Five times Spencer refused to shave
Title: Five times Spencer refused to shave
Pairing: Spencer/Brendon
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Fiction!
Notes: For disarm_d, because I love her, and for motardranger, who provided the original prompt.
Summary: “Where is it?” Spencer asks, low and threatening. He has about eight minutes left. This is also, coincidentally, how long Brendon has left to live if he doesn’t return Spencer’s aftershave.
1.
“Who took my aftershave?”
Ryan looks at Spencer blankly. He scratches his nose. He shrugs. “Dunno. Jon, maybe?”
Jon hasn’t shaved in weeks. Brendon is Spencer’s primary suspect, because everything not labeled ‘property of Spencer Smith’ in Sharpie is fair game to him, and sometimes not even that stops him. Ryan’s also a candidate, though, and while Ryan isn’t terrifically good at deception, he is good at doing things and then forgetting about them, which means his usual tells for lying don’t apply.
Brendon bounds into the dressing room, high-energy and high-maintenance and high on enough sugar to get him through the show and keep him up for hours afterwards. Spencer snaps out a hand as he passes in a blur of motion, grabs Brendon by the back of the shirt and yanks. Brendon’s arms windmill wildly and he catches his balance, wide-eyed, in Spencer’s grip.
“Did you take my aftershave?” Spencer asks.
Brendon gets remarkably shifty-eyed. No one in their band can lie worth shit. “No?” he asks, which is basically a signed confession as far as Spencer’s concerned. He needs proof, though, or else Brendon pulls the wounded, cut-to-the-heart routine, and Spencer doesn’t have the patience for that. They go on in ten minutes. He needs to get fucking dressed already. And shave.
Brendon starts squirming, which is another sure sign of guilt, but still not enough. Spencer tightens his grip and smiles a little wolfishly when Brendon goes instantly still. Brendon’s eyes go even wider, and he’s practically vibrating under Spencer’s hand with the effort of holding still as Spencer narrows his eyes. He leans in slowly, deliberately, until their faces are millimeters apart. Then he turns his head very slightly to the side, nose bumping Brendon’s cheek, and sniffs.
Brendon goes limp in his hands, defeated.
“Where is it?” Spencer asks, low and threatening. He has about eight minutes left. This is also, coincidentally, how long Brendon has left to live if he doesn’t return Spencer’s aftershave.
Brendon trembles a little. Spencer imagines the scent of his aftershave on Brendon’s skin mingling with the sweaty smell of fear. “I used it,” he whispers.
Spencer grinds his teeth, and gets absolutely no satisfaction (well, all right, a little) out of Brendon’s instinctive flinch.
“Use Jon’s,” Ryan suggests. Spencer pushes Brendon out of strangling range and gives Ryan his most effective are you serious? look. Ryan quirks an eyebrow in the midst of flocks of painted birds, like he doesn’t get what the problem is.
“Jon hasn’t shaved in weeks,” Spencer explains patiently. “I doubt he even remembers what a razor looks like.”
“So borrow someone else’s,” Ryan says, shrugging. “Use mine.”
“You smell like a ninety-year-old man,” Spencer tells him. “No way in hell. I’ll find someone else.”
He’s halfway changed before Ryan stops blinking his affront and says, “I do not.”
Spencer favors him with another look. Brendon just says cheerfully, “You really do, Ross. Like a slutty, flowery, decrepit old man. Like a free love hippie nursing home.”
“Shut up,” Ryan replies automatically.
“Not like Spencer,” Brendon continues with a grin. “Spencer smells like a brawny lumberjack of manliness.”
Spencer glowers. “You would know,” he says darkly. Brendon abruptly remembers to quail.
“Five minutes,” Zack warns through the dressing room door.
“Fuck it,” Spencer says, yanking on his ridiculous demonic pirate shirt. “I can be scruffy for one day.”
2.
Ryan’s looking at him with extreme skepticism. Spencer’s ignoring him. They’ve been doing this for roughly the past ten minutes, with no change.
Spencer’s a little on edge, though, for no reason beyond having too much coffee at breakfast, so he’s the one to finally break the stalemate with a look and a perfectly arched eyebrow. What?
Ryan wrinkles his nose, head tilted sideways. “Is that what you’re wearing?” he asks eventually.
The urge to look down at himself is overwhelming, even though he already knows what he’s wearing, because he’s the one who put it on. He looks back up immediately, though, and curses his skin for being light enough to flush. “Yeah,” he says. “So?”
Ryan’s lips do a little pull-twist to the side. “It’s kinda…” he says, trailing off.
“It’s lunch at Taco Bell, followed by swimming,” Spencer says. “Am I supposed to wear a three-piece suit?”
“No,” Ryan says. “I just thought you’d make more of an effort.” He gives Spencer his patented Ryan-Ross-disapproves-of-your-fashion-sense look, which takes in the faded t-shirt with the hole in the collar and baggy shorts with paint splattered down on leg, and somehow makes it into a crime against humanity and clothing shops everywhere.
Not that Ryan’s one to talk. He’s currently wearing a long-sleeved shirt - in the middle of August - and tweed pants, neither of which match his paisley vest or the dozen scarves he has wrapped around his neck. Spencer doesn’t understand how Ryan can possibly have the high moral fashion ground here.
“It’s fast food,” Spencer repeats slowly, in case Ryan has forgotten.
Ryan frowns. “It’s fast food with Brendon.”
Spencer flushes again, damn his stupid pale skin. It’s the middle of summer, he should at least be able to get a decent tan. Ryan’s giving him that look now, the one that says, I see through you even though you pretend, and Spencer has never had much of a defense against that look, or against Ryan.
“Big deal,” Spencer says.
Ryan’s expression settles into something like longsuffering, with the lip-twitch that says, Ah, you’re pretending to be in denial.
“You’re not even going to shave?” Ryan asks, and Spencer can’t figure out whether it’s his own paranoia or Ryan’s tone that makes him sound so knowing.
“No,” he grinds out. “I’m not. Can we go?”
Ryan’s eyebrows both rise up to his hairline, the face of I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about this. Which is completely unfair, because Spencer’s not the one making this into such a thing. Ryan’s just convinced he knows something. Which he doesn’t. He totally doesn’t. Spencer’s wearing the paint-covered cargo shorts to prove it.
It’s not like it’s a big deal that they haven’t seen Brendon for weeks. They’ve all been home, doing family things, taking a break. And if Spencer normally wears tight jeans and girls’ shirts and cool sneakers when Brendon is around, it’s just because that’s how Spencer normally dresses, and because Brendon is always around. It’s a coincidence. It’s a quirk of fate. It is not, no matter what Ryan thinks he knows, an attempt to impress anyone, and especially not anyone named Brendon.
“Your socks don’t match,” Ryan says gravely.
Spencer rolls his eyes and curses a lineage of fair-skinned Europeans. “Whatever,” he says, jamming a baseball cap over his unwashed hair. “Let’s just go.”
3.
“Fuck,” Spencer says succinctly.
No one answers him. Which isn’t surprising, considering that he’s alone in the bathroom with shaving cream all over his face. He opens the door and tries again. “Fuck.”
Jon appears a few seconds later, wandering up with his hands stuffed into his pockets. “Problem? Hey, good look, we should get Ryan to incorporate that. Marshmallow-face costumes or something.”
“No,” Spencer says automatically. He holds up his razor and explains, “I’m out of blades.”
“Bummer,” Jon says sympathetically.
Once again, Jon has given up shaving completely, so Spencer isn’t really surprised that he doesn’t offer any further assistance. He’s still disappointed, though.
“Ryan?” he calls.
It’s a small cabin. Spencer only has to bellow his name three more times before Ryan actually shows up, looking mildly curious. “You have stuff on your face,” he says.
Spencer rolls his eyes in what he firmly believes is a superior way. Jon says, “Hey, what about all of us dressing like candy? It goes with the fairy tale theme. Gingerbread houses and all.”
“No,” Spencer says again, because the idea of Brendon on a set made of candy is too horrifying to fully contemplate. To Ryan, he says, “Do you have razorblades?”
Ryan looks deeply meditative. Eventually he says, “No.”
“Fuck,” Spencer says again, but with a greater note of tragedy this time. He’ll have to wait until one of them ventures down from the mountain, and that could take days. Spencer hates it when his face itches.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
Brendon appears behind Ryan and Jon, the way he always does when the three of them are together. Spencer suspects that some part of Brendon’s brain has a radar for when people are congregating without him.
“Spencer’s out of razorblades,” Ryan informs him.
“And we’re going to have a gingerbread house onstage,” Jon adds.
“No, we’re not,” Spencer says quickly, although not fast enough to keep Brendon’s eyes from lighting up like he’s just been told it’s Second Christmas.
“Can we have giant candy canes?” Brendon asks. He’s already bouncing on his toes with excitement. Spencer is going to fucking kill Jon.
“No,” Spencer says again, uselessly. They never listen to him anyway, and then he ends up painted like an evil circus ringmaster.
Brendon opens his mouth again, and then pretty obviously switches tracks. “You can use mine,” he says. “I don’t mind.”
It takes Spencer a second to catch up with the conversation, and then he has a split-second of hope before it’s dashed onto the rocks of reality. “No,” he says. “Thanks.”
“It’s not that bad,” Brendon says earnestly, which is a pity, because he is utterly misguided and it really is that bad. Spencer’s tried it before, one time and one time only. He’s not that desperate yet.
“You can’t get close enough to the skin,” Spencer complains. “And it feels funny.” Electric razors are not natural. They just aren’t. He doesn’t know how Brendon does it, except that Brendon grows all the facial hair of a twelve-year-old and giving him a real razor would undoubtedly lead to a bloodbath. Spencer’s seen Brendon shave. It usually involves showtunes, complete with ill-timed jazz hands.
“It feels cool,” Brendon argues. Before Spencer can say anything else, Brendon is suddenly grabbing his hand and holding it up to his own face. The skin is smooth, although there’s still enough texture for Spencer to feel it prickling lightly along the soft skin of his wrist. Brendon scrubs his jaw against Spencer’s palm, eyes wide and earnest. Spencer’s mouth is dry. He can’t, for a moment, remember what they were talking about.
Then he does, and snatches his hand back, ignoring Brendon’s hurt look in favor of recovering his composure. “No thanks,” he says, putting a little bit of a drawl into it. “I don’t think I’ve sunk quite that far.”
Brendon’s eyes flash briefly, but his voice is cheerful again in the next heartbeat. “Just wait,” he says. “You’ll cave. It’s a lonely life a man leads without razorblades.”
It’s unfortunately true. Spencer gives his empty travel kit a betrayed look.
To Jon, Brendon says, “So is Spencer going to be the marshmallow man?”
Spencer’s resolve suddenly grows threefold. He rinses the cream off of his face and scratches at his chin.
Fuck electric razors. He can totally rock the mountain man look.
4.
Spencer’s at his house when Brendon calls.
“Hey,” he says absently. “What’s up?”
“So I’ve been thinking,” Brendon says, all in a rush like he needs to spit the words out or he’ll lose them forever. “About you and me. And us, kind of. Even though there is no us. What I’m saying is there could be, is all. If you wanted. For there to be an us. That is, if you think that maybe we…that we could be an us, and not just a we.”
Spencer blinks a few times. “What?” he asks finally.
Brendon makes a frustrated noise, the one he makes when he isn’t turning his thoughts into words properly and Spencer can’t read enough of his mind to translate. “It’s just been…it’s been a really long time, Spence,” he says, and laughs, but it’s a nervous laugh, high and awkward. “And I think we both thought it would go away, or at least I did, but it hasn’t, and I think that I’m…I am, at least, I don’t know if you are, but that’s where the us comes in…wait, what was I saying?”
“You think you’re…” Spencer prompts, because he has some vague idea of where this is going (where he hopes this is going, in a traitorous, giddy corner of his mind), but he needs Brendon to finish first.
“Right, thanks. I think I’m…we are, both of us…done waiting.” There’s a drawn-out pause, only broken by the sound of Brendon’s too-fast breathing. Then, “Spencer?”
Spencer takes a breath. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “I…yeah. Me too.”
“Yeah?” Brendon laughs again, and it’s still nervous, but this time there’s also the unrestrained thread of relief.
“Yeah,” Spencer says again, and he’s grinning now, hard enough that his face feels like it’s going to split. He can hear Brendon grinning through the phone, making that same face, that same brilliant smile. “I think we could be an us.”
He wonders sometimes if anyone else speaks the same language he and Brendon do, if anyone can hear the fragments of what Brendon says and actually understand him. He hopes not. He likes that they have conversations like this, full of phrases that make no sense and words that don’t mean anything, which somehow also mean everything. It makes it feel like sometimes they’re speaking only to each other.
“I think,” Brendon says, and then there’s a pause and a soft sound that Spencer’s brain helpfully fills in with the image of him licking his lips. “I think you should come over.”
“Yeah?” Spencer asks, like it’s even a question. His voice has gone all rumbly and deep without his permission.
“Yeah,” Brendon says. He’s stuck somewhere between breathless and grinning like an idiot. Spencer can relate.
“I’m on my way,” Spencer says, and hangs up. He didn’t really need to, probably, because he and Brendon usually spend the entire car ride over to each other’s places on the phone talking. But he has now, and it would be stupid to call him back, even if he does really just want to hear the sound of Brendon’s voice. He has to get ready anyway. He’s dressed, and Brendon won’t really mind if his shirt is stretched a little too tightly across his shoulders because it’s at least four years old now. Brendon, he thinks with a sudden clarity that leaves him feeling slightly dizzy, probably won’t leave it on him for long.
He looks in the mirror before he goes, fussing with his hair, and realizes he hasn’t shaved in two days. It hadn’t mattered, really, but now it kind of does. He was brought up right, he knows it’s not good manners to give the person you’re kissing stubble-burn.
He plans on kissing Brendon rather a lot. The dizzy feeling starts popping like little champagne bubbles in his brain.
He’s still frozen in front of his mirror, torn by indecision, when his phone rings. It’s Hot Chocolate’s You Sexy Thing, which means that Brendon’s gotten hold of his phone again when he wasn’t paying attention. It also means that it’s Brendon.
“Hey,” Spencer says, and wants to knock his head against the wall for sounding so out of breath when all he’s doing is standing in the middle of his bathroom debating the time it would take to shave his face.
“Hey,” Brendon says, and he sounds similarly out of breath, which makes Spencer feel slightly better, if not completely. “I realized we probably didn’t need to hang up, since you’re coming over and all. Have you left yet?”
“Yes,” Spencer says decisively, grabbing his keys. “I’m on my way.”
He’s already waited years for this. He’s not going to wait a minute longer.
5.
“Hotel night,” Brendon chirps, with the exuberance of someone who knows he’s heading down the home stretch toward a hot shower and a real bed.
Spencer smiles, with the smugness of someone who knows he’s getting laid in that real bed. Probably in the shower, too. Brendon isn’t big on waiting.
“We’re not going to be next to them, are we?” Ryan asks, because Ryan is Spencer’s best friend, and therefore sometimes a dick.
“Probably,” Jon admits. “We can watch television.”
Spencer thinks Ryan mutters, “All night,” but he can’t be sure. He cuffs Ryan on the back of the head anyway.
“301,” Brendon says, snatching both hotel keys from Zack as soon as they’re proffered. “Elevator. Up, up, up.”
Spencer has just enough time to see Jon sympathetically holding up the keycard envelope labeled ‘303’ before Brendon loses all patience and starts dragging him by the suitcase.
Spencer grins, even wider when they reach the elevator and Brendon hits the button for their floor about sixteen times in a row. “We have all night, you know,” Spencer points out, lounging against the back wall.
Brendon gives him a look from beneath his eyelashes, fucking smoldering, and Spencer’s throat goes abruptly, painfully dry. He’s suddenly in complete agreement with Brendon about how fast this elevator should be traveling.
“Shower,” Brendon says, because he can’t stay still for long enough to have sex when he’s still post-show sweaty, even though logically they’re only going to end up that way again. He’s got Spencer’s suitcase again, tugging on the handle, and Spencer goes because it’s not like there’s anything else he could do.
They don’t quite make it all the way into the shower. They make it as far as the bathroom, and then Brendon starts licking his way into Spencer’s mouth and Spencer starts groping Brendon shamelessly against the sink, and all other plans seem a very distant memory.
Spencer’s got one hand up Brendon’s shirt and the other down his pants when the sound of the television coming on very loud suddenly breaks in, muffled through the wall. Brendon drops his head onto Spencer’s shoulder and pants, shaking with silent laughter.
“Assholes,” Spencer mutters. They weren’t even making that much noise. Well, Brendon might have been. Brendon makes a lot of noise.
He’s busy getting distracted by that thought when Brendon pulls back and pushes him gently away. “Hey, shower,” he says. He licks his lips, eyes bright with mischief. “Shower and bed.”
Spencer pulls back the curtain, and gestures for Brendon to proceed.
Brendon only gets a little distracted while pulling his clothes off, and Spencer only gets a little distracted watching him. “Hey,” Brendon says, leaning back against the sink for a second to balance as he pulls off his left sock, his other hand lightly rubbing Spencer’s cheek. “Do you want to shave first?”
Spencer considers. Normally, the answer to this is a resounding yes, because he knows that once they get into the shower, they aren’t going to be out of physical contact for the rest of the night. And he likes his face to be smooth for sex, likes the slide of it against Brendon’s skin while their bodies move together.
Tonight, though, Brendon’s already standing in front of him naked (or mostly naked, anyway, he still hasn’t gotten his other sock), and Spencer can see the pink marks on his skin, light scratches that stand out even beneath the heated flush brought on by their necking.
He drags his jaw along Brendon’s throat, feels the pulse jumping madly against his skin and inhales, satisfied. When he pulls back to look, heavy-lidded, there are fresh marks blooming along Brendon’s pale neck. It’s like an advertisement, Spencer was here. Spencer wants to leave them everywhere.
“No,” he decides, and his voice has gone all rumbly again, in the way that makes Brendon shudder and fresh color bloom beneath the scratches from Spencer’s stubble. “Not tonight.”
Pairing: Spencer/Brendon
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Fiction!
Notes: For disarm_d, because I love her, and for motardranger, who provided the original prompt.
Summary: “Where is it?” Spencer asks, low and threatening. He has about eight minutes left. This is also, coincidentally, how long Brendon has left to live if he doesn’t return Spencer’s aftershave.
1.
“Who took my aftershave?”
Ryan looks at Spencer blankly. He scratches his nose. He shrugs. “Dunno. Jon, maybe?”
Jon hasn’t shaved in weeks. Brendon is Spencer’s primary suspect, because everything not labeled ‘property of Spencer Smith’ in Sharpie is fair game to him, and sometimes not even that stops him. Ryan’s also a candidate, though, and while Ryan isn’t terrifically good at deception, he is good at doing things and then forgetting about them, which means his usual tells for lying don’t apply.
Brendon bounds into the dressing room, high-energy and high-maintenance and high on enough sugar to get him through the show and keep him up for hours afterwards. Spencer snaps out a hand as he passes in a blur of motion, grabs Brendon by the back of the shirt and yanks. Brendon’s arms windmill wildly and he catches his balance, wide-eyed, in Spencer’s grip.
“Did you take my aftershave?” Spencer asks.
Brendon gets remarkably shifty-eyed. No one in their band can lie worth shit. “No?” he asks, which is basically a signed confession as far as Spencer’s concerned. He needs proof, though, or else Brendon pulls the wounded, cut-to-the-heart routine, and Spencer doesn’t have the patience for that. They go on in ten minutes. He needs to get fucking dressed already. And shave.
Brendon starts squirming, which is another sure sign of guilt, but still not enough. Spencer tightens his grip and smiles a little wolfishly when Brendon goes instantly still. Brendon’s eyes go even wider, and he’s practically vibrating under Spencer’s hand with the effort of holding still as Spencer narrows his eyes. He leans in slowly, deliberately, until their faces are millimeters apart. Then he turns his head very slightly to the side, nose bumping Brendon’s cheek, and sniffs.
Brendon goes limp in his hands, defeated.
“Where is it?” Spencer asks, low and threatening. He has about eight minutes left. This is also, coincidentally, how long Brendon has left to live if he doesn’t return Spencer’s aftershave.
Brendon trembles a little. Spencer imagines the scent of his aftershave on Brendon’s skin mingling with the sweaty smell of fear. “I used it,” he whispers.
Spencer grinds his teeth, and gets absolutely no satisfaction (well, all right, a little) out of Brendon’s instinctive flinch.
“Use Jon’s,” Ryan suggests. Spencer pushes Brendon out of strangling range and gives Ryan his most effective are you serious? look. Ryan quirks an eyebrow in the midst of flocks of painted birds, like he doesn’t get what the problem is.
“Jon hasn’t shaved in weeks,” Spencer explains patiently. “I doubt he even remembers what a razor looks like.”
“So borrow someone else’s,” Ryan says, shrugging. “Use mine.”
“You smell like a ninety-year-old man,” Spencer tells him. “No way in hell. I’ll find someone else.”
He’s halfway changed before Ryan stops blinking his affront and says, “I do not.”
Spencer favors him with another look. Brendon just says cheerfully, “You really do, Ross. Like a slutty, flowery, decrepit old man. Like a free love hippie nursing home.”
“Shut up,” Ryan replies automatically.
“Not like Spencer,” Brendon continues with a grin. “Spencer smells like a brawny lumberjack of manliness.”
Spencer glowers. “You would know,” he says darkly. Brendon abruptly remembers to quail.
“Five minutes,” Zack warns through the dressing room door.
“Fuck it,” Spencer says, yanking on his ridiculous demonic pirate shirt. “I can be scruffy for one day.”
2.
Ryan’s looking at him with extreme skepticism. Spencer’s ignoring him. They’ve been doing this for roughly the past ten minutes, with no change.
Spencer’s a little on edge, though, for no reason beyond having too much coffee at breakfast, so he’s the one to finally break the stalemate with a look and a perfectly arched eyebrow. What?
Ryan wrinkles his nose, head tilted sideways. “Is that what you’re wearing?” he asks eventually.
The urge to look down at himself is overwhelming, even though he already knows what he’s wearing, because he’s the one who put it on. He looks back up immediately, though, and curses his skin for being light enough to flush. “Yeah,” he says. “So?”
Ryan’s lips do a little pull-twist to the side. “It’s kinda…” he says, trailing off.
“It’s lunch at Taco Bell, followed by swimming,” Spencer says. “Am I supposed to wear a three-piece suit?”
“No,” Ryan says. “I just thought you’d make more of an effort.” He gives Spencer his patented Ryan-Ross-disapproves-of-your-fashion-sense look, which takes in the faded t-shirt with the hole in the collar and baggy shorts with paint splattered down on leg, and somehow makes it into a crime against humanity and clothing shops everywhere.
Not that Ryan’s one to talk. He’s currently wearing a long-sleeved shirt - in the middle of August - and tweed pants, neither of which match his paisley vest or the dozen scarves he has wrapped around his neck. Spencer doesn’t understand how Ryan can possibly have the high moral fashion ground here.
“It’s fast food,” Spencer repeats slowly, in case Ryan has forgotten.
Ryan frowns. “It’s fast food with Brendon.”
Spencer flushes again, damn his stupid pale skin. It’s the middle of summer, he should at least be able to get a decent tan. Ryan’s giving him that look now, the one that says, I see through you even though you pretend, and Spencer has never had much of a defense against that look, or against Ryan.
“Big deal,” Spencer says.
Ryan’s expression settles into something like longsuffering, with the lip-twitch that says, Ah, you’re pretending to be in denial.
“You’re not even going to shave?” Ryan asks, and Spencer can’t figure out whether it’s his own paranoia or Ryan’s tone that makes him sound so knowing.
“No,” he grinds out. “I’m not. Can we go?”
Ryan’s eyebrows both rise up to his hairline, the face of I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about this. Which is completely unfair, because Spencer’s not the one making this into such a thing. Ryan’s just convinced he knows something. Which he doesn’t. He totally doesn’t. Spencer’s wearing the paint-covered cargo shorts to prove it.
It’s not like it’s a big deal that they haven’t seen Brendon for weeks. They’ve all been home, doing family things, taking a break. And if Spencer normally wears tight jeans and girls’ shirts and cool sneakers when Brendon is around, it’s just because that’s how Spencer normally dresses, and because Brendon is always around. It’s a coincidence. It’s a quirk of fate. It is not, no matter what Ryan thinks he knows, an attempt to impress anyone, and especially not anyone named Brendon.
“Your socks don’t match,” Ryan says gravely.
Spencer rolls his eyes and curses a lineage of fair-skinned Europeans. “Whatever,” he says, jamming a baseball cap over his unwashed hair. “Let’s just go.”
3.
“Fuck,” Spencer says succinctly.
No one answers him. Which isn’t surprising, considering that he’s alone in the bathroom with shaving cream all over his face. He opens the door and tries again. “Fuck.”
Jon appears a few seconds later, wandering up with his hands stuffed into his pockets. “Problem? Hey, good look, we should get Ryan to incorporate that. Marshmallow-face costumes or something.”
“No,” Spencer says automatically. He holds up his razor and explains, “I’m out of blades.”
“Bummer,” Jon says sympathetically.
Once again, Jon has given up shaving completely, so Spencer isn’t really surprised that he doesn’t offer any further assistance. He’s still disappointed, though.
“Ryan?” he calls.
It’s a small cabin. Spencer only has to bellow his name three more times before Ryan actually shows up, looking mildly curious. “You have stuff on your face,” he says.
Spencer rolls his eyes in what he firmly believes is a superior way. Jon says, “Hey, what about all of us dressing like candy? It goes with the fairy tale theme. Gingerbread houses and all.”
“No,” Spencer says again, because the idea of Brendon on a set made of candy is too horrifying to fully contemplate. To Ryan, he says, “Do you have razorblades?”
Ryan looks deeply meditative. Eventually he says, “No.”
“Fuck,” Spencer says again, but with a greater note of tragedy this time. He’ll have to wait until one of them ventures down from the mountain, and that could take days. Spencer hates it when his face itches.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
Brendon appears behind Ryan and Jon, the way he always does when the three of them are together. Spencer suspects that some part of Brendon’s brain has a radar for when people are congregating without him.
“Spencer’s out of razorblades,” Ryan informs him.
“And we’re going to have a gingerbread house onstage,” Jon adds.
“No, we’re not,” Spencer says quickly, although not fast enough to keep Brendon’s eyes from lighting up like he’s just been told it’s Second Christmas.
“Can we have giant candy canes?” Brendon asks. He’s already bouncing on his toes with excitement. Spencer is going to fucking kill Jon.
“No,” Spencer says again, uselessly. They never listen to him anyway, and then he ends up painted like an evil circus ringmaster.
Brendon opens his mouth again, and then pretty obviously switches tracks. “You can use mine,” he says. “I don’t mind.”
It takes Spencer a second to catch up with the conversation, and then he has a split-second of hope before it’s dashed onto the rocks of reality. “No,” he says. “Thanks.”
“It’s not that bad,” Brendon says earnestly, which is a pity, because he is utterly misguided and it really is that bad. Spencer’s tried it before, one time and one time only. He’s not that desperate yet.
“You can’t get close enough to the skin,” Spencer complains. “And it feels funny.” Electric razors are not natural. They just aren’t. He doesn’t know how Brendon does it, except that Brendon grows all the facial hair of a twelve-year-old and giving him a real razor would undoubtedly lead to a bloodbath. Spencer’s seen Brendon shave. It usually involves showtunes, complete with ill-timed jazz hands.
“It feels cool,” Brendon argues. Before Spencer can say anything else, Brendon is suddenly grabbing his hand and holding it up to his own face. The skin is smooth, although there’s still enough texture for Spencer to feel it prickling lightly along the soft skin of his wrist. Brendon scrubs his jaw against Spencer’s palm, eyes wide and earnest. Spencer’s mouth is dry. He can’t, for a moment, remember what they were talking about.
Then he does, and snatches his hand back, ignoring Brendon’s hurt look in favor of recovering his composure. “No thanks,” he says, putting a little bit of a drawl into it. “I don’t think I’ve sunk quite that far.”
Brendon’s eyes flash briefly, but his voice is cheerful again in the next heartbeat. “Just wait,” he says. “You’ll cave. It’s a lonely life a man leads without razorblades.”
It’s unfortunately true. Spencer gives his empty travel kit a betrayed look.
To Jon, Brendon says, “So is Spencer going to be the marshmallow man?”
Spencer’s resolve suddenly grows threefold. He rinses the cream off of his face and scratches at his chin.
Fuck electric razors. He can totally rock the mountain man look.
4.
Spencer’s at his house when Brendon calls.
“Hey,” he says absently. “What’s up?”
“So I’ve been thinking,” Brendon says, all in a rush like he needs to spit the words out or he’ll lose them forever. “About you and me. And us, kind of. Even though there is no us. What I’m saying is there could be, is all. If you wanted. For there to be an us. That is, if you think that maybe we…that we could be an us, and not just a we.”
Spencer blinks a few times. “What?” he asks finally.
Brendon makes a frustrated noise, the one he makes when he isn’t turning his thoughts into words properly and Spencer can’t read enough of his mind to translate. “It’s just been…it’s been a really long time, Spence,” he says, and laughs, but it’s a nervous laugh, high and awkward. “And I think we both thought it would go away, or at least I did, but it hasn’t, and I think that I’m…I am, at least, I don’t know if you are, but that’s where the us comes in…wait, what was I saying?”
“You think you’re…” Spencer prompts, because he has some vague idea of where this is going (where he hopes this is going, in a traitorous, giddy corner of his mind), but he needs Brendon to finish first.
“Right, thanks. I think I’m…we are, both of us…done waiting.” There’s a drawn-out pause, only broken by the sound of Brendon’s too-fast breathing. Then, “Spencer?”
Spencer takes a breath. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “I…yeah. Me too.”
“Yeah?” Brendon laughs again, and it’s still nervous, but this time there’s also the unrestrained thread of relief.
“Yeah,” Spencer says again, and he’s grinning now, hard enough that his face feels like it’s going to split. He can hear Brendon grinning through the phone, making that same face, that same brilliant smile. “I think we could be an us.”
He wonders sometimes if anyone else speaks the same language he and Brendon do, if anyone can hear the fragments of what Brendon says and actually understand him. He hopes not. He likes that they have conversations like this, full of phrases that make no sense and words that don’t mean anything, which somehow also mean everything. It makes it feel like sometimes they’re speaking only to each other.
“I think,” Brendon says, and then there’s a pause and a soft sound that Spencer’s brain helpfully fills in with the image of him licking his lips. “I think you should come over.”
“Yeah?” Spencer asks, like it’s even a question. His voice has gone all rumbly and deep without his permission.
“Yeah,” Brendon says. He’s stuck somewhere between breathless and grinning like an idiot. Spencer can relate.
“I’m on my way,” Spencer says, and hangs up. He didn’t really need to, probably, because he and Brendon usually spend the entire car ride over to each other’s places on the phone talking. But he has now, and it would be stupid to call him back, even if he does really just want to hear the sound of Brendon’s voice. He has to get ready anyway. He’s dressed, and Brendon won’t really mind if his shirt is stretched a little too tightly across his shoulders because it’s at least four years old now. Brendon, he thinks with a sudden clarity that leaves him feeling slightly dizzy, probably won’t leave it on him for long.
He looks in the mirror before he goes, fussing with his hair, and realizes he hasn’t shaved in two days. It hadn’t mattered, really, but now it kind of does. He was brought up right, he knows it’s not good manners to give the person you’re kissing stubble-burn.
He plans on kissing Brendon rather a lot. The dizzy feeling starts popping like little champagne bubbles in his brain.
He’s still frozen in front of his mirror, torn by indecision, when his phone rings. It’s Hot Chocolate’s You Sexy Thing, which means that Brendon’s gotten hold of his phone again when he wasn’t paying attention. It also means that it’s Brendon.
“Hey,” Spencer says, and wants to knock his head against the wall for sounding so out of breath when all he’s doing is standing in the middle of his bathroom debating the time it would take to shave his face.
“Hey,” Brendon says, and he sounds similarly out of breath, which makes Spencer feel slightly better, if not completely. “I realized we probably didn’t need to hang up, since you’re coming over and all. Have you left yet?”
“Yes,” Spencer says decisively, grabbing his keys. “I’m on my way.”
He’s already waited years for this. He’s not going to wait a minute longer.
5.
“Hotel night,” Brendon chirps, with the exuberance of someone who knows he’s heading down the home stretch toward a hot shower and a real bed.
Spencer smiles, with the smugness of someone who knows he’s getting laid in that real bed. Probably in the shower, too. Brendon isn’t big on waiting.
“We’re not going to be next to them, are we?” Ryan asks, because Ryan is Spencer’s best friend, and therefore sometimes a dick.
“Probably,” Jon admits. “We can watch television.”
Spencer thinks Ryan mutters, “All night,” but he can’t be sure. He cuffs Ryan on the back of the head anyway.
“301,” Brendon says, snatching both hotel keys from Zack as soon as they’re proffered. “Elevator. Up, up, up.”
Spencer has just enough time to see Jon sympathetically holding up the keycard envelope labeled ‘303’ before Brendon loses all patience and starts dragging him by the suitcase.
Spencer grins, even wider when they reach the elevator and Brendon hits the button for their floor about sixteen times in a row. “We have all night, you know,” Spencer points out, lounging against the back wall.
Brendon gives him a look from beneath his eyelashes, fucking smoldering, and Spencer’s throat goes abruptly, painfully dry. He’s suddenly in complete agreement with Brendon about how fast this elevator should be traveling.
“Shower,” Brendon says, because he can’t stay still for long enough to have sex when he’s still post-show sweaty, even though logically they’re only going to end up that way again. He’s got Spencer’s suitcase again, tugging on the handle, and Spencer goes because it’s not like there’s anything else he could do.
They don’t quite make it all the way into the shower. They make it as far as the bathroom, and then Brendon starts licking his way into Spencer’s mouth and Spencer starts groping Brendon shamelessly against the sink, and all other plans seem a very distant memory.
Spencer’s got one hand up Brendon’s shirt and the other down his pants when the sound of the television coming on very loud suddenly breaks in, muffled through the wall. Brendon drops his head onto Spencer’s shoulder and pants, shaking with silent laughter.
“Assholes,” Spencer mutters. They weren’t even making that much noise. Well, Brendon might have been. Brendon makes a lot of noise.
He’s busy getting distracted by that thought when Brendon pulls back and pushes him gently away. “Hey, shower,” he says. He licks his lips, eyes bright with mischief. “Shower and bed.”
Spencer pulls back the curtain, and gestures for Brendon to proceed.
Brendon only gets a little distracted while pulling his clothes off, and Spencer only gets a little distracted watching him. “Hey,” Brendon says, leaning back against the sink for a second to balance as he pulls off his left sock, his other hand lightly rubbing Spencer’s cheek. “Do you want to shave first?”
Spencer considers. Normally, the answer to this is a resounding yes, because he knows that once they get into the shower, they aren’t going to be out of physical contact for the rest of the night. And he likes his face to be smooth for sex, likes the slide of it against Brendon’s skin while their bodies move together.
Tonight, though, Brendon’s already standing in front of him naked (or mostly naked, anyway, he still hasn’t gotten his other sock), and Spencer can see the pink marks on his skin, light scratches that stand out even beneath the heated flush brought on by their necking.
He drags his jaw along Brendon’s throat, feels the pulse jumping madly against his skin and inhales, satisfied. When he pulls back to look, heavy-lidded, there are fresh marks blooming along Brendon’s pale neck. It’s like an advertisement, Spencer was here. Spencer wants to leave them everywhere.
“No,” he decides, and his voice has gone all rumbly again, in the way that makes Brendon shudder and fresh color bloom beneath the scratches from Spencer’s stubble. “Not tonight.”