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It's Thursday night again, another week nearly gone and the last of the week's live shows wrapped and done with. Simon's limbs feel heavy, his eyes tired and his ears echoing with the vague strains of nine—or was it eight? Seven?—songs of only middling interest, performed by unremarkable aspiring pop stars. He can't really remember any of them with any clarity. It doesn't matter. Tomorrow is Friday and Simon has nowhere to be.
Not so Ryan. Ryan always has somewhere to be. He likes it that way, doesn't seem to be able to function any other. Bouncing around from gig to gig, always busy, always preoccupied, always looking for the next thing.
Tonight, though, right at this moment, Ryan has only one task at hand, and he applies himself to it while Simon reclines on the sofa in Ryan's dressing room, watching.
Ryan does this every night at the end of a show, after the hand-shaking and hugging is over and it's time to leave the theatre. The ritual is not always exactly the same, although it never varies by more than a button or a few shades of dark. Tonight Ryan's jacket is grey, with only the top button fastened; this he opens with a flick of the fingers on his right hand. The sides of the jacket fall apart and Ryan shrugs it off his shoulders before hanging it neatly on a hanger on the clothes rack at the back of the dressing room. He removes his silver tie clip—Simon doesn't even pretend to know what a tie clip is for—and drops it onto the makeup counter, then begins to loosen his tie, which has silver and navy stripes angling down it, with both hands.
“Cecconi's later?” Ryan asks, looking at his own neck, tie, and fingers in the enormous mirror while Simon's reflection lazes about in the background.
Simon takes a moment, several moments, watching the knot come loose under Ryan's fingers, watching Ryan pull the tie around through his collar, which is slightly popped up, and then free. The tie gets draped over the bar of the clothes rack and then weight-adjusted after the front end, the heavier end, threatens to drag the tie off the clothes rack and into a puddle on the floor.
“Maybe,” Simon says as Ryan starts undoing the buttons on his crisp white shirt, beginning with the cuffs and then moving to the top and efficiently working his way down. “Bit worn out.” It's the truth, but not the entire truth; he also wants to go home with Ryan at the end of the night, and preferably early enough that Ryan doesn't need to go immediately to sleep in order to be up the next morning at 4:00.
Ryan frees the last of his buttons and extricates himself from the shirt, tugging first at one sleeve and then at the other, arching his back and working his shoulders until the fabric is free. The shirt is hung on the rack in front of the jacket and left unbuttoned. Ryan stands in his trousers and plain white undershirt, meets Simon's eyes in the mirror, and gives him a small smile.
“Maybe,” he agrees.
Simon swings his feet over the edge of the sofa and sits up properly, patting the spot next to him. Ryan obliges him by walking over and taking it. He needs to take off his shoes, which he does quickly—one, two—before leaning over to give Simon a kiss.
“You looked nice tonight,” Simon finds himself saying as their lips come apart.
“You like the Burberry,” Ryan says, not really a question.
“I'm just glad you've finally turned your wardrobe over to professionals,” Simon says.
“Ah,” Ryan answers sweetly. “If only we could get you to do the same.”
He stands and returns to the clothes rack, leaving his shoes in front of the sofa and unfastening his belt as he goes. He hangs the belt on the rack. Then he unfastens his trousers. He steps out of them and hangs them up, just as neatly as everything else, to be cleaned and pressed before next week's shows.
There is something undeniably goofy-looking about Ryan as he stands in front of the clothes rack in white undershirt, grey boxer-briefs, and dark dress socks pulled up to mid-calf. There is always something amusing about a state of near-total undress marred by a pair of socks. But on Ryan, Simon finds the get-up, or lack thereof, endearing, not that he would ever say so. It's such a far cry from the Ryan of just a few minutes ago, buttoned up in his natty Burberry suit, tailored perfectly to his shape, accenting his shoulders and slim hips. That Ryan is the consummate professional, always flawlessly attired, reining in the chaos of their live shows like a circus ringmaster without so much as a hair out of place. But this—this is the stripped down Ryan, the Ryan only Simon gets to see. Casual, almost vulnerable, exposed in a way he never allows himself to be when there might be a camera nearby. And in their lives, there is always a camera nearby.
Ryan's own clothes, his street clothes, are hanging on the rack. He grabs the jeans first and bends at the waist to step into them while Simon admires the view this provides of his arse. Ryan zips up, fastens the button at the top, and adjusts himself without the slightest bit of self-consciousness. Oddly enough, putting on more clothes actually makes him look sexier, but Simon knows what those jeans cost, and Ryan's paid for the privilege.
Finally, Ryan exchanges his undershirt for a clean tee, mussing up his hair in the process. He looks in the mirror and musses it further until it comes back round to stylish. Then he catches Simon's eye in the mirror again. “Wanna skip Cecconi's?”
“Oh yeah,” Simon groans, and the grin he gets for that is worth missing out on tiramisu this time.