fic: but you could (follow me)
This is neither an AU nor a multi-parter. I know! I am shocked myself!
*cough*
Written for my darling adellyna in a holiday-exchange type thing! Many thanks go to airgiodslv, for as wonderful a beta as always. Title from Sarah Bettens' "Follow Me".
But You Could (Follow Me)
8,495 words. Jon/Spencer. NC-17. Oh so very fake.
1.
Spencer doesn't actually remember the very first time he sees Jon Walker. Probably it's backstage after a show, dripping sweat and buzzing with adrenaline; probably Jon's the one who hands him a bottle of water Spencer takes with a "Thanks" and without so much as a sideways glance.
Probably it's from the steps of their bus, looking across a parking lot flooded with sunshine; probably Jon is one of the guys playing basketball around a trash can, cheerful yelling and insults half-drowned by laughter drifting over to where Spencer sits.
Maybe it's both. Maybe it's neither. Spencer can't be sure, which is maybe part of the problem.
***
Spencer knows things. He's made it his job to. He's in a band with Ryan, who forgets to eat every other meal, with Brendon, who loses anything they don't superglue into his pockets. Spencer knows the address to their venue, he knows what time sound check is, he knows the cell phone number of that guy, you know the guy, Spence? Spencer owns two different calendars and a notebook, and five color pens. Spencer is on top of things.
So when he looks up one day and there's a guy there, a smiling, normal-looking guy in a threadbare t-shirt who says, "Hey, did you know you have a really big stain on your shirt?" and Spencer takes one look at his eyes and his stomach jumps to somewhere between his shoulder blades...
He's a little thrown, is all.
***
"I think his name is Jon," Brent says as the door slams shut behind them and Spencer sucks the first clean breath in hours down his scratchy throat. "He's a tech or something."
Spencer lets out the air in his lungs, too quickly, coughs into his sleeve that smells like cigarette smoke and Jäger, a little, from when Tom spilled on him.
"Who?" he says once he's caught his breath. Brent's face looks weird and alien in the dirty light from the streetlamp overhead, but his expression is unmistakably unimpressed.
"I don't know, dude," he says and starts walking towards their own bus, a black lump in the darkness. "Maybe the guy you were staring at all night?"
Spencer jogs to catch up with Brent, frost crunching under his feet. The ground sparkles like a diamond carpet as far as the artificial light can reach. It's impressive what a little bit of frozen water will do, shabby parking lot dressed up in white and glitter like an ice princess.
"Hang on, I've got a flashlight," he mutters and digs through the pocket on his hoodie. His cheeks feel warm even in the freezing cold outside.
Brent laughs. "It's like ninety feet, Spencer, come on," but he stops until Spencer has turned on the light and is waving it around to make sure there aren't any, like, fallen trash cans or holes in the pavement in their path. The last thing they need is for one of them to break a fucking ankle.
They walk in silence, breaking it only for the occasional hiss when a stray gust of wind blows right through their jackets. The bus steps are slippery; Spencer climbs them slowly, Brent behind him urging, "Come on, man, I'm freezing," in a low voice.
His hand on the door handle, Spencer turns around and asks, "Jon?"
He can't see Brent's face, but there's a brief flash of white, obvious amusement. "Yeah."
Spencer opens the door, quiet, quiet, trying not to wake the other two, and silently echoes, "Yeah."
He tests it out later, alone in his bunk, with Brendon and his cold snoring up a storm across the aisle. His lips move soundlessly in the dark.
Jon.
***
England is… kind of mind-blowing, actually. England is dirty snow and sleet at this time of year, people driving on the wrong side of the road and red London buses. Ryan hoards Peach Volvic at the foot of his bunk, and the money takes them ages to sort out at the register, until they just give up and hand their wallets over to a gum-snapping shop assistant who calls them love.
They have fish and chips on their second day ("Oh, wow," Ryan says, "wow, yeah, no." Brendon ends up eating everyone's) and Brent makes them go for High Tea in Newcastle. Spencer sits in a plushy chair and accidentally spills tea on himself while he watches Brendon eat a cucumber sandwich, and his skin tingles with the urge to pinch himself to make sure this is really happening.
***
Their first show is in Leeds, at a place called Cockpit.
"Did you know," Brendon says dramatically, while he twists his neck to make a better pillow of Spencer's thigh and Spencer pretends to be annoyed by it, "that it used to be called 'Cock of the North'?"
Spencer swings his heels forth and back, appreciating the hollow sound they make against the equipment box. "I didn't," he says and digs his fingers in just below Brendon's ribs, just to see him squeak in protest and bat at his hand.
They stumble off-stage seven hours later, drenched in sweat and bodies still thrumming with the beat. Spencer's vision is grainy like bad reception; he slumps against the wall, plaster shockingly cool against his sore shoulders, and tries to breathe it away with lungs that feel a size too small.
Brent catches his eye across the room. He's still wearing his bass, and he looks young and scared and so fucking exhilarated. He smiles, as blinding as the spotlights they just left behind, and Spencer smiles back until his cheeks hurt.
***
They're back on the Academy's bus the next night, when it's technically Spencer's turn to stay with Brendon and make sure he doesn't die or anything.
"You go," Brent had said casually, pushing past Spencer on his way to the refrigerator. "I need to call my mom, anyway."
Spencer's fairly sure it had been a lie, but Ryan hadn't said anything, and Brendon had been half-asleep, and Spencer... well. Spencer hadn't been about to turn it down.
"Thanks," he'd said, very nonchalant, even though it's entirely possible he'd ruined his own cover by taking half an hour to choose a shirt.
It turns out he needn't have gone to any trouble, because when they get over there everyone's more or less half-naked in the middle of a spirited game of, "Strip Uno," William says and grandly pats the floor next to him. "Ryan Rossy, come sit with me!"
Spencer squeezes into a tiny spot between Tom and the Butcher, all pressed up against the leather bench. "You know the rules?" Tom asks, eyes bright with laughter. His breath smells like the strawberry stuff William kept trying to put into Spencer's hand last night.
"I guess," Spencer says and shifts on the carpet a little. It's really fucking hot in here, and there's no sign of his guy - Jon - who Spencer supposes isn't really his guy so much as he is a guy, and one who made a disparaging comment about Spencer's wardrobe, no less.
He blinks at Tom. "Wait, what game is this?"
Tom laughs, but his hand is warm and steady on Spencer's back when he tells him they'll play as a team.
Spencer isn't really sure how long they've been at it (Tom's lost his shirt and one sock), but he's just starting to relax when there's a sudden rush of icy air and something warm and heavy plasters itself all over his right side.
"Close the door, Jon Walker!" William demands, shivering theatrically, and even though the chill is creeping up Spencer's back, he suddenly feels hot all over.
"Real Chicago men don't get cold," Jon says right by his ear, and yeah, Spencer recognizes his voice. As ridiculous as that is, it makes his toes curl. "But I'll make an exception if I can borrow Spencer here for a minute."
The lounge erupts into cheers, and blood rushes to Spencer's head like it hasn't since he was in middle school and embarrassed about everything from his backpack to the sound of his own voice. He catches Ryan's eye, not sure what the hell he's supposed to do, but Ryan just looks surprised and shrugs. That's a big help.
Spencer clenches his teeth and pulls himself up by the edge of the table above him. It feels like it takes his legs an unusually long time to unfold. "Okay," he says, as evenly as he can, and he studiously does not look at Jon while he climbs over people's feet to get into the bunk area. He's a little sweaty and a little wired, blood humming in his ears, but he can still hear the laughter and catcalls behind his back.
The door to the lounge slides shut, and it's like someone's disconnected a pair of speakers; everything is reduced to tinny echoes, William's voice so muffled the words are impossible to make out.
Spencer leans against the row of bunks, not quite comfortable. His own breathing sounds unnaturally loud. "So," he says, and rubs damp palms over his thighs.
"So," Jon agrees pleasantly, but his hands aren't entirely steady when he rests them against the mattress to both sides of Spencer's head. He clears his throat and says, "You know I took a picture of you the other day?"
Spencer stills in surprise. "When?"
"On Saturday, in Newcastle," Jon says. He has brown eyes, and a nose that's slightly crooked, and a tiny lisp. "Before I came over? When you were sitting outside. You were writing in a notebook or something and chewing on your pen."
"Ah," Spencer says intelligently. He really can't think of anything else.
Jon's eyes widen slightly. "Not, like," he says and shifts from foot to foot, "not in a creepy way or anything, I wasn't... I don't have a shrine or whatever, I didn't take you in here to, like, cut off all your hair and make a pillow out of it."
Spencer stares at the way Jon bites his lip. "Well, that's good, I guess," he says.
Jon nods and says decisively, "You know what, I should just stop talking," and then suddenly Spencer gets a very good look at his eyes, pupils blown in the half-light, and then...
Jon's mouth is dry and soft, and he pulls Spencer's bottom lip between both of his, sucks a little, patiently waiting until Spencer opens up. He can't not; his body takes over for his brain at the first light touch of Jon's tongue to his lips.
Spencer's never made out with anyone like this, and it's - it's someone's tongue, in his mouth, and it takes up more space than he expected, somehow. Through the haze in his brain, he's distantly aware he should be careful with his teeth.
It takes a few seconds to get used to, the wet heat and second-hand taste of beer, but Spencer doesn't mind. There's a sweet pull low in his belly, and he shifts closer because he has to, presses up against Jon who's so warm and so solid. Jon swallows, and Spencer can feel his throat working under his hand; his stomach jumps a little, not in a bad way.
"Um," Jon finally whispers hoarsely, words brushing against Spencer's lips. Spencer's mouth feels chilled and kind of naked, and he barely resists the urge to cover it with his hand. "I hate to ask, but is that…"
"Yeah," Spencer mutters, "yeah, no, that's, I have a flashlight in my pocket." His ears are going to burst into flames any second now.
Jon smiles, wide and bright, so close that it's all Spencer can see for a moment. "Okay," he says and presses his thumb to Spencer's lower lip. Spencer closes his teeth around it, carefully, pulse thumping hard in his neck. Jon's eyes flutter shut.
Something heavy hits the door from the other side, and they jump guiltily even though there really isn't very far to go in the narrow aisle between bunks.
"Jonny, let me in," William howls through the wood. "Let me in, they're trying to kill me!"
Jon rubs the back of his neck, looking sheepish. "I better," he says and gestures toward the door, "you know," and Spencer nods quickly.
"Yeah, all right."
"But you'll be back?" Jon asks, one hand raised to the button. "I mean, tomorrow?"
Spencer can't help the smile, it just kind of explodes all over his face. "Yes," he says, and even though his heart is still pounding he does exactly what he wants to do, which is fist his hand in the front of Jon's shirt and lean in for a final kiss. "Definitely."
***
After Oxford comes Leicester, and after Leicester comes Bristol, and wherever Spencer goes, Jon is already there. He's crossing the street to get to his bus, or standing in line waiting to buy himself a coffee; Spencer can't seem to go anywhere these days without running into Jon Walker.
It's a problem.
Spencer finally snaps in Southampton, when he's running twenty minutes behind schedule an hour after he woke up. It's Jon's fault. He can't just be sitting places and tuning guitars with his big, careful hands, t-shirt riding up in the back and flip-flops dangling off his feet precariously.
"That's kind of my job, though," Jon points out and takes his sweet time putting a hickey behind Spencer's ear. "You know, sitting places, tuning guitars. I'm the hired help."
"Yeah, well," Spencer says breathlessly. "Stop doing that. I have places to be, I have a schedule." He's half-hard just from the way Jon's leg presses between his, thigh rocking up every so often.
Jon raises his head to grin at him, clever fingers rubbing the bruise he just left. "Is it color-coded?"
Spencer raises his chin, doing his level best to look threatening when Jon's weight has him pinned against the wall. "Yeah. So what?"
"Nothing," Jon says quickly. He tilts his head and reconsiders, hips shifting forward until Spencer has to close his eyes and swallow a moan, and adds, "That's pretty hot, actually."
It's a problem, but fuck if Spencer can bring himself to care.
***
"I don't even know him," Spencer says and glares at Brendon across the table.
Brendon shrugs and steals five more fries. "He's a hot guy who wants to make out with you a lot," he says, mouth full. "How much do you need to know?"
Spencer angles his tray so that Brendon can't reach it anymore. "Oh, I don't know, his last name," he says bitingly. "That would be nice."
"You know his last name," Ryan points out, taking a dainty sip from his coke. "Siska told you."
"Exactly!" Spencer says. "He didn't even tell me himself. He can't just... accost me every chance he gets and then not even give me that kind of information. That's not how it works."
Brent raises his head from where it's been pillowed on his arms on the table for the last couple of minutes, blinking tired eyes up at Spencer. "Are you still freaking out because you didn't have him put down in your calendar or whatever? 'Saturday, 4 p.m., go stupid over tech guy'?"
Spencer stares at him for ten whole seconds before throwing his balled-up napkin and landing a square hit on Brent's forehead. "No," he snaps.
"You can't plan your life in advance, Spencer," Brendon says sagely and adjusts his glasses.
Spencer takes Ryan's napkin to throw at him. "That's fantastic," he says. "Psychoanalysis by Brent Wilson, life help by Brendon Urie, maybe Ryan can predict my future next?"
Brent snorts and drops his head back down. "Seriously, Spencer," he says, muffled into his wrist. "Sometimes things just happen."
***
Spencer's never been nervous on stage. He just doesn't see the point. He's in the back, behind his kit, and he has his sticks and knows how to use them. It takes three songs maximum for the burn in his shoulders to start, the one that gets less and less the harder he crashes his cymbals. Five songs in, his shirt is clinging to his back and his hair is sticking to his forehead, and Spencer feels hot and cold and electric and alive. He looks out over the crowd, the rolling, surging sea of bodies keeping time with Brendon's words, and even though it's hard to breathe, he doesn't want to be anywhere else, ever.
So, really, the being on stage isn't the problem. It's the five minutes before they go on that have him scrambling around the dressing room, fumbling with the eyeliner and tripping over his own shoes. He doesn't understand how Brendon can have the only quiet moments of his entire day right now. If Spencer weren't keeping busy with clothes and make-up, he'd have some kind of hysterical breakdown possibly involving the murder of people who drink Capri Suns and then explode the empty packet.
"I can't tell if these are right or not," Ryan mutters, staring at his own reflection critically. "Spencer, what do you -"
"Don't talk to Spencer right now," Brent interrupts. "He's trying not to throw up, remember?"
Spencer flips him off with numb hands and tries to button his shirt correctly for the second time. Brendon laughs over in his corner, and he can go fuck himself too. They can all go fuck themselves, and Spencer is going to scream if this fucking button doesn't start cooperating soon.
"Hey," Jon says from the door. He's leaning inside the door frame, but takes a laughing step back into the hallway when Brendon launches himself at him.
"Jon Walker!" Brendon shouts triumphantly, half climbing him like a tree, and then, "Spencer, your boyfriend is here!"
Murder. With his bare hands.
"Don't talk to me," Spencer says. "I'm sorry, I'm not fit for conversation right now. We can talk after?" He fumbles the button for the third time in a row.
Jon untangles himself from five-odd feet of Urie and ambles over to Spencer, hands in his pockets. "I didn't really come to talk," he says with a grin, leaning in until Spencer can almost feel his lips move around the words. "Just wanted to wish you luck and all that."
He presses a quick, chaste kiss to the corner of Spencer's mouth, then straightens and bats Spencer's hands away from his shirt. "Come on, let a professional handle that."
"You're so useful, Jon Walker," Brendon comments from his reclaimed spot on the make-up counter. "We should keep you around."
Spencer closes his eyes and tries to relax with the feather-light brush of Jon's hands against his belly and Ryan's voice somewhere over his shoulder asking, "Jon, do you think my birds are crooked?"
***
It's two-seventeen, the night before a transatlantic flight after more than a week on the road, and even though he should be passed out face-down in the mattress, Spencer is thoroughly, infuriatingly awake.
He pushes up onto his elbows with an annoyed groan, flips his pillows, flips the comforter. His back is cold but his feet are sweaty, and Ryan, the bastard, is sound asleep. Spencer stares at the red digits of his hotel alarm clock without blinking, until his eyes sting and the numbers are blurred unrecognizable.
He gives up after a few more minutes and rolls out from between his rumpled sheets. The carpet is hard and prickly under his bare feet, and between the desk chair and the nightstand and their luggage, Spencer stubs his toe exactly three times on his way out. He curses loudly on the third one, but Ryan only makes a snuffling noise and turns over in his bed. The door closes without a creak.
There's a tiny sitting room at this end of the building, more like a nook off the hallway. The window is kind of smeared and dusty, but it's cracked open and lets in a small breeze. Spencer presses up against the cold wallpaper until he can angle his face half-outside, edge of the windowsill digging into his hip. The sky is overcast, and all the city lights paint the bottom of the clouds a dull, dirty orange. It's raining a little bit, rustling faintly in the trees.
He stays like this, breathing deep and easy, half-dozing until a loud crash behind him startles him wide-awake again. Spencer turns too quickly and nearly hits his own head on the window.
"Sorry," Jon says sheepishly, bent in half and rubbing his shin. "That table just snuck up on me out of nowhere." He looks sleepy and crumpled, but something inside Spencer's chest gives a stupid little flutter anyway.
"Everything okay?" he asks. "Or should we just amputate?"
Jon looks up and grins, straightens with a wince. "I think," he says, hobbling over to an old wreck of a couch in the corner, "that you should come over here and investigate, Spencer Smith."
Space is cramped enough that Spencer only has to lean a little ways to take Jon's outstretched hand. He doesn't resist being pulled until he's straddling Jon's lap, corduroy upholstery soft and sagging under his knees.
"Hey," Jon whispers and runs both hands up under Spencer's shirt, broad palms spread warmly in the small of his back. "Couldn't sleep?"
"Nope," Spencer says quietly, cheek resting at Jon's temple. He can feel every breath Jon takes in the tiny movements of his body against Spencer's.
Jon hums his agreement. "Me neither," he says, soft like a secret. "We're going back home, Spence."
It doesn't really follow up to anything, or maybe it does. Spencer ducks his head and kisses the side of Jon's forehead, half into his hair. He smells like warm pillows and shampoo. "I know," Spencer says.
Somewhere in the press of his lips is that nervous feeling Spencer can't shake, like maybe they're going to set down tomorrow on the other side of the Atlantic and things will be different. Like they're going to cross some invisible, imaginary line and Jon will no longer be with him, like this. It's a ridiculous thought, but it still makes his stomach hurt.
"Where's the first show?" Jon mutters, breath stirring against Spencer's throat.
"Grand Rapids," Spencer answers without thinking. "Michigan."
"I hear they have a zoo," Jon says evenly. "We should go. Make out by the lion pen, terrify the tourists."
A car rumbles by outside, flash of headlights crawling along the wall like a searchlight before it fades and everything slips back into grey. If he just focuses a bit, Spencer can feel the steady thud of Jon's heartbeat echoing his own.
"Yeah," he says, smiling at nothing in particular. "Yeah, that sounds good."
2.
They're touring at home now, and some good things stay the same and some bad things change for the worse.
Spencer forgets to e-mail his family three days in a row because what little of his time isn't filled with band is filled with Jon now. Brent is on the phone with his girlfriend twice a day. He says things like, "I can't wait to get home," and, "Don't you sometimes wish the tour was over already?" and once, late at night in the back of a cab and not looking at Spencer, "I'm not sure I really want to do this."
Spencer just ignores that one, pretends he never heard it even though the words sink heavy into his stomach and stay there. Brent doesn't bring it up again.
They fight more, during soundchecks and after shows. They all say some things they maybe shouldn't have. They've been on the road for barely two weeks, but the strain is starting to show.
Somewhere between Providence and Norfolk, it becomes normal for Spencer to search and find Jon's hand in the gloom backstage, to slip into the Academy's bus and into Jon's bunk at night. He doesn't have to be the buffer then, constant mediator between Brent and Ryan's bitchy temper or Brent and Brendon's helplessness. Spencer's so used to it he doesn't even realize how much it drags him down, not until he's curled up somewhere with Jon's eyes and hands on him, and all of the weight suddenly falls away.
Jon kisses the tension in his shoulders gone. Spencer sleeps better than he has in weeks, caught between Jon and the wall and a pile of blankets, and he doesn't wake up in the mornings ready to take everyone's head off. He closes his eyes against the weak orange glow that filters through the privacy curtain, tucks his folded hands under Jon's chin, and dozes until ten minutes after they have to be up.
***
"William," Jon says patiently. "Bill?"
"Just one minute, Jonny Walker," Bill mutters, cheeks flushed, eyes glittering, fiercely concentrated on his cards. "One... more..."
Jon clears his throat. "Well, it's just that it's been five minutes now," he points out and curls his hand over Spencer's ankle, thumb circling around the bone. Spencer wriggles down to be a little more comfortable against the window and lowers his magazine. Watching William play cards is a lot like watching a cat stalk a rubber mouse. He appears convinced that there's a strategy to every game that's just waiting to be figured out. It might be why he always loses.
"Seriously, guys," the Butcher says from across the table where he's slumped on the bench, hood of his sweater pulled down low over his forehead. "Just wake me when it's time."
"You're all Philistines," William says pleasantly. "These things take time. There are ramifications to be considered, boys."
Jon groans and drops his head back. Spencer pinches his nose. Jon sneezes on him. "Oh my God," Spencer complains and snatches his hand away, rubs it furiously on Jon's t-shirt. "You're so disgusting, I'm breaking up with you right now."
"But who will give you backrubs then?" Jon asks, all wide-eyed innocence. "I know all of your tense spots, Spence. I'm the master."
"I'll get over it," Spencer says firmly and wiggles his ankle in Jon's slack grasp. "But this was nice, go back to doing that."
***
In a hotel room in Tempe, the bedside lamp is flickering and the polyester bedspread slick beneath Spencer's thighs.
"Hey, let's get rid of that," Jon mutters, and pulls. Spencer lifts up as much as he can, legs and hips, until Jon has tugged the spread free and is shoving it off the bed haphazardly with both hands. He has to stretch a little to do it and Spencer watches the shift of muscles all along his flank, smooth shadows rearranging themselves. It's a grey and miserable kind of dusk outside; their room feels like a golden bubble, and Jon draws the light and holds it, sparks in his hair.
The sheets smell a little sharp, like hotel detergent, but they're cool and crisp against Spencer's skin. He feels like he has too much of it right now, stretched out on his back, pressing both hands against his nervous stomach. The air-conditioning is really loud. It gives Spencer goosebumps all over his arms.
Somehow, he thought sex would be, well. Sexier.
"Hey," Jon says again and runs a steady hand down from Spencer's temple, all the way to his chin. "Are you sure? I mean," he says and wrinkles his nose at the threadbare carpet, the sterile bathroom, "this isn't exactly candles and roses."
Spencer turns his head and licks a broad stripe across Jon's palm, tasting salt and skin. "I don't give a damn about roses," he says and presses his mouth to Jon's wrist, where the pulse is fast and irregular. Jon smiles and pushes an errant strand of hair off Spencer's forehead.
"Good," he says simply, and then he scoots back on the bed and leans down and holy shit. Spencer's entire body seizes up, from his shaky knees to his tense shoulders, and he smacks his hand into the headboard kind of painfully, because Jon's mouth is on his cock, and it's so, so...
Spencer breathes hard through his nose, six, seven, eight times, until he's reasonably sure he can chance a look without immediately embarrassing himself.
It's not like getting a blowjob like this hasn't featured in, like, every fantasy Spencer's had ever, but even his pretty vivid imagination has totally failed to prepare him for what it actually looks like, how real and obscene and fucking hot Jon's lips are stretched and sliding around him. Everything south of his ribs feels too hot, skin buzzing and blood pulsing (faster, faster, faster Spencer's brain helpfully supplies, and oh God, shut up) and it takes like every last ounce of Spencer's willpower not to buck his hips and fuck Jon's mouth as hard as he can, because, oh.
He takes a blind handful of the sheets near his hip, clenching his fingers shut until he can hear the fabric stretch and crackle in his grip. His vision is going spotty, and distantly he can feel Jon pull off him (no) and even more distantly hear him say, "Breathe, Spencer, come on," sounding amused and breathless.
"Fuck you," Spencer says, gulping air, and Jon's hand is still jerking him off, spit-slick and perfectly tight.
Jon laughs quietly and says, "We'll get to that," and then he licks a broad line all the way up the side of Spencer's cock, and, yeah. That's it.
Spencer turns his head, bites the hotel pillow, and comes louder than he ever has in his life.
When he actually has enough blood flowing back into his extremities to struggle up onto his elbows, Jon is kneeling next to him and wiping at his own chest and face with a balled-up t-shirt. It might be Spencer's.
"Well," Jon says matter-of-factly, but Spencer can see the grin that's waiting in the set of his mouth. "Aren't you a pornstar in the making."
***
They're walking back to Spencer's bus, or they were, because one second Jon is next to him, balancing on the knee-high wall that borders the parking lot, and the next he isn't.
Spencer zips up his jacket a little higher, turns on his flashlight, and slowly steps up to peer over the wall.
"Whoops," Jon says happily from his new place on the ground. "Spencer, look, I fell down!"
"You sure did," Spencer says and tries to assess whether Jon can make it back without assistance, or whether he's going to have to get his jeans dirty. He'd really prefer not to.
"You want to return to the side of civilization?" he asks Jon, who seems more interested in sweeping his arms up and down, making grass angels or something. "Jon?"
"Come lie with me, Spence," Jon says loudly and waves one hand in Spencer's general direction. His palm glows white in the flashlight beam. "It's soft here, see? It's flowers. I'm literally lying in a bed of flowers." His tongue goes an extra round on every single 'l' in that sentence.
Jon's bed of flowers doesn't seem to be much more than a few bedraggled daisies, and Spencer has obviously lost his mind, because he actually pockets the lamp and climbs over the wall.
"I'm gonna have to do laundry now," he complains, but he stretches out next to Jon anyway, rolling his neck to escape some ticklish blades of grass.
Jon hums in response and takes Spencer's hand, pulls it over until he can rest it on his chest. "Spencer. Spencer. Spencer Smith. Your name is fun to say."
"You're so drunk," Spencer says, almost awed. "So drunk."
"I am," Jon says, wrinkling his nose. "Sorry."
"It's okay," Spencer says softly, rolling onto his side and pillowing his head on one folded arm.
They're still and silent in the darkness for a while. Somewhere beyond, in the tall grass, cicadas chirp. Spencer supposes he could talk to Jon, about how practice as a band has gone right past miserable and straight into awful, but he doesn't want to. Not now. He can do it tomorrow. Right now, Spencer wants to listen to the cicadas.
"Hey," Jon whispers. He's just a patchwork of shadows in the night, but his chest rises and falls, warm and steady under Spencer's palm. "Hey, can I tell you a secret?"
"What?" Spencer whispers back. His heart is in his throat all of a sudden.
Jon shifts and rustles through the grass when he turns on his side as well. Spencer can see him a little better now, the soft curve of his mouth, big dark eyes. Jon holds on to Spencer's hand and tells him, hushed, "I'm kind of in love with you."
Spencer kisses him with a stray daisy between their mouths.
***
The last show is in Chicago. Everyone on the other bus gets incredibly excited about it.
"Home game!" Tom hollers, waving his fist around in front of Spencer's face before he takes off across the empty lot in a spirited run.
Spencer blinks. "Wow," he says and keeps playing with the frayed hem of Jon's jeans absently. "We weren't this obnoxious when we played Vegas, right?"
"It's a Chicago thing," Jon says mildly. "You wouldn't understand." He plucks the strings of Brent's bass again, testing. The low, melodious throb makes the little bit of air between them sing. Spencer leans his head back and shades his eyes against the afternoon sun. Jon's thigh makes the best pillow, tight muscle and worn denim. The fabric always smells like grass.
"Here you go," Jon says and hands the guitar back over Spencer's head. "Should be just fine now."
"Thanks, man," Brent mutters, ducking under the strap. "I can never get the D string right."
Jon grins and shrugs. "Hey, it's just one more. No problem." His right hand slides into Spencer's hair, lifting up strands and dropping them where they don't belong. "Are you excited to get back to Vegas?"
"Yeah," Brent says immediately. "I can't wait. My girlfriend's gonna meet us at the airport."
Spencer scrunches up his face. "Not really," he says. Jon's fingers still, then slip down to stroke the side of his neck lightly. Spencer clears his throat. "But, you know. I'll have clean laundry again. And see my dogs." And hug his mom as tight as he can, and hear his dad laugh about the comics in the newspaper, and pick his sisters up from school. Those are the parts that actually make the thought of going back home okay.
"We should go," Brent tells him, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, fingers idly dragging over the newly tuned bass strings. "Soundcheck."
Spencer sighs and levies himself into a standing position with a hand on Jon's knee. "Yeah. We should."
***
"Are you going to tell your mother about me?" Jon asks conversationally, pressing into Spencer inch by inch, harsh gasps mingling somewhere in the space between them. Spencer pulls his legs back and tries to breathe, tries to think with Jon touching him everywhere, inside and out. He's burning up, sweat damp and ticklish on his back and his neck and his face.
"I don't know anything I could tell her," Spencer pants, digging his heel into the back of Jon's thigh. The stretch and burn is still there every time he shifts, but it's fading, replaced by something that makes Spencer angle up his hips and bite at Jon's jaw, trying to get him to go faster, harder. "I don't even know your middle na..."
"Spencer," Jon whispers, fingers clenching around Spencer's wrists where he's holding them pinned against the mattress above his head. Spencer can see the muscles in his shoulder shake. "Do you think we could maybe talk later?"
He shoves into him hard enough to make the headboard thump against the wall, and Spencer moans and arches and forgets what he was going to say.
***
Their ride to the airport leaves at a time of morning that is actually kind of offensive. Spencer clutches his coffee and makes absolutely no effort to set his face into anything resembling a friendly expression. He's so tired he feels like he got run over by a truck, his ass is sore, and he's about to put fifteen-hundred miles between himself and Jon. The last one hurts the worst.
The only one who seems even vaguely alive is Brent, undoubtedly ecstatic to finally be done with two months of tour he never really enjoyed. Right then, in a dreary Chicago parking lot that smells like rain and car exhaust, Spencer hates him a little.
He jumps when Jon steps up next to him and gently bumps Spencer's shoulder with his own.
"Looks like you should get in the car," he says, squinting in the early light.
Spencer takes a last mouthful and drops the half-empty cup into a trashcan. "Yeah," he says blankly, fiddling with the ends of his sleeves. He doesn't know how to do this. He also doesn't know how he's supposed to wake up alone and go about his day tomorrow, and the day after that, and all the days after that for the next month. Eight weeks of Jon have been enough to make him forget how that works.
"Bye, Jon Walker!" Brendon shouts over to them, hanging out the back window of their cab. Brent and Ryan pause by the open doors to each give an awkward wave. Jon waves back and smiles, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes.
"They'll leave without you," he says and hunches his shoulders. "Seriously, as much as I'm in favor of just keeping you here, I think you should get going."
Spencer watches Ryan quirk his mouth at him before he gets in the car. He looks kind of sad. Spencer suddenly wishes they were on the plane already, where he could hide his face in the shoulder of Ryan's hoodie and not be expected to say or do anything until they set down at McCarran.
Jon pulls him into a hug that smells like sleep and toothpaste. "My middle name is Jacob," he says quietly. "I'll be twenty-one in September. I hate baby carrots, but I really like snow peas, and I can't do that tongue rolling thing. I give amazing footrubs, amazing, Spencer. I have a cat named Dylan, who loves me, and you should come back and meet him." He kisses the curve of Spencer's ear with warm lips and whispers, "I'll let you sleep in my bed."
Spencer presses his face into Jon's neck for three deep breaths before he carefully frees himself. Jon steps back with another half-smile and adjusts the strap of Spencer's laptop bag on his shoulder. "Have a good flight," he says.
Spencer nods. "I'll let my mom know about the baby carrots," he says.
Jon's smile this time is real. "All right," he says and kisses Spencer, warm on the chilly morning. "All right."
3.
Spencer hugs his mom as tight as he can and pretends to be embarrassed by how she cries a little. He unpacks his suitcase into a clean pile (one t-shirt and a single sock) and a dirty pile (everything else) and eats his first home-cooked meal in weeks. He takes the dogs for a walk, chases his youngest sister up the stairs to hear her shriek, and sleeps in his own bed.
The next morning, he gets up early just to sit at the kitchen table and eat waffles while his dad chuckles over the day's Snoopy comic strip. Over his second cup of coffee, he trades Spencer Arts & Leisure for the sports section. Spencer mows the lawn, helps his mom do the four loads of laundry he brought home, and plays video games it turns out he didn't really miss as much as he thought.
At a quarter to six, when the whole rest of the family is up to their elbows in dinner preparations, Brendon calls him from Ryan's house.
"Hey," he says. He's eating something crunchy too close to the receiver, static in Spencer's ear. "Do you feel like we're still on tour?"
"Yeah," Spencer says. Every time he sits down, he can feel the motions of the bus.
Brendon swallows at the other end of the line. "Heard from Brent yet?"
"Nope," Spencer says and tucks the phone against his shoulder so he can carry a stack of dishes to the table. Suck-up, his sister mouths at him. Spencer flips her off. "I don't think Brent's going to leave his house until five minutes before the next one starts."
Brendon snorts. "Right. Called Jon yet?"
Spencer sets the dishes down on the stack of placemats. "None of your fucking business."
"Spencer," his mom says sternly.
Spencer apologizes to his mom, tells Brendon to go freak himself, apologizes to his mom again, pulls his sister's (literal) pigtails, eats dinner, goes up to his room, locks the door, and calls Jon. He picks up on the third ring.
"I knew it was you," Jon says breathlessly. "You know how I knew? Because I don't know anyone else named 'Spncer'. I think I may have been slightly tipsy when I programmed in your number. Ow, watch the claws... Dylan says hi."
Four weeks turn out to be a really, really long time.
***
They meet up during the layover in Chicago.
"Hi," Spencer says, smiling so hard he thinks his face might split.
Jon looks like someone just handed him a box full of kittens. "Hi."
Ryan rolls his eyes and wanders off.
***
Britain is right where they left it, but this time there are trees in bloom. Spencer doesn't say anything out loud, but walking out of the airport and feeling at least a little bit familiar so far from home makes him smile to himself like an idiot. He hides the lower half of his face behind his passport. He thinks he even recognizes one of the bored airport people standing nearby and smoking.
"This still looks like play money," Ryan says, rifling through a small bundle of pound notes. "We're gonna have to wait, Brendon ran off to get fish and chips with Siska."
Spencer pushes the extendable grip back into his suitcase. "What, is it time for his afternoon feeding already?" he asks, and promptly gets a light slap to the ribs from Jon.
"Be nice to Brendon," he says and squints at Spencer's airport employee. "Hey, does that guy look familiar to you?"
"No," Spencer says and avenges himself by stepping on Jon's toes. "You're imagining things. You're a crazy person."
Ryan rolls his eyes again. Spencer has no idea at what.
***
Cockpit is the eighth show on this tour.
"Hey," Brendon says, sidling up to Brent while Ryan is off putting his face on and Spencer struggles with the zipper on his pants. "Did you know that it used to be called..."
"Yes," Brent says curtly. He stares fixedly at a point somewhere above Brendon's shoulder. "You already told me like three times. Do you ever get tired of hearing the sound of your own voice?"
The queasy feeling in the pit of Spencer's stomach before these shows has very little to do with stage fright.
***
By the final date in Oxford, they're not talking any more than they strictly have to. Brendon is aggressive in the way that small, hurt things tend to be, and Ryan puts on strained civility like a costume before he so much as looks in Brent's direction. Spencer has a near-constant headache that even Jon can't always get rid of. He maybe hasn't sacrificed as much as they have, hasn't paid a price quite as high as Brendon and Ryan, but this is still Spencer's band, and he can feel it crumbling. Some nights it feels like there's nothing holding them together except duct tape and memories.
"I'm eighteen years old and I probably have an ulcer already," he complains to Jon while he shuffles them out into the parking lot. Spencer's standing on top of Jon's feet, because the ground is wet and Jon dragged him off before he had any shoes on. "Seriously, I can feel it, right here."
"I'm trying not to land both our asses in a puddle right now," Jon says pleasantly. "But I'd be happy to feel it later."
"Yeah, I bet you would," Spencer mutters, holding on tighter to Jon's arms around his waist. "What are we out here for, anyway?"
Jon comes to a sudden stop and Spencer nearly loses his balance. "You know what happened in this parking lot, right?" Jon asks him, resting his chin on Spencer's shoulder.
Spencer drums his fingers against Jon's wrist, halfway to annoyed. Even a few inches from the ground, his socks aren't doing much to keep his toes warm. "No."
"Well, in a bus parked in this parking lot," Jon amends. His breath tickles Spencer's jaw. "And if you say 'no' again I'll leave you here, just so you know."
"Oh my God," Spencer says, hushed. "Oh my God, you total sap." He turns his head until he can see Jon's ear, his right eye, some of his cheek and forehead. He's beaming, completely inappropriately.
"Whatever, you remember now too!" Jon says brightly. "Say it!"
Spencer rolls his eyes, but seeing as how Jon's feet are the only thing between him and wet asphalt, he complies. "This is where we first kissed."
"Three months and six days ago. I know, because I counted them." Jon kisses his cheek. "Happy anniversary, Spence. I can't reach your mouth, or I'd ravish you right here."
Spencer can't possibly think about his future ulcer when his heart is doing backflips. "Total sap," he repeats. His neck is starting to hurt at the angle it's turned, but he would hate to have missed the way Jon's eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles.
"Maybe," he says. "But I'm a total sap who's getting laid tonight."
And Spencer can't really argue with that.
***
The part where he says goodbye to Jon again is familiar now, too, but this time there's not even a new tour scheduled. It shouldn't feel easier than Chicago, but it does. Maybe it's because, when Jon smiles and says, "I'll come out to Vegas, and I'll take you back with me and introduce you to Dylan," Spencer believes him.
"All right," he says, mostly evenly, and fixes the neck of Jon's t-shirt where his bag strap has pulled it askew. "Don't turn off your phone, Jon Walker. I might find myself naked and alone and decide to call you."
Jon smiles into Spencer's mouth. "I'll keep it connected to my charger at all times."
Of course, two weeks later, it turns out they won't need any visits.
***
Brent isn't there.
Brent isn't there, and Brent isn't picking up his phone, and Spencer leans against the wall while he dials over and over again anyway. It's shady inside; the glow from his cell paints his fingers blue.
Spencer really wishes Brent would pick up his goddamn phone.
He leaves message number three on Brent's voicemail ("It's ten now, call me back.") and closes his eyes, tries to breathe against the vague nausea. He's not sick because he's worried about the show. Ryan's sick because he's worried about the show. Spencer doesn't care. They'll get someone to fill in, or they'll cancel because of some bullshit reason they can make up. Spencer's sick because Brent isn't here, and Brent isn't picking up his phone, and none of them are idiots. They all know what it means.
"Hey," Brendon says. He must have snuck up on Spencer from behind or something. He looks very young and very pale. "Do you think," Brendon says and clears his throat, nervously bites the edge of his thumbnail, "do you think something happened to him?"
Spencer blinks up at the ceiling for several long moments. "No," he finally says.
"Right," Brendon says, and then, "fuck, Spencer."
Yeah, pretty much.
***
Forty-two minutes later, Spencer calls Jon from what's basically an equipment closet, tight quarters made even tighter by Ryan and Brendon hanging off his shoulders.
Three minutes after that, Jon hangs up on him mid-"Bye" to run for his car keys and guitar.
No plane is delayed, and no cab breaks down, and Jon plays the concert with them. He's so obviously not a part of this band, dirty sneakers and frayed jeans, but he fumbles hardly any notes and even sings back-up once or twice.
It's a good show.
***
They call Brent the next day, Ryan and Brendon there on speakerphone, but silent the whole time.
("Did you think that was fair?" people will ask him later, and Spencer will shrug. It seems kind of weird to get upset over who's the one speaking when what he says is, You can't be in this band anymore, to a guy he's known since junior high.)
Brent doesn't tell them he's sorry. Spencer doesn't tell him it's nothing personal. There's really no need to add insult to injury by lying to each other.
After, they look at Spencer's cell on the ugly hotel comforter like it might be able to offer any answers or explanations or easy ways out.
"Sometimes," Ryan says very blandly, "sometimes, things just..."
Spencer walks out on them.
"How long can you stay?" is the first thing he says when Jon opens the door to his room, barefoot and with rumpled hair. Spencer's fingers itch to touch; he stuffs them into his pockets roughly.
"As long as you need me to," Jon says, and the "you" may be plural but his smile is just for Spencer.
Relief slams into him hard and fast, and Spencer's shoulders slump at the same time that Jon's fingers slide into his belt loops, so effortlessly.
"Come in," Jon whispers against his cheek, and Spencer does.
4.
Spencer never liked changes. They throw everything out of balance, or at least they usually do. Apparently, that law doesn't apply to Jon Walker kind-of-maybe joining your band.
There's no awkward transition period, no rough edges. Jon clicks into place so effortlessly, like he's played with them a dozen times before. He laughs at all of Brendon's jokes and even makes Ryan smile once or twice. He puts on the pants and the shirt willingly enough, but draws the line at sparkly patterns on his cheek, not that Spencer can blame him.
The festival in Maryland is two weeks later. Spencer looks up in the middle of Lying and is still half-surprised to see Jon, who's bobbing along to a rhythm that may actually be a song but most definitely not one of theirs, and remembers a Burger King in Southampton, four months (forever) ago.
Sometimes things just happen, Spencer thinks, blinking sweat out of his eyes, and crashes his cymbals as hard as he can.
*cough*
Written for my darling adellyna in a holiday-exchange type thing! Many thanks go to airgiodslv, for as wonderful a beta as always. Title from Sarah Bettens' "Follow Me".
But You Could (Follow Me)
8,495 words. Jon/Spencer. NC-17. Oh so very fake.
1.
Spencer doesn't actually remember the very first time he sees Jon Walker. Probably it's backstage after a show, dripping sweat and buzzing with adrenaline; probably Jon's the one who hands him a bottle of water Spencer takes with a "Thanks" and without so much as a sideways glance.
Probably it's from the steps of their bus, looking across a parking lot flooded with sunshine; probably Jon is one of the guys playing basketball around a trash can, cheerful yelling and insults half-drowned by laughter drifting over to where Spencer sits.
Maybe it's both. Maybe it's neither. Spencer can't be sure, which is maybe part of the problem.
***
Spencer knows things. He's made it his job to. He's in a band with Ryan, who forgets to eat every other meal, with Brendon, who loses anything they don't superglue into his pockets. Spencer knows the address to their venue, he knows what time sound check is, he knows the cell phone number of that guy, you know the guy, Spence? Spencer owns two different calendars and a notebook, and five color pens. Spencer is on top of things.
So when he looks up one day and there's a guy there, a smiling, normal-looking guy in a threadbare t-shirt who says, "Hey, did you know you have a really big stain on your shirt?" and Spencer takes one look at his eyes and his stomach jumps to somewhere between his shoulder blades...
He's a little thrown, is all.
***
"I think his name is Jon," Brent says as the door slams shut behind them and Spencer sucks the first clean breath in hours down his scratchy throat. "He's a tech or something."
Spencer lets out the air in his lungs, too quickly, coughs into his sleeve that smells like cigarette smoke and Jäger, a little, from when Tom spilled on him.
"Who?" he says once he's caught his breath. Brent's face looks weird and alien in the dirty light from the streetlamp overhead, but his expression is unmistakably unimpressed.
"I don't know, dude," he says and starts walking towards their own bus, a black lump in the darkness. "Maybe the guy you were staring at all night?"
Spencer jogs to catch up with Brent, frost crunching under his feet. The ground sparkles like a diamond carpet as far as the artificial light can reach. It's impressive what a little bit of frozen water will do, shabby parking lot dressed up in white and glitter like an ice princess.
"Hang on, I've got a flashlight," he mutters and digs through the pocket on his hoodie. His cheeks feel warm even in the freezing cold outside.
Brent laughs. "It's like ninety feet, Spencer, come on," but he stops until Spencer has turned on the light and is waving it around to make sure there aren't any, like, fallen trash cans or holes in the pavement in their path. The last thing they need is for one of them to break a fucking ankle.
They walk in silence, breaking it only for the occasional hiss when a stray gust of wind blows right through their jackets. The bus steps are slippery; Spencer climbs them slowly, Brent behind him urging, "Come on, man, I'm freezing," in a low voice.
His hand on the door handle, Spencer turns around and asks, "Jon?"
He can't see Brent's face, but there's a brief flash of white, obvious amusement. "Yeah."
Spencer opens the door, quiet, quiet, trying not to wake the other two, and silently echoes, "Yeah."
He tests it out later, alone in his bunk, with Brendon and his cold snoring up a storm across the aisle. His lips move soundlessly in the dark.
Jon.
***
England is… kind of mind-blowing, actually. England is dirty snow and sleet at this time of year, people driving on the wrong side of the road and red London buses. Ryan hoards Peach Volvic at the foot of his bunk, and the money takes them ages to sort out at the register, until they just give up and hand their wallets over to a gum-snapping shop assistant who calls them love.
They have fish and chips on their second day ("Oh, wow," Ryan says, "wow, yeah, no." Brendon ends up eating everyone's) and Brent makes them go for High Tea in Newcastle. Spencer sits in a plushy chair and accidentally spills tea on himself while he watches Brendon eat a cucumber sandwich, and his skin tingles with the urge to pinch himself to make sure this is really happening.
***
Their first show is in Leeds, at a place called Cockpit.
"Did you know," Brendon says dramatically, while he twists his neck to make a better pillow of Spencer's thigh and Spencer pretends to be annoyed by it, "that it used to be called 'Cock of the North'?"
Spencer swings his heels forth and back, appreciating the hollow sound they make against the equipment box. "I didn't," he says and digs his fingers in just below Brendon's ribs, just to see him squeak in protest and bat at his hand.
They stumble off-stage seven hours later, drenched in sweat and bodies still thrumming with the beat. Spencer's vision is grainy like bad reception; he slumps against the wall, plaster shockingly cool against his sore shoulders, and tries to breathe it away with lungs that feel a size too small.
Brent catches his eye across the room. He's still wearing his bass, and he looks young and scared and so fucking exhilarated. He smiles, as blinding as the spotlights they just left behind, and Spencer smiles back until his cheeks hurt.
***
They're back on the Academy's bus the next night, when it's technically Spencer's turn to stay with Brendon and make sure he doesn't die or anything.
"You go," Brent had said casually, pushing past Spencer on his way to the refrigerator. "I need to call my mom, anyway."
Spencer's fairly sure it had been a lie, but Ryan hadn't said anything, and Brendon had been half-asleep, and Spencer... well. Spencer hadn't been about to turn it down.
"Thanks," he'd said, very nonchalant, even though it's entirely possible he'd ruined his own cover by taking half an hour to choose a shirt.
It turns out he needn't have gone to any trouble, because when they get over there everyone's more or less half-naked in the middle of a spirited game of, "Strip Uno," William says and grandly pats the floor next to him. "Ryan Rossy, come sit with me!"
Spencer squeezes into a tiny spot between Tom and the Butcher, all pressed up against the leather bench. "You know the rules?" Tom asks, eyes bright with laughter. His breath smells like the strawberry stuff William kept trying to put into Spencer's hand last night.
"I guess," Spencer says and shifts on the carpet a little. It's really fucking hot in here, and there's no sign of his guy - Jon - who Spencer supposes isn't really his guy so much as he is a guy, and one who made a disparaging comment about Spencer's wardrobe, no less.
He blinks at Tom. "Wait, what game is this?"
Tom laughs, but his hand is warm and steady on Spencer's back when he tells him they'll play as a team.
Spencer isn't really sure how long they've been at it (Tom's lost his shirt and one sock), but he's just starting to relax when there's a sudden rush of icy air and something warm and heavy plasters itself all over his right side.
"Close the door, Jon Walker!" William demands, shivering theatrically, and even though the chill is creeping up Spencer's back, he suddenly feels hot all over.
"Real Chicago men don't get cold," Jon says right by his ear, and yeah, Spencer recognizes his voice. As ridiculous as that is, it makes his toes curl. "But I'll make an exception if I can borrow Spencer here for a minute."
The lounge erupts into cheers, and blood rushes to Spencer's head like it hasn't since he was in middle school and embarrassed about everything from his backpack to the sound of his own voice. He catches Ryan's eye, not sure what the hell he's supposed to do, but Ryan just looks surprised and shrugs. That's a big help.
Spencer clenches his teeth and pulls himself up by the edge of the table above him. It feels like it takes his legs an unusually long time to unfold. "Okay," he says, as evenly as he can, and he studiously does not look at Jon while he climbs over people's feet to get into the bunk area. He's a little sweaty and a little wired, blood humming in his ears, but he can still hear the laughter and catcalls behind his back.
The door to the lounge slides shut, and it's like someone's disconnected a pair of speakers; everything is reduced to tinny echoes, William's voice so muffled the words are impossible to make out.
Spencer leans against the row of bunks, not quite comfortable. His own breathing sounds unnaturally loud. "So," he says, and rubs damp palms over his thighs.
"So," Jon agrees pleasantly, but his hands aren't entirely steady when he rests them against the mattress to both sides of Spencer's head. He clears his throat and says, "You know I took a picture of you the other day?"
Spencer stills in surprise. "When?"
"On Saturday, in Newcastle," Jon says. He has brown eyes, and a nose that's slightly crooked, and a tiny lisp. "Before I came over? When you were sitting outside. You were writing in a notebook or something and chewing on your pen."
"Ah," Spencer says intelligently. He really can't think of anything else.
Jon's eyes widen slightly. "Not, like," he says and shifts from foot to foot, "not in a creepy way or anything, I wasn't... I don't have a shrine or whatever, I didn't take you in here to, like, cut off all your hair and make a pillow out of it."
Spencer stares at the way Jon bites his lip. "Well, that's good, I guess," he says.
Jon nods and says decisively, "You know what, I should just stop talking," and then suddenly Spencer gets a very good look at his eyes, pupils blown in the half-light, and then...
Jon's mouth is dry and soft, and he pulls Spencer's bottom lip between both of his, sucks a little, patiently waiting until Spencer opens up. He can't not; his body takes over for his brain at the first light touch of Jon's tongue to his lips.
Spencer's never made out with anyone like this, and it's - it's someone's tongue, in his mouth, and it takes up more space than he expected, somehow. Through the haze in his brain, he's distantly aware he should be careful with his teeth.
It takes a few seconds to get used to, the wet heat and second-hand taste of beer, but Spencer doesn't mind. There's a sweet pull low in his belly, and he shifts closer because he has to, presses up against Jon who's so warm and so solid. Jon swallows, and Spencer can feel his throat working under his hand; his stomach jumps a little, not in a bad way.
"Um," Jon finally whispers hoarsely, words brushing against Spencer's lips. Spencer's mouth feels chilled and kind of naked, and he barely resists the urge to cover it with his hand. "I hate to ask, but is that…"
"Yeah," Spencer mutters, "yeah, no, that's, I have a flashlight in my pocket." His ears are going to burst into flames any second now.
Jon smiles, wide and bright, so close that it's all Spencer can see for a moment. "Okay," he says and presses his thumb to Spencer's lower lip. Spencer closes his teeth around it, carefully, pulse thumping hard in his neck. Jon's eyes flutter shut.
Something heavy hits the door from the other side, and they jump guiltily even though there really isn't very far to go in the narrow aisle between bunks.
"Jonny, let me in," William howls through the wood. "Let me in, they're trying to kill me!"
Jon rubs the back of his neck, looking sheepish. "I better," he says and gestures toward the door, "you know," and Spencer nods quickly.
"Yeah, all right."
"But you'll be back?" Jon asks, one hand raised to the button. "I mean, tomorrow?"
Spencer can't help the smile, it just kind of explodes all over his face. "Yes," he says, and even though his heart is still pounding he does exactly what he wants to do, which is fist his hand in the front of Jon's shirt and lean in for a final kiss. "Definitely."
***
After Oxford comes Leicester, and after Leicester comes Bristol, and wherever Spencer goes, Jon is already there. He's crossing the street to get to his bus, or standing in line waiting to buy himself a coffee; Spencer can't seem to go anywhere these days without running into Jon Walker.
It's a problem.
Spencer finally snaps in Southampton, when he's running twenty minutes behind schedule an hour after he woke up. It's Jon's fault. He can't just be sitting places and tuning guitars with his big, careful hands, t-shirt riding up in the back and flip-flops dangling off his feet precariously.
"That's kind of my job, though," Jon points out and takes his sweet time putting a hickey behind Spencer's ear. "You know, sitting places, tuning guitars. I'm the hired help."
"Yeah, well," Spencer says breathlessly. "Stop doing that. I have places to be, I have a schedule." He's half-hard just from the way Jon's leg presses between his, thigh rocking up every so often.
Jon raises his head to grin at him, clever fingers rubbing the bruise he just left. "Is it color-coded?"
Spencer raises his chin, doing his level best to look threatening when Jon's weight has him pinned against the wall. "Yeah. So what?"
"Nothing," Jon says quickly. He tilts his head and reconsiders, hips shifting forward until Spencer has to close his eyes and swallow a moan, and adds, "That's pretty hot, actually."
It's a problem, but fuck if Spencer can bring himself to care.
***
"I don't even know him," Spencer says and glares at Brendon across the table.
Brendon shrugs and steals five more fries. "He's a hot guy who wants to make out with you a lot," he says, mouth full. "How much do you need to know?"
Spencer angles his tray so that Brendon can't reach it anymore. "Oh, I don't know, his last name," he says bitingly. "That would be nice."
"You know his last name," Ryan points out, taking a dainty sip from his coke. "Siska told you."
"Exactly!" Spencer says. "He didn't even tell me himself. He can't just... accost me every chance he gets and then not even give me that kind of information. That's not how it works."
Brent raises his head from where it's been pillowed on his arms on the table for the last couple of minutes, blinking tired eyes up at Spencer. "Are you still freaking out because you didn't have him put down in your calendar or whatever? 'Saturday, 4 p.m., go stupid over tech guy'?"
Spencer stares at him for ten whole seconds before throwing his balled-up napkin and landing a square hit on Brent's forehead. "No," he snaps.
"You can't plan your life in advance, Spencer," Brendon says sagely and adjusts his glasses.
Spencer takes Ryan's napkin to throw at him. "That's fantastic," he says. "Psychoanalysis by Brent Wilson, life help by Brendon Urie, maybe Ryan can predict my future next?"
Brent snorts and drops his head back down. "Seriously, Spencer," he says, muffled into his wrist. "Sometimes things just happen."
***
Spencer's never been nervous on stage. He just doesn't see the point. He's in the back, behind his kit, and he has his sticks and knows how to use them. It takes three songs maximum for the burn in his shoulders to start, the one that gets less and less the harder he crashes his cymbals. Five songs in, his shirt is clinging to his back and his hair is sticking to his forehead, and Spencer feels hot and cold and electric and alive. He looks out over the crowd, the rolling, surging sea of bodies keeping time with Brendon's words, and even though it's hard to breathe, he doesn't want to be anywhere else, ever.
So, really, the being on stage isn't the problem. It's the five minutes before they go on that have him scrambling around the dressing room, fumbling with the eyeliner and tripping over his own shoes. He doesn't understand how Brendon can have the only quiet moments of his entire day right now. If Spencer weren't keeping busy with clothes and make-up, he'd have some kind of hysterical breakdown possibly involving the murder of people who drink Capri Suns and then explode the empty packet.
"I can't tell if these are right or not," Ryan mutters, staring at his own reflection critically. "Spencer, what do you -"
"Don't talk to Spencer right now," Brent interrupts. "He's trying not to throw up, remember?"
Spencer flips him off with numb hands and tries to button his shirt correctly for the second time. Brendon laughs over in his corner, and he can go fuck himself too. They can all go fuck themselves, and Spencer is going to scream if this fucking button doesn't start cooperating soon.
"Hey," Jon says from the door. He's leaning inside the door frame, but takes a laughing step back into the hallway when Brendon launches himself at him.
"Jon Walker!" Brendon shouts triumphantly, half climbing him like a tree, and then, "Spencer, your boyfriend is here!"
Murder. With his bare hands.
"Don't talk to me," Spencer says. "I'm sorry, I'm not fit for conversation right now. We can talk after?" He fumbles the button for the third time in a row.
Jon untangles himself from five-odd feet of Urie and ambles over to Spencer, hands in his pockets. "I didn't really come to talk," he says with a grin, leaning in until Spencer can almost feel his lips move around the words. "Just wanted to wish you luck and all that."
He presses a quick, chaste kiss to the corner of Spencer's mouth, then straightens and bats Spencer's hands away from his shirt. "Come on, let a professional handle that."
"You're so useful, Jon Walker," Brendon comments from his reclaimed spot on the make-up counter. "We should keep you around."
Spencer closes his eyes and tries to relax with the feather-light brush of Jon's hands against his belly and Ryan's voice somewhere over his shoulder asking, "Jon, do you think my birds are crooked?"
***
It's two-seventeen, the night before a transatlantic flight after more than a week on the road, and even though he should be passed out face-down in the mattress, Spencer is thoroughly, infuriatingly awake.
He pushes up onto his elbows with an annoyed groan, flips his pillows, flips the comforter. His back is cold but his feet are sweaty, and Ryan, the bastard, is sound asleep. Spencer stares at the red digits of his hotel alarm clock without blinking, until his eyes sting and the numbers are blurred unrecognizable.
He gives up after a few more minutes and rolls out from between his rumpled sheets. The carpet is hard and prickly under his bare feet, and between the desk chair and the nightstand and their luggage, Spencer stubs his toe exactly three times on his way out. He curses loudly on the third one, but Ryan only makes a snuffling noise and turns over in his bed. The door closes without a creak.
There's a tiny sitting room at this end of the building, more like a nook off the hallway. The window is kind of smeared and dusty, but it's cracked open and lets in a small breeze. Spencer presses up against the cold wallpaper until he can angle his face half-outside, edge of the windowsill digging into his hip. The sky is overcast, and all the city lights paint the bottom of the clouds a dull, dirty orange. It's raining a little bit, rustling faintly in the trees.
He stays like this, breathing deep and easy, half-dozing until a loud crash behind him startles him wide-awake again. Spencer turns too quickly and nearly hits his own head on the window.
"Sorry," Jon says sheepishly, bent in half and rubbing his shin. "That table just snuck up on me out of nowhere." He looks sleepy and crumpled, but something inside Spencer's chest gives a stupid little flutter anyway.
"Everything okay?" he asks. "Or should we just amputate?"
Jon looks up and grins, straightens with a wince. "I think," he says, hobbling over to an old wreck of a couch in the corner, "that you should come over here and investigate, Spencer Smith."
Space is cramped enough that Spencer only has to lean a little ways to take Jon's outstretched hand. He doesn't resist being pulled until he's straddling Jon's lap, corduroy upholstery soft and sagging under his knees.
"Hey," Jon whispers and runs both hands up under Spencer's shirt, broad palms spread warmly in the small of his back. "Couldn't sleep?"
"Nope," Spencer says quietly, cheek resting at Jon's temple. He can feel every breath Jon takes in the tiny movements of his body against Spencer's.
Jon hums his agreement. "Me neither," he says, soft like a secret. "We're going back home, Spence."
It doesn't really follow up to anything, or maybe it does. Spencer ducks his head and kisses the side of Jon's forehead, half into his hair. He smells like warm pillows and shampoo. "I know," Spencer says.
Somewhere in the press of his lips is that nervous feeling Spencer can't shake, like maybe they're going to set down tomorrow on the other side of the Atlantic and things will be different. Like they're going to cross some invisible, imaginary line and Jon will no longer be with him, like this. It's a ridiculous thought, but it still makes his stomach hurt.
"Where's the first show?" Jon mutters, breath stirring against Spencer's throat.
"Grand Rapids," Spencer answers without thinking. "Michigan."
"I hear they have a zoo," Jon says evenly. "We should go. Make out by the lion pen, terrify the tourists."
A car rumbles by outside, flash of headlights crawling along the wall like a searchlight before it fades and everything slips back into grey. If he just focuses a bit, Spencer can feel the steady thud of Jon's heartbeat echoing his own.
"Yeah," he says, smiling at nothing in particular. "Yeah, that sounds good."
2.
They're touring at home now, and some good things stay the same and some bad things change for the worse.
Spencer forgets to e-mail his family three days in a row because what little of his time isn't filled with band is filled with Jon now. Brent is on the phone with his girlfriend twice a day. He says things like, "I can't wait to get home," and, "Don't you sometimes wish the tour was over already?" and once, late at night in the back of a cab and not looking at Spencer, "I'm not sure I really want to do this."
Spencer just ignores that one, pretends he never heard it even though the words sink heavy into his stomach and stay there. Brent doesn't bring it up again.
They fight more, during soundchecks and after shows. They all say some things they maybe shouldn't have. They've been on the road for barely two weeks, but the strain is starting to show.
Somewhere between Providence and Norfolk, it becomes normal for Spencer to search and find Jon's hand in the gloom backstage, to slip into the Academy's bus and into Jon's bunk at night. He doesn't have to be the buffer then, constant mediator between Brent and Ryan's bitchy temper or Brent and Brendon's helplessness. Spencer's so used to it he doesn't even realize how much it drags him down, not until he's curled up somewhere with Jon's eyes and hands on him, and all of the weight suddenly falls away.
Jon kisses the tension in his shoulders gone. Spencer sleeps better than he has in weeks, caught between Jon and the wall and a pile of blankets, and he doesn't wake up in the mornings ready to take everyone's head off. He closes his eyes against the weak orange glow that filters through the privacy curtain, tucks his folded hands under Jon's chin, and dozes until ten minutes after they have to be up.
***
"William," Jon says patiently. "Bill?"
"Just one minute, Jonny Walker," Bill mutters, cheeks flushed, eyes glittering, fiercely concentrated on his cards. "One... more..."
Jon clears his throat. "Well, it's just that it's been five minutes now," he points out and curls his hand over Spencer's ankle, thumb circling around the bone. Spencer wriggles down to be a little more comfortable against the window and lowers his magazine. Watching William play cards is a lot like watching a cat stalk a rubber mouse. He appears convinced that there's a strategy to every game that's just waiting to be figured out. It might be why he always loses.
"Seriously, guys," the Butcher says from across the table where he's slumped on the bench, hood of his sweater pulled down low over his forehead. "Just wake me when it's time."
"You're all Philistines," William says pleasantly. "These things take time. There are ramifications to be considered, boys."
Jon groans and drops his head back. Spencer pinches his nose. Jon sneezes on him. "Oh my God," Spencer complains and snatches his hand away, rubs it furiously on Jon's t-shirt. "You're so disgusting, I'm breaking up with you right now."
"But who will give you backrubs then?" Jon asks, all wide-eyed innocence. "I know all of your tense spots, Spence. I'm the master."
"I'll get over it," Spencer says firmly and wiggles his ankle in Jon's slack grasp. "But this was nice, go back to doing that."
***
In a hotel room in Tempe, the bedside lamp is flickering and the polyester bedspread slick beneath Spencer's thighs.
"Hey, let's get rid of that," Jon mutters, and pulls. Spencer lifts up as much as he can, legs and hips, until Jon has tugged the spread free and is shoving it off the bed haphazardly with both hands. He has to stretch a little to do it and Spencer watches the shift of muscles all along his flank, smooth shadows rearranging themselves. It's a grey and miserable kind of dusk outside; their room feels like a golden bubble, and Jon draws the light and holds it, sparks in his hair.
The sheets smell a little sharp, like hotel detergent, but they're cool and crisp against Spencer's skin. He feels like he has too much of it right now, stretched out on his back, pressing both hands against his nervous stomach. The air-conditioning is really loud. It gives Spencer goosebumps all over his arms.
Somehow, he thought sex would be, well. Sexier.
"Hey," Jon says again and runs a steady hand down from Spencer's temple, all the way to his chin. "Are you sure? I mean," he says and wrinkles his nose at the threadbare carpet, the sterile bathroom, "this isn't exactly candles and roses."
Spencer turns his head and licks a broad stripe across Jon's palm, tasting salt and skin. "I don't give a damn about roses," he says and presses his mouth to Jon's wrist, where the pulse is fast and irregular. Jon smiles and pushes an errant strand of hair off Spencer's forehead.
"Good," he says simply, and then he scoots back on the bed and leans down and holy shit. Spencer's entire body seizes up, from his shaky knees to his tense shoulders, and he smacks his hand into the headboard kind of painfully, because Jon's mouth is on his cock, and it's so, so...
Spencer breathes hard through his nose, six, seven, eight times, until he's reasonably sure he can chance a look without immediately embarrassing himself.
It's not like getting a blowjob like this hasn't featured in, like, every fantasy Spencer's had ever, but even his pretty vivid imagination has totally failed to prepare him for what it actually looks like, how real and obscene and fucking hot Jon's lips are stretched and sliding around him. Everything south of his ribs feels too hot, skin buzzing and blood pulsing (faster, faster, faster Spencer's brain helpfully supplies, and oh God, shut up) and it takes like every last ounce of Spencer's willpower not to buck his hips and fuck Jon's mouth as hard as he can, because, oh.
He takes a blind handful of the sheets near his hip, clenching his fingers shut until he can hear the fabric stretch and crackle in his grip. His vision is going spotty, and distantly he can feel Jon pull off him (no) and even more distantly hear him say, "Breathe, Spencer, come on," sounding amused and breathless.
"Fuck you," Spencer says, gulping air, and Jon's hand is still jerking him off, spit-slick and perfectly tight.
Jon laughs quietly and says, "We'll get to that," and then he licks a broad line all the way up the side of Spencer's cock, and, yeah. That's it.
Spencer turns his head, bites the hotel pillow, and comes louder than he ever has in his life.
When he actually has enough blood flowing back into his extremities to struggle up onto his elbows, Jon is kneeling next to him and wiping at his own chest and face with a balled-up t-shirt. It might be Spencer's.
"Well," Jon says matter-of-factly, but Spencer can see the grin that's waiting in the set of his mouth. "Aren't you a pornstar in the making."
***
They're walking back to Spencer's bus, or they were, because one second Jon is next to him, balancing on the knee-high wall that borders the parking lot, and the next he isn't.
Spencer zips up his jacket a little higher, turns on his flashlight, and slowly steps up to peer over the wall.
"Whoops," Jon says happily from his new place on the ground. "Spencer, look, I fell down!"
"You sure did," Spencer says and tries to assess whether Jon can make it back without assistance, or whether he's going to have to get his jeans dirty. He'd really prefer not to.
"You want to return to the side of civilization?" he asks Jon, who seems more interested in sweeping his arms up and down, making grass angels or something. "Jon?"
"Come lie with me, Spence," Jon says loudly and waves one hand in Spencer's general direction. His palm glows white in the flashlight beam. "It's soft here, see? It's flowers. I'm literally lying in a bed of flowers." His tongue goes an extra round on every single 'l' in that sentence.
Jon's bed of flowers doesn't seem to be much more than a few bedraggled daisies, and Spencer has obviously lost his mind, because he actually pockets the lamp and climbs over the wall.
"I'm gonna have to do laundry now," he complains, but he stretches out next to Jon anyway, rolling his neck to escape some ticklish blades of grass.
Jon hums in response and takes Spencer's hand, pulls it over until he can rest it on his chest. "Spencer. Spencer. Spencer Smith. Your name is fun to say."
"You're so drunk," Spencer says, almost awed. "So drunk."
"I am," Jon says, wrinkling his nose. "Sorry."
"It's okay," Spencer says softly, rolling onto his side and pillowing his head on one folded arm.
They're still and silent in the darkness for a while. Somewhere beyond, in the tall grass, cicadas chirp. Spencer supposes he could talk to Jon, about how practice as a band has gone right past miserable and straight into awful, but he doesn't want to. Not now. He can do it tomorrow. Right now, Spencer wants to listen to the cicadas.
"Hey," Jon whispers. He's just a patchwork of shadows in the night, but his chest rises and falls, warm and steady under Spencer's palm. "Hey, can I tell you a secret?"
"What?" Spencer whispers back. His heart is in his throat all of a sudden.
Jon shifts and rustles through the grass when he turns on his side as well. Spencer can see him a little better now, the soft curve of his mouth, big dark eyes. Jon holds on to Spencer's hand and tells him, hushed, "I'm kind of in love with you."
Spencer kisses him with a stray daisy between their mouths.
***
The last show is in Chicago. Everyone on the other bus gets incredibly excited about it.
"Home game!" Tom hollers, waving his fist around in front of Spencer's face before he takes off across the empty lot in a spirited run.
Spencer blinks. "Wow," he says and keeps playing with the frayed hem of Jon's jeans absently. "We weren't this obnoxious when we played Vegas, right?"
"It's a Chicago thing," Jon says mildly. "You wouldn't understand." He plucks the strings of Brent's bass again, testing. The low, melodious throb makes the little bit of air between them sing. Spencer leans his head back and shades his eyes against the afternoon sun. Jon's thigh makes the best pillow, tight muscle and worn denim. The fabric always smells like grass.
"Here you go," Jon says and hands the guitar back over Spencer's head. "Should be just fine now."
"Thanks, man," Brent mutters, ducking under the strap. "I can never get the D string right."
Jon grins and shrugs. "Hey, it's just one more. No problem." His right hand slides into Spencer's hair, lifting up strands and dropping them where they don't belong. "Are you excited to get back to Vegas?"
"Yeah," Brent says immediately. "I can't wait. My girlfriend's gonna meet us at the airport."
Spencer scrunches up his face. "Not really," he says. Jon's fingers still, then slip down to stroke the side of his neck lightly. Spencer clears his throat. "But, you know. I'll have clean laundry again. And see my dogs." And hug his mom as tight as he can, and hear his dad laugh about the comics in the newspaper, and pick his sisters up from school. Those are the parts that actually make the thought of going back home okay.
"We should go," Brent tells him, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, fingers idly dragging over the newly tuned bass strings. "Soundcheck."
Spencer sighs and levies himself into a standing position with a hand on Jon's knee. "Yeah. We should."
***
"Are you going to tell your mother about me?" Jon asks conversationally, pressing into Spencer inch by inch, harsh gasps mingling somewhere in the space between them. Spencer pulls his legs back and tries to breathe, tries to think with Jon touching him everywhere, inside and out. He's burning up, sweat damp and ticklish on his back and his neck and his face.
"I don't know anything I could tell her," Spencer pants, digging his heel into the back of Jon's thigh. The stretch and burn is still there every time he shifts, but it's fading, replaced by something that makes Spencer angle up his hips and bite at Jon's jaw, trying to get him to go faster, harder. "I don't even know your middle na..."
"Spencer," Jon whispers, fingers clenching around Spencer's wrists where he's holding them pinned against the mattress above his head. Spencer can see the muscles in his shoulder shake. "Do you think we could maybe talk later?"
He shoves into him hard enough to make the headboard thump against the wall, and Spencer moans and arches and forgets what he was going to say.
***
Their ride to the airport leaves at a time of morning that is actually kind of offensive. Spencer clutches his coffee and makes absolutely no effort to set his face into anything resembling a friendly expression. He's so tired he feels like he got run over by a truck, his ass is sore, and he's about to put fifteen-hundred miles between himself and Jon. The last one hurts the worst.
The only one who seems even vaguely alive is Brent, undoubtedly ecstatic to finally be done with two months of tour he never really enjoyed. Right then, in a dreary Chicago parking lot that smells like rain and car exhaust, Spencer hates him a little.
He jumps when Jon steps up next to him and gently bumps Spencer's shoulder with his own.
"Looks like you should get in the car," he says, squinting in the early light.
Spencer takes a last mouthful and drops the half-empty cup into a trashcan. "Yeah," he says blankly, fiddling with the ends of his sleeves. He doesn't know how to do this. He also doesn't know how he's supposed to wake up alone and go about his day tomorrow, and the day after that, and all the days after that for the next month. Eight weeks of Jon have been enough to make him forget how that works.
"Bye, Jon Walker!" Brendon shouts over to them, hanging out the back window of their cab. Brent and Ryan pause by the open doors to each give an awkward wave. Jon waves back and smiles, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes.
"They'll leave without you," he says and hunches his shoulders. "Seriously, as much as I'm in favor of just keeping you here, I think you should get going."
Spencer watches Ryan quirk his mouth at him before he gets in the car. He looks kind of sad. Spencer suddenly wishes they were on the plane already, where he could hide his face in the shoulder of Ryan's hoodie and not be expected to say or do anything until they set down at McCarran.
Jon pulls him into a hug that smells like sleep and toothpaste. "My middle name is Jacob," he says quietly. "I'll be twenty-one in September. I hate baby carrots, but I really like snow peas, and I can't do that tongue rolling thing. I give amazing footrubs, amazing, Spencer. I have a cat named Dylan, who loves me, and you should come back and meet him." He kisses the curve of Spencer's ear with warm lips and whispers, "I'll let you sleep in my bed."
Spencer presses his face into Jon's neck for three deep breaths before he carefully frees himself. Jon steps back with another half-smile and adjusts the strap of Spencer's laptop bag on his shoulder. "Have a good flight," he says.
Spencer nods. "I'll let my mom know about the baby carrots," he says.
Jon's smile this time is real. "All right," he says and kisses Spencer, warm on the chilly morning. "All right."
3.
Spencer hugs his mom as tight as he can and pretends to be embarrassed by how she cries a little. He unpacks his suitcase into a clean pile (one t-shirt and a single sock) and a dirty pile (everything else) and eats his first home-cooked meal in weeks. He takes the dogs for a walk, chases his youngest sister up the stairs to hear her shriek, and sleeps in his own bed.
The next morning, he gets up early just to sit at the kitchen table and eat waffles while his dad chuckles over the day's Snoopy comic strip. Over his second cup of coffee, he trades Spencer Arts & Leisure for the sports section. Spencer mows the lawn, helps his mom do the four loads of laundry he brought home, and plays video games it turns out he didn't really miss as much as he thought.
At a quarter to six, when the whole rest of the family is up to their elbows in dinner preparations, Brendon calls him from Ryan's house.
"Hey," he says. He's eating something crunchy too close to the receiver, static in Spencer's ear. "Do you feel like we're still on tour?"
"Yeah," Spencer says. Every time he sits down, he can feel the motions of the bus.
Brendon swallows at the other end of the line. "Heard from Brent yet?"
"Nope," Spencer says and tucks the phone against his shoulder so he can carry a stack of dishes to the table. Suck-up, his sister mouths at him. Spencer flips her off. "I don't think Brent's going to leave his house until five minutes before the next one starts."
Brendon snorts. "Right. Called Jon yet?"
Spencer sets the dishes down on the stack of placemats. "None of your fucking business."
"Spencer," his mom says sternly.
Spencer apologizes to his mom, tells Brendon to go freak himself, apologizes to his mom again, pulls his sister's (literal) pigtails, eats dinner, goes up to his room, locks the door, and calls Jon. He picks up on the third ring.
"I knew it was you," Jon says breathlessly. "You know how I knew? Because I don't know anyone else named 'Spncer'. I think I may have been slightly tipsy when I programmed in your number. Ow, watch the claws... Dylan says hi."
Four weeks turn out to be a really, really long time.
***
They meet up during the layover in Chicago.
"Hi," Spencer says, smiling so hard he thinks his face might split.
Jon looks like someone just handed him a box full of kittens. "Hi."
Ryan rolls his eyes and wanders off.
***
Britain is right where they left it, but this time there are trees in bloom. Spencer doesn't say anything out loud, but walking out of the airport and feeling at least a little bit familiar so far from home makes him smile to himself like an idiot. He hides the lower half of his face behind his passport. He thinks he even recognizes one of the bored airport people standing nearby and smoking.
"This still looks like play money," Ryan says, rifling through a small bundle of pound notes. "We're gonna have to wait, Brendon ran off to get fish and chips with Siska."
Spencer pushes the extendable grip back into his suitcase. "What, is it time for his afternoon feeding already?" he asks, and promptly gets a light slap to the ribs from Jon.
"Be nice to Brendon," he says and squints at Spencer's airport employee. "Hey, does that guy look familiar to you?"
"No," Spencer says and avenges himself by stepping on Jon's toes. "You're imagining things. You're a crazy person."
Ryan rolls his eyes again. Spencer has no idea at what.
***
Cockpit is the eighth show on this tour.
"Hey," Brendon says, sidling up to Brent while Ryan is off putting his face on and Spencer struggles with the zipper on his pants. "Did you know that it used to be called..."
"Yes," Brent says curtly. He stares fixedly at a point somewhere above Brendon's shoulder. "You already told me like three times. Do you ever get tired of hearing the sound of your own voice?"
The queasy feeling in the pit of Spencer's stomach before these shows has very little to do with stage fright.
***
By the final date in Oxford, they're not talking any more than they strictly have to. Brendon is aggressive in the way that small, hurt things tend to be, and Ryan puts on strained civility like a costume before he so much as looks in Brent's direction. Spencer has a near-constant headache that even Jon can't always get rid of. He maybe hasn't sacrificed as much as they have, hasn't paid a price quite as high as Brendon and Ryan, but this is still Spencer's band, and he can feel it crumbling. Some nights it feels like there's nothing holding them together except duct tape and memories.
"I'm eighteen years old and I probably have an ulcer already," he complains to Jon while he shuffles them out into the parking lot. Spencer's standing on top of Jon's feet, because the ground is wet and Jon dragged him off before he had any shoes on. "Seriously, I can feel it, right here."
"I'm trying not to land both our asses in a puddle right now," Jon says pleasantly. "But I'd be happy to feel it later."
"Yeah, I bet you would," Spencer mutters, holding on tighter to Jon's arms around his waist. "What are we out here for, anyway?"
Jon comes to a sudden stop and Spencer nearly loses his balance. "You know what happened in this parking lot, right?" Jon asks him, resting his chin on Spencer's shoulder.
Spencer drums his fingers against Jon's wrist, halfway to annoyed. Even a few inches from the ground, his socks aren't doing much to keep his toes warm. "No."
"Well, in a bus parked in this parking lot," Jon amends. His breath tickles Spencer's jaw. "And if you say 'no' again I'll leave you here, just so you know."
"Oh my God," Spencer says, hushed. "Oh my God, you total sap." He turns his head until he can see Jon's ear, his right eye, some of his cheek and forehead. He's beaming, completely inappropriately.
"Whatever, you remember now too!" Jon says brightly. "Say it!"
Spencer rolls his eyes, but seeing as how Jon's feet are the only thing between him and wet asphalt, he complies. "This is where we first kissed."
"Three months and six days ago. I know, because I counted them." Jon kisses his cheek. "Happy anniversary, Spence. I can't reach your mouth, or I'd ravish you right here."
Spencer can't possibly think about his future ulcer when his heart is doing backflips. "Total sap," he repeats. His neck is starting to hurt at the angle it's turned, but he would hate to have missed the way Jon's eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles.
"Maybe," he says. "But I'm a total sap who's getting laid tonight."
And Spencer can't really argue with that.
***
The part where he says goodbye to Jon again is familiar now, too, but this time there's not even a new tour scheduled. It shouldn't feel easier than Chicago, but it does. Maybe it's because, when Jon smiles and says, "I'll come out to Vegas, and I'll take you back with me and introduce you to Dylan," Spencer believes him.
"All right," he says, mostly evenly, and fixes the neck of Jon's t-shirt where his bag strap has pulled it askew. "Don't turn off your phone, Jon Walker. I might find myself naked and alone and decide to call you."
Jon smiles into Spencer's mouth. "I'll keep it connected to my charger at all times."
Of course, two weeks later, it turns out they won't need any visits.
***
Brent isn't there.
Brent isn't there, and Brent isn't picking up his phone, and Spencer leans against the wall while he dials over and over again anyway. It's shady inside; the glow from his cell paints his fingers blue.
Spencer really wishes Brent would pick up his goddamn phone.
He leaves message number three on Brent's voicemail ("It's ten now, call me back.") and closes his eyes, tries to breathe against the vague nausea. He's not sick because he's worried about the show. Ryan's sick because he's worried about the show. Spencer doesn't care. They'll get someone to fill in, or they'll cancel because of some bullshit reason they can make up. Spencer's sick because Brent isn't here, and Brent isn't picking up his phone, and none of them are idiots. They all know what it means.
"Hey," Brendon says. He must have snuck up on Spencer from behind or something. He looks very young and very pale. "Do you think," Brendon says and clears his throat, nervously bites the edge of his thumbnail, "do you think something happened to him?"
Spencer blinks up at the ceiling for several long moments. "No," he finally says.
"Right," Brendon says, and then, "fuck, Spencer."
Yeah, pretty much.
***
Forty-two minutes later, Spencer calls Jon from what's basically an equipment closet, tight quarters made even tighter by Ryan and Brendon hanging off his shoulders.
Three minutes after that, Jon hangs up on him mid-"Bye" to run for his car keys and guitar.
No plane is delayed, and no cab breaks down, and Jon plays the concert with them. He's so obviously not a part of this band, dirty sneakers and frayed jeans, but he fumbles hardly any notes and even sings back-up once or twice.
It's a good show.
***
They call Brent the next day, Ryan and Brendon there on speakerphone, but silent the whole time.
("Did you think that was fair?" people will ask him later, and Spencer will shrug. It seems kind of weird to get upset over who's the one speaking when what he says is, You can't be in this band anymore, to a guy he's known since junior high.)
Brent doesn't tell them he's sorry. Spencer doesn't tell him it's nothing personal. There's really no need to add insult to injury by lying to each other.
After, they look at Spencer's cell on the ugly hotel comforter like it might be able to offer any answers or explanations or easy ways out.
"Sometimes," Ryan says very blandly, "sometimes, things just..."
Spencer walks out on them.
"How long can you stay?" is the first thing he says when Jon opens the door to his room, barefoot and with rumpled hair. Spencer's fingers itch to touch; he stuffs them into his pockets roughly.
"As long as you need me to," Jon says, and the "you" may be plural but his smile is just for Spencer.
Relief slams into him hard and fast, and Spencer's shoulders slump at the same time that Jon's fingers slide into his belt loops, so effortlessly.
"Come in," Jon whispers against his cheek, and Spencer does.
4.
Spencer never liked changes. They throw everything out of balance, or at least they usually do. Apparently, that law doesn't apply to Jon Walker kind-of-maybe joining your band.
There's no awkward transition period, no rough edges. Jon clicks into place so effortlessly, like he's played with them a dozen times before. He laughs at all of Brendon's jokes and even makes Ryan smile once or twice. He puts on the pants and the shirt willingly enough, but draws the line at sparkly patterns on his cheek, not that Spencer can blame him.
The festival in Maryland is two weeks later. Spencer looks up in the middle of Lying and is still half-surprised to see Jon, who's bobbing along to a rhythm that may actually be a song but most definitely not one of theirs, and remembers a Burger King in Southampton, four months (forever) ago.
Sometimes things just happen, Spencer thinks, blinking sweat out of his eyes, and crashes his cymbals as hard as he can.