Bandfic: Acoustic No. 5 (frat!verse)
Title: Acoustic No. 5 (frat!verse)
Author: tigs
Characters: Brendon, Ryan, Spencer, others.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Don't know or own.
Summary: When he's done, Brendon looks at Ryan and says, "So what are we playing?"
Author's Notes: For amy13 on the occasion of her birthday, because she loves Brendon and she says she loves the frat!verse. Happy birthday, hon! I hope it's a wonderful one!
Author's Notes, pt. 2: Several weeks ago, Amy linked me to this video, which may or may not be Brendon singing a song he wrote. This led to discussion of Brendon singing with an acoustic guitar (happy thought!) and this idea sort of wiggled it's way into my head. The rest of the frat!verse stories can be found here.
Five weeks in, and Brendon pretty much has the routine for Monday Night Dinners down now. First, there's the pre-dinner meeting, where Pete stands up on the raised hearth of the fireplace (or occasionally perches-rather precariously, in Brendon's opinion anyway-on the edge of the mantle) and calls for their attention. He'll make his announcements-mostly for the benefit of the pledges, Brendon figures, since it's not like the rest of the Chapter doesn't have an entire hour (plus) worth of meeting *after* dinner, too.
Sometimes people will drop by to announce their upcoming philanthropies or service opportunities.
(Last week, the entirety of Delta Gamma came over so that Gabe could be 'tapped' to go to their upcoming house dance. A barn dance at that, judging from the jeans, boots, and pigtails all of the girls were sporting. Every house taps differently, Jon told Brendon later, but the ladies of DG sang a song-a variation on "Before He Cheats", with all the words changed to apply to the dance. Then the girls made Gabe sing (and perform) the real song in front of all of them. And then the girl that was taking Gabe to the dance, Vicky T, stepped forward and gave him a gift bag full of stuff. Brendon knows there was chocolate in there, because he totally stole a piece when Gabe wasn't paying attention later, at dinner. He's pretty sure he also saw a water gun, though.)
Then comes the dinner. They have to actually *line up* and wait for Pete to ring (as Spencer's taken to calling it) the fucking little bell, and then they file in, grabbing their seats. Most Monday nights nowadays, Brendon tries to fit himself in between Ryan and Spencer, or failing that, Jon. Once he ended up at a table with Travis and Beckett and Gabe and Ray Toro and Bob Bryar, though, who had clustered together in line in some form of senior solidarity. Five seniors and Brendon, and while Brendon heard more stories about the early days of the house in that 45 minute span than he usually did in a week, he also spent the entire dinner feeling very small.
After dessert, though, Pete rings the bell again and everyone stands, and that's the point where the real members go down into the basement for Chapter.
Brendon and Ryan weren't the only freshmen to move in after Recruitment was over-Nate and Tom both had, too-but the house still feels really empty for the hour or so that all the rest of the members are locked in the dark basement, and so usually Brendon finds himself crashed out on the sofa in Ryan and Pete's room, annoying the fuck out of Ryan while he waits for everyone else to just be done already.
Tonight, though, things go a little differently, because about the time that Dave and De'Mar head off back towards campus, Brendon realizes that Spencer's not going with them. Which he usually does, because Spencer is still living on campus, with his and Ryan's friend Brent. Tonight, though, Brendon sees Spencer heading upstairs with Ryan; they're halfway up the staircase by the time Brendon catches up with them.
"Brother Smith!" he says. "You're staying!"
Spencer may, in fact, roll his eyes in Brendon's direction, but Brendon prefers to consider it a gesture of endearment.
"Yeah," Ryan says. "I managed to trick him into not leaving with promises of letting him kick my ass at Guitar Hero."
Another eye roll on Spencer's part, and yes, Brendon decides, it totally means that Spencer *cares*.
"Then I challenge Spencer to a game when he's done with you!" Brendon says, because if there's one thing he's learned after five weeks of living in the FBR house, anything and everything becomes a group activity.
This time, Ryan is the one to roll his eyes, but Spencer grins-and it's possibly slightly feral? Or maybe shark-like? Brendon just grins back, though, and follows the two of them into Ryan's room.
So, Spencer plays Ryan, and then he plays Brendon, and they're actually really evenly matched, because they start egging each other on while Ryan sits off to the side of the room and sighs.
Except then he's not just sighing, because Brendon hears the soft twang of an *actual* guitar string, and when he looks over, Ryan's pulled an acoustic out from somewhere and, well, five weeks into sharing a house with Ryan Ross and Brendon's never actually seen him play, although he knows he must of.
Brendon can't go a day without after all.
But here he is playing, and suddenly, Brendon wants nothing more than to get his own guitar, to play along. He pretty much rushes through the rest of his song on the screen, not even minding when he misses a note at the end, when Spencer crows in triumph and says, "Ha. I totally own you, Urie."
Brendon's already setting his controller down, turning his attention to Ryan. He says, "Here, wait, let me-" and then he's out the door and running down the hall to the room he shares with Travis. He grabs the case, lugging it more slowly back to Ryan's room, and then he says, "Let me just get tuned-"
Spencer's sitting on the beanbag chair between Ryan and Pete's desks now, hands folded behind his head, and Brendon can feel his intent gaze as he starts tightening the strings. Not a lot, they're still mostly in tune, after all, from his lesson earlier that day, but they still need just a little tweaking.
When he's done, he looks at Ryan and says, "So what are we playing?"
Ryan laughs just a little at Brendon's presumption, then unsurprisingly, breaks into Blink-182, quickly picked notes, and maybe they aren't playing quite in time with each other there at the very beginning, but by the time Brendon starts singing, their hands are moving pretty much in unison. He doesn't sing very loudly, pitched more for his own ears, but when he looks up, he sees Spencer watching him with a rather surprised look on his face.
Ryan too, actually, once Brendon meets his gaze.
For a moment, Brendon wants to laugh at them. Seriously, he's a *music major*. Did they think he couldn't sing? Or play?
Once they reach the end of the song, Ryan takes his fingers off of the strings and says, "Do you write, too?" He actually looks really interested in the answer, and Brendon wants to shake his head, because while yes, he does write-or he certainly has experimented with it-he's also seen the sort of lyrics that Ryan and Pete cook up, and *so* not the sort of writing he does.
Instead he says, "A little, yeah."
"Play something," Ryan says. "Something you've written."
Brendon tries to think of something that he can play, something that would be acceptable in Ryan and Spencer's eyes. Then he starts. The chords are pretty simple, just a melody-even if Brendon does think it has a pretty catchy tune-and he means to just play a slice of it, verse, chorus, verse.
Almost unconsciously, though, he starts mouthing the words, "I am feeling low, and I'm singing in my sleep," and the next thing he knows, he's actually singing it, like he used to back in his room in high school, after school, when his parents weren't home from work yet and he had the whole place to himself.
When he finishes, he sees Ryan watching him with one eyebrow raised, nodding along just slightly.
Spencer's the one to say, "Not bad."
"Dude," Brendon says, grinning widely-because from Spencer, after all, that's pretty high praise. "What are you talking about? That was fucking awesome."
At which point, Brendon hears the sound of feet pounding up the stairs from the first floor, and the next thing he knows, Pete is in the doorway, mock-glaring at all of them. "Ross," he says, "what have I told you about letting the riff-raff into our domain?"
"Sorry," Ryan says, not sounding sorry at all.
Then Pete notices the guitars balanced on both their knees. "You playing?"
"Brendon was just playing us a song he wrote," Spencer says, because he's a fucking traitor like that. "It was about a *girl*."
"Love songs?" Pete asks. Then, looking over his shoulder at someone standing out in the hallway, he says, "It's scary how fast they grow up, you know?"
"Fuck yeah," Travis says, and Brendon sighs, because of course it had to be *his* roommate out in the hall behind Pete, which means he pretty much won't be hearing the end of this until, oh, something else even more tease-worthy comes along.
Travis continues, "One minute they're just so young and innocent and the next they're trying to woo people with music…"
"I wasn't exactly trying to *woo*," Brendon says, but of course, no one's listening to him, because suddenly Travis is saying, "Do you remember that song you wrote for-what was her name, Wentz? Melanie? Melissa? And how you serenaded her freshman year?"
"Ha," Pete says. "Fuck. Dude, that song *sucked*."
"Probably not as much as Ryan's first ode sucked," Spencer says, quickly pulling his legs out of reach of Ryan's kick. "He wrote it when we were, like, 13? 14? And oh my god, he made me practice it for, like, weeks with him. And then he totally chickened out on playing it for her."
"Because she started going out with that guy on the football team," Ryan says, and that's pretty much the end of any serious conversation, because suddenly Pete is sitting down on the floor, saying, "So, Smith. Apparently some day I'm going to need to kidnap you so that I can get all of the dirt on my little brother here," and Travis is coming into the room, too, and then Joe Troh is in the doorway, saying, "Hey, 'Trick, it looks like the party's in here tonight," but Gabe and Toro are actually the next ones to come in.
There's not really enough room for all of them, but somehow more people keep squishing in, more and more, until Brendon's sharing the couch with Ryan and Travis and Andy, until he's pretty sure that he can pick out about 10 conversations going on around him.
He just settles back into the couch a little more, though, listening, comfortable, fingers moving silently back and forth over the taut strings of his guitar.
Author: tigs
Characters: Brendon, Ryan, Spencer, others.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Don't know or own.
Summary: When he's done, Brendon looks at Ryan and says, "So what are we playing?"
Author's Notes: For amy13 on the occasion of her birthday, because she loves Brendon and she says she loves the frat!verse. Happy birthday, hon! I hope it's a wonderful one!
Author's Notes, pt. 2: Several weeks ago, Amy linked me to this video, which may or may not be Brendon singing a song he wrote. This led to discussion of Brendon singing with an acoustic guitar (happy thought!) and this idea sort of wiggled it's way into my head. The rest of the frat!verse stories can be found here.
Five weeks in, and Brendon pretty much has the routine for Monday Night Dinners down now. First, there's the pre-dinner meeting, where Pete stands up on the raised hearth of the fireplace (or occasionally perches-rather precariously, in Brendon's opinion anyway-on the edge of the mantle) and calls for their attention. He'll make his announcements-mostly for the benefit of the pledges, Brendon figures, since it's not like the rest of the Chapter doesn't have an entire hour (plus) worth of meeting *after* dinner, too.
Sometimes people will drop by to announce their upcoming philanthropies or service opportunities.
(Last week, the entirety of Delta Gamma came over so that Gabe could be 'tapped' to go to their upcoming house dance. A barn dance at that, judging from the jeans, boots, and pigtails all of the girls were sporting. Every house taps differently, Jon told Brendon later, but the ladies of DG sang a song-a variation on "Before He Cheats", with all the words changed to apply to the dance. Then the girls made Gabe sing (and perform) the real song in front of all of them. And then the girl that was taking Gabe to the dance, Vicky T, stepped forward and gave him a gift bag full of stuff. Brendon knows there was chocolate in there, because he totally stole a piece when Gabe wasn't paying attention later, at dinner. He's pretty sure he also saw a water gun, though.)
Then comes the dinner. They have to actually *line up* and wait for Pete to ring (as Spencer's taken to calling it) the fucking little bell, and then they file in, grabbing their seats. Most Monday nights nowadays, Brendon tries to fit himself in between Ryan and Spencer, or failing that, Jon. Once he ended up at a table with Travis and Beckett and Gabe and Ray Toro and Bob Bryar, though, who had clustered together in line in some form of senior solidarity. Five seniors and Brendon, and while Brendon heard more stories about the early days of the house in that 45 minute span than he usually did in a week, he also spent the entire dinner feeling very small.
After dessert, though, Pete rings the bell again and everyone stands, and that's the point where the real members go down into the basement for Chapter.
Brendon and Ryan weren't the only freshmen to move in after Recruitment was over-Nate and Tom both had, too-but the house still feels really empty for the hour or so that all the rest of the members are locked in the dark basement, and so usually Brendon finds himself crashed out on the sofa in Ryan and Pete's room, annoying the fuck out of Ryan while he waits for everyone else to just be done already.
Tonight, though, things go a little differently, because about the time that Dave and De'Mar head off back towards campus, Brendon realizes that Spencer's not going with them. Which he usually does, because Spencer is still living on campus, with his and Ryan's friend Brent. Tonight, though, Brendon sees Spencer heading upstairs with Ryan; they're halfway up the staircase by the time Brendon catches up with them.
"Brother Smith!" he says. "You're staying!"
Spencer may, in fact, roll his eyes in Brendon's direction, but Brendon prefers to consider it a gesture of endearment.
"Yeah," Ryan says. "I managed to trick him into not leaving with promises of letting him kick my ass at Guitar Hero."
Another eye roll on Spencer's part, and yes, Brendon decides, it totally means that Spencer *cares*.
"Then I challenge Spencer to a game when he's done with you!" Brendon says, because if there's one thing he's learned after five weeks of living in the FBR house, anything and everything becomes a group activity.
This time, Ryan is the one to roll his eyes, but Spencer grins-and it's possibly slightly feral? Or maybe shark-like? Brendon just grins back, though, and follows the two of them into Ryan's room.
So, Spencer plays Ryan, and then he plays Brendon, and they're actually really evenly matched, because they start egging each other on while Ryan sits off to the side of the room and sighs.
Except then he's not just sighing, because Brendon hears the soft twang of an *actual* guitar string, and when he looks over, Ryan's pulled an acoustic out from somewhere and, well, five weeks into sharing a house with Ryan Ross and Brendon's never actually seen him play, although he knows he must of.
Brendon can't go a day without after all.
But here he is playing, and suddenly, Brendon wants nothing more than to get his own guitar, to play along. He pretty much rushes through the rest of his song on the screen, not even minding when he misses a note at the end, when Spencer crows in triumph and says, "Ha. I totally own you, Urie."
Brendon's already setting his controller down, turning his attention to Ryan. He says, "Here, wait, let me-" and then he's out the door and running down the hall to the room he shares with Travis. He grabs the case, lugging it more slowly back to Ryan's room, and then he says, "Let me just get tuned-"
Spencer's sitting on the beanbag chair between Ryan and Pete's desks now, hands folded behind his head, and Brendon can feel his intent gaze as he starts tightening the strings. Not a lot, they're still mostly in tune, after all, from his lesson earlier that day, but they still need just a little tweaking.
When he's done, he looks at Ryan and says, "So what are we playing?"
Ryan laughs just a little at Brendon's presumption, then unsurprisingly, breaks into Blink-182, quickly picked notes, and maybe they aren't playing quite in time with each other there at the very beginning, but by the time Brendon starts singing, their hands are moving pretty much in unison. He doesn't sing very loudly, pitched more for his own ears, but when he looks up, he sees Spencer watching him with a rather surprised look on his face.
Ryan too, actually, once Brendon meets his gaze.
For a moment, Brendon wants to laugh at them. Seriously, he's a *music major*. Did they think he couldn't sing? Or play?
Once they reach the end of the song, Ryan takes his fingers off of the strings and says, "Do you write, too?" He actually looks really interested in the answer, and Brendon wants to shake his head, because while yes, he does write-or he certainly has experimented with it-he's also seen the sort of lyrics that Ryan and Pete cook up, and *so* not the sort of writing he does.
Instead he says, "A little, yeah."
"Play something," Ryan says. "Something you've written."
Brendon tries to think of something that he can play, something that would be acceptable in Ryan and Spencer's eyes. Then he starts. The chords are pretty simple, just a melody-even if Brendon does think it has a pretty catchy tune-and he means to just play a slice of it, verse, chorus, verse.
Almost unconsciously, though, he starts mouthing the words, "I am feeling low, and I'm singing in my sleep," and the next thing he knows, he's actually singing it, like he used to back in his room in high school, after school, when his parents weren't home from work yet and he had the whole place to himself.
When he finishes, he sees Ryan watching him with one eyebrow raised, nodding along just slightly.
Spencer's the one to say, "Not bad."
"Dude," Brendon says, grinning widely-because from Spencer, after all, that's pretty high praise. "What are you talking about? That was fucking awesome."
At which point, Brendon hears the sound of feet pounding up the stairs from the first floor, and the next thing he knows, Pete is in the doorway, mock-glaring at all of them. "Ross," he says, "what have I told you about letting the riff-raff into our domain?"
"Sorry," Ryan says, not sounding sorry at all.
Then Pete notices the guitars balanced on both their knees. "You playing?"
"Brendon was just playing us a song he wrote," Spencer says, because he's a fucking traitor like that. "It was about a *girl*."
"Love songs?" Pete asks. Then, looking over his shoulder at someone standing out in the hallway, he says, "It's scary how fast they grow up, you know?"
"Fuck yeah," Travis says, and Brendon sighs, because of course it had to be *his* roommate out in the hall behind Pete, which means he pretty much won't be hearing the end of this until, oh, something else even more tease-worthy comes along.
Travis continues, "One minute they're just so young and innocent and the next they're trying to woo people with music…"
"I wasn't exactly trying to *woo*," Brendon says, but of course, no one's listening to him, because suddenly Travis is saying, "Do you remember that song you wrote for-what was her name, Wentz? Melanie? Melissa? And how you serenaded her freshman year?"
"Ha," Pete says. "Fuck. Dude, that song *sucked*."
"Probably not as much as Ryan's first ode sucked," Spencer says, quickly pulling his legs out of reach of Ryan's kick. "He wrote it when we were, like, 13? 14? And oh my god, he made me practice it for, like, weeks with him. And then he totally chickened out on playing it for her."
"Because she started going out with that guy on the football team," Ryan says, and that's pretty much the end of any serious conversation, because suddenly Pete is sitting down on the floor, saying, "So, Smith. Apparently some day I'm going to need to kidnap you so that I can get all of the dirt on my little brother here," and Travis is coming into the room, too, and then Joe Troh is in the doorway, saying, "Hey, 'Trick, it looks like the party's in here tonight," but Gabe and Toro are actually the next ones to come in.
There's not really enough room for all of them, but somehow more people keep squishing in, more and more, until Brendon's sharing the couch with Ryan and Travis and Andy, until he's pretty sure that he can pick out about 10 conversations going on around him.
He just settles back into the couch a little more, though, listening, comfortable, fingers moving silently back and forth over the taut strings of his guitar.