fic exchange: Don't Need To Be Anything Other [brendon/pete, brendon/pete/spencer]
Whoo! After much angsting, I am hereby declaring my fic exchange suitable for posting. I wrote for schuyler. I hope it passes muster, Sky! *shuffles* ETA: I forgot to offer abject apologies for sort of ignoring your pairing requests. :( I hope it is readable and enjoyable regardless.
Don't Need To Be Anything Other
Brendon/Pete, Brendon/Pete/Spencer
hard Rish, 5393 words
for Sky with gigantic thank yous to addictedkitten, joyfulseeker, clumsygyrl, plainsong_x and Hanson.
They lead lives of quiet desperation, except with less desperation and more Qwik-Mart.
Don't Need To Be Anything Other
Brendon pulls into the side parking lot with a good eight minutes to spare. He's getting better at timing the morning drive; if he hits the exit by the time the DJs do the Copter-Traffic update, he'll have time for a smoke before clocking in. He's got time for one now, but he thinks he's going to wait until his first break - savor the flavor, baby. He's been spending too much on smokes lately anyway.
Joe gives Brendon a bleary nod from behind the counter when he pushes his way hip-first into the store. Brendon nods back, cocks his head towards the back with a questioning eyebrow. Joe nods again with a grimace that Brendon mimics; if Patrick's here already and it's not even nine yet, it's gonna be a real fun day.
He shrugs out of his windbreaker and reaches for the cleanest-looking apron. (The ratty blue aprons that operate as Qwik-Mart uniforms are totally, totally gay, but Pete says they accentuate Brendon's hips and gives him little smacks on the ass when Patrick's not looking - so, hey, yeah, gay in the life-affirming way. Pete doesn't have to wear an apron. Assistant managers get vests. Patrick doesn't even have to wear the damn vest; not that Brendon actually wants to be a manager, but it's obviously not without its perks. At least he doesn't have to wear a tie.)
The coffee's pretty fresh, which means that Joe actually made it when he was supposed to, so Brendon fills up a big mug and grabs four of the Irish Cream creamers that employees aren't technically supposed to take. He's behind the counter at exactly 8:59am, and he punches in his cashier ID without even looking at the register screen.
"Getting good, man," Joe says, already popping the drawer to count the till. "That's a little sad."
"You don't have to tell me." Brendon scoops up the pennies and counts them out by fives in his head. There's a lot of them, and he has to do it twice before moving on to the nickels. Joe's done with the bills before Brendon's done with the coins, and he's squinting at the lottery tickets appraisingly.
"What do you think, Pirate's Cove? She won like $2 on Pirate's Cove yesterday."
"Then she's not going to win anything on it today."
"Dude, that's fucked up logic. Like eleven people bought Pirate's Cove over the last twenty-four hours, maybe more. There's no way you can say for a fact the next one isn't going to be a winner."
Brendon shrugs. "It's your money, man. I'd go with Krazy Krossword, but I'm zany like that. We even?"
Joe slams the register drawer closed just as a horn blares briefly from outside. Brendon turns to look through the glass and raises a hand in greeting to Greta, who's idling in Joe's beat-up Corolla. Joe unties his apron and slings it at Brendon's head. "I am so the fuck out of here." He ducks around the counter and jabs a finger at the rolled-up line of Pirate's Cove scratch-its. "Gimme two."
Joe is a sad, sad individual who is totally pussy-whipped, but as he rings up the tickets, Brendon can't help but wish that Pete worked a regular, non-Qwik-Mart job so he could come pick Brendon up after shift, and Brendon could bring him scratch-its and slushies. Joe and Greta are like the greatest thing since Brad and Gwyneth, the kingpin of golden relationships, and he doesn't want to see what nasty sort of Jennifer Aniston skeeze Joe dates next.
Greta leans on the horn again and Joe slaps the counter to swipe up the lottery tickets. "You're trading me next month," he threatens with a finger, pausing by the door. "You keep wimping out on graveyard, man, it's seriously not cool."
Brendon has absolutely no fucking intention of working graveyard ever again, but "yeah, yeah," he reassures Joe through a yawn, mug already halfway to his mouth.
"And dude, keep an eye on the coffee. Patrick's a little weird today."
"Patrick's a little weird everyday."
"Point. But he's new-guy weird today, and guess who gets to train."
Brendon groans. He may in fact want graveyard now, and Joe's smug smile as he toodles goodbye out the door helps in no way whatsoever. He flips mentally past the people who've turned in applications over the past few weeks; the only one he can even remember clearly is the vaguely sarcastic shaggy-haired kid with fuck-me eyes and the white hoodie, and there's no way Qwik-Mart #71 is that lucky. Brendon's on day shift all week and after Pete, who doesn't have to train people anymore since he does inventory and paperwork all the time, and Patrick, who is, hello, the manager, Brendon's been working here the longest.
It'd be depressing, except aside from the training-new-dorks part of it, Brendon kind of likes the Qwik-Mart. Even the aprons, because he also kind of likes his hips, and the way Pete looks at them when he's not supposed to.
The construction workers from the site across the street are starting to trickle in on break. Patrick's going to come out of the back office in an hour and want the cigarette count, and Pete's going to be in soon, and so is the new guy, who's probably going to be an acne-scarred kid with no sense of anything at all. Blah. It's going to be a long fucking day. Brendon eyes the Irish Cream creamers and contemplates taking some more.
**
Fortunately, the new guy is a) the guy Brendon's been hoping he'd be, and b)not a dumbshit, praise whatever god's in charge of looking out for people who hold shit jobs.
"That was a ridiculous amount of paperwork for this kind of job," Spencer says to Brendon after he comes out from the back, awkwardly fiddling with the strings of his apron.
"Yeah," Brendon says, "W-9s are a bitch. Need some help there?" And before Spencer can say yes or no, Brendon's spinning him a bit and retying his apron. He's got a bit of a stomach, but there's a delicious little strip of skin peeking out from between the hem of his shirt and the waistband of his pants, and Brendon smiles to himself as he ties a neat bow and pats Spencer low on the back. "There you go."
"Thanks," Spencer smiles over his shoulder, not really moving away at all, even though Brendon's completely in his personal space. Pete's over with the Budweiser vendor by the 24-can party packs, but Brendon can see him peeking over the black and yellow cases with interest.
**
Spencer learns the register really quickly (which, okay, it's not that hard a system to get the hang of, but some of the stoner kids Brendon's trained in the last six months had an hard enough time with it, so whatever) and Brendon sits back and lets him handle the afternoon rush.
"That sparkle's going to go away," Pete says mournfully when Brendon walks him out to his car. "You had that sparkle."
"I never had that sparkle," Brendon says. But he knows it's true; even now, he sometimes gets that goofy wow-that-can-of-Sparks-and-exact-change-really-made-that-chick's-day feeling. It's dangerous to take too much pride in your convenience store work. Brendon hopes his sparkle faded pretty quickly.
Pete leans his hip against his car and pulls Brendon in with one hand. "Sure," he says, an ironic smile on his lips. Brendon smiles back; Pete's so easy.
"You like him, huh?"
"He's passing. For now."
Pete had co-opted Spencer for a whole half-hour earlier, and it does NOT take half an hour to show someone how to turn the refrigerated burritos right side up, so Brendon had watched them longingly over the heads of the customers and hoped Pete was talking about how awesome Brendon is at giving head, and how awesome Pete is at fucking you stupid, and how hey, I know we've only just met and you're a co-worker/subordinate, but would you like to come over after you get off?
"Hey," Pete said against Brendon's ear, his hand rubbing low and warm at the small of Brendon's back. "He's watching us through the window."
Brendon doesn't turn to look. Instead, he dips his head down a bit more, licking at Pete's lips and angling his body so that Pete's body is just between his thighs. He fucking loves being able to get away with this shit. He slides his tongue into Pete's mouth and scratches his fingernails over the scrape of Pete's shoulder-blade through his shirt. Pete grins into the kiss and his hand goes hard and flat on Brendon's back, urging him closer.
"Mmm, still watching?" Brendon asks after a minute.
"Drooling." Pete nips at Brendon's earlobe and Brendon's breath catches. "Go get 'im, tiger."
**
"So you and Pete, huh?" Spencer asks when Brendon walks back in.
"Sort of, yeah."
"That's cool. He seems cool."
"It's not really like a relationship or anything," Brendon says over his shoulder as he fills up on Dr. Pepper. "We're just, like, whatever. Having fun."
"It looks fun."
Brendon wants to say something, something really suggestive and witty, something that'll tell Spencer it's okay if he wants to have fun with them - but when he turns around, a couple of kids come in just then and try to buy a porn mag, and Spencer's got to lay the smackdown on them. Brendon goes to Windex the freezer doors. It's just Spencer's first day. He doesn't want to overload the guy. Much.
**
Spencer spends the rest of his first day smart-talking Brendon's regulars and debating the pros and cons of The Greatest Hits of the Eighties, Nineties and Today with Brendon.
"I don't really like this station," Brendon protests.
"Yeah, me neither. That's why you're harmonizing to Raspberry Beret, huh?"
Brendon raises an eyebrow. "Man, you can like Prince -"
"Who doesn't like Prince? And you can like the radio station that plays Prince. Be secure, dude."
Contrary to Spencer's staunch defense of Prince, Brendon actually doesn't know many people who will testify to fanhood, so he crosses his arms and appraises Spencer, who's ringing up a can of Cherry Skoal. Spencer flushes slightly and shakes his hair out of his eyes, smiling at the customer, ignoring Brendon's gaze.
Raspberry Beret flips over to MMMBop. Brendon's still watching Spencer carefully. Spencer's running the debit card, but his foot is tapping on the ground.
After the customer leaves, Brendon leans in. "Hanson, huh?"
The sick thing is, Pete likes Hanson too. He's got a completely unironic poster of Hanson in his bathroom. So Brendon knows what he's talking about when he tells Spencer that Where's The Love was not the best song of 1998.
"Yeah, well, duh," Spencer says with a dismissive shrug, and his hair flops cutely back into his eyes. "But Taylor was fucking pretty." He flushes some more and busies himself with the register tape, which doesn't actually need restocking, and he completely misses Brendon's smile.
**
"Taylor's definitely the prettiest. That fucking mouth, man," Pete says that night, sweaty and damp against the back of Brendon's neck as he jerks Brendon off, slow and nasty, just how Brendon likes it. "It reminds me of yours, actually." And then he's licking at the edge of Brendon's earlobe and Brendon can't really focus on what Pete's saying anymore. He moans, two seconds from coming or maybe two years, because Pete can take him out like this all night, strung-out and begging for it. And then in the morning, he'll make coffee and set out the creamer Brendon likes.
Pete's mumbling something about mouths and sucking and timesheets, what the fuck, and Brendon just pushes his body harder against Pete's and thinks this is fucking okay, right now, this is an okay fucking place to be.
**
Spencer makes it past the first week, and the week after that, and even Patrick's grudgingly admitting by the end of his first month that maybe he should just always hire the kids Pete flirts with when they drop off their applications. He glares at Brendon over his rickety desk when he says it, and Brendon smirks and slaps the cigarette-count paperwork down.
"I flirted with him first," he reminds Patrick, who rolls his eyes and mutters something that's probably total agreement, because Patrick knows when he's beaten.
Spencer's scheduled for evening shift now, but Brendon usually hangs out for an hour or so after he clocks out at three. He likes the way Spencer talks about movies, and the opinions Spencer has about the bratty-ass kids who man the pizza place across the street.
"You would have liked Frankie," he tells Spencer, "Frankie always traded cheese slices for Cherry Slushies."
"Well, where the hell's Frankie?" Spencer demands. "Hi, Mrs. Kurigawa, what, no skim milk today? 2%? 2% it is! And who's Frankie again?"
"Mrs. Kurigawa, you remember Frankie from Pizza Palazzo across the street, don't you?" Brendon looks at Mrs. Kurigawa, who is frowning at her 2% milk like she always does on Thursdays when the art students buy up all the nonfat. "The skinny guy, the one you always said needed to wash his face?"
"He needed to wash his face," Mrs. Kurigawa says in her thin, reedy voice, and Brendon takes her arm to help her out of the store. ("It's a liability if she falls," Patrick had told him, but he'd help her out anyway; he used to work evening shift and still gets a tiny, pathetic thrill when the regulars from other hours remember him.)
"He wore a lot of eyeliner, but it looked good on him. Plus, he'd trade slices for Slushies," Brendon tells Spencer over his shoulder as he escorts Mrs. Kurigawa to the door. "But I think he decided to go to college or something. He was cool."
"You go to college," Spencer says.
Brendon doesn’t really consider one American Lit class a week "going to college" but he'll take it, he guesses. His brother's in pre-med out in California, and to hear his mom talk about it, anyone on a four-year graduation track who's never had to work minimum wage walks on water and shits silver dollars.
"I go to college," Spencer adds.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," Spencer says, "sort of." He scratches the back of his neck, carelessly graceful, and smiles at Brendon. "Like you, part-time. But, uh, poli sci."
"Huh," Brendon says, impressed. "What do you want do to with that?"
Spencer shrugs. "Be an informed citizen? While I slave away under the poverty line?"
"Works for me," Brendon says, and tosses Spencer the penny Mrs. Kurigawa had pressed into his hand.
**
Pete drops in sometimes for the hell of it, when he doesn't even need to be at the store, just to sit on the counter and scam free Dr. Pepper and quote Clerks with Spencer and Brendon, until Brendon realizes he's been in the Qwik-Mart for fourteen hours straight and the fluorescent lights are making him nauseated. Sometimes Pete leaves with him then and tails Brendon back to his place for a movie and cheap Chinese, but sometimes Pete stays even after Brendon goes, because Spencer likes to share his oddly detailed views about the current handgun legislation, and Brendon knows that Pete finds this absurdly hot.
"I mean, there's privacy rights and then there's privacy right," Spencer says, leaning against the counter.
"Right." Pete nods vehemently from his perch on the counter next to Spencer's hip. Brendon's not quite at the nausea-failsafe yet, and he watches the two of them from the magazine rack, watches Pete's dark arms waving in contrast to Spencer's pale skin. "Because this bullshit about phone companies handing over their records to the government?"
"Oh, it's just going to get worse."
"You think?" Brendon asks. He doesn't actually pay that much attention to politics, but Pete's as likely to watch CNN as he is to watch Comedy Central. Brendon gets a lot of stuff through osmosis. "Don't you think the public's fed up with how things have been? Opinion polls -"
" - are given way too much emphasis by the media," Spencer cuts in.
"You don't think a Democrat's going to get elected in 2008?"
Spencer shakes his head at Pete. "Not if McCain runs."
"Oh, well, McCain's not bad," Pete shrugs. Spencer goggles at him, then snaps his mouth shut and turns solicitously towards Brendon.
"Excuse me," he says, "I think you've got to get your boyfriend out of my store."
"My boyfriend?" Brendon asks, at the same time that Pete says "Your store?"
**
Patrick comes in one morning when he's not scheduled to, finds the Back-In-5! sign flipped up, and catches Pete and Brendon making out in the freezer. He's been pretty easy in the past, but he goes all stony in the face of Pete's grins and Brendon's foot-shuffling. He sends Brendon back out to the register and keeps Pete in his dinky little back office for over an hour.
Brendon takes the opportunity to finish up the cigarette count. He ends with the goddamn Camel Wides, stupid big boxes that don't fit ten to a slot in the plastic overhead guiders, and he scrawls the number with vicious glee in the little box on the cigarette count form. He's usually off by three or four packs; last Thursday he got it completely accurate, and he can't remember seeing Patrick so effusively happy about anything store-related ever before.
Patrick hangs out with Pete and Brendon outside the store on occasion, and at first Brendon thought it was going to be way weird, playing Xbox with the guy who could totally have his ass canned for sleeping with his assistant manager if he got the idea to do it, because they didn't really hide it much outside the store - but Patrick would just blink mildly while losing spectacularly at Grand Theft Auto, and Brendon had soon felt comfortable enough to talk to Patrick about some of the books he's writing on for class. (Patrick hates Salinger and loves Faulkner and Pete's the other way around. Brendon's still reserving judgment. Spencer's never read either, but he's working his way through Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, and Brendon's kind of curious to see what he thinks.)
When Pete emerges, he's gnawing a pen to death. "He wants to see you," he mumbles as he slouches towards the register.
"What's up? Are you -"
Pete shakes his head, the pen wagging loosely from his lips. He turns to face Brendon and he looks a little shell-shocked. "Didn't even write me up. He thinks . . ." He laughs, self-consciously, around the pen. "He thinks I'm doing a good job."
"You are," Brendon says without hesitation. Aside from the whole fraternizing-with-employees thing, Pete's actually a disgustingly good assistant manager. He always gets Brendon to face the refrigerated goods without making him feel like a lackey tool.
"He's going to be shadowing at corporate in the next couple of months. He wants me to take some manager classes."
Pete's practically molesting the pen, and Brendon plucks it out of his hand, leaning in close and invading Pete's personal space. "So take some manager classes," he says.
"Dude. That makes this so much more of a career than I ever meant for it to be."
"So?" Brendon grips Pete's shoulders, forcing him to look at him, because Pete's fucking stupid sometimes. "So it's something that looks good on your resume later. It's a pay raise and nothing you can't deal with, so take the fucking classes and do it."
Pete nods absently and pulls out of Brendon's hands. "Yeah, we'll see."
In the back office, Patrick's got his sleeves pushed up as high as they can go, all hunched over the 10-key calculator, looking exactly like an early-twenties version of one of those peaked, pinched accountant-types at the beginning of Monty Python's Meaning of Life. He doesn't even look up at Brendon. "He told you what's up?"
"Yeah."
"Then fucking make out on your own time." Patrick does look up then, and he's got a quirk of a smile. "Or at least watch your ass better."
"No problem," Brendon says. "Thanks." Patrick flaps a hand at him and he heads back out, to where Pete's got another pen half-eaten.
**
"So if it's not a relationship . . . " Spencer trails off.
Brendon looks at him, sitting on the dirty hood of Brendon's car, backlit by the neon of the store, his white hoodie shadowed in darkly garish flickers of red and blue. Joe has promised them some bud if they come by and alleviate his 1:30am boredom, but the freight's in and Joe won't be free for another forty minutes.
"I mean." Spencer's elbows rest easily on his thighs, but his hands fidget, his fingers tightening and relaxing around his own wrists. "You're with him."
"Sort of," Brendon says, watching with interest as crimson spots bloom on Spencer's skin and then fade away. "I told you before."
"Just having fun, right. But that was awhile ago. Aren't you, like. More serious?"
"More serious?" Brendon wants to laugh. "You've met Pete, right?"
"But don't you want to be more serious?"
"I haven't really thought about it," Brendon says honestly. "You wanna go back to Pete's after we get this from Joe?" Pete doesn't smoke, but he likes watching other people get high. Brendon doesn’t always like smoking up with Pete around, but it’s a fuck of a lot more fun when Spencer comes with. Spencer waves his hands a lot when he’s high. Brendon thinks it’s cute.
**
The holidays roll around and when Spencer comes in for shift change, he brings in tinsel and strings it over the register, over the lighter tray, and over Pete's shoulders. Pete blinks up at Spencer.
"Dude."
"Christmas spirit," Brendon reminds Pete from behind the counter. "Dance, elf, dance." And Pete has to come all the way behind the counter to knee Brendon in the balls. At least he made him work for it, Brendon thinks as he doubles over. He looks to Spencer for help, but Spencer's hanging mistletoe over the door, stretching up on his toes to do it, and his shirt rides up enough to expose a bit of his smooth, pale back.
"I am not kissing Hobo Jim if and when he comes in," Pete says, a vaguely apologetic hand rubbing circles on Brendon's back.
"Don't stand by the door, then," Spencer shoots back, settling the mistletoe in place just as Patrick comes tromping in, shaking snow from his parka, slamming into Spencer and rocking him back a step or two.
Patrick blinks behind his eyes, looks at Spencer, looks up at the quivering mistletoe. He gapes like a fish. Brendon whistles, a low catcall, and Spencer smiles.
"Merry Christmas, boss," he says, and steps up to plant a solid kiss on Patrick.
"Could you fucks learn, jesus christ!" Patrick exclaims, backing away hastily when he's released. "This is the gayest Qwik-Mart in existence! We're not going to pass audit, seriously."
"I hate that gay audit," Brendon says dryly. His arm is snug around Pete's waist; Pete's so little, really, and he just curls in. He holds out a hand to Spencer, who practically skips behind the counter to snuggle in with them. All three of them smile at Patrick, who looks torn between yelling and laughing. Finally he holds up his hands in defeat.
"Fine. Jesus. No more than one public display of affection an hour. And if anyone from corporate walks in - " Patrick grins suddenly, wickedly "call me out quick, 'cause I don't think any of those suit motherfuckers have ever gotten tongue."
Brendon tugs Pete and Spencer close; he's got a paper to write, but he sort of doesn't want to leave the store.
**
Spencer can't stand the Chinese place down the street from Pete's apartment (even though the delivery boy's really hot) - "this is not beef with snow peas!" he says, waving the greasy carton down in front of Brendon's face.
Brendon recoils a little, the back of his head pushing hard into Spencer's thigh. "Beef," he points out with a chopstick-defense. "Snowpea."
"Genetically altered beef," Pete adds around a mouthful of steamed veggies. "You know what went into that cow?"
"No MSG went into that cow. Lucky's $1 Scoop guarantees it." Brendon grins up at Spencer, who has the most disgusted look on his face. Brendon reaches up and pats his cheek. "Eat your beef and snowpeas, Spence. Kids are starving in China."
"Because they know better than to eat this crap," Spencer grumbles.
Pete points out that it's cheap, and Spencer says he can taste that, yeah, and Pete says that sometimes cheap tastes good, and Brendon says that Pete's kind of cheap, and Pete leers at him until Brendon tosses the chopsticks aside and runs a hand down his chest, curling his fingers under the edge of his shirt and tugging it up a bit.
And then Pete's crawling towards him on hands and knees, and crowds himself over Brendon where Brendon's lying in Spencer's lap. And then Pete's leaning down and kissing Brendon, his hand over Brendon's where it rests on the skin of Brendon's stomach.
Through the hot haze of Pete's sweet-and-sour flavored tongue, Brendon can hear Spencer swallow. He puts one hand on the back of Pete's neck and stretches the other up towards Spencer. He manages to pull Spencer down enough to make Pete notice, and then Pete's turning his face up and kissing Spencer, a gentle hand on the side of his face, making delighted noises into Spencer's mouth.
Brendon keeps stroking the back of Pete's neck. He can feel Spencer's thighs tense and tremble beneath him, and he can hear how hard Spencer's breathing when Pete pulls back, freeing Spencer for Brendon to drag him down and taste Pete on Spencer's lips. He's warm and lax in Spencer's lap, and Pete's running a hand over his thigh, over and up. Brendon arches into his touch and slips his tongue into Spencer's mouth.
Spencer moans a little, sounding surprised, sounding happy. His fingers work through Brendon's hair, tugging him up. His arms are softly muscled, round and grippable through the thin t-shirt he always resorts to when he hasn't done laundry in awhile. Brendon strokes the curve of his shoulder and lifts his hips to let Pete pull his jeans off. Spencer's hard beneath him, rubbing gentle but steady up against his back, and Pete's hard against his bare leg.
Pete's mouth is hot, ghosting breaths over Brendon's cock. He's pulled his own shirt off, and Spencer's hand is tracing the bone at the top of his spine, tracing the tattoo that Pete hates.
When Pete sucks Brendon in, Spencer's crouched over Brendon, kissing him, and the hot, wet slide of Spencer's tongue combined with the urgent thrust of Pete's dick against his leg sets Brendon groaning. He pushes up, and again, and he whispers into Spencer's mouth that it feels good, it feels good. It feels comfortable, like they've done this a thousand times already, and Brendon isn't sure why they haven't.
Brendon comes for the first time that night in Pete's mouth. The sight of his dick slipping from between Pete's lips sends a little shudder through him, like it always does, and he wants Spencer to see what he sees.
**
Pete and Brendon show up at the store the next night after Spencer's shift, and Pete bitches the entire way over about Brendon's crappy brakes.
"If you want them fixed, you can pay to fix them," Brendon says. "You got money to fix them? Oh, no, you don't, because you spent last week's paycheck on a fucking ugly jacket."
"This jacket is fucking awesome," Pete retorts, zipping the brown-and-yellow windbreaker up with a vengeance he usually saves for Mario Kart. "You wish you had a jacket so fucking awesome." Pete can be so stupidly single-minded sometimes, which really sucks, because apparently it takes two minds to dress Pete in something that doesn't make him look like a colorful monkey, and Brendon's usually using his mind for more important things.
"Do you think Pete's jacket is awesome?" he demands.
Spencer and Joe look up from the conclusion of the till count. Joe's look of horror is clear enough; Spencer's expression's a little less decipherable.
"It's okay," Spencer says. Brendon narrows his eyes suspiciously; Spencer's not looking directly at him or Pete.
"Spencer likes my jacket," Pete says pointedly. "I think Spencer gets to ride in the backseat with me."
"Oh," Spencer says, shrugging quickly into his hoodie. "I'm, um. I'm just going to go on home tonight. But I'll see you guys later." He brushes past Brendon and pushes his way out the door.
"Fuck," Joe laughs. "What'd you do to him?"
Brendon's already rolling his eyes before he gets outside. He taps Spencer's shoulder as Pete comes up behind him, arms crossed over his fucking awesome jacket. Spencer turns, finds himself pretty much trapped up against his car.
"Hey," he says quietly, "I didn't want to - "
"You didn't." Brendon says.
"You really didn't," Pete echoes, and reaches past Brendon to tug the car keys out of Spencer's hand. "Come ride in the backseat with me."
"If you can stand to be that close to that jacket," Brendon says. Spencer laughs, relief stealing into his eyes, and Brendon wraps an arm around his shoulders.
**
At the end of the semester, Brendon aces his Contemporary British Lit class.
"So did you tell your parents?" Spencer asks one morning.
Brendon's mom hasn't called him in two months, and his dad didn't even send him a birthday card. It's no big deal, really, but Brendon would rather share his tiny triumphs with people who actually care.
"They'd care."
"No one cares, so don't," Brendon says shortly. Spencer's jaw tightens, but he doesn't respond, just turns back to making a pot of coffee. Brendon tries to read the car ads, but Pete's tiny kitchen's too quiet.
"Fuck, how long have you been up?" Pete mumbles when he wanders in a few minutes later, wearing Brendon's too-big sweats. He flattens a hand in Brendon's hair as he passes, goes and wraps a bare arm around Spencer's waist and kisses the back of his neck. "Oh god, coffee."
"Brendon got an A in his class," Spencer says.
Pete's grin spreads slowly, but it's really wide and it makes Brendon flip through the car ads with a little more confidence. Spencer hooks his chin over Pete's shoulder; the look in his eyes is soft. Brendon wrinkles his nose at him. "Are you getting me a cup of that or what?" he asks, and Spencer brings him the creamer he likes.
**
Pete as Actual Qwik-Mart Manager For Real is a little weird for Brendon.
"I'm seriously against going in earlier than you," he used to tell Pete, when he was pulling on his shirt and Pete was still sprawled in bed with an arm thrown over his face.
"Yeah, all that gas we could be saving by carpooling," Pete would mumble. "I'm there before day shift starts sometimes."
"It's not fucking fair."
"Hey, princess, you do all the paperwork shit and deal with evals and you can go in at ten-thirty too. It's not like I get to sleep later anyway, some bitch always wakes me up when he goes in." He would reach out and tug Brendon back down, Brendon only mildly resisting. "Stay in school and face all the candy like a good boy, and maybe you can be assistant manager too one day," he would mutter against Brendon's ear, his hand sliding under Brendon's shirt, and by the time Brendon would drag himself back up, it would be five minutes later and Brendon's lips would feel swollen until his first break.
Pete gets up first now; he's in the shower and out the door before Brendon even registers that he's not in bed anymore. But it's not as bad as Brendon thought it might be; Spencer's usually still wrapped possessively around Pete's pillow, and Brendon's able to curl up against his back and sleep until the second alarm goes off and it's time to go to work.
Don't Need To Be Anything Other
Brendon/Pete, Brendon/Pete/Spencer
hard Rish, 5393 words
for Sky with gigantic thank yous to addictedkitten, joyfulseeker, clumsygyrl, plainsong_x and Hanson.
They lead lives of quiet desperation, except with less desperation and more Qwik-Mart.
Don't Need To Be Anything Other
Brendon pulls into the side parking lot with a good eight minutes to spare. He's getting better at timing the morning drive; if he hits the exit by the time the DJs do the Copter-Traffic update, he'll have time for a smoke before clocking in. He's got time for one now, but he thinks he's going to wait until his first break - savor the flavor, baby. He's been spending too much on smokes lately anyway.
Joe gives Brendon a bleary nod from behind the counter when he pushes his way hip-first into the store. Brendon nods back, cocks his head towards the back with a questioning eyebrow. Joe nods again with a grimace that Brendon mimics; if Patrick's here already and it's not even nine yet, it's gonna be a real fun day.
He shrugs out of his windbreaker and reaches for the cleanest-looking apron. (The ratty blue aprons that operate as Qwik-Mart uniforms are totally, totally gay, but Pete says they accentuate Brendon's hips and gives him little smacks on the ass when Patrick's not looking - so, hey, yeah, gay in the life-affirming way. Pete doesn't have to wear an apron. Assistant managers get vests. Patrick doesn't even have to wear the damn vest; not that Brendon actually wants to be a manager, but it's obviously not without its perks. At least he doesn't have to wear a tie.)
The coffee's pretty fresh, which means that Joe actually made it when he was supposed to, so Brendon fills up a big mug and grabs four of the Irish Cream creamers that employees aren't technically supposed to take. He's behind the counter at exactly 8:59am, and he punches in his cashier ID without even looking at the register screen.
"Getting good, man," Joe says, already popping the drawer to count the till. "That's a little sad."
"You don't have to tell me." Brendon scoops up the pennies and counts them out by fives in his head. There's a lot of them, and he has to do it twice before moving on to the nickels. Joe's done with the bills before Brendon's done with the coins, and he's squinting at the lottery tickets appraisingly.
"What do you think, Pirate's Cove? She won like $2 on Pirate's Cove yesterday."
"Then she's not going to win anything on it today."
"Dude, that's fucked up logic. Like eleven people bought Pirate's Cove over the last twenty-four hours, maybe more. There's no way you can say for a fact the next one isn't going to be a winner."
Brendon shrugs. "It's your money, man. I'd go with Krazy Krossword, but I'm zany like that. We even?"
Joe slams the register drawer closed just as a horn blares briefly from outside. Brendon turns to look through the glass and raises a hand in greeting to Greta, who's idling in Joe's beat-up Corolla. Joe unties his apron and slings it at Brendon's head. "I am so the fuck out of here." He ducks around the counter and jabs a finger at the rolled-up line of Pirate's Cove scratch-its. "Gimme two."
Joe is a sad, sad individual who is totally pussy-whipped, but as he rings up the tickets, Brendon can't help but wish that Pete worked a regular, non-Qwik-Mart job so he could come pick Brendon up after shift, and Brendon could bring him scratch-its and slushies. Joe and Greta are like the greatest thing since Brad and Gwyneth, the kingpin of golden relationships, and he doesn't want to see what nasty sort of Jennifer Aniston skeeze Joe dates next.
Greta leans on the horn again and Joe slaps the counter to swipe up the lottery tickets. "You're trading me next month," he threatens with a finger, pausing by the door. "You keep wimping out on graveyard, man, it's seriously not cool."
Brendon has absolutely no fucking intention of working graveyard ever again, but "yeah, yeah," he reassures Joe through a yawn, mug already halfway to his mouth.
"And dude, keep an eye on the coffee. Patrick's a little weird today."
"Patrick's a little weird everyday."
"Point. But he's new-guy weird today, and guess who gets to train."
Brendon groans. He may in fact want graveyard now, and Joe's smug smile as he toodles goodbye out the door helps in no way whatsoever. He flips mentally past the people who've turned in applications over the past few weeks; the only one he can even remember clearly is the vaguely sarcastic shaggy-haired kid with fuck-me eyes and the white hoodie, and there's no way Qwik-Mart #71 is that lucky. Brendon's on day shift all week and after Pete, who doesn't have to train people anymore since he does inventory and paperwork all the time, and Patrick, who is, hello, the manager, Brendon's been working here the longest.
It'd be depressing, except aside from the training-new-dorks part of it, Brendon kind of likes the Qwik-Mart. Even the aprons, because he also kind of likes his hips, and the way Pete looks at them when he's not supposed to.
The construction workers from the site across the street are starting to trickle in on break. Patrick's going to come out of the back office in an hour and want the cigarette count, and Pete's going to be in soon, and so is the new guy, who's probably going to be an acne-scarred kid with no sense of anything at all. Blah. It's going to be a long fucking day. Brendon eyes the Irish Cream creamers and contemplates taking some more.
**
Fortunately, the new guy is a) the guy Brendon's been hoping he'd be, and b)not a dumbshit, praise whatever god's in charge of looking out for people who hold shit jobs.
"That was a ridiculous amount of paperwork for this kind of job," Spencer says to Brendon after he comes out from the back, awkwardly fiddling with the strings of his apron.
"Yeah," Brendon says, "W-9s are a bitch. Need some help there?" And before Spencer can say yes or no, Brendon's spinning him a bit and retying his apron. He's got a bit of a stomach, but there's a delicious little strip of skin peeking out from between the hem of his shirt and the waistband of his pants, and Brendon smiles to himself as he ties a neat bow and pats Spencer low on the back. "There you go."
"Thanks," Spencer smiles over his shoulder, not really moving away at all, even though Brendon's completely in his personal space. Pete's over with the Budweiser vendor by the 24-can party packs, but Brendon can see him peeking over the black and yellow cases with interest.
**
Spencer learns the register really quickly (which, okay, it's not that hard a system to get the hang of, but some of the stoner kids Brendon's trained in the last six months had an hard enough time with it, so whatever) and Brendon sits back and lets him handle the afternoon rush.
"That sparkle's going to go away," Pete says mournfully when Brendon walks him out to his car. "You had that sparkle."
"I never had that sparkle," Brendon says. But he knows it's true; even now, he sometimes gets that goofy wow-that-can-of-Sparks-and-exact-change-really-made-that-chick's-day feeling. It's dangerous to take too much pride in your convenience store work. Brendon hopes his sparkle faded pretty quickly.
Pete leans his hip against his car and pulls Brendon in with one hand. "Sure," he says, an ironic smile on his lips. Brendon smiles back; Pete's so easy.
"You like him, huh?"
"He's passing. For now."
Pete had co-opted Spencer for a whole half-hour earlier, and it does NOT take half an hour to show someone how to turn the refrigerated burritos right side up, so Brendon had watched them longingly over the heads of the customers and hoped Pete was talking about how awesome Brendon is at giving head, and how awesome Pete is at fucking you stupid, and how hey, I know we've only just met and you're a co-worker/subordinate, but would you like to come over after you get off?
"Hey," Pete said against Brendon's ear, his hand rubbing low and warm at the small of Brendon's back. "He's watching us through the window."
Brendon doesn't turn to look. Instead, he dips his head down a bit more, licking at Pete's lips and angling his body so that Pete's body is just between his thighs. He fucking loves being able to get away with this shit. He slides his tongue into Pete's mouth and scratches his fingernails over the scrape of Pete's shoulder-blade through his shirt. Pete grins into the kiss and his hand goes hard and flat on Brendon's back, urging him closer.
"Mmm, still watching?" Brendon asks after a minute.
"Drooling." Pete nips at Brendon's earlobe and Brendon's breath catches. "Go get 'im, tiger."
**
"So you and Pete, huh?" Spencer asks when Brendon walks back in.
"Sort of, yeah."
"That's cool. He seems cool."
"It's not really like a relationship or anything," Brendon says over his shoulder as he fills up on Dr. Pepper. "We're just, like, whatever. Having fun."
"It looks fun."
Brendon wants to say something, something really suggestive and witty, something that'll tell Spencer it's okay if he wants to have fun with them - but when he turns around, a couple of kids come in just then and try to buy a porn mag, and Spencer's got to lay the smackdown on them. Brendon goes to Windex the freezer doors. It's just Spencer's first day. He doesn't want to overload the guy. Much.
**
Spencer spends the rest of his first day smart-talking Brendon's regulars and debating the pros and cons of The Greatest Hits of the Eighties, Nineties and Today with Brendon.
"I don't really like this station," Brendon protests.
"Yeah, me neither. That's why you're harmonizing to Raspberry Beret, huh?"
Brendon raises an eyebrow. "Man, you can like Prince -"
"Who doesn't like Prince? And you can like the radio station that plays Prince. Be secure, dude."
Contrary to Spencer's staunch defense of Prince, Brendon actually doesn't know many people who will testify to fanhood, so he crosses his arms and appraises Spencer, who's ringing up a can of Cherry Skoal. Spencer flushes slightly and shakes his hair out of his eyes, smiling at the customer, ignoring Brendon's gaze.
Raspberry Beret flips over to MMMBop. Brendon's still watching Spencer carefully. Spencer's running the debit card, but his foot is tapping on the ground.
After the customer leaves, Brendon leans in. "Hanson, huh?"
The sick thing is, Pete likes Hanson too. He's got a completely unironic poster of Hanson in his bathroom. So Brendon knows what he's talking about when he tells Spencer that Where's The Love was not the best song of 1998.
"Yeah, well, duh," Spencer says with a dismissive shrug, and his hair flops cutely back into his eyes. "But Taylor was fucking pretty." He flushes some more and busies himself with the register tape, which doesn't actually need restocking, and he completely misses Brendon's smile.
**
"Taylor's definitely the prettiest. That fucking mouth, man," Pete says that night, sweaty and damp against the back of Brendon's neck as he jerks Brendon off, slow and nasty, just how Brendon likes it. "It reminds me of yours, actually." And then he's licking at the edge of Brendon's earlobe and Brendon can't really focus on what Pete's saying anymore. He moans, two seconds from coming or maybe two years, because Pete can take him out like this all night, strung-out and begging for it. And then in the morning, he'll make coffee and set out the creamer Brendon likes.
Pete's mumbling something about mouths and sucking and timesheets, what the fuck, and Brendon just pushes his body harder against Pete's and thinks this is fucking okay, right now, this is an okay fucking place to be.
**
Spencer makes it past the first week, and the week after that, and even Patrick's grudgingly admitting by the end of his first month that maybe he should just always hire the kids Pete flirts with when they drop off their applications. He glares at Brendon over his rickety desk when he says it, and Brendon smirks and slaps the cigarette-count paperwork down.
"I flirted with him first," he reminds Patrick, who rolls his eyes and mutters something that's probably total agreement, because Patrick knows when he's beaten.
Spencer's scheduled for evening shift now, but Brendon usually hangs out for an hour or so after he clocks out at three. He likes the way Spencer talks about movies, and the opinions Spencer has about the bratty-ass kids who man the pizza place across the street.
"You would have liked Frankie," he tells Spencer, "Frankie always traded cheese slices for Cherry Slushies."
"Well, where the hell's Frankie?" Spencer demands. "Hi, Mrs. Kurigawa, what, no skim milk today? 2%? 2% it is! And who's Frankie again?"
"Mrs. Kurigawa, you remember Frankie from Pizza Palazzo across the street, don't you?" Brendon looks at Mrs. Kurigawa, who is frowning at her 2% milk like she always does on Thursdays when the art students buy up all the nonfat. "The skinny guy, the one you always said needed to wash his face?"
"He needed to wash his face," Mrs. Kurigawa says in her thin, reedy voice, and Brendon takes her arm to help her out of the store. ("It's a liability if she falls," Patrick had told him, but he'd help her out anyway; he used to work evening shift and still gets a tiny, pathetic thrill when the regulars from other hours remember him.)
"He wore a lot of eyeliner, but it looked good on him. Plus, he'd trade slices for Slushies," Brendon tells Spencer over his shoulder as he escorts Mrs. Kurigawa to the door. "But I think he decided to go to college or something. He was cool."
"You go to college," Spencer says.
Brendon doesn’t really consider one American Lit class a week "going to college" but he'll take it, he guesses. His brother's in pre-med out in California, and to hear his mom talk about it, anyone on a four-year graduation track who's never had to work minimum wage walks on water and shits silver dollars.
"I go to college," Spencer adds.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," Spencer says, "sort of." He scratches the back of his neck, carelessly graceful, and smiles at Brendon. "Like you, part-time. But, uh, poli sci."
"Huh," Brendon says, impressed. "What do you want do to with that?"
Spencer shrugs. "Be an informed citizen? While I slave away under the poverty line?"
"Works for me," Brendon says, and tosses Spencer the penny Mrs. Kurigawa had pressed into his hand.
**
Pete drops in sometimes for the hell of it, when he doesn't even need to be at the store, just to sit on the counter and scam free Dr. Pepper and quote Clerks with Spencer and Brendon, until Brendon realizes he's been in the Qwik-Mart for fourteen hours straight and the fluorescent lights are making him nauseated. Sometimes Pete leaves with him then and tails Brendon back to his place for a movie and cheap Chinese, but sometimes Pete stays even after Brendon goes, because Spencer likes to share his oddly detailed views about the current handgun legislation, and Brendon knows that Pete finds this absurdly hot.
"I mean, there's privacy rights and then there's privacy right," Spencer says, leaning against the counter.
"Right." Pete nods vehemently from his perch on the counter next to Spencer's hip. Brendon's not quite at the nausea-failsafe yet, and he watches the two of them from the magazine rack, watches Pete's dark arms waving in contrast to Spencer's pale skin. "Because this bullshit about phone companies handing over their records to the government?"
"Oh, it's just going to get worse."
"You think?" Brendon asks. He doesn't actually pay that much attention to politics, but Pete's as likely to watch CNN as he is to watch Comedy Central. Brendon gets a lot of stuff through osmosis. "Don't you think the public's fed up with how things have been? Opinion polls -"
" - are given way too much emphasis by the media," Spencer cuts in.
"You don't think a Democrat's going to get elected in 2008?"
Spencer shakes his head at Pete. "Not if McCain runs."
"Oh, well, McCain's not bad," Pete shrugs. Spencer goggles at him, then snaps his mouth shut and turns solicitously towards Brendon.
"Excuse me," he says, "I think you've got to get your boyfriend out of my store."
"My boyfriend?" Brendon asks, at the same time that Pete says "Your store?"
**
Patrick comes in one morning when he's not scheduled to, finds the Back-In-5! sign flipped up, and catches Pete and Brendon making out in the freezer. He's been pretty easy in the past, but he goes all stony in the face of Pete's grins and Brendon's foot-shuffling. He sends Brendon back out to the register and keeps Pete in his dinky little back office for over an hour.
Brendon takes the opportunity to finish up the cigarette count. He ends with the goddamn Camel Wides, stupid big boxes that don't fit ten to a slot in the plastic overhead guiders, and he scrawls the number with vicious glee in the little box on the cigarette count form. He's usually off by three or four packs; last Thursday he got it completely accurate, and he can't remember seeing Patrick so effusively happy about anything store-related ever before.
Patrick hangs out with Pete and Brendon outside the store on occasion, and at first Brendon thought it was going to be way weird, playing Xbox with the guy who could totally have his ass canned for sleeping with his assistant manager if he got the idea to do it, because they didn't really hide it much outside the store - but Patrick would just blink mildly while losing spectacularly at Grand Theft Auto, and Brendon had soon felt comfortable enough to talk to Patrick about some of the books he's writing on for class. (Patrick hates Salinger and loves Faulkner and Pete's the other way around. Brendon's still reserving judgment. Spencer's never read either, but he's working his way through Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, and Brendon's kind of curious to see what he thinks.)
When Pete emerges, he's gnawing a pen to death. "He wants to see you," he mumbles as he slouches towards the register.
"What's up? Are you -"
Pete shakes his head, the pen wagging loosely from his lips. He turns to face Brendon and he looks a little shell-shocked. "Didn't even write me up. He thinks . . ." He laughs, self-consciously, around the pen. "He thinks I'm doing a good job."
"You are," Brendon says without hesitation. Aside from the whole fraternizing-with-employees thing, Pete's actually a disgustingly good assistant manager. He always gets Brendon to face the refrigerated goods without making him feel like a lackey tool.
"He's going to be shadowing at corporate in the next couple of months. He wants me to take some manager classes."
Pete's practically molesting the pen, and Brendon plucks it out of his hand, leaning in close and invading Pete's personal space. "So take some manager classes," he says.
"Dude. That makes this so much more of a career than I ever meant for it to be."
"So?" Brendon grips Pete's shoulders, forcing him to look at him, because Pete's fucking stupid sometimes. "So it's something that looks good on your resume later. It's a pay raise and nothing you can't deal with, so take the fucking classes and do it."
Pete nods absently and pulls out of Brendon's hands. "Yeah, we'll see."
In the back office, Patrick's got his sleeves pushed up as high as they can go, all hunched over the 10-key calculator, looking exactly like an early-twenties version of one of those peaked, pinched accountant-types at the beginning of Monty Python's Meaning of Life. He doesn't even look up at Brendon. "He told you what's up?"
"Yeah."
"Then fucking make out on your own time." Patrick does look up then, and he's got a quirk of a smile. "Or at least watch your ass better."
"No problem," Brendon says. "Thanks." Patrick flaps a hand at him and he heads back out, to where Pete's got another pen half-eaten.
**
"So if it's not a relationship . . . " Spencer trails off.
Brendon looks at him, sitting on the dirty hood of Brendon's car, backlit by the neon of the store, his white hoodie shadowed in darkly garish flickers of red and blue. Joe has promised them some bud if they come by and alleviate his 1:30am boredom, but the freight's in and Joe won't be free for another forty minutes.
"I mean." Spencer's elbows rest easily on his thighs, but his hands fidget, his fingers tightening and relaxing around his own wrists. "You're with him."
"Sort of," Brendon says, watching with interest as crimson spots bloom on Spencer's skin and then fade away. "I told you before."
"Just having fun, right. But that was awhile ago. Aren't you, like. More serious?"
"More serious?" Brendon wants to laugh. "You've met Pete, right?"
"But don't you want to be more serious?"
"I haven't really thought about it," Brendon says honestly. "You wanna go back to Pete's after we get this from Joe?" Pete doesn't smoke, but he likes watching other people get high. Brendon doesn’t always like smoking up with Pete around, but it’s a fuck of a lot more fun when Spencer comes with. Spencer waves his hands a lot when he’s high. Brendon thinks it’s cute.
**
The holidays roll around and when Spencer comes in for shift change, he brings in tinsel and strings it over the register, over the lighter tray, and over Pete's shoulders. Pete blinks up at Spencer.
"Dude."
"Christmas spirit," Brendon reminds Pete from behind the counter. "Dance, elf, dance." And Pete has to come all the way behind the counter to knee Brendon in the balls. At least he made him work for it, Brendon thinks as he doubles over. He looks to Spencer for help, but Spencer's hanging mistletoe over the door, stretching up on his toes to do it, and his shirt rides up enough to expose a bit of his smooth, pale back.
"I am not kissing Hobo Jim if and when he comes in," Pete says, a vaguely apologetic hand rubbing circles on Brendon's back.
"Don't stand by the door, then," Spencer shoots back, settling the mistletoe in place just as Patrick comes tromping in, shaking snow from his parka, slamming into Spencer and rocking him back a step or two.
Patrick blinks behind his eyes, looks at Spencer, looks up at the quivering mistletoe. He gapes like a fish. Brendon whistles, a low catcall, and Spencer smiles.
"Merry Christmas, boss," he says, and steps up to plant a solid kiss on Patrick.
"Could you fucks learn, jesus christ!" Patrick exclaims, backing away hastily when he's released. "This is the gayest Qwik-Mart in existence! We're not going to pass audit, seriously."
"I hate that gay audit," Brendon says dryly. His arm is snug around Pete's waist; Pete's so little, really, and he just curls in. He holds out a hand to Spencer, who practically skips behind the counter to snuggle in with them. All three of them smile at Patrick, who looks torn between yelling and laughing. Finally he holds up his hands in defeat.
"Fine. Jesus. No more than one public display of affection an hour. And if anyone from corporate walks in - " Patrick grins suddenly, wickedly "call me out quick, 'cause I don't think any of those suit motherfuckers have ever gotten tongue."
Brendon tugs Pete and Spencer close; he's got a paper to write, but he sort of doesn't want to leave the store.
**
Spencer can't stand the Chinese place down the street from Pete's apartment (even though the delivery boy's really hot) - "this is not beef with snow peas!" he says, waving the greasy carton down in front of Brendon's face.
Brendon recoils a little, the back of his head pushing hard into Spencer's thigh. "Beef," he points out with a chopstick-defense. "Snowpea."
"Genetically altered beef," Pete adds around a mouthful of steamed veggies. "You know what went into that cow?"
"No MSG went into that cow. Lucky's $1 Scoop guarantees it." Brendon grins up at Spencer, who has the most disgusted look on his face. Brendon reaches up and pats his cheek. "Eat your beef and snowpeas, Spence. Kids are starving in China."
"Because they know better than to eat this crap," Spencer grumbles.
Pete points out that it's cheap, and Spencer says he can taste that, yeah, and Pete says that sometimes cheap tastes good, and Brendon says that Pete's kind of cheap, and Pete leers at him until Brendon tosses the chopsticks aside and runs a hand down his chest, curling his fingers under the edge of his shirt and tugging it up a bit.
And then Pete's crawling towards him on hands and knees, and crowds himself over Brendon where Brendon's lying in Spencer's lap. And then Pete's leaning down and kissing Brendon, his hand over Brendon's where it rests on the skin of Brendon's stomach.
Through the hot haze of Pete's sweet-and-sour flavored tongue, Brendon can hear Spencer swallow. He puts one hand on the back of Pete's neck and stretches the other up towards Spencer. He manages to pull Spencer down enough to make Pete notice, and then Pete's turning his face up and kissing Spencer, a gentle hand on the side of his face, making delighted noises into Spencer's mouth.
Brendon keeps stroking the back of Pete's neck. He can feel Spencer's thighs tense and tremble beneath him, and he can hear how hard Spencer's breathing when Pete pulls back, freeing Spencer for Brendon to drag him down and taste Pete on Spencer's lips. He's warm and lax in Spencer's lap, and Pete's running a hand over his thigh, over and up. Brendon arches into his touch and slips his tongue into Spencer's mouth.
Spencer moans a little, sounding surprised, sounding happy. His fingers work through Brendon's hair, tugging him up. His arms are softly muscled, round and grippable through the thin t-shirt he always resorts to when he hasn't done laundry in awhile. Brendon strokes the curve of his shoulder and lifts his hips to let Pete pull his jeans off. Spencer's hard beneath him, rubbing gentle but steady up against his back, and Pete's hard against his bare leg.
Pete's mouth is hot, ghosting breaths over Brendon's cock. He's pulled his own shirt off, and Spencer's hand is tracing the bone at the top of his spine, tracing the tattoo that Pete hates.
When Pete sucks Brendon in, Spencer's crouched over Brendon, kissing him, and the hot, wet slide of Spencer's tongue combined with the urgent thrust of Pete's dick against his leg sets Brendon groaning. He pushes up, and again, and he whispers into Spencer's mouth that it feels good, it feels good. It feels comfortable, like they've done this a thousand times already, and Brendon isn't sure why they haven't.
Brendon comes for the first time that night in Pete's mouth. The sight of his dick slipping from between Pete's lips sends a little shudder through him, like it always does, and he wants Spencer to see what he sees.
**
Pete and Brendon show up at the store the next night after Spencer's shift, and Pete bitches the entire way over about Brendon's crappy brakes.
"If you want them fixed, you can pay to fix them," Brendon says. "You got money to fix them? Oh, no, you don't, because you spent last week's paycheck on a fucking ugly jacket."
"This jacket is fucking awesome," Pete retorts, zipping the brown-and-yellow windbreaker up with a vengeance he usually saves for Mario Kart. "You wish you had a jacket so fucking awesome." Pete can be so stupidly single-minded sometimes, which really sucks, because apparently it takes two minds to dress Pete in something that doesn't make him look like a colorful monkey, and Brendon's usually using his mind for more important things.
"Do you think Pete's jacket is awesome?" he demands.
Spencer and Joe look up from the conclusion of the till count. Joe's look of horror is clear enough; Spencer's expression's a little less decipherable.
"It's okay," Spencer says. Brendon narrows his eyes suspiciously; Spencer's not looking directly at him or Pete.
"Spencer likes my jacket," Pete says pointedly. "I think Spencer gets to ride in the backseat with me."
"Oh," Spencer says, shrugging quickly into his hoodie. "I'm, um. I'm just going to go on home tonight. But I'll see you guys later." He brushes past Brendon and pushes his way out the door.
"Fuck," Joe laughs. "What'd you do to him?"
Brendon's already rolling his eyes before he gets outside. He taps Spencer's shoulder as Pete comes up behind him, arms crossed over his fucking awesome jacket. Spencer turns, finds himself pretty much trapped up against his car.
"Hey," he says quietly, "I didn't want to - "
"You didn't." Brendon says.
"You really didn't," Pete echoes, and reaches past Brendon to tug the car keys out of Spencer's hand. "Come ride in the backseat with me."
"If you can stand to be that close to that jacket," Brendon says. Spencer laughs, relief stealing into his eyes, and Brendon wraps an arm around his shoulders.
**
At the end of the semester, Brendon aces his Contemporary British Lit class.
"So did you tell your parents?" Spencer asks one morning.
Brendon's mom hasn't called him in two months, and his dad didn't even send him a birthday card. It's no big deal, really, but Brendon would rather share his tiny triumphs with people who actually care.
"They'd care."
"No one cares, so don't," Brendon says shortly. Spencer's jaw tightens, but he doesn't respond, just turns back to making a pot of coffee. Brendon tries to read the car ads, but Pete's tiny kitchen's too quiet.
"Fuck, how long have you been up?" Pete mumbles when he wanders in a few minutes later, wearing Brendon's too-big sweats. He flattens a hand in Brendon's hair as he passes, goes and wraps a bare arm around Spencer's waist and kisses the back of his neck. "Oh god, coffee."
"Brendon got an A in his class," Spencer says.
Pete's grin spreads slowly, but it's really wide and it makes Brendon flip through the car ads with a little more confidence. Spencer hooks his chin over Pete's shoulder; the look in his eyes is soft. Brendon wrinkles his nose at him. "Are you getting me a cup of that or what?" he asks, and Spencer brings him the creamer he likes.
**
Pete as Actual Qwik-Mart Manager For Real is a little weird for Brendon.
"I'm seriously against going in earlier than you," he used to tell Pete, when he was pulling on his shirt and Pete was still sprawled in bed with an arm thrown over his face.
"Yeah, all that gas we could be saving by carpooling," Pete would mumble. "I'm there before day shift starts sometimes."
"It's not fucking fair."
"Hey, princess, you do all the paperwork shit and deal with evals and you can go in at ten-thirty too. It's not like I get to sleep later anyway, some bitch always wakes me up when he goes in." He would reach out and tug Brendon back down, Brendon only mildly resisting. "Stay in school and face all the candy like a good boy, and maybe you can be assistant manager too one day," he would mutter against Brendon's ear, his hand sliding under Brendon's shirt, and by the time Brendon would drag himself back up, it would be five minutes later and Brendon's lips would feel swollen until his first break.
Pete gets up first now; he's in the shower and out the door before Brendon even registers that he's not in bed anymore. But it's not as bad as Brendon thought it might be; Spencer's usually still wrapped possessively around Pete's pillow, and Brendon's able to curl up against his back and sleep until the second alarm goes off and it's time to go to work.