Spencer studied Ryan after they separated from their hug. Other than the lack of smoky smell that made him wonder if Ryan had even been around his father at all that evening, Ryan was also rather relaxed. He was obviously worrying himself sick over something and Spencer put his arm around his friend's shoulders from a distance, and squeezing Ryan's right shoulder seemed appropriate since his hand was already positioned there anyway.

"Why'd you come and wait here?"

"All I was gonna do was go home and finish the work I didn't get done at El's."

"I still don't understand what made you so sure I'd leave."

"When I called home, I asked my mom and she said you hadn't come over. So I figured you were still here. I decided to just wait for a bit and see what happened. I was gonna call you in about a half hour or so because I wanted to stand outside your window and be all 'creepy stalker guy' and breathe heavily into the phone and scratch on the screen or something."

Ryan shook his head and grinned, using his eyes to express a sarcastic concern for Spencer's mental health. "You suck, Spence. Seriously. I think you just lost at life or something."

Spencer took his arm back to turn the ignition. "That's my job. Suck and lose... whatever that means? I think I'm just talking to hear myself talk, by this point."

Ryan confirmed Spencer's suspicions by slowly nodding his head in an exaggerated manner, causing Spencer to playfully punch him in the leg.

"So what's going on tonight, Ry?"

"Dad kinda didn't do anything. I didn't see him again 'til I left my room to come outside."

"So he didn't make you leave?" Spencer was looking behind his shoulder and using one hand to turn the steering wheel. He left his other hand on Ryan's knee while he waited for Ryan to explain why he was unable to stay home.

"Well whatever he had tonight made him say he wanted me to leave, but that doesn't count. I was gonna go to your place anyway, though."

"What was it, then? You weren't too happy when you got in here."

Ryan shifted in his seat to rest his head against the cold window and stare at the sidewalk as they flew along beside it. "I just wanted to sleep somewhere nice tonight, you know?"

"It's been a while since I've seen you cry for any reason other than something about your dad. Either it's him, Ryan, or you're not okay again. In either case, I want you to tell me so I can know what to say. If it's the latter, we're sitting in this car all night until I've got things fixed."

"You need to stop being so good to me. You and El both. I'm fine. My dad really, really didn't do anything tonight. I was just kinda upset about how I gave him a hug before I left and I said goodnight to him and he didn't even bother to say anything back to me." Ryan sunk down as far as he could in his seat, even managing to lift his legs and press his feet against the dashboard to make sure that he was sunk as low as possible.

Spencer's hand moved from the knee to Ryan's head and it became buried in soft brown hair. "You know he would have hugged you back, Ryan. Don't let that man in there bother you. Your dad would have hugged you."

"I want him to, Spence."

"We'll come by in the morning if you want. He'll hug ya then."

"It just kills me because I know he's not really like this... fuck, I just... you know what, this is kind of irrelevant right now. It wasn't even that bad tonight and I shouldn't even worry about it right now. I've learned to put up with it anyway."

Spencer slowed down to turn into his driveway. "You shouldn't have to feel that way about it. I mean, I'm glad you can handle it better than a year ago or whatever, seriously. I was so afraid for you all the time and El and me are really proud of you now... but you should never feel like you're not supposed to worry about things. Don't make yourself sick like it seems like you're doing right now, but just because you got better doesn't mean you're no longer human. Now get your stuff and let's get inside. You still need to tell me why you wanted to come over tonight. You know the answer you gave me was too vague. I didn't just meet you... might have worked on Brendon, but I know there's got to be more to it than wanting a nice place to sleep."

Ryan's heart jumped at the unexpected mention of Brendon's name and he was silent the entire way to Spencer's bedroom except for a brief hello to his parents. Ryan threw himself onto Spencer's bed and he laid on his back. His right leg hung off the side as he nervously dangled it around. "I just wanted to talk to you for a while. And I did want a nice place to sleep, I didn't lie. But really, I just kinda didn't feel like being alone. I called Brendon tonight."

Spencer laid down on his stomach and he moved over to create some physical contact while propping himself up on his elbows, staring down at Ryan's face. "I thought he was going to call you?"

"He did. Six times while we were sleeping. I called him back."

"Uh, that's a little... strange...?"

"Yeah. He was just bored."

"I'd say so. What did you guys talk about?"

Ryan shrugged. "It was two hours of mostly nothing. Just random crap. Hell, we were both bored. But he was so... he was so funny, he kept humming a bunch of weird things just to make noise when neither of us had said anything for like three minutes." Spencer gave Ryan a weird look at the mention of the silences, but he decided to not ask questions. "I felt bad for him 'cause he really wanted to go do something or just leave the house or whatever but he said his parents would never let him leave on a school night."

Spencer nodded. "Yeah, me and Ellen tried to do stuff with him a few times but he was never able to get away from the house."

"He just seemed really lonely. It sounded like he really liked having someone to talk to, you know?"

"Did you ask him about the stuff? About everything we talked about earlier?"

Ryan shook his head. "I didn't ask anything. I kind of hate myself for it right now, but I'll get over it. We just talked randomly, really, and then things got weird when his mom came in and yelled at him."

"What did she say?"

"All he said was she wanted him to get off the phone. He got really upset... like, really, really, upset and so I kinda started to try to get him to tell me what was wrong. He was quiet for a while and he was crying and so I just tried to say things that I know I always liked to hear. Like he started saying his parents didn't care about him, so I said I cared... he really seemed to like that, Spence." Ryan chewed on his lip and stared at the ceiling like it was the most interesting thing he had ever seen, even slightly narrowing his eyes out of concentration.

"You know, you say me and El are too good to you... you're the exact same way if given the chance."

"Not really... I just wanted him to feel better. He doesn't deserve to lay in bed alone while his mom makes him feel like shit. I just wanted him to know that he has friends that care about him."

"Uh... that's what we do as well, Ry... but yeah, is he okay now?"

"I guess so. He ended up getting kinda quiet again and saying that he wished I was there with him."

Spencer's eyes widened slightly and he brought his head back in a half-nod of surprise. "What did you say to him?"

"I just said I wished I was too. I mean... well, I meant it, too, really... I just..." Ryan shook his head. "I don't know, I didn't want him to have to be alone with how he felt right then, you know?"

"Hey Ry? Look at me."

Ryan tore his attention from the paint on the ceiling. "Mm?"

"What do you think of Brendon?"

"I don't know."

"Sure you do. You have an opinion on him."

"He's... I don't know, Spence. He's nice."

"A lot of people are nice. What do you think about him?"

"I think we should try to hang out with him. Whenever he can leave the house, anyway. He made it sound like he can leave during the weekend."

"I'm fine with that."

"Are you and El goin' to that dance this weekend?"

"Oh, yeah, we were gonna see if you wanted to go."

"Yeah. Brendon talked about it."

Spencer grinned and rolled onto his back, partially curious as to what Ryan found so interesting about the ceiling, but mostly wanting to hide the grin on his face. "Does he want to go with us?"

"He kinda asked if he could go, yeah... he wants to go with us. He said he wanted to go with me if you and El didn't want to go."

Spencer was unable to hold back a small laugh. "Well of course we wanna go, and he's welcome to come. You serious, though? He asked you?"

Ryan nodded and turned onto his side with his back facing Spencer. He wanted to be able to hide his face while he searched for certain words. "It didn't really hit me at first 'cause he was just like... like asking if you two were goin', and if I was going with you guys, and I said I would have to ask you and I'd be willing to go if you guys wanted to. Then he asked if him and I could go even if you guys weren't... so I didn't think much before I answered him and I said sure because I wouldn't be able to find a date or anything anyway. Then he looked really sad or whatever and it just dawned on me."

"Shit, dude... what did you say then?"

"Uh, well... I don't remember exactly, but I know I basically said that he and I could go regardless."

Spencer was glad that Ryan couldn't see his face. His smile had to be controlled with a bitten lip. "So you think he meant something by it?"

"I don't know. I'd rather not think about it... he's my friend, you know? Friends can do these things can't they?"

"I don't see an issue with it. Whatever you're comfortable with doing. But you guys are going with me and El, obviously, because you know we won't have it any other way. Ellen would probably explode if we didn't have our Ryan with us for his first dance at this school." Spencer jokingly jabbed his elbow into Ryan's back before sitting up and shaking his head to rearrange his hair. "Just... eh, I don't really know what to say. Try to take care of that kid, you know? I never thought he was very unhappy or whatever. I guess it means something if he let you know him in that way. But there's just something about you, honestly. I mean, I trust you, and that doesn't necessarily come from just knowing you forever. You're a good person and I know Ellen feels the same way. You're good at making people feel safe, just with the way you carry yourself, I guess. Am I making sense?"

Ryan shut his eyes and smiled before sitting up and sarcastically throwing his arms around Spencer. "Aw, I make the Spencey feel saaafe!"

"Oh leave me alone, you know what I mean! I may trust you but I think you're absolutely crazy, Ryan!" Spencer pushed his friend back down on the bed and pretended to strangle him. "Now I must defend myself."

"Is there a pencil around here?"

"What?"

"Well, I need something to stab your brain with."

"All the more reason for me to keep squeezing!" Spencer laughed and applied a quick, gentle pressure to Ryan's throat before he removed his hands and playfully pressed his fist to Ryan's eye in slow motion as he stood up. He started to slide the shoes off of Ryan's feet. "You look tired, man. I'll tell you what, you can just sleep in here since my parents are watching some movie in the living room. I wanna go chill with them for a bit anyway, so you can just stay here. You are tired, right?" Spencer picked up the blanket that had been kicked to the floor and tossed it on top of Ryan.

"Yeah, I guess."

"You can work on homework or whatever if you need to. Or just sleep."

"Yeah."

"I might sleep on the couch. Or hell, I might come back up here. Depends on if I'm too lazy to come back up the stairs."

"I held his hand."

"I'll be-wait, what? What did you say?" Spencer stopped halfway through opening the door.

"In history. I held his hand."

"Huh? Brendon?"

"Yeah."

Spencer was genuinely confused, completely caught off guard, and his eyes were fixed on Ryan's face while he waited on some sort of punch line. "You... held Brendon's hand? Am I understanding everything here?"

Ryan nodded and spoke while exhaling in a sigh. "Oh, trust me; I feel the same way, Spence."

Spencer moved back to the bed and sat down cautiously. "Why on earth did you hold Brendon's hand in history? Wait, did I get that right? Brendon's hand, history class, you...?"

"It's not like that, it was weird... the teacher's uh... uh, she's kind of a whore. I mean, really old, really ugly, and really fucking mean."

"The bird lady. Yes, I know her. Now what happened?"

"My fault, really. We kept talking and she kept getting pissed, and she started yelling at Bren...don. She started yelling at Brendon, like seriously screaming and yelling, and after a few times, he actually got really upset, so he laid his head down. You can't let him know I told you about this, okay? I mean, people at school will obviously know about how she freaked out, but just... don't say anything, okay?"

"No, I'm not gonna tell him... but what happened?"

"Well, so of course she thinks he's sleeping now or whatever, and he's really not, but she comes back and breaks her fucking ruler from hitting our table so goddamn hard and she tries to make him answer some stupid question... she saw that he was fucking crying and she sort of shut up and walked away and got back to teaching, and of course everyone in the class was so terrified of pissing her off that they stopped staring at us and paid full attention to her useless shit."

"Are you serious? He was that upset?"

Ryan nodded. "I just felt so bad for him. He was sitting there crying and I wanted to make it stop, you know? I knew it was my fault for talking to him so I wrote him a note and said I was sorry and I gave him my phone number and everything in case he wanted to talk sometime. So I stuck it in his jacket and I didn't know what to do... I was fucking terrified, Spence. Nobody was looking at us and-"

"Were you sitting in the back?"

"Yeah. Nobody was looking at us and he had his hands up by his face so I just kinda..." Ryan shook his head. "I don't know, I pulled his hand down and I held it. Under the table, though. But nobody saw."

"That's... I don't know, Ry. I think that was good of you, I mean, I know how you are... it's like, you know what some things feel like, and you want to keep people from feeling them, you know? You just... I don't know." Spencer was doing a great job of falling all over his words. "I'm glad you're my friend, okay?" He put his arm around Ryan's neck and hugged him. "You care about people. Not everyone does that."

Ryan returned the hug. "You do the same thing."

Spencer gave Ryan a small smile as he pulled away. "What did Brendon do?"

Ryan shrugged and shook his head. "He just sat there. He was crying for a while. Really quiet, though. And he kept squeezing my hand."

"He didn't let go?"

"Not until the bell rang."

"How long was that?"

"I don't know, maybe a half hour?"

"Damn, Ryan."

"What?"

"Nothing. That's just a long time."

"I talked to him about it, and I was half expecting to need to apologize for holding his fucking hand. But he thanked me for it. He just... he thanked me for doing what I did."

"Seriously?"

"He said it helped him."

"Ryan?"

"Mm?"

Spencer nodded slowly. "El and me, you know, we... we like you, Ry. You're a good kid."

Ryan couldn't keep his face from turning red. He looked down at his lap and smiled. "I guess I learned from the best, huh?"

Spencer squeezed Ryan's shoulder as he stood up. "Listen, I'm gonna go hang out with my parents for a bit before I go to bed. I have a little more reading to do here, though, so do you want me to stay here in case you need me to wake you up so you can turn over?"

The dreams. "That might be good. I'll be out pretty soon, trust me."

Ryan pulled his phone out of his pocket and put it on the corner of the nightstand. Spencer removed a textbook from his backpack and sat on the bed next to Ryan, quickly smiling lovingly at his friend, who was unable to see him through closed eyes. He looked at his book for about five minutes before feeling Ryan twitch and hearing his breathing grow louder. He sat his book down and he pulled Ryan over onto his side, just barely waking him up. "You alright now, Ry?"

"Uh huh. Fine." Ryan's eyes fell shut again.

"Good. Now sleep well, you crazy kid." He watched Ryan for a couple moments until he heard very faint snoring. "It's not like I really had to read anything, anyway." He quietly chuckled and turned off the light before he slowly pulled the bedroom door shut.

Downstairs, Spencer's parents were finishing some random comedy in the dark. Spencer plopped down on the couch beside his mother, which made her tear herself away from his father. "How's Ryan doing tonight?"

"He's already asleep."

"Is he okay?"

"Yeah, Mom, I think he's... he's gonna be just fine, now. He's doing great."