Where I can lay my head | Spencer/Brendon | NC-17 | ~4600 words
Where I can lay my head
Spencer/Brendon | NC-17 | ~ 4600 words
When Brendon moves away from home, his parents give him the kitchen table that's been sitting in their garage (and the two phone books required to balance out the uneven legs), a cheque for forty-five dollars to get a phone-line installed, and a key to their house.
This is for redsambuca, for nightmare_xmas. Thanks so much to elfiepike for betaing, and for everyone else who looked over snippets of this as I was writing it.
The baseboards are missing in one corner of the main room, so the floor curls away from the wall, folded over on itself where it's come apart completely. Brendon walks over and nudges at the flap of carpet with his sneakered toe. It flops back towards the wall.
"Are you sure you're eighteen?" the landlord asks, hovering in the doorway.
"Absolutely," Brendon says. "I can move in right now, right?"
--
When Brendon moves away from home, his parents give him the kitchen table that's been sitting in their garage (and the two phone books required to balance out the uneven legs), a cheque for forty-five dollars to get a phone-line installed, and a key to their house.
Brendon and his siblings were never allowed keys to the house growing up, because their parents didn't want them coming and going as they pleased, at all hours of the night.
"Doors lock at 11:30," Mr. Urie always said. "Be home by then or sleep on the porch."
Brendon wants to give the key back, but he bites his tongue, presses the key carefully into the bottom of his wallet, and hears them lock the front door behind him as he walks to the cab.
~~~
Ryan and Spencer spend almost every day with him for a good three weeks after he moves out.
"We have to finish the de-Mormonization process," Spencer says.
"I've already left the church," Brendon reminds them.
"But," Ryan says, "you vacillate between making genuinely inappropriate jokes and blushing about almost completely innocent things."
"Clearly our work is not done," Spencer adds.
But Brendon knows they're just keeping an eye of him.
--
Ryan picks him up after school in the ridiculous Bug that he and Spencer have been attempting to drive lately. Brendon tosses his backpack in the backseat and tucks his feet inside gingerly to avoid the crack in the flooring.
"So," Ryan says. "What do you want to do?"
"I have two hours before my shift starts at work and four chapters of homework assignments to finish in math," Brendon says. "I don't know. I've never been to a stripclub," he offers.
"Me neither," Ryan says. "And I'm never going to. Those places are just depressing."
--
The car stalls three times within five blocks of Brendon's high school.
"Maybe we should just get this back to Spencer's," Ryan says and winces at the sound of gears grinding. "That one was me, sorry."
They park the car on Spencer's driveway, but before they've gotten out, Spencer comes rushing out of the house.
"Park on the street," Spencer hisses, leaning into Ryan's window. "My mom doesn't know we've been driving it."
--
Ryan spends most of his time using the computer in Spencer's family room. Brendon's learned to block out the ting ting ting of Ryan receiving instant messages as Brendon and Spencer battle each other in Final Fantasy.
Brent comes by sometime before dinner.
"Play the winner?" he asks, and Spencer waves him away.
~~~
Brendon punches the wall.
Hard.
For a minute, he thinks that the bang bang bang is the sound of his punch echoing. He rubs his thumb lightly over the dent in the wall and hopes that no one checks carefully enough to notice. He wants his security deposit back. Although, the only way that he's going to be leaving this place is if they leave to record a CD, and at that point, a $350 cheque probably won't matter to him.
There's still the banging though.
Brendon wanders over to his front door and unlocks it to find Spencer glaring at him.
"You don't answer your fucking door anymore?" Spencer asks, pushing inside.
"I thought you liked hitting things and making noise," Brendon tries.
"Huh," Spencer, reaching for Brendon threateningly.
Brendon can't even bring himself to pull away.
"What?" Spencer says. And then, "Do you know your apartment smells like burning?"
"Thanks," Brendon says.
Spencer walks briskly towards the kitchen and Brendon trails behind.
"-- the fuck?" Spencer says.
Brendon doesn't say anything. His oven is still smoking, the sink overflowing water onto the floor.
Spencer turns off the faucet and steps around a puddle of water to close the door to the oven.
"I thought broil meant, like, boil, and I set the time for half an hour and tried to work on my history essay," Brendon says.
"And you put, what, the entire contents of your fridge in there first?"
"I wanted leftovers," Brendon says. "I don't have time to cook when I get home most nights, and I'm so fucking sick of hot pockets."
"Broil means super hot," Spencer says.
"I figured that one out," Brendon says. "Thanks."
Brendon rubs his eyes. It's almost 10:00 which means that there's not time to bus down to the grocery story and try to get more food. He's got school tomorrow, a shift afterward. They're supposed to meet and practice at 8, which will take him past 10:00 again.
Spencer sloshes water around in the sink, but even Brendon can tell he's not actually managing to make anything cleaner. "Just leave it," Brendon says. "The charcoal will still be coating the pan in the morning."
Brendon pulls out a box of cereal and starts eating it dry. "Cheerios?" he offers Spencer.
Spencer takes a small handful.
Brendon's apartment has a kitchen, a long counter with two tall stools for him to eat at, and a room that's supposed to serve as both a bedroom and a living room, but barely has enough floor space for his mattress, amps and guitar cases. He really wishes he had room for a keyboard, but he doesn't even know if his parents would have let him take the keyboard, so it's probably for the best. He misses his parents' piano; a baby grand taking up the room off of the living room, taking up the space that should have held a dining room table. Music was always more important than formal meals.
"You forget something here?" Brendon asks.
Spencer shrugs. "I thought maybe you'd want to watch a movie or something."
Brendon wouldn't mind sleeping for three days straight, but he says, "Sure," puts the box of cereal away, and walks with Spencer to the other room. His TV's about 14 inches, and he's got a VCR, not a DVD player, but they run just fine. Most of the time.
Brendon stretches out on his mattress and just grunts without looking when Spencer holds up two cases for him to choose between. He left his glasses in the bathroom. Spencer settles on the mattress beside him, cross-legged and leaning back against the wall. The mattress is shit, so it dips dramatically under Spencer's weight, and Brendon can feel himself slowly rolling in, closer to Spencer. He lies on his stomach, breathes the scent of his own shampoo in his pillow (that probably means it's time to take his bedding to a laundromat) and closes his eyes.
Brendon isn't aware of falling asleep, but he knows when he wakes back up again. Spencer's leaning over him and whispering, "I'll see you at practice tomorrow."
"You don't have to go," Brendon mutters, his tongue loose from sleep, mouth still pressed into the pillow.
"I didn't tell my mom I was sleeping over," Spencer says. "She'll worry if I'm not there in the morning."
Brendon rolls onto his back and closes his eyes tightly in the dark. Spencer pauses a minute longer, leaves quietly, closing the door carefully, like he doesn't remember that Brendon's just going to have to get up and lock it in a minute anyways.
Brendon knows how to navigate his floor in the dark, but somehow on the way back to bed, he manages to stub his toe on his huge biology textbook. He swears loudly, then to himself, again and again as he settles into bed. "Jesus, fuck," he whispers. "Damn, shit, God. God. God," before he cuts himself off and pulls his sheets up to his ears.
~~~
The blender is making the most awful whirring noise that Brendon's ever heard. His coworker's yelling something at him, but he can't hear it over the noise. He pushes the off button.
"You need yogurt in there, idiot," she says.
Brendon lifts off the top of the lid and looks inside. There's ice, frozen strawberries, cranberries. No yogurt. He walks over to the fridge and pours in the yogurt. The blender rumbles happily when he tries again.
He uses his most charming smile, but the customer just snatches it out of his hand and glares.
"Have a nice day," Brendon says to her retreating back.
"Maybe if you spent less time singing, and more time--" his coworker mutters under her breath.
Brendon's eyes are dry dry dry. He's been wearing his contact lenses for twelve hours straight. There's a pharmacy within walking distance. He's got a set of math problems that are due tomorrow, and he's working the closing shift. He probably couldn't get them all finished over his break, but he could maybe get at least halfway through. Maybe even enough to get completion marks. On the other hand, there's likely some food at the drugstore. He's almost entirely out of breakfast cereal, which basically puts his cupboards into a state of crisis.
Brendon looks up when a frozen blueberry hits him in the neck.
"Earth to Brendon," his boss says.
Somewhere off to the side, someone's giggling, but Brendon doesn't turn his head to see who it is.
~~~
Ryan's girlfriend cheats on him, and all of the sudden everything's about sex.
It's not that Brendon's a virgin or anything (he had sex with Sarah once. Sort of. In the back of his mom's minivan. She'd started crying halfway through, and Brendon said that he wasn't going to tell anyone, but she still made him stop. He had sex with Katherine three times, and the last time she'd even let him fuck her doggy-style. It wasn't awesome like he thought it was going to be though. He couldn't hear her making any noise at all, and the lack of feedback freaked him out to the point where they had to stop. She'd said it was fine, and then again when he asked her, and again. But he'd couldn't--. She'd jerked him off afterwards, way afterwards, and she didn't seem mad or anything, but he didn't call her for a week and she didn't call either, and then it was another week. They weren't ever actually dating, but Brendon was pretty sure that they'd broken up.); it's just that he always thought that sex was supposed to be private, and all of the sudden, Ryan was talking about it all the time. Ryan was talking about sex and going to strip clubs and writing about both things, and then he expected Brendon to sing his words.
Brendon's pretty awesome at the masturbation jokes, but something about talking about girls just makes him uncomfortable. Like, that it's disrespectful, maybe. Ryan's definitely being disrespectful, which Brendon can understand, because his girlfriend did turn out to be a total bitch, but still.
Brent is a virgin, but he got a blowjob three weeks ago, and he hasn't stopped talking about it. Even Ryan's started rolling his eyes when Brent tells the story again.
Brendon doesn't actually have any idea what Spencer's done, and it's not just something that he can ask, so he doesn't.
--
"This song's about the contrast," Ryan says, again.
"I know," Brendon says, even though apparently he doesn't because this is the eighth time that Ryan's stopped him to try and explain what he's supposed to do differently.
"So sing the chorus differently than you sing the verses," Ryan grits out.
Spencer sits behind his kit and spins his sticks between his fingers. Brendon sort of wishes one would fly out of his hand and hit Ryan in the head. That would be amazing.
"I am," Brendon says. It really is the eighth time they've had this conversation.
"It's not just the volume of your voice," Ryan says. "You have to do a different-- I mean. The feeling behind it has to be--."
"I'm probably going to kill you soon," Brendon says, because, hey. Fair warning.
"It's supposed to be sexy," Spencer says. Brendon actually startles. Spencer mostly stays out of their fights entirely. Even more than Brent does, and that's saying something.
"This is the most bitter, vindictive song we've got," Brendon says, slowly, because apparently Spencer's missed something vital. "It's about Ryan's hurt feelings."
"It's a song now," Spencer says. "It doesn't have anything to do with Ryan anymore. And, 'Is it still me that makes you sweat?' That's sexy."
"Yes!" Ryan says excitedly. "That's what you've been doing wrong!"
Brendon makes a slashing motion over his throat with his index finger and glares.
"We done yet?" Brent asks. "I've got a bio test tomorrow."
~~~
Ryan's the biggest mattress-hog that Brendon's ever met.
Brendon hasn't slept with enough people to know this empirically. But, Ryan weighs about 72 pounds, and he takes up 89% of the bed, and Brendon might have got a C- in algebra II, but he still knows that those numbers don't add up.
Brendon wakes up when he hits the floor. It's not that it's a large fall; the mattress is only about a foot off the floor. It's just that Brendon wakes up when he hits the floor, and seriously, what the fuck?
Brendon lifts his head up and whispers, "I'm going to cut off all your hair."
That wakes up Ryan pretty quickly.
"What?" he says, like he's mad that Brendon woke him up.
It's not that Brendon knows for sure that he could beat Ryan in a fight, it's just that right now, he's really tempted to find out.
"This is my mattress," Brendon says, elbowing Ryan sharply in emphasis as he climbs back up. Ryan starts to roll back to the other side. "My mattress on my floor of my shitty apartment. And you are taking up all my space."
"You're such a drama queen," Ryan says, and Brendon can't help the outraged, indignant gasp that slips out. "Go to sleep," Ryan says.
Brendon lies on his back and thinks up all of the sharp things that he could find in his apartment, in case he needed them. Just hypothetically.
~~~
Brendon doesn't have an apartment; he's got a brothel.
"Oh my god," he says to Ryan. "Stop having your rebound all over my nice clean kitchen counters."
The counters aren't actually that clean; the crumbs of many, many bagels make them gritty, and then there's something that makes the crumbs stick. The point is, that girl's ass is on the counter, and her skirt's ridden up so far that it's ridiculous, and oh my god, Brendon hasn't even had sex in his apartment, Ryan's definitely not allowed to christen it first.
Brendon walks into his living area, trips over Brent and one of Brent's friends, and knocks against someone he's never seen before.
He knows he's the only one with his own place, but this is seriously the worst set-up for a party ever. Ever. They'd be better off hanging out in Spencer's mom's basement like they usually do. There are probably only ten or fifteen people over, but the space is jammed full of bodies.
Brendon sits back against the wall. He's tired and he doesn't feel like playing host, or amusing anyone, or ever getting up again.
Spencer sits down beside him and says, "You're being cranky."
"It's my party and I'll cry if I want to," Brendon says. He kind of means it, so his voice achieves a level of deadpan that would even make Ryan proud. Brendon should probably check on his kitchen counters again.
He cranes his head up and tries to see past the stool.
"Ryan took off," Spencer says.
"Right." Brendon wonders if Ryan's still going to be coming back to sleep here tonight.
"Hey, look," Spencer whispers suddenly.
"What?"
"I think Brent's trying to hit on that chick."
Brendon leans against Spencer a little bit. Not enough that anyone would notice, just enough to feel him warm along Brendon's side.
--
People leave pretty early, and Brendon yells his goodbye's from his seat on the floor. Spencer stays by his side for the rest of the night, until everyone else is gone. Only then does he stand, turn, and extend a hand to pull Brendon up too.
Brendon stands, but he stays leaning against the wall.
Spencer leans over and picks up a candy wrapper. It's going to take a lot more than that before his place stops looking like a hurricane went on a roller coaster and then threw up all over his apartment. But, he appreciates the sentiment.
"Don't worry about it," he says, reaching out and taking the wrapper from Spencer. "You drove, right? You've got a way home?"
"Yeah," Spencer says.
"Practice tomorrow?" Brendon says.
"At nine," Spencer confirms. "That's when you get off work, right?"
"Right," Brendon says.
Brendon walks Spencer to the door. It's only about seven feet away from where he was standing, but.
"Hey," Spencer says, softly, once he's got his shoes on. "You wanna come with me? You can sleepover."
"I have to stay," Brendon says. "Ryan's been sleeping over lately."
"Leave a note on the door," Spencer says. "Ryan can sleep at my house too."
"It's okay," Brendon says. "But thanks anyways."
"You sure?"
"Yeah," Brendon says. "This's my home now."
Spencer pushes his hair away from his eyes and nods. Then, he reaches out and pulls Brendon in close. Brendon doesn't mean to, but he leans in and melts into Spencer. Spencer's taller, and he's got this space right at the end of his collarbone, just before his shoulder ends, that fits Brendon's head perfectly.
Brendon realizes how tightly he's clinging and forces himself to loosen his grip. Spencer's arms are looped around his waist and his t-shirt is soft and clean against Brendon's cheek.
Spencer squeezes him tight one last time before he lets go.
"Night."
~~~
Brendon dreams about boardgames and teeth and ladders and tree houses and running and running and running and noise and hallways and sometimes when he wakes up, he has to turn on the light in the bathroom before he can fall back asleep.
He's trying to describe his latest dream to a coworker, when another coworker says, "You gave up dairy right? For your voice?"
Brendon maybe spends a lot of time talking about his band at work. But, it's more interesting that the right consistency of blueberries to blackberries, so.
"Yeah," he says.
"You should try taking some calcium pills. My mom gets nightmares too, and apparently calcium helps."
"I don't have nightmares," Brendon says. But he buys a bottle on the way home.
~~~
Practice goes well.
It goes well in the way that leaves Brendon buzzed and sweating, ready for more, more, more, even though he's having trouble keeping his eyes open.
"We should. We should do something," Brendon says.
"I'm going to call Pete and tell him that we've got another song nailed," Ryan says, and slips away.
Brent's off in the hallway already, dragging his bass behind him as he walks to meet his mom in the parking lot.
"I could give you a ride home?" Spencer offers.
"Yeah," Brendon says. Brendon doesn't really want to be alone in his apartment, even though he's spent all day around people already. "I'll buy you coffee," he says. "Wouldn't that be better than just going home?"
Spencer grins at him and says, "I'm getting a caffeine rush just from looking at you. I need to sleep at some point tonight."
Brendon sighs. He reaches out and turns off the lights, holds the door open for Spencer, then turns back to lock it behind them.
Spencer pulls into the parking lot of an all-night convenience store on the way back to Brendon's place.
"Wanna go see if they have Capri Sun?" he asks. Brendon hops out of the car, grinning.
It turns out that they don't, which sucks, but they do have ice cream that's made out of soy instead of milk. After whispering back and forth about it in the aisle, Spencer and Brendon decide that soy probably won't hurt his voice, and then after more furious whispering, they get the cherry kind.
Brendon scoops the ice cream into cereal bowls. The bowls are kind of big, so he ends up dishing out the whole container. Stupid, tiny, one-liter containers.
He and Spencer sit at the counter and eat. Brendon's never had someone sit and eat with him in his apartment before. There's not a lot of elbow room, but he's glad to have the two stools anyway.
"It's not bad," Spencer says. He picks out the cherries with the tip of his spoon to eat first.
Brendon's been craving dairy for as long as he's given it up, and while this doesn't taste like ice cream, it does taste better than the gallons of apple juice he's been drinking lately.
Brendon takes their bowls to the sink and rubs a washcloth over them quickly. He sets them to dry on the counter and turns back to Spencer.
Spencer leans against a cupboard and crosses his arms across his chest.
"Look at you," he says. "Betty Homemaker."
Brendon flicks water at him from the sink. "Shut up."
"Hey!" Spencer says. He sounds honestly surprised, so Brendon can't resist splashing at him again. Just a little bit, because Brendon's the one who's going to have to clean up the puddles afterwards.
Spencer squawks.
Brendon gives him his very best innocent face, but Spencer's already stalking across the kitchen, trying to pull him away from the water. Brendon's hands are wet and close and he goes right for the bare patch of skin under the hem of Spencer's short t-shirt. The skin is soft and there's an easy give under his fingers. Spencer catches hold of his wrists and though Brendon tries to dig his fingers in, Spencer pulls his hands away easily. Spencer holds Brendon's wrists behind his back and Brendon makes a half-assed effort to get away.
Spencer's taller than he is and Brendon's head is pressed against Spencer's shoulder in the circle of Spencer's arms. He leans his neck backwards and tilts his head up. He honestly means to say something. The words are right there on the tip of his tongue, but then Spencer's bottom lip is on the tip of his tongue and Spencer's opening his mouth, and then it's the tip of Spencer's tongue. Brendon flexes his wrists in Spencer's grip, but he isn't trying to get him to let go.
Spencer kisses him carefully, carefully. He kisses over Brendon's lower lip, drops slow open-mouthed kisses, and Brendon doesn't realize his hands are free until they're smoothing over Spencer's shoulders, touching the fabric of his t-shirt and wishing he was feeling bare skin.
Spencer kisses him until his mouth feels raw. Spencer's hands are still at Brendon's lower back, and when Spencer spreads out his fingers and pulls, Brendon can suddenly get that much closer to him. Brendon feels hot and prickly all over. He's hyper-aware of Spencer's movements, the way that his thumbs are rubbing in slow circles and the tips of his fingers are slipping lower and lower.
When Spencer's thigh comes forward, Brendon almost loses his balance, but, then there's a counter behind him, and it's good, but Brendon still can't move like he wants to and there's a mattress less than fifteen feet away. Brendon wishes that he was smooth, wishes he was taller so that he could just walk them over, but instead he has to say, "We could-- Do you want to, um. Maybe." He's not trying to whisper, but his voice is low and rough. Spencer watches his mouth, glances back up to Brendon's eyes in such a way that it only serves to highlight when his gaze drops again.
Brendon pushes away from the counter. For a brief moment, they're pressed close close close together, and Brendon shivers. Then Spencer steps aside and lets Brendon lead them in the stumble out of the kitchen.
Brendon doesn't have a bed frame, so it's a long drop to the ground, with very little bounce when he hits. He oohs, and Spencer drops to his knees before crawling over him. Spencer kisses him slowly, soft, soft, and presses their foreheads together.
Spencer holds himself up over Brendon, but when Brendon kisses over his jaw and tugs on his earlobe gently, Spencer forgets himself and drops down. Brendon gasps against Spencer's ear. He just barely breathes out, "Please," but Spencer must hear him because he starts moving slowly. Brendon gasps, again, and moves his head to muffle the sound in Spencer's shoulder.
Brendon's had sex, but he's never had anything like the press of Spencer's cock against his own. Spencer moves his hips quickly. Brendon clings to his upper arms and tries to press up as best he can. Tries not to throw off Spencer's rhythm. He really doesn't want Spencer to stop.
The lights are still on, and it's easy to see the way the flush spreads down Spencer's cheeks, under the collar of his t-shirt. Brendon tries to convince Spencer's t-shirt to disappear using the power of his mind, and when that fails, he tugs and tugs at the fabric until Spencer helps him pull it off. Then there's a whole lot of skin under Brendon's fingers. Brendon is starting to think about pulling off his own shirt, starting to wonder if he can get Spencer to take off his pants as well, except then Spencer reaches under his hips and holds him in place so that he can move better. Brendon wraps his legs around Spencer's waist. A little noise slips out, then another, and Brendon is hot in his t-shirt, straining against the thick fabric of his jeans.
Spencer's hair is in his face, clinging to his cheek. If Brendon had any extra hands or brain cells, he'd brush it away. As it is, he holds on tightly and lets the rhythm Spencer's built between them push him over the edge. His orgasm fizzles in and spreads so quickly that he's just as aware of the rushing in his ears as he is the jerking of his cock.
Spencer's still moving, and Brendon closes his eyes tightly and melts into the mattress, into Spencer's hands. Spencer starts to jerk unsteadily and Brendon runs his hands over Spencer's back again and again. He keeps moving them, even after the muscles under his palms relax, and Spencer loosens his grip on Brendon's hips. Even when Spencer slumps down, just off to the side so that he still covers Brendon's body with his own, but doesn't crush his lungs. Even when Spencer starts kissing his way up Brendon's shoulder, but then Brendon forgets about his hands and starts paying a lot of attention to the wet slide of Spencer's mouth.
It takes them a while to pull apart, longer yet before Brendon actually lets him go entirely.
Spencer stretches out and grins at Brendon. "Pretty comfy," he says. "For a mattress on the floor."
"Yeah," Brendon says. "I do alright."
Spencer/Brendon | NC-17 | ~ 4600 words
When Brendon moves away from home, his parents give him the kitchen table that's been sitting in their garage (and the two phone books required to balance out the uneven legs), a cheque for forty-five dollars to get a phone-line installed, and a key to their house.
This is for redsambuca, for nightmare_xmas. Thanks so much to elfiepike for betaing, and for everyone else who looked over snippets of this as I was writing it.
The baseboards are missing in one corner of the main room, so the floor curls away from the wall, folded over on itself where it's come apart completely. Brendon walks over and nudges at the flap of carpet with his sneakered toe. It flops back towards the wall.
"Are you sure you're eighteen?" the landlord asks, hovering in the doorway.
"Absolutely," Brendon says. "I can move in right now, right?"
--
When Brendon moves away from home, his parents give him the kitchen table that's been sitting in their garage (and the two phone books required to balance out the uneven legs), a cheque for forty-five dollars to get a phone-line installed, and a key to their house.
Brendon and his siblings were never allowed keys to the house growing up, because their parents didn't want them coming and going as they pleased, at all hours of the night.
"Doors lock at 11:30," Mr. Urie always said. "Be home by then or sleep on the porch."
Brendon wants to give the key back, but he bites his tongue, presses the key carefully into the bottom of his wallet, and hears them lock the front door behind him as he walks to the cab.
~~~
Ryan and Spencer spend almost every day with him for a good three weeks after he moves out.
"We have to finish the de-Mormonization process," Spencer says.
"I've already left the church," Brendon reminds them.
"But," Ryan says, "you vacillate between making genuinely inappropriate jokes and blushing about almost completely innocent things."
"Clearly our work is not done," Spencer adds.
But Brendon knows they're just keeping an eye of him.
--
Ryan picks him up after school in the ridiculous Bug that he and Spencer have been attempting to drive lately. Brendon tosses his backpack in the backseat and tucks his feet inside gingerly to avoid the crack in the flooring.
"So," Ryan says. "What do you want to do?"
"I have two hours before my shift starts at work and four chapters of homework assignments to finish in math," Brendon says. "I don't know. I've never been to a stripclub," he offers.
"Me neither," Ryan says. "And I'm never going to. Those places are just depressing."
--
The car stalls three times within five blocks of Brendon's high school.
"Maybe we should just get this back to Spencer's," Ryan says and winces at the sound of gears grinding. "That one was me, sorry."
They park the car on Spencer's driveway, but before they've gotten out, Spencer comes rushing out of the house.
"Park on the street," Spencer hisses, leaning into Ryan's window. "My mom doesn't know we've been driving it."
--
Ryan spends most of his time using the computer in Spencer's family room. Brendon's learned to block out the ting ting ting of Ryan receiving instant messages as Brendon and Spencer battle each other in Final Fantasy.
Brent comes by sometime before dinner.
"Play the winner?" he asks, and Spencer waves him away.
~~~
Brendon punches the wall.
Hard.
For a minute, he thinks that the bang bang bang is the sound of his punch echoing. He rubs his thumb lightly over the dent in the wall and hopes that no one checks carefully enough to notice. He wants his security deposit back. Although, the only way that he's going to be leaving this place is if they leave to record a CD, and at that point, a $350 cheque probably won't matter to him.
There's still the banging though.
Brendon wanders over to his front door and unlocks it to find Spencer glaring at him.
"You don't answer your fucking door anymore?" Spencer asks, pushing inside.
"I thought you liked hitting things and making noise," Brendon tries.
"Huh," Spencer, reaching for Brendon threateningly.
Brendon can't even bring himself to pull away.
"What?" Spencer says. And then, "Do you know your apartment smells like burning?"
"Thanks," Brendon says.
Spencer walks briskly towards the kitchen and Brendon trails behind.
"-- the fuck?" Spencer says.
Brendon doesn't say anything. His oven is still smoking, the sink overflowing water onto the floor.
Spencer turns off the faucet and steps around a puddle of water to close the door to the oven.
"I thought broil meant, like, boil, and I set the time for half an hour and tried to work on my history essay," Brendon says.
"And you put, what, the entire contents of your fridge in there first?"
"I wanted leftovers," Brendon says. "I don't have time to cook when I get home most nights, and I'm so fucking sick of hot pockets."
"Broil means super hot," Spencer says.
"I figured that one out," Brendon says. "Thanks."
Brendon rubs his eyes. It's almost 10:00 which means that there's not time to bus down to the grocery story and try to get more food. He's got school tomorrow, a shift afterward. They're supposed to meet and practice at 8, which will take him past 10:00 again.
Spencer sloshes water around in the sink, but even Brendon can tell he's not actually managing to make anything cleaner. "Just leave it," Brendon says. "The charcoal will still be coating the pan in the morning."
Brendon pulls out a box of cereal and starts eating it dry. "Cheerios?" he offers Spencer.
Spencer takes a small handful.
Brendon's apartment has a kitchen, a long counter with two tall stools for him to eat at, and a room that's supposed to serve as both a bedroom and a living room, but barely has enough floor space for his mattress, amps and guitar cases. He really wishes he had room for a keyboard, but he doesn't even know if his parents would have let him take the keyboard, so it's probably for the best. He misses his parents' piano; a baby grand taking up the room off of the living room, taking up the space that should have held a dining room table. Music was always more important than formal meals.
"You forget something here?" Brendon asks.
Spencer shrugs. "I thought maybe you'd want to watch a movie or something."
Brendon wouldn't mind sleeping for three days straight, but he says, "Sure," puts the box of cereal away, and walks with Spencer to the other room. His TV's about 14 inches, and he's got a VCR, not a DVD player, but they run just fine. Most of the time.
Brendon stretches out on his mattress and just grunts without looking when Spencer holds up two cases for him to choose between. He left his glasses in the bathroom. Spencer settles on the mattress beside him, cross-legged and leaning back against the wall. The mattress is shit, so it dips dramatically under Spencer's weight, and Brendon can feel himself slowly rolling in, closer to Spencer. He lies on his stomach, breathes the scent of his own shampoo in his pillow (that probably means it's time to take his bedding to a laundromat) and closes his eyes.
Brendon isn't aware of falling asleep, but he knows when he wakes back up again. Spencer's leaning over him and whispering, "I'll see you at practice tomorrow."
"You don't have to go," Brendon mutters, his tongue loose from sleep, mouth still pressed into the pillow.
"I didn't tell my mom I was sleeping over," Spencer says. "She'll worry if I'm not there in the morning."
Brendon rolls onto his back and closes his eyes tightly in the dark. Spencer pauses a minute longer, leaves quietly, closing the door carefully, like he doesn't remember that Brendon's just going to have to get up and lock it in a minute anyways.
Brendon knows how to navigate his floor in the dark, but somehow on the way back to bed, he manages to stub his toe on his huge biology textbook. He swears loudly, then to himself, again and again as he settles into bed. "Jesus, fuck," he whispers. "Damn, shit, God. God. God," before he cuts himself off and pulls his sheets up to his ears.
~~~
The blender is making the most awful whirring noise that Brendon's ever heard. His coworker's yelling something at him, but he can't hear it over the noise. He pushes the off button.
"You need yogurt in there, idiot," she says.
Brendon lifts off the top of the lid and looks inside. There's ice, frozen strawberries, cranberries. No yogurt. He walks over to the fridge and pours in the yogurt. The blender rumbles happily when he tries again.
He uses his most charming smile, but the customer just snatches it out of his hand and glares.
"Have a nice day," Brendon says to her retreating back.
"Maybe if you spent less time singing, and more time--" his coworker mutters under her breath.
Brendon's eyes are dry dry dry. He's been wearing his contact lenses for twelve hours straight. There's a pharmacy within walking distance. He's got a set of math problems that are due tomorrow, and he's working the closing shift. He probably couldn't get them all finished over his break, but he could maybe get at least halfway through. Maybe even enough to get completion marks. On the other hand, there's likely some food at the drugstore. He's almost entirely out of breakfast cereal, which basically puts his cupboards into a state of crisis.
Brendon looks up when a frozen blueberry hits him in the neck.
"Earth to Brendon," his boss says.
Somewhere off to the side, someone's giggling, but Brendon doesn't turn his head to see who it is.
~~~
Ryan's girlfriend cheats on him, and all of the sudden everything's about sex.
It's not that Brendon's a virgin or anything (he had sex with Sarah once. Sort of. In the back of his mom's minivan. She'd started crying halfway through, and Brendon said that he wasn't going to tell anyone, but she still made him stop. He had sex with Katherine three times, and the last time she'd even let him fuck her doggy-style. It wasn't awesome like he thought it was going to be though. He couldn't hear her making any noise at all, and the lack of feedback freaked him out to the point where they had to stop. She'd said it was fine, and then again when he asked her, and again. But he'd couldn't--. She'd jerked him off afterwards, way afterwards, and she didn't seem mad or anything, but he didn't call her for a week and she didn't call either, and then it was another week. They weren't ever actually dating, but Brendon was pretty sure that they'd broken up.); it's just that he always thought that sex was supposed to be private, and all of the sudden, Ryan was talking about it all the time. Ryan was talking about sex and going to strip clubs and writing about both things, and then he expected Brendon to sing his words.
Brendon's pretty awesome at the masturbation jokes, but something about talking about girls just makes him uncomfortable. Like, that it's disrespectful, maybe. Ryan's definitely being disrespectful, which Brendon can understand, because his girlfriend did turn out to be a total bitch, but still.
Brent is a virgin, but he got a blowjob three weeks ago, and he hasn't stopped talking about it. Even Ryan's started rolling his eyes when Brent tells the story again.
Brendon doesn't actually have any idea what Spencer's done, and it's not just something that he can ask, so he doesn't.
--
"This song's about the contrast," Ryan says, again.
"I know," Brendon says, even though apparently he doesn't because this is the eighth time that Ryan's stopped him to try and explain what he's supposed to do differently.
"So sing the chorus differently than you sing the verses," Ryan grits out.
Spencer sits behind his kit and spins his sticks between his fingers. Brendon sort of wishes one would fly out of his hand and hit Ryan in the head. That would be amazing.
"I am," Brendon says. It really is the eighth time they've had this conversation.
"It's not just the volume of your voice," Ryan says. "You have to do a different-- I mean. The feeling behind it has to be--."
"I'm probably going to kill you soon," Brendon says, because, hey. Fair warning.
"It's supposed to be sexy," Spencer says. Brendon actually startles. Spencer mostly stays out of their fights entirely. Even more than Brent does, and that's saying something.
"This is the most bitter, vindictive song we've got," Brendon says, slowly, because apparently Spencer's missed something vital. "It's about Ryan's hurt feelings."
"It's a song now," Spencer says. "It doesn't have anything to do with Ryan anymore. And, 'Is it still me that makes you sweat?' That's sexy."
"Yes!" Ryan says excitedly. "That's what you've been doing wrong!"
Brendon makes a slashing motion over his throat with his index finger and glares.
"We done yet?" Brent asks. "I've got a bio test tomorrow."
~~~
Ryan's the biggest mattress-hog that Brendon's ever met.
Brendon hasn't slept with enough people to know this empirically. But, Ryan weighs about 72 pounds, and he takes up 89% of the bed, and Brendon might have got a C- in algebra II, but he still knows that those numbers don't add up.
Brendon wakes up when he hits the floor. It's not that it's a large fall; the mattress is only about a foot off the floor. It's just that Brendon wakes up when he hits the floor, and seriously, what the fuck?
Brendon lifts his head up and whispers, "I'm going to cut off all your hair."
That wakes up Ryan pretty quickly.
"What?" he says, like he's mad that Brendon woke him up.
It's not that Brendon knows for sure that he could beat Ryan in a fight, it's just that right now, he's really tempted to find out.
"This is my mattress," Brendon says, elbowing Ryan sharply in emphasis as he climbs back up. Ryan starts to roll back to the other side. "My mattress on my floor of my shitty apartment. And you are taking up all my space."
"You're such a drama queen," Ryan says, and Brendon can't help the outraged, indignant gasp that slips out. "Go to sleep," Ryan says.
Brendon lies on his back and thinks up all of the sharp things that he could find in his apartment, in case he needed them. Just hypothetically.
~~~
Brendon doesn't have an apartment; he's got a brothel.
"Oh my god," he says to Ryan. "Stop having your rebound all over my nice clean kitchen counters."
The counters aren't actually that clean; the crumbs of many, many bagels make them gritty, and then there's something that makes the crumbs stick. The point is, that girl's ass is on the counter, and her skirt's ridden up so far that it's ridiculous, and oh my god, Brendon hasn't even had sex in his apartment, Ryan's definitely not allowed to christen it first.
Brendon walks into his living area, trips over Brent and one of Brent's friends, and knocks against someone he's never seen before.
He knows he's the only one with his own place, but this is seriously the worst set-up for a party ever. Ever. They'd be better off hanging out in Spencer's mom's basement like they usually do. There are probably only ten or fifteen people over, but the space is jammed full of bodies.
Brendon sits back against the wall. He's tired and he doesn't feel like playing host, or amusing anyone, or ever getting up again.
Spencer sits down beside him and says, "You're being cranky."
"It's my party and I'll cry if I want to," Brendon says. He kind of means it, so his voice achieves a level of deadpan that would even make Ryan proud. Brendon should probably check on his kitchen counters again.
He cranes his head up and tries to see past the stool.
"Ryan took off," Spencer says.
"Right." Brendon wonders if Ryan's still going to be coming back to sleep here tonight.
"Hey, look," Spencer whispers suddenly.
"What?"
"I think Brent's trying to hit on that chick."
Brendon leans against Spencer a little bit. Not enough that anyone would notice, just enough to feel him warm along Brendon's side.
--
People leave pretty early, and Brendon yells his goodbye's from his seat on the floor. Spencer stays by his side for the rest of the night, until everyone else is gone. Only then does he stand, turn, and extend a hand to pull Brendon up too.
Brendon stands, but he stays leaning against the wall.
Spencer leans over and picks up a candy wrapper. It's going to take a lot more than that before his place stops looking like a hurricane went on a roller coaster and then threw up all over his apartment. But, he appreciates the sentiment.
"Don't worry about it," he says, reaching out and taking the wrapper from Spencer. "You drove, right? You've got a way home?"
"Yeah," Spencer says.
"Practice tomorrow?" Brendon says.
"At nine," Spencer confirms. "That's when you get off work, right?"
"Right," Brendon says.
Brendon walks Spencer to the door. It's only about seven feet away from where he was standing, but.
"Hey," Spencer says, softly, once he's got his shoes on. "You wanna come with me? You can sleepover."
"I have to stay," Brendon says. "Ryan's been sleeping over lately."
"Leave a note on the door," Spencer says. "Ryan can sleep at my house too."
"It's okay," Brendon says. "But thanks anyways."
"You sure?"
"Yeah," Brendon says. "This's my home now."
Spencer pushes his hair away from his eyes and nods. Then, he reaches out and pulls Brendon in close. Brendon doesn't mean to, but he leans in and melts into Spencer. Spencer's taller, and he's got this space right at the end of his collarbone, just before his shoulder ends, that fits Brendon's head perfectly.
Brendon realizes how tightly he's clinging and forces himself to loosen his grip. Spencer's arms are looped around his waist and his t-shirt is soft and clean against Brendon's cheek.
Spencer squeezes him tight one last time before he lets go.
"Night."
~~~
Brendon dreams about boardgames and teeth and ladders and tree houses and running and running and running and noise and hallways and sometimes when he wakes up, he has to turn on the light in the bathroom before he can fall back asleep.
He's trying to describe his latest dream to a coworker, when another coworker says, "You gave up dairy right? For your voice?"
Brendon maybe spends a lot of time talking about his band at work. But, it's more interesting that the right consistency of blueberries to blackberries, so.
"Yeah," he says.
"You should try taking some calcium pills. My mom gets nightmares too, and apparently calcium helps."
"I don't have nightmares," Brendon says. But he buys a bottle on the way home.
~~~
Practice goes well.
It goes well in the way that leaves Brendon buzzed and sweating, ready for more, more, more, even though he's having trouble keeping his eyes open.
"We should. We should do something," Brendon says.
"I'm going to call Pete and tell him that we've got another song nailed," Ryan says, and slips away.
Brent's off in the hallway already, dragging his bass behind him as he walks to meet his mom in the parking lot.
"I could give you a ride home?" Spencer offers.
"Yeah," Brendon says. Brendon doesn't really want to be alone in his apartment, even though he's spent all day around people already. "I'll buy you coffee," he says. "Wouldn't that be better than just going home?"
Spencer grins at him and says, "I'm getting a caffeine rush just from looking at you. I need to sleep at some point tonight."
Brendon sighs. He reaches out and turns off the lights, holds the door open for Spencer, then turns back to lock it behind them.
Spencer pulls into the parking lot of an all-night convenience store on the way back to Brendon's place.
"Wanna go see if they have Capri Sun?" he asks. Brendon hops out of the car, grinning.
It turns out that they don't, which sucks, but they do have ice cream that's made out of soy instead of milk. After whispering back and forth about it in the aisle, Spencer and Brendon decide that soy probably won't hurt his voice, and then after more furious whispering, they get the cherry kind.
Brendon scoops the ice cream into cereal bowls. The bowls are kind of big, so he ends up dishing out the whole container. Stupid, tiny, one-liter containers.
He and Spencer sit at the counter and eat. Brendon's never had someone sit and eat with him in his apartment before. There's not a lot of elbow room, but he's glad to have the two stools anyway.
"It's not bad," Spencer says. He picks out the cherries with the tip of his spoon to eat first.
Brendon's been craving dairy for as long as he's given it up, and while this doesn't taste like ice cream, it does taste better than the gallons of apple juice he's been drinking lately.
Brendon takes their bowls to the sink and rubs a washcloth over them quickly. He sets them to dry on the counter and turns back to Spencer.
Spencer leans against a cupboard and crosses his arms across his chest.
"Look at you," he says. "Betty Homemaker."
Brendon flicks water at him from the sink. "Shut up."
"Hey!" Spencer says. He sounds honestly surprised, so Brendon can't resist splashing at him again. Just a little bit, because Brendon's the one who's going to have to clean up the puddles afterwards.
Spencer squawks.
Brendon gives him his very best innocent face, but Spencer's already stalking across the kitchen, trying to pull him away from the water. Brendon's hands are wet and close and he goes right for the bare patch of skin under the hem of Spencer's short t-shirt. The skin is soft and there's an easy give under his fingers. Spencer catches hold of his wrists and though Brendon tries to dig his fingers in, Spencer pulls his hands away easily. Spencer holds Brendon's wrists behind his back and Brendon makes a half-assed effort to get away.
Spencer's taller than he is and Brendon's head is pressed against Spencer's shoulder in the circle of Spencer's arms. He leans his neck backwards and tilts his head up. He honestly means to say something. The words are right there on the tip of his tongue, but then Spencer's bottom lip is on the tip of his tongue and Spencer's opening his mouth, and then it's the tip of Spencer's tongue. Brendon flexes his wrists in Spencer's grip, but he isn't trying to get him to let go.
Spencer kisses him carefully, carefully. He kisses over Brendon's lower lip, drops slow open-mouthed kisses, and Brendon doesn't realize his hands are free until they're smoothing over Spencer's shoulders, touching the fabric of his t-shirt and wishing he was feeling bare skin.
Spencer kisses him until his mouth feels raw. Spencer's hands are still at Brendon's lower back, and when Spencer spreads out his fingers and pulls, Brendon can suddenly get that much closer to him. Brendon feels hot and prickly all over. He's hyper-aware of Spencer's movements, the way that his thumbs are rubbing in slow circles and the tips of his fingers are slipping lower and lower.
When Spencer's thigh comes forward, Brendon almost loses his balance, but, then there's a counter behind him, and it's good, but Brendon still can't move like he wants to and there's a mattress less than fifteen feet away. Brendon wishes that he was smooth, wishes he was taller so that he could just walk them over, but instead he has to say, "We could-- Do you want to, um. Maybe." He's not trying to whisper, but his voice is low and rough. Spencer watches his mouth, glances back up to Brendon's eyes in such a way that it only serves to highlight when his gaze drops again.
Brendon pushes away from the counter. For a brief moment, they're pressed close close close together, and Brendon shivers. Then Spencer steps aside and lets Brendon lead them in the stumble out of the kitchen.
Brendon doesn't have a bed frame, so it's a long drop to the ground, with very little bounce when he hits. He oohs, and Spencer drops to his knees before crawling over him. Spencer kisses him slowly, soft, soft, and presses their foreheads together.
Spencer holds himself up over Brendon, but when Brendon kisses over his jaw and tugs on his earlobe gently, Spencer forgets himself and drops down. Brendon gasps against Spencer's ear. He just barely breathes out, "Please," but Spencer must hear him because he starts moving slowly. Brendon gasps, again, and moves his head to muffle the sound in Spencer's shoulder.
Brendon's had sex, but he's never had anything like the press of Spencer's cock against his own. Spencer moves his hips quickly. Brendon clings to his upper arms and tries to press up as best he can. Tries not to throw off Spencer's rhythm. He really doesn't want Spencer to stop.
The lights are still on, and it's easy to see the way the flush spreads down Spencer's cheeks, under the collar of his t-shirt. Brendon tries to convince Spencer's t-shirt to disappear using the power of his mind, and when that fails, he tugs and tugs at the fabric until Spencer helps him pull it off. Then there's a whole lot of skin under Brendon's fingers. Brendon is starting to think about pulling off his own shirt, starting to wonder if he can get Spencer to take off his pants as well, except then Spencer reaches under his hips and holds him in place so that he can move better. Brendon wraps his legs around Spencer's waist. A little noise slips out, then another, and Brendon is hot in his t-shirt, straining against the thick fabric of his jeans.
Spencer's hair is in his face, clinging to his cheek. If Brendon had any extra hands or brain cells, he'd brush it away. As it is, he holds on tightly and lets the rhythm Spencer's built between them push him over the edge. His orgasm fizzles in and spreads so quickly that he's just as aware of the rushing in his ears as he is the jerking of his cock.
Spencer's still moving, and Brendon closes his eyes tightly and melts into the mattress, into Spencer's hands. Spencer starts to jerk unsteadily and Brendon runs his hands over Spencer's back again and again. He keeps moving them, even after the muscles under his palms relax, and Spencer loosens his grip on Brendon's hips. Even when Spencer slumps down, just off to the side so that he still covers Brendon's body with his own, but doesn't crush his lungs. Even when Spencer starts kissing his way up Brendon's shoulder, but then Brendon forgets about his hands and starts paying a lot of attention to the wet slide of Spencer's mouth.
It takes them a while to pull apart, longer yet before Brendon actually lets him go entirely.
Spencer stretches out and grins at Brendon. "Pretty comfy," he says. "For a mattress on the floor."
"Yeah," Brendon says. "I do alright."