Fic: Thou Warmed with Multiplying Loves
Thou Warmed with Multiplying Loves
Or Five Times Panic Married Each Other (and Maybe One Time when They All Did)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Don't own, no profit. Don't google yourself or your friends
Pairings: Brendon/Ryan, Jon/Brendon, Jon/Spencer, Ryan/Spencer, Brendon/Spencer, and Panic!gsf
AN: So, sometimes I like fluffy things, like where they all get married. Sometimes I like it enough to write them all out. The weddings are different storylines because that wouldn't be happy and fluffy, and I choose to write in a world where everyone can get married, damn it. Title and middle lines taken from John Donne, because I'm a shameless fangirl.
Beta by rossetti. Written for nova33 for she is awesome.
I cannot breathe one other sigh, to move
Nor can intreat one other tear to fall
It's hot, no circulation, and Brendon can feel himself sweating while the justice of the peace talks. It's nothing new, he sweats if he stands still, but it's different now because he's looking at Ryan, into Ryan's eyes, and Ryan's got the faintest, faintest sheen of perspiration too, just on his forehead.
He leans up, just enough that his forehead can rest on the curve of Ryan's nose, and they're both sticky. Ryan smells like he always does, nutmeg and maybe a little bit too much like pot and old cigarettes from hanging out backstage. Ryan's hand comes up and takes his, fingers intertwined until he can feel Ryan's callouses on the back of his hand.
When he was little, he imagined church weddings with family and friends and a hundred people that would give him presents. He imagined that he would be nervous and wearing a tux with shoes that didn't fit right, because that was what his father and uncles talked about.
He breathes in, smelling Ryan and the weird old-paper smell of the room. His neck is starting to ache.
"You're too tall," Brendon whispers. Ryan had to wear his ridiculous shoes with ridiculous heels because they're supposed to be out getting food before the sound check, but the courthouse looked aged, weathered, and there was a bird carved into stone face, deep gouges into rock so it looked hollow and Ryan had squeezed his hand, and that was that.
There's music piping in from the waiting room, something that's supposed to be cheery but is actually just shrill and most likely going to be stuck in his head later. He hopes that he can remember it, later, after Jon finishes teasing them about not being able to wait until they got home, to families or a thousand wedding chapels that could do that sort of thing, instead of a nameless building in a minor town.
The justice stops talking, and he can hear Spencer laughing, somewhere, back there in a place that is not right here with his hand hot in Ryan's and the sweat making his t-shirt stick to his back.
"We have other couples to marry," the justice says, and Brendon forces himself to pull back, to let the justice finish the job with just Spencer and Shane looking on when they lean into each other.
Love's riddles are, that though thy heart depart,
It stays at home, and thou with losing savest it
Jon grins as he watches Brendon walk. He's supposed to be nervous, but he's not because this is home. It's four months after the band hiatuses for what feels like is going to be forever, when Keltie and Ryan have two squirming girls that won't sit still, and Spencer's hovering around Haley like she's more than six months along. It's a warm summer, warm enough that the guests can go barefoot in his parent's backyard.
There are neat lines of chairs that are filled now, nieces and nephews, friends and people that they wanted here. Brendon's got a smattering of relatives, and they're watching him walk on the ridiculous white cloth that Jon's mom insisted on laying down. He's barefoot, like Jon, like this should all be one of those ridiculous celebrity weddings that you see pictures of, like it isn't be in suburban Chicago so Tom can be there, and Bill, and Nick, and everyone.
Greta's supposed to be playing the march, but she and Brendon share a look, and then it's "A Whole New World." Brendon laughs, hands to his mouth, and Jon can almost hear Ryan rolling his eyes over the shouts of the guests because everyone knows that stupid story, the one that they've told a hundred thousand times and can't seem to get tired of.
When Brendon gets to the end, when they're close enough that he can reach across and take Brendon's hand and see smiling faces over the other man's shoulder, see the flashes of digital camera and maybe a few waving cellphones because their friends are still assholes, even today of all days, Brendon's grin has faded down to a smile.
Brendon reaches up and rubs Jon's cheeks with quick passes of his fingers, and, oh he hadn't realized. He wants to say something, as the chorus of the song swells, but then the officiate is talking, and he sort of forgets everything that isn't Brendon.
The ground, your heart, is mine; what ever shall
Grow there, dear, I should have it all.
It's stupid, and it's exactly the thing that he said he wasn't going to do, not ever, but then they're at the Palms again, the four of them talking about maybe recording the third album here. Brendon and Ryan are arguing logistics, and Spencer just looked at Jon and said, "Hey, let's go downstairs," simple as anything, just to get away from the way Brendon and Ryan are about three seconds from a cat fight.
Going to the casino with Jon is more dangerous than it is with Ryan, who loves the tables. The three of them, the ones that are used to going into by a coke at a gas station and having to walk past three slot machines to do it, aren't fazed by the pinging and the lights, but Jon is. It's all you can do, usually, to keep him from sitting down and blowing a quick fifty.
And he doesn't know why this seemed like the best idea, when Jon had been mentioning more Hey, maybe someday... when it was quiet and comfortable and they could lie under the blankets together and not roast. It's a nice thought, a good one, and he thinks about it when Jon's just standing next to him or they're at an interview and someone mentions girlfriend, when Ryan can preen and say he has a fiancée.
So when they hit the floor, before Jon can fall in love with one of the penny machines that's probably called Mermaid's Treasure or something, he blurts out, "So we're in Vegas." It's the wrong thing to say, because Ryan's upstairs with Brendon, and their families aren't here. They don't even have rings.
Jon blinks, looks up, and he's smiling the same smile that Spencer sees when they wake up together, every day for a year and a half, the one that means he's going to kiss Spencer even though Jon can some ridiculous morning breath, and he kisses Spencer then before pulling back and saying, "So, we are in Vegas."
It's why he's standing in front of some woman with too much eyeliner and a gold gown while she trips over the lines. He's sort of vaguely disappointed that it's not an Elvis, just to top of everything in this scenario that he was never, ever going to do. She's probably a former show girl, and she has to adjust an eyelash to finish reading the vows off, passing over the rings they bought for twenty bucks at the little shop outside the chapel. Spencer leans his shoulder to Jon's and tries not to laugh when she asks if anyone has any objections, because he can feel his sidekick vibrating in the back pocket of his jeans.
Than changing hearts, to join them; so we shall
Be one, and one another's all.
It's not something that they've ever seriously considered finishing, after two years of being engaged and perfectly fine with it, because it's just piece of paper and a tax break at the end of the day. It just sounds better than boyfriend, though he likes just Spencer better. They don't need it, and he knows that. They don't need it because they're just them, and Ryan knows that having it could change things. He doesn't like change, no matter how many times he's talked about it being necessary. People can change and music can, too, but he likes to wrap relationships around himself like a blanket and burrow down because that relationship is the only thing keeping him warm, like he's naked in a breezy fall night.
But then things have changed (and he can hear his own refrain in his thoughts, and it's sort of horrifying. He'll tell Spencer about it, after, when they're done making faces at each other because they're doing this like serious rock stars, last night of the tour and everything.) They're older with a little more sense, and he'll been twenty-five for two more days. He doesn't want their dogs to feel like they're in broken homes, shuttling back and forth between two half-full houses that are a little more than a walk away.
And maybe--maybe--when he's watching Ashlee and Pete and their growing brood, he wants that too.
He can tell Spencer all that later, even though he probably already knows because he's Spencer and he always knows. Right now he has to stay still and pretend that he's listening to Jon, because Jon agreed to marry Tom two months ago when they hit Chicago, did the whole Universal Life Church quickie ordination (which is when Ryan should have known how this story was going to end, because Jon made sure Spencer and Ryan both knew when his application was approved), and now he's waxing on about how he knew this was meant to be because love was the only explanation behind why Spencer would let Ryan paint those ridiculous eyeliner mustaches on his face.
They're laughing before they get to the vows, their best man in full out giggles. It's twenty minutes until they have to get on stage and do sound check, and he'll get thirty texts when this is over--probably has ten now--about still fanboying My Chemical Romance, but it doesn't matter because Spencer threads his hand into Ryan's hair and pulls him up for the kiss before Jon's made it past "You may--"
And all my treasure, which should purchase thee,
Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters I have spent
Brendon doesn't look at the empty pew. He can feel it behind him though, the empty line that's supposed to be his family and it just two empty benches, still, when the ceremony starts. They all got invitations in the mail, because Spencer said if they were going to do this, they were going to fucking do this, in one of the three churches that didn't seem to think anything was strange. He's pretty sure he's marrying Episcopalian, but that sort of thing stopped behind important when he stopped listening to Joseph Smith. Spencer's baptized and communed Catholic, but here they are in front of a priest whose church may or may not have been started off of some king's burning need to get laid .
He wants to snicker into his hand, but he doesn't because Spencer's staring at him with soft blue eyes before he's saying the vows, and he really, really hopes that Shane's out there taping, because he can't hear anything outside of, "Brendon, I never thought I wanted," and he's already fucking bawling like a baby because this is Spencer, holding his hands and in a white tux, with his hair as shiny as ever and he's wearing the stupid white headband because Brendon asked.
The pews behind him are still empty. Kara is the only one who RSVPed, and she couldn't get out of work in time; she couldn't leave Hawaii. His parents haven't talked to him since he did the Vegas show and said, by the way, he's getting married in three months to someone who agreed to all of this, the fuss and the flower girl, because it was what Brendon wanted.
His heart stutters a little when Spencer finishes his part, because it's his turn to talk and he can't remember what he's supposed to say. He wrote it down and everything, practiced in front of Jon and Shane until they could recite long passages back, but he can't remember.
Spencer squeezes his hand and mouths, "It's all right."
Brendon smiles and looks at his audience, at Spencer's family and their friends, and he tries not to look at the empty pews. He almost misses the woman that's standing in the very back of the church, hands clutched around her purse and coat still buttoned. She looks pale except for where cold wind nipped her nose and cheeks pink, and maybe ready to pass out, but she's not mad. Brendon's had almost thirty years, minus about eighteen months for bad behavior and life "choices" that she couldn't very well support, to learn what her face looks like when she's mad.
He swallows her name down, but he can't not let her know that he sees her. He nods, and she gives him a quick smile. He has her thighs and her mouth, and it's familiar and good. She doesn't need to come forward from the back, but he nods again, to the empty spot in front.
She hesitates but walks around the side until she's in the front row and his pews aren't empty. Spencer squeezes his hand again, and Brendon turns back, beaming even though he knows his face is a mess. His nose is probably going to be snotty by the time they get to the end.
Spencer grins, one of his fucking beaming smiles that still make Brendon's heart feel weak, and Brendon laughs, nervous, before he's saying, "I guess this is the part where I have to tell you how I loved you forever?" There's nervous laughter from the guests, but Spencer just shrugs, like Brendon could actually get out of that.
"Spencer Smith," he says, drawing out Spencer's name, "I remember when Brent took me to your grandma's house, and you wouldn't talk to me for the first hour until I had to get down and do a Gollum impression, and then you called me a dork. Obviously, this was meant to be..."
If then thou gavest me all,
All was but all, which thou hadst then
It's cold, colder than Nevada because Jon wanted to see snow, and who are they to deny Jon anything? It's the four of them, now, in some cabin up in the mountains of Colorado where they only know each other and don't go into town for days at a time, and then it's always as the four of them and never as pairs.
They remember the first cabin, when this started, when Ryan looked up one morning and saw Jon watching him and felt Brendon's hand on his thigh, and Spencer, because he was always there and there then, and he's there now. It's different, though, because there's only one bed in the cabin, big enough four of them to lay down to sleep together or other things.
Brendon mumbles that he can't feel his toes when they trudge outside with flashlights and stand under the stars, look up and sort of smile. There aren't pictures of this, of the way Jon takes Ryan's hand and slides the ring on before Ryan can turn and slide a ring onto Brendon, and so on until they're all wearing a platinum band. They could be smart about this, split off into pairs and have two beds and two separate things, but they don't want that. Spencer, always logical and practical, never mentioned it because it's not them. There's four of them, and this is how it's supposed to be. Where would they make the divisions anyway.
It's harder, though, to kiss as four people, and they always break into laughter when they do, huffing breaths just barely visible in the low light before Brendon whines that there's snow soaking into his shoes. He takes Jon and Spencer by the hand to try and pull them inside, Ryan's forehead pressed to his neck, and their feet crunch on the snow when the four of them finally move and go back inside to hot chocolate and kisses, and they made it as far as the hallway before it's more.
Or Five Times Panic Married Each Other (and Maybe One Time when They All Did)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Don't own, no profit. Don't google yourself or your friends
Pairings: Brendon/Ryan, Jon/Brendon, Jon/Spencer, Ryan/Spencer, Brendon/Spencer, and Panic!gsf
AN: So, sometimes I like fluffy things, like where they all get married. Sometimes I like it enough to write them all out. The weddings are different storylines because that wouldn't be happy and fluffy, and I choose to write in a world where everyone can get married, damn it. Title and middle lines taken from John Donne, because I'm a shameless fangirl.
Beta by rossetti. Written for nova33 for she is awesome.
I cannot breathe one other sigh, to move
Nor can intreat one other tear to fall
It's hot, no circulation, and Brendon can feel himself sweating while the justice of the peace talks. It's nothing new, he sweats if he stands still, but it's different now because he's looking at Ryan, into Ryan's eyes, and Ryan's got the faintest, faintest sheen of perspiration too, just on his forehead.
He leans up, just enough that his forehead can rest on the curve of Ryan's nose, and they're both sticky. Ryan smells like he always does, nutmeg and maybe a little bit too much like pot and old cigarettes from hanging out backstage. Ryan's hand comes up and takes his, fingers intertwined until he can feel Ryan's callouses on the back of his hand.
When he was little, he imagined church weddings with family and friends and a hundred people that would give him presents. He imagined that he would be nervous and wearing a tux with shoes that didn't fit right, because that was what his father and uncles talked about.
He breathes in, smelling Ryan and the weird old-paper smell of the room. His neck is starting to ache.
"You're too tall," Brendon whispers. Ryan had to wear his ridiculous shoes with ridiculous heels because they're supposed to be out getting food before the sound check, but the courthouse looked aged, weathered, and there was a bird carved into stone face, deep gouges into rock so it looked hollow and Ryan had squeezed his hand, and that was that.
There's music piping in from the waiting room, something that's supposed to be cheery but is actually just shrill and most likely going to be stuck in his head later. He hopes that he can remember it, later, after Jon finishes teasing them about not being able to wait until they got home, to families or a thousand wedding chapels that could do that sort of thing, instead of a nameless building in a minor town.
The justice stops talking, and he can hear Spencer laughing, somewhere, back there in a place that is not right here with his hand hot in Ryan's and the sweat making his t-shirt stick to his back.
"We have other couples to marry," the justice says, and Brendon forces himself to pull back, to let the justice finish the job with just Spencer and Shane looking on when they lean into each other.
Love's riddles are, that though thy heart depart,
It stays at home, and thou with losing savest it
Jon grins as he watches Brendon walk. He's supposed to be nervous, but he's not because this is home. It's four months after the band hiatuses for what feels like is going to be forever, when Keltie and Ryan have two squirming girls that won't sit still, and Spencer's hovering around Haley like she's more than six months along. It's a warm summer, warm enough that the guests can go barefoot in his parent's backyard.
There are neat lines of chairs that are filled now, nieces and nephews, friends and people that they wanted here. Brendon's got a smattering of relatives, and they're watching him walk on the ridiculous white cloth that Jon's mom insisted on laying down. He's barefoot, like Jon, like this should all be one of those ridiculous celebrity weddings that you see pictures of, like it isn't be in suburban Chicago so Tom can be there, and Bill, and Nick, and everyone.
Greta's supposed to be playing the march, but she and Brendon share a look, and then it's "A Whole New World." Brendon laughs, hands to his mouth, and Jon can almost hear Ryan rolling his eyes over the shouts of the guests because everyone knows that stupid story, the one that they've told a hundred thousand times and can't seem to get tired of.
When Brendon gets to the end, when they're close enough that he can reach across and take Brendon's hand and see smiling faces over the other man's shoulder, see the flashes of digital camera and maybe a few waving cellphones because their friends are still assholes, even today of all days, Brendon's grin has faded down to a smile.
Brendon reaches up and rubs Jon's cheeks with quick passes of his fingers, and, oh he hadn't realized. He wants to say something, as the chorus of the song swells, but then the officiate is talking, and he sort of forgets everything that isn't Brendon.
The ground, your heart, is mine; what ever shall
Grow there, dear, I should have it all.
It's stupid, and it's exactly the thing that he said he wasn't going to do, not ever, but then they're at the Palms again, the four of them talking about maybe recording the third album here. Brendon and Ryan are arguing logistics, and Spencer just looked at Jon and said, "Hey, let's go downstairs," simple as anything, just to get away from the way Brendon and Ryan are about three seconds from a cat fight.
Going to the casino with Jon is more dangerous than it is with Ryan, who loves the tables. The three of them, the ones that are used to going into by a coke at a gas station and having to walk past three slot machines to do it, aren't fazed by the pinging and the lights, but Jon is. It's all you can do, usually, to keep him from sitting down and blowing a quick fifty.
And he doesn't know why this seemed like the best idea, when Jon had been mentioning more Hey, maybe someday... when it was quiet and comfortable and they could lie under the blankets together and not roast. It's a nice thought, a good one, and he thinks about it when Jon's just standing next to him or they're at an interview and someone mentions girlfriend, when Ryan can preen and say he has a fiancée.
So when they hit the floor, before Jon can fall in love with one of the penny machines that's probably called Mermaid's Treasure or something, he blurts out, "So we're in Vegas." It's the wrong thing to say, because Ryan's upstairs with Brendon, and their families aren't here. They don't even have rings.
Jon blinks, looks up, and he's smiling the same smile that Spencer sees when they wake up together, every day for a year and a half, the one that means he's going to kiss Spencer even though Jon can some ridiculous morning breath, and he kisses Spencer then before pulling back and saying, "So, we are in Vegas."
It's why he's standing in front of some woman with too much eyeliner and a gold gown while she trips over the lines. He's sort of vaguely disappointed that it's not an Elvis, just to top of everything in this scenario that he was never, ever going to do. She's probably a former show girl, and she has to adjust an eyelash to finish reading the vows off, passing over the rings they bought for twenty bucks at the little shop outside the chapel. Spencer leans his shoulder to Jon's and tries not to laugh when she asks if anyone has any objections, because he can feel his sidekick vibrating in the back pocket of his jeans.
Than changing hearts, to join them; so we shall
Be one, and one another's all.
It's not something that they've ever seriously considered finishing, after two years of being engaged and perfectly fine with it, because it's just piece of paper and a tax break at the end of the day. It just sounds better than boyfriend, though he likes just Spencer better. They don't need it, and he knows that. They don't need it because they're just them, and Ryan knows that having it could change things. He doesn't like change, no matter how many times he's talked about it being necessary. People can change and music can, too, but he likes to wrap relationships around himself like a blanket and burrow down because that relationship is the only thing keeping him warm, like he's naked in a breezy fall night.
But then things have changed (and he can hear his own refrain in his thoughts, and it's sort of horrifying. He'll tell Spencer about it, after, when they're done making faces at each other because they're doing this like serious rock stars, last night of the tour and everything.) They're older with a little more sense, and he'll been twenty-five for two more days. He doesn't want their dogs to feel like they're in broken homes, shuttling back and forth between two half-full houses that are a little more than a walk away.
And maybe--maybe--when he's watching Ashlee and Pete and their growing brood, he wants that too.
He can tell Spencer all that later, even though he probably already knows because he's Spencer and he always knows. Right now he has to stay still and pretend that he's listening to Jon, because Jon agreed to marry Tom two months ago when they hit Chicago, did the whole Universal Life Church quickie ordination (which is when Ryan should have known how this story was going to end, because Jon made sure Spencer and Ryan both knew when his application was approved), and now he's waxing on about how he knew this was meant to be because love was the only explanation behind why Spencer would let Ryan paint those ridiculous eyeliner mustaches on his face.
They're laughing before they get to the vows, their best man in full out giggles. It's twenty minutes until they have to get on stage and do sound check, and he'll get thirty texts when this is over--probably has ten now--about still fanboying My Chemical Romance, but it doesn't matter because Spencer threads his hand into Ryan's hair and pulls him up for the kiss before Jon's made it past "You may--"
And all my treasure, which should purchase thee,
Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters I have spent
Brendon doesn't look at the empty pew. He can feel it behind him though, the empty line that's supposed to be his family and it just two empty benches, still, when the ceremony starts. They all got invitations in the mail, because Spencer said if they were going to do this, they were going to fucking do this, in one of the three churches that didn't seem to think anything was strange. He's pretty sure he's marrying Episcopalian, but that sort of thing stopped behind important when he stopped listening to Joseph Smith. Spencer's baptized and communed Catholic, but here they are in front of a priest whose church may or may not have been started off of some king's burning need to get laid .
He wants to snicker into his hand, but he doesn't because Spencer's staring at him with soft blue eyes before he's saying the vows, and he really, really hopes that Shane's out there taping, because he can't hear anything outside of, "Brendon, I never thought I wanted," and he's already fucking bawling like a baby because this is Spencer, holding his hands and in a white tux, with his hair as shiny as ever and he's wearing the stupid white headband because Brendon asked.
The pews behind him are still empty. Kara is the only one who RSVPed, and she couldn't get out of work in time; she couldn't leave Hawaii. His parents haven't talked to him since he did the Vegas show and said, by the way, he's getting married in three months to someone who agreed to all of this, the fuss and the flower girl, because it was what Brendon wanted.
His heart stutters a little when Spencer finishes his part, because it's his turn to talk and he can't remember what he's supposed to say. He wrote it down and everything, practiced in front of Jon and Shane until they could recite long passages back, but he can't remember.
Spencer squeezes his hand and mouths, "It's all right."
Brendon smiles and looks at his audience, at Spencer's family and their friends, and he tries not to look at the empty pews. He almost misses the woman that's standing in the very back of the church, hands clutched around her purse and coat still buttoned. She looks pale except for where cold wind nipped her nose and cheeks pink, and maybe ready to pass out, but she's not mad. Brendon's had almost thirty years, minus about eighteen months for bad behavior and life "choices" that she couldn't very well support, to learn what her face looks like when she's mad.
He swallows her name down, but he can't not let her know that he sees her. He nods, and she gives him a quick smile. He has her thighs and her mouth, and it's familiar and good. She doesn't need to come forward from the back, but he nods again, to the empty spot in front.
She hesitates but walks around the side until she's in the front row and his pews aren't empty. Spencer squeezes his hand again, and Brendon turns back, beaming even though he knows his face is a mess. His nose is probably going to be snotty by the time they get to the end.
Spencer grins, one of his fucking beaming smiles that still make Brendon's heart feel weak, and Brendon laughs, nervous, before he's saying, "I guess this is the part where I have to tell you how I loved you forever?" There's nervous laughter from the guests, but Spencer just shrugs, like Brendon could actually get out of that.
"Spencer Smith," he says, drawing out Spencer's name, "I remember when Brent took me to your grandma's house, and you wouldn't talk to me for the first hour until I had to get down and do a Gollum impression, and then you called me a dork. Obviously, this was meant to be..."
If then thou gavest me all,
All was but all, which thou hadst then
It's cold, colder than Nevada because Jon wanted to see snow, and who are they to deny Jon anything? It's the four of them, now, in some cabin up in the mountains of Colorado where they only know each other and don't go into town for days at a time, and then it's always as the four of them and never as pairs.
They remember the first cabin, when this started, when Ryan looked up one morning and saw Jon watching him and felt Brendon's hand on his thigh, and Spencer, because he was always there and there then, and he's there now. It's different, though, because there's only one bed in the cabin, big enough four of them to lay down to sleep together or other things.
Brendon mumbles that he can't feel his toes when they trudge outside with flashlights and stand under the stars, look up and sort of smile. There aren't pictures of this, of the way Jon takes Ryan's hand and slides the ring on before Ryan can turn and slide a ring onto Brendon, and so on until they're all wearing a platinum band. They could be smart about this, split off into pairs and have two beds and two separate things, but they don't want that. Spencer, always logical and practical, never mentioned it because it's not them. There's four of them, and this is how it's supposed to be. Where would they make the divisions anyway.
It's harder, though, to kiss as four people, and they always break into laughter when they do, huffing breaths just barely visible in the low light before Brendon whines that there's snow soaking into his shoes. He takes Jon and Spencer by the hand to try and pull them inside, Ryan's forehead pressed to his neck, and their feet crunch on the snow when the four of them finally move and go back inside to hot chocolate and kisses, and they made it as far as the hallway before it's more.