New Panic! Fic: The Thoughts of Youth Are Long, Long Thoughts
Title: The Thoughts of Youth Are Long, Long Thoughts (a boy’s will is the wind’s will)
Pairing: Brendon/Spencer pre-slash
Rating: G
Word count: 2,700+
Prompt: Winnie the Pooh
Summary: He hugs Spencer tight, tighter, tightest, and says, “I like you best.”
A/N: For the band_princesses challenge. Mainly, this is based on the short …And Tigger, Too, because Brendon seriously makes the best Tigger ever. I think you can pretty much guess who everyone else is. Mammoth thanks to castoffstarter for the awesome beta-job and insisting that I keep the Hundred Acre Wood. Title comes from Longfellow’s My Lost Youth.
download the soundtrack
The Thoughts of Youth Are Long, Long Thoughts
(a boy’s will is the wind’s will)
When Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz the Third is little, he has more toys than he could ever possibly want. He only plays with a handful of them, though; a handful of little toys that he always leaves out in the Hundred Acre Wood, but that’s okay, because he always goes back for them.
There’s nothing so much fun as romps through the Wood with Pete and Jon, Brendon and his boundless energy, Ryan and Spencer, thick as thieves, and Brent. Who is Brent.
But then one day Pete grows up - although Patrick always says that part’s arguable - and he meets Joe and Andy and Patrick and he forgets all about his toys, left out in the Hundred Acre Wood.
And at some point - at some random, unimportant point in time - the toys forget all about Pete, too.
*
The thing about being imaginary, Brendon thinks, is that he doesn’t feel imaginary. He feels bouncy.
“You’re real, Brendon,” Ryan says absently, paging through a very small book on Brendon’s very messy bed. “We’re all real, because we’re here and talking to each other, okay?”
Brendon wants to believe that, he does, but Ryan isn’t being very exciting. The more exciting things are the more vibrantly real Brendon’s world becomes, so he wants to go find Spencer. Spencer is always the most fun of them all.
“Come on, come on, Ry, we’re going to Spencer’s,” Brendon says, jumping on the mattress and shoving Ryan right off the other side.
Ryan lands with a thunk on his back, book still clutched in his hands. He blinks slowly up at Brendon and says, pointedly, “Ow.” He’s scowling, too.
Ryan is far too slow. He’s, like, the slowest thing ever in the history of slow things, Brendon thinks. “You’re slow,” Brendon says, rolling his eyes. “We could be down past Jon’s by now,” which is only a slight exaggeration, since Jon’s home is actually on the other side of Spencer’s, but there’s a point, and Brendon is making it. Ryan is slow.
“I was already at Spencer’s this morning,” Ryan says flatly. “Now I’m visiting you, but I suppose you don’t care. You-”
“Don’t have any manners, hate your company, want you dead, let’s go, Ryan,” Brendon says, tugging on Ryan’s hand, pulling him up to his feet. Ryan’s sort of melodramatic. Sometimes that’s loads of fun, but usually Brendon just wants him to move.
The problem, Brendon is sure, is that Ryan is so very ho-hum. He’s that boring bit of the story that talks about trees and the weather and how it was once and upon a time.
But he loves Ryan just the same, because he’s his friend, and friends love each other no matter what. Brendon’s sure he’s heard that somewhere. From Jon, maybe, and Jon’s usually right about everything except when he’s not.
Ryan flattens his lips together but follows Brendon out his front door and down the path. Brendon’s home is by the river and Spencer’s is up through the pink blooming dogwoods and over the dandelion hill, but the distance really isn’t that far.
Jon once measured it in raspberry bushes, and he came up with twelve, and the raspberries make the journey that much sweeter when they’re just after ripe.
It’s too early for just after ripe raspberries, though, so they get there even sooner.
Brendon’s ahead of Ryan in an instant, bouncing in this particular way Brendon always bounces, and Spencer’s out by his vegetable patch when he crests the hill to Spencer’s house.
Brendon isn’t all that stealthy, but Spencer gets very focused when he gardens, so he doesn’t even look up as Brendon jumps the front gate. And then Brendon tackles Spencer with a rebel yell, rolling them over and over in the soft dirt.
Spencer is sputtering and pushing at Brendon’s hips and the more Brendon clings, the louder Spencer shouts at him to get off. Spencer always reacts so hilariously to Brendon’s pounces. He’s Brendon’s very favorite to bother.
Brendon noses Spencer’s throat as Spencer’s shouts disintegrate into low rumbly sounds that would’ve been close to purrs if he wasn’t so obviously disgruntled.
“Hi, Spencer, hi,” Brendon says. Spencer smells like grass and pumpkins and fresh air and everything Brendon loves.
“Get off,” Spencer growls, and Brendon can feel it in his chest he’s so close, and it makes him laugh.
He laughs and says, “But we’re having fun,” and then he licks all the way up Spencer’s neck to just below his ear, peeling away from him before Spencer can cuff his head.
He dances out of reach, body ready to flee just in case Spencer decides to give chase. He hopes Spencer gives chase.
Spencer doesn’t give chase, though. Spencer just lays there, limbs sprawled, and says, “Brendon, you ass.”
Brendon is only a very little bit disappointed by this. He’d be more disappointed, but Jon is waving at him from the other side of the fence, and it’s hard to be anything but happy with Jon around. Jon’s awesome.
Ryan is slouching beside Jon and trying his very best to look blah, to look nonchalant and cool and blue - Brendon doesn’t know why anyone would want to be blue; Brendon always wants to be bright and loud and orange - but he fails miserably. Ryan’s eyes are shining under the long fringe of his hair and his lips twitch upwards when Jon leans into his shoulder.
Jon is irresistible to Brendon, in the way that he’s so darn cuddly. Spencer might be the most fun to tackle, but Jon is the most fun to hug.
Jon’s Unflappable, too; he absolutely can’t be flapped. Brendon thinks that’s super cool.
“Good morning,” Jon says, smiling, hands curled over the top of the wooden fence.
Brendon bounds over and stops short of pouncing, but only because Ryan’s got his hips angled towards Jon and is trying to flutter his lashes and, Brendon thinks, flirt, and Brendon is sure that is the funniest thing he’s seen all day. Granted, it’s been a very short day so far.
“Hi,” Brendon says, and even though he’s stopped short of hugging Jon, he leans into his space across the fence and pecks his cheek.
Ryan turns bright red, but Jon just grins wider.
Spencer grumbles a Hello. He steps up next to Brendon, swiping at his dirt-smudged pants, and Brendon wraps an arm around his waist and tugs him close, tipping his head onto his shoulder.
“What are we doing today?” asks Brendon.
Spencer only half-heartedly tries to pull away, like he knows it isn’t worth the effort, since Brendon would just follow him sideways anyway. Spencer has the nicest waist to curl an arm around, and Brendon’s hand fits snugly up against his hipbone.
“I was thinking I’d go for a walk,” Jon says, and a walk sounds grand to Brendon. Or perhaps something faster than a walk. Like a jaunt. Or a run.
Brendon exclaims, “I know just the place!” even though he doesn’t actually know Just The Place. He knows out and about, though, and to Brendon that’s pretty much the same thing.
Jon laughs, says, “Lead the way, buddy,” and Brendon is gone. Brendon never hesitates about anything.
Since Ryan is slow and Brendon is fast, they end up a disorganized group of adventurers, just the way Brendon likes it.
Brendon bounds back and forth and over and under and he’s there and gone and there again so often that sometimes he’s behind them, and sometimes he’s over to the left, and sometimes he’s hanging off Jon’s back and sometimes he’s tackling Spencer out of nowhere, tumbling them into bushes and piles of leaves and ditches, laughing at Spencer’s squawks.
Brendon loves going for walks.
*
As Brendon disappears and reappears and disappears again - leaving Spencer a twitchy mess of nerves - Spencer is struck by a Very Brilliant Idea.
Spencer has had it with Brendon’s surprise tackles - they hurt, sometimes, and Brendon always, always wriggles all over him and it’s uncomfortable for Spencer - and Spencer thinks if they lost Brendon - “Temporarily lost Brendon,” Spencer clarifies, once Ryan starts scowling over at him - Brendon might be just a little bit humbled. He’ll think twice about his sneak attacks and pounces. Maybe he’ll be a little more wary about his surroundings, like Spencer is, and he won’t be such a chaotic jumble of enthusiasm for everything.
Ryan frowns and tells him his Very Brilliant Idea won’t work - “And if it does, who wants a blue Brendon, anyhow?” - and Jon tells him it won’t work the way Spencer wants it to work, but Spencer is adamant.
He wants peace and calm for once. He wants to be able to relax, and he can’t relax, not with Brendon always hovering around him, always touching him, always there.
The biggest stumbling block in Spencer’s Very Brilliant Idea, however, is that Brendon never gets lost.
*
Brendon never gets lost, because he’s always exactly where he wants to be.
It’s an easy enough notion that’s served Brendon well over the years, since he never likes to stay in one place for very long. Standing still makes his skin itch.
He is a World Traveler - if you count the Hundred Acre Wood as the World, and not just a very small part of it, which Brendon does - and so when Brendon finds himself suddenly alone, he doesn’t panic. He circles back around and wanders along until he stumbles on Brent’s house, where Brent is most notably missing.
Except for the part where he’s not. He’s under the bed. Brendon figures this out quickly, because he’s smart. Also, the bed’s quaking a little.
“Brent?”
Brendon sees a nose and then a pale face and then finally Brent peeks all the way out. “Brendon?”
Brendon rocks back on his heels. “Yep.”
“Oh. Oh, good. I thought maybe.” Brent wiggles out from under the bed and gets to his feet, dusting off his knees. “I thought maybe you weren’t you.”
Brendon looks down at himself. He looks like him. “I am, though,” he says, and Brent nods.
“Yeah, I see that now,” Brent says, and they’re in agreement. Brendon is Brendon, and not someone that Brent has to hide from. Under the bed.
Which isn’t a very good hiding place, Brendon thinks, but Brent isn’t normally very good at hiding.
Brendon always searches Brent out last to have fun, because even though Ryan is boring - and dull and occasionally Very Wordy - Ryan is at least willing to play. Brent is paranoid about anything and everything, and when they’d first met, years and years ago, Brent had been certain that Brendon would eat him at the earliest opportunity. Brendon would never eat Brent. Brendon doesn’t like meat.
But right then, while the others are still out on their walk, Brendon prefers to be with Brent than all by his lonesome - Brendon is not a Solitary Creature, no sir - so he drags Brent out his front door and goes about getting him to play Hide And Go Seek, and teaching him the proper way to hide - although Brendon isn’t very good at hiding himself - and it takes some convincing. And promises of honey. Jon’s honey, specifically, since Brendon doesn’t like honey, either.
By the time Jon and Ryan show up, Brent is tuckered out, and Brendon finds him curled up napping under his kitchen table.
By the time Jon and Ryan show up, Brendon is seriously missing Spencer.
Ryan frowns and places his hands on his hips. “We lost Spencer,” he says, and Jon makes his what-can-you-do? face, eyebrows arched, hands in his pockets.
Brendon, of course, is unfamiliar with the lost concept, and it takes some blank stares and a, “Huh?” or two, and, also, “No, really, where’s Spencer?” until Jon finally says, “We were all the way out by the hollyhock,” and Brendon snaps his fingers.
He knows exactly where Spencer is.
There are several places in the Hundred Acre Wood where hollyhock grows, but Brendon’s totally confident that he can, if he needs to, find all of them.
*
Jon is not simpleminded, but he has simple wants and needs.
He likes the sun on his face and honey warming his belly. He likes smiling. He likes Brendon’s hugs, Spencer’s soft cheeks, and the way Ryan grumbles under his breath, but always stands close enough to touch. He likes finding Brent curled up in his cupboard, where he’s hidden so long he’s fallen fast asleep.
Jon knows the Hundred Acre Wood like he knows how many twigs it took to patch his roof last summer, and he knows that Spencer is only lost in the way that Brendon isn’t with him. Whether he admits it or not, Spencer’s existence is as tangled up in Brendon’s as Brendon’s is in his. He’s not worried.
“Tea?” he asks, making himself at home in Brent’s tiny kitchen. Brent is snoring, little wuffling noises that make Jon think of autumn and blustery days, despite the early onset of spring.
Ryan frowns into a pot, left out on Brent’s table. “There’s no honey,” he says, then flashes Jon a look. “Not that I’m particularly fond of it myself.”
Jon beams at him. “I think I can deal without. Just this once.”
*
Spencer has been lost before.
He hadn’t remembered what it had felt like, though, to be left out by himself, the sky growing dark and darker by the minute. He thinks he has nightmares that start like that, filled with shadows, a loneliness creeping up so fast it almost leaves him stiff and blank-eyed and empty. Maybe if he’d remembered that before, he wouldn’t have been so quick to try and lose Brendon.
The Hundred Acre Wood doesn’t have any mean and rabid animals in it - Spencer’s been living there long enough to know that - but that’s something that’s easily forgotten when the crickets start singing and the bushes become black shapeless hulks and there are Mysterious Rustlings and Ominous Noises and. And Spencer very much wants to be home, please and thank you.
It isn’t cold, but Spencer shivers.
And then in the distance he hears, “Spencer!” and Spencer immediately looks about wildly for somewhere to hide - it knows his name! - except he hears, “Spencer!” again, just a little closer, and that Spencer sounds exactly like Brendon.
“Over here,” Spencer calls back. He hugs himself and waits, fingers biting into his sides, and when Brendon pops out of the shadows with a huge grin, Spencer has never been so glad to see him in all his life.
“Spencer,” Brendon says, and lopes up to him, throwing his arms around him so tight Spencer squeaks.
He doesn’t protest, though, and his own arms sneak their way out to pull Brendon even closer, gripping the back of Brendon’s shirt. “I was lost,” he whispers, and Brendon shakes his head.
“You weren’t. You weren’t lost, Spencer,” Brendon says against his cheek. “I always know exactly where you are.”
Spencer doesn’t see how that’s possible - no one can know where anyone is all of the time, he thinks - but it makes him feel better anyhow.
*
As much as Brendon likes having Spencer squirm against him, huffy and annoyed and so very much fun to badger, Brendon also, it seems, likes having Spencer keep still. It’s a novelty, having Spencer hug him back. He thinks maybe Spencer’s hugs, Spencer’s real hugs, are better even than Jon’s.
He won’t ever tell Jon that, though.
He says, “Don’t tell,” and Spencer shifts away a bit, brow furrowed, and asks, “What?” and Brendon says again, “Don’t tell, don’t tell.”
He hugs Spencer tight, tighter, tightest, and says, “I like you best.”
*
When Peter Lewis Kingston the Third is old - when he’s old in the sense that he has gray hair and distinguished lines bracketing his mouth, because Pete never actually grew old, for he is Young At Heart - he looks out his back window into the Hundred Acre Wood and something nags at him.
Usually it’s just Patrick, he thinks fondly, but this feels more like he’s forgotten, like pieces are missing in his memory, and he stares at the dogwoods and the hollyhock and thinks.
“You think so hard you’ll sprain something,” Patrick says from beside him, and Pete says, “Do you. Do you see that?” Down by the edge, shifting shadows, faces, a wave.
“See what?” Patrick asks, leaning forward, hands resting on the sill.
Pete narrows his eyes ‘til the figures dissolve into trees, slim maples. “Nothing,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. Nothing at all.
Pairing: Brendon/Spencer pre-slash
Rating: G
Word count: 2,700+
Prompt: Winnie the Pooh
Summary: He hugs Spencer tight, tighter, tightest, and says, “I like you best.”
A/N: For the band_princesses challenge. Mainly, this is based on the short …And Tigger, Too, because Brendon seriously makes the best Tigger ever. I think you can pretty much guess who everyone else is. Mammoth thanks to castoffstarter for the awesome beta-job and insisting that I keep the Hundred Acre Wood. Title comes from Longfellow’s My Lost Youth.
download the soundtrack
The Thoughts of Youth Are Long, Long Thoughts
(a boy’s will is the wind’s will)
When Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz the Third is little, he has more toys than he could ever possibly want. He only plays with a handful of them, though; a handful of little toys that he always leaves out in the Hundred Acre Wood, but that’s okay, because he always goes back for them.
There’s nothing so much fun as romps through the Wood with Pete and Jon, Brendon and his boundless energy, Ryan and Spencer, thick as thieves, and Brent. Who is Brent.
But then one day Pete grows up - although Patrick always says that part’s arguable - and he meets Joe and Andy and Patrick and he forgets all about his toys, left out in the Hundred Acre Wood.
And at some point - at some random, unimportant point in time - the toys forget all about Pete, too.
*
The thing about being imaginary, Brendon thinks, is that he doesn’t feel imaginary. He feels bouncy.
“You’re real, Brendon,” Ryan says absently, paging through a very small book on Brendon’s very messy bed. “We’re all real, because we’re here and talking to each other, okay?”
Brendon wants to believe that, he does, but Ryan isn’t being very exciting. The more exciting things are the more vibrantly real Brendon’s world becomes, so he wants to go find Spencer. Spencer is always the most fun of them all.
“Come on, come on, Ry, we’re going to Spencer’s,” Brendon says, jumping on the mattress and shoving Ryan right off the other side.
Ryan lands with a thunk on his back, book still clutched in his hands. He blinks slowly up at Brendon and says, pointedly, “Ow.” He’s scowling, too.
Ryan is far too slow. He’s, like, the slowest thing ever in the history of slow things, Brendon thinks. “You’re slow,” Brendon says, rolling his eyes. “We could be down past Jon’s by now,” which is only a slight exaggeration, since Jon’s home is actually on the other side of Spencer’s, but there’s a point, and Brendon is making it. Ryan is slow.
“I was already at Spencer’s this morning,” Ryan says flatly. “Now I’m visiting you, but I suppose you don’t care. You-”
“Don’t have any manners, hate your company, want you dead, let’s go, Ryan,” Brendon says, tugging on Ryan’s hand, pulling him up to his feet. Ryan’s sort of melodramatic. Sometimes that’s loads of fun, but usually Brendon just wants him to move.
The problem, Brendon is sure, is that Ryan is so very ho-hum. He’s that boring bit of the story that talks about trees and the weather and how it was once and upon a time.
But he loves Ryan just the same, because he’s his friend, and friends love each other no matter what. Brendon’s sure he’s heard that somewhere. From Jon, maybe, and Jon’s usually right about everything except when he’s not.
Ryan flattens his lips together but follows Brendon out his front door and down the path. Brendon’s home is by the river and Spencer’s is up through the pink blooming dogwoods and over the dandelion hill, but the distance really isn’t that far.
Jon once measured it in raspberry bushes, and he came up with twelve, and the raspberries make the journey that much sweeter when they’re just after ripe.
It’s too early for just after ripe raspberries, though, so they get there even sooner.
Brendon’s ahead of Ryan in an instant, bouncing in this particular way Brendon always bounces, and Spencer’s out by his vegetable patch when he crests the hill to Spencer’s house.
Brendon isn’t all that stealthy, but Spencer gets very focused when he gardens, so he doesn’t even look up as Brendon jumps the front gate. And then Brendon tackles Spencer with a rebel yell, rolling them over and over in the soft dirt.
Spencer is sputtering and pushing at Brendon’s hips and the more Brendon clings, the louder Spencer shouts at him to get off. Spencer always reacts so hilariously to Brendon’s pounces. He’s Brendon’s very favorite to bother.
Brendon noses Spencer’s throat as Spencer’s shouts disintegrate into low rumbly sounds that would’ve been close to purrs if he wasn’t so obviously disgruntled.
“Hi, Spencer, hi,” Brendon says. Spencer smells like grass and pumpkins and fresh air and everything Brendon loves.
“Get off,” Spencer growls, and Brendon can feel it in his chest he’s so close, and it makes him laugh.
He laughs and says, “But we’re having fun,” and then he licks all the way up Spencer’s neck to just below his ear, peeling away from him before Spencer can cuff his head.
He dances out of reach, body ready to flee just in case Spencer decides to give chase. He hopes Spencer gives chase.
Spencer doesn’t give chase, though. Spencer just lays there, limbs sprawled, and says, “Brendon, you ass.”
Brendon is only a very little bit disappointed by this. He’d be more disappointed, but Jon is waving at him from the other side of the fence, and it’s hard to be anything but happy with Jon around. Jon’s awesome.
Ryan is slouching beside Jon and trying his very best to look blah, to look nonchalant and cool and blue - Brendon doesn’t know why anyone would want to be blue; Brendon always wants to be bright and loud and orange - but he fails miserably. Ryan’s eyes are shining under the long fringe of his hair and his lips twitch upwards when Jon leans into his shoulder.
Jon is irresistible to Brendon, in the way that he’s so darn cuddly. Spencer might be the most fun to tackle, but Jon is the most fun to hug.
Jon’s Unflappable, too; he absolutely can’t be flapped. Brendon thinks that’s super cool.
“Good morning,” Jon says, smiling, hands curled over the top of the wooden fence.
Brendon bounds over and stops short of pouncing, but only because Ryan’s got his hips angled towards Jon and is trying to flutter his lashes and, Brendon thinks, flirt, and Brendon is sure that is the funniest thing he’s seen all day. Granted, it’s been a very short day so far.
“Hi,” Brendon says, and even though he’s stopped short of hugging Jon, he leans into his space across the fence and pecks his cheek.
Ryan turns bright red, but Jon just grins wider.
Spencer grumbles a Hello. He steps up next to Brendon, swiping at his dirt-smudged pants, and Brendon wraps an arm around his waist and tugs him close, tipping his head onto his shoulder.
“What are we doing today?” asks Brendon.
Spencer only half-heartedly tries to pull away, like he knows it isn’t worth the effort, since Brendon would just follow him sideways anyway. Spencer has the nicest waist to curl an arm around, and Brendon’s hand fits snugly up against his hipbone.
“I was thinking I’d go for a walk,” Jon says, and a walk sounds grand to Brendon. Or perhaps something faster than a walk. Like a jaunt. Or a run.
Brendon exclaims, “I know just the place!” even though he doesn’t actually know Just The Place. He knows out and about, though, and to Brendon that’s pretty much the same thing.
Jon laughs, says, “Lead the way, buddy,” and Brendon is gone. Brendon never hesitates about anything.
Since Ryan is slow and Brendon is fast, they end up a disorganized group of adventurers, just the way Brendon likes it.
Brendon bounds back and forth and over and under and he’s there and gone and there again so often that sometimes he’s behind them, and sometimes he’s over to the left, and sometimes he’s hanging off Jon’s back and sometimes he’s tackling Spencer out of nowhere, tumbling them into bushes and piles of leaves and ditches, laughing at Spencer’s squawks.
Brendon loves going for walks.
*
As Brendon disappears and reappears and disappears again - leaving Spencer a twitchy mess of nerves - Spencer is struck by a Very Brilliant Idea.
Spencer has had it with Brendon’s surprise tackles - they hurt, sometimes, and Brendon always, always wriggles all over him and it’s uncomfortable for Spencer - and Spencer thinks if they lost Brendon - “Temporarily lost Brendon,” Spencer clarifies, once Ryan starts scowling over at him - Brendon might be just a little bit humbled. He’ll think twice about his sneak attacks and pounces. Maybe he’ll be a little more wary about his surroundings, like Spencer is, and he won’t be such a chaotic jumble of enthusiasm for everything.
Ryan frowns and tells him his Very Brilliant Idea won’t work - “And if it does, who wants a blue Brendon, anyhow?” - and Jon tells him it won’t work the way Spencer wants it to work, but Spencer is adamant.
He wants peace and calm for once. He wants to be able to relax, and he can’t relax, not with Brendon always hovering around him, always touching him, always there.
The biggest stumbling block in Spencer’s Very Brilliant Idea, however, is that Brendon never gets lost.
*
Brendon never gets lost, because he’s always exactly where he wants to be.
It’s an easy enough notion that’s served Brendon well over the years, since he never likes to stay in one place for very long. Standing still makes his skin itch.
He is a World Traveler - if you count the Hundred Acre Wood as the World, and not just a very small part of it, which Brendon does - and so when Brendon finds himself suddenly alone, he doesn’t panic. He circles back around and wanders along until he stumbles on Brent’s house, where Brent is most notably missing.
Except for the part where he’s not. He’s under the bed. Brendon figures this out quickly, because he’s smart. Also, the bed’s quaking a little.
“Brent?”
Brendon sees a nose and then a pale face and then finally Brent peeks all the way out. “Brendon?”
Brendon rocks back on his heels. “Yep.”
“Oh. Oh, good. I thought maybe.” Brent wiggles out from under the bed and gets to his feet, dusting off his knees. “I thought maybe you weren’t you.”
Brendon looks down at himself. He looks like him. “I am, though,” he says, and Brent nods.
“Yeah, I see that now,” Brent says, and they’re in agreement. Brendon is Brendon, and not someone that Brent has to hide from. Under the bed.
Which isn’t a very good hiding place, Brendon thinks, but Brent isn’t normally very good at hiding.
Brendon always searches Brent out last to have fun, because even though Ryan is boring - and dull and occasionally Very Wordy - Ryan is at least willing to play. Brent is paranoid about anything and everything, and when they’d first met, years and years ago, Brent had been certain that Brendon would eat him at the earliest opportunity. Brendon would never eat Brent. Brendon doesn’t like meat.
But right then, while the others are still out on their walk, Brendon prefers to be with Brent than all by his lonesome - Brendon is not a Solitary Creature, no sir - so he drags Brent out his front door and goes about getting him to play Hide And Go Seek, and teaching him the proper way to hide - although Brendon isn’t very good at hiding himself - and it takes some convincing. And promises of honey. Jon’s honey, specifically, since Brendon doesn’t like honey, either.
By the time Jon and Ryan show up, Brent is tuckered out, and Brendon finds him curled up napping under his kitchen table.
By the time Jon and Ryan show up, Brendon is seriously missing Spencer.
Ryan frowns and places his hands on his hips. “We lost Spencer,” he says, and Jon makes his what-can-you-do? face, eyebrows arched, hands in his pockets.
Brendon, of course, is unfamiliar with the lost concept, and it takes some blank stares and a, “Huh?” or two, and, also, “No, really, where’s Spencer?” until Jon finally says, “We were all the way out by the hollyhock,” and Brendon snaps his fingers.
He knows exactly where Spencer is.
There are several places in the Hundred Acre Wood where hollyhock grows, but Brendon’s totally confident that he can, if he needs to, find all of them.
*
Jon is not simpleminded, but he has simple wants and needs.
He likes the sun on his face and honey warming his belly. He likes smiling. He likes Brendon’s hugs, Spencer’s soft cheeks, and the way Ryan grumbles under his breath, but always stands close enough to touch. He likes finding Brent curled up in his cupboard, where he’s hidden so long he’s fallen fast asleep.
Jon knows the Hundred Acre Wood like he knows how many twigs it took to patch his roof last summer, and he knows that Spencer is only lost in the way that Brendon isn’t with him. Whether he admits it or not, Spencer’s existence is as tangled up in Brendon’s as Brendon’s is in his. He’s not worried.
“Tea?” he asks, making himself at home in Brent’s tiny kitchen. Brent is snoring, little wuffling noises that make Jon think of autumn and blustery days, despite the early onset of spring.
Ryan frowns into a pot, left out on Brent’s table. “There’s no honey,” he says, then flashes Jon a look. “Not that I’m particularly fond of it myself.”
Jon beams at him. “I think I can deal without. Just this once.”
*
Spencer has been lost before.
He hadn’t remembered what it had felt like, though, to be left out by himself, the sky growing dark and darker by the minute. He thinks he has nightmares that start like that, filled with shadows, a loneliness creeping up so fast it almost leaves him stiff and blank-eyed and empty. Maybe if he’d remembered that before, he wouldn’t have been so quick to try and lose Brendon.
The Hundred Acre Wood doesn’t have any mean and rabid animals in it - Spencer’s been living there long enough to know that - but that’s something that’s easily forgotten when the crickets start singing and the bushes become black shapeless hulks and there are Mysterious Rustlings and Ominous Noises and. And Spencer very much wants to be home, please and thank you.
It isn’t cold, but Spencer shivers.
And then in the distance he hears, “Spencer!” and Spencer immediately looks about wildly for somewhere to hide - it knows his name! - except he hears, “Spencer!” again, just a little closer, and that Spencer sounds exactly like Brendon.
“Over here,” Spencer calls back. He hugs himself and waits, fingers biting into his sides, and when Brendon pops out of the shadows with a huge grin, Spencer has never been so glad to see him in all his life.
“Spencer,” Brendon says, and lopes up to him, throwing his arms around him so tight Spencer squeaks.
He doesn’t protest, though, and his own arms sneak their way out to pull Brendon even closer, gripping the back of Brendon’s shirt. “I was lost,” he whispers, and Brendon shakes his head.
“You weren’t. You weren’t lost, Spencer,” Brendon says against his cheek. “I always know exactly where you are.”
Spencer doesn’t see how that’s possible - no one can know where anyone is all of the time, he thinks - but it makes him feel better anyhow.
*
As much as Brendon likes having Spencer squirm against him, huffy and annoyed and so very much fun to badger, Brendon also, it seems, likes having Spencer keep still. It’s a novelty, having Spencer hug him back. He thinks maybe Spencer’s hugs, Spencer’s real hugs, are better even than Jon’s.
He won’t ever tell Jon that, though.
He says, “Don’t tell,” and Spencer shifts away a bit, brow furrowed, and asks, “What?” and Brendon says again, “Don’t tell, don’t tell.”
He hugs Spencer tight, tighter, tightest, and says, “I like you best.”
*
When Peter Lewis Kingston the Third is old - when he’s old in the sense that he has gray hair and distinguished lines bracketing his mouth, because Pete never actually grew old, for he is Young At Heart - he looks out his back window into the Hundred Acre Wood and something nags at him.
Usually it’s just Patrick, he thinks fondly, but this feels more like he’s forgotten, like pieces are missing in his memory, and he stares at the dogwoods and the hollyhock and thinks.
“You think so hard you’ll sprain something,” Patrick says from beside him, and Pete says, “Do you. Do you see that?” Down by the edge, shifting shadows, faces, a wave.
“See what?” Patrick asks, leaning forward, hands resting on the sill.
Pete narrows his eyes ‘til the figures dissolve into trees, slim maples. “Nothing,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. Nothing at all.