the present and the distance [3/19]
Aug. 20th, 2008 06:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
behindthecTitle: The Present and the Distance [3/19]
Author:lolab
Rating: NC-17 overall
Pairings: Panic: Ryden-heavy, hints of everyone, eventual GSF, a bit of Brendon/Shane
POV: Third; varies
Warnings: Character death, violence, angst. Also, angst. Did I mention ANGST.
Disclaimer: They belong toPete each other the island themselves, not me. Fiction, I hope to god. Any similarities to Lost are incidental, as I have never seen the show.
Summary: There is no way to summarize this that doesn't sound ridiculous, so I leave you with my original cheesy!blurb(tm): There are 17,508 islands in Indonesia, about 6,000 of which are inhabited. On August 31, 2008, returning from an Australian tour in the middle of the year's most violent storm to date, a plane carrying Panic at the Disco loses power, veers off course, and crashes into one of the remaining 11,508 islands. This is their story.
Dedication:falling_words, for pointing out Chapter 2 typos/failures (hey, I edited that mofo while I was watching teenage boys dive and shower together in the Olympics, I was USELESS), including Spencer and Brendon's matching erections. silhouettes_die, for the gift of love. ;) bunniesontoast, for Brylliam. \o/ noteto__self, who sees Panic tomorrow!
Author's Notes: You guys are beautifully patient, really. All your kickass comments (and declarations of hatred for the character deaths) keep me writing. If you can just make it to Chapter 11, I promise you'll be rewarded. ;) I'm also taking flashback ideas, as I'm trying to start each chapter with a flashback focused on a different pair. (Nothing smutty: subtext is the name of the game here.) Incidentally, if PWF angst starts to get to you, just go here. :D This, apparently, is what Panic does in Australia. Maybe we can convince them to just stay there and not fly back...? (P.S. I'm ignoring Shane's real birthday. Sue me.)
Please refer to the master post for previous chapters, notes, soundtrack listing, etc.
3.
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
--The Fray
Brendon finds him outside the ballroom, in a side hallway off the main entrance, slouched against one of the lounge sofas with a half-empty (half-full?) champagne flute, thin and delicate, perched between fingers of the same description. He's so still, so unobtrusive, it might look like he's merged with the cushions, but he smiles when their eyes meet because if anyone could find him, it would be Brendon.
"Hey you."
"Hey."
"What are you doing out here?"
Ryan gestures vaguely toward the ballroom, the distant sounds of music, voices, and clinking crystal soft in his ears. "Noise."
Brendon nods. Ryan is grateful that he understands, even if it makes little sense even to himself, how he can play night after night in the midst of pounding amps and thousands of screaming teens (and on that note, thank god Honda Civic's over), but an overly animated wedding reception sends him off into the wings with a creased forehead and tense shoulders.
"You want to be alone?"
Ryan shakes his head, patting a square of sofa beside him, and Brendon accepts.
"Can't believe Jon's brother got married," Brendon muses.
"Yeah. I thought he was gay for like two years."
Brendon chuckles. "I know, right?"
"Speaking of gay, where is your boyfriend?" he prods with a grin, poking Brendon's leg.
"Uh." Brendon smiles down at his clasped hands before looking up at Ryan. "Dancing with your girlfriend."
Ryan grins. "We should've seen it coming."
"Yeah. Actually, he, uh." Brendon wrinkles his nose, scratches nervously at the back of his neck. "He said if I don't ask you to dance, he and Keltie are gonna run off together."
"I see," Ryan nods thoughtfully, if a little lazily from the champagne buzz. "Well, I guess you'd better ask me, then."
"Are you serious? I actually have to ask?"
"Hey, Shane set the rules, not me."
"You're an asshole." Brendon grins, pinching what little flesh there is at Ryan's hip.
"Yeah. Dance with me."
Ryan drags himself off the couch, slipping his hand into Brendon's so he pulls them both to their feet, instantly curling his hand around Brendon's waist.
"Hey, who says you get to lead?" Brendon smirks.
"Because I'm older and taller and you have girl hips, now shut up."
"I hate you."
"You're a very impolite dance partner. Behave."
"Yes, sir," Brendon whispers, trying to bite back his grin as he leans in, the side of his face just barly touching Ryan's.
Ryan's relieved, because he doesn't think he could spend a whole song staring into Brendon's eyes. They'd either start laughing, or Brendon would start making weird faces or wouldn't stop talking, or Ryan would end up staring at Brendon's mouth.
His heart skips a beat at that last thought, specifically at the fact that he just thought it.
Fuck alcohol, and all the fucking honesty that breaks out with it.
"How have we known each other five years and I've never conned you into a dance until now?" Brendon whispers suddenly, each breathy syllable tickling Ryan's ear as their bodies sway slowly together, lightly in contact, but holding back the slightest bit, if they'd be willing to admit it.
Because I know what it means to you, Ryan doesn't say.
And I'm afraid of what it means to me, he definitely, definitely doesn't think.
"Because I hate slow dancing," Ryan says, and at least it's not a lie. "This is the most depressing song in the world. Why do they always have to play it at weddings?"
"'Unchained Melody'? It's beautiful, you dickhead."
"Whatever, dude, didn't you ever see Ghost? He fucking dies, man."
Ryan feels Brendon turn into his neck, just enough for Ryan to feel his smile. "But it's not about death, Ry. It's about love."
"That is like, right out of Moulin Rouge."
Brendon snorts. "You would know."
"Shut up, it's a good movie."
"Yeah, if you're a thirteen-year-old girl."
"You talk too much."
"You step on my feet too much."
Ryan almost wishes they were face to face now, just to see the smile he knows Brendon is sporting, same as the smile stretched across Ryan's own lips. They're silent, then, once they discover how sweet this silence is, letting Ryan focus on the small, liquid movements of their bodies together, the smell of Brendon's cologne, the solid warmth of his hands, his breath. They never do this, but it's like they've done it for years. A lifetime, even. After a minute Brendon starts humming along to the song, quiet and soft in Ryan's ear, only evolving to a spoken whisper of one lyric as the song reaches its climax.
"And time can do so much... are you still mine?"
Ryan can practically feel his insides freeze solid while his body temperature steadily rises, and maybe it's just the alcohol, only it's not, he knows it's not, and when he pulls away enough to see Brendon's face, he can tell Brendon knows, too.
Five years of unspoken words are reflected in Brendon's eyes, dark and scared, all jokes over and bets off, and Ryan catches himself in the urge to just lean forward, search out and swallow all those words Brendon's never said, take away that burden Brendon's been carrying as long as he can remember, just take it and wash it away and say for once exactly what he wants to say, and he's not even entirely sure what that is, but in his head it sounds something like, I've always been yours.
His body is a split second past making the decision, he's already learning in and it's slow motion, it's like falling, it's like he's thirteen and it's all the cliches, and when they're close enough for him to smell the chocolate icing lingering on Brendon's lips, his eyes actually flutter shut. The point of no return.
"Mind if I cut in?"
They jerk apart at Shane's voice, and it's the one tiny pebble rippling the pond, just like that the moment's over, the stillness, the sanctity. The chance. The chance they know, they know they couldn't have taken.
They waited too long.
Shane's smile is light, easy, amused, but Ryan's not blind and there's a flash of darkness behind it; fear. A fear Ryan recognizes all too well: the fear of loss.
"He's all yours," Ryan smiles, releasing Brendon and making sure to keep his eyes from Brendon's face.
But Brendon's not so young as Ryan remembers, nor so helpless, and he falls insantly into place, smiling as he drops Ryan's hand. "Yeah, he keeps stepping on my feet anyway."
Shane chuckles, leading Brendon back down the hall, but before they disappear altogether, Brendon turns his head, barely a movement at all and easily missed, but Ryan doesn't miss it. Brendon's eyes lock with his for the smallest instant, but it's more than enough. It says everything. It says, I won't forget.
And for a moment, Ryan wants to hate him, wants to scream back, We have to.
But he doesn't -- and they don't.
Everyone looks weirdly tall from where Ryan's lying. Weirdly tall and... really a lot more naked than he's used to, even living with them on a bus for the better part of the last three years. Tall and almost-naked-but-for-underwear, with three matching expressions wavering somewhere between shocked, disbelieving, and ecstatic. And maybe a little more than half-dead.
And Jon's hair is really, really tremendously spastic, in a Brendon way. Ryan thinks it's kind of precious.
That's about as deep as his thoughts go at the moment, because right now his head kind of feels like he's been playing a sixteen-hour set with no earplugs.
And they're all fucking staring at him, and Ryan hates when they do that. It means he's done something wrong and they're afraid to tell him.
"Um." He tries to swallow, but his throat is drier than he'd realized -- than he'd ever thought was humanly possible, to be honest. "What -- "
Then Spencer squeaks -- squeaks, practically teleporting himself to Ryan's side, close as if it's killing him to be anywhere else; warm and sweeping as he scoops Ryan into his arms. And maybe Ryan can't feel most of his muscles very well right now, and maybe it's been awhile since Spencer's hugged him like this, full and unabashed, but he's pretty sure there's something set in Spencer's body, a taut, scared sort of reservation that Ryan can't recognize, can't place or pinpoint.
That's the first thing that scares him, because there hasn't been anything unrecognizable about Spencer in fifteen years.
Then there's air, salty and humid and teetering on that dusky brink between warm and cool; he can smell it on Spencer's skin, his chest, heated and soft beneath Ryan's cheek, and then Jon, Jon's here, there, somewhere, everywhere, pressed awkwardly against Ryan's back, embracing him from behind and Ryan can feel the shudder that tells him Jon's crying.
That's the second thing that scares him: Jon doesn't cry.
He wants to tell him don't cry, wants to say I'm okay, I'm okay, but something tells him the tears may not just be for him -- like maybe he doesn't have the right to ask Jon to stop just for Ryan's sake.
The salty wet air is stronger now as it's etched into the skin enveloping him on both sides, and his head is still pounding and there's so much skin, and they don't do this, not like this -- granted they're tactile as a group, always have been (and Brendon, where's Brendon?) but this is different, and it's been awhile.
(Spencer emerging from the hotel shower with a towel around his waist, and Ryan still trembling from the phone call, not having had the chance to get properly dressed himself, just hearing the far-off words from the other line bouncing off the walls in his head until his vision starts to go splotchy, Sorry to inform you... passed away last night in his sleep... wasn't in any pain... And Spencer somehow just knowing, barely having to utter the questioning "Ryan...?" before Ryan flings himself into Spencer, who's still wet and over-warm from water and steam, and Spencer holds him tight like he's trying to pull Ryan inside him to keep him safe, and there's no one to narrow their eyes or quirk an eyebrow at them and it feels just as natural as it did when they were ten in their swim trunks and Spencer would give him piggy-back rides through the sprinklers in the backyard and then wrestle him into the mud, and his mom would show up with lemonade and watermelon slices and wide smiles and never complained about the mud stains on her towels.)
And. Yeah. It's been awhile.
It would feel right somehow, Ryan thinks, if it weren't for that salty, wet air that's just getting saltier and wetter by the moment, and that really feels like nothing he remembers. Nothing that's supposed to be, right now. Ryan gets flustered when things aren't as they're supposed to be, and he's pretty sure right now they're supposed to be on a plane, and --
And he's equally pretty sure that they're not.
"Spence."
It comes out sounding more as a broken, choked squeak than Spencer's name, and Ryan's thoughts compress into one: water.
"Get him some water," he hears Jon say softly behind him, and Ryan thinks I love you, Jon Walker; would rather be able to say it, but he settles for reaching behind him and squeezing Jon's hand. His fingers are stiff, weak, but Jon squeezes back as Spencer reaches behind the blanket for a bottle.
Spencer's still supporting him on one side, Jon on the other; hard, unfamiliar lines set into their faces. Ryan's halfway through the bottle when he chokes, sputtering and lowering the bottle from his mouth as his eyes fixate on Spencer's face, one side illumined in the moonlight.
"Spence, you're hurt -- you've got -- "
He reaches out involuntarily, but Spencer gently lowers his hand. "I'm okay."
"No, your face! It's -- "
"I know, man. It's cool, I'm okay. It's okay."
"What the fuck happened? Why -- where -- "
And the questions are coming faster than he can think them now, faster than he can even formulate possible answers in his own head, and it's not until his fingers tighten anxiously on the bottle, feeling the rough, itchy granules of sand pressing into his fingers, that the rest of his senses finally kick in, letting in the sound of waves, light and steady against the shore, invisible now in the darkness but for the occasional undulation of white crests in the distance, spotlighted by the moon.
He turns back to Spencer, who's now staring at Jon, like he doesn't know the answer himself, but Ryan's not stupid. When he turns to Jon, Jon's got the same expression, turning it right back on Spencer, but Ryan at least thinks that's fair. Ryan is Spencer's. Ryan's always been his, since they were seven. Maybe even before. It's Spencer's job, now.
A sharp pain shoots through Ryan's head, dropping his vision momentarily to black, and in that instant, a face flashes before him, frozen and pale, and words in a nameless voice sound through his mind, Ryan... Ryan... take my place, don't move.
When the moment lifts, Spencer's watching him, worried and freaked and scared and Spencer's never any of those things, and to see them in tandem written across his face is something a bit horrifying.
"Spence."
"May-maybe you should lie back down."
"Spence."
Spencer surrenders, embarrassment clear in his eyes at his own insulting attempt to patronize. "We. Uh." He looks down at his hand, still joined with Ryan's on the scratchy blanket that's half damp from their clothes. "The plane, we. Uh."
"We crashed," Ryan finishes.
Ryan's never been one for bullshit or nonsense. Much better to face these things with a sense of... and so on.
It seems to affect Spencer more than Ryan, his hand beginning to tremble under Ryan's even while his other arm is firm around Ryan's shoulders, holding him up. "Yeah. We did."
Right. Okay. Yeah.
"Into the water." It's not a question, not really.
Spencer nods. "Close to shore though. It's..." He gestures vaguely into the blackness behind them.
Okay. The water. It's better than land. It's softer. It's safer.
Ryan starts a mental head count: Spencer. Jon. He doesn't have to look far to find Brendon, and oh god. Brendon. He looks smaller than Ryan's ever seen him (might have something to do with how quiet he is; Brendon always seems biggest to Ryan when he's on stage, making all the noise in the world and then some), standing glued to the spot a few feet away, eyes on Ryan and mouth half-open, still processing.
"Brendon."
Ryan doesn't know quite what he wants the word to convey, but his free hand creeps a few inches across the blanket toward Brendon, and Brendon watches it like it's got answers. He inches forward, matching the hand's movement. He looks cautious. He looks like he has secrets. He looks like he doesn't want to say anything, and that terrifies Ryan, because it's Brendon.
"Brendon, come here."
It's whisper-soft, a request, not a demand, but Brendon follows it like an order. His eyes drop steadily with the rest of him as he crouches down on his knees beside the others, tentatively reaching out and closing his fingers over Ryan's splayed hand.
Suddenly Ryan wants to hear this from Brendon, if only to get Brendon to speak.
"Bren."
There's a second of hesitation, that sort of time-stopping silence, when Ryan remembers the head count, and he's about to start running through the rest of it in his mind when Brendon fucking breaks.
There's no other word for it, really; he just falls forward into Ryan, knocking them both to the ground as he clings, his body convulsing in sobs too all-consuming to make any sound. Ryan closes his eyes but doesn't know why; he can hear Spencer, "Bren, be careful -- " and Jon, "He might be -- "
But Ryan isn't. Ryan's fine, except for the fact that the plane clearly crashed on his fucking head, if the pounding is any indication.
"I'm okay," he assures them, still working to find his voice as he pulls Brendon closer, stroking his hair, his back, anything he can get his hands on. "Bren. Hey. Bren. I'm okay. Hey, I'm here. Baby, I'm here."
And so, okay, that's maybe the first time he's ever called Brendon baby, and clearly he's suffering from fucking brain damage now, because, seriously, Ross.
It scares him more, because if he'd slipped like that any other time, Brendon would have gawked at him with theatrically wide eyes, jaw dropped and grin wide; might've even grabbed Ryan and planted one on him for the hell of it (and for other reasons, so many others). But Brendon doesn't even react, just buries himself into Ryan, and it's unnerving because he's not making any noise but Ryan can feel the tears spilling into his neck, a steady stream, and Brendon's trembling like he's going to explode.
Ryan's eyes open then, because there are too many horrible images flying before him when they're closed. He looks at Jon first, and Jon looks like how Ryan imagines Brendon would look if he were strong enough to hold it together.
And. And it's, it's fucking Jon, and just, what.
He looks to Spencer then, and Spencer's still got that worried-freaked-scared thing going on, and Ryan is a bit terrified of letting that go any further.
"Where's Zack?" he asks, trying to keep his voice light, as though that could alter whatever reality might contradict his hope, because seriously, Zack will take care of them, and he'll know things, Zack always knows things, everything, like precisely where they are and how long it's going to take the rescue plane to get to them and where the nearest hospital will be once they land, and how funny Pete's freak-out voice sounded on the phone when he heard the news.
The expression fades from Spencer's face, and it's almost a relief, until it's replaced with a complete fucking blankness, a kind of surrender almost, like Spencer's done trying to protect Ryan from any of this.
Slowly, so slow Ryan's wondering if he's starting to black out again, Spencer shakes his head to one side, then the other, and returns to frozen.
And. Okay.
Poise and rationality and.
And.
And holy -- fucking -- no, no, no.
Ryan can't tell if he's started shaking himself, because Brendon's still trembling against him.
And then the questions all just pour, like if they just keep asking themselves in his head, the answers won't get a chance to get through.
He turns back to Jon, fighting all the thousands of words in his head (and Ryan's not used to fighting words, it's the one thing he's never had to fight), but before he can ask, Spencer adds hastily, "It's -- Ryan."
And it's Spencer, and Ryan knows what the words are going to be before they're out, and he doesn't want them out because then they'll be real and Ryan is really fucking starting to hate reality, not just current, but as a fucking concept, because anything that could create this, this (no names, no labels, nothing that'll make it more real), just can't fucking be.
Spencer's voice, eyes, head, all drop. "It's. It's just us, Ryan."
The words hit harder, for some reason, simply because they'd been anticipated.
His first thought is they haven't been away from home without Zack in over three years, and it makes his eyes prickle and his heart sink a few miles down.
His second thought is, for the last time, head count.
"Tom. Shane."
He doesn't ask, because he isn't even sure what he's asking or if he wants the answer.
Brendon's breath hitches at Shane's name, but Ryan can tell himself he imagined it.
He could almost tell himself he's imagining just about everything right now.
Almost.
But with the look on Spencer's face... maybe not.
He turns to Jon, like he hopes to find a different expression, a better one, but Jon's staring at the ground, all life, all energy having been drowned, suffocated from him, leaving his face pale, too pale; an empty hospital-white that's not at all from the moonlight.
The saddest Ryan's ever seen Jon was in the cabin, the first and only time Ryan ever yelled at him, and it made Ryan's chest hurt for ten whole seconds until he was sputtering breathless apologies and blinking back tears and Jon had still hugged him afterwards, dropping a whispered, "Still love you, man" into his ear and it was over just like that.
Ryan has a feeling this, this (no names, no names), isn't going to be over any time soon, with hugs or whispers or even a nuclear meltdown.
Still fuzzy from waking, his head still feeling like Spencer had been pounding on it with drumsticks for the better part of a week, it takes him a second to connect Jon with Ryan's words and Spencer's face and -- oh.
Oh.
"Oh god," Ryan croaks, but it doesn't sound like words when it comes out, which doesn't surprise him because he's honestly more surprised he's got a voice left at all, that he's got thoughts left, that his heart hasn't just pounded everything coherent right out of his head. "Jon. Jon."
Jon's reactionless, but when Ryan reaches one hand away from Brendon to close around Jon's, Jon allows it, squeezing back with twice the conviction but still somehow holding back, like he's too scared to hold onto anything too tight, put too much faith in anything solid, lest it slip away from him again, just like --
And -- then. Then.
It's then his mind finally recovers, shifts. Centers.
Brendon.
And now he knows he's himself again, that this is real and his mind's intact, because Brendon is solidly here, infiltrating his thoughts as overwhelmingly as ever, and the chaos begins to make sense -- sick, twisted sense.
His vision blacks again, for an instant, the pattern already falling into dreaded familiarity, and the same face flashes behind his eyes, variations of the same words, and he knows.
How they're here, how he's here, here with eyes open and heart beating instead of being one more name crossed off the head count.
He knows.
What's worse, and better all at once, something tells him he's the only one who does.
And now Brendon's --
Oh god.
Oh fucking god.
"Bren."
But Spencer's there, never missing a beat, fingers tightening slightly around Ryan's hand, and when Ryan looks at him, Spencer shakes his head, slow but tense, unequivocal. Ryan wishes it were unreadable but it's Spencer.
It says, don't.
So Ryan doesn't. He fights it. He fights the words that finally, finally want to tumble out, the stupid endearments they haven't used in years (Bren, Brenny Bear, I've got you, I've got you), not since Ryan had begun to realize they meant something to Brendon that they absolutely could not mean.
It didn't matter, eventually. Because, Shane. Shane could say them, and they could mean everything Brendon needed them to mean.
Except that Shane's not --
He's not here -- not gone, Ryan won't say gone, just not here.
(They weren't official yet, but Ryan had known. Brendon had started calling Shane "Padfoot," some Harry Potter reference, god only knows, no doubt Jon had a hand in it, but Brendon told Shane he needed a nickname for him too. "You're Brenny Bear, aren't you?" he'd offered, pinching Brendon's leg, and before Brendon could respond, Ryan had voiced a soft, but insistent, "No," from behind his magazine on the other side of the lounge. He could feel both sets of eyes on him, and tried to school his expression into something casual, light, even smiling, before he looked up. "That's mine," he'd gently informed Shane, unable to meet Brendon's eyes when he realized how close he'd been to saying he's instead of that's. Shane had smiled down at his hands, clearly knowing more than Ryan thought he should. "True, I'm afraid," Brendon had chirped, faking a dramatic sigh, and Ryan admired his diplomacy, because they both knew Ryan allowed Spencer and Jon to use the name too, but this was different. They were lost to him, all the words that should've struck Ryan, the fucking writer, but all he could manage was, different. And Brendon knew, and that somehow made it even harder for Ryan, though he'd never let himself come to solidify what "it" precisely was.
When Ryan had finally thought it safe to look, Shane had turned back to his camera and Brendon was watching Ryan with the smallest but brightest smile Ryan had seen in months.)
Ryan fights it, but he feels like he's already lost -- having to watch this, having to feel this, Brendon falling apart in his arms and Jon's hand still clenched tightly in his and Spencer, Spencer, just trying to hold everyone together and somehow not lose himself along the way.
When Brendon's sobs trickle down to weak, sporadic convulsions, the stream of tears dwindling to an occasional drop, Spencer finally lies down on Ryan's other side, and Ryan realizes for the first time that Spencer hasn't broken contact with him since the moment his eyes opened, and Ryan wants to acknowledge him -- wants to say somehing, I love you or even just his name, but he's afraid if he opens his mouth, the wrong words will spill out or tears will follow.
He settles for turning his head until his forehead brushes Spencer's, and he leaves it there until Spencer kisses his cheek, aiming blindly and landing somewhere by his ear, his breath a hot, solid comfort despite its intrinsic lack of solidity.
When he turns back to Brendon, Jon's curled up on Brendon's other side, spooning him, head nestled in the warm, perfect curve of Brendon's neck, his arm curled around Brendon's waist, their fingers laced tight. Ryan cups one hand over their joined fingers and Spencer nestles against his other side, and Ryan is momentarily shut down by how completely right this feels (how anything could feel this right, now), the four of them holding each other up, holding each other down, just fucking holding. None of them alone is the glue that keeps them together, but rather each an integral ingredient in the glue: individually, they're just entities, useless; together, they're solid. Adhered.
Together, they're fucking magic.
Ryan holds his breath until his ears identify three separate breathing patterns, before letting his eyes fall shut.
It's not until they close that a splash of tears trails a jagged path down his cheek, landing in Brendon's hair.
He doesn't remember falling asleep, but he dreams of three months ago, Shane's birthday, when Brendon asked with no explanation if they could cover Elton John's "Your Song" the following Thursday, and then proceeded to dedicate it, in front of an audience five thousand strong, to "someone special". Shane had had no idea, just stood down in the pit in front of the stage with the security guards, lowering his camera when the song had started, his mouth dropping half open and his eyes glistening visibly even from the stage, glued to Brendon at the piano the entire time, his camera forgotten, limp in his hands.
Ryan never even remembered playing, can't recall his fingers moving over the strings at all. He vaguely remembers the speed of his heartbeat, the stiffness in his fingers, and a mischievous grin from Spencer (Ryan had maybe possibly serenaded him with that song once when he was sixteen and drunk for the first time -- a grand, uncharacteristically theatrical performance that had concluded with him straddling Spencer on the couch and using the TV remote as a mic. They'd laughed so hard afterwards Ryan had collapsed in his lap, nuzzling against Spencer's hip until sleep claimed him, and Ryan never thought to ask why Spencer allowed it.)
But what he remembers most is the look in Shane's eyes (the same look Brendon had set on Ryan for years, forever), the way Brendon kept sneaking looks and secret smiles in Shane's direction, and the way he sang it with a kind of gorgeous abandon Ryan hadn't seen in some time. Brendon met Ryan's eyes once, but he looked terrified when it happened, like he was going to lose his place or forget the words, and he looked away just as fast.
That. That was the reality.
The dream is better, and worse.
In his dream, Brendon walks across the stage at the end to where Ryan has safely planted himself, far away. Their instruments have somehow vanished, as have the audience, Shane, even the stage. There are smiles -- Jon's, Spencer's, warm and blinding and beautiful -- but what he sees most clearly is Brendon, walking toward him and never stopping until their mouths are locked, with Brendon's hands fisted in Ryan's hair and Ryan's hands on Brendon's hips like they've been there forever, like they were born to fit against the curves. But the instant their tongues touch, they're ripped apart, being pulled further and further away until all Ryan can see is darkness, all he can feel are hands, and all he can hear is the roar of the airplane as it drops, and the voice, the same voice, beckoning him into safety.
He wakes up in darkness, blanketed by his sleeping bandmates, the sounds of insects and ocean soft in his ears and nothing like the roar of the plane, their songs offering a comfort he's not ready to accept.
There are tears on his face and for a tiny, glorious instant, he can't remember why.
When Spencer wakes up, he knows immediately where he is -- and it's the first chance has to be truly afraid.
With the heaviest weights of their chaos lifted, he can finally settle, breathe, think, and he's starting to miss being too shellshocked to do any of those things, because they'd kept him moving, kept him working. Kept him hoping. Kept him thinking if he just went on moving and working, he wasn't giving in, he wasn't surrendering to the reality.
But just... stopping like this -- sleeping and waking up and knowing where he is and just taking it -- it makes him sick. Irrationally, it makes him feel like he's given up; like he's failed.
But the rest of his senses kick in soon enough, the still-sleeping warmth radiating off Ryan's skin beneath Spencer's arm, his closeness, his aliveness -- and he knows: As long as he has this, Ryan, all of them -- he hasn't failed.
Maybe even, as long as he's got all of them -- he can't fail.
He spends a good thirty seconds working carefully to disentangle himself from Ryan without waking him up, and he's practically breathless by the time he accomplishes it, pushing himself up on the blanket and wincing at the stiffness that doesn't seem to have missed a single muscle in his body. He can see Ryan properly now, still fitted snug against Brendon, their legs draped over one another and their arms folded up against their chests, hands joined, with Brendon's head tucked under Ryan's chin. It's strange seeing them like this, in a million ways. Ryan's never been one for cuddling with Brendon (alone with Spencer or Jon is another story, one that Spencer knows better than to question), and the only thing separating their bodies is their underwear, Ryan's charcoal gray boxer briefs and Brendon's fire engine-red American Apparels. The part of Spencer that still remembers who he was two days ago wishes everything were different so he could take a picture of them, leave it for Ryan to find, watch him go crimson and bitchy and mortified so Spencer could laugh at him, and Jon would pretend not to take sides, but Spencer would catch him grinning when Ryan looks away.
He almost feels guilty watching them, like he's intruding on something intimate, not meant for him to see.
He doesn't watch long, once his eyes catch sight of Jon, seated on a corner of the blanket with his back slouched against the base of the nearest palm tree. His eyes are unfocused, just pointed out into the ocean, not watching anything in particular as he traces aimless patterns in the sand with one finger.
When Spencer crosses over to him, crouches down and sits back on his heels, Jon looks up, a brief acknowledgment before averting his eyes to the ground, watching his fingers sift through the same sand over and over, like he's ever going to uncover something new.
"What time is it?" Spencer whispers.
Jon shrugs. "I dunno, afternoon I think."
"Shit."
"You sleep okay?"
"Yeah, you?"
Jon nods.
"You been up long?" Spencer asks.
"An hour, I guess. I was gonna go out, but. Y'know. Didn't want you to worry." He says it a little awkwardly, like he thinks it presumptuous to assume Spencer would worry about him, and it still amazes Spencer, how after all this time, Jon still has those rare moments when he doubts how much they want him -- and seriously, there couldn't be anything more fucking ridiculous.
"You should've woken me up." It sounds harsher than Spencer intended, but shit, they've lost half the day.
Jon shrugs again. "You looked so peaceful... all of you. Perfect." His voice drops, and, "I didn't want -- I just. Wanted it to stay. I don't know."
But Spencer knows. Jon's mind works through images, photographs, moments that he can freeze and hold onto, or at least try. Looking back over at Brendon and Ryan now... he gets it. Right now they are perfect. It's the only perfection in any of this, the only thing that isn't chaos.
"It's okay." Spencer reaches down, closes his fingers around Jon's in the sand, feeling the grains shift and grind between their skin. "You want to go look for water?"
Jon nods. "'M gonna make one more trip out first. I think I saw another suitcase yesterday."
"Okay."
Jon picks up one of the snack bags lying on the ground, ripping it open with his teeth and scarfing down two tightly packed miniature doughnuts before offering the last four to Spencer.
"Eat," Jon orders before Spencer can decline.
Spencer does, slowly and silently, trying not to think of how many snacks they've got left, or of the time he and Haley went to the beach and he'd tried to climb a palm tree to fetch a coconut and only succeeded in scraping up his entire front half so bad he'd looked kind of like a burn victim for days.
Even without looking directly into Jon's eyes (he would, if Jon would let him, he would), Spencer can tell there's something missing. The life, the vibrance and shine that he'd assumed was just part of the Jon Walker magic, an intrinsic constant -- has seeped out, replaced by nothing, diminishing the once sparkling hazel to dull, lifeless brown.
Spencer wants to say a thousand words, if only he could figure out what they are.
He wants to say, maybe, I'm here, but he knows that's not enough. Jon doesn't care that he's there. Spencer's just Spencer. He's not snarky smirks and drawling sarcasm, ragged blond hair behind the lens of a camera, capturing things only Jon would understand. He's not enough. He's not Tom.
Spencer wonders dangerously if Jon would disappear inside himself this way if Spencer had been the one who'd gone.
A thousand words, and none of them right. None of them enough.
He wants to say, Let me take care of you, the way Jon's been taking care of him, all of them, since the night he flew in from Chicago to fill in for Brent. Probably even before, after a night of over-indulgence with William, when he'd show up at Panic's bus carrying Brendon, a pack of Sour Patch Kids, and a box of Raisinets, Spencer and Ryan's favorites respectively, because somehow Jon knew.
Somehow, Jon always knows.
Spencer gives up on words, they're Ryan's territory after all, and settles for a soft, "Jon," a hand on his knee.
It's the wrong word, apparently, because Jon's easing himself to his feet, heading out to the water without any indication for Spencer to follow him.
Spencer does though, splashing more than necessary to make sure Jon knows he's there, to give Jon a chance to send him away if he doesn't want him there.
Jon doesn't send him away, but he doesn't acknowledge him either, and Spencer thinks that kind of feels worse.
He's seen the wreckage a dozen times, more probably; it's easier now, and Spencer hates that. It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be easier to know exactly where the bodies are and how to avoid them. He doesn't want to know what sections he has to be careful of because parts of the plane are jutting out like blades. He doesn't want to feel the broken seats under pools of idle water, knowing who took their last breaths where.
It all looks just as he remembers, and he doesn't fucking want to remember this.
He watches as Jon works like it's nothing, stumbling over piles of unnamed items, useless bits of plane, pushing his way through all the hanging yellow oxygen masks that had dropped uselessly during the fall.
"There was some stuff floating over by the right side emergency exit -- or what's left of it," Jon says without turning around, and Spencer takes it as instruction. At least it gives him something to do, makes him useful. Valuable, maybe.
What's left of the emergency exit is a shapeless hole in the side of what's left of the plane -- really, everything here is defined in terms of what's left of, because nothing is whole anymore.
Metaphors start converging in Spencer's head, and he's definitely spent too many years with Ryan.
He spends awhile half underwater, trying to reach (what's left of) the floor of the plane, all the things he can feel with his feet but is afraid to step on, lest he break anything waterproof and valuable. A small slip and something starts to crunch under his foot before he catches himself, but it's not quick enough to keep the sharp edge of the object from jabbing his heel.
"Shit, fuck, what the fuck."
He stumbles backward a bit but Jon is abandoning a newly retrieved (albeit badly beaten) suitcase and racing to his side, as fast as possible through the uneven water and stray items.
"You okay?" Jon asks, suddenly alert. "What happened?"
"Just stepped on something sharp. I'm good, it's not bleeding or anything."
But Jon's already reaching down, the water level at the very top of his shoulder as he fumbles around for the culprit, and Spencer winces a bit at the sharp cut that reaches from Jon's shoulder down his chest, and the way it's forced to stretch as he reaches. His arm stills suddenly and something flashes across his face, and when he begins to pull out of the water, it's slow, dreading, as though he doesn't want to see what's in his hand.
It's waterlogged, useless with bits broken off, scratched to hell and back, lens cap long gone, top-of-the-line Nikkor lens shattered -- but it's unmistakable.
Jon stares at Tom's camera like a death sentence, his jaw slack and eyes brimming with a shine that has nothing to do with vibrance or magic.
"Fuck," Spencer hisses, but Jon is a statue, still as stone and just as wordless.
In the silence but for the water lapping gently at their legs, Spencer can hear Jon's breath start to quicken, shorten, and he doesn't fucking know what to do anymore because Jon's shut himself off so hard.
"Jon... Jon, please."
He doesn't even know what he's pleading for until he steps forward, carefully circling his arms around Jon, pulling himself toward Jon instead of trying to pull Jon to him -- and then, he knows. He knows what he's been after all along, when Jon finally breaks in his arms, choked sobs rattling his frame as he lets Spencer hold him up, hold him impossibly close, and finally, finally, he responds in kind, his arms clinging so tight that Spencer doesn't know how he's managing to breathe, but as long as Jon's in his arms, letting him do this, oxygen can fucking wait.
He knows well enough to keep quiet until Jon's breaths are steady again, but Jon never lets go.
"Hey," Spencer whispers into his hair, "do you want to bring it back? To camp? We'll keep it safe, and we'll take it home with us, yeah?"
For a second Jon simply freezes, and Spencer's terrified he's said completely the wrong thing, again -- but Jon finally nods, quick and jerky against Spencer's shoulder.
"Okay," Spencer breathes, and the relief in the syllable is clear, but he knows he's speaking now mostly for himself. "Okay."
"Spence."
"Yeah."
Jon holds his breath like he's going to say something, but he doesn't. He lets it out after a few seconds, and holds onto Spencer a little tighter.
"Don't go anywhere," Jon says against his skin.
"I'm not, man. "
"I can't do this without you."
"You don't -- "
"I can't, Spence."
"Look at me."
Spencer's a little nervous, knowing it's all thin ice right now, trying to give Jon orders, but Jon obliges, gazing up at him, scared and jittery.
"You won't have to," Spencer says. "I'm here."
Jon stares at him a long time, almost like he's waiting for the life to drift back into his eyes, as if for some reason Spencer would be the one to bring it back. And just like that, two years have dropped off, and Spencer's zooming back to then, that one second when he knew, knew that if he had to live a single day the rest of his life without Jon Walker in it, the world would shine a little less.
"One more time?"
"Yeah."
"Okay." Spencer adjusts his position on the dressing room floor, trying to keep his knees out of the way as he scoots closer to Jon, one finger pointed to the setlist in front of them. "Brent usually spends most of his time around upstage left, but you can move anywhere from here to here and you'll be good." He indicates two places on the crappy pencil drawing of the stage where Brendon has written the letter "J" surrounded by hearts. "Brendon'll introduce you after Camisado, and there's not really a lot going on until Lying, but feel free to chime in 'cause Bren has this tendency to just keep talking way past the script. Anyway, they'll do their big gay thing" -- Jon chuckles at that, and Spencer can't resist either -- "and that leads into Lying, and -- "
He stops only from the feeling of being watched, and it's not an irrational assumption, when he looks up to find Jon looking at him, not the paper, with bright, beaming eyes and a smile to match.
"What?"
Jon shrugs, still smiling. "I couldn't do this without you."
Spencer smiles back. "You won't have to."
Jon glances down at the page, pretending to study the list of tracks. "I hear you're the one who thought to ask me."
"Dude, we all wanted you."
Jon looks up again, and something in Spencer's stomach does a little flip-flop to find that Jon's smile is intact, brighter than ever. "But you were the mastermind behind it."
Spencer shrugs as casually as he can physically manage, hoping it negates the blush he feels rising in his cheeks. "Maybe."
"Why -- I just. I mean, we're in L.A., even Pete could've done it. Or y'know, anyone else who doesn't live half a country away. Why me?"
Spencer rolls his eyes, because, seriously. "Because you're Jon Walker," he states, as if this explains everything.
But really, it kind of does.
"I see," Jon says observantly. "Oh, and... ugh."
"What?"
"It's so fucking embarrassing, I hate him."
"What?!"
Jon sighs, effecting an eyeroll of his own before mumbling the words in a rush: "Bill made me promise to tell you if you try to keep me he'll murder you all in your sleep with a chain saw."
Spencer grins, wide and silly. "Small price to pay to make you ours."
It didn't take him long after to realize he would've paid any price in the world to make Jon theirs.
What he never realized was, Jon had been theirs all along.
"We can do this," Spencer insists, shivering as a few drops of water spill from his hair down his face. "We can, I promise."
Jon nods, and it's probably Spencer's imagination, but Jon's eyes don't look quite as empty.
"Come on, let's get out of here," Spencer urges, tugging on Jon's wrist.
It's not the easiest task in the world, lugging the suitcase and the rest of their collection through the maze of wreckage and back through the water, but it's good; it gives them something to do, and they don't have to speak through it, no more fears of wrong words or tense silence.
Once they hit the beach, the items are dropped, arranged, jammed firmly into the sand lest they roll or blow away, and Spencer's even poised to zip open the suitcase when it hits, his eyes moving slowly toward their camp, toward the makeshift roof (which, secretly, Spencer is really quite proud of), toward the mess of blankets that's become their bed, the massive shade leaves and bottles of water and plastic snack packs, toward --
"...Jon."
Toward Brendon and Ryan, who aren't there at all.
Author:
lolabRating: NC-17 overall
Pairings: Panic: Ryden-heavy, hints of everyone, eventual GSF, a bit of Brendon/Shane
POV: Third; varies
Warnings: Character death, violence, angst. Also, angst. Did I mention ANGST.
Disclaimer: They belong to
Summary: There is no way to summarize this that doesn't sound ridiculous, so I leave you with my original cheesy!blurb(tm): There are 17,508 islands in Indonesia, about 6,000 of which are inhabited. On August 31, 2008, returning from an Australian tour in the middle of the year's most violent storm to date, a plane carrying Panic at the Disco loses power, veers off course, and crashes into one of the remaining 11,508 islands. This is their story.
Dedication:
falling_words, for pointing out Chapter 2 typos/failures (hey, I edited that mofo while I was watching teenage boys dive and shower together in the Olympics, I was USELESS), including Spencer and Brendon's matching erections. silhouettes_die, for the gift of love. ;) bunniesontoast, for Brylliam. \o/ noteto__self, who sees Panic tomorrow!Author's Notes: You guys are beautifully patient, really. All your kickass comments (and declarations of hatred for the character deaths) keep me writing. If you can just make it to Chapter 11, I promise you'll be rewarded. ;) I'm also taking flashback ideas, as I'm trying to start each chapter with a flashback focused on a different pair. (Nothing smutty: subtext is the name of the game here.) Incidentally, if PWF angst starts to get to you, just go here. :D This, apparently, is what Panic does in Australia. Maybe we can convince them to just stay there and not fly back...? (P.S. I'm ignoring Shane's real birthday. Sue me.)
Please refer to the master post for previous chapters, notes, soundtrack listing, etc.
3.
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
--The Fray
Brendon finds him outside the ballroom, in a side hallway off the main entrance, slouched against one of the lounge sofas with a half-empty (half-full?) champagne flute, thin and delicate, perched between fingers of the same description. He's so still, so unobtrusive, it might look like he's merged with the cushions, but he smiles when their eyes meet because if anyone could find him, it would be Brendon.
"Hey you."
"Hey."
"What are you doing out here?"
Ryan gestures vaguely toward the ballroom, the distant sounds of music, voices, and clinking crystal soft in his ears. "Noise."
Brendon nods. Ryan is grateful that he understands, even if it makes little sense even to himself, how he can play night after night in the midst of pounding amps and thousands of screaming teens (and on that note, thank god Honda Civic's over), but an overly animated wedding reception sends him off into the wings with a creased forehead and tense shoulders.
"You want to be alone?"
Ryan shakes his head, patting a square of sofa beside him, and Brendon accepts.
"Can't believe Jon's brother got married," Brendon muses.
"Yeah. I thought he was gay for like two years."
Brendon chuckles. "I know, right?"
"Speaking of gay, where is your boyfriend?" he prods with a grin, poking Brendon's leg.
"Uh." Brendon smiles down at his clasped hands before looking up at Ryan. "Dancing with your girlfriend."
Ryan grins. "We should've seen it coming."
"Yeah. Actually, he, uh." Brendon wrinkles his nose, scratches nervously at the back of his neck. "He said if I don't ask you to dance, he and Keltie are gonna run off together."
"I see," Ryan nods thoughtfully, if a little lazily from the champagne buzz. "Well, I guess you'd better ask me, then."
"Are you serious? I actually have to ask?"
"Hey, Shane set the rules, not me."
"You're an asshole." Brendon grins, pinching what little flesh there is at Ryan's hip.
"Yeah. Dance with me."
Ryan drags himself off the couch, slipping his hand into Brendon's so he pulls them both to their feet, instantly curling his hand around Brendon's waist.
"Hey, who says you get to lead?" Brendon smirks.
"Because I'm older and taller and you have girl hips, now shut up."
"I hate you."
"You're a very impolite dance partner. Behave."
"Yes, sir," Brendon whispers, trying to bite back his grin as he leans in, the side of his face just barly touching Ryan's.
Ryan's relieved, because he doesn't think he could spend a whole song staring into Brendon's eyes. They'd either start laughing, or Brendon would start making weird faces or wouldn't stop talking, or Ryan would end up staring at Brendon's mouth.
His heart skips a beat at that last thought, specifically at the fact that he just thought it.
Fuck alcohol, and all the fucking honesty that breaks out with it.
"How have we known each other five years and I've never conned you into a dance until now?" Brendon whispers suddenly, each breathy syllable tickling Ryan's ear as their bodies sway slowly together, lightly in contact, but holding back the slightest bit, if they'd be willing to admit it.
Because I know what it means to you, Ryan doesn't say.
And I'm afraid of what it means to me, he definitely, definitely doesn't think.
"Because I hate slow dancing," Ryan says, and at least it's not a lie. "This is the most depressing song in the world. Why do they always have to play it at weddings?"
"'Unchained Melody'? It's beautiful, you dickhead."
"Whatever, dude, didn't you ever see Ghost? He fucking dies, man."
Ryan feels Brendon turn into his neck, just enough for Ryan to feel his smile. "But it's not about death, Ry. It's about love."
"That is like, right out of Moulin Rouge."
Brendon snorts. "You would know."
"Shut up, it's a good movie."
"Yeah, if you're a thirteen-year-old girl."
"You talk too much."
"You step on my feet too much."
Ryan almost wishes they were face to face now, just to see the smile he knows Brendon is sporting, same as the smile stretched across Ryan's own lips. They're silent, then, once they discover how sweet this silence is, letting Ryan focus on the small, liquid movements of their bodies together, the smell of Brendon's cologne, the solid warmth of his hands, his breath. They never do this, but it's like they've done it for years. A lifetime, even. After a minute Brendon starts humming along to the song, quiet and soft in Ryan's ear, only evolving to a spoken whisper of one lyric as the song reaches its climax.
"And time can do so much... are you still mine?"
Ryan can practically feel his insides freeze solid while his body temperature steadily rises, and maybe it's just the alcohol, only it's not, he knows it's not, and when he pulls away enough to see Brendon's face, he can tell Brendon knows, too.
Five years of unspoken words are reflected in Brendon's eyes, dark and scared, all jokes over and bets off, and Ryan catches himself in the urge to just lean forward, search out and swallow all those words Brendon's never said, take away that burden Brendon's been carrying as long as he can remember, just take it and wash it away and say for once exactly what he wants to say, and he's not even entirely sure what that is, but in his head it sounds something like, I've always been yours.
His body is a split second past making the decision, he's already learning in and it's slow motion, it's like falling, it's like he's thirteen and it's all the cliches, and when they're close enough for him to smell the chocolate icing lingering on Brendon's lips, his eyes actually flutter shut. The point of no return.
"Mind if I cut in?"
They jerk apart at Shane's voice, and it's the one tiny pebble rippling the pond, just like that the moment's over, the stillness, the sanctity. The chance. The chance they know, they know they couldn't have taken.
They waited too long.
Shane's smile is light, easy, amused, but Ryan's not blind and there's a flash of darkness behind it; fear. A fear Ryan recognizes all too well: the fear of loss.
"He's all yours," Ryan smiles, releasing Brendon and making sure to keep his eyes from Brendon's face.
But Brendon's not so young as Ryan remembers, nor so helpless, and he falls insantly into place, smiling as he drops Ryan's hand. "Yeah, he keeps stepping on my feet anyway."
Shane chuckles, leading Brendon back down the hall, but before they disappear altogether, Brendon turns his head, barely a movement at all and easily missed, but Ryan doesn't miss it. Brendon's eyes lock with his for the smallest instant, but it's more than enough. It says everything. It says, I won't forget.
And for a moment, Ryan wants to hate him, wants to scream back, We have to.
But he doesn't -- and they don't.
+++
Everyone looks weirdly tall from where Ryan's lying. Weirdly tall and... really a lot more naked than he's used to, even living with them on a bus for the better part of the last three years. Tall and almost-naked-but-for-underwear, with three matching expressions wavering somewhere between shocked, disbelieving, and ecstatic. And maybe a little more than half-dead.
And Jon's hair is really, really tremendously spastic, in a Brendon way. Ryan thinks it's kind of precious.
That's about as deep as his thoughts go at the moment, because right now his head kind of feels like he's been playing a sixteen-hour set with no earplugs.
And they're all fucking staring at him, and Ryan hates when they do that. It means he's done something wrong and they're afraid to tell him.
"Um." He tries to swallow, but his throat is drier than he'd realized -- than he'd ever thought was humanly possible, to be honest. "What -- "
Then Spencer squeaks -- squeaks, practically teleporting himself to Ryan's side, close as if it's killing him to be anywhere else; warm and sweeping as he scoops Ryan into his arms. And maybe Ryan can't feel most of his muscles very well right now, and maybe it's been awhile since Spencer's hugged him like this, full and unabashed, but he's pretty sure there's something set in Spencer's body, a taut, scared sort of reservation that Ryan can't recognize, can't place or pinpoint.
That's the first thing that scares him, because there hasn't been anything unrecognizable about Spencer in fifteen years.
Then there's air, salty and humid and teetering on that dusky brink between warm and cool; he can smell it on Spencer's skin, his chest, heated and soft beneath Ryan's cheek, and then Jon, Jon's here, there, somewhere, everywhere, pressed awkwardly against Ryan's back, embracing him from behind and Ryan can feel the shudder that tells him Jon's crying.
That's the second thing that scares him: Jon doesn't cry.
He wants to tell him don't cry, wants to say I'm okay, I'm okay, but something tells him the tears may not just be for him -- like maybe he doesn't have the right to ask Jon to stop just for Ryan's sake.
The salty wet air is stronger now as it's etched into the skin enveloping him on both sides, and his head is still pounding and there's so much skin, and they don't do this, not like this -- granted they're tactile as a group, always have been (and Brendon, where's Brendon?) but this is different, and it's been awhile.
(Spencer emerging from the hotel shower with a towel around his waist, and Ryan still trembling from the phone call, not having had the chance to get properly dressed himself, just hearing the far-off words from the other line bouncing off the walls in his head until his vision starts to go splotchy, Sorry to inform you... passed away last night in his sleep... wasn't in any pain... And Spencer somehow just knowing, barely having to utter the questioning "Ryan...?" before Ryan flings himself into Spencer, who's still wet and over-warm from water and steam, and Spencer holds him tight like he's trying to pull Ryan inside him to keep him safe, and there's no one to narrow their eyes or quirk an eyebrow at them and it feels just as natural as it did when they were ten in their swim trunks and Spencer would give him piggy-back rides through the sprinklers in the backyard and then wrestle him into the mud, and his mom would show up with lemonade and watermelon slices and wide smiles and never complained about the mud stains on her towels.)
And. Yeah. It's been awhile.
It would feel right somehow, Ryan thinks, if it weren't for that salty, wet air that's just getting saltier and wetter by the moment, and that really feels like nothing he remembers. Nothing that's supposed to be, right now. Ryan gets flustered when things aren't as they're supposed to be, and he's pretty sure right now they're supposed to be on a plane, and --
And he's equally pretty sure that they're not.
"Spence."
It comes out sounding more as a broken, choked squeak than Spencer's name, and Ryan's thoughts compress into one: water.
"Get him some water," he hears Jon say softly behind him, and Ryan thinks I love you, Jon Walker; would rather be able to say it, but he settles for reaching behind him and squeezing Jon's hand. His fingers are stiff, weak, but Jon squeezes back as Spencer reaches behind the blanket for a bottle.
Spencer's still supporting him on one side, Jon on the other; hard, unfamiliar lines set into their faces. Ryan's halfway through the bottle when he chokes, sputtering and lowering the bottle from his mouth as his eyes fixate on Spencer's face, one side illumined in the moonlight.
"Spence, you're hurt -- you've got -- "
He reaches out involuntarily, but Spencer gently lowers his hand. "I'm okay."
"No, your face! It's -- "
"I know, man. It's cool, I'm okay. It's okay."
"What the fuck happened? Why -- where -- "
And the questions are coming faster than he can think them now, faster than he can even formulate possible answers in his own head, and it's not until his fingers tighten anxiously on the bottle, feeling the rough, itchy granules of sand pressing into his fingers, that the rest of his senses finally kick in, letting in the sound of waves, light and steady against the shore, invisible now in the darkness but for the occasional undulation of white crests in the distance, spotlighted by the moon.
He turns back to Spencer, who's now staring at Jon, like he doesn't know the answer himself, but Ryan's not stupid. When he turns to Jon, Jon's got the same expression, turning it right back on Spencer, but Ryan at least thinks that's fair. Ryan is Spencer's. Ryan's always been his, since they were seven. Maybe even before. It's Spencer's job, now.
A sharp pain shoots through Ryan's head, dropping his vision momentarily to black, and in that instant, a face flashes before him, frozen and pale, and words in a nameless voice sound through his mind, Ryan... Ryan... take my place, don't move.
When the moment lifts, Spencer's watching him, worried and freaked and scared and Spencer's never any of those things, and to see them in tandem written across his face is something a bit horrifying.
"Spence."
"May-maybe you should lie back down."
"Spence."
Spencer surrenders, embarrassment clear in his eyes at his own insulting attempt to patronize. "We. Uh." He looks down at his hand, still joined with Ryan's on the scratchy blanket that's half damp from their clothes. "The plane, we. Uh."
"We crashed," Ryan finishes.
Ryan's never been one for bullshit or nonsense. Much better to face these things with a sense of... and so on.
It seems to affect Spencer more than Ryan, his hand beginning to tremble under Ryan's even while his other arm is firm around Ryan's shoulders, holding him up. "Yeah. We did."
Right. Okay. Yeah.
"Into the water." It's not a question, not really.
Spencer nods. "Close to shore though. It's..." He gestures vaguely into the blackness behind them.
Okay. The water. It's better than land. It's softer. It's safer.
Ryan starts a mental head count: Spencer. Jon. He doesn't have to look far to find Brendon, and oh god. Brendon. He looks smaller than Ryan's ever seen him (might have something to do with how quiet he is; Brendon always seems biggest to Ryan when he's on stage, making all the noise in the world and then some), standing glued to the spot a few feet away, eyes on Ryan and mouth half-open, still processing.
"Brendon."
Ryan doesn't know quite what he wants the word to convey, but his free hand creeps a few inches across the blanket toward Brendon, and Brendon watches it like it's got answers. He inches forward, matching the hand's movement. He looks cautious. He looks like he has secrets. He looks like he doesn't want to say anything, and that terrifies Ryan, because it's Brendon.
"Brendon, come here."
It's whisper-soft, a request, not a demand, but Brendon follows it like an order. His eyes drop steadily with the rest of him as he crouches down on his knees beside the others, tentatively reaching out and closing his fingers over Ryan's splayed hand.
Suddenly Ryan wants to hear this from Brendon, if only to get Brendon to speak.
"Bren."
There's a second of hesitation, that sort of time-stopping silence, when Ryan remembers the head count, and he's about to start running through the rest of it in his mind when Brendon fucking breaks.
There's no other word for it, really; he just falls forward into Ryan, knocking them both to the ground as he clings, his body convulsing in sobs too all-consuming to make any sound. Ryan closes his eyes but doesn't know why; he can hear Spencer, "Bren, be careful -- " and Jon, "He might be -- "
But Ryan isn't. Ryan's fine, except for the fact that the plane clearly crashed on his fucking head, if the pounding is any indication.
"I'm okay," he assures them, still working to find his voice as he pulls Brendon closer, stroking his hair, his back, anything he can get his hands on. "Bren. Hey. Bren. I'm okay. Hey, I'm here. Baby, I'm here."
And so, okay, that's maybe the first time he's ever called Brendon baby, and clearly he's suffering from fucking brain damage now, because, seriously, Ross.
It scares him more, because if he'd slipped like that any other time, Brendon would have gawked at him with theatrically wide eyes, jaw dropped and grin wide; might've even grabbed Ryan and planted one on him for the hell of it (and for other reasons, so many others). But Brendon doesn't even react, just buries himself into Ryan, and it's unnerving because he's not making any noise but Ryan can feel the tears spilling into his neck, a steady stream, and Brendon's trembling like he's going to explode.
Ryan's eyes open then, because there are too many horrible images flying before him when they're closed. He looks at Jon first, and Jon looks like how Ryan imagines Brendon would look if he were strong enough to hold it together.
And. And it's, it's fucking Jon, and just, what.
He looks to Spencer then, and Spencer's still got that worried-freaked-scared thing going on, and Ryan is a bit terrified of letting that go any further.
"Where's Zack?" he asks, trying to keep his voice light, as though that could alter whatever reality might contradict his hope, because seriously, Zack will take care of them, and he'll know things, Zack always knows things, everything, like precisely where they are and how long it's going to take the rescue plane to get to them and where the nearest hospital will be once they land, and how funny Pete's freak-out voice sounded on the phone when he heard the news.
The expression fades from Spencer's face, and it's almost a relief, until it's replaced with a complete fucking blankness, a kind of surrender almost, like Spencer's done trying to protect Ryan from any of this.
Slowly, so slow Ryan's wondering if he's starting to black out again, Spencer shakes his head to one side, then the other, and returns to frozen.
And. Okay.
Poise and rationality and.
And.
And holy -- fucking -- no, no, no.
Ryan can't tell if he's started shaking himself, because Brendon's still trembling against him.
And then the questions all just pour, like if they just keep asking themselves in his head, the answers won't get a chance to get through.
He turns back to Jon, fighting all the thousands of words in his head (and Ryan's not used to fighting words, it's the one thing he's never had to fight), but before he can ask, Spencer adds hastily, "It's -- Ryan."
And it's Spencer, and Ryan knows what the words are going to be before they're out, and he doesn't want them out because then they'll be real and Ryan is really fucking starting to hate reality, not just current, but as a fucking concept, because anything that could create this, this (no names, no labels, nothing that'll make it more real), just can't fucking be.
Spencer's voice, eyes, head, all drop. "It's. It's just us, Ryan."
The words hit harder, for some reason, simply because they'd been anticipated.
His first thought is they haven't been away from home without Zack in over three years, and it makes his eyes prickle and his heart sink a few miles down.
His second thought is, for the last time, head count.
"Tom. Shane."
He doesn't ask, because he isn't even sure what he's asking or if he wants the answer.
Brendon's breath hitches at Shane's name, but Ryan can tell himself he imagined it.
He could almost tell himself he's imagining just about everything right now.
Almost.
But with the look on Spencer's face... maybe not.
He turns to Jon, like he hopes to find a different expression, a better one, but Jon's staring at the ground, all life, all energy having been drowned, suffocated from him, leaving his face pale, too pale; an empty hospital-white that's not at all from the moonlight.
The saddest Ryan's ever seen Jon was in the cabin, the first and only time Ryan ever yelled at him, and it made Ryan's chest hurt for ten whole seconds until he was sputtering breathless apologies and blinking back tears and Jon had still hugged him afterwards, dropping a whispered, "Still love you, man" into his ear and it was over just like that.
Ryan has a feeling this, this (no names, no names), isn't going to be over any time soon, with hugs or whispers or even a nuclear meltdown.
Still fuzzy from waking, his head still feeling like Spencer had been pounding on it with drumsticks for the better part of a week, it takes him a second to connect Jon with Ryan's words and Spencer's face and -- oh.
Oh.
"Oh god," Ryan croaks, but it doesn't sound like words when it comes out, which doesn't surprise him because he's honestly more surprised he's got a voice left at all, that he's got thoughts left, that his heart hasn't just pounded everything coherent right out of his head. "Jon. Jon."
Jon's reactionless, but when Ryan reaches one hand away from Brendon to close around Jon's, Jon allows it, squeezing back with twice the conviction but still somehow holding back, like he's too scared to hold onto anything too tight, put too much faith in anything solid, lest it slip away from him again, just like --
And -- then. Then.
It's then his mind finally recovers, shifts. Centers.
Brendon.
And now he knows he's himself again, that this is real and his mind's intact, because Brendon is solidly here, infiltrating his thoughts as overwhelmingly as ever, and the chaos begins to make sense -- sick, twisted sense.
His vision blacks again, for an instant, the pattern already falling into dreaded familiarity, and the same face flashes behind his eyes, variations of the same words, and he knows.
How they're here, how he's here, here with eyes open and heart beating instead of being one more name crossed off the head count.
He knows.
What's worse, and better all at once, something tells him he's the only one who does.
And now Brendon's --
Oh god.
Oh fucking god.
"Bren."
But Spencer's there, never missing a beat, fingers tightening slightly around Ryan's hand, and when Ryan looks at him, Spencer shakes his head, slow but tense, unequivocal. Ryan wishes it were unreadable but it's Spencer.
It says, don't.
So Ryan doesn't. He fights it. He fights the words that finally, finally want to tumble out, the stupid endearments they haven't used in years (Bren, Brenny Bear, I've got you, I've got you), not since Ryan had begun to realize they meant something to Brendon that they absolutely could not mean.
It didn't matter, eventually. Because, Shane. Shane could say them, and they could mean everything Brendon needed them to mean.
Except that Shane's not --
He's not here -- not gone, Ryan won't say gone, just not here.
(They weren't official yet, but Ryan had known. Brendon had started calling Shane "Padfoot," some Harry Potter reference, god only knows, no doubt Jon had a hand in it, but Brendon told Shane he needed a nickname for him too. "You're Brenny Bear, aren't you?" he'd offered, pinching Brendon's leg, and before Brendon could respond, Ryan had voiced a soft, but insistent, "No," from behind his magazine on the other side of the lounge. He could feel both sets of eyes on him, and tried to school his expression into something casual, light, even smiling, before he looked up. "That's mine," he'd gently informed Shane, unable to meet Brendon's eyes when he realized how close he'd been to saying he's instead of that's. Shane had smiled down at his hands, clearly knowing more than Ryan thought he should. "True, I'm afraid," Brendon had chirped, faking a dramatic sigh, and Ryan admired his diplomacy, because they both knew Ryan allowed Spencer and Jon to use the name too, but this was different. They were lost to him, all the words that should've struck Ryan, the fucking writer, but all he could manage was, different. And Brendon knew, and that somehow made it even harder for Ryan, though he'd never let himself come to solidify what "it" precisely was.
When Ryan had finally thought it safe to look, Shane had turned back to his camera and Brendon was watching Ryan with the smallest but brightest smile Ryan had seen in months.)
Ryan fights it, but he feels like he's already lost -- having to watch this, having to feel this, Brendon falling apart in his arms and Jon's hand still clenched tightly in his and Spencer, Spencer, just trying to hold everyone together and somehow not lose himself along the way.
When Brendon's sobs trickle down to weak, sporadic convulsions, the stream of tears dwindling to an occasional drop, Spencer finally lies down on Ryan's other side, and Ryan realizes for the first time that Spencer hasn't broken contact with him since the moment his eyes opened, and Ryan wants to acknowledge him -- wants to say somehing, I love you or even just his name, but he's afraid if he opens his mouth, the wrong words will spill out or tears will follow.
He settles for turning his head until his forehead brushes Spencer's, and he leaves it there until Spencer kisses his cheek, aiming blindly and landing somewhere by his ear, his breath a hot, solid comfort despite its intrinsic lack of solidity.
When he turns back to Brendon, Jon's curled up on Brendon's other side, spooning him, head nestled in the warm, perfect curve of Brendon's neck, his arm curled around Brendon's waist, their fingers laced tight. Ryan cups one hand over their joined fingers and Spencer nestles against his other side, and Ryan is momentarily shut down by how completely right this feels (how anything could feel this right, now), the four of them holding each other up, holding each other down, just fucking holding. None of them alone is the glue that keeps them together, but rather each an integral ingredient in the glue: individually, they're just entities, useless; together, they're solid. Adhered.
Together, they're fucking magic.
Ryan holds his breath until his ears identify three separate breathing patterns, before letting his eyes fall shut.
It's not until they close that a splash of tears trails a jagged path down his cheek, landing in Brendon's hair.
He doesn't remember falling asleep, but he dreams of three months ago, Shane's birthday, when Brendon asked with no explanation if they could cover Elton John's "Your Song" the following Thursday, and then proceeded to dedicate it, in front of an audience five thousand strong, to "someone special". Shane had had no idea, just stood down in the pit in front of the stage with the security guards, lowering his camera when the song had started, his mouth dropping half open and his eyes glistening visibly even from the stage, glued to Brendon at the piano the entire time, his camera forgotten, limp in his hands.
Ryan never even remembered playing, can't recall his fingers moving over the strings at all. He vaguely remembers the speed of his heartbeat, the stiffness in his fingers, and a mischievous grin from Spencer (Ryan had maybe possibly serenaded him with that song once when he was sixteen and drunk for the first time -- a grand, uncharacteristically theatrical performance that had concluded with him straddling Spencer on the couch and using the TV remote as a mic. They'd laughed so hard afterwards Ryan had collapsed in his lap, nuzzling against Spencer's hip until sleep claimed him, and Ryan never thought to ask why Spencer allowed it.)
But what he remembers most is the look in Shane's eyes (the same look Brendon had set on Ryan for years, forever), the way Brendon kept sneaking looks and secret smiles in Shane's direction, and the way he sang it with a kind of gorgeous abandon Ryan hadn't seen in some time. Brendon met Ryan's eyes once, but he looked terrified when it happened, like he was going to lose his place or forget the words, and he looked away just as fast.
That. That was the reality.
The dream is better, and worse.
In his dream, Brendon walks across the stage at the end to where Ryan has safely planted himself, far away. Their instruments have somehow vanished, as have the audience, Shane, even the stage. There are smiles -- Jon's, Spencer's, warm and blinding and beautiful -- but what he sees most clearly is Brendon, walking toward him and never stopping until their mouths are locked, with Brendon's hands fisted in Ryan's hair and Ryan's hands on Brendon's hips like they've been there forever, like they were born to fit against the curves. But the instant their tongues touch, they're ripped apart, being pulled further and further away until all Ryan can see is darkness, all he can feel are hands, and all he can hear is the roar of the airplane as it drops, and the voice, the same voice, beckoning him into safety.
He wakes up in darkness, blanketed by his sleeping bandmates, the sounds of insects and ocean soft in his ears and nothing like the roar of the plane, their songs offering a comfort he's not ready to accept.
There are tears on his face and for a tiny, glorious instant, he can't remember why.
+++
When Spencer wakes up, he knows immediately where he is -- and it's the first chance has to be truly afraid.
With the heaviest weights of their chaos lifted, he can finally settle, breathe, think, and he's starting to miss being too shellshocked to do any of those things, because they'd kept him moving, kept him working. Kept him hoping. Kept him thinking if he just went on moving and working, he wasn't giving in, he wasn't surrendering to the reality.
But just... stopping like this -- sleeping and waking up and knowing where he is and just taking it -- it makes him sick. Irrationally, it makes him feel like he's given up; like he's failed.
But the rest of his senses kick in soon enough, the still-sleeping warmth radiating off Ryan's skin beneath Spencer's arm, his closeness, his aliveness -- and he knows: As long as he has this, Ryan, all of them -- he hasn't failed.
Maybe even, as long as he's got all of them -- he can't fail.
He spends a good thirty seconds working carefully to disentangle himself from Ryan without waking him up, and he's practically breathless by the time he accomplishes it, pushing himself up on the blanket and wincing at the stiffness that doesn't seem to have missed a single muscle in his body. He can see Ryan properly now, still fitted snug against Brendon, their legs draped over one another and their arms folded up against their chests, hands joined, with Brendon's head tucked under Ryan's chin. It's strange seeing them like this, in a million ways. Ryan's never been one for cuddling with Brendon (alone with Spencer or Jon is another story, one that Spencer knows better than to question), and the only thing separating their bodies is their underwear, Ryan's charcoal gray boxer briefs and Brendon's fire engine-red American Apparels. The part of Spencer that still remembers who he was two days ago wishes everything were different so he could take a picture of them, leave it for Ryan to find, watch him go crimson and bitchy and mortified so Spencer could laugh at him, and Jon would pretend not to take sides, but Spencer would catch him grinning when Ryan looks away.
He almost feels guilty watching them, like he's intruding on something intimate, not meant for him to see.
He doesn't watch long, once his eyes catch sight of Jon, seated on a corner of the blanket with his back slouched against the base of the nearest palm tree. His eyes are unfocused, just pointed out into the ocean, not watching anything in particular as he traces aimless patterns in the sand with one finger.
When Spencer crosses over to him, crouches down and sits back on his heels, Jon looks up, a brief acknowledgment before averting his eyes to the ground, watching his fingers sift through the same sand over and over, like he's ever going to uncover something new.
"What time is it?" Spencer whispers.
Jon shrugs. "I dunno, afternoon I think."
"Shit."
"You sleep okay?"
"Yeah, you?"
Jon nods.
"You been up long?" Spencer asks.
"An hour, I guess. I was gonna go out, but. Y'know. Didn't want you to worry." He says it a little awkwardly, like he thinks it presumptuous to assume Spencer would worry about him, and it still amazes Spencer, how after all this time, Jon still has those rare moments when he doubts how much they want him -- and seriously, there couldn't be anything more fucking ridiculous.
"You should've woken me up." It sounds harsher than Spencer intended, but shit, they've lost half the day.
Jon shrugs again. "You looked so peaceful... all of you. Perfect." His voice drops, and, "I didn't want -- I just. Wanted it to stay. I don't know."
But Spencer knows. Jon's mind works through images, photographs, moments that he can freeze and hold onto, or at least try. Looking back over at Brendon and Ryan now... he gets it. Right now they are perfect. It's the only perfection in any of this, the only thing that isn't chaos.
"It's okay." Spencer reaches down, closes his fingers around Jon's in the sand, feeling the grains shift and grind between their skin. "You want to go look for water?"
Jon nods. "'M gonna make one more trip out first. I think I saw another suitcase yesterday."
"Okay."
Jon picks up one of the snack bags lying on the ground, ripping it open with his teeth and scarfing down two tightly packed miniature doughnuts before offering the last four to Spencer.
"Eat," Jon orders before Spencer can decline.
Spencer does, slowly and silently, trying not to think of how many snacks they've got left, or of the time he and Haley went to the beach and he'd tried to climb a palm tree to fetch a coconut and only succeeded in scraping up his entire front half so bad he'd looked kind of like a burn victim for days.
Even without looking directly into Jon's eyes (he would, if Jon would let him, he would), Spencer can tell there's something missing. The life, the vibrance and shine that he'd assumed was just part of the Jon Walker magic, an intrinsic constant -- has seeped out, replaced by nothing, diminishing the once sparkling hazel to dull, lifeless brown.
Spencer wants to say a thousand words, if only he could figure out what they are.
He wants to say, maybe, I'm here, but he knows that's not enough. Jon doesn't care that he's there. Spencer's just Spencer. He's not snarky smirks and drawling sarcasm, ragged blond hair behind the lens of a camera, capturing things only Jon would understand. He's not enough. He's not Tom.
Spencer wonders dangerously if Jon would disappear inside himself this way if Spencer had been the one who'd gone.
A thousand words, and none of them right. None of them enough.
He wants to say, Let me take care of you, the way Jon's been taking care of him, all of them, since the night he flew in from Chicago to fill in for Brent. Probably even before, after a night of over-indulgence with William, when he'd show up at Panic's bus carrying Brendon, a pack of Sour Patch Kids, and a box of Raisinets, Spencer and Ryan's favorites respectively, because somehow Jon knew.
Somehow, Jon always knows.
Spencer gives up on words, they're Ryan's territory after all, and settles for a soft, "Jon," a hand on his knee.
It's the wrong word, apparently, because Jon's easing himself to his feet, heading out to the water without any indication for Spencer to follow him.
Spencer does though, splashing more than necessary to make sure Jon knows he's there, to give Jon a chance to send him away if he doesn't want him there.
Jon doesn't send him away, but he doesn't acknowledge him either, and Spencer thinks that kind of feels worse.
He's seen the wreckage a dozen times, more probably; it's easier now, and Spencer hates that. It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be easier to know exactly where the bodies are and how to avoid them. He doesn't want to know what sections he has to be careful of because parts of the plane are jutting out like blades. He doesn't want to feel the broken seats under pools of idle water, knowing who took their last breaths where.
It all looks just as he remembers, and he doesn't fucking want to remember this.
He watches as Jon works like it's nothing, stumbling over piles of unnamed items, useless bits of plane, pushing his way through all the hanging yellow oxygen masks that had dropped uselessly during the fall.
"There was some stuff floating over by the right side emergency exit -- or what's left of it," Jon says without turning around, and Spencer takes it as instruction. At least it gives him something to do, makes him useful. Valuable, maybe.
What's left of the emergency exit is a shapeless hole in the side of what's left of the plane -- really, everything here is defined in terms of what's left of, because nothing is whole anymore.
Metaphors start converging in Spencer's head, and he's definitely spent too many years with Ryan.
He spends awhile half underwater, trying to reach (what's left of) the floor of the plane, all the things he can feel with his feet but is afraid to step on, lest he break anything waterproof and valuable. A small slip and something starts to crunch under his foot before he catches himself, but it's not quick enough to keep the sharp edge of the object from jabbing his heel.
"Shit, fuck, what the fuck."
He stumbles backward a bit but Jon is abandoning a newly retrieved (albeit badly beaten) suitcase and racing to his side, as fast as possible through the uneven water and stray items.
"You okay?" Jon asks, suddenly alert. "What happened?"
"Just stepped on something sharp. I'm good, it's not bleeding or anything."
But Jon's already reaching down, the water level at the very top of his shoulder as he fumbles around for the culprit, and Spencer winces a bit at the sharp cut that reaches from Jon's shoulder down his chest, and the way it's forced to stretch as he reaches. His arm stills suddenly and something flashes across his face, and when he begins to pull out of the water, it's slow, dreading, as though he doesn't want to see what's in his hand.
It's waterlogged, useless with bits broken off, scratched to hell and back, lens cap long gone, top-of-the-line Nikkor lens shattered -- but it's unmistakable.
Jon stares at Tom's camera like a death sentence, his jaw slack and eyes brimming with a shine that has nothing to do with vibrance or magic.
"Fuck," Spencer hisses, but Jon is a statue, still as stone and just as wordless.
In the silence but for the water lapping gently at their legs, Spencer can hear Jon's breath start to quicken, shorten, and he doesn't fucking know what to do anymore because Jon's shut himself off so hard.
"Jon... Jon, please."
He doesn't even know what he's pleading for until he steps forward, carefully circling his arms around Jon, pulling himself toward Jon instead of trying to pull Jon to him -- and then, he knows. He knows what he's been after all along, when Jon finally breaks in his arms, choked sobs rattling his frame as he lets Spencer hold him up, hold him impossibly close, and finally, finally, he responds in kind, his arms clinging so tight that Spencer doesn't know how he's managing to breathe, but as long as Jon's in his arms, letting him do this, oxygen can fucking wait.
He knows well enough to keep quiet until Jon's breaths are steady again, but Jon never lets go.
"Hey," Spencer whispers into his hair, "do you want to bring it back? To camp? We'll keep it safe, and we'll take it home with us, yeah?"
For a second Jon simply freezes, and Spencer's terrified he's said completely the wrong thing, again -- but Jon finally nods, quick and jerky against Spencer's shoulder.
"Okay," Spencer breathes, and the relief in the syllable is clear, but he knows he's speaking now mostly for himself. "Okay."
"Spence."
"Yeah."
Jon holds his breath like he's going to say something, but he doesn't. He lets it out after a few seconds, and holds onto Spencer a little tighter.
"Don't go anywhere," Jon says against his skin.
"I'm not, man. "
"I can't do this without you."
"You don't -- "
"I can't, Spence."
"Look at me."
Spencer's a little nervous, knowing it's all thin ice right now, trying to give Jon orders, but Jon obliges, gazing up at him, scared and jittery.
"You won't have to," Spencer says. "I'm here."
Jon stares at him a long time, almost like he's waiting for the life to drift back into his eyes, as if for some reason Spencer would be the one to bring it back. And just like that, two years have dropped off, and Spencer's zooming back to then, that one second when he knew, knew that if he had to live a single day the rest of his life without Jon Walker in it, the world would shine a little less.
"One more time?"
"Yeah."
"Okay." Spencer adjusts his position on the dressing room floor, trying to keep his knees out of the way as he scoots closer to Jon, one finger pointed to the setlist in front of them. "Brent usually spends most of his time around upstage left, but you can move anywhere from here to here and you'll be good." He indicates two places on the crappy pencil drawing of the stage where Brendon has written the letter "J" surrounded by hearts. "Brendon'll introduce you after Camisado, and there's not really a lot going on until Lying, but feel free to chime in 'cause Bren has this tendency to just keep talking way past the script. Anyway, they'll do their big gay thing" -- Jon chuckles at that, and Spencer can't resist either -- "and that leads into Lying, and -- "
He stops only from the feeling of being watched, and it's not an irrational assumption, when he looks up to find Jon looking at him, not the paper, with bright, beaming eyes and a smile to match.
"What?"
Jon shrugs, still smiling. "I couldn't do this without you."
Spencer smiles back. "You won't have to."
Jon glances down at the page, pretending to study the list of tracks. "I hear you're the one who thought to ask me."
"Dude, we all wanted you."
Jon looks up again, and something in Spencer's stomach does a little flip-flop to find that Jon's smile is intact, brighter than ever. "But you were the mastermind behind it."
Spencer shrugs as casually as he can physically manage, hoping it negates the blush he feels rising in his cheeks. "Maybe."
"Why -- I just. I mean, we're in L.A., even Pete could've done it. Or y'know, anyone else who doesn't live half a country away. Why me?"
Spencer rolls his eyes, because, seriously. "Because you're Jon Walker," he states, as if this explains everything.
But really, it kind of does.
"I see," Jon says observantly. "Oh, and... ugh."
"What?"
"It's so fucking embarrassing, I hate him."
"What?!"
Jon sighs, effecting an eyeroll of his own before mumbling the words in a rush: "Bill made me promise to tell you if you try to keep me he'll murder you all in your sleep with a chain saw."
Spencer grins, wide and silly. "Small price to pay to make you ours."
It didn't take him long after to realize he would've paid any price in the world to make Jon theirs.
What he never realized was, Jon had been theirs all along.
"We can do this," Spencer insists, shivering as a few drops of water spill from his hair down his face. "We can, I promise."
Jon nods, and it's probably Spencer's imagination, but Jon's eyes don't look quite as empty.
"Come on, let's get out of here," Spencer urges, tugging on Jon's wrist.
It's not the easiest task in the world, lugging the suitcase and the rest of their collection through the maze of wreckage and back through the water, but it's good; it gives them something to do, and they don't have to speak through it, no more fears of wrong words or tense silence.
Once they hit the beach, the items are dropped, arranged, jammed firmly into the sand lest they roll or blow away, and Spencer's even poised to zip open the suitcase when it hits, his eyes moving slowly toward their camp, toward the makeshift roof (which, secretly, Spencer is really quite proud of), toward the mess of blankets that's become their bed, the massive shade leaves and bottles of water and plastic snack packs, toward --
"...Jon."
Toward Brendon and Ryan, who aren't there at all.