that fragile capricorn
Title: dancing fancy pirouettes
Pairings: Jon/Spencer, Pete/Ashlee, squint and you'll miss it Joe/Tom and Brendon/Greta
Rating: vanilla all the way.
Word Count: 4909
Summary: On the day of the first ever Decaydance Elementary School dance, Jon Walker arrives at school and notices one of his fourth graders, Ashlee Simpson, holding court in the playground. At her feet, Victoria Asher and Greta Salpeter sit, enthusiastically listening to the school dance stories that Ashlee has undoubtedly learned from her older sister Jessica, or read in her "favourite books ever, Mr Walker! Sweet Valley Junior High, you should read them!"
Notes: This came about after skoosiepants wrote Break Away and I started contemplating the lovely ladies and gentlemen in bands as elementary school kids. It was a rather insistent thought, because all 4900 words of this have been written over the course of two days, while my Shane/Brendon has been languishing on my hard drive for a week now, not even reaching 1000 words yet. I have to say a HUGE thanks to the lovely sweetrecovery who, as always is the best beta a girl can ask for, and to sekkritbandomlj who read through and told me all the bits I needed to make American.
On the day of the first ever Decaydance Elementary School dance, Jon Walker arrives at school and notices one of his fourth graders, Ashlee Simpson, holding court in the playground. At her feet, Victoria Asher and Greta Salpeter sit, enthusiastically listening to the school dance stories that Ashlee has undoubtedly learned from her older sister Jessica, or read in her "favourite books ever, Mr Walker! Sweet Valley Junior High, you should read them!" Even tiny Brendon Urie, all bright eyes and messy hair, flits around the edge of the group, and Jon is pretty sure that last week Ashlee and Brendon declared themselves lifelong enemies after an argument over the pinking shears or the pink paint or Pete Wentz.
Jon stands and watches them for five minutes, only remembering that he has things to do, that he has to get to his classroom when the first morning bell goes. Usually, this would be the sign for all the kids to scatter, scoop up their bags and scamper off to class, but not today. Today there is nothing but the thought of the dance in their heads and on their tongues, and a little thing like class isn't going to interfere with that.
At least, not until fifth grade teacher Spencer Smith comes out into the playground with a bullhorn and tells them all that if they don't get to class, there won't be any dance.
"This means you too, Mr Walker!"
And even though he's halfway across the playground, and Spencer has switched the bullhorn off, Jon can still hear him laughing.
If you ask Greta Salpeter, life is so unfair. The school dance has been all that anyone has been talking about for weeks, and now the day is finally here, and they have to sit through stupid class first! And it's not even fun class, like when it was Christmas and Mr Walker let them do Christmas activities like make wreaths out of coat hangers and plastic bags, and colour in pictures. No, Mr Walker is making them do boring work, spelling lists, where he reads out the words for them to write down and says it in a sentence and walks around the classroom and probably forgets all about the dance today! Even though they reminded him this morning!
"Concentrate," Mr Walker reads out from the spelling list as he passes by the table where Brendon Urie, Shane Valdes and Ryan Ross all sit. "Because of the dance, Mr Walker could not get his class to concentrate. Concentrate."
Greta sighs, resting her chin on her hands. Ashlee has told her and Vicky-T so many exciting stories about school dances that Greta has been beside herself with excitement forever. Ashlee said that they needed to look their best, so Greta and her mom went shopping to buy a pretty new dress. Ashlee said that they had to be good dancers, so the three of them practiced routines and asked Ashlee's big sister Jessica to teach them some of her moves. Mostly she said no, but in a meaner way than that. Greta isn't allowed to repeat the words Jessica uses.
"Distraction," Mr Walker passes by her table now, and looks at Greta like he's trying to tell her something with his eyes, but she doesn't know what. "The school dance was proving to be a big distraction. Distraction."
Most importantly - Ashlee won't let them forget about it - there are going to be boys at the dance. Greta thinks this is a kind of obvious thing to say, it is a school dance, and there are boys at school, but Ashlee says that the school dance is different; nothing like ordinary school. School dances are like grown up places where boys and girls dance together, all slow, holding onto each other and stuff. Vicky-T and Ashlee even showed Greta how it was done one afternoon, when they were practicing for the dance.
It's all right for those two, Greta thinks; they've got people to dance with. Ashlee has had her boyfriend Pete for a whole three weeks now, since they shared fruit snacks behind the water fountains, and Vicky-T has already had three boys from fifth grade! ask her to the dance. Even if she does shrug and say she'll probably just dance with Maja or Katie, Greta is still jealous. No one has asked her, not even after she tried what Ashlee suggested, and said to the boys that the dance was coming up, and are they as excited as she is? Really! She can't wait to do some slow dancing.
"Cancel," Mr Walker sighs, leaning back against his desk. "Mr Walker wishes Principal Trohman would cancel the dance. Cancel."
Ashlee seemed pretty disappointed when she'd asked Greta this morning if she had a boy to dance with yet and Greta had to tell her that she didn’t. But then she had smiled and linked arms with her friend.
"Don't worry, Greta. We'll get you a really good boy, trust me."
And Greta does, because Ashlee has a way of getting things done.
"Ashlee Simpson." The whole class, even Greta, giggles at Mr Walker, because Ashlee isn't one of their spelling words! How silly! "What are the classroom rules on note-passing?"
Ashlee looks up at Mr Walker making her eyes seem really big and innocent. Greta has tried to do it too, but no matter how much she practices in front of the mirror, it just makes her face look funny.
"It's not allowed, Mr Walker."
"Right." Mr Walker doesn't even sound mean, which is this trick he has, so that you - mostly the naughty boys - don't even notice you're getting into trouble. He holds out his hand. "Can I have the note please, Ashlee?"
The class laughs again, but not Greta this time. She wonders if the note is for her, and what it is going to say. Hopefully nothing embarrassing, like the time that Mr Walker read out the note that she had been passing to Vicky-T about how she thought that Brendon was cute.
Ashlee hands the note over to Mr Walker slowly, as if taking her time means that Mr Walker will lose interest in the note and forget about it. But he doesn't, because when the note is finally in his hand, he opens it up and reads aloud.
"You should ask Greta to the dance."
The whole class laughs and Greta's cheeks go red. She has never been more embarrassed in her life.
"Should I, Miss Simpson." Mr Walker smiles at Ashlee, then at Greta.
"Miss Salpeter, would you like to go to the dance with me?"
The class laughs again. Greta shakes her head so her blonde hair flies everywhere. She takes it back. Now she has never been more embarrassed in her entire life.
"Hey Spence, I really hate this dance, have I mentioned that?" Recess, finally recess, thank god. Jon flops onto the seat beside Spencer in the teacher’s lounge, huffing melodramatically for effect. Beside him, Spencer seems unmoved by his plight, picking sugar rosettes off a piece of cake.
"Only about a million times," he replies, handing Jon the sugar rosettes one by one. "It won't be as bad as you think." Spencer, Jon notes, crunching on the rosettes, is entirely too calm and optimistic about this. Jon is fairly sure that the school dance will bring about the apocalypse.
"It already is," Jon says through a mouthful of coloured sugar. "Ashlee Simpson is sending people notes telling them to ask Greta Salpeter to the dance, and this morning she was lecturing them all in the playground on how they should act."
Spencer laughs, bright and happy, which has this unfortunate side effect of rendering Jon incapable of sulking. He tries not to think about that, at least while he's still at school.
"That girl is going to be president or something one day, just watch." He laughs again and moves on to Jon's snack, picking the raisins and M&Ms out of his trail mix.
"Hey!" Jon cries when he finally notices and snatches it back, "We agreed that the system is you're only allowed to eat the things I don't like." Cradling the remains of his trail mix to his chest, Jon pouts. It's too late; Spencer has picked out all the good bits. "All the M&Ms are gone," he laments.
Spencer's eyes are on him, amused. "You don't like M&Ms."
"I love M&Ms," Jon insists, still pouting, but any further debate on the subject is cut short when Tom sits down on the other side of Jon. Eating the carrot sticks he's currently using to replace cigarettes, he says, "You two should get a room."
Jon chokes on his trail mix. Spencer turns bright red. They both - very deliberately - do not look at each other.
"I, um. I forgot," Spencer says, rising to his feet, making panicked gestures with his hands. Tom looks pretty disinterested. "I have yard duty, I have to go. Bye!"
Jon is still coughing and spluttering when Spencer runs out the door. Tom chews on a carrot stick.
"Thanks," Jon manages to say, in between all the choking and dying. Tom rolls his eyes and picks up a pamphlet about an educational supplies store someone has left on the table. They're advertising coloured chalk and whiteboard markers for half price.
"Worse than the kids," he mutters under his breath, deliberately loud enough for Jon to hear.
Greta tries to question Ashlee at recess about the note, but she goes all mysterious and leaves to watch Pete play games with his friends, so Vicky-T and Greta spend recess by themselves. When Greta moans about not having a boy to dance with, Vicky-T tells her they aren't all that great anyway. Girls are better dancers. That is what Vicky-T says. She can't see why girls and boys have to dance together.
Greta is fairly sure Ashlee wouldn't let Vicky-T say stuff like that, but Greta isn't bold like Ashlee is. Ashlee is kind of like Lily in The Princess Diaries, which are Greta's favourite books ever. She tried to read Sweet Valley Junior High like Ashlee did, but she didn't like them.
"What about Andy?" Ashlee whispers from behind her book, when they're back in class after recess. She's not really reading, Greta can tell, because Ashlee has read Dance Fever five times. "You could dance with him."
Greta looks up from her book to check that Mr Walker hasn't noticed them talking. They're supposed to be doing quiet reading, like they do for ten minutes every day, but today's has gone on for longer because Mr Walker is staring out the window; the one lets you see into Mr Smith's classroom. Mr Smith teaches fifth grade and everyone says that he's not as nice as Mr Walker.
"I don't want to dance with Andy," she whispers back. Andy is one of Pete's friends, who is in fifth grade. Ashlee says that Pete says that Andy is a nice boy, but Greta thinks he smells like this shop she went into with her mom once where they played this funny music that her dad said was for "hips." Besides, Andy always draws on himself with magic markers even though everyone keeps telling him not to, even Principal Trohman. Greta doesn't think she can dance with a boy who draws pictures on his arms.
"You can't say no to everyone," Ashlee replies, setting her book down on the table. Mr Walker hasn't even looked at anyone in the classroom once. "You have to have a boy to slow dance with, otherwise you'll just look silly."
"Vicky-T doesn't have a boy to dance with, why should I?" Greta is very bothered about this dance business now. She thought it was supposed to be fun!
Ashlee sighs and picks up her book again. "We'll find you someone at lunch."
Greta wants to say something about how she doesn't want to dance with Gabe or Gerard or any of the other fifth grade boys except maybe Patrick, but Mr Walker has stopped looking out the window now, probably because Mr Smith is at the other window, looking back at him, so they have to go back to boring class stuff.
Jon has never been happier for a music lesson in his life. He herds his fourth graders into Tom's music room and makes funny hand gestures at Tom, which clearly means that he’s going to hang around so he can talk to Tom. This would normally be difficult, but the whole dance thing means it’s impossible to teach the kids anything, so Tom just gives them free time with the instruments. The result is very chaotic and very noisy, but it means the kids can't hear Tom and Jon talking, which is exactly the way Jon likes it.
"Do you think something is going on with me and Spence?" he asks Tom, leaning against the doorframe so he can keep one eye on his class and the other on Tom, who snorts.
"We are so not having this conversation right now."
Jon frowns. "Why not?"
"Dude!" Tom laughs, which almost makes Jon laugh, because he's pretty sure he's never heard one teacher address another teacher as "dude" ever, and it's pretty funny. "Jon, that is totally unprofessional."
"Your mom is unprofessional- No. Brendon, one instrument each. You can't have the keyboard and the guitar."
Even with the noise of the room, Jon can practically hear Tom rolling his eyes. "All this time with nine-year-olds has not been doing you much good, you know that?"
Jon looks pointedly at Tom. "'Worse than the kids.' What the hell does that even mean?"
"It means," Tom sighs and winces at the way Andrew Mrotek is bashing on the drums, arms flailing. "That you need to stop acting like a nine-year-old and do something about your whole thing with Spencer."
"My whole thing with Spencer," Jon repeats slowly, like he's not quite processing what Tom means. "My whole thing with Mr Smith is purely professional."
There is the accusation of bullshit behind Tom's answering snort, but Jon totally rises above it and encourages little William Beckett to show Mr Conrad just how good he's gotten at the tambourine.
Ashlee's method of finding a boy for Greta to dance with at lunchtime is dumb, if you ask Greta. But the dance starts at the end of lunch which means she doesn't have much time left, not if she wants to find someone to dance with, so she trails after Ashlee and Vicky-T as they march up to the top field and ask to be a part of the boys' soccer game.
It's really silly, because the boys are trying to play soccer, and the girls are just standing in the middle of the field, trying to see who will dance with Greta. Sometimes, led by Ashlee, they go up to a boy and ask him if he wants to dance with Greta. So far most of them push past the girls and tell them to get out of the way. They keep getting really annoyed, even Pete, when Ashlee asks him if he thinks Patrick would dance with Greta. Pete also says that Greta should just dance with whoever she wants.
Greta thinks Pete's pretty nice, after that.
The bell goes ten minutes early, and all the girls start running towards the gym, while all the boys drag their feet and kick the ball around a little more until Mr Smith comes out and starts yelling at them to get inside. Most of them have gotten their clothes dirty, which is really silly, because girls won't want to dance with boys who have dirt on them.
Except for maybe Ashlee, because she really like likes Pete. But Greta and Vicky-T aren't allowed to tell anyone. Ashlee made them pinkie-swear.
"Welcome to the beginning of the end," Jon mutters under his breath as he and Spencer count heads to make sure that none of the kids - boys - have run off to avoid an afternoon of pure hell. Not that Jon can blame them, but you know. There's that whole pesky duty of care thing that means they have to know where the kids are all the time. They bounce inside two by two, the girls brimming over with excitement, the boys lured by the promises of cake and juice and a chance to show off for their friends. Inside, Tom has set up the sound system and his collection of songs suitable for young ears.
Spencer rolls his eyes at Jon and counts off two more kids, smiling brightly at them as he stamps a smiley face onto their hands. "You're overreacting."
"Whatever," Jon says lightly, stamping another two, ushering them inside. Then they lapse back into silence, counting, stamping and ushering until all the kids are inside, and they're the only ones left outside.
Except for one.
"Mr Walker?" Brendon Urie stops in front of Jon, looking entirely shy, which is a new thing for him. He's also the last to go in, also entirely unusual. Jon can't remember a situation where Brendon hasn't bravely bounced in, chattering his head off to whoever would listen about whatever has crossed his mind.
"Yes, Brendon?" Jon crouches down so he's the same height. "Don't you want to go inside and dance?"
Brendon hesitates, shifting from foot to foot. He scrunches up his face before he speaks. "Do I have to dance with a girl?"
Spencer laughs and Jon wants to, but Brendon looks so earnest that it would be cruel. He smiles warmly instead.
"Not if you don't want to, little man. You can dance with whoever you want."
"Can I dance with you?" Brendon asks, and man. Forget Ashlee Simpson and her big, innocent eyes. Jon is pretty sure with eyes like Brendon's he's probably always going to be able to get out of trouble.
Jon laughs a little now and shakes his head. "I don't think you'd want to do that, I'm a really bad dancer. But maybe Ryan or Shane will want to dance, if you ask them."
Jon can still hear Spencer laughing behind him, but he's not going to say anything, not until Brendon is mollified. But mentioning Ryan and Shane, Brendon's two best friends, seems enough to fix the situation, because then he's running inside, yelling, "RYAN, WHEN YOU'RE FINISHED DANCING WITH KELTIE, CAN YOU DANCE WITH ME?"
Spencer laughs. "That boy-"
"Yeah," Jon stands up again, trying to ignore the old man creaks and groans his body makes as he straightens up. Twenty-six isn't even that old, not really He's one of the youngest staff members at the school, after Spencer, who is studying Jon intently.
"So you really can't-"
"Not one step." Spencer takes a deep breath and gathers up the class lists. "Shame." He turns around, walks into the gym, and Jon is left to pretend like his heart didn't just skip a beat or three.
The dance is actually pretty fun once they get inside. Mr Conrad - the music teacher - plays all the songs, which is good, because he's really cool. He's even got an earring in his nose, which none of the other teachers have, and he didn't even have to take it out after someone's mom complained! Vicky-T told her that she heard Mr Walker and Mr Smith talking in the classroom about it one day after school, and Mr Walker said that of course Principal Trohman wouldn't make Mr Conrad take it out, because Principal Trohman was getting something from Mr Conrad, only they didn't say what it was.
Mr Conrad plays all the cool songs, which makes Greta and Vicky-T and Ashlee really happy, because they're the songs that they made up all the dances to! They have their own little part of the dance floor where they get to show off their moves and all the girls watch them. Keltie even joins in, because she's been dancing since kindergarten, so she's really good and picks up the dances really fast. Greta likes it when she gets to spin around, because it makes her dress go flying out in a circle.
Luckily, all the dancing means Ashlee hasn't even thought about finding a boy for Greta. Mr Conrad announces the first slow dance not long after they've been showing off their moves. It's going to be to "Umbrella"! Ashlee crosses her arms over her chest and opens her mouth, like she's going to tell Greta to do something, but Pete saves the day, because he comes over.
"Hey chickybabe," he says to Ashlee, wagging his eyebrows up and down. "Wanna dance?"
"Duh, silly," Ashlee giggles in return, taking his hand. "Come on!"
She drags him off to join the long line of couples standing opposite each other with their hands on each other's shoulders. Greta giggles because Brendon is there dancing with Shane Valdes, right next to Ryan and Keltie, and on the end, Gabriel Saporta from fifth grade has made a little square, slow dancing with three other people, Alex Suarez, Ryland Blackinton and Nate Novarro.
"Hey chickybabe," Vicky-T says, and it makes Greta giggle again, because she's made her voice sound like a boy's, like Pete's. "Wanna dance?"
Greta nods, but instead of putting her hands on Vicky-T's shoulders like all the other people, she takes Vicky-T's hand in hers.
"Spin me," she instructs. The slow dancing looks really boring, anyway, just swaying side to side. They both laugh and shriek as they spin each other around the room. Once, they accidentally crash into the slow dancing couples, so Mr Smith makes them sit down for five minutes. He's pretty angry with them. But Greta and Vicky-T can't stop giggling because it was so much fun and especially because Greta gets the hiccups, so they can't really be sorry at all.
Spencer sighs when he returns to the spot he and Jon have staked by the door, which makes Jon laugh.
"I am so right about this dance," he informs Spencer, grinning smugly. He even folds his arms over his chest to complete the effect, but Spencer just rolls his eyes.
"If you didn't let your fourth graders run amok…"
"They were totally not running amok!"
"Jon," Spencer says, in a tone he generally reserves for Pete Wentz and Gabriel Saporta. He even puts his hands on his hips. They're really nice hips. Not that Jon notices. Well. Not that he notices during school time, anyway. Much. "It was like someone had let loose two supercharged spinning tops in here. They could have hurt somebody!"
"Mr Smith," Jon replies, and look at that Spencer Smith, Jon can totally use his special tone too, the one that he saves for those extra special occasions, when Ryan and Shane are fighting over something; usually Brendon. "You are totally overexaggerating-"
It's at that moment that the bell rings, and school dance or no, nothing stops the stampede of nine- and ten-year-olds charging out of the gym, ready to go home. Technically, Jon and Spencer are both supposed to be stopping the rush, sending them out one or two at a time, but they both know that there's no stemming the tide. Spencer wades into the kids, yelling for them to slow down, and watch out, and for goodness sake, stop running! Jon edges closer to the door, slowing them all down by telling them all to have a good afternoon, and that he'll see them tomorrow.
Even though Greta only lives five minutes away from school by car, the trip home on the school bus always takes forever and ever, because Ashlee and Vicky-T live in the complete opposite direction from her, which means Greta has to sit by herself with no one to talk to and that's totally boring.
Greta sighs and stares out the window, watching the houses pass by.
"I thought your slow dancing was really cool."
Brendon Urie slides into the seat right beside Greta. No one really ever sits next to Greta, at least not to talk to her, anyway. Mostly people only sit there when they need a seat and there's none left except for hers. But now Brendon's sitting right there, talking to her! Saying stuff about the dance! Greta's cheeks flush pink.
"Thanks," she says really softly, and tries to think of something else to say. Only it's really hard when Brendon is smiling at her like that, because it's really cute and distracting and makes Greta wonder what it would be like to hold hands with him. "Vicky-T's really fun to dance with. But Mr Smith yelled at us for it, a little bit."
Brendon nods like Greta's saying really important stuff, which makes her pink cheek turn red. "Mr Smith can be mean sometimes. I think you'd be really fun to dance with. Maybe next time, you could show me how to do your slow dance."
Greta thinks she should point out that it's really easy, all you have to have is someone to hold your hand while you spin, but then she remembers that you have to have someone to hold your hand while you spin, and Brendon wants her to show him how to do it! "Sure!" she says instead, and smiles at him and blinks a lot in the way that Ashlee said makes boys think you're really pretty.
"Cool." Brendon is really, really cute when he smiles and it makes Greta smile a lot too, especially because now she gets to dance with him at the next dance. She's probably going to burst with excitement before she gets home. "Do you live far away?" Brendon asks, and Greta nods, and starts to tell him about it, but really she's jumping up and down on the inside.
Eventually, when the kids have gone home and Tom has wandered off to "run some things by Trohman," Jon and Spencer are left to clean up, pulling down the streamers and balloons from the walls and picking the Dixie cups up off the floor.
"The world didn't end after all," Spencer notes, making a disgusted face at the half-eaten cake, left discarded on the bleachers. But his voice is light, like he's laughing at Jon.
Jon glares at him. "You're laughing at me."
"Laughing with you," Spencer corrects, dumping the cake in the bin. But you know. Jon's not laughing, so that makes it pretty damn hard for Spencer to be laughing with him. Jon rips a handful of streamers down from the walls and shoves them in the trash bag.
"I lied, you know." Jon surprises even himself with this confession; he doesn't even know why he's saying it. He pulls another lot of streamers off the wall and trashes them, pretending like he doesn't feel Spencer's curious look.
"Lied about what?"
Jon knows he's probably done something wrong, saying this shit, because Spencer's tone is careful and guarded, something it hasn't been in the entire five years they've been working together. Jon’s stomach clenches and he looks away. “Forget it,” he mutters.
But Spencer won't let up. "Jon, what did you lie about?"
This time when he's standing with his hands on his hips and a frown on his face, there's nothing of the light mood from earlier. He looks mad, or hurt, Jon can't decide which, and he really wishes Tom would come back right about now, but if he's with Joe Trohman, chances are they'll be there all afternoon. Jon has no one to save him but himself.
"Um," Jon's eyes are glued to the floor where someone's spilled their juice. The janitor is probably going to have a fit. "About the dancing? I totally have moves."
"What?"
"You know," he sighs and shoves his hands into his pockets. Jon looks up, and Spencer doesn't really look mad, just confused. "When Brendon, the little one, asked me if I would dance with him, and I said that I couldn't dance, and then you asked me, and I still said no. That. That was a lie."
"Jon."
"Sorry." Jon picks up the trash bag so he has something to distract him and busies himself with picking more stuff off the ground. "I didn't mean to let you think, I wouldn't. Um. Sorry."
"Jon," Spencer says again, and now he's totally laughing. Jon is really confused; he thought Spencer would be mad at him, and fuck it. Maybe Tom's right. Maybe he has become a nine-year-old. "Jon, do you want to slow dance with me?"
Oh god, this is so ridiculous. He runs his hand through his hair and sets the trash bag on the ground before he looks at Spencer, because once he does, well. He has to smile at Spencer's smile and soon a smile becomes a laugh. "If you want to slow dance with me, you have to buy me dinner first."
"I think there's some leftover hot dogs and fries on the table…" Spencer beams at him, and even though the thought of eating old, soggy hot dogs and fries that the kids have been picking at is completely disgusting, Jon smiles anyway.
"On second thoughts, let's skip dinner."
Spencer laughs, and puts the last of the streamers in the trash. "I knew you'd see it my way," he says, and yeah. Jon's really glad of that, too.
Pairings: Jon/Spencer, Pete/Ashlee, squint and you'll miss it Joe/Tom and Brendon/Greta
Rating: vanilla all the way.
Word Count: 4909
Summary: On the day of the first ever Decaydance Elementary School dance, Jon Walker arrives at school and notices one of his fourth graders, Ashlee Simpson, holding court in the playground. At her feet, Victoria Asher and Greta Salpeter sit, enthusiastically listening to the school dance stories that Ashlee has undoubtedly learned from her older sister Jessica, or read in her "favourite books ever, Mr Walker! Sweet Valley Junior High, you should read them!"
Notes: This came about after skoosiepants wrote Break Away and I started contemplating the lovely ladies and gentlemen in bands as elementary school kids. It was a rather insistent thought, because all 4900 words of this have been written over the course of two days, while my Shane/Brendon has been languishing on my hard drive for a week now, not even reaching 1000 words yet. I have to say a HUGE thanks to the lovely sweetrecovery who, as always is the best beta a girl can ask for, and to sekkritbandomlj who read through and told me all the bits I needed to make American.
On the day of the first ever Decaydance Elementary School dance, Jon Walker arrives at school and notices one of his fourth graders, Ashlee Simpson, holding court in the playground. At her feet, Victoria Asher and Greta Salpeter sit, enthusiastically listening to the school dance stories that Ashlee has undoubtedly learned from her older sister Jessica, or read in her "favourite books ever, Mr Walker! Sweet Valley Junior High, you should read them!" Even tiny Brendon Urie, all bright eyes and messy hair, flits around the edge of the group, and Jon is pretty sure that last week Ashlee and Brendon declared themselves lifelong enemies after an argument over the pinking shears or the pink paint or Pete Wentz.
Jon stands and watches them for five minutes, only remembering that he has things to do, that he has to get to his classroom when the first morning bell goes. Usually, this would be the sign for all the kids to scatter, scoop up their bags and scamper off to class, but not today. Today there is nothing but the thought of the dance in their heads and on their tongues, and a little thing like class isn't going to interfere with that.
At least, not until fifth grade teacher Spencer Smith comes out into the playground with a bullhorn and tells them all that if they don't get to class, there won't be any dance.
"This means you too, Mr Walker!"
And even though he's halfway across the playground, and Spencer has switched the bullhorn off, Jon can still hear him laughing.
If you ask Greta Salpeter, life is so unfair. The school dance has been all that anyone has been talking about for weeks, and now the day is finally here, and they have to sit through stupid class first! And it's not even fun class, like when it was Christmas and Mr Walker let them do Christmas activities like make wreaths out of coat hangers and plastic bags, and colour in pictures. No, Mr Walker is making them do boring work, spelling lists, where he reads out the words for them to write down and says it in a sentence and walks around the classroom and probably forgets all about the dance today! Even though they reminded him this morning!
"Concentrate," Mr Walker reads out from the spelling list as he passes by the table where Brendon Urie, Shane Valdes and Ryan Ross all sit. "Because of the dance, Mr Walker could not get his class to concentrate. Concentrate."
Greta sighs, resting her chin on her hands. Ashlee has told her and Vicky-T so many exciting stories about school dances that Greta has been beside herself with excitement forever. Ashlee said that they needed to look their best, so Greta and her mom went shopping to buy a pretty new dress. Ashlee said that they had to be good dancers, so the three of them practiced routines and asked Ashlee's big sister Jessica to teach them some of her moves. Mostly she said no, but in a meaner way than that. Greta isn't allowed to repeat the words Jessica uses.
"Distraction," Mr Walker passes by her table now, and looks at Greta like he's trying to tell her something with his eyes, but she doesn't know what. "The school dance was proving to be a big distraction. Distraction."
Most importantly - Ashlee won't let them forget about it - there are going to be boys at the dance. Greta thinks this is a kind of obvious thing to say, it is a school dance, and there are boys at school, but Ashlee says that the school dance is different; nothing like ordinary school. School dances are like grown up places where boys and girls dance together, all slow, holding onto each other and stuff. Vicky-T and Ashlee even showed Greta how it was done one afternoon, when they were practicing for the dance.
It's all right for those two, Greta thinks; they've got people to dance with. Ashlee has had her boyfriend Pete for a whole three weeks now, since they shared fruit snacks behind the water fountains, and Vicky-T has already had three boys from fifth grade! ask her to the dance. Even if she does shrug and say she'll probably just dance with Maja or Katie, Greta is still jealous. No one has asked her, not even after she tried what Ashlee suggested, and said to the boys that the dance was coming up, and are they as excited as she is? Really! She can't wait to do some slow dancing.
"Cancel," Mr Walker sighs, leaning back against his desk. "Mr Walker wishes Principal Trohman would cancel the dance. Cancel."
Ashlee seemed pretty disappointed when she'd asked Greta this morning if she had a boy to dance with yet and Greta had to tell her that she didn’t. But then she had smiled and linked arms with her friend.
"Don't worry, Greta. We'll get you a really good boy, trust me."
And Greta does, because Ashlee has a way of getting things done.
"Ashlee Simpson." The whole class, even Greta, giggles at Mr Walker, because Ashlee isn't one of their spelling words! How silly! "What are the classroom rules on note-passing?"
Ashlee looks up at Mr Walker making her eyes seem really big and innocent. Greta has tried to do it too, but no matter how much she practices in front of the mirror, it just makes her face look funny.
"It's not allowed, Mr Walker."
"Right." Mr Walker doesn't even sound mean, which is this trick he has, so that you - mostly the naughty boys - don't even notice you're getting into trouble. He holds out his hand. "Can I have the note please, Ashlee?"
The class laughs again, but not Greta this time. She wonders if the note is for her, and what it is going to say. Hopefully nothing embarrassing, like the time that Mr Walker read out the note that she had been passing to Vicky-T about how she thought that Brendon was cute.
Ashlee hands the note over to Mr Walker slowly, as if taking her time means that Mr Walker will lose interest in the note and forget about it. But he doesn't, because when the note is finally in his hand, he opens it up and reads aloud.
"You should ask Greta to the dance."
The whole class laughs and Greta's cheeks go red. She has never been more embarrassed in her life.
"Should I, Miss Simpson." Mr Walker smiles at Ashlee, then at Greta.
"Miss Salpeter, would you like to go to the dance with me?"
The class laughs again. Greta shakes her head so her blonde hair flies everywhere. She takes it back. Now she has never been more embarrassed in her entire life.
"Hey Spence, I really hate this dance, have I mentioned that?" Recess, finally recess, thank god. Jon flops onto the seat beside Spencer in the teacher’s lounge, huffing melodramatically for effect. Beside him, Spencer seems unmoved by his plight, picking sugar rosettes off a piece of cake.
"Only about a million times," he replies, handing Jon the sugar rosettes one by one. "It won't be as bad as you think." Spencer, Jon notes, crunching on the rosettes, is entirely too calm and optimistic about this. Jon is fairly sure that the school dance will bring about the apocalypse.
"It already is," Jon says through a mouthful of coloured sugar. "Ashlee Simpson is sending people notes telling them to ask Greta Salpeter to the dance, and this morning she was lecturing them all in the playground on how they should act."
Spencer laughs, bright and happy, which has this unfortunate side effect of rendering Jon incapable of sulking. He tries not to think about that, at least while he's still at school.
"That girl is going to be president or something one day, just watch." He laughs again and moves on to Jon's snack, picking the raisins and M&Ms out of his trail mix.
"Hey!" Jon cries when he finally notices and snatches it back, "We agreed that the system is you're only allowed to eat the things I don't like." Cradling the remains of his trail mix to his chest, Jon pouts. It's too late; Spencer has picked out all the good bits. "All the M&Ms are gone," he laments.
Spencer's eyes are on him, amused. "You don't like M&Ms."
"I love M&Ms," Jon insists, still pouting, but any further debate on the subject is cut short when Tom sits down on the other side of Jon. Eating the carrot sticks he's currently using to replace cigarettes, he says, "You two should get a room."
Jon chokes on his trail mix. Spencer turns bright red. They both - very deliberately - do not look at each other.
"I, um. I forgot," Spencer says, rising to his feet, making panicked gestures with his hands. Tom looks pretty disinterested. "I have yard duty, I have to go. Bye!"
Jon is still coughing and spluttering when Spencer runs out the door. Tom chews on a carrot stick.
"Thanks," Jon manages to say, in between all the choking and dying. Tom rolls his eyes and picks up a pamphlet about an educational supplies store someone has left on the table. They're advertising coloured chalk and whiteboard markers for half price.
"Worse than the kids," he mutters under his breath, deliberately loud enough for Jon to hear.
Greta tries to question Ashlee at recess about the note, but she goes all mysterious and leaves to watch Pete play games with his friends, so Vicky-T and Greta spend recess by themselves. When Greta moans about not having a boy to dance with, Vicky-T tells her they aren't all that great anyway. Girls are better dancers. That is what Vicky-T says. She can't see why girls and boys have to dance together.
Greta is fairly sure Ashlee wouldn't let Vicky-T say stuff like that, but Greta isn't bold like Ashlee is. Ashlee is kind of like Lily in The Princess Diaries, which are Greta's favourite books ever. She tried to read Sweet Valley Junior High like Ashlee did, but she didn't like them.
"What about Andy?" Ashlee whispers from behind her book, when they're back in class after recess. She's not really reading, Greta can tell, because Ashlee has read Dance Fever five times. "You could dance with him."
Greta looks up from her book to check that Mr Walker hasn't noticed them talking. They're supposed to be doing quiet reading, like they do for ten minutes every day, but today's has gone on for longer because Mr Walker is staring out the window; the one lets you see into Mr Smith's classroom. Mr Smith teaches fifth grade and everyone says that he's not as nice as Mr Walker.
"I don't want to dance with Andy," she whispers back. Andy is one of Pete's friends, who is in fifth grade. Ashlee says that Pete says that Andy is a nice boy, but Greta thinks he smells like this shop she went into with her mom once where they played this funny music that her dad said was for "hips." Besides, Andy always draws on himself with magic markers even though everyone keeps telling him not to, even Principal Trohman. Greta doesn't think she can dance with a boy who draws pictures on his arms.
"You can't say no to everyone," Ashlee replies, setting her book down on the table. Mr Walker hasn't even looked at anyone in the classroom once. "You have to have a boy to slow dance with, otherwise you'll just look silly."
"Vicky-T doesn't have a boy to dance with, why should I?" Greta is very bothered about this dance business now. She thought it was supposed to be fun!
Ashlee sighs and picks up her book again. "We'll find you someone at lunch."
Greta wants to say something about how she doesn't want to dance with Gabe or Gerard or any of the other fifth grade boys except maybe Patrick, but Mr Walker has stopped looking out the window now, probably because Mr Smith is at the other window, looking back at him, so they have to go back to boring class stuff.
Jon has never been happier for a music lesson in his life. He herds his fourth graders into Tom's music room and makes funny hand gestures at Tom, which clearly means that he’s going to hang around so he can talk to Tom. This would normally be difficult, but the whole dance thing means it’s impossible to teach the kids anything, so Tom just gives them free time with the instruments. The result is very chaotic and very noisy, but it means the kids can't hear Tom and Jon talking, which is exactly the way Jon likes it.
"Do you think something is going on with me and Spence?" he asks Tom, leaning against the doorframe so he can keep one eye on his class and the other on Tom, who snorts.
"We are so not having this conversation right now."
Jon frowns. "Why not?"
"Dude!" Tom laughs, which almost makes Jon laugh, because he's pretty sure he's never heard one teacher address another teacher as "dude" ever, and it's pretty funny. "Jon, that is totally unprofessional."
"Your mom is unprofessional- No. Brendon, one instrument each. You can't have the keyboard and the guitar."
Even with the noise of the room, Jon can practically hear Tom rolling his eyes. "All this time with nine-year-olds has not been doing you much good, you know that?"
Jon looks pointedly at Tom. "'Worse than the kids.' What the hell does that even mean?"
"It means," Tom sighs and winces at the way Andrew Mrotek is bashing on the drums, arms flailing. "That you need to stop acting like a nine-year-old and do something about your whole thing with Spencer."
"My whole thing with Spencer," Jon repeats slowly, like he's not quite processing what Tom means. "My whole thing with Mr Smith is purely professional."
There is the accusation of bullshit behind Tom's answering snort, but Jon totally rises above it and encourages little William Beckett to show Mr Conrad just how good he's gotten at the tambourine.
Ashlee's method of finding a boy for Greta to dance with at lunchtime is dumb, if you ask Greta. But the dance starts at the end of lunch which means she doesn't have much time left, not if she wants to find someone to dance with, so she trails after Ashlee and Vicky-T as they march up to the top field and ask to be a part of the boys' soccer game.
It's really silly, because the boys are trying to play soccer, and the girls are just standing in the middle of the field, trying to see who will dance with Greta. Sometimes, led by Ashlee, they go up to a boy and ask him if he wants to dance with Greta. So far most of them push past the girls and tell them to get out of the way. They keep getting really annoyed, even Pete, when Ashlee asks him if he thinks Patrick would dance with Greta. Pete also says that Greta should just dance with whoever she wants.
Greta thinks Pete's pretty nice, after that.
The bell goes ten minutes early, and all the girls start running towards the gym, while all the boys drag their feet and kick the ball around a little more until Mr Smith comes out and starts yelling at them to get inside. Most of them have gotten their clothes dirty, which is really silly, because girls won't want to dance with boys who have dirt on them.
Except for maybe Ashlee, because she really like likes Pete. But Greta and Vicky-T aren't allowed to tell anyone. Ashlee made them pinkie-swear.
"Welcome to the beginning of the end," Jon mutters under his breath as he and Spencer count heads to make sure that none of the kids - boys - have run off to avoid an afternoon of pure hell. Not that Jon can blame them, but you know. There's that whole pesky duty of care thing that means they have to know where the kids are all the time. They bounce inside two by two, the girls brimming over with excitement, the boys lured by the promises of cake and juice and a chance to show off for their friends. Inside, Tom has set up the sound system and his collection of songs suitable for young ears.
Spencer rolls his eyes at Jon and counts off two more kids, smiling brightly at them as he stamps a smiley face onto their hands. "You're overreacting."
"Whatever," Jon says lightly, stamping another two, ushering them inside. Then they lapse back into silence, counting, stamping and ushering until all the kids are inside, and they're the only ones left outside.
Except for one.
"Mr Walker?" Brendon Urie stops in front of Jon, looking entirely shy, which is a new thing for him. He's also the last to go in, also entirely unusual. Jon can't remember a situation where Brendon hasn't bravely bounced in, chattering his head off to whoever would listen about whatever has crossed his mind.
"Yes, Brendon?" Jon crouches down so he's the same height. "Don't you want to go inside and dance?"
Brendon hesitates, shifting from foot to foot. He scrunches up his face before he speaks. "Do I have to dance with a girl?"
Spencer laughs and Jon wants to, but Brendon looks so earnest that it would be cruel. He smiles warmly instead.
"Not if you don't want to, little man. You can dance with whoever you want."
"Can I dance with you?" Brendon asks, and man. Forget Ashlee Simpson and her big, innocent eyes. Jon is pretty sure with eyes like Brendon's he's probably always going to be able to get out of trouble.
Jon laughs a little now and shakes his head. "I don't think you'd want to do that, I'm a really bad dancer. But maybe Ryan or Shane will want to dance, if you ask them."
Jon can still hear Spencer laughing behind him, but he's not going to say anything, not until Brendon is mollified. But mentioning Ryan and Shane, Brendon's two best friends, seems enough to fix the situation, because then he's running inside, yelling, "RYAN, WHEN YOU'RE FINISHED DANCING WITH KELTIE, CAN YOU DANCE WITH ME?"
Spencer laughs. "That boy-"
"Yeah," Jon stands up again, trying to ignore the old man creaks and groans his body makes as he straightens up. Twenty-six isn't even that old, not really He's one of the youngest staff members at the school, after Spencer, who is studying Jon intently.
"So you really can't-"
"Not one step." Spencer takes a deep breath and gathers up the class lists. "Shame." He turns around, walks into the gym, and Jon is left to pretend like his heart didn't just skip a beat or three.
The dance is actually pretty fun once they get inside. Mr Conrad - the music teacher - plays all the songs, which is good, because he's really cool. He's even got an earring in his nose, which none of the other teachers have, and he didn't even have to take it out after someone's mom complained! Vicky-T told her that she heard Mr Walker and Mr Smith talking in the classroom about it one day after school, and Mr Walker said that of course Principal Trohman wouldn't make Mr Conrad take it out, because Principal Trohman was getting something from Mr Conrad, only they didn't say what it was.
Mr Conrad plays all the cool songs, which makes Greta and Vicky-T and Ashlee really happy, because they're the songs that they made up all the dances to! They have their own little part of the dance floor where they get to show off their moves and all the girls watch them. Keltie even joins in, because she's been dancing since kindergarten, so she's really good and picks up the dances really fast. Greta likes it when she gets to spin around, because it makes her dress go flying out in a circle.
Luckily, all the dancing means Ashlee hasn't even thought about finding a boy for Greta. Mr Conrad announces the first slow dance not long after they've been showing off their moves. It's going to be to "Umbrella"! Ashlee crosses her arms over her chest and opens her mouth, like she's going to tell Greta to do something, but Pete saves the day, because he comes over.
"Hey chickybabe," he says to Ashlee, wagging his eyebrows up and down. "Wanna dance?"
"Duh, silly," Ashlee giggles in return, taking his hand. "Come on!"
She drags him off to join the long line of couples standing opposite each other with their hands on each other's shoulders. Greta giggles because Brendon is there dancing with Shane Valdes, right next to Ryan and Keltie, and on the end, Gabriel Saporta from fifth grade has made a little square, slow dancing with three other people, Alex Suarez, Ryland Blackinton and Nate Novarro.
"Hey chickybabe," Vicky-T says, and it makes Greta giggle again, because she's made her voice sound like a boy's, like Pete's. "Wanna dance?"
Greta nods, but instead of putting her hands on Vicky-T's shoulders like all the other people, she takes Vicky-T's hand in hers.
"Spin me," she instructs. The slow dancing looks really boring, anyway, just swaying side to side. They both laugh and shriek as they spin each other around the room. Once, they accidentally crash into the slow dancing couples, so Mr Smith makes them sit down for five minutes. He's pretty angry with them. But Greta and Vicky-T can't stop giggling because it was so much fun and especially because Greta gets the hiccups, so they can't really be sorry at all.
Spencer sighs when he returns to the spot he and Jon have staked by the door, which makes Jon laugh.
"I am so right about this dance," he informs Spencer, grinning smugly. He even folds his arms over his chest to complete the effect, but Spencer just rolls his eyes.
"If you didn't let your fourth graders run amok…"
"They were totally not running amok!"
"Jon," Spencer says, in a tone he generally reserves for Pete Wentz and Gabriel Saporta. He even puts his hands on his hips. They're really nice hips. Not that Jon notices. Well. Not that he notices during school time, anyway. Much. "It was like someone had let loose two supercharged spinning tops in here. They could have hurt somebody!"
"Mr Smith," Jon replies, and look at that Spencer Smith, Jon can totally use his special tone too, the one that he saves for those extra special occasions, when Ryan and Shane are fighting over something; usually Brendon. "You are totally overexaggerating-"
It's at that moment that the bell rings, and school dance or no, nothing stops the stampede of nine- and ten-year-olds charging out of the gym, ready to go home. Technically, Jon and Spencer are both supposed to be stopping the rush, sending them out one or two at a time, but they both know that there's no stemming the tide. Spencer wades into the kids, yelling for them to slow down, and watch out, and for goodness sake, stop running! Jon edges closer to the door, slowing them all down by telling them all to have a good afternoon, and that he'll see them tomorrow.
Even though Greta only lives five minutes away from school by car, the trip home on the school bus always takes forever and ever, because Ashlee and Vicky-T live in the complete opposite direction from her, which means Greta has to sit by herself with no one to talk to and that's totally boring.
Greta sighs and stares out the window, watching the houses pass by.
"I thought your slow dancing was really cool."
Brendon Urie slides into the seat right beside Greta. No one really ever sits next to Greta, at least not to talk to her, anyway. Mostly people only sit there when they need a seat and there's none left except for hers. But now Brendon's sitting right there, talking to her! Saying stuff about the dance! Greta's cheeks flush pink.
"Thanks," she says really softly, and tries to think of something else to say. Only it's really hard when Brendon is smiling at her like that, because it's really cute and distracting and makes Greta wonder what it would be like to hold hands with him. "Vicky-T's really fun to dance with. But Mr Smith yelled at us for it, a little bit."
Brendon nods like Greta's saying really important stuff, which makes her pink cheek turn red. "Mr Smith can be mean sometimes. I think you'd be really fun to dance with. Maybe next time, you could show me how to do your slow dance."
Greta thinks she should point out that it's really easy, all you have to have is someone to hold your hand while you spin, but then she remembers that you have to have someone to hold your hand while you spin, and Brendon wants her to show him how to do it! "Sure!" she says instead, and smiles at him and blinks a lot in the way that Ashlee said makes boys think you're really pretty.
"Cool." Brendon is really, really cute when he smiles and it makes Greta smile a lot too, especially because now she gets to dance with him at the next dance. She's probably going to burst with excitement before she gets home. "Do you live far away?" Brendon asks, and Greta nods, and starts to tell him about it, but really she's jumping up and down on the inside.
Eventually, when the kids have gone home and Tom has wandered off to "run some things by Trohman," Jon and Spencer are left to clean up, pulling down the streamers and balloons from the walls and picking the Dixie cups up off the floor.
"The world didn't end after all," Spencer notes, making a disgusted face at the half-eaten cake, left discarded on the bleachers. But his voice is light, like he's laughing at Jon.
Jon glares at him. "You're laughing at me."
"Laughing with you," Spencer corrects, dumping the cake in the bin. But you know. Jon's not laughing, so that makes it pretty damn hard for Spencer to be laughing with him. Jon rips a handful of streamers down from the walls and shoves them in the trash bag.
"I lied, you know." Jon surprises even himself with this confession; he doesn't even know why he's saying it. He pulls another lot of streamers off the wall and trashes them, pretending like he doesn't feel Spencer's curious look.
"Lied about what?"
Jon knows he's probably done something wrong, saying this shit, because Spencer's tone is careful and guarded, something it hasn't been in the entire five years they've been working together. Jon’s stomach clenches and he looks away. “Forget it,” he mutters.
But Spencer won't let up. "Jon, what did you lie about?"
This time when he's standing with his hands on his hips and a frown on his face, there's nothing of the light mood from earlier. He looks mad, or hurt, Jon can't decide which, and he really wishes Tom would come back right about now, but if he's with Joe Trohman, chances are they'll be there all afternoon. Jon has no one to save him but himself.
"Um," Jon's eyes are glued to the floor where someone's spilled their juice. The janitor is probably going to have a fit. "About the dancing? I totally have moves."
"What?"
"You know," he sighs and shoves his hands into his pockets. Jon looks up, and Spencer doesn't really look mad, just confused. "When Brendon, the little one, asked me if I would dance with him, and I said that I couldn't dance, and then you asked me, and I still said no. That. That was a lie."
"Jon."
"Sorry." Jon picks up the trash bag so he has something to distract him and busies himself with picking more stuff off the ground. "I didn't mean to let you think, I wouldn't. Um. Sorry."
"Jon," Spencer says again, and now he's totally laughing. Jon is really confused; he thought Spencer would be mad at him, and fuck it. Maybe Tom's right. Maybe he has become a nine-year-old. "Jon, do you want to slow dance with me?"
Oh god, this is so ridiculous. He runs his hand through his hair and sets the trash bag on the ground before he looks at Spencer, because once he does, well. He has to smile at Spencer's smile and soon a smile becomes a laugh. "If you want to slow dance with me, you have to buy me dinner first."
"I think there's some leftover hot dogs and fries on the table…" Spencer beams at him, and even though the thought of eating old, soggy hot dogs and fries that the kids have been picking at is completely disgusting, Jon smiles anyway.
"On second thoughts, let's skip dinner."
Spencer laughs, and puts the last of the streamers in the trash. "I knew you'd see it my way," he says, and yeah. Jon's really glad of that, too.