let him win his spurs

Title: The Holiday [10/?]
Author: sunsetmog
Fandom: Panic! at the Disco
Pairing: Brendon Urie / Spencer Smith
Rating: NC-17 overall
Word count: 4639 (this part)
Warnings: None.
Notes: Thank you to hermette for the beta. Any remaining errors are my own. For ohohstarryeyed.

Further notes can be found in part one. Also posted here at AO3.

Inspired by The Holiday. Sort of. Um.

Summary: Sex, on the other hand, was totally Spencer's hobby of choice. He was going to take it up as a competitive sport. He'd totally win points for style.

Previously: [I] [II] [III] [IV] [V] [VI] [VII] [VIII] [IX].



~*~

When the doorbell woke them up from their post-sex nap, Spencer kicked Brendon out of bed to go answer it. "It's your turn," he told him from where his face was pressed into the pillows, next to his own little puddle of drool. "I went last time."

Brendon made a cursory protest, but he stumbled out of bed without fighting too hard. Spencer tried to stay awake for Brendon to come back upstairs, but it was tough. Coming down off the mountain that hadn't looked like any mountain Spencer had ever seen had been harder than they'd anticipated. Stopping in every field to make out and take stupid MySpace pictures of themselves with Brendon's crappy camera might have been fun, but it hadn't been the best use of their time. By the time they'd hit the road—and Spencer used the term 'road' loosely, since he was personally of the opinion that for something to qualify as a road it had to fit at least one car down it easily, and not have a raised ridge of mud and grass in the middle that was just desperate to take out any decent suspension if you took the road at anything more than a snail's pace—the light was beginning to go. By the time the little town where they'd started their walk could be spotted in the distance, it was getting seriously dark, and even Brendon was beginning to suggest that they were going to get lost out there and eaten by sheep.

"I don't want to get eaten by sheep," he'd said morosely, as he fell over another unidentified object in the dark and Spencer had had to grab his arm to stop him from falling over.

"I'll protect you," Spencer had told him, which had been a lie, since Spencer had precisely no survival skills whatsoever, and his last purchase in any kind of outdoors and hiking store had been a pair of flip-flops that had a bottle opener conveniently located on the underside of each flip-flop. Still, it had made Brendon fall over him in relief, and breathe my hero into Spencer's ear, so Spencer had counted it as a win.

It had taken them another hour to get back to the car, and half an hour in the shower when they got home to defrost. Hiking, Spencer decided, wasn't for him.

Sex, on the other hand, was totally Spencer's hobby of choice. He was going to take it up as a competitive sport. He'd totally win points for style and longevity. Maybe it could be in the Olympics, like rhythmic gymnastics. It could be part of the rhythmic gymnastics. He imagined winning gold in the sex part of the rhythmic gymnastics at the Olympics, and the anthem being played as they gave him his medal. It was a pretty awesome fantasy.

"Spencer!" Brendon yelled up the stairs. "Mary and Dave are here, come down."

Spencer buried his face in the pillow and made a noise that wasn't oh good, we have guests. He had important Olympic training to get back to. "Coming," he called and rolled out of bed and onto the floor with a thump.

He grabbed jeans from the floor, and a hoodie, and stumbled down the stairs trying to pull his socks on and not tumble forward and break his neck.

"Hi," he said, kind of ridiculously, tripping over a stray pair of shoes and falling into the living room.

"Hello," Mary said, from the couch. She was eating a tiny cupcake out of a box, and she waved the box at Spencer to take one.

Spencer took one without paying too much attention to what he was choosing, because Dave was on his knees in the fireplace, shoveling up ash with a tiny shovel. "Um," Spencer said.

"Oh, hello," Dave said, sitting back on his heels and wiping his hands on his pants. "Thought I'd just clear your grate whilst we were here. Sorry to interrupt, and all that."

"You didn't," Spencer said, hoping against all hope that his flush wasn't showing on his face. "We were napping. Jet lag. It's a killer."

"It is that," Dave agreed, busying himself laying the fire. Spencer watched in bemusement, taking a bite of cake. They were good, if you could get past the consistency. It was a bit like chewing a brick. A flavored brick. He suspected they were homemade. Very homemade.

Spencer's mind sometimes wandered when he was tired.

"Mary and Dave are here, Spencer," Brendon said, wrapping his arm around Spencer's knee from where he was sitting on the couch, and batting his eyelashes up at Spencer. Spencer resolved to make him pay for that later on, particularly as he couldn't hold himself immune to Brendon's wiles. His pulse fluttered. "They're here to pass on a message from Gareth and Griff."

Spencer raised an eyebrow. Gareth and Griff? Spencer needed to start making friends in weird fish and chip takeout restaurants at the bottom of cliffs more often. Especially ones who were going to involve them in possibly burgeoning relationships. Was there a Gareth-and-Griff? It felt like something out of a daytime soap. "Gareth and Griff?" he asked.

"Well, Gareth," Mary amended. "Griff was just the one who was dropping it off. He's plastering Ernie's bathroom. Ernie's the one at the top of the lane with the hanging baskets." Spencer nodded, nonplussed. "They wanted to know if you wanted to go to the pub tonight."

Spencer glanced at the clock. It was eight o'clock. "Um," he said.

"They're a nice bunch," Mary said. Dave was still laying a fire in the grate. "That Gareth, well. We never thought he'd be the type to be—"

Spencer raised an eyebrow.

"Anyway," Mary went on. "Now Griff is, too! Everyone's talking about that. His mum will be pleased. She thought he was just too shy to get a girlfriend."

"Which pub?" Brendon asked brightly. His hand tightened on Spencer's leg. "We were just talking about going out and finding a bar, weren't we, babycakes?"

It's okay, Spencer thinks, there are plenty of places around here to dump the body. Only the sheep would know. "Sure we were," he said through gritted teeth. "Which bar?"

"The one in the marketplace in town," Mary said. "If you follow the road down through the lower harbor, and then up the hill again until the roundabout, it's on the right. You can drive past it and park in the supermarket car park. That's what everyone else does. Here, Dave, what's the number for the taxi? You won't want to drive back if you've had a few. You can pick up the car in the morning. Dave!"

"Hang on," Dave said, clumsily fumbling through the menus on his phone with dusty fingers. "I've got it here somewhere, don't mither." He stabbed at the screen with his finger. "Terry's Taxis. Here it is. Got a bit of paper and a pen?"

"We'll put it in the guestbook," Mary said, pulling open the drawer in the coffee table and pulling out an almost-pristine guestbook. "Then it'll be useful for our other guests, too."

"Excellent," Spencer said, and he wondered if he was still asleep, or if this was some kind of sheep-fuelled hallucination. Maybe this whole week was a hallucination, and he'd wake up back in LA with Brendon, and none of this would have happened. Maybe he wouldn't be in love with him, either.

Spencer couldn't fool himself that that would be the case, anyway.

~*~

The pub was busy, and loud, and full of people holding pints and talking over the sound of the jukebox. They pushed through the throng to the bar, and Spencer held his arm up for Brendon to duck under and try to catch the attention of the barman.

"Two bottles of Coors," Brendon begged, when the barman finally came over.

"American, huh," the guy said. "Are you the ones Gareth told me to keep an eye out for?"

Spencer blinked.

"Yeah," Brendon said sunnily, covering Spencer's hand with his own. "Do you have Coors?"

"No," the barman said. "We have Budweiser, though. You want that?"

"Sure," Brendon said, since everything around the bar seemed to be doing a good job of advertising a beer that seemed to be called Brains. Spencer wasn't drinking that. Okay, so maybe he would, but whatever. He liked beer. Even zombie beer.

"Gareth's through in the snug," the barman told them, cracking open two bottles of beer and setting them down onto the Brains bar towel. Spencer wondered if he could steal one. His life in L.A. would be enriched with a zombie bar towel. No one else seemed to be that upset they were drinking zombie beer, though. Maybe they'd all be brainwashed. Maybe it was a town of the undead. Maybe they were living in a horror movie. Maybe—

"The snug?" Brendon asked, interrupting Spencer's thoughts.

The barman nodded towards an arch in the wall. "Through there," he said. "In the corner, by the hangman machine."

"Awesome." Spencer hadn't even noticed the doorway. He fumbled his wallet out of his pocket and pulled out a ten pound note, handing it over. It would save him having to stand up and order more drinks next, anyway. When he had his change, they pushed through the throng and under the archway, and into a long, low room that was just as loud, but a little less busy than the main bar. Gareth was in the corner with Griff and Becca and one of the guys that they'd met before, but Spencer couldn't remember his name.

"Hi," Brendon said, pushing through the crowd to get to the table.

"Hi," Gareth said enthusiastically. He stood up and hugged Brendon hello, which Brendon probably thought was completely normal, since Brendon was the kind of weird dude who welcomed being touched by strangers. Spencer was a little more reticent in that department, but he let himself be hugged hello anyway. "You remember Becca, and Griff, and Daniel." Daniel was tall, red-headed and broad, while Becca was the short one from last time, with the squashed nose. Spencer found himself thinking that she was kind of adorable. If he wasn't totally in love and with Brendon, he could find himself flirting with her. Fuck, he'd forgotten that this was a vacation affair again. This was getting to be a problem. Fuck.

"Hi," Brendon said again, and Spencer waved his hello absently, sitting himself down on the seat that Becca had vacated so she could squash on the bench with Gareth and Griff and Daniel. Brendon disappeared to the next table to see if he could find a spare chair.

"I'm glad you got the message," Gareth said. "I couldn't get the number Brendon gave me to work, so I thought, next best thing, we'd use Mary."

"Our stupid phones don't work over here," Spencer complained. He hoped his mom wasn't too worried. He'd sent her a text from the airport before they set off, but other than that, he and Brendon had been incommunicado since they'd left Los Angeles. "Sorry."

"Doesn't matter," Gareth said, watching over Spencer's shoulder as Brendon pushed through with another chair. "So, what have you been up to?"

It was easy, light-hearted small talk, and even Spencer could feel himself unwinding in the face of such friendly interest. Becca was really nice, and Spencer found himself talking to her about her job as a teacher in a primary school, while Brendon got into a loud discussion with Daniel and Gareth about the Rolling Stones. Spencer grinned. Brendon could go on and on for hours about music, Spencer knew. He was almost as bad, but Brendon could be so disarmingly earnest that Spencer found himself changing his mind sometimes, just because Brendon had the uncanny ability to make even the most wrong musical opinions seem perfectly reasonable. It was like a special kind of superpower.

The conversation rumbled on, until Daniel started mocking Griff because he was a secret Fall Out Boy fan, at which point he couldn't exactly keep quiet.

"Fall Out Boy are awesome," he said, butting in. "I'm with Griff."

"Me too," Brendon said, sneaking a sideways glance at Spencer and giving him the ghost of a wink. It made Spencer feel warm, right down to his toes, and he had to blink to shake the feeling away.

"You have to have the same opinions," Daniel told them, shaking his head. "You're married."

"We have the same opinion about Fall Out Boy," Brendon said, "because we're both right and you're wrong. Easy."

Spencer grinned, and when Brendon curled his fingers into Spencer's, it was a few seconds before Spencer remembered they were supposed to be pretending. It was so easy not to, and for a while, as Brendon argued on about how Fall Out Boy were better than The Killers, Spencer let himself pretend that they were together, that there was a them, that there was more to their relationship than just this week.

The evening wore on. More beers were procured, and both Brendon and Spencer tried Brains. It was okay, but Spencer preferred the idea of drinking zombie beer than the reality, so when it came to his turn to go for a round, he came back with vodka cocktails, just because. When he handed the drinks out from his battered old Brains tray, he found himself paying more attention to Griff and Gareth, to see if there really was anything between them. Griff was still mostly silent, which seemed to be his raison d'etre, but he was sitting closer to the edge of his chair than he had been when Spencer and Brendon had arrived, and his knee was close to Gareth's. Gareth's attention kept sliding to Griff, even when Griff wasn't saying anything, and Spencer knew the signs. He was guilty of half of them himself where Brendon was concerned, only with Brendon theirs was a strictly vacation-only arrangement. Gareth and Griff seemed to actually like each other, underneath the strict no-discussion rules they'd seemed to impose upon themselves. Spencer hoped they got it together.

They stayed in the bar until the barman rang the bell and called time, at which point they stumbled, complaining of the horrible cold, out into the street. Brendon burrowed into Spencer's side against the fierce chill of the clear December night, and Spencer wrapped his arm around Brendon's shoulders, holding him close. He was pleasantly buzzed, too drunk to drive, too sober to fall over. Instead, he was drunk enough to press a kiss to Brendon's temple, underneath his knitted hat, and let Brendon tilt his chin up and kiss the corner of his mouth.

Spencer, all of a sudden, found that he couldn't remember how to breathe.

Brendon slid his already-cold hands under Spencer's coat and into the small of his back.

"Fucker," Spencer gasped, pulling away. Brendon's hands were like ice, and Spencer's skin was still warm from inside. He rolled his eyes and punched Brendon in the arm, but Brendon just grinned and tugged him closer for another kiss.

"Yeah, yeah," Brendon said. "You'll forgive me."

Anything, Spencer found himself thinking, unbidden, and he swallowed, caught in Brendon's gaze for a moment too long. He tore himself away, and looked over Brendon's shoulder to where Becca, Daniel, Griff, and Gareth were waiting.

"Are you coming back to mine?" Gareth asked. "We've got beers, and there's a chip shop on the way.

Brendon grinned, and wrapped an arm around Spencer's back. "Sure," he said. "Thanks for the invite, guys."

"Good Welsh hospitality," Becca joked, letting Gareth slide his arm over her shoulders. Spencer's eyes met Griff's just for a moment, before Griff looked away and dug his hands down deep into his pockets.

"Chips aren't as good as from my place though," Gareth complained. "But another couple of beers and we won't care."

The chips came from the chip shop on the corner of the parking lot where Brendon and Spencer had left their rental car. Spencer had jogged over and checked it was locked while Brendon waited in line for their chips, and when Spencer got back, he was in the middle of ordering them both chips, curry sauce and a pickled egg.

Spencer made a face of horror. "No way, dude," he said. "I don't want that."

"Shut up," Brendon said sunnily, holding Spencer's hand away from the counter. Spencer was stronger than Brendon was, but he didn't force it. He just rolled his eyes and stepped back, shaking his head. "There's no way I'm eating a pickled egg," he said. "No offense, but they look disgusting."

"Oi," Gareth said. "They're really good."

"They're not," Becca confided. "We have this argument every week. The only people that think they're nice are Gareth and Griff."

"The rest of you are wrong," Gareth said, and Spencer watched him glance over at Griff, who—as usual—was quiet in the line behind them. Becca was leaning into him though, and he had a hand on her shoulder, relaxed and friendly. Spencer didn't think he'd seen him relaxed before. "Me and Griff are right." He held out his hand for a high-five, and Griff smacked his palm against Gareth's, loud and bright.

Oh, Spencer thought, seeing the way their eyes met. Oh. For a second, he was jealous—heart-thumpingly, desperately jealous because they were falling for each other and they were going to get a chance. If they could get it together, they'd get a chance, together, and it was going to be longer than just a fake honeymoon on the Welsh coast. Spencer swallowed, and tugged Brendon away from the counter, and into his arms.

"I'm cold," he lied, but Brendon hugged him anyway, kissing his cheek as he rested his head on Spencer's shoulder.

"I'll warm you up," Brendon said, voice muffled in Spencer's coat, and Spencer thought, you already are.

They walked through the cold, deserted streets up the hill to where Gareth's flat was, Brendon and Spencer struggling to eat their chips one-handed, their other hands curled into each other, gloved against the harsh cold of the December night. Spencer didn't want to let go; he didn't know if he could. He only knew that his heart felt like it was in his throat, and all he wanted to do was push Brendon up against the nearest wall and kiss him until he was breathless, and begging, and Spencer's.

After a minute, Brendon bundled his carton of chips closed and into the carrier bag the take out restaurant had given them. "I can't eat them one handed," he admitted, and held the bag out for Spencer.

Spencer nodded, breathless, and closed his polystyrene carton, sliding it into the bag after Brendon's. Gareth, Griff, Daniel and Becca were a little way further up the hill from them, and Spencer took advantage of the quiet to push Brendon over to the side of the pathway, against a garage wall. He cupped Brendon's cheek in his gloved hand, and leaned in to kiss him. "Missed this," he said, into Brendon's mouth, and Brendon nodded, surging up onto tip-toe to kiss him back just as hard.

"Me too," Brendon said, even though it was probably nonsensical, since it was hardly any time at all since they'd been in bed together after their freezing walk up the mountain that lied and was actually a hill. He pulled away regretfully, but kept a tight hold of Spencer's hand. "They're waiting for us."

"Sorry," Spencer lied, once they'd caught up, and Gareth was showing them past a rickety garden gate and up to a front door with peeling paint.

"I'll come over and paint your door for you," Griff said, sliding a fingernail under a fleck of red paint by the door knocker. "I've got some paint doing nothing."

"It's communal," Gareth said. "I don't know if you can."

"Still," Griff said. "I will. Just let me know."

Was it Spencer's imagination, or was Gareth's face flushed and pink? Even if it was, he supposed, it could be down to the cold, and the blast of heat that hit them the moment they piled inside.

Gareth's flat was upstairs and at the back, cramped and messy and full of old records. Brendon dropped to his knees by the record cabinet and started flicking through.

"Don't mind him," Spencer said, rolling his eyes and starting to unzip his coat as Gareth flicked the gas fire on, and Griff took the armchair by the door. "He's like a magnet for music. He'll come back down to earth at some point."

Becca disappeared into what turned out to be the kitchen, and came back with two four-packs of beer and a bag of Doritos. "I raided your cupboards, Gaz," she said unapologetically, sitting down on the couch next to Daniel. "Not much in the snacks line."

"Sorry," Gareth said. "There are pork scratchings by the kettle. Me and Griff won them in that pub quiz on Tuesday." He reached for a beer and cracked it open, passing it to Griff, who colored. He reached for another one, not meeting Griff's eyes, and passed it to Spencer, who held it for Brendon. Brendon was lost in the land of new music to flick through, and he wouldn't be paying attention to anything but the piles of old records for the next few minutes, at least.

"You've got some good music here," Spencer said, waving his can of beer at the stacks and stacks of LPs."

"They're my mam's," he said, sinking down on the couch, the end nearest Griff's chair. Daniel sat down on the other end of the couch, and that left a tiny, battered, barely two-person couch for Spencer and Brendon to share. Spencer tossed his coat onto the pile with everyone else's and sank down into the armchair. He was cold right down to his toes, and even the heat from the gas fire wasn't doing much to warm him up. "She had this brilliant idea to put all her vinyl onto the computer, and then get rid of the records. I said no fucking way, and took all the records."

"So now you have the most cramped flat in the history of forever," Becca pointed out, "and your mum is rattling round in that place of hers."

"Yup," Gareth said, with a grin. "Find anything you like in there, Brendon?"

Brendon waved a Wings album in the air. "Is this an original?" he asked, turning around. He unzipped his coat with his other hand.

"Probably. You want to put it on?"

They ended up listening to some old Wings tracks, and then A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night. Spencer thought it was cheesy as fuck, but he was pretty sure his grandmother had had this record, so he wasn't going to complain. After a while, Brendon gave up sorting through the records and crawled into Spencer's lap, head resting on Spencer's shoulder.

"I'm chasing rainbows," he murmured, in time with the song.

Spencer's hand tightened on Brendon's elbow, and Brendon nudged Spencer's chin up and pressed a kiss to his jaw. Spencer wasn't thinking about how easy it had been for the two of them to slip into this routine of being together in front of their new friends; it seemed almost expected that they touch each other a lot, and maybe that was why Spencer kept doing it. He touched Brendon all the time, stroking his elbow and drawing him close and kissing the top of his head when he made his excuses and disappeared to the bathroom. They had reasons for kissing, when everyone assumed they were married and honeymooning, and it seemed like both he and Brendon were taking advantage of that.

"Listen to this one," Gareth said, a while later, stumbling up from the couch and over to the record player. "Nobody fucking knows this record, and everyone should."

"We know it," Daniel said, sleepily. Becca was already asleep on his shoulder, and Daniel had grabbed the blanket that was over the back of the couch to draw it over them both. He had his eyes closed too, half asleep. "You've played it enough."

"And now I'm playing it again," Gareth said. He flicked through the pile on the shelf and came back with a vinyl single, putting it on the turntable. He didn't set it going. He smiled lopsidedly at Spencer. "I'm going to go to bed," he said. "Let yourselves out if you want to, but you're more than welcome to stay." Becca and Daniel were both asleep, and Griff looked like he was, too. "I'll get you and Brendon a blanket."

Spencer nodded, because Brendon was sleepy against his shoulder. He was too tired and too drunk to think about getting a cab, so he took Gareth's offer of a blanket. "Thanks," he said.

"Anytime," Gareth said. He came back into the living room a minute later with a blanket for Spencer and Brendon, and one for Griff too. Spencer watched him unfold it, and cover Griff's knees. He colored when he looked up, but Spencer wasn't judging. He was in love with someone too. He smiled, instead, and Gareth stepped over the mess of empty beer cans and Doritos bags to get to the record player. "This is a great song, Can't Tell The Bottom From The Top," he said, dropping the needle down on the record, before heading for the bedroom door. "Sleep well."

Spencer didn't recognize the intro, but he wasn't as good at picking out sixties tracks as Brendon was. Brendon shifted in his lap, and tilted his chin up. "I love this song," he said in a whisper.

"I don't know it," Spencer admitted, glancing across the room. The others seemed passed out for the count.

"Listen," Brendon said softly, and it was cheesy, Spencer knew. He knew it was cheesy and he didn't fucking care, because all of a sudden his heart was in his throat again, and the singer was telling him that with every thought of you, I want to shout aloud. Spencer felt like that. He felt like that about Brendon, and about being here now, with him, and he was so in love it hurt.

I can't tell the bottom from the top.

Spencer couldn't breathe.

"I'm upside down, but ten-feet tall," Brendon murmured, and then he curled his fingers in Spencer's hair and drew him down and into a kiss.

Spencer kissed him back, shifting on the couch so that they were wrapped up in each other, the blanket covering their knees, and he couldn't—he just couldn't. I love you, he thought, over and over, because he was caught up in the moment, and the song—the spell you used the day you made me fall—it was saying the things that Spencer was feeling inside. Regardless of how stupid it was, it did, and he couldn't help the way he was feeling, or the way that Brendon was kissing him, or the way he was kissing Brendon back.

"Let's go home," Brendon said as the record finished, and Spencer nodded, unable to say anything that wasn't going to incriminate him.

"Please," he said finally, and Brendon stole Gareth's phone to call a cab from the hallway, as Spencer scribbled a note on the back of an envelope to say thanks.

"It'll be here in five minutes," Brendon told him in a whisper, coming over to where Spencer was standing by the record player, record sleeve in hand.

He leaned over and set the record going again, sliding his hand into Spencer's as the introduction played.

I'm upside down, but ten-feet tall, Spencer thought, and held on tight.


**The Hollies - I Can't Tell The Bottom From The Top

[onward]