Work Text:
I guess that's love
I can't pretend
Spencer wished that this was all a joke to him. But it wasn't.
Angela and Liv had pulled him aside at work, told him about their master plan for the podcast, the big joke. He'd laughed along at all the right parts and said of course, he'd help them out.
Now, as he sat at his desk in his apartment, voice note app ready and waiting on his phone, Spencer wondered just how obvious he had been this whole time.
Apparently, obvious enough that people wanted to poke fun at the idea that he and Shayne could be in love and wanted to run away together.
Spencer scrubbed at his face with his hands, the worn-out tape of memory playing once more in his mind. Behind his closed eyes, he saw Shayne laughing at his jokes, every look and every touch and every smile…and a kiss that was meant to shock and surprise, but left Spencer with a once-in-a-lifetime feeling permanently burned into his brain.
He heard his own voice saying a little, when asked outright if he was in love with Shayne.
But it was always just a bit. It had to be. He loved both Shayne and Courtney too much to ruin what they had with his own inconvenient feelings. Spencer couldn't and wouldn't lose two of his closest friends, two of the best people he'd ever known, over something that was ultimately his problem to deal with.
Instead, Spencer could make himself the butt of the joke. He could play into the fantasy, if only for the laughs and the views. Hell, maybe this was the first step to eventually moving on from it all.
But this was Shayne Topp he was in love with, so Spencer doubted it.
Spencer sat back in his chair and allowed himself to imagine a timeline where he and Shayne were secretly together. Where Shayne had asked him to think about revealing their relationship to everyone else, or simply leave it all behind so they could be free and out of the public eye. His breathing became shallow as he felt every conflicting emotion inside of him trying to fight its way out, but rationality finally won as Spencer forced himself to take a few deep breaths in an attempt to will it all away.
Spencer had to make this at least somewhat believable, but he would definitely be showing his hand if it sounded like he had been crying. He took one more deep breath and finished dreaming up this fake scenario. Where would he be? What would he be doing?
Driving to work. Calling Shayne on the way, knowing he wouldn't be at the office that day for whatever reason.
Spencer pressed record and started talking.
"Hey Shayne, it's, uh, it's Spence. Um, just, you know, driving into work, seeing how you were doing. Uh. Yeah, uh, last night was great, I-I had a lot of fun, but you know, I've been-I've been thinking a lot about what you said, um, when I was leaving. And I-I think, I think I'm ready. Um, yeah, so just, you know, whenever. Yeah, I think I'm ready. So you know, just-just, you don't have to call back, but you know, if you want to text or-or anything, you know. Yeah. All right, love you."
He stopped the recording and saved it. Spencer stared at the play button for a few seconds and considered listening to Alternate Reality Spencer leaving a message for his boyfriend. For the man he was unshakably in love with.
He sent the voice note to Angela before he lost his nerve and deleted it. He would eventually hear it on the podcast anyway, right? That could be a Future Spencer problem.
As the numbing emptiness settled in all around him, Spencer idly dwelled on how easily the words all right, love you had rolled off of his tongue, sprouted wings and flown away from him before he could take them back.
He would never be able to pretend that it wasn't true.