Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Brendon’s phone rang in the middle of class.

The professor stopped talking and everyone in the room turned to stare; Brendon could feel his face turning as red as his glasses. He fumbled in his bag to find his phone and turn off the shrill tones of ABBA’s SOS, but it had fucking fallen underneath a book and gotten crammed down where he couldn’t reach it.

The professor cleared his throat. Everyone in the room was glaring. Brendon could feel their eyes boring in to the back of his neck. He tossed his notebook and a handful of replacement guitar strings out on the floor, along with a motley collection of pens. His phone was still playing disco.

“Mr. Urie,” said the professor. Brendon heard snickering. In desperation he upended his bag completely and dumped everything on to the floor. There was his phone – finally. Brendon lunged for it and hit the silent button; as his fingers got there the phone trilled ‘MISSED CALL’ happily at him and shut off.

Brendon looked up. The classroom wasn’t that big; it was a seminar with a big rectangular table in the center and twenty-five angry underclassmen all staring at Brendon, kneeling on the floor. The professor, who’d been in the middle of some kind of explanation about – okay, Brendon wasn’t sure, he’d been nearly asleep – had his arms crossed and a giant frown lurking under his beard.

“Sorry,” Brendon said lamely. “It was, uh. I thought I turned it off.” He tried a smile, but it faltered and slid off under twenty-six matching glares.

That was fine, Brendon told himself, taking a deep breath and shoving all his stuff back in his bag. This just wasn’t going to be his best day ever.

The professor made a disapproving noise and went back to his lecture. On the upside, Brendon reflected, it turned out he knew Brendon’s full name. On the downside, that probably meant he was going to flunk him. Brendon slunk back in to his chair and tried to slouch as much as possible. He wasn’t exactly tall, so he wasn’t blocking anyone’s view anyway, but he was sitting right at the front of the table because he’d gotten there late, when the only chairs left were right in the line of fire.

Brendon still wasn’t totally sure what the professor was talking about today. Last time he’d tried to pay attention there had been something about Vietnam, but now he was lecturing on the crusades. Brendon had a pretty good idea what the crusades were, and he didn’t remember them happening in Vietnam. He wished he’d been taking notes. He wished he knew someone else in the class to copy their notes. He wished it were Thanksgiving break already, instead of a week and a half away.

“—And that’s why you’ll be working in pairs,” said the professor. Brendon looked up. Somehow he’d stopped listening again. Pairs for what? Did he mean for the class right now, because the guy Brendon was sitting next to was a jock-y frat boy with his hat on backwards and a beer logo t-shirt. Brendon didn’t think that kid knew what was going on, either. If, on the other hand, they were doing a project or something and Brendon was supposed to choose a partner he was still in trouble, because Brendon hadn’t actually talked to anyone in the class and he was pretty sure they all hated him at the moment.

“I’ve chosen partners for you. Keep in mind, this is going to be thirty percent of your final grade.”

Oh, well that was just perfect. Brendon sank a little lower in his chair. He really wished he’d paid attention any of the other days in class. Maybe he still had the syllabus lying around his dorm somewhere. Probably not, though.

“So, the pairs are as follows: Mr. Greenfield, you are with Ms. Tisch. Ms. Edwards is with Ms. Kae. Mr. Urie, you are with Mr. Smith.” Brendon wasn’t sure if he’d hallucinated the glare the professor gave him, or if it was real. But the glare that Mr. Smith gave him was definitely real; Brendon knew exactly who his partner was, because it was the guy across the table who crossed his arms and got total bitch face when Brendon looked up hopefully.

Everyone shifted around the table. Smith – who probably had a first name, Brendon would have to look in to that – clearly wasn’t moving. Brendon grabbed his bag and his hoodie and phone and book and notebook and pen and tried to move around the table without running in to anyone else. When he’d gotten there he couldn’t put it all back down neatly, though, and he ended up dropping half of it and having to crawl under the table to chase his phone.

He popped back up and said cheerfully, “Hi! I’m Brendon.”

Smith’s bitchface got darker, somehow. He had really girly bangs falling across his eyes and a round face that seemed designed for glaring. Brendon’s smile faltered a little bit. He shifted back in to his chair and waited. “Um. So, do you have a name?”

“Spencer,” he said. He didn’t seem inclined to say anything else.

Brendon downgraded the whole day from “not great” to “fucking awful.” “Okay,” he said brightly, “this will be fine. This will be great. Are there, like, directions for what we’re doing? I follow directions like a champ.”

“Yeah?” Spencer said. “Then how come you can’t turn your phone off?”

Brendon was pretty hard to discourage, but Spencer Smith apparently knew just what to do. “I’m sorry,” he said, deflating a little. “I forgot.”

They stared at each other for a second, and then Spencer rolled his eyes and said “Okay, so what time period do you want to do?”

Time period? Brendon didn’t actually know what they were talking about. The professor’s voice had this somnolent quality that kept Brendon from ever totally paying attention. He wasn’t, in fact, sure what the class was about, except that it was his required history credit. He paid way more attention in his music classes, honestly. “Whatever you think,” he said, and sank a little bit in his chair. He swallowed the urge to start explaining that he was a scholarship student with a very good GPA, and he’d even managed to do well in stats. It was just this class where he couldn’t seem to stay awake for more than a minute at a time.

“You weren’t paying attention,” Spencer accused.

Totally true, but Brendon thought lying might be the better part of valor. “I was,” he said. “I just got distracted.”

“By your phone.”

“Well… Yes.”

Spencer huffed and rolled his eyes and grabbed his bag, going through his papers with little grumbling noises until he found what he was looking for and slapped it triumphantly on the table. “It’s our final project,” he said, and his tone of voice made it pretty clear that he thought Brendon was too stupid to understand. “We have to choose a conflict and write a point-counterpoint to explain the circumstances and consequences of the military action.”

“Okay,” Brendon said, perking up again. “That sounds cool.” He flipped through Spencer’s notebook and his papers. Spencer took really good notes. Brendon would have to borrow them sometime.

Presumably some time when Spencer no longer hated him. Spencer was still watching him suspiciously. Brendon decided he was going to make Spencer his best friend eventually, because the guy clearly took great notes and probably got good grades in history and definitely had awesome hair. Brendon needed more of all those things in his life.

Spencer huffed again. “The crusades,” he said. “We have lots of notes about that. Okay?”

Brendon had not heard one single word about the crusades all semester. “Awesome,” he said, and grinned.

Spencer did not grin back. He didn’t even crack a smile. He had bitch face down to an art. It was a little frightening. “Give me your phone,” Spencer ordered, “so we can trade numbers.” Brendon handed his over feeling a lot like a naughty kid whose toys were being taken away. Spencer clearly did not trust him with the phone at all, and stored his number in Brendon’s, called himself, and stored Brendon’s in his. He handed Brendon’s phone back with narrowed eyes.

“Okay,” said the professor. “That’s the end of class. I expect you to email me about your conflict choice by the end of the day today.”

Everyone jumped up and started shoving their stuff in their bags. Spencer got up so fast he might have been on fire, and raced out the door before Brendon could get in a, “So, you want to get together and work on this sometime?” or an, “I’m a music major, what are you?” or even an, “I don’t know a lot of people on campus; will you hang out with me?”

That last one was probably a bad opening gambit. Later, he’d win Spencer over with his charm and humor and adorableness. Brendon had a good feeling about Spencer. He just had to get Spencer to understand he wasn’t a total idiot.

He’d made friends before, after all. Just… Not in a while. Brendon grabbed everything off the table and checked his phone to see who’d called. Honestly, he’d forgotten to turn it off because he just didn’t get a lot of phone calls. Like, any.

It turned out the message was from Brian. Brendon babysat for his kids most Fridays, and sometimes hung out on the weekends when he didn’t have a lot of rehearsals or stuff to do. Sometimes he went anyway, actually. The kids were more fun than hanging out in his dorm room by himself, writing about music theory.

“Hey, Brendon. It’s Brian. I was hoping you could swing by my office when you’re done with classes. Today would be great, if it’s possible, but uh, give me a call. See ya.”

Brendon’s heart jumped a little bit. Brian and his kids were so awesome Brendon would have hung out at their house for free. Brian’s office, on the other hand, was the coolest place on earth – presumably, of course. Brendon had never been there. But he knew that was where Brian signed bands and arranged tours and handled all kinds of amazingly cool shit Brendon wanted desperately to see. If there was a god --- and Brendon had his doubts, the last couple of years – eventually he’d be in Brian’s office and Brian would be signing Brendon’s band.

So. Brian’s office first, convince Spencer to love him later. Brendon had plans.

\ \ \ \ \ \

Brendon walked to Brian’s office downtown. It wasn’t that far from campus, and it wasn’t too horribly cold outside. He had a license but no car, since he had absolutely no cash and all the spare change he managed to scrounge up babysitting eventually went for CDs or guitar strings.

It didn’t take much effort to find Brian’s building; it was huge and shiny and had a doorman and everything. Brendon felt his jaw drop– he’d known Brian was successful and probably kind of rich, but he hadn’t realized the real scope of the whole thing. He forced himself to stand up straight and close his mouth and try and look like a grownup. He was trying to be less melodramatic this year; he was practically an adult. He’d be able to drink – legally, even – in another year. He had to start keeping his head on straight and behaving a little more maturely.

Brendon caught sight of himself in the reflection of the glass doors at the building and flashed himself a giant, cheesy smile. So he was behaving more like a grownup, but not entirely like one yet. Soon, though. In the meantime, he looked pretty awesome. His reflection grinned back at him. Brendon had spiked his hair up and was wearing his lucky lavender hoodie under his windbreaker – one of these days he’d have to get around to buying a real winter coat; he was from the desert and he’d never gotten around to it– and his best hipster jeans. He’d gotten distracted by his email and lost track of time so he hadn’t showered. He felt like it gave him a real hipster aura. Hipsters didn’t shower regularly. They were way too cool. And Brendon needed more work on being cool.

Cool people, for example, probably worried a lot less about being cool. For starters.

Security actually stopped him to call upstairs and see if he was really invited. Brendon thought that was kind of lame; didn’t band people go upstairs all the time to talk to Gabe and Brian? Maybe he didn’t look enough like a band guy. Brendon felt a little panicked. If skinny jeans and funky glasses weren’t enough, what was he supposed to do?

The security guy glared, but he hung up the phone and waved Brendon over to the bank of elevators. Brendon stood by the door and fidgeted. He usually hit the button over and over if no one else was watching, but the doorman was definitely staring at his back. Brendon wasn’t the world’s best waiter.

Brendon felt a compulsion to strike up a conversation with the security guard because oh my god the guy was just standing there watching him, and it was making the back of Brendon’s neck itchy. He opened his mouth to start, then nearly threw himself in to the elevator with relief, when the doors slid open. In there no one could watch him be twitchy and weird.

Operation: Be More Calm And Adult And Impress Brian, so far, was not going great.

The elevator doors dinged open again. Brendon shifted his bag around for a second and took a deep breath. He pushed open the glass doors that said COBRA STARSHIP MANAGEMENT and stuck his head in. There was a reception desk but no one sitting there, and The Who were blasting in the background, echoing through a bunch of empty offices. “Brian?” Brendon yelled. “You here?”

He felt like he was sneaking in, but the doors weren’t locked or anything, and he was invited; someone had answered the phone. Brendon hitched his bag higher on his shoulder and stuck his head around the corner. “Brian?” he yelled again, and walked straight in to someone else’s back.

“Ooof,” Brendon said, windmilling and trying not to fall over. The other person was taller, but even skinnier than Brendon, and it was really just luck that they hadn’t both tipped over. It took Brendon a minute of staggering before he caught his balance.

“You’re looking for Brian?” said the other guy.

Brendon looked up and blinked. And blinked again. His mouth was kind of open, and he knew he looked stupid, but he didn’t know how to close his mouth, or say anything, or breathe. It was a problem.

The other guy was young, Brendon’s age or a little older. He had crazy, experimental hair that was almost a mullet but in a hipster kind of way. He was wearing iridescent turquoise eye shadow, which didn’t help with the fact that he looked kind of like a girl. He was skinny as fuck, and he was wearing a scarf when it was warm inside and a vest with a giant fluffy flower on it, and he was holding tea and he had a little bit of a five o’clock shadow, which made him look like a lesbian in the worst drag ever.

He was beautiful. Brendon’s heart skipped a beat. It was insane. Could hearts really do that? Could you actually have a heart attack just from looking at someone? Brendon was almost sure you couldn’t, and told himself that firmly while he tried to force his heart to beat again.

“Brian? You’re looking for him?” He paused and then shrugged. “Or… not?”

Brendon had to work to remember that his mouth and throat could make noises. “Ungh,” he said. The prettiest boy in the world raised his eyebrows. “Yes,” Brendon choked out. “I. Yes. Brian! I’m looking for Brian! I’m his babysitter.”

The other kid said dryly, “I think Brian’s kind of old to need a babysitter.” His voice was a lot deeper than Brendon expected, considering what he was wearing.

Brendon almost swallowed his tongue. He was pretty, and funny, and possibly very mean. It was fascinating. “I didn’t mean Brian,” Brendon tried to clarify. “I meant his kids. He has two. They’re kind of new, and he needed someone to watch them over the summer. That’s how I know Brian. Hi! I’m Brendon.” He offered his hand for shaking along with his biggest, brightest grin. Maybe there was still a chance that the most attractive man Brendon had ever met didn’t think he was a fumbling idiot.

“Uh. Hi,” said the other boy, sounding really confused. He stared at Brendon for a minute like he was worried Brendon would jump on him. Which Brendon was not going to do. Not even if he really wanted to. After a minute Brendon let his hand fall and pretended like he’d never stuck it out in the first place. Coolness. He was working on coolness.

Nameless But Beautiful was still staring uncertainly at Brendon. Brendon didn’t blame him; he was feeling confused, too. Confused, and as the silence stretched out, mildly suicidal. Why couldn’t he talk like a normal person? “So, Brian is here? Well, not here. Somewhere around here.” Brendon gestured a little too hard on ‘somewhere’ and his hand flew out and caught the mug of tea. It spilled all over the most attractive man Brendon had ever met, making him grimace and swear and jump back.

“Oh no, oh shit, oh my god let me—” Brendon said, lunging for the teacup.

“Really, I’m cool,” the other guy said, backing up.

Brendon wanted to die. He wanted to catch fire and melt and sink straight through the floor, or go back in time and warn himself not to go upstairs, because only humiliating things were happening there. Brendon would wave a giant sign at himself that said “JUST GO HOME AND GIVE UP NOW” and then he would never have to worry about this entire conversation. “I can – Do you have a towel? I can clean up what spilled. I clean when I’m babysitting, right? The kids are kind of messy. Brian doesn’t really care, though. He’s cool like that. Still a good dad and stuff, but really cool.” Brendon’s mouth just would not stop. It was like he was floating above his own body, listening to himself babble like a total moron.

“I’m not really that cool,” said Brian, appearing behind the other guy in the doorway. “But thanks.”

Brendon wanted to cry, and to run in to Brian’s office and hide. Would Brian let him hide, and then maybe tell everyone that Brendon had an evil twin who went around spilling tea on really hot guys? Because short of having an evil twin, Brendon wasn’t sure he could ever come back to Brian’s office again, not even to become a rock star. “Hi,” Brendon said to Brian, with a huge relieved smile. “You said I should stop by after class?”

“Yeah,” Brian said. “Thanks. Brendon, this is Ryan Ross. He works for me. Ryan, this is Brendon. C’mon back.”

“Nice to meet you,” Ryan said tonelessly.

“It really wasn’t,” Brendon replied miserably.

His relief at moving away from Ryan was so enormous that he almost managed to stop himself from looking back over his shoulder. Ryan was dabbing fussily at his vest with a towel. He definitely wasn’t looking at Brendon. And that was a good thing, except for the part where it bummed Brendon out a little bit. He didn’t meet beautiful, funny, music-oriented people every day. More like never.

Brian was watching Brendon, clearly baffled. “Ohhhhkay,” he said. “Boy, if meeting Ryan threw you off, wait until you meet Gabe.”

Brendon followed Brian back to his office. It was decorated with all kinds of band posters – some classics and some bands that Brian repped – and a couple of guitars and a picture of Gerard and Mikey on the couch in Brian’s living room. Gerard was mid-word, hands waving wildly around his head, and Mikey was mostly ignoring him, looking at his iPod. Brendon missed hanging out with them all day like he had over the summer.

“Dude,” said Brendon, grabbing something off the wall. “Did Gerard draw this?” It was a band poster, but the band consisted of Gerard and his brother and their friends, dancing with zombies. Plus the tour dates didn’t make any sense.

“Yeah,” said Brian, who couldn’t keep the giant grin off his face. “It’s cool, huh? If he were a little older, I’d let him do some of our promo stuff. It’d keep him out of trouble.” The words were pretty normal, but his tone was pure isn’t-my-kid-the-greatest-kid-on-earth.

Brendon swallowed a laugh. “And how are things going, running your own company?” he asked, flopping down in the big leather chair in Brian’s office. “Besides hiring ninth graders, I mean.”

Brian groaned. “Awesome,” he said. “Wonderful. Perfect. Amazing. I love being my own boss, only now I have to do all the work and also get Gabe to do work. It’s like… Putting toothpaste back in the tube or something. Fucking Gabe.” He gestured to the huge piles of paper on his desk that looked dangerously close to collapse.

“But you’re happier, right?” Brendon asked. “I mean. Mikey said you were. But with Mikey it’s hard to tell.”

Brian got that totally stupid Mikey-and-Gerard smile again. “Yeah,” he said, “I’m happier. I don’t have to go to L.A., I can send Ryan. He loves it out there.”

Ryan loved L.A. Brendon filed that away, and then immediately wondered why he’d filed it away when his new life goal was to never, ever see Ryan Ross again as long as he lived. Except for how he also wished he had a picture of Ryan to put in his wallet and carry around and look at like a total crazy stalker whenever he was feeling sad. Brendon’s reaction to spilling tea on a total stranger in the hallway was unexpectedly complicated.

“Actually, that’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about,” Brian said.

Brendon blinked. He somehow doubted that Brian wanted him to go to LA and listen to bands for him. And he – please god – hadn’t picked up on Brendon’s instantaneous and totally embarrassing crush. “L.A.?” Brendon asked hopefully.

“No,” Brian said, “but it’s kind of related, if you squint. Thanksgiving is next week, and I wasn’t sure if you’d be going home for the holidays or what. I know you didn’t go home over the summer, but I wasn’t sure if you were going to be around.”

A really cold, icy rock settled in Brendon’s stomach. He’d been working so hard not to think about Thanksgiving coming up – or oh my god, Christmas – that he’d almost convinced himself it was still a long time away. But there it was, straight out of Brian’s mouth; a couple of weeks. It was going to happen. He was going to be alone on the holidays. Again. His day was straight back to shitty, and aiming to be the shittiest ever.

“Um,” said Brendon. He had crossed his legs one way so he uncrossed them and recrossed them the other way. It killed a few seconds. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Brian frowned. “Listen,” he said, “if you’re going to be around you should come to my place. It’s going to be the least traditional Thanksgiving ever. Gerard is apparently considering vegetarianism.” He rolled his eyes.

The only thing worse, maybe, than being alone at the holidays was watching someone else be really really really happy while you were alone. “Nah,” Brendon said. “But thank you. I have some stuff to do. And uh, people coming by. Lots of people. College people,” he added, in case that made it sound more authentic.

“Oh,” Brian said. He looked a little disappointed, but that also might have been Brendon’s imagination. “That’s too bad. I was hoping you could come. I’m a little nervous about my first holiday with the boys, honestly. I don’t know…” He chewed his lip and stared off in to space for a minute. Brendon was in serious danger of throwing up if Brian kept talking about this family stuff. Brian shook himself out of his reverie. “Anyway. If you’re around, we’d love it if you came by, even if it’s just for a few minutes. The boys especially. I mean, you know Mikey thinks you hung the moon, right?”

Brendon’s face got a little hot. “Mikey’s a cool little dude,” he said. “It’s too bad. I’m just really, super busy.”

Brian nodded. He looked totally bummed, and Brendon was sorry about lying. He twitched a little in his chair. “There’s something else,” Brian added, “but I don’t know if you’d be interested. When I was in college I was always strapped for cash, and we’re a little crazy around here this time of year. I was wondering if you’d maybe like to intern at the office a few hours a week. We need someone to hang out and answer the phones and do some filing. It’s nothing intense, but I’d be so much happier with someone I trust here. You understand music way better than some random temp would.”

Brendon’s day was right back up to top ten ever. “What? Really? Are you for serious? Because that would be – Brian, that’s awesome, I would love that, if you really mean it, which, do you?” When Brendon got excited he had this problem where all of his sentences collapsed together and made no sense. Unfortunately, recognizing that wasn’t the same as being able to stop it. “I could hang out here and get paid for it? Are you shitting me?” Then his brain caught up with his mouth and he realized that meant he was going to have to spend time in the same place as Ryan Ross, who, presumably, thought he was both insane and an idiot.

“Oh, good,” Brian said, looking relieved. “I’m psyched you’re interested.”

No I’m not! Brendon wanted to say, but he totally was. Music theory classes were great, and god knew he loved the vocal classes and the band rehearsals and all the other amazing stuff he got to do at school. But it wasn’t hanging out with bands. It wasn’t hard core.

“Maybe you can come by a couple of afternoons a week? I know you have rehearsals and stuff, but you can do homework here if you want. We just need someone to hang out, basically. We’re so swamped.” Brian did look pretty exhausted.

There was a blood-curdling scream down the hall. Brendon sat up really quickly, but Brian didn’t look worried.

Ryan stuck his head in to Brian’s office. He was still beautiful, unfortunately. Maybe if Brendon waited long enough, Ryan would fall in to a vat of acid, and Brendon could stop staring. “Gabe wants you,” Ryan said without inflection, and vanished again. Brian rolled his eyes.

“Um,” said Brendon, “is that going to happen a lot if I’m working here? The screaming?”

Brian shrugged. “It’s just Gabe,” he said. “He screams sometimes. Other times he sings. We mostly ignore him.”

Gabe – who was maybe being tortured? Or was an opera singer? – screamed again. Brendon clutched the arms of his chair a little bit. “Oh,” he said.

“Listen, I should go check on him. You’re still coming by this Friday, right?”

Brendon thought about Brian’s offer again. If he came by, the kids were going to ask if he was coming for Thanksgiving. And Brendon was really shitty at lying to them, way worse than he was at lying to Brian. Mikey in particular just had to look at him and stick his lower lip out and Brendon completely forgot what he was planning to say. It would be better not to come by until Thanksgiving was over and he could avoid the questions all together.

But not showing up on Friday would mean a sad phone call from Mikey. Not angry – Mikey only ever got angry at Gerard. Just sad. Mikey’s sad voice made Brendon want to jump off a cliff from guilt. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be there.”

“Thank god. Gerard wants to talk to you about his solo for the concert. I keep offering, but he says I don’t understand.” Brian made a face. “I pointed out that I listen to people sing for a living, and then Gerard said I was ‘too old to get it,’ at which point I decided to leave. I am seriously not that old, right?” He looked at Brendon, hiding his worry really badly.

Brendon was twenty, barely, so pretty much anyone old enough to drink was old to him. But he said loyally “No, you’re way young. You’re like, not thirty yet, right?”

Brian grimaced. “Almost,” he said.

Well, then he was totally old. Brendon wasn’t going to say that, though. He had that much self-control. “Thirty years young,” Brendon said grandly.

“Ugh,” said Brian. “Now I feel worse. I’ll see you Friday,” he said. “And really, Brendon, if you’re around for the break— ”

“Ha ha, yeah, too bad about that, huh?” Brendon said, standing up hastily and grabbing his bag. He was only a decent liar for really short periods of time, and he was pretty sure Brian was already suspicious. “Tell Mikey I’ll be by, okay? And I’ll talk to Gerard. Okay, thanks, bye!”

Brendon fled before he could manage to knock Ryan Ross out a window or anything.

\ \ \ \

Brendon fumbled his dorm door open, dropped his bag on the floor and threw himself on the bed. Brendon’s roommate was this kid named Andrew who he only sort of knew, and Brendon really hoped he wouldn’t be coming home any time soon. Brendon got very few minutes to himself, for a guy who’d been feeling kind of lonely lately.

It was a giant cliché, right? Brendon had considered writing a song called “I’m all alone in the middle of a giant crowd,” and then realized that pretty much every emo song in the world was about that, and if you weren’t Morrisey you might as well not bother. He’d thrown the whole thing away. Being morose and mopey wasn’t part of the grand scheme to be a grownup, and then eventually somehow a rock star.

Sophomore year was really sucking so far. There were good parts, of course; Brendon knew where stuff was on campus. He knew which cafeterias were open late, he knew which buildings all his classes and rehearsals were in, and he knew exactly how many minutes before his first class he needed to roll out of bed to show up in his pajamas. That was nice. Brendon was a morning person, but he didn’t want to get to class early or anything.

But then, there was lots and lots of stuff that sucked really hard. For example, most of his friends from freshman year had turned out not to really be such great friends after all. Somehow staying up all night and talking about SAT scores had made them all feel like they were going to be BFF, but then when it was time to figure out housing for sophomore year Brendon had ended up totally on his own, rooming with this guy Andrew he’d only met once or twice in music theory class. Brendon didn’t have anyone to talk to, and it was killing him inch by inch. There were a few people he knew from band and chorus and choir and orchestra and classes, but mostly in a “Hey, can I copy your notes?” kind of way. Not so much a “Hi, I need to bare my increasingly unhappy soul to you,” way.

In fact, the only person on the whole fucking east coast Brendon felt like might care enough to listen was Brian, and Brendon wasn’t about to bring all this shit up with him. Brian was his employer, which was bad enough. Brian was the man who might someday help Brendon become a rock star, which was a second problem. Brian was also a guy who’d just adopted two kids and was therefore sort of busy with his own problems. Plus, Brendon was a little worried that if Brian found out just how fucked in the head Brendon had been feeling lately, he wouldn’t want Brendon around his family anymore. And Brendon was pretty sure he’d cry like a girl if he didn’t get to hang out with Gerard and Mikey.

Brendon sighed dramatically. His best friends in the world, at the moment, were twelve and fourteen. He considered feeling suicidal for just a second.

Not really, though. Brendon had thought for a really long time before he’d left home and decided to go to college in Philly rather than going to BYU or off on mission. He loved school. He loved music. He loved playing and learning and being out and meeting new people who didn’t want to just talk about church all the time. Brendon was out doing exactly what he’d always wished for. He was living, eating, and breathing music. It wasn’t a band yet or anything, but that was okay; Brendon’s voice was still kind of shitty and he didn’t know how to play every instrument in the whole world yet. Brendon had time to get himself better – more grown up, even – before graduation.

Meanwhile he’d been stalking some of the cooler kids in his music classes . Brendon figured most kids who wanted to start bands weren’t in college they were off… Well, starting bands. But if Brendon needed a launching platform, maybe someone else did, too. And if they did, and if they were cool, then Brendon was going to find them.

‘Cool,’ in this case, clearly had a very specific meaning. Possibly Spencer Smith fit in this category, although for all Brendon knew he was tone deaf and only listened to Bach. Ryan Ross definitely fit in this category, and he worked with bands. Brendon wasn’t totally sure he could have a conversation with Ryan, because looking at him was a little bit like squinting at the sun. Oh god, what if Ryan didn’t like the same music Brendon did?

He also had to take in to consideration the tiny little snag that at the moment, both Spencer and Ryan violently disliked Brendon.

The door to his double banged open and there was Andrew. Andrew wasn’t a music major, he was an American Studies major, which meant they barely ever saw each other and never had anything to talk about. Andrew usually had a giant posse of people with him everywhere he went, and he was a little bit of an asshole, but he had decided last minute he didn’t want to live with any of his friends – “They’re way too intense, man, you know?” – and ended up with Brendon. He left stuff all over the floor but never anything super gross like used condoms or take-out boxes, and he played music way too loudly for Brendon to study but about half the time he slept somewhere else. That was about all Brendon could ask for in an accidental roommate.

“Yo!” said Andrew. He was, for once, alone. “What’s happening, my man?”

Brendon was not anybody’s man. “Nothing,” he said, sitting up. “What’s up with you?”

“Yo, Terry is having the party tonight. Last chance to get wasted with my buds before we jet home for the holidays, you know? You should come!”

Brendon had gone to two whole parties in his college career, and they hadn’t been rousing successes. “Who’s Terry?” Brendon asked.

Andrew shrugged. “Uh, some guy. He lives in Fisher Hall, I think, but the party’s gonna be at his girlfriend’s house and she’s off campus and a senior, dude, so there will be so much alcohol you can’t even believe. Hot boxing and kegs and those shots in test tubes, and this is gonna be the shit, dude. You should come!”

“Maybe,” said Brendon. The idea of going to a party so sketchy that even Andrew didn’t really know the guy throwing it was a little worrisome. Or maybe it was awesome. Maybe Brendon needed to change things up a little and stop feeling sorry for himself all the time.

“Oh, shit,” said Andrew, sitting down. “You’re like, a Mormon, right? You guys don’t drink. Was I just totally rude?”

The thing about Andrew was, he was a total asshole, but in a nice way. Brendon grimaced. “My family is Mormon,” he said. “I’m… Not so much anymore. I drink and stuff.” Barely ever, and not that much, but Andrew didn’t need to know that.

Andrew considered that for a minute. “Right,” he said, “Okay. Oh shit, dude, did they kick you out because you’re gay?”

Brendon groaned and flopped back on the bed again, pulling his pillow over his head. “I thought you said you didn’t care and we were never going to talk about this,” he said.

“Well, I don’t care. You never hit on me, so, whatever, dude. But I never put that together before. Your parents totally kicked you out, right? When you came out? That’s so heavy. Dude, you need a drink? I got beer in the mini-fridge.”

Brendon’s parents hadn’t kicked him out for being gay. He’d left way before that had a chance to happen. He was pretty sure a couple of his siblings had figured it out, but they’d never said anything and his parents hadn’t asked. It was a good system... Right up until the part where Brendon had said, “No, I’m going to college in Philadelphia because I have a scholarship, and I care about that more staying in the Church.” Right up until his mom had started to cry. Right up until his dad had pressed his lips together super tightly and the house had gone silent and Brendon’s brother had stormed out of the room.

The gay thing, though, would have been the frosting on that particular nuclear cake.

“Man, it must be tough at Christmas,” Andrew mused.

“I’ll take a beer, sure,” said Brendon through the pillow. Things Not To Talk About Ever Again: telling his parents he was gay, followed closely by Why It Sucks That It’s Almost Christmas. The first one wasn’t much of a worry at the moment, because he hadn’t spoken to his family in a year and a half and was probably never going to speak to them again. Brendon wasn’t much of a partier at all, and he’d never really considered drinking as a way to drown out all the voices that were haunting him this time of year. But maybe new-and-improved grown up Brendon drank beer when he got homesick. Maybe a sketchy party would be perfect.

“You got it, dude,” said Andrew. A beer landed on Brendon’s stomach, startling him. He sat up again. “I’m just saying, this party is going to be legendary. You should come.”

“Maybe,” Brendon said. He opened the beer and looked at it speculatively.

“Legendary,” said Andrew again.

Right. Legendary. Brendon needed something legendary to get him through the next few weeks. “I’ll go,” he agreed. Andrew cheered and smashed a beer can against his forehead.

/ / / / /

The party was awesome. Well, it was loud, and there were tons of people, almost none of whom Brendon knew, and there was alcohol everywhere. Brendon had been really religious in high school, and he’d never gone to a house party or gotten wasted or even had a beer. That meant that now it took virtually no time at all for Brendon to get trashed. He was a cheap date, apparently, and he’d decided not to be ashamed of it.

The only person he knew at the party was Andrew, and Brendon didn’t want to hang out with Andrew. He’d had a long, rotten day, and a long, rotten part of the year was coming up, and he wanted to drink and then crawl in to bed and sleep for a week. That was what people did, right? He got a beer from the girl at the door, and then a mixed drink from a guy in the kitchen who was staring a little too hard at Brendon’s ass, and then everything got a little crazy, but Brendon had a full cup in his hand every time he looked down, so he kept drinking.

Parties in high school had tended to be a lot of kids sitting around and witnessing to each other. No coffee, no caffeinated soda, no smoking, no swearing, definitely no sex. This type of party was pretty new to Brendon – he’d been to one or two freshman year – but he thought he might be getting the hang of them. Brendon had been born without “shy” in his genes anywhere, and he was perfectly happy butting in to any conversation or bursting in to song with total strangers. It was easier, actually, than with people he knew. Brendon wasn’t trying to impress anyone, he just wanted to have a good time.

Brendon was really having a good time. He was pretty sure all the times he’d thought he was having a good time, back in high school, hadn’t actually been fun at all, compared to what he could do with Britney Spears playing on someone’s stereo, a shot in one hand, and a room full of people to impress. Brendon was a great shimmier. Nearly as good as Britney, in his own humble opinion. How the kids back in Nevada hadn’t realized he was gay, Brendon had no idea.

He finished lip syncing and found, to his astonishment, that his plastic cup was full of beer again. Someone was refilling him when he wasn’t paying attention. Awesome. Brendon flopped in to a bean-bag chair and accidentally got a lungful of pot from the kid sitting next to him. It made him cough, and beer went everywhere, which struck Brendon as really hilarious. He sank down in the chair and let his eyes sink closed a little bit. The room was spinning and loud and hot and this had been a totally amazing idea. He was going to have to remember to thank Andrew. If he ever stood up again. Brendon wasn’t really planning to ever stand up again.

His phone buzzed in his pocket against his thigh. Brendon jumped, as much as he could, since he was feeling pretty boneless and lightheaded. Brendon dug his phone out of his jeans and sipped his beer so it wouldn’t spill all over him. The display said ‘SPENCER,’ and it took Brendon a minute to remember that he even knew anyone named Spencer.

“Hey!” said Brendon cheerfully. “I was hoping we were going to be friends!” Okay, possibly he was a little drunk.

Spencer sounded bitchy. Brendon wasn’t totally surprised. “You took my notebook,” he said. “I need it. I have a test tomorrow. I’ve been trying to reach you all night.”

“Oh,” said Brendon. “I can – I can give it to you tomorrow. I’m out right now. My stuff is – No, wait, I totally have my bag with me! It’s over… Where is my bag? Has anyone seen my bag?” He’d put it down by the door when he walked in, and the door was somewhere. Brendon could probably find it. He just had to remember how to stand up first.

“Oh my god,” said Spencer. “Are you drunk? Where are you right now?”

“I’m at someone’s house,” Brendon said.

Spencer waited. “Okay,” he said finally. “Whose house?”

“Uh.” Point of interest, Brendon wasn’t sure. And someone was taking the beer out of his hand that had somehow gotten emptied, kindly replacing it with a full one. “Andrew’s friend’s girlfriend, I think,” he said, wracking his brain.

“What the fuck,” said Spencer. “Who the fuck is that? Where are you? I need my notebook.”

Brendon wanted to help him out, he really did, but he had no idea at all where he was, and the room was spinning again. “Um,” he said, putting the phone down. “Does anyone know where we are?”

Andrew appeared like magic in front of him. “Dude!” he crowed. “You are so wasted!”

“No I’m not,” said Brendon. He was only kind of wasted. Surely he’d been more wasted-er than this some other time in his life. He just couldn’t remember it.

“You are,” said Andrew, delighted. “Give me the phone.” He snatched it out of Brendon’s hand super fast. Or maybe Brendon was blinking a lot more slowly than normal. Andrew was inviting someone to the party, rattling off an address and laughing. He handed Brendon back his phone, but whoever it was had hung up. Had Brendon been talking to someone? It was all a blur. “Definitely a shitty Mormon,” said Andrew. “Totally gay and drunk.”

Something about that made Brendon sad, but he couldn’t totally remember what, and then David Bowie came on the stereo. “Oh my god,” Brendon said, jumping to his feet. Well, attempting to jump his feet, overbalancing, and falling on Andrew, who just laughed. “Ground control to Major Tom. I love this song!” Andrew helped him back upright. “Come dance with me, dude! This song is awesome.”

“I don’t dance with drunk gay dudes,” Andrew said. “Go have fun.”

Brendon intended to. He had watched Velvet Goldmine probably a hundred times, and he did a killer Bowie. So killer, in fact, that people were already cheering. Brendon decided he didn’t actually need real friends, as long as he had parties to go to and rooms full of cheering drunk people listening to him sing.

After Bowie was Queen, who Brendon also loved, and after Queen was the Backstreet Boys, who were totally Brendon’s first concert-going experience, and after Backstreet he had another beer and things got hazy. There was some dancing, and Brendon was fairly sure he was grinding on someone, but he wasn’t entirely certain who, or even what gender that person was. There was some more pot smoking, for sure, on purpose this time and everything. Well, Brendon got passed a joint and he took a couple of puffs. He was fucking hard core. He didn’t cough this time or anything. And there was another drink, but Brendon didn’t even really taste it before it vanished. People were moving in and out of the room in weird blinky slow-fast-slow motion, and Brendon was starting to hear everyone in the background like a low, roaring noise. It was crazy.

“Oh my god.”

Someone had their hand on Brendon’s arm. He blinked at it for a minute. Huh. Round hand, kind of round arm. Round. Round was a funny word. Rouuuuuund.

“Brendon, stop saying ‘round.’”

“I said that out loud?” Brendon asked. He looked up. There was someone glaring at him through really girly bangs. The room dipped and spun. Brendon’s stomach didn’t like that at all. Maybe he had danced too much. Was that even possible?

“—my notebook!”

What? Someone was talking to him. Brendon blinked a couple of times. “What?” he said.

The bangs in front of him frowned. “Where is your bag, Brendon? I want my notebook!”

Brendon looked down. Both his hands were empty. He held them up for inspection. “I don’t have a bag,” he said tragically. “I don’t even have a beer. I think I had a beer. Where did my beer go?” He looked around.

The hand on his arm dragged him back. “You don’t need another beer. You need to find my bag. I have a fucking test tomorrow!”

Smith. Someone was named Smith. “Are you named Smith?” Brendon asked. “I don’t have a bag.” His stomach lurched and twisted and Brendon sank down on to the carpet. He dragged someone with him.

“Oh my god. I can’t believe you’re my partner. You are so fucked up!”

“No,” said Brendon. He wanted to explain that his outer fucked-up-ness really just represented his inner fucked-up-ness, and he’d only come to the party because he’d spent the last week constantly feeling like he was about to cry. But none of that made its way from his brain to his mouth; he really just wanted to lie down. The floor was right there. Maybe if he laid down and closed his eyes his stomach would settle. “I’m lonely.”

There was a disbelieving snort. “You have to get back up, asshole. You have to tell me where my bag is.”

Brendon’s stomach abruptly decided he’d had too much to drink. “Fuck,” said Brendon, and then he was throwing up all over his knees and someone else’s shoes and his stomach still felt awful and the room was spinning and his head hurt and people were dragging him to his feet but he couldn’t keep his eyes open and people were yelling and that…

That was pretty much the end of his night.

\ \ \ \

Despite a wicked hangover, Brendon went to Brian’s office after class on Thursday. Orchestra rehearsal had been awful; every time the timpani kicked in Brendon was sure he was going to die. He’d never, ever had a headache this bad, and every time he moved he felt like throwing up.

Brendon was never going to another party, he decided, pulling his hood up over his head and sinking in to the chair Brian had given him behind the reception desk. Even the magical power of his lucky purple hoodie wasn’t making him feel any better. It was a miracle he’d woken up near his own bed. Not in it, near it. Andrew had apparently dragged him home – “A dead roommate means straight A’s, but who needs the hassle?” the note on the mini-fridge said – and dumped him on the floor. The last thing Brendon remembered clearly was dancing to Britney Spears, and everything after that was just images without motion and the vague idea he’d thrown up at some point. He wished he’d thrown up more. Or had more water. Or drunk less. Or just not gone to the party.

He was really, honestly, never going to another party as long as he lived.

The phone rang, shattering Brendon’s head in to a million pieces. He moaned. His hoodie was apparently no protection against the murderous power of the phone.

“Cobra Starship Management,” Brendon mumbled in to the receiver. Brian was going to fire him, and he didn’t care. Brendon just wanted a million Aspirin and a nap.

A totally stoned voice on the phone said, “Hey, uh, there’s some kind of issue with the venue tonight. Like, they don’t have any of our equipment, which was in another van, and we don’t know where it is right now. And they can’t find it, and we can’t play without our drums and guitars and shit.”

All the instructions Brian had given were, “Answer the phone.” Brendon stared at it for a second. “Okay,” he said finally, “hang on.” He put the phone down on the desk – no one had told him if there was a hold button, or a transfer button or anything – and forced himself to stand up. Every inch of his body groaned with unhappiness.

Brian, of course, wasn’t in his office. There were a bunch of other empty rooms that just had filing cabinets and folders all over the floor. It felt like the company hadn’t really properly moved in yet. The hallway abruptly tipped a little to the side. Brendon braced himself against the wall. He was never touching alcohol again. He would have to find a way to up his coolness quotient without drinking, because just the thought of a drink made his stomach lurch and his knees buckle.

The third office down the hall had someone at the desk – Brendon was hoping for the mysterious and loud Gabe, but instead it was Ryan Ross. He was wearing a newsboy cap and a ruffly scarf, which was odd, since it was so hot in the office that Brendon was sweating. Unless that was part of the hangover. Maybe the fact that it looked like Ross had painted a rainbow across his cheek was part of the hangover. Was Brendon still tipsy?

“Uh,” said Brendon, trying for a big smile and failing halfway there. Even his face hurt. “There’s someone on the phone.”

Ryan looked up like a robot. “Don’t you answer the phone?” he asked, in a devastating monotone.

“I did,” Brendon said. “I answered, but no one told me what to do next.”

“Talk,” said Ryan. “That usually works.”

Brendon had thought he was as miserable as a human being could possibly get, but it turned out a little bit of humiliation could make his afternoon even worse. “Thanks,” he said, “I’ll try that next time.” He rolled his eyes. It made his head ache. “They need to talk to someone who knows what the hell is going on, which I don’t. I mean, I’m happy to just make shit up. But I don’t think that’s going to get you very far. ‘Sure, guys, no problem; your drums will be there in an hour! I’ll send them on my transporter beam!’” Brendon mimed talking into a phone. “Sounds good, right? They’ll totally believe that.”

The most unbelievable thing happened; Ross cracked a tiny smile. He immediately looked down, like he was hiding it from Brendon, but it was too late. Brendon had seen it. His heart soared, and other stupid fucking clichés. His hangover definitely receded a little bit, too. Brendon had made the prettiest boy in the whole world smile. It was all he could do not to pump his fist triumphantly. Ryan was funny, and he thought Brendon was funny. That was definitely a first step to… Well. Something.

“Transfer them to my phone,” said Ryan.

“Sure,” Brendon agreed, smiling pretty widely. “Just as soon as you tell me how.”

“Why did Brian hire you?” Ryan asked, but not in a super mean way. “Star eight.”

For a second, Brendon had no idea what that meant. “To transfer?” he asked.

Ryan nodded. “You can handle that, right?”

Brendon nodded brightly, then wished he hadn’t. “I’m on it!” he announced, and went back to the desk. He punched star eight and waited.

“Got it!” yelled Ryan. Brendon got a little thrill. He hadn’t exactly figured out a perpetual motion machine, but he done something right for Ryan. His day was getting better.

It was almost half an hour later when Ryan wandered back out to the front desk. He was with the tallest person Brendon had ever seen. Brendon was pretty pocket-sized, his mom liked to say, but this guy would have been tall no matter what. He had dark, curly hair and he was yelling at someone in Spanish on the phone.

“Gabe,” Ryan said, tilting his head and shoving his hands in his pockets.

Brendon nodded. Gabe was killing his head, which he’d kind of expected.

“—And you can go fuck yourself right in your fucking ear—” Gabe yelled, and then switched back to Spanish. Brendon had taken a few years of Spanish in high school, but all he could make out were some swear words and an occasional conjugation of “estar.” Ryan wasn’t listening, he was staring off into space and tracing a pattern with his finger on the desk. He had really nice hands, Brendon couldn’t help noticing. He wanted to know everything about Ryan Ross; why did he wear so many scarves? Why did he paint his face? Why did he work for Brian? What were his hopes and dreams? Did he date boys? There were so many pressing questions.

Gabe slammed his phone shut and turned accusingly on Brendon. “If Travis calls back tell him I’m dead because he killed me, got it?” he said.

Brendon nodded. He didn’t argue with people who were clearly insane.

“Right. I’m going to go get coffee. Who wants?” Gabe demanded. Brendon opened his mouth to say he’d kill for a coffee, but Gabe abruptly turned and stormed out of the office.

“Um,” said Brendon. “What was that?”

“That’s Gabe,” Ryan shrugged. “He’s like. Weird.”

Said the guy with a rainbow painted on his cheek. Brendon was pretty sure that wasn’t a hangover-induced hallucination, because it was still there. “He’s not going to kill anyone, is he? He seems kind of wound up.”

Ryan smiled again, just the tiniest little hint of a smile. It made Brendon’s fingers tingle. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I mean, he hasn’t killed anyone so far, and I’ve known him for like, a year.”

“Pfffft,” said Brendon dismissively. “He could be killing them and hiding the bodies in a basement or something. You don’t know.”

“He does talk about his basement a lot,” Ryan agreed. “I’ll let Brian know to keep an eye out.”

Brendon cracked up at that, even though laughing made his head hurt. A lot. Again. Some more. “He bitches about Gabe sometimes,” he said. “I’ve heard some stories. I thought they were exaggerations.”

Ryan shook his head. “Nah, that’s just Gabe. He’s kind of… Remarkable.” He squinted at Brendon for a second, tilting his head. Brendon felt hot all over, and tried to sink a little further in to his hoodie. “You’re pretty hungover, huh?”

Brendon’s face went red. “It’s that obvious?”

“You wince every time there’s a noise. Plus, your eyes are really red and you look like you’re going to throw up.”

That was probably not the way to impress the boy of his dreams. Brendon fidgeted a little bit. “It’s the very, very last time I’m ever going to drink, if that helps,” he said.

Ryan got a weird look on his face that Brendon couldn’t figure out at all. “Lots of people say that,” he sighed. “You want some water?”

“Desperately,” Brendon said. “Do you guys have a water cooler or something?”

“Well, we have a sink,” Ryan said. The words were kind of mean, but it didn’t sound mean. “I’ll show you.”

Brendon followed Ryan back and around to the kitchen. There were mugs, a microwave, a box of tea, and a fridge with “ALL THIS SHIT IS GABE’S SO STAY THE FUCK OUT” scrawled across it in Sharpie. Ryan got a mug and squinted at it for a second. “This one is less dirty,” he said. “I can rinse it out for you. We don’t have soap or anything, but I don’t think anyone’s dying of a really horrible disease, either.”

“Good enough for me,” Brendon chirped. He reached for the mug just as Ryan was handing it to him, and their hands got all confused and Brendon sort of grabbed Ryan’s hand instead of the handle by total accident.

Okay, by mostly accident. Ryan’s hands were soft and warm and Brendon was a giant girl who was excited to know what Ryan’s hands felt like. “Ha ha,” he laughed awkwardly, reaching around Ryan’s hand to take the mug. “Sorry.”

Just a ghost of a smile flickered across Ryan’s face. “Yeah?” he said, handing the mug over. “Huh.” He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms while Brendon filled the mug up with rusty-looking tap water and chugged it. It was amazing how thirsty Brendon was, once he had access to water. Plus, the way Ryan was watching him was making him feel hot again. “So you’re pretty tight with Brian,” Ryan said after a minute.

Brendon wasn’t sure what kind of question that was. Did Ryan think Brendon had gotten hired as total favoritism? Because he had, but he was willing to still prove himself and do work and stuff. “I guess so,” he said. “I baby sit for him.” That reminded him of the disaster the first time he’d talked to Ryan, and he wished he hadn’t said anything.

“For his kids, yeah. Aren’t they a little old to need a baby sitter?”

“Well,” Brendon hesitated. He had no idea how much of Gerard and Mikey’s history Brian would have told people he worked with. “Gerard is, I guess, but Mikey’s not. And they’re a package deal. Plus, I’m not really baby sitting so much as hanging out. I taught them to play guitar and stuff over the summer. Okay, I taught Mikey. Gerard got discouraged really quickly.”

“You play guitar?” Ryan asked.

Brendon wanted desperately to impress him, and just as desperately not to sound… Well. Desperate. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m a music major, but I’m really all about guitars and vocals. I’m going to start a band.” Did that sound stupid? Did he sound like a bragging kid? How old was Ryan, anyway?

“Most bands don’t have members who can actually play anything,” Ryan said. “At least, not the ones I work with. That’s cool.”

He was cool. Brendon was ecstatic. He tried to keep it off his face, but it was impossible; the grin just exploded out of him. He managed not to bounce up and down, at least. “Ha ha ha, yeah, I’ve written some songs and shit, but I kind of need the rest of the band before I can actually play them. Plus, no lyrics.” He pouted.

Ryan shrugged “I write lyrics sometimes. It’s sort of like therapy for me.”

Brendon’s heart stopped dead. “For… For serious? You’re not just fucking with me?” he stuttered. It wasn’t actually possible that Ryan was this perfect. He was gorgeous and funny and nice – although also mean sometimes – and he liked music and he wrote lyrics. There was no way he was real. So far the only flaws Brendon had found were the monotone voice and the weird hats. Brendon would wear a fucking bird on his head if it would make Ryan smile.

“I don’t think I know you well enough for that,” Ryan teased. Honest to god teased.

Brendon bounced. “But you should. Oh my god, this is so amazing! We could – ” and then he stopped, because Ryan hadn’t volunteered to write lyrics for Brendon or anything, he’d just said that he wrote them. Plus, Brendon was working on being cool and a grown up and not freaking out at people all the time. “I mean. If you wanted. Sometime. Could I look at them? If… I mean. If it was cool with you.” He tried to lean back against the counter and look cool, but his hands were shaking a little bit.

Ryan looked down. “I don’t usually show them to anyone,” he said.

Brendon’s stomach dropped. It was to be expected, he told himself firmly. He’d met the guy twice, and the first time had been excruciatingly awful. He kept the grin plastered in place, though. “Right, that’s cool,” he said firmly.

“But uh. Maybe. Sometime. Sure,” Ryan said. He looked back up and offered Brendon a shy little smile.

Was that flirting? Holy shit. Brendon was right back on cloud nine. “Awesome,” he said, because he couldn’t think of any other words. “Awesome. That’s… That’s awesome. Awesome!” He was grinning like a lunatic, but it was okay, because Ryan was smiling back, and Brendon was going to get down a knee and propose marriage to Ryan because things were just that awesome.

Ryan swallowed a laugh. “I’m gonna get back to work,” he said. “But I’ll... I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah,” said Brendon. Ryan waved a little and walked out. “Right. Around. I’ll see you!” Brendon hollered, and then smacked himself in the forehead. Why was he so incapable of pretending to be cool for more than a minute or two? He went back to the front desk and sat down, rewinding the conversation over and over for himself. Had he been too desperately eager? Had he been flirting successfully? Had Ryan flirted back? Was Ryan serious about showing Brendon lyrics sometime? Because if that really happened, it was possible Brendon would explode from happiness.

He was halfway through the eighth run through when Gabe came back in. He put a coffee down on the counter in front of Brendon. “You!” Gabe said. “You’re that guy.”

“Er,” said Brendon. “I am?”

Gabe leaned down and waggled his eyebrows at Brendon. It was hilarious. Plus, he had to pretty much bend himself in half to look Brendon in the eye. “You hang out with Brian’s kids, right?” he said.

“Yeah,” Brendon said.

“So, that’s for real? I mean, really real? Because I kind of thought the dude had lost his mind, you know? But I guess it wasn’t the drugs or a hallucination or whatever. He really has kids? Brian Schechter? For real?”

“Two of them,” Brendon said, holding up two fingers to demonstrate. Gabe was the weirdest person ever, which made Brendon feel a little better about himself. Surely if Ryan were used to Gabe he’d think Brendon was normal.

“Huh,” said Gabe. “Here. Coffee. Caffeine is good for hangovers.” He winked and shoved the coffee at Brendon, who took it hesitantly because he wasn’t sure it was safe to drink. “Next time you get to go. You’re the intern and shit. Rock on!” He waved and wandered in to the back.

Brendon was an intern suddenly? Weird. Weird, but also awesome. Brendon was so high on life he barely even felt his hangover anymore. He grinned to himself and bounced in the rolling chair for a minute, then rewound the conversation with Ryan again. That had totally been flirting. It had definitely, absolutely, totally been flirting. At least, Brendon hoped so.

Chapter Text

Spencer called Friday morning and announced that they’d meet on Sunday. Brendon agreed, of course. He did not mention his big plan for Spencer to be his new best friend; it seemed presumptuous, plus, Spencer sounded annoyed. That, Brendon was starting to suspect, might be Spencer’s default. It was okay, though; it made him seem cool.

Friday afternoon, just like always, he went over to Brian’s house to hang out with Mikey and Gerard. Mikey was very busily working on some kind of project that involved coloring a map of the United States based on which Native American tribes had lived in which spot. “Then I’m building a longhouse out of popsicle sticks,” he said. His glasses were slipping down his nose, which Mikey never noticed and always drove Brendon insane. Brendon leaned down and pushed them up for him.

“Where did you get popsicle sticks?” Brendon asked, sprawling on the living room rug.

“Me and Gee ate some. And so did Bob. And Ray. And Pete. And then Frank ate like, a whole box by himself and his tongue is still blue.” Mikey went back to coloring.

Mikey was so self-contained that Brendon felt guilty getting paid to watch him. Really he was just hanging out and watching Mikey do whatever it was that made Mikey happy –creating iPod playlists or flipping through issues of Spin. Brendon was happy to help Mikey sound out the harder words, but it wasn’t exactly work. He really ought to have talked to Brian about it, and quit, because Brian didn’t need to be spending money on a totally useless babysitter, but Brendon couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. He liked hanging out at their house too much, even if it felt like he was getting away with something.

Gerard was a little less easy to keep an eye on. Left to his own devices he would draw, or talk – oh god, the talking – or make elaborate plans for when he and Mikey ruled the world. Combined with his best friend, Frank, the plans tended more toward breaking things and then setting them on fire “to see what would happen.”

That was fine. The problem with Gerard was that it got really hard to tell what would make him explode, or sulk, or storm out of the room. Even afterwards Brendon couldn’t always work the trigger out. Thank god when something went wrong with Gerard, Frank or Mikey could usually fix it. If Gerard burst out yelling for no apparent reason, Mikey could just raise his eyebrows and his brother would stop. When Gerard was in a sulk that threatened to ruin everyone’s day, Frank could roll his eyes and strangle-hug Gerard back in to a good mood. It was like magic. Brendon was totally superfluous.

Gerard came pelting down the stairs, yelling, “Brendon! When did you get here? I have to talk to you about something.”

“Okay,” said Brendon, sitting up. “Is this about the concert?”

“What?” Gerard stopped short, blinking. “Yes. How did you – Oh, Brian told you.” He rolled his eyes. “Did he also tell you he won’t stop bugging me about my hair? Still?”

Brian and Gerard had been in a state of cold war since August over whether Gerard needed to cut his hair. Brendon wasn’t convinced either of them actually cared anymore; they’d just gotten so used to arguing that they’d forgotten to stop. Brendon secretly sided with Brian; Gerard’s hair was past his chin, and he had almost super-human powers of avoiding the shower, so it was usually a tangled mess. But Gerard’s counter-argument, that Brian had tattoos and sometimes a mohawk and therefore couldn’t say shit about anyone else, was persuasive too.

Mikey rolled his eyes so hard it was almost audible. “Can you freak out somewhere else? I’m coloring,” he said, holding up a crayon as proof.

“Pffft,” said Gerard dismissively, dropping down next to Brendon. “You can color and just not listen.”

“Except you’re loud,” Mikey muttered, so quietly that Brendon almost thought he’d imagined it.

Gerard was looking at Brendon with his sincere face on. Gerard was really good at sincere. “I don’t want to do my solo anymore,” he said. “I think it was a big mistake, which I have to tell Mr. Guzman, and I don’t know what to say.”

Not totally unexpected, but definitely crazy. “Whoa, whoa, hold up; why is it a mistake?” Brendon asked.

Gerard flapped his hands around in a way that was supposed to indicate… something. “Because,” he said. “It’s not a good idea. I don’t want to. I don’t know why I even auditioned in the first place and I don’t want to anymore.”

Brendon hazarded, “You’re feeling nervous?”

Gerard put his hands together in his lap and stared at them for a second. “Kind of,” he said finally.

“It’s pretty special that you got a solo when you’re only in 9th grade. You should be proud,” Brendon said.

“But!” Gerard said, like that was a whole argument on its own. “But I can’t. What if I get on stage and I forget all the words? What if my voice cracks? What if I fall over? What if no one’s listening? What if everyone’s listening?”

“What if Frank’s listening?” Mikey mumbled.

“What if I get up on stage and knock everyone else over? What if I—”

Brendon put his hand on Gerard’s shoulder, halting the flood of words. “Dude,” he said, “you’ve been watching too many slapstick comedies. None of that is going to happen. Seriously, if anyone were going to get on stage and knock everything else over it’d be me, and so far I haven’t. I think you’re safe.” Actually once he’d knocked over the drum section, but that had been during a rehearsal. Gerard didn’t need to know about it, at any rate.

Gerard made a distressed noise and flapped his hands again. “I feel sick just thinking about it,” he said. “There is no way I can get on stage in front of the whole school and sing. I can’t. I’ll die. Plus, there’s all this other… Unnngh.” He made an unhappy noise and looked at Brendon.

Gerard was a drama queen, which Brendon respected, since he’d invented that back in high school. “Okay, let’s be logical. What’s the very worst that can happen? You get on stage, and you forget the words. Then what?”

“Then I’ll die.”

“No, seriously, Gee, what happens?”

“I’ll… I can never go to school ever again.”

“Because you’d be too embarrassed?”

“Yes!”

“But who do you talk to at school? Frank? He won’t care. Neither will Bob, or Ray, or Mikey. The only kids who would be mean about it are kids you don’t talk to anyway.” Brendon couldn’t believe he’d come up with such a good argument. It helped that he’d never had stage fright, ever.

Gerard gaped at him for a minute. “But…” he said again, and paused, visibly searching for an argument. “I… Brendon, you were supposed to help me figure out how to tell Br-- Mr. Guzman I couldn’t do it, not talk me in to it!” He folded his arms. “You are not being helpful.”

“You’re just mad because I’m right,” Brendon said, and waggled his eyebrows at Gerard. “Plus, I think you’re lying to me a little bit.”

Gerard was the very picture of wounded innocence. “I am not,” he protested.

Brendon was not taken in, even a little bit; Gerard lied all the time, and he didn’t do it very well. “I don’t think you wanted my help with Mr. Guzman. I think you wanted my help with Brian,” Brendon said, and watched Gerard’s face go pink. “You don’t want to do it in case you mess up in front of Brian, and you don’t know how to tell him you don’t want to perform.”

Gerard’s mouth opened and closed a few more times. His cheeks were bright red. “That is not true,” he squeaked.

It clearly was. Brendon shrugged. “If you say so,” he said. “But I have to tell you, Brian will be impressed no matter what you do. He thinks you’re awesome.”

Gerard ducked his head and worked really hard not to smile. It was so fucking cute. “He will not, and that’s not even – That’s not what I was talking about. You suck, Brendon.”

Brendon sighed. “Dude, do you know what being brave means?”

Gerard rolled his eyes. “Duh. I’m not stupid.”

“It means you’re scared of something but you do it anyway. And I know you’re brave, because you did tons of stuff that was scary to take care of you and Mikey.” Brendon hadn’t been able to believe it when he’d first gotten the story from the boys. How Gerard had kept Mikey safe from all the crazy families they had stayed with. How Gerard had managed to hold it together while he got the crap beaten out of him by a foster parent. How he’d run away with Mikey and protected them both for months without anyone to help them or keep them safe. Sometimes Brendon couldn’t sleep, imagining what that had been like. Sometimes it made him cry a little bit. “You can do this, too, Gerard. I totally one-hundred-percent believe in you.”

Gerard refused to look up, and his face was even redder. “If you say so,” he mumbled, barely audible.

“Gerard’s solo is good,” said Mikey loyally. “I heard him practicing in the shower.”

Brendon made his eyes go really wide. “You took a shower?” he asked, mock-astonished. “No way! Is the world ending?”

“Shut up,” Gerard said. “I take showers.”

“Like once a year.”

“Like every day!”

“Ha,” said Mikey.

“Shut up!” Gerard repeated. “You aren’t funny.”

Brendon burst out laughing. “We really are,” he said.

“You suck. And you suck!” Gerard said, standing up. “I’m going upstairs and calling Frank and telling him how much you both suck.” He stormed out, but it wasn’t a real pout, just a little huff. Brendon sighed and flopped back on the carpet.

Mikey colored quietly for a minute, and then put his crayon down and sat up, looking intently at Brendon. “What?” Brendon asked.

“Brian says you’re not coming for Thanksgiving,” Mikey said. It wasn’t quite accusatory, but it was definitely headed in that direction.

Brendon put his arm across his eyes, because he sucked at lying to Mikey, and if he had to look at Mikey’s face while he did it he wasn’t going to be able to. “I have plans,” he said. “Plus, it’s your first Thanksgiving with Brian. Don’t you want it to be family?”

“You’re family,” Mikey objected.

“I’m a babysitter,” Brendon corrected him, feeling a little bit sick. Were Mikey and Gerard so starved for affection that they thought the hired help was the same as family? Brendon didn’t know how to bring that up with Brian, either.

And then, of course, there were the auxiliary questions: What were Brendon’s actual brothers and sisters planning for the holiday? Was mom making her disgusting cheesy mashed potatoes like always? What would she do without Brendon to pretend to throw them up as soon as she served them? Did they miss him like he missed them?

Brendon took a deep breath. He was not going to cry in front of the kid he babysat for.

“But you’re Brendon,” Mikey said. “And I think… I think things are going to be not-good.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t,” Brendon said, still not looking at Mikey. “You’ll tell me all about it later, right?”

Mikey sighed, which usually meant he’d given up. “I guess,” he said mopily. “Gerard’s right. You suck.”

At that moment, Brendon totally agreed.

\ \ \ \

Brendon spent a lot of Saturday sitting in Starbucks, attempting to catch up on a whole semester’s worth of reading before he had to face Spencer Smith and their final project. The textbook’s overview was incredibly dry, but the book on the crusades, thank god, was pretty interesting. There was lots of medieval gossip about how Richard the Lionheart was gay and in love with the King of France. Brendon turned up his iPod – a present from Brian, who’d developed some kind of present-giving complex after missing Gerard’s birthday in the spring – and tore through the book.

The Starbucks off campus wasn’t as busy as Brendon had expected; he had a table to himself and the baristas were standing around gossiping behind the counter. Brendon went up and stared at the cookies for a few minutes. He wanted something, but he hadn’t eaten breakfast, and he wasn’t sure sugar was the right thing to eat if he had to sit still and study for a few more hours. His stomach was feeling a little delicate.

“Can I get you something?” the barista asked. He was cute, which Brendon noticed despite having spent half the morning thinking about Ryan Ross and sighing. The Starbucks guy had dark hair and dark eyes and a little bit of a beard. He looked like a boy; pretty much the exact opposite of Ryan, actually.

“I don’t know,” said Brendon. “I want something, but I don’t know if I actually want something, and the little penguin cookies are pretty cute, but there’s so much sugar, and I’m not sure… Uh. You might want to come back.”

“It’s cool,” said the barista. “But if you don’t want sugar, you should probably lay off the venti mochas.”

“But they’re so good,” Brendon protested. “With peppermint especially. It tastes like Christmas.” The song on his iPod got a little bit louder, and Brendon unconsciously bobbed his head to the music.

“Good tunes?” the barista asked, cracking a smile. “That… kind of sounds like The Little Mermaid.”

Brendon’s face went red. He was, in fact, listening to the soundtrack to Disney’s Aladdin. It was the closest thing to crusades-related music he’d been able to think of. “Aladdin, actually,” Brendon said. “Genie rules.” Now he needed a cookie and then to go hide in the back of the cafe where no cute baristas could make fun of him.

The barista didn’t miss a beat. “A whole new world,” he warbled, only mildly off-key. “A new fantastic point of view. No one to tell us no, or where to go—“

Brendon’s eyes must have been the size of dinner-plates. “—Or say we’re only dreaming,” he obligingly sang back, even though it wasn’t the song blaring in his earbuds. “Dude! How awesome are you?”

“Pretty awesome,” the barista acknowledged. “I’m Jon, by the way.”

Brendon was going to blame his venti mocha for all the bouncing he was doing. “I’m Brendon,” he said. “That’s just... That’s awesome.”

“I’m a little bored,” Jon admitted. “The lunch rush didn’t really happen today, and the bar sucks when there are no drinks to make.”

“Want to help me learn about the crusades before my project partner murders me tomorrow?” Brendon asked, not very hopefully.

Jon shrugged. “I don’t know that much about them,” he said, “but if you want to, like, summarize what you’re reading for me I can nod my head and try to look thoughtful.”

“Listen,” Brendon said seriously, “I’m the poorest college student ever. I really can’t even afford this coffee. But as soon as I’m a rock star I’m going to come back to this Starbucks and leave you a million dollar tip.”

Jon’s whole face lit up. “Dude!” he said. “I’ll help you study for the crusades if you’ll bring college people to hear my shitty band. We’re playing a house party right after Christmas, and we need to get people to show up or we’re going to owe a ton of money for beer.”

Brendon had lost most of his faith in god a while back, but he was willing to throw it all over to believe in fate instead. “That is amazing,” he said. “I will be there. I’ll bring –” Oh, god. Who did he even know? “Andrew,” he said finally. “He likes parties and he knows lots of people.” And maybe, if Brendon had won him over by then, he’d bring Spencer, too. Or even Ryan. It could be, like, a date. A date with Ryan. Brendon could be on a date with Ryan Ross.

He must have zoned out because Jon was waving a hand in front of him. “Crusades?” he said. “Bring your books over to the counter.”

“Right!” Brendon agreed. He grabbed his stuff and shifted over to the counter by the espresso bar while Jon wandered in to the back. He came back out with a stack of cookies.

“What’s your pick?” Jon asked. “If I accidentally touch one we can’t serve it, and we’ll just have to eat it so it doesn’t get thrown away.”

Brendon seriously considered throwing his crush on Ryan over for a crush on Jon. “M&M,” he said. “Please.”

“Right,” Jon said, grabbing that one and sticking it on a plate. “We can share. So, what the hell were the crusades, anyway?”

\ \ \ \

Brendon was so fucking prepared for Spencer on Sunday. He had gone through all his books and marked relevant pages with different colored post-it tabs. “I mean, obviously one major cause was the letter Pope Urban II sent out, asking all good Christians to defend the homeland of the faith,” he said confidently. “But from the Middle Eastern perspective it was really just a couple of hundred years of terrorism.”

Spencer crossed his arms and looked suspicious. They were sitting in the common area in Spencer’s hall, across the quad from Brendon’s dorm – Brendon was trying to ease Spencer in to being his friend, so maybe he wouldn’t even notice the transition. “Yeah?” Spencer asked, like he thought Brendon might be making this up.

“I know stuff,” Brendon protested. “I told you! I have good grades.”

Spencer snorted. “In what, philosophy?” he asked.

It was a pretty nasty insult; philosophy usually got referred to as “thoughts for jocks,” i.e., the class so easy even football scholarship kids got A’s. “No,” Brendon said, stung. “I take real classes. Music theory. String ensemble. Composition.”

Spencer just frowned. “If you were in those classes, I would have seen you,” he said. “I’m in music theory.”

“With Benson?”

“With Meek. Fuck.”

Brendon gaped a little bit. “You’re a music major?”

“You’re a music major?”

They stared at each other. Brendon felt like this was part of the whole fated-to-be-friends thing, and someday he and Spencer would look back on this and laugh. Hopefully. “You aren’t in orchestra,” Brendon said finally.

“And you aren’t in the jazz band!”

“Well you’re not in the chorus or the choir.”

“Holy shit,” said Spencer. “You’re in every single class I’m not in. What the fuck.” He’d relaxed maybe a fraction of a centimeter on the couch. “Are you taking this class because Steve recommended it?”

“He said it was easy,” Brendon nodded. “Fucking liar.”

“Huh.” Spencer bit his lip. “That’s… Okay. What do you play?”

“Everything,” Brendon replied. Spencer looked skeptical. “Guitar, piano, vocals… Hand me an instrument, I’ll play it.”

“I’m a drummer,” Spencer said.

“Oh,” said Brendon, mentally slotting Spencer in to the band he was going to start. This was getting better and better. “That’s perfect.”

“Perfect for what?” Spencer scowled.

“My band,” Brendon blurted, and then winced. He maybe should have held on to that for a few more weeks, when Spencer no longer thought he was a weirdo.

But Spencer looked intrigued. “You have a band?” he said. He almost sounded excited. “And you need a drummer?”

“I’m going to have one,” Brendon clarified. “I just need like. Well. Three other guys to start it with me.”

“Oh,” said Spencer, sinking back against the couch a little bit. “Right.”

“But when I do, you’re going to be our drummer,” Brendon said with total confidence.

Spencer got a funny look on his face for a long minute. “Aren’t you supposed to ask me if I want to be in the band?” he said finally.

“But you’d say no,” Brendon pointed out reasonably. “My way is easier. Give me a few weeks; you’ll love me.” He heroically resisted the urge to bat his eyes at Spencer. Sometimes people took that the wrong way.

Spencer was nearly smiling in spite of himself. “You’re insane,” he said, and rolled his eyes. “We’re here to study, aren’t we?”

“Yes!” Brendon said. He opened a book triumphantly to the little green tag. “All the causes are marked with these, and the point counter-point stuff is in pink and yellow.”

“I am not impressed,” Spencer warned him, looking impressed.

“That’s cool,” Brendon grinned. “I have like, three more weeks to impress you.” This time he did waggle his eyebrows; he couldn’t help it.

Spencer burst out laughing. Brendon had been totally, one hundred percent right about him. He felt a little glowy inside his chest. “We have to get some work done,” Spencer ordered, opening his notebook.

“Right!” Brendon said, and started explaining the finer points of the book to him.

They ended up spending most of Sunday afternoon on the causes of conflict; Spencer was some kind of crazy perfectionist who kept correcting his notes and then insisting Brendon go back through them again. Brendon stopped bothering to write anything down, because Spencer insisted he was going to photocopy them later. Every few minutes they’d get distracted by someone walking through the lounge, or Brendon would make a stupid joke about rehearsal or a professor, and Spencer would roll his eyes and pretend like he was really annoyed at the interruption. But he didn’t really mind, and sometimes he even laughed reluctantly at Brendon. Brendon counted that as baby steps toward definite eternal friendship.

Right around dinner time a bunch of kids Brendon recognized from classes – kids who didn’t talk to Brendon so much, but to be fair he’d never really talked to them, either, because they were snobby and rude – came and tried to drag Spencer off to dinner. Spencer looked apologetic; it was pretty clear that Brendon wasn’t included in the invitation. Brendon understood; he was the weird kid who’d fallen in to the cymbals once during a rehearsal.

“I’m out on Tuesday, flying home for the holidays,” Spencer said, packing up his stuff. “When I get back next week we should meet again, make sure we have the first half of this really done.”

Brendon hadn’t even realized that he’d been hoping Spencer would be around over the holiday break, and just as miserable as he was. He worked really hard to smile and pretend to be happy that Spencer had a family that loved him and everything. He probably deserved it. “Sure,” he said. “You have my number.”

Spencer looked sour. “Yeah, I do. what are you doing over the break? Lots of parties to go to?” Brendon didn’t quite get why Spencer was sneering so hard.

Brendon wanted Spencer to think he was a good-time guy, who was a total rock star and not some loser kid with no friends hanging out over the holidays. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Lots of parties, lots of crazy plans. It’s going to be wild. Totally out of control!”

Spencer snorted. He looked totally pissed again. Brendon had no idea why. “I’ll see you around,” he said, and waved, and went off to the crowd of kids yelling for him.

Brendon sighed and sank a little lower in his chair. He was a little closer. He was still really fucking far.

\ \ \ \ \ \

Brendon woke up Monday morning to a horrible tinny noise. He flailed at his alarm clock and then belatedly realized it was his phone. Andrew made a growling noise and, eyes still closed, threw a book at Brendon’s bed.

“Mmmuh,” Brendon said, burrowing under the blankets with the phone.

“Everything is going wrong!” wailed a familiar voice.

It took Brendon a really long time to place it, and by the time he realized it was Gerard, he was talking again. “—making Mikey sad. And Brian wouldn’t want to do that, but I don’t know how to tell him that when he’s working really hard on everything!”

“Gee,” Brendon said in to his pillow. “What the fuck, dude.”

There was a pause. “You were asleep, huh,” said Gerard finally.

“Nnngh,” Brendon replied.

“Oh. Because, you’re busy this week doing Thanksgiving stuff of your own. I forgot. Right. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

Gerard’s guilty tone of voice dragged Brendon up from the depths of sleep. “Wait, wait,” he ordered. “Don’t hang up. You’re not bothering me, I’m already awake. What the fuck is going on?”

“Uh. Nothing.”

Gerard was such a rotten liar. Andrew moaned. Brendon sat up and threw his blankets on the floor. “You called me, dude. What’s up?”

“I just. Brendon. How bad do you think it would be if I told Brian that… Never mind. I can’t tell him. This was a stupid idea.”

“Not running-away-from-home stupid, though, right, Gerard?” Brendon demanded. His heart was a little bit in his throat. “Because I wasn’t kidding. If you ever pull that shit again I will kill you myself.”

“No no,” Gerard said quickly, “nothing like that.”

Brendon sighed. “Okay, good. Is it about the solo again?”

“…Yes?” Gerard said uncertainly, which meant it wasn’t.

“Can I just talk to Mikey?” Brendon asked. Mikey didn’t make a lot of sense, but he didn’t talk in circles around the real issues, the way Gerard did.

“Oh, hey, Frank’s coming and we have to leave for school, I gotta go,” Gerard said quickly. “Happy Thanksgiving and call me when you come back, okay?”

“Gerard—” Brendon said, but he was talking to a dial tone. Fuck. He dropped his phone and flopped back on the bed. Brendon was tempted to call Brian and make sure Gerard hadn’t actually done anything stupid this time, but he decided against it. Last time Gerard had gone in to a truly stunning meltdown he hadn’t been willing to tell anyone except Frank about it. The fact that he called Brendon – no matter how garbled and incoherent he was – was progress. If Brendon immediately called Brian to check up on him, Gerard would probably read it as a betrayal and he might not call next time.

Just, damn if Brendon knew what to do.

His alarm clock went off anyway about five minutes later. Andrew made a noise like he was dying. Brendon got up reluctantly and went to class, where he totally failed to pay attention to anything involving an introduction to Western music.

His classes were mostly empty, because a lot of kids were leaving early for the Thanksgiving break. Brendon sat in the back of the lecture hall and looked around, fidgeting unhappily. By Tuesday night the whole place was going to be a ghost town, and the cafeterias would be closed down. He was going to have to go grocery shopping and stuff things in the mini-fridge for the rest of the week, but he couldn’t really handle the idea of a grocery store the day before Thanksgiving. If he didn’t get run over by an angry family’s shopping cart he’d probably die from sadness when he saw the crescent rolls and started wondering if his mom was making them this year.

He’d only narrowly survived Thanksgiving last year; he’d been invited to stay with his roommate’s family, and he’d stupidly gone. It had turned out to be a terrible decision; watching someone else’s whole family hug and reminisce had made Brendon so homesick he’d actually locked himself in the bathroom for an hour. Of course back then he’d only been away from home for a few months; now it was more than a year. Brendon kept waiting for the homesickness to stop feeling so much like a knife in his stomach. He was afraid to admit that it was, maybe, getting worse.

There was no way he’d survive kicking around campus by himself for four days. Brendon considered drinking himself in to a coma for a minute, and then remembered his horrible hangover from last week and dismissed it. He seriously was never drinking again, not without a friend to take the drinks away from him once he got too tipsy to keep count. He couldn’t watch TV, either, because it would be nothing but Charlie Brown specials and parades he ought to have been watching with his family. He couldn’t even go visit Brian and Gerard and Mikey because he was afraid they’d make him feel even worse. He was a hopeless mess, basically.

By the time he got to Brian’s office Brendon was all wound up. Brian took one look at him and his eyebrows shot up. “Dude,” he said, “that’s the same face Gerard’s been making at me all week. What the hell?” He handed Brendon a coffee and leaned on the front desk, with his concerned-dad face.

Brendon wished Brian was a jerk so he could tell him to fuck off. Now he was going to have to lie, because if he didn’t there was a good chance he’d burst in to tears. And Ryan Ross was undoubtedly somewhere in the back, just waiting for the most humiliating possible moment to make an appearance.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I have a lot of school work to get done, and there’s a big project I’m working on, and my partner is a total jerk.” He apologized silently to Spencer, who was occasionally a jerk, but mostly probably not.

“Oh, that sucks,” Brian said. “You can put that on the back burner until you go back to classes next week, right?”

“Totally,” Brendon said, trying to sound casual and change the subject as quickly as possible. “Speaking of Gerard, he called me this morning. He sounded pretty upset.”

Brian groaned. “He has been a total freak for the last couple of days,” he said. “Like the holidays aren’t stressful enough? He’s totally losing his shit, and he won’t tell me why. I asked Mikey, but Mikey just shrugged and said ‘He’s Gerard.’ So unhelpful sometimes, that one.”

“I was mostly asleep, but I think he said something about Mikey being sad,” Brendon offered.

“I’ve started pretending ‘Mikey’ is the name of Gerard’s imaginary friend,” Brian sighed. “It always just means Gerard.”

“I worked that out when he kept insisting Mikey was miserable at school every day,” Brendon said. “Because when I talked to Mikey about it, he stared at me like I was crazy.”

Brian looked exhausted and miserable. “His therapist must be having a field day. Did he say anything else? Like why Mikey is sad?”

“Nope, sorry,” Brendon said. “I mean, he told me some stuff Friday, but it was in confidence, and it doesn’t have anything to do with Thanksgiving.”

Brian made an angry noise. “That kid, I swear to god.”

“I yelled at him,” Brendon said. “Just in case he was getting stupid again.” They exchanged a look; Gerard still didn’t seem to understand just how terrified they’d all been when he vanished. Brendon had seriously advocated for Brian to get a tracking chip implanted in Gerard’s neck, like they did for pets.

“Are you sure you can’t swing by for Thanksgiving dinner?” Brian pleaded. “What if he has a total meltdown? I have no idea what to do. He talks to you.”

Guilt tried to overwhelm homesickness, but Brendon had been too homesick for too long. “I wish I could,” Brendon lied. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

Brian didn’t even pretend to believe him. “It will be a disaster,” he said flatly. “That’s the thing I’ve learned about having kids. It’s always a disaster.”

“Except when it’s awesome,” Brendon offered.

Brian nodded, and he couldn’t help smiling a little bit. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s also pretty awesome. Ma’s making three different kinds of pie. Maybe Gerard won’t throw a fit if she’s around.”

Brendon suspected that if Gerard were really upset it wouldn’t matter if the Bon Jovi were in the room. “I can swing by on the weekend,” he said. “If things haven’t gone nuclear by then, maybe I can talk to him.”

“Please,” Brian said. “Seriously, please. I love him and everything, but about half the time I have no idea what to say to him.”

“I don’t either,” Brendon said. It was ridiculously flattering that Brian would even think about someone outside the family like that. “But I’m willing to try.”

“Dude, he adores you. He thinks you’re totally cool. He’ll tell you anything.” Brian sounded a little jealous. “I am old and don’t understand – his words. You’ll come by?”

“Sure,” Brendon said. After the actual holiday was over would be fine, he hoped. And the idea that Brian – super cool, super together, super father Brian – was asking him for help made him feel better than anything had all day.

Brian went back to his office to do some work, and Brendon opened up the notes on the crusades project. He was really determined to prove to Spencer that he was usually a really hard worker, not just some jackass who slept through class. Plus, if he read really, really carefully he might forget that tomorrow was the day before Thanksgiving.

He was going to have to work out some self-hypnosis for the week before Christmas, that was already clear.

The phone rang a few times, but all Brendon had to do was look up from his book and transfer them to Brian’s phone, if they were polite, or Gabe if they were rude. Brendon believed in punishment for people who were rude on the phone. He didn’t transfer anyone to Ryan, because he didn’t want to talk to Ryan; if Ryan started talking about his idyllic home life and how excited he was to be going away for a vacation, Brendon was going to jump out the fucking window.

Life, of late, had not been going exactly according to Brendon’s plan; he looked up from his book and discovered Ryan Ross, standing in the doorway, watching him with a faint frown. “Uh,” said Brendon. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Ryan replied. “Good book?”

“Richard the Lionheart had a big gay affair with King Phillip of France,” Brendon said, “and his dad was sleeping with Phillip’s sister, who they were trying to marry off to Richard. It’s all incestuous and awesome.”

Ryan nodded, like that made total sense. “The age of chivalry was pretty fucked up.”

“If I’d known it was this interesting, I might have paid attention in class in the first place,” Brendon said ruefully.

Ryan cracked a smile at that. “Ah,” he said. “Aren’t you on break? Why are you doing homework now?”

Shit, this was edging toward the conversation Brendon most wanted to avoid. “I am studious,” Brendon said. “I take my academics very seriously.”

Ryan raised an eyebrow. “You’re trying to impress someone,” he translated.

Brendon sank a little in his chair. “My project partner thinks I’m a disaster,” he confessed. “Which is not entirely unfair. But I’m actually really—” He stopped, because he wasn’t sure the right way to impress someone as cool as Ryan was to brag about what a nerd he was, or to admit to all the idiotic things he’d done. “I’m actually really focused on music,” he said, and hoped that sounded like a natural conclusion to the sentence. “Sometimes the other classes suffer for my art.”

So instead of idiotic, he sounded pretentious. Brendon wished Ryan would leave, so he could bang his head against the desk. Then again, Ryan had painted sparkly stars falling down his cheek like tears, and he was wearing the world’s most fabulous rainbow-colored scarf, so maybe he couldn’t throw rocks at glass houses here. Brendon really, seriously had to figure out what was up with the way Ryan dressed. It was fucking fascinating.

“Your art, huh?” Ryan asked. He had that teasing tone that made Brendon wonder if was flirting. He wished Ryan were a little less monotone and a little clearer with his intentions. “Maybe I’ll show you my lyrics sometime if you play me some of your ‘art.’”

That had to be flirting. That had to be flirting. Brendon was pretty sure he was gaping like he’d been hit on the head. Any time he tried to say, but the words got caught in his throat and he had to cough for a second, while Ryan leaned against the desk and looked cool. “Any time,” he managed finally, and grinned.

“Cool,” said Ryan, and ducked his head a little bit.

Brendon was going to explode, he was so happy. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say after that which wouldn’t risk sounding idiotic and over-eager and puppyish, so he just nodded and smiled and tried not to blurt out I think I love you.

“Back to work,” Ryan said. “I’ll see you after the holiday, I guess.”

Brendon was so happy that even that referencing the holiday barely deflated him. He had an almost-maybe-possibly date with Ryan Ross. Sort of. Ryan probably didn’t mean it that way, but Brendon certainly did. “Sure,” he said. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Yeah,” Ryan muttered. “Later.” He vanished in to the back.

It was clearly impossible to go back to reading his book. Brendon sat and stared at the wall for a few minutes, trying to figure Ryan out; if ruffly scarves and face paint were what Ryan wore on a normal day, what would he wear on a date? How did you dress up more than that? What kind of food did Ryan like? He was probably something really weird like a vegan or Glatt Kosher.

Brendon was trying to decide what he’d wear – his purple hoodie, clearly, but black jeans or blue jeans? Which sneakers? Glasses or no glasses? – when Brian and Gabe walked back out, arguing loudly.

“It’s the fucking holidays!” Brian said. “I’m not— ”

“Deadlines,” Gabe answered. “It has to get done by Friday.”

“Fuck,” Brian said explosively. “And you can’t—”

“Fuck you, this is the first holiday Travis has had off in two years, I’m going fucking home,” Gabe replied cheerfully. “Isn’t this why we have an intern?”

“Um,” Brendon said. “You mean me, right? Am I actually interning?”

“You are if you can do me the world’s biggest favor,” Brian said. Brendon would have done just about anything Brian asked, especially if it involved the company. “We have something like a thousand receipts that have to be put in alphabetical and chronological order. And it has to get done this week. I just promised Mikey I’d come home – ”

Brendon was actually psyched. Something to do over the holiday, while everyone else was gone and busy. “I’m happy to,” he said. “Seriously. It’s my pleasure. I can come do it before then, no problem.”

“High five!” Gabe yelled, holding his hand up. Brendon just looked at him; Gabe’s hand was a couple of feet above his head. “Oh, fine,” Gabe sighed, lowering his hand. Brendon high-fived him because he was a little scared of Gabe. “Dude, I’m out, happy holidays, peace!” Gabe yelled, and ran.

“Is this really okay?” Brian asked seriously.

Brendon couldn’t explain just how okay it was. “Really,” he said. “I’m psyched to do it. Really really really really.”

Brian looked relieved. “Here,” he said, handing Brendon some keys. “These will get you in here and this is for my office. I’ll tell security on the way out that you’re going to be coming in. We didn’t talk about how much I’m paying you for hanging out here— ”

“I’d do it for free,” Brendon said.

“—But let’s just double whatever I was thinking. I have to run. You are awesome, Bren, thanks.” Brian ran out the door.

Brian’s praise and confidence, coupled with definite Ryan flirting, were threatening to make Brendon float right out of his chair. He seriously held on to the chair’s arms with both hands in case he suddenly found himself on the ceiling.

Ryan wandered out again. He had an excellent jacket that looked like it belonged in Derek Zoolander’s Derelict collection. “I think we’re all going home,” he said. “Unless you’re sticking around to read?”

The thing about Ryan was Brendon could never tell if he was making fun, or teasing, or offering something. Brendon decided to err on the side of caution. “I’m done,” he said, shoving his books in his bag. “Is someone going to lock up?”

Ryan held up a key ring that looked a lot like the one Brian had just handed Brendon. “Got it covered,” Ryan said, flipping the lights off. Brendon grabbed his sweatshirt and followed Ryan downstairs.

There was a weird moment in the elevator, when Ryan was looking at the wall and possibly humming to himself although it might have just been the ambient noise. Brendon kept opening his mouth to say something – “I like your scarf,” or “What are you planning to paint on your face for the holidays?” or “I think I love you do you love me check yes or no” – and then he’d realize it was a bad idea and close his mouth again. Brendon was impulsive and chatty, but he wasn’t willing to ruin all his future prospects for happiness by blurting something stupid out. If he actually got to go on a date with Ryan he was sure he’d blurt something idiotic out soon enough.

Ryan ignored the security guards, but Brendon waved to them and wished them a happy holiday, because he was in an amazingly good mood and it didn’t hurt to be nice. And then they were out on the sidewalk, and the cold was stinging Brendon’s eyes and making Ryan’s hair and jacket flap around. Brendon needed to remember to buy a winter jacket one of these days.

It got dark so early on the east coast this time of year that it was already almost black outside, except for the lamplight. And if, in the most secret corner of Brendon’s brain, he thought Ryan in streetlamp light looked particularly angelic, that was no one’s business but his.

“You park around here?” Brendon asked, and then realized that sounded sort of like he was fishing for a ride. “I mean, I’m taking the bus back to campus. That way.” He pointed. “I can walk, but it’s kind of cold and dark outside, and I have a bus pass. I might even stop at Starbucks on the way; I’m friends with one of the baristas, who has a band. If they turn out to be good I might tell Brian about it. That would be cool.” He winced and bit his lip to make himself stop.

Ryan scrunched up his nose a little bit. It might have been a smile. “No car,” he said. “I bus most of the time. I’m about half way saved up to a car, though. Me and a friend are gonna time-share it.”

They were only an arm’s length apart, and there was no one else on the sidewalk. Brendon’s breath ghosted in the air between them. This, he realized, was a good time to declare his love or lean forward and touch Ryan’s arm, or make a joke, or say something really insightful. He waited a second, but he couldn’t make himself speak or move. The moment was too fragile, and Brendon was too chicken.

“Okay, well, good night,” Ryan said, still with that funny half-smile. He took his hand out of his pocket and almost waved, then looked embarrassed by himself and put his hand back. He turned and walked away.

That had definitely been the moment. Damn it. Brendon was a little frustrated with himself, but hey, Ryan had almost sort-of said something about them doing things together later. All Brendon had to do was survive the days off – and now he even had work to distract him.

Chapter Text

Andrew got up at five o’clock the next morning to catch his flight home. He made a big show of banging around the room and turning on the lights and talking really loudly in to his phone. Brendon put his pillow over his head and waited for him to leave, then went back to sleep. He stayed in bed as long as humanly possible, only crawling out from under the blankets sometime after lunch, when he was starting to feel like he’d become permanently part of the bed. The hallway was deserted and all the whiteboards on the doors said things like “SEE YOU SUNDAY” and “HAPPY THANKSGIVING.”

Brendon had gone to bed feeling pretty good, but now he felt awful again. He couldn’t tell if he was legitimately getting sick or just feeling sorry for himself. He suspected it was more self-pity. He moped in to the cafeteria and was one of only a handful of kids there. If anyone asked – and no one was going to – Brendon planned to claim he was from Hawaii and he couldn’t afford the ticket back. He stared at his phone for a while, but it didn’t ring. He left his tray on the table, food virtually untouched.

If he went back to his room and sat there, alone, he was going to do something stupid and drastic. Like dye his hair blond, or write a really terrible song, or call his mom and burst in to tears and ask if he could come home. Brendon knew he couldn’t live with himself if he did any of those things, so he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked to Starbucks instead.

He was never going to get used to how cold the east coast got. He hated how bare the trees were and how he could see his breath and he needed to remember to buy mittens and a hat and a proper winter jacket one of these days. Thanksgiving was time to hang out outside with his friends, not huddle inside moping or risk freezing to death on the sidewalk.

By the time he got to Starbucks his ears felt like they’d crystallized and fallen right off his head. When he walked inside his glasses steamed up, and for a minute Brendon couldn’t see anything. His fingers were too numb to pull them off and wipe them clean. Horrible holiday music played underneath the noise of milk steaming.

“Yo! Brendon!”

He had his glasses off, and he had to stick them back on before he saw Jon, leaning on the register and smiling. “Hey,” Brendon said, absurdly happy that someone in this abandoned city knew him and cared that he was alive. Okay, clearly the holidays were making him unacceptably melodramatic. And oh god, he’d grabbed his ID card but not his wallet, which was still in his room, like, nice planning, Brendon.

“What can I get you?” Jon asked.

Right; the one person Brendon could hang out with was actually just a guy who was paid to be nice so he could sell Brendon things. A little bit of his happy went away. “Oh,” Brendon said, “nothing.” Not having money was going to be an impediment to hanging out with Jon, which made Jon sound kind of like a hooker.

“Then why are you here?” Jon asked, puzzled.

Fair question. Brendon had no answer at all. I’m lonely was way too pathetic. “Oh, you know,” Brendon bullshitted breezily, “I wanted to ask you about your band and stuff. Like when you guys play, and what you play... I’m kind of interning at a music management company and they want me to keep an ear out for new stuff that’s coming up, plus I’m going to start a band with this guy I know.” Brendon could talk about nothing special for a really long time.

Jon nodded, like that made sense to him. “Cool,” he said. “We’re totally dead in here today for the holiday. So what kind of band are you starting? What kind of music are you in to?” He rattled around with some of the metal milk canisters and paper cups.

“Uh, regular, I guess,” Brendon said. “I like just about everything. Lately I’ve been on a real sixties kick.” Brendon was so intensely grateful to have someone to talk to that his knees felt a little weak.

“Beatles or Stones?” Jon asked.

Brendon didn’t actually have a preference. “Beatles,” he said firmly. “Better harmonies, groundbreaking albums.”

“But no longevity,” Jon pointed out. “Plus, the Stones have had like seven different sounds. They’re totally versatile.”

“The Beatles never put out a disco album,” Brendon said.

Jon laughed. “That is a very good point,” he said, and handed Brendon a drink in a holiday-themed cup.

“I really, uh. I really can’t—” Brendon said awkwardly.

Jon waved a hand. “While I’m working I can make as many drinks for myself as I want. I made that one wrong, and I don’t want it anymore, so you can have it. Besides, I’m the fucking shift supervisor. Who’s gonna argue?”

“Oh,” said Brendon meekly. “Thanks.”

“Peppermint mocha,” Jon grinned. “Right?”

“I love you,” Brendon said. He wasn’t even exaggerating.

“Keep me from dying of boredom,” Jon said. “Beatles or Beach Boys?”

“Is that even a debate?” Brendon asked.

Jon leaned on the counter. “You know Sergeant Pepper was just a rip off of Pet Sounds, right? Paul McCartney even said so. He thought Brian Wilson was a fucking genius. So do I.”

“Pet Sounds?” Brendon echoed. “Aren’t the Beach Boys, like, ‘The Little Old Lady From Pasadena’ and ‘I Get Around’?”

“Oh, dude,” Jon groaned. “So much to learn, grasshopper. Let me go get my iPod.”

Brendon waited, humming happily to himself. It turned out not to be such a horrible day after all.

Thanksgiving, though. It was bad. Brendon woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. He couldn’t do anything. He propped open the window of his dorm and let cold air blow through the room for a while. That – and notes on the crusades – kept him distracted until lunch time.

After that, he took drastic measures.

The security guy didn’t even look up when Brendon walked in to Brian’s building. He was on the phone, arguing with his wife about what time he’d be home. Brendon got in the elevator and slumped against the wall. He planned to spend the afternoon thinking about nothing but alphabetizing receipts, and maybe if he stayed long enough and concentrated hard enough he’d pass out in the office and when he woke up Thanksgiving would be over.

Brendon let himself in to the office and turned on all the lights immediately so it would seem like other people might be there. Then he turned his iPod up to deafening and blasted The Beatles and planned cool things to say to Jon next time he saw him.

Brian’s desk was a giant mess of receipts, most of which were illegible – Brian’s – and some of which were merely indecipherable – Gabe’s. Brendon tried to sort them in to basic piles, but he ran in to problems. How, for example, did one classify, “Stripper costumes, seven, NOT FOR STRIPPERS”? Old receipts versus new was pretty easy, though, and when he wasn’t sure how to alphabetize most of the things Gabe bought he just took his best guess.

He got through Rubber Soul and started Revolver – he would have to remember to tell Jon about how they were originally supposed to be one double-length album – before he was done with the first pile on Brian’s desk. The second pile was even larger. Some of the receipts looked like Ryan’s handwriting, or what Brendon thought might be his handwriting. It was loopy and some of the receipts were decorated with flowers. Brendon looked at those extra long and sighed. Paul McCartney totally felt his pain while he sang ‘For No One.’

Possibly Brendon was singing along with his headphones – he had trouble keeping track of whether the things he was saying were inside or outside of his head sometimes – but he was definitely distracted because he didn’t hear the door open. And he didn’t hear anyone walk in to Brian’s office.

He didn’t hear anything except The Beatles, in fact, while he was dancing. It was only luck that he happened to turn around and – Well. There was Ryan Ross, arms crossed, faintly puzzled look on his face, watching him. Brendon almost choked. He dropped his iPod and it clattered to the floor, pulling the headphones out of his ears with it.

“You really can sing, huh?” Ryan said. He might have been almost smiling. Brendon was too busy trying to die to worry about it.

“I,” said Brendon, blinking. The rest of the sentence was gone. Oh my god, had he been dancing while Ryan stood there and watched? How could the worst day possible be getting worse? “Why are you here?” he blurted. “You’re supposed to be home!”

Ryan looked at the floor for a second. “I don’t really have anywhere else to be,” he said finally. “I was kind of supposed to go to someone else’s house, but the flight was expensive, and I figured… Being at someone else’s house on this time of year can be weird, you know?” He looked up with a tiny, wry smile, while Brendon’s heart tried to thump out of his chest. He knew exactly what Ryan was talking about. “Why are you here?”

Oh, that. “Same kind of thing,” Brendon said. “I couldn’t really go home. And I didn’t want to sit around by myself and do nothing.” That didn’t sound too pathetic, did it? God, who cared; Ryan had been watching him dance and listening to him sing, and so far he hadn’t burst out laughing or made fun of Brendon.

“Yeah,” said Ryan. He tilted his head. “It’s kind of weird and echoey here without Gabe singing in his office.”

Brendon laughed weakly. “I guess I could fill in,” he offered, feeling his face go red again.

“No way,” Ryan said seriously. “Because you’re actually pretty on key when you’re singing, and Gabe mostly sounds like he’s being murdered.”

Time for another exciting round of Ryan Ross: Flirting, Or Just Being Nice For No Apparent Reason? Brendon wanted to think it was flirting, but it might not be; it was Ryan’s job to listen to people sing. So really, Brendon was happy either way it turned out, he just wanted it to be flirting. Did that mean he wanted it so much he was imagining it? Brendon had limited dating experience – like, practically none – and no one to hash out these important details with.

He finally settled for, “Thank you,” and tried to make it sound like people complimented his singing all the time. “I guess…” He cast around for something else cool to say. “Most people who are alone on the holidays would be off drinking themselves stupid. Lucky we have work to do.”

“Yeah,” said Ryan, with a weird twist to his mouth. “Lucky. I actually don’t drink.”

The way he said it, or maybe something about his expression, told Brendon that there was a really long, sad story behind that statement. “My family doesn’t, either,” Brendon offered. He couldn’t really claim not to drink after coming to work with a hangover last week. He wondered if Ryan would believe him that he’d only been to three parties in his entire college career, and wasn’t planning to go to many more. Probably not.

“My dad kind of considered drinking his job,” Ryan said, in a dangerous monotone. “But he’s dead now, so I don’t have to pretend to care anymore.”

Brendon was unbelievably flattered that Ryan would tell him something like that, and equally upset that something so shitty had happened to Ryan. Brendon no longer felt like the king of the lonely holiday season. “I’m sorry,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to say. “I don’t talk to my family anymore. I… Miss them.”

He winced, because how callous was that, telling Ryan he missed his family when Ryan had just said his was dead? But Ryan smiled sadly and nodded. “I wish I missed him,” he said quietly. “I wish I had that option.”

Brendon nodded mutely – he couldn’t say a fucking thing to that – and stared busily at his receipts for a minute. It had been less painfully awkward when it had just been about his dancing and singing to himself. At this point, he expected, Ryan would roll his eyes and go back to his desk, leaving Brendon alone to agonize over all his missed opportunities.

“Maybe I’ll bring my work in here,” Ryan said instead. “That way it’ll seem like there are other people around this weekend. Sometimes it feels like I’m the only one left in the whole universe, you know?”

Brendon did. Also, he really wanted to see Ryan’s lyrics; they were probably totally deep and awesome and had lots of veiled references to his inner pain. “That’d be cool,” he said, because he couldn’t throw himself at Ryan and hug him for being the only other person who could possibly understand how Brendon was feeling. Later, when he was sure that Ryan was actually flirting, he’d throw himself at Ryan. Brendon had come up with a complicated plan involving chocolate and an orchestra and a long walk by a lake – he’d have to find one – and then longing sideways glances, and the music swelling, and Brendon would say something incredibly romantic and they’d fall in love.

Ryan didn’t get to know about this plan until Brendon had a few more of the details worked out.

“Be right back,” Ryan said, and stepped out. Brendon spent a couple of frantic minutes trying to make Brian’s office look like somewhere he was working and not somewhere he’d been using as his personal dance studio. And then Ryan came back with a laptop and a calendar and a couple of address books and sat down on the floor, typing seriously.

He was so fucking pretty, sitting there typing. It was early afternoon, but the day was cold and grey and hazy and there was only a little light slanting in through Brian’s giant glass windows. Brendon worked on sorting receipts in to piles and not staring at Ryan, looking soft and romantic in the dim light. He had a scarf on, like usual, and a fringed vest and ridiculously tight jeans – not that Brendon was looking, but he couldn’t help looking a little – and his hair was curling around the nape of his neck. If Brendon had been a lyricist he’d have written a whole song about how much he wanted to reach out and play with Ryan’s hair.

It was probably lucky for everyone involved that he wasn’t.

They worked without talking for an hour or so. Brendon tried to sort paper as quietly as possible without seeming like he was worried about being too loud. He wanted to strike up a cool conversation with Ryan, but he couldn’t think of anything to say.

After a silence that felt like forever, Ryan sighed and looked up from his laptop. “I don’t mind doing some of the grunt work,” he said, “because I love this job. But really, why do I have to send all the mean ‘No thank you’ emails? It’s not enough that I’m spending the holiday working, I have to spend it destroying people’s dreams?”

“What do you say?” Brendon asked. “Is it really just ‘no thank you’?”

“It’s a form email,” Ryan sighed. “Totally heartless and cruel. If I got this email, I’d – Well. I’d go off in a corner and feel really bad, I think.”

“I want to start a band,” Brendon said, “but maybe I won’t tell Brian about it after all. I couldn’t handle him thinking I sucked.” He had a tiny bit more sympathy for Gerard all of a sudden.

“Are you kidding?” Ryan asked. Brendon looked at him curiously. “Brian… Dude, Brian loves you. If you started a band and it was like, you on kazoo and someone else on keytar, he’d probably sign you tomorrow.” There was something in Ryan’s voice that Brendon didn’t recognize.

“I’m his babysitter,” Brendon said dumbly. “I’m just… I mean, he pays me to hang out with his kids while he’s working.”

Ryan’s mouth crooked up in to a smile. “Most people totally pay someone to come and hang out with their kids once a week, even when they’re home. And let them hang out all the time. And offer them jobs. And talk about them all the time, like they’re family.” He rolled his eyes.

Brendon felt a little dizzy. “He talks about me?” he said.

“‘Brendon taught Gerard to play Magic this weekend,’” Ryan mimicked. “‘Brendon’s teaching Mikey guitar. Brendon can play anything. Brendon’s so great with the kids, even when I don’t know what to say to them.’”

Was that even possible? “Really?” Brendon squeaked.

“Trust me,” Ryan replied, “I know what it feels like when Brian doesn’t like you. If it weren’t for that, I’d have already… Never mind. Just… You underestimate Brian, I think, and you underestimate yourself.”

Brendon wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not. He dropped to the floor next to Ryan, cross-legged, and said earnestly, “That’s not entirely fair. You don’t know me like I know me. I’m taking more in to account than you are. You only see the semi-cool façade I have while I’m working here; most of the time I’m a total, total dork. I embrace my dorkitude and all, don’t get me wrong, but people aren’t exactly lining up to tell me how great I am, and Brian’s pretty much as cool as a person can get, so—”

Ryan half-smiled. “Do you ever shut up?” he asked. His face – his mouth – was so close to Brendon’s that Brendon could almost feel his breath against his cheek. He imagined he could feel it. He imagined himself leaning over and kissing that smirk right off Ryan’s face.

“Not really, no,” Brendon said. His voice had gotten quieter, and he hadn’t even noticed. Ryan was so close now that he barely had to speak at all to be heard. Was Ryan leaning toward him a little bit? Brendon swayed toward him, he couldn’t help it. Brendon was being pulled in to Ryan Ross’s orbit. He could feel an electrical crackle in the air.

“You should try sometime,” Ryan whispered. His mouth was right there, right in front of Brendon’s, and then it was brushing Brendon’s, and then –

Brendon’s mouth. Was pressed. Against Ryan’s.

Brendon opened his mouth to say something – what the hell was he trying to say at a time like this? – and Ryan read it as an invitation. He wasn’t just pressing his mouth to Brendon’s anymore, he was kissing him. He tasted like chapstick and coffee, and his lips were incredibly soft. Ryan sucked gently on Brendon’s lower lip and Brendon opened his mouth a little more, felt Ryan smile.

Brendon kissed back, tentatively; what if he did something awful and Ryan stopped? He moved just a little, just enough to let Ryan know he wasn’t dead, or offended, and Ryan’s hand came up behind him, pressing against Brendon’s back, pulling him closer. Brendon made a startled, encouraging noise and his hands flew up and grabbed Ryan’s vest, dragging him down until they were pressed against each other, Ryan awkwardly half-kneeling and Brendon trying to help him stay balanced without letting go. He could feel Ryan’s chest moving and he could taste Ryan in his mouth and they were still kissing; somehow it hadn’t set the room on fire, even though Brendon was so hot he was sure they were both burning up.

Brendon’s eyes sank shut and all he could do was think about Ryan’s hand sliding a few inches lower down his back, or his hands sliding up underneath Ryan’s shirt. And meanwhile they were still kissing.

Brendon’s phone burst to life with the shrill sound of ABBA.

Ryan pulled back, laughing, and Brendon’s eyes flew open. He had never hated disco more in his entire life. For a second he couldn’t remember how his mouth worked when it wasn’t touching Ryan’s, and his voice had checked out entirely.

“See?” said Ryan teasingly. “Shutting up can be fun. You should answer your phone.” He turned back to his laptop, typing like nothing had happened.

Brendon, meanwhile, felt a lot like the entire earth had fallen off its axis. He jumped to his feet and almost fell over, caught himself with one hand, and launched himself toward the desk. His phone was vibrating in his bag, and he searched for it frantically. This probably meant the moment was pretty well ruined.

“What?” Brendon demanded impatiently, flipping his phone open. Ryan wasn’t looking at him, but he was still smiling. Was anything still salvageable somehow?

“I guess you’re busy,” Mikey said, in his normal monotone, “but things are pretty bad out here and I thought you should know.”

What? Brendon stared at the phone in disbelief. A middle schooler was ruining the greatest minute of Brendon’s life. “Mikey, oh my god, not now,” Brendon snapped.

Mikey was reproachfully silent for thirty seconds.

“I’m sorry, tell me what happened,” Brendon finally sighed, slumping against the desk. He told himself firmly that there would be other chances to make out with the boy of his dreams – oh god, what if there weren’t – and that he could spend as much alone-time as he wanted running through that kiss over and over and over. Finally, a reason to celebrate being alone in his dorm during the holidays.

“Brian said we were eating dinner at two, because that’s what he always does, and Gerard started yelling and locked himself in the bathroom upstairs, and Brian got all mad because his mom was over and went upstairs and yelled at Gerard and Gerard climbed out the window and onto the roof and now he won’t come down.”

Hilarious. Brendon’s life was, honest to god, hilarious. “Why was Gerard so upset?” Brendon asked.

Mikey paused again. “It’s… complicated,” he said. “He better tell you himself.”

“Right, but he’s stuck on the roof,” Brendon pointed out. Ryan’s eyebrows flew up to his hairline, and he looked up.

“Oh. Then you better come help Brian get him down so he can tell you,” Mikey said, like that was perfectly reasonable.

“I…” Brendon said, looking at Ryan with what was definitely helpless desperation. “Mikey, I’m busy.”

Ryan said thoughtfully, “If someone’s stuck on a roof I think you have to go.” And then he smiled. Brendon felt tingly all over again.

“Brian’s considering calling the fire department,” Mikey said. “I think the neighbors are going to start taking pictures soon.”

Oh, for the love of god. “Fine, I’ll come over, Mikey, stop okay?” Brendon said. “Can you give me an hour or two?”

“Sure,” Mikey said, “If you’re not worried about Gee freezing to death. Like I am.”

“Nnnngh,” said Brendon, slamming his hand against the desk. “Fine. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Mikey had already put the phone down; Brendon heard him yelling, “Everyone relax! Brendon is coming!”

Brendon clicked his phone shut. He looked at Ryan, who was just watching him. “I uh. I have to go. There’s kind of a crisis at Brian’s house.”

“Yeah, I got that idea.” Ryan smiled.

“But you… That was… Can we maybe do that again sometime?” Brendon asked. He sounded so ridiculously plaintive that he winced.

Ryan nodded and grinned a little to himself, and then ducked his head, looking down at his laptop. “I hope so,” he said, not looking up at Brendon.

Brendon was so fucking happy he didn’t even… There weren’t words. “Awesome,” Brendon blurted. “That’s awesome. Okay, well. Awesome. I have to go, but… Right.” He grabbed his bag and his sweatshirt and shoved his phone in his pocket. “So, I’ll see you? Here?”

“Yeah, you will,” Ryan promised. Brendon had never been so happy in his entire life.

“Okay,” he said. “Uh. Bye.” Brendon ran out. His feet barely touched the ground.

\ \ \ \ \

Brendon ran from the bus stop to Brian’s house and then skidded to a halt in Brian’s driveway. Mikey and Brian’s mom were both standing outside on the front steps, with their arms crossed, looking up. There was a ladder that didn’t reach the roof leaning against the house, while Brian held it in place. And sure enough, on the roof was a dark shape that was probably Gerard.

“What the hell?” Brendon said, coming up behind Mikey.

“Oh, good,” said Mikey. He yelled up to the roof, “Gerard! Brendon is here!”

“I don’t care,” Gerard yelled back. He sounded pretty snotty, which probably meant he’d been crying.

Mikey looked at Brendon and rolled his eyes. “He won’t come down because he doesn’t want to talk to Brian. But if he doesn’t come down Brian is going to call Claire. And I’m hungry.”

“Right,” said Brendon. “So I guess I’ll just… Go up?” Mikey nodded.

Brendon waved to Brian and let himself in to the house. He went upstairs and fiddled with the locked bathroom doorknob for a minute. Then he gave up and went in to the boys’ room next door. Their window opened up next to the lower part of the roof over the back half of the house. It was lower than the rest of the roof, so you could, with a little luck, step there and then climb up to the flatter, higher part of the roof. “Hey,” said Brendon, pulling himself up. “It’s fucking cold up here.”

Gerard was sitting with his arms wrapped around his knees, staring morosely at the street. He didn’t have a jacket, which meant he’d probably get pneumonia and die or something. “No one asked you to come,” he muttered, and then immediately negated that by looking up at Brendon with his giant, pleading eyes. “This isn’t what was supposed to happen today.”

Yeah, no shit. Brendon sat down next to Gerard and put his arm around the kid’s shoulders. Gerard shivered a little bit. “So, you want to tell me where it all went wrong?” Brendon asked.

Gerard shook his head. “You’ll tell Brian. And I can’t tell Brian. It’ll make him all sad and upset and he wanted to have a nice holiday, which I already ruined. I’m trying to keep him from getting upset. Upset-er.”

“Gee, you know, technically speaking, he’s the adult and you’re the kid. So it’s his job to keep you from getting upset about stuff.”

Gerard shook his head again. “That’s stupid, Brendon.”

Right. Gerard was frustratingly immature and heartbreakingly over-burdened with self-imposed responsibility, all at the same time. “Tell me what happened,” Brendon sighed.

“You have to promise not to tell Brian.”

Brendon could always wiggle out of it later, if he needed to. “Fine,” he said. “Now spill.”

“Well.” Gerard looked up, and then down, and then up again. “It’s just. Brian has all these things he wants to do for Thanksgiving but they’re all wrong and I can’t tell him that because I know he loves us and you know we love him, too, and we don’t want him to be sad, but none of it’s right.”

Brendon, luckily, spoke fluent babble. “Wrong how? Like, he burned the crescent rolls? Because I do that all the time—”

Gerard made a frustrated noise. “No,” he said. “Wrong like… He wants to eat early and we always ate late. And he’s got all these kinds of pie but mom only made pumpkin. And it’s all… It’s the first time in forever me and Mikey have been anywhere on a holiday when it mattered, and I want him to be happy, but it’s just making me really upset.” He flapped his hands around a little. His eyes were starting to get shiny again.

“You’re feeling kind of homesick, huh?” Brendon asked quietly. He recognized the tragic note in Gerard’s tone. Gerard nodded, and let Brendon pull him closer. “You know Brian’s not trying to replace your mom and dad, right? He’s making a new family for you guys.”

“I know,” Gerard said, and sniffled. Brendon pretended not to hear.

“Why don’t you just tell him, Gee? He wouldn’t want to do anything to make you this upset.”

“Right, but,” Gerard said earnestly, pushing his hair out of his face. “He doesn’t know. And these are all the things he always does with his mom. So how can I make him sad about not doing his stuff just because I’m sad about not doing our stuff? That wouldn’t be fair.”

Brendon really wished he’d been more awake during Gerard’s phone call, so he could have headed all this off. “I bet he’d understand,” he said finally. “Brian’s really good about that.”

“I know. I didn’t mean to start yelling. I just wasn’t going to say anything. But he… It’s all wrong, and… And Mikey doesn’t even remember anymore.” Gerard’s shoulders shook a little bit. Brendon wished Gerard were younger or smaller so he could just haul the kid in to his lap and hug the shit out of him.

“You’ll just have to remember for you and Mikey,” Brendon said. Damn it, he was starting to get choked up too, because he knew exactly what his family was doing to celebrate Thanksgiving right now, and he wasn’t there. It hurt like eating molten rocks. “If you want Brian to fix things, you have to tell him that they’re wrong. Right now he thinks… God, I don’t even know, Gerard. But it’s not fair to expect him to just read your mind and know that things are wrong. You have to tell him.”

Gerard shook his head and pressed closer to Brendon’s side. “I can’t,” he said. “Please don’t tell him. He’ll be so upset.”

“So what’s your big plan? You’re just going to stay up on the roof forever?” Gerard nodded. “You know eventually Mikey will come up here, too. And tomorrow Frank, probably. And the three of you will all starve to death on the roof and Brian will get in trouble for it.”

“Brendon,” Gerard complained. “That’s not gonna happen.”

“Right. Because you’re going back inside where it’s warm.” Brendon couldn’t really feel his nose anymore. Gerard made a little noise and clutched Brendon’s hoodie. “How about this,” Brendon said finally. “I won’t tell Brian. And you don’t have to tell him right now, either, because you’re both pretty upset. But I have a feeling this is just going to keep getting worse, and Christmas may end up bad, too.” Gerard shook his head, but Brendon suspected he wasn’t disagreeing, as much as denying the future would ever happen. “So you have three weeks to tell him, kiddo. Otherwise I’m going to. Deal?”

Gerard made a whiny noise, but he was cold and tired and Brendon was feeling patient. Eventually Gerard muttered, “Fine,” and Brendon grinned.

“Good,” he said, “because it’s fucking cold out here. Come on. Inside, before Brian calls the fire department.” He stood up and tugged Gerard to his feet. Gerard seemed reluctant, but it might have been that he was half-frozen from sitting on the roof for an hour. Brendon held on to Gerard’s arm as he climbed back through the window, and then swung down himself. No one died. Brendon was grateful for that.

Gerard unlocked the bathroom door and there were Brian and Jeanne and Mikey, all with various degrees of impatient worry on their faces. Brendon caught Brian’s eye and mouthed ‘be nice.’ Brian rolled his eyes.

“Jesus Christ,” Brian said, “are you done scaring us all to death?” He hugged Gerard briefly and rubbed his hands against Gerard’s shoulders to warm him up.

“I guess so. I’m sorry,” Gerard told the carpet.

“Hot chocolate. Right now!” Jeanne ordered, taking Gerard by the arm with one hand and Mikey with the other and pulling them both downstairs.

Brian crossed his arms. “So?” he said. “What the hell?”

“I’m kind of sworn to secrecy,” Brendon apologized. “But be nice, okay? He’s feeling pretty messed up right now, and it really has nothing to do with you. Actually, he was talking about how much he loves you.”

Brian looked absurdly flattered. “He was?”

“Well. He said ‘we love Brian,’ and with Gerard I always assume it’s the royal ‘we.’”

“Right, but… God, how did I hit the jackpot on the ‘teenage hissyfit’ slot machine?”

Brendon laughed. “Everyone’s crazy when they’re fourteen. Gerard’s super-crazy, but he has reasons, you know? If it makes you feel any better, I think he’s doing better with you than he would be with just about anyone else in the world. Fourteen is hard.”

Brian sighed and slumped against the wall. “Why can’t he just talk to me like a normal human being?”

“Well... He’s fourteen. And you’re his father-figure. I couldn’t have a conversation with my dad about important stuff to save my life—” Brendon started, and then he couldn’t talk anymore. He was never going to get a chance to apologize to his dad for all the shitty stuff he’d done when he was a stupid kid. He was never going to get to hug his dad and tell him he loved him. He was never going to see him again, because he’d left. “I have to go,” Brendon choked.

“Right, we interrupted your big Thanksgiving plans,” Brian said. “Shit, I’m sorry. Do you want a ride somewhere?”

Brendon just shook his head. He was honestly going to burst in to tears if he had to talk to Brian about anything else to do with fathers and families today. His chest was ridiculously tight. “No, thanks, I’m really busy, bye. Be nice to Gerard, okay?” he mumbled and practically ran for the door.

He heard Mikey say, “Wait, he’s leaving?” before he was outside and standing on the sidewalk, blinking furiously so he wouldn’t end up sitting on the bus crying like a crazy person.

\ \ \ \ \ \ \

Brendon went in and finished sorting the receipts the next day. He brought snacks, in case Ryan showed up again, but he didn’t. And Brendon didn’t have his phone number. It was okay, though; he was willing to wait until next week. Memories of kissing Ryan were keeping him afloat, even while the holiday spirit around him tried to drag him down.

He got an urgent phone call from, surprisingly, Spencer. It had gone straight to voicemail; Brendon was a little scared that Brian was going to call him and ask him to fix Gerard, when the last thing Brendon wanted to do was hash out more parental issues with Gerard at the moment.

All Spencer said was that he was flying in on Sunday and he wanted to talk to Brendon immediately, as soon as he got in. Brendon figured it was probably just something about the project – he was getting the impression that Spencer was kind of anal about his grades and planning things out – and didn’t worry too much. He texted back “ill b here c u 2mrw’ and went back to planning his fantasy date with Ryan Ross. It was going to be epic. He’d incorporated doves. And in his head, he was totally an expert kisser who never froze out of sheer astonishment that someone else wanted to kiss him.

Spencer must have called the minute his plane touched down – Brendon was fast asleep because it was only 7:30 in the morning. “I’ll be back at my dorm by nine,” Spencer said in his bossiest voice. “Meet me there.”

It didn’t really sound like it had to do with the project. Brendon wondered blearily if Spencer had come up with a name for the band, or maybe realized that he wanted to hang out with Brendon instead of the snotty kids from History of Western Music. He decided he didn’t care and rolled out of bed to shower and brace himself before he had to talk to Spencer. Spencer required preparation.

As it turned out, there was no way Brendon could have prepared himself quite enough.

Spencer’s half of the room was all band posters, mostly drummers, while his roommate’s side was all women in bikinis and posters about beer. Brendon almost opened his mouth to suggest that Brendon and Spencer switch, so Spencer’s roommate was with Andrew and Spencer and Brendon were living together. But Spencer looked upset and also bizarrely nervous.

“What?” Brendon asked, stepping over Spencer’s suitcase. It seemed to be mostly full of shoes.

Spencer sat down on the bed and stuck his hands in the pockets of his white sweatshirt. “I need to talk to you,” he said, and tried to smile, but there was something wrong with it.

“Okay,” said Brendon, sitting on the other bed. His stomach did a quick flip. Something was definitely up.

“So,” said Spencer, looking down at the bedspread for a second. He normally sounded totally brash and forthright; Brendon frowned. “I got a phone call over vacation. You’re the Brendon who works after class at the Cobra-whatever company.” He rolled his eyes at himself a little bit. “I should have realized when he said… Anyway, that’s you, right?”

“Yeah,” said Brendon, trying to figure out how Spencer could possibly know that.

Spencer took a deep breath and looked up. His eyes were drilling right through Brendon. “So then I guess you know my boyfriend, huh?”

“I know your… You…” Brendon couldn’t make himself keep speaking, or breathing for that matter. Spencer didn’t mean Gabe. And he didn’t mean Brian. The room dipped and rolled. “Ryan,” Brendon said. His mouth had gone so dry he couldn’t believe he was able to talk at all. He tried to smile, but he knew it looked totally strained and strange. “Your boyfriend. Your boyfriend, Ryan Ross.”

“Yeah,” Spencer said intensely. What the fuck had Ryan told him? What the fuck had Brendon done? “I’ve known him since we were little kids. I decided to go to college out here and he came with me, got an internship at some other company, and now he’s working there. We’ve known each other forever. We’re really serious.”

Brendon contemplated opening the window of Spencer’s room so he could lean out and throw up. “Oh,” said Brendon faintly. “That’s… Hey, that’s great. Ryan seems really nice.” Ryan kissed me, he was screaming inside his head. I almost let Ryan cheat on you with me, and I didn’t even know. Ryan’s a creep or I’m a whore, and everything that was good is now awful and tainted.

Spencer was just staring at him. Brendon was sure Ryan hadn’t told him they’d kissed, because Spencer hadn’t punched him in the face yet. It was on the tip of his tongue to blurt it all out and confess anyway. This wasn’t just a lousy holiday any more, it was vying for the top ten worst minutes of Brendon’s life. Right up there with, “Hey, I’m leaving to go to college and you can’t stop me.”

“Ryan’s awesome, and I love him,” Spencer said fiercely. It was the wrong tone. Something was off about the whole conversation, but Brendon’s head was spinning and he felt weird and dizzy and he couldn’t have figured out what to save his life.

“Awesome,” Brendon said, as firmly as he could. “That’s just awesome. I’m glad. I have to go, I… I left something on. I’ll… Call me about the project, okay? And tell Ryan I said hi.”

“Sure,” said Spencer.

Brendon staggered to his feet and practically ran out of Spencer’s dorm. And then he sat outside the back of his dorm on the cold concrete steps for a long time and cried. Thankfully, no one was back yet from vacation to see.

Chapter Text

Monday was a blur. Brendon had trouble getting out of bed to go to class at all. “Dude,” said Andrew, “did you party too hard over break?”

Brendon had never wanted to punch him so badly. He forced himself to sit up and smile. “No,” he said, “I guess I’m still tired.”

“I hear that,” Andrew grinned. He’d come back to school with a giant hickey on his neck and his suitcase reeking of pot smoke. He had clearly not had the same kind of break that Brendon had.

Brendon’s smile was precariously pasted on. Some kid from band said hi to him as he crossed the quad, and Brendon made himself wave. He really just wanted to lie down on the sidewalk and close his eyes. That sounded amazingly wonderful, actually.

He sat in the back of class and slumped in his chair, staring at the pencil on his desk and not hearing a word the professor said. How could Ryan have done that to him? How could he have done that to Spencer? How could he have misread the entire situation so spectacularly?

Maybe, Brendon thought meanly, that was why Brian didn’t like Ryan. He’d heard Brian bitch about him a couple of times. The bitching was more “that weird kid at the office” and less “that guy who kisses people and breaks their hearts,” but Brendon would take it. He wanted a reason to be mad at Ryan. All he could really work up to was sad.

Brendon skipped lunch in favor of lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, until Andrew came back from class. “For real, dude,” Andrew said. “Is something up?” He sounded curious, but also reluctant, like he was afraid Brendon would actually answer.

Luckily, Brendon was done with the crying portion of the proceedings, and had gone on to the mopey depression. “I’m fine,” he said, and winced at how flat his voice sounded. There was no way he could go to work like this. Brian would be all over him demanding to know what had happened. Gerard was right about Brian; if he thought Ryan was responsible for breaking Brendon’s heart he might do something stupid, like fire him. Brendon was mad at Ryan, but he wasn’t that mad at Ryan.

Okay, be honest. He wasn’t even really mad at Ryan. He just missed him.

How, Brendon wondered, could you miss someone you’d never had? He didn’t even know Ryan’s telephone number, for example. They’d spoken like, four times, and they’d kissed once. There was nothing there to miss. He wasn’t allowed to miss the way Ryan smiled like he was trying not to, or the way Ryan said sort of mean things that weren’t really mean at all. He was never going to get to hang out with Ryan and write songs, or listen to Ryan’s lyrics, or find out what had happened with Ryan’s dad.

“Wow,” said Andrew. “You’re really out of it.”

Oh, damn it; Brendon hadn’t even heard him start talking again. It was too bad Brendon had decided he hated drinking, because this would have been a good day to go get trashed. “Yeah,” he said. “Sorry.”

“Bad news from home?” Andrew asked hesitantly.

Brendon flinched. Was there any possible way for this day to get more painful? He’d lost Ryan – he’d totally betrayed Spencer by accident – and now Andrew wanted to bring up the fact his family hated him and was never going to speak to him again. “No,” he said tightly. “Just… A lot of stuff going on.”

“Well you better snap out of it,” Andrew said. “You look like your dog died or something. Want to go to a party?”

“God, no,” Brendon said. He sat up and grabbed his bag. “I’m going to rehearsal.”

“Whatever,” Andrew replied, opening his laptop. He could only be concerned about other people for brief bursts of time before he got distracted by porn on the internet. It had annoyed Brendon at first, but now he was grateful for it.

He skipped rehearsal because he couldn’t stand the thought of being in a room with other people if he couldn’t manage to pretend to be happy. Plus, if he were in the music building there was a chance of running in to Spencer Smith. Brendon had a list of things to avoid, and “kissing Ryan again” was now tragically at the top, but “talking to Spencer while in love with his boyfriend” was number two. He still wanted to be friends with Spencer, he just couldn’t face him today. He needed a few more days. Or a month.

Brendon wasn’t planning to go in to work, either. He wandered outside for an hour or two until he thought Andrew was probably done in their room and then went back to bed. Tomorrow, he decided, this would feel less like all of his hopes and dreams had been crushed. Tomorrow he’d be able to say this was just a silly crush on someone he barely even knew. Then he and Spencer and Ryan could all be friends and hang out, and Brendon would meet someone else he liked better than Ryan. Tomorrow Brendon would be absolutely fine.

He closed his eyes and huddled under the blankets and tried really, really hard to make himself believe that that was true.

When Brian called the next morning, Brendon was able to do a convincing imitation of himself. “Hey!” he bubbled, “Did you guys recover from the most exciting Thanksgiving ever?” Was that too much? He wasn’t sure how happy he usually sounded at 8 AM.

Brian sighed. “You mean was the whole weekend ruined? Not quite. He pretended to have manners, and got super-polite for the rest of the day, and then spent most of yesterday on the phone with Frank, apparently having some kind of nervous breakdown about… Something. But he asked me to ask you if you’d come to the winter concert on Thursday. I was going to tell you yesterday, but you weren’t around.”

Brian sounded curious, which was just too bad for him. “Yeah, tell him I’ll be there,” Brendon said. He planned to fake the plague, maybe, and avoid seeing all happy people forever.

“Oh, good. He’d be a little heartbroken if you weren’t there.”

Brendon winced. He didn’t want anyone else to be heartbroken. Brian was probably exaggerating, though; Gerard got dramatic about everything. “No problem,” he chirped.

“Are you coming in this afternoon?” Brian asked.

Brendon never wanted to be in a room where he might run in to Ryan Ross again. He knew he’d be tempted to do something awful again if he was alone with Ryan. Brendon tried really hard to be a good person, but some temptations were just unfair. And then he’d never be able to look at Spencer again. “Why?” he said, “Did you need me?”

“Yeah, if you’re around. Gabe is out keeping one of our bands from imploding in the studio, and I need someone extra in the office.”

“Oh,” said Brendon. “Sure. I’ll come in.” Brian was so awesome, he couldn’t leave the guy high and dry. Even if it meant risking a run-in with Ryan. He’d just practice his stone-face and ignore Ryan. If that was even possible. Which it totally wasn’t.

“Great,” said Brian. He paused. He clearly wanted to ask Brendon about Gerard, and Brendon secretly wanted to just blurt the whole thing out – those two had a serious problem with communication. “I was wondering— ”

“Tell Gerard,” Brendon interrupted, “that I haven’t forgotten our deal. He has three weeks. Okay?”

Brian paused. “Should that mean something?” he asked.

“It will to him. You can expect some huffiness.”

“Wonderful.” He could hear Brian rolling his eyes. It was the best Brendon could do, though, without entirely betraying Gerard’s trust. Brendon hung up feeling mildly guilty, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the guilt he was feeling over the entire Spencer-Ryan situation. He figured he could live with it.

Spencer called almost the second Brendon hung up on Brian. Brendon stared at the phone for a long time, trying to decide whether or not to answer it. There was absolutely nothing on earth he wanted to do less than talk to Spencer, except maybe talk to Ryan. And hey, he might end up doing that later, too.

“Hi!” Brendon said. Okay, that was definitely too much cheer.

“Hey,” said Spencer. He sounded a little subdued, as if he suspected his hot and interesting and incredible boyfriend was cheating on him at work. “The project. We need to work on it.”

“I’m working today,” Brendon said. It wasn’t hard, exactly, to sound chipper, but it was exhausting. “Tomorrow after class, maybe?”

“Okay.” He paused. “Listen. Brendon. About Ryan. You’re a good guy and all, I’m –”

There was no way Brendon could pretend to be cheerful while listening to Spencer apologize to him about keeping tabs on Ryan. “No problem!” Brendon said, a little too loudly. “Ryan’s really great, and I’m glad he’s got someone really great like you. It’s really great. I’m going to see him later, and I’ll tell him that this is all really great. Okay?”

“Don’t – Hey, Brendon, don’t tell him, okay?” Spencer said. He probably didn’t want Ryan to think he was jealous and checking up on him, which was hilarious to Brendon, because Ryan apparently needed a lot of checking up on.

“No problem,” Brendon said blithely. “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow, bye.” He clicked the phone shut even as he heard Spencer starting to speak again. And then he dropped his head on to the desk and closed his eyes and spent thirty seconds feeling sorry for himself.

Just thirty, though. Brendon had things to do and people to smile at. He was trying to concentrate on that.

\ \ \ \ \

Brendon sat at the front desk with his iPod in his ears and tried hard to be inconspicuous. He wasn’t going to actually hide under the desk – he’d considered it – but he was trying not to look friendly, either. Ryan Ross might wander out from the back at any moment and be beautiful and deep and weirdly charming, and Brendon needed to be braced against it.

On the other hand, he was trying really hard to seem like his normal self. Brian kept walking by and frowning. Brendon hoped it was about Gerard. Well, he didn’t hope Brian was having problems with Gerard, he just hoped that Brian was frowning about Gerard, and not because he could secretly read Brendon’s mind and knew Brendon was having one of the worst weeks of his life.

They were busier than usual, which was nice; Brendon read some history of western music while answering the phones and writing notes for Brian. He spent a while reassuring some jackass that he could get a replacement for the guitar he’d lit on fire, Jimi Hendrix-style, and then a while explaining to a singer that tea with lemon was probably better for his throat than whiskey. There were also tons of people calling to see if they could send in tapes of their band, or get someone to come down and listen to them. Brendon was a little worried that one of them would be Jon. He was pretty sure he couldn’t say no to Jon and then Brian would be pissed.

Around dinner time Brian came out and said, “Today is officially nuts.” And then he frowned again and added, “Brendon? Is everything okay?”

“Everything is great,” Brendon said firmly, smiling. “I get to talk on the phone with crazy people. It’s fun!”

Brian looked unconvinced, but Brendon was getting better at smiling when he was feeling shitty. Practice made perfect and all. “Okay,” Brian shrugged finally. “So what time are you planning to get to the school on Thursday? Gerard’s concert starts at six and he’s started reminding me about it every half hour or so. I think he’s worried we’ll be late and we won’t get good seats.”

“I can get there by like, five,” Brendon offered.

“Good. Mikey and Frank will be there, hanging out. I can’t wait until this is over. I’m not sure this is actually good for him.” He narrowed his eyes at Brendon. “Are you completely sure everything’s okay?”

Brendon decided he needed to eat a lot more sugar before he saw Brian on Thursday; he’d do a better imitation of his normal self if he were feeling twitchy. Especially since he’d be especially tempted toward mopiness if he was going to be faced with happy families everywhere he looked. “I might be getting sick,” Brendon lied. He felt a little bit like he was getting the flu, after all; his head hurt and he wanted to crawl in to bed for the rest of his life.

“Oh,” Brian said. “Do you need to go home?”

“I’m fine,” Brendon said, and made himself smile again.

“Because if you get sick and you miss the concert, I think Gerard might die. And then the band –Mikey and Frank and Bob and Ray – are all going to be playing next week, and you have to be at that one, too. If you need to go home and sleep – ”

Why did Brian have to be so nice when Brendon was lying? He could only handle so much guilt in his life at one time. “Brian,” he said, “I’m really, really okay. I’ll take some Sudafed and everything will be fine. Honest.” He smiled and waggled his eyebrows at Brian over his glasses; that was the kind of thing he normally did when he actually felt okay.

Brian shook his head, but his phone beeped. Gabe was calling with a studio nightmare, and he had to go back to his office to fix it. Brendon slumped and stared at the desk morosely. It was so much harder to pretend everything was okay when people insisted on asking if he was okay. And it was hard to be okay when you were caught between feeling incredibly guilty about something that had happened, and incredibly sad that it could never happen again. Then that sadness made him feel even guiltier. Brendon was a total mess.

He successfully avoided Ryan almost the entire afternoon by bolting for the kitchen to get tea any time it looked like Ryan might be coming out to say hello. What the hell was Brendon going to do if Ryan wanted to talk? Surely Spencer had mentioned knowing Brendon by now. If Ryan apologized, Brendon was going to throw up on him. If he laughed the whole thing off, Brendon was going to die. In fact, if he had to look at Ryan it was entirely possible he’d just die anyway.

Eventually, though, Ryan came out before Brendon could flee. “Hey,” said Ryan, stuffing his hands in his vest pockets. He smiled sideways.

It hurt. Brendon wanted to know why Ryan was always wearing crazy vests and scarves and painting on his face. He wanted to know why Ryan had kissed him if he had a boyfriend as cool as Spencer. He wanted to know if Ryan would throw Spencer over for him, and then if Ryan could live with himself after that, because Brendon probably couldn’t.

“Um,” said Brendon, staring at the floor. “Hey.” He tried to make his body language say ‘go away,’ because he knew he’d never get his voice to do it.

There was a long pause. Brendon risked a quick glance up by looking at the clock behind Ryan; Ryan was frowning a little bit. Was it possible Spencer hadn’t mentioned anything to Ryan? Brendon was going to have to kill them both, and then himself.

“What’s up?” Ryan said finally, like he’d been waiting for Brendon to say something.

“I met Spencer,” Brendon blurted, because he couldn’t stop himself. He was coming apart at the seams.

Ryan’s whole face lit up. It was awful. He looked so fucking happy, and Brendon wanted crawl under the desk and cry. “Oh, yeah?” Ryan asked, and for once he actually sounded pleased about something. “Spencer’s great. I guess you two go to school together, don’t you? That’s cool.”

“Yeah,” said Brendon, and waited for Ryan to get it already, but Ryan didn’t seem to. They stared awkwardly at each other.

“So I was thinking—” Ryan started finally.

As it turned out, Brendon didn’t want to know what Ryan was going to say. He was thinking it had been a bad idea? He was thinking he wanted to keep messing around behind Spencer’s back? There was absolutely no end to that sentence that wouldn’t make Brendon feel even worse than he already did. “I have to go,” Brendon said quickly, grabbing his sweatshirt and his bag. “Brian, uh, asked me to come in today, but I’m really swamped with stuff, and I might be getting sick.” He coughed unconvincingly.

“Oh,” said Ryan. He looked a little disappointed. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll see you Thursday, I guess.”

“Thursday I’m going to Gerard’s concert,” Brendon said firmly. He planned to make his work schedule as Ryan Ross-free as possible, at least until he stopped feeling so awful all the time.

“Oh,” said Ryan, and bit his lip. “After that?”

“I don’t think so,” Brendon said, and edged past him and out to the elevators. Had Ryan looked disappointed, or had Brendon imagined that? Had Brendon been mean, or had he not been nearly mean enough? He wanted to cry again, but refused to let himself. He spent the entire trip to the first floor taking deep breaths and telling himself that everything was going to be fine. All he had to do was keep surviving and it would stop hurting eventually.

\ \ \ \ \

Spencer brought him a bag of sour patch kids. He put them on the table and then folded his arms, like he dared Brendon to say something.

“Um,” said Brendon. His stomach twisted a little. “What’s up?”

“Those are for while we’re working,” Spencer ordered.

“Thank you?” Brendon said, because he wasn’t sure what Spencer wanted.

Spencer looked relieved. “Good,” he said. That wasn’t really an appropriate response, but Brendon was busy pretending to be normal, so he couldn’t really judge. “Next is the point counter-point. You have sources?”

“Tons,” Brendon replied, still puzzling over the candy. He wasn’t going to eat it until Spencer did; what if he secretly knew about Ryan and it was poisoned? But what if he didn’t know about Ryan and he was just trying to be nice and Brendon didn’t eat the candy and Spencer was offended and they were never friends? He pulled out a book he’d gotten from the library and put it on the lounge table. “Here. I marked the pages.” Staring at the primary sources had been the only way Brendon had been able to stop thinking about Ryan for more than a minute or two all day.

“Okay,” said Spencer. “Here are mine. We’ll start with those.” He seemed to be in a pretty rotten mood himself, if the bossy tone was anything to go by. It might not have been. Maybe that was Spencer’s default.

Brendon tried really hard to think about the project and only the project. It was hard, though; Spencer was right there, and he wasn’t saying the words “boyfriend” or “Ryan” or “cheater” or “I hate you,” but Brendon could feel them anyway. Spencer was a cool guy, even when he was grumpy, and Brendon still wanted to be friends with him. It wasn’t Spencer’s fault that Brendon apparently couldn’t keep his mind off people who were taken. Brendon just also wished Spencer had never been born.

Unless that meant Ryan wouldn’t have come out to Philadelphia. Would Brendon be happier or sadder at the moment if he’d never met Ryan at all?

Spencer, Brendon thought resentfully, probably knew all about Ryan’s dad. He was totally the person Ryan talked to when he was sad. They probably had tons of in-jokes and funny shared childhood memories, and Brendon was going to throw up just thinking about it. Damn it.

“Are you even looking?” Spencer demanded.

“Uh,” said Brendon. “For what?”

Spencer frowned at him. “Are you okay?”

He was clearly doing the worst possible job pretending to be fine when it mattered most. Brendon forced himself to smile and shrug. “I spaced out,” he said. “Looking for what?”

“Dates,” Spencer said. “You look tired. Eat some candy.”

Brendon decided that he wouldn’t mind being poisoned so much, now that he thought about it. He took a handful of sourpatch kids and stuck them in his mouth. He hadn’t really eaten much in the last couple of days, and he was surprised at how little he tasted anything. Spencer was watching, so Brendon made a big deal about chewing with his mouth sort of open – that was what he’d do normally, right? – and smiling. Spencer relaxed a little.

“Any big plans for Christmas break?” Spencer asked. “Here, 1127, write that down.”

Brendon obligingly did. “I’m going to have the best Christmas break ever,” he said firmly. “Lots of singing and caroling and eggnog and wassail and Christmas-type things.” At least, that was what his family would be doing, and if he was going to lie to Spencer, he might as well go big. He couldn’t possibly hurt any worse than he did right now, anyway. “How about you?”

“Flying home,” Spencer shrugged. “I wanted to stay, because… Well. People are going to be here.” Ryan is going to be here. He didn’t need to say it; Brendon heard it loud and clear. “But my sisters would kill me if I didn’t go home.”

Brendon absolutely hated Spencer. He got Ryan, and he got a family that loved him. Spencer was the devil, and Brendon hoped his plane crashed. “Sounds awesome,” Brendon said. “We should finish this.”

Spencer frowned again. “Are you okay?”

Right, right; Brendon-from-last-week probably wouldn’t have been so worried about getting work done. He tried to smile big and goofy, and said, “I thought you had other things to do?”

“Yeah, but…” Spencer looked at him for a second and then shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s finish up.”

That was all Brendon wanted in the entire universe. He tried to remember that he should be making jokes and interrupting, but it was hard. He felt like someone had drained all his energy and left this hollow shell of a person who just wanted to go back to bed. He mainlined half the bag of candy and let the sugar rush get him twitchy; that seemed to relieve Spencer a little bit. Brendon couldn’t handle Spencer feeling guilty about the Ryan situation, too; Brendon felt guilty enough for ten people all on his own. He was feeling a little guilty for hating Spencer, too.

He was enormously relieved when Spencer said, “I guess we’re done,” and Brendon could go back to his dorm room. It smelled like vomit and feet, which meant Andrew had been there recently. Brendon wrinkled up his nose and opened the window as wide as it would go. Cold wind whistled through the room. Brendon wished he’d already bought a winter jacket. It had barely snowed the year before so he hadn’t worried about it. This year, though, even two hoodies and a windbreaker weren’t really enough.

He zipped up his sweatshirt and sat on his bed and stared at his laptop. There was a lot of work he was supposed to be doing, especially if he was going to keep his grades up for his scholarship. He had finals after the Christmas break, if he managed to survive it. But he didn’t care. He wasn’t even thinking about Ryan; he didn’t have the energy to think about anything.

Brendon fell asleep leaning against the wall, and didn’t dream about anything special.

Thursday, Gerard called three times to make sure Brendon didn’t forget about his concert. The third time, Brendon finally told Gerard that if he called again Brendon was going to pretend to forget, and hung up. His head hurt, so he skipped classes – he really didn’t want to spend more time with Spencer at the moment – in favor of sitting in the cafeteria and drinking tea, staring in to space. If it had been at all feasible he would have skipped Gerard’s concert, but it clearly wasn’t. So after a long time doing nothing but feeling sorry for himself he grabbed a bag of Skittles and hopped on the bus to the other side of town.

Gerard’s school was ridiculous. There were parents pulling up in limos and humvees. Brendon zipped his hoodie up a little higher and wondered if they’d let him in without an invitation. Was there a guest list? There were giant iron gates outside the building and tons of non-specific religious decorations twinkling in the early darkness. Brendon shoved his hands in his pockets and reminded himself to look cheerful. Otherwise the first family he saw hugging was going to get kicked in the knee.

“Brendon!” yelled Frank, running over. He grabbed Brendon by the arm. “Hi! You came! I have to tell Gerard.”

“Gerard knows I’m coming,” Brendon said.

Frank crossed his arms and glared. Frank was about three feet tall – knee high to a grasshopper, Brendon’s dad would have said – and it was a weird experience, being glared down by a midget. “Gerard needs reassurance,” Frank said firmly. His tone indicated that if anyone failed to properly reassure Gerard, Frank would kill them. “Bob and Ray are going to stay with you, and I’m going to go tell him.”

“Like bodyguards?” Brendon asked, confused.

Frank shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “Bob! Ray! Come show Brendon where the concert is!”

Frank vanished back in to the crowd of kids and parents, and Bob and Ray appeared. Bob was lost inside the world’s largest, furriest jacket, and Ray was wearing a hoodie and a jean jacket that Brendon secretly coveted. Ray was also wearing a knitted hat, which was doing truly amazing things to the silhouette of his hair.

“Yo,” said Ray cheerfully. Bob waved.

“Hey, guys. Is Brian here?”

“For like, an hour already,” Ray said. “Mikey was trying to keep Gerard from totally freaking out, and it was… Only sort of working. So he called Brian to come early, and Brian’s been distracting Gerard with a book on poisonous snakes.”

“They are more afraid of you than you are of them,” Bob said gravely. “Except, they will totally kill you fucking dead if you step on them.”

Gerard’s friends were simultaneously the weirdest and the coolest kids Brendon had ever met. He was a little jealous.

“C’mon,” Ray ordered, ducking through the crowd. Bob followed, clearing a path with his elbows for Brendon.

There were lots of parents standing around, more than a few of whom looked intimidatingly rich. There were lots of kids, too, wearing school uniforms and standing around outside the building. Some of them were handing out programs – Brendon grabbed one, saw that Gerard Way was listed as ‘featured solo’ and immediately asked if he could have a second one. Brian would stick it up on the fridge, but he’d never think to get it laminated and framed. Brendon put it neatly in to a notebook in his bag so it wouldn’t get crumpled, and followed Ray and Bob in to the auditorium.

It was fucking huge. Brendon just stopped and stared for a second. There were risers in front of a giant velvet curtain, and twinkling stars hanging from the ceiling everywhere. Parents were starting to fill up the first few rows, and kids were peeking out from behind the curtain and pointing and waving.

“Brian and Mikey are sitting up there,” Bob said, pointing. “We saved you a seat.”

Brendon was totally flattered. It was the happiest he’d felt since Sunday. He had a family to follow around, at least, and he could pretend it was his while no one else was looking. Mikey was saving seats in the third row, dead center, with a surprisingly stern look. A woman wearing pearls and a fur coat pointed to the seats and said, “Are those taken?”

Mikey’s expression was flat, but also vicious somehow. “Yes,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Go away.” She made a flustered noise, and turned and left.

“Hey,” Brendon said. It wasn’t as hard to remember to be cheerful when he was actually feeling a little better. And the look on Mikey’s face when he turned around – not quite a smile, but as happy as Mikey generally got – made Brendon feel warmer.

“Don’t you have a jacket?” Mikey frowned.

Brendon didn’t answer to middle schoolers. “Which seat is mine?” he asked, ignoring Mikey completely.

Mikey pointed. He got pretty imperious when he was in charge of things relating to Gerard. Brendon sat down next to an empty seat where Brian had left his coat. “Brian’s with Gerard?” he said.

“Gerard threw up,” Ray said cheerfully. “Then he told Brian he was quitting, and Brian told him he wasn’t, and they almost had a fight but Frank intervened. So it should be pretty interesting to see who wins.”

“Definitely Frank,” said Bob, sitting next to Mikey. Ray sat down, too, but kept jumping up to see who else was coming in, and then waving.

“Your parents aren’t here?” Brendon asked.

“We got a ride with Brian. They’ll be here next week, though,” Ray explained.

The auditorium was filling up fast. Brendon would have loved singing for this many people, but he got why Gerard was feeling queasy. There were so many people coming in that they were going to end up with standing-room only. Mikey was still saving seats for Brian and Frank, and he had to be pretty mean about it.

The lights flickered on and off once, and the hum of conversation in the auditorium dropped a little bit. “Where’s Frank?” Ray demanded, standing on his chair. “He better not be late. Gerard will fucking kill him.”

“Me, too,” said Mikey, frowning.

“There,” Bob pointed. Brian was walking out from backstage holding Frank by the arm. Frank was waving cheerfully to someone around the corner and yelling, “It’ll be fine! Just don’t throw up on stage!”

“Hey,” said Brian. He looked at how crowded the row was for a second, then shrugged and just picked Frank up and set him in the seat on the other side of Mikey. Frank didn’t seem to mind the manhandling much. “Well, this is either going to be a disaster or it won’t.”

“Were you talking Gerard down from a ledge?” Brendon asked.

Brian looked mildly embarrassed. “I think I got a little stage-parent-y, actually,” he said, dropping his voice. “I went back and they were putting mics on the kids and Gerard’s wasn’t working and I, uh… I may have stormed over to the electrical board guy and told him to do his job right or I’d do it for him.”

Brendon burst out laughing. “You know Gerard’s not in one of your bands, right?” he asked.

Brian shrugged. He was turning a little red. “I just… He’s nervous enough without technical difficulties. And some crazy mom almost knocked him down the stairs and I told her to watch where she was fucking going. I think I embarrassed the shit out him by accident.”

Brendon couldn’t stop giggling. He was glad he’d come after all. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate it someday,” he said.

The lights went down. Frank jumped to his feet and stuck two fingers in his mouth and let out an ear-splitting whistle. Mikey immediately smacked his arm out of his mouth and pulled him in to his chair. The auditorium fell silent.

The kids filed out silently on to the risers. Gerard was pretty short, standing in the front row. Brendon could see him fiddling nervously with his tie while they all lined up and turned their shoulders in the right way, and the conductor came out. This was the infamous Mr. Guzman, apparently, and he was wearing full-on tails. Brendon’s eyebrows shot up, and Brian rolled his eyes.

They barreled through a bunch of standard Christmas songs, and a couple of Hanukah classics; they chorus sounded good. Almost professional. It was a little scary. They had clearly been trained to look straight out in to the audience, but Gerard was mostly looking at his shoes. He was singing, at least, although he looked a little pale.

And then Guzman introduced kids who were singing solos; three seventh graders were singing Jingle Bell Rock, and then Gerard Way – Frank whistled again – was singing Silent Night. Some of the older kids were going through other songs. Brendon felt nervous on Gerard’s behalf.

All the way through the seventh graders Brendon couldn’t sit still. And then, when Gerard stepped down off the risers looking like he was about to throw up at any second, Brendon clutched the arms of the auditorium chair and bit his lip really hard. Brian looked pretty grim, too. The boys though, all looked totally confident, especially Frank.

Brendon held his breath while the piano started up. If Gerard passed out, Brendon planned to vault the seats ahead of him and grab him. Same deal if he threw up. Gerard was shaking a little bit.

But when Gerard opened his mouth, he sounded good. Better than good; he fucking owned the stage. Brendon’s mouth dropped open. Gerard’s voice was incredibly clear – he had a little more growl in it than Brendon would have expected – and he was hitting notes effortlessly that any high schooler would have flubbed. He couldn’t stay quite still, bobbing around a little as he sang, but who cared; he abruptly had so much presence everyone in the auditorium looked hypnotized. Brendon had wondered about giving a nervous ninth grader a solo. If this was what Mr. Guzman had seen during auditions, he was surprised Gerard didn’t have all the solos.

“Holy shit,” Brian whispered.

“Yeah,” Brendon whispered back.

The second Gerard’s song finished Frank was on his feet – on the chair – screaming and hollering. Brendon was clapping and yelling like crazy too, although he tried to restrain himself. Gerard’s face was totally pink and he looked down at his shoes, and then back up and waved really quickly at his family out in the audience.

“I forgot my fucking camera!” Brian realized, yelling over all the applause. “I totally suck.”

“Take some when you get home,” Brendon advised. “Damn. Did you know he was – ”

“A fucking natural,” Brian beamed. “No! Jesus!”

Gerard looked totally embarrassed – and also thrilled – by the applause, and snuck back to his spot in the chorus. He was clearly looking in to the audience trying to catch Mikey’s eye, and they went through some kind of twin-speak conversation Brendon couldn’t follow, before Mikey flopped back in to his chair and made Frank stop wolf-whistling. Brian clapped a little longer than everyone else, and when he eventually sat down his expression was beyond proud.

“Everyone else should just go home,” Brian whispered.

Brendon rolled his eyes. “Do not sign him up for any pageants,” he whispered back, and laughed when Brian looked like he was considering it for a second.

The instant the concert was over, and the kids went backstage, Frank pushed past everyone else to be the first one out of the aisle. Brendon caught him by the hood and kept him from actually bullying his way backstage. Frank waited impatiently. Mikey wasn’t doing much better, but at least he looked impatient mostly by crossing his arms, instead of jumping up and down. “Where is he?” Frank demanded at least three times before Gerard appeared.

Then, “You did so good!” Frank yelled, throwing himself at Gerard. They overbalanced and would have fallen in the aisle except Bob was there, pre-emptively behind Gerard.

“Yeah?” Gerard asked, ducking his head a little bit and blushing.

Brendon and Brian were not above using their relative height advantages to pry Frank off Gerard. “So awesome,” Brian said firmly, and hugged Gerard, who immediately squirmed away.

“Brian,” he complained, “god, not here.”

“Why can’t I hug you?” Brian demanded.

“Because,” Gerard explained.

“That better not apply to me,” Brendon ordered, and then hugged Gerard before he could explain that it did. In fact, he managed to hug Gerard so that he was pretty well smothered and couldn’t complain about anything anymore.

When he finally let the kid up for air, Gerard’s hair was sticking all over the place and he was flushed from trying to push away. “Oh my god,” he said, rolling his eyes. “It’s not that big a deal.”

“Really?” Bob asked. “Because you did throw up and everything.”

Ray and Frank burst out laughing. “I’m going to find Mr. Guzman,” Brian said.

“Don’t say anything embarrassing, Brian!” Gerard yelled. Brendon was pretty sure that there was nothing Brian could possibly say that Gerard wouldn’t claim later had been ‘embarrassing.’ It was one of the perks of being fourteen.

“Good job, Gee,” said Mikey. Gerard hugged him, which apparently didn’t fall under any subheading of ‘embarrassing.’ Kids, Brendon decided, were really fucking weird.

By the time they auditorium emptied out and Brian was done with his completely humiliating conversation with Mr. Guzman – Wasn’t Gerard pretty much the greatest kid ever? Wasn’t Gerard’s voice phenomenal? If Gerard got over his stage fright he could pretty much rule the world, right? – it was pitch black and freezing cold outside. “I’m giving you a ride to your dorm, and you can’t stop me,” Brian said firmly, and waited for Brendon to get in the car. “Plus, where the hell is your coat?”

“It’s not even that cold out, so I left it at home,” Brendon lied. Brian frowned. Eventually he was going to notice that Brendon never had a jacket with him, and he was going to be pissed, Brendon suspected. He stuck his hands in his pockets. “So I can just take the bus—”

Mikey popped his head out of the backseat. “Get in the car, oh my god,” he said, sounding exactly like Gerard. Frank and Bob and Ray were all piled in the backseat, which didn’t have enough seatbelts for that arrangement, and was causing some ferocious fighting about who was going to sit on a lap. Brendon felt ridiculous; Brian was giving a ride to half the ninth grade and also a college sophomore, who really should have had his own ride.

But he climbed in the front seat anyway – Gerard sat in the middle – and let Brian drive him back to campus. And it was weird, given how lonely and depressed he’d been feeling lately, but when the car pulled away with six people waving to him out the window, he got a sudden surge of Things might be all right after all. He waved back until Brian’s taillights faded, and then he stuck his hands in his pockets and headed inside, determined to really, seriously stop moping.

/ / / /

Monday after class, Brendon got back to his room and Andrew had written ‘HAVING SEX! STAY OUT’ on the whiteboard. Brendon almost opened the door anyway, but there were noises coming from inside, and they were honestly a little scary.

Even Andrew got to have sex with someone, he thought bitterly, and sat down in the hallway in a sulk.

He’d been so good all weekend; he hadn’t gone back to Brian’s office so he hadn’t thought about Ryan Ross more than once or twice or a thousand times a day. He’d kept his smile convincing enough that no one had asked him if was upset about something. If the weather had just been a little warmer, and if he’d had anyone on earth he could have talked to about the Ryan-Spencer situation, things would have been fine.

Brendon couldn’t just sit in the hallway forever, though; he had homework to do. His building didn’t have a fucking lounge, so he was going to have to across the quad to Fischer Lounge in Spencer’s building, where he might accidentally run in to Spencer. Brendon was having a lot of trouble implementing the “Make Spencer my new best friend” plan at the same time as the “Avoid Spencer and Ryan like they have the plague” plan. Avoiding Spencer had been a much higher priority all week.

It sucked. It totally, totally sucked. But Brendon was getting used to everything sucking all the time, so he scribbled ‘FUCK U’ on the door back to Andrew, who wouldn’t read it anyway, and hauled his giant bag over to Spencer’s building.

There were other kids sitting around in groups doing work and playing cards. Brendon would normally have introduced himself and maybe tried to convince some of them to let him play – shyness was a not a huge problem for him – but he didn’t have the energy. Plus, total strangers probably didn’t want to hear about his boy problems. Brendon had a headache, anyway.

He turned on his iPod and opened up his book. He had a couch by the window with plenty of room to curl up for a few hours until Andrew and whatever unspeakable skank he was with were done. There were two students making out on the other side of the lounge. Brendon scowled at them. He wished he could call Spencer up and bitch about stupid people. Spencer was probably hilarious when he was being mean.

When Brendon looked up from his book a couple of minutes later, there was Spencer with a whole group of friends. It was almost like he’d wished Spencer in to existence, except for the part where Brendon would have wished him to a deserted island really fucking far away instead. Sometimes it was honestly like Brendon was cursed.

The friends he was with had probably known Spencer had a boyfriend. They’d probably met Ryan. They’d all probably gone on giant horrible group dates. Brendon didn’t make a face, but only because he’d been practicing looking happy for a week now.

“Hey,” said Spencer, magically appearing in front of Brendon. “Christmas cookie?”

“Sure,” said Brendon. He hated everything about the holidays this year, but cookies were always good.

“What’s up?” Spencer said. He was pretty much ignoring his cool friends, which was nice. Brendon tried not to care, and totally failed at it. Why did Spencer have to go and be friendly when Brendon was busy hating him? It just made all the guilt worse.

“My roommate is having gross sex in my room,” Brendon said. “So I can’t so much be there.”

Spencer rolled his eyes. “At least he’s in a room. Look at those two on the couch. They’re practically sucking each other’s faces off. Gross.”

Brendon laughed. “You’d think one of them at least would have somewhere to go. And ewww, I think he just sucked her teeth out of her head.”

Spencer grinned and sat down on the couch. “It’s nice of them to share. Like free porn. But even worse, somehow. And boy, free porn would be really bad.”

Brendon’s phone trilled to life. It had a way of doing that when he wished it wouldn’t. This time, though, he didn’t mind; what the hell was he going to talk to Spencer about? How beautiful Ryan was? He smiled apologetically at Spencer, who shrugged. “What’s up?”

“Uh,” said Gerard. “Which building do you live in? I know Brian drove by it, but it was dark, and I can’t remember.”

Brendon super did not need this shit right now. “Where are you?” he asked, closing his eyes.

Gerard hesitated. “Shapiro? Shapiro Hall? Shapiro something, anyway. Is that close to where you are?”

“What are you doing here?” Brendon sighed, standing up. “Gerard! Does Brian know where you are? How did you get here? Why are you here? Are you crazy?”

“I’m not crazy,” Gerard scoffed. “Am I close to your room?”

Brendon clenched his hands in to fists. This was better, after all, than Gerard running away. “You’re on the sidewalk, right?” he asked. “Head downhill. I’m in the building that says Fischer Lounge. C’mon in.”

“What’s up?” Spencer asked curiously.

“Complicated… Uh, almost-family stuff,” Brendon said, because he couldn’t think of a better way to explain it. Spencer looked curious, and Gerard was going to be showing up in a couple of minutes and then Brendon was going to kill him. It seemed polite to try and summarize. “I babysat this summer for a guy who’d just adopted a couple of kids. They’re awesome and great and wonderful, but they’ve had kind of a rough time, and they uh… They can be unpredictable. I guess Gerard hopped a bus here or something.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m going to kill him and then take him home.”

Spencer just looked confused. “You babysit?” he said. “Really?”

“Yeah, it surprised me, too. But I ended up playing a lot of computer games with them, and teaching them guitar and stuff. It was a pretty good summer.” Hell, it had been, hadn’t it? It wasn’t really Brendon’s family, but he liked to pretend sometimes.

“Huh,” said Spencer. He looked like he was considering something.

Brendon’s phone rang again. By the time he’d answered it he saw Gerard outside anyway. The sky was getting dark and grey like it might rain at any minute. “Up here,” Brendon said. “See?” He waved. “Come on up.”

Gerard honestly didn’t look that out of place at college, with his crazy hair and his black hoodie under his jacket, just a little young. He lit up when he saw Brendon, and pulled off the giant winter coat Brian had insisted on buying him. “Hi,” he said breathlessly. “Wow, this campus is huge.”

“Sit,” Brendon ordered. “No, wait, don’t. What are you doing here? Does Brian know where you are right now? Who’s with Mikey? How did you get here? Are you kidding me?”

Gerard did not look even the slightest bit ashamed of himself. “I’m here to see you, no he doesn’t, Frank, by the bus, and no,” he said cheerfully.

“You took the bus by yourself, and Brian doesn’t know where you are?”

Gerard’s smile faded a little bit. “I’m not a baby,” he complained. “You and Brian are always treating me like a little kid. I can take a bus. I took care of me and Mikey for months, you know.” He crossed his arms.

Brendon knew. He didn’t want to think about it. “Oh my god,” he said. “Call Brian.”

“But I just got here!”

“Yeah, and if you don’t call Brian right this second and tell him where you are, I’m going to drag you home by the neck. Got it?”

Gerard pouted. “Brendon!” Brendon crossed his arms right back. They stared for a minute. Gerard cracked first, though; he threw his hands up in the air and dragged his phone out of his jacket. “Fine,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’ll call, and he won’t care, you’ll see.”

Brendon sat back down on the couch. Spencer was watching him intently. “You’re… Actually kind of responsible, huh?”

“Yeah,” Brendon said sourly. “That’s me. Mister mom.”

“—No, Brendon’s right here!” Gerard said. “He’s… No, I sent Mikey home with Frank… No, I’m fine. Ugh, Brian, I know, okay?” He stomped his foot. “I can take the bus by myself! Yes, I—Oh. But I just wanted to… Oh. No.” He sighed and sat down on Brendon’s table. “I’m sorry, then, I guess. Okay. Okay. I will. Bye.”

Brendon felt pretty smug. “Yeah?” he said.

Gerard sighed like a dying man. “He would never have been worried if you hadn’t made me call him,” he groaned, “and now he’s going to give me the ‘I worry about you’ speech. Again. Again, Brendon. That’s like three times this month.”

“Well, stop freaking out and he’ll stop lecturing you,” Brendon said reasonably. “Stop climbing on roofs and throwing up at school and traveling across the city without telling anyone where you’re going.”

“You’re having a pretty exciting December, huh?” Spencer said.

Gerard stared at him. Then he looked at Brendon, tilting his head. Gerard didn’t like most people he met, and he started off wary of absolutely all new people. It had taken Brendon an hour to get him to speak, and the only reason Gerard had ever started trusting him was because Mikey did.

Gerard clearly didn’t quite know what to make of Spencer. But he just looked at Brendon, waiting. Brendon hesitated. He was mad at Spencer, but not unforgivably so; as soon as Brendon dealt with the Ryan Problem he and Spencer were going to be BFF. He had no doubt Gerard would be mean to Spencer for him, but that wouldn’t lead to eternal friendship. Brendon nodded at Gerard, and that was apparently enough to make him relax and smile. Brendon felt pretty weirdly proud of that.

“Hi,” said Gerard, “I’m Gerard.”

“Spencer. Nice to meet you.”

“Any friend of Brendon’s is cool with me,” Gerard said firmly. Brendon winced a little and didn’t correct him. That was the eventual plan, after all.

“Right back at you,” Spencer said, not quite hiding his smile.

Brendon wasn’t really ready to have all the parts of his life crash together like this. “Did you want to talk about something?” he said. “Like how much trouble you’re in?”

“I’m grounded,” Gerard shrugged. In Gerard’s experience that was no punishment at all, and he didn’t take it very seriously. He’d be upset later, when he saw Brian’s disappointed face. That was the only thing that ever got to him. Brendon had practiced ‘disappointed with an edge of sternness’ in the mirror for a while, but he didn’t have it down like Brian did. Gerard said, “So how do you guys know each other?” He was staring at Spencer really hard.

“We have class together,” Spencer answered.

“Oh,” Gerard said. He considered that for a minute. “You’re lucky, then. Brendon is super smart and really awesome.” He crossed his arms and stared Spencer down.

Brendon kind of wanted to laugh, and he also wanted to rush Gerard away from Spencer as quickly as possible, before Gerard’s well-meaning haranguing made Spencer decide to never speak to him again. “So what’s up?” Brendon asked again.

They completely ignored him, because they were still looking at each other challengingly. “Yeah,” said Spencer finally. “He’s pretty cool.”

Brendon’s face was burning. “Oh my god,” he said. “Gerard. You want to – Why don’t we go somewhere. We can talk.” They couldn’t go to his room, though; Gerard was scarred for life enough without seeing gross roommate sex. “I know. We’ll go to the Starbucks and I’ll introduce you to my friend Jon. Plus, I can walk you to Brian’s work from there.”

“I can go home by myself.”

“Too bad.” Gerard made a huffy noise, but that was his default response to everything. He shrugged back in to his coat and Brendon put on both of the hoodies he’d been wearing.

He turned to apologize to Spencer for ditching him so quickly, but Spencer was putting on his jacket. “I could use a drink, too, if you’re not busy telling secrets,” he said, and smiled at Gerard. Gerard had apparently decided he was fine with Spencer, because he just shrugged and wandered across the lounge to stare at the cheesy Monet prints someone had hung up as decoration.

Brendon dragged him downstairs and outside, where it was still really cold. He was waiting for Gerard to explain why he’d hopped a bus all the way across town, but Gerard was more interested in asking Spencer about what classes he was taking. As soon as he found out Spencer was a drummer he started explaining who his favorite drummers were and in what order he and Frank had ranked them, based on Bob’s expertise. Spencer looked a little bemused, but he answered Gerard seriously, and without even rolling his eyes. They talked about Ringo Starr for a few minutes, while Brendon tagged along behind them, feeling jealous.

Brendon was entirely frozen by the time they got to Starbucks. He wanted to go in and get the biggest, hottest drink possible. Instead, he stopped because Jon was standing outside by the corner of the building, wearing his apron and not, like, a jacket. Was he trying to get pneumonia?

“Jon Walker, you are going to freeze to death,” Brendon said sternly.

Jon turned around, cradling something in his hands. He smiled at Brendon. “Hey, you want to be a lifesaver?” he asked, walking over.

Probably not if it involved being cold, but Gerard looked intrigued, and Spencer looked… Well, point of interest, Spencer looked a little like someone had hit him with a brick. “I guess?” Brendon said.

“Someone left this little guy behind the store,” Jon said, “and I’m on shift for another hour. Can you – Do you think you could watch him for a little bit? I can leave early, but I have stuff to finish up first.” The something in his hands shifted and stretched and meowed.

“Oh, shit,” said Gerard, eyes widening. “That is the tiniest kitten in the whole world.”

The tiny grey lump in Jon’s hands shifted again. It was all fluff and eyes and whiskers. “It’s so cold outside, and he’s not big enough to be on his own. I’m going to go get some milk,” Jon said. “Can you hold him? Do you mind?”

He handed the kitten-lump to Brendon before Brendon could respond. He couldn’t have said no, though; Gerard was staring with his heart all over his face. “Sure,” Brendon said. The little cat was warm in his hands, which was nice.

Jon flashed him a giant, grateful smile, which was nicer. “I’ll be right back,” he promised, and went in to the store.

“Can I… Can I see?” Gerard asked. Brendon moved his hands down. Gerard reached out hesitantly and brushed his fingers against the fur for a second. “He’s really soft,” he said quietly.

The kitten shifted, tiny-needle claws digging in to Brendon’s hands. He winced. “Not all of him is soft,” he said.

Spencer looked dumbstruck. “That’s your friend at Starbucks?” he asked.

“Yeah, that’s Jon. He hooks me up with drinks and cookies and stuff sometimes.” The kitten opened its mouth and made a tiny yowling noise that made Brendon want to cry.

Gerard petted the kitten again, while it complained. Then he sneezed. “Why would someone just leave him out here?” Gerard asked. “That’s not fair. People suck.”

Brendon considered really hard before he answered, because there were layers to that question when Gerard asked it. “Some people suck,” he agreed, “and do nasty things like that. But what’s important is that people like you and me and Jon all care and try to help.”

Gerard rolled his eyes. “I’m not stupid, Brendon,” he said. “I know I’m not a lost kitten.” He petted it again, wrinkling up his nose like he was staving off as sneeze. “How is he so cute?”

“He’s a kitten. That’s what they do,” Brendon said. “You want to hold him?”

Jon came back out wearing his coat, and holding a cardboard box and a paper cup of milk. “Hey, thanks,” he said. “Look at this poor little guy.” He had a couple of towels in the box. The kitten protested a little when he was moved, but he was excited about the milk, and he kneaded the towel a little before he curled up and went back to sleep.

“Look at him,” Gerard said again, and sneezed.

Brendon frowned. “Are you allergic to cats?” he asked.

“I’m just cold,” Gerard scowled. “I’m not allergic to anything.”

Jon looked up from kitten-rescue duty to flash a smile at them. “So by the way, I’m Jon,” he said. “You must be Brendon’s… brothers?”

Gerard looked flattered. Spencer looked alarmed. “This is Spencer, he’s my partner for the crusades thing,” Brendon explained quickly. “And this is Gerard. He’s… complicated.”

Gerard fucking beamed. “I am,” he assured Jon.

Jon was crouching over the box he’d put on the ground, and he had to tip his head up and squint through his eyelashes to look up at them. Well, to look at Spencer. “Hi,” he said. “I’ve heard about you.”

Brendon had a moment of absolute panic where he thought he might have mentioned the entire Brendon-Ryan-Spencer Clusterfuck Of Doom. It wasn’t until Spencer’s cheeks flared pink and he stuttered, “Really? Brendon kept you kind of a secret,” that Brendon realized they were flirting.

Right in-fucking-front of him. Couldn’t Brendon meet anyone nice who didn’t love Spencer Smith more than him? What kind of fucked up relationship did Ryan and Spencer have, where neither one of them could keep from flirting with the entire world?

Now, if Brendon could just get Spencer to break up with Ryan so he could have Ryan all to himself and Spencer was happy because he had Jon and Ryan was happy because he had Brendon and Brendon didn’t have to die of guilt –

No. That required entirely too much planning, and Brendon had been really tired lately. He scowled briefly at Spencer, who didn’t notice at all. He was busy smiling at Jon like a big cheating, hypocritical idiot. “Ahem,” Brendon said firmly to Spencer.

It took Spencer a minute to register. “What?” he said, and then, “Oh, fuck.”

Gerard sneezed again. “You’re totally allergic,” Jon laughed.

“I am not!” Gerard said. His eyes were getting a little red, and his nose was running, but that might have been from the cold. Brendon was pretty sure it was the cat though, which would put a crimp in Mikey’s secret stare-at-Brian-with-giant-sad-eyes-until-I-get-a-pet plan.

Brendon was freezing. “You guys can stay and watch the cat,” he said, still frowning at Spencer, “but I’m going to go in and get coffee.”

“No, it’s cool. I’m taking him home,” Jon said. “My roommates are going to be pretty surprised, I think, but I can’t leave him out here where it’s cold, right?”

“Definitely not,” Gerard said, and sniffled, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

Jon picked up the box. “Thanks,” he said. “Hey, Brendon, our gig is going to be right after Christmas. You should come. And uh, you should come, too,” he said, grinning at Spencer.

Spencer had been staring at Jon with a ridiculous, inappropriate look of longing on his face. He dropped his eyes to the sidewalk hastily when Jon looked up. His face was red again. “Uh,” Spencer said finally. “Yeah. You have a band? I’ll be there. I mean, we’ll be there.”

“You, and me, and Ryan,” Brendon interrupted.

Spencer looked at him and flinched. “Right,” he said. “Ryan should come, too. He loves live music.”

“I want to come, too,” Gerard said.

“You’re grounded,” Brendon pointed out. Also, he wanted to keep Gerard as far as possible from this imploding social situation he was involved in. With his current luck, Gerard would fall in love with Ryan, too, and spend all of high school pining away for the same boy Brendon was pining for, while Spencer fucking flirted with Jon.

“But I might not be by Christmas,” Gerard argued.

Jon and Spencer were ignoring them in favor of smiling at each other dopily. Brendon wanted to throw up. “So, I’ll see you around,” Jon said. He shifted the box and the kitten mewled unhappily.

“Bye,” said Spencer. He was still staring when Jon disappeared around the corner.

“I’m cold,” Gerard said, tugging on Brendon’s arm.

Brendon was busy glaring at Spencer, who didn’t even have the decency to be ashamed of himself. “Coffee?” he asked pointedly.

“Yeah,” Spencer said, shaking his head. “Sure.” He followed them in to the store. Gerard was an enthusiastic, if disorganized, orderer. Brendon always got the same thing anyway. And Spencer seemed oddly distracted. “Is Jon part of your fictional future band?” Spencer asked when they sat down.

“Totally,” Brendon said. He wasn’t even sure what Jon played, but as long as it wasn’t drums they’d work it out. Or, shit, he could play the tambourine for all Brendon cared.

“Oooh, can I be in the band?” Gerard asked. “I can sing.”

“You’re too young to get in to the clubs,” Brendon said, blithely ignoring the fact that he was, too, for another year.

Gerard looked pouty, and Spencer crossed his arms. “That’s what you want, right?” Spencer said. Brendon couldn’t figure out his tone. “An excuse to go hang out in clubs and bars and fuck around?”

Kind of, yes, but Brendon wasn’t sure why Spencer sounded so mad. “Yeah,” he said. “That doesn’t sound like a good time to you?” He frowned.

“No,” Spencer snapped. “I don’t drink.” He’d been super happy thirty seconds earlier, and now he looked like a thundercloud.

Next time Brendon decided to go out – if he ever forgot the horror of that last hangover – maybe he could take Spencer along. That would definitely keep him from having too many. Now was not the time to mention that, though; Spencer looked epically pissy.

“Yeah, neither does Ryan, right?” Brendon said breezily instead. “He mentioned that.”

Spencer said, “Yeah, maybe you should think about it.”

“What?” Brendon asked.

“Nothing. Never mind. I’m going to head back so you guys can talk,” Spencer said. “Nice to meet you, Gerard.”

“You, too,” Gerard said. He’d apparently forgotten he was pouting about not being in the band. Spencer glared at Brendon again – what the hell? – and left.

“That was weird,” Brendon grumbled. Then he noticed that Gerard was looking fidgety about something. “So what did you come all the way across town to tell me?” he asked. “Is it about Christmas again? Did you talk to Brian?”

Gerard stared really hard at his hot chocolate and shook his head. “I’m going to,” he said. “Eventually. I’m working on it.”

Brendon groaned and tipped his chair back. Someone was warbling restyled Christmas carols over the stereo in the background, and it was making him homesick. “You have to talk to Brian,” he said. “Please don’t make me do it.”

“I will,” Gerard said. “I just… Brendon… Hey, can I ask you about something?”

Brendon looked at him. “Sure,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“Um,” said Gerard, kicking his sneakers against the table. “Can I ask you something that’s kind of… Personal? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want, to, though. I don’t… You don’t have to answer.”

“Go ahead,” Brendon offered. He couldn’t think of anything Gerard might ask that he wouldn’t be willing to talk about.

Gerard took a deep breath. “Did you ever have a crush on someone?” he asked hesitantly, and looked up at Brendon.

“Yeah,” said Brendon, resolutely not thinking about Ryan Ross and his stupid gorgeous face.

“Okay, well… Was that person ever… Did you ever have a crush on a boy?” Gerard said. And then he immediately said, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I’m just wondering and sometimes people don’t want to talk about stuff or whatever because it’s personal—”

Brendon had never actually come out to anyone he cared about before. It was weird. It made his chest feel all tingly. “Yeah,” he said. “All of my crushes have been on boys, actually. And it’s okay for you to ask me about this stuff, Gee. Really.”

“Oh, good,” Gerard sighed. He was still fidgeting in his chair, though. Did Gerard have a crush on someone, Brendon wondered, and then realized of course Gerard did. Gerard had a giant, life-altering crush on Frank. The entire conversation began making a lot more sense.

“Did you tell anyone?” Gerard asked. “Like, was your family mad? Or your friends?”

Brendon winced. “I never actually told them,” he said. “My family is really religious. They had a lot of… Rules about that kind of thing. I spent a long time trying to follow all their rules, and make them happy. I went on dates with girls. But I couldn’t… It wasn’t who I really was. I didn’t want to pretend, I guess.” He shrugged. It was probably good that Gerard was asking about this today, when it wasn’t the most painful thing ever. It was only maybe the tenth most painful thing, way down the list after Ryan and Spencer and seeing all the stupid Christmas decorations up on the lamp posts just like they would be at home.

Gerard was looking at him, horrified. “But family… They’re supposed to love you no matter what you do!” he protested. “That’s the whole… That’s the entire point of family!”

Brendon basically agreed, when he didn’t feel like crawling back home and promising he’d be good from now on if they’d just let him stay. He shrugged again. “It’s kind of why I left,” he said. The empty space in his chest that was always there lately felt especially twisted up and painful. “I needed a chance to be myself.”

“Oh,” Gerard nodded. “Okay. I wondered if… I mean, I thought, maybe. But… You know we love you anyway, right?” he asked anxiously. “Me and Brian and Mikey don’t care.”

Brendon took a drink to hide the fact that he was in danger of bursting in to tears. How the hell was he supposed to respond to that? He looked deliberately at the wall instead of Gerard and said, “Is this related to something, Gee? Do you have a crush?”

Gerard shook his head really quickly, but his face was red. “Nah,” he said, trying for casual and missing by a million miles. “Not me. The kids at school call me a fag sometimes, but I don’t care. I was mostly just wondering… Um. About stuff. Not gay stuff! Just… Stuff. And I know, it’s not about anyone else’s expectations, it’s about mine, and I can be whatever I want, and blah blah blah.” He rolled his eyes really hard.

Brendon laughed. Clearly Gerard was getting something out of therapy, if he was quoting it so comfortably. “Do I need to go to school and kick some ass?” Brendon asked. Some of those kids from the concert had been way bigger than he was, but he was willing to give it a shot.

“No,” Gerard said, rolling his eyes. “Please don’t. I already spend, like, half the day keeping Frank from punching anyone.”

Brendon decided not to point out Frank’s glaringly obvious crush on Gerard, either. “Let me know,” he said. “I’m little, but I’m scrappy.”

Gerard giggled in to his hot chocolate and changed the subject to Mikey’s friend Pete, who’d recently set the class fish tank on fire. No one was sure how he’d managed it, but it was all the gossip in Frank’s class. And then Gerard mentioned – trying to sound nonchalant and failing – that he was planning to audition for the spring musical. Brendon barely managed not to burst out laughing. He mentally started penciling in days to spend talking Gerard down from all of his upcoming nervous breakdowns.

They walked over to Brian’s office, where Brian greeted them with crossed arms and a stern expression that he couldn’t really keep up when Gerard explained earnestly that he just wanted to talk to Brendon privately and he was sorry. Brian folded almost immediately and said it was fine, as long as Gerard called first next time and asked permission. Then they beamed at each other. Brendon abruptly, and with no particular context, missed his dad again. It was weird. Gerard went in to the back to talk to Gabe, who for some reason he didn’t find scary at all.

“You don’t mind, do you?” Brian asked Brendon. “I know you didn’t sign up full-time big brothering with us.”

“Nah, I enjoy it,” Brendon said, and shrugged. He wasn’t going to mention to Brian just how much he enjoyed being someone Gerard wanted to talk to. Brian would probably start worrying about him.

“I want Gerard to feel like he has people he can trust and he can confide in, since he thinks I’m too old and shit. Artsy people. I’ve thought about introducing him to Ryan, actually. I could just let them be weird at each other for a while.”

It was funny, but it was also a little painful. Brendon tried not to flinch. Now that he thought about it, there were some similarities between Gerard and Ryan. Brendon wondered if Ryan was as fragile as Gerard was, and if so, was anyone watching out for him the way Brian had Gerard’s back? Not Spencer, who was flirting with Jon when Ryan wasn’t around. It made Brendon mad.

“Ryan’s cool,” Brendon shrugged, because Brian didn’t really need to know just how many hours a day Brendon spent thinking about Ryan Ross and his fucked-up love life.

“Ryan’s weird,” Brian sighed. “Weird, but smart, and he works hard, and I think he might be some kind of alien super genius. I’m a little afraid to ask about the makeup, you know? But I guess it’s his thing, and when I was his age I had already started getting tattoos and shit my mom thought was insane.”

Brendon frowned. “I thought maybe you didn’t like him,” Brendon said, remembering Ryan’s face on Thanksgiving, when he talked about Brian.

Brian shook his head. “First I figured Gabe was nuts for wanting to hire him, but it turned out to be a good fucking idea, and he’s… Well. The bands all love him. He makes me feel old, but that’s not his fault. So do you.”

“C’mon,” said Brendon. “Just because when I was born you were already almost in high school…”

“Dude,” said Brian, “I will pay you not to joke about that anymore.”

“Who’s joking?” Brendon asked innocently. Brian threw a paper ball at him. Brendon grinned.

Ryan stuck his head around the corner. Seeing him, after spending time with Spencer, was a lot like getting punched. Or, no – it felt more like this one time in sixth grade when a kid had pulled the chair out from under Brendon as he was sitting, and he’d landed so hard he couldn’t breathe. It was just like that.

Ryan had crazy blue eyeshadow painted across his face like a blindfold. Brendon was never going to get to smudge it all off during a wild make-out session, and that realization made it hurt even more when Brendon tried to breathe normally. He couldn’t manage a smile.

“Brian? Are you busy?” Ryan asked in his standard monotone. “Because there’s a drummer on the phone who claims he got set on fire at the video shoot, and –”

“I’m coming,” Brian grimaced. “Can you come in tomorrow, Brendon?”

Brendon didn’t look at Ryan, so he couldn’t get nervous. “Sure,” he said. “And I’ll come by the house Friday.”

“Band concert Thursday,” Brian reminded him, and went to the back.

Ryan was standing in the hallway, arms crossed, watching Brendon. Brendon wondered if he was going to say something about Spencer, or about the kiss. Instead, after a long minute, Ryan said, “You’re really part of the family, huh?”

Brendon felt blindsided. “I’m just the babysitter,” he said awkwardly. “I guess… I mean, the kids are pretty fond of me.” Ryan had to stop saying things, especially nice things. It wasn’t fair.

Ryan made a frowny noise. And then he waited, like he wanted Brendon to say something else, but Brendon didn’t have anything to say that wasn’t, “Don’t you feel guilty about me?” or, “Your boyfriend’s just as fucked up as you are.” He couldn’t actually manage to say either of those, though, so he didn’t say anything.

There was a long, awkward pause. “Okay,” said Ryan finally. “I’m going back to work.”

“Good,” Brendon replied. He crossed his arms and stared hard at the floor. Ryan hesitated again, and then finally shrugged and walked away.

Everything kept on hurting. Brendon took a minute to remember how to breathe.

\ \ \ \ \

Andrew had gross sex again the next day, and the next. Okay, Brendon was assuming the “gross” part, but it had to be, didn’t it? He spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday at work trying to avoid Ryan, which turned out to be easy; Ryan didn’t come out to talk to him, and Brendon didn’t go in to the back. It broke Brendon’s heart a little bit more that it wasn’t even hard to avoid Ryan. Ryan clearly wasn’t thinking about Brendon much. It wasn’t fair. Brendon couldn’t stop.

He was waiting to stop feeling bad about it all the time, but his only distractions were Spencer – not very helpful, especially when Spencer was in a bad mood – and Mikey’s concert. Mikey, Frank, Bob, and Ray’s concert, actually. Brendon sat in the audience with Gerard and Brian and listened to fourteen slightly out-of-tune holiday songs. Ray played an acoustic guitar solo, and was generally amazing. Mikey mostly played the tambourine, which didn’t stop Gerard from standing on a chair to cheer because his brother was obviously the greatest tambourine player of all time. All four boys knew how to play the guitar, but three of them had been relegated to the percussion section, where Frank seemed to spend most of his time trying to knock over Bob’s drums without the conductor noticing. Afterwards Brendon got to shake awkward hands with Ray and Bob’s parents. Frank’s mom hugged him. It was nice, if incredibly awkward.

It was cold as fuck Friday when Brendon got over to Brian’s house. His throat had been killing him lately, and it hurt to breathe the frigid air. He pulled further down in to his hoodie.

Mikey wanted to play World of Warcraft, and Brendon was always down for a few rounds of ass-kicking. Gerard lay on the floor with a sketch pad, kicking his feet in the air, drawing Mikey-the-troll eating people’s heads. Brendon worried about that kid sometimes.

An hour or so in to the game Brendon looked up from the screen because his eyes hurt, and noticed what was going on outside. “Holy shit, you guys!” he crowed. “It’s snowing!”

Gerard looked puzzled. “So?” he said. “It’s December.”

“No, it’s like… It’s snowing! A lot!” Brendon walked over to the window. It must have been snowing for a while, because the whole front yard had turned white, and it was piling up a little bit on bare tree branches. This was part of why he’d decided to go to college on the east coast. That, and the fact that it was an escape from his family, who didn’t understand him, and were never going to. He swallowed hard.

Gerard and Mikey exchanged some sort of “Brendon is crazy” look. “The weather report said it was going to snow,” Gerard said reasonably. “It’s not that exciting.”

Maybe not for them, but it had barely snowed at all last winter, and Brendon hadn’t had any snow at all for eighteen years before that. Possibly he also badly needed a distraction from his own thoughts, circling around Christmas and Ryan and Christmas and Ryan. “Yes, it is,” he insisted. “Hey, is that enough snow for snowballs?”

Again, Mikey and Gerard looked at each other first. “Maybe,” Gerard said slowly. “But only if you’re really desperate.”

“I am,” Brendon said firmly. “Get up. We’re going to have a snowball fight.”

“Why?” Mikey asked. “It’s cold outside.”

“Because I’ve never had one, and I want one,” Brendon said, pulling him out of his chair. “Come on.”

Mikey and Gerard grumbled the whole way down, but they put on their coats and hats and mittens obligingly enough. When they got outside the first thing Brendon did was stuff a handful of snow down the back of Gerard’s coat, which made Mikey giggle, so Gerard had to tackle him in to the snow, and they both ended up totally coated. It was falling like crazy, coming down in big giant puffy flakes. Brendon turned his face up and caught some in his mouth, like people did in the movies. It was more cold than really satisfying, but at least now he’d done it.

“Think fast!” Gerard yelled, scraping together a little snowball and throwing it at Brendon. He was normally a really lousy shot, but the snow caught Brendon in the face and exploded everywhere.

“Oh, it’s on,” Brendon yelled back. The snow wasn’t really heavy enough for good snowballs, but it worked just fine when he sat on Gerard and smushed it in his face while Gerard giggled and squirmed. Mikey was watching them from a few feet away, looking disapproving – and dry – so Brendon let Gerard up and grabbed Mikey instead, rubbing snow in his hair. That meant Gerard and Mikey had to gang up on him, throwing snow absolutely everywhere.

Brendon was just starting to get painfully cold when Brian pulled up. “Snow massacre, huh?” he said.

“I think we won!” Gerard replied cheerfully. His face was totally red and his teeth were starting to chatter.

“I think we’re frozen,” Mikey muttered. “I’m going inside.”

“Go take a hot shower,” Brian ordered. Gerard made a face, but he was shivering pretty hard. Brian looked at Brendon and frowned. “Where the hell is your jacket, Urie?” he asked. “Aren’t you cold?”

Brendon was frozen solid. “I’m fine,” he said, trying not to shake. “This was awesome. Is it going to keep snowing? Are we going to get snowed in? Is there going to be a blizzard?” He couldn’t help sounding pretty excited about it.

Brian was still frowning. “Inside,” he said. “All of you. I need to talk to Brendon.”

They trooped inside, Gerard chattering happily to Mikey about the snow fort they were going to build if it kept snowing. Mikey looked dubious. Brian sent them upstairs to change and get warm. Then he grabbed Brendon by the arm and made him sit down on the couch.

Brendon felt a little bit like he was in trouble, but he had no idea why. “What’s up?” he asked. “Something happen at work?”

“Kind of.” Brian looked at him for a minute, and then sighed. “I had the weirdest conversation with Ryan Ross today,” he said.

Oh, god, was it even remotely possible Ryan had talked to Brian about… Oh, god. Brendon was going to be sick. “Yeah?” he asked weakly. “Huh.”

“We were talking about the holiday break and then he said something about... Hey. You know you’re not just a babysitter here, right?”

Brendon’s stomach flopped. “What?” he asked. He was shaking because he was cold, he told himself firmly. Not for any other reason.

“Ryan said you said something about not feeling like part of the family here, and I told him he was wrong. Because I figured you have to know, Brendon, that you’re completely… Well, I guess I should have been more explicit about it, like I was with Gerard. You’d think I’d have learned this lesson by now.”

“I’m not Gerard,” Brendon said, a little stung. He wasn’t some lonely little kid, after all. It was a completely different situation.

“Yeah,” Brian agreed. “You hide it a lot better. Listen, I don’t know how you missed this, but you got adopted, too. By us. As much as I got Mikey and Gerard, they got you. And I’m pretty sure if they heard you calling yourself ‘just a babysitter’ they’d freak out, so… You should cut that out.”

Brendon stared at him. His heart was racing and he wasn’t sure why. He shook his head, trying to figure out what Brian was even saying – Brendon had a family, and he’d lost them, and he couldn’t take Brian’s just because it was there.

“This whole Thanksgiving and Christmas thing,” Brian went on slowly, and Brendon couldn’t stop his flinch. “It’s been kind of hard on you, huh? Being out here, without your family?”

“No,” said Brendon. His voice sounded oddly shaky. He leaned forward, arms on his knees, and tried to concentrate on making it stop.

Brian sighed and rubbed his hand against his forehead. “I did notice,” he said, sounding pretty mad at himself. “I knew you were acting weird. But so was Gerard, and he’s a lot more likely to totally melt down when he’s upset, so I kind of didn’t… Brendon. God, I’m sorry. You could have come over, you could have told me. How can you have Gerard so figured out, and no idea how we feel about you?”

“I’m not… I didn’t want to…” Brendon started. His eyes were stinging, and his throat was totally closing off. He wasn’t going to cry in front of Brian, he wasn’t. He just had to get Brian to stop saying crazy, stupid things.

Brian shook his head. “I’ve learned a trick for when Gerard gets that same look on his face,” he said firmly. “I mean, usually I call you, but that’s not going to work this time, so. When Gerard goes off the rails and looks like he’s about to cry, or he forgets how much we love him, this is what seems to work.” He put an arm around Brendon’s shoulders and tugged him over, until Brendon was leaning against Brian and Brian was…

Brian was hugging him.

“I’m not fourteen,” Brendon said. Why couldn’t he stop his voice from hiccupping like that? “I’m not Gerard.”

“I know,” Brian said quietly, not letting go. “But I think this might work anyway. We love you, Brendon.”

It was crazy, because no one had hugged Brendon in a really long time – no one who counted, anyway – and he’d forgotten what it was like to have someone warm and solid and right there who apparently loved you and didn’t care that you were on the brink of tears. Oh, fuck; Brendon was totally crying. He hadn’t let himself realize how completely he’d been drowning in loneliness until someone else went and pointed it out. He tried to pull away before Brian noticed, but Brian was pretty determined with his whole hugging plan. “I’m sorry,” Brendon said uselessly.

“Why don’t you have a winter coat?” Brian asked, totally ignoring him. “I mean, I thought you were just leaving it at home, but you clearly don’t have one. Didn’t you think that we would notice? I go crazy making sure the boys are warm enough.”

“I was going to,” Brendon tried to say. “I keep forgetting.” He was clinging to Brian a little bit, but Brian wasn’t objecting.

“You’re an idiot,” Brian said fondly. “Honest to god, Brendon, you’re an idiot.”

Brendon couldn’t argue with that while he was still crying. He wasn’t even sure why he was crying, except Brian was still hugging him and Brendon felt like everything he’d been holding inside for the last two years was crashing down around him. How had he survived two years feeling like that? “I didn’t mean to,” he said, which didn’t make any sense. Brian nodded anyway. “I just haven’t talked to them, and you were all happy and I didn’t want to interrupt, and the boys needed me, which was nice, but it wasn’t—”

“Yeah,” said Brian. “I know. Hey. It’s okay.”

Brian didn’t know, he couldn’t possibly know, but it was nice to hear. Brendon wasn’t even sure what he’d been talking about. “I’m sorry,” he said again, trying to get himself under control.

“Stop that,” Brian ordered. “You don’t have to be sorry about anything, Brendon. Honestly. We love you, and we should have made sure you knew that sooner.”

“I’m not Gerard,” Brendon said again. “I don’t need – ” He lost his breath and had to take another long, shuddering breath. “I don’t need you to say that.”

“I think you do,” Brian said. “And that’s really okay. You told me the first time I met you that you’d lost your family. It just took you a while to realize you’d found a new one.”

That started Brendon crying again, and he couldn’t even pretend he wasn’t. He tried to hide a little against Brian’s shoulder. Brian didn’t seem to care, but Brendon felt ridiculous. He wished he could stop. Mikey had insisted he was family, and Ryan had rolled his eyes and told him Brian talked about him all the time but he’d... He’d assumed they were both lying, or trying to cheer him up, and he was honestly never going to be able stop crying at this rate.

Loud footsteps upstairs warned him that Gerard and Mikey were heading in to the living room. Brendon sniffled and pulled away, and Brian let him a little bit. He kept an arm around Brendon, though, and Brendon didn’t really mind.

Mikey and Gerard stopped on the stairs, staring. They were both wet, but probably from melting snow, not showers. “Is Brendon okay?” Gerard demanded. He sounded both worried and angry. “Brian, did you say something to him?”

“I’m fine,” Brendon assured him, wiping the last couple of tears off his face.

“Brian,” Gerard repeated.

Brian laughed. “Everything’s okay, except Brendon doesn’t have a winter jacket,” he said. “So we’re going to the mall to take him shopping.”

“No,” Brendon said, “You don’t have to do that. It’s okay.”

“Oooh, I want a giant pretzel,” Mikey said, pushing past Gerard to get to the couch. He frowned at Brendon. “I knew you didn’t have a coat. You’re supposed to have a coat.”

“I’m from the desert,” Brendon tried to explain. “We don’t have snow there.”

“But you’re here now, duh,” said Gerard, and rolled his eyes. “He needs mittens, too.”

“And probably a hat,” Brian agreed.

Brendon couldn’t decide if he was more embarrassed or relieved or totally in love with all of them. “I have a hat,” he said. He felt a little dizzy. “And I can get my own jacket,” he said.

“Obviously not,” said Brian. He and Gerard nodded to each other. Gerard turned and grabbed his and Mikey’s jackets off the floor. “Big pretzels for everyone,” Brian announced, ushering them all out to the car.

It was still snowing. Brendon could feel his cheeks freezing where they were still damp. “Shotgun,” he said. He barely sounded like he’d been crying anymore. This whole afternoon was totally absurd. Wonderful, and weird, and utterly, amazingly absurd. He had a real snowfall and a crazy-but-real replacement family who wanted him. Brendon felt like he’d been hit by a car. He felt better than he had been in years.

\ \ \ \ \ \

Brendon had promised to go in to the office over the weekend for a couple of hours and help out, but when he woke up Saturday morning he felt awful. He had a band rehearsal, too, and some writing stuff to do with Spencer. He sat up the whole room went swimmy and sideways, so Brendon laid down again. If he went to sleep for a couple more hours, he reasoned, he’d be better enough to go do all those things.

Instead, the next time he woke up he couldn’t breathe. His nose was totally clogged and his throat felt like it was on fire. He sneezed a few times, and every time stars exploded behind his eyes and his throat hurt worse. Brendon mumbled something incoherent even to himself, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

The door banged open and the lights came on. Brendon moaned and tried to pull the blanket up over his head. “Dude,” said Andrew’s too-loud voice, “are you still in bed? That’s hard core!”

“I’m sick,” Brendon said, under the blanket. “I think I’m dying.”

“Oh,” said Andrew. He sat down and started messing around with his laptop. “That sucks.”

“Can you get me a box of tissues?” Brendon asked. His voice sounded ridiculous; scratchy and phlegmy and raw.

“I’ll bring some tomorrow. I’m going to my girlfriend’s,” Andrew said. He shoved some stuff in his bag. “But when I get back, dude, for sure.”

Brendon couldn’t decide if he was happy that Andrew was leaving – blessed quiet to die in – or pissed that Andrew was as empathetic as a rock. “I’m dying,” he said again.

“Nah,” said Andrew, shrugging. “Probably not. You should go down to health services if you feel that shitty. Don’t be a drama queen. Hey, I’ll see you.” He left. Brendon tried to go back to sleep.

Later – an hour? Three hours? a year? – his phone rang. Brendon put the pillow over his head and waited for it to stop. It was not possible that anyone had ever been this sick before in the entire history of the universe. He had the plague. He had mad cow disease. He had something that was making his entire body ache like he’d gotten beaten up by the football team, combined with that wicked hangover from a couple weeks ago.

He ran out of tissues and was reduced to trying to reuse them without getting horrible killer plague snot all over his fingers. Sniffling really hard helped a little bit, until it made him cough, and then it was so much worse that Brendon couldn’t believe he hadn’t already died.

Which, of course, was when he realized he was about to throw up. Brendon rolled out of bed – the whole room was swaying, was it supposed to be doing that? – and staggered down the hallway to the bathroom, where he proceeded to throw up everything he’d ever eaten. For the record, throwing up while you couldn’t breathe was even more wretched than regular old throwing up. Brendon vowed to never do it again if he survived.

At least the dorm was mostly empty because it was Saturday, and there was no one staring at him or asking if he was okay. Brendon absolutely did not have the energy to lie. He barely had the energy to rinse out his mouth and struggle back to his room.

He got back in to bed and closed his eyes, waiting for death. Death was clearly the next step. Death was the only way he would ever feel better again. Except Death, at this point, would probably only come near him if he provided a hazmat suit. Brendon started giggling, and then stopped again, because his throat and his head and his everything.

Possibly he fell asleep again. It was definitely light outside suddenly. Brendon curled up in a ball and tried not to cough, or sniffle, or do anything else that might involve moving, because he was definitely going to die soon.

His phone was ringing again. “No,” croaked Brendon sternly to the phone, but it didn’t stop; when the ABBA song finally ended and he closed his eyes, it started right back up again. And then again ten seconds after that. Brendon moaned and flailed around with one hand on his desk until he found the phone and flipped it open. “Nnnn?” he said.

There was a pause. “Jesus,” said Brian. “Are you okay?”

“I have the flu,” said Brendon. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to pretend everything was fine – whining was no way to stay in Brian’s affections – or burst in to tears at Brian again until he came over and made everything better. Brendon was a youngest child; he wanted to be babied, damn it. Except, in Brian’s family, he was kind of an oldest child, and they were supposed to be stoic and self-reliant.

Brian was talking, and Brendon had totally missed part of it feeling sorry for himself. “—where the hell you were yesterday. Why didn’t you call? Gabe kept speculating about how long before you showed up as a ‘ripped from the headlines’ corpse on CSI.”

Yesterday? It was Sunday already? Fuck. “Sorry,” Brendon croaked. “I fell asleep.”

“You sound awful,” Brian said. “Are you okay? Do you need someone to come check on you?”

Please, god, yes, that would be wonderful. “No,” said Brendon. “I’m okay. I’m just gonna sleep.” To sleep, perchance to dream. And in that sleep of death what dreams might come? Dreams of breathing, please, god.

Brian made an unhappy noise. “Are you sure? You sound awful. And we just had that long talk about you not being an idiot, Brendon.”

“I’m fine,” Brendon said. “I’m just… I’m gonna hang up and go back to sleep now. Okay, bye.” Brian was still talking but Brendon clicked the phone shut and turned it off so it couldn’t ring again. He couldn’t concentrate enough to lie to Brian, or even carry on a normal conversation. He had a vague idea that he was allowed to be needy and pathetic around Brian now, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. Luckily, if he died soon, he’d never have to worry about it.

Brendon closed his eyes again. He couldn’t swallow, and he’d started coughing, which was making his whole body shake, which made his head hurt worse. This was some kind of fucked up, epic sickness that would probably kill everyone on campus. He needed a plan to get to the health-services building, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t make it to the door of the dorm. It was all snowy outside, too; he’d probably fall in a snowdrift and wouldn’t get found until spring. Somewhere in the middle of planning – he could call 911 and get a ride in an ambulance from one end of the campus to the other – he fell asleep again.

A banging noise woke him up. Brendon frowned and put a pillow over his head, but it wouldn’t stop. “Go away,” he tried to say, but his voice had mostly given out and his throat hurt like a son of a bitch, so it was more croak and less order. And for some reason the banging got louder, so it apparently wasn’t just in his head.

With supreme, amazing, superhuman effort Brendon got out of bed and over to the door. The room dipped and spun and his stomach voiced its protest by threatening to make him throw up all over everything again. “What?” he managed, pulling the door open and almost falling on his face.

He’d expected Andrew without his keys, or maybe Brian in a fit of parental over-protection. It totally wasn’t either of them.

“Hey,” said Ryan, frowning. “You look like shit.”

Brendon couldn’t argue that point. He couldn’t do much of anything, actually, except stare and hope Ryan wasn’t really at his door. Maybe this was the vision his brain had produced when it ran out of oxygen, because he was actually dying right now. Ryan was wearing his insane coat, and he had stars and birds painted on his cheek, and he was holding a giant paper bag. It made absolutely no sense, and the more times Brendon ran through it in his mind – Ryan. At the door. Ryan? At the door? – the less sense it made.

“Are you okay? Jesus,” said Ryan. “Go lie down.”

“I was lying down,” Brendon protested. “You… knocked. Why did you knock?”

Ryan took Brendon’s hand off the doorknob and pushed him back toward the bed. Brendon wanted to protest that he was just fine, thank you, except he was pretty sure he was about to fall over. He sat down on his bed and grimaced. At least, he thought bitterly, he could be humiliatingly, disgustingly sick around Ryan, and it wouldn’t make his prospects for dating him any worse. Spencer probably never got hideously sick like this. Stupid Spencer.

“Brian said you had the flu. He wanted to come by and check on you, but he got busy, so I…” Ryan looked at the floor for a second. “I volunteered. I don’t know. I get that you don’t want to talk to me, or whatever, but… Here. I brought you soup.”

Ryan took off his coat and started fishing things out of the bag – tissues and Sudafed and cough drops and soup in Tupperware. Brendon did not care that it was wrong or that he didn’t want to betray Spencer; he loved Ryan, okay, and if he had to murder Spencer and deal with that guilt then he just would.

“You… Really? Soup?” Brendon squeaked. Then he started coughing, a really bad fit this time, and ended up doubled over on the bed trying to calm his lungs down so he could breathe.

Ryan sat down next to him like it was perfectly normal and rubbed his back. This was definitely a fever-dream, and Brendon was a-ok with dying if it meant hallucinating like this. Ryan’s hand on his back felt amazing. Except, fuck, Brendon’s t-shirt was all sweaty and he probably smelled like a guy who hadn’t showered in a couple of days and had thrown up everywhere. He tried to edge away a little bit without Ryan noticing.

“You’re kind of a mess, huh?” Ryan said softly. “Brian was feeling pretty guilty at the office. He said you wouldn’t have gotten sick if you had a winter coat. Do you really not have a coat? That’s a little bit ridiculous.”

“I have one now,” Brendon said when he could breathe again. Why did Brian have to go around telling Ryan how stupid Brendon was? Honestly. It was like Brian didn’t even know that Brendon was completely in love with Ryan.

“Good,” said Ryan. “Here, take these.” He handed Brendon a bunch of pills, which he swallowed without even looking. If Ryan wanted to kill him, Brendon didn’t mind. “Why didn’t you just call and say you were really fucking sick and someone should come by?”

“Because I… I don’t know. I’m trying to be more independent.” He let Ryan convince him to lie down again and hand him some Gatorade. He really, really loved Ryan. Which, actually, brought up a good point. Brendon yawned; he had about thirty seconds before he totally passed out in front of Ryan. “Won’t your boyfriend be mad that you’re here?” he asked.

Ryan tilted his head. “Boyfriend?” he said. “I think you have a fever.” He put his hand on Brendon’s forehead – Brendon made a note to fake sick for the rest of his life to get Ryan to keep touching him – and frowned. “Yeah, definitely feverish.”

“No, I’m –” Brendon started, and ended up yawning again, and then coughing. He was so tired from coughing and sniffling that he couldn’t stop his eyes from sliding shut. Ryan was still sitting on the edge of his bed, and it seemed rude, but he couldn’t… Things were spinning again. “He’s going to be mad,” Brendon mumbled.

Ryan adjusted the blankets. Brendon heard him moving things around, but it sounded far away, like Ryan was in another room, taking care of another Brendon somewhere. “What are you talking about?” Ryan asked. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

Brendon was already asleep.

Chapter Text

When Brendon woke up, he felt about a thousand percent better. Which meant he could sit up and breathe through half of his nose with only mildly horrible snorgling noises. He was still a little light-headed, and his legs felt shaky, but the throbbing in his head was down to reasonable levels, and after four or five cough drops he could swallow again, as long as he braced himself. It was thrilling.

He had some more Gatorade. And then he stared blankly at the Gatorade for a minute, trying to figure out where the hell he had gotten it. The bottle had been set neatly by the bed, along with cold and flu medicine and extra tissues and lots of other things Andrew couldn’t possibly have been nice enough to bring. Brendon frowned. He was missing something.

He finally put it together when he saw the note on the tub of chicken soup in his mini-fridge. “Brought this by. Hope you feel better soon. Ryan.” Brendon almost smacked himself in the forehead. How had he forgotten that Ryan Ross had been in his room and touched him repeatedly and probably saved his life? That should have been indelibly tattooed in his memory, for serious.

Plus, Ryan had said something right before Brendon had passed out. Brendon blinked. Had he really… Had Brendon just wanted that so badly he’d made himself hear it? Or had Ryan honestly said… Holy shit.

“Oh my god!” Brendon burst out, almost dropping the bottle in his hand. He’d been falling asleep, he must have hallucinated it. What if was a fever-dream, or was the result of too much pining and wishing and worrying? What if he was going crazy? He certainly felt like he was going crazy.

He had to call Spencer right this second.

Brendon grabbed his phone and then stopped. If Spencer was lying – why the hell would Spencer lie, anyway? – what would keep him from lying even more? Nothing. Brendon needed to track him down and cough on him and threaten him with the death flu until Spencer gave in and explained what was really going on. Was Ryan lying? Brendon really hoped not.

He didn’t have Ryan’s phone number, though. Brendon dialed Spencer. His hands were shaking, and it wasn’t from the flu this time. “Where are you?” Brendon burst out, as soon as he picked up.

“Uh,” said Spencer. “Brendon? Are you okay?”

“I’m perfect, where are you?” Brendon repeated.

“At this exact second? I’m in the south cafeteria,” Spencer said. That was good; it was only a five minute walk from the dorm. Brendon could probably get there without dying. “Why? What’s up?”

Brendon hung up and stuffed the phone in his pocket. It was possibly not the smartest decision he’d ever made, but if he had to wait even a couple more hours to figure out what was going on he felt like he’d explode. He put on his sneakers, grabbed his new coat – he’d only narrowly talked Gerard out of the coat covered in faux fur –put his keys in his pocket, and started the world’s longest walk across the quad. The snow was mostly cleared, thank god, although the sun’s reflection off it was pretty dazzling. Or else that was the fever.

He was proud of himself for getting all the way there without throwing up or passing out. His head was spinning a little bit, but that was mostly adrenaline. He wasn’t going to try to climb a mountain or anything, and possibly when he got done talking to Spencer he’d lie down on a table and go back to sleep, but honestly, he was seriously fine.

The cafeteria was half-way empty, so it must have been sometime between lunch and dinner. Spencer wasn’t hard to spot. He was sitting in the middle of the cafeteria eating a sandwich and sitting with… Holy shit, that was Ryan. Who was either Spencer’s boyfriend, or he wasn’t. Brendon considered not going over after all, but then he decided it didn’t matter; someone wasn’t telling the truth about something and if he talked to both of them at once, maybe he’d have a better chance of figuring out who and why. He also had a chance at horribly alienating both of them and maybe ruining everything. But Brendon didn’t think that would happen; Spencer and Ryan both seemed like basically good people, and Brendon really wanted to believe it was all some kind of bizarre mix-up.

He walked over, taking extra care not to look like he might die at any second. “Hey,” he said, crossing his arms. It made him look tougher, and also, his hands were starting to shake a little bit again. He really didn’t want this to end badly.

Spencer looked up. “Did you just call me?” he asked, frowning. “That was weird.”

“Hey. Why are you out of bed?” Ryan asked.

“Spencer,” Brendon said, working really hard to keep his voice steady and wishing he didn’t sound so fucking congested, “did you lie to me?”

For just a second, Spencer looked utterly, totally, amazingly guilty. And then he crossed his arms and stuck his chin up a little bit, with an expression that was grumpy, and also hugely defensive. “What are you talking about?” he said.

“Just, Ryan seemed a little surprised to find out that he had a boyfriend,” Brendon replied uncertainly. He really, really hoped he was right about this.

Ryan’s mouth dropped open. “What?” he said.

“I wasn’t lying,” Spencer said, and then a second later added, “Not exactly.” He looked at the floor for a second, and then back up at Brendon.

“Wait,” said Ryan. “Who’s my boyfriend?”

“So you two aren’t dating?” Brendon asked. His heart was pounding in his ears. He probably wasn’t allowed to feel anxious and hopeful when Ryan and Spencer both looked so upset. He did anyway. “You’re not Ryan’s boyfriend?”

“You told him you’re my boyfriend?” Ryan said. He shoved his chair away from the table. “Were you planning to tell me about this?” He looked seriously annoyed, with a side of ‘are you kidding me?’ mixed in.

“Yeah, I did,” Spencer said. He sounded even madder, somehow. “So?” He stood up, arms crossed, looking seriously annoyed and upset. If Ryan hadn’t been there it would have been a little bit scary, because Spencer was significantly taller than Brendon and definitely outweighed him.

Brendon wanted to be pissed about the whole thing, but dark clouds were lifting away all over the place, and Brendon just wasn’t a naturally angry person. “So,” he said, “that’s awesome! That means Ryan didn’t cheat on you with me—” Ryan snorted. “—And you weren’t flirting behind his back with Jon!” He wished he were a little bit taller so he wouldn’t have to tilt his head up to look at Spencer.

Ryan stood up, too, hands on his hips. He gave Spencer a super dirty look. “You were pretending to be my boyfriend and then you flirted with someone else?” he said. “You bitch.”

“Listen,” said Spencer angrily, “the very last thing Ryan needs in his life right now is another fucked up alcoholic messing with his head, okay? So don’t – ”

“Wait, who’s the alcoholic?” Brendon interrupted, baffled.

“My father,” Ryan frowned. “But I don’t get what that has to do with this.”

“Brendon,” said Spencer, turning to Ryan, “isn’t exactly a tee-totaller, okay? He’s a total fucking party kid.”

“No, I’m not,” Brendon said. He was completely bewildered by this turn of the conversation. “I barely ever drink anything!”

“Are you kidding?” demanded Spencer. “The day we met you were so drunk you threw up all over my shoes!”

Brendon really did not remember that. “Oh. I did?”

“Yeah, black-out drinking is definitely a sign of someone who doesn’t party,” Spencer sneered. “And you’re always talking about going out and getting wasted and –”

Brendon burst out laughing. “You believed me?” he said. He was elated. “I was totally lying to try and make you think I’m cool. I never go out anywhere except to babysit! Oh my god, that’s why you acted like it was so weird that I babysit Brian’s kids! Dude, I am not at all a partier. A big weekend for me is like, Dance Dance Revolution and watching Monty Python.”

“You say that, but—”

“You must be talking about Andrew’s party, huh?” Brendon offered. “And you’re totally right, I got wasted. But it’s the first time I’ve ever done that, and I’m never doing it again. It sucked. Ask anyone! Or, well, you can’t, actually. I don’t really go out, so no one really knows me. You could check with Andrew, though.”

Spencer stared at him for a minute. “But…” he started, and then trailed off. Most of the nastiness in his expression had drained away, replaced with confusion and what Brendon secretly hoped was guilt.

“May I interrupt for just a second, please?” Ryan said. His tone could have cut glass. “What the hell is going on?”

Most of the people in the cafeteria had turned and were staring at them as they yelled and gesticulated like crazy people. Well, Brendon and Spencer were yelling; Ryan was more standing there, lips pressed together angrily. Brendon resisted the urge to wave at all the spectators. “A couple weeks ago Spencer told me he was your boyfriend,” Brendon explained. “That’s why I’ve been avoiding you.”

“You’re the one who said you’d get fired for dating Brendon anyway,” Spencer pointed out. He didn’t sound mad anymore, though. He sounded pretty defeated.

“Why would you say that?” Brendon asked.

Ryan shrugged. “Brian loves you and hates me,” he said. “He’d freak out.”

Brendon bounced a little bit, and then regretted it; his head still hurt. “Do you know what I love most about this conversation?” Brendon asked. “I am not the craziest person involved in it! Brian doesn’t hate you, he just thinks you’re weird. Really, I talked to him about this a couple of days ago. He thinks you’re artistic and smart and everything.”

Ryan stared disbelievingly at Brendon for a second, and then turned to Spencer. “You’re telling me that when I phoned you and told you I met someone at work—” he started.

“You didn’t say it was, like, love or anything,” Spencer muttered.

“—You decided your next big move was to run out and sabotage it? Spencer, what the fuck?”

Spencer sighed and sat down. He slumped a little in his chair. “I don’t know,” he said. “I was just… You’ve been so depressed since your dad… And I just… I couldn’t stand back and watch a train wreck coming and not do anything.”

“I actually think it’s sweet,” Brendon agreed.

They both turned to stare at him. “What?” Ryan said.

“Don’t you get the awesomeness of that? You’ve been friends for a really long time, and he obviously loves you a lot, and he wanted to protect you. I’m basically harmless, but he didn’t know that, and I think it’s amazing that you have someone who loves you that much.” Until very recently Brendon had felt bereft of almost exactly that same thing, and now that he had it again he knew just how important it was.

“You’re insane,” said Spencer.

“Maybe,” said Brendon, “but I’m not involved in anyone cheating on anyone else, and Ryan doesn’t have a boyfriend, and everything is actually better than I thought it was yesterday. I mean, yesterday I was pining away with a totally hopeless stupid crush, and today my crush is available! And… Right here. Uh. Oh my god.” Half of that speech had been a really good idea, and the other half, probably not so much. Brendon’s face was totally red. “Please pretend you didn’t hear that.”

“No way,” said Ryan flatly. “I heard this entire conversation. I honestly can’t believe what I heard, but I definitely heard it.”

Brendon sat down next to Spencer. He’d had a whole plan for seducing Ryan, and it hadn’t involved blurting out his stupid crush in the middle of the cafeteria in front of Ryan’s best friend, who was apparently some kind of really protective psychopath. “Um,” he said. “It’s the fever talking.”

“Yeah, you’re going back to bed,” Ryan said. “You look pretty shitty. And you—“ he pointed to Spencer “-are in so much trouble, I swear to god, Spence, if I hadn’t known you my entire life I would never speak to you again.”

Spencer bit his lip. “Ryan, I’m sorry, okay, I didn’t mean—”

“We will discuss later, in great detail, how you are going to make this up to me,” Ryan said. “I’m making lists. Bullet-pointed lists.”

Now that most of the adrenaline was gone, Brendon felt spectacularly bad again. He tried to keep it off his face, but he couldn’t help coughing a little. “You guys really shouldn’t fight over me,” he said. “It’s silly.”

“We aren’t, exactly,” Ryan said. He grabbed Brendon’s arm and tugged him to his feet. “Come on,” he said. “Bed. Before you collapse and Brian kills me. I’m glad you came here and everything, because I sort of thought I’d freaked you out over Thanksgiving. I was pretty sure you were mad at me. And since it turns out my best friend is a back-stabbing, betraying, Judas—”

“Ryan, oh my god,” Spencer said. “I wasn’t trying to—”

Ryan just kept talking right over him. “—But I’m a little worried that you’re going to die.”

“I’m fine,” said Brendon, trying not to sniffle. “Seriously. One hundred percent.”

Ryan snorted. “Right. Just like how Spencer and I are dating. Keys.” He held his hand out.

Brendon handed them over meekly and let Ryan steer him back toward the door. He was tired, and he was willing to take any excuse to lean on Ryan. He was totally hopeless.

Spencer ditched their lunch trays and caught up, hands shoved in his pockets. “Ryan, I honestly didn’t think it was that big a deal,” he said again.

“You were wrong,” Ryan replied flatly. It was cold outside. Brendon wanted to insist that he was fine and he could walk all by himself , because he wanted Ryan to forget the horrifying way he’d blurted out his crush as quickly as possible. But when he tried to pull away and stand on his own, Ryan made an unhappy noise and put his arm around Brendon’s waist. Brendon’s big goal was to be an independent grown up, but he was only human. Ryan was warm, and he smelled good, and he was way stronger than he looked. Brendon didn’t have enough willpower to insist.

He was feeling pretty shaky and miserable anyway by the time they got to his room. “It smells like feet in here,” said Spencer, after Ryan unlocked the door.

Brendon couldn’t smell a damn thing. “That’s just my roommate,” he said. He sat down on the bed.

Ryan handed Brendon’s keys to Spencer. “So here’s thing number one,” he said. “I have to go back to work, but you’re staying here. Brendon’s not allowed to die.”

“He’s not going to die,” said Spencer, rolling his eyes. Ryan frowned at him. Spencer held up his hands in defeat. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll check on him, okay?”

“That’s only number one,” Ryan said. “Two through seventy-five involve you being my personal slave for the rest of your life.”

“Fuck you,” said Spencer comfortably. Ryan looked pretty mad, though, and Spencer looked down, biting his thumb and shifting guiltily.

“I’m feeling great, actually,” lied Brendon. He did not want to be the focus of their argument at all.

They both ignored him. “I’m leaving,” said Ryan. “But I’m going to call and check up. I’ll expect proof of life.”

Spencer stuck his tongue out at him. Ryan rolled his eyes. Brendon appreciated the way they could get furious with each other and still be friends. He really, really wanted them to be his friends, too. And just as soon as he stopped feeling like he might drop off to sleep in the middle of a word, he’d figure out a super charming and persuasive way to tell them that. His eyes seemed to be sliding shut of their own accord again.

“I can take care of myself, Spencer,” Ryan said.

“No, you can’t. That’s like – Ryan. When in the entire time I’ve known you has that ever been true?”

“Always.”

“You’re deluded.”

“You’re bossy!”

Brendon yawned, “You two go ahead and fight. I’m going to lie down.” He flopped back on the bed.

“I’m bossy because you’re on another planet half the time!”

“You’re bossy because you like being bossy.”

Seriously, Brendon couldn’t wait to hang out with them. Just as soon as he could stay awake for it.

\ \ \ \ \ \

Brendon woke up alone eventually. Spencer had left incredibly detailed instructions – orders? – about which pills to take and what time he’d be coming back. Brendon was too tired to look at the clock, but he took the medicine with some Gatorade anyway. The second time he woke up Spencer was actually in the room, arms crossed, glaring at the open door. “No,” he was saying to someone in the hallway, “fuck you. I don’t care. Why would you want to be in here anyway? You’ll get sick. Go back to wherever you were yesterday.”

“But it’s my room,” said Andrew’s voice.

Spencer made a dismissive noise and shut the door. “Your roommate is a selfish jerk,” he said to Brendon.

“Sure,” Brendon agreed, struggling to sit up, “but I don’t know that you’re allowed to kick him out of his own room.”

Spencer rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, I can take him.”

Brendon nodded. “The girls’ jeans are just a front,” he said. “Really you wear so much pink because you’re tough.”

Spencer laughed a little sheepishly. “Dude, don’t get your jealous all up on me,” he said. “I may shop in the junior’s department, but your jeans are totally from Baby GAP. Don’t lie.” His bitchface was pretty good, but it turned out Spencer’s smile was even better; when he was really laughing it lit up the room. Brendon had a new mission in life; to make Spencer and Ryan laugh as often as possible. “Feeling better?”

“Mildly worried Andrew might come back with an army of his insane friends,” said Brendon. “But yeah. I can almost breathe again.”

“I think you had the Martian death-flu,” said Spencer. He hesitated for a minute, and then sat down on the edge of the bed. “Listen,” he said. “I’m sorry. Okay? I knew you weren’t really a bad guy, and as soon as I did it I felt bad about it, and you’re probably really pissed at me – Ryan is so pissed at me – but I had a knee-jerk panic reaction to Ryan’s whole… Anyway, Ryan has made me promise about seven hundred times that I will never interfere in his personal life again, and I won’t, because I think you’re actually okay. You make Ryan happy, and nothing ever makes Ryan happy. So. I’m sorry. Again.”

Brendon blinked. He made Ryan happy? “I’m not pissed at you,” he said instead. “I think it was nice of you. Well, not for me, but for Ryan. I want there to be people looking out for him like that.”

Spencer clearly didn’t buy it. “Right,” he said. “If you hurt Ryan I’ll kill you, just so you know. And we still have to figure out what to do about Christmas.”

Brendon was getting whiplash talking to Spencer. Maybe the cold medication was the reason he couldn’t follow the transitions. “Uh,” he said. “I think it’ll just happen by itself on the twenty-fifth. It always has so far.”

Spencer laugh-snorted. “I mean, what are we going to do about Ryan on Christmas. You’re part of the discussion now. If you want to be, obviously. I tried to get Ryan to come home with me, but it’s expensive. You said you’d be off wassailing and shit with your family, but he can’t stay here by himself.”

“That was me lying again. I’m kind of… I’m not going home, either, they don’t... Anyway, I’ll be here,” Brendon said, feeling a little sick like he always did when he thought about winter break. And then suddenly he realized that he’d be here, but he didn’t have to be by himself; it wasn’t going to be the worst week of his life after all. He had all kinds of options he hadn’t even let himself consider before. He wasn’t sure he could handle watching Brian and Gerard and Mikey be ridiculously happy together, but he could probably take a couple of hours of them freaking out at each other. Especially if Ryan was around.

The only minor detail was that he hadn’t officially been invited to Brian’s house for Christmas, but Brendon was pretty sure that wasn’t going to be a problem.

“Dude!” Brendon said excitedly. “I totally have this covered. What if I take Ryan with me to Brian’s house for Christmas?”

“Ryan says Brian hates him,” Spencer said doubtfully.

“Ryan’s a little crazy, then,” Brendon said, “and you should keep in mind that I’m out of my mind over him, so when I say that I’m really serious. I wouldn’t drag him somewhere that would make him miserable. Brian wants Gerard to meet Ryan anyway. You should come, too. It’ll be awesome.”

“My sisters would kill me if I didn’t go home,” said Spencer. He paused. “Wait. You’re seriously, seriously not mad at me?”

“I kind of love you,” said Brendon. “I mean, I threw up on you and you like me anyway. If I wasn’t sick as hell I’d be hugging you right now. Fuck it; you’re totally going to catch this.” He leaned over and hugged Spencer before he had a chance to duck away.

“Dude, keep your Martian death-flu germs to yourself,” Spencer said, trying not to laugh. “Oh my god, get off; you’re like a monkey.”

“I,” said Brendon seriously, not letting go, “am really hard to resist.”

Spencer sighed. “Yeah,” he said. He patted Brendon’s knee. “I kind of figured that out.”

\\ \ \ \ \

Brendon was ready to give classes a try on Monday, but Spencer said absolutely not. Brendon didn’t remember ceding his decision-making skills to Spencer, and told him so. Spencer countered with an entire speech about how if Brendon died before Spencer got a chance to make up for ruining his life the last couple of weeks, Spencer would never be able to forgive himself. And also, Ryan would never forgive him. Brendon decided not to explain that actually he felt like Spencer had made it up to him just by being around and interested in Brendon’s wellbeing.

Instead he said, “Well, if you’re feeling guilty you can hang out here. I’m bored.” Then he made Spencer watch the entire five-disc Planet Earth DVD. Spencer pretended not to be interested, but by the time the cameramen rescued the baby penguin, he was entranced, and when the lions ate the elephant he totally hollered at the screen. It was awesome. Brendon was spending most of his energy trying not to cough or sneeze or throw up too much, but he appreciated Spencer’s enthusiasm.

They talked about music, and tv shows, and totally random shit, and when Brendon wasn’t feeling miserable and sick he was ecstatic. Spencer was not only cool, he was goofy and fun and just as awesome as Brendon had suspected. When White Christmas came on local cable and Brendon sang along with every single song – sore throat or not, Brendon had to sing along, it was a law practically – Spencer didn’t make fun of him. He did insist Brendon stop dancing, but that was because it made him cough until he threw up.

Mikey called a couple of times. Apparently Brian had told the boys not to bother Brendon until he was feeling better, but Mikey said firmly, “I’m not bothering you.” It wasn’t a question, so much as an assertion, and it made Brendon feel like a million bucks.

“Are you going to get in trouble for calling?” he asked.

He could almost hear Mikey shrug. “Every time Gerard’s grounded he spends the whole week sneaking around calling Frank. I’m not too worried.”

“No, I don’t!” Gerard yelled in the background. There were scuffling noises for a minute.

“I feel totally better anyway,” said Brendon. Spencer snorted.

“You sound bad,” Mikey said. “Can we come visit?”

Brendon was a little afraid of how anyone would deal with Gerard if he got the flu. It would be pretty much the end of the world. “No,” he said. “When I feel better I’ll come by, okay?”

“Promise,” Mikey ordered.

Brendon grinned a little bit to himself. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”

Tuesday Brendon skipped classes again, but he stole his keys back from Spencer so he could go to Brian’s office. He needed to talk to Brian about Christmas. He also needed to talk Ryan about although it made his stomach knot up uncomfortably to think about. Just how horrified had Ryan been when he realized Brendon had a big stupid crush on him? When Ryan said he’d volunteered to come and check on Brendon, had he meant it in a strictly work-related way, or was it something else? And if Brendon ever stopped sniffling and being completely sick and gross, was Ryan interested in kissing him again? Brendon felt like a lot of things hinged on the answer to that last question.

He really did feel better, though; four days of doing almost nothing but sleep had knocked the flu down to manageable size. He wasn’t quite prepared to get to the office and run straight in to Gabe, but it wasn’t any worse than it would have been if he’d been feeling 100 percent. Gabe yelled, “Monkeys!” and shoved past him in to the hallway. Brendon had no idea if Gabe was insulting someone, or if Gabe just, you know, thought there were monkeys in the building. Or oh my god, what if Gabe had brought monkeys to work? It was totally possible.

“Brendon!” said Brian happily, looking up from his desk. “Feeling better?”

“Completely,” said Brendon. “Thanks for sending Ryan to check on me.”

“Well,” Brian said, “he offered. And he’s been keeping me updated. Who’s Spencer?”

“His friend,” Brendon replied, and then, with a little smile he couldn’t quite contain, added, “And a friend of mine.” He got to say that, now. It felt awesome.

“I’m glad you’re getting better. Gerard and Mikey were about twelve hours away from stealing my car and going to check on you themselves. I should never have mentioned that you were sick.”

Brendon’s life was amazing. “Hey, Brian,” he said. “I have kind of a deal to offer you.”

Brian looked understandably baffled. “Um,” he said. “Okay?”

Brendon worked really hard not to bounce – he could get excited about things and not start jumping around, it just took some concentration. “I can fix Gerard,” he said. “I mean, not totally, obviously, but for Christmas.”

Brian got this look on his face. It was indescribable. “Really?” he said urgently. “No crazy roof shenanigans? Brendon, I know I said this last week, but I love you.”

Brendon laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m awesome. And all you have to do in return is invite me and Ryan over for Christmas.”

“I – What?” said Brian.

“That’s the deal,” said Brendon happily. “You invite Ryan to Christmas, and I’ll make sure Gerard doesn’t have any meltdowns. I mean, I’m kind of assuming I’m already invited, which, if I’m not, never mind, but--”

Brian frowned at him. “We talked about you being stupid,” he said.

Brendon shrugged and grinned. He felt like he’d been filled up with helium and he was going to float away. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I was just checking.” Was he smiling like an idiot? He was probably smiling like an idiot. “So all you have to do is invite Ryan.”

Brian opened and then closed his mouth. Eventually he nodded. “That is just about the best deal I’ve ever been offered,” he said finally. “That’s… Would Ryan even want to come over for Christmas?”

“Ryan’s stranded here for the holidays without any family, too. We both came in to work on Thanksgiving, actually.”

“You fucking liar,” said Brian. “I knew you were lying.”

Brendon shrugged. “Deal?” he said.

“Deal,” said Brian. “Can you fix this right now? Do you need anything from me? I’ve been, uh, worrying about this just a little bit.”

More like losing his shit over it. “Yay,” said Brendon, and then wished he hadn’t. Who actually said ‘yay’ out loud like that? Fuck it; Brian apparently loved him anyway. “Friday, I promise,” he said. “I need to handle this in person, I think.”

Brian sighed. “Right,” he said. “Do you want me to invite Ryan, or are you going to tell him?”

“You have to,” Brendon said firmly. “He thinks you hate him, remember? He won’t believe me.”

“Ugh,” said Brian. “That makes me feel like I totally suck as a boss, by the way.”

Brendon shrugged. “I’m going to go answer phones and let you sweat about this,” he said.

“You’re going to stare in to space and daydream about Ryan,” said Brian. Brendon’s jaw dropped. “Dude,” said Brian. “You have the most obvious crush ever.”

Brendon’s voice didn’t want to work. “I do not!” he squeaked. Brian looked skeptical. “Gerard and Frank,” Brendon protested.

Brian laughed. “Okay, I’ll give you that one,” he said. “But I’m on to you. I’m only inviting Ryan to Christmas if you promise there won’t be any weird groping that will traumatize my kids. Gerard’s way too curious about sex already.”

“He’s fourteen,” Brendon said. “That’s going to be ninety percent of what he thinks about for the next ten years.”

Brian smirked. “So ninety percent of your brain is busy thinking about having sex with Ryan Ross? Oh my god, please don’t answer that. I really don’t want to hear the answer.”

Brendon was blushing so hard he was pretty sure he was going to catch on fire. He ducked his head. “I’m going out to the desk,” he mumbled, and ran.

Half an hour later Ryan walked out, shaking his head. He looked mildly dazed. He was also wearing a newsboy’s cap and a cowboy neckerchief. “I just had the strangest talk with Brian,” he said.

Brendon had absolutely not been thinking about sex with Ryan. He’d been mostly daydreaming about how they’d steal Jon to be in their band, and how Ryan would write all their lyrics, and whether or not the band would suffer if Brendon and Ryan were totally all over each other all the time. Daydream-Spencer seemed mildly disgruntled.

“Yeah?” said Brendon, who wasn’t sure if he was supposed to pretend not to know what they’d been talking about.

“Yeah. I guess I’m… I’m invited over for Christmas at his house,” Ryan said uncertainly. “It’s very strange. I told him I appreciated the offer but I really couldn’t impose, and he said he’d fire me if I didn’t go. I think he was kidding. I don’t know, can he do that?”

“Yes,” said Brendon firmly. “You have to go. I’m going to be there. It’ll be awesome.”

“Oh,” said Ryan, like everything made sense all of a sudden. “It’s like that.”

“He feels really bad that you thought he didn’t like you,” Brendon said. “He tries to make shit like that up to people.”

Ryan frowned. “I don’t care if he doesn’t like me,” he said. “As long as he doesn’t fire me or anything.”

“But it’s better,” Brendon insisted, “when people like you. Trust me. I just worked this whole thing out with Spencer.”

Ryan got frownier somehow. “I talked to Spence about that,” he said. “Is he giving you a hard time? Because I will kill him if I have to.”

“No, no, no,” Brendon said quickly, “we’ve totally worked the whole thing out. I’m just saying, my life’s a lot better now that he doesn’t think I’m a crazy, partying, drunk person.”

“Oh,” said Ryan consideringly.

Brendon had also spent some time trying to figure out how to start this conversation. He took a deep breath and made his hands in to fists, shoving them against the desk. “Listen,” he said, and his voice didn’t break, but it was a close thing. “I, um. I want to talk to you. About something.”

Ryan leaned on the desk next to him and tilted his head. “Yeah?” he said.

Brendon would have been able to concentrate much better if Ryan weren’t so close. Their knees were almost touching. It was too awkward to sit down while he tried to talk to someone who was taller than he was anyway, so he stood up and tried not to fidget. Standing up made it seem weirdly formal. Brendon put his hands in his pockets.

“I was actually kind of hoping not to blurt this out in the cafeteria in front of Spencer, but it’s too late for that, so I figured I’d better say something about it. I. Uh. I am not crazy, okay, but I maybe have a little crush on you, which I guess you totally know about now, and which I was hoping you reciprocated since we did kind of kiss that one time. But then there was Spencer and everything got really bad and I was avoiding you, but that was because I thought you were a creep for cheating on Spencer. But you weren’t, and it didn’t really discourage my crush much anyway. And now it turns out you’re not dating Spencer, and I was kind of wondering if you… I mean, would you be interested in…” He couldn’t get to the end of the sentence; his voice kept giving out.

Ryan was watching him with an expression Brendon couldn’t figure out for a minute. Brendon fidgeted. Ryan pressed his lips together. And then Brendon realized Ryan was trying not to burst out laughing.

“You jerk,” said Brendon, shoving him. “You’re supposed to say something when someone pours out their heart to you, not stand there smirking!”

“But you’re so hilarious,” Ryan said. His lips were twitching a little bit. “I mean, do you think about what you’re saying, or do you just talk until you run out of breath?”

The words were a little mean, but Ryan’s expression was… Well, it was hard to figure out, actually. “Both,” said Brendon uncertainly. “But planning ahead doesn’t seem to affect what I end up saying.” Ryan still hadn’t actually replied to the whole speech, thing, which was killing Brendon a little bit.

“Mmmm,” said Ryan. “Interesting.”

Brendon bounced on the balls of his feet for a second. If Ryan didn’t say anything soon, he was going to die. “Ryan,” he complained. “I sort of need you to say something. Uh. I mean, either way. It’s kind of painful to just stand around and wait and –”

Ryan started to laugh, just a tiny bit. He’d edged over so his hand, on the desk, was almost behind Brendon. His shoulder was brushing Brendon’s. Brendon tried to start talking again and got a noseful of Ryan, who smelled like baby powder. Brendon frowned. “You smell girly,” he blurted, and then wished he hadn’t.

“I’m wearing girls’ deodorant,” Ryan said. Was he blushing a little bit? He was definitely smiling, and Brendon wasn’t sure why, because Brendon’s heart was trying to beat out of his chest. When, exactly, had Ryan gotten so close? Brendon could count his eyelashes.

“Oh,” said Brendon. “It smells nice.” He was going to kill himself later, he honestly was.

Ryan nudged him with his hip. “Do you think,” he said softly, “that I go around kissing everyone I meet?” he asked.

“I wondered for a little while,” said Brendon. “But uh. I hope not.” He was holding on to the desk really tightly, because otherwise he was in danger of falling down.

“You can be kind of an idiot,” Ryan said. “You’re lucky you’re so fucking cute.”

‘Cute’ was not what Ryan would have said ideally, but Brendon understood the limits of the universe; he wasn’t exactly Brad Pitt, and he got kind of puppyish when he was excited, and cute, at least, was positive. ‘Fucking cute’ was better than ‘regular old cute,’ and it didn’t sound like a brush-off. He was pretty sure Ryan wasn’t going to say ‘You’re so cute; let’s just be friends.’

Brendon was not about to let that happen. He tilted his head up so he was looking right at Ryan and smiled. Brendon was not some girl, okay, he was totally a man and he could convince Ryan he was sexy and confident and all kinds of other things.

Except he forgot to do any of that because Ryan shifted closer and Brendon had nowhere to back up except into the desk and Ryan leaned down and Brendon leaned up and they were kissing again.

The part of Brendon’s brain that had been chanting ‘Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!’ and making extensive plans about what to do next just shut down. In fact, the whole thing shut down, like he’d gone offline; there was just Ryan’s mouth, and Ryan’s lips, and Brendon opened his mouth because Ryan seemed to want him to, and there was Ryan’s tongue, too. Holy shit. Brendon made a muffled, happy noise and grabbed Ryan’s shirt with both hands. Ryan stuck his hands in Brendon’s back pockets. If Brendon hadn’t been pretty well trapped between Ryan and the desk, he would have bounced with glee.

“Here, move like--” Ryan said, pulling away for a second, and nudging Brendon back.

“I can’t. Wait, what?” Brendon said breathlessly. Ryan pushed at him again, and Brendon had nowhere to go up but up on the desk, so he obligingly hopped up. Ryan moved so he was standing between Brendon’s legs – Brendon was going to die from happiness, there would be nothing left, he was going to spontaneously combust – and hooked one hand in the back of Brendon’s jeans.

“Better,” said Ryan firmly. Brendon totally agreed. He still had his hands in Ryan’s shirt so he dragged Ryan’s mouth back down to his. Ryan tried to laugh again, but Brendon distracted him pretty thoroughly.

“So much better,” Brendon agreed, when he had to breathe again. Ryan’s hat was totally askew, and Brendon’s glasses were fogging up. These were pretty much the best five minutes of Brendon’s life so far. And then he started to giggle, and he couldn’t stop, shoulders shaking against Ryan, who just rolled his eyes. “Wait,” said Brendon, helplessly laughing. “Wait a second.”

“You have to stop talking,” Ryan said.

“I can’t believe you kissed me when I’m all sick and gross,” Brendon snorted. “You’re so weird.”

“I was trying to shut you up. Again,” said Ryan, rolling his eyes.

“Ahem!” said a loud voice behind them.

Brendon winced. He leaned forward and hid his face against Ryan’s chest. Ryan smelled amazing. “Hey, Gabe,” said Ryan.

“You are getting cooties on each other,” said Gabe. “And all over the desk. I’m going to have to Clorox that shit.”

“I’ll do it,” said Ryan. “Go away, please.”

“Brendon, are you being sexually harassed?” Gabe asked. “You can file a complaint. Did Ryan touch you in your bikini area?”

“Not yet,” said Brendon, “but I’m kind of hoping, so you should go away.”

Ryan cracked up at that, and so did Gabe, cackling like a chicken. “Use protection!” he ordered. “Babies shouldn’t be having babies. I don’t want to take either of you to Planned Parenthood.”

“Gabe, do you even understand how sex works?” Ryan asked. Brendon was giggling again, but it was muffled because he was still leaning against Ryan.

“Travis says not really,” Gabe sighed. “But I’m working on it.”

“Go away,” Brendon pleaded. “Seriously. Oh my god. Go away.”

“Fine,” said Gabe. “I’ll expect a detailed report later.” He flounced away.

Brendon groaned. “The mood is totally ruined, right? I think I’m going to die.”

“We probably shouldn’t do this at work anyway,” Ryan said. He stepped back a little bit, but he still had a hand tucked in the back of Brendon’s jeans. Every time his fingers brushed against Brendon’s skin, Brendon’s brain went offline again.

“I’ll quit,” Brendon offered.

“No, because then Brian really would hate me, and we’re trying to avoid that, remember?” Ryan said. “We’ll just have to pick this up later.”

On the one hand, Brendon wanted to cry. On the other hand, he was pretty sure Ryan Ross had just asked him on a date. “Later like in five minutes in the elevator?” he asked hopefully.

Ryan said, “How about dinner? Or a movie?”

“Or making out at your house?” Brendon suggested.

Ryan laughed. “My house is full of my roommates.”

“And my dorm is full of Andrew.”

Ryan shrugged. “We’ll figure something out.”

“If one of us just had a car, we could climb in the backseat and fog up the windows, like in Titanic.”

“That’s it, Brendon; dream big.”

Brendon started laughing. “It’s not fair,” he complained. “This isn’t supposed to require planning.” He tugged Ryan down again so he could nuzzle up under Ryan’s chin, where he had a little stubble. It was amazingly sexy.

“We’ll figure something out,” said Ryan confidently. He shivered when Brendon licked his jaw. “I have faith in us.”

“Mmmm,” agreed Brendon. “Yeah. Me, too.”

/ / / /

Friday afternoon Brian gave Brendon a ride back to his house. The minute Brendon took off his coat Brian said, “So? You’re fixing this, right?”

Brendon didn’t laugh at him, but it was a near thing. “Give me ten seconds, Brian,” he said.

Brian looked at his watch impatiently. “Fine,” he said. “Ten.”

Brendon rolled his eyes and ran upstairs. He came back a minute later, dragging Gerard by the arm. Gerard had been in the middle of drawing something for Frank, and the last thing he wanted was to be interrupted. His face looked like a thundercloud.

“Tell Brian what you told me,” Brendon ordered, pulling him in to the kitchen.

“‘Ow, Brendon, ow, my arm,’” Gerard repeated robotically.

Gerard wasn’t as funny as he thought he was. “Fucker,” said Brendon. “I mean what you told me on Thanksgiving.”

Gerard went from murderous to horrified in a second flat. “What? Brendon, no. I still have a week!”

“I decided you don’t need it,” Brendon said firmly. “You’re going to be mature about this, and tell him right now.”

“Tell me what?” Brian asked.

Gerard crossed his arms and stared at the floor. “Brendon, I didn’t figure out how yet. This isn’t fair.”

Brendon sighed and gave him a one-armed hug. “All you have to do is tell him what you told me, Gee. I promise. He’s not going to be mad.”

“Gerard,” said Brian uncertainly, “You can tell me anything. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, but… I don’t want to make you upset, and… God, Brendon, this is stupid.”

“What Gerard means,” Brendon interrupted, “Is that the holidays have been making him cry like a little girl because—”

“Brendon, you’re going to tell it wrong. I’ll just do it, give me a minute,” said Gerard impatiently, shrugging his hand off. “I just… I really like it here, okay, and your mom is great, and everything is good, honestly,” Gerard said. He risked a glance at Brian, who mostly looked confused. “But the way you do stuff isn’t the way we… It isn’t the way we did stuff before. And I kind of… I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it or anything, but I miss our stuff, I guess.”

Brendon waited while Brian untangled that story. He could tell the exact second Brian got it, because he went from looking a little bit confused and worried to sudden, shocked understanding, complete with wide-eyes and open mouth. “Oh my god,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me? We could have… Gerard, we can totally fix this.”

“I didn’t want you to be sad,” Gerard mumbled.

“I’m not sad, I’m just a little…” He stopped and waved his hands around crazily. Brendon was pretty sure he was picking that up from Gerard. “You have to trust me with this stuff, okay? I can handle it. I don’t want you feeling miserable, even if you think it might make me unhappy to tell me something.”

“I’m not miserable,” Gerard argued. “I’m just… I don’t know. It feels weird.”

Brian was already yelling for Mikey to come downstairs. Gerard looked up at Brendon, puzzled. Brendon tried not to grin too much, and shrugged. Mikey came down a second later, rubbing his eyes. He muttered, “What?”

“We have a week to be a planning committee,” Brian said firmly. “Grab some paper and a pen, Brendon.”

“Planning committee?” Gerard demanded. “Why?”

Brendon obligingly got some paper and sat down at the counter. “What’s first?”

“Well, my mom and I always open presents Christmas day, first thing in the morning,” Brian said. “What does your family do, Brendon?”

It hurt a lot, but not quite as much as Brendon had expected. There were all kinds of things he missed, but he could bring some of them with him, and there were things he could share with Gerard and Mikey and Brian, that his family would never have understood. “We hung up stockings for Christmas Eve, and when we got up in the morning Santa would have filled them up,” he said. He glanced over at Mikey and Gerard, but he was pretty sure both of them were beyond the point where they believed in Santa. “Just little stuff. And we woke up at like, six in the morning, to open our presents.” With five kids in the family there hadn’t ever been anything big, but Christmas morning was a chance to get stuff that wasn’t hand-me-down sweatshirts and books.

“Gerard?” said Brian.

Gerard just stared at him for a minute. And then he looked at Brendon, and then Brian again, and then Mikey. He bit his lip. “We got presents in the morning,” he said. “But if I complained enough they’d let us open up one big thing the night before.”

“We can do it like that,” said Brian. “What did you guys usually eat?”

Gerard needed lots of prompting, and it took him a long time to give details that meant anything. Brendon was pretty sure he wasn’t ever going to tell Brian everything about Christmas with his parents; it looked like it hurt too much. Brendon got that. There were a bunch of things he was keeping locked up, too. Mikey mostly looked confused, but he put his chin on Gerard’s shoulder and stood there, tugging on Gerard’s hair whenever Gerard got too uncomfortable or fidgety. It was ridiculously cute.

Brendon made lists of stuff to buy and things to do, and then Brian called his mom to see if she’d be willing to cook all the things they’d written down. Brendon could hear her yelling through the phone clear across the kitchen; of course she was happy to cook anything the boys wanted, but they couldn’t have told her a week ago so she could shop? Gerard started giggling and hid his face in Mikey’s shoulder. It was relieved laughter, though, and Brendon suspected that if Gerard had been by himself it might have been crying.

Mikey kept looking at Brendon and shrugging. It was totally possible that Mikey really didn’t remember much from before he’d lost his parents, but it was also possible that it just didn’t register as that big a deal for him. He was always so more self-contained than Gerard. He clearly got that it was a big deal for his brother, at least, and he seemed willing to participate.

“Okay,” said Brian finally. “I think this is all taken care of. Crisis averted. Do you feel better?”

He had a way of asking Gerard questions in a really serious manner, like Gerard was a grown up who could totally handle answering them. He talked to Brendon that way, too, Brendon realized suddenly, which was one of several million things he loved about Brian.

“I do,” said Gerard. “I really… Thanks.” He nudged Mikey, but Mikey just looked puzzled and said “What?”

Gerard made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll do it.” He flounced over to Brian like it wasn’t his idea at all, and said, “We totally appreciate this.” And then, in spite of being fourteen and a total brat half the time, he hugged Brian.

For once it looked like Brian might cry. Brendon felt a little vindicated because he’d been getting choked up, too. “It’s no problem at all, Gerard,” said Brian. He was doing a pretty good job of keeping his voice steady, but Brendon could hear the quaver.

“I,” said Brendon grandly, “have saved Christmas!”

“My hero,” Mikey said, and rolled his eyes.

“I totally am, you little faker.”

“You’re actually coming this time, right?” Mikey asked, crossing his arms. “Because if you punk out like at Thanksgiving, I’m never speaking to you again.”

“I’ll be here, Mikey Way. You can put away the puppy-dog eyes,” Brendon promised. Mikey looked smug.

Gerard pulled away from Brian and straightened his t-shirt. “It wasn’t even that big a deal,” he said. “Thanksgiving, I mean. It’s not like I was that upset. Brendon’s always exaggerating things.”

“Hey!” Brendon protested. He was, in fact, always exaggerating things, but not this.

“I would have been totally fine,” Gerard said confidently, which was a total lie. Brian looked at Brendon and rolled his eyes, and Brendon felt a little better.

“If you say so,” said Brian patiently. “We have to go buy decorations and shit for the house, by the way. Gabe and Bill might stop by, and Brendon’s boyfriend is coming over.”

Mikey and Gerard both turned to look at Brendon, who felt his face heat up. Gerard frowned. “You didn’t say anything,” he accused.

“It’s new,” Brendon explained, trying not to grin like an idiot. It made his chest feel all tingly and his mouth kept smiling all by itself. He wasn’t sure Ryan actually was his boyfriend yet, but he liked the way it sounded.

“Ohhhh,” said Gerard, nodding. “That’s… Huh. Wow.” He looked contemplative.

“Is he nice?” Mikey asked suspiciously. “What if we don’t like him?”

“You’ll like him,” Brendon assured him. “He’s awesome.”

Mikey made a disgruntled noise and shook his head at Gerard. “I guess,” said Mikey, in his grumpiest voice. “But he better be.” It was okay; Mikey looking out for Brendon made Brendon pretty happy.

“Everything is good,” Brendon said. He felt that way most of the time, finally. He had spent lots of time with Ryan at work, not doing any work. He wasn’t going to tell Mikey and Gerard that, obviously. Plus, Spencer kept calling him to worry about their history final, and they kept ending up talking about Gossip Girl for, like, hours. Brendon had friends, and family, and even with the holidays and finals coming up, things were honestly good.

Ok, fine, everything wasn’t perfect; he hadn’t studied for his finals coming up after break at all because he’d been pining over Ryan and now he was busy being giddy over him. He was also more than ready to be done thinking about his family’s Christmas traditions, which they were carrying on without him. But he was trying not to think about that too much, because he had all these people in the kitchen who loved him.

Brendon kicked his feet against the rung of the stool a little bit. “I thought we were going shopping, not talking about my love life,” he said. He had a love life now. He laughed.

“I want fake snow in a can,” Gerard announced. “And we still don’t have a Christmas tree. I don’t know what kind of fucked up Christmas you usually have, Brian, but we need a tree.”

Brian rolled his eyes, and later, in the car, whispered to Brendon that he hadn’t put up a tree because when he’d mentioned the possibility a week earlier, Gerard had burst in to tears and gone running upstairs. “Thank you for fixing this,” Brian added.

Brendon just kept grinning.

\ \ \ \ \

Everyone started leaving campus on the twentieth. It was completely empty by the twenty-third. Brendon had been fighting to keep his mood up – things were better than he ever could have hoped, he had Ryan on speed dial and Brian and the boys were expecting him over for Christmas – but it was really hard when all the lights in the buildings started going off and he knew there was no one else around. He was the last fucking person left on the entire campus, or maybe it just felt that way. Everyone else was off with family and friends. He wouldn’t even have minded bitching about overcooked rolls and sharing a bedroom with his brothers. He just hated the silence everywhere.

Of course, it wasn’t silent everywhere; he could turn on the TV and watch strangers star in movies about not having Christmas, until the very last second when Christmas was suddenly saved. Or he could go out and look at all the Christmas decorations on all the houses around town. Except nothing was going to be open for the next couple of days, so there really wasn’t anywhere to go. Even Jon had gone away for the weekend. Brendon felt mildly betrayed.

He knew he could call Brian, but he didn’t want to. He was crashing their family Christmas already, and he was maybe thinking about crashing Christmas Eve now, too, because his stomach hurt like he’d swallowed lava just thinking about spending it alone. He didn’t think Brian would mind, but that didn’t mean he wanted to do it. Being totally pathetic and calling for rescue three days in a row was too much. Brendon was pretty sure watching that much family togetherness would make him feel even worse.

Brendon picked up his phone and looked at it for a minute. He could call Spencer. Spencer still owed him for the whole Ryan debacle, and he could totally call and cash in. But he didn’t want to interrupt when Spencer was having family-time with his sisters. Brendon weighed the phone in his hand for a minute.

It was scarier than it should have been. He knew he was allowed to call Ryan, but he wasn’t sure what to say if Ryan picked up. They’d been on one actual date for coffee, which had gone pretty well, and had ended in more making out and a tiny bit of public groping. There had also been lots and lots and lots of stupid flirting in the office, which was going to incite Gabe’s wrath pretty soon. Brendon felt like he was generally really bad at judging how much other people actually wanted to spend time with him, versus how badly he wanted them to want to spend time with him. It was a miracle he hadn’t driven Brian totally crazy by now.

Ryan had said he wasn’t doing anything for the holidays, though, and maybe he was feeling lonely tonight, too. Brendon hit the speed dial and shut his eyes for a second. He took a long, bracing breath.

“Hey,” said Ryan.

Brendon tried not to choke. “Hi,” he said.

There was a pause. “This is Brendon, right?” said Ryan finally. “What’s up?”

“…Nothing.” Brendon was pretty sure if he wanted to keep Ryan’s interest he couldn’t unload all his crazy on him at once. He bit his lip and fidgeted, playing with his bedspread.

“Uh, okay,” said Ryan. “Did you know they run like, nine hours a day of America’s Next Top Model on VH1 for some reason? It’s weird.”

“Yeah?” said Brendon. “I was a little afraid to turn the TV on. I mean, uh.” He winced. “You never know what kind of stupid shit you’ll see on basic cable. Televangelists and QVC and shit.”

“Plus, tons of stupid Christmas specials, which totally suck.”

Brendon loved Ryan so much it hurt a little bit to think about it. “Yeah, there’s that, too,” said Brendon. He hesitated. “You’re not doing anything important, are you?”

“I’ve seen this cycle of Top Model four times. I’m pretty sure Naima is going to win.”

“Oh, good. I didn’t want to interrupt—”

“You’re not,” Ryan said.

“I’m freaking out a little bit,” Brendon blurted suddenly, and then stopped, heart totally in his throat.

“Yeah,” said Ryan. “I got that.” He hesitated. “You should tell me why. It might make me feel better about freaking out, too.”

Brendon was absolutely not going to cry in front of Ryan until they’d been dating for at least a year. And then it would have to be in a manly way. “Just, Christmas was always something I did with my family, I guess,” he said. “I mean, we’re a big family, and we were always together, even when my brothers got older and left home. Even when I stopped going to church, we still… Christmas was always… I’ve gotten pretty used to being on my own, but I don’t know what to do with myself this week, I guess.”

Ryan sighed. “Christmas at my house sucked,” he said. “I always went to Spencer’s so I wouldn’t have to deal with it.”

“Do you wish you were back in Vegas with him?” Brendon asked. He wouldn’t be that hurt if Ryan would rather be with Spencer; they’d known each other forever, and Brendon was definitely still the new guy.

“Not really,” said Ryan. “It… Sometimes it’s worse, when the people you’re around are all happy and together, and you’re all by yourself. You know?”

“I… Yeah. I know. I know exactly.”

They were both quiet for a minute. Brendon wanted to say something about how Ryan wasn’t really alone, he could be alone with Brendon, they could be alone together. But that was probably too crazy and co-dependent for a second date. “You’re watching VH1, right?” Brendon said instead, and flipped the TV on. “Oh, dude, this is like my favorite episode ever. This is the one where they go to South Africa and whatshername can’t even remember who Nelson Mandela is and she starts screaming at Naima for not being black enough.” He started laughing preemptively.

“It’s pretty fucked up,” Ryan agreed. Brendon thought he could hear him smiling.

“I missed the part where they dress up like totally insane animals, right?”

“Yeah, that was the best.”

Brendon doubled-over on the bed, trying to stop laughing long enough to breathe. “You’ll watch the rest of this on TV with me, right?” he said. “I’m going to have to stay up all the way to the end.”

“Totally,” Ryan agreed. “Um. Brendon?”

Brendon forced himself to stop giggling and sound serious. “Yeah?” he said.

“You’re… Are you sure you really want me to come over to Brian’s with you? It’s kind of… I feel weird about it. Because they think of you as family, and I work for Brian, and I’m not great with big crowds of people. So.”

“I’m totally, completely, utterly sure, Ross,” Brendon said firmly. “I don’t want to be there on my own. It’s too weird. It’s family, but it’s not… They aren’t my…” At this point, weren’t they realer than the people back home? Brendon dug his nails into his palm. “I mean, they say it, and I believe them, but I also… I didn’t call them tonight, because sometimes they make me feel like I’m standing outside, looking in the window and just watching them be happy, and I… This sounds stupid and crazy, right? I’m sorry. Pretend I never – Oh my god.”

Ryan hesitated, just long enough for Brendon to convince himself that the next thing Ryan was going to say would be an apologetic break up before they were ever really dating.

“It sounds deluded,” Ryan said finally. Brendon’s heart sank. “You’re not outside the window, you dumbass. The door’s open and they’re like, ‘Why isn’t Brendon coming in?’ Just because your family sucked, Brendon, doesn’t mean everyone’s going to suck.”

Brendon had to swallow a couple of times before he could say anything. His eyes were stinging for totally unrelated reasons, honestly. “Yours too,” he managed finally.

There was a pause. “I’m working on that,” said Ryan. “I… I have Spencer.”

“And me. If you want.”

Ryan didn’t seem to be breathing at all for a long, long minute. Brendon held his breath, too. “Uh,” Ryan said at last, and his voice was all clogged up and shaky. “Did you ever think Top Model would stoop so low as to try and teach us about apartheid?”

“I know, right?” Brendon said, forcing himself to laugh a little bit. “It’s ridiculous.”

“Sublime,” Ryan corrected.

Yeah, Brendon thought. That, too.

\ \ \ \

Brendon ended up giving Ryan a ride early Christmas morning in Brian’s car. The lawn was covered in snow, and Gerard had covered the windows of the house in fake snow and tinsel and millions of things that glittered. Ryan looked nervous, so Brendon decided they should hold hands. “Are you sure—” Ryan started for the seventh time.

Brendon rolled his eyes and shoved the door open. He had to pull a little bit to get Ryan to walk in. “They’re here!” Gerard yelled from the stairs, running down. Frank was hot on his heels. “Hi,” said Gerard, scowling, and then suddenly he wasn’t scowling anymore. He was staring at Ryan in open-mouthed shock. “Your eyes,” he breathed.

Ryan actually looked fairly normal, for him; a little glittery and a lot of pink and blue, but less like a gay raccoon than usual. Ryan tried to edge behind Brendon, which didn’t work at all, because he was taller than Brendon was. Brendon started to giggle. He had been a tiny bit worried, he hated to admit, but everything felt so normal he almost didn’t know what to do with himself.

“That’s amazing,” said Gerard. He was totally awestruck. “How did you do that? Can you show me? Frank! Look at that!”

Frank was looking, and he rolled his eyes a little, but he nodded. “Very cool, Gee,” he said loyally. “But I think you should do it more bad-ass.”

Whatever reaction Ryan had been waiting for, that probably hadn’t been it. “Uh,” he said. “I guess I can show you sometime? If it’s okay with Brian?”

“Brian has a zillion tattoos. He doesn’t get to tell me how to dress,” Gerard said dismissively. “Frank, we are going makeup shopping.”

“Let’s make Bob go,” said Frank. “They won’t give him shit about it at the store.”

“Oh, good idea! I’m going to go call him. Nice to meet you.” Gerard and Frank ran back upstairs, arguing over who was going to buy what. Brendon wasn’t entirely sure what Frank was doing at the Schechter-Way house on Christmas morning, but he assumed Frank’s mom would know where to find him if she wanted to.

Brendon couldn’t stop grinning. Ryan looked astonished, and a little horrified, which was a lot more emotion than he usually showed. “That was Gerard, right?” he said finally. “I think I’ve seen him at the office. So the tiny one must be Frank?”

“Gerard’s not the one you have to watch out for,” Brendon said. “Mikey’s pretty grumpy about you.” Ryan’s eyebrows shot up. “He’s kind of like my middle-school version of Spencer,” Brendon explained.

“Oh, god,” said Ryan. “Wonderful.”

Brian came out. The whole house smelled like cooking, but it smelled good, which meant it wasn’t Brian doing it. “Hey, guys,” he said. “What are you showing Gerard?”

“Makeup?” Ryan said uncertainly.

Brian sighed. “Yeah,” he said, “I thought that might happen. C’mon in. Put your coats wherever.” He went back in to the kitchen.

“He’s not mad,” Ryan whispered. “That’s… Unexpected.”

“Dude, I’m pretty sure I told you,” Brendon whispered back. “These guys are awesome.”

“Yeah, about you,” Ryan muttered. Brendon squeezed his hand. He’d talk Ryan around eventually. He just had to get his own head around the idea of having family again first.

Gerard had gone kind of crazy decorating the tree, and he’d hung a lot of Star Wars figurines from the lower branches. There were boxes underneath, and a couple of them said ‘Brendon,’ which would have gotten Brendon choked up except he was busy trying not to seem like a total sap in front of Ryan. Ryan just shook his head, though. “It’s okay,” he said. “You clearly want to run around the house and hug the shit out of everyone and cry or something. So you should go do that.”

“It’s just,” Brendon tried to explain, “there wasn’t going to be anything this year, and I was feeling sick about it, and now there’s everything, and I can’t… I almost can’t believe it.”

This time Ryan squeezed Brendon’s hand. “Yeah.”

Mikey walked in to the living room, crossed his arms, and flopped on the couch. “You’re here,” he said, but it wasn’t clear from his tone if he was happy Brendon was there or mad Ryan was.

“Merry Christmas, Mikey Way,” said Brendon. “This is Ryan.”

Ryan waved awkwardly and tried to hide behind Brendon again. “Mikey, be nice,” Brendon ordered. Did that ever work? It had never worked when any of his siblings had brought someone home and taken the attention away from Brendon, so he didn’t think it would have much of an effect on Mikey now.

“I’m nice,” Mikey grumped. “I’m just… Careful.”

“I’m trying to be careful, too,” said Ryan. They looked at each other for a long minute.

“Fine,” said Mikey eventually, “but if you make Brendon sad, I’m going to make you pay.”

“I told you he was Spencer,” Brendon whispered. “I got that same speech about you last week.”

Ryan just nodded. “I’ll do my best,” he said to Mikey.

Mikey looked only mildly mollified. “Just as long as you know he was ours first,” he said. Ryan nodded again. Brendon didn’t know who to look at. If he looked at Ryan or Mikey he might cry.

He settled for looking under the tree and blinking really hard. “Is that for me?” he asked. “From… Gerard?”

“Yeah, Gerard got you a DVD of—”

“Don’t tell him!” Gerard yelled from upstairs. “He has to open it, Mikey. You suck!”

“You suck!” Mikey yelled back.

“You both suck,” said Brendon cheerfully. “Can I open it now?”

“No,” said Brian, from the kitchen. He was such an eavesdropper. “That’s for later.”

Gerard and Frank came back downstairs with Gerard’s entire collection of markers and paint, and attempted to recreate Ryan’s makeup on each other. Then they gave up and Gerard argued amiably with Mikey about whether or not he looked stupid, while Frank used tinsel to try to create a trapeze he could swing off the stairs with. Frank fell on Mikey and explained to Brendon that his mom had decided she could get ready for family coming over later much more easily without Frank underfoot all morning. Brendon totally understood.

At some point Bill, Brian’s friend who lived nearby, stopped by with his girlfriend. Bill was always fun, because he knew tons of embarrassing stories about Brian, and he liked to share them. Brian’s mother came out of the kitchen and hugged Brendon, who tried not to get sniffly about it. Then she ordered Brian to stop ruining the food, and shooed him out of the kitchen.

Gabe arrived with Travis, who Brendon had maybe thought was made up but turned out to be both real and totally stoned. Gabe had attached mistletoe to his hat, and used it as an excuse to grope Brian and terrorize Brendon. “If other people at the office get to make out with you, I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” Gabe leered. It wasn’t that Gabe was scary, exactly, but he was like, twice as tall as Brendon was. Also, he was crazy.

Brendon figured he was probably joking. Just in case, though, he moved so that Ryan was between him and Gabe. He might have been clinging to Ryan’s hand a little, too. Ryan worked with Gabe; he had some kind of Gabe-proof force field. Gabe smiled toothily at him and waggled his eyebrows.

“Stop that,” Ryan said calmly, giving Gabe a stern look. “Or next time Travis calls I’m going to tell him where you are and what you’re actually doing.”

“What?” Travis said, frowning.

“Nothing,” replied Gabe firmly. “You win this round, Ross. Don’t think this means you win the war.” He winked at Brendon, who tried not to flinch too much.

“Leave my boyfriend alone,” Ryan said.

Hearing him say ‘boyfriend’ like that was pretty much worth any amount of Gabe’s crazy to Brendon. Brendon grinned and bounced a little. “Yeah,” he chimed in. “Leave his boyfriend alone.”

Ryan’s face honest-to-god turned pink and he looked at the floor for a second. “I didn’t mean…” Ryan said. “Unless you wanted me to. I—”

“I want you to,” Brendon said firmly. He kissed Ryan’s cheek, because he’d promised Brian no public groping. Ryan got redder.

“Ahem,” said Mikey pointedly. Ryan gave him a slightly worried look and tried to edge away from Brendon. Brendon kept a firm hold on him anyway.

Gerard had invited Bob and Ray, but their parents didn’t seem down with that plan, so he put them on speakerphone and started telling them about Ryan’s makeup. Gabe wanted in on the conversation, until he and Gerard started arguing about where the best place to buy lipstick was. Neither one of them really had any idea, and the argument got pretty loud. They both kept turning to Ryan and saying, “Right?” Ryan didn’t actually wear lipstick, so he just shook his head and tried not to catch anyone’s eye. The louder Gabe got, though, the more annoyed Bill started to look, until he and Gabe were arguing too, and Brian had to holler at them all to stop yelling around his kids. No one looked mad, and Travis and Gerard were laughing pretty hard, but it was still a lot of noise. The living room was definitely getting a little full.

It took a little more than an hour before Ryan started to look completely overwhelmed. Brendon pulled him upstairs to the boys’ bedroom and shut the door. “Hey,” he said. “You okay?”

“I’m just…” said Ryan. “It’s a lot of people around, and they’re all so loud. I hang out with Spencer’s family sometimes, but I’ve known them forever. It’s not… Like this.”

Brendon could barely believe that it was all for him, that he got to claim so many of these people as people who loved him. He couldn’t imagine what it was like for Ryan, feeling peripheral. He thought about the Thanksgiving he’d spent with his roommate the year before and shuddered.

“We can stay up here,” Brendon offered. “I’m used to having a really big family around, but I… I haven’t had that in a while. It’s okay to skip it.”

Ryan smiled. “I want you to have that,” he said. “I’m okay.”

He wasn’t, though. “Let’s stay up here anyway,” said Brendon. “I can think of a couple things we could do to pass the time besides talking to weird kids. Or Gabe.” Brendon got on his tiptoes and kissed the corner of Ryan’s mouth.

Ryan smiled. “Yeah, okay. For a little bit,” he said, and then Ryan’s phone rang.

“It’s not me this time, at least,” Brendon sighed, disappointed. He sat down on Mikey’s bed and wondered if he could steal the pirate-patterned blanket.

“Hello?” said Ryan. “Oh, hey, Spencer. Merry Christmas. Yeah, tell everyone I said hi. No, it’s… Well. It’s pretty cool, actually. It’s nice.” He paused and handed the phone to Brendon. “He wants to tell you something.”

“Spencer! Merry Christmas!” Brendon cheered, taking the phone. “It’s ass-o’clock there, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Spencer grumpily. “My family got up an hour before fucking dawn, even, I swear to god. I’m going to kill them later. Anyway, I have a Christmas present for you, but only if you want it. I promised not to interfere with Ryan, but I didn’t promise not to interfere with you. I’ve decided you need some interfering. Seriously, Brendon, how have you even been surviving this year?”

“I’m fine,” Brendon protested, simultaneously stung and happy that Spencer had decided he needed adoption.

“So listen, your roommate Andrew is friends with my roommate, whom I totally hate and am only living with because there was a fuck up with registration. I think we should switch.”

“You want to live with Andrew?” Brendon was completely puzzled. He also wasn’t following along very closely because Ryan had sat down right next to him, and one of his hands was on Brendon’s thigh.

“No, you… Brendon, you’d move in to my room. Don’t be an asshole.” And then Spencer remembered that he was being nice, and sighed. “Only if you wanted to, though. But, please, Brendon? I really hate him. It’ll give Ryan all kinds of excuses to come by and visit.”

It might have been a bad idea; if Ryan and Brendon broke up horribly Brendon knew Spencer would never forgive him. But Brendon wasn’t great at worrying about long-term consequences, and he was pretty sure he and Ryan were going to be together forever anyway. He’d decided to take good things wherever he found them and look gift horses in the mouth later. “Spencer!” he shouted. “That would be awesome. You have to fly home right away so I can totally hug you until you squeak. Okay?”

Spencer laughed. “I’m going to come home wearing body armor,” he said.

“You’ll never get that through the airport,” Brendon argued. “Deal with it, dude. I am going to hug you, okay? There will be serious hugging.”

“Put Ryan back on the phone, Brendon.”

Spencer and Ryan talked for a couple more minutes, with Ryan mostly rolling his eyes and nodding. There was one, “Yes, we’ll go see his band next week. Yes, you told me he rescues kittens,” and one, “No, I’ll forgive you when you make it up to me. And I’ll tell you when that is, so you’ll know.” And then Ryan laughed, and said, “Love you too, Spence,” and hung up.

“You’re going to forgive him soon, right?” Brendon asked anxiously.

Ryan stuck the phone in his pocket, which was amazing, considering how tight his jeans were. Brendon put one leg over Ryan’s, and his chin on Ryan’s shoulder. Ryan didn’t seem to mind that Brendon wanted to touch him all the time. Also, Ryan smelled really good.

“I have a plan,” Ryan said. “We’re going to see your friend Jon’s band, right? You said Spencer has a thing for him. So I figure I’ll just tell Jon that Spencer and I are dating, and then we’ll be even.”

“No,” said Brendon immediately. “That’s a terrible plan. It’s mean to Jon, who doesn’t deserve it, plus I am totally against you pretending to date other people. Just because it worked out okay this time doesn’t mean we’ll all escape unscathed again.”

Ryan shrugged. “Maybe I’ll just make him fill out my tax returns. He’s good at that shit.” He shifted his leg and moved so he was straddling Brendon, which made Brendon’s brain short out completely. He let Ryan nudge him backward until they were lying on the bed.

Kissing while horizontal was even better than kissing sitting up, as it turned out. It was a little weird, because they were on Mikey’s bed, but Brendon told himself they weren’t really doing anything. Ryan moved his hands cautiously underneath Brendon’s shirt, and his mouth was on Brendon’s neck, but that was pretty tame, compared to what Brendon wanted him to do. And if Brendon, when he could concentrate long enough, was considering trying to unbutton Ryan’s jeans, that was probably just a coincidence.

“Brendon!” Gerard yelled from downstairs. “Presents! You’re going to miss it!”

Brendon pulled his hands away and turned his head, laughing. “We need a house all to ourselves,” he said. “I keep saying this.”

“Jesus,” Ryan muttered. He sat up and tried to straighten his clothes. He looked totally rumpled and sexy, and Brendon wanted to pull him down on the bed again right that minute. “Some day soon, Brendon Urie, we are going to get to second base. It’s going to be awesome.”

“This is already awesome,” Brendon said, and then wished he hadn’t, because he was trying not to say embarrassingly sappy things around Ryan. He rolled out from under Ryan and sat up, adjusting his shirt and making himself breathe slowly in and out a couple of times.

Ryan smiled. “Some weird little kids are waiting for you,” he said.

Brendon grabbed Ryan’s hand before he could stand up. “Are you sure this is okay?” he asked. “I was really homesick and miserable and Christmas was killing me inch by inch when I felt like I had to do it by myself. It’s only getting better because you and Brian fixed it by… God, just by being around. And I... I don’t know how to fix it for you. I’m working on it, though. I don’t want you to be miserable today.”

Ryan smiled crookedly. “I’m not. You’re already fixing it a little,” he said. “Honest.”

Brendon’s throat hurt from… From being happy or something. It sucked that he wasn’t at his house back home, and it sucked that he wasn’t caroling or celebrating with his brothers and sisters and parents. But it felt amazing to be really, genuinely wanted here. It didn’t take the suck away, exactly, but it blunted the edge of loneliness so much that Brendon barely felt like the same person he had been a month ago. He wanted to figure out how to give that to Ryan, too.

“Brendon!” Frank yelled.

Ryan looked at him out of the corner of his eye, and smiled like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to be totally happy. “This is better than… I didn’t expect… Sometimes you make me feel like things might be okay, in spite of myself.” Ryan said quietly.

Brendon squeezed his hand and kissed him, until Ryan actually smiled. Brendon was never going to get tired of making Ryan smile. Brendon found smiling was getting easier and easier, the more time they spent together. They headed downstairs, holding hands, and Brendon couldn’t help beaming. “That’s what I just figured out,” Brendon whispered. “Everything is going to turn out all right.”