Work Text:
"This is great," Brendon had said, his smile honest. "But it doesn't sound like Panic at the Disco."
Spencer's pretty sure that's where it started. One conversation, similar to hundreds of others, but spelled out in a way that made something click in Ryan's head, something that made Ryan retreat and rethink.
"I don't think I'll know how to do this without you." Spencer can only say it after they're two bowls in, staring at the African sky. His head in Ryan's lap, Ryan's fingers soft in his beard.
"I know that feeling," Ryan sighs, soft and loose.
It's all going to change, he thinks, as soon as this moment is over. He doesn't want to let go of this moment.
He rolls his face into Ryan's belly. He lets himself have one more breathe, two, three, then he sits up. He's not going to wallow.
"Spencer?" Ryan's completely still, waiting. He looks over at Ryan, at the end of an era.
Nothing will change if he doesn't agree, if he doesn't let it. But they might not have anything to change. If he tries to hold on he might be left with nothing.
"You're going to make some amazing music," he says, standing up. Ryan smiles bitterly at him, clearly hearing the unsaid without me. "But I'm going to keep going."
He's in this for life. He doesn't want to go backwards, go to college, figure out how to have some other life. He wants to make music and to tour. He's seen enough studio musicians, techs and reps to know how he could continue on in some other way, but that's not what he wants. And if Ryan gets to do what he wants, so does he.
"You can't hate us." Spencer says it firmly. "You can't hate us for continuing on with what we built."
"I know," Ryan looks up at Spencer, but he's already far away behind his eyes. "I don't hate you guys. I won't. I promise."
"Just -- Ryan." He sighs. "Be sure. It's a lot to give away. No matter, it just -- it is."
"I know," Ryan rubs the heel of his hand down his trouser leg roughly. Spencer's jaw aches and he realizes he's been clenching it.
"OK," he puts his palms up. "Let's not call it yet."
Ryan looks up at the sky, where there's still a sliver of sunlight on the horizon. "Not like this?" Spencer knows he's just delaying the inevitable but he agrees, relieved for the reprieve.
But Spencer still has to carry with him the ugly truth that he's going to have to figure out how to replace half his band.
"But I'll fix it," he tells Zack. "I swear."
"Sure, buddy." Zack dumps him on a bed.
"Zack," he gropes for Zack's hand, gets a fistful of camo. "Zack, you have to stay with us."
"Smith, you fucktard." Zack pushes him back down. "I stay with the Disco, don't worry. Sleep it off, man."
Having the hangover to focus on the next morning is a blessing. He doesn't want to think any of it before or during their flight. He's seen Almost Famous.
Spencer doesn't think he's been away long enough for the feeling to be called reverse culture shock but he feels odd at ends, disconnected. He thinks of it as jetlag with a side helping of grief.
There's a tenseness to the house, something crisp and heavy like dry air before a thunderstorm. Spencer goes out to the pool to try to relax. Ryan doesn't see him, finishes his conversation with Eric about when he'll be home, what needs to be done around the house, and Spencer realizes he's the one drawing it out. Ryan's waiting on him, making him call it. It doesn't feel fair but that's par for the course.
"Tomorrow," he says, walking up to touch Ryan's shoulder. Ryan looks up at him, a twist to his lips. Spencer remembers the expression. He'd been halfheartedly trying to comfort Ryan after Keltie, when they both knew Ryan had fucked up big and Spencer couldn't offer the absolution Ryan was looking for.
"I'll miss you," he hears as he walks back inside.
It goes poorly, but better than he expected.
"What, you're just going to quit on us?" Brendon , after it's clear this isn't a joke. It hangs there, heavy between them all.
Ryan stands up. "I don't want to fight." Spencer watches Brendon watch Ryan walk out of the room. Ryan's never backed down from a fight before, never left without a last word.
"Is he -- are you. This is. Fucking what?" Brendon stands up, stands over him.
"Brendon," he reaches up but Brendon twists away from his touch, goes to stand at the window. Spencer looks at Jon.
"'There's nothing you can do that can't be done,'" Jon half-sings it. Spencer can't help smiling at him, a sad smile but an honest one.
"All you need is love, my ass," Brendon mutters.
Spencer sighs and stands up. "Can you go after him?" He jerks his chin towards the door, holding Jon's gaze. "Make sure he's OK?"
Jon's jaw clenches. "Spence, you sure?"
"Yeah, man." Spencer knew by then that Jon was like Ryan, neither of them prefer to hold a difficult conversation if they can simply extend a metaphor, but he hadn't realized at the time that he and Jon were having two different conversations.
He'll think on it at the worst moments and wonder: if he could go back, would he do it any differently? Sending Jon after Ryan saved Ryan, and Spencer stayed to save Panic.
***
"C'mon over, we'll talk about it," Pete had said. "And after, I have this new baby, he'll make it all better, you won't believe it til you try it."
Spencer maybe questioned Bronx's ability to make his band falling apart feel better but, well, Pete's right. He can't stay angry with a fat, happy baby in his arms, asleep or awake but especially babbling at him. Bronx's skin is soft and his life is undetermined and it takes Spencer out of his misery to remember there's a greater world out there. "It's like the universe spins through his dreams," Pete says and Spencer nods.
"Thanks." He looks over Bronx's head, whispers to Pete after Bronx is asleep.
"I think we can work out a way for you and Brendon to pay me back." Pete grins at Spencer's expression. "He still sings, right? My fee is in lullabies."
"Brendon will write you the best," he promises.
"Was it me?" Brendon had asked, one of the nights they'd gone out to forget, the night Spencer hadn't realized Brendon had a pocket full of pills til he'd offered them to Spencer, as if from a menu. It was the last night they'd gone out to forget.
Jon had gone back to Chicago. Ryan had stayed away, but not out of touch. Brendon and Spencer had spent a lot of time pretending to surf and getting drunk in the sun.
"You're pretty good at that," he realizes as Brendon pulls his ankle strap off and drops his board. Maybe Spencer had been the only one pretending. "You're pretty good at everything."
"You think I'm gonna be good enough for us to still have a sound?" Brendon asks it slyly. It's coy, accompanied by a brisk shake wet hair all over Spencer's stomach, but it's a real question.
"Fucking duh." He tosses a handful of wet, clumpy sand at Brendon. "It's not about if we can make music, Brendon." And, fuck, that sounds worse, but it's true. "It's about making his music."
"I know it's not quite," Brendon shrugs and turns to look at the ocean. "Y'know. But it feels like we got broken up with." The sea almost swallows the statement.
He knows Brendon hasn't thought of himself as Ryan's voice in a long time, since Ryan weaseled his way into his own vocals for his own songs, pushing Brendon out under the auspice of creative control. But, "this sucks." He stares up at Brendon, who's trying to brush the damp sand off of himself but is just spreading it around. Spencer lets it hit him, instead of wash over him. "This really fucking sucks."
Brendon looks at him, really looks at him, and drops down onto his chest, into a sandy sprawl of a hug.
"Was it me?" Brendon had said and Spencer hadn't had a response. Maybe that's why they're still asking it of each other, in too many ways.
"I'm going with Ryan," Jon had confessed over the phone, sounding sad and scared.
"Are you sure?" he'd sounded desperate and guilty.
"Spence," Jon didn't chide but it had been a reprimand. Jon had joined them and he'd known all their music, loved their lonely little album, but he'd pushed for the slower covers, had sat Ryan down to listen to the Beatles, Dylan, the Kinks. His shock at Ryan's limited musical knowledge had never been feigned.
"If he's out there alone, he'll never come back." Jon took a deep breath, a smoker's pause.
"You think he'll change his mind?" It hadn't occurred to Spencer. Ryan rarely retreads his own history and it had been too early for Spencer to hope for a reunion tour.
"It leaves more doors open." He heard a twang behind Jon, in the distance.
"Where are you?" he looked around like maybe Jon was behind him and he never knew.
"At Ryan and Eric's."
"Oh," he'd said, lost for words.
It had been the beginning of his worst week, dealing with it all, but he and Jon had stayed on the phone listening to each other until the sun went down.
"I don't have all the answers!" Spencer says it melodramatically, tossing his handful of legal documents down on the coffee table. Saying it takes the fight out of him. He's fucking sick of mentally running over the same problems and issues over and over. He wants this all done with.
"Hey, babe." Ashlee taps his shoulder. "I think it's baby therapy time." He gets an armful of Bronx, blinking sleepily at him. "He just woke up, you have to be soft with him." She turns on the television and kneels on the couch next to him. He runs his fingers over Bronx's still baby-fine hair, trying not to think. Ashlee watches his movements raptly.
"Ryan's never been interested in playing the game." Ashlee tucks her re-crimsoned hair behind her ears. "And if you don't want to play the game then you have nothing to lose by breaking the rules."
He looks at her, thin and pale beside him. Her lips are bright red, her makeup flawless. He's holding her five months old child and he'd never guess she'd ever been pregnant or that she just finished a fifteen hour day on set. She looks fragile, birdlike.
"It's not that hard," he protests, 'cause it's not, it hasn't been for him.
She shrugs. "Someday he'll realize you can never take yourself out of the game anyway." Her lips twist. He bets she'd be chewing on them if she hadn't trained herself out of it. "Once you're in, everyone assumes you're playing. Especially when you'd rather not be."
Bronx sneezes, diverting both their attention. His tiny face is crumpled like he doesn't understand what just happened. Spencer knows the feeling. He sings and rocks Bronx gently, reassured by the weight and the warmth in his arms. He sings about blackbirds and broken wings, grinning at Ashlee humming along.
"How you holding up, kid?" Mark claps him on the back, a friendly, paternal gesture Spencer's fourteen-year-old self would never have imagined could lie in his future, not from Mark fucking Hoppus.
"It's OK, y'know," he shrugs. Mark knows if anyone knows, he's not sure what more there is to say. The mariachi band starts up again. Spencer thinks he's saved from idle chitchat but Mark pulls him along to the end of the bar.
They'd been a four-piece when they'd agreed to the tour and now they're a two-piece. A two-piece with options, but Spencer's decided not to think about it until after the announcement.
"Beer?" Mark asks but Spencer wants one of the margaritas they light on fire. It's a drink they light on fire, how could he order anything else? He grins ruefully when they ask for his ID. He doesn't normally get carded at industry events.
"And I thought the beard made me look older," he shrugs, fighting back a blush. Mark laughs easily and palms the ID, holding it up to the light.
"Damn you're young," Mark squints. "Twenty fucking one, really?" Spencer shrugs. "We'd barely started when I was twenty one."
It's not the first time someone's reminded him that they're young, they have time, it's not the end of the world, etcetera, until Spencer rolls his eyes and reminds himself to be polite, they're trying to help. It's the first time he's talking with someone he believes. Mark's living his happily ever after, his reunion tour and nostalgia tour rolled into one.
"It gets easier," Mark shakes him, lightly. "The interviews will suck, and you'll have a few bad days. We'll be out on the road soon, it'll be easier there."
He leans into Mark's arm. "True, man," he says, because it is. It'll be weird but he'll be onstage and he'll have Brendon, half of what he loves and still enough for what he needs. He tilts his drink in Mark's direction. They toast silently.
"This fucking job's a circus." Spencer laughs, thinking about how they'd used that years ago. It's the truth, is still the truth, but it's less observation now and more experience. "But it's always entertaining, right?" Mark tugs his shoulder. He turns. Brendon and Tom have lined up a row of shots, are waving people in. "Let's go join them."