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Ryan and Spencer are talking out on the back porch with their heads bent together, bare centimetres apart. Brendon tries not to stare, or look pissed or anything. Ryan said Spencer was straight and anyway, Brendon doesn't give a shit. He's not going to go back out there, though; he helped Jon carry in dishes because his mom ingrained certain habits in him that he can't get rid of, and it seemed polite. Jon tells him not to worry about the dishes, they'll do them later, but he casts a look outside and rolls his eyes.
"Guess we'd better wait a minute," he says. "When they're not just communicating via eyebrow it's generally pretty important."
"Communicating via what?" Brendon asks absently, bending over the CD collection. There's a lot. He wonders if these are Jon's and his parents', or whether Jon's got a whole other set back in his room. Brendon wishes he'd had the time to grab more of his own CDs before he moved out.
"Eyebrow," Jon repeats. "It's kind of sad, really. They have whole conversations that I don't even notice." He grins, warm and ridiculously charming, and Brendon keeps his eyes on the CDs, crouching down to look at the lower shelves. It's too weird, he thinks, to have Jon all... all friendly, like he's never glared at Brendon as he leads Ryan away.
"I still don't know what I'm doing with them, really," Jon continues, nice and easy, and Brendon glances up, surprised. Jon smiles at him. "I think they just keep me around for my kittens."
"Plural?" Brendon asks, without meaning to.
"Yeah, Dylan's around somewhere," Jon says. "He's pretty big now, though. It's cool he has a friend."
"Friends are nice," Brendon says, absently. There's a signed copy of Ziggy Stardust. Whoever Jon's parents are, they're seriously cool.
Jon pauses and then says, "So how long have you and Ryan been like..."
Brendon looks up, wary. "You don't really need to say it like that," he says, voice cold. "We're not dating. I don't even like him."
"I was just wondering," Jon says, quietly.
Brendon shrugs, turns back and lingers over a copy of London Calling with distracted longing. "Almost two months," he says, and when he looks up Ryan's standing next to him, face unreadable.
Brendon doesn't know just what it is he expects – Ryan laughing at him, probably, for being stupid and weak and too easily affected – but it's certainly not Ryan just looking at him for what feels like forever. Then Ryan's gaze suddenly flicks down. "Good album," he says in his usual monotone, and it takes Brendon a moment to figure out he's talking about London Calling.
"Yeah," Brendon says. He's uncomfortably aware of Jon watching from the sidelines. "I've been meaning to get that, but can't find a cheap copy." Wow, way to draw attention to how much of a loser he is, great. He puts the CD down a little defiantly. "Not that I want it that much, anyway," he adds. "I heard it so much, I'm kind of sick of it, actually."
When he looks back up at Ryan, Ryan quickly looks away. From over Ryan's shoulder, Spencer is watching sharply, his blue eyes too interested for Brendon's liking. He manages to hold Spencer's gaze for only four seconds, maybe five, before he averts his eyes.
Fucking... Ryan Ross and his stupid fucking precious friends.
"Let's go," Ryan says suddenly. Brendon is scrambling to his feet before he realizes how potentially embarrassing that is, just jumping when Ryan tells him to, but Ryan is already walking towards the front door and didn't even notice.
Spencer makes a low, considering noise. Brendon ignores him, squares his shoulders and follows Ryan to the car. At least the pancakes were good.
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