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There’s a routine to opening the cleaning shop. Ryan unlocks the front door, steps inside. He turns to the left and turns on the lights. He slips his green corduroy jacket off and hangs it on the coat hanger to the right of the door.
In the back there are two rooms, and a bathroom. The first room is where the large revolving clothes rack moved from the back room to the front. The second room holds two machines, side by side. Its just Ryan working the shop since his grandmother had passed and left it to him, but Ryan is okay with that. Mostly he likes being left alone.
The chime over the door signals at 8:10 just like every other Monday. Ryan rolls his shoulders and steps out into the front room. If he doesn’t there’s a good chance the guy waiting for him will bypass the counter all together, and he really doesn’t want to have to replace the clothes rack again.
Pete Wentz is standing in his lobby wearing a hoodie over his button up shirt and slacks. Ryan is assuming the lack of jeans means he has a meeting early morning. His mouth is all squished together like he’s irritated and he’s tapping his foot impatiently, as if Ryan were currently inconveniencing him.
“Good morning,” Ryan mumbles stoically and then stares at him. Pete pushes his bottom lip out and sighs sadly.
“Come on, don’t hold out on me Ross,” Pete says, leaning over the counter with his chin in hand. There are dark bags under his eyes and Ryan knows there’s a good chance that he hasn’t slept in days.
Pete is one of Ryan’s regulars. He comes in three times a week, usually really early in the morning, on the way to his office. He’s an entrepreneur in his own right and often in the limelight for his more successful music label. Ryan was a huge fan of Pete’s before he’d met him, when he was still the lead singer of Arma. He’d been slightly disappointed when he met him, to be honest, because he’d expected Pete to be a lot of things: charming, intelligent, down-to-earth…tall. But the truth was that Pete was slightly neurotic, an asshole half the time, and while he was definitely hot, he was one of the most insecure people Ryan had ever met. He had also become one of Ryan’s really good friends.
“What makes you think I’m holding out on you?” Ryan asks peering around Pete to check on Hemingway leashed out front. Ryan won’t let Pete bring the bulldog into the building because perc is an air contaminant and he’d rather not take the chance of hurting the dog.
“Please, you have the best job ever,” Pete says, “I know you find crazy things in pockets all the time.”
“You would know,” Ryan says with an eye roll, “I’m still scarred from the bondage pictures I found in your pockets.”
Pete shrugs and grins. “You should have sold them to the tabloids. They would have made you a ton of cash.”
“And ruin our wonderful relationship?” Ryan gasps in his monotone, “No way.”
“You’re such a good friend,” Pete tones wryly, shifts to lean a hip on the counter, “Now gimme. Gimme gimme.” Ryan sighs, reaches under the counter and pulls a cardboard box out. He sets it on top and Pete smiles in glee.
He immediately starts rifling though it, pulling out pens, buttons, a disposable camera, along with various other small items. He picks up the camera and checks it. It’s got three pictures left on it, and he turns it around, snaps two of himself with a ridiculous look on his face, and takes one of Ryan.
“Call it,” he says and Ryan shrugs, “Birthday party.”
“Porn,” Pete says, “I can smell it.”
“That’s pretty disgusting,” Ryan says with a face. Pete doesn’t always think before he speaks. Pete makes a face and twists to look out the door to check on Hemingway. He turns back around and picks up the pen, shaking it.
“This is a nice pen,” he says, and slides it across the counter at Ryan, “It’s yours.”
“Yes, thank you,” Ryan monotones, “That’s very generous, what with how I found it and everything.” Pete just starts rifling through the stuff again. He pulls out a folded sheet of paper, smoothes it out, and stares at it for a moment.
“Shit,” Pete says, “This is really fucking good.” Ryan looks over the counter at the sheet music and blinks. He doesn’t know much about piano but he can tell that what’s jotted down on the paper is really good. “Who wrote this?”
“You know I don’t keep track of where the stuff comes from,” Ryan shrugs, “It’s all from yesterday, though.”
Pete nods thoughtfully before giving Ryan a look, “We’ve got to figure out who wrote this. I want to sign them.” Before Ryan can answer Pete’s phone goes off in his pocket and he swears and says, “Damnit, I have to go.”
Ryan shrugs and watches Pete go, sheet music in hand. He nearly trips over the boy playing with Hemingway outside the door. Hemingway gives him a big slobbery kiss, and wolfs down half the doughnut he’s holding before Pete can pull him away.
“Sorry about that,” Pete laughs. Ryan can’t hear the boy’s answer, but he’s smiling when he comes in so he doesn’t think he really cared.
“How can I help you?” Ryan asks glancing over the boy. He’s got nice lips. That’s Ryan’s first impression.
The boy smiles even wider and holds up a suit, “My mom wanted me to drop this off. I have to wear it at church on Sunday, if you can have it done by then?”
Ryan takes the suit from him and hangs it up behind him. “Sure, I just need some information from you. Name?”
“Brendon Urie,” the boy answers immediately still smiling. His smile sort of makes Ryan’s insides quake, it’s so pretty.
Ryan can’t help but stare as Brendon pulls his bottom lip into his mouth and sucks on it. He winces a little when Ryan gives him a questioning look.
“It was an accident?” he says, but he doesn’t sound too terribly sure.
There’s a dark red stain on the nice button up shirt and Ryan is already starting to think of ways to remove the stain. It’s a common misconception that dry cleaning will remove any stain. In actuality dry cleaning a stain will bake most stains into the garment.
“Is it ruined?” Brendon asks in a small voice and Ryan nearly snaps “what do you think?” before he takes another look at the wide upset eyes and worried frown Brendon’s wearing.
“Don’t worry,” Ryan says, snarky reply dying in his throat. He’s so far gone it’s not even funny.
Brendon doesn’t stay long; he’s got to get back to school in time for his afternoon classes. Ryan imagines asking him to have a bite to eat, but he’s got a lot of work to do in the back. There are a few blouses set to be picked up that day that still needed their buttons reattached, and he’s got to work on this stain. He’ll be lucky if it comes out at all.
Later Pete strolls through the door and waves an envelope above his head and practically skips to the counter. “What was your guess?”
“Birthday party?” Ryan asks, because he really doesn’t remember.
Pete nods and pops the sticker sealing the envelope and pulls the stack of photos out. The first one is of a cake, and Ryan is pretty sure he just won a hundred dollars. The second picture, however, is of a guy tied to a bed with a party hat on. Ryan and Pete exchange wry glances and flip to the third picture. Ryan gets one glance of a midget eating cake off the guy’s bare ass and lets his head fall to the counter top. He pulls the money from his pocket and plunks it down. He doesn’t even want to see the rest of the pictures.
“This is so sick,” Pete says happily, and continues to flip. Ryan is friends with freaks.
Pete is rifling through that day's box, looking from something else written by the mysterious composer. He pulls out a Transformers action figure, looks at it for a moment before stuffing it in his pocket. Ryan watches him without really paying attention; there’s no new sheet music in the box. Pete pulls something round and shiny out of the box and holds it up.
“Whoa, hey, look at this,” he says excitedly. The light blinks off the pin from the Church of Mormon. Ryan doesn’t have to look; he knows exactly who the button belongs to. “Have any Mormons tried to convert you?”
“No,” Ryan says sullenly. Pete ignores him, partly because he has no idea what’s wrong, but mostly because he’s much better at being the one too emo to function. He has no idea how to deal with other people’s angst.
“Oh hey,” Pete says and pulls out notebook paper Ryan had missed before. He smoothes it out over the counter top and reads it chewing on his lip. “It’s the same writing!”
“No it’s not,” Ryan says, because Pete’s happy voice is irritating and because how can he tell?
“No look,” Pete points grinning, “Look, he uses treble clefs as ampersands. I’m in love.”
“You’re an idiot,” Ryan says, but he glances down at the letter anyway. It’s not addressed to anyone, but he catches the words maybe next time I’ll remember not to tell you something stupid like I’ll never leave your side…
Ryan shakes his head and feels pity for whoever Patrick is. He’s about to get hit with one hundred and twenty pounds of enthusiastic Pete Wentz. Ryan still hasn’t completely recovered from his encounter.
Spencer is Ryan’s best friend in the whole world but he’s also his worst. For example, right now they’re lying on the kitchen floor with a discarded pizza box at their feet. Ryan’s got a bottle of beer resting heavily on his chest, but Spencer’s is spilling out onto the ugly tile because he’s too busy laughing.
“A Mormon, really? Jesus Ryan!” Spencer’s eyes are watering, he’s laughing so hard, and okay, it’s really not that funny. If Ryan could be fucked to move right now he’d punch Spencer in his stupid laughing face.
He wakes up with dry cotton mouth. His tongue is heavy and suffocating in the back of his throat. He wipes at the side of his face and wonders how he managed to fall asleep on a piece of half-eaten pepperoni pizza. He rolls over and kicks blindly at where he thinks Spencer should be.
Spencer grunts, wrapping his fingers around Ryan’s ankle and twisting with both hands. Ryan squeals and tries to kick his foot free from the impending Indian burn, but Spencer just dodges the kicks to his face and laughs throatily.
“I feel like shit,” Spencer groans, giving up on the skin burn. Ryan twitches away and raises a brow.
“You look like shit.”
“Your mom looks like shit,” Spencer says and throws a pizza crust at Ryan’s head. By the time Ryan’s located something to throw back at him Spencer has already locked himself in the bathroom for first shower. Ryan curses to himself before he rolls over and goes back to sleep on the kitchen floor.
“Get up,” Spencer says a half hour later; poking Ryan with his sneakered toe, “Pete Wentz keeps calling your phone.”
“Did you answer it?” Ryan groans when he sits up straight. His back hurts from sleeping on the linoleum floor.
“Yeah, he says to tell you that you’re fucking late, douche bag. That was word for word,” Spencer says.
Ryan rolls his eyes and climbs to his feet. There’s sauce in his hair and Spencer wrinkles his nose and takes an involuntary step away from his friend. “I’ll be ready in a few minutes. Pete’s having a party and he wants us to come.”
“Its four in the afternoon,” Spencer says slowly, “Who the fuck parties this early?”
“Pete likes to start early,” Ryan shrugs, “He’s a little strange.”
“Alright,” Spencer says slowly. He flops onto the couch and turns on the tv. He knows Ryan well enough to know that he’s going to be waiting at least two hours for his friend to finish getting ready. Ryan rolls his eyes when he says as much but he doesn’t deny it so Spencer counts it as a win.
It’s six by the time they get to the party and there are people from Pete’s record label all over. Ryan’s met most of these people already, since he and Pete spend a fairly good amount of time together. Spencer is Ryan’s best friend, but he stayed at school when Ryan had moved to take over his grandmother’s store. It wasn’t like he’d been doing anything worth while at college anyway.
“Ryan!” Pete says happily, jumping out from a closet and grinning insanely, “You made it man.” He eyes Spencer up and down and then says, “Who’s your pretty friend?” The twinkle in his eyes is creepy.
“This is Spencer. Spence, this is Pete.” Spencer’s arms are crossed over his face and he’s giving Pete his best bitch face. Larger men have quaked in the presence of the look, but it’s not phasing Pete the slightest. It wouldn’t, since Pete is regularly slapped in the face for being a creep in general.
“Come along Spen-cer,” Pete says happily, “Let me show you my puppy. He’s a well guarded secret.”
Spencer looks back at Ryan, clearly asking if the guy really has a dog. He turns back to Pete and says, “Dude, I’m pretty sure the whole internet has seen your “dog”.”
“Dude, no way,” Pete says, “That’s more my anaconda.” Spencer is not sure how to tell Pete that it really wasn’t that big.
“Dude, it really wasn’t that big,” a tall guy in a hoodie says, throwing an arm around Spencer’s other shoulder. “Why hello there. Pete, who’s your pretty friend?”
“This is Spencer. He’s Ryan’s pretty friend,” Pete says, pulling Spencer closer, “He’s coming to meet Hemingway.”
They push through the doorway into a back bedroom and Ryan stops short to stare. Brendon Urie is sitting on the bed feeding Hemingway. He looks up and smiles at Ryan when he sees him.
"Hi Ryan," Brendon says and bounds over to him, "Pete Wentz invited me to his house. How cool is that?"
"Yeah, cool," Ryan says and raises his eye brow at Pete because he wants to know what exactly Pete is doing inviting high school kids to his house. Better yet, what is Brendon's parents doing letting him come to Pete's house?
"Oh what?" Pete says, "Hemingway is in love."
Ryan rolls his eyes at Pete and nudges Brendon. "Want to go find a drink?"
"Yeah," Brendon says excitedly, "This is the first party I've ever been to." Ryan nods and leads the way back out towards the kitchen. Its probably a good thing Brendon's never been to a party before because by the looks of him he needs constant supervision.
"I didn't know there was so much...nudity at parties," he whispers to Ryan as they pass one of Pete's associates, Joe dancing naked on a table.
"This is mild compared to some of the other parties Pete throws," Ryan says and gives Brendon a soda because Ryan doesn't corrupt the young. Not on purpose.
"Wow," Brendon says, eyes wide and amused. Ryan catches him staring at two guys making out and forces himself to look away. He drags Brendon away and tries to forget the look of fascination on his face.
Ryan is expecting the chime to be Pete but when he stands up from behind the counter Brendon is chewing on his bottom lip and bouncing on the balls of his feet. His hands are nervously pulling at the zipper on his jacket, up and down, up and down.
“Hey?” Ryan questions because he’s not holding any clothes and he’s not here to pick anything up.
Brendon leans over the counter and presses a kiss to Ryan’s mouth. It’s slightly awkward, and mostly he’s too short to reach him properly so it falls somewhere between his bottom lip and his chin. By the time Ryan thinks to readjust Brendon is gone, leaving a chiming door in his wake. Ryan blinks stupidly at the wall until Pete arrives.
Pete Wentz is an idiot who gets ahead of himself. This probably explains why college student Patrick Stump punches him in the mouth ten seconds after meeting him.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" Patrick snaps, "You can't just go through people's private things."
"It's not private if you leave it in plain sight," Pete says, holding his jaw. He honestly looks like he doesn't understand why Patrick is angry. This seems to make him even more angry.
"My pants pockets aren't plain sight. What was written in that letter was none of your business!"
"Um," Pete says, chewing on his lip, "I'm sorry? I--I just wanted--."
"I don't care what you wanted, asshole," Patrick snaps, grabs his letter out of Pete's hand and storms out of Ryan's lobby.
"If you're planning to scare away all my business I'm going to start charging you to hang out here," Ryan tells him dryly.
"Shut up," Pete mutters and storms out the building. Ryan sighs and blows at his bangs.
Jon and Spencer fall in love in exactly two minutes. It just, you know, takes Spencer longer than that to realize it. Ryan doesn't find this hard to believe because he's met Jon, and Jon Walker is made out of mother fucking magic. Honestly. Ryan knows because the first time he met him Jon shook his hand and said, "I'm Jon Walker and I am made out of mother fucking magic." Then he passed out on a bean bag chair in Pete's basement. At the time Ryan was pretty sure Jon Walker was made out of whiskey, what with the empty fifth he'd been holding at the time. But time has proven Jon Walker to be the stuff dreams are made of.
Spencer's dreams.
Ryan snickers in his head and wishes he wasn't too high to walk to the bathroom right now, because he really has to pee. He kicks Spencer, who kicks Jon, who starts laughing.
"Ryan Ross, you totally have to pee right now," Jon gasps out between chuckles. See, mother fucking magic.
Ryan is not forgiving by nature, but he takes one look at Brendon’s wet eyes and forgets that he’s upset with the boy for ignoring him after kissing him. Brendon’s eyes are red and puffy from crying and his lip is cracked and bleeding from being chewed on.
“What happened?” Ryan’s voice is low and, he hopes, soothing. Ryan is obviously terrible at comforting people because Brendon bursts into tears again. Ryan stands there staring at him, his arms flailing at his sides.
Spencer is giving him his “you’re an idiot” look from the chair in the corner, and Ryan weaves around the counter to wrap his arms around Brendon. Spencer rolls his eyes at him and excuses himself out of the lobby. Ryan squeezes tighter because he doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t even know what’s going on. He’s so confused.
“I don’t exist anymore,” Brendon mumbles into Ryan’s neck. Ryan stiffens and jerks away to look at him. Brendon keeps mumbling, mostly to himself. “That’s what they said. Maybe I didn’t exist at all.”
Ryan shakes him a little. “Shut the hell up,” he says, his voice trembling with anger, “You exist to me.”
Brendon's got doe eyes and right now they're turned up on Ryan, slightly red rimmed from crying. Spencer is in the lone arm chair in Ryan's living room, while Brendon and Ryan share the couch.
"So," Spencer says after the silence becomes thick enough to choke on, "You know what always makes me feel better?"
"No, what?" Brendon asks, turning his full attention to Spencer.
"Food. I think I'm going to go cook something awesome." He gets up and leaves through the kitchen door. They sit in silence and can hear the sound of rummaging through the cabinets. He pushes his head back through the door and says, "So, by something awesome I apparently meant Spaghetti O's and a cherry poptart. Let's go out for dinner."
"Okay," Ryan and Brendon say at the same time, because at least someone is taking charge and telling them what to do.
They go to a small pasta place a few blocks away and Spencer pays because he's a broke college student with parents who give him a lot of spending money. They talk about absolutely nothing, because what do you say to a kid who's parents have just decided not to love them any more? Spencer starts talking about the amazing Jon Walker and it's some how decided that Brendon should meet him. Now. Pronto. This second.
"Mother fucking magic," Spencer says with sparkles in his eyes and Ryan doesn't smile but he thinks about it.
They bang on Jon's apartment door with enthusiasm because it makes Brendon smile, and Brendon's smile takes Ryan's breath away. Jon opens the door in flip flops and a pair of boxers and smiles widely.
"Perfect," Jon says and holds up a little bag of pot. Brendon's eyes go wide and then he says, "Oh hell yeah, I haven't toked up in years." Ryan is in love and it's over stupid, ridiculous reasons and he doesn't care.
"I'm Jon Walker," Jon waves and smiles at Brendon. Lights up and inhales deeply.
"Brendon Urie," Brendon nods to him and takes his first hit off the joint. He exhales and smiles. "Mother fucking magic," he says and Ryan smiles at him over the coffee table and takes the pro-offered joint. He hits it and closes his eyes. Yes, Ryan mostly likes being left alone. But sometimes, like right now, Ryan doesn't mind a little bit of company.