met and transformed | Brendon | PG-13 | ~ 3600 words
met and transformed
Brendon | PG-13 | ~ 3600 words | futurefic |
Brendon's first solo CD sells some 500 000 units.
airgiodSLV said something about Brendon touring as a solo artist. Her proposed story would have been a lot better than what I actually ended up writing, unfortunately. Anyway, I ♥ Jen.
Thanks to parcae, siryn99, miznarrator, and provetheworst for betaing!
meanwhile in your life
you hardly notice
the world around you
lights changing
sirens dying along the buildings
your eyes intent
on a sight you do not see yet
not yet there
as long as you
are only yourself
with whom as you
recall you were
never happy
to be left alone for long
-- from To Waiting by W. S. Merwin
Brendon's first solo CD sells some 500 000 units, which counts as a win as far as he's concerned.
Ten songs that he wrote and sang and played all by himself, and 500 000 people want to hear it? Shane taped a picture of him, Brendon, and their dog onto the cover, and sent them off en mass, as Christmas letters.
"I'm 27," Brendon said. "I'm not sending out fucking Christmas letters." But he was maybe a little touched.
Early autumn, and the second leg of Brendon's first solo tour ends three weeks before Shane and Regan's wedding, which means that Brendon has to plan a bachelor's party, and buy a new house, before he even finishes unpacking. Shane said that he'd move, but Brendon signed over his ownership of the house and called it a wedding present.
The wedding is on the first Saturday in October. Brendon and Shane flop down onto a couch in one of the back rooms of the church. Brendon pours vodka from his silver hip flask into both of their glasses of orange juice, and hunts around the room to try and figure out if there's a smoke detector. He bought these really fat cigars, but forgot to pull them out at the actual bachelor's party.
"We could just open a window," Brendon suggests, squinting uncertainly up at the ceiling.
Shane shrugs, and rubs at his cheeks. He's cleanly shaved, maybe for the first time since Brendon's known him. He looks different. Younger, maybe, even in his dress pants and half buttoned, white shirt. Brendon claimed that he knew how to assemble a tux, but they might still need to call for backup.
"Do you think I'm supposed to do something with my hair?" Shane asks, running his fingers through his bangs.
"Regs has someone doing her hair and make up, right?" Brendon asks, and starts moving towards the door. "I can go and see about stealing him for a minute."
"It's okay," Shane says, quickly. "Just-- wait."
Brendon sits down, and offers Shane his flask. Shane takes it from him, but only swallows a small sip.
There's a window right above their heads, and Brendon lifts his legs up to cast shadows across the floor. It's bright now, but it'll probably be dark by dinner. Or-- the reception? Brendon should have paid more attention during the dress rehearsal; he's not exactly sure what the order of events is going to be.
Shane is quiet, but he doesn't seem like he's freaking out. Brendon decided last night that he wasn't going to attempt any 'cold feet' jokes, so instead he says, "The thing is going to start in thirty minutes. You ready for your cuff links?"
Shane says, "Yeah, okay." Then, "The 'thing'? The ceremony."
Brendon makes yeahyeah hands, and opens the cloth box.
--
"You've got the ring, right?" Shane whispers, as they stand at the front of the room.
Brendon pats his jacket pocket and nods. Shane's been pretty chill; being a best man is remarkably easy. Shane even left most of the vodka for Brendon to finish by himself. Brendon maybe wishes that he brought rum instead, because vodka's such a cold burn. He hadn't wanted anything that people could smell on Shane though. Not that it has ended up mattering.
Shane's been pretty calm. Brendon hasn't seen Regan yet, since he hasn't left Shane's side, but as far as Brendon can tell, she's been cool, too. She's always pretty chill. Being a best man is really very easy.
Shane's breath catches, and Brendon turns his gaze away from Shane to watch Regan start walking down the aisle.
--
The thing is, in three weeks, Brendon hadn't actually managed to find a new house, and when the wedding ends, he goes back to his hotel room.
Shane didn't kick him out or anything. Even Regan didn't seem in any huge hurry to see him go; she'd mostly been living with the two of them for months leading up to the wedding, anyway.
But, newlyweds.
So, Brendon said he found somewhere and put some of his shit into storage, left a lot of it behind, and rented two adjoining rooms in a hotel, so that there was enough room for him to settle in and spread out. While he was looking for a new place.
--
Brendon's manager is named Jeff. He's forty-nine, with no tattoos or piercings, but he minored in music history, and he never cuts off Brendon when Brendon starts rambling about chord progressions.
Over lunch -- this really weird arugula and beet salad, at the restaurant in the lobby of the hotel where Brendon's staying-- Jeff asks, "What do you want for the winter? It's a little late to try and set up another tour, but I could maybe get you something for spring."
"Nah," Brendon says. "I'm gonna just try to write a new CD, I guess."
Jeff nods. "You want me to see about booking The Palms, for old time's sake?"
Brendon shakes his head. "I'm ready for a change of scenery."
--
Spencer came to Shane's wedding. Jon was in Chicago, and Ryan was in some city not-Vegas, but Spencer came. He and Haley went home just after ten, because they're the most elderly newly-ish wed couple in the entire history of the world.
But, no, that's not right: Jon was on tour. Jon is on tour, still.
Ryan made noises about working on separate projects, and Jon was in a new band within three months, and Spencer was buying another dog, and Brendon was-- Brendon took a trip to Alaska, wrote a few songs -- there's just not a whole lot to do up there -- and somehow he was putting out his own CD within the year. Jon's new band went on tour before recording an album, so Brendon got all of the flack in press, the blame for Panic's 'hiatus'. But, his CD got a few good reviews.
He's having a little trouble writing, now. His hotel room isn't soundproof, so he can only play during the day. He records a lot of what he comes up with, just in shitty quality onto his computer, so as to be able to work on lyrics in the evenings. But, when night comes, Brendon can't find his words.
It's one o'clock in the morning, and Brendon hasn't even been awake for twelve hours yet. He's been playing the same three and a half minutes of music on repeat for the last two hours. The page in front of him is blank, save for the little turtle that he drew in the bottom left corner.
Brendon gives it two dots for eyes. Then, he draws a tiny pipe, sticking out of its mouth. He wonders if turtles have ears. They swim; maybe they use echolocation or something.
The clip of music comes to an end, then starts to play again. Brendon pushes stop.
The hotel room is pretty nice. The hotel rooms. Brendon always leaves the connecting door open, so it just feels like one room. When Brendon turns on both TVs at the same time, there's a lag in the audio. He would have thought that'd be something that would sync up.
--
Brendon's just coming out of the shower when Shane calls.
"How's the pup doing?" Brendon asks. She's a dog now, not a puppy, but the name stuck.
"Real good," Shane says. "You want me to put her on the line?"
"'s okay," Brendon says. He tells himself that it's just like always, when he's on tour and Shane's at home looking after their dog. Just like always, even though this time, Brendon doesn't really ever get to come home to them.
"How's your new place?" Shane asks. "I can't believe I haven't seen it yet."
It's been a month and -- a month and some days, since the wedding.
"It's good," Brendon says. "You know, house-y. Nothing much to see."
"You need help painting?" Shane asks. Shane is bizarrely good at painting; he never gets paint on the ceiling when he uses a roller on a stick, and he can paint around trim without even having to put masking tape on first. Brendon got paint on the floor just trying to rinse out paint brushes. He gave Shane back rubs at the end of the day, when Shane complained about his arms being tired. Shane always left his shirt on, so it's not like they were good back rubs, but.
"I'm good," Brendon says. "Thanks. Maybe I'll hire an interior designer or something. I kind of want to get a skylight put in."
"That'd be sweet," Shane says. "How's writing going?"
"Fine," Brendon says. "Not great."
"You need to get laid?" Shane asks.
"Nope," Brendon says. He's had sex six? seven? times in the past month. Maybe seven. Seven one night stands and a one-nighter-plus-morning-after.
"You need an STD test?"
"Ha," Brendon says. "You're fucking hilarious."
"You know it, princess," Shane says.
Brendon unknots the towel wrapped around his waist and uses it to wipe his face, where his hair is dripping water into his eyes.
"If you write me a song, I'll direct your music video," Shane says.
Brendon says, "Like I have anything to say about you."
--
Brendon bought pasta salad at the grocery story, and then bought a Tupperware container so that he didn't have to carry the salad over in a Styrofoam cup. Four dogs rush to bark at him, when he rings the doorbell, and Spencer just laughs when he opens the door, and lets them charge at Brendon.
Haley's five months pregnant, and Brendon can't stop touching her belly, even though it hardly curves outwards, as of yet.
"You working on new stuff?" Spencer asks, after dinner.
"Why?" Brendon asks. "Did Ryan call?" Ryan is in New York, probably, where he's got a clothing line with Keltie and a show on TRL.
"Not-- about that, no," Spencer says. He looks happy. Sitting at his kitchen table, while his wife lies on the floor, in the middle of a pile of dogs, Spencer looks happy.
"Yeah, I guess I'm working on some new stuff," Brendon says. "You wanna play on this album?" Brendon played drums himself on his first CD.
Spencer makes a yeahmaybe face.
--
The first album was quick. Brendon didn't have anything concrete in his head, but when he thinks back, all he remembers was quick. Patrick produced three of the songs, Ryland played guitar with him on one.
This next album feels like-- It feels like he's walking over hot coals, in that he's scared to move too quickly, because he knows it's going to hurt a hell of a lot worse if he falls.
He stays up for sixty-two hours and writes three songs. Sixty-two hours is enough time to get drunk and hungover, even with no sleep in between. The lyrics that Brendon wrote drunk are more morose than the ones he wrote hungover, whatever that means.
He thinks that maybe if he adds in a few, "lost without you," or "can't bear to go on, I'm sorry, I was wrong," and "baby"'s that he could probably pull together a pretty decent pop single.
--
"You're one of those crazy, hotel-dwelling-- crazy people," Jon says.
Jon's the only person that Brendon's actually told about the whole hotel thing. It's not that Jon doesn't care, it's just that he doesn't give Brendon a hard time about it, and he's on tour, anyway, so it's not like he can head over there and force Brendon into house shopping. Twenty-seven years old, and Brendon only knows how to be by himself in hotel rooms.
"Fuck off," Brendon says. "Where are you right now? In a hotel? On a bus?"
"I," Jon says, importantly, "am in a cab. And then, I, will be in a bar."
Brendon snorts. "And are you guys ever going to head into the studio?"
"Signs point to 'it is likely'," Jon says.
"I wish I was touring right now," Brendon says, wiggling on his bed and listening as the stiff springs squeak.
"If you want to tour," Jon says, "you should tour."
In the background, things get a whole lot noisier. "I'm here, now," Jon says. "I gotta go."
"I'll talk to you later, buddy," Brendon says, and hangs up.
Then, he walks over to the desk and sits down. Gets back up, and walks over to his keyboard. He turns the volume down low because it's far enough into the evening that he'll get complaints if he plays loudly.
He runs his fingers up and down the plastic keys (he really misses playing on a real piano) and plays scales, both hands up and then down and then playing in different directions, coming back together. He goes through all of the keys that he can remember off the top of his head -- does B have five sharps, or is that F#? -- and then moves onto arpeggios. The best thing about warming up just by himself is that he can play through all of the boring classical shit that no one else wants to listen to.
He plays: some of the stuff that he started before, a lot that's just off the top of his head, occasionally a mix of the two. Once he's settled in, he starts to hum under his breath, and he tries to focus just on that, just on how it feels to play and what he wants to play and how he wants it to feel when he's playing and he thinks about touring and about getting to leave this fucking hotel room and somewhere in there, he finds some words.
They're not his words, not really. Not about anything that anyone else would look at and say, "That's Brendon".
It takes him three weeks to write six songs, but that's enough for him to feel justified in moving into a studio.
He tells Jeff that he wants to record in a city not-Vegas, and Jeff sets him up in an apartment that's a twenty minute cab ride away from the studio, in Los Angeles.
--
Angels and Kings gets massive renovations, and has a re-opening party. It's three weeks before Brendon's CD release party, so Brendon just heads into New York early.
Pete keeps sending Brendon texts about how bored he is, and how Brendon should show up already, but when Brendon walks through the back door, three hours before the party is actually scheduled to start, Pete's in the middle of a crowd of people, gesturing and-- Not yelling. His voice carries, but he's not yelling. He's just telling everyone what they're supposed to be doing, and somehow still managing to type type type text messages the whole time. Brendon watches for a little while -- it's kind of cool that he's actually famous enough that the security recognized him and let him in without causing a fuss -- leaning against the corner of the bar. Pete in his element is pretty impressive. He gets bored long before Pete finishes though, and eventually takes a stroll around the bar.
It's empty, save for employees, dashing around. Brendon can hear Pete's voice follow him as he weaves around newly painted bar stools and shiny new railings, sectioning off the VIP section.
The VIP section isn't empty, unfortunately.
"Oh, wow," Brendon says, not bothering to look away. He's walked in on Will and Gabe full on fucking before, it's not like seeing them making out is going to replace the memories of that, forever scarred onto his eyelids.
"Brendon," William says, from around Gabe's tongue. "How's it--" before getting distracted again.
Brendon gives them a moment, but when it looks like they're starting to pick up steam again, he shuffles around, and coughs. Normally he'd just leave them to it, but there's no one else around for him to talk to, and Brendon's bored.
Gabe pulls back, finally.
Brendon gives a little wave.
"How's it going?" William asks.
"Pretty good," Brendon says. "You?"
"Yeah, good."
Gabe nods as well. He says, "I hear you've got another CD coming out."
Brendon says, "Yup, in a few weeks. Or-- I think they're leaking it on MTV before then. Anyway, yeah. It's coming out soon."
Gabe regards Brendon carefully and says, "Justin Timberlake went solo."
Brendon blinks.
"Fangs up, little buddy," Gabe says, and raises his hand.
--
The party's in full swing by the time Ryan shows up. Brendon's been doing shots of something blue and delicious. Cash and Singer show up somewhere along the way, which is awesome. They're just finishing up the last few weeks of what is likely to be their last tour, so they're just in for the night.
Cash looks tired, and he's not drinking to get drunk ("I've got an interview tomorrow morning, bro," he said when Brendon asked.), but when Brendon asks how things have been going, he grins and says, "Yeah, good."
"What're you going to do when you're finally done?" Brendon asks. He asks, "Sleep?" at the same time that Cash says, "Sleep," and then they both laugh.
"Me'n'Ian have some plans," Cash says. "Nothing awesome, but it might be kind of fun."
"Cool," Brendon says. "Cool. You can always come play a show with me, right? If you get sick of Vegas or whatever. Come on the road with me for a while."
"I might take you up on that," Cash says. He leans lightly against Brendon's shoulder, and yawns. "'m getting old," he says.
Brendon shoves at him, but carefully, so that he doesn't actually push him away. "Shut the fuck up."
Twenty-seven sounds like a lot more of an 'adult' age than it feels like.
Ryan shows up and he sits down on the couch beside Brendon. It's not like his bony ass takes up a lot of room, but Brendon goes through the motions of pretending to be squished, anyway.
By the time Brendon settles again, Ryan's already stolen his last shot of whatever that blue stuff was.
"This tastes like cough syrup," Ryan says, licking his lips.
Brendon elbows at him. "Go get something you actually like, then." Brendon pokes at the broach pinned to Ryan's lapel. "It's this from your new line? Or did you mug someone's grandmother?'
Ryan flicks Brendon between the eyes, then stands and heads off towards the bar. The camera flashes follow Ryan as he walks away.
Brendon and Ryan end up at the same public events fairly frequently. They sit beside each other, chat for a few minutes, then go off in separate directions. At the beginning, they used to meet up for coffee somewhere private, afterwards. These days, Ryan's got a eight AM conference call the next morning, and Brendon's run out of ways to try and rephrase "I'm only doing this while I wait," in a way that will make Ryan understand. Brendon has commitments well into the next year, but Jon can leave at any time, Spencer can leave at any time (if he brings Haley with him, or something), so maybe Ryan had a point when he said, "If Panic never makes another record again, it's all on you." It's been a couple of years now, but Brendon can still remember exactly how he sounded, saying that.
--
At four, Pete clears away all of the press, and everyone starts heading home. Brendon follows Ryan back to Keltie and his apartment, and the three of them smoke up. Brendon folds his fingers into the smooth leather of their couch, and listens to the TV play in the background, to the sounds of Keltie giggling and Ryan murmuring, sitting together across the room on an overstuffed armchair. Ryan seems happy, full of energy even after staying up all night.
Brendon catches at cab back to his hotel sometime before eight and crashes as soon as he walks through the door. The nice thing about hotel rooms is how they're all laid out almost exactly the same, and Brendon can find his way to the bed with his eyes closed, without smashing into anything. He lies down on his bed and falls asleep before he manages to get his belt off.
--
Shane calls early the next evening.
"How's the pup?" Brendon asks.
"She just threw up her rawhide bone, and now she's hiding from Regan."
Brendon wiggles his baby finger through the button hole of the sweater he's wearing. He hums, low in his throat.
"When are you coming home?" Shane asks.
Brendon looks around his hotel room. His schedule is printed up somewhere. He knows that he's got three weeks off sometime in the fall, maybe. He plays the first concert of the first tour for his second CD in New York, and then starts moving west across the country. He's touring America first, his European leg after that, then back across the States again. Brendon looks up at the ceiling instead of standing to find the paper. Says, "I don't know," and hopes that Shane thinks he means, I don't remember.
Brendon | PG-13 | ~ 3600 words | futurefic |
Brendon's first solo CD sells some 500 000 units.
airgiodSLV said something about Brendon touring as a solo artist. Her proposed story would have been a lot better than what I actually ended up writing, unfortunately. Anyway, I ♥ Jen.
Thanks to parcae, siryn99, miznarrator, and provetheworst for betaing!
meanwhile in your life
you hardly notice
the world around you
lights changing
sirens dying along the buildings
your eyes intent
on a sight you do not see yet
not yet there
as long as you
are only yourself
with whom as you
recall you were
never happy
to be left alone for long
-- from To Waiting by W. S. Merwin
Brendon's first solo CD sells some 500 000 units, which counts as a win as far as he's concerned.
Ten songs that he wrote and sang and played all by himself, and 500 000 people want to hear it? Shane taped a picture of him, Brendon, and their dog onto the cover, and sent them off en mass, as Christmas letters.
"I'm 27," Brendon said. "I'm not sending out fucking Christmas letters." But he was maybe a little touched.
Early autumn, and the second leg of Brendon's first solo tour ends three weeks before Shane and Regan's wedding, which means that Brendon has to plan a bachelor's party, and buy a new house, before he even finishes unpacking. Shane said that he'd move, but Brendon signed over his ownership of the house and called it a wedding present.
The wedding is on the first Saturday in October. Brendon and Shane flop down onto a couch in one of the back rooms of the church. Brendon pours vodka from his silver hip flask into both of their glasses of orange juice, and hunts around the room to try and figure out if there's a smoke detector. He bought these really fat cigars, but forgot to pull them out at the actual bachelor's party.
"We could just open a window," Brendon suggests, squinting uncertainly up at the ceiling.
Shane shrugs, and rubs at his cheeks. He's cleanly shaved, maybe for the first time since Brendon's known him. He looks different. Younger, maybe, even in his dress pants and half buttoned, white shirt. Brendon claimed that he knew how to assemble a tux, but they might still need to call for backup.
"Do you think I'm supposed to do something with my hair?" Shane asks, running his fingers through his bangs.
"Regs has someone doing her hair and make up, right?" Brendon asks, and starts moving towards the door. "I can go and see about stealing him for a minute."
"It's okay," Shane says, quickly. "Just-- wait."
Brendon sits down, and offers Shane his flask. Shane takes it from him, but only swallows a small sip.
There's a window right above their heads, and Brendon lifts his legs up to cast shadows across the floor. It's bright now, but it'll probably be dark by dinner. Or-- the reception? Brendon should have paid more attention during the dress rehearsal; he's not exactly sure what the order of events is going to be.
Shane is quiet, but he doesn't seem like he's freaking out. Brendon decided last night that he wasn't going to attempt any 'cold feet' jokes, so instead he says, "The thing is going to start in thirty minutes. You ready for your cuff links?"
Shane says, "Yeah, okay." Then, "The 'thing'? The ceremony."
Brendon makes yeahyeah hands, and opens the cloth box.
--
"You've got the ring, right?" Shane whispers, as they stand at the front of the room.
Brendon pats his jacket pocket and nods. Shane's been pretty chill; being a best man is remarkably easy. Shane even left most of the vodka for Brendon to finish by himself. Brendon maybe wishes that he brought rum instead, because vodka's such a cold burn. He hadn't wanted anything that people could smell on Shane though. Not that it has ended up mattering.
Shane's been pretty calm. Brendon hasn't seen Regan yet, since he hasn't left Shane's side, but as far as Brendon can tell, she's been cool, too. She's always pretty chill. Being a best man is really very easy.
Shane's breath catches, and Brendon turns his gaze away from Shane to watch Regan start walking down the aisle.
--
The thing is, in three weeks, Brendon hadn't actually managed to find a new house, and when the wedding ends, he goes back to his hotel room.
Shane didn't kick him out or anything. Even Regan didn't seem in any huge hurry to see him go; she'd mostly been living with the two of them for months leading up to the wedding, anyway.
But, newlyweds.
So, Brendon said he found somewhere and put some of his shit into storage, left a lot of it behind, and rented two adjoining rooms in a hotel, so that there was enough room for him to settle in and spread out. While he was looking for a new place.
--
Brendon's manager is named Jeff. He's forty-nine, with no tattoos or piercings, but he minored in music history, and he never cuts off Brendon when Brendon starts rambling about chord progressions.
Over lunch -- this really weird arugula and beet salad, at the restaurant in the lobby of the hotel where Brendon's staying-- Jeff asks, "What do you want for the winter? It's a little late to try and set up another tour, but I could maybe get you something for spring."
"Nah," Brendon says. "I'm gonna just try to write a new CD, I guess."
Jeff nods. "You want me to see about booking The Palms, for old time's sake?"
Brendon shakes his head. "I'm ready for a change of scenery."
--
Spencer came to Shane's wedding. Jon was in Chicago, and Ryan was in some city not-Vegas, but Spencer came. He and Haley went home just after ten, because they're the most elderly newly-ish wed couple in the entire history of the world.
But, no, that's not right: Jon was on tour. Jon is on tour, still.
Ryan made noises about working on separate projects, and Jon was in a new band within three months, and Spencer was buying another dog, and Brendon was-- Brendon took a trip to Alaska, wrote a few songs -- there's just not a whole lot to do up there -- and somehow he was putting out his own CD within the year. Jon's new band went on tour before recording an album, so Brendon got all of the flack in press, the blame for Panic's 'hiatus'. But, his CD got a few good reviews.
He's having a little trouble writing, now. His hotel room isn't soundproof, so he can only play during the day. He records a lot of what he comes up with, just in shitty quality onto his computer, so as to be able to work on lyrics in the evenings. But, when night comes, Brendon can't find his words.
It's one o'clock in the morning, and Brendon hasn't even been awake for twelve hours yet. He's been playing the same three and a half minutes of music on repeat for the last two hours. The page in front of him is blank, save for the little turtle that he drew in the bottom left corner.
Brendon gives it two dots for eyes. Then, he draws a tiny pipe, sticking out of its mouth. He wonders if turtles have ears. They swim; maybe they use echolocation or something.
The clip of music comes to an end, then starts to play again. Brendon pushes stop.
The hotel room is pretty nice. The hotel rooms. Brendon always leaves the connecting door open, so it just feels like one room. When Brendon turns on both TVs at the same time, there's a lag in the audio. He would have thought that'd be something that would sync up.
--
Brendon's just coming out of the shower when Shane calls.
"How's the pup doing?" Brendon asks. She's a dog now, not a puppy, but the name stuck.
"Real good," Shane says. "You want me to put her on the line?"
"'s okay," Brendon says. He tells himself that it's just like always, when he's on tour and Shane's at home looking after their dog. Just like always, even though this time, Brendon doesn't really ever get to come home to them.
"How's your new place?" Shane asks. "I can't believe I haven't seen it yet."
It's been a month and -- a month and some days, since the wedding.
"It's good," Brendon says. "You know, house-y. Nothing much to see."
"You need help painting?" Shane asks. Shane is bizarrely good at painting; he never gets paint on the ceiling when he uses a roller on a stick, and he can paint around trim without even having to put masking tape on first. Brendon got paint on the floor just trying to rinse out paint brushes. He gave Shane back rubs at the end of the day, when Shane complained about his arms being tired. Shane always left his shirt on, so it's not like they were good back rubs, but.
"I'm good," Brendon says. "Thanks. Maybe I'll hire an interior designer or something. I kind of want to get a skylight put in."
"That'd be sweet," Shane says. "How's writing going?"
"Fine," Brendon says. "Not great."
"You need to get laid?" Shane asks.
"Nope," Brendon says. He's had sex six? seven? times in the past month. Maybe seven. Seven one night stands and a one-nighter-plus-morning-after.
"You need an STD test?"
"Ha," Brendon says. "You're fucking hilarious."
"You know it, princess," Shane says.
Brendon unknots the towel wrapped around his waist and uses it to wipe his face, where his hair is dripping water into his eyes.
"If you write me a song, I'll direct your music video," Shane says.
Brendon says, "Like I have anything to say about you."
--
Brendon bought pasta salad at the grocery story, and then bought a Tupperware container so that he didn't have to carry the salad over in a Styrofoam cup. Four dogs rush to bark at him, when he rings the doorbell, and Spencer just laughs when he opens the door, and lets them charge at Brendon.
Haley's five months pregnant, and Brendon can't stop touching her belly, even though it hardly curves outwards, as of yet.
"You working on new stuff?" Spencer asks, after dinner.
"Why?" Brendon asks. "Did Ryan call?" Ryan is in New York, probably, where he's got a clothing line with Keltie and a show on TRL.
"Not-- about that, no," Spencer says. He looks happy. Sitting at his kitchen table, while his wife lies on the floor, in the middle of a pile of dogs, Spencer looks happy.
"Yeah, I guess I'm working on some new stuff," Brendon says. "You wanna play on this album?" Brendon played drums himself on his first CD.
Spencer makes a yeahmaybe face.
--
The first album was quick. Brendon didn't have anything concrete in his head, but when he thinks back, all he remembers was quick. Patrick produced three of the songs, Ryland played guitar with him on one.
This next album feels like-- It feels like he's walking over hot coals, in that he's scared to move too quickly, because he knows it's going to hurt a hell of a lot worse if he falls.
He stays up for sixty-two hours and writes three songs. Sixty-two hours is enough time to get drunk and hungover, even with no sleep in between. The lyrics that Brendon wrote drunk are more morose than the ones he wrote hungover, whatever that means.
He thinks that maybe if he adds in a few, "lost without you," or "can't bear to go on, I'm sorry, I was wrong," and "baby"'s that he could probably pull together a pretty decent pop single.
--
"You're one of those crazy, hotel-dwelling-- crazy people," Jon says.
Jon's the only person that Brendon's actually told about the whole hotel thing. It's not that Jon doesn't care, it's just that he doesn't give Brendon a hard time about it, and he's on tour, anyway, so it's not like he can head over there and force Brendon into house shopping. Twenty-seven years old, and Brendon only knows how to be by himself in hotel rooms.
"Fuck off," Brendon says. "Where are you right now? In a hotel? On a bus?"
"I," Jon says, importantly, "am in a cab. And then, I, will be in a bar."
Brendon snorts. "And are you guys ever going to head into the studio?"
"Signs point to 'it is likely'," Jon says.
"I wish I was touring right now," Brendon says, wiggling on his bed and listening as the stiff springs squeak.
"If you want to tour," Jon says, "you should tour."
In the background, things get a whole lot noisier. "I'm here, now," Jon says. "I gotta go."
"I'll talk to you later, buddy," Brendon says, and hangs up.
Then, he walks over to the desk and sits down. Gets back up, and walks over to his keyboard. He turns the volume down low because it's far enough into the evening that he'll get complaints if he plays loudly.
He runs his fingers up and down the plastic keys (he really misses playing on a real piano) and plays scales, both hands up and then down and then playing in different directions, coming back together. He goes through all of the keys that he can remember off the top of his head -- does B have five sharps, or is that F#? -- and then moves onto arpeggios. The best thing about warming up just by himself is that he can play through all of the boring classical shit that no one else wants to listen to.
He plays: some of the stuff that he started before, a lot that's just off the top of his head, occasionally a mix of the two. Once he's settled in, he starts to hum under his breath, and he tries to focus just on that, just on how it feels to play and what he wants to play and how he wants it to feel when he's playing and he thinks about touring and about getting to leave this fucking hotel room and somewhere in there, he finds some words.
They're not his words, not really. Not about anything that anyone else would look at and say, "That's Brendon".
It takes him three weeks to write six songs, but that's enough for him to feel justified in moving into a studio.
He tells Jeff that he wants to record in a city not-Vegas, and Jeff sets him up in an apartment that's a twenty minute cab ride away from the studio, in Los Angeles.
--
Angels and Kings gets massive renovations, and has a re-opening party. It's three weeks before Brendon's CD release party, so Brendon just heads into New York early.
Pete keeps sending Brendon texts about how bored he is, and how Brendon should show up already, but when Brendon walks through the back door, three hours before the party is actually scheduled to start, Pete's in the middle of a crowd of people, gesturing and-- Not yelling. His voice carries, but he's not yelling. He's just telling everyone what they're supposed to be doing, and somehow still managing to type type type text messages the whole time. Brendon watches for a little while -- it's kind of cool that he's actually famous enough that the security recognized him and let him in without causing a fuss -- leaning against the corner of the bar. Pete in his element is pretty impressive. He gets bored long before Pete finishes though, and eventually takes a stroll around the bar.
It's empty, save for employees, dashing around. Brendon can hear Pete's voice follow him as he weaves around newly painted bar stools and shiny new railings, sectioning off the VIP section.
The VIP section isn't empty, unfortunately.
"Oh, wow," Brendon says, not bothering to look away. He's walked in on Will and Gabe full on fucking before, it's not like seeing them making out is going to replace the memories of that, forever scarred onto his eyelids.
"Brendon," William says, from around Gabe's tongue. "How's it--" before getting distracted again.
Brendon gives them a moment, but when it looks like they're starting to pick up steam again, he shuffles around, and coughs. Normally he'd just leave them to it, but there's no one else around for him to talk to, and Brendon's bored.
Gabe pulls back, finally.
Brendon gives a little wave.
"How's it going?" William asks.
"Pretty good," Brendon says. "You?"
"Yeah, good."
Gabe nods as well. He says, "I hear you've got another CD coming out."
Brendon says, "Yup, in a few weeks. Or-- I think they're leaking it on MTV before then. Anyway, yeah. It's coming out soon."
Gabe regards Brendon carefully and says, "Justin Timberlake went solo."
Brendon blinks.
"Fangs up, little buddy," Gabe says, and raises his hand.
--
The party's in full swing by the time Ryan shows up. Brendon's been doing shots of something blue and delicious. Cash and Singer show up somewhere along the way, which is awesome. They're just finishing up the last few weeks of what is likely to be their last tour, so they're just in for the night.
Cash looks tired, and he's not drinking to get drunk ("I've got an interview tomorrow morning, bro," he said when Brendon asked.), but when Brendon asks how things have been going, he grins and says, "Yeah, good."
"What're you going to do when you're finally done?" Brendon asks. He asks, "Sleep?" at the same time that Cash says, "Sleep," and then they both laugh.
"Me'n'Ian have some plans," Cash says. "Nothing awesome, but it might be kind of fun."
"Cool," Brendon says. "Cool. You can always come play a show with me, right? If you get sick of Vegas or whatever. Come on the road with me for a while."
"I might take you up on that," Cash says. He leans lightly against Brendon's shoulder, and yawns. "'m getting old," he says.
Brendon shoves at him, but carefully, so that he doesn't actually push him away. "Shut the fuck up."
Twenty-seven sounds like a lot more of an 'adult' age than it feels like.
Ryan shows up and he sits down on the couch beside Brendon. It's not like his bony ass takes up a lot of room, but Brendon goes through the motions of pretending to be squished, anyway.
By the time Brendon settles again, Ryan's already stolen his last shot of whatever that blue stuff was.
"This tastes like cough syrup," Ryan says, licking his lips.
Brendon elbows at him. "Go get something you actually like, then." Brendon pokes at the broach pinned to Ryan's lapel. "It's this from your new line? Or did you mug someone's grandmother?'
Ryan flicks Brendon between the eyes, then stands and heads off towards the bar. The camera flashes follow Ryan as he walks away.
Brendon and Ryan end up at the same public events fairly frequently. They sit beside each other, chat for a few minutes, then go off in separate directions. At the beginning, they used to meet up for coffee somewhere private, afterwards. These days, Ryan's got a eight AM conference call the next morning, and Brendon's run out of ways to try and rephrase "I'm only doing this while I wait," in a way that will make Ryan understand. Brendon has commitments well into the next year, but Jon can leave at any time, Spencer can leave at any time (if he brings Haley with him, or something), so maybe Ryan had a point when he said, "If Panic never makes another record again, it's all on you." It's been a couple of years now, but Brendon can still remember exactly how he sounded, saying that.
--
At four, Pete clears away all of the press, and everyone starts heading home. Brendon follows Ryan back to Keltie and his apartment, and the three of them smoke up. Brendon folds his fingers into the smooth leather of their couch, and listens to the TV play in the background, to the sounds of Keltie giggling and Ryan murmuring, sitting together across the room on an overstuffed armchair. Ryan seems happy, full of energy even after staying up all night.
Brendon catches at cab back to his hotel sometime before eight and crashes as soon as he walks through the door. The nice thing about hotel rooms is how they're all laid out almost exactly the same, and Brendon can find his way to the bed with his eyes closed, without smashing into anything. He lies down on his bed and falls asleep before he manages to get his belt off.
--
Shane calls early the next evening.
"How's the pup?" Brendon asks.
"She just threw up her rawhide bone, and now she's hiding from Regan."
Brendon wiggles his baby finger through the button hole of the sweater he's wearing. He hums, low in his throat.
"When are you coming home?" Shane asks.
Brendon looks around his hotel room. His schedule is printed up somewhere. He knows that he's got three weeks off sometime in the fall, maybe. He plays the first concert of the first tour for his second CD in New York, and then starts moving west across the country. He's touring America first, his European leg after that, then back across the States again. Brendon looks up at the ceiling instead of standing to find the paper. Says, "I don't know," and hopes that Shane thinks he means, I don't remember.