So it finally happened. Ronie got me drunk enough to do it. This is a bandom fic. THAT I WROTE.
If you have to blame someone blame my overabundance of time and Ronie’s wide bevy of beverages and this Almost Famous drinking game.
Title: Vote YES on Jon Walker! (or, How I Learned to Stop Being a Bitch and Love the Awesome Bassist)
Author:![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
tremblings
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3100
Summary: "Oh my god,” Ryan says, eyes going wide. “This is like your mating ritual! You’re, like, courting himby being a little bitch!”
\Author's Notes: For the betas,your__design and __leonine who both SUCK, by which I mean are my favorite people in the history of ever. Who really, really suck (On the subject of one of the references in here: does THIS remind you of any lavender-wearing bandom boy we know? I think you'll find that it DOES.)
Disclaimer:IT’S NOT REAL. If your name or the name of someone you know personally is in this please go away, you’re the reason I had to be this drunk in the first place, and dude, I HAVE WORK TOMORROW.
To start out with, Spencer never wanted to like Jon Walker. Like, at all. It’s still a sore spot, a fresh bruise where Brent used to be, and it isn’t that he’s out for blood or anything, but Spencer really goes into this with the whole idea that it won’t be the same and it won’t be as good and he’ll hate it, but that somehow, through some miracle, it will only be temporary. His plan of action is really to just tolerate Jon until Brent pulls his head out of his ass and comes crawling back.
Things do not exactly go according to plan.
+ + +
Brendon is obviously the first to go down. He was Jon’s biggest cheerleader before Spencer had even met the guy. It’s Brendon’s idea to have Jon fill in for Brent in the first place.
"Jon Walker,” he says, plastering himself on the bassist’s back after the first Jon-is-officially-playing-with-the-band show, “you are like a superhero. But without spandex.” Then he pauses thoughtfully and adds, “Do you think for our next tour we could all do spandex?”
“I think that it’s not too late for me to beg The Academy to take me back,” Jon replies and he smiles over at Spencer and laughs and Spencer has to exercise extreme self control not to smile back.
“You’re never leaving me, Jon Walker,” Brendon says, pressing himself even closer to Jon, shifting his face and leaving a big head-shaped sweat mark on Jon’s shoulder blade. “I have come to realize that you are my soul mate. We are meant to be. We’re my new OTP. We’re Jonden.”
“What are you even talking about?” Ryan says.
“Pete showed me this thing on the internet-”
“Okay, I’ve heard enough,” Spencer interrupts. ‘Pete’ and ‘internet’ are two words that should never, ever be in the same sentence. Jon laughs but Spencer just gives him a hard look. It seems to have no effect.
Brendon laughs too, loud and too high, and makes Jon give him a piggyback and even Ryan is smiling a little. Kind of. If Spencer squints.
Spencer has seriously underestimated the charm of Jon Walker.
+ + +
“Do you think I could get Jon to father my babies?” Brendon asks, eating CoCo Puffs from the box.
“Do you mean, like, biologically? Or do you just want him to agree?” Ryan replies.
“I bet his babies just come out awesome. Like, mini-JWalks, already as awesome as their daddy. I bet they all come out with manly facial hair and flip flops. Even the girls.” Brendon sounds delighted. Spencer thinks he’s maybe taking this circus theme a little too far.
“I don’t think the world needs more than one Jon Walker,” Ryan muses. Spencer is grateful until he adds, “He’s kind of like the sun, you know? One is enough.”
“Because he’s that awesome.” Brendon is nodding fervently. Spencer wants to kill everyone.
“You guys,” he snaps, “Jon Walker is not. That. Awesome.”
“Spencer Smith, do you doubt me?” Jon says from behind him. Apparently, in addition to his ungodly charisma points, Jon Walker is mad stealthy. Spencer maybe flails a bit – but in a very cool way! – as Jon walks past him and pulls a bottle of water from the cooler. Brendon immediately grabs him, like he’s some kind of parasite who subsists primarily on a diet of second-hand Jon Walker.
“Shun the nonbeliever,” Brendon intones, draping himself firmly over Jon. “Shun.”
Jon pets Brendon absently on the head and smiles blithely at Spencer. He looks. Well. He looks really fucking awesome.
+ + +
Three weeks into the tour Spencer catches Ryan giving Jon hair tips and advancing on him with eye liner drawn, looking as close to gleeful as Ryan ever gets.
“Seriously,” he’s saying to Jon, “it’ll make your eyes pop.”
Spencer gives Ryan a betrayed look, which Ryan ignores.
“Just,” Jon laughs, “Just no little, like, squiggly things, okay?”
“I won’t let Ryan draw all over your rugged and manly face, Jon Walker,” Brendon says bravely. “I will protect you.”
“You’re dressed like a ringmaster,” Jon points out, “and I think you’re wearing rouge, so that doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.”
Spencer cuts off his own surprised laugh with a glare. Damn Jon Walker! He stalks out of the dressing room as Ryan says, “We should totally put some rosettes on your vest!”
+ + +
“What do you think?” Jon asks him, displaying the rosette on his chest. Spencer assumes that Jon let Ryan put it there because Ryan basically weighs seventy pounds soaking wet and couldn’t wrestle a cat, much less a hearty, bearded man like Jon Walker. The fact that Jon is clearly indulging Ryan is infuriatingly endearing.
“You look like a gay French hermit from the thirties,” Spencer snaps.
“Wow,” Jon says, beaming at Spencer. “You must really like me.” He ruffles Spencer’s hair as he walks out. (And damn him, he still looks manly, even with a stupid silk flower pinned over his heart.)
"I what you what?” Spencer stammers, but by then he can already hear Jon and Brendon out in the hall; Brendon is serenading him with ‘Part of Your World’ while Jon laughs warmly, completely unconcerned with the fact that he is wrecking havoc on Spencer’s sexual orientation.
+ + +
At the end of every week they get together to take a vote on whether or not Jon is officially in the band yet. Brendon votes yes every week. After about three weeks Ryan starts shrugging and by six weeks he’s actually raising his hand, though limply, like he doesn’t particularly care either way.
“Come onnn, Spence!” Brendon whines at the end of week eight. “What’s the hold up? Jon is-”
“I know, I know. Awesome.” Spencer rolls his eyes. “But we don’t really know him well enough yet and he’s really… beardy and… he doesn’t wear enough eye liner.” Spencer hasn’t made such a lame argument since he and Ryan had fought as kids. (“You’re stupid ‘cause… ‘cause you’re stupid!” “Yeah, well, your mom!”) Ryan gives him a disapproving look, like Spencer’s pointless stubbornness is a personal disappointment to him.
“I will sacrifice my eyeliner,” Brendon declares. “And I’ll grow a beard. That’ll balance it out.”
“That’s not the point,” Spencer huffs. “And you couldn’t grow a beard if you were a chia pet.”
After that the meeting goes downhill pretty quickly. Brendon eventually droops away, leaving Spencer back in the bunks with Ryan. Spencer knows Brendon well enough to know he’ll probably revive himself over an episode or two of The OC, watching raptly with his head in Jon’s lap, and Jon will sit through it and make jokes and laugh when Brendon wants him to and generally be the greatest guy ever.
Spencer hopes they are both somehow injured in a tragic freak DVD player accident.
“What’s up with you?” Ryan asks, eyeing Spencer’s expression as if he’s mildly interested in whether or not Spencer plans to explode. “I haven’t seen you this bitchy since you wanted to make out with Brent’s girlfriend.”
“I’m not being bitchy,” Spencer snaps, like a total bitchface. It only makes him more annoyed that he thinks he might be blushing. “I’m just. There’s. We can’t let him in the band!” Because then I can’t date him. Oh my god, shut up brain, shut up, shut up!
“Spence, he’s already in the band,” Ryan points out and he is, he really, really is. Goddammit. “He’s a nice guy, I don’t get what your deal is.”
Spencer huffs and flails his hands for a bit and then sputters helplessly and glowers.
“Oh my god,” Ryan says, eyes going wide. “This is like your mating; ritual! You’re, like, courting him by being a little bitch!”
“You are no longer allowed to watch Animal Planet with Brendon,” Spencer says sternly. “He can watch Meerkat Manor by himself from now on.”
“I don’t care about the fucking meerkats. Spence, I can’t believe you like Jon!”
“I thought you guys thought he was so awesome,” says Spencer, sarcastic and bitter and embarrassed.
“Yeah, but we don’t want to make out with him.”
“That's not true,” Spencer says. “Brendon made out with him last week when Jon gave him the last poptart!”
“That’s Brendon,” Ryan shrugs dismissively. “He’s a whore for breakfast sugar but you, Spencer Smith, are a whore for Jon Walker!”
“Shut up, oh my god, I hate you, shut up.”
“And he knows doesn’t he?” Ryan says, eyes going even bigger. Spencer hates him because he’s the worst best friend ever and he looks like a stupid sexually confused parrot in that vest and makeup. “He totally knows. He’s always smiling at you, even when you’re glaring at him like a tool -”
“I am not a tool.”
“- and every time we apologize for how weird you are, he just laughs.”
“You told him I’m weird?” Spencer says, a little shrilly. “Fuck you guys!”
Ryan still looks both gleeful and horrified, so Spencer leaves him in the bunks and joins Brendon and Jon in the lounge. Jon smiles up at him from under a pile of Brendon and though Spencer immediately feels a little better, he glares harder than ever.
+ + +
It doesn’t take Ryan long to tell Brendon, the traitor, and at that point there is no going back. Once Brendon knows, everyone knows. He’s not exactly discrete.
Brendon beams at Spencer and loudly suggests he and Jon do things together with an impressive lack of subtlety (“Hey, why don’t you guys go back in the bunks and have, like, a sleepover? That would be fun, right? Ryan and I will be in the front lounge watching movies. Really loudly!”) He tries to arrange interviews so Spencer and Jon are forced to sit together. On one memorable occasion he sprawls out over an entire couch (the half a cushion Ryan’s scrawny ass takes up barely counts) and Spencer is forced to share an armchair with Jon, practically in his lap, trying to ignore the hot shivers he’s getting from Jon’s steadying hand occasionally pressed against his lower back.
Even on the bus or hanging out in hotel rooms Brendon orchestrates the seating arrangements with obvious glee. “Ryan, come share this couch with me and Jon and Spence can have that eensy weensy little love seat.” The emphasis makes Spencer want to kick him in the face, but he tells himself calmly that he would ruin his new shoes if he got Brendon’s brains all over them and counts backwards from ten. Sixteen times.
What’s worse is that Jon is just as good as Spencer at ducking out of these situations whenever possible. They’re parked outside a venue when Brendon demands they watch a Cirque DVD before the show (“It’s for inspiration, you guys! We have to get in character!” “What characters? We’re not actually in a circus, Brendon!”) and then immediately leaps on the only full-size couch so that Spencer and Jon will literally have to be on each other.
Spencer opens his mouth to say something, anything, to get out of it but before he can Jon says, “Actually, I had some pictures I wanted to take,” and strolls out, calm as anything.
Spencer hates that he’s disappointed and has to bite his tongue to keep from offering to come along.
+ + +
At week twelve, Brendon starts refusing to share a room with anyone but Ryan. “We have to write beautiful music together. All night long,” he insists, eyes wide. Ryan stands behind him, looking darkly amused like the little henchman he is.
Spencer glares at everyone but Jon takes the news well and just rolls his eyes at Ryan and says, “Watch out, he’s a serial spooner” and tosses Spencer a key. They ride up to the room in total silence, except for Spencer tapping his toe in what he hopes isn’t a nervous way. He stares at the numbers rising steadily, trying to look fascinated. He’s pretty sure it’s not working.
When they get to the room Spencer fumbles to unlock the door while Jon breathes hot and sweet against his neck, his ear. What the hell, Spencer can’t even control his own fingers, Jesus. He can feel air in the shape of Jon’s lips on his neck, warm and just a little bit wet.
“I really like you, Spencer,” Jon says, his hand resting hot and heavy (not heavy enough) on Spencer’s hip, “but I’m getting kind of tired of this.” His forehead is resting on Spencer’s shoulder. Spencer can hear his slight lisp really distinctly when Jon’s mouth is practically in his ear. “I really like you,” Jon repeats, “and you kind of really suck at pretending you don’t like me back.”
The door finally unlocks, or maybe Spencer just breaks it down, and he flees to the bathroom, calling “First shower!” as he runs to safety. He turns on the shower and the sink and jerks off as quietly as he can, listening to the sounds of Jon watching Family Guy in the room.
+ + +
Spencer can’t hold out much longer.
They still vote on whether or not Jon is “official” but no one even pretends that Spencer’s say counts for anything anymore. It’s all just become this big hilarious joke (to everyone except Spencer, obviously). The vote is really just to see whether or not Spencer has caved yet.
Ryan and Brendon are running bets. Spencer thinks Fall Out Boy is in on it too. He knows The Academy is, because Tom calls around week fifteen and drunkenly begs him to “vote yes on Jonny Walker” because it’s Tom’s turn to buy the beer next week and he needs the cash. Spencer wouldn’t be surprised if Jon was in on it too. He is utterly alone.
It gets harder every week, but Spencer has a will of iron. Like hell he’ll back down now.
But week twenty-four rolls around and it’s November and Jon goes into Christmas Mode. He smells like Christmas, spicy and sweet, and his sweaters look soft and Spencer has to actually sit on his hands to keep from touching him sometimes.
Jon’s mom sends him homemade sugar cookies and he shares them with Spencer, late at night in the back lounge, but only on the condition that they watch Rudolph. Five minutes into the movie Spencer can’t even swallow because of the way the colored sugar sticks to Jon’s top lip.
“You’re making a mess,” he snaps, indicating his own face and Jon just smiles and laughs and says, “whoops, sorry” and then he licks and. “These cookies aren’t good enough for me to sit through this shitty movie,” Spencer says.
“Scrooge,” Jon replies, sticking out his tongue and smiling. He licks his lip again and then runs his thumb over it, either checking for more sugar or possibly to see if he can make Spencer’s face go entirely red.
Spencer flees for the bunks and wills himself not to jerk off.
He sneaks back towards the lounge later so he can watch the part with the Island of the Misfit Toys (he can’t help it, it’s his favorite part) and Jon is asleep, one hand on his belly and crumbs all over his pants. Spencer feels a thrumming in his chest that has nothing to do with the motion of the bus.
+ + +
Wednesday is movie night. Brendon wants Disney; Ryan wants French; Spencer wants everyone to shut the fuck up.
“Hey,” Jon says, “Moulin Rouge?” and they both agree because no one in this band can resist Moulin Rouge and Spencer is ridiculously grateful because he’s seen it a million times so he can sleep through it. He even manages to get Ryan to be a tiny, somewhat ineffectual buffer between him and Jon.
The only problem is that Spencer can’t stop looking at Jon, watching him pet Brendon absentmindedly, watching him listen to Ryan’s stupid prostitute trivia that they’ve all heard hundreds of times by now and Spencer can’t stop listening to him laugh when Spencer rolls his eyes at Ryan and sings along with Brendon, doing all the voices and everything. He can feel how warm Jon’s hand is, just brushing his shoulder behind Ryan’s neck. And then. And then –
Jon turns just when a flash of light bursts across the screen and he grins at Spencer and – and then.
Spencer finally, finally snaps.
“Right,” he says. “Okay.” And he flings himself over Ryan, accidentally elbows Brendon in the ear and launches himself at Jon’s face.
“Awargh!” Brendon wails and struggles to get out from between them. Spencer can practically feel Ryan’s eyes rolling. “What week is it?” he hears Brendon demand. “It’s twenty-five now, right? Oh man, is this Patrick’s week?"
“I think it’s Gabe’s. Gabe bought twenty-one through thirty-three, remember?”
“I thought we agreed that was cheating.”
Spencer wants to be indignant, he wants to say something scathing and sharp to them, but when he pulls away slightly Jon’s mouth follows and Spencer can feel his smug smile because he’s tracing it with his own tongue, and then Jon rocks his hips up and Spencer promptly forgets what he was going to say, now or ever again. He’s forgotten every single word he ever knew except Jon and fuck and finally and please. He says all of these in various orders, pressed up close against Jon’s mouth, holding him tight between his thighs.
He is dimly aware that Ryan and Brendon have left, but it doesn’t seem important; nothing seems as important as the way Jon’s hands are holding his neck, how his thumbs are pressed against the skin behind Spencer’s ears and Jon is laughing Spencer’s own name down his throat.
+ + +
On week twenty-five, Spencer does not vote yes on Jon Walker.
He forgets to go to the band meeting all together, probably because he’s curled up in Jon’s bunk at the time and isn’t really thinking about much that isn’t Jon Walker’s hands all over him.
“Spencer Smith!” Brendon yells, pounding on the door to the bunks, which they barricaded shut with a bag full of dirty laundry, just to be safe. “Spencer Smith, the vote was unanimous. So stop having sex with our official new bassist and go call Gabe Saporta.”
“How much did he win?” Jon calls as Spencer laughs into Jon’s collarbone.
“$540, but $260 of it was his to begin with anyway,” Ryan says.
“For the record,” announces Spencer, “I never gave my official consent.” “Liar!” Brendon shouts. “I heard you consenting all night long!” Then he cackles and says “Hey!” after the dull thwaping sound of Ryan hitting him upside the head.
“So you’re official now, hm?” Spencer says to Jon. “I think that means we probably shouldn’t have sex anymore. You know. We don’t want to break up the band.”
Jon snorts lazily and says, “Don’t be a bitch” and Spencer grins into the spacelessness between them and says, “Alright, I won’t.”
If you have to blame someone blame my overabundance of time and Ronie’s wide bevy of beverages and this Almost Famous drinking game.
Title: Vote YES on Jon Walker! (or, How I Learned to Stop Being a Bitch and Love the Awesome Bassist)
Author:
tremblingsRating: PG-13
Word Count: 3100
Summary: "Oh my god,” Ryan says, eyes going wide. “This is like your mating ritual! You’re, like, courting himby being a little bitch!”
\Author's Notes: For the betas,
your__design and __leonine who both SUCK, by which I mean are my favorite people in the history of ever. Who really, really suck (On the subject of one of the references in here: does THIS remind you of any lavender-wearing bandom boy we know? I think you'll find that it DOES.) Disclaimer:IT’S NOT REAL. If your name or the name of someone you know personally is in this please go away, you’re the reason I had to be this drunk in the first place, and dude, I HAVE WORK TOMORROW.
To start out with, Spencer never wanted to like Jon Walker. Like, at all. It’s still a sore spot, a fresh bruise where Brent used to be, and it isn’t that he’s out for blood or anything, but Spencer really goes into this with the whole idea that it won’t be the same and it won’t be as good and he’ll hate it, but that somehow, through some miracle, it will only be temporary. His plan of action is really to just tolerate Jon until Brent pulls his head out of his ass and comes crawling back.
Things do not exactly go according to plan.
+ + +
Brendon is obviously the first to go down. He was Jon’s biggest cheerleader before Spencer had even met the guy. It’s Brendon’s idea to have Jon fill in for Brent in the first place.
"Jon Walker,” he says, plastering himself on the bassist’s back after the first Jon-is-officially-playing-with-the-band show, “you are like a superhero. But without spandex.” Then he pauses thoughtfully and adds, “Do you think for our next tour we could all do spandex?”
“I think that it’s not too late for me to beg The Academy to take me back,” Jon replies and he smiles over at Spencer and laughs and Spencer has to exercise extreme self control not to smile back.
“You’re never leaving me, Jon Walker,” Brendon says, pressing himself even closer to Jon, shifting his face and leaving a big head-shaped sweat mark on Jon’s shoulder blade. “I have come to realize that you are my soul mate. We are meant to be. We’re my new OTP. We’re Jonden.”
“What are you even talking about?” Ryan says.
“Pete showed me this thing on the internet-”
“Okay, I’ve heard enough,” Spencer interrupts. ‘Pete’ and ‘internet’ are two words that should never, ever be in the same sentence. Jon laughs but Spencer just gives him a hard look. It seems to have no effect.
Brendon laughs too, loud and too high, and makes Jon give him a piggyback and even Ryan is smiling a little. Kind of. If Spencer squints.
Spencer has seriously underestimated the charm of Jon Walker.
+ + +
“Do you think I could get Jon to father my babies?” Brendon asks, eating CoCo Puffs from the box.
“Do you mean, like, biologically? Or do you just want him to agree?” Ryan replies.
“I bet his babies just come out awesome. Like, mini-JWalks, already as awesome as their daddy. I bet they all come out with manly facial hair and flip flops. Even the girls.” Brendon sounds delighted. Spencer thinks he’s maybe taking this circus theme a little too far.
“I don’t think the world needs more than one Jon Walker,” Ryan muses. Spencer is grateful until he adds, “He’s kind of like the sun, you know? One is enough.”
“Because he’s that awesome.” Brendon is nodding fervently. Spencer wants to kill everyone.
“You guys,” he snaps, “Jon Walker is not. That. Awesome.”
“Spencer Smith, do you doubt me?” Jon says from behind him. Apparently, in addition to his ungodly charisma points, Jon Walker is mad stealthy. Spencer maybe flails a bit – but in a very cool way! – as Jon walks past him and pulls a bottle of water from the cooler. Brendon immediately grabs him, like he’s some kind of parasite who subsists primarily on a diet of second-hand Jon Walker.
“Shun the nonbeliever,” Brendon intones, draping himself firmly over Jon. “Shun.”
Jon pets Brendon absently on the head and smiles blithely at Spencer. He looks. Well. He looks really fucking awesome.
+ + +
Three weeks into the tour Spencer catches Ryan giving Jon hair tips and advancing on him with eye liner drawn, looking as close to gleeful as Ryan ever gets.
“Seriously,” he’s saying to Jon, “it’ll make your eyes pop.”
Spencer gives Ryan a betrayed look, which Ryan ignores.
“Just,” Jon laughs, “Just no little, like, squiggly things, okay?”
“I won’t let Ryan draw all over your rugged and manly face, Jon Walker,” Brendon says bravely. “I will protect you.”
“You’re dressed like a ringmaster,” Jon points out, “and I think you’re wearing rouge, so that doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.”
Spencer cuts off his own surprised laugh with a glare. Damn Jon Walker! He stalks out of the dressing room as Ryan says, “We should totally put some rosettes on your vest!”
+ + +
“What do you think?” Jon asks him, displaying the rosette on his chest. Spencer assumes that Jon let Ryan put it there because Ryan basically weighs seventy pounds soaking wet and couldn’t wrestle a cat, much less a hearty, bearded man like Jon Walker. The fact that Jon is clearly indulging Ryan is infuriatingly endearing.
“You look like a gay French hermit from the thirties,” Spencer snaps.
“Wow,” Jon says, beaming at Spencer. “You must really like me.” He ruffles Spencer’s hair as he walks out. (And damn him, he still looks manly, even with a stupid silk flower pinned over his heart.)
"I what you what?” Spencer stammers, but by then he can already hear Jon and Brendon out in the hall; Brendon is serenading him with ‘Part of Your World’ while Jon laughs warmly, completely unconcerned with the fact that he is wrecking havoc on Spencer’s sexual orientation.
+ + +
At the end of every week they get together to take a vote on whether or not Jon is officially in the band yet. Brendon votes yes every week. After about three weeks Ryan starts shrugging and by six weeks he’s actually raising his hand, though limply, like he doesn’t particularly care either way.
“Come onnn, Spence!” Brendon whines at the end of week eight. “What’s the hold up? Jon is-”
“I know, I know. Awesome.” Spencer rolls his eyes. “But we don’t really know him well enough yet and he’s really… beardy and… he doesn’t wear enough eye liner.” Spencer hasn’t made such a lame argument since he and Ryan had fought as kids. (“You’re stupid ‘cause… ‘cause you’re stupid!” “Yeah, well, your mom!”) Ryan gives him a disapproving look, like Spencer’s pointless stubbornness is a personal disappointment to him.
“I will sacrifice my eyeliner,” Brendon declares. “And I’ll grow a beard. That’ll balance it out.”
“That’s not the point,” Spencer huffs. “And you couldn’t grow a beard if you were a chia pet.”
After that the meeting goes downhill pretty quickly. Brendon eventually droops away, leaving Spencer back in the bunks with Ryan. Spencer knows Brendon well enough to know he’ll probably revive himself over an episode or two of The OC, watching raptly with his head in Jon’s lap, and Jon will sit through it and make jokes and laugh when Brendon wants him to and generally be the greatest guy ever.
Spencer hopes they are both somehow injured in a tragic freak DVD player accident.
“What’s up with you?” Ryan asks, eyeing Spencer’s expression as if he’s mildly interested in whether or not Spencer plans to explode. “I haven’t seen you this bitchy since you wanted to make out with Brent’s girlfriend.”
“I’m not being bitchy,” Spencer snaps, like a total bitchface. It only makes him more annoyed that he thinks he might be blushing. “I’m just. There’s. We can’t let him in the band!” Because then I can’t date him. Oh my god, shut up brain, shut up, shut up!
“Spence, he’s already in the band,” Ryan points out and he is, he really, really is. Goddammit. “He’s a nice guy, I don’t get what your deal is.”
Spencer huffs and flails his hands for a bit and then sputters helplessly and glowers.
“Oh my god,” Ryan says, eyes going wide. “This is like your mating; ritual! You’re, like, courting him by being a little bitch!”
“You are no longer allowed to watch Animal Planet with Brendon,” Spencer says sternly. “He can watch Meerkat Manor by himself from now on.”
“I don’t care about the fucking meerkats. Spence, I can’t believe you like Jon!”
“I thought you guys thought he was so awesome,” says Spencer, sarcastic and bitter and embarrassed.
“Yeah, but we don’t want to make out with him.”
“That's not true,” Spencer says. “Brendon made out with him last week when Jon gave him the last poptart!”
“That’s Brendon,” Ryan shrugs dismissively. “He’s a whore for breakfast sugar but you, Spencer Smith, are a whore for Jon Walker!”
“Shut up, oh my god, I hate you, shut up.”
“And he knows doesn’t he?” Ryan says, eyes going even bigger. Spencer hates him because he’s the worst best friend ever and he looks like a stupid sexually confused parrot in that vest and makeup. “He totally knows. He’s always smiling at you, even when you’re glaring at him like a tool -”
“I am not a tool.”
“- and every time we apologize for how weird you are, he just laughs.”
“You told him I’m weird?” Spencer says, a little shrilly. “Fuck you guys!”
Ryan still looks both gleeful and horrified, so Spencer leaves him in the bunks and joins Brendon and Jon in the lounge. Jon smiles up at him from under a pile of Brendon and though Spencer immediately feels a little better, he glares harder than ever.
+ + +
It doesn’t take Ryan long to tell Brendon, the traitor, and at that point there is no going back. Once Brendon knows, everyone knows. He’s not exactly discrete.
Brendon beams at Spencer and loudly suggests he and Jon do things together with an impressive lack of subtlety (“Hey, why don’t you guys go back in the bunks and have, like, a sleepover? That would be fun, right? Ryan and I will be in the front lounge watching movies. Really loudly!”) He tries to arrange interviews so Spencer and Jon are forced to sit together. On one memorable occasion he sprawls out over an entire couch (the half a cushion Ryan’s scrawny ass takes up barely counts) and Spencer is forced to share an armchair with Jon, practically in his lap, trying to ignore the hot shivers he’s getting from Jon’s steadying hand occasionally pressed against his lower back.
Even on the bus or hanging out in hotel rooms Brendon orchestrates the seating arrangements with obvious glee. “Ryan, come share this couch with me and Jon and Spence can have that eensy weensy little love seat.” The emphasis makes Spencer want to kick him in the face, but he tells himself calmly that he would ruin his new shoes if he got Brendon’s brains all over them and counts backwards from ten. Sixteen times.
What’s worse is that Jon is just as good as Spencer at ducking out of these situations whenever possible. They’re parked outside a venue when Brendon demands they watch a Cirque DVD before the show (“It’s for inspiration, you guys! We have to get in character!” “What characters? We’re not actually in a circus, Brendon!”) and then immediately leaps on the only full-size couch so that Spencer and Jon will literally have to be on each other.
Spencer opens his mouth to say something, anything, to get out of it but before he can Jon says, “Actually, I had some pictures I wanted to take,” and strolls out, calm as anything.
Spencer hates that he’s disappointed and has to bite his tongue to keep from offering to come along.
+ + +
At week twelve, Brendon starts refusing to share a room with anyone but Ryan. “We have to write beautiful music together. All night long,” he insists, eyes wide. Ryan stands behind him, looking darkly amused like the little henchman he is.
Spencer glares at everyone but Jon takes the news well and just rolls his eyes at Ryan and says, “Watch out, he’s a serial spooner” and tosses Spencer a key. They ride up to the room in total silence, except for Spencer tapping his toe in what he hopes isn’t a nervous way. He stares at the numbers rising steadily, trying to look fascinated. He’s pretty sure it’s not working.
When they get to the room Spencer fumbles to unlock the door while Jon breathes hot and sweet against his neck, his ear. What the hell, Spencer can’t even control his own fingers, Jesus. He can feel air in the shape of Jon’s lips on his neck, warm and just a little bit wet.
“I really like you, Spencer,” Jon says, his hand resting hot and heavy (not heavy enough) on Spencer’s hip, “but I’m getting kind of tired of this.” His forehead is resting on Spencer’s shoulder. Spencer can hear his slight lisp really distinctly when Jon’s mouth is practically in his ear. “I really like you,” Jon repeats, “and you kind of really suck at pretending you don’t like me back.”
The door finally unlocks, or maybe Spencer just breaks it down, and he flees to the bathroom, calling “First shower!” as he runs to safety. He turns on the shower and the sink and jerks off as quietly as he can, listening to the sounds of Jon watching Family Guy in the room.
+ + +
Spencer can’t hold out much longer.
They still vote on whether or not Jon is “official” but no one even pretends that Spencer’s say counts for anything anymore. It’s all just become this big hilarious joke (to everyone except Spencer, obviously). The vote is really just to see whether or not Spencer has caved yet.
Ryan and Brendon are running bets. Spencer thinks Fall Out Boy is in on it too. He knows The Academy is, because Tom calls around week fifteen and drunkenly begs him to “vote yes on Jonny Walker” because it’s Tom’s turn to buy the beer next week and he needs the cash. Spencer wouldn’t be surprised if Jon was in on it too. He is utterly alone.
It gets harder every week, but Spencer has a will of iron. Like hell he’ll back down now.
But week twenty-four rolls around and it’s November and Jon goes into Christmas Mode. He smells like Christmas, spicy and sweet, and his sweaters look soft and Spencer has to actually sit on his hands to keep from touching him sometimes.
Jon’s mom sends him homemade sugar cookies and he shares them with Spencer, late at night in the back lounge, but only on the condition that they watch Rudolph. Five minutes into the movie Spencer can’t even swallow because of the way the colored sugar sticks to Jon’s top lip.
“You’re making a mess,” he snaps, indicating his own face and Jon just smiles and laughs and says, “whoops, sorry” and then he licks and. “These cookies aren’t good enough for me to sit through this shitty movie,” Spencer says.
“Scrooge,” Jon replies, sticking out his tongue and smiling. He licks his lip again and then runs his thumb over it, either checking for more sugar or possibly to see if he can make Spencer’s face go entirely red.
Spencer flees for the bunks and wills himself not to jerk off.
He sneaks back towards the lounge later so he can watch the part with the Island of the Misfit Toys (he can’t help it, it’s his favorite part) and Jon is asleep, one hand on his belly and crumbs all over his pants. Spencer feels a thrumming in his chest that has nothing to do with the motion of the bus.
+ + +
Wednesday is movie night. Brendon wants Disney; Ryan wants French; Spencer wants everyone to shut the fuck up.
“Hey,” Jon says, “Moulin Rouge?” and they both agree because no one in this band can resist Moulin Rouge and Spencer is ridiculously grateful because he’s seen it a million times so he can sleep through it. He even manages to get Ryan to be a tiny, somewhat ineffectual buffer between him and Jon.
The only problem is that Spencer can’t stop looking at Jon, watching him pet Brendon absentmindedly, watching him listen to Ryan’s stupid prostitute trivia that they’ve all heard hundreds of times by now and Spencer can’t stop listening to him laugh when Spencer rolls his eyes at Ryan and sings along with Brendon, doing all the voices and everything. He can feel how warm Jon’s hand is, just brushing his shoulder behind Ryan’s neck. And then. And then –
Jon turns just when a flash of light bursts across the screen and he grins at Spencer and – and then.
Spencer finally, finally snaps.
“Right,” he says. “Okay.” And he flings himself over Ryan, accidentally elbows Brendon in the ear and launches himself at Jon’s face.
“Awargh!” Brendon wails and struggles to get out from between them. Spencer can practically feel Ryan’s eyes rolling. “What week is it?” he hears Brendon demand. “It’s twenty-five now, right? Oh man, is this Patrick’s week?"
“I think it’s Gabe’s. Gabe bought twenty-one through thirty-three, remember?”
“I thought we agreed that was cheating.”
Spencer wants to be indignant, he wants to say something scathing and sharp to them, but when he pulls away slightly Jon’s mouth follows and Spencer can feel his smug smile because he’s tracing it with his own tongue, and then Jon rocks his hips up and Spencer promptly forgets what he was going to say, now or ever again. He’s forgotten every single word he ever knew except Jon and fuck and finally and please. He says all of these in various orders, pressed up close against Jon’s mouth, holding him tight between his thighs.
He is dimly aware that Ryan and Brendon have left, but it doesn’t seem important; nothing seems as important as the way Jon’s hands are holding his neck, how his thumbs are pressed against the skin behind Spencer’s ears and Jon is laughing Spencer’s own name down his throat.
+ + +
On week twenty-five, Spencer does not vote yes on Jon Walker.
He forgets to go to the band meeting all together, probably because he’s curled up in Jon’s bunk at the time and isn’t really thinking about much that isn’t Jon Walker’s hands all over him.
“Spencer Smith!” Brendon yells, pounding on the door to the bunks, which they barricaded shut with a bag full of dirty laundry, just to be safe. “Spencer Smith, the vote was unanimous. So stop having sex with our official new bassist and go call Gabe Saporta.”
“How much did he win?” Jon calls as Spencer laughs into Jon’s collarbone.
“$540, but $260 of it was his to begin with anyway,” Ryan says.
“For the record,” announces Spencer, “I never gave my official consent.” “Liar!” Brendon shouts. “I heard you consenting all night long!” Then he cackles and says “Hey!” after the dull thwaping sound of Ryan hitting him upside the head.
“So you’re official now, hm?” Spencer says to Jon. “I think that means we probably shouldn’t have sex anymore. You know. We don’t want to break up the band.”
Jon snorts lazily and says, “Don’t be a bitch” and Spencer grins into the spacelessness between them and says, “Alright, I won’t.”
Current Mood: 
drunk
drunkCurrent Music: Backstabber - The Dresden Dolls
87 comments | Leave a comment