FicWad

The sun started peeking into the bedroom window through the slit between the almost-closed curtains, spying on the sleeping couple. Light was shining directly on Danielle, bringing out that unique flaxen sparkle in her caramel hair and invading her closed eye. Letting out a deep, warm breath, Danielle stirred a bit, moving her fingers lightly across Ryan’s bare torso. She turned her head towards his, inching closer and opening that same eye. Her lips curled into a most attractive smile when she saw Ryan resting there, breathing softly like he had been all night.

Under the covers, Danielle carefully grabbed his hand and massaged it loosely, causing him to stir as well. Ryan made a disturbed noise through his tightened lips. She massaged with more pressure, but still as gently as she had been. Another noise went out into the air, louder this time. “You know if that weren’t so goddamn sexy, I’d kill you for waking me up.” His eyes opened to see the quaint little smile on her lips.

“Does this mean you want a repeat of last night, Ross?”

He turned toward her cautiously as not to disturb her massaging and ran his remaining fingers slowly through her short hair. “Not quite,” he said playfully, his own lips curling into a smile before pressing forward to introduce them to hers once again. Just as she was about to let her tongue explore through his mouth again, he pulled back smoothly. “You can call me Ryan.” They kissed passionately for several minutes. Danielle finally got so wrapped up in it that she let go of his hand. Ryan took the jolting feeling from his hand and moved it up to her chest, fondling her breasts, transferring the feeling to her, making her tingle with delight. Her hand moved up to press against his before she moved it back down between his legs, stroking his crotch lightly with her fingertips. They moaned into each others mouths as they kept battling with their tongues.

Their bodies twitched as a dulcet tone reached their ears. It was Ryan’s sidekick going crazy inside of yesterday’s pants. “Sorry,” he said after her reluctantly split their mouths apart. He was as well, for he was just about to slide on top of her. Danielle huffed, whining as she kept her hands on him, begging for him to ignore it and stay in bed with her.

“I have to, Dani,” he turned his face to pout at her. She dug her nails into his chest that she had her arms wrapped around and pulled him back down on top of her, catching him off guard. Unfortunately, his strength surpassed hers and he was able to tear himself away from her. Ryan stumbled out of bed, slipping on his dirty boxers. “Can’t ruin the show, dear,” he teased with a wink.

Danielle whined again. “You’re in for it when you get back, Ryan.” With that, he held the sidekick to his ear and leaned against the wall in the hall as he spoke.

Dani’s eyes averted to the alarm clock on the nightstand, figuring they had an hour and a half before the day’s rehearsal was supposed to begin. Plenty of time, she thought. So long as he doesn’t talk on the phone forever. Her ears couldn’t help to carefully listen in on Ryan’s conversation. Too bad there wasn’t much to listen to. There would be two minute gaps where he wouldn’t even say anything, just listen. After five minutes had passed, Danielle figured she could tease as well. Rolling out of bed herself, she slowly slid into her lingerie and returned to the bed, intentionally lying in a provocative position.

More minutes went by; she grew impatient. As more minutes went by, she slowly dressed into yesterday’s apparel, giving him more to take off when he returned. Only when she was fully dressed did she suspect that something was wrong.

Danielle stood next to the doorway, listening intently to the conversation. Luckily, whoever called was finally letting Ryan talk as well.

“Of course I miss you! You know how much I care about you.

“Well you don’t think I think about you when I’m gone?

“Yes! I love you for crying out loud.

“I was sleeping, you woke me up!

“Really, that’s all.

“Okay, baby. I love you, too.

“Bye.”

Ryan strode back into the room, cocking an eyebrow to see Danielle fully dressed, leaning against the wall next to the door. Her arms were folded across her chest once again to keep some sort of barrier between them, and moved to face him. “Care to share whose phone call was so important?” she spewed sarcastically.

“No one…” he said carefully, closing the door while keeping his eyes locked with hers.

“Oh, really… It didn’t sound like someone selling you cookies, Ross.”

“Don’t… Let me explain,” he said softly, trying to take her hand. She pulled it away just in time.

“No! You don’t have to explain anything to me!” she shouted, forcing it through her sore throat. Danielle reached for the door handle even though Ryan was standing in front of it to keep her from leaving. “You have a… girlfriend.” Her voice cracked, eyes welling up as she spoke, head hanging low.

“Dani, it’s not like that!” he protested, taking her by the shoulders. She shoved him away, pressing her nails into his bare skin once again.

“Yes it fucking is! You’re just like I thought you were all along!” Her desperate attempt to reach the door handle was prevented once again by Ryan’s long fingers wrapping around her wrist. She kept her eyes down. “LET ME GO!” she roared as she struggled to get away from his strong grip that had transferred to her arm.

“NO! Listen to me!” Those intense blue eyes shot at him, glaring. His stared right back, wide and seemingly innocent. That was when she took the only chance she could to get out by smacking him right across the face, creating a horrible and painful tingling wherever the bright red color showed up on Ryan’s cheek.

“I really do hate you, Ryan Ross.”

Eyes full of tears, she pulled the door open and walked out without another word.

x-----x

Tension was at an all-time high at rehearsal. The red on Ryan’s face has set in for everyone to stare at, although he didn’t say a word about it. He kept rubbing it as if his hand would make it go away somehow. Brendon knew that he had somehow drove Danielle to slap him and was keeping himself from saying anything to Ryan so that he wouldn’t burst out at him and make a scene.

Ryan knew that Dani probably wasn’t going to show up. He’d almost never felt more rotten in his life .But still, he was determined to make things right between them for once. The rest of the band was impatient as well. They were supposed to have started 15 minutes beforehand. When Jon finally spoke up about it, Spencer set him straight. “She’s the whole reason we’ve been rehearsing so much,” he had said. “We can’t start without her.”

Five minutes later, she slunk into the room. There was something about the expression on her face that gave away how bothered she actually was, even if her overall appearance was nearly perfect, like she had soaked up every minute she was alone making herself look as attractive and undisturbed as possible. Brendon and Ryan’s eyes were glued to Danielle from the moment she walked in until Spencer spoke up.

“Why don’t we try Lying… You know since we haven’t played it for a few days,” he suggested cautiously.

Everyone stared at Danielle, joining Ryan and Brendon, who hadn’t once looked away. Danielle was staring at the music sitting on top of the keyboard, remembering that she’d forgotten all about it at Ryan’s. Bracing herself, she looked up at him, taking in the red on his face and how the almost-handprint matched hers, instead of his soft features and small smile. Flustered, she looked down again, setting the keyboard and moving the music to the stand in front of it. Still staring down at the keys, Danielle nodded her head to show that she was ready.

Brendon took a deep and inaudible breath before starting his poem, the one that he would say before playing this song for the next zillion times they would play it on tour. Danielle was frozen the entire time, which he was keenly aware of.

“Well, this is not that dream…” Brendon concluded. “This is hard, sweaty, angry, crazy, /monstrous…/” He drew in a breath before muttering the last word under this breath. “Fucking.” And the music followed as if it had been waiting an eternity for the last syllable.

“Is it still me that makes you sweat?
Am I who you think about in bed
When the lights are dim
And your hands are shaking as your sliding off your dress?”

She’d never put much thought into the words before, but seeing as she only had a small accompaniment to play during the verse, she listened to the words. And as Brendon sang about shaking hands and sweat and, well, sex, her own fingers trembled until the transition came, bracing herself from Ryan’s voice in her ears against all of the music once again.

“Let’s get these teen hearts beating; Faster, faster!”

Danielle’s fingers splattered randomly over the keyboard, still twitching as soon as she had the sense to remove them and squeeze her hands together in an attempt to shake it all off. Brendon’s singing got quieter and quieter as each instrument dropped out one by one. He turned back to see Danielle standing there, pushing her nails into her skin and staring scaringly at the floor. No one was brave enough to speak up. Only when all eyes were on her did she look up back at them.

A few shaking breaths escaped her lips as she exchanged glances with each of them, her eyes frantic. “Sorry, sorry...” she mumbled. “I’m just..just off today...” Her eyes averted down once again, symbolizing how she was falling flat on her face with her words.

“It wouldn’t be the first time someone’s made a mistake.” A majority of eyes widened in the room at Ryan’s words. Spencer, Jon, and Bartram had no idea what he was talking about. Bartram was used to it, however. In a way, neither did Brendon, but he knew one thing that had obviously led to the peculiarity between Ryan and Danielle.

“That’s a lie,” Danielle replied harshly and lowly, staring straight through him. “It was the farthest thing from a mistake, and you know it.”

“No it wasn't!” Ryan used the same technique of protest, hoping that it would have a different result with everyone else witnessing their words. “Dani, I never meant to hurt you.” His eyes were intense as he spoke whole-heartedly, trying to get her to understand without thinking up a logical explanation.

“It’s Danielle. And you did so! You knew exactly what you were doing, and I fell for it! You made me feel like a horrible tramp so you could have your stupid fun.”

“You enjoyed it just as much as I did.”

“At least I was aware of my social status!”

“Stop, stop, STOP!” Brendon had every spec of attention in the room by speaking out. The jealously bubbling under his skin rose with each unkind word they shared. “How can you two be arguing after what you did?!” The skin between his eyebrows creased as his gaze shifted between the two of them.

Ryan shot an apprehensive look at Danielle, only to find one radiating right back at him. “What are you talking about, Brendon?” Ryan inquired, using the most convincing voice he could muster under such pressure.

“Oh, don’t play stupid. I saw you last night. I came over to talk to you and saw something quite different. You looked like you were enjoying it at least.” Brendon ignored the feminine gasp that filled the gap between his words. “I liked her; you hated her. But you still got her. And you didn’t think I would even know!”

Danielle’s face turned a dark pink shade as a hand clamped over her open mouth. As bad as she had felt earlier, it was all doubled onto her shoulders when that thought flashed into her head. Brendon liked her. And she had actually been flirting with him when they had talked. She led him on. It took a few silent seconds to sort through the frenzy going on in her mind before she tried to cover it all up.

“Brendon, that’s not—”

But before she could get out even a short sentence, Ryan decided he had something to tell the vocalist, who was still staring back at Ryan with fury.

“Oh, please Brendon. If you wanted a real relationship with her, you would’ve let her know earlier.”

“You’re the one to talk! At least I wasn’t immature about it and acted the opposite of how I felt.” At that, Danielle was entirely impressed with Brendon. He was the one who had all of the valid points, and he didn’t waste any time before he said them. In her eyes, it would have been fair for him to win the dispute.

“Well it worked, didn’t it?” The tone in which Ryan spoke matched the familiar smug smirk on his lips. He removed the guitar strap from his shoulder and set it down gently, not breaking his eye contact with Brendon.

Brendon stepped closer to Ryan, taking the unbroken stare as a challenge, and as always, he was readily equipped with a rivaling remark. “Oh, yeah. You two seemed to be having a pretty interesting conversation from what I heard. All of your talking came from the bedroom.”

Danielle was not pleased to hear all of this talk about her. At first, she was slightly flattered to be the cause of an argument between two attractive and talented young men, but those comments they were making infuriated her more than Ryan had previously gotten on her nerves. It was her female instinct telling her that it wasn’t okay to let them talk about her like she was only good for one thing.

“EXCUSE ME, but that is NOT—” And again, she couldn’t get more than a few words out. They were too engrossed with their challenging gazes and forcefully blunt words to notice she was even there anymore. Even when she stepped at an equal distance between both of them, they kept going.

“You’re just jealous that I got to her before you did!”

“Oh, yeah. And that’s something to be rubbing in my face when you already have a girlfriend! You’re almost killing two birds with one stone.”

They stepped closer again. Danielle followed suit. Ryan quirked his eyebrow, wondering how Brendon could turn his statement around so quickly and make some more points out of it.

“You’re using Danielle as your sex toy while Keltie is gone,” Ryan bit his lip and narrowed his eyes as Brendon spoke. It gave Brendon a slightly satisfied feeling in his stomach. “AND taking away my chances with one of the only girls I’ve been seriously interested in.”

Ryan’s hands balled up into fists, the infuriating adrenaline driving him to throw the fist right a Brendon’s face. Before he could get there Danielle jumped in the middle of the two, shouting at the top of her lungs. “CUT IT OUT RIGHT NOW!”

The shrillness in Danielle’s voice caused Brendon to jump back and stare at her, as if he hadn’t known she was there the whole time. His lips tightened together as he stared at those apologetic blue eyes, moving his own to look back at Ryan, who was still red faced and glaring.

Brendon let out a long breath, glanced briefly at Danielle, turned on his heel and left silently.