Fic -- Keep Me Where the Light Is
Title: Keep Me Where the Light Is
Pairing: Brendon/Spencer
Rating: R
Warnings: mentions of a prior suicide attempt
Word Count: ~5,500
Summary: picks up right where Someday I'll Fly, Someday I'll Soar leaves off, and you should read that first. Spencer's maybe starting to get his life back on track.
Brendon has bad taste in pretty much everything. When they're in the car, he always finds the radio station with the worst, most banal dance music.
"They're not even playing instruments," Spencer complains. "You can't even hear their voices over the auto-tune."
Brendon grins at him and turns the music up.
When it's his turn to pick, he always drags Spencer to the worst movies, romantic comedies that invariably involve a precocious child or some sort of fuzzy animal. His pants are always just a little too short at the ankle, and when summer comes Spencer's horrified to realize that Brendon actually owns several pairs of capris.
He puts ketchup on everything, even pizza, even cookies.
"I think it's pathological," Spencer tells Ryan as they watch Brendon smother his Eggs Benedict in ketchup.
Ryan shrugs and dips one of his fries into the pool of ketchup and Hollandaise on Brendon's plate.
"Traitor," says Spencer.
Ryan grins at him.
They have brunch every Sunday afternoon at a little restaurant around the corner from Ryan and Libby's apartment. The food is cheap and good and there's always a long wait for a table; Brendon usually crowds into Spencer's personal space as they wait, watching the other diners and absentmindedly biting his nails.
"One day," Spencer tells him, "you're going to chew down too far and your nail bed's going to get infected, you'll get gangrene, and you'll have to have all your fingers amputated."
Brendon pulls his hand away from his mouth. "You just don't like the sound my teeth make against my nails."
Spencer nods. "That, too."
"Where's Libby?" Brendon asks halfway through brunch.
"Working," Ryan says. "They had two people at the gallery quit last week."
"We should bring her waffles," Brendon says. Libby always orders the Belgian waffles with strawberries and whipped cream. Ryan flags down the waitress and gets an order to go.
"I come bearing gifts," Ryan says, holding up the Styrofoam box as they walk into the tiny art gallery where Libby works.
"You know we can't have food in here," Libby tells him.
Ryan kisses her cheek. "So go eat it in the office. You didn't have breakfast before you left, and I know you're starving."
Libby pops open the food container and sighs. "I wish. I can't leave the floor."
"Go eat something," Spencer tells her. "If anybody shows up, I promise we won't let them steal anything."
"At least not anything valuable," Brendon assures her.
Libby heads to the back office to eat her waffles and Brendon walks around the gallery looking at all the art. He giggles nervously, and when Spencer looks over he sees Brendon standing in front of a statue of a masturbating woman.
"You're twelve," Spencer tells him.
"I've just never seen a bronze vagina before."
"You've never seen a vagina at all."
Brendon shrugs and laughs and says, "Yeah. Maybe."
Spencer sits at Libby's little kiosk and starts flipping through her magazine. It's about art, so it's kind of beyond him, but at least it's something to look at. He feels someone standing just outside his personal space bubble and looks up at a woman in a red polka-dot dress. "Hi," he says.
"What can you tell me about that painting?" she asks, pointing. Thankfully the painting she's pointing at is one of Libby's.
"That's by Libby Campbell," he says. "She's a local artist who works mainly in the remodernist style." He doesn't actually know what that means, but he's heard Libby mention remodernism before.
The woman says, "I don't know if it will fit over my couch."
"If you want something to fit over your couch, you should probably go to the Thomas Kinkade gallery," Spencer tells her. "I can give you directions."
The woman looks horrified. She goes back to look at Libby's painting. It's one of the most vibrant watercolors Spencer's ever seen, the blue and black of power lines cutting through a fierce orange-red sunrise.
"How soon can you have it delivered?" the woman asks him.
"Probably by Tuesday, but let me just go check with my boss," he says. He heads back to Libby's tiny little office. "So I just sold that sunrise painting of yours," he tells her. "I told the lady it was worth five grand but she talked me down to three. I hope that's okay. She wants it delivered by Tuesday."
Libby chokes on a strawberry and Ryan slaps her on the back and she has to take a few sips of coffee before the choking subsides. "Three grand?" she asks him.
"Is that bad?"
"That's about five times what she usually charges for her work," Ryan says as Libby gets up and hurries out of the office. "I always told her she was selling herself short."
**********
In the dream, Spencer's driving at night along a deserted stretch of road. Not the desert, but a rural country road with trees and fields, the kind they had back east. It's the middle of the night and it's so dark and Spencer can hardly see anything.
He's sitting in the back seat. He's driving, but he's sitting in the back seat, anyway, and he can barely reach the controls. He fumbles with the headlights, can't tell if they're on or not. Way ahead of him in the distance he sees the taillights of a truck.
He plays with the headlights and he gets them to go a little brighter but then they go out completely and he's barreling along this road in total darkness and he's going to hit the truck. He's going so fast, and he knows he's going to crash, and he can't see, and he just sits forward a little bit thinking, "Yes, yes, now."
He wakes up just as his car hits the truck from behind. In the crumbling fragments of the dream Spencer can still remember that it wasn't like an actual car crash at all. Instead, his car just barreled into the truck and everything started to disintegrate like in a video game. Spencer's got giddy anticipation in the pit of his stomach and his skin is tingling and he thinks, Game over.
He doesn't tell anyone about the dream, especially Linda.
**********
Spencer's mother hates his new job.
"I sit in an art gallery all day reading comic books," he tells her. There's a comic book store down the street from the gallery, and Brendon had dragged him inside excitedly, talking about having to give comics up for two years, talking about rebuilding his collection. "There are never more than three customers there at a time. It's very low pressure."
"You read comic books when you're supposed to be working?" she asks.
"They're art," he tells her. Sort of. He figures if anybody actually asks him about them point blank, he can pretend he's just reading them to be ironic. "There's really not much else to do. Sometimes I dust."
"I don't think you're ready," she says.
He shrugs. "Only one way to find out."
He only works at the gallery on Tuesdays and Fridays. On Mondays and Wednesdays he goes to see Linda. Thursdays are his own.
He still goes for walks every morning, early before the heat gets really bad. He walks a few blocks and waits at the juncture of two trails for Brendon to show up, and then they walk together. One Thursday morning Brendon shows up in cut-off jean shorts, clunky Payless running shoes, and a bright purple t-shirt with a screen-print of sunglasses all over it. It reads, Keep the Son in your eyes!
"Oh, my God, I need to take you shopping," Spencer tells him.
Brendon looks down at what he's wearing and says, "Okay."
They spend the entire day in the air-conditioned mall finding Brendon clothes. Spencer doesn't go crazy with it, doesn't try to get Brendon into high fashion or anything, but he firmly believes that Brendon is in desperate need of quality basics.
Brendon tries everything on for him, comes out of the dressing room backwards, shaking his ass just to make Spencer laugh. They end up getting him four or five pairs of jeans that he makes Brendon promise not to cut off at the knee, bunches of white t-shirts with both crew- and v-necks, more t-shirts in gray and red and black and navy. They get him casual button-downs in white and chambray and several different types of plaid.
Spencer doesn't believe in shorts, so he gets Brendon lightweight khaki pants in beige and stone and putty.
"I never knew putty was a color," Brendon says, looking at the tag.
The shoes are the best part. It's easy for Spencer to talk Brendon into giving up his plastic discount-store sneakers for Converse and Adidas.
Spencer buys a pair of red canvas boat shoes for himself. He also gets a pair of distressed pale beige suede wingtips, some baby-soft moccasin style loafers, and at Brendon's urging, a pair of ridiculous white Nike high-tops with a bright red swoosh on the side. Secretly, he likes the high-tops best.
"You really needed four new pairs of shoes?" his mother asks him when he gets home.
"I only have two," he says.
"There are twenty pairs of shoes in those boxes you won't unpack," she tells him.
Spencer says. "Oh. Right."
**********
Back when Spencer had been involuntarily committed to the psych ward for seventy-two hours, his mom had gone through and packed up his entire dorm room and shipped the boxes home. He's never asked her about it, never asked if his roommate helped, never asked if anyone at the school gave her a hard time about gaining access to his room to gather up all his stuff.
Most of the boxes are sitting in the garage, unopened. She'd done a good job at pulling out the things that Spencer would think were essential, his laptop and his phone, all the right power cords, a good selection of clothes.
Spencer sits in the garage on top of the long freezer where his mom keeps all the meat and the ice cream. It's hot in the garage, the middle of summer, no air conditioning. He says, "It was kind of like this the first time. I was sitting on my bed looking at my backpack, thinking I should take the books out and get ready for my next class. But I didn't. I just looked at it for a really long time."
Ryan says, "You're an idiot," and tears into the closest box. He holds up the pillow from Spencer's bed. "Keep or throw?"
"What?" Spencer asks.
"Do you want to keep it or get rid of it?"
"I, um, I don't know."
"Throw," says Ryan, and he tosses it into a waiting laundry basket.
Spencer eventually climbs down off the freezer to help. They open the garage door to get a little bit of a breeze and they break into the freezer periodically for popsicles that melt alarmingly fast in the heat.
Spencer doesn't end up keeping much. The shoes, the clothes he likes best, the watch his father gave him for his high school graduation.
Ryan goes through his books and he keeps shaking his head and clucking his tongue. "Do you have any fiction in here at all?" he asks.
Spencer doubts it. "I didn't really have time to read," he says.
Ryan shakes his head. "No wonder you went crazy."
Once the things he's keeping are up in his room and the things that are going are packed neatly into boxes in the back of Spencer's mom's minivan, Ryan laughs nervously and says, "So, um, Libby might be pregnant."
Spencer doesn't know what to say. He says, "Wow. That's....that's, um. I don't know what it is."
"Terrifying," Ryan tells him. "If she is, she wants to keep it."
Spencer sits down next to him on the front stoop and hands him a popsicle. "Wow," he says. "When will she find out?"
"Today. That's why I'm here. I'm trying not to think about it." He sighs and bites off the top quarter of his popsicle, talks with it melting on his tongue. "I love her, and kids, yeah, okay, one day, but now? I mean, if she is then of course I'm gonna be there and shit, but..." He shakes his head. "I don't know how the fuck to be a dad."
They're still sitting on the front stoop, sweating even in the shade, when Libby pulls up in her old VW Bug. She gets out of the car and runs towards them a few steps before throwing her arms up in the air and shouting, "Thank the Lord and get me a beer!"
Ryan laughs and swoops her up into his arms and she complains about him being gross and sweaty but she doesn't seem to mean it.
When his mother raises her eyebrows at the three of them drinking beer at the kitchen table at one o'clock in the afternoon, Spencer says, "We're celebrating. Ryan and I cleaned all the boxes out of the garage, and Libby's not knocked up."
"Thank God," says Libby.
Ryan leans his chin on her shoulder and nuzzles against her hair. "I'm disappointed. I was looking forward to you getting really, really fat."
Libby elbows him. "You were not."
"Well, the fat I'd be okay with, it's the whole kid thing that had me freaked out."
Spencer's mother puts her hand to her chest. "Don't scare me like that. I'm too young to be a grandmother."
"It's not like I'm going to give you any," Spencer tells her.
She straightens up, the way she does when she's annoyed. "You can adopt," she says. "Or inseminate a lesbian."
Ryan says, "I thought you hadn't come out to them, yet."
"I haven't," Spencer tells him.
Spencer's mother sighs and rolls her eyes. "I've had a lot more time on this earth than either one of you and I'm not an idiot. I've been waiting for you to tell me for years, Spencer James."
Spencer looks down at the kitchen table and says, "Oh."
**********
"I think everyone knew I was gay before I did," Spencer tells Linda. "I wish they would have told me. I could have used the heads up."
Linda says, "Have you thought about starting to date again?"
Spencer says, "What do you mean, again?"
Spencer's never actually gone on a date. He's hooked up with guys, but never the same one more than once or twice.
The next day he's working at the gallery with Libby and there's no one else there. He looks up from his comic book and says, "My therapist thinks I should start dating."
Libby looks up from her art magazine. She says, "Thomas totally has a crush on you."
Thomas is one of the local artists whose work the gallery displays. He's in his thirties. He's relatively attractive in kind of a nerdy, hipster way.
"I'm going to give you his number," Libby says. "You should call him."
Spencer says, "Um. Okay."
In the end, Thomas calls him and invites him to a play the next week.
"I don't know anything about plays," he says as he tries to get ready. He doesn't know what to wear.
Ryan's lounging on his bed, writing in a notebook.
"Ryan," Spencer says.
"Plays are kind of like movies, only the actors are right there in the same room with you instead of on film," Ryan says. "You'll be fine. Wear the green shirt. It brings out the blue in your eyes."
The play's experimental. Or maybe avant-garde. Spencer's not sure. He doesn't really know what's going on the whole time.
"How did you like it?" Thomas asks as they leave the theatre.
"It was, um," Spencer says. "Avant-garde."
"You hated it," Thomas says, looking disappointed.
"No," Spencer tells him. "Only, yes. I'm not actually artistic, you know. I only work at the gallery because I'm good at bullshitting customers into spending money."
"It's really kind of just a metaphor," Thomas tells him.
Spencer says, "I'm sure it is."
Thomas looks disappointed again, looks away from Spencer like he's ashamed.
"Hey," Spencer says, "just because I didn't like the play doesn't mean I don't want to go back to your place for sex."
Thomas looks over at him. "Really?"
"Yeah," Spencer says. "You shouldn't have to go without a blowjob just because I'm not sophisticated enough to enjoy experimental theatre."
Across the street, he catches sight of someone in khakis and a navy and aqua plaid button-down. He's pretty sure it's Brendon, but when he looks again, the guy is gone.
**********
"How do you feel about sleeping with him on the first date?" Linda asks.
Spencer says, "Am I supposed to have feelings about something like that?"
"If you don't, we should maybe talk about why that is."
"It was just sex," Spencer tells her. "You're the one who wanted me to date."
"Dating implies making a connection, Spencer."
"I made a connection," he says. "Physically."
"We already know you can connect with people physically," she says. "Now you're trying to make emotional connections. You're trying to make friends. Do you think you can go on a date with someone and try to connect intellectually? Emotionally?"
Spencer says, "I don't think I want to."
**********
The weird thing about art is that its inherent worth isn't monetary. A piece can be exquisite and priceless even if it's never sold. Money only comes into the picture because artists are like everyone else in that they need to eat.
Spencer spends a lot of time looking at the art in the gallery and thinking about how obscene it is to put a price tag on somebody's creative output. And he thinks if he has to put a price tag on things, which he does, because it's his job to keep the artists from dying of starvation, then he can pick any fucking number he wants and it will be accurate.
Libby's paintings are starting to go for five or six grand apiece, for no reason other than the fact that they've sold her paintings for three and four grand in the past. They're still just as amazing as they were when she was selling them for six hundred dollars, only now Spencer's there with his air of bored indifference and his confidence that the numbers he's quoting the customers are accurate. Which they are. Even if he is just making most of them up.
"I feel kind of like a con man," he admits one Sunday over brunch. "Only I'm using my powers for good instead of evil."
"My bank account thanks you," Libby tells him. "As do the people who collect on my student loans."
"Hey," Spencer says as he notices that Brendon's just pushing his Eggs Benedict around on his plate. "Are you okay?"
"Fine," Brendon says, but he doesn't eat anything. He doesn't even reach for the bottle of ketchup.
After brunch, Brendon doesn't want to go back to Ryan and Libby's and drink mimosas all afternoon the way they usually do. He doesn't even want to look at comics. "I'm just going to go home," he says and he walks away and stands at a bus stop.
Spencer follows him. "You're taking the bus?" he asks.
"Obviously."
"All the way back to Summerlin."
"No, I thought I'd take it halfway and then walk the rest. Yes, back to Summerlin."
"It's going to take you all afternoon to get there."
Brendon shrugs and looks the other way.
"Just let me drive you back."
"I don't want you to."
"Are you mad at me?"
"No," Brendon answers quickly. He shakes his head. "No. I just feel like taking the bus."
Spencer nods and stands there with his hands in his pockets, gazing out at the street.
"What are you guys doing?" Ryan asks, walking up to them.
"Taking the bus," Spencer tells him.
Ryan frowns. "Your car's parked, like, two blocks away."
"I know, but Brendon wants to take the bus."
Ryan looks at Spencer, then he looks at Brendon. He says, "You're both so stupid it hurts me to look at you."
"The bus is coming," says Spencer.
"Neither one of you is taking the fucking bus," Ryan snaps. "Jesus Christ. I'm going to fucking kill Libby."
"Why?" Spencer asks.
"It's not her fault," says Brendon.
"What's not her fault?" Spencer asks.
The bus pulls up and Brendon gets on. Spencer starts to follow him, but Ryan grabs his wrist and holds tight.
"I was going to go with him," Spencer says as they watch the bus pull away.
"Your car," Ryan tells him. "Two blocks. Drive back. Am I using small enough words?"
"Where'd Brendon go?" Libby asks when they find her window shopping.
"He took the bus back to Summerlin," Ryan says.
"Does the bus even go all the way to Summerlin?" Libby asks.
"I have absolutely no idea," Ryan says. He walks faster than them, towards the apartment, looks over his shoulder darkly at Libby and says, "This is all your fault."
When they get back to the apartment, Libby makes mimosas, but Spencer's the only one who drinks his. Libby and Ryan have retreated to their bedroom and Spencer can hear their voices, tense and angry, from his spot on the couch.
He doesn't want to be there anymore. He gets up and finds his keys and wonders if he should wait for a break in the fight to tell them he's leaving or if he should just go.
The bedroom door flies open and Libby stalks out, eyes narrowed. "Spencer, tell Ryan that you're a grown fucking man," she snaps. "Tell him that if you wanted to date Brendon you'd fucking date Brendon. Tell him that you don't need people fucking tiptoeing around you, like, trying to secretly guide you in the right fucking direction." Libby curses a lot when she's angry.
Spencer says, "What?"
"Tell him that he can't be pissed at me for fixing you up because if you wanted to be dating Brendon you would have just fucking asked him already."
Spencer says, "I. Um. Oh."
Libby frowns at him.
"Baby," Ryan says wearily. "I love you, and you're usually right, but trust me. Spencer has a lack of insight that you can't even begin to fathom."
Libby says, "Oh, my God."
Spencer says, "I should probably try to find Brendon."
He texts Brendon and tries to call, but he doesn't get an answer. He doesn't know where all the bus stops in Summerlin are. He waits at the only one he knows is kind of close to Brendon's house for hours, but Brendon never shows. Spencer thinks about going to Brendon's parents' house and knocking on the front door, but he doesn't. Brendon's parents scare him a little bit, the way Brendon's mother looks at him like she knows exactly what's on his mind.
**********
Brendon's there at the trail juncture Monday morning, though. He falls into step next to Spencer and neither one of them talks for a really long time.
They're on their way back and the sun's starting to get really hot when Spencer says, "Did you stalk me on my date?"
"No," Brendon says. "Sort of. I wasn't stalking you, exactly. I just wanted to see. What you looked like. I wanted to see what you looked like with him. I wanted to see if you looked happy."
"Did I?"
Brendon shrugs. "You were flirting with him. I was across the street when I finally saw you, but I could tell."
"I went home with him," Spencer says.
Brendon looks down at the ground. He says, "I figured."
"Do you wanna go see a movie later?" Spencer asks.
"Don't you have therapy?"
"Yeah. I could skip it."
"You probably shouldn't."
"I can skip one day, Brendon."
Brendon shakes his head. They near the junction where the trail leading to his house breaks off from the trail leading to Spencer's. "I'll see you later," he says, but he doesn't wave and he doesn't look back.
**********
"I have dreams about dying sometimes," Spencer tells Linda. "Dreams where I die. They're kind of peaceful."
"Do you still want to die?" she asks him. Her voice is gentle but her eyes are sharp and alert.
"No."
"Can you stay that truthfully?"
Spencer thinks for a moment, then nods. "Yeah. I don't want to die. But I still dream about it. I don't know what it means."
Linda shrugs. "Not every dream has a deep meaning."
"In the dreams I know I'm going to die before it happens and I'm not scared. I just sort of let go and let it happen. What do you think that means?"
"I don't know. What do you think it means?"
"Probably that I'm still pretty fucked up."
"You're doing a lot better than you were."
"Do you think so?"
"Yeah. Don't you?"
"It's relative, I guess. I was really fucked up before."
"Up is still up," Linda says.
**********
Brendon still meets Spencer every morning for their walks, but he doesn't say much. On Thursday morning they don't speak for nearly an hour, not until Brendon says, "I'm going to UNLV in the fall."
"Yeah?" Spencer asks. The cicadas are droning and it's not even nine o'clock but he suspects it's already over a hundred. "What are you going to study?"
"I actually have no idea," Brendon admits. "I'm just going to, you know, go. For now."
"Don't pick a major just because you think it will impress people," Spencer tells him. "I did that. It's kind of a really bad idea."
Brendon nods sagely. "Puppet theatre it is, then."
Spencer laughs and tries to explain the play he went to see with Thomas. "I think maybe the butter was supposed to be a metaphor for love. Or maybe money. I don't know. I don't really get metaphors. There was a lot of butter. There was a bust of George Washington made out of butter and then they melted it with torches and then they rolled in it."
Brendon opens his mouth to say something, but he just laughs instead. He doesn't take the trail back to his house when they pass it, just walks side by side with Spencer towards his parents' place.
"Do you like him?" Brendon asks, tipping his face up towards the sun. "I mean, I know that you like him. Just. Is it serious?"
"It's not," Spencer says. "I only went out with him because I'd never been on a date before and I wanted to see what it was like. It's not like. I haven't called him, and he's not going to call me. So."
"Oh," says Brendon.
The air conditioning feels so amazing when they get inside. Spencer pours them both glasses of ice water and then he stretches out on the cool tile of the kitchen floor. "I think I might have heatstroke," he says.
Brendon looks at the thermometer mounted on the kitchen window. "One oh eight already," he tells Spencer. "In Calgary, it only got into the seventies in the summer."
"Christ," says Spencer.
"I wore a lot of sweaters. People thought I was really weird. I mean, they thought I was weird, anyway. I was a bad missionary." He stretches out on the tile next to Spencer.
"It's probably the kind of thing you have to believe in," Spencer says.
"I guess. I wanted to. I just never did."
It takes Spencer forever to stop sweating, and when he does he feels sticky and gross. "I'm going to shower," he says, pushing himself up off the floor.
He doesn't lock the bathroom door, and when he hears it open he's only a little surprised. He closes his eyes and sticks his face beneath the spray, and the cold air makes his skin prickle when Brendon opens the shower door and steps in behind him.
"This is okay, right?" Brendon asks softly.
Spencer wipes the water out of his eyes and nods. He says, "Yeah."
Kissing Brendon feels as natural as smiling at Brendon, as normal as meeting him every morning for their walks. Even though they're wet and naked and Brendon's cock is starting to press hard into Spencer's hip, even though Spencer cares about him and wants Brendon to care back, it's not weird or overwhelming at all.
"I've never," Brendon says as Spencer soaps him up. He shivers and rolls his hips when Spencer soaps up his cock, strokes his balls. "I haven't been with anyone like this before," he says.
"I know," Spencer says gently. "Turn around."
Brendon turns and Spencer soaps up his back and his arms, slides his fingers into the crack of Brendon's ass. Brendon gasps and widens his stance, leaning his head against the shower wall.
Spencer rinses them both off and dries Brendon gently, kissing his damp skin over and over again. He sinks to his knees and takes Brendon into his mouth, and Brendon comes, keening, one hand in Spencer's hair and the other braced on the sink.
"Wait," Brendon whispers, panting, as Spencer stays kneeling, jerking himself off. "Wait, don't yet, come on." He leads Spencer to his bedroom and says, "I want to watch you."
Spencer stretches out on his bed and covers his face with his hands. He's hard and aching but so self-conscious that he just wants to curl up and turn away.
"No," Brendon tells him. "It's okay. I've just never. I've never seen somebody else when they. I want to see you."
Brendon curls up against him, kisses Spencer's throat and his jaw and his mouth, slides his hand up the inside of Spencer's thigh and cups Spencer's balls in his hands. "Spencer," he whispers.
Spencer strokes himself hard, quick, closes his eyes and takes deep breaths.
"Spencer, come on," Brendon says, and Spencer comes, shaking, arching up against Brendon's touch.
"I like you a lot," Brendon tells him later, when they're curled up beneath Spencer's covers, lazy kisses and lazy touches and the sun coming warm through the blinds.
"Me too," Spencer says.
"I know that you. That this isn't, like, that it's maybe not important--"
"Brendon," Spencer says weakly, and kisses him hard, because it is. "Brendon," he says again.
"Oh," Brendon says happily. He settles down against Spencer's chest, and Spencer can feel Brendon's smile against his skin. "Okay."
**********
"I'm thinking about getting an apartment," he tells Linda.
"Okay," she says.
"I can afford it. I think. I haven't run the numbers, yet, but I make good commissions at the gallery. And I wouldn't be that far away from home. And it would be closer to work, and to campus. I'm not. I don't think I'm ready to go back, yet, but maybe soon. Maybe in the spring."
"I think it's a great idea," Linda tells him. "So who are you trying to convince?"
**********
"I'm thinking about getting an apartment," he tells his family that night at dinner. "Somewhere closer to work."
"You're not leaving this house," his mother says.
"He can't stay here forever," his father says softly, reaching out to touch her hand. "You're welcome to stay here as long as you need to," he tells Spencer. "But if you think you're ready for your own place, we can probably help with the deposit."
"The hell we will," says his mother. She slams her napkin down on the table and storms off.
Spencer's sisters look down at their plates, saying nothing.
"I've run the numbers," Spencer says softly. "I can afford it on my own."
His father nods and says, "Still. We'll help."
He finds his mother in her room after dinner. He says, "I'll be closer than I was when I was at school. Just across town. I can even come home for dinner. Probably not every night but, you know. A lot."
His mother reaches out and touches his arm, turns it to look at his wrist. His scars are healed, but they're still shiny and pink, turning white at the edges. "I can't lose you," she says, and she's close to crying. "I don't know what I would have done, what I'd do if I ever lost you."
He sits next to her on the bed and says, "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
"When you have children," she says, "you'll know. You'll know that nothing could be worse."
Spencer can't imagine a life with children in it, but he knows that doesn't mean much. A year before he couldn't have imagined being happy.
**********
"Oh, my God," Spencer says as Brendon swirls the ketchup and Hollandaise together to make a murky, vaguely orange soup. "You're so disgusting. I can't believe I love someone who's so disgusting."
Brendon grins and leans into Spencer's shoulder and tips his head up for a kiss.
"Last week," Libby says, "I caught Ryan eating ranch dressing out of the jar."
Spencer groans in disgust.
"Hey," says Ryan, dipping a forkful of hashbrowns into Brendon's ketchup-Hollandaise atrocity. "I was using a spoon."
"We love heathens," Spencer says.
"Seriously," Libby agrees.
Spencer tries to ignore what's going on over on Brendon's side of the table and focuses on his French toast, instead. "I'm thinking about getting an apartment somewhere around here."
"Yeah?" Ryan asks. "I think there's a place for rent in the complex across from ours. It's a shitty neighborhood, but the high rent makes up for it."
"Can we paint the walls?" Brendon asks.
"It would probably be an improvement," Libby says. "You might have to paint them back to white when you leave but, yeah, most places around here are okay with you giving their apartments a facelift."
"I want to paint our bedroom blue," Brendon says. "Like the ocean."
Spencer slides his arm around Brendon's shoulders and kisses his temple. "Yeah," he says. "Blue would be nice."
Pairing: Brendon/Spencer
Rating: R
Warnings: mentions of a prior suicide attempt
Word Count: ~5,500
Summary: picks up right where Someday I'll Fly, Someday I'll Soar leaves off, and you should read that first. Spencer's maybe starting to get his life back on track.
Brendon has bad taste in pretty much everything. When they're in the car, he always finds the radio station with the worst, most banal dance music.
"They're not even playing instruments," Spencer complains. "You can't even hear their voices over the auto-tune."
Brendon grins at him and turns the music up.
When it's his turn to pick, he always drags Spencer to the worst movies, romantic comedies that invariably involve a precocious child or some sort of fuzzy animal. His pants are always just a little too short at the ankle, and when summer comes Spencer's horrified to realize that Brendon actually owns several pairs of capris.
He puts ketchup on everything, even pizza, even cookies.
"I think it's pathological," Spencer tells Ryan as they watch Brendon smother his Eggs Benedict in ketchup.
Ryan shrugs and dips one of his fries into the pool of ketchup and Hollandaise on Brendon's plate.
"Traitor," says Spencer.
Ryan grins at him.
They have brunch every Sunday afternoon at a little restaurant around the corner from Ryan and Libby's apartment. The food is cheap and good and there's always a long wait for a table; Brendon usually crowds into Spencer's personal space as they wait, watching the other diners and absentmindedly biting his nails.
"One day," Spencer tells him, "you're going to chew down too far and your nail bed's going to get infected, you'll get gangrene, and you'll have to have all your fingers amputated."
Brendon pulls his hand away from his mouth. "You just don't like the sound my teeth make against my nails."
Spencer nods. "That, too."
"Where's Libby?" Brendon asks halfway through brunch.
"Working," Ryan says. "They had two people at the gallery quit last week."
"We should bring her waffles," Brendon says. Libby always orders the Belgian waffles with strawberries and whipped cream. Ryan flags down the waitress and gets an order to go.
"I come bearing gifts," Ryan says, holding up the Styrofoam box as they walk into the tiny art gallery where Libby works.
"You know we can't have food in here," Libby tells him.
Ryan kisses her cheek. "So go eat it in the office. You didn't have breakfast before you left, and I know you're starving."
Libby pops open the food container and sighs. "I wish. I can't leave the floor."
"Go eat something," Spencer tells her. "If anybody shows up, I promise we won't let them steal anything."
"At least not anything valuable," Brendon assures her.
Libby heads to the back office to eat her waffles and Brendon walks around the gallery looking at all the art. He giggles nervously, and when Spencer looks over he sees Brendon standing in front of a statue of a masturbating woman.
"You're twelve," Spencer tells him.
"I've just never seen a bronze vagina before."
"You've never seen a vagina at all."
Brendon shrugs and laughs and says, "Yeah. Maybe."
Spencer sits at Libby's little kiosk and starts flipping through her magazine. It's about art, so it's kind of beyond him, but at least it's something to look at. He feels someone standing just outside his personal space bubble and looks up at a woman in a red polka-dot dress. "Hi," he says.
"What can you tell me about that painting?" she asks, pointing. Thankfully the painting she's pointing at is one of Libby's.
"That's by Libby Campbell," he says. "She's a local artist who works mainly in the remodernist style." He doesn't actually know what that means, but he's heard Libby mention remodernism before.
The woman says, "I don't know if it will fit over my couch."
"If you want something to fit over your couch, you should probably go to the Thomas Kinkade gallery," Spencer tells her. "I can give you directions."
The woman looks horrified. She goes back to look at Libby's painting. It's one of the most vibrant watercolors Spencer's ever seen, the blue and black of power lines cutting through a fierce orange-red sunrise.
"How soon can you have it delivered?" the woman asks him.
"Probably by Tuesday, but let me just go check with my boss," he says. He heads back to Libby's tiny little office. "So I just sold that sunrise painting of yours," he tells her. "I told the lady it was worth five grand but she talked me down to three. I hope that's okay. She wants it delivered by Tuesday."
Libby chokes on a strawberry and Ryan slaps her on the back and she has to take a few sips of coffee before the choking subsides. "Three grand?" she asks him.
"Is that bad?"
"That's about five times what she usually charges for her work," Ryan says as Libby gets up and hurries out of the office. "I always told her she was selling herself short."
**********
In the dream, Spencer's driving at night along a deserted stretch of road. Not the desert, but a rural country road with trees and fields, the kind they had back east. It's the middle of the night and it's so dark and Spencer can hardly see anything.
He's sitting in the back seat. He's driving, but he's sitting in the back seat, anyway, and he can barely reach the controls. He fumbles with the headlights, can't tell if they're on or not. Way ahead of him in the distance he sees the taillights of a truck.
He plays with the headlights and he gets them to go a little brighter but then they go out completely and he's barreling along this road in total darkness and he's going to hit the truck. He's going so fast, and he knows he's going to crash, and he can't see, and he just sits forward a little bit thinking, "Yes, yes, now."
He wakes up just as his car hits the truck from behind. In the crumbling fragments of the dream Spencer can still remember that it wasn't like an actual car crash at all. Instead, his car just barreled into the truck and everything started to disintegrate like in a video game. Spencer's got giddy anticipation in the pit of his stomach and his skin is tingling and he thinks, Game over.
He doesn't tell anyone about the dream, especially Linda.
**********
Spencer's mother hates his new job.
"I sit in an art gallery all day reading comic books," he tells her. There's a comic book store down the street from the gallery, and Brendon had dragged him inside excitedly, talking about having to give comics up for two years, talking about rebuilding his collection. "There are never more than three customers there at a time. It's very low pressure."
"You read comic books when you're supposed to be working?" she asks.
"They're art," he tells her. Sort of. He figures if anybody actually asks him about them point blank, he can pretend he's just reading them to be ironic. "There's really not much else to do. Sometimes I dust."
"I don't think you're ready," she says.
He shrugs. "Only one way to find out."
He only works at the gallery on Tuesdays and Fridays. On Mondays and Wednesdays he goes to see Linda. Thursdays are his own.
He still goes for walks every morning, early before the heat gets really bad. He walks a few blocks and waits at the juncture of two trails for Brendon to show up, and then they walk together. One Thursday morning Brendon shows up in cut-off jean shorts, clunky Payless running shoes, and a bright purple t-shirt with a screen-print of sunglasses all over it. It reads, Keep the Son in your eyes!
"Oh, my God, I need to take you shopping," Spencer tells him.
Brendon looks down at what he's wearing and says, "Okay."
They spend the entire day in the air-conditioned mall finding Brendon clothes. Spencer doesn't go crazy with it, doesn't try to get Brendon into high fashion or anything, but he firmly believes that Brendon is in desperate need of quality basics.
Brendon tries everything on for him, comes out of the dressing room backwards, shaking his ass just to make Spencer laugh. They end up getting him four or five pairs of jeans that he makes Brendon promise not to cut off at the knee, bunches of white t-shirts with both crew- and v-necks, more t-shirts in gray and red and black and navy. They get him casual button-downs in white and chambray and several different types of plaid.
Spencer doesn't believe in shorts, so he gets Brendon lightweight khaki pants in beige and stone and putty.
"I never knew putty was a color," Brendon says, looking at the tag.
The shoes are the best part. It's easy for Spencer to talk Brendon into giving up his plastic discount-store sneakers for Converse and Adidas.
Spencer buys a pair of red canvas boat shoes for himself. He also gets a pair of distressed pale beige suede wingtips, some baby-soft moccasin style loafers, and at Brendon's urging, a pair of ridiculous white Nike high-tops with a bright red swoosh on the side. Secretly, he likes the high-tops best.
"You really needed four new pairs of shoes?" his mother asks him when he gets home.
"I only have two," he says.
"There are twenty pairs of shoes in those boxes you won't unpack," she tells him.
Spencer says. "Oh. Right."
**********
Back when Spencer had been involuntarily committed to the psych ward for seventy-two hours, his mom had gone through and packed up his entire dorm room and shipped the boxes home. He's never asked her about it, never asked if his roommate helped, never asked if anyone at the school gave her a hard time about gaining access to his room to gather up all his stuff.
Most of the boxes are sitting in the garage, unopened. She'd done a good job at pulling out the things that Spencer would think were essential, his laptop and his phone, all the right power cords, a good selection of clothes.
Spencer sits in the garage on top of the long freezer where his mom keeps all the meat and the ice cream. It's hot in the garage, the middle of summer, no air conditioning. He says, "It was kind of like this the first time. I was sitting on my bed looking at my backpack, thinking I should take the books out and get ready for my next class. But I didn't. I just looked at it for a really long time."
Ryan says, "You're an idiot," and tears into the closest box. He holds up the pillow from Spencer's bed. "Keep or throw?"
"What?" Spencer asks.
"Do you want to keep it or get rid of it?"
"I, um, I don't know."
"Throw," says Ryan, and he tosses it into a waiting laundry basket.
Spencer eventually climbs down off the freezer to help. They open the garage door to get a little bit of a breeze and they break into the freezer periodically for popsicles that melt alarmingly fast in the heat.
Spencer doesn't end up keeping much. The shoes, the clothes he likes best, the watch his father gave him for his high school graduation.
Ryan goes through his books and he keeps shaking his head and clucking his tongue. "Do you have any fiction in here at all?" he asks.
Spencer doubts it. "I didn't really have time to read," he says.
Ryan shakes his head. "No wonder you went crazy."
Once the things he's keeping are up in his room and the things that are going are packed neatly into boxes in the back of Spencer's mom's minivan, Ryan laughs nervously and says, "So, um, Libby might be pregnant."
Spencer doesn't know what to say. He says, "Wow. That's....that's, um. I don't know what it is."
"Terrifying," Ryan tells him. "If she is, she wants to keep it."
Spencer sits down next to him on the front stoop and hands him a popsicle. "Wow," he says. "When will she find out?"
"Today. That's why I'm here. I'm trying not to think about it." He sighs and bites off the top quarter of his popsicle, talks with it melting on his tongue. "I love her, and kids, yeah, okay, one day, but now? I mean, if she is then of course I'm gonna be there and shit, but..." He shakes his head. "I don't know how the fuck to be a dad."
They're still sitting on the front stoop, sweating even in the shade, when Libby pulls up in her old VW Bug. She gets out of the car and runs towards them a few steps before throwing her arms up in the air and shouting, "Thank the Lord and get me a beer!"
Ryan laughs and swoops her up into his arms and she complains about him being gross and sweaty but she doesn't seem to mean it.
When his mother raises her eyebrows at the three of them drinking beer at the kitchen table at one o'clock in the afternoon, Spencer says, "We're celebrating. Ryan and I cleaned all the boxes out of the garage, and Libby's not knocked up."
"Thank God," says Libby.
Ryan leans his chin on her shoulder and nuzzles against her hair. "I'm disappointed. I was looking forward to you getting really, really fat."
Libby elbows him. "You were not."
"Well, the fat I'd be okay with, it's the whole kid thing that had me freaked out."
Spencer's mother puts her hand to her chest. "Don't scare me like that. I'm too young to be a grandmother."
"It's not like I'm going to give you any," Spencer tells her.
She straightens up, the way she does when she's annoyed. "You can adopt," she says. "Or inseminate a lesbian."
Ryan says, "I thought you hadn't come out to them, yet."
"I haven't," Spencer tells him.
Spencer's mother sighs and rolls her eyes. "I've had a lot more time on this earth than either one of you and I'm not an idiot. I've been waiting for you to tell me for years, Spencer James."
Spencer looks down at the kitchen table and says, "Oh."
**********
"I think everyone knew I was gay before I did," Spencer tells Linda. "I wish they would have told me. I could have used the heads up."
Linda says, "Have you thought about starting to date again?"
Spencer says, "What do you mean, again?"
Spencer's never actually gone on a date. He's hooked up with guys, but never the same one more than once or twice.
The next day he's working at the gallery with Libby and there's no one else there. He looks up from his comic book and says, "My therapist thinks I should start dating."
Libby looks up from her art magazine. She says, "Thomas totally has a crush on you."
Thomas is one of the local artists whose work the gallery displays. He's in his thirties. He's relatively attractive in kind of a nerdy, hipster way.
"I'm going to give you his number," Libby says. "You should call him."
Spencer says, "Um. Okay."
In the end, Thomas calls him and invites him to a play the next week.
"I don't know anything about plays," he says as he tries to get ready. He doesn't know what to wear.
Ryan's lounging on his bed, writing in a notebook.
"Ryan," Spencer says.
"Plays are kind of like movies, only the actors are right there in the same room with you instead of on film," Ryan says. "You'll be fine. Wear the green shirt. It brings out the blue in your eyes."
The play's experimental. Or maybe avant-garde. Spencer's not sure. He doesn't really know what's going on the whole time.
"How did you like it?" Thomas asks as they leave the theatre.
"It was, um," Spencer says. "Avant-garde."
"You hated it," Thomas says, looking disappointed.
"No," Spencer tells him. "Only, yes. I'm not actually artistic, you know. I only work at the gallery because I'm good at bullshitting customers into spending money."
"It's really kind of just a metaphor," Thomas tells him.
Spencer says, "I'm sure it is."
Thomas looks disappointed again, looks away from Spencer like he's ashamed.
"Hey," Spencer says, "just because I didn't like the play doesn't mean I don't want to go back to your place for sex."
Thomas looks over at him. "Really?"
"Yeah," Spencer says. "You shouldn't have to go without a blowjob just because I'm not sophisticated enough to enjoy experimental theatre."
Across the street, he catches sight of someone in khakis and a navy and aqua plaid button-down. He's pretty sure it's Brendon, but when he looks again, the guy is gone.
**********
"How do you feel about sleeping with him on the first date?" Linda asks.
Spencer says, "Am I supposed to have feelings about something like that?"
"If you don't, we should maybe talk about why that is."
"It was just sex," Spencer tells her. "You're the one who wanted me to date."
"Dating implies making a connection, Spencer."
"I made a connection," he says. "Physically."
"We already know you can connect with people physically," she says. "Now you're trying to make emotional connections. You're trying to make friends. Do you think you can go on a date with someone and try to connect intellectually? Emotionally?"
Spencer says, "I don't think I want to."
**********
The weird thing about art is that its inherent worth isn't monetary. A piece can be exquisite and priceless even if it's never sold. Money only comes into the picture because artists are like everyone else in that they need to eat.
Spencer spends a lot of time looking at the art in the gallery and thinking about how obscene it is to put a price tag on somebody's creative output. And he thinks if he has to put a price tag on things, which he does, because it's his job to keep the artists from dying of starvation, then he can pick any fucking number he wants and it will be accurate.
Libby's paintings are starting to go for five or six grand apiece, for no reason other than the fact that they've sold her paintings for three and four grand in the past. They're still just as amazing as they were when she was selling them for six hundred dollars, only now Spencer's there with his air of bored indifference and his confidence that the numbers he's quoting the customers are accurate. Which they are. Even if he is just making most of them up.
"I feel kind of like a con man," he admits one Sunday over brunch. "Only I'm using my powers for good instead of evil."
"My bank account thanks you," Libby tells him. "As do the people who collect on my student loans."
"Hey," Spencer says as he notices that Brendon's just pushing his Eggs Benedict around on his plate. "Are you okay?"
"Fine," Brendon says, but he doesn't eat anything. He doesn't even reach for the bottle of ketchup.
After brunch, Brendon doesn't want to go back to Ryan and Libby's and drink mimosas all afternoon the way they usually do. He doesn't even want to look at comics. "I'm just going to go home," he says and he walks away and stands at a bus stop.
Spencer follows him. "You're taking the bus?" he asks.
"Obviously."
"All the way back to Summerlin."
"No, I thought I'd take it halfway and then walk the rest. Yes, back to Summerlin."
"It's going to take you all afternoon to get there."
Brendon shrugs and looks the other way.
"Just let me drive you back."
"I don't want you to."
"Are you mad at me?"
"No," Brendon answers quickly. He shakes his head. "No. I just feel like taking the bus."
Spencer nods and stands there with his hands in his pockets, gazing out at the street.
"What are you guys doing?" Ryan asks, walking up to them.
"Taking the bus," Spencer tells him.
Ryan frowns. "Your car's parked, like, two blocks away."
"I know, but Brendon wants to take the bus."
Ryan looks at Spencer, then he looks at Brendon. He says, "You're both so stupid it hurts me to look at you."
"The bus is coming," says Spencer.
"Neither one of you is taking the fucking bus," Ryan snaps. "Jesus Christ. I'm going to fucking kill Libby."
"Why?" Spencer asks.
"It's not her fault," says Brendon.
"What's not her fault?" Spencer asks.
The bus pulls up and Brendon gets on. Spencer starts to follow him, but Ryan grabs his wrist and holds tight.
"I was going to go with him," Spencer says as they watch the bus pull away.
"Your car," Ryan tells him. "Two blocks. Drive back. Am I using small enough words?"
"Where'd Brendon go?" Libby asks when they find her window shopping.
"He took the bus back to Summerlin," Ryan says.
"Does the bus even go all the way to Summerlin?" Libby asks.
"I have absolutely no idea," Ryan says. He walks faster than them, towards the apartment, looks over his shoulder darkly at Libby and says, "This is all your fault."
When they get back to the apartment, Libby makes mimosas, but Spencer's the only one who drinks his. Libby and Ryan have retreated to their bedroom and Spencer can hear their voices, tense and angry, from his spot on the couch.
He doesn't want to be there anymore. He gets up and finds his keys and wonders if he should wait for a break in the fight to tell them he's leaving or if he should just go.
The bedroom door flies open and Libby stalks out, eyes narrowed. "Spencer, tell Ryan that you're a grown fucking man," she snaps. "Tell him that if you wanted to date Brendon you'd fucking date Brendon. Tell him that you don't need people fucking tiptoeing around you, like, trying to secretly guide you in the right fucking direction." Libby curses a lot when she's angry.
Spencer says, "What?"
"Tell him that he can't be pissed at me for fixing you up because if you wanted to be dating Brendon you would have just fucking asked him already."
Spencer says, "I. Um. Oh."
Libby frowns at him.
"Baby," Ryan says wearily. "I love you, and you're usually right, but trust me. Spencer has a lack of insight that you can't even begin to fathom."
Libby says, "Oh, my God."
Spencer says, "I should probably try to find Brendon."
He texts Brendon and tries to call, but he doesn't get an answer. He doesn't know where all the bus stops in Summerlin are. He waits at the only one he knows is kind of close to Brendon's house for hours, but Brendon never shows. Spencer thinks about going to Brendon's parents' house and knocking on the front door, but he doesn't. Brendon's parents scare him a little bit, the way Brendon's mother looks at him like she knows exactly what's on his mind.
**********
Brendon's there at the trail juncture Monday morning, though. He falls into step next to Spencer and neither one of them talks for a really long time.
They're on their way back and the sun's starting to get really hot when Spencer says, "Did you stalk me on my date?"
"No," Brendon says. "Sort of. I wasn't stalking you, exactly. I just wanted to see. What you looked like. I wanted to see what you looked like with him. I wanted to see if you looked happy."
"Did I?"
Brendon shrugs. "You were flirting with him. I was across the street when I finally saw you, but I could tell."
"I went home with him," Spencer says.
Brendon looks down at the ground. He says, "I figured."
"Do you wanna go see a movie later?" Spencer asks.
"Don't you have therapy?"
"Yeah. I could skip it."
"You probably shouldn't."
"I can skip one day, Brendon."
Brendon shakes his head. They near the junction where the trail leading to his house breaks off from the trail leading to Spencer's. "I'll see you later," he says, but he doesn't wave and he doesn't look back.
**********
"I have dreams about dying sometimes," Spencer tells Linda. "Dreams where I die. They're kind of peaceful."
"Do you still want to die?" she asks him. Her voice is gentle but her eyes are sharp and alert.
"No."
"Can you stay that truthfully?"
Spencer thinks for a moment, then nods. "Yeah. I don't want to die. But I still dream about it. I don't know what it means."
Linda shrugs. "Not every dream has a deep meaning."
"In the dreams I know I'm going to die before it happens and I'm not scared. I just sort of let go and let it happen. What do you think that means?"
"I don't know. What do you think it means?"
"Probably that I'm still pretty fucked up."
"You're doing a lot better than you were."
"Do you think so?"
"Yeah. Don't you?"
"It's relative, I guess. I was really fucked up before."
"Up is still up," Linda says.
**********
Brendon still meets Spencer every morning for their walks, but he doesn't say much. On Thursday morning they don't speak for nearly an hour, not until Brendon says, "I'm going to UNLV in the fall."
"Yeah?" Spencer asks. The cicadas are droning and it's not even nine o'clock but he suspects it's already over a hundred. "What are you going to study?"
"I actually have no idea," Brendon admits. "I'm just going to, you know, go. For now."
"Don't pick a major just because you think it will impress people," Spencer tells him. "I did that. It's kind of a really bad idea."
Brendon nods sagely. "Puppet theatre it is, then."
Spencer laughs and tries to explain the play he went to see with Thomas. "I think maybe the butter was supposed to be a metaphor for love. Or maybe money. I don't know. I don't really get metaphors. There was a lot of butter. There was a bust of George Washington made out of butter and then they melted it with torches and then they rolled in it."
Brendon opens his mouth to say something, but he just laughs instead. He doesn't take the trail back to his house when they pass it, just walks side by side with Spencer towards his parents' place.
"Do you like him?" Brendon asks, tipping his face up towards the sun. "I mean, I know that you like him. Just. Is it serious?"
"It's not," Spencer says. "I only went out with him because I'd never been on a date before and I wanted to see what it was like. It's not like. I haven't called him, and he's not going to call me. So."
"Oh," says Brendon.
The air conditioning feels so amazing when they get inside. Spencer pours them both glasses of ice water and then he stretches out on the cool tile of the kitchen floor. "I think I might have heatstroke," he says.
Brendon looks at the thermometer mounted on the kitchen window. "One oh eight already," he tells Spencer. "In Calgary, it only got into the seventies in the summer."
"Christ," says Spencer.
"I wore a lot of sweaters. People thought I was really weird. I mean, they thought I was weird, anyway. I was a bad missionary." He stretches out on the tile next to Spencer.
"It's probably the kind of thing you have to believe in," Spencer says.
"I guess. I wanted to. I just never did."
It takes Spencer forever to stop sweating, and when he does he feels sticky and gross. "I'm going to shower," he says, pushing himself up off the floor.
He doesn't lock the bathroom door, and when he hears it open he's only a little surprised. He closes his eyes and sticks his face beneath the spray, and the cold air makes his skin prickle when Brendon opens the shower door and steps in behind him.
"This is okay, right?" Brendon asks softly.
Spencer wipes the water out of his eyes and nods. He says, "Yeah."
Kissing Brendon feels as natural as smiling at Brendon, as normal as meeting him every morning for their walks. Even though they're wet and naked and Brendon's cock is starting to press hard into Spencer's hip, even though Spencer cares about him and wants Brendon to care back, it's not weird or overwhelming at all.
"I've never," Brendon says as Spencer soaps him up. He shivers and rolls his hips when Spencer soaps up his cock, strokes his balls. "I haven't been with anyone like this before," he says.
"I know," Spencer says gently. "Turn around."
Brendon turns and Spencer soaps up his back and his arms, slides his fingers into the crack of Brendon's ass. Brendon gasps and widens his stance, leaning his head against the shower wall.
Spencer rinses them both off and dries Brendon gently, kissing his damp skin over and over again. He sinks to his knees and takes Brendon into his mouth, and Brendon comes, keening, one hand in Spencer's hair and the other braced on the sink.
"Wait," Brendon whispers, panting, as Spencer stays kneeling, jerking himself off. "Wait, don't yet, come on." He leads Spencer to his bedroom and says, "I want to watch you."
Spencer stretches out on his bed and covers his face with his hands. He's hard and aching but so self-conscious that he just wants to curl up and turn away.
"No," Brendon tells him. "It's okay. I've just never. I've never seen somebody else when they. I want to see you."
Brendon curls up against him, kisses Spencer's throat and his jaw and his mouth, slides his hand up the inside of Spencer's thigh and cups Spencer's balls in his hands. "Spencer," he whispers.
Spencer strokes himself hard, quick, closes his eyes and takes deep breaths.
"Spencer, come on," Brendon says, and Spencer comes, shaking, arching up against Brendon's touch.
"I like you a lot," Brendon tells him later, when they're curled up beneath Spencer's covers, lazy kisses and lazy touches and the sun coming warm through the blinds.
"Me too," Spencer says.
"I know that you. That this isn't, like, that it's maybe not important--"
"Brendon," Spencer says weakly, and kisses him hard, because it is. "Brendon," he says again.
"Oh," Brendon says happily. He settles down against Spencer's chest, and Spencer can feel Brendon's smile against his skin. "Okay."
**********
"I'm thinking about getting an apartment," he tells Linda.
"Okay," she says.
"I can afford it. I think. I haven't run the numbers, yet, but I make good commissions at the gallery. And I wouldn't be that far away from home. And it would be closer to work, and to campus. I'm not. I don't think I'm ready to go back, yet, but maybe soon. Maybe in the spring."
"I think it's a great idea," Linda tells him. "So who are you trying to convince?"
**********
"I'm thinking about getting an apartment," he tells his family that night at dinner. "Somewhere closer to work."
"You're not leaving this house," his mother says.
"He can't stay here forever," his father says softly, reaching out to touch her hand. "You're welcome to stay here as long as you need to," he tells Spencer. "But if you think you're ready for your own place, we can probably help with the deposit."
"The hell we will," says his mother. She slams her napkin down on the table and storms off.
Spencer's sisters look down at their plates, saying nothing.
"I've run the numbers," Spencer says softly. "I can afford it on my own."
His father nods and says, "Still. We'll help."
He finds his mother in her room after dinner. He says, "I'll be closer than I was when I was at school. Just across town. I can even come home for dinner. Probably not every night but, you know. A lot."
His mother reaches out and touches his arm, turns it to look at his wrist. His scars are healed, but they're still shiny and pink, turning white at the edges. "I can't lose you," she says, and she's close to crying. "I don't know what I would have done, what I'd do if I ever lost you."
He sits next to her on the bed and says, "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
"When you have children," she says, "you'll know. You'll know that nothing could be worse."
Spencer can't imagine a life with children in it, but he knows that doesn't mean much. A year before he couldn't have imagined being happy.
**********
"Oh, my God," Spencer says as Brendon swirls the ketchup and Hollandaise together to make a murky, vaguely orange soup. "You're so disgusting. I can't believe I love someone who's so disgusting."
Brendon grins and leans into Spencer's shoulder and tips his head up for a kiss.
"Last week," Libby says, "I caught Ryan eating ranch dressing out of the jar."
Spencer groans in disgust.
"Hey," says Ryan, dipping a forkful of hashbrowns into Brendon's ketchup-Hollandaise atrocity. "I was using a spoon."
"We love heathens," Spencer says.
"Seriously," Libby agrees.
Spencer tries to ignore what's going on over on Brendon's side of the table and focuses on his French toast, instead. "I'm thinking about getting an apartment somewhere around here."
"Yeah?" Ryan asks. "I think there's a place for rent in the complex across from ours. It's a shitty neighborhood, but the high rent makes up for it."
"Can we paint the walls?" Brendon asks.
"It would probably be an improvement," Libby says. "You might have to paint them back to white when you leave but, yeah, most places around here are okay with you giving their apartments a facelift."
"I want to paint our bedroom blue," Brendon says. "Like the ocean."
Spencer slides his arm around Brendon's shoulders and kisses his temple. "Yeah," he says. "Blue would be nice."