[fic] the future is a thing with feathers [brendon/shane; r] (3/3)
the future is a thing with feathers
back
The weather’s been good lately, and Dylan keeps staring out the window and watching the birds nesting on the ledge across the way. Dylan finally has more energy. It’s kind of cute. Brendon’s glad his windows all open up onto an alley, where no one will see.
He doesn’t want Dylan getting spotted, even though he knows there’s no way a passerby would know if he was legal or not. There’s not even really a good way for most passersby to figure out which apartment is his, unless they went to the city and got the floor plan, or had the key to the front door or whatever. His neighbors could probably figure it out.
Still, he tries to spend as much time playing with Dylan as he can, since he can’t let him out.
Jon’s really good with Dylan, too, which is unsurprising.
"So do you think he’s going to be okay?" Jon says from his spot on the floor. He’s holding a cup of yogurt upright while Dylan eats it. Brendon’s spilled more random food trying to give Dylan snacks than he can keep track of anymore.
"I don’t know," Brendon says. "Maybe."
"What’d Shane say?"
"Maybe." Brendon laughs. "There’s not really any knowing. Dylan’s, like, the last of his kind or some shit."
"That sucks," Jon says.
"Yeah."
-
Brendon doesn’t invite Shane to the show, in the end, because he’s pretty sure that’s way too awkward. Ryan does bring his friend Spencer, though, and he even tags along when they go to another bar afterwards. Brendon is always a little surprised when he sees Spencer - this is only the third time - because Spencer isn’t as ironically, excessively cool as most of Ryan’s other friends. He actually seems like a pretty normal guy.
"Great mustache, bro," is the first thing Brendon says to him. "Like, seriously, congratulations."
"Thanks. I try," Spencer says, laughing.
Ryan says, "Don’t encourage him, man, he keeps making up excuses not to shave it."
"Because it’s awesome," Brendon says. "And - oh, yeah, man, thank you, by the way. For - coming to the show," he says, correcting himself before even finishing the sentence.
"No problem." Spencer nods. "How did that thing you were working on go?"
"Okay." Brendon gives a thumbs up, then reconsiders and puts his other thumb up too. "It went good."
"You mean it went well," Ryan says. Spencer rolls his eyes.
"Sure. Hopefully!" Brendon hums something, absentmindedly bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Guys. Are you tired? I hope you’re not tired."
"Nah," Ryan says.
"Okay, good, because I am going to drink and be merry. I think I deserve a celebration."
Ryan says, "You don’t have anything you need to do at home?"
"Nah, it’ll be fine," Brendon says, waving a hand. He’s glad the guys are keeping vague about Dylan. Brendon’s pretty paranoid. "Let’s go get fucked up."
"Hey, hey, wait." A tall, lanky guy with a huge smile interrupts, leaning on Brendon's shoulder. "You're the guy."
"That's me," Brendon says, not too phazed. Some of his fans are weird, though he doesn't recognize this guy. If he'd ever been in the crowd, Brendon would have remembered, if only because of all the neon.
"You bailed on my roommate," he says, by way of explanation. "She told me about it."
"Wait - Victoria? Dude, can you tell her - I'm really sorry, seriously."
"Nah, it's cool," the guy says. "But you're the guy. I recognized you, since you're the guy."
"I'm the guy," Brendon agrees, once more. "Seriously, though, a friend of mine got really sick and I had to take care of him. I just totally spaced out. Can you apologize for me or whatever? I mean, it doesn't - I'm not trying to get back into her pants, I fucked up, but you know."
"So how was she in the sack?"
"She was -- dude, I'm not telling. That's creepy as fuck, man."
"Nah, I was testing you," the guy says. "We're cool. Have a good one, man. I'll see you around."
-
Brendon wakes up to a pounding headache, his phone’s alarm, and Dylan butting his snout against Brendon’s face. "Nnguh."
He turns off his alarm - he doesn’t know why it was on in the first place, since he doesn’t have anywhere to be today - and stares at his phone for a second. There are a few missed alerts. One’s a text from Ryan, you get home okay???
The other is from Shane. hahaha how drunk were you last night?
Brendon groans, closing his eyes, because he doesn’t remember getting home, let alone texting anybody. Probably he shouldn’t drink so much. He scratches the back of Dylan’s head.
He gets up and feeds Dylan. The only text he actually remembers sending - he wasn’t quite drunk enough at that point, apparently - was Dylan misses you ☹.
So he goes through his phone. He’d sent Shane five texts, and Shane hadn’t replied until this morning. At least there’s that.
The second one was he’s really sad you should come over soon I don’t want the little guy to hurt himself f !, and then you know how dinosaurs are ☺.
He’d managed to wait a good three minutes before following that up with shane are you busy. After that, he’d had the good grace to wait a full six minutes - and probably most of this was spent trying to type - cuz you know it’s a too late to be busy unless you want to be busy with me ;) heyo.
There were a couple texts to Cash in there, too, but they’re pretty par for the course. Brendon’s drunk texted Cash enough times that it doesn’t even matter anymore.
The last one is just, srsly are u busy wy aren’t you over here dwlam mises you.
Brendon is pretty sure he needs to have his phone taken away from him when he’s drunk. That, or - and his train of thought is sort of interrupted by the sudden wave of nausea - just not drink that much again, that might be a good plan, too.
He sits down in front of the toilet and rests his cheek on the seat, which totally isn’t sanitary but he feels fucking terrible and it’s cold and smooth, so whatever. He doesn’t actually vomit, just sits there for nearly half an hour wondering if he’s going to until Dylan comes nosing around and chirping at him loudly.
He texts Shane again - which, probably not the best idea he’s ever had, but whatever - with oh god why simornign send help.
It’s a few minutes before Shane texts back, but Brendon doesn’t notice how long it takes because he’s seriously debating if he wants to try inducing vomiting or something. Maybe it’d make him feel better. Probably not.
Eventually his stomach calms down enough that he can get up and stumble into the kitchen to make two slices of toast and put the coffee on. The toast is dry, but Brendon isn’t willing to risk butter - or, in fact, any flavor at all - just yet.
He finally checks his phone, once he’s got his coffee poured and enough milk and sugar added. Hangovers suck.
Brendon texts back. yeah, i finally have coffee though, think i’ll make it through the day.
Well that’s a relief. Before Brendon can text back, Shane’s sent another message. So Dylan misses me huh???
Brendon rubs a hand across his face and takes a moment to just inhale the smell of coffee before replying. oh totally he’s been pretty bummed out man. he thinks you should come over for dinner. hell even pay. He rethinks that, and taps out another message. He’s probably digging this hole deeper than necessary. don’t ask how hes been making money hes pretty resourceful for a lizard.
Shane’s eventual reply is theyre avians not lizards. What were you thinking for dinner
Brendon hadn’t actually thought about that. He’s not entirely sure he’d meant to ask Shane to dinner in the first place, because his crush is stupid and obvious and he doesn’t want to make things any worse. He has a bad habit of letting relationships either crash and burn or fade out into awkwardness, and he doesn't want either to happen here.
He’s still thinking of that girl, Victoria. He keeps telling himself that wouldn’t have worked out anyway, but she’d seemed cool, and he’s pretty sure he blew it. Not trying and just never talking to Shane ever again seems like a way better option right now.
He texts back anyway, though, because if all else fails he can always just bail. There’s this new Italian place that opened pretty close to my place??? Could check it out tomorrow or w/e’s good w u and way to go, Brendon Boyd, because Italian is pretty much the definition of date food. Shane’s his friend. Maybe. At best. Mostly Shane’s his illegal pet dinosaur’s vet, and most people - most people don’t have illegal pet dinosaurs, but they especially don’t ask their illegal pet dinosaur’s veterinarian out to fancy Italian restaurants.
Shane replies Sure I’ll come by after work. Is this the kind of place w/ a dress code or can I wear my miniskirt? ;)
Brendon laughs, which serves mostly to make his head hurt.
-
Once Brendon’s had his coffee and grabbed some Chinese takeout for lunch, he looks Shane up on Facebook and - after a friend request - messages him the address and shit. Brendon hasn’t actually checked whether or not there’s a dress code. He kind of hopes not, because most of his clothes aren’t even remotely fancy.
He checks the website, and it looks like they’re in the clear, so he mentions that in the message, too.
Then he calls Ryan, and ends up going to his place for once. It’s been a while.
"Sorry," Ryan says, absentmindedly, as he opens the door. He stares back over his shoulder, looking vague and distant. "I don’t know where my plants went."
"Did they run away or something?"
Ryan looks startled, looking up at Brendon. "You think they might have? I didn’t think plants could do that. I wish they’d come back so I could water them."
"No, man," Brendon says. "Are you high, or what?"
"I wish," Ryan says.
"Okay," Brendon says, clapping him on the shoulder. "I was going to freak out and ask you to watch Disney movies with me, but maybe you just should go to bed."
"No, it’s fine," Ryan says. "You want a beer or something?"
"I’m good," Brendon says.
Ryan looks horrified. "Really?"
"I - yes?"
"If you’re sure."
Brendon rolls his eyes, flopping down onto Ryan’s couch at about the same time. "Are you sure you’re not high?"
"Maybe a little," Ryan says. "I might be kind of high. I was going to build a fort before you came."
"Dude, I’ll help you build a fort."
They build a fort. Ryan has a lot more pillows than seems reasonable for a one-person apartment. Some of them are decorative. A couple have tacky phrases sewn onto them. Ryan didn’t have half as many pillows last time Brendon was over here, which was only a couple of months ago.
He resolves to get Ryan more for his next birthday, and ends up texting a note about it to his own email.
They’re sitting cross-legged in the fort and eating popcorn when Ryan finally says, "So why did you need a fort?"
"Why did you?"
"I always build forts when I’m high," Ryan says, rolling his eyes like that’s the most obvious thing in the world.
"How did I not know this? Are you making things up again, Ryan Ross?"
"That wouldn’t even be a good lie." Ryan shakes his head, poking at Brendon’s knee with his foot. Ryan has really creepy toes. Brendon says as much, and Ryan just says, without any vitriol, "Fuck you."
"Maybe I just wanted to help you build a fort," Brendon says.
"Okay. Cool. Thanks, man."
"No problem."
Ryan says, "So why are you here?"
"I think I asked a dude out on a date," Brendon says.
"How long do you give it before you fuck this one up?"
"Hey," Brendon says, but he can’t bring himself to sound too offended. He’s been pretty bad at relationships recently, with recent defined as the past three years.
"I'm just saying," Ryan says.
"Yeah." Brendon shrugs, looking down. Ryan's toes still creep him out. "Did you smoke all your pot, or is there some left?"
Ryan frowns, then carefully unfolds himself and crawls out of the haphazard fort, brushing his head against the sheet that forms the roof. When he comes back they close the fort up to make the dorkiest hotbox ever.
Once he's loosened up a bit, Brendon says, "I think I kind of really don't want to fuck this up. Like, it's not even - but I hope I don't fuck up. Preemptively. In advance. Even though there's not even anything to fuck up yet."
"The only thing you can do is your best." Ryan crosses his arms, nodding.
Brendon starts laughing. "You sound like a kindergarten teacher."
Ryan cocks his head to the side, looking genuinely thoughtful. "I could teach kindergarteners."
"Do it."
"Okay." Ryan nods, decisively. "I'm going to - I'll get employed. I'll learn how, and then I'll fucking teach some little kids how to read, it's going to be fantastic. I can introduce them to Kerouac."
"I don't think kindergarteners would be quite old enough to appreciate On the Road, man."
"I could adapt it."
"Adapt it - to like, a story book? A little kid's story book? Fucking do it," Brendon says, because he is nothing if not encouraging. "Shit."
"Seriously," Ryan says. "I can't help being a genius."
-
Dinner goes way better than Brendon lets himself hope for. He learns all this stupid, banal shit about Shane, like how he’s from some town twenty minutes outside of Vegas, and how he switched from film school to paleobiology two years into college, and the name of the place he went to grad school . It’s way more interesting than it has any right to be.
If Brendon was learning this about a stranger, he’d probably be bored to tears, but he likes Shane enough that it’s actually kind of interesting hearing his story. Brendon doesn’t like talking about himself too much, and keeps his own answers vague.
"I don’t know," he’s saying. "At least my parents are talking to me again. I don’t really want to talk about it, you know?"
"Yeah, okay." Shane nods. "Sorry. I didn’t know, or I wouldn’t have asked."
"Yeah," Brendon says, then the waiter comes back asking if they want dessert. He grins. "You wanna share something?"
Shane takes a quick look at the proffered dessert menu, asking if the cheesecake is made with ricotta or not. "I haven’t had good cheesecake in maybe forever," he says. "You want to?"
"Dude, yeah. Two forks, alright?"
The waiter nods, and disappears again. They’re quiet for a while, but it’s comfortable. Brendon sits back in his chair, looking out the window on his left. It’s dark out. There isn’t a lot to be seen outside, except a few people walking to or from their cars.
The waiter brings the bill at the same time as their dessert, and Shane moves to get it, but Brendon says, "No, no, I got this, dude."
"You don’t want to split it or anything?"
"Nah, I still owe you," Brendon says, grinning. "It’s the least I can do, right? I can’t let you pay, or I’d never manage to repay you."
"Huh." Shane’s face is difficult to read, but he gives a shrug before reaching to take a bite of cheesecake. "You realize you don’t actually owe me, right?"
"Dude, no, you did like - fucking medicine. You don’t give that away. That’s a valuable skill in, you know, today’s economy or whatever."
"Okay," Shane says.
"Seriously, that was - like, you didn’t have to, and I get that. I’m just really grateful you did, you know?"
"Yeah."
Brendon says, "It’s okay, right? Look, I’ve got this. Seriously." He hands over his card quickly when the waiter comes back, and never even gives Shane a chance to look at the bill. He doesn’t actually look at it himself, either, because he got a little more in merch and royalties from iTunes than he was expecting this month.
"Right, fine."
They finish off the cheesecake pretty quickly, probably hastened by how they’re not talking anymore.
Brendon sits back in his chair a little. He has to resist the urge to cross his arms; he’s feeling weird and self-conscious all of a sudden. "Did you want to pay or something?"
Shane shrugs, looking out at the rest of the dining room, watching other people. "Whatever, it’s fine."
"I’m just saying, dude, I owe you, so I just figured."
"Yeah."
"Okay," Brendon says. The waiter comes back, and he nods his head towards the door. "You wanna go?"
Shane gets up, which Brendon takes as a yes, so he trails after him out the door after putting his card back in his wallet.
The night air raises Brendon’s spirits a little, even though nothing else has changed in the last few seconds. There’s a bit of a breeze.
"Do you, like," Brendon says, pausing in front of Shane’s car. "You want to come up or anything? See how Dylan’s doing? I could make coffee."
"I should probably turn in soon." Shane shrugs loosely, fiddling with his car keys. "I've got an early morning tomorrow."
"Oh, yeah." Brendon nods. "Right. Work. People do that. Okay, yeah. See you later? We could - I don’t know, you can pick something to do. I’ll even let you pay."
Shane laughs. "Gee, thanks. Yeah, I don’t know, okay."
"Okay. Good." Brendon pauses, briefly, then as Shane's opening the door to his car, says, "So hey, wait, why were you - you seemed kind of pissed that I paid."
"I was just trying to figure out, I don't know, if we only went here because you figured you owed me, or what."
"No, dude, no." Brendon shakes his head. "Fuck. Is that how it looked? Dude, I - no. I thought it'd be fun to get dinner someplace, hang out. You're cool."
"Well, thanks," Shane says, smiling again. "I'm alright with that."
-
Greta’s sitting outside the building listening to her headphones when Brendon gets home, but she takes them out when she spots him. For once, she doesn't have her usual smile. "Hey, Brendon."
"Hey. You doing alright?"
"Not really." Greta looks down, not meeting his eyes. "So, you’re going to give me fifteen hundred dollars."
Brendon stares at her.
"Preferably soon, but you know, within the next month." She stands up, still not smiling, and gives Brendon a hug. "Please? I know you'll pull through."
"I - no? How about no," Brendon says, pulling back awkwardly. "I don’t really have that kind of money to give away."
"Well, you’ll have to help me find it, then."
"I … really don’t see why, so no."
"You don’t want to go to jail, do you? If you don’t have fifteen hundred, there’s no way you have five thousand. Unless you’re holding back on me. I don’t think your little friend would like that, though."
"What the fuck?"
"Brendon, come on, I figured it out. I really don’t want to have to do this, okay? Look, I’ll talk to you later. I know where to find you."
"That’s comforting, thanks. I don’t even know what you’re talking about."
"Brendon." She sighs, shaking her head, before making her way inside. Brendon stands there for a while before going inside himself. He takes the stairs instead of the elevator, out of an aimless paranoia. Greta’s not even in the foyer anymore, so it’s not like he’d run into her in the elevator.
Somehow, Brendon had thought that Cash finding out was the worst part of all of this so far. Cash, as far as he knows, still hasn’t told anybody else, and somehow Greta knows, and that’s a lot worse. As far as he knew, the two of them were friends, even if Greta had been a little weird and nosy over the last few weeks.
That all makes sense now, at least. Not that he knows what she wants the money for, but it seems like she knows he has Dylan. Hopefully she’s just bluffing, but Brendon doesn’t want to risk it.
He actually isn’t sure what he’s going to do.
Greta smiles and waves when he heads over to the print shop the next day. He waves back and hopes last night was just a dream, but no, she says, "Got it yet?"
"Nope!" Brendon says. "Sorry!"
"Well, you just let me know." Greta laughs. She looks as sweet as she ever has. Brendon tries not to shiver, even though he really is sort of creeped out, especially given how bummed out she seemed yesterday.
She isn’t around when he gets home, and he manages to avoid her the next day, but then she’s at his door and saying, "Hey, so look."
"This was all a bad joke, right?"
"Nope," she says. "I only really need a thousand now. I managed to get five hundred by selling some of my stuff, if that helps."
"Dude, if you need money, why don’t you ask your parents? Seriously, why are you even asking me?"
"You’re a rock star," Greta says. "And they towed my fucking car."
Brendon’s not sure he’s heard Greta swear before. "So get it back?"
She shakes her head. "There’s about a million dollars in fees. Well. Fifteen hundred."
"Well, shit. Can’t you, like, argue with them?"
"I tried," she says. "Anyway. I need that thousand bucks, Urie."
"I still don’t have it."
"You have more stuff than I do," she says.
"No, really. I - dude, are you trying to get me to sell my guitars? I actually need those to make any money in the first place."
Greta says, "Brendon, I’m serious. I don’t know how much longer I can get my friends to give me rides to work. I can’t do this, okay? And look, I seriously will turn you in. There’s a reward and shit."
"What would you turn me in for?" Brendon frowns, crossing his arms defensively, trying to think of anything other than Dylan. "I have a license for medical marijuana; I can show you. I get headaches."
This is only partly true - he has a license, but the headaches are fake.
Greta says, "You never had a cat in your apartment."
Brendon shifts his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. "Yeah I did. I was watching it for a friend."
"Cats don’t sing."
"He had a bird, too."
"Uh-huh," Greta says, shaking her head. "Brendon, look, I really like you, but we both know what I know."
"Look. I’ll figure something out, okay?" Brendon has no idea how he’s going to figure this out. He’s pretty sure he’s fucked, but he needs time to at least freak out a little and adjust to the idea of spending the next five years in prison without any of his friends, his guitars, or his pet dinosaur. "Are - you could try busking? You have a guitar, right?"
"I sold it," Greta says, shaking her head. She smiles a little sadly. "Come on. I’m not getting enough freelance work these days that I can lose my job."
"Where do you even work?"
Greta looks incredulous. "Seriously?"
"What? You never mentioned it!"
Greta says, "It doesn’t matter; I’m not making enough money to lose this job."
"I’m not -"
"I can’t afford to get fired, Brendon."
"Yeah," Brendon says. Normally, he’d be giving Greta a hug for that, but now he’s wary. He stuffs his hands in his pockets.
"Well, look, I’ll talk to you later."
"Right," Brendon says. He exhales through his nose.
-
Brendon lies awake most of the night. Sometime around noon, he gives up on the idea of staying asleep for more than half an hour at a time. Since sleep isn't happening, he tries to figure something out instead.
When Brendon calls, Ryan just laughs at him. Jon’s voicemail says something about a vacation. With more than a little guilt, he calls up Shane.
"Oh, hey, Brendon," Shane says when he answers. "How’s it going, man?"
"Pretty good," Brendon says. "I’m good. I’m pretty stoked on how close that Italian place is to my place, you know? It was good. I had a - fuck, I can’t say good again."
Shane laughs. "Yeah, I had fun. Service was kind of slow, but whatever."
"They’re probably still ironing out the kinks or whatever," Brendon says. "Anyway, so I, uh, I was going to ask you." He pauses for a second, because he seriously can’t ask Shane another favor. Shane’s already saved Dylan’s life, and there probably isn’t anything he can do anyway. "Uhm. I have a show coming up soon?"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," Brendon says.
"Okay." Shane waits for a moment. "How about you tell me when and where, and ask me if I’m free that night."
"Oh! Right, yes. Yeah, sure. I’ll just e-mail you the address and shit, but it’s next Thursday. It’s pretty early. I mean, I go on at like, six. So you won’t be out past curfew or anything," Brendon laughs, hoping that was funny. He’s not sure. "Are, uh. If you can make it, that is."
Shane at least chuckles, and Brendon’s willing to take that and run with it. It’s good enough. "I’m pretty sure - yeah, I looked at my calendar, and I’m good. I still haven’t listened to your stuff, actually, I keep meaning to."
"Man, that’s probably for the best, my demos sound kind of shitty. I’m way better live. It’s kind of like - like the difference between porn and actual sex, you know? Like, they’re both awesome, but the real thing rules so much harder." As soon as Brendon realizes what he said, he wishes there were some kind of real-life undo button.
Shane cracks up, though, and it’s a while before he finally stops. Brendon wants to hit his head against the wall, but he values his grey matter too much. "Wow, well, in that case. I guess I’d better wait, huh? It’d be pretty weird hooking up with some dude if you’ve seen him in porn. Or heard him, I guess."
"I - yeah," Brendon says. "Yeah. Man."
Shane is still laughing. "I’ll see you Thursday."
"Right, yeah! I’ll see you then, dude. Yeah. It’s free, or else I’d put you on the guest list. Unless you want to be my merch girl."
"No, that’s okay," Shane says.
"Okay. I’m going to hang up now, and it’ll be awesome, because I won’t have the chance to say anything even stupider."
"Good luck, man," Shane says, and he’s laughing again, which is a pretty nice sound to end the call on, Brendon thinks.
-
It’s only a coffee shop show, but Brendon talked Ian and one of the Alexes into helping out, so it actually takes a minute to set up - Alex has a drum kit, and there are two guitars and a keyboard to soundcheck. The coffee-shop seems a little put out about it, but they’re the ones who agreed to let him play in the first place. They knew what they were getting into.
Brendon’s played with both of them before, and they all practice a couple times before the show just to make sure everyone knows what’s what. Brendon tries really, really hard while they’re setting up to keep himself distracted, and he manages not to look around at the customers even once. Either Shane’s there already or he isn’t.
Once they finish their first song and Brendon’s bantered a little at the few people paying attention, then he lets himself look for Shane. Shane grins at him, offering up a small half-nod, and Brendon winks at him and dedicates the next song to "a good friend, you know who you are."
By the time he reaches the chorus, when he’s already been singing to Shane for half the first verse, he realizes dedicating this particular song to him was probably a mistake. It only really hits him when he’s singing Can we fast forward to go down on me?
-
Somehow, Shane ends up helping Alex carry his drum kit back out to the trailer, while Brendon chats up his fans. He’s still talking to a last few stragglers when Shane returns, holding up a camera.
"Hey," Shane says, holding it so Brendon can see. "Check it out, I got some decent shots, it looks like."
"Hopefully the full size won’t be blurry or whatever," Brendon says, before actually looking at the screen. Brendon cocks his head to the side. The lighting’s really good. There are probably a whole lot of other technical merits he could praise the photo on, but instead he says, "Dude, I look hot."
One of the girls he was talking to cracks up. "Wow, modest, much?"
"Hey, come on," Brendon says. "Check it out. It’s a very flattering picture."
"Oh, hey, this is good," the girl says. The three of them talk a little longer before one of the girl’s friends comes to get her, since her group is leaving.
"So you were alright, I guess," Shane says as he puts his camera back in the case. "You know. Decent." He’s grinning.
"Oh, thanks." Brendon hooks his thumbs through his belt loops, ducking his head at the compliment. "I try."
"No, seriously, though, you were great. Do you get to play shows pretty often?" Shane is standing pretty close, and Brendon - mostly subconsciously - shifts his weight so he's closer still.
"I guess." Brendon wishes he'd worn a cooler pair of shoes. He's staring down at the pair he's got on right now, shuffling one foot against the floor and staring at all the little scuffs and scratches they've acquired over the years. When he looks up, Shane's still smiling at him, and Brendon can't help but smile back. "I try to keep myself out there, I don’t know."
"Yeah, no, that’s good. How you’ve gotta do it, right?" Shane raises a fist, and it takes Brendon a second to figure out what's expected and bump fists with him.
"Totally, dude."
"They were about finished loading up the van, by the way," Shane says, tilting his head back towards the door. "If you guys were going somewhere after the show."
"Oh - no, just. Home, probably."
"Not gonna party like rockstars?"
"It’s a Thursday." Brendon laughs a little. "Not really famous enough that too many people would want to party on a Thursday. Plus I gotta get home, because, you know."
"Oh, yeah, good. Makes sense." Shane says, "So, how’s --?"
"Good, good. Did you, uh. Want to come over for a bit, maybe?" Brendon pauses, willing himself not to stare at his shoes anymore. "Like, I’ve got to drop the guys off first and all, but yeah, if you wanted to come hang for a bit."
"Yeah, sure, that’d be cool."
The drive ends up taking a good forty minutes, since Alex has a third-floor apartment and insists on getting help carrying his drums upstairs, then somehow Brendon gets talked into a brutal Connect Four match with Ian.
Ian’s a lot easier to get rid of, since, he explains, "I’m tired after winning so hard."
"Yeah, uh-huh," Brendon says. "You’re going to watch, like, five episodes of Star Trek before you go to bed, don’t kid."
"Whatever, man. Sisko’s awesome." Ian shrugs, slamming the van door behind him after grabbing his guitar from the back.
Brendon waits in the parking lot for a minute before turning to Shane. "Who the fuck is Sisko?"
"DS-9."
"Oh. Yeah, I never watched that one."
"Eh."
"So," Brendon says, finally starting the van up again and turning out of the lot. "Did you want to come by, see how Dylan’s doing?"
Shane laughs. "Yeah, sure."
The rest of the drive passes quickly, and it’s not long before Brendon’s searching for the key to his apartment. "He totally missed you, dude, I swear. You better look out."
"Uh-huh," Shane says. "I’m sure."
"Seriously," Brendons says. As soon as the door is open, Dylan’s there, rubbing his head against Shane’s leg and cooing.
"Ah, hey, little guy, c’mon," Shane says, looking around - there’s no one else in the hall, thankfully. He herds Dylan in just by walking. The dinosaur is content to trail him, still singing happily. Once the door is shut behind them, Shane drops down to sit on the floor and pet Dylan, ruffling his soft feathers.
"He look okay?"
"On the outside, at least," Shane says, as Dylan scrambles into his lap to sniff at his shirt and face. "Hey, hey. Dylan. I mean, not that I can really tell much just externally, but he seems pretty energetic and shit. He eating okay?"
"Yeah. I’ve got to get him more food soon, actually, dude’s been pretty hungry."
"Don’t feed him too much. A fat dinosaur is a sad dinosaur, dude."
"Whatever, man, I’m getting him some treats. You want anything? Water, beer?"
"Sure, I’d take a beer," Shane says. Dylan’s picking at near-invisible bits of lint on Shane’s shirt until one of his claws gets caught. He chirps in alarm, tugging his hand away and pulling at the fabric. Shane has to calm him down before he can be freed.
Brendon comes back to hand Shane a just-opened bottle of Corona, condensation just starting to form on the chilled glass. "You want to watch some TV or something?"
"Is anything even on?"
"I don’t know," Brendon says, sitting on the couch. "Is it Shark Week?"
"Dude, no, that’s in August," Shane says. "If only. I think Cash Cab is on."
"Fuck Cash Cab," Brendon says. "Cash always calls me when that’s on. Or at least, when he’s drunk and it’s on. That’s still a lot. I always have to watch it with him."
"No Cash Cab, then, wow." Shane laughs. He gets up, ruffling Dylan’s feathers one more time before sitting next to Brendon. "You sure you want to watch TV?"
"Not really," Brendon says. "Figured it’d kill time, and I could make a move, all subtle and shit. You know. Yawn and put an arm around your shoulder, whatever."
"Oh, the old-fashioned approach. I don’t know, maybe I should give you the chance to work your magic." Shane hums, turning to face the TV, and wiggling his fingers at it. "How come that thing isn’t on?"
"Oh my god." Brendon laughs. "You’re such a loser."
"Thanks."
"I didn’t mean like that! No, like, it’s awesome! I’m sorry."
Shane just smiles.
"Ah, whatever, man. Holy shit, they still show Price Is Right?" Brendon leans forward a little. "Holy shit, Bob Barker is awesome. I love that dude. Is he still alive? They should bring him back."
"Pretty sure he died before either of us was even born," Shane says.
"Fuck death," Brendon says. "He should come back anyway. Bob Barker is, like, Messiah for the animals or something."
Shane grins. "Have your pets spayed or neutered? I don’t think Dylan would appreciate you holding Bob Barker up in such reverence if he knew what those words meant, dude."
"That’s house pets. Not dinosaurs. Or - whatever, shut up, stop laughing. You suck."
Dylan picks that moment to jump onto the couch, digging into the fabric for balance. He crawls his way into the space between Brendon and Shane and curls up there, cooing like a sleepy pigeon.
Shane drops a hand to stroke the soft, downy feathers of Dylan’s side.
"Fucking a," Brendon says, choosing that moment to stealthily let his hand slide on top of Shane’s.. "Motherfucker just bid a dollar on the fucking dishwasher. And that old lady with all the glitter already bid thirty. Does this guy think a dishwasher is going to cost, like, twenty bucks, or what?"
"At least he didn’t bid five thousand, like the other dude," Shane says. "These are some genius contestants, seriously. What year was this even filmed? I don’t know how much a dishwasher would have been, but seriously, even with inflation, that's dumb as shit."
"Seriously," Brendon agrees.
"You get an A for effort, by the way," Shane says, wriggling his fingers a little. "Very subtle, and classy, too. I approve."
"Oh, good. Yeah, I’ve been using that move since, like, third grade? It’s worked ever since, man, I swear."
"You’ve got to go with the classics," Shane says, agreeably. "Tried and true methods and all, right?"
"Totally." Brendon leans in a little, grinning. Neither of them is paying attention to the TV anymore, even though a contestant is playing a game to win a year’s supply of dish soap.
Dylan squirms out from under their now-entwined hands, trotting off to lap noisily at his water dish. Brendon takes the opportunity to scoot a little closer.
"So I went to this show tonight," Shane says. "At this coffee shop, right?"
"Oh, yeah? Who’d you go see?"
"Some singer-songwriter, I don’t know. The music was pretty good, so, you know, not just a pretty face or whatever. He even dedicated a song to me, you know?"
"Oh, yeah? You think he might be into you?"
"Gee, I dunno. I hope so." Shane lets out a slight laugh, and they’re sitting close enough that his breath is warm on Brendon’s face. Brendon closes the tiny distance between them.
For a while they keep it slow, feeling each other out as the moment stretches on towards the future. Eventually Brendon gets it in his head to crawl into Shane’s lap, licking his mouth open. Shane’s hands go to cup Brendon’s ass through his jeans, and Brendon lets out a slight sound, breath quickening.
He can feel his heart picking up speed, beating harder behind his ribs.
Brendon sits back so he can work Shane’s pants open, both of them smiling stupidly at one another as he does. The fluorescent light reflects off the gloss of Shane’s hair. Brendon spends more time taking that in than watching his hands, just glancing down quickly to make sure he’s got the button and then the zipper pulled down.
"So this is the part where we fast forward to go down on me, huh?" Shane asks, laughing. All the little shadows of his face are obvious from here - the dip between his nose and upper lip, the corners of his mouth, underneath his eyes.
"Seems like it," Brendon says. "I mean, if you want. You know."
"Works for me."
-
The sun’s too-bright in Brendon’s eyes all of a sudden, and he groans, reaching to try and find his phone to check the time. He finds Shane instead, managing to smack him in the face.
"Ow, ow, fuck, I’m awake," Shane says. "The fuck."
"Sorry," Brendon says. "You’re not my phone."
"No."
"Fuck," Brendon decides, rolling onto his side to look off the edge of the bed. His phone’s on the ground, so he reaches down to grab it. "Sorry. Hey, it’s like. Nine something. Nine eighteen. You gotta work?"
"Bank holiday tomorrow," Shane says.
"Right," Brendon says. "That’s not today."
"Tomorrow’s Saturday. So we got today off."
"Huh." Brendon turns onto his back, covering his eyes with one hand. "Okay."
"I’ve got some errands and shit to run, though, so I’ll be out of your way pretty soon."
"Nah, it’s cool," Brendon says. "I’m gonna make like. Coffee. And breakfast, maybe. You can have some?"
"Sweet," Shane says through a yawn. He sits up, pawing uselessly at his hair. It remains a curly mess.
There’s a scratching sound at the bedroom door that Brendon realizes has been going on since he woke up, and that implies probably longer still. Dylan’s warbling out his little morning song still.
"Shut up," Brendon shouts. "I’ll get you breakfast in a minute, fuck. Sorry, dude." He gives Shane a sheepish smile before getting up, opening the door to Dylan’s now-plaintive chirps and attention.
He stumbles out to the kitchen in the early morning light, and gets food and water set out for Dylan before working on his own breakfast. He doesn’t bother grinding any of his good coffee, just throws some of the instant on and then sets about cracking a few eggs.
When Shane finally makes his way in, Brendon looks up for a second. "What do you think dinosaur eggs taste like?"
"Like eggs," Shane says.
"But like. They’re past eggs."
"I don’t think anybody’s eaten them, as far as I know," Shane says. "I’ve never heard of it happening."
"Do you think they’d be good?"
"I - maybe?"
Brendon shrugs, stirring the eggs up with a fork before pouring in some milk. "You want cheese?"
"In what?"
"Scrambled."
"Yeah, okay," Shane says.
As he turns the stove on, Brendon asks, "So like. Is there a way to, I don’t know, make it look like Dylan’s legal? Because I might have some problems, otherwise."
"Hmm." Shane says, "Maybe once I’ve had some coffee."
They’re halfway through breakfast when Shane picks up that thread of conversation again, in the middle of discussing the weather. "I bet I could do it."
"Yeah?"
"I’ve got access to most of the papers, and - there’d be a lot of holes in the official story. Like where he was between when he was supposed to be killed and when the papers’d show up. Huh. I don’t know, I’ll see what I can do. Why?"
"I, uh, kind of got blackmailed by my neighbor. And I can’t come up with the money, so I figure I can at least get rid of what’s giving her blackmail material, right?"
"Dylan can stay at my place for a week or two, if that helps," Shane says. "How much?"
"Fifteen hundred. Well, I guess it's a thousand now, she says she got the five hundred herself."
"Hm," Shane says.
Brendon jabs his fork against his plate emphatically. "She should just have a fucking bake sale or something, right?"
"Try telling her that," Shane says, laughing. "That’s gonna go over well with somebody trying to blackmail you into giving them cash."
"I’m gonna do it," Brendon says. "Just you wait, man, I swear. Maybe she’ll, I don’t know, see the light and leave me alone."
"That sounds pretty likely, yeah," Shane says. "No way that could backfire."
"Fuuuuuuck," Brendon whines, stretching the word out longer than necessary
"I’m going to call up Spencer. He’s more likely to have the paperwork we’d need. Then I’d have to … well, I mean, everybody knows the line was canceled, but I don’t know. I’ll have to look into it. I told you, I’ll figure something out."
"Okay."
"It’s partly my fault he even exists," Shane says, running a hand through his hair. "So, yeah. Okay. I’ll see what I can do."
"Man, I could kiss you right now," Brendon says, then pauses. "Hey, I could totally do that, couldn’t I?"
Shane laughs. "Yeah, actually. You going to?"
Brendon grins toothily. "Might as well."
-
"Greta," Brendon says as soon as she opens the door. He does his best not to look at her apartment, even though he’s been in before. Snooping’s caused enough problems lately. Brendon doesn’t want to continue the cycle. "You’re having a bake sale."
"I am?" She sounds dry, and only three-quarters awake.
"A fucking bake sale," Brendon says. "To get your car back."
"I’m not having a fucking bake sale."
"Then have a celibate bake sale, Jesus Christ, I can’t get you the money myself. I’ll help you. I’ll like - I’ll post it on Myspace. I can. You can sell baked goods at the merch table."
More awake, now: "Is that legal?"
Brendon frowns, recrossing his arms. "Why would that be illegal?"
"Selling food inside a venue," Greta says. She brushes her hair out of her face, leaning against the doorframe. "What if they’re not authorized to serve food?"
"Then you can fight the fucking law, man."
"I’m already fighting the law." Covering her mouth with one hand as she yawns, Greta pauses, then continues. "You know it’s like five in the morning, right?"
"Shit, really?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, well, that’s my advice to you," Brendon says. "Bake sale."
"No."
"I’ll even help. Come on." Brendon does his best puppy-dog impression, all wide eyes and trembling lower lip. He’s practiced this one in the mirror since he was in grade school, and it’s served him well over the years - even when all he gets is a laugh out of it, which is most of the time.
"If I say fine, will you let me go back to bed?"
"Yes," Brendon says. "I like your pajamas, by the way. Where’d you get them?"
"Target," Greta says. "Why, you want them?"
"Just asking," Brendon says. "Target’s awesome. I’m going to - I’m going to go back upstairs."
"Good night."
"You’ll get your car, man, don’t worry," Brendon says. "It’s okay. You’re gonna be good. It’s cool."
"I swear to God, Brendon Urie. Don’t make me call the cops."
"Okay," Brendon says. "Okay. Look. This bake sale thing. It’ll be good. You’ve got this."
"Go," Greta says.
"Right."
-
"I think that went pretty well," Brendon declares, when he gets back to his apartment. Shane is washing his dishes in the sink. Brendon left his plate on the table in favor of harassing Greta about bake sales.
"Seriously?"
Brendon shakes his head. "She threatened to call the cops. I bet I can talk her into it, though. I’ve got this."
"Jesus." Shane huffs out something like a laugh. "Anyway, look, I’m going to get going. I have a few ideas. Might as well get started, right?"
"Might as well," Brendon agrees. "There anything I can do?"
"If there is, I’ll call you."
For a moment, Brendon stands still, wanting to put his arms around Shane and lean against him. Then he realizes that he can, now, so he wraps his arms around Shane’s waist and rests his head in the crook of Shane’s shoulder. "I’m pretty glad you exist, dude."
"Thanks." Shane rubs Brendon’s back with one broad hand. "You’re alright, too, I guess."
"Sweet," Brendon says, laughing a little. He steps back away, looking down towards the floor. "I’ll let you go now. I’ve gotta - sometime today I'll need to get down to the post office. Merch to ship."
"You don’t have people to do that?"
"Eh." Brendon shrugs. "I had a guy doing it for me for a while, but - yeah. I don’t know."
"What do you do when you’re on the road?"
"I haven’t been gone long enough for it to matter." Brendon looks up. "That’s actually a good question, though. I mean, I was going to try and book a tour soon. I’ve got a couple shows coming up out west, and I thought I might, yeah. So I should probably get somebody."
"Yeah, definitely," Shane says. "Or else just post a message on your, your website, I guess. Your Myspace, maybe. Wherever people are going to see it, say merch won’t ship up until you’re back home."
"Maybe. Yeah, I’ve got to think about it. Okay. But yeah, I have some shirts to get out, and someone wanted my EP. I haven’t even written the notes yet."
"The what?"
"When people buy my shit." Brendon laughs. "I don’t know, I think it’s kind of nice."
"No, wait, what do you do?"
"When people buy my album," Brendon says. "I write them a note, you know, saying thanks and whatever. Nothing much."
Shane just smiles at that, and leans in to kiss Brendon on the nose.
Brendon grins, looking up then back down again. There’s a stray piece of pasta under the stove, and some dust in the corner.
"I’ll call you later," Shane says.
"Just to hear my pretty voice?"
"Once I’ve got something figured out, I mean. And I’m going to get something figured out. Fuck it."
"Seriously. Man. Okay. Have - you have a good day. And I’ll talk to you later. Right? Yeah. That’s awesome."
-
They end up making another trip to the office where Spencer’s interning. The security guard is there this time, but he lets them in, after some quick introductions by Spencer - "Guys, this is Zack. Zack, these are the dudes."
"Obviously," Zack says. "Alright, kids, come on."
Shane’s got his camera on him, a bulky digital one with an expensive-looking lens. The photographs are the main reason for this trip. Most of the paperwork is easy enough to fake, despite the hurdle of filing it, but the photographs are supposed to be taken from certain angles. Pictures are required, legally, as a back-up to the tracking chips - if a lost dinosaur is found, there are multiple ways of determining just where it's supposed to be and return it to its proper home.
The surroundings need to look official, and they don’t want to take any risks. Spencer helps get Dylan cleaned up, and then they spend a while trying to set up the lighting so that his scars will be less obvious.
"This whole thing is fucking awesome," Spencer says, leaning against a wall while Shane photographs Dylan. "I feel like I’m in a movie."
"Is that why you’re helping?"
"Yeah, pretty much." Spencer laughs. "Like, I get the rules, but a lot of it’s bullshit. So fuck it, you know?"
Brendon grins. "We’re fighting the man."
"One could say we’re raging against the machine."
The camera clicks a few more times. Shane holds the screen up so they can see. "Spencer, does that one look good?"
"Yeah," Spencer says, taking the camera and looking. "But you might want to - can you do it again but a little, uh. The framing isn’t quite right."
"Fuck," Shane says, albeit cheerfully. "Okay."
He moves back around. Dylan is sitting on the examining table raking his claws through the slightly longer feathers of his tail, carefully smoothing them down and combing through them, occasionally finding a bit of lint that needs to be picked out.
"Dylan, hey," Brendon says, getting the dinosaur to look up again. Shane takes another several pictures in quick succession while the dinosaur’s attention is still diverted from grooming.
"Better," Spencer says, nodding. "Yeah, that looks about … hold up, let me grab a file."
Spencer jogs out of the room, coming back with the records for a Microraptor. He compares the composition of the shots with the one currently displayed on Shane’s camera screen.
"Okay, yeah," Shane says. "That looks right. Have I got skills, or have I got skills?"
"You have skills," Brendon confirms. "Lots of skills."
"Your mom has skills," Shane says, then, "Thanks, though."
"You’re welcome."
Spencer says, "So do we want to print that shit, or what?"
"You got the forms?"
"Yeah," Spencer says.
-
Brendon has to go down to the courthouse, Spencer and Dylan both in tow, to sign off on some more official paperwork. The whole thing goes over a lot easier than anyone expects.
After that, they all - even Zack, who showed up again at some point - go out to get drinks, even though it’s early yet.
"You guys all know you’ll be in even deeper shit if they find out, right?" Zack says over their second round.
"Shh," Brendon says. "Shh. There’s nothing to find out, okay."
"Whatever you say, little dude."
"Let me have my happiness, c’mon," Brendon says. "It’s time to party hard or whatever."
"We’re partying so hard right now," Spencer says. "With our jalapeno poppers."
"Are you hating on the jalapeno poppers? Because I don’t know if I can be friends with a man who thinks hating on jalapeno poppers is alright."
"I’m not. I’m not. I respect the poppers. I support them. I’m a fan."
"Good," Brendon says. "Good. You’d better be."
"I won’t stop believing," Spencer says, which is enough to make Brendon burst into song and make everyone else roll their eyes before joining in. No one but Brendon remembers anything other than the chorus, so that ends quickly.
"This is the best fucking day," Brendon says, throwing an arm around Shane’s shoulder because they’re already sitting next to each other. They’re probably, maybe, sort-of dating, as far as Brendon knows, but he’s been pretty careful about the PDA, just in case. He’s excited and drinking, though, so he figures an arm around the shoulder is totally justifiable.
"Better than Christmas?" Shane asks.
"Better than Christmas," Brendon says. "The only pet I ever got for Christmas was a hamster. And, like, no disrespect to President Hamilton, but hamsters are kind of boring as pets, you know?"
"President - did you name your hamster President Hamilton?" Spencer asks, eyebrows going up.
"I was eight." Brendon acts like that’s a good explanation.
"You should have named him Benjamin, if you were going for presidents on dollar bills," Zack says.
"Dude, I was eight. Ten dollars was a lot back then."
"Inflation’s terrible like that," Zack says.
"At least he wasn’t named Dylan." Shane has his hands folded neatly in his lap, smiling beatifically.
"One of my friends named her kid Dylan," Spencer says. "Like, two years ago. She’d never listened to Bob Dylan or anything. I don’t know, it was weird."
"Good story," Brendon says. "Thanks."
"Yeah, I know." Spencer shakes his head a little. "Whatever. It’s just kind of weird, right?"
"I didn’t actually name Dylan. That’s your buddy Ryan’s fault."
"Oh," Spencer says. "Oh, okay, yeah. That - you know. I can see that. Okay. That makes sense."
"Ryan Ross," Brendon says.
"He’s very talented at arts and crafts," Shane says.
Spencer presses his hands against his face for a few seconds, then laughs. "Ryan fucking Ross. Of course you’ve met him. Of course he was doing arts and crafts."
"Seems pretty par for the course," Brendon says. "We made a fort once."
"Was he high? He always builds forts when he’s high."
"No way," Brendon says, flailing his arms a little and launching into an extensive and meandering rant about Ryan Ross, occasionally pausing to let other people talk. At some point, it comes out that Spencer used to play the drums, and Brendon might shout at him about how awesome that is and how they have to jam sometime. He’s pretty drunk by then, though, and at another point he’s literally singing Shane’s praises, so.
-
Brendon slips a twenty under Greta’s door in the morning, then later goes back to ask if she found it.
"Yes."
"Do I smell cookies?"
"Shut up," Greta says.
"You could be a baker," Brendon says. "Open a bakery. Stop being beholden to corporate interests."
"That would work really well," Greta says. "Seeing how I don’t actually like spending all of my time in the kitchen."
"You’ve got to. You know. Come on. Do you need any help?"
"Maybe," Greta admits.
"Okay."
Brendon helps with a few batches of cookies. "You should come up and meet Dylan sometime."
"Is that your friend’s name?"
"Nah," Brendon says. "My boyfriend’s name is Shane. Dylan’s my dinosaur."
-
Dylan’s nostrils flare, testing the breeze. He cranes his slender neck higher still, eyes narrowed as he swings his narrow skull from side to side. When Brendon turns around, Dylan scampers around to continue hiding behind his legs, nearly tripping his owner.
"Goddamn, little dude," Brendon laughs.
Finally, Dylan takes a few steps forward. His claws sink into the mud the same dark color as cast-off coffee grounds. The fuzz of his feathers is disturbed by the wind. This is his first time spent outdoors in any significant capacity since Brendon found him, and he’d had precious little experience with the natural world prior to that, having been born and brought up within the confines of a lab and fenced-in concrete yard.
Brief periods spent in carriers, shuttled from building to vehicle and back again, don’t compare with facing the outside world of his own volition, his owner there and not threatening abandonment. Still Dylan sticks close, looking back at Brendon every few seconds to make sure he’s still there. Brendon stands still, beaming down at Dylan so hard that the muscles of his face begin to ache.
Dylan chirps. Somewhere, a bird calls out, and Dylan cocks his head to the side and sings his reply.
the end
-
PS
a picture by mondegreen! \o/ [it is a spoiler]
back
The weather’s been good lately, and Dylan keeps staring out the window and watching the birds nesting on the ledge across the way. Dylan finally has more energy. It’s kind of cute. Brendon’s glad his windows all open up onto an alley, where no one will see.
He doesn’t want Dylan getting spotted, even though he knows there’s no way a passerby would know if he was legal or not. There’s not even really a good way for most passersby to figure out which apartment is his, unless they went to the city and got the floor plan, or had the key to the front door or whatever. His neighbors could probably figure it out.
Still, he tries to spend as much time playing with Dylan as he can, since he can’t let him out.
Jon’s really good with Dylan, too, which is unsurprising.
"So do you think he’s going to be okay?" Jon says from his spot on the floor. He’s holding a cup of yogurt upright while Dylan eats it. Brendon’s spilled more random food trying to give Dylan snacks than he can keep track of anymore.
"I don’t know," Brendon says. "Maybe."
"What’d Shane say?"
"Maybe." Brendon laughs. "There’s not really any knowing. Dylan’s, like, the last of his kind or some shit."
"That sucks," Jon says.
"Yeah."
-
Brendon doesn’t invite Shane to the show, in the end, because he’s pretty sure that’s way too awkward. Ryan does bring his friend Spencer, though, and he even tags along when they go to another bar afterwards. Brendon is always a little surprised when he sees Spencer - this is only the third time - because Spencer isn’t as ironically, excessively cool as most of Ryan’s other friends. He actually seems like a pretty normal guy.
"Great mustache, bro," is the first thing Brendon says to him. "Like, seriously, congratulations."
"Thanks. I try," Spencer says, laughing.
Ryan says, "Don’t encourage him, man, he keeps making up excuses not to shave it."
"Because it’s awesome," Brendon says. "And - oh, yeah, man, thank you, by the way. For - coming to the show," he says, correcting himself before even finishing the sentence.
"No problem." Spencer nods. "How did that thing you were working on go?"
"Okay." Brendon gives a thumbs up, then reconsiders and puts his other thumb up too. "It went good."
"You mean it went well," Ryan says. Spencer rolls his eyes.
"Sure. Hopefully!" Brendon hums something, absentmindedly bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Guys. Are you tired? I hope you’re not tired."
"Nah," Ryan says.
"Okay, good, because I am going to drink and be merry. I think I deserve a celebration."
Ryan says, "You don’t have anything you need to do at home?"
"Nah, it’ll be fine," Brendon says, waving a hand. He’s glad the guys are keeping vague about Dylan. Brendon’s pretty paranoid. "Let’s go get fucked up."
"Hey, hey, wait." A tall, lanky guy with a huge smile interrupts, leaning on Brendon's shoulder. "You're the guy."
"That's me," Brendon says, not too phazed. Some of his fans are weird, though he doesn't recognize this guy. If he'd ever been in the crowd, Brendon would have remembered, if only because of all the neon.
"You bailed on my roommate," he says, by way of explanation. "She told me about it."
"Wait - Victoria? Dude, can you tell her - I'm really sorry, seriously."
"Nah, it's cool," the guy says. "But you're the guy. I recognized you, since you're the guy."
"I'm the guy," Brendon agrees, once more. "Seriously, though, a friend of mine got really sick and I had to take care of him. I just totally spaced out. Can you apologize for me or whatever? I mean, it doesn't - I'm not trying to get back into her pants, I fucked up, but you know."
"So how was she in the sack?"
"She was -- dude, I'm not telling. That's creepy as fuck, man."
"Nah, I was testing you," the guy says. "We're cool. Have a good one, man. I'll see you around."
-
Brendon wakes up to a pounding headache, his phone’s alarm, and Dylan butting his snout against Brendon’s face. "Nnguh."
He turns off his alarm - he doesn’t know why it was on in the first place, since he doesn’t have anywhere to be today - and stares at his phone for a second. There are a few missed alerts. One’s a text from Ryan, you get home okay???
The other is from Shane. hahaha how drunk were you last night?
Brendon groans, closing his eyes, because he doesn’t remember getting home, let alone texting anybody. Probably he shouldn’t drink so much. He scratches the back of Dylan’s head.
He gets up and feeds Dylan. The only text he actually remembers sending - he wasn’t quite drunk enough at that point, apparently - was Dylan misses you ☹.
So he goes through his phone. He’d sent Shane five texts, and Shane hadn’t replied until this morning. At least there’s that.
The second one was he’s really sad you should come over soon I don’t want the little guy to hurt himself f !, and then you know how dinosaurs are ☺.
He’d managed to wait a good three minutes before following that up with shane are you busy. After that, he’d had the good grace to wait a full six minutes - and probably most of this was spent trying to type - cuz you know it’s a too late to be busy unless you want to be busy with me ;) heyo.
There were a couple texts to Cash in there, too, but they’re pretty par for the course. Brendon’s drunk texted Cash enough times that it doesn’t even matter anymore.
The last one is just, srsly are u busy wy aren’t you over here dwlam mises you.
Brendon is pretty sure he needs to have his phone taken away from him when he’s drunk. That, or - and his train of thought is sort of interrupted by the sudden wave of nausea - just not drink that much again, that might be a good plan, too.
He sits down in front of the toilet and rests his cheek on the seat, which totally isn’t sanitary but he feels fucking terrible and it’s cold and smooth, so whatever. He doesn’t actually vomit, just sits there for nearly half an hour wondering if he’s going to until Dylan comes nosing around and chirping at him loudly.
He texts Shane again - which, probably not the best idea he’s ever had, but whatever - with oh god why simornign send help.
It’s a few minutes before Shane texts back, but Brendon doesn’t notice how long it takes because he’s seriously debating if he wants to try inducing vomiting or something. Maybe it’d make him feel better. Probably not.
Eventually his stomach calms down enough that he can get up and stumble into the kitchen to make two slices of toast and put the coffee on. The toast is dry, but Brendon isn’t willing to risk butter - or, in fact, any flavor at all - just yet.
He finally checks his phone, once he’s got his coffee poured and enough milk and sugar added. Hangovers suck.
Brendon texts back. yeah, i finally have coffee though, think i’ll make it through the day.
Well that’s a relief. Before Brendon can text back, Shane’s sent another message. So Dylan misses me huh???
Brendon rubs a hand across his face and takes a moment to just inhale the smell of coffee before replying. oh totally he’s been pretty bummed out man. he thinks you should come over for dinner. hell even pay. He rethinks that, and taps out another message. He’s probably digging this hole deeper than necessary. don’t ask how hes been making money hes pretty resourceful for a lizard.
Shane’s eventual reply is theyre avians not lizards. What were you thinking for dinner
Brendon hadn’t actually thought about that. He’s not entirely sure he’d meant to ask Shane to dinner in the first place, because his crush is stupid and obvious and he doesn’t want to make things any worse. He has a bad habit of letting relationships either crash and burn or fade out into awkwardness, and he doesn't want either to happen here.
He’s still thinking of that girl, Victoria. He keeps telling himself that wouldn’t have worked out anyway, but she’d seemed cool, and he’s pretty sure he blew it. Not trying and just never talking to Shane ever again seems like a way better option right now.
He texts back anyway, though, because if all else fails he can always just bail. There’s this new Italian place that opened pretty close to my place??? Could check it out tomorrow or w/e’s good w u and way to go, Brendon Boyd, because Italian is pretty much the definition of date food. Shane’s his friend. Maybe. At best. Mostly Shane’s his illegal pet dinosaur’s vet, and most people - most people don’t have illegal pet dinosaurs, but they especially don’t ask their illegal pet dinosaur’s veterinarian out to fancy Italian restaurants.
Shane replies Sure I’ll come by after work. Is this the kind of place w/ a dress code or can I wear my miniskirt? ;)
Brendon laughs, which serves mostly to make his head hurt.
-
Once Brendon’s had his coffee and grabbed some Chinese takeout for lunch, he looks Shane up on Facebook and - after a friend request - messages him the address and shit. Brendon hasn’t actually checked whether or not there’s a dress code. He kind of hopes not, because most of his clothes aren’t even remotely fancy.
He checks the website, and it looks like they’re in the clear, so he mentions that in the message, too.
Then he calls Ryan, and ends up going to his place for once. It’s been a while.
"Sorry," Ryan says, absentmindedly, as he opens the door. He stares back over his shoulder, looking vague and distant. "I don’t know where my plants went."
"Did they run away or something?"
Ryan looks startled, looking up at Brendon. "You think they might have? I didn’t think plants could do that. I wish they’d come back so I could water them."
"No, man," Brendon says. "Are you high, or what?"
"I wish," Ryan says.
"Okay," Brendon says, clapping him on the shoulder. "I was going to freak out and ask you to watch Disney movies with me, but maybe you just should go to bed."
"No, it’s fine," Ryan says. "You want a beer or something?"
"I’m good," Brendon says.
Ryan looks horrified. "Really?"
"I - yes?"
"If you’re sure."
Brendon rolls his eyes, flopping down onto Ryan’s couch at about the same time. "Are you sure you’re not high?"
"Maybe a little," Ryan says. "I might be kind of high. I was going to build a fort before you came."
"Dude, I’ll help you build a fort."
They build a fort. Ryan has a lot more pillows than seems reasonable for a one-person apartment. Some of them are decorative. A couple have tacky phrases sewn onto them. Ryan didn’t have half as many pillows last time Brendon was over here, which was only a couple of months ago.
He resolves to get Ryan more for his next birthday, and ends up texting a note about it to his own email.
They’re sitting cross-legged in the fort and eating popcorn when Ryan finally says, "So why did you need a fort?"
"Why did you?"
"I always build forts when I’m high," Ryan says, rolling his eyes like that’s the most obvious thing in the world.
"How did I not know this? Are you making things up again, Ryan Ross?"
"That wouldn’t even be a good lie." Ryan shakes his head, poking at Brendon’s knee with his foot. Ryan has really creepy toes. Brendon says as much, and Ryan just says, without any vitriol, "Fuck you."
"Maybe I just wanted to help you build a fort," Brendon says.
"Okay. Cool. Thanks, man."
"No problem."
Ryan says, "So why are you here?"
"I think I asked a dude out on a date," Brendon says.
"How long do you give it before you fuck this one up?"
"Hey," Brendon says, but he can’t bring himself to sound too offended. He’s been pretty bad at relationships recently, with recent defined as the past three years.
"I'm just saying," Ryan says.
"Yeah." Brendon shrugs, looking down. Ryan's toes still creep him out. "Did you smoke all your pot, or is there some left?"
Ryan frowns, then carefully unfolds himself and crawls out of the haphazard fort, brushing his head against the sheet that forms the roof. When he comes back they close the fort up to make the dorkiest hotbox ever.
Once he's loosened up a bit, Brendon says, "I think I kind of really don't want to fuck this up. Like, it's not even - but I hope I don't fuck up. Preemptively. In advance. Even though there's not even anything to fuck up yet."
"The only thing you can do is your best." Ryan crosses his arms, nodding.
Brendon starts laughing. "You sound like a kindergarten teacher."
Ryan cocks his head to the side, looking genuinely thoughtful. "I could teach kindergarteners."
"Do it."
"Okay." Ryan nods, decisively. "I'm going to - I'll get employed. I'll learn how, and then I'll fucking teach some little kids how to read, it's going to be fantastic. I can introduce them to Kerouac."
"I don't think kindergarteners would be quite old enough to appreciate On the Road, man."
"I could adapt it."
"Adapt it - to like, a story book? A little kid's story book? Fucking do it," Brendon says, because he is nothing if not encouraging. "Shit."
"Seriously," Ryan says. "I can't help being a genius."
-
Dinner goes way better than Brendon lets himself hope for. He learns all this stupid, banal shit about Shane, like how he’s from some town twenty minutes outside of Vegas, and how he switched from film school to paleobiology two years into college, and the name of the place he went to grad school . It’s way more interesting than it has any right to be.
If Brendon was learning this about a stranger, he’d probably be bored to tears, but he likes Shane enough that it’s actually kind of interesting hearing his story. Brendon doesn’t like talking about himself too much, and keeps his own answers vague.
"I don’t know," he’s saying. "At least my parents are talking to me again. I don’t really want to talk about it, you know?"
"Yeah, okay." Shane nods. "Sorry. I didn’t know, or I wouldn’t have asked."
"Yeah," Brendon says, then the waiter comes back asking if they want dessert. He grins. "You wanna share something?"
Shane takes a quick look at the proffered dessert menu, asking if the cheesecake is made with ricotta or not. "I haven’t had good cheesecake in maybe forever," he says. "You want to?"
"Dude, yeah. Two forks, alright?"
The waiter nods, and disappears again. They’re quiet for a while, but it’s comfortable. Brendon sits back in his chair, looking out the window on his left. It’s dark out. There isn’t a lot to be seen outside, except a few people walking to or from their cars.
The waiter brings the bill at the same time as their dessert, and Shane moves to get it, but Brendon says, "No, no, I got this, dude."
"You don’t want to split it or anything?"
"Nah, I still owe you," Brendon says, grinning. "It’s the least I can do, right? I can’t let you pay, or I’d never manage to repay you."
"Huh." Shane’s face is difficult to read, but he gives a shrug before reaching to take a bite of cheesecake. "You realize you don’t actually owe me, right?"
"Dude, no, you did like - fucking medicine. You don’t give that away. That’s a valuable skill in, you know, today’s economy or whatever."
"Okay," Shane says.
"Seriously, that was - like, you didn’t have to, and I get that. I’m just really grateful you did, you know?"
"Yeah."
Brendon says, "It’s okay, right? Look, I’ve got this. Seriously." He hands over his card quickly when the waiter comes back, and never even gives Shane a chance to look at the bill. He doesn’t actually look at it himself, either, because he got a little more in merch and royalties from iTunes than he was expecting this month.
"Right, fine."
They finish off the cheesecake pretty quickly, probably hastened by how they’re not talking anymore.
Brendon sits back in his chair a little. He has to resist the urge to cross his arms; he’s feeling weird and self-conscious all of a sudden. "Did you want to pay or something?"
Shane shrugs, looking out at the rest of the dining room, watching other people. "Whatever, it’s fine."
"I’m just saying, dude, I owe you, so I just figured."
"Yeah."
"Okay," Brendon says. The waiter comes back, and he nods his head towards the door. "You wanna go?"
Shane gets up, which Brendon takes as a yes, so he trails after him out the door after putting his card back in his wallet.
The night air raises Brendon’s spirits a little, even though nothing else has changed in the last few seconds. There’s a bit of a breeze.
"Do you, like," Brendon says, pausing in front of Shane’s car. "You want to come up or anything? See how Dylan’s doing? I could make coffee."
"I should probably turn in soon." Shane shrugs loosely, fiddling with his car keys. "I've got an early morning tomorrow."
"Oh, yeah." Brendon nods. "Right. Work. People do that. Okay, yeah. See you later? We could - I don’t know, you can pick something to do. I’ll even let you pay."
Shane laughs. "Gee, thanks. Yeah, I don’t know, okay."
"Okay. Good." Brendon pauses, briefly, then as Shane's opening the door to his car, says, "So hey, wait, why were you - you seemed kind of pissed that I paid."
"I was just trying to figure out, I don't know, if we only went here because you figured you owed me, or what."
"No, dude, no." Brendon shakes his head. "Fuck. Is that how it looked? Dude, I - no. I thought it'd be fun to get dinner someplace, hang out. You're cool."
"Well, thanks," Shane says, smiling again. "I'm alright with that."
-
Greta’s sitting outside the building listening to her headphones when Brendon gets home, but she takes them out when she spots him. For once, she doesn't have her usual smile. "Hey, Brendon."
"Hey. You doing alright?"
"Not really." Greta looks down, not meeting his eyes. "So, you’re going to give me fifteen hundred dollars."
Brendon stares at her.
"Preferably soon, but you know, within the next month." She stands up, still not smiling, and gives Brendon a hug. "Please? I know you'll pull through."
"I - no? How about no," Brendon says, pulling back awkwardly. "I don’t really have that kind of money to give away."
"Well, you’ll have to help me find it, then."
"I … really don’t see why, so no."
"You don’t want to go to jail, do you? If you don’t have fifteen hundred, there’s no way you have five thousand. Unless you’re holding back on me. I don’t think your little friend would like that, though."
"What the fuck?"
"Brendon, come on, I figured it out. I really don’t want to have to do this, okay? Look, I’ll talk to you later. I know where to find you."
"That’s comforting, thanks. I don’t even know what you’re talking about."
"Brendon." She sighs, shaking her head, before making her way inside. Brendon stands there for a while before going inside himself. He takes the stairs instead of the elevator, out of an aimless paranoia. Greta’s not even in the foyer anymore, so it’s not like he’d run into her in the elevator.
Somehow, Brendon had thought that Cash finding out was the worst part of all of this so far. Cash, as far as he knows, still hasn’t told anybody else, and somehow Greta knows, and that’s a lot worse. As far as he knew, the two of them were friends, even if Greta had been a little weird and nosy over the last few weeks.
That all makes sense now, at least. Not that he knows what she wants the money for, but it seems like she knows he has Dylan. Hopefully she’s just bluffing, but Brendon doesn’t want to risk it.
He actually isn’t sure what he’s going to do.
Greta smiles and waves when he heads over to the print shop the next day. He waves back and hopes last night was just a dream, but no, she says, "Got it yet?"
"Nope!" Brendon says. "Sorry!"
"Well, you just let me know." Greta laughs. She looks as sweet as she ever has. Brendon tries not to shiver, even though he really is sort of creeped out, especially given how bummed out she seemed yesterday.
She isn’t around when he gets home, and he manages to avoid her the next day, but then she’s at his door and saying, "Hey, so look."
"This was all a bad joke, right?"
"Nope," she says. "I only really need a thousand now. I managed to get five hundred by selling some of my stuff, if that helps."
"Dude, if you need money, why don’t you ask your parents? Seriously, why are you even asking me?"
"You’re a rock star," Greta says. "And they towed my fucking car."
Brendon’s not sure he’s heard Greta swear before. "So get it back?"
She shakes her head. "There’s about a million dollars in fees. Well. Fifteen hundred."
"Well, shit. Can’t you, like, argue with them?"
"I tried," she says. "Anyway. I need that thousand bucks, Urie."
"I still don’t have it."
"You have more stuff than I do," she says.
"No, really. I - dude, are you trying to get me to sell my guitars? I actually need those to make any money in the first place."
Greta says, "Brendon, I’m serious. I don’t know how much longer I can get my friends to give me rides to work. I can’t do this, okay? And look, I seriously will turn you in. There’s a reward and shit."
"What would you turn me in for?" Brendon frowns, crossing his arms defensively, trying to think of anything other than Dylan. "I have a license for medical marijuana; I can show you. I get headaches."
This is only partly true - he has a license, but the headaches are fake.
Greta says, "You never had a cat in your apartment."
Brendon shifts his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. "Yeah I did. I was watching it for a friend."
"Cats don’t sing."
"He had a bird, too."
"Uh-huh," Greta says, shaking her head. "Brendon, look, I really like you, but we both know what I know."
"Look. I’ll figure something out, okay?" Brendon has no idea how he’s going to figure this out. He’s pretty sure he’s fucked, but he needs time to at least freak out a little and adjust to the idea of spending the next five years in prison without any of his friends, his guitars, or his pet dinosaur. "Are - you could try busking? You have a guitar, right?"
"I sold it," Greta says, shaking her head. She smiles a little sadly. "Come on. I’m not getting enough freelance work these days that I can lose my job."
"Where do you even work?"
Greta looks incredulous. "Seriously?"
"What? You never mentioned it!"
Greta says, "It doesn’t matter; I’m not making enough money to lose this job."
"I’m not -"
"I can’t afford to get fired, Brendon."
"Yeah," Brendon says. Normally, he’d be giving Greta a hug for that, but now he’s wary. He stuffs his hands in his pockets.
"Well, look, I’ll talk to you later."
"Right," Brendon says. He exhales through his nose.
-
Brendon lies awake most of the night. Sometime around noon, he gives up on the idea of staying asleep for more than half an hour at a time. Since sleep isn't happening, he tries to figure something out instead.
When Brendon calls, Ryan just laughs at him. Jon’s voicemail says something about a vacation. With more than a little guilt, he calls up Shane.
"Oh, hey, Brendon," Shane says when he answers. "How’s it going, man?"
"Pretty good," Brendon says. "I’m good. I’m pretty stoked on how close that Italian place is to my place, you know? It was good. I had a - fuck, I can’t say good again."
Shane laughs. "Yeah, I had fun. Service was kind of slow, but whatever."
"They’re probably still ironing out the kinks or whatever," Brendon says. "Anyway, so I, uh, I was going to ask you." He pauses for a second, because he seriously can’t ask Shane another favor. Shane’s already saved Dylan’s life, and there probably isn’t anything he can do anyway. "Uhm. I have a show coming up soon?"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," Brendon says.
"Okay." Shane waits for a moment. "How about you tell me when and where, and ask me if I’m free that night."
"Oh! Right, yes. Yeah, sure. I’ll just e-mail you the address and shit, but it’s next Thursday. It’s pretty early. I mean, I go on at like, six. So you won’t be out past curfew or anything," Brendon laughs, hoping that was funny. He’s not sure. "Are, uh. If you can make it, that is."
Shane at least chuckles, and Brendon’s willing to take that and run with it. It’s good enough. "I’m pretty sure - yeah, I looked at my calendar, and I’m good. I still haven’t listened to your stuff, actually, I keep meaning to."
"Man, that’s probably for the best, my demos sound kind of shitty. I’m way better live. It’s kind of like - like the difference between porn and actual sex, you know? Like, they’re both awesome, but the real thing rules so much harder." As soon as Brendon realizes what he said, he wishes there were some kind of real-life undo button.
Shane cracks up, though, and it’s a while before he finally stops. Brendon wants to hit his head against the wall, but he values his grey matter too much. "Wow, well, in that case. I guess I’d better wait, huh? It’d be pretty weird hooking up with some dude if you’ve seen him in porn. Or heard him, I guess."
"I - yeah," Brendon says. "Yeah. Man."
Shane is still laughing. "I’ll see you Thursday."
"Right, yeah! I’ll see you then, dude. Yeah. It’s free, or else I’d put you on the guest list. Unless you want to be my merch girl."
"No, that’s okay," Shane says.
"Okay. I’m going to hang up now, and it’ll be awesome, because I won’t have the chance to say anything even stupider."
"Good luck, man," Shane says, and he’s laughing again, which is a pretty nice sound to end the call on, Brendon thinks.
-
It’s only a coffee shop show, but Brendon talked Ian and one of the Alexes into helping out, so it actually takes a minute to set up - Alex has a drum kit, and there are two guitars and a keyboard to soundcheck. The coffee-shop seems a little put out about it, but they’re the ones who agreed to let him play in the first place. They knew what they were getting into.
Brendon’s played with both of them before, and they all practice a couple times before the show just to make sure everyone knows what’s what. Brendon tries really, really hard while they’re setting up to keep himself distracted, and he manages not to look around at the customers even once. Either Shane’s there already or he isn’t.
Once they finish their first song and Brendon’s bantered a little at the few people paying attention, then he lets himself look for Shane. Shane grins at him, offering up a small half-nod, and Brendon winks at him and dedicates the next song to "a good friend, you know who you are."
By the time he reaches the chorus, when he’s already been singing to Shane for half the first verse, he realizes dedicating this particular song to him was probably a mistake. It only really hits him when he’s singing Can we fast forward to go down on me?
-
Somehow, Shane ends up helping Alex carry his drum kit back out to the trailer, while Brendon chats up his fans. He’s still talking to a last few stragglers when Shane returns, holding up a camera.
"Hey," Shane says, holding it so Brendon can see. "Check it out, I got some decent shots, it looks like."
"Hopefully the full size won’t be blurry or whatever," Brendon says, before actually looking at the screen. Brendon cocks his head to the side. The lighting’s really good. There are probably a whole lot of other technical merits he could praise the photo on, but instead he says, "Dude, I look hot."
One of the girls he was talking to cracks up. "Wow, modest, much?"
"Hey, come on," Brendon says. "Check it out. It’s a very flattering picture."
"Oh, hey, this is good," the girl says. The three of them talk a little longer before one of the girl’s friends comes to get her, since her group is leaving.
"So you were alright, I guess," Shane says as he puts his camera back in the case. "You know. Decent." He’s grinning.
"Oh, thanks." Brendon hooks his thumbs through his belt loops, ducking his head at the compliment. "I try."
"No, seriously, though, you were great. Do you get to play shows pretty often?" Shane is standing pretty close, and Brendon - mostly subconsciously - shifts his weight so he's closer still.
"I guess." Brendon wishes he'd worn a cooler pair of shoes. He's staring down at the pair he's got on right now, shuffling one foot against the floor and staring at all the little scuffs and scratches they've acquired over the years. When he looks up, Shane's still smiling at him, and Brendon can't help but smile back. "I try to keep myself out there, I don’t know."
"Yeah, no, that’s good. How you’ve gotta do it, right?" Shane raises a fist, and it takes Brendon a second to figure out what's expected and bump fists with him.
"Totally, dude."
"They were about finished loading up the van, by the way," Shane says, tilting his head back towards the door. "If you guys were going somewhere after the show."
"Oh - no, just. Home, probably."
"Not gonna party like rockstars?"
"It’s a Thursday." Brendon laughs a little. "Not really famous enough that too many people would want to party on a Thursday. Plus I gotta get home, because, you know."
"Oh, yeah, good. Makes sense." Shane says, "So, how’s --?"
"Good, good. Did you, uh. Want to come over for a bit, maybe?" Brendon pauses, willing himself not to stare at his shoes anymore. "Like, I’ve got to drop the guys off first and all, but yeah, if you wanted to come hang for a bit."
"Yeah, sure, that’d be cool."
The drive ends up taking a good forty minutes, since Alex has a third-floor apartment and insists on getting help carrying his drums upstairs, then somehow Brendon gets talked into a brutal Connect Four match with Ian.
Ian’s a lot easier to get rid of, since, he explains, "I’m tired after winning so hard."
"Yeah, uh-huh," Brendon says. "You’re going to watch, like, five episodes of Star Trek before you go to bed, don’t kid."
"Whatever, man. Sisko’s awesome." Ian shrugs, slamming the van door behind him after grabbing his guitar from the back.
Brendon waits in the parking lot for a minute before turning to Shane. "Who the fuck is Sisko?"
"DS-9."
"Oh. Yeah, I never watched that one."
"Eh."
"So," Brendon says, finally starting the van up again and turning out of the lot. "Did you want to come by, see how Dylan’s doing?"
Shane laughs. "Yeah, sure."
The rest of the drive passes quickly, and it’s not long before Brendon’s searching for the key to his apartment. "He totally missed you, dude, I swear. You better look out."
"Uh-huh," Shane says. "I’m sure."
"Seriously," Brendons says. As soon as the door is open, Dylan’s there, rubbing his head against Shane’s leg and cooing.
"Ah, hey, little guy, c’mon," Shane says, looking around - there’s no one else in the hall, thankfully. He herds Dylan in just by walking. The dinosaur is content to trail him, still singing happily. Once the door is shut behind them, Shane drops down to sit on the floor and pet Dylan, ruffling his soft feathers.
"He look okay?"
"On the outside, at least," Shane says, as Dylan scrambles into his lap to sniff at his shirt and face. "Hey, hey. Dylan. I mean, not that I can really tell much just externally, but he seems pretty energetic and shit. He eating okay?"
"Yeah. I’ve got to get him more food soon, actually, dude’s been pretty hungry."
"Don’t feed him too much. A fat dinosaur is a sad dinosaur, dude."
"Whatever, man, I’m getting him some treats. You want anything? Water, beer?"
"Sure, I’d take a beer," Shane says. Dylan’s picking at near-invisible bits of lint on Shane’s shirt until one of his claws gets caught. He chirps in alarm, tugging his hand away and pulling at the fabric. Shane has to calm him down before he can be freed.
Brendon comes back to hand Shane a just-opened bottle of Corona, condensation just starting to form on the chilled glass. "You want to watch some TV or something?"
"Is anything even on?"
"I don’t know," Brendon says, sitting on the couch. "Is it Shark Week?"
"Dude, no, that’s in August," Shane says. "If only. I think Cash Cab is on."
"Fuck Cash Cab," Brendon says. "Cash always calls me when that’s on. Or at least, when he’s drunk and it’s on. That’s still a lot. I always have to watch it with him."
"No Cash Cab, then, wow." Shane laughs. He gets up, ruffling Dylan’s feathers one more time before sitting next to Brendon. "You sure you want to watch TV?"
"Not really," Brendon says. "Figured it’d kill time, and I could make a move, all subtle and shit. You know. Yawn and put an arm around your shoulder, whatever."
"Oh, the old-fashioned approach. I don’t know, maybe I should give you the chance to work your magic." Shane hums, turning to face the TV, and wiggling his fingers at it. "How come that thing isn’t on?"
"Oh my god." Brendon laughs. "You’re such a loser."
"Thanks."
"I didn’t mean like that! No, like, it’s awesome! I’m sorry."
Shane just smiles.
"Ah, whatever, man. Holy shit, they still show Price Is Right?" Brendon leans forward a little. "Holy shit, Bob Barker is awesome. I love that dude. Is he still alive? They should bring him back."
"Pretty sure he died before either of us was even born," Shane says.
"Fuck death," Brendon says. "He should come back anyway. Bob Barker is, like, Messiah for the animals or something."
Shane grins. "Have your pets spayed or neutered? I don’t think Dylan would appreciate you holding Bob Barker up in such reverence if he knew what those words meant, dude."
"That’s house pets. Not dinosaurs. Or - whatever, shut up, stop laughing. You suck."
Dylan picks that moment to jump onto the couch, digging into the fabric for balance. He crawls his way into the space between Brendon and Shane and curls up there, cooing like a sleepy pigeon.
Shane drops a hand to stroke the soft, downy feathers of Dylan’s side.
"Fucking a," Brendon says, choosing that moment to stealthily let his hand slide on top of Shane’s.. "Motherfucker just bid a dollar on the fucking dishwasher. And that old lady with all the glitter already bid thirty. Does this guy think a dishwasher is going to cost, like, twenty bucks, or what?"
"At least he didn’t bid five thousand, like the other dude," Shane says. "These are some genius contestants, seriously. What year was this even filmed? I don’t know how much a dishwasher would have been, but seriously, even with inflation, that's dumb as shit."
"Seriously," Brendon agrees.
"You get an A for effort, by the way," Shane says, wriggling his fingers a little. "Very subtle, and classy, too. I approve."
"Oh, good. Yeah, I’ve been using that move since, like, third grade? It’s worked ever since, man, I swear."
"You’ve got to go with the classics," Shane says, agreeably. "Tried and true methods and all, right?"
"Totally." Brendon leans in a little, grinning. Neither of them is paying attention to the TV anymore, even though a contestant is playing a game to win a year’s supply of dish soap.
Dylan squirms out from under their now-entwined hands, trotting off to lap noisily at his water dish. Brendon takes the opportunity to scoot a little closer.
"So I went to this show tonight," Shane says. "At this coffee shop, right?"
"Oh, yeah? Who’d you go see?"
"Some singer-songwriter, I don’t know. The music was pretty good, so, you know, not just a pretty face or whatever. He even dedicated a song to me, you know?"
"Oh, yeah? You think he might be into you?"
"Gee, I dunno. I hope so." Shane lets out a slight laugh, and they’re sitting close enough that his breath is warm on Brendon’s face. Brendon closes the tiny distance between them.
For a while they keep it slow, feeling each other out as the moment stretches on towards the future. Eventually Brendon gets it in his head to crawl into Shane’s lap, licking his mouth open. Shane’s hands go to cup Brendon’s ass through his jeans, and Brendon lets out a slight sound, breath quickening.
He can feel his heart picking up speed, beating harder behind his ribs.
Brendon sits back so he can work Shane’s pants open, both of them smiling stupidly at one another as he does. The fluorescent light reflects off the gloss of Shane’s hair. Brendon spends more time taking that in than watching his hands, just glancing down quickly to make sure he’s got the button and then the zipper pulled down.
"So this is the part where we fast forward to go down on me, huh?" Shane asks, laughing. All the little shadows of his face are obvious from here - the dip between his nose and upper lip, the corners of his mouth, underneath his eyes.
"Seems like it," Brendon says. "I mean, if you want. You know."
"Works for me."
-
The sun’s too-bright in Brendon’s eyes all of a sudden, and he groans, reaching to try and find his phone to check the time. He finds Shane instead, managing to smack him in the face.
"Ow, ow, fuck, I’m awake," Shane says. "The fuck."
"Sorry," Brendon says. "You’re not my phone."
"No."
"Fuck," Brendon decides, rolling onto his side to look off the edge of the bed. His phone’s on the ground, so he reaches down to grab it. "Sorry. Hey, it’s like. Nine something. Nine eighteen. You gotta work?"
"Bank holiday tomorrow," Shane says.
"Right," Brendon says. "That’s not today."
"Tomorrow’s Saturday. So we got today off."
"Huh." Brendon turns onto his back, covering his eyes with one hand. "Okay."
"I’ve got some errands and shit to run, though, so I’ll be out of your way pretty soon."
"Nah, it’s cool," Brendon says. "I’m gonna make like. Coffee. And breakfast, maybe. You can have some?"
"Sweet," Shane says through a yawn. He sits up, pawing uselessly at his hair. It remains a curly mess.
There’s a scratching sound at the bedroom door that Brendon realizes has been going on since he woke up, and that implies probably longer still. Dylan’s warbling out his little morning song still.
"Shut up," Brendon shouts. "I’ll get you breakfast in a minute, fuck. Sorry, dude." He gives Shane a sheepish smile before getting up, opening the door to Dylan’s now-plaintive chirps and attention.
He stumbles out to the kitchen in the early morning light, and gets food and water set out for Dylan before working on his own breakfast. He doesn’t bother grinding any of his good coffee, just throws some of the instant on and then sets about cracking a few eggs.
When Shane finally makes his way in, Brendon looks up for a second. "What do you think dinosaur eggs taste like?"
"Like eggs," Shane says.
"But like. They’re past eggs."
"I don’t think anybody’s eaten them, as far as I know," Shane says. "I’ve never heard of it happening."
"Do you think they’d be good?"
"I - maybe?"
Brendon shrugs, stirring the eggs up with a fork before pouring in some milk. "You want cheese?"
"In what?"
"Scrambled."
"Yeah, okay," Shane says.
As he turns the stove on, Brendon asks, "So like. Is there a way to, I don’t know, make it look like Dylan’s legal? Because I might have some problems, otherwise."
"Hmm." Shane says, "Maybe once I’ve had some coffee."
They’re halfway through breakfast when Shane picks up that thread of conversation again, in the middle of discussing the weather. "I bet I could do it."
"Yeah?"
"I’ve got access to most of the papers, and - there’d be a lot of holes in the official story. Like where he was between when he was supposed to be killed and when the papers’d show up. Huh. I don’t know, I’ll see what I can do. Why?"
"I, uh, kind of got blackmailed by my neighbor. And I can’t come up with the money, so I figure I can at least get rid of what’s giving her blackmail material, right?"
"Dylan can stay at my place for a week or two, if that helps," Shane says. "How much?"
"Fifteen hundred. Well, I guess it's a thousand now, she says she got the five hundred herself."
"Hm," Shane says.
Brendon jabs his fork against his plate emphatically. "She should just have a fucking bake sale or something, right?"
"Try telling her that," Shane says, laughing. "That’s gonna go over well with somebody trying to blackmail you into giving them cash."
"I’m gonna do it," Brendon says. "Just you wait, man, I swear. Maybe she’ll, I don’t know, see the light and leave me alone."
"That sounds pretty likely, yeah," Shane says. "No way that could backfire."
"Fuuuuuuck," Brendon whines, stretching the word out longer than necessary
"I’m going to call up Spencer. He’s more likely to have the paperwork we’d need. Then I’d have to … well, I mean, everybody knows the line was canceled, but I don’t know. I’ll have to look into it. I told you, I’ll figure something out."
"Okay."
"It’s partly my fault he even exists," Shane says, running a hand through his hair. "So, yeah. Okay. I’ll see what I can do."
"Man, I could kiss you right now," Brendon says, then pauses. "Hey, I could totally do that, couldn’t I?"
Shane laughs. "Yeah, actually. You going to?"
Brendon grins toothily. "Might as well."
-
"Greta," Brendon says as soon as she opens the door. He does his best not to look at her apartment, even though he’s been in before. Snooping’s caused enough problems lately. Brendon doesn’t want to continue the cycle. "You’re having a bake sale."
"I am?" She sounds dry, and only three-quarters awake.
"A fucking bake sale," Brendon says. "To get your car back."
"I’m not having a fucking bake sale."
"Then have a celibate bake sale, Jesus Christ, I can’t get you the money myself. I’ll help you. I’ll like - I’ll post it on Myspace. I can. You can sell baked goods at the merch table."
More awake, now: "Is that legal?"
Brendon frowns, recrossing his arms. "Why would that be illegal?"
"Selling food inside a venue," Greta says. She brushes her hair out of her face, leaning against the doorframe. "What if they’re not authorized to serve food?"
"Then you can fight the fucking law, man."
"I’m already fighting the law." Covering her mouth with one hand as she yawns, Greta pauses, then continues. "You know it’s like five in the morning, right?"
"Shit, really?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, well, that’s my advice to you," Brendon says. "Bake sale."
"No."
"I’ll even help. Come on." Brendon does his best puppy-dog impression, all wide eyes and trembling lower lip. He’s practiced this one in the mirror since he was in grade school, and it’s served him well over the years - even when all he gets is a laugh out of it, which is most of the time.
"If I say fine, will you let me go back to bed?"
"Yes," Brendon says. "I like your pajamas, by the way. Where’d you get them?"
"Target," Greta says. "Why, you want them?"
"Just asking," Brendon says. "Target’s awesome. I’m going to - I’m going to go back upstairs."
"Good night."
"You’ll get your car, man, don’t worry," Brendon says. "It’s okay. You’re gonna be good. It’s cool."
"I swear to God, Brendon Urie. Don’t make me call the cops."
"Okay," Brendon says. "Okay. Look. This bake sale thing. It’ll be good. You’ve got this."
"Go," Greta says.
"Right."
-
"I think that went pretty well," Brendon declares, when he gets back to his apartment. Shane is washing his dishes in the sink. Brendon left his plate on the table in favor of harassing Greta about bake sales.
"Seriously?"
Brendon shakes his head. "She threatened to call the cops. I bet I can talk her into it, though. I’ve got this."
"Jesus." Shane huffs out something like a laugh. "Anyway, look, I’m going to get going. I have a few ideas. Might as well get started, right?"
"Might as well," Brendon agrees. "There anything I can do?"
"If there is, I’ll call you."
For a moment, Brendon stands still, wanting to put his arms around Shane and lean against him. Then he realizes that he can, now, so he wraps his arms around Shane’s waist and rests his head in the crook of Shane’s shoulder. "I’m pretty glad you exist, dude."
"Thanks." Shane rubs Brendon’s back with one broad hand. "You’re alright, too, I guess."
"Sweet," Brendon says, laughing a little. He steps back away, looking down towards the floor. "I’ll let you go now. I’ve gotta - sometime today I'll need to get down to the post office. Merch to ship."
"You don’t have people to do that?"
"Eh." Brendon shrugs. "I had a guy doing it for me for a while, but - yeah. I don’t know."
"What do you do when you’re on the road?"
"I haven’t been gone long enough for it to matter." Brendon looks up. "That’s actually a good question, though. I mean, I was going to try and book a tour soon. I’ve got a couple shows coming up out west, and I thought I might, yeah. So I should probably get somebody."
"Yeah, definitely," Shane says. "Or else just post a message on your, your website, I guess. Your Myspace, maybe. Wherever people are going to see it, say merch won’t ship up until you’re back home."
"Maybe. Yeah, I’ve got to think about it. Okay. But yeah, I have some shirts to get out, and someone wanted my EP. I haven’t even written the notes yet."
"The what?"
"When people buy my shit." Brendon laughs. "I don’t know, I think it’s kind of nice."
"No, wait, what do you do?"
"When people buy my album," Brendon says. "I write them a note, you know, saying thanks and whatever. Nothing much."
Shane just smiles at that, and leans in to kiss Brendon on the nose.
Brendon grins, looking up then back down again. There’s a stray piece of pasta under the stove, and some dust in the corner.
"I’ll call you later," Shane says.
"Just to hear my pretty voice?"
"Once I’ve got something figured out, I mean. And I’m going to get something figured out. Fuck it."
"Seriously. Man. Okay. Have - you have a good day. And I’ll talk to you later. Right? Yeah. That’s awesome."
-
They end up making another trip to the office where Spencer’s interning. The security guard is there this time, but he lets them in, after some quick introductions by Spencer - "Guys, this is Zack. Zack, these are the dudes."
"Obviously," Zack says. "Alright, kids, come on."
Shane’s got his camera on him, a bulky digital one with an expensive-looking lens. The photographs are the main reason for this trip. Most of the paperwork is easy enough to fake, despite the hurdle of filing it, but the photographs are supposed to be taken from certain angles. Pictures are required, legally, as a back-up to the tracking chips - if a lost dinosaur is found, there are multiple ways of determining just where it's supposed to be and return it to its proper home.
The surroundings need to look official, and they don’t want to take any risks. Spencer helps get Dylan cleaned up, and then they spend a while trying to set up the lighting so that his scars will be less obvious.
"This whole thing is fucking awesome," Spencer says, leaning against a wall while Shane photographs Dylan. "I feel like I’m in a movie."
"Is that why you’re helping?"
"Yeah, pretty much." Spencer laughs. "Like, I get the rules, but a lot of it’s bullshit. So fuck it, you know?"
Brendon grins. "We’re fighting the man."
"One could say we’re raging against the machine."
The camera clicks a few more times. Shane holds the screen up so they can see. "Spencer, does that one look good?"
"Yeah," Spencer says, taking the camera and looking. "But you might want to - can you do it again but a little, uh. The framing isn’t quite right."
"Fuck," Shane says, albeit cheerfully. "Okay."
He moves back around. Dylan is sitting on the examining table raking his claws through the slightly longer feathers of his tail, carefully smoothing them down and combing through them, occasionally finding a bit of lint that needs to be picked out.
"Dylan, hey," Brendon says, getting the dinosaur to look up again. Shane takes another several pictures in quick succession while the dinosaur’s attention is still diverted from grooming.
"Better," Spencer says, nodding. "Yeah, that looks about … hold up, let me grab a file."
Spencer jogs out of the room, coming back with the records for a Microraptor. He compares the composition of the shots with the one currently displayed on Shane’s camera screen.
"Okay, yeah," Shane says. "That looks right. Have I got skills, or have I got skills?"
"You have skills," Brendon confirms. "Lots of skills."
"Your mom has skills," Shane says, then, "Thanks, though."
"You’re welcome."
Spencer says, "So do we want to print that shit, or what?"
"You got the forms?"
"Yeah," Spencer says.
-
Brendon has to go down to the courthouse, Spencer and Dylan both in tow, to sign off on some more official paperwork. The whole thing goes over a lot easier than anyone expects.
After that, they all - even Zack, who showed up again at some point - go out to get drinks, even though it’s early yet.
"You guys all know you’ll be in even deeper shit if they find out, right?" Zack says over their second round.
"Shh," Brendon says. "Shh. There’s nothing to find out, okay."
"Whatever you say, little dude."
"Let me have my happiness, c’mon," Brendon says. "It’s time to party hard or whatever."
"We’re partying so hard right now," Spencer says. "With our jalapeno poppers."
"Are you hating on the jalapeno poppers? Because I don’t know if I can be friends with a man who thinks hating on jalapeno poppers is alright."
"I’m not. I’m not. I respect the poppers. I support them. I’m a fan."
"Good," Brendon says. "Good. You’d better be."
"I won’t stop believing," Spencer says, which is enough to make Brendon burst into song and make everyone else roll their eyes before joining in. No one but Brendon remembers anything other than the chorus, so that ends quickly.
"This is the best fucking day," Brendon says, throwing an arm around Shane’s shoulder because they’re already sitting next to each other. They’re probably, maybe, sort-of dating, as far as Brendon knows, but he’s been pretty careful about the PDA, just in case. He’s excited and drinking, though, so he figures an arm around the shoulder is totally justifiable.
"Better than Christmas?" Shane asks.
"Better than Christmas," Brendon says. "The only pet I ever got for Christmas was a hamster. And, like, no disrespect to President Hamilton, but hamsters are kind of boring as pets, you know?"
"President - did you name your hamster President Hamilton?" Spencer asks, eyebrows going up.
"I was eight." Brendon acts like that’s a good explanation.
"You should have named him Benjamin, if you were going for presidents on dollar bills," Zack says.
"Dude, I was eight. Ten dollars was a lot back then."
"Inflation’s terrible like that," Zack says.
"At least he wasn’t named Dylan." Shane has his hands folded neatly in his lap, smiling beatifically.
"One of my friends named her kid Dylan," Spencer says. "Like, two years ago. She’d never listened to Bob Dylan or anything. I don’t know, it was weird."
"Good story," Brendon says. "Thanks."
"Yeah, I know." Spencer shakes his head a little. "Whatever. It’s just kind of weird, right?"
"I didn’t actually name Dylan. That’s your buddy Ryan’s fault."
"Oh," Spencer says. "Oh, okay, yeah. That - you know. I can see that. Okay. That makes sense."
"Ryan Ross," Brendon says.
"He’s very talented at arts and crafts," Shane says.
Spencer presses his hands against his face for a few seconds, then laughs. "Ryan fucking Ross. Of course you’ve met him. Of course he was doing arts and crafts."
"Seems pretty par for the course," Brendon says. "We made a fort once."
"Was he high? He always builds forts when he’s high."
"No way," Brendon says, flailing his arms a little and launching into an extensive and meandering rant about Ryan Ross, occasionally pausing to let other people talk. At some point, it comes out that Spencer used to play the drums, and Brendon might shout at him about how awesome that is and how they have to jam sometime. He’s pretty drunk by then, though, and at another point he’s literally singing Shane’s praises, so.
-
Brendon slips a twenty under Greta’s door in the morning, then later goes back to ask if she found it.
"Yes."
"Do I smell cookies?"
"Shut up," Greta says.
"You could be a baker," Brendon says. "Open a bakery. Stop being beholden to corporate interests."
"That would work really well," Greta says. "Seeing how I don’t actually like spending all of my time in the kitchen."
"You’ve got to. You know. Come on. Do you need any help?"
"Maybe," Greta admits.
"Okay."
Brendon helps with a few batches of cookies. "You should come up and meet Dylan sometime."
"Is that your friend’s name?"
"Nah," Brendon says. "My boyfriend’s name is Shane. Dylan’s my dinosaur."
-
Dylan’s nostrils flare, testing the breeze. He cranes his slender neck higher still, eyes narrowed as he swings his narrow skull from side to side. When Brendon turns around, Dylan scampers around to continue hiding behind his legs, nearly tripping his owner.
"Goddamn, little dude," Brendon laughs.
Finally, Dylan takes a few steps forward. His claws sink into the mud the same dark color as cast-off coffee grounds. The fuzz of his feathers is disturbed by the wind. This is his first time spent outdoors in any significant capacity since Brendon found him, and he’d had precious little experience with the natural world prior to that, having been born and brought up within the confines of a lab and fenced-in concrete yard.
Brief periods spent in carriers, shuttled from building to vehicle and back again, don’t compare with facing the outside world of his own volition, his owner there and not threatening abandonment. Still Dylan sticks close, looking back at Brendon every few seconds to make sure he’s still there. Brendon stands still, beaming down at Dylan so hard that the muscles of his face begin to ache.
Dylan chirps. Somewhere, a bird calls out, and Dylan cocks his head to the side and sings his reply.
the end
-
PS
a picture by mondegreen! \o/ [it is a spoiler]
