Fic: Sunflowers and Unicorns (This Ain't a Scene, It's an Orgy)
So, this was just supposed to be a little piece of crackfic, and somehow it ended up turning into a 20 page story that's... well, still utterly ridiculous, but there's some angst in there as well. Go figure.
Title: Sunflowers and Unicorns (This Ain't a Scene, It's an Orgy)
Author: DF
Fandom: P!atD, FOB, TAI, CS, and others
Pairing: Everyone/everyone, Gabe/Brendon/William
Summary: It turns out that it's not just The Academy Is... and half of Panic! at the Disco; apparently all the Fueled By Ramen guys have the same interesting sleeping habits. That is, if "sleeping" means "sex" and "interesting" means "screwing everyone else on the label in various combinations".
Brendon is so not prepared for this. He grew up Mormon, for fuck's sake.
Disclaimer: The following is not, was not, and will never be true.
It's not like Brendon is deliberately keeping track of the people Ryan sleeps with. It just tends to be kind of hard to ignore two people having sex about two feet away from your head.
It's really hard to ignore Ryan slipping away with his hands in Mike Carden's back pockets, or moaning the Butcher's name the night after that. And then, a day or two later, Brendon can't help but notice Mike and the Butcher making out on the couch in The Academy's bus. With tongue. A lot of tongue, actually.
He's not ashamed to admit that he's feeling completely out of his depth.
"Spencer!" he yells when he wakes up the morning after that, because Spencer is sane, right? Spencer can be his anchor in what Brendon's beginning to realise is a completely nonsensical world.
(It's not like he didn't know people in bands had a lot of sex; that was pretty much a given. He just hadn't realised so much of it was with each other.)
Unfortunately, when he barges out of bed, Spencer is no where to be found. Ryan is, however, and he laughs as he says, "Spencer's not here, dude."
"Where is he?" Brendon demands.
"Sisky's bunk." Ryan calmly takes a sip of his coffee, and Brendon feels a headache start up.
"Isn't he not legal?" he tries weakly, but he knows it's hopeless before he even finishes the question. He feels his last hope of sanity go flying out the window.
"You planning on telling his mom?" Ryan asks archly, and no, Brendon isn't, so he shakes his head.
"I'm going back to sleep," he mutters, hoping that maybe the world will be saner when he wakes up. Or at least slightly less promiscuous.
-
It turns out that it's not just The Academy Is... and half of Panic! at the Disco; apparently all the Fueled By Ramen guys have the same interesting sleeping habits. That is, if "sleeping" means "sex" and "interesting" means "screwing everyone else on the label in various combinations".
Brendon is so not prepared for this. He grew up Mormon, for fuck's sake.
Brent isn't any good either; he isn't like Spencer or Ryan, doesn't sleep with all the guys in TAI and some of the sound techs too, but he picks up girls at almost every place they go. That's not helpful to Brendon. Brendon wants to sign an anti-sex pact with someone. Not that he's, you know, against sex. Theoretically. It's just that he's a little iffy about the idea of fucking everyone who knows Pete Wentz.
Brendon tries to remember if anyone had explained this bit before they joined the label, but no, he distinctly recalls signing a contract for a record, not a 24/7 orgy.
-
Ryan tries explaining it to him once, tells him, "You get sex all the time, with really hot people and no chance of it ending up all over the internet."
"Um," Brendon says.
"Have you seen the girls Brent comes back with?" Ryan scoffs. "They've probably got, like, thousands of STDs. We're all clean."
"You could just try not having sex?" Brendon offers, and Ryan stares at him for a little, as if he can't believe Brendon just said that.
"Is that what you've been doing?" he asks finally, raising his eyebrows. "I figured you were just really discreet." Sometimes Ryan seems a lot older than he really is. Brendon feels really young in comparison.
Brendon shakes his head and blushes, and Ryan laughs. "Dude, your right hand must be dying."
"Nah," Brendon says as flippantly as he can, "guitar and piano really strengthen your wrists. So, I have to go do this thing now." He tries to run away without looking like he's actually running away, and really wishes he hadn't asked.
-
He gets used to it after a while. It's in his face so often that he doesn't have a choice, really; now if Spencer and Ryan aren't in their beds in the morning, he just calmly waits for them to come back.
The thing is, he trusts them. He has his doubts sometimes, but he doesn't think they're going to fuck anything up. They've got so much experience with everything, he thinks, whereas Brendon? He's just a sheltered little singer who didn't know what the word blowjob meant until he was 15. They can take care of themselves, and he's liable to get bitched out if he voices even the slightest concern.
And see, he doesn't want to piss them off. All he really wants to do is just hang out with his best friends, and if that means he has to pretend that he thinks the fact that everyone he knows has fucked each other is normal, then so be it.
Eventually, he pretends so much that it's not even pretending anymore, really. Catching Andy and Joe making out while Spencer watches doesn't even warrant a blink of an eye. It's just... normal.
Brent doesn't appear to see it in quite that way.
-
(Brendon loses his virginity during Truckstops & Statelines, because he's really, really sick of being the only one he knows who hasn't had sex, and also he's really terrified that other people will find out and make fun of him for, like, ever.
It turns out to be a lot easier than he expected; he just goes to a random club, flirts with a girl who has no idea who the hell he is, and fucks her unsteadily in the alley. A week later, he does the exact same thing, only this time it's a guy and Brendon's the one getting fucked into the brick wall.
It's kind of messy and more than a little painful - with the girl, too, because she pulls his hair, and fuck that hurts - and he's not really sure what to do afterwards. He ends up tugging his pants up awkwardly while the girl or the guy smooth their hair down and walk inside without looking back.
It feels good, sure, but he can't help but wonder if that's really what all the fuss is about.)
-
Brent is cool with fucking all the girls he wants, and usually he just turns a blind eye to whatever it is Spencer and Ryan are doing. As it turns out, he's only okay with whatever as long as he doesn't walk in on it.
It's not like he's homophobic or anything, hell no, but he doesn't like seeing... that.
"They're doing it in a space that we have to share," he bitches to Brendon one day. Brent is smoking; Brendon isn't, since it would fuck up his voice and Ryan would probably stab him with an eyeliner pencil if he did. Secondhand smoke is just as bad, but whatever. He needed company.
"Yeah," Brendon says noncommittally.
"And they're like my brothers, man!" Brent continues, looking disgusted. He'd just caught Ryan giving Pete head, which, while expected (hell, Brendon had figured something of the sort would happen even before he realised that FBR might as well stand for Fucking Bands Regularly) is apparently traumatizing.
Brendon shrugs. "Whatever," he says. "It's not like you don't do the exact same thing with chicks."
Brent shrugs, too, and apparently decides that Brendon has a point because he lets his list of grievances slide, this time.
(This isn't the main reason why Brent gets kicked out of the band, though. He really was fucking up all over the place. Brendon suspects that it might have factored in a little, though.)
-
"But this is not that dream!" Brendon announces over-dramatically. "This song is about wild, heavy, monstrous fucking - which is why it makes sense that Ryan wrote it."
Ryan flips him off. The fangirls scream without having any idea what they're screaming at.
-
"Ugh," Brendon says. They're leaving for Europe in almost exactly a week, but for the moment he's stuck at one of Pete's parties. It's not that he doesn't like parties, or even that he doesn't like Pete's parties; he does. Pete knows how to have a good time.
Unfortunately, one of Pete's major ideas for how to have a good time involves sex. Brendon is really not in the mood for watching the FBR mating dance, especially since the constant supply of alcohol tends to make people forget that he's on the Don't-Touch list. He's been groped at least five times.
When William sits down next to him, he almost groans out loud. He really doesn't need this. Unfortunately, he got a ride from Ryan tonight, so he can't just leave.
"Don't look so happy to see me," William says, smiling wryly and sipping his drink. He sounds surprisingly sober, and Brendon starts to feel a little less despairing. William's got a reputation, but he's always been pretty good with Brendon's personal boundaries.
"Sorry," he mutters, taking a sip of his own drink. It's bright pink, with an umbrella stuck into it. He had hoped it would cheer him up. "Not a great night."
"Me either." William sounds resigned. "I'm not a big party person."
They'd toured together, but Brendon can't say he really got to know William. He got to know Jon, yes, and he'd definitely seen more of the rest of TAI than he had ever intended - he's willing to bet he's seen every single one of the Butcher's tattoos - but he and William had never really talked.
"Huh," he just says, and William laughs. It's a nice laugh, Brendon thinks absently.
"I know, right? It's just easier to pretend that you're having fun." Bill pauses, looking thoughtful. "And then I get drunk, and I generally have a little fun after that." He shrugs, which somehow brings him a little closer to Brendon.
Brendon does his best to scoot away slightly without Bill noticing, but he doesn't really succeed. William just laughs again and says, "Don't worry, I'm not after your virtue or anything. I'm not like that."
"Okay," Brendon says politely, because as far as he can tell, everyone he knows is like that.
"No, really," Bill insists, and he seems so earnest that Brendon doesn't want to hurt his feelings.
"Sorry," he says instead, smiling ruefully. "I'm a little on edge tonight." It's not even a lie. He's a tactile person, just... not like what Darren was attempting to do earlier. And then Ryland and Alex, at the same time. And then Mike. And then-
"Yeah, I saw Maja attacking you," William laughs, and Brendon sighs. Yeah, her too.
"She told me I had great lips, and that no matter what anyone else said, they were just as good for going down on a girl as a guy. Except it sounded classier when she said it." Brendon sighs again. It's not like it's exactly traumatising to have a hot girl hit on him, but. But; there was always a but in there somewhere.
"Mm. She's persistent," Bill remembers, and Brendon can't tell if he's smiling or making a face. For someone so public, Bill can be surprisingly hard to figure out sometimes. Then he adds, "But she goes away eventually, if you wait long enough."
Brendon makes a thoughtful noise and takes a sip of his drink. It's melting, but he thinks it tastes better that way.
They change the subject and talk for an hour; Brendon keeps wondering if William is going to leave, go hit on someone willing, but he doesn't. He doesn't even get a second drink when he finishes his first (eventually, because he's drinking slowly), just pushes it over to the side and keeps on talking.
It's surprisingly nice. After a while, William says he has to go home, and Brendon's not even that shocked when he walks out the door alone.
He sits at the table for a minute or two longer, then goes to find Ryan and steal his keys. It's not like Ryan's going home tonight, anyway.
-
"Hey, Brendon, I saw you hanging out with William last night," Jon teases when they've all gathered together the next morning, back from their various overnight excursions to other people's houses and hotel rooms. Spencer's already regaled them with his tales of last night; he'd hit on Patrick, but ended up in a threesome with Pete as well, since apparently Pete is kind of a jealous bastard and instituted some sort of rule where Patrick can't do anything with anyone else without him. Patrick, pissed, said that meant Pete couldn't do anything without him, so they just resigned themselves to constant threesomes.
Which, really, wasn't all that terrible of a fate.
(It's not that all Ryan, Jon and Spencer talk about is sex; they only really talk about it if they're giving advice or telling a particularly interesting story. Parties, though, parties are special occasions. Parties require at least 15 minutes of morning-after discussion. Sometimes Brendon even throws in his own comments. He doesn't like being left out.)
"Yeah," Brendon says absently, giving his coffee a calculating glance. It's probably cool enough to drink... He takes a sip and winces. Nope, still too hot.
Ryan laughs softly. "Are you officially on the market, then?" he asks with a smirk. (He has a hickey on his neck, Brendon notices absently. It's huge, which means it's probably from Vicky T; she jokes that she's compensating for something.)
"No, dude, we just talked." Brendon takes a sip of too-hot coffee and ignores the burn on his tongue. He needs caffeine too much to submit to something as silly as scorchingly painful heat.
There's a moment of silence, and he looks up. All three of his bandmates are staring at him skeptically.
"What?" he demands.
"This is William Beckett we're talking about," Jon says, unnecessarily because duh, Brendon kind of knew that. He'd been the one talking to him, after all. "You've met him, right? Tall, skinny, has sex with everything that moves?"
"We just talked," Brendon says, turning to Ryan for confirmation. "You remember, I went home alone last night."
Ryan just shrugs. "I just gave you the keys, I didn't see you leave."
"Jon's right," Spencer points out. "Bill's screwed everyone."
"Not you," Brendon says, frowning thoughtfully. "Or Ryan. Have you?"
"No," Spencer admits slowly, and Ryan shakes his head. They turn to look at Jon, who holds up his hands.
"Sorry, can't help you."
"But you were with them for ages!" Spencer protests.
"If I did, I don't remember," Jon tells them, smiling a little. "We all got really drunk, he made out with everyone, and then when I looked up he was gone. I always just figured he was off with someone else."
"Not possible," Ryan says flatly. He looks a little perturbed, which Brendon figures probably means that he's been shocked down to his very core. "It's William. Sleeping with him is like an initiation into the label."
"And Pete, and Gabe," Spencer adds absently.
Sometimes it's easier to pretend. Brendon smiles.
-
Brendon thinks that if he has to be in the cabin for another minute, he may just stab himself with one of Ryan's eyeliner pencils. Four bitchy musicians in a cabin together? Yeah, probably the worst idea in the world. By this point, even Jon is bitchy because everyone else is just so annoyed all the time. Sometimes, of course, they get a lot done - being here would be pointless if they didn't - but the hours they spend fighting over nothing at all take their toll.
At least, Brendon thinks bitterly, three of them are getting laid regularly.
Okay, so he could be getting laid too, if he really wanted it. It's not like they hadn't offered to include him, and it's not like he hasn't thought about it - it's definitely not like he hasn't thought about it - but. Always that but.
He really has thought a lot about this, because sometimes he wonders, what could it hurt, really? Sex with his best friends; it could almost be mistaken for a regular relationship. He'd be able to do things like drape himself over Ryan or kiss Jon the next day without anyone commenting on it.
But then he remembers that when they get back and it's not just the four of them anymore, things are going to change. It might mean something to him, but it won't to the rest of them. He doesn't want to sleep with Spencer, curl around him until the morning, and then watch him walk away with someone else the next night without even a backward glance. He can't... it's not something he thinks he can do. He's not even all that big on one-night stands with people he doesn't know.
Of course, sometimes this leads to him sitting outside on the front porch alone for an hour or two at a time because he doesn't feel like listening to hot threesome sex, but he figures if he makes a choice then he has to deal with the consequences.
It's a surprisingly mature-sounding thought, so he sticks his tongue out in an attempt to balance things.
And then (because tongues, at this moment, make him think of giving head which vaguely reminds him of Maja which reminds him of that party which reminds him of William) he gets out his cell phone and calls William, because -
Actually, he's not really sure why he calls William. His fingers just sort of dial without him really intending them to.
"Hello?" William asks, not sounding tired at all, despite the fact that it's almost midnight. They've all become far too used to Pete's crazy sleeping schedule.
"Hey, it's. Uh, it's Brendon." Brendon feels like an idiot, because he and Bill haven't spoken in months, and this is a really stupid idea, and -
"Hey, Brendon!" William sounds happy to hear from him. Brendon's a little confused, but he thinks he can work with this. "What's up?"
"Besides deciding to become a hermit and moving to a cabin in the middle of the woods for a couple of months, not much," Brendon says, almost on autopilot. He's smiling a little goofily, and he's not entirely sure why.
"Can't be a hermit if you're with three other people," William points out, amused, and Brendon asks almost immediately, "Wanna bet?"
There's silence for a second, and Brendon figures that sounded too pathetic, maybe, too emo even for them, so he adds, "Um, you weren't lying, were you? When you said that you didn't..."
William sounds like he understands where this is going when he says, "No. I wasn't."
"Oh. Okay," Brendon says, and then curses silently because he has no idea what to say now. He finally settles for, "So, how're things with you?" and lets William take it from there.
When they realise that they've been talking for an hour and wow, they should probably go pretend to sleep or something, Brendon hangs up and walks in the cabin. It's completely silent; for once, he can go to sleep without a chorus of groans ringing in his ears.
It's nice, he thinks, and falls asleep almost immediately.
-
Over the next few weeks, Brendon calls William seven times and they speak for a total of eleven hours and twenty-two minutes. (William, in returns, calls him three times for a total of five hours and thirty-eight minutes, because it turns out Brendon's not the only one who likes being distracted when his bandmates are having really loud sex.)
He, Ryan, Spencer and Jon perfect four songs and make headway on three others. They have exactly six and a half fights, three and a half of which are resolved relatively quickly - which, since it's Ryan and Brendon, means it takes less than two hours for everyone to stop yelling or sulking or slamming doors.
(The half is because Spencer yells something, Brendon can't remember what, about lipstick, and that reminds Brendon of this really funny story Bill was telling him about Adam Siska, and so Brendon just laughs a little and says, "Yeah, okay, you're right." Everyone stops and looks at him a little weirdly for that one, but they stop arguing, so whatever.)
-
One day, Brendon decides, he's really going to stop going to Pete's parties. That'll probably be the same day he starts being able to resist Ryan and Spencer's simultaneous bitchfaces and Jon's disappointed looks.
Which, of course, will be never.
"So," a voice says suddenly, interrupting Brendon's train of thought and making him almost knock his drink over.
"Shit!" he says, and looks up to see Gabe grinning at him. "Oh. Hey."
"So," Gabe repeats, sitting on the empty chair next to Brendon. (All the chairs are vacant, for the most part; almost everyone is out on the dance floor, bumping and grinding and having a generally good time, Brendon supposes.)
"So what?" he asks, raising his eyebrows. Gabe's got a reputation too, but he's drinkless and nowhere near a basement, and so most likely harmless.
"Bill says you're a member of the club," Gabe explains, and Brendon asks, "What club?"
"The club where you don't have sex with a different person each night. It's a very exclusive club," Gabe announces loftily. "We're the only three in it."
Brendon really shouldn't be phased, given that William's reputation turned out to be entirely false, but it still startles a laugh out of him. Next thing he knows, Pete is going to declare his decision to be celibate.
(Technically, only in an alternate universe would Pete ever decide to be celibate, and even then it's a little iffy, but whatever. Metaphors - analogies? he has no idea - are more Ryan's thing.)
"But of course," he says in the haughtiest tone he can manage, hiding a smirk. "We can't just let mere plebeians stop having wild, meaningless sex with everyone they know. Don't be ridiculous."
"It would be lunacy," Gabe agrees, before dropping the charade and grinning at him. "So I hear the cabin was a difficult time for you."
Brendon just groans and lays his head down on the table. "He told you?" he asks, his voice muffled by the wood.
"He mentioned it," Gabe says breezily. "Dude, it's okay. Nate lived in my basement for two years. I always had to make coffee for whoever the morning after, which let me tell you blew. They stole all my good coffee."
"At least you're not Gerard Way," Brendon says, turning his head so he can see Gabe. His cheek is resting in the ring of water his glass left, but he's too lazy to move it. "Dude gets crazy when he runs out of coffee."
"Actually, I think it was Gerard Way once," Gabe says thoughtfully. "I don't know how they even knew each other, but I went downstairs and he was in my kitchen one day, looking like the living dead."
Brendon snickers at that before telling him, "One time Ryan hooked up with Mikey and Jon hooked up with Gerard, and they all came back to our bus. That was a really interesting morning after."
"Bet I can beat it," Gabe declares confidently, and thinks for a second. "Pete had a Patrick-based freak out on our bus one time."
"Please," Brendon scoffs. "Everyone's seen one of those."
"Bet you didn't see Pete smack off Patrick's hat." Brendon looks appropriately horrified, and Gabe grins smugly. "Yup. And then Patrick punched him in the face, and then Vicky convinced them to go back to bed with her." Gabe pauses, looking thoughtful. "Which is funny, because Patrick had actually been fucking Ryland the night before."
They're silent for a moment.
"That's a good one," Brendon admits finally, but just as Gabe begins to smile triumphantly he adds, "Bet I've got a better one, though."
-
"First Bill, now Gabe?" Jon teases the next day. "What, you just like tall guys?"
"You've never slept with him either," Brendon states, and smirks when Jon doesn't say anything.
-
"If we're a club, we should totally have a name," Brendon points out the next time he, William and Gabe are in the same place at the same time. They've been calling each other for weeks, but everyone's schedule is so different that it's almost impossible for the three of them to get together at once without specifically planning it weeks in advance.
That might be another reason for the sex-for-all method, Brendon thinks; it's a lot easier to get laid when you're not looking for one person in particular. Well, technically Pete and Patrick need the other to be present, but that doesn't count; if Pete had his way, they'd never be apart.
"The Cobra Club," Gabe says immediately, but almost before he's finished getting his words out William says, "No."
"Why not?" Gabe demands.
Brendon just laughs as he watches them fight and makes up a list of completely ridiculous names he can totally get them to agree to later, when they're all argued out.
-
"I want pancakes."
"I'm not making you pancakes, Brendon, I don't care how many times you ask."
"Please, Spencer? I'll let you win at Guitar Hero!"
"I would win at Guitar Hero anyway."
"Sure, Spence."
"Shut up, Ryan."
"Yeah, Ry, I actually kind of agree with him. You don't play, you don't get a vote."
"Be quiet, Jon. Ryan was defending me. Because he knows the truth!"
"Ryan's too wrapped up in metaphors about prostitutes to know truth if it bit him in the ass."
"Fuck you!"
"Hey, guys, it's just Guitar Hero."
"Actually, it's not. It's pancakes, and pancakes are never 'just' anything. Please, Spencer?"
"Aw, he's making the puppy eyes. Can you really resist that, Spencer?"
"Jonathan, speaking to you is entirely optional."
"He totally wants pancakes too! And so would Ryan, if he wasn't afraid that it would ruin his girlish figure."
"I am not!"
"So you want some too, then? Sweet! Majority wins. Pancakes, Smith."
"No."
"Please?"
"Fine."
"I love you!"
"Whatever. Shut up and get the flour out."
...What? He wasn't lying when he said that they didn't talk about sex all the time.
-
Interlude:
Pete is really, really confused. "Ryan," he says into his cellphone, "I'm really, really confused."
"About what, Pete?" Ryan sounds tired, and Pete belatedly remembers that, oh yeah, he saw Ryan leaving with Frank and Bob last night, and that always tends to be a pretty exhausting combo because Frank is really energetic and Bob is really thorough.
He doesn't let Ryan go back to sleep, though. "So, I walked onto the balcony last night and I saw Brendon, Gabe and Bill out there, which, y'know, normally wouldn't be too weird except for the fact that it's Brendon, and even that could be explainable because he's the last one on the Don't-Touch list, since Greta, Ray and Alex D. gave in a couple months ago, so it wouldn't surprise me if he decided to get some -"
"Get to the point, Pete," Ryan groans.
Pete snickers. "Oh, poor baby. Bob and Frank wear you out too much? You need to go take a hot bath?"
"Shut up," Ryan says, which means that's probably exactly what he's going to do. He's such a girl, Pete thinks, disregarding the fact that, okay, technically sometimes after he has marathon sex he lights a bunch of scented candles and has a bubble bath. Because really, not the point.
"Anyway," he says, "I wouldn't have been surprised if they were getting hot and heavy, or if Gabe and William were getting hot and heavy and Brendon was just ignoring it because he's pretty good at that, what did you guys do, train him or something?-"
"Pete."
"Right, right. But they weren't doing anything. They were just standing a foot apart and talking. They weren't even touching!" This is kind of inexplicable for Pete. He just doesn't understand it.
Ryan's sigh is staticky over the phone line. "They've got this platonic thing going on, I don't even know. Whenever I ask Brendon about it, he just says my priorities are skewed if I think three guys hanging out and not having sex is weird."
"Yeah, but... three DecayDance guys," Pete points out, as if it's perfectly reasonable. It is, to Ryan. "Two of whom are Gabe and William. How could it not be weird?"
"I don't even know, Pete," Ryan repeats. "Can I go back to sleep now?"
He hangs up before Pete can say another word.
-
So things are going along swimmingly, platonically, and lot's of other 'ly's except stuff like angrily or sexually or scarily, because, no. Positive 'ly's and oh, there's another one. Positively.
Gabe and William rock, to put it bluntly. (That's not actually one of the 'ly' words Brendon was thinking of, but whatever, it works.) Not more than Spencer, Jon and Ryan, because they're his best friends, but still awesome. Very, very awesome.
Which is why he has no problem with it when they text him in the middle of the Sleeping With Giants tour to say:
Hey, we're near u. Come see us
He calls Spencer, because Spencer is the one who manages everything, tells him that he's going to go hang with Gabe and William, and then gets in his car.
Then he remembers that his mom taught him to be prepared for any situation, and so he puts the car in park again and runs to pack an overnight bag, in case he stays over or something. He, Gabe and Bill can get a little like teenage girls at a slumber party sometimes.
Then he leaves. Not before texting them back to say that he's coming, though, because his mom also taught him to notify hosts before his arrival, and even though the circumstances aren't really similar sometimes the rules just stick.
-
The show is incredible. He's pretty sure he tells everyone that at least five times each, but it bears repeating.
"Incredible," he says again, and Gabe asks, "Hey, you want to come back to the hotel with us?"
Bill just rolls his eyes and hits him, saying, "He didn't actually mean it to sound like that, I promise."
"Oh, totally not!" Gabe interrupts. "We're just sharing a room, since everyone else is going to be fucking like bunnies. Sex-free environment."
"Please?" William asks, looking hopeful. "We can have a sleepover!"
He looks so fucking cute that Brendon doesn't see how anyone could say no. "Sure," he promises easily. "But only if we can braid each other's hair."
William frowns. "I don't know, I think Gabe's might be too short to braid," he says thoughtfully. They both turn to Gabe thoughtfully.
Gabe isn't paying attention to them; he's glaring at the couples around the room, who haven't waited for the after party to start the post-show celebration. "Cobras eat bunnies, you know!" he shouts. If they hear, they don't pay any attention.
"Come on," William laughs, grabbing Gabe's hand and then Brendon's. Their hands all fit together well, Brendon thinks absently before William tows him and Gabe out the door.
-
An hour or two later, they're sitting on one of the double beds in Will and Gabe's room, the TV on but unnoticed in the background. Will's hair is braided, but Gabe's turned out to be too short after all so his nails are painted bright pink instead. (They didn't even have to make a last-minute trip to a store to get the nail polish; Bill had it in his bag. Brendon isn't surprised.)
Brendon got his toenails painted and a chunk of his hair inexpertly braided by William. It's a nice compromise, he thinks, even if he can braid hair so much better than William can. (Gabe boasted about his hair braiding prowess, but he was too busy painting Brendon's toenails to prove it at the time.)
They've already figured out who the moans from the adjacent bedrooms belong to; the one to the right is, by unanimous decision, Sisky and the Butcher. The room on their left took a bit more arguing, but they eventually settled on Nate and the keyboard player for Sherwood.
Traditional sleepover rites complete, Brendon figures it's about time for Gabe and William to get to the real reason they asked him to come down. Not that he figures they need a reason to ask him to pay a visit - he didn't need a reason to come down, after all - but throughout the evening, he's been getting the feeling that... Well.
"So, um," Gabe says casually, "there was actually something we kind of wanted to talk about."
Brendon is so good, there are no words for it. Except good. And possibly other words like amazing and perceptive and fantastic. "Okay," he says. "What is it?"
William settles back, leaning against Gabe, and says, "We kind of wanted to have sex. With each other."
Brendon just blinks.
Wiliam laughs kind of awkwardly, and Gabe tightens his arms around him. "Yeah, it sounds kind of weird when the past few months have been all about not having sex with other band members, right? But it's not... We don't want it to be just like that. We want it to mean something."
"Okay," Brendon says, still a little stunned, and wow this has got to be the most awkward conversation of his life, even counting the birds and the bees talks. Both of them - the one with his parents and the one with Patrick. (Three guesses as to which has been worse, and the first two don't count.) "That's cool. You don't need, like, my permission or anything, if that's what you were wondering."
"We weren't," Gabe says immediately, and rolls his eyes when William hits him. "What? Okay, so we were, a little, but were mostly hoping you would join us."
Brendon blinks again, because he has seriously got to be hallucinating this entire conversation. There is no way this is actually happening. Maybe he got high off the nail polish fumes or something.
"Wait. What?" he asks.
"We don't want to do it without you," William says earnestly, yelping when Gabe pokes him in the ribs. "Well, we do, but it'd be better if it was with you."
"But I don't..." Brendon begins, then trails off. He has never been so confused, ever, except maybe for the time he found out about the semi-communal shacking up of all of his band friends. Which, come to think of it, is what started this whole thing in the first place.
"Scooch," Gabe tells William, who obediently moves out of his lap. Gabe leans forward so he can ruffle Brendon's hair.
"You'll mess up the braid!" William protests, but only half-heartedly. He just flicks off the TV - they'd watched a stupid romantic comedy, earlier, as part of sleepover tradition, but Brendon can't even remember what it was, now.
"So it's really weird to be having this conversation," Gabe says solemnly, his hand sliding off Brendon's hair and dropping down to his shoulder. "Normally we'd just gang up on you and seduce you, but since we're all members of The Officially Cobra Sanctioned Innocence Club, TOCSIC for short -"
"The Whatever Club," William interrupts, just as Brendon automatically says, "The Field of Sunflowers and Unicorns Club -"
"Whatever," Gabe dismisses, waving the words off with his free hand.
"The point is," William says, taking over, "we actually wanted to talk about it and reassure you that our intentions are pure."
"But not that pure," Gabe corrects immediately.
"Pure as in we actually want it to mean something," he clarifies. "Even if it means we have to have a really awkward conversation about it."
"Um," Brendon says, and they immediately focus on him. It's a little scary, being the center of that much attention. Technically it shouldn't be too different from being on stage, but it is. It really, really is. "Can I... think about it?"
No, no, that wasn't what he meant to say, not at all, fuck, fuck, fuck. He's supposed to say no, but good luck for them and he hoped it all worked out and then he's supposed to leave. It's just a little hard to think with Gabe's hand on his shoulder and William leaning so close that he can feel his body heat.
"Yeah!" William says immediately. "Yeah, of course."
"We should probably go to sleep anyway, it's pretty late," Gabe adds smoothly, obviously wanting to avoid an hour's worth of stilted conversation.
"I can take the floor," Brendon offers, but William shakes his head.
"Gabe and I can sleep in the same bed, we've done it before."
"Okay," Brendon says, before asking warily, "Um, you're not going to -"
Gabe laughs. "No, man, we wouldn't do that to you. Me and Will are just snugglebuds, remembers?"
"Yeah," Brendon agrees, laughing a little. "Yeah, okay."
He goes into the bathroom to change.
-
He's been in bed for at least half an hour and he still can't sleep. He just keeps running through the past couple of months, all the time he's spent with William and Gabe, trying to figure out if there'd been any hints that would lead up to this.
No, he eventually decides, not really. Not unless you count the weird hop his stomach sometimes gives when he sees Bill and Gabe. Or, okay, always gives, but he'd learned to just ignore that over time.
That settled, he tries to go to sleep, tries to ignore the breathing from the next bed that tells him Bill and Gabe are still halfway awake.
The thing is, though, the bed feels too empty.
Which is weird, right? He's used to sleeping in empty beds, for god's sake, it's one of the major facets of his life at this point. But maybe it's not so weird, and he came down to see Gabe and Will without any questions, without anything other than a phone call to Spencer and an overnight bag. So.
It means something, maybe, he thinks, but he's never been too clear of a thinker late at night. He just goes on instinct.
Instinct leads him to crawl into Gabe and William's bed. "Hey," he says quietly, slipping under the covers. "Can I snuggle too?"
"Yeah," William whispers after a moment, his arms curling around Brendon. Gabe does the same, his hand absently stroking Brendon's forearm, and William asks, "And the other stuff?"
His voice sounds hesitant. Hopeful, maybe, and Brendon murmurs, "Yeah. That too."
William hums contentedly and tightens his arms, and Brendon falls asleep without any problems.
-
In the morning, they kiss. They kiss with morning breath and then with toothpaste in their mouths and then with minty fresh breath, but they don't do anything else because Gabe says they want to take it slow, for him.
Brendon says, "Screw you, it's not like I'm a virgin." Secretly, though, he's kind of pleased.
"Let us treat you right, Urie," Gabe tells him grandly, and then he loudly whispers to Brendon, "Really, it's just because we need to treat Bill like the lady that he is, but if he heard me saying that he'd hit me."
William makes a face at that, and Brendon laughs, trying to put all his stuff back in his bag. Gabe is determinedly hampering that process.
"I have to go, Gabe," he says for the fourth time, but then William surprises him with a kiss and Gabe steals his bag while he's distracted. "Hey! No fair ganging up on me."
"Very fair," William purrs, but he winks at Brendon and kisses Gabe so Brendon can steal his bag back.
"Triumph!" Brendon declares, and gives both of them another kiss before dashing out the door before he gets abducted permanently. Not that he thinks he'd really mind.
-
One night, a couple weeks after that, Brendon goes to see Gabe and William and comes back in the morning with ruffled hair and a smile that doesn't go away for the rest of the day.
No one teases him about it (too much, at least), partially because they don't want him to go back to being celibate, since that's a curse they wouldn't wish on anyone, but mostly because Brendon is so fucking adorable when he's happy like this.
("Happy like this" may or may not mean "in love".)
-
Interlude:
"So, the Completely Platonic Trio is no longer completely platonic?" Pete asks Ryan. "When are you going to get into that?"
The silence he hears makes him worried that Ryan hung up. "Ryan?" he asks, frowning. "Ryan, you there?"
"Yes, I'm here, you fucker," Ryan says, and he's totally rolling his eyes even though no one can see it. Pete can just tell. "And I'm not getting into that, as you put it."
"What? Dude, why not?" Pete's already been planning which of the three he can convince to sleep with him and Patrick first. He would just do all three, but... Three in a bed is fantastic, four is workable, but five is just a tangle of limbs.
"They're exclusive," Ryan explains calmly, although granted, it's Ryan. Almost everything he says sounds calm, not including the noises he makes in bed. Those get pretty animated.
"Exclusive?" Pete repeats, like a scratched CD.
"Yeah. Like you and Patrick, except without the other people." Ryan sounds snippy. "Come on, Pete, I know in some corner of your brain you know what it means."
"Of course I know what it means, I just -" It takes Pete a second to process exactly what Ryan's tone means. "Oh my god," he says gleefully. "Oh my god, Ross, you're jealous!"
"I am not!" Ryan snaps. "I just..." He sighs. "I just thought that if he ever did, it would be, you know. With us. Me and Spencer and Jon."
"Why?" Pete wonders, not blankly but in an effort to get Ryan to reveal the current source of his petulance.
"Because we're his best friends," Ryan says, irritated. "Shouldn't that count for something?" Pete waits a beat before Ryan adds quietly, "Why did he choose them and not us?"
"You wouldn't be exclusive," Pete points out mildly. Of everyone, he can maybe understand where Brendon's coming from the most; if he'd had to watch Patrick spend another night with someone else without him, he - well, he didn't know what he'd do, but it wouldn't be pretty. He can't be monogamous, but he's not willing to let Patrick go, either.
Ryan sighs again. "Yeah. I know."
-
Another party, but this time Brendon's not sitting by himself, waiting for it to be a reasonable time for him to demand Ryan's keys. This time, he's standing, talking animatedly with Jepha.
He's still waiting, though.
"Are you kidding me? Have you heard those riffs? No way are they total hacks," Brendon's saying, punctuating his declarations with the occasional wave of his hand. "Partial hacks, maybe, but not total."
"You want to discuss it somewhere else, maybe?" Jepha suggests, raising an eyebrow.
Brendon just laughs, but before he can politely say no he feels an arm drop around his shoulder. "Sorry, he's taken," Gabe tells Jepha, who shrugs and walks off.
A moment later, Brendon feels William's arm slip around his waist. He knows he must look ridiculous, sandwiched in between two of the tallest guys on the label, but he can't bring himself to care.
"You took your time," he accuses, grinning.
"You looked like you were having fun, and I wanted to torture Bill a little," Gabe explains innocently.
William just rolls his eyes. "Let's get out of here." He smiles suddenly, saying, "We can have a party of our own."
"Thought you weren't a big party person," Brendon comments, and William laughs.
They steer towards the exit; Brendon waves at Ryan to signify that he's fine and won't be needing the keys.
"I want a piggyback," he tells Gabe seriously.
"I don't know about piggybacks," Gabe replies, equally grave, "but I can..."
He swings Brendon up into his arms and runs toward his car, William dashing along beside.
"See?" he asks when they've reached their destination, setting Brendon down on the ground gently and opening the door for him. "Told you we'd treat you right, Urie."
"Yeah," Brendon says, sliding into the backseat and dragging William with him. He smiles up at Gabe. ("Happy like this" may or may not mean "in love".) "You did."
Title: Sunflowers and Unicorns (This Ain't a Scene, It's an Orgy)
Author: DF
Fandom: P!atD, FOB, TAI, CS, and others
Pairing: Everyone/everyone, Gabe/Brendon/William
Summary: It turns out that it's not just The Academy Is... and half of Panic! at the Disco; apparently all the Fueled By Ramen guys have the same interesting sleeping habits. That is, if "sleeping" means "sex" and "interesting" means "screwing everyone else on the label in various combinations".
Brendon is so not prepared for this. He grew up Mormon, for fuck's sake.
Disclaimer: The following is not, was not, and will never be true.
It's not like Brendon is deliberately keeping track of the people Ryan sleeps with. It just tends to be kind of hard to ignore two people having sex about two feet away from your head.
It's really hard to ignore Ryan slipping away with his hands in Mike Carden's back pockets, or moaning the Butcher's name the night after that. And then, a day or two later, Brendon can't help but notice Mike and the Butcher making out on the couch in The Academy's bus. With tongue. A lot of tongue, actually.
He's not ashamed to admit that he's feeling completely out of his depth.
"Spencer!" he yells when he wakes up the morning after that, because Spencer is sane, right? Spencer can be his anchor in what Brendon's beginning to realise is a completely nonsensical world.
(It's not like he didn't know people in bands had a lot of sex; that was pretty much a given. He just hadn't realised so much of it was with each other.)
Unfortunately, when he barges out of bed, Spencer is no where to be found. Ryan is, however, and he laughs as he says, "Spencer's not here, dude."
"Where is he?" Brendon demands.
"Sisky's bunk." Ryan calmly takes a sip of his coffee, and Brendon feels a headache start up.
"Isn't he not legal?" he tries weakly, but he knows it's hopeless before he even finishes the question. He feels his last hope of sanity go flying out the window.
"You planning on telling his mom?" Ryan asks archly, and no, Brendon isn't, so he shakes his head.
"I'm going back to sleep," he mutters, hoping that maybe the world will be saner when he wakes up. Or at least slightly less promiscuous.
-
It turns out that it's not just The Academy Is... and half of Panic! at the Disco; apparently all the Fueled By Ramen guys have the same interesting sleeping habits. That is, if "sleeping" means "sex" and "interesting" means "screwing everyone else on the label in various combinations".
Brendon is so not prepared for this. He grew up Mormon, for fuck's sake.
Brent isn't any good either; he isn't like Spencer or Ryan, doesn't sleep with all the guys in TAI and some of the sound techs too, but he picks up girls at almost every place they go. That's not helpful to Brendon. Brendon wants to sign an anti-sex pact with someone. Not that he's, you know, against sex. Theoretically. It's just that he's a little iffy about the idea of fucking everyone who knows Pete Wentz.
Brendon tries to remember if anyone had explained this bit before they joined the label, but no, he distinctly recalls signing a contract for a record, not a 24/7 orgy.
-
Ryan tries explaining it to him once, tells him, "You get sex all the time, with really hot people and no chance of it ending up all over the internet."
"Um," Brendon says.
"Have you seen the girls Brent comes back with?" Ryan scoffs. "They've probably got, like, thousands of STDs. We're all clean."
"You could just try not having sex?" Brendon offers, and Ryan stares at him for a little, as if he can't believe Brendon just said that.
"Is that what you've been doing?" he asks finally, raising his eyebrows. "I figured you were just really discreet." Sometimes Ryan seems a lot older than he really is. Brendon feels really young in comparison.
Brendon shakes his head and blushes, and Ryan laughs. "Dude, your right hand must be dying."
"Nah," Brendon says as flippantly as he can, "guitar and piano really strengthen your wrists. So, I have to go do this thing now." He tries to run away without looking like he's actually running away, and really wishes he hadn't asked.
-
He gets used to it after a while. It's in his face so often that he doesn't have a choice, really; now if Spencer and Ryan aren't in their beds in the morning, he just calmly waits for them to come back.
The thing is, he trusts them. He has his doubts sometimes, but he doesn't think they're going to fuck anything up. They've got so much experience with everything, he thinks, whereas Brendon? He's just a sheltered little singer who didn't know what the word blowjob meant until he was 15. They can take care of themselves, and he's liable to get bitched out if he voices even the slightest concern.
And see, he doesn't want to piss them off. All he really wants to do is just hang out with his best friends, and if that means he has to pretend that he thinks the fact that everyone he knows has fucked each other is normal, then so be it.
Eventually, he pretends so much that it's not even pretending anymore, really. Catching Andy and Joe making out while Spencer watches doesn't even warrant a blink of an eye. It's just... normal.
Brent doesn't appear to see it in quite that way.
-
(Brendon loses his virginity during Truckstops & Statelines, because he's really, really sick of being the only one he knows who hasn't had sex, and also he's really terrified that other people will find out and make fun of him for, like, ever.
It turns out to be a lot easier than he expected; he just goes to a random club, flirts with a girl who has no idea who the hell he is, and fucks her unsteadily in the alley. A week later, he does the exact same thing, only this time it's a guy and Brendon's the one getting fucked into the brick wall.
It's kind of messy and more than a little painful - with the girl, too, because she pulls his hair, and fuck that hurts - and he's not really sure what to do afterwards. He ends up tugging his pants up awkwardly while the girl or the guy smooth their hair down and walk inside without looking back.
It feels good, sure, but he can't help but wonder if that's really what all the fuss is about.)
-
Brent is cool with fucking all the girls he wants, and usually he just turns a blind eye to whatever it is Spencer and Ryan are doing. As it turns out, he's only okay with whatever as long as he doesn't walk in on it.
It's not like he's homophobic or anything, hell no, but he doesn't like seeing... that.
"They're doing it in a space that we have to share," he bitches to Brendon one day. Brent is smoking; Brendon isn't, since it would fuck up his voice and Ryan would probably stab him with an eyeliner pencil if he did. Secondhand smoke is just as bad, but whatever. He needed company.
"Yeah," Brendon says noncommittally.
"And they're like my brothers, man!" Brent continues, looking disgusted. He'd just caught Ryan giving Pete head, which, while expected (hell, Brendon had figured something of the sort would happen even before he realised that FBR might as well stand for Fucking Bands Regularly) is apparently traumatizing.
Brendon shrugs. "Whatever," he says. "It's not like you don't do the exact same thing with chicks."
Brent shrugs, too, and apparently decides that Brendon has a point because he lets his list of grievances slide, this time.
(This isn't the main reason why Brent gets kicked out of the band, though. He really was fucking up all over the place. Brendon suspects that it might have factored in a little, though.)
-
"But this is not that dream!" Brendon announces over-dramatically. "This song is about wild, heavy, monstrous fucking - which is why it makes sense that Ryan wrote it."
Ryan flips him off. The fangirls scream without having any idea what they're screaming at.
-
"Ugh," Brendon says. They're leaving for Europe in almost exactly a week, but for the moment he's stuck at one of Pete's parties. It's not that he doesn't like parties, or even that he doesn't like Pete's parties; he does. Pete knows how to have a good time.
Unfortunately, one of Pete's major ideas for how to have a good time involves sex. Brendon is really not in the mood for watching the FBR mating dance, especially since the constant supply of alcohol tends to make people forget that he's on the Don't-Touch list. He's been groped at least five times.
When William sits down next to him, he almost groans out loud. He really doesn't need this. Unfortunately, he got a ride from Ryan tonight, so he can't just leave.
"Don't look so happy to see me," William says, smiling wryly and sipping his drink. He sounds surprisingly sober, and Brendon starts to feel a little less despairing. William's got a reputation, but he's always been pretty good with Brendon's personal boundaries.
"Sorry," he mutters, taking a sip of his own drink. It's bright pink, with an umbrella stuck into it. He had hoped it would cheer him up. "Not a great night."
"Me either." William sounds resigned. "I'm not a big party person."
They'd toured together, but Brendon can't say he really got to know William. He got to know Jon, yes, and he'd definitely seen more of the rest of TAI than he had ever intended - he's willing to bet he's seen every single one of the Butcher's tattoos - but he and William had never really talked.
"Huh," he just says, and William laughs. It's a nice laugh, Brendon thinks absently.
"I know, right? It's just easier to pretend that you're having fun." Bill pauses, looking thoughtful. "And then I get drunk, and I generally have a little fun after that." He shrugs, which somehow brings him a little closer to Brendon.
Brendon does his best to scoot away slightly without Bill noticing, but he doesn't really succeed. William just laughs again and says, "Don't worry, I'm not after your virtue or anything. I'm not like that."
"Okay," Brendon says politely, because as far as he can tell, everyone he knows is like that.
"No, really," Bill insists, and he seems so earnest that Brendon doesn't want to hurt his feelings.
"Sorry," he says instead, smiling ruefully. "I'm a little on edge tonight." It's not even a lie. He's a tactile person, just... not like what Darren was attempting to do earlier. And then Ryland and Alex, at the same time. And then Mike. And then-
"Yeah, I saw Maja attacking you," William laughs, and Brendon sighs. Yeah, her too.
"She told me I had great lips, and that no matter what anyone else said, they were just as good for going down on a girl as a guy. Except it sounded classier when she said it." Brendon sighs again. It's not like it's exactly traumatising to have a hot girl hit on him, but. But; there was always a but in there somewhere.
"Mm. She's persistent," Bill remembers, and Brendon can't tell if he's smiling or making a face. For someone so public, Bill can be surprisingly hard to figure out sometimes. Then he adds, "But she goes away eventually, if you wait long enough."
Brendon makes a thoughtful noise and takes a sip of his drink. It's melting, but he thinks it tastes better that way.
They change the subject and talk for an hour; Brendon keeps wondering if William is going to leave, go hit on someone willing, but he doesn't. He doesn't even get a second drink when he finishes his first (eventually, because he's drinking slowly), just pushes it over to the side and keeps on talking.
It's surprisingly nice. After a while, William says he has to go home, and Brendon's not even that shocked when he walks out the door alone.
He sits at the table for a minute or two longer, then goes to find Ryan and steal his keys. It's not like Ryan's going home tonight, anyway.
-
"Hey, Brendon, I saw you hanging out with William last night," Jon teases when they've all gathered together the next morning, back from their various overnight excursions to other people's houses and hotel rooms. Spencer's already regaled them with his tales of last night; he'd hit on Patrick, but ended up in a threesome with Pete as well, since apparently Pete is kind of a jealous bastard and instituted some sort of rule where Patrick can't do anything with anyone else without him. Patrick, pissed, said that meant Pete couldn't do anything without him, so they just resigned themselves to constant threesomes.
Which, really, wasn't all that terrible of a fate.
(It's not that all Ryan, Jon and Spencer talk about is sex; they only really talk about it if they're giving advice or telling a particularly interesting story. Parties, though, parties are special occasions. Parties require at least 15 minutes of morning-after discussion. Sometimes Brendon even throws in his own comments. He doesn't like being left out.)
"Yeah," Brendon says absently, giving his coffee a calculating glance. It's probably cool enough to drink... He takes a sip and winces. Nope, still too hot.
Ryan laughs softly. "Are you officially on the market, then?" he asks with a smirk. (He has a hickey on his neck, Brendon notices absently. It's huge, which means it's probably from Vicky T; she jokes that she's compensating for something.)
"No, dude, we just talked." Brendon takes a sip of too-hot coffee and ignores the burn on his tongue. He needs caffeine too much to submit to something as silly as scorchingly painful heat.
There's a moment of silence, and he looks up. All three of his bandmates are staring at him skeptically.
"What?" he demands.
"This is William Beckett we're talking about," Jon says, unnecessarily because duh, Brendon kind of knew that. He'd been the one talking to him, after all. "You've met him, right? Tall, skinny, has sex with everything that moves?"
"We just talked," Brendon says, turning to Ryan for confirmation. "You remember, I went home alone last night."
Ryan just shrugs. "I just gave you the keys, I didn't see you leave."
"Jon's right," Spencer points out. "Bill's screwed everyone."
"Not you," Brendon says, frowning thoughtfully. "Or Ryan. Have you?"
"No," Spencer admits slowly, and Ryan shakes his head. They turn to look at Jon, who holds up his hands.
"Sorry, can't help you."
"But you were with them for ages!" Spencer protests.
"If I did, I don't remember," Jon tells them, smiling a little. "We all got really drunk, he made out with everyone, and then when I looked up he was gone. I always just figured he was off with someone else."
"Not possible," Ryan says flatly. He looks a little perturbed, which Brendon figures probably means that he's been shocked down to his very core. "It's William. Sleeping with him is like an initiation into the label."
"And Pete, and Gabe," Spencer adds absently.
Sometimes it's easier to pretend. Brendon smiles.
-
Brendon thinks that if he has to be in the cabin for another minute, he may just stab himself with one of Ryan's eyeliner pencils. Four bitchy musicians in a cabin together? Yeah, probably the worst idea in the world. By this point, even Jon is bitchy because everyone else is just so annoyed all the time. Sometimes, of course, they get a lot done - being here would be pointless if they didn't - but the hours they spend fighting over nothing at all take their toll.
At least, Brendon thinks bitterly, three of them are getting laid regularly.
Okay, so he could be getting laid too, if he really wanted it. It's not like they hadn't offered to include him, and it's not like he hasn't thought about it - it's definitely not like he hasn't thought about it - but. Always that but.
He really has thought a lot about this, because sometimes he wonders, what could it hurt, really? Sex with his best friends; it could almost be mistaken for a regular relationship. He'd be able to do things like drape himself over Ryan or kiss Jon the next day without anyone commenting on it.
But then he remembers that when they get back and it's not just the four of them anymore, things are going to change. It might mean something to him, but it won't to the rest of them. He doesn't want to sleep with Spencer, curl around him until the morning, and then watch him walk away with someone else the next night without even a backward glance. He can't... it's not something he thinks he can do. He's not even all that big on one-night stands with people he doesn't know.
Of course, sometimes this leads to him sitting outside on the front porch alone for an hour or two at a time because he doesn't feel like listening to hot threesome sex, but he figures if he makes a choice then he has to deal with the consequences.
It's a surprisingly mature-sounding thought, so he sticks his tongue out in an attempt to balance things.
And then (because tongues, at this moment, make him think of giving head which vaguely reminds him of Maja which reminds him of that party which reminds him of William) he gets out his cell phone and calls William, because -
Actually, he's not really sure why he calls William. His fingers just sort of dial without him really intending them to.
"Hello?" William asks, not sounding tired at all, despite the fact that it's almost midnight. They've all become far too used to Pete's crazy sleeping schedule.
"Hey, it's. Uh, it's Brendon." Brendon feels like an idiot, because he and Bill haven't spoken in months, and this is a really stupid idea, and -
"Hey, Brendon!" William sounds happy to hear from him. Brendon's a little confused, but he thinks he can work with this. "What's up?"
"Besides deciding to become a hermit and moving to a cabin in the middle of the woods for a couple of months, not much," Brendon says, almost on autopilot. He's smiling a little goofily, and he's not entirely sure why.
"Can't be a hermit if you're with three other people," William points out, amused, and Brendon asks almost immediately, "Wanna bet?"
There's silence for a second, and Brendon figures that sounded too pathetic, maybe, too emo even for them, so he adds, "Um, you weren't lying, were you? When you said that you didn't..."
William sounds like he understands where this is going when he says, "No. I wasn't."
"Oh. Okay," Brendon says, and then curses silently because he has no idea what to say now. He finally settles for, "So, how're things with you?" and lets William take it from there.
When they realise that they've been talking for an hour and wow, they should probably go pretend to sleep or something, Brendon hangs up and walks in the cabin. It's completely silent; for once, he can go to sleep without a chorus of groans ringing in his ears.
It's nice, he thinks, and falls asleep almost immediately.
-
Over the next few weeks, Brendon calls William seven times and they speak for a total of eleven hours and twenty-two minutes. (William, in returns, calls him three times for a total of five hours and thirty-eight minutes, because it turns out Brendon's not the only one who likes being distracted when his bandmates are having really loud sex.)
He, Ryan, Spencer and Jon perfect four songs and make headway on three others. They have exactly six and a half fights, three and a half of which are resolved relatively quickly - which, since it's Ryan and Brendon, means it takes less than two hours for everyone to stop yelling or sulking or slamming doors.
(The half is because Spencer yells something, Brendon can't remember what, about lipstick, and that reminds Brendon of this really funny story Bill was telling him about Adam Siska, and so Brendon just laughs a little and says, "Yeah, okay, you're right." Everyone stops and looks at him a little weirdly for that one, but they stop arguing, so whatever.)
-
One day, Brendon decides, he's really going to stop going to Pete's parties. That'll probably be the same day he starts being able to resist Ryan and Spencer's simultaneous bitchfaces and Jon's disappointed looks.
Which, of course, will be never.
"So," a voice says suddenly, interrupting Brendon's train of thought and making him almost knock his drink over.
"Shit!" he says, and looks up to see Gabe grinning at him. "Oh. Hey."
"So," Gabe repeats, sitting on the empty chair next to Brendon. (All the chairs are vacant, for the most part; almost everyone is out on the dance floor, bumping and grinding and having a generally good time, Brendon supposes.)
"So what?" he asks, raising his eyebrows. Gabe's got a reputation too, but he's drinkless and nowhere near a basement, and so most likely harmless.
"Bill says you're a member of the club," Gabe explains, and Brendon asks, "What club?"
"The club where you don't have sex with a different person each night. It's a very exclusive club," Gabe announces loftily. "We're the only three in it."
Brendon really shouldn't be phased, given that William's reputation turned out to be entirely false, but it still startles a laugh out of him. Next thing he knows, Pete is going to declare his decision to be celibate.
(Technically, only in an alternate universe would Pete ever decide to be celibate, and even then it's a little iffy, but whatever. Metaphors - analogies? he has no idea - are more Ryan's thing.)
"But of course," he says in the haughtiest tone he can manage, hiding a smirk. "We can't just let mere plebeians stop having wild, meaningless sex with everyone they know. Don't be ridiculous."
"It would be lunacy," Gabe agrees, before dropping the charade and grinning at him. "So I hear the cabin was a difficult time for you."
Brendon just groans and lays his head down on the table. "He told you?" he asks, his voice muffled by the wood.
"He mentioned it," Gabe says breezily. "Dude, it's okay. Nate lived in my basement for two years. I always had to make coffee for whoever the morning after, which let me tell you blew. They stole all my good coffee."
"At least you're not Gerard Way," Brendon says, turning his head so he can see Gabe. His cheek is resting in the ring of water his glass left, but he's too lazy to move it. "Dude gets crazy when he runs out of coffee."
"Actually, I think it was Gerard Way once," Gabe says thoughtfully. "I don't know how they even knew each other, but I went downstairs and he was in my kitchen one day, looking like the living dead."
Brendon snickers at that before telling him, "One time Ryan hooked up with Mikey and Jon hooked up with Gerard, and they all came back to our bus. That was a really interesting morning after."
"Bet I can beat it," Gabe declares confidently, and thinks for a second. "Pete had a Patrick-based freak out on our bus one time."
"Please," Brendon scoffs. "Everyone's seen one of those."
"Bet you didn't see Pete smack off Patrick's hat." Brendon looks appropriately horrified, and Gabe grins smugly. "Yup. And then Patrick punched him in the face, and then Vicky convinced them to go back to bed with her." Gabe pauses, looking thoughtful. "Which is funny, because Patrick had actually been fucking Ryland the night before."
They're silent for a moment.
"That's a good one," Brendon admits finally, but just as Gabe begins to smile triumphantly he adds, "Bet I've got a better one, though."
-
"First Bill, now Gabe?" Jon teases the next day. "What, you just like tall guys?"
"You've never slept with him either," Brendon states, and smirks when Jon doesn't say anything.
-
"If we're a club, we should totally have a name," Brendon points out the next time he, William and Gabe are in the same place at the same time. They've been calling each other for weeks, but everyone's schedule is so different that it's almost impossible for the three of them to get together at once without specifically planning it weeks in advance.
That might be another reason for the sex-for-all method, Brendon thinks; it's a lot easier to get laid when you're not looking for one person in particular. Well, technically Pete and Patrick need the other to be present, but that doesn't count; if Pete had his way, they'd never be apart.
"The Cobra Club," Gabe says immediately, but almost before he's finished getting his words out William says, "No."
"Why not?" Gabe demands.
Brendon just laughs as he watches them fight and makes up a list of completely ridiculous names he can totally get them to agree to later, when they're all argued out.
-
"I want pancakes."
"I'm not making you pancakes, Brendon, I don't care how many times you ask."
"Please, Spencer? I'll let you win at Guitar Hero!"
"I would win at Guitar Hero anyway."
"Sure, Spence."
"Shut up, Ryan."
"Yeah, Ry, I actually kind of agree with him. You don't play, you don't get a vote."
"Be quiet, Jon. Ryan was defending me. Because he knows the truth!"
"Ryan's too wrapped up in metaphors about prostitutes to know truth if it bit him in the ass."
"Fuck you!"
"Hey, guys, it's just Guitar Hero."
"Actually, it's not. It's pancakes, and pancakes are never 'just' anything. Please, Spencer?"
"Aw, he's making the puppy eyes. Can you really resist that, Spencer?"
"Jonathan, speaking to you is entirely optional."
"He totally wants pancakes too! And so would Ryan, if he wasn't afraid that it would ruin his girlish figure."
"I am not!"
"So you want some too, then? Sweet! Majority wins. Pancakes, Smith."
"No."
"Please?"
"Fine."
"I love you!"
"Whatever. Shut up and get the flour out."
...What? He wasn't lying when he said that they didn't talk about sex all the time.
-
Interlude:
Pete is really, really confused. "Ryan," he says into his cellphone, "I'm really, really confused."
"About what, Pete?" Ryan sounds tired, and Pete belatedly remembers that, oh yeah, he saw Ryan leaving with Frank and Bob last night, and that always tends to be a pretty exhausting combo because Frank is really energetic and Bob is really thorough.
He doesn't let Ryan go back to sleep, though. "So, I walked onto the balcony last night and I saw Brendon, Gabe and Bill out there, which, y'know, normally wouldn't be too weird except for the fact that it's Brendon, and even that could be explainable because he's the last one on the Don't-Touch list, since Greta, Ray and Alex D. gave in a couple months ago, so it wouldn't surprise me if he decided to get some -"
"Get to the point, Pete," Ryan groans.
Pete snickers. "Oh, poor baby. Bob and Frank wear you out too much? You need to go take a hot bath?"
"Shut up," Ryan says, which means that's probably exactly what he's going to do. He's such a girl, Pete thinks, disregarding the fact that, okay, technically sometimes after he has marathon sex he lights a bunch of scented candles and has a bubble bath. Because really, not the point.
"Anyway," he says, "I wouldn't have been surprised if they were getting hot and heavy, or if Gabe and William were getting hot and heavy and Brendon was just ignoring it because he's pretty good at that, what did you guys do, train him or something?-"
"Pete."
"Right, right. But they weren't doing anything. They were just standing a foot apart and talking. They weren't even touching!" This is kind of inexplicable for Pete. He just doesn't understand it.
Ryan's sigh is staticky over the phone line. "They've got this platonic thing going on, I don't even know. Whenever I ask Brendon about it, he just says my priorities are skewed if I think three guys hanging out and not having sex is weird."
"Yeah, but... three DecayDance guys," Pete points out, as if it's perfectly reasonable. It is, to Ryan. "Two of whom are Gabe and William. How could it not be weird?"
"I don't even know, Pete," Ryan repeats. "Can I go back to sleep now?"
He hangs up before Pete can say another word.
-
So things are going along swimmingly, platonically, and lot's of other 'ly's except stuff like angrily or sexually or scarily, because, no. Positive 'ly's and oh, there's another one. Positively.
Gabe and William rock, to put it bluntly. (That's not actually one of the 'ly' words Brendon was thinking of, but whatever, it works.) Not more than Spencer, Jon and Ryan, because they're his best friends, but still awesome. Very, very awesome.
Which is why he has no problem with it when they text him in the middle of the Sleeping With Giants tour to say:
Hey, we're near u. Come see us
He calls Spencer, because Spencer is the one who manages everything, tells him that he's going to go hang with Gabe and William, and then gets in his car.
Then he remembers that his mom taught him to be prepared for any situation, and so he puts the car in park again and runs to pack an overnight bag, in case he stays over or something. He, Gabe and Bill can get a little like teenage girls at a slumber party sometimes.
Then he leaves. Not before texting them back to say that he's coming, though, because his mom also taught him to notify hosts before his arrival, and even though the circumstances aren't really similar sometimes the rules just stick.
-
The show is incredible. He's pretty sure he tells everyone that at least five times each, but it bears repeating.
"Incredible," he says again, and Gabe asks, "Hey, you want to come back to the hotel with us?"
Bill just rolls his eyes and hits him, saying, "He didn't actually mean it to sound like that, I promise."
"Oh, totally not!" Gabe interrupts. "We're just sharing a room, since everyone else is going to be fucking like bunnies. Sex-free environment."
"Please?" William asks, looking hopeful. "We can have a sleepover!"
He looks so fucking cute that Brendon doesn't see how anyone could say no. "Sure," he promises easily. "But only if we can braid each other's hair."
William frowns. "I don't know, I think Gabe's might be too short to braid," he says thoughtfully. They both turn to Gabe thoughtfully.
Gabe isn't paying attention to them; he's glaring at the couples around the room, who haven't waited for the after party to start the post-show celebration. "Cobras eat bunnies, you know!" he shouts. If they hear, they don't pay any attention.
"Come on," William laughs, grabbing Gabe's hand and then Brendon's. Their hands all fit together well, Brendon thinks absently before William tows him and Gabe out the door.
-
An hour or two later, they're sitting on one of the double beds in Will and Gabe's room, the TV on but unnoticed in the background. Will's hair is braided, but Gabe's turned out to be too short after all so his nails are painted bright pink instead. (They didn't even have to make a last-minute trip to a store to get the nail polish; Bill had it in his bag. Brendon isn't surprised.)
Brendon got his toenails painted and a chunk of his hair inexpertly braided by William. It's a nice compromise, he thinks, even if he can braid hair so much better than William can. (Gabe boasted about his hair braiding prowess, but he was too busy painting Brendon's toenails to prove it at the time.)
They've already figured out who the moans from the adjacent bedrooms belong to; the one to the right is, by unanimous decision, Sisky and the Butcher. The room on their left took a bit more arguing, but they eventually settled on Nate and the keyboard player for Sherwood.
Traditional sleepover rites complete, Brendon figures it's about time for Gabe and William to get to the real reason they asked him to come down. Not that he figures they need a reason to ask him to pay a visit - he didn't need a reason to come down, after all - but throughout the evening, he's been getting the feeling that... Well.
"So, um," Gabe says casually, "there was actually something we kind of wanted to talk about."
Brendon is so good, there are no words for it. Except good. And possibly other words like amazing and perceptive and fantastic. "Okay," he says. "What is it?"
William settles back, leaning against Gabe, and says, "We kind of wanted to have sex. With each other."
Brendon just blinks.
Wiliam laughs kind of awkwardly, and Gabe tightens his arms around him. "Yeah, it sounds kind of weird when the past few months have been all about not having sex with other band members, right? But it's not... We don't want it to be just like that. We want it to mean something."
"Okay," Brendon says, still a little stunned, and wow this has got to be the most awkward conversation of his life, even counting the birds and the bees talks. Both of them - the one with his parents and the one with Patrick. (Three guesses as to which has been worse, and the first two don't count.) "That's cool. You don't need, like, my permission or anything, if that's what you were wondering."
"We weren't," Gabe says immediately, and rolls his eyes when William hits him. "What? Okay, so we were, a little, but were mostly hoping you would join us."
Brendon blinks again, because he has seriously got to be hallucinating this entire conversation. There is no way this is actually happening. Maybe he got high off the nail polish fumes or something.
"Wait. What?" he asks.
"We don't want to do it without you," William says earnestly, yelping when Gabe pokes him in the ribs. "Well, we do, but it'd be better if it was with you."
"But I don't..." Brendon begins, then trails off. He has never been so confused, ever, except maybe for the time he found out about the semi-communal shacking up of all of his band friends. Which, come to think of it, is what started this whole thing in the first place.
"Scooch," Gabe tells William, who obediently moves out of his lap. Gabe leans forward so he can ruffle Brendon's hair.
"You'll mess up the braid!" William protests, but only half-heartedly. He just flicks off the TV - they'd watched a stupid romantic comedy, earlier, as part of sleepover tradition, but Brendon can't even remember what it was, now.
"So it's really weird to be having this conversation," Gabe says solemnly, his hand sliding off Brendon's hair and dropping down to his shoulder. "Normally we'd just gang up on you and seduce you, but since we're all members of The Officially Cobra Sanctioned Innocence Club, TOCSIC for short -"
"The Whatever Club," William interrupts, just as Brendon automatically says, "The Field of Sunflowers and Unicorns Club -"
"Whatever," Gabe dismisses, waving the words off with his free hand.
"The point is," William says, taking over, "we actually wanted to talk about it and reassure you that our intentions are pure."
"But not that pure," Gabe corrects immediately.
"Pure as in we actually want it to mean something," he clarifies. "Even if it means we have to have a really awkward conversation about it."
"Um," Brendon says, and they immediately focus on him. It's a little scary, being the center of that much attention. Technically it shouldn't be too different from being on stage, but it is. It really, really is. "Can I... think about it?"
No, no, that wasn't what he meant to say, not at all, fuck, fuck, fuck. He's supposed to say no, but good luck for them and he hoped it all worked out and then he's supposed to leave. It's just a little hard to think with Gabe's hand on his shoulder and William leaning so close that he can feel his body heat.
"Yeah!" William says immediately. "Yeah, of course."
"We should probably go to sleep anyway, it's pretty late," Gabe adds smoothly, obviously wanting to avoid an hour's worth of stilted conversation.
"I can take the floor," Brendon offers, but William shakes his head.
"Gabe and I can sleep in the same bed, we've done it before."
"Okay," Brendon says, before asking warily, "Um, you're not going to -"
Gabe laughs. "No, man, we wouldn't do that to you. Me and Will are just snugglebuds, remembers?"
"Yeah," Brendon agrees, laughing a little. "Yeah, okay."
He goes into the bathroom to change.
-
He's been in bed for at least half an hour and he still can't sleep. He just keeps running through the past couple of months, all the time he's spent with William and Gabe, trying to figure out if there'd been any hints that would lead up to this.
No, he eventually decides, not really. Not unless you count the weird hop his stomach sometimes gives when he sees Bill and Gabe. Or, okay, always gives, but he'd learned to just ignore that over time.
That settled, he tries to go to sleep, tries to ignore the breathing from the next bed that tells him Bill and Gabe are still halfway awake.
The thing is, though, the bed feels too empty.
Which is weird, right? He's used to sleeping in empty beds, for god's sake, it's one of the major facets of his life at this point. But maybe it's not so weird, and he came down to see Gabe and Will without any questions, without anything other than a phone call to Spencer and an overnight bag. So.
It means something, maybe, he thinks, but he's never been too clear of a thinker late at night. He just goes on instinct.
Instinct leads him to crawl into Gabe and William's bed. "Hey," he says quietly, slipping under the covers. "Can I snuggle too?"
"Yeah," William whispers after a moment, his arms curling around Brendon. Gabe does the same, his hand absently stroking Brendon's forearm, and William asks, "And the other stuff?"
His voice sounds hesitant. Hopeful, maybe, and Brendon murmurs, "Yeah. That too."
William hums contentedly and tightens his arms, and Brendon falls asleep without any problems.
-
In the morning, they kiss. They kiss with morning breath and then with toothpaste in their mouths and then with minty fresh breath, but they don't do anything else because Gabe says they want to take it slow, for him.
Brendon says, "Screw you, it's not like I'm a virgin." Secretly, though, he's kind of pleased.
"Let us treat you right, Urie," Gabe tells him grandly, and then he loudly whispers to Brendon, "Really, it's just because we need to treat Bill like the lady that he is, but if he heard me saying that he'd hit me."
William makes a face at that, and Brendon laughs, trying to put all his stuff back in his bag. Gabe is determinedly hampering that process.
"I have to go, Gabe," he says for the fourth time, but then William surprises him with a kiss and Gabe steals his bag while he's distracted. "Hey! No fair ganging up on me."
"Very fair," William purrs, but he winks at Brendon and kisses Gabe so Brendon can steal his bag back.
"Triumph!" Brendon declares, and gives both of them another kiss before dashing out the door before he gets abducted permanently. Not that he thinks he'd really mind.
-
One night, a couple weeks after that, Brendon goes to see Gabe and William and comes back in the morning with ruffled hair and a smile that doesn't go away for the rest of the day.
No one teases him about it (too much, at least), partially because they don't want him to go back to being celibate, since that's a curse they wouldn't wish on anyone, but mostly because Brendon is so fucking adorable when he's happy like this.
("Happy like this" may or may not mean "in love".)
-
Interlude:
"So, the Completely Platonic Trio is no longer completely platonic?" Pete asks Ryan. "When are you going to get into that?"
The silence he hears makes him worried that Ryan hung up. "Ryan?" he asks, frowning. "Ryan, you there?"
"Yes, I'm here, you fucker," Ryan says, and he's totally rolling his eyes even though no one can see it. Pete can just tell. "And I'm not getting into that, as you put it."
"What? Dude, why not?" Pete's already been planning which of the three he can convince to sleep with him and Patrick first. He would just do all three, but... Three in a bed is fantastic, four is workable, but five is just a tangle of limbs.
"They're exclusive," Ryan explains calmly, although granted, it's Ryan. Almost everything he says sounds calm, not including the noises he makes in bed. Those get pretty animated.
"Exclusive?" Pete repeats, like a scratched CD.
"Yeah. Like you and Patrick, except without the other people." Ryan sounds snippy. "Come on, Pete, I know in some corner of your brain you know what it means."
"Of course I know what it means, I just -" It takes Pete a second to process exactly what Ryan's tone means. "Oh my god," he says gleefully. "Oh my god, Ross, you're jealous!"
"I am not!" Ryan snaps. "I just..." He sighs. "I just thought that if he ever did, it would be, you know. With us. Me and Spencer and Jon."
"Why?" Pete wonders, not blankly but in an effort to get Ryan to reveal the current source of his petulance.
"Because we're his best friends," Ryan says, irritated. "Shouldn't that count for something?" Pete waits a beat before Ryan adds quietly, "Why did he choose them and not us?"
"You wouldn't be exclusive," Pete points out mildly. Of everyone, he can maybe understand where Brendon's coming from the most; if he'd had to watch Patrick spend another night with someone else without him, he - well, he didn't know what he'd do, but it wouldn't be pretty. He can't be monogamous, but he's not willing to let Patrick go, either.
Ryan sighs again. "Yeah. I know."
-
Another party, but this time Brendon's not sitting by himself, waiting for it to be a reasonable time for him to demand Ryan's keys. This time, he's standing, talking animatedly with Jepha.
He's still waiting, though.
"Are you kidding me? Have you heard those riffs? No way are they total hacks," Brendon's saying, punctuating his declarations with the occasional wave of his hand. "Partial hacks, maybe, but not total."
"You want to discuss it somewhere else, maybe?" Jepha suggests, raising an eyebrow.
Brendon just laughs, but before he can politely say no he feels an arm drop around his shoulder. "Sorry, he's taken," Gabe tells Jepha, who shrugs and walks off.
A moment later, Brendon feels William's arm slip around his waist. He knows he must look ridiculous, sandwiched in between two of the tallest guys on the label, but he can't bring himself to care.
"You took your time," he accuses, grinning.
"You looked like you were having fun, and I wanted to torture Bill a little," Gabe explains innocently.
William just rolls his eyes. "Let's get out of here." He smiles suddenly, saying, "We can have a party of our own."
"Thought you weren't a big party person," Brendon comments, and William laughs.
They steer towards the exit; Brendon waves at Ryan to signify that he's fine and won't be needing the keys.
"I want a piggyback," he tells Gabe seriously.
"I don't know about piggybacks," Gabe replies, equally grave, "but I can..."
He swings Brendon up into his arms and runs toward his car, William dashing along beside.
"See?" he asks when they've reached their destination, setting Brendon down on the ground gently and opening the door for him. "Told you we'd treat you right, Urie."
"Yeah," Brendon says, sliding into the backseat and dragging William with him. He smiles up at Gabe. ("Happy like this" may or may not mean "in love".) "You did."