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ohnoscarlett
Dec. 27th, 2011 12:03 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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bandomstuffsitTitle: Mr Smooth & Friends
Author:takkatakkatakka
Pairing(s): Ryan/Spencer
Rating: PG
Warnings: Morons.
Word count: 4155
Summary: High School AU. Ryan is definitely, definitely not in love with Spencer Smith.
Practice on Thursday starts with Brendon declaring he’s going to get a tattoo.
Ryan rolls his eyes and Spencer snorts, immediately casting his gaze down again when Brendon starts to glare.
“No, seriously,” Brendon says. “Right here.” He points to his neck, or possibly his shoulder, rolls up on his toes and down again. “The guy who plays drums for orchestra has this one of a naked chick on a dirtbike, it’s sweet as hell.”
He gets a look of mild interest from Brent at that, and seems to take it as encouragement. Ryan’s thinking about stepping in to nip the whole idea in the bud when Spencer says, “I know that guy. He can’t get a job anywhere now, you know, nowhere wants a dude with a neck tattoo.”
Brendon waves a hand, careless, and says, “Fuck them, man,” with practiced confidence. He looks to Ryan for back up, and maybe it’s because Ryan doesn’t look away fast enough, or maybe it’s just because Brendon is unfortunately skilled at picking out the moments when Ryan’s defences are mostly down, but once he realizes he can he seizes the opportunity to wrap an arm around Ryan’s shoulders, too, claiming him as a supporter.
“Me and Ross,” he says, addressing the room in general. “We’re gonna get matching tats, right on the neckbone.”
He pinches Ryan just above the collar to illustrate his point. Ryan bats him off, but not particularly hard. He’s in an okay mood. It’s Friday, and there’s nothing up ahead except a long night of practice – if they can stop discussing Brendon’s aesthetic long enough to start.
“Oh, yeah,” Spencer says, voice still calm and without edges. “I can definitely see that happening.”
Brendon yelps a laugh and says, “My man,” tightening his grip around Ryan’s shoulders. He holds his hand up for a high five, which Ryan doesn’t give him, and then shrugs and pulls away.
Ryan makes a big deal of straightening out his shirt again, and Brendon calls him a pussy, and Brent calls Brendon a dumbass, fondly, and then they flip each other off in a round. Ryan only looks Spencer in the eyes one more time throughout the whole practice, a sharp glance right as he’s sucking in a breath, with his hands tight and furious on his guitar.
-
When Brendon first moved out, they used to go visit him in groups, taking over cans of soup and frozen meals and hanging out with a tangible cautiousness, watching hockey on Brendon’s shitty little portable TV and saying very little. He seemed to get a little sick of the charity-project vibe of it, though. Dudes, he said, pity is really not what I need right now. He’d made a mildly obscene gesture down at his own body, then, to expand on the point. The gesture was primarily focused on his crotch. You think anybody needs to feel sorry for this?
They quit the charade after that, and promised to stop hanging around so much. Ryan still ends up at Brendon’s place a lot, though. Mostly because all Brendon ever wants to do is talk about music, smoke up, or watch Baywatch. Ryan can do all of those things, without really having to put much effort in. It’s a relief, sometimes, to be in Brendon’s company. It’s good to have a friend who doesn’t demand much more than dick jokes and the occasional anti-family ranting session.
“You’ve been kind of weird, lately,” Brendon remarks lazily, over the second joint of the evening. “You didn’t meet a girl, did you?”
They’re stretched out on the patchy red-white couch that came with Brendon’s apartment, and since there’s no coffee table to rest them on Ryan’s feet are stuck out awkwardly over the floor, his toes curling in his socks. “No,” he says. “My turn.”
Brendon makes a scoffing noise, but hands it over to Ryan anyway. He rolls languidly onto his chest then, head turned to consider Ryan on the pillow, with one hand scratching absently at the back of his neck. “Did you and Spencer have a fight, or something?”
Ryan takes a very deliberate and slow pull on the joint, holding his breath, tightening his lungs. “No,” he says again. The word comes out with a whirl of smoke and it makes him cough like a rookie, bouncing a little against Brendon’s sheets.
“Hm,” Brendon muses. “Maybe you both have PMS. Synchronised cycles.”
“Very funny,” Ryan says drily. “Did your imaginary girlfriend tell you about that?”
“Yeah she did,” Brendon says, not missing a beat. “Straight after she sucked my dick.” He lifts his hips up and then drops again, dissolving into laughter, and doesn’t seem particularly fazed when Ryan doesn’t join in. If anything it makes him laugh louder, and Ryan decides the best reaction is to stare at the ceiling and keep smoking until Brendon realizes it’s his turn.
That happens about a minute later, with Brendon tugging the joint back out of Ryan’s fingers and wiping tears from his eyes. Ryan lets go without resistance, realizing without much surprise that his legs feel heavy, suddenly, that his head feels wide and warm. He blinks, sideways at Brendon and then back up straight again.
“Me and Spencer are fine,” he says against the silence.
Brendon says, “Spencer and I.”
-
Ryan was caught off guard, is the thing. He was sleepy, and above-average happy, and it was almost like Spencer planned it. (Even though he said, a little while afterwards, that he didn’t. To which Ryan replied, “Yeah, me neither,” and Spencer said, “Okay,” like he really wanted to be saying something else. And that was the end of the only real conversation they’ve had since.)
Anyway, Ryan was caught off guard. He was sprawled across Spencer’s bed with Spencer on his left, taking an earphone each for a joint listen of some local band Brendon had put them onto. Apparently they were good enough to motivate a competitive element, but not so good as to make anyone lose faith. They actually sucked – at least, Ryan wasn’t feeling it, and when he rolled a little to see Spencer, it seemed he felt the same way.
“I don’t know where he finds this shit,” Spencer said, yanking his earphone out and then pulling at the wire to Ryan’s, too. Ryan lifted his head so it would give. He watched Spencer wind the wire back around his walkman, and the drumming calluses on his fingertips had hardened, Ryan remembers that, the faint marks on his skin, and then he was tossing the walkman unceremoniously behind him and flopping back around to face Ryan again.
It was stupid because for once Ryan hadn’t given himself an exit clause, an escape route. For months by that point he’d been carefully figuring ways out for these situations, those moments when these wild and untouchable feelings rise up unbidden in his chest, with Spencer staring at him curious or more often concerned, with that soft look in his eye that made Ryan think he must have known, must have worked it out by now, must have been able to tell just from the way Ryan was breathing that something was different. Because Ryan kept looking at Spencer and thinking what if – and Spencer kept looking back and not moving and not turning away. Like right then, on Spencer’s bed with his calluses and the warmth of his body and the way Ryan knew he couldn’t leave this time, even if he tried, even if he wanted to.
So Ryan watched the arched line of his arm instead and then said, “Spencer,” in this awful, quieter than intended voice. He shifted a little on the sheets.
Spencer tasted like peppermint gum and something else, a little darker and maybe saltier than any of the girls Ryan had been with. It took them a little while to coax each others’ mouth open; Ryan could feel it in their movements, the cautious I’ll-go-if-you-go way they were testing each other. It was Spencer who let him in, eventually, wrapping his fingers around Ryan’s arm in the process, his palm hot and dry. He tilted them slightly, until there was more of an angle, Spencer leaning a little over Ryan, Spencer breathing for just a second against Ryan’s mouth, Spencer biting at Ryan’s lip.
How are you even, Ryan thought, what are we even, and then his brick of a cell phone went off loudly in his pocket.
“Shit,” he hissed, and Spencer pulled back sharply while Ryan took the call. It was some guy from school, whose ride had bailed, needing a favour, and Ryan agreed maybe too enthusiastically to get there ASAP. It was only when he was three blocks away from Spencer’s house that he realized he’d left so fast he didn’t even have his jacket with him. He didn’t go back for it.
-
On the first Saturday of the Christmas break Ryan goes to visit Brendon at work, because he has a few records he wants to buy anyway and Brendon’s liable to bitch if he finds out any of them were at the mall and didn’t stop by. Also because he tends to hand out free upgrades like candy as long as his boss isn’t paying close attention.
It’s pretty nice to be out of the dusty shade of his bedroom, anyway. He hasn’t cleaned in weeks (months), and the whole place has a faint smell of coffee and stale bread and jizz. His car doesn’t smell a whole lot better, but it is at least a world away from the collection of dirty mostly borrowed hoodies draped over one chair and from the calculus homework he hasn’t been able to do for two weeks straight and from Ryan’s bed and the things he’s thought about in it.
He’s already three feet in the door before he recognizes Spencer up at the counter, and by then it’s too late to turn back because Brendon’s whooping at him and people are turning their heads and Spencer is just right there, and just looking, at and into Ryan and all around him and Ryan thinks How could you not know by now, come on, seriously dude, you’re killing me.
“Sup,” Brendon calls. “I like this, like a band party. Did you plan it? Is Brent outside?”
In the time it takes Ryan to shake his head he’s made it over to Spencer’s side. Spencer knocks their elbows together, almost amicably. “One hundred percent unplanned,” he confirms.
Ryan makes a sort of non-committal noise of agreement, and pretends not to notice Brendon’s eyes flickering between them, like a snake. He isn’t smirking or anything, which is good, because Ryan’s pretty sure you can get in trouble for punching out a store employee at the mall. He can feel Spencer shift against his side, shoulders pushing closer, but both of them are still facing steadfastly forward, eyes fixed on a point somewhere around Brendon’s shoulder.
“Anyway,” Spencer says, after another long moment. “I’m going. Family dinner waits for no man.”
“Enjoy,” Brendon nods, and Ryan calls out, “Yeah, bye,” to Spencer’s retreating back. Spencer lifts a hand in acknowledgement instead of turning around, the other one tucked into the pocket of his hoodie. It takes Ryan a second to swivel back again and notice the look Brendon’s giving him.
“What?”
Brendon doesn’t reply straight away, just nods slowly to himself, mouth twisted like he’s trying hard to hold back. The frown slips out anyway, and he leans in close enough to poke Ryan accusingly in the shoulder.
“Nothing going on, huh?” he says.
-
There’s a further negligible temperature drop around the 22nd, and Brendon waxes lyrical about the electric blanket he had back home, how great it was at keeping him warm, how it’s all he misses.
Brent suggests they learn a Christmas song “to get into the spirit or something”, which inevitably ends in a thrashing messy cover of Last Christmas, complete with Brendon going into a wild crescendo on the last chorus and basically working himself up to a fake orgasm while Brent lies on the floor clutching his stomach, hacking out desperate laughs.
Ryan, for his part, slams the hell out of his guitar, forgetting to even switch chords after a while, just hitting A over and over again, buckling over with it almost. When he makes the inevitable fall to his knees he’s some three yards away from where he started, head bowed, right in front of Spencer’s drum kit.
The shitty halogen lighting of Spencer’s basement doesn’t do a whole lot for the mood, but something about the glow of it off of the metal of the cymbals seems to work on Spencer, the soft set of his face and his arms flailing about the place to no discernible rhythm, and Ryan catches his eyes and thinks Yes, Spencer like he’s answering a command and Brendon shrieks about giving it away the very next day and then the lights are suddenly being flipped on and off, in quick succession, like Morse code.
“Okay, guys,” Spencer’s mom says, with the feedback whine of Ryan’s abused amp backing up her call. “Maybe save that for when we get sound proofing.” She’s stood at the top of the staircase with one of Spencer’s younger sisters behind her, giggling and making ludicrous eyes at Brendon while her mom isn’t watching. Brendon winks at her, still lilting his stance in that dangerously faux-confident way. She bursts into a fresh bout of hysterics.
Spencer apologizes, sincerely and a little sheepishly, until his assorted family members leave and they’re alone again.
“That was fucking awesome,” Brent says, with his hands still wrapped loosely around his stomach.
Nobody really replies except to murmur in agreement. Brendon’s already gone back to fiddling with another riff on his guitar. Ryan is still knelt on the floor, and panting, with his guitar cradled in his lap. His strumming hand is sore, and it’s only when he looks down that he realizes he’s actually hit the strings hard enough to draw blood.
“Shit,” he says.
He only realizes he’s even said it out loud when Spencer makes a questioning noise from somewhere above him. Ryan holds his hand up, to show the cut. He watches Spencer’s eyes trail along his fingers, the frown that lines his forehead when he sees blood. He watches Spencer make a move as if he’s going to come around the kit and help, and then Ryan holds his hand to his mouth and licks the cut clean. Spencer stays in his seat. Ryan’s still breathing hard, his chest beating fast against the thin material of his shirt. He curls his hand away slowly, and presses his lips together.
“We should probably play some of our actual songs now,” Spencer says.
Ryan pulls himself up, slowly. He says, “Okay.”
-
The rest of practice goes relatively smoothly. There’s a point where Brent idly plucks out the first few bars of Jingle Bell Rock and Brendon beams, opens his mouth on the edge of a word, but Ryan and Spencer both say, “No,” in unison, and he catches himself, eyes darting between them. He shrugs.
“Killjoys,” he says, but he goes back onto their agreed list happily enough.
They finish a little later than normal. In the end Brent gets his way and they throw Silent Night into the mix, something quieter to appease Spencer’s mom. Spencer himself sits it out, and Ryan hovers over his guitar for a few moments before giving up too, sliding down next to Spencer against the wall while Brent and Brendon compete for lines in their rendition, their lyrics growing gradually more obscene.
Spencer gives Ryan a look, one that starts out cautious and turns into an eye-rolling smirk, a nod towards where Brent’s once again howling on the floor. Ryan shakes his head, smiling.
-
“You guys should stay tonight,” Spencer announces once they’re finally done. “It’s kind of late anyway.”
Brent narrows his eyes. “Are your sisters gonna try to give me a makeover again? I couldn’t get the nail stuff off for a week last time.”
Spencer doesn’t even bother trying not to laugh, pulling himself up from next to Ryan and heading for the stairs. “Don’t pretend you didn’t like it,” he calls over his shoulder.
“Yeah, you looked hot,” Brendon tells him, following at Spencer’s heels. “You were a princess.”
Brent’s face sours, but he stretches up too, glancing at Ryan. “Coming?”
“Sure,” Ryan says, after a pause. He pushes himself up.
The kitchen isn’t all that small but it still seems to crowd up anyway, with all four of them in there, a couple of frozen pizzas in the oven and their bags strewn around the floor. It’s warm and light and Ryan eats with his hands, sitting across from Spencer, feeling safer and stronger than he maybe should. He’s the first to finish and makes a break for the living room before the others, ducking out of the clean-up and scanning through Spencer’s DVR.
It’s Brendon who comes through first, saying, “Do you think Spencer would mind if we – oh, sweet, Back to The Future. Leave it on, hey, leave it on.”
He collapses gracelessly on the floor in front of Ryan’s couch, snagging the remote and turning the volume up a little. Spencer comes in next, and makes a mildly approving noise at the film choice. He scratches at his neck, then, and takes in where Ryan’s sprawled across the couch, his legs draped over the arm. Ryan allows himself to look back. He rubs his thumb over the cut on his finger again just once, to feel the sting, and then deliberately pulls his legs back and shuffles up a little to make room.
Spencer smiles, minutely, something Ryan can hardly see in the flickering light of the TV screen, and flops down next to him.
They make it less than halfway through the movie before Brendon starts to snore. From the chair on their left, Brent throws a few pieces of popcorn ineffectually at his head, before promptly yawning and turning his own head into his arm.
“He’s gonna kill us for letting him sleep on the floor,” Spencer remarks, glancing down at where Brendon’s snuffling into the carpet.
“I think I’m gay,” Ryan says back.
Spencer pauses, cutting his eyes back up, and then nodding slowly. “Yeah,” he says.
“Also, like,” Ryan says. “Also I think I’m into you. In a gay way. Um.” He runs a hand through his hair, anxious and awful. He can’t quite look at Spencer so he distracts himself by aiming another piece of popcorn and Brendon’s head, forlornly. Brendon makes a wounded noise and turns in his sleep, and Ryan wonders absently whose side he will take if he and Spencer can’t – if they can’t.
But he had to say it. And now he has, and there’s silence.
When Spencer does finally speak, it’s small and soft. “How long?”
“A while,” Ryan finds himself admitting. “I don’t know. I thought it would go away.”
“It doesn’t, though, does it,” Spencer says thoughtfully.
There’s a wave of relief then, the familiarity of Spencer knowing what he means without needing an explanation, of Spencer just getting it, but then Ryan catches up properly and says, “What?”
Spencer gives him a stern and slightly exasperated look, says, “You know. I kissed you.”
“I kissed you,” Ryan replies, sort of competitively, and Brendon makes another noise in his sleep. Ryan forces himself to settle back down in his seat – the film’s over, credits rolling lazily on the screen. Brent is snoring softly from his chair, with popcorn debris scattered around him, and everything is dark and muted and still. Spencer looks bluish and impossibly calm.
He says, “Whichever. We kissed. And then you ran away like I’d tried to strangle you.”
“I didn’t –” Ryan starts, but then realizes that denying it would be ridiculous. He’s aware. Bullets have left guns slower than Ryan left Spencer’s house that day. Instead he tries for a defensive;
“I was having a traumatic sexuality crisis, okay, not everyone can just power through that like they’re totally fine.”
“I wasn’t totally fine,” Spencer says, sharper but still calm.
“I know,” Ryan tells him, honestly. “Shit. We didn’t talk for two months.”
Spencer softens again. “I tried. I thought you hated me.”
“You’re even dumber than you look,” Ryan says. Spencer snorts and Ryan feels a strange mix of fondness and unease. They’re navigating something here, he’s pretty sure, stumbling awkwardly towards a conclusion, but Ryan’s still Ryan and there are still a thousand ways for him to slip up, for the world to go sideways again and for Spencer to be someone he can’t speak to anymore. His mouth sours at the thought.
Instead of retorting to the insult, though, Spencer moves in a little closer to wrap his hand around Ryan’s wrist. Ryan melts into it. His shoulder brushes up to Spencer’s and he’s so tired, he realizes suddenly. He’s maxed out. He drops his head onto Spencer’s shoulder, and moves in when Spencer doesn’t nudge him away.
“It doesn’t have to be weird or anything,” he says into Spencer’s neck. Spencer has a good neck. It’s strong and pale and smells like Spencer. He hears and then feels Spencer’s free hand coming up to pet at his hair.
“It wasn’t weird, was it,” Spencer says, in the same thoughtful tone as before. “When we – you know. It didn’t feel weird. That was the weirdest part. I thought, with you. I thought it would be –”
“If you say ‘weird’ again I’ll punch you in the balls,” Ryan mumbles. “Synonyms, man. They exist for a reason.”
There’s a pause while Spencer snorts again and tightens his grip gently around Ryan’s wrist. “I know what you mean, though,” Ryan adds. “It felt – okay.”
“Oh goodness,” Spencer says drily. “Talk more to me, Mr Smooth. Tell me more about how okay I make you feel.”
Ryan’s practically obligated by society to pinch Spencer’s arm and call him an ass, then, and Spencer laughs and jumps but doesn’t move away. He turns his head instead, tilting Ryan’s chin up with his shoulder and pushing their foreheads together. Ryan’s expecting his pulse to race immediately, but his body stays on his side for once, his breathing still steady. He’s torn between staying like this, for as long as possible, forever, or just tugging Spencer closer, touching him properly.
“Will you guys please just do the gay nasty already,” Brendon says sleepily from the floor. He’s staring up at them through heavy-lidded eyes, looking a little frustrated.
Ryan says, “What?” at the same time as Spencer says, “Shut up, Urie,” and Ryan half expects Spencer to yank their hands apart, half wants him to, but Spencer doesn’t. He picks a stray piece of popcorn out of Ryan’s hair and throws it at Brendon, instead.
“Hey,” Brendon says, looking mortally offended. “I hope you –”
“Go to bed, Brendon,” Spencer says over him. “You can sleep in my room. We’ll stay down here.”
Brendon looks like he wants to argue but then reconsiders the point, glancing over at Brent and yawning. “Want me to take him up too?” he asks. “Get him out of the way, you know, so you can sin in peace and –”
“Shut up,” Spencer repeats. “And yeah, take him with you.”
Brendon does a weird sort of mix between an over-exaggerated bow and a victory dance, tugging Brent by the elbow and winking over his shoulder.
Once they’re gone Ryan turns his face back into Spencer’s shoulder. “They’re gonna be assholes tomorrow,” he says.
Spencer shrugs. “They’re always assholes. It’d be worse if they were kind and tactful about it.” He laughs to himself, thinking about it, and then turns to face Ryan more, bringing one leg up underneath himself. “I think you should write a song about this.”
“I have,” Ryan says, because Spencer will find out eventually anyway. “A few, actually.”
He expects Spencer to laugh or roll his eyes but Spencer reaches for him instead, and closes their mouths together delicately. Ryan makes an undignified noise but doesn’t pull away. Spencer’s lips are warm and inviting, his palm sure on Ryan’s neck, and Ryan thinks that if his phone rings this time he will not answer it, he will leave it be. The rest of the world can wait.
Spencer pulls back a tiny way, his hand still tangling in the hairs at Ryan’s neck. “We should totally make Brendon sing about gay manpain,” he whispers.
“This is why I like you,” Ryan replies. “You’re a total dick.”
“I like you too,” Spencer says, and he doesn’t tack any tasteless jokes onto the end of it, so Ryan decides it’s sincere.
Author:
takkatakkatakkaPairing(s): Ryan/Spencer
Rating: PG
Warnings: Morons.
Word count: 4155
Summary: High School AU. Ryan is definitely, definitely not in love with Spencer Smith.
Practice on Thursday starts with Brendon declaring he’s going to get a tattoo.
Ryan rolls his eyes and Spencer snorts, immediately casting his gaze down again when Brendon starts to glare.
“No, seriously,” Brendon says. “Right here.” He points to his neck, or possibly his shoulder, rolls up on his toes and down again. “The guy who plays drums for orchestra has this one of a naked chick on a dirtbike, it’s sweet as hell.”
He gets a look of mild interest from Brent at that, and seems to take it as encouragement. Ryan’s thinking about stepping in to nip the whole idea in the bud when Spencer says, “I know that guy. He can’t get a job anywhere now, you know, nowhere wants a dude with a neck tattoo.”
Brendon waves a hand, careless, and says, “Fuck them, man,” with practiced confidence. He looks to Ryan for back up, and maybe it’s because Ryan doesn’t look away fast enough, or maybe it’s just because Brendon is unfortunately skilled at picking out the moments when Ryan’s defences are mostly down, but once he realizes he can he seizes the opportunity to wrap an arm around Ryan’s shoulders, too, claiming him as a supporter.
“Me and Ross,” he says, addressing the room in general. “We’re gonna get matching tats, right on the neckbone.”
He pinches Ryan just above the collar to illustrate his point. Ryan bats him off, but not particularly hard. He’s in an okay mood. It’s Friday, and there’s nothing up ahead except a long night of practice – if they can stop discussing Brendon’s aesthetic long enough to start.
“Oh, yeah,” Spencer says, voice still calm and without edges. “I can definitely see that happening.”
Brendon yelps a laugh and says, “My man,” tightening his grip around Ryan’s shoulders. He holds his hand up for a high five, which Ryan doesn’t give him, and then shrugs and pulls away.
Ryan makes a big deal of straightening out his shirt again, and Brendon calls him a pussy, and Brent calls Brendon a dumbass, fondly, and then they flip each other off in a round. Ryan only looks Spencer in the eyes one more time throughout the whole practice, a sharp glance right as he’s sucking in a breath, with his hands tight and furious on his guitar.
-
When Brendon first moved out, they used to go visit him in groups, taking over cans of soup and frozen meals and hanging out with a tangible cautiousness, watching hockey on Brendon’s shitty little portable TV and saying very little. He seemed to get a little sick of the charity-project vibe of it, though. Dudes, he said, pity is really not what I need right now. He’d made a mildly obscene gesture down at his own body, then, to expand on the point. The gesture was primarily focused on his crotch. You think anybody needs to feel sorry for this?
They quit the charade after that, and promised to stop hanging around so much. Ryan still ends up at Brendon’s place a lot, though. Mostly because all Brendon ever wants to do is talk about music, smoke up, or watch Baywatch. Ryan can do all of those things, without really having to put much effort in. It’s a relief, sometimes, to be in Brendon’s company. It’s good to have a friend who doesn’t demand much more than dick jokes and the occasional anti-family ranting session.
“You’ve been kind of weird, lately,” Brendon remarks lazily, over the second joint of the evening. “You didn’t meet a girl, did you?”
They’re stretched out on the patchy red-white couch that came with Brendon’s apartment, and since there’s no coffee table to rest them on Ryan’s feet are stuck out awkwardly over the floor, his toes curling in his socks. “No,” he says. “My turn.”
Brendon makes a scoffing noise, but hands it over to Ryan anyway. He rolls languidly onto his chest then, head turned to consider Ryan on the pillow, with one hand scratching absently at the back of his neck. “Did you and Spencer have a fight, or something?”
Ryan takes a very deliberate and slow pull on the joint, holding his breath, tightening his lungs. “No,” he says again. The word comes out with a whirl of smoke and it makes him cough like a rookie, bouncing a little against Brendon’s sheets.
“Hm,” Brendon muses. “Maybe you both have PMS. Synchronised cycles.”
“Very funny,” Ryan says drily. “Did your imaginary girlfriend tell you about that?”
“Yeah she did,” Brendon says, not missing a beat. “Straight after she sucked my dick.” He lifts his hips up and then drops again, dissolving into laughter, and doesn’t seem particularly fazed when Ryan doesn’t join in. If anything it makes him laugh louder, and Ryan decides the best reaction is to stare at the ceiling and keep smoking until Brendon realizes it’s his turn.
That happens about a minute later, with Brendon tugging the joint back out of Ryan’s fingers and wiping tears from his eyes. Ryan lets go without resistance, realizing without much surprise that his legs feel heavy, suddenly, that his head feels wide and warm. He blinks, sideways at Brendon and then back up straight again.
“Me and Spencer are fine,” he says against the silence.
Brendon says, “Spencer and I.”
-
Ryan was caught off guard, is the thing. He was sleepy, and above-average happy, and it was almost like Spencer planned it. (Even though he said, a little while afterwards, that he didn’t. To which Ryan replied, “Yeah, me neither,” and Spencer said, “Okay,” like he really wanted to be saying something else. And that was the end of the only real conversation they’ve had since.)
Anyway, Ryan was caught off guard. He was sprawled across Spencer’s bed with Spencer on his left, taking an earphone each for a joint listen of some local band Brendon had put them onto. Apparently they were good enough to motivate a competitive element, but not so good as to make anyone lose faith. They actually sucked – at least, Ryan wasn’t feeling it, and when he rolled a little to see Spencer, it seemed he felt the same way.
“I don’t know where he finds this shit,” Spencer said, yanking his earphone out and then pulling at the wire to Ryan’s, too. Ryan lifted his head so it would give. He watched Spencer wind the wire back around his walkman, and the drumming calluses on his fingertips had hardened, Ryan remembers that, the faint marks on his skin, and then he was tossing the walkman unceremoniously behind him and flopping back around to face Ryan again.
It was stupid because for once Ryan hadn’t given himself an exit clause, an escape route. For months by that point he’d been carefully figuring ways out for these situations, those moments when these wild and untouchable feelings rise up unbidden in his chest, with Spencer staring at him curious or more often concerned, with that soft look in his eye that made Ryan think he must have known, must have worked it out by now, must have been able to tell just from the way Ryan was breathing that something was different. Because Ryan kept looking at Spencer and thinking what if – and Spencer kept looking back and not moving and not turning away. Like right then, on Spencer’s bed with his calluses and the warmth of his body and the way Ryan knew he couldn’t leave this time, even if he tried, even if he wanted to.
So Ryan watched the arched line of his arm instead and then said, “Spencer,” in this awful, quieter than intended voice. He shifted a little on the sheets.
Spencer tasted like peppermint gum and something else, a little darker and maybe saltier than any of the girls Ryan had been with. It took them a little while to coax each others’ mouth open; Ryan could feel it in their movements, the cautious I’ll-go-if-you-go way they were testing each other. It was Spencer who let him in, eventually, wrapping his fingers around Ryan’s arm in the process, his palm hot and dry. He tilted them slightly, until there was more of an angle, Spencer leaning a little over Ryan, Spencer breathing for just a second against Ryan’s mouth, Spencer biting at Ryan’s lip.
How are you even, Ryan thought, what are we even, and then his brick of a cell phone went off loudly in his pocket.
“Shit,” he hissed, and Spencer pulled back sharply while Ryan took the call. It was some guy from school, whose ride had bailed, needing a favour, and Ryan agreed maybe too enthusiastically to get there ASAP. It was only when he was three blocks away from Spencer’s house that he realized he’d left so fast he didn’t even have his jacket with him. He didn’t go back for it.
-
On the first Saturday of the Christmas break Ryan goes to visit Brendon at work, because he has a few records he wants to buy anyway and Brendon’s liable to bitch if he finds out any of them were at the mall and didn’t stop by. Also because he tends to hand out free upgrades like candy as long as his boss isn’t paying close attention.
It’s pretty nice to be out of the dusty shade of his bedroom, anyway. He hasn’t cleaned in weeks (months), and the whole place has a faint smell of coffee and stale bread and jizz. His car doesn’t smell a whole lot better, but it is at least a world away from the collection of dirty mostly borrowed hoodies draped over one chair and from the calculus homework he hasn’t been able to do for two weeks straight and from Ryan’s bed and the things he’s thought about in it.
He’s already three feet in the door before he recognizes Spencer up at the counter, and by then it’s too late to turn back because Brendon’s whooping at him and people are turning their heads and Spencer is just right there, and just looking, at and into Ryan and all around him and Ryan thinks How could you not know by now, come on, seriously dude, you’re killing me.
“Sup,” Brendon calls. “I like this, like a band party. Did you plan it? Is Brent outside?”
In the time it takes Ryan to shake his head he’s made it over to Spencer’s side. Spencer knocks their elbows together, almost amicably. “One hundred percent unplanned,” he confirms.
Ryan makes a sort of non-committal noise of agreement, and pretends not to notice Brendon’s eyes flickering between them, like a snake. He isn’t smirking or anything, which is good, because Ryan’s pretty sure you can get in trouble for punching out a store employee at the mall. He can feel Spencer shift against his side, shoulders pushing closer, but both of them are still facing steadfastly forward, eyes fixed on a point somewhere around Brendon’s shoulder.
“Anyway,” Spencer says, after another long moment. “I’m going. Family dinner waits for no man.”
“Enjoy,” Brendon nods, and Ryan calls out, “Yeah, bye,” to Spencer’s retreating back. Spencer lifts a hand in acknowledgement instead of turning around, the other one tucked into the pocket of his hoodie. It takes Ryan a second to swivel back again and notice the look Brendon’s giving him.
“What?”
Brendon doesn’t reply straight away, just nods slowly to himself, mouth twisted like he’s trying hard to hold back. The frown slips out anyway, and he leans in close enough to poke Ryan accusingly in the shoulder.
“Nothing going on, huh?” he says.
-
There’s a further negligible temperature drop around the 22nd, and Brendon waxes lyrical about the electric blanket he had back home, how great it was at keeping him warm, how it’s all he misses.
Brent suggests they learn a Christmas song “to get into the spirit or something”, which inevitably ends in a thrashing messy cover of Last Christmas, complete with Brendon going into a wild crescendo on the last chorus and basically working himself up to a fake orgasm while Brent lies on the floor clutching his stomach, hacking out desperate laughs.
Ryan, for his part, slams the hell out of his guitar, forgetting to even switch chords after a while, just hitting A over and over again, buckling over with it almost. When he makes the inevitable fall to his knees he’s some three yards away from where he started, head bowed, right in front of Spencer’s drum kit.
The shitty halogen lighting of Spencer’s basement doesn’t do a whole lot for the mood, but something about the glow of it off of the metal of the cymbals seems to work on Spencer, the soft set of his face and his arms flailing about the place to no discernible rhythm, and Ryan catches his eyes and thinks Yes, Spencer like he’s answering a command and Brendon shrieks about giving it away the very next day and then the lights are suddenly being flipped on and off, in quick succession, like Morse code.
“Okay, guys,” Spencer’s mom says, with the feedback whine of Ryan’s abused amp backing up her call. “Maybe save that for when we get sound proofing.” She’s stood at the top of the staircase with one of Spencer’s younger sisters behind her, giggling and making ludicrous eyes at Brendon while her mom isn’t watching. Brendon winks at her, still lilting his stance in that dangerously faux-confident way. She bursts into a fresh bout of hysterics.
Spencer apologizes, sincerely and a little sheepishly, until his assorted family members leave and they’re alone again.
“That was fucking awesome,” Brent says, with his hands still wrapped loosely around his stomach.
Nobody really replies except to murmur in agreement. Brendon’s already gone back to fiddling with another riff on his guitar. Ryan is still knelt on the floor, and panting, with his guitar cradled in his lap. His strumming hand is sore, and it’s only when he looks down that he realizes he’s actually hit the strings hard enough to draw blood.
“Shit,” he says.
He only realizes he’s even said it out loud when Spencer makes a questioning noise from somewhere above him. Ryan holds his hand up, to show the cut. He watches Spencer’s eyes trail along his fingers, the frown that lines his forehead when he sees blood. He watches Spencer make a move as if he’s going to come around the kit and help, and then Ryan holds his hand to his mouth and licks the cut clean. Spencer stays in his seat. Ryan’s still breathing hard, his chest beating fast against the thin material of his shirt. He curls his hand away slowly, and presses his lips together.
“We should probably play some of our actual songs now,” Spencer says.
Ryan pulls himself up, slowly. He says, “Okay.”
-
The rest of practice goes relatively smoothly. There’s a point where Brent idly plucks out the first few bars of Jingle Bell Rock and Brendon beams, opens his mouth on the edge of a word, but Ryan and Spencer both say, “No,” in unison, and he catches himself, eyes darting between them. He shrugs.
“Killjoys,” he says, but he goes back onto their agreed list happily enough.
They finish a little later than normal. In the end Brent gets his way and they throw Silent Night into the mix, something quieter to appease Spencer’s mom. Spencer himself sits it out, and Ryan hovers over his guitar for a few moments before giving up too, sliding down next to Spencer against the wall while Brent and Brendon compete for lines in their rendition, their lyrics growing gradually more obscene.
Spencer gives Ryan a look, one that starts out cautious and turns into an eye-rolling smirk, a nod towards where Brent’s once again howling on the floor. Ryan shakes his head, smiling.
-
“You guys should stay tonight,” Spencer announces once they’re finally done. “It’s kind of late anyway.”
Brent narrows his eyes. “Are your sisters gonna try to give me a makeover again? I couldn’t get the nail stuff off for a week last time.”
Spencer doesn’t even bother trying not to laugh, pulling himself up from next to Ryan and heading for the stairs. “Don’t pretend you didn’t like it,” he calls over his shoulder.
“Yeah, you looked hot,” Brendon tells him, following at Spencer’s heels. “You were a princess.”
Brent’s face sours, but he stretches up too, glancing at Ryan. “Coming?”
“Sure,” Ryan says, after a pause. He pushes himself up.
The kitchen isn’t all that small but it still seems to crowd up anyway, with all four of them in there, a couple of frozen pizzas in the oven and their bags strewn around the floor. It’s warm and light and Ryan eats with his hands, sitting across from Spencer, feeling safer and stronger than he maybe should. He’s the first to finish and makes a break for the living room before the others, ducking out of the clean-up and scanning through Spencer’s DVR.
It’s Brendon who comes through first, saying, “Do you think Spencer would mind if we – oh, sweet, Back to The Future. Leave it on, hey, leave it on.”
He collapses gracelessly on the floor in front of Ryan’s couch, snagging the remote and turning the volume up a little. Spencer comes in next, and makes a mildly approving noise at the film choice. He scratches at his neck, then, and takes in where Ryan’s sprawled across the couch, his legs draped over the arm. Ryan allows himself to look back. He rubs his thumb over the cut on his finger again just once, to feel the sting, and then deliberately pulls his legs back and shuffles up a little to make room.
Spencer smiles, minutely, something Ryan can hardly see in the flickering light of the TV screen, and flops down next to him.
They make it less than halfway through the movie before Brendon starts to snore. From the chair on their left, Brent throws a few pieces of popcorn ineffectually at his head, before promptly yawning and turning his own head into his arm.
“He’s gonna kill us for letting him sleep on the floor,” Spencer remarks, glancing down at where Brendon’s snuffling into the carpet.
“I think I’m gay,” Ryan says back.
Spencer pauses, cutting his eyes back up, and then nodding slowly. “Yeah,” he says.
“Also, like,” Ryan says. “Also I think I’m into you. In a gay way. Um.” He runs a hand through his hair, anxious and awful. He can’t quite look at Spencer so he distracts himself by aiming another piece of popcorn and Brendon’s head, forlornly. Brendon makes a wounded noise and turns in his sleep, and Ryan wonders absently whose side he will take if he and Spencer can’t – if they can’t.
But he had to say it. And now he has, and there’s silence.
When Spencer does finally speak, it’s small and soft. “How long?”
“A while,” Ryan finds himself admitting. “I don’t know. I thought it would go away.”
“It doesn’t, though, does it,” Spencer says thoughtfully.
There’s a wave of relief then, the familiarity of Spencer knowing what he means without needing an explanation, of Spencer just getting it, but then Ryan catches up properly and says, “What?”
Spencer gives him a stern and slightly exasperated look, says, “You know. I kissed you.”
“I kissed you,” Ryan replies, sort of competitively, and Brendon makes another noise in his sleep. Ryan forces himself to settle back down in his seat – the film’s over, credits rolling lazily on the screen. Brent is snoring softly from his chair, with popcorn debris scattered around him, and everything is dark and muted and still. Spencer looks bluish and impossibly calm.
He says, “Whichever. We kissed. And then you ran away like I’d tried to strangle you.”
“I didn’t –” Ryan starts, but then realizes that denying it would be ridiculous. He’s aware. Bullets have left guns slower than Ryan left Spencer’s house that day. Instead he tries for a defensive;
“I was having a traumatic sexuality crisis, okay, not everyone can just power through that like they’re totally fine.”
“I wasn’t totally fine,” Spencer says, sharper but still calm.
“I know,” Ryan tells him, honestly. “Shit. We didn’t talk for two months.”
Spencer softens again. “I tried. I thought you hated me.”
“You’re even dumber than you look,” Ryan says. Spencer snorts and Ryan feels a strange mix of fondness and unease. They’re navigating something here, he’s pretty sure, stumbling awkwardly towards a conclusion, but Ryan’s still Ryan and there are still a thousand ways for him to slip up, for the world to go sideways again and for Spencer to be someone he can’t speak to anymore. His mouth sours at the thought.
Instead of retorting to the insult, though, Spencer moves in a little closer to wrap his hand around Ryan’s wrist. Ryan melts into it. His shoulder brushes up to Spencer’s and he’s so tired, he realizes suddenly. He’s maxed out. He drops his head onto Spencer’s shoulder, and moves in when Spencer doesn’t nudge him away.
“It doesn’t have to be weird or anything,” he says into Spencer’s neck. Spencer has a good neck. It’s strong and pale and smells like Spencer. He hears and then feels Spencer’s free hand coming up to pet at his hair.
“It wasn’t weird, was it,” Spencer says, in the same thoughtful tone as before. “When we – you know. It didn’t feel weird. That was the weirdest part. I thought, with you. I thought it would be –”
“If you say ‘weird’ again I’ll punch you in the balls,” Ryan mumbles. “Synonyms, man. They exist for a reason.”
There’s a pause while Spencer snorts again and tightens his grip gently around Ryan’s wrist. “I know what you mean, though,” Ryan adds. “It felt – okay.”
“Oh goodness,” Spencer says drily. “Talk more to me, Mr Smooth. Tell me more about how okay I make you feel.”
Ryan’s practically obligated by society to pinch Spencer’s arm and call him an ass, then, and Spencer laughs and jumps but doesn’t move away. He turns his head instead, tilting Ryan’s chin up with his shoulder and pushing their foreheads together. Ryan’s expecting his pulse to race immediately, but his body stays on his side for once, his breathing still steady. He’s torn between staying like this, for as long as possible, forever, or just tugging Spencer closer, touching him properly.
“Will you guys please just do the gay nasty already,” Brendon says sleepily from the floor. He’s staring up at them through heavy-lidded eyes, looking a little frustrated.
Ryan says, “What?” at the same time as Spencer says, “Shut up, Urie,” and Ryan half expects Spencer to yank their hands apart, half wants him to, but Spencer doesn’t. He picks a stray piece of popcorn out of Ryan’s hair and throws it at Brendon, instead.
“Hey,” Brendon says, looking mortally offended. “I hope you –”
“Go to bed, Brendon,” Spencer says over him. “You can sleep in my room. We’ll stay down here.”
Brendon looks like he wants to argue but then reconsiders the point, glancing over at Brent and yawning. “Want me to take him up too?” he asks. “Get him out of the way, you know, so you can sin in peace and –”
“Shut up,” Spencer repeats. “And yeah, take him with you.”
Brendon does a weird sort of mix between an over-exaggerated bow and a victory dance, tugging Brent by the elbow and winking over his shoulder.
Once they’re gone Ryan turns his face back into Spencer’s shoulder. “They’re gonna be assholes tomorrow,” he says.
Spencer shrugs. “They’re always assholes. It’d be worse if they were kind and tactful about it.” He laughs to himself, thinking about it, and then turns to face Ryan more, bringing one leg up underneath himself. “I think you should write a song about this.”
“I have,” Ryan says, because Spencer will find out eventually anyway. “A few, actually.”
He expects Spencer to laugh or roll his eyes but Spencer reaches for him instead, and closes their mouths together delicately. Ryan makes an undignified noise but doesn’t pull away. Spencer’s lips are warm and inviting, his palm sure on Ryan’s neck, and Ryan thinks that if his phone rings this time he will not answer it, he will leave it be. The rest of the world can wait.
Spencer pulls back a tiny way, his hand still tangling in the hairs at Ryan’s neck. “We should totally make Brendon sing about gay manpain,” he whispers.
“This is why I like you,” Ryan replies. “You’re a total dick.”
“I like you too,” Spencer says, and he doesn’t tack any tasteless jokes onto the end of it, so Ryan decides it’s sincere.
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Date: 2011-12-28 02:45 am (UTC)