(no subject)
and i say it's all right (part I)
panic! at the disco; brendon/spencer
we_are_cities july 31 07 & aug 18 07
pg-13; 11,179 words. for maddy.
sn|dt|rc|k.
and i say it's all right
I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainty that just to be alive is a grand thing.
--Agatha Christie
The day Ryan gets married, Brendon buys a brand new Mercedes convertible and runs it into a telephone pole on the way to the reception.
"Honestly," says Spencer when he shows up, flush-faced, his tie loose and the top buttons of his tux shirt undone. He eyes the wreck of Brendon's car, the sharp points of silver and red crumpled in on each other, and clicks his tongue impatiently, hand propped on his hip. He looks over at Brendon, frowning. "You are okay, right?"
Brendon, who by now is sitting on the curb, picking at the grass, blinks up at him. "I'm fine," he says. It's pretty much the truth; he's a little shaken up, a little bruised, but that's not really anything new.
"Good," Spencer says in the short, indistinct way that means he's actually really glad Brendon's alive. He shifts from one foot to the other, cocks his hip, sighs exasperatedly. "Jesus, Urie, you could've picked a better day."
"It was an accident," Brendon snaps. He's not entirely sure how it happened; he remembers leaving the church and hitting the pole, but not really much in between. "Why didn't you just make Jon come?" He gets to his feet and brushes the dirt off his ass. Jon, at least, would've been a little bit supportive about the whole situation.
"Jon was having fun. It's one of his and Cassie's first nights out alone since the baby, did you really want me to drag him away from that to clean up after you?" Spencer says impatiently, the same tone he's always reserved for Brendon when he does stupid shit. Brendon kind of hates that tone, but he ignores it, since he deserves it this time.
"Sorry," Brendon mumbles, wandering back over to inspect the damage again. He hadn't actually liked the car that much, but it still sucked. He'd bought it on a whim, that morning, one of those impulse buys because you feel like you need something new in your life. It wasn't really his style, though. He frowns down at the bent hood, picking a piece of flaking paint off an abrupt bend of metal. It's sharper than he expects; it pokes into his skin and gets stuck under his fingernail. "Fuck, ow," he says, and digs it out with his thumb.
Spencer is watching him, lips pressed together in a thin line, hand on hip in classic Spencer bitch-pose. "You called your insurance, right? A towtruck?"
"Yeah, right before I called you." Brendon kicks sullenly at a tire, scuffing dirt all across the toe of his good shoes.
"Good," says Spencer, not like the one before, just in relief that Brendon's managed to do one thing competently today. He pauses, draws a breath, and hovers between the inhale and the exhale for a moment before asking, "So, did you want me to take you home, or back to the reception, or what?" He asks this very carefully; Brendon can practically feel him stepping around the words like broken glass. Pity from Spencer Smith, Brendon thinks. He's not sure how he feels about that.
"Home's fine," he decides eventually with an awkward sort of shrug. "They're not gonna miss me at the party."
Spencer's eyes narrow minutely, for just a second, but then he just shrugs, too. "I'll call Jon," he says. "So people know you're alive."
It's another hour before Brendon finishes dealing with the insurance company and the towtruck guy; he finally sinks down into the passenger seat of Spencer's sleek black BMW, the energy seeping from him as he exhales, sagging back into the leather uphosltry. Spencer climbs in the other side, pulls the door shut behind him, and fires up the engine without preamble. Classic rock blares to life on the radio; Spencer reaches over and turns it down to more of a background-noise level.
"Sorry for keeping you from the reception," Brendon says.
Spencer shrugs, not looking over at him, eyes intent on the road. "I made my best man speech, and I didn't have a date or anything, so, like." He shrugs again. "Ryan'll understand."
"Yeah." Brendon looks down at his hands. Cracks his knuckles a few times.
"That's so gross," Spencer says. Brendon cracks them again, and Spencer rolls his eyes.
It's dark outside when they finally pull up to Brendon's place: it's a cute little house on the outskirts of Las Vegas, not too far from where Brendon grew up, and he had chosen it over an apartment because, he said, what was the point in having an awesome place if you didn't have a backyard to plant shit in? As Spencer's car slows to a stop, though, the house just looks too big. Brendon sighs.
Spencer looks over at him for the first time since the drive started. "Are you sure you're okay, dude? I mean, you should probably go to a doctor--"
"I'm fine, Spence," Brendon interrupts, pulling a grin with some effort. "I've still got my pretty face, and that's what really matters, right?"
"Mmm, right," Spencer says. He studies Brendon for a moment, but apparently decides he's well enough, because he waves a dismissive hand. "Go rest. I'm gonna go see if I can catch Ryan to say bye before the honeymoon--call me later so I know you're not dead from internal bleeding or something, okay?"
Brendon nods. Spencer waits until he's inside the house to drive off.
The next morning, Brendon wakes up stiff and sore and finds thirteen new messages on his phone: mostly just people making sure he's alive, Jon asking if he needs anything, Pete offering him driving lessons. A voicemail from Ryan.
Brendon deletes them all and calls Spencer, who picks up on the second ring.
"It's nine in the morning, Brendon," he grumbles, muffled; Brendon can picture him with his face half-sunk into the pillow, sleep-mussed hair in his eyes.
"Oh," says Brendon, glancing over at the clock. "Sorry, I didn't check." He fell asleep really early, he figures. He didn't even eat dinner after Spencer dropped him off.
"S'fine," Spencer mumbles. "You're still alive? Not bleeding or concussed or anything? There are stalkerazzi pictures of your dead car on the internet, saw them last night."
"Fabulous." Brendon says. Because nothing brightens your spirits like issuing a million press statements assuring people he wasn't drunk or suicidal. He considers briefly just closing all the curtains, curling back into bed, and hiding from the world for a year or so.
Spencer makes a sleepy sort of noise from the other end of the line, but his voice clears up a little, like he's rolled onto his back and isn't talking into the pillow anymore. "I told Pete to tell people it was a mechanical thing; the car's pretty much gone but you're fine, you went home to rest," he says, succinct, business-like.
"Thank you." Brendon lets out a breath. "Uh-- you can go back to sleep now, if you want. Sorry for waking you up."
"S'fine," Spencer says around a muffled yawn. "G'night."
His house really is too big, Brendon decides over a bowl of Froot Loops an hour later, showered and dressed with his wet hair stick up in every direction. After so many years of spending most of his time on a tour bus, though, even the tiny one-bedroom apartment he started out in would seem luxuriously spacious, probably. But it's really less of having too much space and and more of having too few people, Brendon thinks, frowning in concentration as he tries to fit all the green loops into one spoonful. It's too quiet. Brendon's used to screaming siblings and Guitar Hero turned up loud and Ryan mumbling in his sleep. Brendon's not good with quiet.
One of the green loops escapes his spoon. He picks it out with his fingers, pops it in his mouth, and goes after the purple ones now. Then the red ones, then the yellow ones, and then he just gives up and shovels the rest indiscriminately into his mouth. Then he gets on the internet to see how many new rumors he can find.
As soon as the clock hits noon, he calls Spencer again.
Spencer answers the phone with, "Did you know you were spotted in three different bars on the Strip before the accident? Urie, you better not have been making clones and not telling us."
"I also snorted cocaine off a stripper named Chardonnay's stomach," Brendon replies cheerfully. "She says so on the internet."
"Classy," Spencer deadpans.
Brendon makes an agreeable noise, scrolling aimlessly through the page in front of him. It's all bullshit, but that's nothing new. Funny how you can get used to things, he thinks. Used to people flinging around the worst stories people will believe. Used to people who will say they love you even it they're true. Used to no one actually caring what the truth is as long as they've got something to talk about.
"--for not showing up," Spencer is saying.
"Wait, what?" says Brendon.
Spencer sighs. "Are you sure you're not concussed? I said I managed to catch Ryan before he left--he says you're a douche for not showing up. At the reception. And he means that lovingly, of course."
"Of course he does." Brendon closes his browser window. He eyes the screen for another moment, then just turns the whole monitor off. "I kind of want to buy another car."
"You just did that yesterday," Spencer says, sounding resigned. "You crashed it, remember?"
"Yeah, that's why I need another one. I didn't actually like that one anyway." Brendon stands and stretches, cradles his phone between ear and shoulder so he can stretch his arms up as far as they'll go.
"You-- okay, whatever. Go buy a car, then?"
"Come with me?" Brendon asks, the question out of his mouth before he even thinks about it, but yeah, he thinks he'd really like someone to come with him. Buying a car is probably not a normal impulse for someone who's just been in an accident. Maybe he's going a little bit crazy. It might be good to have someone around.
Spencer says, "Make Jon go with you." He sounds annoyed.
"But Spence, it's Jon and Cassie's first day in after their first night out alone since the baby, do you really want me to drag him away from that?" Really, he's already got Spencer on the phone, and convincing him is easier than making a whole new call. "C'mon," he says. "It can be, like, a super-awesome handsome bachelors-type thing."
"Dude, fuck you," Spencer says, and he actually sounds inexplicably offended.
Brendon frowns. "Hey--"
"Look--" Spencer says, then sighs. "Just don't crash whatever you get, okay?"
"Yeah," Brendon says. "I won't."
He doesn't get a new car until Friday, and then it's not even new: an old 1994 Toyota Camry, deep green, plain interior, and the radio doesn't work, but Brendon figures that's just part of its charm--something about the idea of hurtling down desert highways with no music except the wind whipping the thoughts from his head is too appealing to pass up. The inside of the car smells like dust and cheap cleaning chemicals, but the upholstry is unstained, indistinctive. Brendon doesn't love it, really, but he feels like he could search all of Vegas and not find a car he wants to buy more right now.
So, he forks over a few thousand in cash and spends the rest of the day driving aimlessly around the city and the suburbs, humming to himself, nothing in particular, just noise. He gets a smoothie and drives some more. He thinks about calling Spencer or Jon or someone, but he decides to go home instead.
Jon is still in Las Vegas for the weekend, and is apparently completely and utterly amused by the car. "No, Brendon, it totally suits you," he says with a ridiculous grin. "It's very, um. Symmetrical."
Brendon folds his arms over his chest. "I like it, okay? It's got sentimental value."
"To who?" Jon has his cell phone out now, and is snapping pictures of the car from artsy angles.
"Someone, I'm sure," Brendon huffs. "Who are you sending those to?"
"Oh, everyone. Has Spencer seen this thing yet?"
Spencer has not, yet, but when Jon is done being a photographer Brendon almost immediately receives a text message. It says, Hahahahahaha.
"Spencer thinks it's classy," Brendon informs Jon haughtily. "Edgily vintage."
"Is edgily a word? Spencer thinks the car is hilarious," Jon says.
Brendon rolls his eyes and shrugs. The Camry might not really be typical rockstar flair, but it runs and it's in one piece and he hasn't crashed it yet, which are really the important things, he thinks. "Spencer has not been behind the wheel of this beauty," he says. "He will understand once that happens."
"Baby, you can drive my car," Jon sings.
"Yes, I'm gonna be a star," Brendon agrees.
"Beep beep'm beep beep yeah," they croon in unison.
Jon is right, though: Spencer thinks the car is hilarious. Brendon can tell by the way he looks at it, hand on hip, mouth twitching up at the corner. Spencer is very subtle about finding things hilarious, but Brendon likes to think he's figured out most of Spencer's expressions right now. The crinkle of his eyes is affectionate, the set of his jaw a little exasperated, the purse of his lips resigned and bemused for reasons Brendon can never quite figure out.
Right now, though, the point of concern is not Brendon's new used car or the subtleties of Spencer's mouth, but rather the price of the new pair of limited edition Nike sneakers Spencer is eyeing critically through the storefront window in the Boulevard Mall.
"They're not that different from the old Air Max 360s, the Eminem ones. I don't see where the hell they get off asking that much for them," Spencer is saying, thoroughly annoyed, so much so that he has both hands on his hips, now.
"It's not like you can't afford them," Brendon says, leaning forward so his breath fogs up the glass when he exhales. They are here because Brendon had insisted that Spencer give the Camry a chance, at least, or because Brendon didn't have anything to do in this month the band had taken off for weddings and babies, or maybe because Brendon could not, as hard as he tried, seem to stretch himself out enough to fill up his house. Getting out is good, even if it is shoe-shopping for Spencer.
"Well, yes," Spencer says impatiently, "but it's the principle of the thing. I don't need to spend three hundred dollars on a pair of shoes I practically already own, do I?"
"Well, no, but you want them anyway," Brendon says.
Spencer sighs. "I really do."
Half an hour later, Spencer's got a plastic bag looped over his wrist and the box inside keeps bumping Brendon's knee as they walk. Spencer's old shoes are in the box. The new ones are on his feet. He's got a strangely endearing satisfied look about him, less bitchy than he's been most of the afternoon, and it makes Brendon feel a little better about life.
Over a late lunch, Brendon picks at his tofu and Spencer asks questions around pieces of sushi:
"So, how are you?" Spencer asks. He's frowning a little bit, as if he's expecting some nervous confirmation of internet rumors, or maybe like he feels obigated to ask.
"I'm fine," Brendon answers, stabbing a piece of tofu with the end of his chopstick.
"Actually fine, or, like, Pete-fine?" As in, going slowly insane and carving dark sexual metaphors into hotel room walls. Brendon's pretty sure that isn't applicable to his present state of mind. He's a little restless, with the time off, maybe a little lonely with so much time to himself, but there's really no reason for Spencer to be scrutinizing him over his dragon roll like he is.
"Actually fine, Spence," Brendon sighs.
"Yeah," Spencer says. "Okay, that's good."
On the way home, Spencer's cell phone rings.
"Hey, superstud," Spencer answers it, grinning. Brendon looks over briefly, but mostly makes sure to keep his eyes focused on the road. He can hear Ryan on the other end of the phone, not well enough to make out words, but the familiar rise and fall of his voice, pauses and punctuations, inflections and intonations.
Spencer laughs quietly at whatever Ryan is telling him. Brendon glances over again, but doesn't ask about it. The sun is setting over on the passenger's side and Spencer looks soft and golden in the fading light. It's an incarnation of Spencer that Brendon loves, because it reminds him that, despite differences and disagreements, Spencer has never left him in any important ways.
Brendon tries to tune out the majority of the conversation, but he can't help but catch the words filtering past his ears. "No, no, I'm just chilling in Brendon's sweet new ride," Spencer says, not a trace of irony in his voice. "You should come home early just to see this baby. No, not because I miss you." A pause, then another laugh. "Yes, I'm gonna be a star," he sing-songs into the phone.
"Beep beep'm beep beep yeah," Brendon sings quitely to himself.
"Why are you even talking to me?" Spencer asks eventually, amused, mouth quirked into a grin. "Don't you have, like, husbandly duties or someshit? Yeah-- okay, whatever. Seriously, Ry, I'm glad you're happy. No, stop calling me. Forever. Yes, I breathe for you, too. Go away."
He hangs up, blinks around in the near-nighttime. "Brendon, uh, where are we going?"
They're on Interstate 15, going south, steady at about eighty miles an hour. Brendon shrugs. "Somewhere not home," he says. He'll decide when he gets there.
The thing is, the breakup was mutual and friendly. There were no tears, no screaming fights, no weeks or months of treading on glass while hearts healed and habits reformed. It didn't affect the band, not in any notable ways, and after the way where at some point they had slid so naturally into three years of soft touches and secret moments and long nights that are seared into Brendon's brain like a match in the dark, somehow, they had come full circle back to where they started, and it just wasn't a romance anymore.
"You know forcing things never works," Ryan had said, quietly, into the crook of Brendon's bare shoulder, his long fingers twining with Brendon's own. "We can't run this into the ground. We can't ruin it. It wouldn't be fair."
"No," Brendon agreed into Ryan's hair, blinking slowly, trying to decide how to feel.
"There's such a big difference," Ryan murmured, "between loving and being in love."
And that was it, really. Everything wound down soft and easy, and Brendon stopped thinking about it, because there was nothing left to think about.
Now, Brendon thinks, it's a lucky thing he's got Spencer in the passenger seat with his three-hundred-dollar Nikes propped up on the dashboard, because that means he's got one really good reason not to run the car off the road. Again.
"Can't we at least turn the radio on?" Spencer asks around a yawn. He gave up an hour ago asking where they were going, and is now just sort of resigned, reclining in his seat and texting Zack with approximate locations, just in case he needs rescuing at some point. Brendon is glad he's not bitching, or demanding they turn around. He thinks that maybe, on some level, Spencer might understand.
"Radio doesn't work," Brendon says, shrugging apologetically.
"Ah," says Spencer. He punches out another text on his phone. Brendon is fairly sure it says something along the lines of, bden is a douchebag, can i plz kill him wth knives. Brendon is also fairly sure Zack won't agree to that, though. Zack's a good guy.
Spencer rolls down his window, and the wind whips into the car, around Brendon's ears, through his hair and between his fingers with the scent of the desert and the night. Spencer leans back and closes his eyes. Brendon keeps driving.
Three o'clock in the morning finds them in southern California, somewhere between Los Angeles and San Diego, rolling quietly up to the dark, deserted beaches of the Pacific coast. Spencer is asleep in the passenger seat, has been for several hours now; he shifts and murmurs when the car slows to a stop, but doesn't wake up. Brendon reaches over to touch Spencer's cheek briefly, whispering, "I'll be right back."
Brendon leaves his shoes in the car: it's summer, and he doesn't want to get sand in them. He leaves his door open and pads quietly across the sand, the sand soft and warm under his bare feet. It's a clear night; the moon is large and bright overhead and Brendon can see the ocean stretching out into nothingness, the white crests of waves, the scattered reflections of starlight trailing across the water. It's breathtakingly massive, and Brendon shivers despite the warmth of the night.
The breeze from the water is crisp and salty. Brendon stops just short of where the waves are lapping quietly up the beach and watches them ripple up the sand, inches from his toes, then slide silently back into the ocean, fitting right back into it like they were never gone in the first place.
"What the hell are you doing here, Urie?" he murmurs, wrapping his arms around himself and looking away from the water, up at the sky. Three in the morning, six hours from home, with his ex-lover's best friend asleep in his car up the beach. There's something beautifully and disturbingly existential about the whole thing. If Brendon was a writer, if he was Ryan, or Pete or someone, he would take it and spin it into an anthem about loss and heartbreak for kids across the world to copy into their notebooks instead of what the teacher is saying. Instead, though, all he can do is let the feeling squeeze his heart until it's fit to burst.
A wave breaks the pattern, lapping over Brendon's feet; he jumps and yelps, water spattering over the sand. The sound seems unnaturally loud in the darkness. Brendon looks around instinctively to make sure no one heard, even though he knows Spencer's the only one nearby.
The water is cold, but Brendon's feet are wet now anyway. He rolls his jeans up to his knees and wades in a few feet until the waves are tickling him at mid-calf, toes curling into wet sand, the chill of the water a sharp contrast to the ocean air. Brendon shivers again, then stands very still, looking out seaward. The sky and the ocean blend together in the darkness, and he can't tell where the horizon is.
He stares for a long time, trying not to think, and wondering if that's the problem.
By the time Spencer wakes up, Brendon's feet are numb from the water. Spencer moves quietly, always has, so Brendon doesn't even notice him until he's standing at the water's edge, sneakers hanging from one hand.
"Brendon!" he says sharply so Brendon twists around to see him, blinking back into focus, the realization that there other people in the world jerking his mind back down to earth.
"What the hell?" Spencer says. He looks angry--some kind of angry, anyway, not the kind of angry Brendon's used to from Spencer. "What the hell, Brendon, seriously, what are you doing, get the fuck out of the water."
Brendon complies wordlessly, wading back over to him, the air cold against his wet skin and sand sticking to his feet. Spencer gives him a once-over, sighs, and reaches for Brendon's hand.
"I was just thinking," Brendon mumbles as Spencer leads him back to the car, his warm fingers wrapped tight around Brendon's cold ones.
Spencer gives him an exasperated look. "You don't think," he says flatly. "You need to sleep--lay down in the back for a few hours and then we'll go find some breakfast."
Brendon does that, curling awkwardly onto the back seat with his sandy feet hanging off the edge. Spencer climbs back into the passenger seat, reclining it back as far as it'll go and settling on his side.
"Spence," Brendon says. Whispers, more like.
"Shut up," Spencer mumbles, but he stretches a hand back to find Brendon's again, fitting their fingers together and squeezing. Brendon falls asleep like that, clutching Spencer's hand like it's keeping him from drowning.
Brendon wakes up to harsh sunlight and a painful crick in his back. He yawns and tries to stretch, but winds up jamming his knuckles into the door instead. "Ow, fuck," he says.
"Good morning, sunshine," Spencer says from the front. Brendon twists around to blink up at him, adjusting to the brightness; Spencer's still curled in the passenger seat, awake, texting away. He's still barefoot, his Nikes set up on the dashboard, and his hair is mussed, but otherwise he looks relatively unfazed.
"Ugh," says Brendon, sitting up slowly and cracking his back. "What time is it?"
"Like nine-ish." Spencer pockets his Sidekick, adjusting his seat back up into an upright position. "Are you done being existential yet, because I'm starving."
"Mmmgh," Brendon says, intelligible and articulate. But he pushes the far door open with his feet and crawls out, groaning and stretching, going up on tiptoe and reaching up as high as he can. Grabbing for the clouds. They seem a little more in-reach than usual. In the bright morning, the beach is nothing like the place he drove to: there are already people wandering up and down the sand, surfers tiny and bright-colored out on the water. The water is blue and sparkling, and it's still massive, but not impossibly--all-encompassing. Universal.
They manage to find themselves an IHOP and settle into a booth in the back, Spencer informing Brendon snippily that he better be buying. Brendon shrugs and orders inordinate amounts of coffee, and Spencer seems at least a little bit mollified once he's got a steaming mug in front of him. As Spencer adds cream and sugar and sips at his coffee, Brendon sits quietly, half-heartedly studying the menu. He always gets the same thing at IHOP, anyway.
"Can't Buy Me Love" is playing over the restaurant's speakers. Spencer unconsciously taps his fingers in rhythm on the table, and Brendon hums along quietly.
When Spencer finally has his giant Black Bean Chili & Cheese omelette in front of him, he takes a moment between mouthfuls to blink over at Brendon, frowning a little. "So, do you want to talk about it?"
"About what?" Brendon says around a mouthful of delicious, syrup-soaked pancakes.
"We're in fucking San Diego," Spencer says, stabbing a bean with a fork and waving it emphatically.
Brendon shrugs.
Spencer eats the bean and rolls his eyes.
"Wait, what?" Jon Walker is laughing at him, again. Brendon is back home, now; Spencer made him drive them back after breakfast, several hours of Spencer frowning at the scenery and Brendon humming the Beatles, Spencer disappearing into his apartment with one last long, hard look at Brendon through the passenger's side window. And now, Brendon is back home again, and Jon is laughing at him over the phone from Chicago.
"I just kind of decided to drive to the beach?" Brendon repeats, wrinkling his nose. Sometimes Jon finds things funny and he doesn't know why.
"Spencer just let you kidnap him for a five-hour road trip?" Jon sounds amused and slightly incredulous. When Brendon thinks about it, he's surprised, too, by Spencer's complacency through the whole thing.
"Well," Brendon says, attempting to convey his shrug through his voice, "longer, because I didn't drive straight there, and yeah, I guess he did. It was a really nice night?"
"Huh," says Jon.
"What?"
"Nothing," says Jon. "Well, I don't know-- I guess it was probably good for him to get away for a night, after the wedding and all."
"You think?" Brendon asks, frowning thoughtfully. He doesn't see where Ryan's wedding would really fit into Spencer's need for vacation, except the part where he might miss his best friend while Ryan's off on the honeymoon, but Jon is smarter about Spencer than Brendon is, so.
"Well-- yeah," Jon decides. "Yeah, probably. Hey, dude, I know this is supposed to be like, vacation from the band time, but keep an eye on him for me, okay?"
"Yeah," Brendon says, slowly, after a moment. "Okay, yeah, of course I will."
It's a strange thing, to Brendon, to think of Spencer as someone who needs looking after--he doesn't know why Jon would think that, and Spencer's always been the serious one, down-to-earth, the one whose brain holds things like gas prices and the right dosage of aspirin. Whatever he's been missing--whatever it is Jon knows and he doesn't--well, it's a good thing to distract Brendon from thinking about the beach, about Ryan on his honeymoon, and all that other shit he'd thought he was over.
So he keeps his word to Jon and sends periodic text messages to Spencer, just:
spencer spencer spncer (smiththe5th), my sweet ride misses yr cute lil tushie
or
hey hey baby you can drive my car
or
if a treefalls in the forest then springs back upa s a joke do the squirels freak out???
and tries to read between the lines of Spencer's replies. It's hard to gauge mood and well-being through acronyms and punctuation, especially with Spencer (o.k., occasionally yes or no), and especially with someone who's hard enough to read in person, whose first language is monotone. Brendon thinks, how are you ever supposed to know if something is wrong, anyway?
So when Brendon gets sick of trying to decipher the emotional content of yr a freak, he just calls.
"Ten texts in three hours, Brendon, do you really miss me that much?" Spencer answers in a huff of exasperation. "I mean, like, I let you kidnap me to San Diego, do I need to get a restraining order, because--"
"Are you okay?" Brendon blurts, interrupting. He doesn't do subtle well.
"What?" Spencer sounds annoyed, nonplussed. "I'm fine. Like, alive, kicking, all that. Why?"
Brendon shrugs.
"Shrugging doesn't work over the phone," Spencer says.
"Apparently it does," Brendon points out, grinning.
"Fuck you," Spencer says congenially.
"So you're really okay?" Brendon is pretty sure that even if Spencer wasn't okay, he probably wouldn't confide in Brendon over the telephone, but if Jon asks, he'll at least be able to tell him something.
Spencer sighs. "No, Brendon, I'm going slowly insane and have in the last two days taken up conversing with my house plants."
"Um," Brendon says. "When did you get house plants?"
"Maybe I'm imagining them," says Spencer, and Brendon can hear his grin, broad and toothy.
"I might have to come over there to make sure," Brendon says, solemn, drumming fingers restlessly on his kitchen counter.
"No, I don't think so-- hey," Spencer cuts himself off, the grin in his voice trailing off. He's quiet a moment, almost long enough that Brendon's about to speak up before Spencer completes the thought. "Hey, can we--" Spencer starts. "Do you want to go to the beach again?"
Brendon blinks. "Um," he says, "I guess that'd be cool? I like the beach."
"That same beach," Spencer says. "I want to go there."
Brendon says, "When?"
"Soon," Spencer says. "Like, now."
Brendon looks at the clock, checks his watch. Glances at the open inbox on his desktop screen. There's plenty of time for questions in the car, he figures. "Sure, okay," he says.
Spencer is not wearing his three hundred-dollar sneakers, this time; he is wearing flip-flops, which he kicks off to prop both bare feet up on the dashboard, toes scrunching up against the inside of the windshield, leaving smudges on the glass. Brendon would comment, but he's messed up worse things of Spencer's in his life. In the whole scheme of things, toeprints are pretty insignificant.
The interstate looks different this time, wide-open and washed out in the early afternoon, bracing itself for rush hour. Brendon almost gets distracted by it, but he can see Spencer out of the corner of his eye, fingers curled into the knees of his jeans, can see the soft slump of his shoulders when he lets out a long breath.
"Do you miss Ryan?" Brendon asks, after a while, when he remembers he's supposed to be asking questions.
"Ryan texts me almost as much as you do," Spencer says. His voice is bland, unafflicted, but Brendon can still feel the warmth behind the words. Brendon has gotten exactly four messages from Ryan since the wedding; he's deleted them all without reading or listening.
"Oh," says Brendon.
Spencer glances over at him. "You miss Ryan," he says. It's not a question, and it's not about the honeymoon, but he doesn't push it further.
"Mmm." Brendon eyes the road lazily, changing lanes for the hell of it. "Why'd you want to go to the beach?"
"I like the beach," says Spencer.
About an hour into California, Spencer says, "I really wish your radio worked."
Brendon shrugs, watching Spencer out of the corner of his eye. "We could have a sing-along," he says, grinning.
Spencer raises an eyebrow at him, then looks back out the window. His fingers tap out a rhythm on his knee. "Baby, you can drive my car," he sings softly.
"No, no," Brendon laughs. "A whole new wooooorld--"
"Fuck, no," Spencer says, frowning. "Sing 'Tonight, Tonight'. You haven't sung that in forever."
"Sing it with me," Brendon says.
Spencer doesn't sing exactly on-key; he mumbles around the words and fades out sometimes to lean against the window, but Brendon thinks they sound great together anyway. By the time they're skirting around San Diego, they've gone through most of the songs they've ever covered on tour and there's the hint of a smile in the corner of Spencer's mouth.
part II
panic! at the disco; brendon/spencer
we_are_cities july 31 07 & aug 18 07
pg-13; 11,179 words. for maddy.
sn|dt|rc|k.
and i say it's all right
I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainty that just to be alive is a grand thing.
--Agatha Christie
The day Ryan gets married, Brendon buys a brand new Mercedes convertible and runs it into a telephone pole on the way to the reception.
"Honestly," says Spencer when he shows up, flush-faced, his tie loose and the top buttons of his tux shirt undone. He eyes the wreck of Brendon's car, the sharp points of silver and red crumpled in on each other, and clicks his tongue impatiently, hand propped on his hip. He looks over at Brendon, frowning. "You are okay, right?"
Brendon, who by now is sitting on the curb, picking at the grass, blinks up at him. "I'm fine," he says. It's pretty much the truth; he's a little shaken up, a little bruised, but that's not really anything new.
"Good," Spencer says in the short, indistinct way that means he's actually really glad Brendon's alive. He shifts from one foot to the other, cocks his hip, sighs exasperatedly. "Jesus, Urie, you could've picked a better day."
"It was an accident," Brendon snaps. He's not entirely sure how it happened; he remembers leaving the church and hitting the pole, but not really much in between. "Why didn't you just make Jon come?" He gets to his feet and brushes the dirt off his ass. Jon, at least, would've been a little bit supportive about the whole situation.
"Jon was having fun. It's one of his and Cassie's first nights out alone since the baby, did you really want me to drag him away from that to clean up after you?" Spencer says impatiently, the same tone he's always reserved for Brendon when he does stupid shit. Brendon kind of hates that tone, but he ignores it, since he deserves it this time.
"Sorry," Brendon mumbles, wandering back over to inspect the damage again. He hadn't actually liked the car that much, but it still sucked. He'd bought it on a whim, that morning, one of those impulse buys because you feel like you need something new in your life. It wasn't really his style, though. He frowns down at the bent hood, picking a piece of flaking paint off an abrupt bend of metal. It's sharper than he expects; it pokes into his skin and gets stuck under his fingernail. "Fuck, ow," he says, and digs it out with his thumb.
Spencer is watching him, lips pressed together in a thin line, hand on hip in classic Spencer bitch-pose. "You called your insurance, right? A towtruck?"
"Yeah, right before I called you." Brendon kicks sullenly at a tire, scuffing dirt all across the toe of his good shoes.
"Good," says Spencer, not like the one before, just in relief that Brendon's managed to do one thing competently today. He pauses, draws a breath, and hovers between the inhale and the exhale for a moment before asking, "So, did you want me to take you home, or back to the reception, or what?" He asks this very carefully; Brendon can practically feel him stepping around the words like broken glass. Pity from Spencer Smith, Brendon thinks. He's not sure how he feels about that.
"Home's fine," he decides eventually with an awkward sort of shrug. "They're not gonna miss me at the party."
Spencer's eyes narrow minutely, for just a second, but then he just shrugs, too. "I'll call Jon," he says. "So people know you're alive."
It's another hour before Brendon finishes dealing with the insurance company and the towtruck guy; he finally sinks down into the passenger seat of Spencer's sleek black BMW, the energy seeping from him as he exhales, sagging back into the leather uphosltry. Spencer climbs in the other side, pulls the door shut behind him, and fires up the engine without preamble. Classic rock blares to life on the radio; Spencer reaches over and turns it down to more of a background-noise level.
"Sorry for keeping you from the reception," Brendon says.
Spencer shrugs, not looking over at him, eyes intent on the road. "I made my best man speech, and I didn't have a date or anything, so, like." He shrugs again. "Ryan'll understand."
"Yeah." Brendon looks down at his hands. Cracks his knuckles a few times.
"That's so gross," Spencer says. Brendon cracks them again, and Spencer rolls his eyes.
It's dark outside when they finally pull up to Brendon's place: it's a cute little house on the outskirts of Las Vegas, not too far from where Brendon grew up, and he had chosen it over an apartment because, he said, what was the point in having an awesome place if you didn't have a backyard to plant shit in? As Spencer's car slows to a stop, though, the house just looks too big. Brendon sighs.
Spencer looks over at him for the first time since the drive started. "Are you sure you're okay, dude? I mean, you should probably go to a doctor--"
"I'm fine, Spence," Brendon interrupts, pulling a grin with some effort. "I've still got my pretty face, and that's what really matters, right?"
"Mmm, right," Spencer says. He studies Brendon for a moment, but apparently decides he's well enough, because he waves a dismissive hand. "Go rest. I'm gonna go see if I can catch Ryan to say bye before the honeymoon--call me later so I know you're not dead from internal bleeding or something, okay?"
Brendon nods. Spencer waits until he's inside the house to drive off.
The next morning, Brendon wakes up stiff and sore and finds thirteen new messages on his phone: mostly just people making sure he's alive, Jon asking if he needs anything, Pete offering him driving lessons. A voicemail from Ryan.
Brendon deletes them all and calls Spencer, who picks up on the second ring.
"It's nine in the morning, Brendon," he grumbles, muffled; Brendon can picture him with his face half-sunk into the pillow, sleep-mussed hair in his eyes.
"Oh," says Brendon, glancing over at the clock. "Sorry, I didn't check." He fell asleep really early, he figures. He didn't even eat dinner after Spencer dropped him off.
"S'fine," Spencer mumbles. "You're still alive? Not bleeding or concussed or anything? There are stalkerazzi pictures of your dead car on the internet, saw them last night."
"Fabulous." Brendon says. Because nothing brightens your spirits like issuing a million press statements assuring people he wasn't drunk or suicidal. He considers briefly just closing all the curtains, curling back into bed, and hiding from the world for a year or so.
Spencer makes a sleepy sort of noise from the other end of the line, but his voice clears up a little, like he's rolled onto his back and isn't talking into the pillow anymore. "I told Pete to tell people it was a mechanical thing; the car's pretty much gone but you're fine, you went home to rest," he says, succinct, business-like.
"Thank you." Brendon lets out a breath. "Uh-- you can go back to sleep now, if you want. Sorry for waking you up."
"S'fine," Spencer says around a muffled yawn. "G'night."
His house really is too big, Brendon decides over a bowl of Froot Loops an hour later, showered and dressed with his wet hair stick up in every direction. After so many years of spending most of his time on a tour bus, though, even the tiny one-bedroom apartment he started out in would seem luxuriously spacious, probably. But it's really less of having too much space and and more of having too few people, Brendon thinks, frowning in concentration as he tries to fit all the green loops into one spoonful. It's too quiet. Brendon's used to screaming siblings and Guitar Hero turned up loud and Ryan mumbling in his sleep. Brendon's not good with quiet.
One of the green loops escapes his spoon. He picks it out with his fingers, pops it in his mouth, and goes after the purple ones now. Then the red ones, then the yellow ones, and then he just gives up and shovels the rest indiscriminately into his mouth. Then he gets on the internet to see how many new rumors he can find.
As soon as the clock hits noon, he calls Spencer again.
Spencer answers the phone with, "Did you know you were spotted in three different bars on the Strip before the accident? Urie, you better not have been making clones and not telling us."
"I also snorted cocaine off a stripper named Chardonnay's stomach," Brendon replies cheerfully. "She says so on the internet."
"Classy," Spencer deadpans.
Brendon makes an agreeable noise, scrolling aimlessly through the page in front of him. It's all bullshit, but that's nothing new. Funny how you can get used to things, he thinks. Used to people flinging around the worst stories people will believe. Used to people who will say they love you even it they're true. Used to no one actually caring what the truth is as long as they've got something to talk about.
"--for not showing up," Spencer is saying.
"Wait, what?" says Brendon.
Spencer sighs. "Are you sure you're not concussed? I said I managed to catch Ryan before he left--he says you're a douche for not showing up. At the reception. And he means that lovingly, of course."
"Of course he does." Brendon closes his browser window. He eyes the screen for another moment, then just turns the whole monitor off. "I kind of want to buy another car."
"You just did that yesterday," Spencer says, sounding resigned. "You crashed it, remember?"
"Yeah, that's why I need another one. I didn't actually like that one anyway." Brendon stands and stretches, cradles his phone between ear and shoulder so he can stretch his arms up as far as they'll go.
"You-- okay, whatever. Go buy a car, then?"
"Come with me?" Brendon asks, the question out of his mouth before he even thinks about it, but yeah, he thinks he'd really like someone to come with him. Buying a car is probably not a normal impulse for someone who's just been in an accident. Maybe he's going a little bit crazy. It might be good to have someone around.
Spencer says, "Make Jon go with you." He sounds annoyed.
"But Spence, it's Jon and Cassie's first day in after their first night out alone since the baby, do you really want me to drag him away from that?" Really, he's already got Spencer on the phone, and convincing him is easier than making a whole new call. "C'mon," he says. "It can be, like, a super-awesome handsome bachelors-type thing."
"Dude, fuck you," Spencer says, and he actually sounds inexplicably offended.
Brendon frowns. "Hey--"
"Look--" Spencer says, then sighs. "Just don't crash whatever you get, okay?"
"Yeah," Brendon says. "I won't."
He doesn't get a new car until Friday, and then it's not even new: an old 1994 Toyota Camry, deep green, plain interior, and the radio doesn't work, but Brendon figures that's just part of its charm--something about the idea of hurtling down desert highways with no music except the wind whipping the thoughts from his head is too appealing to pass up. The inside of the car smells like dust and cheap cleaning chemicals, but the upholstry is unstained, indistinctive. Brendon doesn't love it, really, but he feels like he could search all of Vegas and not find a car he wants to buy more right now.
So, he forks over a few thousand in cash and spends the rest of the day driving aimlessly around the city and the suburbs, humming to himself, nothing in particular, just noise. He gets a smoothie and drives some more. He thinks about calling Spencer or Jon or someone, but he decides to go home instead.
Jon is still in Las Vegas for the weekend, and is apparently completely and utterly amused by the car. "No, Brendon, it totally suits you," he says with a ridiculous grin. "It's very, um. Symmetrical."
Brendon folds his arms over his chest. "I like it, okay? It's got sentimental value."
"To who?" Jon has his cell phone out now, and is snapping pictures of the car from artsy angles.
"Someone, I'm sure," Brendon huffs. "Who are you sending those to?"
"Oh, everyone. Has Spencer seen this thing yet?"
Spencer has not, yet, but when Jon is done being a photographer Brendon almost immediately receives a text message. It says, Hahahahahaha.
"Spencer thinks it's classy," Brendon informs Jon haughtily. "Edgily vintage."
"Is edgily a word? Spencer thinks the car is hilarious," Jon says.
Brendon rolls his eyes and shrugs. The Camry might not really be typical rockstar flair, but it runs and it's in one piece and he hasn't crashed it yet, which are really the important things, he thinks. "Spencer has not been behind the wheel of this beauty," he says. "He will understand once that happens."
"Baby, you can drive my car," Jon sings.
"Yes, I'm gonna be a star," Brendon agrees.
"Beep beep'm beep beep yeah," they croon in unison.
Jon is right, though: Spencer thinks the car is hilarious. Brendon can tell by the way he looks at it, hand on hip, mouth twitching up at the corner. Spencer is very subtle about finding things hilarious, but Brendon likes to think he's figured out most of Spencer's expressions right now. The crinkle of his eyes is affectionate, the set of his jaw a little exasperated, the purse of his lips resigned and bemused for reasons Brendon can never quite figure out.
Right now, though, the point of concern is not Brendon's new used car or the subtleties of Spencer's mouth, but rather the price of the new pair of limited edition Nike sneakers Spencer is eyeing critically through the storefront window in the Boulevard Mall.
"They're not that different from the old Air Max 360s, the Eminem ones. I don't see where the hell they get off asking that much for them," Spencer is saying, thoroughly annoyed, so much so that he has both hands on his hips, now.
"It's not like you can't afford them," Brendon says, leaning forward so his breath fogs up the glass when he exhales. They are here because Brendon had insisted that Spencer give the Camry a chance, at least, or because Brendon didn't have anything to do in this month the band had taken off for weddings and babies, or maybe because Brendon could not, as hard as he tried, seem to stretch himself out enough to fill up his house. Getting out is good, even if it is shoe-shopping for Spencer.
"Well, yes," Spencer says impatiently, "but it's the principle of the thing. I don't need to spend three hundred dollars on a pair of shoes I practically already own, do I?"
"Well, no, but you want them anyway," Brendon says.
Spencer sighs. "I really do."
Half an hour later, Spencer's got a plastic bag looped over his wrist and the box inside keeps bumping Brendon's knee as they walk. Spencer's old shoes are in the box. The new ones are on his feet. He's got a strangely endearing satisfied look about him, less bitchy than he's been most of the afternoon, and it makes Brendon feel a little better about life.
Over a late lunch, Brendon picks at his tofu and Spencer asks questions around pieces of sushi:
"So, how are you?" Spencer asks. He's frowning a little bit, as if he's expecting some nervous confirmation of internet rumors, or maybe like he feels obigated to ask.
"I'm fine," Brendon answers, stabbing a piece of tofu with the end of his chopstick.
"Actually fine, or, like, Pete-fine?" As in, going slowly insane and carving dark sexual metaphors into hotel room walls. Brendon's pretty sure that isn't applicable to his present state of mind. He's a little restless, with the time off, maybe a little lonely with so much time to himself, but there's really no reason for Spencer to be scrutinizing him over his dragon roll like he is.
"Actually fine, Spence," Brendon sighs.
"Yeah," Spencer says. "Okay, that's good."
On the way home, Spencer's cell phone rings.
"Hey, superstud," Spencer answers it, grinning. Brendon looks over briefly, but mostly makes sure to keep his eyes focused on the road. He can hear Ryan on the other end of the phone, not well enough to make out words, but the familiar rise and fall of his voice, pauses and punctuations, inflections and intonations.
Spencer laughs quietly at whatever Ryan is telling him. Brendon glances over again, but doesn't ask about it. The sun is setting over on the passenger's side and Spencer looks soft and golden in the fading light. It's an incarnation of Spencer that Brendon loves, because it reminds him that, despite differences and disagreements, Spencer has never left him in any important ways.
Brendon tries to tune out the majority of the conversation, but he can't help but catch the words filtering past his ears. "No, no, I'm just chilling in Brendon's sweet new ride," Spencer says, not a trace of irony in his voice. "You should come home early just to see this baby. No, not because I miss you." A pause, then another laugh. "Yes, I'm gonna be a star," he sing-songs into the phone.
"Beep beep'm beep beep yeah," Brendon sings quitely to himself.
"Why are you even talking to me?" Spencer asks eventually, amused, mouth quirked into a grin. "Don't you have, like, husbandly duties or someshit? Yeah-- okay, whatever. Seriously, Ry, I'm glad you're happy. No, stop calling me. Forever. Yes, I breathe for you, too. Go away."
He hangs up, blinks around in the near-nighttime. "Brendon, uh, where are we going?"
They're on Interstate 15, going south, steady at about eighty miles an hour. Brendon shrugs. "Somewhere not home," he says. He'll decide when he gets there.
The thing is, the breakup was mutual and friendly. There were no tears, no screaming fights, no weeks or months of treading on glass while hearts healed and habits reformed. It didn't affect the band, not in any notable ways, and after the way where at some point they had slid so naturally into three years of soft touches and secret moments and long nights that are seared into Brendon's brain like a match in the dark, somehow, they had come full circle back to where they started, and it just wasn't a romance anymore.
"You know forcing things never works," Ryan had said, quietly, into the crook of Brendon's bare shoulder, his long fingers twining with Brendon's own. "We can't run this into the ground. We can't ruin it. It wouldn't be fair."
"No," Brendon agreed into Ryan's hair, blinking slowly, trying to decide how to feel.
"There's such a big difference," Ryan murmured, "between loving and being in love."
And that was it, really. Everything wound down soft and easy, and Brendon stopped thinking about it, because there was nothing left to think about.
Now, Brendon thinks, it's a lucky thing he's got Spencer in the passenger seat with his three-hundred-dollar Nikes propped up on the dashboard, because that means he's got one really good reason not to run the car off the road. Again.
"Can't we at least turn the radio on?" Spencer asks around a yawn. He gave up an hour ago asking where they were going, and is now just sort of resigned, reclining in his seat and texting Zack with approximate locations, just in case he needs rescuing at some point. Brendon is glad he's not bitching, or demanding they turn around. He thinks that maybe, on some level, Spencer might understand.
"Radio doesn't work," Brendon says, shrugging apologetically.
"Ah," says Spencer. He punches out another text on his phone. Brendon is fairly sure it says something along the lines of, bden is a douchebag, can i plz kill him wth knives. Brendon is also fairly sure Zack won't agree to that, though. Zack's a good guy.
Spencer rolls down his window, and the wind whips into the car, around Brendon's ears, through his hair and between his fingers with the scent of the desert and the night. Spencer leans back and closes his eyes. Brendon keeps driving.
Three o'clock in the morning finds them in southern California, somewhere between Los Angeles and San Diego, rolling quietly up to the dark, deserted beaches of the Pacific coast. Spencer is asleep in the passenger seat, has been for several hours now; he shifts and murmurs when the car slows to a stop, but doesn't wake up. Brendon reaches over to touch Spencer's cheek briefly, whispering, "I'll be right back."
Brendon leaves his shoes in the car: it's summer, and he doesn't want to get sand in them. He leaves his door open and pads quietly across the sand, the sand soft and warm under his bare feet. It's a clear night; the moon is large and bright overhead and Brendon can see the ocean stretching out into nothingness, the white crests of waves, the scattered reflections of starlight trailing across the water. It's breathtakingly massive, and Brendon shivers despite the warmth of the night.
The breeze from the water is crisp and salty. Brendon stops just short of where the waves are lapping quietly up the beach and watches them ripple up the sand, inches from his toes, then slide silently back into the ocean, fitting right back into it like they were never gone in the first place.
"What the hell are you doing here, Urie?" he murmurs, wrapping his arms around himself and looking away from the water, up at the sky. Three in the morning, six hours from home, with his ex-lover's best friend asleep in his car up the beach. There's something beautifully and disturbingly existential about the whole thing. If Brendon was a writer, if he was Ryan, or Pete or someone, he would take it and spin it into an anthem about loss and heartbreak for kids across the world to copy into their notebooks instead of what the teacher is saying. Instead, though, all he can do is let the feeling squeeze his heart until it's fit to burst.
A wave breaks the pattern, lapping over Brendon's feet; he jumps and yelps, water spattering over the sand. The sound seems unnaturally loud in the darkness. Brendon looks around instinctively to make sure no one heard, even though he knows Spencer's the only one nearby.
The water is cold, but Brendon's feet are wet now anyway. He rolls his jeans up to his knees and wades in a few feet until the waves are tickling him at mid-calf, toes curling into wet sand, the chill of the water a sharp contrast to the ocean air. Brendon shivers again, then stands very still, looking out seaward. The sky and the ocean blend together in the darkness, and he can't tell where the horizon is.
He stares for a long time, trying not to think, and wondering if that's the problem.
By the time Spencer wakes up, Brendon's feet are numb from the water. Spencer moves quietly, always has, so Brendon doesn't even notice him until he's standing at the water's edge, sneakers hanging from one hand.
"Brendon!" he says sharply so Brendon twists around to see him, blinking back into focus, the realization that there other people in the world jerking his mind back down to earth.
"What the hell?" Spencer says. He looks angry--some kind of angry, anyway, not the kind of angry Brendon's used to from Spencer. "What the hell, Brendon, seriously, what are you doing, get the fuck out of the water."
Brendon complies wordlessly, wading back over to him, the air cold against his wet skin and sand sticking to his feet. Spencer gives him a once-over, sighs, and reaches for Brendon's hand.
"I was just thinking," Brendon mumbles as Spencer leads him back to the car, his warm fingers wrapped tight around Brendon's cold ones.
Spencer gives him an exasperated look. "You don't think," he says flatly. "You need to sleep--lay down in the back for a few hours and then we'll go find some breakfast."
Brendon does that, curling awkwardly onto the back seat with his sandy feet hanging off the edge. Spencer climbs back into the passenger seat, reclining it back as far as it'll go and settling on his side.
"Spence," Brendon says. Whispers, more like.
"Shut up," Spencer mumbles, but he stretches a hand back to find Brendon's again, fitting their fingers together and squeezing. Brendon falls asleep like that, clutching Spencer's hand like it's keeping him from drowning.
Brendon wakes up to harsh sunlight and a painful crick in his back. He yawns and tries to stretch, but winds up jamming his knuckles into the door instead. "Ow, fuck," he says.
"Good morning, sunshine," Spencer says from the front. Brendon twists around to blink up at him, adjusting to the brightness; Spencer's still curled in the passenger seat, awake, texting away. He's still barefoot, his Nikes set up on the dashboard, and his hair is mussed, but otherwise he looks relatively unfazed.
"Ugh," says Brendon, sitting up slowly and cracking his back. "What time is it?"
"Like nine-ish." Spencer pockets his Sidekick, adjusting his seat back up into an upright position. "Are you done being existential yet, because I'm starving."
"Mmmgh," Brendon says, intelligible and articulate. But he pushes the far door open with his feet and crawls out, groaning and stretching, going up on tiptoe and reaching up as high as he can. Grabbing for the clouds. They seem a little more in-reach than usual. In the bright morning, the beach is nothing like the place he drove to: there are already people wandering up and down the sand, surfers tiny and bright-colored out on the water. The water is blue and sparkling, and it's still massive, but not impossibly--all-encompassing. Universal.
They manage to find themselves an IHOP and settle into a booth in the back, Spencer informing Brendon snippily that he better be buying. Brendon shrugs and orders inordinate amounts of coffee, and Spencer seems at least a little bit mollified once he's got a steaming mug in front of him. As Spencer adds cream and sugar and sips at his coffee, Brendon sits quietly, half-heartedly studying the menu. He always gets the same thing at IHOP, anyway.
"Can't Buy Me Love" is playing over the restaurant's speakers. Spencer unconsciously taps his fingers in rhythm on the table, and Brendon hums along quietly.
When Spencer finally has his giant Black Bean Chili & Cheese omelette in front of him, he takes a moment between mouthfuls to blink over at Brendon, frowning a little. "So, do you want to talk about it?"
"About what?" Brendon says around a mouthful of delicious, syrup-soaked pancakes.
"We're in fucking San Diego," Spencer says, stabbing a bean with a fork and waving it emphatically.
Brendon shrugs.
Spencer eats the bean and rolls his eyes.
"Wait, what?" Jon Walker is laughing at him, again. Brendon is back home, now; Spencer made him drive them back after breakfast, several hours of Spencer frowning at the scenery and Brendon humming the Beatles, Spencer disappearing into his apartment with one last long, hard look at Brendon through the passenger's side window. And now, Brendon is back home again, and Jon is laughing at him over the phone from Chicago.
"I just kind of decided to drive to the beach?" Brendon repeats, wrinkling his nose. Sometimes Jon finds things funny and he doesn't know why.
"Spencer just let you kidnap him for a five-hour road trip?" Jon sounds amused and slightly incredulous. When Brendon thinks about it, he's surprised, too, by Spencer's complacency through the whole thing.
"Well," Brendon says, attempting to convey his shrug through his voice, "longer, because I didn't drive straight there, and yeah, I guess he did. It was a really nice night?"
"Huh," says Jon.
"What?"
"Nothing," says Jon. "Well, I don't know-- I guess it was probably good for him to get away for a night, after the wedding and all."
"You think?" Brendon asks, frowning thoughtfully. He doesn't see where Ryan's wedding would really fit into Spencer's need for vacation, except the part where he might miss his best friend while Ryan's off on the honeymoon, but Jon is smarter about Spencer than Brendon is, so.
"Well-- yeah," Jon decides. "Yeah, probably. Hey, dude, I know this is supposed to be like, vacation from the band time, but keep an eye on him for me, okay?"
"Yeah," Brendon says, slowly, after a moment. "Okay, yeah, of course I will."
It's a strange thing, to Brendon, to think of Spencer as someone who needs looking after--he doesn't know why Jon would think that, and Spencer's always been the serious one, down-to-earth, the one whose brain holds things like gas prices and the right dosage of aspirin. Whatever he's been missing--whatever it is Jon knows and he doesn't--well, it's a good thing to distract Brendon from thinking about the beach, about Ryan on his honeymoon, and all that other shit he'd thought he was over.
So he keeps his word to Jon and sends periodic text messages to Spencer, just:
spencer spencer spncer (smiththe5th), my sweet ride misses yr cute lil tushie
or
hey hey baby you can drive my car
or
if a treefalls in the forest then springs back upa s a joke do the squirels freak out???
and tries to read between the lines of Spencer's replies. It's hard to gauge mood and well-being through acronyms and punctuation, especially with Spencer (o.k., occasionally yes or no), and especially with someone who's hard enough to read in person, whose first language is monotone. Brendon thinks, how are you ever supposed to know if something is wrong, anyway?
So when Brendon gets sick of trying to decipher the emotional content of yr a freak, he just calls.
"Ten texts in three hours, Brendon, do you really miss me that much?" Spencer answers in a huff of exasperation. "I mean, like, I let you kidnap me to San Diego, do I need to get a restraining order, because--"
"Are you okay?" Brendon blurts, interrupting. He doesn't do subtle well.
"What?" Spencer sounds annoyed, nonplussed. "I'm fine. Like, alive, kicking, all that. Why?"
Brendon shrugs.
"Shrugging doesn't work over the phone," Spencer says.
"Apparently it does," Brendon points out, grinning.
"Fuck you," Spencer says congenially.
"So you're really okay?" Brendon is pretty sure that even if Spencer wasn't okay, he probably wouldn't confide in Brendon over the telephone, but if Jon asks, he'll at least be able to tell him something.
Spencer sighs. "No, Brendon, I'm going slowly insane and have in the last two days taken up conversing with my house plants."
"Um," Brendon says. "When did you get house plants?"
"Maybe I'm imagining them," says Spencer, and Brendon can hear his grin, broad and toothy.
"I might have to come over there to make sure," Brendon says, solemn, drumming fingers restlessly on his kitchen counter.
"No, I don't think so-- hey," Spencer cuts himself off, the grin in his voice trailing off. He's quiet a moment, almost long enough that Brendon's about to speak up before Spencer completes the thought. "Hey, can we--" Spencer starts. "Do you want to go to the beach again?"
Brendon blinks. "Um," he says, "I guess that'd be cool? I like the beach."
"That same beach," Spencer says. "I want to go there."
Brendon says, "When?"
"Soon," Spencer says. "Like, now."
Brendon looks at the clock, checks his watch. Glances at the open inbox on his desktop screen. There's plenty of time for questions in the car, he figures. "Sure, okay," he says.
Spencer is not wearing his three hundred-dollar sneakers, this time; he is wearing flip-flops, which he kicks off to prop both bare feet up on the dashboard, toes scrunching up against the inside of the windshield, leaving smudges on the glass. Brendon would comment, but he's messed up worse things of Spencer's in his life. In the whole scheme of things, toeprints are pretty insignificant.
The interstate looks different this time, wide-open and washed out in the early afternoon, bracing itself for rush hour. Brendon almost gets distracted by it, but he can see Spencer out of the corner of his eye, fingers curled into the knees of his jeans, can see the soft slump of his shoulders when he lets out a long breath.
"Do you miss Ryan?" Brendon asks, after a while, when he remembers he's supposed to be asking questions.
"Ryan texts me almost as much as you do," Spencer says. His voice is bland, unafflicted, but Brendon can still feel the warmth behind the words. Brendon has gotten exactly four messages from Ryan since the wedding; he's deleted them all without reading or listening.
"Oh," says Brendon.
Spencer glances over at him. "You miss Ryan," he says. It's not a question, and it's not about the honeymoon, but he doesn't push it further.
"Mmm." Brendon eyes the road lazily, changing lanes for the hell of it. "Why'd you want to go to the beach?"
"I like the beach," says Spencer.
About an hour into California, Spencer says, "I really wish your radio worked."
Brendon shrugs, watching Spencer out of the corner of his eye. "We could have a sing-along," he says, grinning.
Spencer raises an eyebrow at him, then looks back out the window. His fingers tap out a rhythm on his knee. "Baby, you can drive my car," he sings softly.
"No, no," Brendon laughs. "A whole new wooooorld--"
"Fuck, no," Spencer says, frowning. "Sing 'Tonight, Tonight'. You haven't sung that in forever."
"Sing it with me," Brendon says.
Spencer doesn't sing exactly on-key; he mumbles around the words and fades out sometimes to lean against the window, but Brendon thinks they sound great together anyway. By the time they're skirting around San Diego, they've gone through most of the songs they've ever covered on tour and there's the hint of a smile in the corner of Spencer's mouth.
part II