twentysomething

Title: It's Gonna Take A Lot (to drag me away from you)

Fandom: Bandom/P!ATD

Pairing: Brendon/Spencer, Ryan/Jon, Gabe/Neon clothing

Summary: "While most normal colleges either a) revere their athletic programs in a bordering-on-cultish way or b) don't have popularity based on extracurriculars, the entire campus has a super unnatural hard-on for a cappella groups."

Length: 2000 wordsish.

Warnings: A cappella jokes, Gabe, serious, ANTM.

Notes: So, last night, I went with merelyn to go see Panic at the Bowery Ballroom an it was awesome and joyous and I'm filled with so many fucking feelings about it and holy crap, Spencer Smith has tweeted twice in two days, it's a miracle, hallelujah. I'd had this tooling around in my drafts forever, and there's even an extra little omake at the end I couldn't fit in with the story. So.



There's something deeply wrong with this school.

While most normal colleges either a) revere their athletic programs in a bordering-on-cultish way or b) don't have popularity based on extracurriculars, the entire campus has a super unnatural hard-on for a cappella groups.

Spencer doesn't really get it, but he also doesn't get band groupies or math above calculus, so.

That being said, he really doesn't know why he's outside at 10pm on a Wednesday in the freezing ass cold to watch his stupid best friend wear flair and get introduced as a "baby" or any of it, at all.

He's at least glad they don't have some kind of stupid music-pun name, like "Here Comes Treble" or "Hot Pitches", but really, "Decaydance" isn't any better in his opinion. That, and all the oppressive glitter and neon is giving him a headache. They're dressed like day-glo hipsters. Like, mercilessly good looking day-glo hipsters, but it's hard to see their faces under all the huge knock-off wayfarers and shutter shades. And it's night, for god's sake.

The girl next to him keeps shooting him glares like he doesn't deserve to live as she pokes him in the neck some more with the edge of her sign that says "Fallon 3rd East Loves Gabe" as the rest of her hall screams irrationally.

Spencer hasn't met many other members of the group- he sees them in passing when they continually come to kidnap Ryan for practice or drinking or both, and he's even come back to his room a couple of times to see Patrick and Ryan hunched over his laptop, Finale or Sibelius or whatever new shitty program Ryan has illegally downloaded onto his computer to transcribe and arrange music with, nodding solemnly at each other as they pack chords tighter and more dissonant.

Ryan won't really shut up about them, so he knows names like "Gabe" and "William" and "Pete" but he doesn't know any of them, so other than Ry, looking tiny and super effete in some kind of hideous floral vest that needs to be nuked from orbit and so, so much eyeliner. Well, actually, he can guess that the tall one is Gabe, but the hot pink cobra shittily screen-transferred onto his black t-shirt is a dead giveaway.

"Hi, guys," Patrick says, looking just as rumpled and unassuming as he does on their couch, eating chips and salsa with Ryan and talking about beat-boxing. "Uh, you probably know that we're Decaydance and we're really happy you guys are here and it's cold, so we'll get going, okay?"

"We're gonna rock your fucking face off!" this little guy on the end yells, and yeah, that's gotta be Pete.

To be fair, they are really, really good. That doesn't make Spencer any less pleased to be here when he has like, an entire lab to write up for tomorrow morning, but it's nice to see Ryan smiling and getting jostled by the guys when they introduce him as their newest member. Some weird patch of girls toward the back scream for him- Ryan looks startled and Spencer laughs until he forgets he's at a stupid a cappella concert.

Ryan drags him to Decaydance's first "real party" about halfway through the semester, even though Spencer says it'll be weird because he's not, you know, in the group, but Ryan just does his makeup (God) and makes him go anyway.

He actually has a good time.

Don't get him wrong, they're all insane, and he's never drunk so much in his entire life, but he wakes up on the couch in Pete Wentz's house, half-sprawled over William and some guy he only remembers vaguely as "The Butcher". But they take him to IHOP with them, in a van that Gabe owns (that he doesn't want to know why Gabe owns) and he eats his hangover away with greasy sausage and pancakes and suddenly he's one of their friends.

Spencer ends up with a lot of what he strongly suspects are "girlfriend of the group" tasks- he finds himself taking cash at their Christmas/Whatever The Fuck You Celebrate show and when Ryan texts him during auditions, next semester with about ten thousand dejected sadfaces ( :-C , because Ryan can't do anything normal or right) he brings in about ten trays of Oreos he buys with Campus Cash in the student center.

Pete offers to blow him, but that's not that unusual. Pete offers to blow a lot of people, including (and especially?) women.

He breezes out of the practice room they've set up shop in, and wonders why he's so familiar with the music building when he's never taken a single class there. There's a kid waiting outside, who perks up when Spencer comes out.

"How'd your audition go, bro?" he asks cheerfully. Spencer shakes his head.

"I wasn't auditioning," Spencer says. The guys frowns.

"Oh, sorry, you're in the group?" he corrects himself. Spencer just shakes his head again.

"Somehow, I think that'd be easier. Head on in, and don't look at Gabe, he's got like, forty mouthfuls of cookies crammed in his mouth right now, it's disgusting." Spencer suggests, heading back to the library, where- a thousand years ago- he was researching for his paper.

He sees the kid again about a day later- somehow Ryan took Spencer with him on Shakes, and the Alexes are using him as a crutch- as Decaydance stands outside his dorm room like Lloyd Dobler with a stereo and cries for "Brendon to come out and play."

At the after-after-Shakes party, Brendon is drunkenly leaning against Spencer on the couch.

"I thought you said you weren't in the group," Brendon asks/slurs. Spencer shrugs.

"I'm not," he says and Brendon just stares at him for a long moment before passing out.

The next morning, Spencer easily puts Brendon into Gabe's van and they take him to IHOP, and he lets Brendon lean against him still while he whines softly as they wait for hash browns to sooth their pain. Spencer doesn't really have a good reason for this, and when Ryan raises a bitchy eyebrow at him, Spencer texts him a blurry cell picture of Ryan making out with Jon.

Ryan glares at him, like Spencer doesn't know he's holding hands with Jon Walker under the table right now, but the eyebrow goes and Brendon's whines turn into something like a cry for hot chocolate muffled into Spencer's coat.

Brendon- like Decaydance- is weirdly really good.

At like, everything.

And on top of all the weird musical shit that Ryan cares about, Brendon wears lavender girls' hoodies and goes to Adventureland every weekend because he loves roller coasters and when Spencer gets drafted to drive one of the cars to recording at ass-fuck in the morning (seriously, how do they get him to do this shit), Brendon is half-asleep in the backseat, wearing red-framed glasses.

Spencer doesn't think he should be reading anything into it- his casual bisexuality aside, Brendon seems to cuddle up to anything and anyone warmer than 90 degrees and even though Spencer will find Brendon in his room sometimes- totally without Ryan- going, "SpencerSmith the Fifth, would you like to watch Star Wars with me?" (like Spencer is the guest) it probably doesn't mean anything.

There's like some kind of a cappella grand rule that every group, every three and a half years, has to do Africa, and Ryan has been nothing but annoyed about it all week, but Brendon has been blithely texting his ridiculous xylophone part to Spencer- "bloodoo doo doot do doooo"- and Spencer can't help but smile to the point where Ryan sits on him.

This isn't a big deal, because honestly, Ryan weighs four pounds soaking wet, but it does mean he's very sharp, all over.

"Okay, seriously, Spencer." Ryan says, eyes narrowed. Spencer stays very still, so as not to be castrated. "There's being oblivious, then there's being dense, then there's this unbelievable third category you're in that I think involves eating lead paint chips." Spencer raises his eyebrows.

"Uh, what?" he asks, delicately, because if Ryan flounces off of him in a huff, Spencer will probably lose an eye. Ryan makes a dramatic gesture that nearly cripples Spencer.

"Brendon." he intones, direly- or at least that's probably what he's going for- he ends up somewhere in bitchy monotone princess.

"Yes?" Spencer goes on, because Ryan hasn't been this crazy since that reading day last semester when he shotgunned 14 episodes of America's Next Top Model and tried to smize. There's a long silent moment where Ryan just stares at him from about 8 inches away from Spencer's face.

"I'm about to choke you out, hold on," Ryan says, and thankfully, Jon Walker, man of peace and epic bowls, picks his bony, bony girlfriend up off of Spencer.

"I'm feeling this isn't productive," Jon muses, even as he practically sleeperholds Ryan to keep him off of Spencer's throat. Luckily, Jon has a lot of experience with temperamental cats.

"Jon Walker, you're my hero," Spencer finally says, as Ryan thrashes sulkily.

"Spencer, what Ryan is trying to say with force, is that you like Brendon and he's been throwing himself at you," Jon continues, both helpfully and terribly.

Spencer frowns.

"I would have noticed that," he protests faintly, but doesn't make any attempt to deny "liking" Brendon, because that's a lost cause at this point. Ryan makes a desperate attempt to free himself and do grievous bodily harm upon Spencer.

"Oh my god, he brought you cupcakes for like, a week," Ryan grits out. "Also, Jon, stop going to the gym." Jon shrugs, shrugging Ryan with him.

"I can't let you go to jail for murdering Spencer, can I?" he asks philosophically. "You'd be awful at prison."

Spencer, deciding that running away is the better part of not being killed by Ryan, takes the high road and runs away.

And into Brendon.

"Spencer, the very man I was coming to see," Brendon says, flat against the ground under Spencer.

Spencer may have had thoughts about this, but they're usually in a bed, not the quad.

"Uh, so, Ryan says you like me," Spencer says, because his middle name is James, not Smooth, but "like" has a much better connotation than "throwing yourself at me", at least. Brendon blinks, but after a second grins up at Spencer.

"He's right. SpencerSmith, is that a penis in your pocket, or are just happy to see me?" he asks and well, crap.

"Jesus Christ," Spencer mutters. his head dropping down to Brendon's shoulder to hide the fact that he's blushing like an eight year old girl.

"So, I'll take that as a yes," Brendon says, before he kisses Spencer.



When he's taking money at the end of the year concert, all he can think is... well, at least he's actually a group girlfriend, now.





EXTRAAAA:
The thing about Brendon, is that he's a dork.

He's a dork, and it doesn't mean Spencer hasn't had some remarkably off-color thoughts about him, anyway, but it does mean that he is pretty definitively unsexy. Cute, endearing, sure, but every time Spencer's seen him even attempt sexiness, he's had to excuse himself to laugh.

Which is why Brendon singing 'Smooth Criminal' is making Spencer reevaluate a lot of things- including the tightness of his own pants- but mostly the 'Brendon isn't sexy' rule.

Because Brendon is grinding his hips against the air and his dance moves are a fair enough impersonation of the king of pop, and Spencer feels hot under the collar. And despite how much he reminds himself that this is so embarrassing, that doesn't stop Spencer from wanting to tuck his fingers into the belt loops of Brendon's pants, over his stupid glittery girl-belt and tug his stupid sexy, bony hips flush against his. Spencer finds himself wanting to do ridiculous, insane shit, like bite at Brendon's neck until it's black and blue, kiss him until they come from it.

The world sort of returns to it's normal programming of spinning on its axis, circling the Sun, when Brendon bounds up to Spencer after the concert.

"Don't even lie to me, Spence, that was some dope fly shit," Brendon coos at him, and Spencer can finally laugh, loud and a little manic, because he seriously cannot believe he jerks off over this guy.