extemporally | fic: Five Times Ryan & Spencer Fought

A while back on my prompt post

egelantier asked for "ryan, spencer, communication". Because I suck at following instructions (in my head it went like this: communication => miscommunication => BOYS FIGHTING => boys passive-aggressive fighting) this appeared. Nevertheless, I hope you like, bb!

In other completely unrelated news,

bandom_hc prompt claiming opens up in a few hours. I'm so excited! :D

Five Times Ryan & Spencer Fought

Does exactly what it says on the tin. Divorce-y fic.

G | gen | Ryan+Spencer+Brendon, Brendon/Ryan if you squint? | 2800 words

Thank you to

plumerri for an excellent beta. Any remaining errors are mine. This is for

egelantier, obviously.

halloween

It was Halloween. Spencer had been waiting for this day for a long time and couldn't quite suppress the thrill that crept along his gut when finally his mom pulled the last bit of blue fabric away from the sewing machine and held it in front of her, chirping, "All done!"

Spencer ran across the room - his mother wrapped her fingers around the edge of the table facing him, saying, "Don't run!" - and made grabby hands for the black Batman costume.

"Uh uh uh uh uh," his mother said, twirling neatly so Spencer, who'd made a lunge for it like a bull at a red cloak, stumbled, "That's for Ryan." She nodded at him, who was hanging back at the center of the room quietly.

"But I want to be Batman! Ryan's Robin, I'm not Robin."

His mother shook her head. "That's not what I heard," she said, disapprovingly. Then she turned to Ryan, and Spencer could hear how her voice became gentler and softer; it wasn't fair - "Ryan?"

Ryan looked down and chewed at his thumb - Spencer knew it was because a piece of skin'd gotten loose there, Ryan'd shown him it earlier that day - and said quietly, "I want to be Batman."

Spencer wasn't a baby and didn't cry, but he definitely got red and his voice wobbled a bit. "I thought I was going to be Batman!"

Ryan looked up, alarmed. "We could both be Batman?"

His mother tutted. "Well, it's too late for that - Spencer'll just have to live with being Robin for today. Get changed, boys." She wandered out of the room, distracted by the twins' cries.

"You're not fair!" Spencer yelled at the closed door. "I was going to be Batman!"

There was a pause in the room - then Ryan whispered, "Do you really want to be Batman?" Spencer sighed, because he felt as if Ryan might give up on being Batman if he thought Spencer really wanted to. And even though Spencer didn't want to dress up in Robin's stupid costume, he didn't want Ryan to, either. "No," he admitted, grudgingly.

pete wentz

It would have been a really really stupid thing - Spencer couldn't make it for band practice like he mightn't have been able to any other day of the week, except that today was the day, and Pete Wentz was coming over to see whether or not Panic! at the Disco was worth signing and it should have been a great performance, they would have wowed him completely, still might - except that Spencer had rushed over, hair sweaty in the afternoon sun, and said he'd got to drive over to the next town in half an hour and pick his stupid twin sisters up.

"What?" Ryan said, blankly, feeling a tight knot of anger and disbelief curl in his belly, a straight-out intuitve oh no you didn't, oh no you can't be doing this to me.

"I'm sorry, Ryan."

That, more than anything, had started Ryan off, and pretty soon that started Spencer off too, and they were standing in the road yelling at each other like a couple of assholes, which Ryan supposed they were, shouting things like FUCK YOU THIS IS LIKE THE TIME YOU MADE ME WAIT AN HOUR AND I THOUGHT YOU GOT IN AN ACCIDENT and YOU DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING AT THE TIME ANYWAY and YOU DON'T GET TO SAY ANYTHING THIS TIME THEN and Ryan thought that he had never been so angry at anyone in his life.

He was beginning to come down from being fired up and shouting when he realized that Spencer wasn't shouting, either, and looked up at him - Spencer's shoulders were shaking, and usually he slouched a lot anyway but this time he was hunched in on himself, rocking to and fro, ridiculous and sad.

"Hey, hey, hey," Ryan said, awkwardly. Storms and tears were more usually his thing than Spencer's, and this meant that it was really very bad because Spencer almost never cried, and he was beginning to feel like a douche all over again. He crouched over Spencer, trying to hug him, awkwardly.

After a while Spencer stopped shaking to and fro and shoved at him, saying, "Go away, asshole, I'm not crying because I'm sad, God, I'm just so fucking pissed at you -"

"Okay," Ryan said, and dropped his hands by his sides. There was a pause.

Ryan said, carefully, "I guess if I were you I'd be pretty fucking pissed too."

Spencer raised his face from his arms and gave him a watery smile. "You understand me, yeah."

Spencer stood up, decisively. "Come on," he said; still decisive, still with the wobble in his voice, "Let's go cue up that damn drum machine."

Ryan followed Spencer into the garage, and when they were in it, the light off and their faces shaded from the sun, when Spencer said, "I'm really sorry, I just can't, I have to -" Ryan said, "I know, it's okay."

Ryan said, as reassuringly as he could, hoping he wasn’t lying, "Spence, it's okay, I promise. We're gonna get signed and become famous."

cabin

"I hate these songs," Ryan said, viciously.

They'd been in the cabin for a month. Nothing seemed to be working out all right, even though on the surface it seemed okay - they were writing a lot, writing more than ever even though they'd look at half of it in the mornings and think it was rubbish, and nothing seemed to be getting better.

Ryan would have liked to feed all these papers with half-abandoned melodies and awkward lyrics to the bonfires they made every few days, only every time he brought it up he'd grow thoughtful and drift off and never could, after all, bear to let those journals go up in flame.

Spencer half-wondered if incineration wasn't the best solution, after all. The more they wrote for it, the more the new album seemed old and tired, already; and he remembered Maryland, the way they'd all been so tired all the time and in a strange new environment and the way they were always pushing, the way the pushing felt different in the cabin in Nevada. He felt tired and ill-used, and these days smoked up more than ever even though he tried, consciously, to make himself cut down, smoked up and invented elaborate drumlines for all those abandoned songs he wasn't ever going to get to play.

What they did have of the wolf musical was dark and messed up and twisted in a way that made even Brendon feel uneasy - he'd look at the lyrics Ryan had seen fit to declare himself satisfied with and laugh, quick and low in his throat, and would shudder but string together fast notes that made the lyrics sound even more screwed up.

So when Ryan said he hated those songs, Spencer wasn't really surprised. He made a non-committal sound.

Ryan said, "What if we don't pull it off, Spencer?" Spencer looked over. Ryan was trembling slightly, and Spencer had been friend with him long enough to know when Ryan was working himself into a fit, so he crawled over the lawn, to where Ryan was lying on his side, speaking and watching him with an expression that was simultaneously frightened and aggressive.

"Hey, no," Spencer said. "It's not going to happen. We'll do it, come on."

"It could happen."

It'd been a long while since they did this, but Spencer reached over and tackled Ryan into a one-armed hug, the smell Ryan's shampoo and sweat covering Spencer's nose. Ryan resisted and was stiff for a while, the bones of his shoulders knocking against Spencer's chest, but soon he relaxed and hugged back.

"Maybe," Spencer said gently, "You need to take a break."

Ryan stiffened again. "I can do this." He rolled away from Spencer and closed his eyes again. From where Spencer was lying he could see the little v between Ryan's eyes, the way he always got when he was repressing.

"Ryan," Spencer said, "What are you worried about?"

There was a pause.

"Everything," Ryan said, finally. "Aren't you scared, too?" He opened his eyes, and gave Spencer the fiercest look he possessed, as if he were daring Spencer to say no, or as if he were expecting it. Oh, Spencer thought, oh.

"Ryan, you know just as well that everyone's just as scared as you and that we love you and this band and we're not going to jump ship any time soon."

There was another pause.

"Okay," Ryan said, faintly, as if he were sliding into sleep and not furiously rethinking his shitty opinion of everyone in the band at that very moment, "I wasn't sure."

Spencer waited until he thought it was safe before he said, "And we hate the songs we're writing right now, too."

Ryan laughed this time, not the mocking, unhappy one he'd taken to using like everything was a horribly sick joke. Spencer got to his feet and held a hand out to him, saying, "Come on."

Ryan, predictably, stared at the hand thrust in front of him like he hadn't any idea what it was for. "What?" he said, squinting at Spencer's fingernails and the way the sun glanced off them.

Spencer rolled his eyes and strode over to the cabin. "Band meeting," he called out the corner of his mouth, over his shoulder.

He wasn't looking, but he could hear Ryan scrambling to his feet. "Hey, hey," Ryan said, calling to Spencer as if they weren't two feet apart, "Wait for me," as if Spencer weren't only two steps away from the door, "I'm coming too."

lunch

It was awkward, meeting up with someone who was supposed to be your best and oldest friend after a month of radio silence. Spencer didn't say anything much all through ordering, and after that was over Ryan realized that he'd actually have to speak, now.

"So," he said, "How've things been?"

"Nothing much," Spencer said, shrugging. "You know, the usual off-tour shit."

"Yeah," Ryan said. And then, as if this wasn’t the reason they were having this incredibly tense lunch in the first place, “Jon and I, we’ve been writing songs.”

“Yeah,” Spencer said. “They don’t sound the same as what we agreed we wanted to be on the next album.” He sounded a tiny bit pissed and also really dry about it.

Ryan looked up – telling that he wouldn't have to bring it up, and he wasn't surprised, really, Spencer had always been the one who brought things up within the band, the one who said, "Guys, we need to deal with this." Ryan remembered that he'd been the one to call Brent up and say that they were ending things with him.

Softly, to help Spencer along, he said, “We really like what we’re writing.”

This time Spencer said, ruefully and less competent-sounding than usual, "So I guess we have to end this for real, huh?"

"Yeah," Ryan admitted. It wasn't a surprise to either of them, but it felt shitty anyway.

Throat tight, he said, "You guys can keep the band name."

Spencer looked up in alarm - "Hey, that's not what this is about," he said.

The food arrived and Ryan picked up his fork, toying with it. "I know," he muttered, voice low.

"Do you really have to do this?" Spencer said, abruptly. When Ryan looked up Spencer was stricken - "Sorry, Ryan, I'm sorry - I didn't mean to say that, I didn't," - and Ryan couldn't decide if this was really what it was about, Ryan and Jon (the both of them, really) striking out on their own and growing bigger and apart from the others and leaving them behind, or if this was what Spencer thought it was about, when he was in his less rational moments. Maybe it was what he felt it was about, even if he didn't think so.

Ryan, too, couldn't decide what the mess was. Some days you just give up on unjumbling the mess and walk away from it. He had done it, many times, but this one he was determined to leave in a neater pile than it'd grown into. If that metaphor even made any sense any more.

"When we started this thing," he said, as evenly as he could, trying to find the right words, "It was just you and me, you know? And then Trevor and Brent, and then Brendon, and then Jon. We were young."

"Ry-" Spencer started, then fell silent, unable to decide what he wanted to say. Ryan felt the same way, too.

"I've been really happy with Panic," he said, looking Spencer in the eye. "I couldn't not have been, Spencer. It was my band." Not any more, he thought. That realization didn't hurt him as much as he thought it might have.

Spencer nodded. "It was your thing," he said.

And because Ryan had said only two sentences, but felt like he'd been giving a whole two pages' worth of what he really felt, and was unable to keep sorting out the things in his head and form coherent sentences any longer, just said, "Musical differences isn't a bullshit reason, you know?" and shrugged awkwardly. Times were that he could trust Spencer to see when the reasons he gave were bullshit and when they were real, and true, but nowadays he couldn't very well tell when they were himself.

Spencer nodded again, jerkily.

Ryan said, "You should continue with Panic, you know," and Spencer was about to say something else, something serious, when Ryan added, "You don't want to disappoint the fans any more than they will be."

"Since when have you ever cared about the fans?" Spencer demanded, bitchy and bristly like the Spencer of old once again (even though Ryan knew perfectly well that Spencer hadn't really changed.)

"I've always cared about the fans," Ryan deadpanned. "They're the best and most considerate fans on earth."

Spencer snorted, and Ryan smiled, glad the awkwardness was mostly over when Spencer leaned forwards, earnest again, saying, "Ry," said,"Ryan, talk to Brendon, okay?"

Ryan's smile slid off his face, and he ducked his head and took a bite of food before giving a brief nod, refusing to meet Spencer's eyes. He felt guilty about it, but that was the best answer he could provide at the moment, and Spencer would simply have to be satisfied with that.

fourth of july

"How's Brendon?" Ryan asked, awkwardly.

Spencer gave him an unimpressed look - it was a look that was painful and familiar, a look that Ryan had seen on Spencer so many times, directed at, variously: Brendon (at first), William Beckett, Jac - so many people in the course of their friendship that he had wanted to protect Ryan from somehow. Ryan shouldn't have been surprised, but oddly enough he'd never expected to see that look directed at him. "I suggest you ask him yourself."

"I'm working up to it," Ryan muttered. Across the lawn and behind Spencer's shoulder the subject of their non-discussion was grinning wildly as he shook fireworks out of their packet, and punching Shane in the shoulder. When Ryan inadvertently caught his eye Brendon froze, and gave a small, painful smile before waving and dropping his arm abruptly, turning back to whatever he was doing. Spencer gave Ryan a suspicious look, as if he might be breaking his one and remaining bandmate's heart behind his very back.

"Good," Spencer said. "That's good." There was a pause, and then he said fiercely, "You have to work faster."

Ryan blurted, "Is he still pissed?"

Spencer gave him an unimpressed look again. "It's only going to get worse if you don't talk to him soon."

Ryan ground his teeth. Jon was nowhere to be seen.

Spencer stepped forward - Ryan had no idea why people thought he was the fierce one, here, even though he was; Spencer had always been the first to give hugs and make up and step up to the bat - and gave Ryan a hug. He smelt of barbecue and detergent and Ryan didn't hide his face in Spencer's shoulder nor pretend they were just fifteen and dreaming of being rockstars again.

"Right now," Spencer whispered in his hair, "Right now, I don't know, if you wanted to talk to a lead singer or something, I get the feeling it wouldn't be that great, but it'd be okay if not pretty odd." Ryan laughed, laughed and snuffled into the crook of Spencer’s neck. Then Spencer broke their hug and looked at Ryan again, unrelenting and reassuring. He didn't smile, but Ryan got the feeling it'd been implied.

Ryan turned and began to walk away, raising his hand to his head like a stupid wave, or a stupider awkward salute. Then he went over to Brendon and tapped him on the shoulder, to start a conversation.

♥ Feedback is love.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

snarkaddict.livejournal.com

OH! This is perfect and real! And their meeting, so awkward! Every step of the way was perfect! The batman fight, the cabin's last lines! ♥

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fic: Five Times Ryan & Spencer Fought

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