In Our Bedroom, After the War; GSF; NC-17 (9/9)

[insunshine]

.brendon.

Spencer and Ryan don't come out of Spencer's bedroom for days. Brendon's not exaggerating, it's literally days. Spencer misses his interview, Ryan misses work, and even Jon takes a day off. "I've lived in Vegas a year," he says, too jovially for honesty. "They can't bitch over a sick day."

"They can't do that," Brendon mutters, and the irony is that even though he's the one that's been hurt, people at the hospital, other nurses, some of the doctors, are still stopping him, asking if he's alright, asking, without saying the words, if he needs someone to be called that handles 'delicate matters'.

Brendon just smiles says, "Really, it was my fault. I walked into someone's fist," because it's not the kind of injury he can play off for clumsiness.

Butcher comes back from the Greek isles on a Tuesday, and he stops by the hospital first thing. Brendon can tell, because he's still in his travel clothes, faded, worn sweatpants that must have once been black, but haven't been that color the entire time they've known each other, and a tee shirt, printed, in what Brendon deduces must be Greek.

The first thing he says -- the first thing, even before, "I love you," and "God, I missed you," is, "Jesus Christ, Brendon, what happened to your face?"

Brendon shrugs, ready to play it off, but Butcher grabs his wrist, and he squeezes, not too tight for comfort, not enough to hurt, but he squeezes, and he doesn't get forceful, not unless it's important. "Brendon," he mutters, grits the words past his teeth, and Brendon can feel his cheeks heating.

"It was an accident," he says, even though it wasn't. "I'm fine," he spreads his hands wide, shimmying a little. "See?" he asks with a grin.

Butcher doesn't look convinced, but he lets Brendon kiss him anyway.

Jon's on the couch when they get home three hours later, and he doesn't look like he's moved since Brendon left that morning (yet another perk of working in pediatrics? Nine to five shifts that the rest of the world understands and recognizes).

There's a can of beer resting on his tummy, and he's got his feet kicked up on the coffee table, supposedly watching TV, but not really looking like he's watching much at all.

"Jonno," Butcher says, and Jon looks over like he hadn't even heard them come in, eyes a little hollow, skin stretched tight across his cheeks. "You look -- " the words hang in the air between them, and Jon laughs a little, but the sound isn't much of anything at all.

"You can say it," Jon says, and Brendon winces at the tone in his voice.

"Fantastic," Butcher finishes awkwardly, hand tightening on Brendon's elbow. When Brendon turns to face him, the look in his eyes reads clear, I have only been gone two weeks, what the hell happened here?

Brendon shrugs and Jon and Spencer's door creaks open. Ryan stumbles out. He's only in his boxers, cheeks covered in stubble and there are tiny marks zig zagging over his skin, shaped like teeth and nails.

He catches sight of them and blinks, like he's surprised they're even there.

It makes something ugly flair in Brendon's chest, something vicious and cutting, something that bleeds, and he sets his teeth in his lip.

"Hey, Ross," he says, voice devoid of anything at all, and Ryan blinks again, like he's just seeing Brendon for the first time.

They've known each other for ten years and more and in that time, Brendon's loved him and hated him, wanted to shake him, wanted to hold him, all of the above and more, but he's never felt this, weight across his shoulders and back, pressing into his chest and his ribcage.

"Hi," Ryan mutters, pushing his bangs out of his face. Brendon has to give him credit, he doesn't duck back into the bedroom, he doesn't cower or look embarrassed, just walks into the bathroom and closes the door with a definitive click.

Brendon waits for Spencer, even while Butcher's saying he's beat, he's going to crash in Brendon's room, that's alright, right? Even when Jon's on his fifth beer (that Brendon's seen), Brendon waits for Spencer, but after Ryan heads back into the bedroom, neither of them come out and the apartment is silent.

Hours tick by like water, and whenever Brendon cranes his neck to see the wall clock, another hour has slid by. He's exhausted and his bones creak, and Jon has stopped speaking entirely, just drinking and drinking, can after can weighing down the coffee table.

At 1:05 he takes the last swig from his beer, tapping the bottom of the can to get the last dregs of it down his throat. When he's set it on the table, surveying his handiwork he says, "I think." He pauses, scratching at his head, but shaking it, shaking the answers out. "I'm in love with him."

He crawls across the couch then, laying a hand down on Brendon's thigh and blinks up at him, tugging at the hem of his scrubs with his free hand.

Brendon blinks. "What are you doing?"

Jon blinks back and tries something on his lips that could resemble a smile if it were on anyone but Jon Walker. "What does it look like?" He asks, then moves his hand because Brendon's scrubs are pooled around his ankles.

Brendon's still perched on the edge of the couch, feet planted flat on one of the cushions. There's nothing but air to his back, and he's not sitting all that steadily. Jon doesn't seen to care, and Brendon cares even less when Jon bends forward and ducks his head, taking Brendon into his mouth.

It's not the worst blowjob he's ever had, not even the worst blowjob he's ever had from Jon. He closes his eyes and tries not to tug too hard on Jon's hair, tries to breathe and remember not to shove too hard down Jon's throat.

Jon pulls off like he's heard what Brendon was thinking. Brendon wasn't talking out loud, he knows he wasn't, this isn't something that can be explained away, and Brendon won't hurt the other people in this apartment, he won't, not anymore than he already has, not even if it would give him momentary satisfaction.

Jon gestures towards Brendon's dick and shrugs. "You can, if you want," he says, then dips back forward, and this time Brendon really can't control the snap of his hips, how hard he's tugging at Jon's bangs, how many shivers explode across his spine when their eyes meet and he can just see how Jon's mouth looks with his dick stretching Jon's lips.

There's a noise from the bedroom, not one of passion, not of anything really, but Brendon comes at the thought of it, ravaging Jon's mouth with the force of his thrusts.

Jon swallows and doesn't even bother to wipe his mouth before kissing Brendon.

Brendon kisses him back, and they fall asleep like that, legs and fingers and wrists entwined, hearts beating in tandem.

*

The plan, if there ever was really a plan to begin with, was for Spencer and Jon to go over to the apartment and get the rest of Ryan's shit, but Spencer is still piecing together the fragments Ryan fell into after five years of his life abruptly grinding to a halt and Jon is, in some way Brendon can't quite put words to, existing in his head for the moment.

Ryan has a couple pairs of jeans and tee shirts and it hasn't been an issue, but it will be.

Practicality aside, Ryan treasures very little in his life and some of it is the material; his vintage Dylan poster and his guitar, the box of sand from a beach in California he scooped up when he was nine and Spencer's family brought him along with on vacation. Ryan holds tight to the good times and savors the memories and Brendon can't fault him for needing talismans.

Brendon still doesn't drive, but he grabs a pair of bags shoved in the back of the closet from Jon and Spencer's exodus from Chicago. "I'm going out," he says to Jon, on the phone with a friend from back home. Spencer and Ryan are still tucked away in their bedroom. If Brendon presses his ear to the door he can hear the rise and fall of murmuring voices and he's hoping that when they come out they'll still be them.

Jon nods, but he doesn't ask, smiles, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes and Brendon can feel that something is going to have to give soon, or they're going to fall apart.

He catches a bus that drops off half a block away from the apartment that used to belong to Michael Guy and Ryan. He's not sure who it belongs to now, but Michael Guy's car is in it's spot up front and Brendon has to swallow bile before he can start up the stairs.

The doorbell has never worked and Brendon could use either of the copies of the key in his pocket, but he won't. He knocks and there's light banging before the door swings open.

"What are you doing here?" Michael Guy asks and Brendon knows it's uncharitable, but Michael Guy looks like shit. Not because of the eye that still swollen enough that he can't open it all the way or the bruises that distort his cheek. It's unfair, but Brendon hates him for taking years of Ryan's life.

"I'm here to get Ryan's stuff," Brendon says and Michael Guy flinches and steps back.

The apartment's not a mess, but it looks abandoned in some way Brendon can't really put his finger on; cans on the coffee table and takeout boxes on the counter, but none of them are new and Brendon has to think that maybe Michael Guy doesn't want to be in the place any more than Ryan does.

Brendon hasn't been in their bedroom, if their is right pronoun anymore, and it's changed. It used to be an equal mix of their stuff, books stacked in the same pile and trinkets mingling on the dresser top, but not anymore.

It's easy to see where unspoken territorial boundaries were drawn, maybe even battle lines. Brendon sweeps all of Ryan's stuff, along with more of his clothes, into the bags and zips them up tight. Good riddance, he thinks, dragging the tips of his fingers along the windowsill.

"You know what's funny?"

Michael Guy's voice cuts through Brendon's reverie and he flinches, hand curling into an involuntary fist. "No, I don't."

For all the years that Brendon has known Michael Guy, for all the years that he lived with Michael Guy, he can count on one finger the number of times they've actually spoken to each other on one hand and still have four fingers left over.

So maybe it's not entirely his fault, Brendon doesn't really care.

"That it took me so long to figure out what the hell was the problem with me and Ryan was." Michael Guy sits on the edge of the bed and Brendon goes still. He's not afraid, he's not, because Michael Guy Chislett is a lot of things, but violent isn't usually one of them and with his face cast down he looks nothing more than a little broken and more than a little resigned.

Brendon should leave because he doesn't care, but he wants to know. "What's that?"

There's a beat of silence as Michael looks at his lap. "Ryan loves, loved me." He draws out the words, as though he has to be careful to say them well, because he's only getting the one chance. "But he's always loved you all more."

Brendon has no reply for that and no sympathy for Michael, just a band wrapped around his chest that says, in whatever backwards way, that he's right.

*

He gets home, and boy was that fun, taking public transportation with four bags filled with things that didn't even belong to him.

He's back three hours after he left, and wonder of wonders, Spencer is in the kitchen, hair slicked back and away from his face, skin wet from the shower.

Brendon can't explain it, but this thing loosens in his chest at the sight of Spencer, Spencer strong and steady, Spencer looking exactly the same.

Spencer looks furious. "Have you become a bag lady without telling me?" Brendon blinks and thinks of all of the things in the past couple of days they haven't told each other. The retort is on the tip of his tongue and it's scathing, but this is Spencer, and Brendon doesn't know how to be anything but himself when he's faced with that.

"No," Brendon says, somewhat belatedly, dropping Ryan's bags by the door and moving closer to the table where Spencer's drinking coffee and circling ads in the employment section of the paper.

"Brendon if you tell me you went over to -- "

Brendon blinks. "If you went," he says calmly, as calmly as he possibly can standing in his kitchen, facing off with his best friend. His heart is jackhammering in his chest. "You would have ripped his throat out," he pauses, waiting for Spencer to disagree. He doesn't. "Jon could barely get off the couch when I left this afternoon, and you certainly weren't going to let Ryan go, because you'd be too terrified that he'd stay there."

Spencer flinches, and that was the desired effect, but it still makes something coil in Brendon's stomach anyway.

"What," he says, voice flat. "Do you want me to thank you?"

"It would be a start." Spencer tips his head back, winces a little when the light hits him square in the eye. His gaze is level.

Brendon moves first.

Brendon moves first, and later, he'll remember that, he'll remember that he straddled Spencer's lap, big enough gap between his stomach and the edge of the table for Brendon to fit in easily. Later, Brendon will remember that Spencer had blinked at him, later he'll remember the pounding in his chest, how hard he'd tried to keep from shaking.

Brendon may move first, but Spencer is the one who initiates the kisses, who slides his palms up Brendon's cheeks and tilts him down so that their mouths are slanted against each other, flicking his tongue out and stealing all of Brendon's inhibitions right out from under him.

They've kissed hundreds of times before, they've kissed more times that Brendon can count, but this is still different. This kiss steals Brendon's breath away, and makes something sweet and warm spread through him.

Spencer's arms wrap around Brendon's waist, hauling him closer, and a minute ago, they were both mad, chests heaving, but Brendon can taste the honey from Spencer's tea on his lips, on both their lips, and he shudders, even though he doesn't mean to, getting hard against Spencer's thigh.

Spencer pulls back and Brendon makes a noise he wasn't even sure he knew he made. Spencer presses his forehead against Brendon's neck, breathing hard and breathing heavy, whispering, "Do you know how many times I've thought about you like this?"

Brendon blinks, and then starts to giggle. "If this is your version of -- " Spencer arches against him and Brendon sees stars, Brendon startles, because Spencer is just as hard as he is.

"I want you," Spencer says, and Brendon's. Brendon doesn't know how long he's been waiting to hear the words. "God, Brendon, I -- " he moves against Brendon, rotating his hips and Brendon collapses against him. He can't hold himself up, clinging to Spencer's shoulders because he's afraid of what will happen if he lets go.

"Spence," he whispers, and Spencer moves his lips from Brendon's throat, mouth detaching with a lewd sound of suction. "Spence," he whispers again, mindless. Spencer's managed to unbutton his pants, but they haven't gone very far. His hand is curled around Brendon's cock, and if Brendon closes his eyes, he can imagine the ridges left by Jon's mouth.

Spencer pulls back just to look at him, face inscrutable. He doesn't look confused and he doesn't look repulsed. His eyes are hot, aching with something that looks a lot like need. Brendon can't imagine why Spencer would need him, but he's not going to risk losing out on this to ask.

"Can you," Spencer mumbles, gesturing down, and Brendon doesn't know what he wants, can't read minds nearly as well as Spencer can, but he nods anyway, lifting his hips and trying not to moan at the loss of contact when Spencer shifts to move his own hips up, settling him on the kitchen table he's been eating breakfast on for the past year.

"Spence," he mumbles, barely able to hold onto consciousness, because Spencer's dropping down onto his knees between Brendon's legs. He mouths along the length of Brendon's dick, but doesn't take him inside, and Brendon thinks he's going to die until Spencer's mouth dips lower, tongue flicking out and lapping right against Brendon's ass.

He can't breathe. He can't breathe, because no one's ever done this for him before; he's never wanted it before, but he's also fairly positive he'll die if Spencer stops.

Spencer stops.

"Do you think you're ready?" He asks, mouthing against the skin of Brendon's stomach, pressing tiny little kisses around Brendon's belly button.

He nods so hard he's almost positive his neck is going to snap off. Spencer doesn't stop the subtle explanation, though; kisses down Brendon's stomach, sucking hard on the skin of Brendon's thigh, leaving a mark that Brendon can just see if he creaks his eyes open.

His tongue laps over Brendon's skin again, over places on Brendon's body he can't reach himself, licking into him gently, like there's nowhere else he'd rather be, and when he pushes one finger inside, Brendon barely feels it, he's slicked so open.

When Spencer's pushed in the third, Brendon's back is arched he feels full, so full, but not quite as full as he'd like to be.

"Are you ready?" Spencer asks, voice rougher than Brendon's ever heard it. Brendon nods, unsure if he trusts his voice.

Later, Brendon will blame it on how fast he comes on the fact that Spencer licked him open for an hour (an hour masquerading as five minutes, anyway).

Spencer spits on his palm, and their eyes meet as he lines up, hold steady as he pushes inside, and Brendon wants to close his when Spencer starts fucking him in earnest, with the most perfect rhythm he's ever felt in his life, but he doesn't.

Whatever they're doing here is important.

Brendon comes first, embarrassingly quickly, spurting white between their chests, comes without a hand on his dick and Spencer pressed inside him to the hilt.

It's a small consolation that Spencer comes almost as quickly, collapsing to the side of Brendon with an, "God, fuck, I love you," on his lips.

Brendon's expecting him to pull away, to walk out of the kitchen and slam the door to his room, but he doesn't, hand sweeping out to touch Brendon's bruised cheek, the tips of his fingers grazing gently.

"I love you," Brendon says, tears pricking the corners of his eyes. Spencer doesn't move his hand away and he smiles, but it doesn't quite crinkle his eyes.

"Bren," he says, and it's fond, but now he's moving away. Brendon's sore, but loose, so loose and happy for the first time in days.

"Spence, hey, wait," there's come running down his thighs, Spencer's and his own, and Spencer looks down to where Brendon's looking himself and blushes crimson, turning away. "I love you," Brendon says with as much conviction as he can muster. "I love you, I love you, and I don't think you're supposed to love more than one person at a time, but I think I do."

He can see Spencer's shoulders stiffen, but when Spencer turns back to face him, he's smiling, the corners of his eyes pinched. "I love you too," he says it like he means it.

There's nothing in the world Brendon wants to believe more.

*

Dark is falling and Brendon's standing in the doorway of Spencer and Jon's room.

Ryan's laying on on his back with his arms folded behind his head, eyes closed, but not sleeping. Brendon has spent too many nights watching for the moment when he goes loose, breath easing out into a deep rhythm to not recognize it.

The problem with Ryan is that they have never talked about it and Brendon doesn't know where to begin. Their story is told and moments and details (the devil's in the details, he thinks, but maybe there's some form of God to be found there, too) and it's not easily said.

They are broken, Brendon knows, but it's not a black and white moment, broken and fixed, with tape and glue and crooked stitches, things have never been that seamless between them.

It wouldn't matter as much if they were.

"I know you're awake," Brendon says softly. Jon and Spencer are on the porch, heads ducked together and maybe, maybe, there's actually a chance for them all.

Ryan blinks his eyes open and turns his head, face schooled in a carefully blank mask. His eyes flick from Brendon's face to his hands, lingering over the bruise surrounding his eye and Brendon wishes with all he has that he could make Ryan see that it's not his fault. It's such perfect Ryan, though, blaming himself for things he has no control over and it's endearing and tragic and frustrating in the same breath.

"I think," Brendon continues, taking a step into the room, "We need to talk."

Spencer did something in that weekend, something more than leaving bruises Brendon can see through the thin fabric of Ryan's tee shirt. He pulled Ryan back from a ledge, kissed away the worst of him and told him that he was beautiful for his scars and hurts, not in spite of them.

The pretty words have always belonged to Ryan, but only through the veil of pretending to talk about something else and Brendon never quite knows what to say. It feels just too left of brutal on his tongue, without the dress of lyrics, but it's all he has and if he has to break a little to fix in the end, he'll find a way to do that.

"What about?" Ryan asks and his voice is raspy in the back of his throat. It's a little funny and Brendon smiles, wondering at how comfortable the thought that he wishes he could have watched, sits.

Brendon eases down on the edge of the bed, stretches out until they're laying side by side, eyes level and close in the growing darkness. The shadows lengthen on the wall, turn into elongated patterns against the posters and paint and the stars on the ceiling begin to faintly glow.

"I used to wish on falling stars," Brendon says and it's meaningless, the memory, except that a part of him has come to believe that when there's nothing else to believe in, no other explanation, it has to be fate. "I used to lean out the window when I was supposed to be saying my nightly prayers and I would make wishes instead. I figured since God was in everything, he had to be in the stars, too."

Ryan asks, "What did you wish for?"

"At first, little things. A new guitar, to get the solo in the church choir." Brendon cups his hand around Ryan's jaw and smiles, faint and scared. It's okay, he thinks, to be afraid. "Later I wished that you and Spencer would never leave and you haven't. Maybe God's a little more there than I give him credit for."

"Maybe."

There's no easy way to say the things that have been in the back of his mind for more years than he can think about. Brendon is no saint, but he's tried, which is more than he could possibly say for some and he feels like he's on the verge of finding that happily ever after he watches again and again in Disney movies.

"Ryan," Brendon says, inhaling and exhaling and hoping (praying). "I love you."

The words have been said a hundred times, a thousand times, yelled and whispered, sarcastic and sincere, but they've never held the weight that they do now, something almost tangible that comes to rest between them.

Ryan closes his eyes, lips moving in what seems oddly like the recitation of a prayer. "You can't," Ryan says after a beat heavy with finality. "You and Spencer or Jon. Not me. You can't."

Brendon very nearly laughs.

He stretches and kisses Ryan, waiting until the first shock of resistance passes and he melts into the kiss, finger reaching out to brush against Brendon's chest and press so gently to the bruise colored and swollen flesh around his eye. "I'm sorry," Ryan murmurs, "So fucking sorry."

Blame has never really interested Brendon, but sometimes the apology is less about the person who's been hurt and more about the person who has caused pain. "It's okay." Brendon says, mouth moving against the skin of Ryan's lips. "I forgive you."

Ryan shudders out a hard breath and nods, eyes blinking away the faint shine of tears. "Thank you," he says and Brendon can count on one hand the number of times Ryan has thanked him with awe in his voice.

"Your problem is that you make things too hard," Brendon says, easing their bodies closer together, hips and bellies touching. "You and Spencer. It's not. Fuck that, actually. It is complicated, but it's not that hard. I love you." He kisses Ryan's forehead. "And Spencer." He kisses Ryan's nose. "And Jon." He kisses Ryan's mouth.

The back door opens and closes and Spencer and Jon come inside, voices rising and falling like the sigh of the wind.

"I think you do, too," Brendon murmurs and Ryan's nod is barely perceptible, but there.

*

The thing is, Butcher's going to India in two days and he still wants Brendon to come, keeping dropping hints and jokes, nudging him in the side and whispering in his ear. "India, Brendon. Think how gorgeous it'll be."

And it would be, Brendon knows.

But he couldn't go before, though and he can't now, not when he feels like his life is hovering on the edge of something terrifying in its grandeur. Spencer's marks are still light shadows of color against his skin and he's touched them all now, Ryan and Spencer and Jon, and maybe he's about to get luckier than he ever would have expected.

"Do I get to see you before I leave?" Butcher asks. Brendon's home and so is Ryan, Jon and Spencer are still at work and Brendon tastes the faint sting of acid in the back of his throat. "Which, I feel compelled to remind you, is in eighteen hours."

Brendon really wants to say no, make up a reason and put off dealing with it for another six weeks, but Ryan gives him a look and, yes, he's well aware that it’s not fair to anyone involved. "Come on over," Brendon says, voice falsely bright, even to his own ears. "I need to talk to you anyway."

Ryan doesn't say anything, but he comes up off the couch and kisses the skin behind Brendon's ear, wraps his arms around Brendon's waist, and holds him up, if only for a moment.

Butcher has a key and he uses it, coming in tanned and excited, already dressed in his standard flying-halfway-around-the-world-uniform consisting of sweats and a vee-necked tee shirt that shows off his chest piece.

He's got sunglasses pushed back in his hair and a leather cuff around his wrist and Brendon knows that if he looked down to his car he'd see the battered knapsack that's gone around the globe with him more than once.

"Hey, handsome." He throws an arm around Brendon's shoulder and kisses the corner of his mouth. He smells like spice and mint and it's still nice, but somehow it stopped being intoxicating and Brendon is a terrible person.

Ryan catches his eye and offers a tight smile before vanishing into his bedroom.

"Hey," Brendon smiles, wound tight. "I. I need to talk to you."

Butcher's smile brightens, if such a thing were possible. "You changed your mind and you want to come with me?"

"No."

Butcher's smile dims, but doesn't die and Brendon knows he's going to hell for breaking the heart of someone who loves him.

"You and I," Brendon says and trails off. There's no good way to explain that he's been fucking other people the whole time, that he loves those other people, and in another time and another place maybe they could have touched the stars but they can’t, not with things the way they are.

The irony is, Brendon remembers the very first thing he ever told Butcher about himself. I slept with Ryan.

Butcher huffs out a laugh, resigned and Brendon's heart breaks a little bit. "You and I. It's so okay, Bee, I got it. Don't hurt yourself."

There's nothing Brendon can say, no apology he can offer, so he closes his mouth and tilts his head down, watching Butcher through the sweep of his eyelashes. It's a sign, he thinks, of just how much of a saint Andrew Mrotek is, that he swallows hard and blinks hard, coughs and straightens.

"We had a good run," he says with a smile that’s forced, but still present. "Can't ask for anything more than that."

"I wish it were different," Brendon says hesitantly and it's sincere, if not exactly true.

Butcher laughs and ruffles his hair. "Honestly, Bren, I've been waiting for this to happen for a long time."

He dips down and kisses Brendon's forehead and then he's gone, key somewhere on the kitchen table, leaving Brendon to try and figure out just what in the hell that means.

.jon.

It starts slow, because the four of them really don't know what they're doing. "Jon Walker, think about it. All the dick you could want. All you'd have to do is like, crook your finger and you'd have dick. How can you turn down that offer?"

Jon can't turn it down, even though it makes his skin itch, the four of them, what people could say, what people will.

"Jon Walker," Brendon says, sounding exasperated, but grinning through it, like he has all of the answers to the universe hidden behind his sunglasses. Jon shifts a little uncomfortably in his seat, and Brendon leans forward, fitting their mouths together seamlessly.

Jon freezes, but Brendon is relentless, and he's never had the strongest moral fiber anyway. He presses his palm to the back of Brendon's neck, holding him there, kissing him with all that he's worth.

Brendon pulls away and Jon's glad to see that at least his eyes are dazed too. It's cliche, it's such a cliche, but he reaches up and touches his lips, and Jon finds himself doing the same.

"I want to be able to do that whenever I want, Jon Walker," Brendon says, and Jon's heart melts more than a little. "I want to kiss you and I want to watch Spencer fuck you -- " Jon hisses with the memory, Spencer inside him, Spencer pushing him as far as he'll go, Spencer everywhere he can reach. "I want to see Ryan," Brendon's voice breaks, and his head flops back against the chair. He's boneless and Jon can't help but staring down the lines of his body, something burning low in his stomach, screaming, I want. "I want -- "

"Brendon," Jon says, surprising the both of them. Brendon turns to look at him, and his eyes are glazed, hazy. He's staring at Jon's mouth and Jon licks his lips on instinct.

"What?" His voice is breathless.

"You don't have to convince me," that's a surprise, too.

Brendon grins, big and heart-stoppingly beautiful. "Yeah?"

Jon nods.

Even after the initial start, they go start slow; sharing a single bed in the Vegas heat is improbable, but they do it anyway, Spencer next to Ryan next to Brendon next to Jon, hands and feet inclined.

It's improbable to wear clothes, so they don't, and Jon's not really a God-fearing man, but it's something close to divine, seeing the three of them, stretched out and beautiful, light glinting off their skin, smiles on their faces.

He's not quite sure what he did to get so lucky.

There's one morning in mid-August where he wakes up to Brendon's mouth wrapped around his dick, with Ryan's arm thrown over him, lips pressed to his neck, leaving tiny little marks as gifts. Spencer's watching, propped up on his elbow.

Jon doesn't think he's ever seen someone look so beautiful. Spencer leans forward, kneeling over Ryan, pressing their smiles together.

It doesn't look comfortable, it can't be comfortable, but he does it anyway.

Jon's never been happier.

*

They find a certain type of ease and a rhythm and it's less of an adjustment that Jon would have imagined.

He showers in the morning with Ryan. "Conserving water," Ryan says, tipping his head back onto Jon's shoulder against the spray. Jon nips at his ear and towels them both dry, leave fluttering kisses on heated skin and doesn't feel guilty, just happy, when he walks into the kitchen and thanks Spencer for the mug of coffee he hands him with a deep kiss, palms sliding his his back to cup at the curve of his ass.

Jon drops Brendon off at work. "He likes me more than either of you two," Brendon says, shaking his head. "You two made me take the bus."

Ryan flips him off, but he's leaning against the counter with Spencer in the bracket of his thighs and he's smiling into the curve of Spencer's cheek. Brendon laces his fingers with Jon's, unconscious and easy, and when Jon pulls up to the hospital, he says goodbye with a kiss, feather light against Jon's neck.

It's good and it works and Jon is happy, more than he though he'd ever get to be.

There's a sense of hesitancy about everything, a sense of restraint, as though anything too sudden or shocking will shatter everything it took them over five years to build, piece by piece. They kiss and they touch, palms slid together against the back drop of the night sky.

Ryan turns twenty-five on Thursday.

"If you do anything over the top I will kill you with my hands," he says every day in August, over breakfast and at dinner, laying in bed with Spencer tracing patterns on his chest with the tip of his finger, watching Brendon mouth his way down Jon's chest.

Brendon sighs and Jon jerks his hips up just a little, ignoring the staccato chuckle from Spencer. "Guess we'll have to tell the Bob Dylan impersonator and the hookers to stay home."

Ryan knees Brendon in the hip and they fall asleep sprawled out on top of the blankets, air conditioner whirring quietly in the background. Jon drops off last, looking up at his stars, wishing for some kind of divine inspiration, though he can't quite bring himself to phrase it as a prayer.

Dear Lord, please help me to figure out what the hell I'm doing. Polyamory wasn't covered in Health and Relationships in high school.

In the end, they go out to dinner at a nice restaurant and, personally, Jon thinks it's worth it to see everyone in their own version of slacks and a button down. Ryan is a little ridiculous, like always, and Jon has to kiss him a little, on the corner of his mouth. Whispering, "I love you and I'm glad I have you," in a murmured happy birthday on their way across the parking lot.

"Someone else's birthday is coming up," Ryan says, staring contemplatively into his wine with a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

Spencer blushes and Brendon cackles, picking up his hand and kissing his knuckles. "You didn't seriously think we'd forget, Spence."

"Don't think that means you can hire those strippers back," Spencer says, flippant, and Jon taps his foot under the table. God, he's turned into a sixteen year old playing footsie again and he wouldn't have it any other way.

That night, Ryan sits on the edge of the bed in the v of Jon's legs with Brendon and Spencer on their knees in front of him. Jon sucks bruises into his neck, nips at the skin along his jaw and watches in small wonder as Spencer and Brendon trade off on his cock, mouths full and leaving kisses in turn.

Ryan melts and dies a hundred deaths in gasped breaths and eyes wide with shock and awe. "I can't," he gasps, "I can't believe."

"Me either," Jon murmurs and when Ryan comes it's across Spencer's mouth and chin and the first thing Spencer does is turn to kiss Brendon.

Spencer kisses up from the base of Ryan's dick, along his stomach and chest and neck to his mouth and murmurs. "It's your birthday, what do you want?"

"I want," Ryan says, pupils blown, "To watch."

Jon ends up on his back with Spencer sitting across his shoulder, thighs snapped tight and this, this that Jon has dreamed about, this that left him aching and blushing. "Are you sure?" Spencer asks and Jon nods, curls his hand around Spencer's thighs. "Please."

Spencer pushes in, lip caught between his teeth, and all Jon has to do is open his mouth and take it and try not to die, not from the beauty of Spencer stretched out above him or the rapture on Ryan's face of from the shock of heat when Brendon's mouth closes around his dick.

The rhythm is easy and fast and Spencer comes first, throwing his head back and crying out in the darkness, primal and wanting and Jon swallows and swallows and loves the beauty of Spencer haloed by his stars. They are a unit, but there are still little moments that belong to them each and Jon would never ask for anything else.

"Come here," Ryan says and Spencer does, eases off and curls up against his chest. "Look," Ryan says, "They're beautiful."

Jon has never thought about himself in those terms and he may never believe it, but looking down at Brendon, the sweep of his hair and spit slick stretch of his mouth, he doesn't think there's anything prettier in the entire world. Orgasm catches him by surprise and his hips snap off the bed, fingers fisted in the sheets and Brendon swallows some and lets the rest splash against his chin.

Brendon kneels down, bent over, and finished for them all, always the showman. Jon loves him for that.

They fall asleep with Ryan in the middle in a tangle of sticky limbs.

*

Spencer says, "Don't." And he says, "You guys, c'mon please," and he says, "Seriously, I don't want anything major. Twenty-four isn't even a big deal at all."

They have dinner at Jeff and Ginger's, and they both beam at the four of them, prouder than is reasonable.

"Get used to it," Brendon says around a mouthful of chocolate cake, a speck of it holding court on his bottom lip. Jon wants to lick it off, but he doesn't, he wouldn't. Ginger and Jeff are understanding people -- probably too understanding by half, but mauling Brendon in their kitchen is probably not the wisest course of action.

"What?" Jon asks after a minute, and his eyes are wicked, bright.

"Your birthday's next," he says, the gleam in his eyes sparkling huge and bright.

Jon rolls his eyes and shakes head head, spoons up a mouthful of mint chocolate chip ice cream and grins at Brendon's eyes locking on his mouth.

"You okay?" he asks, swallowing and swiping his tongue across his lower lip.

"You both suck," Ryan says under his breath. The four of them cut out after presents are opened (a check from his parents that has Spencer stuttering, gift cards from his sisters, and it doesn't really matter what Brendon and Ryan and Jon got him, because the real present can't be given until they get home).

"You are turning into old men, heading home so early," Ginger teases, kissing their cheeks. Spencer smiles, blinding enough to hide Brendon's startled giggle and Ryan's ducked head.

"You wouldn't have us any other way, Mom."

The car ride takes forever.

They get stuck at every single stop light between Spencer's house and the apartment, and by the time they pull up in front, the food Ginger had set them off with is starting to wilt along with the four of them.

The AC in the truck has been acting up for weeks.

It's almost awkward, when they get into the apartment, single file, one after the other after the next. Spencer's standing apart a little, teeth worrying his teeth into his bottom lip.

"You guys, I don't," he says, wringing his hands together. "I don't."

Jon will take Spencer anyway he can get him, but not like this, not uncertain.

"Hey," Brendon says, sliding around the kitchen table and twisting so that two of them are flush against each other. "There is no 'don't', Spencer Smith. There's only 'can' and 'do'."

Ryan tips his head onto Jon's shoulder.

"It's your birthday, now. What do you want?" Spencer's eyes go wide, palms pressed flat to his thigh and Jon knows what he wants but he needs to hear it.

"I want you. All of you," Spencer says and a blush fans out high on his cheeks. "I need," he clarifies and Jon swallows hard. He crosses the room and slides his fingers up into Spencer's hair and kisses him, tugging gently.

"Okay," Jon says, nipping at Spencer's bottom lip.

Spencer's shaking by the time they get into their bedroom, can barely get the buttons of his shirt open. "Hey," Jon whispers, kissing him full on the mouth, kissing him even when Spencer starts to stiffen against him, kissing him through his nerves, only stopping when Spencer's hands come to land on his shoulders, fluttering above the skin, like they've never done this before.

"I love you," Jon says, like it's the answer to everything, the explanation and the reason, and Spencer smiles, closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them again he's steadier.

"I have wanted this," he says, low and clear, "For a very long time."

Brendon snorts, and it ruins the moment a little, but it also makes it a lot less fraught, less meaningful, although not in a way that matters.

Brendon snorts again and catches himself at the last minute. Ryan clips him in the ribs, but Brendon only laughs harder, until he's doubled over, palms on his thighs.

"What," he says, wiping at the skin under his glasses. "What, Ryan Ross. They were having a Lifetime Movie of the Month Moment. It was funny." Ryan rolls his eyes and his fingers go to his forehead to smooth away the bangs that have since been chopped off.

"You're a jackass," he mutters, but he says it with a smile.

Spencer's own smile is a little shaky, a little fragile around the edges, but it's there.

"See if you get any tonight," he tosses off; very close to his normal flippant and the look of dismay etched across Brendon's features is worth it. Jon pushes Spencer back until his calves meet the bed and his knees buckle, sending him sprawling down.

"You are so very stupidly pretty," Jon announces, kneeling and unbuckling Spencer's belt and popping the fly on his jeans, easing down the zipper. He hears the beside table drawer open and close Ryan sets the lube on the mattress. "Do you think you can take it?" Jon asks, light and conversational, pulling his pants and boxers down and shoving them aside. "All three of us?"

There's no question about who should go first.

Jon slicks up his fingers, pressing his mouth to the skin at Spencer's stomach, pressing tiny little kisses there. Spencer giggles, a little, the sound high and a little breathy. Jon kisses his knee, his inner thigh, and while he's sucking a bruise against Spencer's white, white skin, he slides a finger in.

Spencer gasps out and arches and Jon wonders at just how much he's thought about this, primed himself for a moment he thought would never come, because one finger isn't that much.

Brendon's hand landing on his shoulder, tight, isn't a surprise any more than Ryan's hand curled on the back of his neck. He slides in a second finger and Spencer keens. On the third he's babbling out a string of morewantneedplease.

"Hey," Jon whispers when he's all lined up, and Spencer tries to open his eyes, but he's failing kind of miserably. "Hey, Spence, look at me." Spencer's trying, every inch of his body straining, and when he does manage to slide open his eyes, they're blue is hazier than Jon's ever seen them. "Spencer Smith, you're just. You're the most beautiful thing."

Spencer starts to tremble, shaking from head to toe, and when Jon gets the head inside, he arches up enough to fit their mouths together.

The noises Spencer's making are spectacular, low and guttural, commanding, and they've fucked, sure, but Jon's not sure it's ever been like this. He's not sure it'll ever be anything but this, ever again, with the promise of Ryan and Brendon after, together or apart.

Jon takes his time, pushing in and easing out with a low rhythm. He savors the sensation, the tighthotwet that will never stop being magnificent. Spencer's louder than he's ever been, responsive and eager, and Jon loves him, the line of his neck and the arch of his back. Jon comes buried to the hilt, forehead pressed to Spencer's shoulder and he pulls out slow and slick, glancing over his shoulder to Ryan and Brendon standing there.

Ryan has a fist pressed low to his belly and Brendon's shifting back and forth. Jon smiles. It's too much, maybe, but he asks anyway.

"Spencer," he says and his eyes snap open, bottom lip sucked into his mouth. "Could you take them both? At the same time?"

Spencer's hard and leaking against his stomach, and Jon mouths over his dick companionably, just lightly, just a little, just enough to get Spencer going again.

"How," he asks, and his lashes are fluttering. "How are we." He's breathing hard, and Jon sinks two fingers inside of Spencer again, keeping him stretched and ready, rotating his wrist slowly.

Ryan and Brendon are undressing, scrabbling impatiently at their clothes. Jon's never done anything like this, and he has to know that Spencer wants it, that he'll be okay. Jon leans over and nips at his ear, twisting still. "You would look good riding them," Jon exhales and Spencer's eyes go wide.

"Please. God. Yes, please."

Ryan settles on the bed, back flat, and he's shaking too, he's shaking so hard, tiny little tremors that change the shape of his entire body.

"Do you." Spencer's eyes are still huge, dazed and blue, pupils blown. "I'll crush you," he mutters, ducking his head and blushing. The flush covers his entire body, and Jon traces his fingers over Spencer's shoulders, down over his chin, past his lips.

"You won't, Spence. You couldn't." Jon watches as Spencer bites down hard on his lip, settling over Ryan's hips, and sinking down slowly, oh so slowly.

Brendon inhales, sharp and needy, and Jon pulls him over, onto the bed. "I'm going to hurt him," Brendon mumbles, cheeks flushed and hectic and Spencer pauses, sunk down as far as he can.

"You won't," he grits out. "Brendon, please."

"Jon," Brendon says, voice stretched reed thin, he's trembling too, shaking just as hard as Spencer and Ryan are, and they're beautiful, his boys and Jon's not sure how he managed to convince them to let him join in this. They would have gotten here eventually, one way or another.

He says this out loud, an offhand comment that someone has to make. He's the only one who's not rocking and moaning at the moment. "Jon," Brendon says again, breathes it out like the words just can't live in his throat anymore. "Jon, you've gotta," he pauses to drag in air, his eyes never leaving the drag of Spencer's over Ryan's cock. "Your fingers, Jon. You've gotta make sure he can."

Jon slicks up of fingers and kisses Brendon. Spencer watches them, moving slow, slow, slow with Ryan's hands clenched tight enough to leave bruises around his hips.

"Tell me if it's too much," Jon murmurs and eases in a finger alongside Ryan's dick.

Spencer keens, low in his throat. Ryan's fucking into him slowly, and Jon's finger, just one, isn't that much of an intrusion, but two are, two are probably pushing the limit, and even Jon's starting to get a little worried.

Spencer's biting so hard on his lip that the bottoms of his teeth are starting to stain red, and as Brendon pours more lube on Jon's hand and he pushes in a third, Spencer arches off the bed so intensely, it looks like he's trying to fly.

"Spencer, tell me you're okay," Jon says, kissing at his shoulder, at the faint line where his skin goes from tan to pale. "Spence." Spencer throws his head back, gasping hard and opens his eyes like it hurts.

"More. Jon. Brendon, I need. Please." Brendon's shaking from want and fear, Jon is too, a little, but he trusts Spencer and maybe there's something about the night that lets them all go a little bit farther than they would.

Brendon crawls across the bed as Jon eases out his fingers, settles into position that's not quite comfortable and lines up.

Jon watches at Brendon pushes in, sees the pain flicker across Spencer's face, and his chest tightens to the point where he can't breathe. It always gets like this when he looks at Spencer, but especially Spencer spread out and open, filled as completely as he can be.

It's beautiful, it's something Jon won't ever forget, but it's terrifying.

"God," Brendon's saying, kissing Spencer's cheeks, his eyelids, the corner of his mouth. "This is why men have religious experiences, Spence," he mumbles. Spencer laughs, then. He laughs, and it's not much, but the sound warms Jon, reminds him that he's still there and still breathing. That Spencer's still breathing too.

Jon has to touch. He reaches over and circles a hand loosely around Spencer dick and strokes up; Spencer's laugh fades away to a moan and he scrabbles for purchase, ending up with a hand tight around Jon's wrist.

"You can come," Jon murmurs and he doesn't know why he says it, but he does and Spencer smiles, wry at the edges, for the split second before his body snaps as taunt as it will go and he spills over his belly and Jon's knuckles.

Neither Brendon nor Ryan last much longer.

Jon can hear them, Ryan's moans, tiny little hiccups of sound that reverberate between their bodies, and Brendon's slow gentle thrusts that shorten, then completely come to a stop. They're both frozen in motion, beautiful as they fill Spencer, but Spencer is the real prize, beautiful while being filled.

He's managed to open his eyes, just the littlest bit. They're narrowed to slits, but they aren't menacing, just focused. Ryan mouths against Spencer's shoulder, begging for release with his hands and teeth instead of words, and Jon can tell how much it hurts to feel him leave, how odd, like losing a limb.

"I love you, Spence,” Ryan mumbles and Spencer nods, closing his eyes again, reaching out and pulling all three of their palms to sit on his chest, entwined with his own.

Jon honestly didn't think people were allowed to get this happy.