new fic: Scenes from a marriage, 3/4 [Brendon/Shane]
Scenes from a marriage, 3/4
part two here.
Shane spends eight hours filming would-be contestants auditioning for a new variety show and gets back to find Brendon naked in bed, half asleep, a magazine under his cheek. When he hears Shane come in, Brendon turns onto his back and says, "Oh good, you're home, finally," and licks his palm, wrapping it around his dick and tugging lazily.
Shane helps, stripping off his clothes while trying to never be fully out of reach with Brendon's skin. It's like how it almost was at the cabin, only way, way better, Brendon's ass spread for him, hips jutting into the mattress as Shane presses inside. By the end Shane is sitting on his heels, Brendon thrusting back onto him and moaning like this is all he's been waiting for all day, for Shane to come home and fuck him harder than Shane's ever fucked someone.
Shane's never been with someone who likes it this much, who isn't afraid to say how much they like it, to whimper and beg and demand what he wants to make it even better. It's oddly reassuring, to be buried deep in Brendon's ass and have him still ask for more. It's the kind of thing Shane thinks of later, when he's getting up for a glass of water, or when he sees some girl bitching at her boyfriend in the car next to him at a stoplight. He doesn't know why he needs to reassure himself Brendon wants this, because if having someone's cock up your ass and liking it isn't proof enough, he's not sure what is.
After, Brendon grumbles and shoves the wet sheet down around their feet and they fall asleep like that. Shane wakes up starving, probably because he skipped dinner in lieu of sex, again. His pants are all too big on him now, like they were before he started getting a beer belly from not being twenty anymore and still trying to keep up with kids who are.
"Sorry, I was trying to be quiet," Brendon says, but when Shane turns over he's not there next to him, he's standing on the far side of the bed, buckling his belt. He waves his phone, bumping a button so the display lights up. The icy blue glow makes Brendon look like he has alien skin, gray and stretched over his head.
Shane blinks. "I'm really hungry," he says.
"Sorry," Brendon says again, and Shane sits up a bit. "I have to --" Brendon shoves the phone in his tiny pocket. "Spencer and Ryan are -- we still have to write more, you know. The album."
"Okay," Shane says, and slides back down onto the pillow. Brendon may have slept all day but Shane has to be back at nine for another round of America's most untalented. Maybe he'll just hit a buffet for a big breakfast.
Brendon is still gone when Shane leaves in the morning, and asleep again in bed when he comes home. They fuck. They sleep. Shane's stomach eternally growls at three a.m. in protest, and his abs are always sore.
Things go on like that, almost exactly like that. Shane works steadily, which is good for his bank balance but annoying when he knows Brendon is just sitting around and they could be having sex. Mostly Brendon seems to sleep a lot, which is weird because Brendon isn't a champion sleeper. Shane can remember dozens of times before they were sharing a bed when he got up for an early call and found Brendon still on the couch, chin propped in his hand, watching early morning cartoons. Now, when he's not sleeping they're having sex, or gearing up to have sex, or recovering and thinking about having sex again. And then every other night or so Shane hears Brendon leave sometime after midnight, and half the time he's not back when Shane's out the door again.
Ian calls while Shane is finishing up an idiotic shoot at the convention center, made only slightly bearable by the adorable dogs yipping at the products the company is shoving under their nose. It's one big concrete room and Ian's cell breaks up on every third word, but finally from "crash...couple of...fucking Colligan is insane" Shane figures it out. He hangs up and texts Ian where to find the spare key, to make himself at home, to drink whatever beer he can find.
He has a quick and vivid flashback of smoking Ian out for the first time, when the kid was 14 and they were at some other cousin's cabin on the Oregon coast. They sat in a dilapidated boathouse as Shane taught him how to inhale and chanted the word dilapidated over and over in a stoned loop. It was the only possible word to describe the place and yet completely fucking ridiculous vocabulary to have acquired somewhere along the way. Ian's a good kid.
Maybe not so much a kid now that he's in a serious band with a record contract and four brand new best friends he's going to see the world with. Shane's watched Brendon enough to both be jealous of the opportunity and glad he's got his own life where he makes his own decisions how he wants instead of getting one vote, at best, or none at all.
When he comes into the house there's a muffled electric wail from the spare room, but when he knocks on that door there's no answer. He opens it and a wave of smoke hits him in the face. Ian is sitting on the carpet, knees folded, playing one of Brendon's guitars. He looks up at Shane with a broad grin. "This guitar is amazing!" he shouts over his own noise, and Shane laughs, leaning against the wall. Ian rocks out a little more, rising up on his knees once before falling back with an easy laugh. He flips a switch and the ambient buzz shuts down. Probably ninety percent of Shane's memories of Ian are like this, a dorky kid grinning over a guitar in some room with the door shut.
"I'm so fucking proud of you," Shane says, and Ian bounds up for a hug.
"I didn't ask," he says, with a quick look at the guitar.
"It's cool," Shane says. He's never seen Brendon get touchy about trading instruments before, and it's not like Ian's some stranger off the street. He holds his breath for a minute, listening. The house is quiet, just the sound of Dylan running around a little in the kitchen. "He's not here?"
Ian shrugs. "He's the one who told me to call you, last night. He said everyone needs a place to hide out from their band sometimes."
Shane says, "When did you get into town?" and then, "wait, what? When did you talk to Brendon?"
"I ran into him at this party that Cash and Singer wanted to hit. Last night. I don't know, I think he was with Spencer."
"Yeah, they're writing."
Ian snorts a laugh into the back of his hand. "Man, we should try it like that. Body shots are totally inspirational, right?"
"Hey," Shane says, after too long. "You must be hungry."
They go out to a Mexican place for dinner and Ian tells Shane all about the band, some of which he's heard already from Brendon, but it's better coming from Ian. His little baby cousin, sitting there talking like an actual person. Shane's pretty stoked about them getting to hang out like this. Plus he asks Shane all about work, about shooting Panic but also the feature Shane's been trying to get financed, the shit he's been doing for day jobs.
They talk about Shane's dad's new car, and their cousin Jeanie who's pregnant again, and how Cash and Singer fight "like Grandma and Grandpa, for real," Ian says, "only instead of kissing and making up after bitching at each other all day they just play Halo and kill the shit out of things and get over it, I guess."
"Up in the mountains, Ryan and Spencer fought like they hated each other's guts," Shane says, and immediately feels like a traitor even though it's just Ian. Maybe because it's Ian, because he knows these guys in a whole other way than Shane does or some totally unrelated person might.
But Ian just shrugs. "Writing an album is brutal," he says. "I can't even imagine, I mean -- if doing the first one is this insane, I don't know what it must be like to sell that much and have to do it all again. I know that's what I should hope for, right? But it doesn't sound like fun."
Shane finishes the watery ends of his margarita and pushes his plate away. "Brendon is --" He stops. He doesn't know what Brendon is, or what they are, or what it is he wants to say to Ian, to ask him about. He remembers Ian in hand-me-down overalls crying over a broken plastic shovel.
"Everybody's waiting for them," Ian says. "Like somehow they didn't prove themselves already? It's pretty fucked up."
"Yeah." The mariachi band starts up again, warbly and melodramatic.
Brendon is -- depressed, maybe. Or just unhappy. Or confused. Shane's only confused when he tries to make a story out of it, to think how he would make a movie about two characters named Shane and Brendon, these guys who fell into something and don't know what comes next. The best book Shane read about screenwriting said everything in a story has to come from a character's wants, that no matter what he thinks he needs or says he's looking for, it's what he truly wants that will drive all the action.
The waiter slaps the bill on the table and Shane just barely manages to grab it out from under Ian's hand. "Don't be a fucktard," he says. "And don't go picking up people's meals because you're a rockstar now. Save your money."
Ian shoves his last bite of beans and rice in his mouth. "Thanks, Dad," he says, and sticks out a tongue covered in half-chewed food.
"You're going straight to bed," Shane says. "No dessert."
They smoke a bowl in the backyard while Dylan wrestles with a stuffed purple dinosaur Brendon's mom gave them. Ian yawns loudly and says, "Yeah, couch time, man."
Shane checks his phone. It's one a.m. and he hasn't seen Brendon since about that time the night before. "No, take Brendon's room, it's cool."
"But isn't he --"
"He's writing, you know," Shane says, and Ian nods like that's enough of a reason for a guy to not have slept in his own bed for weeks. "I'll text him," he adds.
When he walks in and flips the light in Brendon's room, it looks exactly like it did the day Shane went up to the cabin. It's not dusty and the housekeeper folded all the clothes and stacked them on the dresser, but it feels weird, abandoned. Ian says, "Fuck, my own bed, thanks man," and hugs Shane, clapping him on the back. "Marshall kicks like a bear."
Brendon sleeps like a statue, a million miles from how he is any waking hour of the day.
"Tell Brendon thanks, seriously."
"Tell him yourself tomorrow," Shane says, and as he's turning off lights in the living room and kitchen, he texts with one thumb: how are things going? He takes a shower and brushes his teeth and takes the dog out one last time, climbing into bed around three thirty. Thank god he's got the rest of the week off. Maybe he'll go back to sleeping days.
At five fifteen Brendon's arm slides around Shane's waist, warm bare legs brushing the back of his thighs. Brendon smells like weed and piña coladas or something else with coconuts. Tanning oil, maybe. He mouths wetly at Shane's neck and shoulder, rocking their hips together slowly.
Shane tilts his head back. "Ian's here. You saw him at a party?"
"Mmm," Brendon says, his tongue tracing the ridges of Shane's ear. "We can be quiet."
"That kid'll sleep through anything," Shane says. He doesn't mean it as so go ahead and stick your hand in my boxers but he's not going to stop Brendon from taking it that way, either.
++
Shane's gotten used to working real hours and gets up around nine. Ian's already sitting on the couch, watching a Steve McQueen movie on TBS. "You mind?" he says instead of good morning, waving his pipe, and Shane shakes his head no. Fuck, he kind of misses being eighteen.
Fuck, he's also pretty good at forgetting Brendon's not much older than that. Brendon still has a fake ID. And has to use it occasionally.
"Anything good in that fridge?" Ian calls. "Or are you just gonna climb in?"
Shane grabs OJ, milk for coffee and frozen waffles, kicking the door shut.
He loves the fuck out of his cousin, and Ian's doing awesome for himself, but Brendon is a few light years ahead when it comes to managing life in the fast lane. Shane's kind of glad that by the time they became friends Brendon had already learned that the bigger you get, the bigger the consequences are if you fuck up. He's pretty sure there's no fun way to figure that out.
Brendon wanders out in his underwear, scratching at his head and scrunching up one eye. He smiles sleepily at Shane and tracks the noise of the TV with blinking confusion. Then he yells "Crawford!" and does a flying somersault onto the couch. Shane watches them tussle on the floor, Brendon trying to get hold of Ian's crazy hair, Ian giggling and trying to wriggle free. Finally Brendon gets Ian in a headlock and Ian offers to trade him this really great weed he scored for his release. They're negotiating the finer points of the deal: how much weed, how many times Ian should have to bow down and worship Brendon on stage the next time he comes to a gig, whether anyone should be required to cut his hair.
At least Brendon remembered to put on underwear, Shane realizes, and then it's like slow-motion, the way he sees it coming just before it happens. Steve McQueen's car rolls down a mountainside and Shane watches Ian think.
"You should have kicked me out of your room, dude." Ian says it steadily, calmly, but Shane's played poker with him before. He never gives anything away. Ian slept in Brendon's room and was out in the living room before Brendon got up. Where did Brendon sleep?
"Oh," Brendon says, and stumbles for half a second before reassuring Ian, "no, no way, I didn't even really sleep, and you're, like, our first house guest! Our casa is your casa. Our maison is your maison. Our haus is your haus. That was German, though it sounds sort of the same." He's turned towards Shane during his flailing. "Are we having breakfast?"
"Okay," Shane says, and gets out another glass.
Breakfast is fine. Ian and Brendon talk about their bandmates doing stupid shit, mostly stories Shane's already heard from them separately. Ian talks smack about Shane's parents, and every time he calls Shane "Ryan," Brendon blinks a double-take.
"We're, like, working on songs during the day today," Brendon says incredulously. "I mean, working some more. Back at our old practice space though." He kicks Shane under the table, toes glancing off Shane's shinbone. "Remember when you came by and you had your camera and we made you film?"
"Yeah, remember how it took your label six months to pay me for that footage when they put it on the DVD?"
Ian says, "Whoa," and gulps his juice.
"Dude," Brendon says, "I totally forgot to tell you! Crush wants you to call and talk about maybe doing a making the album thing?"
"Really?"
"Yeah. It'll be great, like, a good long job for you. Well, you know. Assuming we ever actually, uh, make an album." He stabs his waffle with a fork tine and then sighs super dramatically. "I think they're definitely under the assumption we'll be making an album."
The deadpan falls a little flat and it's like a cartoon raincloud appears over Brendon's head, all his usual manic joy deflated in a gray sky. Brendon pushes back his chair and slowly stretches his arms towards the chandelier. While Shane toasted Eggo's, Brendon had gone back and put on sweats and an undershirt but neither fits very well. The pants are possibly Shane's, too baggy, and the shirt is way too small. Especially when Brendon's reaching up like that. Shane does not think about licking his way down the crease where Brendon's thigh meets his pelvis last night. That morning.
Brendon peeks down at Shane and Shane smiles. He tries to stop when he realizes it but it's too late, so he just grins up at Brendon and laughs and says, "Yeah, okay, tell me when you've gotten past the smoking up and putting on old records phase and I'll bring a camera over, how's that?" And Brendon lights up, jumping up a little and making the whole table shake when he hits the carpet again.
"Hey," Ian says, and they look at him. He says to Shane, "Hey, your mom wants us to come over for dinner if you aren't busy."
Brendon snorts. "Your mom."
"Both of you," Ian says.
Brendon holds his hands up. "Band stuff, sorry."
"You scared of Vickie now?" Ian taunts, with a shit-eating grin, and Brendon pins Ian's head against his chest and gives him a noogie on his way back to the bedroom.
"Brendon," Shane says sharply, and Brendon stops short in front of his own room.
"Oh yeah," he says, and makes a 90-degree turn, clicking his heels together.
When Brendon comes back he's actually dressed, tight jeans and a t-shirt that fits and his hoodie of the month. Shane has taken those clothes off him so many times now it's hard not to think about sex again.
"Totally crash in there again tonight," Brendon is saying. "I'll probably just be at Ryan's."
After Shane joins Ian in smoking another bowl and watching another muscle car movie from the '70s and talking bullshit for two hours, Ian says, carefully, "So Brendon seems kinda stressed out."
"Yeah," Shane says. "I've been --" A car bursts into flames and, off-screen, a woman screams. "Worried," he finishes, feeling lame.
Ian shrugs. "He'll be okay." He stares at Shane for a while and then another explosion catches his attention.
They have dinner with Shane's parents, sit through more family gossip, and when they get back he has to remind Ian again that Brendon said it was cool to sleep in his bed. "How the fuck do you remember how to play guitar?" Shane asks, and Ian waves his fingers in the air and talks about muscle memory.
It's relatively early when Brendon comes home, maybe a little before three. Shane's lying in bed reading that year's Best American Movie Writing and Brendon pauses in the door and says, "Aww. Big test tomorrow?"
"Fuck off," Shane says automatically, though now he feels kind of douchey, like he's trying to impress someone or seem smart. He just likes reading about movies almost as much as he likes watching them. "Calling it an early night?"
"No, it's -- I mean, yeah, we're done tonight, punched the clock and blew the whistle." Brendon steps in, closing the door behind him, and beams as he says, "We wrote a song. A real song, I think. For a real album."
Shane puts the book on the floor. "That's awesome," he says, but it seems so inadequate in the face of Brendon's sudden personality change. "Come here," he says, and Brendon takes a running leap, almost kicking Shane in the face as he bounces across the bed. Shane grabs Brendon and pulls him down until he's lying right on top of Shane, knees between Shane's legs.
They make out for a while, and it's definitely making out, not kissing before fucking. Shane can tell Brendon's so keyed up he won't be able to concentrate on anything yet, not even sex. He keeps his hand loose on Brendon's throat and when he feels Brendon's heart rate calm, he slows the kissing down until they stop. Brendon turns his face, lying with his cheek on Shane's collarbone, and he lets out a big breath all at once, going boneless and heavy.
"I thought maybe we weren't going to," Brendon says, and Shane strokes the back of his neck slow and gentle. "The great wolf massacre, that's what Spencer called it. We sent Pete the tapes, and the label, and -- it's easier to think you're totally misunderstood geniuses, maybe, than figure out what you're doing so fucking wrong."
Shane kisses Brendon's temple and waits.
"I think we got it right this time, though. This -- it's a big song, but it's not trying so hard. It sounds like us." He hums against Shane's skin, something that sounds like can you feel it too, and then he lifts his head. "Now we should have some celebratory sex," he says, and raises one eyebrow. "To the victor goes the spoils, I hear."
"Is that what you hear," Shane says, but he hooks an ankle around Brendon's leg all the same.
++
Shane wakes up with what feels a hell of a lot like a pulled hamstring, and he doesn't see Brendon for three days. He gets two text messages: ryan says no sleep til brooklyn. it's funnier when ryan says it. and wondering what the world record for album writing is. do we get a prize if we break it?!?. So it's not like Brendon's dead or missing or something. He's with his band. That's what he does.
On day two Shane calls around seeing who might have work. On day three he goes and helps his dad edit a commercial. That night he comes home and Brendon is in the shower. Shane pokes his head into the steamy room and Brendon yelps.
"It's me," Shane says. "You know, your --" He stops.
Brendon wipes clear a circle on the door and smushes his face against it. "What?" he says, voice all distorted, lips against glass.
"You're home," Shane says, speaking up as if the shower is all that loud. "I'll let you --"
"What?" Brendon knocks on the shower door. "Knock knock," he says.
"-- get cleaned up," Shane finishes.
He folds laundry, puts away the clean clothes, kicks a stray shoe under the bed. When Brendon comes in, a wave of fog follows, and he balls up his towel and chucks it at Shane's head. He smells like grapefruit body wash, the stuff he finally brought back from the other bathroom after complaining for a month that Shane's wasn't as yummy.
Shane sits on the edge of the bed and when Brendon comes to stand between his legs, Shane draws him closer, bending to suck Brendon until he's fully hard, then sliding to the carpet so he can get down a little farther.
They lay around on the bed for a while after, even though it's still light out and both their stomachs are growling. "You wanna come film us tomorrow?" Brendon asks, tucking and untucking Shane's hair behind his ears over and over, and Shane shrugs.
"Sure, okay."
"Like when you came last summer and filmed? Remember?"
Of course Shane remembers. It was the first time he filmed Panic all together, them and their extra musicians figuring out new arrangements, Jon trying to keep up and Brendon trying to let him instead of jumping in to play everything at once. Shane had sat on the floor a while, camera rolling, and tried to figure out how it all worked, how the band worked, how this weird kid he'd met at a skate park could, bam, just like that, pull it together and be a front man.
"I remember," he says. He wasn't even there that day to shoot, just had his stuff with him when Brendon had called during a break and said, "Come by and meet the guys, we can go get wings or something."
Brendon props himself up on one elbow. He stares down seriously at Shane and Shane gets a queasy kick of nerves up his back. Brendon says, "I've never had sex in that practice room." He sighs and falls back onto the pillow.
Shane swallows. "Oh yeah?"
++
They're the last to arrive. Brendon lost his cell phone again and it took twenty minutes for Shane to remember that when in doubt they should look under the couch.
He hadn't realized other people were coming to watch the band rehearse. He hadn't even known the girls were all in town. Cassie and Haley are sitting with their backs to the mirrored wall, heads close together, and Keltie is punching Ryan in the arm and cackling like a hyena.
"Ahoy, fair ladies and gentlemen, we have landed on your friendly shore!" Brendon sing-songs, and Spencer bangs out a rat-a-tat-tat before flipping a drumstick in the air and catching it. Jon grins lazily and says, "Ahoy, matey," and Keltie throws an "arrrrg" over her shoulder. Ryan bends his neck and laughs into her hair.
Shane picks a dust bunny off his jacket sleeve.
"Oh, hi, Shane, hi," Keltie says brightly, and then he's wrapped up in her hug. She's like Brendon in that way, effusive and open with affection. He folds his arms around her tiny back and squeezes until she squeaks. "It's been way too long," she says, "I'm so glad you're here, I had no idea!"
When they finally let go he toes at his camera bag and Brendon says, "All we have is footage from the cabin, I thought --"
"That's great," Ryan says, and nods at Shane.
Spencer rests both sticks on the snare and leans forward. "How'd that come out, anyway?"
Shane has seven DV tapes stacked next to his computer. He watched 20 minutes of one when he first got back to Vegas, the house somehow both claustrophobic and cavernous without the cabin's vaulted ceilings or Brendon. It was too weird to have Brendon there on his monitor in black and white, beautiful and far away.
"I've been working a lot," he says. "There's some good stuff in there, though."
Brendon plops down on the keyboard stool, flying through a scale before launching into the Beatles. "They're gonna put me in the movies," he sings. "They're gonna make a big star out of me!"
Ryan strums tentatively but joins in singing with a quiet confidence. "We'll make a film about a man that's sad and lonely --"
"And all I gotta do," Brendon picks up, "is act naturallllly."
Spencer crashes a cymbal. "And that," he says, "is why drummers shouldn't sing." Jon starts to protest but Spencer waves him off. "We all ready now?"
Ryan nods and Spencer counts them off. Shane's sat through enough practices to know it's not over until they've played the song so many times everyone is ready to scream, so he takes his time getting his equipment out.
They start with the new song, the one Brendon came home singing and Shane's been humming ever since, back to the place where it all began. Brendon growls his way through the chorus, pounding at the keys. He beams at Shane and shakes his bangs off his forehead. How can anyone not be at least a little in love with Brendon, seeing him like this?
Fuck. Shane props the camera on his shoulder, checks the viewfinder and then stares at the floor for a while. He's at least a little in love with Brendon.
The next song must be even newer, because Shane is sure he would remember the sun and the moon falling in love in the middle of summer. He glances up to see if Brendon's actually taking it seriously. He is, but not half as much as Keltie, who is smiling into her palm and staring up at Ryan, who's grinning back down at her. Shane slowly swings around and the focus slides across Haley. She's not smiling. She's --
He blinks but the look is the same. She's glaring at him.
Brendon wails a long final note and Shane jerks back to catch the last chord. He keeps the camera on the band the rest of the rehearsal. When they decide to break for lunch he risks turning an eye to Haley. She's downgraded her look to suspicious. Shane wishes he didn't have something to feel guilty about, even if he's not sure why he does feel guilty. He and Brendon aren't doing anything wrong.
"I didn't have anything that couldn't fit in a suitcase," she tells Cassie, who says, "me neither."
They're talking about movers, he realizes. Jon had mentioned up in the mountains that he and Cassie had finally combined apartments, and Haley must be here for summer break or -- or she's staying with Spencer for good. She's younger than all of them, he remembers. Spencer just went to her prom.
God, she's eighteen. Keltie's older than Ryan, almost Shane's age, he thinks, and Cassie seems close to Jon's. But Haley is Ian's age. She's younger than Brendon, and she's looking at Shane again like she knows all his secrets.
He shoves his extra battery pack in the bag. He can come back and shoot more another day if the guys want.
"Ryan says subs." Brendon's at his elbow from nowhere. If Shane doesn't have a camera trained on him sometimes his movement is hard to predict. "But Ryan always says subs and I want more, Shane. I want more. I want it all, in fact. I want --"
Shane meets his eyes, and Brendon gives a dramatic flourish, hands swooping through the air.
"I want a buffet," Brendon says, decisively.
Jon calls, "Bellagio, motherfuckers!" and Spencer says, "Fuck, no, you know the Rio is better food." They're going to be in the car before they figure out whose turn it is to win that argument.
Haley and Cassie roll their eyes at each other and Cassie shoves at Brendon's chest, saying, "Thanks, thanks a lot."
He bounces off Shane's shoulder, feigning injury. "You wound me, woman!" he cries after Cassie as she follows Jon out the door.
Then it's just the three of them, and Haley says, "Hi Shane," like they haven't been in the same small space the last two hours.
He says, "hey." He thinks the last time they saw each other was her spring break, maybe.
"How's Regan doing?"
That is not what he was expecting. Not that he thought she was going to look at him and say, like, I know you and Brendon are fucking, but still. He says, "Uh, we broke up," because it's the truth and because he has no goddamn idea what else he could answer or how this conversation could get any more awkward.
Brendon says, "You did?"
Shane sternly reminds his lungs to breathe in and out and his eyes to stay open and his legs to stand straight.
Haley looks between them slowly. "I'm sorry to hear that," she says, and Shane says something lame like, "yeah, you know how it is," even though he has a feeling she doesn't, that she and Spencer are each other's firsts, probably first everything, sex and love and living together and thinking they invented it all.
She doesn't know how it is, but then again neither does he. He's never done whatever this is, either. Brendon is standing very still, his shoulder still brushing Shane's.
"I'm hungry," Brendon says quietly, and Haley says, "sure, let's go."
Shane waits until they're out at the cars, Spencer idling with the windows down and watching the door. "I have to go swing by my dad's, actually," he says, the words almost as smooth as he'd just practiced in his head. He looks at Brendon. "But I'll see you later, yeah?"
Brendon nods. "See you at home," he says. He sounds a little lost. Shane knows the feeling.
++
"Hey," Brendon says, and drops his phone back onto the floor by the bed. "Remember at that barbecue when my mom wanted me to go to the reception for my cousin Rick's blessing and I was busy and Kara cornered me and said I needed to come over for dinner soon and you were there and I said okay?"
Shane rolls over onto his stomach, stretching out his legs. "Not really."
"She's called twice." Brendon trails a hand over Shane's back.
"Uh, okay," Shane says. "That's fine."
Everything is fine. They don't have to talk about it. Brendon's not going to bring up Haley or Regan or any of it. It's fine. They don't need to talk about it. Things are good, really.
Brendon's been home every night by 10. They make dinner or go out to eat and then they get in bed, where Brendon is quietly needy, wanting to be touched all the time. He's always back at the practice space by noon. Neither of them is sleeping in much, so they spend a lot of mornings like this, lazy in bed and bullshitting.
None of the stories Brendon tells about the writing are like before, no fights or disagreements or "differences," as Brendon calls them. It's a lot of getting stoned and rocking out and peeling back the layers of this easygoing new band they've become. Maybe his need for reassurance isn't about the music at all.
Before he leaves, Brendon says, "I told Kara tonight was good. I think we're taking the weekend off anyway."
"Okay," Shane says, and doesn't think much about it until Brendon texts him around three.
what should we bring to dinner?
"Oh," he says aloud, and Dylan yanks on the leash. She's a strong girl for being a small dog.
They pick up strawberry shortcake from the specialty bakery down the street. Brendon wears a t-shirt without a double-entendre and Shane stops himself from asking if it's okay that he's got jeans on. Kara kisses his cheek at the door and says it's so good to see him.
At dinner they talk about how Panic's new songs are coming along, about a go-cart company that Shane shot a commercial for and the kids are obsessed with, about some cousin on Mrs. Urie's side who insists on having a huge fancy wedding reception even though everyone else had casual backyard things.
After, Shane watches some baseball while Brendon rolls around on the floor with his nephew and acts like he's stuck in a headlock. Kara comes in and sits down on the ottoman, smiling as she clips her hair back. When Shane looks over again he realizes she's smiling at him, not Brendon. He smiles back.
Kara's sweet, smart and sharply observant at unexpected moments. The first time she came by their house, months and months ago, she let Brendon lead her around, showing off each room. "We have rooms we don't even need!" he bragged, and she bit her lip a little and pulled him into a one-armed hug.
"I wish this was your first place," she said, low.
Brendon's eyes welled up and cleared so fast, like a flash flood beaten back by a shifting storm. "Movin' on up," he said more than sang, "and anyway now I have Shane. I have a roommate. We're going to get a dog!"
Brendon pins his nephew's forehead carefully to the carpet, chanting, "Say uncle, say uncle!" Every single time the kid giggles and squeals, "But you are my uncle!" until Brendon flips him back over and blows a raspberry on his stomach.
Kara says to Shane, "He's really happy."
The way she says it, gentle but deliberate -- it's like she's complimenting Shane somehow. He doesn't know why he ever thought she'd miss that something's going on just because he and Brendon never actually discuss it. His muscles lock up, but she just smiles right at him, a little sadness maybe on the edges, and then looks back to the wrestling match.
Brendon sits up suddenly, throwing his nephew over his shoulder. He blows his hair out of his face and grins wide before rising to his feet and stumbling off like a giant, singing a song about grinding bones to make his bread. Shane hears himself laugh warmly, watching them go, and then he makes himself breathe deep and turn to Kara and say, "Thank you." She squeezes his shoulder and follows Brendon into the kitchen.
Brendon literally does not lay a finger on Shane from the time they leave their house until they get back, but the minute they walk back in the door he grabs Shane's wrist, tugging until they're standing hip to hip. Their legs and feet fit together like they're dancing in the foyer, and Shane holds his breath as Brendon lifts his chin and presses his lips to Shane's.
It's sweet and soft, like a first kiss, and it makes Shane dizzy. He grips Brendon's shoulder, squeezing to hold himself steady, and Brendon gasps against Shane's mouth. Shane is still afraid to breathe. He's been so nervous lately, for days now. Every time he's around Brendon, especially every time they're like this, he's worried he might open his mouth and say the wrong thing. Or maybe it's the right thing, but the wrong time. He kisses Brendon harder instead, holds his face steady and firm and steers him down the hall to their bedroom.
He's got Brendon on his back, pants around his calves, the head of his cock pressed to Shane's cheek, when Brendon starts talking. "Everyone loves you," Brendon says, "I love, I love how you just fit in with -- with my family, everyone, it's --"
Shane sucks hard, sliding a hand around Brendon's ass to keep him close. He doesn't have to worry about saying the wrong thing like this, and he tries not to listen either.
But Brendon's voice -- it's Brendon, and his voice can do anything, and even as he gets breathy and high-pitched Shane doesn't know how to not hear him. Not when he's saying, "You, you always have to come home with me, Shane, please, you make it -- you make it bearable, please."
Shane doesn't say no. He doesn't know what to say, if he should warn Brendon that Kara knows, if he should keep acting like there's nothing to know, if he has any right to push on this when he's not the one who could lose everything.
"Please, Shane," Brendon says, as Shane rests his head on Brendon's stomach after, and Shane kisses his hipbone. He doesn't say no.
++
Shane might have forgotten Brendon's still not old enough to be legally allowed in the door at a club opening if Brendon hadn't been waving his new fake ID around all day, pulling it out and holding it up, turning left and right again and saying, "I could totally pass for Pete, right?"
It turns out no one cares when you're on the VIP list. They get ushered in and through to a roped-off section set just above the club. It's not a bad scene, and the liquor is expensive but free for them and Brendon seems in a good mood. Ryan shows a little after midnight and when they want to smoke up, a bodyguard leads them to a screened area on a balcony, then turns his back and keeps his eyes on the crowd.
Shane has a high school buddy whose uncle is general manager at the Luxor, and sometimes on a weeknight they could get comped the cover and bottle service, but it was nothing like this. It's like they could do anything and get away with it. It makes him want to try to get away with something. This must be why anyone cares about being rich and famous and powerful, this right here, the unlimited possibilities and no one to say stop.
When they come back into the room, Brendon heads for the bar, and Shane ends up talking with Ryan about big music festivals for what seems like an eternity. Ryan's annoyed they didn't get on the bill for Coachella, even though the timing was all fucked and Shane keeps telling him it's so hot even growing up in Vegas doesn't help you survive. He asks Shane about thirty questions about seeing Queens of the Stone Age in 2002, like maybe Shane's memorized the set list and is just withholding the information to be cruel.
Shane looks around for Brendon and spots him at the bar, talking to a girl with short, dark hair. He's clearly yelling a little over the music, making big motions with his arms and then leaning in to speak in her ear. They look over at the VIP area once, then huddle together again as if conspiring. Shane offers to get Ryan another whatever he wants and doesn't try too hard to talk him out of leaving when he says actually he's done for the night.
Shane gets stuck trying to make his way across the room, a knot of guys all together blocking the space between two couches. The three whose backs he's staring at, landlocked, all have the same haircut, short in the back with gelled spikes on top. They're wearing shiny collared shirts and tightly tailored pants, like typical gay guys. Shane isn't sure what to do with the jab of guilt he feels for noticing, for thinking before anything else that at least he's nothing like them, like that. He knows guys just like them, and they're cool. He just hasn't been out at a club like this in a while. He and Brendon haven't been out much at all lately.
The guys are talking shit about someone who's totally gay, no matter what he says or how many fag hags he buys drinks for. It's just guys talking shit, guys being asshole guys, gay or not. "Look," one says, craning his neck. "Look at that ass, seriously! God would never waste an ass like that on a straight guy."
"Or a top," another laughs, and elbows the third, pointing carelessly when his friend still can't tell who they're talking about.
They're talking about Brendon.
"I would hit that," someone says, and Shane shoves his way through.
Brendon says, "Why hello there," and slings an arm casually around Shane's shoulder. He mock bows at the girl and says, "May I introduce Shane Valdez, nominee for best director and all around best man?" She giggles. "And this is Marisa," he says, "a fair maiden from a faraway land here to wile away the hours among mere mortals."
"Hey," Shane says, and she laughs again. Shane's not convinced it's not directed at him, and he shrugs out from under Brendon's arm. "Hey, can I talk to you for a second?" he asks Brendon, and doesn't wait for an answer, just pushes with a hand on Brendon's back towards the balcony.
The gay guys stare openly as they pass, and Shane tries to skim his gaze across them like he's seen Zack do with eager girls, as if they're invisible. One guy tilts his jaw towards another, so close it's like they might kiss, but all he does is murmur, "So that's the boyfriend, huh." Brendon doesn't seem to notice and Shane doesn't stop.
The guard acknowledges Brendon with a minute amount of movement, holding the curtain aside and then pulling it closed again behind them. Then they're alone on the iron-gated ledge, the Strip lighting up the street far below.
Brendon says, "She's nice, right? She wants us to --"
Shane pins Brendon against the railing and kisses him. He's had a lot to drink, and smoked a fair amount, and behind Brendon there is nothing but night sky and the shadowy outline of mountains in the moonlight. Maybe they'll fall from the precipice, a great flailing mess of arms and legs into the abyss. Brendon thrusts up, the button of his jeans digging into Shane's stomach, and tangles their tongues together for one long minute. Then he shoves Shane away, knuckles white where his other hand is squeezed in a tight fist around the rail.
"Shane, not -- come on."
"I know we live right here," Shane says, "but let's get a room anyway. We could --"
"I told Marisa I'd be right back," Brendon says, eyes on his feet. "She asked if we wanted to, uh --"
Shane walks out. At valet he gives Brendon's name and takes the casino's car home alone.
He throws up twice, tequila and whiskey burning so much worse on the way back up, then sleeps until noon. If he spends any time thinking about where Brendon might be he's going to puke again.
Instead he goes to the store to buy groceries, finally opens two weeks' worth of mail, and spends an hour drooling over the new D700 in the Nikon catalog. He sits with his laptop at the dining table and makes himself a deal that if he does his quarterly taxes and he owes within a thousand dollars of what he set aside that he can buy the camera. That's assuming his bank account balance agrees with the arrangement.
His account balance is clearly wrong. He's been working a lot, yeah, and depositing checks without keeping close track because he knows what he spends in a month on rent and utilities and food and it's been a good run of working for people who pay promptly. He knows he's ahead of the game, but free drinks at clubs and catered meals on sets aren't enough to explain this. Bank error in your favor, his brain hums, but life is not a game of Monopoly and Shane's never that lucky.
He goes back through the last six months of transactions and when he figures out what's wrong he wishes he hadn't had Jack in the Box for lunch. It's just about as foul coming up again as tequila.
Brendon comes home around ten that night in a brand new shirt and jeans and the faint stink of unfamiliar shampoo. "Why are you sitting in the dark?" he asks, opening the fridge for a beer, and Shane can't think of anything to say but, "Why'd you stop cashing my rent checks?"
He hears the bottle clink down on the counter and raises his voice so he can be heard in the kitchen.
"I know you're a fucking rock star and all, but I assure you I can cover my half of the house."
"I know you can," Brendon says. He stands on the threshold between the rooms. "You -- you should see these royalty checks, Shane, they're completely retarded."
"I don't want your money." Shane closes his laptop, screen dead from being left open and unplugged for hours. "I don't want you for your money," he clarifies, and Brendon has just turned on the light so Shane can see exactly how much he pales. Shane's got that nervous feeling again but all backwards, not like he might tell Brendon he's in love with him but like he might say, "I don't want this."
He says it.
"Don't want what," Brendon says, and Shane can taste the promise of bile again.
His cell rings and he answers it. If he's on the phone he doesn't have to talk to Brendon.
"Hey, Brendon's phone is just ringing and ringing." It's Jon. "Can you tell him Cassie and Haley are having some girls' night in thing and so we're meeting at the place on Fourth Street instead? He knows which one, the one where Ryan tried to win a pool game that time, okay?"
Shane says, "Okay."
"You're coming, right?" Shane doesn't know what to say. "Come on, dude, it's boys' night out, or guys' night, whatever. Dudes' night. You have to come."
continued here.
part two here.
Shane spends eight hours filming would-be contestants auditioning for a new variety show and gets back to find Brendon naked in bed, half asleep, a magazine under his cheek. When he hears Shane come in, Brendon turns onto his back and says, "Oh good, you're home, finally," and licks his palm, wrapping it around his dick and tugging lazily.
Shane helps, stripping off his clothes while trying to never be fully out of reach with Brendon's skin. It's like how it almost was at the cabin, only way, way better, Brendon's ass spread for him, hips jutting into the mattress as Shane presses inside. By the end Shane is sitting on his heels, Brendon thrusting back onto him and moaning like this is all he's been waiting for all day, for Shane to come home and fuck him harder than Shane's ever fucked someone.
Shane's never been with someone who likes it this much, who isn't afraid to say how much they like it, to whimper and beg and demand what he wants to make it even better. It's oddly reassuring, to be buried deep in Brendon's ass and have him still ask for more. It's the kind of thing Shane thinks of later, when he's getting up for a glass of water, or when he sees some girl bitching at her boyfriend in the car next to him at a stoplight. He doesn't know why he needs to reassure himself Brendon wants this, because if having someone's cock up your ass and liking it isn't proof enough, he's not sure what is.
After, Brendon grumbles and shoves the wet sheet down around their feet and they fall asleep like that. Shane wakes up starving, probably because he skipped dinner in lieu of sex, again. His pants are all too big on him now, like they were before he started getting a beer belly from not being twenty anymore and still trying to keep up with kids who are.
"Sorry, I was trying to be quiet," Brendon says, but when Shane turns over he's not there next to him, he's standing on the far side of the bed, buckling his belt. He waves his phone, bumping a button so the display lights up. The icy blue glow makes Brendon look like he has alien skin, gray and stretched over his head.
Shane blinks. "I'm really hungry," he says.
"Sorry," Brendon says again, and Shane sits up a bit. "I have to --" Brendon shoves the phone in his tiny pocket. "Spencer and Ryan are -- we still have to write more, you know. The album."
"Okay," Shane says, and slides back down onto the pillow. Brendon may have slept all day but Shane has to be back at nine for another round of America's most untalented. Maybe he'll just hit a buffet for a big breakfast.
Brendon is still gone when Shane leaves in the morning, and asleep again in bed when he comes home. They fuck. They sleep. Shane's stomach eternally growls at three a.m. in protest, and his abs are always sore.
Things go on like that, almost exactly like that. Shane works steadily, which is good for his bank balance but annoying when he knows Brendon is just sitting around and they could be having sex. Mostly Brendon seems to sleep a lot, which is weird because Brendon isn't a champion sleeper. Shane can remember dozens of times before they were sharing a bed when he got up for an early call and found Brendon still on the couch, chin propped in his hand, watching early morning cartoons. Now, when he's not sleeping they're having sex, or gearing up to have sex, or recovering and thinking about having sex again. And then every other night or so Shane hears Brendon leave sometime after midnight, and half the time he's not back when Shane's out the door again.
Ian calls while Shane is finishing up an idiotic shoot at the convention center, made only slightly bearable by the adorable dogs yipping at the products the company is shoving under their nose. It's one big concrete room and Ian's cell breaks up on every third word, but finally from "crash...couple of...fucking Colligan is insane" Shane figures it out. He hangs up and texts Ian where to find the spare key, to make himself at home, to drink whatever beer he can find.
He has a quick and vivid flashback of smoking Ian out for the first time, when the kid was 14 and they were at some other cousin's cabin on the Oregon coast. They sat in a dilapidated boathouse as Shane taught him how to inhale and chanted the word dilapidated over and over in a stoned loop. It was the only possible word to describe the place and yet completely fucking ridiculous vocabulary to have acquired somewhere along the way. Ian's a good kid.
Maybe not so much a kid now that he's in a serious band with a record contract and four brand new best friends he's going to see the world with. Shane's watched Brendon enough to both be jealous of the opportunity and glad he's got his own life where he makes his own decisions how he wants instead of getting one vote, at best, or none at all.
When he comes into the house there's a muffled electric wail from the spare room, but when he knocks on that door there's no answer. He opens it and a wave of smoke hits him in the face. Ian is sitting on the carpet, knees folded, playing one of Brendon's guitars. He looks up at Shane with a broad grin. "This guitar is amazing!" he shouts over his own noise, and Shane laughs, leaning against the wall. Ian rocks out a little more, rising up on his knees once before falling back with an easy laugh. He flips a switch and the ambient buzz shuts down. Probably ninety percent of Shane's memories of Ian are like this, a dorky kid grinning over a guitar in some room with the door shut.
"I'm so fucking proud of you," Shane says, and Ian bounds up for a hug.
"I didn't ask," he says, with a quick look at the guitar.
"It's cool," Shane says. He's never seen Brendon get touchy about trading instruments before, and it's not like Ian's some stranger off the street. He holds his breath for a minute, listening. The house is quiet, just the sound of Dylan running around a little in the kitchen. "He's not here?"
Ian shrugs. "He's the one who told me to call you, last night. He said everyone needs a place to hide out from their band sometimes."
Shane says, "When did you get into town?" and then, "wait, what? When did you talk to Brendon?"
"I ran into him at this party that Cash and Singer wanted to hit. Last night. I don't know, I think he was with Spencer."
"Yeah, they're writing."
Ian snorts a laugh into the back of his hand. "Man, we should try it like that. Body shots are totally inspirational, right?"
"Hey," Shane says, after too long. "You must be hungry."
They go out to a Mexican place for dinner and Ian tells Shane all about the band, some of which he's heard already from Brendon, but it's better coming from Ian. His little baby cousin, sitting there talking like an actual person. Shane's pretty stoked about them getting to hang out like this. Plus he asks Shane all about work, about shooting Panic but also the feature Shane's been trying to get financed, the shit he's been doing for day jobs.
They talk about Shane's dad's new car, and their cousin Jeanie who's pregnant again, and how Cash and Singer fight "like Grandma and Grandpa, for real," Ian says, "only instead of kissing and making up after bitching at each other all day they just play Halo and kill the shit out of things and get over it, I guess."
"Up in the mountains, Ryan and Spencer fought like they hated each other's guts," Shane says, and immediately feels like a traitor even though it's just Ian. Maybe because it's Ian, because he knows these guys in a whole other way than Shane does or some totally unrelated person might.
But Ian just shrugs. "Writing an album is brutal," he says. "I can't even imagine, I mean -- if doing the first one is this insane, I don't know what it must be like to sell that much and have to do it all again. I know that's what I should hope for, right? But it doesn't sound like fun."
Shane finishes the watery ends of his margarita and pushes his plate away. "Brendon is --" He stops. He doesn't know what Brendon is, or what they are, or what it is he wants to say to Ian, to ask him about. He remembers Ian in hand-me-down overalls crying over a broken plastic shovel.
"Everybody's waiting for them," Ian says. "Like somehow they didn't prove themselves already? It's pretty fucked up."
"Yeah." The mariachi band starts up again, warbly and melodramatic.
Brendon is -- depressed, maybe. Or just unhappy. Or confused. Shane's only confused when he tries to make a story out of it, to think how he would make a movie about two characters named Shane and Brendon, these guys who fell into something and don't know what comes next. The best book Shane read about screenwriting said everything in a story has to come from a character's wants, that no matter what he thinks he needs or says he's looking for, it's what he truly wants that will drive all the action.
The waiter slaps the bill on the table and Shane just barely manages to grab it out from under Ian's hand. "Don't be a fucktard," he says. "And don't go picking up people's meals because you're a rockstar now. Save your money."
Ian shoves his last bite of beans and rice in his mouth. "Thanks, Dad," he says, and sticks out a tongue covered in half-chewed food.
"You're going straight to bed," Shane says. "No dessert."
They smoke a bowl in the backyard while Dylan wrestles with a stuffed purple dinosaur Brendon's mom gave them. Ian yawns loudly and says, "Yeah, couch time, man."
Shane checks his phone. It's one a.m. and he hasn't seen Brendon since about that time the night before. "No, take Brendon's room, it's cool."
"But isn't he --"
"He's writing, you know," Shane says, and Ian nods like that's enough of a reason for a guy to not have slept in his own bed for weeks. "I'll text him," he adds.
When he walks in and flips the light in Brendon's room, it looks exactly like it did the day Shane went up to the cabin. It's not dusty and the housekeeper folded all the clothes and stacked them on the dresser, but it feels weird, abandoned. Ian says, "Fuck, my own bed, thanks man," and hugs Shane, clapping him on the back. "Marshall kicks like a bear."
Brendon sleeps like a statue, a million miles from how he is any waking hour of the day.
"Tell Brendon thanks, seriously."
"Tell him yourself tomorrow," Shane says, and as he's turning off lights in the living room and kitchen, he texts with one thumb: how are things going? He takes a shower and brushes his teeth and takes the dog out one last time, climbing into bed around three thirty. Thank god he's got the rest of the week off. Maybe he'll go back to sleeping days.
At five fifteen Brendon's arm slides around Shane's waist, warm bare legs brushing the back of his thighs. Brendon smells like weed and piña coladas or something else with coconuts. Tanning oil, maybe. He mouths wetly at Shane's neck and shoulder, rocking their hips together slowly.
Shane tilts his head back. "Ian's here. You saw him at a party?"
"Mmm," Brendon says, his tongue tracing the ridges of Shane's ear. "We can be quiet."
"That kid'll sleep through anything," Shane says. He doesn't mean it as so go ahead and stick your hand in my boxers but he's not going to stop Brendon from taking it that way, either.
++
Shane's gotten used to working real hours and gets up around nine. Ian's already sitting on the couch, watching a Steve McQueen movie on TBS. "You mind?" he says instead of good morning, waving his pipe, and Shane shakes his head no. Fuck, he kind of misses being eighteen.
Fuck, he's also pretty good at forgetting Brendon's not much older than that. Brendon still has a fake ID. And has to use it occasionally.
"Anything good in that fridge?" Ian calls. "Or are you just gonna climb in?"
Shane grabs OJ, milk for coffee and frozen waffles, kicking the door shut.
He loves the fuck out of his cousin, and Ian's doing awesome for himself, but Brendon is a few light years ahead when it comes to managing life in the fast lane. Shane's kind of glad that by the time they became friends Brendon had already learned that the bigger you get, the bigger the consequences are if you fuck up. He's pretty sure there's no fun way to figure that out.
Brendon wanders out in his underwear, scratching at his head and scrunching up one eye. He smiles sleepily at Shane and tracks the noise of the TV with blinking confusion. Then he yells "Crawford!" and does a flying somersault onto the couch. Shane watches them tussle on the floor, Brendon trying to get hold of Ian's crazy hair, Ian giggling and trying to wriggle free. Finally Brendon gets Ian in a headlock and Ian offers to trade him this really great weed he scored for his release. They're negotiating the finer points of the deal: how much weed, how many times Ian should have to bow down and worship Brendon on stage the next time he comes to a gig, whether anyone should be required to cut his hair.
At least Brendon remembered to put on underwear, Shane realizes, and then it's like slow-motion, the way he sees it coming just before it happens. Steve McQueen's car rolls down a mountainside and Shane watches Ian think.
"You should have kicked me out of your room, dude." Ian says it steadily, calmly, but Shane's played poker with him before. He never gives anything away. Ian slept in Brendon's room and was out in the living room before Brendon got up. Where did Brendon sleep?
"Oh," Brendon says, and stumbles for half a second before reassuring Ian, "no, no way, I didn't even really sleep, and you're, like, our first house guest! Our casa is your casa. Our maison is your maison. Our haus is your haus. That was German, though it sounds sort of the same." He's turned towards Shane during his flailing. "Are we having breakfast?"
"Okay," Shane says, and gets out another glass.
Breakfast is fine. Ian and Brendon talk about their bandmates doing stupid shit, mostly stories Shane's already heard from them separately. Ian talks smack about Shane's parents, and every time he calls Shane "Ryan," Brendon blinks a double-take.
"We're, like, working on songs during the day today," Brendon says incredulously. "I mean, working some more. Back at our old practice space though." He kicks Shane under the table, toes glancing off Shane's shinbone. "Remember when you came by and you had your camera and we made you film?"
"Yeah, remember how it took your label six months to pay me for that footage when they put it on the DVD?"
Ian says, "Whoa," and gulps his juice.
"Dude," Brendon says, "I totally forgot to tell you! Crush wants you to call and talk about maybe doing a making the album thing?"
"Really?"
"Yeah. It'll be great, like, a good long job for you. Well, you know. Assuming we ever actually, uh, make an album." He stabs his waffle with a fork tine and then sighs super dramatically. "I think they're definitely under the assumption we'll be making an album."
The deadpan falls a little flat and it's like a cartoon raincloud appears over Brendon's head, all his usual manic joy deflated in a gray sky. Brendon pushes back his chair and slowly stretches his arms towards the chandelier. While Shane toasted Eggo's, Brendon had gone back and put on sweats and an undershirt but neither fits very well. The pants are possibly Shane's, too baggy, and the shirt is way too small. Especially when Brendon's reaching up like that. Shane does not think about licking his way down the crease where Brendon's thigh meets his pelvis last night. That morning.
Brendon peeks down at Shane and Shane smiles. He tries to stop when he realizes it but it's too late, so he just grins up at Brendon and laughs and says, "Yeah, okay, tell me when you've gotten past the smoking up and putting on old records phase and I'll bring a camera over, how's that?" And Brendon lights up, jumping up a little and making the whole table shake when he hits the carpet again.
"Hey," Ian says, and they look at him. He says to Shane, "Hey, your mom wants us to come over for dinner if you aren't busy."
Brendon snorts. "Your mom."
"Both of you," Ian says.
Brendon holds his hands up. "Band stuff, sorry."
"You scared of Vickie now?" Ian taunts, with a shit-eating grin, and Brendon pins Ian's head against his chest and gives him a noogie on his way back to the bedroom.
"Brendon," Shane says sharply, and Brendon stops short in front of his own room.
"Oh yeah," he says, and makes a 90-degree turn, clicking his heels together.
When Brendon comes back he's actually dressed, tight jeans and a t-shirt that fits and his hoodie of the month. Shane has taken those clothes off him so many times now it's hard not to think about sex again.
"Totally crash in there again tonight," Brendon is saying. "I'll probably just be at Ryan's."
After Shane joins Ian in smoking another bowl and watching another muscle car movie from the '70s and talking bullshit for two hours, Ian says, carefully, "So Brendon seems kinda stressed out."
"Yeah," Shane says. "I've been --" A car bursts into flames and, off-screen, a woman screams. "Worried," he finishes, feeling lame.
Ian shrugs. "He'll be okay." He stares at Shane for a while and then another explosion catches his attention.
They have dinner with Shane's parents, sit through more family gossip, and when they get back he has to remind Ian again that Brendon said it was cool to sleep in his bed. "How the fuck do you remember how to play guitar?" Shane asks, and Ian waves his fingers in the air and talks about muscle memory.
It's relatively early when Brendon comes home, maybe a little before three. Shane's lying in bed reading that year's Best American Movie Writing and Brendon pauses in the door and says, "Aww. Big test tomorrow?"
"Fuck off," Shane says automatically, though now he feels kind of douchey, like he's trying to impress someone or seem smart. He just likes reading about movies almost as much as he likes watching them. "Calling it an early night?"
"No, it's -- I mean, yeah, we're done tonight, punched the clock and blew the whistle." Brendon steps in, closing the door behind him, and beams as he says, "We wrote a song. A real song, I think. For a real album."
Shane puts the book on the floor. "That's awesome," he says, but it seems so inadequate in the face of Brendon's sudden personality change. "Come here," he says, and Brendon takes a running leap, almost kicking Shane in the face as he bounces across the bed. Shane grabs Brendon and pulls him down until he's lying right on top of Shane, knees between Shane's legs.
They make out for a while, and it's definitely making out, not kissing before fucking. Shane can tell Brendon's so keyed up he won't be able to concentrate on anything yet, not even sex. He keeps his hand loose on Brendon's throat and when he feels Brendon's heart rate calm, he slows the kissing down until they stop. Brendon turns his face, lying with his cheek on Shane's collarbone, and he lets out a big breath all at once, going boneless and heavy.
"I thought maybe we weren't going to," Brendon says, and Shane strokes the back of his neck slow and gentle. "The great wolf massacre, that's what Spencer called it. We sent Pete the tapes, and the label, and -- it's easier to think you're totally misunderstood geniuses, maybe, than figure out what you're doing so fucking wrong."
Shane kisses Brendon's temple and waits.
"I think we got it right this time, though. This -- it's a big song, but it's not trying so hard. It sounds like us." He hums against Shane's skin, something that sounds like can you feel it too, and then he lifts his head. "Now we should have some celebratory sex," he says, and raises one eyebrow. "To the victor goes the spoils, I hear."
"Is that what you hear," Shane says, but he hooks an ankle around Brendon's leg all the same.
++
Shane wakes up with what feels a hell of a lot like a pulled hamstring, and he doesn't see Brendon for three days. He gets two text messages: ryan says no sleep til brooklyn. it's funnier when ryan says it. and wondering what the world record for album writing is. do we get a prize if we break it?!?. So it's not like Brendon's dead or missing or something. He's with his band. That's what he does.
On day two Shane calls around seeing who might have work. On day three he goes and helps his dad edit a commercial. That night he comes home and Brendon is in the shower. Shane pokes his head into the steamy room and Brendon yelps.
"It's me," Shane says. "You know, your --" He stops.
Brendon wipes clear a circle on the door and smushes his face against it. "What?" he says, voice all distorted, lips against glass.
"You're home," Shane says, speaking up as if the shower is all that loud. "I'll let you --"
"What?" Brendon knocks on the shower door. "Knock knock," he says.
"-- get cleaned up," Shane finishes.
He folds laundry, puts away the clean clothes, kicks a stray shoe under the bed. When Brendon comes in, a wave of fog follows, and he balls up his towel and chucks it at Shane's head. He smells like grapefruit body wash, the stuff he finally brought back from the other bathroom after complaining for a month that Shane's wasn't as yummy.
Shane sits on the edge of the bed and when Brendon comes to stand between his legs, Shane draws him closer, bending to suck Brendon until he's fully hard, then sliding to the carpet so he can get down a little farther.
They lay around on the bed for a while after, even though it's still light out and both their stomachs are growling. "You wanna come film us tomorrow?" Brendon asks, tucking and untucking Shane's hair behind his ears over and over, and Shane shrugs.
"Sure, okay."
"Like when you came last summer and filmed? Remember?"
Of course Shane remembers. It was the first time he filmed Panic all together, them and their extra musicians figuring out new arrangements, Jon trying to keep up and Brendon trying to let him instead of jumping in to play everything at once. Shane had sat on the floor a while, camera rolling, and tried to figure out how it all worked, how the band worked, how this weird kid he'd met at a skate park could, bam, just like that, pull it together and be a front man.
"I remember," he says. He wasn't even there that day to shoot, just had his stuff with him when Brendon had called during a break and said, "Come by and meet the guys, we can go get wings or something."
Brendon props himself up on one elbow. He stares down seriously at Shane and Shane gets a queasy kick of nerves up his back. Brendon says, "I've never had sex in that practice room." He sighs and falls back onto the pillow.
Shane swallows. "Oh yeah?"
++
They're the last to arrive. Brendon lost his cell phone again and it took twenty minutes for Shane to remember that when in doubt they should look under the couch.
He hadn't realized other people were coming to watch the band rehearse. He hadn't even known the girls were all in town. Cassie and Haley are sitting with their backs to the mirrored wall, heads close together, and Keltie is punching Ryan in the arm and cackling like a hyena.
"Ahoy, fair ladies and gentlemen, we have landed on your friendly shore!" Brendon sing-songs, and Spencer bangs out a rat-a-tat-tat before flipping a drumstick in the air and catching it. Jon grins lazily and says, "Ahoy, matey," and Keltie throws an "arrrrg" over her shoulder. Ryan bends his neck and laughs into her hair.
Shane picks a dust bunny off his jacket sleeve.
"Oh, hi, Shane, hi," Keltie says brightly, and then he's wrapped up in her hug. She's like Brendon in that way, effusive and open with affection. He folds his arms around her tiny back and squeezes until she squeaks. "It's been way too long," she says, "I'm so glad you're here, I had no idea!"
When they finally let go he toes at his camera bag and Brendon says, "All we have is footage from the cabin, I thought --"
"That's great," Ryan says, and nods at Shane.
Spencer rests both sticks on the snare and leans forward. "How'd that come out, anyway?"
Shane has seven DV tapes stacked next to his computer. He watched 20 minutes of one when he first got back to Vegas, the house somehow both claustrophobic and cavernous without the cabin's vaulted ceilings or Brendon. It was too weird to have Brendon there on his monitor in black and white, beautiful and far away.
"I've been working a lot," he says. "There's some good stuff in there, though."
Brendon plops down on the keyboard stool, flying through a scale before launching into the Beatles. "They're gonna put me in the movies," he sings. "They're gonna make a big star out of me!"
Ryan strums tentatively but joins in singing with a quiet confidence. "We'll make a film about a man that's sad and lonely --"
"And all I gotta do," Brendon picks up, "is act naturallllly."
Spencer crashes a cymbal. "And that," he says, "is why drummers shouldn't sing." Jon starts to protest but Spencer waves him off. "We all ready now?"
Ryan nods and Spencer counts them off. Shane's sat through enough practices to know it's not over until they've played the song so many times everyone is ready to scream, so he takes his time getting his equipment out.
They start with the new song, the one Brendon came home singing and Shane's been humming ever since, back to the place where it all began. Brendon growls his way through the chorus, pounding at the keys. He beams at Shane and shakes his bangs off his forehead. How can anyone not be at least a little in love with Brendon, seeing him like this?
Fuck. Shane props the camera on his shoulder, checks the viewfinder and then stares at the floor for a while. He's at least a little in love with Brendon.
The next song must be even newer, because Shane is sure he would remember the sun and the moon falling in love in the middle of summer. He glances up to see if Brendon's actually taking it seriously. He is, but not half as much as Keltie, who is smiling into her palm and staring up at Ryan, who's grinning back down at her. Shane slowly swings around and the focus slides across Haley. She's not smiling. She's --
He blinks but the look is the same. She's glaring at him.
Brendon wails a long final note and Shane jerks back to catch the last chord. He keeps the camera on the band the rest of the rehearsal. When they decide to break for lunch he risks turning an eye to Haley. She's downgraded her look to suspicious. Shane wishes he didn't have something to feel guilty about, even if he's not sure why he does feel guilty. He and Brendon aren't doing anything wrong.
"I didn't have anything that couldn't fit in a suitcase," she tells Cassie, who says, "me neither."
They're talking about movers, he realizes. Jon had mentioned up in the mountains that he and Cassie had finally combined apartments, and Haley must be here for summer break or -- or she's staying with Spencer for good. She's younger than all of them, he remembers. Spencer just went to her prom.
God, she's eighteen. Keltie's older than Ryan, almost Shane's age, he thinks, and Cassie seems close to Jon's. But Haley is Ian's age. She's younger than Brendon, and she's looking at Shane again like she knows all his secrets.
He shoves his extra battery pack in the bag. He can come back and shoot more another day if the guys want.
"Ryan says subs." Brendon's at his elbow from nowhere. If Shane doesn't have a camera trained on him sometimes his movement is hard to predict. "But Ryan always says subs and I want more, Shane. I want more. I want it all, in fact. I want --"
Shane meets his eyes, and Brendon gives a dramatic flourish, hands swooping through the air.
"I want a buffet," Brendon says, decisively.
Jon calls, "Bellagio, motherfuckers!" and Spencer says, "Fuck, no, you know the Rio is better food." They're going to be in the car before they figure out whose turn it is to win that argument.
Haley and Cassie roll their eyes at each other and Cassie shoves at Brendon's chest, saying, "Thanks, thanks a lot."
He bounces off Shane's shoulder, feigning injury. "You wound me, woman!" he cries after Cassie as she follows Jon out the door.
Then it's just the three of them, and Haley says, "Hi Shane," like they haven't been in the same small space the last two hours.
He says, "hey." He thinks the last time they saw each other was her spring break, maybe.
"How's Regan doing?"
That is not what he was expecting. Not that he thought she was going to look at him and say, like, I know you and Brendon are fucking, but still. He says, "Uh, we broke up," because it's the truth and because he has no goddamn idea what else he could answer or how this conversation could get any more awkward.
Brendon says, "You did?"
Shane sternly reminds his lungs to breathe in and out and his eyes to stay open and his legs to stand straight.
Haley looks between them slowly. "I'm sorry to hear that," she says, and Shane says something lame like, "yeah, you know how it is," even though he has a feeling she doesn't, that she and Spencer are each other's firsts, probably first everything, sex and love and living together and thinking they invented it all.
She doesn't know how it is, but then again neither does he. He's never done whatever this is, either. Brendon is standing very still, his shoulder still brushing Shane's.
"I'm hungry," Brendon says quietly, and Haley says, "sure, let's go."
Shane waits until they're out at the cars, Spencer idling with the windows down and watching the door. "I have to go swing by my dad's, actually," he says, the words almost as smooth as he'd just practiced in his head. He looks at Brendon. "But I'll see you later, yeah?"
Brendon nods. "See you at home," he says. He sounds a little lost. Shane knows the feeling.
++
"Hey," Brendon says, and drops his phone back onto the floor by the bed. "Remember at that barbecue when my mom wanted me to go to the reception for my cousin Rick's blessing and I was busy and Kara cornered me and said I needed to come over for dinner soon and you were there and I said okay?"
Shane rolls over onto his stomach, stretching out his legs. "Not really."
"She's called twice." Brendon trails a hand over Shane's back.
"Uh, okay," Shane says. "That's fine."
Everything is fine. They don't have to talk about it. Brendon's not going to bring up Haley or Regan or any of it. It's fine. They don't need to talk about it. Things are good, really.
Brendon's been home every night by 10. They make dinner or go out to eat and then they get in bed, where Brendon is quietly needy, wanting to be touched all the time. He's always back at the practice space by noon. Neither of them is sleeping in much, so they spend a lot of mornings like this, lazy in bed and bullshitting.
None of the stories Brendon tells about the writing are like before, no fights or disagreements or "differences," as Brendon calls them. It's a lot of getting stoned and rocking out and peeling back the layers of this easygoing new band they've become. Maybe his need for reassurance isn't about the music at all.
Before he leaves, Brendon says, "I told Kara tonight was good. I think we're taking the weekend off anyway."
"Okay," Shane says, and doesn't think much about it until Brendon texts him around three.
what should we bring to dinner?
"Oh," he says aloud, and Dylan yanks on the leash. She's a strong girl for being a small dog.
They pick up strawberry shortcake from the specialty bakery down the street. Brendon wears a t-shirt without a double-entendre and Shane stops himself from asking if it's okay that he's got jeans on. Kara kisses his cheek at the door and says it's so good to see him.
At dinner they talk about how Panic's new songs are coming along, about a go-cart company that Shane shot a commercial for and the kids are obsessed with, about some cousin on Mrs. Urie's side who insists on having a huge fancy wedding reception even though everyone else had casual backyard things.
After, Shane watches some baseball while Brendon rolls around on the floor with his nephew and acts like he's stuck in a headlock. Kara comes in and sits down on the ottoman, smiling as she clips her hair back. When Shane looks over again he realizes she's smiling at him, not Brendon. He smiles back.
Kara's sweet, smart and sharply observant at unexpected moments. The first time she came by their house, months and months ago, she let Brendon lead her around, showing off each room. "We have rooms we don't even need!" he bragged, and she bit her lip a little and pulled him into a one-armed hug.
"I wish this was your first place," she said, low.
Brendon's eyes welled up and cleared so fast, like a flash flood beaten back by a shifting storm. "Movin' on up," he said more than sang, "and anyway now I have Shane. I have a roommate. We're going to get a dog!"
Brendon pins his nephew's forehead carefully to the carpet, chanting, "Say uncle, say uncle!" Every single time the kid giggles and squeals, "But you are my uncle!" until Brendon flips him back over and blows a raspberry on his stomach.
Kara says to Shane, "He's really happy."
The way she says it, gentle but deliberate -- it's like she's complimenting Shane somehow. He doesn't know why he ever thought she'd miss that something's going on just because he and Brendon never actually discuss it. His muscles lock up, but she just smiles right at him, a little sadness maybe on the edges, and then looks back to the wrestling match.
Brendon sits up suddenly, throwing his nephew over his shoulder. He blows his hair out of his face and grins wide before rising to his feet and stumbling off like a giant, singing a song about grinding bones to make his bread. Shane hears himself laugh warmly, watching them go, and then he makes himself breathe deep and turn to Kara and say, "Thank you." She squeezes his shoulder and follows Brendon into the kitchen.
Brendon literally does not lay a finger on Shane from the time they leave their house until they get back, but the minute they walk back in the door he grabs Shane's wrist, tugging until they're standing hip to hip. Their legs and feet fit together like they're dancing in the foyer, and Shane holds his breath as Brendon lifts his chin and presses his lips to Shane's.
It's sweet and soft, like a first kiss, and it makes Shane dizzy. He grips Brendon's shoulder, squeezing to hold himself steady, and Brendon gasps against Shane's mouth. Shane is still afraid to breathe. He's been so nervous lately, for days now. Every time he's around Brendon, especially every time they're like this, he's worried he might open his mouth and say the wrong thing. Or maybe it's the right thing, but the wrong time. He kisses Brendon harder instead, holds his face steady and firm and steers him down the hall to their bedroom.
He's got Brendon on his back, pants around his calves, the head of his cock pressed to Shane's cheek, when Brendon starts talking. "Everyone loves you," Brendon says, "I love, I love how you just fit in with -- with my family, everyone, it's --"
Shane sucks hard, sliding a hand around Brendon's ass to keep him close. He doesn't have to worry about saying the wrong thing like this, and he tries not to listen either.
But Brendon's voice -- it's Brendon, and his voice can do anything, and even as he gets breathy and high-pitched Shane doesn't know how to not hear him. Not when he's saying, "You, you always have to come home with me, Shane, please, you make it -- you make it bearable, please."
Shane doesn't say no. He doesn't know what to say, if he should warn Brendon that Kara knows, if he should keep acting like there's nothing to know, if he has any right to push on this when he's not the one who could lose everything.
"Please, Shane," Brendon says, as Shane rests his head on Brendon's stomach after, and Shane kisses his hipbone. He doesn't say no.
++
Shane might have forgotten Brendon's still not old enough to be legally allowed in the door at a club opening if Brendon hadn't been waving his new fake ID around all day, pulling it out and holding it up, turning left and right again and saying, "I could totally pass for Pete, right?"
It turns out no one cares when you're on the VIP list. They get ushered in and through to a roped-off section set just above the club. It's not a bad scene, and the liquor is expensive but free for them and Brendon seems in a good mood. Ryan shows a little after midnight and when they want to smoke up, a bodyguard leads them to a screened area on a balcony, then turns his back and keeps his eyes on the crowd.
Shane has a high school buddy whose uncle is general manager at the Luxor, and sometimes on a weeknight they could get comped the cover and bottle service, but it was nothing like this. It's like they could do anything and get away with it. It makes him want to try to get away with something. This must be why anyone cares about being rich and famous and powerful, this right here, the unlimited possibilities and no one to say stop.
When they come back into the room, Brendon heads for the bar, and Shane ends up talking with Ryan about big music festivals for what seems like an eternity. Ryan's annoyed they didn't get on the bill for Coachella, even though the timing was all fucked and Shane keeps telling him it's so hot even growing up in Vegas doesn't help you survive. He asks Shane about thirty questions about seeing Queens of the Stone Age in 2002, like maybe Shane's memorized the set list and is just withholding the information to be cruel.
Shane looks around for Brendon and spots him at the bar, talking to a girl with short, dark hair. He's clearly yelling a little over the music, making big motions with his arms and then leaning in to speak in her ear. They look over at the VIP area once, then huddle together again as if conspiring. Shane offers to get Ryan another whatever he wants and doesn't try too hard to talk him out of leaving when he says actually he's done for the night.
Shane gets stuck trying to make his way across the room, a knot of guys all together blocking the space between two couches. The three whose backs he's staring at, landlocked, all have the same haircut, short in the back with gelled spikes on top. They're wearing shiny collared shirts and tightly tailored pants, like typical gay guys. Shane isn't sure what to do with the jab of guilt he feels for noticing, for thinking before anything else that at least he's nothing like them, like that. He knows guys just like them, and they're cool. He just hasn't been out at a club like this in a while. He and Brendon haven't been out much at all lately.
The guys are talking shit about someone who's totally gay, no matter what he says or how many fag hags he buys drinks for. It's just guys talking shit, guys being asshole guys, gay or not. "Look," one says, craning his neck. "Look at that ass, seriously! God would never waste an ass like that on a straight guy."
"Or a top," another laughs, and elbows the third, pointing carelessly when his friend still can't tell who they're talking about.
They're talking about Brendon.
"I would hit that," someone says, and Shane shoves his way through.
Brendon says, "Why hello there," and slings an arm casually around Shane's shoulder. He mock bows at the girl and says, "May I introduce Shane Valdez, nominee for best director and all around best man?" She giggles. "And this is Marisa," he says, "a fair maiden from a faraway land here to wile away the hours among mere mortals."
"Hey," Shane says, and she laughs again. Shane's not convinced it's not directed at him, and he shrugs out from under Brendon's arm. "Hey, can I talk to you for a second?" he asks Brendon, and doesn't wait for an answer, just pushes with a hand on Brendon's back towards the balcony.
The gay guys stare openly as they pass, and Shane tries to skim his gaze across them like he's seen Zack do with eager girls, as if they're invisible. One guy tilts his jaw towards another, so close it's like they might kiss, but all he does is murmur, "So that's the boyfriend, huh." Brendon doesn't seem to notice and Shane doesn't stop.
The guard acknowledges Brendon with a minute amount of movement, holding the curtain aside and then pulling it closed again behind them. Then they're alone on the iron-gated ledge, the Strip lighting up the street far below.
Brendon says, "She's nice, right? She wants us to --"
Shane pins Brendon against the railing and kisses him. He's had a lot to drink, and smoked a fair amount, and behind Brendon there is nothing but night sky and the shadowy outline of mountains in the moonlight. Maybe they'll fall from the precipice, a great flailing mess of arms and legs into the abyss. Brendon thrusts up, the button of his jeans digging into Shane's stomach, and tangles their tongues together for one long minute. Then he shoves Shane away, knuckles white where his other hand is squeezed in a tight fist around the rail.
"Shane, not -- come on."
"I know we live right here," Shane says, "but let's get a room anyway. We could --"
"I told Marisa I'd be right back," Brendon says, eyes on his feet. "She asked if we wanted to, uh --"
Shane walks out. At valet he gives Brendon's name and takes the casino's car home alone.
He throws up twice, tequila and whiskey burning so much worse on the way back up, then sleeps until noon. If he spends any time thinking about where Brendon might be he's going to puke again.
Instead he goes to the store to buy groceries, finally opens two weeks' worth of mail, and spends an hour drooling over the new D700 in the Nikon catalog. He sits with his laptop at the dining table and makes himself a deal that if he does his quarterly taxes and he owes within a thousand dollars of what he set aside that he can buy the camera. That's assuming his bank account balance agrees with the arrangement.
His account balance is clearly wrong. He's been working a lot, yeah, and depositing checks without keeping close track because he knows what he spends in a month on rent and utilities and food and it's been a good run of working for people who pay promptly. He knows he's ahead of the game, but free drinks at clubs and catered meals on sets aren't enough to explain this. Bank error in your favor, his brain hums, but life is not a game of Monopoly and Shane's never that lucky.
He goes back through the last six months of transactions and when he figures out what's wrong he wishes he hadn't had Jack in the Box for lunch. It's just about as foul coming up again as tequila.
Brendon comes home around ten that night in a brand new shirt and jeans and the faint stink of unfamiliar shampoo. "Why are you sitting in the dark?" he asks, opening the fridge for a beer, and Shane can't think of anything to say but, "Why'd you stop cashing my rent checks?"
He hears the bottle clink down on the counter and raises his voice so he can be heard in the kitchen.
"I know you're a fucking rock star and all, but I assure you I can cover my half of the house."
"I know you can," Brendon says. He stands on the threshold between the rooms. "You -- you should see these royalty checks, Shane, they're completely retarded."
"I don't want your money." Shane closes his laptop, screen dead from being left open and unplugged for hours. "I don't want you for your money," he clarifies, and Brendon has just turned on the light so Shane can see exactly how much he pales. Shane's got that nervous feeling again but all backwards, not like he might tell Brendon he's in love with him but like he might say, "I don't want this."
He says it.
"Don't want what," Brendon says, and Shane can taste the promise of bile again.
His cell rings and he answers it. If he's on the phone he doesn't have to talk to Brendon.
"Hey, Brendon's phone is just ringing and ringing." It's Jon. "Can you tell him Cassie and Haley are having some girls' night in thing and so we're meeting at the place on Fourth Street instead? He knows which one, the one where Ryan tried to win a pool game that time, okay?"
Shane says, "Okay."
"You're coming, right?" Shane doesn't know what to say. "Come on, dude, it's boys' night out, or guys' night, whatever. Dudes' night. You have to come."
continued here.