#did you hear that

Here’s another filled request, and it’s about our traveling music man with a heart of gold, soul of fire, and fingers of a true virtuoso– none other than Ryan Brenner. And what a life he has to write about! This was requested by the lovely @witchygagirl​ as follows: 

This one is actually unrelated to A Familiar Face or my other related one-shots, so it’s a stand-alone piece! Thank you for reading, as always, and enjoy!

Image prompt 11: Ryan Brenner x reader

Rating: PG for fluff and more fluff, with a side of fluff. 

Word count: 1879

Tag list:@obscurilicious​@the-blind-assassin-12​@something-tofightfor​@logan-deloss​@lexxierave​@madamrogers​@yannii04​@gollyderek​@carlaangel86​@bicevans​@maydayfigment​@thisisparadisemylove​@malionnes​@thesandbeneathmytoes​@crushed-pink-petals-writes​@delos-destinations​@luminex3​@tenhargreeves​@fireeyes-on-teller-dixon-grimes​ @fific7

As always, if you’d like to be added to or removed from my tag list, just shoot me an ask or DM.

Special thanks to @something-tofightfor​ for beta reading!

“I went to the depot, looked up at the stars. Cried, some train don’t come, there’ll be some walkin’ done.”

When Ryan strummed his guitar, it was magic. The music floated through the air in D and A minor, an arpeggio of time that was broken down and descended. If you closed your eyes, you were sitting outside in Mississippi on a balmy summer night, dewy grass dampening your skirt as you watched fireflies blink out of time while you drank homemade moonshine. It was 1931 and Prohibition was in full swing, but your daddy didn’t care and neither did his backwoods friends. 

Ryan’s smooth-as-silk voice and long fingers dancing and picking guitar strings was your backdrop, and you’d always find your eyes fluttering shut during that one particular song, fully invested in your daydream. A small smile would tug at the corners of your lips, and Ryan knew why. You’d told him about your little fantasy late one night after too much Bayou Teche. You’d gotten it shipped to chill inside the refrigerator until Ryan arrived, and by the time he was gone, each of you had halved the beer until all you had left was empty,  brown glass bottles. 

The Geeshie Wiley tune was one of Ryan’s standards when he was off busking between hopping freight trains to his next destination. He played covers mostly, and most people seemed to recognize Last Kind Words, even with a male voice singing the lyrics.  You’d heard him play it dozens of times, whether out on the street surrounded by a small audience or the comfort of your front porch steps. No matter how many times, you were always transported back in time. 

It had been a humid, cloudy night in May, spring melting into summer as you sat next to Ryan on your old wooden porch swing, hung by rusted wooden chains. Your eyes were heavy; you were drowsy and instead of Ryan’s guitar in his lap, it was a small black book and a old, chewed up PaperMate pen— no frills, clear plastic showing an ink cartridge that was two-thirds used up, cap off and stuck on the pen’s end. 

Your eyes had drifted shut, your head resting on Ryan’s right shoulder. Almost asleep, you felt Ryan’s weight shift and the swing beneath you sway out of time. Eyelids popping open, you lifted your head as Ryan sat back upright, a scrap of sheet music pinned between his thumb and long, tattooed index finger. You saw that the paper was singed at the edges and just a partial page— less than half, the ink beginning to fade. Always learning about Ryan, you smiled softly as he tucked it back between two blank pages of his book. 

“I didn’t know you could read sheet music,” you spoke, Ryan’s head turning to look at you. 

“A little… sorry I woke you up, Y/N.” The corners of his mouth twitched into a smile as he looked at you with those eyes a few shades darker than chestnut. Reaching up, he softly brushed wayward hair behind your ear. 

Drowsy eyes meeting his own, you shook your head. “I didn’t realize I fell asleep… what’s the song?”

Ryan closed his book, capped his pen, and the swing tilted as he set his notebook on the stained wooden planks of the porch. When he was upright again, he shifted in order to wrap an arm around your shoulder and pull you closer. You breathed in deeply, always trying to memorize his scent– the organic smell of the outdoors, tinged with soap from his shower. He kissed the crown of your head before answering.

“ ‘S one that you know,” he spoke softly, in a low voice. The music of night– the chirping of crickets, croaking of frogs, screeching of owls and rustles of leaves under the tiny feet of rodents all went unnoticed when he spoke. It was no matter that his voice was barely above a whisper. “I’d be bold enough to say it’s even a favorite… might be a favorite of mine if I was forced to pick.” 

You thought for a moment, a small furrow settling in your brow. “That’s pretty general, Brenner. You sing Happy Birthday, and it would be my favorite.” 

Ryan only responded with a chuckle; he was really playing this game. With a slight squeeze of your shoulder, he finally spoke, but only to set one ground rule: “Only yes or no questions, Y/N.”

The smile he’d put on your face grew into a grin; there was an infinite list of things you loved about Ryan Brenner, and his moments of playfulness were high up there. They accompanied your love for his introspective nature, the fearless lifestyle he lived with a streak of adventure, how his overgrown hair tended to fall over his forehead in the same spot, how his voice transported you to another time… another time.

“Last Kind Words,” you guessed, putting just enough distance between the two of you to look up at his face and gauge a reaction. Ryan’s lips quirked, and his brow raised slightly in appreciation. 

“I didn’t know you read sheet music,” he joked lightly, punctuating the recycling of your words with a wink. 

It was the littlest of things that still uncaged the butterflies in your stomach, the familiar fluttering of their painted wings flickering in your abdomen. All it took was an unconscious hum, or a quick meeting of your eyes with his… a wink to make you feel like you could fly.

“Do I win a performance?” Catching his eyes with yours, you knew he would see the ‘I love you’ there without words. Ryan was in tune with everything he was presented, attentive and never distracted. You paused, the look in your eyes changing from one of pride and internal laughter to a slight curiousness. 

“You know the song,” you thought aloud, obviously introspective, “What’s a little scrap of its sheet music for? Burned at the ends, at that.”

Ryan hummed, and for one beat of time, you saw a faraway nostalgia in his eyes. “Somthin’ I’ve been carryin’ with me since I left Virginia.” Ryan never referred to home as anything other than Virginia. “Used to be a full sheet, too.” 

You knew that there was a significance; a story. How much Ryan would reveal was the only mystery, and something you’d grown to appreciate. He expressed closeness and intimacy in his own, unique ways that you had learned to understand. And Ryan continued. 

“When I was… let’s say, younger than ten, my grampa found me hidin’ in the garage strummin’ on his guitar. I was already figurin’ I was  gettin’ the belt, but he just came an’ he sat down. ‘You don’t learn chords, boy, you don’t bother touchin’ it, ya hear?’ Later that night, he gave me this sheet, just part of the song, didn’t say nothin’.” He’d averted his eyes, found a thread in his jeans to pick at. “An’ when I was older, I started learnin’ chords.” 

The nightsong began to get louder, you thought, as Ryan finished his story. Male crickets were getting more desperate for mates; so were the frogs; nocturnal predators were getting anxious for their prey. 

“I’d hopped a train, got past the point of anyone findin’ me and it was the dead of winter. I was makin’ a fire, or tryin’, but the wind was howlin’, I was throwin’ things in the tin I was usin’ to keep that fire goin’ an’ I grabbed that along with a bunch’a stuff that didn’t matter. That’s the rest of the story.”

Finally, Ryan abandoned that loose thread from his denim jeans. Head still ducked, he lifted his gaze to meet yours. You offered him a shadow of a smile, searching his warm brown eyes. 

Then, you took his hand, and with both of yours, turned it around. You surveyed his palm calloused from hopping trains, fingertips rough from guitar strings. You traced the lines of his palm— first the head line, located in the center, then his life line, and finally his heart line. Glancing up at him, your eyes landed on his lips, the small and almost undetectable smile of wonder crooking the corners of his mouth upward. His smile was contagious. 

Turning his palm over to look at the back of his hand, you redirected your attention to his long fingers— tattooed horizontal lines just below his top knuckles, vertical ones inked between the bottom two. You brushed the pad of your thumb over  the length of his index finger before lifting his hand to your lips and gently peppering tiny kisses over each of his fingertips.

In response, he gently took his hand back to use his index finger in lifting your chin. Everything I’ll ever need, he thought to himself in absolute certainty. She’s everything. Ryan drank in the color of your eyes, the slight slope of your nose, the shape and curve of your mouth. His eyes lingered there for a moment, and he used his finger to lift your chin higher. 

Without hesitation, his mouth was on yours, passion and tenderness combined in the way your lips met. Ryan coaxed your mouth open with his tongue and a small, satisfied noise tumbled from your mouth into his, your heart rate skyrocketing. When he pulled back to catch his breath, he kissed the tip of your nose and then your temple, feeling the slight, rhythmic beating of your heart against his lips. 

“We should go inside,” he suggested with a slight nod to the door. Tongue darting out to wet his lips, he gave your shoulders one last squeeze before sliding his arm from around your shoulders. “I have a craving, Y/N.” Your eyes widened in anticipation as Ryan paused, a slight smirk tugging at his lips. “For a root beer float.”

Laughter spilled from your mouth, Ryan following suit with chuckling of his own. “Ryan Brenner.” You attempted saying his name in a firm tone, but failed. “You’ll get that root beer float, but not without payment first. You owe me a song for being such a damn good guesser, if I remember correctly.” It was your turn to smirk back at him, raising your eyebrows in faux haughtiness. 

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied readily, nodding as he did so. “Guitar’s inside.” 

You stood from the swing and held out your hand. Ryan stood too, black notebook holding a memory in one hand,  and in sliding his fingers between yours, love held in the other. The two of you made the few steps to the door as you sang lines of the song he’d be trading for ice cream. 

“The Mississippi River, you know it’s deep and wide. I can stand right here, see my babe from the other side.” 

Your voice didn’t transport you to the riverbank in the way his did, but you knew Ryan would guide you in your journey through space and time just as soon as he held his guitar in his lap and slid on his fingerpick. As always, you were ready, imagining the flickering of fireflies reflecting off the river, anticipating the antiseptic taste of unlawful moonshine, and waiting for the magic to begin.