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If anyone acts unsuprised by this, I will seriously hurt someone. Danielle is totally to blame. Completely. She better wear it well
Title: The Glitters are Prettier When You Wear Them Better Than You Already Are
Fandom/Characters/Pairing: This is Panic at the Disco fic, okay. Don't look at me that way. Now with added Fall Out Boy and My Chem
Word Count: 2508
Rating: R for swears
Summary: Ryan draws the line at apologizing to a stuffed unicorn okay.
Author's Notes: So Danielle is to blame. This is brought on by a late night conversation about who's besties in Panic and me not being able to keep my fucking mouth shut. Also the whole puppet thing may or may not subconsciously be stolen from David Sedaris. But like there's no professions of love. At least not yet. I'm pretty sure it's not going there. Also the title is my attempt at a long-ass title. I so don't beat Fall Out Boy.
The thing is, this isn’t the first time Sparkles has made an appearance.
It’s been awhile, since before the tours. Ryan had thought maybe after Brent, thought maybe he’d see the hideous pink and purple thing out in the counters of the bus, perched precariously on its fuzzy legs, swaying with every movement of the bus.
But that hadn’t happened.
Instead, Brendon had gotten ridiculously quiet, still a bundle of nervous energy, bouncing off the walls, but he’d barely said a peep.
Ryan thinks that maybe Sparkles had made an appearance, just not a public one. Which would make sense after that one time, during one of his dad’s benders that had sent him living with Brendon for a prolonged period of time, and Brendon had been acting cutesy, asking Ryan questions through Sparkles and Ryan had taken the stupid thing and thrown it against the wall.
That’s how Sparkles lost his eyeball.
Ryan thinks Brendon probably did a lot of his talking to Sparkles and that should make any normal human being start to think about mental problems, but this is Brendon.
So, no, not the first time that Sparkles has shown his face and Ryan thinks it probably won’t be the last.
It’s just the most annoying.
Because before, Ryan had known. He’s known why Brendon was prancing around with a stuffed unicorn in his hand, talking in a high pitched voice like the stuffed unicorn was actually talking to him.
He doesn’t have a clue now.
Well, that’s a lie. He has a small clue, but it’s not his fault. Really, it’s not despite the fact that a lot of Sparkles related incidents are his fault, this one is not.
He’d blame Jon Walker, but it’s kind of hard to blame Jon Walker for anything when he hugs you and tells you you’re pretty like rainbows.
So, no, Ryan doesn’t blame Jon.
He does blame Jon’s weed though.
Jon’s weed is totally to blame. Ryan cannot be held accountable for what he does or says when he’s under the influence of Jon’s weed.
Brendon should know that. He should fucking know that. He’d been at the cabin too when all of Ryan’s lyrics had dealt with the asteroids and the mood and weird shit like that.
Brendon should fucking know.
He should know, that when Ryan’s high, he’ll say stupid shit like, Spencer, Spencer we’re the bestest friends, you’re like my best friend ever and he may or may not have groped Spencer a bit inappropriately.
It’s hard to tell with them considering there are pictures with Spencer’s head resting on Ryan’s crotch.
And like, no one had said anything because it’s like trying to argue that you need to breathe oxygen in order to live.
Jon had made a joke, easy and harmless and had practically thrown himself on Brendon and said, yes, you’re my bestest friend ever too. And Brendon had laughed.
And Ryan hadn’t thought anything of it.
Except Sparkles had made an appearance the next day.
Ryan had almost forgot about Sparkles because really, it had been years and Sparkles hadn’t ever come out when Jon’s been around.
Except there it is, that ugly purple and pink unicorn and Ryan really wants to know where he got the damn thing it’s so ugly.
And he’s making it talk in that ridiculously high pitched voice.
“I don’t think Ryan’s that mean, Sparkles,” Brendon says.
“He’s very mean. Really mean. He threw me against a wall once,” Brendon as Sparkles says.
“He was just angry.”
“But you don’t do that to your friends. Ryan’s not our friend.”
“Sure he is Sparkles.”
“No. He’s not. He’s mean.”
“God, what are you twelve?”
Brendon pouts. That pout that Ryan knows Brendon thinks is cute, but really just makes his face scrunch up in a totally not adorable way.
He kind of looks constipated. Ryan’s never told him that.
Ryan thinks that makes him an awesome friend.
He keeps pouting and Ryan just throws up his hands and goes back to eating his Pop-Tart.
Brendon can talk to Sparkles all he wants. It’s not like Ryan cares, okay, because like it’s a stuffed unicorn that was probably given to him by one of his millions of siblings. Or nieces. Possibly even that one aunt that sent them all chocolate before their first tour.
Ryan doesn’t even care.
Except Jon Walker comes in and he messes up Ryan’s hair to distract Ryan from the fact that he’s stealing one of his Pop-Tarts and walks over to Brendon and hugs him where he sits.
“Who’s this guy?” He asks shaking Sparkles.
“This is Sparkles. He’s my bestest friend,” Brendon says.
Jon frowns.
“I thought I was your bestest friend?”
“You are. You’re my best friend.”
“But not bestest?”
“We can all be bestest friends,” Brendon says.
Jon gives him that questioning look that Ryan’s learned means Jon’s just humoring Brendon.
But he’s so good at it that Brendon can’t even tell.
“I don’t know if he’s going to like me,” Jon says.
Brendon smiles.
“Of course he’s going to like you. You’re Jon Walker.”
“Well maybe I should ask him. Hey, Sparkles, do you want to be bestest friends with me?”
“Of course I do, Jon Walker. You’re like better than Christmas. Not like that mean Ryan Ross.”
Jon raises an eyebrow and Ryan can feel his eyes on him, just knows that Jon’s going to ask later after he hands Ryan a joint and makes meaningful gestures with his eyebrows and just sit there as Ryan tells him it’s nothing, really nothing.
Ryan knows he’s going to spill. He can feel it because this is Jon and Jon can get monks to debate about The O.C..
“Well, I am honored to be your bestest friend, Sparkles.”
“I’m glad some people are.”
It’s after that that Ryan huffs and throws the rest of his Pop-Tart at Brendon’s head.
He doesn’t need this shit, okay. Especially not from a stuffed unicorn with tassle that looks like it came off a nine year old girl’s bicycle.
~*~
The thing is, Ryan takes his relationships really seriously.
Like crazy seriously. He’s been told that a lot. There’s intensity behind every single one of them and Brendon used to get that.
So when he says that Spencer is his best friend, he’s not joking around with that shit. He means it. He means it because Spencer been there for him since he was six and shit like that doesn’t just erase because you make new friends.
It also doesn’t make the other relationships less intense.
Ryan hadn’t known that. Not before Brendon. Before Brendon it had just been Spencer and the occasional girlfriend he’d write angsty, fucked up lyrics about.
He knows it’s fucked that he doesn’t think about Brent the same way, but he’s not going to lie about that shit.
So before Brendon it had just been Spencer and Ryan hadn’t known you could have other friends and really, really love them the way he loves Spencer.
He knows he can. He knows he can and not, like, explode from emo or something.
But it’s still Spencer. It’s still Spencer he turns to for this shit because he’s not quite that good with people yet.
He thinks he should be better, especially with Brendon, but he’s never been able to get the whole Sparkles thing.
“It’s like with your notebooks, you know,” Spencer says.
Ryan frowns.
“No.”
Spencer sighs.
“You know how you like, write everything in those things. Every thought you’re having. Well, it’s the same for Brendon only he talks to a stuffed unicorn, okay. He, like, needs to talk.”
They don’t bring up Brent because that whole situation had been fucked up all around.
“Why doesn’t he just say it to my face?”
“Because he can’t do that, you know.”
“No.”
Spencer sighs again, this time louder and bigger and he brings his whole body into it.
“Ryan.”
“Spencer.”
“Just… apologize to him."
“For something I said when I was high?”
“Yeah.”
“But it’s not… it’s not like I said I hate him. I just said…”
“I know, okay. But… it’s almost like we’re time sharing him, you know.”
“No.”
Spencer takes a deep breath and Ryan can see him mentally counting to ten.
“We go off and we do things and you and Jon go off and you do things and me and Jon go off and we do things, but like no one says, hey Brendon, let’s go do something.”
“We do that all the time.”
“Not lately. And then like during the time we’re not in each other’s pockets, you’re always over at my place. And we have to invite Brendon over. And Jon’s all the way in Chicago.”
This is true, but that has more to do with the fact that Ryan likes running water and food and Spencer is somehow a responsible adult despite the fact that they spend months on a bus.
If Ryan wanted to live on a diet of ice cream and Twizzlers, he’d so go to Brendon’s.
“So like, maybe he’s feeling a little left out, you know. And it all just sort of… popped when you said what you said.”
“Are you telling me this has been a long time coming and I just was the unlucky bastard who said the wrong thing?”
“Well, yeah. But you should be used to it. You always say the wrong thing.”
He says it with a smile and in that Spencer way that reminds Ryan that Spencer pretty much knows everything about him so he can’t get pissed.
“Alright, I’ll apologize. But, like, he better not expect flowers or some shit.”
So he makes the plan to apologize and maybe offer to take Brendon to get some frozen yogurt on their next stop. He doesn’t know if they’re next city is going to have yogurt, but he’s pretty sure he’s got people to figure that shit out, people like Zach.
“Brendon, I’m sorry,” he says the next morning and like he really means it.
Really, really means it.
Brendon just pouts.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t even know what you’re apologizing for.”
“Yes, I do. I’m apologizing for being a dick.”
“So you’re apologizing for existing? You shouldn’t apologize for that Ryan. It’s not really your fault.”
Ryan glares.
“You don’t have to be a dick, you know.”
“I’m not. I don’t accept your apology. And I won’t accept your apology until you apologize to Sparkles,” he says gesturing to the unicorn sitting on the table.
Ryan glares even more.
Because he draws the line at apologizing to stuffed unicorn.
~*~
“You know, things are kind of getting worse. Now Brendon won’t talk unless it’s as Sparkles,” Spencer says.
“I know.”
“And, like, Jon’s be great. You know. Talking to Sparkles as if the thing’s actually alive.”
“I know.”
“But, like, this isn’t what I meant when I said apologize. I meant, you know, fix it.”
“He wanted me to apologize to a stuffed unicorn, Spencer. Spencer, a stuffed unicorn.”
“I know, Ryan, but, like, it means something to him okay. So wouldn’t it be possible to just, you know, apologize to Sparkles.”
“No,” Ryan says dryly.
Spencer sighs and throws his hands in the air.
“Then this whole thing is just going to go on forever.”
“It’s Brendon. He’ll find something shiny and get over it. Like, look at this place. He’ll find something here.”
They’re currently at a Halloween costume shop because Sparkles had wanted to stop and get his bestest friend Frank a birthday present. Never mind that it’s months away from being Halloween and Frank’s birthday and Ryan still wants to know how Brendon got Frank Iero to talk to a stuffed unicorn.
This is Frank Iero, though. He probably thought that shit was completely hilarious.
He’s already had to field calls from Patrick and texts from Pete all asking various forms of the question why is your lead singer talking as if he were a stuffed unicorn?
Joe thinks it’s hilarious. He’s texted Ryan, I think it’s hilarious, only with less vowels.
The only time Brendon does talk as Brendon is when he’s up on stage and even then it’s mostly sing.
Pete says the fans are going to notice and chalk it up to someone sleeping with someone and then not calling the next day.
Pete has an overactive imagination.
But they're here now, in a Halloween costume store and Ryan doesn’t even want to know who Zach had to talk to in order to find this place.
There’s shiny stuff everywhere.
“Yeah, but Ryan, its Brendon. The guy has the attention span of a goldfish, but he can hold a grudge better than anyone I know. And the text messages from Pete are starting to get weird. And Patrick’s little well-meaning chats are starting to get annoying, okay. I don’t know why people have to call me with this shit.”
“Because you’re a responsible adult.”
“Yeah, well, for once I want to be the one that gets to talk as if I’m a stuffed unicorn or act like a total douchebag.”
“I can buy you a tiara. You can pretend to be a pretty, pretty, princess.”
Spencer glares.
“You know what, fuck you. Apologize to the fucking unicorn already or like we’re seriously gonna end up a Behind the Music special and the whole fucking world is gonna know our band ended because you were too much of a bitch to apologize to a unicorn.”
He stalks off and Ryan wants to yell for him to come back because how the fuck is he going to apologize to a unicorn. He, like, physically can’t. It’s like completely impossible. He can’t.
But Spencer’s right. If he doesn’t do something it’s going to get worse and worse and soon Brendon might actually want to take the fucking thing on stage and sing as Sparkles. He knows his fans are like weird and loyal and shit, but he’s not so sure even they would keep listening and following them if something like that were to happen.
And, though he’s not going to admit it even if he’s like tortured with having tiny tacks pierced into his skin, he misses Brendon actually talking to him.
He misses Brendon.
He wishes Spencer could just fix it. Spencer’s good at fixing shit. He doesn’t understand why Spencer can’t fix this.
But Ryan knows that isn’t fair because, even though it’s not entirely Ryan’s fault, Brendon’s acting out because of what Ryan said.
So Ryan has to fix it.
But he doesn’t know how.
He can’t.
Not with the whole unicorn thing and Ryan’s starting to really get frustrated by this because he can’t fix this and it’s Brendon.
He should be able to fix this.
He’s trying to come up with ways when something catches his eye.
It’s ugly and it’s black and it has tangled strings and fake blood dripping from it’s teeth.
It’s a bat puppet.
It’s perfect.
TBC (there's a back half of this story I haven't even started writing yet.)
Title: The Glitters are Prettier When You Wear Them Better Than You Already Are
Fandom/Characters/Pairing: This is Panic at the Disco fic, okay. Don't look at me that way. Now with added Fall Out Boy and My Chem
Word Count: 2508
Rating: R for swears
Summary: Ryan draws the line at apologizing to a stuffed unicorn okay.
Author's Notes: So Danielle is to blame. This is brought on by a late night conversation about who's besties in Panic and me not being able to keep my fucking mouth shut. Also the whole puppet thing may or may not subconsciously be stolen from David Sedaris. But like there's no professions of love. At least not yet. I'm pretty sure it's not going there. Also the title is my attempt at a long-ass title. I so don't beat Fall Out Boy.
The thing is, this isn’t the first time Sparkles has made an appearance.
It’s been awhile, since before the tours. Ryan had thought maybe after Brent, thought maybe he’d see the hideous pink and purple thing out in the counters of the bus, perched precariously on its fuzzy legs, swaying with every movement of the bus.
But that hadn’t happened.
Instead, Brendon had gotten ridiculously quiet, still a bundle of nervous energy, bouncing off the walls, but he’d barely said a peep.
Ryan thinks that maybe Sparkles had made an appearance, just not a public one. Which would make sense after that one time, during one of his dad’s benders that had sent him living with Brendon for a prolonged period of time, and Brendon had been acting cutesy, asking Ryan questions through Sparkles and Ryan had taken the stupid thing and thrown it against the wall.
That’s how Sparkles lost his eyeball.
Ryan thinks Brendon probably did a lot of his talking to Sparkles and that should make any normal human being start to think about mental problems, but this is Brendon.
So, no, not the first time that Sparkles has shown his face and Ryan thinks it probably won’t be the last.
It’s just the most annoying.
Because before, Ryan had known. He’s known why Brendon was prancing around with a stuffed unicorn in his hand, talking in a high pitched voice like the stuffed unicorn was actually talking to him.
He doesn’t have a clue now.
Well, that’s a lie. He has a small clue, but it’s not his fault. Really, it’s not despite the fact that a lot of Sparkles related incidents are his fault, this one is not.
He’d blame Jon Walker, but it’s kind of hard to blame Jon Walker for anything when he hugs you and tells you you’re pretty like rainbows.
So, no, Ryan doesn’t blame Jon.
He does blame Jon’s weed though.
Jon’s weed is totally to blame. Ryan cannot be held accountable for what he does or says when he’s under the influence of Jon’s weed.
Brendon should know that. He should fucking know that. He’d been at the cabin too when all of Ryan’s lyrics had dealt with the asteroids and the mood and weird shit like that.
Brendon should fucking know.
He should know, that when Ryan’s high, he’ll say stupid shit like, Spencer, Spencer we’re the bestest friends, you’re like my best friend ever and he may or may not have groped Spencer a bit inappropriately.
It’s hard to tell with them considering there are pictures with Spencer’s head resting on Ryan’s crotch.
And like, no one had said anything because it’s like trying to argue that you need to breathe oxygen in order to live.
Jon had made a joke, easy and harmless and had practically thrown himself on Brendon and said, yes, you’re my bestest friend ever too. And Brendon had laughed.
And Ryan hadn’t thought anything of it.
Except Sparkles had made an appearance the next day.
Ryan had almost forgot about Sparkles because really, it had been years and Sparkles hadn’t ever come out when Jon’s been around.
Except there it is, that ugly purple and pink unicorn and Ryan really wants to know where he got the damn thing it’s so ugly.
And he’s making it talk in that ridiculously high pitched voice.
“I don’t think Ryan’s that mean, Sparkles,” Brendon says.
“He’s very mean. Really mean. He threw me against a wall once,” Brendon as Sparkles says.
“He was just angry.”
“But you don’t do that to your friends. Ryan’s not our friend.”
“Sure he is Sparkles.”
“No. He’s not. He’s mean.”
“God, what are you twelve?”
Brendon pouts. That pout that Ryan knows Brendon thinks is cute, but really just makes his face scrunch up in a totally not adorable way.
He kind of looks constipated. Ryan’s never told him that.
Ryan thinks that makes him an awesome friend.
He keeps pouting and Ryan just throws up his hands and goes back to eating his Pop-Tart.
Brendon can talk to Sparkles all he wants. It’s not like Ryan cares, okay, because like it’s a stuffed unicorn that was probably given to him by one of his millions of siblings. Or nieces. Possibly even that one aunt that sent them all chocolate before their first tour.
Ryan doesn’t even care.
Except Jon Walker comes in and he messes up Ryan’s hair to distract Ryan from the fact that he’s stealing one of his Pop-Tarts and walks over to Brendon and hugs him where he sits.
“Who’s this guy?” He asks shaking Sparkles.
“This is Sparkles. He’s my bestest friend,” Brendon says.
Jon frowns.
“I thought I was your bestest friend?”
“You are. You’re my best friend.”
“But not bestest?”
“We can all be bestest friends,” Brendon says.
Jon gives him that questioning look that Ryan’s learned means Jon’s just humoring Brendon.
But he’s so good at it that Brendon can’t even tell.
“I don’t know if he’s going to like me,” Jon says.
Brendon smiles.
“Of course he’s going to like you. You’re Jon Walker.”
“Well maybe I should ask him. Hey, Sparkles, do you want to be bestest friends with me?”
“Of course I do, Jon Walker. You’re like better than Christmas. Not like that mean Ryan Ross.”
Jon raises an eyebrow and Ryan can feel his eyes on him, just knows that Jon’s going to ask later after he hands Ryan a joint and makes meaningful gestures with his eyebrows and just sit there as Ryan tells him it’s nothing, really nothing.
Ryan knows he’s going to spill. He can feel it because this is Jon and Jon can get monks to debate about The O.C..
“Well, I am honored to be your bestest friend, Sparkles.”
“I’m glad some people are.”
It’s after that that Ryan huffs and throws the rest of his Pop-Tart at Brendon’s head.
He doesn’t need this shit, okay. Especially not from a stuffed unicorn with tassle that looks like it came off a nine year old girl’s bicycle.
~*~
The thing is, Ryan takes his relationships really seriously.
Like crazy seriously. He’s been told that a lot. There’s intensity behind every single one of them and Brendon used to get that.
So when he says that Spencer is his best friend, he’s not joking around with that shit. He means it. He means it because Spencer been there for him since he was six and shit like that doesn’t just erase because you make new friends.
It also doesn’t make the other relationships less intense.
Ryan hadn’t known that. Not before Brendon. Before Brendon it had just been Spencer and the occasional girlfriend he’d write angsty, fucked up lyrics about.
He knows it’s fucked that he doesn’t think about Brent the same way, but he’s not going to lie about that shit.
So before Brendon it had just been Spencer and Ryan hadn’t known you could have other friends and really, really love them the way he loves Spencer.
He knows he can. He knows he can and not, like, explode from emo or something.
But it’s still Spencer. It’s still Spencer he turns to for this shit because he’s not quite that good with people yet.
He thinks he should be better, especially with Brendon, but he’s never been able to get the whole Sparkles thing.
“It’s like with your notebooks, you know,” Spencer says.
Ryan frowns.
“No.”
Spencer sighs.
“You know how you like, write everything in those things. Every thought you’re having. Well, it’s the same for Brendon only he talks to a stuffed unicorn, okay. He, like, needs to talk.”
They don’t bring up Brent because that whole situation had been fucked up all around.
“Why doesn’t he just say it to my face?”
“Because he can’t do that, you know.”
“No.”
Spencer sighs again, this time louder and bigger and he brings his whole body into it.
“Ryan.”
“Spencer.”
“Just… apologize to him."
“For something I said when I was high?”
“Yeah.”
“But it’s not… it’s not like I said I hate him. I just said…”
“I know, okay. But… it’s almost like we’re time sharing him, you know.”
“No.”
Spencer takes a deep breath and Ryan can see him mentally counting to ten.
“We go off and we do things and you and Jon go off and you do things and me and Jon go off and we do things, but like no one says, hey Brendon, let’s go do something.”
“We do that all the time.”
“Not lately. And then like during the time we’re not in each other’s pockets, you’re always over at my place. And we have to invite Brendon over. And Jon’s all the way in Chicago.”
This is true, but that has more to do with the fact that Ryan likes running water and food and Spencer is somehow a responsible adult despite the fact that they spend months on a bus.
If Ryan wanted to live on a diet of ice cream and Twizzlers, he’d so go to Brendon’s.
“So like, maybe he’s feeling a little left out, you know. And it all just sort of… popped when you said what you said.”
“Are you telling me this has been a long time coming and I just was the unlucky bastard who said the wrong thing?”
“Well, yeah. But you should be used to it. You always say the wrong thing.”
He says it with a smile and in that Spencer way that reminds Ryan that Spencer pretty much knows everything about him so he can’t get pissed.
“Alright, I’ll apologize. But, like, he better not expect flowers or some shit.”
So he makes the plan to apologize and maybe offer to take Brendon to get some frozen yogurt on their next stop. He doesn’t know if they’re next city is going to have yogurt, but he’s pretty sure he’s got people to figure that shit out, people like Zach.
“Brendon, I’m sorry,” he says the next morning and like he really means it.
Really, really means it.
Brendon just pouts.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t even know what you’re apologizing for.”
“Yes, I do. I’m apologizing for being a dick.”
“So you’re apologizing for existing? You shouldn’t apologize for that Ryan. It’s not really your fault.”
Ryan glares.
“You don’t have to be a dick, you know.”
“I’m not. I don’t accept your apology. And I won’t accept your apology until you apologize to Sparkles,” he says gesturing to the unicorn sitting on the table.
Ryan glares even more.
Because he draws the line at apologizing to stuffed unicorn.
~*~
“You know, things are kind of getting worse. Now Brendon won’t talk unless it’s as Sparkles,” Spencer says.
“I know.”
“And, like, Jon’s be great. You know. Talking to Sparkles as if the thing’s actually alive.”
“I know.”
“But, like, this isn’t what I meant when I said apologize. I meant, you know, fix it.”
“He wanted me to apologize to a stuffed unicorn, Spencer. Spencer, a stuffed unicorn.”
“I know, Ryan, but, like, it means something to him okay. So wouldn’t it be possible to just, you know, apologize to Sparkles.”
“No,” Ryan says dryly.
Spencer sighs and throws his hands in the air.
“Then this whole thing is just going to go on forever.”
“It’s Brendon. He’ll find something shiny and get over it. Like, look at this place. He’ll find something here.”
They’re currently at a Halloween costume shop because Sparkles had wanted to stop and get his bestest friend Frank a birthday present. Never mind that it’s months away from being Halloween and Frank’s birthday and Ryan still wants to know how Brendon got Frank Iero to talk to a stuffed unicorn.
This is Frank Iero, though. He probably thought that shit was completely hilarious.
He’s already had to field calls from Patrick and texts from Pete all asking various forms of the question why is your lead singer talking as if he were a stuffed unicorn?
Joe thinks it’s hilarious. He’s texted Ryan, I think it’s hilarious, only with less vowels.
The only time Brendon does talk as Brendon is when he’s up on stage and even then it’s mostly sing.
Pete says the fans are going to notice and chalk it up to someone sleeping with someone and then not calling the next day.
Pete has an overactive imagination.
But they're here now, in a Halloween costume store and Ryan doesn’t even want to know who Zach had to talk to in order to find this place.
There’s shiny stuff everywhere.
“Yeah, but Ryan, its Brendon. The guy has the attention span of a goldfish, but he can hold a grudge better than anyone I know. And the text messages from Pete are starting to get weird. And Patrick’s little well-meaning chats are starting to get annoying, okay. I don’t know why people have to call me with this shit.”
“Because you’re a responsible adult.”
“Yeah, well, for once I want to be the one that gets to talk as if I’m a stuffed unicorn or act like a total douchebag.”
“I can buy you a tiara. You can pretend to be a pretty, pretty, princess.”
Spencer glares.
“You know what, fuck you. Apologize to the fucking unicorn already or like we’re seriously gonna end up a Behind the Music special and the whole fucking world is gonna know our band ended because you were too much of a bitch to apologize to a unicorn.”
He stalks off and Ryan wants to yell for him to come back because how the fuck is he going to apologize to a unicorn. He, like, physically can’t. It’s like completely impossible. He can’t.
But Spencer’s right. If he doesn’t do something it’s going to get worse and worse and soon Brendon might actually want to take the fucking thing on stage and sing as Sparkles. He knows his fans are like weird and loyal and shit, but he’s not so sure even they would keep listening and following them if something like that were to happen.
And, though he’s not going to admit it even if he’s like tortured with having tiny tacks pierced into his skin, he misses Brendon actually talking to him.
He misses Brendon.
He wishes Spencer could just fix it. Spencer’s good at fixing shit. He doesn’t understand why Spencer can’t fix this.
But Ryan knows that isn’t fair because, even though it’s not entirely Ryan’s fault, Brendon’s acting out because of what Ryan said.
So Ryan has to fix it.
But he doesn’t know how.
He can’t.
Not with the whole unicorn thing and Ryan’s starting to really get frustrated by this because he can’t fix this and it’s Brendon.
He should be able to fix this.
He’s trying to come up with ways when something catches his eye.
It’s ugly and it’s black and it has tangled strings and fake blood dripping from it’s teeth.
It’s a bat puppet.
It’s perfect.
TBC (there's a back half of this story I haven't even started writing yet.)