Panic fic! In, um. Celebration. *shifty eyes*
Yeah, I said I was going to bed an hour ago. CLEARLY I LIED. *headdesk*
But! Instead, um, here, have some Panic at the Disco semi-crack fic (genderfuck). I have an outtake in the works for this, too, because they went and got stubborn on me and I had to trash an idea I liked, so... later for that, I guess. :D
It's All Fun and Games (Till Someone Ends Up Naked on Buzznet), R, Jon/Spencer, ~3000 words.
Disclaimer: Wow, so very not real. Also, canon for tour dates/order of supporting acts is a little bit smudged around the edges, shh.
Notes: Many many thanks to not_nele and elucreh for betas, and to not-in-fandom-yet (I hope it's a yet!) katrin and jamethiel_bane for audiencing and unsticking me at various points despite that fact.
Summary: Spencer would totally make a joke about timing, and how she clearly doesn't have any right now, but that's an embarrassing thing for a drummer to admit.
* * *
"So, does it ever get awkward to be out on the road and living with a girl?"
Jon rolls her eyes and glances significantly at her watch as the journalist asks, not even ten minutes into the half hour allotted. The shitty thing is that no matter how long they've been around, how long they've been out on tour, they still always, always get asked, and if it's not that question, it's a variation on it, the juvenile insinuations and questions about "if you had to, who would you...?"
Experience has shown that either you get mad about it (which, okay, Spencer still can't quite resist sometimes, because people are infuriating and no one should have to put up with this crap), or you start finding ways to make it funny. Or, okay, if you're Gerard Way you give the journalist a ten-minute lecture on Feminism 101 which, okay, pretty much everyone thinks is awesome, but does sort of cut into the time they have to talk about their actual music, and also, Spencer thinks privately, it really just doesn't sound quite the same in Ryan's voice.
"Eight minutes, forty two seconds," Jon says in a low tone, just for Spencer to hear, and they exchange a look and snicker, and the journalist at least has the grace to look sheepish, correct herself and says, "girls, sorry, Spencer, Jon- look, my editor gave me the questions, I'm sure you're sick of hearing that by now, let's just move on, shall we?"
Spencer has never, ever answered that other question honestly, and the answer hasn't changed since she and Ryan started the band, anyway.
Her band has, though.
* * *
Most people are too couth - or maybe just a little too wary of going one step too far, because Brendon can, and will, and HAS sicced Zack on people in the past - but no one has ever out and out actually asked a couple of questions. Not on the record, at any rate. Pete being nosy totally does not count.
Of course, that was no one right up until, oh, now.
"So, have you ever accidently seen one of the guys naked, Spencer?" asks a very, very unwise journalist.
Spencer just glares.
Brendon and Jon snort and Ryan looks kind of pissy, actually, and oh god, if there's video from this it's going to be all over youtube in, like, an hour and Spence knows exactly what people are going to make of that.
Seriously, her life is just not funny sometimes.
Of course Spencer's seen Ryan naked. They grew up together, it's kind of really not a big deal. The total opposite. And she's seen Brendon naked, because for a dude who grew up religious, Brendon has, like, no shame whatsoever, and will in fact dance around the bus shaking his naked ass until someone throws something or yells at him. Okay, so 'someone' is usually Spencer, but hey. She has principles. And they include not having to look at Brendon's ass except when he's in front of her drums singing.
"Actually," Ryan drawls, evenly as always, "it's a far more interesting question if you ask it the other way--" and then Spencer and Jon both go for the joint death glare and associated dramatic looks, and the reporter looks embarrassed and drops the subject like it grew claws (which it totally did, Ryan Ross is a fucking Jedi Master of deflection, and Spencer is going to have to buy him ice cream or something, because he's managed to get the question dropped without suspicion, and without even telling any kind of lie).
Because by this stage pretty much her entire band has seen Spencer naked too, and nowhere near as innocently as she's seen Ryan and Brendon. It's almost as if they have some kind of radar, actually. A little beeper that goes off in their heads and says, 'hey, Spence is about to finally get some this tour, and if you go interrupt her now not only will you get an eyeful, but she'll totally be too embarrassed to do anything but hide in her bunk for the next twelve hours'.
If she was just a little bit more paranoid she'd think they were doing it to keep her wound up for the shows, but pretty much Spencer is just sure that her luck really is that good.
It was bad enough when Ryan walked into the back lounge when Gabe Saporta had one hand up her skirt (so she mostly wears jeans, but sometimes a skirt is just easier, you know?) and her bra was hanging off her elbows.
It was definitely worse when Brendon and Ryan slunk around a corner and found her pressed up against the side of the bus with Nate's hands on her hips, kneeling between her legs and biting up her thigh, and damnit, she'd heard he gave really good head, too. It just wasn't fair.
Although the worst - definitely, because even compared to Pete's example she couldn't bring anything more embarrassing down on herself, right? - was when she'd thought she was going to have the bus to herself for the afternoon, and so maybe she and Greta had been hanging out (it wasn't 'girl talk', it was just sometimes they liked to hang out and talk about boys. And girls. And maybe make out a little bit when that got boring.) And so maybe Spencer had spent the last three months on and off sticking her tongue down Greta Salpeter's throat with no one the wiser (except Ryan, who clearly didn't count), and so maybe she should've been expecting her luck to run out.
She just wasn't expecting it to happen while she was going down on Greta.
She thought they'd locked the door, for one thing.
Brendon had swooned dramatically and covered his eyes, Ryan had- okay, Ryan had pretty much done the same thing, and Zack had just rolled his eyes and said "jeez, Smith, can't you keep it in your pants?", which was manifestly unfair since it was the lot of them who were keeping her pants on. They were like a walking, talking, singing chastity belt. With eyeliner.
Pretty much the only person who hadn't walked in on her - and god, she was way too thankful for this, and for reasons that she really wasn't comfortable examining too closely - was Jon.
See, it's not that Spencer sleeps around. She really doesn't. She's careful about who she hooks up with, she doesn't do anything terribly risky, and at least if she sticks to other people on the label then no one has to worry about embarrassing posts on buzznet, or in the tabloids.
The fact that she knows none of them are going to fall for her is just a bonus.
* * *
"So, Jon, it must be nice not being the only girl in the band this time around. Do the two of you hang out and do girly stuff?"
Jon blinks, and says slowly, "Spence takes me shoe-shopping sometimes?"
There's a pause while Spencer, the woman from Cosmo - and seriously, Cosmo, Spencer is so not over that, and she'd really like to start talking about music, oh, any time now - and Jon all look down at Jon's shoes. At the scruffy flipflops she pretty much lives in, tucked under too-long jeans and a loose shirt.
Spencer's grin is pure evil as she drawls "Jon's kind of a slow learner."
Jon is actually one of the most insightful people Spencer has ever met. She might look all zen and chilled out and easy-going on the surface, but under that she's wicked smart, and way more observant than people give her credit for. Spencer thinks it's maybe because she hides a lot of that behind the lens of her camera, but still. Jon is kind of creepy with the knowing things, sometimes, and she's the one that everyone goes to when they get their heart trodden on a little.
Spencer has no idea how Jon didn't realise that Spencer kind of fell for her almost as soon as they met, but it's one secret she's happy to keep to herself. Lusting from afar is bad enough, if Jon knew- if Jon knew, she'd be kind about it, and then, well, then Spencer would pretty much just have to shoot herself. Or go hide in the woods with Brendon and write the most emo songs that no one will ever hear. Ryan would totally come get both of them once she had it out of her system, and Brendon, if occasionally tactless and way too energetic way too early, is also pretty much the most awesome sympathetic ear ever.
It's a little fucked up that Spencer has a plan for how she'll deal with Jon rejecting her before she's even ever found out about the whole hopeless crush thing, but she just likes to think of it as being practical.
* * *
"Soooo, Spence," Brendon asks, sidling up and plastering himself along her side on the couch, and she should've known he wasn't going to let this go so easily, "how come you never said you were into girls, huh?"
"Because I like the idea of not spending the rest of our career answering questions about how interesting it is that half my band are gay?"
"Three quarters," Brendon corrects her, and Spence can't help it, she knows her eyebrows are heading towards her hairline.
"What, Ryan finally caved?"
"Ryan totally wants me for my awesome bod," Brendon tells her, eyes big and sincere, "except, no, this week he's still straight. I meant Jon, actually."
It's Spencer's turn to stare.
"Ha ha, Bren, really funny."
"What? No, really, I thought- you didn't know?"
"What's there to know?" Spencer is wishing she hadn't had that hot dog. Actually, Spencer is wishing she hadn't had lunch full stop, because her stomach is twisting in a way that really, really can't be good for her. Jon is straight, Jon's always been straight, Jon was fooling around with Tom way back when, Jon was-
"...totally dating this really cute girl in Chicago, didn't you meet her? She was at the last show we did there."
Oh god. Spencer had just thought they were really good friends. Not the kind of friends who would stick their tongues down each other's throats and do naked things together friends. Spencer has had a few of those kinds of friends, she would've thought she'd recognise it.
Spencer's poker face is apparently for shit, too, because Brendon is going impossibly wider-eyed and staring right at her, and oh god, yeah, she's doomed.
"Spencer Smith! You had no idea! Ha, for once I'm not the last to know something!" And then Brendon fucking cha-chas out of the kitchen, and Spencer is left staring meditatively at the coffee she doesn't even want any more while she tries to figure out if it was better when she thought Jon was straight and thus completely out of bounds, rather than into girls, and just not interested.
She burns her tongue on the coffee when she tries to drown her sorrows without remembering to let it cool off a bit first.
* * *
Brendon makes faces at her the entire time they're on the drumline that night, and Spencer totally wants to get mad at him, but it's Brendon, and in less than a minute she's laughing at him and making faces back.
She brushes past Jon on her way back to her kit, and Jon grins at her too, and it's not worth the effort it would take to quash the warmth that sends through her. She smiles back, knocks their shoulders together, and beats out the intro for the next song without letting the grin fade.
The show is a good one, and the euphoria is still bouncing through them afterwards - Brendon and Ryan are both fidgeting, feet tapping a half measure apart, and Spencer knows she's tapping out complementary beats on her thighs, powered by pure adrenaline, and none of them can stop laughing, teasing, throwing jokes and towels around with equal abandon.
Brendon calls first shower and vanishes, while Jon - clearly filled with goodwill for all mankind, oh, and maybe a little beer as well - whirls from person to person, hugging indiscriminately. She lands beside, well, really more 'on' Spencer on the couch, and snuggles in without hesitation.
"So, Greta..." she trails off invitingly, and Spencer bites her tongue but replies lightly, "No, Spencer," and takes the bottle out of Jon's hand, making a show of checking what the alcohol content is. Trying not to let herself focus too much on how Jon feels pressed snugly up against her side like that, because there are levels of pathetic, thank you very much, and that's an elevator Spencer does not want to get on. Thinking that Jon smells good all post-show and sweaty like that is the equivalent of pressing the call button, but a girl can only scrape together so much will-power at a time.
"Sure you haven't had too much of this, Walker?"
Jon totally isn't buying that, and nudges her knee into Spencer's hip.
"Oh, come on. Seriously, I have to hear the gossip third-hand? I thought we were buds, Spencer." She follows that with the patented Jon Walker puppydog eyes, and even though Spencer should clearly be plotting the most effective way to kill Brendon without putting herself out of a job, she kind of can't help but cave a little.
"We were just fooling around, that's all." It sounds lame even to her.
"Wow, that's so not what I heard." Jon tries some kind of leering eyebrow waggle, but it doesn't seem to sit quite right.
"Do I really want to know what you heard?"
"Probably not," Jon says cheerfully, "but you have to tell me. I didn't even think Greta, you know. Swung our way?" And wow, Spencer doesn't need to be the lyricist to hear that the question there was a lot more on "our" than it was for Greta.
"Greta." Spencer repeats, tonelessly.
Jon squirms in a way that is definitely endangering Spencer's kidneys and refuses to meet her eyes. "Okay. You. Just- I'm in your band, I kind of thought these are the kind of things we're meant to know about each other." Which is so blatantly unfair that Spencer can't help replying, even though this is so not the place for this discussion. Not that any place would have been good, but.
"Oh, like the way I was meant to know about you?"
"Spence. Everyone knows about me. It's not like it's some big secret, 'oh, hey, by the way, JWalk does chicks too, did you hear?'"
The post-show high has definitely gone now, and Spencer just feels tired, and gross, and stupid, which she kind of hates more than anything. Which probably goes a long way to explaining why she gets up without saying another word to Jon, without watching the way she goes sprawling on the couch because Spencer is not paying attention, and the way she bulls past Ryan and takes the next shower. The hot water does nothing for the tension locking up what feels like every muscle in her back.
She manages to avoid Jon the entire way to the hotel, and she manages to avoid talking to Ryan, too, which is possibly even more impressive, though by the look on his face she's probably got about an hour before the inevitable bitch-out. If she felt an ounce less shitty she'd almost be looking forward to it, because people go on about how much she does for Ryan, and, okay, yeah, maybe there's a little truth with that, whatever, but it's always a little easier to take things after Ryan's kicked her ass a bit in turn. He's the bluntest person she knows (Spencer doesn't think looking in the mirror counts, there), and sometimes that's just what she needs.
What she doesn't expect is to get to the hotel and have Ryan take a keycard and announce blandly that he's rooming in with Brendon tonight.
Spencer's look of betrayal should win fucking awards.
Ryan is somehow completely unmoved, and manages to imply without moving a single muscle, as they all crowd into the elevator, that she needs to get over herself and fix this, now. Spencer pretty much just wonders what the chances are that she can hide in the bathroom all night.
* * *
"You know, Spencer, if you were any one else I'd just figure it was internalised homophobia and I'd throw a shoe at you and move on, but I kind of don't think that whatever problem you have with me right now is about me liking girls in general."
Spencer keeps right on flicking through her magazine and pretending like she hasn't heard a word. Tomorrow. Tomorrow is totally an acceptable time to start acting like a grown up again.
Jon is clearly not on board with this schedule, though, because she won't shut up.
"Which means it's either something totally unrelated and you're just taking it out on me - except you're not that kind of a bitch, usually - or that it's something about the girls I like in particular that's bothering you."
Spencer maybe nearly rips the page she's turning.
"Am I getting warmer?"
"Maybe," Spencer says grudgingly, and wow, she definitely hadn't meant to do that.
"You want to give me some kind of hint, then? Animal, mineral, vegetable?"
Spencer's look of horror isn't feigned in the slightest. "Oh god, I think you've been hanging out with Pete for way too many years. Aren't you supposed to ask 20 questions next?"
"Would it take twenty?" Jon's expression is far too sympathetic.
Spencer bites her lip. Oh god.
"...do you like me, check yes or no?" It sounds almost like a quote, like an echo of something, and Jon sounds way, way more uncertain (younger) than Spencer is used to hearing.
"Um."
The bed dips as Jon sits down next to her, carefully not-quite touching.
"Is that an 'um', as in, 'no, i'm trying to find a way to reject you without screwing up our working relationship', or an 'um', sounds like 'yes please, and if we could stop talking about feelings and make out that would be pretty keen'?"
"Pretty keen? Who says pretty keen?"
"Shut up, I was watching-- that really didn't sound like a 'no', Spence."
"I really didn't think you were interested," Spencer says, and she is not breathless, thank you very much.
"You really weren't paying very close attention, then," Jon replies, leaning closer, totally unfairly distracting Spencer with how very, very pretty her eyes were up close, "because I didn't think I was all that subtle. I didn't think you were interested."
"Yeah, well," Spencer says, breaking, reaching out to tug Jon right up against her, lips brushing lightly against hers as she breathes out, "ditto."
* * *
And apparently, hooking up with Jon doesn't do anything at all to improve Spencer's luck, because within the next two days, they get caught making out no less than four times.
By three different people.
Jon thinks it's hilarious (Spencer thinks she'll probably stop thinking it's so funny if it starts looking like they'll never get to have sex ever again without an audience); Ryan makes droll comments but looks quietly pleased, and Spencer is more than certain he's congratulating himself for it, which- okay, maybe a little. But still. It's the principle of the matter. Brendon just goes from zero to planning their hordes of adopted children ("are you kidding me, Brendon? No. We're not even getting a cat together yet." "I already have a cat," Jon adds helpfully.), and seems to think it is, god help them all, 'cute'. Spencer just points out that if he says anything about them on stage he'll be wearing her bass drum, and then has to chase him round the bus again (while Ryan and Jon laugh, the traitors), because Brendon has never turned down the opportunity for a good cower-dramatically scene, and they should all know by now that Spencer is totally not joking about threats like that.
"You'll pay for this later, Ross," Spencer promises him, and adds over her shoulder - damn, Brendon's gotten sneakier or something, he didn't use to be able to eel into the top bunk and no man's land quite that smoothly - "and don't think you're getting away with it either, Jonquil," and she doesn't even need to look to know that Jon's got her head in her hands and is chanting "I love my parents" over and over. There are only about six people who can get away with using Jon's full name to her face and live, and Spencer really does enjoy being one of them. Not even William gets to do that, because Jon is scary when she wants to be.
The poor innocent tech who finds them the third time doesn't really say much of anything, just stammers an apology and disappears in record time, but that might have something more to do with the amount of skin Jon had been showing. Spencer's not sure whether she should be mad that someone else got to see Jon half-naked or just smug about how hot the girl she's with is, and comes down (admittedly with Jon's enthusiastic and very distracting assistance) on the side of the latter. Plus, it's kind of nice to not be the naked blushing one for a change.
* * *
The ninth time Brendon walks in on them they are just making out (lazily, with Spencer pressed up against the dressing room wall, where anyone could see them, because they're going to be good and not do more than that, and Jon is using her hips and shoulders to just hold Spencer there, which she really didn't expect she'd be able to do, and certainly didn't think would be as hot as it is).
"You're going to scar me for life one of these days," he tells them seriously, and about-faces back into the corridor.
"Tell us when it's safe to come get ready for our SHOW!" he adds, yelling from the other side of the closed door, and Spencer giggles hotly against Jon, and pulls her hand back just in time from where it's trying (totally without her conscious direction! and in no way her responsibility!) to slide up the back of Jon's dress shirt.
* * *
The tenth time Brendon and Ryan walk in on them is deja vu all over again.
Spencer freezes up in instinctive horror and waits for the glitch in the matrix to go away already, while Jon swears and twists under her, grabbing frantically for the rug off the back of the couch.
"I swear," Spencer says intently, not even looking at Ryan or Brendon, "I think that door's possessed. I know I fucking locked it."
She's kind of speaking to Jon's bellybutton, as an inevitable result of the activity that the rest of their band has so kindly interrupted.
"Um," Jon says, before she's interrupted by Brendon's mournful complaint of "god, Ry, seriously, what is this? The nothing rhymes with cunnilingus tour?"
Spencer chokes. Jon cracks up.
They can hear Ryan and Brendon both giggling from the other side of the bus door after it slams shut again.
Spencer lets her head fall onto Jon's stomach as she snickers helplessly, Jon shaking with laughter underneath her, and she just smiles as Jon's fingers smooth the hair back off her face, breathing warm and uneven.
"So, awkward, huh?" Jon asks, drawling a little around the leftover giggles.
"Worth it," Spencer answers, and is deeply, thoroughly grateful all over again that Jon Walker said yes to her band.
--end--
But! Instead, um, here, have some Panic at the Disco semi-crack fic (genderfuck). I have an outtake in the works for this, too, because they went and got stubborn on me and I had to trash an idea I liked, so... later for that, I guess. :D
It's All Fun and Games (Till Someone Ends Up Naked on Buzznet), R, Jon/Spencer, ~3000 words.
Disclaimer: Wow, so very not real. Also, canon for tour dates/order of supporting acts is a little bit smudged around the edges, shh.
Notes: Many many thanks to not_nele and elucreh for betas, and to not-in-fandom-yet (I hope it's a yet!) katrin and jamethiel_bane for audiencing and unsticking me at various points despite that fact.
Summary: Spencer would totally make a joke about timing, and how she clearly doesn't have any right now, but that's an embarrassing thing for a drummer to admit.
* * *
"So, does it ever get awkward to be out on the road and living with a girl?"
Jon rolls her eyes and glances significantly at her watch as the journalist asks, not even ten minutes into the half hour allotted. The shitty thing is that no matter how long they've been around, how long they've been out on tour, they still always, always get asked, and if it's not that question, it's a variation on it, the juvenile insinuations and questions about "if you had to, who would you...?"
Experience has shown that either you get mad about it (which, okay, Spencer still can't quite resist sometimes, because people are infuriating and no one should have to put up with this crap), or you start finding ways to make it funny. Or, okay, if you're Gerard Way you give the journalist a ten-minute lecture on Feminism 101 which, okay, pretty much everyone thinks is awesome, but does sort of cut into the time they have to talk about their actual music, and also, Spencer thinks privately, it really just doesn't sound quite the same in Ryan's voice.
"Eight minutes, forty two seconds," Jon says in a low tone, just for Spencer to hear, and they exchange a look and snicker, and the journalist at least has the grace to look sheepish, correct herself and says, "girls, sorry, Spencer, Jon- look, my editor gave me the questions, I'm sure you're sick of hearing that by now, let's just move on, shall we?"
Spencer has never, ever answered that other question honestly, and the answer hasn't changed since she and Ryan started the band, anyway.
Her band has, though.
* * *
Most people are too couth - or maybe just a little too wary of going one step too far, because Brendon can, and will, and HAS sicced Zack on people in the past - but no one has ever out and out actually asked a couple of questions. Not on the record, at any rate. Pete being nosy totally does not count.
Of course, that was no one right up until, oh, now.
"So, have you ever accidently seen one of the guys naked, Spencer?" asks a very, very unwise journalist.
Spencer just glares.
Brendon and Jon snort and Ryan looks kind of pissy, actually, and oh god, if there's video from this it's going to be all over youtube in, like, an hour and Spence knows exactly what people are going to make of that.
Seriously, her life is just not funny sometimes.
Of course Spencer's seen Ryan naked. They grew up together, it's kind of really not a big deal. The total opposite. And she's seen Brendon naked, because for a dude who grew up religious, Brendon has, like, no shame whatsoever, and will in fact dance around the bus shaking his naked ass until someone throws something or yells at him. Okay, so 'someone' is usually Spencer, but hey. She has principles. And they include not having to look at Brendon's ass except when he's in front of her drums singing.
"Actually," Ryan drawls, evenly as always, "it's a far more interesting question if you ask it the other way--" and then Spencer and Jon both go for the joint death glare and associated dramatic looks, and the reporter looks embarrassed and drops the subject like it grew claws (which it totally did, Ryan Ross is a fucking Jedi Master of deflection, and Spencer is going to have to buy him ice cream or something, because he's managed to get the question dropped without suspicion, and without even telling any kind of lie).
Because by this stage pretty much her entire band has seen Spencer naked too, and nowhere near as innocently as she's seen Ryan and Brendon. It's almost as if they have some kind of radar, actually. A little beeper that goes off in their heads and says, 'hey, Spence is about to finally get some this tour, and if you go interrupt her now not only will you get an eyeful, but she'll totally be too embarrassed to do anything but hide in her bunk for the next twelve hours'.
If she was just a little bit more paranoid she'd think they were doing it to keep her wound up for the shows, but pretty much Spencer is just sure that her luck really is that good.
It was bad enough when Ryan walked into the back lounge when Gabe Saporta had one hand up her skirt (so she mostly wears jeans, but sometimes a skirt is just easier, you know?) and her bra was hanging off her elbows.
It was definitely worse when Brendon and Ryan slunk around a corner and found her pressed up against the side of the bus with Nate's hands on her hips, kneeling between her legs and biting up her thigh, and damnit, she'd heard he gave really good head, too. It just wasn't fair.
Although the worst - definitely, because even compared to Pete's example she couldn't bring anything more embarrassing down on herself, right? - was when she'd thought she was going to have the bus to herself for the afternoon, and so maybe she and Greta had been hanging out (it wasn't 'girl talk', it was just sometimes they liked to hang out and talk about boys. And girls. And maybe make out a little bit when that got boring.) And so maybe Spencer had spent the last three months on and off sticking her tongue down Greta Salpeter's throat with no one the wiser (except Ryan, who clearly didn't count), and so maybe she should've been expecting her luck to run out.
She just wasn't expecting it to happen while she was going down on Greta.
She thought they'd locked the door, for one thing.
Brendon had swooned dramatically and covered his eyes, Ryan had- okay, Ryan had pretty much done the same thing, and Zack had just rolled his eyes and said "jeez, Smith, can't you keep it in your pants?", which was manifestly unfair since it was the lot of them who were keeping her pants on. They were like a walking, talking, singing chastity belt. With eyeliner.
Pretty much the only person who hadn't walked in on her - and god, she was way too thankful for this, and for reasons that she really wasn't comfortable examining too closely - was Jon.
See, it's not that Spencer sleeps around. She really doesn't. She's careful about who she hooks up with, she doesn't do anything terribly risky, and at least if she sticks to other people on the label then no one has to worry about embarrassing posts on buzznet, or in the tabloids.
The fact that she knows none of them are going to fall for her is just a bonus.
* * *
"So, Jon, it must be nice not being the only girl in the band this time around. Do the two of you hang out and do girly stuff?"
Jon blinks, and says slowly, "Spence takes me shoe-shopping sometimes?"
There's a pause while Spencer, the woman from Cosmo - and seriously, Cosmo, Spencer is so not over that, and she'd really like to start talking about music, oh, any time now - and Jon all look down at Jon's shoes. At the scruffy flipflops she pretty much lives in, tucked under too-long jeans and a loose shirt.
Spencer's grin is pure evil as she drawls "Jon's kind of a slow learner."
Jon is actually one of the most insightful people Spencer has ever met. She might look all zen and chilled out and easy-going on the surface, but under that she's wicked smart, and way more observant than people give her credit for. Spencer thinks it's maybe because she hides a lot of that behind the lens of her camera, but still. Jon is kind of creepy with the knowing things, sometimes, and she's the one that everyone goes to when they get their heart trodden on a little.
Spencer has no idea how Jon didn't realise that Spencer kind of fell for her almost as soon as they met, but it's one secret she's happy to keep to herself. Lusting from afar is bad enough, if Jon knew- if Jon knew, she'd be kind about it, and then, well, then Spencer would pretty much just have to shoot herself. Or go hide in the woods with Brendon and write the most emo songs that no one will ever hear. Ryan would totally come get both of them once she had it out of her system, and Brendon, if occasionally tactless and way too energetic way too early, is also pretty much the most awesome sympathetic ear ever.
It's a little fucked up that Spencer has a plan for how she'll deal with Jon rejecting her before she's even ever found out about the whole hopeless crush thing, but she just likes to think of it as being practical.
* * *
"Soooo, Spence," Brendon asks, sidling up and plastering himself along her side on the couch, and she should've known he wasn't going to let this go so easily, "how come you never said you were into girls, huh?"
"Because I like the idea of not spending the rest of our career answering questions about how interesting it is that half my band are gay?"
"Three quarters," Brendon corrects her, and Spence can't help it, she knows her eyebrows are heading towards her hairline.
"What, Ryan finally caved?"
"Ryan totally wants me for my awesome bod," Brendon tells her, eyes big and sincere, "except, no, this week he's still straight. I meant Jon, actually."
It's Spencer's turn to stare.
"Ha ha, Bren, really funny."
"What? No, really, I thought- you didn't know?"
"What's there to know?" Spencer is wishing she hadn't had that hot dog. Actually, Spencer is wishing she hadn't had lunch full stop, because her stomach is twisting in a way that really, really can't be good for her. Jon is straight, Jon's always been straight, Jon was fooling around with Tom way back when, Jon was-
"...totally dating this really cute girl in Chicago, didn't you meet her? She was at the last show we did there."
Oh god. Spencer had just thought they were really good friends. Not the kind of friends who would stick their tongues down each other's throats and do naked things together friends. Spencer has had a few of those kinds of friends, she would've thought she'd recognise it.
Spencer's poker face is apparently for shit, too, because Brendon is going impossibly wider-eyed and staring right at her, and oh god, yeah, she's doomed.
"Spencer Smith! You had no idea! Ha, for once I'm not the last to know something!" And then Brendon fucking cha-chas out of the kitchen, and Spencer is left staring meditatively at the coffee she doesn't even want any more while she tries to figure out if it was better when she thought Jon was straight and thus completely out of bounds, rather than into girls, and just not interested.
She burns her tongue on the coffee when she tries to drown her sorrows without remembering to let it cool off a bit first.
* * *
Brendon makes faces at her the entire time they're on the drumline that night, and Spencer totally wants to get mad at him, but it's Brendon, and in less than a minute she's laughing at him and making faces back.
She brushes past Jon on her way back to her kit, and Jon grins at her too, and it's not worth the effort it would take to quash the warmth that sends through her. She smiles back, knocks their shoulders together, and beats out the intro for the next song without letting the grin fade.
The show is a good one, and the euphoria is still bouncing through them afterwards - Brendon and Ryan are both fidgeting, feet tapping a half measure apart, and Spencer knows she's tapping out complementary beats on her thighs, powered by pure adrenaline, and none of them can stop laughing, teasing, throwing jokes and towels around with equal abandon.
Brendon calls first shower and vanishes, while Jon - clearly filled with goodwill for all mankind, oh, and maybe a little beer as well - whirls from person to person, hugging indiscriminately. She lands beside, well, really more 'on' Spencer on the couch, and snuggles in without hesitation.
"So, Greta..." she trails off invitingly, and Spencer bites her tongue but replies lightly, "No, Spencer," and takes the bottle out of Jon's hand, making a show of checking what the alcohol content is. Trying not to let herself focus too much on how Jon feels pressed snugly up against her side like that, because there are levels of pathetic, thank you very much, and that's an elevator Spencer does not want to get on. Thinking that Jon smells good all post-show and sweaty like that is the equivalent of pressing the call button, but a girl can only scrape together so much will-power at a time.
"Sure you haven't had too much of this, Walker?"
Jon totally isn't buying that, and nudges her knee into Spencer's hip.
"Oh, come on. Seriously, I have to hear the gossip third-hand? I thought we were buds, Spencer." She follows that with the patented Jon Walker puppydog eyes, and even though Spencer should clearly be plotting the most effective way to kill Brendon without putting herself out of a job, she kind of can't help but cave a little.
"We were just fooling around, that's all." It sounds lame even to her.
"Wow, that's so not what I heard." Jon tries some kind of leering eyebrow waggle, but it doesn't seem to sit quite right.
"Do I really want to know what you heard?"
"Probably not," Jon says cheerfully, "but you have to tell me. I didn't even think Greta, you know. Swung our way?" And wow, Spencer doesn't need to be the lyricist to hear that the question there was a lot more on "our" than it was for Greta.
"Greta." Spencer repeats, tonelessly.
Jon squirms in a way that is definitely endangering Spencer's kidneys and refuses to meet her eyes. "Okay. You. Just- I'm in your band, I kind of thought these are the kind of things we're meant to know about each other." Which is so blatantly unfair that Spencer can't help replying, even though this is so not the place for this discussion. Not that any place would have been good, but.
"Oh, like the way I was meant to know about you?"
"Spence. Everyone knows about me. It's not like it's some big secret, 'oh, hey, by the way, JWalk does chicks too, did you hear?'"
The post-show high has definitely gone now, and Spencer just feels tired, and gross, and stupid, which she kind of hates more than anything. Which probably goes a long way to explaining why she gets up without saying another word to Jon, without watching the way she goes sprawling on the couch because Spencer is not paying attention, and the way she bulls past Ryan and takes the next shower. The hot water does nothing for the tension locking up what feels like every muscle in her back.
She manages to avoid Jon the entire way to the hotel, and she manages to avoid talking to Ryan, too, which is possibly even more impressive, though by the look on his face she's probably got about an hour before the inevitable bitch-out. If she felt an ounce less shitty she'd almost be looking forward to it, because people go on about how much she does for Ryan, and, okay, yeah, maybe there's a little truth with that, whatever, but it's always a little easier to take things after Ryan's kicked her ass a bit in turn. He's the bluntest person she knows (Spencer doesn't think looking in the mirror counts, there), and sometimes that's just what she needs.
What she doesn't expect is to get to the hotel and have Ryan take a keycard and announce blandly that he's rooming in with Brendon tonight.
Spencer's look of betrayal should win fucking awards.
Ryan is somehow completely unmoved, and manages to imply without moving a single muscle, as they all crowd into the elevator, that she needs to get over herself and fix this, now. Spencer pretty much just wonders what the chances are that she can hide in the bathroom all night.
* * *
"You know, Spencer, if you were any one else I'd just figure it was internalised homophobia and I'd throw a shoe at you and move on, but I kind of don't think that whatever problem you have with me right now is about me liking girls in general."
Spencer keeps right on flicking through her magazine and pretending like she hasn't heard a word. Tomorrow. Tomorrow is totally an acceptable time to start acting like a grown up again.
Jon is clearly not on board with this schedule, though, because she won't shut up.
"Which means it's either something totally unrelated and you're just taking it out on me - except you're not that kind of a bitch, usually - or that it's something about the girls I like in particular that's bothering you."
Spencer maybe nearly rips the page she's turning.
"Am I getting warmer?"
"Maybe," Spencer says grudgingly, and wow, she definitely hadn't meant to do that.
"You want to give me some kind of hint, then? Animal, mineral, vegetable?"
Spencer's look of horror isn't feigned in the slightest. "Oh god, I think you've been hanging out with Pete for way too many years. Aren't you supposed to ask 20 questions next?"
"Would it take twenty?" Jon's expression is far too sympathetic.
Spencer bites her lip. Oh god.
"...do you like me, check yes or no?" It sounds almost like a quote, like an echo of something, and Jon sounds way, way more uncertain (younger) than Spencer is used to hearing.
"Um."
The bed dips as Jon sits down next to her, carefully not-quite touching.
"Is that an 'um', as in, 'no, i'm trying to find a way to reject you without screwing up our working relationship', or an 'um', sounds like 'yes please, and if we could stop talking about feelings and make out that would be pretty keen'?"
"Pretty keen? Who says pretty keen?"
"Shut up, I was watching-- that really didn't sound like a 'no', Spence."
"I really didn't think you were interested," Spencer says, and she is not breathless, thank you very much.
"You really weren't paying very close attention, then," Jon replies, leaning closer, totally unfairly distracting Spencer with how very, very pretty her eyes were up close, "because I didn't think I was all that subtle. I didn't think you were interested."
"Yeah, well," Spencer says, breaking, reaching out to tug Jon right up against her, lips brushing lightly against hers as she breathes out, "ditto."
* * *
And apparently, hooking up with Jon doesn't do anything at all to improve Spencer's luck, because within the next two days, they get caught making out no less than four times.
By three different people.
Jon thinks it's hilarious (Spencer thinks she'll probably stop thinking it's so funny if it starts looking like they'll never get to have sex ever again without an audience); Ryan makes droll comments but looks quietly pleased, and Spencer is more than certain he's congratulating himself for it, which- okay, maybe a little. But still. It's the principle of the matter. Brendon just goes from zero to planning their hordes of adopted children ("are you kidding me, Brendon? No. We're not even getting a cat together yet." "I already have a cat," Jon adds helpfully.), and seems to think it is, god help them all, 'cute'. Spencer just points out that if he says anything about them on stage he'll be wearing her bass drum, and then has to chase him round the bus again (while Ryan and Jon laugh, the traitors), because Brendon has never turned down the opportunity for a good cower-dramatically scene, and they should all know by now that Spencer is totally not joking about threats like that.
"You'll pay for this later, Ross," Spencer promises him, and adds over her shoulder - damn, Brendon's gotten sneakier or something, he didn't use to be able to eel into the top bunk and no man's land quite that smoothly - "and don't think you're getting away with it either, Jonquil," and she doesn't even need to look to know that Jon's got her head in her hands and is chanting "I love my parents" over and over. There are only about six people who can get away with using Jon's full name to her face and live, and Spencer really does enjoy being one of them. Not even William gets to do that, because Jon is scary when she wants to be.
The poor innocent tech who finds them the third time doesn't really say much of anything, just stammers an apology and disappears in record time, but that might have something more to do with the amount of skin Jon had been showing. Spencer's not sure whether she should be mad that someone else got to see Jon half-naked or just smug about how hot the girl she's with is, and comes down (admittedly with Jon's enthusiastic and very distracting assistance) on the side of the latter. Plus, it's kind of nice to not be the naked blushing one for a change.
* * *
The ninth time Brendon walks in on them they are just making out (lazily, with Spencer pressed up against the dressing room wall, where anyone could see them, because they're going to be good and not do more than that, and Jon is using her hips and shoulders to just hold Spencer there, which she really didn't expect she'd be able to do, and certainly didn't think would be as hot as it is).
"You're going to scar me for life one of these days," he tells them seriously, and about-faces back into the corridor.
"Tell us when it's safe to come get ready for our SHOW!" he adds, yelling from the other side of the closed door, and Spencer giggles hotly against Jon, and pulls her hand back just in time from where it's trying (totally without her conscious direction! and in no way her responsibility!) to slide up the back of Jon's dress shirt.
* * *
The tenth time Brendon and Ryan walk in on them is deja vu all over again.
Spencer freezes up in instinctive horror and waits for the glitch in the matrix to go away already, while Jon swears and twists under her, grabbing frantically for the rug off the back of the couch.
"I swear," Spencer says intently, not even looking at Ryan or Brendon, "I think that door's possessed. I know I fucking locked it."
She's kind of speaking to Jon's bellybutton, as an inevitable result of the activity that the rest of their band has so kindly interrupted.
"Um," Jon says, before she's interrupted by Brendon's mournful complaint of "god, Ry, seriously, what is this? The nothing rhymes with cunnilingus tour?"
Spencer chokes. Jon cracks up.
They can hear Ryan and Brendon both giggling from the other side of the bus door after it slams shut again.
Spencer lets her head fall onto Jon's stomach as she snickers helplessly, Jon shaking with laughter underneath her, and she just smiles as Jon's fingers smooth the hair back off her face, breathing warm and uneven.
"So, awkward, huh?" Jon asks, drawling a little around the leftover giggles.
"Worth it," Spencer answers, and is deeply, thoroughly grateful all over again that Jon Walker said yes to her band.
--end--