Keeping Things Whole
Title: Keeping Things Whole
Author:
left_of_weir
Band: PATD
Pairing/Characters: Spencer Smith/Ryan Ross
Rating/Category: PG-13
Number of Words: 8662
Original Prompt No. 205: PANIC AU. Spencer has a superpower but doesn't realize it for a long time because Ryan has a superpower that blocks it when they're within a certain distance from one another. Spencer never tells anyone. The secret comes out when Ryan somehow becomes unconscious and/or is kidnapped and taken far away and Spencer is forced to use his powers to help him. Ryan is hurt from his ordeal but also hurt that Spencer kept such a secret from him. Spencer comforts him with a lot of kisses and cuddling.
Summary: Modified Prompt. Spencer is defeated by consumer electronics and sensors, because Ryan has gone away and taken his person-dampening superpowers with him.
Notes/Warnings: This is fiction. I don’t intend to jinx anything. The title comes from this poem by Mark Strand.
Posted forleft_of_weir, since she is currently without computer access.
Keeping Things Whole
By Mark Strand
In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.
Keeping Things Whole
The first time Spencer notices that anything is wrong is when he tries to operate the automatic shower and soap dispenser at the apartment they’re leasing to be near the recording studio. It had been a long recording session and the only thing Spencer wants now is a hot shower before going to sleep. But no matter how much he jiggles and dances in front of the sensors, nothing happens. Damned high-tech apartment, he thinks, and wonders at the accounting that allows him and Brendon an upgrade in accommodations, now that there are only two of them left to expense.
Finally, he climbs out of the shower stall and goes to the master’s bedroom. Brendon is sitting cross-legged on one of the twin beds, wearing only a robe. His back is to Spencer, and the television has the sound turned down low. Brendon is not looking at the screen; instead, he is playing with his iPhone, nervously fingering a pre-set number and letting it ring again and again. He doesn’t even put the phone near his ear anymore, so certain is he that no one will be picking up his call from the other end.
Spencer leans in and presses a damp hand lightly against the back of Brendon’s neck. He grins as Brendon startles and falls over, the phone tumbling out of his hands and onto the mattress. He waits as Brendon untangles his legs and rights himself, and twists around to face him. He doesn't miss how Brendon fumbles and tries to cover the phone with his hand, trying to hide it from Spencer.
Brendon rakes his eyes all over Spencer’s naked body, covered only by a towel, but all he says is, “Changed your mind about the shower?”
“Fucking shower sensors are broken,” Spencer growls as he makes his way to the house phone to call the building supervisor. He doesn’t say anything about catching Brendon with the iPhone.
Brendon runs his fingers over his still-wet hair and ambles over to the bathroom. Spencer hears the water running even before his call could be connected. He puts down the phone and goes to the shower stall, where Brendon is jiggling his hand under the showerhead. Warm water flows steadily and forms a cloud of steam that quickly fills the small room.
“Maybe you weren’t moving enough?” Brendon asks, with eyebrows raised. He pulls his hand out and Spencer puts his hand in. Immediately, the water stops running and refuses to come back on, no matter how much Spencer moves his hand.
Frustrated, Spencer grabs hold of Brendon’s arm and puts it under the showerhead with him. Automatically, the water begins to run again. Spencer grins.
“Oh, no, Spencer,” Brendon says warningly. “I already had a bath tonight.” But Spencer doesn’t pay attention to his protests. It’s short work for Spencer to strip Brendon out of his bathrobe and lift him into the stall as if he’s a doll. Brendon squeals as the water hits him square in the face. Spencer rips off the towel from his waist and drops it on the counter before coming in after Brendon to take advantage of the backsplash.
Brendon scrambles out of the stall, leaving Spencer behind, and the water slows down to a trickle. He turns his saucer eyes to Spencer. “Huh – ” he says.
“Huh – ” says Spencer.
Brendon reaches in the stall and pokes Spencer in the stomach. “That’s what happens when you’re too pale,” he says in a light voice. The water immediately comes back on in full force.
Spencer puts on his best bitchface and grabs Brendon’s hand. This time, Brendon follows Spencer’s lead willingly. Careful to keep himself within sensor-range, Brendon reaches for the shampoo. Spencer bends down and stands still to allow Brendon to work lather through his hair.
“Are we going to have to do this now?” Brendon asks. Spencer has his head down and can’t see the expression on Brendon’s face.
“Unless you want to start playing with a sweaty Spencer,” he replies flippantly. “Hey, I wouldn’t mind, but the crew might complain.”
“It isn’t part of my job to bathe you, you know,” Brendon complains but there’s no heat in his voice, only resignation.
Spencer wills his voice to remain merry. “Fuck that, Brendon, it’s just a shower. Help a brother out.”
In response, Brendon suddenly grabs him in a tight embrace, and Spencer stiffens in surprise before letting himself lean into Brendon’s thin body, still taut with tension that the water cannot wash away. He rests his chin in the hollow where Brendon’s neck meets his collarbones and allows himself to be held, allows Brendon to hold him, Brendon’s hands making gentle circles on his back.
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Spencer looks back at that night as the time when all electronic equipment begins to fail for him. It happens too often to too many machines at too many places to be a coincidence. Soon enough, the refusal of electronic sensors goes beyond bathrooms. Machines that work for other people simply refuse to see Spencer with their electronic eyes. They spread the word to their fellow machines and slowly, systematically, they stop working in his presence. For them, Spencer has turned invisible. Spencer does not exist.
He and Brendon end up showering together night after night. Spencer thinks it might be smarter to just break their lease and move to another apartment, but he doesn’t really want to make the effort. It’s just one more thing to think about while they’re busy recording. Some nights, Spencer prefers not to have Brendon’s hands erase the sense memory of Ryan’s hands against his body. Some nights, it’s easier to fall into Brendon’s arms so that he can feel that he’s not alone.
Soon, Spencer finds that he has to wait for Brendon before he can go through automatic doors. One night, while walking to a 7-11, Spencer catches himself walking two steps behind Brendon, like some fucking submissive partner. He forces himself to speed up and overtake his band mate, only to end up bumping against the electronic doors that remain firmly shut. He thinks he loses it, a little, but Brendon is beside him too quickly for anyone to notice, he thinks. The doors open for them and they go in without looking around, trying not to call anymore attention to themselves. He lets Brendon stock up on ice cream and soda and chips, because his hands are shaking too hard to choose between Sprite or Coke Zero.
That same night, footage of his hilarious entryfail makes it to TMZ. He watches it with Brendon, until the latter turns the television off and proposes that they play Wii instead. However, after his fourth straight defeat at Brendon’s hands at Wii boxing, Spencer drops the controls and goes into the bedroom without another word. Brendon makes to follow him but he pulls a bitchface that stops Brendon cold.
Inside, Spencer lies down and stares at the ceiling. He wonders if his poor performance is because he’s still too wound up from what happened earlier, or if the electronic fail infecting his life has already spread to automatic doors and electronic games. He stares at his hands and wonders why his body is betraying him.
His iPhone buzzes with a text message, startling him.
“Saw u on TMZ,” Spencer reads off his phone. It’s the first time that he has received a message from Ryan since that lunch a lifetime ago, when Ryan gave Spencer the band and in turn, took back everything of himself.
Spencer rubs his hand over his face. He has let his beard and mustache grow, refusing Brendon’s offer to shave him using a straight razor. Electric razors too have failed him. It amazes him how much he is starting to depend on Brendon to do things for him, things that he would have turned to Ryan for, if only Ryan were there.
He fumbles with the touch screen which has become increasingly unresponsive to his touch but he persists. If only in this, he thinks, he will assert himself while he can.
“Jst wanted to see if u wre paying attention,” he texts back.
Typing the short message takes him a long time, too long, and he almost gives up midway but he grits his teeth with the effort and he grins in triumph when he finally completes it. Yet his face burns when he presses the Send button. He feels naked, as naked as when he startles himself awake at night by the fear of falling that lasts until he realizes that it’s only because Ryan isn’t there beside him to catch him.
“I always do,” his phone buzzes in reply.
Spencer stares at the message. It’s typical Ryan, raw, open, and waiting for him to make the next move. There is no way he can say all he needs to say to Ryan this way. He’s not yet ready to have a phone conversation with Ryan, and for a proper text exchange, he would need the help of Brendon. Spencer thinks he’s not yet ready for that either.
He turns his phone over, face down on the mattress and pushes it away from him, slowly, as if conserving his strength. He turns away and thinks, It’s enough for now, it’s enough. He falls asleep whispering that mantra to himself.
||||| ||||| |||||
Spencer makes a mental note to look for somebody to explain what was happening to him and wonders what people would think if he starts looking for a physicist or an engineer or a mechanic or an electrician or somebody. Briefly, he thinks Ryan might understand, or at least figure it out for him, but he knows he won’t be calling up Ryan while in the midst of preparing for the Blink-182 tour. He’s been keeping up with Ryan’s exploits on Twitter and knows that he can’t have a conversation with Ryan about what’s happening to him while Ryan is trolling himself with tweets about fake marriages. Brendon, who’s keeping up with all their Twitter pages, and tweets on his behalf, tells him that Ryan has Tweeted, “I miss my girls” and Spencer thinks, again, It’s enough for now. It’s enough.
Spencer psyches himself up for his and Brendon’s first public appearances alone together. He is unprepared for how increasingly pissed he feels about how all the pictures that come out in the media and on the internet mostly feature Brendon. The photos dictate how the media deals with the new Panic! and Spencer finds that reporters are beginning to direct their questions to Brendon exclusively even though Spencer’s just standing right fucking there beside him. He tries to perfect the art of looking interested but he knows he just comes out looking like a bored 70s housewife, waiting for nothing more than to go home to her gin and tonic and Quaaludes.
Finally, after a long day of feeling ignored, Spencer walks away quietly and leaves Brendon behind. Nobody even notices that he’s gone. He goes back to their hotel and walks too close behind one of the hotel guests in his rush to get through the electronic doors at the same time. He goes up to his room but has to call Housekeeping to tell them that his key card doesn’t unlock the door. They send someone up to let him into his room. The TV turns on automatically when the bellboy slots the key card into the wall, keyed into the MTV channel. It’s featuring a live feed of Brendon giving an interview about their new single. The bellboy doesn’t even look at the TV, for which Spencer is grateful. For this, Spencer tips him generously, and the bellboy leaves him alone without a word.
Spencer goes to the bathroom, intending to take a shower, then remembers that it’s another one of those fancy hotels with fancy electronic showerheads. When did they ever abandon taps? he thinks, and wonders at how much energy it takes to power all these cutting edge bathrooms that aren’t doing him any good.
He gives up and goes to lie down on the bed, fully clothed. He doesn’t even try the remote; instead, he waits passively for Brendon’s interview to end.
His phone buzzes.
“WR!U!!” the text message from Ryan reads.
Spencer thinks the exclamation points might have been a little excessive. He decides to take a page from the Ryan Ross book, and replies with, “I’m right where I’ve always been.” Once again, it’s an effort for him to get his iPhone to do his bidding.
“Don’t be fucking obtuse. I mean it.”
Spencer recoils from Ryan’s words and gives in, as he knew he would. “@hotel letting Bden have all the glory.”
Ryan doesn’t respond for a long time and Spencer wonders if the same thing that is happening to him is happening to Ryan. But Ryan does text back, and it is to say, “Been worried. Couldn’t see you.”
Spencer growls and suddenly, Ryan’s oblique way of reaching out, without doing more, without even trying to call him, for fuck’s sake, makes him feel very angry.
“Haven’t seen you around either,” he texts back. It’s difficult composing the message but if Ryan wasn’t going to dial his number, then neither was he.
“I meant in public, Why all Bden?” Ryan texts.
Finally, Spencer thinks. Something easy he can type out.
“&YNT?” he snaps back. The force with which he pushes on the Send button could shatter an egg.
How easy it is for things to escalate, how fast words transform from bridges to weapons, he thinks. He presses the Off button and tosses the phone away from him. He watches indifferently as it lands on Brendon’s bed, then he turns away. He covers his head with the pillow and forces himself to go to sleep.
He wakes up to see Brendon sitting beside him on his bed. It’s dark outside. The air-conditioning has been turned up and the television has been turned off. Brendon has taken off his shoes and socks for him, and is gently massaging his feet. Brendon senses that he has woken up and lets go of them. Wordlessly, Spencer slides over to make room on the bed. Brendon moves hesitantly, as if afraid to be rebuffed, and molds himself into the curve of Spencer’s back.
“You bailed on me, Spencer Smith,” Brendon nuzzles the back of Spencer’s neck and it feels good. “Nobody could find you.”
Spencer, who had been arching into Brendon’s touch, stills and addresses the wall in front of him. “I can’t wash my hands without your help. I can’t brush my teeth without waiting for you. You have to Tweet and text what I want to say because my phone fights me for every letter I type. Now even cameras think I don’t exist. What is this shit?”
Brendon reaches for Spencer and runs his fingers through the latter’s hair. “Because Ryan Ross is a cyborg and they’re responding to his commands?” he grins.
“Don't. Just don’t,” Spencer snaps. He feels the heat emanating from his body. He wonders if he has succeeded in inflicting second-degree burns on Brendon, who has broken contact with him and edges away on the bed.
“I’m sorry, Spence,” Brendon says in a small voice. “I’ll try harder.”
Spencer tries to think of a suitable reply and fails. When they were four, he thinks, it was easy to argue, to bounce off each other because there was always someone else. Now that they’re only two left, it feels like they have to be alert and careful all the time, for fear that the split will take them down the middle, and the middle is so much smaller now.
Brendon chooses to interpret his stillness as a sign of forgiveness. “I’m here for you, Spencer Smith. I solemnly swear that I personally make sure you smell pretty all the time. All the time, Spence. You can count on me. I’ll be your personal washcloth.”
Spencer allows himself to ease back into Brendon’s warm body. There’s no point fighting, Spencer thinks, since it’s not even anyone’s fault. He feels Brendon’s hand on his chest and sees that Brendon is holding his phone, Ryan’s number displayed as several missed calls.
“I turned that off,” Spencer snaps.
Brendon shakes his head. “It’s been ringing since I got in the room. I didn’t answer it, I swear.”
Even with his back to Brendon, and Brendon’s voice muffled against him, Spencer cannot miss the hurt in Brendon’s voice. Spencer turns around and envelops Brendon in a tight embrace. Brendon drops the phone on the bed and gives himself up to Spencer’s solid hug.
Brendon whispers, “Aren’t you going to call him back?” Despite himself, he cannot disguise the hope in his voice.
“Not until he returns your calls, I won’t,” he responds, his resolve strong. Brendon looks the way he did when Jon started to unfollow everyone except Ryan on Twitter.
Brendon shakes his head. “Don’t. I understand why he doesn’t pick up his phone. I’ll just keep trying until he does. But you and Ryan, that’s different. Don’t make this about him and me.”
But Spencer knows that he is Brendon’s only currency in this game. However, he thinks that a friendship that has lasted this long will remain pretty much resilient. But he has seen how Ryan has snapped his ties to Brendon so completely and so inexorably that there seems to be no traces left that anyone can see. Though it is hard for him to deny himself the comfort of Ryan reaching out to him, Spencer knows that despite how much Brendon wants it, Ryan will not call Brendon back unless Spencer does something about it. He ignores an itch in the back of his mind that tells him Danger! Danger! and wonders how long he can keep this up for all of them.
||||| ||||| |||||
Spencer thrums out a new rhythm and loves how the drums feel solid beneath his beats. He feels each beat reverb from his wrists to his shoulders, a solid wave of motion that doesn’t depend on anything electronic, just himself. It is a very satisfactory feeling and he licks his lips in anticipation, ready for their first public performance of new material. They will be playing for a small audience but a film crew will be around to shoot footage for their new music video that Pete is producing for them.
He sees Brendon waiting for him, sees Brendon’s lips move, but he doesn’t stop drumming. If he drums loud and fast enough, he doesn’t have to hear Brendon’s voice.
Brendon tries to catch his attention by waving a package but Spencer ignores him. He knows every curve and stretch of his drum kit, he can caress out a beat even with his eyes closed. With his drums, he can forget. With his drums, he can be himself again.
“Spencer!” Brendon raises his voice. “Ryan and Jon sent us something. Can I open it, please?”
Spencer glares at Brendon through his lashes, then bobs his head resignedly. Brendon’s triumphant smile overpowers Spencer and he thrums out a drum roll as Brendon unwraps the box and pulls out what seems to be a toiletry kit.
“It’s shimmery.” The awe is evident in Brendon’s voice.
“The hell?” Spencer says, putting down his drumsticks and going over to look more closely at the package. There’s shiny body lotion with glitter. Shampoo with glitter. Even the cologne and shaving cream comes with glitter.
There is a card that says simply, “This might help. Use it for your performance.” It is signed by both Ryan and Jon.
What the fuck was Ryan and Jon thinking, sending them shampoo and lotion? Spencer thinks. He doesn’t do glitter. Ryan does glitter. Brendon does glitter, and he does. Brendon pounces on the lotion.
“Wow! They sent us a present. For luck. We should call to thank them,” Brendon said. He pulls out his phone but once again, his calls to Ryan goes straight to his voicemail. He has more luck with Jon though, who answers his phone with a cautious, “Hi!”
“We got your present. We love it,” Brendon tells him breathlessly, totally sounding like a 12-year-old girl. Spencer had long wondered how long Brendon could hold out and he realizes that Brendon has been holding himself back for too long.
After exchanging a few more greetings with Jon, Brendon hands him the phone.
“Hey, Jon. What’s this all about?”
“It’s for luck. You know we’re rooting for you and Brendon, yes? Me and Ryan.”
“Yeah, thanks. It’s a little unexpected. Is Ryan there with you?” he asks.
“Well…” says Jon flatly and Spencer realizes that he’s being ungracious.
“We love your gift, Jon,” Spencer says, a little too forcefully. “Brendon is spazzing over it right now.”
“Yes. Brendon. Is.”
Spencer curses himself as he listens to Jon withdraw further and further away from him. He takes a deep breath.
“Do over?” he asks.
“Okay.”
“How’s the music?” he asks.
“It’s good,” Jon replies and like magic, the warmth is back in his voice. “We’ve done some demos and we’re really excited with what we have. We’re looking at working with some producers. Ryan’s been talking to some people.”
“Recording – that’s really great, Jon. I mean, I know you’ve been recording, I just haven’t had the chance to tell you . . .”
Spencer trails off, unwilling to share more over the phone, with things still too strange and raw between the two of them. This should be done over pizza and beer, on patio chairs overlooking a wide expanse of lawn, without electronics and electricity coming in between and breaking them apart. Before he could say anything, he hears Jon speaking with the voice of forgiveness.
“It’s cool, Spence. You’ve been busy. We’ve been . . . busy too. I know how it is. I just . . . It would have really nice to hear from you sometimes, that’s all. It’s been hard and Ryan, well, he has a lot of ideas but sometimes it’s hard to follow his lead, you know….” Jon’s voice trails off in confusion.
“Jon. Jon,” Spencer tries but apparently that one syllable word is all that he can manage for now.
“Easy, Spence.”
“God, I miss you, you rotten fuck,” Spencer bursts out.
Jon laughs. “If I’m in Chicago when you tour, we’ll have a beer together, okay?”
“Okay. Okay. God, I have so much to tell you.”
“Just hang in there, okay?” and Jon hangs up, leaving behind the promise of Chicago. That’s enough for now, Spencer thinks, and looking at Brendon’s joyous face, he realizes that this new middle ground that they’ve managed to map out is, for now, more than enough.
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Before the show, Spencer helps Brendon rub himself all over with the lotion Ryan and Jon sent them. He refuses to let Brendon do the same for him but glitter remains on his hands even though he washes them before the performance. On stage, Brendon seems illuminated by inner fire. From where he sits behind the bank of drums, Spencer thinks that Brendon’s body sparkles with little Ryan fingerprints where Ryan used to touch him in both secret and public places.
The next day, Pete calls him up. “I think we have to shoot some more footage of you.”
“What are you talking about?” Spencer asks.
“We couldn’t see you in the video. We could only get your hands. Brendon, on the other hand, was glowing.”
In the end, the edit they release doesn’t contain too much footage of Spencer. Instead, it focuses on Brendon singing, playing the guitar, dancing with the microphone, taking up the whole stage. The video gets 438,785 downloads from iTunes within the first day of release.
Twelve hours later, Ryan and Jon release their own video of their new single. It gets 24,000 views on YouTube that month.
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Spencer breaks his own rule about Googling himself. The last time he had looked himself up was when the fans began speculating that the band was going to break up, basing this on nothing more than the fact that the four of them had stopped twittering each other. Spencer remembers how alarmed he was at how prescient their fans turned out to be.
The internet is filled with questions as to Spencer’s whereabouts, theories that Spencer and Brendon have been fighting, speculations that Brendon Urie is striking out on his own as Spencer hasn’t been seen with him for a while. At least Ryan has Jon, but whom does Spencer have? was one of the more popular questions going around Twitter.
At this, Spencer growls and thinks, “What are they talking about? I’m right here.” He wonders if this was how Ryan felt before the band’s divorce. Spencer feels increasingly isolated. What’s worse is that they’re going to start touring with Blink-182 soon. He doesn’t know whom to ask for help, and he doesn’t really have the time to figure things out.
One day, after rehearsals, while he’s sitting with his eyes closed and his head pressed back against the wall, his arms a good kind of tired with a solid ache to them, the result of an honest day’s work, Zack comes up to him and presses a phone into his hand. Startled, Spencer automatically takes it and says, “Hello?”
“Try harder at answering your phone, asshole,” snaps Ryan in his unmistakable monotone. “Don’t make me have to go through Zack just to talk to you.”
Spencer glares at Zack but already the other has already beaten a judicious retreat. He knows that Ryan had been calling, but it has gotten more and more difficult to navigate his iPhone’s sensitive face and he didn’t want to involve Brendon in his attempts to call Ryan back. Getting a new phone had been on his list of things to do, but it’s been hard to prioritize that when his list also included rehearsing for the tour and managing Brendon, who has been slowly unraveling once the reality hit him that he was going to be alone in front of the stage and the media. Not to mention finding a solution to his own curious continuing electronics fail. He breathes a quick silent prayer of thanks that his instrument doesn’t need to be plugged in to work.
He can’t deal with Ryan right now and decides to go on the offensive to shut him up. “Have you talked to Brendon yet?” he counters.
“We’re not talking about that,” Ryan replies. “We’re talking about you. I haven’t seen a lot of you out there.”
“I’m fine. We’ve been practicing for the tour. We’re writing new songs. I’ve moved into Brendon’s place to make it easier for us to work together. We go surfing.”
“Can you still open doors? Do toilets still flush for you? Do elevator doors try to close while you’re still trying to get in? What do you do when the automated lights turn themselves off even though you’re still in the room?”
Spencer holds himself very still.
“I know, Spencer,” Ryan spits out. “I’ve known for a long time. And if you’d been taking my calls, I could have helped you earlier. Are you going to meet with me or what?”
Spencer thinks of a lot of things he could say in response but the only thing that he manages is, “Brendon too.”
“No, just you. Just you.” When Ryan uses that voice, Spencer knows that it’s useless to argue. Ryan will just turn away, turn around, turn back into himself.
Spencer knows he’s too weak to deny Ryan what he wants. He feels bad that it is the same as what he wants too. He knows that he will meet Ryan alone as he demands, knows this early on that he will be making some kind of excuse to Brendon to keep him from coming along.
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Ryan lets Spencer in his condo and doesn’t look back to see if he follows him inside. He waits for Spencer to settle in the chair opposite him before he makes his announcement.
“You have a superpower.”
Spencer does not hesitate. He leaps out from his chair and pulls up an unresisting Ryan by his shoulders, shaking him hard, thumbs digging hard enough to leave bruises. Ryan doesn’t say anything to stop him. His face is inches away from Ryan’s as he spits out the words between clenched teeth.
“I thought you’re clean. I fucking believed it when you said that you weren’t using.”
He holds Ryan in a terrifying grip, but Ryan doesn’t flinch. Spencer is terrified at how quickly the bile has risen in his throat, at how much he wants to do more to Ryan than just shake him like a doll. It is this realization that forces Spencer to let go of Ryan. He stumbles backwards to his chair and lowers himself into it without glancing around. He keeps his hands carefully in his lap, sees how they form into fists, and sits on his hands instead. He hunches forward and waits.
He sees Ryan collect himself and stand in front of him, careful to keep at least an arm’s length away. Ryan speaks in his monotone, counting out the points with his fingers.
“To answer your questions, (1) No, I wasn’t using; (2) Yes, I knew the coke was there, but it wasn’t mine; (3) Yes, I know you believe in me blindly, Spencer, you dumb fuck; and (4) Thank you for your faith in me.”
With the knowledge gained from fifteen years of friendship, Spencer realizes that Ryan is telling the truth. What he didn’t know how much he needed to hear it from Ryan firsthand.
Spencer covers his face with his hands. “Why were you talking insanely just now, then?”
Ryan shakes his head. “I’m clean. And it’s true. You do have a superpower. I’ve known about it since we were fourteen.”
“Fuck you, Ryan. If that’s true, why has it manifested only now? Wouldn’t I have noticed what I can do before then?”
“I have a superpower too.” Ryan looks at him warily. “Are you going to hit me again?”
Spencer shakes his head. Ryan bends at the waist and touches his forehead to his. Spencer can feel Ryan’s breath caress his face, his ear, as Ryan murmurs, “I can make you visible.”
Spencer snaps his head away. “You’ve done that. You got us signed by Pete.” He remembers the wonder of how this dumb high school kid, armed with nothing more than raw ambition and blind determination, went after Pete relentlessly and transformed himself and his friends into successful bandmembers.
Ryan shakes his head. “I mean, I make you stop going invisible. It’s, like, my superpower.”
Spencer tries to make sense of what Ryan was saying. Either Ryan is in a drug-induced high or he has gone insane.
“Stop giving me that look,” says Ryan. “I’m telling you the truth. And it manifested only now because, well, aside from that time when I went off to college, this is the first time we’ve been apart this long.” Ryan pauses and Spencer feels himself falling into the abyss of silence. “I’m. Sorry.”
Spencer’s voice is strangled. “Then if you knew leaving would make it bad for me, why did you leave?”
“You don’t get it, don’t you? My power is dampening other people. I cancel people out,” Ryan replies.
Spencer watches Ryan tangle his fingers together, as he continues, “I think that’s how I got Pete to sign us up. He didn’t really want us, at first. But I used my power on him so he’ll overcome his resistance to us.”
Spencer is struck by the misery in his voice. How long has Ryan felt like this, why hasn’t he picked up on it? Ryan has been his best friend for a long time.
“Or, you know, maybe it was the music,” Spencer responds.
Ryan ducks his head but not before Spencer sees a quick sudden smile of genuine pleasure flash across Ryan’s face. It takes them both by surprise.
“Yeah, Spence, it was the music,” Ryan nods.
Spencer feels a sudden tenderness towards his friend as Ryan allows himself this, only this, having not allowed himself a lot of things.
Spencer reaches out to take Ryan’s hand and with his thumb, draws gentle circles on Ryan’s palm, their calluses rough against each other. They’ve known each other for a long time, it’s easy to find the rough and soft places in each other.
“Come back, Ryan,” Spencer asks. “I don’t think I can stand it if you don’t.”
“If I stayed, I would cancel Brendon out.”
Spencer stills. “The fuck, Ryan? I knew our band was kind of gay, but we’re also kind of like mutants?”
Ryan shrugs absentmindedly. “I didn’t realize it at first, then we were at the cabin where nothing worked. Brendon and I were fighting over our music all the time. Then I listened to Pretty. Odd. for the first time, really listened, and that’s when I saw how I was hurting his music. There was practically very little of Brendon on that album.”
Ryan looks at him, shyly, apologetically. “There was also practically very little of you too.”
Spencer thinks of the long nights with the fucking tambourines – God, he hated those tambourines and that lame-ass egg shaker – then he looks at Ryan’s stricken face and a dam breaks.
“I’d rather have more of you,” he whispers. Any louder and his voice would break.
Ryan shakes his head. “If I stay, there won’t be anything of left of Brendon and you. I can’t do that to both of you again. Me and Jon, we just want to make music. But you and Brendon, you deserve so much more.”
“Not worth it if you’re not there.”
“My choice. My gift.”
Spencer thinks that he had never before received such a shitty gift.
“Is there anyway to stop it? Reverse it?”
“I can’t help it. I can’t control it,” Ryan’s breath hitches. “I’ve never been able to control it.”
Spencer looks at him and realizes for the first time Ryan’s isolation, his curse. “There has to be something more to this,” he says.
Ryan shrugs. “If we stop being musicians and become superheroes, probably. But you would make an awful superhero.” He pokes Spencer on his middle and Spencer swats Ryan’s hand away.
“People are already starting to think that I’m a freak, the way I can’t get electronic devices to respond to me, or the way I don’t show up on camera. Pretty soon, they will stake me for being a 21st-century vampire or something.”
“Jon and I sent you something to help you with your problem. Why aren’t you using it?”
“You know I think that stuff’s gross. Brendon loves it though, except that Pete has asked him to stop using it. The way it makes him glow is blinding the cameramen or something. What is in there anyway?”
Ryan grins lewdly. “Apparently, Jon has a superpower too. I just have to work at getting it out of him and on to you.”
“Oh!” Spencer thinks about Brendon coming out on stage covered with that stuff. “Oh!”
“Better than the fans thinking that you also split with Brendon. You deserve to be seen, Spencer. People need to see you the way I see you.”
Spencer feels the heat spread across his face and casts around for something to say to distract himself from fixating on what Ryan said, otherwise, he will lose the power of speech forever.
“What about Jon? How are you affecting his superpower?” he asks.
Ryan tilts his head. “I don’t know,” he grins. “I think I’m keeping him from getting cock.”
Spencer makes a face. “Awful way to use your superpowers, Ryan Ross.”
Ryan looks at Spencer in a way that Spencer knows he is lost even before Ryan says a word.
“That’s not all I can do, though,” Ryan says. “I told you, I can make you visible. And I want to see you, Spence. Right now, I want to have more than just the map of your body in my mind.”
Spencer doesn’t say that he too has the same map, that sometimes he takes it out and navigates that course when he can’t navigate the dark corners of his own mind. Instead, he lets Ryan pull him out of the chair. Like before, he follows Ryan’s lead and knows that he will follow him unerringly wherever Ryan might take him.
||||| ||||| |||||
Spencer dreads the fallout that is sure to ensue when Brendon learns that Spencer and Ryan has made up without him but he can’t do anything about it. This is Ryan’s secret to share, after all. What he isn’t prepared for was how it would go. Instead of the big scene he was expecting, Brendon starts withdrawing from him. Brendon still helps him navigate his personal electronics blackout but Spencer finds himself missing Brendon’s inappropriate hugs and touches.
One evening, they jostle each other for space in front of the bathroom sink, Brendon not having said a word to him the entire day.
“Cut it out,” Spencer snaps as Brendon again avoids his eyes, and instead keeps his hand steadily underneath the faucet, looking down at the sink the whole time.
“You cut me out,” Brendon retorts. “And it would be nice if you finish brushing your teeth sometime soon before my hand melts off and drips into the sewer.”
“Then get your hand out of there then,” Spencer snaps.
Brendon pulls out and the water immediately stops running. Brendon hadn’t been kidding. He had the temperature on a little too high, and now his hand looks red and angry from the heat. Spencer puts down his toothbrush and overcomes Brendon’s resistance to cover his hand with his. He takes his towel and carefully pats Brendon’s hand dry.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” said Spencer.
“Yes, I do,” Brendon replied.
“Yes, you do,” Spencer nods. “And I’m sorry it has to come to this. But trust me when I tell you that this has nothing to do with you, that it’s all Ryan.”
“What are you talking about?” Brendon asks, wide-eyed, and just like that, Spencer reveals Ryan’s secret.
“How long have you known about this?”
“Only for a couple of weeks. I swear, Brendon. Only since then.”
“After the lunch.”
“Yes, much later than that.”
Brendon shakes his head. “It would have been nice to hear all this from him.”
Spencer nods, but there’s nothing he can do about that.
Suddenly, Brendon turns to him and asks, “What if it’s me? What if it isn’t Ryan at all?”
Spencer looks at him sharply. “What are you talking about? Don’t tell me everyone around me has superpowers!”
“I wouldn’t put it past Pete,” Brendon snaps. Spencer grins at how ridiculous this sounds, and an identical smile soon finds its way on Brendon’s face.
“Totally plausible,” Brendon insists.
“Totally,” Spencer concurs.
“So this never happened to you before?”
“As Ryan said, aside from the time he went off to college, this is the first time we’ve been apart for this long. It probably takes time to wane off or build up or something. Fuck, Brendon! I don’t know! I’ve known him for my entire life and it turns out that I don’t know him at all.”
“And you wouldn’t have broken up if it weren’t for me,” Brendon says.
“No, Brendon, no,” Spencer replies. “That’s not true.”
“Way true, Spence. Don’t deny it. The two of you would still be making music together if we didn’t quarrel over what we wanted to play.”
Spencer thinks of all those days when he was shaking those ridiculous cylinders that barely made it to the percussion family, and how they made him feel less of a drummer than he wanted to be. He thinks of just how important drumming is to him, and how it’s the only thing that makes him feel solid these days. He knows that it would have taken some time, but sooner or later, Spencer the musician would have broken with Ryan the composer too.
||||| ||||| |||||
Spencer regularly uses the Jon product line of sparkles, and it works. It allows him to maintain a presence. Not much, though, Brendon’s still the one at center stage. But it’s enough so people know that Panic! is Brendon and Spencer and not just Brendon. Also, Brendon has become pretty good at reminding people that Panic is Brendon and Spencer, and used to be BrendonSpencerRyanandJon, watch out for both of their projects. It’s no good for Spencer to give interviews anymore, microphones are starting to fail for him. He’s glad for his chosen instrument, how the drums are the only thing right now that make them feel solid inside his skin.
And sometimes, Spencer catches Brendon sneaking in to rub some of Jon’s special sparkle on himself. Not too much though, and never if he’s not going on stage. The stuff is potent and dangerous, but Spencer doesn’t say a word.
After they play in Chicago, Brendon and Spencer ditch Pete as planned and meet up with Jon at a small coffeehouse. Ryan’s still in LA, it’s just the three of them. Jon informs them that he and Ryan aren’t doing that great. They are still writing music, and Spencer knows from the short bits that Ryan plays to him, in wordless phone messages, that the music is good. But they’ve been playing in more and more obscure locations, and Jon and Ryan are having just too much trouble penetrating the performance spaces. It’s too hard for them working without a label or an established brand, a fractured fanbase, and people thinking they were derivative of the Beatles.
Spencer thinks that despite what Ryan thinks, that he brought nothing to the band but dampened their powers, Spencer and Brendon must have done something for Ryan as well. Maybe their powers cancel each other out. Maybe they could cancel Ryan’s superpower.
Jon gives them a schedule of their future gigs and Brendon and Spencer make plans to go to one of them. Spencer knows that Ryan doesn’t want them to see his new band, that Ryan would die rather than have the press pick up the news that the relatively more successful Panic! had come to watch the other half flail around before a much smaller audience.
He decides that it’s best if they watch Jon and Ryan play at a relatively obscure venue where there isn’t likely to be any press. It’s not hard. None of the places on Jon’s list are well-known. Finally, he and Brendon decide to see Jon and Ryan play in Montana, at a club that gave them their first gig after the breakup. Jon had said that on their first night, they had only six customers scattered around in the back, more interested in making out than in their music. Spencer thinks that it’s perfect.
Spencer makes Brendon dress conservatively. In their plain white t-shirts, denim jackets and jeans, they could be anyone. No hats. No scarves. They come in secret. They didn’t even tell Jon they were coming.
The club was small and empty when they got there, and Spencer and Brendon keep a low profile in one of the rear booths. They both wince as Jon and Ryan start playing to the handful of customers talking over the music, without even paying attention to Ryan’s opening spiel. But a crowd suddenly starts to flow in right just as Jon and Ryan begin with the second song on their set. He glares at Brendon but the other shakes his head and denies that he generated this audience artificially. Spencer doesn’t miss seeing Ryan’s startled, and there was no denying it, pleased expression on his face as more and more people try to get into the small venue and begin rocking to the music. Spencer and Brendon slip out without saying a word, but not after waiting for the big finish. It is beautiful. Ryan and Jon make beautiful music.
Spencer and Brendon keep popping in in secret to Ryan and Jon’s shows. Jon and Ryan’s band becomes a sort of urban legend. It becomes one of the bands that perform constantly, then sometimes, explode on the public’s consciousness then dim away. Spencer knows Ryan appreciates these periods of calm, he gets to write music this way. But the modest success they achieve keep him from feeling empty and unappreciated.
||||| ||||| |||||
It would have continued this way and Spencer would not have been afraid of Ryan finding out except that Panic!’s handlers have them tour in a city on a date which would clash with Ryan and Jon’s schedule. It’s no contest. Panic! would have the bigger venue, has the machinery, has the fans. It kills Spencer to know that their two concerts won’t end in a standoff, it would end in a massacre. There is no question about it in Spencer’s mind, he and Brendon would have to reschedule. Announcements come up setting the new date one day after Jon and Ryan’s concert.
Spencer’s not done congratulating himself for his savvy when Ryan and Jon turn up at his and Brendon’s apartment. It is the first time that all four of them had been talking in one room.
“I don't need a pity fuck,” Ryan said, his monotone not enough to hide his rage.
“Who said anything about a pity fuck?” Spencer asks, although a look at Brendon makes it clear that Brendon would take anything from Ryan, even a pity fuck if that was all Ryan was willing to give him.
“I know your concert dates. Don’t think that I don’t know why you rescheduled,” Ryan punctuates each word by stabbing his finger on Spencer’s chest.
Spencer reaches out and grabs Ryan’s finger, not hard, but firm. He thinks, how fragile. With one movement, I can break this, I can hurt him, the way he hurt me and Brendon. And Jon.
Ryan comes to the same realization at the same time and both become dangerously still. Brendon and Jon are frozen, terrified that any movement would startle or encourage Spencer.
Spencer looks at the face of his oldest friend and realizes how Ryan has always been like this, afraid of what could be done to him. This is why he always acts preemptively, draws first blood before other people hurt him. It hurts how Ryan thinks of him the same way, putting Spencer in the same category, but Spencer knows that he can. It is only a matter of time.
Spencer doesn’t want to be that person to Ryan. He has never been, and he’s not going to start now. So he doesn’t let go. Instead, he covers Ryan’s hand with his other hand gently and feels pathetically grateful that Ryan allows him to do this.
“Stop putting our show first. And stop promoting our shows on your shows. We look pathetic, like we’re your pets or something.” Even in the face of danger, Ryan is feisty.
“That’s what friends do.”
“It just reminds people that we’re not part of Panic! anymore.”
“It reminds people that you’re out there doing your own thing and we support you.”
“You're not the only one with superpowers, Ryan Ross,” Brendon says.
“Can we be two bands? Or two acts? We don’t have to do the same thing at the same time. We can do different things, but together,” Brendon asks breathlessly. Spencer realizes from the tension in Brendon’s voice that he has been thinking about this for a long time.
“Whoever heard . . . I don't think Ryan wants to be a front act,” Spencer begins but Jon cuts him off.
“Not a front act, but ummm … a collaboration? You and Brendon do your music, Ryan and I will do our music. We can be two bands, one show, and some shows you’ll come first and some shows we’ll come first. On CDs we will have like two disc ones. Disc 1 and Disc 1 too. We can like different things and we can like them at the same time,” says Jon.
“That’s great! What do you say, Ryan Ross? Please say yes because I miss saying your name. If we were together again, I would say your name all the time. Ryan Ross. Ryan Ross,” said Brendon.
“And I won’t have to coat myself in glitter all the time,” Spencer growled. “It’s really kind of gross.”
Jon makes a face at him.
Brendon speaks up. “We’ve been supporting you since Montana!”
Ryan swears under his breath. “I should have known.”
Spencer pulls Ryan to him gently but insistently. He feels Ryan try to edge away but he refuses to let go. He will keep on tugging at Ryan until Ryan gives in and does what he wants this time.
“You can let go now, Spence. Seriously,” Ryan says.
Spencer nuzzles Ryan’s shoulder. “Why is it so hard for you to take things? You’re not taking anything; we’re giving something to you. Or at least, we’re trying. You’re such a hard bastard.”
“Rescheduling tours are expensive, Spence,” Ryan snaps. “It would have been easier for Jon and I to change our schedule than yours. We’re the smaller band.”
“But it’s fine. We caught it in time. Don’t worry about it, Ryan. We’re not losing anything by giving this to you. Why can’t you understand that? And meanwhile, we’re all losing a lot more with you being this stubborn piece of shit.” Spencer lets Ryan go and rubs his chin with its three weeks of growth.
Ryan reaches in and traces the line of Spencer’s jaw. “Yeah?”
Spencer nods, careful not to startle Ryan. He doesn’t want him to bolt. “I’m really tired of waiting for Brendon to shower so that I can too, you know?”
For the first time, Ryan grins and Spencer knows that everything will be easier.
“We don’t want that now, do we?”
“And we don’t want to play at really shitty small clubs anymore, really,” Jon speaks up from his corner.
“And we don’t want to go through with life without a Ryan Ross, really and truly,” says Brendon in turn.
“Really and truly?” Ryan echoes.
Spencer nods. “Really and truly,” he repeats and feels himself turning solid underneath his skin.
-o0o-
Author:
left_of_weirBand: PATD
Pairing/Characters: Spencer Smith/Ryan Ross
Rating/Category: PG-13
Number of Words: 8662
Original Prompt No. 205: PANIC AU. Spencer has a superpower but doesn't realize it for a long time because Ryan has a superpower that blocks it when they're within a certain distance from one another. Spencer never tells anyone. The secret comes out when Ryan somehow becomes unconscious and/or is kidnapped and taken far away and Spencer is forced to use his powers to help him. Ryan is hurt from his ordeal but also hurt that Spencer kept such a secret from him. Spencer comforts him with a lot of kisses and cuddling.
Summary: Modified Prompt. Spencer is defeated by consumer electronics and sensors, because Ryan has gone away and taken his person-dampening superpowers with him.
Notes/Warnings: This is fiction. I don’t intend to jinx anything. The title comes from this poem by Mark Strand.
Posted for
left_of_weir, since she is currently without computer access.Keeping Things Whole
By Mark Strand
In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.
Keeping Things Whole
The first time Spencer notices that anything is wrong is when he tries to operate the automatic shower and soap dispenser at the apartment they’re leasing to be near the recording studio. It had been a long recording session and the only thing Spencer wants now is a hot shower before going to sleep. But no matter how much he jiggles and dances in front of the sensors, nothing happens. Damned high-tech apartment, he thinks, and wonders at the accounting that allows him and Brendon an upgrade in accommodations, now that there are only two of them left to expense.
Finally, he climbs out of the shower stall and goes to the master’s bedroom. Brendon is sitting cross-legged on one of the twin beds, wearing only a robe. His back is to Spencer, and the television has the sound turned down low. Brendon is not looking at the screen; instead, he is playing with his iPhone, nervously fingering a pre-set number and letting it ring again and again. He doesn’t even put the phone near his ear anymore, so certain is he that no one will be picking up his call from the other end.
Spencer leans in and presses a damp hand lightly against the back of Brendon’s neck. He grins as Brendon startles and falls over, the phone tumbling out of his hands and onto the mattress. He waits as Brendon untangles his legs and rights himself, and twists around to face him. He doesn't miss how Brendon fumbles and tries to cover the phone with his hand, trying to hide it from Spencer.
Brendon rakes his eyes all over Spencer’s naked body, covered only by a towel, but all he says is, “Changed your mind about the shower?”
“Fucking shower sensors are broken,” Spencer growls as he makes his way to the house phone to call the building supervisor. He doesn’t say anything about catching Brendon with the iPhone.
Brendon runs his fingers over his still-wet hair and ambles over to the bathroom. Spencer hears the water running even before his call could be connected. He puts down the phone and goes to the shower stall, where Brendon is jiggling his hand under the showerhead. Warm water flows steadily and forms a cloud of steam that quickly fills the small room.
“Maybe you weren’t moving enough?” Brendon asks, with eyebrows raised. He pulls his hand out and Spencer puts his hand in. Immediately, the water stops running and refuses to come back on, no matter how much Spencer moves his hand.
Frustrated, Spencer grabs hold of Brendon’s arm and puts it under the showerhead with him. Automatically, the water begins to run again. Spencer grins.
“Oh, no, Spencer,” Brendon says warningly. “I already had a bath tonight.” But Spencer doesn’t pay attention to his protests. It’s short work for Spencer to strip Brendon out of his bathrobe and lift him into the stall as if he’s a doll. Brendon squeals as the water hits him square in the face. Spencer rips off the towel from his waist and drops it on the counter before coming in after Brendon to take advantage of the backsplash.
Brendon scrambles out of the stall, leaving Spencer behind, and the water slows down to a trickle. He turns his saucer eyes to Spencer. “Huh – ” he says.
“Huh – ” says Spencer.
Brendon reaches in the stall and pokes Spencer in the stomach. “That’s what happens when you’re too pale,” he says in a light voice. The water immediately comes back on in full force.
Spencer puts on his best bitchface and grabs Brendon’s hand. This time, Brendon follows Spencer’s lead willingly. Careful to keep himself within sensor-range, Brendon reaches for the shampoo. Spencer bends down and stands still to allow Brendon to work lather through his hair.
“Are we going to have to do this now?” Brendon asks. Spencer has his head down and can’t see the expression on Brendon’s face.
“Unless you want to start playing with a sweaty Spencer,” he replies flippantly. “Hey, I wouldn’t mind, but the crew might complain.”
“It isn’t part of my job to bathe you, you know,” Brendon complains but there’s no heat in his voice, only resignation.
Spencer wills his voice to remain merry. “Fuck that, Brendon, it’s just a shower. Help a brother out.”
In response, Brendon suddenly grabs him in a tight embrace, and Spencer stiffens in surprise before letting himself lean into Brendon’s thin body, still taut with tension that the water cannot wash away. He rests his chin in the hollow where Brendon’s neck meets his collarbones and allows himself to be held, allows Brendon to hold him, Brendon’s hands making gentle circles on his back.
||||| ||||| |||||
Spencer looks back at that night as the time when all electronic equipment begins to fail for him. It happens too often to too many machines at too many places to be a coincidence. Soon enough, the refusal of electronic sensors goes beyond bathrooms. Machines that work for other people simply refuse to see Spencer with their electronic eyes. They spread the word to their fellow machines and slowly, systematically, they stop working in his presence. For them, Spencer has turned invisible. Spencer does not exist.
He and Brendon end up showering together night after night. Spencer thinks it might be smarter to just break their lease and move to another apartment, but he doesn’t really want to make the effort. It’s just one more thing to think about while they’re busy recording. Some nights, Spencer prefers not to have Brendon’s hands erase the sense memory of Ryan’s hands against his body. Some nights, it’s easier to fall into Brendon’s arms so that he can feel that he’s not alone.
Soon, Spencer finds that he has to wait for Brendon before he can go through automatic doors. One night, while walking to a 7-11, Spencer catches himself walking two steps behind Brendon, like some fucking submissive partner. He forces himself to speed up and overtake his band mate, only to end up bumping against the electronic doors that remain firmly shut. He thinks he loses it, a little, but Brendon is beside him too quickly for anyone to notice, he thinks. The doors open for them and they go in without looking around, trying not to call anymore attention to themselves. He lets Brendon stock up on ice cream and soda and chips, because his hands are shaking too hard to choose between Sprite or Coke Zero.
That same night, footage of his hilarious entryfail makes it to TMZ. He watches it with Brendon, until the latter turns the television off and proposes that they play Wii instead. However, after his fourth straight defeat at Brendon’s hands at Wii boxing, Spencer drops the controls and goes into the bedroom without another word. Brendon makes to follow him but he pulls a bitchface that stops Brendon cold.
Inside, Spencer lies down and stares at the ceiling. He wonders if his poor performance is because he’s still too wound up from what happened earlier, or if the electronic fail infecting his life has already spread to automatic doors and electronic games. He stares at his hands and wonders why his body is betraying him.
His iPhone buzzes with a text message, startling him.
“Saw u on TMZ,” Spencer reads off his phone. It’s the first time that he has received a message from Ryan since that lunch a lifetime ago, when Ryan gave Spencer the band and in turn, took back everything of himself.
Spencer rubs his hand over his face. He has let his beard and mustache grow, refusing Brendon’s offer to shave him using a straight razor. Electric razors too have failed him. It amazes him how much he is starting to depend on Brendon to do things for him, things that he would have turned to Ryan for, if only Ryan were there.
He fumbles with the touch screen which has become increasingly unresponsive to his touch but he persists. If only in this, he thinks, he will assert himself while he can.
“Jst wanted to see if u wre paying attention,” he texts back.
Typing the short message takes him a long time, too long, and he almost gives up midway but he grits his teeth with the effort and he grins in triumph when he finally completes it. Yet his face burns when he presses the Send button. He feels naked, as naked as when he startles himself awake at night by the fear of falling that lasts until he realizes that it’s only because Ryan isn’t there beside him to catch him.
“I always do,” his phone buzzes in reply.
Spencer stares at the message. It’s typical Ryan, raw, open, and waiting for him to make the next move. There is no way he can say all he needs to say to Ryan this way. He’s not yet ready to have a phone conversation with Ryan, and for a proper text exchange, he would need the help of Brendon. Spencer thinks he’s not yet ready for that either.
He turns his phone over, face down on the mattress and pushes it away from him, slowly, as if conserving his strength. He turns away and thinks, It’s enough for now, it’s enough. He falls asleep whispering that mantra to himself.
||||| ||||| |||||
Spencer makes a mental note to look for somebody to explain what was happening to him and wonders what people would think if he starts looking for a physicist or an engineer or a mechanic or an electrician or somebody. Briefly, he thinks Ryan might understand, or at least figure it out for him, but he knows he won’t be calling up Ryan while in the midst of preparing for the Blink-182 tour. He’s been keeping up with Ryan’s exploits on Twitter and knows that he can’t have a conversation with Ryan about what’s happening to him while Ryan is trolling himself with tweets about fake marriages. Brendon, who’s keeping up with all their Twitter pages, and tweets on his behalf, tells him that Ryan has Tweeted, “I miss my girls” and Spencer thinks, again, It’s enough for now. It’s enough.
Spencer psyches himself up for his and Brendon’s first public appearances alone together. He is unprepared for how increasingly pissed he feels about how all the pictures that come out in the media and on the internet mostly feature Brendon. The photos dictate how the media deals with the new Panic! and Spencer finds that reporters are beginning to direct their questions to Brendon exclusively even though Spencer’s just standing right fucking there beside him. He tries to perfect the art of looking interested but he knows he just comes out looking like a bored 70s housewife, waiting for nothing more than to go home to her gin and tonic and Quaaludes.
Finally, after a long day of feeling ignored, Spencer walks away quietly and leaves Brendon behind. Nobody even notices that he’s gone. He goes back to their hotel and walks too close behind one of the hotel guests in his rush to get through the electronic doors at the same time. He goes up to his room but has to call Housekeeping to tell them that his key card doesn’t unlock the door. They send someone up to let him into his room. The TV turns on automatically when the bellboy slots the key card into the wall, keyed into the MTV channel. It’s featuring a live feed of Brendon giving an interview about their new single. The bellboy doesn’t even look at the TV, for which Spencer is grateful. For this, Spencer tips him generously, and the bellboy leaves him alone without a word.
Spencer goes to the bathroom, intending to take a shower, then remembers that it’s another one of those fancy hotels with fancy electronic showerheads. When did they ever abandon taps? he thinks, and wonders at how much energy it takes to power all these cutting edge bathrooms that aren’t doing him any good.
He gives up and goes to lie down on the bed, fully clothed. He doesn’t even try the remote; instead, he waits passively for Brendon’s interview to end.
His phone buzzes.
“WR!U!!” the text message from Ryan reads.
Spencer thinks the exclamation points might have been a little excessive. He decides to take a page from the Ryan Ross book, and replies with, “I’m right where I’ve always been.” Once again, it’s an effort for him to get his iPhone to do his bidding.
“Don’t be fucking obtuse. I mean it.”
Spencer recoils from Ryan’s words and gives in, as he knew he would. “@hotel letting Bden have all the glory.”
Ryan doesn’t respond for a long time and Spencer wonders if the same thing that is happening to him is happening to Ryan. But Ryan does text back, and it is to say, “Been worried. Couldn’t see you.”
Spencer growls and suddenly, Ryan’s oblique way of reaching out, without doing more, without even trying to call him, for fuck’s sake, makes him feel very angry.
“Haven’t seen you around either,” he texts back. It’s difficult composing the message but if Ryan wasn’t going to dial his number, then neither was he.
“I meant in public, Why all Bden?” Ryan texts.
Finally, Spencer thinks. Something easy he can type out.
“&YNT?” he snaps back. The force with which he pushes on the Send button could shatter an egg.
How easy it is for things to escalate, how fast words transform from bridges to weapons, he thinks. He presses the Off button and tosses the phone away from him. He watches indifferently as it lands on Brendon’s bed, then he turns away. He covers his head with the pillow and forces himself to go to sleep.
He wakes up to see Brendon sitting beside him on his bed. It’s dark outside. The air-conditioning has been turned up and the television has been turned off. Brendon has taken off his shoes and socks for him, and is gently massaging his feet. Brendon senses that he has woken up and lets go of them. Wordlessly, Spencer slides over to make room on the bed. Brendon moves hesitantly, as if afraid to be rebuffed, and molds himself into the curve of Spencer’s back.
“You bailed on me, Spencer Smith,” Brendon nuzzles the back of Spencer’s neck and it feels good. “Nobody could find you.”
Spencer, who had been arching into Brendon’s touch, stills and addresses the wall in front of him. “I can’t wash my hands without your help. I can’t brush my teeth without waiting for you. You have to Tweet and text what I want to say because my phone fights me for every letter I type. Now even cameras think I don’t exist. What is this shit?”
Brendon reaches for Spencer and runs his fingers through the latter’s hair. “Because Ryan Ross is a cyborg and they’re responding to his commands?” he grins.
“Don't. Just don’t,” Spencer snaps. He feels the heat emanating from his body. He wonders if he has succeeded in inflicting second-degree burns on Brendon, who has broken contact with him and edges away on the bed.
“I’m sorry, Spence,” Brendon says in a small voice. “I’ll try harder.”
Spencer tries to think of a suitable reply and fails. When they were four, he thinks, it was easy to argue, to bounce off each other because there was always someone else. Now that they’re only two left, it feels like they have to be alert and careful all the time, for fear that the split will take them down the middle, and the middle is so much smaller now.
Brendon chooses to interpret his stillness as a sign of forgiveness. “I’m here for you, Spencer Smith. I solemnly swear that I personally make sure you smell pretty all the time. All the time, Spence. You can count on me. I’ll be your personal washcloth.”
Spencer allows himself to ease back into Brendon’s warm body. There’s no point fighting, Spencer thinks, since it’s not even anyone’s fault. He feels Brendon’s hand on his chest and sees that Brendon is holding his phone, Ryan’s number displayed as several missed calls.
“I turned that off,” Spencer snaps.
Brendon shakes his head. “It’s been ringing since I got in the room. I didn’t answer it, I swear.”
Even with his back to Brendon, and Brendon’s voice muffled against him, Spencer cannot miss the hurt in Brendon’s voice. Spencer turns around and envelops Brendon in a tight embrace. Brendon drops the phone on the bed and gives himself up to Spencer’s solid hug.
Brendon whispers, “Aren’t you going to call him back?” Despite himself, he cannot disguise the hope in his voice.
“Not until he returns your calls, I won’t,” he responds, his resolve strong. Brendon looks the way he did when Jon started to unfollow everyone except Ryan on Twitter.
Brendon shakes his head. “Don’t. I understand why he doesn’t pick up his phone. I’ll just keep trying until he does. But you and Ryan, that’s different. Don’t make this about him and me.”
But Spencer knows that he is Brendon’s only currency in this game. However, he thinks that a friendship that has lasted this long will remain pretty much resilient. But he has seen how Ryan has snapped his ties to Brendon so completely and so inexorably that there seems to be no traces left that anyone can see. Though it is hard for him to deny himself the comfort of Ryan reaching out to him, Spencer knows that despite how much Brendon wants it, Ryan will not call Brendon back unless Spencer does something about it. He ignores an itch in the back of his mind that tells him Danger! Danger! and wonders how long he can keep this up for all of them.
||||| ||||| |||||
Spencer thrums out a new rhythm and loves how the drums feel solid beneath his beats. He feels each beat reverb from his wrists to his shoulders, a solid wave of motion that doesn’t depend on anything electronic, just himself. It is a very satisfactory feeling and he licks his lips in anticipation, ready for their first public performance of new material. They will be playing for a small audience but a film crew will be around to shoot footage for their new music video that Pete is producing for them.
He sees Brendon waiting for him, sees Brendon’s lips move, but he doesn’t stop drumming. If he drums loud and fast enough, he doesn’t have to hear Brendon’s voice.
Brendon tries to catch his attention by waving a package but Spencer ignores him. He knows every curve and stretch of his drum kit, he can caress out a beat even with his eyes closed. With his drums, he can forget. With his drums, he can be himself again.
“Spencer!” Brendon raises his voice. “Ryan and Jon sent us something. Can I open it, please?”
Spencer glares at Brendon through his lashes, then bobs his head resignedly. Brendon’s triumphant smile overpowers Spencer and he thrums out a drum roll as Brendon unwraps the box and pulls out what seems to be a toiletry kit.
“It’s shimmery.” The awe is evident in Brendon’s voice.
“The hell?” Spencer says, putting down his drumsticks and going over to look more closely at the package. There’s shiny body lotion with glitter. Shampoo with glitter. Even the cologne and shaving cream comes with glitter.
There is a card that says simply, “This might help. Use it for your performance.” It is signed by both Ryan and Jon.
What the fuck was Ryan and Jon thinking, sending them shampoo and lotion? Spencer thinks. He doesn’t do glitter. Ryan does glitter. Brendon does glitter, and he does. Brendon pounces on the lotion.
“Wow! They sent us a present. For luck. We should call to thank them,” Brendon said. He pulls out his phone but once again, his calls to Ryan goes straight to his voicemail. He has more luck with Jon though, who answers his phone with a cautious, “Hi!”
“We got your present. We love it,” Brendon tells him breathlessly, totally sounding like a 12-year-old girl. Spencer had long wondered how long Brendon could hold out and he realizes that Brendon has been holding himself back for too long.
After exchanging a few more greetings with Jon, Brendon hands him the phone.
“Hey, Jon. What’s this all about?”
“It’s for luck. You know we’re rooting for you and Brendon, yes? Me and Ryan.”
“Yeah, thanks. It’s a little unexpected. Is Ryan there with you?” he asks.
“Well…” says Jon flatly and Spencer realizes that he’s being ungracious.
“We love your gift, Jon,” Spencer says, a little too forcefully. “Brendon is spazzing over it right now.”
“Yes. Brendon. Is.”
Spencer curses himself as he listens to Jon withdraw further and further away from him. He takes a deep breath.
“Do over?” he asks.
“Okay.”
“How’s the music?” he asks.
“It’s good,” Jon replies and like magic, the warmth is back in his voice. “We’ve done some demos and we’re really excited with what we have. We’re looking at working with some producers. Ryan’s been talking to some people.”
“Recording – that’s really great, Jon. I mean, I know you’ve been recording, I just haven’t had the chance to tell you . . .”
Spencer trails off, unwilling to share more over the phone, with things still too strange and raw between the two of them. This should be done over pizza and beer, on patio chairs overlooking a wide expanse of lawn, without electronics and electricity coming in between and breaking them apart. Before he could say anything, he hears Jon speaking with the voice of forgiveness.
“It’s cool, Spence. You’ve been busy. We’ve been . . . busy too. I know how it is. I just . . . It would have really nice to hear from you sometimes, that’s all. It’s been hard and Ryan, well, he has a lot of ideas but sometimes it’s hard to follow his lead, you know….” Jon’s voice trails off in confusion.
“Jon. Jon,” Spencer tries but apparently that one syllable word is all that he can manage for now.
“Easy, Spence.”
“God, I miss you, you rotten fuck,” Spencer bursts out.
Jon laughs. “If I’m in Chicago when you tour, we’ll have a beer together, okay?”
“Okay. Okay. God, I have so much to tell you.”
“Just hang in there, okay?” and Jon hangs up, leaving behind the promise of Chicago. That’s enough for now, Spencer thinks, and looking at Brendon’s joyous face, he realizes that this new middle ground that they’ve managed to map out is, for now, more than enough.
||||| ||||| |||||
Before the show, Spencer helps Brendon rub himself all over with the lotion Ryan and Jon sent them. He refuses to let Brendon do the same for him but glitter remains on his hands even though he washes them before the performance. On stage, Brendon seems illuminated by inner fire. From where he sits behind the bank of drums, Spencer thinks that Brendon’s body sparkles with little Ryan fingerprints where Ryan used to touch him in both secret and public places.
The next day, Pete calls him up. “I think we have to shoot some more footage of you.”
“What are you talking about?” Spencer asks.
“We couldn’t see you in the video. We could only get your hands. Brendon, on the other hand, was glowing.”
In the end, the edit they release doesn’t contain too much footage of Spencer. Instead, it focuses on Brendon singing, playing the guitar, dancing with the microphone, taking up the whole stage. The video gets 438,785 downloads from iTunes within the first day of release.
Twelve hours later, Ryan and Jon release their own video of their new single. It gets 24,000 views on YouTube that month.
||||| ||||| |||||
Spencer breaks his own rule about Googling himself. The last time he had looked himself up was when the fans began speculating that the band was going to break up, basing this on nothing more than the fact that the four of them had stopped twittering each other. Spencer remembers how alarmed he was at how prescient their fans turned out to be.
The internet is filled with questions as to Spencer’s whereabouts, theories that Spencer and Brendon have been fighting, speculations that Brendon Urie is striking out on his own as Spencer hasn’t been seen with him for a while. At least Ryan has Jon, but whom does Spencer have? was one of the more popular questions going around Twitter.
At this, Spencer growls and thinks, “What are they talking about? I’m right here.” He wonders if this was how Ryan felt before the band’s divorce. Spencer feels increasingly isolated. What’s worse is that they’re going to start touring with Blink-182 soon. He doesn’t know whom to ask for help, and he doesn’t really have the time to figure things out.
One day, after rehearsals, while he’s sitting with his eyes closed and his head pressed back against the wall, his arms a good kind of tired with a solid ache to them, the result of an honest day’s work, Zack comes up to him and presses a phone into his hand. Startled, Spencer automatically takes it and says, “Hello?”
“Try harder at answering your phone, asshole,” snaps Ryan in his unmistakable monotone. “Don’t make me have to go through Zack just to talk to you.”
Spencer glares at Zack but already the other has already beaten a judicious retreat. He knows that Ryan had been calling, but it has gotten more and more difficult to navigate his iPhone’s sensitive face and he didn’t want to involve Brendon in his attempts to call Ryan back. Getting a new phone had been on his list of things to do, but it’s been hard to prioritize that when his list also included rehearsing for the tour and managing Brendon, who has been slowly unraveling once the reality hit him that he was going to be alone in front of the stage and the media. Not to mention finding a solution to his own curious continuing electronics fail. He breathes a quick silent prayer of thanks that his instrument doesn’t need to be plugged in to work.
He can’t deal with Ryan right now and decides to go on the offensive to shut him up. “Have you talked to Brendon yet?” he counters.
“We’re not talking about that,” Ryan replies. “We’re talking about you. I haven’t seen a lot of you out there.”
“I’m fine. We’ve been practicing for the tour. We’re writing new songs. I’ve moved into Brendon’s place to make it easier for us to work together. We go surfing.”
“Can you still open doors? Do toilets still flush for you? Do elevator doors try to close while you’re still trying to get in? What do you do when the automated lights turn themselves off even though you’re still in the room?”
Spencer holds himself very still.
“I know, Spencer,” Ryan spits out. “I’ve known for a long time. And if you’d been taking my calls, I could have helped you earlier. Are you going to meet with me or what?”
Spencer thinks of a lot of things he could say in response but the only thing that he manages is, “Brendon too.”
“No, just you. Just you.” When Ryan uses that voice, Spencer knows that it’s useless to argue. Ryan will just turn away, turn around, turn back into himself.
Spencer knows he’s too weak to deny Ryan what he wants. He feels bad that it is the same as what he wants too. He knows that he will meet Ryan alone as he demands, knows this early on that he will be making some kind of excuse to Brendon to keep him from coming along.
||||| ||||| |||||
Ryan lets Spencer in his condo and doesn’t look back to see if he follows him inside. He waits for Spencer to settle in the chair opposite him before he makes his announcement.
“You have a superpower.”
Spencer does not hesitate. He leaps out from his chair and pulls up an unresisting Ryan by his shoulders, shaking him hard, thumbs digging hard enough to leave bruises. Ryan doesn’t say anything to stop him. His face is inches away from Ryan’s as he spits out the words between clenched teeth.
“I thought you’re clean. I fucking believed it when you said that you weren’t using.”
He holds Ryan in a terrifying grip, but Ryan doesn’t flinch. Spencer is terrified at how quickly the bile has risen in his throat, at how much he wants to do more to Ryan than just shake him like a doll. It is this realization that forces Spencer to let go of Ryan. He stumbles backwards to his chair and lowers himself into it without glancing around. He keeps his hands carefully in his lap, sees how they form into fists, and sits on his hands instead. He hunches forward and waits.
He sees Ryan collect himself and stand in front of him, careful to keep at least an arm’s length away. Ryan speaks in his monotone, counting out the points with his fingers.
“To answer your questions, (1) No, I wasn’t using; (2) Yes, I knew the coke was there, but it wasn’t mine; (3) Yes, I know you believe in me blindly, Spencer, you dumb fuck; and (4) Thank you for your faith in me.”
With the knowledge gained from fifteen years of friendship, Spencer realizes that Ryan is telling the truth. What he didn’t know how much he needed to hear it from Ryan firsthand.
Spencer covers his face with his hands. “Why were you talking insanely just now, then?”
Ryan shakes his head. “I’m clean. And it’s true. You do have a superpower. I’ve known about it since we were fourteen.”
“Fuck you, Ryan. If that’s true, why has it manifested only now? Wouldn’t I have noticed what I can do before then?”
“I have a superpower too.” Ryan looks at him warily. “Are you going to hit me again?”
Spencer shakes his head. Ryan bends at the waist and touches his forehead to his. Spencer can feel Ryan’s breath caress his face, his ear, as Ryan murmurs, “I can make you visible.”
Spencer snaps his head away. “You’ve done that. You got us signed by Pete.” He remembers the wonder of how this dumb high school kid, armed with nothing more than raw ambition and blind determination, went after Pete relentlessly and transformed himself and his friends into successful bandmembers.
Ryan shakes his head. “I mean, I make you stop going invisible. It’s, like, my superpower.”
Spencer tries to make sense of what Ryan was saying. Either Ryan is in a drug-induced high or he has gone insane.
“Stop giving me that look,” says Ryan. “I’m telling you the truth. And it manifested only now because, well, aside from that time when I went off to college, this is the first time we’ve been apart this long.” Ryan pauses and Spencer feels himself falling into the abyss of silence. “I’m. Sorry.”
Spencer’s voice is strangled. “Then if you knew leaving would make it bad for me, why did you leave?”
“You don’t get it, don’t you? My power is dampening other people. I cancel people out,” Ryan replies.
Spencer watches Ryan tangle his fingers together, as he continues, “I think that’s how I got Pete to sign us up. He didn’t really want us, at first. But I used my power on him so he’ll overcome his resistance to us.”
Spencer is struck by the misery in his voice. How long has Ryan felt like this, why hasn’t he picked up on it? Ryan has been his best friend for a long time.
“Or, you know, maybe it was the music,” Spencer responds.
Ryan ducks his head but not before Spencer sees a quick sudden smile of genuine pleasure flash across Ryan’s face. It takes them both by surprise.
“Yeah, Spence, it was the music,” Ryan nods.
Spencer feels a sudden tenderness towards his friend as Ryan allows himself this, only this, having not allowed himself a lot of things.
Spencer reaches out to take Ryan’s hand and with his thumb, draws gentle circles on Ryan’s palm, their calluses rough against each other. They’ve known each other for a long time, it’s easy to find the rough and soft places in each other.
“Come back, Ryan,” Spencer asks. “I don’t think I can stand it if you don’t.”
“If I stayed, I would cancel Brendon out.”
Spencer stills. “The fuck, Ryan? I knew our band was kind of gay, but we’re also kind of like mutants?”
Ryan shrugs absentmindedly. “I didn’t realize it at first, then we were at the cabin where nothing worked. Brendon and I were fighting over our music all the time. Then I listened to Pretty. Odd. for the first time, really listened, and that’s when I saw how I was hurting his music. There was practically very little of Brendon on that album.”
Ryan looks at him, shyly, apologetically. “There was also practically very little of you too.”
Spencer thinks of the long nights with the fucking tambourines – God, he hated those tambourines and that lame-ass egg shaker – then he looks at Ryan’s stricken face and a dam breaks.
“I’d rather have more of you,” he whispers. Any louder and his voice would break.
Ryan shakes his head. “If I stay, there won’t be anything of left of Brendon and you. I can’t do that to both of you again. Me and Jon, we just want to make music. But you and Brendon, you deserve so much more.”
“Not worth it if you’re not there.”
“My choice. My gift.”
Spencer thinks that he had never before received such a shitty gift.
“Is there anyway to stop it? Reverse it?”
“I can’t help it. I can’t control it,” Ryan’s breath hitches. “I’ve never been able to control it.”
Spencer looks at him and realizes for the first time Ryan’s isolation, his curse. “There has to be something more to this,” he says.
Ryan shrugs. “If we stop being musicians and become superheroes, probably. But you would make an awful superhero.” He pokes Spencer on his middle and Spencer swats Ryan’s hand away.
“People are already starting to think that I’m a freak, the way I can’t get electronic devices to respond to me, or the way I don’t show up on camera. Pretty soon, they will stake me for being a 21st-century vampire or something.”
“Jon and I sent you something to help you with your problem. Why aren’t you using it?”
“You know I think that stuff’s gross. Brendon loves it though, except that Pete has asked him to stop using it. The way it makes him glow is blinding the cameramen or something. What is in there anyway?”
Ryan grins lewdly. “Apparently, Jon has a superpower too. I just have to work at getting it out of him and on to you.”
“Oh!” Spencer thinks about Brendon coming out on stage covered with that stuff. “Oh!”
“Better than the fans thinking that you also split with Brendon. You deserve to be seen, Spencer. People need to see you the way I see you.”
Spencer feels the heat spread across his face and casts around for something to say to distract himself from fixating on what Ryan said, otherwise, he will lose the power of speech forever.
“What about Jon? How are you affecting his superpower?” he asks.
Ryan tilts his head. “I don’t know,” he grins. “I think I’m keeping him from getting cock.”
Spencer makes a face. “Awful way to use your superpowers, Ryan Ross.”
Ryan looks at Spencer in a way that Spencer knows he is lost even before Ryan says a word.
“That’s not all I can do, though,” Ryan says. “I told you, I can make you visible. And I want to see you, Spence. Right now, I want to have more than just the map of your body in my mind.”
Spencer doesn’t say that he too has the same map, that sometimes he takes it out and navigates that course when he can’t navigate the dark corners of his own mind. Instead, he lets Ryan pull him out of the chair. Like before, he follows Ryan’s lead and knows that he will follow him unerringly wherever Ryan might take him.
||||| ||||| |||||
Spencer dreads the fallout that is sure to ensue when Brendon learns that Spencer and Ryan has made up without him but he can’t do anything about it. This is Ryan’s secret to share, after all. What he isn’t prepared for was how it would go. Instead of the big scene he was expecting, Brendon starts withdrawing from him. Brendon still helps him navigate his personal electronics blackout but Spencer finds himself missing Brendon’s inappropriate hugs and touches.
One evening, they jostle each other for space in front of the bathroom sink, Brendon not having said a word to him the entire day.
“Cut it out,” Spencer snaps as Brendon again avoids his eyes, and instead keeps his hand steadily underneath the faucet, looking down at the sink the whole time.
“You cut me out,” Brendon retorts. “And it would be nice if you finish brushing your teeth sometime soon before my hand melts off and drips into the sewer.”
“Then get your hand out of there then,” Spencer snaps.
Brendon pulls out and the water immediately stops running. Brendon hadn’t been kidding. He had the temperature on a little too high, and now his hand looks red and angry from the heat. Spencer puts down his toothbrush and overcomes Brendon’s resistance to cover his hand with his. He takes his towel and carefully pats Brendon’s hand dry.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” said Spencer.
“Yes, I do,” Brendon replied.
“Yes, you do,” Spencer nods. “And I’m sorry it has to come to this. But trust me when I tell you that this has nothing to do with you, that it’s all Ryan.”
“What are you talking about?” Brendon asks, wide-eyed, and just like that, Spencer reveals Ryan’s secret.
“How long have you known about this?”
“Only for a couple of weeks. I swear, Brendon. Only since then.”
“After the lunch.”
“Yes, much later than that.”
Brendon shakes his head. “It would have been nice to hear all this from him.”
Spencer nods, but there’s nothing he can do about that.
Suddenly, Brendon turns to him and asks, “What if it’s me? What if it isn’t Ryan at all?”
Spencer looks at him sharply. “What are you talking about? Don’t tell me everyone around me has superpowers!”
“I wouldn’t put it past Pete,” Brendon snaps. Spencer grins at how ridiculous this sounds, and an identical smile soon finds its way on Brendon’s face.
“Totally plausible,” Brendon insists.
“Totally,” Spencer concurs.
“So this never happened to you before?”
“As Ryan said, aside from the time he went off to college, this is the first time we’ve been apart for this long. It probably takes time to wane off or build up or something. Fuck, Brendon! I don’t know! I’ve known him for my entire life and it turns out that I don’t know him at all.”
“And you wouldn’t have broken up if it weren’t for me,” Brendon says.
“No, Brendon, no,” Spencer replies. “That’s not true.”
“Way true, Spence. Don’t deny it. The two of you would still be making music together if we didn’t quarrel over what we wanted to play.”
Spencer thinks of all those days when he was shaking those ridiculous cylinders that barely made it to the percussion family, and how they made him feel less of a drummer than he wanted to be. He thinks of just how important drumming is to him, and how it’s the only thing that makes him feel solid these days. He knows that it would have taken some time, but sooner or later, Spencer the musician would have broken with Ryan the composer too.
||||| ||||| |||||
Spencer regularly uses the Jon product line of sparkles, and it works. It allows him to maintain a presence. Not much, though, Brendon’s still the one at center stage. But it’s enough so people know that Panic! is Brendon and Spencer and not just Brendon. Also, Brendon has become pretty good at reminding people that Panic is Brendon and Spencer, and used to be BrendonSpencerRyanandJon, watch out for both of their projects. It’s no good for Spencer to give interviews anymore, microphones are starting to fail for him. He’s glad for his chosen instrument, how the drums are the only thing right now that make them feel solid inside his skin.
And sometimes, Spencer catches Brendon sneaking in to rub some of Jon’s special sparkle on himself. Not too much though, and never if he’s not going on stage. The stuff is potent and dangerous, but Spencer doesn’t say a word.
After they play in Chicago, Brendon and Spencer ditch Pete as planned and meet up with Jon at a small coffeehouse. Ryan’s still in LA, it’s just the three of them. Jon informs them that he and Ryan aren’t doing that great. They are still writing music, and Spencer knows from the short bits that Ryan plays to him, in wordless phone messages, that the music is good. But they’ve been playing in more and more obscure locations, and Jon and Ryan are having just too much trouble penetrating the performance spaces. It’s too hard for them working without a label or an established brand, a fractured fanbase, and people thinking they were derivative of the Beatles.
Spencer thinks that despite what Ryan thinks, that he brought nothing to the band but dampened their powers, Spencer and Brendon must have done something for Ryan as well. Maybe their powers cancel each other out. Maybe they could cancel Ryan’s superpower.
Jon gives them a schedule of their future gigs and Brendon and Spencer make plans to go to one of them. Spencer knows that Ryan doesn’t want them to see his new band, that Ryan would die rather than have the press pick up the news that the relatively more successful Panic! had come to watch the other half flail around before a much smaller audience.
He decides that it’s best if they watch Jon and Ryan play at a relatively obscure venue where there isn’t likely to be any press. It’s not hard. None of the places on Jon’s list are well-known. Finally, he and Brendon decide to see Jon and Ryan play in Montana, at a club that gave them their first gig after the breakup. Jon had said that on their first night, they had only six customers scattered around in the back, more interested in making out than in their music. Spencer thinks that it’s perfect.
Spencer makes Brendon dress conservatively. In their plain white t-shirts, denim jackets and jeans, they could be anyone. No hats. No scarves. They come in secret. They didn’t even tell Jon they were coming.
The club was small and empty when they got there, and Spencer and Brendon keep a low profile in one of the rear booths. They both wince as Jon and Ryan start playing to the handful of customers talking over the music, without even paying attention to Ryan’s opening spiel. But a crowd suddenly starts to flow in right just as Jon and Ryan begin with the second song on their set. He glares at Brendon but the other shakes his head and denies that he generated this audience artificially. Spencer doesn’t miss seeing Ryan’s startled, and there was no denying it, pleased expression on his face as more and more people try to get into the small venue and begin rocking to the music. Spencer and Brendon slip out without saying a word, but not after waiting for the big finish. It is beautiful. Ryan and Jon make beautiful music.
Spencer and Brendon keep popping in in secret to Ryan and Jon’s shows. Jon and Ryan’s band becomes a sort of urban legend. It becomes one of the bands that perform constantly, then sometimes, explode on the public’s consciousness then dim away. Spencer knows Ryan appreciates these periods of calm, he gets to write music this way. But the modest success they achieve keep him from feeling empty and unappreciated.
||||| ||||| |||||
It would have continued this way and Spencer would not have been afraid of Ryan finding out except that Panic!’s handlers have them tour in a city on a date which would clash with Ryan and Jon’s schedule. It’s no contest. Panic! would have the bigger venue, has the machinery, has the fans. It kills Spencer to know that their two concerts won’t end in a standoff, it would end in a massacre. There is no question about it in Spencer’s mind, he and Brendon would have to reschedule. Announcements come up setting the new date one day after Jon and Ryan’s concert.
Spencer’s not done congratulating himself for his savvy when Ryan and Jon turn up at his and Brendon’s apartment. It is the first time that all four of them had been talking in one room.
“I don't need a pity fuck,” Ryan said, his monotone not enough to hide his rage.
“Who said anything about a pity fuck?” Spencer asks, although a look at Brendon makes it clear that Brendon would take anything from Ryan, even a pity fuck if that was all Ryan was willing to give him.
“I know your concert dates. Don’t think that I don’t know why you rescheduled,” Ryan punctuates each word by stabbing his finger on Spencer’s chest.
Spencer reaches out and grabs Ryan’s finger, not hard, but firm. He thinks, how fragile. With one movement, I can break this, I can hurt him, the way he hurt me and Brendon. And Jon.
Ryan comes to the same realization at the same time and both become dangerously still. Brendon and Jon are frozen, terrified that any movement would startle or encourage Spencer.
Spencer looks at the face of his oldest friend and realizes how Ryan has always been like this, afraid of what could be done to him. This is why he always acts preemptively, draws first blood before other people hurt him. It hurts how Ryan thinks of him the same way, putting Spencer in the same category, but Spencer knows that he can. It is only a matter of time.
Spencer doesn’t want to be that person to Ryan. He has never been, and he’s not going to start now. So he doesn’t let go. Instead, he covers Ryan’s hand with his other hand gently and feels pathetically grateful that Ryan allows him to do this.
“Stop putting our show first. And stop promoting our shows on your shows. We look pathetic, like we’re your pets or something.” Even in the face of danger, Ryan is feisty.
“That’s what friends do.”
“It just reminds people that we’re not part of Panic! anymore.”
“It reminds people that you’re out there doing your own thing and we support you.”
“You're not the only one with superpowers, Ryan Ross,” Brendon says.
“Can we be two bands? Or two acts? We don’t have to do the same thing at the same time. We can do different things, but together,” Brendon asks breathlessly. Spencer realizes from the tension in Brendon’s voice that he has been thinking about this for a long time.
“Whoever heard . . . I don't think Ryan wants to be a front act,” Spencer begins but Jon cuts him off.
“Not a front act, but ummm … a collaboration? You and Brendon do your music, Ryan and I will do our music. We can be two bands, one show, and some shows you’ll come first and some shows we’ll come first. On CDs we will have like two disc ones. Disc 1 and Disc 1 too. We can like different things and we can like them at the same time,” says Jon.
“That’s great! What do you say, Ryan Ross? Please say yes because I miss saying your name. If we were together again, I would say your name all the time. Ryan Ross. Ryan Ross,” said Brendon.
“And I won’t have to coat myself in glitter all the time,” Spencer growled. “It’s really kind of gross.”
Jon makes a face at him.
Brendon speaks up. “We’ve been supporting you since Montana!”
Ryan swears under his breath. “I should have known.”
Spencer pulls Ryan to him gently but insistently. He feels Ryan try to edge away but he refuses to let go. He will keep on tugging at Ryan until Ryan gives in and does what he wants this time.
“You can let go now, Spence. Seriously,” Ryan says.
Spencer nuzzles Ryan’s shoulder. “Why is it so hard for you to take things? You’re not taking anything; we’re giving something to you. Or at least, we’re trying. You’re such a hard bastard.”
“Rescheduling tours are expensive, Spence,” Ryan snaps. “It would have been easier for Jon and I to change our schedule than yours. We’re the smaller band.”
“But it’s fine. We caught it in time. Don’t worry about it, Ryan. We’re not losing anything by giving this to you. Why can’t you understand that? And meanwhile, we’re all losing a lot more with you being this stubborn piece of shit.” Spencer lets Ryan go and rubs his chin with its three weeks of growth.
Ryan reaches in and traces the line of Spencer’s jaw. “Yeah?”
Spencer nods, careful not to startle Ryan. He doesn’t want him to bolt. “I’m really tired of waiting for Brendon to shower so that I can too, you know?”
For the first time, Ryan grins and Spencer knows that everything will be easier.
“We don’t want that now, do we?”
“And we don’t want to play at really shitty small clubs anymore, really,” Jon speaks up from his corner.
“And we don’t want to go through with life without a Ryan Ross, really and truly,” says Brendon in turn.
“Really and truly?” Ryan echoes.
Spencer nods. “Really and truly,” he repeats and feels himself turning solid underneath his skin.
-o0o-