Unwritten Bandslash #1: The Spencer/Bob Story

[dira]

So the awful thing about rounding up these stories for telling is that I was going through my email and IM chatlogs, trying to find copies of what I'd told people before to work from, and in the process I have run across A LOT of other stories I'd completely forgotten about over the last two and a half years.

(For instance:

[17:40] DiraSudis: I have been wanting to write an AU (OR IS IT) where Dirty and Pete met in one of Pete's Philosophy classes in college, and Dirty is actually smarter and better-educated than Pete and just would rather run around the country being a professional goofball than slaving away in academia somewhere and not getting taken seriously anyway.
[17:40] DiraSudis: And just now I realized that it's not just that he's writing his thesis when he's not busy getting shot in the ass with a t-shirt gun, HE'S WRITING HIS THESIS IN MEDIA STUDIES ABOUT PETE.
[17:41] DiraSudis: PETE AND DIRTY ARE JIM AND BLAIR.
[17:41] DiraSudis: ...I just needed to tell someone that.
[17:42] DiraSudis: POSSIBLY THEY HAVE SPIRIT ANIMALS I DON'T KNOW.
[17:42] misspamela: Dirty's spirit animal is a FROG I THINK
[17:42] DiraSudis: Pete's spirit animal is probably a bulldog. And probably like eats or steps on the frog.
[17:42] DiraSudis: So that's probably not going to work so well.
[17:43] misspamela: but is accurate

That's the whole thing, please don't ask me to talk about it.)

ANYWAY, I managed to locate most of the bones of the Spencer/Bob story, which I had actually started writing in the hilariously mistaken belief that I could just write part of it and it would be fine! It's set from late September 2004-September 2005, so basically from shortly after Spencer's 17th birthday to a little after his 18th. It would have been stupendously NC-17 for underage sex all over the place; as it is there's nothing really graphic under the cut, but there are descriptions of what 17-year-old Spencer and 24- or 25-year-old Bob would have been up to in this story.

I did an alarming amount of tour date research for this story, mostly via the Wayback Machine and the MCR LJ comms that date back far enough, so if nothing else I have the timeline more or less right!

I wrote nearly 6,000 words of setup, which just barely got to the point where Spencer and Bob speak to each other. By that point it had accumulated two working titles - one for the part covering the first 48 hours of Bob and Spencer's acquaintance (which I figured I could keep to about 30,000 words) and the other (from a Mountain Goats song, of course) for the insanely long subsequent story spanning the entire year. So without further ado...


Spencer/Bob, 17,000 words of not-quite-fic.



Crash Boom Bang

They'd almost made it to the bus when somebody screamed off to their left. Bob actually made a grab for Gerard--he had to be at least as exhausted as Bob, and the bus was right there, with their bunks on it. Gerard had already turned and seen them before Bob could get hold of him, though, his face lighting up like pyro.

Bob thought about just fucking abandoning his lead singer and running for the bus himself, but that would be a dick move. Anyway, Gerard had already gotten ahold of Bob's hoodie. Bob was tempted to just dig his heels in and let Gerard see how far he got, but his stupid feet were already moving, following Gerard over to the screaming kids at the fence.

There were three of them when Bob turned, eight by the time he and Gerard reached them. They were all grinning at Gerard, even the girl who was hissing "Get over here, oh my God, where are you," into her cell phone.

"Hi, hi, hey, hi," Gerard was saying, beaming at them and finally letting go of Bob's sleeve. "Hey, how's it going?"

The kids were all talking at once, shoving things through the fence at Gerard, and Gerard was grinning back at them and laughing. He plucked a t-shirt and a marker from the outstretched hands, and Bob tuned out on the familiar litany of question and answer--"Who do I make it out to? You guys have fun tonight?" and "Katie, you guys were awesome, I love you!" and on and on.

Bob knew he should be paying attention. He was in the band now, so technically they were sort of his fans, too--but none of them were looking at him, smiling for him. Gerard had been introducing him every night for a month, one city after another, and the crowd always cheered, at least a little, but Bob knew they weren't cheering for him. They were cheering because Gerard wanted them to cheer.

Bob didn't mind; he understood it. They'd liked Otter. Hell, Bob had liked Otter well enough, even while he'd been a little--or a lot--jealous of him. They wanted the guy they knew, not the guy who barely knew the songs.

Bob didn't dwell on it too much. The guys had asked them to do this for them, and he would do it, even the watching-Gerard-sign-autographs-for-his-fans part. Bob was just wondering whether he wanted a cigarette badly enough to choke on it--fucking Denver, fucking high altitude and smoker's lungs and getting totally knocked on his ass by the set when he'd just been getting the hang of it--and then Gerard elbowed him and shoved something toward him.

"Here, Bob'll sign it, too!"

Bob glanced at Gerard, and then through the fence at Katie or Casey or Illegible Scribble, who looked as wide-eyed and shocked as Bob felt. Bob took the marker from Gerard's hand, thinking that this was only slightly less totally embarrassing for him than it was for her, wondering if she even knew who the fuck he was. She probably thought Gerard was having some roadie sign her t-shirt. Bob scribbled something small and illegible well away from Gerard's signature, and handed it back to her.

The other kids were still beaming at Gerard, still shoving things through the fence, and Gerard kept chatting and signing. The next girl actually glared at Bob, and Bob respected that; at least that meant she probably knew who he was, enough to hate him for not being Otter. He only pretended to sign her Three Cheers liner notes, passing them back unmarked. Gerard didn't notice, already busy with the next kid.

When Gerard passed Bob a ticket stub, he actually met Bob's eyes. He had a fixed, manic grin on his face, and Bob realized that Gerard knew exactly what he was doing to these kids. It was sweet, and made Bob want to hit him in the face, all at the same time.

Bob looked away, signed the stupid ticket stub and handed it back to a kid who still hadn't taken his worshipful gaze off Gerard, but he backed out of Gerard's reach while he was distracted by a fourteen-year-old girl's hair dye question. Bob looked back toward the door they'd come out of, and spotted Ray peeking through. Fuck, what went around came around, every man for himself. "Hey! Toro!"

There was a new chorus of screams from the kids, and Gerard cheerfully echoed, "Ray!"

Ray waved and came jogging out immediately, grinning at the kids who were grinning back at him, calling out to him and squealing even before he reached the fence. In the commotion Bob took one step back and then another, and then turned and walked to the bus, leaving his bandmates and their fans behind.

***

Spencer huddled in his sleeping bag, trying to shift so that his silent headphones weren't digging into the side of his head without anyone realizing he was awake. Not that they were paying him any attention--not that he wasn't practically fucking invisible to most of them--but Ryan thought Spencer was sleeping. Spencer was trying fucking hard to be asleep.

He squeezed his eyes shut and thought of anything but orangey sodium lights and asphalt and the low temperature he'd seen when he furtively checked the weather for Salt Lake City yesterday. Spencer gritted his teeth so they wouldn't chatter, so hard his ears were ringing. It wasn't quite loud enough to drown out the discussion behind him, six scene kids trying to be fucking deep about some Smiths song. There were four girls and one boy, apart from Ryan. With his eyes shut, facing the other way, trying not to hear, Spencer liked the boy the best. He sounded like he was just making up bullshit on purpose, like he might have a sense of humor and not just some look-at-me-I'm-so-different standard-issue irony circuit.

Of course, ever since he'd had that very special realization a couple of years ago, Spencer had noticed that he pretty much always liked the boy best.

And then there was Ryan, sitting with his hips against Spencer's back, hardly saying a word--but every so often he'd cut in, say something scathing, something perfect. The others would all fall silent, and then fall in line. Ryan hadn't actually said out loud that he was awarding them points, but Spencer knew they were all keeping score. He knew they mostly thought they were competing to win Ryan.

Spencer could have told them that they weren't, that Ryan had taken one look at their neighbors in the line and put on the smile that meant he didn't give a shit about impressing any of them. Ryan had sized up every one of them and decided none of them were in his league, and Ryan's crushes (obsessions) went strictly up the food chain. Also strictly female, so even if they hadn't known each other since they were young enough to share a bathtub, Spencer would already have had two fatal strikes against him.

Not that that mattered, of course, because Ryan was his best friend. Spencer just couldn't remember, lying in a parking lot, freezing his fucking ass off, too fucking tired to sleep after driving here from Vegas after hours of Friday night practice, just to see a show they'd drive back and see again tomorrow...

Spencer just couldn't remember why, right at this second.

He shifted slightly, trying to find a position where there wasn't asphalt under his shoulder and elbow and hip, and succeeded only in letting a draft of cold air into his sleeping bag.

"Fuck," Spencer muttered, and sat up all at once, knocking Ryan away. "Fuck this, I'm going to sleep in the car."

Spencer had made it up to his knees when Ryan grabbed his arm. Spencer looked down and met his eyes--because it was Ryan, because he always did--and Ryan was looking up at him with the same neutral expression he used when he was talking to Spencer in front of his dad, asking him if he wanted to hang around a little while longer. No one else could see it, but that was what Ryan looked like when he needed Spencer around to back him up.

And that was why Spencer was here, in the end--because Ryan had had this crazy idea, and needed Spencer to back him up when no one else would. Brendon couldn't possibly get away from his family for an entire weekend and hadn't even seemed to want to try. Brent was already freaking out about school even though it was still September. But that was all right, because Ryan had Spencer and didn't really need anyone else.

No one else except a handful of scene kids to impress, and My Chem opening for Story of the Year. The plan had sounded a little psychotic to Spencer when Ryan first told it to him--drive to Salt Lake City in the middle of the night, wait in line all day for the show, then drive back to Vegas afterward and do it all again, then go to school on Monday. But Spencer's parents didn't ask too many questions when Spencer wanted to spend the weekend with Ryan and pleaded practice for the band, and he'd gotten most of his homework done in advance. And it had been Ryan asking, so Spencer said yes, and now Ryan was looking at him and wanting him not to leave.

Spencer rolled his eyes, heaved a sigh, and sat back down, shoving Ryan over to make space for himself in the circle, sleeping bag and all. Everyone was staring at him like something they'd found on the bottom of their shoes. Spencer tried not to think about what his hair looked like. He was pretty sure he had to have a huge red line down the side of his face from his headphones. His sleeping bag was nearly as old as he was, ugly brown plaid.

Spencer sniffed, loud in the silence of everyone's total disdain, Ryan just as silent beside him, waiting.

"Fuck the Smiths," Spencer said, because, honestly, fuck this scene. They already thought he was the weird fat kid Ryan kept as a pet, he might as well play the part.

"If we're going to talk about the deeper meaning of music that moves us, let's talk about music we ever actually gave a fuck about. What are your deep thoughts on the Backstreet Boys, huh?"

All four girls were staring at him like he smelled bad, the exact same expression of distaste in all their black-ringed eyes. Spencer glared right back at them. It was sort of freeing to realize you never did want any girl to let you take her pants off, really.

Beside him, Ryan lost the battle to hold his breath and started laughing, humming a familiar line. Across from them, the boy with the asymmetrical black-and-blond-striped hair got cartoon hearts in his eyes and did a little of the "Bye, Bye, Bye," dance.

Spencer rolled his eyes again and looked away. Clearly gay, cute, sense of humor, and completely unaware that Spencer was even alive. But Ryan was still laughing and leaning against him, so Spencer had to smile, too, and couldn't really bring himself to care.

***

Bob took a couple of seconds to appreciate being able to breathe before he sat down at the table and lit his first cigarette. "We're somewhere flat, huh?"

Mikey barely looked up from his coffee, but Frank nodded and jerked his head toward the whiteboard, which read Hello, Salt Lake City! in Gerard's handwriting. "Flattest of the flat."

Bob nodded, thought about getting up to pour himself a cup of coffee, and then tipped his head back, taking another long drag. "Where's Gee?"

"Ray took him away," Mikey mumbled. "They're being awake somewhere. Outside."

Mikey managed to pack loathing and bewilderment into the same monotone. Bob nodded a little, gathered himself, and got up, aiming for the coffee.

"Gerard's taking a shower tonight," Frank announced, sounding a little grim. "You in?"

Bob blinked, staring down at the coffee he'd just poured himself, wondering if this was one of those dreams where you dreamed you'd woken up and then woke up and had to get out of bed all over again. "Do we need to have that talk again about you guys not proving your heteroflexibility with me?"

Mikey snorted, and Frank huffed annoyance. "Not in the shower with him, Bob. In on the plan."

"The--" Frank sounded determined, right, and Bob had gotten a whiff of Gerard last night. Playing in Denver had taken it out of all of them, and Gerard had been drenched in sweat. "There's a plan."

"I think technically it's just a conspiracy at this point," Mikey said. "We haven't actually planned anything, we're still assembling a team."

Bob poured sugar into his coffee and turned to face them again. "I'm declaring neutrality. I won't tell Gerard, but no fucking way am I getting in the middle of this."

"Pacifist," Frank muttered into his coffee.

Bob tapped ash into the sink and put on his best Don't fuck with me, I know where the gaffer tape is stare. "Yeah, come over here and say that, vegan."

***

Spencer stared grimly in the direction of Ryan's car. At least, he thought Ryan's car was parked over there; it had been dark and a lot less crowded when they left it. Also, at that point Ryan hadn't been making out with some pink-black-blonde-haired scene queen who showed up an hour before doors to slut her way into the line. That was Ryan's type, the kind who thought lines were for other people. The kind who was obviously using him for something he could give her.

Most of the conversation they'd had leading up to the current spit swap had consisted of name-dropping, and most of the names were from LiveJournal. Spencer thought Ryan might have held even or come out ahead, but that didn't really matter, because Ryan was currently making out with some chick whose name included x's and underscores, and she didn't just want a spot on the barricade, she wanted a ride to the next show.

Ryan's car keys were in Spencer's pocket, and Spencer could see how this was going to go: he would drive, and Ryan would make out with his new girlfriend all the goddamn way to Vegas.

At least she didn't have a best friend who'd sit up front and try to make conversation. Spencer was trying to remember what the most embarrassing CD in Ryan's car was, so he could blast it at them. Not that they'd notice, but he had to take his entertainment where he could find it.

"He should really treat you better."

Spencer lowered his chin and turned his head to the left slightly, and he was looking at the next guy in line, the one who knew the "Bye, Bye, Bye" dance and had probably realized by now that he didn't have a shot with Ryan. His name was Alec, or Adam, something like that. He was watching Ryan and the girl with a hint of disgust, which made Spencer want to punch him--no one was allowed to look at Ryan like that on Spencer's watch, not even Brent.

Also, he was an idiot. Spencer rolled his eyes. "We're not."

Alec's eyes flicked back to Spencer, and his sudden smile was friendly, harmless. "That just means he's not making this up to you with blowjobs later, man. Seriously raw deal."

Spencer glanced back over his shoulder at Ryan, who was all of a foot and a half away--Spencer could fucking hear the wet noises from their mouths. He felt jealous in sort of a generic way. It had been almost two months since Jason Astor had his "Wait, no, I'm straight!" freakout, and Spencer hadn't kissed anybody since.

He glanced back at Alec. It was a monumentally bad idea; he knew better than to take Ryan's hand-me-downs, and they were in Utah. On the other hand, Alec had come down here from Wyoming or something to see this show--and he was going to Vegas to see it again tomorrow night, too.

"You want to offer me something better?" Spencer asked, quirking an eyebrow.

Alec laughed--not at him, really, just like they were sharing a joke. The joke was on Ryan, maybe, but it wasn't mean, just fun, and Spencer suddenly couldn't resist. He grinned and reached into his pocket, pulling out Ryan's car keys.

Holding Alec's gaze, Spencer reached back and jammed them into Ryan's back pocket, which was a tight squeeze. His fingers got a little stuck, and he ended up kind of involuntarily groping Ryan along the way, which made Ryan jerk back and say, "What--"

Ryan's girlfriend shot Spencer a look that started out irritated and quickly became interested, as she realized where Spencer's hand was.

Spencer rolled his eyes again, glanced at Ryan and said, "You're driving on the way back."

Ryan frowned, glancing at Alec, and opened his mouth--probably to lecture Spencer about getting in cars with strangers, like Spencer was seven years old instead of seventeen. He wasn't stupid, he wasn't really going to ride all the fucking way back to Vegas with Alec; he was just going to let Ryan think about it for a few hours.

Spencer yanked his hand back out of Ryan's jeans and grabbed Alec's hand instead. Alec grinned and tugged him closer, playing along like a master. Spencer wondered if he could get some actual kissing out of this--not now, maybe, but maybe later in the parking lot. Maybe he could ride with Alec just for a little while...

"You are my new best friend," Spencer muttered, and for a second he almost kind of considered halfway meaning it.

Alec batted his eyelashes, and Spencer thought seriously about rushing that kiss--fuck Utah, it wasn't like they weren't among their own kind here in line. Then there was a yell from up front: doors opening, time to move. Spencer dropped Alec's hand and faced front.

***

Spencer lost track of Ryan and the girl pretty fast, though Alec stuck with him, plastered up against his back at the barrier and politely not crushing him much. He even helped Spencer peel his hoodie off between sets; Spencer draped it over the barrier and the nearest security dude glanced at it and didn't object.

It wasn't until My Chemical Romance actually came out that Spencer really wanted to look for Ryan, and he caught a glimpse of him after craning around, eight feet down the barricade. Spencer was more or less right in front of Frank, while Ryan was down near Gerard. Ryan was looking away, so Spencer turned his attention back to the stage. The drummer was definitely the same big blond guy from the new video (Spencer and Ryan had been practically on top of each other, watching it on MySpace when it premiered at midnight, and Spencer had spent half of it just trying to make out the guy behind the kit), and he really wasn't bad, no matter what Ryan said people on the internet said.

By the second song, Spencer had decided that, actually, fuck stupid people on the internet who didn't know a drum kit from their asshole, he was really kind of fantastic. Spencer pulled himself up a little on the rail, craning his head to try to see past the writhing mass of guitarist in front of him, up to the drum kit. They'd been listening to My Chem all the way here, which had given Spencer plenty of time to realize he did not know how he'd play half those drum lines. He was ready to watch and learn.

Except between the third song and the fourth, the drummer lit a cigarette, yelling to someone offstage and laughing as he did, and Spencer might have fallen over if there had been any way he could. The new drummer was hot.

Spencer leaned forward, then sideways, trying to see past Frank to keep his eyes fixed on the drummer--Spencer squinted, trying to focus on his hands, to see what he was actually doing, but all he was really processing was that the guy was beating the shit out of his drums and smoking at the same time. His face was half-hidden behind his beard and hoodie, scowling like that laugh a minute ago had been a hallucination.

Spencer felt kind of breathless, and he wasn't sure if it was the surging pressure of the pit behind him or the blond guy in front of him, but he had never loved this song more. Whatever the fucking song was called, Spencer honestly had no idea at this point.

The only thing that sucked was that Frank was all fucking over the place. Spencer usually found the crazed thrashing guitar style kind of entertaining, in a vaguely anxious "our band does not have anyone even a little bit like that" way, but now it was just irritating. It seemed like as soon as Spencer found a position that wasn't getting him elbowed in the head and still let him have a clear view of the drummer, Frank decided that that was exactly where he needed to be jumping around and playing guitar and generally taking up as much space as humanly possible.

Way too soon, Gerard yelled something about playing just a couple more songs, "But first I want to make sure you know our names!"

He introduced himself, and Ray, and Mikey, and Frank, and then yelled something about their new drummer. Spencer actually tore his eyes away from the drummer to squint at Gerard, because no one on the internet seemed to actually know the guy's name for sure, and Gerard yelled something loud and drawn out that honestly did sound like "Bob Bryan!" which was kind of a stupid two-first-names name (not that Spencer could throw too many stones, having a two-last-names name--and his stupid, stupid brain could not help observing that maybe that would make them a good match, then).

A couple of seconds later, Spencer realized that Bob-whoever was getting the world's most pathetically tepid cheer. He twisted his head to glare vaguely at everyone else in the pit before he looked back at Bob, who wasn't even looking up. When the cheer stopped Bob did look up--not like he had before, not laughing, but he glanced over at Mikey and his shoulders straightened a little, and then he called something up to Gerard and they were headed into the next song.

Spencer found himself looking around for Ryan again, because--they could be like that, even if crowds didn't love them right away they'd have each other up there, and they'd stick together. This time Ryan was looking right at Spencer, and smiled when Spencer met his eyes. Spencer smiled back, and then Ryan's new girlfriend tugged Ryan around and Spencer rolled his eyes and went back to watching Bob.

Way too soon, the last couple of songs were over. Bob bolted offstage like he was being chased, and the roadies rushed in and started taking down My Chem's stuff to get ready for Story of the Year. Spencer tried twisting around to talk to Alec, but the crowd was still pushing too hard behind him even though there was no one on stage, and the between-sets music was too loud (and was that Creed? Seriously? What the hell, Utah?) so Spencer watched the roadies work and tried to imagine that someday he'd be watching this from sidestage, that he and Ryan and Brendon and Brent would be waiting while other people set up their gear so they could go sing for a warmed up crowd.

By the time the actual headliners came out, Spencer wasn't feeling especially warmed up. Ryan had played some of their songs for him, so he recognized the music, but they'd come for My Chem, and Story of the Year's drummer was no Bob Incredible Hotass with a Questionable Last Name. Spencer was getting squished worse than ever, and he was kind of tired--it had been a long late night, and he hadn't really ever gotten to sleep.

Spencer folded down onto the barricade a little, and found a way to rest his head on his own shoulder that actually wasn't all that uncomfortable. Alec sort of curled forward over his back, yelling something, but Spencer just shook his head a little. He was fine, just tired. And then there was somebody in front of him, hands on Spencer's arms and more hands on his back and ass, pushing and pulling him up, and Spencer picked up his head just in time to see the security guy register the fact that he'd pulled a long-haired boy in a pink t-shirt out of the pit.

Still, the guy set him down gently on his feet, and caught Spencer when he stumbled, dizzy, and walked him down past the end of the stage and around a corner past some other security people. Spencer blinked in the sudden bright lights, but the dizziness had passed--whoa, had he just almost gotten crushed in the pit? Was that what it felt like?--and he shrugged off the security guard's grip and half-yelled, "I'm okay, sorry, I'm fine."

The guard looked skeptical, but somebody yelled behind him, and he turned half away, waving his arm, and then turned back to Spencer. "You go down this way and take a right, let the medics check you out. Got that?"

Spencer nodded obediently, and started walking when the guard stood there staring at him. When he got to the hallway that went right, marked with a red cross sign and an arrow, Spencer looked back and the guy was gone, and there was no one watching.

Spencer looked around and fully realized for the first time that he was backstage. He didn't even have to think what to do, then; he stuck his hands in his pockets, squared his shoulders and put his chin up, and kept going down the hall with long, confident strides, like he knew exactly where he was going, trying to see as much as he could without looking like he was looking at all.

It turned out to be a bust pretty quickly--he came to the end of the hallway he was in, and then he heard voices behind him so he darted out the Exit door that was right there, which put him in some kind of back parking lot; he could hear the show--or at least the screaming--but right here there was nothing but a little dark corner made by the building, a big trash barrel and a couple of picnic tables, and a fence Spencer was probably going to have to climb to get back around to the parking lot.

"Hey!" Spencer turned, stomach lurching with that shit, caught sensation. He hadn't even noticed the guy standing in the shadows, though now that he knew someone was there, Spencer saw and smelled the cigarette. The guy stepped into the light and demanded, "What the fuck are you doing back here?"

Spencer just stood and stared. The guy smoking outside the back door was My Chem's drummer, Bob, and he was just as hot up close, even when he was mad.

***

Bob regretted yelling the second the kid froze and went all wide-eyed. He kept forgetting he wasn't a tech anymore, that he was part of the band and should make nice with the fans, even the ones who were kind of pushy. And the kid wasn't really doing anything; he might have just gotten lost or something.

Bob opened his mouth to try again, unlock the door for the kid and get him back to the show, except the kid's wide-eyed stare of having gotten caught was changing into something else. Bob knew that look--he'd seen hundreds of kids give that look to Gerard and Frank and Ray and Mikey. The kid recognized him. Bob forced himself not to look behind him to see if maybe the kid was looking at one of the actual guys, and smiled cautiously back.

"You're--Bob, right? From My Chem?" The kid actually squeaked a little on the first couple of words, then got in under control.

Bob from My Chem, fuck that was weird. And a little bit awesome, because the kid said it like a question but was looking at him like it was really true.

"Yeah," Bob said, shifting his cigarette to his left hand and holding his right out to shake. "Bob Bryar."

"Spencer," the kid said, and managed to stop staring enough to look down and shake his hand. "Spencer Smith. Wow, it's awesome to meet you, nobody, um--nobody seems to know anything about you, online."

Bob raised his eyebrows at that. The kid was looking him in the eye again, still grinning, and Bob wondered if Spencer Smith was going to notice anytime soon that he was still holding on to Bob's hand.

"I like to hang back a little," Bob said, tapping ash left-handed without looking down. "You know, stay behind the kit."

"Yeah," the kid said quickly, "yeah, me too--" and then he looked down at their hands, still frozen in a shake between them. Bob watched as the kid went bright pink--several shades darker than the little t-shirt he was wearing--and pulled his hand back. "I--sorry."

Bob laughed a little and took a drag of his cigarette, and the kid looked away, folding his arms and hunching his shoulders. He wasn't actually more than a couple inches shorter than Bob, though he didn't look like he was shaving that much yet. His hand, pulling away across Bob's, had felt familiarly callused.

"You play drums, or you're shy?" Bob asked. "Or both?"

Spencer looked up, startled. "I--what?"

"You said, you too," Bob said patiently. He should really just let Spencer back through the door, but he wasn't making any move to escape and anyway... This was kind of cool, talking to someone who thought he was--well, who liked the work he did, at least, and wasn't mad at him for not being someone else. It was bound to be a better comedown from the high of the show than whatever the rest of his band was up to right now, trying to get Gerard into a shower.

"Oh," Spencer said. "I--yeah, I'm a drummer. I'm--" the kid smiled a little, with a visible edge of self-deprecating irony. "I'm in a band, we're--you know. Getting there, maybe." Spencer waved his hand, like obviously the whole process was one Bob was familiar with.

He decided not to tell Spencer he actually had only a pretty theoretical idea of how bands made the leap from fucking around to playing clubs and tours. Spencer straightened his shoulders as he said it, putting on seriousness the way he'd seen all of the guys do when they were talking about the part where this was a job, not just the most fun thing they'd ever done. Bob mentally added a year to his guess about Spencer's age.

"Ryan--he writes and plays lead guitar--he convinced me to drive out with him for this show and then back to Vegas for tomorrow's. He said it'd be kind of like, um, practice, for touring." Spencer scuffed his toe against the asphalt.

"Not bad, for practice," Bob said, because Spencer was pretty obviously waiting to be told that was stupid. He took a drag off his cigarette, thinking about it. "I mean, just keep it up for two weeks with only two changes of clothes, loading heavy shit in and out of your car and eating nothing but corn chips and donuts, and you're basically there. Try getting into a fistfight with somebody about halfway through, and get puking drunk or come down sick during the second week."

Spencer looked up--through his hair, first, and then he shook it back and met Bob's eyes directly, a smile spreading across his face as Bob kept talking. Bob found himself wanting to keep talking to see if Spencer would keep smiling, and cut it off there. Fuck, having pretty boys look at him like that could get addictive.

"So were you..." Spencer's smile faded. "Did you have to leave your band, to join My Chem?"

Bob nodded, thinking of Bert and Jepha and Quinn, and then quickly shook his head. "Oh, you mean--no. I was teching, actually, not playing. I mean, that's a good gig--union and shit--but when Frank and the guys asked me to come play, that was it, and everybody understood."

Spencer looked faintly relieved as he nodded. Bob braced for the inevitable question about Otter, but Spencer just said, "I couldn't imagine--I mean, if some amazing band asked me to come play with them--I couldn't leave my band. I don't think. I mean, we're..."

Bob nodded. "The main thing for drummers--I mean, you have to be good enough, right? You have to be able to play your shit."

Spencer nodded, watching him seriously, like he genuinely believed Bob was about to convey some kind of fucking wisdom--and Bob didn't know if it was weirder to realize that Spencer believed that, or that it was actually true, and he actually knew what the fuck he was talking about on this.

"But if you can play, the main thing is to just not be an asshole, and have your own shit together. Leave the drama and the ego for the guys out front, okay? If you're somebody other people can work with and you're a professional about your work, there will always be a band that wants you."

Spencer nodded thoughtfully, looking into the distance, and then frowned a little and said, "So why were you teching, then?"

Bob snorted. Spencer was sharp, and not afraid to ask; that was cool. "A band wanting you doesn't mean a band can pay you. Like I said, techs are union, you can actually support yourself like a human being that way."

Spencer grinned at that. "Yeah, I--my parents are all, stay in school, have a backup plan. Not that there's any point dropping out yet, but--I mean at some point, you have to take a chance, right?"

Bob shrugged. "I didn't. Gee didn't, really, or Ray. Frank did, Mikey did. Just a matter of when your chance comes up, right? Maybe you have to keep working away at this for years and by then you're done with school anyway, maybe crazy shit happens and you're playing Warped next summer."

Spencer's smile at that last part looked a little skeptical, like he knew he was being teased; the rest just made him look determined, like he'd heard it before and he believed it. Like he believed he was ready, which Bob kind of suspected no one ever was, but obviously he was going to give it his best shot.

"I guess it was--it was sudden for you, huh? I mean, you were teching, but..."

Bob nodded. "Two months ago I was shoveling elephant shit, today I'm in the middle of the circus. Show business."


---

So what was about to happen, there, was that Bob would notice that Spencer was shivering and that it was getting hard to carry on a conversation over the dull roar of the show going on inside, and would ask Spencer if he wanted to come and see the bus, not really thinking about what he was saying until after he'd said it.

Spencer, naturally, is thinking OH MY GOD OH MY GOD GROUPIE SEX OH MY GOD YES as soon as Bob says it, manages to nod frantically, and follows Bob off across the parking lot. Halfway there, Bob suddenly hesitates, turns to Spencer and says, "What's your birthdate?"

And Spencer, who is not an idiot, rattles off Ryan's: August 30, 1986.

"So that makes you..."

And Spencer says, "Eighteen," and then rattles on a little bit about being able to vote and buy lottery tickets - he doesn't even smoke, so being able to buy cigarettes doesn't even matter.

Bob grins and tells him never to start, it's a terrible habit, and decides to take Spencer's word for it--he seems like a good guy, and anyway why would he lie? Who would lie about being eighteen for the sake of hooking up with Bob, after all?

So just as they get to the bus, Spencer decides to take the bull by the horns and asks, awkwardly half-jokingly, whether Bob gets a lot of drummer groupies, and Bob says, "Can I count you? Because then I might have one."

And Spencer blushes furiously and grins and steps onto My Chem's quiet, empty bus. It's messy and has a definite smell of dudes in a confined space, but it's a tourbus and Spencer's eyes are almost popping out of his head, staring all around, so Bob gives him a tour before offering him some questionable coffee, and they sit and drink coffee and are having this awkwardly flirtatious conversation about drumming and what it's like being in a famous band and then Bob puts his coffee down and kisses Spencer and Spencer pretty much climbs into his lap, leading rapidly to frantic, pants-only-halfway-off frottage/handjob type sex with a lot of kissing, and afterward they just kind of both continue to sit there, almost cuddling but also drinking coffee, and Spencer's train of thought is mostly OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD HOW IS THIS MY LIFE THIS IS THE GREATEST THING EVER OH MY GOD.

Bob is kind of watching him and remembering being a teenager and feeling a little bit old but also feeling kind of fucking amazing. He remembers being that age and running around being stupid and hooking up with older guys, and while some of them were assholes--well, it suddenly strikes him that he can be the cool older guy who treats the teenager right, like a few of them treated him, and he's considering seventeen-year-old recovery time and blowjobs, and Spencer sits suddenly bolt upright.

Because Spencer, of course, has just thought to wonder how much time has passed and where is Ryan and WHERE IS HIS PHONE and OH SHIT. His hoodie is back on the barricade, after all, and a quick pat of his pockets suggests that his phone is with it, or possibly lost in the pit. And he can't remember what the state of Ryan's phone was, but he strongly suspects that Ryan completely killed the battery with texting before the show even started, and the last time he saw Ryan he was threatening to catch a ride home with someone else.

Spencer's not going to say anything to Bob, though. He doesn't want to be the crazy sob story kid, when they just had sex and it was awesome and grownup and no one claimed to be straight afterward. Bob thinks Spencer is an adult and Spencer is just going to act like one and handle this; he can totally handle this. Somehow. So he says a quick thanks! and bye! to Bob and rushes off into the night to look frantically for Ryan.

And Ryan is, of course, nowhere to be found; the parking lot is a vast mess, and Spencer is running up and down trying to figure out where they were even parked, let alone find Ryan in the streams of traffic headed for the exits. He's looking into every car, too, trying to spot Alec, or even any of the girls they were sitting with--they'd at least let him use their phones, he's pretty sure--just anyone at all, because what's he going to do? And the more he runs around and doesn't find anyone he knows--though he gets plenty of skeptical looks from moms and a few creepier, speculative looks from people closer to his own age--the more he realizes he's going to have to find a payphone and call his parents, confess that he's in Utah, and ask them to help him fix this--buy him a Greyhound ticket, probably, so he can come home and then be grounded for the rest of his life, including not seeing Bob play again tomorrow in Vegas....

And then there's a hand on his shoulder and Spencer jumps--oh God, somebody's going to drag him into their car--but the guy standing behind him is Bob, with the hood of his sweatshirt up again, holding Spencer's phone in one hand and a folded black hoodie in the other. And as Spencer frantically grabs the phone and babbles out thanks, Bob says, "Missed your ride, huh?"

And Spencer winces and nods and says he'll figure it out, and Bob says, "Hey, look, it's my fault. Why don't you let us give you a ride? We've got room and we're going your way."

And Spencer looks up like ♥___♥ and agrees, accepts the hoodie, and follows Bob back toward the bus. On the way Spencer sends a SEE YOU THERE DON'T WORRY message to Ryan (possibly with a yes-really-okay private codeword of their childhood). The first person they encounter, standing outside with a towel, a phone, and a syrupy smile on his face, is GERARD WAY OH GOD. He barely looks up - Bob just waves at him and keeps walking - and Spencer catches a snippet of him talking to his girlfriend about yes, yes, he really did take a shower.

(I was going to, among everything else, write a story that actually included Gerard and Kat's relationship, as for obvious reasons I don't think I've ever read one.)

So they go inside and there's a whole gang of people in the front lounge/kitchen area, people Spencer doesn't recognize who must be techs, and FRANK IERO and MIKEY WAY and RAY TORO. Bob blandly introduces Spencer as "my friend Spencer who needs a ride," and Spencer sort of waves awkwardly and then Frank says, "Oh! The Angry Kid knows Bob!"

And it turns out that Frank was totally aware of Spencer glaring at him, and was playing up to it, not realizing that Spencer was glaring because he was trying to see past Frank, and Spencer is about to die of embarrassment when Bob suggests that Spencer go crash in Bob's bunk for a while. Bob lingers to have a low-voiced talk with the tech in charge of riding herd on that bus--vouching for Spencer, who's totally legal and a good guy and not going to cause any problems, no need to get the tour manager involved, he and Bob just got talking and he missed his ride.

Ray says, skeptically, "Talking?" and Bob blushes and there is a roar of laughter that still has not died down when Bob crawls into his bunk with Spencer, leaving basically no empty space.

So they lie there for a while and talk, establishing that the hoodie Bob gave Spencer to wear is actually Frank's - Bob says, "One of mine would've been kind of giant on you and Frankie's actually got clean laundry. Clean-ish. It doesn't smell too bad, does it?" Spencer expands his lie about being eighteen into a whole lie about having just started college at UNLV with Ryan, though he prudently cops to living at home with his parents and sisters. Bob says some approving things about getting an education and tells some stories about his own life in Florida and it's all going great except for how Spencer is seventeen and jammed into a bunk plastered up against Bob Bryar From My Chemical Romance and inevitably this results in a sort of awkward hardon. So he's carefully not looking Bob in the eye and ignoring it and Bob says, "So you live at home? You have sisters?"

And Spencer says, yes, two, and babbles on, hoping this will get through to his dick.

But Bob interrupts him to say, "So you're pretty good at being quiet, huh?"

And Spencer gets all wide-eyed and nearly comes in his pants at the look in Bob's eyes, and then Bob puts one hand over Spencer's mouth and the other down Spencer's pants, and it barely even qualifies as jerking him off, Spencer comes so fast. And after that Spencer wiggles out of his clothes - quietly - and offers to reciprocate, and Bob just shakes his head and says he's not as good as Spencer is at being quiet, and shortly thereafter people start coming back to their bunks, and Spencer falls asleep listening to the sounds of the bus all around them, tucked between Bob and the wall.

In the morning, Spencer wakes Bob up for/with a logistically improbable blowjob, and it turns out that Bob isn't that bad at being quiet. After, Bob gets him coffee and pop tarts and then, all gentleman-like, escorts Spencer to find Ryan in the parking lot. Bob is looking forward to giving this Ryan kid a good hard glare for leaving a kid like Spencer alone in another state at night - from the way Spencer talks, he gets the impression that Ryan's a little older and oughta be responsible, and anyway you don't abandon your friends in Utah.

They find Ryan, and his new girlfriend who I was going to come up with a name for at this point, let's call her Angela, waiting in line--fairly obviously neither of them had slept, and Ryan gets out a good start on OH MY GOD SPENCER WHERE WERE YOU WHO DID YOU LEAVE WITH-- before he realizes who Spencer left with and, with a single glance at Spencer's face, why.

So now Ryan knows Bob committed statutory rape the night before in Utah, although Bob still does not. Ryan glares appropriately, and Bob and Ryan's instant mutual politely-constrained dislike is born.

Bob tells Spencer it was nice hanging out with him, and he'll leave some all-access passes for them, so they don't have to wait in line all day - Bob has noticed Spencer wants to clean up, and is not about to inflict tour showering on him. So if he and Ryan want to hang out later, they can come back whenever. Bob also notes, diffidently, that tomorrow is a rest day, so they have a hotel night tonight and Bob won't have to rush off for bus call, if Spencer wanted to hang around after, if he doesn't have early classes or whatever. Spencer says, yes, okay, great hanging out, beaming hugely, and Bob gets in one more glare at Ryan and a fantastically insincere, "Nice to meet you, don't lose this guy again," and takes off.

And Spencer gets Ryan alone and says IF YOU HAVE EVER IN YOUR LIFE OWED ME ONE, YOU WILL HELP ME LIE TO MY MOTHER SO I CAN HAVE SEX WITH BOB BRYAR IN A HOTEL TONIGHT. Which is, frankly, logic Ryan cannot dispute, so he excuses himself from Angela for a few hours (she stuck with him on the whole drive and while he freaked out over Spencer; they have bonded) and takes Spencer back to his dorm room to shower and change and call his mom and lie lie lie about Ryan wanting him to stay over tonight, too, because--there's this girl, and drama, and he just thinks Ryan needs him here tonight. And Spencer's mom huffs and sighs and finally agrees, as long as he's home in time for breakfast before school.

Spencer is trying to be cool, so they don't go backstage right away - also, he has to debrief extensively with Ryan, partly at a laundromat where they wash Frank's hoodie before Spencer sneaks it back aboard the bus, because it got, um, dirty, in Bob's bunk the night before, Ryan DOES NOT WANT TO THINK ABOUT IT OKAY - but eventually they are OH MY GOD backstage hanging out with My Chem (well, and a lot of techs and a couple of other opening bands, but the techs are busy and Spencer is hanging out with BOB and Ryan is sticking close to him and Bob is sticking close to his bandmates, so: hanging out with My Chem, which is interfering with even Ryan's practiced equilibrium, though Spencer might be the only one who can tell). And sure enough, Bob invites Spencer back to the hotel with him after the show and, miraculously, Ray, who Bob is sharing the room with, decides to spend the entire night hanging out in a casino (in actual fact, Ray winds up crashing on the floor with some of the techs, but it's polite to have the story there).

And that is how Spencer Smith winds up getting fucked for the very first time by Bob Bryar From My Chemical Romance in a moderately nice hotel off the Strip. Bob's nice and careful and cautious leading up to it - he doesn't want to pressure Spencer, but he also remembers being eighteen and how much he would have wanted to kill someone who told him he should save his first time for someone he cares about. Plus, he's pretty sure there were a half dozen rock drummers he would have happily given it up to at that age, so he's not even going to try to argue with Spencer, just going to try to be sure that even if Spencer's first time isn't with someone he knows, at least it's with someone who treats him right.

He in fact treats Spencer very, very right.

They fall asleep together after, but Bob wakes up when Spencer's cell alarm goes off and Spencer slips out of bed. It's insanely early--five--but Spencer had told him he was going to have to leave early, to get to an early class. Bob pretends he's still asleep, watching Spencer through half-open eyes; he figures if Spencer doesn't try to wake him or speak to him, he'll just let Spencer go. But he does see Spencer pick up his (Bob's) phone and type something in, right before he darts out the door and disappears. As soon as the door closes Bob grabs it, and sees that Spencer typed in his own name and number but didn't hit save, leaving it up to Bob.

Bob thinks about how this is just some (sweet, hot, awesome) kid he spent a weekend with, and how having a whole lot of sex over two days is no kind of basis for anything, and then he hits save anyway and smiles. Spencer has to go to Ryan's and take a shower and get his car, and the whole time he's grinning hugely, and halfway home he has to pull over and SCREAM with sheer delight and amazement, because WHAT THE FUCK HOW IS THIS HIS LIFE OMG. And he drives the rest of the way home with a slightly more restrained smile, fantasizing about how his own band is going to make it someday, and he'll run into Bob Bryar backstage somewhere, and Bob will recognize him, and they'll get to talking and/or making out again, and everything about Spencer's life is going to be completely, unbelievably fantastic.

And that was the end of Crash Boom Bang.




And then there's the rest of the story.

Through This Year

So Spencer's sitting in Chem on Monday morning, trying not to squirm like he, you know, was getting fucked in the ass for the first time less than twelve hours ago, and trying to pretend he cares at all about Chemistry. And his phone vibrates in his pocket, and he thinks Shut up, Ryan, I will tell you all about it AFTER school, why are you even awake yet?

But he pulls his phone out and it's a text from a Chicago number he doesn't know and it just says Sore? Try sitting forward and leaning on the desktop. Spencer blushes like CRAZY and turns his phone off until lunch, by which time he has gotten three more texts from Bob, one of them a photo of a cup of coffee accompanied by sorry that was kind of rude wasn't it? Back on the bus and bored.

Spencer texts back that he didn't mind, he just had his phone off, and manages to neither explode from excitement nor tell Ryan he is OMG EXCHANGING TEXT MESSAGES WITH BOB BRYAR FROM MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE until that evening. Ryan is skeptical right up to the edge of Spencer accusing him of just being jealous, and then backs off and says, no, obviously it's cool, that's great, Spencer, does he know you're seventeen? And Spencer says no, and he doesn't need to, shut up, they're just texting, it's fine.

Texting turns to phone calls and emails and more or less accidentally having phone sex--Bob's talking about something totally ordinary and not even sexy, about his wrists hurting and how Spencer should take care of his hands if he doesn't want to end up all broken when he's twenty-four, but he's smoking and his voice is sort of ragged and husky and Spencer is seventeen and hair-trigger. He figures he can just jerk off without Bob knowing, but his breath catches and Bob stops dead. Spencer freezes, and then Bob says, "You asshole, I'm outside, I can't even join you," and then goes right on talking--not dirty, really, but saying a lot of more or less innocent-sounding things about how Spencer should keep doing what he's doing, you know, if it works for him, and just the idea that Bob knows what Spencer's doing and wants him to--well, it works for him. A lot.

After that they have kind of on-purpose phone sex a few times, but mostly they just talk, and text, and email, and in the middle of October, when this has been going on for almost a month, Bob mentions that they're going to be in Vegas again the week before Thanksgiving, touring with The Used and Korn, and is Spencer planning to come to that show?

Spencer (trying to be COOL and not PRESUME things about Bob) is all awkward and says something about how they're kinda friends now, huh.

Bob says, very very gently, "... we're kind of dating, Spencer. Um, except that we can't really go on dates."

Spencer is all "OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD BOB BRYAR IS MY BOYFRIEND" except it comes out as "..."

Bob adds, "I don't know how much free time you think I have, but ... I really don't do this with anyone else. It's just you."

Spencer says something about still being Bob's number one drummer groupie, and Bob says sharply that Spencer's not a groupie, he never was.

Spencer doesn't even know what to do with that except fall down clutching his heart and screaming, so he backtracks a little and says that they could have dates. Like, phone dates. They could both watch the same movie at the same time or something, not that he has extensive experience of Ryan's doomed internet romances or anything. He adds helpfully that they would just have to watch something that neither of them needs to pay that much attention to, and Bob says something about Ghostbusters being the perfect date movie that way, and Spencer has to admit that he's ... never actually seen that one.

Bob experiences a moment of OH GOD I'M SO OLD horror, and they make their first phone-date right then and there because Bob cannot date someone who has never seen Ghostbusters, and they say their goodnights. Spencer gets an email later that night that says So, to clarify: you are my boyfriend, okay?

So up until all of this was clarified, Spencer had been Not Mentioning Anything to Brent and Brendon about it, because it was sort of weird and bragging and ... weird, and he didn't want to talk about it too much. Also, Brent tended to roll his eyes a lot when Spencer talked about fooling around with guys, and Brendon ... Spencer actually wasn't out to Brendon at all. Not that Brendon seemed like a bad guy or anything, but his family was super religious and he might get weird about it or something (or it might make another thing Brendon had to lie to his parents about, which would suck), so... easier to say nothing about any of it. Ryan knew, anyway, and Spencer could tell him all about it, and that was what mattered.

But once he and Bob are officially dating, it's weirder to say nothing, even though Bob is The Most Secret Boyfriend in the History of Secret Boyfriends. Spencer has told Bob that he's not out to his parents (true) or really anyone but Ryan (...and Brent and a fair number of people at school who have figured it out, but if Bob thinks Spencer's not out to anyone he won't expect Spencer to introduce his boyfriend to anyone, right? right), so Bob knows he's kind of secret and he seems okay with it.

It occurs to Spencer a while after that, when Bob said they were dating, that might have been a good time to say "Okay, here's the thing: I'm actually only seventeen." But at the time he was busy trying not to die of happiness, and ever since then it's always a worse time, so ... he doesn't.

So one day after that, Bob goofs up or Spencer forgets to tell him, and Bob accidentally calls him during practice time which he otherwise never ever does. But practice is going kind of shitty anyway and Spencer could use five minutes of thinking about something else, so he answers and stands in the corner and talks to Bob for a few minutes. He comes back feeling a lot better, and Brendon and Brent are just staring at him, and Ryan is kind of smirking. Spencer realizes that there is no point trying to pretend that did not just happen, so he just rolls his eyes, and Brendon immediately starts teasing him, because oooh, Spencer's got a girlfriend! and Brent snorts and shakes his head and Spencer takes a breath and says, "Actually, a boyfriend."

And Brendon stops short, all "...wha?" because Spencer just said that, just, like it's a thing you say to people.

Brent says, "So who is he, do we know him? Am I going to have to beat him up when he decides he's straight after all?"

Brendon is all "...wha?" because apparently people know about other people being gay and don't say anything and act like it's totally cool?

Spencer kind of looks at Ryan, because Brendon is one of the world's shittier secret-keepers, and he's not a hundred percent sure he trusts even Brent to not let something slip that could get back to Spencer's mom.

Spencer says, "You don't know him, he's, um, older."

And Ryan says, "I've met him, he's fine, and the less you know about any of it the less trouble you'll get in when Spencer's parents find out."

And Brendon gets all big-eyed and even Brent looks momentarily impressed, and that's pretty much it (except, now that Brendon knows about Spencer, he keeps sort of flirting with him, or being all grabby with him, and it actually takes Spencer a really long time to figure out that there may be something behind it other than Brendon being a weirdo and/or teasing Spencer).

So Spencer manages to get his parents to let him go to the My Chem concert in November even though it's a weeknight, and he skips out of school early to get there in time to hang out with Bob (i.e. have frantic sex somewhere dubiously private, and then come back and try to be nonchalant while Ryan, Bob's band, and assorted friends who are hanging out on their bus all LAUGH AT THEM). It's mostly fine--they stay strictly on the bus because Gerard is sort of avoiding Bert and Bob is definitely doing his best to keep Spencer and the very idea of Spencer way the hell away from everyone else on the tour.

Somehow, there still arises a point when Frank gets Spencer alone to Have a Little Talk with him.

It's actually not at all what Spencer was expecting. Frank says that he knows Spencer's probably heard a lot of crap about how nobody who gets together when they're young ever stays together, blah blah, but Frank's been with the woman he's gonna marry since he was fifteen, and it's actually pretty awesome having someone you know and love with you while you get through your stupid teenage stuff (and, Frank says, no seriously, I know you're eighteen, I know how much stupid teenage stuff you have left to get through). Bob's a great guy and I know he'll treat you good and if this is what you want, I know he'll be there for you, and you make him really happy and that's great.

And then Frank says, "The fact that doing stupid teenaged shit is sort of inevitable is not going to change the fact that if you and your stupid teenaged shit break his heart, I will hunt you down and cut your balls off. Got it?"

And Spencer says weakly, "Got it."

Meanwhile, Bob and Ryan are having a little chat. Bob gets that they have to have this talk, and he just hopes the kid doesn't try to menace him, because he'd have to not laugh and it would be awkward and difficult, and he gets that (even if he leaves Spencer behind in other states sometimes, maybe more so because he's still trying to make up for it) Ryan is like any best friend and he's going to have Spencer's back and Bob is a lot older and it is going to seem like he needs to be put on notice.

So Bob is quietly receptive to Ryan's little idle chat about how, being basically the only person who knows Spencer's gay, Ryan's kind of responsible for him, and he's glad that Spencer's with somebody who's an adult and not going to pull a bunch of immature shit with Spencer and who will be looking out for him a bit, just like Ryan is, because Ryan. Is responsible. For Spencer. And he takes that very seriously.

And Bob is just thinking that he's gotten through the conversation and Ryan is being understated and oblique and it's all going to be cool when Ryan adds abruptly, "I have a LiveJournal, you know? And I post pictures of myself on it, like, pictures of my ass and stuff," and Bob is all "...congratulations?"

Ryan says, "What I'm saying is, I have a LiveJournal and a lot of people read it, a lot of people who are fans of your music. And I know your email address and your phone number. So, you know. I just thought you should know that about me, if you're going to be dating Spencer."

And Bob, Bob feels really properly menaced and does not even have to try not to laugh, because, shit, Ryan could make his life a living hell.

Before Spencer leaves, Bob mentions casually to him that the next time they're coming anywhere close at all is going to be about three weeks later, in Reno. Spencer kind of winces--because he totally has their tour schedule memorized, and he'd been staring at that one--but it's the week before his finals, and these are his finals-to-graduate-high-school finals, though of course he hasn't told Bob that. And Reno is eight hours away, and it's a Wednesday, and Spencer just doesn't know how he could possibly get permission or get away with it.

And then the next week, Pete Wentz (!!!!!!!!!!) asks on LiveJournal for Ryan's email address, and all of a sudden things are maybe kind of happening for Panic! at the Disco, really really happening, and they're all going a little crazy with practicing, and Spencer and Brent are also frantically trying to study, and--

The thing is, Spencer has told Bob he's in a band but he's never told Bob the name of the band. He doesn't ever, ever want it to seem, even a little bit, like he's fucking Bob Bryar to get somewhere in the music business. Bob's curious about their music, but he understands that Spencer needs to do it on his own, needs to never feel even a little like he hasn't, so he doesn't push, and Spencer sometimes sends him just the drum tracks, and Bob talks about that with him, about his playing and what he's doing. When they first put a demo up on PureVolume, Spencer sends him the track with no name on it, and makes Bob promise not to try to find it. Once they've played some real shows or something, once they're getting somewhere on their own, then he'll tell Bob. Not before.

Bob listens to their catchy song, and agrees with Spencer that it's pretty awesome that Pete Wentz has apparently also listened to their catchy song, and, once he actually pays enough attention to the vocals to realize what the words are, he worries about Ryan a bit more than he used to. But all Bob knows about Spencer's band is what Spencer tells him.

Bob is - in between touring with his own band and dealing with his own shit - being as supportive as he can to Spencer, even if he's not quite sure why Spencer's taking his finals this seriously when he's already said he means to quit college after this semester anyway. But he says it's important to him to finish what he started, finish these classes, and Bob knows the value of education, knows it'll be easier for Spencer to go back to it later if he's got some good grades on paper now, so he tries to talk Spencer down when he's freaking out, tries not to take up too much of his time.

And then it's early Wednesday morning and Spencer's on his way to school - early, so he can go to the library and work on a paper, and then classclassclass and then more studying and then practice for half the night, and he's fucking tired and he hasn't been able to sleep lately he's so fucking wired and and and Bob's up in Reno right now, as close as he's going to get for God knows how long, god knows when Spencer will even get to see him again -

And before Spencer quite knows what he's decided, he's on the freeway, driving north. For a long while he can just follow the signs, and he doesn't want to stop or think too much about what the fuck he's doing. But eventually, on this stretch of road between a mountain and a lake, he has to stop for gas, and he settles down enough to realize that he has no idea where in Reno Bob actually is; fuck, for all he knows the show's been cancelled or he remembered the date wrong or... anything.

So he gets his phone out and calls Bob. It's late morning now, still kind of early in Bob-time, he thinks, and sure enough the call nearly goes to voice mail before Bob answers, all groggy and confused, and Spencer explains, a little wildly, that he's halfway to Reno and not really sure where he's going, and Bob talks him down a little bit and gives him directions, makes him write them down and repeat them back, and promises to meet Spencer near the venue to bring him in to the right parking lot.

Spencer drives faster the rest of the way, knowing Bob's really there, really waiting for him. When he does meet Bob, and get to the venue, Bob takes one look at him, asks a few pointed questions about how long he's been on the road and when he needs to drive back (which Spencer admits, with a sinking sensation of normal reality starts to intrude, is right after the show if not right now) and informs him that he needs a nap. He hauls Spencer into the back lounge and lies down with him and there is cuddling and sleeping and possibly waking-up-together sexytimes followed by more cuddling and dozing. Bob leaves only for soundcheck (which may lead to Spencer hanging out with Jamia) and otherwise stays with him pretty much until he has to go onstage. He also loads Spencer up with coffee before letting him leave, with a million kisses and hugs and admonitions to be careful and call when he gets home and for god's sake remember to pull over if he's tired.

And then Spencer gets in his car and turns his phone on for the first time since he got safely to Reno and calls his mom.

He actually doesn't even have to fake much when he gets all wobbly and scared and dazed sounding, and says he just sort of started driving this morning and just had to get away and didn't stop and now he's somewhere near Reno and he's on his way home, and after a lot of carefully-not-yelling-at-him-while-he's-driving from his parents he swears to check in every hour. After the second or third hour Ryan is answering the phone at the Smith house and sounding every bit as inclined to strangle/ground Spencer as his parents are. Spencer is really just tired and kind of scared and disbelieving that he actually just did that, just ran away to be with Bob and blew off everything else for that, but then he thinks of those quiet, still hours, and he can't help thinking it was worth it, that he needed that.

When he finally does get home, his parents tell him a little ominously that they'll discuss this in the morning (or, well, when it's light out) and send him to bed. Ryan's already there, and Spencer just curls up next to him and barely has time to mutter an apology before he's crashing into sleep. (An hour later he wakes up because Ryan is moving around next to him, and he mumbles something incoherent, and Ryan says, "I'm just telling Bob you're alive, he texted me freaking out," and Spencer winces and tries to apologize again and then he's back to sleep.)

And then there's the frantic downhill slide to the end of school and there's a little tiny graduation ceremony for him and Brent and the handful of other kids graduating early (or late, having repeated a semester), and then it's suddenly over.

(Spencer's parents have been carefully watching the Ross and Urie families for excellent examples of How Not to Handle Your Son's Rock Music Ambitions and All Associated Signs of Burgeoning Independence, so the morning-after discussion of Spencer's disappearance was a very calm and matter-of-fact discussion of the responsibilities Spencer failed at that day, the danger he put himself into, and the worry he caused everyone; he doesn't really get a formal punishment, they're just ... watchful of him, and let him beat himself up over the rest, which he does quite effectively.)

After the new year, Spencer's going to start working more with/for his mom at the doctor's office, but in the meantime he gets to relax a while, be the soothing and supportive one while Bob's losing his mind on the road. And then Christmas rolls around and Bob's home with his family and sleeping off the tour, and Spencer...

Spencer discovers that (after some hemming and hawing and "after that stunt you pulled, I don't even know if we should...") he is getting the most amazing ever combined Christmas-and-graduation gift from his parents. They're sending him and Ryan to New York City for New Year's Eve.

Which happens to be Bob's birthday, and Bob will happen to be in Jersey, just across the river. Of course Ryan had actually instigated the idea of the trip (and cleared everything with Bob to make sure it would work out) and there is much flailing and delight and so on.

So then Spencer and Ryan fly to New York, do a whirlwind tour of the obligatory tourist attractions and take pictures of themselves at same, and then Ryan hands Spencer over to Bob and prepares to spend a couple of days roaming museums and coffee shops by himself while they do... whatever they're going to do, Ryan sincerely does not want details. So Spencer's with Bob (in Times Square and everything, they even manage to meet back up with Ryan before midnight) when the New Year comes in, and he just knows this year is going to be fantastic: his band will start playing shows, and get signed, and record a record, and Bob's band will keep being amazing.

And Spencer will turn eighteen, and finally be able to tell Bob the truth without everything being totally ruined.

The next time Spencer sees Bob is in early February, between tour-legs. Bob really should have gone... just about anywhere else, but he goes to Vegas in the few days he has between finishing a US tour and going to Japan. They'd been to the UK in January and he'd gotten some little presents for Spencer, so he comes to Vegas and gets a hotel room and Spencer manages to get away for a solid twenty-four hours or so and they barely get out of bed at all. Spencer's delighted by the candy and random souvenirs, and Bob promises to bring him crazy shoes from the future when he gets back from Japan.

Spencer kind of forgets about the shoes, though, because not all too long after Bob gets back from Japan, it starts actually for really really real actually happening: Pete Wentz is signing them. SIGNING them, with legal documents and everything! And Spencer finally gets to tell Bob that his band is called Panic! at the Disco (it is possible that Bob has spent five months guessing, at this point) and here's their myspace and omg they're getting SIGNED and once Brendon is done with school for the year they're going to record an ALBUM and then start TOURING.

So Bob is suitably thrilled for his boyfriend, happy toward the world in general. A few days later when he's in Chicago playing a show, and Pete Wentz happens to turn up backstage, Bob actually feels inclined to speak to the guy--they have a few friends in common and they're from the same town, but Bob has never really felt he had anything much to say to Pete.

Bob says, hey, congratulations, I hear you signed a band yourself (not letting on about Spencer because if Spencer's not even out to all of his band of course he's not out to his label), and Pete gets all animated about it saying yeah, yeah, it's amazing! Except of course it's also a huge headache, so much paperwork--and Bob is nodding, smiling, of course Pete has to downplay the awesomeness and talk about the hassle a bit.

Pete adds, "Man, you would not believe how hard it is to sign a baby band like this--I mean, most of the band is seventeen, we had to get their parents in, and we actually had to get Brendon legally emancipated so he could sign--hey, if anyone asks, he's been living on his own the last six months and supporting himself, okay?"

Little alarm bells are going off, and Bob stares at the far wall and says, "Really, I thought they were in college."

Pete says, "Well, Ryan--he's the one who kind of stalked me until I listened to their music--he was, but the rest of 'em are all seventeen, just finishing up high school."

Bob says something vague and sort of incoherent and walks away. He gets to the bus and he sits and fights the urge to kill or maim or break something. He makes a list of people who could probably fill in for him on drums for the rest of the tour. He deletes from his phone every message Spencer has ever sent him, however innocuous, however he might be attached to it. He starts up his computer and deletes every email, every (ahem) picture he'd saved that Spencer sent him. He stares at the drum tracks for a while, deletes them and then un-deletes them, and then he has to stop, slaps the laptop shut and calls Spencer.

Who is in the middle of practice, and he's pretty sure Bob knows that, so he's sort of baffled when he says, "Hello?"

Bob answers with "Were you ever going to tell me how old you were, or was I just supposed to read about it in some fucking music magazine?"

Spencer says nothing, because, oh, shit, fuck, oh, it happened, and now it's all over and what can he even say.

But Bob's just getting started, of course. "Spencer, I just found out from Pete Wentz that I've been fucking a seventeen-year-old for the last six months. I have to go on stage in two hours and I don't even--what the fuck, Spencer, how could you do that? You knew I cared that you were eighteen, I know you knew that, and you just lied to me for six months, you fucking actively lied to me about being in college and everything--"

He is possibly screaming at this point, and Spencer says a bit helplessly, "Not about everything."

Bob says, "Oh, no, just most things--are you actually in the closet, or are you just hiding me from everybody who might tell me the truth? Fuck, do you have a girlfriend at home? Boyfriend? Are you taking someone to prom? I don't even fucking know, Spencer!"

And Spencer yells, "I wouldn't cheat on you! I wouldn't do that to you!" and Bob roars right back, "No, but you'll let me go to prison!"

Spencer has nothing for that one. (Ryan, who was able to hear it secondhand, winces. Ryan knew.)

"Do you get that, Spencer? You're seventeen and I had fucking pictures of you on my computer, and that's the kind of thing people go to fucking actual prison for, because you are a minor--"

Spencer says, "Bob, you're not--who the fuck would--"

Bob says, "Spencer, your parents."

Spencer stops short, and Bob keeps going, "They don't know you're gay, do they? And they don't know you have a boyfriend, and they definitely don't know you're taking it up the ass from the twenty-five-year-old drummer in a band known for being drunk, drugged, and death-obsessed, so all they have to do is find out and then take this exactly as badly as they should. Fuck, Spence, I don't even have to go to jail--if this got out I'd have to quit the band, I'd be out of a fucking job--I couldn't play drums anymore, Spencer, because you fucking lied to me."

Spencer, wavering between collapsing completely and needing to lash out at someone because he's about to lose the world's awesomest boyfriend--even if he has to lash out at said boyfriend because there's no one else except himself--yells, "Well, what was I supposed to do?"

Bob stops short.

"It was my one fucking chance to sleep with Bob Bryar from My Chemical Romance," Spencer yells, (and Brendon and Brent, who have been listening in fascination to the fight between Spencer and his mysterious boyfriend, both go wide-eyed, and they look at Ryan, who shrugs and nods). "It wouldn't have made any fucking difference--you never would have known--but you called! And I liked you, I fucking liked you a lot, and you never would have noticed--you never would have fucking cared--if you couldn't have fucked me, I would have been a fucking blip on the radar! You wouldn't have remembered me the next fucking day!"

Bob snaps back, "What the fuck do you want me to say? I don't know! I don't fucking know if I would have fallen in love with you!"

Spencer stops dead. "You. What?"

"Oh," Bob says, and sits down, and thinks this is why you don't date teenagers, fuck, "For God's sake, Spencer, I'm in love with you. I wouldn't have bothered fucking calling you if I didn't--I love you, you fucking jailbait dumbass."

Spencer says, in a tiny voice, "But I ... I lied to you. The whole time I knew you."

Bob sighs and lights a cigarette and says, "Yeah, and I'm fucking pissed, and I might lose my fucking job, and if I go to jail for this you'd better be sending me cookies and shit. But I don't wanna lose my job and my boyfriend on the same fucking day, okay?"

Spencer says, "Okay," and Bob sighs and says, "I gotta go tell the guys what's going on, we got a show to play, I--I love you. I'll call you later, okay?"

Spencer says, "I love you. I--I'm really sorry, Bob."

He hangs up and realizes Brendon and Brent have left, and practice is over, and Ryan just says, "So..." and Spencer throws his sticks at the wall hard enough to break them, sits down behind his drum kit--Bob might not be able to drum anymore, because of him--and cries.

So then Bob has to more or less hide from his band until they go on--he's not laying this on anyone else before they go on stage--and afterward he has to tell them, which is wretched.

Gerard is just sort of bewildered and hurt and angry on Bob's behalf, but Ray--who has always seemed a bit more uncomfortable than anyone else about Bob and Spencer--finally lets loose with a lot of righteous fury. He's never cared about Bob being gay, or even about Spencer being younger, but Spencer is a fan, Bob is fucking a fan, and that has never been okay and cannot possibly be okay and now look what it's come to.

Frank, meanwhile, disappears, and Bob doesn't realize until slightly too late that Frank has called Spencer and is whispering a lot of very sincere promises about cutting Spencer's balls off, and when Bob gets the phone away from him Spencer is still crying and apologizing hysterically and Bob is trying to tell him it's okay while yelling at Frank that he can't fucking do that to Spencer--scare him like that, let alone do him any violence--that's not his place, this is between Spencer and Bob. If Frank has a problem with this, he can take it up with Bob; Bob will quit the band if they want him to.

Frank yells at Bob, "He LIED to you," and Bob yells back, "Oh yeah, like Jamia has never--"

And Frank is furious that Bob would dare compare Spencer to Jamia, and Bob is furious that Frank is offended by Bob comparing his boyfriend to Frank's girlfriend, and from there it is a short steep devolution into an actual fistfight before they're dragged apart and Frank's phone--complete with Jamia screaming at him to knock that shit off, Frank Anthony--is brought into play.

I think that both phones are then hung up so Jamia can call Spencer and talk to him about the exact level of risk he runs of Frank doing him violence (thankfully low, due mostly to logistics and the amount of time that will probably pass before he ever sees Frank again) and to generally talk to him about what's been going on for the last six months and get him calmed down.

Bob, meanwhile, is holding an ice pack to his face and not entirely participating in a band-plus-Brian debate about whether he should still be in the band after this. Naturally, things wind up shaking out on his side, though Brian (and Ray, and Frank) would be a lot happier if Bob had actually broken up with Spencer. (Gerard is doodling and, judging by the contents of the images, finds the whole thing kind of romantic.)

Bob lays down some ground rules with Spencer: they will no longer have sex, or talk about it, whether via phone or email or any other means, until Spencer is eighteen. There is still some plausibly deniable phone sex, where somebody's breathing goes funny and the other just keeps talking--lower and slower but not changing the subject--until he comes back to full verbal participation, but that's it.

Spencer, when he's not terrified that Frank is going to hunt him down, is amazed and thrilled that Bob is willing to stick around without even the possibility of as much sex as they had been having. Bob spends a lot of time wondering why he subconsciously hates himself enough to fall this hard for a teenager and then he thinks about Spencer and gets this dopey smile on his face.

The next time they see each other is in Vegas, in a carefully public place. After getting through the first few frantic hugs and a little conversation, Bob tells Spencer he doesn't mind if Spencer sleeps with other people over this summer--Spencer will be away from home for the first time, touring and recording, he might want to experiment--and Spencer doesn't take it well.

"What about you," he snaps, finally. "Are you going to be--fucking picking up drummer groupies everywhere you go, asking them back to the bus to have a fucking look around?"

Bob squints at Spencer, knowing full well there's no right way to answer the groupie part of that, not when Spencer's already angry.

"No," he says finally. "Because for one thing it's easier for me to keep it in my pants now than it was when I was seventeen--" and Spencer's face flashes righteous indignation, and Bob gives up and leans across the table, flattening his hand over Spencer's mouth. Spencer doesn't actually bite him, so Bob keeps talking.

"For another thing our tour schedule is crazy and I'm going to be lucky if I have downtime to jerk off, let alone involve anybody else. The guys are already getting all worked up about writing for the next album and it's just--" Bob waved his free hand, shutting off that line of rambling even though it earned a glimmer of curiosity in Spencer's eyes. Even if it distracted Spencer from being mad it really, really was not what Bob needed to be saying right now.

He dropped his hand from Spencer's mouth, set both his hands on the table and stared at them. "But mostly I won't because I know you're not okay with it, and I try really hard not to do things my boyfriend is not okay with."

Spencer doesn't say anything and for a second Bob feels relieved, like maybe Spencer gets it, now, gets what Bob is trying to say to him, but he looks up and Spencer still looks furious, just quietly so. "Well, what if I'm not okay with me sleeping with other people?"

And oh, that is it, this is officially a completely stupid fight and Bob understands exactly why you shouldn't date seventeen-year-olds, because it makes you want to hit them in the face until they stop talking.

"Then fucking don't," Bob snaps, and he doesn't realize quite how loud that was until he catches the eye of a guy two tables away, staring a little too obviously at them. By the time Bob's stared the guy down and looks back to Spencer, Spencer has gotten on a pissy you're embarrassing me look on top of the cold anger, which is fucking great coming from a fucking teenager.

Bob drops into a whisper. "I'm not fucking telling you what to do. I'm telling you I'm okay with it no matter what you do, and I'm not saying I'm thrilled, dumbass, I'm saying I can deal if that's what I have to do to get through the next five months without either of us going crazy or deciding we hate each other, because if we can do that, then we can do whatever we want for as long as we want."

Spencer blinks, the hard line of his mouth and shoulders both softening a little, and Bob remembers in a rush why exactly he's dating Spencer, regardless of how old he is.

"That's the part I really want," Bob says softly, looking down at his hands again. "The part where we have lots of time to do whatever we want."

Spencer's hand settles carefully on the table a few inches from his, and Bob reaches for it immediately, curling his fingers about Spencer's, stupidly thrilled when Spencer squeezes back.

"And I'm sorry about all that stupid shit I said when I first found out," Bob adds. "I'm sorry you're not going to your prom, because you'd probably have an awesome time. And I'm sorry I wasn't at your graduation. I would have liked to be there." He finally steals a glance up at Spencer, who is staring at him with the kind of fixed expression of a teenaged boy trying desperately not to embarrass himself.

Bob tries a small smile. "I mean, except for the part where your parents would have beaten me to death with my own shoes, that probably would have sucked."

Spencer laughs, quick but loud, startled, and claps his free hand over his mouth to stop it, turns his face away, and Bob looks down at his and Spencer's joined hands, so he doesn't see whether Spencer maybe wipes his eyes or something; Bob has to blink a couple of times but it's fine, they're good. As much as they can be in a nice safe public place because Spencer is seventeen and a half and Bob doesn't want to go to prison.

"So when I'm twenty-five will I be able to win arguments like that?"

Bob meets Spencer's eyes again, gives him a slow smile. "Maybe, but by then I'll be thirty-two, so I'll still beat you."

Spencer snorts. "Is this what I signed up for? A lifetime of never winning arguments? This is what nobody tells you about older guys."

And the word lifetime maybe makes the blood rush loud in Bob's ears, makes his hand go tight on Spencer's, but Spencer keeps smiling.

"I don't know," Bob says. "You stick around long enough, you might catch me on an off day."

"Oh yeah? How long would I have to stick around?"

Some stupidly honest part of Bob's brain points out that, honestly, a week would probably do it, but he says, "Oh, a long time. A really long time. At least five months, for starters."

"And then lots of time after that," Spencer says. "Right? A long time after that."

"Yeah," Bob says, and when he looks up Spencer's leaning in, climbing half onto the table to kiss him across it, and Bob sighs against Spencer's mouth and kisses back. When Spencer pulls away, settling into his own seat, he knows his cheeks are hot--he knows probably everybody in this fucking coffee shop saw that--but Spencer just looks away, straight to the guy who was staring before, and says, "What are you looking at?" without letting go of Bob's hand.

Five months, Bob thinks. Five months.

At the end of June, Spencer heads to Maryland with the rest of his band to record and get a taste of living across the country from his parents. And while he still kind of seethes inside about Bob giving him permission, he is kind of curious and horny. The thing about College Park, Maryland, though, is that it's not much of a town for bars or clubs--most of the partying and drinking that goes on is in frat houses and house parties, and those are the parties Ryan winds up getting them invited to, with his Ryanish instinct for finding the scene.

The trouble is that the guys Spencer finds himself checking out are the ones who remind him, visually, of Bob, and the college guys who remind him, visually, of Bob, do not much intersect with the set of college guys who might take up a seventeen-year-old boy on a pass.

So Spencer winds up with a black eye, is the thing, and Ryan calls Bob because Spencer won't tell any of them what happened, and Bob calls Spencer to yell at him, and the yelling boils down mostly to, "When I told you to go ahead and experiment, I meant sleep with BRENDON, not RANDOM FRAT BOYS!"

Spencer is all "...Brendon?"

So Bob laughs at him for a while and then has to go, and Spencer figures that's that. My Chem is coming through Virginia on a tour in July, but they're too busy recording for Spencer to take a day to trek down there--if he could even get hold of a car--

But around two in the morning, the night after the day they were playing Virginia, Bob shows up on the band's temporary doorstep with a not-quite-brand-new lip ring; he'd timed the piercing so it'd be nicely healed by the time he saw Spencer, and kept it as a surprise.

Spencer yells and hugs him and kisses him, first gingerly and then really enthusiastically. (Spencer has made Bob accept the fact that kissing is not illegal anywhere, and they are not communicating across state lines.) Then he steps back and shoves his hands into his pockets and prepares to behave himself according to the rules.

But Bob says, "Pack a bag, I have a hotel room and a new piercing and the age of consent in Maryland is seventeen."

So Spencer packs a bag, and they don't record any drum tracks until the middle of the next afternoon, when Spencer shows up looking terribly, terribly happy with himself.

By the time they finish recording it's August, which means Spencer's eighteenth birthday is less than a month away and they are about to be totally legal and aboveboard and okay. It means he's a month away from the moment when there's no longer any reason not to tell his parents what's going on.

Spencer has the whole thing pretty carefully planned, including the part where he's not talking to them about it until three days after he turns eighteen. He'll carefully control how much information he gives them (he's gay; he's got a boyfriend; his boyfriend is twenty-five; his boyfriend is the drummer for My Chemical Romance; his boyfriend is in town and would like to meet them) based on how badly they're taking it. Spencer's also planning to lie like crazy and tell them he and Bob never had sex until he turned eighteen, and while Bob questions the wisdom of dealing with the whole underage-Spencer situation with more lying, he suspects that one might be the least-bad option.

So it all seems like it's going to go just fine until Spencer's parents show up at the show in Tucson, on his birthday, while Bob's watching from sidestage and they're both counting the minutes until Spencer's done and ready to go back to the hotel and get on with enjoying their precious three days between Spencer turning legal and Spencer having to talk to his parents about the situation. Ryan spots them in the crowd, tips off a tech to warn Bob, and Bob takes off--though he exits through the front of the club and introduces himself to Spencer's parents as a fellow drummer and friend of Spencer's, thinking it might be good if they have some kind of vaguely positive impression of him before they find out he's banging their teenaged son. Spencer comes offstage to a very unhappy birthday surprise, and he is post-show worked up and horny and pissed.

He tries to keep his voice neutral as he repeats, a few times, that it was really nice of them to come down and everything, but they'd agreed he'd see them for his birthday in Vegas, on the fifth, and they could celebrate then, and that was fine. After the third or fourth time they don't get it--insisting that they wanted to surprise him! For his birthday! He couldn't spend his birthday sleeping in a van!--Spencer finally snaps, "It's just not very fair to my boyfriend, after I asked him to come all the way out here to see me on my birthday because I wasn't seeing my family until we got to Vegas."

His parents are... taken aback, to say the least, but Spencer has lost all grip on strategy now and gone into white-out manic fury. He insists on still going out to eat with them--you came down to celebrate! Let's go fucking celebrate! He almost literally drags Ryan along, while Brendon and Brent sensibly flee. Dinnertime conversation isn't quite an interrogation, but Spencer's gone completely damn-the-torpedoes and tells them pretty much the truth, mostly in a defending-Bob way--it wasn't Bob's fault, Bob was a good guy and stuck around in the absence of sex when he found out the truth. Spencer's parents are actually taking it all fairly... quietly, partly due to shock, and partly because they've seen what coming down hard on lifestyle choices you don't agree with gets you (cf., Ryan's father, Brendon's parents) and they're not eager to drive Spencer further away.

Also, Bob really did seem like a nice guy.

Not so nice that they're completely thrilled about Spencer going back to his hotel room that night rather than theirs or the one they got for the boys, but he's eighteen and they can't exactly ground him, and everybody needs a cooling-off period by that point. They'd originally planned on taking the boys out for breakfast and shopping for birthday presents, as they have another show the following night in Tucson, so most of the day is free. By the time they part ways, they've shakily told Spencer they'll talk about this when he gets to Vegas.

Bob, meanwhile, is calling his own mom to ask how she would have reacted if she knew he was sleeping with guys in their twenties when he was seventeen and eighteen.

"Are we pretending for the moment that I actually didn't know that?"
Bob says "..."

She says, "I wasn't blind, Robert. You were doing your level best to give me heart failure for a few years there, and my one joy was in thwarting you."

Bob says, "Um. I'm sorry, mom. But--if there was one of those guys who really actually had cared about me, that I liked a lot--"

She says, "Bob. Tell me the name of the teenaged boy who's the reason you only spent four days of your break in Chicago, and then tell me what's wrong."

Bob says, "Spencer," and then sort of tumbles out the rest of it, and his mom promises to call and have a talk with Spencer's mom in the next couple of days, as soon as Bob gets her phone number from Spencer, to try to put out any fires.

Spencer comes into the hotel room, still all full of indignation and yelling about his parents for about a minute and a half--Bob sits quietly and listens--before it actually hits him, what just happened, and the adrenaline drops him like a rock. He starts shaking, and goes dead pale and says, "Oh my God, I just told my parents I--and you--I just--oh fuck--"

Bob gathers him up and holds onto him until he stops shaking and crying, and assures him his parents will still speak to him, and if they don't Bob's mom will adopt him. And then Bob hands him a phone, tells him his parents are absolutely still awake, and holds his hand while he apologizes for the way he spoke to them and asks if they'd be willing to have lunch with him and Bob the next day.

They do, yes, and it goes marginally better than the night before. Bob is scrupulously polite and not-the-guy-taking-their-son-away-from-them, and supportive of Spencer getting his degree for a fallback, and so on. He has had a lot of time to think about ways not to fuck this up, and he always knew he was going to be starting in a hole.

Afterward, on his mother's advice, Bob sends a flowering cactus to Spencer's parents' house, with a card that says It turns out there aren't any appropriate flowers to express "I'm sorry about the way you learned of my relationship with your teenaged son, but I do care deeply about him, and I'm grateful to you for not calling the police." This seemed somehow appropriate.

It's on the kitchen table when he and Spencer go over there a few days later, and Bob takes that as a good sign.

THE END!

Comments

[anoneknewmoose]

I, for one, am quite glad you posted this. I kind of love it, in all its chat-ficcy glory. :D Thank you!

[stele3.insanejournal.com]

Uuuuuuuuuugh. *rolls around in story*

[rian_aphasia]

This is fucking awesome!

[l_elfie]

my face while reading this: ♥__________♥

[harborshore]

Oh my god, I've wanted to read this story for a long time, and this was almost as good as getting to read the real thing. Fucking wonderful.

[lynnmonster]

Dira, Dira, DIRA -- I LOVE this!!!

[northern]

Aww, adorable! Drummer boyfriends forevah! <3

[quizzical]

as much as i would have loved this written completely for real, there is something about 'and then "this" happens' chat fic that has a very special place in my heart. and considering that bob/spencer is my absolute die heard ship of ships in bandom this is a pretty special combination.

thanks so much for posting it. i could just wallow in this little world for hours and hours.

♥

I love Storytime With Dira. :D

[shihadchick]

I love Bob both appreciating what Gerard's doing to start with adn wanting to hit him for it. that made perfect sense, both for Gerard to do it and Bob to feel that way.

The Spencer POV at Salt Lake just made my heart go all scrinchy, ohh, SPENCER. love it.

Don't fuck with me, I know where the gaffer tape is stare. "Yeah, come over here and say that, vegan."
I LOVE BOB. yes.

Spencer watching Bob drum and getting frustrated with Frank (hee) also totally awesome, and I love him taking advantage of being backstage.

Spencer just stood and stared. The guy smoking outside the back door was My Chem's drummer, Bob, and he was just as hot up close, even when he was mad.
Oh, poor Spencer. i, however, choose to take this opportunity to do paul gross arms. :D


Spencer, naturally, is thinking OH MY GOD OH MY GOD GROUPIE SEX OH MY GOD YES as soon as Bob says it, manages to nod frantically, and follows Bob off across the parking lot. Halfway there, Bob suddenly hesitates, turns to Spencer and says, "What's your birthdate?"

And Spencer, who is not an idiot, rattles off Ryan's: August 30, 1986.

DIRA HUMANS SHOULD NOT MAKE THE UNDIGNIFIED GLEE NOISES I JUST MADE IN FRONT FO OTHER HUMANS. I'M JUST SAYING. And heeeeeeeeeeee.

Bob says, "Can I count you? Because then I might have one."
...I shouldn't find that adorable, and YET.

Bob puts his coffee down and kisses Spencer and Spencer pretty much climbs into his lap, leading rapidly to frantic, pants-only-halfway-off frottage/handjob type sex with a lot of kissing, and afterward they just kind of both continue to sit there, almost cuddling but also drinking coffee, and Spencer's train of thought is mostly OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD HOW IS THIS MY LIFE THIS IS THE GREATEST THING EVER OH MY GOD.
*flaily hands more* also, Spencer's train of thought is one hundred percent understandable. ...also I am wrong as a person because I also basically went "coffee and sex with bob? MOST WIN EVER." er. oops? :D

He doesn't want to be the crazy sob story kid, when they just had sex and it was awesome and grownup and no one claimed to be straight afterward
Okay, fuck, that is totally the Spencer I love best.

Bob, with the hood of his sweatshirt up again, holding Spencer's phone in one hand and a folded black hoodie in the other.
Bob is a fucking ninja, the end. or possibly magic. <333333


And Spencer says, yes, two, and babbles on, hoping this will get through to his dick.

But Bob interrupts him to say, "So you're pretty good at being quiet, huh?"
BOB. *giggles madly* *with a side of heart-eyes*

Bob gets in one more glare at Ryan and a fantastically insincere, "Nice to meet you, don't lose this guy again," and takes off.
oh god I love this Bob so much. SO MUCH. poor Bob he is so boned but SO MUCH LOVE.

...ahh, nuts. I have officially hit the point where I keep distracting myself from this because I don't want to run out of new bits of it to read. *twitches and decides thaat 17 000 words is really not that many actually* :D

IF YOU HAVE EVER IN YOUR LIFE OWED ME ONE, YOU WILL HELP ME LIE TO MY MOTHER SO I CAN HAVE SEX WITH BOB BRYAR IN A HOTEL TONIGHT
Spencer's logic seems sound, frankly. I mean. Seriously.

And awww, yay at Bob being responsible older guy. <3<3 ...also damn good points re: when he was Spencer's age, I went "Yes!!"" and then also flashed guiltily onto other stuff I have written; so on a totally selfish note, thank you.

And I love that Bob did save the number. (Also Spencer having to pull over and flail. Boy do I know THAT feeling, at least.)

Spencer doesn't even know what to do with that except fall down clutching his heart and screaming, so he backtracks a little and says that they could have dates. Like, phone dates. They could both watch the same movie at the same time or something, not that he has extensive experience of Ryan's doomed internet romances or anything.
Aaaaaand more flailing and squeaking from this end of the keyboard. Also a lot of giggling. A LOT.

Spencer gets an email later that night that says So, to clarify: you are my boyfriend, okay?
AWWWWWWW.

Brendon is all "...wha?" because apparently people know about other people being gay and don't say anything and act like it's totally cool?
Ohh, bb!Brendon. bless.

(I am sorry if the quoting is annoying, yo. sometimes I get notions. :) )

And then Frank says, "The fact that doing stupid teenaged shit is sort of inevitable is not going to change the fact that if you and your stupid teenaged shit break his heart, I will hunt you down and cut your balls off. Got it?"
I also love this whole bit. Just. Yes.

...and oh my god, Ryan, you evil GENIUS.

And then Bob talking to Pete and awwwww and also oh shiiiiiit, poor everyone.

"Oh," Bob says, and sits down, and thinks this is why you don't date teenagers, fuck, "For God's sake, Spencer, I'm in love with you. I wouldn't have bothered fucking calling you if I didn't--I love you, you fucking jailbait dumbass."
NO REALLY I LOVE BOB. ohh maaaaaaaaaaan. Also, nice job with the pictures/etc; that was well thought through. Er, both by you and Bob.

Gerard is doodling and, judging by the contents of the images, finds the whole thing kind of romantic.)
*chokes* Okay, that just seems... plausible.

Oh man, poor Spencer's parents, indeed.

And BOB'S MOM. I LOVE BOB'S MOM. her one joy was in thwarting him. SO MUCH LOVE.

...this was awesome, thank you for telling us/sharing. *beams*

Re: I love Storytime With Dira. :D

[shihadchick]

and, okay, I gotta ask-- do you think Spencer did/would have slept with Brendon? *curious*

[stepps]

oh lord, taboo relationships are the most fun! :D

[dira]

Thank you back! I really do love this story, even if I couldn't possibly write it, and I'm happy to finally be able to share it with more people than the handful I actually IM with. :)

[dira]

*beams*

[dira]

Thank you! :)

[dira]

*grins hugely*

Thank you! Yay!

[dira]

Yaaaaaaaay!! I still love it myself and I'm so glad you did too! :)

[dira]

Thank you! I adore this story and I've really been wanting to share it with people, even though I knew I could never actually write out the whole thing. I'm glad you enjoyed this!

[dira]

Thanks! Drummer boyfriends are the best. :)

[elucidate_this]

holy shit this is awesome. ♥

[dira]

Thank you! Bob/Spencer is one of the pairings of my heart as well--I imprinted on it, Wednesday Night Boys was the first bandslash I read--and I always wanted there to be a fic that actually got them together in the world as we know it, so this story holds a special place in my heart, and I'm glad you enjoyed it, even in half-written form! :)

Re: I love Storytime With Dira. :D

[dira]

*beams back*

Yaaaaaaay I am so glad you enjoyed this! And I loved seeing all the bits you liked, although my brain sort of shuts down when I think about replying individually to all of them, but, you know, YAY! And thank you!! \o/

Re: I love Storytime With Dira. :D

[dira]

I honestly never really thought about it beyond Spencer being Brendon's big gay role model and being kind of oblivious to Brendon's subsequent crush on him although Bob, evidently, was at least somewhat aware. I think I would have wound up thinking about it if I wrote it--when I was telling the story to emilyray she wound up shipping Spencer/Brendon--so, quite possibly.

[Now that I am thinking about it, it might have gone something like:

At some point in the early hours of the morning during the less-than-twenty-four-hours they spent together in Maryland, Spencer looked over at Bob and said, "Brendon? Seriously?"

Bob looked back, keeping a completely straight face with an effort, and said, "Spence, I never even met him until yesterday and I still know he has a crush on you, just from what you tell me about him, and you're completely oblivious."

Spencer kind of bristles at oblivious but Bob kisses it better and Spencer is willing to admit that maybe, um, maybe there's something going on there--and he likes Brendon fine and everything, but--he loves Bob! He's with Bob! And pretty soon he'll be eighteen and--

"And we'll still see each other about six times a year," Bob points out, only a little bit glumly.

And Spencer is now a bit mellower about the whole question than the last time Bob tried to tell him it was okay to sleep with other people, and Bob has, ahem, gotten sort of used to the idea, and ... in short, they are both okay with Spencer propositioning Brendon and seeing what happens.

Oh man, and then Spencer calls Bob and tells him about it. And there is definitely a good long portion of that phone call where Bob stops talking.

I think it stands as a one-time thing for a while - Brendon and Spencer are both wary of screwing things up within the band, Brendon is busy having issues and getting a lot of Stupid Teenaged Shit (tm) out of his system - but eventually they come back around to a semi-regular thing and/or threesomes with Bob when he's in town.

You know. Something like that, possibly.]

[kellyelizabeth]

I didn't know how much I wanted this until I read it.

[dira]

My love for Bob/Spencer is ... I cannot even express in words. I LOVE THEM A LOT. So, yes. :)

[dira]

Yay! Thank you! :)