Crack. pure. crack.
it's amazing what you can come up with when you're bored out of your brains at work.
if i can come up with this... i think maybe i'm kind of depressed, or questioning my own mortality or something...
White Feather
P!ATD
Spencer/Ryan (if you squint. really really hard)
Character death warning
2370 words
Cracked up and pointless. plus it's not real.
Spencer had been having backaches for a couple of weeks; the pain was sometimes so bad he would wake up in the middle of the night and pace the bus to get rid of the aches. It helped some, but sometimes he could not help wincing when he got up from his drum-kit.
It was a month after the first onset of pain, when he got up from his seat after a show and collapsed. The fans were screaming, and Zach came onstage to haul him off. All he remembered from that was how his back had felt like it was breaking every step that Zach took. The next thing he knew, he was in a hospital room, and a doctor was telling him what was wrong.
Spencer’s first words after the doctor’s talk were, “So… I’m going to die?”
Ryan was not taking the news well. Not that Spencer could blame him; the boy had seen too many of the people close to him die, or leave. If Spencer had a choice, he would definitely not want this to happen.
But then again… who would?
Brendon was being vocal about how he felt “this can’t be… it’s not fucking right. It’s not supposed to happen to Spence, fucking insane!”, flailing his arms about and generally being Brendon.
Spencer just thought about how Brendon looked like he had come out of a Looney Tunes cartoon, his mannerisms reminding him of Daffy Duck’s, and imaging Brendon with a bright yellow beak made him laugh. The boys turned to look at him, and Ryan, incredulous, asked, “How can you still laugh about this?”
“I don’t know,” Spencer shrugged, still laughing.
And he just kept laughing.
Spencer could no longer sleep on his back. They got into the way of everything, and he tried to sleep lying on his front but everything just felt squashed. He gave up on sleeping.
“It’s like, I don’t know. A firefly. Or something. One last flare of greatness before the end.”
Spencer’s mom squeezed his hand. She was smiling, but it was a happy one; it looked bitter. Spencer wanted to tell his mother that it was okay. That he was okay with the entire thing. He was sorry he had to leave her behind.
She placed a hand on his cheek. He leaned into it, lips touching it lightly in a soft kiss.
“Is Dad coming?” Spencer’s voiced sounded different; even in his head. It reminded him of the time he was eleven and was begging his parents to let him go for the Backstreet Boys concert with Ryan.
“He’s coming,” his mom answered, stroking little half moons on his cheek. “He will.”
A month later, they were fully-grown. He hadn’t been able to sleep a wink in the process (his body was literally growing new bones), and now he stood in the courtyard of the hospital, flapping them experimentally. Loose feathers shook off and fell onto the ground, a white so pure even he was dazzled.
“Glorious,” the nurse said. “Yours are the prettiest I’ve ever seen.”
Spencer turned around. “Have you seen many?”
She shook her head. “Only in books.”
Although they’ve grown, Spencer knew they were not built to fly. It was a freak of nature that humans could even grow wings; the doctor mentioned something about it being hereditary and only affecting one in about two billion people. The last time this had happened and recorded in America was three years ago to a nine-year-old girl in Minnesota. Her name was Jessica Douglas; and she died two weeks after her wings were fully developed.
There was no cure; no medicine or operation that could help.
Spencer wondered how long he had left. It felt weird, questioning his mortality, counting it down in days. Sometimes, he thought about it in hours. (335 hours, 11 minutes and 35 seconds) It felt like he had more time that way.
He was still calm about the entire thing, though. Even he was surprised at how accepting he was about his ‘impending doom’. Maybe it was because he believed in Peter Pan; Death is just another adventure.
“Spence?”
He turned around, nearly hitting Ryan in the face. He shrank them, realizing he had to learn how to estimate his wingspan. “Hey. Look,” he said. He stood two steps back, looked around to make sure nobody was near, and spread his wings out.
For the first time in a long while, Ryan smiled.
He wanted to go on with the shows. Jon leaned against the door with his arms crossed; Ryan was sitting on the couch. Brendon was arguing with Spencer.
“You can’t possibly go out like that!” Brendon exclaimed.
“Why? Because I look like a freak?” Spencer bit back. Ryan hissed, and Jon rolled his eyes.
“No, because, I mean, you’re sick,” Brendon turned his voice down and placed his hands on the rails at the edge of the bed. “We, it’s not going to make you better.”
“Nothing, is going to make me better,” Spencer hollered, and all of them flinched.
Brendon and Spencer looked eyes for a moment, before the older boy lifted his hands from the rails, slapped the bed hard, side stepped Jon and marched out of the room. Jon followed.
Ryan got up from the couch and walked over to the bed, sitting down on the visitor’s chair. He twiddled his thumbs for a moment, starring at the grotesque painting of a bowl of fruits on the wall opposite Spencer’s bed, before, “I don’t know if you should do this.”
“I want to.”
“I know you do. I just don’t know if you should,” Ryan said.
“You think people would be freaked out too?” Spencer spat.
Ryan bit his lower lip, closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes, he knew what to say. “I don’t think they’d be freaked. They’ll be in awe.”
Spencer blinked, once, twice. “Oh.”
“But you’re not… you still don’t feel well. The doctor said the growth wrecks up your immune system. Playing a gig with seven thousand people with sweat and dirt is not going to help you,” Ryan continued softly, “It’s like asking for an early death.”
Spencer turned to Ryan. His smile mirrored the one his mother had when she came to see him. “Maybe I am.”
The first time he played after he left the hospital he fell off the chair and bruised his right wing. It took him a few more tries to be able to play without falling off and when he did, it felt like how it did when he and Ryan played their first song together.
Ryan was bandaging Spencer’s wing after rehearsal (Spencer had refused to let anyone stop him during).
“I didn’t think it’d bleed,” Ryan said, wrapping gauze around the tip of the wing.
Spencer scoffed. “You think?” He winced when Ryan pressed too hard. Ryan whispered a quick apology, paused for a moment.
Suddenly, he felt Ryan’s hand brush the tip of the wing to the top, the skin of his wing rippling in its trail.
“Hey,” he said.
Ryan took his hand off, blushing deeply as he clipped the gauze in place. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“No, hey,” Spencer reached over and stopped. “I mean. It was okay. Didn’t hurt, or anything.”
Ryan raised an eyebrow. “So… how’d it feel?”
“It tickled,” Spencer admitted. “But it’s… do it again, won’t you?”
Ryan reached his hand out, and brushed the top of Spencer’s wing. He shivered. Ryan brushed the top of the wing to the joint where it joined Spencer’s back. “It’s so weird,” Ryan confessed, running his hand along the bone of the wing up to the joint where it connected with Spencer’s back. “It’s really real.” He ruffled the feathers a little, smiling.
Spencer turned to Ryan, saw the smile on his face, and figured maybe that was worth dying for.
They played. The fans laughed, cried and sang along. Spencer did meet and greets. He rarely let anyone touch his wings, choosing to strap them down so they would not get in the way.
Seventeen shows later, Spencer started coughing. The day after, he was shaking throughout the entire show, exerting so much strength that all the boys noticed. He didn’t stop, but the day after, he could not get out of bed. Jon was the one who found him; he ran into Brendon and Ryan’s room, trembling as he pulled Ryan over to the room he shared with Spencer.
Spencer wanted to go home to Las Vegas, so they got him on a plane. Ryan went with him; Jon and Brendon were booked on the next flight.
His parents were waiting for him at the airport; as was what felt like three thousand photographers. Spencer just reached for his mom’s hand and squeezed it. Mrs. Smith had sunglasses on, but Ryan spied the tear that ran down her cheek. She was holding Spencer’s hand all the way home.
Ryan was staying with the Smiths; he spent the next two days sitting with Spencer in the backyard. The doctor came everyday, and Spencer had a live-in nurse. Mrs. Smith cooked all of Spencer’s favourite foods, but he could barely keep two bites down. He was so thin now, and his wings looked too big for his small frame.
This was why he couldn’t live. Ryan read a report on the Internet, giving it the term “wing parasite disease”. One of the patient’s wings grew so big he could not even stand. It was hard to believe because Ryan thought they were the most beautiful things in the world. Mrs. Smith called Spencer her ‘angel from heaven’, but not in front of him. Spencer didn’t like that.
“I called Haley,” Spencer said.
Ryan broke away from his thoughts and turned to Spencer, dangling off the side of the parapet with his wings folded behind him. “When?”
“Yesterday. She was crying like, shit man,” Spencer leaned downwards to adjust his shoelace, and his wings flipped up, half-folded. The sun glinted off the edges of the roof and through the skin of Spencer’s wings. Mrs. Smith was right. He did look like an angel. Ryan was half expecting Spencer to trade his tee shirts and Converses for robes and a halo. “I shouldn’t have called her.”
“You miss her?” Ryan asked, tilting so that he could look at Spencer’s face.
“Sometimes,” he sat back up, wings folding back neatly. He scratched the inside of his elbow lightly, at the scars that IV drips had given him. “I miss people. But they all look at me like I’m a freak. I can’t have normal conversations with people who just keep starring at my back. It’s weird.”
“You’re not a freak,” Ryan said. And he meant it to.
Spencer smiled. He hopped off the parapet and covered the distance between him and Ryan. He stretched his wings forward and wrapped them around Ryan. Ryan’s eyes opened in surprise, and his face tickled from the feathers. He wasn’t freaked though. He just felt warm. Safe. “Wow.”
Spencer smiled. “You’re the only thing that kept me going throughout this shit, you know?” he said.
Ryan stared at Spencer, and only managed to nod.
“You’re the only one who looks at me like I’m still normal. Not just about the wings. People are freaked about how calm I am. I don’t know why. Anyway. So thank you. Otherwise I’d have gone crazy.”
Ryan nodded again.
“So… when it happens…” Spencer turned to look up at the sky, at the light that was spilling into the cocoon he made. “I just wanted you to know that.”
Ryan’s throat felt dry. He didn’t want to think about ‘when it happens’. “Okay.”
Spencer leaned over and pressed a kiss on Ryan’s lips, quick and chaste. Ryan squinted in the light and licked his lips when Spencer moved away.
That was how Ryan would always remember Spencer; in a Fall Out Boy shirt and jeans, red lips and sparkling eyes, the sunlight glowing off the edges of his wings.
Brendon, Jon and Ryan sat together in the church. Mrs. Smith, up in the front pew turned around and smiled at the boys, before turning back. Two rows down to the left, Pete, Patrick, Andy and Joe, together with a bunch of other kids from Decaydance, took up six or seven rows and sat in silence.
Fans were camped outside the church. Ryan heard someone say she had come from London.
Brendon spoke for the band. He talked about how Spencer always took care of them, even though he was the youngest. “… never giving up faith until the end.”
Ryan wasn’t sad; he wasn’t. Spencer had been so cheerful, even though he spent his last days bedridden. He had been so prepared; the picture that was at the front was one of him with his wings. Spencer was so accepting of this entire thing, that Ryan felt he should not make any fuss about it.
Now he wanted to.
But he couldn’t.
The service was over. Swallowing the bitter taste in his mouth, Ryan got up with the boys and walked up to the casket.
“Ry?”
Ryan opened his eyes. In his mind’s eyes, Spencer hadn’t grown wings; he hadn’t carried the casket with Spencer in it; hadn’t watched the casket being lowered into the ground. Spencer was still here, doing his best to piss Ryan off and being determined to get higher scores in Guitar Hero.
But this was reality, and Jon was walking towards him, ankle deep in the tall grass. “What the fuck are you doing out here? We’ve been looking for you.”
“Nothing,” Ryan said, as the wind almost blew the white feather he was holding between his fingers away.
He had walked out here with the intention of letting the feather go; it was one he had picked up the first time he saw Spencer’s wings, in the hospital courtyard. I’m molting, Spencer joked. Comes with the growth, he guessed.
“You ready?” Jon asked.
But he couldn’t. Ryan placed the feather back into his pocket, and turned to Jon. “I’m ready to go now.”
Just not ready to let go.
if i can come up with this... i think maybe i'm kind of depressed, or questioning my own mortality or something...
White Feather
P!ATD
Spencer/Ryan (if you squint. really really hard)
Character death warning
2370 words
Cracked up and pointless. plus it's not real.
Spencer had been having backaches for a couple of weeks; the pain was sometimes so bad he would wake up in the middle of the night and pace the bus to get rid of the aches. It helped some, but sometimes he could not help wincing when he got up from his drum-kit.
It was a month after the first onset of pain, when he got up from his seat after a show and collapsed. The fans were screaming, and Zach came onstage to haul him off. All he remembered from that was how his back had felt like it was breaking every step that Zach took. The next thing he knew, he was in a hospital room, and a doctor was telling him what was wrong.
Spencer’s first words after the doctor’s talk were, “So… I’m going to die?”
Ryan was not taking the news well. Not that Spencer could blame him; the boy had seen too many of the people close to him die, or leave. If Spencer had a choice, he would definitely not want this to happen.
But then again… who would?
Brendon was being vocal about how he felt “this can’t be… it’s not fucking right. It’s not supposed to happen to Spence, fucking insane!”, flailing his arms about and generally being Brendon.
Spencer just thought about how Brendon looked like he had come out of a Looney Tunes cartoon, his mannerisms reminding him of Daffy Duck’s, and imaging Brendon with a bright yellow beak made him laugh. The boys turned to look at him, and Ryan, incredulous, asked, “How can you still laugh about this?”
“I don’t know,” Spencer shrugged, still laughing.
And he just kept laughing.
Spencer could no longer sleep on his back. They got into the way of everything, and he tried to sleep lying on his front but everything just felt squashed. He gave up on sleeping.
“It’s like, I don’t know. A firefly. Or something. One last flare of greatness before the end.”
Spencer’s mom squeezed his hand. She was smiling, but it was a happy one; it looked bitter. Spencer wanted to tell his mother that it was okay. That he was okay with the entire thing. He was sorry he had to leave her behind.
She placed a hand on his cheek. He leaned into it, lips touching it lightly in a soft kiss.
“Is Dad coming?” Spencer’s voiced sounded different; even in his head. It reminded him of the time he was eleven and was begging his parents to let him go for the Backstreet Boys concert with Ryan.
“He’s coming,” his mom answered, stroking little half moons on his cheek. “He will.”
A month later, they were fully-grown. He hadn’t been able to sleep a wink in the process (his body was literally growing new bones), and now he stood in the courtyard of the hospital, flapping them experimentally. Loose feathers shook off and fell onto the ground, a white so pure even he was dazzled.
“Glorious,” the nurse said. “Yours are the prettiest I’ve ever seen.”
Spencer turned around. “Have you seen many?”
She shook her head. “Only in books.”
Although they’ve grown, Spencer knew they were not built to fly. It was a freak of nature that humans could even grow wings; the doctor mentioned something about it being hereditary and only affecting one in about two billion people. The last time this had happened and recorded in America was three years ago to a nine-year-old girl in Minnesota. Her name was Jessica Douglas; and she died two weeks after her wings were fully developed.
There was no cure; no medicine or operation that could help.
Spencer wondered how long he had left. It felt weird, questioning his mortality, counting it down in days. Sometimes, he thought about it in hours. (335 hours, 11 minutes and 35 seconds) It felt like he had more time that way.
He was still calm about the entire thing, though. Even he was surprised at how accepting he was about his ‘impending doom’. Maybe it was because he believed in Peter Pan; Death is just another adventure.
“Spence?”
He turned around, nearly hitting Ryan in the face. He shrank them, realizing he had to learn how to estimate his wingspan. “Hey. Look,” he said. He stood two steps back, looked around to make sure nobody was near, and spread his wings out.
For the first time in a long while, Ryan smiled.
He wanted to go on with the shows. Jon leaned against the door with his arms crossed; Ryan was sitting on the couch. Brendon was arguing with Spencer.
“You can’t possibly go out like that!” Brendon exclaimed.
“Why? Because I look like a freak?” Spencer bit back. Ryan hissed, and Jon rolled his eyes.
“No, because, I mean, you’re sick,” Brendon turned his voice down and placed his hands on the rails at the edge of the bed. “We, it’s not going to make you better.”
“Nothing, is going to make me better,” Spencer hollered, and all of them flinched.
Brendon and Spencer looked eyes for a moment, before the older boy lifted his hands from the rails, slapped the bed hard, side stepped Jon and marched out of the room. Jon followed.
Ryan got up from the couch and walked over to the bed, sitting down on the visitor’s chair. He twiddled his thumbs for a moment, starring at the grotesque painting of a bowl of fruits on the wall opposite Spencer’s bed, before, “I don’t know if you should do this.”
“I want to.”
“I know you do. I just don’t know if you should,” Ryan said.
“You think people would be freaked out too?” Spencer spat.
Ryan bit his lower lip, closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes, he knew what to say. “I don’t think they’d be freaked. They’ll be in awe.”
Spencer blinked, once, twice. “Oh.”
“But you’re not… you still don’t feel well. The doctor said the growth wrecks up your immune system. Playing a gig with seven thousand people with sweat and dirt is not going to help you,” Ryan continued softly, “It’s like asking for an early death.”
Spencer turned to Ryan. His smile mirrored the one his mother had when she came to see him. “Maybe I am.”
The first time he played after he left the hospital he fell off the chair and bruised his right wing. It took him a few more tries to be able to play without falling off and when he did, it felt like how it did when he and Ryan played their first song together.
Ryan was bandaging Spencer’s wing after rehearsal (Spencer had refused to let anyone stop him during).
“I didn’t think it’d bleed,” Ryan said, wrapping gauze around the tip of the wing.
Spencer scoffed. “You think?” He winced when Ryan pressed too hard. Ryan whispered a quick apology, paused for a moment.
Suddenly, he felt Ryan’s hand brush the tip of the wing to the top, the skin of his wing rippling in its trail.
“Hey,” he said.
Ryan took his hand off, blushing deeply as he clipped the gauze in place. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“No, hey,” Spencer reached over and stopped. “I mean. It was okay. Didn’t hurt, or anything.”
Ryan raised an eyebrow. “So… how’d it feel?”
“It tickled,” Spencer admitted. “But it’s… do it again, won’t you?”
Ryan reached his hand out, and brushed the top of Spencer’s wing. He shivered. Ryan brushed the top of the wing to the joint where it joined Spencer’s back. “It’s so weird,” Ryan confessed, running his hand along the bone of the wing up to the joint where it connected with Spencer’s back. “It’s really real.” He ruffled the feathers a little, smiling.
Spencer turned to Ryan, saw the smile on his face, and figured maybe that was worth dying for.
They played. The fans laughed, cried and sang along. Spencer did meet and greets. He rarely let anyone touch his wings, choosing to strap them down so they would not get in the way.
Seventeen shows later, Spencer started coughing. The day after, he was shaking throughout the entire show, exerting so much strength that all the boys noticed. He didn’t stop, but the day after, he could not get out of bed. Jon was the one who found him; he ran into Brendon and Ryan’s room, trembling as he pulled Ryan over to the room he shared with Spencer.
Spencer wanted to go home to Las Vegas, so they got him on a plane. Ryan went with him; Jon and Brendon were booked on the next flight.
His parents were waiting for him at the airport; as was what felt like three thousand photographers. Spencer just reached for his mom’s hand and squeezed it. Mrs. Smith had sunglasses on, but Ryan spied the tear that ran down her cheek. She was holding Spencer’s hand all the way home.
Ryan was staying with the Smiths; he spent the next two days sitting with Spencer in the backyard. The doctor came everyday, and Spencer had a live-in nurse. Mrs. Smith cooked all of Spencer’s favourite foods, but he could barely keep two bites down. He was so thin now, and his wings looked too big for his small frame.
This was why he couldn’t live. Ryan read a report on the Internet, giving it the term “wing parasite disease”. One of the patient’s wings grew so big he could not even stand. It was hard to believe because Ryan thought they were the most beautiful things in the world. Mrs. Smith called Spencer her ‘angel from heaven’, but not in front of him. Spencer didn’t like that.
“I called Haley,” Spencer said.
Ryan broke away from his thoughts and turned to Spencer, dangling off the side of the parapet with his wings folded behind him. “When?”
“Yesterday. She was crying like, shit man,” Spencer leaned downwards to adjust his shoelace, and his wings flipped up, half-folded. The sun glinted off the edges of the roof and through the skin of Spencer’s wings. Mrs. Smith was right. He did look like an angel. Ryan was half expecting Spencer to trade his tee shirts and Converses for robes and a halo. “I shouldn’t have called her.”
“You miss her?” Ryan asked, tilting so that he could look at Spencer’s face.
“Sometimes,” he sat back up, wings folding back neatly. He scratched the inside of his elbow lightly, at the scars that IV drips had given him. “I miss people. But they all look at me like I’m a freak. I can’t have normal conversations with people who just keep starring at my back. It’s weird.”
“You’re not a freak,” Ryan said. And he meant it to.
Spencer smiled. He hopped off the parapet and covered the distance between him and Ryan. He stretched his wings forward and wrapped them around Ryan. Ryan’s eyes opened in surprise, and his face tickled from the feathers. He wasn’t freaked though. He just felt warm. Safe. “Wow.”
Spencer smiled. “You’re the only thing that kept me going throughout this shit, you know?” he said.
Ryan stared at Spencer, and only managed to nod.
“You’re the only one who looks at me like I’m still normal. Not just about the wings. People are freaked about how calm I am. I don’t know why. Anyway. So thank you. Otherwise I’d have gone crazy.”
Ryan nodded again.
“So… when it happens…” Spencer turned to look up at the sky, at the light that was spilling into the cocoon he made. “I just wanted you to know that.”
Ryan’s throat felt dry. He didn’t want to think about ‘when it happens’. “Okay.”
Spencer leaned over and pressed a kiss on Ryan’s lips, quick and chaste. Ryan squinted in the light and licked his lips when Spencer moved away.
That was how Ryan would always remember Spencer; in a Fall Out Boy shirt and jeans, red lips and sparkling eyes, the sunlight glowing off the edges of his wings.
Brendon, Jon and Ryan sat together in the church. Mrs. Smith, up in the front pew turned around and smiled at the boys, before turning back. Two rows down to the left, Pete, Patrick, Andy and Joe, together with a bunch of other kids from Decaydance, took up six or seven rows and sat in silence.
Fans were camped outside the church. Ryan heard someone say she had come from London.
Brendon spoke for the band. He talked about how Spencer always took care of them, even though he was the youngest. “… never giving up faith until the end.”
Ryan wasn’t sad; he wasn’t. Spencer had been so cheerful, even though he spent his last days bedridden. He had been so prepared; the picture that was at the front was one of him with his wings. Spencer was so accepting of this entire thing, that Ryan felt he should not make any fuss about it.
Now he wanted to.
But he couldn’t.
The service was over. Swallowing the bitter taste in his mouth, Ryan got up with the boys and walked up to the casket.
“Ry?”
Ryan opened his eyes. In his mind’s eyes, Spencer hadn’t grown wings; he hadn’t carried the casket with Spencer in it; hadn’t watched the casket being lowered into the ground. Spencer was still here, doing his best to piss Ryan off and being determined to get higher scores in Guitar Hero.
But this was reality, and Jon was walking towards him, ankle deep in the tall grass. “What the fuck are you doing out here? We’ve been looking for you.”
“Nothing,” Ryan said, as the wind almost blew the white feather he was holding between his fingers away.
He had walked out here with the intention of letting the feather go; it was one he had picked up the first time he saw Spencer’s wings, in the hospital courtyard. I’m molting, Spencer joked. Comes with the growth, he guessed.
“You ready?” Jon asked.
But he couldn’t. Ryan placed the feather back into his pocket, and turned to Jon. “I’m ready to go now.”
Just not ready to let go.