Like everything, it starts in Vegas.

The VMAs, to be precise. The Palms Casino Resort. Highroller suites. The whirlwind of young Hollywood in some indefinable purgatory between home and hell. It’s not deceptively charming suburbs and homemade bottle rockets in the streets; it’s glitz and glamor and screaming neon signs that say do whatever the fuck you want, you’re a fucking rockstar, baby. They say, hey, welcome to the cool kid club, kick your feet up on the good leather or the fucking orangutan fur or whatever the hell we paid a million for this week. Kick up those thousand-dollar shoes and be one of us; hey, we’re the popular kids. Spencer’s not sure how he feels about this: he feels a little like a fraud, like the chess club crashing a kegger, like Justin Timberlake is going to pop up and say, “hey, dude, didn’t I shove you into a locker in high school?” Not that Spencer thinks Justin Timberlake is a bad person or that he shoved people in lockers in high school or anything, but. It’s the principle. He’s having fun, Spencer is, but years of corner cafeteria tables are hard to shake from your psyche. He curls his toes into his socks and tries not to look down at his Gucci leather-trimmed moccasins. He wonders if he should’ve worn Chucks.

This is where is all starts. Or, it might’ve started a long time ago, in a recording studio at one end of the country or another, behind the stage curtains off in fucking Europe, or when Ryan first linked their music on Pete Wentz’s journal, or, hell. Maybe even back when Spencer first picked up a pair of drumsticks, eleven years old with the rhythm of “What’s My Age Again?” stuck in his head. But Spencer, he likes things definitive, so, later, when he looks back on everything, he will decide that this, here, is where it starts.

Haley is sitting on the arm of a couch, her long legs crossed, head bent in with Keltie’s while their mouths move fast with girl-talk that Spencer secretly wishes he could listen in on. He leans against the wall, one ear to the band, and fills in words to the shapes of their lips over the thrumming bassline. Oh my god, what, really, shoes-dress-manicure, oh my god that skanky ho. It’s not like it’s that different from conversations he and Ryan have backstage at festivals, music to their noses but eyes darting around at everyone who might make or break them. Oh my god, opening riff, Les Paul. Oh my god, girlpants and eyeliner.

So, here is Spencer: his designer button-down and his Gucci moccasins, his vest that he actually does like but is pretty sure broadcasts “I may be just old enough for my mom to stop dressing me, but that doesn’t stop Ryan Ross”; his crossed arms and crossed ankles, his mouth turned down at the corners almost enough to be a frown. Not quite. Default expression. Spencer, practicing the fine art of people-watching. Spencer, feeling skeptical.

Brendon is over with the band(s)—whatever conglomeration of them that’s playing right now—half-dancing to the music with the awkward sway of a white boy without a date. Jon’s disappeared into the madness of the suite to find cold beer. Ryan’s over by the girls, his nose tucked in near William Beckett’s ear to tell him secrets, smiling that stupid I-love-my-life smile that Spencer used to have to fight tooth and nail for, eyes crinkled at the corners, his hands casual with the ease of a drink or two in their navigation of shoulders and hips. And Spencer, people-watcher. Self-appointed wallflower.

“Spencer Smith!” someone says, too loud in his ear.

Oh my god, Pete Wentz. Oh my god, girlpants and eyeliner.

The thing about Pete is, yeah, they’re all friends, yeah, they hang out, but yeah, he’s Pete Wentz. He’s crazy and nonstop and enamored with Patrick and Ashlee and Ryan and William and probably a dozen other people who can put pretty words in his head and/or pretty heads on his pilllow. Spencer doesn’t put words in heads or heads on pillows, so, generally, he’s one of the smaller blips on the Wentz radar. He’s okay with that.

“You skipped the class photo,” Pete is telling him, blunt finger jabbing off-center near Spencer’s left nostril. “Decaydance festival, you owe me a picture.” Spencer has grown a lot since he first met Pete, and he doesn’t mean to look down his nose at him, but that’s what happens. If he actually lowered his chin, he would probably get poked in the eye.

“Hey,” Spencer says. “Um, okay.”

A picture means about a dozen, snapshots in bright digital colors, smushed cheeks and angles ready-made for MySpace. Ready-made for for an OCK profile. Grinning for the camera, arms around shoulders; serious faces, eyebrows cocked in mirror-images. Pete’s lips pressed sloppily to Spencer’s cheekbone, the camera crooked with only two-thirds of Spencer’s scandalized face in the frame. Pete insists they take it again, stretching his arm out as far as he can for a better angle, catching Spencer mid-laugh. Spencer’s cheeks are pink, but he doesn’t know that until Pete flips back through the pictures when they’re done.

Pete stretches his arms up above his head, fingers laced together. His shirt’s untucked. Spencer’s pretty sure the Bartskull’s there just so people will look.

Pete says, “I love Las Vegas for twenty-four hours at a time.” He looks around the room, eyes scanning over familiar faces, lingering on unfamiliar ones. People-watcher. Oh my god, Lil Wayne, oh my god, Rihanna. Oh my god, groupies, oh my god, those skanky hos.

“Yeah,” says Spencer, “yeah, I know what you mean.”

Haley looks up from her conversation, flashing him a grin. She waves him over; Ryan looks up, too, and echoes both gestures, hair flopping in his face.

“Oooh, popular.” Pete grins, wide rows of white teeth, elbows and fingers prodding Spencer in the side. Spencer rolls his eyes and shoves him lightly. Pete stumbles more than necessary, uses it as an excuse to catch himself on Patrick, tips Spencer an invisible hat and disappears into the crowd.



They didn’t need to get a hotel room, but Spencer did anyway. Leaving one of the biggest nights in entertainment of the year to go back to your own apartment just doesn’t seem right; it’s form, not function, or something. It’s high-ceilinged and maroons and golds, mahogany and silk, lights turned down low so the gaudiness gets lost in dark corners. Spencer wonders if it’s because it’s his hometown that the appeal is lost on him, that the bright lights and not-so-cheap imitations of class and culture always seem to be grasping at straws—Spencer thinks, maybe, he is just too skeptical.

It’s four in the morning. Spencer hung up his vest, but his shirt’s somewhere between the closet and the bed. His pants are on but unbuttoned. Haley’s in just her bra, sitting on his thighs, her long brown hair tumbling over her shoulders, her eyes bright. Her stomach folds on itself when she leans over him, a crease between her ribs and her belly button that Spencer wants to press his thumbs into. Instead, he drags his fingertips from her hips to her knees, bent on either side of him, and she giggles and leans down to kiss him.

On the bedside table, Spencer’s Sidekick buzzes loudly.

“Mmm,” says Haley, catching Spencer’s lip between her teeth. “Don’t get it.”

Spencer glances at the table, at her. “S’just a text message,” he mumbles, and stretches over to grab it. She rolls her eyes and sits up, gathering her hair in her hands, looking around for something to tie it back with.

The message is from Pete. It says: spencer spencer spcner spencer spencr spencer smith.

Spencer stares at it for probably a little too long before sending back: i am very busy getting laid you should go do the same.

Haley leans off the bed to grab her purse from the floor. She digs an elastic out of it and ties her hair into a ponytail at the nape of her neck, lifting an eyebrow at Spencer.

Spencer’s Sidekick buzzes.

SPENCE WENTZ, Pete says.

Spencer says, yes thats me. if ashlees over you go try ryan.

A minute passes, and there’s no response. “I think Pete’s a little drunk,” he tells Haley, and sets the Sidekick back on the table.

“Good for Pete,” Haley says. “Do you want to have sex or not?”

“Yes, please,” Spencer says.

He’s got his pants off but not her bra by the time his Sidekick buzzes again. He thinks she’s probably not planning on losing the bra, anyway. It’s nice, form-fitting and black lace, not so restricting that her breasts don’t sway when she moves. It looks good on her.

“If you get that,” she says, her tone clear enough that she doesn’t need to finish the sentence. Spencer curls his fingers into the bed to keep from reaching over. Haley sighs and kisses him. “How are you so pressed on Pete Wentz’s nuts, he’s not even that hot,” she mutters against his mouth.

“He is too hot,” Spencer protests half-heartedly. “You’re just spoiled on pretty drummers.”

Haley grins. Her teeth are smooth against Spencer’s lip. “We are not having this conversation,” she says. Spencer is okay with that.

(The new message says, whats better spence wentz, sexyfuntime or quality pete time. Spencer reads it at six in the morning when Haley’s asleep next to him, her elbow poking into his side.

Spencer replies, studies show that sexyfuntime is best.

how about quality sexyfunpetetime, Pete sends back almost immediately.

all pete time is sexyfunpetetime, Spencer types, grinning, then stops and frowns. His finger hovers over the backspace button before he presses it.

how about sleep time, is what he sends.)



They play Street Scene in San Diego. One last show before locking themselves down in Vegas, barricading the studio door and finally churning out the damn album. It’s huge, crazy, and just what they need to remind them what they’ll be working for behind closed doors. It’s better than the Virgin Music Festival, not as good as Decaydance Festival. People are missing—but people are there, too, Matthew Bellamy and Jesse Lacey and Andrew McMahon, plenty of people to be star-struck and distracted by, old friends to catch up with. Brendon disappears to cause a ruckus with Sisky, William leads a whole assembly of fans over to watch Muse with him, and this is Life As Usual for Spencer Smith.

Spencer fits in better here than at the VMAs. This is less glitz and glamor, more broken shoelaces and smudged makeup; fewer photo-ops, more nameless faces. It’s been a long time since Spencer has been to a show as a nameless face. He sits backstage while Muse plays on, keeps an eye on Jon, who is drunk and happy and about half a song from fainting with fannish glee, texts back and forth with their tour manager about next spring and concentrates on the bass of Supermassive Black Hole thrumming up through his legs.

This is where Travie finds him. Spencer isn’t an exceptionally small guy, not like Pete, but Travis makes him feel small anyway. Travis is the kind of guy who, were he not so chill, might have thrown things at Spencer when the teacher wasn’t looking in high school. Travis is cool, is the thing. And Travis is as drunk as Jon—Spencer would know it was Travis sitting down next to him even without looking up, from the smell of alcohol and marijuana that clings to him.

“So,” says Travie, his words wide and deliberate, “how does it—oh, dude, lemme—” he makes a grab for Spencer’s Sidekick but Spencer moves it out of reach “—tell him that yes, you would be happy to open for Gym Class Heroes next year, thank you very much.” Travie grins broadly, draping a long lanky arm around Spencer’s shoulders.

“Yeah, okay,” says Spencer, but turns the Sidekick over in his hands, not typing anything. He lets his head rest against Travie’s shoulder, closes his eyes briefly. Briefly, because after half a second Travie starts shifting around, jostling him too much to function well as a pillow anymore.

“What the hell, dude, I am trying to zone out here,” Spencer grumbles, sitting up on his own again.

“Photo-op, photo-op,” Travis says, sounding smug, fishing his own phone from his pocket. He pulls Spencer tight against his side and leans in to press his grin against Spencer’s temple. “C’mon, I wanna send some to Pete and make the dude all jealous.”

Spencer is a person who likes people to make sense. He is a person who is good at making sense of people—he has to be; he’s been Ryan Ross’s best friend for fifteen years. This is one of the reasons Spencer has never liked booze much: drunk people either make too much sense or too little sense, and he has never been good at figuring out which.

Spencer’s solution to this is to give the camera a thoroughly reproachful look, lifting one skeptical eyebrow.

“Dude, what, no,” says Travis. “C’mon, Spence Wentz, I know you gotta have some place deep down inside where you get all lovey’n shit. Now is the time to go to that place.”

Spencer still hasn’t quite grasped the how or why of the making-Pete-jealous reasoning behind this impromptu photoshoot. He inquires about this.

“Because,” Travis says with a grand gesture, “because. Now is for sexyfuntimes, Spencer-Smith-Spence-Wentz. Sexy because we are here, fun because Peter is funny when he’s angry.”

“My middle name is James,” Spencer offers, in case Travis wants to try to make his name longer.

“That has little to no literary merit, my child,” Travis says. Spencer mutters something about Ryan and soulmates; Travis laughs.

“As long as your Ryan is a fan of the sexyfuntimes, we will live happily ever after,” he says, and presses a messy kiss to Spencer’s cheek, a freckle and a hair from the corner of his mouth. Spencer makes a noise in his throat that is supposed to be something like begrudging consent. It maybe comes out a little more growly than intended, because Travis is grinning when he kisses him.

Taking pictures of oneself while kissing is an arduous task even for the sober. It’s not a natural kind of multi-tasking, kind of like talking on the phone while you’re cooking. Or having coherent thoughts when you’re getting a blowjob. Something like that, anyway.

The point is, Travis is basically the antithesis of sober. After a minute of sloppy kisses and pictures featuring Spencer’s ear or Travie’s hair, Spencer pries the camera out of Travie’s big, drunk hands. Spencer learned the art of self-portraiture from Ryan. It’s not hard for him to tilt Travie’s head in the right direction, catch Travie’s lower lip in his teeth and snap and almost-perfectly profile picture.

“Ahaha, dude. That is beautiful.” Travis looks immensely pleased by the photo. Spencer purses his lips, quirks them to the side. They’re still tingly from kissing; he kind of wants to smile

Travis is fiddling with his phone. Spencer’s Sidekick buzzes.

:(, says Pete.

Travie laughs, ruffling Spencer’s hair as he stands.

what, Spencer sends back.

nvm.

Spencer frowns, then types, was all travies idea.

that fucker.

Spencer grins.



It is common knowledge that Ryan and Pete are in constant contact via internet, or phone, or whatever they can get their grubby little emo hands on. Especially when they’re recording, because no matter how famous or successful Ryan gets, there will always be that little part of him that just loves to hear Pete gush about how much he loves his music. Spencer doesn’t blame him. If Spencer wrote music—beyond his involvement in Panic!’s, that is, you know. Putting words and music together and stuff. If Spencer wrote music, he’d want Pete Wentz to love it, too.

But Spencer doesn’t write music. He keeps beats and keeps books; talks to people, makes phone calls. Fires shitty bassists.

Ryan checks his messages between songs. He lifts an eyebrow, looks up, pushing his hair out if his eyes. “Spence, Pete would like me to tell you he misses you. Again.”

Spencer shifts on his stool. He presses his foot carefully down on the bass pedal, not enough to make a sound. “Okay.” He can feel Jon and Brendon watching him while Ryan texts back. He makes sure not to do anything interesting, so they’ll stop staring and they can all go back to playing.

Pete, like God, works in mysterious ways. Sending messages to Spencer through Ryan is one of those ways. Posting the pictures of himself and Spencer on his buzznet weeks after he took them and inciting a predictable flood of gossip is one of them. Not even talking to Spencer since Panic! holed themselves up in the studio is one of them. Spencer’s got one text message from Pete the entire time they’ve been here. It said oh my mornings coming back the whole worlds waking up and he only sent it after Spencer texted him with wtf dude after Pete asked Ryan what Spencer was wearing today.

Spencer is a little perplexed. A little annoyed. Yesterday, Haley asked him to please stop talking about Pete Wentz or they were never having phone sex ever again.

Ryan says, “So, Pete’s stopping by tomorrow.”

The fact that Pete’s band is on a nationwide tour has never stopped him from dropping in on his favorite first-band-he-ever-signed. Luckily, they’ve come a long way from garages and drum tracks looped into Casio keyboards. A long way from freaking out when Pete Wentz walks in a door. Ryan still freaks out a little, but Ryan’s version of freaking out is looking down at his hands and adjusting his fingerless gloves before giving hello-hugs. Spencer would freak out, too, if he wrote the music.

When Pete arrives, he hugs Ryan then Brendon then Spencer then Jon, then Brendon again because Brendon demands it. When Pete hugs Spencer, he presses a grin into Spencer’s neck and curls fingers into his shirt and hair. Squeezes him tight for eight-Mississippi, nine-Mississippi, ten-Mississippi, eleven-Mississippi. His breath is warm and wet.

Spencer breathes again when Pete moves on to hugging Jon. He looks over at Ryan. Ryan is looking back, thoughtful. Spencer rolls his eyes, and Ryan grins at him.

When Ryan and Brendon go out for a food run and Jon chases after them hollering that they forgot the grocery list, Pete looks down at Spencer sitting on the couch and says, “I missed you.” He sounds ridiculously honest.

“You did,” says Spencer. It’s a question, but. This is Spencer, feeling skeptical.

“I did,” says Pete. “It’s weird.” He pushes his hair out of his face, Ryan-esque. He’s got day-old eyeliner smudged around his eyes and weeks-old circles under them, too. People don’t get much sleep on tours. Pete doesn’t get much sleep, ever.

Spencer looks down at his hands, spreads them over his knees, examines his nails. Looks up at Pete. “It’s weird to miss me?” His inflection probably reads offended, but he’s not. He’s a little perplexed. A little bit pleased.

Pete says, “You know what I mean. You know.” He sits down on the couch, next to Spencer. He says, “I, you know.”

He says, “Spencer Spencer Spencer Smith,” but he doesn’t say that until about five or ten or a hundred minutes later. He says it grinning, a little muffled, a lot pleased. He says it into Spencer’s mouth, because Spencer’s on his back on the couch and Pete’s thighs are between his knees and Spencer’s hands are in Pete’s back pockets. He probably says it because of the pockets thing, but he might say it because of the tongue thing. The thing with Spencer’s tongue in Pete’s mouth. Spencer doesn’t inquire.

Pete kisses different from Haley. Where Haley’s soft and smooth, Pete’s all sharp, teeth and surprises. Where Haley’d trail off to kiss necks and ears, Pete’s fixated, intent, and he only trails from dead-center to mouth-corners. He murmurs dumb things that Spencer doesn’t really listen to and moves careful fingers down Spencer’s sides, like his footing’s unsure and a wrong move will send him tumbling. And, well. Spencer’s not sure it won’t.

Spencer licks the corner of Pete’s big dumb grin and thinks he should probably feel bad about this.

Pete says, “There are so many ethical things wrong with what I am thinking right now.”

Spencer thinks that there are plenty of ethical things wrong with what they’re doing right now. He tells Pete this, and Pete laughs and kisses him for about a million Mississippis.

When Ryan and Brendon and Jon walk in on them, Spencer’s hands are in Pete’s hair and Pete’s are smushed under Spencer’s ass, and Spencer’s got his tongue in Pete’s mouth again. He would have stopped before they came back, but he didn’t know they were back until Brendon opened the door and shrieked a little bit.

“You sound like a girl,” Spencer tells him. Ryan’s expression is hidden behind a pile of groceries in his arms, but Brendon’s eyes are wide like saucers. Jon does not looked fazed at all.

Later, when Ryan keeps shooting him obnoxious, unreadable looks between songs, Spencer sighs loudly and says, “What, it’s not like you’ve never done it before.”

Ryan blinks at him. “Hooked up with Pete? No, I haven’t.”

Spencer looks over at Pete, who is curled up on the couch, still looking pleased. He shrugs, innocent.

“What, seriously?” Jon asks. “Oh man, my world view. Thanks, guys, for ruining it.”

“No problem,” Pete says, grinning and giving Jon a thumbs-up.

“Guys,” says Ryan. “Song? Again? Until it doesn’t suck?”

Spencer presses his foot carefully on the bass pedal, so there is just the quietest of thumps. Pete looks over, his smile subtle at the edges of his lips. He looks over for three-Mississippi, four-Mississippi, five-Mississippi, and then Spencer looks away to count them in.



Haley says, “Oh my god, Spence.” And then she dissolves into giggles.

This is Spencer Smith’s girlfriend’s reaction when he tells her, “So, um, I might have kind of made out a little bit with Pete the other day.”

The thing about Haley is that she is pretty surprisingly open-minded for a chick from a small town in the Midwest. Open-minded here meaning that she used to bet Brendon how far he could get with Ryan onstage back during the Big Gay Circus tour, and that she once kissed Keltie to prove her argument that girls could be sexually inappropriate with their friends, too. And so, Spencer is left staring blankly at his cell phone until she’s finished laughing at the fact that her boyfriend just cheated on her with his boss. That her boyfriend just cheated on her with Pete Wentz.

Spencer thinks he would probably feel bad about it if she would stop laughing at him. And later, Spencer thinks he would probably feel bad about it if she would stop e-mailing him links to websites with URLs like gaymenscounseling-dot-com and indiegayforum-dot-org.

“For real,” says Jon when Spencer mentions this. “Why is she sending you links to gay sites when you are so obviously a fervent bisexual?”

Spencer throws a drumstick at him.

Pete had to take off the same day he got there, but only after pulling Spencer into the hallway with him and kissing him one more time, hard and deliberate like a promise.

“I’ll be back in December,” he’d said. “Don’t forget about me or I’ll cry.”

As if a person could forget the fact that they made out on the couch with Pete Wentz, especially if they have to spend the next two months in the same room as said couch. As if a person could forget Pete’s hands all over him, Pete’s eyes heavy and half-lidded, Pete grinning at him in his peripheral vision while they go through new songs.

As if a person could forget, when Pete keeps leaving him positively gleeful messages saying things like, “Spencer Smith! I got a new pair of jeans today with pockets just the right size for your hands!”

Ryan also gets a lot of messages, and he’ll look at his phone strangely, but not say anything. It takes a lot of Spencer’s willpower not to ask what they’re about. Luckily, Spencer is in a band with Brendon Urie.

Ryan frowns at his phone for about the eighth time that afternoon and Brendon says, “Ryan, Ryan Ross, what is so perplexing?”

“Hm?” Ryan blinks at Brendon, then apparently decides to ignore him and turns to Spencer instead. “Since when is Pete so fixated on you?”

Spencer has no idea. He shrugs noncommitally and turns back to his drumkit. He taps a rhythm out of habit, catches himself when he realizes it’s Chicago Is So Two Years Ago.

Ryan lifts an eyebrow at him. “Okay, new question, since when are you so fixated on Pete?”

“Yeah, that’s Ryan’s job,” Jon chimes in from the couch—The Couch—tossing Spencer a wink.

Spencer rolls his eyes. As if a person can forget, when his bandmates won’t drop the subject. “Can we focus on the album we’re supposed to be recording and not on my crush on Pete, please?”

“Aha! You admit it!” Brendon crows.

“I will kill you slowly with your own guitar strings and shove a cheeseburger into your dying mouth so no one willl hear the screams and you will die a carnivore,” Spencer says. Ryan snorts and Jon hides a grin behind his hand.

They go back to the music.



December is pretty far away, but the release of ¡Viva la Cobra! is not. They fly to NYC for the party that somehow fits what seems like the entirety of their label into Angels & Kings. The bar is dark, smoky, Patrick-produced beats loud and heavy all around them. Brendon and Spencer share a discreet high-five when they are actually allowed inside, and then another with Sisky when they are actually allowed to drink. Spencer doesn’t actually drink much, on principle, but having the option is a nice thing.

Spencer is there for approximately eight minutes before Travis drapes a long arm around his shoulders and murmurs in his ear, “So, I heard a story about you and Pete Wentz.”

“We definitely did not elope to Canada,” Spencer says calmly, and immediately shrugs away. Not because he doesn’t think Travis is awesome. Travis is awesome. Spencer is not the kiss-and-tell type, even if it’s Pete Wentz. Especially if it’s Pete Wentz.

Spencer feels out of place here in a different way than at the VMAs. Here, he’s surrounded by friends, or at least acquaintances. Here, he knows that people won’t shove him into lockers.

Here, Ryan’s got a half-empty Long Island in one hand. Brendon’s giggling-drunk and sandwiched between Butcher and Sisky. And this is Spencer, stone-cold sober and standing in he middle of everything. Spencer, skeptical.

Spencer finds Jon and latches onto his arm. He leans in to say something in his ear and what comes out is, “Where’s Pete?”

“Ummm,” says Jon. He turns around, surveying, wobbling. “Uhm, he’s over there with Gabe. But don’t look, they’re making out.”

It’s kind of hard for a person not to look when someone says, “Don’t look, they’re making out,” so Spencer looks. And that’s Pete, straddling Gabe’s lap, and that’s Pete definitely not caring that people all around him are watching him lick Gabe’s tonsils. That’s Pete’s shirt scrunched up to his ribs and Gabe’s large hands on his waist.

Oh my god, Pete Wentz. Oh my god, girlpants and eyeliner.

It occurs to Spencer that he is probably the only one staring, and he should probably stop. He should probably not go over there, and he should probably leave them alone. If the media gets anything right, it’s that making out with Pete Wentz does not give you any kind of claim over him. But.

Spencer says, “Hi, Pete.”

Gabe says, “Heeeyyy, Spencer!”

Pete says, “Oh, fuck, Spence, hey, ugh, hey, hold on a sec, okay?” And he climbs off of Gabe and stumbles off toward the bar.

Gabe pats the seat next to him and says, “Sit, Spence Wentz!”

“You are not going to have your wicked way with me,” Spencer says as he sits.

“Well, no.” Gabe licks his lips. Puts a heavy hand on Spencer’s knee. “Pete and I, y’know, we got a tradition. Sorry about that.”

Spencer puts a hand on top of Gabe’s. “That,” he says. “is okay. Excuse me for a minute or ten.”

He pulls Pete away mid-sentence from his conversation with Jesse the bartender, into the back room and around aimlessly for a minute until he finds somewhere relatively secluded. Then, Spencer pushes him up against the wall.

“Spence,” Pete says.

“I don’t make out in rooms full of people,” Spencer says, and kisses Pete fast before he has a chance to reply. Kisses him fast so his head bumps into the wall behind it, so their teeth clack together and he feels Pete inhale sharply against his mouth.

Spencer can taste the alcohol on Pete’s tongue. He resists the urge to wrinkle his nose and clenches his hands in Pete’s shirt, stretches the fabric until it won’t lay flat again. Bites Pete’s lower lip until it’s swollen. Presses a thigh between Pete’s legs—Pete moans out loud and Spencer licks the sound away. Pete rocks hard against Spencer’s thigh, and Spencer breaks the kiss to press his mouth to Pete’s neck and leave a hickey there approximately the size of Vegas itself.

“Spence, Spencer,” Pete pants, hooking his fingers into Spencer’s beltloops. “I want—”

“To get laid, yeah,” Spencer says. He pulls away, leans in again for one last kiss on Pete’s lips. “It’s okay, I’m sure you’ll find someone.” He doesn’t say it with spite or regret. It’s just blunt, matter-of-fact. He tells himself he doesn’t feel bad when Pete’s face falls.

“Spencer, I,” Pete says.

“No,” says Spencer. He slides his fingers through Pete’s too-long hair. Tucks a piece behind his ear. “It’s okay, really.”

Back at the party, Brendon and Sisky fall on him in a giggling heap and Butcher shrugs helplessly. “I am neither drunk enough nor sober enough to deal with them,” he says.

“Ugh,” says Spencer, partially at the sentiment and partially because Brendon just licked his arm. “I’ll, um, try to take them home?”

“Home!” Brendon says happily. “Adam T. Siska, there are tiny duck-shaped soaps in our hotel, you should see them.” Sisky looks positively thrilled by the thought.

“Yes,” says Spencer. “Let’s go see them.”

He thinks he should probably look back when he leaves. Should probably see if Pete’s come out of the back, or if Pete is watching him leave, but. It’s hard for a person to turn around when Brendon and Sisky are dragging him determinedly toward the door, and he’s got a taxi to hail.



“Pete broke his foot!” says Brendon, bouncing, as if this is the best thing he’s heard all day.

“Ankle,” says Ryan, and hold out his Sidekick for Spencer to see the picutre of Pete’s swollen, discolored foot. It’s pretty disgusting.

“Ew,” says Spencer. He pushes Ryan’s hands away; he’d been trying to do the crossword puzzle from that morning’s paper, and he had just had a revelation about twenty-nine across, but now he can’t remember it. “Guys,” he says, “come on. Seven letters, ends with I, designer Isaac something.”

“Stop being a dick to Pete,” Ryan says.

Brendon abruptly stops studying Spencer’s crossword to gape at him. “Oh, wait, what, Spencer, did you break up with Pete?”

Spencer doesn’t dignify that with an answer. He pencils in seventeen down. He didn’t break up with Pete, because they weren’t dating, and he’s not being a dick to Pete, he’s just carefully avoiding too much contact with him until he is less plagued with the obnoxious pull between the desire to kiss him and the desire to deck him.

It doesn’t help that Haley is still sending him links to gay support sites. And Jon is sending him links to gay porn sites, sometimes even when they’re just sitting across the room from each other.

“I keep trying to find ones with your type in them, but I can only find ones with the big, muscular guys,” he says, shrugging. “Sorry.”

“You’re a funny man, Jon Walker,” says Spencer, and abuses his delete key.

“Seriously,” says Jon. “It’s not nice to be an asshole to someone who has a crush on you.”

Spencer thinks that it is hard not to start believing you’re being an asshole when everyone keeps telling you that you are. It’s especially hard not to believe it when you get a text message out of the blue from Ashlee Simpson that says, dont be a dick u need to talk to pete xoxo ashlee.

So Spencer rolls his eyes and gives Pete a call. “I hope your foot feels better,” he says, making sure to sound disgruntled.

“The warmth of your love envelops me even from afar, lifting me above my agonizing pain,” Pete says happily.

“I am hanging up now,” says Spencer.

“I’m okay with that,” says Pete. “Dream of me when you sleep tonight, Spencer Smith.”



Spencer thinks, it’s hard to get any thinking done when you’re part of the most overbearing, incestuous record label in the entertainment industry.

Not that it’s not awesome. Spencer loves his labelmates. Spencer loves the FOB guys, the Gym Class guys. He loves the Academy Is guys. The Cobra guys and girl. Spencer is part of a pretty awesome label.

Awesome: Decaydance/Fueled By Ramen.

Not Awesome: Drunk dials from certain labelmates demanding to know his relationship status regarding Pete Wentz.

Spencer probably would not have picked up if his caller ID had actually read Gabe. At two in the morning, there are very, very few reasons that Gabe would call sober. Spencer is not stupid. He would have hit ignore and rolled back over to sleep.

But, the caller ID had read very clearly Michael Guy Chislett, and Spencer has a habit of picking up for the Academy guys no matter what.

“HOLA GATITO, VAT ARE YOU VEARING TONIGHT?”

It is definitely not Chiz.

“I’m going to hang up on you,” Spencer tells Gabe, covering a yawn with his hand.

“Dude!” Gabe sounds offended. “Dude, no, we have got some incredibly pressing matters that require your immediate attention!”

Spencer blinks at the ceiling. Considers. Weighs his options.

Sighs resignedly. “Okay, what’s up?”

Gabe whoops triumphantly. There’s some shuffling, static noises from the other end, and then suddenly a lot more noise is filtering through the phone. Spencer’s been put on speaker, he assumes.

“Okay!” Gabe says grandly. “Okay, okay, Spencer Smith, we’ve got the whole gang here— Say hi, gang!” (there’s a plethora of hellos and catcalls and an Australian accent in the background going, “hey, what the fuck, that’s my phone!”) “—so, since we’ve all gathered so kindly just to hear your voice, you should answer a question for us.”

Spencer sighs again. “What’s the question, Gabe?”

There’s a manic giggle, and suddenly William’s in his ear instead of Gabe. “Dude, dude, did you bone Pete yet?”

“Dude, don’t just ask him that!” (Sisky)

“But we wanna know!” (Gabe)

“Like anyone’s going to give you the details of their sex life—” (Alex)

“Spencer, no one will blame you if you hang up on them!” (Chiz)

“Fuck you, of course we will!” (Gabe again)

“Spence!” says William, louder than the other commotion.

“No,” Spencer says, very firmly.

“Oh,” says William. “Damn.”

“Pay up, motherfucker!” Gabe sounds gleeful.

“Go die in a shark on fire,” William says mildly. There’s another staticky noise, and the background noise mostly disappears. “Okay, kiddo, seriously? Pete gets pretty into his crushes, be nice to him, okay? And remember that he’s on painkillers. He isn’t thinking straight. Well, he’s never thinking straight, never mind. And if you’re sucking him off he likes it if—oh, Chiz wants his phone back. Bye, Spencer!”

“I apologize profusely for that,” Chiz says, his accent heavier with the liquor.

“Forgiven,” Spencer says. “Can I go back to sleep now?”

“Oh, of course. Goodnight.”

But Spencer doesn’t go back to sleep. He lays in bed, closes his eyes. Opens them. Stares at the ceiling. Tries to turn his brain off, but it doesn’t work. Oh my god, Pete Wentz. Oh my god, girlpants and boycrushes.

Spencer thinks it would have been easier if he just got to circle yes or no. (In Pete-speak, do u like me y/n???) He sighs, picks up his sidekick again, and sends a message off to the only person who can help him now.

Hopefully, Patrick won’t be too weirded out when he wakes up to a text message that reads simply, help.



The Pete-and-Patrick thing isn’t something that Spencer completely understands. He understands parts of it; he understands the parts that are strikingly similar to the Spencer-and-Ryan thing, but there are other parts that are so far off-base that Spencer doesn’t even try to comprehend them. Kisses on the necks of best friends. Sal and Dean. True-blue magic. The Pete-and-Patrick thing is Pete at his most honest and his most cryptic.

Spencer doesn’t completely understand the Pete-and-Patrick thing, but Patrick will understand the Pete thing. He hopes. If Patrick doesn’t, he’ll at least try. Which is more help than Spencer got from Gabe and William, at least.

Spencer sleeps, doesn’t dream, and gets a text message halfway through his Honey Nut Cheerios.

help w/what, spence wentz???

Spencer stares, rolls his eyes, and replies.

pete, give patrick his phone back.

fuck. foiled again.

Patrick calls when Spencer’s on the way back to the studio for the day. Patrick, not Pete-as-Patrick, and not Patrick-with-Pete-hovering. Spencer tucks his phone between ear and shoulder and talks while he drives.

“I just figured if anyone’s used to dealing with Pete having crazy crushes on them, it’d be you. Help me, Patrick Stump, you’re my only hope.” You can never go wrong with Star Wars references, Spencer thinks.

“Wait, so if you’re Leia, and I’m Obi-Wan, and you’re talking about someone who’s got a crush on both of us—I don’t know how that would work, what with the generational gap and all.”

“I am so not Leia.”

“You’ve got hips like Carrie Fisher?”

“I—what? You know what, I retract my Star Wars reference. Everything I’ve ever believed is a lie.”

Patrick chuckles. “Pete doesn’t have a crush on me, Spence.”

“See?” Spencer scoffs. “Everything I believed. Lies.”

It would help, maybe, if the relationship Spencer was trying to figure out wasn’t spread all across the states, sometimes further. It would help if Spencer wasn’t constantly distracted by the terrifying prospect of the sophomore slump. It would help if Pete wasn’t so fucking enigmatic.

“Do you even like him back? Because I think that’s a pretty important thing,” Patrick says.

“Well, I,” says Spencer. Spencer has never been one to admit his crushes easily. They’re called crushes for a reason. Spencer is not sure what that exact reason is, but he suspects it has something to do with their ability to crush your heart and soul. Or at least your dignity.

Patrick reads the hesitation right. “You do, don’t you?”

Spencer sighs. Thinks, oh, fuck it. “Yeah, I do. I mean, it’s like a prerequisite for our band to have a crush on Pete. Ryan just happens to get all the pornfiction.”

Patrick makes a thoughtful noise, the vocal equivalent of a shrug. “I don’t see the big problem, really. Why not just treat it like a crush? It might not be an epic romance or true-fucking-love, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with it, right?”

“It’d help if everyone else would stop asking me if we’ve boned yet,” Spencer grumbles.

“It’s a like prerequisite for our label to be inappropriate and nosy,” Patrick says. “You and me, Spence, we’re the only exceptions.”

“Are you sure Pete doesn’t have a crush on you?” Spencer asks. He really doesn’t understand the Pete-and-Patrick thing.

“Me, Spence, I’m the only exception,” Patrick says.

Spencer laughs. “Okay, point taken.”

The wonderful thing about Patrick, Spencer thinks, is that he makes sense. Spencer legitimately wonders how Patrick has been best friends with Pete for so long and still comes off as relatively sane. Spencer doesn’t stop chewing his lip when he stops to think, he doesn’t stop rolling his eyes at Gabe’s lecherous texts, but. This is Spencer, less skeptical.

And so, when the Young Wild Things tour comes to Vegas for their last show, Spencer rolls up to the venue early with Starbucks in hand and pounds on the bus door until a bewildered-looking Andy opens the door. He hands Andy a grande coffee. Andy ushers him in and points him toward the bunks.

Pete’s still curled up in his blankets, hugging his pillow, but he’s not asleep. Spencer steps in and Pete blinks at him with dark, tired eyes, day-old eyeliner, weeks-old circles.

“I brought coffee?” Spencer offers.

He climbs into Pete’s bunk and Pete sits up, slumps against him. They sip their lattes quietly for awhile. Pete rests his head on Spencer’s shoulder, and Spencer touches Pete’s knee with his fingertips.

“How’s—?” Spencer asks, gesturing at Pete’s boot-encased broken foot.

“Hurts like a bitch,” Pete grumbles, tossing his empty cup at the trash and missing by a good three feet. Spencer follows suit. Only misses by a foot. “Probably gonna need surgery. Fuck,” he says as he stretches his leg out, manages to barely wiggle his toes. He turns his head, presses a kiss to Spencer’s shoulder.

One-Mississippi. Two-Mississippi.

“Pete,” says Spencer.

“What,” Pete mumbles, then, “Sorry.”

Spencer shakes his head. “No, it’s just. I wanted to say. Um, that it’s okay. I know we’re not gonna have, like… true-fucking-love or whatever, but I’ve still got a big dumb crush on you, so.”

Pete blinks at him. Grins slowly, to himself. “True-fucking-love,” he mumbles, then shakes his head. “I’ve got a pretty big dumb crush on you, too, Spencer Smith,” he says, and Spencer kisses him, presses lips to lips, grin to grin. Licks Pete’s mouth open and forgets his Mississippis.

“You’re lucky I don’t have any ethical problems with having my wicked way with an invalid,” Spencer says, his hands up Pete’s shirt, splayed over Pete’s shoulderblades.

Pete bites Spencer’s lip. “How about I suck your brain out through your dick, and then you’d be the invalid here.”

Spencer is okay with that.

So Pete sucks Spencer’s brain out through his dick, his stupid Jared Leto hair hanging in his eyes and his rocker boot stuck awkwardly off the bed, and afterward Spencer hauls Pete up, presses him down into the mattress, licks the taste of himself off Pete’s tongue.

“Kinda need my brain,” he says breathlessly.

Pete is squirming underneath him, face flushed, so Spencer shoves a hand down Pete’s pajama pants and jerks him off fast, until Pete curses and bites Spencer’s shoulder and comes hot and sticky all over Spencer’s hand and his own sheets. “Fuck,” he says, shifting around with a wrinkled nose. “Sticky sheets, ugh, the things I do for you, Spencer Smith.”

“Yeah, the things you do for me,” Spencer says, rolling his eyes. He yanks the gross sheet off the bed and wipes his hand clean on it, tosses it somewhere where it can’t offend them. He lays down next to Pete and Pete grins at him, crinkled eyes and huge teeth, and Spencer thinks that maybe it’s not so bad to have things undefined.



It ony makes sense that it ends in Vegas.

Well, it doesn’t end in a way that anything stops, really; there are still going to be kisses on couches and handjobs in bunks, stupid sappy voicemails and texts at three in the morning, for another few weeks or months at least, until Pete develops a crush on someone else and Spencer kicks him out of bed with specific instructions to “go get ‘em, tiger.”

This is how Spencer assumes it will go, anyway, now that things make sense. Spencer, less skeptical. Almost optimistic.

He sits VIP sidestage with the rest of his band to watch the show that night. Sings along to every song. Grins stupidly when Pete waves gleefully during ‘I Slept With Someone in Fall Out Boy’ and smacks Brendon in the head when he teases about it.

“You’re just jealous,” he says loudly over the music, sticking out his tongue.

“Maybe a little,” Brendon says, pouting. Spencer lifts an eyebrow at him, then laughs and pulls him into a headlock, noogies him until he squawks with protest. “Hey, hey, abuse!”

“I’ll forward you the gay support sites Haley keeps emailing me,” Spencer tells him. She’s not still doing that, much—she ran out of sites to link a few weeks ago—but she does keep emailing him notes reminding him that she loves and supports him and will always be his friend no matter what STDs he catches from his rockstar boyfriends.

On the stage, Pete says, “So, I recently finally got my dirty hands on someone I’ve been crushing on for awhile. Pretty awesome, right, getting the guy, getting the girl? So anyway, what I like most about this crush is, not only does he know the difference between martyrdom and suicide, but he also knows the difference between a parlor trick and true-blue magic. Between a big dumb crush and true-fucking-love.”

Ryan says, “Oh god, they’re going to write porn about me again.” Brendon laughs. Spencer rolls his eyes. Jon claps Ryan on the shoulder and offers him his beer.

Pete says the the stadium, “So, this is a song about true-fucking-love.”

He’s not looking at Spencer, but Spencer is okay with that. Spencer thinks, at least everything he knows isn’t a lie. Spencer thinks, yeah, Patrick is the only exception.

Patrick soars into the opening lines of ‘Me &You’ and Travie appears to flop into the seat next to Spencer, on the side Brendon’s not hogging. He slings an arm around Spencer’s shoulders. He smells like liquor and pot, like always, but his words are surprisingly coherent.

“So, finally gave into the Wentzinator, eh, Spence Wentz?” Travie asks. He bumps his head lightly against Spencer’s. Spencer shrugs and bumps him back. Travis laughs, low, under the music. “Not judging, dude, that’s your prerogative.”

When the song is over, Travie stands, stretches, to leave. “Hey,” he says. “Once you get over Peterface over there, I probably wouldn’t mind if you considered me for your next big gay crush.”

Spencer lifts an eyebrow. Grins. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Dude,” says Brendon, “how are you so fucking popular?”