YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DO TO GUYS LIKE US IN PARADES
RIGHT SO a while ago I started writing Marching Band AU. That document is still hanging out somewhere waiting to be finished, and it is much more Marching Bandy than this. It also provides a hell of a lot more information about what actually goes on with these boys, which can basically be summed up as: BRENDON WAVES HIS ARMS, SPENCER HITS THINGS, JON DIRNT DIRNT DIRNTS, AND RYAN ROSS HAS A GLOCKENSPIEL.
But! I promised stoner boyfriend makeouts, and gay married boyfriends being gay and married, so this kind of took priority. Still marching bands, but less ~MUUUSIC~ and more ~BAAAND BUS~. It's not really as wordy and detailed as I'd like it to be, but later I'd like to expand it into like, longfic. But I'm working my way up there.
The Sin In Sincere
RATED PG-13 FOR RYAN ROSSY BEING A THIEF.
Fandom: MARCHING BANDOM \o/
Pairings: Ryan/Keltie, Ryan/Jon, Brendon/Spencer, Katie Kay/Keltie
Warnings: Makeouts! Lesbians! Jon Walker the lesbian! Musical vocabulary! Personal experience invading the details!
Disclaimer: Didn't happen, don't Google yourself, Pete Wentz go away this fic isn't about you.
Summary: What happens on the band bus most certainly does not stay on the band bus.
Notes: YES, THIS IS ACTUALLY WHAT MARCHING BAND IS LIKE. I'VE BEEN THERE. I KNOW THINGS. i am exaggerating a tiny bit but NOT BY MUCH.
What happens on the band bus was supposed to stay on the band bus. Ryan never seemed to remember this.
When Ryan had started dating Keltie, nobody really noticed. They’d had obvious crushes on each other since band camp, but since the band and color guard practiced separately for most of the time, the only time anyone really saw them together was on the bus.
They were heading for their third football game the first time the two of them had taken up residence in the back seat. Brendon and Spencer looked at each other when they climbed onto the bus (Spencer was always the last one on, with his huge fucking quads that took two people to load into the equipment bus) and saw Ryan leaning on Keltie all the way in the back. Ryan had sat up front for most of last year, near Mr. Wentz, and they’d expected this trend to continue.
Apparently not.
The school they’re up against was an hour away, which would normally mean an hour of Ryan asking Mr. Wentz about That Time X Happened, Brendon trying to start Disney singalongs (and often succeeding), and Spencer wondering why he put up with the two of them, but this time, Brendon sat a few seats from the back, staring at Ryan like he was trying to solve a puzzle.
“You look confused,” Spencer said, not looking away from the window. He always got the window seat, so he would have something to look at in case Brendon got too obnoxious.
“It’s just. We all knew it was going to happen, but now that it is?” Brendon raised an eyebrow as Keltie started petting Ryan’s hair. “It’s weird, y’know?”
“I guess.” Spencer wasn’t going to argue. His best friend since birth having girlfriends was always weird, but he’s started to get used to it.
“I mean. I just never took Keltie to be a lesbian.”
Spencer smacked Brendon on the shoulder. Brendon just snickered and watched as Ryan started to lean in towards Keltie’s face.
“Spence, hey, Spence!” Brendon poked at Spencer’s side, “I think they’re gonna make it to first base!”
“You are such a creep,” Spencer said, but he turned around anyway.
The second Ryan’s mouth met Keltie’s, Brendon gave a loud whoop. Ryan flipped him off without pulling back.
“Slip him the tongue!” Brendon called. Keltie flipped him off this time, but it looked like she did, anyway. Brendon felt accomplished.
~~~
It became bus routine: Ryan and Keltie made out the back seat, Brendon made catcalls, Spencer tried not to laugh long enough to tell Brendon to stop it.
“It’s like a symbiotic relationship,” Brendon told Spencer seriously during practice one day.
“Just because we learned about that in Bio today doesn’t mean it applies to everything,” Spencer said, rolling his eyes.
“Yeah, well, still. If one of us left, the whole system would break down.”
“I’m pretty sure Ryan and Keltie would keep macking in the back seat even if you stopped cheering them on.”
“Dude, who says macking?”
“Your mom.”
“Yeah, I think she does, actually.”
Then Mr. Wentz said that break time was over, Brendon, stop flirting. Into his megaphone.
Brendon could swear the whole band was smirking up at him as he got on the podium.
~~~
The breakup was significantly more surprising than the getting together.
It was during a football game, just after half time. They’d played, they’d high-fived, and then Ryan had taken Keltie under the bleachers, to the sound of much “Oooh”- and “Awww”-ing (not all of it from Brendon, thank you very much).
Keltie came back crying.
“It wasn’t me, was it?” Brendon asked Spencer over a cheese steak, both of them looking at Ryan, who was sitting alone at a picnic table with his head in his hands. “I mean, I totally could’ve stopped, if they’d told me-“
“I don’t think it was you,” Spencer said quietly, but he wouldn’t look at Brendon.
Brendon finally gave up and walked over to Ryan. “Hey, what happened?”
“Leave me alone,” Ryan mumbled into his palm.
“Look, dude, I’m sorry if-“
“Alone,” Ryan snapped, glaring up at Brendon. His eyes were a little red.
Brendon went back to the table with Spencer. Ryan didn’t move until fourth quarter, when they had to go back to playing in the stands.
The color guard all huddled around Keltie the whole time. She wouldn’t say a word about it, either.
Nobody ever really found out what happened.
~~~
Everyone got over the Ryan-Keltie drama pretty quickly when new drama came up: Brent was getting kicked out of band.
“I’m failing Trig,” he told Brendon during school before a practice night. “So they won’t let me play.” He didn’t sound too concerned, which kind of weirded Brendon out. He didn’t know what he’d do without band in his life.
Then again, Brent had skipped practice more than once, so it’s not like this was entirely surprising.
They went on without a bassist for a while, which was weird, but not the worst thing that could’ve happened. It’s not like he had any solos.
But Mr. Wentz still wanted to keep the original orchestration, so he started asking kids to go hunting for new bass players. No one came forward, until the new kid.
“I’m Jon. Just moved here from Chicago,” he told everyone at his first practice. Ryan met him in American History, and the second he’d mentioned that he played bass, Ryan launched into the recruiting speech Mr. Wentz had taught him.
(The jazz band, who was also looking for a bass player, was not pleased at all when they found out Jon had already been stolen by the marching band. Bill tried to trip Ryan in the hall on multiple occasions for the next week.)
Jon didn’t have to learn any drill, since he stood in front of the field the whole time plugged into an amp, and he was a damn good bass player, so football games went back to normal.
The bus was a different story.
~~~
Ryan moved back up front near Mr. Wentz, but he usually ended up talking to Jon. They talked about music, about books (Ryan was still pretty deep in a Chuck Palahniuk phase, but Jon held his own pretty well in a discussion of Fight Club), about old things.
Three football games after Jon had showed up, Ryan had taken up residence in the back seat again.
“Uh, Spence?” Brendon poked Spencer without taking his eyes off the scene in the back. “You seeing this?”
“Whatever it is, I’m not looking away to see,” Spencer answered.
“No, I’m pretty sure this is important.”
“More important than lesbians?”
Brendon tore himself away to follow his gaze. Sure enough, there in the other back seat, Keltie and Katie Kay were nuzzling against each other. Well, less nuzzling and more Katie trying to subtly give Keltie a lap dance in the cramped space, but it still looked pretty snuggly.
“Okay, yeah, color guard lap dances, that’s pretty important,” Brendon admitted, “But. Seat next to theirs.”
Spencer sighed, but looked over. “…Uh.”
“Yeah.”
Ryan was practically on top of Jon, kissing him like Jon was his only source of oxygen. Jon looked like he was kissing back, maybe with not the same enthusiasm, but Jon seemed pretty chill about most things. Including makeouts, apparently.
“Band bus flings,” Brendon said with a shrug.
“I guess.”
Brendon watched until Ryan started putting a hand up Jon’s shirt, then turned around. “So Keltie was a lesbian the whole time.”
Spencer was still watching Katie. “You call Ryan a girl again and I’ll start the cadence at double tempo tonight.”
“You would not, then you’d have to walk just as fast. Besides, we were all pretty sure Jon was straight, so.”
“Brendon, just because you don’t like tits doesn’t mean you have the right to distract me from lesbians with your insults.”
Brendon rolled his eyes, but stopped bugging him.
~~~
“Hey, Spencer.” Brendon poked Spencer’s side, which got him a punch to the shoulder. “What.”
“We should make out.”
“What? No.”
It was the bus home, after the game, and Jon and Ryan were at it in the back seat again. Keltie and Katie seemed content to sit a few seats forward and listen to each other’s iPods, so Spencer was looking out the window.
“Well, maybe not now,” Brendon said, “Maybe next week. We sit in the seat in front of them, and make out. It’ll be hilarious.”
“Hilarious how?”
“Y’know, Ryan will see us and be all ‘Oh shit is that what I look like,’ because, seriously, kissing is really funny-looking when you’re just watching, and they’ll both probably get pissed at us for interrupting their special bus time, and I would love to see the look on Ryan’s face when that happens.”
Spencer looked at Brendon with a face somewhere between incredulous and disgusted. “Is it like, your hobby, fucking with people’s relationships?”
Brendon frowned. “Relationships? Dude, it’s just band bus makeouts.”
“That’s not what it was with Ryan and Keltie.”
“Yeah, well, Ryan just didn’t know the rules. There are rules.”
“If you say what happens on the band bus-“
“Stays on the band bus, exactly! But Ryan didn’t get that, and look what happened to him. I think he gets it now. So, in conclusion, we should make out.”
“Go to hell,” Spencer grumbled, turning his whole body back to the window.
~~~
Ryan didn’t actually get it after all, judging from the way he kept making doe eyes at Jon in school. He even stopped sitting with Brendon and Spencer at lunch to go sit at an empty table with Jon.
“So Jon’s a lesbian, too,” Brendon observed with half a pizza slice still in his mouth.
“Chew your food. And stop calling Ryan a girl.” Spencer sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Brendon nearly choked swallowing the pizza, and Spencer didn’t hold back his laugh. “Fuck you,” Brendon muttered, rubbing at his throat.
“That’s karma. Now just let Jon and Ryan be happy boyfriends together. No bothering, no jeering, no making out.”
“You sure about the making out?” Brendon waggled his eyebrows in the most seductive manner he could manage.
“Very sure.” Damn. The eyebrows usually worked.
~~~
“You’re really bad at this whole bus fling thing,” Brendon finally told Ryan, when he’d managed to find him without a Jon attached. It was right after school, and Ryan was waiting for Jon in the band room, but Brendon had shown up first.
“It’s not a bus fling. Just because you don’t get any action ever doesn’t mean the rest of us are incapable of normal relationships.” Ryan sounded defensive, even through his monotone.
“Yeah, going straight from breaking up with your girlfriend to blowing the new guy in the back seat, that’s totally normal.”
“You know what? I think you’re just jealous, because if you started dating the guy of your dreams, you’d get kicked out of the house.”
Brendon blinked. They’d agreed not to talk about this, ages ago. “Yeah?” he spat, “At least my parents would notice what was going on, instead of just drinking themselves to death all the time.” The words just flew out, barely thought through first, and oh, shit, they’d agreed to never ever ever talk about that, but Brendon was pissed, and now Ryan was pissed, and-
“Guys?”
Jon opened the door to the sight of the two of them looking ready to tear each other’s throats out. He frowned. “Are you guys okay?”
Ryan shoved his fists in his pockets and walked over to Jon’s side. “It’s nothing. Let’s go to the back alley, before practice starts.”
“All right.” Jon smiled, put an arm around Ryan’s shoulder, and started heading back out the door.
Ryan turned his head to look back at Brendon and smirked.
Brendon waited until the door had closed behind them before kicking a chair until it slid halfway across the room.
~~~
Brendon wouldn’t speak to Ryan for a week. Ryan wouldn’t speak to him for two.
Ryan and Jon continued to put on softcore pornos in the back seat for the next two games, and occasionally Ryan would catch Brendon watching, which just prompted another one of his stupid smirks.
Brendon tried to curl up against Spencer once, but apparently pissing Ryan off gets you sent to Spencer’s private circle of hell, and he just shrugged him off. “Go to another seat if you need someone to comfort you.”
Brendon stayed.
Finally, on the Monday after that second game, Brendon walked over to Ryan in the hall after first period. “…Sorry.”
Ryan didn’t look away from his locker. He’d done this the one other time Brendon had tried to speak to him, totally ignored him, and Brendon was just about to give up and walk away when Ryan mumbled, “Yeah.”
That was as close to an apology as he was going to get, with Ryan, and he let out a sigh of relief. “So we’re good?”
“I guess.”
“Right. Good…good luck with your boyfriend. Or whatever.”
“…Yeah.”
Brendon guessed that was supposed to be a “thank you,” so he nodded, turned around, and walked off to his second period class.
He felt a little better, but not much.
~~~
That week, Spencer let Brendon practically spoon him in his seat. Brendon counted that as accepting his apology.
Ryan and Jon seemed to be finally getting over the “make out all the time” phase of a bus relationship, and were actually talking. They were still in the back seat, but it was a weird change of pace.
“Okay, so maybe now they’re real boyfriends,” Brendon said, half-lying on top of the back of his seat to look at the back.
“I’m very proud of you for admitting that.” Spencer tugged Brendon back into the seat. “Now stop being a jealous creep.”
“I’m not-did Ryan tell you that?”
“Yeah, and he’s right. Seriously, Brendon, I know it’s hard, with…everything, but messing with Ryan and Jon isn’t going to make you feel better.”
Brendon wanted to protest, but nothing came out, and he slumped down in his seat and sighed. “I hate it when you’re right.”
“Get used to it,” Spencer said with a small smirk, “Because I’m right a lot.”
Brendon punched his shoulder weakly, but he was smiling, and he started leaning on Spencer again.
The show that night was just this side of slow; Brendon had a bit of a hard time waving his arms at his own inner tempo.
Spencer glanced up at him a few times with one of his looks, but Brendon just glanced around anywhere but at him.
The bus ride home, a few people asked him if he’d known he was going at least ten clicks too slow, but Brendon just shrugged and apologized half into Spencer’s shoulder.
“Hey, Spence,” he mumbled, still mostly leaning on him.
“…Yeah?”
“You sure about that no makeouts thing?”
“Brendon, for the last-“
“Who wants to play!” someone called, and both of them looked up. Bus games were important.
“I’m in!” Brendon called back almost immediately, “What’re we playing?”
“Never Have I Ever, hold out a hand if you’re playing, guys!”
Brendon looked at Spencer, grinning. Spencer rolled his eyes, but he held out a hand anyway. He liked embarrassing his bandmates just as much as Brendon, secretly. Well, at least, that’s what Brendon figured.
Jon and Ryan had emerged from the back seat, so it was them, Brendon and Spencer, Katie (Keltie sat out, she was trying to take a nap), and a few other kids in a malformed circle, sitting on the edges of the seats.
Katie started. “Never have I ever been drunk.”
Jon put down a finger. So did Spencer.
Ryan shot Spencer a look but didn’t say anything. Brendon just snickered, remembering the day Spencer had come into school not quite sure how to handle a hangover.
“Never have I ever kissed a dude,” said one of the trumpets.
Jon and Ryan both put fingers down, smirking at each other. So did Katie and Spencer.
Brendon looked at Spencer. “Really, now?”
Spencer shrugged. “Once. Party. Drunk. Y’know.”
Brendon didn’t know. He hadn’t put down a finger, and Ryan was looking at him kind of oddly.
“What, did you think my lips were as easy as yours?” Brendon asked.
Ryan shrugged. “Just thought you’d have conned your way into a kiss by now.”
“Not my fault Spencer won’t make out with me.”
Spencer shoved Brendon with his free hand, which just got them both laughing.
Brendon was next. “Never have I ever kissed a girl.”
Everyone put down a finger except one of the flutes.
“So basically, Brendon wants his first kiss to be with Spencer,” Jon said, not exactly teasing.
“Basically!” Brendon grinned at Spencer, raising his eyebrows seductively. Spencer burst out laughing.
The game went pretty quickly, like it always does with Ryan and Spencer (“Never have I ever taken photos of my own ass and posted them on the internet.” “Never have I ever spent ninety dollars on sneakers.”) and after plenty of gossip was spread, Katie eventually won. She cheered, said they all owed her funnel cake at the next competition, and went back to snuggling with Keltie.
Ryan went back to telling Jon why Invisible Monsters was so much better than Survivor, and Brendon went back to crawling all over Spencer.
“Surprised you and Ryan didn’t duke it out there. That game can get nasty.” Spencer wasn’t looking at Brendon, but he wasn’t exactly trying to move away.
“Yeah, we’re okay now. I just. We need to watch our mouths, that’s all.”
“You mean you do.”
“Hey, he’s just as guilty as I am! Don’t let your best friend bias get in the way of facts, Spencer Smith.”
Spencer just sighed, leaning his head back against the seat. “So.”
“So…what?”
“So did you really want your first kiss to be with me? Because band gossip like that is only going to spread.”
“Yeah, I know.” Brendon stopped leaning on Spencer, but stayed close, his eyes on the ceiling. “But, whatever. Not like you’re going to do it, anyway.”
Spencer didn’t answer for a while. Then he turned his head to look over at Brendon, a small smile on his face. “…I just said I wouldn’t make out with you.”
Brendon practically jumped in his seat, looking back at him. “…So?”
“So. At least let me take you out to dinner, first.”
“You-I-but-lesbians!” Brendon stammered, prompting Spencer into one of his looks. “I mean, girls! You like, I mean. Seriously?”
Spencer’s look melted into another smile, which Brendon thought should seriously happen a lot more often. “Seriously. As long as-as long as it doesn’t stay on the band bus. That’s all.”
Brendon frowned, just a little. He dropped his voice lower. “We’d have to keep this quiet, though, with-“
“Yeah, I know. I know. And I don’t think anyone in the band will spread it outside, they know too. But we’re graduating this year, right?”
Brendon’s smile came back easily. “Yeah. Yeah, we are.”
Spencer leaned in, touched the back of Brendon’s neck, and kissed the corner of his mouth. “We’ll figure it all out, then.”
They spent the rest of the ride home holding each other in the dark, listening to Ryan babble to Jon (“No, see, he wrote the one chapter for Playboy, so you’d think it’d feel disjointed, but-“) and Katie and Keltie whisper to each other, and Mr. Wentz talk on the phone to some other band director in the area named “Trick,” and barely said a word to each other beyond “move your elbow, asshole.”
It wasn’t makeouts, but Brendon could definitely get used to the alternatives.
But! I promised stoner boyfriend makeouts, and gay married boyfriends being gay and married, so this kind of took priority. Still marching bands, but less ~MUUUSIC~ and more ~BAAAND BUS~. It's not really as wordy and detailed as I'd like it to be, but later I'd like to expand it into like, longfic. But I'm working my way up there.
The Sin In Sincere
RATED PG-13 FOR RYAN ROSSY BEING A THIEF.
Fandom: MARCHING BANDOM \o/
Pairings: Ryan/Keltie, Ryan/Jon, Brendon/Spencer, Katie Kay/Keltie
Warnings: Makeouts! Lesbians! Jon Walker the lesbian! Musical vocabulary! Personal experience invading the details!
Disclaimer: Didn't happen, don't Google yourself, Pete Wentz go away this fic isn't about you.
Summary: What happens on the band bus most certainly does not stay on the band bus.
Notes: YES, THIS IS ACTUALLY WHAT MARCHING BAND IS LIKE. I'VE BEEN THERE. I KNOW THINGS. i am exaggerating a tiny bit but NOT BY MUCH.
What happens on the band bus was supposed to stay on the band bus. Ryan never seemed to remember this.
When Ryan had started dating Keltie, nobody really noticed. They’d had obvious crushes on each other since band camp, but since the band and color guard practiced separately for most of the time, the only time anyone really saw them together was on the bus.
They were heading for their third football game the first time the two of them had taken up residence in the back seat. Brendon and Spencer looked at each other when they climbed onto the bus (Spencer was always the last one on, with his huge fucking quads that took two people to load into the equipment bus) and saw Ryan leaning on Keltie all the way in the back. Ryan had sat up front for most of last year, near Mr. Wentz, and they’d expected this trend to continue.
Apparently not.
The school they’re up against was an hour away, which would normally mean an hour of Ryan asking Mr. Wentz about That Time X Happened, Brendon trying to start Disney singalongs (and often succeeding), and Spencer wondering why he put up with the two of them, but this time, Brendon sat a few seats from the back, staring at Ryan like he was trying to solve a puzzle.
“You look confused,” Spencer said, not looking away from the window. He always got the window seat, so he would have something to look at in case Brendon got too obnoxious.
“It’s just. We all knew it was going to happen, but now that it is?” Brendon raised an eyebrow as Keltie started petting Ryan’s hair. “It’s weird, y’know?”
“I guess.” Spencer wasn’t going to argue. His best friend since birth having girlfriends was always weird, but he’s started to get used to it.
“I mean. I just never took Keltie to be a lesbian.”
Spencer smacked Brendon on the shoulder. Brendon just snickered and watched as Ryan started to lean in towards Keltie’s face.
“Spence, hey, Spence!” Brendon poked at Spencer’s side, “I think they’re gonna make it to first base!”
“You are such a creep,” Spencer said, but he turned around anyway.
The second Ryan’s mouth met Keltie’s, Brendon gave a loud whoop. Ryan flipped him off without pulling back.
“Slip him the tongue!” Brendon called. Keltie flipped him off this time, but it looked like she did, anyway. Brendon felt accomplished.
~~~
It became bus routine: Ryan and Keltie made out the back seat, Brendon made catcalls, Spencer tried not to laugh long enough to tell Brendon to stop it.
“It’s like a symbiotic relationship,” Brendon told Spencer seriously during practice one day.
“Just because we learned about that in Bio today doesn’t mean it applies to everything,” Spencer said, rolling his eyes.
“Yeah, well, still. If one of us left, the whole system would break down.”
“I’m pretty sure Ryan and Keltie would keep macking in the back seat even if you stopped cheering them on.”
“Dude, who says macking?”
“Your mom.”
“Yeah, I think she does, actually.”
Then Mr. Wentz said that break time was over, Brendon, stop flirting. Into his megaphone.
Brendon could swear the whole band was smirking up at him as he got on the podium.
~~~
The breakup was significantly more surprising than the getting together.
It was during a football game, just after half time. They’d played, they’d high-fived, and then Ryan had taken Keltie under the bleachers, to the sound of much “Oooh”- and “Awww”-ing (not all of it from Brendon, thank you very much).
Keltie came back crying.
“It wasn’t me, was it?” Brendon asked Spencer over a cheese steak, both of them looking at Ryan, who was sitting alone at a picnic table with his head in his hands. “I mean, I totally could’ve stopped, if they’d told me-“
“I don’t think it was you,” Spencer said quietly, but he wouldn’t look at Brendon.
Brendon finally gave up and walked over to Ryan. “Hey, what happened?”
“Leave me alone,” Ryan mumbled into his palm.
“Look, dude, I’m sorry if-“
“Alone,” Ryan snapped, glaring up at Brendon. His eyes were a little red.
Brendon went back to the table with Spencer. Ryan didn’t move until fourth quarter, when they had to go back to playing in the stands.
The color guard all huddled around Keltie the whole time. She wouldn’t say a word about it, either.
Nobody ever really found out what happened.
~~~
Everyone got over the Ryan-Keltie drama pretty quickly when new drama came up: Brent was getting kicked out of band.
“I’m failing Trig,” he told Brendon during school before a practice night. “So they won’t let me play.” He didn’t sound too concerned, which kind of weirded Brendon out. He didn’t know what he’d do without band in his life.
Then again, Brent had skipped practice more than once, so it’s not like this was entirely surprising.
They went on without a bassist for a while, which was weird, but not the worst thing that could’ve happened. It’s not like he had any solos.
But Mr. Wentz still wanted to keep the original orchestration, so he started asking kids to go hunting for new bass players. No one came forward, until the new kid.
“I’m Jon. Just moved here from Chicago,” he told everyone at his first practice. Ryan met him in American History, and the second he’d mentioned that he played bass, Ryan launched into the recruiting speech Mr. Wentz had taught him.
(The jazz band, who was also looking for a bass player, was not pleased at all when they found out Jon had already been stolen by the marching band. Bill tried to trip Ryan in the hall on multiple occasions for the next week.)
Jon didn’t have to learn any drill, since he stood in front of the field the whole time plugged into an amp, and he was a damn good bass player, so football games went back to normal.
The bus was a different story.
~~~
Ryan moved back up front near Mr. Wentz, but he usually ended up talking to Jon. They talked about music, about books (Ryan was still pretty deep in a Chuck Palahniuk phase, but Jon held his own pretty well in a discussion of Fight Club), about old things.
Three football games after Jon had showed up, Ryan had taken up residence in the back seat again.
“Uh, Spence?” Brendon poked Spencer without taking his eyes off the scene in the back. “You seeing this?”
“Whatever it is, I’m not looking away to see,” Spencer answered.
“No, I’m pretty sure this is important.”
“More important than lesbians?”
Brendon tore himself away to follow his gaze. Sure enough, there in the other back seat, Keltie and Katie Kay were nuzzling against each other. Well, less nuzzling and more Katie trying to subtly give Keltie a lap dance in the cramped space, but it still looked pretty snuggly.
“Okay, yeah, color guard lap dances, that’s pretty important,” Brendon admitted, “But. Seat next to theirs.”
Spencer sighed, but looked over. “…Uh.”
“Yeah.”
Ryan was practically on top of Jon, kissing him like Jon was his only source of oxygen. Jon looked like he was kissing back, maybe with not the same enthusiasm, but Jon seemed pretty chill about most things. Including makeouts, apparently.
“Band bus flings,” Brendon said with a shrug.
“I guess.”
Brendon watched until Ryan started putting a hand up Jon’s shirt, then turned around. “So Keltie was a lesbian the whole time.”
Spencer was still watching Katie. “You call Ryan a girl again and I’ll start the cadence at double tempo tonight.”
“You would not, then you’d have to walk just as fast. Besides, we were all pretty sure Jon was straight, so.”
“Brendon, just because you don’t like tits doesn’t mean you have the right to distract me from lesbians with your insults.”
Brendon rolled his eyes, but stopped bugging him.
~~~
“Hey, Spencer.” Brendon poked Spencer’s side, which got him a punch to the shoulder. “What.”
“We should make out.”
“What? No.”
It was the bus home, after the game, and Jon and Ryan were at it in the back seat again. Keltie and Katie seemed content to sit a few seats forward and listen to each other’s iPods, so Spencer was looking out the window.
“Well, maybe not now,” Brendon said, “Maybe next week. We sit in the seat in front of them, and make out. It’ll be hilarious.”
“Hilarious how?”
“Y’know, Ryan will see us and be all ‘Oh shit is that what I look like,’ because, seriously, kissing is really funny-looking when you’re just watching, and they’ll both probably get pissed at us for interrupting their special bus time, and I would love to see the look on Ryan’s face when that happens.”
Spencer looked at Brendon with a face somewhere between incredulous and disgusted. “Is it like, your hobby, fucking with people’s relationships?”
Brendon frowned. “Relationships? Dude, it’s just band bus makeouts.”
“That’s not what it was with Ryan and Keltie.”
“Yeah, well, Ryan just didn’t know the rules. There are rules.”
“If you say what happens on the band bus-“
“Stays on the band bus, exactly! But Ryan didn’t get that, and look what happened to him. I think he gets it now. So, in conclusion, we should make out.”
“Go to hell,” Spencer grumbled, turning his whole body back to the window.
~~~
Ryan didn’t actually get it after all, judging from the way he kept making doe eyes at Jon in school. He even stopped sitting with Brendon and Spencer at lunch to go sit at an empty table with Jon.
“So Jon’s a lesbian, too,” Brendon observed with half a pizza slice still in his mouth.
“Chew your food. And stop calling Ryan a girl.” Spencer sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Brendon nearly choked swallowing the pizza, and Spencer didn’t hold back his laugh. “Fuck you,” Brendon muttered, rubbing at his throat.
“That’s karma. Now just let Jon and Ryan be happy boyfriends together. No bothering, no jeering, no making out.”
“You sure about the making out?” Brendon waggled his eyebrows in the most seductive manner he could manage.
“Very sure.” Damn. The eyebrows usually worked.
~~~
“You’re really bad at this whole bus fling thing,” Brendon finally told Ryan, when he’d managed to find him without a Jon attached. It was right after school, and Ryan was waiting for Jon in the band room, but Brendon had shown up first.
“It’s not a bus fling. Just because you don’t get any action ever doesn’t mean the rest of us are incapable of normal relationships.” Ryan sounded defensive, even through his monotone.
“Yeah, going straight from breaking up with your girlfriend to blowing the new guy in the back seat, that’s totally normal.”
“You know what? I think you’re just jealous, because if you started dating the guy of your dreams, you’d get kicked out of the house.”
Brendon blinked. They’d agreed not to talk about this, ages ago. “Yeah?” he spat, “At least my parents would notice what was going on, instead of just drinking themselves to death all the time.” The words just flew out, barely thought through first, and oh, shit, they’d agreed to never ever ever talk about that, but Brendon was pissed, and now Ryan was pissed, and-
“Guys?”
Jon opened the door to the sight of the two of them looking ready to tear each other’s throats out. He frowned. “Are you guys okay?”
Ryan shoved his fists in his pockets and walked over to Jon’s side. “It’s nothing. Let’s go to the back alley, before practice starts.”
“All right.” Jon smiled, put an arm around Ryan’s shoulder, and started heading back out the door.
Ryan turned his head to look back at Brendon and smirked.
Brendon waited until the door had closed behind them before kicking a chair until it slid halfway across the room.
~~~
Brendon wouldn’t speak to Ryan for a week. Ryan wouldn’t speak to him for two.
Ryan and Jon continued to put on softcore pornos in the back seat for the next two games, and occasionally Ryan would catch Brendon watching, which just prompted another one of his stupid smirks.
Brendon tried to curl up against Spencer once, but apparently pissing Ryan off gets you sent to Spencer’s private circle of hell, and he just shrugged him off. “Go to another seat if you need someone to comfort you.”
Brendon stayed.
Finally, on the Monday after that second game, Brendon walked over to Ryan in the hall after first period. “…Sorry.”
Ryan didn’t look away from his locker. He’d done this the one other time Brendon had tried to speak to him, totally ignored him, and Brendon was just about to give up and walk away when Ryan mumbled, “Yeah.”
That was as close to an apology as he was going to get, with Ryan, and he let out a sigh of relief. “So we’re good?”
“I guess.”
“Right. Good…good luck with your boyfriend. Or whatever.”
“…Yeah.”
Brendon guessed that was supposed to be a “thank you,” so he nodded, turned around, and walked off to his second period class.
He felt a little better, but not much.
~~~
That week, Spencer let Brendon practically spoon him in his seat. Brendon counted that as accepting his apology.
Ryan and Jon seemed to be finally getting over the “make out all the time” phase of a bus relationship, and were actually talking. They were still in the back seat, but it was a weird change of pace.
“Okay, so maybe now they’re real boyfriends,” Brendon said, half-lying on top of the back of his seat to look at the back.
“I’m very proud of you for admitting that.” Spencer tugged Brendon back into the seat. “Now stop being a jealous creep.”
“I’m not-did Ryan tell you that?”
“Yeah, and he’s right. Seriously, Brendon, I know it’s hard, with…everything, but messing with Ryan and Jon isn’t going to make you feel better.”
Brendon wanted to protest, but nothing came out, and he slumped down in his seat and sighed. “I hate it when you’re right.”
“Get used to it,” Spencer said with a small smirk, “Because I’m right a lot.”
Brendon punched his shoulder weakly, but he was smiling, and he started leaning on Spencer again.
The show that night was just this side of slow; Brendon had a bit of a hard time waving his arms at his own inner tempo.
Spencer glanced up at him a few times with one of his looks, but Brendon just glanced around anywhere but at him.
The bus ride home, a few people asked him if he’d known he was going at least ten clicks too slow, but Brendon just shrugged and apologized half into Spencer’s shoulder.
“Hey, Spence,” he mumbled, still mostly leaning on him.
“…Yeah?”
“You sure about that no makeouts thing?”
“Brendon, for the last-“
“Who wants to play!” someone called, and both of them looked up. Bus games were important.
“I’m in!” Brendon called back almost immediately, “What’re we playing?”
“Never Have I Ever, hold out a hand if you’re playing, guys!”
Brendon looked at Spencer, grinning. Spencer rolled his eyes, but he held out a hand anyway. He liked embarrassing his bandmates just as much as Brendon, secretly. Well, at least, that’s what Brendon figured.
Jon and Ryan had emerged from the back seat, so it was them, Brendon and Spencer, Katie (Keltie sat out, she was trying to take a nap), and a few other kids in a malformed circle, sitting on the edges of the seats.
Katie started. “Never have I ever been drunk.”
Jon put down a finger. So did Spencer.
Ryan shot Spencer a look but didn’t say anything. Brendon just snickered, remembering the day Spencer had come into school not quite sure how to handle a hangover.
“Never have I ever kissed a dude,” said one of the trumpets.
Jon and Ryan both put fingers down, smirking at each other. So did Katie and Spencer.
Brendon looked at Spencer. “Really, now?”
Spencer shrugged. “Once. Party. Drunk. Y’know.”
Brendon didn’t know. He hadn’t put down a finger, and Ryan was looking at him kind of oddly.
“What, did you think my lips were as easy as yours?” Brendon asked.
Ryan shrugged. “Just thought you’d have conned your way into a kiss by now.”
“Not my fault Spencer won’t make out with me.”
Spencer shoved Brendon with his free hand, which just got them both laughing.
Brendon was next. “Never have I ever kissed a girl.”
Everyone put down a finger except one of the flutes.
“So basically, Brendon wants his first kiss to be with Spencer,” Jon said, not exactly teasing.
“Basically!” Brendon grinned at Spencer, raising his eyebrows seductively. Spencer burst out laughing.
The game went pretty quickly, like it always does with Ryan and Spencer (“Never have I ever taken photos of my own ass and posted them on the internet.” “Never have I ever spent ninety dollars on sneakers.”) and after plenty of gossip was spread, Katie eventually won. She cheered, said they all owed her funnel cake at the next competition, and went back to snuggling with Keltie.
Ryan went back to telling Jon why Invisible Monsters was so much better than Survivor, and Brendon went back to crawling all over Spencer.
“Surprised you and Ryan didn’t duke it out there. That game can get nasty.” Spencer wasn’t looking at Brendon, but he wasn’t exactly trying to move away.
“Yeah, we’re okay now. I just. We need to watch our mouths, that’s all.”
“You mean you do.”
“Hey, he’s just as guilty as I am! Don’t let your best friend bias get in the way of facts, Spencer Smith.”
Spencer just sighed, leaning his head back against the seat. “So.”
“So…what?”
“So did you really want your first kiss to be with me? Because band gossip like that is only going to spread.”
“Yeah, I know.” Brendon stopped leaning on Spencer, but stayed close, his eyes on the ceiling. “But, whatever. Not like you’re going to do it, anyway.”
Spencer didn’t answer for a while. Then he turned his head to look over at Brendon, a small smile on his face. “…I just said I wouldn’t make out with you.”
Brendon practically jumped in his seat, looking back at him. “…So?”
“So. At least let me take you out to dinner, first.”
“You-I-but-lesbians!” Brendon stammered, prompting Spencer into one of his looks. “I mean, girls! You like, I mean. Seriously?”
Spencer’s look melted into another smile, which Brendon thought should seriously happen a lot more often. “Seriously. As long as-as long as it doesn’t stay on the band bus. That’s all.”
Brendon frowned, just a little. He dropped his voice lower. “We’d have to keep this quiet, though, with-“
“Yeah, I know. I know. And I don’t think anyone in the band will spread it outside, they know too. But we’re graduating this year, right?”
Brendon’s smile came back easily. “Yeah. Yeah, we are.”
Spencer leaned in, touched the back of Brendon’s neck, and kissed the corner of his mouth. “We’ll figure it all out, then.”
They spent the rest of the ride home holding each other in the dark, listening to Ryan babble to Jon (“No, see, he wrote the one chapter for Playboy, so you’d think it’d feel disjointed, but-“) and Katie and Keltie whisper to each other, and Mr. Wentz talk on the phone to some other band director in the area named “Trick,” and barely said a word to each other beyond “move your elbow, asshole.”
It wasn’t makeouts, but Brendon could definitely get used to the alternatives.