Archive of Our Own

Brendon doesn't keep track of the days very well, but he's pretty sure that the day the boys show up is a Sunday, because there's a kid on a bike going up and down the street, flinging newspapers at whatever looks breakable on people's porches.

"And you're sure you want this one, Ry?" There are two of them, coming up the steps. They're both pretty short, and one is all skinny limbs and floppy brown emo hair. The other is broader, with a beard and the kind of forearms Brendon has dreams about and hips that border on childbearing.

"I'm sure," the skinny one says, smiling a little, as they come in the door. Brendon watches from halfway out of the ceiling as they walk down the hall to the kitchen. "It has character, Spence. A sort of… dilapidated charm."

The other one snorts. "If by charm you mean possible health risks, yeah, okay, sure."

Brendon kind of wants to be offended; they have no right to be judging his house. But then again, it kind of is a run-down piece of shit, and it's not like he wants to live here. He doesn't even actually live here. It's sort of hard to live anywhere when you're dead.

The two of them wander around the house a little more, and Brendon drifts along the ceiling, watching as they judge the rooms-- Spencer is cheerfully pessimistic, saying things like, "Wow, Ryan, you can die from black mold inhalation and take a bath at the same time, that's glorious. A golden opportunity if I ever saw one," and, "Huh, look at this, the fireplace is only missing half its bricks. It'll probably take you at least a week to manage to burn this place to the ground." Ryan, on the other hand, puts up with the ribbing with a wry twist of his mouth and a condescending nod.

The argument ends when Ryan points out that there's a spare bedroom that they could, "Use it as a practice space, Spence, come on, there would even be room for your drums. Think about it."

And okay, so they're weird, and Ryan is clearly trying to dress like some combination of a cowboy, a homeless man, a riverboat gambler, and Brendon's grandfather, and Spencer is a grouchy bear-man-beast, but it would be kind of cool to be able to hear music again. Brendon's missed music. Kind of a lot. So he maybe won't whoosh through the house screaming about how their doom is nigh or anything. Yet. Brendon’s not eliminating it as an option entirely.

"We could have Jon come over, right, and maybe we could even have a band again, Spence." Ryan elbow's Spencer's side, smiling kind of hopefully, eyes twinkling, and Spencer grins back at him, giving in, and wow, Spencer's grin is blinding, it’s possibly the source of all good things in the universe, including unicorns and puppies and possibly several of Brendon's wet dreams.

So maybe Brendon won't whoosh through the house screaming about anything at all.
Spencer is sort of disgustingly hot.

There are times, very frustrating times, times like right now, that Brendon really wishes he weren't a ghost.

--

Ryan and Spencer come back three days later with a bunch of boxes, exchanging cheerful insults as they haul everything inside. Brendon wonders if they're brothers or sleeping together, but he's pretty sure it's one or the other. If it's both, though, he might have to reconsider that whole Spencer-is-hot premise and replace it with oh-god-oh-god-eww. But he doesn't think that’s the case, so.

If they're together, there's the downside of hey, Brendon will be sad because Spencer and his blinding smile have someone that is not Brendon, but the upside of hey, Brendon could probably watch them have sex, and Ryan is kind of weirdly pretty, so. And if they're brothers, well, whatever, at least then Brendon won’t have to watch Spencer sex up someone who isn’t him. Probably.

"I still can't believe you're going to live here," Spencer says, when all the boxes are in, and wait, what? Brendon had kind of been under the impression that they were moving in together, both of them—it’s not like there aren’t enough rooms, there are more than enough rooms. If Spencer isn’t going to live here, Brendon might have to be sad, and Brendon had kind of enjoyed his brief break from being terminally depressed.

Ryan rolls his eyes, and says, perfectly toneless, "Oh no, Ryan, you're going to live in a musty old house full of spiders and rats, that's so much worse than where you've been living for the past twenty years."

Spencer scowls, crossing his arms and cocking a bitchy hip. "I'm not saying the house is worse than the way your dad treated you, Ryan, geez, just, you have money now, it's not like you couldn't--" So, okay, they’re probably not brothers, then, if Ryan has a different dad. Half brothers, maybe, but they still don’t look anything alike. Which means they’re probably sleeping together. Brendon is going to pretend that that doesn’t make his stomach drop a little.

"I have money, yeah, Spence, but I kind of want it to last, so I can't buy something expensive," Ryan snaps back, hands on his hips. "I'm not going to waste this money, Spencer, I don't want to end up a year down the line with nothing but a big fat mortgage and a shitty guitar. I am going to live here, because it's cheap and I like it, okay, so stop looking at me like that, and I'm going to write, and then I'm going to publish a book, okay, lots of books, a million of them, and we're going to play music and you're going to stop bitching at me about every goddamn choice I make, because you are my best friend, not my mother, okay, and you're going to like it." He stops, huffing, eyes narrowed, finger in the middle of Spencer’s chest, and waits for Spencer's response.

Best friends, okay, Brendon can sort of buy that, even if they do touch a lot for best friends. Seriously a lot. They’re not very manly about it, either. Maybe they’re Canadian.

Spencer looks at him for a long moment, one eyebrow arched, smirking. "So what you're telling me is that this house makes you feel like a legitimate starving writer and I should stop messing with your delusions?"

Ryan’s mouth curls into a wry grin. "Also that. Shut up."

Spencer rolls his eyes and lightly punches Ryan's arm. "Come on, walk me to the car? I promised I'd meet Jon for lunch and tell him if you talked about him like a twelve year old girl at all today."

Ryan scowls at him again, but it looks suspiciously like he's trying to hide a blush. "I swear to god, if you tell him that thing I said about thinking his hands are pretty, I will break both your arms and you will never drum again, Spencer Smith."

Spencer grins that stupid blinding grin that makes Brendon's chest go all tight and squiggly, and pats Ryan's hand. "On second thought, you stay right there, and I'll run away really fast now, because I might have already texted him about that one." He makes a break for it while Ryan gapes at him, slowly turning red.

When the door slams, Ryan looks straight up, straight at Brendon, like he's known Brendon's been there the whole time, and says ruefully, "If I actually break his arms, it'll be ages before I can find another drummer."

Brendon maybe falls out of the ceiling a little in shock. When he recovers himself, he blinks at Ryan a little and says the first thing to come to the surface of his mind, which is maybe not the best idea, but, "You'll never find one as pretty."

Ryan makes a face. "Ew."

--

Most people can't see Brendon. Almost everyone can hear him, which is how he got rid of the last few people who wanted to buy the house, but only one of them ever actually saw him. Ryan, though, Ryan says he can see him perfectly, and he says it in that Ryan way, like of course I can see you, idiot, I have eyes and everything, like it isn't weird. He also says it like it isn't weird that Brendon even exists, and that's actually kind of nice. Brendon doesn’t tell him that part, though, because Ryan is totally the type to get a big head about it, Brendon can tell already.

Ryan hangs out with him just like he's a real person, talks to him and plays music and asks for Brendon's advice on chord progressions and harmonies, reads books out loud so Brendon can listen if he wants to. They play checkers, sometimes, and Ryan's put little labels on each piece, so all Brendon has to say is, "Dorothy forward," or, "Xavier double jumps Wanda.” All the red pieces are girls, all the black pieces are boys, and like half of them are named for superheroes, while the other half are literary characters, and okay, it's kind of awesome that Ryan is at least as much of a dork as Brendon is. When Ryan stays up late watching terribly pretentious movies with gratuitous nudity in French, Brendon thinks he's maybe actually a little more of dork, but he keeps that to himself, because Ryan would give him a bitchface, and Brendon doesn't like having to act like it's actually imposing.

Spencer comes over a lot, too, but Brendon doesn't show himself when he's around, because if Spencer can't see him, or worse, can and is afraid of him, Brendon doesn't think he could deal with that. Ryan assures him that Spencer is open minded and pretty weird, too, so he'd probably be able to see him-- that's mostly what it's about, having room in your brain to let the idea of Brendon in-- and that he wouldn't think Brendon was scary or an abomination against god or anything. But Brendon's actually pretty sure that he is an abomination against god. His parents were sure, that's why he's here, alone, and wow, okay, it still hurts to think of them. It's been five years, and he wonders what his sisters are doing now, if his brothers are done with college yet. Brendon kind of wishes he'd gotten to graduate high school. That would have been nice. But no, he's not going to risk it with Spencer. And Ryan, Ryan seems to understand, because he doesn't bring Brendon up, doesn't tell Spencer anything at all.

A small, rebellious part of Brendon kind of wishes that Ryan were more of an asshole and would just tell Spencer and get it over with, because then Brendon wouldn't have to wonder.

But that's a really small part.

--

Ryan thinks Brendon is possibly the most annoying-yet-cool thing to happen to him since he met Spencer when he was six. Brendon never shuts up, spends half his time bouncing around the house singing show tunes, and he makes fun of all of Ryan's hats. But he also likes the books Ryan reads, knows his way around a guitar, he listens to Ryan talk about Jon and Jon's pretty, pretty hands without making fun of him the way Spencer does, and he occasionally gives Ryan ideas for his novel. (Well, Ryan’s various novels. Ryan’s maybe having trouble picking one concept and sticking to it.) He also clearly has a crush on Spencer, which is either the most hilarious or the saddest thing that Ryan's ever seen.

"Spence is coming over tonight," Ryan warns him the next time Brendon floats into the room.

Brendon hums a little and grins a big, stupid idiot grin. "Is he staying over?"

Ryan tries to scowl, because the fact that Brendon watches Spencer sleep is sort of creepy, and he should be defending Spencer's honor or something in appropriate best-friend fashion. However, Brendon is like a tiny, dead puppy, and Ryan maybe has a weakness for that sort of thing, and also it's hilarious, so he can't actually manage the scowl. "Maybe. Probably. You know him." The weird thing is that Brendon does know him. Ryan talks about him all the time, and when Brendon talks back, it's like he knows the way Spencer is, without knowing anything in particular about him at all. When Ryan asked him about it once, all he said was that Spencer was just a Spencer, and Brendon didn't have to know a lot about him to understand what that meant. After that, Ryan was pretty sure that he didn't mind Brendon creeping on Spencer at all.

Brendon nods. "What are you guys doing?"

"Band practice, sort of. Jon might come over, too." Ryan doesn't rush through the latter part, like he would with Spencer. He still feels a blush rising into his cheeks.

Brendon beams at him. "The amazing Jon Walker? The Jon that invented magic and whose smile gives birth to kittens? That Jon?"

It's entirely possible that the kitten part is true, since Jon has fourteen million cats, and Ryan is distracted by the sort of horrifying and hysterical image of kittens spontaneously popping out of Jon's mouth before he fakes a scowl at Brendon. "Yes. That Jon."

Brendon rubs his hands together, giggling gleefully. "Awesome. Awesome, Ryan Ross, I can't wait." He pauses for a minute, then, "Will you put the blue sheets in the guest room?"

Ryan probably doesn't actually want to know, but he's a writer, he's curious, so, "Why?"

Brendon gives him a lopsided smile. "They match his eyes."

Ryan rolls his eyes and mutters something perfunctory about how creepy Brendon is, and how Brendon can’t see Spencer’s eyes if Spencer’s eyes are closed and he’s asleep, but he puts the blue sheets on the bed in the guest room before Spencer comes over nonetheless.

Ryan is an enabler.

--

Jon Walker is not what Brendon expects. Brendon expects Jon Walker to be tall, dark, and handsome, with a chiseled jaw and a Viking Beard of Awesome.

The Jon Walker that shows up at the door at two in the afternoon is short-- shorter even than Ryan and Spencer and Brendon-- and soft and, yes, okay, handsome, but the way teddy bears are handsome, not the way Viggo Mortensen is handsome. The Viking Beard of Awesome is mostly what Brendon expected, though. Otherwise, he's kind of plain and brown, but he looks cuddlesome, and when Ryan ducks his head and says hello, Jon Walker smiles a smile that does, yes, as Ryan said it did, spontaneously give birth to radiant light, glory, and tiny fuzzy kittens rolling through springtime grass.

Brendon finds that especially impressive, as it's late fall, so Jon Walker also mystically generates springtime and the flora that accompanies it. Brendon will agree with Ryan-- later-- that Jon Walker is pretty magical.

--

"Can you maybe actually hit the drums instead of petting them like kittens?" Ryan demands, crossing his arms and glaring at Spencer. "Because actual drumming would be really fucking useful right now."

"Can you maybe actually sing instead of criticizing what other people are doing?" Spencer snaps back, rolling his eyes.

Jon clears his throat. "Not to like, interrupt your awesome bitchfight, guys, but the song? That song we were, yknow, playing just then? We should maybe just play it again." His mouth quirks up a little, like maybe he secretly wants to laugh and is just too nice to make fun of them, and Ryan feels all the anger and frustration seep out of him.

"Yeah, Ryan," Spencer says, sneering a little, "let's just play the song."

Ryan sniffs and ignores Spencer's absolute, ridiculous childishness. "Fine, okay, just. Count us in." He grimaces at Jon, who still just looks like he's trying really hard not to laugh.

Spencer snorts, but counts them in, and Ryan tries to shut out his general irritation at how very awkward playing again is, tries to sing through it.

It sort of works, and each time they play through a song, it gets a little less uncomfortable, a little less stilted, until eventually, Ryan can feel the music thrumming through him almost exactly like it's supposed to.

--

Ryan plays his old band's demo for Brendon after Jon and Spencer leave. It's good, it's really good. But it's angry, and it's sad, and there's something futile and desperate in the way Ryan sings, too soft and too helpless. It tugs at all the places that are empty in Brendon’s own chest, the places that make him feel like maybe he really is dead.

So when Ryan hands him the first lines of a new song he's working on, Brendon hums something he thinks will suit Ryan's voice a little better. It's warm and easy and smooth, and Ryan frowns at him.

"That's not really my usual style," he says, but it's not a complaint, not exactly.

Brendon nods. "But maybe it should be."

Ryan smiles and hums, slow and thoughtful. "I think Jon would like it."

Brendon kind of wants to giggle every time Ryan mentions Jon, because Jon is awesome, and Brendon hopes that he and Ryan get married and have ten thousand adorable, musical genius babies. "That," Brendon says with a pompous sniff, "is because Jon Walker has excellent taste." He'll teach them how to sing and play the saxophone, it'll be the coolest thing ever. Brendon’s totally going to be the cool uncle figure, but, yknow, dead and see-through.

Ryan swats in his general direction, but sniggers a little nonetheless. "So what should come next?"

Brendon thinks about it and hums the next line to himself, then sings, tentatively, "Hey moon, please forget to fall down." When he looks up from the page, Ryan is blinking at him, eyes a little wide. "What?"

Ryan just keeps blinking. "You should, um. You should sing, Brendon, you should sing all the time."

Brendon feels himself blushing, and it sucks that that sort of thing sticks around even when you're incorporeal. "So, uh," he clears his throat. "Can, um, could you write something down for me? I've been wanting to write this thing down for ages, it's not really a song, not yet, you know, but I can't exactly--"

Ryan nods, still looking a little shell shocked. Brendon isn't sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but.

For the next three nights, they stay up late, writing all the things that have been in both of their heads for too long.

--

The weird thing about Brendon's creepy crush on Spencer is, the more Brendon is around Spencer, the more solid he gets, until Ryan can see the colors of Brendon's clothes-- his clothes change, and Ryan wouldn't have thought ghosts could change clothes, if he'd thought about it at all. At one point, Brendon falls in love with one of Ryan's ex-girlfriend's old hoodies while he watches Ryan unpack, a silly lavender thing, and Ryan kind of wishes he could give it to him, because it's not like he's even using it, and Brendon hardly ever admits to missing anything, wanting anything, but he's lusting after the hoodie like it's something magical.

"How do you get new clothes?" Ryan asks him, conversationally, while he's fucking around on the Xbox, like he's not trying to be sneaky about anything at all.

Brendon shrugs. "I don't get new ones. These are all ones my parents burned before they left."

Ryan blinks at him. He knows Brendon had a family, but he doesn't talk about them, except once, a mention of his sister, but Ryan had sort of assumed that they all died. Apparently not. "They burned your things?"

Brendon smiles wryly. "Yeah. They were, uh. Cleansing the house of my influence, I guess, so they burnt all my stuff. I guess they were hoping it would get rid of me? But it didn't work, so they left."

Ryan's quiet for a minute. He didn't ever like his father-- it's hard to like a man who kicks you around-- but at the same time, he can't imagine leaving him, and he can't imagine that his father would ever abandon him after burning all his worldly possessions, whether he was alive or not. "That's sort of horrible," he says, finally, because he doesn't actually have anything better to say.

"I guess," Brendon agrees, giving a half shrug. "It's been like five years now. At least I have things to change into. I wish I could shower. I mean, it's not like I actually sweat or anything, but I kind of miss the act of showering."

Ryan snorts, but doesn’t disagree. He's a big fan of showers himself. They're somehow cathartic. "So," he muses, thinking about it, "if I burnt something, you could have it?"

Brendon looks at him for a long moment, like he's trying to figure out what Ryan's getting at. "I guess? It might just have been because those things were sort of a part of me, like, they had my essence? I don't know. But maybe burning them is sort of like... killing them, so they can be ghosts, too?" He scratches his head. "I don't know," he says again, spreading his hands in a helpless gesture.

Ryan nods, humming, and sets the Xbox controller aside. "Give me a sec?" he says, not waiting for an answer before getting up and going to the bedroom. Brendon doesn't follow him, just hovers, looking perplexed, above the couch.

Ryan gets the hoodie from the box in his closet, along with a lighter and a fire-starter log from the cupboard in the kitchen. It might not work, no, but it's not like he's losing his favorite scarf or anything if it doesn't. It's just Keltie's hoodie.

Brendon just stares at him while he lights the log and waits for it to catch, and he only makes one little pained noise when Ryan stuffs the hoodie on top of the flames.

"Is it working?" Ryan asks after a minute. The hoodie is only half burnt, though, and the whole room smells like burning polyester.

Brendon blinks, swallows audibly, and says, "I don't know yet."

Ryan nods, and they watch the fire in silence.

After a minute or two, the hoodie gives up with a flare of grayish smoke, and there's nothing left but a smoking zipper on the fire-starter. He turns to ask Brendon if it worked, and there's the hoodie, softly translucent, in Brendon's hands.

Brendon turns it over wonderingly. "That's epic," he breathes, and tugs it on over his shirt. There's no zipper, so it hangs loose over his chest, but he looks thrilled. Ryan's throat maybe goes a little tight, because seeing Brendon happy makes him realize just how sad he'd been before. Ryan’s pretty sure there’s no way he’s going to be able to let Brendon go back.

Brendon beams and flings his arms through Ryan. It feels bizarre, like Ryan’s body is full of alkaseltzer, but it's as close as Brendon can get to hugging him, so Ryan tentatively wraps his arms around where Brendon sort of is and tries to hug back.

--

Ryan starts going out and getting things for him pretty often after that. New jeans, one time, and a band shirt another. Spencer leaves a stupid wooly cap over at Ryan's house one night, and Ryan sees Brendon watching it longingly, so he quietly burns that for him, too. Brendon doesn't take it off for weeks, and Ryan can hear him giggling when Spencer comes looking for it.

After that, Brendon's solid enough that Ryan can tell that his eyes are brown and that his skin is tan and that his favorite pair of jeans are black. Sometimes, when Brendon looks longingly at Ryan eating pizza or a sandwich, Ryan will burn him a piece, and no, he's not sure it's the same, but Brendon claims he can taste it, and no, he doesn't need it, exactly, not as sustenance anyway, but Ryan's pretty sure there are different kinds of need.

--

Brendon has pretty much decided that Spencer is the best thing since somebody invented the concept of adding cheese to things and then eating them. Spencer has a beard, a beard of sexy manfullness, and every time Brendon looks at it, he's pretty sure he would die from how cute it looks on Spencer's round almost-a-girl-cheeks if he weren't already dead. As it is, he has to stop himself from giggling in pure glee every time Spencer smiles and the light of all things awesome beams out from his white, shiny teeth to fill the world.

Brendon is maybe sort of retardedly smitten. He's pretty much okay with this idea, as long as he can keep looking at Spencer without Spencer noticing that he's looking. Ryan laughing at him doesn't help, but whatever, Ryan's a douche.

A douche who pays real money for cool things and then lights them on fire so Brendon can have them. Ryan's sort of an awesome douche. Whatever. Not the point. Spencer is adorable, and Brendon's afterlife's goal is to figure out some way to kiss his stupid, adorable face full of beard and smile and big blue eyes.

Nnnngh. That’s all there is to say. Nnnngh.

--

Ryan is standing in his music room, picking out a potential melody while Brendon hums along. It's soft, but cheery, and it sort of reminds Ryan of the Beatles, if the Beatles had been less British and had been influenced by 80's bubblegum pop.

"I think it needs more of a minor feeling in the bridge," Brendon says, floating down to an inch above Ryan's favorite chair. Ryan's pretty sure Brendon sits there just to be a pain in the ass, since it doesn't really matter which chair he sits in, since he's not actually able to feel chairs at all. He just has some sort of sick mission to mess with Ryan's head. Ryan is relatively sure this is what it would have been like, having a younger brother.

Ryan ignores the chair thing and obligingly darkens the tone, making it a little mournful, a little longing. "I kind of like it."

Brendon bobs his head. "Yeah, yeah, like-- it's kind of like having breakfast for dinner."

Two-months-ago-Ryan wouldn't have any idea what the hell Brendon was talking about, but now-Ryan just nods along, says, "Yeah, like, it's not what you're expecting, what you're used to, but it's satisfying in a different way."

"Exactly, Ryan Ross," Brendon says, beaming at him. "Exactly like that."

Ryan grins back at him, and plays the melody all the way through, now that they have it.

After that, he goes to the kitchen and makes pancakes, because the whole breakfast-for-dinner thing is kind of stuck in his head.

--

Spencer maybe secretly likes Ryan's horrible new house. It's huge and ugly and half falling apart, but there are like five rooms that have no actual conceivable use, and there's just something about the place that's weirdly comfortable. He'd never admit it to Ryan or anything, but it's homey, and Spencer sleeps better there than he does at his own house.

"Did I know you were coming over?" Ryan asks when he gets back from the store, laden with bags. "I guess I must have forgotten, sorry, I haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately."

Spencer goes to help him put things away, stacking cans of beans and soup in the pantry. "No, no, I didn't. I mean, I was-- do I actually have to warn you? You never used to warn me." It's different, sure, Ryan didn't usually have a lot of warning before he needed somewhere else to sleep, but still.

Ryan hip-checks him and shakes his head, smiling a little. It's nice to see him smile; it's not something Spencer's seen a lot of since Ryan's dad died. Not that Ryan was a big smiler before that, either, but. "No, no, I just wanted to know if I'm getting crazier than usual."

"Nope. At least not in that sense. What's keeping you from sleeping?" Ryan normally keeps weird hours, but they're more weird in the sense of getting up early and then napping like a cat in the sun than staying up all night.

Ryan shrugs. "I've been working on music a lot. New inspiration, I guess."

That's legitimately weird. Ryan hasn't written music in a long time, not since the Summer League, back when they were in high school, when he was dating Brent and writing angry songs about his father. "Is something bothering you?" Spencer doesn't mean to sound that incredulous, but Ryan's seemed better lately, and he doesn't write music when he's happy.

Ryan hums something under his breath, a little snatch of something cheery and fast. "No," he says, after a minute, "nothing's bothering me. This is maybe different."

"Is it Jon?" It could possibly be something weird and un-Ryan, like endless woeful unrequited love songs, but Spencer has a hard time believing that, either. Ryan tends to think that sort of thing is tasteless.

Ryan looks surprised. "No?" He snickers. "Although I should probably hit you or something, since he somehow knew about my secret collection of dog models."

"Plushies, Ryan. Stuffed animals," Spencer corrects automatically. "Dog models makes it sound like you have a bunch of pictures of dog furries, posing in skimpy lingerie." He mocks the pose, a hand on his hip, one behind his head, and gives a dramatic sigh, and there's a little giggle in response. He glares at Ryan, and Ryan belatedly covers his mouth, looking too amused to be apologetic. "Seriously, though, what are you writing?"

Ryan bites his lip. "Hang on, I'll get my notebook." When he comes back, he hands Spencer a page covered in a mess of scribbled lines of lyrics and musical notations-- words are just hollow birds; the world's just a broken bone, melt your headaches, call it home; putting out the lantern, find your own way back home.

"I like it," Spencer says. He does. "It's... brighter, somehow." It is. "It's kind of. Um, not your usual style?" It isn't.

"It isn't," Ryan agrees, smiling a secret smile, and Spencer doesn't ask, because he doesn't think Ryan will tell him.

--

As far as Brendon is concerned, Jon Walker’s general awesomeness is outstripped only by Spencer’s awesomeness, and by Jon Walker’s own awesomeness at playing the bass. His bass-playing abilities are not only useful in a band-having sense, but also useful in that they are how he talks to Ryan.

Every time he comes over, Jon sits down with Ryan in the music room, and, while they wait for Spencer (who is probably always late on purpose, just to give Ryan some time alone with Jon, because Spencer is appealingly sneaksome like that), he and Ryan send chords back and forth, echoing and responding to each other like a conversation. Ryan strums out a few notes, a question, and Jon ducks his head, smiles a secret half smile, and answers with warm notes, soft notes, notes that don't sound like anything in particular on their own, but mean more than Ryan will admit they do when he talks to Brendon later.

Brendon thinks that Jon Walker says more with his hands and his strings than he knows how to say out loud. Brendon also thinks that Jon Walker's hands and strings say that he thinks Ryan hung the moon and told it to be shiny.

--

"Can you just-- yeah, like that." Ryan nods, tapping his foot, as Spencer slows down the beat. "Awesome. Jon, then, okay, here, come in with-- awesome." He hums out the first line, actually sings along with the second, sings, "Breaks free of my wooden neck, left a nod over sleeping waves, like bobbing bait for bathing cod."

Spencer cocks his head at him, stops drumming. "What does that even mean?" he asks, arching an eyebrow.

Ryan would answer him, would tell him exactly what it means, except that he didn't write it, Brendon did, and Ryan doesn't have the faintest idea what it means. He scrabbles for something off-putting and pretentious. "It's... a literary reference, Spence, this old Russian philosopher-- you wouldn't get it," he says, in lieu of anything actually useful.

Jon snorts, but doesn't say anything, and Ryan is eminently grateful that Spencer is content to leave it at that.

--

Spencer is a pretty quiet sleeper, compared to Ryan. Ryan flails around with nightmares a lot, and he sometimes wakes up during the night. If Spencer did that, it would be really hard for Brendon to be as creepy as he is without being caught, because throwing your hand through a ghost is shocking enough to wake anyone up, as Ryan has proven on more than one occasion. So Brendon’s grateful that Spencer has an apparently generally-untroubled mind. When he’s out, he tends to stay out.

Brendon can interact with inanimate objects-- he can sit on chairs, beds, counters, whatever, and he can even sometimes move things a little-- like pulling Ryan's sleeve or something-- but he can't feel things, and his hands pass right through anything animate. Saying he can interact with the inanimate is actually sort of stretching the word "interact"-- he can recognize the space they occupy and interact with the space they're not occupying, sitting just above their presence, that sort of thing. He's not actually really touching them, not technically.

So when he lays on the bed beside Spencer, he’s not actually lying on the bed beside Spencer. He’s floating a few millimeters above the bed, watching Spencer sleep, because he’s a giant creeper, and that’s what giant creepers who are ghosts do.

Brendon would pretty much give anything-- he’d give his voice, like Ariel, okay, seriously-- to be able to reach out and touch the round curve of Spencer’s cheek and have Spencer feel something other than ionized air stinging his skin.

Brendon does the next best thing, scooting in as close as he can so he can feel Spencer’s breaths displacing the air around his face, and falls asleep to the rhythm of Spencer’s lungs.

Brendon always makes sure to wake up before Spencer does, or to leave quickly if he wakes up from a dream, because if Spencer knows, Brendon might have to stop, and Brendon knows, knows that he couldn’t stand it, knows that if Spencer knew, if Spencer could say no, Brendon would just dissipate and float away. And now that there’s actually something to stay for, to exist for, Brendon really, really doesn’t want that to happen.

--

The boy smiles at Spencer, eyes crinkling up behind square red glasses. "Hi," he says, and his voice is like music and that's retarded except for the part where it's true. His hands are on Spencer's hips, and his mouth is moving against the side of Spencer's neck, tongue flickering out against his skin.

"Do I know you?" Spencer finally manages, hands clenching in the boy's purple hoodie as their hips press together.

He smiles up at Spencer, impish and adorable, and kisses the corner of Spencer's mouth. His eyes are smiling, too, but there's an almost ironic twist to the curve of his mouth. "No," he says, nibbling on Spencer's lower lip until Spencer opens his mouth, and, "I'm Brendon," and then he's licking into Spencer's mouth.

Spencer, Spencer clings like he's drowning. "I'm, uh--" and then Brendon slips a hand into his hair and tips Spencer's head back and sucks on the spot just below his ear and Spencer can hardly breathe.

"I know who you are," he says into Spencer's skin, pressing his hips closer, twisting them mercilessly, and the hand he's still got on Spencer's hip is rubbing a thumb below the waistband of Spencer's jeans. Then he's undoing the button, knuckles pressing into the sensitive skin below Spencer's navel, and he drags the zipper down.

The sound snaps Spencer awake, and he's lying in Ryan's guestroom with a really uncomfortable hard on. Something buzzes against his left arm, but when he looks, there's nothing there.

--

Ryan laughs his ass off at Brendon. Brendon thinks it's kind of unnecessarily mean, but then, it's Ryan, and it maybe is a little bit funny, but.

"He almost saw me," Brendon hisses, and okay, he's maybe freaking out a little. "Can you imagine what would have happened?"

Ryan's giggling into his pillow. "He would have said, hello, hot boy in my bed, why are you staring at my raging hard on like you want to molest it?"

Ryan is stupid, and Brendon would really love to be able to hit him in the face. It's times like this that he curses his inability to touch things. With his fists. Also, times like when Spencer has a raging hard on and he really wants to molest it. He curses his incorporeality pretty badly at those times, too.

"Oh, fuck you," he grouses, and floats petulantly into the ceiling.

"I'm pretty sure he likes guys, if that helps," Ryan calls after him, still giggling.

It doesn't help. It just makes it even more horrible that Brendon can't have him. Brendon figures he should have maybe come to terms with this whole "being dead" thing by now, but he's pretty sure he's only getting less and less used to it.

--

"So, so, okay, wait," Spencer says, tapping his sticks on Ryan's leg. "What you're telling me is that this song isn't about fucking."

Jon bites his lip, viciously tamping down a giggle. Ryan glares at him anyways, but that's because Ryan is a ridiculous, oversensitive bitch.

"No," Ryan says, drawing the syllable out like he's trying not to strangle Spencer with his scrawny little hands. Spencer gets a sort of sick joy out of making Ryan sound like that. It's some sort of pseudo-sibling instinct or something. "No, Spencer, there isn't anything at all in this song that could possibly be construed as being about fucking. Even a little."

Jon makes this horrible little noise like he's dying, and buries his face in the arm of the couch. Spencer feels his pain, really, he does. Spencer would like to choke to death laughing at Ryan's bitchface, too.

"But," Spencer says, raising a drumstick to make his point, "see, the thing is, I'm pretty sure it's not about anything else, either, which brings me to the conclusion--" here, he taps Ryan's collarbone with the stick, ignoring his wince, "that it must be all thinly-veiled metaphors. About fucking."

Jon stops pretending not to be laughing and gives up, pushing himself off the couch and ambling into the hall, guffawing into his arm. Ryan glares pissily after him for a minute, then rounds on Spencer.

"There is something wrong with you," he says, and Spencer isn't disagreeing. Just, yknow, the thing wrong with him presently is that Ryan is singing a song about pianos and beards and Trojan horses and pretending that it somehow makes anything resembling sense.

Spencer doesn't say that, though, just stares Ryan down. Ryan stares back, but Spencer will totally win. He has sisters.

And sure enough, a minute later, Ryan rolls his eyes and throws up his hands and says, totally exasperated, "Fine! Okay, fine, Spence, it's totally secretly about fucking."

Spencer nods solemnly. "Damn straight it is."

--

"Ask him out, Ryan." Brendon pokes vaguely at Ryan’s side. It sort of tickles.

Brendon has no goddamn room to talk. "Tell Spencer you exist," Ryan retorts, and it's a low blow, but whatever.

Brendon narrows his eyes. "That's different. I'm a spooky dead thing. You're a pile of giant girl-eyes and spiky hips and Jon pretty obviously wants to lick you to death."

"Jon is not a dog, Brendon." Ryan's going for long-suffering exasperation, but he's pretty sure he just sounds like he's getting close to defeat.

Brendon holds up his hands like paws and pants for a second before shaking his head. "Naw, he's a kitty, Ryan, and wow, I was going to say something about giving him some milk or something, but that's beyond even my ability with gross puns."

Ryan groans and throws a pillow through him.

Brendon takes it like a man and whooshes through Ryan in retaliation, and okay, okay, that feels like being electrocuted and doused in cold water at the same time.

Ryan, of course, because he's totally mature and everything, restrains himself to throwing the TV remote through Brendon's head in return.

"Ask him ou-outtttt," Brendon sing-songs as he floats through the wall, probably to go curl up over Spencer's indent on the pillow or something equally pathetic. It's not like Ryan is just as bad, with his mooning over texts from Jon or anything.

Ryan sometimes fiddles around the bass that Jon leaves in the music room when he’s feeling especially like a total girl, just because it has a sense of Jon in it. No, Ryan’s totally a different sort of pathetic altogether.

--

Sometimes, Brendon watches Spencer jerk off. He knows it's creepy, and he feels a little bit like Edward Cullen, but Spencer is really hot, and Brendon is only human. A dead human, but still a human, okay, and humans have needs. And Brendon's needs just happen to be partially fulfilled by watching his sorta-roommate's best friend jerk off.

Also, it's kind of weird for Spencer to be jerking off in someone else's house, even if he does stay over more nights than not, so it's almost like Spencer's asking for it. Or something. That line of logic makes Brendon feel like he’s some sort of, like, sleep rapist or something. But Spencer keeps staying over, and Brendon keeps falling asleep in the bed with him, and pretty regularly now, Spencer wakes up halfway through the night with a boner, and. Well, instead of fleeing in terror like the first time, Brendon maybe sticks around, out of sight, to watch.

He’s seriously aware that it’s creepy, he is. But he’s kind of in love, and he’s pretty sure this is as close as he’s ever going to get to getting into Spencer Smith’s pants, so he sticks around. At least Brendon doesn’t jerk off to it. See, that would make him creepy.

--

Brendon is mostly content with people not knowing about him, other than Ryan. With the obvious exception of Spencer, Brendon doesn't really care if the world knows he exists.

Sometimes, though, people come to the house, and Brendon really wishes he was alive just so he could know what they’re doing there. In this case, there's a scraggly-haired dude sitting at Ryan's kitchen table, drumming his fingers nervously against his ripped up jeans. He's weirdly pale, like he doesn't ever actually see the light of day. He's got a big sketchbook tucked to his chest, and his eyes keep flicking nervously around the kitchen. Brendon wonders about that for a minute, actually, because it's almost like the guy is looking for him, like the guy can sense something's there.

"Hello?" the guy says, tentatively, looking in totally the wrong direction.

"Hang on a minute!" Ryan yells from the hall. "I'm just getting the-- ow, fuck-- the thing, gimme just a--"

The guy snickers a little, but his eyes stop scanning the room, and Brendon-- tucked above the kitchen cabinets, next to the ceiling-- relaxes a little. He doesn't leave, though, because there's a guy in Ryan's kitchen, a guy who isn't Spencer or Jon, and that's weird enough that Brendon just needs to know.

Ryan stumbles in a minute later-- because he always forgets that there's a tiny bit of uneven wood at the threshold where the hallway carpet switches to the battered hardwood of the kitchen floor-- with his arms piled high with folders.

"Dude," the guy at the table says, blinking owlishly. "That. Ross, that is a fuckton of paper."

Ryan snorts and drops them unceremoniously onto the table. "No kidding."

The guy rubs his hands together. "So, okay, yeah, where do I start?" He's got smudges of ink on his hands, on the curve of his jaw. Brendon can admire that sort of obvious absentmindedness.

"Uh... probably it doesn't matter. Just, you-- you said you can read music?"

The guy nods. "Yeah, yeah, no, totally." He pulls the top folder from the stack, flipping it open and leafing through the few pages. He hums a little, a familiar bar of music, and Brendon realizes that the papers are his songs-- well, they were his songs, now they're Ryan's, but. Those.

Ryan watches the as the guy goes through each folder, humming and muttering to himself. He’s hugging himself, and he doesn't move a muscle, and on Ryan, that, Brendon knows, means he's either really mad or really nervous, and since he hasn't threatened to bite the guy or tried to throw anything at him, Brendon's gonna go with nervous.

"Dude, dude," the guy says, waving a folder, "Is this song about fucking?"

Ryan groans and thunks his head into the table. Brendon tries not to giggle. It’s not easy.

--

"So, uh." Brendon bites his lip, because this is totally Ryan's house, too, he's not trying to pry. "Who was that?"

Ryan hesitates for a minute. "He's... Gerard." He palms the back of his neck awkwardly. "He does art stuff."

Brendon nods, because art stuff is awesome, right, it is, except that the guy-- Gerard! Gerard is a totally cool name for an art dude with scraggly hair and a fierce paleness to rival Brendon's own translucency!-- had been going through their music, Brendon's music, and that doesn't have anything to do with art. "Ryan," he says.

"Look, okay, he's just-- he's helping me out. With some of the notes I can't get. He maybe sings, some, too." Ryan doesn't meet Brendon's eyes, which is awesome, because Brendon sort of feels sick.

"Right," Brendon says, because he's not sure what else he can say that won't sound like bile. "Right, okay."

Ryan swallows and looks away. "Just, you know, to help. He's not. He's not joining the band or anything, just kind of. Coaching me and maybe, just. Other stuff, maybe, sort of. I don't know yet, okay?"

Brendon doesn't say anything. From the way Ryan's carefully studying his shoes, Brendon doesn't think he has to.

--

Ryan is maybe a terminal moron when it comes to Jon. Jon is cuddlesome and adorable and laid back and Ryan is none of those things even a little bit at all.

So Ryan might whine to Brendon a lot about how much he wants to have Jon's babies, and Brendon is usually pretty much awesome about humoring him and poking him gently in the direction of actually growing a spine.

However, there are some days when Brendon is kind of off about it.

"Man the fuck up, Ryan Ross! At least you can touch him!" Brendon yells, bright red even though he's translucent.

Ryan scowls back at him. Ryan kind of sucks at confrontation-- Spencer mentions all the time that Ryan gets sort of pissy when he's criticized. "Fuck you, okay, what do you even know about it? You don't know Jon, you haven’t even talked to him, and he probably doesn't even like guys, right, and it's not like you'd even know what the fuck you're talking about, anyways, okay, the guy you like doesn't know you're ali--" And then Ryan remembers that he's talking to a nineteen year old dead boy and that he's kind of a giant asshole.

Brendon gives him a teary sneer. "Yeah. That's because I'm not alive, Ryan, and even if, miracle of miracles, he wasn't terrified or horrified, and he liked me, where the hell would that go, huh?" He tries to glare for another moment, and then his chin wobbles, and he falls down to just above the floor and curls up, sobbing.

Ryan has never been good at people who cry. Mostly, it just kind of makes him hate himself.

--

Brendon thinks Ryan probably got how much the idea of someone else, someone not Brendon, not Ryan, singing Brendon's words bothered him, because Gerard doesn't come around after that first time. Brendon knows Ryan still sees him, is singing with him, because he goes out more-- that is, ever-- and comes home singing songs that aren't theirs, aren't Brendon's. Things even further out of his range; the sort of songs that Brendon knows help expand it.

Brendon tries not to let that bother him. Ryan's trying. It's not his fault that Brendon can't be all the things he wants to be. Brendon has more than he'd ever thought he'd have again, and that needs to be enough.

--

Spencer groans as Brendon licks a stripe across his hipbone, dragging his pajamas down around his thighs. Soft black hair brushes against Spencer's stomach, and then Brendon wraps his lips around him and swallows him down and Spencer really can't feel anything other than that anymore, so.

When he comes, fingers tight in Brendon's hair, Brendon swallows and pulls off and grins at him, this blinding, gorgeous grin, and Spencer's dizzy, really dizzy, and he's falling away.

And then he's in the goddamn guestroom with a mess on the sky blue sheets.

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "Fuck."

--

Brendon doesn't always just sex Spencer up in his dreams. Spencer would be kind of sad about that, except that when he's not doing unthinkably awesome things to Spencer's nakedparts, Brendon has long, ridiculous conversations with him that don't actually make a lot of sense, and Spencer likes those almost as much as the sex.

"So, okay, Ryan and Jon, they totally have a gay thing going on," Spencer says one night, lying on his back in blue-green grass, looking up at a soft pink sky.

Brendon, head on Spencer's stomach, nods and giggles. "It's sort of tragic. Ryan needs to profess his love or some shit, no lie."

Spencer snorts. "Or something. Ryan's never been good at actually, you know, communicating like a human being. He's all... bottled up."

"Is he?" Brendon asks, humming a little. "I hadn't noticed."

The awake part of Spencer's brain wonders a little about that, but because he's dreaming, and that part is totally not the part behind the wheel, Spencer doesn't ask how the hell Brendon would know, anyway. "I think it's sort of about his dad, you know? The guy was an asshole. Ryan just kind of learned... not to say what was on his mind. Or much at all." He sang it, though-- that was half of what their band had been about, at least in Spencer's eyes: giving Ryan a way to communicate, a way not to just fold in on himself and give up trying at all.

Brendon hums again, musically this time. It sounds a little familiar, like-- "Is that Colors of the Wind?" he asks, blinking a little.

Brendon grins up at him, picking clumps of grass and littering his stomach with them. "I'm surprised. I didn't peg you as the Disney type."

Spencer shrugs. "I have sisters." Pocahontas was a big part of his childhood. And only mostly because of his sisters-- Spencer isn't going to lie, he maybe has a tiny weakness for John Smith and his cocky swagger.

Brendon snickers at him. Spencer stretches his arms up, tucks them behind his head. "This is nice," Brendon says softly, once he stops laughing at Spencer's secret fondness for Disney, turning on his side to look Spencer in the eye.

Spencer cards his fingers through Brendon's hair, brushing bits of teal grass out of the dark strands. "It is," he agrees, and wakes up.

It takes him a minute, blinking up at the dark ceiling, to remember where he is, that he's not in a field with a boy, that he's in Ryan's house, alone, and that it's the middle of the night, not the middle of a pink afternoon.

When everything floats back to him, Spencer starts to wonder if maybe he's actually going insane.

--

This visit—nominally for band practice—is mostly the same as all of Jon's other visits, except that Spencer is even later than usual, a couple hours late, and Ryan and Jon have been having a soft musical conversation for a long time now. Brendon is sitting behind the piano, peeking out and watching, because, okay, he's kind of a nosy bastard, and Spencer isn't here yet, so there's no one else to be a creeper over.

Ryan is playing the melody to a song he and Brendon had worked out a week ago, pausing here and there for Jon to feel his way through the sound, thread a bass line into it.

"I like it," Jon says, when Ryan stops.

Ryan's mouth quirks up at the corner, and he bites his lip a little. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Jon says, and looks down at his hands.

Ryan lifts his head, says, "Jon--" he stops, shakes his head, looks down again. "Never mind."

Jon tilts his head a little, hair falling into his eyes, and doesn't ask out loud, just picks out a low hum of a question on his bass.

Ryan's fingers shake a little when they try to give an answer.

"Jon," Ryan says again, low and awkward and a little helpless.

Jon reaches out, and hand stills Ryan's on the guitar, tightens over his fingers. He doesn't say anything, just laces their fingers together and strums them once over the strings, answering himself.

When Ryan looks up, cheeks pink, Jon leans in, all the way in, smiling his springtime-and-kittens smile, and Brendon drifts down into the floor, courteously leaves them to themselves as their mouths meet. He tries to ignore the jealous ache in his chest.

--

Spencer eventually shows up for practice, bundled up for the winter weather.

This is not the first time Brendon has heard Spencer play the drums. Brendon has heard it a dozen times over the months that Ryan has been living here, that the guys have been practicing here. Brendon knows, mentally, that Spencer plays the drums.

Feeling it, though, feeling the air vibrate through him, feeling the sound hum through the house-- that's different. That's amazing. Every fucking time. Spencer doesn't play the drums, Spencer is the beat, is the music, and the drums just let Brendon hear it.

Ryan didn’t laugh at Brendon when he said it after the first time, just smiled and nodded, the way a proud parent or sibling would-- yeah, that's my friend.

Brendon taps the rhythm out on his thigh while he sits, curled up behind the piano, listening to Spencer play. Softly, so softly, he sings under his breath along with Ryan. His voice is stronger, deeper, fuller than Ryan's, Ryan tells him this all the time, says it with an undercurrent of fond jealousy. But Brendon can't exactly get up on a stage and sing with them, so Ryan sings their words, his voice catching on things Brendon's would soar through. It's still beautiful, soft and elegant and evocative, but Brendon's chest aches with the need to sing along, really sing along, feel his voice winding around Ryan's, around the guitar, Jon's bass, Spencer's drums, even if only in this room.

Brendon reins it in, just sings silently along behind the piano and makes sure no one hears.

--

Spencer doesn't bother calling Ryan to tell him he's coming back over-- he only left fifteen minutes ago, what could Ryan possibly be doing that Spencer hasn't seen before? It's fucking cold out, Spencer wants his other sweater, and, distracted as he was by his argument with Jon over the merits of Cheetara versus Panthro, he's relatively sure he left it draped over the high hat of his drum kit. Or possibly in the guest room.

Trotting up the rickety steps, Spencer gives a perfunctory knock on the door and opens it. Ryan's not in the hall or the kitchen, so Spencer toes off his shoes-- Ryan threatens him with painful death if he tracks dirt around, and there's still mud in the driveway from the rainstorm last night-- and pads down the hall towards the music room.

Someone is singing, and for a moment, Spencer thinks it's Ryan. But Ryan's voice doesn't sound a thing like this. No offense to Ryan, his voice is kind of shaky. This, though, this is round and full and it pulls at things in Spencer's gut that he didn't know were there. Whoever it is, he's singing the song that the band-- if you can call Ryan and Spencer and Jon an actual band-- was practicing earlier, the one Ryan's randomly calling "Nine in the Afternoon." (Spencer had tried to explain that you had either nine in the morning or nine at night, but Ryan was completely disinterested in the facts of it.)

Spencer stands at the door for a minute, not wanting to interrupt, just listening. The voice is somehow familiar, just a little, tickling at something in the back of Spencer’s head. When the singing stops, he cracks the door, says, "Hey, that was fucking amazing, Ry, who've you been holding out on us?" And then he has a fucking heart attack, because Brendon, sexy dreams Brendon, is standing in the middle of the room, eyes-- pun fully appropriate-- the size of the moon.

Spencer’s eyes are probably about the same size, and he would blink them, right, except that his brain is frozen, because this isn’t happening, can’t be happening, and even if it is, it doesn’t make the least bit of sense at all.

"Spencer," can’t-possibly-actually-be-here-Brendon says, blinking like an owl.

"Spencer--" Ryan starts at the same time, cutting himself off when Spencer meets his eyes.

Brendon isn't real. Brendon is a figment of Spencer's not-getting-any-action-lately imagination, and yet here he is, standing, singing, in Ryan's house. Right here. Spencer kicks his brain into gear enough for it to autonomously decide that the correct reaction to this is probably anger, given that the situation at hand is sick and impossible and connected to Ryan. "I think," Spencer says, narrowing his eyes so he doesn't see red, "That we've established that I'm Spencer. Now, can we get to what the fuck is going on?"

Ryan coughs and looks at Brendon, who is kind of shaking. "Spence," Ryan says, "Look, this is Brendon, he's, uh, he's kind of been helping me write stuff."

Spencer growls, because that's not it, that's totally not the issue, the issue is that there's a guy, a guy Spencer thought was totally imaginary, standing in Ryan's house, and Ryan's acting like it's not a big deal, like he hasn't been fucking with Spencer's head somehow. Spencer is relatively sure that this mind-fuckery is somehow Ryan's fault. You can only read so much Chuck Palahniuk before it messes with your brain and causes you to become an evil mind-fucking genius. He hasn’t worked out exactly how it’s Ryan’s fault, yet, but he’ll get to that once his head stops spinning. "How about, instead of telling me about songs, okay, Ry, you tell me who the fuck he is and why the hell he's here. Or—“ he rounds on Brendon, “maybe you can tell me what’s going on, huh? What the fuck have you even been doing to my head? Jesus.” He tries to calm his breathing down, but he maybe has sort of a massive fear of not being in control of things,okay, and yes, he can handle not being in control of everything, but somehow, someone has been fucking with his brain, and that shit is just not cool. It’s his brain.

Ryan puts on his best bitch face. "Oh, well, fuck you. I'm sorry, am I not allowed to have friends that aren't you, Spencer? Is that not okay?"

Spencer deepens his glare, stalking forward to poke a finger at Brendon's chest. "Sure you are. When you--" Spencer stops, because poking a finger at Brendon's chest doesn't work. His finger goes into Brendon's chest, into fizzing air, thick like water and sparking like a live wire. He yanks his hand back belatedly, blinking rapidly. "What the fuck?"

Brendon's hands go up in front of him, and his eyes get even bigger, and he says, "I, just, I’m sorry, sorry, I don't--" and then he's gone through the floor, just, poof, straight down, and Spencer is left alone with Ryan.

--

"What the fuck?" Spencer asks again, voice low and dangerous.

Ryan doesn't really give a shit about Spencer's dangerous voice, though, because Brendon’s all freaked out, and Ryan's kind of worried about him. This is sort of the exact thing Brendon’s been terrified would happen, and Ryan kind of wants to kill things with his bare hands because he doesn’t like to see Brendon upset at all, let alone this upset. Yanking off his guitar strap, he snaps, "He's fucking dead already, Spencer, could you maybe not make it any worse?"

Spencer blinks at him, and Ryan rolls his eyes.

"What, Spence, you thought I was mystically creating human beings out of your perverse imagination? I had no idea you'd seen him before. This is his fucking house, okay, he died in it, and it would be really awesome if you didn't run him out of it by being a douche because you think his existence is somehow my fault. You're a fucking irrational fucktard, okay, shut the hell up."

Ryan doesn't wait for Spencer to say anything, just yanks the door open and points down the hall. "Make it better, Spencer James Smith, or I will make guitar strings out of your entrails before you can blink."

Spencer clears his throat, opens his mouth to say something. He meets Ryan's eyes, thinks better of it, and follows Ryan's pointing finger down the hall.

-- CUT

Brendon goes and hides in the guest room, cause when Spence isn't there that's his room. He tries to calm down, tries to be quiet, but there’s not a lot he can do about it. He’s been in love with Spencer for months, and has never even said hello, hasn’t said anything because he’s been terrified of exactly this, and all of a sudden, Spencer sees him—mistakes him for a real person, even, and still Spencer somehow hates him for no reason at all. Brendon stifles his sobs into his hands—he’d use a pillow or something, but he can interact with real things even less when he’s upset, so that’s not going to happen. Ryan will just have to deal with the noise. Brendon doesn’t think he’ll be that bothered.

Someone clears their throat, and Brendon chokes a sob into a hiccup in surprise.

Spencer is hovering in the doorway, looking conflicted. “I—“ he starts, shakes his head, tries again. “Brendon.”

Brendon blinks at him, sniffles a little. “Yeah.”

Spencer bites his lip, palms the back of his neck awkwardly. “You’re—I mean, you’re real.”

“Sort of,” Brendon agrees, laughing a little, wetly. The laugh turns into another sob, and he hides his face in the crook of his arm.

Spencer hesitates in the doorway for a minute, then shuffles into the room. He pauses for another minute, but eventually sits down beside Brendon on the bed and runs a hand through the faintly tingling patch of air where Brendon's hair appears. “Shhh,” he tells Brendon softly, “I’m not mad, okay, I get it now.”

Brendon just lets the tears run until there aren’t any more, lets himself feel comforted by the buzz of Spencer’s hand through where his hair should be.

--

"What happened to you?" Spencer asks, softly, when Brendon stops crying, is just snuffling quietly into the sleeve of his translucent purple hoodie.

Brendon shrugs. "I got really sick. I had a big family, and they—they couldn't really afford a lot of medication or anything, and I guess I had pneumonia or something? It’s, you know, it’s kind of fuzzy. And it got worse, and one day I just. Woke up and couldn't feel things or touch people anymore." He demonstrates his inability to touch things by trying to put his hand over the one Spencer's stroking over his hair with, and sure enough, his fingers fizzle right through. He doesn't talk about after, when his parents saw him and screamed and called him a demon and left, left him and the house and almost all of their things.

Spencer, though, shakes his head. "I can feel your hair," he says, half perplexed, half defiant, and Brendon snaps back to here, now.

Brendon snorts. "You can not, Spencer Smith, you just think you can."

"I can so," Spencer protests. "It's like how you can feel water-- like, it doesn't feel like anything, but you can tell the difference between when your hand is in it and when you hand is just in the air."

Brendon doesn't call him out on how ridiculous that sounds-- it's too nice of a thing to think about for him to really want to protest. And he doesn't mean to, he totally doesn't, but he imagines how good it would feel for Spencer to actually be stroking his hair, and he falls asleep to the rhythmic brush of fingers across his scalp.

--

Spencer shows up early in the day on a Friday, when Ryan is out. He lets himself in with the key from under the mat, and wanders through the house, looking for Brendon.

He hears him before he finds him. He's singing From a Mountain in the Middle of the Cabins, and it's nothing, nothing like when Ryan sings it. Spencer stands in the doorway to the kitchen, where Brendon is dancing around a little while he sings, and listens. He’s only heard him sing once, and it’s somehow almost a religious experience, this, hearing him sing, so open and unguarded, like he’s doing it with his entire being. Spencer is pretty sure he could never listen to anything else and he’d still be perfectly content.

Brendon turns, though, and sees him, and the sound just completely dies in his throat. He coughs a little, ducking his head. "Spence," he says, awkwardly.

"That was amazing," Spencer says, grinning at him. "It sounded so much more--"

"No, no, it’s not, I mean," Brendon cuts him off. "It's Ryan's. I'm sorry, okay, don't tell anyone? I don't have any right to be messing with it." He twists his hoodie in his hands. "Please, don't tell him I was messing with it?"

"Brendon, you wrote like half the words. Hell, you write most of the words he sings."

Brendon shrugs, doesn't meet his eyes. "Yeah, I guess."

Spencer narrows his eyes at him. "Brendon. Seriously, what the hell? It's your song, too."

Brendon looks up, eyes guarded, and says, voice small and tight, "But it's not my band, okay? It's not mine, and I'm not part of it, and I don't have any business meddling in parts of it."

Spencer is pretty sure that his heart breaks a little. “Bren.” He swallows back the bile rising in his throat. “Brendon, okay, it’s yours. You write it, you’re allowed to sing it. Ryan just—you give it to him, and that’s awesome, but it’s yours.”

“It’s not.” Brendon’s voice is low, but firm. “I gave it to him. To the band. The songs aren’t mine anymore, they’re the band’s, and I just—I need to let them go. I don’t normally sing them, I was just.” He stops himself, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Spencer looks at him for a long moment, then says decisively, “We’re going to fix this.”

--

Spencer has a super-secret-clubhouse discussion with Ryan. Or, well, it's not in an actual clubhouse, because they're totally adults now and don't have one anymore, but he corners Ryan in the hall and shoves him into the bathroom and sits him down on the edge of the tub and says, "Brendon thinks he's not allowed to sing the band's songs."

Ryan squints at him. "That's moronic."

"Yes," Spencer agrees, and, "He should be more of a part of things. Feel more like they're his, too."

Ryan nods, keeping up with him in that awesome way that Ryan always has. "We should tell Jon about him."

Spencer nods along, sits down on the closed toilet, and they plan things. Super-secret-clubhouse things. Or, well, super-secret-band-meeting-in-a-bathroom things.

--

Jon deals with finding out about Brendon a lot better than Spencer did.

He shows up like four hours early for band practice and doesn't bother to knock, which Brendon supposes is understandable, because he and Ryan are totally sleeping together now, and that's part of his boyfriend rights or something.

"Hey, Ryan, Spence," he says, shuffling into the band room, and, cocking his head at Brendon, "Hey, other dude."

Brendon blinks at him, but Ryan beams at Jon and says, "He's Brendon, he's my dead roommate. He's been helping me write things."

Jon just stands there for a minute-- a minute during which Brendon seriously wishes he could strangle Ryan for completely taking this out of his hands like a total asshole, holy shit.

After the minute, though, Jon just nods and says, "Awesome. We should totally go make out now, since I totally got here early for that purpose. That is totally why I am here."

Ryan grins and hands Spencer his guitar like nothing about the exchange was at all weird, like he didn't just totally risk alienating Jon from Brendon forever. On the other hand, Brendon supposes, Ryan and Jon are on some sort of secret men-of-stringed-instruments wavelength, and it's probably better to just let Ryan handle it. "On it," Ryan says, and follows Jon from the room.

"So," Spencer says, turning to Brendon like that totally wasn't weird as hell, "We should work on Northern Downpour, I don't think I'm solid on it, yet."

Brendon blinks at him for a minute, then swallows and nods. "Right, totally, yes. Let's do that."

And if Spencer seems weirdly innocent about the whole thing, Brendon doesn’t say anything.

--

"How do you give him stuff?" Spencer demands, dropping unceremoniously onto Ryan's bed at ass o'clock in the morning.

Ryan blinks at him sleepily, but doesn't try to give him shit by asking what he's talking about. "I burn it."

Spencer tips his head to the side. "And that works?"

Ryan shrugs. "Apparently." He pushes his hair back from his face with one hand. "Also, if you burn yourself to death so you can bang my dead roommate, I will follow you and kick your ass."

Spencer would protest that he hadn't thought of that when Ryan said it, but he'd be lying. He wouldn't do it, though-- mostly because he's pretty sure Brendon would kick his ass, too. Also, it would probably be really, really painful, and Spencer doesn’t actually have a terribly high pain tolerance. "No, I just. I want--" He huffs in frustration. "I don't know, Ry. I just want to do what I can."

Ryan gives him a piercing look, derogatory and pitying all at once. Spencer kind of wants to slap him. "You can't do much for him, Spence, he's dead."

Spencer glares right back. Spencer's bitchface is fearsome, he knows this. Brendon's told him so. "You give him things. You wouldn't if you thought that, asshole."

Ryan scowls at him for another minute before he says, "He likes Indian food. He's a vegetarian."

Spencer grins at him. "Awesome."

--

"You--" Brendon swallows, stares at Spencer and the table he's set up in the living room-- or more specifically, the things on it. Four paper takeout containers full of Indian food-- saag paneer, vegetable korma, vegetable biryani, and raita. Vegetarian Indian food. Brendon's favorite food.

Spencer bites his lip, ducks his head. "Ryan said you could eat it, if I--" he gestures at the fireplace vaguely. "Silverware was kind of hard, I could only find a wooden spoon, I felt like plastic would probably-- yeah, so, spoon." He waves a wooden spoon-- a little bigger than a normal spoon, but Brendon's pretty fucking sure he'll deal with it.

"Yeah, I." Brendon can't actually remember how to talk. "You got all this for-- I mean, this is actually for me?"

Spencer gives him a fake bitchface, says, "No, Brendon, I totally just put it here to taunt you. Built a fire, too, just to be a total jerk." He sticks out his tongue. "Yes, okay, it's for you. Now sit down."

Brendon sits, watching with wide eyes as Spencer methodically takes each container to the fireplace, setting it flat on the burning logs and letting it go up in flames before he adds the next one. "What--" Brendon says, nervously tapping his fingers on his thighs, "I mean, what are you eating?"

Spencer looks up from where he's crouched by the fireplace and smiles. "Meat. I'm totally going to enjoy the flesh of delicious baby sheep in curry."

Brendon makes a face, but laughs anyways. He can't help it, he's kind of ridiculously giddy. When he sobers, he asks-- can't help but ask-- "Spence. Seriously. Why are you doing all this?"

When the food is all ready, shimmering and translucent in its containers, Spencer joins him at the low table. He looks Brendon in the eyes for the first time that night, leans forward a little, says, low and serious, "Because I'm basically stupid for you, and I don't know what else I can do."

Brendon feels his stomach turn over, feels his skin go tight. “Spence,” he says, and it’s not anything, it’s not even a question, it’s just to remind himself that this is actually happening, that it’s not something in his head.

“Brendon,” he says back, smiling with half his mouth. “Shut up and eat your dinner.”

Brendon chokes back a laugh, holds back all of the babbling ridiculousness that wants to seep out of him, and obeys.

--

Spencer doesn’t mind that Brendon sleeps in his bed. Spencer tells Brendon that he’s ridiculous and that it’s Brendon’s house, and Spencer is really sleeping in his bed, and that he needs to shut the fuck up and go to sleep, or Spencer will sing to him, and that’s a real threat, because Spencer’s singing is atrocious. So Brendon smiles a secret, happy smile, and curls up, carefully not touching Spencer’s space. He listens to Spencer breathe with the kind of attention he couldn’t pay before, when he was worrying that Spencer would wake up and freak out. Now, Brendon’s allowed, and that’s the nicest thing that’s happened in a long, long while.

--

When Ryan tries a half dozen times and still can't hit the high note Brendon wants in the newest song, he throws up his hands and snaps, "Well, you fucking sing it then."

Brendon just raises an eyebrow at him. "Right, because I can totally leave this house and go play shows with you. That can happen." He jams his hands into his pockets, tries not to let the hurt show through in his voice.

Jon and Spencer don't say anything, they just wait while Ryan breathes hard through his nose and glares at Brendon like this is all somehow his fault. Brendon doesn't blame them-- he would be trying not to draw attention to himself, too, if he were in their position.

"We can just change the note," Brendon says, finally, hanging his head. It won't be right, it won't be the song in his head, but it'll be something, and that's more than he could have without Ryan.

"No," Ryan says, teeth gritted, like it's actually painful for him to say, "It's better your way." All the breath sags out of him. "I just... can't do it."

"Why, exactly," Jon says slowly, "can't Brendon sing it?" When Ryan opens his mouth to say what Brendon's thinking-- duh, genius, he's a ghost, okay, not a person, he can't leave the house, can't get up on stage in front of a bunch of people who wouldn't even be able to see him if he did leave-- Jon puts a quelling hand on Ryan's shoulder and adds, "I didn't ask why he can't perform it. I asked why he can't sing it."

Ryan goes quiet for a minute, looking at Jon. Jon gives him a half smile, shrugs one shoulder. "It's a thought," Ryan says, slow, like he's working something through in his head.

Brendon doesn't ask what the thought is. If Ryan has a thought, a thought about how Brendon can sing and actually have people hear him, he's not going to jinx it by asking questions before Ryan's done thinking it through.

"We'd need to bring the equipment here," Ryan says thoughtfully, tapping his fingers on his thigh while he thinks. "And someone to actually mix it, because I sure as hell don't know how to."

Brendon hadn't noticed Spencer coming up behind him, but all of a sudden, there are hands over his shoulders, keeping him touching the floor, keeping him solid, grounded. He can feel them, almost, and it lends him the strength to try to say something, to ask. "Are you talking about-- Ryan, I mean, do you mean--"

Ryan meets his eyes, and, biting back a smile, nods. "Recording, Bren. We'll make an album, okay, and I can't--" he pauses, eyes flicking away for a second, guilty, "I can't do anything about performing, I don't know what the hell anyone could do, but. We'll make an album."

Brendon blinks at him. "We," he says, just to make sure.

Spencer answers before Ryan can, his voice right next to Brendon's ear. "We," he confirms.

Brendon resists the urge to zoom around the ceiling, yelling, "YES! YES! WHOOO!" because if they're going to treat him like an actual person, he should probably try to act like one.

--

Spencer wakes up that night to little whimpering noises. He panics for a second, because they're clearly Brendon, and that's bad-- but then he realizes that it's probably not actually a sound of pain, because Brendon's dead and it's really unlikely that's he's cut himself or stubbed his toe or something.

So Spencer opens his eyes and rolls over.

Brendon freezes, eyes popping open and looking away in guilt. The heel of his hand is still pressed against the front of his sweats, and he'd been grinding up into it, clearly positive that Spencer was out for the count.

"I--Spence, I wasn't, I was just--" He's babbling, frantic, eyes anywhere but on Spencer's face. Like Spencer would somehow be bothered, be anything but turned on.

"Brendon." Spencer's voice is hoarse. He reaches out and tucks his hand under the buzzing bit of air that is Brendon's chin, and Brendon looks at him, eyes still too wide.

"Spence--" he says, sounding pained now.

"Bren, can you feel my hand?"

Brendon blinks at him, once, twice, like an owl, momentarily distracted from his insistence that he totally wasn't masturbating or anything. "Um, kind of. It doesn't-- I mean, it doesn't feel like a hand or anything, but I can feel-- I can feel that it's there."

Spencer grins at him, and he probably looks unbalanced, lying there in the dark with this crazy smile, but Brendon smiles back a little, tentatively. Spencer's going to run with that as something like permission.

Brendon's eyes snap shut and open again, wider than before, when Spencer's hand rubs against the front of his sweats. "Spence--" he whimpers, and then Spencer focuses as hard as he can on the idea that Brendon is solid, Brendon is real, and he squeezes.

Brendon's eyes roll up and he makes this heart-stopping mewling sound, hips jerking up desperately, begging for actual pressure.

Spencer lets go, and Brendon whimpers.

"Spencer?" He's blinking up at Spencer again, like he's afraid he's done something wrong, and Spencer's chest tightens.

"Shh," he says, not unkindly, "I'm trying something." Brendon huffs out a breath, but he loses the shadow of fear in his eyes.

Spencer focuses again, on the reality of Brendon, on the way that even if he's dead, his chest is still rising and falling rapidly, his eyes are still blinking, his skin is still there, present and real, damn it, under Spencer's fingers. He traces them over Brendon's hips, the waistline of his pants, his stomach, over his chest. Spencer keeps his eyes closed, narrowing in on the sensation of more-than-air under his hands. Brendon's breathing harder now, sharp little pants and gasps, and Spencer can feel tense muscles straining under his fingertips.

Spencer trails his hands up to Brendon's collarbone, throat, neck, the sides of his face. He cages Brendon's face between his hands, trying, trying really, really hard to remember to feel the skin under his palms, skin that isn't there but should be, can be if he makes it. "Bren," he says, soft as he can, "look at me."

Brendon's eyes are wide and dark, and Spencer can see the little dips in his lower lip from where he's been biting it, trying to keep quiet.

"Spencer, what--" He looks to the side, uncomfortable under scrutiny. "You can't-- I mean, I can't, it's not going to work."

Spencer shakes his head. "I'm not asking you to do anything." He lets go of Brendon's face, lifting himself up and moving until he's straddling Brendon's hips. He has to hold his hips off the bed, since Brendon obviously can't hold any of his weight, and that's kind of uncomfortable, but he doesn’t want to pass through Brendon, either, so he'll deal.

Brendon's watching him, nervous and kind of twitchy. "Spencer, seriously, what are you even trying to do? Because--"

"Brendon, Brendon, seriously, shut the fuck up." Spencer bends down over him, carefully keeping a good inch away from Brendon's skin. He leans in, as close as he can, and, half an inch from Brendon's lips, he says, "I'm trying to kiss you, retard, so it would help if you'd fucking hold still and stop telling me I can't." He looks at Brendon's mouth, concentrates on the tiny ridges and valleys in his lips, the nervous swipe of his tongue over his lower one, the way his mouth is quirked just a little higher on the right from too many lopsided grins.

"Spencer," Brendon breathes, less of a protest and more of an affirmation this time, and Spencer carefully, carefully, lines up their lips and closes the gap between them.

--

Spencer's lips are the first thing Brendon's felt-- actually felt, like he can feel every millimeter of soft, soft skin edged in five-in-the-morning stubble-- in nearly six years. And they feel awesome.
Spencer is totally not stopping to be amazed at the fact that it's working, that they're actually kissing, and maybe that's because he'd believed it was going to work this whole time, but Brendon's pretty sure he just isn't sure it'll work again, and he wants to make the most of it in case it doesn't. Brendon is totally on board with this plan, he so, so is.

Spencer's licking at his lower lip, slowly, he's doing everything so slowly, like he thinks if he moves too fast Brendon will blur away, and actually, for all Brendon knows, that might be true, so he doesn't rush him. He sighs a little, and Spencer licks into his mouth, slick and soft and warm, and that's the first time in a long time that anything has actually had a temperature that Brendon can feel.

He can't help that he arches up a little, regrets it as soon as his hips leave the bed, knows he won't get the pressure he's looking for except that he does, and Spencer's hips grind right back. It's not-- it's not like it should be, Spencer sinks a half inch into the space where Brendon is, but something under Brendon's skin has a resistance, now, like sand, almost, like Spencer's sinking into the top layer of him and isn't going further, and that. That's something really, really close to enough. Close enough that Brendon thinks he's pretty much totally okay with it. Momentarily jubilant with the discovery, he wiggles his hips in a little dance, and freezes when Spencer growls.

Spencer's hand grabs his hip-- grabs it!-- and pulls him closer. "Don't stop," he complains into the corner of Brendon's mouth, and oh, okay, a happy growl, Brendon's maybe not used to those, but he thinks he could probably get there. He presses his hips up and grinds in a little, and Spencer makes this amazing noise in the back of his throat, like he's in pain and really freaking happy about it.

Spencer's mouth trails, hot and damp, over Brendon's cheek, pressing kisses into his jaw, and then he sinks his teeth into the side of Brendon's throat and Brendon keens. He blushes as soon as the noise comes out, but Spencer's eyes are closed and Brendon's pretty sure he doesn't actually mind, if the way he's rubbing up against Brendon is any indication. He reaches up to tangle his hand in Spencer's hair before he even thinks about it. His fingers buzz through a few strands, and Brendon's heart skips a beat, before they finally catch, and he can hold on while Spencer leaves a trail of marks across his skin that prove that this is real, this is happening.

When Spencer's hips move a little faster, Brendon doesn't even try to hold in the noises, just clings and tries to keep up. Spencer pants, open mouthed, against the juncture of Brendon's neck and shoulder, and when Brendon comes, shaking and almost surprised, Spencer isn't far behind.

--

"We're recording an album," Ryan says, sucking in a deep breath.

Jon nods. "That, yeah, that was sort of the thought here."

"An actual album," Ryan confirms, trying not to hyperventilate. It’s hard, because this isn’t a small thing, this is a really big thing. It’s an awesome thing, but it’s a thing he hasn’t done since he was miserable and furious and a teenager, and this is so much more of him, so much of a bigger piece of himself—and so much more vulnerable, more soft and helpless in the face of criticism. Anger, okay, if people hate that, that’s okay, because you’re not supposed to look at anger and say, hey, I want to be that, I love that, yes, awesome, you’re supposed to look at anger and get angry along with it. But these are the soft underbellies of Ryan’s thoughts, all the chords his head makes when he thinks of Jon, of Spencer, of Brendon, and the idea of making all of this solid, permanent, handing it to other people and letting them judge it—that’s terrifying and exhilarating all at once.

"Ryan," Jon says, taking his wrists firmly. "Quit freaking out."

Jon is all manly and bearded and smells nice and has strong hands, and their tight grip on Ryan's wrists is pretty much the only thing keeping him grounded. "Jon," he says, and he would totally elaborate on that, except that he has no idea what to say that doesn't constitute freaking out in one way or another.

Jon seems to get it, though, in that awesome Jon way that he has, and backs Ryan up to the wall, casually steering him around the drum kit and guitar stands. When Ryan's back is to the cool wood paneling, Jon tips his head against Ryan's, pressing their foreheads close, and says, "Breathe, Ry."

Ryan tries. He listens to Jon's breathing for a minute, tries to make his own line up with it exactly. When Jon breathes in, Ryan breathes in. When Jon breathes out, Ryan’s breath stutters out of his mouth. Mostly it works, and his heart slows down a little, sweat stops beading on his palms.

"Better," Jon says, rubbing little circles over the insides of Ryan's wrists with his thumbs. "Keep going."

Ryan closes his eyes, feels Jon's heartbeat against the pulse in his wrists, tries to let himself fall into it. It takes another minute, or maybe a few, but eventually he's breathing steadily, and he feels like maybe he doesn't want to fly out of his skin.

And then Jon says, "So I'm thinking we should go have sex now," and that totally ruins Ryan's ability to breathe like a normal human being at all.

Jon laughs at him the whole way to the bedroom.

--

Gabe can't actually see Brendon, but that doesn't seem to faze him. “I can’t see Bill when he turns sideways, either, I’m totally used to it,” he says when Brendon asks him about it, and none of them have any idea what he’s talking about, so no one brings it up again.

"You at the mic, kiddo?" Gabe asks, fiddling with the sound board.

Brendon nods, then remembers Gabe can't see him, and says, "Yep, yes, yeah." Ryan sniggers in the corner, and Spencer elbows him in the gut. Hysterical laughter-- or maybe just plain hysteria-- bubbles in Brendon's chest, and he does his best not to let any escape.

Gabe bobs his head, grinning. "Cool, cool." The way Gabe smiles, Brendon would kind of worry that he's insane, except that the fact that Gabe is insane is basically the reason Ryan called him in for this in the first place, so Brendon's mostly just grateful for it. Still, it’s mildly disconcerting now and then. "Get ready, little man." Brendon doesn't ask how Gabe knows how short he is, just sucks in a breath that he doesn't technically need and steadies himself as well as he can.

Gabe holds up five fingers, waves them a little to make sure he has Brendon's attention, and starts to count down.

When Gabe tucks his thumb into the rest of his hand, Brendon closes his eyes, opens his mouth, and sings.

--

Jon curls up on the couch, one leg underneath him, and wiggles his fingers, beckoning to Ryan. He's got a bowl of popcorn on his lap, and the remote is wedged into the gap between the cushions beside him.

"Come on," he says, wheedling. “We’ve finished like half the album, it’s time to relax.”

Ryan huffs and crosses his arms. "This is so incredibly stupid."

Jon grins at him, totally remorseless. "Yes. But somehow, you missed the stupidity at the age where you would appreciate it properly, so you're getting it now."

"Like chicken pox?" Ryan says dryly, rolling his eyes.

Jon grabs his hand and yanks, dragging Ryan down to the couch, half on top of him. "Exactly like chicken pox," Jon says, kissing the top of Ryan's head as Ryan tries to untangle all seventeen thousand of his freakishly long limbs. "It'll totally be stronger than it would've been if you'd gotten it as a kid. But I’m pretty sure this experience is slightly less itchy and less likely to leave unsightly scars."

Ryan harrumphs-- it's totally his duty as a young curmudgeon, and he's pretty sure Jon knows that, because all he does is chuckle. "Fine, fine. But it's still demeaning."

"Ferngully is not demeaning, Ryan Ross," Jon says mock-chidingly. "It's inspiring." He bats his eyelashes in a spot-on imitation of Brendon, and Ryan tries not to laugh. It would only serve to ruin his image. “You’ll like it, Ryan Ross, I promise. Pinky swear, even.” He loops his pinky through Ryan’s and squeezes, eyes twinkling.

Ryan rolls his eyes, but snuggles down into Jon's lap and doesn't argue anymore. Jon tends to be right about these sorts of things.

--

When Jon finishes laying the last bass track on the last song for their album, Gabe burns a CD and hands it to Ryan. Ryan turns it over in his hands wonderingly, like he’s not actually sure it’s real, until Spencer kicks him in the shin and says, “It’s not even all finished and fancy yet, Ry, don’t get all sentimental and shit. We could’ve just listened to it straight from the computer, but we all know you have some sort of twisted sense of ceremony.”

Ryan glares at him, but puts it into the CD player and hits play.

Brendon listens to his voice coming out of the speakers, feels it vibrating through the room, twining through Ryan’s guitar and Jon’s bass and Spencer’s drums. He can feel it echoing in the bones of his hands, tickling at the pads of his fingers, and he’s not even actually sure how that’s possible, because he doesn’t exactly have bones or skin anymore, not really. He’s so thrilled and unbalanced by it at the same time that Spencer’s hand, resting lightly on his shoulder, falls right through him.

Gabe makes fun of Brendon for it, which is totally retarded, because Gabe can’t even fucking see him, Gabe is a douche. Brendon whooshes through him in revenge, since it’s not like he can punch him in the arm like he wants to, but all Gabe does is giggle like a little girl, waggle his eyebrows, and say, “Ooh, little man, getting kinky.”

When Brendon can relax enough to maybe keep his ghosty atoms from buzzing ten million times faster than normal, he tucks himself carefully against Spencer’s side and looks at Ryan and Jon and Gabe and says, “Thank you. This—I never thought—I didn’t even know I could have anything like this.”

Gabe sniffles and wipes at his eye. Brendon is still too warm and grateful to mock him properly for it.

--

"Seriously, Brendon. Relax," Spencer says, holding his hands over Brendon's shoulders until Brendon steadies enough that Spencer can actually rest them on his shoulders.

Brendon bites his lip over an apologetic smile. "I kind of can't, you know?"

Spencer knows. There's a bubbling sensation under his breastbone, like boiling water, seeping up into small soda bubbles in the region of his throat. It’s insane and kind of amazing and he doesn’t want it to stop. So he doesn't tell Brendon to relax again, just says, "We're-- it feels like it's real, now. The music."

"It's-- it's like proof," Brendon says, pushing his glasses up on his nose and ducking his head a little.

"Proof?"

Brendon shrugs and says, voice small and kind of embarrassed, "Like, you know. Proof that I exist. I'm recorded. I'm sound waves that other people, all people can hear. I'm concrete in a way I wasn't before. Real."

That gives Spencer a thought, makes him think that maybe, maybe, the more people that hear Brendon's voice, the more real he'll get-- like maybe, with every person that reaffirms his existence, his existence will get more concrete-- but it's not a theory he's going to say out loud. If it happens, they'll all notice, and if it doesn't, there's no reason to get Brendon's hopes up. "C'mere," he says instead. Brendon obliges, tucking his head under Spencer's chin-- he's solid enough, if Spencer concentrates, that he can actually rest his cheek on Brendon's skull without the awkward sensation of slipping in by an inch or two. "You're--" his tongue trips over it, because he's grown up with Ryan, he's not exactly good at this whole verbal assurance thing, this communicating-his-feelings-via-words thing, he's never needed to be. Ryan always knew, from nudges or looks or smiles or whatever else. He takes a breath and says it anyways. "You're kind of the most real thing in the world to me."

Brendon pulls back to look up at him, holds his eyes for a long moment. He doesn't look away when he says, "You know I'd give anything to be able to come back to life for you."

Spencer swallows back the bad taste in his mouth, nudges his nose against Brendon's. "I don't need any more than you're giving me." It's nothing less than the truth.

Brendon sighs against his mouth and snuggles closer. "Still. I'd give you more if I had it."

Spencer smushes a kiss to Brendon's temple and shakes his head. "I don't think anyone could ask for more."

--

"Ryan, calm down." Jon wraps a hand around the back of Ryan's neck, tugs him closer, until Ryan's face is tucked into the side of Jon's throat. "What's going on?"

Ryan breathes harshly through his nose for a minute, swallows, then says, "Gabe. Pete."

Jon blinks at the back of Ryan's head. "Pete-- Wentz? Did he say something--"

Ryan shakes his head, laughing a little hysterically. "No, no, not. He-- Gabe played what we have so far for him-- he didn't ask me first, I would have said-- He says he wants to sign us, Jon."

Brendon is hovering in the corner, and he hadn't mean to eavesdrop, but. He's maybe behind a chair, though, and there's no way Jon and Ryan could have seen him, known he was there. And Brendon could leave, could drop through the floor with no one the wiser, except that his stomach is trying to come out of his throat, and he's not sure if ghosts can throw up from sheer panic, but he might be finding out soon.

Jon sucks in a sharp breath. "Pete Wentz. Us," he says, and, "But Brendon."

"But Brendon," Ryan agrees, voice soft and defeated. "I know. I know, Jon, okay, I know we can't. And, I mean, I don't even want to, not without him, not really, just." He steps back, scrubs a hand over his face. "I just haven't gotten to play this for anyone. I haven't gotten to be on a stage in-- I mean. I don't want it, I don't, except that I really, really fucking do." He snorts bitterly. "And I know I'm not supposed to--"

"You're not supposed to not want to play your own fucking music in front of people, Ryan," Jon says, shoving his shoulder a little. Softer, he says, "You're-- Ryan, you're allowed to want things, too."

Ryan shakes his head, lets Jon reel him back in. "I can't, Jon. I couldn't do that to him. This is his as much as, if not more than, mine. I can't sing all the songs, and I can't give them to anyone else. They're not mine to give away. I couldn’t do that to him. I can’t."

Jon hmmms at him, pulls him closer, but doesn't say anything against it, either.

Brendon has literally every single thing that he wants that it's conceivably possible for him to have. And most of that, almost every single piece of that, really, is because of Ryan Ross. And, unpleasant as it is to think about, it’s maybe Brendon’s turn to be a little self-sacrificing.

It takes him a long time, a lot of focus, for him to make his fingertip solid enough to push the call button on Ryan’s phone while Ryan’s in the shower that night, but when the other line picks up, Brendon knows it’s worth it.

--

Gerard blinks at him when Brendon finally gets the front door open. "You're a ghost."

Brendon nods. "Pretty much, yeah."

"Oh, man," Gerard says, yanking a battered cell out of his pocket, "Mikey's gonna flip his shit." He looks earnestly up at Brendon through his hair, asks, "Hey, okay, so, if you're real, are there, like—are there unicorns?"

Brendon blinks at him. It's kind of disconcerting to try to talk to someone that might possibly be even more of a spaz than he is. "I... don't know? What?"

Gerard's face falls a little, but he brightens right back up. "Holy fuck, you're the singer, aren't you? Brendon? You're why Ryan can't sing." He stops, making a face and rubbing at his chin. "Well, no, okay, Ryan can sing, just. I mean, you're the reason he keeps writing songs he can't sing! He kept mentioning stuff, but nothing—this totally makes sense, this is awesome."

"Uh," Brendon says, "Well, mostly I write them," and, "Can we get back to what I was trying to say?"

Gerard has the grace to look momentarily ashamed for being all over the place. Brendon can relate, so he-- totally magnanimously, Brendon's magnanimous!-- forgives him.

"So, okay, so," Brendon says, rubbing his hands together, not really sure what to say now that he's actually supposed to be saying it. Possibly because what he has to say makes him want to vomit up his lungs. He sucks his teeth and tries again. "So, okay, you sing."

Gerard nods, instantly sobering. "Pretty much as a way of existing, yeah."

Brendon nods back. "Right." This, here, this is the hard part. He shoves through it. "You sing with Ryan. He—he lets you sing with him. Lets you help him with his voice. So, you can sing them with him. My songs." The bile in his throat isn't as bad as it could be. “I’m—I want you to.”

Gerard blinks at him for a long moment. He chews his lip, runs a hand through his hair. "I can't," he says, finally.

Brendon glares at him. If Brendon can do this, if Brendon can give up his songs, give them away to someone else, someone not Ryan or Spencer or Jon, the someone he's giving them to could at least have the fucking decency to take them. "You have to. I can't do it."

Gerard shakes his head. "No, okay, they're not. I mean, they're not mine." He looks at the wall to the left of Brendon's head instead of at Brendon's face.

Brendon floats into his line of vision and scowls. He's learned a lot from Ryan, and scowling is totally one of the most useful things he's picked up. "No, they're not. Not yet, okay, but they're mine, and I'm going to give them to you. Because Ryan trusts you with his voice, and he won't even trust me with that, and that has to mean something." He pauses, takes a breath he doesn't technically need, and says, "And so I'm going to give them to you, and you're going to learn them, and Ryan's going to get to get signed and play for people like he wants to, and if you argue, I will haunt your ass and you won’t sleep until you die."

Gerard studies him for a moment, eyes bright and considering, and he says, “You’re a good dude, ghost-man.” He grins at Brendon, this ridiculous, sloppy, too-wide grin full of crooked teeth and total sincerity, and says, "But if I agree, you have to promise to help me scare the shit out of Frank."

Brendon doesn't know who the hell Frank is, and he doesn't care. He sticks his hand out, and Gerard, without hesitating at all, grabs the air around it and shakes.

The warmth Brendon gets from that almost makes up for the bitter taste in his mouth.

--

"What the fucking fuck, Brendon." Ryan has his hands balled into fists at his side, and he looks so mad he might cry.

Brendon looks at Ryan's shoes-- those stupid white and black ones that are made to look like he's wearing spats-- and says, "You want to play live."

Ryan growls at him. "I'm not doing it without you," he says fiercely, crossing his arms over his chest.

Brendon glares into his eyes. "I'm not live, so I can't sing live, and I'm not letting you not play this for people." He clears his throat, looks at Spencer for support. "We're-- this. This is good, okay, people should hear it."

Spencer's mouth is a hard line, and his voice is mostly flat when he says to Ryan, "I'm not saying I'm not pissed as hell that he went over our heads, but he kind of has a point."

Brendon winces, but presses on. "You've already trusted him with your voice, Ry. If I want to give him my words, that's." He grits his teeth. "It's my choice. And I made it."

Jon steps forward, puts a hand on Ryan's shoulder, squeezes. "He's not wrong, Ry," he says softly. He looks at Brendon over Ryan's shoulder. "If Brendon trusts him with it, if he's willing to give that up for the sake of this-- the least we could do is man the fuck up and let him."

"But--" Ryan stops himself, swallows. He looks hard at Brendon for a minute before he sighs and says, "If it's what you want."

Brendon squares his shoulders, meets Ryan's eyes, and says, even though it tastes like ashes in his mouth, "It is."

--

It doesn't work the second time Spencer and Brendon try to make out properly. They’ve only had time for little things since the last time—quick kisses, slight touches, hand holding, and those have been fine. But they try after the band meeting, because Spencer is still shaken, and Brendon still has the taste of ash in his mouth, and they could both use the reassurance. Neither of them can concentrate properly, though, and it ends with Brendon crying in frustration as Spencer's hands pass straight through him, and Spencer punching the wall so hard his knuckles bleed.

--

"So, okay, wait, also," Spencer says, narrowing his eyes, "What the fuck are people going to think when we get on stage and there's a different voice coming out of Gerard's mouth than comes out of the album?"

Brendon furrows his brow. "Stop ruining my awesome plan with logic, Spencer Smith." That's totally Spencer's worst flaw; he's some sort of awesome-plan-balloon-popping machine that destroys all of Brendon's awesome plans with annoying pins made of reality. Boo.

Ryan, though, occasionally Ryan is a saver of plans, and sometimes he says really helpful things, like, "It can be like... I don't know, like a mystery. It's like having a ghostwriter, but with singing. We can make a big deal out of not telling anybody who you are, and everyone will get obsessed and wonder about it and get even more into us."

"That makes absolutely no sense," Spencer says, crossing his arms.

Brendon bounces a little. "That's totally why it's awesome, stop being such a grownup."

Spencer groans and whacks his head against the wall. “This is going to be so fucking terrible, oh my god.”

Brendon pats his shoulder consolingly. “Probably, yep.”

--

The third time, it still doesn't work, but Brendon is really, really determined.

Spencer seems pretty set on being frustrated and miserable, and Brendon could probably get on board that bandwagon pretty soon, too, yeah, but he's inventive, okay, and he's had a taste of this, there's no fucking way he's letting it slip through his fingers, literally or metaphorically.

He finds Spencer jerking off in the shower, and Spencer maybe sort of has a heart attack.

"Sorry," Brendon says, but he's sort of too focused to be actually sorry. "But," he says, before Spencer can go off on him for using his ghostly powers for evil or whatever, "I want to try something?"

Spencer sighs and slowly bangs his head on the tile wall of the shower a couple of times. "Yeah, okay."

Brendon grins. "So, so, okay. You should lean against that wall right there, okay, and hold really still? Like, no, if you move, this isn't going to work, so make sure you're comfy."

Spencer eyes him like he's grown two heads or has taken to wearing a curly wig and making people call him Frodo, but he leans back against the shower wall.

Brendon drops to his knees, and the noise Spencer makes is sort of startled and awed at the same time. "Okay?" Brendon asks, smiling a little self consciously.

Spencer swallows and nods. "But-- Bren, I mean, if I can't, if you're not--"

"I don't know, okay, just let me try?" Not wanting to give Spencer any more time to talk him out of it, Brendon leans forward and licks him from base to tip, focusing on the slide of skin under his tongue.

Spencer whines, hips bucking forward. "Jesus, Bren--"

"Seriously, Spencer, fucking hold still." Brendon puts a hand on Spencer's hip, and Spencer squirms a little under the strange static-y feeling of it, not as solid as skin, shifting like water, but Brendon's hand doesn't slip all the way through. He wraps his lips around the tip of Spencer's cock and, closing his eyes, thinks of skin and body heat and the feeling of water from the shower and he sinks his mouth all the way down.

Spencer starts taking these little, desperate breaths, but he doesn't move. Brendon slides back and then forward again, skating his tongue along the underside, and Spencer's hands spasm against the wall.

"Spencer, Spence," he says, pulling carefully off, trying to keep Spencer in the confines of where his mouth should be. "Spencer, hold my hair."

"Brendon, we just tried-- oh, fuck." He tips his head back against the tile as Brendon swallows him down again, moving his mouth shallowly back and forth. He can sort of feel Spencer now, a heavy weight on his tongue, and if he concentrates, he can almost feel the velvety skin of Spencer's hip under his fingers. Spencer seems to notice the shift, too, and after a moment of hesitation, there's motion against Brendon's hair. Spencer's fingers don't stick, but he doesn't pull them away, either, and that's a start.

Brendon doesn't stop moving, just shifts slowly back and forth, pausing now and again to lick at the head a little, testing to see how much he can feel under his tongue. Spencer is taking these deep, gasping breaths, and his legs are shaking. Brendon moves his hands to steady them, and when he closes his grip, he feels warm, soft skin under his hands.

Spencer growls, and his hands tighten onto the strands of Brendon's hair, a silent statement of not letting you go again. Brendon tightens his lips and hollows his cheeks around Spencer, tightening his grip because he can. Spencer bucks into his mouth, once, twice, and then he's pulsing over Brendon's tongue, and Brendon does his best to swallow-- which is hard, actually, since he's not exactly sure how that's gonna work out in the long run and he maybe panics for a second, but he manages okay.

When he pulls off, hands still on Spencer's thighs, Spencer is looking at him with a combination of possessiveness and awe. "So this thing," Spencer says after a minute, "where I actually get to touch you? That needs to not stop."

Brendon bites his lip and tries not to let his smile run away with him. "So don't stop touching me. Maybe it'll stick."

Spencer looks thoughtful, but. "In the meantime? Bed. Let's go. I'm going to molest you while I have the chance this time."

Brendon is totally smart enough not to argue.

--

Spencer takes the idea of not letting go of Brendon to heart. He wraps himself around Brendon while they drift off to sleep, and when they wake up in the morning, Spencer drags him down to breakfast with Ryan without letting go of his hand.

And Brendon stays mostly solid. Not alive-solid, but solid enough for touching. He still can't move things much-- and definitely not heavy things-- but when Ryan asks someone to pass the salt, Brendon passes it to him without thinking. He only notices when Spencer and Ryan are both staring at him. He kind of can't help the blush.

It's a little awkward when Spencer has to go to the bathroom, because as soon as he lets go of Brendon, Brendon feels himself fizzle a little, losing corporeality. Not quickly, not enough that he'd be totally incorporeal if Spencer was only gone a few minutes, half an hour tops, but Brendon is realistic enough to admit that Spencer probably cannot spend every single moment of his life touching him.

He's maybe miserable for a minute or two until Ryan makes an exasperated noise and grabs his hand, towing him over to the couch, and Brendon doesn't get any more solid, no, not like when Spencer's touching him, but he doesn't fade any further, either. So, no, okay, maybe Spencer can't spend every minute touching him, but he's pretty sure that Ryan and Spencer and Jon don't actually want him to turn all see-through-y again, so between the three of them, they can probably manage to touch him every couple of minutes, just to make sure he stays real.

He says it out loud, in case he's wrong. Ryan just punches him in the arm and calls him an idiot. There are maybe some drawbacks to being mostly solid, ow, but Brendon thinks he can probably handle it. Spencer kisses the bruise on his arm, later, and then, then Brendon is sure.

--

Epilogue, and a solution:

"So," Gerard says, shoving the door to Brendon's room open, "We're making a trade."

Brendon blinks at him. "Okay." Gerard is kind of weird, but Brendon’s pretty much down with that.

Gerard yanks someone in from the hall, a long, spindly-baby-unicorn of a boy, and says, "You're giving me your songs, okay, so I'm giving you my Mikey."

Mikey Way is all legs and arms and awkward motions, and Brendon would totally cuddle him if a) he didn’t think it would terrify the shit out of him, and b) if he didn't think Spencer would pull off all of Mikey's limbs in a jealous rage.

"Um," Mikey says, giving a tiny, dorky wave, "hi."

Brendon wiggles his fingers back in a small wave, smiling reassuringly at him, then narrows his eyes at Gerard. "...What am I supposed to do with your… Mikey?"

Mikey, to his credit, totally doesn't take offense to being talked about like he's inanimate and not present. With a brother like Gerard, he's probably mostly used to weird conversations. Brendon’s only known him for a couple of weeks, and he’s already mostly not even fazed when Gerard starts relating things to zombies and mutants and comic books that Brendon has never heard of.

Gerard grins triumphantly. "It's not what you do with him!" He waves a Vana White-esque hand at Mikey, who obligingly cocks a hip and spins around like a letter. "It's what he does for you!" Gerard waggles spirit fingers in Mikey’s direction.

Brendon waits for the explanation, because that doesn't actually tell him anything. "Right, of course, I should have known."

Gerard deflates a little, flaps his arms in Mikey's direction. "Shows! He’s going to do show things! I mean-- Mikey's not doing shows. That's not what I mean at all." He blinks rapidly, like he's accidentally let go of what he meant and is groping through his head, trying to find it again. Brendon occasionally has that problem, too—it’s been getting worse since Ryan moved in. Maybe floating through all of Ryan’s pot smoke is doing something to his brain or something. Or floating through all of Jon’s pot smoke. Or Spencer’s. Upon second thought, everyone in the house smokes way too much pot, and that’s totally what Brendon’s going to blame all of his extra-spaztasticness on.

Gerard apparently remembers what he meant, and, beaming, says, "Mikey's going to stay with you and keep you solid while we go and play shows!"

Mikey gives another awkward wave while Brendon looks at him. "I'd kind of forgotten that part where none of them will be here during those," Brendon says, feeling slightly nauseous. They'd all agreed that the others wouldn't play anywhere that was further than they could go to and come back from in the same day, so that Brendon wouldn't have to go without Spencer for too long, but they hadn't exactly gotten to the logistics of how Brendon was going to keep from fading during the shows themselves. Brendon had kind of been avoiding thinking about it, riding out the high from having made a selfless decision and getting to see Ryan actually happy.

"Well, awesome, I'm totally on top of shit, Brendon Urie, look at that," Gerard says, and prods Mikey forward. "He can totally keep you real while we’re away, he believes in unicorns."

Mikey flushes pink and ducks his head. “Shut up, Gee.”

That, though, Brendon can work with that. Brendon likes unicorns, they're like his second favorite after those rainbow zebras on Lisa Frank notebooks. "How do you feel about Disney movies?" he asks, testing the waters.

Mikey gets a little redder, but says, "My favorite's the Little Mermaid."

Brendon nods, mulling it over. "Okay, okay, awesome. And.... how about Keira Knightly?"

"A terrifying hellbeast who ruins potentially good movies with her presence in them," Mikey says promptly, more confident this time.

Brendon beams. "Excellent, awesome, okay. Last one-- your thoughts on jellybeans."

Mikey hmms for a moment, flicking his hair out of his eyes. After a minute of very serious consideration, he says, "Mostly disgusting, but the green apple and the strawberry ones are acceptable."

Brendon nods solemnly. "A man after my own heart. Alright, sir, you totally have a job. I accept you as my official handholder."

Mikey grins, shy and totally pleased, but like he’s trying not to let it show—it’s like if Ryan and Gerard’s smiles had some sort of baby and it got stuck to Mikey’s face. Actually, now that Brendon thinks about it, all of Mikey sort of looks like Ryan and Gerard had some sort of baby, with Gerard’s head attached to Ryan’s spindly spider body. It’s kind of awesomely ridiculous.

Spencer pokes his head in the door, pointing a menacing finger. "If you molest him," he says threateningly, "I will eat your arms." There’s probably something wrong with Brendon, that he thinks that things like that are totally romantic.

Gerard nods, rocking back on his heels. "That’s totally fair,” he agrees, and, “But Mikey is property of the great Bob-ish one." He jerks his head at his brother. "I'm pretty sure your tiny dead man is safe."

Mikey grins at Spencer, eyes twinkling behind his glasses. "I promise to give him back as I found him, Mister Spencer, sir," he says, tipping Spencer a lazy, two-fingered salute. Brendon isn’t sure if he’s being sarcastic or nice or a little of both, but either one is hilarious and totally okay with him.

Brendon bounces off the bed and pecks Spencer on the mouth. "Just handholding, Spencer Smith," he says, grinning against Spencer's cheek, because he can feel Spencer's cheek. "We're totally going to hold hands, it's going to be awesome."

Spencer laces his fingers through Brendon's, squeezes. "As long as I'm the only one holding the other parts of you," he says, nudging Brendon's forehead with his own.

“Always, Spencer Smith,” Brendon says, hiding his face in Spencer’s neck. “You get all the best parts of me forever.”

Brendon manfully ignores Gerard's hysterical giggling and exclamations about their gross cuteness. Brendon’s pretty sure he’s solid enough, now, that he could strangle Gerard if he really tried, but then he’d just have to find another singer. And probably another handholder, since Mikey and Gerard seem pretty close, and Mikey would probably get all offended and shit if Brendon killed his brother, and he might even, like, want revenge, and then he’d chase Brendon to the edges of the earth, stabbing him with his really pointy collarbones over and over and over.

And then, Brendon’s brain realizes, Spencer would have to kill Mikey, and then who would be there to hold Brendon’s hand when Spencer and Ryan and Jon and the imaginary new-and-not-strangled singer all go play music on stage?

It all just seems like a frightening amount of work, and Brendon, even at his most hyperactive, isn’t sure he’s up for that sort of thing.

Plus, Brendon is kind of attached to the way things are right now, since things are basically awesome.

END