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Spencer's still lying there with his hand over his eyes when Ryan gets back, throwing the door open with another thunderclap. "Oh, you're up," he says, scratching at one short, carefully cultivated sideburn and balancing on one long leg. In his yogalates gear, he looks like an escapee from a mental ward, or, alternatively, like he's raided Pledge Educator Saporta's wardrobe, without any of the flair that lets Gabe get away with the most ridiculous shit. "Good. Humans are meant to get up at dawn, you know. It's like, hardwired into our nervous systems, we're supposed to sync up with the sun."
Ryan can get very earnest and preacherly when he espouses a new cause. Sometimes Spencer has no idea how he says these things with a straight face and absolutely serious tone. "You fucking hypocrite, go away," he grumbles. "I have to work."
"Yeah, you're working so hard," Ryan says. His eyes skim over Spencer, from lax feet to slow-breathing belly to screwed-up face. "You should have come to yogalates, man, it really gets you in the zone for the rest of the day."
"- Are you wearing a sweatband?"
"On my wrists, too," Ryan confirms, holding out his arms like a clockwork doll; the electric blue sweatbands cover his wrist tattoos like bandages, and the one around his head holds back his curls like a medieval circlet. It's not even the most ridiculous part of his outfit; the baggy yoga pants were made for someone far more muscular than he is, sagging off his thin hips in a positively grandfatherly fashion, his pale pink wifebeater scoop-necked enough to reveal the fine bones of his sternum. "You know you want them."
Spencer kind of does, but he's not going to admit it. "Gabe's going to make soup from your entrails."
"He can't prove anything. It's a shame the girls won't let you guys come along, I really feel for you," Ryan continues, not a little smugly. "Z doing the koundinyasana is a thing of beauty. She has excellent muscle definition."
"You can say she's hot, dude, there's no one to hear you and bar you from the female inner yogalates sanctum," Spencer says, amused. "None of this 'my appreciation is totally aesthetic' crap."
"My appreciation is also aesthetic," Ryan corrects, sitting down on his single, and he sounds revoltingly dreamy. "Her limbs are so perfectly formed."
"Go take a shower, you total weirdo. Leave me to my paper."
Ryan cocks his head, squinting first at Spencer, and then down at his own feet. "Why the fuck are you working so hard? It's for Professor Kaplan, right? I thought that wasn't due until Monday."
Spencer shrugs. "We've got the toga party tomorrow night, and I don't want to be all hungover on Sunday trying to finish it."
"Weirdo," Ryan says, and cracks his abnormally long toes. "Hear that? Perfectly flexible."
"Gross."
"The party should be excellent," Ryan says, ignoring him like usual. "I ran into Brendon on my way in, and he was pretty psyched. He says he has big plans. I wonder what he's wearing." He pauses, eyes narrowing in sudden paranoia. "You don't think he's going as Neptune, do you? Because I already have my trident."
"I don't think that's it," Spencer says. "Dude, everyone's just going to turn up in unwashed sheets, you have nothing to fear."
Ryan grunts, seemingly unconvinced. Then he abruptly pulls back the quilt and climbs into bed, still in full work-out gear.
"What happened to 'natural sync with the sun'?"
"I'm tired, shut up," Ryan mutters, and, to all appearances, goes quietly and promptly to sleep. Sometimes he does remind Spencer of an automaton.
Spencer stares at their dim ceiling for a few more minutes, thinking about Brendon and bed sheets and Brendon's big party plans, and then smacks himself in the forehead. It doesn't hurt, but it wakes him up. He's such a fucking idiot. Cold turkey is one thing. He can do that; he's been doing it nearly two years now. But maybe ten minutes of making out with Brendon and he's thinking about Brendon - someone in Alpha Kai, one of his own brothers, jesus fuck - in ways he shouldn't be. He needs to stop.
-
"Did everyone dress up as Bacchus?" Pete demands, hands on his hips as he surveys the assembled Alpha Kais, shaking his head in sad disapproval. "Is it too much to ask for a little imagination here?"
Ryan waves his trident.
"Brother Twiggy excepted," Pete adds, and Ryan beams proudly. "And William and Gabe, you guys are excepted, too - nice snake, Bill."
Bill twangs his harp at him from where he's sprawled lazily on the couch, resting his feet on the back of a kneeling pledge.
"And Brother Wookiee, I like the hammer - who are you, again?"
Spencer shrugs, and looks sideways at Ryan, who stole his Bacchus-wreath and shoved a plastic mallet into his hand just before Pete called the house meeting.
"Vulcan," Ryan hisses.
"Vulcan."
"Live long and prosper," Pete says solemnly, and gazes out over the brothers expectantly. When thirty-five hands rise in splay-fingered salute, he nods regally, as if well pleased.
"God, I hate you, Ryan," Spencer says out of the side of his mouth.
"Hey, he didn't ask if the hammer was your penis, you got off light"
"I really hate you."
"I was saving you from yourself."
"The rest of you, I'm very disappointed," Pete says. "I mean, no Titans? No Mars? Not a single, solitary satyr? So many opportunities wasted." He shakes his head again. "You let yourselves get wooed by the god of wine and debauchery, and okay, the appeal is obvious, I don't blame you for being seduced, but research is key, here, children. Research allied with imagination."
Nate bangs his fist against his chest, legionnaire-fashion, and the plastic breasts he's sporting, in cruel approximation of the goddess of love and beauty, make a harsh crackling sound.
"Sorry, what was that?" Pete asks, gazing over Nate's head. "Did you say something, shorty? I have to say, I'm probably disappointed in you the most of anyone. You could have at least put on a costume, dude."
"Fuck you, man-"
"Okay, kids, the fairy lights are up, the kegs have been rolled in the back garden, we have bunches of grapes for all, and Carden's taken care of the punch, and by 'taken care,' I mean exactly what you're thinking. Remember to tip your pledges, don't lose your sheet unless there's a lady in question, and hit the ambrosia - or do I mean the nectar? Whichever the liquid one was, whatever - like men, gods, and Alpha Kais." He claps his hands, and Sisky and Butcher open the French doors onto the back porch. "The ladies should start arriving any minute. Go forth."
Cheers and whooping break out, and in a surge of bedlinen the brothers spill from the living room out onto the patio and into the garden.
Spencer glances around, despite himself. He finds Brendon helping Chiz with one of the kegs, white sheet knotted over one shoulder and gathered over his arm, the slim muscle in his half-bare back flexing when he bends to help Chiz shift it. When he straightens up, he glances around, as if he can feel Spencer looking. When Brendon catches sight of him he grins wide and bright, and abruptly drops his side of the keg.
"Spencer!" he says cheerfully, wandering over and wrapping an arm around Spencer's shoulders, and from the flush on his cheeks, he's already been into the beer. "I'm Bacchus, can you tell?"
"Really," Spencer says. "You surprise me."
Brendon makes a face at him, good-natured. Unlike most of the Alpha Kais, he makes a pretty recognizable Bacchus, red-mouthed and slightly unshaven, a wreath of indeterminate plant origin tipped sideways in his dark hair. "Everyone copied me, you see," he says, nodding his head seriously. "That's a very large hammer you have there."
"I'm overcompensating."
"Dude, if you steal my jokes before I can make them, it spoils all the fun. What the fuck am I supposed to say? What's left for me? You should be ashamed."
Spencer shrugs under the warm, heavy weight of Brendon's arm. "Make less obvious jokes."
"So demanding," Brendon sighs, and it comes out in a warm cloud of breath against Spencer's neck. It's good that Brendon's not being weird about the thing yesterday, but in some ways it's almost worse that it's not weird, that Brendon's as much in his space as he always is, that everything's normal and Spencer's the one out of step. "Hey, look, here come the ladies." He drawls the last word out, rolling it around in his mouth; the laaaaaadies.
Girls travel in packs a lot, Spencer's noticed, and sorority girls more than most. The Theta Nus burst into the back garden in a sudden flurry of colour and laughter and girlness, their togas much more cunningly pinned and draped than any of the Alpha Kais. He can already see several Venuses who put Nate's red slash of lipstick and snarled yellow wig to shame.
He can't see Ryan, but he can still see the exact moment Ryan realises the Theta Nus have arrived; his trident, which must have been held lax at his side, visibly perks up with excitement, bobbing a foot above the madding crowd, and it scythes through the massed brothers like a knife through butter as Ryan pushes his way forward. Ryan always gets where he wants to; his thinness lets him weasel opportunistically through any sliver of space, however small, and where no space offers itself for exploitation, he's not above using his sharp elbows to create it.
"I wish Bacchus had a trident," Brendon says wistfully, watching. "All he's got is that stick with the pine cone on it, which is just too lame, and also, I couldn't be bothered." He sighs, and elbows Spencer low in the ribs. "Look at that one. I see several good prospects here."
There are definitely lots of pretty girls; more every second. "Yeah," Spencer says. "Hey, look, the Delta Xis are arriving. This should be fun."
Brendon laughs against Spencer's ear, still hanging off his shoulder. "I wonder who Pete had to blow to get that to happen."
"Dude," Spencer says, tilting his head. Ashlee's standing on the patio, in rearguard of the wave of Delta Xis, with a bemused expression on her face that seems to suggest she has no idea what she's doing at the Alpha Kai house. Her posture suggests that she's kind of worried about contracting something from contact with anything nearby, which Spencer thinks is sort of unfair, since they put the pledges on clean-up duty this morning, and the AK house is actually looking somewhat better and more garbage-free than usual. There are flowers pinned in her red hair, pink and yellow and white, and at the shoulder of her clean white shift-dress.
Brendon chuckles, then stops abruptly. "Oh, shit, don't let her see me."
"Shut up, Pete's coming over. We need to hear this."
"Miss Simpson," Pete says expansively, sweeping up to Ashlee. "Allow me to welcome you to our humble little shindig. Can I offer you a beverage? We have beer, beer, and, for the more refined palate, more beer."
"Wentz," Ashlee says, looking him up and down, from plastic crown to black satin sheet to smudged eyeliner. "I should have known you'd have cheap, sleazy sheets."
"Hello, Pluto," Pete says, "I'm in character," and looks Ashlee up and down just as obviously, but with considerably more lascivity and considerably less implied disapproval. "Dare I hope you're my Persephone? I can never remember the Roman name, but you know who I mean. Her. I'll feed you seed all night, baby, and you can do whatever you like with my sheets."
Brendon snickers under his breath, then flinches behind Spencer, but neither Pete or Ashlee are looking at him, or at anyone else but each other. No one else is bothering to eavesdrop, or paying any attention; the Alpha Kai and Delta Xi polarity is old news, and everyone's heard Pete and Ashlee trade insults and innuendo a thousand times before. Brendon must have kept his discovery to himself, except for him, Spencer thinks, and feels weirdly pleased.
"I'm Flora," Ashlee says, in a tone that could etch glass, but her eyes are amused and even a little smoky. "I'm totally not surprised you're dressed as someone that needs to carry off a woman, though. You don't even need the costume, and as for staying in character, fuck."
Pete presses a hand to his chest and staggers in a stricken little circle, and Ashlee looks like she wants to giggle, but bites her lip. "One day," he says darkly. "One day, you'll be mine. And hey, any excuse to wear a crown, you know me. Come join the revelry." He seizes her elbow and propels her down the patio steps.
"Ew, AK hands," Ashlee says faintly, and Spencer hears her mutter something about swollen heads as Pete leads her away, while she makes a good show of not wanting to be led. He doesn't need to be in earshot to imagine Pete's rejoinder.
Which Ashlee set up perfectly, he realises. Under the sorority princess, there's someone who actually appreciates Pete's dumbass sense of humour, and man, that's a weird discovery.
"She didn't see me, right?" Brendon asks in a hushed voice, even though they've gone. "Because I'm kind of attached to my balls, and I'd like it to stay that way."
"You're safe," Spencer promises, and Brendon sighs exaggeratedly, unwinding his arm from Spencer's shoulder. He feels off-balance without Brendon leaning into him anymore, cold without the heat of Brendon's skin on his; it's fucking cold standing around outside in just a bed sheet and his boxers. "Fuck, I'm glad I'm not a pledge anymore," he says, nodding his head at the latest batch, who look far colder in the loincloths and sparkly wings Gabe, as Eros and pledge educator both, deemed appropriate garb for his cupid minions.
Brendon laughs. "Hell yes," he agrees, and signals one of the cupids closer with his tray of drinks. "One for me and one for Brother Wookiee, princess."
"Murphy," the pledge corrects, shivering, and Brendon rolls his eyes at Spencer, all dude, whatever. "Princess is over there, he's assigned specifically to Pete tonight." He glances balefully across the yard at the pledge hovering adoringly at Pete's elbow, the one that Ryland had voted to call Cindy. He'd been overruled, on the grounds that 'Cindy' was too emasculating for a potential AK, under Pete Logic.
("It's all in the intent," Pete had told Spencer, giving him one of his presidential backslaps. "Cindy, that's on account of his unfortunate facial deformity, that's just not cool. Princess has nothing to do with his looks, and everything to do with the fact he got into a fight with Brendon over the best Disney movie, you see?")
"What do we have to do to get our own personal pledge to fetch us stuff?" Brendon asks, and then answers the question for himself. "Become president, right. Too much work." He grabs a brimming red cup of mysterious vintage, and quirks a dark eyebrow at Spencer, who shakes his head.
"Dude, that's Carden's devil-punch, that shit will turn you blind."
"Go on," Brendon urges. "Taste the rainbow."
"Whatever you're doing, man, hurry up," the pledge says, and shivers again. His nipples are tight with cold, and Spencer totally hates himself for noticing that. There's a smiley face tattooed just above one, and something in cursive that Spencer's pretty sure he doesn't want to decipher, and there are more on his arms and even his hands; the loincloth really doesn't hide much, and there's a lot of naked torso to see.
He shakes his head again, emphatically.
Brendon shrugs, slugging back a good third of the devil's own brew. "I'll catch you later, dude," he promises, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. "I'm going to go mingle, find myself a ladyfriend, if you know what I mean."
"Yeah, right, good luck," the pledge says under his breath after he's gone, and looks up into the most pledge-crushing glare Spencer can summon. His guilty double-take is hilarious, the more so because it makes his grip on his tray waver and the remaining drinks tip sideways and spill over, with the remarkably poor luck that earnt him his pledge name. "Oh, fuck, uh, I didn't mean anything," he says, and essays a broad smile.
Spencer doesn't smile back.
"Okay, dude, I’m going to go." The last remaining cup wobbles and falls over when he whirls abruptly in a spray of liquor, and Spencer glares after his disappearing back for good measure.
He wanders around for a while, making conversation with a couple of girls and a few of his brothers, stopping by one of the kegs for beer. There are too many Bacchi milling around to find Brendon again easily, not that he'd go hang out with him again, anyway. Brendon doesn't need anyone cockblocking, and Spencer's pretty sure he'd make a lousy wingman right now.
Ryan, on the other hand, is easily found, his giant fishfork waving like a bright beacon in the air as he explains something to the Theta Nu he's talking to, his arm wrapped around her waist in a way that's studiedly casual, a little too self-aware to not be awkward. "Spence," he says with a broad smile, and waves the trident in gesticulation. His eyes are a little glassy, and he looks loose and happy. "This is Z, do you know her?"
"We've met a few times," Spencer says, rolling his eyes. Ryan treats Z like a fresh new discovery every time he gets drunk, introducing her with a sense of delighted and kind of proprietary accomplishment. Every time. He wishes they'd just start going out officially, but that would probably end in Ryan introducing 'my new girlfriend, have you met her?' over and over with the same wide dopy smile.
"A few," Z agrees blandly, and smiles conspiratorially at him. Her eyes are made up to look even darker and wider than ever, pearls glinting in her hair. She's wearing something floaty and blue-green, with little silver sandals, and Spencer must look kind of confused, because she adds "Riverdaughter."
"Nereid," Ryan corrects, "riverdaughters are Teutonic." His brow creases. "Or Tolkien. Maybe the Teutonic ones were Rhinedaughters."
"There were Roman nymphs that were technically river daughters."
"Yeah, and they called them Nereids."
Z's eyes shift thoughtfully to Ryan's trident, and linger dangerously.
"We’re both right," Ryan says quickly. "I'm going to get you another drink. And me another drink. You can hold my trident." He bumps Spencer's shoulder meaningfully as he passes, and flashes a thumbs-up in what he probably imagines is a very subtle move.
"I'm honored," Z says, rolling her eyes fondly after him. "Look at me, I have a trident." She hefts it, then waves it in a half-arc, testing. "Actually, it is kind of cool."
"You should feel honored," Spencer says solemnly. "Ryan thinks very highly of that trident."
"Tell me about it."
They exchange small smiles, and then there's the sort of awkward pause that happens when you don't know each other that well, and you've suddenly realised you're running short of things to say. Z tips her head to the side, swishing the trident again, back and forth and back again.
"I might even keep it," she muses, almost dreamily, and over her shoulder, Spencer catches sight of Brendon. "You think he'd let me?"
"He does like you a whole lot," Spencer allows. Behind her, Brendon scans the garden consideringly, and then his gaze pauses, and catches.
The girl in question is standing by the punch bowl in a dress almost blisteringly red, Roman sandals laced nearly to her knees, a helmet set back on the crown of her head and a wicked looking shortsword belted at her waist that is probably fake. She's the dark-eyed, sulky-mouthed type Brendon seems drawn to like a fly to most fascinating honey, so Spencer's not surprised when he saunters slowly over and smiles hopefully at her across the punch bowl that William insisted on calling a krater.
"What is it?" Z asks, cutting off, and turns to look in the same direction. Her eyes widen fractionally. "Oh, this should be good," she says, sounding half-gleeful.
"You know the Xena chick?"
"Mars, not Xena," Z corrects, watching, and Spencer's about to make a comment about the god of war being pretty damn male when her eyes cut back to him, coolly assessing.
Spencer's feeling sensible, and one of his brethren is cavorting near the kegs in a pair of fake breasts and a trashy blonde wig and calling himself Venus. "That's cool. I like the helmet."
Brendon says something and the girl turns her face slightly; she looks bored and a little annoyed, and from this angle Spencer suddenly recognizes her as one of Z's Theta Nu sisters, the intense one he finds hot but kind of scary. "Oh shit," he breathes. "Charlotte? She's going to eat him alive."
"Friend of yours?" Z shrugs. "If he backs away slowly without sudden movements, he should be okay."
Brendon's easy to read, even from half a yard away. Spencer can see the moment he gives up on futilely trying to make conversation, the moment his jaw sets in sudden decision and shit, it's way too late to intercept him. He has the self-preservation instincts of one of those little rodents that stampede off cliffs, or those kamizaze birds that fly full-force into the ground, Spencer decides, watching with two-parts horror and one-part amusement as Brendon lunges across the punch bowl and kisses her.
Possibly less.
"Eat him alive," he repeats with feeling, as Charlotte shies back and smacks Brendon in the chest with the punch ladle. It leaves a horribly bloody splash across his white sheet, and Spencer winces in sympathy.
Charlotte asks something incredulously, probably along the lines of what the fuck was that, not that Spencer can really blame her, and Brendon's shoulders start slumping into apologetic lines, like he's trying to make himself smaller.
"Well, she didn't go for the sword," Z notes clinically, watching. "He'll survive. Charlotte, anyway; Tennessee might want to have words." She tilts her head at a tall serious-faced wood nymph in green, standing with her arms folded.
"Oh," Spencer says. "Ah."
"Your guy doesn't have any self-preservation instincts at all, does he? Does he have, like, a radar for the least available girls around, or something? Is this self-sabotage?"
"I was kind of wondering the same thing," Spencer admits. "Look, he was dropped on his head as a baby, he doesn't mean any harm. Can you maybe not let them kill him?"
Z sips thoughtfully, her lip gloss leaving a shining half-circle on the edge of her red plastic cup. "You room with Ryan, right?"
"Yeah."
"Then l'll see what I can do, for payment in kind."
"Payment in kind?"
"Future unspecified favours," she says, which doesn't actually clear anything up, and smiles at him over the cup, eyes bright. "I'll let you know."
"This is a really bad deal," Spencer says, and Z shrugs, gazing with exaggerated disinterest around the party, her bare small shoulders shining pale honey under the fairy lights. "Fine, whatever."
Her eyes snap back to him. "Done. I'll go distract Charlotte and Tenn." She gives him another close-mouthed smile, full of smothered amusement. "You go intercept your guy."
"Don't call him," Spencer starts, but Z's already gone.
Brendon's still standing near the punch bowl when Spencer wanders over and clears his throat, nursing a brooding cup of highly alcoholic content. He barely looks up
"Maybe I should just give up, and accept my doom," he says, before Spencer can say anything. His wilting wreath is crooked, sliding down towards one ear. "You saw, right?"
"Yeah."
"And so did everyone else," Brendon says, gesturing with the cup. "I mean, there's not much I could actually do to make the whole situation worse, but I figure that getting hit with a spoon when I'm trying to kiss someone, that's not exactly going to raise my stock, is it? Seriously, I think there's nothing left for me now but a life of celibacy until I graduate. Women are done with me."
"Hey," Spencer says, squeezing his shoulder in what would normally be a manly clasp of encouragement. It's smooth and warm against his palm, though, and there's a hazy line where the brown skin of Brendon's arm meets the paler skin of his shoulder and collarbone, cream against the white of the knotted sheet. "That's, um, that's kind of defeatist, it's not the strategy's fault," he says, trying to sound bracing. "The strategy, it's sound. You just picked the wrong person, that's all."
Brendon raises his eyes from his melancholy contemplation of the ground, giving him a slanting look that's almost opaque; rare for Brendon, whose face reflects nearly every thought that flickers over it. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. It helps to try talking to the girl first," Spencer says, voice going a little wry. He grins, and Brendon grimaces, screwing up one side of his face; Spencer keeps smiling at him until he finally grins back a little, rueful. "I know it sounds crazy, but see if the girl wants to make out before you kiss her next time, okay? Less chance of crashing and burning in a public setting, and I hear that the girls actually prefer it."
"Everyone's a critic," Brendon grumbles, but he stands a little straighter, brightening perceptibly. If he was a dog, his ears would be pricking and his tail starting to wag. "You think I can come back from this?"
Spencer thinks about squeezing his shoulder again, and settles for a brotherly pat. "Dude, of course. Just flirt first, check that she wants it. You don't have to actually ask, though it helps, remember you can just sort of signal -" He waves his free hand, and Brendon looks away.
"Yeah, I remember," he mutters, and bolts back the last of his punch decisively, screwing up the paper cup and tossing it away. It makes Spencer glad, once again, that he's an active now, and doesn't have to do the post-party clean-up. "Okay. Once more into the breach. Wish me luck."
"Knock them dead, ladykiller," Spencer says, with a final backslap, and Brendon squares his shoulders, sheet sliding a little down his arm, and disappears into the party.
He doesn't see Brendon again for a while, maybe half an hour. He's chatting to Pete and baiting his conversation with faint hints about Ashlee that are totally ambiguous, but make Pete double-take in the funniest way, and it happens again; Spencer looks up at just the right time, the crowd thins out or something, and he sees Brendon over by the far wall, beaming down tipsily at a freckled and cheerful-looking Tri-Delt who barely comes up to his nose. He's gesturing with his hands, the way he does when he's really engaged in what he's saying, and the Tri-Delt's giggling, and Brendon grins broader and asks some sort of question that's answered with a nod and more giggling.
He leans down and kisses her, careful and calculating this time, a slow serious sort of kiss that goes on and on and on, until he's tipping her back dramatically and people nearby are starting to notice. A cheer goes up, and a couple of the drunker Alpha Kais bellow suggestions, and the girl breaks the kiss and hides her face in Brendon's chest. Her shoulders shake like she's giggling again, and he looks flushed and pleased over the top of her head, his arm curling around her waist.
Spencer tosses back the beer he's holding, and when one of the pledges hustles past, glittery wings bobbing, he grabs a cup of the devil-punch off his tray.