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I Am A Camera
by Nicola
Rating: R
Warnings: Bondage (nothing particularly heavy) and, uh, voyeurism, I guess…
Spencer collects postcards. He buys one in every town they play and keeps them secreted away in a shoebox.
He cheated on the first one. It's the Vegas sign, hovering preternaturally over the bright lights of the Strip. Maybe, way off to the right, there's a tiny spec that might be his house, languishing in suburbia. He bought the postcard many months after their first show, but it's still placed on the very top of the stack. On the back of that Vegas postcard is written a disjointed and mostly nonsensical memory of his very first show. (The word "weird" features three times.) The last postcard in the stack is of Milwaukee, where they played last night.
There are maybe a hundred more postcards. He'll run out of room in the shoebox soon. As it is, half a world is stuffed inside that old Converse box. Montreal. Dallas. Portland. Places he couldn't pinpoint on a map. Philadelphia. Albuquerque. Boulder. Places he has no real memory of. San Francisco. Atlanta. Toronto. Their bus broke down once in Dolma, Massachusetts. It wasn't even a town big enough to warrant a Starbucks, but the general store sold postcards, so Spencer bought one.
He writes on the back of each of them. The thought of keeping a journal has never appealed to him (Ryan always looks terribly sad as he sits hunched over his leather-bound diary, scribbling furiously), but he likes the ritual of scratching a few lines into the blank 4-inch space.
Sometimes he just writes to himself, but other times he writes to specific people: they are notes he intends not to send; things he'll never say. Inevitably, there are a lot for Brent. (He will write even more in the coming months. He will rewrite their last phone-call on at least thirty postcards. Paris to Tokyo—places Brent will probably never see.) Surprisingly, there are even more postcards addressed to Ryan; there is even more that he hasn't been able to say to his best friend. There's no animosity between the two of them, but somewhere along the way (San Diego to Chicago), they fell into a pattern: Ryan doesn't share and Spencer doesn't ask.
*
"What are these?" Jon asked—not rudely or suspiciously: he blinked at Spencer with what looked like genuine curiosity. He thumbed through the stack of postcards briefly, before retracting his hand, as if realizing he might have overstepped a boundary.
"It doesn't matter," Spencer said uneasily. "If you're looking for William, he's not here," he added.
Jon smiled crookedly. "Hey, if it's none of my business, just say so."
Spencer sighed. "No, no, it's okay. It's not a big deal." Awkwardly, he returned Jon's smile.
Spencer was still unused to Jon's simple interest in him, guileless and sincere. Brent had spent so many months fading further into the background that he almost seemed licked with a coat of magnolia gloss. When he and Spencer talked, it always seemed to end up being about Vegas—"home," Brent would say in a low voice. (Spencer could never bring himself to voice his disagreement, even though Las Vegas didn't feel much like home to him anymore.) Brendon was precocious and excitable, but easily bored. He would lap up any drama that Spencer was able to coax out of his life, but he grew hazy and distracted during long conversations that couldn't be hooked into sex or debauchery. Ryan was… Ryan was Ryan; so disinterested in his own life that his eyes would flicker and shut down if Spencer tried to talk about anything but the music.
"It's like… I guess it's like a journal," Spencer tried to explain. "I buy a postcard and I write down what I need to say that day." Spencer squinted, exhaling a quiet burst of laughter. "It's kinda like my therapy. Cheaper than a shrink."
As his laughter subsided, he realized that it was a poor joke. He could afford a thousand therapy sessions now. Hours upon hours in a cool, dark room, laid out on a leather couch. The thought made him grimace.
"Yeah?" Jon seemed to be mulling over the idea. "Maybe that's why I take pictures. It lets you…" He moved his hand in the air, toying with an invisible camera. "Lets you take yourself out of the situation. Withdraw, see it differently… I don't know."
"Gives you perspective." Spencer nodded, warmed by Jon's analogy; his willingness to relate.
Spencer picked up his pen again, chewing absently on the end of it. He caught Jon sneak a glance at the postcard he was writing. (It was still blank.) Brendon had asked to look at his postcards once, and Spencer had painstakingly doled out a dozen of the more innocuously-written ones for him to read. The whole thing had been vaguely traumatic for Spencer and afterward he realized that he didn't entirely trust Brendon to understand the parts of him that he put down on his postcards. But now, Spencer realized, with a prickle of anticipation, if Jon asked, he'd say yes.
Jon hesitated a moment longer, and then stood up. "I'll let you get back to it," he said, smiling. He paused and then added, "We're gonna get some dinner in a while, okay?"
"Okay," Spencer echoed faintly. He told himself it wasn't disappointment he was feeling, but relief.
As Jon walked away, ducking down as he exited the bus, Spencer found himself staring at the spot where Jon had been sitting. Ten minutes passed and Spencer couldn't get the words out.
Finally, in a hurried, diagonal scribble, he wrote JON across the postcard. Then he flipped it over and tucked it inside the shoebox.
Spencer had put the shoebox away and was he was milling distractedly around the bus when he heard a shuffle of footsteps. The flare of light from the camera blinded Spencer momentarily as he heard a tell-tale click. He blinked rapidly, and half-turned to see Jon lower his camera.
"Don't," Spencer said softly.
"Why not?" Jon raised his camera briefly and took another photograph.
Spencer felt the agitation squirm across his face. "I don't want you to."
"Come on. There's nothing for me to shoot here. I'm sick of taking pictures of trees and stuff." Jon fiddled with his camera, but didn't take anymore photos. He shot Spencer a pleading look. Spencer wondered briefly if he'd learned the slight, devious pout that puckered his lips from Brendon. He did, at least, look more sincere than Brendon (who had become shameless in his emotional manipulation).
"Look… I'm not, I'm not… photogenic, alright?" Spencer said with difficulty. He felt himself color as a childhood memory flooded his brain.
(He remembered visiting the Grand Canyon on one particularly torturous family vacation. Spencer had been ordered to teeter near the edge of the rocks for yet another photograph. As he had smiled on cue, the ancient camera had emitted a series of sparks and then begun to smoke. His sister had squealed delightedly, "Spencer's so ugly, he broked the camera!"
"Broke the camera, not broked," their mother had corrected her grammar wearily. But the statement stood: Spencer's so ugly, he broke the camera. Anytime someone wanted to photograph him, he felt fat, cumbersome, unappealing as a toad; whenever a camera was pointed in his direction, a small yet insistent part of him expected it to begin smoking.
If a fan wanted a picture that was… fine. Great. Whatever. But something about Jon's snap-happy habits—clicking away as William posed seductively or Mike gave a begrudging smile—set Spencer on edge.)
Jon tilted his head, appraising Spencer. "You look good to me," he said firmly.
Reeling slightly from Jon's matter-of-fact compliment, Spencer didn't know how to respond.
"You just gotta relax," Jon continued. Without warning, Jon leaned forward, closing the gap between them.
Jon's right hand still gripped his camera, but he used his left hand to cup Spencer's face. Ever so lightly, Jon kissed him, barely brushing their lips together. He pulled away slightly and then kissed him a second time, more firmly, but only marginally so. This time Spencer could savor the sensation of Jon's mouth as it covered him. His lips were soft and warm and willing. Spencer could feel his face slacken with the hazy desire to be kissed harder, longer, fuller; to be pinned against the wall as Jon's tongue explored his mouth.
The longer kiss never came. Jon pulled back. His fingers caressed Spencer's cheek lightly as he drew his hand away and used it to lift his camera. He took a photograph, bathing Spencer in the glare of the flash once again. Then he examined the picture in the camera's display.
"There," he said, sounding satisfied. "You just needed to relax." He grinned. "And have the right photographer, of course."
Before Spencer had a chance to respond, Ryan stuck his head round the bus door. He mumbled something about getting some dinner.
The moment dissolved into a rowdy argument (mostly William and Siska) about where they should eat; Brent's blank stare; the bink-bink of Ryan's sidekick, with the counterpoint of Brendon singing …Baby One More Time a fraction off-key. Spencer scrupulously avoided meeting Jon's eye for the rest of the night, although he did notice that Jon put his camera away instead of stalking them all around the restaurant as he usually did.
*
It was an off-day on the tour. Spencer sat propped up on the bus' couch, reading Haruki Murakami and listening to Brendon's snores. His eyes drifted out the window and he saw Jon approaching. He found himself watching as Jon slowly skirted the parking lot. Jon moved nearer, his eyes brushed over the tour bus windows and Spencer caught a flicker of a smile cross his lips.
The door to the bus banged open. Jon looked around. "Where is everyone?" He raised his voice a fraction. "Sleeping? Figures. Bill said I should wake him up when happy hour starts. I've been up since eight doing tech stuff." He rolled his eyes and then finally refocused on Spencer.
"Hey Spence," he said more softly, "what's going on?"
Spencer waved his book vaguely in the air. "Planning world domination. You know, the usual." A slight smile slipped out as he spoke.
Jon scratched behind his ear. "Yeah? You wanna take a break?"
"What kind of break?"
"Oh"—Jon cocked his head, considering—"the boring kind. Where we have a terrible time."
"Awesome," Spencer mumbled, unable to keep from grinning.
As it turned out, Jon had borrowed a pick-up truck for their day's activities. ("Don't say borrowed like that," Jon chided him. "I can hear you putting in the sarcastic quote marks.") He had borrowed it from some random guy. Jon had somehow convinced the guy that they were all extremely famous and in desperate need of transportation and he would definitely remember this favor when they won a Grammy or a VMA or something.
"Old trick of Siska's," Jon filled him in as they got into the rust-red Dodge. "He's been borrowing shit since before he was old enough to drive. You just gotta make it so they can't say no."
"Really," Spencer said faintly.
"Watch out," Jon said matter-of-factly. "You're not the only one who could take over the world, Spencer Smith." Jon put the car into drive.
For the first twenty minutes of the drive, Jon insisted on playing a cassette he found in the glove box. It seemed to Spencer like country music on speed, and Jon would laugh uproariously even time a new, even more cracked-out track began to play. Finally, Spencer forcefully ejected the tape and threw it over his shoulder, so that it bounced hard against the backseat. Jon let out a lower, throaty laugh at Spencer's outburst. Wordlessly, he tuned the radio to a local station. As they listened to the harmless rock mix, Spencer found that he missed the distraction of the other music.
"Hey, where are we going, anyway?" he asked Jon.
From Jon's sidelong look, Spencer guessed that his attempt to sound unconcerned had fallen flat. "I wanna take some pictures," Jon said after a pause.
Spencer tried to ask more, but he found the words got stuck in his throat.
At the side of the road, a motel sign loomed ahead of them, promising free HBO and God knows what else.
When Jon pulled in at the motel, smoothly manoeuvring the borrowed vehicle into the parking lot, Spencer tried to objectively assess his feelings. He supposed he should be freaked out—unnerved, at the very least. Instead, all he felt was a queasy jolt that seemed to be turning from nervousness to restless anticipation.
It had begun to rain, a fine brush-splatter against the windshield. The sky above, still tinted bright blue at the edges, seemed to be buckling under a weight. As the car engine idled, Jon leaned forward, craning his neck to look at the sky. "Fuck, that's amazing. See the way the clouds intersect, the colors, the light and dark? It's a fucking Delaunay." Jon's voice faded to a murmur. "…fucking amazing."
Whatever it was that Jon saw through the windshield, Spencer couldn't see it. He was aware only of the visible cold of rain; the incongruous flare of the vacancies sign. Radiohead's No Surprises came on the radio. Spencer felt abstracted; the petulant Midwestern weather and landscape was a million miles away from the blow-dryer heat of Vegas and whatever he would be doing if he were still there (college? church? Burger King? …fuck).
"Are we gonna get a room?" Spencer asked. He felt fearless—not himself.
Jon turned his head, smiling slightly as he looked at Spencer. "Yeah, no big, y'know? Sometimes it's fun just to hang out in a hotel room in the middle of nowhere." He seemed to realize what he was saying and laughed suddenly. "Man, I'm so tied to this life now. Putting on a suit and working nine to five, I can't see it. College—hell, even high school, I didn't wanna be there." He made a face. "I just want to bounce from place to place, never stop, hardly slow down. Kinda fucked up, huh?"
Spencer couldn't read his expression. With a pang, he realized how little he thought about Jon—actually thought about him. Jon had become a fixture of Spencer's life so quickly, so decisively. There would be breakfast and Jon, camera in hand. There would be cups of coffee and Jon, laptop balanced on his knee as he edited footage together. There would be games of cee-lo and Jon. Episodes of The Office and Jon. Yet any attempt to probe beneath his benign exterior resulted in frustratingly little. Jon asked questions; he didn't answer them. Instead, he provided only an easy-going smile; a camera flash.
Jon opened the car door. He pulled up his hoodie and ducked out into the rain. When he returned it was with a key, heavy and brass—no magnetic key cards here.
"I got room thirteen." Jon grinned. "Awesome, right?"
"Awesome," Spencer echoed.
Room thirteen was unremarkable; the usual outdated décor and drab paintwork. The light in the room felt muddy, and Spencer imagined himself drenched in sepia. Jon shook his head like a dog as he entered the room, and tiny droplets of moisture rained briefly on Spencer. His own t-shirt was clinging to him. He wiped the water out of his eyes and folded himself onto the bed. Out of habit, he kicked off his shoes, curling his bare toes into the ancient shag pile carpet.
They had run from the car to the room and were both breathing heavily. Jon leaned his back against the closed door. He heaved his bag off his shoulder and onto the floor. He sniffed hard and raked a hand through his wet hair.
"What do you want to do?" Spencer asked. He met Jon's eyes and found that didn't want to look away. He felt bound, enthralled.
"I want to take some pictures," Jon said. His voice was soft, calm—confident.
The words, go fuck yourself, Mr. DeMille flared in Spencer's head for a second, and then he said, "Okay."
Jon reached down and took a camera out of his bag. He looped the strap around his neck and let the camera hang against his chest. It wasn't the point-and-shoot digital that he used on an everyday basis. Jon had told him once that he'd found this camera in a thrift store for $2. It was at least thirty years old, and Jon had been amazed that he could still find film for it. It was a worn, ugly-beautiful camera, heavy and brown. Spencer didn't need to ask to know that it was one of Jon's most prized possessions.
Jon lifted the camera and took a single picture from the door. Spencer found himself half-blinded. As he blinked away the glare, he realized that his rapid breathing didn't seem to be slowing. Jon hesitated and then walked toward him. Spencer sank further into the mattress, unconsciously grasping at the covers with both hands. Jon stood over him. "Look at me," he murmured, and Spencer was caught again in his gaze.
Click.
Jon lowered the camera and reached for the hem of Spencer's t-shirt. His hands were cold as his fingers skimmed the skin beneath the t-shirt. Spencer flinched, the slightest tremor as his muscles contracted. Jon responded by flattening the palm of his hand against Spencer's abdomen. Spencer forced out a single long breath, savoring the sudden rush of sensation. Jon smiled and tugged his t-shirt up. Spencer co-operated. His hands collided with Jon's as he yanked the t-shirt over his head. Jon discarded it and took another photo.
Click.
A sense of dizzy inevitability was filling up Spencer's brain. As Jon reached for his pants, he felt himself shiver, even though Jon's hands were warmer now. He was already half-hard, but as Jon unzipped his pants, he felt his cock harden noticeably. However, Jon merely took off Spencer's pants, a slight smile touching his lips. Agony.
Click.
Spencer wore boxer-briefs. They were new, expensive, a present from his girlfriend. These thoughts were slippery in his head; easily overwhelmed by the sensation of Jon's fingers against his skin.
"Lie back," said Jon, his voice lightly coaxing. When Spencer didn't move, he repeated, "Lie back, get comfortable."
Spencer couldn't think of much that was less comfortable than an aching erection and Jon's unwillingness to do anything about it. Still, he shifted on the bed, lying back and propping himself up using his elbows. Spencer felt more than naked; he felt peeled open. Raw.
Click.
Jon hesitated and then let the camera drop from his hands, so that it strained at the strap, thudding against his heart. He reached for his own belt, unbuckling it slowly. The button on Jon's pants was tantalizingly undone. Spencer longed to reach out and tug at the zipper.
Jon paused, the belt braced in his hands. "God, you're so fucking beautiful," he said. Spencer heard something unfamiliar in his voice—something like awe.
Jon paused and said, "Put your hands above your head." A slight darkness distilled his voice. "Wrists together."
Spencer licked his lips. He took a moment to examine his rush of desire as Jon's voice had dipped low at wrists. Slowly, he obeyed. He glanced down at his near-naked body, skin stretched across bone. The protrusions of his ribs, the sharp knobs of his sternum were new since the weight-loss. The rolls of fat had been comforting; this body didn't feel entirely his yet.
As Jon moved closer, Spencer imagined the sensation of being tied down—he felt sharp, exhilarating pain as he pressed his wrists together, hard.
Jon hesitated. For a moment, Spencer thought he was going to stop, walk away, leave the motel room. Spencer would blink and they'd be back on the bus. But reality felt far away; it was buckling under a new weight. Jon leaned over him and grasped his arms. Jon's movements were slow and determined as he wrapped the belt around Spencer's wrists, but Spencer felt the slight shiver of his shaking hands.
Jon pulled the belt tight, threading it through the buckle. Then he looped the remainder of the belt around the bed frame and finally fastened it at the buckle. Spencer reacted reflexively, a tiny spasm of movement as he tried—and failed—to tug his wrists free. He was bound.
Jon raised his camera.
Click.
Spencer watched as Jon produced a slip of fabric from his back pocket. It was a piece of silk. Once a rich cream color, perhaps, but it had faded and frayed with age.
"Do you trust me?" It wasn't a sly question; Jon's face was flooded with sincerity, a peculiar kind of sweetness.
"Yes," Spencer said. He wondered if he was lying.
Jon leaned forward. Spencer pulled unintentionally at his binds, with a slight jerk of his head. Gently, Jon covered his eyes with the blindfold. Spencer could feel a hot pool of Jon's breath against his cheek as Jon tied the piece of silk around his head. The material smelled musty, full of memories. Spencer wondered briefly if it was another one of his thrift store finds.
The result was not darkness, but a mauve filter, creating a dreamy, dimmed vision of the room. Jon was a mere shape: he was hands and hot breath; tight coils of anticipation. This time when Spencer heard the camera's shutter, the flash was tempered.
Click.
Spencer felt his tongue loosen. The words wouldn't form rationally, though. At last, all would come was, Jon. Over and over. He murmured it restlessly, like a broken incantation. He felt Jon's hands grasp his hips, the sensation of his boxers being dragged down and finally removed, leaving him naked except for the blindfold.
Click.
It became a pattern, torturous and wonderful: the way Jon would pull back in order to take a picture and then return, for a scant few seconds, to touch Spencer. He traced the contours of Spencer's body with his fingers, like an artist, occasionally adding his mouth to Spencer's skin.
Click.
At first, Spencer tried to anticipate Jon's movements, he tried to follow the faint shadow of his form through the blindfold. In the end, he gave in to sensation, the thrill of shock as Jon would pause to lick along the ridge of his pelvis, or when his warm, suckling mouth would linger at his collarbone.
Click.
Click.
Click.
*
The next day, the tour resumed. Back to normal. They crossed a state line, stopped at a diner that promised to be "authentically Wisconsin". Reality had sunk in, like something absorbed into the palm of his hand. Sometimes Spencer would rub distractedly at his wrists, reawakening bruises (the thrill fading a little each time), but mostly he just stared out the window, watched the landscape change.
He missed Jon. The realization crept up in him through the day. It was a nauseous, slightly desperate feeling.
"What's wrong?" Ryan asked, inconveniently stepping outside of his bubble of self-absorption for a moment.
"Carsick," Spencer mumbled.
As it turned out, Spencer didn't see Jon until that evening. Academy arrived at the venue, dumped their gear and immediately went out drinking. They dragged Brendon and Jon, easily-convinced, along with them. Spencer ate at Burger King with Ryan and Brent. He timed the silences; the longest one was seventeen minutes, broken by a request for ketchup.
Later, Spencer poked his head around the dressing room door. Jon and Brendon were sitting, hunched over the table and pressed close together.
Spencer's benign greeting dried up and lodged in his throat. Jon was showing Brendon some photos. A whole set of them was spread across the table. And Brendon was laughing.
Jon looked up. "Hey Spencer," he said easily. Brendon was still absorbed, giggling slightly as he smudged the edges of a photograph with his thumbs.
"What are you doing?" Spencer asked, finally. His wrists ached and it took him a moment to realize that he had balled his hands into fists.
"Jon was just showing me his art." Brendon held up a photo for Spencer to see. "Personally, I think it's genius."
The picture featured Brendon himself—legs splayed and eyes wide as he collided with a particularly large amp. Spencer remembered the moment from three days ago, in Chicago. He exhaled.
"Nice," he said blankly and turned away. He suddenly realized how drained he felt; emotionally fucked.
As he walked out of the room and into the corridor, Spencer felt a hand on his arm.
"Hey." Jon's voice was low and—Spencer was perversely gratified to hear—slightly strained. "Hey, stop," he said when Spencer continued to walk away.
Spencer stopped.
"You thought I was—" Jon began, and then he shook his head. He used one hand to fuss with his hair; the other remained, half-forgotten, on Spencer's arm. "Look, you know I wouldn't show anyone our pictures," he said with difficulty. "That was our thing. Just ours." He paused and added, "You know that."
"I don't know anything," Spencer said, truthfully and without expression. Jon let his hand fall from Spencer's arm. Spencer walked away.
The evening's show was a good one. He could do that—he could take whatever he was feeling, good or bad, and channel it into playing a fucking good show. That, he could do.
While Academy played, Spencer stood at the back of the venue and tried not to stare too long as Jon retuned Mike's guitar. After they finished and the crowd began to disperse, he headed for the bus. On the way, he declined the Butcher's bleary invitation to "bring a whole new meaning to the word wasted", smiling falsely and wishing for the relative solitude of his bunk.
Ryan was already curled up in his own bunk, the light from his Sidekick bathing his face in an eerie glow. He looked up at Spencer and said, "Jon was here. Left something for you." His eyes were shrewd and Spencer felt himself blush. "He's okay," Ryan added, unexpectedly. He produced the smallest of smiles as he repeated the affirmation, "Jon. He's okay."
Spencer climbed into his bunk. A single corner of a photograph print was visible, tucked underneath his pillow. He pulled the photo out, holding it in his hands.
It was him.
It was him, from the day before. It was a black and white photo; full of shadows and the gleam of dim light. It wasn't one of the more explicit shots; it showed only his head, shoulders and chest. But his expression, he realized—he felt his blush reawaken—his expression was… strong, like something unleashed. And undeniably filthy.
Fuck, he murmured soundlessly and realized that he was smiling.
He flipped the photo over. In faint pencil scrawl was written, just ours.
*
Spencer slots Jon's photograph into his box of postcards. It's the wrong size, both longer and wider than regular postcard-size, but it seems to fit just fine.
October 2006
Note: Title from Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye To Berlin. Written for the second DYW fic exchange.
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