Title: Ferris Wheels
To:
neontoitsknees From:
cieluna Pairing: Brendon/Spencer
POV: third person, Brendon.
Summary: Brendon Urie values first kisses as much as he does his infamous pout. This is the reason why he plots to have the ultimate first kiss after an accidental one that absolutely, positively, irrefutably did not count.
Disclaimer: Not mine. :)
Author Notes/ Warnings/ Rating: PG-13. It's pure fluff and syrupy sweetness so no warnings needed, I guess. I hope you like it! :D
Fic for
thebigexchange February Challenge. :)
Brendon kissed Spencer today. Well, maybe Spencer kissed Brendon. Nobody really knew what happened during their last rehearsal but according to audience observation, Brendon's chin was propped on Spencer's left shoulder when it happened. Jon and Ryan were past three cans of Red Bull by then though, making the oaths they swore by just the slightest bit unreliable.
Maybe they turned their heads at the same time. Maybe Spencer wanted to bark at Brendon for digging his jaw in and leaving a permanent imprint. Again, no one really knew.
Brendon could clearly recall what happened after, however. He pulled back to rub at his nose, the one that crashed against Spencer’s quite roughly, and later, when everyone left and he was all alone by the bathroom mirror, he would lightly poke at the awkward spot on his lip where it smashed together with that of the latter. Spencer flicked Brendon’s forehead sharply and mumbled something about ‘taking advantage’ and ‘human muzzles’ that he couldn’t understand. He wasn’t trying to. He was too busy with biting his tongue and mentally giving himself a few sets of uppercuts to the gut. This wasn’t supposed to be this way.
First kisses were one of those things that people prepared for. Brendon should know; all of his 31 first kisses were. He had them on the roofs of cars, in back-alleys three blocks away from his house and even in between the mess of damp skin and tight shirts on cramped dance floors.
All of them had possessed a minimum of ten minutes worth of mental calculation: intensity, location of appropriate limbs, how high he should lift the other’s shirt, among others. There was no doubt that the majority of these first kisses were under some sort of influence, be it alcohol or libido-induced, but they still had the air of prepared confidence.
This was why his encounter with Spencer jarred him so. It even knocked him silent for the rest of the rehearsal until Ryan threatened to shove their hundred-dollar microphone up a place Brendon was sure wouldn’t fit comfortably. He agreed to cooperate quite reluctantly, knowing full well that Ryan was more than serious with his warning.
They were up for another one of those small, awkward parties where no one listened to them and would hardly even noticed if they were off-key, more so if they banged pots and pans while cursing fluently in German. The four of them were less than enthusiastic about performing but those gigs gave them the flow of cash that they needed for new equipment.
Jon’s bass needed to be shook at least thrice before the twang of metal reduced the wail it shrieked out and Spencer could only tap gently on the cymbals for fear of it crumbling to dust. They were happy though, Brendon thought. Despite being broke and lacking in regular showers, they were happy.
He looked around at the rest of his band-mates in the spare ex-dungeon that the owner of the club called a ‘rehearsal hall.’ ‘Hall’ was right; it fit like a cramped corridor.
His gaze lingered on Spencer’s hunched form. The guy was practicing the drum solo he had been working on for weeks and he was in one of those ‘lost in the beats’ zones. Brendon could stare at him all day and he wouldn’t have noticed. He shied away after a few seconds though, feeling an unnatural twisting in his gut.
Ryan caught his eye from the other side, the quiet guitarist wearing a blank look on his face. He tilted his head, raising a brow to express his unsaid question.
An automatic grin lifted Brendon’s lips, one that he often used to avoid unnecessary conversations. He did a quick full-bodied twist in one smooth motion. Grabbing the microphone, he started one of his usual vocal warm-ups. He knew what Ryan’s look meant and he just wasn’t in the mood for a heart-to-heart with Doctor Love right now.
*
This was one of those rare shows where they had to perform another set immediately the next morning. They were allowed to sleep in the ‘rehearsal hall’ and the group had used all unnecessary clothing as their makeshift bedding.
Brendon was down to his underwear, the humidity inside the small room making him squirm even more than usual. Unsurprisingly, he was the only one who did so, the others fully clothed or just missing a shirt or vest.
It was nearly three in the morning. Spencer draped his body over the wooden bench behind his drumset while Jon sat snoring on one of the spare seat covers he found earlier. Ryan and Brendon lost in their Rock, Paper, Scissors contests with the respective lucky bastards, the reason why they were sprawled out on the floor.
Brendon noisily flipped over on his stomach, his jaw buried under the clothes he used as a pillow. He cracked an eye open. Everyone was asleep, as far as he could tell, but Ryan was shifting slightly and he knew that the former was a light sleeper.
“Pst.” He waited a few seconds before attempting to try again. “Pst.” The next one was accompanied by a soft poke to the other’s hair, the only spot Brendon could reach.
“You better be dying, Urie, ‘cause if you’re not, those rusty guitar strings are going to be around your neck soon.”
“I need your help,” Brendon said, the seriousness in his voice intriguing Ryan immediately. The latter rolled over, the dark circles under his puffy eyes startling the wide-eyed vocalist.
“I don’t do late nights,” Ryan growled. “Now get on with it or I swear to God that I’m lacing your next drink with enough sleeping pills to make you wake up by my grandson’s third wedding.”
“It’s Spencer,” he blurted out, quickly glancing at the huddled figure by the other side of the room. “I think I had my first kiss with him.”
For a second, Ryan was motionless. But when Brendon refused to continue, he opened his mouth to speak. “And? Do I have to reassure you that no, kisses don’t make people pregnant and that no, the both of you have fucking balls so there goes the pregnant theory again?”
Brendon blew out an exasperated breath. He was regretting the decision to engage a sleepless Ryan in actual conversation.
“I just wanted to-first kisses are important to me.” That definitely sounded coherent when he was rehearsing it in his head but it was too late to take it back. He did his best to keep himself from blinking as Ryan continued to stare at him, the tired eyes growing into disbelieving, skeptical ones.
“You,” he paused, trying to find the right word. “You value first kisses? Brendon Urie? Mister Hump-That-Moving-Limb Urie?”
“Stop before I drown in your compliments,” Brendon grumbled. “Could you just tell me how to make this right?”
“What do you mean, ‘make this-”
“I want a better first kiss.”
Ryan forced his eyes shut. “I’m out of time travel plots, Brendon.”
“You know what I mean, asshole.” Brendon picked at the loose thread in front of him. The room was comfortably silent until Ryan’s voice dropped to a lower whisper.
“You sure he wants that second first kiss?”
Brendon propped his head on his hands, mulling it over. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “But I do.”
Ryan tried to nod his head, which was difficult because of how heavy his head felt at the moment. What followed was roughly an hour’s worth of scheming, dirt-sharing and pledges to buy trays of coffee for the disgruntled best friend of said person to be schemed over and shared dirt about. It was all worth it, they hoped. If not, they vowed to shoot coffee grains up their nose, a win-win situation of the best kind.
*
The circus was in town.
Well, it was somewhere out by the desert but still, the cliché sounded better when Brendon announced it to the group. Ryan had convinced Spencer to accompany Brendon on one of his childish whims, declaring himself and Jon immune because they had to sit through the bug-eyed boy’s running commentary during the whole of his four-hour sneaker shopping spree last week.
The two were casually walking along one of the many food aisles and the both of them couldn’t help but notice the tense silence between them. Brendon was jumpier than usual, taking each step by the balls of his feet. His eyes flew to everything but his companion.
“Oh look, cotton candy!” Brendon squealed delightedly over the welcome distraction and he pulled at the resisting arm next to him.
“I’ll have the pink one,” he chirped up once they reached the stand. The gangly teenager assigned to the cotton candy booth was a few years younger than them but the consistently constipated look on his face said he was eighty and raring to nip at anyone who dared to cross his lawn. His nametag simply read ‘Dan’ and Brendon enjoyed elongating the ‘a.’
“What’ll he have?” Dan raised his chin at Spencer, whose current expression resembled that of the peeved apron-clad boy.
“He’ll have-”
“Coffee. I’ll have coffee.” Spencer interrupted snappishly. He hadn’t filled half his coffee quota for the day and it partly explained the sour mood.
“We don’t-” Dan coughed openly to his side, “-serve caffeine in this carnival.”
Spencer stood frozen for a beat before his mouth dropped unflatteringly. “You don’t serve caffeine.”
“That’s what I said, mister.”
Brendon was avidly staring at the exchange, nibbling on the huge ball of cotton candy. He was usually the one on the receiving end of Spencer’s rage so seeing him wig out on somebody else was actually entertaining.
“That’s it, I’m going home.”
“What? No!” Brendon grabbed the wrist of a retreating Spencer and he did his best to throw the remaining fluffs of sugar somewhere near the rubbish bin.
“Wait, Spence, wait.” He was both desperate and slightly scared by the way Spencer easily dragged him away despite his best efforts to put all his weight into his pull. “There’s just this one ride we have to go on!”
“What, Brendon? Can we get it over with already? I need my coffee!”
“It’ll be quick, I promise.” He put his hand up in a Boy Scout gesture. When the other sighed in defeat and allowed his arm to be yanked, it was all smiles again from then on.
*
“Here we are.”
“…Brendon, I’m an acrophobiac.”
“You’re scared of big hair?”
Spencer rolled his eyes. “’Acro’, Brendon, not ‘afro’.” He sighed. “I’m scared of heights.”
“What?”
They were standing a few feet away from the gates of the Ferris Wheel and the line was slowly growing. Ryan apparently forgot to inform him of this little fact and, despite his good nature, Brendon wasn’t in a forgiving mood.
“But you’ve never complained about it before!”
“That’s because the other times I was involved in high places, I wasn’t sitting on a rust metal box that could snap off and cause my bloody, bloody death.” Spencer glared at him, hands on his hips and looking annoyed at having to explain why thin, rusty crates are a sure way to get that suicide pact over with.
Brendon blew out a shaky breath, running a hand over his thick mop of hair. Nothing was going as planned. He had prepared for this so much and there wasn’t anything that was coming out right. If ever frustration almost drove him to tears, or more likely a fist to the wall, this would be it.
Spencer must have sensed the increasing stress level on the normally cheery boy’s part and something thawed just a bit. “If you don’t laugh when I shriek in horror, I’ll go.” He mock whined. There was an image that he had to live up to, after all.
A big grin picked up the ends of Brendon’s lips and he made to rush over to the line when a drop of liquid caused him to blink. At first, he thought someone was just an over-enthusiastic talker but when another one fell, he just had to look up, secretly wishing that some three-year-old just discovered the joys of spitting at high altitudes.
He couldn’t be more wrong because soon, the droplets of rain fell continuously and the both of them had to put a hand up to try to cover as much as they could. Brendon pleaded with the operator to allow them even one spin but the middle-aged man shook his head firmly.
That’s it, Brendon thought, now was definitely the point where he wanted to cry. He cursed under his breath and kicked at the piece of newspaper that stuck to his ankle. Spencer just stood there, staring at him with a curious look on his face.
“It’s just a-”
“No, Spence, it wasn’t just a Ferris Wheel,” he spat out. “It was everything; you not wanting cotton candy, you being forced to go with me, you not getting your coffee fix, everything! Shit just has to happen to me when I try to make things right with you. I can’t even kiss you properly.” He mumbled out the last sentence, the shame building up on him.
Spencer tilted his head, not once taking his eyes off Brendon and his pout. At some point, he must’ve walked closer. At another, he must have batted Brendon’s hand away. All of this, no one was really sure. What they remembered was that Spencer moved in to kiss Brendon full on the lips, the rain that trickled down their cheeks and hair going unnoticed.
Their warm breaths provided a pleasant contrast to the cold water that was pit-pattering on them and they lingered even more. They stayed that way for more than a moment, the only pair left out of the warm booths.
Brendon pulled back reluctantly, resting his forehead on Spencer’s. He hardly noticed the way his whole face was drenched in rainwater and that they were fast on the way of catching the flu just a few days short of another set of backbreaking shows. All he was aware of was that Spencer was exactly one breath away from him and that there was no screaming, pushing or disgust of any sort.
“Brendon Urie, closet romantic,” Spencer hummed, a small smirk on his lips. His fingers wrapped around the soaked collar of Brendon’s vest and he giggled when the latter scrunched up his nose at the squeaky noise it made.
“If you say one word about me being virginal-” Brendon chuckled, softly nuzzling his nose against Spencer’s. The rain trickled to a slow rhythm and a few brave souls were already starting to walk out of the shade.
Spencer laughed and Brendon hugged him tightly, making the other shriek in surprise when he quickly lifted him off his feet in the embrace. They didn’t bother to move away or even ride the Ferris Wheel where Brendon originally wanted to have his over-elaborate, breathtaking kiss.
He needed more than three hours to plan this thirty-minute encounter with Spencer. But it only took him under ten seconds to decide on this one. This was definitely going to be Brendon’s last first kiss for a long while.
- end.
A/N: I can never get enough of this damn fluff. <3 Comments and concrit please? :)