Archive of Our Own

When Brendon was seven he taught himself to play the piano by ear sitting in his living room, sliding his fingers over the keys until the notes began to match the melodies he heard in his head all day long.

Music makes sense to Brendon; it always has. Lines and circles, ups and downs, ins and outs. Messy with an edge of precision. Controlled chaos. Chaos controlled.

When he was eight and couldn’t keep still in class, his parents took him to doctors who called him sick. Brendon wanted to tell them you don’t understand, this is me. This is me. But instead they gave him pills he pretended to swallow, and every few months he’d pick up a new and different instrument, touch it until it sang, and learn to breathe again.

He couldn’t color between the lines, take the little white pills. Be good. But when Brendon tried to explain this to his parents, they didn’t understand.

We had a plan, his father kept repeating. It’s God’s plan. It’s what’s right.

Brendon thought: Plans change.

Ryan Ross walks into Moxie Hair Studios in Summerlin, Nevada. He sits down in a chair, flips long, dark hair out of his eyes, and says to Brendon, “Do something.”

Brendon does something. He does amazing things with scissors and angles and gel.

When he’s done, Ryan spins around in the chair and gazes at himself in the mirror for a long moment.

“I can see my eyes,” he says.

“Yup,” Brendon says cheerfully. He resists adding: and they are very pretty.

“You’re amazing,” Ryan tells him, and Brendon blushes.

“I just – “ Brendon starts to say, but Ryan puts his hand on Brendon’s arm and Brendon goes silent.

“Thank you,” Ryan says, very seriously. “Can I have your card?”

Brendon digs through the reception desk drawers until he finds one, then writes his name – Brendon Urie – across it in scrawly cursive. When he hands it to Ryan their fingertips brush. Brendon bites his lip and looks away.

He doesn’t tell Ryan I know who you are, doesn’t say that he’s seen him play at a dingy bar and a club. He’s watched Ryan stand stone-faced in front of a crowd and mouth words into the microphone, voice flat and expressionless. He’s mesmerizing up there on stage, so focused and still, his eyes made living with the addition of elaborate make-up, black swirls and fluttering birds and twisty curlicues.

Brendon thought Ryan noticed him once, locked eyes with him over the writhing crowd, but he didn’t. Ryan doesn’t seem to see anything while he’s singing. He’s too caught up in the music.

Brendon’s too caught up in Ryan to notice the music. He has no idea if Ryan’s band is any good.

Weeks later Brendon is sitting behind the reception desk at Moxie when Ryan walks in wearing tight dark jeans, a light green v-neck t-shirt and a cream-colored scarf flicked carelessly over his shoulder. He places his palms flat on the smooth surface of the desk and stares down at Brendon.

“Do you have an appointment?” Brendon asks. “We’re kind of booked up, but I can probably fit you in if –“

“Brendon,” Ryan says, and his voice is low and quiet and curls up Brendon’s spine like a drunken serpent. Ryan’s fingers are long and thin. He taps a beat on the desk as he speaks.

“Yes?” Brendon asks.

“I think you’re magical,” Ryan says, “and I wanted to know – how would you feel about doing hair for a rock band?”

After work Brendon goes home and stares at his blank TV for awhile. He doesn’t have cable; all he gets are very fuzzy versions of ABC and Fox, and American Idol is just not as cool when you can’t tell who’s singing because their voices are overdubbed with static.

He thinks: What would I pack? What do you pack to go on tour with a rock band? He imagines stuffing his duffel with shot glasses and condoms.

There’s a knock on his door. It’s Shane, stopping by to hang after a shift at his job at Ritz Camera. He spreads some photos out on Brendon’s rickety card table and says grandly, “Naked ones, dude. Naked.”

Brendon squints at the photos. “That’s someone’s dog.”

Shane sighs, frustrated, and rearranges them. “That one, stupid. The stripper with the big tits.”

Brendon stares. The woman is sprawled on a couch wearing a g-string and gold tassels over her nipples. He shrugs.

“I love Vegas,” Shane says, and grins.

“So,” Brendon says, tracing a pattern into the table top with his forefinger. “Ryan Ross came in today.”

“Ryan Ross?” Shane scratches his chin, pushing a greasy strand of dark hair behind his ear. Shane won’t let Brendon cut his hair, pronouncing Brendon’s haircuts “too gay.”

“Of Panic at the Disco?” Brendon reminds him. “You know. We went to that concert –”

“Right, the skinny dude with all the eyeliner.” Shane squints at one of the photos. “The one you’re all hot for.”

“I’m not hot for him!” Brendon protests.

Shane fixes him with a look.

“…okay maybe a little,” Brendon mutters.

“So did you make him even prettier?” Shane asks, kicking his feet up on the table. “Will the world be, like, blinded with his beauty?”

“He asked me to come tour with the band,” Brendon says, too fast, making word soup.

“What?” Shane asks.

“I said – “

“Why would he – “

“To do hair,” Brendon clarifies. “For them. On tour. He likes how I do hair.”

Shane wiggles his eyebrows. “I bet he does.”

Brendon shoves Shane in the shoulder.

“So you’re gonna go, right?” Shane asks.

“Well, yeah,” Brendon says. “I guess so. I mean – “

“No,” Shane says, placing one hand on Brendon’s arm. “You’ve got to go.”

“I – “

“You’ve got to go, man,” Shane says. He flicks his eyes around the one room apartment. “What, you don’t want to leave all this?”

Brendon gazes at the narrow futon on the floor, the card table that doubles as his kitchen table and coffee table, the broken deck chair he stole from someone’s front yard, the mini-fridge stocked with an expired carton of milk and last night’s Chinese food.

“You might have a point,” Brendon murmurs.

He thinks: I am going, going, gone.

His heartbeat quickens.

It takes him three weeks to work things out in Summerlin: find someone to sublet his apartment, train a new person at Moxie, pack up his life into boxes and bags. They fly him out to St. Paul to join the tour already in progress, and he barely has time to dump his bag on the crew bus before he has to rush out again to start work. And now…

“Are you on crew?”

Brendon stares up at the large, heavily muscled man with a shaved head and a thick beard. He doesn’t look too happy with Brendon, and Brendon can’t blame him. He’s really not happy with this situation either.

“I’m lost,” Brendon says helplessly.

“Ah, you’re new,” the man says. “Prep crew?” He sizes Brendon up. “I’m guessing…hair and make-up?”

“Hair,” Brendon says. How did he know? He flips his bangs out of his eyes.

“I’ll take you to the dressing room,” the man says, and holds out his hand to shake. “I’m Zach. I guard the bodies of the Panic boys.”

“Sweet,” Brendon says, taking Zach’s hand. It’s twice the size of Brendon’s. He’s sweating even though it’s winter in fucking St. Paul, Minnesota. Brendon has never been so cold in his life.

“Don’t you have a coat?” Zach asks.

“N-n-no.” Brendon’s teeth are chattering. He wraps his arms around himself and tries to visualize hot tubs and saunas and chicken noodle soup. Why doesn’t he have a coat? Probably because he doesn’t own one. He is clearly the worst Boy Scout ever. But he’s a Vegas kid! The only kind of ice he ever sees comes in a rocks glass.

“You should get a coat,” Zach advises, and pushes open the stage door at the back of the club.

He leads Brendon through a maze of hallways until they get to a room with a piece of paper pasted over it that says “Panic.” Brendon finds this a little too appropriate.

“You are…” Zach says, and Brendon realizes he’s so mentally deficient he never actually introduced himself.

“Brendon,” he says. “Brendon Urie.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Urie,” Zach says, and pulls open the door, gesturing for Brendon to go inside.

Inside the small room it’s warm from body heat, and Brendon feels himself begin to defrost. He rubs his hands together and blows them.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Ryan is saying, rifling through a duffel bag on the floor of the dressing room.

“Where did you have it last?” a boy wearing a tight pink t-shirt and even tighter jeans asks from the floor. He’s rolling himself a joint. Brendon blinks. He recognizes him now, though he looks different up close. Taller? Spencer Smith! That’s right. He plays drums.

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be looking for it,” Ryan snaps.

“Hello,” Spencer says, sighting Brendon. “Who are you?”

“Brendon,” Brendon says. “Brendon Urie.”

“I’m Spencer,” he says, and holds out his hand. Brendon leans down to shake it. Spencer’s hand is warm. “Spencer Smith.”

“Nice to meet you,” Brendon mumbles.

“Brendon’s the new hair guy,” Ryan says. He throws up his hands. “Fucking A, where could I have put it? It’s not like make-up bags have legs.”

The door swings open and in lurches a short guy with dark, messy hair wearing flip-flops (flip-flops? Brendon shivers in sympathy for his feet), jeans and a faded black t-shirt.

Ryan straightens with a sigh. “I have to go look on the bus. I’ll be back.”

It sounds like a warning. Ryan slips out the door, letting it click closed behind him.

Brendon is pretty sure the guy who just slouched in is Jon Walker, the bassist. Seems like a logical deduction. Jon collapses into a chair in front of the mirror and rubs a hand across his face.

“Jon,” Spencer says. “It’s kind of early.”

Jon eyes Spencer’s fingers as he pinches the joint at the end. “Kind of early for what?”

Spencer rolls his eyes, then gets to his feet. “I’m going to meditate,” he says, and leaves.

“Hi,” Brendon says awkwardly. “I’m Brendon.”

“Hi Brendon,” Jon says flatly.

“I do hair,” Brendon says.

“Cool,” Jon says, and leans forward until his forehead is pressed against the counter. “You should do something with mine. It’s out of control. Untamed, if you will.”

Ryan returns, pushing open the door with a flourish. He’s carrying a large black toiletry case, which he proceeds to unzip and dump out onto the counter. Wow, Brendon’s never seen so much make-up in his life.

“I found it,” he announces.

“Awesome,” Jon slurs, and Ryan tenses.

“Are you drunk?” Ryan asks.

“Mmmph,” Jon grunts.

Jon has his face pillowed on his arms, and he looks dangerously close to being asleep.

“You are drunk, aren’t you?” Ryan asks.

“Not drunk enough,” Jon mumbles. “I can still hear your voice.”

“Jon, God,” Ryan says. “How are we supposed to perform when you’re fucking wasted all the time?”

“Uh, badly?” Jon says. “But we’re always bad, Ryan. It’s just that when I’m drunk, I don’t think about it quite as much.”

Ryan purses his lips. Ryan is awfully pretty when he does that. Brendon tries not to notice.

“Where’s Spencer?” Ryan asks.

“He said he was going somewhere to meditate,” Brendon says.

Ryan’s eyelid twitches.

“Great,” he says. “Now Jon’s going to be drunk, and Spencer’s going to be fucking stoned.”

He turns on his heel and stomps away, slamming the dressing room door behind him.

“Ryan’s mad,” Jon says.

Brendon cards one hand through Jon’s hair, letting his palm rest flat against the back of his neck. Jon is warm and soft and smells like beer. “Maybe you shouldn’t drink so much.”

“Oh, Brendon,” Jon sighs. “I wish I didn’t have so many reasons to.”

One week later, Brendon is starting to settle into the routine of being on tour: the many hours of travel on the bus, the close quarters, the whirlwind of activity around each show, lots of hurry up and wait. They’re never in one town long enough to truly see it, and Brendon watches whole states scroll by his tinted window and thinks, One day I will do this and stop and stare and taste.

Brendon makes friends with the other guys on the crew bus – the stage hands and the sound and tech guys – but he feels awkward around them, being young and inexperienced and a hairdresser. There’s a costume person and a make-up girl, but they don’t seem terribly interested in hanging out with Brendon; they spend a lot of time whispering behind their hands and shooting him wary looks.

One night Panic is booked at a club in Chicago, which means that Pete is there – Pete and Patrick, in fact. Brendon gets a little starry-eyed – Pete Wentz, he’s, like, a celebrity! People write about him on TMZ.

Pete’s small but commanding, his voice filling the room when he speaks. Patrick is chubby, red-headed and impatient, rolling his eyes at Pete’s jokes, but when Pete wraps his arms around him in a friendly hug, that’s the only time he smiles.

Patrick and Spencer disappear into the alley behind the club, deeply involved in a heated discussion about quality spliff. Pete sprawls on a large plushy chair in their dressing room and eats Cheetos, getting orange dust all over his black hoodie. He stares at Ryan like he’s a lollipop, then tongues powdery cheese off his fingers.

Pete likes to touch Ryan a lot, Brendon’s noticed – wrapping his arm around his shoulders, ruffling his hair, making kissy faces at him, trying to get him to crack a smile. Ryan ignores him most of the time, but occasionally he looks at Pete with this bright childish curiosity in his eyes and Brendon aches like someone pushed a bony finger into his solar plexus.

He thinks: Just because he writes lyrics doesn’t make him cool. Just because he signed you – just because –

Ryan stares blankly into the mirror.

Brendon cocks his head to one side. “What do you want me to do?”

“Fuck it up,” Ryan says. “Make it all – just fuck it up, okay?”

Brendon begins to slick Ryan’s hair into peaks, molding the dark strands into mini-mountains. Ryan sighs and relaxes, closing his eyes, and Brendon resists the urge to let his hands slip lower until his thumbs press into the base of Ryan’s neck. Ryan’s so…God.

“I understand you’re one hell of a hairdresser,” Pete says, watching them with interest.

“Brendon’s a genius,” Ryan says, eyelids fluttering slightly. He looks like a pale, angular doll, all sharp cheekbones and long eyelashes and a pouty mouth.

Brendon shrugs. He never knows what to say when Ryan does that – makes a big deal about the hairdressing. Doing hair was always Brendon’s back-up plan, the thing he learned to do to pay the bills so he could move out of his parents’ house and find his own place and do his own thing. Ryan makes it seem like hairdressing is Brendon’s thing, and that’s – well. Brendon’s not sure how to feel about that.

“Right on,” Pete says, and wipes his hand across his mouth, transferring orange powder from his cheek to his fingers. He’s staring at Ryan’s mouth again. Ryan’s still got his eyes closed, lips slightly parted, breathing slowly, carefully. Brendon can see the outline of Ryan’s collarbone through his white ruffly shirt. His hand shakes when he draws it through Ryan’s hair one last time, mussing it so it stands on end.

“I’m done,” Brendon says softly, and Ryan’s eyes snap open. He looks up at Brendon and a sleepy calm melts across his face. For a few seconds Ryan’s not just beautiful but unguarded too, beautiful and sweet and smiling.

“Let’s do this,” Ryan says, and Brendon nods even though he’s not part of the “let’s,” not part of the us, not really.

Brendon watches Ryan from backstage. Ryan’s so stiff and unwavering up there, slim and straight like a flagpole. No give. He wraps one of his hands around the microphone like it’s a tether and hangs on. He doesn’t move around the stage while he sings, doesn’t interact with the crowd, doesn’t interact with anyone.

The audience responds to them, sure – they get excited and flail and grasp at Ryan’s boot-clad feet when he meanders close to the edge of the stage. Brendon can understand where this love comes from; Panic’s fans are young, and Ryan cuts a pretty dashing figure up there in silk and pinstripes and ruffles. And their music? It’s fast-paced, energetic, catchy, danceable. Poppy.

There’s no fire, though – no electricity, no magic. Spencer plays drums like a guy who’s stoned (which he is) and Jon plays bass like he’s mentally elsewhere – hunched over, movements mechanical.

Patrick ambles up behind him and drops a hand on his shoulder, making Brendon twitch in surprise.

“Brendon, right?” he says. “You’re on the crew. I saw you earlier in the dressing room.”

“Yeah,” Brendon says, then does a double-take. “You’re – hey, man. I wanted to let you know that you’re awesome. Fall Out Boy is awesome. I listen to you guys, like, all the time.”

“Thanks,” Patrick says, tugging down the brim of his baseball cap. His cheeks look a little pink.

They watch them for a few minutes in silence.

“You know something?” Patrick says. “This is going to sound weird, but Ryan reminds me of me, kind of. How I used to be, back when we first formed the band.”

“Really?” Brendon asks.

“Yeah,” Patrick says. “I was so terrified up there, Jesus. I wouldn’t move out of my safe zone, which was like this tiny square right around the mike. Like I was going to get shot by a sniper or something if I stepped outside of it.”

“Oh,” Brendon says. “That sucks.”

“He’ll get over it,” Patrick shrugs. “I did.”

On stage, Ryan touches a hand to his face, sliding it along his cheek.

Ryan’s so strange. Brendon wants to peel him open, watch him shed layers of clothes and skin until he’s fresh and pink and glowing.

Brendon goes back to pick up his stuff after the show and finds Ryan alone in the dressing room. He’s bent over with his elbows propped up on his knees, head in his hands. Brendon freezes in the doorway, unsure of what to do – if he leaves, Ryan might hear him go, but if he comes in, he’s going to disturb his privacy. Ryan doesn’t get a lot of privacy.

“Come in, Brendon,” Ryan says. His voice sounds hoarse.

Brendon shuffles in awkwardly, fiddling with the thin beaded bracelet that encircles his wrist. He walks over to the mirror and begins packing up his supplies – gels, scissors, sprays, dye.

“I think maybe—” Ryan says, and then stops.

“Maybe what?” Brendon asks.

“Maybe Jon’s right,” Ryan says. “Maybe we really do suck.”

Brendon hesitates. He wants to say: you need to feel it. You need to feel the music. But that sounds like such bullshit, like some kind of bad 80s dance movie tagline. Why should Ryan care anyway, hearing that from his hairdresser?

“I don’t know,” Brendon says. “It’s early on in the tour, you know. Maybe you just need to find your groove.”

Ryan looks at Brendon with heavy-lidded eyes. His eyeliner is smeared, glitter painting a sparkly messy trail down one cheek.

“Yeah,” Ryan whispers. “Yeah, maybe.”

Brendon’s about to go in and prep the dressing room for the night’s show when Jon rounds a corner and nearly runs smack into him.

“Whoa,” Jon says, putting up his hands. “Whoa, dude, sorry.”

“My bad,” Brendon says, and does an impressive juggling act to keep from dropping his bag of hair products and cup of coffee.

“Here, let me hold that,” Jon says, and reaches out to take Brendon’s coffee.

Jon looks hungover, eyes glassy and red at the corners. Being as its nearly nighttime, this does not bode well.

“Are you okay?” Brendon asks, and pushes open the dressing room door.

Jon sighs, collapsing into a chair and swiveling around. “Yeah, I’m – whatever.”

“You’re whatever?” Brendon asks.

He begins setting out his tubes of gel and sprays and hair dryer and curling iron. He has no idea why he’s carrying around a curling iron. Will someone need ringlets?

“Can I be frank with you, Brendon?” Jon asks. “Even though I am Jon?”

Brendon nods.

“Sometimes I love this band,” Jon says, “and other times I really, really don’t.”

“I sensed that,” Brendon says. “You know, from all the drinking.”

Jon rubs at his temples. “Yeah, I should probably not do that,” he says. “Being as the only person it hurts is me.”

Brendon says nothing. He moves some things around on the counter to keep his hands busy.

“It’s like, Ryan is awesome,” Jon says suddenly. “Except for when he’s fucking irritating and I want to kill him.”

Brendon stiffens.

“I shouldn’t be telling you this,” Jon says.

“No, it’s okay,” Brendon says. “I won’t tell anybody. I mean, it’s not really my business, but –“

“The thing about Ryan,” Jon plows on, “is that he loves his music. You know? He really loves his music.”

Brendon pictures Ryan on stage, Ryan and his empty eyes. Could have fooled me, he thinks.

But then Brendon thinks, Wait. Wait. On that stage last night, neither Jon or Spencer seemed at all invested in the music or the story Ryan was trying to tell. Maybe that’s because these songs don’t tell the story of Panic at the Disco. They tell Ryan’s and only his.

“It’s the fucking Ryan Ross project,” Jon says. “Fucking – Ryan Ross, live and in concert.”

The door to the dressing room swings open, and Spencer pokes his head in. “Hey, Walker,” he says, “Dinner and a toke?”

Jon blinks, wrinkling his nose. “If I smoke, I’ll pass out.”

Spencer’s face is blank. “Just dinner then.”

“Just dinner,” Jon says. “Maybe…dinner and drinks.”

Brendon raises his eyebrows.

“Dinner and…a drink?” Jon corrects himself.

“You want to come with us?” Spencer asks. “My plan involved bothering Zach until he goes to get us sandwiches.”

“Always a good plan,” Jon nods. “Efficient and effective.”

They both look at Brendon.

“Okay, cool,” Brendon says. He thinks: Really? Really and truly?

When, later that week, Jon invites Brendon to come hang out on the bus with them, Brendon’s more than a little terrified. He can’t shake the feeling that he’s intruding on something, that he’s out of place and not right, but Jon insists, bribing him with promises of dinner and candy and reality TV. Brendon gives in because Jon is a nice guy and should be rewarded for his perseverance and kindness.

Brendon feels most awkward around Spencer, because he doesn’t know Spencer all that well. Spencer’s polite to him and always lets him do whatever he wants to his hair, but they haven’t talked to each other outside of the occasional joke or random bantering, and Brendon’s pretty sure they’ve never been alone in a room together.

That’s why it’s intensely weird when Jon and Ryan decide to make dinner (read: Kraft Macaroni & Cheese), and leave Spencer and Brendon by themselves in the lounge.

Spencer is lying on the couch, half-watching an episode of the Real World and messing around on his Sidekick.

“Hey,” Brendon says.

“Hey,” Spencer says, and snickers. It takes Brendon a moment to realize Spencer’s laughing at a text message. He looks up, catching Brendon’s eye.

“Patrick,” he says, “is hilarious.”

Brendon nods. “Yeah, he seems like…a cool guy.”

“Patrick’s fucking awesome,” Spencer says, sitting up on the couch and tossing his Sidekick aside. “He’s, like, really smart and talented. And he puts up with Pete, which is, y’know, a pretty major accomplishment all in itself.”

Brendon smothers a laugh. “I guess so.”

“You know so,” Spencer says with a crook of his eyebrow. “You’ve met the dude, don’t even pretend.”

“Are you trash-talking Pete again?” Ryan’s voice wafts in from the kitchen. There’s a crash and some muffled cursing, and Spencer rolls his eyes.

“Ryan likes to pretend he can cook,” Spencer whispers. “But in actuality, he’s kind of a retard in the kitchen.”

“Now you’re talking shit about me, aren’t you?” Ryan asks, poking his head around the corner. “Don’t tell Brendon bad things about me, Spence.”

“Tell me why I shouldn’t,” Spencer says, and Ryan marches over to Spencer and pokes him in the ribs, making Spencer double over with laughter. Ryan walks away, tossing a wink in Brendon’s direction.

It’s so strange to see Ryan like this – laid-back, relaxed, almost…happy. Ryan’s funny. Brendon didn’t know Ryan was funny.

“Ryan’s such a bitch,” Spencer says. “I only let him do things like that because he’s got naked pictures of me when I was six.”

“And I’m not afraid to use them!” Ryan calls from the kitchen. Brendon can hear Jon cracking up in the background.

Then someone drops something and this time Jon’s cursing.

“Jesus Christ, Ryan, it’s a pot, not a frisbee.”

“It will be a miracle if we get dinner tonight,” Spencer murmurs. His Sidekick vibrates, but he ignores it, pushing it onto the floor with his foot. He leans forward, fixing Brendon with his intense blue eyes. “So – you seem like a cool guy, Brendon, which can only mean one thing.”

“What?” Brendon asks. He knows he’s unlikely to pass Spencer Smith’s coolness test, but he likes a challenge.

Spencer reaches onto the floor for the remote and flicks the TV to Video 1. “Guitar Hero – you play?”

“Motherfucker, Urie, you are tearing that shit up,” Spencer says, breathless, as Brendon beats him on Santana’s “Black Magic Woman.” “Do you play this all the time? Are you hiding an Xbox on the crew bus?”

“No,” Brendon says, flushing a little. “I’ve actually never played Guitar Hero before.”

He doesn’t say my parents didn’t let me play video games because he doesn’t want to sound like a total loser, but it’s true. He played over at friends’ houses sometimes, but never at home.

Guitar Hero just isn’t all that hard for Brendon, though it does make him miss his real guitar. He sold it last year when he moved out of his house and into his closet-sized apartment. Back then he was struggling to stretch his tips to make ends meet – he ate a lot of Ramen and Jello and biked to work every day, and once a week like clockwork his mom would call and say Brendon, please, come home, and he’d say I can’t, Mom, I can’t.

Being on tour with a rock band has been a bit like water water everywhere and not a drop to drink, but Brendon doesn’t know how to ask the guys if he can borrow a guitar without seeming like a needy weirdo.

“Do you play any instruments?” Spencer asks, as if he can read Brendon’s mind.

“Um, yeah,” Brendon says slowly, then lists off, “Guitar, bass, piano, keyboard, drums, and cello.” He scratches his head. “Oh, and the organ. And accordion sometimes.”

Spencer stares at him. “Just those, huh?”

Brendon looks down at the ground. “I kind of – I don’t know, I pick up stuff like that pretty easily.”

“So you’re a musician,” Spencer says. “That’s what you’re saying?”

Brendon’s never thought of it that way – he’s always thought I play music, never I’m a musician. Being a musician implies that he does it for a living, or at least that he does it in front of people occasionally, and Brendon doesn’t really…do that, not since high school. Even then, he sort of sucked at band because he couldn’t focus during rehearsals. He’d spend the whole time making up songs in his head instead of following the printed sheet music.

Brendon, Mrs. Graham, the band director told him daily, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose and eyeing him with irritation, you are a disaster.

“I don’t know,” Brendon says. “I kind of…dabble.”

Spencer tugs a hand through his hair. “That’s a lot of dabbling, man.”

“I guess.”

“You should play with us sometime,” Spencer says, and Brendon’s stomach flutters with twitchy butterflies. “Jam. You know.”

“Hey, dinner’s ready,” Jon says, swinging into the lounge sporting an oven mitt, sweat streaked across his brow. “It’s only a little bit burnt.”

Spencer rises from the couch, movements languid and unhurried. “We could have had pizza,” he mourns.

“You ungrateful bastard,” Jon says, slinging his arm around Brendon’s shoulders. “Brendon’s glad to be here. Aren’t you, Brendon?”

It’s a rhetorical question, but all Brendon can think is yes, yes, yes.

He starts hanging out with the band more often – almost every night, in fact. Brendon doesn’t know how it happens exactly, but Jon keeps finding him and tugging him along places, using that annoying wheedling tone, C’mon, Bren, you know you want to. We’re awesome, why deny the awesome? And then Brendon’s riding on the bus with them, and eating most of his meals with them, and he can’t quite believe it, can’t quite process the fact that he’s almost one of them now, except he doesn’t actually play in the band. He just watches them play every night and wishes. He can’t help it, he knows it’s crazy but he does.

Brendon ends up spending the most time with Spencer because Ryan’s always retreating to his bunk to write and Jon is friends with everyone in existence and always ends up getting invited out for drinks and God-knows-what-else everywhere they stop. Plus Jon’s got Cassie, and he spends hours curled up in the kitchen talking to her on the phone, half his sentences capped off with I miss you, I really miss you, I really really do.

Jon and Ryan also have a shared, intense and irrational hatred for Guitar Hero, which Brendon totally doesn’t understand because he loves Guitar Hero, and not just because he kicks all kinds of ass at it.

“I rock and roll,” Brendon announces, raising his arms in triumph.

“I bow before your glory,” Spencer says, sighing and yanking the strap over his head. He drops the plastic guitar controller onto the floor and flops down on the couch. “I am pretty good at this game, but you are a master.”

“Student becomes the teacher, he does,” Brendon says in his best Yoda voice, and Spencer cracks up laughing.

“You are a funny dude,” Spencer says, and his eyes are shining. “Maybe you should leave your cosmetology career behind and go into stand up.”

“But then I wouldn’t get to play with your hair every day, and that would make me sad,” Brendon says, running his hand over Spencer’s spiky hair, still damp with the gel Brendon used to make it stick up during the show. Spencer’s hair is too long and tends to fall in his eyes when he drums because he flails around so much, so Brendon has to take drastic precautions to prevent him from poking his own eye out with a drumstick.

Spencer looks up at him, blinking slowly, and suddenly the air in the room feels different, electric and humming. Brendon pulls his hand back, worrying his lower lip with his teeth, and Spencer’s eyes go dark, pupils eating away at his irises.

Then Spencer looks down and the buzz is gone and they’re just two boys on a bus again: two boys killing time in between something and something else. Spencer picks up a copy of Seventeen that’s mysteriously migrated into the lounge and flips it open.

“C’mon, let’s see if Ryan’s a winter,” Spencer murmurs, and Brendon smiles.

Watching Ryan put on his make-up is kind of the highlight of Brendon’s evening. Sometimes he doesn’t get to watch because he’s got to do hair for Spencer or Jon too. On the best of days, though, Brendon finishes with enough time to collapse into a chair in the dressing room and pretend that he’s not following every movement of Ryan’s graceful fingers.

Ryan’s so intense while he does it, so controlled, his hand steady as he lines his lids with black, then draws elaborate designs over his cheekbones. His jaw clenches with concentration, and up close Brendon can see the smudgy shadows of sleep deprivation under his eyes. Sometimes his tongue flicks out to wet his lips and Brendon’s heart does a two-step in his chest.

And then one night out of the blue, Ryan turns to Brendon, looks him straight in the eye and asks, “Can you help me?”

Brendon’s mind goes through approximately a thousand possible answers to that question before settling on “Um?”

Ryan holds out his eyeliner pencil and says, “With this. I can’t – my hands are shaky today. I’ll mess it up.”

Brendon’s never put on eyeliner before – not on himself and certainly not on anybody else – but he’s watched Ryan do it enough times that he’s got a pretty good idea of how it works. He uncaps the pencil and waits until Ryan’s eyelids flutter shut before carefully lining his eyes.

“Is that okay?” Brendon asks, and when Ryan opens his eyes Brendon is temporarily struck dumb. Ryan is so fucking beautiful it’s ridiculous. Boys aren’t supposed to be pretty the way Ryan is pretty in eyeliner; he’s like some lost resident of Rivendell. As he stares at Brendon a spark dances in and out of his eyes, quick and bright, and Brendon shivers.

“I’m sure it looks fine,” Ryan murmurs.

Then he reaches out with one hand towards Brendon’s face, and everything moves in agonizing slow motion, jerky and out of sync.

Just touch me, Brendon thinks, but Ryan draws back his hand and blinks like he’s coming out of a state of hypnosis.

“You look good,” Brendon says, giving Ryan a tentative smile, and Ryan returns it, barely. He looks confused, like he doesn’t know where he is all of a sudden, and Brendon thinks welcome to my world, Ryan Ross, and then: Don’t you worry, we’re in the same place we’ve always been.

He realizes when Ryan’s gone to join the band onstage that he never asked why are your hands shaking? Brendon has so many questions he wants to ask Ryan, but none of them make it past his lips, past the ten thousand filters he’s set up like barricades: this is your dance space, this is mine.

During their next hotel night Jon invites Brendon to come chill with all three of them in the room he’s sharing with Spencer, and they smuggle in a couple bottles of Jack Daniels and Bacardi and sit on the floor pouring shots into coffee mugs and talking about nothing.

Until they are talking about something – a whole lot of something, and Brendon is suddenly very nervous.

“Never?” Jon raises an eyebrow. “I don’t fucking believe it, Ross.”

“What?” Ryan gives him an innocent look. “I just haven’t, okay?”

“Not on a dare? Not in a game of Spin the Bottle?”

Ryan licks his lips. “No, not even then. I’ve never kissed a guy, alright?”

“Have you ever wanted to kiss a guy?” Jon asks.

Don’t ask me this question, Brendon silently begs. Don’t. Please don’t.

Ryan just stares at Jon, then rises from the floor and points a long accusing finger at him. “You’re an asshole,” he says, then wrenches the door open and slams it behind him.

“Jesus, Jon,” Spencer sighs.

Spencer’s not drinking or smoking tonight, and he looks tired. He won’t look Brendon in the eye either, and it’s making Brendon itch.

“I was just messing around, God,” Jon says. “He’s so sensitive.”

“Will you lay off?” Spencer asks. “He’s having a hard time, okay? Why do you think he’s drinking?”

Jon’s face falls, and a significant look passes between them. Brendon feels so left out. He curls his hand into a fist. Most of his guitar calluses are gone; he can’t feel them pressing into his palm anymore. His stomach dips.

“Hey, Brendon,” Spencer says suddenly, “can you go talk to him? Just see if he’ll come back? Tell him Jon’s done being a dick.”

Brendon hesitates, but Spencer nods at him, giving him an encouraging smile. He’s granting him permission, Brendon realizes. Letting him be the person to fix this, and that’s. Wow.

Brendon stands, a tiny bit tipsy and unsteady on his feet, and ducks out into the hallway. Ryan’s room is right next door and Brendon can see light seeping out under the doorway. He knocks, quietly at first, then a bit louder.

“I don’t want to talk to you, Spencer,” Ryan says.

Brendon thinks about how Ryan knew Spencer would come after him, or send someone after him, as the case may be. Because that’s what Spencer Smith does for Ryan Ross.

“It’s not Spencer,” Brendon says. His voice feels sandpaper scratchy. He swallows.

There’s a pause long enough to make Brendon consider turning around and escaping to his own room. He could pretend he got lost. He could pretend –

But Ryan jerks the door open then and leans against the doorjamb. He’s wearing striped pajama pants and a t-shirt and he’s all long, lean lines and flushed cheeks. He lifts his hand and crooks one finger.

“C’mon,” he says. “I don’t hate you, so you can make yourself at home.”

It’s a mixed bag of an invitation, but Brendon will take it. He sits down on the edge of the bed, and Ryan flops face down on the mattress and buries his face in the pillow.

“Spencer says Jon’s done being a dick,” Brendon says. “You should come back.”

Ryan doesn’t respond. No movement, no sound, nothing.

“Are you okay?” Brendon asks. Stupid question. Brendon wishes he could inhale and suck it back in.

Brendon can only see the back of Ryan’s head and the slight rise and fall of his narrow shoulders, but then Ryan rolls onto his back. His foot brushes Brendon’s thigh and Brendon bites the inside of his cheek.

“I am not okay,” Ryan says. “Not even remotely.”

“Why?” Brendon asks. “I mean – is there something in particular that’s bothering you, or is it one of those things where everything is kind of shitty and you don’t know why? Because sometimes I think—”

“It’s my dad,” Ryan says. “I talked to my dad.”

Brendon stiffens. He doesn’t know much about Ryan’s family because Ryan doesn’t talk about them. Spencer mentioned once that Ryan’s parents split up when he was little, but he clammed up after that and Brendon didn’t push him because he didn’t want to seem like a nosy jerk.

“My dad,” Ryan says, and Brendon can see the tension settling along Ryan’s shoulders, sedimentary and heavy. “My dad is.”

He sighs, pushing his hair out of his eyes. It’s getting too long again – Brendon will have to fix that.

“My dad is kind of a bad person,” Ryan says. “Or. I don’t know. He’s just. He drinks a lot. He says stuff. He—”

Ryan stops, and his hand falls to the bed. He spreads his fingers out, making a starfish.

“He had plans for me,” Ryan says. “But his plans weren’t my plans. You know?”

Brendon’s eyes catch Ryan’s, a glance that catches like a hangnail. He nods.

“Yeah,” Brendon says. “I know.”

The next weekend they’re in New York. It’s Spencer’s birthday – the big 1-8 – and Ryan plans an elaborate fiesta involving costumes and karaoke and a whole lot of underage drinking. All this revelry is to take place at Pete’s club in the East Village, Angels & Kings.

“It’s so cool, dude, it’s like – a dive bar,” Ryan says, eyes wide.

Spencer rolls his eyes, but then Jon says “Free liquor, totally fucking awesome!” and Brendon has to agree.

Spencer humors Ryan, letting him dress him up in a white suit jacket and tight dark pants and lots of glittery eyeshadow. Ryan also somehow manages to convince Brendon to wear the most form-fitting jeans he’s ever seen. Jon stands firmly by his no-clothes-that-make-me-look-like-a-tool rule, and eyes Brendon with smug satisfaction as Brendon struggles to button his pants.

Are these jeans even made for boys? Brendon wonders.

“You’ve got the hips for it, you look great,” Ryan assures him, and Brendon sucks in his stomach and tries to think thin thoughts.

They pile into the limo Pete sends for them, and Jon immediately sets to preparing them gin & tonics. Brendon’s never been in a limo before; it’s pretty sweet. The seats are covered with red velvet, soft under his palms, and there are big video screens and tasty snacks and Brendon could be persuaded to live here forever, basically.

“Did you know that Spencer can vote now?” Ryan says, nudging Brendon with his elbow. He’s pressed up close to him, their bodies touching from arm to thigh.

“I’m excited,” Spencer says, sipping his drink. “You know, about becoming a citizen.”

“I think Spencer should be president,” Jon says, and takes a large swig of his drink.

“He could run on a platform of good business sense and fashionable footwear,” Ryan suggests.

“And liberty and percussion for all!” Brendon blurts out. He’s already tipsy and feeling giddy.

Spencer smiles at him, a quick twist of his lips, and Brendon thinks, God, this is so fucking cool.

“To Spencer,” Jon says, raising his glass, and they all join him, clinking and drinking.

Brendon barely manages to get out of the car without falling on his ass.

“Are you excited, Brendon?” Jon asks, lacing his fingers through Brendon’s and grinning at him, toothy and wide. “Just so you know, the goal tonight is to get Spencer to sing. Loudly and in public.”

“This is always my goal,” Ryan informs him. “Getting Spencer to embarrass himself in public is the best thing ever, and it does not happen nearly enough.”

Ryan’s looking particularly fetching this evening in his green eyeliner and newsboy cap, pants so tight Brendon imagines he can see the outline of Ryan’s hipbones through the dark fabric. He has three scarves wrapped around his neck in varying shades of pastel: eggshell yellow, baby blue, frosty pink. Brendon squints and thinks of Easter.

Spencer, despite being the birthday boy, may be the most sober of them all. He quirks an appraising eyebrow at Brendon when the first round arrives and Brendon nearly knocks over his drink. Spencer shakes his head sadly.

“Awfully early to be so sloppy,” he says, and smiles that rare amazing wide Spencer smile that makes his whole face light up and Brendon immediately want to hug him.

“M’not sloppy,” Brendon murmurs, but the room is starting to look a little blurry. That kamikaze may have not been the wisest thing he’s ever done in his life.

“Boys, welcome,” Pete shouts at them as he slides into their booth and wraps an arm around Ryan’s shoulders. “Guess what ? Since it’s Spencer’s birthday tonight? He gets to judge.”

“No fair!” Ryan objects. “Spencer has to sing. He has to.”

“All in good time,” Pete says, ruffling Ryan’s hair as he signals a waitress. “Another round?”

“I’m giving you a six,” Spencer informs Ryan after he murders “Tiny Dancer.” “And that’s only because we’re bff.”

“I hate you, Spencer,” Ryan says, and nearly topples off the stage.

“One day, Ryan’s going to hurt himself with one of those scarves,” Jon says.

“Why does he wear all the scarves anyway?” Brendon asks.

“Convenience?” Spencer postulates. “They’re very handy for auto-erotic asphyxiation. Or so I’ve heard.”

“Or so you’ve heard,” Pete snickers into his highball glass. “Spencer Smith, you kinky bastard.”

“Did you just call me kinky?” Spencer asks. “I can not believe Pete Wentz just called me kinky.”

“Pot, kettle,” Brendon mutters, but not loud enough for Pete to hear. Spencer starts laughing so hard he almost knocks Brendon’s drink over.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Brendon admonishes, curling a protective arm around his glass.

“Sometimes I take pictures,” Jon whispers. “Lots and lots of pictures.”

Pete grins.

Brendon doesn’t know how he ends up on stage, but he knows it has something to do with those mysterious blue cocktails Pete keeps feeding them and Spencer’s whispered encouragement (“I will totally give you a ten no matter what, dude, it’s a guaranteed win”), and the fact that it’s been a long time since Brendon’s gotten to sing anything outside of his shower and he sort of…misses it.

He lets Spencer choose the song because it’s his birthday, but when the title flashes on the screen Brendon wants to sink into the floor and disappear.

“Spencer,” he hisses, but Spencer’s ignoring him, involved in an intense, hushed exchange with Pete. This must be a mistake. He didn’t even think they had karaoke for this song yet. Then again, this is Pete’s bar, and Pete is the guy who Makes Things Happen, so.

Spencer turns and gives him a thumbs up and a grin, and Brendon feels nauseous. He wraps his hand tighter around the microphone and waits until the music starts.

He doesn’t need the prompter – he knows all the words by now, he’s watched Ryan perform it so many times. But Brendon has to look at something, because if he stares straight ahead he’ll be looking at Ryan, Ryan who’s going to be pissed, who’s going to think Brendon’s making fun of him, who’s going to be hurt. Brendon feels trapped, but when he opens his mouth he’s singing:

Two verses in his eyes flick off the prompter to the crowd of people milling around the club, and he realizes that people are watching him, that they’re really watching him now, not just tolerating his presence. Electricity cuts up his spine.

And then there are people clapping and singing along and cheering, and – and –

Brendon starts to ham it up a bit, letting his voice drop into a growl on a hotter touch a better fuck, really belting it out for let’s get these teen hearts beating faster faster and by the end of the song the whole room is alive with cheers and wolf whistles and wow, Brendon does miss this, he misses music so much.

When it’s over he turns to see Ryan standing there, pale and blinking, head cocked to one side like a curious owl. Brendon snaps the microphone back into the stand and walks off the platform to thunderous applause, and he’s wondering if maybe he can slip out the back and run away (to where? His plan has flaws) when Ryan grabs him by his shirt and tugs him into a back hallway and Brendon thinks oh good Christ, it’s all over now.

Ryan’s flushed and breathless, fingers curled around Brendon’s shoulders.

“Jesus Christ, Brendon,” he whispers. “You never told me you could sing.”

And then Ryan kisses him.

The kiss is awkward at first, Ryan’s thumbs pressed into Brendon’s jaw, teeth catching on Brendon’s lower lip, but then Ryan flicks his tongue at the corner of Brendon’s mouth and Brendon opens for him with a moan, letting Ryan kiss him until he’s gasping. He just lets him do what he wants because this is Ryan, this is Ryan Ross of Panic at the Disco, this is Ryan, Jesus, how did this – how –

Ryan’s hands grasp at Brendon’s waist, fingers fluttering along his sides, and Brendon sighs into his mouth.

“God,” Ryan says. “All this time you’ve been – I thought you were just a hairdresser but you’re not.”

It stings the way he says it, just a hairdresser, but Brendon’s dizzy from alcohol and lust and Ryan fucking Ross and somehow it doesn’t matter, not really.

“I didn’t think it was important,” Brendon says as Ryan nips just under his neck, dragging his teeth over his pulse point.

“You sang that song like – “ Ryan stops, pulling back and looking deeply into Brendon’s eyes. “You sang it like I always wanted it to sound.”

Ryan smells like flowers and liquor, sweet and sour, and he’s so close Brendon can see where his eyeshadow has smudged, smoky, messy around the corners of his eyelids.

“I like the song,” Brendon says stupidly, because he does, he likes everything Ryan writes even if it’s too wordy and confusing and sometimes doesn’t make any sense. He liked the feel of Ryan’s words in his mouth, the rhythm of the song strumming through him, the moment when he realized he was singing and thought I can do this, I really really can.

“I like you,” Ryan murmurs against Brendon’s lips, and Brendon’s dizzy and drunk and so glad to be here, God. God.

“Oh Jesus,” Brendon groans. He shifts in bed and realizes this is not his bed. Not his room. Ryan is lying against him, all angles, bony and rumpled, hair feathered out around his head. He makes a quiet noise in his sleep, and Brendon’s head spins.

He remembers last night. Sort of. He remembers little blue drinks. He remembers Pete’s arm around his shoulders as he slipped a small rectangular card into the front pocket of his jeans, murmuring into his ear as the music pulsed around them, If these guys don’t, I have a place for you. But I’m giving them dibs ‘cause Ryan found you first. He remembers all the high fives and giggling girls and Ryan’s hand splayed across the small of his back, guiding him through the club. He remembers Jon’s arched eyebrows and Spencer – Spencer –

Brendon sits up suddenly and nearly falls off the mattress. Ryan turns over onto his back and rubs his hand over his closed eyelids, muttering, “What the fuck, Brendon?”

“Sorry,” Brendon says. His stomach roils then, and he clambers over Ryan and makes a mad dash for the bathroom. He makes it just in time.

The hotel suite is set up like an apartment, two rooms off a lounge and kitchen. Spencer isn’t at breakfast. Jon’s sitting on the couch cross-legged, watching cartoons and scarfing down Frosted Flakes. He doesn’t look hungover. Brendon briefly considers hating him before deciding it’s impossible.

“Long night?” Jon says, mouth full. He swallows and smiles sleepily, and okay, Brendon does hate him. But only a little.

“Did I do anything stupid?” Brendon asks.

Jon pauses, spoon midway to his mouth. “Define ‘stupid.’”

Brendon flushes.

“I’m just kidding, man,” Jon says. “You rocked the karaoke. You hardcore rocked the karaoke.”

…Right. Brendon’s breath catches. I sang. I sang their song.

Brendon hears feet padding up behind him and then Ryan slides one arm around his waist, pulling him close. He thinks: oh, we do this now? Ryan hooks his chin over Brendon’s shoulder and breathes against his neck, and Brendon shivers.

The door to the room bangs open and in marches Spencer, fully dressed in a tight yellow t-shirt and jeans and Nikes. He’s holding a white bakery bag, which he drops on the coffee table with little ceremony, and two cups of coffee. He hands one of the cups to Jon.

“I thought we didn’t have any food,” Spencer says, eyeing Jon’s cereal.

“Room service,” Jon says. “You took forever and I got hungry.”

“You ordered cereal from room service?”

“I am on a diet,” Jon says. “It’s a Frosted Flakes diet, don’t judge.”

Spencer rolls his eyes and turns to look at Brendon and Ryan. His gaze skims over them – Ryan’s fingers tucked into Brendon’s belt loops, Brendon’s hair ruffled and messy – but his face doesn’t register any emotion.

“I didn’t get you coffee,” he says, “because I didn’t know when you’d be up.”

“That’s cool,” Brendon says. He smiles at Spencer, but Spencer looks away.

“So, guys,” Ryan blurts out, “I think Brendon should be in the band.”

When Brendon was twelve he discovered Queen while lying on the floor in Shane’s basement with his eyes closed, listening to Shane’s dad’s old record player. Freddy Mercury’s voice was liquid sex one minute and honey-sweet the next. Brendon felt like he was sliding from one note to another on a non-stop roller coaster of sound, the best amusement park ride ever.

“Pretty cool, right?” Shane said, pushing shaggy dark hair out of his eyes.

“Yeah,” Brendon breathed.

Next it was Bowie, and the Beatles, and the Band, and Zeppelin and the Stones. Shane and Brendon practically lived in that basement for six months, going through the whole record collection. Brendon ate it all up like candy, ate and ate and ate but was never satisfied.

For his thirteenth birthday Brendon asked for a guitar and nothing else, and his parents, thinking music was a “good outlet” for all his excess energy, bought it for him. He didn’t ask for lessons. Shane knew four chords and the melody of “Stairway to Heaven,” and Brendon decided to figure the rest out for himself.

He woke up early every morning to practice before school, tossed aside his homework every night to play, fell asleep some nights with his fingers still splayed across the frets. One Sunday morning his mother knocked on the door to wake him for church and found Brendon already up, strumming the melody to “Killer Queen” and singing along, caviar and cigarettes, well-versed in etiquette, extraordinarily nice, she’s a…

“That’s very good, sweetie,” she said, but there was an edge there, a tightness around her eyes Brendon would later recognize as quiet fear.

Brendon is pretty sure this is what cardiac arrest feels like. Or possibly a stroke.

“I’m sorry, what?” he asks.

“I’m sorry, what?” Spencer asks.

“Ryan,” Jon says, and there’s a tone there Brendon’s never heard before. It sounds like what are you doing, buddy, what are you doing?

Ryan steps backwards and makes an elaborate Vanna White-type gesture, as if he’s presenting Brendon Urie: Prize to be Won.

“Brendon has an amazing voice,” he says. “I think Brendon should be our singer.”

“But Ryan,” Jon says slowly, “you’re our singer.”

“Yeah, but I’m not that good,” Ryan says. “You’ve said it yourself.”

“I did not – “

“Ryan,” Spencer says, “it isn’t as simple as all that. We’re on tour. We can’t just – change around the whole band. I mean, I’m not saying Brendon isn’t good. Brendon’s great.”

“Brendon’s also right here,” Brendon hisses.

Spencer glances at Brendon, then back at Ryan, and then he strides forward, wraps his hand around one of Ryan’s skinny arms and yanks him into one of the bedrooms and slams the door.

“…okay,” Jon says. He looks lost, eyes wide and glassy from sleepiness and confusion.

“I didn’t – “ Brendon starts to say, but Jon places one hand on his arm, shaking his head.

“I know,” Jon says. “I know you didn’t plan this or ask for it or anticipate it or – I know. It’s okay.”

The door to the bedroom swings open one minute later and Ryan emerges looking victorious. Spencer follows, dragging his hand through his hair. He looks tired.

“You say it,” Ryan says, poking Spencer.

Spencer makes a face at him and turns towards Brendon.

“Brendon,” he says, “Do you want to be in the band?”

Brendon’s mouth goes dry. “I…uh.”

“Yes,” Spencer says each word slow and deliberate like he’s talking to a child, “Or no.”

“Spencer, don’t be a – “ Ryan starts to say, but Spencer puts up his hand.

“If I say yes,” Brendon says, “Does that mean I get to be in the band?”

“It means we want to give this thing a try,” Ryan says. “It means –“

“It means we want you,” Spencer says. His cheeks go pink as he says it, and his eyes flick down to the floor.

“Then yes,” Brendon says. “Yes, I want to be in the band.”

There’s a silence that stretches out too long to be comfortable. Spencer stuffs his hands into his pockets, and Ryan stares off into the middle distance like he sees something there.

“I feel like we’re all getting married,” Jon says suddenly. “I should warn you guys – if that’s the case then Cassie will be pissed.”

“Goddamnit, Jon,” Spencer says, but his eyes crinkle at the corners with repressed amusement.

“I’m just saying,” Jon says. “Cassie likes me a lot. Not more than you dudes like me, obviously, but – a significant quantity.”

“You’re ruining the moment,” Ryan says, and then he yanks Brendon forward and kisses him right on the mouth. He tastes a little stale but sweet, like Halloween candy at Christmas.

“See?” Jon whispers. “Married.”

Ryan punches him in the shoulder, hard.

After their conference/treaty-signing/possible engagement party, Brendon excuses himself to go back to his room, locks himself in the bathroom and calls Shane.

“What up, dude?” Shane greets him. “How goes it, Hairdresser to the Rock Stars?”

“Here’s the thing,” Brendon says, no preamble. “They don’t want me to be a hairdresser anymore.”

“Aw, man, did you get fired? That sucks. You didn’t cut Ryan Ross’ hair crooked, did you? Because he looks like he could be fierce when he’s angry.”

Brendon sighs. “It’s not – no, you asshole. They want me to be a rock star.”

There’s a long, studious pause on Shane’s end.

“Like, in general?” Shane asks. “Or in the sense that they want to make you a rock star?”

“I’m not explaining this very well, clearly.”

“You’re really not. Are you trying to tell me they want you to be part of the band? Did you play something for them? Holy shit, Bren. That’s insane. Are you – “

“I don’t know, Shane. I don’t fucking know! I’m freaking out, dude. I’m not – I don’t do this, I’m not some kind of…”

“…musical genius?” Shane finishes. “You kind of are, man.”

“I don’t know,” Brendon says.

Brendon’s throat hurts. He runs his hand over the counter tile, feeling the cool slick against his hands. He closes his eyes and thinks of his mom, tucking him into bed at night. She’s skim her palm over his messy dark hair, whispering: Brendon, sleep tight. Everything’s gonna be all right.

“Well, you know what Bobby Dylan said,” Shane says.

“Yeah,” Brendon murmurs. They’d written it on their notebooks all through high school, traced the words onto shiny covers and etched them into the margins of trig notes.

Chaos is a friend of mine.

For the next eight days, in fact, Brendon lives in a perpetual state of chaos – rehearsal after rehearsal after rehearsal. They’re on the road, so most of these rehearsals take place in the cramped confines of the tour bus and the occasional odd hotel room, Ryan teaching him the lyrics from his laptop, Spencer tapping out beats on the kitchen table, Jon showing him chords and progressions and melodies. Brendon picks everything up so quickly that sometimes Ryan stares at Brendon like he’s some kind of freaky alien, and then he licks his lips and says “Jesus, Brendon, is there anything you don’t do?”

Ryan and Spencer and Jon play shows almost every night, and Brendon does their hair, and everything feels weirdly the same as it was before, except for how it’s totally different. He learns all their songs – first the lyrics, then the music – and Ryan looks at Brendon like Brendon hung the moon and Brendon doesn’t know what to do, because he’s new to all this and terrified and sometimes he stares at Ryan in his tiny tiny tailored pants and fluffy shirts and vests and face calligraphy and thinks I am a long long way from home.

But home is a studio apartment with broken AC and cockroaches, home was barely paying the rent when business was shitty, home was watching his flickering TV alone in the dark, no cable, and sleeping on a hard bed with scratchy sheets. Home was everything he’d had before Ryan Ross walked into Moxie and his life, but home was everything he didn’t have, too.

All Ryan had said was: Do something.

Do something.

Like he knew.

“Are you okay?” Ryan asks him one night before a show. Tomorrow, they’ve decided, Brendon will go out with them on stage and sing. It’ll be like his audition, or a test-run. There’s absolutely no way to think about this that doesn’t make Brendon feel like he’s going to throw up.

“Yeah,” Brendon whispers, but it’s a lie and they both know it. Ryan rubs his hand over Brendon’s back, grazing, soft. He looks at Brendon like he wants to say everything Brendon needs to hear but doesn’t know where to start.

“You know,” Ryan says, “you’re gonna to be incredible up there.”

Brendon wants to believe it, but all he can think of is the last time someone started a sentence with you’re gonna be.

“I think maybe – “ he starts to say, but Ryan kisses him then, a brush of his lips, tickling and quiet, and Brendon thinks okay, yeah, okay.

The next day Brendon gets a phone call from Pete Wentz on his brand-new Sidekick. Pete’s voice is crackly with static, and he sounds far, far away.

“So,” Pete says, “how are you feeling about this, Brendon?”

Kind of want to die right now, thanks, Brendon thinks. His palms have been sweating all day; everything he touches turns greasy and slippery. He wipes them on his pants, then exhales through his mouth.

“I’ll be okay,” he says.

“You’ll be okay?” Pete repeats. “As in, you’re not okay now?”

“Well, I’m kind of nervous.”

“You have done this before, right?” Pete says. “I mean – performed?”

Does eighth grade church chorus count? Brendon wonders.

“Uh, sure,” he lies. “Yeah, of course.”

“You’re a natural,” Pete assures him. “You’ll be fucking awesome, you’ll see. Just like you were at karaoke.”

Brendon wants to say that this isn’t karaoke in a room full of drunk friends, this is real, this is a concert, it’s people who’ve paid money and God, he wants to die, he wants to die, he wants to die.

But what he says is: “Thanks.”

“Keep it real, B,” Pete says. “I’ll talk to you later, okay? We’ll be at the show in Vegas later this month.”

“Awesome,” Brendon says with little inflection, thinking of Pete’s arm, tight around Ryan’s shoulders.

“Good luck,” Pete says, and Brendon thinks: ‘Cause I’m gonna need it.

When Brendon comes into the dressing room before the show that night he’s vibrating with nervous energy, every part of him pulsing and twitching and shaking. He collapses into a chair in front of the row of mirrors and stares. He’s so close he can see the faint outline of his contact lenses around his irises, filmy wet, and the starburst of red veins collected at the corners of his brown eyes. He didn’t sleep last night, and everything’s slightly blurry, slightly off, like he’s looking at the world through a foggy windshield. Brendon blinks and the lights above the mirrors explode, reflected light assaulting his retinas.

Spencer pushes the door open with a creak and stands there awkwardly, hovering.

“I – uh. Are you having private time or something?”

Brendon turns to look at him, giving him a flickering smile. “C’mon in. Come hang with me and my nerves.”

Spencer shuffles in and closes the door, settling into a chair next to Brendon and running a hand through his hair.

“You need help with that?” Brendon asks.

Spencer doesn’t say anything, just looks down at his hands. Brendon leans over and pushes hair out of Spencer’s eyes anyway. He doesn’t know why he does it – he just wants to see Spencer, see him without the curtain of hair in the way, wants to be able to read the expression in his sharp blue eyes.

Spencer’s hand clamps down on Brendon’s arm, keeping him there, and Brendon knows his hands are trembling where they’re pressed against Spencer’s cheek.

“What are you doing,” Spencer says.

“I’m just – “

“Look,” Spencer says softly, his eyes not leaving Brendon’s face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was such a dick about you being in the band. It’s not because – I think you’re really talented. I just – I didn’t want this to be another one of Ryan’s things.”

The way Spencer says things sends a shiver down Brendon’s spine. He infuses that one word with so much revulsion that Brendon feels queasy.

“What do you mean?” Brendon asks.

Spencer lets go of his arm and moves away, hair falling into his eyes again. “Never mind.”

“No, no, you can’t do that,” Brendon says. “You can’t just – Spencer, tell me what you mean. Please?”

Spencer sighs, shoulders shifting as he curves his hand around the edge of the table. His fingernails are dirty, not white at the tips, hands dry at the knuckles.

“I’ve known Ryan since we were five,” Spencer says. “He tends to go through these…phases. Like one month he’d be punk and the next he’d be glam and the next he’d be goth. His music goes through phases, too. He’s up and down a lot, and I…”

He licks his lips, curling his hand into a fist.

“What?” Brendon asks, leg jittering so hard against the chair leg that the whole chair squeaks in protest. “What?”

“I didn’t want you to be another one of his phases, Brendon. Because you’re too cool of a guy for that.”

Brendon’s fingers feel numb. He bites his lip. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He doesn’t know what to say.

“Shit,” Spencer says, eyes flicking back and forth across Brendon’s face. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m such a jerk.”

“You’re not,” Brendon murmurs.

Spencer clenches his jaw. Brendon can see him struggling to control his breathing, chest rising and falling like a pendulum.

“Hey,” Brendon says, his hand falling to rest against Spencer’s arm just above the cuff of his white button-down shirt. Spencer tenses all over. “Can I ask you something?”

Spencer nods.

“That night,” Brendon says. “Your birthday.”

“Yeah,” Spencer exhales.

“You – you saw. Me and Ryan. Afterwards, when we were…”

Spencer rubs a hand against the corner of his eye. He doesn’t say anything.

“And you pulled me aside and you said – you said something about how I should be careful. I don’t remember what you said exactly but I just wanted to let you know that I’m not – I’m not going to do anything to hurt him,” Brendon babbles. “I don’t know what’s going on with us exactly but I’m not an asshole, and I’m not going to – “

“Brendon,” Spencer interrupts, and when he looks at Brendon his eyes are filled with sadness. “Brendon, Brendon, Brendon.”

“What?” Brendon says. He feels like a confused little kid, always asking questions, never getting the point, never understanding what’s going on.

“I wasn’t worried about Ryan,” Spencer says. “I’m not – I’m not worried about Ryan.”

“Oh,” Brendon hums, and that little word feels too big in his mouth: too big to say, too big to swallow.

Say grace, Brendon.

Brendon fidgeted, lips pressed together in a tight grimace.

Brendon. Are you alright?

Brendon glanced up at his parents, his two brothers and two sisters, all gathered around the table for a Sunday family dinner. Kara made a face at him as if to say why are you so difficult? and Matt punched him in the arm.

Brendon didn’t want to be difficult. He just wanted to be honest.

I can’t.

Brendon’s mother’s eyes widened. What do you mean you can’t? Why can’t you?

I don’t believe in God.

You don’t mean that. Brendon’s father’s voice was low and commanding.

I do mean it, Brendon insisted.

You need to leave this table right this instant, his mother said. Her voice was quiet but not soft, not soft at all. Hard. Brittle.

Brendon rose from the table and shuffled out of the dining room, taking the stairs two at a time up to his room. He laid out on his bed, crossing his arms across his chest like a mummy, and stared up at the ceiling.

I can’t believe in God, he thought. I can’t believe in God when he doesn’t believe in me.

The noise. God, the noise. Brendon hadn’t anticipated that.

Ryan walks onto the stage in his narrow-waisted trousers and shirt with a thousand buttons and waistcoat and blazer and cap, looking like a slightly malnourished carnie version of Oliver Twist, and the girls scream. They scream when he cradles the microphone and murmurs, “I’m Ryan Ross and this is Panic at the Disco.” They scream and they keep on screaming.

His voice is a slow, deliberate monotone, oddly comforting to Brendon as he stands backstage and fiddles with the tiny buttons of his ridiculous silk jacket. His pants are cutting into his hipbones, a sharp pinching pain. The pants are Ryan’s and a little too small and too long. Brendon thinks this is sadly appropriate – borrowed pants, borrowed songs, borrowed life. He just hopes that tonight won’t make Ryan want to take it all back.

Ryan sings the first song – “Camisado” – to warm them up, he said, to get the crowd going. He sings the same way he always does, no inflection, no heat, and it’s strangely mesmerizing. He curves his long fingers around the microphone and sings can’t take the kid from the fight, take the fight from the kid, sit back relax, sit back relapse again and Brendon shivers, wondering – not for the first time – what inspires Ryan’s lyrics exactly. Whatever it is, they’re things he keeps buried deep down inside in Narnia soul closets he never lets anyone open and explore.

When the song is over Ryan casts his eyes at Brendon, lifting an eyebrow as if to say now, it’s happening now, and says, “We have a surprise for you tonight. You’re all so lucky because this is the first time we’ve ever done this. Are you ready?”

No, Brendon thinks. No, no, no, no.

But the crowd is screaming in blind adulation. Brendon clenches his hand into a fist and hopes that he hasn’t already sweated off the grease paint. He’s hot and he’s cold, but mostly he’s terrified.

“We’ve got a special guest here tonight,” Ryan says. “He’s going to help us out. Brendon, you want to come out here and help us out?”

This is exactly how they rehearsed it, word for word. The stage goes dark, and screams pierce the air yet again.

And Brendon walks. One foot in front of the other – step, step, step. Then he can feel Ryan even though he can’t see him, hand warm at the small of his back, thumb flicking up his spine.

“You can do this,” he whispers, and presses the microphone into Brendon’s hand.

Brendon exhales, lifting the microphone to his mouth, and he knows they’re waiting for his cue – he has to begin singing before they begin playing. He’s singing the same song he sang at karaoke. Ryan thought it would be a good way for him to ease into performing, and plus it’s one of their hits. It always gets them worked up, he said. Always.

Brendon closes his eyes and begins to sing.

“Jesus, you are so hot,” Ryan murmurs into the sweaty skin of Brendon’s neck, hand finding the button of Brendon’s circulation-stopping pants and flicking it open.

“I am, huh?” Brendon says.

He’s feeling flirty, happy, high on adrenaline and loopy from exhaustion all at once, not to mention Ryan Ross has his hand in the vicinity of Brendon’s man parts, which – hello.

“You are,” Ryan says. “You are, you are, you are.”

Ryan captures Brendon’s mouth in a wet, teasing kiss, tongue tracing the shape of his lips. Brendon hitches in a breath, hands sliding up Ryan’s sides, peeling his shirt away from his skin, letting his hands skim over Ryan’s ribs. They kiss, Ryan nipping lightly at Brendon’s lips and jaw as he presses one hand flat against Brendon’s stomach and edges it down, down, down with every touch of their mouths, until he’s got his palm splayed over Brendon’s fabric-covered crotch and all Brendon can think is oh god yes please yes please yes please.

“Hey, uh…guys?”

A voice comes from outside the bathroom door, followed by a tentative knock.

“We kind of need to go,” Jon says. “We’ve gotta get back on the bus and hit the road. So if you two could maybe…finish up?”

There’s a louder rapping on the door, and then Zach’s low, all-business voice comes through. “So I know you both have needs and shit, but I need you to get your horny butts on the bus. Immediately. As in right now, not later, not in half an hour, not in whatever length of time it takes you to get off. Capice?”

They can hear Jon snickering, then saying, “Jeez, Zach, I was trying to be nice.”

“Yeah, well,” Zach rumbles. “There’s a time and a place for these things.”

Brendon’s so red at this point he’s pretty sure he could impersonate a strawberry with little trouble. Ryan’s still got his hand practically down Brendon’s pants, and when he looks up with heavy-lidded eyes, Brendon wants to beg Zach for amnesty because he thinks they only need about three minutes to see all of this play out to…completion.

“This sucks,” Brendon says. He thinks he might be pouting.

Ryan takes Brendon’s hand and lifts it to his mouth, pressing a kiss to each of Brendon’s fingertips, then murmurs, “Maybe later.”

And Brendon is officially the most sexually frustrated person on earth.

On the bus Brendon strips down to his boxers and crawls into his bunk, pulling the blanket up to his chin. He’s about to slip in his iPod earphones when he hears Spencer shifting in the bunk below.

“Spencer,” Brendon whispers. “Spencer.”

There’s a quiet sigh, then: “What, Brendon.”

He doesn’t know what he wants to ask. Am I making a mistake? Are we making a mistake? How would I know? Would you tell me?

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asks.

There’s a pause, and Spencer shifts his weight again, the bed creaking slightly.

“No,” Spencer says. “It was really, really good.”

Brendon’s face stretches so wide with his smile he thinks he might pull a muscle.

This is the best day of my life.

“I need advice,” Brendon says, settling onto the couch beside Spencer the next day and nudging him with his toe. Spencer moves over to give him more room, which wasn’t what Brendon wanted at all. He frowns.

“Advice,” Spencer repeats.

He has a pencil tucked behind his ear and his Sidekick flipped open on the table. Brendon leans over and reads: Plz help, Pete thinks Fall Out Boy shd do a vid w/ peacock theme. Suggest alternatives immediately

“Maybe you could ask Patrick for me,” Brendon says.

“Patrick does know everything,” Spencer says. “It’s true.”

“It’s Ryan-Ross-related,” Brendon clarifies.

Spencer’s mouth tightens. “Okay.”

“Well, ‘related’ might be too strong of a term,” Brendon says. “Ryan-Ross-adjacent. Ryan-Ross-kitty-cornered?”

Spencer just stares at him.

“I think I’m – I don’t know.” Brendon sighs, tugging a hand through his hair. “Ryan’s all – he’s, like – well, basically, here’s the thing. I think I’m too inexperienced.”

Spencer blinks.

“Too inexperienced,” Spencer repeats.

“Yes.”

“For Ryan,” Spencer says.

Brendon narrows his eyes.

“We’re talking about Ryan Ross,” Spencer says.

“Yes we’re talking about Ryan Ross, I told you –“

Spencer starts to laugh.

Jon sidles into the rehearsal room, holding two cans of Red Bull in one hand and a Subway bag containing sandwiches in the other.

“What’s so funny, Smith?” he asks, tossing him a Red Bull.

“Brendon thinks,” Spencer says in between giggles, “that he’s too inexperienced.”

Jon looks at Brendon, appraising.

“For Ryan?” Jon says.

Brendon closes his eyes.

“For Ryan Ross?” Jon says.

“You guys are assholes,” Brendon says.

“Wait,” Jon says, “Are you under the mistaken impression that Ryan has vast quantities of experience? Like, experience of the sexual kind? Like Ryan has banged a million groupies or something?”

“I don’t know, it just seems like –“

Ryan chooses that moment to enter the room, wearing slim-fitting jeans, a t-shirt with a paisley vest over it, two silk scarves and huge round sunglasses.

Spencer and Jon dissolve into hopeless laughter.

Ryan looks from Spencer to Jon to Brendon, then back to Spencer.

“What?” he asks.

Outside of Miami they stop to gas up and Ryan tugs Brendon behind the convenience store bathroom and kisses him.

“I miss you,” he says when they separate for air. Brendon rolls his eyes.

“We live on a bus together,” he says. “You see me all day, every day.”

“But I never get to – “ Ryan slides one hand under Brendon’s shirt, tickling his stomach, guitar-rough fingers scratchy against his skin.

Brendon breathes out through his mouth. Ryan just stands there for a moment, staring at him, and his hazel eyes go dark.

“You do it this time,” Ryan says.

Brendon moves forward, hand finding his way into Ryan’s hair, lips hot against the corner of his mouth, tongue tracing, tracing.

Things are going so well, and then there is Phoenix.

Everyone knows that Brendon’s singing for the band now – it’s been in newspapers and other press they’ve done.

We think it’s better for the band, Ryan tells reporters. That’s it. That’s why. That’s the reason.

And even though it’s unusual, the fans seem okay with it because they like Brendon. He slips into the band like he’s always been a part of it, the missing puzzle piece, and soon fans are chanting his name as he walks onto the stage, Brendon Brendon Brendon. When he palms the microphone and mutters I’m Brendon Urie and this is Panic at the Disco, they scream just like they used to do for Ryan. Like they still do for Ryan.

But some people don’t like it. There are usually only a few shouted insults or mild harassment – nothing serious, and Brendon’s able to shrug it off. It hurts, of course. He’s not immune, but it’s also not the end of the world. When it happens Ryan or Jon catches his eye and nods as if to say the show must go on, Brendon, even when there are assholes.

In Phoenix, though, something is different. Something is off. He doesn’t know what it is but he feels it, this strange undercurrent of no and wrong. The crowd is energetic, bobbing up and down to the dance beats, singing along, and then Brendon sings what a shame the poor groom’s bride is a whore and suddenly he’s on the floor and everything’s spinning.

He doesn’t even feel the pain until he’s already on the ground. Sheer and sharp, starting at his temple and shivering down his cheek. He places his hand to his cheek and feels wetness, but he doesn’t know if it’s sweat or make-up or blood. It’s so dark he can’t tell the difference.

“Brendon,” someone is saying. Brendon blinks and Ryan’s there, hand under Brendon’s head, supporting his neck like you’re supposed to do with babies. “Brendon, can you hear me?”

“I’m fine,” he hears himself saying, but Ryan’s face is blurry, and when he reaches up to touch him he doesn’t make contact, only grasps at air.

“Get help,” he can hear Ryan saying, and his voice sounds far away. Only a few seconds later Zach is there, lifting Brendon up, carrying him like he’s nothing.

“But the show,” Brendon mumbles. “It’s not over.”

When Brendon wakes up he’s lying on a hotel bed. He can tell he’s in a hotel because the blanket is that weird pseudo-suede, fuzzy-soft material, and the sheets smell like detergent.

Spencer is sitting in a chair beside the bed. His shoulders are hunched, and he’s looking down at his hands as if trying to read his own palms. His hair falls into his face.

“Spencer,” Brendon says. His voice sounds stripped and rough. “What time is it?”

Spencer’s head snaps up, and he looks at Brendon as if he doesn’t quite see him. Then he reaches forward and touches Brendon’s face, fingers tracing the line of Brendon’s jaw. Brendon thinks: what?

“Fuck, Brendon,” Spencer murmurs. “You’re awake. I thought—”

“Where are we?” Brendon asks. It seems like a reasonable question. He doesn’t remember going to sleep in a hotel, so it’s sort of strange to wake up in one. Not that it hasn’t happened to him before, but.

“We’re at a hotel,” Spencer says. “You got hurt, but the doctor said you didn’t have a concussion and we should just let you sleep it off.”

Hurt. Not a concussion. Brendon rubs the back of his hand across his eyes. Now that he’s thinking about it, his head does kind of hurt. It feels like when he tripped once in fourth grade, smacked his head against the concrete and blacked out for a couple seconds and he woke up with Isabel Warren stooping over him asking Are you okay? She was so pretty, Isabel Warren. Long black hair, dark brown eyes, like Jasmine from Aladdin.

“Does it hurt?” Spencer asks.

“What happened?” Brendon asks, struggling to prop himself up on his elbows. His head swims.

“You got hit in the head,” Spencer says. “Someone threw a bottle at you.”

“Oh,” Brendon says. “Am I going to have a cool scar?”

Spencer just stares at him, and then he shakes his head, laughing softly. It’s a nice sound, Spencer laughing.

“I don’t know,” Spencer says. “You might.”

“Where is everybody?” Brendon asks.

Spencer’s eyes flicker down to the floor. “Ryan had to take a phone call. Jon’s next door, waiting for you to wake up. It got kind of…crowded in here.”

Brendon can tell there’s something Spencer’s not saying, but Spencer when he wants to be cagey is the most unreadable dude on the planet. He’s worse than Ryan. He’s the Rosetta Stone.

“Spencer,” Brendon murmurs, tugging on Spencer’s sleeve. He’s still wearing his stage clothes, and Brendon can see where he sweated through his shirt, leaving stains under his arms and along the collar. “Spencer, are you okay?”

Spencer gives him that look, the what the hell is wrong with you? look, though it’s slightly tempered by his generally sympathetic I’m sorry you got hit in the head with a bottle look.

But it’s not enough, it’s not an answer, and Brendon wants to ask again, ask until Spencer answers the fucking question, until Spencer tells him something, because Spencer never does that anymore. Spencer never tells him anything.

He doesn’t get a chance, though, because there’s a quiet click and the door opens and Ryan’s standing there, holding his hotel key card in one hand and his cell phone in the other. He looks exhausted. His eyes are red and glassy, and he’s worrying his lower lip between his teeth.

“You’re awake,” he addresses Brendon.

“I am,” Brendon says, lifting his hand in a wave. “And Spencer says I might have a cool scar.”

Ryan is standing absolutely still. His right hand curls into a fist at his side.

“Hey, Ryan – “ Spencer says, rising from the bed, but then Ryan’s shaking his head, no, no, no.

“Ryan, are you okay?” Brendon asks. He tries to sit up in bed, but everything’s still fuzzy around the edges, and the room tips.

“Guys,” Ryan says, and his voice is tight and higher than usual, stretched thin like overused elastic. “Guys,” he repeats, and reaches out and grabs Spencer’s arm.

“What?” Spencer says. “Ryan, you’re freaking me out.”

“Guys,” Ryan whispers, so low Brendon has to lean forward to hear it. “Guys, my dad is dead.”

Brendon strokes his fingers along the plastic arm of his seat and gazes out the airplane window at the pearly blue sky. One of the clouds looks like a fish. He cocks his head to one side. Now it looks like a bear. Weird.

Ryan is sitting next to him with his chair tilted back, iPod earphones wedged in his ears, his eyes closed and an odd little smile turning up the corners of his mouth. It’s kind of creepy.

Brendon wants to force his eyes open, force Ryan to look at him and ask, Are you okay, Ryan Ross? Are you?

But he only wants one answer, and it’s one Ryan can’t possibly give him, not right now. Not twelve hours after his dad just died. Not twelve hours since he got the phone call saying, Are you Ryan Ross? Because we’ve found your father laid out on his kitchen floor.

The last twelve hours have been surreal, and not just because Brendon took a pretty hard hit to the head.

Ryan stood in the middle of that hotel room, his whole body shaking. He sank onto the bed and Spencer wrapped his arms around him, murmuring, Jesus, Ryan, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. Brendon clambered over the covers to wrap his arms around both of them, feeling Ryan’s collarbone sharp under his fingers and Spencer’s neck muscles tense and hard against his palm.

Ryan just kept shaking his head, whispering: I wasn’t there, Spence. I wasn’t there and now he’s gone.

Brendon felt practically absent then, so unimportant and useless, a bystander. Spencer kept rubbing Ryan’s shoulders, murmuring, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry.

This morning Brendon watched the passengers board the plane to Vegas and thought: They’re going to gamble and fuck and eat and drink and party. We’re going to bury Ryan’s father. It seemed unfair.

“Hey, Brendon,” Spencer says, dropping a hand to Brendon’s shoulder. Brendon looks up at him and gives him a wavering smile.

“Hey,” Brendon says.

“So when we land, my mom’s going to meet us,” Spencer says. “She has to take me and Ryan to the funeral home and stuff. But you – you and Jon, you don’t have to come. I mean – I think it might be a little much, you know? All of us doing that.”

Brendon feels a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest. He knows Spencer’s right, but he also wants to be there, to hold Ryan’s hand and touch his face and say stupid things like, It’s going to be okay. He wants to be that for Ryan. He wants –

“Okay,” Brendon says softly.

“Maybe you could visit with your family or something,” Spencer says. “You haven’t seen them in a while, right?”

Brendon scratches a thin line across the back of his hand with a ragged fingernail and watches the skin turn pink.

“Yeah,” he says. “Maybe.”

When they arrive they meet Spencer’s mom at baggage claim. She’s lovely, with a wide bright smile exactly like Spencer’s. The second she sees them she strides over to Ryan and pulls him into a tight embrace. He doesn’t fight her, just lets her hold him, lets her cup the back of his neck and whisper in his ear things Brendon can’t hear. He wants to know what Spencer’s mom says because she probably knows how to make this right. She seems magical that way, a magical all-knowing adult with answers to questions Brendon hasn’t even thought of yet.

“I’m Spencer’s mom,” she says, and smiles warmly, holding out her hand to shake. “You can call me Ginger.”

“Ginger,” Brendon says, and feels very grown up. Jon shakes her hand too and gives her a crooked smile.

“We should probably find a hotel,” Jon says. “Unless – Brendon, are you – “

“We should find a hotel,” Brendon says, looking at his feet.

“A hotel?” Spencer’s mom looks aghast. “Oh, no, you boys are staying with us, of course.”

Of course. She pats Brendon on the shoulder, giving him a gentle smile, and Brendon understands where Spencer gets it from – his warmth. Spencer’s a caretaker because he’s had people show him how to do it his whole life. He just knows.

“Let’s get your stuff,” she says, and prods them forward.

Spencer’s family’s house is suburban and comfortable, decorated in cool pastels and very tidy. Spencer’s mom seems like the type of person who would clean for company. There are towels laid out in the guest room on the two twin beds, and the sheets are drawn up tight with square hospital corners.

“Ryan used to stay here a lot,” Spencer says. He thumbs absently over a chip in the paint. “You guys need anything?”

“Can you point me in the direction of a carbonated, caffeinated beverage?” Jon asks, and Spencer leads him to the kitchen.

Brendon takes out his cell phone and stares at it for awhile, eyes tracing over the slim silver casing and the glossy little window that tells him it is 2:15 pm. He has no new messages. He flips it open and murmurs “Home” into it and waits for it to dial.

He gets their answering machine. You’ve reached the Urie residence. Please leave a message, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. Have a blessed day.

Brendon clenches his jaw. When he hears the prompting beep he says, “Hey, Mom, Dad, so I’m in town and…I guess you didn’t know that I was out of town, but anyway, I was, and now I’m back, and I don’t know how long I’ll be here but I – I thought maybe – well, you can call me.”

He reels off a string of numbers and snaps his phone closed, tosses it aside and sprawls out on the bed and falls asleep for the first time in too many hours.

When he wakes up Pete Wentz is staring at him from the doorway. He’s wearing smoky eyeliner and a hoodie with bats flying across it.

“Hi,” he says. Brendon blinks and rubs at his eyes but Pete does not disappear.

“Hi?” he says.

“You’re a freaky sleeper, man,” Pete says. “You, like, talk and shit.”

“You were watching me sleep?” Brendon squeaks, because really, Pete Wentz should never be allowed to describe anyone else as freaky.

“I just got here, relax,” Pete says. “Ryan called me and told me what was going on and I decided to come out.”

“We had to cancel those tour dates,” Brendon says, immediately defensive. “We can’t play without Ryan.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Pete says, putting up his hands. “I understand. That’s cool, we’ll give people their money back. You guys take as long as you need to.”

Brendon sits up and crosses his legs, Indian-style. He pushes hair out of his eyes and tries to form sentences. It’s suddenly very hard.

“What did I say?” Brendon asks.

Pete cocks his head to one side. “Ex-squeeze me?”

“In my sleep,” Brendon says. “What did I say?”

Pete shrugs, wandering into the room and settling on the other bed. “I don’t know, something about falling under a spell. It didn’t make much sense.”

“Oh.”

“So you got fucked up in Phoenix, I heard,” Pete says, fingering the bedspread. “That sucks, dude. People are idiots.”

Brendon nods, hand drifting up to the bruise over his temple.

“I don’t want you to think it’s a reflection on you,” Pete says. “Because I’ve seen the tapes of the concerts and – you’re pretty fucking amazing up there, Brendon.”

Brendon can feel, looking at Pete with his intense dark eyes, what Ryan must have felt when Pete showed up on his doorstep and said, let me hear what you’ve got. Pete has this way of looking at you like you’re the most important person in the room, in the world.

“Thanks,” he says.

“I’m going to be honest with you,” Pete says. “You kind of saved this band. Spencer and Ryan and Jon are great, but they were…floundering. You pulled the pieces together.”

“Then why did you sign them?” Brendon asks abruptly. “I mean – if you knew that – “

Pete’s eyes flick down to examine the carpet.

“Ryan was special. He had this – I don’t know, this quality about him. Ambition, yeah, but some other kind of drive that made me think we could work out the kinks.”

“Did you fuck him?” Brendon blurts out, and then thinks, what the hell is wrong with you, Self? Sleep deprivation has clearly destroyed all his filters.

Pete stares at him for a moment, jaw working.

“I should maybe punch you for that, Urie,” Pete says. “But you just got hit in the head, so.”

Brendon opens his mouth to apologize, but Pete keeps going.

“The answer is no,” he says. “I don’t do guys. Not that it’s any of your fucking business.”

“I just thought – “ Brendon begins.

“You thought maybe you want to fuck him,” Pete says. “Right?”

Brendon looks away.

Pete sighs, tugging his hand through his hair, making it peak in front.

“Jesus,” he murmurs. “Well. If that’s what you guys want, you should go for it. I’m not one to stand in the way.”

“It’s not like that,” Brendon says. “I don’t just want to fuck him, I want – “

But the words dissolve on his tongue. He can’t say: I want to love him. He can’t.

“You’ll figure it out,” Pete says. “You will.”

He sounds almost kind. When Brendon looks up at him he realizes Pete’s standing in the doorway, hands stuffed in his pockets, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.

“Funeral tomorrow,” Pete says. “Get some rest.”

He turns and leaves. Brendon watches him go, thinking: at least he didn’t tell me to be careful.

Dinner that night is awkward, all of them huddled around the dining room table, Ryan and Brendon and Jon and Spencer and Spencer’s mom and dad and two sisters. It’s awfully quiet with so many people sitting around the table, but nobody seems to know what to say. They make some polite conversation about how the weather in Phoenix is actually worse than it is in Vegas, and Spencer’s mom asks Ryan if he’s written any new songs lately.

“No,” Ryan says, and chews his bite of salad for about ten minutes. He’s eaten maybe one sixteenth of the food on his plate.

Then Spencer starts talking about this bowling alley that opened up in Summerlin that he doesn’t remember, and what is all that about, and Jon joins in and they chat about bowling for awhile as Spencer’s sisters roll their eyes and Ryan cuts all of his food up into pieces the size of dimes.

Thirty painful minutes later, dinner is over and Spencer and Jon adjourn to the living room to watch some TV with Spencer’s sisters. Brendon’s not really in the mood to pretend to like what’s on TV, so he goes into the guest room and checks his messages. He has one from his mom.

“Brendon, sweetheart,” she says, “I’m so glad to hear from you. Why don’t you give us a call tomorrow before church and we’ll meet up there for services. We love you, honey. We miss you.”

Her voice sounds cheerful and fake and a tiny bit nervous. Brendon throws his phone across the room. He thinks, You still don’t get it.

He falls asleep with his arm flung over his eyes, and when he wakes up it’s because Ryan’s climbing into bed with him, hands grasping Brendon’s shoulders, lips forming a circle at the hollow of his throat.

“Hmm?” Brendon hums, confused, and Ryan presses his lips to Brendon’s, licking his way inside his mouth.

“Jon,” Brendon hisses in between kisses, and Ryan says, “Jon’s sleeping in Spencer’s room.”

“But – “ Brendon starts to say. Ryan wedges his leg between Brendon’s thigh and pushes up, grinding against Brendon’s cock through thin layers of fabric. Brendon moans softly, and Ryan whispers, “Yeah, that’s better.”

On the one hand, this is the hottest thing that has ever happened to Brendon; on the other, it may be the worst. He can feel Ryan hard against his thigh, canting his hips to create friction between their bodies, and Ryan’s kissing him so desperately that Brendon gets dizzy from lack of air. Ryan slides one hand up under his shirt and presses his thumb into Brendon’s nipple, digging his fingernail in, and Brendon arches up, gasping.

“Ryan,” Brendon says. “Ryan, what are you doing?”

Ryan pulls himself up and stares at Brendon. Brendon can see the sooty tips of his eyelashes flicker against his cheeks, even in the dark.

“You can’t be this stupid,” Ryan says.

“I just – is this the best time to – “

“Any time is the best time,” Ryan whispers. “I want to fuck you, Brendon.”

Brendon thinks oh God oh God and then yes yes yes as Ryan angles his hips so their dicks press against each other through their jeans. Ryan’s already going for the button on Brendon’s pants but this – this is –

Brendon clamps his hand down on Ryan’s wrist, forcing him away, and Ryan looks at Brendon with wide, glazed eyes.

“We can’t do this,” Brendon says. “Not now. Not the night before your dad’s funeral.”

“Why not?” Ryan demands. “Why the fuck not?”

Because I’ve never done this before and I want it to special, Brendon thinks. Because I’m not going to let you make me hate you. Because I’m not going to let you fuck this up.

“Please,” Ryan murmurs. “Please, Brendon, can’t we just – “

“No,” Brendon says, and shoves Ryan away, hard enough that Ryan falls off the narrow twin bed onto the floor. It’s not a long fall, but Ryan lies there for a moment anyway, dazed.

“Jesus Christ,” Ryan says. “I knew you were a Mormon, Bren, but I didn’t know you were a prude.”

The words cut through Brendon like tiny invisible slivers of glass.

“You – what?” Brendon asks.

Ryan sits up, rubbing his elbow with one hand. “I looked you up online before I asked you to come tour with us. Your family’s LDS. Right?”

“Yeah, but – “

“Don’t think about it too hard,” Ryan snaps, and manages to rise to his feet on unsteady legs. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Then he’s gone.

Brendon stays up for hours after Ryan leaves, fisting the sheets and staring at the ceiling.

I didn’t know you were a prude.

Every time he hears Ryan’s voice in his head – lifeless, acidic – it hurts a little more, like rubbing a bruise.

Around five a.m. Brendon gets up to go to the bathroom. On his way back to the guest room he walks through the living room. He doesn’t know why he stops, but he does. Ryan’s lying sprawled out on the couch, eyes closed. Brendon can see his eyes moving behind his eyelids. He wonders what Ryan sees when he closes his eyes: if he sees what he writes about in his songs, has nightmares filled with dread and longing and anger.

He thinks, we should know these things about each other. Ryan should know more about Brendon than whatever he found on Brendon’s ward’s website. Brendon should know more about Ryan than his song lyrics. Brendon’s not interested in the Cliff Notes version of Ryan Ross, but Ryan never asks him real questions, never gives him real answers.

Ryan never wanted to know.

Brendon watches Ryan sleep. The sun is beginning to rise, dawn peeling off the darkness like old skin. He reaches out and thumbs across Ryan’s cheekbone. Ryan shifts in his sleep but doesn’t wake up.

“Brendon,” someone is saying, and pinching his shoulder. Brendon’s eyes flutter open. He’s all tangled up in the covers, sheets twisted around his legs, blanket half on the floor.

“Rough night?” Spencer asks. He’s already dressed, wearing tailored black suit pants and a white button-down oxford shirt. His black silk tie is draped around his neck. Spencer looks prepared to grieve. Spencer’s always prepared.

“Um,” Brendon states, and props himself up on his elbows.

“Ryan’s sleeping on the couch,” Spencer observes. Brendon scoots over so Spencer can sit.

“Yeah,” Brendon says. “Ryan’s probably not – he’s probably not real happy with me right now.”

“Ryan’s not real happy with anyone right now,” Spencer says softly. “Ryan’s not real happy.”

“Understandable,” Brendon murmurs. His head hurts. “How much time do we have?”

“Couple hours,” Spencer says. “You’re fine.”

Brendon wishes that was true. He looks up at Spencer, takes in the freckles across the bridge of his nose and the thin worry lines at the corners of his eyes. Spencer has pretty eyes, Brendon realizes – they’re sort of cat-like and sleepy and very blue.

“I think Ryan might hate me,” Brendon says miserably.

Spencer raises an eyebrow.

“He can’t possibly hate you,” Spencer says, patting Brendon’s cheek. His hand is warm. “You’re far too adorable for that.”

Brendon never knows what to do at funerals.

His grandmother died when he was eight and the whole family gathered around the coffin and prayed and said nice things about her. Afterward, there was a reception and Brendon spent the whole time marching around the room in tight circles trying to avoid relatives who might be tempted to pinch his cheeks.

George Ross’ funeral is different. There aren’t that many people there, for one thing. It’s mostly Spencer’s family and some of Ryan’s friends from high school and a few guys in uniform that Brendon learns are Ryan’s dad’s buddies from when he was a Marine.

“Ryan’s dad was a Marine?” Brendon whispers to Spencer, who elbows him in the chest to keep him quiet. He runs it over and over in his head but it still doesn’t make sense. His plans weren’t my plans. Jesus. No fucking kidding.

It’s a short service, no dawdling or platitudes or elaborate poetic tributes. They’re in and out in an hour and there is no wake, no reception, because Ryan didn’t want one, and there wasn’t much time to plan.

Brendon watches Ryan for much of the service, but Ryan never looks up or meets his eyes even though he must feel him staring. He doesn’t cry. He has no expression, in fact, but there’s something false about his composure, something studied. Ryan’s struggling, and Brendon can see it.

He wants to say, You know, you’re allowed to be fucked up about this. But Ryan doesn’t need to hear that. Ryan doesn’t need to hear that from him.

When it’s over Brendon stands awkwardly next to the long black sedan they came in and scratches under the cuff of his dress shirt. He’s wearing a suit he hasn’t worn since he was in high school and used to sing in church recitals; it’s the only one he owns, and he brought it along with him because his mom used to tell him he should always be prepared to dress up. It’s too tight and made of itchy fabric, some kind of polyester blend.

He wants to go back to Spencer’s and hide out in the AC , crawl into bed and block out the universe with the canopy of covers.

“Weird, right?”

Brendon jumps when Jon puts a hand on his shoulder. “What?”

“Funerals,” Jon says. “Funerals are weird.”

“Yeah,” Brendon says. “Totally.”

“Especially since I didn’t know the guy,” Jon says. “And the things I do know aren’t exactly…complimentary.”

Brendon stiffens, thinks: My dad is kind of a bad person. Or – I don’t know. He drinks a lot. He says stuff.

“But still,” Jon concedes, “this sucks.”

Brendon pushes hair off his sweaty forehead. It’s hot, so hot the heat seems to settle against his skin. He sucks in dusty air and thinks, I can’t breathe.

“Yeah,” Brendon says. “It does.”

When they get back to the Smith house Jon and Spencer decide to help Spencer’s mom cook dinner. Spencer looks pretty hilarious in an apron embroidered with daisies, and Jon makes himself busy concocting some “ancient Walker family recipe” involving ketchup, bread crumbs and large quantities of red meat.

“Oh, dear, what did I do to deserve this embarrassment of riches?” Ginger Smith asks with a quirk of an eyebrow.

Brendon, who’s about to keel over from exhaustion, excuses himself, claiming he has a headache. Ginger presses a cool hand to his forehead and tells him to rest.

“You just relax, and if you need anything you let me know,” she says, and gives him a sweet smile. He wants to take Spencer’s mom on tour with them immediately, because really, there could be no possible wrong in that.

When he wanders into the guest room he finds Ryan there lying on one of the beds, eyes closed, listening to his iPod. Brendon freezes, considers attempting an escape, then thinks: Oh, fuck it. He’s tired of tip-toeing around Ryan, of treading so carefully. Ryan is no fragile china doll, no matter how much he may look like one.

He sits down on the edge of Ryan’s bed and plucks Ryan’s iPod off his chest, flipping open the case. Ryan has the world’s girliest iPod case – it’s shell pink and studded with rhinestones. When Brendon made fun of him for it Ryan simply shrugged and said, Yeah, but nobody’s gonna steal it, and fixed Brendon with a pointed look.

Ryan’s eyelids flutter open, and he looks up at Brendon with mild, sleepy confusion. Brendon really wants to kiss him, and. Goddamnit.

“Did you want something?” Ryan asks frostily, yanking his earphones out of his ears.

“Yeah,” Brendon says softly. “I wanted to know what you were listening to.”

He glances down at the small glowing screen. It reads:

“Oh,” Brendon says, and swallows.

“What?” Ryan asks. His eyes narrow. “You gonna criticize?”

Brendon shakes his head. “No. No way. I love that song. It’s one of the first songs I ever taught myself to play on guitar.”

Ryan blinks, then rubs at the corner of his eye. “Oh.”

“I remember,” Brendon says, and he can hear his voice shaking, “when I was like thirteen, and I’d just gotten my first guitar and my parents let me practice but only if I did it quietly, so I’d sit up in my room and listen to Radiohead on my earphones and try to pick out the melody. And when I was sitting there and listening and humming it was like – like I was in my own world. Like I was hearing my own private Radiohead concert, or something.”

He flushes, thinking stupid, God, so stupid, Brendon, but when he glances up Ryan’s looking at him and there’s no anger there anymore, no clench to his jaw or tightness around his eyes.

“What did it sound like?” Ryan asks. “I mean…when you sang it.”

Brendon feels breathless. What do you want from me, Ryan? he thinks. He means now, he means later, he means ever.

Ryan reaches out and cups one hand around his neck, just resting there, touching, fingers light on bone and skin. Brendon doesn’t think. He just takes a deep breath, opens his mouth and begins to sing. His voice sounds uneven and tremulous at first, quiet. Brendon can feel Ryan’s hand move with the vibrations of the sound as he sings. Ryan’s eyes are burning and he’s biting his lip and Brendon thinks oh and also that maybe…maybe he gets it, what Ryan wants.

And Brendon thinks of Ryan, sixteen years old and alone in his room, Ryan with his earbuds and his bony wrists and too-tight pants and floppy hair, Ryan who wanted to be someone else, somewhere else, who wore casual indifference like a second skin, who sometimes picked his dad up off of linoleum floors, who was never the cool kid until he picked up his guitar and began to play.

His plans weren’t my plans. You know?

In that hotel room back in Phoenix, Ryan had said: I wasn’t there, and now he’s gone. As if, maybe, he could’ve kept his father from drinking himself to death, could have stopped it like all the other times it nearly happened. That means – Brendon realizes now – that all the times before Ryan had been there to pick him up and call 911 and stand by the hospital bed and say yes, I’m his son, yes, I’ll take care of this, yes.

Brendon remembers Ryan kneeling over him on that stage in Phoenix, hand firm under Brendon’s neck, voice steady. Get help.

Ryan’s hand tightens at Brendon’s throat, not too tight, not strangling, just there, and Brendon leans down and kisses him, once, a brush, a flicker of a kiss. Ryan’s hand falls to his side and his eyes shutter closed and he breathes slowly, in and out, chest rising and falling in a gentle wave.

Brendon thinks: I am help. I’m here now.

“This isn’t going to work, is it?” Ryan asks, and Brendon’s chest clenches.

“No,” Brendon whispers, and he knows it’s true, knows it in the way he knew he had to move out of his parents’ house and tell them I can’t do this, I can’t be that for you, had to follow that crooked, fucked up, meandering path because even if he didn’t know where it would lead him, it was his.

“Okay,” Ryan whispers back.

He falls asleep like that, Brendon’s palm pressed against his cheek, Brendon singing softly: I’ve given all I can, it’s not enough, I’ve given all I can, but we’re still on the payroll.

“You’ll be okay,” Spencer reassures Brendon, and rubs his shoulders. Spencer’s hands are large and strong, pushing out the tension, loosening the muscles. Brendon lets his head fall forward as Spencer’s thumbs press into his neck, and Spencer laughs.

“Don’t go to sleep on me now. That wouldn’t useful to anyone.”

“Mmmph.” Brendon’s leaning so far forward now his forehead rests on the countertop in front of him. “Don’t stop. Never stop.”

Spencer’s fingers still on Brendon’s neck, and Brendon can hear him sigh. He feels Spencer move away, body shifting so he’s no longer solid and warm against Brendon’s back.

Brendon’s head snaps up. “Hey, where are you going? I was getting a massage here.”

“I have to get ready.” Spencer’s voice is flat.

Brendon spins around in his chair. “Get ready? You’re wearing pants, you’re totally fine.”

Spencer eyes him silently.

“Spencer,” Brendon says.

“Brendon.” Spencer cocks one hip.

“Don’t leave me,” Brendon says. “I might die if you leave me.”

Spencer’s eyes widen.

“At the very least, I will be very sad,” Brendon clarifies.

Spencer purses his lips. “Don’t joke about that,” he says.

Brendon looks down at the floor.

“Don’t joke about dying,” Spencer repeats. His voice sounds strained, pulled taut. “Don’t fucking – don’t do that, Brendon.”

Brendon bites his lip, flicking his eyes up to meet Spencer’s. Spencer shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

“I’m sorry,” Brendon says, and he is, because – because they’re not ready for that just yet. They’re not ready for jokes.

“It’s okay,” Spencer says, looking down at Brendon. His voice sounds husky now, and wow, Spencer is tall. Or rather, Brendon is very short, but still, Spencer is tall. He’s tall-ish.

“Hey, Spencer,” Brendon says.

“Yeah?”

“I’m freaking out a little about tonight,” Brendon says. “Are you freaking out?”

“Not really,” Spencer deadpans.

“Spencer Smith, king of calm,” Brendon mutters, and Spencer makes a face at him.

“Don’t be a jerk,” he says.

“Wow, you’re bossy today,” Brendon says. “Don’t joke about dying, don’t be a jerk – “

“You’re fucking annoying,” Spencer informs him.

“But you love me,” Brendon says, and watches Spencer blush. Watching Spencer blush is fascinating; his whole neck blooms pink, then the flush spreads across his face, his nose, his chin and his cheeks, tinting his pale skin rosy. The longer Brendon stares, the pinker Spencer gets.

“Stop staring at me,” Spencer snaps, but there’s no heat there, no genuine anger. His mouth twitches at the corners.

“Can I do your hair?” Brendon asks. He’s not just saying it. He wants to do Spencer’s hair. Right now it’s all droopy and disheveled, messy, falling into his eyes.

“I don’t know,” Spencer says, wary.

“It’ll calm me down,” Brendon says. “Please?”

Spencer shrugs, but when Brendon stands and pushes him down into the chair his eyes darken. Brendon shoves his hands into Spencer’s hair and fluffs it up so he looks like a fuzzy duckling. A very unamused fuzzy duckling.

“Brendon,” Spencer warns.

“Relax,” Brendon says, and strokes one hand through Spencer’s hair, letting his thumbs linger at the base of Spencer’s neck. Spencer’s eyes flutter closed. “I’m a professional.”