fic: Faster than you go when you're alone 3/3
(cont'd from part two)
Jon tries to go to bed. But when he climbs onto the bus there are about a dozen people sitting and drinking and laughing in there. Brendon grins and waves from his spot in the many-limbed monster on the couch. Jon nods at him, and turns around and goes back outside.
He’s not interested in lying awake in his bunk, listening to them.
He’s interested in going for a run. Going far and fast in this dark and unfamiliar city. Away from the crowd, away from Mitch, away from everyone.
Jon is aware he’s had too many beers to run more than fifty feet, but he’s not too drunk to walk. So he starts by heading up to the back gate and flashing his badge to get out. Then, outside the fence, he sees the lake. And so he walks towards it.
Across the grounds, staff are still picking garbage and emptying port-a-potties. They mostly ignore him and the neon green artist pass around his neck. He wanders past the Fiduciary Management/Miller Lite stage and wonders what lucky bands got to play with the mainstage speakers blasting two hundred yards away.
There’s a fence blocking the water, he finds out. He’s not surprised. This place has more fences than a prison.
It’s temporary, green and metal and shaky. He climbs it.
Ten minutes later, he’s sitting on some rocks with his feet in the water, which rolls bland and tepid around the artificial bay. The water’s warm. It’s barely the same lake at all.
Jon pretends he’s back on the North Avenue Pier. The black chop of water underneath him, the city on the horizon.
Jon pretends that he knows what he’s doing. Jon pretends he’s happy, and in control, and totally alright with everything.
He almost has himself convinced when his phone buzzes in his pocket. Then it all goes out the window.
--
When he walks into the bar, he thinks of course. Of course this is the kind of place that drunk musicians would seek out for an afterafterparty. It’s dark, it’s dirty, there’s no one IDing at the door and the music is loud and the floor is crowded with people migrating between the bar and the patio so that a lot of drinks get spilled in the crush and the locals who are here are the kind who get in fights in the parking lot and scream fag at each other before trashing each other’s cars.
It’s Milwaukee. Jon knows a little bit about Milwaukee.
He tries to find a face he recognizes, and ends up spending what feels like forever roaming the various tiny rooms of the place, slipping between groups of yammering drunks yelling their conversations over the music and half-dancing, half-leaning on each other with droopy eyes and dopey faces.
It takes a while before he finds Boink. Boink, whose voice message was barely audible over the roar of the crowd: “We’re at Lexikon on 27th. Come get your drummer.” That’s it. Nothing else.
Jon wondered for a minute why he was the one who got called in, but he was already on his feet heading back toward the parking lot before he considered just not going. He imagined what he could tell Boink: he’ll be fine or put him in a cab.
But he thinks about Spencer, drunk and flushed between the buses in Boston, straightening his shoulders and going to tend to Ryan, no questions asked, and he knows that after everything, at the very least he owes Spencer this.
Boink is at the bar: the third bar in the place, the one on the second floor that mostly serves the scrappy pool tables and the dim corners where questionably-upholstered pieces of furniture lurk. He’s talking to the bartender - Boink is like that, weathered all to hell but laconic and flat in a way that appeals even to women desensitized to the attentions of better-looking drunks - and she is smiling sideways at him as she tosses together someone else’s drink order. Jon nudges Boink’s shoulder and looks around again for Spencer.
He doesn’t see him. The crowd is too thick, bodies get in the way and Jon worries that he wouldn’t even recognize him in the dark.
When Boink turns around he says, “Good, you made it. He’s still here, but only because I told that guy that I’d break his arm if he tried to take him anywhere.”
“What guy?” Jon asks.
Boink shrugs dismissively. “One of your type. You know.”
Jon doesn’t know. His type could mean underage, or gay, or a musician. Maybe all three.
Boink continues: “I recognized his face from backstage, anyway. You’re going to have to go pry them off each other.”
Jon is already regretting his decision to show up. He thought - well. He thought he’d be rescuing Spencer. Not interrupting his standard operations.
“It’s not really like that-” Jon tries to say, even though there is a solid third of his brain screaming for him to go punch the guy’s face in regardless. He’s trying to be a good friend. And that means trying to make up for what he said, and keeping his nose out of Spencer’s goddamn business. “I mean, he’s capable of making his own decisions-”
“Not right now,” Boink cuts him off, not even bothering to look like he cares what Jon’s feelings on the matter are. He turns back to the bar, and says over his shoulder: “Right now, you need to go make that decision for him.”
Jon shakes his head, “No,” he says, balking. He wonders if Boink would’ve called him in a tizzy if Spencer was making out with some girl, instead. Jon plants his feet. “If you don’t like it, you do something about it. I’m not his babysitter. He’s fine.”
Boink’s face, normally mild and disinterested, flattens as he shifts his gaze back to Jon. He says, bland and slow like he’s talking to a stubborn dog: “Kid, I’m telling you to go take care of your friend.”
And Jon does. His spine is still stiff with indignation but something about the way Boink says it - not the order, but something knowing underneath it - makes him turn around and scan the room one more time. He takes a few steps in one direction and in a minute he’s found them. And Boink is right.
First, Jon sees Nolan. Nolan the tour drummer with a now-flattened fauxhawk and his hawkish hazel eyes closed to slits and his mouth working and his throat exposed to the ceiling, his whole body loose-limbed and slack on a grubby couch in a dim corner.
Second, Jon sees Spencer. Spencer with his tight jeans riding low and his girlish hair tucked behind his ears, perched on Nolan’s lap with his mouth on Nolan’s throat and his hands somewhere inside Nolan’s clothing. And he is mounted there in a way that indicates to Jon that Nolan is not just drunk, he’s blissed out and way beyond caring who sees it. And Spencer - Spencer is diligent. Spencer is too busy keeping Nolan that way to care, either.
Third, Jon sees the clots of people standing around the two of them. Women with raised eyebrows. Men with dark expressions, beers firmly in fists.
This is not a gay bar. Jon knew that from the moment the cab pulled up outside. This is not a gay bar, and as feminine as Spencer may look, he and Nolan aren’t fooling anyone here. In fact, they’re just enraging them.
Jon sees why Boink called.
“Hey,” Jon steps up, puts his hand on Spencer’s shoulder. “Hey, guys, we gotta go.”
Nolan cracks an eyelid to look at Jon, and laughs a little breathlessly and says, “No way man, we’re having a great time.”
And Spencer doesn’t even twist around to look until Jon goes, “Spencer. Spencer, come on.”
It’s funny. Spencer didn’t wear makeup onstage tonight, but he is now. A black smudge of eyeliner, and a pink t-shirt with a silkscreened art print of a peacock on it that dips into a low V over his collarbone. His pale skin is flushed and his eyes are dark and angry when he glances up at Jon.
“Someone called in the cavalry,” he remarks, not even bothering to remove his hand from where it’s splayed over Nolan’s chest, possessive and imperial.
It’s like catching a tomcat over his dinner in the alley. Jon wants to take a step back, the acid in Spencer’s voice stings. He loses his own voice for a second, mouth hanging open, and it must enrage Spencer that Jon can’t even get it together to explain himself because in that second something deep inside uncoils and flares open in Spencer’s eyes.
Spencer says: “I saw you and Mitch earlier. Looks like none of us are thinking about what’s best for the band anymore.”
Jon just gapes. He feels dizzy: the yawning hurt now clear on Spencer’s face is like a thirty floor drop in front of him. He stutters, stops himself. Tries again. Still can’t speak.
All he can hear right now is the ugly mutter of the crowd behind him and a few disgusted words spat out in particular. He knows Spencer’s going to get the shit beaten out of him if they don’t leave. He knows that the room is gearing up for blood.
“Can we go?” he asks, finally. He should beg. He would, if he could get his mouth in line with his brain, but he’s getting desperate. “Can we talk about this outside?”
Spencer casts a lazy glance around, appears to consider the proposition, and then shrugs. “Nah,” he says, like they’re the only ones in the room. “I’m good.”
Nolan grins as Spencer leans down to kiss him again, hair curtaining both their faces.
And then Jon feels a hand on his shoulder, heavy with authority and alcohol, and he stumbles a bit as it pushes him ever-so-slightly to the side. “Buddy,” the guy says, beer-breathed and at least a foot taller than any of them, “You and your friends need to leave.”
He doesn’t say it especially hatefully. He almost looks like he wants to pick Spencer up by the scruff of the neck and put him back on the right path. The straight and narrow one, probably. But he hesitates, like touching Spencer might somehow contaminate him.
Spencer, hearing this, tilts his face to look, and as the man’s hand hovers somewhere over Spencer’s shoulder, just seeing it there - seeing Spencer draped over Nolan and this guy looming over them both - makes Jon’s voice suddenly work again.
“We’re not leaving, actually.” Jon announces this a little louder than intended. And he steps forward, like maybe he could crowd the man away from Spencer’s exposed back. “So you need to go back to your table and finish your drink.”
The guy almost laughs. He looks like he has a sense of humor, anyway. Like scruffy guys in flipflops telling him off is one of his favorite setups. Jon figures he already knows how the punchline goes.
It’s a pretty literal one.
At least the guy doesn’t use his fist. Just gives him a nice, bright push backwards so Jon stumbles up against the pool table three feet away. Jon sees Spencer on his feet, Nolan looking dazedly up.
Jon straightens himself up and the big guy says, almost apologetic, “I asked you politely.”
Jon says, “And I told you to stop being a bigot and mind your own business.”
So then Jon gets the real punchline. Right in the jaw.
It’s funny how it goes from there. The pool table works against him. The guy, who didn’t seem that angry at first, is getting a lot of noise from the crowd. And Jon, who can’t see much except the low-hanging light swinging above him and the occasional burst of silent white in his left eyeball, keeps saying things that he can’t even hear but knows are the wrong thing to say if his goal is stop getting punched in the face.
He hopes maybe now Spencer will consider leaving.
Just in case, he says something else. Maybe about the guy’s dick, maybe about sucking him off if he’s that interested. All Jon cares about is saying it clearly enough through the blood in his mouth for the rest of the bar to hear it.
The next hit doesn’t land. He waits for it. He’d look around for the guy but he’s having a hard time lifting his head off the green felt. His skull feels way too heavy.
He just lies there for a minute. Resting.
Eventually, someone picks his head up for him. It’s Nolan the tour drummer, lifting Jon up at the shoulders and cradling his neck at the base of the skull like you would an infant. Nolan’s noticeably wobbly, presumably because he’s still drunk, and he also has a bloody split lip and just as Jon notices that the rush of sound all around them comes roaring back in: yelling and cursing and the smash of glassware hitting the floor and someone shouting about the cops and someone else shouting that everyone needs to bring it outside and even though Jon can only blink one eye at a time, it seems, it kind of looks like everyone in the room is hitting or screaming at or throwing something at someone else.
“Where’s Spencer?” he asks.
And then he turns his head and Spencer’s with them, on Jon’s other side, slipping a hand around Jon’s waist and guiding them down the stairs.
There’s no one to stop them from leaving - the wide men in polo t-shirts hired as security have all disappeared upstairs - and whoever was yelling about the cops was evidently lying, because the sidewalk is clear except for a few meandering couples and so the three of them stumble along for another half a block before Spencer calls a halt and twists around to examine Jon’s face.
Jon examines Spencer’s simultaneously: basically the only damage is a cut and puffy eyebrow that looks like it’s going to bruise, like he maybe took an elbow to the temple. “Spencer,” Jon warns him, “You might be concussed.”
Spencer scowls, “That’s rich, coming from Rocky Balboa.”
Nolan says, “It doesn’t look like anything’s bleeding anymore.”
“Do you have all your teeth?” Spencer asks.
Jon tongues around for a while, trying to make sure. He keeps losing his spot and starting over, and eventually Spencer digs a finger under his lip like he’s a horse at auction. “Close enough,” Spencer mutters.
“Yeah, he’s fine. Let’s call a cab,” Nolan says. “Fuck, I’m exhausted.”
“Boink is still in there,” Jon says. “What about Boink?”
“We’re not calling a cab,” Spencer snaps. “We need to bring him to a hospital to get his head checked out.”
“Oh, c’mon,” says Nolan blearily. “Are you kidding? You’ll be sitting around for hours just to get a bandaid for his face.”
“Fine, go,” Spencer says, turning his face away like Nolan no longer even exists. He focuses hard on Jon. “I’ve got it covered.”
“I’m fine,” Jon says. He knows he’s listing pretty heavily to one side - like, he’s intellectually aware of that fact - but he’s still more interested in getting Boink out of the bar than going to any hospital waiting room. “But what about Boink?”
“Boink is an asshole for calling you,” Spencer says.
Jon may feel like he’s underwater, but he can kind of tell that Spencer isn’t drunk. If he was acting like it earlier, then it was just that: acting.
Jon feels the pressing need to announce his revelation: “You aren’t drunk.”
And Spencer rolls his eyes and turns away to dig out his phone. “I’m calling a cab.”
“You were faking it,” Jon repeats.
Spencer says, “Taxi” in a firm, even tone into his phone.
“Why would you do that?” Jon asks. “Why couldn’t we just leave when I asked?”
Spencer’s face is closed up, his face scrunched like he can stop himself from hearing Jon’s voice.
Then Jon says, “Holy fuck, I got into a bar fight.”
“You started one, dude,” Nolan says. Jon didn’t even know he was still here. He notes that it’s kind of hard to see anything that isn’t directly in front of him. His peripherals are mostly blacked out. It makes his head hurt to look sideways.
“Shut up,” Spencer tells Nolan. Then he says to Jon: “We need to get your head checked out.”
“Like hell I do.” Jon says. “I need to know what’s going on.”
“Bar fight. I told you-” Nolan says.
Then Spencer turns on Nolan and snaps, “Seriously, you need to go back to your tour bus. Get the fuck out of here.”
Jon tries to focus on Nolan’s reaction - a slow blink, those dark eyes shocked - but it hurts to keep his eyes that still and so instead Jon closes them, and lets his knees give so that suddenly he’s on his ass on the sidewalk.
“Fuck,” Spencer says, and then, into his phone, “Yeah, I need a cab. I’m at uh, a bar called Lexikon? It’s - yeah. That’s right. Okay.”
Jon’s listening, trying to focus on not passing out. He thinks he might. He really doesn’t want to, though. “I’m not going to the hospital,” he tells Spencer.
“Yes, you are,” says Spencer.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me.” Jon says. He doesn’t finish the sentence. He figures Spencer should know what it is that needs telling. Everything, he wants to add. Tell me everything.
Spencer is silent. But Jon can feel that he has crouched down beside him. Spencer’s arm is around his shoulders, his fingers digging in and his chest warm. Jon leans his head against Spencer’s collarbone. With his eyes closed he feels safe. Anchored.
“I’m really sorry,” he says to Spencer’s throat. “I didn’t come out here so that you’d have to take care of me.”
“It’s okay,” Spencer says, and his voice is quieter. A warm calm sound from his chest, which smells a little bit like strawberry hair product and Nolan’s cheap cologne. “It’s okay, it’s my job.”
--
Jon wakes up on a picnic table at dawn. His clothes are clammy with dew, and his temple is screaming like a motherfucker. His jaw, too. He can barely open his mouth to say, “What the hell.”
Boink’s face passes into his vision - it’s not that the sky is dirty and white, Jon realizes, but that they’re in a festival tent - and says, “He must’ve passed out again.”
“Not anymore,” Jon croaks.
“Good, we’re not supposed to let you,” Boink says. “How’s the head?”
“Shitty,” Jon says. He turns it to look to the side. The sun is barely up. The grass is still blue and beyond the green fence, the grounds are silent and pristine.
Spencer is perched on the bench beside Jon. He says, “The first aid guy didn’t think it would be the worth the trip to the hospital.”
“Good,” says Jon.
“Mostly because you were being such a pain in the ass about going,” Boink says. “I’ve never seen a grown man act like such a child before. And I did Europe with the Smashing Pumpkins.”
Jon doesn’t remember busting out a Billy Corgan impression. The thought is unsettling. He changes the subject, “I’m pretty thirsty.”
It’s Spencer who finds a dixie cup and helps Jon prop up his head and dribble some chilly water down his throat.
Boink gives Jon a light pat on the shoulder, says something about inventory before roll out, and goes.
For a few minutes, Jon occupies himself with sitting up properly. He’s pretty sure that he has a hangover on top of his mashed skull. He wonders absently if Ryan’s makeup skills will be up for the challenge of a face that feels like. Yeah. A smashed gourd of some description.
Spencer says, “We should get back to the bus pretty quick,” and shuffles around so that he can help Jon stand up, and take some of his weight.
And Jon says, “You know what?”
And when Spencer looks over to meet his gaze, Jon kisses him.
It’s pretty bad. Jon’s busted lower lip is still numb, for chrissakes, and he knows his mouth tastes awful despite the water and his face is one giant bruise and his whole body is stiff and painful from passing out on a picnic table. And to be honest, Spencer’s not much better what with his red eyes and sleeplessness and the taste of hard liquor still on him, just a bit.
It’s a terrible kiss, actually. And it’s over quickly. But that doesn’t matter because it happened. And Jon stares at Spencer afterwards, intent and maybe a bit blurry but hard enough to make sure that it’s sunk in. I kissed you, he wants to yell. He wants to poke his finger hard into Spencer’s chest and shout at him: I kissed you and now you have to live with it.
Instead, Spencer looks away. He ducks his head so Jon can’t see his expression, and worms an arm around Jon’s torso, and they head back to the bus.
Walking together, they list like a torn-up sailboat, tacking back and forth and eventually settling down into the safe harbor of their warm, dark, dirty bunks.
--
Jon sleeps the whole way to St. Paul. Or at least, he dozes. He’s in and out - listening to the low murmur of voices in the cabin up front. He can hear Spencer. He can hear Ryan. No one sounds angry, no one sounds even vaguely sharp. It sounds like everyone’s just calmed down again, like the crap at Summerfest never happened, or like it didn’t really matter. Like it’s already forgotten.
He drowses, listening to Ryan’s monologues and Brendon’s occasional burst of muffled laughter and Spencer’s dry commentary. They’re playing video games. Everything is normal.
Sometime in the afternoon, his curtain twitches and he hears Brendon whisper on the other side, “Jon? You awake? Do you want some water or food or something?”
And Jon cracks open the curtain to see Brendon, just a little under eye level, with a juice box and some crackers. “You’re starving, right?” he prompts.
Jon eats the crackers, and Brendon hovers the whole time, asking questions about the fight and telling him that Spencer said he took at least six shots to the face and that no really, his face doesn’t look that bad, but can Jon even see out of his left eye really? And that maybe he’d better check his fine motor skills because if he wants to take tonight off that’s cool, Brendon can handle the bass if he has to, they’ll just switch up the set list.
Jon tries to reassure him by ghosting the bassline for Lying on the back of his right hand. And then Brendon calls Ryan in to watch, and Ryan says: “Yeah your hands are fine, but your face is still gonna scare the kids. Not to mention the promoter. Or, like, everyone we know.”
Jon says, “I could wear a bag over my head.”
He’s totally joking, but Ryan lights up and says, “Dude, masks!” and then disappears up front, probably to go make a call to his underground cabaret mask connection.
Distantly, as Jon rolls over to go back to sleep again, he hears Spencer groaning a protest.
-
They get to the venue early, and even as load-in starts, Ryan orders Jon to the hotel for a shower. “Just make sure you’re back early enough so I can stick some coverup on that face.”
“I thought we were doing masks?” Jon reminds him.
“Yeah,” Ryan replies grimly, “Our first line of defense. But I don’t think gold sequins are gonna cut it with you.”
Jon’s sitting in the car the nightclub has provided, waiting for the runner to come back to drive him to the hotel and probing the knot above his right ear with his fingers, when Spencer climbs in beside him.
“You too, huh?” Jon says.
“Ryan says my stench will asphyxiate the first row of fans,” Spencer shrugs.
“He’s so caring,” Jon sighs.
Spencer allows a little smile to twist the corner of his mouth. “Listen-” he says.
Jon listens. But Spencer doesn’t quite finish what he started. He doesn’t say anything else, in fact. He just bends his gaze to his hands, which twist in his lap.
So instead, as the runner climbs back into the car and the engine rolls over, Jon reaches over and takes one.
He holds Spencer’s hand in his own as they drive through downtown St. Paul, stopped in traffic with the air conditioner blurting ineffectual gusts of tepid air and the driver swearing under her breath at pedestrians.
Jon holds Spencer’s hand, and digs his fingers into the muscle of Spencer’s palm and kneads the tension there, rubbing along the delicate skin between thumb and forefinger and resting his thumb against the pulse at the base of Spencer’s wrist.
He looks over after a second and sees Spencer’s jaw clenched tight, his eyes shut hard and his lips pressed together like he’s weathering some great test. His hand, in Jon’s, is limp and damp.
Jon keeps his hold on it, doesn’t let it go even as Spencer’s face draws tighter, his expression receding farther and farther away.
Jon realizes that he is still waiting to hear the end of that sentence. Whatever words Spencer was going to say. He needs to hear them. He can’t let them stay swallowed.
He keeps his grip firm in the hotel lobby. He checks into one of the rooms the tour’s booked while Spencer keeps his face blank, his eyes distant, his whole self completely silent.
When they get to the room, Jon sits Spencer down. He literally leads him to the nearest bed and lowers him to a perch on the end of it. Its purple floral comforter looks like it could belong in any other ugly hotel room they’ve ever stayed in. The blinds are pulled closed, the air conditioning has the room in a dry chill, and there is white light seeping around the edges of the windows, reminding them that there’s daylight and life left outside.
Jon doesn’t really care about outside. He stands between Spencer’s knees, listening and waiting. But Spencer’s voice is dried up. Not just drained out of him, but forcibly halted. Like a record that just won’t play. Like he’s hit a deep scratch in his vocal track and can’t get past it, can’t stutter or skip his way into the next part of the song.
They’re supposed to be showering, Jon knows. The clock on the bedstand reminds him of that every time the minute turns over. They have a show tonight. They have the smell of booze and sweat and blood to wash off themselves.
Jon thinks it might help. So he releases Spencer’s hand, reaches down and takes Spencer’s t-shirt off.
He rolls it up from the hem, and Spencer hesitates for a long second before lifting his arms and letting the shirt tug up off him. His hair settles, staticky, back around his face as he keeps his eyes fixed somewhere behind Jon’s sternum, a pastel print on the wall.
Then Jon unbuckles Spencer’s watch and drops it on the bedspread with the t-shirt. He crouches down and pulls off Spencer’s sneakers and socks. He pushes Spencer back onto the bed and puts his hands on Spencer’s stomach, and the belt buckle that’s bitten into it a little, leaving a red mark on white skin.
Jon works the belt open as Spencer watches, and unbuttons Spencer’s jeans, and pulls those off him, too.
There is pale, goosebumped skin over the dip of Spencer’s stomach. There is a light fuzz of hair that trails down into his boxer briefs. There is a hitch in the way his ribcage lifts as he takes in a sharp little breath. Jon tries not to be greedy in how he looks. Tries to keep his hands firm and forgiving as he works.
Spencer’s looking at Jon, now, like maybe this is more familiar. Like maybe a hotel bed and his clothes on the floor is a more comprehensible scenario than Jon just standing around, waiting to hear the rest of that sentence. Listen-. Jon is listening, but Spencer’s not saying anything.
He meets Jon’s eyes, and his gaze is pale and inscrutable and also defiant. Like Jon could stand there till the world ends and still he wouldn’t hear the words he’s waiting for.
Spencer looks up at Jon and his bare, chilled skin and bruised eye socket and dirty hair are all an invitation.
Jon can’t deny that he wants it. He wants to crawl over Spencer, put his face against that skin, inhale everything and leave wet pathways with his mouth. He wants to put his lips against Spencer’s grey cotton underwear and see what he can rile up. His fingers in Spencer’s hair, his tongue against that purplish bruise. He wants Spencer, the same as he always has. Nothing’s changed.
It’s just that Jon knows that if he does that, any of that, he’ll never hear another word. Or at least, not any of the ones howling under Spencer’s skin right now, spiraling at hurricane force behind clenched teeth.
Spencer is so, so quiet, lying there. But his eyes are burning Jon up.
So, instead, Jon gives Spencer half a smile and says, “You take the shower first,” and steps away. He unbuckles his own belt, falls onto the other bed, drops his rubber bracelet and his phone on the bedstand.
Spencer sits up. His palms on the bed, his collarbone a deep V at odds with his tilted head. “Alright,” he says, finally. The word itself is quick, clipped. An escapee from a faltering security system. Jon can practically hear the scraped edges from where it slipped between Spencer’s teeth.
Jon turns his head to watch Spencer pad off to the bathroom. The brief hum of the fan, the glow of yellow light on beige and beige.
Jon tilts his head back, closes his eyes, and listens to the rush of water.
--
Their show is incredible.
It shouldn’t be. The Myth is a shit venue that oversells tickets and packs in teenagers like so many over-paying sardines. The house lighting guy is a genius, but it doesn’t matter because the sightlines are crap. Jon can’t see faces beyond the first few rows of audience, which means they can’t see him, either. He also suspects that the acoustics are totally screwed. Maybe it’s the fact that he can barely hear his own monitor, and it’s three feet in front of him.
But, you know. The show is still incredible.
The audience loves the masks, for one. And Ryan takes great relish in ripping his black-feathered birdface off halfway through the set: just when Brendon gets into his space, singing practically into his mouth. The mask hits the stage and sweat flies off the tips of Ryan’s hair and the kids on the floor lose their shit entirely.
Jon sees it because he keeps his head up the whole time. Watching Mitch and Sara and Ann and Cory contorting around the stage. Catching Eric’s downbow on the cello. Sticking close by Spencer for when the beat drops, and hitting it every time. Jon is so into it he practically forgets what his fretboard looks like.
He grins at Ryan when Ryan grins over at him. Brendon catches the look and swings over into Jon’s setup, funneling his downpour of a voice into the mic and still managing to bat his eyelashes at Jon as he does it. Jon hammers his strings harder, grinning down as he feels the audience’s energy roll over him, taking him in right along with Brendon.
The crowd loses it again when Brendon sends his own mask - blue peacock feathers and gold sequins - sailing off the stage into a mass of waiting arms. There’s a moment where Jon worries someone will get trampled. Fifteen seconds later, during the intro to Sins, Brendon swoops in and plucks Spencer’s mask off his face, too. He tosses it like a conciliatory note to the crowd, and then Spencer kicks the beat and people are screaming. Jon keeps his mask on, cowed by the force of it.
They play two encores.
At the end, as they’re going offstage for real, he hears his name. Maybe his name. It’s a shouted plea, maybe not even a word in the roar of love and longing coming from the floor, and he looks over involuntarily, past the security line and the fence, and sees hundreds of faces looking back at him. Three floors of them. A sold out crowd.
He tosses his mask, and sees them swallow it up.
He steps into the wings, grinning.
They played an incredible show.
--
Jon lounges, lazy and content, through the whole afterparty. He parks himself on the best couch in the green room while people filter through, picking up spring rolls off the deli tray and drinking the leftover red bull. Mitch drops by, sweaty in his ragged leotard with a lavender hoodie pulled over it, and perches on the coffee table in front of Jon. He slides easily into the conversation with Eric and Paul the guitar tech, and smiles shyly at Jon like he’s looking for permission to infringe.
Jon just smiles back, and when Eric gets up to go find more vodka and Paul turns away to check his phone, Jon is happy to get the chance to say, “Hey, how’s it going?”
“Good, man. How’s the head?” Mitch looks genuinely concerned. “I heard what happened.”
Jon laughs a bit, suddenly embarrassed. He runs a hand through his hair - it’s getting long, now, it needs a trim - “Yeah, I guess we ran into a couple of those social conservatives you warned me about.”
Mitch snorts. “Not much of a warning, I guess, if you still got beat up.”
“You should see the other guy,” Jon says, and then lamely shakes his head. “Actually, I have no idea what he looks like. They had to literally peel me off the pool table. I don’t think I even tried to hit back.”
Mitch makes an unhappy sound. “You know the theory is that passive resistance works better against governments than people, right?”
Jon shrugs. “What can you do?” he says, because he doesn’t really know how to explain himself.
“Take care of yourself, I guess,” Mitch smirks at Jon. “You need to work on that.”
“No,” Jon says. He shrugs again. “No, it’s not me. But look-” he hangs over the couch’s arm to root around in the bag he still thinks of as his pedal bag even though his pedals have their own anvil case these days and Ryan calls it a glorified man purse. “I have your book for you.”
He proffers it and Mitch looks down at it. He only really takes it because Jon’s already deposited it in his lap. He says, “Oh, yeah. Thanks.”
“I really liked it.” Jon says, “I mean, probably half of it was lost on me. But I liked it.”
“Well, if you ever want to reread it-” Mitch says. He grins: “Even just the dogeared bits.”
Jon laughs. “I definitely popped a boner like, three times.”
“Then it served its purpose,” Mitch pronounces. He stands up from the coffee table. “I’m going to get another beer. You want anything?”
“Nah,” Jon says, sinking back into the couch, suddenly warm and exhausted. He waves Mitch off. “I’m good.”
--
He heads back to the bus early.
The part of his mind that monitors Spencer’s whereabouts noted when Spencer left, maybe ten minutes ago. Those ten minutes are all Jon can handle. Then he follows, and fuck whoever notices.
Ryan doesn’t necessarily notice, but he certainly catches Jon on the way out: “Richard wants to have like, a conference call tomorrow or something,” he says, managing to sound too bored by the thought to be irritated about it.
“For what?” Jon pauses in the doorway, hoodie half-on, pedal bag hanging off his arm like, yeah, a twenty-pound purse.
Ryan shrugs. “I don’t know. Brent something something. It’s at three, so be awake.”
“Okay. Yeah.” Jon spends another three valuable seconds trying to wait Ryan out, see if he’s actually warming up to something else. Ryan, who’s holding a fresca with probably half a lime and a pound of ice in it and looking entirely unfazed about Brent’s name in his mouth.
“They liked the masks, huh?” Ryan says, finally, taking a sip from his glass to hide a sudden smile.
“Yeah,” Jon agrees.
“We’ll keep doing it till your face heals up, at least.”
“Good,” Jon says. “My reputation, right?”
“Right,” Ryan tips his glass at Jon, and then turns his face to look at Brendon, who has squirmed up through his spare arm. “We’re taking care of Jon’s reputation, right Brendon?”
“Uh, definitely.” Brendon agrees. “I can vouch for the milk and also the rest of the cow.”
And this is the point at which Jon actually leaves to go find Spencer.
Spencer, who is remarkably easy to find if you know where to look.
The middle bunk. On the left. Curtains closed half-heartedly, with a crack left open for sociability.
Jon crouches down, and meets Spencer’s eyes through the partition. “Hey,” he says, “I came to keep you company.”
“Not necessary,” Spencer responds, politely enough.
“I wasn’t asking, really,” Jon tells him, slightly apologetic. “Move over.”
It’s pretty telling that Spencer does as he’s told. Just like in the hotel. No argument. He’s nestled up in one of his infinite t-shirts, his makeup from the show scrubbed off and his hair damp with either sweat or soap. He scoots to the back wall of his bunk and Jon kicks his shoes into the layer of sneakers on the floor before crawling in.
These bunks, they are not built for two.
They lie nose to nose in the yellowish light, so close that the proportions of Spencer’s face gets warped in Jon’s eyes. Spencer’s eyes seem huge, smudges of leftover eyeliner collected in his lower lashes. He blinks once, twice, slowly. His hands are pressed together under his head, and Jon realizes he’s already mimicked that position. Their knees are touching.
Jon says, “Listen.”
Jon says, “I’m sorry for what I said about you neglecting the band, it wasn’t true.”
Then he says, “And I’m sorry for being an asshole about Brian.”
And then he says, “And also for showing up at the bar.”
Jon thinks Spencer’s eyes are the widest and bluest he’s ever seen them. And he’s stared at them a lot.
Spencer’s lips are sealed tight, but Jon can hear the murmur of air as they breath together in that tiny coffin of space. Spencer pulls one of his hands out from under his head and touches Jon’s mashed-up cheekbone. He closes his eyes.
Jon says, “Did you know that I meant it when I kissed you this morning?”
And Spencer says, in a very small voice, “Yes.” He opens his eyes and looks back at Jon, agonized, as if even that one single syllable had to be torn straight out of him.
It’s enough. Jon smiles, and kisses him again.
--
Jon wakes up to a smudge of yellow light falling through the curtain of his bunk.
Except it’s not his bunk. He realizes that he’s pointed the wrong way: his head towards the back of the bus, the pillow feeling strangely flat.
And when he peers around the curtain he sees Spencer rummaging through his duffel bag bare-chested. His hair ineffectually tucked behind his ears, his sneakers laced. He pulls a t-shirt over his head, adjusts it over his shoulders.
He glances up and sees Jon looking. “It’s four-thirty,” he whispers. “Go back to sleep.”
Jon knows the painkillers that got him through the show have worn off, his temples are pounding and his jaw is wrecked and his split lip is dry and puffy and painful. “I’ll come with you,” he says anyway, already rolling out of the sheets.
Spencer snorts a little laugh, “Yeah, right. You’ll puke and then pass out on the sidewalk.” He puts a hand on Jon’s shoulder and tips him easily back into the bunk. “I’ll be back soon.”
Jon settles his head back against his arm and watches Spencer adjust his laces. Spencer’s hair falls into his eyes as his face tips down, sharp pieces brushing his cheek and the line of his jaw.
And Jon asks, voice hushed: “Do you want my headband? I just washed it, I promise.”
Spencer gives him a funny look, like, seriously? and Jon tries to get up again, propping himself up on one elbow and stretching across the aisle to his own bunk before Spencer stops him again, saying, “I got it, lie down.”
“It’s beside my shaving kit,” Jon supplies, unhelpful, as Spencer rummages.
“Got it,” Spencer says. He pulls it over his forehead and turns back for inspection and Jon laughs at how dumb it looks even though it makes his head hurt and his eyes swim and someone’s bleary voice in another bunk go “Godddddddddddd, please shut up.”
Spencer smirks and then brushes Jon’s hand with his own and heads up the aisle.
Jon listens to the front door squeak open and waits for the breath of warm summer air to travel back to touch his face.
He closes his eyes. When he opens them again, they’re in Cincinnati and Spencer is asleep in his arms.
Jon tries to go to bed. But when he climbs onto the bus there are about a dozen people sitting and drinking and laughing in there. Brendon grins and waves from his spot in the many-limbed monster on the couch. Jon nods at him, and turns around and goes back outside.
He’s not interested in lying awake in his bunk, listening to them.
He’s interested in going for a run. Going far and fast in this dark and unfamiliar city. Away from the crowd, away from Mitch, away from everyone.
Jon is aware he’s had too many beers to run more than fifty feet, but he’s not too drunk to walk. So he starts by heading up to the back gate and flashing his badge to get out. Then, outside the fence, he sees the lake. And so he walks towards it.
Across the grounds, staff are still picking garbage and emptying port-a-potties. They mostly ignore him and the neon green artist pass around his neck. He wanders past the Fiduciary Management/Miller Lite stage and wonders what lucky bands got to play with the mainstage speakers blasting two hundred yards away.
There’s a fence blocking the water, he finds out. He’s not surprised. This place has more fences than a prison.
It’s temporary, green and metal and shaky. He climbs it.
Ten minutes later, he’s sitting on some rocks with his feet in the water, which rolls bland and tepid around the artificial bay. The water’s warm. It’s barely the same lake at all.
Jon pretends he’s back on the North Avenue Pier. The black chop of water underneath him, the city on the horizon.
Jon pretends that he knows what he’s doing. Jon pretends he’s happy, and in control, and totally alright with everything.
He almost has himself convinced when his phone buzzes in his pocket. Then it all goes out the window.
--
When he walks into the bar, he thinks of course. Of course this is the kind of place that drunk musicians would seek out for an afterafterparty. It’s dark, it’s dirty, there’s no one IDing at the door and the music is loud and the floor is crowded with people migrating between the bar and the patio so that a lot of drinks get spilled in the crush and the locals who are here are the kind who get in fights in the parking lot and scream fag at each other before trashing each other’s cars.
It’s Milwaukee. Jon knows a little bit about Milwaukee.
He tries to find a face he recognizes, and ends up spending what feels like forever roaming the various tiny rooms of the place, slipping between groups of yammering drunks yelling their conversations over the music and half-dancing, half-leaning on each other with droopy eyes and dopey faces.
It takes a while before he finds Boink. Boink, whose voice message was barely audible over the roar of the crowd: “We’re at Lexikon on 27th. Come get your drummer.” That’s it. Nothing else.
Jon wondered for a minute why he was the one who got called in, but he was already on his feet heading back toward the parking lot before he considered just not going. He imagined what he could tell Boink: he’ll be fine or put him in a cab.
But he thinks about Spencer, drunk and flushed between the buses in Boston, straightening his shoulders and going to tend to Ryan, no questions asked, and he knows that after everything, at the very least he owes Spencer this.
Boink is at the bar: the third bar in the place, the one on the second floor that mostly serves the scrappy pool tables and the dim corners where questionably-upholstered pieces of furniture lurk. He’s talking to the bartender - Boink is like that, weathered all to hell but laconic and flat in a way that appeals even to women desensitized to the attentions of better-looking drunks - and she is smiling sideways at him as she tosses together someone else’s drink order. Jon nudges Boink’s shoulder and looks around again for Spencer.
He doesn’t see him. The crowd is too thick, bodies get in the way and Jon worries that he wouldn’t even recognize him in the dark.
When Boink turns around he says, “Good, you made it. He’s still here, but only because I told that guy that I’d break his arm if he tried to take him anywhere.”
“What guy?” Jon asks.
Boink shrugs dismissively. “One of your type. You know.”
Jon doesn’t know. His type could mean underage, or gay, or a musician. Maybe all three.
Boink continues: “I recognized his face from backstage, anyway. You’re going to have to go pry them off each other.”
Jon is already regretting his decision to show up. He thought - well. He thought he’d be rescuing Spencer. Not interrupting his standard operations.
“It’s not really like that-” Jon tries to say, even though there is a solid third of his brain screaming for him to go punch the guy’s face in regardless. He’s trying to be a good friend. And that means trying to make up for what he said, and keeping his nose out of Spencer’s goddamn business. “I mean, he’s capable of making his own decisions-”
“Not right now,” Boink cuts him off, not even bothering to look like he cares what Jon’s feelings on the matter are. He turns back to the bar, and says over his shoulder: “Right now, you need to go make that decision for him.”
Jon shakes his head, “No,” he says, balking. He wonders if Boink would’ve called him in a tizzy if Spencer was making out with some girl, instead. Jon plants his feet. “If you don’t like it, you do something about it. I’m not his babysitter. He’s fine.”
Boink’s face, normally mild and disinterested, flattens as he shifts his gaze back to Jon. He says, bland and slow like he’s talking to a stubborn dog: “Kid, I’m telling you to go take care of your friend.”
And Jon does. His spine is still stiff with indignation but something about the way Boink says it - not the order, but something knowing underneath it - makes him turn around and scan the room one more time. He takes a few steps in one direction and in a minute he’s found them. And Boink is right.
First, Jon sees Nolan. Nolan the tour drummer with a now-flattened fauxhawk and his hawkish hazel eyes closed to slits and his mouth working and his throat exposed to the ceiling, his whole body loose-limbed and slack on a grubby couch in a dim corner.
Second, Jon sees Spencer. Spencer with his tight jeans riding low and his girlish hair tucked behind his ears, perched on Nolan’s lap with his mouth on Nolan’s throat and his hands somewhere inside Nolan’s clothing. And he is mounted there in a way that indicates to Jon that Nolan is not just drunk, he’s blissed out and way beyond caring who sees it. And Spencer - Spencer is diligent. Spencer is too busy keeping Nolan that way to care, either.
Third, Jon sees the clots of people standing around the two of them. Women with raised eyebrows. Men with dark expressions, beers firmly in fists.
This is not a gay bar. Jon knew that from the moment the cab pulled up outside. This is not a gay bar, and as feminine as Spencer may look, he and Nolan aren’t fooling anyone here. In fact, they’re just enraging them.
Jon sees why Boink called.
“Hey,” Jon steps up, puts his hand on Spencer’s shoulder. “Hey, guys, we gotta go.”
Nolan cracks an eyelid to look at Jon, and laughs a little breathlessly and says, “No way man, we’re having a great time.”
And Spencer doesn’t even twist around to look until Jon goes, “Spencer. Spencer, come on.”
It’s funny. Spencer didn’t wear makeup onstage tonight, but he is now. A black smudge of eyeliner, and a pink t-shirt with a silkscreened art print of a peacock on it that dips into a low V over his collarbone. His pale skin is flushed and his eyes are dark and angry when he glances up at Jon.
“Someone called in the cavalry,” he remarks, not even bothering to remove his hand from where it’s splayed over Nolan’s chest, possessive and imperial.
It’s like catching a tomcat over his dinner in the alley. Jon wants to take a step back, the acid in Spencer’s voice stings. He loses his own voice for a second, mouth hanging open, and it must enrage Spencer that Jon can’t even get it together to explain himself because in that second something deep inside uncoils and flares open in Spencer’s eyes.
Spencer says: “I saw you and Mitch earlier. Looks like none of us are thinking about what’s best for the band anymore.”
Jon just gapes. He feels dizzy: the yawning hurt now clear on Spencer’s face is like a thirty floor drop in front of him. He stutters, stops himself. Tries again. Still can’t speak.
All he can hear right now is the ugly mutter of the crowd behind him and a few disgusted words spat out in particular. He knows Spencer’s going to get the shit beaten out of him if they don’t leave. He knows that the room is gearing up for blood.
“Can we go?” he asks, finally. He should beg. He would, if he could get his mouth in line with his brain, but he’s getting desperate. “Can we talk about this outside?”
Spencer casts a lazy glance around, appears to consider the proposition, and then shrugs. “Nah,” he says, like they’re the only ones in the room. “I’m good.”
Nolan grins as Spencer leans down to kiss him again, hair curtaining both their faces.
And then Jon feels a hand on his shoulder, heavy with authority and alcohol, and he stumbles a bit as it pushes him ever-so-slightly to the side. “Buddy,” the guy says, beer-breathed and at least a foot taller than any of them, “You and your friends need to leave.”
He doesn’t say it especially hatefully. He almost looks like he wants to pick Spencer up by the scruff of the neck and put him back on the right path. The straight and narrow one, probably. But he hesitates, like touching Spencer might somehow contaminate him.
Spencer, hearing this, tilts his face to look, and as the man’s hand hovers somewhere over Spencer’s shoulder, just seeing it there - seeing Spencer draped over Nolan and this guy looming over them both - makes Jon’s voice suddenly work again.
“We’re not leaving, actually.” Jon announces this a little louder than intended. And he steps forward, like maybe he could crowd the man away from Spencer’s exposed back. “So you need to go back to your table and finish your drink.”
The guy almost laughs. He looks like he has a sense of humor, anyway. Like scruffy guys in flipflops telling him off is one of his favorite setups. Jon figures he already knows how the punchline goes.
It’s a pretty literal one.
At least the guy doesn’t use his fist. Just gives him a nice, bright push backwards so Jon stumbles up against the pool table three feet away. Jon sees Spencer on his feet, Nolan looking dazedly up.
Jon straightens himself up and the big guy says, almost apologetic, “I asked you politely.”
Jon says, “And I told you to stop being a bigot and mind your own business.”
So then Jon gets the real punchline. Right in the jaw.
It’s funny how it goes from there. The pool table works against him. The guy, who didn’t seem that angry at first, is getting a lot of noise from the crowd. And Jon, who can’t see much except the low-hanging light swinging above him and the occasional burst of silent white in his left eyeball, keeps saying things that he can’t even hear but knows are the wrong thing to say if his goal is stop getting punched in the face.
He hopes maybe now Spencer will consider leaving.
Just in case, he says something else. Maybe about the guy’s dick, maybe about sucking him off if he’s that interested. All Jon cares about is saying it clearly enough through the blood in his mouth for the rest of the bar to hear it.
The next hit doesn’t land. He waits for it. He’d look around for the guy but he’s having a hard time lifting his head off the green felt. His skull feels way too heavy.
He just lies there for a minute. Resting.
Eventually, someone picks his head up for him. It’s Nolan the tour drummer, lifting Jon up at the shoulders and cradling his neck at the base of the skull like you would an infant. Nolan’s noticeably wobbly, presumably because he’s still drunk, and he also has a bloody split lip and just as Jon notices that the rush of sound all around them comes roaring back in: yelling and cursing and the smash of glassware hitting the floor and someone shouting about the cops and someone else shouting that everyone needs to bring it outside and even though Jon can only blink one eye at a time, it seems, it kind of looks like everyone in the room is hitting or screaming at or throwing something at someone else.
“Where’s Spencer?” he asks.
And then he turns his head and Spencer’s with them, on Jon’s other side, slipping a hand around Jon’s waist and guiding them down the stairs.
There’s no one to stop them from leaving - the wide men in polo t-shirts hired as security have all disappeared upstairs - and whoever was yelling about the cops was evidently lying, because the sidewalk is clear except for a few meandering couples and so the three of them stumble along for another half a block before Spencer calls a halt and twists around to examine Jon’s face.
Jon examines Spencer’s simultaneously: basically the only damage is a cut and puffy eyebrow that looks like it’s going to bruise, like he maybe took an elbow to the temple. “Spencer,” Jon warns him, “You might be concussed.”
Spencer scowls, “That’s rich, coming from Rocky Balboa.”
Nolan says, “It doesn’t look like anything’s bleeding anymore.”
“Do you have all your teeth?” Spencer asks.
Jon tongues around for a while, trying to make sure. He keeps losing his spot and starting over, and eventually Spencer digs a finger under his lip like he’s a horse at auction. “Close enough,” Spencer mutters.
“Yeah, he’s fine. Let’s call a cab,” Nolan says. “Fuck, I’m exhausted.”
“Boink is still in there,” Jon says. “What about Boink?”
“We’re not calling a cab,” Spencer snaps. “We need to bring him to a hospital to get his head checked out.”
“Oh, c’mon,” says Nolan blearily. “Are you kidding? You’ll be sitting around for hours just to get a bandaid for his face.”
“Fine, go,” Spencer says, turning his face away like Nolan no longer even exists. He focuses hard on Jon. “I’ve got it covered.”
“I’m fine,” Jon says. He knows he’s listing pretty heavily to one side - like, he’s intellectually aware of that fact - but he’s still more interested in getting Boink out of the bar than going to any hospital waiting room. “But what about Boink?”
“Boink is an asshole for calling you,” Spencer says.
Jon may feel like he’s underwater, but he can kind of tell that Spencer isn’t drunk. If he was acting like it earlier, then it was just that: acting.
Jon feels the pressing need to announce his revelation: “You aren’t drunk.”
And Spencer rolls his eyes and turns away to dig out his phone. “I’m calling a cab.”
“You were faking it,” Jon repeats.
Spencer says, “Taxi” in a firm, even tone into his phone.
“Why would you do that?” Jon asks. “Why couldn’t we just leave when I asked?”
Spencer’s face is closed up, his face scrunched like he can stop himself from hearing Jon’s voice.
Then Jon says, “Holy fuck, I got into a bar fight.”
“You started one, dude,” Nolan says. Jon didn’t even know he was still here. He notes that it’s kind of hard to see anything that isn’t directly in front of him. His peripherals are mostly blacked out. It makes his head hurt to look sideways.
“Shut up,” Spencer tells Nolan. Then he says to Jon: “We need to get your head checked out.”
“Like hell I do.” Jon says. “I need to know what’s going on.”
“Bar fight. I told you-” Nolan says.
Then Spencer turns on Nolan and snaps, “Seriously, you need to go back to your tour bus. Get the fuck out of here.”
Jon tries to focus on Nolan’s reaction - a slow blink, those dark eyes shocked - but it hurts to keep his eyes that still and so instead Jon closes them, and lets his knees give so that suddenly he’s on his ass on the sidewalk.
“Fuck,” Spencer says, and then, into his phone, “Yeah, I need a cab. I’m at uh, a bar called Lexikon? It’s - yeah. That’s right. Okay.”
Jon’s listening, trying to focus on not passing out. He thinks he might. He really doesn’t want to, though. “I’m not going to the hospital,” he tells Spencer.
“Yes, you are,” says Spencer.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me.” Jon says. He doesn’t finish the sentence. He figures Spencer should know what it is that needs telling. Everything, he wants to add. Tell me everything.
Spencer is silent. But Jon can feel that he has crouched down beside him. Spencer’s arm is around his shoulders, his fingers digging in and his chest warm. Jon leans his head against Spencer’s collarbone. With his eyes closed he feels safe. Anchored.
“I’m really sorry,” he says to Spencer’s throat. “I didn’t come out here so that you’d have to take care of me.”
“It’s okay,” Spencer says, and his voice is quieter. A warm calm sound from his chest, which smells a little bit like strawberry hair product and Nolan’s cheap cologne. “It’s okay, it’s my job.”
--
Jon wakes up on a picnic table at dawn. His clothes are clammy with dew, and his temple is screaming like a motherfucker. His jaw, too. He can barely open his mouth to say, “What the hell.”
Boink’s face passes into his vision - it’s not that the sky is dirty and white, Jon realizes, but that they’re in a festival tent - and says, “He must’ve passed out again.”
“Not anymore,” Jon croaks.
“Good, we’re not supposed to let you,” Boink says. “How’s the head?”
“Shitty,” Jon says. He turns it to look to the side. The sun is barely up. The grass is still blue and beyond the green fence, the grounds are silent and pristine.
Spencer is perched on the bench beside Jon. He says, “The first aid guy didn’t think it would be the worth the trip to the hospital.”
“Good,” says Jon.
“Mostly because you were being such a pain in the ass about going,” Boink says. “I’ve never seen a grown man act like such a child before. And I did Europe with the Smashing Pumpkins.”
Jon doesn’t remember busting out a Billy Corgan impression. The thought is unsettling. He changes the subject, “I’m pretty thirsty.”
It’s Spencer who finds a dixie cup and helps Jon prop up his head and dribble some chilly water down his throat.
Boink gives Jon a light pat on the shoulder, says something about inventory before roll out, and goes.
For a few minutes, Jon occupies himself with sitting up properly. He’s pretty sure that he has a hangover on top of his mashed skull. He wonders absently if Ryan’s makeup skills will be up for the challenge of a face that feels like. Yeah. A smashed gourd of some description.
Spencer says, “We should get back to the bus pretty quick,” and shuffles around so that he can help Jon stand up, and take some of his weight.
And Jon says, “You know what?”
And when Spencer looks over to meet his gaze, Jon kisses him.
It’s pretty bad. Jon’s busted lower lip is still numb, for chrissakes, and he knows his mouth tastes awful despite the water and his face is one giant bruise and his whole body is stiff and painful from passing out on a picnic table. And to be honest, Spencer’s not much better what with his red eyes and sleeplessness and the taste of hard liquor still on him, just a bit.
It’s a terrible kiss, actually. And it’s over quickly. But that doesn’t matter because it happened. And Jon stares at Spencer afterwards, intent and maybe a bit blurry but hard enough to make sure that it’s sunk in. I kissed you, he wants to yell. He wants to poke his finger hard into Spencer’s chest and shout at him: I kissed you and now you have to live with it.
Instead, Spencer looks away. He ducks his head so Jon can’t see his expression, and worms an arm around Jon’s torso, and they head back to the bus.
Walking together, they list like a torn-up sailboat, tacking back and forth and eventually settling down into the safe harbor of their warm, dark, dirty bunks.
--
Jon sleeps the whole way to St. Paul. Or at least, he dozes. He’s in and out - listening to the low murmur of voices in the cabin up front. He can hear Spencer. He can hear Ryan. No one sounds angry, no one sounds even vaguely sharp. It sounds like everyone’s just calmed down again, like the crap at Summerfest never happened, or like it didn’t really matter. Like it’s already forgotten.
He drowses, listening to Ryan’s monologues and Brendon’s occasional burst of muffled laughter and Spencer’s dry commentary. They’re playing video games. Everything is normal.
Sometime in the afternoon, his curtain twitches and he hears Brendon whisper on the other side, “Jon? You awake? Do you want some water or food or something?”
And Jon cracks open the curtain to see Brendon, just a little under eye level, with a juice box and some crackers. “You’re starving, right?” he prompts.
Jon eats the crackers, and Brendon hovers the whole time, asking questions about the fight and telling him that Spencer said he took at least six shots to the face and that no really, his face doesn’t look that bad, but can Jon even see out of his left eye really? And that maybe he’d better check his fine motor skills because if he wants to take tonight off that’s cool, Brendon can handle the bass if he has to, they’ll just switch up the set list.
Jon tries to reassure him by ghosting the bassline for Lying on the back of his right hand. And then Brendon calls Ryan in to watch, and Ryan says: “Yeah your hands are fine, but your face is still gonna scare the kids. Not to mention the promoter. Or, like, everyone we know.”
Jon says, “I could wear a bag over my head.”
He’s totally joking, but Ryan lights up and says, “Dude, masks!” and then disappears up front, probably to go make a call to his underground cabaret mask connection.
Distantly, as Jon rolls over to go back to sleep again, he hears Spencer groaning a protest.
-
They get to the venue early, and even as load-in starts, Ryan orders Jon to the hotel for a shower. “Just make sure you’re back early enough so I can stick some coverup on that face.”
“I thought we were doing masks?” Jon reminds him.
“Yeah,” Ryan replies grimly, “Our first line of defense. But I don’t think gold sequins are gonna cut it with you.”
Jon’s sitting in the car the nightclub has provided, waiting for the runner to come back to drive him to the hotel and probing the knot above his right ear with his fingers, when Spencer climbs in beside him.
“You too, huh?” Jon says.
“Ryan says my stench will asphyxiate the first row of fans,” Spencer shrugs.
“He’s so caring,” Jon sighs.
Spencer allows a little smile to twist the corner of his mouth. “Listen-” he says.
Jon listens. But Spencer doesn’t quite finish what he started. He doesn’t say anything else, in fact. He just bends his gaze to his hands, which twist in his lap.
So instead, as the runner climbs back into the car and the engine rolls over, Jon reaches over and takes one.
He holds Spencer’s hand in his own as they drive through downtown St. Paul, stopped in traffic with the air conditioner blurting ineffectual gusts of tepid air and the driver swearing under her breath at pedestrians.
Jon holds Spencer’s hand, and digs his fingers into the muscle of Spencer’s palm and kneads the tension there, rubbing along the delicate skin between thumb and forefinger and resting his thumb against the pulse at the base of Spencer’s wrist.
He looks over after a second and sees Spencer’s jaw clenched tight, his eyes shut hard and his lips pressed together like he’s weathering some great test. His hand, in Jon’s, is limp and damp.
Jon keeps his hold on it, doesn’t let it go even as Spencer’s face draws tighter, his expression receding farther and farther away.
Jon realizes that he is still waiting to hear the end of that sentence. Whatever words Spencer was going to say. He needs to hear them. He can’t let them stay swallowed.
He keeps his grip firm in the hotel lobby. He checks into one of the rooms the tour’s booked while Spencer keeps his face blank, his eyes distant, his whole self completely silent.
When they get to the room, Jon sits Spencer down. He literally leads him to the nearest bed and lowers him to a perch on the end of it. Its purple floral comforter looks like it could belong in any other ugly hotel room they’ve ever stayed in. The blinds are pulled closed, the air conditioning has the room in a dry chill, and there is white light seeping around the edges of the windows, reminding them that there’s daylight and life left outside.
Jon doesn’t really care about outside. He stands between Spencer’s knees, listening and waiting. But Spencer’s voice is dried up. Not just drained out of him, but forcibly halted. Like a record that just won’t play. Like he’s hit a deep scratch in his vocal track and can’t get past it, can’t stutter or skip his way into the next part of the song.
They’re supposed to be showering, Jon knows. The clock on the bedstand reminds him of that every time the minute turns over. They have a show tonight. They have the smell of booze and sweat and blood to wash off themselves.
Jon thinks it might help. So he releases Spencer’s hand, reaches down and takes Spencer’s t-shirt off.
He rolls it up from the hem, and Spencer hesitates for a long second before lifting his arms and letting the shirt tug up off him. His hair settles, staticky, back around his face as he keeps his eyes fixed somewhere behind Jon’s sternum, a pastel print on the wall.
Then Jon unbuckles Spencer’s watch and drops it on the bedspread with the t-shirt. He crouches down and pulls off Spencer’s sneakers and socks. He pushes Spencer back onto the bed and puts his hands on Spencer’s stomach, and the belt buckle that’s bitten into it a little, leaving a red mark on white skin.
Jon works the belt open as Spencer watches, and unbuttons Spencer’s jeans, and pulls those off him, too.
There is pale, goosebumped skin over the dip of Spencer’s stomach. There is a light fuzz of hair that trails down into his boxer briefs. There is a hitch in the way his ribcage lifts as he takes in a sharp little breath. Jon tries not to be greedy in how he looks. Tries to keep his hands firm and forgiving as he works.
Spencer’s looking at Jon, now, like maybe this is more familiar. Like maybe a hotel bed and his clothes on the floor is a more comprehensible scenario than Jon just standing around, waiting to hear the rest of that sentence. Listen-. Jon is listening, but Spencer’s not saying anything.
He meets Jon’s eyes, and his gaze is pale and inscrutable and also defiant. Like Jon could stand there till the world ends and still he wouldn’t hear the words he’s waiting for.
Spencer looks up at Jon and his bare, chilled skin and bruised eye socket and dirty hair are all an invitation.
Jon can’t deny that he wants it. He wants to crawl over Spencer, put his face against that skin, inhale everything and leave wet pathways with his mouth. He wants to put his lips against Spencer’s grey cotton underwear and see what he can rile up. His fingers in Spencer’s hair, his tongue against that purplish bruise. He wants Spencer, the same as he always has. Nothing’s changed.
It’s just that Jon knows that if he does that, any of that, he’ll never hear another word. Or at least, not any of the ones howling under Spencer’s skin right now, spiraling at hurricane force behind clenched teeth.
Spencer is so, so quiet, lying there. But his eyes are burning Jon up.
So, instead, Jon gives Spencer half a smile and says, “You take the shower first,” and steps away. He unbuckles his own belt, falls onto the other bed, drops his rubber bracelet and his phone on the bedstand.
Spencer sits up. His palms on the bed, his collarbone a deep V at odds with his tilted head. “Alright,” he says, finally. The word itself is quick, clipped. An escapee from a faltering security system. Jon can practically hear the scraped edges from where it slipped between Spencer’s teeth.
Jon turns his head to watch Spencer pad off to the bathroom. The brief hum of the fan, the glow of yellow light on beige and beige.
Jon tilts his head back, closes his eyes, and listens to the rush of water.
--
Their show is incredible.
It shouldn’t be. The Myth is a shit venue that oversells tickets and packs in teenagers like so many over-paying sardines. The house lighting guy is a genius, but it doesn’t matter because the sightlines are crap. Jon can’t see faces beyond the first few rows of audience, which means they can’t see him, either. He also suspects that the acoustics are totally screwed. Maybe it’s the fact that he can barely hear his own monitor, and it’s three feet in front of him.
But, you know. The show is still incredible.
The audience loves the masks, for one. And Ryan takes great relish in ripping his black-feathered birdface off halfway through the set: just when Brendon gets into his space, singing practically into his mouth. The mask hits the stage and sweat flies off the tips of Ryan’s hair and the kids on the floor lose their shit entirely.
Jon sees it because he keeps his head up the whole time. Watching Mitch and Sara and Ann and Cory contorting around the stage. Catching Eric’s downbow on the cello. Sticking close by Spencer for when the beat drops, and hitting it every time. Jon is so into it he practically forgets what his fretboard looks like.
He grins at Ryan when Ryan grins over at him. Brendon catches the look and swings over into Jon’s setup, funneling his downpour of a voice into the mic and still managing to bat his eyelashes at Jon as he does it. Jon hammers his strings harder, grinning down as he feels the audience’s energy roll over him, taking him in right along with Brendon.
The crowd loses it again when Brendon sends his own mask - blue peacock feathers and gold sequins - sailing off the stage into a mass of waiting arms. There’s a moment where Jon worries someone will get trampled. Fifteen seconds later, during the intro to Sins, Brendon swoops in and plucks Spencer’s mask off his face, too. He tosses it like a conciliatory note to the crowd, and then Spencer kicks the beat and people are screaming. Jon keeps his mask on, cowed by the force of it.
They play two encores.
At the end, as they’re going offstage for real, he hears his name. Maybe his name. It’s a shouted plea, maybe not even a word in the roar of love and longing coming from the floor, and he looks over involuntarily, past the security line and the fence, and sees hundreds of faces looking back at him. Three floors of them. A sold out crowd.
He tosses his mask, and sees them swallow it up.
He steps into the wings, grinning.
They played an incredible show.
--
Jon lounges, lazy and content, through the whole afterparty. He parks himself on the best couch in the green room while people filter through, picking up spring rolls off the deli tray and drinking the leftover red bull. Mitch drops by, sweaty in his ragged leotard with a lavender hoodie pulled over it, and perches on the coffee table in front of Jon. He slides easily into the conversation with Eric and Paul the guitar tech, and smiles shyly at Jon like he’s looking for permission to infringe.
Jon just smiles back, and when Eric gets up to go find more vodka and Paul turns away to check his phone, Jon is happy to get the chance to say, “Hey, how’s it going?”
“Good, man. How’s the head?” Mitch looks genuinely concerned. “I heard what happened.”
Jon laughs a bit, suddenly embarrassed. He runs a hand through his hair - it’s getting long, now, it needs a trim - “Yeah, I guess we ran into a couple of those social conservatives you warned me about.”
Mitch snorts. “Not much of a warning, I guess, if you still got beat up.”
“You should see the other guy,” Jon says, and then lamely shakes his head. “Actually, I have no idea what he looks like. They had to literally peel me off the pool table. I don’t think I even tried to hit back.”
Mitch makes an unhappy sound. “You know the theory is that passive resistance works better against governments than people, right?”
Jon shrugs. “What can you do?” he says, because he doesn’t really know how to explain himself.
“Take care of yourself, I guess,” Mitch smirks at Jon. “You need to work on that.”
“No,” Jon says. He shrugs again. “No, it’s not me. But look-” he hangs over the couch’s arm to root around in the bag he still thinks of as his pedal bag even though his pedals have their own anvil case these days and Ryan calls it a glorified man purse. “I have your book for you.”
He proffers it and Mitch looks down at it. He only really takes it because Jon’s already deposited it in his lap. He says, “Oh, yeah. Thanks.”
“I really liked it.” Jon says, “I mean, probably half of it was lost on me. But I liked it.”
“Well, if you ever want to reread it-” Mitch says. He grins: “Even just the dogeared bits.”
Jon laughs. “I definitely popped a boner like, three times.”
“Then it served its purpose,” Mitch pronounces. He stands up from the coffee table. “I’m going to get another beer. You want anything?”
“Nah,” Jon says, sinking back into the couch, suddenly warm and exhausted. He waves Mitch off. “I’m good.”
--
He heads back to the bus early.
The part of his mind that monitors Spencer’s whereabouts noted when Spencer left, maybe ten minutes ago. Those ten minutes are all Jon can handle. Then he follows, and fuck whoever notices.
Ryan doesn’t necessarily notice, but he certainly catches Jon on the way out: “Richard wants to have like, a conference call tomorrow or something,” he says, managing to sound too bored by the thought to be irritated about it.
“For what?” Jon pauses in the doorway, hoodie half-on, pedal bag hanging off his arm like, yeah, a twenty-pound purse.
Ryan shrugs. “I don’t know. Brent something something. It’s at three, so be awake.”
“Okay. Yeah.” Jon spends another three valuable seconds trying to wait Ryan out, see if he’s actually warming up to something else. Ryan, who’s holding a fresca with probably half a lime and a pound of ice in it and looking entirely unfazed about Brent’s name in his mouth.
“They liked the masks, huh?” Ryan says, finally, taking a sip from his glass to hide a sudden smile.
“Yeah,” Jon agrees.
“We’ll keep doing it till your face heals up, at least.”
“Good,” Jon says. “My reputation, right?”
“Right,” Ryan tips his glass at Jon, and then turns his face to look at Brendon, who has squirmed up through his spare arm. “We’re taking care of Jon’s reputation, right Brendon?”
“Uh, definitely.” Brendon agrees. “I can vouch for the milk and also the rest of the cow.”
And this is the point at which Jon actually leaves to go find Spencer.
Spencer, who is remarkably easy to find if you know where to look.
The middle bunk. On the left. Curtains closed half-heartedly, with a crack left open for sociability.
Jon crouches down, and meets Spencer’s eyes through the partition. “Hey,” he says, “I came to keep you company.”
“Not necessary,” Spencer responds, politely enough.
“I wasn’t asking, really,” Jon tells him, slightly apologetic. “Move over.”
It’s pretty telling that Spencer does as he’s told. Just like in the hotel. No argument. He’s nestled up in one of his infinite t-shirts, his makeup from the show scrubbed off and his hair damp with either sweat or soap. He scoots to the back wall of his bunk and Jon kicks his shoes into the layer of sneakers on the floor before crawling in.
These bunks, they are not built for two.
They lie nose to nose in the yellowish light, so close that the proportions of Spencer’s face gets warped in Jon’s eyes. Spencer’s eyes seem huge, smudges of leftover eyeliner collected in his lower lashes. He blinks once, twice, slowly. His hands are pressed together under his head, and Jon realizes he’s already mimicked that position. Their knees are touching.
Jon says, “Listen.”
Jon says, “I’m sorry for what I said about you neglecting the band, it wasn’t true.”
Then he says, “And I’m sorry for being an asshole about Brian.”
And then he says, “And also for showing up at the bar.”
Jon thinks Spencer’s eyes are the widest and bluest he’s ever seen them. And he’s stared at them a lot.
Spencer’s lips are sealed tight, but Jon can hear the murmur of air as they breath together in that tiny coffin of space. Spencer pulls one of his hands out from under his head and touches Jon’s mashed-up cheekbone. He closes his eyes.
Jon says, “Did you know that I meant it when I kissed you this morning?”
And Spencer says, in a very small voice, “Yes.” He opens his eyes and looks back at Jon, agonized, as if even that one single syllable had to be torn straight out of him.
It’s enough. Jon smiles, and kisses him again.
--
Jon wakes up to a smudge of yellow light falling through the curtain of his bunk.
Except it’s not his bunk. He realizes that he’s pointed the wrong way: his head towards the back of the bus, the pillow feeling strangely flat.
And when he peers around the curtain he sees Spencer rummaging through his duffel bag bare-chested. His hair ineffectually tucked behind his ears, his sneakers laced. He pulls a t-shirt over his head, adjusts it over his shoulders.
He glances up and sees Jon looking. “It’s four-thirty,” he whispers. “Go back to sleep.”
Jon knows the painkillers that got him through the show have worn off, his temples are pounding and his jaw is wrecked and his split lip is dry and puffy and painful. “I’ll come with you,” he says anyway, already rolling out of the sheets.
Spencer snorts a little laugh, “Yeah, right. You’ll puke and then pass out on the sidewalk.” He puts a hand on Jon’s shoulder and tips him easily back into the bunk. “I’ll be back soon.”
Jon settles his head back against his arm and watches Spencer adjust his laces. Spencer’s hair falls into his eyes as his face tips down, sharp pieces brushing his cheek and the line of his jaw.
And Jon asks, voice hushed: “Do you want my headband? I just washed it, I promise.”
Spencer gives him a funny look, like, seriously? and Jon tries to get up again, propping himself up on one elbow and stretching across the aisle to his own bunk before Spencer stops him again, saying, “I got it, lie down.”
“It’s beside my shaving kit,” Jon supplies, unhelpful, as Spencer rummages.
“Got it,” Spencer says. He pulls it over his forehead and turns back for inspection and Jon laughs at how dumb it looks even though it makes his head hurt and his eyes swim and someone’s bleary voice in another bunk go “Godddddddddddd, please shut up.”
Spencer smirks and then brushes Jon’s hand with his own and heads up the aisle.
Jon listens to the front door squeak open and waits for the breath of warm summer air to travel back to touch his face.
He closes his eyes. When he opens them again, they’re in Cincinnati and Spencer is asleep in his arms.