In Our Bedroom, After the War; GSF; NC-17 (4/9)

[sinuous_curve]

.part three.



.ryan.

Michael takes off for the night, kisses Ryan in the doorway and smiles. "You need a night with your boys. I'll go get pissed with Siska. Everyone wins." Ryan smiles at him and tips his head back for another easy kiss. Sometimes Ryan likes that they can just be. He cocks his hand in a wave as Ryan shuts the door, blows him a kiss and heads down the stairs.

Brendon smiles as Ryan sits back down on the couch. "Ding dong, the witch is ... gone." Ryan elbows him in the side, but gently, and Spencer snorts, reaching behind Jon's head to ruffle his hair.

"They tease because they love," Jon says and Ryan rolls his eyes, but he still smiles.

Things are good, for the first time in too long, and he can breathe without feeling something pull and push in his ribs, accusing with every thudding beat of his heart. Perfection is an impossibility and even now he can't say there's nothing he would change, but near perfect is a state that seems to fit the four of them and he's more happy than he could ever say to have it back.

It's a night of shitty movies, Starship Troopers with Brendon and Jon quoting along to every line, Brendon taking Dizzy and Carmen, Jon covering Rico and Ace. They four of them kill a case of beer and bags of the fucking nasty onion and sour cream chips Spencer and Brendon love and, in some strange way, it's like being back in high school, before people came and went, left and came back to find the world around them had shifted and they no longer fit quiet as well as they once had.

Brendon, not sick but still not entirely well, begs off a little after midnight, yawning through his words and pressing kisses to Spencer and Jon's temples, the tip of Ryan's nose, before shuffling off to bed. Ryan knows he'll end up in the room Ryan and Michael Guy share, so Spencer and Jon can take his bed.

"Don't hog the blankets," Ryan warns with a crooked smile and Brendon sticks his tongue out and flips him off from around the corner.

He sits between Spencer and Jon as the movie wraps up, dead bug and the triumphant American male, nearly nods off with his head dropped onto Jon's shoulder. Spencer nudges their knees together and grins. "Go to bed, Ryan."

Ryan nods and hauls himself to his feet. He downed just under six beers and he feels a little fuzzy around the edges, not drunk, just buzzed and tired and still a little wrung out. He keeps expecting to blink and have this Spencer who smiles at him and hugs him vanish to the recesses of wishful thinking. Ryan has never easily trusted the good things in his life, but he wants to trust this.

He stops in the bathroom and pees, washes his hand and thinks about brushing his teeth, but decides it's not worth the effort when he could very well end up stabbing himself in the eye.

In the hallway, Brendon's left the bedroom door open and Ryan watches him for a moment, shifting in bed, smoothing down the blankets and punching the pillows into submission. He's not asleep, which is a little strange, but Ryan can't find it in himself to complain. There's something nice, to him at least, about feeling the moment when Brendon's body goes heavy and an inert, cataloging the lengthening of his breath and slowing of his heart.

Sweet dreams, Ryan has murmured in the past and maybe he will again.

Distantly, he catches the muted rise and fall of Spencer and Jon talking in low voices and he thinks he should play the host, if only for his own peace of mind rather than any expectation on their part, and stumbles back toward the living room, good night already sitting on the end of his tongue.

" ... what Brendon told me," he hears Spencer say and Ryan goes still.

Spencer has always been their mutual confidant, the one who hears the trials and travails of their lives and of each other and somehow, despite being the youngest, manages to find the words that make the world start spinning like it should again.

Ryan tells Spencer a whole myriad of things, or had and has begun to again, but the thought that Brendon never stopped blindsides him in a way that logically he knows he should have expected.

"What did he say?" Jon's voice is a low rumble and Ryan shivers, arms folded tight across his chest.

Spencer chuckles, almost shy, and Ryan can remember sixteen-year-old Spencer sitting cross-legged on his bed, reluctantly confessing to a crush, Brendon tickling at his ribs until he begged for surrender and spit out a name, cheeks flushed pink and smiling. "Brendon," Spencer says with the slow awe of one who can't believe what he's saying is true. "Said he's in love with me."

Ryan can't breathe.

Jon whistles low. "Jesus, Spence." There's beat, the span of a heartbeat. "Are you.” He pauses. “Are you in love with him?"

Spencer doesn't say anything, but the silence is full of words and emotions, it's telling and Ryan turns without conscious thought, just need, like ground glass burning in the pit of his stomach.

The bedroom light is off and he closes the door behind him; Brendon lifts his head off the pillows and murmurs, words muted and jumbled by near sleep and Ryan has stopped thinking in right and wrong, in mistakes and consequences, and can only exist to take what he needs.

Brendon looks and sees, with wide eyes, pushes back the blankets in silence and shimmies out of his boxers.

He's spread out on the bed, a little paler than usual, bones rising and undulating in curved ridges beneath his skin, more pronounced than they should be. He is beautiful in the dark, patient and expectant, and he's in love with Spencer.

Ryan doesn't begin to know what to do with that.

It's betrayal and exclusion in the same painful know in his chest and Ryan can't, not when Spencer is newly back to being his and not when Brendon is offering himself up with the cant of his hips.

"You're mine," he whispers to the curve of Brendon's spine, sucking deep, dark bruises to the nearly translucent flesh, pressing his thumbs into the marks to hear Brendon draw the sibilant ‘s’ of his yes out in a sound almost like a hiss. "You're mine," he mumbles to Brendon’s shoulder, biting down hard enough to leave the faint ringed impression of his teeth in the skin as it shifts from the muscles playing underneath. "You're mine," he gasps, slamming in as hard as he can, needing to bruise and mark and brand and Brendon lets out a garbled string of noises, assent and denial, confusion.

Brendon snaps his hips back to meet him, he screams for it with the lines of his body and he still loves Spencer, and there's still Butcher taking him for pizza and movies on Saturday nights and there's too much and too many people and Ryan needs to the world to stop being complicated.

Ryan can't breathe because the world is so complicated.

"Say it." He can’t stop the words from coming out and they're a demand, not a request. He pulls out slow and thrusts back in slower and Brendon writhes, babbling and needy, hands fists in the sheets of the bed. "Say it."

It's self-flagellation at its finest and maybe Ryan should have been Catholic priest.

Brendon makes a questioning noise, fucking desperate and keening in the back his throat and maybe Spencer and Jon are still in the living room, heads bent together in the blue glow of the TV and maybe they're curled up head to toe on Brendon's bed. Maybe they're fucking, maybe they're not, but they're close enough to hear, if they wanted to listen.

"Say you love him," Ryan exhales, fingers pressed hard into Brendon's side. "Fucking say it."

There's a long, long pause of Brendon shifting and panting, whining, and Ryan not moving.

They don't lie to each other and they can't say no. Omission is one thing, refraining from saying, refusing to incriminate themselves, but they won't lie. Ryan trusts Spencer implicitly and he knows he would never say something like that to Jon if it weren't true and there is no context he can think of that takes away the bone deep sting.

"Love him," Brendon gasps, "Love you."

Ryan comes.

*

In the morning, Ryan wakes to Brendon's weight, heavy against his side. There is no moment of contemplation. Spencer never sleeps on that side, Jon likes to touch, but not to possess and Michael needs all the space he can get.

Brendon, on the other hand, is a spider monkey, clinging even in his sleep, and Ryan has a quiet, blissful moment of leaning against him, feeling his heat, until he feels Brendon's chest against his back, the warm, smooth skin there.

Brendon is naked.

Brendon is naked, and all too suddenly, Ryan remembers. He feels something tickling his throat, the corners of his eyes, and he tries to move away, away from all of that exposed skin, and the peaceful look Brendon gets on his face when he finally manages to sleep.

"Hey," Brendon mumbles, and Ryan's slept next to him enough to know that he doesn't talk in his sleep. His eyes are still closed when Ryan turns to look, features loose and relaxed, and Ryan hopes there's a first time for everything.

He stays silent, and he's watching Brendon's face so intensely that he can feel it when he rolls his eyes. Brendon winces, then slides his eyes open, lashes crusted with sleep.

"Ryan Ross," he says, and his voice sounds exasperated and sleep weary, but he doesn't seem to be going anywhere, and Ryan doesn't know why that settles him, but it does.

"Brendon Urie," he responds, and it occurs to him that he's always liked the sound of Brendon's name on his lips. Brendon shuffles closer, on instinct, probably, knowing that Ryan's gearing up to run, and palms from Ryan's shoulder down to his arm, tangling their fingers together.

"Ryan Ross, I'm not going anywhere," he says, and Ryan blinks at him, panic etching itself into his chest.

"Were you." His breath is coming in heavy, voice cut through and ragged. Brendon's face changes again, from something calm and happy to a completely different something an entirely. "Were you thinking about leaving?"

Brendon has the audacity to laugh.

"Where the fuck would I go, Ryan Ross, seriously?" Ryan could think of someplace, he could think of a hundred different some places, somewhere far from here and how fucked up this all is, but he doesn't say that, he can't. Brendon leans forward so that he's looming over Ryan -- there's no other word for it. "No one else would have me."

"Butcher would," Ryan says, and Brendon was close, he'd been so close, but he moves away, a little, at the mention of his boyfriend's name.

His boyfriend. Jesus.

"I love you, Ryan Ross," he says evenly, eyes clear. "Nothing's ever going to change that."

*

The first time Ryan ever heard an adult say, "Speak of the devil and he will come," he told Spencer and they spent a Wednesday afternoon running around the neighborhood talking about the devil (still the red skinned, fork tailed version to their five-and-six-year-old minds) and checking to see if he'd appear.

Ryan, never a religious child, remembers being disappointed.

Butcher show up a little before noon, hair bleached almost blond and skin baked golden brown from two weeks in Florida with a couple buddies, sun, surf and sand, with a stuffed alligator for Brendon and a tee shirt screened with the cartoon drawing of a muscle inflated chest and stomach.

"You're such a dumbass," Brendon says, but it's affectionate and he kisses Butcher with just enough tongue to say how much he's missed him without having to form the words.

Spencer and Jon watch from the couch, faces neutral as possible, but easy and pleased at the corners of their mouths. Butcher's an imminently likable guy, Ryan knows that (for a club pick up his mind provides and the thought is unwelcome, but it twists his mouth in a smirk) and Brendon's smiling bright and pleased, curling up half on Butcher’s lap in the easy chair.

"What are you going to name him?" Jon asks, handing out sodas.

Butcher's got his chin tucked on the top of Brendon's head and Ryan wonders if it's possible he hasn't been paying enough attention over the past couple months because he doesn't remember Butcher and Brendon being a thing, he remembers them being handsy and giggly, constantly touching and unsubtly stealing kisses, but this is different.

There are marks all over Brendon's skin, beneath his suspect hoodie in hundred-degree heat and Ryan grinds his jaw a little. You're mine.

Brendon chuckles and rubs his knuckles on the soft fuzz on top of the alligator's head. "And what makes you think I am the kind of person who does something as silly as name my stuffed animals, Jon Walker?"

Spencer snorts.

Brendon had no friends in elementary school, he confessed when they first met, and he coped by naming stuffed animals and talking to his action figures, creating a world where he was the perfect son as he was, not by putting forth a mask that was beginning to crack by the time he was twelve.

"His name is Everglade," Brendon says delicately and Butcher chuckles, nipping at the shell of his ear. "I like that, Bee."

Ryan rolls his eyes hard and pastes on a smile.

*

Ryan hates Butcher. Ryan hates Butcher so much that he would throw darts at his face if he had a picture.

Ryan hates Butcher just about how much Brendon hates Michael, and it makes sense now, as the days of summer wear on, where Ryan wakes up to Brendon and Butcher making faces at each other more often than not.

The guys are different when Butcher's over too, a little louder, a little rowdier. Ryan was almost positive that nothing in the world could have gotten Spencer to sing karaoke on a rickety stage in a dive bar on the strip to a crowd thirty people deep with a feather boa wrapped around his neck -- a pink feather boa -- but he's doing it.

Ryan's trying to keep from being too shocked.

"Can you believe that?" Ryan's a little drunker than he really likes to be, but he's also been staring at Brendon shoving his tongue down Butcher's throat for the past hour.

Well. He's been alternating between watching them and watching Spencer on stage. Spencer shaking his hips and laughing, and doing something to the microphone that's supposed to be singing, but looks more like he's giving it head.

Ryan is really not comfortable watching Spencer blow a microphone.

Mostly because it makes him think of Spencer on his knees, and Ryan's a pretty self-aware guy, but he's never actually, actively thought of Spencer that way.

On stage, Spencer flicks his tongue out, licking the sweat away from his lips, and drops to his knees along with the dip on the song. Suddenly all Ryan can think of is Spencer on his knees, Spencer warbling in the mic like he warbled into the heads of hairbrushes when they were kids.

"Hey," he says to Jon, leaning back against the bar and trying his hardest not to flutter his eyelashes. Jon looks down at him, and he looks mostly amused, but there's a thread of something there too, want, maybe, and Ryan has no idea which of the two of them it's meant for.

He wonders if it matters.

"Hey," Jon says, and then he's pressing a bottle of water into Ryan's hand, the condensation wetting his hands, sending something cool shooting through him.

Jon has the best ideas.

"You have the best ideas," he says, and Jon grins at him again, an eye focused on the stage, watching Spencer, drunk-out-of-his-mind Spencer dance around.

They would have never come here if it weren't for Butcher, Spencer would have never gone on stage if Butcher hadn't laughed and Brendon hadn't said, "Oh man, Spence, Faithfully. You remember that summer, right?"

Spencer had laughed, and he'd downed his shot, and then another and Butcher had said, "God, he looks happy. Doesn't he look happy, you guys?" Low, so Brendon couldn't hear them, and that had been it. The decision had been made.

"My boyfriend picked going to a poetry reading over going to this," Ryan mutters, downing half his water bottle and setting it on the bar. Jon hands him a drink, something dark and rich smelling that burns on its way down Ryan's throat.

"That sucks," Jon says, but Ryan shakes his head, trying to clear the fuzz.

"My boyfriend picked going to a poetry reading over coming to a bar with me and my friends," he says, surprised at the lump in his throat. "Will you fuck me in the bathroom, Jon Walker?"

*

Ryan tends to think of Jon as the innocent one in the mess that himandBrendonandSpencer, the one who got brought in without honestly being aware of what he was getting into. He imagines Jon saw three guys, nice enough, took pity on them at first and ended up genuinely liking them as a consequence.

Jon's fingers hook in his belt loop, dragging him through the crowd to the bathrooms, and it makes him think maybe saint is too strong a word.

The lock on the bathroom is fucked, rattling and rusted, but the door swings inward and when Jon pushes him up against it, mouth hot on his neck, Ryan really doesn't give a shit.

He'd really thought Jon would say no.

"Fucking Spencer," Jon mutters, working at Ryan's belt as he drops to his knees. "Fucking microphone."

Maybe, in another world, Ryan would burst out laughing at that, at Jon fucking him because he can't get to Spencer because Spencer is in love with Brendon who Ryan is fucking. It's soap opera drama at it's finest, and maybe when Ryan puts his dick away and walks back outside, Peggy Sue will be waiting to say she's bought fucking controlling interest in his oil company and Michael Guy is actually his secret fraternal twin brother.

Jon unbuckles his belt and pops the button, yanks down his fly and shoves his jeans and boxers down around his thighs.

Drama or no, Ryan's just a man and he's already half hard from the press of Jon's mouth and the nip of his teeth and part of him, some masochistic part, wants to ask conversationally if Jon has a boyfriend too, tucked away in Chicago, just so they can make a real fucking mess of it all.

"God, Ryan," Jon murmurs, like a kind of prayer, and Ryan almost laughs, almost sing song, I'm no savior, I'm no saint.

Jon knows what he's doing, of that Ryan is already well aware from their indiscretion last summer, and, fuck, he doesn't know what to do with the thought that forms, like this is some kind of annual fling. He remembers a friend saying in high school, "It doesn't count of you don't come," as he let boys blow him, pulling off at the last minute to jerk himself off to orgasm.

Maybe it's like that. It's not cheating if you don't talk about it.

It's probably strange, Ryan thinks as Jon bobs and sucks, tongue and lips, and tight, wet heat, that if anyone asked him if he was faithful, he'd probably say yes without thinking, Jon's mouth around his cock, Brendon's dick in his ass, and Michael Guy seething his way through another pointless fight.

There's a rhythm there, a song and dance that's beginning to wear thin.

Jon has a hand between his legs, jerking himself off rough and fast and Ryan wants to tangle his fingers in the short hairs at the nape of his neck, but doesn't. Something about lines and familiarity, intimacy, and possibly needing Jon to be the innocent one.

"Fuck," Ryan gasps by way of warning, thumping an open palm on Jon's shoulder and he pulls back, but not quiet fast enough. Jon swallows some and misses some and Ryan almost dies at how pretty he looks in the flat light of the fluorescent overhead.

"So." Jon’s voice is fucked raw and rough, abraded, and he has come on the corner of his mouth, down his chin. "You're in love with Spencer, too."

Yes, no, maybe so, Ryan closes his eyes and nods and wishes himself away.

*

The end of the summer is always something Ryan expects and plans for; he prepares for it, and he steels himself against the loss, but when the twentieth of August comes, and that means only two days, three days, four, he never really manages to figure out how to keep breathing.

The bitch of it is, this summer he's alone, dealing with it.

Logically, nothing should have changed. He and Michael Guy are happier than ever if the rumors are to be believed, and Brendon and Butcher (the fucking one in a million club-scene pick-up who actually turned into a boyfriend and not a case of the clap) are steady and they're happy, and Brendon smiles more than Ryan's ever seen him smile.

Ryan is still with Michael Guy, but he was last summer too, when he saw Spencer and Jon off. He was the summer before that, the first summer, when it was like pieces of his skin and his soul and the sky were being ripped away, when it was like he was being ripped open. Back then, during that first summer, Brendon had broken down in the car, big, fat tears rolling down his cheeks, catching on the hem of his tee shirt and soaking it, silent sobs wracking his shoulders.

Ryan had been strong for him, for them. Strong and silent, even as his hands were shaking on the steering wheel and he'd had to pull over when they'd gotten past the Missouri state line, couldn't handle the loss and Spencer's smell, which still clung to everything, Spencer's space, even though Brendon was sitting in the front seat, was still Spencer's, and Ryan didn't think he'd ever recover.

Nothing should have changed and Ryan still breaks at the airport, sucking in lungful after lungful of breath once Spencer and Jon leave their eye line, counting the seconds until they can turn around and leave, so he can bend at the knees in front of the trashcan at the entrance and let out the contents of his stomach.

Brendon's the one who pats his back; Brendon's the one who presses soothing words to the side of his neck, wraps an arm around Ryan's waist.

They sit in the car, fingers entwined, but Ryan's other hand is propped against the steering wheel, shielding his eyes when he leans forward.

Brendon's using his other hand to send texts on his phone.

Ryan really hates the Butcher, despite the fact that he makes really good breakfast food, and even better coffee (though not as good as Jon's), despite the fact that Brendon's shoulders have evened out, despite the fact that Brendon's smiling more.

*

Spencer calls on a Monday in November, and it's been a few days since Ryan's talked to him. Sometimes it hurts a little too much, hearing about the classes and the people and the parties and the life Ryan hadn't wanted, the life he hadn't thought Spencer'd wanted either.

"Hey," he says into the phone, because he can't think of a reason not to pick up, and picking up is the hardest part anyway. Talking to Spencer, even about the hard stuff, is always ultimately better than not talking to him at all.

Spencer's quiet, and Ryan feels a thousand different thoughts flicker through his brain, a hundred excuses at his lips.

He can hear the breath that Spencer takes and then he says, "Brendon said he loved me over the summer and I didn't tell him that I loved him back or anything, I'm not stupid,Ryan, but he did it and now he's not picking up his phone and even though he was good with it at the time, maybe he's not good with itnow. What if he hates me?"

Ryan blinks, and tries to space out Spencer's words, swallowing the lump in his throat and then clearing it. "He's not avoiding you, Spence," he says quietly, even though it's not like he knows for sure. Michael Guy has seen more of Brendon over the past month than Ryan has, and Ryan doesn't know what it says about him that he's jealous of his own boyfriend over something that stupid.

"Out of that entire sentence -- "

"That was not a sentence," Ryan snorts, cutting him off. "That was like, seven sentences with the breath control of eighty. Who've you been blowing?"

Spencer laughs like it's ripped out of him, like he's shocked that it's still possible. Maybe he is.

"How are you guys?" Ryan can see Spencer making a hand motion with his hand. Ryan doesn't respond, doesn't know how to finally be the one left behind. There's a scraping noise on Spencer's end and then a, "Oh fuck, Ry, I have to go. The alarm clock wasn't plugged in. Shit," and then a string of curses pouring past his lips as he presumably pulls himself out of bed, away from Jon. "I'm seriously late to my Introduction to Child Psych class. I'll call you later on, yeah?"

Ryan nods, and doesn't plan on picking up, but when Spencer says, "I love you." and when Spencer says, "Fuck, shit, I miss you," Ryan responds in kind and means it.

.brendon.

Butcher says, "Come to San Francisco with me. Just for the weekend."

He's on his knees, been on his knees for hours, with his mouth tracing hot paths across Brendon's hips and down his cock. He's got his hands curved around his hips, fingers tracing lines along his ass and Brendon's mind is nothing more than rambled string of affirmative noises.

Butcher sets his chin on Brendon's knee and smiles with a mouth raw at the corners. "Please?"

Brendon says yes.

Three hours later, after dark has fallen and Butcher's asleep spread out on his back with the moon casting his tattoos in shadows and dark colors, Brendon realizes what he said and steps breathing, heart stuttering against his ribs. He hasn't been anywhere without Ryan or Spencer in six years.

Shit.

Brendon waits two days, chewing his lips bloody and it takes Ryan looking at him blearily over the kitchen table in the morning. "What is your problem, Bren?"

He chokes on cereal and blushes, looking at Butcher standing in his boxers in the kitchen pouring coffee into a chipped mug with whales on the side. He's shaggy and lovely and he smiles at Brendon, even though he doesn't always laugh, and that's more than Brendon's ever had. "Butcher's taking me to San Francisco," Brendon spits out, staring into milk tinged pink. "For the weekend."

Ryan inhales and Brendon looks up through the sweep of his eyelashes.

"How are you getting there?" The words are carefully scripted to neutrality, but he knuckles have gone white around his mug and Michael Guy, fucking Michael Guy, is bent at the waist in his chair and Brendon knows he has a hand on Ryan's knee.

That used to be Brendon's job.

Butcher comes shuffling in and drops down beside Brendon, pressing a sloppy kiss to his neck; he smiles at Ryan, just a little pointedly. "I figured since Brendon doesn't have Monday or Friday classes we could drive. It's just a couple hours. Not too bad for a road trip."

Once upon a time, the three of them sat in the front seat of Spencer's car that they never actually fixed enough to do more than sputter weakly and growl when they put the key in the ignition.

They'd planned a trip around the country, taking pictures and writing memories of each place they visited on the car in sharpie markers. The plan was the take a piece of the places that touched and leave bits of the old versions of themselves behind for someone else to find and, maybe, treasure.

Spencer got into college, and Ryan dropped out and the dream became a dusty relic of childhood.

Ryan nods. "Sounds fun," he lies and Brendon can barely kiss Butcher back.

*

The night before they're set to leave, when Brendon is packed, and it's not much, just the duffel Ginger got him for Christmas when he was twelve, the really nice one with his initials at the top, at the fabric right before the zipper, Spencer calls.

The phone rings and rings in Brendon's hand, and he knows he should answer it, he knows he should, because Spencer has called every day for the past three months and Brendon has only answered twice. He's not mad at Spencer -- fuck, he could never be mad at Spencer, but the world is easier to process when he's not thinking of the two of them in his bed, trading soft, slow kisses that should have gotten Spencer sick, but hadn't.

He has a plan when he picks up the phone. "I," he says, and Spencer's hitch of breath tells Brendon he was gearing up to leave another message. Brendon's saved every single one, even though the memory card on his phone hates him for it. "I just want you to know, Spencer Smith, that I am not in love with you anymore. My boyfriend is great and Ryan's boyfriend is great, and you should just make Jon your boyfriend already so that the six of us can go on double dates." He breathes out, and then squeezes his eyes shut, voice a lot more ragged than it should be.

"I hear you're going to San Francisco," is what Spencer says, and Brendon hates Ryan more than anything in the universe in that moment.

"Butch asked," he says, trying to keep his voice normal and even. He very purposefully does not close his eyes. He doesn't think of Spencer, and Spencer's eyes, and his hair and his hands. Doesn't think about how his chest had exploded when Spencer had stayed with him and kissed him until he was better again.

He doesn't think about how it would have felt with Ryan's cool hands pressed against his sweating back, Jon's chuckle in his ear.

He doesn't think about it, except he's panting through Spencer's silence, and his dick is straining in his jeans.

"Yeah," he says after what feels like an hour -- an eternity, of his skin stretched tight and Spencer's breathy exhalations on the other end of the line, hundreds of miles away. "We've never gone away together before. It should be fun."

Spencer makes a soft noise, low in his throat, and Brendon's eyes slide shut again, involuntarily. "So you're not in love with me anymore," Spencer says the words conversationally, like he's talking about the weather, or something equally as inane.

Brendon can't breathe. It is a proven fact, once he starts sputtering, choking on nothing but the air and his breath.

"No," Brendon says, and Spencer's inhale is messy and loud. Brendon can feel it skittering across his skin, can feel tears pricking in his eyes, because he's never lied to Spencer. Not outright. Not about something like this.

"No?" Spencer's not teasing, he's not, but his voice has that quality that's not quiet. He's pushing, which is what Spencer Smith does best, with the kind of single-minded determination Brendon wishes he had for things other than Spencer and Ryan and Jon.

"Spence, come on. I mean. I have a boyfriend." Spencer is silent, and Brendon's palms are sweating, itching with all of the things he isn't saying, but wants to; all of the things he doesn't have answers or responses to.

"Are you happy?" That's Spencer all over, and Brendon blinks, because it is just like Spencer to ask a completely innocuous question with his voice like that, rough and weary, hopeful and sad all at once. Brendon can't really handle that, not the night before his trip with Butcher.

He can't be thinking of Spencer -- he's been so good lately, sending texts and e-mails instead of calling, conveniently being out of earshot of his phone whenever Spencer is out of class and could easily call. There were possibly charts that he'd made up, but he'd tossed them in the paper shredder at the hospital one night after Butcher went through his bag to find gum and came so, so close to finding his Operation: Avoid Spencer folder.

Brendon's spent a lot of extra time at the hospital this semester, which is helpful, because one of his classes is taught by an orderly (it's possibly the coolest class Brendon has ever taken in his life, and he's actually learning things in college). It takes all of his willpower not to call Spencer during his breaks (especially considering they fall right in the middle of prime Spencer accessibility). Spencer was always the one most excited by Brendon's chosen career path.

"Of course I'm happy, Spencer Smith," he says after long, long minutes of silence. Spencer hasn't hung up though; Brendon can still hear his breathing.

Spencer stays quiet, breathing in and out, out and in, over and over until Brendon's tapping the beat to it against his knee, making music to the rise and fall of Spencer's chest. "I miss you," he whispers, and tears Brendon didn't even know he'd been holding in begin to slide down his cheeks, unprompted. "I miss you and it's stupid, because the distance hasn't changed," Spencer says, and Brendon can feel it, the weight of the past three months pressed hard against his chest, choking the air from his lungs. "I thought I was being so strong, you know?" Brendon's not sure if he's supposed to respond, he's flying blind.

"You're always strong, Spence." He doesn't mean to sniffle at the end of it, doesn't want Spencer to know that he's crying. "Always," Brendon's always been the one to cry first, the first to admit it and to cling, and Spencer has always let him. The tears are scalding hot on Brendon's cheeks and they're closing up his throat. He can't hold back the noises he makes, and Spencer's soothing little nothings don't do anything to make him stop.

"I love you," Spencer's voice is sharp, harsh and fierce, and all of Brendon's walls are collapsing from the outside in, leaving all of him exposed, the pain and the mess rushing to the surface. "I want you to be happy, Bren. That's all I ever wanted." Spencer says, and Brendon can tell he means it. "I don't know how things got so complicated." Spencer says after a minute, huffing out a watery chuckle.

Brendon hasn't gotten his breathing under control yet. "Do you ever think ... " He doesn't let himself finish the thought, doesn't let it go further, and suddenly his throat is dry, dry, dry.

"Yeah," the word is hushed, but Brendon hears it anyway.

In the morning, Brendon wakes up early, he makes coffee, sets his bags by the door and feels lighter than he has in months.

Ryan's up early too, tucked against the kitchen table, mug already cradled in his hands. "Morning," he mumbles, and when Brendon grins at him, he's startled into smiling back. He looks soft, in the sunlight, and Brendon's heart clenches in his chest at just how very pretty he is.

The buzzer goes off, and Brendon's been expecting Butcher since six, so he just props the door open and calls down, "Door's open."

He stayed up half the night planning what he was going to say to Ryan, how he was going to mend this thing between them that was never quite broken but not whole. He closes his eyes and opens his mouth, because the less he looks at Ryan, the more he'll be able to say, and --

"Hi," a voice from behind them says, and Brendon practically jumps out of his skin when he turns around. Spencer's tousled and worn, in a faded pair of gray sweatpants that have to be Jon's and a tee shirt that Brendon knows for a fact was once pink.

Brendon blinks and Ryan blinks harder, but Spencer's still standing there, backpack high on his shoulders, eyes bruised and red.

"What," Brendon sputters, voice perfectly flat, perfectly even and shaking apart underneath the surface. "What are you doing here?"

"I missed you," Spencer shrugs, like that explains things.

Maybe it does.

*

Brendon locks himself in the bathroom and calls Butcher, leaves a message, "Something came up, I can't go, I'll take to you later," in one protracted breath and snaps his phone shut. He presses his forehead to the bathroom wall, pale green and ass ugly because it came that way and they never changed it, and breathes, in and out.

He thinks, for a long moment, that he's going to open the door to the end of a dream and cry.

He opens the door to Spencer sitting on the arm of the couch, arms folded tight across his chest as Ryan says something, gesticulating with his hands. His movements are fuzzy and half-assed and Brendon realizes Ryan had to know because there's no way on God's earth he'd be awake before nine if he didn't have a reason.

"So," Brendon says and Spencer grins; his eyes are rimmed with exhaustion, probably from being on a plane at ass o’clock in the morning and Brendon wants to kiss the shadows away and push him into bed, fit himself along Spencer's back and tuck Ryan along his front.

Sing a lullaby, maybe, tangles of meaningless refrains.

"We have to fix this."

It's Ryan that speaks and the irony is enough for Brendon to snort out a laugh and Spencer to crack a crooked smile.

Brendon's not that big a fan of being a grown up and it’s pretty obvious that he's not all that good at it. He tries and missteps, takes and wants and can't even give back enough for the scales to end up balanced. He lies, to others and to himself, more than even he's probably aware of.

Cheater, drinker, pot smoker (once or twice only and that was all Chris Faller's fault and he never did it again because he came home and Ryan laughed), but maybe it's not as bad as all that.

He doesn't cheat for the hell of it and if there are degrees of murder, why can't there be degrees of faithfulness? The first thing he ever told Butcher was that he'd slept with Ryan. He's not an alcoholic and he's not an addict, though God knows he wanted to be when he was kicked out of the old homestead.

Anything for escape.

Brendon sighs. "How do we do that?"

This time, Spencer's smile is almost right.

The Smith family roof, Brendon reflects as he tumbles out onto it, tossing down an old sleeping bag as Spencer and Ryan wiggle out through the attic window, has seen more of his breakdowns than any other place in the world, more of his triumphs. There's more of one than the other, but the game's not over (which is as far as Brendon can take the sports metaphor without calling Jon for help).

It's a flashback, cue the Indie song and montage, and Brendon feels strangely settled in his bones as they fit together, Spencer tucked in the middle.

The weather is as cool as it gets in Vegas, blustery, and Brendon shivers a little inside his hoodie, grateful for the heat radiating off Spencer's body as they sit pressed together from shoulders to knees.

"How do we start?" Brendon asks.

Spencer sighs. "In the beginning, there were three guys."

"They were friends until they got fucked up," Ryan continues, voice low and rough, and God, it's been too long since the last time they tried their best to work out the deeper meanings of life.

Granted, back in the day it was prom dates and trig tests, surviving gym and figuring out how to get an extra music class into their schedules. Childish now, considering what he knows, but it meant the world at the time and maybe degree is the end all be all.

"I fucked Jon," Spencer says and in the exhale, there's no shame in his tone, just resignation and something it takes Brendon too long to identify.

Maybe it's a sign that honesty is alien.

"I fucked Ryan," Brendon offers. An eye for an eye makes everyone blind, but then they'll at least know exactly what the others are going through and Brendon is tired of standing in crowded rooms and feeling so, so alone. "And Butcher."

The laugh is weak, but needed.

Ryan picks at a thread on the sleeping bag. "I fucked Jon and Brendon. And Michael Guy."

The thing is, fucking is not the same as love and Brendon could fill volumes about both.

Butcher leaves bruises on his hips and neck, smiles when he comes, murmurs that Brendon’s beautiful when he’s writhing underneath him. He doesn't laugh at all of Brendon's jokes, but he always smiles. He would never be able to understand how sacred a Christmas kiss is, how the worst thing you could do is cheapen it.

The version of God Brendon once clung to, taught him a lot of things, no caffeine and no rated R movies, and those have sloughed off as easily as a second skin, left behind in a temple that never seemed to hold more than broken promises and disappointment.

It also said no sex before marriage, which catches him sometimes and to love, honor and obey the one person you want to be with for the rest of time.

That one’s harder.

"I'm sorry," he says after a beat of silence just a fraction too long to be comfortable, "I’m so fucking sorry I didn't pick up the phone, Spence."

He's sorry he didn't pick up the phone and sorry that he ran away, sorry he got so scared he could barely breathe because loving someone is unexpected and easy and falling in love is scarier than walking away from the family who just wanted you, in their own twisted way, to get better.

Spencer tips his chin up with two fingers and smiles and Brendon sees the kiss coming and, even knowing they still probably won't be able to talk about it, he cocks his head to the side and leans in.

It's easy and right, their mouths fitted together and the fingers that lace in his hand aren't Spencer's, which is right too. Ryan sweeps his thumb across the back of Brendon's hand and it's consent and acceptance, another way of saying the same thing.

I love you.

*

Spencer hadn't called his parents, hadn't told anyone but Jon and Ryan about the plane tickets, but if the remaining four Smiths are at all surprised to see the three of them up on the roof, they don't show it.

"Are you going to sleep out there?" Ginger (who Brendon never has and never will be able to call anything but Mrs. Smith) is standing in Spencer's bedroom, head tilted out, and it's been a while since Brendon's seen her, longer than he likes to think about.

There are new creases around her eyes, but she looks the same despite them, and Brendon feels something ease in his chest at the sight of her.

"I think we might, Mrs. Smith," he says, because Spencer is already half asleep (exhausted, most likely because of the trek west) and Ryan's curled around him tight, their foreheads pressed together, Ryan's long fingers tangled in the hair at the back of Spencer's neck.

"You'll need extra blankets," she says, and then she's gone, leaving Brendon to wonder how it is that she never asks any questions, never presses them for answers they don't know how to give.

She never once has, and she took him in, terrified and shaking at seventeen when all he'd been able to say was, "Can I? Just. Just for a few weeks. Until I can save up for my own place." She hadn't asked, hadn't pushed, and he'd stayed for half a year, sustained by Spencer's strength and the force of her smiles.

"Get your ass back here, Urie," Spencer mumbles, voice sleep rough. "I did not come 1500 miles for you to keep flirting with my mom."

Brendon snorts out a laugh, then clamps his hand over his mouth to keep the giggles in. Ryan's rolling his eyes, but Brendon leans forward when he's close enough, kisses his cheek, the corner of his mouth.

They stay up there the whole night, aided by a thermos of Ginger's hot chocolate and extra blankets. Spencer naps, because he needs it, and while they're more silent than not, Ryan and Brendon talk about the things they've never been able to put a name to.

Brendon leans across Spencer's heat, touches his hand to Ryan's shoulder, his face, and presses their mouths together again, holding himself perfectly still and far enough away so that this can't turn in to anything but what he needs it to be.

Ryan kisses him back, parts his lips just barely and reaches (if Brendon's not mistaken) trembling hands up to cup at Brendon's cheeks.

It's an apology, and it's a declaration, and most importantly, it's easy, and it's light and it's right and when they break apart, Ryan's smiling, cheeks tinged pink.

He ducks his head down against the crook of Spencer's neck, and Brendon can see the tears shining on his cheeks.

They come down in the morning, when the first rays of sunlight start to peek through the hazy sky, and pile together into the bed that used to be Spencer's.

"I love you," Ryan whispers, clinging to the both of them, his voice lost and small and foreign. The words should have lost their meaning by now, Brendon hears them so much, but his heart still clenches and he saves the hitch of breath, Ryan's bitten lip, saves them somewhere safe and repeats the words over in his head until he says them back, catching himself by surprise.

They doze for most of the day, skin always touching, and it's perfect, it's the three of them against the world again, but it's missing something and Brendon knows he's not the only one who notices.

On Saturday night, Jon calls, and he sounds distant, a little formal and a little lost. Brendon's stomach clenches in sadness, because they'd never meant to hurt him.

"Everything better now?" He asks when the phone is passed to Brendon. His voice sounds a little looser, a little easier, but there's still an edge there, something not quite expected.

"It's getting there, Jon Walker," Brendon finds himself smiling, but he can't pinpoint why. Ryan and Spencer are cuddled close, whispering something, soft.

"Yeah?" Jon asks, and he's trying, Brendon can feel how hard he's trying, but he's a part of this now too, a part of Ryan and Spencer as much as Brendon is.

"Missing something, though," he says, and when Jon grins, Brendon can feel the force of it through the line.

The airport does them the disservice of not changing at all, and they're all a little weepy when they get to the ticket counter, but Spencer doesn't have a bag to check, just his duffel, and it buys them a little bit of time.

"I'm coming home for Christmas," Spencer says, and Brendon's sagging with relief and tensing all at once, because that's fantastic for them, that's three whole weeks of Spencer and only one week away, but it's not just them, it's Jon now, too.

Brendon doesn't know when Jon got to be so important, sometime between the first minute and the second hour, but Brendon loves him, and he's just as part of this as they are.

"I'm coming home for Christmas, Brendon," Spencer says, voice final, but not flat.

"Thank you," Ryan says after a minute, and Brendon's pretty sure Spencer's as surprised as he is, at least until Ryan flings his arms around Spencer's neck, holding him tight. "Thank you for saving us."

They kiss, just a dry touch of lips, but it's beautiful, something to be remembered.

"If you don't call me when you land, I will kick your ass, Spencer Smith," Brendon says, and Spencer rolls his eyes (Spencer has filled out, is six inches taller and broader. He could swat Brendon like a fly), but he nods, too, reaching forward to kiss Brendon, too.

"I love you," he says, looking at both of them square in the eye.

They wait until his gate is called, even though they can't see him anymore, wait until the plane has boarded, standing in the airport with their fingers linked.

"Thank you," Brendon whispers, wrapping tentative arms around Ryan's waist and breathing in deep when Ryan relaxes against him.

"Needed you to be whole again," Ryan says, and Brendon's not there yet, not the whole way, but he's getting there.

*

Butcher says, "Jeez Bren, you could have said something." Brendon blinks, because he had said something, but Butcher looks sad, eyes guarded for the first time in the year and a half Brendon's known him.

"I'm sorry," Brendon offers up a rueful smile, but Butcher doesn't smile back. He's drawn up tight against himself, and Brendon just wants to hug him, and press his lips to Butcher’s temples, making things okay again.

"Bren," he says, and he ducks his head down, fiddling with the hem of his tee shirt. "Bren, if you're not." He pauses; closing his eyes and chooses his next words carefully. "If you're not into this, you've gotta tell me."

Brendon blinks, and if this is what breaking up his, he's pretty sure he'll be okay. It makes his stomach clench up, that Butcher is in so much pain, that he's not, and that he knows what the difference between the two of them is. Butcher's breathing heavy. "Just. You have to tell me before I keep falling in love with you."

Brendon can't breathe. Maybe this is what it's like, breaking up. Something heavy presses against his chest and he whispers, "Butch, it's not that. Spencer came into town. It was sort of like this emergency, and he was a wreck and we." He sighs, opening his eyes. "It was just Spencer, Butch. I love you."

It's maybe not the entire truth, but Butcher needs to hear it, and it isn't as though Brendon doesn't mean the words. When Brendon kisses him, Butcher kisses back.

"I was really worried," Butcher says later, when they're pressed together on the bed, bare shoulders brushing. Brendon smiles at him soft, like he can't help it, and maybe he can't. Maybe sweeping and epic and breathtaking are states of mind. Maybe this is what love is supposed to be. "You could have just said it was Spencer, man then I wouldn't have worried at all."

Brendon knows that's true, and it makes something twist in his chest, because after that, naked and sated, Butcher can press against Brendon's shoulder, mouth at the skin there and fall asleep in three seconds flat.

Brendon doesn't sleep.

He's starting to realize he doesn't do it all that well unless Ryan, Spencer and Jon are there.

He's only just starting to realize what that means.

.jon.

Spencer comes back from Vegas, breathing deep and smiling tiredly, eyes rimmed with circles, but he presses his face to Jon's neck and sighs, lips moving in silent words around the skin on the underside of his jaw. Jon pulls him close, kisses his temple.

Jon told Spencer to go and he thinks Spencer comes back fixed or having fixed whatever it was that was drawing the corners of his mouth into deeply unhappy frowns, spending too many hours hunched over his desk with the heels of his hands pressed to his temples.

The semester passes faster than Jon expects and he ends up curled in bed with Spencer every night.

"I'm going home for Christmas," Spencer says over coffee one afternoon, sitting in the student lounge with their feet tucked up underneath their thighs on a deep couch. It's snowing, flakes batting gently against the windows and the lights are moodily low.

He's pretty; Spencer, in sweats and a hoodie zipped up to his chin, holding a cup of roasted hazelnut coffee. There's a smudge of whipped cream on his top lip and he's smiling as he says it. Jon's breath catches in his chest; it's a bad habit to have, he knows, but Spencer's gotten somehow wrapped up in the tangle of images in his mind that mean family.

"Home?" Jon echoes and Spencer nods, reaching out and squeezing his hand. "You're always invited, Jon. Always."

Jon remembers last Christmas and the funny thing is, the strongest images aren't Ryan and Brendon shoved up against the wall or Spencer naked beneath him, they’re the three of them standing on the roof, cheeks flushed from cold, looking at Jon like he'd somehow had a hand in hanging the moon.

His mother would never stop crying if he left.

"No." Jon leans over and kisses the tip of Spencer's nose, light and chaste. "Give them a kiss for me."

Spencer's plane leaves in the dead hours of the morning ("It's cheaper that way, by like a hundred bucks.") and Jon means to wake up, to get coffee and say goodbye, but he barely stirs when the mattress dips as Spencer crawls out of bed, barely stirs as Spencer showers and dresses, barely stirs as Spencer thumps softly around the room gathering up the rest of his things.

Spencer kneels and Jon creaks his eyes open to darkness, to his face haloed by the faint glow of his computer. "Jon, hey." He smiles and brushes back Jon's hair, "I'm taking off."

The words form on Jon's tongue, have fun and don't leave and I'll miss you, but they twist in his mouth and come out garbled sounds, softened by exhaustion and Spencer chuckles, bends down and kisses him. It's a gray kiss, between want and chastity, and Jon sighs in the back of his throat.

"I'll see you," Spencer whispers, "And I'll miss you."

And then he's gone.

Jon cuts out on campus earlier than he'd intended, begging off eggnog soaked parties and boozers, guys in baggy Santa suits and girls in short velvet skirts and elf ears, houses dripping in mistletoe and, hey, Jon believes in holiday spirit, just not fucking Yuletide orgies.

Home is home, it always will be, but it feels a little empty and he can read the questions in his brothers' eyes and his parents; even the rugrats crawl onto his lap and press their ears to his chest. "You heart sounds sad, Uncle Jon," and Jon doesn't cry or tear up, not at all.

It's bad being hated, and he has been, but it's worse being unwanted.

"You still going to watch them?" Mike asks with a smile and knock to his shoulder. "They were done with school on Friday and I remember something about getting you illegally onto my roof and owning your soul."

He should smile, Jon knows, crack a joke, but he can't and all he does is nod.

*

On the ninth, Jon's Aunt Lou dies.

It's peaceful, and she goes in her sleep, but Jon doesn't hear about it until the next morning, coming down into the kitchen in a ratty old pair of boxers he's pretty sure belong to Spencer and nothing else.

The lack of light should have tipped him off, but he hasn't been sleeping well, and it is early. His mom is sitting at the counter in the kitchen, feet dangling a few inches above the floor, palm pressed to her eyes.

Her shoulders are shaking, and Jon's heart clenches in his chest, fear and something else blooming. Terror.

"Mom?"

Her shoulders stiffen, and then she breaks all over again as she turns to face him, eyes wide and rimmed, and Jon is a terrible person -- Jon is the worst person in the world, but when she whispers out the words, swallowing hard against them, the first thing he feels is relief.

He feels guilty about it later, he's so ashamed later, but in the first moment, with her words swirled around his brain, the first thing he thinks is, "Thank God."

She hadn't wanted much, Aunt Lou, in her moments of lucidity, she'd always said she'd wanted to be buried next to her Geoffrey, and they have the funeral a week later.

"Do you want me to come out?" Spencer asks, voice weak through the line. Jon spends a lot of time holed in his room, talking to Spencer, and it feels wrong, it feels like he's exploiting this, and maybe he is, a little, but Jon can't find it in himself to complain, especially with Spencer's voice, comforting in his ear.

"It's okay," Jon says, even though he would give his entire world for Spencer to come back, to come visit him, to hold him tight and make the world spin right again. “I’m fine.”

"Yeah, Walker," Spencer snorts, softly, and Jon can hear him moving around the room gingerly. "You're fucking fantastic."

There's shuffling on Spencer's end of the phone, and Jon's got the phone pressed so tightly that the shell of his ear is starting to burn. He imagines that he can hear Ryan snuffling in his sleep, Spencer's footsteps in one-two-three time against the parquet as he paces, Brendon's soothing murmur as he paces along with him.

Jon's got a tight feeling in his stomach, and he doesn't want to talk about how sad he is, because while he'll miss his Aunt Lou, the mess in his stomach, the mess in his brain, the mess seeping in through the corners of his life, has nothing to do with this type of loss.

"I've gotta go," he says, and he promises himself that he won't call again, not until Christmas.

*

Monotonous rhythm seeps into Jon's life, through the cracks where holiday happiness should be, but is conspicuously missing in the place of the family gathered on a snowy cemetery field, laying Louise Ellen Walker to rest beside her beloved Geoffrey.

Wake up a little before eight and eat whatever his mother sets down in front of him.

It's good, he won't pretend otherwise. She hasn't had a kid in the house since last Christmas and she's missing Lou; her way of coping is cooking and Jon smiles his way through plates of pancakes and waffles, sides of bacon and ham, eggs, orange juice and coffee, even though it falls in his stomach like lead and settles there.

"It's good, Mom," he says and comforts himself with the fact that it's not a lie, even as his mind tries to conjure Spencer's face to the chair across from his, licking syrup off his spoon as Ryan slurps his way through mugs of black coffee and Brendon inhales him cereal.

Drive to Mike's by nine so he can make it to work on time and Jon can watch the rugrats.

Most mornings they're still in their pajamas, running around, alternating between watching cartoons and playing with their toys, maybe climbing into Jon's lap after they've kissed their daddy goodbye and told him to make sure to be good and not embezzle any money from his company so that Santa can come.

"Their mother taught them that," Mike says wryly and Jon conjures up a laugh.

They'd asked about Spencer once, Spencer who'd become as much a weekend fixture as Jon in their lives, and he had to stop washing the dishes and grip onto the edge of the counter to keep from snapping at them, to keep from doing something even stupider, like crying.

They'd stared, wide eyed, until the oldest took the little ones' hands. "Come on, guys, let's go color."

Jon is a mess, he realizes in that moment, over something ridiculous, and he's an idiot for not asking Spencer to stay, however selfish that would have been, because he knows Spencer would have.

Mike comes home by five and slaps Jon on the back, cracking the same tired jokes about family slave labor and Jon begs off every offer of staying for a beer and kicking his feet up.

Watching sports isn't the same if he doesn't have Spencer desperately pretending he's not paying attention from across the room, eyes flicking back and forth between the shitty TV in their dorm and his textbooks. It's even better with Brendon, enthusiastic, if a little clueless and eager to learn, and Ryan spouting of wry odes to the way the player's asses look in their uniforms.

Jon loves Mike, but he yells like a good old boy, and Jon is too used to being the real boy.

The drive home is dark and cold, heater blasting high in the car with the radio turned up as high as it'll go with the CD Brendon make for the first drive between Vegas and Chicago, given to Jon later, as a present, so that he could feel a part of it too.

The house glows with lights when Jon pulls up in the driveway

He'd shoveled out a path to the door, but most nights he doesn't keep to it, just tromps across the yard to make patterns in the shin deep snow and imagines what they would look like standing on the roof, looking down. There's a padlock to the roof of Mike's building now, shiny with newness and strength.

"Long day?" his dad asks as he comes through the door and Jon nods, goes to the fridge and pulls out a pair of beers for them to share over the news and late night TV. It's tea for his mom and a silence that was companionable once upon a time, but just feels quiet now.

Bed at eleven and, Jesus, it's like he's self imposing a curfew.

He lays in bed and calls Spencer or Brendon or Ryan, listens to their voices happy and breathless over the phone to the soundtrack of laughter and Jon wants to be there so fucking bad.

Sleep comes hard and it's never good; bad dreams and tangled images, running lost through a maze, looking for something he can't find and standing in a room full of people who look through him and never at him. Jon took Psychology 101 and he's not an idiot, he can interpret just fine.

He wakes up the next morning a little before eight.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

.part five.