Into the Woods 4/5b
***
And then he's yanked sideways, just as he feels a swoosh of air brush past his cheek. He collides with something warm, and he opens his eyes enough to recognize Spencer's sweater, just before Spencer runs them into the woods, off the path, hauling the two of them in a zig-zag between trees. "Are you - " Spencer starts, pulling Brendon in front of him, but then something plows into them both, bowling them both over.
Brendon's fucking cape gets stuck over his fucking head.
By the time he manages to pull it off, Spencer's pushed him up against a tree, and is crouching in front of him protectively, the axe dangling loose in his right hand. Brendon cranes and sees the wolf pacing not ten feet away, watching the two of them hungrily. "Spence," he breathes. "You - "
"Shut up," Spencer mutters, his grip tightening on the axe as the wolf growls again, deep and dark. "Just. I." Brendon reaches up to curl his hand around Spencer's ankle, and Spencer crouches a little more, pulling the axe up like he's a baseball player at bat.
The wolf snarls, and springs.
Brendon isn't sure what happens - he knows that Spence gets in a hit, and it's good enough that when the wolf jerks away, it almost takes Spence with it. He knows that Spencer barely gets his axe back, he remembers hearing the sick thwock as whatever body part of the wolf the axe sunk into slowly lets the axe blade go.
He knows the wolf isn't dead, and he knows that the blood on Spencer's arms isn't all animal. He knows that even though he's doing his best to hide it, Spence is shaking like a fucking leaf.
But mostly he just knows that Spencer hauls him up and tells him to run, and Spencer just fucking saved them both. So Brendon runs.
They make it back up onto the path, and Brendon keeps pace with Spencer, who's just all-out sprinting. Brendon wonders if it's some sort of adrenalin rush, or shock, or something serious, but he mostly tries to keep up, glancing around them as they start to run past clearings and small gardens and, eventually, outbuildings and the beginnings of a little community.
Spencer doesn't seem intent on stopping, but Brendon stays behind him and looks around. He doesn't see any people - all the buildings seem deserted. He blinks, and winces as he passes by the first actual house.
Or - well, what was the first actual house. Brendon slows down so he can sort of see the bare bones of where it was. One corner still has a smoldering wall and some of the thatched roof, but the rest of it is in ashes, black and smoking, curling up towards the sky. Behind the house, Brendon can barely see, is a small, well-kept hayfield, the straw piled up in stacks ready to harvest.
He glances behind, but he doesn't see the wolf anywhere, so he breathes out relievedly and yells ahead. "Spence!"
No response. But he can still sort of almost see Spencer, still running like a damn fool, so he keeps going, increasing his pace so that he can eventually catch up.
A few minutes later, he passes another house on his left. Or, again, another shell of a house. This one isn't on fire, though - it looks instead like a hurricane hit, or a tornado. It looks like a bomb went off inside the house, actually, and scattered the walls and furniture and roof down like a hail of splintered wood in a 30-foot radius around where the walls once stood. Brendon stops, for a second, and winces at the casual destruction, the way it looks like it just happened.
Seriously, no wonder there's nobody left in this little village, if things keep on exploding and burning down.
Brendon glances around himself, squinting until he can see the hint of Spencer's outline far up ahead, and then he trots over to where a rustic log fence skirts the perimeter of the land around the debris. On the ground near the yard entrance is a big hollowed-out log - Brendon realizes after a minute that it was a mailbox.
He takes a couple of steps into the yard and freezes, stopping dead in his tracks as he gets hit by a wave of terror and nausea and loss. It's weird - Brendon's no stranger to moments of intense panic, but this isn't at all like how keyed up and freaked out he gets before big shows. The sensations crawling their way into his skin aren't coming from inside him, like normal, they're not starting deep in his belly and radiating outward.
This is like something's outside him trying to get in.
Brendon gasps out the breath he was holding, and looks around wildly - he's still alone, in the yard. He glances down and notices his hands are shaking, badly, and he manages to think very clearly to himself yeah, fuck THIS before he wrenches himself off the spot he's frozen to and stumbles back outside the yard.
As soon as he's on the other side of the fence, the feelings vanish.
Brendon shudders and sucks in a series of deep breaths, trying to get his heart rate back to something approaching normal, and gazes back at the destroyed house. He's pretty sure that half-smeared red handprint on what's left of the door is going to be something he can't forget.
He waits until his hands have mostly stopped shaking before he starts running again.
After another minute or two of playing catch-up he almost runs over Spencer, who's standing outside the next house, gazing up at it with a blank look in his eyes. Brendon peers at him curiously, then looks up at the house.
At least this one is standing. It's a modest little brick thing, probably just one story with an attic, with marigolds winding up the pathway to the front door. "This one's good," Spencer murmurs. "Solid. It won't be able to get in."
"Yeah?" Brendon says, glancing over at him, and then gazing back at the house. "Well, cool. Come on, let's get inside before anything worse happens."
"Yeah," Spencer says, nodding. He's holding his right arm like it hurts him, Brendon realizes, and he winces as he takes Spencer's good arm and leads him up the pathway to the house. He kicks open the unlocked door and escorts him in, bullying him into slumping down onto the well-worn sofa. He locks the door behind him, and then Brendon searches the house, lighting all the oil lamps and locking all the windows and doors he can find.
The house is...weird. More modern than Gerard's, so that at least he doesn't have to go outside and get water from a well, but there certainly isn't a refrigerator or a microwave, and he's sort of worried about the bathroom situation.
Brendon goes into the kitchen and comes back with a bar of soap, and a bowl full of water, and a towel. "Hey," he murmurs, coming over to the sofa, gently prodding Spencer into sitting up a little, shifting onto his back. Spencer blinks his eyelids heavily, and leans his head back against the sofa. Brendon watches him, concerned, and then bites his lip and starts wiping his arms off, starting with the right one, the one he's favoring.
Spencer hisses, but doesn't move his head, so Brendon keeps at it, slowly wiping away the flaking blood til he uncovers four long, thin gashes on the meat of Spencer's forearm. "Spence," he breathes, sad and guilty, wincing at how red and angry the cuts look in the glow of the oil lamps.
"S'okay," Spence whispers, his voice harsh and his breathing shallow. "It's - it doesn't hurt much."
"Liar." Brendon worries at his lower lip, and then he dips the washcloth in the water and wrings it out, just continuing to clean. It's about all he can do, really.
And actually, after a few minutes, it helps. It helps Brendon check out a little, mentally, helps him forget about running and the wolf and almost being eaten. And it seems like it helps Spencer - he's getting cleaned up, obviously, but Brendon's being as careful and gentle as he possibly can as he wipes off Spencer's arms, and he pauses and listens to Spencer's breathing, by now deep and even, before he crawls up almost onto Spencer's lap and applies the cloth to his neck and his face.
Spencer whimpers, which isn't a sound Brendon's used to hearing from him, and turns his face toward the cloth, toward Brendon. His eyes are shut, and his chin is resting on his own shoulder lazily, so Brendon doesn't feel very weird or guilty about just looking, taking Spencer in, gazing at his little nose and his arms and the way his eyelashes fan when his eyes are closed and the way he's - huh, he's gone really, really really pale.
Brendon blinks, and shakes Spencer's shoulder. "Spence?"
"Mm?"
"Spence, you okay?"
"Mm."
"No, hey, open your eyes," Brendon says, prodding and poking until Spencer shifts and grumbles, and finally opens his eyes, frowning at Brendon.
"What?" he grumps, squinting at Brendon, eventually blinking his eyes open a little more than halfway. Brendon stares at him for a second, and then sits back - Spencer's eyes are. ...Not normal.
They're red and bloodshot, but they're also - they're also barely even blue anymore, they're dark almost to the point of being black. "Spence," Brendon breathes. "Spence, seriously, are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine," Spencer replies, sounding a little annoyed. He closes his eyes though, and Brendon notices the way Spence presses his mouth up, in a tight, nervous line. Brendon glances down at a touch to his cloak-covered thigh, and notices Spencer's fingers spidering pale and shaky along it. After a few seconds, Spencer's hand stills, and Brendon watches nervously as Spencer's index finger starts to trace letters on the red cloth.
H-E-L-P
Brendon sucks in a breath, and accidentally whimpers when he lets it out. He can't help clutching Spencer a little, hugging him tight for a few seconds before whispering, "What's going on?"
Spencer shivers and pulls away, keeping his eyes shut tight as he reaches up to trace the claw marks (deep and red and angry-looking, still) with his hand. Then he points to his head. "It got in," he whispers, barely audible.
Brendon remembers the weird external wave of nauseated panic he felt at the second house and shudders. "Oh, fuck," he breathes, curling up closer, holding tighter to Spence. "Is it - "
"No, in the woods still," Spencer says, anticipating the question. He shivers and stills under Brendon's hands, patting his thigh lightly. "Two-way street. I can see into it, too. I think it saw the house though, and you, before..."
He sucks in a breath, and cuts himself off, recoiling away from Brendon a little. "Fuck."
"What?" Brendon asks, worried. Spence shakes his head, which, what, and finally Brendon reaches his limit for fucked-up cross-species Exorcist bullshit and shakes Spencer's shoulders, pushing him back into the sofa. "Fucking what, Spence, tell me what's going on!"
Spencer shivers (god, he's so fucking pale, shit) and opens his eyes, blinking at him for a second, and then there it is - a tiny shake of his head. "Spence," Brendon breathes, torn between a fierce need to kill whatever's hurting him, and an equally fierce need to hit him on the head repeatedly.
Spencer sucks in a rattly breath, and Brendon bites his lip, his stomach rising up in his throat as he realizes Spencer's eyes are getting redder-rimmed, wetter. "It heard me," Spencer whispers finally, his eyes wide and worried.
"Can - what?" Brendon asks, before he glances down at the scratches on Spencer's arms and the way he's gone deathly pale, and puts two and two together. "Oh, fuck."
"We need to bar the doors and windows," Spencer mutters quietly, grabbing for Brendon's closest arm, gripping it with unnatural strength. "Douse all the lights and I'll get some firewood from outside so it can't get down the chimney."
"Yeah," Brendon murmurs, reaching up to brush the hair off Spencer's forehead, hovering there for a second, trying to keep his breaths and his hands from shaking too hard. "Yeah, okay. Is it - ?"
"Not long," Spencer manages, his jaw clenching down. "It's out of the woods. It's looking."
"Okay," Brendon nods, and he immediately breaks into action, barring the front door with two love seats and a bookcase, heading into the kitchen. Behind him, he can hear Spencer opening and banging open the windows.
"The windows have shutters. I've got the front room, just don't block the back door til I come around," Spencer yells from the front room, and Brendon sucks in a breath and starts moving fast, not wasting time now that Spencer's getting desperate enough to start yelling.
He slams through the kitchen, pulling open the windows and yanking the outside shutters closed, locking the glass up behind them. He grabs the side-room and bedroom windows as well, and then when he runs back into the kitchen, Spencer's already taken care of barring the back door and is taking apart the bookshelf, using the long planks of wood to bar the windows a little better. He's found some nails outside - there's a small handful of them sitting on the windowsill.
Brendon glances around and then notices - the firewood. He grabs a couple of big pieces from the stacks Spencer has made, and throws them on the grate. He stretches until he manages to reach the bookshelf beside the fireplace, and tosses a couple of books on as well, tearing out pages and holding them to the still-glowing embers til they catch light and can be used to build the fire back up.
Once the fire is roaring, Brendon takes a couple of the smaller planks from the bookcase and puts them with the others. Then he steps back, and looks back over to Spencer, who's still messing with the barricade to the front door. "Spencer," Brendon says, moving the five steps it takes to get next to him, lay a tentative hand on his shoulder. "Hey. Spence."
"It's almost here - " Spencer says, through gritted teeth, and Brendon nods and tries to tug him away from the door, turn him away from it so Spencer's only looking at him.
"Okay," he murmurs, keeping his voice nice and even. "The front door looks good, and we've blocked up the windows and all the entrances. What else can we - "
But then Spencer gasps, and freezes, and behind them both, the front door jumps as something on the other side slams into it with all its might. "Oh, fuck," Spencer moans, sinking into Brendon a little, reaching up to clutch his head.
Brendon has no idea what the fuck is going on. He's got Spencer mostly on the sofa again, all curled up around him because it seems to help a little, Spencer doesn't thrash quite as much, though judging by the way his spine is tense enough to shatter, Brendon's willing to guess he's still in a lot of pain.
Outside, it's like the house is trying to withstand a hurricane and a tornado and a blizzard all at once. Brendon has never heard the wind roar before, but now he has. He can see, in the tiny gaps between slats in the window shutters, the bend and twist of trees, and the ominous sound of cracking and crashing not far away. It's like the entire world has decided to gang up on this one little house, and now all the elements are doing their damnedest to get in.
Underneath him, Spencer gasps and twitches a little. Brendon curls a hand up, cups his cheek, doesn't even care anymore about being obvious because fuck, he's never seen Spencer like this. "Spence, m'here," Brendon reminds him, murmuring into his ear. A bolt of lightning hits close enough outside that Brendon can see the light, between the seams of the door and the slats of the shutters. Thunder breaks over the house like the world is tearing in two, and Spencer shakes.
Brendon takes his hand, and hangs on. "Hey, hey," he breathes, curling up closer, twining their legs together. "Hey, remember the lightning storms we had back home? We'd get out on the roof of my apartment building and watch them in the desert, it's just like that, remember? Spence?"
Spence shivers, and closes his eyes, and turns his face towards Brendon, a little. "Yeah," Brendon breathes, encouraged, smiling a tiny bit as he presses their foreheads together. "And Brent got so freaked out when they'd get even a little bit close. And remember the time in Tulsa, with the thunderstorms? Ryan said he saw a funnel cloud and we all got out and danced around in the rain til we were soaked, because none of us had had showers in a week."
"Beckett got out his shampoo," Spencer manages, frowning with the effort, his forehead stitching up in concentration.
"Oh yeah!" Brendon says, almost grinning. "Dude, I'd almost forgotten about that."
"And you threatened to take your pants off," Spencer continues, opening his eyes a little, "and Ryan and I told you we'd..."
"Take all my Red Bulls and give them to the homeless," Brendon supplies, laughing softly, rubbing the back of Spencer's neck before he realizes that Spencer isn't really breathing. "Spence?" There's no answer, and Brendon shakes him a little. "Spence."
He finally exhales, raggedly, and immediately Spencer's face just crumples. Brendon looks on, bewildered, as Spencer sags into him, face pressed tight to his shoulder. Twenty seconds later, Spencer's shoulders start to shake, and Brendon wraps both arms around him and just holds on, totally unprepared for seeing Spencer Smith cry. It's only the second time ever.
"Spence, what - " he starts, but Spence just shudders, and clings to Brendon harder, clutching at his cape like it's the only thing keeping him from drowning. "Spence."
"It's in my head," Spencer manages, voice thick and choked, shaking as another round of thunder rocks the house. "It keeps showing me."
Brendon pulls him in tighter and glances around the room, watching the oil lamps flicker and almost sputter out, watching the front door bend and almost buckle as it's slammed into repeatedly.
"Showing you what?" he hisses to Spencer, watching the door, tensing up every time something hits it. There's another slam, and then the scraping sound of claws against wood, and Brendon flinches. "Showing you what, Spence?"
There's a long pause. Brendon worries that Spencer isn't breathing again, but then there's a small, unmistakable "Ryan" being muffled into his coat, and Brendon winces and hugs him tighter. "And Jon. They." But the rest of the sentence gets stuck in Spencer's throat, and he ducks his head back down into the crook of Brendon's neck and just sobs.
"Their houses," Spencer gasps finally, his fists tightening in Brendon's cape. "And I couldn't stop, I just. I ran past, and they were in there, still, and we didn't get here in time, and - "
Oh.
Brendon's eyes start to prickle too, as he remembers the pile of ashes that was the first house, and the blast-zone that was the second house. The half-smeared blood on the door. He presses his fingertips to his left eyelid and presses down, hard, needing the distraction.
"It keeps showing me, they weren't even expecting - they thought it was us," Spencer manages, barely getting out "Ryan was smiling when he answered the door," before he breaks down again. "I was too late, I didn't even stop for him."
"Oh, Spence," Brendon murmurs, hugging him up tight, pressing a hand to the back of his head and just. Cuddling unabashedly, curling around him tight and just holding on. "Hey, hey," he sighs, rubbing Spencer's back, rocking them both back and forth a little, trying to ignore the way the front door is still bouncing on its hinges, the way the lightning outside is getting closer. "Spence, it wasn't them."
"Yes it - "
"No, I promise it wasn't them," Brendon murmurs, close to his ear. "Our Ryan and Jon are both in Topanga right now, probably smoking a bowl and writing beach music and trying very, very hard to be cool."
"Yeah, but this Ryan and Jon are - "
" - part of a story," brendon finishes for him. "Not the actual, living and breathing Ryan and Jon. Got it?" Brendon asks, frowning as he watches Spencer's eyes go glassy again. He reaches up, pats his cheek, maybe a little harder than is completely necessary, until Spencer's eyes sharpen back onto him again. "Got. It?"
Spencer nods, his eyes still only half open, his mouth a thin line of determination. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. It's - ow," he grumbles, shaking his head a little, before he suddenly cries out and curls up, forehead pressing hard against Brendon's shoulder. "Oh. Oh, fuck," Spencer gasps, reaching a hand out to twist in Brendon's shirt, keeping him anchored close. Brendon holds tight to him, checking him over frantically, trying to figure out what the hell's happening now.
"Spence, what - "
"Fucking with me," Spencer gasps, twitching a little, biting down hard on his lip as anothe spasm rocks through him. "Didn't like that - ow," he groans, reaching up to clutch at his head. "Owowowowow."
Brendon watches in horror as Spencer writhes, twisting on the sofa as the pain flits across his body at random. His eyes are squeezed shut, but Brendon can still see how dark the circles are around them, how unnaturally pale Spencer's going. "Spence," he whispers, curling around him again, pressing close. "Spence, what's - "
"It won't let go," Spencer gasps, reaching a fluttering hand up to Brendon's elbow, holding on there. "It says it won't - "
"Oh, fuck that," Brendon snarls, pulling back to look down at Spencer, the bloodless hand on his own elbow, the way Spencer's lips are dry and cracked. He glances over at the door, at the way it rattles and the wind shrieks around it. "Fuck this shit," he says firmly, and then he leans forward and presses his hand to Spencer's cold cheek, his lips to Spencer's forehead, and he grabs the axe out of Spencer's belt.
In one smooth movement, Brendon slides off of the sofa and moves towards the door, knocking over the bookshelves and Spencer's carefully-placed planks, scowling as he pushes and pulls and finally gets one loveseat and then the second out of the way.
After five minutes of frantic manual labor, the door's finally free. A disgustingly well-timed crash of thunder and lightning makes the door and the doorknob rattle, and Brendon glowers at it, fierce enough that whatever's on the other side of it should be dead, but of course he isn't going to count on that.
(On the sofa, Spencer's still twitching, shaking with pain - not writhing anymore but Brendon's a little worried that that's because he can't, he's too tired.)
Brendon swallows, and thinks about praying but then realizes it wouldn't be so much a prayer to one deity as a mass text message to all of them, so he shouts out to the universe to let him fucking take care of this, let Brendon fucking take care of him, and wrenches open the door.
A gale-force wind knocks him back, and there's another crash of lightning, and Brendon can't help sucking in a breath as he notices the sleek, slithering outline of the wolf skulking around the front door. He pulls himself up, though, balancing on the axe handle for a second before hauling it up over his shoulder, sneering at the wolf. "Well? Fucking come on, this is what you wanted, isn't it? Come on come on come on," he shouts, flipping the huge animal off, feeling like his heart is going to just explode from fear and rage and fear again.
There's a huge, malevolent growl that echoes through the room at that - Brendon glances over, and winces when he sees that Spencer's gone unnaturally still, eyes glassy and open to the ceiling. He turns his attention back to the door, to the way the wolf is hovering just outside, rearing back on its hind legs a little and then crouching down, getting ready to spring.
Brendon cracks his neck, and makes sure his cape is tied on tight and is in no way in danger of falling in his eyes. And then he brings the axe up, swinging it in his hand, feeling its heft. He pulls back, and waits.
The wolf's eyes are white as lightning, crackling just the same as the sky outside as it pounces.
Brendon closes his eyes, and swings.
When he opens his eyes five seconds later, Brendon is frankly shocked to find himself alive. His hands are empty, so he checks himself over pretty thoroughly, and then once that's done he glances over a couple of feet and nearly jumps out of his skin because there - in the middle of the living room - is the huge wolf, slumped lifeless on the floor, with the axe sticking out of its head. Brendon's standing over it, oddly victorious, his bright red cape snapping in the wind from outside that is rushing through the house.
It almost looks like one of those unfunny Halloween props, Brendon thinks, except Brendon remembers the initial tension, and then release, as the blade sliced through the skullbone. He doesn't think he'll be forgetting that one soon.
But just to make sure, Brendon pokes the wolf with his toe a few times. He doesn't get eaten.
And then there's a small groan from the couch - Brendon whirls around and feels instantly guilty for not immediately going to check on Spencer. "Oh, shit," he murmurs, hurrying over, giving Spencer his best sheepish expression. "Hey."
"Hey," Spencer says, rubbing the side of his head sluggishly. "Wow, that was fun."
"Boy, you're telling me," Brendon sighs. "You look like shit."
"I feel like shit," Spencer agrees, slumping back onto the sofa, still way too pale and tired-looking. "Fucking wolf. Mikey wasn't kidding."
"Seriously, I wasn't expecting any Exorcist bullshit, what the hell was that?" Brendon wonders aloud, perching on the edge of the sofa and reaching a hand out to run through Spencer's hair gently. Spence hums and closes his eyes, tilting his head up into Brendon's hand, like a cat.
"I don't want to go on that ride again," Spencer breathes plaintively, cracking an eye open to gaze at Brendon. Brendon just tsks and ruffles his hair, before getting up and moving back over to the wolf carcass in the middle of the room. "Um."
"Well it's not a throw rug," Brendon reasons, shrugging a shoulder before he reaches down to grab one of the wolf's hind legs. It's rough going at first, but eventually, Brendon manages to tug and pivot until the body has tumbled outside, out of the house. He wipes his hands and goes back in, making sure to lock the door behind him. "There."
"That was exhausting, and I didn't even do anything," Spencer observes. He's managed to sit up a little on the sofa, and isn't looking so deathly pale anymore, so Brendon gives him a wide smile.
"Yeah, you didn't," Brendon agrees, flopping down onto the sofa beside him. "Slacker."
"Fuck you, I was possessed. Were you possessed? No," Spencer says, tilting his chin a little, giving Brendon a tiny smirk. The effect is somewhat marred by the huge yawn that threatens to crack Spencer's jaw just then, and Brendon snickers. "Shut up," Spencer grumbles, shifting so that he's leaning against Brendon's side. "I'm fucking tired."
"Me too," Brendon admits, resting his cheek on Spencer's hair for a second, before he gets an idea and shrugs Spence off, standing and scrambling for the bedroom. It's a seriously plain room, but whatever, he is a genius.
When he hauls the mattress into the living room a few seconds later, Spencer bursts into appreciative laughter, and even slow-claps for him as Brendon wheezes and drops it down in the middle of the floor. "There," he gasps, chest heaving. "Bed." He runs back into the bedroom and gathers the assorted linens, and then runs back to the living room, where Spencer's already lying face-down, spread-eagled on the mattress. "Hey!" he squawks.
"Bed," Spencer whispers reverently, curling up to the mattress like it's just given him the best sex ever. Brendon rolls his eyes, and tosses a blanket onto Spencer's head, relishing the muffled yelp. He takes advantage of the way Spencer rolls off the bed to drape the sheet on, and then flops down onto it himself.
"Mmph, bed," he sighs, beaming down at Spencer, who's giving him a filthy look from the floor. "What are you doing down there?"
"I don't know," Spencer says calmly, before he slides back up onto the mattress and immediately goes for Brendon's ribs, poking him til he's gasping laughter, fighting for air. "What was I doing on the floor, Brendon Urie?"
"I don't know, maybe it's a drummer thing," Brendon tells him seriously, grabbing for his hands and catching one, squeezing his fingers tight. They tussle for a few more seconds until Brendon manages to pin Spencer's other hand, and then the two of them just lie there, snickering quietly, just pleased to be alive.
Brendon can't help the fond smile he gives Spencer, the way he looks him over carefully. "Okay?" he asks.
Spencer rolls his eyes, but shuffles closer, a little. "Okay," he answers. "You?"
"One-hundred percent awesome," Brendon tells him, draping his outside arm over Spencer comfortably, reaching down to try to pull the blanket higher up on himself. He squirms and grumbles until Spencer huffs and takes pity, tugging the blanket up for him.
Brendon watches as Spencer closes his eyes - the shadows there are still way too dark, but at least Spencer's got some of his color back. "Big spoon or little spoon?" he yawns tiredly.
"Mmph." Spencer rubs his eyes with his fingers, and then stretches out for a second, before going pliant against him. "Too tired to be big spoon."
"Oh, awesome," Brendon breathes, cracking one eye open to watch as Spencer shuffles around and grabs Brendon's arm, hauling it around his middle comfortably. He hardly ever gets to be big spoon with Spencer, Spence must've really felt like shit earlier.
Brendon reflects on that for a second, and frowns, tightening his arm around Spence's middle. "Good?"
"Good."
He can't help it, Spencer is a warm, sleepy weight beside him, one that's curling up in his arms in a way that Brendon wouldn't have predicted, so Brendon has to just. Drop his lips to the back of Spencer's shirt, over the top bump of his spine. He holds on and holds on and holds on, feeling the rise and fall of Spence's chest, the tickle of Spencer's hair on his own nose. As soon as Spencer's breathing has leveled out into something deep and painless, Brendon reaches down and finds one of Spencer's hands and squeezes it, not closing his eyes til he's threaded Spencer's fingers with his own.
It only takes him moments to fall asleep, after that.
Six A