kiss my ass I bought a boat I'm going out to sea (Brendon/Ryan, Jon/Spencer)
Kiss My Ass I Bought a Boat I'm Going Out to Sea
(Brendon/Ryan, Jon/Spencer) 6,500 words, NC-17
Brendon buys a boat and Jon is all metaphorical (I mean he actually exists, he's just thinky). I took the title from If I Had a Boat because Lyle Lovett sings it so pretty and it is the most Brendon Urie-y song in the whole world, swear to god. themoononastick is a marvelous being, you don't even know. Awesome she is, and nice and hilarious and there aren't enough adjectives in the world. She did a stand up job of holding my hand and betaing this thing that is possibly too self indulgent to exist. But exist it does and I'm kind of weirdly attached to it and here is where I stop talking.
They write their third album in Chicago.
It doesn’t just happen, Ryan plans it that way. Somewhere along the way he developed this sense of things being equal and things being fair. It’s slightly inflated, kind of earnest, but really sincere, which makes it impossible to say no when Ryan approaches them with anything really, anything at all.
By Jon’s calculations, though, they still have one more Vegas album in them. Three and one and last is last. But Ryan had insisted and neither Spencer nor Brendon seemed to mind being away from home for a little longer. Or a lot longer depending on how things go.
Maybe Ryan was counting the cabin. Jon didn’t really want to get into an argument about either fairness or math with him though, because either has the potential to be ceaseless and tiresome and Ryan always gets his way in the end, so Jon had let it go. Actually, Jon hadn’t cared one way or another. He could sleep in Ryan’s spare room forever as long as it meant Spencer and Brendon would keep coming over and they’d all keep smoking weed and coming up with ridiculous melodies that made him feel like he was driving alone at dusk, but it was all okay because everyone had their lights on.
But Jon thinks it’s more about them than where they are. And Ryan had insisted.
*
Their plane was supposed to land at O’Hare at 12:42. It’s around 3:47 when the pilot tells them to turn off their electrical devices and fasten their seatbelts.
Ryan watches Brendon stare out the tiny window. It’s just blue beneath them, and the way the plane lists left, Lake Michigan fills the window and stretches on forever and looks just like the ocean.
Brendon breathes in and for a second Ryan thinks the landing has him nervous, but Brendon just winks at Ryan. “We should totally get a boat,” he says.
Brendon’s been pretty sedate for the entire flight, but he makes up for it in the last fifteen minutes. Ryan completely lost out on the seat assignments. Couldn’t he have sat next to someone not so prone to wild obsessions? Or at least not so prone to discussing their wild obsessions at great length and increasing volume. But Jon and Spencer are being all buddy buddy lately, and it’s good, he knows, for both of them. Still, he wishes Brendon would shut up about the damn boat already.
For the next four hours, from baggage claim to dinner to the cab ride home to Jon’s, Brendon doesn’t stop talking about how awesome it would be. At least Spencer and Jon are forced to listen now as well.
When Jon points out that Brendon doesn’t actually know how to drive…sail…work a boat Brendon just grins and says that is why they invented the internet, Jon Walker, people can learn anything.
Finally, Spencer starts talking about the record and steers Brendon on to a topic that can hold his attention even longer than the hypothetical boat Brendon will so not be buying, Jesus Christ.
*
Despite the lengthy conversation about the album the previous evening, they don’t really get anywhere at first. They kill a lot of time setting up their rooms in the little rented house (Jon’s apartment is tiny and therefore not conducive to The Process, where as a little rental house where they each have their own space for sleeping but share nearly everything else is, apparently) and fight over counter space in the bathroom and Brendon fucks around on the piano in the living room.
He and Spencer play Heart and Soul because Chopsticks duets just aren’t cliché enough and Spencer is still learning, he’s progressed beyond either song, but not much and fuck, who doesn’t love Heart and Soul? Jon wanders in and starts tapping out things between them and Ryan calls out from his room that he’s hungry.
They end up going out for Thai, because going out the first night in a new place is better than ordering in so nothing gets accomplished on their first official day, but then none of them really expected to, so it’s fine.
*
A few days in, Jon gets up first and has most of the house mostly to himself.
It’s weird because he and Cassie haven’t talked in forever, but everything reminds Jon of her anyway. Jon knows Ryan didn’t plan it this way, but that doesn’t stop it from sucking.
He was fine. He is fine. Metaphors about driving alone notwithstanding.
Spencer comes out from his room, showered and already dressed. He sits next to Jon on the couch and nudges him with his shoulder. “You into this?” he asks.
It takes Jon a second to realize Spencer is referring to whatever the hell is on television, and no, no Jon is not into this. The remote is in his hand so he hits power and the room goes quiet.
“Good, let’s get coffee then. If I have to smell Nagchampa for one more second I think I’m gonna kill Ryan.”
Spencer is being more awesome than is really warranted. Not that Jon’s complaining, but he’s starting to feel like he might need to do something to deserve all the extra attention. He also really wants to reassure Spencer that he is, in fact, okay. He doesn’t want Spencer to go away though. He might like the attention more than he lets on. He might like talking to Spencer more than he likes talking to anybody else.
Lately Jon’s noticed that Spencer doesn’t bring up Haley at all. He’s probably just being polite, like here, watch me not talk about my awesome girlfriend who is so awesome because it might send you into a tailspin of depression because you are so alone in this world, Jon Walker, alone alone alone without someone to love.
Yeah, Jon could really use some coffee.
“Coffee run,” he hollers at no one in particular, then he pushes Spencer out the door before anyone can shout orders at him. Ryan and Brendon can get their own coffee.
*
They’ve been there about a week when Brendon wanders out to the kitchen wearing a wrapped up bed sheet. He has it tied around his waist with all the excess thrown over his shoulder - more Roman than Greek, but still very toga-y.
Ryan knows Brendon hates to miss anything, so it’s not surprising. He probably woke up to all their voices and didn’t even think about it. Sure, he generally has the forethought to throw on some pants, but the entire universe is kind of aware that the kid sleeps in the nothing, so Ryan is totally unphased. Really.
He eats his breakfast like that, bleary eyed and half naked, breaking into the conversation with his mouth full of peanut butter toast. Spencer rolls his eyes, but Jon just pours him some juice.
Ryan walks away to drink his coffee in peace in the living room, in that overstuffed chair he likes so well. His best guitar is propped next to it, and it’s not like he’s claimed it, only he likes it especially.
He still has a view of the kitchen and Brendon’s back as he hunches his shoulders and laughs at something Spencer’s just said.
He’s not thinking about it, though. And he’s definitely not thinking about the cabin.
The cabin was not so good. Well, it started good. And it even ended good, but there was definite not good there in the middle. The thing Ryan is most not thinking about is how they touched all the time until fucking felt like the next step in a natural progression that had been building since they first met forever ago.
It’s not as though Ryan hadn’t enjoyed all the fucking Brendon, just that it was a little more than fucking and they were both surprised by that. Bad surprised. And somewhere between everything, it got to be that Ryan’s lyrics felt like open wounds and Brendon could either lick them better or poke at them until they were raw again. It’s a weird power to have over somebody, and Ryan isn’t sure if he gave it to Brendon, or if Brendon took it, but whichever way it happened, Ryan is positive it was unconscious. Neither of them would do that sort of thing with intent.
Regardless, it was too much, all the touching and the writing and the more than just fucking. It turned to fighting so simply and so easily that that part also felt like natural progression. One that Ryan could stop.
Ryan’s smarter now, he knows how to be open without being paralyzed by it. He knows how to share responsibility and let other voices in and write songs that are the lyrical equivalent of the four of them holding hands. Brendon too, with the bits that are still all Ryan, he learned how to take just enough to keep it still Ryan, but make it so he’s the one exposing everything.
It works, it works really well. And it’s balanced and fair and Ryan shouldn’t screw with it by staring at Brendon’s bare back, thinking things.
Brendon flops on the couch after he’s done eating, and he struggles with the sheet that’s tangled up in his legs for a few seconds before he stands up, turns away from Ryan and opens it up so it will lay flat when he lies back down.
Ryan can’t think much beyond fuck and not good, but his eyes seem to be doing some thinking of their own. He traces the clean line of Brendon’s thighs up through his shoulders, barely peeking out of the top of the sheet. He could linger at his ass so easily, but he doesn’t. It’s just a quick leer, nothing more. When he hits Brendon’s eyes they’re open and expressionless, looking back at his. Ryan holds the look because he doesn’t know what else to do. Brendon simply shuts his eyes and wiggles into the couch, settling in for some nude, post breakfast naptime.
Ryan sits back in his chair and he’d groan in embarrassment but Brendon would probably hear him.
*
Spencer can’t stop smiling and Jon can’t stop smiling back at him and neither thing makes any sense at all. They have no reason to be this happy, none at all. Jon would say that the writing isn’t going well, but that would imply that there is actual writing going on and that is not the case.
And yet, here they are. Smiling.
And not just Jon and Spencer, Ryan and Brendon too. Maybe not at each other in particular, but at everything else.
They’re passing the time and it feels like vacation, but there’s this thing in the background, this we need to get our shit together thing. But they’re smiling enough that the thing starts to feel temporary. It’ll come when it comes.
Mostly there’s a lot of cooking and Wii and sitting around playing their favorite songs and talking about music. That and the ever escalating, passive-aggressive yet hilarious note war in the bathroom. It started with wet towels on the floor and now there are post-its on empty toilet paper rolls left on the dispenser with Camus quotes in Ryan Ross’s thinly disguised hand writing and either Spencer or Brendon’s responses have included random selections of Family Guy transcriptions scrawled on the mirror in dry erase marker. Jon may or may not have attempted to draw the finger of God bit of the Sistine Chapel pointing towards someone’s abandoned pink underwear in the corner by the towel rack. He’s pretty sure no one knew what the hell it was though, he’s got to step up his game.
It’s awesome, but Jon is never willing to share a bathroom with three other guys ever again. Literary revenge is apparently a very time consuming bathroom activity because Ryan spends more time in there than anyone and that is seriously saying something. Jon has this theory that Ryan’s calling Pete to get particularly ridiculous ideas, but since none of them has actually talked about the feud, Jon can’t ask. It’s like this really sanitary version of fight club for guys not actually willing to punch each other.
And through all of it, Spencer is doing all this smiling and Jon starts to think that it can stay like this forever and that would be okay. It’s enough, the smiles, it’s all Jon wants.
Even when Spencer starts talking to Haley all the time again.
*
A few weeks in Spencer watches Brendon walk into the living room.
He’s flipping his keys around his finger and he can’t not look because there’s a giant orange…something flying around too, and Brendon, it would seem, would really like all of them to pay attention to his keys.
He sits deep in the deep couch and slumps low and there’s a contented little smile on his face, the kind you can’t force away. It grows when he tosses his keys on the coffee table and they slide to a stop.
“No,” Spencer says, “no.” Because that is an orange floaty and those can only be boat keys. “You are such a jackass.”
After talking about it non-stop for days, Brendon had been quiet about the whole boat thing for weeks. They’d all thought it had blown over but it would seem that they were very wrong. Brendon is stealthy. Brendon, Spencer thinks, might stay up late into the night every night and plot out a million different ways to drive Ryan Ross, and thereby the rest of them, slowly, irrevocably insane.
“Ryan’s gonna kill you,” Jon says, but Jon’s already grabbing at the keys and experimentally squeezing the tiny life jacket.
*
Ryan doesn’t kill him. He just doesn’t let anyone leave. Brendon’s keys sit where Jon dropped them, the table by the door that every house in the world has.
Jon sees Brendon chancing glances over at them, but he only asks once if they want to see his boat. Jon wants to and Spencer seems interested, but Ryan is resolute.
Brendon fidgets next to Spencer, jiggling a leg and Spencer puts a hand on his knee to stop him. Then he leaves it there like Brendon may start again if he doesn’t. Jon kind of hates that he notices that. He keeps strumming his guitar as he looks up and sees Ryan notice too. Ryan schools his face into something that Jon suspects is designed to be expressionless but it comes out more strained and squinty than he probably realizes.
Brendon jumps up suddenly. “If we’re not actually going to do any making of the music, I’m going on my boat,” he announces, “Text me when I need to come back.”
It would sound diva-y, but they really haven’t done anything for the past two hours besides watch Ryan chew on the end of a pen. Ryan never writes in front of anybody anyway, so they all know he’s just stalling for time. Which is kind of a douchey move, if you ask Jon.
After they hear the rental car start up Spencer kicks Ryan in the shin. Hard it looks like.
“What?” Petulant is not attractive on Ryan Ross. It is however kind of hilarious.
“You’re stupid,” is Spencer’s only answer.
“Shut up, you are.”
Jon knows this can go on for at least twenty, thirty minutes, he’s seen it happen before. He has to interrupt them for the sake of his own sanity.
“We should…” Jon starts, “He’s not going to. You don’t think he’s going to try and drive it, do you?” Jon is still not sure drive is the correct terminology, but it’ll have to do.
Ryan’s mouth falls open and Spencer pulls out his phone, presumably texting Brendon to come back and get them.
Ryan’s voice sounds really, really small when he says, “Brendon’s going to perish at sea. In Lake Michigan.”
And it’s likely too. Brendon is the kind of person who thinks North is the direction he happens to be facing. Also, he drives like shit. Jon looks at Ryan and there’s some genuine panic there. It makes Jon smile, but he hides it quick.
*
It’s a long drive, 40 minutes or so, because the dock is a ways outside the city, but still close enough to see the skyline. Brendon smiles while he drives and flips stations every time Ryan starts to get into a song and none of them talk, but Ryan can hear Spencer humming next to him.
Brendon leads them down the dock, his entire body a barely contained bundle of glee, and he stops in front of an obviously brand new, shining monstrosity of a boat.
Brendon loves it. It’s sort of painfully obvious.
Ryan goes completely still when he sees the black letters on the back, big and bold, right above a tiny scrawled Lake Michigan, Illinois.
Brendon shrugs. “I like candles,” he says, “I like swans. I like Candle Swans.” Brendon’s voice is full of nonchalance that is completely betrayed by the fact that he’s bouncing on the balls of his feet.
Ryan can’t fucking breathe.
“Show us your boat, Bren,” Jon says and something in Ryan starts to loosen.
*
Yeah, Brendon’s boat is awesome. So, so awesome. They totally all love him. Even Ryan.
*
It happens slowly, but eventually they start to hang out on Brendon’s boat pretty much every day. The boat doesn’t actually move, per se, but they still wind up heading there every morning.
They write songs on it too. Actual songs with words and melodies and everything.
Sometimes they even sleep there, unwilling or unable to drive back.
They stock the fridge with beer and fruit and there are popsicles in the freezer and cereal in the cupboards.
They swim when it gets too warm. Or rather they jump in and climb back out and then do it all over again.
They hot box in the tiny bedroom at the back of the cabin. It’s no bigger than a closet with a bed shoved in it. They all sit on the mattress and the material is scratchy because there aren’t any sheets yet and no one can ever remember to grab some when they go back to the rental house for the occasional meal and/or change of clothes.
When Ryan thinks about it, he has no idea why any of this is working at all. The boat, while large, is still a boat. It’s still half the size of Jon’s apartment that was too small to house them and all their boundless creativity. And it’s not like they can truck a piano up here, or Spencer’s drum kit for that matter.
So what they’re really doing is figuring things out. Kind of.
And then there’s the Brendon issue and how that shouldn’t work either. Won’t work. But Ryan’s not thinking about that right now. Or ever if he can possibly manage that.
*
Jon tries really hard not to see the perpetually docked boat as some sort of metaphor for his life.
It’s a lot easier to do that when Spencer is sitting next to him, still soaking wet, and they’re sharing a beer because they’re both too lazy to get up and walk to the fridge that’s all of ten feet away.
Spencer leans forward and laughs. His hair falls forward too, but it happens slow, like the tiny strands are doing their best to hang on. It’s then, that very second, that Jon thinks the smiles he gets and the jokes and the attention that comes his way is not enough. He wants more.
It’s good that Spencer’s hair is doing a fantastic job of hiding his face because if Jon can’t see Spencer, Spencer can’t see Jon and Jon is relatively certain that there’s all kinds of impossible to disguise want written all over him.
He has no idea, then, why he reaches out and uses his fingers to thread Spencer’s bangs back into the rest of his hair. Spencer looks at him, and Jon just keeps doing it. Mostly because he doesn’t want to stop, but also because he doesn’t want to do more when he has no clue what Spencer’s reaction will be if Jon gives up and plasters his mouth all over his.
“I had to go to speech therapy as a kid.” He says, and it’s just stupid words spilling out of his stupid mouth because Jon is a nervous talker, which he had successfully forgotten all about because he is almost never nervous these days, and especially not with Spencer. Which, how fun for both of them that Jon can’t manage to shut up. Spencer is staring now. “I put my tongue in the wrong place. It’s supposed to go on the roof of your mouth but I press it against my teeth.” He is honestly not talking about his tongue right now. Jon dies a little inside, “You know, with my S’s? There was a tongue depressor involved. Every Tuesday in the first grade. It didn’t work. Obv-“
And that’s when Spencer kisses him.
*
Spencer kisses Jon because he’s talking about tongue depressors and first grade and speech therapy and he is so done actively not kissing Jon. And damn, he hopes Jon likes it because he would really enjoy doing this a lot more, like say every day all day.
Jon goes still for a second, and Spencer can feel all this tension coming off of him, and then it’s up and gone and Jon is kissing him back, and Jon is eager about it in a way that Spencer could not have predicted, not in a million years. It’s fucking fantastic.
Jon tilts in a little and puts his hands on Spencer’s face and licks in first. It’s like Jon is kissing Spencer rather than Spencer kissing Jon. It’s okay, being kissed by Jon and his aggressive little mouth is not something Spencer thinks he’ll ever complain about.
And then Jon’s not kissing him anymore. He’s still close and near, but he’s saying, “Haley,” and what. What?
“What about Haley?” Jon looks like he tripped and accidentally clubbed a baby seal. It makes Spencer want to make it better in the worst way, but he has no idea what Jon is talking about.
“What about Haley?” Spencer returns and it‘s all suddenly like a really bad romantic comedy because Jon thinks Spencer is with Haley. Spencer’s only consolation is that misunderstandings generally get resolved in Romantic Comedies. Only that’s usually after a lot of pointless twists and shit so Spencer is going to nip this in the bud as quickly as possible so they can get back to the kissing part he liked so much.
“Um, Jon, please tell me you know I’m not with Haley. Please?”
“Yeah, no.” Jon says. He sounds kind of upset. “And what the fuck, you were like just talking to her this morning.”
“I am mature beyond my years, Jon, you know this.” He pointedly does not mention that Jon and Cassie do not talk, because that would negate the whole maturity thing he is currently projecting. “And she’s like my best friend not currently on this boat.” Spencer gestures wildly. Are they fighting? Are they seriously fighting after they just got to the good part? “Fuck, we broke up before you and Cassie broke up, how do you not know this? Fuck.”
Spencer’s not even one of those guys, those I don’t talk about my feelings guys. He is sure that this has come up. He was inconsolable for a month. And Jon thought what? He was just being pissy? The hell.
“I…” Jon gets this funny little look on his face. “Oh. You didn’t tell me?”
They are both stupid. And also dumb. Stupid and dumb. Spencer doesn’t know how to say “I thought you knew” without sounding ridiculous and kind of testy. And then he remembers all of the Jon hugs he got that month. And Spencer thinks that Jon knew he was sad, he just didn’t ask why and that is not a bad thing, really. That is a Jon thing. So he just says it and hopes he looks as apologetic as he feels.
There’s silence and it’s threatening to stretch into something uncomfortable, so Spencer says, “Yeah, can we talk about speech therapy again?” Then he laughs a little because this is Jon and they would have to try so much harder if they actually wanted to ruin this.
Jon smiles. Spencer will just have to remember to, like, spell things out for him or something. He can do that.
Jon runs a hand though his hair and then rucks it forward so short bits of it stick straight up. Spencer wants to touch it. Jon’s eyes are really, really brown and dark and they match his hair almost exactly. They crinkle up when he starts to talk, like he’s half way between flat out grinning and cringing. Thank god he goes with grinning. He says, “I know I’m supposed to feel stupid but I really just. I think we should have sex instead. Or at least make out.”
Spencer answers with his hands in Jon’s hair and his lips on Jon’s mouth. Then, just so there are no more misunderstandings, Spencer dips one hand low and he palms Jon’s crotch through his pants.
*
There are these portholes in the cabin, and the sun is low enough that the when it filters in it casts puddles of light on the bunks. (They can never, ever get away from bunks.)
Spencer’s skin is pale beneath him, but golden in the circles of sunshine and his eyelashes flutter closed when Jon twists on the upstroke. There’s sweat on the bridge of his nose and his cheeks are flushed.
“Fuck, Spencer.” Jon says and Spencer’s hands are low on his naked ass, skimming up and then down again. His fingers pry into the curve as Jon rocks his body into Spencer’s hips.
Jon kisses him and it’s just as sloppy as his rhythm, but they slip together in trapped heat and Jon’s hand and “fuck,” Jon says again.
“Next time,” Spencer says directly into his jaw and Jon gasps, low and throaty. When Spencer sucks hard at his throat and presses a finger further into his ass, Jon comes, his breath hot on Spencer’s cheek.
Spencer holds it together long enough for Jon to recover enough of himself to slide down Spencer and take his cock in his mouth. A few quick sucks at the head and then one long slide down the length of him and Spencer’s completely gone.
*
Okay, Ryan loves his band. He loves them precisely because they will leave him the fuck alone whenever he seems to need it. Which is possibly more often than anyone ever.
But, and this is key, they leave him alone in this way where he’s not really alone. For instance, now. Now he is lying flat on his back with his headphones in and the sun on his face and his arms stretched loose over his head. He can hear Spencer talking to Jon a little, just enough that their voices filter in over Maybe. And it’s perfect. There’s a breeze and Spencer made him put on sunscreen and it smells like all those times Spencer’s mom made him put the stuff on, but not in a way that makes him ache, in a way that makes him really happy.
They’re still docked (of course they are) but the boat sways and Ryan’s not drifting off, except he totally is.
There’s a change in the light, and Ryan blinks himself awake.
Brendon’s got his feet planted on either side of him and he’s bent down low, holding onto his towel awkwardly. “Boo,” he says, but low and soft and always with a smile. His hair is damp, drying but still dark and curled at the tips.
Ryan forgot that Brendon is the exception to the leaving Ryan the fuck alone when he needs it rule. Jon and Spencer usually run interference, but they must be otherwise occupied because Brendon’s pulling his earphones out even as Janis Joplin is telling him not to turn his back on love and then the only thing Ryan can hear is the lap, lap, lap of the lake against the boat.
But then Brendon’s settling in and sitting on his hips and it occurs to Ryan that there is nothing between them save for Ryan’s swim trunks because Brendon is, of course, wearing a stitch of nothing underneath his towel.
Brendon runs flat palms up his chest and says, “You’re pink.”
Ryan’s going to say something like so or I put sunscreen on or anything really, but Brendon’s touching him and the thing that comes out is, “You’re naked.”
Brendon grins and shifts a little at that and there’s hitched breath, but Ryan’s not sure where it originates from because he may not be breathing at all.
Brendon’s got his thumbs on Ryan’s nipples now, tracing even, little circles and Ryan’s physical response is immediate, like sense memory, and his eyes fall shut. It’s kind a surprise then, when Brendon starts kissing him, not because he’s kissing him, but because of just how he’s kissing him. Small and tentative and chaste when they’re both half hard already, so Ryan reaches out and holds his face and lets his tongue find Brendon’s because this is okay, this is all so okay. And it’s true, even if it shouldn’t be, kissing Brendon is o-fucking-kay.
Brendon’s hands go away and then return a second later to Ryan’s neck and there’s something in his left hand, something cool with edges, but Ryan’s not too bothered what with his focus on Brendon’s mouth.
Brendon runs his hands up Ryan’s arms and puts them in Ryan’s hands and twists their fingers together and leaves the thing, whatever it is, in Ryan’s hands, before he pulls away. Ryan holds his eyes for a second before he looks at his hand, and sure, Ryan’s always been slow with some things (usually the incredibly obvious things), but it takes a bottle of lube for him to catch on that Brendon has been slowly seducing him for weeks now with half disguised nudity and ridiculous boat naming practices and bright, hopeful eyes. Ryan’s breath really does hitch this time.
“Cabin?” Ryan asks and Brendon must misunderstand. There’s a shadow that passes over his eyes and he looks down and away. Ryan opens his mouth to correct himself, but Brendon must figure out that he meant the cabin on the boat because he shakes his head and smiles his smile.
“U-uh,” he says, “We’d have to wait. I don’t want to wait. I don’t want to move. Just you, Ryan Ross, just want you.” Only he does move, he rolls his hips and his hands skitter at Ryan’s torso.
“C’mere,” Ryan says as an answer, and Brendon wiggles his way forward. Ryan keeps the lube in his hand and strokes Brendon a few times with the other before inclining his head and going up on his elbows. Brendon gets the hint and clamors forward and angels his dick down so Ryan can close his mouth over the head of it and suck. Ryan lets his jaw go slack and his neck arch up so he can take more of him in. There’s something familiar about it, the smell of him, the feel of him, the way he looks holding the base of his cock, and it takes Ryan a second to locate the unfamiliar. The unfamiliar as that behind Brendon, there’s the sun, and Ryan has never really been into sex in public, but he’s rethinking that now.
It’s not even that it’s that public, someone would have to be exceptionally lucky to see them. Or unlucky. They’re sandwiched between two low, vinyl covered benches, and even coming at them from the best angle, only Brendon’s top half would be visible. But still, there’s the sensation of skin in open air and his towel has landed somewhere at his calves and Brendon’s face is fixed in an unmistakable expression, head thrown back, mouth open. Then there’s Ryan’s mouth, wrapped around as much of his cock as he can get at. Brendon looks down heavy lidded watches as Ryan flattens his tongue against the underside as he pulls off, and that gets him a shudder. Brendon doesn’t push in again, instead he backs off and looks pointedly at Ryan’s left hand.
“We gonna do this or what, Ross.” Even his mock malice has no edge to it, but Ryan doesn’t really want to tell him no, like, ever so he pops the cap and watches Brendon watch him pour the liquid over his fingers. Brendon bends forward and inexplicably bites at his chin and Ryan laughs. Then he lifts and squirms because Brendon is trying in vain to relieve him of his shorts and seriously, why did they stop having sex?
After Ryan’s kicked them off, Brendon lifts up again and settles on his knees, he strokes his dick as Ryan slides his hand under and works in a finger, first swirling a wet circle around and then in. Brendon groans and pushes down when Ryan pushes up and they are outside and this is obscene and Ryan has never been harder in his life.
He’s trying not to rush, but Brendon seems just as impatient as he is and when he pulls out and eases a second finger in, stretching as he goes, Brendon says, “Yes, yes.” Ryan moves his fingers in and out, in and out and Brendon’s still moving his hips into nothing and being all encouraging and Brendony. Ryan fixates on the sweat forming at Brendon’s sides and on his neck and temples. His hand slips as he reaches for some part of him that he can pull down. There’s not nearly enough of them touching and Ryan would really like to be kissing Brendon as much as possible during all of this. He settles on a bicep and Brendon gets the hint. He slides down and makes a low noise when Ryan takes his fingers away.
He won’t kiss Ryan though, not until he rescues the sliding lube with an outstretched arm and produces a condom out of thin air. It’s not until he’s slicking Ryan’s cock with his arm bent awkwardly between them that he pecks him a little, three times, then settles into something slow and drawn out that matches the rhythm he’s got going on with his hand. Ryan may not be able to hold on. But he has to hold on.
“Now, okay?” Brendon asks into his lips, and Ryan thinks he’s supposed to ask that but he can’t do much more than nod and strain up, trying to keep contact as Brendon angles away.
Brendon eases himself onto Ryan’s cock and barely moves at all, tiny little thrusts as he arranges the towel around his hips, suddenly modest. Ryan thinks that towel will do nothing to hide what it is that they’re doing but he doesn’t say anything at all, just puts his hands on the fluff around his waist and urges him to move.
The thing is, like this, he doesn’t have to move much. Brendon shifts a little and hits the right angle and makes low broken noises with his eyes shut tight and Ryan recognizes that. It’s just all heat and light and Ryan’s field of vision is so full of Brendon that he’s all he can really see, Brendon and the rapidly sinking sun, throwing light and shadow all over his pale skin. Brendon’s pink too, it could be too much sun from earlier or it could be exertion.
“Touch yourself,” he tells him, but his voice doesn't really project, it’s more of a ragged whisper, and he’s so close now that when Brendon undoes the towel and does what he says, Ryan breathes and stares and comes. Brendon rides him a little through the aftershocks, but follows soon after coming in his hand and in thin arcs on Ryan’s stomach.
Brendon eases off and winces, but it’s small. Ryan only catches it because he’s looking for it. Brendon just lies directly on Ryan, smooshing their chests together and it’s not as gross as it should be, given the state of Ryan’s front.
“I,” Brendon starts, then waits for Ryan to ease up with the forty thousandth kiss he’s just planted on him. “I missed you,” he finally finishes.
Ryan’s going to say he was right there all those months, but he knows exactly what Brendon means so he just wraps his arms, long and thin, around Brendon’s back and tells Brendon, “Not going anywhere.” There’s a beat, “Well, shower maybe, but you’re invited, so…”
Brendon laughs, “Yeah, you don’t wanna go in there.” Ryan looks at him puzzled, “Do you seriously not know that the only reason I jumped you out here is that Spencer and Jon got inside first? Wow, Ross, self-absorbed much?”
“God,” Ryan says, “finally.” He’s not even weirded out by the idea that he just kind of had simultaneous sex with the other members of his band. He feels like he should be, but he’s really not.
Ryan pulls at Brendon’s earlobe. “You have to kiss me more then,” Ryan says. He doesn’t even care that he sounds stupid and a little in love, “you have to kiss me until we’re allowed to shower. That’s the boat sex rule that I just made up, and why aren’t your lips on mine? I made it clear it was a rule, right?”
Brendon makes a ridiculous attempt to roll his eyes but he ends up laughing and Ryan just pulls him in.
*
This. This should not work. It’s so silly that they’ve paired off all equal and matchy with happy smiles. It should not work, but it does.
Jon’s bare feet hang off the side of the boat and he rests his arms on the metal railing, his chin on his forearms.
Spencer sits next to him and mimics his posture, only he’s taller so he curls in more and rests his forehead on the bar.
The sun is going down and there’s a chill on the wind coming off the lake and they’re going to have to take this stupid boat out eventually. It’s silly to spend hours and hours every day on a boat that doesn’t actually move.
Spencer threads his fingers through Jon’s hair and kisses his cheek, quick and light. They watch the sun turn the sky pink.
*
Brendon pinches Ryan’s nose, like he’s five and his next trick is going to be hiding it behind his back. Then he sings in his face, low and sweet, “If I had a boat, I’d go out on the ocean.”
“Um, not the ocean, Brendon,” Ryan says as he rubs at his nose. “Kinda landlocked, it being Illinois and all.”
But Brendon doesn’t care, he just plants a kiss where Ryan was rubbing and keeps singing. “And if I had a pony, I’d ride him on my boat.”
(Brendon/Ryan, Jon/Spencer) 6,500 words, NC-17
Brendon buys a boat and Jon is all metaphorical (I mean he actually exists, he's just thinky). I took the title from If I Had a Boat because Lyle Lovett sings it so pretty and it is the most Brendon Urie-y song in the whole world, swear to god. themoononastick is a marvelous being, you don't even know. Awesome she is, and nice and hilarious and there aren't enough adjectives in the world. She did a stand up job of holding my hand and betaing this thing that is possibly too self indulgent to exist. But exist it does and I'm kind of weirdly attached to it and here is where I stop talking.
They write their third album in Chicago.
It doesn’t just happen, Ryan plans it that way. Somewhere along the way he developed this sense of things being equal and things being fair. It’s slightly inflated, kind of earnest, but really sincere, which makes it impossible to say no when Ryan approaches them with anything really, anything at all.
By Jon’s calculations, though, they still have one more Vegas album in them. Three and one and last is last. But Ryan had insisted and neither Spencer nor Brendon seemed to mind being away from home for a little longer. Or a lot longer depending on how things go.
Maybe Ryan was counting the cabin. Jon didn’t really want to get into an argument about either fairness or math with him though, because either has the potential to be ceaseless and tiresome and Ryan always gets his way in the end, so Jon had let it go. Actually, Jon hadn’t cared one way or another. He could sleep in Ryan’s spare room forever as long as it meant Spencer and Brendon would keep coming over and they’d all keep smoking weed and coming up with ridiculous melodies that made him feel like he was driving alone at dusk, but it was all okay because everyone had their lights on.
But Jon thinks it’s more about them than where they are. And Ryan had insisted.
*
Their plane was supposed to land at O’Hare at 12:42. It’s around 3:47 when the pilot tells them to turn off their electrical devices and fasten their seatbelts.
Ryan watches Brendon stare out the tiny window. It’s just blue beneath them, and the way the plane lists left, Lake Michigan fills the window and stretches on forever and looks just like the ocean.
Brendon breathes in and for a second Ryan thinks the landing has him nervous, but Brendon just winks at Ryan. “We should totally get a boat,” he says.
Brendon’s been pretty sedate for the entire flight, but he makes up for it in the last fifteen minutes. Ryan completely lost out on the seat assignments. Couldn’t he have sat next to someone not so prone to wild obsessions? Or at least not so prone to discussing their wild obsessions at great length and increasing volume. But Jon and Spencer are being all buddy buddy lately, and it’s good, he knows, for both of them. Still, he wishes Brendon would shut up about the damn boat already.
For the next four hours, from baggage claim to dinner to the cab ride home to Jon’s, Brendon doesn’t stop talking about how awesome it would be. At least Spencer and Jon are forced to listen now as well.
When Jon points out that Brendon doesn’t actually know how to drive…sail…work a boat Brendon just grins and says that is why they invented the internet, Jon Walker, people can learn anything.
Finally, Spencer starts talking about the record and steers Brendon on to a topic that can hold his attention even longer than the hypothetical boat Brendon will so not be buying, Jesus Christ.
*
Despite the lengthy conversation about the album the previous evening, they don’t really get anywhere at first. They kill a lot of time setting up their rooms in the little rented house (Jon’s apartment is tiny and therefore not conducive to The Process, where as a little rental house where they each have their own space for sleeping but share nearly everything else is, apparently) and fight over counter space in the bathroom and Brendon fucks around on the piano in the living room.
He and Spencer play Heart and Soul because Chopsticks duets just aren’t cliché enough and Spencer is still learning, he’s progressed beyond either song, but not much and fuck, who doesn’t love Heart and Soul? Jon wanders in and starts tapping out things between them and Ryan calls out from his room that he’s hungry.
They end up going out for Thai, because going out the first night in a new place is better than ordering in so nothing gets accomplished on their first official day, but then none of them really expected to, so it’s fine.
*
A few days in, Jon gets up first and has most of the house mostly to himself.
It’s weird because he and Cassie haven’t talked in forever, but everything reminds Jon of her anyway. Jon knows Ryan didn’t plan it this way, but that doesn’t stop it from sucking.
He was fine. He is fine. Metaphors about driving alone notwithstanding.
Spencer comes out from his room, showered and already dressed. He sits next to Jon on the couch and nudges him with his shoulder. “You into this?” he asks.
It takes Jon a second to realize Spencer is referring to whatever the hell is on television, and no, no Jon is not into this. The remote is in his hand so he hits power and the room goes quiet.
“Good, let’s get coffee then. If I have to smell Nagchampa for one more second I think I’m gonna kill Ryan.”
Spencer is being more awesome than is really warranted. Not that Jon’s complaining, but he’s starting to feel like he might need to do something to deserve all the extra attention. He also really wants to reassure Spencer that he is, in fact, okay. He doesn’t want Spencer to go away though. He might like the attention more than he lets on. He might like talking to Spencer more than he likes talking to anybody else.
Lately Jon’s noticed that Spencer doesn’t bring up Haley at all. He’s probably just being polite, like here, watch me not talk about my awesome girlfriend who is so awesome because it might send you into a tailspin of depression because you are so alone in this world, Jon Walker, alone alone alone without someone to love.
Yeah, Jon could really use some coffee.
“Coffee run,” he hollers at no one in particular, then he pushes Spencer out the door before anyone can shout orders at him. Ryan and Brendon can get their own coffee.
*
They’ve been there about a week when Brendon wanders out to the kitchen wearing a wrapped up bed sheet. He has it tied around his waist with all the excess thrown over his shoulder - more Roman than Greek, but still very toga-y.
Ryan knows Brendon hates to miss anything, so it’s not surprising. He probably woke up to all their voices and didn’t even think about it. Sure, he generally has the forethought to throw on some pants, but the entire universe is kind of aware that the kid sleeps in the nothing, so Ryan is totally unphased. Really.
He eats his breakfast like that, bleary eyed and half naked, breaking into the conversation with his mouth full of peanut butter toast. Spencer rolls his eyes, but Jon just pours him some juice.
Ryan walks away to drink his coffee in peace in the living room, in that overstuffed chair he likes so well. His best guitar is propped next to it, and it’s not like he’s claimed it, only he likes it especially.
He still has a view of the kitchen and Brendon’s back as he hunches his shoulders and laughs at something Spencer’s just said.
He’s not thinking about it, though. And he’s definitely not thinking about the cabin.
The cabin was not so good. Well, it started good. And it even ended good, but there was definite not good there in the middle. The thing Ryan is most not thinking about is how they touched all the time until fucking felt like the next step in a natural progression that had been building since they first met forever ago.
It’s not as though Ryan hadn’t enjoyed all the fucking Brendon, just that it was a little more than fucking and they were both surprised by that. Bad surprised. And somewhere between everything, it got to be that Ryan’s lyrics felt like open wounds and Brendon could either lick them better or poke at them until they were raw again. It’s a weird power to have over somebody, and Ryan isn’t sure if he gave it to Brendon, or if Brendon took it, but whichever way it happened, Ryan is positive it was unconscious. Neither of them would do that sort of thing with intent.
Regardless, it was too much, all the touching and the writing and the more than just fucking. It turned to fighting so simply and so easily that that part also felt like natural progression. One that Ryan could stop.
Ryan’s smarter now, he knows how to be open without being paralyzed by it. He knows how to share responsibility and let other voices in and write songs that are the lyrical equivalent of the four of them holding hands. Brendon too, with the bits that are still all Ryan, he learned how to take just enough to keep it still Ryan, but make it so he’s the one exposing everything.
It works, it works really well. And it’s balanced and fair and Ryan shouldn’t screw with it by staring at Brendon’s bare back, thinking things.
Brendon flops on the couch after he’s done eating, and he struggles with the sheet that’s tangled up in his legs for a few seconds before he stands up, turns away from Ryan and opens it up so it will lay flat when he lies back down.
Ryan can’t think much beyond fuck and not good, but his eyes seem to be doing some thinking of their own. He traces the clean line of Brendon’s thighs up through his shoulders, barely peeking out of the top of the sheet. He could linger at his ass so easily, but he doesn’t. It’s just a quick leer, nothing more. When he hits Brendon’s eyes they’re open and expressionless, looking back at his. Ryan holds the look because he doesn’t know what else to do. Brendon simply shuts his eyes and wiggles into the couch, settling in for some nude, post breakfast naptime.
Ryan sits back in his chair and he’d groan in embarrassment but Brendon would probably hear him.
*
Spencer can’t stop smiling and Jon can’t stop smiling back at him and neither thing makes any sense at all. They have no reason to be this happy, none at all. Jon would say that the writing isn’t going well, but that would imply that there is actual writing going on and that is not the case.
And yet, here they are. Smiling.
And not just Jon and Spencer, Ryan and Brendon too. Maybe not at each other in particular, but at everything else.
They’re passing the time and it feels like vacation, but there’s this thing in the background, this we need to get our shit together thing. But they’re smiling enough that the thing starts to feel temporary. It’ll come when it comes.
Mostly there’s a lot of cooking and Wii and sitting around playing their favorite songs and talking about music. That and the ever escalating, passive-aggressive yet hilarious note war in the bathroom. It started with wet towels on the floor and now there are post-its on empty toilet paper rolls left on the dispenser with Camus quotes in Ryan Ross’s thinly disguised hand writing and either Spencer or Brendon’s responses have included random selections of Family Guy transcriptions scrawled on the mirror in dry erase marker. Jon may or may not have attempted to draw the finger of God bit of the Sistine Chapel pointing towards someone’s abandoned pink underwear in the corner by the towel rack. He’s pretty sure no one knew what the hell it was though, he’s got to step up his game.
It’s awesome, but Jon is never willing to share a bathroom with three other guys ever again. Literary revenge is apparently a very time consuming bathroom activity because Ryan spends more time in there than anyone and that is seriously saying something. Jon has this theory that Ryan’s calling Pete to get particularly ridiculous ideas, but since none of them has actually talked about the feud, Jon can’t ask. It’s like this really sanitary version of fight club for guys not actually willing to punch each other.
And through all of it, Spencer is doing all this smiling and Jon starts to think that it can stay like this forever and that would be okay. It’s enough, the smiles, it’s all Jon wants.
Even when Spencer starts talking to Haley all the time again.
*
A few weeks in Spencer watches Brendon walk into the living room.
He’s flipping his keys around his finger and he can’t not look because there’s a giant orange…something flying around too, and Brendon, it would seem, would really like all of them to pay attention to his keys.
He sits deep in the deep couch and slumps low and there’s a contented little smile on his face, the kind you can’t force away. It grows when he tosses his keys on the coffee table and they slide to a stop.
“No,” Spencer says, “no.” Because that is an orange floaty and those can only be boat keys. “You are such a jackass.”
After talking about it non-stop for days, Brendon had been quiet about the whole boat thing for weeks. They’d all thought it had blown over but it would seem that they were very wrong. Brendon is stealthy. Brendon, Spencer thinks, might stay up late into the night every night and plot out a million different ways to drive Ryan Ross, and thereby the rest of them, slowly, irrevocably insane.
“Ryan’s gonna kill you,” Jon says, but Jon’s already grabbing at the keys and experimentally squeezing the tiny life jacket.
*
Ryan doesn’t kill him. He just doesn’t let anyone leave. Brendon’s keys sit where Jon dropped them, the table by the door that every house in the world has.
Jon sees Brendon chancing glances over at them, but he only asks once if they want to see his boat. Jon wants to and Spencer seems interested, but Ryan is resolute.
Brendon fidgets next to Spencer, jiggling a leg and Spencer puts a hand on his knee to stop him. Then he leaves it there like Brendon may start again if he doesn’t. Jon kind of hates that he notices that. He keeps strumming his guitar as he looks up and sees Ryan notice too. Ryan schools his face into something that Jon suspects is designed to be expressionless but it comes out more strained and squinty than he probably realizes.
Brendon jumps up suddenly. “If we’re not actually going to do any making of the music, I’m going on my boat,” he announces, “Text me when I need to come back.”
It would sound diva-y, but they really haven’t done anything for the past two hours besides watch Ryan chew on the end of a pen. Ryan never writes in front of anybody anyway, so they all know he’s just stalling for time. Which is kind of a douchey move, if you ask Jon.
After they hear the rental car start up Spencer kicks Ryan in the shin. Hard it looks like.
“What?” Petulant is not attractive on Ryan Ross. It is however kind of hilarious.
“You’re stupid,” is Spencer’s only answer.
“Shut up, you are.”
Jon knows this can go on for at least twenty, thirty minutes, he’s seen it happen before. He has to interrupt them for the sake of his own sanity.
“We should…” Jon starts, “He’s not going to. You don’t think he’s going to try and drive it, do you?” Jon is still not sure drive is the correct terminology, but it’ll have to do.
Ryan’s mouth falls open and Spencer pulls out his phone, presumably texting Brendon to come back and get them.
Ryan’s voice sounds really, really small when he says, “Brendon’s going to perish at sea. In Lake Michigan.”
And it’s likely too. Brendon is the kind of person who thinks North is the direction he happens to be facing. Also, he drives like shit. Jon looks at Ryan and there’s some genuine panic there. It makes Jon smile, but he hides it quick.
*
It’s a long drive, 40 minutes or so, because the dock is a ways outside the city, but still close enough to see the skyline. Brendon smiles while he drives and flips stations every time Ryan starts to get into a song and none of them talk, but Ryan can hear Spencer humming next to him.
Brendon leads them down the dock, his entire body a barely contained bundle of glee, and he stops in front of an obviously brand new, shining monstrosity of a boat.
Brendon loves it. It’s sort of painfully obvious.
Ryan goes completely still when he sees the black letters on the back, big and bold, right above a tiny scrawled Lake Michigan, Illinois.
Brendon shrugs. “I like candles,” he says, “I like swans. I like Candle Swans.” Brendon’s voice is full of nonchalance that is completely betrayed by the fact that he’s bouncing on the balls of his feet.
Ryan can’t fucking breathe.
“Show us your boat, Bren,” Jon says and something in Ryan starts to loosen.
*
Yeah, Brendon’s boat is awesome. So, so awesome. They totally all love him. Even Ryan.
*
It happens slowly, but eventually they start to hang out on Brendon’s boat pretty much every day. The boat doesn’t actually move, per se, but they still wind up heading there every morning.
They write songs on it too. Actual songs with words and melodies and everything.
Sometimes they even sleep there, unwilling or unable to drive back.
They stock the fridge with beer and fruit and there are popsicles in the freezer and cereal in the cupboards.
They swim when it gets too warm. Or rather they jump in and climb back out and then do it all over again.
They hot box in the tiny bedroom at the back of the cabin. It’s no bigger than a closet with a bed shoved in it. They all sit on the mattress and the material is scratchy because there aren’t any sheets yet and no one can ever remember to grab some when they go back to the rental house for the occasional meal and/or change of clothes.
When Ryan thinks about it, he has no idea why any of this is working at all. The boat, while large, is still a boat. It’s still half the size of Jon’s apartment that was too small to house them and all their boundless creativity. And it’s not like they can truck a piano up here, or Spencer’s drum kit for that matter.
So what they’re really doing is figuring things out. Kind of.
And then there’s the Brendon issue and how that shouldn’t work either. Won’t work. But Ryan’s not thinking about that right now. Or ever if he can possibly manage that.
*
Jon tries really hard not to see the perpetually docked boat as some sort of metaphor for his life.
It’s a lot easier to do that when Spencer is sitting next to him, still soaking wet, and they’re sharing a beer because they’re both too lazy to get up and walk to the fridge that’s all of ten feet away.
Spencer leans forward and laughs. His hair falls forward too, but it happens slow, like the tiny strands are doing their best to hang on. It’s then, that very second, that Jon thinks the smiles he gets and the jokes and the attention that comes his way is not enough. He wants more.
It’s good that Spencer’s hair is doing a fantastic job of hiding his face because if Jon can’t see Spencer, Spencer can’t see Jon and Jon is relatively certain that there’s all kinds of impossible to disguise want written all over him.
He has no idea, then, why he reaches out and uses his fingers to thread Spencer’s bangs back into the rest of his hair. Spencer looks at him, and Jon just keeps doing it. Mostly because he doesn’t want to stop, but also because he doesn’t want to do more when he has no clue what Spencer’s reaction will be if Jon gives up and plasters his mouth all over his.
“I had to go to speech therapy as a kid.” He says, and it’s just stupid words spilling out of his stupid mouth because Jon is a nervous talker, which he had successfully forgotten all about because he is almost never nervous these days, and especially not with Spencer. Which, how fun for both of them that Jon can’t manage to shut up. Spencer is staring now. “I put my tongue in the wrong place. It’s supposed to go on the roof of your mouth but I press it against my teeth.” He is honestly not talking about his tongue right now. Jon dies a little inside, “You know, with my S’s? There was a tongue depressor involved. Every Tuesday in the first grade. It didn’t work. Obv-“
And that’s when Spencer kisses him.
*
Spencer kisses Jon because he’s talking about tongue depressors and first grade and speech therapy and he is so done actively not kissing Jon. And damn, he hopes Jon likes it because he would really enjoy doing this a lot more, like say every day all day.
Jon goes still for a second, and Spencer can feel all this tension coming off of him, and then it’s up and gone and Jon is kissing him back, and Jon is eager about it in a way that Spencer could not have predicted, not in a million years. It’s fucking fantastic.
Jon tilts in a little and puts his hands on Spencer’s face and licks in first. It’s like Jon is kissing Spencer rather than Spencer kissing Jon. It’s okay, being kissed by Jon and his aggressive little mouth is not something Spencer thinks he’ll ever complain about.
And then Jon’s not kissing him anymore. He’s still close and near, but he’s saying, “Haley,” and what. What?
“What about Haley?” Jon looks like he tripped and accidentally clubbed a baby seal. It makes Spencer want to make it better in the worst way, but he has no idea what Jon is talking about.
“What about Haley?” Spencer returns and it‘s all suddenly like a really bad romantic comedy because Jon thinks Spencer is with Haley. Spencer’s only consolation is that misunderstandings generally get resolved in Romantic Comedies. Only that’s usually after a lot of pointless twists and shit so Spencer is going to nip this in the bud as quickly as possible so they can get back to the kissing part he liked so much.
“Um, Jon, please tell me you know I’m not with Haley. Please?”
“Yeah, no.” Jon says. He sounds kind of upset. “And what the fuck, you were like just talking to her this morning.”
“I am mature beyond my years, Jon, you know this.” He pointedly does not mention that Jon and Cassie do not talk, because that would negate the whole maturity thing he is currently projecting. “And she’s like my best friend not currently on this boat.” Spencer gestures wildly. Are they fighting? Are they seriously fighting after they just got to the good part? “Fuck, we broke up before you and Cassie broke up, how do you not know this? Fuck.”
Spencer’s not even one of those guys, those I don’t talk about my feelings guys. He is sure that this has come up. He was inconsolable for a month. And Jon thought what? He was just being pissy? The hell.
“I…” Jon gets this funny little look on his face. “Oh. You didn’t tell me?”
They are both stupid. And also dumb. Stupid and dumb. Spencer doesn’t know how to say “I thought you knew” without sounding ridiculous and kind of testy. And then he remembers all of the Jon hugs he got that month. And Spencer thinks that Jon knew he was sad, he just didn’t ask why and that is not a bad thing, really. That is a Jon thing. So he just says it and hopes he looks as apologetic as he feels.
There’s silence and it’s threatening to stretch into something uncomfortable, so Spencer says, “Yeah, can we talk about speech therapy again?” Then he laughs a little because this is Jon and they would have to try so much harder if they actually wanted to ruin this.
Jon smiles. Spencer will just have to remember to, like, spell things out for him or something. He can do that.
Jon runs a hand though his hair and then rucks it forward so short bits of it stick straight up. Spencer wants to touch it. Jon’s eyes are really, really brown and dark and they match his hair almost exactly. They crinkle up when he starts to talk, like he’s half way between flat out grinning and cringing. Thank god he goes with grinning. He says, “I know I’m supposed to feel stupid but I really just. I think we should have sex instead. Or at least make out.”
Spencer answers with his hands in Jon’s hair and his lips on Jon’s mouth. Then, just so there are no more misunderstandings, Spencer dips one hand low and he palms Jon’s crotch through his pants.
*
There are these portholes in the cabin, and the sun is low enough that the when it filters in it casts puddles of light on the bunks. (They can never, ever get away from bunks.)
Spencer’s skin is pale beneath him, but golden in the circles of sunshine and his eyelashes flutter closed when Jon twists on the upstroke. There’s sweat on the bridge of his nose and his cheeks are flushed.
“Fuck, Spencer.” Jon says and Spencer’s hands are low on his naked ass, skimming up and then down again. His fingers pry into the curve as Jon rocks his body into Spencer’s hips.
Jon kisses him and it’s just as sloppy as his rhythm, but they slip together in trapped heat and Jon’s hand and “fuck,” Jon says again.
“Next time,” Spencer says directly into his jaw and Jon gasps, low and throaty. When Spencer sucks hard at his throat and presses a finger further into his ass, Jon comes, his breath hot on Spencer’s cheek.
Spencer holds it together long enough for Jon to recover enough of himself to slide down Spencer and take his cock in his mouth. A few quick sucks at the head and then one long slide down the length of him and Spencer’s completely gone.
*
Okay, Ryan loves his band. He loves them precisely because they will leave him the fuck alone whenever he seems to need it. Which is possibly more often than anyone ever.
But, and this is key, they leave him alone in this way where he’s not really alone. For instance, now. Now he is lying flat on his back with his headphones in and the sun on his face and his arms stretched loose over his head. He can hear Spencer talking to Jon a little, just enough that their voices filter in over Maybe. And it’s perfect. There’s a breeze and Spencer made him put on sunscreen and it smells like all those times Spencer’s mom made him put the stuff on, but not in a way that makes him ache, in a way that makes him really happy.
They’re still docked (of course they are) but the boat sways and Ryan’s not drifting off, except he totally is.
There’s a change in the light, and Ryan blinks himself awake.
Brendon’s got his feet planted on either side of him and he’s bent down low, holding onto his towel awkwardly. “Boo,” he says, but low and soft and always with a smile. His hair is damp, drying but still dark and curled at the tips.
Ryan forgot that Brendon is the exception to the leaving Ryan the fuck alone when he needs it rule. Jon and Spencer usually run interference, but they must be otherwise occupied because Brendon’s pulling his earphones out even as Janis Joplin is telling him not to turn his back on love and then the only thing Ryan can hear is the lap, lap, lap of the lake against the boat.
But then Brendon’s settling in and sitting on his hips and it occurs to Ryan that there is nothing between them save for Ryan’s swim trunks because Brendon is, of course, wearing a stitch of nothing underneath his towel.
Brendon runs flat palms up his chest and says, “You’re pink.”
Ryan’s going to say something like so or I put sunscreen on or anything really, but Brendon’s touching him and the thing that comes out is, “You’re naked.”
Brendon grins and shifts a little at that and there’s hitched breath, but Ryan’s not sure where it originates from because he may not be breathing at all.
Brendon’s got his thumbs on Ryan’s nipples now, tracing even, little circles and Ryan’s physical response is immediate, like sense memory, and his eyes fall shut. It’s kind a surprise then, when Brendon starts kissing him, not because he’s kissing him, but because of just how he’s kissing him. Small and tentative and chaste when they’re both half hard already, so Ryan reaches out and holds his face and lets his tongue find Brendon’s because this is okay, this is all so okay. And it’s true, even if it shouldn’t be, kissing Brendon is o-fucking-kay.
Brendon’s hands go away and then return a second later to Ryan’s neck and there’s something in his left hand, something cool with edges, but Ryan’s not too bothered what with his focus on Brendon’s mouth.
Brendon runs his hands up Ryan’s arms and puts them in Ryan’s hands and twists their fingers together and leaves the thing, whatever it is, in Ryan’s hands, before he pulls away. Ryan holds his eyes for a second before he looks at his hand, and sure, Ryan’s always been slow with some things (usually the incredibly obvious things), but it takes a bottle of lube for him to catch on that Brendon has been slowly seducing him for weeks now with half disguised nudity and ridiculous boat naming practices and bright, hopeful eyes. Ryan’s breath really does hitch this time.
“Cabin?” Ryan asks and Brendon must misunderstand. There’s a shadow that passes over his eyes and he looks down and away. Ryan opens his mouth to correct himself, but Brendon must figure out that he meant the cabin on the boat because he shakes his head and smiles his smile.
“U-uh,” he says, “We’d have to wait. I don’t want to wait. I don’t want to move. Just you, Ryan Ross, just want you.” Only he does move, he rolls his hips and his hands skitter at Ryan’s torso.
“C’mere,” Ryan says as an answer, and Brendon wiggles his way forward. Ryan keeps the lube in his hand and strokes Brendon a few times with the other before inclining his head and going up on his elbows. Brendon gets the hint and clamors forward and angels his dick down so Ryan can close his mouth over the head of it and suck. Ryan lets his jaw go slack and his neck arch up so he can take more of him in. There’s something familiar about it, the smell of him, the feel of him, the way he looks holding the base of his cock, and it takes Ryan a second to locate the unfamiliar. The unfamiliar as that behind Brendon, there’s the sun, and Ryan has never really been into sex in public, but he’s rethinking that now.
It’s not even that it’s that public, someone would have to be exceptionally lucky to see them. Or unlucky. They’re sandwiched between two low, vinyl covered benches, and even coming at them from the best angle, only Brendon’s top half would be visible. But still, there’s the sensation of skin in open air and his towel has landed somewhere at his calves and Brendon’s face is fixed in an unmistakable expression, head thrown back, mouth open. Then there’s Ryan’s mouth, wrapped around as much of his cock as he can get at. Brendon looks down heavy lidded watches as Ryan flattens his tongue against the underside as he pulls off, and that gets him a shudder. Brendon doesn’t push in again, instead he backs off and looks pointedly at Ryan’s left hand.
“We gonna do this or what, Ross.” Even his mock malice has no edge to it, but Ryan doesn’t really want to tell him no, like, ever so he pops the cap and watches Brendon watch him pour the liquid over his fingers. Brendon bends forward and inexplicably bites at his chin and Ryan laughs. Then he lifts and squirms because Brendon is trying in vain to relieve him of his shorts and seriously, why did they stop having sex?
After Ryan’s kicked them off, Brendon lifts up again and settles on his knees, he strokes his dick as Ryan slides his hand under and works in a finger, first swirling a wet circle around and then in. Brendon groans and pushes down when Ryan pushes up and they are outside and this is obscene and Ryan has never been harder in his life.
He’s trying not to rush, but Brendon seems just as impatient as he is and when he pulls out and eases a second finger in, stretching as he goes, Brendon says, “Yes, yes.” Ryan moves his fingers in and out, in and out and Brendon’s still moving his hips into nothing and being all encouraging and Brendony. Ryan fixates on the sweat forming at Brendon’s sides and on his neck and temples. His hand slips as he reaches for some part of him that he can pull down. There’s not nearly enough of them touching and Ryan would really like to be kissing Brendon as much as possible during all of this. He settles on a bicep and Brendon gets the hint. He slides down and makes a low noise when Ryan takes his fingers away.
He won’t kiss Ryan though, not until he rescues the sliding lube with an outstretched arm and produces a condom out of thin air. It’s not until he’s slicking Ryan’s cock with his arm bent awkwardly between them that he pecks him a little, three times, then settles into something slow and drawn out that matches the rhythm he’s got going on with his hand. Ryan may not be able to hold on. But he has to hold on.
“Now, okay?” Brendon asks into his lips, and Ryan thinks he’s supposed to ask that but he can’t do much more than nod and strain up, trying to keep contact as Brendon angles away.
Brendon eases himself onto Ryan’s cock and barely moves at all, tiny little thrusts as he arranges the towel around his hips, suddenly modest. Ryan thinks that towel will do nothing to hide what it is that they’re doing but he doesn’t say anything at all, just puts his hands on the fluff around his waist and urges him to move.
The thing is, like this, he doesn’t have to move much. Brendon shifts a little and hits the right angle and makes low broken noises with his eyes shut tight and Ryan recognizes that. It’s just all heat and light and Ryan’s field of vision is so full of Brendon that he’s all he can really see, Brendon and the rapidly sinking sun, throwing light and shadow all over his pale skin. Brendon’s pink too, it could be too much sun from earlier or it could be exertion.
“Touch yourself,” he tells him, but his voice doesn't really project, it’s more of a ragged whisper, and he’s so close now that when Brendon undoes the towel and does what he says, Ryan breathes and stares and comes. Brendon rides him a little through the aftershocks, but follows soon after coming in his hand and in thin arcs on Ryan’s stomach.
Brendon eases off and winces, but it’s small. Ryan only catches it because he’s looking for it. Brendon just lies directly on Ryan, smooshing their chests together and it’s not as gross as it should be, given the state of Ryan’s front.
“I,” Brendon starts, then waits for Ryan to ease up with the forty thousandth kiss he’s just planted on him. “I missed you,” he finally finishes.
Ryan’s going to say he was right there all those months, but he knows exactly what Brendon means so he just wraps his arms, long and thin, around Brendon’s back and tells Brendon, “Not going anywhere.” There’s a beat, “Well, shower maybe, but you’re invited, so…”
Brendon laughs, “Yeah, you don’t wanna go in there.” Ryan looks at him puzzled, “Do you seriously not know that the only reason I jumped you out here is that Spencer and Jon got inside first? Wow, Ross, self-absorbed much?”
“God,” Ryan says, “finally.” He’s not even weirded out by the idea that he just kind of had simultaneous sex with the other members of his band. He feels like he should be, but he’s really not.
Ryan pulls at Brendon’s earlobe. “You have to kiss me more then,” Ryan says. He doesn’t even care that he sounds stupid and a little in love, “you have to kiss me until we’re allowed to shower. That’s the boat sex rule that I just made up, and why aren’t your lips on mine? I made it clear it was a rule, right?”
Brendon makes a ridiculous attempt to roll his eyes but he ends up laughing and Ryan just pulls him in.
*
This. This should not work. It’s so silly that they’ve paired off all equal and matchy with happy smiles. It should not work, but it does.
Jon’s bare feet hang off the side of the boat and he rests his arms on the metal railing, his chin on his forearms.
Spencer sits next to him and mimics his posture, only he’s taller so he curls in more and rests his forehead on the bar.
The sun is going down and there’s a chill on the wind coming off the lake and they’re going to have to take this stupid boat out eventually. It’s silly to spend hours and hours every day on a boat that doesn’t actually move.
Spencer threads his fingers through Jon’s hair and kisses his cheek, quick and light. They watch the sun turn the sky pink.
*
Brendon pinches Ryan’s nose, like he’s five and his next trick is going to be hiding it behind his back. Then he sings in his face, low and sweet, “If I had a boat, I’d go out on the ocean.”
“Um, not the ocean, Brendon,” Ryan says as he rubs at his nose. “Kinda landlocked, it being Illinois and all.”
But Brendon doesn’t care, he just plants a kiss where Ryan was rubbing and keeps singing. “And if I had a pony, I’d ride him on my boat.”