109
so cheap and juicy!
(aka, the brendon/spencer fic of there is no sex ever)
Panic! At The Disco (Brendon/Spencer)
7,141 words. Third person. PG-13.
Spencer comes back into the cabin around ten in then morning carrying a crate, while Brendon is snuggling with Jon on the couch. It’s not quite snuggling, actually, because Jon is curled up into the farthest corner, using the armrest as a pillow, and Brendon just has his feet pushed into the space behind Jon’s knees. His toes are trapped between the press of thigh and calf and he wiggles them experimentally just to hear Jon’s noise of protest, something of a snuffle against the navy blue couch fabric.
Still, Spencer. The crate in his arms is wood slats and stripes of orange peeking out from the gaps. Brendon looks up as Spencer closes the front door behind him, and he says,
“Hi, Spence,” but Spencer just looks over at him with a raised eyebrow, wiggles his finger in half a wave from where they’re clutching at the crate, and goes into his room, shutting the door softly behind him.
“What do you think that was all about?” Brendon asks, half directing the question at Jon, and half at the open air.
“Your mom,” Jon says sleepily, and that seems to end the conversation.
+
Ryan is in the kitchen, looking resolutely into his bowl of cereal, and Brendon peers over his shoulder, blinking down at the swirl of Wheaties and Lucky Charms mixed in rainbow dyed milk. He sits with a thump in the chair across from Ryan and says nothing, just staring at the dip of Ryan’s shirt against his collarbones.
“What is it, Brendon?” Ryan finally asks with a sigh, after minutes of silence. Brendon is glad that Ryan finally spoke up, because he was getting impatient, and didn’t want to give it away.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brendon says, grinning, and he waggles his eyebrows at Ryan, who snorts.
“Whatever.” Ryan shrugs, and picks up a spoonful of his cereal, looking at it from a few different angles, before popping it into his mouth. Brendon watches him chew, taps his fingers against the tabletop, and refrains from jiggling his knee.
“Okay, fine,” he says. “Just. What’s up with Spencer?” Brendon watches Ryan swallow carefully, the bob of his throat, and he scrapes his nails against the table in a slow rhythm.
“Hm? What about him?” Ryan asks, contemplating his empty spoon before pushing the half-finished bowl away. Brendon wonders if he’s cataloguing tastes or something, listing them in his head for later lyrical use, but he doesn’t actually care. Wheaties and Lucky Charms just seems like a really unappetizing combination.
“Y’know. The thing. With the crate? Why does he have a crate?” Brendon pauses and tilts his head to the side. “Also, what’s in it?”
“How the hell should I know?” Ryan asks mildly, running careful fingers through his hair, “Go ask him yourself.”
“Uh, he closed the door. Y’know, to his room?” Brendon says, a clear tone of what the hell, are you really dumb? in his voice. Spencer isn’t normally tetchy about personal space, or even his belongings, but the clear rule is that while the door is closed, everyone stays out. Period. QED, even. Brendon learned the hard way the last time, and he’d ended up with a flat iron thrown at his head and a Spencer that hadn’t talked to him for, like, more than twelve hours. Not something he really wants to repeat, although he is still thankful that the iron had been unplugged for a while beforehand. One never knew with Spencer.
“Oh,” Ryan says, shrugging. “You could try, y’know, actually knocking. I hear that sometimes works.”
+
Brendon stands outside of Spencer’s door for at least fifteen minutes without moving. Or knocking.
Jon walks down the hallway toward his own room, and pauses to look at Brendon. Brendon can see him open his mouth to ask, but instead he just closes it, deciding, apparently, that it’s not worth it. He pats Brendon on the shoulder, fingers clasping lightly at the back of his neck, and continues down the hall.
Brendon pulls at his lower lip with his thumb and index finger, staring at the white door, and wonders what nefarious deeds are being committed just on the other side.
+
Spencer leaves his room around noon. He closes the door behind him.
“Damn,” Brendon says, from where he’s peeking his head around the corner. Ryan snorts from the couch behind him, and Brendon decides that if he ever does figure out what Spencer is hiding (which could be, like, food, or movies they haven’t seen yet, or a kitten), he’s not telling Ryan what it is.
“Damn what?” Spencer says, smiling. Brendon knows that face. It’s the face that means I already know the answer to my question but I’m asking anyway to make you uncomfortable.
“Er. Nothing. Just bored. And stuff,” Brendon says, in all of his startling eloquence.
“Brendon wants to get into your room and see what’s in the crate,” Ryan says, voice mild and, Brendon knows, also wickedly amused. It’s the smile, really. The curl around the edges just screams evil.
“Traitor,” he mutters under his breath, making a snarly face at Ryan, who has his legs tucked up under him, and a magazine open on his lap. Ryan just rolls his eyes.
“I see,” says Spencer, still standing the doorway, one hand on the doorframe. “What will you give me if I tell you?”
“Hm.” Brendon tries to think of stuff that he has that Spencer might want, but he comes up short. “I’ll give you my, er, soul?”
“Too late. You signed that over, like, three months ago for a cup of coffee.” Spencer’s smile is now something more like ha ha, I win and Brendon really doesn’t appreciate it.
“I did not! When did I do that?”
“It was like six am and we’d just finished watching The Princess Bride for the third time. Remember?”
“Oh,” Brendon pouts, because, well, that’s probably possibly true. “Damn.”
“Better luck next time,” Spencer says with a wave, and walks off into the kitchen.
+
Later that evening, Jon, also, says that Brendon should just knock.
“It’s just the courteous thing to do, you know? Polite and all that.” He’s looking at Brendon from a cushion over on the couch, and Brendon’s not sure how they’ve gone from arguing over which Power Ranger would win a Battle Royale to this.
“Have you ever done it?” Brendon asks, his voice accusing. If he was close enough he’d totally poke Jon threateningly in the middle of the chest.
“Well, no, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work. Just that it’s untested.” Jon’s grin is a flare of white teeth and earnestness.
Brendon probably disagrees, but when he goes to say something, Spencer comes into the living room, and plops himself down on the couch in-between them.
“What’s up, guys?” Spencer asks like he doesn’t know, kicking his legs over Brendon’s thighs and leaning his head back onto Jon’s shoulder. Brendon rolls his eyes, but doesn’t pull away.
+
Sometime the next day, Spencer’s door is still closed, and Brendon hasn’t bothered to get dressed yet. The two are not connected, it just means that Brendon hasn’t been awake long enough to know what time it is, actually, and that it’s possibly way too early to be awake anyway. But probably not.
Brendon scratches at his chest and wanders into the kitchen. He wants toast, but he’s not sure if they have bread, anymore, as they haven’t left the cabin to go grocery shopping in at least two weeks. Food doesn’t normally last that long in a house filled with four kind-of-still-growing boys.
Ryan grunts at him from over a cup of coffee, and Brendon manages a wave and heads for the pot.
He adds five sugar packets to his coffee and sits at the table, once again across from Ryan. They drink in silence, and Brendon is surprised that it’s Ryan who speaks first. Again.
“So, have you figured it out yet, Spy Boy?” The twist of Ryan’s mouth is harsh for so early in the morning, but Brendon is learning to expect it.
“No, asshole,” he says, staring down into his coffee, “how’m I supposed to do that when he keeps his door closed all the time?”
“Well, all the lurking isn’t really helping your case much.” Ryan takes a sip of his coffee, which Brendon knows is diluted with milk and little else. “If you ask me, you should -”
“Knock. I know, we’ve had this part of the conversation before. But there was a flat iron last time! And it might even be on this time. Face burns are something that I really, really don’t want. My face is pretty far too pretty to risk scarring, thank you.” Ryan just snorts and shakes his head. His hair is in his eyes, and he brushes it aside with the back of a thin wrist, all bone and skin and tendon like the rest of him.
Brendon pokes Ryan in the leg with his cold bare toes and shrugs at him when he looks up. He knows that Ryan is probably right - he has the scary tendency to be, really, especially where Spencer is concerned. Where the band is concerned, maybe.
Besides, it’s not like he actually thinks that Spencer will really throw a flat iron at his face again.
If he throws anything, it’ll probably be sharp this time.
+
Brendon makes sure to stand well away from the door when he knocks. He tells himself it’s self-preservation, but he knows that’s a lie. The door is solid against his knuckles, and his toes wiggle into the hall carpet, beige and thick under his feet.
“Mrugh?” asks Spencer, or at least, that’s what Brendon hears. He’s pretty sure that he’s actually waking Spencer up, which is probably really so not a good idea. Not that this stops him, of course. It never does.
“Spencer?” His voice isn’t loud, at least not as loud as usual, and he bounces on the balls of his feet. This is so so so not a good idea. Like, at all.
“Mmmm, yeah?” Sleepy Spencer voice, and Brendon can imagine the look on his face, squinty as he tries to stay awake, hair messy and tangled.
“Can I. Come in?” His hand is on the doorknob now, and he’s staring at the door like he might be able to see through it.
“Ugh, whatever, Brendon. Jus’ let me go the fuck back to sleep.”
“Yay,” Brendon whispers to himself in the hallway, and glances over his shoulder to make sure that no one is watching or has heard. He opens the door as quietly as possible and slips through, the room still dark behind drawn shades. Spencer is curled in a ball on the bed and he is either asleep already, or pretending to be. Brendon doesn’t really care which. He closes the door just as silently as he’d opened it, and goes to sit on the bed next to Spencer.
“Mmph,” says Spencer, and grabs the cotton of Brendon’s shirt without looking, dragging him down.
Oh. Okay. Whatever.
Brendon’s never really been one to deny a cuddle to anyone, especially Spencer, who is not as ridiculously sharp and pointy as Ryan, and who is much pickier about who cuddles him when. Plus, Spencer would probably eviscerate Brendon if Brendon kept him awake. He can ask about the crate later.
For now, he just curls up on top of the covers, the curve of Spencer’s shoulder almost touching his nose, and he closes his eyes.
+
Spencer is already up by the time Brendon wakes again, Brendon can tell by the way the mattress shifts. He opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling above him, warm and sleepy and really rather comfortable. It is possible that Spencer had made a better quilt selection than he had, with the buying of down. But really, who could expect Brendon to not buy Disney themed anything? He’s Brendon, after all, and Disney is Disney.
“Hey,” Spencer says, vaguely amused, mock-offended, and way, way too loud. “How long have you been awake?” Spencer hovers over him, hair hanging in his face, and a smile on his lips. Brendon likes it when Spencer smiles, the whiteness of his teeth and the wide spread of his lips, but he’s interrupting Brendon’s view of the ceiling, and that is really just too bad. It’s a nice ceiling.
“Like, twelve and a half seconds.” Brendon yawns and scratches his head, watching Spencer laugh at him. “Time?”
Spencer shrugs and pulls out of view. The mattress moves, and Spencer’s voice, when he speaks, is from across the room.
“Dunno. Does it matter? It’s probably, like, two-ish.” Brendon listens to Spencer rummage, and knows that he’s eventually going to have to sit up; he doesn’t feel like it yet. “Anyway,” Spencer is saying, “catch.”
Brendon blinks, and then gasps, as something about the size and shape of a baseball hits him hard in the chest.
“Ow,” he says, and picks it up. Spherical, although dented on the one side where it hit his chest, and orange. Vaguely fruit-like. Brendon rubs at his chest with his free hand, and sits up, wiggling until he’s cross-legged. “Ow, that hurt, you fucker.”
“I said catch, asshole. Logically, when someone says catch it means they’re going to throw something at you.” Spencer snorts and climbs back onto the bed.
“Fine, but still, ow. And anyway, oranges? You have fruit and you’re keeping it hidden in a crate in your room?”
“Tangerines, yeah, and dude. I just gave you one, stop complaining.” Brendon shrugs, and sets his tangerine next to the pillow, settling in to watch Spencer sink one nail under the skin and start peeling. His fingers are sure and calm, just like he is, most of the time. Drummer’s hands. He bites his lip as he concentrates, and Brendon knows that he does that onstage as well, that his lips are slightly chapped from where he chews on them. Brendon thinks it might be just a little weird that he knows that, but, well, whatever. Spencer lets the discarded pieces of peel just fall onto the white quilt, and he leaves them there. Brendon pillows his head on one knee, pulling it up to his chest.
“Also,” Spencer says, not looking up from the tangerine, “the staring at me thing? Kind of creepy.”
“You know you like it,” Brendon says, waggling his eyebrows, even though he knows Spencer isn’t looking.
“Whatever.” Spencer rolls his eyes, and Brendon marks it down as a victory, because, well. Spencer hadn’t denied it.
+
Brendon ends up sort of spending the day in Spencer’s bed, eating tangerines, and watching Spencer peel them. Mostly the latter, because, well, he doesn’t want to be greedy, and watching Spencer is almost as fun as eating anyway.
Spencer leaves the rinds on the bedspread, and Brendon is kind of fascinated by the contrast of orange and white, by the overpowering smell of citrus, by watching Spencer lick his fingers clean of pulp. He stretches out on his stomach, pillowing his head on his palms as Spencer bites into a segment of fruit.
“This is fun,” he says, and Spencer glances at him with raised eyebrows.
“I’m glad that Spencer-watching is such an entertaining sport,” he says, swallowing, and Brendon laughs, half-watching Spencer’s throat work.
“I knew you had to be good for something.”
Spencer snorts.
+
Brendon wakes up without knowing he’d fallen asleep, and realizes that his left arm is asleep, mostly because he can’t feel anything but warmth on that whole side of his body. Spencer is curled on his side, his back pressed against Brendon’s hip and waist, his shoulder digging into Brendon’s bicep. Brendon’s first thought is something along the lines of ow, his second consists mostly of I fell asleep?, and his third is closer to wow, Spencer is really warm. All in all, he decides that he should wait for his brain to kick in before trying to speak, and, taking into account that Spencer is the only one in the room to talk to anyway, and is still sleeping, he figures that he has some time.
The arch of his right foot is resting on a stray piece of tangerine peel. Brendon can still smell the tang of citrus, and wonders idly what time it is. Spencer doesn’t actually have a clock in his room, so there’s no way to know with the blinds pulled and his cell phone lodged in his back pocket, out of reach unless he moves.
“Mmph,” says Spencer, rolling off of Brendon’s bicep and fisting his hands in Brendon’s shirt.
“Spence?” Brendon whispers, wondering if the noise means he’s allowed to talk, but Spencer just says,
“Shhhhh, m’sleepin’.” His voice is muffled, molasses thick with lethargy, and Brendon smiles, trying not to fidget.
Really though, crate of tangerines, plus Spencer’s bed, plus sleepy Spencer totally equals win for Brendon.
+
It’s not until kind of a lot later that Brendon realizes that he’s really, really dumb. Extremely, mind-numbingly, how-does-he-know-the-English-language dumb.
See, it goes like this. Jon knocks on the door and says,
“Hey, guys, are you, um. Still alive in there?” His voice trails off into kind of a giggle, like he thinks that he shouldn’t be asking, and Brendon just rolls his eyes, which he knows Jon can’t actually see, and says,
“Shhhh, Spence is sleeping,” even though he has no concept of what time it is, or even what day, but Spencer’s fingers are pressing against his chest thought his shirt, and the pout on his lips is really kind of cute.
“Since when has that bothered you?” Jon asks, and Brendon senses a raised eyebrow. He shrugs in response.
“Dunno. Since I got free cuddles out of it?” Also tangerines.
And then Jon snorts, Brendon can hear it through the door, and he walks away with the thump of heavy footsteps.
That should have been his first clue. Or, if he was feeling really observant, maybe the third or fourth.
Unfortunately, Brendon knows, he’s dumb, and therefore misses everything.
+
Ryan isn’t nice like Jon is. Which, really, is an understatement, but still worth mentioning. Because where Jon had asked if they were alive, Ryan just pounds his fist against the door and says,
“Brendon, if you and Spencer don’t get out here fucking soon, I’m burning your shit. Starting with your stuffed frog. And you know how fast stuffing burns.”
Spencer opens his eyes and Brendon can see him calculating in his head just how long he has until Ryan actually get annoyed enough to follow through, and Brendon holds in a whimper.
“Ryan, you can’t! I’ve had Mr. Hoppy since I was four!” Spencer digs his fingers into Brendon’s thigh, using it to push himself upright. Brendon can feel his fingernails digging into skin. He actually whimpers this time, half in distress, and half in vague pain. Spencer rolls his eyes, but takes his hand back, running his fingers through his hair.
“Well, then you’d better get your skinny little ass out here, because you’ve been in there for almost a whole day, and I’m going through Spencer withdrawal. You’d better not have killed him, Brendon, or the froggy gets it.” Brendon thinks that Ryan is half-joking. Thinks, but isn’t sure. He also kind of resents Ryan talking about his ass that way - he’s the only one with an ass to speak of, and Ryan should treat it with respect.
“Hey! Get over yourself, Ross. My ass is round and beautiful and you know you’re just jealous,” Brendon says, making sassy hand motions that only Spencer can see, and he’s too sleepy to care. Or possibly wouldn’t care anyway.
“Whatever makes you feel better about yourself, Urie,” Ryan says with a snort, and Brendon opens and closes his mouth a few times, before settling on flopping back down on the bed and pouting.
“I’m not dead, Ryan,” Spencer says with a yawn, somewhat belatedly, and Brendon glares at him, saying, inaudibly, Oh, I’m so glad that you have such empathy for my plight, but he knows better than to say it aloud.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Ryan says, and really means that’s good, but you’re still going to have to come out here, because I’m clingy and everyone pretends they don’t notice, even though they really do, especially when it comes to Spencer, or that’s what Brendon takes it as, anyway. Not that he doesn’t understand the impulse, but still. Property damage is a little far.
“And no burning if we come out, right?” Brendon asks, just to make sure. Better safe than sorry.
“Yeah, Brendon, no burning.”
+
Ryan curls up around Spencer on the couch, and they watch movies for, like, eight hours. Jon gets bored halfway through Fight Club, and wanders off to make popcorn and, apparently, tomato soup, which he comes back with in a big mixing bowl. They don’t actually own that much in the way of plates and silverware and normal house things. Brendon sits on the floor in front of the couch and leans his head back against the cushions, stealing popcorn from Jon, and wondering if Ryan is going to strangle Spencer by accident. If he does, Brendon is totally not taking the blame, although he thinks he’ll be kind of upset. Because one, dead people are kind of hard to dispose of, and two, Spencer would find some way to resurrect himself and take revenge, probably by eating them.
It could totally happen.
+
Brendon wakes up with a crick in his neck and his hand in the half-empty bowl of tomato soup. He really, really has to stop falling asleep at inopportune times, especially when his bandmates are around with stray bowls of soup. He watches the liquid drip back into the bowl, and licks it off of his fingers. It’s cool and tastes like watered-down pasta sauce, but Brendon has definitely eaten worse things.
Everyone else has left him asleep on the floor, and Brendon’s not sure whether to thank them or not. He sits up and massages the back of his neck with his hand, looking at the dark TV, the empty living room, the abandoned kitchen. He wonders where they’ve gone - they can’t all be asleep, can they? Brendon is pretty sure that that hasn’t happened since the last time they were on tour, and even that was only, like, once.
Sighing, he stands and shuffles to his bedroom. His clock says that it’s four am, glowing red letters on the bedside table, and Brendon realizes that he actually has no idea what day of the week it is. Maybe Wednesday. It always seems to be Wednesday.
It’s not until he turns on his light that he realizes there’s kind of a tangerine on his pillow. Okay, well, there is a tangerine on his pillow, unless he’s imagining it, but he hopes he’s not. Partially because hallucinations are not only weird, but also potentially very frightening, and partially because it means that he gets a tangerine, which is always a plus. Also, it means that Spencer gave it to him, which is, well. Nice.
Not something he normally associates with Spencer. He wonders what Spencer did that he thinks he has to apologize for, because Brendon really has no idea.
Still, free tangerine. Sweet.
+
“Did you do something mean?” Brendon asks Spencer the next morning, pushing his door open. It was already open a crack, so Brendon figures that he has permission.
“What?” Spencer looks up from his laptop, sitting in the middle of his bed, and his expression says what are you going on about, Brendon?.
“Well, like, meaner than usual.” Brendon throws himself down onto Spencer’s bed and peers around to look at the screen of Spencer’s laptop. He sees what looks like a checklist or something else only ridiculously organized people even bother with, but before he can take a closer look, Spencer minimizes the application and shuts his laptop.
“You are so weird,” Spencer says, and Brendon scowls.
“Just answer the question, Spencer Smith,” Brendon says, using his suspicious voice. Spencer does not look properly intimidated.
“As far as I know, I haven’t done anything mean,” Spencer says, and cocks his head to the side, thinking. Brendon goes to say ah ha!, but then Spencer continues. “Well, not on purpose, anyway.”
“So what’s with the gifting of fruit?”
“I was being nice? It happens sometimes, you know.” Spencer rolls his eyes and pushes against Brendon’s shoulder.
“Hm,” Brendon says. It’s not that he doesn’t believe Spencer - well, okay, it is that he doesn’t believe Spencer, but that sounds kind of mean, and Brendon totally isn’t. But. Spencer isn’t nice, it’s just kind of not in his repertoire. “I’m totally going to get to the bottom of this, Spencer Smith.”
“You do that, Brendon,” Spencer says, grabbing his laptop and leaving the room. Brendon wonders what he did now, because if he isn’t totally mistaken, that was Spencer’s pissy face.
It sort of sucks to do the foot in mouth thing and not even know whose foot is in whose mouth. Or why.
+
Spencer doesn’t talk to him all day, and then closes the door when he goes back into his room.
“What did you do now?” Ryan asks, raising an eyebrow.
“I don’t even know,” Brendon complains, throwing himself down onto the couch and, inadvertently, Ryan’s lap. He should just be glad he didn’t impale himself by accident on a knee or an elbow or something. “Sometimes I think Spencer is just too subtle for me.”
“Sometimes too subtle for you?” Ryan asks, somehow managing to sound both incredulous and emotionless at the same time.
“Oh shut up, I hate you.” Brendon totally does. Or would, if he wasn’t busier being confused and agonized over Spencer’s closed door and his own lack of tangerines. This new equation kind of sucks - more like lack of tangerines, plus angry Spencer, plus unhelpful Ryan equals really sad, tortured Brendon. There are also some variables that Brendon hasn’t identified yet, and he’s always sucked at algebra.
“Hate who? Why?” Jon asks, wandering into the room.
“Ugh, nothing. Everything. I don’t know.” Brendon buries his face in his hands and pretty much hears Jon shrug.
“Um, okay then,” Jon says, and turns on the TV.
“You guys suck at moral support.”
+
“Speeeeeencer,” Brendon says about four and a half minutes later, trying for mournful and agonized but only getting as far as whiny and vaguely congested. Spencer’s door is still closed.
“What it is, Brendon?” Spencer doesn’t sound overtly angry, just vaguely annoyed, but then again, he rarely does. Spencer is more likely to not talk to you (Brendon) and then put parmesan cheese in your (Brendon’s) cereal, than to ever even bother raising his voice.
“You’re making me a sad, sad Brendon,” Brendon says. The pout is one of his best, and it is clearly wasted on Spencer’s closed door. Although Brendon is confident he could woo even Spencer’s door if he tried hard enough.
“Wow, speaking in the third person. You must be upset.” Spencer is being sarcastic. Brendon doesn’t appreciate it. Also, he is kind of upset, because Ryan told him to fix it, and he doesn’t even know what he did wrong, yet, but he’s not allowed in the kitchen until he apologizes.
Ryan fights with his elbows and fingernails. They leave really dark, splotchy bruises that hurt more than they probably should.
“What did I do to you, Spencer? I have been nothing but charitable and kind.” Brendon fakes a sniff, loud and, hopefully, pitiful.
“You are such a bad actor,” Spencer says. “I know you don’t cry when you’re really upset, because you don’t want anyone to know.”
“Um,” Brendon says, blinking. Spencer is totally smirking, Brendon can smell it.
“I win,” Spencer says.
+
Having failed at a direct approach, Brendon makes Spencer a card with printer paper and magic markers, using mostly red and pink, thick lined hearts and lines of bad poetry (oh, were thou but a precious flower, I would sniff thee, and make thee my princess) in his best cursive. He signs it also, I’m really, really sorry for whatever I did that made you mad and will you please forgive me so that I can go into the kitchen without Ryan stabbing me in the kidneys, thanks, I am really hungry,
♥ Brendon, poetical genius
+
A few hours later, Spencer slides a note under his door, written on a piece of ripped notebook paper in black pen, and it says,
Brendon,
Your poetry sucks - this is why Ryan writes the lyrics. Please learn correct grammar, and make sure to keep your ‘thee’s and ‘thou’s straight.
Sincerely,
Spencer Smith V
It smells like tangerines and forgiveness. Brendon allows himself a small fist pump, because no one is in his room to see it.
+
Spencer pretends that he hasn’t forgiven Brendon for another day, but even Ryan knows that he’s only pretending, and so Brendon is allowed access to all manner of food products. Really, though, he wants to be allowed back into Spencer’s room, which is going to take much more wheedling, as Spencer is still eating all his tangerines alone in his room with the door closed, and coming out smelling tauntingly like citrus.
Brendon clambers onto the couch with a dramatic sigh, and Jon, who is listening to music, pulls off one side of his headphones.
“The world is against me, Jon,” Brendon says, curling up to Jon’s hip and leaning his head on Jon’s shoulder. “Well, except for you. You’d never betray me, would you, Jon?” he asks, and glances up at Jon’s face, which is pretty much serene. Brendon thinks that he might finally be completely used to Brendon’s antics, which is kind of disappointing.
“Of course I wouldn’t, Brendon,” Jon says calmly, and pulls his headphones back over his ear. Brendon scowls at him and thinks about how unsatisfying Jon’s cuddles are in comparison with Spencer’s, which - is kind of a new thought, but Brendon is willing to go with it. Spencer smells like tangerines and his comforter is made of down and he makes snuffling noises when he sleeps, so it’s completely understandable.
Okay, so, Brendon is maybe starting to think he has a slight Spencer Smith problem.
+
Eventually, Brendon just gets impatient and infiltrates Spencer’s room without permission while Spencer is in the kitchen, probably fixing himself coffee. It’s about 9:00 am, and Brendon is pretty sure that he, himself, isn’t supposed to be awake before 11:00 and still be certifiably sane, which is probably part of why he goes into Spencer’s room in the first place and throws himself down on Spencer’s recently vacated bed. He wraps his fingers in the down comforter and curls up on his side, pulling his knees up to his chest. The sheets are still warm from Spencer’s body heat, which is - kind of voyeuristic, actually. Which, well, shouldn’t be as cool a feeling as it actually turns out to be. Brendon is maybe thinking that he’s a little creepy. Or a lot.
The thing is, Brendon’s almost positive that it’ll be worth the repercussions. Whatever wrath Spencer incurs on his person, Brendon is pretty sure that he can stand it. This foolhardy notion, he realizes, probably means that he has more of a Spencer Smith problem than he’d previously thought.
Instead of doing anything about it, though, he dozes off in a pile under Spencer’s sheets. So when Spencer comes back into his room and pushes against Brendon’s shoulder with the palm of his hand, the mattress shifting under his weight, all Brendon can do is made a snuffling, sleepy noise against the Spencer’s quilt, protesting, and open one of his eyes half-way.
“Brendon,” Spencer says, way too loudly, “why are you on my bed?” It’s his serious voice, which Brendon also happens to never pay much attention too, mostly because there’s no anger in it. When Spencer isn’t even pretending to be angry, he’s usually just not fully expressing whatever positive emotions he likes to pretend he doesn’t have.
“’Cause,” Brendon says, half-heartedly opening his eyes the rest of the way. “I like it.”
“And?” Brendon swears he hears a tinge of humor in Spencer’s voice, and perks up a little. Hopefully not visibly.
“And you weren’t here, so I decided to claim the territory as my own.” Spencer snorts.
“I’d like to see you keep it. If it comes to a land war, my friend, I fear you will be severely outclassed. I have played Risk so much more than you have.” Brendon turns his head a little so that he can see Spencer’s face more clearly, sitting cross-legged on the bed. The tiny smile on his face makes Brendon grin sleepily.
“You only ever win because you always take Australia first. Stupid youngest goes first rule.” Brendon yawns and lets his eyes slide closed again. “Anyway, I’m far too cute and sleepy to declare war on. Wait until later, when it’s not morning anymore.”
Spencer doesn’t say anything, he just curls up next to Brendon, his feet touching Brendon’s shins, and when Brendon opens his eyes, Spencer appears to be sleeping. Brendon considers it an argument well won.
+
The thing is, Brendon doesn’t actually fall asleep. He tries, but he keeps getting distracted by the snuffly noises Spencer is making, which is not only unfair, but totally a low blow. Sleepy Spencer noises are inclined to make Brendon think of a nice, vulnerable Spencer, who will listen to him when he talks and never, ever tell him his ideas are dumb. This is clearly a false characterization, and will only end in Brendon getting hurt, probably physically as well as emotionally, but Brendon can’t help it. Not when Spencer keeps breathing on his arm.
“You suck,” he says, but Spencer just snuffles. Brendon totally resents it.
+
Brendon sort of ends up sleeping Spencer’s room, after that. It’s not that he doesn’t like his own room; he just kind of likes Spencer’s room better. Spencer doesn’t actually seem to mind, which is a surprising, but not unpleasant, turn of events. Mostly he just looks at Brendon like he’s a little screwed in the head, and not all that smart, either, with a twitch in the corner of his mouth that means he’s trying not to laugh, and a hand on one hip. Brendon is used to this, however, so he just grins and brushes the remains of about two or three tangerines off of the comforter, gesturing broadly for Spencer to join him.
Sometimes, Brendon thinks Spencer is going to say something, but he’s really not sure what it could be or why he’d want to say whatever it is to Brendon, anyway. Ryan just snorts and rolls his eyes at any possible excuse and lets Brendon know that he knows something that Brendon doesn’t. Brendon finds this really annoying, but he still gets to press his face against Spencer’s shoulder blades and curl his fingers in Spencer’s shirt and fall asleep on his really comfortable quilt, so most of the time Brendon just thinks Ryan is jealous.
Because, really, who wouldn’t be?
+
“Ryan thinks you’re really dumb,” Jon says to Brendon over breakfast. Jon is making waffles, and it’s a brilliant day for this reason, and also that they have new groceries and actual food, and thus, the ability to make waffles.
The waffle machine is new and unused and kind of really shiny, and so Brendon isn’t really listening to whatever Jon is saying.
“What?” he asks, bouncing a little in his chair.
“Ryan thinks you’re really dumb,” Jon says again, patiently. Brendon thinks he’s pretty used to Brendon’s short attention span.
“Well, so does Spencer, how is this new?” Brendon asks, voice more curious than anything else.
“Dumber than usual,” Jon says, and shrugs. Brendon doesn’t really care about Ryan, though, because,
“Waffles, Jon! Waffles! Can we eat them now, please?”
+
They’re watching Moulin Rouge for maybe the seventy-second time, the four of them squished up together on the couch. Spencer’s got his feet in Brendon’s lap, and Ryan keeps looking over, which is keeping Brendon from paying any attention at all to the movie.
what? he mouths, his fingers brushing at the arch of Spencer’s foot. Spencer makes a sound, half-protest and half-laugh, more what do you think you’re doing? than anything else, but doesn’t turn his eyes from the screen, where he’s watching Ewan McGregor dance his little heart out. Brendon figures that Spencer’s not actually serious, so he doesn’t bother to move his hand.
Ryan glances at Spencer, back at Brendon, and rolls his eyes, shrugging expansively. whatever, he mouths, pushing his bangs back with the motion of careless fingers.
Brendon blinks, and Jon shushes Ryan, saying,
“God, this is my favorite part, you guys, shut up.”
Ryan gives Brendon a pointed look, and Brendon doesn’t know what it means, kind of at all, so he sticks his tongue out at Ryan and considers the matter closed.
+
The thing that Spencer says, before he attacks Brendon with his mouth, sounds suspiciously to Brendon like,
“Wow, Brendon, Ryan was right. You are really, really dumb.”
Which Brendon would totally wants to protest, but then, of course, Spencer attacks Brendon with his mouth, and Brendon isn’t really thinking about it anymore.
He’s thinking something more like, Fwahguh? !!!!!.
Spencer’s lips are warm and soft and just about as girly as they look, but Brendon totally doesn’t care. Spencer’s hands are in his hair, curling down around the back of his neck, and after Brendon blinks a few times, there’s nothing really else for him to do but kiss back. Spencer has small, sharp teeth, and he likes biting into Brendon’s lips, which kind of hurts, but Brendon can’t exactly find it in him to mind.
“I’m not dumb,” he says when Spencer pulls away, breathing rather heavily. Spencer still manages an impressive roll of his eyes.
“Yeah, whatever,” he says, fingers still curled up in Brendon’s hair. “I’ve been throwing myself at you for like, a week, or something -”
“You call that throwing? That wasn’t even a light toss! I told Ryan you were too subtle for me -”
“Or just too smart, whatever, both definitions work.” Brendon pouts. Spencer snorts.
“Hey, you just attacked me with your face; shouldn’t the pouting work now, or something?” Spencer actually laughs, and Brendon can feel the heat of it on his face, Spencer’s fingers against his skin.
“Fat chance,” Spencer says. “That would take a lobotomy.”
“You suck,” Brendon says, for, like, the fourteenth time that day. “Ugh.”
“Want a tangerine?” Spencer asks, grinning, and Brendon really, really wants to not forgive him for his insults and his lack of response to Brendon’s powers of persuasion, but. Brendon is weak in the face of tangerines.
Or, well, Spencer, really.
“Fine,” Brendon says, and Spencer’s grin shifts toward sly, like he knows it means yes, please. Probably mostly because it does.
“I win,” Spencer says.
+
Ryan looks at Brendon suspiciously when he and Spencer both enter the living room at the same time.
“It was his fault!” Brendon says, pointing at Spencer, who does the customary Spencer thing and makes a silent sarcastic remark.
“What was whose fault?” Jon asks, his look of confusion almost a match to Ryan’s look of distain.
“Also, I don’t believe you,” Ryan says, arm curled protectively around his bowl of (gross) cereal.
“See, and that’s why Ryan is my best friend, and not yours, Brendon,” Spencer says.
“I don’t see what makes him so special anyway,” Brendon says with a pout.
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Jon asks, crossing his arms over his chest. His glare leaves something to be desired, and makes Brendon kind of really want to ruffle his hair.
“I think Spencer and Brendon are flirting,” Ryan says, and takes a bite of his cereal, dripping milk onto the coffee table.
“Oh,” Jon says, squinting at them.
“Also, go get a room,” Ryan adds. His mouth is still half-full, and Brendon wonders why Ryan gets away with that and Brendon himself never does.
“We have a room. Or two. Or something,” Brendon says.
“Well, go there then. Your almost-about-to-hold-hands thing is going to make me puke.”
“Aw, Ryan, I didn’t know you cared.” Spencer grins, and Brendon can feel Spencer’s fingers of the back of his wrist, just lightly touching. He smiles kind of without meaning to, and Ryan gives him a dirty look.
“Don’t make me eviscerate Brendon, Spencer.” Ryan’s voice is just about as monotone as it ever is when he’s talking about possibly murdering his lead singer.
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand half of what you guys say. Also, I don’t think I want to,” Jon says, his face betraying the seriousness in his voice. Brendon opens his mouth to respond, but then Spencer pulls him back out of the living room, and he forgets to.
+
Spencer kisses Brendon in the hallway, pushing him back against the wall, and Brendon makes a sort of ungainly surprised sound. Spencer laughs, but it’s muffled by Brendon’s lips, and so Brendon doesn’t hold it against him. His shoulder blades are pressed against white plaster, and Spencer’s hands are still on his shoulders.
“I can still see you guys, you know,” Ryan calls out from the living room.
“I totally don’t give a fuck, Ross, so if you have a problem with it, you can go fuck yourself,” Spencer says, cheerfully, and kisses Brendon again.
“And the point goes to Team Smith!” Jon announces in his commentator voice.
“Can I -” Brendon starts, pulling away from Spencer, but Ryan interrupts him.
“No, Brendon, you cannot be on Spencer’s team. It’s every man for himself in this household.”
“But -” Brendon tries again.
“Except for me! I’m the referee,” Jon adds, and Brendon can hear Ryan sigh, but he’s watching the smirk on Spencer’s face as he presses his fingers harder against Brendon’s shoulders and leans close.
“It’s okay, Brendon,” Spencer whispers, “I’ll let you join my team in secret. An espionage thing. You can be my spy, and sell me Ryan’s weaknesses.”
“You can pay me in tangerines,” Brendon says, his whisper slightly louder and far less subtle than Spencer’s.
“Deal,” Spencer agrees, and presses warm lips to Brendon’s, hands fisted in the fabric of his shirt.
(aka, the brendon/spencer fic of there is no sex ever)
Panic! At The Disco (Brendon/Spencer)
7,141 words. Third person. PG-13.
Spencer comes back into the cabin around ten in then morning carrying a crate, while Brendon is snuggling with Jon on the couch. It’s not quite snuggling, actually, because Jon is curled up into the farthest corner, using the armrest as a pillow, and Brendon just has his feet pushed into the space behind Jon’s knees. His toes are trapped between the press of thigh and calf and he wiggles them experimentally just to hear Jon’s noise of protest, something of a snuffle against the navy blue couch fabric.
Still, Spencer. The crate in his arms is wood slats and stripes of orange peeking out from the gaps. Brendon looks up as Spencer closes the front door behind him, and he says,
“Hi, Spence,” but Spencer just looks over at him with a raised eyebrow, wiggles his finger in half a wave from where they’re clutching at the crate, and goes into his room, shutting the door softly behind him.
“What do you think that was all about?” Brendon asks, half directing the question at Jon, and half at the open air.
“Your mom,” Jon says sleepily, and that seems to end the conversation.
+
Ryan is in the kitchen, looking resolutely into his bowl of cereal, and Brendon peers over his shoulder, blinking down at the swirl of Wheaties and Lucky Charms mixed in rainbow dyed milk. He sits with a thump in the chair across from Ryan and says nothing, just staring at the dip of Ryan’s shirt against his collarbones.
“What is it, Brendon?” Ryan finally asks with a sigh, after minutes of silence. Brendon is glad that Ryan finally spoke up, because he was getting impatient, and didn’t want to give it away.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brendon says, grinning, and he waggles his eyebrows at Ryan, who snorts.
“Whatever.” Ryan shrugs, and picks up a spoonful of his cereal, looking at it from a few different angles, before popping it into his mouth. Brendon watches him chew, taps his fingers against the tabletop, and refrains from jiggling his knee.
“Okay, fine,” he says. “Just. What’s up with Spencer?” Brendon watches Ryan swallow carefully, the bob of his throat, and he scrapes his nails against the table in a slow rhythm.
“Hm? What about him?” Ryan asks, contemplating his empty spoon before pushing the half-finished bowl away. Brendon wonders if he’s cataloguing tastes or something, listing them in his head for later lyrical use, but he doesn’t actually care. Wheaties and Lucky Charms just seems like a really unappetizing combination.
“Y’know. The thing. With the crate? Why does he have a crate?” Brendon pauses and tilts his head to the side. “Also, what’s in it?”
“How the hell should I know?” Ryan asks mildly, running careful fingers through his hair, “Go ask him yourself.”
“Uh, he closed the door. Y’know, to his room?” Brendon says, a clear tone of what the hell, are you really dumb? in his voice. Spencer isn’t normally tetchy about personal space, or even his belongings, but the clear rule is that while the door is closed, everyone stays out. Period. QED, even. Brendon learned the hard way the last time, and he’d ended up with a flat iron thrown at his head and a Spencer that hadn’t talked to him for, like, more than twelve hours. Not something he really wants to repeat, although he is still thankful that the iron had been unplugged for a while beforehand. One never knew with Spencer.
“Oh,” Ryan says, shrugging. “You could try, y’know, actually knocking. I hear that sometimes works.”
+
Brendon stands outside of Spencer’s door for at least fifteen minutes without moving. Or knocking.
Jon walks down the hallway toward his own room, and pauses to look at Brendon. Brendon can see him open his mouth to ask, but instead he just closes it, deciding, apparently, that it’s not worth it. He pats Brendon on the shoulder, fingers clasping lightly at the back of his neck, and continues down the hall.
Brendon pulls at his lower lip with his thumb and index finger, staring at the white door, and wonders what nefarious deeds are being committed just on the other side.
+
Spencer leaves his room around noon. He closes the door behind him.
“Damn,” Brendon says, from where he’s peeking his head around the corner. Ryan snorts from the couch behind him, and Brendon decides that if he ever does figure out what Spencer is hiding (which could be, like, food, or movies they haven’t seen yet, or a kitten), he’s not telling Ryan what it is.
“Damn what?” Spencer says, smiling. Brendon knows that face. It’s the face that means I already know the answer to my question but I’m asking anyway to make you uncomfortable.
“Er. Nothing. Just bored. And stuff,” Brendon says, in all of his startling eloquence.
“Brendon wants to get into your room and see what’s in the crate,” Ryan says, voice mild and, Brendon knows, also wickedly amused. It’s the smile, really. The curl around the edges just screams evil.
“Traitor,” he mutters under his breath, making a snarly face at Ryan, who has his legs tucked up under him, and a magazine open on his lap. Ryan just rolls his eyes.
“I see,” says Spencer, still standing the doorway, one hand on the doorframe. “What will you give me if I tell you?”
“Hm.” Brendon tries to think of stuff that he has that Spencer might want, but he comes up short. “I’ll give you my, er, soul?”
“Too late. You signed that over, like, three months ago for a cup of coffee.” Spencer’s smile is now something more like ha ha, I win and Brendon really doesn’t appreciate it.
“I did not! When did I do that?”
“It was like six am and we’d just finished watching The Princess Bride for the third time. Remember?”
“Oh,” Brendon pouts, because, well, that’s probably possibly true. “Damn.”
“Better luck next time,” Spencer says with a wave, and walks off into the kitchen.
+
Later that evening, Jon, also, says that Brendon should just knock.
“It’s just the courteous thing to do, you know? Polite and all that.” He’s looking at Brendon from a cushion over on the couch, and Brendon’s not sure how they’ve gone from arguing over which Power Ranger would win a Battle Royale to this.
“Have you ever done it?” Brendon asks, his voice accusing. If he was close enough he’d totally poke Jon threateningly in the middle of the chest.
“Well, no, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work. Just that it’s untested.” Jon’s grin is a flare of white teeth and earnestness.
Brendon probably disagrees, but when he goes to say something, Spencer comes into the living room, and plops himself down on the couch in-between them.
“What’s up, guys?” Spencer asks like he doesn’t know, kicking his legs over Brendon’s thighs and leaning his head back onto Jon’s shoulder. Brendon rolls his eyes, but doesn’t pull away.
+
Sometime the next day, Spencer’s door is still closed, and Brendon hasn’t bothered to get dressed yet. The two are not connected, it just means that Brendon hasn’t been awake long enough to know what time it is, actually, and that it’s possibly way too early to be awake anyway. But probably not.
Brendon scratches at his chest and wanders into the kitchen. He wants toast, but he’s not sure if they have bread, anymore, as they haven’t left the cabin to go grocery shopping in at least two weeks. Food doesn’t normally last that long in a house filled with four kind-of-still-growing boys.
Ryan grunts at him from over a cup of coffee, and Brendon manages a wave and heads for the pot.
He adds five sugar packets to his coffee and sits at the table, once again across from Ryan. They drink in silence, and Brendon is surprised that it’s Ryan who speaks first. Again.
“So, have you figured it out yet, Spy Boy?” The twist of Ryan’s mouth is harsh for so early in the morning, but Brendon is learning to expect it.
“No, asshole,” he says, staring down into his coffee, “how’m I supposed to do that when he keeps his door closed all the time?”
“Well, all the lurking isn’t really helping your case much.” Ryan takes a sip of his coffee, which Brendon knows is diluted with milk and little else. “If you ask me, you should -”
“Knock. I know, we’ve had this part of the conversation before. But there was a flat iron last time! And it might even be on this time. Face burns are something that I really, really don’t want. My face is pretty far too pretty to risk scarring, thank you.” Ryan just snorts and shakes his head. His hair is in his eyes, and he brushes it aside with the back of a thin wrist, all bone and skin and tendon like the rest of him.
Brendon pokes Ryan in the leg with his cold bare toes and shrugs at him when he looks up. He knows that Ryan is probably right - he has the scary tendency to be, really, especially where Spencer is concerned. Where the band is concerned, maybe.
Besides, it’s not like he actually thinks that Spencer will really throw a flat iron at his face again.
If he throws anything, it’ll probably be sharp this time.
+
Brendon makes sure to stand well away from the door when he knocks. He tells himself it’s self-preservation, but he knows that’s a lie. The door is solid against his knuckles, and his toes wiggle into the hall carpet, beige and thick under his feet.
“Mrugh?” asks Spencer, or at least, that’s what Brendon hears. He’s pretty sure that he’s actually waking Spencer up, which is probably really so not a good idea. Not that this stops him, of course. It never does.
“Spencer?” His voice isn’t loud, at least not as loud as usual, and he bounces on the balls of his feet. This is so so so not a good idea. Like, at all.
“Mmmm, yeah?” Sleepy Spencer voice, and Brendon can imagine the look on his face, squinty as he tries to stay awake, hair messy and tangled.
“Can I. Come in?” His hand is on the doorknob now, and he’s staring at the door like he might be able to see through it.
“Ugh, whatever, Brendon. Jus’ let me go the fuck back to sleep.”
“Yay,” Brendon whispers to himself in the hallway, and glances over his shoulder to make sure that no one is watching or has heard. He opens the door as quietly as possible and slips through, the room still dark behind drawn shades. Spencer is curled in a ball on the bed and he is either asleep already, or pretending to be. Brendon doesn’t really care which. He closes the door just as silently as he’d opened it, and goes to sit on the bed next to Spencer.
“Mmph,” says Spencer, and grabs the cotton of Brendon’s shirt without looking, dragging him down.
Oh. Okay. Whatever.
Brendon’s never really been one to deny a cuddle to anyone, especially Spencer, who is not as ridiculously sharp and pointy as Ryan, and who is much pickier about who cuddles him when. Plus, Spencer would probably eviscerate Brendon if Brendon kept him awake. He can ask about the crate later.
For now, he just curls up on top of the covers, the curve of Spencer’s shoulder almost touching his nose, and he closes his eyes.
+
Spencer is already up by the time Brendon wakes again, Brendon can tell by the way the mattress shifts. He opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling above him, warm and sleepy and really rather comfortable. It is possible that Spencer had made a better quilt selection than he had, with the buying of down. But really, who could expect Brendon to not buy Disney themed anything? He’s Brendon, after all, and Disney is Disney.
“Hey,” Spencer says, vaguely amused, mock-offended, and way, way too loud. “How long have you been awake?” Spencer hovers over him, hair hanging in his face, and a smile on his lips. Brendon likes it when Spencer smiles, the whiteness of his teeth and the wide spread of his lips, but he’s interrupting Brendon’s view of the ceiling, and that is really just too bad. It’s a nice ceiling.
“Like, twelve and a half seconds.” Brendon yawns and scratches his head, watching Spencer laugh at him. “Time?”
Spencer shrugs and pulls out of view. The mattress moves, and Spencer’s voice, when he speaks, is from across the room.
“Dunno. Does it matter? It’s probably, like, two-ish.” Brendon listens to Spencer rummage, and knows that he’s eventually going to have to sit up; he doesn’t feel like it yet. “Anyway,” Spencer is saying, “catch.”
Brendon blinks, and then gasps, as something about the size and shape of a baseball hits him hard in the chest.
“Ow,” he says, and picks it up. Spherical, although dented on the one side where it hit his chest, and orange. Vaguely fruit-like. Brendon rubs at his chest with his free hand, and sits up, wiggling until he’s cross-legged. “Ow, that hurt, you fucker.”
“I said catch, asshole. Logically, when someone says catch it means they’re going to throw something at you.” Spencer snorts and climbs back onto the bed.
“Fine, but still, ow. And anyway, oranges? You have fruit and you’re keeping it hidden in a crate in your room?”
“Tangerines, yeah, and dude. I just gave you one, stop complaining.” Brendon shrugs, and sets his tangerine next to the pillow, settling in to watch Spencer sink one nail under the skin and start peeling. His fingers are sure and calm, just like he is, most of the time. Drummer’s hands. He bites his lip as he concentrates, and Brendon knows that he does that onstage as well, that his lips are slightly chapped from where he chews on them. Brendon thinks it might be just a little weird that he knows that, but, well, whatever. Spencer lets the discarded pieces of peel just fall onto the white quilt, and he leaves them there. Brendon pillows his head on one knee, pulling it up to his chest.
“Also,” Spencer says, not looking up from the tangerine, “the staring at me thing? Kind of creepy.”
“You know you like it,” Brendon says, waggling his eyebrows, even though he knows Spencer isn’t looking.
“Whatever.” Spencer rolls his eyes, and Brendon marks it down as a victory, because, well. Spencer hadn’t denied it.
+
Brendon ends up sort of spending the day in Spencer’s bed, eating tangerines, and watching Spencer peel them. Mostly the latter, because, well, he doesn’t want to be greedy, and watching Spencer is almost as fun as eating anyway.
Spencer leaves the rinds on the bedspread, and Brendon is kind of fascinated by the contrast of orange and white, by the overpowering smell of citrus, by watching Spencer lick his fingers clean of pulp. He stretches out on his stomach, pillowing his head on his palms as Spencer bites into a segment of fruit.
“This is fun,” he says, and Spencer glances at him with raised eyebrows.
“I’m glad that Spencer-watching is such an entertaining sport,” he says, swallowing, and Brendon laughs, half-watching Spencer’s throat work.
“I knew you had to be good for something.”
Spencer snorts.
+
Brendon wakes up without knowing he’d fallen asleep, and realizes that his left arm is asleep, mostly because he can’t feel anything but warmth on that whole side of his body. Spencer is curled on his side, his back pressed against Brendon’s hip and waist, his shoulder digging into Brendon’s bicep. Brendon’s first thought is something along the lines of ow, his second consists mostly of I fell asleep?, and his third is closer to wow, Spencer is really warm. All in all, he decides that he should wait for his brain to kick in before trying to speak, and, taking into account that Spencer is the only one in the room to talk to anyway, and is still sleeping, he figures that he has some time.
The arch of his right foot is resting on a stray piece of tangerine peel. Brendon can still smell the tang of citrus, and wonders idly what time it is. Spencer doesn’t actually have a clock in his room, so there’s no way to know with the blinds pulled and his cell phone lodged in his back pocket, out of reach unless he moves.
“Mmph,” says Spencer, rolling off of Brendon’s bicep and fisting his hands in Brendon’s shirt.
“Spence?” Brendon whispers, wondering if the noise means he’s allowed to talk, but Spencer just says,
“Shhhhh, m’sleepin’.” His voice is muffled, molasses thick with lethargy, and Brendon smiles, trying not to fidget.
Really though, crate of tangerines, plus Spencer’s bed, plus sleepy Spencer totally equals win for Brendon.
+
It’s not until kind of a lot later that Brendon realizes that he’s really, really dumb. Extremely, mind-numbingly, how-does-he-know-the-English-language dumb.
See, it goes like this. Jon knocks on the door and says,
“Hey, guys, are you, um. Still alive in there?” His voice trails off into kind of a giggle, like he thinks that he shouldn’t be asking, and Brendon just rolls his eyes, which he knows Jon can’t actually see, and says,
“Shhhh, Spence is sleeping,” even though he has no concept of what time it is, or even what day, but Spencer’s fingers are pressing against his chest thought his shirt, and the pout on his lips is really kind of cute.
“Since when has that bothered you?” Jon asks, and Brendon senses a raised eyebrow. He shrugs in response.
“Dunno. Since I got free cuddles out of it?” Also tangerines.
And then Jon snorts, Brendon can hear it through the door, and he walks away with the thump of heavy footsteps.
That should have been his first clue. Or, if he was feeling really observant, maybe the third or fourth.
Unfortunately, Brendon knows, he’s dumb, and therefore misses everything.
+
Ryan isn’t nice like Jon is. Which, really, is an understatement, but still worth mentioning. Because where Jon had asked if they were alive, Ryan just pounds his fist against the door and says,
“Brendon, if you and Spencer don’t get out here fucking soon, I’m burning your shit. Starting with your stuffed frog. And you know how fast stuffing burns.”
Spencer opens his eyes and Brendon can see him calculating in his head just how long he has until Ryan actually get annoyed enough to follow through, and Brendon holds in a whimper.
“Ryan, you can’t! I’ve had Mr. Hoppy since I was four!” Spencer digs his fingers into Brendon’s thigh, using it to push himself upright. Brendon can feel his fingernails digging into skin. He actually whimpers this time, half in distress, and half in vague pain. Spencer rolls his eyes, but takes his hand back, running his fingers through his hair.
“Well, then you’d better get your skinny little ass out here, because you’ve been in there for almost a whole day, and I’m going through Spencer withdrawal. You’d better not have killed him, Brendon, or the froggy gets it.” Brendon thinks that Ryan is half-joking. Thinks, but isn’t sure. He also kind of resents Ryan talking about his ass that way - he’s the only one with an ass to speak of, and Ryan should treat it with respect.
“Hey! Get over yourself, Ross. My ass is round and beautiful and you know you’re just jealous,” Brendon says, making sassy hand motions that only Spencer can see, and he’s too sleepy to care. Or possibly wouldn’t care anyway.
“Whatever makes you feel better about yourself, Urie,” Ryan says with a snort, and Brendon opens and closes his mouth a few times, before settling on flopping back down on the bed and pouting.
“I’m not dead, Ryan,” Spencer says with a yawn, somewhat belatedly, and Brendon glares at him, saying, inaudibly, Oh, I’m so glad that you have such empathy for my plight, but he knows better than to say it aloud.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Ryan says, and really means that’s good, but you’re still going to have to come out here, because I’m clingy and everyone pretends they don’t notice, even though they really do, especially when it comes to Spencer, or that’s what Brendon takes it as, anyway. Not that he doesn’t understand the impulse, but still. Property damage is a little far.
“And no burning if we come out, right?” Brendon asks, just to make sure. Better safe than sorry.
“Yeah, Brendon, no burning.”
+
Ryan curls up around Spencer on the couch, and they watch movies for, like, eight hours. Jon gets bored halfway through Fight Club, and wanders off to make popcorn and, apparently, tomato soup, which he comes back with in a big mixing bowl. They don’t actually own that much in the way of plates and silverware and normal house things. Brendon sits on the floor in front of the couch and leans his head back against the cushions, stealing popcorn from Jon, and wondering if Ryan is going to strangle Spencer by accident. If he does, Brendon is totally not taking the blame, although he thinks he’ll be kind of upset. Because one, dead people are kind of hard to dispose of, and two, Spencer would find some way to resurrect himself and take revenge, probably by eating them.
It could totally happen.
+
Brendon wakes up with a crick in his neck and his hand in the half-empty bowl of tomato soup. He really, really has to stop falling asleep at inopportune times, especially when his bandmates are around with stray bowls of soup. He watches the liquid drip back into the bowl, and licks it off of his fingers. It’s cool and tastes like watered-down pasta sauce, but Brendon has definitely eaten worse things.
Everyone else has left him asleep on the floor, and Brendon’s not sure whether to thank them or not. He sits up and massages the back of his neck with his hand, looking at the dark TV, the empty living room, the abandoned kitchen. He wonders where they’ve gone - they can’t all be asleep, can they? Brendon is pretty sure that that hasn’t happened since the last time they were on tour, and even that was only, like, once.
Sighing, he stands and shuffles to his bedroom. His clock says that it’s four am, glowing red letters on the bedside table, and Brendon realizes that he actually has no idea what day of the week it is. Maybe Wednesday. It always seems to be Wednesday.
It’s not until he turns on his light that he realizes there’s kind of a tangerine on his pillow. Okay, well, there is a tangerine on his pillow, unless he’s imagining it, but he hopes he’s not. Partially because hallucinations are not only weird, but also potentially very frightening, and partially because it means that he gets a tangerine, which is always a plus. Also, it means that Spencer gave it to him, which is, well. Nice.
Not something he normally associates with Spencer. He wonders what Spencer did that he thinks he has to apologize for, because Brendon really has no idea.
Still, free tangerine. Sweet.
+
“Did you do something mean?” Brendon asks Spencer the next morning, pushing his door open. It was already open a crack, so Brendon figures that he has permission.
“What?” Spencer looks up from his laptop, sitting in the middle of his bed, and his expression says what are you going on about, Brendon?.
“Well, like, meaner than usual.” Brendon throws himself down onto Spencer’s bed and peers around to look at the screen of Spencer’s laptop. He sees what looks like a checklist or something else only ridiculously organized people even bother with, but before he can take a closer look, Spencer minimizes the application and shuts his laptop.
“You are so weird,” Spencer says, and Brendon scowls.
“Just answer the question, Spencer Smith,” Brendon says, using his suspicious voice. Spencer does not look properly intimidated.
“As far as I know, I haven’t done anything mean,” Spencer says, and cocks his head to the side, thinking. Brendon goes to say ah ha!, but then Spencer continues. “Well, not on purpose, anyway.”
“So what’s with the gifting of fruit?”
“I was being nice? It happens sometimes, you know.” Spencer rolls his eyes and pushes against Brendon’s shoulder.
“Hm,” Brendon says. It’s not that he doesn’t believe Spencer - well, okay, it is that he doesn’t believe Spencer, but that sounds kind of mean, and Brendon totally isn’t. But. Spencer isn’t nice, it’s just kind of not in his repertoire. “I’m totally going to get to the bottom of this, Spencer Smith.”
“You do that, Brendon,” Spencer says, grabbing his laptop and leaving the room. Brendon wonders what he did now, because if he isn’t totally mistaken, that was Spencer’s pissy face.
It sort of sucks to do the foot in mouth thing and not even know whose foot is in whose mouth. Or why.
+
Spencer doesn’t talk to him all day, and then closes the door when he goes back into his room.
“What did you do now?” Ryan asks, raising an eyebrow.
“I don’t even know,” Brendon complains, throwing himself down onto the couch and, inadvertently, Ryan’s lap. He should just be glad he didn’t impale himself by accident on a knee or an elbow or something. “Sometimes I think Spencer is just too subtle for me.”
“Sometimes too subtle for you?” Ryan asks, somehow managing to sound both incredulous and emotionless at the same time.
“Oh shut up, I hate you.” Brendon totally does. Or would, if he wasn’t busier being confused and agonized over Spencer’s closed door and his own lack of tangerines. This new equation kind of sucks - more like lack of tangerines, plus angry Spencer, plus unhelpful Ryan equals really sad, tortured Brendon. There are also some variables that Brendon hasn’t identified yet, and he’s always sucked at algebra.
“Hate who? Why?” Jon asks, wandering into the room.
“Ugh, nothing. Everything. I don’t know.” Brendon buries his face in his hands and pretty much hears Jon shrug.
“Um, okay then,” Jon says, and turns on the TV.
“You guys suck at moral support.”
+
“Speeeeeencer,” Brendon says about four and a half minutes later, trying for mournful and agonized but only getting as far as whiny and vaguely congested. Spencer’s door is still closed.
“What it is, Brendon?” Spencer doesn’t sound overtly angry, just vaguely annoyed, but then again, he rarely does. Spencer is more likely to not talk to you (Brendon) and then put parmesan cheese in your (Brendon’s) cereal, than to ever even bother raising his voice.
“You’re making me a sad, sad Brendon,” Brendon says. The pout is one of his best, and it is clearly wasted on Spencer’s closed door. Although Brendon is confident he could woo even Spencer’s door if he tried hard enough.
“Wow, speaking in the third person. You must be upset.” Spencer is being sarcastic. Brendon doesn’t appreciate it. Also, he is kind of upset, because Ryan told him to fix it, and he doesn’t even know what he did wrong, yet, but he’s not allowed in the kitchen until he apologizes.
Ryan fights with his elbows and fingernails. They leave really dark, splotchy bruises that hurt more than they probably should.
“What did I do to you, Spencer? I have been nothing but charitable and kind.” Brendon fakes a sniff, loud and, hopefully, pitiful.
“You are such a bad actor,” Spencer says. “I know you don’t cry when you’re really upset, because you don’t want anyone to know.”
“Um,” Brendon says, blinking. Spencer is totally smirking, Brendon can smell it.
“I win,” Spencer says.
+
Having failed at a direct approach, Brendon makes Spencer a card with printer paper and magic markers, using mostly red and pink, thick lined hearts and lines of bad poetry (oh, were thou but a precious flower, I would sniff thee, and make thee my princess) in his best cursive. He signs it also, I’m really, really sorry for whatever I did that made you mad and will you please forgive me so that I can go into the kitchen without Ryan stabbing me in the kidneys, thanks, I am really hungry,
♥ Brendon, poetical genius
+
A few hours later, Spencer slides a note under his door, written on a piece of ripped notebook paper in black pen, and it says,
Brendon,
Your poetry sucks - this is why Ryan writes the lyrics. Please learn correct grammar, and make sure to keep your ‘thee’s and ‘thou’s straight.
Sincerely,
Spencer Smith V
It smells like tangerines and forgiveness. Brendon allows himself a small fist pump, because no one is in his room to see it.
+
Spencer pretends that he hasn’t forgiven Brendon for another day, but even Ryan knows that he’s only pretending, and so Brendon is allowed access to all manner of food products. Really, though, he wants to be allowed back into Spencer’s room, which is going to take much more wheedling, as Spencer is still eating all his tangerines alone in his room with the door closed, and coming out smelling tauntingly like citrus.
Brendon clambers onto the couch with a dramatic sigh, and Jon, who is listening to music, pulls off one side of his headphones.
“The world is against me, Jon,” Brendon says, curling up to Jon’s hip and leaning his head on Jon’s shoulder. “Well, except for you. You’d never betray me, would you, Jon?” he asks, and glances up at Jon’s face, which is pretty much serene. Brendon thinks that he might finally be completely used to Brendon’s antics, which is kind of disappointing.
“Of course I wouldn’t, Brendon,” Jon says calmly, and pulls his headphones back over his ear. Brendon scowls at him and thinks about how unsatisfying Jon’s cuddles are in comparison with Spencer’s, which - is kind of a new thought, but Brendon is willing to go with it. Spencer smells like tangerines and his comforter is made of down and he makes snuffling noises when he sleeps, so it’s completely understandable.
Okay, so, Brendon is maybe starting to think he has a slight Spencer Smith problem.
+
Eventually, Brendon just gets impatient and infiltrates Spencer’s room without permission while Spencer is in the kitchen, probably fixing himself coffee. It’s about 9:00 am, and Brendon is pretty sure that he, himself, isn’t supposed to be awake before 11:00 and still be certifiably sane, which is probably part of why he goes into Spencer’s room in the first place and throws himself down on Spencer’s recently vacated bed. He wraps his fingers in the down comforter and curls up on his side, pulling his knees up to his chest. The sheets are still warm from Spencer’s body heat, which is - kind of voyeuristic, actually. Which, well, shouldn’t be as cool a feeling as it actually turns out to be. Brendon is maybe thinking that he’s a little creepy. Or a lot.
The thing is, Brendon’s almost positive that it’ll be worth the repercussions. Whatever wrath Spencer incurs on his person, Brendon is pretty sure that he can stand it. This foolhardy notion, he realizes, probably means that he has more of a Spencer Smith problem than he’d previously thought.
Instead of doing anything about it, though, he dozes off in a pile under Spencer’s sheets. So when Spencer comes back into his room and pushes against Brendon’s shoulder with the palm of his hand, the mattress shifting under his weight, all Brendon can do is made a snuffling, sleepy noise against the Spencer’s quilt, protesting, and open one of his eyes half-way.
“Brendon,” Spencer says, way too loudly, “why are you on my bed?” It’s his serious voice, which Brendon also happens to never pay much attention too, mostly because there’s no anger in it. When Spencer isn’t even pretending to be angry, he’s usually just not fully expressing whatever positive emotions he likes to pretend he doesn’t have.
“’Cause,” Brendon says, half-heartedly opening his eyes the rest of the way. “I like it.”
“And?” Brendon swears he hears a tinge of humor in Spencer’s voice, and perks up a little. Hopefully not visibly.
“And you weren’t here, so I decided to claim the territory as my own.” Spencer snorts.
“I’d like to see you keep it. If it comes to a land war, my friend, I fear you will be severely outclassed. I have played Risk so much more than you have.” Brendon turns his head a little so that he can see Spencer’s face more clearly, sitting cross-legged on the bed. The tiny smile on his face makes Brendon grin sleepily.
“You only ever win because you always take Australia first. Stupid youngest goes first rule.” Brendon yawns and lets his eyes slide closed again. “Anyway, I’m far too cute and sleepy to declare war on. Wait until later, when it’s not morning anymore.”
Spencer doesn’t say anything, he just curls up next to Brendon, his feet touching Brendon’s shins, and when Brendon opens his eyes, Spencer appears to be sleeping. Brendon considers it an argument well won.
+
The thing is, Brendon doesn’t actually fall asleep. He tries, but he keeps getting distracted by the snuffly noises Spencer is making, which is not only unfair, but totally a low blow. Sleepy Spencer noises are inclined to make Brendon think of a nice, vulnerable Spencer, who will listen to him when he talks and never, ever tell him his ideas are dumb. This is clearly a false characterization, and will only end in Brendon getting hurt, probably physically as well as emotionally, but Brendon can’t help it. Not when Spencer keeps breathing on his arm.
“You suck,” he says, but Spencer just snuffles. Brendon totally resents it.
+
Brendon sort of ends up sleeping Spencer’s room, after that. It’s not that he doesn’t like his own room; he just kind of likes Spencer’s room better. Spencer doesn’t actually seem to mind, which is a surprising, but not unpleasant, turn of events. Mostly he just looks at Brendon like he’s a little screwed in the head, and not all that smart, either, with a twitch in the corner of his mouth that means he’s trying not to laugh, and a hand on one hip. Brendon is used to this, however, so he just grins and brushes the remains of about two or three tangerines off of the comforter, gesturing broadly for Spencer to join him.
Sometimes, Brendon thinks Spencer is going to say something, but he’s really not sure what it could be or why he’d want to say whatever it is to Brendon, anyway. Ryan just snorts and rolls his eyes at any possible excuse and lets Brendon know that he knows something that Brendon doesn’t. Brendon finds this really annoying, but he still gets to press his face against Spencer’s shoulder blades and curl his fingers in Spencer’s shirt and fall asleep on his really comfortable quilt, so most of the time Brendon just thinks Ryan is jealous.
Because, really, who wouldn’t be?
+
“Ryan thinks you’re really dumb,” Jon says to Brendon over breakfast. Jon is making waffles, and it’s a brilliant day for this reason, and also that they have new groceries and actual food, and thus, the ability to make waffles.
The waffle machine is new and unused and kind of really shiny, and so Brendon isn’t really listening to whatever Jon is saying.
“What?” he asks, bouncing a little in his chair.
“Ryan thinks you’re really dumb,” Jon says again, patiently. Brendon thinks he’s pretty used to Brendon’s short attention span.
“Well, so does Spencer, how is this new?” Brendon asks, voice more curious than anything else.
“Dumber than usual,” Jon says, and shrugs. Brendon doesn’t really care about Ryan, though, because,
“Waffles, Jon! Waffles! Can we eat them now, please?”
+
They’re watching Moulin Rouge for maybe the seventy-second time, the four of them squished up together on the couch. Spencer’s got his feet in Brendon’s lap, and Ryan keeps looking over, which is keeping Brendon from paying any attention at all to the movie.
what? he mouths, his fingers brushing at the arch of Spencer’s foot. Spencer makes a sound, half-protest and half-laugh, more what do you think you’re doing? than anything else, but doesn’t turn his eyes from the screen, where he’s watching Ewan McGregor dance his little heart out. Brendon figures that Spencer’s not actually serious, so he doesn’t bother to move his hand.
Ryan glances at Spencer, back at Brendon, and rolls his eyes, shrugging expansively. whatever, he mouths, pushing his bangs back with the motion of careless fingers.
Brendon blinks, and Jon shushes Ryan, saying,
“God, this is my favorite part, you guys, shut up.”
Ryan gives Brendon a pointed look, and Brendon doesn’t know what it means, kind of at all, so he sticks his tongue out at Ryan and considers the matter closed.
+
The thing that Spencer says, before he attacks Brendon with his mouth, sounds suspiciously to Brendon like,
“Wow, Brendon, Ryan was right. You are really, really dumb.”
Which Brendon would totally wants to protest, but then, of course, Spencer attacks Brendon with his mouth, and Brendon isn’t really thinking about it anymore.
He’s thinking something more like, Fwahguh? !!!!!.
Spencer’s lips are warm and soft and just about as girly as they look, but Brendon totally doesn’t care. Spencer’s hands are in his hair, curling down around the back of his neck, and after Brendon blinks a few times, there’s nothing really else for him to do but kiss back. Spencer has small, sharp teeth, and he likes biting into Brendon’s lips, which kind of hurts, but Brendon can’t exactly find it in him to mind.
“I’m not dumb,” he says when Spencer pulls away, breathing rather heavily. Spencer still manages an impressive roll of his eyes.
“Yeah, whatever,” he says, fingers still curled up in Brendon’s hair. “I’ve been throwing myself at you for like, a week, or something -”
“You call that throwing? That wasn’t even a light toss! I told Ryan you were too subtle for me -”
“Or just too smart, whatever, both definitions work.” Brendon pouts. Spencer snorts.
“Hey, you just attacked me with your face; shouldn’t the pouting work now, or something?” Spencer actually laughs, and Brendon can feel the heat of it on his face, Spencer’s fingers against his skin.
“Fat chance,” Spencer says. “That would take a lobotomy.”
“You suck,” Brendon says, for, like, the fourteenth time that day. “Ugh.”
“Want a tangerine?” Spencer asks, grinning, and Brendon really, really wants to not forgive him for his insults and his lack of response to Brendon’s powers of persuasion, but. Brendon is weak in the face of tangerines.
Or, well, Spencer, really.
“Fine,” Brendon says, and Spencer’s grin shifts toward sly, like he knows it means yes, please. Probably mostly because it does.
“I win,” Spencer says.
+
Ryan looks at Brendon suspiciously when he and Spencer both enter the living room at the same time.
“It was his fault!” Brendon says, pointing at Spencer, who does the customary Spencer thing and makes a silent sarcastic remark.
“What was whose fault?” Jon asks, his look of confusion almost a match to Ryan’s look of distain.
“Also, I don’t believe you,” Ryan says, arm curled protectively around his bowl of (gross) cereal.
“See, and that’s why Ryan is my best friend, and not yours, Brendon,” Spencer says.
“I don’t see what makes him so special anyway,” Brendon says with a pout.
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Jon asks, crossing his arms over his chest. His glare leaves something to be desired, and makes Brendon kind of really want to ruffle his hair.
“I think Spencer and Brendon are flirting,” Ryan says, and takes a bite of his cereal, dripping milk onto the coffee table.
“Oh,” Jon says, squinting at them.
“Also, go get a room,” Ryan adds. His mouth is still half-full, and Brendon wonders why Ryan gets away with that and Brendon himself never does.
“We have a room. Or two. Or something,” Brendon says.
“Well, go there then. Your almost-about-to-hold-hands thing is going to make me puke.”
“Aw, Ryan, I didn’t know you cared.” Spencer grins, and Brendon can feel Spencer’s fingers of the back of his wrist, just lightly touching. He smiles kind of without meaning to, and Ryan gives him a dirty look.
“Don’t make me eviscerate Brendon, Spencer.” Ryan’s voice is just about as monotone as it ever is when he’s talking about possibly murdering his lead singer.
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand half of what you guys say. Also, I don’t think I want to,” Jon says, his face betraying the seriousness in his voice. Brendon opens his mouth to respond, but then Spencer pulls him back out of the living room, and he forgets to.
+
Spencer kisses Brendon in the hallway, pushing him back against the wall, and Brendon makes a sort of ungainly surprised sound. Spencer laughs, but it’s muffled by Brendon’s lips, and so Brendon doesn’t hold it against him. His shoulder blades are pressed against white plaster, and Spencer’s hands are still on his shoulders.
“I can still see you guys, you know,” Ryan calls out from the living room.
“I totally don’t give a fuck, Ross, so if you have a problem with it, you can go fuck yourself,” Spencer says, cheerfully, and kisses Brendon again.
“And the point goes to Team Smith!” Jon announces in his commentator voice.
“Can I -” Brendon starts, pulling away from Spencer, but Ryan interrupts him.
“No, Brendon, you cannot be on Spencer’s team. It’s every man for himself in this household.”
“But -” Brendon tries again.
“Except for me! I’m the referee,” Jon adds, and Brendon can hear Ryan sigh, but he’s watching the smirk on Spencer’s face as he presses his fingers harder against Brendon’s shoulders and leans close.
“It’s okay, Brendon,” Spencer whispers, “I’ll let you join my team in secret. An espionage thing. You can be my spy, and sell me Ryan’s weaknesses.”
“You can pay me in tangerines,” Brendon says, his whisper slightly louder and far less subtle than Spencer’s.
“Deal,” Spencer agrees, and presses warm lips to Brendon’s, hands fisted in the fabric of his shirt.