PATD: Blue Rock 3/? - PG-13
You should read these first: Blue Rock
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: Ryan/?
AUTHOR: Melanie
WARNINGS: This didn’t happen?
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own any of these boys. If you recognize your name press the back button right on out.
Chapter 3
They name her Giselle; Brent isn’t sure how they know it’s a girl. It had just seemed right and she had purred against Ryan’s neck, arched her body into Brent’s hand when Ryan had spoke it so it he thought she’d liked it as well.
She figures out how to use her wings two days after her egg hatches. Brent spends more time standing on beds trying to coax her down from fans and light fixtures then he really feels is necessary. She can get up but she can’t seem to get back down again.
Brent thinks that she’s purposefully not learning, he’d leave her up there but if she really can’t get down she’ll just stay up there looking up him with big dejected eyes and waves of rejection in his head.
They haven’t reached that point yet, Brent pretty much coaxes her down immediately and Ryan is absolutely no help at all.
He’s the taller of them and should at least be fetching her down half the time to make things fair, but he just laughs and laughs and tells Brent that he’s a pushover and she’s never going to learn to fly if Brent keeps babying her.
Brent doesn’t remember Ryan ever laughing like that so he lets it go for now, also Giselle has him wrapped around one of her little clawed toes. She’s got Ryan wrapped around it as well, he just shows it in different ways.
They stop at a Target and buy a backpack, it’s pretty big and the bottom is flat. She takes one of Ryan’s scarves (Brent isn’t even sure why he brought them, he hasn’t worn one of them since this started) and one of Brent’s t-shirts and makes herself a little bed to curl up in.
When they’re in a motel she curls up between them on the bed. The first night it had been Ryan’s turn with her and she’d just stared at Brent with big pale gray eyes and all he could feel was waves of rejection and loneliness.
“Oh my fucking god,” Ryan had said finally, throwing an arm over his eyes. Brent had rolled his eyes and climbed into the bed with them.
He thought the waves of emotion that tied him and Ryan together would stop once the egg hatched, apparently he was mistaken.
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Brent has a two bedroom apartment and a job that he absolutely loved that he’s also pretty sure that he’s been fired from. He’s got some savings thankfully, so at least he won’t be homeless while he’s looking for a new job and trying to explain to prospective employers that the reason he was fired from the last (awesome) job was because he went insane but that he’s much better now.
He’s glad he’s not the only one though.
Ryan’s life pretty much fell apart as well so at least they’re in the same boat.
He’s been thinking about offering up the spare bedroom but he’s kind of using it as storage. Besides living at Ryan’s would be easier, his place is bigger; he has a closed in backyard so they won’t have to figure out how to let Giselle have outdoor time with cameras watching.
It’ll also make it easier to take care of Giselle if they’re not trying to hand off custody of her every other weekend… from the way she acts if they attempt to sleep in separate beds he doesn’t want to know what’ll happen if they try to sleep in completely different beds in completely different houses that are in different states.
He hopes that Ryan has some good story ready for why they’re living together when Spencer inevitably ends up in the same space as them. Hopefully a story that doesn’t mention the dragon that they’re co-parenting.
He lets them in with his key and the apartment is just as much of a wreck as it was when he made the decision to go to Ryan.
“Wow,” Ryan’s gawking, Brent rolls his eyes because he’s been in Ryan’s house. Ryan’s hadn’t been much better. Obviously going insane for them had translated to not being able to pick up after themselves.
He took the trash out before he left for Ryan’s, so at least it doesn’t smell.
Ryan is carrying Giselle’s backpack, it’s partially unzipped and her little head is peeking out the top, she’s already mirroring Ryan’s facial expressions, right now she looks completely unimpressed.
Ryan runs a finger down her head and then jumps when a hand clamps down on his shoulder.
Zack is standing behind Ryan in the doorway and he looks big and menacing and Brent knows his eyes are wide and he looks terrified.
He reflexively takes a step back, the back of his legs hit his coffee table and he ends up sitting down on it hard.
At least it doesn’t break, that would be just his luck right about now.
“The two of you,” Zack is shaking his head and Ryan’s eyes are wide and looking down toward the bag where Giselle is poking more of her head and body out to see what all the ruckus is about.
Brent can tell the second that Zack sees her, his eyes widen and both his hands are on Ryan’s shoulder yanking him back as though he’s going to shove Ryan behind him to protect him, even though Ryan’s the one holding the bag.
“Holy goddamn fuck,” he says in a loud voice as Giselle launches herself from the bag. Her wings flap and Ryan stumbles and drops the backpack as Zack shoves him behind him.
Ryan is patting Zack’s arm in what Brent assumes is supposed to be a comforting manner. The grin that he shoots Brent ruins it though.
Brent sighs, Ryan is grinning at him from around Zack’s body, Giselle is sitting on one of the blades of his ceiling fan and she looks like she’s making herself comfortable. This is so not the direction he expected his life to be taking.
He’ll be getting one of his kitchen chairs in a bit and coaxing her down, for now he and Ryan look at Zack who looks like he wishes he were anywhere but in Brent’s apartment looking at a little blue dragon.
“At least she doesn’t breathe fire, yet,” Ryan says.
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Zack had figured that if anyone was going to find a mythological creature to bring home with them that it would be Brendon.
Or maybe Jon, sometimes Spencer when he was at his most whimsical (it wasn’t very often, you had to catch him on just the right day, in just the right mood) he’d never thought he would have to worry about Ryan.
Ryan had never struck him as the type to want to bring home the unicorn he’d found so that it could graze in his backyard.
Evidently he definitely should have been worrying about Ryan.
Because Ryan was the one that figured out how to find something that shouldn’t exist.
Ryan is also the one looking at him from where he’s sitting right beside Brent (too close, Spencer is going to have a fucking cow) with earnest sincere eyes. Zack expects to hear ‘can we keep it, please, please, I’ll take it outside and play with it and make sure it’s fed and…’
Zack hadn’t smelled any alcohol on either of them, they both look healthy enough, nothing that would indicate that they’ve been doing massive amounts of drugs together and that he’s gotten high just by being in contact with them.
He’s sitting in a recliner across from them; he dragged it there purposefully so that he could stare them down. The recliner is old and uncomfortable, he’s pretty sure there’s a spring poking him in the ass but he’s not saying anything about that.
He cranes his head back and yep, there’s still a little blue dragon perched on Brent’s ceiling fan.
He wanted to think it was a lizard, he thinks he could probably make himself believe it if it didn’t have wings and didn’t look like every drawing or computer generated one that he’s seen in every fantasy movie and book ever.
It’s looking at him with contempt he thinks, it definitely doesn’t like him. The absolute last thing that he needs is for mini-dragon to still hate him when it figures out how to breathe fire.
And it will, because Zack just has that kind of luck with things.
He’s already getting a migraine thinking about what Brendon’s reaction is going to be. He’ll figure out a way to work dragons into the new stage show, of that Zack has no doubt.
“Her name is Giselle,” Ryan says.
He grins in the direction of the fan, it makes him look younger then he is and Zack wonders a bit hysterically if Ryan managed to find the fountain of youth when he was off finding dragons.
The dragon makes a chirping noise at him and stands up. She wobbles on the blade and Brent touches Ryan’s leg and stands up.
He steps up onto the coffee table and Giselle sort of daintily steps right into his cupped hands. When he steps down she rubs her head under his chin and when he sits back down next to Ryan she lays herself down across both of their laps.
The look she levels at Zack dares him to take one of her humans away. He’ll be bringing all of them he guesses, which means no planes to catch up with the tour, the dragon in the pet carrier would be kind of hard to explain away.
This means that his picture will end up all over that journal that Pete has taken to repeatedly refreshing.
“She can get up but she can’t get back down yet,” Brent says, his voice is quiet and he doesn’t look directly at Zack, hasn’t since Zack walked into the apartment.
Ryan leans into him a little bit and Zack clenches his fingers together, they’re both looking down at Giselle with fond looks.
He wonders when Ryan and Brent got married and why no one had thought to tell Spencer or Brendon and Jon.
He’s not going to be the one to tell them, because, this, is the exact sort of thing that people killed the messenger for.
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“So evidently Wilson is coming with?” Pete asks.
Spencer stares at him because there is no way in hell that Zack is bringing Brent back with him. Zack had texted him that morning to tell him that they were on their way back, Zack would have told him if he was bringing Brent with him.
Spencer looks over Pete’s shoulder and he has the journal that is chronicling Ryan and Brent’s time on the road up, Spencer doesn’t think he ever closes it.
Someone has made a banner for it and the person that had just posted the latest pictures has evidently made an icon from one of the pictures, Spencer rubs at his forehead and doesn’t growl.
Pete clicks on the link and there’s six pictures behind it, four of them show Zack walking right behind Ryan and Brent, hands on their shoulders like he’s herding them along. Ryan has a backpack slung over his shoulder and Spencer wonders when he became a backpack person.
He digs his phone out of his pocket and steps aside so Brendon can peer at the pictures.
“You don’t think there’s something going on with Ryan and Brent, do you?” Brendon asks. He looks faintly distressed at the thought and Pete is frowning at the screen now.
“Brent is straight,” Spencer says as he texts, ‘???’ to Zack. Bring back Brent was totally not in the list of instructions that he gave Zack before he left; it had five items on it, listed in order of importance.
Bring Brent back was nowhere on it.
“Ryan’s not,” Brendon says, he’s biting his lip.
“Ryan’s mostly straight,” Spencer says, his phone vibrates in his hand and he looks down at the screen. ‘lng stry keys 2 sml ull see thur’.
Spencer scowls, that was completely not helpful and Zack was supposed to be on his side.
“If Zack is bringing Wilson you might want to get Jon on a plane,” Pete says, he glances over his shoulder at Spencer.
Spencer frowns at him. “Jon is having quality Tom Conrad time, he threatened to maim us if we dragged him away for anything less then a funeral.”
“And Zack was with you two and is now with Ryan and Brent and you can see where this is going right? I don’t really need to spell it out for you, do I?” Pete stares at him.
Spencer nods, he can kind of see where he’s coming from. Ryan and Brent traveling together, Zack with them now…
He scrolls through his contact list and finds Jon’s cell number.
Either Jon can make the arrangements or Spencer can make him for him, but he’ll be on the plane in the morning if Spencer has to commandeer a plane and go get him himself.
******************************************************************************
Zack, Ryan and Brent are already at the hotel when the buses arrive for check in. Spencer’s not quite used to traveling via bus again; he always forgets how cramped they are, how little the space is. He stretches and feels his back crack.
There’s a little sliver of dread making its way down his spine, he still can’t think of any reason why Zack would have brought Brent with him.
Brendon is bouncing on his toes and waiting for Spencer at the door.
Zack had called them the night before, leaving Ryan and Brent in the motel room they were all three sharing. Evidently Ryan wasn’t doing anything. No drugs, no alcohol, he was barely even drinking coffee anymore.
Spencer doesn’t think about the fact that all that stuff seemingly stopped with Brent’s reappearance in Ryan’s life. If Brent was in anyway responsible for all that ceasing then that means that he has some measure of control over Ryan that the rest of them don’t.
So it’s a coincidence, nothing more. Has to be, because Ryan hadn’t talked to Brent in years, Spencer would know if he had, so there is absolutely nothing that Brent could have said or done that all of them hadn’t already tried.
Coincidence… though if Brent had been the catalyst to Ryan straightening his act out Spencer hopes that includes eating, he’d been looking really thin the last time Spencer had seen him.
He looked healthy enough in all the pictures, but then the camera was supposed to add ten pounds so…
Jon should be on a plane in a couple of hours, Tom playing tag-a-long because Jon had allotted the next two weeks to Tom and if Jon was coming, Tom was coming as well.
Pete’s waiting for them when Spencer finally opens the door; Patrick has his laptop bag over one shoulder and is holding a guitar in his other hand.
“Zack tell you what room he’s got them confined to?” Pete asks.
Spencer shakes his head. “He just said he’d meet us in the lobby, and to try and not freak out.”
“Too late,” Patrick mutters.
When they walk into the lobby Zack is leaning against the check-in desk, he has a serious expression on his face and it doesn’t disappear even when Brendon launches himself at him.
“I’ve got your keys already,” he says. “But I figured you’d want to talk to the wayward children first.”
Spencer nods, he wants to talk to Ryan, Brent could jump of a steep cliff and he wouldn’t be heartbroken. From the corner of his eyes he can see Pete adding his own agreement, Patrick looks like he would like nothing more then to go to his room and forget about them all for a few hours. Brendon is latched onto Zack’s arm and he’s not saying anything.
“You really brought Brent?” Spencer asks. He keeps his voice calm, cool. He’s sure that Zack has a really good explanation for why Brent is waiting upstairs with Ryan. He can’t think of what that explanation would entail but he’s sure that it’s going to be fantastic once Zack gets around to sharing it.
“Ross and Wilson are kind of a package deal at the moment,” Zack says once the elevator doors close.
“Oh my god… they didn’t get married did they?” There’s a look on Brendon’s face that Spencer can’t identify, he tries to mask it with a bland look of disbelief when Spencer glances at him but he fails because Spencer knows Brendon the way that everyone assumes he’s supposed to know Ryan.
He hasn’t known Ryan in years, the kid that had been his best friend, the one that he learned drums for so he wouldn’t be left behind, that kid is long gone and in his place is a person that Spencer sometimes doesn’t even like very much.
“No,” Zack says. He knows Brendon as well and when he looks at Spencer he just shrugs.
They wait in silence in the elevator, the doors open and Zack ushers them out, stops them at room 717.
“Look,” Zack starts as they stand there. He’s got a keycard in hand and he makes eye contact with each of them. Patrick still looks like he’d like to go to his own room and forget any of them exist for the night. “Just, be calm, no sudden movements and Brendon,” Brendon looks at him and blinks. “No.”
“What?” Brendon asks.
Zack opens the door and pushes it in, Spencer steps in first and almost immediately stops.
Ryan is lying on the couch; head resting on pillows from the bed, Brent is sitting on the floor in front of it, leaning against the couch.
And lying next to Ryan, with its head on Brent’s shoulder is a little, blue…
“Oh my god,” Brendon breathes next to him, Spencer can hear the click of the door shutting behind them.
Ryan is staring at them, Brent is staring at them; the little, blue obviously a mass hallucination is staring at them.
“Oh my god,” Brendon breathes again.
Zack walks past their clump of staring eyes and collapses onto a chair.
“Her name is Giselle,” Zack says. “She’s the reason that Ryan and Brent are a package deal right now.”
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RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: Ryan/?
AUTHOR: Melanie
WARNINGS: This didn’t happen?
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own any of these boys. If you recognize your name press the back button right on out.
Chapter 3
They name her Giselle; Brent isn’t sure how they know it’s a girl. It had just seemed right and she had purred against Ryan’s neck, arched her body into Brent’s hand when Ryan had spoke it so it he thought she’d liked it as well.
She figures out how to use her wings two days after her egg hatches. Brent spends more time standing on beds trying to coax her down from fans and light fixtures then he really feels is necessary. She can get up but she can’t seem to get back down again.
Brent thinks that she’s purposefully not learning, he’d leave her up there but if she really can’t get down she’ll just stay up there looking up him with big dejected eyes and waves of rejection in his head.
They haven’t reached that point yet, Brent pretty much coaxes her down immediately and Ryan is absolutely no help at all.
He’s the taller of them and should at least be fetching her down half the time to make things fair, but he just laughs and laughs and tells Brent that he’s a pushover and she’s never going to learn to fly if Brent keeps babying her.
Brent doesn’t remember Ryan ever laughing like that so he lets it go for now, also Giselle has him wrapped around one of her little clawed toes. She’s got Ryan wrapped around it as well, he just shows it in different ways.
They stop at a Target and buy a backpack, it’s pretty big and the bottom is flat. She takes one of Ryan’s scarves (Brent isn’t even sure why he brought them, he hasn’t worn one of them since this started) and one of Brent’s t-shirts and makes herself a little bed to curl up in.
When they’re in a motel she curls up between them on the bed. The first night it had been Ryan’s turn with her and she’d just stared at Brent with big pale gray eyes and all he could feel was waves of rejection and loneliness.
“Oh my fucking god,” Ryan had said finally, throwing an arm over his eyes. Brent had rolled his eyes and climbed into the bed with them.
He thought the waves of emotion that tied him and Ryan together would stop once the egg hatched, apparently he was mistaken.
******************************************************************************
Brent has a two bedroom apartment and a job that he absolutely loved that he’s also pretty sure that he’s been fired from. He’s got some savings thankfully, so at least he won’t be homeless while he’s looking for a new job and trying to explain to prospective employers that the reason he was fired from the last (awesome) job was because he went insane but that he’s much better now.
He’s glad he’s not the only one though.
Ryan’s life pretty much fell apart as well so at least they’re in the same boat.
He’s been thinking about offering up the spare bedroom but he’s kind of using it as storage. Besides living at Ryan’s would be easier, his place is bigger; he has a closed in backyard so they won’t have to figure out how to let Giselle have outdoor time with cameras watching.
It’ll also make it easier to take care of Giselle if they’re not trying to hand off custody of her every other weekend… from the way she acts if they attempt to sleep in separate beds he doesn’t want to know what’ll happen if they try to sleep in completely different beds in completely different houses that are in different states.
He hopes that Ryan has some good story ready for why they’re living together when Spencer inevitably ends up in the same space as them. Hopefully a story that doesn’t mention the dragon that they’re co-parenting.
He lets them in with his key and the apartment is just as much of a wreck as it was when he made the decision to go to Ryan.
“Wow,” Ryan’s gawking, Brent rolls his eyes because he’s been in Ryan’s house. Ryan’s hadn’t been much better. Obviously going insane for them had translated to not being able to pick up after themselves.
He took the trash out before he left for Ryan’s, so at least it doesn’t smell.
Ryan is carrying Giselle’s backpack, it’s partially unzipped and her little head is peeking out the top, she’s already mirroring Ryan’s facial expressions, right now she looks completely unimpressed.
Ryan runs a finger down her head and then jumps when a hand clamps down on his shoulder.
Zack is standing behind Ryan in the doorway and he looks big and menacing and Brent knows his eyes are wide and he looks terrified.
He reflexively takes a step back, the back of his legs hit his coffee table and he ends up sitting down on it hard.
At least it doesn’t break, that would be just his luck right about now.
“The two of you,” Zack is shaking his head and Ryan’s eyes are wide and looking down toward the bag where Giselle is poking more of her head and body out to see what all the ruckus is about.
Brent can tell the second that Zack sees her, his eyes widen and both his hands are on Ryan’s shoulder yanking him back as though he’s going to shove Ryan behind him to protect him, even though Ryan’s the one holding the bag.
“Holy goddamn fuck,” he says in a loud voice as Giselle launches herself from the bag. Her wings flap and Ryan stumbles and drops the backpack as Zack shoves him behind him.
Ryan is patting Zack’s arm in what Brent assumes is supposed to be a comforting manner. The grin that he shoots Brent ruins it though.
Brent sighs, Ryan is grinning at him from around Zack’s body, Giselle is sitting on one of the blades of his ceiling fan and she looks like she’s making herself comfortable. This is so not the direction he expected his life to be taking.
He’ll be getting one of his kitchen chairs in a bit and coaxing her down, for now he and Ryan look at Zack who looks like he wishes he were anywhere but in Brent’s apartment looking at a little blue dragon.
“At least she doesn’t breathe fire, yet,” Ryan says.
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Zack had figured that if anyone was going to find a mythological creature to bring home with them that it would be Brendon.
Or maybe Jon, sometimes Spencer when he was at his most whimsical (it wasn’t very often, you had to catch him on just the right day, in just the right mood) he’d never thought he would have to worry about Ryan.
Ryan had never struck him as the type to want to bring home the unicorn he’d found so that it could graze in his backyard.
Evidently he definitely should have been worrying about Ryan.
Because Ryan was the one that figured out how to find something that shouldn’t exist.
Ryan is also the one looking at him from where he’s sitting right beside Brent (too close, Spencer is going to have a fucking cow) with earnest sincere eyes. Zack expects to hear ‘can we keep it, please, please, I’ll take it outside and play with it and make sure it’s fed and…’
Zack hadn’t smelled any alcohol on either of them, they both look healthy enough, nothing that would indicate that they’ve been doing massive amounts of drugs together and that he’s gotten high just by being in contact with them.
He’s sitting in a recliner across from them; he dragged it there purposefully so that he could stare them down. The recliner is old and uncomfortable, he’s pretty sure there’s a spring poking him in the ass but he’s not saying anything about that.
He cranes his head back and yep, there’s still a little blue dragon perched on Brent’s ceiling fan.
He wanted to think it was a lizard, he thinks he could probably make himself believe it if it didn’t have wings and didn’t look like every drawing or computer generated one that he’s seen in every fantasy movie and book ever.
It’s looking at him with contempt he thinks, it definitely doesn’t like him. The absolute last thing that he needs is for mini-dragon to still hate him when it figures out how to breathe fire.
And it will, because Zack just has that kind of luck with things.
He’s already getting a migraine thinking about what Brendon’s reaction is going to be. He’ll figure out a way to work dragons into the new stage show, of that Zack has no doubt.
“Her name is Giselle,” Ryan says.
He grins in the direction of the fan, it makes him look younger then he is and Zack wonders a bit hysterically if Ryan managed to find the fountain of youth when he was off finding dragons.
The dragon makes a chirping noise at him and stands up. She wobbles on the blade and Brent touches Ryan’s leg and stands up.
He steps up onto the coffee table and Giselle sort of daintily steps right into his cupped hands. When he steps down she rubs her head under his chin and when he sits back down next to Ryan she lays herself down across both of their laps.
The look she levels at Zack dares him to take one of her humans away. He’ll be bringing all of them he guesses, which means no planes to catch up with the tour, the dragon in the pet carrier would be kind of hard to explain away.
This means that his picture will end up all over that journal that Pete has taken to repeatedly refreshing.
“She can get up but she can’t get back down yet,” Brent says, his voice is quiet and he doesn’t look directly at Zack, hasn’t since Zack walked into the apartment.
Ryan leans into him a little bit and Zack clenches his fingers together, they’re both looking down at Giselle with fond looks.
He wonders when Ryan and Brent got married and why no one had thought to tell Spencer or Brendon and Jon.
He’s not going to be the one to tell them, because, this, is the exact sort of thing that people killed the messenger for.
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“So evidently Wilson is coming with?” Pete asks.
Spencer stares at him because there is no way in hell that Zack is bringing Brent back with him. Zack had texted him that morning to tell him that they were on their way back, Zack would have told him if he was bringing Brent with him.
Spencer looks over Pete’s shoulder and he has the journal that is chronicling Ryan and Brent’s time on the road up, Spencer doesn’t think he ever closes it.
Someone has made a banner for it and the person that had just posted the latest pictures has evidently made an icon from one of the pictures, Spencer rubs at his forehead and doesn’t growl.
Pete clicks on the link and there’s six pictures behind it, four of them show Zack walking right behind Ryan and Brent, hands on their shoulders like he’s herding them along. Ryan has a backpack slung over his shoulder and Spencer wonders when he became a backpack person.
He digs his phone out of his pocket and steps aside so Brendon can peer at the pictures.
“You don’t think there’s something going on with Ryan and Brent, do you?” Brendon asks. He looks faintly distressed at the thought and Pete is frowning at the screen now.
“Brent is straight,” Spencer says as he texts, ‘???’ to Zack. Bring back Brent was totally not in the list of instructions that he gave Zack before he left; it had five items on it, listed in order of importance.
Bring Brent back was nowhere on it.
“Ryan’s not,” Brendon says, he’s biting his lip.
“Ryan’s mostly straight,” Spencer says, his phone vibrates in his hand and he looks down at the screen. ‘lng stry keys 2 sml ull see thur’.
Spencer scowls, that was completely not helpful and Zack was supposed to be on his side.
“If Zack is bringing Wilson you might want to get Jon on a plane,” Pete says, he glances over his shoulder at Spencer.
Spencer frowns at him. “Jon is having quality Tom Conrad time, he threatened to maim us if we dragged him away for anything less then a funeral.”
“And Zack was with you two and is now with Ryan and Brent and you can see where this is going right? I don’t really need to spell it out for you, do I?” Pete stares at him.
Spencer nods, he can kind of see where he’s coming from. Ryan and Brent traveling together, Zack with them now…
He scrolls through his contact list and finds Jon’s cell number.
Either Jon can make the arrangements or Spencer can make him for him, but he’ll be on the plane in the morning if Spencer has to commandeer a plane and go get him himself.
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Zack, Ryan and Brent are already at the hotel when the buses arrive for check in. Spencer’s not quite used to traveling via bus again; he always forgets how cramped they are, how little the space is. He stretches and feels his back crack.
There’s a little sliver of dread making its way down his spine, he still can’t think of any reason why Zack would have brought Brent with him.
Brendon is bouncing on his toes and waiting for Spencer at the door.
Zack had called them the night before, leaving Ryan and Brent in the motel room they were all three sharing. Evidently Ryan wasn’t doing anything. No drugs, no alcohol, he was barely even drinking coffee anymore.
Spencer doesn’t think about the fact that all that stuff seemingly stopped with Brent’s reappearance in Ryan’s life. If Brent was in anyway responsible for all that ceasing then that means that he has some measure of control over Ryan that the rest of them don’t.
So it’s a coincidence, nothing more. Has to be, because Ryan hadn’t talked to Brent in years, Spencer would know if he had, so there is absolutely nothing that Brent could have said or done that all of them hadn’t already tried.
Coincidence… though if Brent had been the catalyst to Ryan straightening his act out Spencer hopes that includes eating, he’d been looking really thin the last time Spencer had seen him.
He looked healthy enough in all the pictures, but then the camera was supposed to add ten pounds so…
Jon should be on a plane in a couple of hours, Tom playing tag-a-long because Jon had allotted the next two weeks to Tom and if Jon was coming, Tom was coming as well.
Pete’s waiting for them when Spencer finally opens the door; Patrick has his laptop bag over one shoulder and is holding a guitar in his other hand.
“Zack tell you what room he’s got them confined to?” Pete asks.
Spencer shakes his head. “He just said he’d meet us in the lobby, and to try and not freak out.”
“Too late,” Patrick mutters.
When they walk into the lobby Zack is leaning against the check-in desk, he has a serious expression on his face and it doesn’t disappear even when Brendon launches himself at him.
“I’ve got your keys already,” he says. “But I figured you’d want to talk to the wayward children first.”
Spencer nods, he wants to talk to Ryan, Brent could jump of a steep cliff and he wouldn’t be heartbroken. From the corner of his eyes he can see Pete adding his own agreement, Patrick looks like he would like nothing more then to go to his room and forget about them all for a few hours. Brendon is latched onto Zack’s arm and he’s not saying anything.
“You really brought Brent?” Spencer asks. He keeps his voice calm, cool. He’s sure that Zack has a really good explanation for why Brent is waiting upstairs with Ryan. He can’t think of what that explanation would entail but he’s sure that it’s going to be fantastic once Zack gets around to sharing it.
“Ross and Wilson are kind of a package deal at the moment,” Zack says once the elevator doors close.
“Oh my god… they didn’t get married did they?” There’s a look on Brendon’s face that Spencer can’t identify, he tries to mask it with a bland look of disbelief when Spencer glances at him but he fails because Spencer knows Brendon the way that everyone assumes he’s supposed to know Ryan.
He hasn’t known Ryan in years, the kid that had been his best friend, the one that he learned drums for so he wouldn’t be left behind, that kid is long gone and in his place is a person that Spencer sometimes doesn’t even like very much.
“No,” Zack says. He knows Brendon as well and when he looks at Spencer he just shrugs.
They wait in silence in the elevator, the doors open and Zack ushers them out, stops them at room 717.
“Look,” Zack starts as they stand there. He’s got a keycard in hand and he makes eye contact with each of them. Patrick still looks like he’d like to go to his own room and forget any of them exist for the night. “Just, be calm, no sudden movements and Brendon,” Brendon looks at him and blinks. “No.”
“What?” Brendon asks.
Zack opens the door and pushes it in, Spencer steps in first and almost immediately stops.
Ryan is lying on the couch; head resting on pillows from the bed, Brent is sitting on the floor in front of it, leaning against the couch.
And lying next to Ryan, with its head on Brent’s shoulder is a little, blue…
“Oh my god,” Brendon breathes next to him, Spencer can hear the click of the door shutting behind them.
Ryan is staring at them, Brent is staring at them; the little, blue obviously a mass hallucination is staring at them.
“Oh my god,” Brendon breathes again.
Zack walks past their clump of staring eyes and collapses onto a chair.
“Her name is Giselle,” Zack says. “She’s the reason that Ryan and Brent are a package deal right now.”
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