "Lemme introduce you to everyone else.”

**

Everyone else turns out to be two guys.

One is Patrick, a shorter guy, a little on the round side, with long strawberry blond hair and glasses. He’s a nurse, Pete explains, but everyone calls him Dr. Patrick because it makes him feel special.

From the way Patrick blushes, Ryan gets the impression Pete calls him Dr. Patrick just to get him to make those quiet and kind of adorable little protesting sounds, but Ryan keeps that thought to himself.

The other will be Ryan’s best friend, according to Pete.

The other is a spastic, hyper ball of energy, bouncing around the local kids, laughing and playing like fucking Peter Pan or something. His shirt has a damn unicorn on it and he can talk faster than Ryan would have thought possible.

His name is Brendon and he’s not Corps, Pete adds, he’s one of those freaky Mormons and he’s doing his mission. Brendon smiles and punches Pete in the arm.

His smile painfully reminds Ryan of Spencer, and he feels like he’s going to throw up.

**

"You need anything?” Pete asks as Ryan sits on the edge of his cot in a stifling tent made of heavy duty canvas. Half of it belongs to Brendon.

I need to get the fuck out of here, Ryan thinks. I need you to call the jeep back and get me back to my basement and my weed and my life.

"No,” Ryan says.

**

He begs off dinner, claiming deep exhaustion and curls up on his cot with a notebook and a pencil. He tries to write a letter to Spencer to explain where he is and why he is, but the words won’t come.

Instead he falls into lyrics, random snippets of lines jotted down as the disjointed thoughts come. They’re not the usual fare about the moon and sun coming together in eternal love.

They’re jungles and bright suns and fear so deep he can taste it.

Fuck.

**

He wakes up soaked in sweat to Brendon’s fucking face hovering three inches above his.

"Good morning,” Brendon says cheerfully.

"Jesus fuck,” Ryan snaps, lashing out an arm on instinct. He’d been dreaming, but exactly what of, he can’t remember. His dreams have begun to blend together into something more like nightmares.

Brendon neatly doges his fist and grins at him, all calm and shit, like he doesn’t care that Ryan’s a complete ass first thing in the morning. Spencer can’t even manage that. "Patrick made breakfast.”

Ryan watches him cross the tent, way too bouncy and energetic for it being so goddamn early in the morning. He pauses in the doorway and grins over his shoulder. "I’m glad you’re here.” Then he’s gone.

Ryan stares. He sounds like he actually means it.

“Shit.”

**

Breakfast is bitter coffee that Ryan almost chokes on when he first swallows.

Pete snickers while Patrick apologizes for not warning him. Brendon thumps him helpfully on the back.

Ryan coughs, splutters, and wonders just how long it would take him to get back home on foot.

**

Pete says something about easing him in to the whole humanitarian bit, which translates to following Brendon. Patrick and Pete, who turns out to also be a nurse, try to deal with all and sundry that come looking for medical help.

Brendon leads him to half-finished shack. It’s a sad looking thing; the boards are warped and just about everything’s crooked.

"We’re trying to build something a little more permanent for Pete and Patrick to work in,” Brendon explains. "They told us they were going to try and send us an engineer.”

His smile is so damn hopeful Ryan feels a little bad confessing he finished high school by batting his pretty eyes at his English teacher who used her tits to bring up his math and science grades.

"That’s okay.” Brendon ruffles his hair and laughs as Ryan growls a little. “You can still help.”

"Brendon," Ryan says after a beat of silence, "I’m kind of a screw up.”

He means when it comes to building, outdoors, athletic shit, but the words come out a whole hell of a lot more vulnerable than he meant. Brendon’s smile softens in a way that’s somehow not condescending, just understanding.

He squeezes Ryan’s shoulder. "That’s okay, too.”

**

That night, Ryan stumbles into the tent and collapses onto his cot with a low groan.

Everything hurts.

He takes back every bitchy thought he ever had about his father when he called him a pansy ass hippie. He is a pansy. He’s weak. He’s avoided physical exertion since elementary school when gym stopped being mandatory.

He’s going to die.

“You’ll be okay, I promise.” Brendon chuckles as he sits down on his cot and strips off his shirt. “Everyone feels awful the first day. It’s like a right of passage.”

"Bite me,” Ryan moans. He ignores that little stab of heat in his belly at Brendon’s laugh.

He doesn’t mean to glance over at Brendon, but he does and gets an eyeful of smooth skin and toned muscle. Holy shit.

Ryan squeezes his eyes shut, shifts, and groans again.

**

The next day is worse.

By noon he wants to curl into a ball and die. But he watches Brendon talking to the braver little kids who aren’t afraid of Ryan, laughing and teasing and building and doing something and Ryan keeps going.

Brendon catches his eyes and grins and, somehow, Ryan finds himself grinning back, gritting his teeth against the ache.

**

Patrick passes him a little bottle of Advil that night with a lopsided grin before sitting back down next to Pete.

"He likes you,” Brendon murmurs in Ryan’s ear. “That’s good.”

Ryan nods his head as Pete plops down next to Patrick and slides his arm around his shoulders.

"What kind of crazy fun did you kids get up to?” Pete asks and Ryan doesn’t care if he’s yet one of the group or not, he flips Pete off and figures Brendon’s whoops and Patrick’s chuckles mean he’s okay.

**

Somehow he forgets about getting back on the jeep and making a run for it.

**

A while in, fucked if he knows how long exactly because out here time tends to lose meaning, he gets a letter from Spencer. It’s beaten and battered, bent and frayed, nearly three months old, but still a fucking letter.

He sits on his cot and reads and feels one knot in his chest loosen as another tightens.

You didn’t make a mistake, idiot. You did the right thing and you’ll be fine. I have faith in you, Ry, even if you don’t. After all, there’s got to be more to life then weed and songs about the invisible magical unicorns.

Anyway, now that basic’s over (even though I don’t really think we’re near ready enough) we’re shipping out some time in the next couple weeks.

Miss you,

Spencer

**

Ryan’s sitting there with the letter held loosely between his hands when Brendon tentatively pokes his head in. “Are you okay?”

Ryan thinks for a moment, swallows hard and shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Brendon slips inside and eases down beside him; they’re not touching, but Ryan can feel the heat radiating off Brendon’s skin and he shivers. He doesn’t cry, exactly, but he shakes and his breath hitches because suddenly it’s so very fucking real that Spencer is a soldier.

Somehow Brendon’s arm comes around his shoulders and Ryan’s forehead ends up on Brendon’s shoulder and, Ryan loses track of how long they sit like that, silent and together.

**

Brendon’s his usual too fucking cheerful self in the morning and doesn’t say a word.

Ryan catches his eye, though, and tries with all his might to say thank you.

**

Eventually, Ryan get used to the physical labor. He still bitches about it loudly whenever Pete’s within earshot, mouthing off about how easy the stuck up, pansy nurses have it, and smirks when Pete cheerfully flips him off. Brendon watches with an expression that torn between amusement and the lingering residue of sheltered Mormon kid shock.

The thing is, he gets used to the physical labor and he gets used to Brendon’s hyperactivity and Pete’s complete lack of respect for personal boundaries. He even  gets used to Patrick’s way of communicating through gestures instead of words, but he can’t seem to get used to the kids.

It sounds really fucking stupid when he thinks about it, but its true.

The adults are fine. Ryan’s on the quiet side as general rule and they’re more comfortable talking to Pete and Brendon anyway; they’re polite, but in large part they leave Ryan alone. They pass him off as just the latest in a long line of kids sent from the Corps with the theoretical intention of making their lives better.

The kids, though, the kids are something else.

“Why are they staring at me?” Ryan murmurs to Brendon one blisteringly hot afternoon. They’re taking a break from building the shack which is still crooked as hell, but a little less dilapidated.

“Who?” Brendon asks, chugging half a water bottle and dumping the rest on his neck and shoulders. He shakes his head like a dog and covers Ryan in a spray of fine droplets.

There are a couple kids lounging around, just watching with big eyes that Ryan finds incredibly creepy. He’s seen them talk to Brendon, laughing and giggling, and when they’re like that, it’s fine. It’s just the staring thing that freaks Ryan out.

“Them.” Ryan gestures vaguely, flopping down on his back.

Brendon lays down beside him and grins. “They’re probably a little scared of you, Ry. Y’know, being as you show up and never say anything to them. Don’t you remember being afraid of adults when you were a kid?”

“I’m not an adult.”

“Close enough.” Brendon pokes him in the ribs. “They’re just people, Ry, like any kids anywhere. You should try, I don’t know, maybe saying hi. You might be surprised.”

Ryan shrugs. “We can’t all be social butterflies, Bren.”

Brendon snorts and pushes himself up. “Y’know, you don’t have to pick between hermit and social butterfly. You can be something in between. I know I’m awesome, as are Pete and Patrick, but we’ve got to get boring to talk to after awhile.”

Ryan nods and Brendon laughs.

**
 
That night Ryan’s lays on his stomach, shirt off, and tries to write to Spencer, but the words don’t come. Every sentence is stilted, twisted by the fear roiling in Ryan’s gut that won’t go away.

“Who’s Spencer?” Brendon asks suddenly from his side of the tent.

Ryan glances up, half formed answers competing on his tongue. Brendon’s laying on his back, knees bent, hands splayed across his stomach. His eyes are lidded, rimmed with circles of exhaustion.

“He’s…” Ryan trails off. My other half, my missing piece. “He’s my best friend.”

Brendon bites down on his lip and looks at the ceiling, unconsciously tapping out a rhythm with his thumb. “Like your…boyfriend?”

Ryan inhales sharply, old reactions kicking in so hard it nearly hurts. His father, the fucking prick, and his rants replay in his mind; the goddamn homos are ruining the country. “No. He’s not. He never was.”

Brendon doesn’t look relieved or disgusted, any of the emotions that Ryan would have expected. He just looks settled, like a questions been answered. Ryan looks down at the scrawled lines of the letter and pictures Spencer sitting in another jungle, reading over his words again and again, holding onto them.

“Back in high school,” Ryan mumbles, rubbing his thumb over the paper, “I mean. Just. Back then, I wanted. We didn’t ever. But. It wasn’t for lack of trying. On my part. There were others, though.”

Ryan looks at Brendon through the curtain of his eyelashes and Brendon offers him a glimmer of smile, wistful and afraid.

“Now. Would you want him to be now?”

“No,” Ryan replies after a long beat of silence. “I love him too much to ever want to risk ruining what we have for something that we both know isn’t meant to be.”

Brendon nods. “Okay.”

The cot creaks as he rolls onto his side and Ryan wonders just what the fuck that was all about.

**

Ryan wakes up and he knows as soon as his eyes slide open that it’s later than usual. The tent is too quiet for Brendon to be in it and heat has begun to seep in around the relatively cool edges of night; Ryan’s skin is already clammy from sweat.

He dresses slowly, replaying their stilted exchange again and again in his mind, wondering if he missed some little moment that would make understanding click in his brain. Nothing comes to mind, beyond the inherent awkwardness of the conversation. Sex makes everything weird.

He dresses on automatic; pants, shirt, boots, almost the same as back home, with the addition of a bandana wrapped around his head to keep his fucking hair out of his eyes. Brendon’s offered to cut it, but Ryan’s really not sure he’s ready to trust Brendon with the responsibility of his head and a sharp object in close proximity.

**

Pete comes out of fucking nowhere the moment Ryan stumbled out of the tent, blinking at the bright sunlight, and presses himself up against Ryan’s side. He wonders what it says that Pete’s touchy tendencies have ceased to incite any reaction other than to pet his shoulder and carry on without whatever he’s doing.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Pete tucks his chin into Ryan’s shoulder.

“Morning,” Ryan says, word broken by a yawn.

“So, Brendon says you’re gay,” Pete says brightly and Ryan almost swallows his goddamn tongue.

“I…” Nothing more comes out, just the same vowel stammered as Ryan burns with embarrassment and irrationally frightened anger, wondering if this means everything changes or nothing changes.

“Are you?” Pete asks evenly, tightening his arms around Ryan’s chest.

Ryan grits his teeth. God, living without physical privacy is bad e-fucking-nough, but revealing his deep, dark secrets is a new form of invasion entirely. “Yes. Is that a problem?”

The bitter in his question surprises them both. Ryan stiffens, body rebelling against the hold of Pete’s arms, the press and warmth of his shape. Pete goes still, breath a soft whoosh in Ryan’s ear.

“No, it’s not,” Pete sighs and Ryan exhales sharply. “Just for the record though…” He leans in, lips brushing against Ryan’s ear. “Patrick’s taken, okay?”

Ryan almost, almost, laughs because it just makes such perfect fucking sense. “Yeah. I know.”

Pete grins, smacks his ass, and wanders away.

**

Brendon’s already at the sad little shack, now a little bit more built and possibly even slightly less crooked than it had been upon Ryan’s arrival. Ryan shoves his hands into his pockets and shuffles up as Brendon fucks around with the hammer, making a great show of doing something that translates to accomplishing nothing.

“So, Pete found me,” Ryan says flatly and Brendon stills.

“I’m sorry.” He drops the hammer and turns, fear written clearly on his face and it just looks strange. “I didn’t mean to, I was just talking to Patrick about…um, about things and it popped out and Pete was eavesdropping because, well, he’s Pete and that’s what he does and I’m really, really sorry, but they’re okay with it-”

“Are you?” Ryan cuts in. “Are you okay with it? Because we share a tent, Brendon, and if this is going to be a problem then we’d better deal with it now.”

His chest clenches at the thought. Somehow, just as he’s stopped needing to run away to what’s safe and the know commodities that make up his life, he’s begun to need Brendon’s friendship, his laugh and late night rambles when the sticky heat keeps them both awake.

“No, it’s not that,” Brendon says, shifting back on the balls of his feet. “I don’t mind. It’s okay.”

Ryan knows he’s lying about something, knows in his gut, but twined in with that is the same bone deep knowledge that Ryan is Missing Something, something important. Brendon looks at his feet.

“Look,” Ryan sighs, “I sweat to God I’m not going to kiss you or attack you or molest you in anyway. Are we fine?”

Brendon lets out a strangled, startled little laugh and shakes his head. “Yeah, we’re fine.”

Ryan breathes deep and chooses to take the words at face value.

**

“Are Patrick and Pete…together?” Ryan asks that afternoon as they rest in the shade, not as close as they were the day before, but not as far apart as they’d been in the beginning.

“Yeah,” Brendon nods, voice slow and sleepy.

“Oh.” Ryan shoves a hand through his hair and glances to the sliver of medical tent visible through the boards of the shack.

“They’re kind of epic,” Brendon eventually says. “Like written in the stars, find each other across time and space, fate has destined them to be together. Epic.”

Ryan nods and grins, just a little. “Groovy.”

**

Pete gets sick.

It’s nothing serious, just some kind of fucked up jungle cold that leaves him aching and bitching unhappily as loudly as he can, a sure sign that he’s not dying, but he feels like shit. He stays in the tent he shares with Patrick with a wet washcloth draped over his eyes.

By lunch Patrick is exhausted and frazzled from trying to get everything going himself; Brendon and Ryan exchange a look behind his back and nod.

“I really think we should take a break from building the shack,” Brendon announces. “Hey, Ryan, why don’t you go help Patrick and I’ll go check on Pete. Doesn’t that sound like a good idea, Ryan?”

In all honesty Ryan would prefer to flip their positions around, thanks so much, but Brendon’s already jogging away, waving as he goes.

Patrick gives Ryan a kind, tiredly knowing smile and bumps him with his elbow. “If you don’t want to, it’s okay. I can handle it.”

Ryan cocks an eyebrow. Patrick’s not lying, exactly, because Ryan has no doubt in his mind that Patrick has enough magic in him to keep the whole operation running for the rest of the day, but Ryan’s grown rather fond of Patrick and doesn’t want him to die of exhaustion.

Besides, like Brendon said, they’re just people.

Just people. Ryan can handle people.

Right.

“No, let me help,” Ryan says, standing and arching his back. “My other option is to sit our tent alone or sit in your tent and listen to Pete whine. I’d rather, ah, help.”

Patrick pushes down a grin and nods. “All right.”

**

It’s not that bad. It’s weird and a little uncomfortable because Ryan spends most of the time existing in a state of half panic that he’s going to fuck something up and accidentally kill someone, but that aside, it’s fine.

What’s funny is that Patrick, for all that he’s shy as all fuck, has a way with people. Ryan can see why Pete would fall for him. Ryan can see why anyone would fall for him.

A woman comes with a low, watery, ugly cough that makes Ryan wince in a sympathy, and toddler balanced on her hip. She sits down, exhausted, and Patrick takes the kid and passes her to Ryan, brow creased. “Entertain her for a minute, okay?”

“Um,” Ryan awkwardly shifts her onto his hip and realizes he hasn’t held a little kid since his cousin was born back when he was like eleven. “Yeah, okay.”

What the hell was he supposed to say? ‘No, Patrick, I don’t know anything about kids, so you’re going to have to hold her while you also try and figure out what’s wrong with her mother so she doesn’t end up an orphan.’ Ryan’s a screw up, but he’s not an asshole, for fuck’s sake.

But of course the kid just stares at him, which is the thing that just fucking creeps him out about all kids, whether they’re the brats that live down the street back home or wide eye little girl in Zambia.

Ryan swallows. They’re just people, he repeats, just people. Small, staring people.

“I’m Ryan,” Ryan says awkwardly. “Um, what’s your name?”

She regards him for a long moment with deep solemnity. “Nataizya.”

“Nataizya,” Ryan echoes, stumbling a little over the syllables as he bounces her on his hip. Fuck, for small people they get heavy fast. “That’s…pretty.”

“It means ‘I am thankful’,” her mom says as Patrick presses a stethoscope between her shoulder blades. Ryan offers her a small, lopsided grin. The kid, Nataizya, smile shyly at Ryan  and tucks her head against his shoulder.  

Ryan rubs her back and grins at her mom and, good goddamn, Brendon’s right.

Just people.

**

“Will she be okay?” Ryan asks as he and Patrick exhaustedly chew their way through dinner. Brendon’s with Pete, feeding the drama queen the blandest stuff they could find.

Patrick’s looks up. “Who?” The dying light casts his face in stark relief, darkening the shadows rim around his eyes like bruises.

“Nataizya’s mom.” Ryan blushes and pokes at his food. “I mean, she’s gonna be okay, right?”

It’s strange talking to Patrick and just Patrick. Ryan realizes they haven’t been alone together since he arrived. Ninety percent of the time Pete’s attached to Patrick, whether it be as little as their elbows touching or as much as Pete in Patrick’s lap, face pressed into his neck. And when Pete’s gone Brendon’s there, laughing and singing Disney until Patrick blushes and joins in.

“Hopefully,” Patrick says with a soft smile. “It looks like just a bad cough. Barring any complications, I think she’ll be fine.”

Ryan nods and lets out a little sigh of relief he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Good.”

“You know,” Patrick says after a beat of silence, “You’re a good guy, Ryan. I can see why Brendon likes you.”

Ryan look up and meets Patrick’s eye and, God, it’s like Patrick can see straight through him. In a very weird way it’s like the Colonel’s gaze, with the marked difference that the Colonel always looked at Ryan with bone deep regret in his eyes. Patrick looks at him with affection and something that looks very much like true kindness.

Ryan breaks the gaze first and absolutely does not feel a little flare of heat in his belly at the words, because they don’t mean anything. Ryan grins tightly and heads to his tent.

**

Brendon’s lying on his cot, humming a song that Ryan vaguely recognizes, but can’t quite think of, and staring at the drab expanse of tent above his head. Ryan hesitates for a moment, then drops down on the cot, thigh pressing against Brendon’s hip.

“So, you were right.”

“I usually am,” Brendon almost manages to reply in a deadpan, but breaks into a smile on the last word. “What was I right about?”

“The kids.” Ryan picks at a hole in his knee. “They’re just people.”

“Yeah.” Brendon grins and pats Ryan’s thigh. His hands are big and warm through the fabric. Christ almighty, Ryan can’t believe this shit is happening.

**

He finally finds the words to write to Spencer.

Want to hear something stupid?

I think I might be in love.

I know.

Ryan

**

He wakes up to Brendon singing the motherfucking song from Snow White at the top of his stupid lungs in clear disregard of the fact that Ryan is not a fucking morning person and will throw a shoe at Brendon’s stupid head and not feel bad at all.

“Brendon!” Ryan mumbles, mashing his face into his arms. It’s already hot and sweat makes his shirt cling to his chest and settles heavily on his skin.

“Hi ho -. Yes?”

Ryan cracks his eye open and finds Brendon in the middle of dressing, shirt held in one hand, fly unbuttoned, pants slung low across his hips. Fuck. Someone in the universe hates him, there’s no other goddamn explanation. “Shut the fuck up,” Ryan growls.

Brendon’s eyes narrow dangerously and he crosses his arms across his chest, two warning signs Ryan’s learned to recognize.

Ryan bites off a string of less than flattering remarks. “Shut the fuck up, please.”

Brendon breaks into a wide smile and shimmies his shirt over his head. It’s the fuck ugly one with the damn unicorn prancing along the hem. Ryan wonders what it means that instead of being repulsed by the stupid thing, he’s almost fond of it.

“Hurry up.” Brendon pauses by the top of Ryan’s bed and ruffles his hair. “A new day has dawned!”

Logically, Ryan knows he should be annoyed at the very least. Instead he’s smiling, which freaks him out more than anything else has.

**

Ryan is not stupid.

He’s sarcastic and closed off and actually a pretty crappy hippie, but he’s not stupid and he doesn’t do stupid shit. He mocks those who act before they think, who speak without realizing what the hell they’re saying.

Spencer attributes it to a logical streak he’s had since they were kids. It’s the thing that made question his mother about the logic of Santa Claus until she finally broke down in frustration and told her five year old that, no, Santa wasn’t real.

Logically, Ryan can see that this thing he has about Brendon makes no fucking sense whatsoever.

For one thing, not that Ryan really has a type, but if he did it certainly wouldn’t be Brendon. It would be more like Pete; dark and little strange, rough and raw around the edges from the mysteries and hurts of a past only to be whispered about in the dark hours of the night.

Brendon is sunshine and daisies, baskets of kittens and summer evenings sitting on the porch, watching the lightning bugs dance in the pale shadows of the twilight. Brendon is everything good in the world, everything bright that makes you smile even when you don’t want to.

Brendon is also completely okay with Pete and Patrick who, after realizing Ryan certainly wasn’t going to freak out on them, suddenly can’t seem to keep their hands off each other. Well, more like Pete can’t keep his hands off Patrick, and Patrick doesn’t really have any desire to push him away.

However, Brendon is a Mormon kid on his fucking mission.

Mormon. Mission.

So, game over. Not gonna happen.

“How long has Brendon been here?’ Ryan asks Pete on what feels like a Sunday afternoon, humid and lazy. It’s too fucking hot to do anything, even get sick or hurt apparently, and everyone’s just lying around, trying not to drown in the air.

Pete looks at Ryan and cocks his head. “Couple months longer than you. Why?”

“No reason.”

Brendon’s sitting in the shade of one of the huts, telling a story to a bunch of kids sprawled in a loose half circle around him. He’s a good storyteller, Ryan can easily admit. He has a knack for coming up with different voices and has a near endless supply of Disney movies to draw off of.

“Bullshit,” Pete mumbles, so low Ryan can barely hear it.

“What?” Ryan asks irritably. Pete scratches the tattoo on his stomach and yawns as Patrick comes up and drops down next to them. He twines their fingers together without thinking, stroking his thumb across the ridge of Patrick’s knuckles.

“I think I’m supposed to be the dense one,” Pete replies.

“What the hell does that mean?” Ryan’s really fucking tired of Pete speaking in riddles and rhymes that only fucking Patrick can understand and he’s tired of trying to read between the lines of Patrick’s gestures and coming up with jack shit.

Pete opens his mouth, but Patrick jams a none too subtle elbow in his side and gives Ryan an apologetic look.

**

“Can I ask you something?”

Ryan looks up from his notebook, now battered and warped from heat. The lines are filled with snippets of sentences, fragments of thoughts in his messy scrawl. It’s been a long time since he wrote about the moon and sun coming together in eternal love. It’s brown eyes now, brown eyes and an infectious laugh, ugly shirts and songs way to early in the motherfucking morning. It’s pages of Ryan committing to reality just how fucking sadly and pathetically gone he is.

“Yeah.”

Brendon’s sitting cross legged on his bed, book held open between his fingers, but Ryan can’t see what book it is. His face is painted in the soft yellow glow from the lantern that provides their only light and he looks mellow.

“Why don’t you ever play your guitar?” Brendon nods his head toward the case stowed carefully at the end of Ryan’s bed. It hasn‘t been played once since he came, though, sometimes, when he’s alone, he takes it out of the case and coaxes quiet chords from the strings. He runs his fingers over the cool wood of the frets and even tunes it, but he doesn’t really play.

Ryan bites his lip. He doesn’t know how to tell Brendon that suddenly all Ryan’s songs are about him.

“I don’t know,” Ryan mumbled, closing his notebook and tossing it under his cot, like if he can’t see the words they can’t be true.

“I play,” Brendon offers with a wistful little smile. “I didn’t think to bring mine.”

Shit, Ryan didn’t need that image in his head; Brendon’s fingers moving over the strings, arching and really feeling the music in a way that only someone who means it can. Ryan swallows hard and looks at Brendon. “You could play mine. If you wanted. If you let me ask you a question.”

Brendon grins and shifts to sit cross legged. “You mean it?”

Ryan nods.

“Okay.”

“Why are you here?” The question comes out before Ryan can think and, really, it’s not what he meant to ask, but it hovers between them. Ryan rolls onto his side and Brendon crosses his arms over his chest, bites down on his lip. “I mean, Pete told me you’re doing your mission, but why do it all the way over here?”

Brendon looks at Ryan and hunches his shoulders, collapsing in on himself in a way Ryan has never seen. “It was actually my mom’s idea. Most people do their missions in the states, y’know? Away from home, but not so far away from home. But, um, my cousin, Jake, he got drafted.”

Brendon pauses and Ryan slips off his bed, crosses the space and eases down next to Brendon. His hands are shaking because he understands, God, he understands.

“My family makes a big show of being patriotic,” Brendon continues softly. “But my mom said as long as I’m doing my mission, why not try and do something to help the whole world and she and our pastor worked it out so I could come here.”

“You like it here,” Ryan offers like it should be some form of comfort, affirmation that Brendon’s not a bad person and hasn’t done anything wrong. “You like what you’re doing.”

“Still.” Brendon shrugs and smiles thinly. “If I weren’t here, I’d have been drafted. My birthday got called a few weeks after I got here. My mom wrote and told me.”

Ryan closes his fingers around Brendon’s hand and he can feel the pulse in Brendon’s wrist beneath his thumb. “Look, Bren, you want to know why I’m here?”

Brendon nods and, God, they’re so close, so very fucking close.

“I’m here because my asshole father got me to promise him on his deathbed that I would fucking enlist and do something for my goddamn country,” Ryan says in a rush and the sound he makes is somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “He wanted me to be a soldier, a motherfucking soldier, but I couldn’t. I can’t. They already got my best friend and I couldn’t give them me. People die in Nam, they fucking die and I won’t do that. Fuck dying for them.’

“So I cam here because I’m a coward and I thought it’d be easier to for me to play the hippie and be a tree hugger for a year than to kill people.” Ryan swallows the bile the rises in his throat. “Meanwhile the only friend I’ve got is over there and I guess I’m proving my father right. I am just a fucking pansy fag.”

Brendon makes a noise in the back of his throat and fists his free hand in Ryan’s shirt. “Don’t. You’re not. Don’t say that.”

Ryan tightens his fingers on Brendon’s wrist. His bones feel delicate, like they’re made of porcelain and glass. “I’m a screw up. I already told you that.”

Brendon sighs and dips his head, bumping their foreheads together. “I wish you could see yourself the way I do,” he mumbles and Ryan inhales.

“What do you see?” Ryan mumbles.

Brendon brushes his hair out of his eyes and, God, he looks so fucking scared, and doesn’t say anything.

**

He doesn’t know what to say to Brendon. He doesn’t know what Brendon wants to say to him, but isn’t.

**

They shift around each other the next day, not speaking, but somehow still fitting together. It’s strange and odd and Ryan still feels like he’s Missing Something, like Brendon gave him a small piece of his soul in that moment and he can’t translate the action into meaning.

Pete asks questions, because that’s who he is, and it drives Ryan crazy because he has no answers. He didn’t break Brendon, he doesn’t think, but fuck if knows how to put him back together.

“Jesus fuck, how does Patrick put up with you?” Ryan snaps.

Pete stills and offers Ryan a soft, confused, afraid little smile. “I really don’t know.”

Oh, Ryan thinks, so that’s what love looks like.

**

“So,” Patrick says late that afternoon as Ryan sits by the shack that now actually has one whole goddamn wall, “What did you say to Pete? He’s been clinging all afternoon like he hasn’t since we first got together, so don’t tell me nothing, I won’t buy it.”

Ryan heaves a frustrated sigh and runs a hand through his hair. Against all odds and his better judgment, he’s genuinely come to care about the three weirdoes he’s stranded with, but their proclivity for constantly seeing through him can get really fucking wearing at times.  “I didn’t say anything, per se. I just…I asked how you put up with him.”

Patrick chuckles. “Well, that makes sense. And, you know, I actually ask myself that same question sometimes.”

“What’s the answer?” Ryan asks after a beat. “I mean, how does someone like you fall in love with someone like Pete and not lose your fucking mind?”

“Ryan,” Patrick sighs and looks at him.

There’s something about Patrick that Ryan can’t explain, something knowing and comforting, something that asks to be told secrets and promises never to reveal them in the same moment. Ryan realized he asked the wrong question. He can understand Pete falling in love with Patrick, Pete who laughs too loudly and feels too much, too hard, too often. It’s Patrick, kind, funny, shy Patrick he doesn’t understand reciprocating.

It’s an important question because Ryan knows in his gut that he is like Pete, just a little jagged, and Brendon is like Patrick, too perfect to be fucking real.

“It just happens sometimes, Ryan,” Patrick says quietly. “It was like one night I feel asleep and he was Pete. Cocky and loud and annoying as all hell. And then I woke up and I looked at him and he was still Pete, still cocky and loud and annoying, but I couldn’t picture my life without him. It wouldn’t be life. Life without him would be just existing and I don’t want to live like that. I can’t live like that.”

Ryan twists his hands together. He wishes Spencer was there, with his wisdom and sarcasm, sitting on his other side. “I don’t know what to do, Patrick. I mean, this doesn’t feel like my life. I’m in the middle of fucking Zambia working for the fucking Peace Corps and there’s this fucking guy I can’t get out of my head.”

Patrick laughs, soft and low, and lays a hand on Ryan’s knee. “Welcome to the club, Ryan Ross. Before I came here I was living in a tiny apartment in a crap section of Chicago, working twelve hour shifts patching up bullet holes and treating drug overdoses just to pay for rent and food and I hated it. I didn’t become a nurse to watch people let themselves die. So one night I quit and I came here.’

“When I arrived, Pete was already here and, at first, he drove me crazy. I thought I was going to kill him in cold blood before the week was out.” Ryan snorts in understanding and Patrick grins. “But then I realized there was something more to him. We started talking about the stupid shit that doesn’t seem all that important, but is still a part of who you are. And then, you know, woke up one day and it was love.”

Ryan tips his head back and looks up the sky. The colors are quickly leaching away, the bright blue of afternoon fading to the muted purples and grays of twilight. “What did you do?”

“I waited for him to come to me,” Patrick replies, “And when that didn’t happen I went to him. Look. Ryan. Pete’s the kind of person who doesn’t deal in subtlety. He says shit to your face and expects you to deal with it because it’s true. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t say anything because nine times out of ten, people need to find their own way.”

“It’s always riddles with you.” Ryan bumps Patrick with his elbow. Brendon’s laugh drifts out of the tent where he and Pete are doing God knows what, echoing like the last remnants of a ghost song in the warm air.

“If you can’t tell him,” Patrick says deliberately, “Show him.”

**

Ryan opens his case and pulls out his guitar, runs his fingers over the smooth wood and the taunt strings.

He doesn’t know where the notes and chords come from, but he knows they’re not about any the shit they used to be when he sat in the basement, smoking pot and dreaming about doing something else.

**

It doesn’t take long before the tent flaps open and Brendon steps inside, hands curled into loose fists at his side, shoulders hunched up like he’s hurting. Ryan looks at him and wonders if Patrick worked the same subtle magic on Brendon as he has on Ryan. Brendon’s eyes latch onto his hands and he keeps playing.

“I lied a little,” Brendon says a in low voice. “About why I’m here. My senior year this was this boy and we were in band together and we just friends and then I…couldn’t stop myself. And I was taught it was wrong, Ryan, very, very wrong. That it was sin. But we kept it a secret and no one found out, but it was so fucking hard. And then this idea came and I thought maybe if I got away it would go away. And it did, for awhile. Until you came.”

Ryan meets Brendon’s eyes across the tent. They’re filled with tears and fear, and holding that gaze is the hardest thing he’s ever done before; harder than watching his father die, harder than saying goodbye to Spencer. His hands move across the strings automatically, a soundtrack to his fucked up life. “Do you want me to apologize?”

“No,” Brendon bursts out, “I want you to touch me and kiss me and do all the stupid things I can’t stop dreaming about because you aren’t a bad person, whatever you think, and this thing doesn’t feel like sin! I don’t know.”

Ryan stops playing and carefully sets the guitar aside. Oddly enough, he‘s not afraid; it’s as though he doesn’t have room for fear. “Come here.”

Brendon moves in stilted jerks, crossing the small tent until he’s standing right in front of Ryan and shaking so hard Ryan can practically feel it. The tightness in his chest, the emotions, are overwhelming and imperfect and Ryan’s beginning to think that maybe that’s the point. Maybe love is less about the great moment of violin music and glorious revelation and more about awkward, messy, painful moments of coming together.

Ryan stands, and they’re almost the same height. “I won’t, if you tell me not to.”

“Ryan.” Brendon’s breath hitches and he fists his hands in Ryan’s shirt. “God, Ryan.”

It’s not a yes, but it’s not a no either. It’s raw fear and want  in Brendon’s voice and Ryan understands. His hands settle on Brendon’s hips and tighten; Ryan wonders if Brendon will have bruises in the morning, pale brown-purple circles dusted across his flesh and he likes the idea of marking Brendon, of finally taking something he wants and making him his own.

“I’m scared,” Brendon mumbles, eyes half closed.

Ryan leans in, so close their lips almost brush, “So am I.”

And, if nothing else, they have truth.

**

The night is rough and sloppy, hands frantic against each other, shaking so hard it’s like they’re going to come apart because neither of them have ever felt so much. It’s almost too much and Ryan doesn’t know how they are still whole.

Brendon arches beneath Ryan’s hands, keens in the back of his throat, fingers digging into Ryan’s back. They’re both going to have bruises in the morning, bruises and marks, the imprint of nails and teeth and that’s okay, Ryan thinks. That’s okay.

He runs his hands over Brendon’s body, feeling the skin he’s looked at and dreamed about and revels in the glory of actually being able to touch. Ryan presses his face into Brendon’s neck and inhales his scent, drags his teeth along the curve of Brendon’s jaw.

“You’re beautiful,” Ryan murmurs, voice blending with the rasp of skin and the gasps of need and want, tinged with something like relief.

Brendon opens his eyes and looks at Ryan. “This doesn’t feel wrong,” he whispers, tangling his fingers in Ryan’s hair. “This doesn’t feel wrong at all.”

Ryan inhales slowly and mouths against Brendon’s ear, I love you.

**

Ryan wakes up with Brendon’s heartbeat thudding steadily away beneath his ear. He splays his fingers over Brendon’s chest and closes his eyes.

This, he thinks, This is what love feels like.


**

Brendon wakes slowly and Ryan watches in fascination. It’s strange, almost really like seeing Brendon for the first time. Ryan smiles to himself and takes a breath that is almost a sigh as Brendon blinks until his eyes settle on Ryan.

They’re lying on Ryan’s cot, legs tangled together, and Brendon’s arms are wrapped protectively around Ryan’s chest. The sheet fell to the floor sometime during the night but, for once, Ryan doesn’t care that he’s naked.

“Hi.” Brendon’s voice is low and sleep rough.

“Hi.” Ryan brushes his thumb across Brendon’s lips. “Are you going to freak out on me?”

Brendon chuckles and offers a half smile. “Not right now.”

“Good.”

Brendon is warm and soft, and Ryan thinks that it’s early enough he can fall back asleep for a little while before they have to move and start coping with reality. Ryan has always thought that reality was really highly fucking overrated.

“Ry?”

“Hm?”

“Last night, I heard what you said.” Brendon presses a kiss to Ryan’s hair. “I think I love you, too.”

Ryan smiles.

**

That night, with Brendon’s arm slung around his shoulders while Pete teases them mercilessly and Patrick grins like he’s proud, Ryan opens his notebook, props it up on his knees and writes.

Spence,

I’ve learned something here. Love has fuck all to do with the moon and sun and stars and all that crap. It’s about screwing and being stupid and still making it work out anyway.

You’d better come back. I need you to meet him.

Ryan