the calendar hung itself; jon/brendon; r; (2/2)
.part one.
He lets Brendon pick the restaurant, and it's. Well. It's not what he expected, but then, Brendon isn't really what he expected. There's this diner a couple blocks off campus with a neon sign that flashes DOLLY'S, OPEN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. FREE COFFEE REFILLS, and Brendon leads them there. The booths are cracked red leather and the floor is faded linoleum, but it feels homey, and the waitstaff seems to know Brendon by sight.
"Whoa damn, Bren, he's cute." Their waitress is a girl their age with dark hair pulled back in a pony tail with tendrils falling around her face. She has pens stuck through the rubber band and pink bubblegum and Jon can't help but burn bright red as she flicks an appreciative gaze over Jon's jeans and polo.
"Um...thank you?" Brendon laughs and, tucks his chin onto Jon's shoulder. "Thanks, Vick."
"What'll you have, boys?" She doesn't comment on the fact that their fingers are intertwined on the table and Jon can't figure out if that's because this is typical Brendon behavior or because she just doesn't care. He's always thought of himself as easy and open minded, but there are apparently a lot of things that he thought wrong on. Brendon is changing that, and the thought sends something warm and sweet to the center of his chest.
Jon orders a burger and Brendon gets a salad. "I'm a vegetarian."
"Heathen, god, how can you resist the delicious lure of burgers?" Vicky brings their food fast, carrying the tray on her hip with practiced ease and tranferring the plates to the table. "Let me know if you need anything else." Then she's gone and suddenly it hits Jon low in the stomach that he's on a DATE with BRENDON URIE. His hands start shaking just a little bit as he pours ketchup across his fries.
Brendon picks up on it, of course he does, and he tilts his head to the side when Jon knocks an entire container of creamer on the floor. "You okay?" His voice doesn't sound exactly gentle, but it is a little soothing. Jon flashes him a grin, or tries to, not quite sure he succeeds when Brendon frowns and pulls back a little.
"You're freaking out, aren't you?" Brendon says and it kills Jon how quietly resigned he sounds and no, fuck that noise, Jon isn't going to be the one who fucks Brendon up more. No way. "Hey, no, I'm okay." Jon reaches back across the table and laces their hands, squeezing tight. "This is just weird for me, a little. I want to be here."
Brendon smiles, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes, and Jon wishes, he wishes they could just go back, wishes that he hadn't wanted more, because nothing would have changed. What hits him though, is how much he did want -- how much he does want Brendon, and that might not be enough, it might not be what Brendon deserves, but it's something.
"Okay," Brendon exhales. "First things first, Jon Walker, a date with a boy is just like a date with a girl, though you can skip the flowers if you want, they make me sneeze."
Jon laughs and picks up a fry, swiping it through ketchup. "Okay, no flowers, check. Anything else?" Brendon cocks his head and smiles a little bit easier, looser around the edges.
Jon has a minute of thinking, fuck, I'm a little bit -- before he cuts off that line of thought completely. Freaking out on the guy who already thinks you aren't a sure bet and telling him you might a little in love with him is so, so not the way to go. Jon's not even sure if he is, or if it's just this, the night, the diner, the movement and the way he already knows how Brendon feels under his fingertips. "Should I have brought candy?"
Brendon laughs out loud at that, eyes crinkling at the corners. "I would love candy, but everyone else would probably hate you because rumor has it that I tend to get a little hyper under the influence of sugar." Jon raises an eyebrow; he has no trouble believing that. "Okay, so, normally on first dates I do all the getting to know you jazz. So, I don't know, what don't you know about me?"
Jon tries to think about everything he knows about Brendon, tries to piece together all of the bits of the puzzle. Brendon looks open, smile loose, and Jon just. He can't regret being here, not even for a second, not when Brendon looks like that. "Why did you come to school out here?"
"My parents didn't want me to go out of state and my best friend Tom wanted to come for the Fine Arts program." Jon flinches a little at the thought of Tom, Tom leaning over the bed with abject horror gleaming in his eyes, but he shoves it away. "Why did you? You're from out west, right? Las Vegas?"
Brendon ducks his head and blushes, but it doesn't look to be the pleasant kind. "Way to kick out the hardhitting questions first, huh, Walker? My parents are kind of religious, they wanted me to. Well. They didn't want me to go and wouldn't pay for it, and I got the best financial package here."
Jon tightens his fingers without thinking and, for a split second, almost leans over to brush a kiss on the tip of Brendon's nose. "I'm sorry." Brendon shrugs and offers up a wry little smile. "It's fine, you know. I'm okay. So, right, okay, why do you play lacrosse? Is the chance beat other boys with your stick?"
Jon laughs without meaning to, and Brendon grins at him. The quiet moment is gone, but it's okay, it's fine, because Brendon is smiling at him for real, and not just behind his glasses. "I like keeping in shape. It helps keep the beer gut away." Brendon laughs again, harder and indelicately, and Jon just. Okay, so maybe Jon is a little bit in love with him. But only a little. And he'll never mention it. It'll go away and they can date and be friends and fuck. That'll be good. Low key. No moving to Canada or Massachusetts or adopting Zambian babies.
He can do this.
"You want to know something funny?" Brendon asks and Jon nods, leaning back in the booth and, God, strange emotional fuck ups aside, it's easier and nicer than he would have expected. "I like your belly," Brendon says a stage whisper, lifting up a fot to poke a Jon's stomach with the toe of his sneaker. Jon laughs and rolls his eyes, tries not to blush. "Why are you a music major?"
Brendon grins, big and bright, and rolls up his shirt sleeve, revealing the demented armadillo he still swears is piano keys. "It's my life, man." He says the words simply, and Jon just. He can't breathe, because Brendon is so gorgeous in this light. "I had a band, we. We were going to do this and be people and go places, and it didn't work out, but it could have. I wanted to prove that it can." He shrugs, smile careless and easy. "That it will."
They walk back to campus; at the main gate, Brendon turns to head for his dorm and Jon almost lets him. The night's been good, so very fucking good, why risk ruining it on the reaction of others? But, no, he can't do that, no matter how much his chest is twisting and writhing in something that feels very close to panic. "Come back to the house?" Jon asks and Brendon goes still, then bows his head and follows, fingers vice tight around Jon's hand.
Carden and Sisky are sitting on the couch watching Letterman when they come in, and they don't even blink, Sisky half asleep on Mike's shoulder, the glow from the TV making him look younger than he already is. "Hey," Jon says, waiting for something, maybe, voice a little sharp. Mike barely glances away from the screen from where Jon can just make out the guest, and Sisky raises his hand in a weak greeting. "There's coffee in the kitchen," Mike says slowly, not even bothering to look at them. "It's might be cold, but it's still on the burner."
Jon feels something inside him deflate, an iron band around his chest loosen just a notch or two. Brendon hooks their arms, sighing softly in what Jon desperately hopes is relief. "Want coffee?" Jon asks and Brendon nods. "Yeah, sure." Jon can hear the muted sounds of conversation coming from the kitchen; Travis' low rumble and Bill, maybe Tom and Butcher. "Come on."
He's pretty sure he hears Brendon mutter something like, "Oooh, yay," but he can't be sure. The kitchen's more crowded than he thought it would be, but it's not any outsiders, just the guys. Travie's on the phone, and Disashi's nursing a beer, Bill half passed out on the table while Butcher draws something funky on the back of his neck. Michael's there too, and Jon's surprised, because aside from him, none of them are really looking at him. Michael is openly staring. It makes Jon's skin itch. "Hey guys, this is Brendon."
Travis puts a hand over the phone and smiles, easy and wide, and damn, he is so high Jon can smell the weed from the doorway. "Hey, Jonny Walker's boy." Brendon's half behind Jon and, when they get up to his room Jon's totally going to call him on hiding, but at the moment, he just kind of wishes he could do the same. "Hi Travis," Brendon says, cocking his hand in a wave.
Tom takes another swig of his beer and looks down at his hands. Jon wants to shake him for being a jackass, and for being a jackass in front of Brendon, but Tom isn't responding to Jon's mental ass kicking, so he figures they'll have to duke that one out for real. Awesome.
"Hey," Brendon mumbles in Jon's ear, "Y'know, I so really actually don't need coffee. Let's just go upstairs." Part of Jon feels like it's giving up, but what the hell, he's not going to win a war in a day. "Yeah, okay." They turn in tandem and head up the stairs. Brendon gets their first, flinging open the door and jumping onto the bed with half hysterical little laugh as Jon closes the door.
"I thought you didn't put out on the first date," Jon says, and Brendon rolls his eyes, but keeps grinning, stretching his arms and legs out like a star. "That was one date, man? That felt like a fucking century." Jon snickers and falls down next to him. "Sorry I'm so boring. I'm sure you could do much better." Brendon kisses his temple and smushes his face into Jon's neck. "Nah, I'm good, man."
The funny part is that Jon's not joking. Brendon could do so much better. Brendon has done so much better, and Jon's not sure why he keeps coming around, doesn't know what he could possibly see in him, but he's not going to do anything that'll send him away. "Hey, so," Brendon sounds uneasy and Jon's chest clenches. "Hey so, would you mind if we just." Brendon waves his hand around awkwardly, the tops of his cheeks flushing. "Slept? I mean, obviously, I'd like to do more than that, but uh. Just. I like sleeping with you? I got really bad insomnia when I got to college, I think it's because I was used to so many people on top of each other back home, and I have a single, so. I just. We don't have to. I could go back, but." He grins weakly and Jon can feel himself falling headfirst into it. Shit.
"Yeah, no, of course." Brendon grins, bright and wide and real, shoving his sneakers off and kicking them down on the floor. He pops the button on his jeans and shimmies out of them, yanks off his shirt and tosses it aside. Jon stands and changes, pulling on a pair of flannel pajama pants and crawling back into bed. Brendon eases up along his side, warm and solid, head on Jon's shoulder with his fingers splayed across Jon's chest. He smells good, like Old Spice and vanilla, and Jon has to press his nose to the top of Brendon's hair and inhale.
Jon's struck with how right this feels, how settled he is in his skin, with Brendon pressed against him, snuffling against his collarbone, already half asleep. He very definitely doesn't think about how it would feel with Brendon inside of him, very definitely doesn't think about that while he's randomly brushing up on his math skills by doing all of the two, three and five times tables in his head, very definitely doesn't think about it as he counts sheep and Brendon's breathing gets deeper and deeper.
Jon wakes to the soft sounds of a keyboard clicking. Tom is an asshole he thinks fuzzily, rolling over. Well, rather, he tries to roll over, but the dead weight draped across half his body makes that rather difficult. Blearily, he cracks open his eyes and registers dark hair and a bare shoulder, the line of a spine and a blue Superman boxers. "Mmmnm." He makes a noise low in the back of his throat and rolls his head to the side. Tom's sitting on his bed, laptop balanced across his knees. "Hey, Jonny."
"Mmm," Jon says, trying to swallow the taste out of his mouth, and squinting his eyes. "Morning," Tom shrugs, and he doesn't look uncomfortable exactly, more resigned, and the weak light filtering in through the window doesn't exactly do the greatest job of informing him of the time. "'What time is it?" Jon asks, and Tom blinks over at him, like maybe he'd forgotten that Jon existed. "Oh. It's uh. It's really early. You could probably catch another few hours before you need to head off."
Brendon snuffles in his sleep, mumbling out a tangled string of syllables as he burrows closer to Jon. He says something that sounds vaguely like, 'more sleep' and Jon smiles to himself. "You okay?" Jon asks quietly and Tom goes still, fingers pausing over the keys. "I'm fine," Tom says tightly and Jon feels his stomach twist and knot.
It's like a Choose Your Adventure book. Jon can see how it would go with Tom, awkward words and stilted conversation until they both got over what had been bothering them, and he maybe doesn't have as clear a picture with Brendon, but he's going to take it. Brendon's weight is warm against his chest, and just looking at him sets Jon's nerves at ease.
"Is this going to be a problem?" Jon asks, settling his chin on top of Brendon's head. Brendon smells so goddamn good and feels so goddamn right pressed up against his side, fingers twitching against the flesh of Jon's chest. Tom huffs out laugh, just a bit broken and decidedly unhappy. "There's no fucking problem, Jon." It's the Jon that slaps against his skin, clawing into his mind. Tom never calls him Jon, it's always Jonny or Jay. "Fuck you," Jon mumbles.
Tom flinches, but he turns off his laptop and stands, just staring at Jon at like Jon's the one that's wrong. Like there's something wrong with Jon because he's happy and maybe Jon is. Maybe he is and maybe Brendon does make him happy.
--
Brendon says, "We should go study outside," so they do.
A part of Jon is almost expecting that people will see, like they'll take one look at Brendon and Jon and know they spent the night curled together with their hearts beating together through the bone cages of their chests. They sit crossed legged on one of the concrete benches surrounding the quad, knees almost touching, with notebooks spread open across their laps.
"So, it's totally possible I took a little nap the last twenty or thirty minutes of class," Brendon says with a winning smile. "So I really hope you were paying attention and took notes, or else we're just a little tiny bit screwed."
A trio of girls in sorority sweatshirts walk past, laughing, with the wind tossing their hair. Jon vaguely recognizes one, a tiny, pretty thing with golden tipped curls and warm eyes. She winks at Jon as they walk past, very nearly flirtatious without crossing the line, and Jon raises a hand.
"She's cute," Brendon says, lips quirked up in a half smile Jon can't read. "You can um." He brushes his bangs out of his eyes and looks at Jon with his bottom lip tucked under his teeth, and Jon just blinks at him. "I can what, Bren?" The tops of Brendon's cheeks color, and he mumbles something like, "Go after her. I mean. If you wanted. I mean. She's cute, right?" He laughs a little, but it sounds strained, awkward and it makes Jon's stomach clench. "So you should. I mean, if you want to. Like. Go after her. I can go." Jon blinks at him.
"No, hey, Brendon, no." Brendon doesn't look convinced, and he doesn't smile, but Jon feels a little better when Brendon settles back down.
--
They're not dating, not really, they just go out to dinner sometimes. A lot of the time. Okay, fine, almost every night except for Thursdays because Brendon's got Orchestra and Saturdays, because weekends are Jon's days at Starbucks. He pretends that he's annoyed when Brendon comes in -- or at least he pretends to pretend he pretends, but really, it makes his chest feel light, seeing Brendon's head ducked over his books, sometimes looking up and grinning at Jon whenever he catches him looking.
It's ten to close, which is fantastic, because Jon's been on his feet for eight hours and forty minutes (the twenty minutes he got for break were spent horizontal and breathing the air around Brendon's mouth in the backseat of his car, hands anchored on each others hips), and he's fucking exhausted.
Brendon's already gotten his stuff together and is perched on the edge of the counter, humming something soft and pretty under his breath. Jon can't stop looking at the curve of his neck.
"Hey," Jon exhales, sliding his palms around the curve of Brendon's hips. He's tired, so fucking ridiculously tired, but there's something else buzzing beneath his skin and Jon's not one to deny his body when it murmurs around want. "Hey, good looking."
"Hey." Brendon turns in Jon's arms and dips his torso back, running his hands up the planes of Jon's stomach to cup around his neck. His touch is almost reverent, callused fingertips catching on the soft skin of Jon's lips, the patches behind his ears. "Hi, Jonny-boy Walker."
"I've been on my fucking feet all day." Jon dips down and flutters a soft kiss on the Brendon's eyelid, flexing his fingers tighter against the sharp cut of his hipbones. "I am exhausted."
"Poor baby." Brendon smirks. "I can make it better?"
It's wrong, Jon knows, it's wrong on hundreds of thousands of levels. More people than he ever wants to think about eat at the tables, sit on the armchairs, and, all that aside, he works for Christ's sake and it's probably a bad thing to associate his place of business with orgasms he feels down to his toes, but God. Brendon grinds his hips against Jon's and morals go out the window.
"You could blow me," Jon can't actually believe the words are coming out of his mouth. He's not a prude, he's barely reserved, but. But it doesn't really matter what he is because Brendon's smirking, muttering something like, "public indecency," and "you're going to give me arthritis in my knees, JonWalker," it doesn't stop him from dropping to the floor though, and his hands are sure on Jon's hips, fingers tangling in Jon's belt buckle, tugging it open and the zipper to his pants down. "Bren, we've got to -- we have to go fast."
Brendon snorts indelicately. "I gotta feeling you'll be going pretty fucking fast, Walker," he mumbles, fist closing around the base as his mouth wraps around the head.
The funny thing is, Brendon's only blown Jon once or twice in the six months they've been sleeping together. They tend to be very straightforward, Brendon on his back his knees up around his ears and a hand around his dick, fucking. Jon tangles his fingers in Brendon's hair, tugging lightly at the soft strands, trying not to swallow his motherfucking tongue as Brendon bobs, and thinks he's been missing out more than he could ever possibly imagine.
Brendon splays a hand on his hip and drags the nails of his other along the crease of his thigh to lightly fondle at Jon's balls. He tries to keeps his hips from snapping forward and fails miserably, but Brendon takes it, pausing for only a split second to regain his breath before sucking hard enough for Jon to feel like his brain is leaking out his ears.
"Christ, Brendon, fuck," Jon whimpers, flexing the muscles in his thighs. "God."
He's pretty sure if Brendon didn't have a mouth full of his dick, he'd be grinning.
--
They have completely opposite schedules, at least for classes, and Jon tells himself it's a good thing. Jon tells himself it's better than getting too attached, too involved, but he wakes up to Brendon almost every morning, and he can't stop his eyes -- his lips from roaming down the planes of Brendon's back, tasting his skin.
Jon doesn't like to think about what it means that his stomach seizes up whenever Brendon so much as looks at someone else; doesn't like to think about how he fucks Brendon harder those nights, leaving fingertip shaped bruises into his skin. Brendon laughs off his apologies, says he likes the marks, but Jon knows better. Just because he knows it though, doesn't mean he can stop.
Travie's the one that actually mentions it, when Brendon's rushing out the door of the house twenty minutes late and ten minutes out from the majority of campus. It had been Jon's fault, no way around it, because no one else had pinned Brendon against the pantry door and kissed him until they were both breathless, even though Brendon had been making noises about the time.
"That kid," Travie says when Jon pushes back into the kitchen. He blinks, because Trav usually doesn't comment on other people's business, especially when it has no direct effect on his own. "What are you doing with that kid, Jon Walker?" His voice isn't angry, which Jon supposes is a good thing, but he can't see his eyes, considering he's got his own trained on his flipflops. Travie's eyes are the most expressive thing about him, and he could be laughing, he could be doubled over with tears streaming down his cheeks, but it's his eyes you have to watch out for.
"I don't," Jon mumbles, "I'm not doing anything."
It's not a good lie, fuck, it's nothing more than a pathetic untruth because, of everything that this thing with Brendon is, nothing has no place on the list. Jon rakes a hand through his hair and shifts back and forth on the balls of his feet. He doesn't have class for an hour, but his skin is itching with the need to do something other than stand there beneath the heavy weight of Travis's gaze.
"Sometimes I wish you just judged," Jon sighs, looking up, and the genuine concern in Travis's eye catches him off guard.
"It's good for you," Travis says easily. "Talk to me, Walker. What are doing with this kid?"
"I don't know," Jon sighs. "God, Trav, it doesn't make any sense. I keep thinking about all the little shit, you know? The fucking noises he makes in he sleep and the way his eyelashes look against his cheek and this scar he has right underneath his ribs." Travis snorts, and the sound is anything but delicate. His shoulders shake, and Jon is scowling up until he looks into Travis's eyes. "What? Shut the fuck up, dude. What. What are you laughing about? I told you it was fucking stupid shit. Who the fuck thinks about the sounds their boyfriend makes when he sleeps anyway?"
Jon's got a second of ignorance before the door's getting pushed open and Sisky's coming in. He's the newest pledge, and the youngest of the entire group they'd gotten, but he fits in really well. Better than Jon himself had, when he'd first gotten there, eighteen and secretly terrified of being away from home again, even though home was only an hour and a handful of subway stops away.
"Boyfriend, dude? What, you and that Urie kid?" He asks, just curious, and it's not like. It's not like Jon was completely unaware of the things he was saying. It's not like he's a complete idiot. Jon feels heat rush across his cheeks, a hundred thousand words stuttering to a halt on his tongue. He wants to say yes and he wants to scream no and he wants to go back to the days when it was nice and easy and hidden, just fucking, and if there was anything more than that it was all too easy to sweep away and pretend it wasn't anything.
"Well, Jonny?" Travis raises an eyebrow and, fuck, Jon has seen that knowing look in his eyes way too many times. It's the look that says he sees something completely and utterly obvious that you're just too dense to realize.
Jon isn't fucking dense and he isn't gay.
Siska drops his bag down by the door and folds his arms across his chest, head cocked to the side so a few of his utterly ridiculous curls fall across his face. "Yeah, Jon?"
He shoots them both a look that's meant to be withering, but probably only comes out as deer in the headlights scared, before turning on his heel and running up the stairs. He slams the door to his room hard enough for the door to groan on the hinges. The sheets smell like Brendon's skin and when Brendon comes back two hours later, flexing his fingers, making discontent noises about piano exercises meant to rip tendons to shreds, Jon pushes him down into the sheets and fucks him hard enough for Brendon cry out in pleasure edged with something more.
--
William has an on-again, off-again girlfriend who's the pledge coordinator at Gamma Nu, commonly known as The Lovely Christine around the house. Jon isn't particularly fond of her one way or another, but Travis makes himself scarce whenever he knows she's coming by, so Jon and Brendon are on breakfast duty when she stumbles downstairs, rubbing last night's mascara into her skin and grinning at them blearily.
"Mmm," she says as Jon hands her a mug of coffee, the hem of Bill's tee shirt riding high on her thighs. "Thanks, babe." She's pretty, and she's very Bill, who's down a few minutes later, winding himself around her back and very pointedly not asking where Trav and his momma's pancakes are hiding.
"Hello, little Urie," Bill says when he straightens and Brendon waves a hand out in back of him, face mashed into the skin of Jon's shoulder, pressing tiny little kisses there when no one can see. "Jonny Walker," Christine's voice isn't particularly nasal or screeching, but Jon still winces when she starts to speak. "Who's your friend?"
Jon blinks, and he can feel Brendon straightening and sliding away, even though his movements are sluggish, and they haven't been detached from each other's skin in more than twelve hours. He forgets sometimes, in easy the moments, he forgets what they're not.
"I'm Brendon," he says, leaning against the counter and raking a hand through his hair. It sticks up even further, twisting in points and clumps on top of his head. "Nice to meet you." His glasses have slipped down on his nose and Brendon pushes them back up worrying his teeth into his bottom lip.
"Are you a pledge?" Christine asks, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "I thought I'd met all the brothers. Or do you just belong to Jon?"
Jon flushes, heat rushing out across his checks and neck and Brendon goes still, drumming his fingers on his thigh. "I -- "
"He's just a friend, Christine," Jon mumbles and Brendon goes too still. "Yeah," he smiles and something hard and cold and heavy sinks Jon's stomach. "I'm just a friend."
--
Brendon doesn't look at Jon through breakfast, and he doesn't talk to Jon on the short trip up the stairs to their -- his room, and even when Jon grabs his wrist and Brendon's eyes and mouth go slack, even as he's letting Jon push him back against the mattress, even as he's letting Jon lick his skin, even as his dick is going hard against Jon's stomach as he pushes inside, even as, he's somewhere else. Jon comes, but it's ripped out as a consequence, weak as it crests over his hand.
Brendon doesn't come at all.
Jon falls asleep curled up next to him, pressing his lips against the curve of his neck. Brendon is malleable under Jon's hands, but not pliant, and when Jon wakes up, he's alone.
--
It takes a week for Brendon to pick up the phone, and Jon calls every day, five times a day, and he understands that Brendon's pissed, he even understands why Brendon's pissed, but that doesn't stop him from getting frustrated too.
He'd thought they were past this. When Brendon does answer, his voice is scratchy and low, like he'd just rolled over and thumbed his phone on without even looking at the view screen. "'lo?" Jon can just see him, stretched out against his mattress, an arm thrown over his eyes to keep the sunlight out.
"Brendon," Jon breathes, because he can't do anything else. He can't say I'm sorry and he can't say I love you and he can't say I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, so he doesn't. "This is probably for the best." he whispers and closes his eyes keep the tears in.
He doesn't succeed.
--
Jon is fine, he's fucking fine, no matter what Travis says with his sidelong looks and Tom with his suggestion that maybe Jon needs to cut down a little bit on the beer. It's not like that and it's not like he's stopped going to Anthro at all because the professor's voice turns to white noise against the slope of Brendon's shoulder hunched over his notebook.
It's a Friday afternoon and Jon's done for the day, after faking his way through a Calc test he didn't study for.
He wants to get back to the house and bust out the hard liquor, the bottles of vodka and bourbon and whiskey Tom keeps lined along the top of the kitchen cabinets like some kind of weird ass decoration. He wants to get rip roaringly drunk and being completely out of it for the weekend, so he can pass forty-eight hours without thinking about Brendon.
Of course, because some cosmic force governing the universe hates him, he rounds a corner and fucking slams into someone, someone who lets out a startled oof, too familiar, and nearly falls over.
"Bren," Jon exhales.
Brendon looks like shit, eyes heavily shadowed with dark circles, hiding in jeans big enough to be legitimately considered baggy and a giant sweatshirt gotten God knows where.
"Jon." Brendon goes still, pulling his books to his chest. "Hey."
He wants to touch, more than anything he wants to reach out and pull Brendon to his chest and not ever fucking let him go again. He can't, though, he can't.
"Brendon." Jon blinks hard and clears his throat. "Do you want to come back to the house?"
Brendon pauses, inhales and exhales. "Yes, please."
--
It hurts, not even because Jon's never. Jon wants this. Jon wants this, even though it's not something they talk about.
The thing is, they don't talk.
There's no one in the den when they come in, single file like they're kids in class, not touching, barely breathing. Jon's eyes are burning, and his throat is tight, breaths coming out staggered because he can't actually believe that Brendon's letting him close again.
He's the one who makes the decision when they climb the stairs up to his room, shrugging off his shirt and tossing it in the mammoth pile of unwashed laundry already on the floor. He unbuttons his pants, but doesn't do any more than that, laying face down on the bed, leaving the decision to Brendon.
The first touch isn't gentle.
Brendon fucks Jon like he has something to prove, a message to burn into Jon's skin with his finger and teeth and hands. He starts with two fingers and Jon keens because it's nothing like the low burn Brendon once murmured about when he asked in the early hours of the morning, it's not easy. It hurts, but it's right and Jon pushes back.
"Do you like this?" Brendon growls and he sounds like he's either going to scream or cry and something twists painfully in Jon's chest.
There's three then and it passes beyond the line of too much, but Jon still can't, still won't, tell Brendon to stop. He's lived with his chest tied in a hundred thousand knots and he can't keep going like that.
Brendon settles his knees on either side of Jon's hips and sinks down in hard snap of his hips, fingers tight enough to leave blue black bruises on Jon's ribs. It's not easy, the stutter of Brendon's hips, skin slapping together in a wet, whispered slipdslide.
"I don't understand this," Brendon gasps, forehead pressed between Jon's shoulder blades. "JonWalker. Fuck."
He comes buried deep, letting out a groan that sounds torn from his chest and wrenched from his very fucking being. Jon cants his hips into the sheets and shakes and shudders through his own climax, hating how much he wants Brendon, how much he likes being able to almost feel Brendon's heart pounding in his chest.
"We can go back to this," Brendon says, voice shaking, breaking. "We can go back." Brendon's voice is hoarse, and he's pressing his face against the back of Jon's neck, sweat and tears mixing against Jon's skin. It feels like Jon's skin is being torn apart, Brendon's weight heavy against his back, even though he's all of six pounds soaking wet.
"Bren, I want -- "
Brendon snuffles against his skin, and the sound is so familiar that Jon has to grit his teeth against it. "JonWalker, I can't, okay? Not. It hurts, not being. With you, I mean, it hurts, so. I mean. We can, until we don't, and then we find something new, we do this until we find something better, and then it won't matter anymore." Jon's got to close his eyes because it hurts, it hurts to think that one day he won't matter to Brendon.
He's pretty sure Brendon will always matter to him.
"Or," he grits out and the thing is, he's still inside of Jon, thick, but softening, and Jon's shaking, he's shaking so hard, needing to hear what's next. Only having Brendon like this isn't an option anymore. He can't. "Or what, Bren?" He pushes his hips back, wishing Brendon wouldn't move, even as he's starting to pull away. "Or," he whispers, voice almost lost in the darkness. "Or we actually do this." He waves his hand around, glasses askew on his nose. "You know, the whole thing."
There aren't any words, and Jon can't answer.
--
Brendon leaves without one, just his offer on the table and a chaste kiss to Jon's temple. "Think about it," he says and Jon doesn't know if he's that strong.
He cleans up, showers and changes, grabs a beer from the fridge and goes out onto the back porch as the sun sinks down, casting long purple shadows. The end of the semester's in sight and Jon feels change itching beneath his skin as he pops the cap and takes a long swallow. He's been drunk to much lately, that much he knows, but he doesn't want oblivion, just something to ease the buzzing in the back of his mind.
The screen door slides open and bangs closed and Jon expects to see Travis lanky frame slide into his peripheral vision, eternally calm and unnaturally wise for a twenty-two year old. Tom dropping down next to him with a beer of his own, half drunk and sweating against the glass side, is unexpected and Jon doesn't know whether to tense or exhale. They've been the same, but different since Brendon came, okay, but emphatically not.
"You working on another bender, Jonny?" Tom asks and the nickname rings comfortingly familiar.
He knocks back a long swallow and sets the bottle aside. "No. Just thinking."
Tom chuckles, low and wry, and drains his, tossing it into the bushes with a dull clank as it lands among the others that have been tossed off the porch. "That shit's dangerous. What the hell are you thinking about?"
The curve of Brendon's spine. The drag of his callused fingertips down the line of Jon's sternum. The way his face lit up when they walked into the diner of the thing that was kind of a date, depending on which way you looked at it. "Brendon," Jon says with a hitch of his shoulders. Tom's face goes tight for a split second, but it's gone before Jon can blink, carefully rearranged to practiced neutrality. "What about him?"
"He wants to be an us." Jon waves his hand and huffs out a laugh. The words feel tangled and unfamiliar on the back of his tongue, boyfriend and lover, and none of them feel right because it's not about that, it's about Brendon. "I don't know. I'm gonna fuck this up."
Tom snorts. "I'm pretty sure you already fucked it up, Jonny-boy. The question is what you do now."
Jon picks up his beer and raises and eyebrow, taking another swallow that goes down cool and right, spreading out along his veins. "Thank you, kemosabi. And what would you do?"
"Fuck." Tom laughs and tips his head back, hair ruffled by the light wind. "Hell, if I know, Jonny, I'm a fuck up and and asshole and everyone knows that. I drink too much and I fuck around and I don't call in the morning. I have quickies in bathrooms I don't remember in the morning and I'm the kind of guy parents warn their daughters to stay away from. I cause problems, I don't fix them."
"And?" Jon raises and eyebrow. "That doesn't answer my question, Tommy."
"If I ever find my Brendon," Tom says, waving his hand around when Jon raises a brow. "You know what I meant, asshole. If I ever find someone who makes me look half as dumb as you do when you look at that kid? I sure as hell won't let them just walk away. Even I'm not that fucked up."
He ruffles Jon's hair and stands, goes back inside, and leaves Jon the first stars beginning to wink into light.
--
It's a quarter to five in the morning, and Jon has his first final in three hours, but he can't quite manage to get his eyes closed. Tom's passed out in his bed a few feet over, snores comforting in the silence, but not enough to settle the itch in Jon's skin.
He's pretty sure he's imagining it when his phone starts to vibrate against the wood of the nightstand, pretty sure he's going crazy when Brendon's name flashes, but he picks up anyway, on the off chance that this isn't a dream; on the off chance that he hasn't lost his mind. "Hello?" Tom mumbles something in his sleep, but his eyes stay closed, and Jon's been rooming with him long enough to know it doesn't mean a damn thing.
"JonWalker, hey," Brendon says, and Jon can clearly hear him gulp. He sits up, pushing the sheets down around his hips and slipping out of the room, sitting down a few steps on the landing, head buried in his hands, because even listening to Brendon breathe on the line is better than anything he's heard for days.
"Hey," he says, and his voice comes out on a cough; he can't keep the rasp away from it. He probably sounds demented, probably sounds like he has a head cold, but Brendon doesn't comment on it, and Jon's too tired to make the appropriate weak joke that would settle quite nicely right along here. "Hey, Brendon, I -- "
"So the thing is, JonWalker," the words are coming out in a rush, and something tight clenches in his chest. "The thing is, I've been sitting on the Theta Xi green for the past like," there's a shuffling sound for a second, and then Brendon is back, breathing heavy. "For the past like, four hours? And I've been staring up at your window, and I've been staring and wishing I could be in there, and JonWalker," he's mumbling now, voice slurred. Jon drops his phone on the stairs as he runs down them, and even when he's across the room, he can hear Brendon's soft mumblings.
He's sitting exactly where he said he was, and Jon can't breathe. He's still mumbling into his phone, and as Jon starts across the green, he can see Brendon's lips forming the shape of his name. "JonWalker," he blinks up, looking at Jon as he'd appeared out of nowhere. "JonWalker, I am a little drunk." He grins, and his smile is a little loose at the edges, a little fragile, but it's still the prettiest thing Jon's ever seen.
"That's okay, Bren," he settles down next to him on the wet grass, far enough away so that their shoulders aren't brushing, but close enough that he can hear every breath Brendon takes.
They're quiet so long that little patches of the raising sun start to peek in through the cloud-hazy horizon. "What are you doing here?" Jon asks, because the silence is nice, it's even nicer when he can focus on Brendon's warmth. Brendon's got his bottom lip tucked up under his teeth, and his eyes are huge.
"You make. Things are fuzzy," Brendon says, brow furrowed. Jon's never heard him sound so young before. "In my brain, JonWalker. You make the buzzing stop." He shakes his head and Jon is pretty sure he's probably more than a little drunk. "Just. Just being near you."
Jon hisses out a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding. "Brendon -- " Brendon's shaking his head, and his eyes look lucid.
"No. I know you didn't. I love you, okay? I love you and I you don't. I mean. Sex is sex, and sex is awesome! I like sex, but. But I love you, and you don't. I mean, you don't, but you don't have to pretend, I love you, you know? I love you, and I can't. I can't. We can," he pauses for a second as he waves his hand and for the first time in five minutes, Jon breathes. "We can go back to that. But." He turns towards Jon now, eyes huge, lip bitten again. "But. I love you. And I wanted you to know that someone did. Does."
Jon inhales and exhales, counting the beats of his heart because he's not this lucky. "I don't know what I'm doing," Jon says and Brendon smiles, huffing out an easy laugh. "I never know what I'm doing, JonWalker, I just do it and hope it works out."
"Does it work out?" Jon slides his arm around Brendon's shoulders and pulls him close, pressing his nose to the crown of Brendon's hair. "Does it, Bren?"
Brendon hums in the back of his throat. "Yeah."
Jon breathes in Brendon's scent and memorizes the feel of his body in Jon's arms, warm and pliant and there. "I love you, Bren." Brendon's eyes go wide behind his glasses, and Jon tries to keep his breathing steady. He doesn't loosen his grip but Brendon's not squirming, either.
"You don't -- " the night catches his words and takes them, his lips are parted enough that the only logical solution is to kiss him. "I know," Jon whispers against his mouth, hands moving up to tangle in his hair, to keep him close. "But I do."
Brendon's grin is huge and bright and vibrant and he lays back with Jon as he settles against the grass, settling an arm across his waist.
Pink and blue streak across an inky sky and they watch the day start over.
END
He lets Brendon pick the restaurant, and it's. Well. It's not what he expected, but then, Brendon isn't really what he expected. There's this diner a couple blocks off campus with a neon sign that flashes DOLLY'S, OPEN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. FREE COFFEE REFILLS, and Brendon leads them there. The booths are cracked red leather and the floor is faded linoleum, but it feels homey, and the waitstaff seems to know Brendon by sight.
"Whoa damn, Bren, he's cute." Their waitress is a girl their age with dark hair pulled back in a pony tail with tendrils falling around her face. She has pens stuck through the rubber band and pink bubblegum and Jon can't help but burn bright red as she flicks an appreciative gaze over Jon's jeans and polo.
"Um...thank you?" Brendon laughs and, tucks his chin onto Jon's shoulder. "Thanks, Vick."
"What'll you have, boys?" She doesn't comment on the fact that their fingers are intertwined on the table and Jon can't figure out if that's because this is typical Brendon behavior or because she just doesn't care. He's always thought of himself as easy and open minded, but there are apparently a lot of things that he thought wrong on. Brendon is changing that, and the thought sends something warm and sweet to the center of his chest.
Jon orders a burger and Brendon gets a salad. "I'm a vegetarian."
"Heathen, god, how can you resist the delicious lure of burgers?" Vicky brings their food fast, carrying the tray on her hip with practiced ease and tranferring the plates to the table. "Let me know if you need anything else." Then she's gone and suddenly it hits Jon low in the stomach that he's on a DATE with BRENDON URIE. His hands start shaking just a little bit as he pours ketchup across his fries.
Brendon picks up on it, of course he does, and he tilts his head to the side when Jon knocks an entire container of creamer on the floor. "You okay?" His voice doesn't sound exactly gentle, but it is a little soothing. Jon flashes him a grin, or tries to, not quite sure he succeeds when Brendon frowns and pulls back a little.
"You're freaking out, aren't you?" Brendon says and it kills Jon how quietly resigned he sounds and no, fuck that noise, Jon isn't going to be the one who fucks Brendon up more. No way. "Hey, no, I'm okay." Jon reaches back across the table and laces their hands, squeezing tight. "This is just weird for me, a little. I want to be here."
Brendon smiles, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes, and Jon wishes, he wishes they could just go back, wishes that he hadn't wanted more, because nothing would have changed. What hits him though, is how much he did want -- how much he does want Brendon, and that might not be enough, it might not be what Brendon deserves, but it's something.
"Okay," Brendon exhales. "First things first, Jon Walker, a date with a boy is just like a date with a girl, though you can skip the flowers if you want, they make me sneeze."
Jon laughs and picks up a fry, swiping it through ketchup. "Okay, no flowers, check. Anything else?" Brendon cocks his head and smiles a little bit easier, looser around the edges.
Jon has a minute of thinking, fuck, I'm a little bit -- before he cuts off that line of thought completely. Freaking out on the guy who already thinks you aren't a sure bet and telling him you might a little in love with him is so, so not the way to go. Jon's not even sure if he is, or if it's just this, the night, the diner, the movement and the way he already knows how Brendon feels under his fingertips. "Should I have brought candy?"
Brendon laughs out loud at that, eyes crinkling at the corners. "I would love candy, but everyone else would probably hate you because rumor has it that I tend to get a little hyper under the influence of sugar." Jon raises an eyebrow; he has no trouble believing that. "Okay, so, normally on first dates I do all the getting to know you jazz. So, I don't know, what don't you know about me?"
Jon tries to think about everything he knows about Brendon, tries to piece together all of the bits of the puzzle. Brendon looks open, smile loose, and Jon just. He can't regret being here, not even for a second, not when Brendon looks like that. "Why did you come to school out here?"
"My parents didn't want me to go out of state and my best friend Tom wanted to come for the Fine Arts program." Jon flinches a little at the thought of Tom, Tom leaning over the bed with abject horror gleaming in his eyes, but he shoves it away. "Why did you? You're from out west, right? Las Vegas?"
Brendon ducks his head and blushes, but it doesn't look to be the pleasant kind. "Way to kick out the hardhitting questions first, huh, Walker? My parents are kind of religious, they wanted me to. Well. They didn't want me to go and wouldn't pay for it, and I got the best financial package here."
Jon tightens his fingers without thinking and, for a split second, almost leans over to brush a kiss on the tip of Brendon's nose. "I'm sorry." Brendon shrugs and offers up a wry little smile. "It's fine, you know. I'm okay. So, right, okay, why do you play lacrosse? Is the chance beat other boys with your stick?"
Jon laughs without meaning to, and Brendon grins at him. The quiet moment is gone, but it's okay, it's fine, because Brendon is smiling at him for real, and not just behind his glasses. "I like keeping in shape. It helps keep the beer gut away." Brendon laughs again, harder and indelicately, and Jon just. Okay, so maybe Jon is a little bit in love with him. But only a little. And he'll never mention it. It'll go away and they can date and be friends and fuck. That'll be good. Low key. No moving to Canada or Massachusetts or adopting Zambian babies.
He can do this.
"You want to know something funny?" Brendon asks and Jon nods, leaning back in the booth and, God, strange emotional fuck ups aside, it's easier and nicer than he would have expected. "I like your belly," Brendon says a stage whisper, lifting up a fot to poke a Jon's stomach with the toe of his sneaker. Jon laughs and rolls his eyes, tries not to blush. "Why are you a music major?"
Brendon grins, big and bright, and rolls up his shirt sleeve, revealing the demented armadillo he still swears is piano keys. "It's my life, man." He says the words simply, and Jon just. He can't breathe, because Brendon is so gorgeous in this light. "I had a band, we. We were going to do this and be people and go places, and it didn't work out, but it could have. I wanted to prove that it can." He shrugs, smile careless and easy. "That it will."
They walk back to campus; at the main gate, Brendon turns to head for his dorm and Jon almost lets him. The night's been good, so very fucking good, why risk ruining it on the reaction of others? But, no, he can't do that, no matter how much his chest is twisting and writhing in something that feels very close to panic. "Come back to the house?" Jon asks and Brendon goes still, then bows his head and follows, fingers vice tight around Jon's hand.
Carden and Sisky are sitting on the couch watching Letterman when they come in, and they don't even blink, Sisky half asleep on Mike's shoulder, the glow from the TV making him look younger than he already is. "Hey," Jon says, waiting for something, maybe, voice a little sharp. Mike barely glances away from the screen from where Jon can just make out the guest, and Sisky raises his hand in a weak greeting. "There's coffee in the kitchen," Mike says slowly, not even bothering to look at them. "It's might be cold, but it's still on the burner."
Jon feels something inside him deflate, an iron band around his chest loosen just a notch or two. Brendon hooks their arms, sighing softly in what Jon desperately hopes is relief. "Want coffee?" Jon asks and Brendon nods. "Yeah, sure." Jon can hear the muted sounds of conversation coming from the kitchen; Travis' low rumble and Bill, maybe Tom and Butcher. "Come on."
He's pretty sure he hears Brendon mutter something like, "Oooh, yay," but he can't be sure. The kitchen's more crowded than he thought it would be, but it's not any outsiders, just the guys. Travie's on the phone, and Disashi's nursing a beer, Bill half passed out on the table while Butcher draws something funky on the back of his neck. Michael's there too, and Jon's surprised, because aside from him, none of them are really looking at him. Michael is openly staring. It makes Jon's skin itch. "Hey guys, this is Brendon."
Travis puts a hand over the phone and smiles, easy and wide, and damn, he is so high Jon can smell the weed from the doorway. "Hey, Jonny Walker's boy." Brendon's half behind Jon and, when they get up to his room Jon's totally going to call him on hiding, but at the moment, he just kind of wishes he could do the same. "Hi Travis," Brendon says, cocking his hand in a wave.
Tom takes another swig of his beer and looks down at his hands. Jon wants to shake him for being a jackass, and for being a jackass in front of Brendon, but Tom isn't responding to Jon's mental ass kicking, so he figures they'll have to duke that one out for real. Awesome.
"Hey," Brendon mumbles in Jon's ear, "Y'know, I so really actually don't need coffee. Let's just go upstairs." Part of Jon feels like it's giving up, but what the hell, he's not going to win a war in a day. "Yeah, okay." They turn in tandem and head up the stairs. Brendon gets their first, flinging open the door and jumping onto the bed with half hysterical little laugh as Jon closes the door.
"I thought you didn't put out on the first date," Jon says, and Brendon rolls his eyes, but keeps grinning, stretching his arms and legs out like a star. "That was one date, man? That felt like a fucking century." Jon snickers and falls down next to him. "Sorry I'm so boring. I'm sure you could do much better." Brendon kisses his temple and smushes his face into Jon's neck. "Nah, I'm good, man."
The funny part is that Jon's not joking. Brendon could do so much better. Brendon has done so much better, and Jon's not sure why he keeps coming around, doesn't know what he could possibly see in him, but he's not going to do anything that'll send him away. "Hey, so," Brendon sounds uneasy and Jon's chest clenches. "Hey so, would you mind if we just." Brendon waves his hand around awkwardly, the tops of his cheeks flushing. "Slept? I mean, obviously, I'd like to do more than that, but uh. Just. I like sleeping with you? I got really bad insomnia when I got to college, I think it's because I was used to so many people on top of each other back home, and I have a single, so. I just. We don't have to. I could go back, but." He grins weakly and Jon can feel himself falling headfirst into it. Shit.
"Yeah, no, of course." Brendon grins, bright and wide and real, shoving his sneakers off and kicking them down on the floor. He pops the button on his jeans and shimmies out of them, yanks off his shirt and tosses it aside. Jon stands and changes, pulling on a pair of flannel pajama pants and crawling back into bed. Brendon eases up along his side, warm and solid, head on Jon's shoulder with his fingers splayed across Jon's chest. He smells good, like Old Spice and vanilla, and Jon has to press his nose to the top of Brendon's hair and inhale.
Jon's struck with how right this feels, how settled he is in his skin, with Brendon pressed against him, snuffling against his collarbone, already half asleep. He very definitely doesn't think about how it would feel with Brendon inside of him, very definitely doesn't think about that while he's randomly brushing up on his math skills by doing all of the two, three and five times tables in his head, very definitely doesn't think about it as he counts sheep and Brendon's breathing gets deeper and deeper.
Jon wakes to the soft sounds of a keyboard clicking. Tom is an asshole he thinks fuzzily, rolling over. Well, rather, he tries to roll over, but the dead weight draped across half his body makes that rather difficult. Blearily, he cracks open his eyes and registers dark hair and a bare shoulder, the line of a spine and a blue Superman boxers. "Mmmnm." He makes a noise low in the back of his throat and rolls his head to the side. Tom's sitting on his bed, laptop balanced across his knees. "Hey, Jonny."
"Mmm," Jon says, trying to swallow the taste out of his mouth, and squinting his eyes. "Morning," Tom shrugs, and he doesn't look uncomfortable exactly, more resigned, and the weak light filtering in through the window doesn't exactly do the greatest job of informing him of the time. "'What time is it?" Jon asks, and Tom blinks over at him, like maybe he'd forgotten that Jon existed. "Oh. It's uh. It's really early. You could probably catch another few hours before you need to head off."
Brendon snuffles in his sleep, mumbling out a tangled string of syllables as he burrows closer to Jon. He says something that sounds vaguely like, 'more sleep' and Jon smiles to himself. "You okay?" Jon asks quietly and Tom goes still, fingers pausing over the keys. "I'm fine," Tom says tightly and Jon feels his stomach twist and knot.
It's like a Choose Your Adventure book. Jon can see how it would go with Tom, awkward words and stilted conversation until they both got over what had been bothering them, and he maybe doesn't have as clear a picture with Brendon, but he's going to take it. Brendon's weight is warm against his chest, and just looking at him sets Jon's nerves at ease.
"Is this going to be a problem?" Jon asks, settling his chin on top of Brendon's head. Brendon smells so goddamn good and feels so goddamn right pressed up against his side, fingers twitching against the flesh of Jon's chest. Tom huffs out laugh, just a bit broken and decidedly unhappy. "There's no fucking problem, Jon." It's the Jon that slaps against his skin, clawing into his mind. Tom never calls him Jon, it's always Jonny or Jay. "Fuck you," Jon mumbles.
Tom flinches, but he turns off his laptop and stands, just staring at Jon at like Jon's the one that's wrong. Like there's something wrong with Jon because he's happy and maybe Jon is. Maybe he is and maybe Brendon does make him happy.
--
Brendon says, "We should go study outside," so they do.
A part of Jon is almost expecting that people will see, like they'll take one look at Brendon and Jon and know they spent the night curled together with their hearts beating together through the bone cages of their chests. They sit crossed legged on one of the concrete benches surrounding the quad, knees almost touching, with notebooks spread open across their laps.
"So, it's totally possible I took a little nap the last twenty or thirty minutes of class," Brendon says with a winning smile. "So I really hope you were paying attention and took notes, or else we're just a little tiny bit screwed."
A trio of girls in sorority sweatshirts walk past, laughing, with the wind tossing their hair. Jon vaguely recognizes one, a tiny, pretty thing with golden tipped curls and warm eyes. She winks at Jon as they walk past, very nearly flirtatious without crossing the line, and Jon raises a hand.
"She's cute," Brendon says, lips quirked up in a half smile Jon can't read. "You can um." He brushes his bangs out of his eyes and looks at Jon with his bottom lip tucked under his teeth, and Jon just blinks at him. "I can what, Bren?" The tops of Brendon's cheeks color, and he mumbles something like, "Go after her. I mean. If you wanted. I mean. She's cute, right?" He laughs a little, but it sounds strained, awkward and it makes Jon's stomach clench. "So you should. I mean, if you want to. Like. Go after her. I can go." Jon blinks at him.
"No, hey, Brendon, no." Brendon doesn't look convinced, and he doesn't smile, but Jon feels a little better when Brendon settles back down.
--
They're not dating, not really, they just go out to dinner sometimes. A lot of the time. Okay, fine, almost every night except for Thursdays because Brendon's got Orchestra and Saturdays, because weekends are Jon's days at Starbucks. He pretends that he's annoyed when Brendon comes in -- or at least he pretends to pretend he pretends, but really, it makes his chest feel light, seeing Brendon's head ducked over his books, sometimes looking up and grinning at Jon whenever he catches him looking.
It's ten to close, which is fantastic, because Jon's been on his feet for eight hours and forty minutes (the twenty minutes he got for break were spent horizontal and breathing the air around Brendon's mouth in the backseat of his car, hands anchored on each others hips), and he's fucking exhausted.
Brendon's already gotten his stuff together and is perched on the edge of the counter, humming something soft and pretty under his breath. Jon can't stop looking at the curve of his neck.
"Hey," Jon exhales, sliding his palms around the curve of Brendon's hips. He's tired, so fucking ridiculously tired, but there's something else buzzing beneath his skin and Jon's not one to deny his body when it murmurs around want. "Hey, good looking."
"Hey." Brendon turns in Jon's arms and dips his torso back, running his hands up the planes of Jon's stomach to cup around his neck. His touch is almost reverent, callused fingertips catching on the soft skin of Jon's lips, the patches behind his ears. "Hi, Jonny-boy Walker."
"I've been on my fucking feet all day." Jon dips down and flutters a soft kiss on the Brendon's eyelid, flexing his fingers tighter against the sharp cut of his hipbones. "I am exhausted."
"Poor baby." Brendon smirks. "I can make it better?"
It's wrong, Jon knows, it's wrong on hundreds of thousands of levels. More people than he ever wants to think about eat at the tables, sit on the armchairs, and, all that aside, he works for Christ's sake and it's probably a bad thing to associate his place of business with orgasms he feels down to his toes, but God. Brendon grinds his hips against Jon's and morals go out the window.
"You could blow me," Jon can't actually believe the words are coming out of his mouth. He's not a prude, he's barely reserved, but. But it doesn't really matter what he is because Brendon's smirking, muttering something like, "public indecency," and "you're going to give me arthritis in my knees, JonWalker," it doesn't stop him from dropping to the floor though, and his hands are sure on Jon's hips, fingers tangling in Jon's belt buckle, tugging it open and the zipper to his pants down. "Bren, we've got to -- we have to go fast."
Brendon snorts indelicately. "I gotta feeling you'll be going pretty fucking fast, Walker," he mumbles, fist closing around the base as his mouth wraps around the head.
The funny thing is, Brendon's only blown Jon once or twice in the six months they've been sleeping together. They tend to be very straightforward, Brendon on his back his knees up around his ears and a hand around his dick, fucking. Jon tangles his fingers in Brendon's hair, tugging lightly at the soft strands, trying not to swallow his motherfucking tongue as Brendon bobs, and thinks he's been missing out more than he could ever possibly imagine.
Brendon splays a hand on his hip and drags the nails of his other along the crease of his thigh to lightly fondle at Jon's balls. He tries to keeps his hips from snapping forward and fails miserably, but Brendon takes it, pausing for only a split second to regain his breath before sucking hard enough for Jon to feel like his brain is leaking out his ears.
"Christ, Brendon, fuck," Jon whimpers, flexing the muscles in his thighs. "God."
He's pretty sure if Brendon didn't have a mouth full of his dick, he'd be grinning.
--
They have completely opposite schedules, at least for classes, and Jon tells himself it's a good thing. Jon tells himself it's better than getting too attached, too involved, but he wakes up to Brendon almost every morning, and he can't stop his eyes -- his lips from roaming down the planes of Brendon's back, tasting his skin.
Jon doesn't like to think about what it means that his stomach seizes up whenever Brendon so much as looks at someone else; doesn't like to think about how he fucks Brendon harder those nights, leaving fingertip shaped bruises into his skin. Brendon laughs off his apologies, says he likes the marks, but Jon knows better. Just because he knows it though, doesn't mean he can stop.
Travie's the one that actually mentions it, when Brendon's rushing out the door of the house twenty minutes late and ten minutes out from the majority of campus. It had been Jon's fault, no way around it, because no one else had pinned Brendon against the pantry door and kissed him until they were both breathless, even though Brendon had been making noises about the time.
"That kid," Travie says when Jon pushes back into the kitchen. He blinks, because Trav usually doesn't comment on other people's business, especially when it has no direct effect on his own. "What are you doing with that kid, Jon Walker?" His voice isn't angry, which Jon supposes is a good thing, but he can't see his eyes, considering he's got his own trained on his flipflops. Travie's eyes are the most expressive thing about him, and he could be laughing, he could be doubled over with tears streaming down his cheeks, but it's his eyes you have to watch out for.
"I don't," Jon mumbles, "I'm not doing anything."
It's not a good lie, fuck, it's nothing more than a pathetic untruth because, of everything that this thing with Brendon is, nothing has no place on the list. Jon rakes a hand through his hair and shifts back and forth on the balls of his feet. He doesn't have class for an hour, but his skin is itching with the need to do something other than stand there beneath the heavy weight of Travis's gaze.
"Sometimes I wish you just judged," Jon sighs, looking up, and the genuine concern in Travis's eye catches him off guard.
"It's good for you," Travis says easily. "Talk to me, Walker. What are doing with this kid?"
"I don't know," Jon sighs. "God, Trav, it doesn't make any sense. I keep thinking about all the little shit, you know? The fucking noises he makes in he sleep and the way his eyelashes look against his cheek and this scar he has right underneath his ribs." Travis snorts, and the sound is anything but delicate. His shoulders shake, and Jon is scowling up until he looks into Travis's eyes. "What? Shut the fuck up, dude. What. What are you laughing about? I told you it was fucking stupid shit. Who the fuck thinks about the sounds their boyfriend makes when he sleeps anyway?"
Jon's got a second of ignorance before the door's getting pushed open and Sisky's coming in. He's the newest pledge, and the youngest of the entire group they'd gotten, but he fits in really well. Better than Jon himself had, when he'd first gotten there, eighteen and secretly terrified of being away from home again, even though home was only an hour and a handful of subway stops away.
"Boyfriend, dude? What, you and that Urie kid?" He asks, just curious, and it's not like. It's not like Jon was completely unaware of the things he was saying. It's not like he's a complete idiot. Jon feels heat rush across his cheeks, a hundred thousand words stuttering to a halt on his tongue. He wants to say yes and he wants to scream no and he wants to go back to the days when it was nice and easy and hidden, just fucking, and if there was anything more than that it was all too easy to sweep away and pretend it wasn't anything.
"Well, Jonny?" Travis raises an eyebrow and, fuck, Jon has seen that knowing look in his eyes way too many times. It's the look that says he sees something completely and utterly obvious that you're just too dense to realize.
Jon isn't fucking dense and he isn't gay.
Siska drops his bag down by the door and folds his arms across his chest, head cocked to the side so a few of his utterly ridiculous curls fall across his face. "Yeah, Jon?"
He shoots them both a look that's meant to be withering, but probably only comes out as deer in the headlights scared, before turning on his heel and running up the stairs. He slams the door to his room hard enough for the door to groan on the hinges. The sheets smell like Brendon's skin and when Brendon comes back two hours later, flexing his fingers, making discontent noises about piano exercises meant to rip tendons to shreds, Jon pushes him down into the sheets and fucks him hard enough for Brendon cry out in pleasure edged with something more.
--
William has an on-again, off-again girlfriend who's the pledge coordinator at Gamma Nu, commonly known as The Lovely Christine around the house. Jon isn't particularly fond of her one way or another, but Travis makes himself scarce whenever he knows she's coming by, so Jon and Brendon are on breakfast duty when she stumbles downstairs, rubbing last night's mascara into her skin and grinning at them blearily.
"Mmm," she says as Jon hands her a mug of coffee, the hem of Bill's tee shirt riding high on her thighs. "Thanks, babe." She's pretty, and she's very Bill, who's down a few minutes later, winding himself around her back and very pointedly not asking where Trav and his momma's pancakes are hiding.
"Hello, little Urie," Bill says when he straightens and Brendon waves a hand out in back of him, face mashed into the skin of Jon's shoulder, pressing tiny little kisses there when no one can see. "Jonny Walker," Christine's voice isn't particularly nasal or screeching, but Jon still winces when she starts to speak. "Who's your friend?"
Jon blinks, and he can feel Brendon straightening and sliding away, even though his movements are sluggish, and they haven't been detached from each other's skin in more than twelve hours. He forgets sometimes, in easy the moments, he forgets what they're not.
"I'm Brendon," he says, leaning against the counter and raking a hand through his hair. It sticks up even further, twisting in points and clumps on top of his head. "Nice to meet you." His glasses have slipped down on his nose and Brendon pushes them back up worrying his teeth into his bottom lip.
"Are you a pledge?" Christine asks, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "I thought I'd met all the brothers. Or do you just belong to Jon?"
Jon flushes, heat rushing out across his checks and neck and Brendon goes still, drumming his fingers on his thigh. "I -- "
"He's just a friend, Christine," Jon mumbles and Brendon goes too still. "Yeah," he smiles and something hard and cold and heavy sinks Jon's stomach. "I'm just a friend."
--
Brendon doesn't look at Jon through breakfast, and he doesn't talk to Jon on the short trip up the stairs to their -- his room, and even when Jon grabs his wrist and Brendon's eyes and mouth go slack, even as he's letting Jon push him back against the mattress, even as he's letting Jon lick his skin, even as his dick is going hard against Jon's stomach as he pushes inside, even as, he's somewhere else. Jon comes, but it's ripped out as a consequence, weak as it crests over his hand.
Brendon doesn't come at all.
Jon falls asleep curled up next to him, pressing his lips against the curve of his neck. Brendon is malleable under Jon's hands, but not pliant, and when Jon wakes up, he's alone.
--
It takes a week for Brendon to pick up the phone, and Jon calls every day, five times a day, and he understands that Brendon's pissed, he even understands why Brendon's pissed, but that doesn't stop him from getting frustrated too.
He'd thought they were past this. When Brendon does answer, his voice is scratchy and low, like he'd just rolled over and thumbed his phone on without even looking at the view screen. "'lo?" Jon can just see him, stretched out against his mattress, an arm thrown over his eyes to keep the sunlight out.
"Brendon," Jon breathes, because he can't do anything else. He can't say I'm sorry and he can't say I love you and he can't say I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, so he doesn't. "This is probably for the best." he whispers and closes his eyes keep the tears in.
He doesn't succeed.
--
Jon is fine, he's fucking fine, no matter what Travis says with his sidelong looks and Tom with his suggestion that maybe Jon needs to cut down a little bit on the beer. It's not like that and it's not like he's stopped going to Anthro at all because the professor's voice turns to white noise against the slope of Brendon's shoulder hunched over his notebook.
It's a Friday afternoon and Jon's done for the day, after faking his way through a Calc test he didn't study for.
He wants to get back to the house and bust out the hard liquor, the bottles of vodka and bourbon and whiskey Tom keeps lined along the top of the kitchen cabinets like some kind of weird ass decoration. He wants to get rip roaringly drunk and being completely out of it for the weekend, so he can pass forty-eight hours without thinking about Brendon.
Of course, because some cosmic force governing the universe hates him, he rounds a corner and fucking slams into someone, someone who lets out a startled oof, too familiar, and nearly falls over.
"Bren," Jon exhales.
Brendon looks like shit, eyes heavily shadowed with dark circles, hiding in jeans big enough to be legitimately considered baggy and a giant sweatshirt gotten God knows where.
"Jon." Brendon goes still, pulling his books to his chest. "Hey."
He wants to touch, more than anything he wants to reach out and pull Brendon to his chest and not ever fucking let him go again. He can't, though, he can't.
"Brendon." Jon blinks hard and clears his throat. "Do you want to come back to the house?"
Brendon pauses, inhales and exhales. "Yes, please."
--
It hurts, not even because Jon's never. Jon wants this. Jon wants this, even though it's not something they talk about.
The thing is, they don't talk.
There's no one in the den when they come in, single file like they're kids in class, not touching, barely breathing. Jon's eyes are burning, and his throat is tight, breaths coming out staggered because he can't actually believe that Brendon's letting him close again.
He's the one who makes the decision when they climb the stairs up to his room, shrugging off his shirt and tossing it in the mammoth pile of unwashed laundry already on the floor. He unbuttons his pants, but doesn't do any more than that, laying face down on the bed, leaving the decision to Brendon.
The first touch isn't gentle.
Brendon fucks Jon like he has something to prove, a message to burn into Jon's skin with his finger and teeth and hands. He starts with two fingers and Jon keens because it's nothing like the low burn Brendon once murmured about when he asked in the early hours of the morning, it's not easy. It hurts, but it's right and Jon pushes back.
"Do you like this?" Brendon growls and he sounds like he's either going to scream or cry and something twists painfully in Jon's chest.
There's three then and it passes beyond the line of too much, but Jon still can't, still won't, tell Brendon to stop. He's lived with his chest tied in a hundred thousand knots and he can't keep going like that.
Brendon settles his knees on either side of Jon's hips and sinks down in hard snap of his hips, fingers tight enough to leave blue black bruises on Jon's ribs. It's not easy, the stutter of Brendon's hips, skin slapping together in a wet, whispered slipdslide.
"I don't understand this," Brendon gasps, forehead pressed between Jon's shoulder blades. "JonWalker. Fuck."
He comes buried deep, letting out a groan that sounds torn from his chest and wrenched from his very fucking being. Jon cants his hips into the sheets and shakes and shudders through his own climax, hating how much he wants Brendon, how much he likes being able to almost feel Brendon's heart pounding in his chest.
"We can go back to this," Brendon says, voice shaking, breaking. "We can go back." Brendon's voice is hoarse, and he's pressing his face against the back of Jon's neck, sweat and tears mixing against Jon's skin. It feels like Jon's skin is being torn apart, Brendon's weight heavy against his back, even though he's all of six pounds soaking wet.
"Bren, I want -- "
Brendon snuffles against his skin, and the sound is so familiar that Jon has to grit his teeth against it. "JonWalker, I can't, okay? Not. It hurts, not being. With you, I mean, it hurts, so. I mean. We can, until we don't, and then we find something new, we do this until we find something better, and then it won't matter anymore." Jon's got to close his eyes because it hurts, it hurts to think that one day he won't matter to Brendon.
He's pretty sure Brendon will always matter to him.
"Or," he grits out and the thing is, he's still inside of Jon, thick, but softening, and Jon's shaking, he's shaking so hard, needing to hear what's next. Only having Brendon like this isn't an option anymore. He can't. "Or what, Bren?" He pushes his hips back, wishing Brendon wouldn't move, even as he's starting to pull away. "Or," he whispers, voice almost lost in the darkness. "Or we actually do this." He waves his hand around, glasses askew on his nose. "You know, the whole thing."
There aren't any words, and Jon can't answer.
--
Brendon leaves without one, just his offer on the table and a chaste kiss to Jon's temple. "Think about it," he says and Jon doesn't know if he's that strong.
He cleans up, showers and changes, grabs a beer from the fridge and goes out onto the back porch as the sun sinks down, casting long purple shadows. The end of the semester's in sight and Jon feels change itching beneath his skin as he pops the cap and takes a long swallow. He's been drunk to much lately, that much he knows, but he doesn't want oblivion, just something to ease the buzzing in the back of his mind.
The screen door slides open and bangs closed and Jon expects to see Travis lanky frame slide into his peripheral vision, eternally calm and unnaturally wise for a twenty-two year old. Tom dropping down next to him with a beer of his own, half drunk and sweating against the glass side, is unexpected and Jon doesn't know whether to tense or exhale. They've been the same, but different since Brendon came, okay, but emphatically not.
"You working on another bender, Jonny?" Tom asks and the nickname rings comfortingly familiar.
He knocks back a long swallow and sets the bottle aside. "No. Just thinking."
Tom chuckles, low and wry, and drains his, tossing it into the bushes with a dull clank as it lands among the others that have been tossed off the porch. "That shit's dangerous. What the hell are you thinking about?"
The curve of Brendon's spine. The drag of his callused fingertips down the line of Jon's sternum. The way his face lit up when they walked into the diner of the thing that was kind of a date, depending on which way you looked at it. "Brendon," Jon says with a hitch of his shoulders. Tom's face goes tight for a split second, but it's gone before Jon can blink, carefully rearranged to practiced neutrality. "What about him?"
"He wants to be an us." Jon waves his hand and huffs out a laugh. The words feel tangled and unfamiliar on the back of his tongue, boyfriend and lover, and none of them feel right because it's not about that, it's about Brendon. "I don't know. I'm gonna fuck this up."
Tom snorts. "I'm pretty sure you already fucked it up, Jonny-boy. The question is what you do now."
Jon picks up his beer and raises and eyebrow, taking another swallow that goes down cool and right, spreading out along his veins. "Thank you, kemosabi. And what would you do?"
"Fuck." Tom laughs and tips his head back, hair ruffled by the light wind. "Hell, if I know, Jonny, I'm a fuck up and and asshole and everyone knows that. I drink too much and I fuck around and I don't call in the morning. I have quickies in bathrooms I don't remember in the morning and I'm the kind of guy parents warn their daughters to stay away from. I cause problems, I don't fix them."
"And?" Jon raises and eyebrow. "That doesn't answer my question, Tommy."
"If I ever find my Brendon," Tom says, waving his hand around when Jon raises a brow. "You know what I meant, asshole. If I ever find someone who makes me look half as dumb as you do when you look at that kid? I sure as hell won't let them just walk away. Even I'm not that fucked up."
He ruffles Jon's hair and stands, goes back inside, and leaves Jon the first stars beginning to wink into light.
--
It's a quarter to five in the morning, and Jon has his first final in three hours, but he can't quite manage to get his eyes closed. Tom's passed out in his bed a few feet over, snores comforting in the silence, but not enough to settle the itch in Jon's skin.
He's pretty sure he's imagining it when his phone starts to vibrate against the wood of the nightstand, pretty sure he's going crazy when Brendon's name flashes, but he picks up anyway, on the off chance that this isn't a dream; on the off chance that he hasn't lost his mind. "Hello?" Tom mumbles something in his sleep, but his eyes stay closed, and Jon's been rooming with him long enough to know it doesn't mean a damn thing.
"JonWalker, hey," Brendon says, and Jon can clearly hear him gulp. He sits up, pushing the sheets down around his hips and slipping out of the room, sitting down a few steps on the landing, head buried in his hands, because even listening to Brendon breathe on the line is better than anything he's heard for days.
"Hey," he says, and his voice comes out on a cough; he can't keep the rasp away from it. He probably sounds demented, probably sounds like he has a head cold, but Brendon doesn't comment on it, and Jon's too tired to make the appropriate weak joke that would settle quite nicely right along here. "Hey, Brendon, I -- "
"So the thing is, JonWalker," the words are coming out in a rush, and something tight clenches in his chest. "The thing is, I've been sitting on the Theta Xi green for the past like," there's a shuffling sound for a second, and then Brendon is back, breathing heavy. "For the past like, four hours? And I've been staring up at your window, and I've been staring and wishing I could be in there, and JonWalker," he's mumbling now, voice slurred. Jon drops his phone on the stairs as he runs down them, and even when he's across the room, he can hear Brendon's soft mumblings.
He's sitting exactly where he said he was, and Jon can't breathe. He's still mumbling into his phone, and as Jon starts across the green, he can see Brendon's lips forming the shape of his name. "JonWalker," he blinks up, looking at Jon as he'd appeared out of nowhere. "JonWalker, I am a little drunk." He grins, and his smile is a little loose at the edges, a little fragile, but it's still the prettiest thing Jon's ever seen.
"That's okay, Bren," he settles down next to him on the wet grass, far enough away so that their shoulders aren't brushing, but close enough that he can hear every breath Brendon takes.
They're quiet so long that little patches of the raising sun start to peek in through the cloud-hazy horizon. "What are you doing here?" Jon asks, because the silence is nice, it's even nicer when he can focus on Brendon's warmth. Brendon's got his bottom lip tucked up under his teeth, and his eyes are huge.
"You make. Things are fuzzy," Brendon says, brow furrowed. Jon's never heard him sound so young before. "In my brain, JonWalker. You make the buzzing stop." He shakes his head and Jon is pretty sure he's probably more than a little drunk. "Just. Just being near you."
Jon hisses out a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding. "Brendon -- " Brendon's shaking his head, and his eyes look lucid.
"No. I know you didn't. I love you, okay? I love you and I you don't. I mean. Sex is sex, and sex is awesome! I like sex, but. But I love you, and you don't. I mean, you don't, but you don't have to pretend, I love you, you know? I love you, and I can't. I can't. We can," he pauses for a second as he waves his hand and for the first time in five minutes, Jon breathes. "We can go back to that. But." He turns towards Jon now, eyes huge, lip bitten again. "But. I love you. And I wanted you to know that someone did. Does."
Jon inhales and exhales, counting the beats of his heart because he's not this lucky. "I don't know what I'm doing," Jon says and Brendon smiles, huffing out an easy laugh. "I never know what I'm doing, JonWalker, I just do it and hope it works out."
"Does it work out?" Jon slides his arm around Brendon's shoulders and pulls him close, pressing his nose to the crown of Brendon's hair. "Does it, Bren?"
Brendon hums in the back of his throat. "Yeah."
Jon breathes in Brendon's scent and memorizes the feel of his body in Jon's arms, warm and pliant and there. "I love you, Bren." Brendon's eyes go wide behind his glasses, and Jon tries to keep his breathing steady. He doesn't loosen his grip but Brendon's not squirming, either.
"You don't -- " the night catches his words and takes them, his lips are parted enough that the only logical solution is to kiss him. "I know," Jon whispers against his mouth, hands moving up to tangle in his hair, to keep him close. "But I do."
Brendon's grin is huge and bright and vibrant and he lays back with Jon as he settles against the grass, settling an arm across his waist.
Pink and blue streak across an inky sky and they watch the day start over.
END