The birthday special [Spencer/Brendon] 2/2
part one.
*
Brendon offers to introduce him to some nice people, and because Spencer is a moron, he agrees.
Julie is Brendon's old publicist, and Spencer takes her to sushi. "So you're going to film school?" she asks over yellowtail, and Spencer says, "What?"
"Brendon said you just started at USC," she says.
Spencer lays down his chopsticks. "Did he mention I'm in the middle of getting divorced?"
*
Sasha is neither Russian nor a woman, no matter what Brendon implied. They go to a soul food place off Crenshaw that Spencer's car computer says Zagat recommends.
"I can't remember the details," Sasha says. "What kind of restaurant are you opening?"
Spencer says, "Something that serves pie. Meat pies."
Sasha's handsy and hot in that strong-jawed way Spencer's always appreciated in men from cologne ads. Sasha is, in fact, a male model, and he jerks Spencer off in his pristine front seat and licks his fingers clean. Spencer says he'll call, and he means to save the number but when he looks the next day it doesn't seem to have worked.
*
Seth is slender and smart and likes four of Spencer's new favorite bands and two he's never heard of. They eat pho in a tiny Silverlake restaurant and when Seth says, "How do you like DJing?" Spencer says he loves it. "Is that tough to balance with studying astronomy?" Seth asks.
Spencer finishes his beer. "Is that what Brendon told you?"
"I think?" Seth says. "I was just happy to hear from him again, honestly. You know how you meet someone and you think there's this great connection, and then, boom, it's like they fall off the face of the earth?"
*
Brendon says, "I wasn't going to set you up with someone who's bad in bed." He's unrepentant, arms crossed. "I thought you might like Seth! He has really good taste in music."
"Oh, and what did you like best about Sasha?"
"He's kind of dirty," Brendon says with an appreciative smirk. On the TV a commercial trumps a new floor wax that's clinically proven to remove 99 percent of all grime. "See, quality control is important!"
Brendon is still chuckling like this is the year's best joke, Spencer and his sloppy seconds. Spencer hasn't had sex with anyone other than Sasha's hand in five days, and the mattress in Brendon's spare room sags in the middle and he fucking hit his forehead that morning getting out of his own goddamned car.
"You shouldn't be giving anyone advice about anything," he says, and it comes out exactly as angry and bitter as it felt rattling around his head.
Brendon's eyebrows scrunch together. "I give awesome advice."
"What advice would you give a guy who moved to LA with his boyfriend, oh, almost 10 years ago, has slept with every guy in Southern California since and still avoids the actual issue of his sexuality whenever possible?"
"Coming out is so 2004." Brendon delivers the line with his chin up and a cocky smirk. It's probably worked wonders in the past. "I do what I want and everybody knows it."
"You do everything but talk about it," Spencer snaps.
"We're talking about it," Brendon points out. "People talk about it. My mom talks about it." He turns off the TV and throws the remote on the coffee table but it just bounces once, skipping off to land in the carpet. "What fucking else do you want me to say about it, Spencer?"
He feels the anger make him flush, face hot under his facial hair, skin itchy under his clothes. "I don't know," he says, "how about anything you actually mean? Anything that actually means something to you, that isn't just showing off how clever you are."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
Spencer is so fucking sick of Brendon and his big ideas, of Brendon acting like his lonely, slutty life is something to be proud of, something to want to package and franchise and syndicate to the lowest bidder.
"Why'd you stop recording your own shit?" he asks, and Brendon flinches. "When's the last time you wrote a song for yourself and sang it and put it out there? Just because you do one album and people didn't like it, and then one song that everybody loves but you'll never discuss -- and so what, so you've got a wait list a mile long of people who want a piece of you. So fucking what that you've got more work than you know how to handle. You won't sing about your own life, and your songs are worse for it."
Brendon bites his lip. "Fine," he says. "Find your own fucking dates." He slams his bedroom door and Spencer slams his too for good measure.
*
Brendon's left the house by the time Spencer gets up the next day, and when he comes into the studio to try to apologize for being an asshole about shit that has nothing to do with him, Brendon walks out before Spencer can even open his mouth.
He sinks down into the rolling chair next to Henry's. "So," he says, with a nod at the screen on the other side of the glass. "Does the plucky heroine ever convince her loser boyfriend to open his heart to love?"
Henry says, "I do not pay attention to these things unless I absolutely have to."
"That seems like a wise strategy."
"It gets me through the day." Henry has a warm smile that peeks through his reddish beard.
Spencer studies his nails a while. "So what do you do at night?"
When he looks up Henry's head is cocked to the side and he's staring at Spencer. "Are you asking me out?"
"Yeah," Spencer says.
"I kinda thought you and Brendon..."
"Brendon doesn't date," he says, and Henry laughs and says, "All right, fine. Tonight? Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow," Spencer says. He doesn't have anything going on before that but he likes the idea of having something to look forward to.
*
Spencer goes shopping for something to wear on his date, wandering down Melrose and dodging kids with more piercings than brain cells. It's almost October and still in the 80s. He asks the clerk to cut the tag off an overpriced allegedly authentic vintage t-shirt. He's not sure he's avoided looking like a douchebag but at least he's less uncomfortable.
Ryan calls while he's trying on shoes. "How much of an asshole do you think I am that I couldn't handle the fact that you and Brendon hooked up? We've been friends for 25 fucking years, Spence, I'm not going to judge you for who you sleep with."
"I know," Spencer says.
"And I can't believe you thought Brendon would actually be able to keep a secret."
"Jesus, I know, I'm sorry." He shoves tissue paper back into the shoes and ties his own back up.
"Okay," Ryan says, and after a long stretch of silence adds, "We're okay."
"Thank God." Spencer's laugh sounds a little more serious than he'd meant it to but if there's anyone who will let it pass, it's Ryan.
"So how's Brendon," Ryan asks.
"Well, I told him his songs are shitty because he doesn't know how to write honest lyrics."
"Huh," Ryan says. "I guess that's one approach."
"I don't think he's talking to me." Spencer sighs. "Plus I -- I may have asked out the sound engineer at the studio where he's recording."
"Maybe when you're done you could piss in the corners of his condo."
"I thought you weren't going to judge me for who I sleep with!"
"You slept with the sound engineer? What is wrong with you."
"Ryan --"
Ryan laughs.
"Fuck," Spencer says. "I miss you, you sadistic fuck. Tell me some crazy story about Keltie's pregnant cravings already."
*
Brendon doesn't come home that night, but he's eating eggs at the breakfast bar when Spencer gets up in the morning. Spencer doesn't even pour his coffee before he says, "I'm an asshole, and I'm sorry."
"I already knew both of those things," Brendon says.
"Well then," Spencer says, "can you tell me if Henry is any good in bed?"
Brendon sets down his fork. "You have a date with Henry? Henry my sound engineer Henry?"
"Oh, is his name Henry?" Spencer makes himself an extra-large cup of coffee.
"Wow," Brendon says, and whistles something that sounds suspiciously like "back in the saddle again." This is how it goes with them. Brendon can't remember to hold a grudge long enough to make it hurt, and if Spencer lets him off too easy in exchange it's only fair play.
"Don't tell me you've been working with this guy for months and haven't banged him yet."
"Banged is such a strong word," Brendon says.
"Made sweet tender love to?" Spencer blows delicately across his mug. "Wait, am I only allowed to date people who have been pre-approved? You weren't all that specific."
"Fuck you."
"Hmm. Sasha did give me a handjob. Our deal is that I get an equal amount of sex from you for whatever I do with anyone else, right? I'm okay with rounding up if you are."
"I don't do halfsies," Brendon says right away, way serious.
Spencer says, "Then I'll be sure to let you know when my punch card is full."
*
He's trimming his beard when Brendon barges into the guest bathroom. He perches his ass on the lip of the sink and rubs the back of his knuckles over Spencer's chin.
"It looks good short," he says. He gives Spencer the once-over in the mirror. "Yeah," he says, then bites his lip and slides off the counter, clapping Spencer's shoulder. "Henry will haul you off to his cave and make a man of you for sure."
Spencer sets down the scissors. "Pretty sure you get that trophy."
"You'll make someone a very fine trophy boy, don't you worry." Brendon straightens Spencer's collar, a sad smirk fleeting across his face.
When he looks up, Spencer kisses him. Brendon oomphs in surprise, but it quickly rounds out into a pleased groan with a bonus hand down the front of Spencer's pants.
"Hey, hey," Spencer says, but can't really be bothered to do any more complaining than that.
"Just gonna take the edge off," Brendon murmurs into his collarbone. "Don't want you to be all distracted during dinner and miss the good stuff."
Spencer's head hits the edge of something square. "Fuck, I hate you," he says.
Brendon twists his hand. "You hate me so much," he says, and bites Spencer just below the neckline.
*
Henry got a haircut and a sweater-vest. He tugs at the hem as the waiter hands them their menus and says, "I have to tell you, it's been a while since I went on a date."
Spencer swirls the ice in his water glass and says, "Wait, this is a date?" Henry kicks him under the table and Spencer is surprised when his own laugh comes out warm and real. "I've been married for -- well, we met when I was 18. What's your excuse?"
"What, were you looking for a daddy?"
Spencer is really, really glad he'd decided not to have any bread yet, because choking is never sexy, no matter what Brendon says. He still does a decent job of humiliating himself coughing on dry air, though. He waves off Henry's offered glass and his Heimlich charades.
"I really hope the punchline here isn't you were sold into sex slavery and spent a decade tied up in some dude's basement, or I'm going to feel like a real asshole."
"Worse," Spencer says. "She was 17 and still living with her parents."
"Oh shit," Henry says.
"Okay, I ripped off the band-aid -- and that sucked way worse than they said it would, by the way. Your turn."
"My husband -- or, not really my husband any more, sorry --"
Please, please don't let him be dead, Spencer thinks.
"Your face," Henry says. "He's not dead or anything. It's just so stupid and so LA and so gay."
"Now you have to tell me, Jesus." Spencer smiles. "I was totally imagining his funeral."
Henry sighs dramatically and holds his napkin to his forehead. "He ran off with the pool boy."
"Oh my God," Spencer says, and tries very, very hard not to giggle. Henry kicks him again when the waiter comes to take their order.
*
Everything is going fine -- better than fine, things are going really well, they're having fun and getting to know each other and nobody's spilled tomato sauce anywhere vital. And then Henry asks him about Brendon.
"I really thought you two --"
"No," Spencer says. "Well, not --" He takes another sip of wine but his glass is empty.
"So you are?" Henry asks it slowly, like he knows he doesn't want to know but can't stop himself from asking anyway. It's so fucking real of him, real and sweet and Spencer is just an unmitigated asshole.
"I don't know what we are," he says, and it's shitty but it's true. "Fuck, I thought it'd -- I still have a wife," he says. "Here I thought that would be the deal-breaker."
Henry pours them both another glass of wine. "How long have you known Brendon?"
"Even longer," Spencer says. "Shit, I'm sorry, this --" He sighs. "This is really not how I saw tonight going."
"I thought it was all proceeding way too smoothly. It was either this or you were, I don't know, an alien."
"I could be an alien."
"No, you're way too hot," Henry says. "Damn."
Spencer says, "Let me buy you something awful for dessert. Something with lots of whipped cream."
"And you can tell me why you're going on dates with guys whose husbands left them for the pool boy."
"Pool boys are stupid."
"Stupid and hot, just like God made them. Come on, cheer me up. Tell me a sad story about being in love with Brendon Urie."
Spencer flicks a nail against the curve of his glass and it chimes lightly. "How long have you got?"
*
They talk through cappuccinos and the most elaborately, elegantly reconstructed tiramisu Spencer's ever seen. There's a wine bar across the street, so they share a flight of California reds and talk some more. Henry, Spencer realizes, is the first person not in his band or related to him or almost-previously married to him that he's actually talked to in a long, long time.
This is what the rest of us call having a friend, Ryan would say, and Spencer grins at himself in the sliver of glass peeking out behind shelves of bottles as Henry goes to the bathroom. He pulls out his phone to say as much to Ryan and there are 14 new texts, all from Brendon. They've been having such a nice time he hasn't looked at his phone in hours, but lack of response has never dissuaded Brendon, especially not when there's something he wants or thinks might be getting away.
Spencer opens one in the middle.
just saying, there's a popsicle here with your name on it!
The bar is maybe 50 feet from front to back and Spencer can see as Henry wrestles the tiny door open. He types quickly -- thx back later -- and puts his phone in his coat pocket.
Henry smiles as he settles back on the stool next to Spencer, signaling the bartender.
"Do you want another?" Spencer suggests just as Henry says, "I should probably go."
"Oh," Spencer says.
"I've got a match tomorrow morning."
"Right, rugby," Spencer remembers.
"And I think you've probably got all the friendly action you can handle," Henry says. "Or I'd tell you to come home with me anyway."
Spencer considers the offer, and Henry patiently lets him. Henry has the bold forearms of a roadie and a goofy giggle and four dogs he shares with the best friend who co-owns his duplex. He didn't go to college, either, just spent two years on the North Shore bumming around beaches before a surf buddy decided to record the sound of the sea. They went foot by foot around the island with a home-made microphone.
He already knows more about Henry, and Henry knows more about him, than anyone he's met on his own in years.
"I think you're probably right," he says finally, "and if there's a way to say I really would like us to be friends without sounding like a fucking asshole --"
"That works for me," Henry says, and wraps Spencer up in a hard hug.
*
Spencer spends 10 minutes in the parking lot figuring out how to disable the navigation system and then drives, just drives as fast as he can and as far as he wants.
It's late enough that the freeways are mostly empty and Los Angeles feels like a whole other city. It's like taking off a tight jacket and discovering you can fly, like sitting down behind his kit for the first time in a while and stretching with his sticks in hand.
He sails across overpasses and skims along the shoulder of the PCH, craning his neck to watch the reflection of the moon in the ocean. Eventually he stops for gas and shitty coffee at a tiny station with a colorful hand-painted sign for ahi burgers, then heads roughly back in the other direction.
He drives slower this time, sticking to surface streets and sliding through silent neighborhoods. There are a million channels of satellite radio somewhere in his stereo but he leaves them alone, rolling down the windows and allowing the chill desert air to wrap around his neck. He puts down the top, too, and turns on the heater, weaving his way through beach cities as the sky starts to get light.
Two guys in wetsuits with boards amble across the pavement and he watches them pick their way to the sand. He takes a right at Santa Monica, sun staring him straight in the face as he congratulates himself for actually knowing where he is and how to get where he's going. Brendon's street is full, cars stacked end to end like they're on a trailer-truck. Spencer valets at the hotel around the corner and walks back, stopping to say hello to a girl in track pants out with her Rottweiler. Jon is right, he should get a dog.
Brendon's asleep in the living room, head at an awful angle against the arm of the couch. Spencer's trying to slide a pillow under his neck when he wakes up, smacking his lips and nearly butting Spencer's forehead.
"You're alive," he mumbles, then screws up his face, sitting up enough to reach a glass on the coffee table. He swishes and swallows and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "I figured either he was chopping you into tiny bite-sized pieces or you'd run away together."
"Mostly we talked about you," Spencer says, and sits down next to Brendon.
"That can't be good."
Spencer smiles and shoves Brendon around until he fits under Spencer's arm. "It wasn't bad," he says. "Actually, no, it was good. It was good."
Brendon tilts his head back. "How good?"
Spencer doesn't want to take the bait. "Really good," he says instead. "I don't really have any friends, Brendon."
"Yeah you do, you've got me, and Ryan, and --"
"I have a band. And a few guys in other bands I know all right. And my sisters and their families and my parents. And, hell, maybe Haley and I will even figure out how to have a conversation again. But I'm 30 years old and I haven't made a new friend since -- since I don't even know. It's kind of pathetic."
"No," Brendon says quickly, "no, it's --"
"There's no need to start going easy on me now, Mr. Reality Check. It's pretty lame. I'm a friendly guy, right?"
Brendon burrows into Spencer's side, tucking his nose against Spencer's chest. "Do you," he says, and takes a deep breath. "We can just be friends, if that's what you want."
Spencer lays his hand on Brendon's shoulder, just cupping the curve of bone and feeling his warm skin through the thin t-shirt. "I was thinking, actually, I was thinking we should go out."
"Oh," Brendon says.
"On a date," Spencer clarifies. "Together, you and I. We should go out. Like, on purpose, go to dinner or --"
Brendon pushes up and out of Spencer's embrace, and he's still got little squares in the pattern of the couch fabric on one cheek and his hair is sticking up and his breath fucking reeks and Spencer's only ever felt like this once before, just one girl and one boy and both times it didn't make sense but he had to try anyway.
"You busy tonight?" he asks, and Brendon blinks at him and eventually says no. He smiles sleepy and confused, rubbing his eyes like he expects to wake up from a dream.
Spencer tries to kiss him but Brendon holds him at bay. "Not yet," he says, "not if we're going on a date."
"Fine," Spencer says. "You have to pick the restaurant."
"Fine." He holds out his hand to shake and Spencer takes it, laughing. "It's a deal. Also my mouth tastes disgusting."
*
Spencer locks the bathroom door and calls Ryan for help.
"Just do your hair like you always do it," Ryan says, exasperated a minute into the conversation. "He knows what you look like. He knows what you looked like when you were in high school, Spencer, he's not going to walk out because personal grooming has been low on your list of priorities for a while. He probably should, but --"
"Oh my God, why did I think this would be better?" Spencer mutters at his reflection, flicking the comb again over the funny piece in the back that won't lie down right.
"Are you wearing cologne?" Ryan asks.
"Should I be?"
"How hard did you hit your head when you drove through your house, tell me for real."
"I took a shower, I smell like -- like soap, I guess. I don't know, Brendon picked it out."
"I'm hanging up now so you're not late for your very important date," Ryan says, and the call clicks off.
When he steps into the hallway and calls Brendon's name, there's no answer. He pulls his phone out again but the message is already waiting:
your chariot awaits. (at the curb in my car like a proper gentleman. come down whenever you're FINALLY ready.)
The sun roof is open and an album he gave Brendon last Christmas is playing on the stereo. "You're not going to get out and open the door?"
"This is a date, not a dumb romance novel," Brendon says, but he still takes Spencer's hand when they're at a long light.
Spencer's relatively sure Brendon enlisted professional help to get them into Achatz West on 12 hours' notice, but he's hardly going to turn down the chance to eat spherificated sweet potato in mango vapor even if it means they end up in a gossip column.
They're seated in the window, reinforcing Spencer's theory. By the time the chef gets paraded out to oversee delivery of their first presentation -- "No, please, call me Evan," he insists as he explains how the tomato water was alginated -- Brendon looks so self-satisfied Spencer's surprised he can still swallow.
"I know you like food," Brendon shrugs, though he doesn't let his eyes off Evan's ass until he's safely ensconced back behind swinging doors.
"You're just worried I'll run off to the kitchen to interrogate him myself."
Brendon grins. "That too."
Spencer licks the last of the tomato off his utensil. "I'm done with that," he says, and Brendon raises his eyebrow.
"Lost your appetite already?"
"Didn't have much of one to start off with," Spencer says. "Are we going to keep trading food metaphors a while longer or are we ready for the next course?"
Brendon snorts out a laugh and lights up with the real smile Spencer always knows is lurking somewhere beneath his people pleasing toothy version. "Next is steak, right?"
Spencer snickers when they're served filet mignon cut into meticulous diamond shapes and incensed in a plume of cardamom and rose petal smoke. "Close enough for jazz," he says, and Brendon be-bops his way through each mouthful.
"So I started working on a song," Brendon says, and takes a big swallow of wine.
"That thing for whatshername?"
"No. Something -- it's new. I don't know. You left me all alone! I had to entertain myself somehow."
"When I said -- Brendon, anyone would be --" He stops and tries to say what he means. "I just hope they know how fucking lucky they are to have you work on their shit. That's what --"
"No, you were totally right. Just because other people are willing to do the hard work --"
"Don't -- don't sell yourself short, most of them would give an arm to play one instrument that easily, let alone --"
"No, I'm not. Look, let me --" He leans his elbows on the table. "You know the song from Shane's movie?"
Spencer nods. "That -- that one was different." It was different, enough that Spencer noticed and so did plenty of other people, fans and critics who speculated what it meant and who it was for. It was vulnerable, in its words and arrangement, a simple, raw recording about a boy who found love and didn't know what to do with it.
"It wasn't actually done, or going to be, Shane just put it in a rough cut and then he asked me if he could leave it, and I said maybe, and then the producers really liked it and I didn't want to, you know, screw things up for him on his big break."
"You wrote it for him."
"Yeah, but I didn't really think anyone else needed to suffer through that, and --"
"Oh, come on." Spencer's so used to protesting Brendon's bullshit that he forgets for a second that this is the kind of thing Brendon isn't kidding about. "Brendon, that song. It was fucking beautiful."
"Well," Brendon says. "I haven't had much worth writing about in a while."
The waiter sets long spiky skewers speared with rippled waves of translucent bacon in front of them. Delicate wires holding each end curve up from a sterling cube, and Spencer leans forward to take it in his mouth. When he flicks his eyes up Brendon is staring, rapt. "Shut it," Spencer says after he swallows. There's some kind of frozen, nutty anglaise and Spencer wants to moan but there's only so much mocking he can handle in one bite.
But Brendon just copies his posture, eyes widening as he leans back. "I don't know what I just put in my mouth, but I think I'm in love," he says.
Dessert is a shot-sized glass with a chocolate globe suspended in limeflower water, a drizzle of kelly green mint running through one side like a river.
Brendon licks his lips and says, "There once was a meal made of bites, small plate after plate to entice."
Spencer waves his hand to continue but Brendon shakes his head.
"You know that show we did with Pete and everyone in Belfast?"
Spencer does, though he doesn't remember much more than that. It was a long time ago. He nods.
"You were -- I don't know where you were, but Jon and Ryan and I were drinking at some pub and this old guy -- maybe we told you this, he challenged me to some crazy Irish duel where we were both making up songs as fast as we could. And Ryan, I always remember, Ryan said, 'You write better limericks than anyone in the world, Brendon, because they're just silly dirty jokes, and no one is better at that than you.'"
A car honks out on La Cienega and there's a sharp squeal of tires but after a long second everyone keeps going. Spencer says, "You know he didn't mean that's all you're good at, right?"
Brendon shrugs. "Sure," he says.
The check comes, a block of perfectly clear ice through which a number glimmers wetly. Spencer puts his credit card on the table next to it. "I asked you out," he argues when Brendon frowns.
Brendon tucks his hand through Spencer's arm as they walk out the door. It's just getting cool enough at night that Spencer wishes he had a coat. Brendon's body is warm pressed all along his side as they wait for the valet to bring the car back.
"Is there an after-party?" Brendon asks, sounding content and a little bit sleepy. For all the small portions and serious talk, Spencer is feeling full and happy. There are twinkling lights along the awning and Brendon's wearing a dark red shirt and it's kind of perfect, really.
He knows what comes next -- not just going home together, that much is kind of a given even if things went badly. But he knows the next part, too, the stupid giddy joy and charmed way things fall into place once you've done the hard part and found the right person. It's the same thing he felt driving through the dawn to get back to Brendon.
Brendon tilts his chin up, elbowing Spencer's ribs. "What?" he says.
Spencer says, "God, this is as good a time as any." He pulls just far enough away to face Brendon and he doesn't know what look he's wearing but Brendon pales a little, lips suddenly redder against his white face. "What?" Spencer asks.
"You're -- you're not going to propose, right?"
"I'm --" The valet pulls up to the curb in Brendon's car. "I'm not even divorced yet!"
"Well --" Brendon looks sheepishly down at his feet, clearly unaware that there are now two guys in bright yellow uniform jackets staring at them, waiting for them to take the car or start a fight or do something worth taking up so much real estate on a sidewalk in front of LA's hottest restaurant.
Spencer sees the white pop of a flash out of the corner of his eye as he says, "Brendon, oh my God. I am 30 years old, I am capable of realizing I'm in love with someone and not running for the altar. Yes, please, be my boyfriend, or my not-boyfriend, or whatever you want to call it so it doesn't make you freak out and make up stupid rules about how I have to sleep with other people."
"That was stupid," Brendon nods.
Spencer grabs his face and kisses him before either of them does anything stupider. "Get in the car," he says. "No, I'm driving, just get in." He circles the back of the car and shoves some money at the attendant.
Brendon's sitting with his hands folded on his lap, looking equally contrite and conspiratorial. "You realized you're in love with me," he says.
"So did you," Spencer retorts, and checks the rearview mirror. There are at least three cars waiting for him to move. He puts on his hazards and turns to Brendon. "This is what I decided," he says, "last night when I drove halfway to Mexico trying to figure shit out, and --"
"You weren't with Henry?"
"After that, after -- Brendon, you are more of an idiot than I am if you were worried about him." He squeezes Brendon's knee. "Pay attention, this is the important part. I drove like 400 miles and I realized, I have to sell my house."
Brendon swallows. "Um, okay."
"It's not even, it has a hole in it the size of the Alamo and I don't give a fuck, I don't want to spend the night there ever again. I'm going to get a condo in Vegas so when Ryan and Keltie have the baby I can be nearby, and then, unless you're planning some dramatic act of rebellion, I was thinking I'd get a place here, too. So I can be nearby."
Two cars honk in almost perfect harmony, and as soon as one stops a third chimes in. Brendon yells, "Shut the fuck up!" at his closed window.
Spencer says. "I don't believe in accidents, and I didn't just end up here, and we're not just making some mistake over and over because it's somebody's birthday. I want to do this, and then I want to figure out -- I don't know. The next 30 years of my life, I guess."
"You know," Brendon starts.
"Don't be an asshole right now, I'm warning you. This is your car. I could drive it into anything."
"You go right ahead and do that, Spencer. I was just going to say, I've been 30 a while now. I could probably help you, you know. Figure your shit out."
"Yeah," Spencer says. "You can."
Brendon leans over the gearshift and kisses his cheek, dry and demure, then turns Spencer's chin and licks into his mouth. Somebody knocks on the windshield and eventually they decide to stop kissing.
"You know how to get back from here?" Brendon asks, and Spencer says, "Of course I do." Brendon leaves one hand on Spencer's leg as Spencer pulls away from the curb.
***
Credits: Food and dogs by hearthisvoice. Handholding by sinsense. Ultimate pairing challenge by jae_w. Future by fmangel.
Comments from original posting are here.
ETA: A short coda can be found here.
*
Brendon offers to introduce him to some nice people, and because Spencer is a moron, he agrees.
Julie is Brendon's old publicist, and Spencer takes her to sushi. "So you're going to film school?" she asks over yellowtail, and Spencer says, "What?"
"Brendon said you just started at USC," she says.
Spencer lays down his chopsticks. "Did he mention I'm in the middle of getting divorced?"
*
Sasha is neither Russian nor a woman, no matter what Brendon implied. They go to a soul food place off Crenshaw that Spencer's car computer says Zagat recommends.
"I can't remember the details," Sasha says. "What kind of restaurant are you opening?"
Spencer says, "Something that serves pie. Meat pies."
Sasha's handsy and hot in that strong-jawed way Spencer's always appreciated in men from cologne ads. Sasha is, in fact, a male model, and he jerks Spencer off in his pristine front seat and licks his fingers clean. Spencer says he'll call, and he means to save the number but when he looks the next day it doesn't seem to have worked.
*
Seth is slender and smart and likes four of Spencer's new favorite bands and two he's never heard of. They eat pho in a tiny Silverlake restaurant and when Seth says, "How do you like DJing?" Spencer says he loves it. "Is that tough to balance with studying astronomy?" Seth asks.
Spencer finishes his beer. "Is that what Brendon told you?"
"I think?" Seth says. "I was just happy to hear from him again, honestly. You know how you meet someone and you think there's this great connection, and then, boom, it's like they fall off the face of the earth?"
*
Brendon says, "I wasn't going to set you up with someone who's bad in bed." He's unrepentant, arms crossed. "I thought you might like Seth! He has really good taste in music."
"Oh, and what did you like best about Sasha?"
"He's kind of dirty," Brendon says with an appreciative smirk. On the TV a commercial trumps a new floor wax that's clinically proven to remove 99 percent of all grime. "See, quality control is important!"
Brendon is still chuckling like this is the year's best joke, Spencer and his sloppy seconds. Spencer hasn't had sex with anyone other than Sasha's hand in five days, and the mattress in Brendon's spare room sags in the middle and he fucking hit his forehead that morning getting out of his own goddamned car.
"You shouldn't be giving anyone advice about anything," he says, and it comes out exactly as angry and bitter as it felt rattling around his head.
Brendon's eyebrows scrunch together. "I give awesome advice."
"What advice would you give a guy who moved to LA with his boyfriend, oh, almost 10 years ago, has slept with every guy in Southern California since and still avoids the actual issue of his sexuality whenever possible?"
"Coming out is so 2004." Brendon delivers the line with his chin up and a cocky smirk. It's probably worked wonders in the past. "I do what I want and everybody knows it."
"You do everything but talk about it," Spencer snaps.
"We're talking about it," Brendon points out. "People talk about it. My mom talks about it." He turns off the TV and throws the remote on the coffee table but it just bounces once, skipping off to land in the carpet. "What fucking else do you want me to say about it, Spencer?"
He feels the anger make him flush, face hot under his facial hair, skin itchy under his clothes. "I don't know," he says, "how about anything you actually mean? Anything that actually means something to you, that isn't just showing off how clever you are."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
Spencer is so fucking sick of Brendon and his big ideas, of Brendon acting like his lonely, slutty life is something to be proud of, something to want to package and franchise and syndicate to the lowest bidder.
"Why'd you stop recording your own shit?" he asks, and Brendon flinches. "When's the last time you wrote a song for yourself and sang it and put it out there? Just because you do one album and people didn't like it, and then one song that everybody loves but you'll never discuss -- and so what, so you've got a wait list a mile long of people who want a piece of you. So fucking what that you've got more work than you know how to handle. You won't sing about your own life, and your songs are worse for it."
Brendon bites his lip. "Fine," he says. "Find your own fucking dates." He slams his bedroom door and Spencer slams his too for good measure.
*
Brendon's left the house by the time Spencer gets up the next day, and when he comes into the studio to try to apologize for being an asshole about shit that has nothing to do with him, Brendon walks out before Spencer can even open his mouth.
He sinks down into the rolling chair next to Henry's. "So," he says, with a nod at the screen on the other side of the glass. "Does the plucky heroine ever convince her loser boyfriend to open his heart to love?"
Henry says, "I do not pay attention to these things unless I absolutely have to."
"That seems like a wise strategy."
"It gets me through the day." Henry has a warm smile that peeks through his reddish beard.
Spencer studies his nails a while. "So what do you do at night?"
When he looks up Henry's head is cocked to the side and he's staring at Spencer. "Are you asking me out?"
"Yeah," Spencer says.
"I kinda thought you and Brendon..."
"Brendon doesn't date," he says, and Henry laughs and says, "All right, fine. Tonight? Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow," Spencer says. He doesn't have anything going on before that but he likes the idea of having something to look forward to.
*
Spencer goes shopping for something to wear on his date, wandering down Melrose and dodging kids with more piercings than brain cells. It's almost October and still in the 80s. He asks the clerk to cut the tag off an overpriced allegedly authentic vintage t-shirt. He's not sure he's avoided looking like a douchebag but at least he's less uncomfortable.
Ryan calls while he's trying on shoes. "How much of an asshole do you think I am that I couldn't handle the fact that you and Brendon hooked up? We've been friends for 25 fucking years, Spence, I'm not going to judge you for who you sleep with."
"I know," Spencer says.
"And I can't believe you thought Brendon would actually be able to keep a secret."
"Jesus, I know, I'm sorry." He shoves tissue paper back into the shoes and ties his own back up.
"Okay," Ryan says, and after a long stretch of silence adds, "We're okay."
"Thank God." Spencer's laugh sounds a little more serious than he'd meant it to but if there's anyone who will let it pass, it's Ryan.
"So how's Brendon," Ryan asks.
"Well, I told him his songs are shitty because he doesn't know how to write honest lyrics."
"Huh," Ryan says. "I guess that's one approach."
"I don't think he's talking to me." Spencer sighs. "Plus I -- I may have asked out the sound engineer at the studio where he's recording."
"Maybe when you're done you could piss in the corners of his condo."
"I thought you weren't going to judge me for who I sleep with!"
"You slept with the sound engineer? What is wrong with you."
"Ryan --"
Ryan laughs.
"Fuck," Spencer says. "I miss you, you sadistic fuck. Tell me some crazy story about Keltie's pregnant cravings already."
*
Brendon doesn't come home that night, but he's eating eggs at the breakfast bar when Spencer gets up in the morning. Spencer doesn't even pour his coffee before he says, "I'm an asshole, and I'm sorry."
"I already knew both of those things," Brendon says.
"Well then," Spencer says, "can you tell me if Henry is any good in bed?"
Brendon sets down his fork. "You have a date with Henry? Henry my sound engineer Henry?"
"Oh, is his name Henry?" Spencer makes himself an extra-large cup of coffee.
"Wow," Brendon says, and whistles something that sounds suspiciously like "back in the saddle again." This is how it goes with them. Brendon can't remember to hold a grudge long enough to make it hurt, and if Spencer lets him off too easy in exchange it's only fair play.
"Don't tell me you've been working with this guy for months and haven't banged him yet."
"Banged is such a strong word," Brendon says.
"Made sweet tender love to?" Spencer blows delicately across his mug. "Wait, am I only allowed to date people who have been pre-approved? You weren't all that specific."
"Fuck you."
"Hmm. Sasha did give me a handjob. Our deal is that I get an equal amount of sex from you for whatever I do with anyone else, right? I'm okay with rounding up if you are."
"I don't do halfsies," Brendon says right away, way serious.
Spencer says, "Then I'll be sure to let you know when my punch card is full."
*
He's trimming his beard when Brendon barges into the guest bathroom. He perches his ass on the lip of the sink and rubs the back of his knuckles over Spencer's chin.
"It looks good short," he says. He gives Spencer the once-over in the mirror. "Yeah," he says, then bites his lip and slides off the counter, clapping Spencer's shoulder. "Henry will haul you off to his cave and make a man of you for sure."
Spencer sets down the scissors. "Pretty sure you get that trophy."
"You'll make someone a very fine trophy boy, don't you worry." Brendon straightens Spencer's collar, a sad smirk fleeting across his face.
When he looks up, Spencer kisses him. Brendon oomphs in surprise, but it quickly rounds out into a pleased groan with a bonus hand down the front of Spencer's pants.
"Hey, hey," Spencer says, but can't really be bothered to do any more complaining than that.
"Just gonna take the edge off," Brendon murmurs into his collarbone. "Don't want you to be all distracted during dinner and miss the good stuff."
Spencer's head hits the edge of something square. "Fuck, I hate you," he says.
Brendon twists his hand. "You hate me so much," he says, and bites Spencer just below the neckline.
*
Henry got a haircut and a sweater-vest. He tugs at the hem as the waiter hands them their menus and says, "I have to tell you, it's been a while since I went on a date."
Spencer swirls the ice in his water glass and says, "Wait, this is a date?" Henry kicks him under the table and Spencer is surprised when his own laugh comes out warm and real. "I've been married for -- well, we met when I was 18. What's your excuse?"
"What, were you looking for a daddy?"
Spencer is really, really glad he'd decided not to have any bread yet, because choking is never sexy, no matter what Brendon says. He still does a decent job of humiliating himself coughing on dry air, though. He waves off Henry's offered glass and his Heimlich charades.
"I really hope the punchline here isn't you were sold into sex slavery and spent a decade tied up in some dude's basement, or I'm going to feel like a real asshole."
"Worse," Spencer says. "She was 17 and still living with her parents."
"Oh shit," Henry says.
"Okay, I ripped off the band-aid -- and that sucked way worse than they said it would, by the way. Your turn."
"My husband -- or, not really my husband any more, sorry --"
Please, please don't let him be dead, Spencer thinks.
"Your face," Henry says. "He's not dead or anything. It's just so stupid and so LA and so gay."
"Now you have to tell me, Jesus." Spencer smiles. "I was totally imagining his funeral."
Henry sighs dramatically and holds his napkin to his forehead. "He ran off with the pool boy."
"Oh my God," Spencer says, and tries very, very hard not to giggle. Henry kicks him again when the waiter comes to take their order.
*
Everything is going fine -- better than fine, things are going really well, they're having fun and getting to know each other and nobody's spilled tomato sauce anywhere vital. And then Henry asks him about Brendon.
"I really thought you two --"
"No," Spencer says. "Well, not --" He takes another sip of wine but his glass is empty.
"So you are?" Henry asks it slowly, like he knows he doesn't want to know but can't stop himself from asking anyway. It's so fucking real of him, real and sweet and Spencer is just an unmitigated asshole.
"I don't know what we are," he says, and it's shitty but it's true. "Fuck, I thought it'd -- I still have a wife," he says. "Here I thought that would be the deal-breaker."
Henry pours them both another glass of wine. "How long have you known Brendon?"
"Even longer," Spencer says. "Shit, I'm sorry, this --" He sighs. "This is really not how I saw tonight going."
"I thought it was all proceeding way too smoothly. It was either this or you were, I don't know, an alien."
"I could be an alien."
"No, you're way too hot," Henry says. "Damn."
Spencer says, "Let me buy you something awful for dessert. Something with lots of whipped cream."
"And you can tell me why you're going on dates with guys whose husbands left them for the pool boy."
"Pool boys are stupid."
"Stupid and hot, just like God made them. Come on, cheer me up. Tell me a sad story about being in love with Brendon Urie."
Spencer flicks a nail against the curve of his glass and it chimes lightly. "How long have you got?"
*
They talk through cappuccinos and the most elaborately, elegantly reconstructed tiramisu Spencer's ever seen. There's a wine bar across the street, so they share a flight of California reds and talk some more. Henry, Spencer realizes, is the first person not in his band or related to him or almost-previously married to him that he's actually talked to in a long, long time.
This is what the rest of us call having a friend, Ryan would say, and Spencer grins at himself in the sliver of glass peeking out behind shelves of bottles as Henry goes to the bathroom. He pulls out his phone to say as much to Ryan and there are 14 new texts, all from Brendon. They've been having such a nice time he hasn't looked at his phone in hours, but lack of response has never dissuaded Brendon, especially not when there's something he wants or thinks might be getting away.
Spencer opens one in the middle.
just saying, there's a popsicle here with your name on it!
The bar is maybe 50 feet from front to back and Spencer can see as Henry wrestles the tiny door open. He types quickly -- thx back later -- and puts his phone in his coat pocket.
Henry smiles as he settles back on the stool next to Spencer, signaling the bartender.
"Do you want another?" Spencer suggests just as Henry says, "I should probably go."
"Oh," Spencer says.
"I've got a match tomorrow morning."
"Right, rugby," Spencer remembers.
"And I think you've probably got all the friendly action you can handle," Henry says. "Or I'd tell you to come home with me anyway."
Spencer considers the offer, and Henry patiently lets him. Henry has the bold forearms of a roadie and a goofy giggle and four dogs he shares with the best friend who co-owns his duplex. He didn't go to college, either, just spent two years on the North Shore bumming around beaches before a surf buddy decided to record the sound of the sea. They went foot by foot around the island with a home-made microphone.
He already knows more about Henry, and Henry knows more about him, than anyone he's met on his own in years.
"I think you're probably right," he says finally, "and if there's a way to say I really would like us to be friends without sounding like a fucking asshole --"
"That works for me," Henry says, and wraps Spencer up in a hard hug.
*
Spencer spends 10 minutes in the parking lot figuring out how to disable the navigation system and then drives, just drives as fast as he can and as far as he wants.
It's late enough that the freeways are mostly empty and Los Angeles feels like a whole other city. It's like taking off a tight jacket and discovering you can fly, like sitting down behind his kit for the first time in a while and stretching with his sticks in hand.
He sails across overpasses and skims along the shoulder of the PCH, craning his neck to watch the reflection of the moon in the ocean. Eventually he stops for gas and shitty coffee at a tiny station with a colorful hand-painted sign for ahi burgers, then heads roughly back in the other direction.
He drives slower this time, sticking to surface streets and sliding through silent neighborhoods. There are a million channels of satellite radio somewhere in his stereo but he leaves them alone, rolling down the windows and allowing the chill desert air to wrap around his neck. He puts down the top, too, and turns on the heater, weaving his way through beach cities as the sky starts to get light.
Two guys in wetsuits with boards amble across the pavement and he watches them pick their way to the sand. He takes a right at Santa Monica, sun staring him straight in the face as he congratulates himself for actually knowing where he is and how to get where he's going. Brendon's street is full, cars stacked end to end like they're on a trailer-truck. Spencer valets at the hotel around the corner and walks back, stopping to say hello to a girl in track pants out with her Rottweiler. Jon is right, he should get a dog.
Brendon's asleep in the living room, head at an awful angle against the arm of the couch. Spencer's trying to slide a pillow under his neck when he wakes up, smacking his lips and nearly butting Spencer's forehead.
"You're alive," he mumbles, then screws up his face, sitting up enough to reach a glass on the coffee table. He swishes and swallows and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "I figured either he was chopping you into tiny bite-sized pieces or you'd run away together."
"Mostly we talked about you," Spencer says, and sits down next to Brendon.
"That can't be good."
Spencer smiles and shoves Brendon around until he fits under Spencer's arm. "It wasn't bad," he says. "Actually, no, it was good. It was good."
Brendon tilts his head back. "How good?"
Spencer doesn't want to take the bait. "Really good," he says instead. "I don't really have any friends, Brendon."
"Yeah you do, you've got me, and Ryan, and --"
"I have a band. And a few guys in other bands I know all right. And my sisters and their families and my parents. And, hell, maybe Haley and I will even figure out how to have a conversation again. But I'm 30 years old and I haven't made a new friend since -- since I don't even know. It's kind of pathetic."
"No," Brendon says quickly, "no, it's --"
"There's no need to start going easy on me now, Mr. Reality Check. It's pretty lame. I'm a friendly guy, right?"
Brendon burrows into Spencer's side, tucking his nose against Spencer's chest. "Do you," he says, and takes a deep breath. "We can just be friends, if that's what you want."
Spencer lays his hand on Brendon's shoulder, just cupping the curve of bone and feeling his warm skin through the thin t-shirt. "I was thinking, actually, I was thinking we should go out."
"Oh," Brendon says.
"On a date," Spencer clarifies. "Together, you and I. We should go out. Like, on purpose, go to dinner or --"
Brendon pushes up and out of Spencer's embrace, and he's still got little squares in the pattern of the couch fabric on one cheek and his hair is sticking up and his breath fucking reeks and Spencer's only ever felt like this once before, just one girl and one boy and both times it didn't make sense but he had to try anyway.
"You busy tonight?" he asks, and Brendon blinks at him and eventually says no. He smiles sleepy and confused, rubbing his eyes like he expects to wake up from a dream.
Spencer tries to kiss him but Brendon holds him at bay. "Not yet," he says, "not if we're going on a date."
"Fine," Spencer says. "You have to pick the restaurant."
"Fine." He holds out his hand to shake and Spencer takes it, laughing. "It's a deal. Also my mouth tastes disgusting."
*
Spencer locks the bathroom door and calls Ryan for help.
"Just do your hair like you always do it," Ryan says, exasperated a minute into the conversation. "He knows what you look like. He knows what you looked like when you were in high school, Spencer, he's not going to walk out because personal grooming has been low on your list of priorities for a while. He probably should, but --"
"Oh my God, why did I think this would be better?" Spencer mutters at his reflection, flicking the comb again over the funny piece in the back that won't lie down right.
"Are you wearing cologne?" Ryan asks.
"Should I be?"
"How hard did you hit your head when you drove through your house, tell me for real."
"I took a shower, I smell like -- like soap, I guess. I don't know, Brendon picked it out."
"I'm hanging up now so you're not late for your very important date," Ryan says, and the call clicks off.
When he steps into the hallway and calls Brendon's name, there's no answer. He pulls his phone out again but the message is already waiting:
your chariot awaits. (at the curb in my car like a proper gentleman. come down whenever you're FINALLY ready.)
The sun roof is open and an album he gave Brendon last Christmas is playing on the stereo. "You're not going to get out and open the door?"
"This is a date, not a dumb romance novel," Brendon says, but he still takes Spencer's hand when they're at a long light.
Spencer's relatively sure Brendon enlisted professional help to get them into Achatz West on 12 hours' notice, but he's hardly going to turn down the chance to eat spherificated sweet potato in mango vapor even if it means they end up in a gossip column.
They're seated in the window, reinforcing Spencer's theory. By the time the chef gets paraded out to oversee delivery of their first presentation -- "No, please, call me Evan," he insists as he explains how the tomato water was alginated -- Brendon looks so self-satisfied Spencer's surprised he can still swallow.
"I know you like food," Brendon shrugs, though he doesn't let his eyes off Evan's ass until he's safely ensconced back behind swinging doors.
"You're just worried I'll run off to the kitchen to interrogate him myself."
Brendon grins. "That too."
Spencer licks the last of the tomato off his utensil. "I'm done with that," he says, and Brendon raises his eyebrow.
"Lost your appetite already?"
"Didn't have much of one to start off with," Spencer says. "Are we going to keep trading food metaphors a while longer or are we ready for the next course?"
Brendon snorts out a laugh and lights up with the real smile Spencer always knows is lurking somewhere beneath his people pleasing toothy version. "Next is steak, right?"
Spencer snickers when they're served filet mignon cut into meticulous diamond shapes and incensed in a plume of cardamom and rose petal smoke. "Close enough for jazz," he says, and Brendon be-bops his way through each mouthful.
"So I started working on a song," Brendon says, and takes a big swallow of wine.
"That thing for whatshername?"
"No. Something -- it's new. I don't know. You left me all alone! I had to entertain myself somehow."
"When I said -- Brendon, anyone would be --" He stops and tries to say what he means. "I just hope they know how fucking lucky they are to have you work on their shit. That's what --"
"No, you were totally right. Just because other people are willing to do the hard work --"
"Don't -- don't sell yourself short, most of them would give an arm to play one instrument that easily, let alone --"
"No, I'm not. Look, let me --" He leans his elbows on the table. "You know the song from Shane's movie?"
Spencer nods. "That -- that one was different." It was different, enough that Spencer noticed and so did plenty of other people, fans and critics who speculated what it meant and who it was for. It was vulnerable, in its words and arrangement, a simple, raw recording about a boy who found love and didn't know what to do with it.
"It wasn't actually done, or going to be, Shane just put it in a rough cut and then he asked me if he could leave it, and I said maybe, and then the producers really liked it and I didn't want to, you know, screw things up for him on his big break."
"You wrote it for him."
"Yeah, but I didn't really think anyone else needed to suffer through that, and --"
"Oh, come on." Spencer's so used to protesting Brendon's bullshit that he forgets for a second that this is the kind of thing Brendon isn't kidding about. "Brendon, that song. It was fucking beautiful."
"Well," Brendon says. "I haven't had much worth writing about in a while."
The waiter sets long spiky skewers speared with rippled waves of translucent bacon in front of them. Delicate wires holding each end curve up from a sterling cube, and Spencer leans forward to take it in his mouth. When he flicks his eyes up Brendon is staring, rapt. "Shut it," Spencer says after he swallows. There's some kind of frozen, nutty anglaise and Spencer wants to moan but there's only so much mocking he can handle in one bite.
But Brendon just copies his posture, eyes widening as he leans back. "I don't know what I just put in my mouth, but I think I'm in love," he says.
Dessert is a shot-sized glass with a chocolate globe suspended in limeflower water, a drizzle of kelly green mint running through one side like a river.
Brendon licks his lips and says, "There once was a meal made of bites, small plate after plate to entice."
Spencer waves his hand to continue but Brendon shakes his head.
"You know that show we did with Pete and everyone in Belfast?"
Spencer does, though he doesn't remember much more than that. It was a long time ago. He nods.
"You were -- I don't know where you were, but Jon and Ryan and I were drinking at some pub and this old guy -- maybe we told you this, he challenged me to some crazy Irish duel where we were both making up songs as fast as we could. And Ryan, I always remember, Ryan said, 'You write better limericks than anyone in the world, Brendon, because they're just silly dirty jokes, and no one is better at that than you.'"
A car honks out on La Cienega and there's a sharp squeal of tires but after a long second everyone keeps going. Spencer says, "You know he didn't mean that's all you're good at, right?"
Brendon shrugs. "Sure," he says.
The check comes, a block of perfectly clear ice through which a number glimmers wetly. Spencer puts his credit card on the table next to it. "I asked you out," he argues when Brendon frowns.
Brendon tucks his hand through Spencer's arm as they walk out the door. It's just getting cool enough at night that Spencer wishes he had a coat. Brendon's body is warm pressed all along his side as they wait for the valet to bring the car back.
"Is there an after-party?" Brendon asks, sounding content and a little bit sleepy. For all the small portions and serious talk, Spencer is feeling full and happy. There are twinkling lights along the awning and Brendon's wearing a dark red shirt and it's kind of perfect, really.
He knows what comes next -- not just going home together, that much is kind of a given even if things went badly. But he knows the next part, too, the stupid giddy joy and charmed way things fall into place once you've done the hard part and found the right person. It's the same thing he felt driving through the dawn to get back to Brendon.
Brendon tilts his chin up, elbowing Spencer's ribs. "What?" he says.
Spencer says, "God, this is as good a time as any." He pulls just far enough away to face Brendon and he doesn't know what look he's wearing but Brendon pales a little, lips suddenly redder against his white face. "What?" Spencer asks.
"You're -- you're not going to propose, right?"
"I'm --" The valet pulls up to the curb in Brendon's car. "I'm not even divorced yet!"
"Well --" Brendon looks sheepishly down at his feet, clearly unaware that there are now two guys in bright yellow uniform jackets staring at them, waiting for them to take the car or start a fight or do something worth taking up so much real estate on a sidewalk in front of LA's hottest restaurant.
Spencer sees the white pop of a flash out of the corner of his eye as he says, "Brendon, oh my God. I am 30 years old, I am capable of realizing I'm in love with someone and not running for the altar. Yes, please, be my boyfriend, or my not-boyfriend, or whatever you want to call it so it doesn't make you freak out and make up stupid rules about how I have to sleep with other people."
"That was stupid," Brendon nods.
Spencer grabs his face and kisses him before either of them does anything stupider. "Get in the car," he says. "No, I'm driving, just get in." He circles the back of the car and shoves some money at the attendant.
Brendon's sitting with his hands folded on his lap, looking equally contrite and conspiratorial. "You realized you're in love with me," he says.
"So did you," Spencer retorts, and checks the rearview mirror. There are at least three cars waiting for him to move. He puts on his hazards and turns to Brendon. "This is what I decided," he says, "last night when I drove halfway to Mexico trying to figure shit out, and --"
"You weren't with Henry?"
"After that, after -- Brendon, you are more of an idiot than I am if you were worried about him." He squeezes Brendon's knee. "Pay attention, this is the important part. I drove like 400 miles and I realized, I have to sell my house."
Brendon swallows. "Um, okay."
"It's not even, it has a hole in it the size of the Alamo and I don't give a fuck, I don't want to spend the night there ever again. I'm going to get a condo in Vegas so when Ryan and Keltie have the baby I can be nearby, and then, unless you're planning some dramatic act of rebellion, I was thinking I'd get a place here, too. So I can be nearby."
Two cars honk in almost perfect harmony, and as soon as one stops a third chimes in. Brendon yells, "Shut the fuck up!" at his closed window.
Spencer says. "I don't believe in accidents, and I didn't just end up here, and we're not just making some mistake over and over because it's somebody's birthday. I want to do this, and then I want to figure out -- I don't know. The next 30 years of my life, I guess."
"You know," Brendon starts.
"Don't be an asshole right now, I'm warning you. This is your car. I could drive it into anything."
"You go right ahead and do that, Spencer. I was just going to say, I've been 30 a while now. I could probably help you, you know. Figure your shit out."
"Yeah," Spencer says. "You can."
Brendon leans over the gearshift and kisses his cheek, dry and demure, then turns Spencer's chin and licks into his mouth. Somebody knocks on the windshield and eventually they decide to stop kissing.
"You know how to get back from here?" Brendon asks, and Spencer says, "Of course I do." Brendon leaves one hand on Spencer's leg as Spencer pulls away from the curb.
***
Credits: Food and dogs by hearthisvoice. Handholding by sinsense. Ultimate pairing challenge by jae_w. Future by fmangel.
Comments from original posting are here.
ETA: A short coda can be found here.