Winter Days and TV Trays [3 of 5]
Title: Winter Days and TV Trays
Author: santixcore
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Jon/Spencer
Summary: Joncer roommate AU!
“I don’t even know your last name,” Jon realizes. “Could you imagine if we lived together for like, a year, and I still didn’t know your last name? Then it would be like too late to ask without being offensive, y’know?”

Spencer laughs, “Smith. Spencer James Smith.”

“And I’m Jonathan Jacob Walker,” Jon says awkwardly, and then with his hand held out, “Nice to meet you."
Disclaimer: Not real, trust me.
Author Notes: At the end. :D






“I’ll make breakfast,” Jon offers the next morning as Spencer is curled up on the sofa under a mountain of blankets, totally pissed that Jon decided they don’t need any of the heaters to be on today.

“Fine,” Spencer mutters into a pillow.

“What do you want?” Jon asks as he sifts through the fridge in search of food that could qualify as breakfast. He doesn’t usually cook breakfast, basically surviving on fruit cocktails and toaster pastries, but today he feels kind of bad about freezing Spencer half to death last night and wants to make it up to him as soon as possible.

“I don’t care,” Spencer snaps, and as he does, he’s surprised, because he doesn’t usually lose his temper over things like this, but fuck it’s cold in this apartment and he really, really hates the cold.

“Well then I’m making eggs because the carton is already in my hand,” Jon snaps back, more out of defeat than actual frustration.

But when Jon has the pan, eggs, and butter all laid out on the counter, he grasps the fact that he hasn’t made eggs since he was a kid, and he sort of forgets how to do it.

“Can you help me?” He asks timidly, not actually expecting but more like hoping.

“No,” Spencer huffs. “I’m too cold.”

“Your blankets aren’t chained to the sofa, you know.”

Spencer just sighs and tosses around on the couch obnoxiously, trying to salvage warmth in every last crease of the blankets.

*

Jon ends up burning the eggs, but Spencer chokes them down anyway because at least they’re warm.

*

“Are you still cold?”

Jon’s curled up on the sofa next to the mountain of blankets that he assumes still contains Spencer, flipping idly through TV channels in a futile attempt to find something decent to watch in the middle of the day.

Spencer’s head emerges from the blankets when the channel surfing stops at ABC Family.

“OH MY GOD, STOP. GILMORE GIRLS!” he squeals, knocking the remote out of Jon’s hands and grinning wildly.

Jon blinks. “Could you get any gayer?”

“You can’t tell me you don’t like this show,” Spencer enthuses. “It’s the cutest.”

And even though Jon sometimes enjoys watching it over bowls of cereal and hangovers, he lies and says, “No. I really don’t.”

“Watch it with me,” Spencer says as he migrates his mountain of blankets closer to Jon’s side of the couch, wide eyed and adorable, and Jon notices just how beautiful Spencer is. “Please?”

Jon nods and scoots a little closer to Spencer. “Yeah. Cool. Okay.”

*

Jon and Spencer move closer and closer as the show progresses, and by the time Gilmore Girls is ending and Full House is beginning, the only thing between the two of them are a few blankets and pajama pants.

*

“You’re warm,” Spencer comments against Jon’s side during a commercial.

“I’m glad.” Jon mumbles. “You seem to be attracted to warm things.”

Spencer leans over to kiss Jon’s cheek. “Only when they turn off the heat.”

Jon tilts Spencer’s chin up to kiss his lips, and Spencer’s not expecting it, but it’s not unwelcome, and he kisses Jon back with all the warmth left in his body.

*

“It’s snowing.”

Jon’s sitting in the chair by the window, staying out of the way while Spencer vacuums up the dust and crumbs and everything else on the living room floor because he can’t take it anymore.

“Spencer,” he says louder in hopes his voice will dominate over the drone of the vacuum. “It’s snowing!”

Spencer lifts his head as he swivels around the coffee table, doesn’t turn the vacuum off, but puts a finger to his ear and mouths, “Whaaaat?”

“Turn that off,” Jon demands, propelling himself from the chair and turning it off for him by pulling the power supply.

“Hey—“

“It’s snowing, Spen!” Jon enthuses.

“Well, it is January, and it does tend to snow a lot in January, Jon,” Spencer acknowledges as he straightens up the magazines on the coffee table.

“Let’s go outside.”

“It’s cold outside.”

“I’m warm, remember,” Jon grins as he flings himself at Spencer in a playful hug, nuzzling his head into Spencer’s shoulder.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not really. Get your coat.”

As Spencer decides on which coat would keep him the warmest, he hears Jon yell from back in the living room, “What the fuck did I tell you about moving my flip-flops?!”

*

The texture of the snow is the perfect kind to be outside in, the kind that settles in your hair and on your sleeves and falls in white clusters on your tongue.

Spencer and Jon are walking side by side, not exactly touching, but still feeling a sense of closeness as Jon chucks handfuls of snow at Spencer and Spencer whips him in the arm with his sleeve, and it feels kind of good, Spencer thinks, being able to finally connect with Jon. It feels kind of nice to have kissed Jon, to form a truce with Jon.

The sidewalks are growing slippery as the snow begins to lie on the pavement, and Spencer almost slips a few times until Jon grabs hold of his hand to keep him balanced, and yeah, it feels good to hold Jon’s hand too. And it’s not like a finger-laced coupley kind of hand holding that screams commitment or anything, it’s more like two clasped hands reminding one that the other is always close by.

*

“Your eyes are like, really blue,” Jon notes as he sips at the latte (with his name on it) in the café they ducked into when it got too cold, even for Jon, to stay outside in the snow.

“I guess they are,” Spencer blushes from across the table, his fingers curled around his own mug of coffee.

“They’re pretty,” Jon continues. “You’re pretty.”

Spencer grins at him and he debates whether he should kiss him, because he’s not used to this whole cutesy compliment-filled lovey stuff, and doesn’t exactly know how to act, but he likes this sort of closeness that’s quickly forming between him and Jon. It’s better than just tolerating each other, and way better than being enemies.

But he doesn’t have to wonder whether or not to kiss Jon, because Jon beats him to the punch, leaning over the table to kiss him for the second time that day, and it’s coffee-flavored and warm and intimate and Spencer knows he can totally get used to seeing Jon as something more than just his forced roommate.

*

It’s mid afternoon by the time Jon and Spencer are stumbling out of the cold and snow and back into their apartment that, in reality, still isn’t much warmer than the temperature outside.

It doesn’t bother Spencer as much anymore, but still enough for him to ask, “Jon, seriously, can you turn the heaters back on?”

“You can have the one in your room back I guess. Just, like, don’t leave it on all night because if it were to light itself on fire and you be trapped in there, I don’t know what I’d do,” Jon says with his bottom lip between his teeth.

“Thanks,” Spencer wraps his arms around Jon in a reassuring hug and continues, “Nothing’s going to happen to me, I promise.”

Jon smiles weak and unconvinced, but when Spencer lets him go, he retrieves the extension cord from his bedroom and hands it back to Spencer after ripping his nametag off.

“It’s really cold in here, so I think I’m gonna go plug this thing in,” Spencer says, and retreats to his bedroom after kissing Jon’s cheek and giving him a playful tap on the forehead.

But as soon as the heater is plugged in and Spencer’s sprawled out comfortably on his perfectly-made bed, there’s a knock on the door and Jon peeking his head around the corner.

“I’m cold too,” he says.

“There’s a lot of heaters in this apartment, Jon,” Spencer mumbles into his closed eyelids.

“But this one’s already warmed up,” Jon reasons as he invites himself in. “And I sort of want an excuse to lie next to you. So can I?”

Spencer grins, because Jon’s so damn cute and accepts by popping a mixed CD into the stereo and extending an arm for Jon to curl his body into.

They cuddle to Bright Eyes, so soft and warm and silent and close that Spencer’s really surprised he’s doing this with Jon, because at first, Jon was all don’t touch me or my shit and now he’s allowing Spencer into his space, into his world, and into his heart, and it’s a gorgeous thing in Spencer's eyes.

They make out to Brand New, delicate and new-feeling, Jesse Lacey’s voice filling the little creases of space around their bodies, creating a little world of their own—a world made of perfect lyrical beauty and lips and hands and hearts and something that’s starting to look a little like love, but not quite. But it’s a start. Everything has to start somewhere.

They talk with The Juliana Theory playing softly in the background, winding down and mutually interested in each other and in what stories they have to tell.

“I don’t even know your last name,” Jon realizes. “Could you imagine if we lived together for like, a year, and I still didn’t know your last name? Then it would be like too late to ask without being offensive, y’know?”

Spencer laughs, “Smith. Spencer James Smith.”

“And I’m Jonathan Jacob Walker,” Jon says awkwardly, and then with his hand held out, “Nice to meet you.”

Spencer beams and shakes Jon’s hand playfully, thinking it’s a little backwards to shake hands after making out with them, but they’re both sort of backwards people, and it sort of works.

“Now that we have introductions out of the way,” Jon continues. “I want to get to know you, Spencer James Smith.”

“What do you want to know, Jonathan Jacob Walker?”

“I don’t know,” Jon shrugs. “Anything. Tell me something I wouldn’t know.”

“Well, I like to organize things?”

“I said tell me something I don’t know,” and they both smile. “Something really dorky or strange so I don’t feel bad about all of my own quirks.”

“Okay, well,” Spencer takes a few moments to pick his brain for something interesting, can’t, and settles on saying “I can fold a napkin like fifty different ways.”

Jon raises an eyebrow. “Really? That is a little dorky. But cute dorky.”

Spencer’s sort of embarrassed, because what guy on earth wastes his time learning to fold napkins?!, but instead of worrying about it, he says “Now you tell me something about you.”

“I’m terrified of food contamination,” Jon says, shrugging.

“I’ve noticed.”

“No, I mean, like, paralyzed,” Jon stresses. “It’s like I can’t eat anything unless it’s totally sterile, packaged, and fresh. Like, I don’t believe in leftovers, because I can’t stop thinking about how long the food’s been sitting idly in the fridge collecting moisture and whatever else. And I don’t normally eat out because I have no idea if the people making the food washed their hands or if they coughed on it or something—just, no. And I throw so much good food out because of the littlest things, and seriously sometimes I won’t eat for days because nothing’s looks safe enough. And this fear has sort of controlled my life since I was a kid, and I really hate it, and you wouldn’t know the feeling unless you were in my shoes, because I can’t really explain how debilitating it really is.”

Spencer just holds Jon closer, kisses the top of his head, and tries futilely to make him feel better with, “I’m really, really afraid of ladybugs.”

“Ladybugs?”

“Yeah. Like, fucking terrified. When I was a kid, we used to have this cabin in the middle of nowhere and when we were building it, a swarm of these ladybugs so large the sky looked red flew through and settled inside the roof and multiplied and we didn’t know it until they were crawling all over the floor and on the walls and stuff, and my parents wouldn’t exterminate them, so I’d wake up with like, ladybugs crawling all over me and shit, and it was so scary because I was afraid they were going to obstruct my airway while I was sleeping or something. There was no escaping them. My cousins and I used to count them when we were bored. One time we counted like fifty of them from where we were sitting. Fucking gross, and they’d like fly in your drinks and stuff. I swallowed a few over my childhood.”

“That’s fucking nasty,” Jon laughs, feeling a little better, because at least Spencer’s fear is more irrational than his, because while food can kill you, ladybugs can’t. “So tell me, you ladybug wrangler, you. Are there such thing as male ladybugs?”

“How else would they have multiplied so much?”

“I don’t know. Sperm donors?”

“From what? Male ladybugs?”

“Yeah, nevermind. You win.”

*

A/N: Sorry, this is sort of half-assed and late. Thanksgiving break is over and I wanted to have this finished. It didn't turn out that way, obviously. Oh well, I hope you enjoy. :D

Comments are lovely and always greatly appreciated. ♥