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The final ray of sun, persistent bordering on obsessive, is boring right
It had finally made sense then, why Ryan always pushed his hair out of his face when it was just him and Spencer, alone.
To his left, Ryan's staring at the spot in the middle of all four of them where a campfire might be if they had one, but all that occupies the space are a pile of empty snack wrappers. Every few minutes Ryan's eyes will shift focus, and stay there for awhile, barely blinking and never moving until they shift again, to the ground or to something behind someone's shoulder.
He never once looks at Brendon.
Jon's to Ryan's left, facing Spencer and allowing one of his hands to be held captive in Ryan's, where it's been since Ryan attached himself to Jon in front of the fire.
Brendon's to Jon's left and Spencer's right, completing the square, and Spencer wants to reach out and touch him, like he has all along, but the urge is getting so strong he's forgotten why he wanted to in the first place -- that it was about comfort, about grief and safety and Brendon being tiny and broken. All he knows now is he wants to touch him -- like somehow, it would fix something. Not everything, maybe not anything important. But something.
Brendon doesn't look like he wants to be touched, and that's another item for Spencer to add to his mental list of terrifying post-crash observations, a list that's growing endless and tangled and out of control, like a ball of yarn under the ministrations of of Jon's cats.
When the sun starts its final dip, releasing Spencer's eyes from its trap, Jon speaks. Like he was waiting for Spencer to be able to see him. Waiting for approval. And even after all these years, Spencer can see it sometimes, in interviews, the way Jon will instinctively look at one of them instead of the interviewer as he speaks, searching for their approval, for their permission; for assurance that he's saying the right thing.
"Um," he starts quietly, searching for a pair of eyes to settle on, and Spencer willingly provides his own. "Spence and I found the plane's radio during one of the trips today."
Ryan and Brendon are both offering rapt attention now, breaths halted and maybe heartbeats, too.
"It's -- it's broken, but. I think, maybe, if I work on it awhile, we could. I -- I don't know, maybe. But. We've got it in a plastic bag, over there, in case it rains -- " He gestures to a spot behind Spencer, behind the pillows in a tangle of leaves. "So. I can, uh. Start on that tomorrow."
"Any phones? Cells, sidekicks?" Ryan asks.
"One," Spencer says. "Well, two, but one was underwater and the other was smashed."
"We did find, uh..." Jon adds, eyes set meaningfully on Spencer's.
Spencer's half ready to protest because he doesn't want to be the one to do this. Brendon's distanced himself enough as it is, and this will either draw him back or chase him off for good, and Spencer's learned from enough years with Ryan not to dwell in foolish optimism.
He reaches behind himself and pulls out the battered remains of Shane's camera, proffering it to Brendon. Brendon looks at it like it might disappear, or maybe like it's not really there at all, or maybe like he's expecting it to do or say something, and after enough speculation Spencer admits to himself he really can't tell at all how Brendon's looking at it, because he's not breaking down like Jon did over Tom's and he's not running and he's not crying. He's not doing anything.
When he does, it's only to take the camera from Spencer's hands and hold it on his lap, gingerly, reactionless and robotic -- nothing momentous as Spencer had both hoped and feared, and in fact the most notable thing about the moment is the fact that Ryan's looking at the camera like it's just informed him, with a megaphone in front of ten thousand people, that his bandmates have never loved him.
"Ry?" Spencer asks softly, but Ryan eyes shifting to his, dark and warning, are enough to convince him, once again, that words are not going to get him anywhere right now.
Jon breaks the silence and everything else in the air, gentle and tentative. "We've got enough stuff here to make some spears, so, you know... we can start trying to fish until they find us."
"If," Ryan huffs.
Spencer almost snaps something back about negativity, but Jon adds quickly, "I know. We don't know anything, Ry. I mean..." His eyes dart around again, searching.
"Where are we?" Ryan asks, unthreatening this time.
Jon looks at Spencer, but they could be on the fucking moon for all Spencer knows.
"Indonesia, maybe?" Jon offers. "Somewhere around there?"
"And what do we fucking know about Indonesia?"
"That it's got like eighteen thousand islands and there's still like sixty gazillion that no one's ever set foot on," Brendon interjects suddenly. His voice is unrecognizably soft, but that does nothing to prevent the undivided attention of three horrified sets of eyes.
"How do you know that?" Jon asks.
"Animal Planet," Brendon whispers.
There's the disconcerting sound of mismatched breaths, four separate, colliding rhythms that are driving Spencer insane, maybe more so than the words themselves.
"Okay," Jon says. "So. Okay."
So okay nothing, Spencer thinks. But when Jon looks at him, pleading silent and desperate, Spencer whispers, "I'm in."
He extends one hand across the sand toward Ryan, walking his fingers out as far as they'll go, and Ryan takes hold of them with one hand, automatically running through a vague approximation of their secret handshake before gripping tight, unrelentless and deliberate.
"I'm in," Ryan says to the ground.
"I'm in," says Jon.
Brendon says, "I'm going for a walk."
And Spencer thinks, it's over, until Brendon's eyes catch his for a moment he might've imagined, if he hadn't been hoping for it so hard.
[ Track 5 ]
"He didn't mean it."
Brendon looks up from where he's perched against the brick wall outside the studio, and Spencer can see his breath when he exhales, leaving winter-reddened lips in lazy wisps. Maryland fucking sucks balls this time of year, and Spencer misses Vegas in a way he hadn't thought was emotionally possible.
"Sure he does. Says it enough."
Spencer stands beside him and holds out a Tootsie Pop he'd been saving in his pocket for just this occasion, because Ryan's outbursts are like time bombs, inevitable and explosive. Brendon takes it, even working up a weak smile as he wrestles off the wrapper.
"You're awesome."
"So are you. And he knows it. He does," Spencer insists when Brendon huffs. "He's -- this is his life, Bren. I'm not making excuses, I'm just -- like, if he loses this -- "
"If he loses it, he's still got you," Brendon hisses, meeting his eyes. "If I lose this, I've got nothing. I've already lost my family."
"You're an idiot," Spencer sighs, and immediately remembers, again, why Ryan's the lyricist. "You'll have me, too."
Brendon looks at him as skeptically as he can manage, which isn't very successful because it's clear he wants to believe it so badly.
To profess his undying devotion, Spencer goes so far as to remove one of his frozen hands from his jacket pocket and close it over Brendon's, equally chilled, but somehow the contact warms him.
"I promise. You'll have me."
He wishes he had the right words to say, You always have.
But Ryan's the lyricist.
Spencer at least does him the honor of a two-minute head start before climbing to his feet and setting off down the shore. Brendon's still visible in the distance, and it's almost adorable (if adjectives like that can be used right now, when everything is... this), how he's moving slow enough to be easily followed.
Even on small levels, that kind of predictability, Brendon's, is comforting in ways Spencer can't seem to define.
They walk together until the sun is just a bright, glowing line where water meets sky; until Brendon's hand has brushed up against his enough times that Spencer's convinced his presence isn't unwanted.
"Don't mind Ryan."
He doesn't expect those to be the first words out of his own mouth, but apparently he can still surprise himself -- and Brendon, who finally meets his eyes.
"I -- He's. There's just. There's a lot in his head."
"Like what?" Brendon can't keep the slight bitterness out of his voice, but Spencer can't blame him because, yeah, okay, out of everyone here, Ryan is clearly not the one with the worst shit in his head right now.
"I... he'll tell you. When he's ready."
Spencer only hopes he's right.
"That's not fair," Brendon accuses softly, scuffing his toe into a patch of recently wave-washed sand.
"I know. Nothing here is. But. We're here."
"No shit."
"I mean..." Words, fucking words, no wonder Ryan's always got a stick up his ass, this is the shit he's got to deal with all day long. "I mean, we're here together. I know it's -- I know, not everyone's -- " Not everyone's here because some of us are fucking dead, Jesus fucking Christ, Smith. "I mean. Fuck, Brendon, I'm sorry, I don't know what I'm trying to say. I'm not good at this."
"You're perfect, Spence."
They stop then -- for Spencer, simply out of shock -- half facing each other, and Spencer can see Brendon outlined by the glowing line of sunset too. He looks picturesque, fucking beautiful even... but mostly he looks older.
"I'm sorry I haven't told you. I'm sorry I -- I don't even know, Spence." His eyes are welling up, even splashing down over his cheeks a bit, but he never falters. "I'm just so fucking scared and everything's wrong and -- but you. You've been amazing."
"I've been a fucking mess, Brendon."
Brendon smiles, just a bit, and maybe two days isn't a long time in the scheme of a lifespan, but two days without Brendon's smile might as well be a lifetime.
"You're an amazing mess, and I love you."
Spencer opens his mouth to say it back, but there's an ominous lump in his throat.
Brendon turns to keep walking, slipping his hand into Spencer's.
"Happy Birthday."
"Thanks." Spencer bumps into his shoulder a bit on purpose, solidifying the morbid sarcasm, and Brendon pushes back against him, hanging off Spencer's arm, both his hands now wrapped around it.
"I never did thank you," Brendon says.
"For what?"
"Saving me, in the beginning."
And the significance of one word, beginning, just like that, lifts one of some three dozen weights on Spencer's chest right now -- Brendon's recognition of this as, very possibly, something with a "beginning," not simply a brief interlude. If Spencer's bold enough to hope, it might just be the start of Brendon's acceptance.
Spencer smiles a bit, nudges Brendon's side. "Well, I wasn't gonna let you lie around all lazy and unconscious, we needed your help."
Brendon smiles against his shoulder, enough for Spencer to feel it, and it feels wonderful.
He counts eleven steps, four of which their feet bump together trying to avoid bits of seaweed or little shells embedded in the sand. He's just getting used to the silence again, when Brendon turns his face once more, speaking right into Spencer's skin:
"It wasn't the worst thing to wake up to, by the way."
Spencer can feel himself blush and it's ridiculous, mortifying and ridiculous, and even more ridiculous that he smiles. But even as he whispers "I love you too," the blush fades and the smile dissolves into something warm, comfortable, and their footprints wash away behind them, easy enough to pretend they weren't there, almost like the moment never happened.