InsaneJournal

ficlet: Interlude, Brendon/Spencer, PG-13
Interlude
Brendon/Spencer, PG-13, 1,150 words.


Brendon gets up, leaving his acoustic in the grass, after Spencer doesn't come back. Inside the house it's cold and dark and stuffy, and his skin prickles. His shirt's still out there on the lawn, too, but it's not until the cold hits him that he realises how ridiculous he must look -- skinny jeans stuck to the backs of his knees with sweat, and no shirt. Not that it matters -- not like the guys said, or would say, anything.

"Spence?" he calls. He's still standing on the mat at the back door, not wanting to ruin Ryan's carpet with his damp grass-stained feet. He thinks about scuffing them clean on the mat, but he's only just going to go back out. "Did you fall in?"

"Give me a minute," Spencer calls back. His voice is muffled by the distance, through a door down the hallway.

"You want a hand?" Brendon asks, and notices how unnatural his voice sounds in the silence of the house. He shuffles his feet a bit and steps off the mat, down into the hallway. The carpet is cool and a bit scratchy against his bare feet. "I can get you some ice, like, if the lid hit you."

"Shut up," Spencer replies, but Brendon can hear the smile in his voice. After a moment, there's the distant sound of a toilet flushing.

Brendon's grinning when Spencer finally emerges from the bathroom, and says, "Good one?"

Spencer gives him a look that's part eye-roll, part smile. "I wasn't in there the whole time, asshole."

"What were you doing?" Brendon asks.

"Snooping through Ryan's personal possessions," says Spencer. "You didn't have to come get me."

"I was worried," Brendon says, an obvious lie. Evidently Spencer's snooping involved finding another t-shirt to replace the one that ended up with his beer all over it, which was really what started the whole thing. This one's soft and white and looks old, and Brendon wonders what it smells like, if it's got that sitting-in-the-bottom-of-the-drawer smell that his clothes get after he's forgotten about them for a while.

"Aren't you cold?" Spencer asks. "It's like a freezer in here."

"Oh," Brendon says, and then: "Yeah, I guess." He is, actually; and he knows they could go back out now, back into the heat with Jon and Ryan; or he could at least get his shirt and they could turn off the air and maybe hang out downstairs. Instead what he says is, "I don't think I'm drunk anymore."

Spencer looks at him. "Okay," he says, a little uncertainly. "You wanna get another beer before we go back outside or something?"

Brendon shakes his head, because that's not what he meant at all. "No," he says. "I just mean that, like, I'm not drunk anymore, so, it wouldn't be like a joke now." Of course, that's not really what he meant to say either.

"You're sure you're not still drunk?" Spencer says, jokingly, but it falters a little. He lifts a hand to smooth down the hair at the back of his neck, but then drops it suddenly, like he's thought better of it. "What are you talking about?" he asks.

"I mean if I kissed you now," Brendon says -- and immediately regrets it -- but ploughs on: "It wouldn't just be a drunk joke thing if I kissed you now."

Spencer looks at him, and then past him, out the back door, and Brendon wants to turn around and go back to Jon and Ryan and pretend he didn't say that, but he just stays there and tries not to look at Spencer. It's not like he hadn't already said it once tonight, and in the end it doesn't really matter that he'd been drunk then and not now, because it's not like he meant it any less while over the legal limit.

Spencer just says, "Okay."

And Brendon thinks it would be so easy just to take those next few steps, the carpet scratchy under his bare feet, and maybe touch Spencer's shoulder, or maybe his cheek, or his hair, and just tip their mouths together like he's wanted to do all night, all day, all the time. But before he can even move, Spencer adds:

"Don't do it if it's not going to be funny."

Brendon says, "That wasn't my point."

"I'm going back out," Spencer says, but he doesn't move.

"Sure," says Brendon, but before he can even finish the thought, Spencer's closed the distance between them and put a hand in Brendon's hair, and he's kissing him, and Brendon thinks: that isn't the way he expected that to go at all.

Spencer's mouth is cool and a bit slick against his, and there's a surety there that Brendon had never really imagined. Spencer's kissing him not like a question, but like a statement, like he knows how Brendon would have answered if he'd bothered to ask.

Brendon thinks, of course he knows. Spencer would know.

He doesn't remember opening his mouth, but Spencer's tongue is touching his, just touching like he wants a taste, and Brendon has to swallow back a helpless noise. Spencer is kissing me, he thinks. He thinks it over and over until the thought of Spencer's mouth and lips and tongue blur into the real sensation, and Brendon can't think of anything else but the way Spencer tastes.

He slides his hands up over Spencer's shirt and settles them on his shoulders, his thumbs resting in the dip at Spencer's collarbones. Spencer's skin is hot and cold at once through the thin cotton of his t-shirt -- cold from too long under the air conditioner, but hot like he's burning up from the inside and it just hasn't made its way out yet. Spencer puts his free hand against Brendon's side, just below the curve of his ribcage, and Brendon shivers at the touch. Spencer's hand is so smooth against his skin and Brendon wants to feel him everywhere -- but it's not like he can ask, not yet.

Spencer pulls away after a long, long moment, and Brendon's sure he can still taste the slickness of Spencer's mouth against his own. But Spencer doesn't let him go, but touches the tip of his nose against Brendon's. It's weird, Brendon thinks, and doesn't open his eyes, maybe so he can keep imagining that Spencer will do it again, or maybe at least so he can imagine that Spencer isn't laughing at him.

"Was it a good joke?" Spencer asks, very quietly.

"No," Brendon says, but he can't stop himself from smiling, suddenly and unexpectedly.

"That's what you wanted, isn't it?" Spencer asks.

Brendon turns his face away, and looks at Spencer sidelong. In the semi-dark of the hallway, he can't read Spencer's expression, and he can't read that inflection, so he just tightens his fingers on Spencer's shoulders. "Yeah," he says. "Something like that."