Bandom fic: Ryan/Spencer, pg-13
Title: what it is about you that closes and opens
Pairing: Ryan/Spencer
Rating: pg-13
Summary: He hasn't spoken to Ryan in seventeen days. There just hasn't seemed to be a reason to.
Note: Takes place during and after the band split. 7700 words.
what it is about you that closes and opens
There are three blue and five yellow packets of sugar substitute in the wire caddy on the table. Spencer knows because Ryan keeps fiddling with them, tapping his long fingers against them. It's possible he doesn't even know he's doing it. Then again, maybe he's trying to make Spencer crazy when he already feels more than a little rattled. Something about Ryan is rattling him -- now, lately. For weeks, maybe. He doesn't know. Ryan lives in California now.
It was gradual, so it didn't hurt, not like it should have. He's never begrudged him Jon Walker. Being a best friend doesn't mean being the only or even the most frequent. But it does mean knowing what the fuck is going on in someone's life and in his head. Spencer used to be good at reading Ryan. Now, he's not. Even worse, he's discovered it's a trick he can manage only if Ryan lets him.
"Stop," Spencer says, reaching out his hand to still Ryan's fingers zipping across the tops of the Splenda and Equal.
He'd meant for it to be one of those things they do, like the way Ryan lays his hand on Brendon's knee when he's jangling it too much, and Brendon stops, either without a comment or with a lame joke. But Spencer can't make himself take his hand away, and Ryan's eyes snap up to his like he's just asked him a question.
It takes Spencer half an hour to figure out what that question is, mostly because it's the very one he hasn't yet let himself ask.
They don't say, You're avoiding me because you're writing songs I don't want to play, and I don't know what to do.
Instead, Ryan says, "A side project."
And Spencer just nods.
"Is that...?"
"Honestly, it seems like the best thing. Right?"
"Right."
They don't say, This is the end. They don't have to.
*
Six weeks after they make the decision -- the real one, where Ryan and Jon don't have a side project so much as a whole new band -- Spencer is on the strip, standing outside the Bellagio watching the fountain show. This is performance number three, three times he's found himself unwilling to wander away from the tourists and the lame spectacle. The first show he saw involved a medley of songs, but the second was a classic, "God Bless the USA." Now, halfway through the love theme from fucking Titanic, he decides he needs a double shot of something alcoholic, even if he has to pay fifteen dollars for it and drink it out of a plastic cup.
He hates himself when he does cliché Vegas bullshit -- especially when he does it because he tells himself he's bored when he's actually just lonely -- but the thing is, it's part of his internal programming. Watching the fountain show at the Bellagio is something he's always done, and it reawakens some part of him the way only those childhood things can. Unfortunately, the only way it's tolerable is with a good deal of mocking, and good snark takes at least two people, so that you have an audience. Brendon's good, and Spencer could probably call him and get him to come out here. Hell, he could probably have a pretty nice time if he wanted to. But he doesn't want to have a nice time. He wants his first best friend, the one with the gift of deadpan sarcasm and an endless supply of Celine Dion jokes.
Spencer doesn't like to think that growing up in Vegas warped any of them. They didn't really grow up in Vegas, after all, not the part of it that everyone thinks of. Their lives were relatively normal, adjacent to the madness without joining it. Maybe that was the fascination, early on, with the costumes and makeup. It was familiar but unfamiliar. It was a thing to try. Ryan wanted it, and Brendon wanted it more than he initially liked to admit, so Spencer and Brent went along. In the end, it was sort of addictive being someone else for a while.
Of course, all that was easier then. It was nice being in a circus, where freaks fit in. It was them against the world. When they realized there was nothing left to fight -- except each other -- the only sensible thing to do was stop. It reminds him of his not-relationship with Haley, actually. It reminds him that being mature and letting things go isn't easy and it doesn't feel good, even when it's right.
Spencer takes a picture during this show's finale with his camera phone, but he doesn't send it to the girl he once thought was the love of his life. He talks to her often enough, despite the change in their relationship, but this is something she wouldn't get. Neither would Jon. He could send it to Brendon, but Brendon would wonder why he wasn't invited. He could send it to Ryan, and Ryan might even send back a sardonic reply, but the picture is shit, and it's not the same as being there, and --
And he hasn't spoken to Ryan in seventeen days. There just hasn't seemed to be a reason to.
*
Spencer likes working with Brendon, with only Brendon. Before they made everything official, he made himself feel guilty about not missing things like the arguments with Ryan about obscure literary references or the passive-aggressive way Jon always worked his sometimes bizarre chord progressions into Spencer's rhythms. Now, he's decided to simply not miss those things.
This is not to say he doesn't miss Jon and Ryan. That's what sucks. He thinks Brendon's spent his own stupidly long time coming to the realization that he can't be three people. Spencer still has to work at convincing him that the one him is enough, except in the ways it can never be. It's really tiring sometimes.
It would probably help if Ryan would fucking call Brendon. As Spencer watches him tune his acoustic guitar or fiddle with the strap on his bass or concentrate on changing the settings in their capture software, he imagines he sees loneliness and uncertainty making lines on his face, and he gets angry, almost irrationally so.
Luckily, Brendon doesn't let things get quiet long enough for Spencer to stew all that much or that effectively. Spencer has never until now truly appreciated Brendon's powers of manic energy, never understood how much a distraction can also be a coping mechanism. Spencer thinks it's okay for them to be coping through music, better than okay -- even when they discover that they've unwittingly woven The Kinks into their sound (and made it Ryan and Jon's sound again) or that hard-driving pop isn't as easy as they remember. So they play a lot of Blink-182 and Green Day really loudly and find ways to set Backstreet Boys lyrics to Beatles tunes, stopping just short of sending those monstrosities to the only person in the world who would find them either hilarious or blasphemous, possibly both.
Still, Spencer wakes up in the middle of the night sometimes, unable to get his mind to turn loose of the snatches of melody and rhythm cycling through it. He's always been like this when they're writing or recording. Even back when they were kids in his grandmother's basement. When he thinks about those times, he rarely remembers specific days or things that happened. Instead, faces, expressions stick in his mind. Brent's sarcastic smiles and blank boredom and sullenness. Ryan's narrow eyes hiding his wide-swinging emotions, which were difficult to trace even for Spencer, impossible for the others.
Spencer's face was the one that took everything in, including Brendon, whose sole occupation was to take in Ryan. They can laugh about it now, but it was fucking horrible sometimes watching Brendon drinking in Ryan's words and movements, or even worse, trying to hide it, self-conscious, as all the while Ryan was either oblivious or just ignored it. That's what this bullshit with the phone reminds him of, and it's stupid because this isn't then. They aren't them anymore, not really. Brendon told him once that it was just a hot-burning, quick-dying sort of thing, probably not even about sex at all, and it has nothing to do with why they're not talking now. It's not that Ryan doesn't give a shit, couldn't and can't give a shit; maybe it never was. It's that he's being Ryan, and Brendon's being Brendon, and apparently Spencer can only be Spencer.
Being Spencer means he gets mad during the day until he forgets it, or at least until he can tell himself he's forgotten it because it doesn't matter. And he gets morose almost every night but maturely convinces himself that he's being ridiculous. Communication is a two-way street, and if Brendon is just as unable as--
"Not unable," he mumbles to himself early one morning after a mostly sleepless night as he's standing in Brendon's kitchen watching a pot of coffee drip. "Not unable, right? Unwilling."
Spencer knows unwilling.
There are worse things than the crush that you don't know how to act on. There is the crush that at its very foundation is unwise, that you talk yourself out of. Or you think you have -- until you're spilling hazelnut coffee creamer all over the kitchen counter because Brendon used to be half in love with Ryan and now they don't remember how to talk to each other; but you know this isn't even about Brendon, not really. It's about how Ryan just doesn't see things.
Of course, something echoing in your head, that voice you've been drowning out so long it's second nature, tells you fleetingly -- because that's all the time you allow it and, really, all the time it takes -- that you've never given him anything to see. After all, this is not about Brendon at all; it's about Spencer and how he's not picking up the phone to call Ryan either.
Spencer's hands shake for a moment, but these moments pass. When he carries his coffee into the music room -- the one that is missing Brent and Jon and his grandmother's storage boxes and the smell of the cabin and his best friend -- he finds that Brendon's up, too, so he settles in to listen to snatches of song played on an acoustic guitar.
*
A few days later, a knock startles Spencer awake, and he stumbles to the door on wobbly legs.
He's too bewildered and rattled to think about the peephole, just flips on the porch light and drags open the door to find Ryan standing there with that small bag he refuses to call a purse thrown over his shoulder. Ryan just blinks at him, against the blinding light. Spencer plunges the porch back into darkness and motions him inside.
"Um," Spencer says, but his voice has a cracking, thin sound. He's reaching for a lamp, something to make this the daytime world and not the confusing too-early-morning middle of the night, but Ryan reaches out his hand and stops him.
"Go back to sleep," Ryan says.
Spencer turns and blinks at him, frowning in concentration and curiosity as he finally studies his face as best he can in the streetlight coming through the blinds. Ryan's not stoned, but he was a few hours ago, maybe. He looks exhausted.
Spencer says, "What...?"
Ryan's still got his hand on his arm, and it feels like some kind of death grip.
"I missed you," Ryan replies softly. "Sorry."
Spencer frowns at him again, but it doesn't stick for long.
Spencer asks, "How did you...?"
"Drove."
"From the airport, or...?"
"Or," he replies. As he gives a sheepish shrug, he finally lets go of Spencer's arm. "I just- I don't know," he mumbles. "I decided I should come, and it was a nice night for a drive, so…"
"Okay."
It's amazing how absolutely for shit they are at talking to each other sometimes. It's gotten worse over the past couple of years, and it's usually Spencer's fault -- if only because Spencer's always been the one that prevented the awkwardness from creeping in in the first place, by talking when he doesn't need to. He thinks it's a trick he learned from Brendon. Growing up, he didn't know he'd need tricks for communicating with his best friend. He hadn't realized being an adult could mean suddenly becoming paralyzingly conscious of everything.
Like now: Spencer is transfixed watching Ryan tuck an unruly strand of his hair behind his ear. He doesn't remember it ever being this long. He looks entirely different. Entirely. Softer or something. Spencer sort of wants to draw him up in a hug, but Ryan's already a little drawn in on himself. Self-contained, he thinks. Except it suddenly strikes him that that he's not used to seeing him from the outside like this, from the objective eye of a person who isn't around him every day anymore.
"You want breakfast?" Spencer says, because nothing else seems safe.
Ryan wrinkles his nose in a way Spencer would never tell another living soul is adorable, especially when he's all cranky-mumbly-sleepy, and says, "It's too early for breakfast."
"Yeah."
Ryan is still immobile. He does this sometimes. It's like if he stands still long enough, the world will sort itself out around him. It usually does, Spencer thinks.
Spencer grabs him by a skinny, tattooed wrist and leads him down the hallway.
"Breakfast in, like, three, four hours?" he says.
Ryan murmurs in the affirmative.
Spencer guides him into his own bedroom and pulls back the blankets. In the morning -- the real morning, the harsh light of day -- he'll be a little mortified, but not now. Because Ryan's not mortified. Ryan, his best friend. This is who they are, who they've been since they were a kind of young Spencer can't fathom anymore.
Ryan climbs into bed without a protest or a funny look. Spencer can't remember the last time he shared a bed with someone. Bare-chested, Spencer can feel Ryan's arm along his side, and he's feeling it long after Ryan drops into a deep sleep.
*
Way past lunch time but well before dinner, in a booth across from him at a local Indian restaurant, Ryan picks at a vegetable samosa and doesn't at all explain why he's in Vegas. He's been not explaining for a couple of hours now, long enough, anyway, for Spencer to get used to the idea of never knowing.
Right now, he's letting Spencer talk. He's doing just as much thoughtful listening as avoiding speaking, so Spencer isn't too perturbed. Besides, it turns out that Spencer has a lot of things to say, and there's been nobody else to say them to.
Ryan wants to know about the new record, if it's okay for me to.... Spencer nods and tells him, weighing his confidences with Brendon carefully against his trust in his best friend.
And Ryan wants to know how things are going with Shane's production company. Spencer bites his tongue and doesn't order him to fucking call him on the phone and ask him, you goddamn chicken; we didn't divide our friends in the divorce.
And Ryan wants to know if he's still talking to Haley regularly. Because he knows, maybe even better than Brendon does, how slowly it unraveled so it wouldn't be painful, but how painful it's been anyway.
"More than we maybe should be." Spencer smiles, and he knows it's bitter and a little self-mocking, but he can't help it. "We're still too close. Or too needy, maybe."
Ryan shakes his head. "It's not a bad thing, needing people."
Spencer replies, "It is when you're afraid of making a break because you're afraid to be alone."
After he says it, he sort of hates himself. It's too much, too personal. It's the kind of personal they've never been with each other, because they've never had to say this kind of shit out loud before.
Ryan nods and murmurs, "That's better than being afraid to be with somebody."
As their conversation threatens to fall into an awkward silence, thankfully the food arrives. Without a word, Ryan dishes up his own palak paneer then spoons out some of Spencer's channa masala, like he always does, and he doesn't much look at him while he eats. Spencer can't stop looking at him, though. It's still a little like he's never seen him before, or at least that new view is layered over the familiar one, and it's disorienting.
He's noticing things he never really saw before. Mostly, it's a consequence of knowing his best friend has mellowed but not entirely feeling it until he's sitting across from him and doesn't sense that familiar nervous energy that's been keeping him strung tight so much and for so long Spencer had forgotten it wasn't an integral part of being Ryan Ross. Or maybe he never really knew until now.
After Ryan's plate is cleared, he orders some fruit tea and sits back, and Spencer begins to get impatient for no good reason. The stupid thing is he can't just ask him, Why the fuck did you drive up from Topanga in the middle of the night? He knows why; Ryan told him. But then again, the simplest answers aren't always the easiest to make sense of.
Spencer's feeling jittery now, and his throat still burns from the curry, so he orders a beer and sips it slowly.
"So," Ryan says, and he leaves the invitation hanging. Like he always does.
Something in Spencer snaps.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," he hisses, "will you just fucking say something. Christ, you're driving me crazy. You always have. Do you know that?"
Ryan looks abashed, but it quickly turns to amusement as he watches a hot blush creep up Spencer's neck and onto his face.
"Sorry," Spencer says.
"No," Ryan says with a wave of his hand. "That's fair."
"I just don't know how to talk to you anymore, okay. You don't call me. What the fuck are we even doing?"
Ryan's eyes get large and round, serious but tinged with something mirthful. "Well," he says slowly, "you're apparently flipping the fuck out."
Then he smiles like he can't help it anymore, and something in Spencer's stomach settles.
"Seriously," Spencer says with a small, soft smile. "You're a douche. A not-calling-people douche."
"I always have been." Then he adds, evenly, "Although I wasn't aware that your phone could only receive calls from my number, not dial them."
"Sorry," Spencer says again.
"Oh, fuck, stop that."
"I guess I'm too…frustrated to be rational."
After a beat, Ryan smiles. "You're cute like this."
"Fuck you."
Ryan cackles, and they order another tea and beer.
*
When they get back to the house, Spencer gives him the grand tour, points out all the changes large and small he's made since Ryan saw it last. As they meander back into the great room, he can't help but wonder what Ryan's house is like. He's only been there once, to help him move in. Then, it was nothing but empty boxes and echoes. Now, it must be filled with Ryan's stuff, Ryan's voice, Ryan's life. He hopes it wouldn't seem foreign to him. He doesn't say that, though.
Instead, he says, "Why haven't I been out to your house more?"
"The invitation has always been open."
"I know."
He really does. But that doesn't make it an easy thing, and he still hasn't quite made sense of why.
When they go out onto the patio, Ryan lights up a cigarette and stares out over the backyard into the sun, his other hand a shield over his eyes. It's not fixed, this thing between them, not entirely. Spencer feels the edges of their conversation pull tight from the tension, but he's okay with that. At least it's all acknowledged now. They've found themselves in a place like this several times over the years, and they generally know how to get back again.
It requires a little finesse, though, a little hedging. For one, Spencer leaves the topic of Brendon alone without actually making his name taboo. If Brendon and Ryan don't know how to talk to each other yet, they'll figure it out eventually. If they're meant to, that is. That's the thing that's really been getting to him the last few days as he's been thinking about the problem. He remembers high school, how every friendship had seemed like the most important he'd ever have, but now he can barely remember those kids' names. They aren't part of his life anymore, and maybe they never would've been if not for the fate of simple proximity. It's hard to think of their band that way, but he can't help it. Brent's house is presumably still just miles from his, but for all intents and purposes it's something like half a world away. Was Brent his friend, or was he a coincidence of timing and shared interests? He thinks of Jon, how they talk less and less these days.
In the end, the only two things Spencer is sure of are Brendon and Ryan, and the two of them are passive-aggressively maintaining radio silence with each other. He hasn't been pressing the issue, though, not yet; so imagine his shock when it's Ryan who brings up the subject.
"I'm trying to give him space," he says out of the blue after a long drag.
"Who?"
"Brendon. That's why I haven't called him. You can tell him that if you want to. I just figured, you know, with the song writing and stuff, he doesn't need me breathing down his neck."
"Wait, what? Have you actually ever met Brendon? I don't think it's humanly possible to crowd him. Seriously, if you don't call him, he's not going to call you. He'll let you go if he thinks it's what you want."
Ryan rolls his eyes. "I don't want that."
"Then tell him."
Ryan's mouth makes a hard line, even when he takes his next drag. "He's such a fucking martyr sometimes."
"Yeah, well, we're not all as stoic as you."
Ryan just grunts in response, but he gives him a look that says, Who are you fucking kidding, seriously?
Spencer says, "You know if you call him, it'll be awkward for about five minutes, then you'll get over it. You always do."
Ryan exhales long and slow before he murmurs, "Sometimes I think we never have."
"It's not like you're the same people you were when you were seventeen."
"Oh?"
"Sort of…intense?"
Ryan snorts this time, then he smiles this weird smile. "Yeah. I sometimes think it would've been easier if we just fucking got it over with, you know? If I'd known I was bi back then..."
He turns and looks back into the sun, like he didn't just admit out loud two things Spencer was fairly certain he hadn't even admitted to himself.
"So, three things," Spencer says. "One, I'm guessing you did know, and you thought ignoring it would make it go away. Two, it would've been fucking messy, and you both knew it, which is probably why nothing ever happened. And three, I'm pretty sure Brendon's only gay above the waist, anyway."
Then Spencer adds, "Okay, so four things: don't think I didn't notice you sneaking in a coming out in some fucking offhand remark that wasn't the least bit offhand."
Ryan pauses a little too long before he answers. "What?" he says as he ashes his cigarette. "We've had that conversation, haven't we?" He gestures vaguely with his other hand.
That kind of shit might work with Z or Alex -- hell, he's seen it work -- but it doesn't work with him.
"You know good and well we haven't. We've not been having it, not about you anyway, since I told you I was gay when I was fifteen."
"Sorry."
"Don't say you're sorry. Tell me why you're pretending it's not a big deal."
"It's not. Not really. I've known for a while. I'm just saying it out loud now."
Spencer rolls his eyes. "Fine. Then tell me what's changed."
"Nothing. I don't know. Everything? I just feel like things have been rearranged in my head lately. New perspective," he says, then he gives him a sardonic smile. "Whatever."
A moment later, as Ryan lights a new cigarette off the old one, he says, "Hey, you wanna take a drive?"
Spencer laughs, but Ryan shoots him a serious look. Spencer can suddenly see all sorts of things churning around in his head. It's comforting that he can still do that, that Ryan's letting him. Not that he knows what the problem is just yet, but he'll figure it out. He always does, eventually.
So Spencer says, "Okay."
A few minutes later, Ryan's leaning against his bedroom doorframe and watching him hunt down a pair of shoes and a hoodie.
Ryan says, "I've always been glad you told me. You know, back then. Took some guts."
"Luckily, you were awesomely not uptight and crazy about it, so." He shrugs.
"You've always known who you were."
"So have you," Spencer replies like a reflex, but he's glad to realize it's true.
"Yeah," he replies. "I just haven't always known how to be happy with myself."
"Well, who the fuck said I ever have, you know?"
Ryan gets quiet again, but Spencer can feel that there's more he needs to say. Apparently, it's going to be that kind of day, where serious shit gets communicated, but only in fits and starts. He's not altogether surprised, then, when they're climbing into the car a few minutes later and Ryan returns to the conversation.
He opens his door and pauses, looking at Spencer over the top of the car. He says, "What I meant… I'm proud of you for always being so sure."
Spencer ducks into the car. If he didn't, he'd have to spill out his heart. He'd have to tell him everything he knows about being stubborn and determined he learned from him. But it's only half true, because they learned it together, and he's only ever been half sure. The trick is to make believe that half is everything.
*
They drive toward Death Valley in the dying sunlight.
They'd stopped for coffee as they left civilization, but Spencer's venti dark roast is pretty tepid by now. He keeps drinking it anyway. Strangely, though, the extra caffeine isn't adding to the jumpiness he felt before. If anything, he's starting to feel bleary-eyed and thankful this is a road less traveled, in case he drifts a little too far across the fading center line.
It would help if they hadn't settled into some weird silence, one so strong Spencer's afraid to turn on the radio, if only to hear something besides the swish of tires, the battle of unimpeded desert wind against the shell of the car, the thump of his own heartbeat.
So when Ryan finally speaks, it startles him.
"I think we're writing about the break up."
Spencer nods, not knowing what else to do. It's the first thing of any substance Ryan's had to say about his and Jon's musical efforts, and it's unsurprisingly vague. But just because it's unsurprising doesn't make it any less irritating.
Ryan adds, "I mean, not intentionally or anything. But it's there."
"Understandable."
"But some of it... Some of it's not...entirely kind. Or you might not think it is."
Tersely, he says, "Which is it, Ryan?"
"Hmm?"
"Is it actually not entirely kind, or am I just going to misread it?"
"I don't know what you'll read it as, okay. I'm just- " He huffs out a breath. "Maybe it's like... Well, you know how after you break up with someone, every song you hear seems to be about love or heartbreak? Maybe it's like that."
Spencer just makes a hmm noise, and Ryan goes back to studying the landscape as it whirrs by.
Then a moment later, Ryan says, "What?" and he's snappy and exasperated in a way that almost makes Spencer laugh, except they're not to that point yet. This isn't funny yet.
Spencer sighs and says, "That shit about music after a breakup, you know how that works. You hear what you're feeling. Whether it's there or not, you hear it because you feel it."
"But I don't have bitter feelings about the split of the band."
"Why not?" Spencer says. "I do."
Ryan doesn't let his eyes go wide. That's not his way. Instead, he steels his gaze and aims it out the window. Spencer focuses on the landscape ahead of them, and that's when he notices how dark the sky is, all the light concentrated only at the far horizon before everything goes dark.
A few minutes later, just as they finally pass the Death Valley National Park sign, Ryan shifts in his seat and turns a careful glare on Spencer.
"I was saying what I said because I want you to know we wouldn't record it if we thought it was destructive. Does that count for anything with you, or are you just fucking determined to be mad at me?"
Spencer physically starts at that, and it sends his heartbeat hammering through his chest.
He says, "I never said I was mad. Or mad at you. Okay? Just kind of...bitter, in general, I guess. Disappointed."
"I don't see the difference," Ryan mutters.
Spencer doesn't reply, just holds to the wheel white knuckled, but it's no use. After a few hundred feet, he pulls over at the nearest shoulder. He gets out and takes a welcome gulp of fresh air. Ryan's eyes are wide this time, and Ryan's eyes are only wide when he's worried.
"You do," Spencer says over the top of the car. "You do see the difference or you wouldn't give a flying fuck if those songs were maybe mean." He kicks at the tire sort of petulantly. "Look," he says. "Apparently we both feel...guilty about this for some reason. For no reason, actually." He looks straight into his eyes as he says, "Could we maybe stop that?"
"Excellent question," Ryan replies. Then he smiles, wryly and intimately, and Spencer feels himself smiling in return. Smiling, but the adrenaline is still making him jittery. Something at the center of him is wobbly now, just when it should've been made steady again.
Because he can't look Ryan in the eyes just yet, can't look at him period, Spencer looks out over his head at dunes and brush and shadows falling and says, "Alright, your turn to drive."
He leaves the keys on the hood as they circle the car and pass each other at the front fender.
*
Stepping out of the car at Badwater is like walking on the surface of the moon, but with no cameras, no broadcast to millions of TV viewers. Just the two of them and a peculiar salt desert with white parched earth that looks like miles of sand with no dunes. Miles without end. Like thinking of eternity until your stomach aches.
"Fuck," Ryan says, and though there's no wind, the sound seems to die in the air. "I didn't mean for it to be so dark when we got here."
"So you were headed here?"
Ryan nods as he walks a few paces away from him, carefully, unsure of his footing.
They've been here together before, of course, on a trip with Spencer's family and another time shortly after Ryan got his driver's license. But both times were during the day, when the landscape looks more cartoonish than soul-swallowing. In the daylight, and back when they were just kids, he wasn't thinking anything in the world could be bigger than them and their ability to deal with it. Even now, Spencer doesn't really think there are things their friendship won't bend to accommodate, but he knows the possibility, and he's not all that comfortable with it. He really never has been.
He doesn't know why he's thinking about these things now except maybe it's about the set of Ryan's shoulders as he shoves his hands into his pockets. In some ways, to him Ryan will always be ten years old; but then again, as a ten year old Ryan already knew the world was full of so many things that could crush him, crush them.
Brendon told him once that he thought Spencer learned to be responsible, a worrier from worrying over Ryan. The truth is, that's just Spencer's nature, not just to prepare for the worst case scenario but to prevent it. So he has definitely worried over Ryan, but for the big things, the things that count, it's generally unnecessary. He's perfectly strong on all on his own. It's best to simply walk alongside him and hope to keep up. It's taken Spencer this long to see Ryan's just as often been trying to keep pace with him. Here in the sound-stealing desert, after looking into his eyes these past 24 hours, he's suddenly sure of it. It's a good thing to know.
Spencer heads back to the car first, and he sits on the hood and waits for Ryan to turn, small and dark against an unearthly glow, and walk back toward him.
*
There are miles and miles to drive to get out of the park, dark miles of wide open spaces with only a few yards at a time illuminated by headlights, and they talk through them all. It's still tense, though. The conversation is flowing, but almost obsessively, self-consciously, as though if they stop for even a breath, they won't be able to start again. It's a tension almost more physical than it is anything else. It's maddening.
Spencer doesn't realize how close they are to civilization again until he sees the haze of lights that will soon be Pahrump. They stop and fill up at the first gas station, the way people traveling across a desert do.
When Spencer returns from paying, comes back into the too-bright fluorescent lights and smell of gasoline, Ryan's in the passenger seat again. Spencer hands him a bottle of Gatorade through the open window. As he pumps the gas, he has the startling thought that he really doesn't want to get back into the car. He's a little annoyed to be driving again, but that's not all of it. It's just as much about the person in the passenger seat.
As he slides behind the wheel again, he says, "Let's get a hotel room."
"We're two hours from home."
"We're two hours from my house, and I don't want to drive any more than you apparently do, so let's get a room and sleep for a while. Aren't you exhausted, anyway?"
"Whatever," Ryan replies without looking at him, and they've suddenly come full circle to where they were before.
There aren't many choices in Pahrump, so Spencer plunks down his credit card for a room at the Best Western. When he returns to the car, Ryan's crowded back against his window, still giving him a look that says, It's just two more hours. Suck it up.
Spencer gives him a look that hopefully answers, You suck it up. You're the one who won't drive his share.
Ryan's accusatory face only gets worse when they drive around to the back of the building, where their room is, and there's only one dim light in the parking lot and not a single other car, not even a semi truck.
Spencer puts the car in park, but he doesn't turn it off. He just turns to face Ryan, because he's going to say something -- he doesn't even know what, something that will explain to the both of them why he's so antsy and exasperated -- but he doesn't have time to speak because Ryan's all of a sudden leaning across the console, grabbing him by the back of the neck, and kissing him on the mouth.
It's over before it starts, but, still, Spencer feels the kiss like a brand -- even after, especially after when Ryan jerks back against the car window again like they're two magnets of the same pole and he can't help it.
"Sorry," Ryan mumbles, and Spencer can see his face flushing in the reflection in the window. "I just couldn't stand it anymore."
Ryan's voice is shaky. Ryan's voice is shaky, and Spencer's heartbeat starts roaring in his ears. He has no idea what just happened, and he certainly didn't see it coming, although now that it has, he thinks he should have.
"Come here," he says.
Ryan turns his head and looks at him with wide eyes, but he doesn't move.
This time, Spencer's voice is steadier, firm: "Come. Here."
Unsure and maybe even a little embarrassed now -- actually, he's looking like he's contemplating obstinate defiance -- Ryan leans in just a little, his breathing shallow. Spencer wraps his hand around the back of his neck like Ryan just did to him, but he doesn't kiss him, just makes him lean in until their foreheads rest together.
Ryan doesn't draw back, and that's enough. That's everything. Spencer wants to kiss him again, wants it so much he forces himself to hold still, calm down.
Spencer whispers, "Don't tell me you're sorry unless you are."
Ryan's eyes are closed, and his breath is hot on his face when he murmurs, "I just don't want to fuck this up."
There's been something hard inside Spencer for a while. He would hate to realize how long, because it's been too long -- since before the band broke up, since before Haley broke up with him. Maybe since he was sixteen and thinking the exact same thing: I just don't want to fuck this up. He didn't know it until now, as whatever it is dissolves, leaving him feeling hot and sick and shaky but sure. So sure.
His heart stuttering in his chest, Spencer gently kisses the corner of Ryan's mouth, then he kisses his cheek. His mouth is at his ear when he says, easy and fond, "And somehow you thought some kamikaze attack of a kiss was your best option?"
"Wasn't thinking," Ryan mutters, and finally his hands come up and press against Spencer's chest. And clutch. "Um, I'm an idiot?"
"You're an idiot," Spencer replies with his lips pressed against Ryan's warm neck in a smile.
"But you don't mind, right?" Ryan says.
"Mind?"
"That I'm an idiot. You don't mind, do you?"
"I would be pretty hypocritical if I minded," he says, and he's relieved when Ryan turns his head just enough and kisses him again.
This time, he doesn't stop. Now, they're like magnets of opposite poles, and Spencer couldn't break away even if he wanted to.
*
It's easy not to have expectations about what happens next when you not only never thought it could happen, you never even thought to think it could. But as Spencer perches uneasily on the end of one of the beds, waiting for Ryan to come out of the bathroom, he starts thinking, only it's more like a neverending, tangled loop of longing and worry.
He can still taste Ryan on his tongue, can still feel his hands on his neck, too warm and holding on too hard. And he can remember how when they broke away, they couldn't look each other in the eyes -- not because it was all too alien and unfamiliar, but because it was somehow exactly the opposite.
They hadn’t touched after they got out of the car. Ryan simply followed Spencer into the room like he'd done a hundred, maybe a thousand times before. And now Spencer's regretting it a little. It's too quiet. When Ryan flushes the toilet, it's too loud. When he clicks the door back open, Spencer thinks he can feel the sound. When he turns and washes his hands, the water is jarring white noise. Spencer pretends not to watch him at first, but when he finally lets himself, his eyes are drawn to the curve of Ryan's back like it's something he could trace with his fingers if he wanted to. It's as exciting a thought as it is fucking scary.
When Ryan turns around, Spencer's not sure if he's looking at his best friend or someone else; not sure, suddenly, if maybe he's someone else, too.
"So," Ryan says as leans up against the wall by the sink, in that same attitude of self-possession Spencer's begun to know him by. "You're gonna be all weird now, aren't you?"
"What the fuck?" Spencer says in a surprised squeak he quickly covers with a generous eyeroll. Then he flops onto his back on the bed. "You're the one…lurking on the other side of the room."
"Or you are," Ryan says with a barely-concealed grin and a shrug.
"Whatever."
"Seriously, Spence. You're not allowed to get weird on me."
"But this is weird."
"Kissing me is weird?"
"No," he says to the ceiling with a smile, "kissing you is pretty awesome, actually." So awesome it makes him feel hot all over again just thinking about it. He turns and looks at him pointedly, looking over the room first and grimacing a little: "Sharing a room at a skeevy motel with you is…" Ryan just raises an eyebrow. "Well, okay, we saw worse on Truckstops and Statelines, didn't we?"
"What are you talking about? We saw worse on Rockband. And this particular skeevy motel was your idea. Besides, who says it's gonna be anything like that?"
"Like what?"
"You know."
Spencer sits up so fast it makes him a little dizzy, but it's worth it when Ryan gets that deer-in-the-headlights look. Spencer grins and says, "Oh, so you're saying you don't wanna have sex with me."
He's extraordinarily proud of himself when Ryan turns magenta and ducks his head, mutters, "Fuck."
Spencer says, "That's the idea."
When Ryan exhales sharply in response, Spencer sobers up pretty fast.
"This is new and…complicated," Spencer says. "I get that. And if you don't want to-"
"It's not want," Ryan says, his voice going hoarse the way other people's rise in tone. "It's…" Ryan lets his head fall back until it makes a clunking sound against the wall. "This was already hard enough, you know?"
"What was?"
"Us was. The band. Bands."
"Is that it?" Spencer asks.
"What the fuck does that mean?"
"It means you're…new to…" He takes in a sharp breath and spits out, "Look, it's not out of the realm of possibility that you'll have some kind of big gay freakout, and I don't know if I can--"
"Seriously," Ryan interjects with an annoyed frown, "it's not like I haven't had some experience, okay? Enough to know. Besides, if I were going to freak out, it would more likely be some kind of big best friend freakout."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"Okay."
After a pause, Ryan adds, "I mean, not that I'd go back to…"
"Yeah. No."
Spencer can't take his eyes off Ryan now. Even though it's a weird kind of comparison, he thinks this is like being in a car accident, the initial adrenaline and shock keeping him from feeling it, but now that the shock has worn off, all these feelings flood his heart. They come in the form of things he doesn't know how to say out loud yet, like I missed you so much, you stupid jackass and Why couldn't we have got our shit sorted out and done this years ago? and I am going to be so good to you, if you'll just fucking let me. Instead, he sits there quietly staring, knowing there's a good chance Ryan can see some of that in his face anyway. Maybe Ryan's always been able to. Willing to.
Before things have a chance to get awkward, Ryan says, "So, I think I'm going to take a shower."
"Okay."
"You know, get the dust out of my hair."
"Okay."
"You could join me," he adds, casually.
Spencer congratulates himself on not swallowing his own tongue and sounding just as casual in reply: "Oh, I could?"
Ryan shrugs, a picture of studied nonchalance except for the mischievous glint in his eyes. "Conserve hot water or whatever."
Spencer nods, but he doesn't move, partly because the idea of getting naked and wet with Ryan is just about enough to short circuit his brain, especially when Ryan's being so flirty about it, but also partly because he's really good at playing Ryan's game.
"It's an idea," Spencer says with a small nod.
Ryan narrows his eyes at him. For a moment, Spencer has this sinking feeling that maybe he's taken it too far, that Ryan his best friend would read that tone in his voice but Ryan whatever-he-is-now is unsure. Hell, the feelings are so new and raw and, fuck, rickety that it's entirely possible he's taken a misstep by not taking a step toward him as soon as he came out of the bathroom.
But soon Ryan's mouth curves up into a small and warm but decidedly wicked smile, and then he begins to peel off his shirt. By the time he's unbuttoned and unzipped his pants and let them fall to the floor, Spencer's on his feet, too, crowding into Ryan's space, putting his hands on him everywhere, his wiry arms and his smooth chest and his flat, warm stomach. His fingers slip just under the waistband of Ryan's boxers as he kisses him hard on the mouth.
Ryan pulls back from the kiss too fast for Spencer's liking, but it's because he's breathless and giggling a little.
"What?" Spencer says, giving his jaw a playful nip.
As Ryan squirms against him, he giggles again and says, "Somehow I knew you'd be like this."
"Like what?"
"So Spencer."
"I don't even know what that means," he replies, letting his forehead rest against Ryan's collarbone, but Ryan's hands are already sneaking down between them to work at his fly.
Spencer watches his fingers, mesmerized and turned on but more than a little nervous, too. Ryan's body, hot and close against his, is both so damn familiar and so fucking new.
"That's okay," Ryan replies. "I do."
~
Pairing: Ryan/Spencer
Rating: pg-13
Summary: He hasn't spoken to Ryan in seventeen days. There just hasn't seemed to be a reason to.
Note: Takes place during and after the band split. 7700 words.
what it is about you that closes and opens
There are three blue and five yellow packets of sugar substitute in the wire caddy on the table. Spencer knows because Ryan keeps fiddling with them, tapping his long fingers against them. It's possible he doesn't even know he's doing it. Then again, maybe he's trying to make Spencer crazy when he already feels more than a little rattled. Something about Ryan is rattling him -- now, lately. For weeks, maybe. He doesn't know. Ryan lives in California now.
It was gradual, so it didn't hurt, not like it should have. He's never begrudged him Jon Walker. Being a best friend doesn't mean being the only or even the most frequent. But it does mean knowing what the fuck is going on in someone's life and in his head. Spencer used to be good at reading Ryan. Now, he's not. Even worse, he's discovered it's a trick he can manage only if Ryan lets him.
"Stop," Spencer says, reaching out his hand to still Ryan's fingers zipping across the tops of the Splenda and Equal.
He'd meant for it to be one of those things they do, like the way Ryan lays his hand on Brendon's knee when he's jangling it too much, and Brendon stops, either without a comment or with a lame joke. But Spencer can't make himself take his hand away, and Ryan's eyes snap up to his like he's just asked him a question.
It takes Spencer half an hour to figure out what that question is, mostly because it's the very one he hasn't yet let himself ask.
They don't say, You're avoiding me because you're writing songs I don't want to play, and I don't know what to do.
Instead, Ryan says, "A side project."
And Spencer just nods.
"Is that...?"
"Honestly, it seems like the best thing. Right?"
"Right."
They don't say, This is the end. They don't have to.
*
Six weeks after they make the decision -- the real one, where Ryan and Jon don't have a side project so much as a whole new band -- Spencer is on the strip, standing outside the Bellagio watching the fountain show. This is performance number three, three times he's found himself unwilling to wander away from the tourists and the lame spectacle. The first show he saw involved a medley of songs, but the second was a classic, "God Bless the USA." Now, halfway through the love theme from fucking Titanic, he decides he needs a double shot of something alcoholic, even if he has to pay fifteen dollars for it and drink it out of a plastic cup.
He hates himself when he does cliché Vegas bullshit -- especially when he does it because he tells himself he's bored when he's actually just lonely -- but the thing is, it's part of his internal programming. Watching the fountain show at the Bellagio is something he's always done, and it reawakens some part of him the way only those childhood things can. Unfortunately, the only way it's tolerable is with a good deal of mocking, and good snark takes at least two people, so that you have an audience. Brendon's good, and Spencer could probably call him and get him to come out here. Hell, he could probably have a pretty nice time if he wanted to. But he doesn't want to have a nice time. He wants his first best friend, the one with the gift of deadpan sarcasm and an endless supply of Celine Dion jokes.
Spencer doesn't like to think that growing up in Vegas warped any of them. They didn't really grow up in Vegas, after all, not the part of it that everyone thinks of. Their lives were relatively normal, adjacent to the madness without joining it. Maybe that was the fascination, early on, with the costumes and makeup. It was familiar but unfamiliar. It was a thing to try. Ryan wanted it, and Brendon wanted it more than he initially liked to admit, so Spencer and Brent went along. In the end, it was sort of addictive being someone else for a while.
Of course, all that was easier then. It was nice being in a circus, where freaks fit in. It was them against the world. When they realized there was nothing left to fight -- except each other -- the only sensible thing to do was stop. It reminds him of his not-relationship with Haley, actually. It reminds him that being mature and letting things go isn't easy and it doesn't feel good, even when it's right.
Spencer takes a picture during this show's finale with his camera phone, but he doesn't send it to the girl he once thought was the love of his life. He talks to her often enough, despite the change in their relationship, but this is something she wouldn't get. Neither would Jon. He could send it to Brendon, but Brendon would wonder why he wasn't invited. He could send it to Ryan, and Ryan might even send back a sardonic reply, but the picture is shit, and it's not the same as being there, and --
And he hasn't spoken to Ryan in seventeen days. There just hasn't seemed to be a reason to.
*
Spencer likes working with Brendon, with only Brendon. Before they made everything official, he made himself feel guilty about not missing things like the arguments with Ryan about obscure literary references or the passive-aggressive way Jon always worked his sometimes bizarre chord progressions into Spencer's rhythms. Now, he's decided to simply not miss those things.
This is not to say he doesn't miss Jon and Ryan. That's what sucks. He thinks Brendon's spent his own stupidly long time coming to the realization that he can't be three people. Spencer still has to work at convincing him that the one him is enough, except in the ways it can never be. It's really tiring sometimes.
It would probably help if Ryan would fucking call Brendon. As Spencer watches him tune his acoustic guitar or fiddle with the strap on his bass or concentrate on changing the settings in their capture software, he imagines he sees loneliness and uncertainty making lines on his face, and he gets angry, almost irrationally so.
Luckily, Brendon doesn't let things get quiet long enough for Spencer to stew all that much or that effectively. Spencer has never until now truly appreciated Brendon's powers of manic energy, never understood how much a distraction can also be a coping mechanism. Spencer thinks it's okay for them to be coping through music, better than okay -- even when they discover that they've unwittingly woven The Kinks into their sound (and made it Ryan and Jon's sound again) or that hard-driving pop isn't as easy as they remember. So they play a lot of Blink-182 and Green Day really loudly and find ways to set Backstreet Boys lyrics to Beatles tunes, stopping just short of sending those monstrosities to the only person in the world who would find them either hilarious or blasphemous, possibly both.
Still, Spencer wakes up in the middle of the night sometimes, unable to get his mind to turn loose of the snatches of melody and rhythm cycling through it. He's always been like this when they're writing or recording. Even back when they were kids in his grandmother's basement. When he thinks about those times, he rarely remembers specific days or things that happened. Instead, faces, expressions stick in his mind. Brent's sarcastic smiles and blank boredom and sullenness. Ryan's narrow eyes hiding his wide-swinging emotions, which were difficult to trace even for Spencer, impossible for the others.
Spencer's face was the one that took everything in, including Brendon, whose sole occupation was to take in Ryan. They can laugh about it now, but it was fucking horrible sometimes watching Brendon drinking in Ryan's words and movements, or even worse, trying to hide it, self-conscious, as all the while Ryan was either oblivious or just ignored it. That's what this bullshit with the phone reminds him of, and it's stupid because this isn't then. They aren't them anymore, not really. Brendon told him once that it was just a hot-burning, quick-dying sort of thing, probably not even about sex at all, and it has nothing to do with why they're not talking now. It's not that Ryan doesn't give a shit, couldn't and can't give a shit; maybe it never was. It's that he's being Ryan, and Brendon's being Brendon, and apparently Spencer can only be Spencer.
Being Spencer means he gets mad during the day until he forgets it, or at least until he can tell himself he's forgotten it because it doesn't matter. And he gets morose almost every night but maturely convinces himself that he's being ridiculous. Communication is a two-way street, and if Brendon is just as unable as--
"Not unable," he mumbles to himself early one morning after a mostly sleepless night as he's standing in Brendon's kitchen watching a pot of coffee drip. "Not unable, right? Unwilling."
Spencer knows unwilling.
There are worse things than the crush that you don't know how to act on. There is the crush that at its very foundation is unwise, that you talk yourself out of. Or you think you have -- until you're spilling hazelnut coffee creamer all over the kitchen counter because Brendon used to be half in love with Ryan and now they don't remember how to talk to each other; but you know this isn't even about Brendon, not really. It's about how Ryan just doesn't see things.
Of course, something echoing in your head, that voice you've been drowning out so long it's second nature, tells you fleetingly -- because that's all the time you allow it and, really, all the time it takes -- that you've never given him anything to see. After all, this is not about Brendon at all; it's about Spencer and how he's not picking up the phone to call Ryan either.
Spencer's hands shake for a moment, but these moments pass. When he carries his coffee into the music room -- the one that is missing Brent and Jon and his grandmother's storage boxes and the smell of the cabin and his best friend -- he finds that Brendon's up, too, so he settles in to listen to snatches of song played on an acoustic guitar.
*
A few days later, a knock startles Spencer awake, and he stumbles to the door on wobbly legs.
He's too bewildered and rattled to think about the peephole, just flips on the porch light and drags open the door to find Ryan standing there with that small bag he refuses to call a purse thrown over his shoulder. Ryan just blinks at him, against the blinding light. Spencer plunges the porch back into darkness and motions him inside.
"Um," Spencer says, but his voice has a cracking, thin sound. He's reaching for a lamp, something to make this the daytime world and not the confusing too-early-morning middle of the night, but Ryan reaches out his hand and stops him.
"Go back to sleep," Ryan says.
Spencer turns and blinks at him, frowning in concentration and curiosity as he finally studies his face as best he can in the streetlight coming through the blinds. Ryan's not stoned, but he was a few hours ago, maybe. He looks exhausted.
Spencer says, "What...?"
Ryan's still got his hand on his arm, and it feels like some kind of death grip.
"I missed you," Ryan replies softly. "Sorry."
Spencer frowns at him again, but it doesn't stick for long.
Spencer asks, "How did you...?"
"Drove."
"From the airport, or...?"
"Or," he replies. As he gives a sheepish shrug, he finally lets go of Spencer's arm. "I just- I don't know," he mumbles. "I decided I should come, and it was a nice night for a drive, so…"
"Okay."
It's amazing how absolutely for shit they are at talking to each other sometimes. It's gotten worse over the past couple of years, and it's usually Spencer's fault -- if only because Spencer's always been the one that prevented the awkwardness from creeping in in the first place, by talking when he doesn't need to. He thinks it's a trick he learned from Brendon. Growing up, he didn't know he'd need tricks for communicating with his best friend. He hadn't realized being an adult could mean suddenly becoming paralyzingly conscious of everything.
Like now: Spencer is transfixed watching Ryan tuck an unruly strand of his hair behind his ear. He doesn't remember it ever being this long. He looks entirely different. Entirely. Softer or something. Spencer sort of wants to draw him up in a hug, but Ryan's already a little drawn in on himself. Self-contained, he thinks. Except it suddenly strikes him that that he's not used to seeing him from the outside like this, from the objective eye of a person who isn't around him every day anymore.
"You want breakfast?" Spencer says, because nothing else seems safe.
Ryan wrinkles his nose in a way Spencer would never tell another living soul is adorable, especially when he's all cranky-mumbly-sleepy, and says, "It's too early for breakfast."
"Yeah."
Ryan is still immobile. He does this sometimes. It's like if he stands still long enough, the world will sort itself out around him. It usually does, Spencer thinks.
Spencer grabs him by a skinny, tattooed wrist and leads him down the hallway.
"Breakfast in, like, three, four hours?" he says.
Ryan murmurs in the affirmative.
Spencer guides him into his own bedroom and pulls back the blankets. In the morning -- the real morning, the harsh light of day -- he'll be a little mortified, but not now. Because Ryan's not mortified. Ryan, his best friend. This is who they are, who they've been since they were a kind of young Spencer can't fathom anymore.
Ryan climbs into bed without a protest or a funny look. Spencer can't remember the last time he shared a bed with someone. Bare-chested, Spencer can feel Ryan's arm along his side, and he's feeling it long after Ryan drops into a deep sleep.
*
Way past lunch time but well before dinner, in a booth across from him at a local Indian restaurant, Ryan picks at a vegetable samosa and doesn't at all explain why he's in Vegas. He's been not explaining for a couple of hours now, long enough, anyway, for Spencer to get used to the idea of never knowing.
Right now, he's letting Spencer talk. He's doing just as much thoughtful listening as avoiding speaking, so Spencer isn't too perturbed. Besides, it turns out that Spencer has a lot of things to say, and there's been nobody else to say them to.
Ryan wants to know about the new record, if it's okay for me to.... Spencer nods and tells him, weighing his confidences with Brendon carefully against his trust in his best friend.
And Ryan wants to know how things are going with Shane's production company. Spencer bites his tongue and doesn't order him to fucking call him on the phone and ask him, you goddamn chicken; we didn't divide our friends in the divorce.
And Ryan wants to know if he's still talking to Haley regularly. Because he knows, maybe even better than Brendon does, how slowly it unraveled so it wouldn't be painful, but how painful it's been anyway.
"More than we maybe should be." Spencer smiles, and he knows it's bitter and a little self-mocking, but he can't help it. "We're still too close. Or too needy, maybe."
Ryan shakes his head. "It's not a bad thing, needing people."
Spencer replies, "It is when you're afraid of making a break because you're afraid to be alone."
After he says it, he sort of hates himself. It's too much, too personal. It's the kind of personal they've never been with each other, because they've never had to say this kind of shit out loud before.
Ryan nods and murmurs, "That's better than being afraid to be with somebody."
As their conversation threatens to fall into an awkward silence, thankfully the food arrives. Without a word, Ryan dishes up his own palak paneer then spoons out some of Spencer's channa masala, like he always does, and he doesn't much look at him while he eats. Spencer can't stop looking at him, though. It's still a little like he's never seen him before, or at least that new view is layered over the familiar one, and it's disorienting.
He's noticing things he never really saw before. Mostly, it's a consequence of knowing his best friend has mellowed but not entirely feeling it until he's sitting across from him and doesn't sense that familiar nervous energy that's been keeping him strung tight so much and for so long Spencer had forgotten it wasn't an integral part of being Ryan Ross. Or maybe he never really knew until now.
After Ryan's plate is cleared, he orders some fruit tea and sits back, and Spencer begins to get impatient for no good reason. The stupid thing is he can't just ask him, Why the fuck did you drive up from Topanga in the middle of the night? He knows why; Ryan told him. But then again, the simplest answers aren't always the easiest to make sense of.
Spencer's feeling jittery now, and his throat still burns from the curry, so he orders a beer and sips it slowly.
"So," Ryan says, and he leaves the invitation hanging. Like he always does.
Something in Spencer snaps.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," he hisses, "will you just fucking say something. Christ, you're driving me crazy. You always have. Do you know that?"
Ryan looks abashed, but it quickly turns to amusement as he watches a hot blush creep up Spencer's neck and onto his face.
"Sorry," Spencer says.
"No," Ryan says with a wave of his hand. "That's fair."
"I just don't know how to talk to you anymore, okay. You don't call me. What the fuck are we even doing?"
Ryan's eyes get large and round, serious but tinged with something mirthful. "Well," he says slowly, "you're apparently flipping the fuck out."
Then he smiles like he can't help it anymore, and something in Spencer's stomach settles.
"Seriously," Spencer says with a small, soft smile. "You're a douche. A not-calling-people douche."
"I always have been." Then he adds, evenly, "Although I wasn't aware that your phone could only receive calls from my number, not dial them."
"Sorry," Spencer says again.
"Oh, fuck, stop that."
"I guess I'm too…frustrated to be rational."
After a beat, Ryan smiles. "You're cute like this."
"Fuck you."
Ryan cackles, and they order another tea and beer.
*
When they get back to the house, Spencer gives him the grand tour, points out all the changes large and small he's made since Ryan saw it last. As they meander back into the great room, he can't help but wonder what Ryan's house is like. He's only been there once, to help him move in. Then, it was nothing but empty boxes and echoes. Now, it must be filled with Ryan's stuff, Ryan's voice, Ryan's life. He hopes it wouldn't seem foreign to him. He doesn't say that, though.
Instead, he says, "Why haven't I been out to your house more?"
"The invitation has always been open."
"I know."
He really does. But that doesn't make it an easy thing, and he still hasn't quite made sense of why.
When they go out onto the patio, Ryan lights up a cigarette and stares out over the backyard into the sun, his other hand a shield over his eyes. It's not fixed, this thing between them, not entirely. Spencer feels the edges of their conversation pull tight from the tension, but he's okay with that. At least it's all acknowledged now. They've found themselves in a place like this several times over the years, and they generally know how to get back again.
It requires a little finesse, though, a little hedging. For one, Spencer leaves the topic of Brendon alone without actually making his name taboo. If Brendon and Ryan don't know how to talk to each other yet, they'll figure it out eventually. If they're meant to, that is. That's the thing that's really been getting to him the last few days as he's been thinking about the problem. He remembers high school, how every friendship had seemed like the most important he'd ever have, but now he can barely remember those kids' names. They aren't part of his life anymore, and maybe they never would've been if not for the fate of simple proximity. It's hard to think of their band that way, but he can't help it. Brent's house is presumably still just miles from his, but for all intents and purposes it's something like half a world away. Was Brent his friend, or was he a coincidence of timing and shared interests? He thinks of Jon, how they talk less and less these days.
In the end, the only two things Spencer is sure of are Brendon and Ryan, and the two of them are passive-aggressively maintaining radio silence with each other. He hasn't been pressing the issue, though, not yet; so imagine his shock when it's Ryan who brings up the subject.
"I'm trying to give him space," he says out of the blue after a long drag.
"Who?"
"Brendon. That's why I haven't called him. You can tell him that if you want to. I just figured, you know, with the song writing and stuff, he doesn't need me breathing down his neck."
"Wait, what? Have you actually ever met Brendon? I don't think it's humanly possible to crowd him. Seriously, if you don't call him, he's not going to call you. He'll let you go if he thinks it's what you want."
Ryan rolls his eyes. "I don't want that."
"Then tell him."
Ryan's mouth makes a hard line, even when he takes his next drag. "He's such a fucking martyr sometimes."
"Yeah, well, we're not all as stoic as you."
Ryan just grunts in response, but he gives him a look that says, Who are you fucking kidding, seriously?
Spencer says, "You know if you call him, it'll be awkward for about five minutes, then you'll get over it. You always do."
Ryan exhales long and slow before he murmurs, "Sometimes I think we never have."
"It's not like you're the same people you were when you were seventeen."
"Oh?"
"Sort of…intense?"
Ryan snorts this time, then he smiles this weird smile. "Yeah. I sometimes think it would've been easier if we just fucking got it over with, you know? If I'd known I was bi back then..."
He turns and looks back into the sun, like he didn't just admit out loud two things Spencer was fairly certain he hadn't even admitted to himself.
"So, three things," Spencer says. "One, I'm guessing you did know, and you thought ignoring it would make it go away. Two, it would've been fucking messy, and you both knew it, which is probably why nothing ever happened. And three, I'm pretty sure Brendon's only gay above the waist, anyway."
Then Spencer adds, "Okay, so four things: don't think I didn't notice you sneaking in a coming out in some fucking offhand remark that wasn't the least bit offhand."
Ryan pauses a little too long before he answers. "What?" he says as he ashes his cigarette. "We've had that conversation, haven't we?" He gestures vaguely with his other hand.
That kind of shit might work with Z or Alex -- hell, he's seen it work -- but it doesn't work with him.
"You know good and well we haven't. We've not been having it, not about you anyway, since I told you I was gay when I was fifteen."
"Sorry."
"Don't say you're sorry. Tell me why you're pretending it's not a big deal."
"It's not. Not really. I've known for a while. I'm just saying it out loud now."
Spencer rolls his eyes. "Fine. Then tell me what's changed."
"Nothing. I don't know. Everything? I just feel like things have been rearranged in my head lately. New perspective," he says, then he gives him a sardonic smile. "Whatever."
A moment later, as Ryan lights a new cigarette off the old one, he says, "Hey, you wanna take a drive?"
Spencer laughs, but Ryan shoots him a serious look. Spencer can suddenly see all sorts of things churning around in his head. It's comforting that he can still do that, that Ryan's letting him. Not that he knows what the problem is just yet, but he'll figure it out. He always does, eventually.
So Spencer says, "Okay."
A few minutes later, Ryan's leaning against his bedroom doorframe and watching him hunt down a pair of shoes and a hoodie.
Ryan says, "I've always been glad you told me. You know, back then. Took some guts."
"Luckily, you were awesomely not uptight and crazy about it, so." He shrugs.
"You've always known who you were."
"So have you," Spencer replies like a reflex, but he's glad to realize it's true.
"Yeah," he replies. "I just haven't always known how to be happy with myself."
"Well, who the fuck said I ever have, you know?"
Ryan gets quiet again, but Spencer can feel that there's more he needs to say. Apparently, it's going to be that kind of day, where serious shit gets communicated, but only in fits and starts. He's not altogether surprised, then, when they're climbing into the car a few minutes later and Ryan returns to the conversation.
He opens his door and pauses, looking at Spencer over the top of the car. He says, "What I meant… I'm proud of you for always being so sure."
Spencer ducks into the car. If he didn't, he'd have to spill out his heart. He'd have to tell him everything he knows about being stubborn and determined he learned from him. But it's only half true, because they learned it together, and he's only ever been half sure. The trick is to make believe that half is everything.
*
They drive toward Death Valley in the dying sunlight.
They'd stopped for coffee as they left civilization, but Spencer's venti dark roast is pretty tepid by now. He keeps drinking it anyway. Strangely, though, the extra caffeine isn't adding to the jumpiness he felt before. If anything, he's starting to feel bleary-eyed and thankful this is a road less traveled, in case he drifts a little too far across the fading center line.
It would help if they hadn't settled into some weird silence, one so strong Spencer's afraid to turn on the radio, if only to hear something besides the swish of tires, the battle of unimpeded desert wind against the shell of the car, the thump of his own heartbeat.
So when Ryan finally speaks, it startles him.
"I think we're writing about the break up."
Spencer nods, not knowing what else to do. It's the first thing of any substance Ryan's had to say about his and Jon's musical efforts, and it's unsurprisingly vague. But just because it's unsurprising doesn't make it any less irritating.
Ryan adds, "I mean, not intentionally or anything. But it's there."
"Understandable."
"But some of it... Some of it's not...entirely kind. Or you might not think it is."
Tersely, he says, "Which is it, Ryan?"
"Hmm?"
"Is it actually not entirely kind, or am I just going to misread it?"
"I don't know what you'll read it as, okay. I'm just- " He huffs out a breath. "Maybe it's like... Well, you know how after you break up with someone, every song you hear seems to be about love or heartbreak? Maybe it's like that."
Spencer just makes a hmm noise, and Ryan goes back to studying the landscape as it whirrs by.
Then a moment later, Ryan says, "What?" and he's snappy and exasperated in a way that almost makes Spencer laugh, except they're not to that point yet. This isn't funny yet.
Spencer sighs and says, "That shit about music after a breakup, you know how that works. You hear what you're feeling. Whether it's there or not, you hear it because you feel it."
"But I don't have bitter feelings about the split of the band."
"Why not?" Spencer says. "I do."
Ryan doesn't let his eyes go wide. That's not his way. Instead, he steels his gaze and aims it out the window. Spencer focuses on the landscape ahead of them, and that's when he notices how dark the sky is, all the light concentrated only at the far horizon before everything goes dark.
A few minutes later, just as they finally pass the Death Valley National Park sign, Ryan shifts in his seat and turns a careful glare on Spencer.
"I was saying what I said because I want you to know we wouldn't record it if we thought it was destructive. Does that count for anything with you, or are you just fucking determined to be mad at me?"
Spencer physically starts at that, and it sends his heartbeat hammering through his chest.
He says, "I never said I was mad. Or mad at you. Okay? Just kind of...bitter, in general, I guess. Disappointed."
"I don't see the difference," Ryan mutters.
Spencer doesn't reply, just holds to the wheel white knuckled, but it's no use. After a few hundred feet, he pulls over at the nearest shoulder. He gets out and takes a welcome gulp of fresh air. Ryan's eyes are wide this time, and Ryan's eyes are only wide when he's worried.
"You do," Spencer says over the top of the car. "You do see the difference or you wouldn't give a flying fuck if those songs were maybe mean." He kicks at the tire sort of petulantly. "Look," he says. "Apparently we both feel...guilty about this for some reason. For no reason, actually." He looks straight into his eyes as he says, "Could we maybe stop that?"
"Excellent question," Ryan replies. Then he smiles, wryly and intimately, and Spencer feels himself smiling in return. Smiling, but the adrenaline is still making him jittery. Something at the center of him is wobbly now, just when it should've been made steady again.
Because he can't look Ryan in the eyes just yet, can't look at him period, Spencer looks out over his head at dunes and brush and shadows falling and says, "Alright, your turn to drive."
He leaves the keys on the hood as they circle the car and pass each other at the front fender.
*
Stepping out of the car at Badwater is like walking on the surface of the moon, but with no cameras, no broadcast to millions of TV viewers. Just the two of them and a peculiar salt desert with white parched earth that looks like miles of sand with no dunes. Miles without end. Like thinking of eternity until your stomach aches.
"Fuck," Ryan says, and though there's no wind, the sound seems to die in the air. "I didn't mean for it to be so dark when we got here."
"So you were headed here?"
Ryan nods as he walks a few paces away from him, carefully, unsure of his footing.
They've been here together before, of course, on a trip with Spencer's family and another time shortly after Ryan got his driver's license. But both times were during the day, when the landscape looks more cartoonish than soul-swallowing. In the daylight, and back when they were just kids, he wasn't thinking anything in the world could be bigger than them and their ability to deal with it. Even now, Spencer doesn't really think there are things their friendship won't bend to accommodate, but he knows the possibility, and he's not all that comfortable with it. He really never has been.
He doesn't know why he's thinking about these things now except maybe it's about the set of Ryan's shoulders as he shoves his hands into his pockets. In some ways, to him Ryan will always be ten years old; but then again, as a ten year old Ryan already knew the world was full of so many things that could crush him, crush them.
Brendon told him once that he thought Spencer learned to be responsible, a worrier from worrying over Ryan. The truth is, that's just Spencer's nature, not just to prepare for the worst case scenario but to prevent it. So he has definitely worried over Ryan, but for the big things, the things that count, it's generally unnecessary. He's perfectly strong on all on his own. It's best to simply walk alongside him and hope to keep up. It's taken Spencer this long to see Ryan's just as often been trying to keep pace with him. Here in the sound-stealing desert, after looking into his eyes these past 24 hours, he's suddenly sure of it. It's a good thing to know.
Spencer heads back to the car first, and he sits on the hood and waits for Ryan to turn, small and dark against an unearthly glow, and walk back toward him.
*
There are miles and miles to drive to get out of the park, dark miles of wide open spaces with only a few yards at a time illuminated by headlights, and they talk through them all. It's still tense, though. The conversation is flowing, but almost obsessively, self-consciously, as though if they stop for even a breath, they won't be able to start again. It's a tension almost more physical than it is anything else. It's maddening.
Spencer doesn't realize how close they are to civilization again until he sees the haze of lights that will soon be Pahrump. They stop and fill up at the first gas station, the way people traveling across a desert do.
When Spencer returns from paying, comes back into the too-bright fluorescent lights and smell of gasoline, Ryan's in the passenger seat again. Spencer hands him a bottle of Gatorade through the open window. As he pumps the gas, he has the startling thought that he really doesn't want to get back into the car. He's a little annoyed to be driving again, but that's not all of it. It's just as much about the person in the passenger seat.
As he slides behind the wheel again, he says, "Let's get a hotel room."
"We're two hours from home."
"We're two hours from my house, and I don't want to drive any more than you apparently do, so let's get a room and sleep for a while. Aren't you exhausted, anyway?"
"Whatever," Ryan replies without looking at him, and they've suddenly come full circle to where they were before.
There aren't many choices in Pahrump, so Spencer plunks down his credit card for a room at the Best Western. When he returns to the car, Ryan's crowded back against his window, still giving him a look that says, It's just two more hours. Suck it up.
Spencer gives him a look that hopefully answers, You suck it up. You're the one who won't drive his share.
Ryan's accusatory face only gets worse when they drive around to the back of the building, where their room is, and there's only one dim light in the parking lot and not a single other car, not even a semi truck.
Spencer puts the car in park, but he doesn't turn it off. He just turns to face Ryan, because he's going to say something -- he doesn't even know what, something that will explain to the both of them why he's so antsy and exasperated -- but he doesn't have time to speak because Ryan's all of a sudden leaning across the console, grabbing him by the back of the neck, and kissing him on the mouth.
It's over before it starts, but, still, Spencer feels the kiss like a brand -- even after, especially after when Ryan jerks back against the car window again like they're two magnets of the same pole and he can't help it.
"Sorry," Ryan mumbles, and Spencer can see his face flushing in the reflection in the window. "I just couldn't stand it anymore."
Ryan's voice is shaky. Ryan's voice is shaky, and Spencer's heartbeat starts roaring in his ears. He has no idea what just happened, and he certainly didn't see it coming, although now that it has, he thinks he should have.
"Come here," he says.
Ryan turns his head and looks at him with wide eyes, but he doesn't move.
This time, Spencer's voice is steadier, firm: "Come. Here."
Unsure and maybe even a little embarrassed now -- actually, he's looking like he's contemplating obstinate defiance -- Ryan leans in just a little, his breathing shallow. Spencer wraps his hand around the back of his neck like Ryan just did to him, but he doesn't kiss him, just makes him lean in until their foreheads rest together.
Ryan doesn't draw back, and that's enough. That's everything. Spencer wants to kiss him again, wants it so much he forces himself to hold still, calm down.
Spencer whispers, "Don't tell me you're sorry unless you are."
Ryan's eyes are closed, and his breath is hot on his face when he murmurs, "I just don't want to fuck this up."
There's been something hard inside Spencer for a while. He would hate to realize how long, because it's been too long -- since before the band broke up, since before Haley broke up with him. Maybe since he was sixteen and thinking the exact same thing: I just don't want to fuck this up. He didn't know it until now, as whatever it is dissolves, leaving him feeling hot and sick and shaky but sure. So sure.
His heart stuttering in his chest, Spencer gently kisses the corner of Ryan's mouth, then he kisses his cheek. His mouth is at his ear when he says, easy and fond, "And somehow you thought some kamikaze attack of a kiss was your best option?"
"Wasn't thinking," Ryan mutters, and finally his hands come up and press against Spencer's chest. And clutch. "Um, I'm an idiot?"
"You're an idiot," Spencer replies with his lips pressed against Ryan's warm neck in a smile.
"But you don't mind, right?" Ryan says.
"Mind?"
"That I'm an idiot. You don't mind, do you?"
"I would be pretty hypocritical if I minded," he says, and he's relieved when Ryan turns his head just enough and kisses him again.
This time, he doesn't stop. Now, they're like magnets of opposite poles, and Spencer couldn't break away even if he wanted to.
*
It's easy not to have expectations about what happens next when you not only never thought it could happen, you never even thought to think it could. But as Spencer perches uneasily on the end of one of the beds, waiting for Ryan to come out of the bathroom, he starts thinking, only it's more like a neverending, tangled loop of longing and worry.
He can still taste Ryan on his tongue, can still feel his hands on his neck, too warm and holding on too hard. And he can remember how when they broke away, they couldn't look each other in the eyes -- not because it was all too alien and unfamiliar, but because it was somehow exactly the opposite.
They hadn’t touched after they got out of the car. Ryan simply followed Spencer into the room like he'd done a hundred, maybe a thousand times before. And now Spencer's regretting it a little. It's too quiet. When Ryan flushes the toilet, it's too loud. When he clicks the door back open, Spencer thinks he can feel the sound. When he turns and washes his hands, the water is jarring white noise. Spencer pretends not to watch him at first, but when he finally lets himself, his eyes are drawn to the curve of Ryan's back like it's something he could trace with his fingers if he wanted to. It's as exciting a thought as it is fucking scary.
When Ryan turns around, Spencer's not sure if he's looking at his best friend or someone else; not sure, suddenly, if maybe he's someone else, too.
"So," Ryan says as leans up against the wall by the sink, in that same attitude of self-possession Spencer's begun to know him by. "You're gonna be all weird now, aren't you?"
"What the fuck?" Spencer says in a surprised squeak he quickly covers with a generous eyeroll. Then he flops onto his back on the bed. "You're the one…lurking on the other side of the room."
"Or you are," Ryan says with a barely-concealed grin and a shrug.
"Whatever."
"Seriously, Spence. You're not allowed to get weird on me."
"But this is weird."
"Kissing me is weird?"
"No," he says to the ceiling with a smile, "kissing you is pretty awesome, actually." So awesome it makes him feel hot all over again just thinking about it. He turns and looks at him pointedly, looking over the room first and grimacing a little: "Sharing a room at a skeevy motel with you is…" Ryan just raises an eyebrow. "Well, okay, we saw worse on Truckstops and Statelines, didn't we?"
"What are you talking about? We saw worse on Rockband. And this particular skeevy motel was your idea. Besides, who says it's gonna be anything like that?"
"Like what?"
"You know."
Spencer sits up so fast it makes him a little dizzy, but it's worth it when Ryan gets that deer-in-the-headlights look. Spencer grins and says, "Oh, so you're saying you don't wanna have sex with me."
He's extraordinarily proud of himself when Ryan turns magenta and ducks his head, mutters, "Fuck."
Spencer says, "That's the idea."
When Ryan exhales sharply in response, Spencer sobers up pretty fast.
"This is new and…complicated," Spencer says. "I get that. And if you don't want to-"
"It's not want," Ryan says, his voice going hoarse the way other people's rise in tone. "It's…" Ryan lets his head fall back until it makes a clunking sound against the wall. "This was already hard enough, you know?"
"What was?"
"Us was. The band. Bands."
"Is that it?" Spencer asks.
"What the fuck does that mean?"
"It means you're…new to…" He takes in a sharp breath and spits out, "Look, it's not out of the realm of possibility that you'll have some kind of big gay freakout, and I don't know if I can--"
"Seriously," Ryan interjects with an annoyed frown, "it's not like I haven't had some experience, okay? Enough to know. Besides, if I were going to freak out, it would more likely be some kind of big best friend freakout."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"Okay."
After a pause, Ryan adds, "I mean, not that I'd go back to…"
"Yeah. No."
Spencer can't take his eyes off Ryan now. Even though it's a weird kind of comparison, he thinks this is like being in a car accident, the initial adrenaline and shock keeping him from feeling it, but now that the shock has worn off, all these feelings flood his heart. They come in the form of things he doesn't know how to say out loud yet, like I missed you so much, you stupid jackass and Why couldn't we have got our shit sorted out and done this years ago? and I am going to be so good to you, if you'll just fucking let me. Instead, he sits there quietly staring, knowing there's a good chance Ryan can see some of that in his face anyway. Maybe Ryan's always been able to. Willing to.
Before things have a chance to get awkward, Ryan says, "So, I think I'm going to take a shower."
"Okay."
"You know, get the dust out of my hair."
"Okay."
"You could join me," he adds, casually.
Spencer congratulates himself on not swallowing his own tongue and sounding just as casual in reply: "Oh, I could?"
Ryan shrugs, a picture of studied nonchalance except for the mischievous glint in his eyes. "Conserve hot water or whatever."
Spencer nods, but he doesn't move, partly because the idea of getting naked and wet with Ryan is just about enough to short circuit his brain, especially when Ryan's being so flirty about it, but also partly because he's really good at playing Ryan's game.
"It's an idea," Spencer says with a small nod.
Ryan narrows his eyes at him. For a moment, Spencer has this sinking feeling that maybe he's taken it too far, that Ryan his best friend would read that tone in his voice but Ryan whatever-he-is-now is unsure. Hell, the feelings are so new and raw and, fuck, rickety that it's entirely possible he's taken a misstep by not taking a step toward him as soon as he came out of the bathroom.
But soon Ryan's mouth curves up into a small and warm but decidedly wicked smile, and then he begins to peel off his shirt. By the time he's unbuttoned and unzipped his pants and let them fall to the floor, Spencer's on his feet, too, crowding into Ryan's space, putting his hands on him everywhere, his wiry arms and his smooth chest and his flat, warm stomach. His fingers slip just under the waistband of Ryan's boxers as he kisses him hard on the mouth.
Ryan pulls back from the kiss too fast for Spencer's liking, but it's because he's breathless and giggling a little.
"What?" Spencer says, giving his jaw a playful nip.
As Ryan squirms against him, he giggles again and says, "Somehow I knew you'd be like this."
"Like what?"
"So Spencer."
"I don't even know what that means," he replies, letting his forehead rest against Ryan's collarbone, but Ryan's hands are already sneaking down between them to work at his fly.
Spencer watches his fingers, mesmerized and turned on but more than a little nervous, too. Ryan's body, hot and close against his, is both so damn familiar and so fucking new.
"That's okay," Ryan replies. "I do."
~