fic: Let the Future Come into Each Moment (3/4)

[saramir]

| Part One | Part Two |

The next morning, the bus breaks down in Wisconsin, somewhere on a highway between Chicago and the Twin Cities.

Nobody's sure how long it'll take before they'll be good to go again, so Spencer steps off the bus to get some fresh air. Down the road he can see billboards advertising fireworks and cheese, one of them with a helpful giant balloon mouse to accompany the cheese. If the bus doesn't get fixed soon, he might have to convince Brendon yet again that he probably doesn't want to buy a Cheesehead hat, since he's not even a Packers fan, and it could give people the wrong impression once they finally arrive in Minnesota, a.k.a. rival territory.

Spencer idly starts to wonder when, over a decade and a half of touring, he started picking up all these local tidbits and customs and rivalries throughout the States, but his thoughts are interrupted by Brendon slumping off the bus and slouching against it, his shoulder pressed against Spencer's.

It's starting to drizzle but Brendon tries to light a cigarette anyway and starts humming the most gloomy sounding "On the Road Again" Spencer's ever heard. He leans back into Brendon's shoulder and watches the familiar motions of cigarette to lips, while Brendon squints straight ahead. Spencer follows his gaze, off into some desolate farm pasture, giant donuts of hay rolled up at odd intervals toward the horizon.

"What happened with Ryan this time?" Spencer asks, thinking about last night, about a line that Brendon had drunkenly crossed when Ryan apparently wasn't prepared for it.

The rain begins to pick up. Brendon tosses his cigarette onto the gravel on the side of the road and just continues to hum the road song.

"Brendon." Spencer makes his voice a bit more firm. Jon calls it his Papa Smith voice, like someday he'll have to discipline kids or something; Spencer finds this nickname a little creepy, to be honest.

"He's just--" Brendon tries to illustrate something with his hands that looks a little bit like bear claws and a little bit like Gabe's old Fangs Up symbol. "Nothing ever changes!"

"Sure it does." Spencer tries to ignore the rain, but starts to get distracted by thoughts of his own dry, warm bunk inside the bus.

Brendon huffs. "Not really, you know? Not here." He bangs a fist against the tin siding of the bus.

Spencer sighs, making sure it's as dramatic and put-upon as possible so that Brendon notices how much these arguments tire him. Fights between Ryan and Brendon never get solved without intervention, and Spencer is usually the one who has to intervene. When it comes to making music together, they have been known to fight for what they want and scream until their throats are too sore to sing the rest of the day, but afterward they just seethe quietly and never resolve any of their disagreements unless Spencer or Jon tell them to get over themselves.

Stubborn bastards, Spencer thinks. Near the beginning, before Brent had stopped showing up and when they were Jon-less, Ryan and Brendon once went an entire week not speaking to each other, until Spencer figured out that he needed to be the one to push them to fix things.

He was barely eighteen then. Sometimes, Spencer tries to imagine how differently the four of them would have grown up if they had done it without each other. As it is, there's a certain amount of staying the same when you're playing music for a living with your three best friends, or at least a certain amount of growing up at the same velocity.

"Come on," he says and grabs Brendon's upper arm. "We're confronting whatever this is. Right. Now."

"What the fuck, let go of me, jerkass," Brendon protests, trying to pull his arm away but letting himself be dragged back up the bus steps nonetheless. When they get to the back lounge, Brendon's still squirming in Spencer's grasp and pulling Spencer's hair with his other hand like a total loser while Spencer keeps repeating, "Asshole!" and pulling Brendon's hair in retaliation.

"The fuck?" somebody else says and finally Spencer looks up and realizes that Ryan is sitting there, as suspected, and Jon is sitting next to him. They both look somewhere between baffled and amused.

"Jon, they're still doing it," Spencer says, and then, "Ow, fucker!" to Brendon as he pulls his hair once more. Spencer lets go of him, shoving him when he does. Brendon stumbles a little as he reaches over to pull more hair, but Spencer steps away, crosses his arms, and narrows his eyes first at Brendon, then at Ryan.

Brendon stuffs his hands into his tight jean pockets and glares down at the carpet.

Ryan pointedly stares down at a book in his lap.

Spencer turns back to Jon and clarifies, "They're being passive-aggressive assholes." On that last word, his eyes dart between Ryan and Brendon.

"Oh, believe me, I've noticed," Jon says and pokes Ryan's cheek, eliciting a bizarre, squeaking sound as Ryan startles and ducks away, jumping up from the cushion and knocking his book to the floor.

This brings him face to face with Brendon which, Spencer bets, wasn't exactly what Ryan had planned.

"Guys, just scream and get it over with," Jon says with an annoyed twist to his mouth. "We all know by now that maybe we weren't really at the top of our game with that last album, but--"

"You're going to fuck up the next album, too!" Brendon shouts, right up in Ryan's face. "With these stupid fucking songs about plants, what the fuck!"

"You said you liked these 'stupid fucking songs about plants,' dickwad!" Ryan shouts back. "You've been writing them with me!"

"Yeah, well, sometimes I really fucking hate them! Like-- like when you're being a moody bastard who writes some absolutely shitty lyrics!"

"Oh, like you can write any better ones! I wouldn't be such a moody bastard if you weren't such a judgmental snob!"

"I'm the judgmental one? Are you kidding m--"

"You won't take my ideas seriously anymore!"

"Because you're not making sense! One day we're fine -- better than fine, even -- and the next day you're spouting some shit about how we need to 'reinvent ourselves' on our next record, as if that's a new concept for us or something, and I just-- I don't know what you want from me anymore, Ryan, I really d--"

"I'm terrified that we're going to break up, okay? Fucking god!" Ryan yells, and it's so loud and unexpected, it cuts them into silence.

Jon and Spencer exchange startled, worried looks.

Brendon scrunches his face up into this messy combination of hurt and frustration and bewilderment, and reaches a tentative hand out to Ryan's shoulder. Ryan lets him.

"Hey," Brendon tries, his voice far softer than before. "We're not going to-- I mean, really? Ry, no matter--"

"We are fucking stuck together," Jon says to both of them, unfolding himself from the couch to stand beside Spencer. "Right, Spence?"

Spencer nods, his throat too tight all of a sudden to say anything. He wants a joint right fucking now. He wants, like, Jon's lap to lie in and smoke up and just be. He wants something else that isn't this reminder that time is passing, that they're actually at a point in their lives where they might have lost it: that magic or creative drive or whatever that makes them them and loved and happy doing what they do.

"But," Ryan says, one arm crossed protectively over his chest and picking at the collar of his shirt, "what about the album? We--"

"--were less than awesome," Brendon says with a sneer. "Since when does that make you back down instead of fight harder?"

Ryan drops his arm and stands up taller, getting a stubborn look in his eyes.

A beat later, he's snagged Brendon's iSong from where it'd been clipped to Brendon's shirt pocket, and run through the bus and out into the rain with it.

"What the fuck, dude?" Brendon chases after him. "What are we, five? Give it, Ross!"

Spencer laughs himself out of his frantic thoughts, hurrying after Jon over to the bus steps. They stand in the doorway and watch as Ryan leads Brendon on a cartoon-like chase, the two of them running in a wide loop around a tree.

After a minute, Brendon tackles Ryan into the muddy grass. His iSong has flown a couple feet away from them, but Brendon's not bothering to reach for it, focusing completely on wrestling with Ryan. The rain's pounding down now, and they're soaked already, hair flopping around in thick wet clumps, t-shirts shimmering heavy with rainwater, and mud streaking pale skin where their shirts have scrunched up against their torsos.

Ryan tugs on Brendon's hair, cackling a little, and Spencer can see the moment the wrestling stops being a way to express their frustrations and starts being play. Their bodies are contorted in a startlingly sexual way: Ryan's legs spread, knees bent, and Brendon's body pressed lengthwise, tightly between Ryan's thighs. Brendon dips his head down, lips against Ryan's ear and says something that makes Ryan laugh, loud and long, a sound that Spencer can hear clearly back at the bus.

Jon nudges Spencer with his elbow, and when Spencer turns his head, he realizes they're both smiling, relieved and affectionate.

At another laugh from outside, they both turn to watch Brendon crouching between Ryan's legs, palms curled on each of Ryan's knees as he hoists himself up and offers a hand down to Ryan. Making a show of rolling his eyes, Ryan grabs onto Brendon's wrist and lets himself be pulled up, wavering against each other for a second as they find their footing.

From this angle, Spencer can't see Ryan's face anymore, but he certainly sees when Brendon bounces a bit on his toes and quickly kisses Ryan's cheek, before pulling away to pick up his iSong, even though the rain's probably ruined it by now.

Brendon walks back to the bus, smiling crookedly and already chattering to Jon about a song idea he just had, but Spencer keeps his eyes on Ryan: his back is straight, shoulders tensed, head tilted down.

Spencer feels Jon's arm brush his as he backs farther into the bus, feels a cold and muddy Brendon knock past him, too, but Spencer begins to step down the stairs; if he has to physically pull another one of his bandmates back into the bus, then so be it.

He pauses on the bottom step, though, when Brendon returns to punch his shoulder and say, "What are you doing, Spence? Get back in here and grab your sticks. We're playing." He then calls out over Spencer's head, "Ryan! Dude, we're all going to go write a song that sounds like rain and highways now!"

Ryan's shoulders relax, and he whirls around with a tentative smile forming on his face.

"You can write a bridge about dandelions or something," Brendon adds, his voice lilting in a hopeful, "Okay?" after a beat.

Ryan's grins for real now, rolling his eyes once again, and jogs back to the bus. Brendon has bounded into the back lounge with Jon, but Spencer waits to walk back up the bus steps with Ryan, slipping one hand against Ryan's rain-cold palm to squeeze a quick reassurance, as much for Ryan as for himself.

*

"Apologies for the delay, Minneapolis," Ryan drawls. "Our bus broke down on our way to the show, but we made it here despite those Wisconsin pitfalls. We are Wookies on Your Pillow, and--"

"And here's a song we wrote today about rain!" Brendon turns away from doing some last-moment tuning on his guitar and beams across the stage at Ryan.

Ryan grins back, not taking his eyes off Brendon as he adds, "Just for you, Minnesota."

*

That night is a hotel night.

Spencer and Ryan are resting against a wall of the lobby, shoulder to shoulder and eyes closed, while Karl gets room keys for all of them. Technically, they can afford their own individual rooms, but they always end up hanging out in each other's rooms anyhow, so it makes more sense to just share two per room.

"Hey." Jon pokes at Spencer's stomach. Spencer exhales a startled laugh and grabs blindly at Jon's wrist to stop him from doing it again. "Spence, hey, room with me tonight."

Spencer opens his eyes to see Jon standing close in front of him. His lips are curved into a small, hopeful smile.

"Um," Spencer tries to respond, but Jon's turned his arm in Spencer's grip and is sweeping his fingers absently across the sensitive underside of Spencer's wrist, Jon's blunt nails tickling his skin with each pass.

Ryan fakes a cough beside them.

"Spencer's rooming with me tonight!" Brendon announces, appearing over Jon's shoulder and waving two keycards in the air. He hands the other two to Jon and Ryan, exchanging what Spencer bets Brendon thinks is a stealthy look with Ryan.

"Wait, why aren't you two rooming together?" Jon asks Brendon; the "now that you and Ryan have made up" goes unsaid. His fingers have stopped moving, and Spencer takes the opportunity to let go of Jon's wrist.

Brendon laughs easily. "Like we'd want to spend that much time together so soon after our ceasefire," he jokes, elbowing Ryan, who just rolls his eyes and starts walking toward the elevators. Spencer can tell he's smiling though, small and pleased.

"I guess I'm rooming with Brendon tonight?" Spencer tells Jon as he shrugs away from the wall.

Jon hasn't moved, so they're suddenly way closer than Spencer expected. Jon's looking down at the keycard Brendon handed him, then frowns up at Spencer.

"You'll live without me for one night," Spencer tries to tease, but Jon looks genuinely disappointed, and Spencer's not sure where that's coming from right now.

"Yeah, but," Jon starts, then shuts his mouth and shakes his head, looking back down at the keycard.

The elevator dings open across the lobby, and Spencer gives Jon's sleeve a little tug. "C'mon. Real beds," he reminds Jon, and hurries over to the elevator to join Brendon and Ryan, who are engaged in a good-natured argument over their misheard lyrics from some old pop song that's playing softly in the elevator.

"Whatever happened to elevator muzak, anyways?" Brendon interrupts a point Ryan's trying to make about his version of the lyrics. "Or are we just not staying in hotels snazzy enough for that anymore?"

Spencer grins at that and tries to exchange a look with Jon as he steps into the elevator beside him, but Jon's not looking; he's too busy nervously twisting and untwisting the hair behind his own ear between his thumb and index finger and chewing on his bottom lip. Spencer's grin fades.

He nudges Jon with his hip, and jokes, "You know, we can room together if all of a sudden you're really that scared of rooming with Ryan."

"Hey!" Ryan protests from behind him, and Brendon laughs.

Cracking a smile, Jon rubs his hand against the back of his neck instead of messing with his hair some more and turns his face toward Spencer's.

Spencer catches his eye and bumps their hips again, smiling small and curious at him.

The elevator doors ding open again. Before they can say anything else, Ryan wraps his fingers around Jon's arm and steers him toward their room, so Jon just calls over his shoulder, "See you in the morning?"

"Duh," Spencer replies, rolling his eyes, but he's smiling back at Jon's hopeful look, as their doors shut behind them.

Brendon and Spencer are both disgustingly sweaty, from the show and the stifling heat, and in the five minutes it takes them to drop their bags on the floor, pull off their shoes and socks and damp t-shirts, and order some beer and pizza from room service, the air conditioning has frozen the sweat in their hair.

But before either of them can shower, they get distracted by a Discovery Channel documentary about endangered species of insects in the Amazon Rain Forest and end up stuffing themselves with pizza and beer and passing out on the same bed from sheer exhaustion and food-sleepiness.

"Spence, hey, c'mon." Spencer can feel Brendon trying to pull the blanket out from under his body. He has no idea how long he's been asleep. "Dude, wake up for a sec. The AC's up way too high, we gotta get under the covers."

"Undercover," Spencer mumbles.

Brendon chuckles and tugs more insistently on the blanket until Spencer drags himself off the bed. He wobbles his weight from one foot to the other for a moment while Brendon shoves down the bedspread.

"Yeah, Spence, go undercover with me," Brendon teases, pulling Spencer back into the bed, arm first, and then clawing at the sheet and blankets until their bodies are covered up to their shoulders.

"Mm," Spencer agrees and tangles his legs with Brendon's.

They're facing each other on the same pillow, and after a moment Brendon snuggles his face into Spencer's neck. Spencer takes a deep breath and exhales, relaxes into Brendon.

He hadn't even realized how much he'd missed this, missed Brendon being all clingy and warm and boyish with him. Even though hotel nights usually meant that Spencer roomed with Ryan by default, back near the beginning of the band, Brendon and Spencer had started to bunk together on the bus whenever they were lonely. On Panic's first tour, they'd spent hours sharing stories about home and their childhoods, and held long, convoluted discussions about all the things they missed about having a relatively normal life and all the things they didn't miss one bit.

(That comfort of bunking with Brendon had been a sort of constant in Spencer's touring life, until about six months ago, when he and Brendon accidentally ended up in bed together in a not-quite-platonic way: One night after a long day of recording their last album, the two of them had been at Spencer's house trying to figure out some drum parts, and this had inevitably segued into bitching about the state of the album and doing shots of tequila. After five-maybe-six shots each, Brendon took a giggling body shot off Spencer's neck, and this somehow led to making out for over an hour, until they passed out in a tangle of limbs on Spencer's bed. Just, thank god they'd both been too drunk to get it up, and they couldn't stop laughing about it the next morning, clutching at their hangover headaches the entire time.

They've never told anybody else about it, but ever since then, whenever they're with anyone who's drinking tequila, Brendon gets a kick out of biting into a lime wedge and waggling his eyebrows at Spencer, because they always end up falling against each other in a laughing fit that confuses the hell out of Jon and Ryan.

In any case, Brendon and Spencer have been sharing a bed less often ever since that night. They're not even really attracted to each other that way, but it's like they're worried that something might happen again anyway, because they're both lonely and easily turned-on and tend to have poor judgment when they drink.)

Feeling happy to be at ease like this with him again, Spencer wraps an arm around Brendon's back. His fingers begin scrawling cursive gibberish between Brendon's shoulder blades, knowing that it always soothes them both.

"So, tomorrow," Brendon says after so long Spencer had thought he'd fallen asleep.

"Tomorrow," Spencer repeats, and writes the word in cursive on Brendon's skin.

"You're the last of us to turn the big three-oh," Brendon says cheerfully.

"Please don't call it that."

"Tres y cero."

"I really don't think that's how you say 'thirty' in Spanish."

"No, it's treinta, duh. Tienes treinta años." Brendon pauses. "Well, you'll be thirty mañana. I don't know future tense español."

Spencer stops writing invisible letters and sighs against the top of Brendon's head.

"I didn't really get you anything," Brendon says after a moment. "Just so you're not expecting something, okay?"

Spencer shrugs the shoulder that isn't pressed against the mattress. "I don't really need anything, dude. Besides, didn't we all decide we wouldn't make a big deal out of our birthdays anymore?"

"Oh shut up, we both know I just suck at presents."

Spencer laughs. "You do not."

Brendon tilts his head back so they can talk more clearly face to face. "Remember Ryan's thirtieth birthday? I actually got him socks. Socks, Spencer." He sounds horrified.

"They were dark green with little pineapples on them, man. I'm pretty sure Ryan still loves them."

"So not the point."

"Which is?"

"I suck at creative gifts?"

"Whatever, you're over-thinking this whole thing. Just-- like-- dude. The four of us still being a band is more than enough for me right now."

Brendon snorts. "Yeah, even though we've lost, like, half our fan-base."

"You know that's not true."

"Okay, you're right. A third of our fan-base."

Spencer smacks the back of Brendon's head.

"Hey!"

"They don't hate us," Spencer insists. "They just . . . "

" . . . don't really like what we're making anymore?" Brendon scrunches his nose. "Dude. All they want us to play is that shit we wrote when we were kids, or shit we wrote when we were twenty-somethings and depressed and breaking up with our dudes and ladies."

Spencer frowns. "I guess you're right."

"Yeah, well." Brendon presses his face back into Spencer's neck, and they fall silent again.

"Ryan's got this really sappy present planned for you," Brendon announces after a while. "Just a head's up. But Jon's being all mysterious and won't tell me what he's getting for you so I couldn't even spoil that for you if I wanted to."

"Um, okay?"

"Yeah. Just so you know." Brendon burrows his forehead into Spencer's armpit.

Spencer moves his hand off Brendon's back and starts carding his fingers through Brendon's hair instead. "You give great presents, Bren," he blurts out.

"What're you talkin' 'bout?" Brendon says, voice muffled and tickling Spencer's skin.

"I mean, like. Like this. Right here." Spencer chews on his lip and tries to think of how to say thanks without sounding like a total sap. Ah, fuck it. "You always know exactly when I need comfort and shit." He pauses for a beat, then adds, "And when not to include tequila."

He can feel Brendon's mouth spread into a smile against his skin as he puffs out a warm laugh. After a moment, Brendon lifts his head up but not away, so he just sort of drags his face up Spencer's neck. "Awesome," he says, lips moving sloppily against Spencer's jaw in a completely disgusting way, all sleep-drool and pizza breath, "but I'm still buying you sunflower seeds and Diet Coke tomorrow at the first rest stop, 'kay?"

Spencer huffs a laugh, places his palm flat against Brendon's face and shoves him away. "What riches, pizza-breath," he says, picking at the edge of their blanket and using it to swipe at the tiny bit of drool Brendon left on his jaw.

"Hey assface, those are your favorites," Brendon says, laughing and tucking his face into Spencer's neck again.

"Yeah, yeah," Spencer says lightly, but he gently tugs Brendon's hair in thanks and Brendon hums sleepily.

*

When Spencer wakes up the next morning, Brendon is singing random medleys of Sam Cooke and Sublime in the shower (because some things never do change), and somebody's pounding on the door to their hotel room. Actually, it sounds more like the person is kicking the door, what the hell.

Spencer stumbles out of bed, eyes half-closed, and opens the door.

Ryan's standing there with a cup of coffee in each hand and a package tucked under one arm.

"Take," he says and jabs his chin in the direction of the package.

Spencer grunts, rubbing at the pillow creases on his cheek with one hand, and takes the package with his other hand.

Ryan walks over to the beige armchair in the corner and sits cross-legged on the beige carpet at the foot of it.

"Sit," he says, delicately setting down the coffees, and points at the space on the carpet in front of him.

Rolling his eyes and scratching at his bare stomach, Spencer sits down across from him, legs spread out in a V with his coffee cup between them.

Ryan takes a sip of his own coffee and jerks his chin awkwardly at the package again. "Well?"

The shower turns off in the bathroom, and Brendon starts singing some old Radiohead song; Spencer's pretty sure it's the wrong lyrics. "Dude, much as I love our monosyllabic morning conversations--"

"Open your damn birthday present, moron," Ryan says and looks back down at his coffee, taking off the cover and blowing on the drink.

"Oh." Spencer blinks and looks down at the package again. "Right." Barely awake, he'd sort of forgotten what day it was, even with Brendon reminding him before he'd gone to sleep. It's so easy to let the dates and times blur into one another on tour, which is sort of strange since being on tour is all about needing to be in certain places at certain dates and times, but--

Ryan snaps his fingers impatiently in front of Spencer's face, and Spencer startles backward. "Oh! Hey, Ry!" Brendon stops singing for a second to call through the door. Ryan's always had this singular, freakish ability to snap really loudly.

"Brendon," Ryan says, barely raising his voice, "did Spencer get stupid in his sleep?"

"Spencer, open your present! I told you that Ryan got all sappy just for you!"

Ryan glares into his coffee, and Spencer feels himself grin. "Aw, did you make us friendship bracelets or something?" Spencer pokes Ryan's knee with his bare toes.

Brendon bursts out of the bathroom, laughing, with a towel wrapped around his waist. "What ever happened to the bracelets Jon and I tried braiding for us a few years ago?"

"They got disgusting because you refused to let us take them off, ever," Ryan says. He's smirking, though, so Spencer can tell he's still high off making up with Brendon, who's pulling on a pair of jeans and grinning over his shoulder at Ryan.

"Friendship bracelets symbolize friendship, dude. You can't just take them off." Brendon attempts an offended expression but mostly just looks like he's trying not to laugh at himself.

Ryan does laugh. "Yeah, yeah." He turns back to Spencer, who's just sipping his coffee and smiling sleepily at the two of them. "Happy birthday, old man." He jerks his chin again.

"Stop doing that thing with your chin. It looks weird," Spencer says absently as he picks at the tape holding together the wrapping, which is made up of tourist attraction pamphlets from the lobby.

"Yeah, birdface," Brendon says, flopping sideways into the armchair above Ryan and ruffling Ryan's already sleep-mussed hair. "Your chin does funny things." He steals Ryan's coffee and takes a long gulp.

"Your mom does funny things," Ryan says automatically, and glares up at his coffee cup until Brendon winks and hands it back.

"Thanks for the living proof that turning thirty doesn't really make us any more mature," Spencer says, but then he pulls away all the wrapping from Ryan's gift and sees the photograph inside.

"Technically, it's from Brendon and Shane," Ryan says after a pause. "You know, Shane shot it and Brendon found it when we were in Vegas last."

"But Ryan framed it and thought it'd be a good present, so it's all his idea," Brendon adds, poking Ryan's shoulder. "Do you remember when it's from?"

"Yeah," Spencer says softly. He coughs and says a little more clearly. "Um, yeah, I do."

It was the first summer all four of them were single at the same time. A couple years back -- god, it must've only been weeks after he and Haley had called it off for good -- Panic had been on a break between touring and going back into the studio and decided to visit Shane while he was shooting an independent feature in San Diego. One day, the five of them had spent all afternoon at the beach, getting baked and sun-sick and laughing 'til they ached all over. Spencer doesn't remember being happy that summer, but he remembers being happy that day for some weird reason.

In the photograph, Brendon and Ryan have their arms slung around each other's shoulders, and they're deep into a round of Brendon making goofy faces at Ryan until they both crack up. Brendon's eyes are crinkled at the corners and his tongue's flopped out the side of his mouth, but it's not his best goof-face, looks more like the end of one, because Ryan's head is tipped forward and he's laughing hard, his front teeth bright and nose wrinkled and eyes squinched closed; Brendon can't hold his goofy expressions for long in the face of Ryan laughing so joyously.

Spencer looks at them for a long time, then looks up at them sitting before him right now, and smiles even more widely. Just a couple of days ago, they'd been bitter and yelling, but right now Brendon's grinning fondly down at Ryan and trying to smooth over Ryan's hair while Ryan's cheeks pink a little and he leans his head back against Brendon's thigh, swallowing a sip of his coffee and watching Spencer intently.

"Do you see?" Ryan asks suddenly, and the dopey smile on Spencer's face slips into confusion.

"Um, see what?" he asks and looks back down at the photograph.

"You and Jon," Brendon says, like it's obvious, like it's some piece of a song that Spencer hasn't learned yet.

Spencer looks at the other half of the photograph, the part he'd only glanced over in favor of the glee coming off the print from Ryan and Brendon. He looks at Jon and himself, and--

The Pacific Ocean is glittering behind them, and the sand is fine and almost white beneath their bodies sprawled out next to each other. Neither of them is wearing a shirt and Spencer's chest is already a little red, but Jon has a faint tan across his own. Their bare shoulders are pressed up close together where they're propped up on their elbows for Shane to take their picture. Except right before Shane took it, Jon had said something funny (something probably not even that funny, Spencer thinks, lame even, certainly unmemorable) and whatever it was, it made Spencer laugh. He's tilting his head toward Jon's shoulder, hair and beard golden in the summer sun and teeth even brighter than Ryan's, his whole face alive, whole body leaning into Jon's. And Jon's face is turned toward his, positively beaming. Jon's hand is on top of his on the sand. Jon's looking at him like he could watch Spencer laugh all day and be perfectly content with it.

Brendon coughs pointedly.

Spencer looks up at him and Ryan.

"Oh." He turns back to the photograph. "Um."

"I mean," Ryan says quietly, after a moment of only Brendon's fingers tap-tapping on the armrest, and Spencer looks back up at him. "It's ridiculous, right? That a photo can tell you something like that? But--"

"--at the same time, it's sort of awesome, yeah?" Brendon finishes, smiling hopefully.

"We think it's about damn time," Ryan says slowly, "that you guys just go for it."

Spencer wants to say, And what the hell about you two? Is something finally going on there? but at that moment, there's a knock at the door.

And it's Jon's usual thunk-thunk-thunkthunk-thunk.

Brendon and Ryan exchange wide-eyed looks, and Spencer scrambles up off the floor to shove the framed photograph into his suitcase.

He exhales a long breath (which absolutely does not shake, really) and opens the door.

"I brought us your favorites: cinnamon rolls and black coffee," Jon greets him, smiling and carefully holding up a lumpy white paper bag.

Spencer immediately relaxes. "Oh man, did you get them from that one bakery with the--"

Jon's nodding, "Backwards clock and best giant cinnamon rolls ever? Yup."

"Shit, I've missed that place. It's been way too long since we've toured here." Suddenly realizing how hungry he is, Spencer grabs the bag from Jon and hurries over to the small table by the window to set down the bag and dig in.

"Yeah, when I woke up, Ryan was gone, so I figured maybe he and Brendon already went out to get breakfast somewhere?" Jon's talking way faster than normal as he leans over to pick up the morning newspaper by the door. "But listen, Spence, I'm glad you're here, I--" Jon steps into the room and stops.

"Morning, Jon!" Brendon holds up Spencer's abandoned cup of coffee he's stolen and tips it as if to say, Cheers!

"Um, hey, guys, what's happening?" Jon looks weirdly disappointed, sort of like he did last night. Spencer bites into his (oh my god still warm) cinnamon roll and raises a questioning eyebrow at him, but Jon's not looking.

"Oh, we were just, um--" Brendon exchanges a look with Ryan, like he thinks they need a cover story in place of, We were giving Spencer a gift to persuade him to jump your bones.

"--discussing all the things we're looking forward to getting to do once we all grow old and grey," Ryan pulls out of his ass.

"Yeah," Brendon nods, "you know, now that Spencer's thirty, it won't be long before we're all, like, seventy."

Jon laughs and looks a little less fidgety. "That's some logic, Bren." He walks over to the table to stand beside where Spencer's sitting, and when he reaches into the bag for the other cinnamon roll, his arm brushes Spencer's shoulder. "So, what're these things you guys are going to do once we're all old men?"

"Well, Brendon wants an elaborately designed walking cane," Ryan says, a hint of amusement in his tone.

"And it would have a sweet ass sword hidden inside!" Brendon announces. "Spence wants a sword-cane, too."

Spencer swallows another bite and smirks at him. "We could duel."

"Yes!" Brendon abruptly sits up straight and almost spills coffee on himself.

"I just want a rocking chair so I can comfortably watch you two look like complete idiots and break your hips," Ryan says.

"You just want a rocking chair so you can be a grumpy old man in a house full of books and guitars," Brendon teases.

"But I'm sure you'll be there to liven things up by making bad puns about me still 'rocking' in my old age," Ryan says dryly.

Brendon cracks up, and starts saying something else, but Spencer's not listening anymore. He's too busy savoring his breakfast and too distracted by Jon standing next to him, sturdy and close; they're not even touching but Spencer can feel his body heat nonetheless. If he drifted his upper body just a fraction to the left, he would be resting against Jon's side.

"I could go for a monocle, d'you think?" Jon says to him after a moment of quietly eating while Brendon and Ryan continue to make up shit in the background.

Spencer licks some icing off his lips and grins up at Jon. "You would make one classy old man with a monocle."

Jon's grinning down at him, and it seems like he's all back to normal: no more unexplained disappointment or uncharacteristic jittery spells. "It'll make me look extra classy when I'm old and living in a house filled with music and cats, and when you and me sit down to reminisce, I'll need some spectacles to see the liner notes clearly."

Spencer grins into his coffee and lets himself drift that extra inch so that his shoulder brushes against Jon's elbow. "Hey," he says, shifting away after a moment so that he can toss the paper bag into the trash bin. "You were being all," Spencer flutters his hand a little in front of him, "I don't know . . . weird. Before."

"Oh, I, uh." Jon stuffs a hand into his jeans pocket and turns back to his coffee. "I just needed to talk with you. Um, alone. But it-- later, okay?"

Spencer scrunches his eyebrows. "Um, okay."

Jon nods, but he's still not looking at Spencer. "Yeah. Later."

Part Four