10 prompts [jon/spencer][drabbles]
Ten Drabbles || All Jon Walker/Spencer Smith || G-R || Ten drabbles, based on prompts from this prompt table (I will add the link lol). || Angst and alcoholism; brief mentions of abuse; OCT drug ODing; High school AU || no beta || 3,018 words || Number followed by prompt and then POV as headings.
1 - Normal
3rd, omniscient
They are the quintessential couple. Hands held tight together, sharing popcorn and gentle touches during movies, same music taste, Spencer likes to read but Jon enjoys TV a bit too much. They are almost always smiling, they are almost always looking at each other with bright eyes and pure love and lust.
Sometimes, however, they are not everything people strive to be. They are not easy to look up to, in fact, you begin to hope you will never have a relationship like that. Spencer throws a plate and it crashes into the wall next to Jon, shattering, shards on the tile floor. Jon stands still and stares at his feet, clenching his fists, knuckles now white. Spencer cries and eventually stumbles away, curls up under the sheets and sobs against the pillow, feeling broken and most of all, missing.
Jon continues to stand in the kitchen, staring at the floor, eyes half-lidded, because he doesn’t know what to do anymore.
He walks into their bedroom, the shared queen sized bed that they usually only use half of, curled up together with noses pressed tight to throats, lips skimming over pulses and fingers sprawled over smooth or abrasive skin. He slips under the covers and touches Spencer’s shoulder - he is still now - letting him know that he’s there. Spencer tenses, maybe curls up into himself a little more, and then relaxes, all of his muscles going weak because he loves Jon so much.
They look at each other in the dark and Jon whispers what Spencer expects to hear. “Sorry,” soft and caring, as he begins to stroke the stubble on Spencer’s chin, his cheeks. Jon leans forward and kisses at the dried tears and Spencer already knows that they can never be normal.
7 - Bed
3rd, Spencer
On Spencer’s twenty seventh birthday, Jon proposes.
“Will you marry me?” Simple, on one knee, on the porch outside of Spencer’s house, no less. He doesn’t hold up a box with a silk inside and a sparkling gold ring with diamonds. He has nothing to show except for his eyes, which are melted with love and trust.
Spencer stares down at Jon and then smiles, just barely, reaching out his hand and taking Jon’s, helping him to his feet. He stands, ignoring the sudden look of worry on Jon’s face, and leans forward, pushing their lips together.
“Yes,” Spencer whispers against his lips, and it’s all Jon needs to hear. He envelopes Spencer, tight in his arms, and carries him upstairs bridal style.
They move away - Jon promises Spencer everything in the world. Brendon, Ryan, Alex, they’re all wrapped up in their own lives, their own complications, but Jon promises with soft words that they will have it simple - Jon will take Spencer away. They can become Jon and Spencer, just the two of them, a duo of a band, Jon singing and playing guitar or bass, whichever Spencer prefers, while he plays tambourine and they become something no one ever expected them to be.
Spencer drinks in these promises, words he trusts, and they move far away. They get married - no ceremony, just papers - and they settle down in a small house with everything Spencer could ever want. A window overlooking wilderness, a pond in their tiny backyard. One bedroom, where they fit the bed.
The Bed, as it becomes called, is hand carved. They hire a professional to do the most complicated work, but Jon breaks his back doing what he can to personalize it, to make The Bed his and Spencer’s. He etches words that he has wrote into the wood and Spencer smiles the whole time while he’s doing it.
It becomes like a home inside a home, to lie together on the bed and whispers and speak and never have anything else to worry about.
23 - Pills
3rd, Spencer
“Stop,” he whispers and his voice is hushed and fearful.
Spencer shakes his head, over and over, not realizing what his actions are doing, but his hands are shaky and his fingers don’t work. Spencer knows that Jon can’t see him anyway. “I’ll swallow twenty pills and choke them down,” Spencer murmurs, staring at his own handful of bright pink pills, “with you listening on the other end.” It’s a promise, something he has to do, but he stares and hesitates as his eyes blur.
“Don’t,” Jon whispers and Spencer wonders if he’s even going to do anything. If he would even do more than use his words to stop him. “Please.”
Spencer sobs and shoves the pills past his mouth, letting his head rock back so that his cordless phone clatters to the floor, the noise like an explosion until he grabs the water and swallows them down, feeling the capsules slip and slide down his throat and into his body. He closes his eyes and pretends he doesn’t hear the shouts that come from the phone on the floor, telling him that Jon’s calling 911, that Jon will be there in thirty seconds, telling him truths riddled with lies.
Spencer collapses and wishes he could see Jon’s face again, even if just once.
37 - Forget
3rd, Jon
Jon will never, ever forget the moment he met Spencer.
Spencer had eyes that pierced, and the way he dressed was so abnormal to Jon, who was used to flipflops and t-shirts even though he was from Chicago. Spencer cocks his hips out and folds his arms over his chest. He smirks and looks superior.
Jon will never, ever forget the night after Spencer’s twenty second birthday, when he flew into Las Vegas from Chicago and met him at Spencer and Brendon’s house, taking him out to the bar, just so they could have something to do.
Spencer always seemed to be the one who could hold his liquor, even when he was a teen, so Jon lets him take drink after drink, despite the fact that someone has to drive them home. Jon sips at his bottle, because all he wants to do is watch Spencer, eyes glazed, and not worry about the rest of the world.
He reaches out and touches Spencer’s cheek and wonders if it’d be okay to lean forward and kiss him. Spencer is nodding, and Jon realizes that he actually voiced the question. He doesn’t hesitate, kissing Spencer’s lips, which don’t seem to register the movement for a moment, and by then, Jon’s already pulled away. He looks at Spencer, still tasting the bitter alcohol in his mouth, and then he shakes his head, forcing a smile.
Jon takes Spencer home, stumbling into the car and buckling him into his seat as his head lulls backwards and he giggles at something Jon will never, ever find funny.
And Spencer forgets it all.
42 - Love
1st, Spencer
They make it seem like loving someone is easy. I don’t know who ‘they’ are, but I know that they are wrong. I know this because loving someone requires knowing what it’s like to hate, because you can’t have one without the opposite.
And sometimes, I do. I do hate Jon and I hate what he does and I want to fall apart right in front of his eyes so that maybe he’ll look at me and feel what I feel so intensely and stop pretending like none of this even matters.
But I love Jon, as well. I love him more often then I hate him, and that is why it’s okay - this is why we can be together and touch lips and laugh and smile and never stop. It’s because we have each other and we love each other. It’s complicated and I want to mend my own heart but I’m not sure how to do that unless I can mend his.
I don’t think that there is anyone else that I can love nearly as much as I love Jon, though. Without him - without him touching me, loving me, kissing me - I just don’t work. I look at myself in the mirror when he goes away and I wonder why it isn’t working. I wonder what I’ve done wrong because sometimes he doesn’t come home.
But because I know he loves me, I just shake my head and rest my head against the pillow and I’m willing to wait for him. I’m willing to wait forever, even if it doesn’t work out in the end.
I seal my lips when he crawls into the bed and tries to kiss me, to touch me, even though I love him. I roll over and try to communicate to him how much I hurt when he does this, when he disappears and makes me feel wrong and worthless. He wraps his arms around my waist and as soon as he whispers his apologies into the skin of my throat, I forgive him. I forgive him because it’s the simple way out.
I forgive him because I love him.
59 - Lover
3rd, Jon
Jon finds it odd that he is not in love with his ‘lover’. He finds it odd how the phrase ‘lover’ is used - in general, he doesn’t think he understands it, but he knows what it’s supposed to mean.
But, when he looks at Spencer over his shoulder, when he sees him playing his drums or running a hand through his hair with a wide grin on his face, Jon doesn’t immediately connect him with the word ‘lover’. To him, Spencer is something much more than that. Somehow, Spencer has become a confident, someone he can completely trust, and yet Jon doesn’t think that he’s in love with Spencer. That would be too much - he can’t be in love, not now, not with a boy and most certainly not with Spencer, who’s only twenty (he’s only twenty two) and who might as well still be a teenager, nonetheless.
Spencer shivers in his arms and leans his head back, and Jon takes advantage of the exposure, sucking on a patch of skin and listening to the soft gasps Spencer makes. He grinds his hips against Spencer’s and tries to forget all of these things he’s already thought about - Spencer’s smile, Spencer’s eyes, Spencer’s perfect lips, Spencer’s perfect voice.
Spencer rolls them over and straddles Jon’s lap, hands exploring his bare chest, tweaking his nipple slowly while his other hand moves over his muscles. Spencer licks his lips, and Jon sees the hunger and he wants it - he feels his own eyes cloud with lust. But Spencer won’t let him, Spencer keeps him pinned against the bed, breathing heavy through his mouth.
Their eyes meet and Jon could move his arms and grab Spencer, pull him back to him and kiss him until they were both gone from the world, but he knows he won’t.
He leans down and kisses Jon soft and careful, his hips pushing down at the same time. Jon dares to move his arms, holding Spencer’s hips and lifting his own. Their erections press together through the thin fabric of their boxers and Jon grunts, feeling himself get harder and harder because now he can feel the slight shaking of Spencer’s thighs.
Spencer lifts his face, just hovering over Jon’s and then kisses his chin, lips running down his throat and to his collar. “Do you want me?” Spencer asks, innocent and careful, but Jon knows that there’s something behind it, something that makes him desperate to cry out, to just take Spencer.
“Yes,” he half-moans, half-chokes, fingers still strong on his hips. “So much.”
Spencer just laughs and strips himself naked, and that’s when Jon sees that there’s something in Spencer’s eyes that is past lust and greed - sadness, regret or remorse, and pain.
“Oh,” Jon whispers, his grip loosening on Spencer’s hips. “This isn’t what you want.”
“No,” Spencer disagrees, with another weak smile. “It’s just I want so much more.” He shakes his head then, sealing the possible words from Jon’s mouth with a quick kiss.
They fuck slow and hard and Jon wants to express how he feels without words and he thinks this is the best he can do.
60 - School
3rd, Spencer
Spencer stares out over the horizon and wonders how it manages to be so beautiful in real life, but when he looks down at his pad of paper nothing seems right.
He switches sheets and sighs, leaning back against the bench and closing his eyes, feeling the warmth on his eyelids.
“What are you doing?” Spencer opens his eyes lazily and looks up at Jon, two years his senior, hands shoved in his pockets. He looks honestly curious and Spencer smiles handing him his drawing pad, despite how he’d usually hoard it to himself. He’s afraid of how he draws, of how his artwork will be perceived. He fears turning in assignments because he fears criticism.
Jon begins to flip through the pages, and Spencer tries so hard not to yank the pad away from him, already embarrassed, despite the fact that Jon’s expression displays no emotion, not even a clue of what he feels when he looks Spencer’s drawings.
He hands Spencer his drawing pad back without a word and Spencer is itching to ask him what he thinks, even though he knows it’s hypocritical of himself.
Jon speaks out before he can ask, though. “That last one…the horizon…were you trying to draw it like the one out there?” he says, pointing over his shoulder. Slowly, feeling something bubble in his stomach that seems oddly like guilt, Spencer nods.
But then Jon is grinning, wide and confident. “Don’t,” he says. “You have way too much of a unique style. Draw how you want things to be, not how they are.”
Jon turns and walks down the campus sidewalk and Spencer wonders why he stuck around at the school to almost six in the evening in the first place.
68 - Rainbow
3rd, Jon
Jon wants to write a song about a rainbow. He tells Ryan this, blatantly, and Ryan gives him a quirked eyebrow and a bit of a chuckle. “Maybe,” he agrees, but he knows that Ryan doesn’t take him seriously.
“I mean it, Ryan,” Jon grumbles, staring out the window of his Chicago apartment. “But…I don’t know how it’d go.”
Ryan looks at him and then smiles. “I may not know how you’re going to write a song about rainbows, but I know why you’re going to,” he says, soft and understanding, and Jon frowns at him because how could he know? “Come on Jon, you’re missing him so much, I don’t blame you. Just play…don’t worry about lyrics, if you don’t want. Don’t make it our song, make it your song. His song. In the end, I think he’ll see what you’re trying to get across.”
Jon stares at Ryan and respects him more than he has in a while.
He borrows the same studio they used to record Take A Vacation and he writes a song that doesn’t make much, or any, sense, and he thinks that people will probably think that he was high when he wrote it. In a way, he is. Typically, high on the air he breathes, high on love. He laughs when he finishes recording, the song he hopes only Spencer will hear.
He smiles and puts the tape in a box and sends it to Spencer in California and he waits and waits and he’s happy because Spencer says ‘It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard’ on Twitter, and to Jon, that is thanks enough.
76 - Sleep
3rd, Spencer
When it rains, Spencer is tired. Spencer gets cranky and Spencer groans and bitches and doesn’t want to do anything. Jon smiles at him, at his attitude, and wraps a blanket around his shoulders, kissing his temple so that Spencer won’t growl at him.
They eventually trail into the bedroom, Spencer complaining about how cold his feet are. But soon he’s pressed to Jon’s chest, all of his cold parts tight against Jon’s warm skin. Jon is sure to hum comforting lullabies of songs he’s never heard, lulling Spencer into a slumber deeper and longer than the rain. He wants Spencer to wake up to sunshine.
Spencer later tells him, when Jon reveals thinking this, that Spencer has never not woken up to sunshine as long as Jon is there.
Jon blushes and the words are meaningful.
84 - Red
3rd, Spencer
Jon paints the walls every color. Yellow-green in the dining room, blue in the family room, lavender in the living room. There is paneling in the kitchen, and then he heads upstairs with his buckets and his old jeans while Spencer sits downstairs and smiles and breathes in too much paint fumes. But he’s happy.
Robins egg blue in the upstairs bathroom - the walls in the hallway and leading up the stairs are painted the color of chocolate Rice Crispies and this makes Jon laugh and say, “Our hallway looks like shit,” as if it’s the funniest thing ever. Spencer personally likes the brown - he thinks brown is a warm color, comforting. Soil is brown.
“So what are you painting the bedroom?” Spencer asks, lazy and not really caring about the answer, though actually asking the question sparks his curiosity and he begins to walk up the stairs, wanting to peek into the room but he’s blocked by Jon opening the door just enough to glare at him, teasingly, sticking out his tongue. Spencer steps back, surprised.
“You don’t get to see it until it’s done,” Jon says, closing the door. Spencer reaches out to open it, but Jon locks him out just in time. Spencer huffs and is almost angry - why should the color of their bedroom be such a secret?
Spencer sits outside the bathroom door, staring at their bedroom door and waiting for Jon to finish.
The door opens about an hour later, Jon grinning. Spencer stands, nearly tripping over his own feet, now numb. He stares into the bedroom and his mouth drops.
“Thank you,” he chokes, because the room is brilliant red.
“Only the best,” Jon says back, because he knows that Spencer’s favorite color has always been red. And now it always will be.
1 - Normal
3rd, omniscient
They are the quintessential couple. Hands held tight together, sharing popcorn and gentle touches during movies, same music taste, Spencer likes to read but Jon enjoys TV a bit too much. They are almost always smiling, they are almost always looking at each other with bright eyes and pure love and lust.
Sometimes, however, they are not everything people strive to be. They are not easy to look up to, in fact, you begin to hope you will never have a relationship like that. Spencer throws a plate and it crashes into the wall next to Jon, shattering, shards on the tile floor. Jon stands still and stares at his feet, clenching his fists, knuckles now white. Spencer cries and eventually stumbles away, curls up under the sheets and sobs against the pillow, feeling broken and most of all, missing.
Jon continues to stand in the kitchen, staring at the floor, eyes half-lidded, because he doesn’t know what to do anymore.
He walks into their bedroom, the shared queen sized bed that they usually only use half of, curled up together with noses pressed tight to throats, lips skimming over pulses and fingers sprawled over smooth or abrasive skin. He slips under the covers and touches Spencer’s shoulder - he is still now - letting him know that he’s there. Spencer tenses, maybe curls up into himself a little more, and then relaxes, all of his muscles going weak because he loves Jon so much.
They look at each other in the dark and Jon whispers what Spencer expects to hear. “Sorry,” soft and caring, as he begins to stroke the stubble on Spencer’s chin, his cheeks. Jon leans forward and kisses at the dried tears and Spencer already knows that they can never be normal.
7 - Bed
3rd, Spencer
On Spencer’s twenty seventh birthday, Jon proposes.
“Will you marry me?” Simple, on one knee, on the porch outside of Spencer’s house, no less. He doesn’t hold up a box with a silk inside and a sparkling gold ring with diamonds. He has nothing to show except for his eyes, which are melted with love and trust.
Spencer stares down at Jon and then smiles, just barely, reaching out his hand and taking Jon’s, helping him to his feet. He stands, ignoring the sudden look of worry on Jon’s face, and leans forward, pushing their lips together.
“Yes,” Spencer whispers against his lips, and it’s all Jon needs to hear. He envelopes Spencer, tight in his arms, and carries him upstairs bridal style.
They move away - Jon promises Spencer everything in the world. Brendon, Ryan, Alex, they’re all wrapped up in their own lives, their own complications, but Jon promises with soft words that they will have it simple - Jon will take Spencer away. They can become Jon and Spencer, just the two of them, a duo of a band, Jon singing and playing guitar or bass, whichever Spencer prefers, while he plays tambourine and they become something no one ever expected them to be.
Spencer drinks in these promises, words he trusts, and they move far away. They get married - no ceremony, just papers - and they settle down in a small house with everything Spencer could ever want. A window overlooking wilderness, a pond in their tiny backyard. One bedroom, where they fit the bed.
The Bed, as it becomes called, is hand carved. They hire a professional to do the most complicated work, but Jon breaks his back doing what he can to personalize it, to make The Bed his and Spencer’s. He etches words that he has wrote into the wood and Spencer smiles the whole time while he’s doing it.
It becomes like a home inside a home, to lie together on the bed and whispers and speak and never have anything else to worry about.
23 - Pills
3rd, Spencer
“Stop,” he whispers and his voice is hushed and fearful.
Spencer shakes his head, over and over, not realizing what his actions are doing, but his hands are shaky and his fingers don’t work. Spencer knows that Jon can’t see him anyway. “I’ll swallow twenty pills and choke them down,” Spencer murmurs, staring at his own handful of bright pink pills, “with you listening on the other end.” It’s a promise, something he has to do, but he stares and hesitates as his eyes blur.
“Don’t,” Jon whispers and Spencer wonders if he’s even going to do anything. If he would even do more than use his words to stop him. “Please.”
Spencer sobs and shoves the pills past his mouth, letting his head rock back so that his cordless phone clatters to the floor, the noise like an explosion until he grabs the water and swallows them down, feeling the capsules slip and slide down his throat and into his body. He closes his eyes and pretends he doesn’t hear the shouts that come from the phone on the floor, telling him that Jon’s calling 911, that Jon will be there in thirty seconds, telling him truths riddled with lies.
Spencer collapses and wishes he could see Jon’s face again, even if just once.
37 - Forget
3rd, Jon
Jon will never, ever forget the moment he met Spencer.
Spencer had eyes that pierced, and the way he dressed was so abnormal to Jon, who was used to flipflops and t-shirts even though he was from Chicago. Spencer cocks his hips out and folds his arms over his chest. He smirks and looks superior.
Jon will never, ever forget the night after Spencer’s twenty second birthday, when he flew into Las Vegas from Chicago and met him at Spencer and Brendon’s house, taking him out to the bar, just so they could have something to do.
Spencer always seemed to be the one who could hold his liquor, even when he was a teen, so Jon lets him take drink after drink, despite the fact that someone has to drive them home. Jon sips at his bottle, because all he wants to do is watch Spencer, eyes glazed, and not worry about the rest of the world.
He reaches out and touches Spencer’s cheek and wonders if it’d be okay to lean forward and kiss him. Spencer is nodding, and Jon realizes that he actually voiced the question. He doesn’t hesitate, kissing Spencer’s lips, which don’t seem to register the movement for a moment, and by then, Jon’s already pulled away. He looks at Spencer, still tasting the bitter alcohol in his mouth, and then he shakes his head, forcing a smile.
Jon takes Spencer home, stumbling into the car and buckling him into his seat as his head lulls backwards and he giggles at something Jon will never, ever find funny.
And Spencer forgets it all.
42 - Love
1st, Spencer
They make it seem like loving someone is easy. I don’t know who ‘they’ are, but I know that they are wrong. I know this because loving someone requires knowing what it’s like to hate, because you can’t have one without the opposite.
And sometimes, I do. I do hate Jon and I hate what he does and I want to fall apart right in front of his eyes so that maybe he’ll look at me and feel what I feel so intensely and stop pretending like none of this even matters.
But I love Jon, as well. I love him more often then I hate him, and that is why it’s okay - this is why we can be together and touch lips and laugh and smile and never stop. It’s because we have each other and we love each other. It’s complicated and I want to mend my own heart but I’m not sure how to do that unless I can mend his.
I don’t think that there is anyone else that I can love nearly as much as I love Jon, though. Without him - without him touching me, loving me, kissing me - I just don’t work. I look at myself in the mirror when he goes away and I wonder why it isn’t working. I wonder what I’ve done wrong because sometimes he doesn’t come home.
But because I know he loves me, I just shake my head and rest my head against the pillow and I’m willing to wait for him. I’m willing to wait forever, even if it doesn’t work out in the end.
I seal my lips when he crawls into the bed and tries to kiss me, to touch me, even though I love him. I roll over and try to communicate to him how much I hurt when he does this, when he disappears and makes me feel wrong and worthless. He wraps his arms around my waist and as soon as he whispers his apologies into the skin of my throat, I forgive him. I forgive him because it’s the simple way out.
I forgive him because I love him.
59 - Lover
3rd, Jon
Jon finds it odd that he is not in love with his ‘lover’. He finds it odd how the phrase ‘lover’ is used - in general, he doesn’t think he understands it, but he knows what it’s supposed to mean.
But, when he looks at Spencer over his shoulder, when he sees him playing his drums or running a hand through his hair with a wide grin on his face, Jon doesn’t immediately connect him with the word ‘lover’. To him, Spencer is something much more than that. Somehow, Spencer has become a confident, someone he can completely trust, and yet Jon doesn’t think that he’s in love with Spencer. That would be too much - he can’t be in love, not now, not with a boy and most certainly not with Spencer, who’s only twenty (he’s only twenty two) and who might as well still be a teenager, nonetheless.
Spencer shivers in his arms and leans his head back, and Jon takes advantage of the exposure, sucking on a patch of skin and listening to the soft gasps Spencer makes. He grinds his hips against Spencer’s and tries to forget all of these things he’s already thought about - Spencer’s smile, Spencer’s eyes, Spencer’s perfect lips, Spencer’s perfect voice.
Spencer rolls them over and straddles Jon’s lap, hands exploring his bare chest, tweaking his nipple slowly while his other hand moves over his muscles. Spencer licks his lips, and Jon sees the hunger and he wants it - he feels his own eyes cloud with lust. But Spencer won’t let him, Spencer keeps him pinned against the bed, breathing heavy through his mouth.
Their eyes meet and Jon could move his arms and grab Spencer, pull him back to him and kiss him until they were both gone from the world, but he knows he won’t.
He leans down and kisses Jon soft and careful, his hips pushing down at the same time. Jon dares to move his arms, holding Spencer’s hips and lifting his own. Their erections press together through the thin fabric of their boxers and Jon grunts, feeling himself get harder and harder because now he can feel the slight shaking of Spencer’s thighs.
Spencer lifts his face, just hovering over Jon’s and then kisses his chin, lips running down his throat and to his collar. “Do you want me?” Spencer asks, innocent and careful, but Jon knows that there’s something behind it, something that makes him desperate to cry out, to just take Spencer.
“Yes,” he half-moans, half-chokes, fingers still strong on his hips. “So much.”
Spencer just laughs and strips himself naked, and that’s when Jon sees that there’s something in Spencer’s eyes that is past lust and greed - sadness, regret or remorse, and pain.
“Oh,” Jon whispers, his grip loosening on Spencer’s hips. “This isn’t what you want.”
“No,” Spencer disagrees, with another weak smile. “It’s just I want so much more.” He shakes his head then, sealing the possible words from Jon’s mouth with a quick kiss.
They fuck slow and hard and Jon wants to express how he feels without words and he thinks this is the best he can do.
60 - School
3rd, Spencer
Spencer stares out over the horizon and wonders how it manages to be so beautiful in real life, but when he looks down at his pad of paper nothing seems right.
He switches sheets and sighs, leaning back against the bench and closing his eyes, feeling the warmth on his eyelids.
“What are you doing?” Spencer opens his eyes lazily and looks up at Jon, two years his senior, hands shoved in his pockets. He looks honestly curious and Spencer smiles handing him his drawing pad, despite how he’d usually hoard it to himself. He’s afraid of how he draws, of how his artwork will be perceived. He fears turning in assignments because he fears criticism.
Jon begins to flip through the pages, and Spencer tries so hard not to yank the pad away from him, already embarrassed, despite the fact that Jon’s expression displays no emotion, not even a clue of what he feels when he looks Spencer’s drawings.
He hands Spencer his drawing pad back without a word and Spencer is itching to ask him what he thinks, even though he knows it’s hypocritical of himself.
Jon speaks out before he can ask, though. “That last one…the horizon…were you trying to draw it like the one out there?” he says, pointing over his shoulder. Slowly, feeling something bubble in his stomach that seems oddly like guilt, Spencer nods.
But then Jon is grinning, wide and confident. “Don’t,” he says. “You have way too much of a unique style. Draw how you want things to be, not how they are.”
Jon turns and walks down the campus sidewalk and Spencer wonders why he stuck around at the school to almost six in the evening in the first place.
68 - Rainbow
3rd, Jon
Jon wants to write a song about a rainbow. He tells Ryan this, blatantly, and Ryan gives him a quirked eyebrow and a bit of a chuckle. “Maybe,” he agrees, but he knows that Ryan doesn’t take him seriously.
“I mean it, Ryan,” Jon grumbles, staring out the window of his Chicago apartment. “But…I don’t know how it’d go.”
Ryan looks at him and then smiles. “I may not know how you’re going to write a song about rainbows, but I know why you’re going to,” he says, soft and understanding, and Jon frowns at him because how could he know? “Come on Jon, you’re missing him so much, I don’t blame you. Just play…don’t worry about lyrics, if you don’t want. Don’t make it our song, make it your song. His song. In the end, I think he’ll see what you’re trying to get across.”
Jon stares at Ryan and respects him more than he has in a while.
He borrows the same studio they used to record Take A Vacation and he writes a song that doesn’t make much, or any, sense, and he thinks that people will probably think that he was high when he wrote it. In a way, he is. Typically, high on the air he breathes, high on love. He laughs when he finishes recording, the song he hopes only Spencer will hear.
He smiles and puts the tape in a box and sends it to Spencer in California and he waits and waits and he’s happy because Spencer says ‘It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard’ on Twitter, and to Jon, that is thanks enough.
76 - Sleep
3rd, Spencer
When it rains, Spencer is tired. Spencer gets cranky and Spencer groans and bitches and doesn’t want to do anything. Jon smiles at him, at his attitude, and wraps a blanket around his shoulders, kissing his temple so that Spencer won’t growl at him.
They eventually trail into the bedroom, Spencer complaining about how cold his feet are. But soon he’s pressed to Jon’s chest, all of his cold parts tight against Jon’s warm skin. Jon is sure to hum comforting lullabies of songs he’s never heard, lulling Spencer into a slumber deeper and longer than the rain. He wants Spencer to wake up to sunshine.
Spencer later tells him, when Jon reveals thinking this, that Spencer has never not woken up to sunshine as long as Jon is there.
Jon blushes and the words are meaningful.
84 - Red
3rd, Spencer
Jon paints the walls every color. Yellow-green in the dining room, blue in the family room, lavender in the living room. There is paneling in the kitchen, and then he heads upstairs with his buckets and his old jeans while Spencer sits downstairs and smiles and breathes in too much paint fumes. But he’s happy.
Robins egg blue in the upstairs bathroom - the walls in the hallway and leading up the stairs are painted the color of chocolate Rice Crispies and this makes Jon laugh and say, “Our hallway looks like shit,” as if it’s the funniest thing ever. Spencer personally likes the brown - he thinks brown is a warm color, comforting. Soil is brown.
“So what are you painting the bedroom?” Spencer asks, lazy and not really caring about the answer, though actually asking the question sparks his curiosity and he begins to walk up the stairs, wanting to peek into the room but he’s blocked by Jon opening the door just enough to glare at him, teasingly, sticking out his tongue. Spencer steps back, surprised.
“You don’t get to see it until it’s done,” Jon says, closing the door. Spencer reaches out to open it, but Jon locks him out just in time. Spencer huffs and is almost angry - why should the color of their bedroom be such a secret?
Spencer sits outside the bathroom door, staring at their bedroom door and waiting for Jon to finish.
The door opens about an hour later, Jon grinning. Spencer stands, nearly tripping over his own feet, now numb. He stares into the bedroom and his mouth drops.
“Thank you,” he chokes, because the room is brilliant red.
“Only the best,” Jon says back, because he knows that Spencer’s favorite color has always been red. And now it always will be.