fic: all i need is next to me, 3/3

[stephanometra]

Part II


In Florida Ryan decides that it would be a great idea for all of them to drop E and watch Yellow Submarine.

"It's all in the mind, y'know," he says dreamily when he tells them about this plan.

"Aren't you supposed to watch that one on acid?" Brendon asks. "Also, there is something wrong with your brain."

"Oh, come on," Jon says. "Yellow Submarine isn't that bad."

Spencer just rolls his eyes so hard that Jon's surprised they don't fall out of his head.

And yet after the show that night, they all end up piled in the back lounge thoroughly stoned and rolling high, rapt in front of the television while the movie plays.

Or at least the other three are. For his part, Jon is so turned on that it makes him miserable and totally unable to concentrate on anything. And he should have known that that would happen, because this isn't the first time he's taken ecstasy, but it's just so much worse with girl parts.

"Fucking E," he mumbles into Brendon's shoulder, because he can hardly say fucking vagina. Then he and Brendon both make pleased sounds when Jon's bearded cheek rubs against Brendon's arm through his shirt.

The second the movie's over, Jon high-tails it out of the back and into his bunk, shrugging out of his clothes and moaning softly at the mere feel of his wash-soft sheets on his bare skin. He touches himself everywhere, starting at his neck and working his way down, gasping as he runs his hands over his nipples, groaning when he presses down on his lower belly.

Jon remembers his first abortive attempt at masturbation, but it's not enough to make him hesitate to slide his fingers between his legs, pressing the heel of his hand against his clit so he's touching the most skin possible, and fuck, it's so good.

"Yeah," he whispers, his hips snapping up to grind against his hand, two fingers a gentle pressure against his cunt but not actually pushing in. He strokes over his breasts and belly with his free hand, craving the touch so much that he couldn't stop if he wanted to. When he comes it's almost a surprise, the pleasure building and cresting so suddenly that he cries out, his thighs spasming and his fingers slipping inside himself on a slick new surge of wet.

He melts into the mattress after he comes, sighing with exhaustion, his fingers still inside and feeling his muscles pulse with aftershocks. The need to touch is still humming under his skin, but it's fighting with the whole-body sleepiness he feels post-orgasm. He keeps petting his belly and thighs all through the comedown, and then he groans and fumbles around for his clothes again, because he has to pee and the guys are—

The guys are still up. Fuck.

Jon kind of wishes he could hide behind his curtain for the rest of his natural life, but he really has to piss and he can hardly do that in his bunk.

He pokes his head out his curtains and then cautiously steps out, looking warily towards the back, where he can see Ryan fast asleep with his head in Brendon's lap. It would be great if the other two were asleep, too, but no; Spencer is blushing crimson and won't meet Jon's eyes, and Brendon won't stop staring at Jon, his eyes dark and unreadable as he gently pets Ryan's hair.

"Um," Jon says, extremely conscious of the press of his nipples against the thin cotton of his t-shirt, of how he almost certainly looks sweaty and sex-flushed. "Sorry, I just—"

He very stealthily shuts the door separating the bunks from the back lounge—and that would have been a great thing to do before he got himself off on the fucking bus when there were still people awake, Christ—and flees to the bathroom and then back to his bunk as quickly as possible.





Everything hurts when Jon wakes up.

"Fucking E," he mumbles again as he rolls out of his bunk.

Ryan is lying on his back on one of the couches in the front, one arm flung across his eyes even though the blackout curtains are still drawn tightly. "Fucking E," he agrees. "Fuck, that was the worst idea ever."

"I told you!" Brendon calls from the bunks, and then adds, more faintly, "...ow."

"Spencer, are you dead?" Ryan asks. "Don't be dead."

There is a long pause. "I am not dead," Spencer says.

"Thank God," Ryan says fervently.

"However," he continues, "I think we've all learned a valuable lesson here—"

He's interrupted by Zack keying onto the bus and climbing up in two loud, stomping steps, taking the stairs two at a time. "Who's ready to go to the beach?" he asks, his voice at least forty decibels too loud for everyone's ecstasy hangovers.

Ryan makes a piteous sound, and Jon hears Brendon whimper from his bunk before he pokes his head out his curtain and asks, "Do we have to?"

Jon doesn't want to go to the beach, either. The thought of putting his binder on right now and going outside is just—no. Fuck no. Motherfucking no. "Zack, I don't think—"

Zack starts to pout, and that is not fucking fair, because Zack is possessed of a super-pout. It is a potent weapon and rarely seen, and all of them are powerless against it.

"Oh, come on," Ryan says, peeking out from under his forearm. "That is so not fair."

"He's pouting, isn't he?" Spencer asks from his bunk. "Goddamn it, Zack."

"We'll have so much fun at the beach!" Zack says. "Sun! Surf! Sand in uncomfortable places! Come on, I even bought a Frisbee."

"You bought that Frisbee in April," Brendon complains. "And you live on the beach."

"Yeah, so?" Zack says. "It's still my Frisbee. And there's nothing like Florida beaches, dude, you know that."

Jon sighs. "I hate you so much, Zack. And I mean that."

Zack shrugs. "Whatever, we're going to the beach!" He grins and then turns around and hops off the bus, whistling "Yellow Submarine" just to add insult to injury.

There's a long pause, and then Brendon says, "I am so glad he's on our side."

"Most of the time," Spencer says, disgruntled, heaving himself out of his bunk and blinking bleary-eyed up at Jon and Ryan in the front.

"Most of the time," Jon agrees. "Now somebody help me get into my fucking binder, I don't think I can do it on my own when I'm still this wrecked."

Somehow, with all the effort of getting ready to leave the bus and all the planning of creative ways to kill or maim their bodyguard, they forget to talk about Jon's little indiscretion of the night before. Jon can't really say he minds.





Jon, however, does not forget how fucking awesome it was to get off as a girl, and even as he watches Zack and Brendon run around the beach—Ryan and Spencer have neither Brendon's energy nor his ability to will away hangovers—he's thinking about doing it again. They have a show that night and another tomorrow—can he manage it on the bus again without being so embarrassingly loud, or does he have to wait for their days off, when they'll have hotels? Honestly, it's a miracle that Spencer and Brendon aren't falling all over themselves to make fun of him right now; he doesn't want to give them any reason to start.

Then again, at least Spencer was just as embarrassed as Jon was. Brendon—Jon doesn't know about Brendon, really.

Their morning excursion to the beach is cut short because Jon needs to get out of his binder for a few hours before they start the flurry of show-night activity, and Jon can't even walk past his bunk without thinking about that. That's what happens when you go from jerking off pretty much every day to completely ignoring yourself sexually for several weeks, he supposes, but he's more than willing to make up for lost time, if he has half a chance.

The show goes fast; the post-show ritual of ditching their stage clothes and getting un-filthy and then heading back to the bus to smoke goes much less so. Under normal circumstances Jon would love to join in Ryan and Brendon's argument about Dr. Hook and the Medicine show—what there is to argue about regarding Dr. Hook, Jon doesn't know, but they're definitely arguing about something and Sloppy Seconds keeps coming up—but right now he just wants them to decide that they are extremely tired and need to get a good night's sleep before they play in Orlando tomorrow night. When Ryan finally decides to go to sleep, with a final parting shot of, "Shel Silverstein is a hack of a lyricist and anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong, Brendon," Jon is almost ready to weep in relief.

Jon waits until he hears the others' breathing even out in sleep before he quietly, cautiously lifts his hips and pushes his boxers down, once again spreading his legs as wide as he dares.

He was going to start by feeling himself up again, but the anticipation has made that kind of foreplay totally unnecessary. He licks the pads of two fingers and then gently sets them against his clit.

This isn't the fumbling attempt he made on the road between Detroit and Toronto, nor the frenzied need from last night; he's slower, more deliberate, paying close attention to how each tiny movement of his fingers feels. He spends a long time touching himself in short, feather-light strokes, feeling around for a long time before dipping his fingertips into his own wet and settling into a rhythm that sets his entire body humming, his free hand fisting in the sheets as he lets his hips rock up into the press of his fingers.

He feels it when he's about to come this time, feels the way all of his muscles tense up and pulse before a hard stroke of his fingers sends him over the edge. He moans, soft and desperate, but he muffles the sound with his hand before he's even finished coming, before the desperate shifting of his hips slows and then stops.

Breathing hard as he comes down, he keeps touching himself lightly, wondering if he can go for two, but he feels wrung-out and wrecked after one. Instead, he slips his fingers down to gather the silky wet between his legs, and then brings his fingers to his mouth to lick them clean.

He tastes really fucking good, and he might moan again around his fingers, just a little, even if that is the height of autoerotic narcissism. Everyone else is asleep, anyway, so nobody can prove anything.





Two days, a thousand miles, and three orgasms later—as it turns out Jon can go for two, but he has to wait for the heavy feeling in his arms and legs to go away first, and that takes a while—the four of them are sitting in the front lounge in the afternoon when they are, for lack of a better word, invaded by the lady and gentlemen of Cobra Starship.

"Don't panic, Discos!" Gabe says from the stairwell, and Jon has to make a panicked dive for his bunk before the five of them crowd into the front lounge, struggling to get into his binder in the dim behind his curtain. "We have come to save you from the sad tedium of your everyday lives!"

"Who gave you the code to our bus?" Spencer demands.

"Singer," Ryland says. "Who else?"

"Yeah, he still thinks Gabe is the shit, for some reason," Alex adds.

"Because I am the shit, my friend. I am, in fact, the shit."

"Shut up, Gabe," Victoria says.

Jon always knew there was a reason Victoria was his favorite.

He slips back into his t-shirt and rolls out of his bunk, doing his best to look like they just woke him up from a nap, glad that he always looks kind of sleepy anyway. "What are you guys doing here?" he asks, running a hand through his hair.

Gabe shrugs. "We've got a day off, you've got a day off. Let's get wasted."

"You are not throwing a party on our bus," Ryan says.

He looks affronted. "Would I do that to you, Ryan Ross?"

"Yes," Brendon and Spencer both say at the same time.

Gabe waves a hand in the air. "It's only happened twice. You can hardly call that a trend."

"It's a Monday night in Dallas, Gabe," Jon cuts in. "What do you have planned?"

"Well, the grown-ups are going to go out to a certain establishment familiar to us and get very, very drunk," Ryland says. "And Victoria said she'd take the infants shopping or something, I don't know."

Jon considers the prospect of spending an entire evening—probably an entire night, knowing Gabe—out in the binder. "Um," he says almost immediately, "I think I'd rather go with Victoria."

The rest of his own band and all five Cobras look at him like he's grown a second head.

"But Jon, you—" Brendon starts, and then he gets it, gets why Jon wouldn't want to go out with them. "Okay."

"O-kay," Victoria echoes. "It'll be great, you can help me Cab-wrangle."

"They're really not that hard to manage, you know," Spencer says. "You just have to make sure that Ian stays with Johnson, or else Ian'll wander away and we'll never see him again."

Victoria gives him an indignant look. "I know that," she says. "We toured with the little idiots this year, remember?"

"Just making sure," Spencer says. "They've got to open on Wednesday, you know."

"Yeah, yeah," Gabe says. "Now get dressed, we have some very important drinking to do."





"You know the owner of the club, douchebag," Cash tells Gabe when informed that the plan is for The Cab to go to the mall while Panic minus Jon and Cobra minus Victoria go out and get smashed.

Gabe scratches his head. "Well, yeah, I guess I do—"

"And we've all had fakes since we were fifteen," Singer adds. "Good ones, too."

Spencer starts to laugh. "Who the fuck would have taken you for legal when you were fifteen?"

Singer looks very defensive. "I said we've had them," he says. "Not that we've used them."

"Hey, speak for yourself," Ian says.

"I stopped getting carded when I grew my hair out," Johnson says, apropos of nearly nothing.

All of the Cobras look suitably impressed.

"Okay, whatever," Victoria finally says. "I'm still going shopping, so if anybody wants to go to the Galleria he should get his ass outside before our driver decides to leave us here."





"So," Victoria says after the driver drops them off at Nordstrom, giving Jon a hard look, "not that I don't appreciate having a wingman, but what the fuck are you doing here?"

"Maybe I was just hoping that you were going lingerie shopping," Jon says, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"Jon, I live on a bus with Gabe," Victoria says flatly. "You're going to have to seriously step up your game if you want to offend my delicate feminine sensibilities."

"I can't compete with Gabe," Jon says. "I don't think anybody can compete with Gabe."

"That's what I'm saying." She gives him that hard, assessing look again, and Jon is really glad that her gaze doesn't wander down to the lines of his chest or his hips. "Seriously, though, why aren't you out with the guys?"

Jon shrugs. "I don't know, I guess I'm just not feeling the club scene," he says, knowing that it's a lame excuse and not really caring.

"But that still doesn't explain why you ditched your band to go to the mall with me."

"Maybe I wasn't feeling the staying-on-the-bus-alone scene, either."

Victoria makes a noncommittal sound and then makes a sudden beeline for the escalator.

"Where are we going?" he asks, skipping to try and keep up. Fucking Victoria and her legs. It's enough to make a short dude feel really inadequate sometimes.

"Upstairs," she says, leaning against the railing and looking down at him from a step up. "Obviously."

"What's upstairs?"

Victoria grins evilly. "Lingerie."





Bra shopping sucks.

"This sucks," Jon says, sprawled in the boyfriend chair across the way from the fitting rooms. "This sucks a lot."

Victoria hums tunelessly. "You're the one who said you wanted to go lingerie shopping."

"That was a joke," he insists.

"It wasn't a very good one," she says. "Especially considering that this was my plan all along. Tour is hell on a girl's pretty-things, you know that?"

Jon did not know that. In fact, he could have lived his entire life not knowing that.

He is very uncomfortably aware of the binder as he shifts in his chair.

"Are you done yet?" He really, really doesn't remember bra shopping sucking this much, but the last time he went bra shopping it was with Cassie, and she—no, he's not going to think about that.

"I don't know," Victoria says. "Come here, tell me if this one looks good."

"I am not a piece of meat," Jon complains.

"Of course you aren't. Pieces of meat can't comment on overpriced lingerie." There's a long pause, during which Jon swears he can hear Victoria tapping her foot impatiently. "Come on, I really need a second opinion here."

Jon sighs and unfolds himself from the chair. "You really were going to make the Alexes be your bra-shopping buddies?" he asks.

"Hell no," Victoria says. "I was going to give them each five dollars and tell them to meet me at the fountain at 8."

Jon frowns. "Does this mall even have a fountain?"

"Who cares? I just wanted to see the looks on their faces."

"You wouldn't have done that to them," Jon says as he stops in front of the fitting room door. "You're way too nice."

"I could be mean." The door swings open, revealing Victoria in her short skirt and a very revealing, lace-trimmed green bra. "I could totally be mean."

Jon stares down at her cleavage. "If you think this is being mean," he says, "I think I'm not the only one who needs to step up their game."

"Oh, you—" She reaches out to push playfully at his shoulder, too quickly for him to shy away. His gaze snaps to her face, and he sees the second she feels the binder under his t-shirt. "What the hell are you wearing?" she asks.

He feels his cheeks heating. "An undershirt. What did you think it was?"

"In this heat?" She arches a brow at him, smirking a little. "You're blushing. Why are you blushing? I'm the one who's half-naked."

"I'm not blushing," he says, the protest sounding feeble even to his own ears, and then bats her hand away when she goes to pull up his shirt.

She frowns. "What's eating you, Walker?"

"Nothing's eating me," Jon says, grabbing hold of the hem of his shirt with both hands so she won't be able to drag it up. "Just leave it, okay?"

"Okay," she says. Then she reaches out and pulls the collar of his t-shirt aside.

"What the fuck!" he half-yells, and twists to get away from her, but not before she manages to get an eyeful of the shoulder strap of the binder, which is obviously not an undershirt, unless maybe Jon was planning on going surfing. His face is pretty much burning now, and he really doesn't like the way that Victoria is looking at him; he steps back until he hits the wall, just trying to put some distance between them, and avoids her eyes.

"What are you hiding, Jon?" she asks quietly. "Because I gotta say, you're kind of freaking out right now, and I don't think I've ever even heard of you freaking out."

Slumped against the wall opposite the fitting room door, Jon begins to laugh, softly at first and then with a hysterical edge to it. "All fucking tour," he says, gasping for breath. "This entire fucking tour, I've managed to keep this a secret, and you do that, and now—"

"Hey," Victoria says. "Breathe, come on." She steps out of the fitting room and grabs hold of his hand, tugging him gently forward until she can shut the door of the tiny cubicle behind them.

Jon sits down heavily on the little bench in the corner, looking disinterestedly at the haphazard assortment of bras hanging on the hook on the door. "All tour," he repeats.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," she assures him. "Whatever it is."

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Jon says, and then, after a long moment of consideration, he stands up and pulls off his t-shirt to show her.

She leans against the wall of the fitting room with her arms crossed over her chest, covering up the pretty green bra. "What is that?" she asks. "Do you have, like, some back thing?"

"No, I have some—oh, for fuck's sake." He covers his eyes with one hand, squeezing his temples against a sudden throbbing headache. "It's a chest binder."

"I don't get it," she says, blinking in confusion. "Why would you—"

"A month ago, I woke up with tits," he says bluntly. "Frankly, I don't get it, either. Or, well, I get the binder. What I don't get is, y'know, the rest of it."

Victoria's eyes look like they might pop out of her head. "You woke up a chick a month ago, and nobody fucking knows?"

"I love how what you don't believe is that we managed to keep it a secret, and not the waking-up-with-girl-parts part," Jon says.

"Dude," she says, waving her hands in the air, "you know how we are. The label, I mean."

Jon shrugs, because yeah, he does know. At this point he's pretty amazed that Pete hasn't fucked up and accidentally said something about it on one of his four million blogs. Thankful, but amazed. "Alex and them don't even know," he says. "Just the band. And Pete and Ash, and Tom, and my parents." And his ex-girlfriend, but he doesn't really feel the need to mention her.

She's quiet for another minute, and then she asks, "Is this why you wanted to go shopping?"

"I wanted to go shopping because I can't stay in this thing for more than eight hours at a time without crying," he says. "I did not develop a sudden need to visit the mall at every possible opportunity just because I mysteriously lost my dick."

"Hey, just checking," Victoria says. She pauses for a moment. "There are worse things, you know."

"Than spontaneously switching sexes? Yeah, there are," Jon says. He could be dead. Or he could have woken up, like, neuter, and then he wouldn't have had all those awesome orgasms.

"It's good that you know that," she says. "Really good."

"Thanks, I think."

"You're welcome," she says. "Now get out of here, so I can put my clothes back on. You look like you could use a drink, and there's a Mexican place here that has $4 margaritas that will melt your face off."





Around midnight, Jon is pleasantly drunk after a couple of hours drinking margaritas at the mall, and then a couple more drinking the beer he and Victoria order from room service after Victoria has their driver take them back to the hotel where Panic is staying.

"Someday," Victoria says, sprawled out on Brendon's bed. "Someday, we'll get to go on big corporate tours and stay in nice hotels that bring us nice beer."

Jon, happy and loose after peeling off the binder—with Victoria's tentative help, which was surprisingly not-awkward—and drinking all night, snickers. "There is no hotel in the world that could keep up with your band's alcohol consumption."

"Lies!" Victoria cries. "You lie like a rug, Jon Walker."

"The tagline on your webcast is 'Let's Get Wasted!', Victoria."

"Because getting wasted rules," she says, like this is a fundamental truth that Jon has somehow missed.

"Well, yeah," Jon says. "Wait, what were we talking about again?"

They both start laughing, and Jon is so happy to be around someone other than his guys without having to pretend that he has a hard time stopping.

The last thing he remembers before falling asleep is Victoria hugging him as she tucks him into bed, saying that Cobra has an early bus call, and that Jon's band should be back soon.





The first thing Jon notices when he wakes up is that he's kind of hung over.

The second is that Brendon apparently missed his own bed and ended up in Jon's, and is currently wrapped around Jon like a spider monkey.

"Um," Jon says, trying to extricate himself from Brendon's grip so he can get up and piss. "Bren?"

Brendon snuffles in his sleep and rubs his cheek against Jon's shoulder, but he doesn't wake up. Jon heaves a sigh.

It takes some pretty dedicated shaking before Brendon's eyes blink open. "Jon?" he says, looking very confused.

"You're in my bed," Jon says by way of apology for waking him up.

"I—shit," Brendon says, his cheeks coloring as he untangles his limbs from Jon's and pulls back. "Uh, I'm sorry? I was—we got really fucked up last night." He doesn't seem to want to meet Jon's eyes.

"It's okay, I just kind of needed to pee," Jon says, rolling out of bed. "Go back to sleep, we're still off today."

"'Kay," Brendon says sleepily, curling around an extra pillow in absence of Jon to snuggle.

He feels Brendon's eyes on his back as he crosses the room to get to the bathroom, but by the time he's finished, Brendon is fast asleep again.

Jon mentally shrugs and crawls into the other bed so he can go back to sleep, too.





"No way," Spencer groans. "We are not going out again tonight. Not after last night."

"That's not very fair to Jon," Brendon says, but he doesn't sound very convincing.

"I don't want to go out tonight any more than I wanted to go out last night, guys," Jon says.

Ryan looks thoughtful. "You know, I have some E left over—"

"Veto," Brendon says immediately.

"No, Ryan," Spencer says at the same time.

Jon shuffles his feet under the table, sliding his feet in and out of his flip-flops, says nothing, and tries not to blush. "So, uh," he says to fill the silence when no other suggestions are forthcoming, "I guess that leaves staying in."

"Our lives," Brendon says solemnly, "are very exciting."





Brendon takes first shower when they get back to their room after a long evening of doing nothing in particular, eager to wash off the smell of spilled beer and pot smoke, and by the time Jon is finished with his own shower Brendon is asleep in the bed that he and Jon accidentally shared the previous night, curled up on his side and breathing deep and even.

Jon is out of clean clothes—end of tour, he thinks mournfully, and he doesn't have any reason to go home this time, so he's not looking forward to the last show in Austin at all—but his boxers and t-shirt are at least unfilthy enough that he doesn't feel grubby sliding between the crisp, clean hotel sheets.

He isn't really tired—he got a lot more sleep than the other guys did last night, and needed it a lot less—but he doesn't want to risk waking Brendon up by turning on a light or the television or something.

Or at least that's what he tells himself when he slowly, silently lifts his hips and slides his boxers down the thighs so he can spread his legs wide under the covers, his fingers unerringly finding his clit and tracing slow circles around it until want is flaring bright and sharp in his belly. He goes for harder strokes then, purposeful, so focused on his pleasure that he kind of forgets to be as quiet as he normally would, little gasps and moans spilling freely from his mouth as he touches himself.

He doesn't notice that Brendon has woken up, either, at least not until Brendon says, "Jon, fucking Christ, you can't, it's not fucking fair—" and pretty much launches himself onto Jon's bed, setting his knees inside Jon's splayed thighs and leaning down close so Jon can feel him breathing hot against his cheek. "Not fair, not fair," he repeats.

His hand covers Jon's through the blankets, and Jon feels Brendon shudder when Jon moans again at the pressure, and this is so, so fucked up. "This is really fucked up," Jon mumbles, even as he cants his hips up for more.

"I know," Brendon says. "Let me?"

Jon doesn't even know what he's agreeing to when he opens his mouth and a yes spills out, but he gets a pretty good idea when Brendon moans and presses his mouth against Jon's while his hands start dragging the covers down, exposing Jon's chest in his thin cotton t-shirt, the naked curve of his belly and his hand between his legs. He feels himself starting to blush in the dark, but Brendon doesn't seem to care; he just breathes hard against Jon's mouth and slides his hand up underneath Jon's shirt to cup his breast.

"You can say no," he says quietly against Jon's mouth, "but can I turn on the light?"

Jon's thighs tense up, because he's never done this with the lights on. He's okay with feeling, but he's still not sure he's ready to see. He draws in a sharp breath and holds it for a second, considering, and then says, "What are we doing?"

"I just want to see," Brendon says. "Please."

It's the please that does it. Jon sighs and nods in the dark, and then Brendon leans over him to switch on the bedside lamp, bathing them both in soft golden light. Jon can feel Brendon's cock drag over his hip, hard and slick at the tip already, and Jon makes a tiny, involuntary sound and arches up underneath him. This isn't—Jon's never, with a guy, but his body seems to be totally on board with the idea, especially when he opens his scrunched-shut eyes and sees the way Brendon is looking at him, his eyes dark and his lips parted with shocked arousal.

Then Brendon very deliberately drags his gaze down Jon's body to watch as he cups Jon gently between his legs, pressing up a little so his middle finger dips into Jon's slit, the tip of it almost but not quite pushing inside, the base of it solid and warm against Jon's swollen clit. He moves his hand in a slow, gentle circle, spreading Jon's wet around, and then he says, "Tell me—tell me what you want."

Jon's eyes drop half-shut at the barely-leashed heat in Brendon's voice. "Fuck," he bites out, and then rocks his hips up into the press of Brendon's hand in a silent demand, and then he distinctly thinks fuck it and reaches up to curl his hand around the back of Brendon's neck and draw him down for another kiss, muffling his moan against Brendon's lips. This is still pretty fucked up, but right now Jon doesn't care; all he wants is more, the taste of Brendon's mouth to go along with the sure, precise touch of his fingers. He starts to make more noise as he gets close, more moans he can't help, and they just make Brendon move his fingers faster, rougher, just what Jon needs to push him over the edge.

He comes harder than he has yet, almost sobbing with the intensity of it, louder than he's ever let himself be before, and he can feel Brendon react to that, feels Brendon's delicate full-body shudder as his cock jerks against Jon's thigh. He breaks away from Brendon's mouth as he shakes through it, because he can't breathe fast enough, feeling dizzy and spent as he shivers with aftershocks, but Brendon doesn't stop touching him until Jon has gone lax and loose under him.

Then Brendon kisses him again as he slides two fingers into the wet of Jon's cunt, bringing them to his lips so he can lick Jon's taste off of them before he rolls off to the side and wraps his sticky hand around his cock. He strokes himself quickly and purposefully, no teasing, just a mindless need to come.

Jon musters up the effort to roll onto his side, making a confused little sound, and Brendon turns his head to meet Jon's eyes across the pillows, mouth working soundlessly as he strokes himself. Jon reaches down and circles his fingers around Brendon's wrist, pulling his hand away, and then replaces it with his own, knowing this as familiar territory, even if he hasn't been able to do it for himself for weeks. Brendon is so close, anyway, that it only takes maybe a minute before he's choking out some sound that might be Jon's name and coming all over his belly and Jon's fist.

Brendon's eyes stay locked on Jon's as he comes down, lush lips still parted. Jon knows that he needs to say something, that they need to talk about this. Instead he sits up on his elbows so he can shrug out of his t-shirt, using it to clean them up a little, turns out the light, and then pushes on Brendon's shoulder until Brendon turns onto his side so Jon can spoon up behind him. He carefully settles his arm around Brendon's waist and waits.

But Brendon doesn't say anything, either; he just sighs with something that seems a lot like relief, and Jon figures that they can talk in the morning.





For the second day in a row, Jon wakes up flat on his back with Brendon clinging to his side, his head tucked into the curve of Jon's shoulder and his legs tangled up with Jon's. This morning, however, Brendon is already awake, looking up at Jon from under his lashes and not even trying to hide the morning wood pressed against Jon's hip.

"Hi," Brendon says, his tone a little bit guarded, like he's not sure he's allowed to be doing what he's doing.

"Hello," Jon says sleepily, bringing up one hand to pet softly through Brendon's hair, and he feels Brendon sigh in relief again, tilting his face up so he can touch his lips to Jon's.

Jon lets Brendon kiss him for a long moment and then gently breaks away. "So," he says, "that happened."

Brendon blinks. "Yeah," he says. "It did."

There's a long pause while Jon tries to collect his thoughts and figure out what to say, but before he can settle on anything, both his and Brendon's phones start blaring, wake-up alarms for the early press they have scheduled. "Damn it," Jon says, as Brendon reluctantly lets go and rolls out of bed to shut his alarm off, while Jon fumbles for his phone on the nightstand to do the same thing.

Jon looks up at Brendon, totally and unself-consciously naked, totally and incontrovertibly—or maybe not, who the fuck knows—male, and he fists his hands in the sheets and resists the urge to pull them higher to cover his own naked chest.

"I'm going to shower," Brendon says, and Jon nods, looking away.

Fucking hell.





The entire day is a nightmare, a late morning radio interview followed by a record-store signing followed by a mad dash to the venue for soundcheck. Everything in Dallas is fucking far away from everything else; Jon thinks that whoever designed the city and its suburbs needs to be punched in the face, but that could just be the tension between Jon and Brendon talking, and the fact that Jon has to spend almost the entire day in the binder, only getting a short break before meet & greet.

He doesn't actually get a single moment alone with Brendon until they get back to the bus after the show and Ryan and Spencer go out to sign, giving Brendon an odd look when he says that he's going to stay in tonight. Jon's already out of the binder and into jeans and a t-shirt, sitting in the back lounge with his acoustic, when Brendon gets in.

Brendon knocks on the doorframe like the dork he is. "Hey," he says.

"Hey," Jon says, plucking out something nonsensical on his guitar while he tries to figure out what to say. Finally, he settles on, "How long, Brendon?"

"I," Brendon says, biting his lip. "A while?"

Jon takes a deep breath. "Since before?

Brendon blushes and looks away. "I—maybe? I don't know."

"How can you not know?" Jon asks.

"I just don't, okay?" Brendon says. "I can't draw any lines in my head like that, like one day I didn't like you and the next day I did. And then all of this happened and you've been—fuck, you have no idea what you sound like. Or what you look like, or—"

"I look like a chick with a beard," Jon says, cutting him off.

"You look like you," Brendon says emphatically.

"But that's what I don't understand," Jon says. "I'm not a girl, and you're not into guys."

Brendon sits down next to Jon and then surges forward to kiss him, and Jon can feel the sheer want in it, like there's nothing Brendon wants more than the taste of Jon's mouth, and Jon just doesn't get it. He doesn't understand why Brendon wants this.

"I know that," Brendon says, breathing hard after he breaks the kiss. "I know all of that, and I still want you. Don't ask me to explain it, because I can't." He looks away, his face heating again. "Maybe I'm just a little more into guys than I thought."

"As long as they have tits, sure," Jon mutters.

"No," Brendon says, "as long as their name is Jon Walker."

"But why now?" Jon asks. "Why when I'm like this, why not before?"

"You had Cassie before, dumbass," Brendon says.

Jon snorts derisively. "Yeah, and we all saw how well that turned out. What do you do if I change back tomorrow?"

"I don't care what body you're in," Brendon insists.

"Are you sure?" Jon asks.

"Sure enough," Brendon says. "You could—even if you did, I'd still be—I'd still want this."

"You don't even know what 'this' is, Brendon," Jon says, the words coming out harsher than he wanted them to.

Brendon makes an unhappy noise and pulls away, sitting back on the couch and staring at the ceiling. He waits a long time before he says, "This is not how I pictured this going at all."

Jon looks away. "Well, sorry to disappoint," he says.

"I'm not disappointed, I'm—okay, maybe a little disappointed," Brendon says. "But that's only because this morning you were supposed to wake up and we were supposed to have sex again and then I would tell you I loved you and you would be all 'oh Brendon, I love you too' and then we'd have more sex and then Spencer would have to get Zack to break down the door because we were running so late, and we'd traumatize them for life."

Jon blinks. "I," he starts, and then swallows hard, turning his head to stare at Brendon. "I think it would take a lot more than your naked ass to traumatize Zack for life," he says, because that seems like the easiest part of Brendon's statement to address, "and also, what?"

Brendon reaches down, hesitant, and covers Jon's hand with his. "You think I'd have conversations this awkward with just anyone?" he asks.

"Most of your conversations are pretty awkward," Jon points out.

"So I've been told," Brendon says, and then he bites his lip again, looking uncertain. "Jon—"

Jon turns his hand over, palm-up so he can tangle his fingers with Brendon's. "After Cassie was—I didn't think anyone would want me like this."

"You were wrong," Brendon replies simply.

"Yeah, I got that," Jon says, and then tugs on Brendon's hand until Brendon slides across the couch to cuddle close again, fitting himself against Jon's side so Jon can wrap his arm around Brendon's shoulders.

Brendon looks up at Jon from under his lashes again, his bottom lip red from the nervous touch of his teeth. It gives Jon a familiar warm feeling in his belly, and that makes Jon want to kiss him. He dips his head to brush their mouths together, licking delicately at Brendon's swollen lower lip until Brendon moans low in his throat.

"I don't know that I can make you any promises," Jon says, hushed, when he breaks the kiss.

"I'm not asking for any," Brendon says.

"Then what do you want, Bren?"

Brendon presses himself closer, rubbing his stubbled cheek against Jon's shoulder. "This," he says. "This is good."

Jon arches an eyebrow. "What about all the sex and traumatizing Zack and Spencer?"

"It can wait," Brendon says, although the arm that he has wrapped around Jon's middle starts to creep lower, his fingers stroking the soft outer curve of Jon's hip and the top of his thigh through his jeans.

The pulse of want between Jon's legs gets stronger, and he slides his knee out to spread his legs a little, so that Brendon's hand is resting on the inside of his thigh. "I don't think it can," he says.

Brendon's breathing goes a little unsteady, and his eyes are dark when he looks up at Jon again. "Are you sure?" he asks.

Jon hesitates for just a second before reaching up and pushing on Brendon's shoulder until he's sitting back on the couch again. Unsteadily, he gets up on his knees and then crawls into Brendon's lap, thighs splayed wide, hips pressed tight against Brendon's. "Sure enough," he says.

Grinning, Brendon settles his hands on Jon's hips and leans up to close the distance between their mouths again. "Okay, well," he murmurs against Jon's lips. "That works, too."





"What the Jesus fuck," Spencer yells from the front, and Jon begins to shake with startled laughter, resting his head on Brendon's shoulder.

"I, um," Brendon says. "I don't suppose you can reach the door?"

"Thoughts we should have had before we took off our pants," Jon says, looking back over his shoulder, trying to judge if the door is close enough for him to shut it.

Spencer is staring at them, eyes saucer-wide, and Ryan is kind of hiding behind him.

"Jon," Brendon says urgently, and then he flexes his hips in what is probably a totally involuntary movement.

"Oh, shit," Jon moans. "Do that, do that again."

He only barely registers the sound of the door to the bunks slamming shut.


***