PatD fic: One More Than Three (GSF, Adult)
Title: One More Than Three
Pairing: Brendon/Ryan/Spencer + Jon (special appearance by Gabe Saporta)
Rating: Adult
Summary: So, this is a kind of silly story wherein some not-so-serious things happen, although it's rather mopey at times. It might have some schmoopy bits. Occasionally, it attempts humor, because these boys are such failboats. And there's probably some sex. Last but not least, there's a slightly lecherous love guru in the form of a tall, skinny Cobra. 9200 words.
Note: Thanks to themoononastick for much-needed conceptual handholding (re: Gabe in Chicago) many moons ago. Not that she should be held responsible for anything else about this needlessly self-indulgent fic. :)
One More Than Three
Jon's thankful what Ryan and Brendon and Spencer have is so unusual because it means no one would even think to suspect it. And if no one knows it's even possible, then no one can ask him about how he feels about his bandmates being sloppy, silly, happy in love with each other. Certainly no one here in Chicago can ask him.
If only that meant he didn't think about it.
Since it's Tom and the other Empires guys, they just ask him about the music, or they want to rag on the support bands on this latest tour and make snide comments about Chris Carrabba's hats. If they're going to get personal on him, they ask about his first Christmas without Cassie. He can answer those questions just fine. It's actually the unasked one-unasked because nobody has a fucking clue-that gets to him.
He came so close to letting his guard down and telling Beckett at the bar last night during The Academy's off-to-Europe going away party, but he stopped himself-because Gabe, in town for the holidays too, was lurking, eyeing him suspiciously like he could sense what was going on; and because Jon could almost hear the inevitable question he'd get from William in reply, mature and soft and serious:
Does it make you wish you were a part of it?
The answer's easy: yes. Not that Jon knows in God's name what he means by that or what to do about it. So he'd just told William about the seeds of album three and how satisfying it was to be a part of something that worked so well, and he'd told Gabe that, no, he absolutely did not want to come back to William's guest room with him.
*
"Gabriel Saporta, pick up the damn phone," he's saying to William's answering machine the next night, after one too many shots with Nick and Mikey and their girlfriends. "I know you're there. C'mon, I need to talk at somebody. I know I was weird last night, and-" Jon sighs. "Hey, I'm drunk. You could probably get me naked or something, if that's-"
"Been there," a warm, lazy voice says after a click. "Not that I wouldn't mind a return trip, but… Mi amor, is there a way I could get you to stop shouting? I can almost smell you through the phone."
"You're smelling you, fuckface. Can I come up?"
"What? You're outside?"
"On the stoop. So can I?"
"I don't know. Not my place. Bill might not want-"
"For Christ's sakes," Jon murmurs, "he's already in England by now, and he let you in, didn't he?"
"You do have a point." His voice drags, rough like he's been sleeping maybe, but he's also clearly starting to come out of it: "So here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna snuggle up in our dear friend's lovely guest bed with me, and then you're gonna tell me what's so fucking dire that you thought me groping you would be better than Conrad being all blasé and retarded about your pain."
"I never said I was in pain."
"So you're not, then?"
"Gabe…"
"Ay, claro. Come on up. And warm your fucking hands, dude, or else I'm not letting you under the blankets."
*
Ryan was the one to clue him in, back when he was just a fill-in. He would've guessed Spencer, but he's learned by now that Spencer's really the least okay with the precarious thing they've got going, maybe because he sees all the ways it could go to shit. Brendon, on the other hand, operates on blind hope. Ryan is somewhere in between: maybe he believes it's temporary at best, but he believes in Spencer, so he's just going to go with it as long as it lasts, especially because he couldn't say no to Brendon if he wanted to.
Ryan told him about it in pieces. Apparently, he told him in about the same order the thing happened. It actually made a weird kind of sense, enough that Jon didn't feel tricked or duped. Is there a good way to tell your new bassist that you and your bandmates are in a threeway relationship?
One night as they were smoking a bowl, just the two of them, talking music and philosophy and the usual bullshit, out of the blue, Ryan said, So, Brendon and I used to…sort of fuck around. I mean, you know we're both bi, right? And Jon nodded like it wasn't a shock, because it wasn't, not really. Then Ryan added, Sometimes we still do.
Jon figured out the Spencer thing on his own. Sure, it was in the way he didn't look at girls-in fact, he was unashamedly gay without trying too hard to prove it all the time-but more than that, it was in how Jon began to notice him hovering over Ryan, possessive. What had once looked like best friend confidences suddenly began to look intimate in a different way. Finally, Jon asked Ryan about it, about Spencer's feelings about him, and Ryan just said it was okay, that Brendon knew. Knew what? Jon wanted to ask, but he didn't.
Finally, Jon caught Spencer and Brendon kissing after a show one night, hands tangled in each other's hair and mouths sucking soft and sure, like it couldn't have been the first time. But since he was walking onto the bus with Ryan at his heels, he wasn't confused for long. As they stepped back out into the night and Jon lit a cigarette with shaking hands, Ryan said, "It's all of us. I mean, in a relationship, okay? All three of us, together. I know it's kind of…weird, but I hope you won't judge us."
He didn't have to ask Jon not to talk about it; that part was pretty plainly written in the fierce line of his jaw that belied the casual ways his eyes drifted over the parking lot.
When he joined the band officially, that's when they had the discussion about what it meant and how it worked. Jon is a laid-back, open-minded guy and he had Cassie then, so he said he didn't mind. He told himself it was their life, and since it hadn't seemed to fuck up the band yet-in fact, maybe it was the only way the band worked-that was all that mattered. What else could he possibly let himself think? That it's hard enough making a relationship work with two people, so why add a third? That it would surely all come crashing down on them, sooner rather than later? So it was okay because Jon decided it would have to be. There were rules about bus sex, and they maybe argued a little about them, but overall things were fine. They were them and he was him, and three plus one had always worked pretty well, since they were four on stage and at meet and greets and in interviews and in almost everything else except sleeping and touching.
Of course, there are times when Brendon pulls him into their group hugs, and it's like everyone forgets Jon is not theirs to hold so tightly. Even Jon forgets.
Somehow, it's extra difficult to forget when he's a couple of thousand miles away from the three of them, walking up to William's apartment to throw himself on the mercy of the one person in all the world who will actually treat such a situation like it's serious without making it into a catastrophe, even if it means he'll absolutely give him shit about it. Especially then, actually.
*
"I think I want to have sex with Ryan Ross," Jon says as he spills across the threshold.
To his credit, Gabe doesn't laugh, doesn't even so much as smirk. Actually, he looks a little sleepy and wrung out, like he's coming down from a drunk himself, or maybe coming off a buzz.
Gabe just nods and says, "Welcome to the club. What are you drinking?"
Jon's following Gabe into William's kitchen. He can't stop his feet-or his mouth, apparently. "And Brendon," he adds.
Gabe makes a whistling noise, like an airplane crashing. "So, booze: clear or brown?"
"Brown. And, no, that shit tequila you love so much is not brown."
There's half a bottle of Jack Daniels under the sink. It'll do. When they get to the bedroom, Gabe makes him take off his shoes and jeans and get under the blankets. It's unbearably warm and Jon already feels a little dizzy, so he sits back against the headboard and doesn't close his eyes; that'll make it worse. He sits as still as he can so he can't feel it. Or anything.
"So…" Gabe says. "There's a problem, and I take it the problem is Ross and the kid are doing exactly what people think they're doing?"
"Uh huh. For years, apparently. But the real problem is… Well, fuck."
"Walker?"
Jon puts every bit of concentration and energy he has into a serious expression, his eyes fastened on Gabe's.
"I'm gonna tell you something, and this isn't one of those fucking cute secrets that doesn't want to be a secret, okay? This is serious shit, okay? Can you file it in the right kind of drawer in your brain-you know, one of the ones that stays closed?"
Gabe's got a lot of those, actually, at least if you're absolutely clear about how to do the labeling. It should disturb Jon how a person he sees maybe half a dozen times a year at best knows so many of his secrets, but it really doesn't. He's never had any reason not to trust him or to be nervous about the miles and miles that usually separate them, that might lead anybody else to write off something personal and serious as gossip.
Jon waits for an answer, and as he does, Gabe shifts him around until Jon can lay his head on his shoulder. Gabe's warm and skinny with his arms wrapped around him, and he's not trying to grab at anything. Well, not really, just kissing the top of his head and rubbing softly at his stomach through his shirt. That's something.
Jon says, "It's Ryan and Brendon…and Spencer."
Gabe jerks a little as he coughs, startled, but he's already trying to turn it to amusement, and this feels easier now. This is why Jon likes him: he's like alcohol the way he blunts the edges of things. Well, except for when he smacks you in the face with reality. Like alcohol and a hangover all at once, actually. He's a complicated guy.
"No shit?"
Jon just nods.
"Okay then. I guess the question is, do you want Spencer, too?"
Jon takes in a breath so he can exhale it with words, but it catches in his throat, and his voice is small and, even to his ears, pitiful: "I think maybe I'm in love with him."
Gabe's quiet for a second, just breathes a sigh against his collarbone. Then he says, "Como se dice you're pretty fucked, aren't you, man?"
Jon murmurs, "Sí."
*
Jon thought Spencer hated him for like weeks. Finally, Brendon had to tell him it wasn't hate so much as envy. People who don't make even a blip on Ryan's radar, who fucking slide under it because Ryan's just that taken with them-well, they make Spencer nervous. Brendon knows this, he told him once, because it was like that with him, too.
Jon wonders if it was always about sex, why Ryan let Brendon get close to him. He's not sure it was only that, but that was definitely part of it. He thinks about it sometimes, but he doesn't say it out loud until he's lying in Gabe's bed here in William's apartment, getting progressively more hammered.
"I think Ryan's always had a thing for me," Jon says. "I mean, I think it's always been flirting, you know? From both of us."
"I know Brendon doesn't care, or if he does, he's a hypocrite. But it pisses Smith off?"
"It used to. He used to be so bitchy to me. I mean, you know that. But now…"
"…you want to take his last name and make babies with him and live happily ever-"
Jon smooshes his hand over Gabe's mouth and presses his face to his neck. "I can't. Cannot."
"Why not?"
"It's- it's just so…complicated, okay?"
Gabe nods and lets Jon hold him. But after a moment of silence, Gabe says, "So, Walker, just so I know, are you here because you're lonely or really lonely?"
Gabe's never had to ask him that before, when they happened to cross paths and Jon happened to be on the outs with Cassie; he supposes it's always been pretty obvious. He suddenly feels like an asshole, for all the times before but somehow especially for now.
Jon sighs. "Just lonely."
"What I thought," Gabe says, his voice weary but warm. "Figured I'd ask."
*
Jon's pretty sure Brendon's absolutely as far from the type of people he's always been friends with than is perhaps even humanly possible, despite dark eyes and girl jeans and overwhelming (but real, and kinda nerdy) charm. He's just got a different energy than anybody he's used to. But pretty quickly, he realized those differences didn't matter, not at all.
He thinks he misses being around Brendon the most, with his wide-eyed earnestness and his scathing wit and his contagious laughter and his desperate need to physically confirm every feeling he has by squeezing your hand or hugging you or affectionately slapping you on the back. He's always known where he stood with Brendon. He hadn't thought that could be a problem until it very much was.
One night, Brendon crawled into his bunk and chattered at him for a while, like he tends to do, especially when Ryan and Spencer are in serious conference about something, but Jon could tell that this time, he was there for reasons of his own. He was warming up to saying something serious.
Finally, Brendon asked him if he was happy. Then he said, "We never want you to be left out. Ever. You're ours now, right? That means you're one of us, no matter what happens. With us, I mean."
It was supposed to be comforting, but all it did was make Jon want to shove him away, get him the fuck out of his bunk. See, he had this girlfriend and she was perfect, but she wasn't them. And when Brendon said shit like that, he knew he couldn't be hers as long as he was theirs, even if he wasn't really a part of them. Sometimes, he sort of hates them for that.
He whispers against Gabe's neck, "It's like Brendon's the reason I started thinking too much."
"It's like he was, or he was?"
"He was. He kissed me. I'm not sure he ever told them. I mean, it wasn't anything…weird or dirty, but it meant something."
"To you?"
"Gabe…"
"Jesus fucking Christ on a cracker, Jon. This is drunken confession time, so do some confessing. You'll feel better. Like puking up a lot of booze or something."
Jon does feel a little like he could puke, but still… "I don't wanna think about it that way." Just like he didn't want to think about the implications of what Brendon had said, the idea that the three of them were maybe falling apart. It turned out not to be anything, but it could've been a sign of bad things to come, and even now, that makes Jon a little nervous.
"Okay, okay," Gabe says. "I know. I'm just saying, you say you fucking love Smith, you have some half-creepy soul mate thing with Ross, and that leaves Brendon. So…?"
"He's one of the best things in my whole fucking life."
Gabe pets the back of his neck and gives it a quick kiss. "Well, shit."
Jon gets quiet after that, and finally Gabe's hand comes around for the bottle. He takes a drink from it himself and deposits it on the floor with a dull clink.
"It's so stupid," Jon mumbles into his own hands.
"Love always is."
*
Jon is as wasted as he's been in months, but he doesn't throw up. He doesn't really sleep either, but Gabe does, so Jon lies there beside him feeling like hell and trying not to think.
It doesn't work.
He gets it, he really does-why Spencer's always so tense and protective of what the three of them have. It's probably half of why Jon wants to crawl inside him sometimes. It's not just about sex. It's really not.
After Cassie finally started what they both knew was coming, Spencer was the one there those few days when Jon wouldn't get out of his bunk except for sound check and performance. Brendon might be the best cuddler, but Spencer's the best support, even when he verges into mother hen territory. Jon thinks he'd make a good Zack if he wasn't born to be a drummer. He's always looking things in the eye, dealing with what needs to be dealt with, but that doesn't mean he forces anybody else to deal with it. Sometimes Jon thinks he should more, that it would be better for his sanity.
He slipped into Jon's bunk one night a few days after the meltdown was over and handed over an ear bud from his iPod. The music made Jon's chest hurt, but Spencer didn't go anywhere, just laid there pressed along his back until their breathing came in tandem.
"Relationships are hard," Spencer whispered into the dark as one album ended and he cued up another.
"Yeah."
"I know it doesn't make anything better to say it wasn't your fault, but… I mean, even when you do everything right, sometimes they just…"
"Hey, are you guys…okay?"
Spencer physically started at that, either because he wasn't expecting that question or, more likely, because he wasn't expecting a question about the relationship at all. If there's anything to know about their relationship that he can't see with his own eyes, he learns it because they tell him, not because he asks. He used to think it was because it didn't matter to him; now he knows it's probably that it mattered too much.
"No, we're fine," Spencer had said. "Good. I'm just saying, sometimes it's hard to keep a balance."
"It's harder with three, isn't it?"
"It's hard because it's us, that's all," he said with a sigh. "But you know that. You're with us, too."
Lying beside Gabe, listening to William's old, familiar apartment creak around him, he thinks of texting Spencer, but he doesn't know what he'd say and, besides, it's six a.m. That means it's four in Vegas, and texting will wake Ryan up if he's there. Jon can picture him clutching Spencer in his fitful sleep, with Brendon lying on his back beside him, one hand tucked against Ryan's body just to keep contact. Jon saw them sleeping like that at a hotel once.
It's not like they flaunt their physical relationship in front of him, but they don't act like it's not there either, not when they're in private, when it isn't public band time. That night, the four of them had fallen asleep during a movie, Spencer, Ryan, and Brendon on one bed and Jon on the other. When Jon woke up the next morning, Ryan was staring at him from the middle of a pile of limbs, from over Spencer's shoulder.
Ryan raised his eyebrows suggestively.
Jon muttered, grinning, "As if I could get to you in there."
"I can't sleep," Ryan whispered. "Are you sleeping?"
"Sort of. Not really."
"Then can I come over there?"
Carefully, Ryan crawled over Brendon and crept over to Jon's bed. He climbed in under the covers, and he didn't touch Jon at all. They lay facing each other, whispering between them.
"I know you think we're crazy," Ryan said. They had been talking guitar picks, then Brendon shifted around in his sleep, and both their eyes were drawn to the bed, and suddenly Ryan opened his brown eyes wide and said it, adding, "The three of us together, I mean. But we're not. I'm… Well, I'm happy. I don't remember being happy before, not like this."
"I'm glad."
"This works now. The band works. I'm glad you didn't leave. You know, when you found out. I'm glad you understand why it is the way it is. I just…" He takes a deep breath and holds it for a second, then he nods as if to himself and says, "I'm glad you're here, you know?"
"Me, too."
"Really?"
"Of course. I'm happy exactly where I am."
Ryan had stared at him hard, like he wanted to maybe hug him or something but didn't know if it was allowed, not under the covers, in bed like this. Instead, he just smiled at him-a bittersweet smile-and rolled over onto his back.
Soon after that, they left Brendon and Spencer a note and went to the other room, the room that was technically Brendon and Jon's because they never made Jon stay by himself, and they lay on opposite beds and chattered until sunrise, until they were falling asleep and Brendon was waking them up with open curtains and coffee, because I'm an awesome roommate, Jon Walker.
So was Jon. He turned his head when Brendon greeted Ryan with a kiss, and he kept his mouth shut when Brendon dragged Ryan off to the other room, for a shower. For him and Spencer and a shower.
It was the first time Jon could remember getting hard thinking about them when he wasn't trying to, when it wasn't some stoned jerk-off fantasy.
He doesn't get hard now, here in the wee and desperate hours of the morning, remembering. He just plain feels too shitty.
*
The clock reads 11:13 when Gabe wakes him and hands him a bottle of water. His head feels like it weighs easily four tons, and he's not really sure he wants to have his eyes open, so he closes them again.
"So I'm thinking," Gabe says, and the dip he makes sitting on the bed is enough to make Jon queasy, "do they know?"
"Know what?"
"That you've got it bad for them."
"Of course they know. How could they not know?"
"Because you're a laid back, mysterious motherfucker."
"Whatever."
"Seriously. I mean, how are they supposed to know you want to be with them if you're all…squirrelly about it?"
"I'm not-" He opens his eyes and frowns at Gabe. "Wait, who said I wanted to be with them?"
"Jack Daniels. That and the fucking mopey-ass face you're giving me."
"Fuck you."
"Fuck them. Unless… I mean, do you really think they're nuts? You know, trying to be in a three-way relationship?"
"A little."
"But you would?"
Jon swallows, but his throat is dry. He wrenches open the bottle and drinks.
After, he says slowly, as much convincing himself as Gabe: "It doesn't matter what I would. It's hard enough with the three of them."
"You're not hard."
"What?"
He expects something crass, at the very least some innuendo. But here in the cool light of morning, half awake and half dressed, Gabe looks vulnerable, sincere.
He says, "Never met anybody I could take so easy."
Jon thinks that's the trouble. He made it too easy for them to pull him close and make him need them when they don't have any intention of taking on another person and all his issues. Maybe they don't have any business doing it, either, not as long as it apparently took them to get their down shit together.
"It's not easy," Jon mutters. "You're stupid if you think it is."
Gabe just snorts softly. "Hey, I'm not the one who tried to give himself alcohol poisoning and doesn't even fucking know how they feel."
"If they felt it, I'd know. And if they meant to do something about it, they would have already. Hell, even if they wanted to, four is…"
"One more than three. And I doubt you'd fucking know what they felt if it bit you in the ass." After he reconsiders his words, he smirks at Jon.
"I hate you."
"You hate that a person this good looking can be right so much of the time," he says with a lazier, even cockier smile. "I'm telling you, you just need to think about this. There's no way in the world the three of them woke up one day and decided, oh, hey, threesome. Not if it's what you say it is. Let's say the different pieces came together at different times. I mean, right?"
"Yeah." He hates it when Gabe's like this. He really does. Especially when he's not feeling mentally spry enough to deal with his bullshit, much less decide if that's what it is. "So…"
"So why in the fuck aren't you out there? Didn't they ask you to come home with them on the break?"
"Ryan did. And Brendon. But…"
"Jesus," he mutters. "Yeah, you're a moron. An oblivious moron. A sexy, oblivious moron, but still. Of course, that's probably exactly why you'll be piece number four."
"Gabe?"
"Go home. Go home and mope there."
"You're kicking me out? Are you even allowed to kick me out of an apartment that doesn’t belong to you?"
"I mean go home with them. I'm telling you: buy a plane ticket to Vegas and see how fast they'll snuggle you to their ridiculous bosoms if you'll let them."
"I don't know."
"I do. Go look at them with those big brown eyes. They'll figure it out."
"What if it's not a matter of them figuring it out?"
Gabe lays a hand on his neck and gives him a serious face that quickly turns to a fond smile. "Then you are stupidly gone over total idiots, and they don't deserve you."
Jon tries a smile, and it sticks on his face. Makes him feel a little better, but not like packing a bag would. All week, he's been thinking idly of what it would be like to be there and not here, but not until Gabe said it did it feel logical or even possible. Now, the weight on his chest is heavier, the weight of a decision that can't be carried out as fast as he'd like. But that's nothing compared to the weight of the past few days, how being without them suffocated him even more quickly than the last few weeks of being fourth but not fourth.
*
The sky is clear but the wind's so cold it feels like the sunshine cuts him as he rounds the corner to his building. Formally, that's a good thing, makes him feel like he's home, but right now home's not really where he wants to be. Right now…
…there is a shivering huddle of his bandmates on his stoop?
Brendon's coat has a hood and Spencer's wearing a couple of Ryan's scarves, but Ryan looks fairly miserable wedged in between them without a proper winter coat. Jon suddenly really, really feels like throwing up, but that's probably just the adrenaline and how he feels this heat that starts in his chest and runs tingling over his whole body.
He's not even there yet, but he's already shouting: "What in the hell are you doing here?"
"Waiting for you," Spencer says. "You didn't answer your cell."
Jon pulls it out of his pocket, and the screen refuses to light up. "Shit," he calls out. "It's dead." He can't help the wide grin he's giving them, or his wide eyes. "Fuck, what are you doing here?"
"Freezing our balls off," Ryan huffs, but he's the one that comes down to meet Jon, hugs him as tightly as he can, and for the first time since he got to town on this break, Jon feels like he's where he's supposed to be.
Spencer and Brendon touch his arms as he leads them through the door, and they're all hanging onto him while they climb the stairs, and he doesn’t even know what to think. This feels a lot like it does when he arrives at McCarran for a Vegas visit after a long stretch away from them, but it also feels different somehow. He doesn't really feel his feet as they clomp up the stairs, and it's not just that his toes are practically frozen. But despite the light, floaty feeling his has, there's something equally as heavy pulling down inside him, wondering and fearing and trying not to hope.
When he gets to the landing, he stops to dig his keys out of his pocket, and his hands are shaking.
"Seriously," he says, half laughing to cover his nerves. "I'm so glad you're here, you have no idea, but…?"
"We missed you," Spencer says. "We-"
Then without any warning Ryan is right in front of him, grabbing his face in his cold hands. He looks into his eyes for a minute and Jon can see the same kinds of things he's always seen, because Ryan always let him, except now it's not just letting, it's wanting. When Jon opens his mouth to say something, he doesn't get a single word out because Ryan kisses him.
It's not a long kiss, but it's enough. When Ryan pulls back, for a second everything seems to stop, like they're all holding their breaths, not just Jon.
Then Brendon says, "Please please please tell us we weren't wrong."
Spencer's so discombobulated he's staring at Brendon instead of slapping him on the back of the head like he normally does when he says inappropriate things, and it's so them it makes Jon feel giddy and queasy all at once, but then there's Ryan's hands still on Jon's face, and Ryan looking in his eyes.
Ryan says, "This is…?"
Ryan and Spencer might have a pretty good monopoly on understanding each other without having to say a single word, but Ryan and Jon don't need very many. Jon knows exactly what he's asking, and he can only nod in return, but kind of frantically. His voice sticks a little when he says, "Yeah."
"I mean, that we want…?"
"Yeah," Jon says again, more clearly this time. "I mean, it's what I want."
Ryan grins, and he suddenly looks so young-and so happy. "So, um, we kind of came here to ask you to, uh, go steady with us." He rolls his eyes at himself. "You know, like gentlemen. Not to, like, molest you in the hallway."
"Um," Jon says, swallowing hard. "You can molest me on the other side of that door?"
"Yeah?" Brendon says, and Jon can feel him so close behind him, all coiled energy the way he is when he's serious about something.
"Um, yeah," Jon says, and his blood is roaring in his ears, but it's okay, he thinks. It's too much, too sudden, but it's okay. As calmly as he can manage, and firmly, he says, "I think I'd like that."
Jon fumbles with the keys a lot. Might be because he's practically vibrating, and it doesn't help that he's got all their hands on him. He can still taste Ryan's chap stick, and Brendon's pressed against his back, breathing in his ear, sighing happy and squeezing him around the middle. It's when he turns and catches Spencer's gaze that he actually drops the keys. Thankfully, Ryan picks them up, because Jon's sort of caught, blue blue eyes staring right down into him.
Ryan and Brendon tumble into the apartment, and Spencer follows Jon in. He hasn't hugged him yet, not really, but he does now, holding Jon so tightly he can't breathe, but he doesn't care.
Spencer says in his ear, "We can make this work, Jon. Let us try. Please. I know we're-"
Jon grabs his face and pulls it down and kisses him. He can't help it. Instantly, Spencer opens up to him and sort of melts into the kiss. Jon's trying to kiss all the things he wants to say into Spencer's mouth, like how they're all just as stupid as Gabe said and, yeah, he's scared shitless, but he probably always understood why three people wasn't a choice but a necessity, and now it's four and it's because they want him like he wants them.
Everything's a blur for a minute, too many sensations all at once. Ryan crowds up behind Spencer to slip his arms around him, and Jon can feel his eyes on him. He can also feel when Ryan kisses Spencer's neck because Spencer whimpers a little into their kiss. Brendon's beside them, nuzzling at Jon's neck until Spencer lets Jon go, then Brendon turns his head with a finger on his jaw and kisses him deep.
Spencer kisses with this beautiful abandon, but Brendon's different, more focused. Jon thinks it would be nice to have that clever mouth sort of take over his body for a while, to tease and torture him and finally make him let go.
He's still kissing Brendon when he hears Ryan murmur into Brendon's ear: "Greedy."
Brendon reaches out and pinches Ryan without breaking the kiss, and it makes Jon laugh into his mouth. He thinks, They've done this before, been this together. This is them, and I'm a part of it now.
"Bren," Ryan whines.
"Fine," Brendon says petulantly, and he slides away to plaster himself to Spencer while Ryan grabs Jon by the hips and pulls him close and kisses him.
By this time, he's so hard he feels the kiss with his whole body, feels Ryan's thin frame crowded up against his, like he's trying to get inside him or maybe just steal all his air. That's the way he kisses, to take a person's breath. Like he's proving something.
When Ryan finally pulls out of the kiss with a sigh, Brendon says, "God, that's hot."
"Mmm," Ryan murmurs, still staring at Jon's mouth. Jon doesn't really want to stop, but it's not just him and Ryan. He always figured it was hard to do this with more than two people, but it finally physically hits him now. Not that he'd trade it for anything in the world, but it does make him stop and think-and try and balance it all as best he can.
Ryan's there to be kissed, but Brendon's so close, too, and Spencer's talking: "I swear to god, we were going to be so calm and responsible about all this, but…" When Jon looks at him, he sees that he's blushing. It's fucking adorable, and it's so Spencer, a Spencer he's been seeing for weeks now and he finally knows why, and that's when Jon sort of goes to pieces.
He can't look at them, so he buries his face against Ryan's shoulder, and when Spencer's arms instantly close around him from behind, his lips pressing kisses to the back of his neck, Jon's voice breaks a little: "I wanted… God, and I didn't even know how to think about it, but I didn't think you…"
"We are so, so sorry," Ryan says in his ear, softly.
"We didn't know what to do," Spencer whispers. He's rubbing his fingers up into Jon's hair line, and while it ought to be calming, it's sort of not. Spencer's just as tense as Jon right now, the both of them shaking a little. "It was so… Well, it fucked us up for a while. We hid it from each other, but then Brendon finally just came out and said it, and then we didn't know what it meant, and you were with Cassie, then you weren't, and you were so sad and it fucking killed us." He stops, sucking in a deep breath. "We can make it up to you."
"Yeah," Ryan says, letting his forehead fall against Jon's, but Jon can still see his smile, relieved now but also a little sardonic, when he adds, "We're pretty good at make-up sex."
"Ryan," Spencer says. "We said we wouldn't…"
Ryan frowns and opens his mouth to snap out some snarky reply, but Brendon groans in frustration.
"Jesus," Brendon says. "Like it would be better to carry on some bullshit no-touching thing until we've got to the fucking three-date minimum. Like we didn't pass that by a long time ago, and like we wouldn't go batshit insane. I've been thinking about this too fucking long." Spencer takes in a breath to speak, but Brendon cuts him off, saying, "We can talk later, right?"
Ryan's still got his hands on Jon's hips, and he lets his fingers creep up under Jon's t-shirt, which is so not fair, especially when he looks down at him very seriously and says, "Jon? Want us to slow down?"
Jon shakes his head.
Jon's still leaning forward into Ryan's body, and Brendon's against his side, shifting until Jon can feel the ridge of his erection through his pants. Spencer's moving to his other side, though, angling himself so that he can look Jon in the eyes.
Spencer lifts his chin with his fingers. "Okay, so you already know I'm like the fucking traffic cop of this romantic clusterfuck, right? So you have to be able to be honest with me. Always. That's the way this works. So I gotta know-"
Jon ducks his head against Spencer's neck and bites him. Kind of hard, actually. Spencer jumps, but he doesn't pull away.
Jon says in his ear, "I would like to be deputy. Do traffic cops have deputies? Because I will be yours. I mean, I am yours. And I follow directions well. I really do."
Ryan just giggles and kisses the side of his head as Brendon says, "I told you, Spence."
"What?" Jon says, but Spencer's nudging at the underside of his jaw with his fingers, forcing him into the deepest, best kiss ever.
Then he can hear Ryan saying in his ear, "That you were always missing."
Jon feels his whole face heat up, probably because Spencer's pulling back and talking feverishly into his mouth: "We didn't really work until you came along, I mean, not this well. And we thought-" he takes a gulp of air- "we thought it was just the band, but it was you, and-"
"But it took us a while to figure out that you wanted to jump our bones," Brendon says.
Ryan adds, with a sly smile, "But that was good because we pretty much want to jump your bones. I don't think there's any confusion about that anymore. So can we?"
Jon says, "Yes, please."
Then Ryan's kissing him again, but he feels Spencer step away. He doesn't know where he's gone until he feels a hand on his thigh and looks down to see Spencer on his knees.
Brendon says, "No bedroom?"
Ryan murmurs, "Oh, just come here and kiss me, you fucking princess."
Brendon launches himself at Ryan in what looks suspiciously like an attack, but Jon can't really concentrate on that, not with Spencer below him, working open the button on his jeans.
Spencer murmurs, "Bren likes beds for sex. Pillows, specifically."
That's just one of the things he learns that he didn't know before about them. For instance, Spencer is far from totally in control of the naked part of their relationship. Brendon's equally as bossy as Spencer in a lot of ways, and he sort of delights in orchestrating things, making all the physical logistics work out-even now, as Ryan's got a hand down his pants and is kissing hickeys into his neck. Ryan, surprisingly, is a pretty wicked tease, just as interested in seeing your reactions to his hands and mouth as he is in being touched.
And Spencer is really, really good at sucking cock. He doesn't take Jon all the way down, but he's so good with his hands it feels about the same. It's so good Jon almost forgets Brendon and Ryan are there too, except that Ryan makes these low, sort of desperate sounds in the back of his throat as he's being kissed, and then there's Brendon reaching down and threading a hand through Spencer's hair, not pulling, just holding on.
Spencer keeps his eyes closed, so Jon closes his, too-at least until he hears and feels Spencer grunt around his cock and looks down to see Brendon's hand tugging at Spencer's hair a little, forcing his head back so Jon can thrust. Spencer seems to want him to, so he does, and soon he's coming hard in the wet heat of Spencer's mouth. He feels a little foolish for being so shaky on his legs, but then again, there are two people to hold him up, to feverishly kiss his neck and then finally lead him to the bedroom.
When they get there, Brendon practically mauls Jon on the bed as he silently communicates to Ryan that, really, the best place for Spencer would be on his back, right beside Jon. Jon watches Ryan tug at Spencer's pants until he can pull out his cock and swallow it down, and suddenly it occurs to him that there's no reason the bed should be able to hold all four of them up, not moving the way they are. But he figures they'll cross that bridge if they come to it. He hopes that's not anytime soon because Spencer looks so amazing like this, naked and vulnerable, his thighs tight and his stomach muscles quivering. And Ryan looks really hot, too, soft mouth stretched wide around him, eyes closed in concentration.
When Jon finally thinks to unzip Brendon's pants and finish what Ryan started, Brendon's back bows off the bed and he groans so loudly Jon can practically feel it all along his nerves. Ryan pulls off and giggles into Spencer's thigh, right where Jon would love to put his mouth, too. Spencer looks over at Jon, pupils blown with arousal but his expression still sparkling with amusement.
"He likes your hands."
"A lot," Ryan adds, "judging from how much he talks about them."
Brendon attempts to glare at them, but that's hard to do since he's still squirming in Jon's lap, shifting his hips to make Jon really stroke him instead of just rub his thumb over the head. He's fucking gorgeous like this, eyes so dark and hair all askew and breathing too hard. Spencer's hands are already up over his head, clutching the headboard, and Brendon reaches out to cover one of them with his own as he looms over Jon, his body snapping so close to Jon's face he could probably get his mouth on his cock, but then he couldn't watch him like this, couldn't be this exquisitely rough with him, to make him groan and shiver.
Apparently, Brendon and Spencer are noisy fuckers when they come. It's enough to get Jon so hard he'd swear he hadn't already come once. He might even swear he wasn't painfully hungover. Since Ryan finishes Spencer with his hands, there's come everywhere, and evidently Spencer's the absolutely useless sort after he comes. He lies there boneless and watches, half predatory and half sleepy, as Ryan licks his hand clean.
It's Brendon who pulls out Ryan's dick, long and curved, and starts stroking him. Jon's mesmerized by the thin, pale line of Ryan's torso and how it makes his pubic hair and his flushed cock look dark and obscene. It's not long before Ryan can't concentrate on the finger sucking anymore, so he just bites at his hand and finally comes with a grunt all over Brendon, who kisses him fast and sloppy and then retreats to the bathroom to clean up. Ryan's eyes are shut, and when he opens them and his expression is so warm and sated and home, Jon can't help but kiss him. He tastes Spencer and groans.
Ryan's fisting Jon's cock again when Jon says into his neck, "Fuck. It's like this all the time, isn't it?"
"If you mean fucking messy," Ryan says, raising an eyebrow at him and sort of smugly watching Jon's mouth fall open as he twists his fist on the upstroke.
Brendon's coming back from the bathroom with a couple of wet washcloths, and he almost collapses in on himself in a fit of giggles at Ryan's words, but soon he's plastering himself along Jon's back, kissing sensitive spots on his neck Jon didn't even know he had as Ryan jerks Jon's cock. He can feel Spencer's eyes on him, then Spencer's hand is on his thigh and it's all too much and he's coming again. Ryan's pupils are blown as he leans in and kisses him and waits for him to come down.
As he's cleaning them up, Brendon says, "Yeah, it's pretty much this intense all the time. And this messy. But it's usually not so…manic."
"Of course not," Ryan says, then he adds dryly: "We're like an old married threesome."
"There's usually more fucking," Spencer mumbles.
"Who, um, tops?" Jon asks. God, is he curious.
"Ryan," Spencer says. "Or Brendon."
"Sometimes you, too," Ryan says to him, then he turns to Jon. "Really, whoever wants to."
"You do," Brendon says, and he clings to Jon's neck. "Oh my god, you so fucking top. For the next forever, okay?"
Ryan says, "But what if I wanted to fuck him, hmm?"
"Wait your turn, Ross."
Spencer rolls over, then, and he looks almost awake again as he rolls his eyes at them. "You two are seriously the most useless brats ever."
"You love it," Ryan says.
"You're lucky you're cute," Spencer says.
Jon says, "And you're lucky I'm game for anything."
"So you've…you know, before?" Spencer asks.
"Enough."
"Good," Ryan says. "I mean, not that we wouldn't…"
Spencer says, "What Ryan means is, we had more than enough fun trying to teach an ass virgin to relax for one fucking lifetime."
Jon is about to ask who, but he doesn't have to, not with the way Spencer's rolling his eyes at himself and blushing a little.
And that, unfortunately, is when Jon's body decides he probably shouldn't have had so much alcohol the night before.
He says, "Shit, fuck. Bren, put your fingers in your ears and get the fuck out of the--" He waves his arms in the general direction of the door, then he's stumbling into the bathroom to throw up.
*
He throws up like five times even though there's nothing much in his stomach. He pretty much wants to die, especially since he's almost positive it's bad form to puke your guts out after the first time you have sex with your new…boyfriends.
Ryan sits on the other side of the door so he can talk to him while he's waiting to see if there's any more. He talks about nothing and everything, but it's enough of a distraction. Spencer, he knows, is on the other side of the apartment doing his own distracting. Brendon has this weird thing about puking: he'll do it if he sees or hears anybody else do it.
But it's Spencer who passes a glass of water in to him after a while. By then, Jon's feeling worse, but he's over the need to throw up. He's sure enough they fetch Brendon from his placed curled up on the couch, watching TV.
They all pile into the bed again, in various states of undress, and Jon realizes it's getting so late the sun's gone sharp and orange at the skyline, although all he can see from the bed is the gold light filtering over the buildings around his. While he had been in the bathroom, he had the time to think for the first time since they showed up and blindsided him. He'd started wondering a lot of things: where they were planning on staying, if they'll stay with him, when they flew in, if they've slept at all.
"I still don't understand why you're here," he murmurs. "I mean, now of all times."
Ryan says, "A little bird might've told us you were a little…depressed."
"I'll kill him. I really will. Fucking Gabe and his-"
"What?" Spencer says, and Jon can feel that cold tone all along the nerves in his spine. "Gabe Saporta? You fucking told Gabe Saporta about…?"
Jon nods slowly, confused, but not so confused he doesn't know what sort of deep shit he's in.
Spencer pinches the everliving fuck out of his thigh.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he barks, and Jon winces, his head throbbing.
Brendon's hand shoots out across Ryan's stomach and gropes for Jon's arm as Brendon huffs at Spencer, "Jesus, don't yell at him, he's got a headache."
"He's hungover, you mean," Spencer murmurs.
"Maybe you should ask me why I'm so hung over, you asshat," Jon grumbles.
"Well?"
But Jon doesn't answer, just turns over and curls against Ryan's side petulantly. He mumbles, "Whatever. Yeah, I told Gabe, but that's fucking it, okay? I wouldn't…" He sighs. "I don't know who could've…"
"William Beckett," Spencer says.
"What?" Jon squeaks. "He's not even in town anymore. And I never said a damn thing about-"
"Hey," Ryan says softly, and his palm comes to rest warm on the back of Jon's neck. "We know. I was just talking to him a couple of nights ago, bouncing some lyrics off him-he calls me when he stuck at an airport somewhere, it's like our thing-and he mentioned that you seemed so happy with the band, but that you also seemed depressed as shit, even though you were home. We were hoping… I mean, not that we wanted you to be…you know, depressed… But, whatever it was, we thought maybe we could make it better."
"But you hoped?" Jon says.
"Yeah," Ryan says quietly, and he kisses the top of his head.
"So you really were depressed?" Brendon says.
Jon shrugs, trying to play it off. "And desperate, apparently. Hence…Gabe."
Jon feels Spencer curl up along his back, finally. He says, "You got shit-faced and went and cried on Gabe Saporta's shoulder because of us?"
Jon chuckles. "Just like I do pretty much every time I'm miserable and lonely. Well, except usually it's not just drinking and crying, and, um, not just his shoulder." He feels his face heat a little, but there's no real reason to hide it, especially if Gabe's likely to tell them anyway.
Brendon snorts and rolls onto his back giggling, but Jon can feel Spencer and Ryan tense up.
Jon says, "Hey, I didn't, okay. Not this time. And there are way worse guys in my history that I could've gained a certain kind of experience from."
Ryan's smirking now, and there's not even any real heat in it when Spencer murmurs, "I so did not need to know that."
Brendon crawls over Ryan and pushes Jon onto his back, settles between his legs. "Who else?"
"Tell him later," Ryan says, throwing his arms up to cover his face. "For the love of God."
Jon just giggles and pulls Brendon down on top of him, hugs him to his chest.
"Hey," Spencer says, throwing a leg over his even though there's no fucking room to, "you need any more water or anything?"
"Oh, so now I'm forgiven?"
Spencer rolls his eyes. "I suppose." He sounds okay again, but his expression is still too cautious, and Jon knows just why. If he was in their place…
"I know I probably shouldn't have… Okay, so definitely I shouldn't have told him. I was fucked up and desperate, and it won't happen again. I swear. But I'm telling you, Spence, it'll be fine. There are things Gabe knows about me that nobody else does, so-"
Ryan snorts, and like a reflex Jon reaches over and slaps his hip, hard enough it stings his hand.
"Watch it," Brendon says into his collarbone. "He likes that, you know."
"Actually," Jon says, "I did know that. Just like I know you're into tying people up-which I'm all in favor of, by the way-and Spencer likes to be teased with ice cubes."
Spencer looks scandalized, and Jon says, "Oh man, you motherfuckers talk a lot when you're high. Anyway, Gabe knows me, knows shit I don't tell anybody else. And it stays shit nobody else knows, because, unlike you jokers, he doesn't talk."
"What do you have on him?" Ryan asks.
"On pain of death, Ross. Honestly, guys, he's good. He'll probably give you all kinds of stupid looks and ridiculous innuendo about it, but he won't tell anybody."
Spencer doesn't say it's okay, but when he takes a deep breath and lets it out, he doesn't seem worried anymore.
As Brendon crawls back into his place behind Ryan, he says, "But what explains how William Beckett knew, then?"
"I'm not sure he did," Ryan says. "I don't think he was dropping hints on purpose."
"Probably just reporting what he saw," Jon says. "He knows me too damn well."
Brendon says, "Did you…you know, with him?"
Jon throws his head back and laughs. "Holy fuck, no way. He's hopelessly straight. It's the great tragedy of Gabe's life, let me tell you."
As they're chuckling to themselves, for no good reason they let things get quiet, and it's like the silence settles into them and makes them still. In the stillness, Jon feels not just the giddy, half-nervous emotions he's been feeling since they arrived, but he's thinking now. Worrying, really.
"Sorry I ruined everything," he says suddenly. "You know, with the…P-U-K-I-N-G."
"He can spell, Jon," Ryan murmurs.
"No, spelling helps," Brendon says. "Seriously."
Ryan murmurs, "W-I-E-R-D-O."
Spencer says, "S-P-E-L-L-C-H-E-C-K."
While Ryan and Spencer exchange mostly inscrutable looks across him, Brendon sits up and smiles at Jon.
"And, hey, nothing was ruined," he says. "Well, except the afterglow."
"We can have the afterglow now," Ryan says insistently.
"Yeah," Spencer says. "That would be nice."
Jon knows they must look sort of ridiculous crowded onto his bed, Ryan and Spencer curled up around him and Brendon spooned up against Ryan's back, but it's perfect. It's perfect and it's too fucking much and after they're quiet for another minute or two, Jon can't decide if he's too restless to stay still or too content to move ever again.
"Hey," Brendon says suddenly, and Jon feels a hand slide over his hip.
"Mmm?"
"Stop freaking out."
Jon opens his mouth to reply, but Ryan beats him to it: "He's not freaking out."
Spencer adds, "We won't let him."
Jon smiles and thinks about calling Gabe to tell him what's happened, but it would mean leaving the bed to find his phone, and Jon's really not ready to be that far away from them anytime soon.
~
Pairing: Brendon/Ryan/Spencer + Jon (special appearance by Gabe Saporta)
Rating: Adult
Summary: So, this is a kind of silly story wherein some not-so-serious things happen, although it's rather mopey at times. It might have some schmoopy bits. Occasionally, it attempts humor, because these boys are such failboats. And there's probably some sex. Last but not least, there's a slightly lecherous love guru in the form of a tall, skinny Cobra. 9200 words.
Note: Thanks to themoononastick for much-needed conceptual handholding (re: Gabe in Chicago) many moons ago. Not that she should be held responsible for anything else about this needlessly self-indulgent fic. :)
One More Than Three
Jon's thankful what Ryan and Brendon and Spencer have is so unusual because it means no one would even think to suspect it. And if no one knows it's even possible, then no one can ask him about how he feels about his bandmates being sloppy, silly, happy in love with each other. Certainly no one here in Chicago can ask him.
If only that meant he didn't think about it.
Since it's Tom and the other Empires guys, they just ask him about the music, or they want to rag on the support bands on this latest tour and make snide comments about Chris Carrabba's hats. If they're going to get personal on him, they ask about his first Christmas without Cassie. He can answer those questions just fine. It's actually the unasked one-unasked because nobody has a fucking clue-that gets to him.
He came so close to letting his guard down and telling Beckett at the bar last night during The Academy's off-to-Europe going away party, but he stopped himself-because Gabe, in town for the holidays too, was lurking, eyeing him suspiciously like he could sense what was going on; and because Jon could almost hear the inevitable question he'd get from William in reply, mature and soft and serious:
Does it make you wish you were a part of it?
The answer's easy: yes. Not that Jon knows in God's name what he means by that or what to do about it. So he'd just told William about the seeds of album three and how satisfying it was to be a part of something that worked so well, and he'd told Gabe that, no, he absolutely did not want to come back to William's guest room with him.
*
"Gabriel Saporta, pick up the damn phone," he's saying to William's answering machine the next night, after one too many shots with Nick and Mikey and their girlfriends. "I know you're there. C'mon, I need to talk at somebody. I know I was weird last night, and-" Jon sighs. "Hey, I'm drunk. You could probably get me naked or something, if that's-"
"Been there," a warm, lazy voice says after a click. "Not that I wouldn't mind a return trip, but… Mi amor, is there a way I could get you to stop shouting? I can almost smell you through the phone."
"You're smelling you, fuckface. Can I come up?"
"What? You're outside?"
"On the stoop. So can I?"
"I don't know. Not my place. Bill might not want-"
"For Christ's sakes," Jon murmurs, "he's already in England by now, and he let you in, didn't he?"
"You do have a point." His voice drags, rough like he's been sleeping maybe, but he's also clearly starting to come out of it: "So here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna snuggle up in our dear friend's lovely guest bed with me, and then you're gonna tell me what's so fucking dire that you thought me groping you would be better than Conrad being all blasé and retarded about your pain."
"I never said I was in pain."
"So you're not, then?"
"Gabe…"
"Ay, claro. Come on up. And warm your fucking hands, dude, or else I'm not letting you under the blankets."
*
Ryan was the one to clue him in, back when he was just a fill-in. He would've guessed Spencer, but he's learned by now that Spencer's really the least okay with the precarious thing they've got going, maybe because he sees all the ways it could go to shit. Brendon, on the other hand, operates on blind hope. Ryan is somewhere in between: maybe he believes it's temporary at best, but he believes in Spencer, so he's just going to go with it as long as it lasts, especially because he couldn't say no to Brendon if he wanted to.
Ryan told him about it in pieces. Apparently, he told him in about the same order the thing happened. It actually made a weird kind of sense, enough that Jon didn't feel tricked or duped. Is there a good way to tell your new bassist that you and your bandmates are in a threeway relationship?
One night as they were smoking a bowl, just the two of them, talking music and philosophy and the usual bullshit, out of the blue, Ryan said, So, Brendon and I used to…sort of fuck around. I mean, you know we're both bi, right? And Jon nodded like it wasn't a shock, because it wasn't, not really. Then Ryan added, Sometimes we still do.
Jon figured out the Spencer thing on his own. Sure, it was in the way he didn't look at girls-in fact, he was unashamedly gay without trying too hard to prove it all the time-but more than that, it was in how Jon began to notice him hovering over Ryan, possessive. What had once looked like best friend confidences suddenly began to look intimate in a different way. Finally, Jon asked Ryan about it, about Spencer's feelings about him, and Ryan just said it was okay, that Brendon knew. Knew what? Jon wanted to ask, but he didn't.
Finally, Jon caught Spencer and Brendon kissing after a show one night, hands tangled in each other's hair and mouths sucking soft and sure, like it couldn't have been the first time. But since he was walking onto the bus with Ryan at his heels, he wasn't confused for long. As they stepped back out into the night and Jon lit a cigarette with shaking hands, Ryan said, "It's all of us. I mean, in a relationship, okay? All three of us, together. I know it's kind of…weird, but I hope you won't judge us."
He didn't have to ask Jon not to talk about it; that part was pretty plainly written in the fierce line of his jaw that belied the casual ways his eyes drifted over the parking lot.
When he joined the band officially, that's when they had the discussion about what it meant and how it worked. Jon is a laid-back, open-minded guy and he had Cassie then, so he said he didn't mind. He told himself it was their life, and since it hadn't seemed to fuck up the band yet-in fact, maybe it was the only way the band worked-that was all that mattered. What else could he possibly let himself think? That it's hard enough making a relationship work with two people, so why add a third? That it would surely all come crashing down on them, sooner rather than later? So it was okay because Jon decided it would have to be. There were rules about bus sex, and they maybe argued a little about them, but overall things were fine. They were them and he was him, and three plus one had always worked pretty well, since they were four on stage and at meet and greets and in interviews and in almost everything else except sleeping and touching.
Of course, there are times when Brendon pulls him into their group hugs, and it's like everyone forgets Jon is not theirs to hold so tightly. Even Jon forgets.
Somehow, it's extra difficult to forget when he's a couple of thousand miles away from the three of them, walking up to William's apartment to throw himself on the mercy of the one person in all the world who will actually treat such a situation like it's serious without making it into a catastrophe, even if it means he'll absolutely give him shit about it. Especially then, actually.
*
"I think I want to have sex with Ryan Ross," Jon says as he spills across the threshold.
To his credit, Gabe doesn't laugh, doesn't even so much as smirk. Actually, he looks a little sleepy and wrung out, like he's coming down from a drunk himself, or maybe coming off a buzz.
Gabe just nods and says, "Welcome to the club. What are you drinking?"
Jon's following Gabe into William's kitchen. He can't stop his feet-or his mouth, apparently. "And Brendon," he adds.
Gabe makes a whistling noise, like an airplane crashing. "So, booze: clear or brown?"
"Brown. And, no, that shit tequila you love so much is not brown."
There's half a bottle of Jack Daniels under the sink. It'll do. When they get to the bedroom, Gabe makes him take off his shoes and jeans and get under the blankets. It's unbearably warm and Jon already feels a little dizzy, so he sits back against the headboard and doesn't close his eyes; that'll make it worse. He sits as still as he can so he can't feel it. Or anything.
"So…" Gabe says. "There's a problem, and I take it the problem is Ross and the kid are doing exactly what people think they're doing?"
"Uh huh. For years, apparently. But the real problem is… Well, fuck."
"Walker?"
Jon puts every bit of concentration and energy he has into a serious expression, his eyes fastened on Gabe's.
"I'm gonna tell you something, and this isn't one of those fucking cute secrets that doesn't want to be a secret, okay? This is serious shit, okay? Can you file it in the right kind of drawer in your brain-you know, one of the ones that stays closed?"
Gabe's got a lot of those, actually, at least if you're absolutely clear about how to do the labeling. It should disturb Jon how a person he sees maybe half a dozen times a year at best knows so many of his secrets, but it really doesn't. He's never had any reason not to trust him or to be nervous about the miles and miles that usually separate them, that might lead anybody else to write off something personal and serious as gossip.
Jon waits for an answer, and as he does, Gabe shifts him around until Jon can lay his head on his shoulder. Gabe's warm and skinny with his arms wrapped around him, and he's not trying to grab at anything. Well, not really, just kissing the top of his head and rubbing softly at his stomach through his shirt. That's something.
Jon says, "It's Ryan and Brendon…and Spencer."
Gabe jerks a little as he coughs, startled, but he's already trying to turn it to amusement, and this feels easier now. This is why Jon likes him: he's like alcohol the way he blunts the edges of things. Well, except for when he smacks you in the face with reality. Like alcohol and a hangover all at once, actually. He's a complicated guy.
"No shit?"
Jon just nods.
"Okay then. I guess the question is, do you want Spencer, too?"
Jon takes in a breath so he can exhale it with words, but it catches in his throat, and his voice is small and, even to his ears, pitiful: "I think maybe I'm in love with him."
Gabe's quiet for a second, just breathes a sigh against his collarbone. Then he says, "Como se dice you're pretty fucked, aren't you, man?"
Jon murmurs, "Sí."
*
Jon thought Spencer hated him for like weeks. Finally, Brendon had to tell him it wasn't hate so much as envy. People who don't make even a blip on Ryan's radar, who fucking slide under it because Ryan's just that taken with them-well, they make Spencer nervous. Brendon knows this, he told him once, because it was like that with him, too.
Jon wonders if it was always about sex, why Ryan let Brendon get close to him. He's not sure it was only that, but that was definitely part of it. He thinks about it sometimes, but he doesn't say it out loud until he's lying in Gabe's bed here in William's apartment, getting progressively more hammered.
"I think Ryan's always had a thing for me," Jon says. "I mean, I think it's always been flirting, you know? From both of us."
"I know Brendon doesn't care, or if he does, he's a hypocrite. But it pisses Smith off?"
"It used to. He used to be so bitchy to me. I mean, you know that. But now…"
"…you want to take his last name and make babies with him and live happily ever-"
Jon smooshes his hand over Gabe's mouth and presses his face to his neck. "I can't. Cannot."
"Why not?"
"It's- it's just so…complicated, okay?"
Gabe nods and lets Jon hold him. But after a moment of silence, Gabe says, "So, Walker, just so I know, are you here because you're lonely or really lonely?"
Gabe's never had to ask him that before, when they happened to cross paths and Jon happened to be on the outs with Cassie; he supposes it's always been pretty obvious. He suddenly feels like an asshole, for all the times before but somehow especially for now.
Jon sighs. "Just lonely."
"What I thought," Gabe says, his voice weary but warm. "Figured I'd ask."
*
Jon's pretty sure Brendon's absolutely as far from the type of people he's always been friends with than is perhaps even humanly possible, despite dark eyes and girl jeans and overwhelming (but real, and kinda nerdy) charm. He's just got a different energy than anybody he's used to. But pretty quickly, he realized those differences didn't matter, not at all.
He thinks he misses being around Brendon the most, with his wide-eyed earnestness and his scathing wit and his contagious laughter and his desperate need to physically confirm every feeling he has by squeezing your hand or hugging you or affectionately slapping you on the back. He's always known where he stood with Brendon. He hadn't thought that could be a problem until it very much was.
One night, Brendon crawled into his bunk and chattered at him for a while, like he tends to do, especially when Ryan and Spencer are in serious conference about something, but Jon could tell that this time, he was there for reasons of his own. He was warming up to saying something serious.
Finally, Brendon asked him if he was happy. Then he said, "We never want you to be left out. Ever. You're ours now, right? That means you're one of us, no matter what happens. With us, I mean."
It was supposed to be comforting, but all it did was make Jon want to shove him away, get him the fuck out of his bunk. See, he had this girlfriend and she was perfect, but she wasn't them. And when Brendon said shit like that, he knew he couldn't be hers as long as he was theirs, even if he wasn't really a part of them. Sometimes, he sort of hates them for that.
He whispers against Gabe's neck, "It's like Brendon's the reason I started thinking too much."
"It's like he was, or he was?"
"He was. He kissed me. I'm not sure he ever told them. I mean, it wasn't anything…weird or dirty, but it meant something."
"To you?"
"Gabe…"
"Jesus fucking Christ on a cracker, Jon. This is drunken confession time, so do some confessing. You'll feel better. Like puking up a lot of booze or something."
Jon does feel a little like he could puke, but still… "I don't wanna think about it that way." Just like he didn't want to think about the implications of what Brendon had said, the idea that the three of them were maybe falling apart. It turned out not to be anything, but it could've been a sign of bad things to come, and even now, that makes Jon a little nervous.
"Okay, okay," Gabe says. "I know. I'm just saying, you say you fucking love Smith, you have some half-creepy soul mate thing with Ross, and that leaves Brendon. So…?"
"He's one of the best things in my whole fucking life."
Gabe pets the back of his neck and gives it a quick kiss. "Well, shit."
Jon gets quiet after that, and finally Gabe's hand comes around for the bottle. He takes a drink from it himself and deposits it on the floor with a dull clink.
"It's so stupid," Jon mumbles into his own hands.
"Love always is."
*
Jon is as wasted as he's been in months, but he doesn't throw up. He doesn't really sleep either, but Gabe does, so Jon lies there beside him feeling like hell and trying not to think.
It doesn't work.
He gets it, he really does-why Spencer's always so tense and protective of what the three of them have. It's probably half of why Jon wants to crawl inside him sometimes. It's not just about sex. It's really not.
After Cassie finally started what they both knew was coming, Spencer was the one there those few days when Jon wouldn't get out of his bunk except for sound check and performance. Brendon might be the best cuddler, but Spencer's the best support, even when he verges into mother hen territory. Jon thinks he'd make a good Zack if he wasn't born to be a drummer. He's always looking things in the eye, dealing with what needs to be dealt with, but that doesn't mean he forces anybody else to deal with it. Sometimes Jon thinks he should more, that it would be better for his sanity.
He slipped into Jon's bunk one night a few days after the meltdown was over and handed over an ear bud from his iPod. The music made Jon's chest hurt, but Spencer didn't go anywhere, just laid there pressed along his back until their breathing came in tandem.
"Relationships are hard," Spencer whispered into the dark as one album ended and he cued up another.
"Yeah."
"I know it doesn't make anything better to say it wasn't your fault, but… I mean, even when you do everything right, sometimes they just…"
"Hey, are you guys…okay?"
Spencer physically started at that, either because he wasn't expecting that question or, more likely, because he wasn't expecting a question about the relationship at all. If there's anything to know about their relationship that he can't see with his own eyes, he learns it because they tell him, not because he asks. He used to think it was because it didn't matter to him; now he knows it's probably that it mattered too much.
"No, we're fine," Spencer had said. "Good. I'm just saying, sometimes it's hard to keep a balance."
"It's harder with three, isn't it?"
"It's hard because it's us, that's all," he said with a sigh. "But you know that. You're with us, too."
Lying beside Gabe, listening to William's old, familiar apartment creak around him, he thinks of texting Spencer, but he doesn't know what he'd say and, besides, it's six a.m. That means it's four in Vegas, and texting will wake Ryan up if he's there. Jon can picture him clutching Spencer in his fitful sleep, with Brendon lying on his back beside him, one hand tucked against Ryan's body just to keep contact. Jon saw them sleeping like that at a hotel once.
It's not like they flaunt their physical relationship in front of him, but they don't act like it's not there either, not when they're in private, when it isn't public band time. That night, the four of them had fallen asleep during a movie, Spencer, Ryan, and Brendon on one bed and Jon on the other. When Jon woke up the next morning, Ryan was staring at him from the middle of a pile of limbs, from over Spencer's shoulder.
Ryan raised his eyebrows suggestively.
Jon muttered, grinning, "As if I could get to you in there."
"I can't sleep," Ryan whispered. "Are you sleeping?"
"Sort of. Not really."
"Then can I come over there?"
Carefully, Ryan crawled over Brendon and crept over to Jon's bed. He climbed in under the covers, and he didn't touch Jon at all. They lay facing each other, whispering between them.
"I know you think we're crazy," Ryan said. They had been talking guitar picks, then Brendon shifted around in his sleep, and both their eyes were drawn to the bed, and suddenly Ryan opened his brown eyes wide and said it, adding, "The three of us together, I mean. But we're not. I'm… Well, I'm happy. I don't remember being happy before, not like this."
"I'm glad."
"This works now. The band works. I'm glad you didn't leave. You know, when you found out. I'm glad you understand why it is the way it is. I just…" He takes a deep breath and holds it for a second, then he nods as if to himself and says, "I'm glad you're here, you know?"
"Me, too."
"Really?"
"Of course. I'm happy exactly where I am."
Ryan had stared at him hard, like he wanted to maybe hug him or something but didn't know if it was allowed, not under the covers, in bed like this. Instead, he just smiled at him-a bittersweet smile-and rolled over onto his back.
Soon after that, they left Brendon and Spencer a note and went to the other room, the room that was technically Brendon and Jon's because they never made Jon stay by himself, and they lay on opposite beds and chattered until sunrise, until they were falling asleep and Brendon was waking them up with open curtains and coffee, because I'm an awesome roommate, Jon Walker.
So was Jon. He turned his head when Brendon greeted Ryan with a kiss, and he kept his mouth shut when Brendon dragged Ryan off to the other room, for a shower. For him and Spencer and a shower.
It was the first time Jon could remember getting hard thinking about them when he wasn't trying to, when it wasn't some stoned jerk-off fantasy.
He doesn't get hard now, here in the wee and desperate hours of the morning, remembering. He just plain feels too shitty.
*
The clock reads 11:13 when Gabe wakes him and hands him a bottle of water. His head feels like it weighs easily four tons, and he's not really sure he wants to have his eyes open, so he closes them again.
"So I'm thinking," Gabe says, and the dip he makes sitting on the bed is enough to make Jon queasy, "do they know?"
"Know what?"
"That you've got it bad for them."
"Of course they know. How could they not know?"
"Because you're a laid back, mysterious motherfucker."
"Whatever."
"Seriously. I mean, how are they supposed to know you want to be with them if you're all…squirrelly about it?"
"I'm not-" He opens his eyes and frowns at Gabe. "Wait, who said I wanted to be with them?"
"Jack Daniels. That and the fucking mopey-ass face you're giving me."
"Fuck you."
"Fuck them. Unless… I mean, do you really think they're nuts? You know, trying to be in a three-way relationship?"
"A little."
"But you would?"
Jon swallows, but his throat is dry. He wrenches open the bottle and drinks.
After, he says slowly, as much convincing himself as Gabe: "It doesn't matter what I would. It's hard enough with the three of them."
"You're not hard."
"What?"
He expects something crass, at the very least some innuendo. But here in the cool light of morning, half awake and half dressed, Gabe looks vulnerable, sincere.
He says, "Never met anybody I could take so easy."
Jon thinks that's the trouble. He made it too easy for them to pull him close and make him need them when they don't have any intention of taking on another person and all his issues. Maybe they don't have any business doing it, either, not as long as it apparently took them to get their down shit together.
"It's not easy," Jon mutters. "You're stupid if you think it is."
Gabe just snorts softly. "Hey, I'm not the one who tried to give himself alcohol poisoning and doesn't even fucking know how they feel."
"If they felt it, I'd know. And if they meant to do something about it, they would have already. Hell, even if they wanted to, four is…"
"One more than three. And I doubt you'd fucking know what they felt if it bit you in the ass." After he reconsiders his words, he smirks at Jon.
"I hate you."
"You hate that a person this good looking can be right so much of the time," he says with a lazier, even cockier smile. "I'm telling you, you just need to think about this. There's no way in the world the three of them woke up one day and decided, oh, hey, threesome. Not if it's what you say it is. Let's say the different pieces came together at different times. I mean, right?"
"Yeah." He hates it when Gabe's like this. He really does. Especially when he's not feeling mentally spry enough to deal with his bullshit, much less decide if that's what it is. "So…"
"So why in the fuck aren't you out there? Didn't they ask you to come home with them on the break?"
"Ryan did. And Brendon. But…"
"Jesus," he mutters. "Yeah, you're a moron. An oblivious moron. A sexy, oblivious moron, but still. Of course, that's probably exactly why you'll be piece number four."
"Gabe?"
"Go home. Go home and mope there."
"You're kicking me out? Are you even allowed to kick me out of an apartment that doesn’t belong to you?"
"I mean go home with them. I'm telling you: buy a plane ticket to Vegas and see how fast they'll snuggle you to their ridiculous bosoms if you'll let them."
"I don't know."
"I do. Go look at them with those big brown eyes. They'll figure it out."
"What if it's not a matter of them figuring it out?"
Gabe lays a hand on his neck and gives him a serious face that quickly turns to a fond smile. "Then you are stupidly gone over total idiots, and they don't deserve you."
Jon tries a smile, and it sticks on his face. Makes him feel a little better, but not like packing a bag would. All week, he's been thinking idly of what it would be like to be there and not here, but not until Gabe said it did it feel logical or even possible. Now, the weight on his chest is heavier, the weight of a decision that can't be carried out as fast as he'd like. But that's nothing compared to the weight of the past few days, how being without them suffocated him even more quickly than the last few weeks of being fourth but not fourth.
*
The sky is clear but the wind's so cold it feels like the sunshine cuts him as he rounds the corner to his building. Formally, that's a good thing, makes him feel like he's home, but right now home's not really where he wants to be. Right now…
…there is a shivering huddle of his bandmates on his stoop?
Brendon's coat has a hood and Spencer's wearing a couple of Ryan's scarves, but Ryan looks fairly miserable wedged in between them without a proper winter coat. Jon suddenly really, really feels like throwing up, but that's probably just the adrenaline and how he feels this heat that starts in his chest and runs tingling over his whole body.
He's not even there yet, but he's already shouting: "What in the hell are you doing here?"
"Waiting for you," Spencer says. "You didn't answer your cell."
Jon pulls it out of his pocket, and the screen refuses to light up. "Shit," he calls out. "It's dead." He can't help the wide grin he's giving them, or his wide eyes. "Fuck, what are you doing here?"
"Freezing our balls off," Ryan huffs, but he's the one that comes down to meet Jon, hugs him as tightly as he can, and for the first time since he got to town on this break, Jon feels like he's where he's supposed to be.
Spencer and Brendon touch his arms as he leads them through the door, and they're all hanging onto him while they climb the stairs, and he doesn’t even know what to think. This feels a lot like it does when he arrives at McCarran for a Vegas visit after a long stretch away from them, but it also feels different somehow. He doesn't really feel his feet as they clomp up the stairs, and it's not just that his toes are practically frozen. But despite the light, floaty feeling his has, there's something equally as heavy pulling down inside him, wondering and fearing and trying not to hope.
When he gets to the landing, he stops to dig his keys out of his pocket, and his hands are shaking.
"Seriously," he says, half laughing to cover his nerves. "I'm so glad you're here, you have no idea, but…?"
"We missed you," Spencer says. "We-"
Then without any warning Ryan is right in front of him, grabbing his face in his cold hands. He looks into his eyes for a minute and Jon can see the same kinds of things he's always seen, because Ryan always let him, except now it's not just letting, it's wanting. When Jon opens his mouth to say something, he doesn't get a single word out because Ryan kisses him.
It's not a long kiss, but it's enough. When Ryan pulls back, for a second everything seems to stop, like they're all holding their breaths, not just Jon.
Then Brendon says, "Please please please tell us we weren't wrong."
Spencer's so discombobulated he's staring at Brendon instead of slapping him on the back of the head like he normally does when he says inappropriate things, and it's so them it makes Jon feel giddy and queasy all at once, but then there's Ryan's hands still on Jon's face, and Ryan looking in his eyes.
Ryan says, "This is…?"
Ryan and Spencer might have a pretty good monopoly on understanding each other without having to say a single word, but Ryan and Jon don't need very many. Jon knows exactly what he's asking, and he can only nod in return, but kind of frantically. His voice sticks a little when he says, "Yeah."
"I mean, that we want…?"
"Yeah," Jon says again, more clearly this time. "I mean, it's what I want."
Ryan grins, and he suddenly looks so young-and so happy. "So, um, we kind of came here to ask you to, uh, go steady with us." He rolls his eyes at himself. "You know, like gentlemen. Not to, like, molest you in the hallway."
"Um," Jon says, swallowing hard. "You can molest me on the other side of that door?"
"Yeah?" Brendon says, and Jon can feel him so close behind him, all coiled energy the way he is when he's serious about something.
"Um, yeah," Jon says, and his blood is roaring in his ears, but it's okay, he thinks. It's too much, too sudden, but it's okay. As calmly as he can manage, and firmly, he says, "I think I'd like that."
Jon fumbles with the keys a lot. Might be because he's practically vibrating, and it doesn't help that he's got all their hands on him. He can still taste Ryan's chap stick, and Brendon's pressed against his back, breathing in his ear, sighing happy and squeezing him around the middle. It's when he turns and catches Spencer's gaze that he actually drops the keys. Thankfully, Ryan picks them up, because Jon's sort of caught, blue blue eyes staring right down into him.
Ryan and Brendon tumble into the apartment, and Spencer follows Jon in. He hasn't hugged him yet, not really, but he does now, holding Jon so tightly he can't breathe, but he doesn't care.
Spencer says in his ear, "We can make this work, Jon. Let us try. Please. I know we're-"
Jon grabs his face and pulls it down and kisses him. He can't help it. Instantly, Spencer opens up to him and sort of melts into the kiss. Jon's trying to kiss all the things he wants to say into Spencer's mouth, like how they're all just as stupid as Gabe said and, yeah, he's scared shitless, but he probably always understood why three people wasn't a choice but a necessity, and now it's four and it's because they want him like he wants them.
Everything's a blur for a minute, too many sensations all at once. Ryan crowds up behind Spencer to slip his arms around him, and Jon can feel his eyes on him. He can also feel when Ryan kisses Spencer's neck because Spencer whimpers a little into their kiss. Brendon's beside them, nuzzling at Jon's neck until Spencer lets Jon go, then Brendon turns his head with a finger on his jaw and kisses him deep.
Spencer kisses with this beautiful abandon, but Brendon's different, more focused. Jon thinks it would be nice to have that clever mouth sort of take over his body for a while, to tease and torture him and finally make him let go.
He's still kissing Brendon when he hears Ryan murmur into Brendon's ear: "Greedy."
Brendon reaches out and pinches Ryan without breaking the kiss, and it makes Jon laugh into his mouth. He thinks, They've done this before, been this together. This is them, and I'm a part of it now.
"Bren," Ryan whines.
"Fine," Brendon says petulantly, and he slides away to plaster himself to Spencer while Ryan grabs Jon by the hips and pulls him close and kisses him.
By this time, he's so hard he feels the kiss with his whole body, feels Ryan's thin frame crowded up against his, like he's trying to get inside him or maybe just steal all his air. That's the way he kisses, to take a person's breath. Like he's proving something.
When Ryan finally pulls out of the kiss with a sigh, Brendon says, "God, that's hot."
"Mmm," Ryan murmurs, still staring at Jon's mouth. Jon doesn't really want to stop, but it's not just him and Ryan. He always figured it was hard to do this with more than two people, but it finally physically hits him now. Not that he'd trade it for anything in the world, but it does make him stop and think-and try and balance it all as best he can.
Ryan's there to be kissed, but Brendon's so close, too, and Spencer's talking: "I swear to god, we were going to be so calm and responsible about all this, but…" When Jon looks at him, he sees that he's blushing. It's fucking adorable, and it's so Spencer, a Spencer he's been seeing for weeks now and he finally knows why, and that's when Jon sort of goes to pieces.
He can't look at them, so he buries his face against Ryan's shoulder, and when Spencer's arms instantly close around him from behind, his lips pressing kisses to the back of his neck, Jon's voice breaks a little: "I wanted… God, and I didn't even know how to think about it, but I didn't think you…"
"We are so, so sorry," Ryan says in his ear, softly.
"We didn't know what to do," Spencer whispers. He's rubbing his fingers up into Jon's hair line, and while it ought to be calming, it's sort of not. Spencer's just as tense as Jon right now, the both of them shaking a little. "It was so… Well, it fucked us up for a while. We hid it from each other, but then Brendon finally just came out and said it, and then we didn't know what it meant, and you were with Cassie, then you weren't, and you were so sad and it fucking killed us." He stops, sucking in a deep breath. "We can make it up to you."
"Yeah," Ryan says, letting his forehead fall against Jon's, but Jon can still see his smile, relieved now but also a little sardonic, when he adds, "We're pretty good at make-up sex."
"Ryan," Spencer says. "We said we wouldn't…"
Ryan frowns and opens his mouth to snap out some snarky reply, but Brendon groans in frustration.
"Jesus," Brendon says. "Like it would be better to carry on some bullshit no-touching thing until we've got to the fucking three-date minimum. Like we didn't pass that by a long time ago, and like we wouldn't go batshit insane. I've been thinking about this too fucking long." Spencer takes in a breath to speak, but Brendon cuts him off, saying, "We can talk later, right?"
Ryan's still got his hands on Jon's hips, and he lets his fingers creep up under Jon's t-shirt, which is so not fair, especially when he looks down at him very seriously and says, "Jon? Want us to slow down?"
Jon shakes his head.
Jon's still leaning forward into Ryan's body, and Brendon's against his side, shifting until Jon can feel the ridge of his erection through his pants. Spencer's moving to his other side, though, angling himself so that he can look Jon in the eyes.
Spencer lifts his chin with his fingers. "Okay, so you already know I'm like the fucking traffic cop of this romantic clusterfuck, right? So you have to be able to be honest with me. Always. That's the way this works. So I gotta know-"
Jon ducks his head against Spencer's neck and bites him. Kind of hard, actually. Spencer jumps, but he doesn't pull away.
Jon says in his ear, "I would like to be deputy. Do traffic cops have deputies? Because I will be yours. I mean, I am yours. And I follow directions well. I really do."
Ryan just giggles and kisses the side of his head as Brendon says, "I told you, Spence."
"What?" Jon says, but Spencer's nudging at the underside of his jaw with his fingers, forcing him into the deepest, best kiss ever.
Then he can hear Ryan saying in his ear, "That you were always missing."
Jon feels his whole face heat up, probably because Spencer's pulling back and talking feverishly into his mouth: "We didn't really work until you came along, I mean, not this well. And we thought-" he takes a gulp of air- "we thought it was just the band, but it was you, and-"
"But it took us a while to figure out that you wanted to jump our bones," Brendon says.
Ryan adds, with a sly smile, "But that was good because we pretty much want to jump your bones. I don't think there's any confusion about that anymore. So can we?"
Jon says, "Yes, please."
Then Ryan's kissing him again, but he feels Spencer step away. He doesn't know where he's gone until he feels a hand on his thigh and looks down to see Spencer on his knees.
Brendon says, "No bedroom?"
Ryan murmurs, "Oh, just come here and kiss me, you fucking princess."
Brendon launches himself at Ryan in what looks suspiciously like an attack, but Jon can't really concentrate on that, not with Spencer below him, working open the button on his jeans.
Spencer murmurs, "Bren likes beds for sex. Pillows, specifically."
That's just one of the things he learns that he didn't know before about them. For instance, Spencer is far from totally in control of the naked part of their relationship. Brendon's equally as bossy as Spencer in a lot of ways, and he sort of delights in orchestrating things, making all the physical logistics work out-even now, as Ryan's got a hand down his pants and is kissing hickeys into his neck. Ryan, surprisingly, is a pretty wicked tease, just as interested in seeing your reactions to his hands and mouth as he is in being touched.
And Spencer is really, really good at sucking cock. He doesn't take Jon all the way down, but he's so good with his hands it feels about the same. It's so good Jon almost forgets Brendon and Ryan are there too, except that Ryan makes these low, sort of desperate sounds in the back of his throat as he's being kissed, and then there's Brendon reaching down and threading a hand through Spencer's hair, not pulling, just holding on.
Spencer keeps his eyes closed, so Jon closes his, too-at least until he hears and feels Spencer grunt around his cock and looks down to see Brendon's hand tugging at Spencer's hair a little, forcing his head back so Jon can thrust. Spencer seems to want him to, so he does, and soon he's coming hard in the wet heat of Spencer's mouth. He feels a little foolish for being so shaky on his legs, but then again, there are two people to hold him up, to feverishly kiss his neck and then finally lead him to the bedroom.
When they get there, Brendon practically mauls Jon on the bed as he silently communicates to Ryan that, really, the best place for Spencer would be on his back, right beside Jon. Jon watches Ryan tug at Spencer's pants until he can pull out his cock and swallow it down, and suddenly it occurs to him that there's no reason the bed should be able to hold all four of them up, not moving the way they are. But he figures they'll cross that bridge if they come to it. He hopes that's not anytime soon because Spencer looks so amazing like this, naked and vulnerable, his thighs tight and his stomach muscles quivering. And Ryan looks really hot, too, soft mouth stretched wide around him, eyes closed in concentration.
When Jon finally thinks to unzip Brendon's pants and finish what Ryan started, Brendon's back bows off the bed and he groans so loudly Jon can practically feel it all along his nerves. Ryan pulls off and giggles into Spencer's thigh, right where Jon would love to put his mouth, too. Spencer looks over at Jon, pupils blown with arousal but his expression still sparkling with amusement.
"He likes your hands."
"A lot," Ryan adds, "judging from how much he talks about them."
Brendon attempts to glare at them, but that's hard to do since he's still squirming in Jon's lap, shifting his hips to make Jon really stroke him instead of just rub his thumb over the head. He's fucking gorgeous like this, eyes so dark and hair all askew and breathing too hard. Spencer's hands are already up over his head, clutching the headboard, and Brendon reaches out to cover one of them with his own as he looms over Jon, his body snapping so close to Jon's face he could probably get his mouth on his cock, but then he couldn't watch him like this, couldn't be this exquisitely rough with him, to make him groan and shiver.
Apparently, Brendon and Spencer are noisy fuckers when they come. It's enough to get Jon so hard he'd swear he hadn't already come once. He might even swear he wasn't painfully hungover. Since Ryan finishes Spencer with his hands, there's come everywhere, and evidently Spencer's the absolutely useless sort after he comes. He lies there boneless and watches, half predatory and half sleepy, as Ryan licks his hand clean.
It's Brendon who pulls out Ryan's dick, long and curved, and starts stroking him. Jon's mesmerized by the thin, pale line of Ryan's torso and how it makes his pubic hair and his flushed cock look dark and obscene. It's not long before Ryan can't concentrate on the finger sucking anymore, so he just bites at his hand and finally comes with a grunt all over Brendon, who kisses him fast and sloppy and then retreats to the bathroom to clean up. Ryan's eyes are shut, and when he opens them and his expression is so warm and sated and home, Jon can't help but kiss him. He tastes Spencer and groans.
Ryan's fisting Jon's cock again when Jon says into his neck, "Fuck. It's like this all the time, isn't it?"
"If you mean fucking messy," Ryan says, raising an eyebrow at him and sort of smugly watching Jon's mouth fall open as he twists his fist on the upstroke.
Brendon's coming back from the bathroom with a couple of wet washcloths, and he almost collapses in on himself in a fit of giggles at Ryan's words, but soon he's plastering himself along Jon's back, kissing sensitive spots on his neck Jon didn't even know he had as Ryan jerks Jon's cock. He can feel Spencer's eyes on him, then Spencer's hand is on his thigh and it's all too much and he's coming again. Ryan's pupils are blown as he leans in and kisses him and waits for him to come down.
As he's cleaning them up, Brendon says, "Yeah, it's pretty much this intense all the time. And this messy. But it's usually not so…manic."
"Of course not," Ryan says, then he adds dryly: "We're like an old married threesome."
"There's usually more fucking," Spencer mumbles.
"Who, um, tops?" Jon asks. God, is he curious.
"Ryan," Spencer says. "Or Brendon."
"Sometimes you, too," Ryan says to him, then he turns to Jon. "Really, whoever wants to."
"You do," Brendon says, and he clings to Jon's neck. "Oh my god, you so fucking top. For the next forever, okay?"
Ryan says, "But what if I wanted to fuck him, hmm?"
"Wait your turn, Ross."
Spencer rolls over, then, and he looks almost awake again as he rolls his eyes at them. "You two are seriously the most useless brats ever."
"You love it," Ryan says.
"You're lucky you're cute," Spencer says.
Jon says, "And you're lucky I'm game for anything."
"So you've…you know, before?" Spencer asks.
"Enough."
"Good," Ryan says. "I mean, not that we wouldn't…"
Spencer says, "What Ryan means is, we had more than enough fun trying to teach an ass virgin to relax for one fucking lifetime."
Jon is about to ask who, but he doesn't have to, not with the way Spencer's rolling his eyes at himself and blushing a little.
And that, unfortunately, is when Jon's body decides he probably shouldn't have had so much alcohol the night before.
He says, "Shit, fuck. Bren, put your fingers in your ears and get the fuck out of the--" He waves his arms in the general direction of the door, then he's stumbling into the bathroom to throw up.
*
He throws up like five times even though there's nothing much in his stomach. He pretty much wants to die, especially since he's almost positive it's bad form to puke your guts out after the first time you have sex with your new…boyfriends.
Ryan sits on the other side of the door so he can talk to him while he's waiting to see if there's any more. He talks about nothing and everything, but it's enough of a distraction. Spencer, he knows, is on the other side of the apartment doing his own distracting. Brendon has this weird thing about puking: he'll do it if he sees or hears anybody else do it.
But it's Spencer who passes a glass of water in to him after a while. By then, Jon's feeling worse, but he's over the need to throw up. He's sure enough they fetch Brendon from his placed curled up on the couch, watching TV.
They all pile into the bed again, in various states of undress, and Jon realizes it's getting so late the sun's gone sharp and orange at the skyline, although all he can see from the bed is the gold light filtering over the buildings around his. While he had been in the bathroom, he had the time to think for the first time since they showed up and blindsided him. He'd started wondering a lot of things: where they were planning on staying, if they'll stay with him, when they flew in, if they've slept at all.
"I still don't understand why you're here," he murmurs. "I mean, now of all times."
Ryan says, "A little bird might've told us you were a little…depressed."
"I'll kill him. I really will. Fucking Gabe and his-"
"What?" Spencer says, and Jon can feel that cold tone all along the nerves in his spine. "Gabe Saporta? You fucking told Gabe Saporta about…?"
Jon nods slowly, confused, but not so confused he doesn't know what sort of deep shit he's in.
Spencer pinches the everliving fuck out of his thigh.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he barks, and Jon winces, his head throbbing.
Brendon's hand shoots out across Ryan's stomach and gropes for Jon's arm as Brendon huffs at Spencer, "Jesus, don't yell at him, he's got a headache."
"He's hungover, you mean," Spencer murmurs.
"Maybe you should ask me why I'm so hung over, you asshat," Jon grumbles.
"Well?"
But Jon doesn't answer, just turns over and curls against Ryan's side petulantly. He mumbles, "Whatever. Yeah, I told Gabe, but that's fucking it, okay? I wouldn't…" He sighs. "I don't know who could've…"
"William Beckett," Spencer says.
"What?" Jon squeaks. "He's not even in town anymore. And I never said a damn thing about-"
"Hey," Ryan says softly, and his palm comes to rest warm on the back of Jon's neck. "We know. I was just talking to him a couple of nights ago, bouncing some lyrics off him-he calls me when he stuck at an airport somewhere, it's like our thing-and he mentioned that you seemed so happy with the band, but that you also seemed depressed as shit, even though you were home. We were hoping… I mean, not that we wanted you to be…you know, depressed… But, whatever it was, we thought maybe we could make it better."
"But you hoped?" Jon says.
"Yeah," Ryan says quietly, and he kisses the top of his head.
"So you really were depressed?" Brendon says.
Jon shrugs, trying to play it off. "And desperate, apparently. Hence…Gabe."
Jon feels Spencer curl up along his back, finally. He says, "You got shit-faced and went and cried on Gabe Saporta's shoulder because of us?"
Jon chuckles. "Just like I do pretty much every time I'm miserable and lonely. Well, except usually it's not just drinking and crying, and, um, not just his shoulder." He feels his face heat a little, but there's no real reason to hide it, especially if Gabe's likely to tell them anyway.
Brendon snorts and rolls onto his back giggling, but Jon can feel Spencer and Ryan tense up.
Jon says, "Hey, I didn't, okay. Not this time. And there are way worse guys in my history that I could've gained a certain kind of experience from."
Ryan's smirking now, and there's not even any real heat in it when Spencer murmurs, "I so did not need to know that."
Brendon crawls over Ryan and pushes Jon onto his back, settles between his legs. "Who else?"
"Tell him later," Ryan says, throwing his arms up to cover his face. "For the love of God."
Jon just giggles and pulls Brendon down on top of him, hugs him to his chest.
"Hey," Spencer says, throwing a leg over his even though there's no fucking room to, "you need any more water or anything?"
"Oh, so now I'm forgiven?"
Spencer rolls his eyes. "I suppose." He sounds okay again, but his expression is still too cautious, and Jon knows just why. If he was in their place…
"I know I probably shouldn't have… Okay, so definitely I shouldn't have told him. I was fucked up and desperate, and it won't happen again. I swear. But I'm telling you, Spence, it'll be fine. There are things Gabe knows about me that nobody else does, so-"
Ryan snorts, and like a reflex Jon reaches over and slaps his hip, hard enough it stings his hand.
"Watch it," Brendon says into his collarbone. "He likes that, you know."
"Actually," Jon says, "I did know that. Just like I know you're into tying people up-which I'm all in favor of, by the way-and Spencer likes to be teased with ice cubes."
Spencer looks scandalized, and Jon says, "Oh man, you motherfuckers talk a lot when you're high. Anyway, Gabe knows me, knows shit I don't tell anybody else. And it stays shit nobody else knows, because, unlike you jokers, he doesn't talk."
"What do you have on him?" Ryan asks.
"On pain of death, Ross. Honestly, guys, he's good. He'll probably give you all kinds of stupid looks and ridiculous innuendo about it, but he won't tell anybody."
Spencer doesn't say it's okay, but when he takes a deep breath and lets it out, he doesn't seem worried anymore.
As Brendon crawls back into his place behind Ryan, he says, "But what explains how William Beckett knew, then?"
"I'm not sure he did," Ryan says. "I don't think he was dropping hints on purpose."
"Probably just reporting what he saw," Jon says. "He knows me too damn well."
Brendon says, "Did you…you know, with him?"
Jon throws his head back and laughs. "Holy fuck, no way. He's hopelessly straight. It's the great tragedy of Gabe's life, let me tell you."
As they're chuckling to themselves, for no good reason they let things get quiet, and it's like the silence settles into them and makes them still. In the stillness, Jon feels not just the giddy, half-nervous emotions he's been feeling since they arrived, but he's thinking now. Worrying, really.
"Sorry I ruined everything," he says suddenly. "You know, with the…P-U-K-I-N-G."
"He can spell, Jon," Ryan murmurs.
"No, spelling helps," Brendon says. "Seriously."
Ryan murmurs, "W-I-E-R-D-O."
Spencer says, "S-P-E-L-L-C-H-E-C-K."
While Ryan and Spencer exchange mostly inscrutable looks across him, Brendon sits up and smiles at Jon.
"And, hey, nothing was ruined," he says. "Well, except the afterglow."
"We can have the afterglow now," Ryan says insistently.
"Yeah," Spencer says. "That would be nice."
Jon knows they must look sort of ridiculous crowded onto his bed, Ryan and Spencer curled up around him and Brendon spooned up against Ryan's back, but it's perfect. It's perfect and it's too fucking much and after they're quiet for another minute or two, Jon can't decide if he's too restless to stay still or too content to move ever again.
"Hey," Brendon says suddenly, and Jon feels a hand slide over his hip.
"Mmm?"
"Stop freaking out."
Jon opens his mouth to reply, but Ryan beats him to it: "He's not freaking out."
Spencer adds, "We won't let him."
Jon smiles and thinks about calling Gabe to tell him what's happened, but it would mean leaving the bed to find his phone, and Jon's really not ready to be that far away from them anytime soon.
~