Find your way back home (1/2)
Title: Find your way back home
Pairings: Permutations of Jon, Spencer, Bill, and Tom
Rating: R
Disclaimer: This is a complete work of fiction, no disrespect intented.
Summary: "I mean, vampires are kind of morbid, right? They sleep in coffins and everything. I wouldn’t want to sleep in a coffin."
Notes: The Jon-is-a-vampire AU. Thanks to tabbyola and maleyka for the endless support, and to adellyna for fixing what needed to be fixed. Title by Dishwalla.
Jon comes back to the bus at high noon, when the sun is making his skin itch - not burn, he’s not that old, it’s just like the first pink buzz of sunburn on sensitive skin - and ducks into coolness and shadow.
He’s not necessarily looking for Tom, but he finds him anyway, curled up on the ratty couch with Bill, murmuring low. Jon stops and takes a step back automatically, respecting their privacy, but both of them look up at the same time and smile.
“All set up?” Tom asks, displacing Bill slightly to make room for Jon on the couch. He perches on the arm and accepts the offered beer from Tom, half-finished but still cold.
“You’re good to go,” Jon answers, grateful for the beer wetting his dry throat. He’s not made to spend all day in the sun tuning instruments, and hasn’t been since he was born. It’s not as bad as falling asleep at sundown and having to hide indoors all the time, though. Thank goodness for that.
Bill squirms around in Tom’s embrace, tilting his chin up and grinning. “Did you tune my tambourine?”
Jon grins back and sets the now-empty bottle down on the carpet with the others. “I tried, but ten minutes into every show you pick it up and shake the fucking thing, so I don’t know why I bother.”
Bill’s laugh makes Tom smile, that same faint, shy, almost-disbelieving smile he’s had for months now. Jon remembers seeing it for the first time back in early spring, being startled for a moment and then wanting nothing more than to capture it and show them both.
“Hey,” Bill says, and pokes Tom, little jabs of his finger into Tom’s soft belly. “We got you something.” Tom tries to reach for something beside the couch and protect himself simultaneously, finally digging his own fingertips under Bill’s ribcage until he squeals.
They’re always getting him things. It’s endearing, that they accept him so completely for what and who he is, although he now has more books, pictures, and various memorabilia than he knows what to do with. Tom has known for nearly as long as Jon has known him, and he’s the best friend Jon could have ever asked for. Bill and the others found out shortly into tour, after too many drinks and Jon making the mistake of baring his teeth. He’s lucky they’re a hard group to rattle, and fiercely protective of their own.
Tom holds out a tiny metal coffin, which he cracks open and offers with a half-smile. “Death mint?”
“You’re kidding me.” He’s not, though; the little coffin-shaped box is full of white mints, and the cover is adorned with a sleeping vampire. It doesn’t look anything like him, but that’s not the point. They all, Bill especially, still love finding things to give him that make them think of him. It’s become quite the collection. “Are they trying to say my breath tastes like dead things?”
“I think they’re saying vampires have the sweetest breath of them all,” Bill returns, fluttering his eyelashes. Tom’s hand curves over his hip, relaxed but just slightly possessive, like he can’t help but hold on.
“Hey,” Tom says suddenly, looking up and over at Jon. “It’s Tuesday.”
Jon shakes his head, declining the offer. He’s not all that hungry yet, and while he shouldn’t let it go for too long, he doesn’t want to disturb the two of them when they’re like this. Bill is almost always the one he drinks from, and he’s mellow and happy right now, spooned up against Tom’s chest. There will be plenty of time later.
It’s not really sexual at all for him, and never has been, but it’s still…intimate. Jon’s not sure if it makes it better or worse for Tom, being there when he drinks from Bill. They’ve never talked about it. Still, it’s made him feel just the slightest bit awkward lately, especially when Bill tilts his head back and Jon can smell Tom’s cologne in the hollow of his throat.
“I’m actually going to head back out,” Jon says, snapping the coffin closed and sticking it into his pocket. He knows at least one person it will entertain. “See if Panic needs any help.”
Tom tips his head back against the back of the couch, looking amused. “I think that Brendon kid has a crush on you.”
Bill laughs, and Jon flips him - them - off fondly, stretching and snagging the beer bottles to recycle on his way out. “Fuck off.”
* * *
Jon doesn’t think Brendon actually has a crush, but he does follow Jon around everywhere while he sets up, usually with some form of candy in his mouth, asking questions and offering to help. Jon knows Panic as well as any of them, having hung out with them after shows and sometimes on the road, but not really well enough that he’d call them friends. Brendon might be the exception.
He thinks it’s partly because of what’s going on with their band, which is kept as quiet as possible, but there’s no way to miss when only three of them make it to soundcheck, Ryan with that closed-off look, Brendon turning nervous and skittish, talking too fast and too loud or not at all, and Spencer’s mouth so tight Jon thinks his jaw might break. He’s played bass for their checks so often now that he can almost play an entire song from memory.
He doesn’t know if Brent is around today yet or not, and if so, if Ryan is keeping him on a short leash until show time, but he knows there’s still tension by the way Brendon clings to him like a shadow the whole time he’s checking instruments and levels, their conversation almost entirely an unbroken monologue with the occasional nod and smile from Jon.
He picks out one of Panic’s songs on Siska’s bass to try to get Brendon to relax, and it works, Brendon humming along and ripping apart Twizzlers one sticky strand at a time while Jon plays. He talks through the chords when Jon fumbles at the bridge, singing them out one at a time.
Jon blinks a little, because he knows Brendon plays guitar and occasionally, when the threat of death has not yet been issued, Spencer’s drums, but he hadn’t realized Brendon knew the bass parts as well. He wonders if it’s their back-up plan, should Brent really get them into a crunch, for Brendon to switch from guitar to bass. He wonders if they have a back-up plan.
“Hey,” Jon says when Brendon wanders off, fingertip tapping lightly enough against a cymbal that it barely shivers. He unhooks the strap from over his shoulder and pulls out the black tin from the pocket of his cargo pants, shaking them before flipping open the lid. “Want a mint?”
He’d forgotten about the Twizzlers, but Brendon seems to have no problem eating both at once, crunching thoughtfully on a mint while still untwining licorice. “Do those come in a coffin? Dude, that’s so cool. They should be little vampire mints, though, or maybe teeth. Tooth-shaped mints, with little red tips.”
Jon smiles, and lets Brendon pick through the mints until he finds the one that meets his unknown criteria. “That’s kind of morbid,” he points out, and Brendon crunches down again thoughtfully, one long strand of licorice still held between his teeth.
“Not really. Not when…I mean, vampires are kind of morbid, right? They sleep in coffins and everything. I wouldn’t want to sleep in a coffin.” Brendon shudders theatrically, sucking Twizzler-strands into his mouth, and bounces a little on his toes in their tiny white sneakers.
Jon slings an arm over his shoulder and squeezes affectionately. “Neither would I.”
He sees Ryan and Spencer then, coming across the stage towards them, and lets Brendon go immediately. It’s not that he thinks he’s doing anything wrong, but the Panic boys can be weirdly, fiercely protective of each other sometimes, and Jon hasn’t figured out yet what exactly the rules are.
They both look unhappy, but when Ryan finally speaks, he knows it’s not about him. “Hey,” he says, shoulders hunched over and defensive, on guard against the world. “Can we talk later?”
Jon looks from Ryan to Spencer, to Brendon who is suddenly not meeting his eyes. Ryan holds his gaze, though, serious and intense, and there’s a less charged version of that same look on Spencer’s face as well, also directed at him.
“Sure,” he says agreeably, tucking his thumbs into his pockets. “After the show tonight?”
Ryan nods, and beside him Brendon shifts his weight a little, side-to-side on the balls of his feet. Spencer still isn’t giving him anything, an emotional blank wall. “That would be good,” Ryan says. “Thanks. We’ll see you then.”
They both turn to go, Brendon casting one almost guilty look at Jon before following after them, and Jon stands there with a coffin of mints in his hand, wondering what the hell just happened.
* * *
Bill flips the cover of his lyrics book closed out of habit when Jon walks in, protecting the thoughts he isn’t ready to share yet, but when he sees who it is he relaxes a little. Then he takes in the look that must be on Jon’s face right now and frowns. “What is it? Jon.”
Jon leans back against the counter, too restless to sit down, energy humming beneath his skin. He’d wanted to tell Tom first, sort of, but Bill is here and he’s going to find out anyway, sooner or later, and Jon just really needs to tell someone. Besides, if anyone will understand, it’s Bill.
“Ryan and Spencer just asked me to tour with them. To actually go. On tour. Play bass for the band.” It still doesn’t feel real, even when it comes out in the open.
There are a lot of emotions flickering in Bill’s eyes, and Jon realizes fuck, he’d forgotten the part where touring with Panic also meant leaving the Academy, and how Bill might be upset. He says he’s just a guitar tech, the same way Ryan had said it earlier, ‘you’re just a tech here, right?’ but he knows it’s more than that to the guys. He’s one of the family, he sleeps on their bus and gets an equal vote on pizza toppings and films their adventures, side-by-side.
Whatever Bill really feels, he’s only showing the supportive friend side now, smiling and about to offer some form of congratulations when Jon sees his face change, and knows he gets it. “Oh. Oh.”
“Yeah,” Jon says, because that pretty much sums it up. He rubs the back of his neck and wonders how he can walk away from this, and if he even wants to. He doesn’t. But he has friends here and a career, of sorts, he has a best friend and he has Bill, who is a lot more than a food source, but that’s the most important thing right now.
Bill is still staring at him, but with that unfocused look that Jon knows means he’s zoned out and thinking, retreated from the world into his own head. “Okay,” he says finally, still distant but closer now, coming back. “Get me a list of tour dates and locations, we’ll work something out.”
Jon isn’t sure what he’s thinking, because the Academy hasn’t stopped touring since Bill graduated from high school, and they won’t stop just so Bill can fly out to see Jon. “Bill,” he starts, but Bill shakes his head, opens up the book again and flips to the back for a blank page.
“I know people. I have friends who know people, we’ll get you hooked up. You can’t walk away from this, Jon, you’ll never forgive yourself.” Bill is hard at work now, scribbling down names and cities and phone numbers, making a list. Jon would love to see the header he’s going to put on it. ‘Possible Meals on Wheels’ seems grim but appropriate.
Jon doesn’t expect the impulse but he follows it, putting his arms around Bill from behind and squeezing. “Thanks,” he says into the curling fall of Bill’s hair, the familiar smell of his shampoo. “I mean it.”
Bill waves him off, but there’s a soft smile curving his lips, teeth glinting even before he starts nibbling on the edge of his pen. “Go away, I’m working here.”
Jon laughs. “I’ll go tell them,” he says, and leaves to find Tom.
* * *
The tour itself isn’t all that bad. Bill had given him a list of names, numbers, addresses, cities, more than enough to keep him going, and then contacted them all as well on his own, just so Jon didn’t end up giving someone a nasty shock. Jon isn’t sure how those conversations went, exactly. Hey, I have this friend, he’s kind of a vampire…I know, cool, right? So listen…
Most of the time he doesn’t even need to call. They’re moving a lot, but every two or three days, just when he starts to get hungry and distracted by Brendon’s throbbing pulse every time he climbs up to snuggle on Jon’s lap, someone smiles at him backstage and says, “Hey, you’re a friend of Bill’s, right?” It’s like the magic code words, and every time he ends up with someone pressed against him and holding gingerly to his waist while he feeds and tries not to get too rough.
He always apologizes afterwards, and some of them are wide-eyed and shocked, like they hadn’t believed even when he’d warned them that it would hurt a little, but most of the time he just gets shaky laughs and ‘it’s cool, really,’ which is more than he’d expected. Bill really does have some chilled-out friends.
He hears about Bill and Tom as soon as it happens, Tom’s sentences short and tight, with frequent cigarette-drag pauses between the words. He doesn’t hear from Bill, and he doesn’t know if it’s because he’s Tom’s best friend and Bill thinks he’s chosen a side, or because Bill is grieving too, in his own way, and doesn’t want to talk about it.
He doesn’t call Bill because he is Tom’s best friend, and it feels like being disloyal or something, and maybe he has chosen a side. Not that he thinks Tom was all in the right or Bill all in the wrong, and admittedly he’s only heard one side of the story, but what Tom’s told him sounds a lot like Bill, so Jon doesn’t really doubt him.
Jon doesn’t think about what it means until they’re on a new leg of the tour and he hasn’t seen anyone calling themselves Bill’s friend in nearly five days, by which point he’s starting to shake a little. Tom’s with them by that point, though, and he sees when Jon flinches away from the hug Brendon gives him that tugs Jon’s face down against his neck.
“Do you still need…?” Tom asks, gesturing a little vaguely with his cigarette. He inhales hard, and Jon knows it for what it is; steeling himself.
“Yeah,” Jon says quietly, and he wouldn’t ask, but he needs, and if Tom is offering then he’s not going to turn away. It’s better than taking his chances in the city, a nearly impossible task anyway with three bandmates and Zack on his heels.
Tom clenches his fists in Jon’s hoodie so tightly that he stretches the fabric, but it’s blood and Jon’s getting desperate, so he takes it and apologizes later. Tom shrugs it off, but goes straight for another cigarette, hands shaking. Jon has to cup his hand around the lighter to hold it steady.
Tom’s never been comfortable with it; that’s why Jon had Bill. He drinks as infrequently as possible, and longer than he normally would because of it, but he’s trying to make it easier on both of them.
Bill texts him out of the blue one day, about a month later, saying only, are you ok?
Jon texts back yes and they don’t talk again for the rest of the tour.
* * *
“Tell me about Chicago,” Spencer says one day, while they’re lying somewhere in the Midwest in a field of daisies. Jon thinks it would probably look amazing on camera, but he doesn’t want to move to try to capture it.
Jon turns his head so he and Spencer are almost nose-to-nose, with matching crinkles around their eyes from smiling at each other. “You’ve already been there,” he points out. Panic has been in Chicago more than once, in fact, although he’s not sure how many times or for how long. He’s been in a lot of cities that he knows nothing about, just from being on tour with them.
“Not just visiting,” Spencer says, following the same train of thought. “Living there. What’s it like?”
Jon considers that, wonders how to summarize pizza and sports and wind and culture, in words for someone who’s been there but hasn’t had the full experience. “Hot in summer, cold in winter,” he says finally, smiling wider when Spencer’s nose wrinkles up a little. He shrugs, lazy and contented in the afternoon heat. “Beautiful all the time.”
Spencer’s cheeks are just the slightest bit pink from the sun, his eyes soaking up Jon’s words. “I’d like to go, with you,” he says softly. “I want to see it like that.”
“I’ll take you,” Jon promises, his fingers tracing over Spencer’s arm to brush away a blade of grass stuck to his skin. He’s already making a list of places they could go, things he wants Spencer to see, wants to be the one to show him. Spencer’s whole face lights up when he sees new things, it’s amazing. Jon loves being the reason he looks like that.
Spencer sits up, and Jon is contemplating whether or not to do the same when he hears Tom’s voice, familiar and light. “Say deep-fried pickles.”
Jon rolls up from the ground, pulls Spencer in towards him and grins for the camera, over-ecstatic and wide-eyed. He can feel Spencer’s laughter under his hand, the full curve of his cheek that tells Jon he’s doing the same.
“Hey,” Spencer says when Tom lowers the camera, tumbles down beside them. “They let you wander off alone?”
“I’m within sight of the bus, it’s okay,” Tom replies somberly, as if he hasn’t had complete autonomy every day of the tour while the rest of them have been chafing to get away. Jon had envied him the day trips and freedom, for a while, until he’d realized that what came along with the restrictions on his time and mobility was more than worth being on a leash for a few months. The other three don’t just make it bearable; they make it something he loves doing.
As if summoned by the thought of them - although Jon knows it’s probably not a coincidence that Tom showed up when he did - Brendon and Ryan wave at them from across the field, shouting something almost too distant to make out.
“Did he just say water balloons?” Jon asks. Tom grins, which Jon is pretty sure can be taken as an affirmative.
“Oh Christ,” Spencer says, and the tone is patented longsuffering, but the sparkle in his eyes tells another story, and he’s not fooling either of them. He climbs to his feet, dusts off his pants with the air of someone preparing to do battle.
“Here wait, you’ve got a little something,” Tom says, and smacks Spencer on the ass. Jon laughs, and Spencer twists around to look at them, his smile unfettered and gorgeous.
He wiggles his ass at them and says, “Thanks,” before heading off towards the bus, and Jon sinks back onto his elbows, watching Spencer walk away.
After a few minutes he looks over at Tom, who seems to be doing the same thing, although with a more thoughtful look on his face. Jon would offer him a penny, but instead he takes the more familiar opening and says, “Pose and smile isn’t usually your style of photography.”
Tom glances sideways at him, just enough that the metal of his ring catches in the light, a bright flash surrounded by the gold halo of his hair. He shrugs a little, leaning back to join Jon in their nest of crushed daisies. “No,” he admits. “I got the shot I wanted about thirty seconds earlier. I just didn’t want to interrupt you guys without warning.”
It’s an odd impulse, but Jon’s still grateful. “He’s a nice kid,” he comments, tilting his face back into the sun. He’s going to burn soon, and badly; vampiric skin doesn’t take kindly to overexposure. Right now, though, all he can feel is warmth and light, and it’s amazing.
Tom snorts, softly, and Jon glances over. He’s plucking blades of grass between his toes, catching the stems of daisies and twisting them free of the ground. “Just a nice kid?” he asks, and if it were anyone but Tom, Jon would be tensing right now, defensive and wary. It is Tom, though, so he takes a moment to consider it, letting the silence seep comfortably around them.
“No,” he says finally. “He’s a good friend.”
Tom’s eyes are hard to read, which they aren’t very often, at least not when Jon is the one looking. Jon thinks he’s going to say something else, but Tom just looks away again, back towards the bus, and another tuft of grass lifts free.
“You realize,” Jon says after another minute, both of them studying the bus on the horizon, “when the inevitable attack comes, he’s going to be the first one to throw.”
Tom smiles, a crooked twist of his lips that Jon’s seen him use before. “We should arm ourselves, then,” Tom declares, and gives Jon a hand up from the grass. The moment is gone before Jon even thinks to remember it.
* * *
Without Tom, it’s harder. Jon finds ways, one-night stands with kinky girls who say they don’t mind and are too drunk to remember, but their blood makes him sick and he feels wretched about it afterwards.
He touches down in Chicago and goes straight to Bill’s doorstep almost without thinking about it. He doesn’t even know where the Academy is right now, but it’s a holiday, so he prays they’re not still touring. It’s freezing outside and his feet are chafing inside his shoes, but he huddles into the scarf for warmth and rings the buzzer.
“Who is it?” comes back through the speaker; Bill’s voice, flat and faintly bored, and Jon is so relieved he has to say his name twice because he stumbles over it the first time. There’s a pause, and then the door buzzer goes off to let him inside. Jon grips the handle in cold fingers and treks up the stairs to Bill’s apartment.
Bill already has the door open by the time he reaches it, leaning confused against the frame. “Hey,” he says, and Jon realizes he probably should have called first, or something, but it had been hard to think.
“I, um,” he manages, and Bill just reaches out to enfold him in an awkward, all-elbows, lanky Bill-hug. It’s both good and bad, because Jon really needs the hug, but at the same time Bill still smells of the same shampoo and it’s a scent that Jon’s brain immediately associates with feeding, which he hasn’t done in far too long.
He squeezes his eyes closed and hugs back, and then Bill pulls him inside and closes the door and finally looks at him, and Jon feels instantly guilty for showing up here unannounced after months of not speaking, with such transparent ulterior motives.
“Fuck. Jon, fuck.” Bill’s hand is back on his arm, pulling him in. “How long?”
“Seventeen days,” Jon croaks, because it’s not like he hasn’t been counting. Bill is already pushing his hair out of the way, like it hasn’t been forever since they’ve done this, pulling Jon along and backing into the wall.
Jon feels like he should say something first, at least the normal pleasantries that politeness dictates, but Bill’s hand is on the back of his neck and his pulse is beating strong and steady and Jon is so hungry.
Bill exhales when Jon’s fangs sink in, a little breath of surprise like maybe he’s forgotten this part, but he doesn’t let go of Jon’s head and relaxes again in seconds, blood flowing easily onto Jon’s tongue.
He takes more than he should, more than he ever has before, but Bill doesn’t make a move to stop him, and Jon doesn’t even really think about it until he licks the puncture wounds closed and Bill stumbles a little when he tries to move, immediately laughing at himself for it.
“Shit,” Jon says, but Bill just waves him off, the same as always, and makes his way carefully to sit on the couch.
“It’s fine, it’s just like donating to the Red Cross. Orange juice and donuts, right? Blood sugar.” Jon finds orange juice in the fridge and pours a glass full, rifling through the cabinets and coming up empty on sugar before handing it over and hovering worriedly.
Bill drinks half of it and looks up at him, lips and eyes touched with a slightly sardonic edge. “Sit down, I’m not going to keel over. Do you have somewhere to crash tonight?”
Jon shrugs. “I was going to go home,” he says honestly, although he hadn’t thought about it until just now. “I haven’t been there in a while.”
“Stay,” Bill says, and it sounds decisive, more than an invitation. He stretches out on the couch and closes his eyes, cradling the juice glass in one hand. He smiles when he says, “I’ll make you breakfast in the morning.”
Jon snorts, but he ends up staying anyway.
* * *
“Seriously, you still haven’t told them?” Bill asks over breakfast the next morning. Breakfast for him, anyway, which is hash browns out of the box and an egg that had turned out halfway between fried and scrambled. Breakfast for Jon had taken place earlier, when Bill had woken him up fresh out of the shower, climbing on top of Jon and leaning down with the ends of his hair still dripping onto the blankets.
Jon doesn’t really want to talk about it, but Bill is ingenious in the most manipulative ways, completely devoid of cunning at the moments he would otherwise have been easy to resist.
“It hasn’t exactly come up,” he says, which is obviously ridiculous, because what are they going to do, ask him just out of curiosity if he’s one of the undead?
Bill is pushing bits of egg around on his plate, suddenly not meeting Jon’s eyes. “I’m sorry about dropping the ball on you,” he says, so quietly Jon has to strain to hear it. “I didn’t mean to, I just…I knew Tom was with you, so I figured…”
“Hey, it’s okay,” Jon says immediately, reaching out to touch the back of Bill’s hand. He isn’t holding a grudge; it’s not like he’d called Bill, either. He feels like a dick now for not asking earlier, though. “How are you?”
Bill shrugs, and mashes egg between the tines of his fork. “It’s cool. It’s over.” Which Jon had known, obviously, since Tom is no longer a member of the band, but hearing Bill say it that way makes it sound like the band is the least important part of the break-up. That in itself tells him a lot, because for as long as Jon has known him, there’s been nothing in Bill’s life more important to him than the Academy.
“Do you want…?” he starts, without actually thinking about what he’s offering, but Bill glances up to meet his eyes, startled, before smiling wryly and shaking his head.
“I’m not that much of a dick,” he says, and pushes his plate away, breakfast still only half-eaten. Bill eats like a bird, picky and distracted. “I’m not going to use my ex’s best friend for comfort sex.” He smirks a little, the humour back in his eyes. “Even if he is hot.”
“So hot,” Jon agrees, nodding. Bill laughs, and stands up to get another cup of coffee.
“God, it fucking sucked after you left,” Bill says suddenly, and Jon is surprised because he’s heard about Bill losing his lyrics book right before going into the studio, and the mad scramble to find a guitarist, and of course the thing with Tom, but he hadn’t associated all of that with his own departure. “Are you sure we can’t win you back?”
“Brendon makes really good oatmeal chocolate chip cookies,” Jon answers, and Bill laughs again, dumping his dishes into the sink.
“Seriously, you need to tell them,” Bill says, sitting back down at the table with the mug cradled comfortably in his hands. Jon bristles a little, his immediate reaction somewhere between defensive and hacked off. He’s ready to tell Bill that it’s none of his business how Jon lives his life, and he’s not the one who’s going to have to deal with the fallout, if there is any, but Bill just looks at him and Jon knows he’s right.
“They’re all in Vegas now,” Jon says, wincing a little at the obvious evasion, but Bill just rolls his eyes.
“They’re going to want you to come visit. Or they’re going to come here. Rumor has it you guys are attached at the hips.” Bill waggles his eyebrows and Jon is startled into laughter, which earns him a wide grin from Bill in return.
“I’ll tell them,” Jon promises. He has a week to work up the courage and practice saying it. Hopefully that will be enough.
Bill chips his thumbnail over his mug, picking at a bubble in the glaze. “Do you want someone with you when you do?” He’s not looking up as he says it, but when he does, Jon can see the honesty in his eyes.
Jon allows himself a minute to think it over seriously, imagine Bill’s steady presence in the background while he comes out of the vampiric closet to three guys he’s grown to love like brothers.
“No,” he says finally. He owes them that much, an honest explanation not hiding behind anyone else. Even Bill. He smiles, to show he’s still grateful for the offer. “Thanks, though.”
“What are friends for?” Bill asks rhetorically, and passes Jon his cup of coffee.
* * *
Jon tells them. He gets blank looks at first, which is hardly surprising, and then Brendon’s tentative, “Really?”
“Really,” Jon says solemnly. He shows them his teeth. He hadn’t actually known until then that Brendon’s eyes could get that wide.
Spencer asks a lot of polite questions about how it affects his life and how often he needs to feed and if there are any special considerations they need to take into account while on tour, all of which Jon answers as honestly as possible. Ryan seems a little withdrawn, but Jon thinks it’s more about the fact that he’s been keeping a secret from them than it is the vampire thing. Which is odd, when you think about it, but it’s Ryan.
Brendon is fascinated, which Jon sort of expected, and he lets Brendon look and very tentatively touch and then fold himself up into the chair across from the couch and keep staring while Jon talks with Spencer.
“So…how does it work?” Spencer asks finally. “The feeding thing?”
Jon clears his throat and forces himself to hold eye contact. “I usually…well, before, there was someone on tour. And when there wasn’t I still knew people…along the way.”
Spencer nods a little. He says, “Tom?”
Jon nods, and then adds, “And Bill.”
Ryan’s head goes up. “Bill knows?” he echoes, sharp around the edges. Jon just nods again.
“Are you going to need someone…” Spencer says carefully, sharing a glance with Ryan, “…on this next tour?”
Jon hesitates, but he’s promised himself he’ll be honest with them, so he nods again. Then he says hastily, “It doesn’t have to be someone on the tour, I mean, I worked it out before where I would meet people in the cities and stuff. No one has to…” He lets that hang, because they all know what he means.
Spencer rolls up his sleeves, looking eminently practical and a lot older than nineteen. “It’s not a big deal,” he says. “Right? It’s not like you’re killing us or anything.”
Jon blanches; so, he notices, does Brendon. “No,” he says hastily. “God no. You can talk to Bill if you want, he’s been with me the longest, but there’s not really much to it. It’s like, um, donating blood, I guess. It doesn’t take very long.”
Brendon is looking a great deal more nervous than he had at first, but Ryan is eyeing him speculatively now, and Spencer still seems to be taking things in stride. “We can take turns, right?” he asks, looking around at the others. “I mean, anyone who wants to. When you don’t have someone else.”
Ryan chews on his thumbnail contemplatively, then nods. Brendon bobs his head in agreement. Jon feels a rush of relief so strong that it’s like the floor has dropped out from underneath him. “Thanks,” he says sincerely, clenching his hands tight in his lap. “Seriously.”
Spencer just shrugs, another glance at Ryan saying he’s speaking for both of them. “No problem.”
* * *
They all try, but Jon ends up mostly with Spencer, which neither of them minds. Ryan is willing, but he has the same defensiveness that Tom has about it, tension in his shoulders when Jon touches him, like he can’t stand being that vulnerable and can’t quite bring himself to trust. Jon drinks from him a couple of times when Spencer is sick or worn out, but apart from that and after the first few times, he leaves Ryan alone.
Brendon is a surprise, and one Jon still doesn’t know how to deal with. He’d been gung-ho about it in the beginning, hopping into Jon’s lap and saying, “My turn!” when Jon had hesitantly asked, days of nothing but awed repetitions of, “You’re a vampire, that’s so cool.”
When Jon had leaned in, though, he’d panicked and jerked back, laughing nervously and apologizing before saying it was cool and they could try again, but his entire body had been rigid and tense in Jon’s arms, sweat rising on his skin. Jon could practically smell the fear, and he’s never forced this on anyone, he won’t. Especially not a friend.
Brendon had babbled about it being okay for nearly two minutes while Jon soothed him and told him it was okay, they didn’t have to, and finally Spencer had cut in and told him to move, he’d do it. Brendon had gone limp with relief and Jon tried not to be upset, especially when he saw how guilty Brendon had looked and acted for the next few days, but it had still stung.
It still does, when he least expects it. He’s wrestles with Brendon on the floor of the cabin one day, and when he’s nearly pinned he bites the back of Brendon’s neck; just playing around, no fangs, and Brendon goes utterly, completely still. It takes Jon a few seconds to recognize the quivering for terror, and he apologizes, voice feeling like sawdust in his mouth, and goes off to his room.
He calls Tom but gets his voicemail, and then calls Bill without thinking about it, just needing to talk. After the initial exchange about touring and songwriting and being desperate for actual deep-dish, Jon ends up blurting it all out, the way Ryan still gets weird when it’s obvious that Jon needs to feed soon and Brendon’s irrational - or maybe not so irrational, honestly, and maybe that’s why it hurts - fear of him, and how Spencer is amazing but sometimes he just…
He doesn’t know how to finish that. He leaves it hanging, and Bill says, “When are they letting you leave?”
Jon rolls over, cradling the phone against his ear, squashed against the pillow. “I don’t know. We have a show later, we might take some time off then. Not a lot.”
“Come home,” Bill says, and it’s weird that both of them still think of the same place as home, even after years on the road. “Call me when you do.”
“Okay,” Jon says. He barely even has to think about it. “You might still be on tour.”
“We’ll work it out,” Bill says easily, shrugging it off. “Just call me. We’ll get pizza, you can bite me.”
It’s so ridiculous that Jon laughs, and promises again to visit. Bill bitches about sleeping on a bus and the fact that Siska is still from another planet, and Jon counters with stories about Ryan and Brendon arguing their way through every single rehearsal and the fact that none of them ever remembers to change the toilet paper roll. He’s just finished telling Bill about the new band Tom is in, and realizes after rambling for too long with no response from the other end that he’s maybe been a jerk to bring that up.
“Sorry,” he says awkwardly.
“You killed the mood, you bastard,” Bill tells him, but he doesn’t sound too upset, or if he is Jon can’t tell. “I need to go get myself a drink now, to drown the sorrow.”
“Shut up,” Jon laughs, anxiety disappearing as soon as it had come, and they hang up with mutual promises to call, which neither of them ever remembers to do, and a tentative date to meet up in Chicago.
Jon feels better than he has in weeks. He comes back out and finds Brendon curled tightly into a corner of the couch, looking up at him with big, guilty eyes. Jon ruffles his hair and plops down on the couch beside him, looking for the remote. “Want to watch a movie?” he asks, and Brendon practically leaps to take him up on it, cuddling close as if defying his own fears.
Spencer gives him a weird look when he joins them, but Jon just stretches out to watch Firefly and lets himself spend an idle moment counting the days between here and Chicago.
* * *
“It’s Jon,” Jon says when the speaker crackles, and there’s a distant echo of his name followed by a chorus of ‘hey’ in the background, which must mean he’s late for the party.
Mike meets him at the door with a beer in his hand, pulling Jon in for a hug. “Glad you could make it,” he says, and Jon grins, looking around the room - just Academy, he knows all of them but the new guitarist.
“JWalk!” Siska calls, claiming his own hug, grinning widely. “I saw pictures of you on the internet wearing rosettes, dude. Like, huge freaking pastel flowers.”
“Fuck off,” Jon laughs, and looks around the room. “Hey, where’s…?”
“Bill’s in the kitchen with Butcher, they’re making Cornish hens in your honour. Oh, and one made out of tofu, but I don’t know if it’s tofurkey if it’s supposed to be a Cornish hen. Tofornish hen?” Siska doesn’t look all that concerned with the answer. Jon is more concerned about whether smoke is about to start pouring from the open door to the kitchen.
“Oh Christ,” Jon says, covering his face with one hand. “I can’t believe you guys let them do this shit. Who’s supposed to be the responsible one now?”
“You’re the one who left us for a band younger and prettier,” Mike accuses, but his eyes are happy, and Jon can’t sense any resentment from anyone in the room, in spite of the fact that he’s now headlining sold-out stadium tours while they’re still playing clubs.
An arm wraps around his waist from behind, hand on his hip. Jon knows who it is without looking, would be able to tell by scent and feel alone even before he hears the voice. “Who’s younger and prettier?”
There is no way that Jon will ever get involved in a debutante contest between Bill Beckett and Spencer Smith. He values his balls too much. “Nobody,” he says easily, turning his head to catch Bill’s smile, the hair falling loose over his eyes. “It’s still you, Snow White.”
Bill’s smile grows wider, touching his whole face. “Come on,” he says, tugging Jon towards the kitchen. “Drinks are in the fridge.”
Butcher is wearing an apron, with no shirt on underneath it. Jon bites his knuckle to keep from laughing and then does it anyway, shoulders shaking. Butcher turns around and points an oven mitt-ed hand at him. “I’ve seen the rose pictures,” he says. “And you were wearing makeup. Don’t even front.”
“We made green bean casserole,” Bill tells him, winding his way between them to the counter. He hops up and smiles at Jon again, relaxed and easy. There’s more to it than just a few drinks; he seems happy. “I’m glad you made it.”
“I am, too,” Jon says, and then he gets called back into the living room to talk about the tour and the new band and hear about all of the misadventures of TAI on the road. By the time Bill proudly announces dinner, he’s gotten to know Michael a little better.
Jon had been wary at first, not sure how to greet someone who’d taken the place of his best friend, but Michael seems like a decent enough guy, and Jon can tell by the way he interacts with Bill that he hasn’t taken Tom’s place in every way, just onstage. He’s also weirdly shy and still not quite at ease with the rest of them, and Jon finds himself going out of his way to include him, especially when they all start talking about ‘old times,’ often over Bill’s protests of, “Hey, that is not the way it happened!”
Dinner is mostly a free-for-all, and Siska hesitates for a second before offering Jon a plate. “Do you need…?” he asks, and glances quickly at Michael before making a hand sign strongly reminiscent of Gabe and the hallucinogenic cobra, which Jon interprets to mean, ‘to go suck on Bill for a while.’
Jon just shakes his head and laughs. “Fuck no,” he says, taking the plate. “I want some fucking tofornish hen.”
“Dirty,” Mike says, and they all start laughing, the volume level instantly leaping as they all jostle companionably for food and fresh drinks.
Jon has missed this. He never thinks about it when he’s with the guys, Ryan and Spencer and Brendon, because they’re fun in a whole different way, but it’s been a while since he got drunk out of his mind in a room full of too-loud laughter and everyone talking incoherently over top of each other.
At some point Michael leaves, and then it’s just the five of them, almost like old times except for the hole where Tom ought to be. He’s sure Bill’s feeling it too, because he moves to the couch and curls up next to Jon, bare feet tucked under his thigh. If this had been them back on tour, Bill would have been at Tom’s side, or even in his lap. Jon makes a note to call him, catch up. They’ve missed each other too often lately.
He’s well past buzzed when Siska finally leaves, which seems to be the cue for Mike and Butcher as well. The place seems empty once they’re gone, but it’s a nice quiet, comfortable.
He stretches his legs out on the couch and wriggles his toes, smiling fuzzily when Bill lands on him and leans back against his chest. “I am sooo drunk,” he proclaims, tipping his head back against Jon’s shoulder and smiling with his eyes closed. “Don’t bite me tonight, I’ll make you sick.”
“You’ll make me drunk,” Jon corrects, picking flyaway strands of Bill’s hair out of his face. “And I’m already drunk.”
Bill cracks an eye open, grinning slightly. “Oh, well in that case,” he says. “Bite all you want. I’ll make more.” He starts giggling, high and bright, and Jon has the sudden, stupid urge to hug him. Touring with Panic should have made him immune to bright-eyed boys with beautiful smiles, but it totally hasn’t. Not even close.
“You’re staying, right?” Bill asks, and Jon hums noncommittally and shrugs beneath the weight of Bill’s head on his shoulder. “Stay.”
“Okay,” Jon agrees, because he’s pretty drunk, and he can always go see his cat tomorrow. Anyway, he’s happy on the couch right now. He doesn’t really feel like moving.
Part Two
Pairings: Permutations of Jon, Spencer, Bill, and Tom
Rating: R
Disclaimer: This is a complete work of fiction, no disrespect intented.
Summary: "I mean, vampires are kind of morbid, right? They sleep in coffins and everything. I wouldn’t want to sleep in a coffin."
Notes: The Jon-is-a-vampire AU. Thanks to tabbyola and maleyka for the endless support, and to adellyna for fixing what needed to be fixed. Title by Dishwalla.
Jon comes back to the bus at high noon, when the sun is making his skin itch - not burn, he’s not that old, it’s just like the first pink buzz of sunburn on sensitive skin - and ducks into coolness and shadow.
He’s not necessarily looking for Tom, but he finds him anyway, curled up on the ratty couch with Bill, murmuring low. Jon stops and takes a step back automatically, respecting their privacy, but both of them look up at the same time and smile.
“All set up?” Tom asks, displacing Bill slightly to make room for Jon on the couch. He perches on the arm and accepts the offered beer from Tom, half-finished but still cold.
“You’re good to go,” Jon answers, grateful for the beer wetting his dry throat. He’s not made to spend all day in the sun tuning instruments, and hasn’t been since he was born. It’s not as bad as falling asleep at sundown and having to hide indoors all the time, though. Thank goodness for that.
Bill squirms around in Tom’s embrace, tilting his chin up and grinning. “Did you tune my tambourine?”
Jon grins back and sets the now-empty bottle down on the carpet with the others. “I tried, but ten minutes into every show you pick it up and shake the fucking thing, so I don’t know why I bother.”
Bill’s laugh makes Tom smile, that same faint, shy, almost-disbelieving smile he’s had for months now. Jon remembers seeing it for the first time back in early spring, being startled for a moment and then wanting nothing more than to capture it and show them both.
“Hey,” Bill says, and pokes Tom, little jabs of his finger into Tom’s soft belly. “We got you something.” Tom tries to reach for something beside the couch and protect himself simultaneously, finally digging his own fingertips under Bill’s ribcage until he squeals.
They’re always getting him things. It’s endearing, that they accept him so completely for what and who he is, although he now has more books, pictures, and various memorabilia than he knows what to do with. Tom has known for nearly as long as Jon has known him, and he’s the best friend Jon could have ever asked for. Bill and the others found out shortly into tour, after too many drinks and Jon making the mistake of baring his teeth. He’s lucky they’re a hard group to rattle, and fiercely protective of their own.
Tom holds out a tiny metal coffin, which he cracks open and offers with a half-smile. “Death mint?”
“You’re kidding me.” He’s not, though; the little coffin-shaped box is full of white mints, and the cover is adorned with a sleeping vampire. It doesn’t look anything like him, but that’s not the point. They all, Bill especially, still love finding things to give him that make them think of him. It’s become quite the collection. “Are they trying to say my breath tastes like dead things?”
“I think they’re saying vampires have the sweetest breath of them all,” Bill returns, fluttering his eyelashes. Tom’s hand curves over his hip, relaxed but just slightly possessive, like he can’t help but hold on.
“Hey,” Tom says suddenly, looking up and over at Jon. “It’s Tuesday.”
Jon shakes his head, declining the offer. He’s not all that hungry yet, and while he shouldn’t let it go for too long, he doesn’t want to disturb the two of them when they’re like this. Bill is almost always the one he drinks from, and he’s mellow and happy right now, spooned up against Tom’s chest. There will be plenty of time later.
It’s not really sexual at all for him, and never has been, but it’s still…intimate. Jon’s not sure if it makes it better or worse for Tom, being there when he drinks from Bill. They’ve never talked about it. Still, it’s made him feel just the slightest bit awkward lately, especially when Bill tilts his head back and Jon can smell Tom’s cologne in the hollow of his throat.
“I’m actually going to head back out,” Jon says, snapping the coffin closed and sticking it into his pocket. He knows at least one person it will entertain. “See if Panic needs any help.”
Tom tips his head back against the back of the couch, looking amused. “I think that Brendon kid has a crush on you.”
Bill laughs, and Jon flips him - them - off fondly, stretching and snagging the beer bottles to recycle on his way out. “Fuck off.”
* * *
Jon doesn’t think Brendon actually has a crush, but he does follow Jon around everywhere while he sets up, usually with some form of candy in his mouth, asking questions and offering to help. Jon knows Panic as well as any of them, having hung out with them after shows and sometimes on the road, but not really well enough that he’d call them friends. Brendon might be the exception.
He thinks it’s partly because of what’s going on with their band, which is kept as quiet as possible, but there’s no way to miss when only three of them make it to soundcheck, Ryan with that closed-off look, Brendon turning nervous and skittish, talking too fast and too loud or not at all, and Spencer’s mouth so tight Jon thinks his jaw might break. He’s played bass for their checks so often now that he can almost play an entire song from memory.
He doesn’t know if Brent is around today yet or not, and if so, if Ryan is keeping him on a short leash until show time, but he knows there’s still tension by the way Brendon clings to him like a shadow the whole time he’s checking instruments and levels, their conversation almost entirely an unbroken monologue with the occasional nod and smile from Jon.
He picks out one of Panic’s songs on Siska’s bass to try to get Brendon to relax, and it works, Brendon humming along and ripping apart Twizzlers one sticky strand at a time while Jon plays. He talks through the chords when Jon fumbles at the bridge, singing them out one at a time.
Jon blinks a little, because he knows Brendon plays guitar and occasionally, when the threat of death has not yet been issued, Spencer’s drums, but he hadn’t realized Brendon knew the bass parts as well. He wonders if it’s their back-up plan, should Brent really get them into a crunch, for Brendon to switch from guitar to bass. He wonders if they have a back-up plan.
“Hey,” Jon says when Brendon wanders off, fingertip tapping lightly enough against a cymbal that it barely shivers. He unhooks the strap from over his shoulder and pulls out the black tin from the pocket of his cargo pants, shaking them before flipping open the lid. “Want a mint?”
He’d forgotten about the Twizzlers, but Brendon seems to have no problem eating both at once, crunching thoughtfully on a mint while still untwining licorice. “Do those come in a coffin? Dude, that’s so cool. They should be little vampire mints, though, or maybe teeth. Tooth-shaped mints, with little red tips.”
Jon smiles, and lets Brendon pick through the mints until he finds the one that meets his unknown criteria. “That’s kind of morbid,” he points out, and Brendon crunches down again thoughtfully, one long strand of licorice still held between his teeth.
“Not really. Not when…I mean, vampires are kind of morbid, right? They sleep in coffins and everything. I wouldn’t want to sleep in a coffin.” Brendon shudders theatrically, sucking Twizzler-strands into his mouth, and bounces a little on his toes in their tiny white sneakers.
Jon slings an arm over his shoulder and squeezes affectionately. “Neither would I.”
He sees Ryan and Spencer then, coming across the stage towards them, and lets Brendon go immediately. It’s not that he thinks he’s doing anything wrong, but the Panic boys can be weirdly, fiercely protective of each other sometimes, and Jon hasn’t figured out yet what exactly the rules are.
They both look unhappy, but when Ryan finally speaks, he knows it’s not about him. “Hey,” he says, shoulders hunched over and defensive, on guard against the world. “Can we talk later?”
Jon looks from Ryan to Spencer, to Brendon who is suddenly not meeting his eyes. Ryan holds his gaze, though, serious and intense, and there’s a less charged version of that same look on Spencer’s face as well, also directed at him.
“Sure,” he says agreeably, tucking his thumbs into his pockets. “After the show tonight?”
Ryan nods, and beside him Brendon shifts his weight a little, side-to-side on the balls of his feet. Spencer still isn’t giving him anything, an emotional blank wall. “That would be good,” Ryan says. “Thanks. We’ll see you then.”
They both turn to go, Brendon casting one almost guilty look at Jon before following after them, and Jon stands there with a coffin of mints in his hand, wondering what the hell just happened.
* * *
Bill flips the cover of his lyrics book closed out of habit when Jon walks in, protecting the thoughts he isn’t ready to share yet, but when he sees who it is he relaxes a little. Then he takes in the look that must be on Jon’s face right now and frowns. “What is it? Jon.”
Jon leans back against the counter, too restless to sit down, energy humming beneath his skin. He’d wanted to tell Tom first, sort of, but Bill is here and he’s going to find out anyway, sooner or later, and Jon just really needs to tell someone. Besides, if anyone will understand, it’s Bill.
“Ryan and Spencer just asked me to tour with them. To actually go. On tour. Play bass for the band.” It still doesn’t feel real, even when it comes out in the open.
There are a lot of emotions flickering in Bill’s eyes, and Jon realizes fuck, he’d forgotten the part where touring with Panic also meant leaving the Academy, and how Bill might be upset. He says he’s just a guitar tech, the same way Ryan had said it earlier, ‘you’re just a tech here, right?’ but he knows it’s more than that to the guys. He’s one of the family, he sleeps on their bus and gets an equal vote on pizza toppings and films their adventures, side-by-side.
Whatever Bill really feels, he’s only showing the supportive friend side now, smiling and about to offer some form of congratulations when Jon sees his face change, and knows he gets it. “Oh. Oh.”
“Yeah,” Jon says, because that pretty much sums it up. He rubs the back of his neck and wonders how he can walk away from this, and if he even wants to. He doesn’t. But he has friends here and a career, of sorts, he has a best friend and he has Bill, who is a lot more than a food source, but that’s the most important thing right now.
Bill is still staring at him, but with that unfocused look that Jon knows means he’s zoned out and thinking, retreated from the world into his own head. “Okay,” he says finally, still distant but closer now, coming back. “Get me a list of tour dates and locations, we’ll work something out.”
Jon isn’t sure what he’s thinking, because the Academy hasn’t stopped touring since Bill graduated from high school, and they won’t stop just so Bill can fly out to see Jon. “Bill,” he starts, but Bill shakes his head, opens up the book again and flips to the back for a blank page.
“I know people. I have friends who know people, we’ll get you hooked up. You can’t walk away from this, Jon, you’ll never forgive yourself.” Bill is hard at work now, scribbling down names and cities and phone numbers, making a list. Jon would love to see the header he’s going to put on it. ‘Possible Meals on Wheels’ seems grim but appropriate.
Jon doesn’t expect the impulse but he follows it, putting his arms around Bill from behind and squeezing. “Thanks,” he says into the curling fall of Bill’s hair, the familiar smell of his shampoo. “I mean it.”
Bill waves him off, but there’s a soft smile curving his lips, teeth glinting even before he starts nibbling on the edge of his pen. “Go away, I’m working here.”
Jon laughs. “I’ll go tell them,” he says, and leaves to find Tom.
* * *
The tour itself isn’t all that bad. Bill had given him a list of names, numbers, addresses, cities, more than enough to keep him going, and then contacted them all as well on his own, just so Jon didn’t end up giving someone a nasty shock. Jon isn’t sure how those conversations went, exactly. Hey, I have this friend, he’s kind of a vampire…I know, cool, right? So listen…
Most of the time he doesn’t even need to call. They’re moving a lot, but every two or three days, just when he starts to get hungry and distracted by Brendon’s throbbing pulse every time he climbs up to snuggle on Jon’s lap, someone smiles at him backstage and says, “Hey, you’re a friend of Bill’s, right?” It’s like the magic code words, and every time he ends up with someone pressed against him and holding gingerly to his waist while he feeds and tries not to get too rough.
He always apologizes afterwards, and some of them are wide-eyed and shocked, like they hadn’t believed even when he’d warned them that it would hurt a little, but most of the time he just gets shaky laughs and ‘it’s cool, really,’ which is more than he’d expected. Bill really does have some chilled-out friends.
He hears about Bill and Tom as soon as it happens, Tom’s sentences short and tight, with frequent cigarette-drag pauses between the words. He doesn’t hear from Bill, and he doesn’t know if it’s because he’s Tom’s best friend and Bill thinks he’s chosen a side, or because Bill is grieving too, in his own way, and doesn’t want to talk about it.
He doesn’t call Bill because he is Tom’s best friend, and it feels like being disloyal or something, and maybe he has chosen a side. Not that he thinks Tom was all in the right or Bill all in the wrong, and admittedly he’s only heard one side of the story, but what Tom’s told him sounds a lot like Bill, so Jon doesn’t really doubt him.
Jon doesn’t think about what it means until they’re on a new leg of the tour and he hasn’t seen anyone calling themselves Bill’s friend in nearly five days, by which point he’s starting to shake a little. Tom’s with them by that point, though, and he sees when Jon flinches away from the hug Brendon gives him that tugs Jon’s face down against his neck.
“Do you still need…?” Tom asks, gesturing a little vaguely with his cigarette. He inhales hard, and Jon knows it for what it is; steeling himself.
“Yeah,” Jon says quietly, and he wouldn’t ask, but he needs, and if Tom is offering then he’s not going to turn away. It’s better than taking his chances in the city, a nearly impossible task anyway with three bandmates and Zack on his heels.
Tom clenches his fists in Jon’s hoodie so tightly that he stretches the fabric, but it’s blood and Jon’s getting desperate, so he takes it and apologizes later. Tom shrugs it off, but goes straight for another cigarette, hands shaking. Jon has to cup his hand around the lighter to hold it steady.
Tom’s never been comfortable with it; that’s why Jon had Bill. He drinks as infrequently as possible, and longer than he normally would because of it, but he’s trying to make it easier on both of them.
Bill texts him out of the blue one day, about a month later, saying only, are you ok?
Jon texts back yes and they don’t talk again for the rest of the tour.
* * *
“Tell me about Chicago,” Spencer says one day, while they’re lying somewhere in the Midwest in a field of daisies. Jon thinks it would probably look amazing on camera, but he doesn’t want to move to try to capture it.
Jon turns his head so he and Spencer are almost nose-to-nose, with matching crinkles around their eyes from smiling at each other. “You’ve already been there,” he points out. Panic has been in Chicago more than once, in fact, although he’s not sure how many times or for how long. He’s been in a lot of cities that he knows nothing about, just from being on tour with them.
“Not just visiting,” Spencer says, following the same train of thought. “Living there. What’s it like?”
Jon considers that, wonders how to summarize pizza and sports and wind and culture, in words for someone who’s been there but hasn’t had the full experience. “Hot in summer, cold in winter,” he says finally, smiling wider when Spencer’s nose wrinkles up a little. He shrugs, lazy and contented in the afternoon heat. “Beautiful all the time.”
Spencer’s cheeks are just the slightest bit pink from the sun, his eyes soaking up Jon’s words. “I’d like to go, with you,” he says softly. “I want to see it like that.”
“I’ll take you,” Jon promises, his fingers tracing over Spencer’s arm to brush away a blade of grass stuck to his skin. He’s already making a list of places they could go, things he wants Spencer to see, wants to be the one to show him. Spencer’s whole face lights up when he sees new things, it’s amazing. Jon loves being the reason he looks like that.
Spencer sits up, and Jon is contemplating whether or not to do the same when he hears Tom’s voice, familiar and light. “Say deep-fried pickles.”
Jon rolls up from the ground, pulls Spencer in towards him and grins for the camera, over-ecstatic and wide-eyed. He can feel Spencer’s laughter under his hand, the full curve of his cheek that tells Jon he’s doing the same.
“Hey,” Spencer says when Tom lowers the camera, tumbles down beside them. “They let you wander off alone?”
“I’m within sight of the bus, it’s okay,” Tom replies somberly, as if he hasn’t had complete autonomy every day of the tour while the rest of them have been chafing to get away. Jon had envied him the day trips and freedom, for a while, until he’d realized that what came along with the restrictions on his time and mobility was more than worth being on a leash for a few months. The other three don’t just make it bearable; they make it something he loves doing.
As if summoned by the thought of them - although Jon knows it’s probably not a coincidence that Tom showed up when he did - Brendon and Ryan wave at them from across the field, shouting something almost too distant to make out.
“Did he just say water balloons?” Jon asks. Tom grins, which Jon is pretty sure can be taken as an affirmative.
“Oh Christ,” Spencer says, and the tone is patented longsuffering, but the sparkle in his eyes tells another story, and he’s not fooling either of them. He climbs to his feet, dusts off his pants with the air of someone preparing to do battle.
“Here wait, you’ve got a little something,” Tom says, and smacks Spencer on the ass. Jon laughs, and Spencer twists around to look at them, his smile unfettered and gorgeous.
He wiggles his ass at them and says, “Thanks,” before heading off towards the bus, and Jon sinks back onto his elbows, watching Spencer walk away.
After a few minutes he looks over at Tom, who seems to be doing the same thing, although with a more thoughtful look on his face. Jon would offer him a penny, but instead he takes the more familiar opening and says, “Pose and smile isn’t usually your style of photography.”
Tom glances sideways at him, just enough that the metal of his ring catches in the light, a bright flash surrounded by the gold halo of his hair. He shrugs a little, leaning back to join Jon in their nest of crushed daisies. “No,” he admits. “I got the shot I wanted about thirty seconds earlier. I just didn’t want to interrupt you guys without warning.”
It’s an odd impulse, but Jon’s still grateful. “He’s a nice kid,” he comments, tilting his face back into the sun. He’s going to burn soon, and badly; vampiric skin doesn’t take kindly to overexposure. Right now, though, all he can feel is warmth and light, and it’s amazing.
Tom snorts, softly, and Jon glances over. He’s plucking blades of grass between his toes, catching the stems of daisies and twisting them free of the ground. “Just a nice kid?” he asks, and if it were anyone but Tom, Jon would be tensing right now, defensive and wary. It is Tom, though, so he takes a moment to consider it, letting the silence seep comfortably around them.
“No,” he says finally. “He’s a good friend.”
Tom’s eyes are hard to read, which they aren’t very often, at least not when Jon is the one looking. Jon thinks he’s going to say something else, but Tom just looks away again, back towards the bus, and another tuft of grass lifts free.
“You realize,” Jon says after another minute, both of them studying the bus on the horizon, “when the inevitable attack comes, he’s going to be the first one to throw.”
Tom smiles, a crooked twist of his lips that Jon’s seen him use before. “We should arm ourselves, then,” Tom declares, and gives Jon a hand up from the grass. The moment is gone before Jon even thinks to remember it.
* * *
Without Tom, it’s harder. Jon finds ways, one-night stands with kinky girls who say they don’t mind and are too drunk to remember, but their blood makes him sick and he feels wretched about it afterwards.
He touches down in Chicago and goes straight to Bill’s doorstep almost without thinking about it. He doesn’t even know where the Academy is right now, but it’s a holiday, so he prays they’re not still touring. It’s freezing outside and his feet are chafing inside his shoes, but he huddles into the scarf for warmth and rings the buzzer.
“Who is it?” comes back through the speaker; Bill’s voice, flat and faintly bored, and Jon is so relieved he has to say his name twice because he stumbles over it the first time. There’s a pause, and then the door buzzer goes off to let him inside. Jon grips the handle in cold fingers and treks up the stairs to Bill’s apartment.
Bill already has the door open by the time he reaches it, leaning confused against the frame. “Hey,” he says, and Jon realizes he probably should have called first, or something, but it had been hard to think.
“I, um,” he manages, and Bill just reaches out to enfold him in an awkward, all-elbows, lanky Bill-hug. It’s both good and bad, because Jon really needs the hug, but at the same time Bill still smells of the same shampoo and it’s a scent that Jon’s brain immediately associates with feeding, which he hasn’t done in far too long.
He squeezes his eyes closed and hugs back, and then Bill pulls him inside and closes the door and finally looks at him, and Jon feels instantly guilty for showing up here unannounced after months of not speaking, with such transparent ulterior motives.
“Fuck. Jon, fuck.” Bill’s hand is back on his arm, pulling him in. “How long?”
“Seventeen days,” Jon croaks, because it’s not like he hasn’t been counting. Bill is already pushing his hair out of the way, like it hasn’t been forever since they’ve done this, pulling Jon along and backing into the wall.
Jon feels like he should say something first, at least the normal pleasantries that politeness dictates, but Bill’s hand is on the back of his neck and his pulse is beating strong and steady and Jon is so hungry.
Bill exhales when Jon’s fangs sink in, a little breath of surprise like maybe he’s forgotten this part, but he doesn’t let go of Jon’s head and relaxes again in seconds, blood flowing easily onto Jon’s tongue.
He takes more than he should, more than he ever has before, but Bill doesn’t make a move to stop him, and Jon doesn’t even really think about it until he licks the puncture wounds closed and Bill stumbles a little when he tries to move, immediately laughing at himself for it.
“Shit,” Jon says, but Bill just waves him off, the same as always, and makes his way carefully to sit on the couch.
“It’s fine, it’s just like donating to the Red Cross. Orange juice and donuts, right? Blood sugar.” Jon finds orange juice in the fridge and pours a glass full, rifling through the cabinets and coming up empty on sugar before handing it over and hovering worriedly.
Bill drinks half of it and looks up at him, lips and eyes touched with a slightly sardonic edge. “Sit down, I’m not going to keel over. Do you have somewhere to crash tonight?”
Jon shrugs. “I was going to go home,” he says honestly, although he hadn’t thought about it until just now. “I haven’t been there in a while.”
“Stay,” Bill says, and it sounds decisive, more than an invitation. He stretches out on the couch and closes his eyes, cradling the juice glass in one hand. He smiles when he says, “I’ll make you breakfast in the morning.”
Jon snorts, but he ends up staying anyway.
* * *
“Seriously, you still haven’t told them?” Bill asks over breakfast the next morning. Breakfast for him, anyway, which is hash browns out of the box and an egg that had turned out halfway between fried and scrambled. Breakfast for Jon had taken place earlier, when Bill had woken him up fresh out of the shower, climbing on top of Jon and leaning down with the ends of his hair still dripping onto the blankets.
Jon doesn’t really want to talk about it, but Bill is ingenious in the most manipulative ways, completely devoid of cunning at the moments he would otherwise have been easy to resist.
“It hasn’t exactly come up,” he says, which is obviously ridiculous, because what are they going to do, ask him just out of curiosity if he’s one of the undead?
Bill is pushing bits of egg around on his plate, suddenly not meeting Jon’s eyes. “I’m sorry about dropping the ball on you,” he says, so quietly Jon has to strain to hear it. “I didn’t mean to, I just…I knew Tom was with you, so I figured…”
“Hey, it’s okay,” Jon says immediately, reaching out to touch the back of Bill’s hand. He isn’t holding a grudge; it’s not like he’d called Bill, either. He feels like a dick now for not asking earlier, though. “How are you?”
Bill shrugs, and mashes egg between the tines of his fork. “It’s cool. It’s over.” Which Jon had known, obviously, since Tom is no longer a member of the band, but hearing Bill say it that way makes it sound like the band is the least important part of the break-up. That in itself tells him a lot, because for as long as Jon has known him, there’s been nothing in Bill’s life more important to him than the Academy.
“Do you want…?” he starts, without actually thinking about what he’s offering, but Bill glances up to meet his eyes, startled, before smiling wryly and shaking his head.
“I’m not that much of a dick,” he says, and pushes his plate away, breakfast still only half-eaten. Bill eats like a bird, picky and distracted. “I’m not going to use my ex’s best friend for comfort sex.” He smirks a little, the humour back in his eyes. “Even if he is hot.”
“So hot,” Jon agrees, nodding. Bill laughs, and stands up to get another cup of coffee.
“God, it fucking sucked after you left,” Bill says suddenly, and Jon is surprised because he’s heard about Bill losing his lyrics book right before going into the studio, and the mad scramble to find a guitarist, and of course the thing with Tom, but he hadn’t associated all of that with his own departure. “Are you sure we can’t win you back?”
“Brendon makes really good oatmeal chocolate chip cookies,” Jon answers, and Bill laughs again, dumping his dishes into the sink.
“Seriously, you need to tell them,” Bill says, sitting back down at the table with the mug cradled comfortably in his hands. Jon bristles a little, his immediate reaction somewhere between defensive and hacked off. He’s ready to tell Bill that it’s none of his business how Jon lives his life, and he’s not the one who’s going to have to deal with the fallout, if there is any, but Bill just looks at him and Jon knows he’s right.
“They’re all in Vegas now,” Jon says, wincing a little at the obvious evasion, but Bill just rolls his eyes.
“They’re going to want you to come visit. Or they’re going to come here. Rumor has it you guys are attached at the hips.” Bill waggles his eyebrows and Jon is startled into laughter, which earns him a wide grin from Bill in return.
“I’ll tell them,” Jon promises. He has a week to work up the courage and practice saying it. Hopefully that will be enough.
Bill chips his thumbnail over his mug, picking at a bubble in the glaze. “Do you want someone with you when you do?” He’s not looking up as he says it, but when he does, Jon can see the honesty in his eyes.
Jon allows himself a minute to think it over seriously, imagine Bill’s steady presence in the background while he comes out of the vampiric closet to three guys he’s grown to love like brothers.
“No,” he says finally. He owes them that much, an honest explanation not hiding behind anyone else. Even Bill. He smiles, to show he’s still grateful for the offer. “Thanks, though.”
“What are friends for?” Bill asks rhetorically, and passes Jon his cup of coffee.
* * *
Jon tells them. He gets blank looks at first, which is hardly surprising, and then Brendon’s tentative, “Really?”
“Really,” Jon says solemnly. He shows them his teeth. He hadn’t actually known until then that Brendon’s eyes could get that wide.
Spencer asks a lot of polite questions about how it affects his life and how often he needs to feed and if there are any special considerations they need to take into account while on tour, all of which Jon answers as honestly as possible. Ryan seems a little withdrawn, but Jon thinks it’s more about the fact that he’s been keeping a secret from them than it is the vampire thing. Which is odd, when you think about it, but it’s Ryan.
Brendon is fascinated, which Jon sort of expected, and he lets Brendon look and very tentatively touch and then fold himself up into the chair across from the couch and keep staring while Jon talks with Spencer.
“So…how does it work?” Spencer asks finally. “The feeding thing?”
Jon clears his throat and forces himself to hold eye contact. “I usually…well, before, there was someone on tour. And when there wasn’t I still knew people…along the way.”
Spencer nods a little. He says, “Tom?”
Jon nods, and then adds, “And Bill.”
Ryan’s head goes up. “Bill knows?” he echoes, sharp around the edges. Jon just nods again.
“Are you going to need someone…” Spencer says carefully, sharing a glance with Ryan, “…on this next tour?”
Jon hesitates, but he’s promised himself he’ll be honest with them, so he nods again. Then he says hastily, “It doesn’t have to be someone on the tour, I mean, I worked it out before where I would meet people in the cities and stuff. No one has to…” He lets that hang, because they all know what he means.
Spencer rolls up his sleeves, looking eminently practical and a lot older than nineteen. “It’s not a big deal,” he says. “Right? It’s not like you’re killing us or anything.”
Jon blanches; so, he notices, does Brendon. “No,” he says hastily. “God no. You can talk to Bill if you want, he’s been with me the longest, but there’s not really much to it. It’s like, um, donating blood, I guess. It doesn’t take very long.”
Brendon is looking a great deal more nervous than he had at first, but Ryan is eyeing him speculatively now, and Spencer still seems to be taking things in stride. “We can take turns, right?” he asks, looking around at the others. “I mean, anyone who wants to. When you don’t have someone else.”
Ryan chews on his thumbnail contemplatively, then nods. Brendon bobs his head in agreement. Jon feels a rush of relief so strong that it’s like the floor has dropped out from underneath him. “Thanks,” he says sincerely, clenching his hands tight in his lap. “Seriously.”
Spencer just shrugs, another glance at Ryan saying he’s speaking for both of them. “No problem.”
* * *
They all try, but Jon ends up mostly with Spencer, which neither of them minds. Ryan is willing, but he has the same defensiveness that Tom has about it, tension in his shoulders when Jon touches him, like he can’t stand being that vulnerable and can’t quite bring himself to trust. Jon drinks from him a couple of times when Spencer is sick or worn out, but apart from that and after the first few times, he leaves Ryan alone.
Brendon is a surprise, and one Jon still doesn’t know how to deal with. He’d been gung-ho about it in the beginning, hopping into Jon’s lap and saying, “My turn!” when Jon had hesitantly asked, days of nothing but awed repetitions of, “You’re a vampire, that’s so cool.”
When Jon had leaned in, though, he’d panicked and jerked back, laughing nervously and apologizing before saying it was cool and they could try again, but his entire body had been rigid and tense in Jon’s arms, sweat rising on his skin. Jon could practically smell the fear, and he’s never forced this on anyone, he won’t. Especially not a friend.
Brendon had babbled about it being okay for nearly two minutes while Jon soothed him and told him it was okay, they didn’t have to, and finally Spencer had cut in and told him to move, he’d do it. Brendon had gone limp with relief and Jon tried not to be upset, especially when he saw how guilty Brendon had looked and acted for the next few days, but it had still stung.
It still does, when he least expects it. He’s wrestles with Brendon on the floor of the cabin one day, and when he’s nearly pinned he bites the back of Brendon’s neck; just playing around, no fangs, and Brendon goes utterly, completely still. It takes Jon a few seconds to recognize the quivering for terror, and he apologizes, voice feeling like sawdust in his mouth, and goes off to his room.
He calls Tom but gets his voicemail, and then calls Bill without thinking about it, just needing to talk. After the initial exchange about touring and songwriting and being desperate for actual deep-dish, Jon ends up blurting it all out, the way Ryan still gets weird when it’s obvious that Jon needs to feed soon and Brendon’s irrational - or maybe not so irrational, honestly, and maybe that’s why it hurts - fear of him, and how Spencer is amazing but sometimes he just…
He doesn’t know how to finish that. He leaves it hanging, and Bill says, “When are they letting you leave?”
Jon rolls over, cradling the phone against his ear, squashed against the pillow. “I don’t know. We have a show later, we might take some time off then. Not a lot.”
“Come home,” Bill says, and it’s weird that both of them still think of the same place as home, even after years on the road. “Call me when you do.”
“Okay,” Jon says. He barely even has to think about it. “You might still be on tour.”
“We’ll work it out,” Bill says easily, shrugging it off. “Just call me. We’ll get pizza, you can bite me.”
It’s so ridiculous that Jon laughs, and promises again to visit. Bill bitches about sleeping on a bus and the fact that Siska is still from another planet, and Jon counters with stories about Ryan and Brendon arguing their way through every single rehearsal and the fact that none of them ever remembers to change the toilet paper roll. He’s just finished telling Bill about the new band Tom is in, and realizes after rambling for too long with no response from the other end that he’s maybe been a jerk to bring that up.
“Sorry,” he says awkwardly.
“You killed the mood, you bastard,” Bill tells him, but he doesn’t sound too upset, or if he is Jon can’t tell. “I need to go get myself a drink now, to drown the sorrow.”
“Shut up,” Jon laughs, anxiety disappearing as soon as it had come, and they hang up with mutual promises to call, which neither of them ever remembers to do, and a tentative date to meet up in Chicago.
Jon feels better than he has in weeks. He comes back out and finds Brendon curled tightly into a corner of the couch, looking up at him with big, guilty eyes. Jon ruffles his hair and plops down on the couch beside him, looking for the remote. “Want to watch a movie?” he asks, and Brendon practically leaps to take him up on it, cuddling close as if defying his own fears.
Spencer gives him a weird look when he joins them, but Jon just stretches out to watch Firefly and lets himself spend an idle moment counting the days between here and Chicago.
* * *
“It’s Jon,” Jon says when the speaker crackles, and there’s a distant echo of his name followed by a chorus of ‘hey’ in the background, which must mean he’s late for the party.
Mike meets him at the door with a beer in his hand, pulling Jon in for a hug. “Glad you could make it,” he says, and Jon grins, looking around the room - just Academy, he knows all of them but the new guitarist.
“JWalk!” Siska calls, claiming his own hug, grinning widely. “I saw pictures of you on the internet wearing rosettes, dude. Like, huge freaking pastel flowers.”
“Fuck off,” Jon laughs, and looks around the room. “Hey, where’s…?”
“Bill’s in the kitchen with Butcher, they’re making Cornish hens in your honour. Oh, and one made out of tofu, but I don’t know if it’s tofurkey if it’s supposed to be a Cornish hen. Tofornish hen?” Siska doesn’t look all that concerned with the answer. Jon is more concerned about whether smoke is about to start pouring from the open door to the kitchen.
“Oh Christ,” Jon says, covering his face with one hand. “I can’t believe you guys let them do this shit. Who’s supposed to be the responsible one now?”
“You’re the one who left us for a band younger and prettier,” Mike accuses, but his eyes are happy, and Jon can’t sense any resentment from anyone in the room, in spite of the fact that he’s now headlining sold-out stadium tours while they’re still playing clubs.
An arm wraps around his waist from behind, hand on his hip. Jon knows who it is without looking, would be able to tell by scent and feel alone even before he hears the voice. “Who’s younger and prettier?”
There is no way that Jon will ever get involved in a debutante contest between Bill Beckett and Spencer Smith. He values his balls too much. “Nobody,” he says easily, turning his head to catch Bill’s smile, the hair falling loose over his eyes. “It’s still you, Snow White.”
Bill’s smile grows wider, touching his whole face. “Come on,” he says, tugging Jon towards the kitchen. “Drinks are in the fridge.”
Butcher is wearing an apron, with no shirt on underneath it. Jon bites his knuckle to keep from laughing and then does it anyway, shoulders shaking. Butcher turns around and points an oven mitt-ed hand at him. “I’ve seen the rose pictures,” he says. “And you were wearing makeup. Don’t even front.”
“We made green bean casserole,” Bill tells him, winding his way between them to the counter. He hops up and smiles at Jon again, relaxed and easy. There’s more to it than just a few drinks; he seems happy. “I’m glad you made it.”
“I am, too,” Jon says, and then he gets called back into the living room to talk about the tour and the new band and hear about all of the misadventures of TAI on the road. By the time Bill proudly announces dinner, he’s gotten to know Michael a little better.
Jon had been wary at first, not sure how to greet someone who’d taken the place of his best friend, but Michael seems like a decent enough guy, and Jon can tell by the way he interacts with Bill that he hasn’t taken Tom’s place in every way, just onstage. He’s also weirdly shy and still not quite at ease with the rest of them, and Jon finds himself going out of his way to include him, especially when they all start talking about ‘old times,’ often over Bill’s protests of, “Hey, that is not the way it happened!”
Dinner is mostly a free-for-all, and Siska hesitates for a second before offering Jon a plate. “Do you need…?” he asks, and glances quickly at Michael before making a hand sign strongly reminiscent of Gabe and the hallucinogenic cobra, which Jon interprets to mean, ‘to go suck on Bill for a while.’
Jon just shakes his head and laughs. “Fuck no,” he says, taking the plate. “I want some fucking tofornish hen.”
“Dirty,” Mike says, and they all start laughing, the volume level instantly leaping as they all jostle companionably for food and fresh drinks.
Jon has missed this. He never thinks about it when he’s with the guys, Ryan and Spencer and Brendon, because they’re fun in a whole different way, but it’s been a while since he got drunk out of his mind in a room full of too-loud laughter and everyone talking incoherently over top of each other.
At some point Michael leaves, and then it’s just the five of them, almost like old times except for the hole where Tom ought to be. He’s sure Bill’s feeling it too, because he moves to the couch and curls up next to Jon, bare feet tucked under his thigh. If this had been them back on tour, Bill would have been at Tom’s side, or even in his lap. Jon makes a note to call him, catch up. They’ve missed each other too often lately.
He’s well past buzzed when Siska finally leaves, which seems to be the cue for Mike and Butcher as well. The place seems empty once they’re gone, but it’s a nice quiet, comfortable.
He stretches his legs out on the couch and wriggles his toes, smiling fuzzily when Bill lands on him and leans back against his chest. “I am sooo drunk,” he proclaims, tipping his head back against Jon’s shoulder and smiling with his eyes closed. “Don’t bite me tonight, I’ll make you sick.”
“You’ll make me drunk,” Jon corrects, picking flyaway strands of Bill’s hair out of his face. “And I’m already drunk.”
Bill cracks an eye open, grinning slightly. “Oh, well in that case,” he says. “Bite all you want. I’ll make more.” He starts giggling, high and bright, and Jon has the sudden, stupid urge to hug him. Touring with Panic should have made him immune to bright-eyed boys with beautiful smiles, but it totally hasn’t. Not even close.
“You’re staying, right?” Bill asks, and Jon hums noncommittally and shrugs beneath the weight of Bill’s head on his shoulder. “Stay.”
“Okay,” Jon agrees, because he’s pretty drunk, and he can always go see his cat tomorrow. Anyway, he’s happy on the couch right now. He doesn’t really feel like moving.
Part Two