Since The Roof Fell In: Part Two
Back to Masterpost/Back to Part One
Day Thirty-Two
Knowing seems to have sucked all the energy out of Spencer, like all that was keeping him going was the question. Kevin gets that, though - if he knew, for certain, Joe and Nick were alright, they were safe, he's pretty sure he'd lie down and sleep for a week or two. Except Nicole wouldn't let him, probably, she’d push him the way she's pushing Spencer right now.
"I would've let him sleep."
"I wouldn't. He'd hate himself, if he woke up and a whole day was gone."
Brendon links his arm through Kevin's, as free with touch as he's been since they met, but it's different, a little, he's making less contact with the same gesture. Whatever he did to cause that (it's a lie, it's so easy to lie to himself, it's not "whatever", he knows what happened, knows he cried for hours into Brendon’s shoulder, knows he was scared enough of waking up with Brendon he was in the other bed as soon as Brendon was asleep), he doesn't like it.
"So, Demi probably would've gone right for Bill, yeah?"
Kevin doesn't want to talk about this, God, he just doesn't. "He's the only person here she really knows, so I guess."
"Pete'll know what's up with Bill," Brendon says, so absolutely certain there's no room for anyone else to doubt. "And we'll be there soon."
The overwhelming urge to hug Spencer hits Kevin in the gut, where all his feelings are hitting him lately; if it weren't for Tom telling them Ryan was at Pete's, he's not sure he ever would've thought to go there. Still, Brendon's just guessing, guessing that Demi would have brought Joe to Bill, guessing she could have found Bill safely, guessing they even survived long enough to look for him, and if Kevin starts hoping now it's gonna hurt ten times worse when he crashes again.
Brendon's arm tightens in his again, less tentative, and Kevin only barely recognizes the song he starts singing but he's pretty sure it's Fall Out Boy.
It's bright, today, the kind of bright Kevin's learned to hate (cloudy's more comfortable for walking, harder to see the extent of the damage to whichever depressing place they’re walking through), and the neighborhood they're walking through isn't bad - it's nice, obviously rich, big houses with big lawns, but what's really noticeable is the houses aren't burned - the only visible damage is the kind caused by rioters.
"Holy shit," he hears, someone hollering from a few houses down; Brendon's arm tightens in his a little, but Brendon's smiling. "Shit, is that - get Bill, shit, holy shit," in the same voice, and then there's someone tearing down the sidewalk at them, someone tackling Brendon before he can let go of Kevin’s arm in a hug that has all three of them falling to the sidewalk. "You motherfucker, shit, you're alive, you fuckers."
When Kevin catches his breath enough to see straight, Pete Wentz is helping Brendon up.
Spencer's only been to Pete's house out here a couple times, but it's enough to recognize it the minute they turn the corner onto his street; he manages to last until he hears Pete's "holy shit" before he takes off for it faster than he would have thought his exhausted legs could carry him.
He can hear Pete hollering, still, can't (won't bother to) make out any of the words, can see Pete run past him but doesn't stop until he runs right into someone halfway from the door to the driveway.
"Upstairs," Patrick says, and later Spencer wants to grab onto him, make sure he's actually alive, actually real, ask how he's doing and tell him he's glad he's okay, but if Patrick's gonna make it clear he understands how low he is on the priority list, Spencer isn't about to stop him. "Second door on the left."
He shouldn't be able to do stairs, shouldn't even be able to walk any more, tired as he is, but whatever strength is left in Spencer is in his legs and he's inside and halfway up before he really realizes it. People are shouting at him, his name, holy shit, you're alive, but Spencer doesn't know who’s shouting and doesn't really care, not right now.
The second door on the left is closed but knocking is for people who haven't walked a billion fucking miles; when the door swings open Spencer sees mattresses all over the floor, clothes everywhere, and on the one intact bed in the room, a skinny boy with too-long hair and a three-piece suit (of course, of fucking course) scribbling frantically in a notebook.
"Ryan," he tries to say, except his throat is dry and suddenly wedged shut with a lump the size of fucking Chicago, and what comes out is an awkward noise that doesn't sound like anything. But it does its job, gets Ryan's attention, and when Spencer finally looks into those absurd baby-deer eyes, brown and wide with shock and alive, all the fight goes out of him.
Ryan's already off the bed and halfway across the room when Spencer's legs crumple underneath him; lucky for him there are so many mattresses.
Kevin heard Pete yelling for Bill, he did, but he's tired, shaken from getting knocked onto the ground like that, and he doesn't put the pieces together until Patrick and Ashlee have led Brendon and Nicole into the house and he's left alone with Pete and the guy he would be really happy blaming for having to walk all the way to Chicago.
And, on that note, why the fuck is Bill standing here, why is he the one Pete called for, why not Joe or Demi, what if they're not here, what if they're not here because they're not okay, didn't make it -
"Whoa, Kevin, breathe."
"Where are they?"
"They were here," Pete says, "they were totally - "
"Pete."
Bill and Pete have some kind of awkward stare-down - even not knowing either of them well, Kevin's got his money on Bill, on those dark serious eyes it makes total sense for Demi to be all melty over. And he's right; Pete opens his mouth one more time, shuts it, grumbles and turns to walk back to the house.
"When he says were - "
"He means they're fine, Kevin."
"And they're not here because, what, too crowded?"
Bill frowns a little, but to his credit, however much he knows he's not saying what Kevin wants to hear, he doesn't break eye contact. "They went to New York."
The ground drops out from under Kevin's feet, but somehow he doesn't go with it. "So you don't know they're fine," he hears, in a voice that sounds like his except it's too much calmer than he feels.
"Cell service is spotty, obviously, and so far from what we've heard there aren't many places on the East Coast with any power. Demi was checking in for a while, but it's been...I don't know, the days kind of run together. A week, I'd guess, at least.
"You'd guess."
"You can check the date of the last message on my phone, if an exact number would help."
"No, it - I just - you let them go?"
"I don't know, Kevin, you know Joe better than I do, but Demi seemed pretty sure - if we'd said no, tried to stop them, do you think he would have accepted that? Or would he have left in the middle of the night without the right amount of supplies or any idea how to get where he was going?"
Kevin knows the answer; Kevin's not going to say it out loud. Bill frowns at him, wrinkling his forehead so much he almost looks his age.
"Come on," he says. "I can show you where to clean up and sleep, and I can show you the texts Demi sent before she lost service completely. We can worry together."
"You look tired," Ashlee says, and a split second later manages to scrunch her entire face up. "Wow, of course you're tired, sorry."
"It's fine," Nicole says, because in the great scheme of things what the fuck does one misspeak matter anyway.
Ashlee smiles at her a little, this ghost of a smile, tentative, like she's not sure whether or not she's allowed to be smiling around Nicole yet. Nicole wants to reassure her, tell her no, other people's happiness isn't something she has a problem with, but she's more concerned with cleaning up (if they even have running water - they must, Ashlee's definitely clean), falling asleep, not waking up until she's fully rested and this is a distant nightmare. And Ashlee stops walking when she talks, so reassuring her can wait.
When she does stop, Nicole almost whines, but bites it back partly because that's kind of unfair, and partly because Ashlee's opening a door, revealing an office with a couple mattresses on the floor. "You get the corporate suite," she says, and yeah, that's about right, Ashlee strikes her as the kind of person who tries to joke but doesn't quite manage it at times like this. "With Greta, who's...somewhere, I don't know, out killing rodents for dinner, or something."
Nicole's just going to assume that was another joke until she's forced to admit otherwise.
"I figure, okay, so it's smaller than the other rooms, and you can't rotate who gets an actual bed like the guys in the guest rooms, but Greta's the type to appreciate a little maybe-don't-put-one-girl-in-with-six-guys consideration, and I thought maybe you would, too? And it's closest to the bathroom."
"Thank you," Nicole says, the most inadequate thanks of her entire life.
"It's nothing," Ashlee tells her, which does nothing to make it feel adequate. "Bathroom's right here. The rule, generally, is keep it quick because we don't want to tempt fate with the water supply, but I think you can be an exception, just this once."
"Thank you," still isn't enough, but it's all that comes to mind.
The room Patrick eventually leads Brendon to, after about a hundred stops where they both just kind of stare at each other to confirm yep-he's-alive, another hundred to perform similar alive checks (and oh my god, how did you - where did you - Brendon, fucks) with the entirety of the Chicago music scene, who of course would be holed up at Pete's, is full of mattresses but empty of people.
(The shower's running in Pete's bathroom, the one that shares a wall with this room, and Brendon can hear voices, almost too quiet to make out that it's Spencer and Ryan.)
It's familiar; it’s the room Brendon usually stays in when he visits - a little smaller than the other guest room, but with a better view and less Eastern exposure. And it aches, fuck, for the first time since Brendon climbed off his roof and started packing he has nothing to do except stand in a familiar space and let the reality - that nothing's the same even if Pete's fucking guest room is painted the same colors - smack him over and over and -
"Ryan, Jon, and Andy are in here already," Patrick says, talking-to-a-scared-animal gentle. "And I guess Kevin will be, too?"
"Yeah."
Brendon should say something else, because Patrick looks like he expects it; more than that, because if he can't talk to Patrick there aren't likely to be many people he can talk to. But there aren't any words, there's just the sudden violent pain of a wound he'd been doing a really good job of ignoring.
"Did you - how are you - who - ?"
"Everyone," Brendon says, because if Patrick manages to actually finish the question he won't be able to answer it. "I - everyone."
Patrick doesn't look like he expects anything anymore; he hugs Brendon, too tentative, tells him to get some sleep, and leaves him alone with the mattresses.
When Brendon opens his eyes the room isn't empty any more. Ryan and Spencer are lying on the mattress right next to his, which seems kind of silly when a quick check confirms the actual bed is people-free.
There has to be a reason for it, because Spencer might be tired enough to sleep wherever he fell but Ryan has enough of a protective streak to make sure where he fell was the best possible place to sleep.
"Hi," Ryan says, after Brendon's apparently blinked enough times to confirm he's actually awake.
(The way Ryan’s staring at him, relief just edged with worry and a touch of disbelief, is probably the reason.)
"I am amazed," Brendon says, while his mind scream at him how it's a bad idea, how they're not on good terms enough to joke with each other even if it was a situation where joking was okay, "that you and Jon weren't too high to notice something was happening."
"We ran out of weed, eventually," Ryan says, instead of shut the fuck up, you giant ass, smiles a little. "It's, y'know, good to see you."
"Yeah."
"Spencer says you and Kevin are - "
"Whatever the end of that sentence is, it's not gonna be right," Brendon says, and to his surprise Ryan just nods and drops it.
Day Thirty-Three
Nicole met Greta once, at a party she went to, one of those friend of a girlfriend of a friend of a friend invites she got so often once Chelsea started dating Jake. She only remembers their brief conversation because it was about the dress Greta was wearing, a pretty green dress she went out and bought in purple for herself the next day.
"Oh," Greta says, when she explains it. "I thought maybe I'd seen your show, or something. Anyway, if you need some alone time to freak out, I can go harass Spencer or Carden or someone into entertaining me."
"I think the last thing I want is alone time." People are good, people are distracting, people are alive and breathing and make it a lot harder to focus on who isn't alive and breathing.
"I thought so." Greta and Brendon apparently went to the same school of dealing with people, where "I want people around" means "I want people as close as possible"; she sits right down on Nicole's mattress and manages a rare trick - a smile that isn't laced with either pity or trying-too-hard. "Is the other last thing you want quiet time, or would you rather we don’t talk?"
Nicole opens her mouth to ask how Greta gets it so well, who she lost that left her feeling like Nicole does right now, but there's that rule she has, those questions you don't ask at a time like this.
"I'll take your silence as a maybe. Um, I don't know what Ashlee showed you? The bathroom's right around the corner, although you must have seen that, unless you have some kind of staying-clean magic that would be incredibly valuable on tour. There's laundry downstairs, if you want, or we can just, y'know, burn whatever you walked in."
The clothes Nicole walked in were her brother's, already dirty when she stole them to pack up before she went to find Chelsea; they're disgusting, with normal teenage boy grime, with the grime of trying to escape in the rain of ash they drove away in, with the grime-isn't-a-strong-enough-word of a month's walk through abandoned cities and a desert. "Absolutely not."
"Alright. But if they don't come clean, we're either finding you a smell-proof backpack or storing them somewhere other than this room."
There's no cruelty in it, and Greta's smiling when she says it. Nicole can actually feel herself relaxing (which might not be a good thing, not really, the defenses are keeping stuff out that would stop her from not dealing with what they're holding in) in the face of this too-sweet girl with the too-pretty dress.
"I need," she starts, scrambles in her brain for something small enough. "Air. Or something."
"If you're the kind of person who can handle having something familiar - I can't, God, it's like getting shot with something if I try to drink tea the way I used to take it - Jon's got a contraband fancy pants coffee machine in the kitchen. Starbucks, from the convenience of our lovely little hideaway."
Nicole wants to apologize, thank Greta for being exactly as nice as she should be but exactly too nice for Nicole to handle; her smile's weak and probably not as sincere as Greta deserves, but it's all she's got.
The Jon Greta meant, assuming he's the one working the machine and hasn't handed over the reins to someone else, looks less familiar than Greta but she still recognizes him from somewhere. Of course, so far it looks like everyone Pete's got here is a musician, so it might just be magazine-cover-she-passed-once recognition.
"You look," he says, and she's going to hit him if he says "tired" or "sad", "like a too-sweet person. Caramel, maybe? Hot or cold?"
"Um. Cold."
"Since I know Brendon and Spencer, and who Kevin is, I assume you're Nicole?"
She nods, even though he's not looking at her; he doesn't ask again, so maybe he's actually as psychic as he's pretending a lucky coffee-preference guess makes him.
"I even stole the right cups," he says, over the roar of the blender. "The total experience."
Apparently Jon takes his comfort coffee very seriously. Either he didn't lose enough to stop caring, or he lost so much he had to find something to cling to. Another question Nicole won't ask.
"Which band are you in?" is a question that she's pretty sure isn't off-limits. Jon looks at her for the first time since she walked in, smiles an entirely too-awkward smile, and pats an empty space on the counter near the espresso machine.
"Sit, I bet you could use the kind of boring my life story is. You can pass me cups, since I'm pretty sure I'm not getting Ryan The Cup Master back any time soon."
Nicole hops up; by the time she hops back down, the sun is setting, and her brother's clothes are folded neatly on the desk in the “corporate suite”, under a note in loopy handwriting, smell-proof gear won't be necessary.
Day Thirty-Six
There's absolutely nowhere in Pete's house to be alone. That makes sense, really, so many people in a house meant for a family and a couple guests, but it's not the accidental lack of space that comes from too many people in too small a space - people keep hunting Kevin down.
"I just wanted to check on you," Ashlee says, when she sits next to him on the love seat he'd found in a little room looking out over the pool. She sits far enough away she must be used to people wanting their alone time, even if she's not willing to give it. "Is there anything I can do?"
She probably can't go back in time and lock Joe and Demi up so they don't leave, or shrink the space between Chicago and New York so it doesn't seem like such a bad idea to go after them when he's still exhausted from crossing one half of the country.
"Not really."
"I figured. Um, if talking would help, you don't know me, but I can listen. I have to, with Pete, I'm not sure he's ever shut up."
Kevin was doing a lot better with the silence than the meaningless chatter she's using to fill it. "I'm just gonna. Get something to eat, I think."
Bill's walking down the hall towards him when Kevin shuts the door on Ashlee; of course he would be.
"I haven't heard anything," he says, totally unnecessarily - if Kevin thought he was getting updates he wasn't sharing...well, there's no real reason to uphold the Commandments anymore. "Can I - do you need - is there - ?"
What Kevin really needs from Bill, right this second, is to not be the outlet for whatever guilt he feels over being the one person who probably could have talked Demi into staying and keeping Joe with her.
"I'm just getting a sandwich," he says, and Bill takes the gentle hand from Kevin's shoulder and continues on his way.
The kitchen always has two people in it, at least, but those two people are almost always Nicole and Jon; Nicole knows how to deal with Kevin, or at least when to leave him alone, and Jon's either a quiet guy or Nicole's told him when to leave Kevin alone. Either way, the end result is he's generally better off in here than almost anywhere else in the house, no matter how empty anywhere else is.
"You look like a kicked puppy," Nicole says, while Jon reaches around her to grab one of the plastic Starbucks cups it's completely ridiculous for him to be using.
"Thanks."
"No, just, if you saw your face, you'd go out of your way to comfort you, too."
"I think what I ask for is more important than how my face looks."
"You should go find Patrick," Jon says, first non-coffee-related words Kevin's heard out of him since they got here.
"Sure, I want to be left alone, so I'll go find someone to hang out with."
Nicole's giving him that look she usually gives Nick right after he's been unnecessarily rude to someone who made The Mistake of making a mistake in his presence, but Jon doesn't seem fazed.
"No, go find him and tell him you need somewhere to escape."
The worst that could happen is one more person will know to leave Kevin alone, so he shrugs and follows Pete's voice (according to Brendon, the easiest way to find Patrick is to find Pete; Kevin might have questioned it more if that same rule didn’t work for Joe and Nick).
Patrick just smiles at him, leads him to the door Bill had been walking away from when Kevin ran into him in the hallway; on the other side there's a studio filled entirely too full (if there is such a thing) of instruments.
"I'll stand guard for a little bit. 'Cause, y'know, house full of musicians, they hear a guitar and the urge to jam shuts down whatever common sense they might have."
Kevin could kiss him, if that wouldn't waste valuable time he could be spending alone.
Day Forty
The one problem Brendon never expected to have, even when it was just him and Spencer driving and especially now that they're at Pete's with people everywhere, was too much time alone. But Spencer's always with Ryan (not that there's anything wrong with that, you walk a jillion miles to see someone of course you're not going to let him out of your sight), and Kevin's apparently Patrick's special project (and there's not anything wrong with that, either, Patrick's probably the best person in the whole world for the kind of comfort you need when most methods just leave you thinking about stuff you want to forget), and even though every single person in this house is a friend on some level, there's no one he wants to talk to. Even if he wanted to, everyone has their own problems; he can't just dump his on them.
But being alone is bad, because if there's no one he has to cheer up it's easy to forget that pretending to be cheerful is for his own sake, too. Because when he stops fighting so hard to look happy, there's energy left to remember shit, to hear Regan's frantic phone message about Shane drowning in his basement studio (he got there as fast as he could, he really did, but it wasn't fast enough), to see the exact results he'd been hoping not to see when he typed in the endless litany of family members’ names back when people were still trying to document the dead.
It's not until there's a steady weight pressed against his back he realizes he's shaking, until he has to fight to hear Kevin’s, "Shh, Brendon, shh," he realizes all the noise in the room is coming from him.
Brendon doesn't want to fall asleep, because when he sleeps he dreams, but he's so tired, and Kevin’s - is Kevin singing to him? God, that’s - making him even more tired, really. Still, Brendon doesn't close his eyes until he's turned enough to see Kevin’s face, so he can be sure he’s not lying down with a ghost.
Day Forty-Six
"So, Nicole," Jon says, just loud enough for Kevin to hear from the dining room.
"She's probably, like, sixteen, Jon."
"But you don't know."
"No," Spencer says.
"But you probably know other things, right? Like, I mean, you were with her for, what, a month?"
"You're asking me to use anything she might have told me while she was walking away from some unspecified tragedy to help you hook up."
"Hook up again. And no, I just - she's so sad, I mean, obviously she's sad, but maybe if I know why I can, like, help her talk about it?"
"And then hook up."
"I wouldn't be opposed," Jon says, just as Brendon snaps his fingers in front of Kevin's face.
"Patrick really wants to know if you have any threes."
"I need some air," Kevin says, and tosses his cards in Patrick's general direction.
Bill's in the backyard, because Bill always manages to be in the way when Kevin wants to get away from something. But he's pushing a little girl on a swing, yelling to Bronx to get away from the edge of the empty pool, and it's hard to be annoyed at him right that second.
Kevin makes his way over and sits down on the unoccupied swing (making Bronx, of course, sprint away from the pool because aw, come on, he was gonna swing, he totally called that swing).
"Welcome to day care," Bill says, probably the first thing he's said to Kevin that isn't pitying or apologetic. "There are what, fifteen people in this house? Give or take. And the second one of the kids wants to come outside and play, they all vanish."
The danger, as far as any of them can tell, has mostly passed; the city's fairly empty, the fires are out, as far as they know there hasn't been a new natural disaster in a month or so. Still, Kevin wouldn't want to be responsible for anyone else's kids - it's not like anyone had thought there was any danger before this all started.
"I assume you've met the mini-Pete trying to pull you off the swing. Given that he is mini-Pete, you may want to let him before you end up with a dislocated arm. And this one's mine," Bill says, punctuates it with an enthusiastic push that has her shrieking and giggling.
"I didn't know you had kids." Kevin gets up, finally, so suddenly Bronx lets go of his hand and falls over backwards.
"Kid. And everything you know about me comes from Demi, right? Generally, when I have a desperate crush, I don’t talk much about the object's happy family life."
"Yeah."
Bronx is staring at Kevin expectantly; Kevin should make him ask nicely, say please, but he just walks around behind and starts pushing Bronx.
"I'm sor - "
"Stop. You didn't. It's not your fault, and I can't - it can't be my job to forgive you."
"Joe kept trying to text you - both of you - said if he knew one was alive he could go after the other one."
"There wasn't any service in LA. I didn't even bother to bring my phone."
"I just. It wasn't, like - he didn't go after Nick because he didn't - "
"If I weren't used to Joe and Nick's relationship by now, I think I'd have died of jealousy long ago."
The kids are both hollering now, demanding harder pushes so they can go over the top. They're so happy, it almost hurts to listen to them. Of course, everything hurts, lately, so given the choice Kevin'll take the laughing kids every time.
Day Fifty
After watching Greta break down and cry over a cup of coffee earlier, Brendon has a new appreciation for the fact that, incident with the guest room aside, he's so far found familiar things comforting, if a little jarring. If he couldn't sit and watch Spencer make a list and know that, whatever else is wrong, if Spencer's first urge is to make a list something must be okay, he'd be fucked.
"Pop Tarts," Ryan says, jabbing his finger at the paper like Spencer wouldn't be able to figure out the next item goes on the next line.
"What the fuck is it with you two," Spencer says, but writes it down, anyway.
"We're concerned about the household's fruit intake, don't be a bitch."
"If I wasn't a bitch when you made stupid suggestions, the whole house would starve, so shut the fuck up."
"Ryan," Brendon says, turns solemn eyes on him. "I don't think you two are having enough sex."
"Speaking of enough sex," Ryan says, but Spencer slaps a hand over his mouth.
"If you're bringing up what I think you're bringing up, that's the worst possible way to do it."
"We've told you a hundred times, that's not an appropriate way to talk about kittens, or groceries, or anyone’s mother."
"Bren," Spencer says, looks at Brendon with so much sincere concern in his eyes it's easy to forget he's got his hand over Ryan's mouth. "You don't have to fake it with us."
Brednon has to fake it with everyone, really, so he doesn’t slip, forget how. “Whatever, what's Ryan bringing up so inappropriately?"
"You and Kevin."
"Wow. Okay, yes, that was exactly the worst possible way to bring it up."
Ryan finally manages to find the right combination of biting and licking - or Spencer's arm just gets tired - and Spencer drops his hand. "I think you need to talk about it, anyway."
"Talk about what?"
"We might let you get away with faking happy for a little while longer, but no way are we letting you get away with playing dumb."
"No, really, there isn't anything."
"You're sleeping together," Ryan says, with no inflection and too much all at once.
"We're falling asleep in the same bed, yes."
"We just. Be careful."
"I know a lot more about what's going on with him than you do, so I'm pretty sure I know better than you how I can act around him."
"Not with him, Jesus, his poor-little-lamb face has everyone in the fucking house looking after him. Be careful with yourself, asshole."
Jon pokes his head in right then, which is awesome because Brendon has no idea what to say next.
"If you're planning a scrounging trip, the caffeine freaks have already finished all the coffee."
Spencer narrates while he's writing, "Jon needs more coffee because he's an idiot who drank it all."
When Brendon laughs, it's less because Jon trying to wrestle something out of Spencer's hands is never not funny, and a lot more because he's relieved the moment's gone.
Day Fifty-Five
Jon pokes his head into the kitchen where Nicole's stocking the cupboards with paper dishes sometime late morning, sleepy-eyed and rumpled like he just woke up. "Feel like an adventure?"
Nicole's had about all the adventure she needs for one lifetime, but since Jon probably means something smaller than walking halfway across the country she doesn't hesitate long before saying, "Sure."
"Awesome. Twenty minutes?"
He ducks out before she can answer him, but whatever, twenty minutes is plenty of time for her to finish up and find her shoes, so she would've said yes anyway. She checks in on Kevin after she fits the last plate in the overstuffed cupboard; he's sleeping, sprawled out on the bed with his head on Brendon's thigh. His face is screwed up, every line of his body tense, but Brendon shakes his head when she reaches out to nudge him awake.
"Crappy sleep is better than no sleep," he says, and he's spending more time with Kevin than she is, lately, so he'd probably know; she just nods and wanders off to find Jon.
Whatever the mystery adventure is involves walking through the bad part of Chicago, where you can only tell there were ever buildings by the charred foundations. It's a long walk, long enough Jon packed them a lunch, and the sun's setting when Jon points to a completely unremarkable house in the middle of what was probably once a really nice suburban neighborhood.
"That's it," he says, but doesn't bother to explain what "it" is, why this house.
Nicole stops, for a second, because it should bother her that she went from wielding baseball bats at strangers to following Jon to a random house, miles away from where she's come to feel safe without even asking for a reason. But Jon's standing in the doorway, waving her over, so she lets that train of thought die.
The house smells like cookies, like someone's baking fucking chocolate chip cookies, which is ridiculous, but Jon grabs her wrist loosely and pulls her into the kitchen, where...
...where someone's baking fucking chocolate chip cookies.
"Bill," Jon says, and the guy with the oven mitts and Jon's soft brown hair turns around. "Cookies, seriously?"
"The morale boost justifies it. I'm pretty sure I'm not using up so much food we'll die of malnutrition."
Nicole tries really hard not to flinch, but something must show 'cause Jon frowns. "Bill."
"Right. Cope with humor in my head, not out loud. Mom's upstairs, she probably has something in mind for you to make yourself useful."
Mom. Oh God, this is Jon's house, this is Jon's family, this is. Jon still has a family, which is just. The lucky bastard.
"Of course," he says, starts to drop her wrist while he turns towards the door. Bill looks at Nicole, quirks an eyebrow.
"Jon," he says, sounds like he's gonna laugh. "Manners, dude."
"Oh! Shit. This is Nicole, sorry. This is my brother, Bill."
Brother. Jesus, he just has everyone, he has cookies, and Nicole suddenly, sharply wants her parents, wants - Jesus. It's so much easier when everyone's in the same boat, when she can ignore it, when -
Jon's hand has gone tight around her wrist; he and Bill have similar concerned looks on their similar faces. "Maybe she should sit down," Bill says, and Nicole should be upset he's talking like she's not in the room, but he's right, she's feeling really wobbly.
She starts to reach out when he lets go of her wrist, try to pull him back, but his arm's around her waist before she gets very far. "Come on," he says, leads her out of the room, upstairs, down a short hall into a bedroom. "I. Shit, I'm sorry, I thought."
He doesn't seem to know how to finish; Nicole doesn't need him to. "It's fine, I'm just."
There are pictures all over the walls, Jon at various ages with various people. The wallpaper has cowboys on it, like the sheets.
"I, uh, wasn't gonna show you this until you were too tired to laugh. It was cooler when I was a teenager, but Mom changed it back as soon as I moved out."
"I'm not gonna laugh," she says, sinks down on the bed.
"Are you okay? Stupid question, obviously you aren't. I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault I'm being stupid."
Jon's frown deepens, and he slides into the bed next to her, wraps his arms around her waist. "You are not."
Nicole wants to burrow back into him, let him reassure her as much as he wants to, but more than that she wants to go home and find everything normal and intact, and nothing's going to help with that. "I'm gonna sleep, I think. Um. You should go see what your mom needs."
When Nicole wakes up, sunlight's pouring in through the window near the bed, making her legs under the cowboy blanket uncomfortably warm. Jon's nowhere in sight, but she can smell his shampoo on the pillow; he must have come to bed at some point.
The clothes in the dresser look old, worn and outdated, but they fit her okay, and they're cleaner than what she came in, so she settles. The house is quiet, except for two voices coming from the kitchen, so Nicole heads that way, stops in the doorway when she realizes what Jon and Bill are talking about.
"No, it was supposed to be, like, spend a couple days around people who're acting mostly normal, so you don't have to think about it every second."
"I know what you were going for, just saying it didn't work."
"Obviously," Jon says, scrubs a hand through his hair. He looks so lost Nicole kind of wishes she were better at pretending, so he wouldn't feel so bad.
"So you're taking her home today, I guess."
"Yeah, I'm not gonna, like, keep rubbing her face in it. I'll come back in a couple days.
"I wish you'd just stay here for good," Bill says, pokes at the skillet. "We'd worry less."
Nicole steps into the kitchen then, enough that Jon notices and smiles at her. "Sleep okay?"
"We don't have to leave yet."
"Don't make yourself uncomfortable for me."
"We walked so much yesterday I’d need to stay and take a break even if I couldn’t handle this. And I'm okay, really."
"You're not okay," he says, wraps an arm around her and tugs her to rest against his side. "But fine. Just, y'know, tell me if you need to get away."
Bill's looking back and forth between them; Nicole's not sure what he thinks he sees, but she doesn't exactly know what it is so it's not like she could correct him if she knew. "Eggs?" is all he says, gets plates out and serves them so Nicole doesn't have to detach from Jon's side until they sit down.
They end up staying for three days, doing odd jobs around the house, helping Bill cook, checking pipes and fuse boxes and whatever else could possibly break; Jon spends a fair amount of time taking care of his other brother's kids while his wife and Bill show Nicole a few ways to cook nonperishables that’ll be nice when they’re back at Pete’s, a few more dishes to add to the limited rotation. But it's not like Pete's house, there isn't something to do every second, and whether the idea of bringing her here was stupid or not, she does start to relax. Jon fucks her in his childhood bed, slow and deep, kissing her quiet so they don't wake up the full house, and it's just. Nicole likes it here. So maybe Jon was onto something.
"You wouldn't have come to Chicago if you had anyone left in LA," Jon says out of the blue, an hour into the walk back to Pete's. "I didn't even think, Jesus."
Nicole thinks about telling him it's okay again, or not saying anything, but her mouth opens and a reassurance isn't what comes out.
"The, uh, the second earthquake, the worse one, my house kind of. The roof collapsed. And it was. After the first one I brought a sleeping bag down to the basement, I just figured I was being paranoid, but it. I guess I should've insisted."
"You don't have to - "
"I haven't told anyone, yet. I don't know what Kevin thinks happened. And I just. I had to - I have these friends, I met her on JONAS and she and her boyfriend, they're just. I dunno. The first people I went to check on, y'know? Like if they were okay it didn't count as losing everybody. And they were okay, they were fine, but we tried to - she wanted to check on her family, so we tried. She drove, and she just. Driving was a bad idea."
Jon stopped walking at some point, but Nicole doesn't until the words stop coming, and he's a little ways behind her now. Which is fine, she doesn't need to see him pitying her. She takes a few breaths, calms down a little, and turns back when it's clear Jon's not trying to catch up to her.
"I'm so sorry," he says, for the hundredth time since he asked her if she wanted to go on an adventure with him; it's different, this time, his voice heavy with sadness, and she lets him hug her.
"I really like your family," she mumbles into his chest, and stops trying to make herself not cry.
Part Three
Day Thirty-Two
Knowing seems to have sucked all the energy out of Spencer, like all that was keeping him going was the question. Kevin gets that, though - if he knew, for certain, Joe and Nick were alright, they were safe, he's pretty sure he'd lie down and sleep for a week or two. Except Nicole wouldn't let him, probably, she’d push him the way she's pushing Spencer right now.
"I would've let him sleep."
"I wouldn't. He'd hate himself, if he woke up and a whole day was gone."
Brendon links his arm through Kevin's, as free with touch as he's been since they met, but it's different, a little, he's making less contact with the same gesture. Whatever he did to cause that (it's a lie, it's so easy to lie to himself, it's not "whatever", he knows what happened, knows he cried for hours into Brendon’s shoulder, knows he was scared enough of waking up with Brendon he was in the other bed as soon as Brendon was asleep), he doesn't like it.
"So, Demi probably would've gone right for Bill, yeah?"
Kevin doesn't want to talk about this, God, he just doesn't. "He's the only person here she really knows, so I guess."
"Pete'll know what's up with Bill," Brendon says, so absolutely certain there's no room for anyone else to doubt. "And we'll be there soon."
The overwhelming urge to hug Spencer hits Kevin in the gut, where all his feelings are hitting him lately; if it weren't for Tom telling them Ryan was at Pete's, he's not sure he ever would've thought to go there. Still, Brendon's just guessing, guessing that Demi would have brought Joe to Bill, guessing she could have found Bill safely, guessing they even survived long enough to look for him, and if Kevin starts hoping now it's gonna hurt ten times worse when he crashes again.
Brendon's arm tightens in his again, less tentative, and Kevin only barely recognizes the song he starts singing but he's pretty sure it's Fall Out Boy.
It's bright, today, the kind of bright Kevin's learned to hate (cloudy's more comfortable for walking, harder to see the extent of the damage to whichever depressing place they’re walking through), and the neighborhood they're walking through isn't bad - it's nice, obviously rich, big houses with big lawns, but what's really noticeable is the houses aren't burned - the only visible damage is the kind caused by rioters.
"Holy shit," he hears, someone hollering from a few houses down; Brendon's arm tightens in his a little, but Brendon's smiling. "Shit, is that - get Bill, shit, holy shit," in the same voice, and then there's someone tearing down the sidewalk at them, someone tackling Brendon before he can let go of Kevin’s arm in a hug that has all three of them falling to the sidewalk. "You motherfucker, shit, you're alive, you fuckers."
When Kevin catches his breath enough to see straight, Pete Wentz is helping Brendon up.
Spencer's only been to Pete's house out here a couple times, but it's enough to recognize it the minute they turn the corner onto his street; he manages to last until he hears Pete's "holy shit" before he takes off for it faster than he would have thought his exhausted legs could carry him.
He can hear Pete hollering, still, can't (won't bother to) make out any of the words, can see Pete run past him but doesn't stop until he runs right into someone halfway from the door to the driveway.
"Upstairs," Patrick says, and later Spencer wants to grab onto him, make sure he's actually alive, actually real, ask how he's doing and tell him he's glad he's okay, but if Patrick's gonna make it clear he understands how low he is on the priority list, Spencer isn't about to stop him. "Second door on the left."
He shouldn't be able to do stairs, shouldn't even be able to walk any more, tired as he is, but whatever strength is left in Spencer is in his legs and he's inside and halfway up before he really realizes it. People are shouting at him, his name, holy shit, you're alive, but Spencer doesn't know who’s shouting and doesn't really care, not right now.
The second door on the left is closed but knocking is for people who haven't walked a billion fucking miles; when the door swings open Spencer sees mattresses all over the floor, clothes everywhere, and on the one intact bed in the room, a skinny boy with too-long hair and a three-piece suit (of course, of fucking course) scribbling frantically in a notebook.
"Ryan," he tries to say, except his throat is dry and suddenly wedged shut with a lump the size of fucking Chicago, and what comes out is an awkward noise that doesn't sound like anything. But it does its job, gets Ryan's attention, and when Spencer finally looks into those absurd baby-deer eyes, brown and wide with shock and alive, all the fight goes out of him.
Ryan's already off the bed and halfway across the room when Spencer's legs crumple underneath him; lucky for him there are so many mattresses.
Kevin heard Pete yelling for Bill, he did, but he's tired, shaken from getting knocked onto the ground like that, and he doesn't put the pieces together until Patrick and Ashlee have led Brendon and Nicole into the house and he's left alone with Pete and the guy he would be really happy blaming for having to walk all the way to Chicago.
And, on that note, why the fuck is Bill standing here, why is he the one Pete called for, why not Joe or Demi, what if they're not here, what if they're not here because they're not okay, didn't make it -
"Whoa, Kevin, breathe."
"Where are they?"
"They were here," Pete says, "they were totally - "
"Pete."
Bill and Pete have some kind of awkward stare-down - even not knowing either of them well, Kevin's got his money on Bill, on those dark serious eyes it makes total sense for Demi to be all melty over. And he's right; Pete opens his mouth one more time, shuts it, grumbles and turns to walk back to the house.
"When he says were - "
"He means they're fine, Kevin."
"And they're not here because, what, too crowded?"
Bill frowns a little, but to his credit, however much he knows he's not saying what Kevin wants to hear, he doesn't break eye contact. "They went to New York."
The ground drops out from under Kevin's feet, but somehow he doesn't go with it. "So you don't know they're fine," he hears, in a voice that sounds like his except it's too much calmer than he feels.
"Cell service is spotty, obviously, and so far from what we've heard there aren't many places on the East Coast with any power. Demi was checking in for a while, but it's been...I don't know, the days kind of run together. A week, I'd guess, at least.
"You'd guess."
"You can check the date of the last message on my phone, if an exact number would help."
"No, it - I just - you let them go?"
"I don't know, Kevin, you know Joe better than I do, but Demi seemed pretty sure - if we'd said no, tried to stop them, do you think he would have accepted that? Or would he have left in the middle of the night without the right amount of supplies or any idea how to get where he was going?"
Kevin knows the answer; Kevin's not going to say it out loud. Bill frowns at him, wrinkling his forehead so much he almost looks his age.
"Come on," he says. "I can show you where to clean up and sleep, and I can show you the texts Demi sent before she lost service completely. We can worry together."
"You look tired," Ashlee says, and a split second later manages to scrunch her entire face up. "Wow, of course you're tired, sorry."
"It's fine," Nicole says, because in the great scheme of things what the fuck does one misspeak matter anyway.
Ashlee smiles at her a little, this ghost of a smile, tentative, like she's not sure whether or not she's allowed to be smiling around Nicole yet. Nicole wants to reassure her, tell her no, other people's happiness isn't something she has a problem with, but she's more concerned with cleaning up (if they even have running water - they must, Ashlee's definitely clean), falling asleep, not waking up until she's fully rested and this is a distant nightmare. And Ashlee stops walking when she talks, so reassuring her can wait.
When she does stop, Nicole almost whines, but bites it back partly because that's kind of unfair, and partly because Ashlee's opening a door, revealing an office with a couple mattresses on the floor. "You get the corporate suite," she says, and yeah, that's about right, Ashlee strikes her as the kind of person who tries to joke but doesn't quite manage it at times like this. "With Greta, who's...somewhere, I don't know, out killing rodents for dinner, or something."
Nicole's just going to assume that was another joke until she's forced to admit otherwise.
"I figure, okay, so it's smaller than the other rooms, and you can't rotate who gets an actual bed like the guys in the guest rooms, but Greta's the type to appreciate a little maybe-don't-put-one-girl-in-with-six-guys consideration, and I thought maybe you would, too? And it's closest to the bathroom."
"Thank you," Nicole says, the most inadequate thanks of her entire life.
"It's nothing," Ashlee tells her, which does nothing to make it feel adequate. "Bathroom's right here. The rule, generally, is keep it quick because we don't want to tempt fate with the water supply, but I think you can be an exception, just this once."
"Thank you," still isn't enough, but it's all that comes to mind.
The room Patrick eventually leads Brendon to, after about a hundred stops where they both just kind of stare at each other to confirm yep-he's-alive, another hundred to perform similar alive checks (and oh my god, how did you - where did you - Brendon, fucks) with the entirety of the Chicago music scene, who of course would be holed up at Pete's, is full of mattresses but empty of people.
(The shower's running in Pete's bathroom, the one that shares a wall with this room, and Brendon can hear voices, almost too quiet to make out that it's Spencer and Ryan.)
It's familiar; it’s the room Brendon usually stays in when he visits - a little smaller than the other guest room, but with a better view and less Eastern exposure. And it aches, fuck, for the first time since Brendon climbed off his roof and started packing he has nothing to do except stand in a familiar space and let the reality - that nothing's the same even if Pete's fucking guest room is painted the same colors - smack him over and over and -
"Ryan, Jon, and Andy are in here already," Patrick says, talking-to-a-scared-animal gentle. "And I guess Kevin will be, too?"
"Yeah."
Brendon should say something else, because Patrick looks like he expects it; more than that, because if he can't talk to Patrick there aren't likely to be many people he can talk to. But there aren't any words, there's just the sudden violent pain of a wound he'd been doing a really good job of ignoring.
"Did you - how are you - who - ?"
"Everyone," Brendon says, because if Patrick manages to actually finish the question he won't be able to answer it. "I - everyone."
Patrick doesn't look like he expects anything anymore; he hugs Brendon, too tentative, tells him to get some sleep, and leaves him alone with the mattresses.
When Brendon opens his eyes the room isn't empty any more. Ryan and Spencer are lying on the mattress right next to his, which seems kind of silly when a quick check confirms the actual bed is people-free.
There has to be a reason for it, because Spencer might be tired enough to sleep wherever he fell but Ryan has enough of a protective streak to make sure where he fell was the best possible place to sleep.
"Hi," Ryan says, after Brendon's apparently blinked enough times to confirm he's actually awake.
(The way Ryan’s staring at him, relief just edged with worry and a touch of disbelief, is probably the reason.)
"I am amazed," Brendon says, while his mind scream at him how it's a bad idea, how they're not on good terms enough to joke with each other even if it was a situation where joking was okay, "that you and Jon weren't too high to notice something was happening."
"We ran out of weed, eventually," Ryan says, instead of shut the fuck up, you giant ass, smiles a little. "It's, y'know, good to see you."
"Yeah."
"Spencer says you and Kevin are - "
"Whatever the end of that sentence is, it's not gonna be right," Brendon says, and to his surprise Ryan just nods and drops it.
Day Thirty-Three
Nicole met Greta once, at a party she went to, one of those friend of a girlfriend of a friend of a friend invites she got so often once Chelsea started dating Jake. She only remembers their brief conversation because it was about the dress Greta was wearing, a pretty green dress she went out and bought in purple for herself the next day.
"Oh," Greta says, when she explains it. "I thought maybe I'd seen your show, or something. Anyway, if you need some alone time to freak out, I can go harass Spencer or Carden or someone into entertaining me."
"I think the last thing I want is alone time." People are good, people are distracting, people are alive and breathing and make it a lot harder to focus on who isn't alive and breathing.
"I thought so." Greta and Brendon apparently went to the same school of dealing with people, where "I want people around" means "I want people as close as possible"; she sits right down on Nicole's mattress and manages a rare trick - a smile that isn't laced with either pity or trying-too-hard. "Is the other last thing you want quiet time, or would you rather we don’t talk?"
Nicole opens her mouth to ask how Greta gets it so well, who she lost that left her feeling like Nicole does right now, but there's that rule she has, those questions you don't ask at a time like this.
"I'll take your silence as a maybe. Um, I don't know what Ashlee showed you? The bathroom's right around the corner, although you must have seen that, unless you have some kind of staying-clean magic that would be incredibly valuable on tour. There's laundry downstairs, if you want, or we can just, y'know, burn whatever you walked in."
The clothes Nicole walked in were her brother's, already dirty when she stole them to pack up before she went to find Chelsea; they're disgusting, with normal teenage boy grime, with the grime of trying to escape in the rain of ash they drove away in, with the grime-isn't-a-strong-enough-word of a month's walk through abandoned cities and a desert. "Absolutely not."
"Alright. But if they don't come clean, we're either finding you a smell-proof backpack or storing them somewhere other than this room."
There's no cruelty in it, and Greta's smiling when she says it. Nicole can actually feel herself relaxing (which might not be a good thing, not really, the defenses are keeping stuff out that would stop her from not dealing with what they're holding in) in the face of this too-sweet girl with the too-pretty dress.
"I need," she starts, scrambles in her brain for something small enough. "Air. Or something."
"If you're the kind of person who can handle having something familiar - I can't, God, it's like getting shot with something if I try to drink tea the way I used to take it - Jon's got a contraband fancy pants coffee machine in the kitchen. Starbucks, from the convenience of our lovely little hideaway."
Nicole wants to apologize, thank Greta for being exactly as nice as she should be but exactly too nice for Nicole to handle; her smile's weak and probably not as sincere as Greta deserves, but it's all she's got.
The Jon Greta meant, assuming he's the one working the machine and hasn't handed over the reins to someone else, looks less familiar than Greta but she still recognizes him from somewhere. Of course, so far it looks like everyone Pete's got here is a musician, so it might just be magazine-cover-she-passed-once recognition.
"You look," he says, and she's going to hit him if he says "tired" or "sad", "like a too-sweet person. Caramel, maybe? Hot or cold?"
"Um. Cold."
"Since I know Brendon and Spencer, and who Kevin is, I assume you're Nicole?"
She nods, even though he's not looking at her; he doesn't ask again, so maybe he's actually as psychic as he's pretending a lucky coffee-preference guess makes him.
"I even stole the right cups," he says, over the roar of the blender. "The total experience."
Apparently Jon takes his comfort coffee very seriously. Either he didn't lose enough to stop caring, or he lost so much he had to find something to cling to. Another question Nicole won't ask.
"Which band are you in?" is a question that she's pretty sure isn't off-limits. Jon looks at her for the first time since she walked in, smiles an entirely too-awkward smile, and pats an empty space on the counter near the espresso machine.
"Sit, I bet you could use the kind of boring my life story is. You can pass me cups, since I'm pretty sure I'm not getting Ryan The Cup Master back any time soon."
Nicole hops up; by the time she hops back down, the sun is setting, and her brother's clothes are folded neatly on the desk in the “corporate suite”, under a note in loopy handwriting, smell-proof gear won't be necessary.
Day Thirty-Six
There's absolutely nowhere in Pete's house to be alone. That makes sense, really, so many people in a house meant for a family and a couple guests, but it's not the accidental lack of space that comes from too many people in too small a space - people keep hunting Kevin down.
"I just wanted to check on you," Ashlee says, when she sits next to him on the love seat he'd found in a little room looking out over the pool. She sits far enough away she must be used to people wanting their alone time, even if she's not willing to give it. "Is there anything I can do?"
She probably can't go back in time and lock Joe and Demi up so they don't leave, or shrink the space between Chicago and New York so it doesn't seem like such a bad idea to go after them when he's still exhausted from crossing one half of the country.
"Not really."
"I figured. Um, if talking would help, you don't know me, but I can listen. I have to, with Pete, I'm not sure he's ever shut up."
Kevin was doing a lot better with the silence than the meaningless chatter she's using to fill it. "I'm just gonna. Get something to eat, I think."
Bill's walking down the hall towards him when Kevin shuts the door on Ashlee; of course he would be.
"I haven't heard anything," he says, totally unnecessarily - if Kevin thought he was getting updates he wasn't sharing...well, there's no real reason to uphold the Commandments anymore. "Can I - do you need - is there - ?"
What Kevin really needs from Bill, right this second, is to not be the outlet for whatever guilt he feels over being the one person who probably could have talked Demi into staying and keeping Joe with her.
"I'm just getting a sandwich," he says, and Bill takes the gentle hand from Kevin's shoulder and continues on his way.
The kitchen always has two people in it, at least, but those two people are almost always Nicole and Jon; Nicole knows how to deal with Kevin, or at least when to leave him alone, and Jon's either a quiet guy or Nicole's told him when to leave Kevin alone. Either way, the end result is he's generally better off in here than almost anywhere else in the house, no matter how empty anywhere else is.
"You look like a kicked puppy," Nicole says, while Jon reaches around her to grab one of the plastic Starbucks cups it's completely ridiculous for him to be using.
"Thanks."
"No, just, if you saw your face, you'd go out of your way to comfort you, too."
"I think what I ask for is more important than how my face looks."
"You should go find Patrick," Jon says, first non-coffee-related words Kevin's heard out of him since they got here.
"Sure, I want to be left alone, so I'll go find someone to hang out with."
Nicole's giving him that look she usually gives Nick right after he's been unnecessarily rude to someone who made The Mistake of making a mistake in his presence, but Jon doesn't seem fazed.
"No, go find him and tell him you need somewhere to escape."
The worst that could happen is one more person will know to leave Kevin alone, so he shrugs and follows Pete's voice (according to Brendon, the easiest way to find Patrick is to find Pete; Kevin might have questioned it more if that same rule didn’t work for Joe and Nick).
Patrick just smiles at him, leads him to the door Bill had been walking away from when Kevin ran into him in the hallway; on the other side there's a studio filled entirely too full (if there is such a thing) of instruments.
"I'll stand guard for a little bit. 'Cause, y'know, house full of musicians, they hear a guitar and the urge to jam shuts down whatever common sense they might have."
Kevin could kiss him, if that wouldn't waste valuable time he could be spending alone.
Day Forty
The one problem Brendon never expected to have, even when it was just him and Spencer driving and especially now that they're at Pete's with people everywhere, was too much time alone. But Spencer's always with Ryan (not that there's anything wrong with that, you walk a jillion miles to see someone of course you're not going to let him out of your sight), and Kevin's apparently Patrick's special project (and there's not anything wrong with that, either, Patrick's probably the best person in the whole world for the kind of comfort you need when most methods just leave you thinking about stuff you want to forget), and even though every single person in this house is a friend on some level, there's no one he wants to talk to. Even if he wanted to, everyone has their own problems; he can't just dump his on them.
But being alone is bad, because if there's no one he has to cheer up it's easy to forget that pretending to be cheerful is for his own sake, too. Because when he stops fighting so hard to look happy, there's energy left to remember shit, to hear Regan's frantic phone message about Shane drowning in his basement studio (he got there as fast as he could, he really did, but it wasn't fast enough), to see the exact results he'd been hoping not to see when he typed in the endless litany of family members’ names back when people were still trying to document the dead.
It's not until there's a steady weight pressed against his back he realizes he's shaking, until he has to fight to hear Kevin’s, "Shh, Brendon, shh," he realizes all the noise in the room is coming from him.
Brendon doesn't want to fall asleep, because when he sleeps he dreams, but he's so tired, and Kevin’s - is Kevin singing to him? God, that’s - making him even more tired, really. Still, Brendon doesn't close his eyes until he's turned enough to see Kevin’s face, so he can be sure he’s not lying down with a ghost.
Day Forty-Six
"So, Nicole," Jon says, just loud enough for Kevin to hear from the dining room.
"She's probably, like, sixteen, Jon."
"But you don't know."
"No," Spencer says.
"But you probably know other things, right? Like, I mean, you were with her for, what, a month?"
"You're asking me to use anything she might have told me while she was walking away from some unspecified tragedy to help you hook up."
"Hook up again. And no, I just - she's so sad, I mean, obviously she's sad, but maybe if I know why I can, like, help her talk about it?"
"And then hook up."
"I wouldn't be opposed," Jon says, just as Brendon snaps his fingers in front of Kevin's face.
"Patrick really wants to know if you have any threes."
"I need some air," Kevin says, and tosses his cards in Patrick's general direction.
Bill's in the backyard, because Bill always manages to be in the way when Kevin wants to get away from something. But he's pushing a little girl on a swing, yelling to Bronx to get away from the edge of the empty pool, and it's hard to be annoyed at him right that second.
Kevin makes his way over and sits down on the unoccupied swing (making Bronx, of course, sprint away from the pool because aw, come on, he was gonna swing, he totally called that swing).
"Welcome to day care," Bill says, probably the first thing he's said to Kevin that isn't pitying or apologetic. "There are what, fifteen people in this house? Give or take. And the second one of the kids wants to come outside and play, they all vanish."
The danger, as far as any of them can tell, has mostly passed; the city's fairly empty, the fires are out, as far as they know there hasn't been a new natural disaster in a month or so. Still, Kevin wouldn't want to be responsible for anyone else's kids - it's not like anyone had thought there was any danger before this all started.
"I assume you've met the mini-Pete trying to pull you off the swing. Given that he is mini-Pete, you may want to let him before you end up with a dislocated arm. And this one's mine," Bill says, punctuates it with an enthusiastic push that has her shrieking and giggling.
"I didn't know you had kids." Kevin gets up, finally, so suddenly Bronx lets go of his hand and falls over backwards.
"Kid. And everything you know about me comes from Demi, right? Generally, when I have a desperate crush, I don’t talk much about the object's happy family life."
"Yeah."
Bronx is staring at Kevin expectantly; Kevin should make him ask nicely, say please, but he just walks around behind and starts pushing Bronx.
"I'm sor - "
"Stop. You didn't. It's not your fault, and I can't - it can't be my job to forgive you."
"Joe kept trying to text you - both of you - said if he knew one was alive he could go after the other one."
"There wasn't any service in LA. I didn't even bother to bring my phone."
"I just. It wasn't, like - he didn't go after Nick because he didn't - "
"If I weren't used to Joe and Nick's relationship by now, I think I'd have died of jealousy long ago."
The kids are both hollering now, demanding harder pushes so they can go over the top. They're so happy, it almost hurts to listen to them. Of course, everything hurts, lately, so given the choice Kevin'll take the laughing kids every time.
Day Fifty
After watching Greta break down and cry over a cup of coffee earlier, Brendon has a new appreciation for the fact that, incident with the guest room aside, he's so far found familiar things comforting, if a little jarring. If he couldn't sit and watch Spencer make a list and know that, whatever else is wrong, if Spencer's first urge is to make a list something must be okay, he'd be fucked.
"Pop Tarts," Ryan says, jabbing his finger at the paper like Spencer wouldn't be able to figure out the next item goes on the next line.
"What the fuck is it with you two," Spencer says, but writes it down, anyway.
"We're concerned about the household's fruit intake, don't be a bitch."
"If I wasn't a bitch when you made stupid suggestions, the whole house would starve, so shut the fuck up."
"Ryan," Brendon says, turns solemn eyes on him. "I don't think you two are having enough sex."
"Speaking of enough sex," Ryan says, but Spencer slaps a hand over his mouth.
"If you're bringing up what I think you're bringing up, that's the worst possible way to do it."
"We've told you a hundred times, that's not an appropriate way to talk about kittens, or groceries, or anyone’s mother."
"Bren," Spencer says, looks at Brendon with so much sincere concern in his eyes it's easy to forget he's got his hand over Ryan's mouth. "You don't have to fake it with us."
Brednon has to fake it with everyone, really, so he doesn’t slip, forget how. “Whatever, what's Ryan bringing up so inappropriately?"
"You and Kevin."
"Wow. Okay, yes, that was exactly the worst possible way to bring it up."
Ryan finally manages to find the right combination of biting and licking - or Spencer's arm just gets tired - and Spencer drops his hand. "I think you need to talk about it, anyway."
"Talk about what?"
"We might let you get away with faking happy for a little while longer, but no way are we letting you get away with playing dumb."
"No, really, there isn't anything."
"You're sleeping together," Ryan says, with no inflection and too much all at once.
"We're falling asleep in the same bed, yes."
"We just. Be careful."
"I know a lot more about what's going on with him than you do, so I'm pretty sure I know better than you how I can act around him."
"Not with him, Jesus, his poor-little-lamb face has everyone in the fucking house looking after him. Be careful with yourself, asshole."
Jon pokes his head in right then, which is awesome because Brendon has no idea what to say next.
"If you're planning a scrounging trip, the caffeine freaks have already finished all the coffee."
Spencer narrates while he's writing, "Jon needs more coffee because he's an idiot who drank it all."
When Brendon laughs, it's less because Jon trying to wrestle something out of Spencer's hands is never not funny, and a lot more because he's relieved the moment's gone.
Day Fifty-Five
Jon pokes his head into the kitchen where Nicole's stocking the cupboards with paper dishes sometime late morning, sleepy-eyed and rumpled like he just woke up. "Feel like an adventure?"
Nicole's had about all the adventure she needs for one lifetime, but since Jon probably means something smaller than walking halfway across the country she doesn't hesitate long before saying, "Sure."
"Awesome. Twenty minutes?"
He ducks out before she can answer him, but whatever, twenty minutes is plenty of time for her to finish up and find her shoes, so she would've said yes anyway. She checks in on Kevin after she fits the last plate in the overstuffed cupboard; he's sleeping, sprawled out on the bed with his head on Brendon's thigh. His face is screwed up, every line of his body tense, but Brendon shakes his head when she reaches out to nudge him awake.
"Crappy sleep is better than no sleep," he says, and he's spending more time with Kevin than she is, lately, so he'd probably know; she just nods and wanders off to find Jon.
Whatever the mystery adventure is involves walking through the bad part of Chicago, where you can only tell there were ever buildings by the charred foundations. It's a long walk, long enough Jon packed them a lunch, and the sun's setting when Jon points to a completely unremarkable house in the middle of what was probably once a really nice suburban neighborhood.
"That's it," he says, but doesn't bother to explain what "it" is, why this house.
Nicole stops, for a second, because it should bother her that she went from wielding baseball bats at strangers to following Jon to a random house, miles away from where she's come to feel safe without even asking for a reason. But Jon's standing in the doorway, waving her over, so she lets that train of thought die.
The house smells like cookies, like someone's baking fucking chocolate chip cookies, which is ridiculous, but Jon grabs her wrist loosely and pulls her into the kitchen, where...
...where someone's baking fucking chocolate chip cookies.
"Bill," Jon says, and the guy with the oven mitts and Jon's soft brown hair turns around. "Cookies, seriously?"
"The morale boost justifies it. I'm pretty sure I'm not using up so much food we'll die of malnutrition."
Nicole tries really hard not to flinch, but something must show 'cause Jon frowns. "Bill."
"Right. Cope with humor in my head, not out loud. Mom's upstairs, she probably has something in mind for you to make yourself useful."
Mom. Oh God, this is Jon's house, this is Jon's family, this is. Jon still has a family, which is just. The lucky bastard.
"Of course," he says, starts to drop her wrist while he turns towards the door. Bill looks at Nicole, quirks an eyebrow.
"Jon," he says, sounds like he's gonna laugh. "Manners, dude."
"Oh! Shit. This is Nicole, sorry. This is my brother, Bill."
Brother. Jesus, he just has everyone, he has cookies, and Nicole suddenly, sharply wants her parents, wants - Jesus. It's so much easier when everyone's in the same boat, when she can ignore it, when -
Jon's hand has gone tight around her wrist; he and Bill have similar concerned looks on their similar faces. "Maybe she should sit down," Bill says, and Nicole should be upset he's talking like she's not in the room, but he's right, she's feeling really wobbly.
She starts to reach out when he lets go of her wrist, try to pull him back, but his arm's around her waist before she gets very far. "Come on," he says, leads her out of the room, upstairs, down a short hall into a bedroom. "I. Shit, I'm sorry, I thought."
He doesn't seem to know how to finish; Nicole doesn't need him to. "It's fine, I'm just."
There are pictures all over the walls, Jon at various ages with various people. The wallpaper has cowboys on it, like the sheets.
"I, uh, wasn't gonna show you this until you were too tired to laugh. It was cooler when I was a teenager, but Mom changed it back as soon as I moved out."
"I'm not gonna laugh," she says, sinks down on the bed.
"Are you okay? Stupid question, obviously you aren't. I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault I'm being stupid."
Jon's frown deepens, and he slides into the bed next to her, wraps his arms around her waist. "You are not."
Nicole wants to burrow back into him, let him reassure her as much as he wants to, but more than that she wants to go home and find everything normal and intact, and nothing's going to help with that. "I'm gonna sleep, I think. Um. You should go see what your mom needs."
When Nicole wakes up, sunlight's pouring in through the window near the bed, making her legs under the cowboy blanket uncomfortably warm. Jon's nowhere in sight, but she can smell his shampoo on the pillow; he must have come to bed at some point.
The clothes in the dresser look old, worn and outdated, but they fit her okay, and they're cleaner than what she came in, so she settles. The house is quiet, except for two voices coming from the kitchen, so Nicole heads that way, stops in the doorway when she realizes what Jon and Bill are talking about.
"No, it was supposed to be, like, spend a couple days around people who're acting mostly normal, so you don't have to think about it every second."
"I know what you were going for, just saying it didn't work."
"Obviously," Jon says, scrubs a hand through his hair. He looks so lost Nicole kind of wishes she were better at pretending, so he wouldn't feel so bad.
"So you're taking her home today, I guess."
"Yeah, I'm not gonna, like, keep rubbing her face in it. I'll come back in a couple days.
"I wish you'd just stay here for good," Bill says, pokes at the skillet. "We'd worry less."
Nicole steps into the kitchen then, enough that Jon notices and smiles at her. "Sleep okay?"
"We don't have to leave yet."
"Don't make yourself uncomfortable for me."
"We walked so much yesterday I’d need to stay and take a break even if I couldn’t handle this. And I'm okay, really."
"You're not okay," he says, wraps an arm around her and tugs her to rest against his side. "But fine. Just, y'know, tell me if you need to get away."
Bill's looking back and forth between them; Nicole's not sure what he thinks he sees, but she doesn't exactly know what it is so it's not like she could correct him if she knew. "Eggs?" is all he says, gets plates out and serves them so Nicole doesn't have to detach from Jon's side until they sit down.
They end up staying for three days, doing odd jobs around the house, helping Bill cook, checking pipes and fuse boxes and whatever else could possibly break; Jon spends a fair amount of time taking care of his other brother's kids while his wife and Bill show Nicole a few ways to cook nonperishables that’ll be nice when they’re back at Pete’s, a few more dishes to add to the limited rotation. But it's not like Pete's house, there isn't something to do every second, and whether the idea of bringing her here was stupid or not, she does start to relax. Jon fucks her in his childhood bed, slow and deep, kissing her quiet so they don't wake up the full house, and it's just. Nicole likes it here. So maybe Jon was onto something.
"You wouldn't have come to Chicago if you had anyone left in LA," Jon says out of the blue, an hour into the walk back to Pete's. "I didn't even think, Jesus."
Nicole thinks about telling him it's okay again, or not saying anything, but her mouth opens and a reassurance isn't what comes out.
"The, uh, the second earthquake, the worse one, my house kind of. The roof collapsed. And it was. After the first one I brought a sleeping bag down to the basement, I just figured I was being paranoid, but it. I guess I should've insisted."
"You don't have to - "
"I haven't told anyone, yet. I don't know what Kevin thinks happened. And I just. I had to - I have these friends, I met her on JONAS and she and her boyfriend, they're just. I dunno. The first people I went to check on, y'know? Like if they were okay it didn't count as losing everybody. And they were okay, they were fine, but we tried to - she wanted to check on her family, so we tried. She drove, and she just. Driving was a bad idea."
Jon stopped walking at some point, but Nicole doesn't until the words stop coming, and he's a little ways behind her now. Which is fine, she doesn't need to see him pitying her. She takes a few breaths, calms down a little, and turns back when it's clear Jon's not trying to catch up to her.
"I'm so sorry," he says, for the hundredth time since he asked her if she wanted to go on an adventure with him; it's different, this time, his voice heavy with sadness, and she lets him hug her.
"I really like your family," she mumbles into his chest, and stops trying to make herself not cry.
Part Three