Jon calls Tom first. Tom answers and Jon swallows hard and says, not sure whether he should be falsely cheerful or sober, “So, I may not see you for a while.”

            Tom says, “Oh yeah?”

            He doesn’t sound surprised. 

_._

            Temporary. It’s only temporary.

            Jon’s never really lived life thinking about things in terms of their shelf-life. If he did that, he’d always be waiting for them to be over and he gets the feeling that living like that would suck. It’s not that he doesn’t know that everything’s gonna end at some point, but it’s not like you go into all of the things you do with that in mind. If everyone went into relationships thinking this is going to end eventually, what would the point be? Jon just likes to live in the moment, to have as much fun as he can without worrying about before and after. It’s worked well for him so far.

            It’s a little different now, though.

_._

            A plane ride to . . . well, if Jon were feeling philosophical he’d say something like ‘the future’ or ‘the rest of my life’. But he’s too busy listening carefully to every single note of every single chorus of every single song this band has written to care too much about being philosophical. Besides, it’s only temporary. That’s what Spencer Smith told him, voice steady on the phone.

            “We couldn’t think of anyone else,” he’d said. “And we really need. We need someone to fill in. Just for a little while, we’ll find someone permanent as soon as we can. Will you do it?”

            Jon pauses his iPod and tips his head back on the cramped little seat, thinking about his answer. He said yes because he didn’t want to say no. Because the minute Spencer had started talking about performing Jon’s stomach had jumped in anticipation. It was a little selfish in retrospect, and Jon thinks that he should feel bad for them, for losing Brent (kicking him out, his mind reminds him), but he’s more sick with nerves than anything. And looking forward to performing. He can’t help it.

            (He does care about Brent, he really does, but he’ll worry about empathy later when he has time for it, once he’s figured out these basslines).

            He turns his iPod up again and closes his eyes and concentrates, fingers marking phantom chords on his thighs.

_._

            Ten minutes after the phone call and Jon’s calling Tom to tell him about it. Tom sounds happy for him (maybe), tells him he’d better let Bill and Mike know. Finding Bill is easy because he’s usually wherever Mike is and they’re both at Mike’s apartment, flipping through a collection of old vinyl records. Jon sprawls out on the couch and says, “I got a call from Panic! At The Disco this morning.”

            Mike and Bill look up, eyebrows raised.

            “They want me to play bass for them for a while. They just kicked Brent out, I guess.”

            Bill’s lips purse and Mike looks down with a soft hum of acknowledgment. It’s not the reaction Jon was expecting, but it doesn’t really surprise him either. They’re tight, maybe not as tight as Jon is with Tom, but he’s gotten really close to Bill and Mike and Butcher and Sisky since he joined up with them. It’s. Well, Jon can understand why they’d be worried about him leaving. It’s no big secret how much Ryan, Brendon and Spencer grew on him while they were touring together.

            “It’s only temporary.” Jon says it like he means it, smiling almost nervously as he watches Mike.

            “Yeah,” Mike says, glancing up through his bangs at where Bill’s lounging on the opposite side of the room. “When do you go?”

            “Um, I’m on a red-eye tonight. So I should probably be packing.”

            Jon watches as Mike’s dog sniffs at the dusty jackets of the records while Mike smiles softly and shoos it away. He catches Mike’s eye briefly and then looks over at Bill who is studying a suspicious looking burn mark in the floor.

            He’s suddenly reluctant to go home and do it though. Pack. It feels . . . well, it feels like he won’t be coming back. Which is silly. This is temporary, Spencer told him it was and Jon knows that he’s not cut out for a band like Panic! At The Disco. He’s seen the way they light up at the craziest stage-show ideas and he was there the first time Ryan wore eyeliner for a full day waiting for someone to either tell him it looked ridiculous or that it looked good (Jon told him it looked good. Ryan beamed). They have the full emo look going for them with the hair and all of it and that’s just not Jon. At all. They’ll find some Pete lookalike and Jon will come back to Chicago and to his family and that’ll be that.

            Mike’s got a cigarette lit when Jon looks up and he’s eyeing Jon steadily.

            “Hey,” he says after a minute, grinning and pushing his hair out of his face. “Don’t miss us too much, okay?”

            “Yeah,” Bill says, loping over and flopping onto the floor next to Mike. “Don’t, like, cry into your pillow at night or anything.” He raises his eyebrows in a falsely earnest expression that tells Jon he hopes there will be crying into pillows at night.

            Jon rolls his eyes and laughs and convinces himself he’ll be back here soon.

_._

            Getting off the plane, Jon’s got a weird litany of words in his head. He’s counting off 4/4 time to the tune of it’s not forever, it’s only temporary. Words twine in with the ones he keeps telling himself, the song lyrics he’s been listening to on a permanent loop since he left O’Hare. He’s got Brendon’s recording voice in his ears crooning about whores and fucking among other things. He feels disoriented and on the verge of a panic (ha-ha, his mind goes, ha-ha).

            He picks up his bags and his scalp prickles. He’s hot, he can’t remember the last half of There’s a Good Reason . . . hell, he can’t even remember the full title of the song. He can’t do this, he can’t. This is the dumbest idea anyone’s ever had. Ever. Period. Full stop. Oh shit.

            Before he knows it, he’s spotted someone holding up a little sign with his name on it and he’s in a car on the way to the hotel, Christ this is really happening, and he leans his head out of the open window wishing for a paper bag to breathe into or something. He kind of can’t wait for this all to be over now that he’s thinking about it. He can’t handle the nerves. Every time the car coasts to a stop he thinks he’s going to have to lean out of the car door and throw up all over the pavement. And the performance isn’t even for another few hours yet.

            Jon’s cellphone vibrates against his leg and he pulls it out, sees a text message from Tom asking him if he’s flipping his shit yet. Jon texts him back: u kno me too well. Tom texts back: :) Jon wants to ask him if they miss him yet (it hasn’t even been twelve hours yet) or how he managed to do this nightly back when he was still in a band. Tom never gets this nervous, Jon knows. Then again, Jon thinks back and realizes this is sort of new for him, too.

            He’s sort of calm when they pull up to the hotel and he rubs his palms, sweaty, over the legs of his jeans. Someone tells him who he’s rooming with, but he promptly forgets exactly who his roommate is when he gets to the room and sees all three band members curled up in one bed like a litter of kittens. Jon stops just inside, dropping his bags and blinking at the three of them and he feels something knot up and then loosen in the pit of his stomach.

            “Hey,” a sleep-cracked voice says. Ryan’s staring at him from over Brendon’s shoulder. “You’re here.”

            “Hm?” Brendon murmurs, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes. “Who- Jon?”

            Before Jon knows it, he has an armful of lethargic lead-singer. How Brendon managed to launch himself off of the hotel bed and the few feet to Jon after just waking up, Jon isn’t sure. He doesn’t bother to question it.

            “We tried to wait up,” Ryan tells him, sitting up as well and nudging a still-sleeping Spencer. “But we couldn’t stay awake.”

            Jon shrugs, arms wrapped loosely around Brendon’s waist (and it’s amazing how comfortable this is, how used to Brendon’s tactility he had become in such a short amount of time, how much he’s missed it in the last few weeks).

            “You guys need your rest,” he says sensibly.

            “So do you,” Spencer informs him without opening his eyes. “In fact, I think everyone should shut up and go back to sleep.”

            Ryan smiles and Jon has missed that, too, the way Ryan only looks perfectly relaxed when he’s either just woken up or just come off stage. Brendon untangles himself from Jon and rolls his eyes at Spencer’s still form.

            “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “We’re going.”

            Brendon sits on the foot of the bed and Jon’s aware of him and Ryan watching him as he kicks off his flip-flops and turns off the light he’d flipped on when he’d come in. The room goes dark and Spencer makes a satisfied sound that makes Jon smile. He makes his way to the empty bed and falls into it, too excited to sleep, too tired to stay awake. He’s just drifting off when three voices tell him goodnight.

            He’s not entirely surprised when he wakes up two and a half hours later with Brendon curled up against him.

_._

            Everything washes over Jon in a wave of unbearable heat and euphonous sound. He’s on a stage bigger than any he’s ever played before and for a while time doesn’t exist except for the kind he keeps in his head. One-two-three-and-four-and. It’s weird, maybe, playing with a band that’s not his but he can’t stop smiling and Brendon catches his eye and he thinks

            maybe . . .

            Ryan catches his eye and he thinks

            maybe . . .

            Spencer catches his eye and grins and tosses his head and Jon thinks

            maybe . . .

            But the music ends and it still feels like it’s just a temporary thing as he walks off stage, Ryan and Brendon moving in tandem and Spencer leading the way, all of them in front of him. He thinks maybe he’ll play another show with them before they decide he’s not right for the band and find someone else to replace him for good. Which is how it’s supposed to be. It’s how Spencer said it would go.

            He’s sweaty and tired, his brain’s still buzzing with music, his heart’s still pounding too hard and too fast to be healthy, and he just kind of wants to find someplace quiet and call Tom and tell him how fucking amazing it was to play again. Before he can so much as wipe the sweat from his eyes with his damp sleeve, though, there’s a hand on the back of his neck. Jon glances over and up at Spencer who’s grinning at him.

            “That was good,” he says, and Ryan and Brendon are thrumming with energy a few feet away, all smiles, talking about what went wrong, what went right, dissing the guy with the motocross t-shirt and glancing around for people they might recognize.

            “Yeah,” Jon says, smiling. “It was all right.”

            Spencer’s eyebrow quirks just slightly and he cocks his head to the side. He says, “So you’re cool with staying around? Until we find a permanent bassist, I mean?”

            Jon can’t figure out if Spencer’s just extending a nicety or if he’s honest about wanting to keep Jon around longer. He doesn’t want to think about it too much, though. So he nods.

            “Sure. I’m here for as long as you need me.”

            Spencer’s smile says that may be longer than he promised over the phone.

_._

            Jon’s watching Ryan and Brendon get ready when Spencer walks over and says, “You got what you’re wearing?”

            Jon blinks up at him and then nods, reaching into the suitcase next to his bed and pulling out a black shirt and black pants.

            “Yeah, um, I’ve got . . .” He holds them up and Spencer grins and nods.

            “Nice choice,” he says and Jon grins back.

            “What can I say? I like to keep up with the trends of hot emo bands.”

            Spencer actually laughs and says, “Don’t tell Ryan that. He’ll never let you go.”

            Ryan calls for Spencer and he walks away and oh yeah, Jon thinks. This is just temporary.

_._

            The journalist says, “So, what was it like writing and recording together for the first time? Jon, you came into the band after the first album, right? How does it feel?”

            They’re being treated to lunch at one of the many restaurants in Vegas that Ryan loves. Journalists have figured out that one of the best ways to get in their good graces is to interview them on home turf and take them out somewhere nice. It would be amusing if it weren’t so effective. And if the food weren’t always so good.

            “Um,” Jon says, looking over at Spencer who makes a face behind the journalist’s back. He bites back a smile and says, “No, it’s been great. You know, it’s different because I had a say in the writing process and recording this time around. I don’t know, it’s nice.” He shares a look with Brendon. “I had a lot of fun.”

            The journalist looks between Jon and Brendon and coughs lightly to get their attention again.

            “Ryan, would you say it was easier having Jon around for this album? How did it affect the creative process?”

            Ryan’s been devoting most off his attention to his sub so he looks up almost shocked and glances at Jon and says, “It made it easier,” before he can help himself.

            “I mean,” he continues. “Jon’s really artistic, you know? Like, me and Spencer and Brendon can toss out ideas and he just gets where we’re coming from. And he can play more than one instrument and he can sing so. It’s kind of hard to imagine what it was like before he joined the band, to be honest.”

            Ryan says this matter-of-factly, but he glances sideways at Brendon and then at Jon, lips quirked up in a small, honest smile.

            The journalist nods, seemingly uncomfortable with all of the meaningful looks flying over his head, and asks what it was like recording a sophomore album after their first album was so successful, and they say the same thing they’ve been saying for months: it was difficult but going in they knew they just wanted to make an album they’d all be happy with.

            “The thing is, we hope the fans like it. But, like, we’re not out to impress people or whatever,” Brendon explains.

            “We just want to grow as artists,” Jon supplies, and Brendon nods and makes a moue of his mouth.

            “Yeah. Yeah, we want to be all that we can be, you know?”

            Brendon keeps a straight face. Spencer and Jon don’t quite manage it. At the end of the interview, Ryan and Brendon hold hands and the journalist stares so hard he doesn’t even notice that Spencer and Jon have their hands in each other’s back pockets.

_._

            “Jon Walker, you look like an idiot,” Bill crows into the phone.

            “What? I do not! I look hot.”

            “No,” Sisky says. “You really don’t.”

            “This coming from the guy with hair the size of a small country.”

            Jon can hear laughing in the background that sounds a lot like Mike and Butcher and it’s a freaking conference call, apparently. They have these sometimes because even though Jon’s with another band now, it’s not like he can run away from his roots. It’s not like he wants to. Besides, they miss him more than they’ll ever say. He’s a serious angst with all of them, he’s sure.

            “Seriously? You’ve got emo hair,” Bill says. “Jon, you’ve got fucking emo hair. I’ve seen pictures of you in ruffles. And eyeliner. Jon, Jon. What have they done to you?”

            The phone line erupts in hysterical laughter and Jon glares at the phone.

            “You’re going gay next,” Sisky says. “That’s the next and final step.”

            “You’ll be so scene, Jon Walker. You’ll wear your emo hair and make out with boys and write emo songs-“

            ”Okay!” Jon interrupts. “Okay, oh my God, shut up.”

            But he laughs a little too because he doesn’t mind. He fingers the hair hanging over his forehead and grins. He kind of likes it. He’s thinking of making it a permanent change.