Fic: Don't Worry If It's Not Good Enough (Pear, Pete/Ashlee, Brendon/Spencer)
Title: Don’t Worry If It’s Not Good Enough (For Anyone Else To Hear) or Pear Wentz’s Bedtime Story #1356
Pairing: Pete/Ashlee, Brendon/Spencer
Rating: G
Disclaimer: So incredibly not true.
Summary: "Well," Pete says slowly, "did I ever tell you about that time that music was banned?"
A/N: Random idea that I sat down and finished because loveyouallwrong made me. Speedily and wonderfully betaed by mintyfiend. Title from Sing by the Sesame Street people- video here.
(loveyouallwrong: :DDDDDDDDDD wow, that's really furtastic when you're looking for it
loveyouallwrong: seriously those sheep are going to gangbang vanessa williams
More evidence, rain_dances? I think so.)
"Tell me a story?" Pear asks sleepily. Pete watches her yawn as she lies down, soft hair spreading across her pillowcase.
"What sort of story?" Pete asks. Pete has lots of stories to tell, but many of them aren't suitable for Pear's ears. Not yet anyway.
"A real one," Pear says. She always says this, and she always believes that they're real. This is why Pete's keeping the nightmare stories to himself.
"Okay then," Pete says, settling himself more comfortably on the bed beside her. He tucks his legs under himself, facing her, and tilts his head to the side.
"Well," he says slowly, "did I ever tell you about that time that music was banned?"
Pear gasps and struggles to sit up, but Pete leans in and tucks her in a bit tighter. "No!" she exclaims. "They banned music? Why would they do that?"
Pete shrugs. "It was a long time ago- right before you were born actually. They said it was for our own good, that music warped our minds, controlled us too much. But we all knew it was because of how music made us feel, how it lifted us up, how it gave us hope and ideas. And they didn't want that. So music was made illegal."
"What did you do?" Pear asks. "You and Mommy- your life is music."
Pete nods. "We tried to get out. Most people did. But it was hard for those of us in the business. They were keeping a close eye on us, blocking us from getting away, into countries where music wasn’t forbidden. And your mom was pregnant with you, so it made it harder to run. We stopped trying, in the end, and decided to stay. And everyone else stayed too, because we're a family. There were some dark days- when they came and took everyone’s music, their CDs and iPods and instruments. They destroyed it all in the middle of the city, and we went to watch, went to mourn. Life was dull without it, but we muddled by."
"What about singing?" Pear says. "Couldn't you sing? They couldn't take that away from you."
"We thought that," Pete tells her. "But they started taking people away who sung. Sometimes they didn't come back. And sometimes they did, but they were different, had been altered."
"How?" Pear whispers, eyes wide and worried. "How were they altered?"
Pete shrugs. "You don't want to know," he says.
"I do!" Pear exclaims. "I really do!"
"Well," Pete leans in closer, dropping his voice a little. "Sometimes they came back and they couldn't hear anymore. They'd gone completely deaf."
Pear gasps and claps her hands over her ears, as if checking they're still there.
"And sometimes," Pete adds. "Sometimes they'd come back and they wouldn't be able to talk. I don't know how they did it- some operation, judging by the scars on people's throats, but they took their voices, made it so they couldn’t sing, couldn't hum, couldn't make a sound."
Pear's hands fly to her mouth. "No!" she says through her fingers. "That's horrible."
Pete nods.
"It must have been hard to remember not to sing," Pear says. "I sing all the time."
Pete smiles at her, because she does, wherever they go. It's cute and it reminds him of a lot of people he loves.
"It was," Pete says. "Really hard. At first, people did it without realising. Sometimes it was okay, as long as no one dangerous heard you. But if they did...they'd come and they'd take you. So we tried hard to remember. But people forgot. Your Uncle Ryan forgot."
"Uncle Ryan!" Pear exclaims, clutching her stuffed bulldog a little tighter. "What happened to him?”
"He hummed," Pete explains. "He was out in the street, and he forgot. He started humming a tune- a new tune, one he'd written in his head and forgotten to share with his band before it was outlawed. I guess it just popped in there, as tunes do sometimes, and it had to come out. But someone overheard, and they took him away. There were witnesses who came and told us. None of us was with him at the time. I don't think we could have stopped them but still...sometimes I wonder if things could have been different."
Pear's lip wobbles. "Was he okay?" she whispers. "What happened? Did they...did they try and take his voice?"
"We didn't know where they'd taken him," Pete says. "We had an idea, but there was no way to find out. We all felt so helpless. And then we were all in a club- no music playing, of course, but there were guards there, guards like the ones who took Ryan away, so we were being good, talking among ourselves, trying to pretend that everything was normal, that the silence wasn't deafening, wasn't draining us all slowly, day by day. And then Spencer stood up.
“I'd never heard him sing before that moment, and I remember thinking what a shame it was, because his voice was beautiful. It shattered the silence and all eyes were on him. I didn't realise what he was doing at first, but the look he gave us as they linked their arms through his and took him away was of defiance. Your Uncle Spencer...I've never seen anyone as brave as I saw him in that moment. I was so proud of him."
"He didn't tell you?" Pear asks, catching on quickly. "He didn't tell you he was going to find Uncle Ryan by being caught himself?"
Pete shook his head. "He didn't tell any of us. Not even your Uncle Brendon. It broke my heart to see his face when they took Spencer away. He tried to go after them, but your Uncle Jon held him back, we all did, it took almost all of us. And he started singing. You've heard Uncle Brendon's voice, you know how it sounds. But that night it was full of pleading. 'Take me' he shouted, 'please, take me too' and sang louder and louder. But they ignored him and the song turned to sobs."
Pear makes a distressed sound. "Uncle Brendon loves Uncle Spencer, doesn't he?"
Pete nods. "I think it broke his heart. I know Spencer didn't tell him because Brendon wouldn't have let him do it, but Ryan and Spencer had been best friends for as long as they could remember, since they were the age you are now. He couldn't leave him alone in whatever place they'd taken him to. And I remember thinking, at the time, that at least, if that was the last real sound Spencer would ever hear, it was Brendon's voice, his beautiful, soulful voice."
Pear squeaks. "Poor Uncle Brendon!" she exclaims and sits up. This time Pete lets her, smiling when she rests a hand on his knee, seeking reassurance. He covers it with his own, marvelling at how massive his looks on top of her tiny one.
"He wanted to go after them, to get captured too. But Uncle Jon wouldn't let him. I don't think he wanted to lose Brendon too. None of us did. But that didn't stop Brendon from insisting on finding them. It took some time- it was hard to find information then, and it was traded like something valuable, something precious. But even though it was costly, the information we did manage to get was priceless- we found the facility where they were being kept. There was no way to get in, not without being noticed, and it seemed there was no way to get them out. I thought Brendon had given up then, because he stopped talking about it, stopped trying to find blueprints and people we might know on the inside."
"What did he do?" Pear edges closer, expression engrossed.
"He said that he was sick of this, that what was the point of life without the things we loved? We were worried for him then- worried he'd do something crazy. And, well. He did. He started singing. Not where he could be caught, never there. But there were still clubs, still peoples houses, venues that were soundproofed enough that we could take music underground. It started out with just us, just our family, watching Brendon and Uncle Patrick perform. All of our singers- Gabe, William, Alex, all of them would sing and we would sing along.
“Somehow word got out, just a whisper, too low for the guards to hear, but people came to hear the show, to sing along. And sometimes people would bring instruments and we'd get to play again, to feel the wood and metal beneath our touch again. We sang every song we could remember- our songs, other peoples songs, but never new ones. It didn't seem right, not with Ryan and Spencer, and so many other people gone, unable to hear them. And the crowds grew- we went from filling out Uncle Joe's basement to packing Angels and Kings with people desperate to hear the uplifting sounds.
“We heard rumours that other people were doing the same thing, little pockets of rebellion all over the nation, all carefully below the radar so that we wouldn't be caught. It gave us hope. I still have no idea how he did it. How he organised it. I just know that we all got the same text, all of us, every last person. We all got the same email. And it spread, spread across the nation from one person to another: 3pm CST, October 30th. SING."
Pear makes an excited noise. "That's my birthday!" she exclaims.
"I know," Pete smiles. "It was a good day. One of the best. We could feel the excitement buzzing in the air all day long. We knew something amazing was going to happen, and we knew Brendon was going to lead it. But we never expected it to be as amazing, as life changing as it was. People spilled onto the streets and marched. They marched in their thousands on the places that had oppressed us, had stolen the music, our lifeblood, from us. And when the clocks hit 3, everyone lifted their voices and sang. Of course, Brendon had forgotten to tell everyone which song to sing, but he was a busy guy, so he couldn't have been expected to remember every detail like that. But it didn't matter. People sang on their own, in groups of two or three, in bigger groups, in entire crowds. It was the ultimate mashup, and it was maybe the best thing I ever heard. It made your mom cry, tears of joy, as it filtered into the room we were in."
"You weren't there?" Pear asks, frowning. "I thought you'd have been right up there next to Uncle Brendon." She sounds almost disappointed, and Pete laughs and pushes her hair back off her forehead.
"Well, I would have been," Pete tells her. "Except for how that was when you chose to come into the world. Right at 3 o'clock. As you took your first breath, everyone across the nation lifted their voices, and their hearts, in song."
Pear gasps and claps her hands. "Really?" she asks, wide eyed, and Pete nods.
"I'm sorry you missed it," she says sadly, and Pete smiles.
"I wouldn't want to have been anywhere else," he tells her. "I was in the best place I could have been. Your birth was more special than even the revolution that was going on outside in the street."
"What happened?" Pear asks. "Did they rescue Uncle Spencer and Uncle Ryan?"
Pete nods. "The entire nation rising up as one was too much for our oppressors to handle. They fought back at first, but we were too much for them- the music we were reclaiming had lifted everyone's spirits, and the hope that flooded our veins made everyone strong. Brendon and Jon and the others broke into the facility and went through the building, setting everyone free, until there was only one room left. And of course that is where they'd been keeping Ryan and Spencer. They'd found them just in time too- that afternoon both of them had been scheduled for surgery to remove their voices, as punishment for disobeying the unjust law."
"But they got to them in time?" Pear insists, and Pete reassures her.
"They were fine. There were tearful reunions all around. And music flooded back into our lives, and it was decided that it was impossible to live without it, and that no one would ever be allowed to take it away from us again."
"Oh good," Pear sighs. "I can't even imagine a world without music in it."
"Thanks to Uncle Brendon, and everyone else, you'll never have to."
"And then Uncle Brendon told Uncle Spencer he loved him, right? And they lived happily ever after." Pear says, and Pete gives her an appraising look.
"You're just like your mother," he says, and she climbs into his lap, tugging at his t-shirt sleeve.
"But he did, right? I mean, he started the revolution to get Uncle Spencer back."
"I don't know," Pete muses, with a grin on his face. "I mean, Brendon really loves music."
"Daddy," Pear makes a face that reminds Pete of Patrick. "You're being silly. Love is more important than music, right?"
Pete cuddles her close. "You can live with just one or the other," he says, thoughtfully, "but I think it's much better to have both, don't you?"
"Yeah," Pear says, and deftly plucks Pete's cell out of his pocket.
"What're you doing?" Pete asks, amused, as she scrolls through his address book.
"Saying thank you," Pear explains, as if Pete should already know.
"Hey Pete." Brendon answers.
"Uncle Brendon?" Pear says, and she can hear the smile in his voice when he says "Wentzling! How are you?"
"I'm good," Pear says. "Daddy was telling me a story about you."
"Oh yeah?" Brendon asks lightly. "Look, I don't care what he says, it wasn't me who destroyed the rosevest, and you really shouldn't repeat that story to Uncle Ryan, okay?"
Pear giggles. "It wasn't that story," she says. "That story is boring and it's only funny if Uncle Ryan is there to hear it. His face goes all purple, like the colour of his favourite scarf."
Brendon snickers and Pear smiles. "Isn't it your bedtime?" Brendon asks and Pear makes a face.
"I just wanted to say hi," she explains. "And to say thank you. For saving Uncle Spencer. And Uncle Ryan too. And for the music. Thank you for saving the music, Uncle Brendon."
There's a pause, and then Brendon says "Uh. You're welcome?"
"G'night Uncle Brendon," Pear says, yawning loudly into the phone without meaning to. She smothers it and giggles. "Love you."
"Love you too," Brendon says, and Pear hangs up and gives the phone back to Pete.
"Sleep now?" Pete suggests, and Pear nods, snuggling down. Pete tucks her back in and presses a kiss to her forehead.
"I'm glad we have music, Daddy," Pear says sleepily. "I'd be sad without it."
"Me too," Pete replies and switches off the light, leaving the door ajar when he leaves.
~~~
"Everything okay?" Spencer asks, lifting his head from where it had been resting in Brendon's lap. Brendon puts the phone aside and rests his hand back on Spencer's hair, smiling down at him.
"Yeah," Brendon says fondly, "Just...Wentzes."
Pairing: Pete/Ashlee, Brendon/Spencer
Rating: G
Disclaimer: So incredibly not true.
Summary: "Well," Pete says slowly, "did I ever tell you about that time that music was banned?"
A/N: Random idea that I sat down and finished because loveyouallwrong made me. Speedily and wonderfully betaed by mintyfiend. Title from Sing by the Sesame Street people- video here.
(loveyouallwrong: :DDDDDDDDDD wow, that's really furtastic when you're looking for it
loveyouallwrong: seriously those sheep are going to gangbang vanessa williams
More evidence, rain_dances? I think so.)
"Tell me a story?" Pear asks sleepily. Pete watches her yawn as she lies down, soft hair spreading across her pillowcase.
"What sort of story?" Pete asks. Pete has lots of stories to tell, but many of them aren't suitable for Pear's ears. Not yet anyway.
"A real one," Pear says. She always says this, and she always believes that they're real. This is why Pete's keeping the nightmare stories to himself.
"Okay then," Pete says, settling himself more comfortably on the bed beside her. He tucks his legs under himself, facing her, and tilts his head to the side.
"Well," he says slowly, "did I ever tell you about that time that music was banned?"
Pear gasps and struggles to sit up, but Pete leans in and tucks her in a bit tighter. "No!" she exclaims. "They banned music? Why would they do that?"
Pete shrugs. "It was a long time ago- right before you were born actually. They said it was for our own good, that music warped our minds, controlled us too much. But we all knew it was because of how music made us feel, how it lifted us up, how it gave us hope and ideas. And they didn't want that. So music was made illegal."
"What did you do?" Pear asks. "You and Mommy- your life is music."
Pete nods. "We tried to get out. Most people did. But it was hard for those of us in the business. They were keeping a close eye on us, blocking us from getting away, into countries where music wasn’t forbidden. And your mom was pregnant with you, so it made it harder to run. We stopped trying, in the end, and decided to stay. And everyone else stayed too, because we're a family. There were some dark days- when they came and took everyone’s music, their CDs and iPods and instruments. They destroyed it all in the middle of the city, and we went to watch, went to mourn. Life was dull without it, but we muddled by."
"What about singing?" Pear says. "Couldn't you sing? They couldn't take that away from you."
"We thought that," Pete tells her. "But they started taking people away who sung. Sometimes they didn't come back. And sometimes they did, but they were different, had been altered."
"How?" Pear whispers, eyes wide and worried. "How were they altered?"
Pete shrugs. "You don't want to know," he says.
"I do!" Pear exclaims. "I really do!"
"Well," Pete leans in closer, dropping his voice a little. "Sometimes they came back and they couldn't hear anymore. They'd gone completely deaf."
Pear gasps and claps her hands over her ears, as if checking they're still there.
"And sometimes," Pete adds. "Sometimes they'd come back and they wouldn't be able to talk. I don't know how they did it- some operation, judging by the scars on people's throats, but they took their voices, made it so they couldn’t sing, couldn't hum, couldn't make a sound."
Pear's hands fly to her mouth. "No!" she says through her fingers. "That's horrible."
Pete nods.
"It must have been hard to remember not to sing," Pear says. "I sing all the time."
Pete smiles at her, because she does, wherever they go. It's cute and it reminds him of a lot of people he loves.
"It was," Pete says. "Really hard. At first, people did it without realising. Sometimes it was okay, as long as no one dangerous heard you. But if they did...they'd come and they'd take you. So we tried hard to remember. But people forgot. Your Uncle Ryan forgot."
"Uncle Ryan!" Pear exclaims, clutching her stuffed bulldog a little tighter. "What happened to him?”
"He hummed," Pete explains. "He was out in the street, and he forgot. He started humming a tune- a new tune, one he'd written in his head and forgotten to share with his band before it was outlawed. I guess it just popped in there, as tunes do sometimes, and it had to come out. But someone overheard, and they took him away. There were witnesses who came and told us. None of us was with him at the time. I don't think we could have stopped them but still...sometimes I wonder if things could have been different."
Pear's lip wobbles. "Was he okay?" she whispers. "What happened? Did they...did they try and take his voice?"
"We didn't know where they'd taken him," Pete says. "We had an idea, but there was no way to find out. We all felt so helpless. And then we were all in a club- no music playing, of course, but there were guards there, guards like the ones who took Ryan away, so we were being good, talking among ourselves, trying to pretend that everything was normal, that the silence wasn't deafening, wasn't draining us all slowly, day by day. And then Spencer stood up.
“I'd never heard him sing before that moment, and I remember thinking what a shame it was, because his voice was beautiful. It shattered the silence and all eyes were on him. I didn't realise what he was doing at first, but the look he gave us as they linked their arms through his and took him away was of defiance. Your Uncle Spencer...I've never seen anyone as brave as I saw him in that moment. I was so proud of him."
"He didn't tell you?" Pear asks, catching on quickly. "He didn't tell you he was going to find Uncle Ryan by being caught himself?"
Pete shook his head. "He didn't tell any of us. Not even your Uncle Brendon. It broke my heart to see his face when they took Spencer away. He tried to go after them, but your Uncle Jon held him back, we all did, it took almost all of us. And he started singing. You've heard Uncle Brendon's voice, you know how it sounds. But that night it was full of pleading. 'Take me' he shouted, 'please, take me too' and sang louder and louder. But they ignored him and the song turned to sobs."
Pear makes a distressed sound. "Uncle Brendon loves Uncle Spencer, doesn't he?"
Pete nods. "I think it broke his heart. I know Spencer didn't tell him because Brendon wouldn't have let him do it, but Ryan and Spencer had been best friends for as long as they could remember, since they were the age you are now. He couldn't leave him alone in whatever place they'd taken him to. And I remember thinking, at the time, that at least, if that was the last real sound Spencer would ever hear, it was Brendon's voice, his beautiful, soulful voice."
Pear squeaks. "Poor Uncle Brendon!" she exclaims and sits up. This time Pete lets her, smiling when she rests a hand on his knee, seeking reassurance. He covers it with his own, marvelling at how massive his looks on top of her tiny one.
"He wanted to go after them, to get captured too. But Uncle Jon wouldn't let him. I don't think he wanted to lose Brendon too. None of us did. But that didn't stop Brendon from insisting on finding them. It took some time- it was hard to find information then, and it was traded like something valuable, something precious. But even though it was costly, the information we did manage to get was priceless- we found the facility where they were being kept. There was no way to get in, not without being noticed, and it seemed there was no way to get them out. I thought Brendon had given up then, because he stopped talking about it, stopped trying to find blueprints and people we might know on the inside."
"What did he do?" Pear edges closer, expression engrossed.
"He said that he was sick of this, that what was the point of life without the things we loved? We were worried for him then- worried he'd do something crazy. And, well. He did. He started singing. Not where he could be caught, never there. But there were still clubs, still peoples houses, venues that were soundproofed enough that we could take music underground. It started out with just us, just our family, watching Brendon and Uncle Patrick perform. All of our singers- Gabe, William, Alex, all of them would sing and we would sing along.
“Somehow word got out, just a whisper, too low for the guards to hear, but people came to hear the show, to sing along. And sometimes people would bring instruments and we'd get to play again, to feel the wood and metal beneath our touch again. We sang every song we could remember- our songs, other peoples songs, but never new ones. It didn't seem right, not with Ryan and Spencer, and so many other people gone, unable to hear them. And the crowds grew- we went from filling out Uncle Joe's basement to packing Angels and Kings with people desperate to hear the uplifting sounds.
“We heard rumours that other people were doing the same thing, little pockets of rebellion all over the nation, all carefully below the radar so that we wouldn't be caught. It gave us hope. I still have no idea how he did it. How he organised it. I just know that we all got the same text, all of us, every last person. We all got the same email. And it spread, spread across the nation from one person to another: 3pm CST, October 30th. SING."
Pear makes an excited noise. "That's my birthday!" she exclaims.
"I know," Pete smiles. "It was a good day. One of the best. We could feel the excitement buzzing in the air all day long. We knew something amazing was going to happen, and we knew Brendon was going to lead it. But we never expected it to be as amazing, as life changing as it was. People spilled onto the streets and marched. They marched in their thousands on the places that had oppressed us, had stolen the music, our lifeblood, from us. And when the clocks hit 3, everyone lifted their voices and sang. Of course, Brendon had forgotten to tell everyone which song to sing, but he was a busy guy, so he couldn't have been expected to remember every detail like that. But it didn't matter. People sang on their own, in groups of two or three, in bigger groups, in entire crowds. It was the ultimate mashup, and it was maybe the best thing I ever heard. It made your mom cry, tears of joy, as it filtered into the room we were in."
"You weren't there?" Pear asks, frowning. "I thought you'd have been right up there next to Uncle Brendon." She sounds almost disappointed, and Pete laughs and pushes her hair back off her forehead.
"Well, I would have been," Pete tells her. "Except for how that was when you chose to come into the world. Right at 3 o'clock. As you took your first breath, everyone across the nation lifted their voices, and their hearts, in song."
Pear gasps and claps her hands. "Really?" she asks, wide eyed, and Pete nods.
"I'm sorry you missed it," she says sadly, and Pete smiles.
"I wouldn't want to have been anywhere else," he tells her. "I was in the best place I could have been. Your birth was more special than even the revolution that was going on outside in the street."
"What happened?" Pear asks. "Did they rescue Uncle Spencer and Uncle Ryan?"
Pete nods. "The entire nation rising up as one was too much for our oppressors to handle. They fought back at first, but we were too much for them- the music we were reclaiming had lifted everyone's spirits, and the hope that flooded our veins made everyone strong. Brendon and Jon and the others broke into the facility and went through the building, setting everyone free, until there was only one room left. And of course that is where they'd been keeping Ryan and Spencer. They'd found them just in time too- that afternoon both of them had been scheduled for surgery to remove their voices, as punishment for disobeying the unjust law."
"But they got to them in time?" Pear insists, and Pete reassures her.
"They were fine. There were tearful reunions all around. And music flooded back into our lives, and it was decided that it was impossible to live without it, and that no one would ever be allowed to take it away from us again."
"Oh good," Pear sighs. "I can't even imagine a world without music in it."
"Thanks to Uncle Brendon, and everyone else, you'll never have to."
"And then Uncle Brendon told Uncle Spencer he loved him, right? And they lived happily ever after." Pear says, and Pete gives her an appraising look.
"You're just like your mother," he says, and she climbs into his lap, tugging at his t-shirt sleeve.
"But he did, right? I mean, he started the revolution to get Uncle Spencer back."
"I don't know," Pete muses, with a grin on his face. "I mean, Brendon really loves music."
"Daddy," Pear makes a face that reminds Pete of Patrick. "You're being silly. Love is more important than music, right?"
Pete cuddles her close. "You can live with just one or the other," he says, thoughtfully, "but I think it's much better to have both, don't you?"
"Yeah," Pear says, and deftly plucks Pete's cell out of his pocket.
"What're you doing?" Pete asks, amused, as she scrolls through his address book.
"Saying thank you," Pear explains, as if Pete should already know.
"Hey Pete." Brendon answers.
"Uncle Brendon?" Pear says, and she can hear the smile in his voice when he says "Wentzling! How are you?"
"I'm good," Pear says. "Daddy was telling me a story about you."
"Oh yeah?" Brendon asks lightly. "Look, I don't care what he says, it wasn't me who destroyed the rosevest, and you really shouldn't repeat that story to Uncle Ryan, okay?"
Pear giggles. "It wasn't that story," she says. "That story is boring and it's only funny if Uncle Ryan is there to hear it. His face goes all purple, like the colour of his favourite scarf."
Brendon snickers and Pear smiles. "Isn't it your bedtime?" Brendon asks and Pear makes a face.
"I just wanted to say hi," she explains. "And to say thank you. For saving Uncle Spencer. And Uncle Ryan too. And for the music. Thank you for saving the music, Uncle Brendon."
There's a pause, and then Brendon says "Uh. You're welcome?"
"G'night Uncle Brendon," Pear says, yawning loudly into the phone without meaning to. She smothers it and giggles. "Love you."
"Love you too," Brendon says, and Pear hangs up and gives the phone back to Pete.
"Sleep now?" Pete suggests, and Pear nods, snuggling down. Pete tucks her back in and presses a kiss to her forehead.
"I'm glad we have music, Daddy," Pear says sleepily. "I'd be sad without it."
"Me too," Pete replies and switches off the light, leaving the door ajar when he leaves.
~~~
"Everything okay?" Spencer asks, lifting his head from where it had been resting in Brendon's lap. Brendon puts the phone aside and rests his hand back on Spencer's hair, smiling down at him.
"Yeah," Brendon says fondly, "Just...Wentzes."