no one would riot for less

(my warpaint is) sharpie ink

2008-06-27T11:23:41Z

(my warpaint is) sharpie ink

ryan-centric gen, pg
1521 words
by girlintheband

title by kimya dawson. much stylistic inspiration from e.e. cummings. this is something that is very experimental but i'm in that mood where you just have to put things out there regardless. thank you to softlyforgotten, alchemywow and miznarrator for looking at this in its various stages of existence. ♥

The poet becomes a seer through a long, immense, and reasoned derangement of all the senses. All shapes of love, suffering, madness. He searches himself, he exhausts all poisons in himself, to keep only the quintessences... - Allen Ginsberg

He's excited when they plan it.

He's excited when they get there.

He's still excited one day two days three days later.

(Before)-- before,

Ryan couldn't get the idea out of his mind for months. The idea of working in seclusion, away from the hustle and bustle of Las Vegas, away from-- well, everything. But, now--

After a week, the excitement's worn off, the desire to writerecordperform is waning, the alcohol is running low, and Ryan can't figure out why, can't figure out what's wrong with the picture.

It's going to be a concept album, Ryan decides a few days into the recording process.

He announces it to the others over breakfast.

"It's going to be a concept album," he says in between mouthfuls of cereal.

He doesn't look up to see what anyone's reaction is. There's just silence, so Ryan spoons more cereal into his mouth, stares down at the milk in the bottom of his bowl, the little bits of grain floating in it.

"It's going to be a concept album," he repeats. "A fairy tale."

No-one really questions him. No-one asks what he's doing.

It's going to be his words, and their music.

It doesn't even occur to him that there could be other ways to go about it.

It's not that it's bad. It's not. And it's definitely not that they're not having fun. They are.

It's more like (one:

It's not coming together in Ryan's head - not the way he had expected it to, nor in the way he wants it to, and definitely not the way the others are relying on it to.

And-- (two:

And, well, it's not coming together at all, really, if Ryan's going to be completely honest with himself.

Ryan's not very good at being honest with himself.

There's no framework, and Ryan's struggling.

Spencer tries to help.

It works for a while, and for a while longer, and then, then it doesn't--

Spencer starts spending more time with Jon (on the deck- in the valley- amongst the trees- on the roof) after that time where Ryan--

;after that time.

(maybe it was significant maybe things were said, hurtful things sharp and bitter and the taste of acid on his tongue as soon as he says them, but

Ryan can't even remember, not anymore. He wishes he could.

"You should get some sleep, Ross," Jon mumbles into his neck. He's half-asleep; Ryan should be too.

His mind just won't stop, though; he's tried, he's tried and--

"Stop thinking so loudly."

Ryan wants to. (Jon doesn't understand how much he wants to.) He grits his teeth and clenches his jaw and tries so hard.

Jon falls asleep shortly after. Ryan stays awake for hours until there's a crick in his neck shoulder back his whole spine from how they're lying on the sofa but he doesn't want to move because Jon might get upset--

(he won't)

--and Ryan doesn't want anyone else to be disappointed in him, too.

His own disappointment is bad enough, way too much.

Brendon mostly avoids him altogether after the first few weeks.

Brendon seems happy, at least-- (bright and cheerful and smiling alwayssmiling

--the way he should be. Ryan doesn't want to infringe on his happiness, so he just- so he doesn't interfere- so he leaves him alone, smiling to himself and for the others, less and less for Ryan now and it hurts but(

oh( he doesn't know how to fix it.

He burns his guitar one night.

It should probably be more of a big deal than it seems at the time (Spencer's wide eyes, his hushed But Ryan, you love that guitar-- mixed in with thoughts of his father of his first guitar of the first song he and Spencer learnt to play together, but- but at the time he hates it, hates that guitar so much.

It's been one of the most frustrating days at the cabin so far. Every word he writes seems wrong - too wordy not wordy enough maybe if he does it like that, then--;

--and even the few words he does like, the tantamount snatches of lyrics he can sometimes imagine being proud of one day - even those words won't bend to his will. They refuse to be strung together, instead just sit there on the page, clear and sharp but indistinct all at once.

So he burns his guitar (sets fire to it out in the courtyard first, after he's thrown it around a bit inside, then drags it by its neck- strings snapped, one of them cutting into his thumb as he pulls the guitar along -into the dustgrassdirt beyond the paving stones. He drops it there, sets fire to it (with surprising difficulty); he takes a couple of jagged steps backwards, and sits down, hitting the ground hard. He brings his knees up to chest and wraps his arms around them and just--

;watches.

Shane's there; filming, of course. Shane's always filming.

---(omnipresent constantly hovering asking what's that? what's going on what are you thinking hey do you mind if i film you doing that sorry missed it can you do it again or hey maybe if you.....)

Ryan frowns, his own thoughts getting away from him --more and more increasingly common these days, they just never stop but somehow never make sense either, sometimes he thinks maybe he's going a bit mad--;

but the point, the point was that:

Ryan frowns, ignores Shane, just tries to blink away the heat that's emanating from the flames that are slowly but surely engulfing his guitar.

It scorches his eyes but he doesn't look away.

Nine at night, seven in the morning( it all starts to blend he can't tell the difference;

Ryan finds himself climbing into Brendon's Spencer's Jon's bed-- )beds they all share anyway, comfort in closeness and proximity of skin(

--more and more often.

(How many days has it been anyway? Shouldn't someone be counting these things it could be important one day someone might need to know what if----)

Ryan, he;

(what if what if)

He just needs, sometimes. Needs but doesn't know can't say never knew what, so he keeps it to himself (all there is to keep to himself anyway--).

His headspace isn't right;

(he can actually hear Brendon's voice in his head, laughing but rough from days of singing in new ways soaring to new heights dropping to new lows, saying

--a mockingbird in mimickery--;

your mom's headspace isn't right

he can hear).

Pete doesn't seem to understand when Ryan hints (tries so so hard to drop a hint, many hints through texts and IMs and late night early morning phone calls).

Ryan can't explain himself properly, maybe, because he thinks Pete --Pete, of all people-- should be able to understand, but Pete tells Ryan to pull himself together and sort himself out and and just be himself and

(himself himself himself as if it's all about him about Ryan);

--it's not his words. Ryan's positive. It's not him, must be someone else.

It's Brendon's melodies that don't fit his words, that's it, surely, and oh-- oh maybe, wait;

Maybe that's it? Maybe that's what Pete's trying to say.

(this could be the moment where it all changes)

"Maybe this isn't working," Ryan concedes, one night, finally. It's taken him so long. The clock is nearing four a.m. but they've only been awake since two in the afternoon, anyway, so it's not like it matters, but;

Jon looks up, tilts his head curiously; like he's picked up on something. Spencer smiles, small and secretive; like he's known all along. Brendon smiles, too, open and easy; like he doesn't know but it doesn't matter because he knows someone will (hopefully) tell him in the end anyway.

It doesn't matter;; it doesn't. Because-- (because he's burnt his guitar got tattoos grown his hair but it hasn't helped with the songs, none of it has, in retrospect hasn't achieved much of anything at all but how was he supposed to know? he can barely keep up with normal conversation about weather breakfast plectrums animals that visit their cabin at night)

Because--

They all look ready to listen, and Ryan decides maybe it's time to talk, for once. (Once just this once-- or again, if it works will it work Ryan can't tell yet, because--;

(because because because)

(wait for it)

Ryan takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them again, he sees his band mates, his best friends, sitting there and looking at him expectantly, so he--

So he opens his mouth, and starts to talk.

It's the first time he's tried to voice what's in his mind for days; weeks, maybe, and-- it's all a bit of a jumble, but, when he exhales slowly, everyone smiles again, encouraging, and;

It all comes together. Just like that.

Ryan's head feels so much clearer already, and he thinks-- maybe, just maybe, he can do this;

No, wait-- Not he.

They.

They can do this.

And they do.

but here, here you can feel infinite

2008-01-30T12:10:05Z

but here, here you can feel infinite

brendon/spencer, g
504 words
by girlintheband

for sticky_sneakers' post #004 (prompt 2)

The car windows are splattered with rain drops, and the glass mists up a little every time Brendon turns towards it and looks out.

He leans closer, exhales purposefully, a long gust of warm air he can practically see in the air-conditioned cool of the car.

Outside, a storm is brewing.

The clouds are rolling in from the north, north-west maybe, surging and piling up and closing in on the highway, closer and closer, mushroom formation. The ones at the bottom, nearer to the ground, the fields, are some of the darkest clouds Brendon's ever seen - black and grey shot through with fierce aubergine purple, the kind that might indicate a tornado if you lived in the middle of a storm belt.

The clouds at the top are pale and fluffy, icing sugar frosting.

Brendon presses his fingertips to the glass, watches as the sun dips behind the clouds and everything goes dark, darker, illuminated in smouldering orange light. He tries his best to keep his eyes open, to blink as infrequently as possible; absorbed, he doesn't want to miss a single drop of rain or movement of clouds. He wants to roll the window down, wants it more than anything else in the world right now. His fingers twitch with the urge to do so.

Brendon wants to roll the window down, stick his hand out, feel the rain on his palm and watch it pool until it forms rivulets and runs down his fingers before falling to its watery death on the road-dirt-grass some inches beneath his hand.

The smell, too; he wants to smell it, the overwhelming freshness of cold rain on a hot, end-of-summer's day. He watches in rapt silence for minutes, so many minutes, until Spencer speaks up from the driver's seat.

"Hey," Spencer murmurs, softly, as if trying to wake someone. Brendon sits back in his seat and glances across at him, dropping his fingers from cool glass to warm thigh. The denim of his jeans feels gravelly and rough compared to the smooth plane of the window.

Spencer looks over at him quickly, and smiles, then looks forward again. Brendon watches the way the fading light casts shadows across his face, the way it changes when Spencer moves, and doesn't reply.

"You want to stop for a bit?" Spencer asks, eyes fixed on the road. "There's a rest stop about a mile from here."

Brendon looks out the windscreen, thinks about the asphalt under the tyres, thinks about the thousands of miles they've already covered.

"Sure," he says easily. He doesn't even have to think about it. He brings one foot up and tucks it underneath his thigh, tapping the side of his shoe against the fabric of the car seat. "What's another mile, right?" He grins, looking sideways at Spencer.

Spencer laughs, his eyes crinkling at the corners, but keeps his gaze fixed forward. They stay like that until they see the stop and pull over, just Brendon watching Spencer and Spencer watching the road.

without mythologies

2008-01-02T11:36:03Z

without mythologies

frank/gerard, pg-13
2,375 words
by girlintheband

set in japan in january/february of 2008. gerard takes some time out. all the geographical details &c; are correct, apart from the udon-ya in akihabara. i don't know if that exists. everything else does.

if you do visit the little coffee shop on the left-hand side of the road after you cross the bridge in hiroshima (walking away from the a-dome), try their waffles. they're really good. also, those chocolate donuts i refer to? they exist too, and are amazing. eat them.

the title of without mythologies comes from the weakerthans. thank you to violentfires for the beta, and to flimsy for general encouragement.

suspend your disbelief, pretend we were both here once. pretend that you weren't sick and didn't have to go home, pretend that i wasn't drunk, pretend that i wasn't going through withdrawal. pretend it worked out and we are both here, right now, just this time, just this once. it's only the two of us, and we spend all morning lying in bed and drinking the poor impression of brown water the japanese call coffee until midday, until we deem it time to go out. we go unrecognised in the streets, and no-one even cares if i hold your hand in public sometimes. pretend this is it.

gerard stares blankly at the ticket machine until a group of teenage girls come up to him. he can feel them hovering around him, can hear their giggling and hushed chatter for nearly a whole minute before one of them approaches him. in broken english, they ask if he needs help. he manages to mumble something about akihabara, electric city, and the girls nod eagerly.

one of them presses a few buttons on the machine and holds out a hand for cash after tapping the screen, pointing at the price. gerard hands over a five hundred yen coin and the girl slots it into the machine, then passes back his change and ticket, all hai, hai, douzo and winning smiles.

they chat awkwardly for a few minutes and the girls snap a couple of camera phone photos of themselves with gerard. gerard finds himself surprised to realise he doesn't even mind, that he actually smiles genuinely when they ask if it's okay. they bow quickly and thank him afterwards -- arigato, sank yuu! -- then run off laughing, clutching tight to each other. they disappear into the surging crowd within seconds. gerard suddenly feels indescribably alone.

he catches the subway to akihabara anyway. the buildings aren't any more impressive here than they are anywhere else in tokyo, but they're lit more brightly and everything coming from within them is definitely, definitely much louder. gerard walks out of the station in awe, and thinks he can see why they call it electric city.

gerard browses for nearly three hours, until suddenly he looks at his phone and realises it's already gone nine p.m. he's suddenly starving. he eats vegetable tempura udon perched on a bar stool at a wooden bench in a noodle shop down the end of the main street, probably a good five blocks away from the station. he practically gets shooed out of the store when he's finished, and when he looks back from the doorway, another customer has already taken his seat.

on the train back to the station near his hotel, gerard sifts through the bags he's accumulated, going back over the evening's purchases. he catalogues them in his mind, filing them away for when he gets back home. futuristic manga comics and a rare edition of a morrissey cd for mikey. hentai manga filled with girls with overly large breasts for ray and for bob that gerard giggles over for a good ten minutes. an electronic organiser for brian. more manga and a plug-in usb graphics tablet for himself. a new digital camera, also for himself, 10.2 megapixels, the latest, greatest, tiniest he could find.

gerard packs up all the bags and sets them to the side. he reaches for the last bag, and pulls out the items in the bag carefully, looking at each one closely as he tries to figure out if he made the right decisions. fancy digital photo frame. three rare japanese-release-only cds. a device that supposedly informs the holder of their body's vitamin levels. a few carefully-chosen doujinshi. all are for frank.

gerard can't decide whether it's too much or not enough.

sometimes i think i could be really comfortable here. that maybe i could even live here. i think i'd like to try it some day. you'd come with me, right? or at least visit? you'd visit, wouldn't you?

without mythologies, we are nothing, gerard taps out on his phone. i miss you. he presses send, and sits back, waits. he gazes out the window. the sky is blue, slightly misty, but mostly empty, no planes or helicopters or anything, not even birds. gerard frowns and wonders where all the birds are.

you have enough mythologies for the both of us, frank texts back, a minute or two later. i think you'll be okay. i miss you too, for the record.

gerard smiles. his phone buzzes in his hands again almost immediately, and a second message appears in his inbox. gerard presses select and brings it up.

bring me back a present? frank asks.

duh, gerard types, rolling his eyes and smiling. i've been writing you letters too but i can't find anywhere to buy stamps. lots of postboxes tho. typical. i might have to hand deliver them. maybe email?

frank's reply simply says i'll be waiting.

gerard can practically hear him saying it in his head, and he has to close his eyes and take a deep breath against the want and the homesickness that floods through him.

it gets dark early but i stay up late. the hotel room is small, and the bed is even smaller, but it still feels empty without you in it and mumbling in your sleep next to me. i wake up and expect to see you there every day. it's hard to break a habit, i guess. can't stop thinking about the way your hair looks against the pillow, or the way your eyes look first thing in the morning when you smile at me.

gerard catches the bullet train -- shinkansen, his combined phrasebook-guidebook informs him -- to osaka, but makes a last minute snap decision to get off in kyoto instead. he's pretty sure he'll have to buy another ticket to get to osaka, but he figures he'll deal with that later.

he wanders out of the station, and pulls on his sunglasses automatically, protection. it's windy, and his hair blows in his face when he looks up at kyoto tower. the tower glows faintly yellow against the grey cloudy sky, dotted with little red lights around a section gerard guesses is a viewing platform. he thinks he should probably go up there at some point.

gerard turns and walks down the street, dragging his black suitcase behind him awkwardly, apologising quietly in mumbled half-japanese half-english whenever he bumps into someone; sumimasen, sorry, sumimasen. he's spent enough time in japan over the years to have picked up some basic japanese, at least. he's thankful for that, and quietly, he's also pretty impressed at his ability to remember it.

gerard picks a hotel on the main road at random. he's not even sure if it's a hyatt or a hilton or a radisson until later on, when he reads the letterhead on the notepad next to the phone in his room.

two men help him with his suitcase and take it up to his room while he checks in. they're waiting for him when he steps out of the elevator -- ni-jyuu san kai, the lady chirps over the elevator music. floor twenty-three -- and they hold the door open for him, too, when he walks up to it. gerard smiles tentatively at them; arigato, thank you. hai, arigato.

the men bow and leave as soon as gerard's inside.

the door clicks shut softly, but it sounds to gerard as if there's some sort of finality to it.

in kyoto today and the weather is cooler than tokyo. very windy. the people are still nice but i never know if it's because maybe they know who i am or because that's just the way japanese people are. i really hope it's the latter.

gerard stays in kyoto for three days.

he visits the golden pavilion, a zen rock garden he promptly forgets the name and location of, heian jingu shrine, and a number of large and expensive department stores with impressive food halls in the basements.

gerard takes a photo on his brand new digital camera of the red torii gate in front of heian jingu -- one of the largest torii gates in japan! his guidebook says, exclamation mark and all -- and prays for good fortune and good health at kiyomizu temple. he ties a piece of white paper to a tree, goes down tens of steps into a pitch black cave in the middle of the temple and touches a rock, and pours water on his hands from a wooden bucket on a stick over a pond.

he doesn't feel any different when he leaves, but he figures maybe these things take time.

he does see a pair of maiko, apprentice geisha girls, on the way out of the temple, though. he stops and smiles at them, bows a little. they bow back and smile politely behind their hands.

gerard wonders whether they're real geisha or whether they're just paid models doing a photoshoot when he continues past them.

his shoes crunch on the gravel of the path as he heads back towards his hotel, and he makes a mental note to tell frank about the geisha.

geisha girls in pale kimono. the bottoms of their kimono flutter when they walk, it's really pretty. apparently they actually have to learn how to walk in this certain way, because the japanese believe it makes them look like they're floating. it looks kind of like ripples in a river after you throw a rock in. remember that time in london when you chucked that bit of cement into the thames? it's like that. the ripples go on forever.

the girls in the mr. donut store bow and cry irasshaimase! every time gerard walks through the door. he grins at them, laughing a little, scratching at the back of his neck with one hand nervously.

gerard buys four angel-french chocolate donuts -- real chocolate donuts, he texts to frank the first time he discovers them. not just chocolate icing. the whole fucking donut has got chocolate through it, like the mixture's got cocoa in it or something. they cut them in half and put fluffy creamy icing in the middle. i'd bring you some home but you wouldn't eat them anyway, you boring vegan -- and plans on eating two now, at a booth in the store, and two later.

he does the same thing every day, for the whole week he's there in hiroshima, and every day, he ends up eating all four donuts in one sitting.

gerard justifies it by telling himself that the walk to this particular mr. donut is long enough that it cancels out the calories. it probably doesn't, but gerard can't really bring himself to care all that much.

he buys a golden peach fanta from a vending machine outside afterwards, and wanders along the street. it's a pedestrian-only street, with a roof of sorts overhead sometimes, so he takes his time. he stops at the hmv a few shops up even though he was only there yesterday, and browses for half an hour before he heads back towards the river to get back to his hotel. gerard wanders through the peace park on the way, and smiles when he sees a group of school children singing in front of the sadako shrine off to his right.

he cuts through the park and takes the long way back, past the a-bomb dome and over the bridge. he gets a coffee to go from a tiny little cafe on the left-hand side of the road, and pulls his scarf tighter around his neck as the day begins its descent into evening.

i know it's a cliche, but i can't stop thinking about lost in translation here. remember that time we tried to watch it on the bus, just you and me, when everyone else went out to that party? and you kept trying to stick your hand down my pants and i wouldn't let you because i wanted to watch the movie. i got so mad at you and you stormed off and didn't talk to me for the rest of the night. you pretended you were asleep when i got into your bunk with you. i remember i kissed the back of your neck and you didn't even move, but i could see how tightly you were clenching your fists. i'm sorry. i didn't mean to upset you. i don't know why i'm thinking about that right now, but i just thought you should know, that i didn't mean to make you angry. i wish you were here to watch lost in translation with me. i wouldn't even mind if you wanted to make out instead, promise.

gerard reads murakami on the flight back to new york. he falls asleep after dinner, seatbelt done up over his blanket so the flight hostesses don't wake him up to check he's wearing it. he falls asleep, and dreams that frank is waiting for him at the airport.

he wakes up just minutes before landing, and leaves the plane with his mind in a haze. he looks around tentatively when he steps out into the lounge, his carry-on bag clasped tightly in his right hand. his heart sinks when he can't see frank.

gerard ducks his head and starts walking slowly towards the baggage carousel, his feet moving on automatic.

he's halfway there when his phone buzzes against his thigh, and he stops to pull it out, flick it open. his heartbeat speeds up when it flashes frank at him.

you can't see me can you

gerard reads the text and looks up immediately, glancing around. his eyes catch on a human-shaped bundle of black, leaning back against a pillar off to the right, and he breaks into a wide smile, walking over quickly.

he's still grinning when he reaches frank, who pushes off the pillar and pulls gerard into a hug without hesitation. gerard's heart stutters with relief and he drops his hand luggage to the floor, hugging frank tightly. frank presses his face to gerard's neck, and gerard can feel his grin against his skin.

gerard breathes out slowly, closes his eyes, and feels like he's home for the first time in months.

don't fight it

2007-12-27T03:05:23Z

don't fight it

Jon/Spencer, NC-17
3,052 words
by girlintheband

Title from The Panics' song of the same name. Beta by flimsy, thank you! ♥

Set in January 2006, when Panic! at the Disco and The Academy Is... toured the UK.

Originally written for foxxcub as part of the little secret santa exchange a number of us did. Aleesha, darling, you've been a great friend to me this year, and I wish you all the best for 2008. Merry Christmas; I hope you like this.

Jon really, really hadn't thought it would be quite this hard to corner Spencer and catch him on his own.

He's been trying for five days now, through Glasgow and Newcastle, through Oxford and Leicester, with little to no success. Or, well, none at all, really, if he's being completely honest.

"I'm doomed," Jon grumbles as he sinks into the Academy bus' lone beanbag in the lounge. He glances across at Tom, who's sitting in an armchair and gazing intently down at his laptop screen. "Doomed, Thomas," he repeats, for emphasis. Jon closes his eyes and places his hand over the top of them.

"Uh huh," Tom replies vaguely. He doesn't sound at all like he's listening. "Terrible. Horrible situation, that."

Jon frowns and opens his eyes to look at Tom again, shifting in the beanbag in an attempt to get the beans to settle properly and actually allow him to sit comfortably for once. It doesn't work very well.

"You're not even listening to me, are you?"

Tom shrugs. "Yeah, no, that sounds good." Pause. "You, uh. You do that."

Jon rolls his eyes. "Thanks, Tom. No, really, thank you. You're a bastion of worldly advice, you are."

Tom looks at him this time, grinning widely, eyes sparkling. "A bastion, huh." He pauses, makes a thoughtful noise, then grins again. "I like that."

"You would." Jon rolls his eyes and sinks down further into the beanbag.

The first time Jon tries to get Spencer on his own is, admittedly, poorly planned. Poorly executed, too, for what it's worth. Jon's willing to admit this.

He heads to Panic!'s dressing room after The Academy Is...'s set, dragged along in the flow, Tom's arm around his waist. The six of them pour into the room, talking loudly, and Jon's just finishing up a conversation with Tom about how one of his guitar strings had snapped in the middle of the second-to-last song, when he catches a blur of pale pink out of the corner of his eye.

It flashes past him, and the person the pink belongs to is in such a hurry to leave the room that he nudges Jon's shoulder accidentally on the way out, knocking him slightly off balance. Jon looks after the guy automatically, and it's only then that he registers it's Spencer.

Jon curses under his breath, and watches Spencer walk quickly down the corridor, hands stuffed into his pockets.

Jon doesn't try to follow him. He figures he can try again the next day, and turns back to Tom, smiling automatically as he re-enters the conversation.

Jon's second and third attempts at cornering Spencer go just as badly, if not worse. Both take place on Panic!'s bus, with Jon clambering on board in two random parking lots before gigs somewhere in northern England. The first time, it's under the guise of wanting to play on the PlayStation with Brendon, and the second time it's discussing the artistic merits of black and white photography over colour with Ryan.

Both times, Spencer's exits are more obvious. Both times, his back straightens sharply as soon as Jon steps on board, and his eyes pointedly look anywhere but Jon's face. Spencer mumbles something under his breath, and excuses himself, glancing quickly at Ryan.

Both times, Spencer all but bolts out the bus door. Ryan gives Jon a weird look the second time it happens, and Jon finds himself wondering just how much Ryan knows.

"What?" Jon asks, frowning at Ryan.

Ryan purses his lips and shakes his head dismissively. "Nothing," he says quietly. "Just--" he pauses, looking at Jon so thoroughly it's as though he's trying to see right through into Jon's soul. Jon stares back.

"Yeah, no. Nothing. Nevermind," Ryan finishes, unfolding his hands from his lap and turning to face Brendon on the sofa instead. Jon watches them both for a moment before getting up and following Spencer off the bus.

Jon glances around the parking lot the moment his feet hit the tarmac.

Predictably, Spencer is nowhere to be seen. Jon scuffs at the ground with one foot, frustrated, then heads back to The Academy's bus. He walks as slowly as possible.

Spencer's said all of four things to Jon since Manchester.

Jon knows. He's been counting.

There's been one "hi"; another rather forced "hello" that was only forthcoming after a sharp and entirely unsubtle elbow to the side from Ryan; one blushing, stuttered "I have to go"; and one hissed out, pre-show "stop fucking following me".

Jon's not going to lie. The last one hurts the most.

The whole reason Jon's even trying to get Spencer on his own is this:

They kissed.

They kissed and Jon wants it to happen again.

Spencer, he's less sure about. Whether he wants to kiss Jon again, that is. Over the past few days, he's discovered, Spencer seems to have developed the habit of ducking his head and blushing furiously every time Jon walks into the room, before exiting in a rush, as though he'd rather be anywhere - anywhere - other than there.

It's frustrating, and Jon finds himself torn between trying harder and wanting to give up as the days wear on.

He lies in bed on the bus at night, on his back, staring up at the ceiling, the dull hum of the engine a constant murmur in the background, punctuated only occasionally by loud and sudden snores (Mike) and mumbled sentences of sleep talk (William). No matter how he thinks back on the situation, the kiss, Jon just can't seem to work out what went wrong. What he did wrong.

All things considered, Jon thinks the kiss itself was pretty fantastic. Light enough to keep it as a relatively casual first kiss, but hot enough that Jon keeps going back to it in his mind, wanting more.

That said, Jon does have a couple of panicked minutes the next day in which he thinks maybe it was good only for him, and that Spencer had hated it, hated the way Jon kissed or something.

He turns to William, his face a little red. "Bill," he says, urgent. "William, am I a crap kisser?"

William looks up from his laptop. "What?" he asks, blinking. "No?"

Jon quirks his lips, frowning at the way William seems to phrase his answer as a question. "Dude. That's hardly a ringing endorsement."

William reaches out across the sofa with one hand, patting him on the shoulder. "Your technique's fine, Jonny Walker. Stop freaking out."

Jon does, after that. Well, about the idea he's bad at kissing, anyway. He's still just a little freaked out about the rest of it.

(Jon's not really sure how it happens, exactly.

It's all a blur of colours and stage lights and then of darkness pierced by sudden flashes of brightness, the adoring screams of fans loud in the background. One minute, he's standing there at the side of the stage with Tom, watching Panic! come to the end of their set, and the next, there's a pair of arms around his neck and a hot, sweaty body pressed against his, wet tongue sliding into Jon's mouth insistently. Callused fingertips push up into the hair on the back of his head, scratching lightly, and Jon thinks oh.

When Spencer pulls away, his eyes are dark and glazed, lips darker still, but his smile is small and friendly. There's something intimate about the way he looks at Jon at that moment, and Jon feels his breath catch somewhere in his throat in response.

Before Jon can say anything, Spencer's being dragged away by Ryan. Spencer looks over his shoulder at Jon once, when he's halfway down the hallway, and smiles.

Jon smiles back.)

Somehow, nothing ever gets said about the kiss. Not directly. Jon would think he had actually imagined the whole thing if it wasn't for the way he can see Spencer's body tense, the way he squares his shoulders off, sharp, whenever Jon walks into the room.

Jon finally corners Spencer after the London show.

"You," he starts, walking slowly towards Spencer, who takes a step backwards for each one of Jon's own forwards steps. "You, have been avoiding me." Jon points his finger at Spencer, poking the air emphatically. He's maybe, maybe a bit drunk. Just a little.

He squints at Spencer. "Since Friday, Spence."

"Uh," Spencer says, his eyes going a little wide as he looks around the room quickly, obviously trying to scope out an escape route. Jon can see the moment when he realises it's no good, and grins.

"Uh," Spencer says again, meeting Jon's eyes, then looking away again quickly. "Maybe?"

Jon's heart sinks. "Oh," he says softly, more of an exhale of breath than anything else. "I'd sort of. Hoped I'd just been imagining it."

Spencer looks uncomfortable. "Sorry," he offers, chewing on his lip between words. "I think I just." He waves his hand in the air vaguely, freezing when his fingertips drag against Jon's shirt. "Um." Spencer blinks. "You know. Freaked out," he says finally, mumbling.

Jon nods. At least Spencer's honest.

"Okay," he says slowly. He takes a step closer. Spencer doesn't move. Jon takes it as a good sign. "Are you going to freak out if I try again?"

"Um." Spencer blinks owlishly, a faint blush spreading across his cheeks when Jon steps closer again. "Possibly?" He laughs softly, nervously.

Jon smiles back just as nervously, heart in his throat. It goes without saying that he doesn't want Spencer freaking out on him again.

He steps forward anyway, slowly, as if approaching a small animal. One that's easily scared by loud noises and sudden movements. Jon smiles again tentatively, a tiny movement of his lips.

"Please," he whispers. Their noses are almost touching now, and Jon realises with surprise that he's taller than Spencer.

He hadn't actually noticed before. He makes a curious noise in the back of his throat, and puts it down to the way Spencer holds himself normally. Tall and indifferent, his face purposefully blank, his back straight.

Spencer's chewing on his lower lip, barely breathing, but his eyes are locked with Jon's.

"Please," Jon says again. "Let me."

Spencer shakes his head just barely. "I'm not--" He closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them again. "I'm not gay," he says, mumbling all his words together. Jon can't tell if it's because Spencer's embarrassed or whether it's because he feels like he should say something like that. "I've never-- I'm not--"

Jon cuts him off. "Me neither," he says quickly. Jon doesn't think it actually matters, but it seems to to Spencer, and Jon still really, really wants to kiss him. He's so beyond caring if Spencer's gay or straight or somewhere in between, he just wants him to hurry up and let Jon kiss him already.

Spencer doesn't reply, and Jon slowly thinks oh, his chest tightening with the dull feeling of rejection. He's about to glance away when Spencer nods sharply, whispers "Okay".

Jon shifts forward immediately, bending his head slightly to press his lips to Spencer's. He feels Spencer breathe in against his mouth, then exhale slowly and return the pressure. Something in Jon's stomach flops and he pulls back slightly, giddy, then kisses Spencer again, moving his lips slowly.

Spencer responds immediately, touching one hand to Jon's waist lightly, and that's it, that's all the encouragement Jon needs before he's surging forward even more and kissing Spencer properly. He curls one hand at the back of Spencer's neck and parts his lips, pressing his tongue against Spencer's bottom lip, testing.

Jon steps closer, pushing Spencer back against the wall. The toes of their shoes are touching.

"Spencer," he murmurs, ducking his head, lips brushing against the side of Spencer's neck. "Spence." He grazes his teeth over Spencer's skin, and he can hear Spencer suck in a sharp breath above him.

Jon opens his mouth, sucks Spencer's pale, freckled skin into his mouth. He sucks until he's raised a dark mark, reveling in how easily Spencer's skin bruises, then drags his tongue over the spot, soothing it.

"Fuck," Spencer hisses above him. Jon looks up at him, eyes half-lidded, feeling heavy. He snakes his hand down Spencer's body, cupping Spencer's crotch, pressing his palm down against the rough denim of his jeans. Spencer gasps and Jon squeezes lightly, his breathing speeding up.

"I want to blow you. Can I?" He asks, nuzzling at Spencer's cheek. The words are out of his mouth before he's even realised it, but he can feel Spencer's breath coming in harsh puffs against his own cheek, and he-- he wants.

He wants Spencer to say yes, wants to feel Spencer's cock on his tongue, hot and heavy. Wants to taste him, have him come in his mouth, feel his hands go tight in Jon's hair. Wants to know whether he's loud or quiet when he comes.

Jon groans quietly at the thought, rocking his hips against Spencer's thigh.

"Please, Spence. Let me," Jon whispers. He's not above begging, but he's pretty sure he's heard rumours on the tour that Spencer's still a virgin. He doesn't want to push Spencer into anything.

"I want to," he adds, lowering his voice this time, practically purring. He realises in the back of his mind he probably sounds a bit ridiculous, but when Spencer pants "Yeah," his lips brushing Jon's cheek, and then "Please--", Jon turns his head and kisses Spencer hard.

He doesn't wait for permission this time, just pushes his tongue past Spencer's lips, kissing him deeply. Jon nips at Spencer's mouth, his mind reeling when Spencer whimpers and pushes his hips forward against Jon's hand.

"Jesus, Spence," Jon mumbles, breathing heavily into Spencer's mouth, his eyelids fluttering. He twists his wrist and presses the heel of his hand down against Spencer's cock, moaning softly at Spencer's cursed response.

Jon rubs Spencer through his jeans for a few moments, kissing him still, then breaks the kiss with a wet noise, pulling backwards suddenly. He gazes at Spencer, appreciating the way his lips are redder now and swollen slightly, the way his eyes are dark and almost entirely pupil.

Jon gives into the urge and leans in for another quick kiss, before shifting suddenly and dropping to his knees. He winces at the quiet pop they make, and shuffles around on the floor until he's comfortable. He glances up at Spencer to make sure he's watching, and throws him a filthy grin.

Jon mouths at Spencer's cock through his jeans, practically growling when Spencer pushes forward a little. He grins, pleased, and unzips Spencer's pants quickly, pushing both them and his briefs down to mid-leg. He leaves them hanging around Spencer's knees and shifts closer, nuzzling at Spencer's thigh, breathing in deeply.

Jon's head is spinning, and he suddenly realises that he's maybe quite a bit more drunk than he thought he was. Spencer's cock is hard and brushing against Jon's cheek when he drags his lips down the crease of one thigh, and Jon has to stop for a moment before he comes just from the sensation of that alone.

He sits back and takes a series of deep, careful breaths. He doesn't dare glance up at Spencer in case Spencer says or does something to stop him from-- from what he's about to do.

Jon takes another breath, and leans in, sliding his tongue heavily across the head of Spencer's cock. Spencer whimpers and clenches his hands in Jon's hair, tight but not too tight, not yet. Jon moans softly and parts his lips, taking Spencer into his mouth, taking as much as he can.

Jon lets his eyes fall shut, and sucks hard, savouring the desperate noises Spencer keeps making above him. The alcohol both dulls and heightens the sensations, and when Spencer bucks forward into his mouth, Jon slackens his jaw and lets him.

Jon can't stop moaning around Spencer's cock. He knows he must sound obscene, pornographic, but he still wants it all so much. He shudders, hard, gripping Spencer's hips tightly with his hands, tight enough that he knows bruises will have blossomed there by tomorrow. He pulls off slightly, and lets Spencer thrust into his mouth, over and over, tightening his hold on Spencer's hips even more.

Spencer's moaning softly now, quieter all of a sudden, and there's some sort of rhythm to it that Jon eventually picks out above the constant rushing of blood in his ears.

"Jon," Spencer gasps suddenly. "I'm--"

Jon doesn't even let him finish, just pulls off Spencer's cock with a wet slurp and nods quickly. "Yes, yes, come on, fuck--" he urges, slurring his words slightly and taking Spencer back into his mouth straight away with barely a moment's pause for breath.

Spencer cries out, his hands tugging at Jon's hair, and comes with a shudder. Jon swallows and swallows and swallows, sucking Spencer through it. He moans, unable to stop himself, and lets Spencer's cock slip from his mouth when he goes still.

Jon leans forward and to one side, and presses his forehead to the crease of Spencer's thigh, panting. He whines quietly in the back of his throat, Spencer's fingers trailing through his hair lazily. Spencer's hands are shaking, Jon can feel it.

He keeps his eyes closed, his head pressed to Spencer's body, and shoves one hand down between his own legs. He fumbles with the button and zips, desperate, and pushes his hand inside quickly. It's awkward with the angle his body's at, but it takes less than ten tight strokes before Jon's coming, whimpering against Spencer's thigh, the taste of Spencer's come still hot on his tongue.

"Jesus fuck," he gasps. He sits up a little and drags his mouth across Spencer's right hip bone, trying to catch his breath. Spencer's hands are still moving slowly through Jon's hair, almost soothingly, comforting.

"Jon," Spencer murmurs. Jon looks up. Spencer smiles at him and hauls Jon to his feet, dragging him in for a kiss.

It's a slower kiss than before, but Spencer wraps his arms around Jon's body and Jon presses close, holding on tight. He buries his face against Spencer's neck and tries not to think about what happens next.

you like it my way (and i know it)

2007-12-13T13:25:29Z

you like it my way (and i know it)

maja/vickyt, nc-17
2,559 words
by girlintheband

girl!porn, omg! fabulous beta by jocondite, thank you so much.

It starts out friendly, casual, as most things do. Innocent.

"Vicky, isn't it?" Maja asks, slinking into the dressing room and stopping when she notices Victoria sitting there on the sofa. "William and Gabe's friend?"

Victoria smiles slowly, shrugs. "VickyT, actually. Or Victoria." She pauses, then laughs softly. "If you don't mind."

Maja shrugs, smiling back. "Sure," she says, easy. She takes a sip from her beer, and watches the way Victoria's eyes flicker down to her mouth momentarily. "I don't mind." Maja nudges the door shut behind her, her once shiny but now scuffed black heels clicking on the tiled floor as she walks over towards the sofa. She glances at the mirror instinctively. Her hair is mussed, sticking up on one side - the short side - and slicked down on the other, as if it can't decide which is the right way to be. She decides to not even bother trying to make it sit flat, and stands in front of Victoria, free hand on her hip, and smiles again. "You waiting for someone?" Maja asks curiously. She's noticed Victoria around, and wants to know if her perception of her is accurate. Maja's been told she's usually pretty good at observing people, pretty accurate at working out what they're like from just the briefest of interactions.

Victoria shrugs. "Maybe," she smiles back. She looks down and to one side, ducking her head as she pulls a pack of cigarettes from her bag. She offers them to Maja. "Want one?" she mumbles after she's stuck one between her lips, her words muffled slightly around the filter. Maja nods and extends her hand, slim fingers pulling one from the pack.

"Thanks," she says. She pats her dress purposefully, grinning. "You got a light? No pockets here, sorry."

Victoria searches through her bag again, pulling out a purple lighter.

"Good colour," Maja comments when Victoria lights her cigarette then extends the flame, still lit, to Maja's, lighting it for her.

"Thanks," Maja mumbles afterwards. She takes a long drag, and she can tell that Victoria's watching her. There's something about the look in her eyes. Intense. Smouldering, almost.

She watches Victoria, their gazes equal and leveled, for a few minutes. Other women would probably be intimated by the way Victoria looks at people, Maja thinks in the back of her mind, her eyes taking in Victoria's features. She finds herself wondering if Victoria knows that Maja would never back down from such a look, then asks "Mind if I sit?", waving the hand holding her cigarette at the empty space on the sofa.

"Go for it," Victoria says, shifting to the right automatically. Maja thinks, polite. that's cute, and files it away in the back of her mind. Maja sits down, her body turning towards Victoria's before she can even think about it. She finishes her beer in three swallows, and bends over to place the empty bottle on the floor, setting it down carefully. She sits back up, one leg bent and resting on the cushions of the sofa.

Maja drags slowly on her cigarette. "I like your dress," she comments, eyes sliding down Victoria's body, to her chest, stomach, hips, then back up until she meets her eyes.

"Thanks," Victoria says, smiling. She nods her head at Maja, eyes stopping briefly on Maja's chest. "I like your suspenders," she grins, raising her eyebrows.

Maja grins back on impulse.

Maja leans forward, leaning over Victoria on purpose as she reaches out to grab the ashtray off the small wooden table behind the sofa arm Victoria's leaning on. She smirks when she hears Victoria's breath hitch underneath her. It's the first time Victoria's indifferent facade has slipped this evening.

"Sorry," Maja says quietly, a small smile on her lips as she gazes down at Victoria, hovering close.

She's not really sorry.

"It's okay," Victoria says, equally soft, her eyes flicking up guiltily from Maja's chest to meet her eyes.

Victoria's lips are parted slightly, cigarette hanging forgotten between two fingers on her left hand as it rests along the back of the sofa, loose and relaxed. Maja shifts down slightly, pressing a little closer when she decides to grind her cigarette out in the ashtray instead. She licks her lips, deliberate, and watches the way Victoria's pupils dilate, how her breath escapes her mouth in an audible puff, hitting against the side of Maja's throat.

Maja leans down further, and brushes her lips lightly against the corner of Victoria's mouth, tentative, her body still thrumming from being on stage earlier. She murmurs, "Can I--?" and only manages to get that far before Victoria fists one hand in the back of Maja's hair and tugs her downwards, nodding fast. "Yeah, yeah," she replies, breath ghosting against Maja's bottom lip. "Please," she adds.

Maja does. She hadn't thought it would be so easy to get Victoria like this. Maja turns her head, presses her mouth to Victoria's regardless, kisses her slowly but undeniably with intention. She keeps her mouth closed at first, just firm presses of her lips against Victoria's, until Victoria makes a soft noise, rolling her hips up, and brings the rest of their bodies into contact. Maja pushes down equally. She can feel Victoria's dress hitching up against her own jeans, the metal clips of her suspenders pushing the flimsy material further up Victoria's hips with each movement.

"Wait, I--" Victoria shifts suddenly, arching back and looking over her shoulder awkwardly. She snuffs her cigarette out in the ashtray.

Maja watches the curve of her neck, interested, pale freckled skin pretty in the soft yellow light of the dressing room. She can hear the music coming from the stage in the background, muffled through the walls. It sounds distorted and distant, even though it's really not all that far away.

Victoria settles down again, looking Maja straight in the eyes. Her grin is small but feral, wild, one hand still curled tight in Maja's hair. Victoria bucks her hips up, and Maja gasps, surprised.

"Fuck," she hisses, caught out. Victoria smirks, and Maja suddenly feels like the whole situation's been flipped around, turned upside down, Victoria in control instead of herself like she's used to.

"You're feistier than you look," she settles on saying, muttering it against Victoria's mouth, gasping again when Victoria's hand tightens even more in her hair. She places one hand on the arm of the sofa and rests the other on the curve of Victoria's waist, pressing her thumb down against the material of her dress.

Victoria laughs, breathless, and kisses Maja again, pushing her tongue against Maja's mouth until she's forced to part her lips. Victoria kisses hard, dirtier than Maja expected. It briefly occurs to her that maybe she underestimated Victoria.

As if in emphasis, Victoria bites down hard on Maja's lip. Maja groans, sliding her hand down Victoria's body and up under her dress, pushing the black satin up around her waist. She hooks her fingertips under the hem of Victoria's underpants - red and lacy, she notices in the scant few seconds she glances down - and rubs them against the skin there.

"Wanna fuck you," she growls, pressing her hips down. Victoria whimpers and presses back, nodding, her eyes lidded. "Yeah-- yeah, please," she says, soft, her voice for Maja only.

"Up," Maja says, leaning back and urging Victoria up with her. "Up, come on."

Victoria raises herself up off the sofa slightly, not dislodging Maja from her lap. Maja drags both her hands to the edge of Victoria's dress where it hovers a dark contrast against Victoria's stomach. She pulls it up, over Victoria's head when she raises her arms in the air, and throws it off into the room, vaguely registering the soft swish it makes when it lands on the floor in a pile.

Victoria's bra matches her underpants. Maja grins, unsurprised, and trails her fingertips down over the swell of one breast. "Nice," she murmurs appreciatively. Victoria has the decency to blush faintly, at least. Maja doesn't miss that.

She leans down and parts her lips against the red silk, mouthing over one nipple through the material. Victoria makes a harsh noise above her, breath expelled in a rush. Maja sucks harder, dragging her tongue across the silk heavily, wetting it. She bites down lightly, letting her teeth graze across Victoria's skin, then pulls back. Victoria whines in the back of her throat, her hands tightening at Maja's waist.

"Please," Victoria says, slipping her hands under Maja's shirt. "Please. Want you to." Her voice is tinged with breathlessness, lips constantly parted even when she's not speaking. "Please," she says again, tugging up on Maja's shirt.

Maja smirks and sits back. She pulls her suspender straps down so they're hanging around her waist, dragging against the couch, and then peels her shirt up and away, letting it fall to the floor. She has to stand up, get off the couch, to step out of her heels and take her jeans off, but she gets undressed as quickly as possible before lying back down, half on top of Victoria on the sofa.

"Hi," she laughs, more of a breath than anything else. Victoria laughs back, dragging her hands up Maja's sides.

"Hey," she grins, fingers moving to the clasp of Maja's bra, high on her spine.

She undoes it easily. She lets it fall down Maja's arms, and Maja raises her arms briefly so that she can drop the bra to the floor. Victoria's own bra does up at the front instead. Maja smiles slowly when she notices this, fingers nimble as she unflicks the catch, parting the material and pushing it to hang either side of Victoria's chest, straps still over her shoulders. Maja ducks her head, pressing a kiss to the centre of Victoria's chest, then drags her tongue down slowly between her breasts, inhaling deeply.

"Maja, Maja, fuck," Victoria mumbles from above her, pushing a hand into Maja's hair and tugging gently. "We don't, um. There's not much time." She bites her lip when she finishes her sentence, and raises her eyebrows suggestively. Her cheeks are flushed across the top.

"Well," Maja says, matter-of-fact. She grins. "In that case." She hooks her fingers into the edge of Victoria's underpants and pulls them down. She manages to remove them with a little careful manoeuvering, before letting Victoria take off hers as well and sits up to push her bra away. They laugh their way through the process, Victoria giggling when they get tangled up.

Victoria's still grinning when they're finally both totally naked, clothes discarded. "So," she says slowly, drawing the word out.

"So," Maja echoes, rubbing her hands across Victoria's stomach, edging them down to her thighs. She nudges Victoria's legs apart, and Victoria parts them without hesitation. Maja bites down against Victoria's hipbone, making her cry out as she sucks on the skin there, raising a mark, smirking when Victoria rolls her hips into it. "Maja, come on, fuck--"

Maja laughs breathily, settling more comfortably between Victoria's legs. "You're so.." she pauses, brushing her nose against Victoria's thigh. "What's the word?" She hums, trying to think of the English equivalent to what she has in mind. "Oh," she says, grinning, dragging her tongue along the crease of Victoria's thigh. "Pushy."

Victoria laughs in reply, raising her hips off the couch slightly. "Fuck yeah," she says. She whimpers when Maja brings her hands to in between Victoria's legs, parting her folds carefully and running one finger between them. "And you're a fucking tease," Victoria adds, gritted.

Maja smirks and doesn't answer, just leans in and runs her tongue up the length of Victoria's cunt. "Oh, fuck--" Victoria groans, clutching at Maja's head tightly with both hands, fingers working through her hair, still damp from the show. Maja moves her tongue slowly, licking at Victoria in long strokes. She's so wet already, and Maja's tongue slides easily.

"Please, please," Victoria keeps whispering, pushing down, and there's only so much Maja can force herself to ignore before she can't resist anymore. She slides her fingers up a little, parting Victoria more, still careful, and presses her lips over Victoria's clit, sucking it into her mouth, moaning softly.

Victoria cries out, bucking up hard, her whole body writhing. Maja moves with her, keeping her mouth clamped around her clit, not letting up until Victoria starts rolling her hips repeatedly, whimpering under her breath almost constantly. "Maja, fuck--"

Maja hums lightly, and Victoria shudders. "Oh, god-- yeah," she whines, panting. "Can you-- fingers?" She rocks down again, on the edge of desperate, and Maja has to press her own hips down against the sofa just so that she can get a little pressure for herself.

Maja drags her fingers across, pushing two inside Victoria in one long move, pressing deep. Victoria gasps and Maja can feel the way she clenches her muscles around her fingers.

"Yes--" Victoria hisses. "Fuck, Maja."

Maja thrusts her fingers in and out of Victoria quickly, building up a fast rhythm. She doesn't let up even for a second, just pushes her fingers in and out, slipping them almost all the way out on each slide. It's maybe a little rough, but it's how Maja likes it. Victoria doesn't seem to mind, pressing down on Maja's fingers insistently. Maja curls her fingers inside Victoria, rubbing, and--

"Oh," Victoria breathes suddenly, a soft little gasp that Maja nearly misses, would have missed if it wasn't for the way Victoria's body had tensed, had gone perfectly, completely still for a nanosecond. "Oh," she says again, then bears down hard, fucking herself on Maja's fingers as she comes, Maja's lips still dragging across her clit.

Maja slides her tongue up between Victoria's folds slowly, easing her through her climax slowly and letting her ride it out, before withdrawing her fingers carefully. She glances up at Victoria as she shifts, arching her back and sitting back on her heels, then raises her hand to Victoria's mouth. Victoria smirks, her lips already parted as she sucks in lungfuls of air. Maja pushes her fingers forward, biting on her lip when Victoria opens up and lets her press them into her mouth, running her tongue down the lengths of her digits.

"God, Victoria," Maja murmurs under her breath, a shiver rocketing through her body. She makes another mental note to re-think her earlier ideas of what Victoria's like.

She pulls her fingers back after a moment, letting them slip from Victoria's mouth with a wet noise. They smile at each other slowly, Victoria's chest rising and falling noticeably as her breathing edges back towards normal.

She laughs suddenly, quiet and intimate, and pulls Maja down towards her. They kiss fiercely, tongues sliding and pressing against each other's, Maja feeling more and more urgent with each swipe of Victoria's tongue. "Hey, can you," she starts, and that's all it takes before Victoria rolls onto her side, then turns further so that Maja's on her back with Victoria on top of her. Maja raises her eyebrows at Victoria, impressed.

Victoria grins, presses her hands down tight on Maja's hips, and slides down her body, nipping at the skin just below her bellybutton. Maja closes her eyes and grins, thinks, yeah, she'll definitely have to re-think Victoria.

and possibly i like the thrill [take i]

2007-11-25T02:57:26Z

and possibly i like the thrill [take i]

pete/patrick, pg-13
3,276 words
by girlintheband

one take on jealousy. you can read flimsy's own take here.

title from e.e. cummings' i like my body when it is with your. thanks to flimsy for betaing and hand-holding, and to adellyna for general help.

notes: this is set in march 2003, when fall out boy played the south by southwest music festival in austin, texas. this is about two, three weeks after the release of evening out with your girlfriend. according to wiki, t.j. and mike left the band after the release of the mini-album, and andy joined, but i couldn't find out when, exactly. t.j. and mike are still part of the band in this, but the rest is as canonically truthful as i could make it. fact finders: fob really did play on wednesday, the opening night of sxsw 2003. they played a set that was described by one critic as "spirited punk".

for violentfires, on the very special occasion of her birthday! i'm so glad we're friends, darling. i owe you so much and i tried to write you porn but it just wasn't happening, hahaha. i tried. regardless. happy birthday chelle! i love you ♥

Patrick buys Pete a brand new journal to commemorate their first proper festival show.

It's not anything special, the journal, just an unlined, thick-papered Moleskine Patrick had spotted at the last Borders he'd had the chance to stop off at between shows. A little more expensive than the journals Pete usually uses, maybe, especially as Pete tends to write on almost any piece of paper that's near to hand, but Patrick had figured it was worth the few dollars extra. The paper felt smooth between his fingers, felt like futures and beginnings and maybe endings, too.

Patrick spends hours sitting in the back of their shitty little van traveling between cities thinking about what he wants to write in it for Pete. He wants to write something on the first page, so that Pete would always see it whenever he opened the journal up, so that he would always remember the significance of that particular notebook over all the others, but no matter how long he thinks about it, Patrick can't seem to decide on what to write. He's not even sure why he seems to think doing something like that is so important all of a sudden.

He ends up giving it to Pete as it is, mostly blank except for a little drawing on the bottom right hand corner of the second page, a drawing Patrick had scribbled down before a show a few days ago. It's of the five of them - Patrick and Pete and Joe and T.J. and Mike - and Patrick knows it's not great, he's not an artist, but he figures Pete will appreciate the sentiment anyway.

He must do, if the way his eyes light up when Patrick gives the journal to him is anything to go by. Patrick produces it when they finally arrive in Austin, Texas, stepping out of the van, shoulders and knees cracking, stretching cramped muscles over sore joints. Pete looks tired, even more so than he did the week before. Patrick knows he's not sleeping much. He misses Chicago.

Patrick hands Pete the journal straight away, smiling a little, carefully, and Pete raises his eyebrows, grinning widely. "What's this for?" He asks, gazing down at the journal, turning it over in his hands.

Patrick shrugs. "I know you've been writing a lot recently, so. You know. Figured you could use a new one."

Pete looks up and fucking beams at him.

Pete sticks even closer to Patrick after that. Barely a minute goes by each day when Pete isn't practically hanging off Patrick's side. Joe even starts calling Pete Patrick's shadow.

They all laugh, even Pete, although Patrick can tell his is a little more forced than everyone else's.

Patrick watches over the next two days before their South by Southwest show as Pete's new journal becomes fuller and fuller. He writes in it practically non-stop, pages and pages filled with his rough, messy chickenscratch writing. He shows some of it to Patrick, the night before the show, and even for Pete, his hastily scribbled down lines of words are depressing. Lonely.

Pete still looks tired, tireder, but there are flashes of moments in which Pete is the happiest Patrick's ever seen him.

The day before the show, Patrick finds Pete lying on the grass outside after lunch. Patrick is on his way back to the motel after checking out a few of Austin's plethora of record stores, and he nearly walks past Pete without even noticing him. Something makes him glance in at the park next to the motel at the last moment, and he catches sight of Pete, bare-chested, lying on his back on the green grass. He has his arms stretched out above his head and he's wearing these stupid giant white sunglasses that he'd bought in a thrift store the day before. Patrick grins a little and walks over.

"Hey," Patrick says, sitting down next to Pete, crossing his legs and tilting his head, looking down at him.

Pete turns his head, pressing his cheek against the grass and grins when he recognises Patrick. "Hey."

"What's up?" Patrick leans back on the palms of his hands, quirking his eyebrows.

Pete brings his arms down from above his head and attempts a shrug. "Just thinking." He grins again, baring his teeth.

Patrick nods. "A dangerous business, that," he says, straight-faced in faux seriousness.

Pete snorts and shifts his head again, looking back up at at the sky. "Yeah," he says faintly. Patrick hums a little in response, and looks out across the park.

Patrick's only been lying in bed for about fifteen minutes when Pete crawls in alongside him. Patrick jerks at his touch, cold hands and feet startling him out of his half-sleep, and rolls over so that he's facing Pete.

"Sorry," Pete mumbles, pulling the covers up over them again. His eyes flick up to meet Patrick's briefly before he shifts closer, tucking his head against Patrick's chest, under his chin.

Patrick runs his hand up and down Pete's side soothingly, then lets it come to rest on the slight dip of his waist. "You okay?" He asks. He feels Pete shrug against him, shake his head a little.

"Dunno," Pete murmurs, lips brushing against Patrick's t-shirt. He pulls back just slightly. "I don't feel right tonight."

Patrick frowns, squeezes his hand on Pete's waist reassuringly. "What do you mean?"

Pete mumbles something incomprehensible, and Patrick has to ask "What?" before he says it again.

"Do you ever think.. maybe we're moving too fast? Too much too soon, that sort of thing, you know?" Pete sighs, shifting his legs restlessly until Patrick throws one of his on top of them, just to stop them moving about so much.

Patrick thinks about it. "No, not really," he replies eventually. "Why? Do you?"

Pete doesn't respond for a moment.

"Pete?"

"Yeah," he whispers, barely breathing the word out. "Yeah. Sometimes." He looks up at Patrick, eyes wide but tired, glazed over. "I don't know if I can do this, Patrick. Everything's changing and I'm changing, and I don't know if I like it. You're." He stops, takes a deep shuddering breath, but his eyes don't leave Patrick's. "You're the only thing that feels the same."

Patrick doesn't know what to say. He ends up settling for just pulling Pete closer and holding him until his breaths slow down and he falls asleep, one hand clutching tightly at Patrick's shirt.

Patrick wakes up in the middle of the night, cold, his thin motel bedcovers half thrown off. He rolls over, and blinks his eyes open slowly, adjusting to the darkness of the room.

Pete's not in Patrick's bed anymore. He's not in his bed, either.

Pete might not be there, but his journal is. Patrick tumbles out of bed, thinking in the way that only three o'clock morning logic makes sense in, reaching for his glasses and Pete's journal automatically, instinctively, and sits down on top of Pete's bed. He curls up and flips through it until he reaches the last page Pete's written on, a page about a third of the way into the book.

There's a few little drawings, poorly-sketched Petes and Patricks, a couple of lines of someone else's song - Patrick can't remember whose - and snatches of a conversation he'd had with Pete earlier in the day.

Patrick's eye catches on something Pete's scribbled underneath. In the dim light of the motel room, Patrick has to squint to make out what it says.

you're the only place that feels like home

Patrick tugs his glasses off and rolls over onto his back. He stares at the ceiling for nearly an hour before finally falling asleep.

Pete doesn't come back until nearly seven a.m., and Patrick sleeps fitfully all night.

Their South by Southwest gig is on Wednesday night, the opening night of the music part of festival. The venue is packed, and there's still a hopeful-looking queue waiting out the front and trying to get in. Their manager has already pointed out a number of journalists and A&R guys milling about the bar. Patrick is scared shitless and Pete wanders around the venue before the show looking completely lost. Joe's hands keep forming chords as he walks around the tiny dressing room backstage, and T.J. and Mike tap out rhythms on their knees, exchanging nervous grins.

The show itself, however, is one of the best they've ever played, and the cheers from the crowd are loud and nearly constant. Patrick feels increasingly at ease as the gig progresses, and there's even a trio of girls in the front row who look close to fainting whenever Pete glances their way, grinning at them.

Pete's different on stage tonight. Patrick notices, of course he notices, but he tries not to think about it too much, and focuses on getting all the words right instead, singing as hard as he can.

Pete bounds towards him in the second-last song, hovering around him for the entire song, flicking little glances his way whenever he's not making eyes at the kids in the crowd. Patrick only catches him at it once, mid-chorus in Calm Before The Storm. Pete grins in reply, then leans in over Patrick's shoulder, brushing his lips lightly against the side of Patrick's neck, lightning fast.

Pete backs away so quickly Patrick almost thinks he imagined it.

A group of girls approaches Patrick after the show. He's standing around in the alley out the back of the venue, leaning one-shouldered against the brick wall and chatting to a couple of the guys from one of their support bands while he comes down from the adrenaline high he always gets whenever he plays. There's a brief lull in the conversation, and it's only then that Patrick hears hushed voices behind him. He turns around on instinct, glancing over his shoulder. The group grins widely at him, and Patrick swears he can see a couple of the girls actually blush, too. He smiles tentatively back at them, and apparently that's all the encouragement they need to walk over.

He gets drawn into a conversation with three of them. The rest - another five girls, and two, possibly three boys, he's not quite sure - hang around in the background, sneaking glances in Patrick's direction every so often.

There's one girl in particular who catches Patrick's eye. She's short, about the same height as him, with dark brown hair that hangs just past her shoulders and flips out a little at the ends. Pretty. Her eyes are dark, too, made darker by the thick line of smudged black eyeliner drawn around them. Her fringe brushes her eyebrows.

Patrick sort of wouldn't mind knowing more about her. "Are you from around here?" He asks, finding himself genuinely interested in what she might say.

She shakes her head, smiling. "We're all from LA, actually." She gestures behind her at her friends, who are laughing raucously at one boy's antics. "You're from Chicago, right?"

Patrick breaks into a grin, surprised. "How did you know that?"

The girl shrugs, grinning back. She glances at her friends. They giggle and look away, down at the ground. Patrick raises his eyebrows, amused and slightly awed that people actually know this sort of stuff about his band, about him. He's not going to lie. He'd be a bit weirded out by the whole thing if he didn't think it was so cool.

They chat for a while longer, about the other bands they're looking forward to seeing over the next few days, the bizarre weather they've been having, that sort of thing. Pete appears at one point, hovering around what Patrick can only describe as his shoulder, talking quietly with one of the other girls. Patrick can feel Pete's gaze on him almost constantly, though.

By the time the group starts making moves to leave, Pete's practically hanging off him. Patrick tries to shrug him off, laughing, but Pete just grins, eyes sparkling.

"So like, we're going to head to this party now," the girl says to Patrick, smiling shyly. "I mean, I was thinking.. Do you want to come with? We can give you a ride, it's not far from here. I'd, um. I'd kind of like to talk with you some more." She blushes faintly. Patrick feels himself do the same, and scratches at the back of his neck nervously, grinning.

"What do you think?" She asks, glancing over her shoulder as her friends start drifting away.

Patrick opens his mouth to reply - sure, why not? - when Pete jumps in. "Actually," he says, drawing the word out. "We've already got plans for tonight." He pauses, smiles thinly. "Thanks, though." He doesn't sound sincere.

Patrick turns to look at Pete, glaring. "--the fuck?"

Pete ignores him. "Besides," he continues, hooking an arm around Patrick's waist. "Patrick here, is already taken."

Patrick's mouth falls open and he looks back at the girl to protest. "I'm not," he grits out.

She laughs nervously, eyes flicking between Pete and Patrick and back to Pete again, obviously uneasy. "Hey, no sweat," she says, shrugging. "Sure you don't wanna come?"

"Actually," Patrick starts.

"No," Pete says firmly. "Thanks."

--I'd love to, Patrick finishes in his head, too late.

The girl frowns at Pete, then smiles small at Patrick. "Okay, well." She quirks her lips to one side, shrugs again. "It was nice talking to you, Patrick. See you around, maybe?"

"Uh, yeah." Patrick nods, waves his hand in the air vaguely, lost for words. He flounders, no grip on the situation whatsoever. "You too," he adds as an afterthought as the girl turns and walks quickly after her friends. Patrick watches as one of them pats her consolingly on the shoulder. He glances at Pete, who grins broadly at him. Patrick turns away sharply, suddenly angry.

Patrick storms down the alley and turns onto the road leading towards their motel. It's only on the next block, and fuck it, he thinks, the other guys will just have to pack up their gear without him tonight. It's not like he's ever much help anyway.

Pete follows him the whole way, walking quickly with audible footsteps, calling his name, each shout sounding increasingly pleading and urgent. "Patrick. Patrick, come on, I was just fucking around." Patrick doesn't reply. "Patrick." Patrick grits his teeth harder and speeds up. "Patrick? Patrick, I'm sorry, okay, please stop." He doesn't.

He shoves the key into the lock of his and Pete's room roughly and pushes open the door. He slams it shut behind him with shaking hands, anger and frustration surging through him like electricity. He slams the door in Pete's face, and stands with his back to it, a few steps inside the room, hands balled in tight fists at his sides. He hears Pete struggling with the key for nearly ten seconds before the door finally bursts open.

Patrick squeezes his eyes shut and waits, but Pete doesn't say anything. There's the quiet click of the door shutting, and then the room is silent except for the buzzing hum of passing cars and trucks on the main road outside. And then, then there's the light press of Pete's hand on his shoulder. Patrick jerks away, spinning around to face Pete.

Pete looks impossibly small, sort of as though he's curled in on himself, all hunched up. He's even got his hands shoved into his jeans' pockets and everything. He looks young. He's suddenly different from the way he was in the alley, as though without an audience, he's lost for how to act, an entirely altered person. It sort of unnerves Patrick. He swallows heavily, and forces himself not to look away.

He takes a deep breath. "You want to tell me what that was about?" He tries to keep his voice as calm as possible, which, all things considered, isn't really all that calm.

Pete ducks his head, shrugging, mumbling something down at his chest. Patrick feels something snap inside himself. He takes two steps forward and shoves Pete, hard, in the shoulder. Pete's head snaps up as he stumbles back, hands going out automatically behind him as he hits the wall. "What the fuck?" He snarls, pushing himself away from the wall, closer to Patrick.

Patrick laughs, short and sharp, shaking his head. "You don't have a fucking clue, do you. You can't do that, Pete. You can't just, fucking-- do that." Pete opens his mouth but Patrick barrels on, not wanting to hear it. "You don't own me, alright? I'm nineteen. I know what I'm doing. You can't stop me from talking to a girl if I want to, okay? Just because you're, you're jealous or something, fuck."

Pete shakes his head frantically, protesting. "It's not, it's not like that, 'Trick, please. You have to understand."

"Explain it to me, then," Patrick spits out, then changes his mind, backing off again, turning away slightly. "Actually, you know what? Fuck you. Forget it. Just-- forget it, okay?" He sighs, suddenly exhausted, and pushes his hat off his head, throwing it onto the chest of drawers against the wall. He runs his hand through his short hair, still wet from the show, messing it up. "I'm going to bed. Maybe you should swap with Joe or something tonight. I don't know if I want you here." He glances back at Pete, can't help it, and doesn't miss the way Pete's face falls. Patrick feels bad immediately. "Sorry," he mumbles. "I just. I think you should go."

Pete's shoulders sag, and Patrick watches as he closes his eyes for a long moment. When he opens them again, he's looking right at Patrick. Patrick sucks in a breath sharply, feels it catch in his throat at the intensity he sees in Pete's eyes. "What?" He asks. "What, Pete?"

Pete chews on his lip, shifts to rest his weight on the other foot. "I know you're-- you don't belong to me, okay? I know that, I'm not stupid." Patrick shrugs a little as though he disagrees with that particular sentiment, and Pete huffs out an almost-laugh. "Not about this, fuck you." He does the weird half-laugh again. "Just hear me out, please?" He stops, fidgeting, obviously trying to work out what to say. "I know you're not-- not mine, fuck, but." He cuts off, takes a deep breath, and when he speaks again, it's quieter than before. "But, maybe I want you to be."

Patrick freezes, and Pete takes a tentative step forwards. Patrick blinks, takes a step back without thinking

"Patrick?" Pete asks softly, eyes gentle. Patrick's stomach swoops. He blinks again, hard.

Neither of them say anything for what feels like an eternity, and Patrick thinks maybe he might have actually stopped breathing. The silence is only broken when Pete laughs nervously. "Jesus, Patrick, say something."

"Um," Patrick manages. He blinks a few times, trying to work out what just happened. "What?"

Pete takes another step closer. His toes are nearly touching Patrick's now. "Maybe I want you to be," Pete repeats. "Mine," he clarifies. Patrick feels that stupid flop in his stomach again, going into freefall now. "I need you."

"Oh," Patrick hears himself say faintly. "Well." He grins a little, can't help it, and Pete's whole face lights up.

"Well what?" Pete's grinning too. He barely breathes out the words, that's how quiet he's speaking.

"Um," Patrick says again, then laughs, nervous. "Well. In that case." He reaches out with one hand, tracing his fingers over Pete's cheek lightly, the soft rise of his cheekbone, the hard line of his jaw. Pete's eyelids flicker and Patrick can feel the way his breath stops, stutters back to life against the back of his hand. He shifts a little closer, biting his lip. "Um."

"Oh my god, Patrick Stump, just-- fucking kiss me already, would you?" Pete laughs breathily, almost giggling, and doesn't even wait for a reply, just surges forward and presses his lips to Patrick's. Patrick curls his other hand around the back of Pete's neck, pulls him closer, then keeps him there.

love is a breaker thrown high

2007-11-04T12:18:56Z

love is a breaker thrown high

pete/patrick, pg
859 words
for catchup#1 2007
by girlintheband

in the same 'verse as this, set some years later, because violentfires asked for more. i'm experimenting writing without proper dialogue, which is why this is the way it is. the title and the excerpt of poetry pete reads to patrick come from pablo neruda's love sonnet xc.

thanks to flimsy for the quickquick readover!

Pete's books are tired, dog-eared; thumbed-through and well-loved. They're mostly newer editions, and newer books in general, really. Palahniuk and Murakami and all that sort of wordy, literary fiction with a bit of Salinger and F. Scott Fitzgerald thrown in for good measure.

Patrick's books are older but better looked after. The editions have obviously been specifically chosen, for various reasons; artistic merit of the cover, maybe, or the type of font used inside. Patrick has a lot of books about music - jazz greats and motown legends, biographies and memoirs and histories. Lots of classic literature, too; Tolstoy and Bulgakov, Kerouac and Ginsberg. All are in immaculate condition, read with the utmost care.

Random old journals of Pete's are scattered in between other books, or stacked up in piles and acting as book-ends.

It's clear whose books are whose, even as mixed together as they are. It's clear to Patrick, at least.

The bookcase stands next to the window in their bedroom, just like Pete had suggested when they'd first bought the house. Patrick likes to tell Pete that he only agreed to have it there because it made sense, was the most logical spot in the room for it, but he always has this half smile on his face when he says it, his lips quirking up at the corners, and they both know that the bookcase is really only there because it was Pete that suggested it.

Patrick had chosen the actual bookcase himself, though. Even after years and years of knowing Pete, and a handful more of being together, Patrick still doesn't trust Pete's taste. Pete, on the other hand, still thinks this is hilarious.

Pete hasn't aged particularly well, and many would say that Patrick hasn't either. They're not that much older now than they were when they bought the house, but years of endless touring seem to have finally taken their toll on both of their bodies. Their skin has stretched, then loosened, wrinkling a little in places, around eyes and elbows and across foreheads; tanned, one of them, and pale, the other, over old bones and muscle.

Pete still thinks Patrick looks beautiful anyway. He tells him this every day, and, every day, Patrick blushes and ducks his head, mumbling an embarrassed Pete.

(They buy another little house - a cottage, really - on the coast, and Patrick lets Pete decorate it how he wants, just to humour him. The beach house, consequently, looks like the bastard child of an obscure indie art gallery, a second-hand record store, and the latest display home from some Los Angeles showcase estate. Pete puts too much thought into some things, Patrick thinks, and not enough into others. Patrick doesn't mind, really, though. The haphazardness of the beach house makes it feel like home, like Pete.)

They sit on the downstairs deck in the evenings, squashed into a single hammock that makes the beams it hangs off groan threateningly each time they climb into it.

(It will fall down in two months' time, when their all-too-enthusiastic gold labrador Kennedy leaps into it in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon. Patrick will fix Pete with a pointed look that says I told you so and Pete will just laugh as he watches Kennedy valiantly try to untangle himself, wriggling madly under the pile of threadbare purple rope.)

They still see the old gang every few months, but it's mostly texts and emails and the odd phonecall. They get emails from Ryan quoting Wilde, sometimes, but more often it's Brendon quoting whoever the latest pop group is. Pete smiles for hours afterwards - the emails come from the same address, but, like with Pete and Patrick's bookcase, it's easy to tell who wrote what -, happy that his other favourite people in the world are just as happy and as in love as he is. He drags Patrick onto the couch in the den each time, and kisses him over and over until they're breathless and old re-runs of Law & Order or House start showing on TV and he gets distracted.

Pete gets distracted very easily these days. Patrick hopes it's not early-onset dementia or Alzheimer's or something, even though Pete's only forty-five. He realises it's a stupid thing to worry about, but he also knows that Pete would hate the idea of forgetting like that.

Later, after Patrick falls asleep on the couch and Pete wakes him up and drags him to bed, Pete will read him something. Usually it's from his journals, some scrap of maybe-lyrics or snatch of potential-novel, but sometimes it's something else.

Patrick likes the lilt of Pete's voice when he's focused, when he's really into something and just completely caught up in it;

--there is only your face to fill up the vacancy,
only your clarity pressing back on the whole of non-being,
only your love, where the dark of the world closes in--

He likes the way Pete's mouth forms around the words, and the way his face lights up when he looks up and meets Patrick's eyes after he's finished. But most of all, most of all Patrick likes how, sometimes, Pete doesn't need to say anything at all, but how he does, anyway.

complete or completing

2007-10-23T09:07:32Z

complete or completing

pete/patrick, pg
189 words
for oct 20 2007
by girlintheband

the house is old, much older than patrick. much much older than even pete and patrick combined. the realtor had said built in the mid to late 1920s, owned by-- and then patrick had tuned out. he didn't care who had owned it before him. he took one look out of the master bedroom window and said i'll-- we'll take it.

i. force of habit, patrick thinks. it's harder than he thought it would be, to change his speech patterns, swap one pronoun for another.

pete turns up on his doorstep the evening patrick settles the sale. patrick leads him upstairs and pete presses up against his back as they look out the window, his arms curled around patrick's waist and buried deep in the pocket of his hoodie. the room is bare but patrick already has ideas about what to do with it, and pete's whispering in his ear --can put the bed against the wall with the wallpaper, bookshelf next to the window here, maybe even buy a painting or two; patrick closes his eyes and lets pete's words float around them, lets them mix with the evening breeze.

scenes from a hotel

2007-10-06T12:05:29Z

scenes from a hotel

various bands // various pairings // PG // 567 words

seven scenes from a hotel at night.

by girlintheband

Frank slips between rooms easily, quietly. Unnoticed. He crosses the corridor silently, bare feet padding softly on worn hotel carpet. He knocks on a door once, and it opens to a murmured "hey". He glances around quickly and steps inside, a flash of a small but genuine smile visible on his tired face as he disappears from view. The door clicks shut behind him. The corridor is empty once again.

Vicky rolls over onto her side and stares out the window, two rooms down and across from the room Frank just entered. She has left the curtains undrawn, on purpose. The city outside is foreign, somewhere far far away from home, and the sky is filled with cranes even at this time of night. There are little lights on the top of the cranes that flash as they swing around, rotate. Lift and drop. She blinks slowly, and it takes her eyes longer to focus this time. The sky is black against yellow skyscrapers.

William lies on his back, lights off, staring at the ceiling. He can't actually see it, mind, but he pretends he's staring at it all the same. He wonders when this became his life, this endless moving, this ceaseless yearning for something more tangible. Less lonely. He thinks of someone and closes his eyes. One of their old songs plays in the back of his head.

Jon has left his curtains undrawn, too. Theirs, really. He smiles to himself, thinking this, his eyes fixed on Spencer's sleeping form in front of his crossed legs. Spencer snuffles a little in his sleep, presses his face further into the pillow, and Jon has to bite his lip to stop his grin from getting too big. His fingers twitch with the urge to brush Spencer's hair off his forehead.

Mikey has never been fond of this time of night, when it's too late and too early all at once, when time seems to pass in drawn out waves and irregular bursts. Tonight is no different. His heart rate is slow, lumbering, like some sort of large beast. He turns over and over in bed, restless, thoughts about today, yesterday, tomorrow, flitting randomly through his head. Mikey thinks about texting his brother, thinks about texting Frank. He decides to do neither, and texts Alicia instead.

Patrick doesn't often get to watch Pete sleep. He trails his fingers lightly down and along Pete's arm, fingertips brushing over curves of muscle and sinew hidden by tanned olive skin. Pete frowns in his sleep, makes a small noise of discontent. Patrick curls closer. He presses a soft kiss to Pete's forehead, lingering, and he feels the furrows smooth out underneath his mouth. Pete lets out a small sigh and seems to relax. Patrick gazes at him from under half-lidded eyes, and wonders if Pete dreams about him.

Brendon is half-asleep when his Sidekick buzzes. He flings one arm out lazily, grabs it off the nightstand, flipping it open and squinting at the sleep-blurred screen. He has two new texts, sent five minutes apart. He must have missed the first one. Both are from Ryan. Both read r u awake. Brendon types out a quick response - maybe. but you know id sleeptype for you if i could anyway - and sends it. He turns onto his side, curling up. He holds his phone tightly in one hand, next to his chest, and waits for a reply.

Down Boy

2007-10-06T11:59:42Z

Down Boy

Panic! at the Disco // Jon/Spencer // NC-17 // 1,198 words

by flimsy and girlintheband

The One with the Fingerporn!

Midweek Midmorning

2007-08-30T07:23:50Z

Midweek Midmorning
Panic! at the Disco // Jon/Spencer // PG // 584 words
by girlintheband

for we_are_cities' aug 28 07 prompt. um. yeah. I blame that prompt entirely for the utter sappiness of this. also, hormones.

a midweek midmorning to ourselves / it would be misspent somewhere else.

Jon stands in the doorway of the nursery for five minutes before Spencer realises he's there.

"Hey," Spencer says softly when he notices him, a slow smile lighting up his face.

"Hey." Jon smiles back, padding barefoot across the room and wrapping his arms around Spencer's waist from behind.

Spencer leans back against him, gazing down at the the crib again, faint traces of his smile still lingering across his mouth. Jon rests his chin on Spencer's shoulder and tilts his head to the side a little, nuzzling at Spencer's jaw.

Spencer exhales slowly, deep; his eyes don't leave the crib.

"I can't believe she's actually ours," he mumbles quietly, leaning his head against Jon's. He pauses, then sighs. "Jon?"

"Mmm?" Jon hums, one hand moving lazily on Spencer's belly, rubbing lightly in small circles.

Spencer doesn't reply for a few moments, and Jon can tell he's chewing on his lower lip just from the movements in his cheek.

"What if we screw up?" He asks finally, his voice hesitant.

Jon smiles gently, presses his face against Spencer's neck so he can feel it. "We won't. Promise."

Spencer laughs quietly, placing his hands on top of Jon's. "You can't promise that."

Jon grins, lacing his fingers through Spencer's. "Well, no. But, what's the worst that can happen? Dysfunctional kids always end up being musicians, anyway. It's like, a law of nature or something."

Spencer snorts. "A law of nature, right."

Jon nods, still grinning. "Seriously. I think uh, Pete told me once. Said Patrick kept asking the same thing when they first took Sarah home." He nudges Spencer's cheek with his nose, breathing in deeply. "Spence," he murmurs. "Come on. You're gonna make a great mom, okay?"

Spencer opens his mouth to say something, then closes it again, twisting his head slightly to look at Jon, eyebrows raised, amused. Jon does what he can to look innocent. "What?"

Spencer narrows his eyes at him. "I-- Just 'cause I wore an apron yesterday, doesn't make me the mom."

Jon bites his lip to hold back a grin. "No, right, course not."

"I'll have you know the girl in the shop assured me it was a very appropriate and manly apron." The corner of Spencer's mouth twitches as he speaks, like he's trying to do anything but smile.

"Uh huh," Jon smirks. "I'm sure she did."

He holds their gaze until Spencer shakes his head and laughs before looking away, down at their sleeping daughter.

Jon closes his eyes, content, and rests his temple against the side of Spencer's neck again. The sunshine pouring through the thin, peach-coloured curtain drawn across the bay window in the corner of the room is warm on his face, and with his eyes shut, the room smells like summer and Spencer and baby powder. Jon hums a little, presses his body closer to Spencer's.

A minute passes in comfortable silence before Jon speaks again.

"Spence?"

"Yeah?"

Jon grins, eyes still closed. "If you wanna wear an apron.. like, even if you wanna wear one every day for the rest of your life?" He pauses. "As long as you keep making me pancakes in the morning, that would really, seriously be okay with me."

Spencer chuckles, and Jon can practically feel him roll his eyes. "You're so kind," he mumbles, tone dripping with sarcasm. "I totally remember why I married you now."

Jon turns his head, presses a kiss to Spencer's jaw, grinning even though he knows Spencer's joking. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Spencer says softly after a beat, and Jon can hear the smile in his voice.

Drive a One Inch Badge Pin Through My Heart

2007-07-01T14:15:57Z

Drive a One Inch Badge Pin Through My Heart
Panic! at the Disco // Jon/Spencer // PG // 3,262 words
by girlintheband

for we_are_cities' dec 26 06 and dec 30 06 prompts. title stolen from One Inch Badge Pin by Muscles.

AU in which Jon lives in Chicago, and Brendon, Ryan and Spencer play in a Vegas queercore band.

thankyou to softlyforgotten and flimsy for betaing and general help. ♥

//

Jon walks to the club that night. He knows, really, that he shouldn't, even though it's only a ten minute walk from his apartment to the venue. He's not exactly muscular and with his camera, he's a prime target for a mugging, but he can't afford the cab fare and besides, Chicago at night rates as his fourth most favourite thing in the world, after music and photography and coffee.

Jon meanders slowly along the streets, taking his time, watching the people walking past him and admiring the old buildings that line the road, the route already well-embedded in his mind from near-weekly trips to the club. He doesn't often go to gigs alone. He hates the feeling of isolation, of loneliness, of being an outsider, that comes with attending gigs by himself. He wouldn't be going alone tonight, either, except for the fact that Tom's out of town on tour with his own band for the next couple of weeks. Tom had asked him to come along, tour across America with them, but Jon had turned him down this time. His boss at Starbucks had already threatened to fire him if he skived off from work again, and Jon really likes his job. He also needs the money.

The club is packed, and it takes Jon ten minutes just to get inside. The first band of the evening are already playing, but finish up shortly after Jon arrives. He pushes through the crowd and heads straight for the bar as the second band sets up. He only manages to down one drink and order a second before realising that this was the band Tom had said he should come see. He tips the entirity of his drink down his throat in two swift movements, grimacing a little at the burn, and, slinging his camera more securely over his shoulder, Jon turns and wanders slowly through the masses of people to reach the stage.

He secures a spot off to the right where he can see relatively well and where he hopes he won't get beaten up in the mosh too much. He's about two rows back from the stage and looks around at the number of people assembled, waiting, in surprise. Tom's normally spot on about the bands he likes – Jon almost always likes all of them – but more often than not, they're tiny, obscure punk or hardcore bands that no-one else has ever heard of and probably never will. They may have artistic integrity and good looks and fucking brilliant songs, but they generally don't see the end of the year. It's unfortunate and almost soul-destroying at times, but Jon has reluctantly given in and accepted this, become resigned to the fact that this is just the way the music industry works.

There's a smattering of applause and a few hoots when three boys walk onto the stage. The singer smiles thinly at the crowd, and the band launches straight into their first song. No banter, no idle words, just music, loud and hard and fast. The kids down in the front mosh like they're fighting. Like they're fighting for something worth fighting for. Like they believe in this, whatever this is. Jon hasn't seen such enthusiasm, such dedication to a band for a long time, and wonders how he'd even missed this band in the first place.

Jon takes photos the whole time, moshing half-heartedly but really just trying to spot opportunities for the perfect photo, the photo that will capture the essence of this band, of live music. The music's pretty good, really, when Jon thinks about it; the band have this raw, rough edge to them, and even though the singer's voice is all over the place, occasionally he sings a line just right, and the emotion Jon can hear in the words he sings sends shivers through his body. The guitarist's own woeful attempts at harmonising would be off-putting if his voice didn't resonate at the same low frequency as the deep, bone-rattling rhythms he coaxes from his guitar.

The singer flails around all over the stage, never standing still, running into the crowd over and over, clenching his free hand in the hair of the kids in the front row, tugging them towards him as if he's going to kiss them or maybe just snap their necks. Each time he jerks back just moments before they get too close, turning and leveling his gaze on his guitarist instead, stalking towards him like he's the hunter and the guitarist is his prey. He repeatedly drapes himself over the other boy, even managing to push him to the ground and straddle him at one point. He ignores the guitar screeching in protest between them, and they kiss violently between the verse and the chorus.

Mostly, though, Jon can't take his eyes off the drummer. Jon's enraptured with the way his hair flicks when he hits the snare particularly hard, the fact that he twirls his drumsticks and grins at the guitarist in between songs, the way his lips are parted, wet, and his cheeks flushed. For the most part, he seems to avoid eye contact with the audience, but there's one brief and frankly far too short moment in which his eyes lock with Jon's and Jon feels something akin to electricity shooting down his spine.

Jon takes twice as many photographs of the drummer as he does of the others, even though he knows he'll never be able to capture the way the boy looked at him on film.

At the end of the set, Jon is soaked with sweat, his hair plastered to his forehead, every particle in his body throbbing with adrenaline. The drummer leaps into the crowd, half-pushed by the lead singer. The crowd cheers and surges forward, holding the boy aloft, grabbing at his clothing. Jon automatically raises one hand to help when he passes overhead, and his fingers catch on something. He pulls without realising and comes away holding a one inch badge pin in his palm as the drummer is dumped unceremoniously back onto the stage, collapsing in a heap. He stands up straight away, grinning broadly and focusing in on Jon. His black t-shirt is ripped just above his left nipple, the white outline of a printed-on heart ripped in two.

Jon thinks there might actually be some irony in all of this.

Jon holds the pin up slightly in case the boy wants it returned, but the drummer waves his hand in a dismissive keep it manner, smiling small and walking offstage. Jon hangs around for a bit, flicking his camera off then on again, scrolling through his photos, breath stopping when he comes across a particularly beautiful shot of the drummer where the light hits his face just right and he's grinning a little, gazing off into the distance, specks of dust illuminated in the air around him and lending an almost ethereal air to the photo. He turns his camera off carefully and replaces the lens cap.

Jon pushes back through the crowd after a few minutes. He tries not to be too obvious as he scans the room for the drummer from the Summer League. After completing two slow circuits of the club, Jon finally spots him sitting at a table with a thin emo-haired boy he recognises as the band's guitarist. He walks over quickly before he loses his nerve and taps the drummer on the shoulder.

He turns his head and looks at Jon blankly for a moment before Jon sees recognition flash across his eyes.

"Hey," the boy drawls, shifting in his chair and angling to face Jon a bit more, the hint of a smile lingering across his lips.

Jon smiles. "Hey." He holds up the badge. "Sorry about that. Dunno how it happened. Did you want it back?"

The boy shrugs but doesn't turn away. "It's cool. You keep it if you want."

Jon hesitates, then gestures at the boy's shirt. "But, your shirt.." he begins, then stops, bending forward a little. "Hang on," he murmurs. "Hold still."

The drummer tenses against Jon's hands as Jon tries to pin the rip back together, pulling the worn black material either side of it tightly and threading the badge through. He clicks the pin together and steps back. "There."

The boy glances down at his chest and looks back up at Jon, grinning. "Hey, thanks, man."

"Sure, no problems."

The boy gestures at the free chair at the table. "Wanna sit?"

Jon does, and as soon as he opens his mouth to ask the boy what his name was, the boy rolls his eyes and groans, laughing, his gaze directed at the chair directly opposite him. Jon glances in the same direction and sees the Summer League's singer practically pour himself into the lap of his guitarist. They press their foreheads together, the guitarist snaking his pale arms around the other boy's waist protectively as he shifts to get comfortable. He can hear quiet murmurs from the two even as the next band start up on stage, and he forces himself to look away when the drummer coughs off to the left.

"I'm Spencer," the boy announces, taking a sip of his drink and swirling the ice around. He watches Jon over the top of his glass.

"Jon."

The boy – Spencer, Jon thinks, silently sounding out his name and smiling – licks his lips after he swallows, and Jon feels his mouth go dry. Spencer nods at Jon's camera, still slung across his chest, resting in his lap. "You a photographer?"

"Kind of," Jon answers honestly. "It's just for fun, you know? I'm not-- not a professional or anything. I just like taking photos."

"Just of bands? Or do you do other stuff too?" Spencer asks, raising his voice to be heard over the band and leaning forward, right into Jon's space. Jon feels pleasantly light-headed at the intrusion.

"Other stuff, mostly. My friend, he told me to come check you guys out tonight. Said you were pretty--" hot, his mind supplies. "--Good," Jon finishes lamely, mentally rolling his eyes. "Just thought I'd bring my camera along, see if I could get any good shots."

Spencer nods but doesn't move back, his face still far too close to Jon's for Jon to feel in control of this situation. He sneaks a glance at the other two boys, but they're nowhere to be seen.

Spencer catches him looking and smirks. "Probably fucking in the toilets."

Jon laughs and makes a face. "Oh god, details, seriously. I've only known you for, what, five minutes? And you're already telling me the intimate secrets of your bandmates. Some friend you are." He grins, poking Spencer in the thigh. "What if I was a journalist or something? Rolling Stone would have a field day."

Spencer laughs. "Jon, seriously. I hardly think Rolling Stone's gonna care if the lead singer and guitarist of a little-known, unsigned, straight edge Vegas queercore band are fucking. They'd stick Paris Hilton on the cover instead of something real, something like us, any day."

Jon smiles at the sentimentality of Spencer's statement. "I totally agree, man."

Spencer smiles back and looks around the room quickly, standing up and running a hand through his hair. "Hey, look, d'you wanna come outside for a bit? I need some air, and I'd kinda actually like to be able to hold a conversation with you without having to shout." He grins lopsidedly.

Jon nods, grinning, and follows suit, pushing his stool back and standing up. "Yeah, sure."

They walk outside without speaking, Jon trailing closely behind Spencer the whole time. He smiles briefly at the bouncers as he walks through the door and into the night.

The air is bitingly cold and Jon shivers, his body reacting in shock to the sudden change in temperature. He bounces on his heels a couple of times to warm up, his insides surging with nervous energy, coiled-up adrenaline still flowing through his veins from his stint in the moshpit, from the moment Spencer caught his eye from onstage, from the way Spencer's skin felt under his fingertips when they – accidentally – brushed against it as he pinned Spencer's t-shirt back together.

They walk down the sidewalk and around the corner of the club. Jon can't decide if the silence is a comfortable one or not, and he feels uncharacteristically nervous because of it. Spencer stops a few metres along the alley and looks back at Jon, who leans against the wall of the club and levels his gaze on Spencer.

"Most queercore bands have a bass player, you know," Jon says after a few moments.

Spencer's eyes flash briefly and Jon almost flinches, wondering if perhaps he should've chosen something less potentially controversial to resume conversation with.

Spencer exhales slowly, then shrugs. "We used to have one."

"Yeah? What happened?" Jon's interested now. Back-stories and histories and pasts of people he's never spoken to before intrigue him more than they probably should.

Spencer hesitates, pursing his lips. "Creative differences," he says finally.

Jon raises an eyebrow. "In a queercore band?" He asks, smirking. "You had creative differences in a queercore band." His voice is flat; monotone and teasing.

Spencer grins. "That's how Ryan - that's our guitarist - explained it to our old bassist, yeah."

Jon nods, hopes he's not prying. "So what was the real issue?"

Spencer looks at Jon for a few moments, studying him. He leans in and whispers conspiratorially in Jon's ear. His voice is low and rough, and Jon has to struggle to hold back a shiver. "He wasn't gay."

Spencer pulls back and Jon immediately notices a difference in his demeanour. Spencer looks more distant than before, as though he's expecting Jon to be disgusted or at least want to make some sort of negative or derogatory comment.

Jon hums, thinking. "Guess that could pose a bit of a problem for a queercore band, yeah." He grins a little, and Spencer visibly relaxes.

"Yeah, just a bit. Ryan's "artistic vision", you know." His fingers draw invisible quote marks in the air, and his lips form a thin line, in what Jon presumes is meant to be an attempt at a wry smile. "He gets a bit obsessed with things like that sometimes. Honestly, though? I think it was really more just that Brent didn't really like Ryan and Brendon being together. I think he thought Brendon was trying to steal Ryan away from him or something. They were pretty close, I guess. Probably wasn't so much of an issue that he wasn't gay, you know. More that.. yeah, I think he felt a bit uncomfortable sometimes." He stops, searching for the right words and Jon nods to show he's listening. "It wasn't working, anyway. Whatever it was." Spencer shrugs again.

Jon leans back against the wall a little more, placing his feet more firmly against the ground and spreading his legs slightly, adopting what Tom calls his smoker's pose.

Jon wages a mental war with himself for a few seconds before giving into his curiosity. "So.. You're gay, then?"

Spencer frowns, narrows his eyes at Jon. "Is that a problem?"

Jon barks out a laugh, shaking his head, his hair falling into his eyes. "Fuck, no. I was just asking, cos, um." He flicks his hair off his forehead with one hand, his voice dropping a notch. "'Cos I'd really kind of like to kiss you. If, um. You wanted to, I mean. So I just wanted to check, because I don't exactly fancy getting beaten up tonight."

Spencer's face slowly breaks into a grin. "I wouldn't beat you up," he murmurs.

Jon grins back. "I'm glad." He pauses. "So.. can I? Kiss you?"

Spencer fidgets a bit and doesn't say anything more, and Jon feels his heart sink. "Oh," he exhales softly. "Okay, just-- forget I said that, yeah? Sorry."

"No, I mean.. that'd be cool. I'd.. I'd really like to kiss you, too." Spencer smiles shyly. "Except you should know." Spencer glances at the ground then back up at Jon, smiling as though he's almost embarrassed. "I don't really do the casual sex thing. I'm, uh. I'm pretty straight edge."

Jon lets out a breath he didn't realise he had been holding. "No, no, that's totally okay. I'm not a fan of casual sex either." He pauses, frowning a bit, and holds his hand up. "Wait. That sounded wrong." He laughs. "I just meant I'm not edge; I drink and I smoke way too much, and I don't really go for the vegan thing, either, tried it once but missed meat too much, but, yeah, not so into casual sex--" Jon makes himself stop. He bites his lip and looks at Spencer warily, blushing a little but grinning. "Oh god, just. Stop me talking, seriously. I'm probably not really giving you the best impression of me, am I? Can I start again?" Jon laughs, shaking his head.

Spencer laughs too and Jon feels something twist deep in his gut. "It's fine. It shows you've got.. character. A personality. I like that." He grins.

Jon grins back, giddy. "Okay, so. Starting again."

He looks away quickly, then back at Spencer, faking surprise. "Oh hey, you're the drummer from that band, right? I'm really sorry about your shirt. Can I make it up somehow? Maybe take you out for a, um, midnight coffee or something?" He grins. "I'm Jon, by the way."

Spencer's grin gets even wider. "I'm Spencer," he says, laughing and raising an eyebrow. "Is that a hypothetical date, or..?"

Jon takes a step closer, pushing off from the wall. He smiles and gazes straight into Spencer's eyes, eye contact belying his nervousness. "I really hope not."

Spencer tilts his head to one side as though he's considering it, replaying Jon's words in his head. "How do I know I can trust you? I mean.. You've already broken my heart once tonight." He grins, and is clearly trying not to laugh.

Jon snorts and steps closer once more. He flicks his eyes down to the badge pinning Spencer's t-shirt heart together and he reaches out to trace the outline of the white heart with his fingertips, glancing back up at Spencer as he does so, biting his lip.

"True. But I also fixed it, right?" Jon stills his fingers but doesn't draw them back. Spencer's skin feels scaldingly hot through his t-shirt.

Spencer grins again. "Yeah, I guess you did." He brings his hand up to where Jon's is still resting against his chest and laces their fingers together, running the calloused pad of his thumb against Jon's skin. Jon lets out a shuddery breath, squeezes Spencer's hand gently.

"Come back to my place." Jon says quickly, quietly. "I'll make you coffee there instead, yeah? I'm the best barista at my Starbucks, you know. I'll even pay the cab fare." He grins, tries to look cute.

Spencer laughs quietly. "You're so punk rock. "The best barista at my Starbucks." Guess I can't really turn down an offer like that, can I?"

"So you'll come?" Jon asks hopefully, leaning forward slightly. "I can show you some of the photos I took tonight, if you want. Got some real nice ones of you.." He trails off.

Spencer bridges the rest of the gap, stepping closer, until Jon can feel Spencer's breath ghosting over his lips. "Is that a euphemism for something?" he murmurs, grinning, pressing his mouth against Jon's.

Jon laughs against Spencer's lips. "Maybe," he replies. "It could be, if you wanted it to be."

Spencer snorts quietly, exhaling a tiny puff of breath, and opens his mouth slightly, sucking gently at Jon's lower lip until Jon parts his own, acquiescing. They kiss slowly, softly, the streetlight flickering quietly above them, their hands still joined, caught between them, encircled in the cage of their chests.

Like It's Something Secret (MCR/FOB; Gerard/Patrick)

2007-07-01T13:36:46Z

Like It's Something Secret
MCR/FOB // Gerard/Patrick // 309 words

set during the summer of like on fall out boy's tourbus;
for heartequals' prompt: Gerard/Patrick, ass-grabbing, Earl Grey.
also posted here.

Patrick jerks his head up, blinking.

"Did you just--" He begins, glancing over his shoulder at Gerard. "Did you just grab my ass?"

Gerard grins at him from the other side of the bus, leaning casually against the wall and trying to look both innocent and scandalised at the same time.

Patrick laughs at Gerard's expression and turns back to the counter, shaking his head.

Neither of them speak for a few minutes. Patrick's beginning to think that Gerard might have actually left the kitchen when there's a soft press of lips against the back of his neck, and a pair of arms snaking around his waist.

Patrick closes his eyes and bites down on his lip, hard. "Gerard--" he starts, voice quiet and tone warning.

Gerard shushes him and presses closer, slipping his hands into Patrick's front pockets. His palms are hot against Patrick's thighs and Patrick shivers, feels surrounded. Safe.

"Just enjoy it for once, okay?" Gerard's voice is muffled against the side of Patrick's neck, and Patrick can feel his resolve melting away. "No-one's here, I've already checked, and if you're worried about your bassist--" There's a pause. "Don't be. I've already seen him - he's making out with my brother on our bus."

Patrick groans, horrified, and the breath Gerard exhales as he laughs is warm on his skin.

Patrick opens his eyes again after that, grinning a little as he leans back against Gerard. Gerard makes a happy noise and hooks his chin over Patrick's shoulder, looking down at the benchtop.

"Earl Grey?" He asks, sniffing at the air.

Patrick nods and adds another teaspoon to the pot, remembering last week, Gerard's hushed instructions, one for you, one for me, one for the pot.

He can practically hear Gerard's grin when he speaks. "I like Earl Grey."

Patrick grins too. "I know," he says quietly, pouring the hot water into the pot and placing his hands on top of Gerard's to wait.

While Our Shadows Lengthen in the Sun (P!atD; Ryan/Spencer)

2007-04-21T11:03:54Z

While Our Shadows Lengthen in the Sun
Panic! at the Disco // Ryan/Spencer // pg // 206 words
for we_are_cities' april 21 07 prompt.

The first time Spencer kisses Ryan is the same day Ryan's cat dies.

Ryan remembers this because Spencer helps him bury the cat in his backyard. They bury him next to Ryan's goldfish, Ryan's hamster, and his brother's turtle, in a warm patch of dirt under the rhododendron bush where the sunlight hits the ground just so. Ryan mumbles something to Spencer about how Austin - that's the cat - spent most of his days lying there, curled up, paw over one eye, sleeping. Spencer nods and crouches down next to Ryan, knees cracking quietly, and places an arm around Ryan's shoulders. There's no need for words.

They stay like that, with Ryan kneeling on the ground and Spencer's thigh muscles threatening to give out, for nearly ten minutes before Spencer nudges Ryan's knee with his. Ryan has to drag his eyes away from the uneven patch of dirt in front of them. Spencer looks concerned. Ryan attempts a small smile, as if to say, hey, I'll be ok, and Spencer mustn't really believe him because he leans forward and presses his lips against Ryan's, the touch soft and lingering. When Spencer pulls back, his eyes look different to before. Ryan smiles for real this time.