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Spencer smiles and says Hey man, it's cool. Brendon smiles back, smiles even wider because Spencer isn't going to out-do him in this awful game of pretend.
"Totally," he says, fingers spasming around the photo paper. He waits until Spencer is gone, head tilted to the side as the echoes of footsteps on the floorboards fade away completely, and he chokes a little as he smooths the picture on the countertop. There's a wrinkle through Ryan's smiling face now and Brendon's heart beats-beats-beats as he tries to straighten out the crumpled edges.
It's totally cool.
///
They have one song out and Spencer hates it. They smile and jostle together in front of the cameras, elbows tucked into each other's sides and Brendon just beams harder and laughs HAHAHA when his palm curves around Spencer's ribs underneath his jacket. Adam Brody is standing three feet away and Jon would be shitting his pants okay, because no one appreciated the love story of Seth and Summer like he did, if one could believe the many, many drunken and sober conversations on the subject Jon would preside over in venues, in the bus lounge and once in the bathroom of a club in Auckland.
Brendon wants to be excited, wants to feel something fill up his chest and push under his sternum and wants to feel like he's a part of this big, shiny machine instead of feeling like he's trapped inside it, spinning without purpose.
They pushed it, they both know it but neither says it out loud. The label has been all over them since Ryan and Jon left, and papers come in the mail stamped with big red letters that say CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATION and they did the tour and they gave them a song for the movie and the lawyers and their reps and their agents are still calling for more, more. An album, a North American tour.
After everything, even now, Brendon knows that it was the right call. Ryan said that there were too many cooks in the kitchen and he wasn't lying. Brendon knows that he couldn't have stayed with them, he knew it a long time ago. It hurts more than he'd thought, but he fucking knew that he and Ryan had an expiry date looming. Brendon couldn't have stayed. The problem is, Spencer could have, and Brendon wishes he could figure out why he didn't. Of course he was relieved, he was fucking overjoyed when he realized that Spencer was coming with him, but it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense, and Brendon can't help but wonder when Spencer will realize that he picked the wrong side.
Spencer doesn't like the movie, he hates the song and he wince-smiled through their five minute meet-n-greet with Megan Fox and Brendon is trying, he's really trying, but he's never been so unsure of anything in his damned life.
///
Writing with Spencer is so different, so easy that Brendon spends the first two weeks terrified that they're doing something wrong. They snip and snap and on Wednesday when Brendon is trying to explain how awesome it would be if there was just a little, a very little!, glockenspiel in the background Spencer just starts hitting his snare drum, slightly arrhythmic and looking innocently at Brendon. What? What, dude, I can't hear you. Brendon throws his sneaker at Spencer's head and they both laugh. They laugh and they mess around with different sounds and they make 3 am trips to the supermarket for candy and caffeine and frozen pizza and they write songs that Brendon fucking loves. He loves what they are working on and Spencer does, too.
It's better, and Brendon lets himself believe for a little while that everything is going to be okay.
///
Spencer isn't sleeping.
It starts off small, waking up to the sound of the television before dawn and finding Spencer curled up, an awkward tangle of limbs on the couch. Brendon doesn't say anything. He's spent so many months holding back, biting his tongue or changing the subject that he doesn't even know what he would say anymore. Talk to him, maybe, but which him? Brendon kept waiting for Spencer and Ryan to just figure their shit out, to buckle under the inevitability of a shared history that exceeds memory.
Brendon used to be so jealous of their friendship, he could see from the moment he met them that Ryan and Spencer wouldn't drift apart after high school, that they could be on different sides of the country and still think of each other first. There was nothing convenient or easy about the way they cared about each other, like a scrubby desert plant that can survive months without water, without shelter.
Watching Spencer now, Brendon thinks that maybe people shouldn't love that hard at all.
Brendon buys new pillows for Spencer's bed, big and soft and puts dried lavender on the nightstand. He makes sure to turn the AC up in the evening so that the house is cool at night. He switches the coffee to decaf without telling Spencer.
The coffee is terrible and Brendon has to sleep in his thickest hoodie.
///
Spencer isn't sleeping, period. Brendon knows he didn't sleep at all the night before, maybe got a couple of hours the night before, and its edging in late afternoon and the bruises under his eyes are sharp and deep.
"Put your pajamas on, Spence," Brendon instructs. Spencer had been walking down the hall toward the office, but he changes direction without complaint. Brendon tries not to snap. He's getting his way, after all. "You're tired, your body is tired, you just need to get in bed and stay there." he says, and he climbs onto the mattress beside Spencer.
The pillows are too puffy for Brendon, but the duvet is soft on his shoulders. He scoots closer to Spencer, rubs his knuckles along the length of his spine. The air is cool, but its warm here.
"Are you getting sleepy?" Brendon asks, half joking.
"Yes," Spencer says softly, but Brendon can tell he's wide awake.
Brendon falls asleep, he only realizes this when he wakes up again. The house is dark and quiet and Spencer is a blurred lump beside him. For a moment Brendon thinks his plan worked, and he smiles a little muzzily before he realizes that Spencer isn't sleeping. He's crying.
He doesn't know what to say, so he doesn't say anything. After a few moments Spencer's breathing evens a little and he rolls onto his back, blinking at the ceiling. His cheeks are cold and damp when Brendon touches his face.
"Sorry Bren," Spencer says. "It was a good idea."
///
Spencer needs to sleep, and passing out is like sleeping, or at least might actually lead to sleeping, so obviously the next step is to get Spencer drunk. It isn't very hard to convince Shane to host a gathering and Spencer might actually be part zombie at this point, so Brendon just points him in the direction of the party and pushes him along accordingly.
Obviously, losing track of Spencer is not part of the plan. Brendon has been lurking a step or two behind Spencer all night, following him from room to room and watching as Spencer abandons each drink he's given without taking so much as a companiable sip. He leaves bottles of beer, plastic cups of mystery alcohol and shot glasses on ledges, table tops and windowsills and smiles amiably as he navigates the shifting crowd, drifting out of every conversation as soon as the hello's and how are you's have been exchanged.
Brendon is freaking out, okay, or he wouldn't be drinking one of Regan's weird concoctions. No one seems to notice the way Spencer's hand is trembling around the sweating bottle of beer and Brendon is starting to think that they should leave so that at least Spencer can wander aimlessly from room to room in his own house. They don't leave, though. Brendon doesn't want to.
The alcohol burns all the way down but Brendon keeps drinking. He doesn't want to think about anything and he laughs too hard at Shane's stupid jokes until he can convince himself that he's having fun, that nothing is wrong and yes! Another drink!
He doesn't see Spencer leave. He's drunk and he's arguing with Jeremy about whether or not Joe Jonas would play Brendon in the movie about his life and for a second he forgets that Spencer was ever there.
Later, he'll wonder why he thought he would be able to help Spencer at all.