That there love meme
A couple weeks ago I did a meme, an "everybody falls in love" meme, where people told me pairings and I told them how the individuals in question fell in love. Some people got creative with the pairings, and I did my best. I'm not done with all of the answers, but I figured I've got enough right now to batch together and repost. So! Rough stuff, etc. etc.
AJ/JC (popslash):
AJ has just broken off with his third long-term relationship Post Sobriety, and he just, he just doesn't know what he's doing wrong. Like, his ladies keep cheating on him, and his gentlemen keep telling him he's sweet but they just need other things out of the relationship (and secretly he thinks they're cheating on him too, they're just better at hiding it), and so he decides that he needs to clear his mind, gain some distance from everything. Nick comes around for dinner one night, bringing along his newest woman, a little thing who wears a lot of wooden bracelets and has long curly brown hair and giggles a lot, and she spends the dinner talking about her experiences at this spiritual retreat she just got back from, while Nick nods and says, "Sure, baby, sure," and playing with the strap on her tank top. AJ tries not to stare down her shirt, even though he can see the see-through edge of her bra whenever she leans over to emphasize a point, but by the end of the evening, he knows one thing. Spiritual cleansing is so the way to go.
He's got it all planned out, he thinks while he rolls up his socks and adds in some underwear and then, what the hell, a couple strips of condoms and some lube, because if opportunity comes a-knocking, AJ won't be the one to turn it away. He's going to go to this retreat, he's going to get away from his familiar surroundings and really examine what he wants in his life and in his relationships. He's going to get himself centered. Yeah. He can see it already. It'll be great. Fabulous. "Fantastic," he mutters, pointing at himself in the mirror. Yeah.
It's a total shock when he looks around at the first class, the one about harnessing your chi or whatever, and there's JC standing across the room in a pair of loose, light pink pants, making the big circle motions with his arms. AJ loses his balance right when he's crouched down and almost falls over straightening up, and has to take a big step forward to catch himself. When he's shuffled himself back in line, squinted at the instructor at the front who is telling them in a soothing murmur to feel the energy flowing in their muscles, and then darted a glance at JC, JC is looking at him.
This is not what AJ calls getting away from it all. But, hey, no need to be unfriendly, right? Also, damn, the guy can pull off a pair of light pink yoga pants. AJ sketches a little salute, and JC's lips do this weird pressed-together frowny thing before his face smoothes out and he smiles really big and obviously fakely, like he's in front of cameras at a red carpet event, and AJ thinks that maybe he's not the only one who wanted to get away from the familiar.
So, AJ shakes it off, finishes the rest of the class, and spends the break time chatting about his dogs with the pretty lady on his right, who apparently owns a pet-grooming business. Thank God for Southern California, is all AJ can say. Yeah. He doesn't need to make this retreat an aging popstar hangout. JC can have all the space he wants, see if AJ cares.
JC comes up to him, though, at lunch the next day. AJ is poking sadly at his tofu-scramble with sun-dried tomatoes, basil, and cheese on a spelt flour tortilla.
"Hey," JC says, sliding his plate next to AJ's.
"Oh," AJ says. "Hey, dawg." He thinks maybe he was supposed to say hi after all, so he says, "Hey, sorry, I thought we were pretending not to know each other. How you doin', man?"
"What?" JC says, looking confused, but he looks pretty good confused, so AJ doesn't mind. "Nah, no, what. Why would we do that?"
AJ shrugs. "You looked pretty unhappy to see me. I'm just saying, it's cool, I'm kinda trying to get away from it all, too."
"Oh," JC says, looking down at his plate. "Sorry. About that. I can leave if you--" He makes to get up, and AJ pounds his fist lightly on JC's shoulder.
"Sit. Stay," he says. "Hey. Why don't we start over?" He clears his throat, scraping his hand through the air like he's capturing something and throwing it away, and JC starts to smile just a little around his eyes. "All right. Hey, JC, buddy! Damn, man, I can't believe I ran into you in this here spi-rit-ual retreat. That's amazing! How the hell are you?" JC starts grinning and breaks into laughter at the end, and AJ smiles.
JC shakes his head, saying, "You're something else, McLean," and AJ winks at him.
"Baby, I'm an original," AJ says, his fist resting casually on the back of JC's chair. His knuckles are touching JC's back through his shirt, and he can feel the sharp ridges of JC's spine through the fabric, like he hasn’t been eating enough.
JC relaxes after that, and they talk through the rest of the break. JC's attractive, but AJ notices the other things, the shadows under his brilliant eyes, the way his shoulders seem to want to slouch in unless he holds himself rigidly erect, and AJ finds himself touching more, pats on the back, arm thrown over shoulder. Safe touches. They get to talking late one night over cups of the retreat center's home-made chai tea, swapping tales of love and loss, and it's almost like looking in the mirror, AJ thinks.
"I thought for sure I'd be married by thirty," AJ says, and JC nods.
"I was gonna," JC says quietly. "I mean, not the before thirty thing, 'cause that ain't going to happen without a time machine, but. Yeah. I was going to."
AJ coughs. He wants to ask, but he's not sure if he wants to know for the right reasons at all. "What happened?" he hears himself asking.
JC twitches his shoulder, but he looks relieved, like he wanted AJ to ask. "You know," he says, looking up. He fakes a smile. "Came home from a trip early. She wasn't, ah. Alone, if you know what I mean."
AJ shakes his head. "Not smart. That's what I say. Fucking idiot."
His response startles JC into laughter. "Yeah," he says after a time, voice sounding rough around the edges, and AJ just sits there, patient. "I guess you're right."
"Hey," AJ says. "I just call 'em like I see 'em. Cheating on you? Zero." He releases his cup to form a circle with his hand.
"Yeah," JC says, staring down at his cup.
"Hey." AJ reaches out and touches the turned down corner of JC's mouth. "Look at me. Look." JC looks up. "Fuck her. Fuck 'em all, okay, all of them that don't know, that want to use you. They're not worth it."
JC doesn't say anything, eyes tracing some inward topography, but AJ knows this, he knows it's true, and he wants JC to know it too.
"Okay?" AJ presses.
JC shakes his head, and AJ opens his mouth to say something else, because AJ can marshal a million arguments for this one, and he's just waiting for JC to ask, but then JC says softly, "Okay," and AJ sits back, satisfied.
"Hey, though," JC says, and his hand circles AJ's wrist on the table, fingers strong and warm on AJ's skin. "You too, McLean."
"I," AJ says, and then he runs out of words, and JC is just sitting there, a crooked, genuine half-smile on his face, and they are practically holding hands. He swallows, closing his eyes, and then he opens them and JC is still there. "Okay," AJ says. "Okay."
*
Frank/Patrick (bandslash):
It's just one of those stupid moments little moments where Frank's out with his boys, they have both bands together after one of those radio concerts where a million fucking bands end up playing like three songs each, which in general kind of sucks except in the way that Frank gets to spend time watching Patrick onstage and vice versa. Anyway, the hard work is over, the press has been done, and he's just out chilling. Their group has taken over three booths in the back corner, and people keep getting up and moving from table to table. Mikey's kneeling on his knees on the padded bench to Frankie's left, twisted around to lean over the back of the booth to gossip with Joe about something, and when Frank looks across the table at the booth opposite him, Gerard and Andy are deep into a conversation about comics that Frank isn't touching with a ten-foot pole.
And Patrick. Patrick is on Frank's right. Frank has his arm slung over the back of the booth, fingertips brushing Patrick's shoulder, and every time they do, Patrick looks over at him and smiles a little, and it's like a game, how much Frank can get away with. He tips his head down, watching Patrick through his eyelashes, grinning, and Patrick reaches up and captures his fingers, shaking them a little bit, before letting go to illustrate his point in the argument he's making about why American Beauty was overrated.
"Yo, Frank," Gerard says, voice cutting easily across the crowd, and Frank looks up. "What was the name of that book about worms? Like, the maggots eating the back of the dude's head?"
"Maggots?" Frank asks, momentarily clueless, and then, "The Dante Club?"
"Dante club," Gerard says, pointing at Andy. "Yeah, with that Victoriana thing going on," and then Frank officially doesn't care again, and he turns back to Patrick, who has turned a little, settling more firmly into the arc of Frank's arm. He feels solid there, good, and Frank thinks that he pretty much always will. Frank brushes his hand down the curve of Patrick's shoulder, fingers tracing the line of his t-shirt sleeve, and Patrick looks over and smiles.
*
Bob Bryar/Joey Fatone (bandslash/popslash):
So, Brian's like the only one who knows this, because he's the only one who has ever actually looked at Bob's resume, but Bob actually did a stint roadying for one of the early NSYNC US tours as a sound technician. It was during college, on summer break, and he took the job because one of his older friends had a connection and told him it'd give him good experience, and so Bob nodded and said, "Yeah, okay, I'll apply," thinking that at least it'd give him something to laugh about later.
So he applied and he got the job and it was just for a couple months, but he found out that he really liked touring. He liked touring, and he was good at it, good at his job, and the other guys were good, all these older burly tattooed guys who could tell stories of working tours for crazy bands like Aerosmith and one guy even worked for the Stones, and, really, for the first two weeks, Bob didn't even really pay attention to the guys in the actual band. They were kind of soft-looking and wore really fucking weird outfits onstage. A couple of them were definitely pretty, and they made the little girls scream. He was glad he had his headset.
One night, though, the guy supervising him turned over some of the monitors to him, and he ended up with NSYNC singing directly into his ears. The songs sucked, but the voices weren't bad at all, and he started fiddling with the levels a little to make them clearer. One of the dudes (he squinted at the taped label on the board: Joey) looked over at him and winked briefly before going down on his knees and touching some girl's hand.
After the performance, Joey stopped by when Bob was unhooking some cables and spooling them. Joey had a white towel thrown over his shoulder, still dressed in the white shorts and undershirt Bob had kept seeing as the guys did their quick-change routines.
"Hey, I'm Joey," the guy said, offering his hand, and then clapped Bob on the shoulder. "Had me sounding good out there, man. I appreciate it."
"Not a problem," Bob said. "That's my job." He didn't mention that this was the first time he'd actually done it.
"I appreciate it," Joey repeated, grinning, before moving on to asking when Bob had joined the tour, and then somehow they got to talking about Chicago and Bob's life plans, before Joey got shepherded away by an assistant and Bob went back to loading up.
After that, Joey always called, "Bry-ar!" whenever he saw him, and Bob would yell back, "Fat-one!" like they were football players on the teams neither of them even liked in high school. Joey was a good guy. He'd come down every once in a while to the crew buses to play games of poker and never seemed to mind when the cardsharps scalped him, and Bob appreciated his sense of humor.
They hung out a little bit, or at least, that’s what Bob defined it in his mind because that was really what it felt like, Joey saying, “Hey, I got that new kung fu movie, Crouching Squirrel, whatever?” and Bob saying, “Oh, rad, I’ve been meaning to check that out,” and then they’d watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in Joey’s hotel room, and sometimes the other guys were around, and sometimes they weren’t.
Joey had absolutely godawful taste in music, but he’d make up stupid little joke songs as a tribute to popcorn commercials or new shoes or his favorite brand of cereal on the room service menu and belt them out in a high falsetto. That’s what he was doing one Thursday afternoon that happened to be Bob’s day off, when Bob looked down and realized that Joey had his heavily-muscled calves slung over Bob’s lap, and Bob was beating a rhythm on Joey’s shins with his fingers, and that wasn’t exactly the straightest behavior ever. Joey looked over when Bob stopped drumming, shifting his legs down, and then Bob thought, fuck it, because what did he have to lose, really? He put his hand on Joey’s knee.
“Yeah?” he said.
Joey looked at him and grinned his goofy smile, eyes crinkling at the corners, and then he said, “Yeah,” and slid over on the couch, and they necked until Joey had beard-burn down his jaw and Bob’s shirt was pushed up to his arms and they weren’t so much vertical on the couch as horizontal, and then Bob put his hand on Joey’s belt buckle and Joey said, “Fuck yeah,” and that was that.
At the end of the summer, though, Bob had to go, had to head back to college and end this weird, amazing break from real life, and he knew without even really needing to think about it at all that he was also ending this thing with Joey. They didn’t talk about it, though. Joey said, “Hey, look, new Spiderman,” and Bob said, “MJ’s so dreamy,” and then they both went back to work, and it wasn’t until after Joey had begged a car from one of the assistants and they were at the airport with all of Bob’s bags that Joey stopped, not meeting Bob’s eyes.
“Hey. Hey,” Joey said. “Give me your home number, your email address. I’ll keep in touch.”
Bob snorted, shaking his head. “You won’t, man.”
Joey didn’t say anything, rubbing at his elbow. He sighed, then, and met Bob’s eyes. “I’ll mean to.”
“Your manager would kill you if you stayed in touch,” Bob said, half-joking. He squinted down at his feet, then looked up. “It’s fine. No, hey, it’s fine. You’re a good guy, okay, a great guy, but I gotta go.”
“Yeah,” Joey said, and his smiling eyes looked sad for one of the first times in Bob’s memory. They looked at each other, and then Bob wasn’t sure who even moved first, but they stumbled in and hugged each other, and Bob kissed him on the cheek once, twice.
“Hey,” Bob whispered in Joey’s ear. “Train up your new guy good, okay? Make him keep you sounding good,” scrubbing his hand roughly through Joey’s hair, and Joey nodded, ducking his head down into Bob’s shoulder, and he didn’t look like a popstar at all.
They separated, then, and Bob bent and shouldered his duffel. He turned and walked toward the entrance, and was almost at the sliding glass doors he heard Joey shout, “Bry-ar!” behind him, and he shook his head and laughed. When he turned around, Joey was standing at the driver’s side door, waving like a fool, grinning sunshine on Bob’s skin.
Bob yelled, “Get back to work!” and Joey waved one more time before sliding into the car and shutting the door, then merging smoothly into the stream of departing traffic, and Bob stepped forward into the open doors, on his way back home.
*
William/Jon (bandslash):
William fell in love with Jon when they were wee young things on the Chicago scene, and they'd meet up on street corners in large groups of friends and head on in to shows together and then push and shove and sweat and jump and afterwards head out to a diner somewhere to have burgers at midnight before William had to split off to try and sneak back into his house at 1 am. He fell in love one night when they were talking about being in bands. William's band had just fallen apart for the fifth time and the lead guitarist, in leaving, had hissed, "Well, what the fuck do you expect, with your shitty lyrics?" and William was just feeling rather bruised about it all, and maybe like this band thing wasn't entirely all it was cracked up to be. Maybe he ought to become an artist.
"Like, pottery," William said. "I saw this thing--"
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Jon said.
"There was a program," William said. He stabbed at his stack of pancakes.
"Nah," Jon said. "If you like music, stick with music. Do that. Fuck everybody else." He shrugged. "That's just what I think."
"But it's just that you put so much of yourself out there. It's like. You know, you open a can of beans and people are like, no. I don't want your beans."
"Bill," Jon said, and William made a face. "Bill, I don't want your beans."
"Fuck off," William said. "It was, I was speaking metaphorically, all right, the beans were a metaphor to capture my inner self. That, that gift I want to share with the world. You know what, I don't want you to have my beans."
"I've changed my mind," Jon said solemnly, capturing William's waving hand. "I do want your beans." He slid out of his seat and down on one knee on the filthy linoleum floor, still holding William's hand. "Please, man. Please give me your beans."
"Fuck off," William said, flushing, but starting to laugh anyway. Jon stood up and retook his seat, letting go of William's hand and dusting off his knee.
"See," Jon said. "You don't want to become a potter."
"Well, what about you?" William asked.
Jon tilted his head. "I'm gonna be in a band."
"But what if it doesn't work?"
Jon shrugged. "I'll be in another one."
"But--"
"Bill," Jon said. "It doesn't matter how many I'm in. I'll still want to be in another one. I dunno. I know that."
"But what if things change," William said.
"I guess they just won't be able to." Jon said.
"I don't know," William said, plucking at his paper napkin.
"That's okay," Jon said. "I do."
*
Brendon/Jon (bandslash):
Brendon's told the story of meeting Jon a million times, the way Brendon started singing "A Whole New World" and Jon chimed in with the Princess Jasmine part in a wicked falsetto. "And then," Brendon would say, throwing his arm over Jon's shoulder, or draping himself across Jon's back, or plucking at Jon's beard, "and then, I fell in love." He usually contorts his face or fake cries or something and ends up in Jon's lap, with Jon making to shove him off. Sometimes Jon coos, "I love you too, honeybun," because Jon is good like that.
The thing is, Brendon kind of means it. He'd been having a shitty day. Spencer had yelled at him twice and Ryan wasn't speaking to him at all. He suspected the two were connected, because Brendon had insulted Ryan's backing vocals during a really trying rehearsal session in one of the venue bathrooms by saying, "Could you sound any flatter, Ryan? Jesus. The note is here." Seriously, Ryan and Spencer were like thirteen-year-old girls sometimes. It got old. But, yeah, not one of his finer moments, he's willing to admit it. Even if Ryan had been flat as fuck.
Anyway, the point is, things weren't going so hot, and then Brendon had been wandering around the dressing room getting ready for the night's show and trying not to let the sullen silence in the room get him down when William walked in with his arm around a new guy, saying something about showing the guy the world.
Brendon couldn't help himself. He started singing, still threading his tie around his collar, ignoring the glares coming from Ryan, Spencer, and Brent. What, he was warming up, okay. Patrick Stump went around singing any damn thing before shows, Brendon was just following the grand tradition. He was doing good, too, with vibrato and shit, and only hitting a sour note occasionally even as he lifted his chin in the mirror and started knotting his tie. It got to the female part, and Brendon was getting ready to break into his falsetto when someone else got there first. He looked away from the mirror, and it was the new guy.
They sang through half the song before they fucked up the words, Brendon dancing over with his hands extended, leaving the tie still half-tied around his neck, and then the new guy said, "Sorry dude, I don't know the rest," and Brendon had thought that he didn't care, this guy was staying.
"You're a man who knows his Disney!" Brendon proclaimed, and the guy had chuckled a little and William introduced them, and, really, it's a good thing Jon ended up being so awesome, because Brendon has been a little in love ever since.
*
Joe/Spencer (bandslash):
So it started out, and Joe just thought that Spencer liked him. Like, as a friend. He'd kind of hang around whenever Fall Out Boy and Panic were in the same place and talk to Joe about movies and rap music and the best type of fruit roll-up, and all of those things were pretty cool to Joe, too, so Joe figured they had a pretty good friendship going. Every once in a while, Joe would get a text message like, ryan says bill&ted lame. back me up here. best movie or bestest movie? and Joe would text back, duh, clearly superior. tell ryan he can suck my cock. It was a pretty sweet friendship, if Joe could say so himself.
Andy hid the soul of a yenta under his thin vegan veneer, though, and after another Fall Out Boy-Panic meeting where Pete and Ryan split off in one direction and Patrick, Brendon, and Jon split off in another while Spencer stayed behind with Joe, Andy elbowed Joe in the head as Joe and Spencer sat on the carpet, leaning against the couch, playing videogames. When Joe craned his head back, he saw Andy nodding significantly at Spencer.
Joe gave him the upside down eyebrow of, "I'm not psychic, dumbass," and went back to trying to beat Spencer's guy, but he kind of knew what Andy was saying anyway, and it only got clearer when Andy flicked Joe in the back of the head and then wandered out of the room, closing the door firmly behind him.
Joe and Spencer sat there, just playing video games, and the thing was, whatever, sometimes friendship was just friendship, right? Joe wasn't going to, like, read shit into stuff that wasn't there. That wasn't cool. Though, Joe liked Spencer. He was pretty smoking, but in a more real way than Brendon, and wasn't as bony as Ryan. Joe wouldn't, you know, say no, or anything. Joe was so busy thinking about it that instead of getting Spencer's guy, Spencer actually got his guy.
"Fuck," Joe said, surprised. Spencer laughed, then crossed his legs under him so that he was sitting with his thigh pressed against Joe's. Joe slid his eyes over to look at Spencer, but Spencer was just staring at the screen, eyes narrowed, and then he said:
"Another?"
"Sure," Joe said.
Two rounds later, Spencer set the controller down. They'd been talking about their actual favorite cities to tour were, as opposed to the answers they gave to magazines and radio stations, and Joe had just finished describing this awesome pinball machine in one random bar in a tiny town in Pennsylvania when Spencer tapped twice on the ground and then said, "So. Hey," and then didn't say anything else.
"Hay is for horses, dude," Joe said after a suitably long interval, and then he laughed.
Spencer gave him a tolerant smile. "Yeah, no. Um." And then Spencer leaned in, and Joe thought, hey, what, and then Spencer kissed him.
"Oh," Joe said when Spencer pulled back.
"So, yeah," Spencer said, twisting his fingers in the hem of his t-shirt, but not looking away. "That's, um, what. That might be good, I was thinking. If you wanted. To."
"Oh," Joe said, impressed by the sheer guts of this kid. Spencer's face fell a little, and he looked down then, shirt edge cutting a white line in his finger, and Joe put out his hand hastily, closing over Spencer's hand, and said, "Oh, hey, no, yeah. Good idea. Great idea."
Spencer started to smile, still looking down at Joe's hand covering his, and he said, "Bestest idea?"
"Absolutely," Joe said, and then they were kissing for real, and Spencer's hand was moving from his own lap to Joe's lap, and that was fucking awesome.
They fucked around for most of that day, and Joe got to see Spencer when he was laughing, on his back on the bed, with his hair tumbled over his forehead as Joe rubbed his scruffy cheek across Spencer's quaking stomach, the skin soft and warm against Joe's lips.
It was even great afterwards, when they had to split to go their separate ways, because Spencer emailed Joe with wacky video clips and Joe emailed back with factoids about llamas or trivia on obscure metal bands or laffy taffy jokes, and then when they met up again it was like that day in the hotel, except they had even more time, and Joe started picking up the places Spencer really liked, and Spencer figured out this one trick with his tongue on Joe's dick that made Joe literally see spots.
Then, afterwards they could play videogames. Seriously, there was no bad here.
He and Pete actually talked about it, joking about Joe's stumble into the "manlove," but then Joe said the thing about the videogames, and Pete got this look on his face like he was reevaluating certain life decisions, and Joe said, smugly, "See?" and Pete said, "Fuck, shut up."
Their thing was necessarily intermittent, though, what with touring and everything, and Joe didn't really mind it, partially because Spencer didn't seem to, and also, because it made when they did get to see each other special. Yeah, Joe said it. Special. It was like a birthday present, with sex.
But then Joe had a month off from Fall Out Boy stuff, and Panic was recording in LA, and so Joe went down to hang out for a week. Spencer let him crash in his room, and even though Joe had really had his fill of crappy LA apartments, he found himself pushing off his departure date, and pushing off his departure date. He liked being able to wake up with Spencer, to just roll over and say in his scratchy morning voice, "so I had this dream, and there was this ant who, like, turned into a butterfly and then read me a kid's story," and have Spencer say sleepily, "What was the story?" He even liked it when Spencer stayed up too late and turned into a mini Oscar the Grouch. He found it hilarious, and kind of cute.
He was lying in bed playing with a wrinkle in the sheets with his toes while Spencer drooled on the pillow next to him, and he started counting back, and realized that it had been over a year since Joe had slept with anyone of a non-Spencer nature. He frowned, except, yeah, no, that had been, like, a year and a half ago. Wow. And even that hadn't really been--Travie had just been really high and Joe had been a little recreationally altered and kind of horny and thinking about Spencer's mouth. Huh.
"Whoa," Joe said. He turned on his side. Spencer lay with his hand tucked under his cheek, snoring very slightly, forehead wrinkled a little bit like he was concentrating hard on something. His hair was tangled across his cheekbone and fanned out on the pillow.
"Spencer," Joe whispered.
"Mhm," Spencer said.
"Spence," Joe repeated, and Spencer cracked one eye. Joe smiled. "Dude, you wanna be my valentine?"
"Mmhzzz hm," Spencer said, and wrinkled his nose. His eye slowly closed again.
"Okay," Joe said, shifting forward to kiss him on the forehead, then rolled out of bed to make breakfast.
*
Bob/Spencer (bandslash):
Spencer and Bob get together and Frank likes to laugh and call Spencer Bob's sexy young lover and make cradle-robbing jokes that aren't really all that funny but that he gets away with because he's Frankie, and he can say shit like that. Mikey honestly doesn't care; Bob's not even sure he knows who Bob's dating. Gerard and Ray just look kind of uncomfortable and mutter to each other about Spencer being ten whole years younger than them, and does this make them old. This one time when Spencer was visiting they talked about how their parents had taken them to see the Goonies when it came out in 1985, and Spencer casually mentioned not having been born yet. The table got really really quiet for a second, and, yeah, that was an awkward moment until Frank, in an uncharacteristically kind act, said, "Whatever, I was only four, you old fogies," and the conversation moved on.
Bob can't really remember when he met Spencer for the first time. It wasn't remarkable, he knows that much. 2005 was hitting and hitting hard, and Bob didn't really have much time for people he didn't already know. The point is, the first time he actually remembers meeting Spencer was actually their second or third meeting, and Spencer was wearing a tight t-shirt and jeans, standing with his arms crossed over his chest, hip cocked, a small frown on his face, watching from sidestage as a band at a festival they were playing slaughtered a song, and he looked both young and hot as shit.
"Hey," Bob said, coming to a stop next to him. "I didn't know you guys were playing this," he said over the shitty music, and then watched, fascinated, as Spencer turned, saw him, and flushed, obviously flustered.
"Oh," Spencer said, dropping his arms. "Yeah, we're, uh, we're not playing until later in the evening, though." He put his hands in his nonexistent pockets and then took them out again and rubbed at his hair, and Bob said, "Yeah, us too, wanna go get something to eat?" and Spencer had smiled, shaking his hair out of his face and agreed and that had been how it started.
Bob doesn't give a shit about the age thing, which is just one more awesome aspect of the being gay thing, though he has fun teasing Spence about his devotion to Blink 182 and Third Eye Blind until Spencer starts making noises about how great blowjobs are and what a bummer it is that Bob apparently has decided he doesn't want another one from Spencer ever.
Still, it's less of a fall and more a long, slow, slide, until Bob comes back from an overnight trip. His plane had been delayed by bad weather over LA to the point that he'd told Spencer not to bother picking him up, he'd just take a cab over from the airport. He gets in, and it's dark in the windows of the apartment as he's scraping his key around the lock before finally getting the door open. He leaves his bag by the door and doesn't bother to turn on the lights as he walks into the living room. Spencer is sitting upright on the couch, slumped over asleep with a book in his lap and his head resting on his folded arm on the arm of the couch. Bob crouches down, putting his hands on Spencer's knees, and Spencer jerks awake, the book sliding to the floor.
"You're back," he says, reaching for Bob's shoulders, and then pausing, grimacing, rotating the arm he'd kept folded. "Fell asleep," he mutters.
"Yeah," Bob says, reaching up and pressing his thumb into the hollow of Spencer's shoulder and massaging the muscle of his bicep.
Spencer makes a humming sound, and his hand wraps around the back of Bob's neck, ruffling through Bob's hair. Bob can feel the drummer calluses on Spencer's palm, twins to the ones on his own hands.
"You waited up," Bob says.
"Didn't mean to fall asleep," Spencer says. "Fucking rehearsals. Missed you. How was your trip?"
"Boring, boring," Bob says, and Spencer says, "Tell me about it anyway," and Bob does.
He wants this, Bob thinks. He wants Spencer to be here, to stick around so long that no one even thinks about the age difference, because it's so little compared to the span of time they've been together. He wants that.
"Come on," he says. "Let's go to bed."
*
And that's all for now, though I'll be working my way through the rest whenever I have some spare love to throw around, or can figure out another way to make Spencer Smith fall in love. DON'T THINK I DIDN'T NOTICE THAT ONE, FOLKS.
AJ/JC (popslash):
AJ has just broken off with his third long-term relationship Post Sobriety, and he just, he just doesn't know what he's doing wrong. Like, his ladies keep cheating on him, and his gentlemen keep telling him he's sweet but they just need other things out of the relationship (and secretly he thinks they're cheating on him too, they're just better at hiding it), and so he decides that he needs to clear his mind, gain some distance from everything. Nick comes around for dinner one night, bringing along his newest woman, a little thing who wears a lot of wooden bracelets and has long curly brown hair and giggles a lot, and she spends the dinner talking about her experiences at this spiritual retreat she just got back from, while Nick nods and says, "Sure, baby, sure," and playing with the strap on her tank top. AJ tries not to stare down her shirt, even though he can see the see-through edge of her bra whenever she leans over to emphasize a point, but by the end of the evening, he knows one thing. Spiritual cleansing is so the way to go.
He's got it all planned out, he thinks while he rolls up his socks and adds in some underwear and then, what the hell, a couple strips of condoms and some lube, because if opportunity comes a-knocking, AJ won't be the one to turn it away. He's going to go to this retreat, he's going to get away from his familiar surroundings and really examine what he wants in his life and in his relationships. He's going to get himself centered. Yeah. He can see it already. It'll be great. Fabulous. "Fantastic," he mutters, pointing at himself in the mirror. Yeah.
It's a total shock when he looks around at the first class, the one about harnessing your chi or whatever, and there's JC standing across the room in a pair of loose, light pink pants, making the big circle motions with his arms. AJ loses his balance right when he's crouched down and almost falls over straightening up, and has to take a big step forward to catch himself. When he's shuffled himself back in line, squinted at the instructor at the front who is telling them in a soothing murmur to feel the energy flowing in their muscles, and then darted a glance at JC, JC is looking at him.
This is not what AJ calls getting away from it all. But, hey, no need to be unfriendly, right? Also, damn, the guy can pull off a pair of light pink yoga pants. AJ sketches a little salute, and JC's lips do this weird pressed-together frowny thing before his face smoothes out and he smiles really big and obviously fakely, like he's in front of cameras at a red carpet event, and AJ thinks that maybe he's not the only one who wanted to get away from the familiar.
So, AJ shakes it off, finishes the rest of the class, and spends the break time chatting about his dogs with the pretty lady on his right, who apparently owns a pet-grooming business. Thank God for Southern California, is all AJ can say. Yeah. He doesn't need to make this retreat an aging popstar hangout. JC can have all the space he wants, see if AJ cares.
JC comes up to him, though, at lunch the next day. AJ is poking sadly at his tofu-scramble with sun-dried tomatoes, basil, and cheese on a spelt flour tortilla.
"Hey," JC says, sliding his plate next to AJ's.
"Oh," AJ says. "Hey, dawg." He thinks maybe he was supposed to say hi after all, so he says, "Hey, sorry, I thought we were pretending not to know each other. How you doin', man?"
"What?" JC says, looking confused, but he looks pretty good confused, so AJ doesn't mind. "Nah, no, what. Why would we do that?"
AJ shrugs. "You looked pretty unhappy to see me. I'm just saying, it's cool, I'm kinda trying to get away from it all, too."
"Oh," JC says, looking down at his plate. "Sorry. About that. I can leave if you--" He makes to get up, and AJ pounds his fist lightly on JC's shoulder.
"Sit. Stay," he says. "Hey. Why don't we start over?" He clears his throat, scraping his hand through the air like he's capturing something and throwing it away, and JC starts to smile just a little around his eyes. "All right. Hey, JC, buddy! Damn, man, I can't believe I ran into you in this here spi-rit-ual retreat. That's amazing! How the hell are you?" JC starts grinning and breaks into laughter at the end, and AJ smiles.
JC shakes his head, saying, "You're something else, McLean," and AJ winks at him.
"Baby, I'm an original," AJ says, his fist resting casually on the back of JC's chair. His knuckles are touching JC's back through his shirt, and he can feel the sharp ridges of JC's spine through the fabric, like he hasn’t been eating enough.
JC relaxes after that, and they talk through the rest of the break. JC's attractive, but AJ notices the other things, the shadows under his brilliant eyes, the way his shoulders seem to want to slouch in unless he holds himself rigidly erect, and AJ finds himself touching more, pats on the back, arm thrown over shoulder. Safe touches. They get to talking late one night over cups of the retreat center's home-made chai tea, swapping tales of love and loss, and it's almost like looking in the mirror, AJ thinks.
"I thought for sure I'd be married by thirty," AJ says, and JC nods.
"I was gonna," JC says quietly. "I mean, not the before thirty thing, 'cause that ain't going to happen without a time machine, but. Yeah. I was going to."
AJ coughs. He wants to ask, but he's not sure if he wants to know for the right reasons at all. "What happened?" he hears himself asking.
JC twitches his shoulder, but he looks relieved, like he wanted AJ to ask. "You know," he says, looking up. He fakes a smile. "Came home from a trip early. She wasn't, ah. Alone, if you know what I mean."
AJ shakes his head. "Not smart. That's what I say. Fucking idiot."
His response startles JC into laughter. "Yeah," he says after a time, voice sounding rough around the edges, and AJ just sits there, patient. "I guess you're right."
"Hey," AJ says. "I just call 'em like I see 'em. Cheating on you? Zero." He releases his cup to form a circle with his hand.
"Yeah," JC says, staring down at his cup.
"Hey." AJ reaches out and touches the turned down corner of JC's mouth. "Look at me. Look." JC looks up. "Fuck her. Fuck 'em all, okay, all of them that don't know, that want to use you. They're not worth it."
JC doesn't say anything, eyes tracing some inward topography, but AJ knows this, he knows it's true, and he wants JC to know it too.
"Okay?" AJ presses.
JC shakes his head, and AJ opens his mouth to say something else, because AJ can marshal a million arguments for this one, and he's just waiting for JC to ask, but then JC says softly, "Okay," and AJ sits back, satisfied.
"Hey, though," JC says, and his hand circles AJ's wrist on the table, fingers strong and warm on AJ's skin. "You too, McLean."
"I," AJ says, and then he runs out of words, and JC is just sitting there, a crooked, genuine half-smile on his face, and they are practically holding hands. He swallows, closing his eyes, and then he opens them and JC is still there. "Okay," AJ says. "Okay."
*
Frank/Patrick (bandslash):
It's just one of those stupid moments little moments where Frank's out with his boys, they have both bands together after one of those radio concerts where a million fucking bands end up playing like three songs each, which in general kind of sucks except in the way that Frank gets to spend time watching Patrick onstage and vice versa. Anyway, the hard work is over, the press has been done, and he's just out chilling. Their group has taken over three booths in the back corner, and people keep getting up and moving from table to table. Mikey's kneeling on his knees on the padded bench to Frankie's left, twisted around to lean over the back of the booth to gossip with Joe about something, and when Frank looks across the table at the booth opposite him, Gerard and Andy are deep into a conversation about comics that Frank isn't touching with a ten-foot pole.
And Patrick. Patrick is on Frank's right. Frank has his arm slung over the back of the booth, fingertips brushing Patrick's shoulder, and every time they do, Patrick looks over at him and smiles a little, and it's like a game, how much Frank can get away with. He tips his head down, watching Patrick through his eyelashes, grinning, and Patrick reaches up and captures his fingers, shaking them a little bit, before letting go to illustrate his point in the argument he's making about why American Beauty was overrated.
"Yo, Frank," Gerard says, voice cutting easily across the crowd, and Frank looks up. "What was the name of that book about worms? Like, the maggots eating the back of the dude's head?"
"Maggots?" Frank asks, momentarily clueless, and then, "The Dante Club?"
"Dante club," Gerard says, pointing at Andy. "Yeah, with that Victoriana thing going on," and then Frank officially doesn't care again, and he turns back to Patrick, who has turned a little, settling more firmly into the arc of Frank's arm. He feels solid there, good, and Frank thinks that he pretty much always will. Frank brushes his hand down the curve of Patrick's shoulder, fingers tracing the line of his t-shirt sleeve, and Patrick looks over and smiles.
*
Bob Bryar/Joey Fatone (bandslash/popslash):
So, Brian's like the only one who knows this, because he's the only one who has ever actually looked at Bob's resume, but Bob actually did a stint roadying for one of the early NSYNC US tours as a sound technician. It was during college, on summer break, and he took the job because one of his older friends had a connection and told him it'd give him good experience, and so Bob nodded and said, "Yeah, okay, I'll apply," thinking that at least it'd give him something to laugh about later.
So he applied and he got the job and it was just for a couple months, but he found out that he really liked touring. He liked touring, and he was good at it, good at his job, and the other guys were good, all these older burly tattooed guys who could tell stories of working tours for crazy bands like Aerosmith and one guy even worked for the Stones, and, really, for the first two weeks, Bob didn't even really pay attention to the guys in the actual band. They were kind of soft-looking and wore really fucking weird outfits onstage. A couple of them were definitely pretty, and they made the little girls scream. He was glad he had his headset.
One night, though, the guy supervising him turned over some of the monitors to him, and he ended up with NSYNC singing directly into his ears. The songs sucked, but the voices weren't bad at all, and he started fiddling with the levels a little to make them clearer. One of the dudes (he squinted at the taped label on the board: Joey) looked over at him and winked briefly before going down on his knees and touching some girl's hand.
After the performance, Joey stopped by when Bob was unhooking some cables and spooling them. Joey had a white towel thrown over his shoulder, still dressed in the white shorts and undershirt Bob had kept seeing as the guys did their quick-change routines.
"Hey, I'm Joey," the guy said, offering his hand, and then clapped Bob on the shoulder. "Had me sounding good out there, man. I appreciate it."
"Not a problem," Bob said. "That's my job." He didn't mention that this was the first time he'd actually done it.
"I appreciate it," Joey repeated, grinning, before moving on to asking when Bob had joined the tour, and then somehow they got to talking about Chicago and Bob's life plans, before Joey got shepherded away by an assistant and Bob went back to loading up.
After that, Joey always called, "Bry-ar!" whenever he saw him, and Bob would yell back, "Fat-one!" like they were football players on the teams neither of them even liked in high school. Joey was a good guy. He'd come down every once in a while to the crew buses to play games of poker and never seemed to mind when the cardsharps scalped him, and Bob appreciated his sense of humor.
They hung out a little bit, or at least, that’s what Bob defined it in his mind because that was really what it felt like, Joey saying, “Hey, I got that new kung fu movie, Crouching Squirrel, whatever?” and Bob saying, “Oh, rad, I’ve been meaning to check that out,” and then they’d watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in Joey’s hotel room, and sometimes the other guys were around, and sometimes they weren’t.
Joey had absolutely godawful taste in music, but he’d make up stupid little joke songs as a tribute to popcorn commercials or new shoes or his favorite brand of cereal on the room service menu and belt them out in a high falsetto. That’s what he was doing one Thursday afternoon that happened to be Bob’s day off, when Bob looked down and realized that Joey had his heavily-muscled calves slung over Bob’s lap, and Bob was beating a rhythm on Joey’s shins with his fingers, and that wasn’t exactly the straightest behavior ever. Joey looked over when Bob stopped drumming, shifting his legs down, and then Bob thought, fuck it, because what did he have to lose, really? He put his hand on Joey’s knee.
“Yeah?” he said.
Joey looked at him and grinned his goofy smile, eyes crinkling at the corners, and then he said, “Yeah,” and slid over on the couch, and they necked until Joey had beard-burn down his jaw and Bob’s shirt was pushed up to his arms and they weren’t so much vertical on the couch as horizontal, and then Bob put his hand on Joey’s belt buckle and Joey said, “Fuck yeah,” and that was that.
At the end of the summer, though, Bob had to go, had to head back to college and end this weird, amazing break from real life, and he knew without even really needing to think about it at all that he was also ending this thing with Joey. They didn’t talk about it, though. Joey said, “Hey, look, new Spiderman,” and Bob said, “MJ’s so dreamy,” and then they both went back to work, and it wasn’t until after Joey had begged a car from one of the assistants and they were at the airport with all of Bob’s bags that Joey stopped, not meeting Bob’s eyes.
“Hey. Hey,” Joey said. “Give me your home number, your email address. I’ll keep in touch.”
Bob snorted, shaking his head. “You won’t, man.”
Joey didn’t say anything, rubbing at his elbow. He sighed, then, and met Bob’s eyes. “I’ll mean to.”
“Your manager would kill you if you stayed in touch,” Bob said, half-joking. He squinted down at his feet, then looked up. “It’s fine. No, hey, it’s fine. You’re a good guy, okay, a great guy, but I gotta go.”
“Yeah,” Joey said, and his smiling eyes looked sad for one of the first times in Bob’s memory. They looked at each other, and then Bob wasn’t sure who even moved first, but they stumbled in and hugged each other, and Bob kissed him on the cheek once, twice.
“Hey,” Bob whispered in Joey’s ear. “Train up your new guy good, okay? Make him keep you sounding good,” scrubbing his hand roughly through Joey’s hair, and Joey nodded, ducking his head down into Bob’s shoulder, and he didn’t look like a popstar at all.
They separated, then, and Bob bent and shouldered his duffel. He turned and walked toward the entrance, and was almost at the sliding glass doors he heard Joey shout, “Bry-ar!” behind him, and he shook his head and laughed. When he turned around, Joey was standing at the driver’s side door, waving like a fool, grinning sunshine on Bob’s skin.
Bob yelled, “Get back to work!” and Joey waved one more time before sliding into the car and shutting the door, then merging smoothly into the stream of departing traffic, and Bob stepped forward into the open doors, on his way back home.
*
William/Jon (bandslash):
William fell in love with Jon when they were wee young things on the Chicago scene, and they'd meet up on street corners in large groups of friends and head on in to shows together and then push and shove and sweat and jump and afterwards head out to a diner somewhere to have burgers at midnight before William had to split off to try and sneak back into his house at 1 am. He fell in love one night when they were talking about being in bands. William's band had just fallen apart for the fifth time and the lead guitarist, in leaving, had hissed, "Well, what the fuck do you expect, with your shitty lyrics?" and William was just feeling rather bruised about it all, and maybe like this band thing wasn't entirely all it was cracked up to be. Maybe he ought to become an artist.
"Like, pottery," William said. "I saw this thing--"
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Jon said.
"There was a program," William said. He stabbed at his stack of pancakes.
"Nah," Jon said. "If you like music, stick with music. Do that. Fuck everybody else." He shrugged. "That's just what I think."
"But it's just that you put so much of yourself out there. It's like. You know, you open a can of beans and people are like, no. I don't want your beans."
"Bill," Jon said, and William made a face. "Bill, I don't want your beans."
"Fuck off," William said. "It was, I was speaking metaphorically, all right, the beans were a metaphor to capture my inner self. That, that gift I want to share with the world. You know what, I don't want you to have my beans."
"I've changed my mind," Jon said solemnly, capturing William's waving hand. "I do want your beans." He slid out of his seat and down on one knee on the filthy linoleum floor, still holding William's hand. "Please, man. Please give me your beans."
"Fuck off," William said, flushing, but starting to laugh anyway. Jon stood up and retook his seat, letting go of William's hand and dusting off his knee.
"See," Jon said. "You don't want to become a potter."
"Well, what about you?" William asked.
Jon tilted his head. "I'm gonna be in a band."
"But what if it doesn't work?"
Jon shrugged. "I'll be in another one."
"But--"
"Bill," Jon said. "It doesn't matter how many I'm in. I'll still want to be in another one. I dunno. I know that."
"But what if things change," William said.
"I guess they just won't be able to." Jon said.
"I don't know," William said, plucking at his paper napkin.
"That's okay," Jon said. "I do."
*
Brendon/Jon (bandslash):
Brendon's told the story of meeting Jon a million times, the way Brendon started singing "A Whole New World" and Jon chimed in with the Princess Jasmine part in a wicked falsetto. "And then," Brendon would say, throwing his arm over Jon's shoulder, or draping himself across Jon's back, or plucking at Jon's beard, "and then, I fell in love." He usually contorts his face or fake cries or something and ends up in Jon's lap, with Jon making to shove him off. Sometimes Jon coos, "I love you too, honeybun," because Jon is good like that.
The thing is, Brendon kind of means it. He'd been having a shitty day. Spencer had yelled at him twice and Ryan wasn't speaking to him at all. He suspected the two were connected, because Brendon had insulted Ryan's backing vocals during a really trying rehearsal session in one of the venue bathrooms by saying, "Could you sound any flatter, Ryan? Jesus. The note is here." Seriously, Ryan and Spencer were like thirteen-year-old girls sometimes. It got old. But, yeah, not one of his finer moments, he's willing to admit it. Even if Ryan had been flat as fuck.
Anyway, the point is, things weren't going so hot, and then Brendon had been wandering around the dressing room getting ready for the night's show and trying not to let the sullen silence in the room get him down when William walked in with his arm around a new guy, saying something about showing the guy the world.
Brendon couldn't help himself. He started singing, still threading his tie around his collar, ignoring the glares coming from Ryan, Spencer, and Brent. What, he was warming up, okay. Patrick Stump went around singing any damn thing before shows, Brendon was just following the grand tradition. He was doing good, too, with vibrato and shit, and only hitting a sour note occasionally even as he lifted his chin in the mirror and started knotting his tie. It got to the female part, and Brendon was getting ready to break into his falsetto when someone else got there first. He looked away from the mirror, and it was the new guy.
They sang through half the song before they fucked up the words, Brendon dancing over with his hands extended, leaving the tie still half-tied around his neck, and then the new guy said, "Sorry dude, I don't know the rest," and Brendon had thought that he didn't care, this guy was staying.
"You're a man who knows his Disney!" Brendon proclaimed, and the guy had chuckled a little and William introduced them, and, really, it's a good thing Jon ended up being so awesome, because Brendon has been a little in love ever since.
*
Joe/Spencer (bandslash):
So it started out, and Joe just thought that Spencer liked him. Like, as a friend. He'd kind of hang around whenever Fall Out Boy and Panic were in the same place and talk to Joe about movies and rap music and the best type of fruit roll-up, and all of those things were pretty cool to Joe, too, so Joe figured they had a pretty good friendship going. Every once in a while, Joe would get a text message like, ryan says bill&ted lame. back me up here. best movie or bestest movie? and Joe would text back, duh, clearly superior. tell ryan he can suck my cock. It was a pretty sweet friendship, if Joe could say so himself.
Andy hid the soul of a yenta under his thin vegan veneer, though, and after another Fall Out Boy-Panic meeting where Pete and Ryan split off in one direction and Patrick, Brendon, and Jon split off in another while Spencer stayed behind with Joe, Andy elbowed Joe in the head as Joe and Spencer sat on the carpet, leaning against the couch, playing videogames. When Joe craned his head back, he saw Andy nodding significantly at Spencer.
Joe gave him the upside down eyebrow of, "I'm not psychic, dumbass," and went back to trying to beat Spencer's guy, but he kind of knew what Andy was saying anyway, and it only got clearer when Andy flicked Joe in the back of the head and then wandered out of the room, closing the door firmly behind him.
Joe and Spencer sat there, just playing video games, and the thing was, whatever, sometimes friendship was just friendship, right? Joe wasn't going to, like, read shit into stuff that wasn't there. That wasn't cool. Though, Joe liked Spencer. He was pretty smoking, but in a more real way than Brendon, and wasn't as bony as Ryan. Joe wouldn't, you know, say no, or anything. Joe was so busy thinking about it that instead of getting Spencer's guy, Spencer actually got his guy.
"Fuck," Joe said, surprised. Spencer laughed, then crossed his legs under him so that he was sitting with his thigh pressed against Joe's. Joe slid his eyes over to look at Spencer, but Spencer was just staring at the screen, eyes narrowed, and then he said:
"Another?"
"Sure," Joe said.
Two rounds later, Spencer set the controller down. They'd been talking about their actual favorite cities to tour were, as opposed to the answers they gave to magazines and radio stations, and Joe had just finished describing this awesome pinball machine in one random bar in a tiny town in Pennsylvania when Spencer tapped twice on the ground and then said, "So. Hey," and then didn't say anything else.
"Hay is for horses, dude," Joe said after a suitably long interval, and then he laughed.
Spencer gave him a tolerant smile. "Yeah, no. Um." And then Spencer leaned in, and Joe thought, hey, what, and then Spencer kissed him.
"Oh," Joe said when Spencer pulled back.
"So, yeah," Spencer said, twisting his fingers in the hem of his t-shirt, but not looking away. "That's, um, what. That might be good, I was thinking. If you wanted. To."
"Oh," Joe said, impressed by the sheer guts of this kid. Spencer's face fell a little, and he looked down then, shirt edge cutting a white line in his finger, and Joe put out his hand hastily, closing over Spencer's hand, and said, "Oh, hey, no, yeah. Good idea. Great idea."
Spencer started to smile, still looking down at Joe's hand covering his, and he said, "Bestest idea?"
"Absolutely," Joe said, and then they were kissing for real, and Spencer's hand was moving from his own lap to Joe's lap, and that was fucking awesome.
They fucked around for most of that day, and Joe got to see Spencer when he was laughing, on his back on the bed, with his hair tumbled over his forehead as Joe rubbed his scruffy cheek across Spencer's quaking stomach, the skin soft and warm against Joe's lips.
It was even great afterwards, when they had to split to go their separate ways, because Spencer emailed Joe with wacky video clips and Joe emailed back with factoids about llamas or trivia on obscure metal bands or laffy taffy jokes, and then when they met up again it was like that day in the hotel, except they had even more time, and Joe started picking up the places Spencer really liked, and Spencer figured out this one trick with his tongue on Joe's dick that made Joe literally see spots.
Then, afterwards they could play videogames. Seriously, there was no bad here.
He and Pete actually talked about it, joking about Joe's stumble into the "manlove," but then Joe said the thing about the videogames, and Pete got this look on his face like he was reevaluating certain life decisions, and Joe said, smugly, "See?" and Pete said, "Fuck, shut up."
Their thing was necessarily intermittent, though, what with touring and everything, and Joe didn't really mind it, partially because Spencer didn't seem to, and also, because it made when they did get to see each other special. Yeah, Joe said it. Special. It was like a birthday present, with sex.
But then Joe had a month off from Fall Out Boy stuff, and Panic was recording in LA, and so Joe went down to hang out for a week. Spencer let him crash in his room, and even though Joe had really had his fill of crappy LA apartments, he found himself pushing off his departure date, and pushing off his departure date. He liked being able to wake up with Spencer, to just roll over and say in his scratchy morning voice, "so I had this dream, and there was this ant who, like, turned into a butterfly and then read me a kid's story," and have Spencer say sleepily, "What was the story?" He even liked it when Spencer stayed up too late and turned into a mini Oscar the Grouch. He found it hilarious, and kind of cute.
He was lying in bed playing with a wrinkle in the sheets with his toes while Spencer drooled on the pillow next to him, and he started counting back, and realized that it had been over a year since Joe had slept with anyone of a non-Spencer nature. He frowned, except, yeah, no, that had been, like, a year and a half ago. Wow. And even that hadn't really been--Travie had just been really high and Joe had been a little recreationally altered and kind of horny and thinking about Spencer's mouth. Huh.
"Whoa," Joe said. He turned on his side. Spencer lay with his hand tucked under his cheek, snoring very slightly, forehead wrinkled a little bit like he was concentrating hard on something. His hair was tangled across his cheekbone and fanned out on the pillow.
"Spencer," Joe whispered.
"Mhm," Spencer said.
"Spence," Joe repeated, and Spencer cracked one eye. Joe smiled. "Dude, you wanna be my valentine?"
"Mmhzzz hm," Spencer said, and wrinkled his nose. His eye slowly closed again.
"Okay," Joe said, shifting forward to kiss him on the forehead, then rolled out of bed to make breakfast.
*
Bob/Spencer (bandslash):
Spencer and Bob get together and Frank likes to laugh and call Spencer Bob's sexy young lover and make cradle-robbing jokes that aren't really all that funny but that he gets away with because he's Frankie, and he can say shit like that. Mikey honestly doesn't care; Bob's not even sure he knows who Bob's dating. Gerard and Ray just look kind of uncomfortable and mutter to each other about Spencer being ten whole years younger than them, and does this make them old. This one time when Spencer was visiting they talked about how their parents had taken them to see the Goonies when it came out in 1985, and Spencer casually mentioned not having been born yet. The table got really really quiet for a second, and, yeah, that was an awkward moment until Frank, in an uncharacteristically kind act, said, "Whatever, I was only four, you old fogies," and the conversation moved on.
Bob can't really remember when he met Spencer for the first time. It wasn't remarkable, he knows that much. 2005 was hitting and hitting hard, and Bob didn't really have much time for people he didn't already know. The point is, the first time he actually remembers meeting Spencer was actually their second or third meeting, and Spencer was wearing a tight t-shirt and jeans, standing with his arms crossed over his chest, hip cocked, a small frown on his face, watching from sidestage as a band at a festival they were playing slaughtered a song, and he looked both young and hot as shit.
"Hey," Bob said, coming to a stop next to him. "I didn't know you guys were playing this," he said over the shitty music, and then watched, fascinated, as Spencer turned, saw him, and flushed, obviously flustered.
"Oh," Spencer said, dropping his arms. "Yeah, we're, uh, we're not playing until later in the evening, though." He put his hands in his nonexistent pockets and then took them out again and rubbed at his hair, and Bob said, "Yeah, us too, wanna go get something to eat?" and Spencer had smiled, shaking his hair out of his face and agreed and that had been how it started.
Bob doesn't give a shit about the age thing, which is just one more awesome aspect of the being gay thing, though he has fun teasing Spence about his devotion to Blink 182 and Third Eye Blind until Spencer starts making noises about how great blowjobs are and what a bummer it is that Bob apparently has decided he doesn't want another one from Spencer ever.
Still, it's less of a fall and more a long, slow, slide, until Bob comes back from an overnight trip. His plane had been delayed by bad weather over LA to the point that he'd told Spencer not to bother picking him up, he'd just take a cab over from the airport. He gets in, and it's dark in the windows of the apartment as he's scraping his key around the lock before finally getting the door open. He leaves his bag by the door and doesn't bother to turn on the lights as he walks into the living room. Spencer is sitting upright on the couch, slumped over asleep with a book in his lap and his head resting on his folded arm on the arm of the couch. Bob crouches down, putting his hands on Spencer's knees, and Spencer jerks awake, the book sliding to the floor.
"You're back," he says, reaching for Bob's shoulders, and then pausing, grimacing, rotating the arm he'd kept folded. "Fell asleep," he mutters.
"Yeah," Bob says, reaching up and pressing his thumb into the hollow of Spencer's shoulder and massaging the muscle of his bicep.
Spencer makes a humming sound, and his hand wraps around the back of Bob's neck, ruffling through Bob's hair. Bob can feel the drummer calluses on Spencer's palm, twins to the ones on his own hands.
"You waited up," Bob says.
"Didn't mean to fall asleep," Spencer says. "Fucking rehearsals. Missed you. How was your trip?"
"Boring, boring," Bob says, and Spencer says, "Tell me about it anyway," and Bob does.
He wants this, Bob thinks. He wants Spencer to be here, to stick around so long that no one even thinks about the age difference, because it's so little compared to the span of time they've been together. He wants that.
"Come on," he says. "Let's go to bed."
*
And that's all for now, though I'll be working my way through the rest whenever I have some spare love to throw around, or can figure out another way to make Spencer Smith fall in love. DON'T THINK I DIDN'T NOTICE THAT ONE, FOLKS.