But you can't be missed (2/3)
Title: But you can't be missed
Author: eleanor_lavish
Pairing: Brendon/Spencer [also Ryan/Keltie; Jon/ofc]
Rating/warning: R [boysex; implied drug use and suicidal thoughts]
Disclaimer: Totally made up, not meant to offend. Please don't google yourself.
Summary:
"No, I mean. It's like you haven't aged a single day." Ryan steals another glance, and Brendon looks uncomfortably out the window. The back streets of Vegas look a lot like he remembers them. The cars in the driveways aren't really different, people are still dressed the same, dragging their trash to the sidewalk in their pajamas. No one's in some sort of space-age suit or wearing a video visor, or walking a robotic dog. If Brendon was going to be dropped unceremoniously into the future without his consent, there could at least be robotic dogs.
Chapter One
Ryan steals enough glances at him as they drive that Brendon finally says, "Look, if you need to stare, I can drive." Ryan huffs in annoyance and keeps his eyes on the road.
"It's just. You look exactly the same," he says, and Brendon shrugs and plays with the zipper on his hoodie.
"I am exactly the same," he replies.
"No, I mean. It's like you haven't aged a single day." Ryan steals another glance, and Brendon looks uncomfortably out the window. The back streets of Vegas look a lot like he remembers them. The cars in the driveways aren't really different, people are still dressed the same, dragging their trash to the sidewalk in their pajamas. No one's in some sort of space-age suit or wearing a video visor, or walking a robotic dog. If Brendon was going to be dropped unceremoniously into the future without his consent, there could at least be robotic dogs. He tips his temple against the glass and looks back at Ryan. In profile, he looks almost the same, but he's definitely not the Ryan that Brendon fought with yesterday over the last poptart. "Do you believe in time travel?" he asks, because it's not a conversation he's actually ever had with Ryan before. Spencer is a pragmatist, and Jon's a realist, but Ryan might have a little perspective.
Ryan turns down a tree-lined street and frowns a little before pulling over and throwing the minivan into park. He runs his hands through his hair and worries his bottom lip between his teeth like he always does when he's working out a puzzle. "I don't think so? But honestly, you look exactly the same, Bren. And you really don't remember where you've been all this time?"
Brendon turns in his seat, tucking one leg up under himself. "I wasn't anywhere all this time, Ry, I swear to God. I was at the cabin, I hit my head, I woke up in the future. What the hell does that sound like to you?"
"Brainwashing?" Ryan responds almost immediately. "A coma, maybe? Or maybe... I mean, Dr. Phillips knows her stuff, maybe there was something traumatic that your body is trying to get you to forget. I don't know, Brendon. Time travel just seems a little far-fetched."
"Well, all those options sound really awful, so I'm going to go with time travel until proven otherwise," Brendon says, his stomach twisting a little.
Ryan chuffs out a laugh and rests his head on the steering wheel. "Man, that sounds like a pretty decent idea, actually." He takes a few steadying breaths before he sits up and looks at Brendon seriously. "Okay, so. We have to figure out what we're going to do here. You actually showed up on a really busy day," he says with a wry twist of his mouth. "I have to call your parents," he continues, almost to himself, and Brendon says "I can do it!"
"Yeah, no," Ryan smiles. "If you'd called me I would have passed out from shock, so I am not letting you call your mom. In fact, I might just tell her there's new case evidence and wait until they fly in to tell them."
"Where are they?" Brendon asks quietly. His family loves Vegas, and it seems weird that they would leave.
"Italy, actually. Your dad got a transfer," Ryan says, and Brendon feels the world tilt a little. "The media pressure was pretty awful after your disappearance, but they stuck around for all of that. It wasn't until a few years ago when your dad had you finally declared legally dead that they moved."
"Well, they should have waited," Brendon says, stinging a little that they would just move on like that. Ryan looks at him sharply.
"It had been six years, Bren. They needed the closure." He looks out the window as a few kids pass the car on the way to their school bus stop. "A lot of people did."
Brendon can see lines of exhaustion on Ryan's face, and imagines what he would be like if one of them just never came home one day, just disappeared off the face of the earth. Brendon would lose his shit entirely, he's pretty sure. He reaches out to take Ryan's hand, and Ryan startles a little in his seat. "Sorry," Brendon says, and he he means for all of it, for all the pain he's sure Ryan went through over him. "I'm so sorry, Ry."
"Don't apologize," Ryan says, "just know that this is going to be just as hard for some people to come to terms with as your death was. I'm still not entirely sure I'm not dreaming this," he adds, and Brendon reaches over and pinches him hard in the thigh. "Ow, motherfucker!" Ryan says with a laugh. Brendon grins at him. "Okay, fine, be a bitch about it," Ryan says as he throws the car into gear. "We're going to my house. There are a few things you should know. Try not to freak out."
*
Brendon manages to not freak out until the minivan is safely tucked into the garage. "You have two kids?" he asks again, and Ryan grins at him.
"Sam is five, and Nora is two," he says, unbuckling his seatbelt and getting out. Brendon almost swings his door into a Toyota hybrid before he climbs out. He's going to ask again (because what the fuck, Ryan doesn't even like kids!) when the door into the house bangs open and a very worried looking, slightly more brunette than usual Keltie runs at Ryan.
"Jesus, Ry, you said you'd call if there was any new word at the station, and I've been up since four, and--" she stops dead when she sees Brendon standing there. "Oh my God," she says, voice wavering.
"Hey," Brendon says to her, suddenly unsure. Ryan's right-- this isn't going to be easy for anyone, Brendon included. Not when everyone he's ever known is going to look at him like he's a ghost. Ryan has Keltie by the elbow, and he's murmuring to her, his voice low and comforting, but she's just staring at Brendon like a deer caught in headlights.
"This is crazy," she whispers, and Brendon looks at his feet. "How do you know its him?" she asks Ryan sharply. "What if its some impostor who looks like him? The kids are upstairs, Ry, how could you--"
"It's him," Ryan cuts her off. "They ran fingerprints and they're all a match. The FBI took a DNA sample to confirm," (Brendon remembers with a start the coffee cup that Tony carefully took from the table), "but it's him, I promise." Brendon's blood runs a little cold wondering how many other people might think the same thing, might not even believe he's Brendon Urie. He wonders if he'll have to carry around his own DNA results.
"Brendon?" she says, and he gives a little one-handed wave. "What? How is this possible? Where have you been?"
"I. Don't remember," he says feebly, and he knows that's not going to be enough for most people, not by a long shot. But Keltie takes four running steps at him and hugs him so tight he can barely breathe, and he can feel the prick of hot tears on his neck. "Hey, hey. It's okay," he says, rubbing her back. He and Keltie are friends, but her romance with Ryan was still in its slightly rocky infancy the last Brendon remembers, which is yesterday in his head. He looks up to see Ryan watching her, eyes bright, and hugs her tighter. He's pretty sure he's figured out the reason Ryan didn't fall apart when he disappeared. "Thank you," he whispers into her hair. "For taking care of him." She starts crying in earnest then, and Brendon doesn't know what to do. A tiny boy with a mop of dark hair peers around the door jamb.
"Mommy?" he says meekly, and Ryan gathers him up into his arms as Keltie pulls back and wipes at her eyes. "It's okay, Sammy. Mom's just crying because she's happy," she says, and Sam doesn't really look convinced. He's looking at Brendon with suspicion.
"This is my friend Brendon," Ryan tells him, and Sam buries his face in his dad's neck when Brendon waves. "He's the shy one," Ryan grins and rubs Sam's back. "Nora will cling to your leg like a monkey."
Keltie takes Sam from Ryan and nods to the door. "I'm going to get this one dressed and make some breakfast."
"Yeah," Ryan replies. "Bren and I have some things to talk about, but we'll be in in a minute. This afternoon is going to be a clusterf--," he cuts himself off with a glance at Sam.
Keltie's eyes go wide. "Oh, God, Ry. Does Spence--"
"No," Ryan cuts her off sharply, eyes cutting to Brendon, and Brendon feels it again, the chill throughout his body that tells him there are some pretty key things he doesn't know. "I can't just... We'll go over this morning and see him in person. I can't just call--"
"You can't just show up on his doorstep with Brendon in tow," she says, voice low and tense, and Ryan sighs.
"I'll talk to him first," he says, and she sighs back and kisses his cheek before heading inside. She stops at the doorway and shakes her head at Brendon, her eyes still disbelieving.
"Ryan," Brendon says quietly when the door closes behind her. "What happened with Spence?"
*
The world didn't stop when Brendon disappeared. He gets that much from Ryan's marriage, his kids. But he senses it veered off course a bit, from the way Ryan is digging through the boxes in the corner of his garage. "He couldn't keep it all, not after everything," Ryan says, his voice muffled by cardboard. "But none of us would be okay with him throwing it away."
"Who throwing what away?" Brendon asks, frustrated. "Ry, what the hell--"
But Ryan's never been one for answering a question directly when he could just talk you around to the right answer. Especially when it was something he didn't want to talk about in the first place. Brendon's stomach tightens a little more. "Spencer went a little nuts with the news clippings," Ryan answers, and then frowns a little at his own word choice. "He just. He was trying to make sense of something that never really made sense. Here." He holds out a black binder with 'March 07 - April 07' written on it in careful handwriting. Spencer's handwriting. Brendon takes it and and opens it at random, curious. The binder is thick, full of plastic sleeves with newspaper clippings, burned DVDs that say 'Dateline' and 'MSNBC' and 'Larry King', copies of police statements. Ryan hands him another one, 'April 07 - June 07' that is just as thick, but a flip through shows more and more of the content is repeats of press releases, police reports from places as far away as Alaska and Mexico City. "Jesus," Brendon says, sitting down hard on the concrete floor. He picks up the first binder and opens it to a random page.
LA Times
April 2, 2007
As the search for missing Panic! at the Disco singer Brendon Urie drags on in its fourth week, bandmate Spencer Smith urges people across the country to not give up hope for a safe return. "No body has been found," Smith stated in a press release that went out to major newspapers and TV stations nationwide. "Brendon is a smart guy, a resourceful guy. If he's alive - and there is no reason now to think he is not - he would not want us giving up." When asked by a reporter at a recent news conference whether Urie is possibly in hiding, Smith bristled. "He wouldn't do that, he's not that kind of guy."
Nothing has been discovered in the case outside of Urie's cell phone, with an unsent text message to friend and boss Pete Wentz. The content of the text message hasn't been officially released, but Wentz has been quoted as saying, "It's not like he meant it," leading some in the industry to believe Urie had grown tired of his role of pop star and was looking for a way out. The future of Panic! at the Disco is up in the air until Urie is found, but Wentz says that talk of breaking up the band is premature. "If we find Brendon, I don't want to have to tell him his band is done," he said in a statement from label Decaydance, a subsidiary of Atlantic Records. "Let's deal with things one at time."
As false reports of Urie sightings exhaust local law enforcement and the FBI's phone operators, it is becoming increasingly hard to see a happy ending. "Any news would be good news at this point," said visibly exhausted bandmate Jon Walker. "We just want to know what happened."
Smith has already vowed not to let the search wane. "Brendon is our best friend, and I'm not going to stop looking until we have answers," he said in his press release. "I owe him that much."
Urie has been missing from the woods outside of Las Vegas, Nevada for 25 days.
Brendon's hands are shaking by the time he's done. "I didn't know," he says in a whisper. "I swear to God, Ry, I wasn't off somewhere not calling. It was yesterday," he starts, and Ryan sits down close, wraps his arm around Brendon's shoulder.
"Hey, hey, stop it. We'll figure it out. There's only so mad I can be that you're not actually dead," he says, deadpan, and Brendon laughs without meaning to. He looks over to see another half a dozen binders stacked on the floor.
"How many of those are there?" he asks, and Ryan looks at his shoes and shrugs.
"Twenty? Thirty? After a year or so it gets to be less official stuff and more notes that Spence added himself, from leads he went chasing when they weren't enough for the FBI to go on. Copies of posters he put up in towns where someone said they were sure they saw you at the 7-11, things like that."
"Jesus," he says again. Brendon exhales slowly.
"He took it really hard," Ryan murmurs, curling in on himself a little. "I mean, we all did, but Spence... well, you know Spence. He likes to have the answers, and you just weren't giving him any. He got really... anyway." Brendon wants to push, say anyway what??, but Ryan keeps talking. "We couldn't replace you, no one wanted to do that, so the band eventually just ceased to exist. Jon moved back to Chicago full time, and just tried to live a normal life. He was so new to all of us, you know? And he wasn't prepared to deal with losing you and the band, and watching Spencer kill himself over it. He just took baby steps back from us until he could deal." Brendon nods, his throat closing up. "None of us blamed him," Ryan continues. "I mean, not even Spence, not really. And its gotten better in the past couple of years. Spence and Pete and I went to his wedding last year in Chicago."
"Cassie?"
"Nah," Ryan smiles. "Girl named Laura who's going to be a lawyer. She cleaned up his act and he fucking worships her."
"We should call him too," Brendon says, because if he's going to do anything here, it's make sure to mend fences between Spencer and Ryan and Jon. "But Spencer first, right?"
Ryan stills. "Keltie's right, Bren. We can't just call him. He-- he's doing okay now, but I'm really not sure what this is going to do to him," he says quietly. "It's only been a few years since he was so bad he wrapped himself around a tree, and I just. I can't risk anything like that happening again."
Brendon just blinks. "What happened?" he asks, just as quietly, and shrugs off Ryan's arm so he can hold his hand.
Ryan sighs and rubs at the bridge of his nose under his glasses. "He was angry at us, at his parents, at the FBI. He was angry when people didn't believe him that you weren't dead. He was carrying all of our hope on his shoulders and it got to be too much for him. He started drinking to fall asleep, and popping pills to stay awake. He wouldn't return our calls. He would fly off with nothing but his binder and his laptop to any location where you might have been spotted. He met a lot of people who wanted money for information, and he gave it to them. He just... it was three years before he hit rock bottom and we checked him into a rehab center. It was another two before we realized he was still talking to you, out loud, nearly every day. He ran off the road outside San Diego and told the doctors in the hospital he did it because you said you missed him." Ryan stops for a breath and Brendon almost tells him to stop. This is the worst story he's ever heard. "It seems crazy, right?" Ryan almost smiles, but Brendon can hear the tremor in his voice. "I mean, its Spencer. Spencer's not the one of us who was supposed to end up in a padded room."
"What about now?" Brendon is almost afraid to know.
"Now, he's okay. His parents found him an inpatient psych clinic, a really great one, and that's when your parents decided to go forward with the death certificate. They'd gotten really close to him in those first few years, and all of us needed the closure, but mostly Spence. These days, he goes to his therapist, he's not on any of the serious meds anymore. He spends most of his time working," Ryan says with a grin, and Brendon snorts.
"Yeah, that sounds about right," he grins back, and tries to focus on the fact that Spencer is okay, that he's better. Not that he almost died because Brendon up and disappeared off the face of the earth.
"Oh, you have no idea," Ryan shakes his head. "He runs the Brendon Urie Foundation to benefit the Center for Missing and Exploited Children." He pauses to let it sink in for a second. "Their third annual Rock and Roll Fundraiser is tomorrow, at the Hard Rock. Cobra's headlining, so its a big deal."
"Cobra Starship?" Brendon asks, like it's the icing on the world's weirdest cake.
Ryan laughs. "Fangs up, man. Cobra Starship is the biggest band on the planet right now."
"Okay, now you're just making stuff up," Brendon says and Ryan just laughs harder.
*
Keltie can't stop staring at him over breakfast. Brendon takes a bite of French toast and tries to look anywhere but where she is sitting, her own fork forgotten on her plate. "Kel," Ryan says, low and sweet, and she looks over, flustered.
"I can't help it," she says, and Brendon tries to ignore the wordless discussion that ensues. It's easy to be distracted by the tiny brunette who climbed in his lap the second he sat down.
"Bite, please," she says in a small, tinny voice and opens her mouth as she grabs Brendon's thumb.
"You like French toast?" He smiles at her, and she nods, mouth still open. Sam is nowhere to be seen, but Brendon hears the screech-and-crash sounds of cartoons in the other room. "Just one bite," he says. She nods again and he cuts one of his bites in half and feeds it to her with his fingers.
Nora giggles and kicks at his knee. "Bite, please!" she says, still chewing.
"Your dad taught you that trick, didn't he?" Brendon ruffles her hair. "One more take, Bren. No just one more. No I swear, just one more this time." Nora giggles and presses her syrup-sticky face into his shirt. He hears the scrape of wood against the floor and when he looks up, Ryan is walking away from the table quickly, his shoulders softly hunched. "Hey, I didn't--" he says to Keltie, and she just shakes her head as she gets up.
"It's okay, Brendon. He's just still processing. He'd kind of abandoned any hope you might meet the kids." Brendon blinks down at the little girl making raspberries into his wrist. "Keep an eye on her, okay?" Keltie says, and then heads after Ryan.
"This is gonna be hard," he says to the top of Nora's head and she looks up and grins at him.
"Bite, Bren!"
"Man, you Ross kids are pushy," Brendon mutters with small smile and picks up another piece of French toast.
*
"Okay, so," Ryan is visibly nervous as they pull out of the driveway. Keltie gave Brendon such a tight hug when they left that he's pretty sure he's bruised. He tries to pay attention to Ryan's voice. "When we get to the hotel you need to put your hoodie up, glasses on." Ryan lent him a new hoodie, one that isn't lavender. It's a Cobra Starship hoodie with a giant purple snake across the back. He looks down at it and snorts. "Whatever, you'll blend in," Ryan says, but Brendon can tell he's trying not to laugh. "We'll skip the backstage stuff and head right up to Jon and Laura's room. They're in town for the show. I called him and told him not to go anywhere until I got there."
"Does he know?" Brendon asks, fiddling with the zipper of the hoodie.
"No. He'll find out soon enough," Ryan answers, looking both ways as the car crosses a busy residential street. "Anyway, his room is on the same floor as Spence and a bunch of the bands, so we need to get you in there and keep you there until I can talk to Spencer."
Brendon wonders what Spencer looks like now. There weren't a lot of pictures of the band at Ryan's place, but he only saw the living room which was full of pictures of the kids. There was one picture, tucked in the corner, of the four of them at the cabin, all sitting on the roof watching the sunset. Brendon remembers that Shane took it a few weeks ago; his brain tries to turn those weeks into eight years and fails miserably. "You okay?" Ryan asks him, and Brendon's nod turns into a resigned shrug.
"I just. Maybe we should wait until there are more answers," he says quietly. "It's not like people are going to stop asking where I've been, and until I know--"
"Look," Ryan cuts in, "I agree that making a huge media statement is a bad call, but if anyone at the precinct talked, the press probably already has wind that something is up and I can't risk... They need to hear it from me, from us, first."
"Yeah, okay." Brendon watches the strip get closer as they speed down the highway. The city looks nearly the same but the suburbs are even more sprawling, spilling into neighborhoods where Brendon remembers mostly desert and scrub, and there's at least one new hotel shimmering on the strip that he's never seen before.
The Hard Rock, however, is just as Brendon remembers it. Ryan has him put on the sunglasses before they even reach the parking garage, but it's all still neon bright. They make it inside without anyone even glancing at them-- Ryan's spent most of the past decade on the production side of the business, and he's not as easily recognized anymore. Brendon realizes with a start that a lot of the kids already waiting in line to see Cobra Starship were in elementary school the last time his face was on TV. He still ducks his head and sticks close to Ryan, who hustles them in a back door and up to the 10th floor. "Do they still have a bowling alley in the Penthouse?" Brendon asks, peering down the hall. Ryan shrugs. "I would guess so, but you can ask Gabe later. Come on." He hurries down to the end of the hall, glancing at one door quickly before stopping at the next. "Ready?" he asks, but he's not even looking at Brendon as he takes a deep breath and knocks.
*
Laura is down-to-earth pretty, with thick auburn hair and a wide smile. She opens the door with a saucy "Ryan Ross, I missed a spa appointment, so this better be good" and Brendon likes her immediately. She frowns a little when she sees him, and Ryan pushes past her, pulling Brendon along behind him. Brendon hears her gasped "holy shit" as he stumbles into the small hotel room, and almost echoes her thought when he sees Jon.
Jon still looks like Jon, like Ryan looks like Ryan, but he's got a little more paunch and just a tad less hair. Unless you count the beard, which Jon is rocking in full force. His temples are a little prematurely grey. Brendon is somehow grateful beyond measure that he's barefoot and cross-legged on the king-sized bed, still looking small and solid, a pose Brendon remembers like it was... well, like it was yesterday. "Hey," Ryan says, and Brendon knows he's suddenly wishing he'd prepared an introductory speech of some kind. Brendon pushes his hood down and his sunglasses up on his forehead, just to deflect the attention over to himself, and his eyes are on Jon when Laura says, "Is that really him?"
"Yeah," Brendon and Ryan reply at the same time, and Laura sits down hard on the edge of the bed. Jon stares at Brendon for a long minute, eyes flitting to Ryan and back.
"Well," Laura says when the silence is enough to make Brendon want to bolt for the door. "It's nice to finally meet you."
*
"He doesn't know," Ryan is saying for the fifteenth time, and Brendon looks at Laura apologetically from his perch on the edge of the bathtub. They've been relegated to the bathroom until Ryan can convince Jon that Brendon is not a cyborg or a Russian spy. Laura is sitting on the toilet, her legs crossed, watching him.
"Jon just needs to yell it out, then he'll be fine," she says with a soft smile, and Brendon nods and tries to ignore how his stomach is rolling. A second later, Jon comes stomping into the room.
"When I first met you, where were we?" he asks, pointing a finger at Brendon.
"Um," Brendon says, wide-eyed. "Heathrow?"
Jon glares. "Okay, fine. What was your favorite childhood toy?"
"Mr. Frog," Brendon says, a small grin starting to spread despite his best efforts. "Ask me another one."
Jon cross his arms and tries to look menacing. "Your least favorite Beatles song?"
"Golden Slumbers. 'Cause its way too close to golden showers, dude." He leans forward with his elbows on his knees. "Come on, make them harder. Like, ask me about what exactly you were using as lube that time I caught you jacking off in the kitchen. I would have thought olive oil would have been an obvious choice, but..." Brendon's grin wavers a little when Jon goes from blush pink to white as a sheet.
"Fuck, Brendon," he breathes and Brendon gets up to wrap his arms around Jon's neck and pull him close. Laura moves close and rubs comforting circles on Jon's back.
"I'm sorry, Jonny Walker," he says, his throat closing up, and Jon's hands fist in his hoodie as he holds on tight.
*
Under any other circumstances, Brendon would be grilling Jon's wife on how many of his stoner, weirdo tendencies he's retained into actual adulthood. He thinks she'd have some pretty entertaining answers. Instead, they just sit uncomfortably on the hotel sofa and listen for any noise from the room next door. Spencer's room.
Jon and Ryan have only been gone ten minutes when Brendon hears a distinct "Spencer, stop it!" from the hallway.
"If you won't fucking tell me more than that, the police will," Spencer yells back at Ryan, and Brendon runs to the door to press his ear against it.
"Come back inside, Spence," Jon says, softer and a little worried. Brendon's hand is on the doorknob before he even has a chance to think about it. Spencer is out there, Spencer thinks he's dead, and Brendon's pretty sure that knowing he's NOT dead would be better than the other way. If he thought Spencer was dead... Brendon flashes back to Ryan's story in the garage and wonders how close that actually came to being true, and he's out the door before Laura can pull his arm back.
It's like a tableau, Brendon thinks later. Ryan and Jon in Spencer's doorway, Brendon in his stupid Cobra Starship hoodie with Laura clinging to his arm, and Spencer. Spencer Smith with his hair cut fashionably short, bangs still in his eyes and his face clean-shaven, in tailored jeans and a faded blue button down, looking at Brendon with a mixture of disbelief and sheer terror in his eyes. No one moves for a long moment, and Brendon finally gets it, sees in Spencer's eyes all the time he's missed. He's seconds from launching himself at Spencer for the biggest, best hug he's ever doled out when Spencer takes a deep, shuddery breath.
"You're not real," he says quietly, like he's talking to himself. Brendon opens his mouth and Spencer's eyes flash. "You're not, I'm past that, it's over."
"Spence," Ryan says, his hand light on Spencer's arm, "he's real. I promise-- I can see him, Jon can see him--"
"He looks the same," Spencer says flatly.
"I know--" Ryan starts, and Brendon stands up a little straighter. He doesn't know why, but he feels like if he can pass whatever test Spencer throws at him, everything will be okay.
"No, I mean he looks exactly the same. He looks like he did in every fucking picture, Ry. How is that even possible?"
"We don't know. That's for later, okay? We'll figure it out. But all the prints match--"
Spencer snorts. "Like that can't be faked."
"We're not living in Gattica, Spence," Jon pipes up from the doorway, and Brendon rolls his eyes.
"Like you didn't think I was a cyborg half an hour ago, Jon, Jesus," he says, and he can see Spencer stop breathing. Ryan sees it too.
"Fuck, Spencer, come on, hey," Ryan shakes him, then drags him the three feet back into the hotel room. Brendon and Laura run to catch the door before it closes, and when they get inside, Ryan has Spencer sitting on the floor. "Spence!" Ryan says loudly, inches from Spencer's face, but even from a distance, Brendon can see that his eyes are unfocused.
"Go," Laura says quietly at his elbow, and Brendon takes two steps and drops to his knees in front of Spencer. Ryan looks almost like he wants to stop him, but Brendon pushes him out of the way and cups Spencer's face in his hands, pulling his gaze to Brendon's. "Breathe. Now," he says with as much authority as he can muster. "Spencer, don't be a moron," he adds gently, and Spencer's eyes blink closed as his hands come up to wrap around Brendon's forearms.
"You're not real," he says again, but his hands are pulling Brendon closer.
"I am, okay?" Brendon answers. "Everything got really fucked up, but I'm here. We're all here. You're not crazy."
Spencer presses his nose to Brendon's collarbone and he laughs, slightly hysterical. "Oh, man, you have no idea how crazy I am," he says, and Ryan says "Hey!" behind him. "Shut up, Ry, you know I'm totally batshit insane." Brendon wants to say something, but Spencer's breath is warm on his neck and he still smells like Spencer-- woody soap and fruity shampoo and a little like cigarettes. He runs his thumbs over Spencer's cheekbones and Spencer sighs. "I don't even care. This is kind of the best dream I've had in a long time," Spencer says, his eyes still closed, and Brendon plants a kiss to his temple.
"Open your eyes, Spence," he whispers, and Spencer finally looks up at him. "Hey," Brendon says with a smile.
"Fuck," Spencer says, his eyes still glinting with terror, but mostly with something new. Brendon wants to call it joy.
"Should we...?" Jon says behind them, and Ryan just sighs heavily.
"Spencer, we need to--," but Ryan's cut off by an insistent knock on the door.
*
Pete Wentz has approached his mid-thirties about exactly how Brendon would have imagined-- by refusing to dress like an adult, and dying the tips of his hair a pale blue. Patrick, on the other hand, looks like he's morphing into his own dad, with a fedora and a heather gray blazer. It's not what you'd expect from a hot-shot music producer, but Brendon has to admit that it's actually a pretty okay look on him.
Brendon is still on the floor with Spencer, their hands twined tightly together. He's actually losing a little of the feeling in his fingers, but Spencer seems calmer than he was a few minutes ago, so he doesn't mention it. Pete and Patrick are staring down at him with matching expressions of disbelief. (Brendon's starting to get used to those.) "So he doesn't know where he's been?" Patrick says and Ryan nods. He gave them the quick and dirty version when they showed up. Seems someone on the force couldn't keep their mouth shut, and the whole city is buzzing with the news that Brendon Urie has been spotted alive, in Vegas. Pete's already added extra security to the floor, but "we need to make a statement," he says, and Ryan and Patrick both frown.
"And say what?" Patrick asks at the same time Ryan says "It's too soon."
"Right now, everyone is making up their own story," Pete says.
"Good," Brendon mutters, "maybe they can lend me one."
Jon laughs. Pete just looks at Brendon and says seriously, "Hey. Did you consider time travel?"
Brendon beams at him.
*
Pete finally convinces them that some move is better than none, even if its in the name of deflection. Jon and Laura go with Pete to field questions. ("Honey, I'm a lawyer," Laura says to Pete when he asks if she's okay with telling less than the whole truth. Brendon wants to give Jon a medal for marrying her.) Ryan takes some of Pete's security guys back to his place to rescue Keltie and the kids from the already advancing media hoards she says are on the front lawn. Patrick goes to try and calm down the Foundation folks, and the handful of bands who are set to perform the next day. Spencer just holds on tighter to Brendon's hand and says, "I'm staying with Brendon".
No one argues.
When they leave, the room is eerily quiet.
Brendon has no idea what to say. He wants to say he's sorry, he wants to shake Spencer, ask him what the hell he was thinking getting that lost in his own head. He wants to talk about how yesterday he was throwing Fruit Loops at the back of Spencer's head in the cabin, and they were arguing about whether Clueless was a chick flick, and how none of this was supposed to happen. He remembers the last time he saw Spencer's face, his cheeks flushed pink with anger as Brendon hurled insults at him, and he presses the heel of his hand to his eye to try and push the memory away.
"I forgot you used to do that," Spencer says next to him, and Brendon looks up to see him watching.
"Do what?"
"Used to do that with your hand when you were upset, or when you didn't want to think about something," he says matter-of-factly, and Brendon flushes a little, embarrassed. Spencer smiles and squeezes his hand and Brendon's heart flutters stupidly in his chest. It's not the same Spencer, he tries to remind himself, but of all of them, Spencer looks the most like Brendon remembers, his cheeks a little sharper but his jaw just as round, his eyes just as blue. There's a faint scar along the left side of his face, and Brendon's hand comes up to touch it before he can stop himself.
"I'm sorry," he says, and he's not quite sure for what, but Spencer just looks away.
"All this time, you weren't anywhere," he says, and its not a question.
"I don't know," Brendon replies quietly. "I wish I did, but yesterday it was 2007, and now its not, and I don't know why."
"No, that's okay." Spencer is smiling again, not quite at him, but at a spot on the wall by the bathroom door. He looks bemused. "It's the only thing that makes sense, really. That you just... ceased to exist for a while."
"Why does that make sense?" Brendon asks.
Spencer shrugs and lifts their clasped hands to his knee. "Because I knew you weren't dead, and I looked everywhere else." It's almost pragmatic enough to sound like the Spencer he remembers, and Brendon laughs.
"Well, you can't fault that logic," he says. "And hey-- now you can tell everyone 'I told you so.'"
Spencer barks out a laugh. "Well, that makes it all worth it, then."
Brendon leans in close and rests his head on Spencer's shoulder. "I'm not worth any of what you went through, Spence," he says quietly.
Spencer sighs. "How much did Ryan tell you?"
"Just the basics, I guess. I didn't really push for details." He flexes his fingers in Spencer's. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"You hungry?" Spencer asks, and Brendon looks up and rolls his eyes, but he can't help his grin.
"Is that code for 'not really'?"
Spencer grins back for a second before something dark and disbelieving passes behind his eyes, and his smile slips as his breathing speeds up. "Bren?" His asks, his voice thin, and Brendon worries for a second that he's going to stop breathing again.
He tries for diversion. Brendon squeezes his hand once before standing up. "You know, I could go for a burger. Apparently I haven't had one in eight years, so I am totally due," he rambles, hunting around for the room service menu. "You still love nachos? Whatever, who doesn't like nachos? I bet they do decent nachos at the Hard Rock." He finds the menu on the desk and flips through until he feels a hand wrap around his elbow. Spencer presses his forehead to the back of Brendon's neck.
"I'm sorry," he mumbles. "This is just. This is going to take me a little while."
"I know, hey," Brendon says, turning and wrapping his arms around Spencer's waist. "This is going to take me a while too. Tell you what," he says, pulling him close and talking low in his ear. "You promise to catch me up on what the fuck is going on in the world, and I promise to not cease to exist again, okay? This whole possible time travel thing is way overrated."
Spencer hugs him back so tightly Brendon wants to cry. He buries his face in Brendon's neck, and Brendon closes his eyes and lets himself pretend he's back in the cabin, lets himself pretend this is his Spencer, holding onto him like this for no reason at all. His hands smooth over Spencer's back in wide, soothing circles until Spencer takes a deep breath and pulls back a little. "Burger and nachos," Spencer says, his voice tight but even, and Brendon just says "it can wait" and pulls him back in.
*
Brendon's spent the last three hours sprawled on Spencer's bed, learning about the slow, painful end of the Iraq war, and finding out Pete is married to Ashlee fucking Simpson, and playing with Spencer's 6th generation iPhone.
Brendon hides in the bathroom when the food arrives. When he opens the door, Spencer is sitting on the bed watching for him, his fingers white knuckled in the bedspread. "Hey," Brendon says after a pause. "You know there's not an escape hatch in there, right?"
"Yeah." Spencer blinks away from Brendon and down at the floor. "No, sorry, it's just." He waves his hand helplessly. Brendon sits next to him and bumps his shoulder.
"So, what were you telling me about William finding God?" he asks, and Spencer laughs a little and picks up where he left off. Turns out Beckett's career in Christian rock is way more successful than TAI had ever managed to be, and Brendon isn't sure whether to be happy for him or scared for the youth of today. "Or, tomorrow? Whatever, it's bizarre," he says and Spencer shrugs in agreement.
They're stuffed on nachos and fries and burgers and cokes by the time everyone reconvenes in Spencer's room.
Pete and Patrick arrive first, still a unified front, followed by the rest of the Panic crew. Nora launches herself at Spencer with a cry of glee, and Brendon watches him pick her up carefully. "Hey funny face," he says, and Nora giggles.
"So, I've been talking to Gabe about postponing," Patrick starts, and Spencer jumps in with "No, we can't do that, it took me a year to get this set up."
"You told Gabe?" Ryan says incredulously and Patrick waves his hands.
"Not outright, but the first thing he asked me when I hit his suite was 'So, seriously, is Urie back from the dead?' so he's not in the dark. Then he kind of kicked me out, so I have no idea what he's thinking."
"Look, Brendon's back, that's amazing and deserves its own party, but I've got the families of half a dozen missing kids in this building and I'm not canceling the biggest fundraiser of the year." Spencer stares Patrick down, and Pete says, "Look, we can do it, but we can't not let people know about Brendon."
"What Brendon wants to do is Brendon's business," Ryan cuts in, but Keltie continues with, "The more we keep secret they more they're going to try and find out by going through our trash, Ry." Sam turns his face into his father's leg.
Brendon stands in the corner of the room as everyone talks over each other. The whole room is a cacophony by the time there's a loud knock at the door. Pete checks the peep hole as the room falls silent.
"Come on, Peter Pan, I heard you all in there," Gabe yells through the door and Patrick sighs loudly. "I need to see for myself."
Pete opens the door and Brendon crosses his arms, already on the defensive. He hates feeling like an animal at the zoo. But when Gabe sees him, Ryland and Alex on his heels, he just stops and shakes his head. "It's true, then."
Brendon lifts his chin. "Yeah." Gabe is wearing a hot pink t-shirt emblazoned with 'The Future Is Here' in yellow lettering and black tuxedo pants. Ryland is wearing a clearly expensive suit jacket and a pair of silver-rimmed glasses. Alex is in the same button down black shirt Brendon is pretty sure he was wearing the last time Brendon saw him, eight years ago.
"Do you know what happened?" Gabe asks, and Brendon shakes his head.
"He lost the last eight years," Ryan says but Gabe is still looking at Brendon, head tilted a little to one side.
"Huh," Gabe says, exchanging a glance with Ryland. "Okay." The three of them leave as quickly as they arrived, and the room is quiet for a second before Laura says, "Wow, he's even weirder than the tabloids say he is, isn't he?" The whole room murmurs in agreement.
"Okay, game plan," Pete says, and all eyes turn to him. Brendon is impressed by how he can still command a room; the Wentz empire has apparently grown so much that Pete is an actual boss now. "I'm calling a press conference for noon tomorrow. Brendon's parents will be in by then, and he'll have a chance to see them first, obviously. We're all going to be there, Brendon included, and a few members of Cobra. I'll get the FBI and the LVPD to send reps. The show will still go on, and we'll plan a sit down with some key press starting over the weekend. My PR guys are already setting those up. Brendon," Pete looks at him, "I'm lending you my law team and my security detail for the moment. We'll figure out how best to keep the public off your back as we go. Until the conference, everyone hunker down and lay low. I don't want anyone off this floor if they can help it."
"We don't have a room," Ryan pipes up, and Pete says "You can have mine. I"ll bunk in with 'Trick, like old times." Pete winks at Patrick who just shakes his head.
"It's sofa city for you, sweetheart," he grins and Pete flutters his eyelashes.
"Come on, Patrick, you know you're my most favorite," he says, sugary sweet, and Brendon watches the slick persona slide right off him as Patrick flicks him in the side of the head.
"Is that? I mean, I don't know what I'll say," Brendon says, his voice sounding really small. Everyone turns to look at him. "No one's gonna believe me, are they?" he asks. "I don't really even believe me."
"Fuck 'em," Spencer says, and flushes a little when Nora giggles. "Seriously, who cares what anyone else thinks? You're home, that's what matters."
Brendon looks around at the familiar-but-not faces in the room, at Laura, and Ryan's kids, and Spencer's scar, and wonders if this is ever going to feel like home.
*
cont.
Author: eleanor_lavish
Pairing: Brendon/Spencer [also Ryan/Keltie; Jon/ofc]
Rating/warning: R [boysex; implied drug use and suicidal thoughts]
Disclaimer: Totally made up, not meant to offend. Please don't google yourself.
Summary:
"No, I mean. It's like you haven't aged a single day." Ryan steals another glance, and Brendon looks uncomfortably out the window. The back streets of Vegas look a lot like he remembers them. The cars in the driveways aren't really different, people are still dressed the same, dragging their trash to the sidewalk in their pajamas. No one's in some sort of space-age suit or wearing a video visor, or walking a robotic dog. If Brendon was going to be dropped unceremoniously into the future without his consent, there could at least be robotic dogs.
Chapter One
Ryan steals enough glances at him as they drive that Brendon finally says, "Look, if you need to stare, I can drive." Ryan huffs in annoyance and keeps his eyes on the road.
"It's just. You look exactly the same," he says, and Brendon shrugs and plays with the zipper on his hoodie.
"I am exactly the same," he replies.
"No, I mean. It's like you haven't aged a single day." Ryan steals another glance, and Brendon looks uncomfortably out the window. The back streets of Vegas look a lot like he remembers them. The cars in the driveways aren't really different, people are still dressed the same, dragging their trash to the sidewalk in their pajamas. No one's in some sort of space-age suit or wearing a video visor, or walking a robotic dog. If Brendon was going to be dropped unceremoniously into the future without his consent, there could at least be robotic dogs. He tips his temple against the glass and looks back at Ryan. In profile, he looks almost the same, but he's definitely not the Ryan that Brendon fought with yesterday over the last poptart. "Do you believe in time travel?" he asks, because it's not a conversation he's actually ever had with Ryan before. Spencer is a pragmatist, and Jon's a realist, but Ryan might have a little perspective.
Ryan turns down a tree-lined street and frowns a little before pulling over and throwing the minivan into park. He runs his hands through his hair and worries his bottom lip between his teeth like he always does when he's working out a puzzle. "I don't think so? But honestly, you look exactly the same, Bren. And you really don't remember where you've been all this time?"
Brendon turns in his seat, tucking one leg up under himself. "I wasn't anywhere all this time, Ry, I swear to God. I was at the cabin, I hit my head, I woke up in the future. What the hell does that sound like to you?"
"Brainwashing?" Ryan responds almost immediately. "A coma, maybe? Or maybe... I mean, Dr. Phillips knows her stuff, maybe there was something traumatic that your body is trying to get you to forget. I don't know, Brendon. Time travel just seems a little far-fetched."
"Well, all those options sound really awful, so I'm going to go with time travel until proven otherwise," Brendon says, his stomach twisting a little.
Ryan chuffs out a laugh and rests his head on the steering wheel. "Man, that sounds like a pretty decent idea, actually." He takes a few steadying breaths before he sits up and looks at Brendon seriously. "Okay, so. We have to figure out what we're going to do here. You actually showed up on a really busy day," he says with a wry twist of his mouth. "I have to call your parents," he continues, almost to himself, and Brendon says "I can do it!"
"Yeah, no," Ryan smiles. "If you'd called me I would have passed out from shock, so I am not letting you call your mom. In fact, I might just tell her there's new case evidence and wait until they fly in to tell them."
"Where are they?" Brendon asks quietly. His family loves Vegas, and it seems weird that they would leave.
"Italy, actually. Your dad got a transfer," Ryan says, and Brendon feels the world tilt a little. "The media pressure was pretty awful after your disappearance, but they stuck around for all of that. It wasn't until a few years ago when your dad had you finally declared legally dead that they moved."
"Well, they should have waited," Brendon says, stinging a little that they would just move on like that. Ryan looks at him sharply.
"It had been six years, Bren. They needed the closure." He looks out the window as a few kids pass the car on the way to their school bus stop. "A lot of people did."
Brendon can see lines of exhaustion on Ryan's face, and imagines what he would be like if one of them just never came home one day, just disappeared off the face of the earth. Brendon would lose his shit entirely, he's pretty sure. He reaches out to take Ryan's hand, and Ryan startles a little in his seat. "Sorry," Brendon says, and he he means for all of it, for all the pain he's sure Ryan went through over him. "I'm so sorry, Ry."
"Don't apologize," Ryan says, "just know that this is going to be just as hard for some people to come to terms with as your death was. I'm still not entirely sure I'm not dreaming this," he adds, and Brendon reaches over and pinches him hard in the thigh. "Ow, motherfucker!" Ryan says with a laugh. Brendon grins at him. "Okay, fine, be a bitch about it," Ryan says as he throws the car into gear. "We're going to my house. There are a few things you should know. Try not to freak out."
*
Brendon manages to not freak out until the minivan is safely tucked into the garage. "You have two kids?" he asks again, and Ryan grins at him.
"Sam is five, and Nora is two," he says, unbuckling his seatbelt and getting out. Brendon almost swings his door into a Toyota hybrid before he climbs out. He's going to ask again (because what the fuck, Ryan doesn't even like kids!) when the door into the house bangs open and a very worried looking, slightly more brunette than usual Keltie runs at Ryan.
"Jesus, Ry, you said you'd call if there was any new word at the station, and I've been up since four, and--" she stops dead when she sees Brendon standing there. "Oh my God," she says, voice wavering.
"Hey," Brendon says to her, suddenly unsure. Ryan's right-- this isn't going to be easy for anyone, Brendon included. Not when everyone he's ever known is going to look at him like he's a ghost. Ryan has Keltie by the elbow, and he's murmuring to her, his voice low and comforting, but she's just staring at Brendon like a deer caught in headlights.
"This is crazy," she whispers, and Brendon looks at his feet. "How do you know its him?" she asks Ryan sharply. "What if its some impostor who looks like him? The kids are upstairs, Ry, how could you--"
"It's him," Ryan cuts her off. "They ran fingerprints and they're all a match. The FBI took a DNA sample to confirm," (Brendon remembers with a start the coffee cup that Tony carefully took from the table), "but it's him, I promise." Brendon's blood runs a little cold wondering how many other people might think the same thing, might not even believe he's Brendon Urie. He wonders if he'll have to carry around his own DNA results.
"Brendon?" she says, and he gives a little one-handed wave. "What? How is this possible? Where have you been?"
"I. Don't remember," he says feebly, and he knows that's not going to be enough for most people, not by a long shot. But Keltie takes four running steps at him and hugs him so tight he can barely breathe, and he can feel the prick of hot tears on his neck. "Hey, hey. It's okay," he says, rubbing her back. He and Keltie are friends, but her romance with Ryan was still in its slightly rocky infancy the last Brendon remembers, which is yesterday in his head. He looks up to see Ryan watching her, eyes bright, and hugs her tighter. He's pretty sure he's figured out the reason Ryan didn't fall apart when he disappeared. "Thank you," he whispers into her hair. "For taking care of him." She starts crying in earnest then, and Brendon doesn't know what to do. A tiny boy with a mop of dark hair peers around the door jamb.
"Mommy?" he says meekly, and Ryan gathers him up into his arms as Keltie pulls back and wipes at her eyes. "It's okay, Sammy. Mom's just crying because she's happy," she says, and Sam doesn't really look convinced. He's looking at Brendon with suspicion.
"This is my friend Brendon," Ryan tells him, and Sam buries his face in his dad's neck when Brendon waves. "He's the shy one," Ryan grins and rubs Sam's back. "Nora will cling to your leg like a monkey."
Keltie takes Sam from Ryan and nods to the door. "I'm going to get this one dressed and make some breakfast."
"Yeah," Ryan replies. "Bren and I have some things to talk about, but we'll be in in a minute. This afternoon is going to be a clusterf--," he cuts himself off with a glance at Sam.
Keltie's eyes go wide. "Oh, God, Ry. Does Spence--"
"No," Ryan cuts her off sharply, eyes cutting to Brendon, and Brendon feels it again, the chill throughout his body that tells him there are some pretty key things he doesn't know. "I can't just... We'll go over this morning and see him in person. I can't just call--"
"You can't just show up on his doorstep with Brendon in tow," she says, voice low and tense, and Ryan sighs.
"I'll talk to him first," he says, and she sighs back and kisses his cheek before heading inside. She stops at the doorway and shakes her head at Brendon, her eyes still disbelieving.
"Ryan," Brendon says quietly when the door closes behind her. "What happened with Spence?"
*
The world didn't stop when Brendon disappeared. He gets that much from Ryan's marriage, his kids. But he senses it veered off course a bit, from the way Ryan is digging through the boxes in the corner of his garage. "He couldn't keep it all, not after everything," Ryan says, his voice muffled by cardboard. "But none of us would be okay with him throwing it away."
"Who throwing what away?" Brendon asks, frustrated. "Ry, what the hell--"
But Ryan's never been one for answering a question directly when he could just talk you around to the right answer. Especially when it was something he didn't want to talk about in the first place. Brendon's stomach tightens a little more. "Spencer went a little nuts with the news clippings," Ryan answers, and then frowns a little at his own word choice. "He just. He was trying to make sense of something that never really made sense. Here." He holds out a black binder with 'March 07 - April 07' written on it in careful handwriting. Spencer's handwriting. Brendon takes it and and opens it at random, curious. The binder is thick, full of plastic sleeves with newspaper clippings, burned DVDs that say 'Dateline' and 'MSNBC' and 'Larry King', copies of police statements. Ryan hands him another one, 'April 07 - June 07' that is just as thick, but a flip through shows more and more of the content is repeats of press releases, police reports from places as far away as Alaska and Mexico City. "Jesus," Brendon says, sitting down hard on the concrete floor. He picks up the first binder and opens it to a random page.
LA Times
April 2, 2007
As the search for missing Panic! at the Disco singer Brendon Urie drags on in its fourth week, bandmate Spencer Smith urges people across the country to not give up hope for a safe return. "No body has been found," Smith stated in a press release that went out to major newspapers and TV stations nationwide. "Brendon is a smart guy, a resourceful guy. If he's alive - and there is no reason now to think he is not - he would not want us giving up." When asked by a reporter at a recent news conference whether Urie is possibly in hiding, Smith bristled. "He wouldn't do that, he's not that kind of guy."
Nothing has been discovered in the case outside of Urie's cell phone, with an unsent text message to friend and boss Pete Wentz. The content of the text message hasn't been officially released, but Wentz has been quoted as saying, "It's not like he meant it," leading some in the industry to believe Urie had grown tired of his role of pop star and was looking for a way out. The future of Panic! at the Disco is up in the air until Urie is found, but Wentz says that talk of breaking up the band is premature. "If we find Brendon, I don't want to have to tell him his band is done," he said in a statement from label Decaydance, a subsidiary of Atlantic Records. "Let's deal with things one at time."
As false reports of Urie sightings exhaust local law enforcement and the FBI's phone operators, it is becoming increasingly hard to see a happy ending. "Any news would be good news at this point," said visibly exhausted bandmate Jon Walker. "We just want to know what happened."
Smith has already vowed not to let the search wane. "Brendon is our best friend, and I'm not going to stop looking until we have answers," he said in his press release. "I owe him that much."
Urie has been missing from the woods outside of Las Vegas, Nevada for 25 days.
Brendon's hands are shaking by the time he's done. "I didn't know," he says in a whisper. "I swear to God, Ry, I wasn't off somewhere not calling. It was yesterday," he starts, and Ryan sits down close, wraps his arm around Brendon's shoulder.
"Hey, hey, stop it. We'll figure it out. There's only so mad I can be that you're not actually dead," he says, deadpan, and Brendon laughs without meaning to. He looks over to see another half a dozen binders stacked on the floor.
"How many of those are there?" he asks, and Ryan looks at his shoes and shrugs.
"Twenty? Thirty? After a year or so it gets to be less official stuff and more notes that Spence added himself, from leads he went chasing when they weren't enough for the FBI to go on. Copies of posters he put up in towns where someone said they were sure they saw you at the 7-11, things like that."
"Jesus," he says again. Brendon exhales slowly.
"He took it really hard," Ryan murmurs, curling in on himself a little. "I mean, we all did, but Spence... well, you know Spence. He likes to have the answers, and you just weren't giving him any. He got really... anyway." Brendon wants to push, say anyway what??, but Ryan keeps talking. "We couldn't replace you, no one wanted to do that, so the band eventually just ceased to exist. Jon moved back to Chicago full time, and just tried to live a normal life. He was so new to all of us, you know? And he wasn't prepared to deal with losing you and the band, and watching Spencer kill himself over it. He just took baby steps back from us until he could deal." Brendon nods, his throat closing up. "None of us blamed him," Ryan continues. "I mean, not even Spence, not really. And its gotten better in the past couple of years. Spence and Pete and I went to his wedding last year in Chicago."
"Cassie?"
"Nah," Ryan smiles. "Girl named Laura who's going to be a lawyer. She cleaned up his act and he fucking worships her."
"We should call him too," Brendon says, because if he's going to do anything here, it's make sure to mend fences between Spencer and Ryan and Jon. "But Spencer first, right?"
Ryan stills. "Keltie's right, Bren. We can't just call him. He-- he's doing okay now, but I'm really not sure what this is going to do to him," he says quietly. "It's only been a few years since he was so bad he wrapped himself around a tree, and I just. I can't risk anything like that happening again."
Brendon just blinks. "What happened?" he asks, just as quietly, and shrugs off Ryan's arm so he can hold his hand.
Ryan sighs and rubs at the bridge of his nose under his glasses. "He was angry at us, at his parents, at the FBI. He was angry when people didn't believe him that you weren't dead. He was carrying all of our hope on his shoulders and it got to be too much for him. He started drinking to fall asleep, and popping pills to stay awake. He wouldn't return our calls. He would fly off with nothing but his binder and his laptop to any location where you might have been spotted. He met a lot of people who wanted money for information, and he gave it to them. He just... it was three years before he hit rock bottom and we checked him into a rehab center. It was another two before we realized he was still talking to you, out loud, nearly every day. He ran off the road outside San Diego and told the doctors in the hospital he did it because you said you missed him." Ryan stops for a breath and Brendon almost tells him to stop. This is the worst story he's ever heard. "It seems crazy, right?" Ryan almost smiles, but Brendon can hear the tremor in his voice. "I mean, its Spencer. Spencer's not the one of us who was supposed to end up in a padded room."
"What about now?" Brendon is almost afraid to know.
"Now, he's okay. His parents found him an inpatient psych clinic, a really great one, and that's when your parents decided to go forward with the death certificate. They'd gotten really close to him in those first few years, and all of us needed the closure, but mostly Spence. These days, he goes to his therapist, he's not on any of the serious meds anymore. He spends most of his time working," Ryan says with a grin, and Brendon snorts.
"Yeah, that sounds about right," he grins back, and tries to focus on the fact that Spencer is okay, that he's better. Not that he almost died because Brendon up and disappeared off the face of the earth.
"Oh, you have no idea," Ryan shakes his head. "He runs the Brendon Urie Foundation to benefit the Center for Missing and Exploited Children." He pauses to let it sink in for a second. "Their third annual Rock and Roll Fundraiser is tomorrow, at the Hard Rock. Cobra's headlining, so its a big deal."
"Cobra Starship?" Brendon asks, like it's the icing on the world's weirdest cake.
Ryan laughs. "Fangs up, man. Cobra Starship is the biggest band on the planet right now."
"Okay, now you're just making stuff up," Brendon says and Ryan just laughs harder.
*
Keltie can't stop staring at him over breakfast. Brendon takes a bite of French toast and tries to look anywhere but where she is sitting, her own fork forgotten on her plate. "Kel," Ryan says, low and sweet, and she looks over, flustered.
"I can't help it," she says, and Brendon tries to ignore the wordless discussion that ensues. It's easy to be distracted by the tiny brunette who climbed in his lap the second he sat down.
"Bite, please," she says in a small, tinny voice and opens her mouth as she grabs Brendon's thumb.
"You like French toast?" He smiles at her, and she nods, mouth still open. Sam is nowhere to be seen, but Brendon hears the screech-and-crash sounds of cartoons in the other room. "Just one bite," he says. She nods again and he cuts one of his bites in half and feeds it to her with his fingers.
Nora giggles and kicks at his knee. "Bite, please!" she says, still chewing.
"Your dad taught you that trick, didn't he?" Brendon ruffles her hair. "One more take, Bren. No just one more. No I swear, just one more this time." Nora giggles and presses her syrup-sticky face into his shirt. He hears the scrape of wood against the floor and when he looks up, Ryan is walking away from the table quickly, his shoulders softly hunched. "Hey, I didn't--" he says to Keltie, and she just shakes her head as she gets up.
"It's okay, Brendon. He's just still processing. He'd kind of abandoned any hope you might meet the kids." Brendon blinks down at the little girl making raspberries into his wrist. "Keep an eye on her, okay?" Keltie says, and then heads after Ryan.
"This is gonna be hard," he says to the top of Nora's head and she looks up and grins at him.
"Bite, Bren!"
"Man, you Ross kids are pushy," Brendon mutters with small smile and picks up another piece of French toast.
*
"Okay, so," Ryan is visibly nervous as they pull out of the driveway. Keltie gave Brendon such a tight hug when they left that he's pretty sure he's bruised. He tries to pay attention to Ryan's voice. "When we get to the hotel you need to put your hoodie up, glasses on." Ryan lent him a new hoodie, one that isn't lavender. It's a Cobra Starship hoodie with a giant purple snake across the back. He looks down at it and snorts. "Whatever, you'll blend in," Ryan says, but Brendon can tell he's trying not to laugh. "We'll skip the backstage stuff and head right up to Jon and Laura's room. They're in town for the show. I called him and told him not to go anywhere until I got there."
"Does he know?" Brendon asks, fiddling with the zipper of the hoodie.
"No. He'll find out soon enough," Ryan answers, looking both ways as the car crosses a busy residential street. "Anyway, his room is on the same floor as Spence and a bunch of the bands, so we need to get you in there and keep you there until I can talk to Spencer."
Brendon wonders what Spencer looks like now. There weren't a lot of pictures of the band at Ryan's place, but he only saw the living room which was full of pictures of the kids. There was one picture, tucked in the corner, of the four of them at the cabin, all sitting on the roof watching the sunset. Brendon remembers that Shane took it a few weeks ago; his brain tries to turn those weeks into eight years and fails miserably. "You okay?" Ryan asks him, and Brendon's nod turns into a resigned shrug.
"I just. Maybe we should wait until there are more answers," he says quietly. "It's not like people are going to stop asking where I've been, and until I know--"
"Look," Ryan cuts in, "I agree that making a huge media statement is a bad call, but if anyone at the precinct talked, the press probably already has wind that something is up and I can't risk... They need to hear it from me, from us, first."
"Yeah, okay." Brendon watches the strip get closer as they speed down the highway. The city looks nearly the same but the suburbs are even more sprawling, spilling into neighborhoods where Brendon remembers mostly desert and scrub, and there's at least one new hotel shimmering on the strip that he's never seen before.
The Hard Rock, however, is just as Brendon remembers it. Ryan has him put on the sunglasses before they even reach the parking garage, but it's all still neon bright. They make it inside without anyone even glancing at them-- Ryan's spent most of the past decade on the production side of the business, and he's not as easily recognized anymore. Brendon realizes with a start that a lot of the kids already waiting in line to see Cobra Starship were in elementary school the last time his face was on TV. He still ducks his head and sticks close to Ryan, who hustles them in a back door and up to the 10th floor. "Do they still have a bowling alley in the Penthouse?" Brendon asks, peering down the hall. Ryan shrugs. "I would guess so, but you can ask Gabe later. Come on." He hurries down to the end of the hall, glancing at one door quickly before stopping at the next. "Ready?" he asks, but he's not even looking at Brendon as he takes a deep breath and knocks.
*
Laura is down-to-earth pretty, with thick auburn hair and a wide smile. She opens the door with a saucy "Ryan Ross, I missed a spa appointment, so this better be good" and Brendon likes her immediately. She frowns a little when she sees him, and Ryan pushes past her, pulling Brendon along behind him. Brendon hears her gasped "holy shit" as he stumbles into the small hotel room, and almost echoes her thought when he sees Jon.
Jon still looks like Jon, like Ryan looks like Ryan, but he's got a little more paunch and just a tad less hair. Unless you count the beard, which Jon is rocking in full force. His temples are a little prematurely grey. Brendon is somehow grateful beyond measure that he's barefoot and cross-legged on the king-sized bed, still looking small and solid, a pose Brendon remembers like it was... well, like it was yesterday. "Hey," Ryan says, and Brendon knows he's suddenly wishing he'd prepared an introductory speech of some kind. Brendon pushes his hood down and his sunglasses up on his forehead, just to deflect the attention over to himself, and his eyes are on Jon when Laura says, "Is that really him?"
"Yeah," Brendon and Ryan reply at the same time, and Laura sits down hard on the edge of the bed. Jon stares at Brendon for a long minute, eyes flitting to Ryan and back.
"Well," Laura says when the silence is enough to make Brendon want to bolt for the door. "It's nice to finally meet you."
*
"He doesn't know," Ryan is saying for the fifteenth time, and Brendon looks at Laura apologetically from his perch on the edge of the bathtub. They've been relegated to the bathroom until Ryan can convince Jon that Brendon is not a cyborg or a Russian spy. Laura is sitting on the toilet, her legs crossed, watching him.
"Jon just needs to yell it out, then he'll be fine," she says with a soft smile, and Brendon nods and tries to ignore how his stomach is rolling. A second later, Jon comes stomping into the room.
"When I first met you, where were we?" he asks, pointing a finger at Brendon.
"Um," Brendon says, wide-eyed. "Heathrow?"
Jon glares. "Okay, fine. What was your favorite childhood toy?"
"Mr. Frog," Brendon says, a small grin starting to spread despite his best efforts. "Ask me another one."
Jon cross his arms and tries to look menacing. "Your least favorite Beatles song?"
"Golden Slumbers. 'Cause its way too close to golden showers, dude." He leans forward with his elbows on his knees. "Come on, make them harder. Like, ask me about what exactly you were using as lube that time I caught you jacking off in the kitchen. I would have thought olive oil would have been an obvious choice, but..." Brendon's grin wavers a little when Jon goes from blush pink to white as a sheet.
"Fuck, Brendon," he breathes and Brendon gets up to wrap his arms around Jon's neck and pull him close. Laura moves close and rubs comforting circles on Jon's back.
"I'm sorry, Jonny Walker," he says, his throat closing up, and Jon's hands fist in his hoodie as he holds on tight.
*
Under any other circumstances, Brendon would be grilling Jon's wife on how many of his stoner, weirdo tendencies he's retained into actual adulthood. He thinks she'd have some pretty entertaining answers. Instead, they just sit uncomfortably on the hotel sofa and listen for any noise from the room next door. Spencer's room.
Jon and Ryan have only been gone ten minutes when Brendon hears a distinct "Spencer, stop it!" from the hallway.
"If you won't fucking tell me more than that, the police will," Spencer yells back at Ryan, and Brendon runs to the door to press his ear against it.
"Come back inside, Spence," Jon says, softer and a little worried. Brendon's hand is on the doorknob before he even has a chance to think about it. Spencer is out there, Spencer thinks he's dead, and Brendon's pretty sure that knowing he's NOT dead would be better than the other way. If he thought Spencer was dead... Brendon flashes back to Ryan's story in the garage and wonders how close that actually came to being true, and he's out the door before Laura can pull his arm back.
It's like a tableau, Brendon thinks later. Ryan and Jon in Spencer's doorway, Brendon in his stupid Cobra Starship hoodie with Laura clinging to his arm, and Spencer. Spencer Smith with his hair cut fashionably short, bangs still in his eyes and his face clean-shaven, in tailored jeans and a faded blue button down, looking at Brendon with a mixture of disbelief and sheer terror in his eyes. No one moves for a long moment, and Brendon finally gets it, sees in Spencer's eyes all the time he's missed. He's seconds from launching himself at Spencer for the biggest, best hug he's ever doled out when Spencer takes a deep, shuddery breath.
"You're not real," he says quietly, like he's talking to himself. Brendon opens his mouth and Spencer's eyes flash. "You're not, I'm past that, it's over."
"Spence," Ryan says, his hand light on Spencer's arm, "he's real. I promise-- I can see him, Jon can see him--"
"He looks the same," Spencer says flatly.
"I know--" Ryan starts, and Brendon stands up a little straighter. He doesn't know why, but he feels like if he can pass whatever test Spencer throws at him, everything will be okay.
"No, I mean he looks exactly the same. He looks like he did in every fucking picture, Ry. How is that even possible?"
"We don't know. That's for later, okay? We'll figure it out. But all the prints match--"
Spencer snorts. "Like that can't be faked."
"We're not living in Gattica, Spence," Jon pipes up from the doorway, and Brendon rolls his eyes.
"Like you didn't think I was a cyborg half an hour ago, Jon, Jesus," he says, and he can see Spencer stop breathing. Ryan sees it too.
"Fuck, Spencer, come on, hey," Ryan shakes him, then drags him the three feet back into the hotel room. Brendon and Laura run to catch the door before it closes, and when they get inside, Ryan has Spencer sitting on the floor. "Spence!" Ryan says loudly, inches from Spencer's face, but even from a distance, Brendon can see that his eyes are unfocused.
"Go," Laura says quietly at his elbow, and Brendon takes two steps and drops to his knees in front of Spencer. Ryan looks almost like he wants to stop him, but Brendon pushes him out of the way and cups Spencer's face in his hands, pulling his gaze to Brendon's. "Breathe. Now," he says with as much authority as he can muster. "Spencer, don't be a moron," he adds gently, and Spencer's eyes blink closed as his hands come up to wrap around Brendon's forearms.
"You're not real," he says again, but his hands are pulling Brendon closer.
"I am, okay?" Brendon answers. "Everything got really fucked up, but I'm here. We're all here. You're not crazy."
Spencer presses his nose to Brendon's collarbone and he laughs, slightly hysterical. "Oh, man, you have no idea how crazy I am," he says, and Ryan says "Hey!" behind him. "Shut up, Ry, you know I'm totally batshit insane." Brendon wants to say something, but Spencer's breath is warm on his neck and he still smells like Spencer-- woody soap and fruity shampoo and a little like cigarettes. He runs his thumbs over Spencer's cheekbones and Spencer sighs. "I don't even care. This is kind of the best dream I've had in a long time," Spencer says, his eyes still closed, and Brendon plants a kiss to his temple.
"Open your eyes, Spence," he whispers, and Spencer finally looks up at him. "Hey," Brendon says with a smile.
"Fuck," Spencer says, his eyes still glinting with terror, but mostly with something new. Brendon wants to call it joy.
"Should we...?" Jon says behind them, and Ryan just sighs heavily.
"Spencer, we need to--," but Ryan's cut off by an insistent knock on the door.
*
Pete Wentz has approached his mid-thirties about exactly how Brendon would have imagined-- by refusing to dress like an adult, and dying the tips of his hair a pale blue. Patrick, on the other hand, looks like he's morphing into his own dad, with a fedora and a heather gray blazer. It's not what you'd expect from a hot-shot music producer, but Brendon has to admit that it's actually a pretty okay look on him.
Brendon is still on the floor with Spencer, their hands twined tightly together. He's actually losing a little of the feeling in his fingers, but Spencer seems calmer than he was a few minutes ago, so he doesn't mention it. Pete and Patrick are staring down at him with matching expressions of disbelief. (Brendon's starting to get used to those.) "So he doesn't know where he's been?" Patrick says and Ryan nods. He gave them the quick and dirty version when they showed up. Seems someone on the force couldn't keep their mouth shut, and the whole city is buzzing with the news that Brendon Urie has been spotted alive, in Vegas. Pete's already added extra security to the floor, but "we need to make a statement," he says, and Ryan and Patrick both frown.
"And say what?" Patrick asks at the same time Ryan says "It's too soon."
"Right now, everyone is making up their own story," Pete says.
"Good," Brendon mutters, "maybe they can lend me one."
Jon laughs. Pete just looks at Brendon and says seriously, "Hey. Did you consider time travel?"
Brendon beams at him.
*
Pete finally convinces them that some move is better than none, even if its in the name of deflection. Jon and Laura go with Pete to field questions. ("Honey, I'm a lawyer," Laura says to Pete when he asks if she's okay with telling less than the whole truth. Brendon wants to give Jon a medal for marrying her.) Ryan takes some of Pete's security guys back to his place to rescue Keltie and the kids from the already advancing media hoards she says are on the front lawn. Patrick goes to try and calm down the Foundation folks, and the handful of bands who are set to perform the next day. Spencer just holds on tighter to Brendon's hand and says, "I'm staying with Brendon".
No one argues.
When they leave, the room is eerily quiet.
Brendon has no idea what to say. He wants to say he's sorry, he wants to shake Spencer, ask him what the hell he was thinking getting that lost in his own head. He wants to talk about how yesterday he was throwing Fruit Loops at the back of Spencer's head in the cabin, and they were arguing about whether Clueless was a chick flick, and how none of this was supposed to happen. He remembers the last time he saw Spencer's face, his cheeks flushed pink with anger as Brendon hurled insults at him, and he presses the heel of his hand to his eye to try and push the memory away.
"I forgot you used to do that," Spencer says next to him, and Brendon looks up to see him watching.
"Do what?"
"Used to do that with your hand when you were upset, or when you didn't want to think about something," he says matter-of-factly, and Brendon flushes a little, embarrassed. Spencer smiles and squeezes his hand and Brendon's heart flutters stupidly in his chest. It's not the same Spencer, he tries to remind himself, but of all of them, Spencer looks the most like Brendon remembers, his cheeks a little sharper but his jaw just as round, his eyes just as blue. There's a faint scar along the left side of his face, and Brendon's hand comes up to touch it before he can stop himself.
"I'm sorry," he says, and he's not quite sure for what, but Spencer just looks away.
"All this time, you weren't anywhere," he says, and its not a question.
"I don't know," Brendon replies quietly. "I wish I did, but yesterday it was 2007, and now its not, and I don't know why."
"No, that's okay." Spencer is smiling again, not quite at him, but at a spot on the wall by the bathroom door. He looks bemused. "It's the only thing that makes sense, really. That you just... ceased to exist for a while."
"Why does that make sense?" Brendon asks.
Spencer shrugs and lifts their clasped hands to his knee. "Because I knew you weren't dead, and I looked everywhere else." It's almost pragmatic enough to sound like the Spencer he remembers, and Brendon laughs.
"Well, you can't fault that logic," he says. "And hey-- now you can tell everyone 'I told you so.'"
Spencer barks out a laugh. "Well, that makes it all worth it, then."
Brendon leans in close and rests his head on Spencer's shoulder. "I'm not worth any of what you went through, Spence," he says quietly.
Spencer sighs. "How much did Ryan tell you?"
"Just the basics, I guess. I didn't really push for details." He flexes his fingers in Spencer's. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"You hungry?" Spencer asks, and Brendon looks up and rolls his eyes, but he can't help his grin.
"Is that code for 'not really'?"
Spencer grins back for a second before something dark and disbelieving passes behind his eyes, and his smile slips as his breathing speeds up. "Bren?" His asks, his voice thin, and Brendon worries for a second that he's going to stop breathing again.
He tries for diversion. Brendon squeezes his hand once before standing up. "You know, I could go for a burger. Apparently I haven't had one in eight years, so I am totally due," he rambles, hunting around for the room service menu. "You still love nachos? Whatever, who doesn't like nachos? I bet they do decent nachos at the Hard Rock." He finds the menu on the desk and flips through until he feels a hand wrap around his elbow. Spencer presses his forehead to the back of Brendon's neck.
"I'm sorry," he mumbles. "This is just. This is going to take me a little while."
"I know, hey," Brendon says, turning and wrapping his arms around Spencer's waist. "This is going to take me a while too. Tell you what," he says, pulling him close and talking low in his ear. "You promise to catch me up on what the fuck is going on in the world, and I promise to not cease to exist again, okay? This whole possible time travel thing is way overrated."
Spencer hugs him back so tightly Brendon wants to cry. He buries his face in Brendon's neck, and Brendon closes his eyes and lets himself pretend he's back in the cabin, lets himself pretend this is his Spencer, holding onto him like this for no reason at all. His hands smooth over Spencer's back in wide, soothing circles until Spencer takes a deep breath and pulls back a little. "Burger and nachos," Spencer says, his voice tight but even, and Brendon just says "it can wait" and pulls him back in.
*
Brendon's spent the last three hours sprawled on Spencer's bed, learning about the slow, painful end of the Iraq war, and finding out Pete is married to Ashlee fucking Simpson, and playing with Spencer's 6th generation iPhone.
Brendon hides in the bathroom when the food arrives. When he opens the door, Spencer is sitting on the bed watching for him, his fingers white knuckled in the bedspread. "Hey," Brendon says after a pause. "You know there's not an escape hatch in there, right?"
"Yeah." Spencer blinks away from Brendon and down at the floor. "No, sorry, it's just." He waves his hand helplessly. Brendon sits next to him and bumps his shoulder.
"So, what were you telling me about William finding God?" he asks, and Spencer laughs a little and picks up where he left off. Turns out Beckett's career in Christian rock is way more successful than TAI had ever managed to be, and Brendon isn't sure whether to be happy for him or scared for the youth of today. "Or, tomorrow? Whatever, it's bizarre," he says and Spencer shrugs in agreement.
They're stuffed on nachos and fries and burgers and cokes by the time everyone reconvenes in Spencer's room.
Pete and Patrick arrive first, still a unified front, followed by the rest of the Panic crew. Nora launches herself at Spencer with a cry of glee, and Brendon watches him pick her up carefully. "Hey funny face," he says, and Nora giggles.
"So, I've been talking to Gabe about postponing," Patrick starts, and Spencer jumps in with "No, we can't do that, it took me a year to get this set up."
"You told Gabe?" Ryan says incredulously and Patrick waves his hands.
"Not outright, but the first thing he asked me when I hit his suite was 'So, seriously, is Urie back from the dead?' so he's not in the dark. Then he kind of kicked me out, so I have no idea what he's thinking."
"Look, Brendon's back, that's amazing and deserves its own party, but I've got the families of half a dozen missing kids in this building and I'm not canceling the biggest fundraiser of the year." Spencer stares Patrick down, and Pete says, "Look, we can do it, but we can't not let people know about Brendon."
"What Brendon wants to do is Brendon's business," Ryan cuts in, but Keltie continues with, "The more we keep secret they more they're going to try and find out by going through our trash, Ry." Sam turns his face into his father's leg.
Brendon stands in the corner of the room as everyone talks over each other. The whole room is a cacophony by the time there's a loud knock at the door. Pete checks the peep hole as the room falls silent.
"Come on, Peter Pan, I heard you all in there," Gabe yells through the door and Patrick sighs loudly. "I need to see for myself."
Pete opens the door and Brendon crosses his arms, already on the defensive. He hates feeling like an animal at the zoo. But when Gabe sees him, Ryland and Alex on his heels, he just stops and shakes his head. "It's true, then."
Brendon lifts his chin. "Yeah." Gabe is wearing a hot pink t-shirt emblazoned with 'The Future Is Here' in yellow lettering and black tuxedo pants. Ryland is wearing a clearly expensive suit jacket and a pair of silver-rimmed glasses. Alex is in the same button down black shirt Brendon is pretty sure he was wearing the last time Brendon saw him, eight years ago.
"Do you know what happened?" Gabe asks, and Brendon shakes his head.
"He lost the last eight years," Ryan says but Gabe is still looking at Brendon, head tilted a little to one side.
"Huh," Gabe says, exchanging a glance with Ryland. "Okay." The three of them leave as quickly as they arrived, and the room is quiet for a second before Laura says, "Wow, he's even weirder than the tabloids say he is, isn't he?" The whole room murmurs in agreement.
"Okay, game plan," Pete says, and all eyes turn to him. Brendon is impressed by how he can still command a room; the Wentz empire has apparently grown so much that Pete is an actual boss now. "I'm calling a press conference for noon tomorrow. Brendon's parents will be in by then, and he'll have a chance to see them first, obviously. We're all going to be there, Brendon included, and a few members of Cobra. I'll get the FBI and the LVPD to send reps. The show will still go on, and we'll plan a sit down with some key press starting over the weekend. My PR guys are already setting those up. Brendon," Pete looks at him, "I'm lending you my law team and my security detail for the moment. We'll figure out how best to keep the public off your back as we go. Until the conference, everyone hunker down and lay low. I don't want anyone off this floor if they can help it."
"We don't have a room," Ryan pipes up, and Pete says "You can have mine. I"ll bunk in with 'Trick, like old times." Pete winks at Patrick who just shakes his head.
"It's sofa city for you, sweetheart," he grins and Pete flutters his eyelashes.
"Come on, Patrick, you know you're my most favorite," he says, sugary sweet, and Brendon watches the slick persona slide right off him as Patrick flicks him in the side of the head.
"Is that? I mean, I don't know what I'll say," Brendon says, his voice sounding really small. Everyone turns to look at him. "No one's gonna believe me, are they?" he asks. "I don't really even believe me."
"Fuck 'em," Spencer says, and flushes a little when Nora giggles. "Seriously, who cares what anyone else thinks? You're home, that's what matters."
Brendon looks around at the familiar-but-not faces in the room, at Laura, and Ryan's kids, and Spencer's scar, and wonders if this is ever going to feel like home.
*
cont.