Fic Commentary for Spoiled
gigantic requested commentary on "Spoiled," which was a Spencer/Patrick crossover. Original story here.
Fandom: Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco
Size: 3400 words
Pairing: Spencer/Patrick
Note: For damnyouwentz's "These Teen Hearts" challenge.
Summary: Stop thinking.
So, this story. This is a story I'm really proud of, actually. I mean, yes, why would I be doing commentary on a story that I thought sucked, but, um. I'll just let the point stand. I like this story. It got very close to expressing what I pictured in my head. I also wrote this story very quickly, filling in as a pinch-hitter for the damnyouwentz fic exchange, so I got my assignment only a few days before the deadline and wrote this fic in about two days. It was one of those times where you just kind of get struck by an idea and then everything falls magically into place.
Actually, let's back up a second. I can't remember how I set this up, but I'm betting that if you came to this story directly from my post in damnyouwentz, you probably missed the lj cut-tag. The cut-tag that I used in my own personal journal was as follows:
And I said, what am I supposed to do, I built this scene around you, and I need more than this.
This is a lyric from the song "More Than This" by Matt Nathanson. One of my favorite songs, and also the source of the title. I get my story titles from songs more than I probably should. Anyway, the song starts out:
What a spoiled boy I've been, my mouth full, mess, my arms outstretched.
The cut-tag lyrics were running through my head while writing the story, and encapsulated for me the feel I was going for with Spencer, that sense of being trapped in his own life, of not knowing what to do, and that peculiar sense of anguish when the center of your life crumbles. When it came time to pick a title (which always, always occurs after I've finished the story), I came back to this song, and the word "spoiled" just jumped out at me. He had, hadn't he? To me, the word spoke to the way he'd both behaved in a spoiled fashion, heedless of the consequences of his actions, and to that spoiled, rotten center of his previous relationship. But enough of that.
"Hey, I hope you don't--" Spencer says, turning around when the door opens, then stops.
I do a lot of writing in physical notebooks, as I think I've mentioned a time or two. The cool thing about that is I can go back and look at my first drafts of prose, all those cross-outs and false starts that usually get smoothed away when working on a computer. For instance, I can tell you with absolute confidence that that line up there didn't exist in the first draft of this scene. I wrote a draft of everything up through Spencer falling asleep in Pete's spare bedroom in my notebook while riding home from work on the bus. I have a half-hour bus ride in the evenings. It's convenient sometimes for fic purposes.
Anyway, I wrote all of that with still no real clue as to what I wanted the story to be about. My recipient had wanted angst (actually, she wanted porny angst, which, I'm sorry. I'm super bad at porn), and expressed a love for Patrick/Spencer. At the time, I think, there was maybe one other Patrick/Spencer fic in existence. Maybe two. I squinted and thought, "Eh. I'll see what I can do." I had, at that point, written exactly one fic involving Panic at the Disco. I had, however, just gotten off writing Call It Enough, which immersed me pretty intensely in Patrick's point of view. I was kind of sick of it, frankly. I adore Patrick greatly, I don't think anyone would doubt me on that, but I kind of wanted to adore him from the OUTSIDE for a while, so I decided to try out Spencer as my POV character, despite the fact that I'd never written Spencer-pov before. Hey, we have to start somewhere.
"Hey, Spencer," Patrick says, very definitely not Pete, though answering Pete's door at one in the afternoon. "Welcome to Pete's humble abode."
"Oh," Spencer says. "Hi." He somehow hadn't pictured this, that Pete wouldn't be alone. His tired brain isn't quite up to the challenge.
Patrick opens the door wide, and Spencer rolls his suitcase through carefully, following Patrick through the entry hall and into the living room. It's very beige, like Pete's first LA humble abode, albeit slightly less humble. Something smells funny.
Do you like how I deliberately set this outside of our current timeline? I decided that I wanted Spencer to have known Patrick for a little while, so I set this story a few years in the future, ie, after Pete has changed houses. At that point, I had not seen the photos where Pete's LA apartment has yellow walls, so I assumed that everything would be beige like the pancake pictures, and the picture where Patrick is sitting in an overstuffed armchair looking at his computer. I would link you to those pictures, except I don't save pictures anywhere except in my mind.
I was also working from our collective fannish assumption that everyone in Fall Out Boy would be living together in Pete's house. Oops. Damn, Patrick, why do you have to make my life so difficult?
"Are you...burning something?" Spencer says carefully. The flight messed up his sinuses, but he doesn't think he's imagining it.
Patrick's eyes widen and he spins around, saying over his shoulder as he vanishes into the kitchen, "Just make yourself at home. Pete will--shit!--Pete'll be back soon. Or in a day. Or whatever."
Patrick, Spencer thinks blearily, has a nice carrying voice. When he makes his gradual meandering way into the kitchen, having left his luggage next to a bare wall in the living room, Patrick is peering mournfully at a blackened grilled cheese sandwich. Spencer discreetly covers his nose with his hand against the smell. "What did you do?" he asks, leaning his hip against the refrigerator.
The first draft of this scene included the word "gafiating." I still like it, but alas, the sacrifices we make for our POV characters.
Patrick sighs. "Tofu cheese. It doesn't." He pokes at the charcoal with a butter knife. "Burn well. Maybe I can scrape it off..."
I clearly recall getting on IM and asking deliberatehips what she thought burnt tofu cheese smelled like. For some reason, I tend to do this to her a lot. For instance, I recently asked her what she thought strippers of the future would look like. For the record, she fielded it beautifully.
"Dude," Spencer says. "That's not food anymore."
"You haven't lived in this swinging bachelor pad long enough," Patrick mutters. "Anything can be food."
Ugh. Oh, Patrick Stump. Though, I kind of agree. I've scraped off many a burnt crust on my grilled cheese sandwiches. The extra carbon (mmm carcinogens) just make it crunchy! And add flavor. That special je ne sais quoi. Promise.
"Uh huh," Spencer says. He just got off a transatlantic and then transcontinental flight, tickets bought at the counter in Heathrow on the tail end of a cold fury that lasted him through a final night of fighting, packing his shit into a suitcase, and leaving. He'd texted Pete in La Guardia on his way to another flight. This whole conversation is maybe a little surreal.
So, the bit about Spencer buying his tickets on the tail end of a cold fury etc. etc. etc. didn't exist in the first draft at all. Because I didn't know where I was going. I was just writing, man. Patrick! Being endearing! Spencer! Being jet-lagged! What's not awesome about that? So, yeah, anyway, I added in the other bit later, when I was typing up this scene and I'd already figured out that I wanted to add the angst HOMG.
"Sorry," Patrick says. "You probably want, like, a place to sleep, right? I'm such--sorry. I'm not too good at the host thing. Okay."
He leads Spencer up a flight of stairs and down a hallway, and Patrick counts off as they go, "Pete, Andy, me, bathroom, Joe, weird closet that we haven't figured out yet, Bonnie; none of these are occupied right now, but soon; okay, here," and pushes a door open. "Home sweet temporary bed, all yours."
The room is basically just that, a bed, an empty closet, and a window looking out at green foliage and then the neighbor's house, and Spencer takes two steps and collapses on the bare mattress while Patrick is still scavenging to a litany of, "Sheets, sheets, okay, blanket? Pillow, pillowcase? Oh."
I have always liked this paragraph. I like Patrick's host monologue, and I like the simple description of the room, and the way Spencer's collapse on the bare mattress indicates his fatigue. We've all been there, right? Well, I mean, probably not RIGHT there, not having had the pleasure of having an ex cheat on me. But I have been jet-lagged. See? Totally, that's like, that's basically the same thing. Tangentially, I read an article that was talking about the health effects on rats of crossing time zones, and, uh. The rats that crossed a lot of time zones and experienced more jet-lag didn't live as long. Wouldn't THAT be a kicker? I've been trying to figure out how they did that study, if they actually took a bunch of rats on a plane. I don't think they did. I think they simulated time zone changes using changing light conditions? Maybe? Anyway, flight attendants! Watch out!
"This is great," Spencer yawns, rolling over on his back. Flat, flat, beautiful flat bed. Spencer's eyelids feel weighted over his eyes. Weighted with care, he thinks with jet-lagged delirium, and almost laughs. He's not a poet. Ryan would write that into one of their songs and Brendon would sing it beautifully. Spencer just plays the fucking drums.
La la la, what? Is something wrong in Panic-land? Yeah, everything after "beautiful flat bed" didn't exist in the first draft of this scene. See how I slipped that in? Smooth, huh? Like butter, baby.
Patrick, his arms full of linens, looks down, eyes skipping from Spencer's shoulders to stomach where Spencer's shirt has ridden up. "I'll just, okay," he says, setting his pile of bedding down near Spencer's knee, and backs out of the room with a whispered, "Sleep well," and Spencer is not tearing up when the door closes, it's just his eyes are still irritated from flying. He's fine. Patrick is being nice, and that is nice, Spencer thinks, before falling into sleep like tumbling off a drum riser.
We've gotten to the end of what I wrote in the notebook that first night. The original version of this paragraph had nothing indicating Patrick's interest, or Spencer tearing up.
I wrote up to here on the bus, and then I decided to walk home from the bus station instead of taking the subway home, because I wanted some time to think. Somewhere in between Massachusetts Avenue and Elm Street, I was wandering along, staring at the trees and the skies and thinking things like, "Spencer's coming back from somewhere. He came to Pete's. To get away from something? Angst! She said she wanted angst!" And then I thought, "Oh, what the hell, I'll give her angst, hell yeah." I don't do angst and unhappy endings often. I like to make it count when I do. Some of the feedback I've gotten for this fic has indicated that I did a decent job of making it count.
Anyway, that was when I got the brainstorm that maybe Spencer was fleeing from his breakup with Brendon, who had cheated on him, and that he'd sleep with Patrick. The end. Everything from this point on was written on the computer. Can you tell the difference? If I've done my job right, you shouldn't.
He wakes up after the sun has set, feeling only half-human, and emerges blinking into the lit hallway, trying not to bump into the wall. He has no idea what time it is. He left his phone in his luggage downstairs. The rest of the house is silent around him, and he wonders for one disconnected second if everyone else in the world vanished while he was sleeping, and whether it would be a bad thing if they had.
Has anyone else ever experienced this? I love naps, and I abhor waking up from them. I'm terribly cranky and out of synch with the world for about an hour afterwards. Maybe two. I know, I sound like such a prize, don't I? Also, another little hint that all is not well in Spencer's world.
I deliberately didn't want to spell out precisely what was wrong with Spencer, because I rather thought that he was avoiding thinking about it. Plus, story-wise, it's less interesting, in my mind, to go in already knowing what's going to happen. I like to leave little mysteries for people to figure out.
As he nears Patrick's door, though, he hears Patrick talking to someone. The phone, Spencer thinks, because he doesn't hear a second voice.
"Yeah," Patrick says, and laughs quietly. The sound is warm in Spencer's ears. "Yeah, dude. It's fine. I think he's still sleeping." Another long pause, and it's kind of weird, Spencer thinks. That he's standing just outside Patrick's door, tracing the doorframe with one hand and not looking in. "Hey," Patrick says suddenly, and Spencer startles. "Hey, how'd it go, there?" Another long silence, and Patrick's voice is affectionate when he says "Whatever, you know they love you. Oh, fuck you."
Ohhhh, Pete and Patrick. I have...great fondness for you. Even when you're not together. Go on, now. Go on, be all BFF-y. I'll just be over here.
Yeah. Really weird. Kind of stalker-ish, if Spencer wants to look at it that way. He's not that fucked up. "Hey," Spencer says, leaning around the doorjamb and knocking against the wall.
Spencer, darling. You're totally that fucked up, right now.
Patrick looks up, phone held to one ear, and waves, then points at the phone.
Yeah, Spencer thinks, trying not to roll his eyes. The phone, he's not blind.
Also kind of bitchy, but I love you for it.
"Hey, he's up, so," Patrick says, and lifts his chin to say, "Pete says hi, Spencer."
"Oh," Spencer says. "Yeah. Tell him thanks. For letting me. You know."
"He says you're an asshole for not being around to greet your guest, Peter Wentz," Patrick says, and Spencer makes an unintelligible noise in the back of his throat. "Oh, whatever," Patrick says, and looks up to grin at Spencer. "Talk to you later, man," and snaps the phone closed.
"So, no Pete," Spencer says casually.
"Meeting with the suits," Patrick says. "With The Man. Or. Mens."
"Oh," Spencer says, looking at his bare feet. He never really pictured Pete as doing actual work, which was stupid in retrospect. He's beginning to wonder if he should have gone somewhere else, but Ryan would have asked too many of the bad questions. Jon is busy vacationing in fucking Africa, or something, on a sixty-day trip around the world. Spencer left behind a postcard from a tiny village in Zimbabwe stuck up on the fridge in what had been his and Brendon's shared kitchen in London. He doesn't really feel like trying to explain things to any of his other friends. Besides, Spencer thinks. Where the fuck else do you go when you royally fuck up your personal life and professional life in one fell swoop?
No, seriously. Where else do you go? I don't think I've ever written truer words. Ever. Also, hey, like how I slipped that in, there? Their shared kitchen?
"You want some food?" Patrick asks, and Spencer looks up. Patrick's face doesn't look anything other than openly friendly.
"Not like the tofu cheese sandwich," Spencer says.
"It was totally fine once I scraped the bad stuff off," Patrick says, levering to his feet. "But, nah, we can call out. I know a couple places."
They end up back in the kitchen peering over take-out menus, and Spencer kind of hates the way he's trained now, how it's automatic to lean in against Patrick with his hand low on Patrick's spine like he would have and did a thousand times with Brendon.
Oh, the body conditioning. Gets you every time. Seriously, though, I actually love this part, showing how Spencer isn't quite in control of his actions. He's still operating more than half on automatic. And this is something that happens to me, at least, and that I've observed in others, where it's just natural for you to lean in to someone until you think, "Oh, oops!" Also, keep that little hint of sexual awareness going.
That's how he ends up with his hand pressing into Patrick's back, feeling hard muscle for one instant underneath a thin layer of padding, so different from Brendon's skin and bones. Spencer flushes, awkwardly moving his hand up to Patrick's shoulder. It had only been a year. Just a year, to mess up his instincts so badly.
Patrick, though, is maybe used to a lot worse than Spencer's accidental personal-space intrusion, because he just points at a vegetarian curry and says, "I think I'll have that. What do you want?"
Or maybe Patrick's just professionally unflappable, Spencer thinks as he makes his choice and lets Patrick order. Patrick is like the anti-Brendon.
Spencer could do with some of that.
This was a pretty crucial moment for me in the story, in terms of crystallizing some nebulous ideas I'd had about why exactly this all was happening. I wrote that, and then I thought, "Yeah, no, yes! That makes perfect sense!" See, half of my writing process involves me figuring out what my subconscious is doing. It's like mining, sort of. Creative mining. Yes.
Spencer calls home after the dinner that he and Patrick eat crouched around Pete's odd, ovoid coffee table, bumping elbows and spilling rice on the lacquered wood. "I hate this fucking thing," Patrick had said. "I keep hoping if I eat on it enough I'll damage it and Pete will throw it out."
"Have you tried a flambe course?" Spencer had asked, deadpan.
"I don't think that comes in vegan," Patrick had said. "Besides, I don't want to burn his house down."
It's only eight o'clock, though it feels later. Spencer is back in his white box room, staring up at the ceiling. He tells his mom that he's back in LA, then tells his dad, and then tells his mom again, before his parents get off on a tangent about when his dad last cleaned the gutters. Spencer just listens and watches his breath. Brendon had gotten into meditation eight months ago and made Spencer do it with him once a week. Spencer had never been so fucking bored in his life, though he used to open his eyes halfway through just to watch the novelty of Brendon staying so goddamned still for so long. A fucking miracle, Spencer used to think, looking at Brendon sitting cross-legged on his fancy cushion, back straight, face peaceful and quiet.
My family likes to play the "multiple people on one phone line on extensions" game with me, and occasionally they get to talking to each other while I'm just sort of listening in. It's soothing, when I'm 3,000 miles away from them and can't actually experience these conversations any other way. Also, my mom and dad once cleaned all the windows in the house and then my mom spent about twenty minutes telling me all about it. And then she sent me pictures.
Spencer is so damned detached, though, especially in this, and I wanted to capture that in the tone of this paragraph. I wanted to underline the impression that, yes, this was occurring in the future. Show some growth and change in the boys, even if it's just in something as minor as their hobbies. If one can call attempted spiritual growth a hobby. I think it kind of is for celebrities.
Spencer's mouth tugs down at the corners, and his breath hitches, messing up his count. He coughs and says, "How are the grandparents?"
His mom says, "Oh, they're fine, you know they'd love to see you if you end up in the area."
"Yeah," Spencer says. "I don't really, uh, know my schedule yet, but. LA's closer than London."
"Yes, thank goodness," his mom says. "I don't know why you had to live all the way out there for so long."
"Because," Spencer says automatically, and there is a long pause before his dad says, "Well, we love you, son. Maybe we'll get to see you one of these days," and then they are gone, and Spencer is thumbing through his address book, but he doesn't have anyone else he wants to talk to. Not really. Spencer turns off his phone.
Spencer was staying in London for Brendon, obviously. He obviously hasn't told his parents. This guy likes to keep his cards close to his chest. I mean, I bet that there's a lot of stuff in his life now that he feels like his parents can't relate to. And, so, he just. Doesn't talk about it.
The room's walls are closing in around him, so he goes back to Patrick's room, where Patrick is sitting on the bed, leaning against the wall and reading a book, huge noise-canceling headphones covering his ears.
This was before we found out that Patrick apparently can't read books. WTF? Seriously? Anyway, I still like this visual.
Spencer flops down on the floor. Patrick looks away from his book, and again, Spencer didn't think he was missing the way Patrick's almost but not quite checking him out. Hey, Spencer thinks. Hey, nice. Patrick is nice.
Oh ho ho! Also, I like, in my shorter pieces, to have a motif that I carry through, and Patrick as a nice guy is one of the recurring threads in this story.
"We should go shopping tomorrow," Spencer says.
"What?" Patrick says, pushing off his headphones.
"Shopping," Spencer repeats. "Tomorrow." He makes a little driving motion with his hands.
Patrick coughs. "Yeah. We could do that. Or you could do that and I could stay home and not do that."
"I need some new..." Spencer stops to think. "Everything. I need new everything."
Oh, baby. I'm so sorry. Patrick, of course, has not caught on to the metaphorical aspect of your statement.
"Oh, come on," Patrick says. "You brought a whole suitcase. It can't all be dirty. Besides. Pete has a washing machine."
"I don't want to wear any of that stuff," Spencer says, rolling up onto his knees and crawling over to brace his hands on Patrick's legs and lean into Patrick's lap. "Please?" he says. "Come with me?" He's about ten seconds from batting his eyes. He doesn't know what he's doing, because he's never been that dude, but here he is. It's kind of ridiculous, and he can't quite make himself stop. Patrick looks surprised, maybe even on his way toward shocked, and his thighs are warm under Spencer's hands. Spencer runs his fingers along the rough weave of Patrick's jeans.
I like getting into the tactile nature of touching another person. It's one of those things I like in fic. This is definitely the start of the change in tone in this fic. Spencer's going off the rails a little bit, and poor Patrick's standing in the way. Don't you remember that moment from breakups? When you just want to touch someone to feel their body warm under your hands, to be touched by someone untainted by all the negative emotions you've been slogging in day after day after day?
I remember that moment too. I, of course, was never unguarded enough to actually do it, but I remember it.
"Spencer," Patrick says, laughing nervously, hands coming up to fend Spencer off.
"It'll be fun," Spencer insists.
"It so won't," Patrick says.
"You can get some fresh air," Spencer says.
"And ruin my lily-white complexion?" Patrick asks. "I don't like natural light. I hear it's bad for you."
This was before I'd seen that interview where Patrick talks about how much he dislikes the sun. But the dude's pale. Doesn't take a genius to extrapolate that he wouldn't like hanging out outside a whole bunch. I still felt vindicated when I watched that interview, six months after posting this fic.
"I'll totally give you a blowjob if you go," Spencer says, and Patrick blushes from the tips of his ears down his face on his cheeks and along his neck.
"Go shopping with Pete," Patrick says. "He'd. Take you up on both of those offers."
Dude, he so would.
"Pete's not here," Spencer says, but collapses back to the floor. "You're here."
"Uh huh," Patrick says dryly. "As flattering as that is." He goes back to his book, and Spencer actually falls asleep on the floor, waking up when Patrick shakes his shoulder gently.
"Time for bed, jet-lag boy," Patrick says, and Spencer stumbles up off the floor. Patrick changed into his pajamas at some point while Spencer was resting his eyes, and is now wearing a thin, ragged t-shirt with holes along the collar, and a pair of ancient-looking cotton basketball shorts. He's not wearing a hat or his glasses, and it's like Patrick with the curtain down, softer and less guarded, receding hairline and all.
I, um, agonized for an embarrassingly long time about how to get Patrick out of his hat. He's Patrick. Does he exist without his hat? In the end, as with many things I agonize over writing, I just did it. Like Nike. Also, I always get a special little thrill whenever I see pictures or footage of Patrick without his hat. It's both wrong and awesome, and, okay, now I'm getting UST X-Files flashbacks.
"I'd do it, you know," Spencer mutters, before almost walking into the doorframe.
"Go to bed, Spencer," Patrick says, and Spencer goes.
Spencer is unsuccessful the next morning in talking Patrick into going shopping with him. Pete still isn't back. Spencer doesn't know how Patrick doesn't go crazy, rattling around this huge house by himself. The rooms almost echo. Spencer hasn't spent this much time around this few people in four years. He doesn't really remember how to do it, and he keeps washing up on the floor of Patrick's room, playing with Patrick's yo-yo and flipping through Patrick's DVD collection. He doesn't turn on his phone. Patrick offers to let him use the laptop to check his email, and Spencer says, "Nah. I'm on vacation."
This is a tactic I like to call, "wrapping up the passage of time in a hopefully interesting scene-setting way." Because, really, do you guys want to read a minute-by-minute description of Spencer's morning? Well, tough luck, because I don't want to write it. And the truth comes out. It's really all about me, me, me.
Someone mentioned really liking the line about Patrick's yo-yo and DVD collection. I still haven't quite figured out why, but I'm absolutely willing to take it.
"Revolutionary," Patrick says.
Dude, for Patrick, it probably is. He composes music in his leisure time. When he's not making music. I...the mind boggles. I mean, I like to write, when I don't hate it, and I still nine times of ten want to just watch an episode of the Office, or whatever.
Spencer snorts. "Yeah, fucking genius." He remembers, you're so fucking smart, shouted at him from across the room, followed by, figure it out.
"Yeah, I'm going to--" Spencer says, standing up.
Patrick cocks his head and looks at Spencer for a long moment before saying, patiently, "You're going to?"
"When does Pete get home?" Spencer asks, biting at a ragged nail.
I've had people ask why Spencer is so insistent on wondering when Pete will come home. I don't particularly believe in authorial intent, I mean, I'm a writer of FANFICTION, but in my head, the reason why Spencer wants Pete is because he thinks Pete can save him in some way, will know what to say to make stuff better. Patrick's great and all, but if I wanted advice on dealing with a bad breakup, I'd go to the king of bad breakups. Now, in my head, I see Pete as the kind of guy who will accumulate knowledge and wisdom over time, and be capable of doling it out to others, despite his inability to do the same in his own life.
"Uh." Patrick's eyes unfocus. "I don't--tomorrow, maybe?"
"Right," Spencer says, feeling flushed and hot. He turns in a circle, first toward the door, but he can't quite face the rest of the house and its silence and the walls that only throw back shards of the last three months that he wishes he could forget.
Again, in my head, Brendon and Spencer's relationship had a slow crumbling decline before its last spectacular explosion. I mean, they all kind of do, all relationships that last longer than six months. You build something up over time, it takes at least that long for the cracks to start showing, for the miscommunications and failed expectations to start breaking it down.
God, I have such a depressing view of relationships, don't I?
He doesn't know how to live his life, whenever he pictures it. He doesn't know how.
This is probably one of the more telling sentences I've ever written. Out of context and whatnot, but I was trying to express a feeling I've definitely had in my own life. Not suicidal, I want to note. But, trapped. When something bad has happened and you look ahead, and there's no way out of that bad thing, and that's just the way it is. Later, you can be philosophical. But that comes later.
"We could watch that," Patrick says, nodding at the copy of Rocky Horror Picture Show Spencer is still clutching in one hand. "If you want."
"I. Yeah," Spencer says. He wants to make a snide remark, feels like he should, because Rocky Horror, how campy is that, but actually, all he feels is grateful.
They settle in the living room with all the blinds drawn. The movie starts to play. Spencer turns and looks and Patrick is saying, "Dammit, Janet," softly, eyes focused on the screen.
Spencer looks back at the TV, where Brad and Janet are running through the rain, but he can't seem to shut off his brain. Stop thinking, Spencer thinks. He can't, though. The way Brendon had looked, shamefaced but angry, such a cliche when Spencer had walked through the door, and stop thinking.
This is the closest I think I ever get to actually talking about the backstory in my head for this story. Hopefully, people figured it out. It works for me, actually, for Spencer to not spell it out for himself. I always wince away from bad memories and try to stop following that line of thought to its natural conclusion. I expect most people do.
Spencer jerks his eyes away from the screen. Patrick's face is shadowed in the blue light from the TV, fingers tapping absently against the arm of the couch.
"We probably watched this a thousand times on the bus," Patrick says, turning his head, and Spencer kisses him fast, angling to avoid the brim of his hat. Patrick stiffens, hands coming up to grip Spencer's shoulders.
Hopefully, this worked for people. It's all about mental state. Spencer's mental state has to be frantic enough that this action doesn't seem out of character, even though at the start of the story, it might have seemed abrupt.
"Come on," Spencer whispers. "Come on," and stops himself from adding a please at the end. He kisses Patrick again, opening his mouth, sliding over so that their knees bump.
"What," Patrick says. "I thought--"
For the record, Patrick is thinking, "I thought you were with Brendon," and also, "Fuck." See, he's nice. But he's also kind of...not nice. He's attracted to Spencer, though, and Spencer has been hitting on him ever since showing up at the house.
"Come on," Spencer says, and Patrick kisses him back, hands moving to curve around Spencer's neck and arm.
He takes Patrick by the hand, pulling him up and into Spencer's room, leaving the movie running. They are actually going to do this, Spencer is actually going to do this. He leaves the light on. The walls are white, white, as they undress each other, and Patrick is pale and soft underneath his clothes. Spencer likes it, likes seeing it, runs his hands over Patrick's solid, round shoulders that are so different than what he's used to, so different, and Patrick's arms come down and around Spencer's waist. His hand palms Spencer's stomach and wraps around Spencer's dick with a confidence that leaves Spencer gasping into Patrick's mouth from sensation. Spencer hasn't had any hands other than Brendon's on him for over a year. Patrick strokes twice, and it's too much, too fast.
I usually cringe past the sexy bits that I've written, but this paragraph actually really works for me. I feel like it's descriptive without being crass, and it gets across the emotions I was going for, the way Spencer's more than half with Brendon, still, even while he's touching Patrick.
"Fuck," Spencer says, twisting away.
"Sorry," Patrick says. "Was that bad?"
"No," Spencer says. "No." He slides to his knees, pushing on Patrick's thighs until Patrick takes the hint and sits on the bed, and Spencer strokes his hands up and down Patrick's thighs the way Brendon had liked and that Patrick seems to appreciate too if the soft groan he gets is any indication. It's not Brendon, though, not Brendon, and Patrick is already half-hard for him, so considerate. "You want?" he asks, looking up.
Patrick's eyes are half-closed, looking down at him, the pupils dilated already, and Patrick leans back, saying, "Jesus Christ, yes."
Spencer is objectively good at this; he'd spent a good two years prior to Brendon practicing, but he'd forgotten what it was like with a new person, and Patrick's first aborted thrust almost makes him choke.
"Sorry, sorry," Patrick gasps, hands gripping and releasing on the sheets. Spencer hums and follows Patrick's involuntary upward twitch. Patrick smells different, moves differently, and Spencer has no fucking idea what he's doing, this all feels unreal in a sharp-edged way. Patrick's back arches up, thighs flexing smoothly under Spencer's fingers, and he bends over, hands trembling over Spencer's head. Patrick makes a lot of noise, higher than Spencer's used to, a little breathy. Spencer tilts his head, runs his fingers over the crease of Patrick's hips, and Patrick says, "Fuck, I'm going to," and comes.
Also, I feel like I should point out that this was, in fact, the first complete sex scene that I'd ever written. I haven't written many since, either. But. This was the first. I wrote it really late at night, and then I went to bed and was a little surprised when I reread it in the morning. I still like the bit about Patrick's thighs flexing under Spencer's hands.
Patrick turns his head when Spencer slides onto the bed. "Hey," he says, sounding hazy.
"Hey," Spencer says, and lets Patrick push him onto his back and kiss him. He wants to stop thinking. Patrick's hand closes around Spencer's cock, and he arches upward, encouraging. "Fuck," Spencer chokes, "fuck, fuck," as Patrick strokes over him. The overhead light blinds his eyes and Patrick kisses the side of his neck. He says, "Harder, fuck, harder," and covers his face with his arm when he comes.
You know, it's interesting to me. I'm not sure how sexy this scene is. Its purpose was not to be sexy. Its purpose was to show Spencer's mental anguish, an underline. We Make Bad Decisions. But then, that begs the question of what's the purpose of sex scenes in stories. For some people, their purpose is to be sexy. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. I enjoy those sex scenes a great deal, when they are sexy (which is another subject for another day, I think). I will rarely be the person to go to for that, though. When writing, I always find myself wondering what the point is, and if the sex isn't showing something novel about the characters or isn't advancing the plot in some way, I simply won't write it. If I were a better writer, maybe, I could think of many things to show via sex in my stories, but mostly, I've got one thing to show, maybe two, and that's just the way it is.
Anyway, the point is, this scene isn't actually that sexy to me, because I'm too wrapped up inside Spencer's head when I read it, and he's so not present. He's thinking a million different things and most of them have to do with Brendon, and what he's doing with his body is almost incidental.
"When did you guys break up?" Patrick asks.
I wrote this scene before the sex scene, by the way. I can't recall precisely when I wrote it, whether Spencer had kissed Patrick yet or not, but I know that I wrote this out of order. I often do, with endings. I rarely know exactly where I'm going with a fic, but at a certain point, I get a very clear image of something either at the end, or very near the end of a fic, and that's what I aim for. Endings have a rhythm to them, and it's nice to know what that's going to be before you get there.
Spencer rolls onto his side. Patrick is staring up at the ceiling, arm bent behind his head. "I." Spencer doesn't actually know Patrick well enough to know if he's happy or pissed off. Spencer sighs. "You want officially or unofficially?"
"Wow," Patrick says. "So. I'm like. Your rebound guy." He stares at the ceiling for a second longer before turning his head to look at Spencer, and smiles a little ruefully. His eyes are very blue, and Spencer can't hold them for long.
"You're not really--" Spencer starts, and Patrick waves him off.
"It's okay," Patrick says. "Really."
Spencer stares at the bedsheet, eyes tracing the fold as it curves down over Patrick's stomach.
"I mean, you know, better than my hand," Patrick's voice says. The sheet moves, and Patrick is leaning over Spencer, kissing him softly and close-mouthed on the lips before pulling away.
It is so nice, Patrick is so fucking nice, even about this, and Spencer feels his face start to crumple like he did something wrong, even though he didn't.
"Sorry," Spencer says, closing his eyes. "Sorry. I'm--Sorry."
Whatever assumptions Patrick has made about this situation, and I think he did make them, Spencer's apology puts paid to them.
The mattress bends and flexes, and when Spencer opens his eyes, Patrick is getting dressed, quickly and efficiently.
"I'm," Spencer says. "Patrick. I'm sorry."
Patrick's back tenses, and he pulls his shirt over his head quickly. "It's fine," he says. "Just. Maybe let's not do this again."
Not quite as easy-going about this as he seems, and who can blame him?
"Yeah," Spencer sighs.
Patrick stops at the door, one hand at the knob. He turns around. "Pete's coming home today. Don't. Um. Don't tell him, okay? He's not--I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell him."
"Yeah, I wouldn't--" Spencer says, and the door opens and closes, and he is left alone in the white room with the green window. The sheet is damp, and Spencer closes his eyes and tries not to think.
I remember that callsigns and I went back and forth about this ending, as we usually do. Not anything major, just, what the very last line was going to be. I always end up having to tweak the endings. I can't recall anything I've written in the last year where I didn't have to mess with the ending. Sometimes I wonder if it's more just a question of endurance, if I'm just wearing my betas down so that they finally give in to my will. muahahahahahahah. Really, though, I thank god every day for my betas, because it's a cold, scary place out there without them.
I emphasized the room again at the end, because it circled back to the beginning a bit, and also, enforced this sense of Spencer being trapped, and that played in to Spencer's central emotional conflict.
So, there it is. As simple as that, eh?
[END]
Grateful thanks to callsigns and circuity for their rapid, insightful betas. Thank you also to canadiankracka and darkseaglass for their time and attention--hopefully canadiankracka will speak to me again one of these days.
Fandom: Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco
Size: 3400 words
Pairing: Spencer/Patrick
Note: For damnyouwentz's "These Teen Hearts" challenge.
Summary: Stop thinking.
So, this story. This is a story I'm really proud of, actually. I mean, yes, why would I be doing commentary on a story that I thought sucked, but, um. I'll just let the point stand. I like this story. It got very close to expressing what I pictured in my head. I also wrote this story very quickly, filling in as a pinch-hitter for the damnyouwentz fic exchange, so I got my assignment only a few days before the deadline and wrote this fic in about two days. It was one of those times where you just kind of get struck by an idea and then everything falls magically into place.
Actually, let's back up a second. I can't remember how I set this up, but I'm betting that if you came to this story directly from my post in damnyouwentz, you probably missed the lj cut-tag. The cut-tag that I used in my own personal journal was as follows:
And I said, what am I supposed to do, I built this scene around you, and I need more than this.
This is a lyric from the song "More Than This" by Matt Nathanson. One of my favorite songs, and also the source of the title. I get my story titles from songs more than I probably should. Anyway, the song starts out:
What a spoiled boy I've been, my mouth full, mess, my arms outstretched.
The cut-tag lyrics were running through my head while writing the story, and encapsulated for me the feel I was going for with Spencer, that sense of being trapped in his own life, of not knowing what to do, and that peculiar sense of anguish when the center of your life crumbles. When it came time to pick a title (which always, always occurs after I've finished the story), I came back to this song, and the word "spoiled" just jumped out at me. He had, hadn't he? To me, the word spoke to the way he'd both behaved in a spoiled fashion, heedless of the consequences of his actions, and to that spoiled, rotten center of his previous relationship. But enough of that.
"Hey, I hope you don't--" Spencer says, turning around when the door opens, then stops.
I do a lot of writing in physical notebooks, as I think I've mentioned a time or two. The cool thing about that is I can go back and look at my first drafts of prose, all those cross-outs and false starts that usually get smoothed away when working on a computer. For instance, I can tell you with absolute confidence that that line up there didn't exist in the first draft of this scene. I wrote a draft of everything up through Spencer falling asleep in Pete's spare bedroom in my notebook while riding home from work on the bus. I have a half-hour bus ride in the evenings. It's convenient sometimes for fic purposes.
Anyway, I wrote all of that with still no real clue as to what I wanted the story to be about. My recipient had wanted angst (actually, she wanted porny angst, which, I'm sorry. I'm super bad at porn), and expressed a love for Patrick/Spencer. At the time, I think, there was maybe one other Patrick/Spencer fic in existence. Maybe two. I squinted and thought, "Eh. I'll see what I can do." I had, at that point, written exactly one fic involving Panic at the Disco. I had, however, just gotten off writing Call It Enough, which immersed me pretty intensely in Patrick's point of view. I was kind of sick of it, frankly. I adore Patrick greatly, I don't think anyone would doubt me on that, but I kind of wanted to adore him from the OUTSIDE for a while, so I decided to try out Spencer as my POV character, despite the fact that I'd never written Spencer-pov before. Hey, we have to start somewhere.
"Hey, Spencer," Patrick says, very definitely not Pete, though answering Pete's door at one in the afternoon. "Welcome to Pete's humble abode."
"Oh," Spencer says. "Hi." He somehow hadn't pictured this, that Pete wouldn't be alone. His tired brain isn't quite up to the challenge.
Patrick opens the door wide, and Spencer rolls his suitcase through carefully, following Patrick through the entry hall and into the living room. It's very beige, like Pete's first LA humble abode, albeit slightly less humble. Something smells funny.
Do you like how I deliberately set this outside of our current timeline? I decided that I wanted Spencer to have known Patrick for a little while, so I set this story a few years in the future, ie, after Pete has changed houses. At that point, I had not seen the photos where Pete's LA apartment has yellow walls, so I assumed that everything would be beige like the pancake pictures, and the picture where Patrick is sitting in an overstuffed armchair looking at his computer. I would link you to those pictures, except I don't save pictures anywhere except in my mind.
I was also working from our collective fannish assumption that everyone in Fall Out Boy would be living together in Pete's house. Oops. Damn, Patrick, why do you have to make my life so difficult?
"Are you...burning something?" Spencer says carefully. The flight messed up his sinuses, but he doesn't think he's imagining it.
Patrick's eyes widen and he spins around, saying over his shoulder as he vanishes into the kitchen, "Just make yourself at home. Pete will--shit!--Pete'll be back soon. Or in a day. Or whatever."
Patrick, Spencer thinks blearily, has a nice carrying voice. When he makes his gradual meandering way into the kitchen, having left his luggage next to a bare wall in the living room, Patrick is peering mournfully at a blackened grilled cheese sandwich. Spencer discreetly covers his nose with his hand against the smell. "What did you do?" he asks, leaning his hip against the refrigerator.
The first draft of this scene included the word "gafiating." I still like it, but alas, the sacrifices we make for our POV characters.
Patrick sighs. "Tofu cheese. It doesn't." He pokes at the charcoal with a butter knife. "Burn well. Maybe I can scrape it off..."
I clearly recall getting on IM and asking deliberatehips what she thought burnt tofu cheese smelled like. For some reason, I tend to do this to her a lot. For instance, I recently asked her what she thought strippers of the future would look like. For the record, she fielded it beautifully.
"Dude," Spencer says. "That's not food anymore."
"You haven't lived in this swinging bachelor pad long enough," Patrick mutters. "Anything can be food."
Ugh. Oh, Patrick Stump. Though, I kind of agree. I've scraped off many a burnt crust on my grilled cheese sandwiches. The extra carbon (mmm carcinogens) just make it crunchy! And add flavor. That special je ne sais quoi. Promise.
"Uh huh," Spencer says. He just got off a transatlantic and then transcontinental flight, tickets bought at the counter in Heathrow on the tail end of a cold fury that lasted him through a final night of fighting, packing his shit into a suitcase, and leaving. He'd texted Pete in La Guardia on his way to another flight. This whole conversation is maybe a little surreal.
So, the bit about Spencer buying his tickets on the tail end of a cold fury etc. etc. etc. didn't exist in the first draft at all. Because I didn't know where I was going. I was just writing, man. Patrick! Being endearing! Spencer! Being jet-lagged! What's not awesome about that? So, yeah, anyway, I added in the other bit later, when I was typing up this scene and I'd already figured out that I wanted to add the angst HOMG.
"Sorry," Patrick says. "You probably want, like, a place to sleep, right? I'm such--sorry. I'm not too good at the host thing. Okay."
He leads Spencer up a flight of stairs and down a hallway, and Patrick counts off as they go, "Pete, Andy, me, bathroom, Joe, weird closet that we haven't figured out yet, Bonnie; none of these are occupied right now, but soon; okay, here," and pushes a door open. "Home sweet temporary bed, all yours."
The room is basically just that, a bed, an empty closet, and a window looking out at green foliage and then the neighbor's house, and Spencer takes two steps and collapses on the bare mattress while Patrick is still scavenging to a litany of, "Sheets, sheets, okay, blanket? Pillow, pillowcase? Oh."
I have always liked this paragraph. I like Patrick's host monologue, and I like the simple description of the room, and the way Spencer's collapse on the bare mattress indicates his fatigue. We've all been there, right? Well, I mean, probably not RIGHT there, not having had the pleasure of having an ex cheat on me. But I have been jet-lagged. See? Totally, that's like, that's basically the same thing. Tangentially, I read an article that was talking about the health effects on rats of crossing time zones, and, uh. The rats that crossed a lot of time zones and experienced more jet-lag didn't live as long. Wouldn't THAT be a kicker? I've been trying to figure out how they did that study, if they actually took a bunch of rats on a plane. I don't think they did. I think they simulated time zone changes using changing light conditions? Maybe? Anyway, flight attendants! Watch out!
"This is great," Spencer yawns, rolling over on his back. Flat, flat, beautiful flat bed. Spencer's eyelids feel weighted over his eyes. Weighted with care, he thinks with jet-lagged delirium, and almost laughs. He's not a poet. Ryan would write that into one of their songs and Brendon would sing it beautifully. Spencer just plays the fucking drums.
La la la, what? Is something wrong in Panic-land? Yeah, everything after "beautiful flat bed" didn't exist in the first draft of this scene. See how I slipped that in? Smooth, huh? Like butter, baby.
Patrick, his arms full of linens, looks down, eyes skipping from Spencer's shoulders to stomach where Spencer's shirt has ridden up. "I'll just, okay," he says, setting his pile of bedding down near Spencer's knee, and backs out of the room with a whispered, "Sleep well," and Spencer is not tearing up when the door closes, it's just his eyes are still irritated from flying. He's fine. Patrick is being nice, and that is nice, Spencer thinks, before falling into sleep like tumbling off a drum riser.
We've gotten to the end of what I wrote in the notebook that first night. The original version of this paragraph had nothing indicating Patrick's interest, or Spencer tearing up.
I wrote up to here on the bus, and then I decided to walk home from the bus station instead of taking the subway home, because I wanted some time to think. Somewhere in between Massachusetts Avenue and Elm Street, I was wandering along, staring at the trees and the skies and thinking things like, "Spencer's coming back from somewhere. He came to Pete's. To get away from something? Angst! She said she wanted angst!" And then I thought, "Oh, what the hell, I'll give her angst, hell yeah." I don't do angst and unhappy endings often. I like to make it count when I do. Some of the feedback I've gotten for this fic has indicated that I did a decent job of making it count.
Anyway, that was when I got the brainstorm that maybe Spencer was fleeing from his breakup with Brendon, who had cheated on him, and that he'd sleep with Patrick. The end. Everything from this point on was written on the computer. Can you tell the difference? If I've done my job right, you shouldn't.
He wakes up after the sun has set, feeling only half-human, and emerges blinking into the lit hallway, trying not to bump into the wall. He has no idea what time it is. He left his phone in his luggage downstairs. The rest of the house is silent around him, and he wonders for one disconnected second if everyone else in the world vanished while he was sleeping, and whether it would be a bad thing if they had.
Has anyone else ever experienced this? I love naps, and I abhor waking up from them. I'm terribly cranky and out of synch with the world for about an hour afterwards. Maybe two. I know, I sound like such a prize, don't I? Also, another little hint that all is not well in Spencer's world.
I deliberately didn't want to spell out precisely what was wrong with Spencer, because I rather thought that he was avoiding thinking about it. Plus, story-wise, it's less interesting, in my mind, to go in already knowing what's going to happen. I like to leave little mysteries for people to figure out.
As he nears Patrick's door, though, he hears Patrick talking to someone. The phone, Spencer thinks, because he doesn't hear a second voice.
"Yeah," Patrick says, and laughs quietly. The sound is warm in Spencer's ears. "Yeah, dude. It's fine. I think he's still sleeping." Another long pause, and it's kind of weird, Spencer thinks. That he's standing just outside Patrick's door, tracing the doorframe with one hand and not looking in. "Hey," Patrick says suddenly, and Spencer startles. "Hey, how'd it go, there?" Another long silence, and Patrick's voice is affectionate when he says "Whatever, you know they love you. Oh, fuck you."
Ohhhh, Pete and Patrick. I have...great fondness for you. Even when you're not together. Go on, now. Go on, be all BFF-y. I'll just be over here.
Yeah. Really weird. Kind of stalker-ish, if Spencer wants to look at it that way. He's not that fucked up. "Hey," Spencer says, leaning around the doorjamb and knocking against the wall.
Spencer, darling. You're totally that fucked up, right now.
Patrick looks up, phone held to one ear, and waves, then points at the phone.
Yeah, Spencer thinks, trying not to roll his eyes. The phone, he's not blind.
Also kind of bitchy, but I love you for it.
"Hey, he's up, so," Patrick says, and lifts his chin to say, "Pete says hi, Spencer."
"Oh," Spencer says. "Yeah. Tell him thanks. For letting me. You know."
"He says you're an asshole for not being around to greet your guest, Peter Wentz," Patrick says, and Spencer makes an unintelligible noise in the back of his throat. "Oh, whatever," Patrick says, and looks up to grin at Spencer. "Talk to you later, man," and snaps the phone closed.
"So, no Pete," Spencer says casually.
"Meeting with the suits," Patrick says. "With The Man. Or. Mens."
"Oh," Spencer says, looking at his bare feet. He never really pictured Pete as doing actual work, which was stupid in retrospect. He's beginning to wonder if he should have gone somewhere else, but Ryan would have asked too many of the bad questions. Jon is busy vacationing in fucking Africa, or something, on a sixty-day trip around the world. Spencer left behind a postcard from a tiny village in Zimbabwe stuck up on the fridge in what had been his and Brendon's shared kitchen in London. He doesn't really feel like trying to explain things to any of his other friends. Besides, Spencer thinks. Where the fuck else do you go when you royally fuck up your personal life and professional life in one fell swoop?
No, seriously. Where else do you go? I don't think I've ever written truer words. Ever. Also, hey, like how I slipped that in, there? Their shared kitchen?
"You want some food?" Patrick asks, and Spencer looks up. Patrick's face doesn't look anything other than openly friendly.
"Not like the tofu cheese sandwich," Spencer says.
"It was totally fine once I scraped the bad stuff off," Patrick says, levering to his feet. "But, nah, we can call out. I know a couple places."
They end up back in the kitchen peering over take-out menus, and Spencer kind of hates the way he's trained now, how it's automatic to lean in against Patrick with his hand low on Patrick's spine like he would have and did a thousand times with Brendon.
Oh, the body conditioning. Gets you every time. Seriously, though, I actually love this part, showing how Spencer isn't quite in control of his actions. He's still operating more than half on automatic. And this is something that happens to me, at least, and that I've observed in others, where it's just natural for you to lean in to someone until you think, "Oh, oops!" Also, keep that little hint of sexual awareness going.
That's how he ends up with his hand pressing into Patrick's back, feeling hard muscle for one instant underneath a thin layer of padding, so different from Brendon's skin and bones. Spencer flushes, awkwardly moving his hand up to Patrick's shoulder. It had only been a year. Just a year, to mess up his instincts so badly.
Patrick, though, is maybe used to a lot worse than Spencer's accidental personal-space intrusion, because he just points at a vegetarian curry and says, "I think I'll have that. What do you want?"
Or maybe Patrick's just professionally unflappable, Spencer thinks as he makes his choice and lets Patrick order. Patrick is like the anti-Brendon.
Spencer could do with some of that.
This was a pretty crucial moment for me in the story, in terms of crystallizing some nebulous ideas I'd had about why exactly this all was happening. I wrote that, and then I thought, "Yeah, no, yes! That makes perfect sense!" See, half of my writing process involves me figuring out what my subconscious is doing. It's like mining, sort of. Creative mining. Yes.
Spencer calls home after the dinner that he and Patrick eat crouched around Pete's odd, ovoid coffee table, bumping elbows and spilling rice on the lacquered wood. "I hate this fucking thing," Patrick had said. "I keep hoping if I eat on it enough I'll damage it and Pete will throw it out."
"Have you tried a flambe course?" Spencer had asked, deadpan.
"I don't think that comes in vegan," Patrick had said. "Besides, I don't want to burn his house down."
It's only eight o'clock, though it feels later. Spencer is back in his white box room, staring up at the ceiling. He tells his mom that he's back in LA, then tells his dad, and then tells his mom again, before his parents get off on a tangent about when his dad last cleaned the gutters. Spencer just listens and watches his breath. Brendon had gotten into meditation eight months ago and made Spencer do it with him once a week. Spencer had never been so fucking bored in his life, though he used to open his eyes halfway through just to watch the novelty of Brendon staying so goddamned still for so long. A fucking miracle, Spencer used to think, looking at Brendon sitting cross-legged on his fancy cushion, back straight, face peaceful and quiet.
My family likes to play the "multiple people on one phone line on extensions" game with me, and occasionally they get to talking to each other while I'm just sort of listening in. It's soothing, when I'm 3,000 miles away from them and can't actually experience these conversations any other way. Also, my mom and dad once cleaned all the windows in the house and then my mom spent about twenty minutes telling me all about it. And then she sent me pictures.
Spencer is so damned detached, though, especially in this, and I wanted to capture that in the tone of this paragraph. I wanted to underline the impression that, yes, this was occurring in the future. Show some growth and change in the boys, even if it's just in something as minor as their hobbies. If one can call attempted spiritual growth a hobby. I think it kind of is for celebrities.
Spencer's mouth tugs down at the corners, and his breath hitches, messing up his count. He coughs and says, "How are the grandparents?"
His mom says, "Oh, they're fine, you know they'd love to see you if you end up in the area."
"Yeah," Spencer says. "I don't really, uh, know my schedule yet, but. LA's closer than London."
"Yes, thank goodness," his mom says. "I don't know why you had to live all the way out there for so long."
"Because," Spencer says automatically, and there is a long pause before his dad says, "Well, we love you, son. Maybe we'll get to see you one of these days," and then they are gone, and Spencer is thumbing through his address book, but he doesn't have anyone else he wants to talk to. Not really. Spencer turns off his phone.
Spencer was staying in London for Brendon, obviously. He obviously hasn't told his parents. This guy likes to keep his cards close to his chest. I mean, I bet that there's a lot of stuff in his life now that he feels like his parents can't relate to. And, so, he just. Doesn't talk about it.
The room's walls are closing in around him, so he goes back to Patrick's room, where Patrick is sitting on the bed, leaning against the wall and reading a book, huge noise-canceling headphones covering his ears.
This was before we found out that Patrick apparently can't read books. WTF? Seriously? Anyway, I still like this visual.
Spencer flops down on the floor. Patrick looks away from his book, and again, Spencer didn't think he was missing the way Patrick's almost but not quite checking him out. Hey, Spencer thinks. Hey, nice. Patrick is nice.
Oh ho ho! Also, I like, in my shorter pieces, to have a motif that I carry through, and Patrick as a nice guy is one of the recurring threads in this story.
"We should go shopping tomorrow," Spencer says.
"What?" Patrick says, pushing off his headphones.
"Shopping," Spencer repeats. "Tomorrow." He makes a little driving motion with his hands.
Patrick coughs. "Yeah. We could do that. Or you could do that and I could stay home and not do that."
"I need some new..." Spencer stops to think. "Everything. I need new everything."
Oh, baby. I'm so sorry. Patrick, of course, has not caught on to the metaphorical aspect of your statement.
"Oh, come on," Patrick says. "You brought a whole suitcase. It can't all be dirty. Besides. Pete has a washing machine."
"I don't want to wear any of that stuff," Spencer says, rolling up onto his knees and crawling over to brace his hands on Patrick's legs and lean into Patrick's lap. "Please?" he says. "Come with me?" He's about ten seconds from batting his eyes. He doesn't know what he's doing, because he's never been that dude, but here he is. It's kind of ridiculous, and he can't quite make himself stop. Patrick looks surprised, maybe even on his way toward shocked, and his thighs are warm under Spencer's hands. Spencer runs his fingers along the rough weave of Patrick's jeans.
I like getting into the tactile nature of touching another person. It's one of those things I like in fic. This is definitely the start of the change in tone in this fic. Spencer's going off the rails a little bit, and poor Patrick's standing in the way. Don't you remember that moment from breakups? When you just want to touch someone to feel their body warm under your hands, to be touched by someone untainted by all the negative emotions you've been slogging in day after day after day?
I remember that moment too. I, of course, was never unguarded enough to actually do it, but I remember it.
"Spencer," Patrick says, laughing nervously, hands coming up to fend Spencer off.
"It'll be fun," Spencer insists.
"It so won't," Patrick says.
"You can get some fresh air," Spencer says.
"And ruin my lily-white complexion?" Patrick asks. "I don't like natural light. I hear it's bad for you."
This was before I'd seen that interview where Patrick talks about how much he dislikes the sun. But the dude's pale. Doesn't take a genius to extrapolate that he wouldn't like hanging out outside a whole bunch. I still felt vindicated when I watched that interview, six months after posting this fic.
"I'll totally give you a blowjob if you go," Spencer says, and Patrick blushes from the tips of his ears down his face on his cheeks and along his neck.
"Go shopping with Pete," Patrick says. "He'd. Take you up on both of those offers."
Dude, he so would.
"Pete's not here," Spencer says, but collapses back to the floor. "You're here."
"Uh huh," Patrick says dryly. "As flattering as that is." He goes back to his book, and Spencer actually falls asleep on the floor, waking up when Patrick shakes his shoulder gently.
"Time for bed, jet-lag boy," Patrick says, and Spencer stumbles up off the floor. Patrick changed into his pajamas at some point while Spencer was resting his eyes, and is now wearing a thin, ragged t-shirt with holes along the collar, and a pair of ancient-looking cotton basketball shorts. He's not wearing a hat or his glasses, and it's like Patrick with the curtain down, softer and less guarded, receding hairline and all.
I, um, agonized for an embarrassingly long time about how to get Patrick out of his hat. He's Patrick. Does he exist without his hat? In the end, as with many things I agonize over writing, I just did it. Like Nike. Also, I always get a special little thrill whenever I see pictures or footage of Patrick without his hat. It's both wrong and awesome, and, okay, now I'm getting UST X-Files flashbacks.
"I'd do it, you know," Spencer mutters, before almost walking into the doorframe.
"Go to bed, Spencer," Patrick says, and Spencer goes.
Spencer is unsuccessful the next morning in talking Patrick into going shopping with him. Pete still isn't back. Spencer doesn't know how Patrick doesn't go crazy, rattling around this huge house by himself. The rooms almost echo. Spencer hasn't spent this much time around this few people in four years. He doesn't really remember how to do it, and he keeps washing up on the floor of Patrick's room, playing with Patrick's yo-yo and flipping through Patrick's DVD collection. He doesn't turn on his phone. Patrick offers to let him use the laptop to check his email, and Spencer says, "Nah. I'm on vacation."
This is a tactic I like to call, "wrapping up the passage of time in a hopefully interesting scene-setting way." Because, really, do you guys want to read a minute-by-minute description of Spencer's morning? Well, tough luck, because I don't want to write it. And the truth comes out. It's really all about me, me, me.
Someone mentioned really liking the line about Patrick's yo-yo and DVD collection. I still haven't quite figured out why, but I'm absolutely willing to take it.
"Revolutionary," Patrick says.
Dude, for Patrick, it probably is. He composes music in his leisure time. When he's not making music. I...the mind boggles. I mean, I like to write, when I don't hate it, and I still nine times of ten want to just watch an episode of the Office, or whatever.
Spencer snorts. "Yeah, fucking genius." He remembers, you're so fucking smart, shouted at him from across the room, followed by, figure it out.
"Yeah, I'm going to--" Spencer says, standing up.
Patrick cocks his head and looks at Spencer for a long moment before saying, patiently, "You're going to?"
"When does Pete get home?" Spencer asks, biting at a ragged nail.
I've had people ask why Spencer is so insistent on wondering when Pete will come home. I don't particularly believe in authorial intent, I mean, I'm a writer of FANFICTION, but in my head, the reason why Spencer wants Pete is because he thinks Pete can save him in some way, will know what to say to make stuff better. Patrick's great and all, but if I wanted advice on dealing with a bad breakup, I'd go to the king of bad breakups. Now, in my head, I see Pete as the kind of guy who will accumulate knowledge and wisdom over time, and be capable of doling it out to others, despite his inability to do the same in his own life.
"Uh." Patrick's eyes unfocus. "I don't--tomorrow, maybe?"
"Right," Spencer says, feeling flushed and hot. He turns in a circle, first toward the door, but he can't quite face the rest of the house and its silence and the walls that only throw back shards of the last three months that he wishes he could forget.
Again, in my head, Brendon and Spencer's relationship had a slow crumbling decline before its last spectacular explosion. I mean, they all kind of do, all relationships that last longer than six months. You build something up over time, it takes at least that long for the cracks to start showing, for the miscommunications and failed expectations to start breaking it down.
God, I have such a depressing view of relationships, don't I?
He doesn't know how to live his life, whenever he pictures it. He doesn't know how.
This is probably one of the more telling sentences I've ever written. Out of context and whatnot, but I was trying to express a feeling I've definitely had in my own life. Not suicidal, I want to note. But, trapped. When something bad has happened and you look ahead, and there's no way out of that bad thing, and that's just the way it is. Later, you can be philosophical. But that comes later.
"We could watch that," Patrick says, nodding at the copy of Rocky Horror Picture Show Spencer is still clutching in one hand. "If you want."
"I. Yeah," Spencer says. He wants to make a snide remark, feels like he should, because Rocky Horror, how campy is that, but actually, all he feels is grateful.
They settle in the living room with all the blinds drawn. The movie starts to play. Spencer turns and looks and Patrick is saying, "Dammit, Janet," softly, eyes focused on the screen.
Spencer looks back at the TV, where Brad and Janet are running through the rain, but he can't seem to shut off his brain. Stop thinking, Spencer thinks. He can't, though. The way Brendon had looked, shamefaced but angry, such a cliche when Spencer had walked through the door, and stop thinking.
This is the closest I think I ever get to actually talking about the backstory in my head for this story. Hopefully, people figured it out. It works for me, actually, for Spencer to not spell it out for himself. I always wince away from bad memories and try to stop following that line of thought to its natural conclusion. I expect most people do.
Spencer jerks his eyes away from the screen. Patrick's face is shadowed in the blue light from the TV, fingers tapping absently against the arm of the couch.
"We probably watched this a thousand times on the bus," Patrick says, turning his head, and Spencer kisses him fast, angling to avoid the brim of his hat. Patrick stiffens, hands coming up to grip Spencer's shoulders.
Hopefully, this worked for people. It's all about mental state. Spencer's mental state has to be frantic enough that this action doesn't seem out of character, even though at the start of the story, it might have seemed abrupt.
"Come on," Spencer whispers. "Come on," and stops himself from adding a please at the end. He kisses Patrick again, opening his mouth, sliding over so that their knees bump.
"What," Patrick says. "I thought--"
For the record, Patrick is thinking, "I thought you were with Brendon," and also, "Fuck." See, he's nice. But he's also kind of...not nice. He's attracted to Spencer, though, and Spencer has been hitting on him ever since showing up at the house.
"Come on," Spencer says, and Patrick kisses him back, hands moving to curve around Spencer's neck and arm.
He takes Patrick by the hand, pulling him up and into Spencer's room, leaving the movie running. They are actually going to do this, Spencer is actually going to do this. He leaves the light on. The walls are white, white, as they undress each other, and Patrick is pale and soft underneath his clothes. Spencer likes it, likes seeing it, runs his hands over Patrick's solid, round shoulders that are so different than what he's used to, so different, and Patrick's arms come down and around Spencer's waist. His hand palms Spencer's stomach and wraps around Spencer's dick with a confidence that leaves Spencer gasping into Patrick's mouth from sensation. Spencer hasn't had any hands other than Brendon's on him for over a year. Patrick strokes twice, and it's too much, too fast.
I usually cringe past the sexy bits that I've written, but this paragraph actually really works for me. I feel like it's descriptive without being crass, and it gets across the emotions I was going for, the way Spencer's more than half with Brendon, still, even while he's touching Patrick.
"Fuck," Spencer says, twisting away.
"Sorry," Patrick says. "Was that bad?"
"No," Spencer says. "No." He slides to his knees, pushing on Patrick's thighs until Patrick takes the hint and sits on the bed, and Spencer strokes his hands up and down Patrick's thighs the way Brendon had liked and that Patrick seems to appreciate too if the soft groan he gets is any indication. It's not Brendon, though, not Brendon, and Patrick is already half-hard for him, so considerate. "You want?" he asks, looking up.
Patrick's eyes are half-closed, looking down at him, the pupils dilated already, and Patrick leans back, saying, "Jesus Christ, yes."
Spencer is objectively good at this; he'd spent a good two years prior to Brendon practicing, but he'd forgotten what it was like with a new person, and Patrick's first aborted thrust almost makes him choke.
"Sorry, sorry," Patrick gasps, hands gripping and releasing on the sheets. Spencer hums and follows Patrick's involuntary upward twitch. Patrick smells different, moves differently, and Spencer has no fucking idea what he's doing, this all feels unreal in a sharp-edged way. Patrick's back arches up, thighs flexing smoothly under Spencer's fingers, and he bends over, hands trembling over Spencer's head. Patrick makes a lot of noise, higher than Spencer's used to, a little breathy. Spencer tilts his head, runs his fingers over the crease of Patrick's hips, and Patrick says, "Fuck, I'm going to," and comes.
Also, I feel like I should point out that this was, in fact, the first complete sex scene that I'd ever written. I haven't written many since, either. But. This was the first. I wrote it really late at night, and then I went to bed and was a little surprised when I reread it in the morning. I still like the bit about Patrick's thighs flexing under Spencer's hands.
Patrick turns his head when Spencer slides onto the bed. "Hey," he says, sounding hazy.
"Hey," Spencer says, and lets Patrick push him onto his back and kiss him. He wants to stop thinking. Patrick's hand closes around Spencer's cock, and he arches upward, encouraging. "Fuck," Spencer chokes, "fuck, fuck," as Patrick strokes over him. The overhead light blinds his eyes and Patrick kisses the side of his neck. He says, "Harder, fuck, harder," and covers his face with his arm when he comes.
You know, it's interesting to me. I'm not sure how sexy this scene is. Its purpose was not to be sexy. Its purpose was to show Spencer's mental anguish, an underline. We Make Bad Decisions. But then, that begs the question of what's the purpose of sex scenes in stories. For some people, their purpose is to be sexy. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. I enjoy those sex scenes a great deal, when they are sexy (which is another subject for another day, I think). I will rarely be the person to go to for that, though. When writing, I always find myself wondering what the point is, and if the sex isn't showing something novel about the characters or isn't advancing the plot in some way, I simply won't write it. If I were a better writer, maybe, I could think of many things to show via sex in my stories, but mostly, I've got one thing to show, maybe two, and that's just the way it is.
Anyway, the point is, this scene isn't actually that sexy to me, because I'm too wrapped up inside Spencer's head when I read it, and he's so not present. He's thinking a million different things and most of them have to do with Brendon, and what he's doing with his body is almost incidental.
"When did you guys break up?" Patrick asks.
I wrote this scene before the sex scene, by the way. I can't recall precisely when I wrote it, whether Spencer had kissed Patrick yet or not, but I know that I wrote this out of order. I often do, with endings. I rarely know exactly where I'm going with a fic, but at a certain point, I get a very clear image of something either at the end, or very near the end of a fic, and that's what I aim for. Endings have a rhythm to them, and it's nice to know what that's going to be before you get there.
Spencer rolls onto his side. Patrick is staring up at the ceiling, arm bent behind his head. "I." Spencer doesn't actually know Patrick well enough to know if he's happy or pissed off. Spencer sighs. "You want officially or unofficially?"
"Wow," Patrick says. "So. I'm like. Your rebound guy." He stares at the ceiling for a second longer before turning his head to look at Spencer, and smiles a little ruefully. His eyes are very blue, and Spencer can't hold them for long.
"You're not really--" Spencer starts, and Patrick waves him off.
"It's okay," Patrick says. "Really."
Spencer stares at the bedsheet, eyes tracing the fold as it curves down over Patrick's stomach.
"I mean, you know, better than my hand," Patrick's voice says. The sheet moves, and Patrick is leaning over Spencer, kissing him softly and close-mouthed on the lips before pulling away.
It is so nice, Patrick is so fucking nice, even about this, and Spencer feels his face start to crumple like he did something wrong, even though he didn't.
"Sorry," Spencer says, closing his eyes. "Sorry. I'm--Sorry."
Whatever assumptions Patrick has made about this situation, and I think he did make them, Spencer's apology puts paid to them.
The mattress bends and flexes, and when Spencer opens his eyes, Patrick is getting dressed, quickly and efficiently.
"I'm," Spencer says. "Patrick. I'm sorry."
Patrick's back tenses, and he pulls his shirt over his head quickly. "It's fine," he says. "Just. Maybe let's not do this again."
Not quite as easy-going about this as he seems, and who can blame him?
"Yeah," Spencer sighs.
Patrick stops at the door, one hand at the knob. He turns around. "Pete's coming home today. Don't. Um. Don't tell him, okay? He's not--I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell him."
"Yeah, I wouldn't--" Spencer says, and the door opens and closes, and he is left alone in the white room with the green window. The sheet is damp, and Spencer closes his eyes and tries not to think.
I remember that callsigns and I went back and forth about this ending, as we usually do. Not anything major, just, what the very last line was going to be. I always end up having to tweak the endings. I can't recall anything I've written in the last year where I didn't have to mess with the ending. Sometimes I wonder if it's more just a question of endurance, if I'm just wearing my betas down so that they finally give in to my will. muahahahahahahah. Really, though, I thank god every day for my betas, because it's a cold, scary place out there without them.
I emphasized the room again at the end, because it circled back to the beginning a bit, and also, enforced this sense of Spencer being trapped, and that played in to Spencer's central emotional conflict.
So, there it is. As simple as that, eh?
[END]
Grateful thanks to callsigns and circuity for their rapid, insightful betas. Thank you also to canadiankracka and darkseaglass for their time and attention--hopefully canadiankracka will speak to me again one of these days.