Open veins
Title: Open veins
Author:
alles_luege
Pairing: Panic GSF
Rating: R
Summary: Ryan leaves them and takes Jon with him, Spencer is lost and Brendon just can’t let them go, because for Brendon this was always more about them than the music, band, fans.
Warning(s): Sex, angst and boys being stupid
Author’s Notes: This is a break-up fic, my personal turn on the events after. (Yes, that’s how I deal with this stuff.) Also, Spencer’s and Brendon’s POV.
Word Count: 8.551
Beta: tygermine
Disclaimer: Don’t know, don’t own, not real.
~1~
“I need a break,” Ryan says and Spencer doesn’t really know what the hell Ryan is talking about, because they are on a break, well…they aren’t touring, they want to write a new record, but…and then it hits him, because he fucking knows Ryan.
“You want to quit,” Spencer says.
“I…”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Yeah, I think I need to do something else.” Ryan says, playing with a lock of his hair. Spencer wants to hit him. Really, he wants to hit him so he can knock some sense in Ryan’s head, because why? Why the hell would he want to quit the fucking band now?
“Why?” It’s the only question left. Really.
“Because I can’t be with you guys anymore,” Ryan says and he sounds sincere and a little bit torn, but also fucking determined.
Later they will tell the press something about differences in perspectives and wanting to make something else and stuff like that. It will sound like something people say when they get a divorce. And really, Spencer thinks, fucking really, that’s what’s happening here.
~+~
“Is this about Keltie?” Brendon asks.
Ryan looks up from the magazine he’s reading, puts it aside and sighs. “No, it’s not about her. This is about me.”
“You mean you and Spencer,” Brendon answers. He’s standing in the doorway, his hands behind his back, because he doesn’t want to do something stupid. Not at all, except where he really fucking wants to hit Ryan so he will see sense, but he can’t, he can’t because of the same reasons Spencer couldn’t. They are so fucked when it comes to Ryan. Brendon doesn’t know if Spencer knows, but Brendon knows and Spencer knows that he knows. It’s still not alright for Ryan to leave them.
“This is not about me and Spencer, Brendon.”
“Yeah, sure. Tell yourself that.”
“What the hell,” Ryan sounds pissed, but Brendon doesn’t care. Ryan is leaving them. He can’t fuck up the band anymore, so why all this theatre? What the fuck.
“With Keltie you were safe, but now that she broke up with you…” and Brendon doesn’t say that Ryan deserved it (Ryan knows) or that it’s for the best (because Ryan knows that to, even if he will never admit it). “Now that she broke up with you, you are alone and could…”
“I’m not talking about this!” Ryan says too loud, his lips a thin line and Brendon knows, he knows that Ryan feels the fucking same as Spencer, but that he will not act on it. Because he never had, because he never came to terms with it, with Spencer, with them.
“You’re throwing everything away,” Brendon answers softly, but what he means is ‘the band’, ‘the music’ and ‘love’ and most importantly ‘us’.
Ryan doesn’t answer, stubborn as ever, the fucking ice-queen. Brendon really wants to punch him on Spencer’s behalf. And for selfish reasons too. And for Ryan’s own good.
~+~
“We’re keeping the name,” Spencer says.
They’re sitting in the living room, but it’s all wrong. There are sides now. There is Ryan and Jon and there is him and Brendon, but no one is touching, or leaning into each other. It’s all wrong. Brendon is tense and bouncing his foot against the small table. Spencer doesn’t tell him to stop, neither does Ryan or Jon for that matter. Ryan’s lips are a thin line for a second and Spencer knows that he wants to object, but then he just nods shortly and that’s it. Spencer doesn’t feel better because he’d won, because he’d hurt Ryan. He could never feel good about something like that. But maybe Ryan understands, maybe he understands that Spencer needs something to get him through the days that will follow. The aftermath. The days that shouldn’t ever be.
“Okay,” Jon says, it’s the first time Jon speaks at all. And Spencer still can’t understand how Jon can fucking leave them too. How Ryan could do that to them. Brendon doesn’t look at Jon, at all. He hasn’t spoke to Jon since he first said he is leaving with Ryan. Spencer knows why. (He is sure Ryan knows too, and maybe that’s the reason Ryan is taking Jon with him. He doesn’t know.)
“I need…” Brendon says, but doesn’t finish the sentence, just gets up and leaves the living room. Spencer hates to see Brendon like that.
“Are you happy now?” he bites out and knows it’s unfair, but he wants to hurt Ryan, he wants to hurt them. (He knows he will feel awful seconds later, but he doesn’t care right now. He just doesn’t.) And he can’t punch Ryan, not Ryan, so that’s the next best thing. Ryan flinches slightly.
“Spencer.” Jon warns, but Spencer just isn’t in the mood, he isn’t afraid of Jon. He isn’t fucking afraid.
“Shut up!” he says. “I’m not talking to you,” because he isn’t, he fucking can’t talk to Jon right now.
“No…” Ryan says, with this small soft voice that makes Spencer cry inside. He hates Ryan right now, he fucking hates them both.
“You should.” Spencer spits.
“Spencer…”
“No, just no.” Spencer answers and gets up. He needs to leave now, because he will do something even worse than what he already did if he doesn’t.
~+~
“Do you love him?” Brendon asks. He’s curled up on the couch and he knows Jon didn’t see him as he entered the room.
“Who?”
“Don’t,” Brendon says, because he is tired of this and well, he is just plain tired. He didn’t sleep at all in the last few days. (He knows now how Pete is feeling and it’s not a nice feeling. His mind is a scary place to be and his heart is torn and wild and wants to lash out at everything and anyone, except Spencer.)
“Brendon…” Jon sounds as tired as Brendon feels.
“I said don’t. It’s an easy question. Do you love him?”
“Yeah,” Jon says and Brendon closes his eyes.
He knew. Of course he knew, because everyone is fucking in love with Ryan - he is no exception and it doesn’t matter that Jon wasn’t the first. (Spencer was, Spencer knew him first and Spencer loves him the longest, but it doesn’t matter, because they love him all the same.)
“Okay…”
“Brendon…it’s not that I don’t love you guys too…”
“I know.” Brendon says, because he does know that too.
“He needs someone.” Jon says as if that was a good reason to leave them behind. The fucking truth is, it is. It is the only reason they will accept.
He has us, Brendon wants to say, but Jon knows that. “It’s better if he doesn’t leave alone, I guess.” Brendon answers after a while.
“I…”
“It’s still not right,” Brendon says.
“Yeah. I know.”
~+~
Spencer really wants to speak with Brendon, but he just can’t, is the thing. He doesn’t know what to say. He could bitch or tell him everything will be alright again, but it won’t - and Spencer doesn’t want to lie.
“So, you and me, hmmm?” Brendon says from the doorway. He’s leaning on the frame, looking directly at Spencer, who is sitting in the too big chair, pretending to read.
“Yeah, you and me…” Spencer answers, he doesn’t say, that’s all what we have now, or that’s all he left us with or something along the lines. He is sure Brendon knows.
“Why keep the name then?” Brendon asks, Spencer notices that his back is straight, like it is when he’s playing the piano - all concentration. (But it lacks the subtle happiness and waves of love and simple yes.)
Spencer shrugs. “I want something that was his and his alone…I want something…”
“To remind you, to get you through the days…”
“After.” Spencer finishes for them both.
“Yeah.” Brendon says.
Spencer knew from the day that Brendon caught him with one of their fans that Brendon sees more than they give him credit for, that there is more going on in his head than they will ever know and that Brendon is as complex as Ryan, but just in a different way. It scared the shit out of Spencer then, but now he’s glad.
“I’ll put the exclamation mark back in.” Spencer says, Brendon bites his lip. Spencer can’t look away, most people can’t look away when Brendon does it. He’s seen Ryan looking at them - way back when they were young (but never innocent, well, not Ryan and because of that never was Spencer and well, Brendon wasn’t either, after his parents just had thrown him out and he started to figure out things on his own) and later Jon too.
“I guess that is a statement in itself,” Brendon says after a while, he leans his head on the wall and slumps then down until he’s sitting on Spencer’s floor. Spencer nods, it is, why say it out loud?
~+~
Brendon wants to ask if Spencer thinks they can do that. If they can pull this shit off on their own, without Ryan there, maybe they could without Jon (Brendon doubts it, but another guitarist would be easier to find than, well…Ryan.). He leans against Spencer’s wall and waits for him to say something.
“He’s just running away,” Spencer says and Brendon looks up, Spencer looks like shit, he looks the same. He doesn’t know how Jon looks or Ryan, because they haven’t seen each other for 10 days. (Brendon is counting, they’ve never spent this much time apart before. They don’t call, they don’t talk, don’t mail stupid stuff, don’t even text. Nothing. The world is indeed a broken bone.) He was always running away, Brendon thinks, just like all of them.
“Just like us.” He says softly, Spencer’s eyes are hard and sharp like diamonds, but soften after a few seconds. He laughs shakily.
“Fuck you Brendon.”
“Maybe that’s the solution.” Brendon says, not looking away from Spencer’s eyes. He means it, he wants it.
“Brendon…”
“What? You think it would fuck up the band?” Brendon asks.
~+~
Spencer doesn’t really know if he takes the first step, or if it’s Brendon. But when they’re standing so close that just one step would make their lips meet, he has a moment of panic, because what the fuck is he doing? What is Brendon doing?
“We will not mess this up,” Brendon whispers. And Spencer believes him. He wants to ask if Brendon’s sure, but he doesn’t. He can see it in Brendon’s eyes. He is sure. The one who isn’t is Spencer, but just until he can feel Brendon’s breath on his lips and then Brendon’s lips on his. From that point on he knows there is no turning back from this. (From Brendon, from them.)
“Okay,” Spencer says after they break for air.
“Okay.” Brendon answers.
~+~
Spencer’s thrusts are slow and measured. Because Spencer always needs to be in control, or thinks that he needs to be in control, but it’s not true.
“You can let go,” Brendon gasps. Spencer shakes his head.
“Don’t wanna hurt you,” he answers.
Brendon thinks that’s really sweet, but he wants Spencer to be himself just once, it doesn’t matter, that Brendon will bear the brunt of it, the sadness and grief, he wants that.
“Spence, come on. Harder,” He wants to say that he can take it, but maybe Spencer knows that he really can’t. (Because this is the first time, and he didn’t tell Spencer, but maybe Spencer knows anyway. Knows that there wasn’t anyone ever. No one else for Brendon, except them.)
“No,” Spencer grits out, but his thrusts become faster, not harder. Brendon guesses it’s a compromise.
“Okay…” he answers and grabs Spencer’s face to kiss him hard and messy and dirty. He knows he is a fucking fantastic kisser. Spencer moans his name. “Okay,” he says again.
~2~
‘Somehow I wish that they’d just stopped. It would’ve been easier.’
Brendon stares at the lines and thinks, fuck he sometimes thinks that too. The thought is self-destructive at best. Ryan would’ve been proud, he thinks with a sharp smile. He knows the smiles, the private ones, the ones no one ever sees except…well, no one anymore is the thing, they are always sharp now. Because sometimes he can’t handle it, can’t…just can’t. He closes the laptop and lies down on the floor to stare up at the ceiling, which is yellow, and he can’t figure out why he thought (back then) why this would be a good colour for a ceiling. The truth is, he supposes, that he wasn’t thinking about ceilings that hard. (Not how he is now.) Because he had other things in mind. Music, mostly. Girls, parties, his band. Ryan. He closes his eyes, because that one is still too painful to consider, even to scratch the surface of.
~+~
Spencer lays his sidekick aside and looks out of the window. He isn’t surprised that Brendon isn’t picking up. He wouldn’t either, he supposes, well, maybe he would. Because he is fucking responsible. Is the thing. Didn’t do him much good lately. He begins to hate CA. A lot. Maybe Ryan was right and it was time for a change, but…and it shouldn’t fucking surprise him at all…(“It was coming , I guess…” Ryan had said.), but he didn’t fucking know. And how could he not see this? After years of friendship, after all they’ve seen, shared, after all Ryan put him through. Fuck him, he thinks and knows he means it in this second, but after, after he will not and a second isn’t really long. There, gone and he feels hollow again. He can just imagine how Brendon is feeling. He doesn’t know and he could read them all so fucking well, before. It’s after now. And he can’t. And he doesn’t blame Brendon for not picking up his fucking phone.
It’s not Brendon’s place to feel responsible.
~+~
The first time Brendon feels it is the first time he meets them. He sees Ryan and it’s not that he knows, because he fucking doesn’t, because he doesn’t care. He is there for the music and just the music - maybe for Brent too. Yeah, definitely for Brent too. But he feels something shift for a second, just a second and then it’s gone. Then it’s just him again trying to impress and give them a reason to keep him, to be part of this. It’s not that he believes in them, it’s because he doesn’t have anyone else. Anything else besides the music, besides Brent. And Brent isn’t even really a friend, just a dude he knows. He needs this, but he doesn’t want them to think he’s desperate or weird or…but that is futile, because he is both, he is all of it. And he wants. To stay. Ryan doesn’t acknowledge his presence besides a short nod before he smiles at Spencer and Spencer takes things in hand.
~+~
And he fucking remembers the first time he’d seen Brendon and thought, well, shit not that kid. Because he didn’t think Brendon would be any good, it wasn’t that he didn’t believe Brendon could play, it was that he didn’t think Ryan would let Brendon stay. And it was Ryan’s band, no matter what they said later to the press. It was Ryan’s band - from the beginning. (And now it’s his. Ryan’s fucking legacy is his and he doesn’t know what to do with it. He is not Ryan…and he just has Brendon. Ryan’s voice and how, how the fuck could Ryan do that to them?)
He is sure no one could tell. No one could tell from the outside, but Pete called and Spencer told him he was fine and it was a lie and he isn’t sure, he is, okay? He is sure Pete knows. He is sure Ryan knows, but he isn’t sure anymore if Ryan cares.
~+~
He missed Spencer’s call. But this seems so much more important now. It probably isn’t at all, but he is a mess. A fucking mess and he doesn’t care for anyone, or anything outside these four walls of his home. He wishes he was back in his first shitty apartment. The first one he had, where every corner is filled with memories, still. He knows. He can see shadows on the walls, of them - without Jon back then. But that doesn’t matter anymore anyway. He is alone again. Spencer might disagree on that one. But Brendon knows, Brendon knows that Spencer feels fucking lost. Because Brendon is feeling the same.
So, back to the task at hand: the fucking ceiling. He was considering blue for a while, back then and a few hours ago, but in the end he decided that the only colour is white. (Maybe black would be good too…paint it black, but he doesn’t feel black inside, like scorched wood or the night in winter. He feels blank and lost and that’s why it has to be white. Like fresh snow maybe, to bury him alive. Ryan would be proud of those too.)
Maybe he will call Spencer back when the ceiling is white and no traces of yellow can be seen anymore, nothing that can remind him of what he has lost.
~+~
Spencer remembers the first time (because Spencer remembers every first time, he remembers everything. Sometimes he thinks - well these days - that this ability is more a curse than anything else.) It was early in the days, it was…he was young and their fans, they were all young too (not like now, where they are too young). The boy was roughly the same age as, well, them and it was just because (and he knew this, he knew back then, he always knew is the thing) he looked so much like Ryan under all the make-up. It wasn’t really right, but it wasn’t really wrong either. He doesn’t think Ryan knew back then, and it doesn’t matter anyway. Not now and it didn’t then. Ryan (and Spencer remembers that too) was lost in all the sheer craziness their lives had become and in Pete. Everything was new and just unbelievable and real and not. (He can barely think of those first days. He could before. He hates that there is an after now. They shouldn’t ever have had an after.)
It was good, because blow jobs are always good, and there were more - and he remembers them all, but he doesn’t really remember their names or faces, because…and Spencer isn’t ashamed to admit it, it was always someone else he was thinking of anyway.
~+~
Brendon remembers being high on endorphins for days after - he can’t evoke the feelings at all anymore. (The ceiling is white and there are white dots on his body and cloths, he doesn’t care. If he would let himself think about this, he would get into a metaphor on black holes, but he doesn’t let himself think about it. He thinks about selling the whole place, though.) He felt happy, even if he didn’t know they would let him stay, but Brent said something about Ryan letting him come back and that it was a good sign. Brendon believed him, because he wanted to and because Brent seemed sincere. Besides, according to Brent not one of their former try outs was allowed to come back.
And that’s how it really started for Brendon. Not with the first meeting, but with the second when he knew he was in. They didn’t say it out loud then, but he knew and he knew that Brent knew and Spencer too.
~+~
He would like to say that he doesn’t think ‘Change’ is out there to hurt them. But he isn’t sure. It feels that way. And maybe ‘New perspective’ is just an answer to that. Spencer will not admit that, how can he? He is responsible, and he doesn’t care…he doesn’t care for his own feelings. That is what Brendon said. He said it the first time he caught Spencer with someone who looked like Ryan but wasn’t him and he said it after they’ve heard ‘Change’. He whispered it against Spencer’s skin after Ryan left. Just fucking left them. And Spencer felt so angry and lost and…it wasn’t right then. He knows, but Brendon was there and he liked Brendon a fucking lot.
And Brendon wasn’t just someone who wasn’t Ryan. (Brendon couldn’t ever be someone who just wasn’t Ryan.) Brendon was Brendon and there and he felt lost too.
~+~
And maybe the worst thing isn’t even that Ryan left them. Maybe it’s that he took Jon with him. How could he take Jon away from them? From Brendon (and it’s not just because Brendon loved Jon first, and that is the fucking truth. He loved Jon first.). Brendon is sure that Ryan knew how he felt about Jon from the very first day he talked to Jon, or Jon talked to him, he can’t remember that one clearly enough. And it was because of Jon that he was hanging out with The Academy in the first place, because Jon was there too, always with the band and Brendon wanted to be part of this. And he didn’t know back then that he was falling so fucking hard and crashing somewhere in the future was inevitable. He didn’t care. He just went with his feelings, and they weren’t wrong (they never were, even when he didn’t know), because he didn’t know that this was love he felt for Jon and later, much later when he figured this out and himself, it was just something in the past. (The thing is, he thinks, as he stares at the ceiling, the thing is, he didn’t fall out again. He never felt out again. He just added feelings as he went along, as they went along.)
~+~
He tries to call Brendon again, but he just gets the mailbox and puts it on the table, before the urge to throw it against the nearest wall will become an issue. He can’t blame Brendon for not picking up, but Spencer wants to make sure that Brendon knows. That he knows that this wasn’t because Ryan left (except, yeah, it kind of was). He doesn’t think they would’ve done it if Ryan hadn’t left, but it still was there, it was there from the very beginning. From that evening where Ryan said, yeah, we should keep him. And Spencer knew back then everything about Ryan (not like now, where he just can speculate), he knew that Ryan liked Brendon. Maybe Spencer knew before even Ryan had figured that one out. (It didn’t matter anyway - in the end, that is, because Ryan never acted on it. Spencer knows why too. Because Ryan was fucking scared. Because Ryan is fucking scared.)
~+~
Brendon doesn’t regret that thing with Spencer, he could never regret Spencer, like he could never regret Jon; or Ryan for that matter.
He knows he should probably pick up his phone, but Spencer will just want to make sure that he knows it wasn’t because of Ryan and Jon leaving - together. (It is a lie, it was because Ryan left them, left them to be Panic at the disco, but they are not. This is not what they were - they are just pieces of something bigger now -, and maybe they should have changed the name, start new, without Ryan’s legacy to remind them of…everything. Fucking everything that they aren’t anymore. He can’t understand why Spencer wanted the exclamation mark back. Maybe nostalgia.)
~3~
Before he would have called Ryan or just got into the car to meet up with him and talk the whole thing over with him. Now, he doesn’t. He can’t. He doesn’t even know how Ryan would react if he’d knew what Spencer did. (“What we did,” Brendon had said after, lying on Spencer’s couch naked and sated.) Yeah, Spencer thinks, what they did, because Brendon wanted it too. And now he’s not picking up his phone. Spencer doesn’t think Brendon is regretting things, he knows Brendon is not, because Brendon told him, but he feels empty inside and he needs to be with Ryan or Jon. Even…if he has Brendon now in the way he wanted Brendon from the first time he saw Brendon perform and after, that smile, that unbelievingly affectionate smile made Spencer’s heart ache. (Brendon didn’t know about it then, he didn’t know how Spencer was feeling, or how hard Ryan was falling for him, or his own feelings. Maybe it was blissful ignorance.)
~+~
He misses Spencer’s third call, and the fifth and the seventh. (In reality he doesn’t miss as much as he just doesn’t take them.) He takes the eighth, because he isn’t an ass after all. He grabs the phone and looks at the display and after reading the name takes it anyway.
“I fucked Spencer.” He says and waits. He hears a sharp breath and knows that Ryan is thinking about just hanging up on him. The silence between them stretches until Brendon isn’t sure he can take it anymore, but Ryan is still on the other side of the line. Brendon can hear him breathing, so he waits.
“What?” Ryan ask eventually, as if he didn’t hear it the first time (well, it’s Ryan’s fucked-up version of pleading with Brendon to take it back, but Brendon won’t have any of it, not today, not ever again.).
“You heard me alright. I fucked Spencer, or well he fucked me. On his living room sofa.” Brendon says the last thing just because he wants Ryan to know and remember every time he sits down on it, that Brendon has been fucked there for the first time in his life. And that it was Spencer who did it.
“Okay,” Ryan says, his voice sounds far away and hollow.
“Did you want to be his first?” Brendon asks.
“Brendon.” Ryan warns, but Brendon doesn’t care, he needs to say what he needs to say before Ryan just hangs up on him. You never know how much time you have with Ryan. (Wow and how fucking true is it in this situation.)
“He had boys before. I doubt I was his first. But he was mine.” Brendon says, he doesn’t have any secrets left now that he wants to keep, not from himself, not from the others. He doesn’t care about it anymore. (Their band is falling apart and it’s just because Ryan fucking Ross is too afraid to be who he is, to love whom he loves and most importantly to let those people love him back.)
He hears Ryan take a sharp breath and is prepared for whatever will come now. He is. You have nothing to lose if you already lost everything that was important to you.
“Fuck you, Brendon.” Ryan says, it’s just a whisper.
“I bet you would like that. I bet I would like that too.” Brendon answers and hangs up on Ryan. It was what he wanted Ryan to know and now he knows.
Brendon stares a few minutes at his ceiling and then calls Spencer back.
~+~
“He’s not talking. It’s like when we where in the cabin and he burned his guitar in the backyard and then stayed in his room for three days. He doesn’t talk.” Jon says it all in a rush. Spencer knows what it cost him to call. And Spencer isn’t cruel. (He could never be, not to them. Because he fucking loves his band, what is left of his band. Them.)
“He knows I fucked Brendon.” Spencer says. (He doesn’t add on my living room sofa, but he kinda wants too. He also wants Jon to know that he was the first one to fuck Brendon at all.)
“You did - you told him?” Jon asks, and he sounds a bit pissed.
“No, I didn’t tell him. Brendon did.” Spencer answers and he thinks that it was a good thing, he doesn’t know when Brendon became so damn…pushy, reckless? (Well, he always was like that, but not when it came to this, this thing between them that no one ever acknowledged.) He doesn’t know when it happened that Brendon didn’t care anymore about secrets and things better left unsaid. (And they weren’t better left unsaid.)
“Jesus.”
“And he asked him if he wanted to be my first…also if he wanted to fuck Brendon as well.” Spencer says. He needs Jon to know this, he needs Jon to understand what Brendon is doing. What they are doing.
“You think that will bring him back?” Jon’s voice is sharp.
“No, I know it won’t.” Spencer answers, because he knows that, Brendon knows that too, but this is not about the band, or the music or fans or whatever. This is about them.
“What is he thinking?” Jon asks, he sounds a bit curious and a bit defeated.
“That it doesn’t matter, because he can’t fuck up the band anymore.” (He doesn’t add there is no more band to fuck up, he doesn’t need to, Jon knows.)
“So, he thinks it’s okay to mess with Ryan’s head or feelings?”
“It’s not like that and you know it!” Spencer answers sharply. Because fuck Jon, if he thinks that is what Brendon is doing and if he thinks that Spencer would allow it.
“I’m sorry,” Jon sighs into the phone and Spencer waits. “I…does he mean it, like for sure?”
“I fucked him on my living room sofa, Jon.” Spencer answers.
“Okay…”
“Okay.” Spencer says and hangs up.
~+~
“Brendon?”
Brendon rolls his eyes, because honestly, who else? Jon called him. “Yeah,” he says.
“I…”
“You know about me and Spencer,” Brendon says, it’s not a question. He can see Jon running a hand through his hair, leaning on the wall, maybe, or sitting on Ryan’s couch. (He fucking knows Jon, in and out. He knows everyone one of these boys.)
“Yeah.”
“And now what? Do you want me to apologize, because if you do, fuck you Jon. I don’t regret it.” Brendon says, but his voice is calm.
“I do,” Jon answers. Brendon isn’t sure Jon means that he didn’t make a move back then, or if it’s about Ryan (because fucking everything is about Ryan in the end, and maybe this was Ryan’s twisted way to make them something. Something they wanted to be, needed to be, but never were.), or if he regrets not being the first. Brendon is glad it was Spencer, he doesn’t think Ryan or Jon would have done for Brendon what Spencer was able to do. He’s glad it was Spencer.
“Jon…”
“No, I mean…” Jon begins, but Brendon doesn’t need to hear it.
“I know, I mean, I think I do,” Brendon interrupts him.
“I need…”
It’s kinda frustrating to have Jon not finish his sentences. He was never so nervous in his life, well, maybe he was the first time he played with them. Brendon doesn’t know for sure, because at that time he was nervous himself and fucking happy and there was no room for other people inside him. (There is still no room inside him, but that’s just because his insides are filled with them.)
“Where you thinking about me and Spencer? On his couch? Will you think about it every time you sit on it?” Brendon asks and his voice drops. He imagines Jon shiver.
“Brendon…”
“It’s a simple question, Jon. Where you thinking about us, where you jerking off to that image?” And maybe it isn’t really fair. This is Jon after all. But Brendon wanted him for so long. He’s sure Jon wanted him too, even when he was together with his girlfriend. There was always something. (It was like a marriage, but without the sex, not without kissing and touching and…just without the sex. And it was good for the first year, maybe, but it got frustrating and that is the result. They’re breaking up. And Brendon knows there is no way out of this, but he will be damned if he lets them go.)
“Yeah,” Jon says.
“Did you feel guilty about it?” Brendon asks.
Jon laughs out loud. “For the last few years, Brendon.” Jon answers and Brendon smiles.
~+~
“I can’t believe you did it,” Ryan says, Spencer sees him in all his pissed off ice-queen glory. He wants to be pissed too, but he can’t. Not really. (Ryan called after all, so he wants to talk, maybe he ventured out into the kitchen. Maybe he ate something for a change. Jon said he wasn’t eating either. Spencer was fucking worried, but Ryan isn’t suicidal just self- destructive.)
“Because you didn’t?” Spencer asks. Ryan takes a sharp breath.
“I never…”
“Ryan.” Spencer says sharply.
“I like girls.” Ryan says and that isn’t even a lie, Spencer knows that, but it doesn’t mean Ryan doesn’t like boys too.
“I know.”
“Spencer…”
“Listen,” Spencer interrupts, “there is nothing left.”
Ryan keeps quiet, and Spencer waits.
“You have Brendon now,” He says after a while and hangs up. Spencer stares frustrated at his sidekick. Fucking Ryan. Fucking Ryan. Honestly, he thinks. He would call back, but he knows Ryan will not pick up anyway. So why try in the first place? He thinks about calling Jon, but he lets that thought go as soon as it occurs. Ryan needs Jon now more. (Ryan needs to be fucked by Brendon six ways from Sunday, he thinks, but that is something he will not tell Ryan just right now. Also, this image is kinda hot.) He groans and pushes his hand down his pants. (He’s done it before, but then he didn’t know how Brendon tasted, how he looked when he comes, how he sounds when he needs, wants. It makes everything so much sharper, so much more real.) He wishes he didn’t know how Ryan’s skin feels, it makes everything unbearable, nearly painful.
~4~
“Jon, Jon, Jon…” Brendon gasps. And it’s not the first time, but it’s not enough, he wants to feel Jon on his skin, wants to trace the line of Jon’s spine with his tongue. Wants to touch, to bite, to feel. This, these words, is just not enough. Jon sounds desperate (just like Brendon is feeling) on the other end of the line. Jon moans his name and Brendon’s hand speeds up, he bites his lip as he comes.
“I want to see you come…” Jon says, his voice husky. Brendon wants that too.
The thing is that Jon will not leave Ryan alone, by himself. And this, these stolen moments, is the only thing Brendon can have for now. (It’s more than he had a few weeks ago, but it’s still not enough.)
~+~
He doesn’t fuck Brendon. (They didn’t since the first time a few days back.) It feels okay not to. They’re both waiting.
“For Ryan to come around,” Brendon says with a sigh. Spencer nods. “What if he doesn’t?” Brendon asks in the silence between them. Spencer doesn’t have an answer to this. He isn’t sure, well, he doesn’t know if this will work out just between him and Brendon. (And Brendon told him about Jon. Hell, Jon told him about this stuff too.)
“He will.”
“What if he doesn’t Spencer?” Brendon asks again: he is clutching his mug and not looking at Spencer at all. He’s afraid. (Spencer is too. The future is a misty coast.)
“We will make him see sense,” Spencer says and Brendon’s eyes snap to his face. He looks a bit shocked. “That’s not what I meant. I could never…”
“I could,” Brendon says softly.
“God, Brendon.”
“He would hate you, but it doesn’t matter if he hates me, he already does, because you fucked me and it was my idea and because - I’m sure he knows about Jon.”
“He loves you,” Spencer says, he is absolutely sure of that. Brendon gives him a small smile, before he sips from his mug. Spencer really wants to touch him right now and that’s what he does. He gets up and sits beside Brendon, pushes his hair away and kisses his temple. “He doesn’t hate you,” he says again. Brendon sighs and leans against him.
“Can I stay with you tonight?” he asks and Spencer nods. “Just for the comfort…”
“Whatever you want,” Spencer answers, kissing his temple again. (And he means it, he always means it.)
“Okay.”
~+~
Brendon remembers the first dream he had about Ryan. It was strange, but that was the only comfort , really, because Ryan was (is) strange. When he woke up his skin was tingling with pleasure and his mind was his personal hell. He couldn’t ever forget the dream. After, he flinched for days when Ryan touched him, or they brushed against each other. (He felt so guilty. So goddamned guilty.)
It was Spencer then who took him aside and talked and even when Brendon couldn’t tell him what the hell was wrong with him (because he didn’t know back then. He figured it out after. After his parents kicked him out, after they met Pete, after the first tour. Just after.), and things got better. Spencer always makes things better. Makes the world spin in the right direction. Makes it stop, if necessary.
In retrospect, that was maybe the moment he fell for Spencer as well. (He didn’t know back then, because he was sure, so fucking sure he was into girls and well, even if it’s not a lie it is not the truth either. He likes both. Is the thing. It was just easier to ignore the other part of him, because he wanted to be what his parents wanted him to be. They loved him. He wanted to make them proud, because he loved them too - he loves them still.)
He isn’t ashamed of those dreams anymore. He welcomes them. (Right now it’s the only way to have Ryan to himself, like he wants to have him. Spread out and wanting, needing, begging maybe.)
~+~
Jon is pacing across Spencer’s living room and Spencer lets him. Spencer honestly doesn’t care about stuff like that, not right now anyway. He makes coffee in his kitchen and just waits. Eventually Jon will say what he needs to say and then they can deal with it. (Or, Spencer can deal with it. Because Spencer is the one who makes the world spin the right way - for all of them. He doesn’t know how he got this job, maybe Brendon and Jon just assumed it was his in the first place, because he mastered it so well from the beginning. And the beginning was Ryan.)
“He’s driving me crazy,” Jon says as Spencer sets the mugs down on the table.
“Is this about Ryan or Brendon?” Spencer asks. Jon looks up at him and smiles.
“Both, I guess.” He answers, taking a mug. Jon doesn’t clutch it like Brendon does when he’s angry or said or annoyed. But he’s drumming his middle finger against it, it’s just something he does when he doesn’t know what to do with himself. (Spencer knows them all too fucking well.) “I can’t understand why he does that, I mean…” he sighs and looks at Spencer, Spencer nods.
“It’s Brendon. He doesn’t care. He…” Spencer wants to say that Brendon loves Jon, Ryan, them, but he doesn’t think it’s necessary.
“Yeah…yeah.” Jon says.
“For Brendon it was always more about us, I guess.” (And wow he just figured that out after they split. For fuck’s sake. He should have known.)
~+~
To say Brendon is surprised when he picks his phone up from the floor and sees it’s Ryan calling would be a major understatement.
“Everything will break apart,” Ryan says.
“This is not about the band anymore, Ryan. There is no band anymore, you made sure of that,” Brendon answers. He closes his eyes, because he’s missed Ryan so fucking much. He misses Ryan so fucking much. Ryan’s breathing is the only thing Brendon wants to hear for the rest of his life. (Except how it isn’t. He wants to listen to Ryan sing, or tell stories, laugh, moan, beg…)
“You took Spencer.”
“You took Jon first,” Brendon answers and regrets it a second later, because he has Jon now too and Ryan is left alone. Ryan takes a sharp breath. “I’m sorry,” Brendon says softly into the phone.
“Yeah, except the part where you’re not,” Ryan says sharply. Brendon hates this Ryan. The sharp, cutting, hard Ryan. He really hates it. He always feels like he isn’t good enough for…anything. Really. Like Ryan could do without him. (And he can, he fucking can, because he left Brendon with Spencer.)
“You left me with Spencer.”
“It’s not about that and you know it,” Ryan says, his voice cold.
“Just give in already,” Brendon replies, he feels tired. They’ve been dancing around this for years now, and Ryan just can’t, won’t give in to this. “Spencer calls you an ice-queen. And I know now why,” Brendon says and Ryan hangs up on him. Shit, he thinks. Really, that was a shitty thing to say.
~+~
“He won’t talk to me ever again,” Brendon says softly. Spencer thinks he’s been crying. He isn’t sure.
“He will come around.”
“What for?” Brendon wants to know. “We, I took everything away from him.”
“No…”
“Yes, everything that matters. I took you…”
“He left me behind, Brendon,” Spencer says and it’s true and it hurts to fucking admit it.
“And Jon. I took Jon,” Brendon says sighing into the phone. Spencer wishes they could be in the same room.
“I wish you would just come over here.”
“So you can fuck me again?” Brendon asks.
“Brendon…”
“I’m sorry, okay?” Brendon sighs, and it’s fucking not: It’s fucking not okay, but Spencer lets it slide, because he knows how Brendon is feeling about Ryan, the same way Spencer is feeling about Ryan.
“You should come over,” Spencer says softly.
“Yeah, yeah…I should,” Brendon answers, and Spencer knows him well enough to know he won’t, but he wants to.
~+~
The thing is, Brendon thinks, the thing is that Ryan just made that decision on his own and left them to deal with it. And he is sure there was a good reason for Ryan to do that, but he can’t imagine anything, except maybe that he was afraid. He knows Ryan is afraid of people not loving him, of people loving him back and the paradox of his thought process makes Brendon want to hold Ryan and tell him to stop being an idiot. Brendon does understand that, if not Brendon who the fuck else? And maybe that’s why he took Jon with him. Because Jon isn’t damaged and Spence knows him too fucking well.
Maybe, he thinks, he was wrong. Maybe he makes everything worse by this. Even if there isn’t a band anymore to mess up, there are still lives he could mess up really badly.
~5~
“What the hell is he thinking?” Ryan asks, he is sitting on one of Spencer’s chairs, he didn’t want to sit on the couch, for obvious reasons, Spencer knows. His face is carefully blank, but Spencer knows him.
“What the hell are you thinking?” Spencer asks back, Ryan looks up at him. His eyes hard. “I know why you did it. I fucking know,” Spencer adds. Ryan doesn’t look away, just raises an eyebrow in question. “Why you quit the band?”
“Yeah, because I wanted to do things differently to you.”
“Bullshit,” Spencer spits.
“So why then?” Ryan asks. Fucking ice-queen Spencer thinks.
“Because you wanted something else to happen. You want this, you’re just too afraid.”
“Of what? I fucked boys before,” Ryan says and wow, Spencer didn’t know that for sure, but he knows Ryan is not lying. It hurts and that’s what Ryan wanted anyway.
“To fuck Brendon,” Spencer spits out.
“Please…” Ryan scoffs.
“You wanted him since the first day he opened his mouth to sing for you.”
“You wanted him since that day and good for you, you have what you wanted.”
“I don’t,” Spencer says, because he’s had enough of Ryan’s shit.
“What?”
“I fucked boys who looked like you for years before the thing with Brendon,” Spencer says, looking Ryan directly in the eyes.
“I…”
“You need to shut the fuck up and let us take care of you,” Spencer says.
“I don’t!” Ryan answers sharply getting up.
“Don’t you dare!” Spencer says dangerously low.
“I do what I fucking want to!”
“No you don’t!” Spencer says grabbing his wrist.
“Let go.”
Spencer shakes his head in answers. “No,” he says again.
“You’re hurting me,” Ryan tells him.
~+~
Brendon is poised in the doorway. He’s seen Spencer mad before, but this is somehow different, he can’t really explain it.
“You’re hurting me,” Ryan says and Brendon sees Spencer’s resolve crumble, he could never hurt Ryan. But Brendon thinks he could. (And maybe that’s the wrong way, but this seems the only option they have left. Besides he doesn’t think Ryan could possibly hate him more than he does right now.)
~+~
Spencer doesn’t really know how the fuck this happened at all. (And he was there for fuck’s sake.) But one second he has Ryan’s wrist in his hand and the next thing he knows, Brendon is pinning Ryan to the first available surface, which happened to be the couch.
“Let go!” Ryan says, nearly yells, really. He looks really pissed and Brendon looks a bit scared but determined.
“No.”
“Brendon…”Spencer hears himself say, but he doesn’t know how to finish this sentence, because Brendon pinning Ryan down is pretty hot to look at. (No question there.)
“No, he needs to understand what he does to us,” Brendon says and Spencer isn’t sure he should intervene here, but this is Ryan.
“You’re hurting me,” Ryan says, Spencer looks to his wrist, where Brendon’s hands are too heavy - too much pressure, they look soft and delicate, like they might break any minute. (Like Ryan might break any minute.)
“You’re hurting us too,” Brendon answers softly, looking directly at Ryan.
“Not intentionally,” Ryan answers.
“Bullshit,” Spencer says and is kinda shocked that he said it. (But it’s true. Ryan did that to them, because he was afraid or in denial or both, doesn’t fucking matter, because they are not putting up with this anymore.) Ryan looks as shocked as Spencer is feeling.
“Ryan…” Brendon says low, and Ryan closes his eyes and shakes his head.
“No.”
“Why the fuck not?” Brendon wants to know, licking Ryan’s jaw. Ryan gasps, his eyes flying open.
“Don’t do that.”
“Why the fuck not?” he repeats.
~+~
“I’m not coming back,” Ryan says, as if that were an answer to his question. Maybe it is in Ryan’s twisted head.
“This is not about the band, Ryan and you know it,” he says. He is too aware of Spencer hovering in the back. Brendon knows that should things go too far, Spencer will stop him. (He doesn’t know if this is good or not. Maybe it is. He doesn’t want to hurt Ryan after all, he just wants Ryan.) Ryan bites his lip and Brendon just can’t stop himself. He wanted for so long. He leans forward, Ryan watching him the whole time, an unspoken warning in his eyes.
“Don’t,” he hisses, Brendon doesn’t care. He kisses Ryan and Ryan just bites his lip. It’s a shock to his system, he narrows his eyes, but Ryan doesn’t look as much vicious as he looks fucking scared.
“I will not hurt you,” Brendon whispers.
“You’re hurting me now,” Ryan spits, trying to shake Brendon’s grip lose.
”You’re hurting yourself.”
“And that’s how you want to fix me? By forcing me…” he looks away and Brendon feels really awful.
“Brendon,” Spencer says somewhere behind him. Brendon shakes his head. He can’t give up now, he won’t give up now.
“The thing is, I wanted you from the first second I saw you, I didn’t know then, but I figured it out, but you…and there was Spencer, who wanted you far longer than I. And later Jon. Jon fucking loves you, us. And you’re taking him away, because you’re selfish and afraid.”
“Ryan, I know that you thought this would mess up the band, that’s why you’re doing it, but now that’s done. What the hell are you afraid of now?” Spencer asks softly. Brendon didn’t notice him coming over. He kneels beside them and looks at Ryan.
~+~
“What the fuck?” Jon asks from the doorway and Spencer looks up from Ryan’s face to look at him.
“This is not what it looks like,” Brendon says automatically and Spencer nearly laughs, because this is exactly what it looks like. Jon looks sceptic. Spencer can’t blame him.
“So, you’re not pinning Ryan down against his will?”
“That part might be how it looks,” Brendon admits. Spencer can’t believe his life.
“And you’re just letting him?” Jon asks, Spencer nods, because yeah. ”Brendon, let him go.”
“No,” Brendon answers stubbornly. This whole situation is so absurd.
“This will not fix anything.”
“It’s not about the band,” Brendon says fiercely; tightening his grip. Ryan winces, Spencer looks at Brendon sharply. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles against Ryan’s skin.
“I know,” Jon answers softly. “That’s still not right.”
“What he’s doing is not right too,” Brendon answers.
“Brendon,” Spencer says.
“We fucking love him and he loves us back, what the hell is wrong with that?” Brendon demands to know.
“Nothing…but, you can’t keep pushing,” Jon says. Spencer loves that Jon is the voice of reason. They need Jon.
~+~
“Watch me!” Brendon says and he knows that he will do something stupid and reckless, but this is his last change anyway. Who cares for the consequences now?
“Brendon!” He hears Jon and Spencer and he would roll his eyes at them, because seriously, what the hell are they thinking? He leans forward, really slowly and then just places a soft kiss on Ryan’s nose, his cheek, his temple, the corner of his eye. He feels Ryan going rigid and then pliant under him.
“Okay?” he asks in a whisper, and Ryan nods. Brendon smiles and kisses his lips. “I’m sorry for hurting you,” he says into Ryan’s ear.
“I’m sorry for stealing Jon.” Ryan answers as quietly as Brendon. Brendon knows that’s the only apology he will get, but he doesn’t need one anyway.
“It wasn’t about the band for me…” Brendon says.
“I know,” Ryan answers and kisses him back, Brendon lets go of his wrists.
~+~
Spencer lets out a breath he didn’t even realise he had been holding. I should have known, he thinks to himself.
“Are you gonna fuck me on Spencer’s living room couch?” Ryan asks, and Spencer holds his breath again. As does Jon, Spencer can feel his body heat they’re standing so close, watching the scene before them. Waiting for Brendon to say the right thing.
“We…” Brendon begins, Ryan bites his lip and takes a sharp breath. “We, are going to make love to you.” He says with a smile.
~end~
Author:
alles_luege
Pairing: Panic GSF
Rating: R
Summary: Ryan leaves them and takes Jon with him, Spencer is lost and Brendon just can’t let them go, because for Brendon this was always more about them than the music, band, fans.
Warning(s): Sex, angst and boys being stupid
Author’s Notes: This is a break-up fic, my personal turn on the events after. (Yes, that’s how I deal with this stuff.) Also, Spencer’s and Brendon’s POV.
Word Count: 8.551
Beta: tygermine
Disclaimer: Don’t know, don’t own, not real.
~1~
“I need a break,” Ryan says and Spencer doesn’t really know what the hell Ryan is talking about, because they are on a break, well…they aren’t touring, they want to write a new record, but…and then it hits him, because he fucking knows Ryan.
“You want to quit,” Spencer says.
“I…”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Yeah, I think I need to do something else.” Ryan says, playing with a lock of his hair. Spencer wants to hit him. Really, he wants to hit him so he can knock some sense in Ryan’s head, because why? Why the hell would he want to quit the fucking band now?
“Why?” It’s the only question left. Really.
“Because I can’t be with you guys anymore,” Ryan says and he sounds sincere and a little bit torn, but also fucking determined.
Later they will tell the press something about differences in perspectives and wanting to make something else and stuff like that. It will sound like something people say when they get a divorce. And really, Spencer thinks, fucking really, that’s what’s happening here.
~+~
“Is this about Keltie?” Brendon asks.
Ryan looks up from the magazine he’s reading, puts it aside and sighs. “No, it’s not about her. This is about me.”
“You mean you and Spencer,” Brendon answers. He’s standing in the doorway, his hands behind his back, because he doesn’t want to do something stupid. Not at all, except where he really fucking wants to hit Ryan so he will see sense, but he can’t, he can’t because of the same reasons Spencer couldn’t. They are so fucked when it comes to Ryan. Brendon doesn’t know if Spencer knows, but Brendon knows and Spencer knows that he knows. It’s still not alright for Ryan to leave them.
“This is not about me and Spencer, Brendon.”
“Yeah, sure. Tell yourself that.”
“What the hell,” Ryan sounds pissed, but Brendon doesn’t care. Ryan is leaving them. He can’t fuck up the band anymore, so why all this theatre? What the fuck.
“With Keltie you were safe, but now that she broke up with you…” and Brendon doesn’t say that Ryan deserved it (Ryan knows) or that it’s for the best (because Ryan knows that to, even if he will never admit it). “Now that she broke up with you, you are alone and could…”
“I’m not talking about this!” Ryan says too loud, his lips a thin line and Brendon knows, he knows that Ryan feels the fucking same as Spencer, but that he will not act on it. Because he never had, because he never came to terms with it, with Spencer, with them.
“You’re throwing everything away,” Brendon answers softly, but what he means is ‘the band’, ‘the music’ and ‘love’ and most importantly ‘us’.
Ryan doesn’t answer, stubborn as ever, the fucking ice-queen. Brendon really wants to punch him on Spencer’s behalf. And for selfish reasons too. And for Ryan’s own good.
~+~
“We’re keeping the name,” Spencer says.
They’re sitting in the living room, but it’s all wrong. There are sides now. There is Ryan and Jon and there is him and Brendon, but no one is touching, or leaning into each other. It’s all wrong. Brendon is tense and bouncing his foot against the small table. Spencer doesn’t tell him to stop, neither does Ryan or Jon for that matter. Ryan’s lips are a thin line for a second and Spencer knows that he wants to object, but then he just nods shortly and that’s it. Spencer doesn’t feel better because he’d won, because he’d hurt Ryan. He could never feel good about something like that. But maybe Ryan understands, maybe he understands that Spencer needs something to get him through the days that will follow. The aftermath. The days that shouldn’t ever be.
“Okay,” Jon says, it’s the first time Jon speaks at all. And Spencer still can’t understand how Jon can fucking leave them too. How Ryan could do that to them. Brendon doesn’t look at Jon, at all. He hasn’t spoke to Jon since he first said he is leaving with Ryan. Spencer knows why. (He is sure Ryan knows too, and maybe that’s the reason Ryan is taking Jon with him. He doesn’t know.)
“I need…” Brendon says, but doesn’t finish the sentence, just gets up and leaves the living room. Spencer hates to see Brendon like that.
“Are you happy now?” he bites out and knows it’s unfair, but he wants to hurt Ryan, he wants to hurt them. (He knows he will feel awful seconds later, but he doesn’t care right now. He just doesn’t.) And he can’t punch Ryan, not Ryan, so that’s the next best thing. Ryan flinches slightly.
“Spencer.” Jon warns, but Spencer just isn’t in the mood, he isn’t afraid of Jon. He isn’t fucking afraid.
“Shut up!” he says. “I’m not talking to you,” because he isn’t, he fucking can’t talk to Jon right now.
“No…” Ryan says, with this small soft voice that makes Spencer cry inside. He hates Ryan right now, he fucking hates them both.
“You should.” Spencer spits.
“Spencer…”
“No, just no.” Spencer answers and gets up. He needs to leave now, because he will do something even worse than what he already did if he doesn’t.
~+~
“Do you love him?” Brendon asks. He’s curled up on the couch and he knows Jon didn’t see him as he entered the room.
“Who?”
“Don’t,” Brendon says, because he is tired of this and well, he is just plain tired. He didn’t sleep at all in the last few days. (He knows now how Pete is feeling and it’s not a nice feeling. His mind is a scary place to be and his heart is torn and wild and wants to lash out at everything and anyone, except Spencer.)
“Brendon…” Jon sounds as tired as Brendon feels.
“I said don’t. It’s an easy question. Do you love him?”
“Yeah,” Jon says and Brendon closes his eyes.
He knew. Of course he knew, because everyone is fucking in love with Ryan - he is no exception and it doesn’t matter that Jon wasn’t the first. (Spencer was, Spencer knew him first and Spencer loves him the longest, but it doesn’t matter, because they love him all the same.)
“Okay…”
“Brendon…it’s not that I don’t love you guys too…”
“I know.” Brendon says, because he does know that too.
“He needs someone.” Jon says as if that was a good reason to leave them behind. The fucking truth is, it is. It is the only reason they will accept.
He has us, Brendon wants to say, but Jon knows that. “It’s better if he doesn’t leave alone, I guess.” Brendon answers after a while.
“I…”
“It’s still not right,” Brendon says.
“Yeah. I know.”
~+~
Spencer really wants to speak with Brendon, but he just can’t, is the thing. He doesn’t know what to say. He could bitch or tell him everything will be alright again, but it won’t - and Spencer doesn’t want to lie.
“So, you and me, hmmm?” Brendon says from the doorway. He’s leaning on the frame, looking directly at Spencer, who is sitting in the too big chair, pretending to read.
“Yeah, you and me…” Spencer answers, he doesn’t say, that’s all what we have now, or that’s all he left us with or something along the lines. He is sure Brendon knows.
“Why keep the name then?” Brendon asks, Spencer notices that his back is straight, like it is when he’s playing the piano - all concentration. (But it lacks the subtle happiness and waves of love and simple yes.)
Spencer shrugs. “I want something that was his and his alone…I want something…”
“To remind you, to get you through the days…”
“After.” Spencer finishes for them both.
“Yeah.” Brendon says.
Spencer knew from the day that Brendon caught him with one of their fans that Brendon sees more than they give him credit for, that there is more going on in his head than they will ever know and that Brendon is as complex as Ryan, but just in a different way. It scared the shit out of Spencer then, but now he’s glad.
“I’ll put the exclamation mark back in.” Spencer says, Brendon bites his lip. Spencer can’t look away, most people can’t look away when Brendon does it. He’s seen Ryan looking at them - way back when they were young (but never innocent, well, not Ryan and because of that never was Spencer and well, Brendon wasn’t either, after his parents just had thrown him out and he started to figure out things on his own) and later Jon too.
“I guess that is a statement in itself,” Brendon says after a while, he leans his head on the wall and slumps then down until he’s sitting on Spencer’s floor. Spencer nods, it is, why say it out loud?
~+~
Brendon wants to ask if Spencer thinks they can do that. If they can pull this shit off on their own, without Ryan there, maybe they could without Jon (Brendon doubts it, but another guitarist would be easier to find than, well…Ryan.). He leans against Spencer’s wall and waits for him to say something.
“He’s just running away,” Spencer says and Brendon looks up, Spencer looks like shit, he looks the same. He doesn’t know how Jon looks or Ryan, because they haven’t seen each other for 10 days. (Brendon is counting, they’ve never spent this much time apart before. They don’t call, they don’t talk, don’t mail stupid stuff, don’t even text. Nothing. The world is indeed a broken bone.) He was always running away, Brendon thinks, just like all of them.
“Just like us.” He says softly, Spencer’s eyes are hard and sharp like diamonds, but soften after a few seconds. He laughs shakily.
“Fuck you Brendon.”
“Maybe that’s the solution.” Brendon says, not looking away from Spencer’s eyes. He means it, he wants it.
“Brendon…”
“What? You think it would fuck up the band?” Brendon asks.
~+~
Spencer doesn’t really know if he takes the first step, or if it’s Brendon. But when they’re standing so close that just one step would make their lips meet, he has a moment of panic, because what the fuck is he doing? What is Brendon doing?
“We will not mess this up,” Brendon whispers. And Spencer believes him. He wants to ask if Brendon’s sure, but he doesn’t. He can see it in Brendon’s eyes. He is sure. The one who isn’t is Spencer, but just until he can feel Brendon’s breath on his lips and then Brendon’s lips on his. From that point on he knows there is no turning back from this. (From Brendon, from them.)
“Okay,” Spencer says after they break for air.
“Okay.” Brendon answers.
~+~
Spencer’s thrusts are slow and measured. Because Spencer always needs to be in control, or thinks that he needs to be in control, but it’s not true.
“You can let go,” Brendon gasps. Spencer shakes his head.
“Don’t wanna hurt you,” he answers.
Brendon thinks that’s really sweet, but he wants Spencer to be himself just once, it doesn’t matter, that Brendon will bear the brunt of it, the sadness and grief, he wants that.
“Spence, come on. Harder,” He wants to say that he can take it, but maybe Spencer knows that he really can’t. (Because this is the first time, and he didn’t tell Spencer, but maybe Spencer knows anyway. Knows that there wasn’t anyone ever. No one else for Brendon, except them.)
“No,” Spencer grits out, but his thrusts become faster, not harder. Brendon guesses it’s a compromise.
“Okay…” he answers and grabs Spencer’s face to kiss him hard and messy and dirty. He knows he is a fucking fantastic kisser. Spencer moans his name. “Okay,” he says again.
~2~
‘Somehow I wish that they’d just stopped. It would’ve been easier.’
Brendon stares at the lines and thinks, fuck he sometimes thinks that too. The thought is self-destructive at best. Ryan would’ve been proud, he thinks with a sharp smile. He knows the smiles, the private ones, the ones no one ever sees except…well, no one anymore is the thing, they are always sharp now. Because sometimes he can’t handle it, can’t…just can’t. He closes the laptop and lies down on the floor to stare up at the ceiling, which is yellow, and he can’t figure out why he thought (back then) why this would be a good colour for a ceiling. The truth is, he supposes, that he wasn’t thinking about ceilings that hard. (Not how he is now.) Because he had other things in mind. Music, mostly. Girls, parties, his band. Ryan. He closes his eyes, because that one is still too painful to consider, even to scratch the surface of.
~+~
Spencer lays his sidekick aside and looks out of the window. He isn’t surprised that Brendon isn’t picking up. He wouldn’t either, he supposes, well, maybe he would. Because he is fucking responsible. Is the thing. Didn’t do him much good lately. He begins to hate CA. A lot. Maybe Ryan was right and it was time for a change, but…and it shouldn’t fucking surprise him at all…(“It was coming , I guess…” Ryan had said.), but he didn’t fucking know. And how could he not see this? After years of friendship, after all they’ve seen, shared, after all Ryan put him through. Fuck him, he thinks and knows he means it in this second, but after, after he will not and a second isn’t really long. There, gone and he feels hollow again. He can just imagine how Brendon is feeling. He doesn’t know and he could read them all so fucking well, before. It’s after now. And he can’t. And he doesn’t blame Brendon for not picking up his fucking phone.
It’s not Brendon’s place to feel responsible.
~+~
The first time Brendon feels it is the first time he meets them. He sees Ryan and it’s not that he knows, because he fucking doesn’t, because he doesn’t care. He is there for the music and just the music - maybe for Brent too. Yeah, definitely for Brent too. But he feels something shift for a second, just a second and then it’s gone. Then it’s just him again trying to impress and give them a reason to keep him, to be part of this. It’s not that he believes in them, it’s because he doesn’t have anyone else. Anything else besides the music, besides Brent. And Brent isn’t even really a friend, just a dude he knows. He needs this, but he doesn’t want them to think he’s desperate or weird or…but that is futile, because he is both, he is all of it. And he wants. To stay. Ryan doesn’t acknowledge his presence besides a short nod before he smiles at Spencer and Spencer takes things in hand.
~+~
And he fucking remembers the first time he’d seen Brendon and thought, well, shit not that kid. Because he didn’t think Brendon would be any good, it wasn’t that he didn’t believe Brendon could play, it was that he didn’t think Ryan would let Brendon stay. And it was Ryan’s band, no matter what they said later to the press. It was Ryan’s band - from the beginning. (And now it’s his. Ryan’s fucking legacy is his and he doesn’t know what to do with it. He is not Ryan…and he just has Brendon. Ryan’s voice and how, how the fuck could Ryan do that to them?)
He is sure no one could tell. No one could tell from the outside, but Pete called and Spencer told him he was fine and it was a lie and he isn’t sure, he is, okay? He is sure Pete knows. He is sure Ryan knows, but he isn’t sure anymore if Ryan cares.
~+~
He missed Spencer’s call. But this seems so much more important now. It probably isn’t at all, but he is a mess. A fucking mess and he doesn’t care for anyone, or anything outside these four walls of his home. He wishes he was back in his first shitty apartment. The first one he had, where every corner is filled with memories, still. He knows. He can see shadows on the walls, of them - without Jon back then. But that doesn’t matter anymore anyway. He is alone again. Spencer might disagree on that one. But Brendon knows, Brendon knows that Spencer feels fucking lost. Because Brendon is feeling the same.
So, back to the task at hand: the fucking ceiling. He was considering blue for a while, back then and a few hours ago, but in the end he decided that the only colour is white. (Maybe black would be good too…paint it black, but he doesn’t feel black inside, like scorched wood or the night in winter. He feels blank and lost and that’s why it has to be white. Like fresh snow maybe, to bury him alive. Ryan would be proud of those too.)
Maybe he will call Spencer back when the ceiling is white and no traces of yellow can be seen anymore, nothing that can remind him of what he has lost.
~+~
Spencer remembers the first time (because Spencer remembers every first time, he remembers everything. Sometimes he thinks - well these days - that this ability is more a curse than anything else.) It was early in the days, it was…he was young and their fans, they were all young too (not like now, where they are too young). The boy was roughly the same age as, well, them and it was just because (and he knew this, he knew back then, he always knew is the thing) he looked so much like Ryan under all the make-up. It wasn’t really right, but it wasn’t really wrong either. He doesn’t think Ryan knew back then, and it doesn’t matter anyway. Not now and it didn’t then. Ryan (and Spencer remembers that too) was lost in all the sheer craziness their lives had become and in Pete. Everything was new and just unbelievable and real and not. (He can barely think of those first days. He could before. He hates that there is an after now. They shouldn’t ever have had an after.)
It was good, because blow jobs are always good, and there were more - and he remembers them all, but he doesn’t really remember their names or faces, because…and Spencer isn’t ashamed to admit it, it was always someone else he was thinking of anyway.
~+~
Brendon remembers being high on endorphins for days after - he can’t evoke the feelings at all anymore. (The ceiling is white and there are white dots on his body and cloths, he doesn’t care. If he would let himself think about this, he would get into a metaphor on black holes, but he doesn’t let himself think about it. He thinks about selling the whole place, though.) He felt happy, even if he didn’t know they would let him stay, but Brent said something about Ryan letting him come back and that it was a good sign. Brendon believed him, because he wanted to and because Brent seemed sincere. Besides, according to Brent not one of their former try outs was allowed to come back.
And that’s how it really started for Brendon. Not with the first meeting, but with the second when he knew he was in. They didn’t say it out loud then, but he knew and he knew that Brent knew and Spencer too.
~+~
He would like to say that he doesn’t think ‘Change’ is out there to hurt them. But he isn’t sure. It feels that way. And maybe ‘New perspective’ is just an answer to that. Spencer will not admit that, how can he? He is responsible, and he doesn’t care…he doesn’t care for his own feelings. That is what Brendon said. He said it the first time he caught Spencer with someone who looked like Ryan but wasn’t him and he said it after they’ve heard ‘Change’. He whispered it against Spencer’s skin after Ryan left. Just fucking left them. And Spencer felt so angry and lost and…it wasn’t right then. He knows, but Brendon was there and he liked Brendon a fucking lot.
And Brendon wasn’t just someone who wasn’t Ryan. (Brendon couldn’t ever be someone who just wasn’t Ryan.) Brendon was Brendon and there and he felt lost too.
~+~
And maybe the worst thing isn’t even that Ryan left them. Maybe it’s that he took Jon with him. How could he take Jon away from them? From Brendon (and it’s not just because Brendon loved Jon first, and that is the fucking truth. He loved Jon first.). Brendon is sure that Ryan knew how he felt about Jon from the very first day he talked to Jon, or Jon talked to him, he can’t remember that one clearly enough. And it was because of Jon that he was hanging out with The Academy in the first place, because Jon was there too, always with the band and Brendon wanted to be part of this. And he didn’t know back then that he was falling so fucking hard and crashing somewhere in the future was inevitable. He didn’t care. He just went with his feelings, and they weren’t wrong (they never were, even when he didn’t know), because he didn’t know that this was love he felt for Jon and later, much later when he figured this out and himself, it was just something in the past. (The thing is, he thinks, as he stares at the ceiling, the thing is, he didn’t fall out again. He never felt out again. He just added feelings as he went along, as they went along.)
~+~
He tries to call Brendon again, but he just gets the mailbox and puts it on the table, before the urge to throw it against the nearest wall will become an issue. He can’t blame Brendon for not picking up, but Spencer wants to make sure that Brendon knows. That he knows that this wasn’t because Ryan left (except, yeah, it kind of was). He doesn’t think they would’ve done it if Ryan hadn’t left, but it still was there, it was there from the very beginning. From that evening where Ryan said, yeah, we should keep him. And Spencer knew back then everything about Ryan (not like now, where he just can speculate), he knew that Ryan liked Brendon. Maybe Spencer knew before even Ryan had figured that one out. (It didn’t matter anyway - in the end, that is, because Ryan never acted on it. Spencer knows why too. Because Ryan was fucking scared. Because Ryan is fucking scared.)
~+~
Brendon doesn’t regret that thing with Spencer, he could never regret Spencer, like he could never regret Jon; or Ryan for that matter.
He knows he should probably pick up his phone, but Spencer will just want to make sure that he knows it wasn’t because of Ryan and Jon leaving - together. (It is a lie, it was because Ryan left them, left them to be Panic at the disco, but they are not. This is not what they were - they are just pieces of something bigger now -, and maybe they should have changed the name, start new, without Ryan’s legacy to remind them of…everything. Fucking everything that they aren’t anymore. He can’t understand why Spencer wanted the exclamation mark back. Maybe nostalgia.)
~3~
Before he would have called Ryan or just got into the car to meet up with him and talk the whole thing over with him. Now, he doesn’t. He can’t. He doesn’t even know how Ryan would react if he’d knew what Spencer did. (“What we did,” Brendon had said after, lying on Spencer’s couch naked and sated.) Yeah, Spencer thinks, what they did, because Brendon wanted it too. And now he’s not picking up his phone. Spencer doesn’t think Brendon is regretting things, he knows Brendon is not, because Brendon told him, but he feels empty inside and he needs to be with Ryan or Jon. Even…if he has Brendon now in the way he wanted Brendon from the first time he saw Brendon perform and after, that smile, that unbelievingly affectionate smile made Spencer’s heart ache. (Brendon didn’t know about it then, he didn’t know how Spencer was feeling, or how hard Ryan was falling for him, or his own feelings. Maybe it was blissful ignorance.)
~+~
He misses Spencer’s third call, and the fifth and the seventh. (In reality he doesn’t miss as much as he just doesn’t take them.) He takes the eighth, because he isn’t an ass after all. He grabs the phone and looks at the display and after reading the name takes it anyway.
“I fucked Spencer.” He says and waits. He hears a sharp breath and knows that Ryan is thinking about just hanging up on him. The silence between them stretches until Brendon isn’t sure he can take it anymore, but Ryan is still on the other side of the line. Brendon can hear him breathing, so he waits.
“What?” Ryan ask eventually, as if he didn’t hear it the first time (well, it’s Ryan’s fucked-up version of pleading with Brendon to take it back, but Brendon won’t have any of it, not today, not ever again.).
“You heard me alright. I fucked Spencer, or well he fucked me. On his living room sofa.” Brendon says the last thing just because he wants Ryan to know and remember every time he sits down on it, that Brendon has been fucked there for the first time in his life. And that it was Spencer who did it.
“Okay,” Ryan says, his voice sounds far away and hollow.
“Did you want to be his first?” Brendon asks.
“Brendon.” Ryan warns, but Brendon doesn’t care, he needs to say what he needs to say before Ryan just hangs up on him. You never know how much time you have with Ryan. (Wow and how fucking true is it in this situation.)
“He had boys before. I doubt I was his first. But he was mine.” Brendon says, he doesn’t have any secrets left now that he wants to keep, not from himself, not from the others. He doesn’t care about it anymore. (Their band is falling apart and it’s just because Ryan fucking Ross is too afraid to be who he is, to love whom he loves and most importantly to let those people love him back.)
He hears Ryan take a sharp breath and is prepared for whatever will come now. He is. You have nothing to lose if you already lost everything that was important to you.
“Fuck you, Brendon.” Ryan says, it’s just a whisper.
“I bet you would like that. I bet I would like that too.” Brendon answers and hangs up on Ryan. It was what he wanted Ryan to know and now he knows.
Brendon stares a few minutes at his ceiling and then calls Spencer back.
~+~
“He’s not talking. It’s like when we where in the cabin and he burned his guitar in the backyard and then stayed in his room for three days. He doesn’t talk.” Jon says it all in a rush. Spencer knows what it cost him to call. And Spencer isn’t cruel. (He could never be, not to them. Because he fucking loves his band, what is left of his band. Them.)
“He knows I fucked Brendon.” Spencer says. (He doesn’t add on my living room sofa, but he kinda wants too. He also wants Jon to know that he was the first one to fuck Brendon at all.)
“You did - you told him?” Jon asks, and he sounds a bit pissed.
“No, I didn’t tell him. Brendon did.” Spencer answers and he thinks that it was a good thing, he doesn’t know when Brendon became so damn…pushy, reckless? (Well, he always was like that, but not when it came to this, this thing between them that no one ever acknowledged.) He doesn’t know when it happened that Brendon didn’t care anymore about secrets and things better left unsaid. (And they weren’t better left unsaid.)
“Jesus.”
“And he asked him if he wanted to be my first…also if he wanted to fuck Brendon as well.” Spencer says. He needs Jon to know this, he needs Jon to understand what Brendon is doing. What they are doing.
“You think that will bring him back?” Jon’s voice is sharp.
“No, I know it won’t.” Spencer answers, because he knows that, Brendon knows that too, but this is not about the band, or the music or fans or whatever. This is about them.
“What is he thinking?” Jon asks, he sounds a bit curious and a bit defeated.
“That it doesn’t matter, because he can’t fuck up the band anymore.” (He doesn’t add there is no more band to fuck up, he doesn’t need to, Jon knows.)
“So, he thinks it’s okay to mess with Ryan’s head or feelings?”
“It’s not like that and you know it!” Spencer answers sharply. Because fuck Jon, if he thinks that is what Brendon is doing and if he thinks that Spencer would allow it.
“I’m sorry,” Jon sighs into the phone and Spencer waits. “I…does he mean it, like for sure?”
“I fucked him on my living room sofa, Jon.” Spencer answers.
“Okay…”
“Okay.” Spencer says and hangs up.
~+~
“Brendon?”
Brendon rolls his eyes, because honestly, who else? Jon called him. “Yeah,” he says.
“I…”
“You know about me and Spencer,” Brendon says, it’s not a question. He can see Jon running a hand through his hair, leaning on the wall, maybe, or sitting on Ryan’s couch. (He fucking knows Jon, in and out. He knows everyone one of these boys.)
“Yeah.”
“And now what? Do you want me to apologize, because if you do, fuck you Jon. I don’t regret it.” Brendon says, but his voice is calm.
“I do,” Jon answers. Brendon isn’t sure Jon means that he didn’t make a move back then, or if it’s about Ryan (because fucking everything is about Ryan in the end, and maybe this was Ryan’s twisted way to make them something. Something they wanted to be, needed to be, but never were.), or if he regrets not being the first. Brendon is glad it was Spencer, he doesn’t think Ryan or Jon would have done for Brendon what Spencer was able to do. He’s glad it was Spencer.
“Jon…”
“No, I mean…” Jon begins, but Brendon doesn’t need to hear it.
“I know, I mean, I think I do,” Brendon interrupts him.
“I need…”
It’s kinda frustrating to have Jon not finish his sentences. He was never so nervous in his life, well, maybe he was the first time he played with them. Brendon doesn’t know for sure, because at that time he was nervous himself and fucking happy and there was no room for other people inside him. (There is still no room inside him, but that’s just because his insides are filled with them.)
“Where you thinking about me and Spencer? On his couch? Will you think about it every time you sit on it?” Brendon asks and his voice drops. He imagines Jon shiver.
“Brendon…”
“It’s a simple question, Jon. Where you thinking about us, where you jerking off to that image?” And maybe it isn’t really fair. This is Jon after all. But Brendon wanted him for so long. He’s sure Jon wanted him too, even when he was together with his girlfriend. There was always something. (It was like a marriage, but without the sex, not without kissing and touching and…just without the sex. And it was good for the first year, maybe, but it got frustrating and that is the result. They’re breaking up. And Brendon knows there is no way out of this, but he will be damned if he lets them go.)
“Yeah,” Jon says.
“Did you feel guilty about it?” Brendon asks.
Jon laughs out loud. “For the last few years, Brendon.” Jon answers and Brendon smiles.
~+~
“I can’t believe you did it,” Ryan says, Spencer sees him in all his pissed off ice-queen glory. He wants to be pissed too, but he can’t. Not really. (Ryan called after all, so he wants to talk, maybe he ventured out into the kitchen. Maybe he ate something for a change. Jon said he wasn’t eating either. Spencer was fucking worried, but Ryan isn’t suicidal just self- destructive.)
“Because you didn’t?” Spencer asks. Ryan takes a sharp breath.
“I never…”
“Ryan.” Spencer says sharply.
“I like girls.” Ryan says and that isn’t even a lie, Spencer knows that, but it doesn’t mean Ryan doesn’t like boys too.
“I know.”
“Spencer…”
“Listen,” Spencer interrupts, “there is nothing left.”
Ryan keeps quiet, and Spencer waits.
“You have Brendon now,” He says after a while and hangs up. Spencer stares frustrated at his sidekick. Fucking Ryan. Fucking Ryan. Honestly, he thinks. He would call back, but he knows Ryan will not pick up anyway. So why try in the first place? He thinks about calling Jon, but he lets that thought go as soon as it occurs. Ryan needs Jon now more. (Ryan needs to be fucked by Brendon six ways from Sunday, he thinks, but that is something he will not tell Ryan just right now. Also, this image is kinda hot.) He groans and pushes his hand down his pants. (He’s done it before, but then he didn’t know how Brendon tasted, how he looked when he comes, how he sounds when he needs, wants. It makes everything so much sharper, so much more real.) He wishes he didn’t know how Ryan’s skin feels, it makes everything unbearable, nearly painful.
~4~
“Jon, Jon, Jon…” Brendon gasps. And it’s not the first time, but it’s not enough, he wants to feel Jon on his skin, wants to trace the line of Jon’s spine with his tongue. Wants to touch, to bite, to feel. This, these words, is just not enough. Jon sounds desperate (just like Brendon is feeling) on the other end of the line. Jon moans his name and Brendon’s hand speeds up, he bites his lip as he comes.
“I want to see you come…” Jon says, his voice husky. Brendon wants that too.
The thing is that Jon will not leave Ryan alone, by himself. And this, these stolen moments, is the only thing Brendon can have for now. (It’s more than he had a few weeks ago, but it’s still not enough.)
~+~
He doesn’t fuck Brendon. (They didn’t since the first time a few days back.) It feels okay not to. They’re both waiting.
“For Ryan to come around,” Brendon says with a sigh. Spencer nods. “What if he doesn’t?” Brendon asks in the silence between them. Spencer doesn’t have an answer to this. He isn’t sure, well, he doesn’t know if this will work out just between him and Brendon. (And Brendon told him about Jon. Hell, Jon told him about this stuff too.)
“He will.”
“What if he doesn’t Spencer?” Brendon asks again: he is clutching his mug and not looking at Spencer at all. He’s afraid. (Spencer is too. The future is a misty coast.)
“We will make him see sense,” Spencer says and Brendon’s eyes snap to his face. He looks a bit shocked. “That’s not what I meant. I could never…”
“I could,” Brendon says softly.
“God, Brendon.”
“He would hate you, but it doesn’t matter if he hates me, he already does, because you fucked me and it was my idea and because - I’m sure he knows about Jon.”
“He loves you,” Spencer says, he is absolutely sure of that. Brendon gives him a small smile, before he sips from his mug. Spencer really wants to touch him right now and that’s what he does. He gets up and sits beside Brendon, pushes his hair away and kisses his temple. “He doesn’t hate you,” he says again. Brendon sighs and leans against him.
“Can I stay with you tonight?” he asks and Spencer nods. “Just for the comfort…”
“Whatever you want,” Spencer answers, kissing his temple again. (And he means it, he always means it.)
“Okay.”
~+~
Brendon remembers the first dream he had about Ryan. It was strange, but that was the only comfort , really, because Ryan was (is) strange. When he woke up his skin was tingling with pleasure and his mind was his personal hell. He couldn’t ever forget the dream. After, he flinched for days when Ryan touched him, or they brushed against each other. (He felt so guilty. So goddamned guilty.)
It was Spencer then who took him aside and talked and even when Brendon couldn’t tell him what the hell was wrong with him (because he didn’t know back then. He figured it out after. After his parents kicked him out, after they met Pete, after the first tour. Just after.), and things got better. Spencer always makes things better. Makes the world spin in the right direction. Makes it stop, if necessary.
In retrospect, that was maybe the moment he fell for Spencer as well. (He didn’t know back then, because he was sure, so fucking sure he was into girls and well, even if it’s not a lie it is not the truth either. He likes both. Is the thing. It was just easier to ignore the other part of him, because he wanted to be what his parents wanted him to be. They loved him. He wanted to make them proud, because he loved them too - he loves them still.)
He isn’t ashamed of those dreams anymore. He welcomes them. (Right now it’s the only way to have Ryan to himself, like he wants to have him. Spread out and wanting, needing, begging maybe.)
~+~
Jon is pacing across Spencer’s living room and Spencer lets him. Spencer honestly doesn’t care about stuff like that, not right now anyway. He makes coffee in his kitchen and just waits. Eventually Jon will say what he needs to say and then they can deal with it. (Or, Spencer can deal with it. Because Spencer is the one who makes the world spin the right way - for all of them. He doesn’t know how he got this job, maybe Brendon and Jon just assumed it was his in the first place, because he mastered it so well from the beginning. And the beginning was Ryan.)
“He’s driving me crazy,” Jon says as Spencer sets the mugs down on the table.
“Is this about Ryan or Brendon?” Spencer asks. Jon looks up at him and smiles.
“Both, I guess.” He answers, taking a mug. Jon doesn’t clutch it like Brendon does when he’s angry or said or annoyed. But he’s drumming his middle finger against it, it’s just something he does when he doesn’t know what to do with himself. (Spencer knows them all too fucking well.) “I can’t understand why he does that, I mean…” he sighs and looks at Spencer, Spencer nods.
“It’s Brendon. He doesn’t care. He…” Spencer wants to say that Brendon loves Jon, Ryan, them, but he doesn’t think it’s necessary.
“Yeah…yeah.” Jon says.
“For Brendon it was always more about us, I guess.” (And wow he just figured that out after they split. For fuck’s sake. He should have known.)
~+~
To say Brendon is surprised when he picks his phone up from the floor and sees it’s Ryan calling would be a major understatement.
“Everything will break apart,” Ryan says.
“This is not about the band anymore, Ryan. There is no band anymore, you made sure of that,” Brendon answers. He closes his eyes, because he’s missed Ryan so fucking much. He misses Ryan so fucking much. Ryan’s breathing is the only thing Brendon wants to hear for the rest of his life. (Except how it isn’t. He wants to listen to Ryan sing, or tell stories, laugh, moan, beg…)
“You took Spencer.”
“You took Jon first,” Brendon answers and regrets it a second later, because he has Jon now too and Ryan is left alone. Ryan takes a sharp breath. “I’m sorry,” Brendon says softly into the phone.
“Yeah, except the part where you’re not,” Ryan says sharply. Brendon hates this Ryan. The sharp, cutting, hard Ryan. He really hates it. He always feels like he isn’t good enough for…anything. Really. Like Ryan could do without him. (And he can, he fucking can, because he left Brendon with Spencer.)
“You left me with Spencer.”
“It’s not about that and you know it,” Ryan says, his voice cold.
“Just give in already,” Brendon replies, he feels tired. They’ve been dancing around this for years now, and Ryan just can’t, won’t give in to this. “Spencer calls you an ice-queen. And I know now why,” Brendon says and Ryan hangs up on him. Shit, he thinks. Really, that was a shitty thing to say.
~+~
“He won’t talk to me ever again,” Brendon says softly. Spencer thinks he’s been crying. He isn’t sure.
“He will come around.”
“What for?” Brendon wants to know. “We, I took everything away from him.”
“No…”
“Yes, everything that matters. I took you…”
“He left me behind, Brendon,” Spencer says and it’s true and it hurts to fucking admit it.
“And Jon. I took Jon,” Brendon says sighing into the phone. Spencer wishes they could be in the same room.
“I wish you would just come over here.”
“So you can fuck me again?” Brendon asks.
“Brendon…”
“I’m sorry, okay?” Brendon sighs, and it’s fucking not: It’s fucking not okay, but Spencer lets it slide, because he knows how Brendon is feeling about Ryan, the same way Spencer is feeling about Ryan.
“You should come over,” Spencer says softly.
“Yeah, yeah…I should,” Brendon answers, and Spencer knows him well enough to know he won’t, but he wants to.
~+~
The thing is, Brendon thinks, the thing is that Ryan just made that decision on his own and left them to deal with it. And he is sure there was a good reason for Ryan to do that, but he can’t imagine anything, except maybe that he was afraid. He knows Ryan is afraid of people not loving him, of people loving him back and the paradox of his thought process makes Brendon want to hold Ryan and tell him to stop being an idiot. Brendon does understand that, if not Brendon who the fuck else? And maybe that’s why he took Jon with him. Because Jon isn’t damaged and Spence knows him too fucking well.
Maybe, he thinks, he was wrong. Maybe he makes everything worse by this. Even if there isn’t a band anymore to mess up, there are still lives he could mess up really badly.
~5~
“What the hell is he thinking?” Ryan asks, he is sitting on one of Spencer’s chairs, he didn’t want to sit on the couch, for obvious reasons, Spencer knows. His face is carefully blank, but Spencer knows him.
“What the hell are you thinking?” Spencer asks back, Ryan looks up at him. His eyes hard. “I know why you did it. I fucking know,” Spencer adds. Ryan doesn’t look away, just raises an eyebrow in question. “Why you quit the band?”
“Yeah, because I wanted to do things differently to you.”
“Bullshit,” Spencer spits.
“So why then?” Ryan asks. Fucking ice-queen Spencer thinks.
“Because you wanted something else to happen. You want this, you’re just too afraid.”
“Of what? I fucked boys before,” Ryan says and wow, Spencer didn’t know that for sure, but he knows Ryan is not lying. It hurts and that’s what Ryan wanted anyway.
“To fuck Brendon,” Spencer spits out.
“Please…” Ryan scoffs.
“You wanted him since the first day he opened his mouth to sing for you.”
“You wanted him since that day and good for you, you have what you wanted.”
“I don’t,” Spencer says, because he’s had enough of Ryan’s shit.
“What?”
“I fucked boys who looked like you for years before the thing with Brendon,” Spencer says, looking Ryan directly in the eyes.
“I…”
“You need to shut the fuck up and let us take care of you,” Spencer says.
“I don’t!” Ryan answers sharply getting up.
“Don’t you dare!” Spencer says dangerously low.
“I do what I fucking want to!”
“No you don’t!” Spencer says grabbing his wrist.
“Let go.”
Spencer shakes his head in answers. “No,” he says again.
“You’re hurting me,” Ryan tells him.
~+~
Brendon is poised in the doorway. He’s seen Spencer mad before, but this is somehow different, he can’t really explain it.
“You’re hurting me,” Ryan says and Brendon sees Spencer’s resolve crumble, he could never hurt Ryan. But Brendon thinks he could. (And maybe that’s the wrong way, but this seems the only option they have left. Besides he doesn’t think Ryan could possibly hate him more than he does right now.)
~+~
Spencer doesn’t really know how the fuck this happened at all. (And he was there for fuck’s sake.) But one second he has Ryan’s wrist in his hand and the next thing he knows, Brendon is pinning Ryan to the first available surface, which happened to be the couch.
“Let go!” Ryan says, nearly yells, really. He looks really pissed and Brendon looks a bit scared but determined.
“No.”
“Brendon…”Spencer hears himself say, but he doesn’t know how to finish this sentence, because Brendon pinning Ryan down is pretty hot to look at. (No question there.)
“No, he needs to understand what he does to us,” Brendon says and Spencer isn’t sure he should intervene here, but this is Ryan.
“You’re hurting me,” Ryan says, Spencer looks to his wrist, where Brendon’s hands are too heavy - too much pressure, they look soft and delicate, like they might break any minute. (Like Ryan might break any minute.)
“You’re hurting us too,” Brendon answers softly, looking directly at Ryan.
“Not intentionally,” Ryan answers.
“Bullshit,” Spencer says and is kinda shocked that he said it. (But it’s true. Ryan did that to them, because he was afraid or in denial or both, doesn’t fucking matter, because they are not putting up with this anymore.) Ryan looks as shocked as Spencer is feeling.
“Ryan…” Brendon says low, and Ryan closes his eyes and shakes his head.
“No.”
“Why the fuck not?” Brendon wants to know, licking Ryan’s jaw. Ryan gasps, his eyes flying open.
“Don’t do that.”
“Why the fuck not?” he repeats.
~+~
“I’m not coming back,” Ryan says, as if that were an answer to his question. Maybe it is in Ryan’s twisted head.
“This is not about the band, Ryan and you know it,” he says. He is too aware of Spencer hovering in the back. Brendon knows that should things go too far, Spencer will stop him. (He doesn’t know if this is good or not. Maybe it is. He doesn’t want to hurt Ryan after all, he just wants Ryan.) Ryan bites his lip and Brendon just can’t stop himself. He wanted for so long. He leans forward, Ryan watching him the whole time, an unspoken warning in his eyes.
“Don’t,” he hisses, Brendon doesn’t care. He kisses Ryan and Ryan just bites his lip. It’s a shock to his system, he narrows his eyes, but Ryan doesn’t look as much vicious as he looks fucking scared.
“I will not hurt you,” Brendon whispers.
“You’re hurting me now,” Ryan spits, trying to shake Brendon’s grip lose.
”You’re hurting yourself.”
“And that’s how you want to fix me? By forcing me…” he looks away and Brendon feels really awful.
“Brendon,” Spencer says somewhere behind him. Brendon shakes his head. He can’t give up now, he won’t give up now.
“The thing is, I wanted you from the first second I saw you, I didn’t know then, but I figured it out, but you…and there was Spencer, who wanted you far longer than I. And later Jon. Jon fucking loves you, us. And you’re taking him away, because you’re selfish and afraid.”
“Ryan, I know that you thought this would mess up the band, that’s why you’re doing it, but now that’s done. What the hell are you afraid of now?” Spencer asks softly. Brendon didn’t notice him coming over. He kneels beside them and looks at Ryan.
~+~
“What the fuck?” Jon asks from the doorway and Spencer looks up from Ryan’s face to look at him.
“This is not what it looks like,” Brendon says automatically and Spencer nearly laughs, because this is exactly what it looks like. Jon looks sceptic. Spencer can’t blame him.
“So, you’re not pinning Ryan down against his will?”
“That part might be how it looks,” Brendon admits. Spencer can’t believe his life.
“And you’re just letting him?” Jon asks, Spencer nods, because yeah. ”Brendon, let him go.”
“No,” Brendon answers stubbornly. This whole situation is so absurd.
“This will not fix anything.”
“It’s not about the band,” Brendon says fiercely; tightening his grip. Ryan winces, Spencer looks at Brendon sharply. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles against Ryan’s skin.
“I know,” Jon answers softly. “That’s still not right.”
“What he’s doing is not right too,” Brendon answers.
“Brendon,” Spencer says.
“We fucking love him and he loves us back, what the hell is wrong with that?” Brendon demands to know.
“Nothing…but, you can’t keep pushing,” Jon says. Spencer loves that Jon is the voice of reason. They need Jon.
~+~
“Watch me!” Brendon says and he knows that he will do something stupid and reckless, but this is his last change anyway. Who cares for the consequences now?
“Brendon!” He hears Jon and Spencer and he would roll his eyes at them, because seriously, what the hell are they thinking? He leans forward, really slowly and then just places a soft kiss on Ryan’s nose, his cheek, his temple, the corner of his eye. He feels Ryan going rigid and then pliant under him.
“Okay?” he asks in a whisper, and Ryan nods. Brendon smiles and kisses his lips. “I’m sorry for hurting you,” he says into Ryan’s ear.
“I’m sorry for stealing Jon.” Ryan answers as quietly as Brendon. Brendon knows that’s the only apology he will get, but he doesn’t need one anyway.
“It wasn’t about the band for me…” Brendon says.
“I know,” Ryan answers and kisses him back, Brendon lets go of his wrists.
~+~
Spencer lets out a breath he didn’t even realise he had been holding. I should have known, he thinks to himself.
“Are you gonna fuck me on Spencer’s living room couch?” Ryan asks, and Spencer holds his breath again. As does Jon, Spencer can feel his body heat they’re standing so close, watching the scene before them. Waiting for Brendon to say the right thing.
“We…” Brendon begins, Ryan bites his lip and takes a sharp breath. “We, are going to make love to you.” He says with a smile.
~end~