Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/254145.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Panic_At_The_Disco, Bandom
  Relationship:
      Spencer_Smith/Brendon_Urie, Spencer_Smith/Original_Male_Character
  Character:
      Spencer_Smith, Brendon_Urie, Ryan_Ross
  Additional Tags:
      Coming_of_Age, Dark_Comedy, Anonymous_Sex, Friendship, Alternate_Reality
  Series:
      Part 1 of All_The_Roads
  Stats:
      Published: 2011-09-17 Words: 12525
****** Nicest Thing ******
by Sena
Summary
     In which Spencer isn't yet on academic probation, but he's close,
     plus he has to figure out how to keep Brendon from getting evicted
     and he's pretty sure he'll never be able to look anyone in the eye
     ever again if they find out that sometimes he uses Craigslist to meet
     up with guys for sex.
Spencer's palms are sweating as he parks his car in the lot in front of the
Orleans Hotel. He takes a deep breath to steady himself, then pushes his car
door open and gets out. He starts walking and doesn't let himself hesitate,
walks right into the hotel like he knows where he's going, like he belongs
there. He finds the bank of elevators and takes another deep breath as he
presses the button to take him to the seventh floor.
His toes are tapping impatiently in his shoes as he waits for the elevator to
rise, and once it finally reaches his floor and dings, he can hardly wait to
get out and start walking again. He doesn't let himself hesitate, not even
once, not even when he gets to room 709 and raises his fist and knocks.
The guy who opens the door isn't short, exactly, but he's shorter than Spencer
expected. He's maybe only an inch taller than Spencer himself, a little older
and chubbier than in the face pic he'd sent, but still good looking in a normal
way. He's wearing a terrycloth robe, belted loosely. He says, "David?"
Spencer nods and says, "Yeah," because he never gives his real name.
The guy smiles at him, smiles wide and pleased and steps back so Spencer can
enter. There's porn playing on the television, and Spencer's already half hard,
the sight of two men fucking onscreen making him even harder.
The guy, Travis, says, "You want something to drink?" He holds a bottle of hard
cider towards Spencer. Spencer's never had one before, and he doesn't usually
drink, but he takes it anyway and twists the cap off and takes a long drink
before saying, "Thanks."
Then Travis steps forward and Spencer sets the bottle on the dresser. Travis
slides his hands over Spencer's shoulders, down his arms, says, "Fuck, you're
hot." Spencer tips his head up for a kiss.
He knows it's weird. It's not like he doesn't know it's weird. It's not like he
doesn't know it makes him some sort of freak, but it's not like it keeps him up
at night. It's not like he worries about it or anything. He just knows that
none of his friends would ever understand.
It doesn't matter, though, when he's doing it. When he's in it, when it's some
guy's body against his, some guy kissing him and touching him and telling him
he's gorgeous, telling him how much they want him, nothing else matters. He's
always surprised at how easy it is to get naked with somebody else, how once
it's happening he never feels weird at all.
Spencer's mouth is raw from kissing and he's so fucking turned on and then
Travis turns him over and starts lapping at his asshole, and Spencer cries out
and buries his face in the pillow and arches his hips up.
Travis starts fingering him, and Spencer gets his knees underneath him, presses
his ass up into the air and Travis kisses the small of his back and says,
"You're fucking hungry for it, aren't you? So fucking hungry for my cock."
Spencer just says, "Yes," because he doesn't care. He is hungry for it. He
hasn't been fucked a lot, but he loves it. He has a quick moment of lucidity as
Travis pulls away and kneels up behind him. He says, "Condom. You have to wear
a condom."
"Already got it in my hand," says Travis, and Spencer hears the wrapper being
torn open. He reaches back partly to stroke Travis's cock, but also to make
sure he's really putting it on. Nobody's ever tried to trick him before, but
the thought has occurred to him that someone might.
Then Travis presses his way inside and Spencer shivers, it feels so good. He
screws his eyes shut and rocks back to meet every thrust.
After a while, Travis starts to pull on his shoulders, pulls him up so they're
both kneeling, Spencer's legs spread wide, Travis fucking up into him. He leans
back against Travis's chest, head lolling back against his shoulder. Travis
starts stroking Spencer's chest, his stomach, his cock, and he whispers, "How
old are you really?"
Spencer always says he's nineteen online, sometimes even says twenty, but
Travis is fucking him so good and he's so close and he can't think of anything
but the truth. "Sixteen," Spencer gasps. "I'm sixteen."
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Travis says, but not like he's mad that Spencer had lied to
him. He says it like it's the hottest thing he's ever heard. He shoves Spencer
back onto his hands and knees, grips his hips tight and fucks into him hard and
quick. Spencer reaches one hand between his legs and starts jerking himself off
and it doesn't take more than a couple of minutes before he's coming all over
the bedspread.
Travis comes with a harsh grunt and his fingers dig painfully hard into
Spencer's hipbones.
After, when Travis pulls out and collapses onto the bed next to him, Spencer
wants to turn and curl up against him. He wants to lay his head on Travis's
chest as they catch their breath, wants to hear Travis tell him how sexy he is,
how great it had felt. Instead, Travis rolls to his feet and stretches,
scratches his balls and says, "Wanna shower?"
Spencer rolls onto his back, avoiding the wet spot, and closes his eyes. He
says, "Later."
Travis runs a hand up Spencer's calf, then says, "Feel free to join me in a
little while."
Spencer nods and keeps his eyes closed until he hears the water in the bathroom
running. When he opens his eyes, he sees the porn still playing on the TV,
sound muted. It makes his stomach roll a little bit. He gets up and dresses as
quickly as he can.
Travis's wallet is sitting on the top of the dresser next to the six-pack of
hard cider still in the plastic convenience store bag. Spencer thinks about
taking one of the twenties he can see poking out of the top of the wallet, but
only for a moment. He picks up the six-pack, though, since that's not stealing,
not really, and he opens the hotel room door as quietly as he can and doesn't
look back as it closes behind him.
The litany starts in his head even before he's gotten through the lobby.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. He doesn't know why he does it. He's so stupid
sometimes. As he hurries towards his car, he promises himself that it was the
last time. He always promises himself that it's the last time.
He drives for a while, until he feels steady again, until the guilt mostly
stops gnawing at his insides. It's only six o'clock, and he'd told his mom they
had practice that night, so he can't go home. He drives to Brendon's and hopes
he's not at work.
Thankfully, Brendon's car is in the apartment parking lot, and Spencer starts
to take the stairs to the second floor two at a time. It hurts, though, aches
in his thighs and his hipbones and his ass, so he just pauses and breathes for
a minute, then continues up one step at a time.
When Brendon opens the door, Spencer holds up the six-pack. Well, five-pack.
The sixth bottle is presumably still sitting on the dresser in Travis's hotel
room. "I come bearing gifts," he says.
"Did you knock over a liquor store?" Brendon asks, grinning.
"Circle K," Spencer tells him.
They each take a bottle and sit on Brendon's ratty brown plaid couch and drink
and watch TV. Brendon works on his pre-calc homework, too, sometimes ignoring
entire stretches of the show as he concentrates on solving the problems.
When Spencer realized that Brendon was suddenly serious about school, was
actually determined to get good grades in all his classes, he'd been surprised.
He doesn't know why. When he thinks about it, it makes total sense that Brendon
wants to prove that not believing in God doesn't make him a failure.
Spencer's over school. They haven't even been back for a month, but he's over
it. He doesn't care anymore. He figures he can probably coast by through
graduation on a combination of luck and all of Ryan's old notes from when he'd
been a senior.
When Brendon's phone beeps, he picks it up and looks at the screen, then
snorts.
"What?" Spencer asks.
Brendon shows him the text. make sure you pay special attention to "I am alone
in this bed house and head" you really have to put emotion into it.
Spencer doesn't even have to ask who the text is from. "So I'm guessing Ryan
doesn't think you put enough emotion into that line the seventy-five times he
made you sing it yesterday."
Brendon looks around his tiny apartment and says, "I'm guessing he doesn't
think I know what it's like to be alone." He ducks his head suddenly and sets
his pre-calc book on the table. "So," he says, getting up and heading into the
kitchen. "Do you want another beer?"
"Hard cider," Spencer says.
"Whatever."
"No, I'm good. I mostly just brought them over for you."
"Thanks." Brendon opens his fridge but doesn't take anything out of it. He
closes the refrigerator door and says, "What do you want for your birthday?"
"Charlie's Angels complete box set."
Brendon laughs and props himself up on the counter, feet dangling and banging
against the cupboard. "No. Seriously."
"Nothing," says Spencer. He knows Brendon's money situation is tight, knows he
spent most of his Mission savings on down payments for his apartment and his
car.
"It's your birthday," Brendon tells him. "You have to want something. It's a
law."
"I'm a rebel, Dottie."
Brendon snorts. "Fine. I'm getting you Pee-Wee's Big Adventure on VHS."
"Awesome," Spencer tells him. "Wait, don't you actually own Pee-Wee's Big
Adventure on VHS?"
"Of course I do. I have Pee-Wee Herman's entire oeuvre."
"Oeuvre." Spencer says, and he thinks it sounds hilarious. He doesn't know if
he's drunk off one bottle of cider, but he might be.
"Some of us pay attention in English," Brendon says.
"Put in the movie," Spencer tells him.
Brendon grins and digs through his crates for Pee-Wee's Big Adventure.
That night, once Spencer's home and in the shower, the guilt comes back. His
hands shake a little bit as he washes his hair, and he soaps up his body as
quickly as he can. He doesn't want to think about how he got the bruises on his
ribs and hips and shoulders, doesn't want to think about how's he's the kind of
person who meets strangers in hotel rooms for anonymous sex.
Seven times. He tells himself that seven times isn't a lot. Seven times, and
one didn't even count because he hadn't even gotten to come, had just laid
there while some guy had sucked on his toes for, like, two hours. Of course,
he'd gotten sixty bucks out of the deal since the guy had offered to pay
Spencer for his sweaty socks. But it didn't count as sex because nobody even
touched anybody's dick. So, six times. Six times isn't a lot. He's not broken
or anything just because he's had sex with six random guys.
He rests his head against the tile wall and closes his eyes as the hot water
runs over him. He's not going to do it again. It's stupid and it's dangerous
and he'd die of shame if anybody ever found out.
He thinks about the brave face Brendon always puts on when Spencer leaves his
apartment, like he doesn't mind living by himself. He thinks about Ryan living
in a house with a father who's always either actually gone or so drunk he might
as well not be there at all. Spencer's not the only person who's alone, and
he's less alone than most people he knows. At least he still has his family. So
he can be alone and survive, he can live with it the way everybody else does.
He'll be fine.
                                  ***********
Spencer is fine. He goes to school and band practice, he takes care of his
sisters and rolls his eyes behind his parents' backs when they're being weird.
He goes through seven pairs of drumsticks in three days. He mostly pays
attention in his classes and actually does his homework. He's fine.
"Did you boys decide where you want to go for your birthday, yet?" Spencer's
mother asks him one night after dinner as he helps her with the dishes. She
rinses them off in the sink and Spencer loads them into the dishwasher.
"Del Taco," Spencer says.
His mother rolls her eyes. "Actual food, Spencer. You and Ryan can eat as much
Del Taco as you want when I don't have to come along and eat it, too. If you
really want Mexican food, we can go to El Burrito."
"You can totally feed Ryan and I two weeks worth of Del Taco for what one
family dinner at El Burrito will cost us."
"We are going to have a nice family dinner for your birthday, and that's
final."
Spencer grins at her. "Okay, okay, twist my arm. Oh, wait, do they have
vegetarian food there?"
His mother raises her eyebrows. "You're a vegetarian, now? Because I'm pretty
sure you just had two helpings of meatloaf."
"No. Brendon. Brendon's a vegetarian, and he's too nice to complain if all he
can eat is rice and chips and salsa, but still. We should make sure there's
actual food there he can eat. He mostly lives on smoothies, and that much fruit
isn't good for anyone."
His mother's mouth goes tight, but she says, "I'll call them tomorrow to
check."
Spencer sighs. "You don't want him to go?"
"I didn't say that."
"Because he's my friend. And it's my birthday. And I think I should be able to
invite who I want to my freaking birthday party."
"Spencer," she says, shaking her head. She reaches up and smoothes his hair
down, puts her hands on his shoulders. She looks up at him for a long time,
then hugs him close. "Oh, honey, of course Brendon's coming. I wasn't upset
about that. You know how much your father and I love you, right?"
Spencer says, "Of course." He hugs her back out of habit, even though she's
being totally weird.
She squeezes him tight before she lets him go. "Go finish your homework," she
says, and she looks like she might start to cry. Spencer nods and heads
upstairs and wonders if his mother has always been weird and he's just never
noticed before.
The next afternoon before band practice, Spencer's mother gives him bags of
groceries to take with him and an uncooked veggie potpie covered in plastic
wrap with the instructions, "Cook at 375 for 40 minutes, let cool 10 minutes
before eating or you'll burn your mouth! Love, Ginger," taped to the top, and
Spencer understands.
"I have so much food for you in my car, dude," Spencer says as Brendon wraps
his guitar cord around his arm after practice.
"Food or beer?" Brendon asks softly, cutting a glance at Ryan, who's engrossed
in whatever text he's sending.
"Food," says Spencer. "So much food."
"Are we going to get food?" Ryan asks, looking up from his phone.
"No," Spencer says. "I have food. Like bags and bags of it. You're coming over
to Brendon's and helping me carry it up the stairs."
Ryan sighs wearily.
"You're helping or you're not eating," says Spencer.
Ryan sighs again and says, "Fine."
Ryan carries one of the lightest bags up to Brendon's apartment, then gets a
text from Kaitlyn and says, "Um, I need to go."
"Asshole," Spencer calls after him. "Whatever happened to bros before hos?"
"I'd totally desert you for a ho," Brendon tells Spencer earnestly. He looks
suddenly forlorn. "Everybody gets sex but me. Oh, and you, I guess. Everybody
gets sex but us."
"We've got a lot of food," Spencer tells him.
"Food doesn't make me come," Brendon says with a sigh. "Well, except for key
lime pie. That kind of makes me jizz a little bit just thinking about it." As
he follows Spencer down the stairs, he says, "I don't actually believe in God,
but I think he might be punishing me because I totally lied when I took my
chastity pledge."
"You took a chastity pledge?" Spencer asks.
"Yeah. It was this thing we did at church and, you know. Everybody did it.
Anyway, when I was filling it out I was totally thinking that I could probably
actually stay a virgin until I got married as long as I got blowjobs, and
everybody knows that blowjobs don't actually count as sex, so, yeah. If God
exists, he's going to punish me with eternal virginity for lying when I took my
chastity pledge."
"Blowjobs count," Spencer tells him as they load up with the last of the bags
from the car.
"They do not," Brendon tells him. "Man, how much extra food did your mom have
in her pantry, anyway?"
"Tons," Spencer says. "They totally count."
"And I thought Mormons horded food, jeez."
"If there's any contact whatsoever, even eye contact, and one or both of you
comes, it counts as sex," Spencer tells him.
"Wait, no," says Brendon. "Because if that was true, if you snuck into some
girl's room at night and touched her boobs and came in your shorts, that would
count as sex. That doesn't seem right."
"I think it counts as rape," Spencer tells him.
Brendon thinks about that for a minute, then nods. "Fair point. But, okay, if
you jerk off in a room where there's another guy jerking off and you don't look
at each other, then it's not sex, but if you make eye contact, then you just
fucked a dude?"
"Exactly," Spencer says. He puts the veggie potpie in the fridge and starts
unpacking boxes of pasta and jars of tomato sauce.
"That's fucked up. Wait, what if you're fucking some girl and then, I don't
know, a bomb goes off and you lose your hard on and neither one of you comes.
Does that count as sex?"
"Yes, because the 'if anybody comes' rule is only a partial definition of sex.
Anything inserted with sexual intent into any orifice also counts as sex."
Brendon reaches out and sticks his finger in Spencer's ear. "So you're telling
me I'm not a virgin anymore?"
Spencer laughs and bats Brendon's hand away. "With sexual intent. If it gets
you off to stick your fingers in people's ears, then that's sex for you. If
not, then you're just a weirdo who sticks his dirty fingers in people's ears."
"This doesn't sound like you," Brendon tells him. "This sounds like Ryan."
"Oh, they're totally Ryan's rules. I agree with them, but he's the one who
wrote them down."
"He wrote them down?"
"He went through, like, four revisions."
"Of course he did. Oooh, sweet, Mac and Cheese. Are you sure your mom doesn't
want this? The box isn't even dented."
"I just do what I'm told," Spencer says. "And she told me to bring you all this
food."
Brendon looks at the Mac and Cheese box, over to the brand new boxes of cereal,
over to the cans of black beans. Spencer can see that he's realizing that the
food isn't stuff Spencer's mom had wanted to get rid of at all, can see Brendon
realizing that she'd actually gone and bought tons of groceries just for him.
Spencer clears his throat and says, "You took Friday night off work, right?"
"Yeah. I still can't believe Ryan's willing to give up one of his precious
Friday nights alone with Kaitlyn, though."
"Oh, she'll be there and it'll be gross. They'll probably hold hands the whole
time."
"At practice?"
"No. At dinner. We're having our birthday party Friday night. I know I told you
that."
"I thought that was a family thing."
"Yeah," Spencer says.
"I don't want to intrude."
"My mom already called the restaurant to make sure they had vegetarian entrees
for you to choose from, dude. You're kind of locked in."
Brendon's eyes go suddenly shiny and bright and he starts to blink. Then he
says, "Okay, even weirder than Ryan's rules of sex is why I've been home this
long and I'm still wearing pants."
As Brendon starts unbuttoning his jeans, Spencer turns and starts putting the
food in Brendon's cupboards. Brendon's practically a nudist and he wears as
little as he can as often as he can. It's kind of uncomfortable seeing as the
revelation of Brendon's dislike of clothes came about around the same time as
Spencer's realization that he found Brendon really attractive.
So, yeah, okay, he thinks Brendon's hot and Brendon's totally comfortable
stripping down to his briefs and walking around half naked in front of
everybody, fine. Spencer's still not going to look. He's not a total creeper.
"Ahhhh," Brendon says loudly. "Seriously, Spence, I don't know how you can
stand to wear your jeans that tight."
"They're not that tight," Spencer says. He's not Ryan or anything.
"Your little dudes need to swing free," Brendon tells him. "It's way more
natural than bundling everything up."
"My little dudes are fine," Spencer tells him.
Brendon comes back into the kitchen wearing baggy basketball shorts and a thin,
worn t-shirt. "Tonight," he says, "we feast. You'll totally stay for dinner,
right?"
It's nine o'clock at night, but Spencer says, "Yeah. Sure."
They eat spaghetti with spicy tomato and basil sauce, and Brendon works on his
history homework while he eats. Spencer picks up a copy of The Awakening and
thumbs through it.
"Dude," says Brendon through a mouthful of spaghetti, "if you actually read
that will you tell me what it's about? I have to write a paper on it by next
Friday."
"I've read it," Spencer says. "It's actually pretty good. I could give you a
copy of the paper I wrote on it last year."
Brendon drops his fork and says, "Don't tease me. That class has so much
reading, it's killing me."
"I've probably got a copy of Ryan's paper, too. I'll bring them to practice
tomorrow."
"You are my favorite person in the entire world, Spencer Smith."
Spencer tries not to, but he smiles.
                                  **********
"But, no," says Brendon as they wait for their food to arrive. "She dies in the
end. That's total bulls--" He cuts a glance at Spencer's sisters sitting just
down the table from him. "Total bullcrap. Any story where the hero dies in the
end is total bullcrap."
"It's powerful," Ryan tells him. "Edna exercises the ultimate power at the end
by choosing to take her own life."
"That's not powerful," says Brendon. "It's bullcrap. She should have taken off
for New Orleans and started a new life as, like, a lounge singer."
Ryan rolls his eyes. "Lounge singers didn't exist in the 1800s."
"You know what I mean. How is death powerful? Death sucks."
"I thought it sucked, too," says Kaitlyn.
Spencer grins as Ryan frowns.
Spencer's mother clears her throat and looks pointedly at Spencer. "Wouldn't it
be nice if somebody else was so passionate about literature, Mister On Academic
Probation?"
"You're on academic probation in the first month?" Ryan asks, horrified.
"I'm not on academic probation," Spencer says. "I was on academic probation
last year, and I'm not anymore, and I won't be again. I'm doing great in
school."
"That's what you said last year," Spencer's mother says. "And then we had to go
to three separate parent-teacher conferences about how you're not applying
yourself."
"It's my birthday," Spencer says. "You can't guilt me about school on my
birthday."
"Your birthday was yesterday," his mother says.
Spencer can totally see his father and Ryan exchanging smirks. He decides that
he hates both of them.
"Study session," says Brendon. "Tomorrow. I don't work until six. You're coming
over and we're studying all day."
"Oh, God," says Spencer.
"That's a fantastic idea," Spencer's mother says.
"No," Spencer says. "I can't. I have chores."
"You really don't," his father says. His father is totally a traitor.
"Brendon goes to school, works nearly full time, goes to band practice, and
gets good grades," says Spencer's mother. She smiles at Brendon. "You're a good
influence."
Ryan snorts and tries to make it sound like he was just coughing.
Spencer says, "Oh, look, food's here. Awesome. Let's talk about food, now."
After dinner, Spencer's sisters aren't even all the way in the car before they
start arguing over who's hotter, Ryan or Brendon. Spencer rolls his eyes.
"She's a total skank," says one of his sister. "Spencer, don't you think
Kaitlyn's a skank?"
Spencer does think Kaitlyn's a skank, but there's such a thing as loyalty, so
he says, "No. She's actually really cool. Where's Mom?"
"Probably ran into somebody and started chatting," says his father.
His other sister says, "Brendon has the nicest butt ever."
Spencer says, "I'll go find Mom."
He gets out of the car and is halfway across the parking lot when he hears his
mother's voice. "Oh, it was just some odds and ends I had lying around," she
says.
Brendon's voice is clear in the still night air. "No," he says. "It wasn't. And
thank you. I just wanted you to know that I appreciate it. That it means...it
means a lot." He tips his head down, and as Spencer gets closer he sees that
Brendon looks close to tears.
"Oh, sweetheart," says Spencer's mother. She reaches up and smoothes down
Brendon's hair the exact same way she always smoothes down Spencer's. She puts
her hands on his shoulders, then moves in for a hug, and Brendon hugs her back
tightly. "You're a really good kid, Brendon," she says. "I know things suck for
you right now, but they won't always. Your parents will come around."
Brendon says, "I don't think they will."
"They will," Spencer's mother says, and she sounds so sure that even Spencer
believes it. Spencer takes a careful step back, then another, then he turns and
heads back to the car. He says, "She'll be here in a little bit. And for the
love of God, Dad, why did you let them choose the music? Britney Spears?
Really?"
"Toxic is catchy," says his father.
"I don't even know how I'm related to you."
Spencer gets to Brendon's the next day at ten o'clock in the morning, which is
totally early for a Saturday. He expects Brendon to be studying, but instead
Brendon's kitchen table is covered with bills.
"What's going on?" Spencer asks.
Brendon hands him a letter printed on pink stationary. The particular shade of
pink seems angry to Spencer somehow. The letter's an eviction notice.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Spencer asks. "I thought you had money saved up
to go on your Mission."
"Not that much," Brendon says. "I spent a lot of it, and I cracked my tooth
last month; getting it fixed cleaned me out. I always knew I wasn't actually
going to go, so I took money out of the account all the time to buy stupid
shit. There's a hobo on Paradise who'll buy you porn if you give him ten bucks,
so."
"You spent your rent money on porn?"
"I didn't know I'd need it for rent at the time."
"You couldn't just watch porn online like a normal person?"
"Have you met my parents? You know the only computer in my house was in the den
with the screen facing the kitchen so anybody walking by it could see
everything."
Spencer sighs and sits down at the kitchen table. Brendon's laptop is actually
an old one of Ryan's with a wonky screen that always seems on the verge of
falling off.
"I can probably get forty bucks for my guitar at the pawn shop," Brendon says.
"I'm going to head down there now."
"You can't sell your fucking guitar," Spencer snaps.
"I have two. I'll sell my acoustic. Ryan has one, too, if I ever need it for
the band. And, I don't know. I guess my TV? The good one. I don't think anybody
wants that little black and white."
Spencer sighs. He wants to argue, but telling Brendon not to sell his stuff
won't keep him from getting kicked out of his apartment. Spencer helps Brendon
carry his stuff out to the car, his TV and his acoustic guitar and his stereo.
While Brendon heads off to the pawnshop, Spencer goes back upstairs and reads
the eviction notice again. They're giving Brendon until the 15th to come up
with the money, which gives them almost two weeks. Spencer's sure they can come
up with the money in two weeks.
He sits down and goes through Brendon's bills, which are surprisingly
organized. His eyes widen as he looks at the dentist bill. He had no idea
getting a tooth fixed could cost nearly a thousand dollars. He checks and
rechecks Brendon's math, and is disappointed when he finds out that Brendon's
right. He owes his apartment complex five hundred dollars and he's only got
thirty dollars in the bank.
"When do you get paid?" is the first thing Spencer asks when Brendon gets back
nearly an hour later.
"Two weeks. On the seventeenth."
"Fuck," says Spencer. "I think I've got a couple of hundred dollars in my
savings account."
"Spencer, no."
"Yes," says Spencer. "You're not getting evicted. You can't live in your
fucking car, okay?"
"I can sell my car."
"Then how are you going to get to school? To work? Anywhere?"
"People take the bus all the time."
"Yeah, and it takes them hours. You don't have hours to get places, Brendon."
Brendon sighs and drops eighty bucks on the kitchen table. "Fine. Asshole. I'll
pay you back. Things should be better next month. I mean, I'm assuming I won't
need any more emergency medical care or anything. I will pay you back, I
promise."
"I know," Spencer says. He doesn't care if Brendon pays him back or not, but he
wants Brendon to be able to keep his pride.
With Spencer's money and the money Brendon got at the pawnshop, they're short
187 dollars.
“Dude,” says Brendon. “Fuck. I’m so broke.”
Spencer looks at Brendon’s feet and wrinkles his nose. “Your socks are pretty
rank, dude. You could probably sell them.”
Brendon rolls his eyes. “Not even the skankiest thrift store in Vegas is going
to pay me for my old socks.”
“Not a store,” says Spencer. “Just, you know.”
Brendon shakes his head. He clearly doesn’t know.
Spencer wishes he hadn’t said anything, but it’s too late to take it back.
“Like, a guy. A pervy guy. Who wants to smell them when he jerks off or
whatever.”
Brendon laughs and rolls his eyes again. “Oh, yeah, like some guy’d really pay
for used fucking socks.”
“Actually,” Spencer says. “I kind of...know a guy.”
Brendon’s eyebrows shoot up. “Are you offering to pay me for my used socks?
Because we’re friends, and if that’s your thing, well, I don’t know. I guess
you can just have one?”
Spencer punches Brendon in the arm. “Not me, asshole. And not anybody you know.
Just, there’s this guy and he wanted to buy my socks so, um, I sold them to
him.”
“A guy at school?” Brendon asks.
“No. Just. I was at the mall.” Spencer tries not to wince at the stupid lie.
“And this guy offered me sixty bucks for my socks, so.” He shrugs.
“Some strange dude at the mall walked up to you and said he wanted to buy your
socks so he could jerk off while sniffing them,” Brendon says.
“He didn’t tell me what he wanted them for. I’m just assuming that he was going
to jerk off with them.”
“And you sold them to him.”
“Well,” says Spencer. “Yeah? I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea at the
time. All I’m saying is that there are guys who want shit like that, so, you
know, if you’re short on cash you could probably put an ad up online. Say
you’re a broke college student trying to make ends meet or whatever.”
Brendon looks down at his feet. He says, “Huh. Wait, are you fucking with me?”
“I kind of wish I was.”
“Dude,” says Brendon. “Take a picture of my feet. We’re totally putting these
socks up on eBay. Or, um, is that how people sell their used socks?”
“I don’t know,” Spencer admits. “Um. Maybe Craigslist?”
                                  **********
A week later, Brendon's insisted on another study session. Spencer doesn't know
why. He's starting to accept that he's just going to end up on academic
probation. He doesn't know why Brendon cares more about Spencer's grades than
Spencer does.
He's reading about the Franco-Prussian war, and he hates it. He hates everyone
involved in it. The only good thing about the Franco-Prussian war is that
everyone who was alive at the time of it is dead.
Brendon's on his laptop and he makes a startled sound, so Spencer looks up.
“This guy is offering me a hundred bucks for my socks,” Brendon says.
“Awesome,” says Spencer.
“He’s offering me a hundred bucks for my socks if I jerk off on them, first.”
Spencer can’t help it. He laughs.
“Dude. It’s not funny. I can’t sell my jizz. Socks are weird enough, but bodily
fluids? I’d feel like a hooker. I’m totally not getting any takers on my socks.
How the fuck am I supposed to come up with two hundred dollars by the
fifteenth? Can I live with you when I get evicted?”
“You’re not getting evicted,” Spencer tells him.
“Do you have two hundred more dollars stashed away somewhere?"
Spencer doesn’t. He says, “I’ll call that guy. The one from, um, the mall.”
“You’ve had his number this whole time?”
“I didn’t want to use it if I didn't have to," Spencer says. "He's kind of
creepy."
"How creepy?"
"Creepy enough to buy used socks from teenage boys to jerk off with."
"Good point."
Spencer takes out his phone and looks at it for a while. He thinks about asking
his parents to let Brendon stay with them, but he knows it's impossible.
Brendon could sleep on his floor for a while, but they don't have enough room
for anything permanent. He finds the number, takes another breath, and dials.
"Josh speaking," says the guy on the other end of the line.
"Hey, um, Josh?" Spencer says. "This is Paul."
Brendon frowns and mouths, "Paul?" Spencer waves him away.
"From, um, I don't know if you remember, but--"
"I remember," Josh says, and his voice has dropped half an octave. "How are
you?"
"Good," says Spencer. "And you?"
"Thinking about the arch of your foot," Josh tells him. "The way you tensed up
every time I ran my tongue over it."
Spencer grimaces and says, "Yeah. I remember."
"You looking for some fun today?"
"Oh, um. I actually just. I have these socks."
"What do they look like?"
Spencer looks at Brendon's feet and says. "They're white. With, um, gray on the
toes and the heels."
"You been wearing 'em long?" Josh asks.
"Like, a super long time. There's a hole in one of the toes, and the heels are
pretty threadbare."
"Mmm," says Josh. "Can you smell 'em even when they're on your feet?"
Brendon's feet sweat a lot, and Spencer can always kind of smell his socks, so
he says, "Yeah. They're pretty rank."
Brendon flips him the bird, and Spencer waves him away again.
"Mmm," says Josh again.
Spencer covers the mouthpiece and whispers, "I think he's jerking off."
"Hang up, hang up, hang up," Brendon says through clenched teeth.
Spencer turns away from him and says. "I just, um, wanted to know if you wanted
them. My socks. I know you said you were always looking for new pairs. Or old
pairs. New to you. Are you maybe interested in buying them?"
"Always," says Josh. "Sixty bucks if they're sweet like the ones you were
wearing last time. More if they're really stinky."
"They're really stinky," Spencer says.
"Mmm," says Josh, and Spencer's positive that he's jerking off. "You put some
of your sweet man juices all over them, I pay even more."
Spencer bites his lower lip. Man juices? He can't believe he ever had not-sex
with somebody who'd say man juices.
"I can do that," Spencer says. "Um. Two hundred? Is that, is that a fair
price?"
"You meet me by the Starbucks on Charleston in half an hour," Josh tells him.
"I'll pay you cash."
"Okay," says Spencer. "Okay, good, see you then." He hangs up and drops the
phone onto the couch. "Holy shit," he says.
"He agreed to two hundred dollars?"
Spencer nods.
Brendon says, "Holy shit."
"Give me your socks," Spencer says.
Brendon looks down at his feet. "These?"
"They're the ones I described to him over the phone, so they have to be those.
Give them to me. And do you have a Ziploc bag?"
Brendon takes his socks off, then goes to the kitchen and looks through his
cabinets. "I have a plastic bag from the store," he says.
"That'll do."
Brendon puts the socks into the plastic bag. "Okay. Now what?"
"Give them to me."
Brendon hands him the bag. "I don't think you should go alone." When Spencer
heads away from the front door, he says, "Wait. You're not going to take them
to him?"
"I am," says Spencer, and walks into Brendon's bathroom and locks the door
behind himself. He takes a deep breath, then another. He closes his eyes and
thinks about the time he woke up in the middle of the night to Ryan jerking off
not two feet away from him. He thinks about the second guy he ever had sex
with, thinks about how the guy had spent an entire, amazing Sunday teaching
Spencer everything he wanted to know. He thinks about Brendon, about porn he's
seen, about things he's only ever imagined. He unzips his fly and starts to
stroke himself and he's never been the type to buckle under pressure, so it
doesn't take him long before it's done.
When he comes out of the bathroom, Brendon's sitting stock still on the couch.
Without looking over at Spencer he says, "Did you just jizz all over my socks?"
Spencer chews on his lower lip. "Maybe."
Brendon nods and takes a deep breath. "All right. So. Where are we meeting this
guy?"
"We're not doing anything," Spencer says. "I'm meeting him in the parking lot
by the Starbucks on Charleston."
"Dude, that's the plaza where I work," Brendon says mournfully.
"I didn't pick the location, okay? So, I'll just. I'll be back."
"You're not going alone," Brendon says, jumping off the couch and following
Spencer out the front door. "You are most definitely not going alone to meet up
with a guy who just walked up to you in a mall and offered you money for your
dirty socks."
"Brendon."
"I'm serious. He could shove you into a van and, like, cut off your feet and
taxidermy them for his collection. And if you don't have feet, I'm not sure how
you'll work your kick drum or your hi-hat. We could probably rig something up
to your knees, but I'd really rather not have to do that. So I'm coming."
Spencer nods and says. "Fine."
They listen to the radio on the way there, and Brendon rambles on about some
weird girl in his US History class that he's strangely attracted to and a
little afraid of at the same time, but Spencer just nods and hmms in the right
places, not really listening.
He remembers the dark blue truck that had been parked in Josh's driveway, sees
it as he's looking for a spot. He drives past it and parks six spots away.
"That's his truck," says Spencer. "Stay here."
"Okay. But if he wants to do weird sex stuff with your feet, tell him you can't
because your boyfriend's waiting in the car."
"My boyfriend?" Spencer asks.
"Your impulsively violent boyfriend who will rain fire and hell down upon
anybody who hurts you."
Spencer rolls his eyes and gets out of the car and walks towards Josh's truck.
Josh gets out of the truck and smiles and says, "Hey, Paul. Good to see you."
He holds his hand out, and Spencer shakes it without thinking. He feels crisp
paper tucked into his palm, and he looks quickly at two hundred dollar bills
before he tucks them in his pocket. Spencer hands him the plastic bag and is
about to turn when Josh says. "So, um. You interested in a little fun?"
"Oh," Spencer says, looking over his shoulder at where Brendon is totally not
staying in the car. Brendon is already out of the car and watching him. He
looks back at Josh, anxious to conclude their business as fast as he can. "I
can't. I have a boyfriend, now, so. You know."
Josh grins at Spencer, then looks over Spencer's shoulder and grins wider.
Spencer closes his eyes, knows Brendon's coming up behind him without even
having to look. "Lucky man," Josh says to Brendon.
"Yeah," says Brendon, and he comes to stand beside Spencer, puts his hand in
the small of Spencer's back.
Then Josh steps forward, tips his head down so his mouth is close to Spencer’s
ear, and he whispers, “Is he as hot in bed as you are? You should both come
over. You still know where I live, right? I'll make it worth your while.”
Brendon’s eyes are huge. Spencer’s never seen anybody’s eyes so wide.
Spencer says, “We can’t. I’ll text you.” He grabs Brendon by the wrist and
pulls him towards the car.
Neither one of them says anything. Spencer gets in the car and drives. The
radio’s playing some stupid Top 40 bullshit, but neither one of them even
complains. Spencer wonders vaguely if he’s okay to drive. He feels a little bit
like he’s floating outside of his body. But he seems to be driving okay,
driving on autopilot to Brendon’s apartment. He pulls into a parking spot and
he can’t remember anything about the drive, can’t even remember turning into
the parking lot and, well, maybe he shouldn’t have been driving after all.
Brendon’s hands are resting in his lap, and he’s staring down at them.
Spencer takes a deep breath. "I told you to stay in the car."
“Are you a hooker?” Brendon asks him. “Or, not, like. I know hooker’s not the
right word. Escort? Is that what you call it? Like...being an escort?”
“Jesus,” says Spencer.
Brendon shoves his fingers through his hair and when Spencer looks over, he can
see that Brendon's frustrated and upset.
“I’m not a hooker,” Spencer tells him. “Or an escort. Or anything else you want
to call it. Yeah, fine, I sold him my fucking socks, but that’s not. I didn’t
sell him anything else. The other stuff, I do it for free.”
“Sex stuff,” says Brendon.
“You don’t have to call it stuff,” says Spencer. “It’s just. It’s sex. You can
just call it sex.”
“Why?” Brendon asks. “Why did you do it? Why would you have sex with that guy?”
“I don’t have it easy like you,” Spencer snaps. “You can just fucking ask a
girl out if you’re interested. You can just ask any girl you want out, and
maybe she’ll say no, but it’s not like what would happen if I did that. If I
just walked up to a guy and asked him out? That would be, like, suicide. So how
am I supposed to meet somebody? How am I supposed to know who I’m allowed to be
interested in? Who won’t beat my fucking face into the ground?”
Brendon pulls himself tighter and smaller as Spencer speaks. He’s got his knees
pulled to his chest and his arms wrapped around his legs and he rests his cheek
on his knees, looking at Spencer. He says, “I didn’t know.”
Spencer sighs. He says, “I know. I didn’t want you to know. I’m really good at
keeping it a secret.”
“So some guy comes up to you in the mall and you just go home with him?”
“I met him on Craigslist,” Spencer tells him. “It’s not like I’ve slept with a
lot of guys, but all of them. I met them all on Craigslist. I don’t know how
else...there’s not really any other way.”
“Doesn’t your school have a GSA?”
“Does my Catholic school have a GSA? No. No, it doesn’t.”
“Oh,” says Brendon. “I guess I didn’t think about that. But there’s, like.
There are other groups, right? Like, I don’t know. Youth groups?”
Spencer shrugs. “Probably. But where am I going to find the time to go?”
Brendon presses his forehead against his knees. “You can’t just, God, Spencer.
You can’t just meet random perverts online and then go fuck them.”
“Don’t you fucking judge me.”
“I’m not. I’m worried about you.”
“Why? Nothing’s changed from before, and you weren’t worried about me this
morning.”
“This morning I didn’t know that you agree to meet serial killers on a regular
basis.”
“They’re not serial killers.”
“How do you know? How do you know one of them isn’t going to be like some crazy
nut job who wants to wear your skin suit? I couldn’t fucking handle that,
Spence. If some guy hurt you?” He sits up straight and looks over at Spencer.
“I don’t give a shit that you’re gay, and fuck you if you thought I would. What
I do give a shit about is you staying alive. I give a shit about you not
getting your face bashed in by some violent closet case, okay?”
“Okay,” Spencer whispers, because he believes it.
“Can’t you just...not? I mean, I understand sexual frustration. Believe me, I
do. And one day I’ll get a girl to actually touch my dick and it’ll be awesome,
but until then I just watch porn and jerk off a lot. Can’t you just do that?”
Spencer thinks, But I’m so fucking lonely. He doesn’t say it. He says, “Most of
the guys weren’t creeps, but a couple were, so, yeah. Okay. I already decided
I'm not going to do that anymore.”
“Captain McJizzSocks back there was one hell of a creep,” Brendon says.
Spencer shrugs. “He wasn’t so bad. He just, you know. Spent a really long time
sucking on my toes.”
Brendon’s laugh is loud and braying in the confines of Spencer’s car. “What?
Seriously?”
“He paid me for my socks, Brendon. You’re surprised that he got off by sucking
on my toes?”
“Did you? I mean, not that you have to tell me what gets you off. Only. Is
stuff like that good?”
“It just kind of tickled,” Spencer admits. “And by the time he was done, I
wasn’t even hard anymore. I was just like, ‘Well, that was fun, see you.’ And
that’s when he offered me money for my socks. I guess I figured I might as well
get something out of it, since I wasn’t getting an orgasm.”
“He totally said you were hot in bed. I heard him say that.”
“Well, he enjoyed it.”
Brendon runs his fingers through his hair again, making it stick up in clumps.
"This is officially the weirdest day of my life. Before, I'd say that the
weirdest day of my life was when I got busted for smoking pot and listening to
jazz in the football stadium freshman year, but this tops that by, like, a
billion."
"You smoked pot in a football stadium?" Spencer asks.
"That's not the point of this conversation. The point of this conversation is
that our lives are really fucking weird right now. Also, I want you to make me
chili. You cook it better than I do."
"Fine," Spencer says, and he follows Brendon upstairs. He makes thick
vegetarian chili and they eat it with tortilla chips crushed over the top while
watching reruns of M*A*S*H on the 10-inch black and white TV that had come with
the apartment.
After the chili's gone, Brendon says, "You're still going to crash here
tonight, right?"
"You won't mind?" Spencer asks. He still can't quite believe that Brendon wants
anything to do with him, knowing what he knows.
"I don't mind, asshole. I never mind."
"Okay," says Spencer, and he and Brendon tug the cushions off the couch to make
him a mattress.
Spencer's almost asleep when Brendon asks, "But what do you do?"
Spencer sighs, since he knows what Brendon means even without context clues. He
says, “Brendon, you have the internet. You can Google it.”
“But that’s not, like. I never get to talk about this stuff. I never get to
talk about sex with people who have actually had it.”
“It’s not like I know everything. It’s not like I’m an expert. I’ve only slept
with seven guys.”
“That’s a lot,” Brendon says. Then he says, “I’m not calling you slutty. I’m
just saying, that’s more than average. How many girls has Ryan slept with?”
“Two.”
“See? And Brent’s only ever slept with Nina. And I’ve never slept with anybody.
You’re way ahead of the curve.”
“I’ve had sex seven times,” Spencer tells him. “Ryan’s had sex more than seven
times in one day. I don’t think I’m even close to the curve, let alone ahead of
it.”
“In one day?” Brendon asks. “Never mind. But you just, what? Sleep with a guy
one time and never see him again?”
“That’s how it works,” Spencer says.
“That’s really shitty. Don’t you think that’s shitty?”
“Fuck you,” Spencer grumbles, turning onto his side and facing the wall.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t mean shitty as in wrong or anything. It’s
just. Kind of sad. Don’t you think it's sad?"
Spencer squeezes his eyes shut tight and he doesn’t say anything, because he
knows if he tries to speak, he’ll cry.
He's almost asleep again when Brendon starts to laugh. Spencer tries to ignore
it.
"Spencer," Brendon says through giggles. "Spencer, hey, are you awake?"
"No," Spencer says.
"You just sold your jizz on my old socks to some pervert so I could pay my
rent. That's, like, friendship right there. I mean, fuck greeting cards or
remembering birthdays or whatever. If you really want to test a fucking
friendship, see if your buddy will jizz on a pair of your socks so you don't
get evicted."
Spencer starts to laugh.
"And I was kind of in shock a little bit, so I'm not sure, but I think, maybe.
I think he maybe offered to pay us for a threesome?"
"He did," Spencer says. It shouldn't be funny, but he can't stop laughing.
"Is this a slippery slope? Did we just start down a very slippery slope of
sexual commerce? Are we going to be hookers by this time next year?"
"Escorts," says Spencer, and he and Brendon both laugh until they can't
breathe.
                                  **********
Money's not so tight for Brendon after that. It's still tight, but he makes
just enough to cover his bills. If he has to get another tooth fixed, if he
ever sprains his ankle or gets in a car accident or needs antibiotics, he's
going to be fucked, but for the time being he's okay.
Spencer thinks about it a lot, thinks about how Brendon knows his secrets and
doesn't seem to care. Sometimes he thinks about telling Ryan. He wouldn't tell
him about the sex, just about being gay. Sometimes he's convinced he's going to
do it, but he never does. It feels kind of like a betrayal, entrusting
knowledge to Brendon instead of Ryan. He thinks that he should always tell Ryan
everything first. He's always told Ryan everything first, his whole life, but
he still doesn't say anything.
They're coming up on Thanksgiving break, and Spencer's so fucking excited to
spend a week out of school. He's managed to stay off academic probation, thanks
mostly to Ryan's extensive notes and Brendon's insistence that they study
together at least twice a week.
Spencer gives up on his physics homework. He is never, ever going to care about
vectors, and vectors aren't going to get him a record contract. He stretches
out on Brendon's couch and opens his laptop and just starts surfing mindlessly.
It's not like he's actually looking for anything. He thinks maybe he really
meant it before when he promised himself he wouldn't hook up with another
stranger. So he's not actually looking, but he's curious. He misses it. He
misses the feel of another person's body against his.
He reads the missed connections, first, because they're always funny. Then he
pretends he cares about the stuff people are giving away for free. Then he
clicks on the men for men personals. He can feel his heart start to beat a
little faster, can feel the tingle of anticipation. He's not going to do
anything, but that doesn't mean he can't see what's out there.
He's so focused on acting casual that he doesn't notice Brendon coming up
behind him.
"Are you...?" Brendon asks, dipping his head down to look at the computer
screen. "Are you trawling for sex, like, right now?"
"No," says Spencer, but it's obvious that he is. Sure, Brendon's never looked
at the m4m personals on Craigslist before, but it's not like anybody has to
have any prior experience to understand what the headline, want to suck a cock
before 7pm tonight, means. He says, "I'm just...browsing."
Brendon sits down next to him and takes the laptop. He scrolls halfway down the
page, then clicks on, looking to suck and rim guys 18 to 36. His eyes widen as
he reads the ad, as he scrolls down to see the picture beneath it.
"That's a picture of a cock," he says.
"Duh," says Spencer. He's trying really hard not to be embarrassed.
"Guys just...just post pictures of their cocks online?"
"Have you never used a computer before? How do you not know this?"
"No, I mean, yeah, I know that guys post pictures of their cocks. Just. Do you?
I mean, do you send dudes pictures of your junk?"
Spencer shifts uncomfortably on the couch. He says, "Maybe."
"Maybe," Brendon says. "Right." He goes back to the main page, scrolls down and
clicks another link. "Okay," he says. "Okay, I totally get letting a guy go
down on you. Like, anybody would do that, right? But what do you do if he wants
you to return the favor?"
"Me personally, or in general?"
"You," Brendon says. "What do you do if it turns out a guy wants you to blow
him?"
"I blow him," Spencer says.
Brendon goes still.
"I like doing it," Spencer says, and something in his chest eases as he hears
himself say it out loud. "I like a lot of things."
Brendon licks his lips and nods. He says, "So, like, if you were going to pick
an ad to respond to, which one would you pick?"
Spencer says, "Brendon."
"Seriously."
Spencer sighs and scrolls through the list. He clicks on, horny top 38 looking
for young hungry bottom 18-25.
"You like older guys?" Brendon asks.
"Not because they're older," Spencer says. "Just. I don't know. They know what
they're doing, and I don't, not really, so." He shrugs. "If I'm just upfront
about not having much experience and wanting them to teach me, they're usually
cool with that."
"And you, you're a bottom?"
Spencer feels himself flush. He says, "I've never tried it the other way. But
it's good. Being the bottom is really good."
Brendon says, "If you, I mean. If what you want is to go down on a guy, like. I
mean, I don't think I can return the favor, but if you ever wanted to, I
wouldn't say no."
Spencer takes a deep breath. He says, "Brendon." It's a bad idea. He knows it's
a really, really bad idea, but his breath catches in his throat and his cock
starts to swell.
"Never mind. I just thought maybe, you know, if it was with me then I'd know
you weren't going to get murdered by some psycho. And it's not like I'm going
to say no to a blowjob. I'm sorry. It was a stupid idea. I shouldn't have said
anything."
Spencer takes another deep breath. He closes the laptop and sets it on
Brendon's coffee table. He says, "Are you serious?" He doesn't look over to see
Brendon's face.
Brendon's voice is shaky when he says, "Yes?"
Spencer moves to kneel between Brendon's legs, and he doesn't let himself
hesitate. He reaches for Brendon's fly and says, "You have to be sure."
"I'm sure," Brendon says. He doesn't sound sure, but Spencer reaches for the
waistband of his pajama pants anyway.
Brendon's cock is already getting hard, tenting the soft flannel. Spencer grips
the waistband and says, "Lift up." When Brendon lifts his hips, Spencer tugs
his pants down to his thighs, then all the way down and off.
Spencer leans in and slides the flat of his tongue from the base all the way to
the tip. Brendon whispers, "Oh," so, so softly, and his fingers come to rest in
Spencer's hair. Spencer licks at his cock some more, then takes the head of
Brendon's cock in his mouth and starts to suckle gently.
Brendon's cock is curved sharply upward, and Spencer thinks if he wasn't
sucking it, it would be pressed hard against Brendon's belly. It fits in his
mouth almost perfectly, and he likes the way the head flares out, giving him a
lot of underside to run his tongue along.
Then Brendon actually grabs Spencer by the ears and tries to force his head
down. Spencer pulls back and gives Brendon a sharp slap on the inside of his
thigh. Brendon shivers and his hips roll. "Don't hold my head," Spencer tells
him. "You can touch my hair if you want, but don't pull it. If you need to grab
onto something, hold on to the couch, okay?"
Brendon says, "Okay. Oh, my God. Spencer, you have to. You can't stop."
"I'm not stopping," Spencer says and tips his head back down. The same
adrenaline rush as all the other times washes over him. He stops worrying or
caring about anything but the feel of Brendon's cock in his mouth, the wet
slide of spit over his lips.
Brendon whines high in his throat, and his fingers twist through Spencer's
hair. It gets just to the point of painful and then he seems to remember
himself and he eases his grip. The only thing he says is, "Spencer," over and
over again.
Spencer's never been with somebody who knew his real name before. He didn't
know he'd like hearing it so much.
Brendon grunts once, loudly, then shudders and Spencer's mouth is suddenly full
of come. He pulls back and chokes a little bit, and Brendon's fingers twist in
his hair.
"Sorry," Brendon whispers. "Sorry, sorry, I was trying to hold off."
Spencer licks his lips. He can feel Brendon's come running down his chin. He
fumbles with his fly and shoves his hand into his pants, jerking himself off
quickly. Then Brendon tips his face up, runs his thumb over Spencer's lower lip
and gazes down at him. His mouth is open and his eyes are soft and unfocused.
He says, "Spencer."
Spencer closes his eyes and he comes with Brendon's fingers gentle on his face
and the taste of Brendon's cock in his mouth. He rests his head on Brendon's
bare thigh and tries to catch his breath. Brendon keeps touching his hair and
his shoulders, and it's really nice, but eventually Spencer says. "I should
probably get cleaned up."
He washes his face in Brendon's tiny little bathroom sink, uses a washcloth to
wipe down his stomach and dick. He tries not to look in the mirror. He's not
sure how he feels.
When he comes out of the bathroom, Brendon's got his pajama pants back on and
he's fiddling with his TV, trying to get one of the stations to come in clear.
He doesn't look up, but he does say, "You can crash here tonight if you want."
"Nah," Spencer says with a shrug. "I'm, um, I'm just going to take off. I'll
see you at practice tomorrow, though."
"Yeah," says Brendon. He doesn't say anything else as Spencer packs up his
books, but just before he leaves, Brendon says, "This isn't going to get weird,
is it?"
"I think it's already a little weird," Spencer admits, hand on the doorknob.
"It doesn't have to be weird," Brendon says.
Spencer nods and says, "Okay," before he leaves.
When he gets home, Ryan's there, because of course he is. Of course Spencer
can't just spend the night alone and freaking out. "Have you heard anything
about Kaitlyn and that Nate guy?" Ryan asks as Spencer drops his backpack on
the foot of his bed.
"No," says Spencer. It doesn't mean anything, really. He and Kaitlyn might go
to the same school, but it's not like they're friends, it's not like anybody
would have any reason to tell him anything about her. It doesn't mean much, but
Ryan seems satisfied.
"I put the new version of Relax, Relapse up today," Ryan tells him. "We've
already got, like, twenty hits."
"In one day?" Spencer asks.
"Since ten o'clock this morning."
Spencer grins and stretches out on his bed. Sometimes he worries that they're
not going to make it, that he's going to have to go to college or get a job,
but Ryan's doesn't. Ryan's convinced they're going to make it, and Ryan's
determination makes it easy to believe.
Spencer says, "I kind of miss having you around, you know."
"We see each other all the time," Ryan tells him.
"At practice. I just. I don't know. I miss hanging out like we used to."
"Well, I'll have more time next semester."
"Yeah?"
"I don't think I'm going back."
Spencer turns onto his side and looks at Ryan to see if he's joking. "But you
love school. You love college."
Ryan shrugs. "I love music more. And you're right. I never have time to hang
out with you guys anymore."
"Your dad's going to flip."
"I'm not going to tell him," Ryan admits. "I'm just going to see how long it
takes him to notice."
"I wonder if that would work with my parents," Spencer says. "You think they'd
be cool with me just dropping out in the middle of senior year?"
Ryan laughs at the idea. "I've seen your mom mad, Spence, and it's pretty
scary. I don't even want to imagine what she'd do if you told her you were
dropping out." He furrows his brows, then gazes down at the notebook he'd been
writing in.
"You're imagining it right now, aren't you?"
"It's pretty epic," Ryan tells him. "In my head, she's sobbing while
simultaneously screaming at you and breaking plates."
Spencer can't imagine his mother breaking plates, which is why it's good that
Ryan's the lyricist and not him. If he had to write lyrics, they'd probably be
about how much he loves nacho cheese. Or cock. Spencer could probably write a
lot of lyrics about how much he loves cock.
"Are you getting sick?" Ryan asks. "You just turned red."
"I'm not sick," Spencer says. "And I'm not blushing, so fuck you."
"Why are you blushing?"
"None of your business. I just. My brain got carried away for a second."
Ryan raises one eyebrow, interested. Then his stomach growls and he laughs and
rubs at it. "I don't suppose your mom has meatloaf or anything downstairs."
"Don't let her hear you say meatloaf or she'll actually make one just for you.
And, yeah, you know there are always leftovers."
Spencer follows Ryan downstairs and sits at the table while Ryan raids the
fridge.
"You want some?" Ryan asks, holding up a pan of lasagna.
Spencer loves his mom's lasagna, especially after it's had a day to sit in the
fridge, but he shakes his head. His mouth is still a little tingly and he can
still sort of taste Brendon on his tongue. Before, if a guy came in his mouth,
he couldn't wait to get home and brush his teeth. But knowing it's Brendon he
tastes makes it less gross, somehow. He taps a syncopated rhythm against the
tabletop with his thumbs, and Ryan hums a melody to go along with it as he
transfers giant slices of lasagna onto a plate and sticks it into the
microwave.
"I think you and Brendon are answers to my mom's wildest dreams," Spencer tells
him. "Children she can feed as much as she wants who never get fat."
"You're not fat," Ryan says. "Well, I mean. Not in a bad way."
Spencer laughs and rolls his eyes.
"How is he? Brendon."
Spencer shrugs. "He's okay."
"Really?"
"Yeah. He's tired and he's overworking himself, but he's okay, I guess. I don't
know. I've been sleeping over there a lot."
Ryan looks over at Spencer and raises his eyebrows. "Really," he says.
"Not like that."
Ryan looks dubious.
"What?" Spencer asks. "Why would you even think that he and I...?"
"Because you're both gay and you spend every waking hour together," Ryan says
with a shrug.
Spencer's breath catches in his throat. He says, "Brendon's not gay."
"Pull the other one," Ryan says.
"He's not. I, um. I am, though."
Ryan watches his plate of lasagna rotate in the microwave, then pulls it out
immediately after it dings. He never lets it set for two minutes the way he
should, always just digs right into it when it's still too hot. He takes a
bite, then sucks air through his mouth and says, "Ow, ow, hot," and grabs a
soda out of the fridge.
"You'd think the roof of my mouth would be impervious to pain by now," Ryan
says after taking a long drink of soda.
"You already knew," says Spencer.
"About what? Oh, about you? Yeah. You thought I didn't?"
Spencer shrugs.
"If you'd wanted to keep a secret, you probably should have learned to clear
your browser history in eighth grade."
That's true. It had taken a while for Spencer to realize how important clearing
his history was. Now he does it compulsively, every five or ten minutes even
when he's not looking at porn.
"You seriously didn't spend this whole time thinking that I didn't know, did
you?"
Spencer sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. "I didn't know how to tell
you."
"And I thought you just didn't want to talk about it. Fuck, Spence. I would
have, if I thought you'd ever wanted to talk about it, you know I would have
brought it up. I just thought you weren't ready."
"I wasn't," Spencer admits. "I'm maybe still not. I don't know."
Then they hear footsteps on the stairs, his dad coming down for a snack, and
even if Spencer did want to talk about it, he couldn't.
Later that night ,when Spencer's in bed and Ryan's on the air mattress on his
floor, Spencer asks, "Do you think anybody else knows?"
"Probably not," Ryan tells him. "I don't think your parents know, if that's
what you're asking. And I don't think Brent and Brendon know, either."
Spencer takes a deep breath. He says, "Brendon knows."
"Oh. And he's, I mean. You guys really aren't...?"
"No." Spencer thinks about telling Ryan about what he'd done earlier that
night, but he doesn't.
"But you like him."
"It doesn't matter," Spencer says, and he curls up on his side with his face to
the wall and tells himself that it doesn't. It doesn't matter at all.
                                  **********
Spencer's family goes all out for Thanksgiving every year. His entire house is
decorated in turkeys and fall leaves and cornucopias filled with pomegranates
and Indian corn and weirdly shaped gourds.
Spencer's father usually cooks the turkey and the green bean casserole. His mom
makes three different kinds of pie. Spencer tries his hand at a potato and
vegetable gratin recipe he'd found online, and his sisters make ambrosia salad
and mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy. Even Ryan gets into the act, showing up
with a creamed corn casserole and a plate of coconut macaroons.
They eat early in the afternoon, so the cooking's mostly done by the time
Brendon gets there at two. "Should I have brought food?" Brendon asks, looking
around the Smith's packed, busy kitchen.
"Do we look like we need more food?" Spencer's mother asks with a laugh. "You
can play the piano while Ryan and Spencer set the table. It would be nice to
hear live music that's not the drum part from Wipeout pounded out on the dining
room table."
"I rock at that," Spencer says.
"He really does," says his father.
Brendon plays Clair de Lune, a Bach air, a lilting version of Scarborough Fair,
and a bunch other things that Spencer doesn't recognize. When he goes into a
version of Karma Police, Spencer stops arranging the silverware on the table
and just watches Brendon play. His back is always so straight when he plays,
his eyes closed, lashes dark on his pale cheeks, fingers sure and strong.
"Oh, that's lovely," Spencer's mother says once Brendon's finished. "Did you
write that one?"
"No, it's um, it's by Radiohead."
"Play me something you wrote."
Brendon says, "Okay," and goes into an intricate piece full of triplets and
runs before it morphs into a lush waltz. Spencer's never heard it before. It's
only a minute or two long, but it's amazing.
"When did you write that?" Spencer asks.
Brendon ducks his head down and says, "It's just something I was playing around
with."
"It's good," says Ryan, and he doesn't even say it grudgingly. "Do you have
more?"
Brendon nods. "Yeah."
"Play the rest for us the next time we practice," is a command, not a request.
Brendon just nods, though, and says, "Okay. Cool."
Spencer's mother always makes them go around the table saying what they're
thankful for before they can eat. Ryan and Spencer and his sisters are always
little jerks about it, saying things like, "candy," or, "text messaging," or,
"Tom DeLonge."
Brendon's earnest, though. When it's Brendon's turn, he says, "I'm thankful I
have so many good friends, people willing to take me in so I'm not alone on a
holiday."
Spencer reaches a leg out beneath the table and presses his toes to the arch of
Brendon's foot. Brendon looks up and gives him a quick smile, and they spend
the rest of dinner like that, eating with their feet intertwined.
After dinner, they always watch The Wizard of Oz in the family room while
Spencer's father watches football in his den. Spencer usually falls into a food
coma around the time Dorothy meets the Scarecrow, and he manages to make
himself stay awake long enough for, "If I Only Had a Brain," which is his
favorite song, but he falls to sleep soon after.
When he wakes up, he's leaning against Brendon's shoulder and Dorothy's already
in the poppy field. The family room's dark and everyone's curled up with
blankets and pillows, so nobody sees it when Brendon slides his hand down into
Spencer's. Their fingers curl together, and Spencer takes a slow, deep breath.
Spencer very carefully and very deliberately pretends to be fascinated by the
movie, while inside his heart is starting to speed up and he's a little dizzy
from the way Brendon's thumb keeps rubbing slow circles against his skin.
When the movie ends, Spencer's sisters are snuggled together under a blanket on
the other end of the couch and Spencer's mother is wrapped in a blanket in her
recliner, sipping hot chocolate. Ryan's on the floor, curled into a mound of
blankets and pillows, fast asleep, though Spencer doesn't doubt he'll be wide
awake again the moment Spencer's mother asks if anyone wants more pie.
Spencer pulls his hand away from Brendon's, but he tugs on Brendon's sleeve in
a way he hopes conveys, Follow me. He stands and stretches and says, "I need a
break."
"The Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special will be on soon," his mother reminds
him.
"We'll be back in time for it," Spencer assures her. He doesn’t look back to
see if Brendon's following him upstairs, but he's glad when he hears Brendon's
footsteps behind him.
Once they get into his room, Spencer turns and says, "What?"
Brendon steps close and kisses him, fists his hands in Spencer's hoodie and
kisses him hard and desperate. Spencer doesn't think, just kisses him back,
lets Brendon yank at his clothes, doesn't think about anything until they're
both naked and Spencer's sitting back on his bed with Brendon straddling his
lap.
He says, "What are we doing?" but he doesn't really care when Brendon's only
answer is another kiss. Their cocks are rubbing together, and the actual
contact itself isn't amazing, but being able to touch all of Brendon's naked
skin is. Hearing Brendon pant and moan into his mouth is amazing. Knowing that
it's Brendon he's naked against is amazing.
Spencer doesn't know who comes first, but soon they're both sticky and sweaty,
and Brendon's laughing softly and kissing Spencer's neck and curling up against
him as they lie back on the bed. Brendon's body is like a furnace, giving off
so much heat it's uncomfortable, but Spencer doesn't even want to move away. He
runs his fingers over Brendon's hip, down his thigh, back up again.
Spencer says, "Brendon, what are we doing?"
"I don't know," Brendon admits, pressing his mouth to Spencer's collarbone. "I
don't have everything all figured out. I just know that I really like you."
Spencer says, "Okay," because that's about all he has figured out, too.
The Charlie Brown special has already started when they get back downstairs.
Ryan's taken their spot on the couch and he's eating a large slice of pecan pie
covered in whipped cream. Spencer and Brendon take the floor in front of the
couch, and while they don't snuggle too close together, they do pull one of the
blankets around them and Brendon reaches out underneath it to hold Spencer's
hand.
"The music in this is amazing," Brendon says softly. "Vince Guaraldi is a
genius."
Spencer leans his head back against Ryan's bony knee and he squeezes Brendon's
hand, and he says, "Yeah, he totally is."
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