hear the ground beneath you [1/2] | panic! | brendon/spencer | r

title: hear the ground beneath you
author: parcae
fandom: Panic!
pairing: Brendon/Spencer
rating: R
length: ~12,000 words total; each part is ~6,000, and the second part is linked at the end of this one.
disclaimer: This never happened, and I'm not pretending it did.
summary: In retrospect, asking a newly-conscious Spencer where he'd gotten those tits from probably wasn't the best idea -- the holy shit probably hadn't helped -- but Brendon still doesn't think he deserved to be punched for it. Double sexswap!
notes: Thanks a thousand times over to madbonnycaptain, who talked me through this and then did an awesome awesome beta/edit; to fallingfortruth and midnight_united, who answered all manner of random questions; and to everyone else ever I asked for advice on this. (So, basically, everyone.) Title taken from a ThouShaltNot song. For fmith.





In retrospect, asking a newly-conscious Spencer where he'd gotten those tits from probably wasn't the best idea -- the holy shit probably hadn't helped -- but Brendon still doesn't think he deserved to be punched for it.

At least he hadn't been dumb enough to bind with duct tape on top of Ace bandages in Denver.





"At least you match now," Jon says, getting another icepack out of the freezer and handing it over.

"It's not my fault," Brendon mutters for what must be the seventh time. Jon just nods, sits down next to Brendon and rubs little circles on his back. After he puts the other icepack on, he has to admit Jon's right -- he feels less unbalanced with both eyes covered.

But Jesus. What else was he supposed to do but laugh when he found out that Spencer had been a girl for almost three weeks before anyone but Ryan had noticed? And it's not like Ryan counted, anyway, because Spencer had told him. It had really been the only option.





Brendon's thinking about it two or three days later, though -- he doesn't even know why, because it's not like now that everybody knows that Spencer's suddenly randomly and temporarily a girl he's doing anything different, because he's still binding every morning and wearing nothing but pants, although after Denver they went out and bought about forty packages of Ace bandages so that he would never be tempted to turn to duct tape ever again -- and he realizes that really, it's actually kind of okay that Spencer's a girl.

Not like, okay okay, it's fucked-up and wrong and he knows how uncomfortable Spencer is so he really wishes the weird anatomical quirk would just fix itself, but okay, like --

Well actually he can't really lie to himself, he knows exactly why he's thinking about it. He's thinking about it because Spencer's curled up on the floor with a book, and he just happened to look over and notice how Spencer looks sort of. Soft. At the moment. And kind of warm, although that's dumb because how the hell does someone look warm? And, whatever, he looks soft and warm and kind of like it would be worth invading his personal space because he'd be awesome to snuggle.

And that's why it's okay that Spencer's a girl, because he might have only noticed how Spencer looks sort of soft in the last few days, after he found out that Spencer was a girl, but he remembers, about a month ago, how he had looked over at Spencer backstage one night, and he'd meant to ask him something but the question had died on his lips because there was something just so about the line of Spencer's neck, right then.

He'd been sort of freaked-out about it, right then, but it totally makes sense now -- Spencer was a girl then. That was all it was. Totally okay.





It finally hits him, when they're coming offstage a few days later. Completely out of the blue. It's weird; Ryan says something quietly, something Brendon only hears as a monotone rumble, and Spencer smiles -- a real smile, the kind he saves for his friends -- for the first time in a day or two, and Brendon thinks hey, hey, I know how to fix this!





Except that Spencer, well, doesn't really seem to like the idea. Which is crazy, because it's totally obvious that that's, like, the Lesson he has to learn, or whatever. This shit wouldn't happen for no reason, so obviously there's a Lesson to be learned.

"Dude, no, c'mon, it'll totally work, I promise," Brendon says after a few moments of silence, because maybe Spencer just needs some convincing, right? He can see how the idea might take a little getting used to, but he's heard stories of other bands, and he knows. He knows that people in other bands have had sex with each other and nothing awful came from it, and it was for a much less worthy cause than turning his band's drummer back into a guy.

"Brendon," Spencer says, and then closes his eyes. When he opens them, he's speaking very carefully, sort of like he's speaking to a small child, which is kind of disturbing because what the hell is Spencer Smith doing to small children that he uses that voice in this situation? "Brendon, get away from me right now, right this exact second, or you'll know what it's like not to have a dick."

Which, okay, very clear instructions there. Brendon walks away, trying to make it seem like he decided to leave the conversation of his own free will and not like his manhood was unjustly threatened by a member of his own band. He's pretty sure he fails miserably.





"Jesus, Brendon," Ryan says a few hours later, after Spencer's gone back to his bunk. "How stupid do you think Spencer is? He tried that like the third day he was a girl, dumbass, it didn't work." Pause. "And for future reference that's probably really not the best way to pick a guy up."

Ryan gets up, then, heading back to his bunk, and Brendon is left with Jon and an image of Ryan and Spencer fucking, and hey he really could have lived without imagining that, seriously.

Jon starts laughing when he sees Brendon's face, though, and Brendon can't help but laugh too.





The next day, Ryan keeps complaining that he smells bleach, and Spencer buys out the nearest drugstore as far as cough drops and Day-Quil go; three or four days later, when Ryan gets the inevitable cold, Jon manages to catch it too, so for the last few days of the tour that they actually have hotels, they room together, leaving Brendon with Spencer.

Brendon has been trying very hard to mostly avoid Spencer in recent memory, because he's noticed that most of their encounters these days end with Spencer either threatening him with or actually doing him physical harm, and he doesn't really like the idea of that becoming a pattern. Well. More of a pattern than it is already, anyway.

When he walks into the room the first night, though, trailing behind Spencer and ready to run off at the first sign of trouble, Spencer just drops his stuff on the bed near the window and laughs, low and -- sort of in his throat, maybe, a little, which is weird because he's never heard that in a girl's voice before.

Okay, whatever, that's a lie, he's just never heard Spencer's girl's voice do that before. Not that that's really accurate because Spencer's girl's voice is actually really close to Spencer's real voice, since apparently if Spencer Smith had been born a girl he would have been one of those deep-voiced girls like Kathleen Turner or something. He's never heard Spencer do that before, then, in any voice he has -- even the weird Welsh one that he only pulls out at three in the morning under duress and caffeine -- and hey, wow, he totally just went on a tangent about Spencer's voice, it is definitely time for tour to be over.

"Don't worry, dude," Spencer says a minute or so later, after Brendon's put his stuff on the bed near the bathroom and is sort of leaning on the wall between the two rooms. He's totally casual, though. Not keeping his guard up. That would be weird. "I'm not gonna bite your head off or anything, okay? Just relax."

Brendon raises an eyebrow, mimes punching someone in the eye; a moment passes, and he does the same with his other hand.

"-- yeah, okay, I know. And I'm." Spencer makes a face. "I'm sorry. I promise I won't hit you again." Pause, during which Brendon coughs pointedly. "Or threaten to, or cut off your dick, or threaten to. Now will you please relax?"

"... yeah, okay," Brendon says, and sits down on the bed, finally.

Somehow Spencer manages to find something on the hotel TV that's apparently the end-all be-all of television shows, or something, because it gets him completely engrossed. He sits there, crosslegged, and except for the moments when he almost pulls a leg up to his chest and then stops, halfway through, because his chest goes out quite a ways more than his leg is used to, he doesn't move.

He looks incredibly peaceful, actually, one arm wrapped around his stomach and the other resting on a knee, hand dangling an inch or so above the bedspread -- the nasty hotel bedspread, actually, the one that Brendon just remembered they should probably throw in a corner, because ew -- and something in Brendon stirs, just a little.

But then Spencer's nose twitches a tiny bit, and Brendon's suddenly reminded of a bunny, and the obvious thing to do to a bunny is poke it under its ribs, so that's exactly what he does.

And apparently Spencer's promise not to hit him does not extend to situations involving provoking by way of severe poke, but that's okay because Brendon remembers all of the, what, two places Spencer's ticklish, so the sudden battle ends with Brendon squawking and Spencer giggling, flushed and breathless. It's kind of cute, actually, but Brendon figures hey, girl. All girls are cute when they're giggling and flushed and breathless. Sort of like a law of physics, or something.





Spencer and Ryan manage to steal the venue showers after their last show, which Brendon thinks is incredibly stupid. They're staying in a hotel tonight, which means they get hotel showers, which means Brendon is totally fine with stinking for a little while longer.

They get stuck in traffic on the way, though, so "a little while longer" turns into some amount of time Brendon isn't really sure of. It's ridiculously late by the time they get to the hotel, either way, but he refuses to skip his shower. When he and Spencer -- who he's still sharing with, since Ryan and Jon are still sick -- get up to their room, he heads straight for the bathroom. He can maybe hear Spencer getting ready for bed through the door, but then he turns on the water and that's all he hears. It's mostly quiet, actually, and it's sort of nice.

All the lights are out, thirty minutes later, and Brendon finds a clean t-shirt and boxers in the dark. As he puts them on, Spencer shifts in his sleep, rolling over onto his side and curling into himself, and.

Okay, so Brendon hasn't mentioned the whole sleeping together thing since Spencer threatened to mutilate him, and he's not planning on changing that. He doesn't even actually want to sleep with Spencer, euphemistically speaking, at least not at this particular moment. It's just that curled up like that, Spencer looks so small in the big bed. He'd never noticed it before, but it's true -- Spencer looks tiny, and lonely, and before he's really sure what he's doing, Brendon's climbing into Spencer's bed behind him, scooting forward until his chest is almost touching Spencer's back.

He was totally trying to be careful, and cautious, and stuff, and not disturb Spencer or anything, but he sort of wakes up anyway, mumbling something that might be Brendon's name, but might also have something to do with beavers. Or bacon.

"Shhhh," Brendon whispers, shuffling forward a little, and drapes his arm over Spencer's waist. A few seconds later, Spencer wiggles his shoulders back against Brendon's chest -- he really is warm -- and latches onto Brendon's arm. A few seconds after that, Brendon feels Spencer's legs shifting as he stretches them out.

When he sighs in his sleep, Brendon feels it more than he hears it. He burrows a little farther into the pillow before going still again, and Brendon smiles into his hair.





"Fuck you," Brendon mutters, and unlocks the door anyway, pulling it open and stepping out of the stall. "I am not being melodramatic here, I am being realistic. I am --" He pulls up short, there, and darts a look around the bathroom before continuing, because he may be pissed off and having a slight problem breathing, but he's not stupid, and they are in an airport bathroom, after all. "As of this morning I am suddenly sporting a halfway decent set of tits, which poke out a fair distance from my chest, and they are currently being squashed down with Ace bandages. I am having problems breathing, Spencer Smith, and it is all your fault."

"Okay, dude, first off, I told you to take a breath and hold it before I started wrapping, so if you didn't that's your fault and completely on you, and second, how the fuck is this my fault?" Spencer seems torn between annoyance and -- okay, well, just annoyance.

"Oh, please, it's obvious," Brendon says, and then realizes that it might be obvious to him but unless he tells Spencer about how he'd decided to use him as a life-sized, snuggly, nice-smelling teddy bear last night it's probably not going to be obvious to him. Uh. Oops. "Prolonged exposure to unnatural estrogen, Spencer, this is totally your fault."

Spencer blinks once, twice. "So basically it's my fault because I gave you cooties."

"... yes! Exactly!" Wow, that really is just what he said, now he's playing it back. Viable explanation! "You gave me cooties the day before we were going on vacation, and they took my dick away, and now I have girl parts."

"Whatever, Brendon," Spencer says, scowling ever so slightly, and checks the time. "You have to get over yourself just about right now, okay, because we have to get on the plane. I managed not to make a scene for three weeks when I turned into a girl; just try to make it through a day, okay?"

"Just because you're dead inside doesn't mean the rest of us are," mutters Brendon, following Spencer out. He didn't mean to say it quite that loud, but apparently he did, because Spencer's back gets just that much straighter, and his movements get just that much stiffer, and even though their seats are next to each other -- which is actually weird, but oh well -- he doesn't look at Brendon for a good forty-five minutes.

After Spencer's downed his in-flight soda, though, and put his tray table back up, Brendon presses himself along Spencer's side, arms around his waist, and says "I love you, Spencer Smith, I am sorry I said you were dead inside" to somewhere between his collarbone and what feel like the bandages under his shirt. It doesn't seem like Spencer heard him for a few seconds, but then he shifts around so his arm is laying across Brendon's shoulders, and Brendon smiles.





It occurs to Brendon as they're checking into the hotel that they're actually sort of vaguely removed from civilization. They aren't, like, in the boonies or whatever, because hey, awkward, but nobody's gone "oh my god, it's those guys!" or even looked at them askance since they got into town.

And there are beaches, and things.

This is actually, Brendon thinks, kind of exciting.





"... you look ridiculous." The look on Ryan's face is even flatter than his voice, which is saying something. Jon is, as always, awesome, his face completely blank. "Where the hell did you get those, anyway?"

"Your suitcase," Brendon says, and shrugs. It jiggles, sort of. Weird feeling. This is the tightest t-shirt he could find -- incidentally, also in Ryan's suitcase -- but they're still moving around. Independently. They're not, like, disconnecting themselves from his body and doing a tap dance, or anything, but it's. Weird. Although the t-shirt he stole is a v-neck, and he's currently got some pretty awesome cleavage going on, so. Toss-up, or something.

He'd spent ten minutes in the bathroom that morning just sort of poking at them, seeing what they did, since he hadn't really done that yet. It was sort of interesting, actually. Worked really well as far as distracting himself from how vastly wrong this whole deal still was, too, so it had been a win-win situation.

"You know, with those huge sunglasses on, you actually do look like a girl instead of Brendon Urie's Experiment with Estrogen," Jon says, and Brendon beams at him.

"Jon Walker, you're my favorite," he says, and Jon half-smiles back.

"Yeah, okay, fine, whatever, what happens when you take the glasses off? You're planning on being inside, Brendon, you'll look a hell of a lot more suspicious if you just walk around in giant blue sunglasses."

Brendon takes the offending eyewear off, hooking one of the arms in one of his back pockets, and raises his eyebrows. "What, I don't look like a girl?" Ryan opens his mouth to say something, but Brendon talks over him. "I got it all from your stuff, and by the way, why are you carrying mascara around, dude? You don't even wear that when we're performing."

Ryan's mouth shuts with an almost audible snap, and Jon bites his lip, probably so he doesn't laugh.

"Look," Brendon says, "I know what I look like when I'm normal, okay? And I'm in girl clothes, or a girl shirt anyway, and I've got flipflops on, and my tattoo is covered up and I actually used some of my hair shit for once, today, and besides that my face right now doesn't look, y'know, identical to my actual face, and I'm wearing real makeup and everything, so." He shrugs. "Lay off, okay? Things'll work out."

"..." says Ryan, and he walks off a second later.

"I still think it's funny Ryan has armwarmers in his suitcase," Jon says when he's out of earshot. "Although you're right, they do cover up your tattoo pretty well."





"Are you planning on wearing that shit once you're back to normal? Because otherwise, dude, that's a lot of bikinis for ...." Spencer trails off, shrugging, and Brendon makes a face at him.

"No, I'm not, and besides that I only got three, and some coverups so I'm not walking around in just a swimsuit all day." Brendon pauses, thoughtful. "You should've come and gotten some stuff for yourself. How many times in your life will you be justified in wearing a bikini?"

"Fuck you, Brendon," Spencer says softly, without much venom in it, and goes back to staring at the window.

"Squashing them down every day isn't gonna make them disappear, you know," says Brendon, but Spencer doesn't answer.





"Jesus Christ, Brendon," Ryan says, and Brendon scowls.

"... uh. Dude," Jon says, and Brendon scowls even more.

Spencer doesn't say anything, just looks at him and smirks, and Brendon storms off to the elevators. They can have dinner without him; who the fuck cares? All he wants to do is fucking sleep, anyway, who knew that walking around a city for six hours would be so exhausting?





Almost two hours later, he's contemplating grabbing the plate his room service came on -- a result of his discovery that eating is, hey, pretty high on his list of things to do, apparently -- and washing it off and laying on that instead of the sheets because at least that would be cold. Except he doesn't want to go into the bathroom, because if he goes into the bathroom he'd have to look in the mirror, and he's fairly sure that if he looks in the mirror he's going to see for sure that he's bright red basically all over his body, and as it is he can still pretend he's, like. Feverish, or something.

The door lock whirrs, and Brendon grabs the sheet, tucking it between his chest and his arms and wincing. A moment later, the door opens, and Spencer walks in.

"Spencer Smith, do you think I have a fever?"

Spencer rolls his eyes, closes the door behind him and sets the plastic bag in his hand down on the dresser. "No, Brendon, I think you were an idiot who walked around in the sun for six hours with no sunscreen on and now you're an idiot who has a sunburn he's not going to forget for a while."

"I hate you," Brendon mumbles, and eyes the plate again. Maybe if he just keeps his eyes on the sink and doesn't look up?

"What happened to coming upstairs and sleeping your life away?" Spencer -- well, he's managing to fake looking vaguely concerned and interested pretty well, so Brendon figures he'll give him points for that, anyway. "Or did you do that already?"

He almost says something -- something, he can't even think of the word -- but then he just sighs and falls backward onto the bed. And maybe whimpers a little. "I hurt, Spencer Smith. I can't go to sleep. My body hates me and I'm never going to be able to sleep again." He sniffles a little.

"Oh my fucking god," Spencer mutters, and sits down on his bed, slipping off his shoes. "Have you thought about, I don't know, a cold shower or something? Heaven forbid you do anything to fix the situation you put yourself in, but."

"... dude, you're a genius," Brendon says, grinning, and jumps off the bed, runs over to the bathroom and closes the door.

Just as he's realizing that the towels in here probably aren't going to feel too great today, and that all his clothes are out next to his bed, a cry of "dude!" reaches him from the crack between the door and the tile, and Brendon smiles a little. Did Spencer really expect him to be sitting around in clothes in his state?





So it's probably impossible -- he's fairly sure it is, anyway, but not completely, and he's thinking about looking it up later -- but it's starting to feel like the cold water's running out. Although it was incredibly awesome while it lasted, no doubt; he reminds himself again to thank Spencer once he's out of the bathroom. Although he's totally not apologizing for the accidental flash.

When he steps out, there's a t-shirt and a pair of boxers sitting on the back of the toilet. They both look soft, and the t-shirt looks big enough it won't be too excruciating if Brendon's careful. Which means, he thinks, that it's probably not Spencer's -- and definitely not his, he doesn't recognize it -- and that means that it's probably Jon's. Which means that Spencer went and asked Jon if he could borrow a t-shirt for Brendon. Which means. Well. He's not really sure what it means, really. Probably mostly that Spencer doesn't want to listen to him bitch, which. Fair.

Also probably that Spencer wants to avoid being flashed again, considering the fact that hotel towels are apparently hotel towels everywhere, and also ow.

"Hey, thanks for the clothes," Brendon says after he shuts the bathroom light off, walking over to his bed carefully and settling himself in it just as carefully. The only light on in the room is the one next to Spencer's bed, since he's reading, and the shower seems to have helped a little. This could work.

Then again, it really really couldn't, and Brendon is just wishing he could turn into that dude who had that one weird-ass video that one time when Spencer finally blinks and looks up. "Hm?"

"Thanks for the clothes," Brendon says again, and bites down on his lip as he tries to find a way to lie that isn't completely horrible.

Okay, so maybe he makes a couple of noises in the back of his throat.

Maybe. He's not going to admit anything.

Either way, Spencer puts the book down and frowns. "Are you going to be doing that all night?"

"Um." Brendon shifts again, makes a face. "Probably."

"Jesus," Spencer mutters, and gets up. It sounds like he's getting whatever was in the bag on the dresser out of the bag, and then he says, "Sit up, okay, and take your shirt off," from behind Brendon.

"... dude, what are you going to do to me?"

"Nothing if you don't sit up and take your shirt off. But leave the boxers on, your legs aren't really burned and it stops above where you're wearing them."

Brendon does as he's told, this time, and almost has time to wonder about the fact that Spencer knows where his burn stops and where he's wearing his boxers, but there's a sound of a bottle being uncapped and then some squirting and then Spencer says, "Okay, just stay still," and then suddenly there is paradise on his back and fine, he'll admit that he gasped a little, because hi, cold.

But amazing cold.

"What is that?" he manages, after his brain has recovered. "It's."

"Aloe vera," Spencer says softly, getting the back of Brendon's neck with the stuff and earning himself a place in heaven. "I burned really easily when I was young, my mom used to keep a bottle of it under the sink in the bathroom once April rolled around because she knew what was coming. Lean forward a little?"

"Didn't you put on sunscreen? I would've thought you would've, seeing as how you're Sunscreen's Favorite Person, and all." It's just as soft, although Brendon's not sure why. He's also fairly sure that sentence made more sense in his head than it did out loud, but he's gotten used to that over the years.

"I. What?" Spencer's hands stop spreading the cool around, but Brendon makes a tiny noise in the back of his throat and they start up again. "No, I put stuff on, but when I didn't it was bad. Like, right, one time I went to some lake or something with some kid I knew from school -- Ryan had, like, a play or some shit like that, I don't remember, but he wasn't there -- and they'd just moved to the States from Nepal. So they had sunblock, of course they did, so I figured I could use their stuff. So I put the SPF, like, 15 on, and went and frolicked, or whatever the hell you do at a lake, and when I got home I was bright red. Lift your arms up a little? Yeah, like that. And it didn't occur to me until that night when my mom asked me how I let it get that far that maybe it would've been a good idea to bring some stuff for myself." Brendon hears a laugh, almost, and smiles. "I mostly grew out of it, though. Also," he says, a moment later, "stopped going out in the sun."

"That's not true," Brendon says before he can stop himself. "You still freckle, you know, across your nose."

Spencer's hands stop again, just for a second, and then Spencer must, like, blow across his back or something because suddenly Brendon is shivering, and oh that is the best feeling ever.

"I got your back and the tops of your shoulders and the parts of your arms you can't get." Spencer's tone is distant, suddenly, and Brendon frowns just a little. "If I leave you the bottle, can you get the rest of you?"

"Yeah, dude, totally. Uh." The bottle's in his hand, a second later, and when he looks over his shoulder Spencer's climbing back into his bed, switching Brendon's light on so he can switch his own off. "Thanks, by the way. For, y'know." He lifts his hand up a little. "I really appreciate it."

"Don't worry about it," Spencer says, still kind of far away, and then he cracks a tiny smile at Brendon before rolling over.

He still curls into a ball in his sleep. Brendon still gets filled with the urge to, like. Keep him company, or something, when he sees the tiny Spencerball. The bed is just so big. His front is still screaming at him, though, so.

Maybe next week.





It's not that they're avoiding each other, because they have no reason to be, but Spencer's going out and Doing Things with Ryan, as far as Brendon can tell, and he's staying in, because if he stays in he can sit around in really soft t-shirts and boxers and nothing else. It's sort of a shame, he thinks, that they're on vacation and he's just sitting in the room for most of the day every day, but he figures that avoiding the sun like the plague is probably a good idea.

The second day he's holed up in his room he discovers that there's a marathon of that show about meerkats on Animal Planet and settles down for the long haul; it's sort of bizarrely compelling. Not that he can tell any of the meerkats apart, because hey, meerkats, the only one he'd be able to pick out of a lineup would be Timon and that would only be if he was still animated and voiced by Nathan Lane, but it reminds him of a soap opera.

Also, the baby meerkats are the kind of adorable he can only aspire to.

Sometime in the third episode, there's a faint knock on the door, and a moment later -- Brendon doesn't actually get up, choosing instead to shout "Yeah?" from his position on the bed, because it was hard-won and if whoever's at the door wants him to get up they'd better have a good fucking reason -- the lock whirrs and pops open, but Jon walks in, instead of Spencer.

"Ooh, meerkats," Jon says, and settles down a foot or so away from Brendon on the bed. "What's going on, do you know?"

"... yeah, uh, there are, um. This bird just attacked, so they had to run away, and now they're split up." Brendon pauses. "I think. Also, this one ate a bunch of poisonous bugs and, like, lived anyway. He must be magic."

"Magic, huh?" Brendon thinks maybe he hears a smile in Jon's voice, and when he twists his head around, wincing, and looks up, he sees he's right. He nods sagely in answer, and the smile turns into something closer to a grin. "Want some company, dude?"

Instead of answering, Brendon scoots around on the bed a little until his head's resting in Jon's lap. It's surprisingly comfortable, especially when Jon starts combing fingers through his hair absently, eyes on the television.





"Hey," he hears Jon say softly, "hey, wake up, we're getting dinner, hey, Brendon." A few seconds later Jon starts scritching his head gently and then repeats himself, and Brendon frowns and opens his eyes.

"Wasn't asleep," he mumbles, blinking himself awake. "Totally completely not at all."

"Nope," Jon says, hand still on his head. "Of course not. We are getting dinner, though, so now the whole world agrees that you're not asleep, wanna come with?"

"Mmph," Brendon says, sitting up and scowling. "Why wouldn't the whole world agree? Was there any debate?" Jon shakes his head emphatically, eyes wide, and Brendon maybe smiles a little. He totally hadn't been asleep, either; he'd been in that weird half-awake half-asleep place where he'd started thinking about something and it had turned into a bizarre not-quite-dream that had involved Spencer running away to the African veldt to take care of meerkats and be Teddy Roosevelt.

Which was weird, because he's seen pictures of Teddy Roosevelt, and he's pretty damn sure that the man wouldn't have been able to pull off tight jeans quite the way Spencer does, or have his hair fall in his face in a way that was actually incredibly endearing, or smile at Brendon on rare occasions and make him feel like they were they only people in the whole world, or --

Okay, so maybe he had been asleep, because more than half of his mind is still obviously stuck in the dream. He's never seen a picture of Teddy Roosevelt smiling like Spencer can -- he's never seen anyone smiling like Spencer can, if he's being honest, and honesty always won out in dreams, even if it left logic behind -- and, uh. He's sure he had a point, somewhere. His head's still muzzy, he decides, and yawns a little.

"Brendon, hey," Jon says, and he jumps a little. "Food?"

"Oh, dude, yeah. Just lemme, uh." Brendon scoots off the bed and goes looking for his bag, where his clean clothes that aren't t-shirts and boxers live, because for some reason people like for him to be dressed when they're all out together. "Just gimme a minute, okay? Go ahead, I'll be down in like five."

"'kay." Jon pushes himself off the bed, pets the top of Brendon's downturned head on his way out the door.





By the time Spencer comes through the door again, Brendon has managed to: come three times, get into the shower, have a bright idea, come while in the shower, fall down, pick himself back up, actually get himself and his new best friends clean and dry, get dressed, and curl up on his bed and read the book Ryan's been pushing on him since the last week of tour.

What? Spencer was gone for three hours, dude, he feels pretty proud of himself. Especially since the whole "today I am going to get back two hours early, walk in with no warning, and then walk right back out" thing Spencer had decided to do had totally thrown off his rhythm.

The book is actually pretty good, though, so Brendon's kind of absorbed when Spencer walks through the door again, making so much noise he would probably manage to wake up -- well, himself, at like eight in the morning, because Spencer is notoriously hard to wake up. Especially, apparently, if your name is Brendon Urie and you're not using it as an alias.

"-- dude," he says, when Spencer's in and the door's closed. "Dude, the fuck, what was that for?"

"Just in case," Spencer says, and it would be vague in other circumstances, but Brendon knows exactly what he means. But he's totally nodding his head, eyes wide, like he doesn't, because doing that helps the whole repressing thing.

Okay, not repressing, but what else is he supposed to call not talking about something or ever admitting it happened?

Spencer eyes him a little, itching his side idly and probably without even realizing he's doing it, and Brendon manages to restrain himself from saying anything pointed about the fabric he knows is wrapped around Spencer's chest because it would do absolutely nothing, and he knows it. It's been a little more than five weeks since Spencer started wrapping, if he's counting right, and despite his innate sensibility, Brendon knows Spencer can be incredibly stubborn if he thinks he's doing something for the right reasons.

It's a pity, really. Spencer lets himself free when he's going to sleep -- it's nice that he's giving himself some break -- and Brendon's seen him, and it's. Well. It's a pity, really. A shame.

But whatever, right? Spencer walks into the bathroom, and it's just about the time that Spencer starts to say "Hey, Brendon, you think you forgot something?" that he realizes that the list of things he did between the last time Spencer was in the room and now did not, in fact, include putting his new sex toys away. Potentially a fatal mistake if he handles it wrong, he knows.

"No, I was leaving those out for you" is probably pretty high up on the list of things he could say that would count as "handling it wrong", but somehow it makes its way out of his mouth anyway. He was totally trying to say that it was his mistake, and he was sorry, too.

"I don't need your vibrator, I don't need your dildo, I definitely do not need a sparkly purple model of either of those, and also I would really appreciate it if you didn't offer me masturbation aids, um." Spencer, who's out of the bathroom right now and has on quite the bitchface, stops moving and pauses for a moment, probably mostly for effect. "Ever. Ever, yeah, I think that's a good time frame."

"You know," Brendon starts, putting his book down and moving to the end of the bed, crossing his legs, "they don't have to be masturbation aids. They could be sex aids!"

"... excuse me?"

Spencer stills again, and the look on his face suddenly goes from bitchy to bitchy, mildly confused, and somewhat offended, and it goes there fast. Brendon would be impressed if he weren't busy simultaneously being mortified and still talking. "I could use them on you! Or I could just use one, or just the other one, or something."

"I'm. What?"

"Or we could, you know, just have sex. Lesbian sex, Spencer! Tell me that's not tempting." Spencer, Brendon decides, isn't going to be telling anyone anything right now, and so he just keeps talking. Somehow. Maybe he doesn't really have a brain anymore, just a bunch of cackling imps who for some reason all bear a disturbing resemblance to Pete or Gabe and have taken control of his motor skills. And voicebox. "You'll never have this opportunity again, Spence. We could wake up tomorrow with our dicks back, and you'd never have had sex as a woman. With a woman," he amends a moment later, remembering what Ryan had said. "You'd never have had sex as a lesbian. You know it's a good idea, dude."

It looks like he's finally reached the end of what he was saying, thankfully, and now he's listening back to himself in his head Brendon thinks that, okay, the idea is kind of awesome -- sex as a woman plus sex with a woman, and the fact that that other woman is Spencer is kind of also awesome but he's ignoring that bit for the moment -- but uh. Possibly not the best way to handle the proposition.

Spencer stays still and quiet for almost ten seconds; Brendon keeps their eyes locked, and thinks maybe he can see a little bit of Spencer starting to give in, and then maybe a little more, and then Spencer blinks, turns his eyes to the carpet, and leaves.

"Fuck," Brendon says after the door closes, and lets himself fall backward onto the bed.

"... ow," he says a few moments later. Stupid book.





part two