Bandfic: Dreams From the Other Side [2/5] (Brendon/Spencer. R.)

[tigs]

iv.

It still sucks the next day, a whole fucking lot.

Possibly because there are a few minutes there, first thing in the morning, when Spencer forgets. He forgets that Ryan and Jon won’t be coming over later in the day, or that he and Brendon won’t be heading out to Topanga Canyon. He forgets that they’re essentially two duos now, rather than a cohesive foursome, and it-

It really fucking sucks.

When Spencer does get up, finally, rousing Bogart from his place draped over Spencer’s ankle, he makes his way to the kitchen and finds Brendon sitting at the table already, drinking OJ and attempting to work the crossword. Brendon doesn’t look much better than Spencer feels.

Spencer gets the cereal out of the cupboard, pours himself a bowl, and then sits down across from Brendon. He’s eaten half it before Brendon says, “So.”

There are several things for Spencer to say to that: that they need to talk to Pete, the lawyers. That they need to go down to Brendon’s music room and start doing more than just fucking around, tinkering with songs that they know don’t fit in with what Ryan and Jon have planned.

The more Spencer thinks about it, though, the less hungry he feels, so he pushes the bowl away and says, “I think-I think this is a day to go to the beach. What do you say?”

Brendon nods, perhaps too eagerly, and it feels so easy to grab the boards, the wet suits, to get in the car and drive. Because this, this feels like any other day. It doesn’t feel like they’ve woken up in this whole brave new world place, where nothing is as it’s supposed to be.

And it’s a good day. They laugh maybe just a little too loudly at each other’s jokes, try a little too hard to keep silence from falling; they ride the waves, lose themselves in the rush of the water, and-

And Spencer makes it until about three, until they’re collapsed on the sand, staring up at the blue of the sky, and then he says, “We need to talk to Pete. I-we need to, sooner rather than later.”

Brendon’s silent beside Spencer, but when Spencer looks over at him, he’s nodding. His smile’s gone and his knuckles have gone just a shade or two whiter, bunched in his towel. Spencer wants to take the words back, he does, but Pete will excuse them for not telling him in the first 24 hours. Most likely. Longer than that, Spencer’s not so sure.

So right there, sitting on the beach, watching the waves come in, he calls Pete.

Pete sounds happy enough when he picks up, saying, “Yo,” and “What’s up?” and “Dude, Bronx just totally banged out the drum line for ‘Dance, Dance’ on the PlaySkool drum kit that Andy got him last week, you should have heard it.”

He sounds somewhat less happy after Spencer says, “Um. We, Brendon and I, the three of us need to talk. Um. Any chance you’re free tonight?”

*

It goes better than Spencer thinks that it’s going to. Perhaps because Pete just lets them talk, lets them tell their side of the story. Spencer has no doubt that Pete will be calling Ryan as soon as he leaves, if he hasn’t already, but for now, Pete just listens.

Regan and Shane make themselves scarce before Pete gets there, so they start off in Brendon’s dining room, poking at takeout from down the road, while Pete listens. When they move out to the backyard for beers, the dogs follow them, Bogart stopping on his way out the door to pick up a tennis ball in his teeth. Spencer watches as he carefully drops it on Pete’s shoe as soon as they sit down.

Pete looks down at Bogart for a long moment, long enough that Bogart shifts his weight four times, forward and back again, before barking once, sharply. Pete laughs then and bends down to scratch at Bogart’s ears, ruffling them. It’s only when Bogart’s barked a second time that he picks up the ball and tosses it most of the way across the yard.

Then Pete says, “So,” and Spencer nods.

“Brendon’s been writing,” he says finally. “We’ve both been- The two of us, we haven’t just been sitting around-“ He pauses and takes a deep breath, looking over at Brendon. Brendon’s scratching at the label on his beer, starting to peel it away from the bottle. He’d been talking earlier about some of his thoughts and ideas, about a few songs that they’d let get farther than simple melodies, but he’s quiet now. “We’re going to be okay.”

“I have no doubt about that,” Pete says, sounding almost amused. “You dudes, all of you? You make things work for you.”

“We can have a few demos for you soon,” Brendon says, and Spencer’s a little surprised, because Brendon’s been quiet for what feels like several minutes at this point now, even if he has been nodding along. “Maybe by next week? So you could get a feel for the sound?”

Spencer nods. “We have been working, too,” he says again, reinforcement, in case Pete thinks that they’re trying to rush it, getting something out to him that soon. “It’s just, what we have wasn’t fitting with what-“

“Yeah,” Pete says. “Yeah.”

Bogart chooses this moment to bump his nose against Spencer’s wrist and when Spencer looks down, he sees that the tennis ball is resting against his shoe now, just waiting for him to pick it up. He does so, gingerly, because it’s already wet, a little muddy, before he tosses it again.

When he looks back across the table, Pete’s grinning at him.

“What?” Spencer asks, and Pete shakes his head. “Nothing. Just, he’s got you well trained.”

“Yeah he does,” Brendon says, and then he leans forward, looking more lively than he has all evening, and he starts telling fucking (mostly) lies about how much Spencer is wrapped around Bogart’s little furry paw.

“Lies,” Spencer says. “Lies.”

“Don’t believe a word he says,” Brendon says, trying to slap a hand over Spencer’s mouth. Spencer bites at Brendon’s fingers as Pete laughs loud and long and says, “Dudes.”

*

The next day, Spencer is expecting it to be just as difficult to face the idea of going into the music room, or doing anything Panic! related, but it’s not. Maybe, he thinks, it’s all finally starting to sink in. Or maybe the talk with Pete made the whole thing seem more real than it had before.

Maybe if Brendon hadn’t essentially told Pete they’d have something for him to listen to within a week, or if they didn’t have a tour coming up, or- Well. There are a whole lot of ‘or’s. Maybe if those weren’t there, it would be easier for them to go to the beach again, or to spend the day wandering Amoeba Records, or to go out to lunch and spend an afternoon people watching.

Brendon did tell Pete, though, and they do have the tour coming up, and so after a late breakfast, they look at each other, then head down the stairs. They stop in the doorway to Brendon’s music room, looking at the spread of instruments: the drums in a corner, a rack of guitars off to the side, three keyboards propped up against various walls.

Brendon’s the one to walk into the room first, but Spencer’s just a step behind, and it feels weird and wrong (weird and wrong) to sit down behind his drums, but only for a moment. Only until he actually picks up his sticks, and from there it’s natural to start playing. A simple roll moving into a more complicated line, and Brendon’s following right along, playing something on the piano to match the beat, and maybe this is what Spencer needs: to just jam. To remember that he loves this, that he’s good at this.

They lose themselves for a while, just playing, before finally (finally) starting to fiddle with a few of the bits and pieces that they’ve been working on over the last several months. This, more than likely, will not be a song that goes on their (oh god, their) album-Spencer knows this; not with the memories that they’ll both forever associate with it-but it just. It feels good to write. To get the creative juices flowing.

So, they stay down there for hours, longer than Spencer realizes, until finally the door at the top of the stairs opens and Shane calls down, “Hey, so. If you’re at a stopping point? Regan brought pizza?”

Brendon’s stomach growls at the mention of food, making them both laugh, and Spencer’s just standing up to follow him out of the room when he hears the clatter of nails on wood. Bogart is suddenly dancing around his feet, whining just a little with his excitement, like he’s actually missed the two of them, what with the door being shut for most of the afternoon.

It’s fucking habit by now for him to bend down and pick Bogart up so he can carry him back up the stairs, so he does, settling the dog in the crook of his arm. When he looks over at Brendon, to make sure that Brendon’s ready to go, he sees that Brendon’s smiling at him, looking fond.

“What,” he says, maybe narrowing his eyes more than a little, which makes Brendon giggle as he says, “So wrapped around his paw!” before he makes a dash for the stairs.

Spencer thinks about trying to catch him, but Bogart’s leaning back against Spencer’s chest, sniffing at Spencer’s ear, and, well.

He looks down at Bogart and says, “Your person is fucking nuts, dude.”

Bogart whines and licks at Spencer’s chin.

*

So, they start writing the new record and it’s fucking terrifying to be doing it without Ryan’s lyrics and opinions, without Jon’s steadying influence in the corner. But it gets easier.

It gets easier as they begin to go through Brendon’s notebooks and binders and fucking shoeboxes filled with words and thoughts written on scraps of paper. They spend hours sorting through them, pairing phrases and lines together, trying to spark ideas, rhythms, and make things fit. In a way it feels like they have a box filled with pieces from a hundred different puzzles.

They spend more time just playing in Brendon’s basement, though, letting the music flow, recording everything in case they stumble across something that they have to save for later.

And it seems like it’s working, see. It’s actually working in ways, perhaps, that Spencer had never even let himself contemplate it working, because it was never supposed to just be two of them. It’s always supposed to be four, always, and fuck.

And it’s too soon, too soon, the shock of the change not yet worn off, but the truth is that Spencer’s pretty sure that he’s having more fun than he wants to admit to having, because it feels like he shouldn’t be enjoying himself this much, that it shouldn’t be working this well already, it really shouldn’t, but it seems to be, and-

See, there are times when he’s giddy with it, but there are also times-moments, hours-when it hurts like hell, where he feels like he’s missing two limbs and is pretty sure that Brendon feels the same. So after two days of progress, on the fourth day in this new reality, Spencer stands at the top of the stairs down to Brendon’s basement and it’s just-he just can’t.

He stands there for a long minute and then says, “I think- I think today I need some fucking fresh air, you know? Do you think the dogs’d like a walk?”

It’s a stupid question.

Spencer hadn’t even been speaking that loudly, but even before Brendon answers-the ‘um, duh’ is clearly visible in his expression-Spencer can hear the thundering of little doggy paws headed towards him. Spencer laughs and says, “Yeah, okay, okay.”

From there, it’s a race to get to the leashes, and Brendon gets them hooked up while Spencer goes to get his shoes. When he makes his way back to the front hall, Spencer thinks for a moment that Brendon’s going to invite himself along. Spencer wouldn’t say no, of course, but maybe Brendon’s feeling the need for a few hours away from Spencer, too. Maybe he needs to breathe just as badly as Spencer does.

So, Spencer takes hold of the leashes, Dylan and Bogart dancing around his feet in fucking joy and when they leave the house, they turn in the opposite direction of the dog park, up towards the hills, towards a trail that Shane showed Spencer a few months ago.

It’s long, quiet walk, and that, more than anything, is what Spencer needs now.

At the top of the hill there’s a small park, little more than a bench overlooking the city and a cluster of trees, but still, Spencer sits. He sits and looks out towards the ocean, barely visible on the horizon. He sits and stares and breathes and then, five, ten, twenty minutes later, he takes his phone out of his pocket and calls Ryan.

Ryan picks up on the fourth ring, just as Spencer’s about ready to hang up, because he’s not sure he wants to leave a message. Instead he says, “Hi,” short and awkward.

“Hi,” Ryan says, sounding equally awkward, and it’s not supposed to be this way. The two of them aren’t ever supposed to be awkward, especially when they only talked a few days ago. There were times between them when a day had been too long. A week would have felt-does feel-like forever.

“Can I say that it’s been too long if it’s only been a few days?” Spencer asks, and Ryan laughs.

“Always.”

So, they talk. Random stuff. Stories about Jon’s cats. About the records. About how Jon and Ryan are getting ready to demo; about how they’ve got Rob coming in to produce for them again.

And Spencer talks about the songs they’re working on, about how they’re mining Brendon’s trove of lyrics. He talks about the things that Ryan’s not asking about, and Ryan says all the right things in all of the right places, but it sounds like it’s as hard for him to hear about Spencer and Brendon’s work as it is for Spencer to hear about his and Jon’s.

Spencer thinks: too soon. And then he says, “Brendon and I, we’re still going to the Blink-182 party. We’re doing the tour.”

And maybe that, in the end, is the reason Spencer had to call today. Why he’d stood at the top of Brendon’s stairs and just hadn’t been able to go down them. Because there are conversations that they all still need to have, and this is most definitely one of them.

Ryan’s silent for a long moment, then says, “Okay.” He doesn’t sound surprised, not exactly, but he sounds like he might have been expecting them to pull out. Because right at the moment, they’re only half a band. Fuck.

“Okay,” Ryan says again, and five years ago, Spencer thinks Ryan probably would have hung up at that point. He would have ended the call and Spencer wouldn’t have heard from him for three or four days, and he would have spent hours hanging around his house, sulking, until his mom finally kicked him out, told him to go outside. And then on day five, Ryan would have called back, and it would have been like the week between conversations never happened.

Today, though, Ryan just takes a deep breath and says, “Eric and Jon and I, we’ve also been fucking around with some covers and stuff. Not for our album. Just for- For fun. We’re talking, maybe, about posting them to MySpace?”

And now it’s Spencer’s turn to swallow, and it does hurt, it does, but he also mostly means it when he says, “I want to hear. You should totally send them to us.”

“We will,” Ryan says, and Spencer thinks he maybe sounds relieved. Spencer feels a little relieved.

And, over all, Spencer supposes that it is a good conversation. It’s a needed conversation and Spencer does feel better when they hang up. Still, he stays on the bench for another twenty, thirty minutes, the dogs asleep at his feet, before he rouses them and heads back down the hill.

Brendon’s in the living room when he gets back, playing Dance Dance Revolution with Regan, and they’re mostly trying to elbow each other, kick each other off beat, and so Spencer sits down next to Shane and watches them. He’s laughing before thirty seconds have passed.

After the next song ends, it’s Shane’s turn, and Regan readjusts her ponytail and says, “Okay, Valdés, you are going down.”

Brendon flops down on the couch beside Spencer, patting his lap until both Dylan and Bogart jump up to join them. He’s still breathing heavily, the corners of his mouth still creased from smiling so hard.

“You get some air?” Brendon asks. Spencer nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “I did.” He takes a breath, then says, “I told Ryan we were going to the Blink party on Monday.”

Brendon goes still beside Spencer, and Spencer knows that if he looks over, Brendon’s smile will probably have faded.

“It’s good,” Spencer says. “We’re good.”

It takes a moment, but then Spencer hears Brendon release the breath he’d apparently been holding.

“They’re-Ryan, Jon and Eric-they’ve been fucking around with some covers and stuff. They were thinking of posting to MySpace? I told Ryan that we wanted to hear. So, you know, they might be sending those over?”

“Good,” Brendon says. “That’s… good.”

*

So, they go to the Blink-182 Summer Tour Launch Party, and fuck. It’s like.

Eight years ago, when he and Ryan were just starting to get the feel of their instruments for the first time, if someone had told him that he would be going to, well, first, a tour launch party of any sort whatsoever, and second, a tour launch party with Blink-182 and Weezer and the dudes from Taking Back Sunday, Spencer would have laughed his fucking fourteen-year old face off.

Because seriously.

Somehow, though, here he and Brendon are and it’s not as happy a day as it probably should be, what with Spencer still feeling like he should be looking over his shoulder and seeing Ryan and Jon crowded close behind them. Brendon’s good at mugging it up for the cameras, though, and somehow they even end up doing, like, fucking prom poses while the guys in Taking Back Sunday egg them on, and-

Spencer has a good time. He does.

Inside, away from the media, Mark corners them and says, “Wentz told me what’s been going on. Fuck, you know?”

Brendon’s not smiling now, and he’s not quite leaning into Spencer, not like he was for the pictures outside, but he’s standing close enough for Spencer to feel him tense up.

“It’s for the best,” Spencer says, because it is. He does believe this and no matter how hard it is some days to realize that, he knows.

Mark nods, then does a little snort-laugh. “Didn’t I fucking tell you guys that we were going to be, like, fucking touring together and playing on each other’s records and shit. Didn’t I tell you that two years ago?”

Brendon grins again at that, wide. “Well, you got the tour part right anyway.” He doesn’t mention that it was Ryan and Brendon that Mark said those things to. Or that it was Spencer and Ryan who were the ones who started out as a Blink-182 cover band. Spencer appreciates this.

Mark slaps Brendon on the shoulder and says, “So you should talk to me when you have some shit together for the new record.”

Brendon opens his mouth, then closes it again, like he has absolutely no fucking words, so it’s up to Spencer to say, “Yeah, yeah, we will. Of course we will.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” Mark says. “I’m going to know exactly where to find you for most of a month, after all.”

And that right there, it’s-

Brendon’s still buzzing with it when they get back to the house that afternoon, where Shane and Regan are both waiting for the rundown. They may have been in the business for years now at this point, and they can both now count several of their teenage idols as friends, but there are some things that just can’t be played off as merely ‘cool’ or ‘won’t that be fun.’

This is definitely one of those things.

So, they sprawl out on the living room floor, Bogart climbing into Spencer’s lap even before he’s sat all the way down and, after they recount the afternoon, Shane says, “You’re fucking shitting me. Holy fuck. That’s awesome.”

Brendon’s giggly with it, totally lost in his excitement, and after Regan’s done hugging them all, she says, “We need to go celebrate. Drinks?”

And if there was ever a reason to go celebrate, this is it. So, they go.

They don’t get home until late that night, and as Spencer gets ready to turn his phone off before he goes to bed, he stares at it for long minutes. He thinks about calling Ryan, Jon. About telling them now, tonight. Even two weeks ago, they would have been the first people he called. Two weeks ago, they would have been in on the excitement together.

He stares at it for another long moment, a deep breath, two, and then turns his phone off and goes to bed.

*

After that, things move quickly.

Because no sooner do they hand the first few not-even-demos over to Pete, than JD is calling Brendon, telling him about a movie that’s coming out, and do they have an unreleased song that could be used on the record?

Spencer’s hanging out in the backyard, trying to coordinate the tossing of two balls at the same time, one for Bogart, one for Dylan, when Brendon comes outside to tell him the news. He takes one of the balls from Spencer’s hand, grimacing a little bit as he touches the soggy fuzz, and tosses it in the complete opposite direction as the ball Spencer tosses. The dogs start after Spencer’s ball first, then hear Brendon’s ball bounce, and then they move in zig-zags for a few moments, trying to figure out which direction they should be going in.

Brendon says, “I was just talking to JD. Um, apparently FBR’s trying to coordinate the soundtrack for the next Diablo Cody movie? With Megan Fox? And they wanted to know if we had a song they could use?”

“We?” Spencer says, “Or we.”

“We,” Brendon answers, and Spencer’s stomach clenches just a bit because it’s one thing to be planning a tour without Ryan and Jon, or to be starting work on a CD that won’t see the light of day until probably next winter. It’s another thing entirely to be putting together new music that will be out there in the next few months. That’s just. That’s-

“That’s awesome,” Spencer says, because Brendon’s practically vibrating with his excitement. Because they could actually have a song on a movie soundtrack and possibly even in the movie itself, highlighting some scene, rather than being just on the CD, like their song had been for Snakes on a Plane.

Then the question becomes, “Do we have a song?” Because Spencer’s pretty sure that he’s seen most of what Brendon’s written recently, and he’s certainly seen more than enough of the bits and pieces that have been lying around.

Brendon looks like he’s thinking, then nods, says, “Yeah, there are a-I have a few? That, um. They’re not, I didn’t think they were really Panic! songs? But, well. I mean, one of them is from, fuck, like two years ago? Maybe? But if you wanted to take a look?”

So, they go back down to Brendon’s basement and Spencer watches Brendon go for the bookcase where they’ve been keeping all of their lyrics, their thoughts and words and written out melodies, and he pulls down a notebook that Spencer’s not actually sure he’s seen before. It’s a real music book, staff paper, and Spencer watches him flip past more than a few songs, pages with inked in words and notes, titles, before finally stopping at one about halfway through.

Brendon shakes his head before going over to the wall to grab his guitar, sitting down on chair in the center of the room, taking a few minutes to get it tuned. He clears his throat, twice, then says, “Um. I had this dream? And I was inspired. So I wrote this.”

Then he plays.

It so completely not something that ever would have made it onto a Panic (or even Panic!) record, Spencer knows. He doesn’t want to call it too poppy, but even in an acoustic form Spencer thinks it sounds more surfer-rock than the sort of music they’ve ever done, ever. Spencer likes it, though, and he’s pretty sure he can imagine ways to tie it more into their sound: piano, layered vocals.

Instead he says, “Fast forward to the part where you go down on me? Really?”

Brendon waggles his eyebrows at Spencer, his grin wide. “It was a good dream.”

“Obviously,” Spencer says, his voice somewhat dry. Then, “Let me hear it again, okay? And then tell me what you were thinking for the drums?”

Brendon begins strumming his guitar again, starting over from the beginning, and Spencer watches him as he plays.

*

So, things are going well and they pretty much fall into a routine: a late breakfast, an afternoon spent writing, an hour or two for dinner, then back downstairs, working on the music, practicing songs they’ve already written until far into the night.

They take breaks of course, but the days where they spend an afternoon at the beach, or a long lunch in Santa Monica, or let Shane and Regan drag them out to fucking Rock ‘N Bowl for the midnight dance and bowl party, well.

It’s blowing off steam.

It’s not escaping.

This is why Spencer’s surprised one morning when he gets up at the normal time and doesn’t find Brendon already in the kitchen, or the TV room, or the music room, or the backyard. He doesn’t hear Brendon at all, and that is about the point where he realizes that he doesn’t see the dogs either.

He stands in the middle of the entryway, trying to figure out if people went surfing without him (they didn’t; the boards and suits are still in the garage), or went to run errands (there are no notes to this effect on the door of the fridge, which is where these notes always seem to get left).

Finally, after thinking about it for longer than he’d like to admit, he goes back up to his room and grabs his phone off of the floor by his futon. He turns it on and starts dialing, not even waiting for the text messages that inevitably came through during the night to arrive. Brendon answers between the first and second ring.

“Yo,” he says, and Spencer-he’s not mad, he’s not, but.

“You aren’t here,” Spencer says. He wants to make it a question, but he knows that Brendon’s not here. And if Spencer’s calling Brendon to fucking, you know, find him, Brendon knows that Spencer knows he’s not there.

“I’m not,” Brendon says. “Bogart wanted- Shane’s trying to prep this shoot, right-“ Spencer does know this; Shane’s been talking about it for the last several weeks. “I told him I’d take the dogs for a walk this morning before you got up. I’m just-Fuck, I didn’t realize it was quite that late. I can be back in 20?”

This is the point at which Spencer hears dogs barking in the background, more than one of them, and he knows those sounds.

“Are you at the dog park?” he asks.

“I am,” Brendon says. “Yeah, they always come back seeming like they’ve had such a good time with you, I thought-“

“I’ll meet you there,” Spencer says. He’s already heading back up the stairs to get his shoes, and he waves off Brendon’s protests before hanging up and sliding the phone into the pocket of his jeans.

It takes him about ten minutes to get there, which is a lot faster than he usually makes the trip. On the other hand, he usually has two dogs attached to his wrists that are very into smelling every blade of grass known to man.

There’s a different crowd at the park in the morning. Spencer sees two German shepherds, a poodle, a floppy something or other, and Dylan and Bogart, right in the middle of it all. It takes him a moment to spot Brendon, but when he does, he sees that Brendon’s sitting at Spencer’s usual bench, a baseball hat pulled down low over his face.

Spencer lets himself in, getting a few odd stares from pet owners, probably since he doesn’t have a pet with him, but then Bogart’s dashing at him, barking joyfully-hey, hey, you found us!-and when Spencer kneels down to say hello, that seems to eliminate any lingering suspicion.

Bogart leads him over to Brendon, Dylan trailing behind, still half-playing with the floppy rug-looking thing, and Brendon raises a hand to wave when Spencer’s only a few feet away.

Spencer sits down next to Brendon and the dogs walk back and forth in front of them a few times. When they realize that nothing more exciting than talking is going to happen, they run back to join the rug on paws in further games of chase.

“So, you needed some air?” Spencer asks when Brendon doesn’t immediately say anything.

Brendon huffs a laugh and he’s smiling enough when Spencer looks over at him that Spencer feels something inside of him relax just a little. Brendon groans then and rubs his hands over his face. He knocks his hat out of place with his wrist, takes a moment to resettle it.

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing,” Brendon says finally, after another moment. He leans forward as he speaks, balancing his elbows on his knees, and stares at the ground. There’s more dirt than grass in this area of the park and Spencer can see the valleys where Brendon’s been scuffing his feet back and forth, for however long he’s been sitting here.

“With what?” Spencer asks, even though he’s pretty sure he already knows the answer. He probably should have expected this, he thinks. He probably should be surprised that they didn’t have this conversation two weeks ago.

“This,” Brendon says. “Us. I- We’re trying to put out a Panic! at the Disco album without Ryan. I mean, I have songs, but I look at them and I think, these aren’t Panic! at the Disco songs, and I-they’re all I have.” He takes a deep breath. “And I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, because I thought I could do this, I did, but I, I don’t fucking-“

He cuts off when Spencer drops a hand onto his shoulder, squeezes. Brendon looks up quickly, then drops his head again.

“What if I-“

“We,” Spencer says, because there is no ‘I’ here; they are both in this together. For better or for worse.

Brendon stops again, biting off whatever he’s trying to say, and looks at Spencer. His eyes are maybe a little wider than Spencer would like.

“We,” Spencer says again, with more emphasis. “You are not the only one trying to put out a Panic! record without Ryan’s lyrics, dude.”

“People are going to look at my words,” Brendon says, and Spencer would say ‘ours, our words’, but Brendon’s right on that one. The words are mostly his. “They’re going to look, and they aren’t going to be Ryan’s, they aren’t going to be Jon’s, they aren’t going to have the same witty turns of phrase, and what if people fucking hate them because they won’t sound- Or us, because our music won’t sound anything like the last two albums-“

“And who the fuck cares?” Spencer asks, and it’s perhaps a little more harsh than he means it to come out, but really. “Who cares if it sounds anything like Pretty. Odd. or, Fever, because they sure as hell didn’t sound a whole fucking lot like each other at all, right?”

Brendon snorts at that, because it’s true. It is.

“But they still had Ryan’s lyrics,” Brendon says.

“And yours,” Spencer says, because Brendon had fought for his two songs. Spencer had fought right along side him. Spencer had helped with the album’s lyrics, too, of course, even though he’d mostly been content to put his attention towards the drum lines, but Ryan wasn’t the only lyricist in the group.

“And this time there aren’t going to be any of Ryan’s,” Brendon says softly, “and if this whole thing gets fucked up, I’ll-“

“We” Spencer says again and the next thing he knows, he’s wrapping an arm around Brendon’s shoulders, pulling Brendon to him, and Brendon’s collapsing just a little bit, and he’s got his head on Spencer’s shoulder, and Spencer just holds him there. “If it gets fucked up, we will be the ones to blame, because we are fucking in this together. I’m not going to let you put out a shitty album, okay? Pete won’t let you put out a shitty album. But I know you, okay, and you are not going to put out a shitty album. You’re Brendon fucking Urie. You and music and shitty do not go in the same sentence. I’ve known this since we were 17.”

Brendon does laugh at that. “Brendon fucking Urie, huh?” he asks, his voice small, and after another moment, he slowly pulls away. He’s mostly grinning at Spencer again, so Spencer nods.

“Brendon fucking Urie,” he says.

“Good to know,” Brendon says again, sounding slightly more normal. “And you won’t let me fuck this up?”

“Not on your life,” Spencer says. “You-you’ve got, fucking, shoe boxes full of lyrics, dude. You honestly think we can’t come up with the bones of eight more songs out of that?”

“If worst comes to worst,” Brendon says, “I could try writing an ode to this dog park, I suppose. Something about chewed tennis balls and unstrung rackets? And frisbees falling out of the air.”

“It’d be classic,” Spencer says, and he lets himself relax a little more, because Brendon’s starting to loosen up. His shoulders are slumping and he’s leaning back on the bench again, sprawling, until he’s invading Spencer’s space on the bench, too.

“It would,” Brendon says. “It could be our next single. We could use Bogart and Dylan as our backup singers.” He laughs for real then, sitting up and clapping his hands together twice. “I bet we could get Pete on board if we wrote a woof-line for Hemmy!”

“Fuck,” Spencer says, letting his own head fall back with his laughter. “Oh, god, can you even imagine?”

“Fucking classic,” Brendon says, relaxing back again, his bicep coming to rest against Spencer’s.

Bogart and Dylan come running up right then, perhaps drawn by Brendon’s claps, and Dylan jumps up in Brendon’s lap without any invitation whatsoever. Spencer looks down at Bogart, who’s standing on the toe of his shoe, as if waiting for an invitation. Spencer sighs and pats his knee and Bogart doesn’t wait.

“You’re spoiling my dog,” Brendon says, and Spencer nods agreeably.

“I am,” he says.

*

The next morning, Spencer comes into the kitchen to find Brendon there before him. He’s got the paper open to the crossword, a glass of juice in front of him, a half eaten slice of toast on a plate pushed to the center of the table. The dogs are over in the corner, still finishing their own breakfasts, so Spencer thinks that Brendon might not have actually been up for too long already.

Brendon doesn’t look up when Spencer sits down across from him, though, and maybe doesn’t even realize that Spencer is there, and when Spencer looks more closely, he sees that Brendon’s not actually filling in the crossword, or trying to figure out the words that might fit the jumble down below. No, he’s writing strings of words down the side of the page, quickly enough that the ink is smearing when his fingers rub over it, and Spencer knows this zone: he got used to Ryan going there when they were 14, pausing whatever game they were playing to just make some notes, really, I swear, Spence, give me just a few seconds.

Brendon’s always gone there, too, but usually it hasn’t been where anyone could see him. It’d be on mornings off, or he’d go to his room for a few hours in the cabin, or he’d come into practice sleepy-blurry and fingers stained blue or black or, like, purple, and he’d say things like, “Late night, you know?” But he’d be smiling, relaxed.

So, Spencer watches as Brendon writes, and he can’t read the actual words, but Brendon’s humming under his breath, a nameless little tune that Spencer imagines he’ll probably be hearing more fleshed out in the not-too-distant future, and-

Spencer watches until Brendon runs out of room in the newspaper margins, until he starts looking around for something else to write on, and he seriously jumps when he notices Spencer sitting at the other side of the table.

“Fuck,” he says, but his sharp breath is already stuttering out into laughter. “You are seriously a fucking ninja, dude,” except then he notices Spencer’s empty cereal bowl, the open carton of milk next to it. “Or possibly I was just really, really not here.”

“Ding ding ding,” Spencer says, which makes Brendon flip him off. Then, “You want me to leave, so you can finish our next hit single?”

Brendon stares at him for a moment, opens his mouth like he’s going to say, ‘it’s not’, but perhaps some of what Spencer said the day before did get through, because Brendon shakes his head and says, “No, no, I’ve mostly got it. Um, if you want a look? There might be something to build off of here?”

Spencer has no doubt that there will be, but he takes the proffered newspaper and turns it sideways, so that he can read Brendon’s scrawl. The words have a nice flow going, he thinks, and yes, he can tell that there are some lines that will need to be reworked (or they’ll need to come up with some super funky beats) to deal with the extra syllables, but.

“That works,” Spencer says. “This is really fucking good, Brendon.”

Brendon smiles, wide and bright, and says, “I was thinking dancey, you know? I miss fucking dancing on stage. I want to dance, Spencer Smith.”

“Then let’s go write you a dance song,” Spencer says.

v.

Spencer’s not expecting the call from Jon, but he’s smiling when he picks up. “Hey, dude,” he says. “What the fuck is up?”

The thing is, it hasn’t even been three weeks since he and Jon last talked, since their whole world changed, but it feels like longer. Jon’s been going back and forth to Chicago, though, and it’s sounded like he’s been busy recording things with Ryan and Eric, and-

Spencer should have called.

“That’s what I was going to ask you,” Jon says, and he’s laughing. “Hanging out with Mark Hoppus?”

Spencer laughs, because yeah. Pete’d invited a few people over the night before for dinner before a trip to see ‘The Hangover’, and since Pete and Mark appeared to be on a BFF kick, Mark had been there. With Spencer and Brendon. (And it’s moments like those when Spencer still wants to say things like, holy fuck, my life.)

“Yeah,” he says. And then, because Brendon and Shane are off seeing ‘Up’ with Regan, he adds, “You maybe want to hang this afternoon?”

There’s a moment of silence and Spencer can picture Jon checking his mental calendar, then he says, “Yeah, yeah. Should I come there?”

It feels a little weird for Spencer to be inviting Jon to Brendon’s house, but then he reminds himself that in a month, it will be his house too. If Brendon doesn’t change his mind and decide that he no longer wants Spencer as a roommate, that is. Spencer’s pretty much 100% sure that Brendon’s not going to change his mind.

It only takes about an hour for Jon to arrive at Brendon’s, and he looks a little awkward standing on the stoop when Spencer lets him in, but then Dylan and Bogart are tearing through the house as fast as they can to come say hi. Jon bends down and starts scratching at their ears, and Spencer says, “How’s Marley doing?”

“Worst dog in the whole world,” Jon says, but his grin is so wide, Spencer doesn’t believe him for a second. It’s only after the dogs have gotten their required pets and scratches that Jon stands back up and gives Spencer a hug.

“Too long,” Jon says. “Too fucking long.”

Spencer nods. He leads Jon through the house, offers him beer, or water, or juice, and they sit down in the backyard for a bit, but only a bit, because Bogart decides to be a pushy little dog and bring his leash to them, a very not subtle hint. Spencer rolls his eyes and folds the leash up, putting it up on the table, but Jon says, “Hey, no, we could?”

“You’ll be their favorite person ever,” Spencer says, but he’s already standing, whistling for the dogs, and that is how the two of them end up walking down towards the dog park.

It’s not Spencer’s normal time to be there and Spencer thinks about stopping, but when they get there, the park is empty, and that just isn’t as much fun. They stop for a minute or two though, long enough for Jon to look around and say, “I’ve never found anything quite like these in Chicago, you know?”

Spencer can believe that. He sort of thinks as these-the opulent-ness of them-as being an ‘only in California’ thing.

So, they keep walking, and Jon’s perfectly happy to spend an hour just wandering the streets of Santa Monica, letting the dogs go at whatever pace they prefer.

“So things are going well?” Jon asks finally, about the time Spencer thinks that they should probably be heading back towards Brendon’s place. “It sounds like they’re going well.”

Spencer’s been talking about the days he and Brendon have spent at the beach; how Brendon had been tongue-tied for about thirty seconds the night before, when they walked out onto Pete’s porch and saw Mark Hoppus sitting there; about Brendon’s notebooks full of lyrics, the four songs that they’ve got most of the way done, the bits and pieces that they’ve been playing with, this fucking awesome drum line that he’s been working on that he thinks he might actually need a bigger kit for? About how good Brendon’s voice sounds.

“They’re going well,” Spencer says, decisively. Then, because this is one thing he hasn’t mentioned. “You, um. You heard about the single?”

“Brendon was holding out on us,” Jon says, his tone mild, and Spencer wants to agree, he does, but he also knows why Brendon held it back, kept it for himself. It was not a Ryan and Jon song. Which is fine-that’s why they’re two groups now, instead of one-but still.

“It’s good,” Spencer says. “It’s-it’s got a fun vibe. It’s pretty poppy. And I think live? I think I’m going to get to beat the shit out of my drums, so. Plus.”

“Definitely a plus,” Jon says.

There’s a few more moments of silence, not long enough to become awkward, until Spencer says, “Ryan was telling me you’ve got most of your songs demo’d. That you’re thinking about scheduling studio time?”

Jon’s face lights up at that and then he’s off. They’ve demo’d 12 songs already, with another six or seven in the pipeline, and Jon’s actually been playing the drums, and Spencer really should have let him in on that shit years ago, you know. He totally would have been down for a more active role in the drum line, okay? And they’ve got a Beatles sound going, with maybe some Kinks thrown in, which is just fucking awesome, and-

They’re having a good time.

Spencer is maybe a little jealous. Possibly. Because he always used to be the one that Ryan would do this plotting and planning and playing with, but on the other hand, he’s not, because he couldn’t be happier with the sort of music that he and Brendon are creating.

“That’s good,” he says. “I’m glad. Brendon and I, we’re having a good time, too.”

He smiles as he says it, but he doesn’t think it’s a special smile in any way until, that is, Jon says, “Um, is there something, um. Is something going on with you two?”

Spencer laughs, of course he laughs, because really, he’s not making comments about Ryan and Jon’s little bromance now is he? He says as much out loud, which makes Jon laugh, too, but he’s still looking at Spencer in a way that-

Well-

It takes them another half hour to get back to the house, and by the time they get there, Brendon, Shane, and Regan have returned. Brendon looks really surprised to see Jon, despite the fact that Jon’s car is still parked outside, but then Jon is wrapping him in a hug and Brendon is slapping at Jon’s back. Shane and Regan are grinning, too, and Jon gets invited to stay for dinner and, for a few hours at least, it feels like nothing’s changed. Except for the fact that Jon is talking about how his and Ryan’s first single is going to be called ‘Change’ and Brendon says, “Because apparently great minds think alike?” and how, at the end of the evening, Jon leaves to go back to Ryan’s, and Spencer’s already where he, well. Belongs.

Later, after the dishes have been cleared, Spencer collapses on the couch next to Brendon and says, “Jon called while you were gone, to rib us for hanging out with Mark last night.”

“And you? For getting kicked out of the theater?”

“No,” Spencer says, with quite rightful indignation, because it wasn’t his fault he was the only one in their row to actually get caught texting. Really now.

Brendon’s face creases up with his laughter, and they’re tired and relaxed and that, Spencer thinks, is the reason that Brendon’s head falls over onto Spencer’s shoulder. Spencer rolls his eyes fondly at Brendon, but he doesn’t expend the effort to make Brendon move. And that, of course, is about the time that Spencer remembers Jon’s words from earlier and he thinks, oh fuck.

*

The problem, of course, is that once the thought is there, it’s really fucking hard to make it go away. Which is why Spencer spends most of that night lying awake in his bed, staring up at the ceiling, thinking, no, no, fuck no, and again, no.

Not because having feelings that go beyond friendly for Brendon is a bad thing (except in the way that unrequited crushes on friends always fucking suck) but because three weeks ago, his band broke up. Because it’s him and Brendon against the world now. Because the last thing Spencer’s life needs is more complication, and-

If he’d had this realization two years ago, Spencer would have climbed out on the roof of the cabin and smoked a joint with Jon until he was too relaxed to think of anything serious at all. He would have locked himself in his room for a day or two, told Ryan some bullshit about needing to reclaim his creativity, and in the middle of the night, he would have gone to the music room and played until his arms were sore, his hair dripping with sweat. It only would have taken him a few days to talk himself out of this whatever this is, and no one would have been the wiser.

If he’d had it a year ago, while they were on tour, he would have had the option of hanging out with the other bands for hours on end. He would have shut himself in his bunk, headphones on, or he would have begged off of the group outing for the day and after a few more days of being trapped on a bus with everyone, too few showers, not enough stops at laundromats… it would have been fine.

Now, though, now he’s fucking living with Brendon, and he’s working with Brendon, Brendon, and only Brendon. Brendon’s friends have become Spencer’s friends and it’s-this is really not something he wants to call Ryan up about, because, well. Okay, a month ago, Ryan would have laughed his face off, and would have tried to drop, like, subtle hints at Brendon or something. Now, Spencer thinks that Ryan would probably stare at Spencer frowning, and possibly also ask, “Is that why you-?” Stayed with him? Chose him over me?

Which, just, no.

Jon would listen, but he’d probably be thinking (if he isn’t already, since he fucking called Spencer on this the night before) the same things that Spencer doesn’t want to hear Ryan ask.

Because the answer is still no.

So, basically, Spencer’s stuck. He’s stuck with this whole fucking realization and-and, they’d just taken the day before off, okay, so it’s not like Spencer can really ask for a second day. Not when he doesn’t have a good reason. Not when they’re trying to get as much done as humanly possible before they hit the road, before the shit hits the fan when they make the announcement that Panic! at the Disco, as the fans know it, is in fact no more.

So when Spencer gets up the next morning, his eyes gummy from lack of sleep, his head hurting from thinking too hard, he has no choice but to actually spend the day with Brendon, working. He has a few hopeful moments right after he gets to the kitchen, finds himself alone, that Jon was just full of shit, seeing things that weren’t there. He thinks that maybe, possibly, the flutter in his stomach that he’d felt the night before could be blamed solely on that, on the fact that Jon had got Spencer wondering. He is so, so hopeful, but then Brendon comes bouncing into the kitchen, humming a little-something or other, Spencer thinks he hears the word ‘soap’ in there-under his breath, and he just smiles at Spencer, and Spencer really can’t help but smile back.

And it really fucking sucks, because now that the thought is in his head, he can’t stop noticing Brendon. The way his nose has freckled from his hours spent out in the sun, the flex of his muscles underneath his tattoo, the way his hair is sticking up at all odd angles because he obviously has not had his morning date with a brush yet.

When Brendon suggests that they finally go down to the basement, get started for the day, Spencer nods and follows behind. In a way it feels almost like relief to get back to that known domain. But now that they’re down here, Spencer seated behind his kit, he has no choice but to pay attention to Brendon and only Brendon. The way Brendon bounces from one idea to the next; the way he keeps looking to Spencer for fucking approval; the way Spencer’s heart feels just a little bit too big when he’s just fucking around with a beat on his toms and Brendon says, “Fuck, Spence, do that again. We need to get that on tape.”

It would be easier, Spencer thinks, if it was a bad day, because if it was a bad day, he could escape early, beg off of doing anything, go deal with his frustration in private. It’s not, though. They get a lot done and it’s sounding good. They’re developing a sound that’s not quite Fever (not as many jagged edges) and not quite Pretty. Odd. (not quite as mellow) and he really, really likes it. He’s having a fucking blast playing it.

So, Spencer has no reason to beg off of drinks at the Otheroom with Regan and Shane after they call it an evening, so he doesn’t. He folds himself into the back of Regan’s car and listens to Brendon try to, like, fucking beat box the percussion line to the one they’ve tentatively titled ‘Oh Glory’ for Shane’s benefit.

Shane says, “Fuck, fuck, I need to get this on tape, where’s my fucking camera,” and Regan says, “Don’t make me laugh this hard while I’m trying to drive, Urie!” and Spencer’s laughing so hard that he has tears in his eyes.

He can’t decide if it’s better or worse when they actually get to the bar and Brendon crowds into his space, his knee brushing Spencer’s under the table. It’s a good night out with good friends, though, so Spencer can’t complain.

Still, that doesn’t stop him from picking up Bogart on his way to bed that night and carrying him into his room. He settles back on the futon and settles Bogart on his stomach, and then says, “I am so, so fucked, bud. I am so, so fucked.”

Bogart whines and swipes his tongue over Spencer’s wrist.

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