PATD: Blue Rock - Part 6/6 - PG-13
You should read these first: Blue Rock
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: GEN, subtexty Ryan/Brent, Ryan/Spencer
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 6/6
Bus call is always sort of chaotic. Everyone rushing to get their bags packed and get everyone on the road at a specific, designated time, without leaving anyone behind.
They’ve all heard the My Chem horror stories; none of them wants to be Ray.
Even though some of them would love to be Ray.
Spencer is glad they’re almost done, they have maybe a half-dozen shows left then they can figure out what to do about Ryan and Brent and Giselle.
The bus has pulled away and Spencer has just closed his eyes on the couch, listening to Jon strumming on his guitar, listening to Brendon humming.
It’s familiar and he lets it lull him partially to sleep.
He keeps waiting for the minute when Ryan’s guitar would join in, if more then one person is making music everyone’s got to be joining in.
Ryan never joins in and he opens his eyes a crack, Jon sitting on the couch cross-legged. Brendon on the floor with one of Spencer’s tambourines.
“Where’s Ryan?”
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Brent had put $20 bucks on an hour, Tom on 30 minutes. Ryan had said they were both nuts and abstained.
They still made him hold the phone, he’s in the back with Giselle and she’s sort of flopped on her side, she’ll chirp at him every so often but he thinks the way that she’s relaxing in his mind that she’ll be napping sooner rather then later.
Tom hands Brent the $20 when the phone in Ryan’s hand rings, doesn’t even wait to see who’s on the other end.
He makes a face when he sees Spencer’s name.
“Hey Spence,” he debates not answering but they’ll be meeting up for lunch (Zack made him promise that they wouldn’t disappear without notifying him that they were going to do so first, he’d tried to remind Zack that he wasn’t security for him, just Brendon and Spencer, but Zack had given him that look that told him that he was being stupid and Ryan had just let it drop, he doesn’t like arguing with Zack because Zack can break him in half) and he doesn’t want to deal with Spencer in a pissy mood because he’s not answering the phone.
“Where are you?” Spencer asks. His voice is all calm. Ryan knows him enough to know that Spencer’s all calm voice is really his ‘I’m extremely pissed off and will talk in short clipped tones because they haven’t invented a way for me to reach through the phone and choke you, yet’ voice.
“In the car,” Ryan says. He ignores the smirk that Brent and Tom are sharing.
“You’re supposed to be on the bus,” Spencer says.
“And wouldn’t that be all kinds of uncomfortable,” Ryan mutters, Spencer is silent on the other end.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I know that Zack told you that Brent and I, we’re kind of a package deal, I was there when he did. You haven’t made any secret of how you feel about Brent but I kind of need him at the moment so, Tom and Brent and I, we’re going to be traveling in the car, mostly because it’s less uncomfortable for everyone involved,” Ryan knows he sounds irritated, they shouldn’t even have to be following them. They should be able to find an abandoned field and put up a tent and spend a couple of days with Giselle and Sebastian and not worry about making lunch and dinner breaks on time so no one freaks out.
“If you want you can tell yourself it’s because we want to be able to give Giselle a chance to stretch her wings more frequently then being on a bus would afford her.”
“Ryan,” Spencer sighs. Like Ryan is trying his patience. “You’re at least stopping and eating lunch with us, right?”
“Zack gave us the itinerary,” the times the buses were stopping for food had been highlighted. Normally they’re not that in depth and there are choices involved, that’s evidently not the case when Zack wants to makes sure that Ryan, Brent and Tom make it to the various stops with the rest of the group.
Ryan thinks they’re going to have to talk about this, they can’t follow them from the concert to concert, he doesn’t know what the hell Spencer is thinking, it’ll look like he’s fucking stalking them and then the internet might actually explode.
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Spencer is trying not to care that apparently Ryan doesn’t ever want to see them perform, or ride with them, or spend any time with them unless he’s joined at the hip with Brent.
He’s trying not to care but apparently he does.
It’s just really hard to be interested in pictures of Ryan and Brent with big balls of twine and them in front of a windmill that apparently shows the shadow of Jesus when the sun hits it just right (evidently it just looks like a shadow of bear when the sun isn’t hitting it just right, Spencer, honestly, doesn’t care) when they barely hit the hotel at the same time that they’re getting back from shows and Ryan always looks like he’d rather be anywhere then with them.
Brendon is still thinking that he’s going to be able to drag Ryan and Jon on-stage with them for the last show at least; popular consensus on-line would agree with him.
Spencer thinks that Brendon, along with everyone else, is completely deluded.
Because Brendon hasn’t managed to convince Jon to come on stage with them, and Jon should have been the easier sell of the two. Plus the fact that they can’t even get Ryan to be in the same city with them prior to them hitting the stage, he thinks that it’s unlikely as hell.
He takes it for a little over a week. Nine days to be exact.
But what’s the point of forcing Ryan to travel with them if Ryan’s just going to pretend they don’t exist.
He starts showing up at their door when they check into the hotels. It becomes his new thing, sometimes Brendon joins him, sometimes Jon does as well. But usually it’s just Spencer because everyone seems to believe that if they’re going to fix anything it’s going to be Spencer and Ryan managing to talk that’s going to do it.
It takes a couple of visits for it to sink into Ryan’s head that Spencer’s just not going to go away.
And it takes about that long for Spencer to realize that Brent isn’t going anywhere either. He’s certainly not going to disappear back to Vegas when they get off the road; Ryan and Brent are talking about buying property together and…
They’re not together, Spencer doesn’t think it’s even been considered as a possibility, but if either of them starts dating the vetting of the new prospective partner is going to be done by either Ryan or Brent (depending on whose dating) and not him and whoever Brent has that should be looking out for him.
Once that settles in Spencer can watch the two of them interact and not feel like he’s fighting Brent to try and get his best friend back.
Because whatever bond Ryan and Brent share it’s almost strictly through Giselle, they’re trying to figure out how to be friends, just like Spencer is trying to fix whatever went wrong.
It would be easier if he knew what had happened; if he could pinpoint the moment when things went bad he could figure out how to undo whatever had been done.
Brent leaves them alone on Spencer’s fifth visit. Just squeezes Ryan’s shoulder and takes himself and Giselle to Tom and Jon’s room.
“He said I should talk to you,” Ryan says after the door closes behind them.
“I just… can you tell me what…” Spencer can’t finish the question, because he doesn’t know what the question is. Doesn’t know how to verbalize, ‘when did drugs and alcohol become the way you dealt with things instead of coming to me?’ without saying those words.
And he doesn’t want to say those words, doesn’t want Ryan to shut himself off again like he had when Spencer first confronted him about the drinking, the way he had when Spencer had confronted him about his double-standard when it came to relationships.
“I was,” Ryan bites his lip; he links his hands together in his lap and squeezes his fingers hard enough that Spencer sees them whiten. He lays his hands over Ryan’s to stop him. “I was hearing things, in my head.”
“Ryan…”
“I thought I was going crazy, you know, and wouldn’t that have just been fitting,” he laughs harshly, bitterly; he still won’t meet Spencer’s eyes. “I just, one drink would make them go away, would… I just wanted everyone to be quiet for a while, but… it started taking more then one drink, or two or… then drugs worked for a while, made everything silent.”
“They weren’t the answer,” Spencer says softly.
“Then what was? I didn’t know what else to do, and what would I even say. All I could hear was you screaming in my head about not being able to trust me to take care of myself, all I could hear was Brendon yelling about me because I wasn’t writing things he wanted to sing, Pete was so disappointed in me that being in the same room with him was painful; Keltie, Jon, Alex. You all were just so loud and mad and angry and disappointed; I just….”
“You should have said something, we could have helped you, could have figured out what was going on.”
“You were already working on things,” Ryan says. “You and Brendon, you already had a plan on how to carry on and what was I going to do? Screw that up for you? Take that chance for you guys to succeed away because I was going crazy?”
Spencer closes his eyes briefly; Ryan’s still not looking at him. The stuff him and Brendon had been working on had been for them, for all of them, and the only reason they were working on it separately was because Ryan and Jon had seemed pretty settled into a routine and they hadn’t wanted to disrupt them.
“We never wanted to do this without you guys,” Spencer says.
“I knew that it was over,” Ryan says softly, his voice barely a whisper. “I knew it was over the day we met for lunch, before you even said a word, because you weren’t there. You weren’t yelling at me in my head, I could hear the guy two tables over contemplating taking an extended lunch break and our waitress was going through scenarios on how her boyfriend was going to react because she was pregnant. But you were quiet.”
“I wouldn’t be now,” Spencer say, he puts one arm over Ryan’s shoulder and tugs him into a loose hug. He thinks it says something that Ryan lets him, that Ryan doesn’t pull immediately away. That maybe Ryan wants to fix things as much as they do, as much as Spencer does. He just doesn’t have any more of an idea on how to do it then Spencer does. “We’ll figure this out, I promise.”
Ryan nods once. Lays his head on Spencer’s shoulder.
“Brent’s not going anywhere,” he says. “I know that you don’t want him here, but he’s not going away and…”
“I know,” Spencer soothes. “I kind of already figured that out, Brent and I’ll figure out how to deal with each other, you don’t need to worry about that.”
He thinks it might not be that hard to remember that Brent was once a friend, as long as Ryan doesn’t start pushing for Brent to be part of the band again.
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They’re at a diner, they’ve been eating a lot of diner food, Spencer doesn’t know why and it’s starting to annoy him. He’s asked Zack but Zack had just made some shrugging, grunting noise that Spencer took to mean that he didn’t know.
Zack always knows, Zack is the one that tells them when and where to stop, if Zack doesn’t know there is something really wrong and an apocalypse is forthcoming.
Ryan, Brent and Tom are outside; Tom is trying to teach Ryan and Brent to more clearly communicate with their minds.
Spencer’s not sure how he feels about that, but he gives them the space. He’d sat with them once and watching them think at each other was both creepy and off-putting; he lets them have their space to do this.
He thinks he’s been better about Brent. They’d had a five minute discussion that morning that hadn’t devolved into one of them spitting at the other.
Tom has assured them that the bouts of telepathy that Ryan had told him about had been because of Giselle, none of them are sure exactly why it happens; Tom is of the mindset that it’s supposed to allow them to protect themselves and Giselle from attack.
But they don’t know for sure, and it’s not like there’s an Official Care and Feeding of Dragons book to explain it to them.
Ryan has made noises about writing one. Spencer is pretty sure if he does that it’ll have to be marketed in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section.
In Ryan and Brent’s (and Spencer supposes Tom’s as well) case it had just served to make them think they were going crazy and put barriers between them and the people that they cared about.
He’s watching them from the window, he purposefully sits in the front of the diners so he can watch them outside, it makes it easier for the fangirls to spot him, but it also makes it easier for him to keep on eye on the trio outside.
Brent’s not with them at the moment which means that it’s probably his turn to walk with Giselle. Spencer half wonders if the places they eat aren’t being chosen because of their proximity to wooded areas in which to allow them privacy to walk their dragon.
He’d ask Zack again but Zack will just give him that look, again, which means that he doesn’t know.
He’s waiting for Brendon to finish; Jon is already done and is leaning, head tilted back on the top of his chair with his eyes closed.
He only notices that something is going on because of the way that Ryan and Tom both jump, the way they both come to their feet in a split second and then the way that they go running.
“What the fuck,” he says under his breath and tosses his napkin on his plate. Zack has seen whatever he saw as well, he’s only a few steps ahead of him, Brendon and the others right behind.
Spencer hopes someone stayed to take care of the bill.
As they get closer Spencer can hear Giselle shrieking; panicked and frightened. It’s ear piercing and it doesn’t stop. Not even when Ryan reaches her, he holds up his arm and she grasps onto it, and just continues shrieking at him.
“Ryan, you have to calm her down,” Tom’s voice is shaking, and he’s got hold of Ryan’s other arm.
“Brent,” Ryan says, his voice is quiet and his eyes have that vague, distant look that Spencer had learned to associate with the drugs that Ryan had been doing.
He hasn’t been doing any drugs though, so this must be what Ryan going into shock looks like instead.
“Ryan,” Tom grips his shoulders and shakes him. “Ryan, you need to calm her down so we can find out what happened.”
“Okay,” Ryan takes a deep breath, then another. His hands are shaking when he touches Giselle; he runs a hand down her back. “Okay, shh, it’s okay,” his voice trembles, breaks. “Its okay sweetie, it’s okay, we’ll get him back, it’s okay.”
Brendon’s fingers are digging into Spencer’s arm, Spencer would peel them off because Brendon needs to clip his nails and Spencer thinks he’s drawing blood, but he can’t because his own are digging into Jon’s.
Ryan touches his forehead to the top of Giselle’s head, when he lifts his head his eyes are wet looking but he looks steadier.
“Okay,” he says as he looks at Tom and Tom is focused intently on them. They’re all three of them staring at each other and Giselle’s shrieking has stopped, now it’s some sort of whining sound.
Spencer would almost rather have the shrieking back, because the whining sounds like Giselle’s heart is breaking.
“We need Sebastian,” Tom says and his eyes go skyward.
“We need to find them,” Ryan says, shaking his head, he takes a step and Tom grabs his arm again. “We can’t wait.”
“The nearest portal is about two miles away, we’ll never make it there before they get him through it, we need Sebastian,” Tom says his voice is emphatic, like he knows what the hell he’s talking about.
“How do you know where they’ll take him?” Ryan asks, his eyes are wide. Tom doesn’t look at him. “Tom? How do you know where they’ll take him?”
“The closest portal,” Tom stops, takes a deep breath. “The closest portal is the one they tried to take Sebastian and I through,” Tom says quietly, he takes two steps back, away from them and Spencer hears the roar before he ever sees where it comes from.
It’s filled with anger and rage, the shadow that falls over them is huge. Spencer knows that Sebastian is supposed to be big enough to ride, Tom had told them that much, but…
The dragon that glides to a landing in front of them is huge, bigger then Spencer had thought, when Tom had said big enough to ride, he’d thought maybe it would be the size of a horse, with wings. The dragon that is staring at them is much, much bigger then a horse with wings.
If Giselle is going to grow to be that big there is no way that Ryan and Brent are going to be able to hide her. Spencer isn’t even sure how Tom has managed to keep the entire world from finding out about Sebastian.
“Oh my god,” Brendon’s voice is awestruck; it’s intertwined with Patrick’s, “Oh dear lord.”
Tom is leaning into Sebastian’s body, he’s saying something to his dragon too low to hear but Sebastian sinks to the ground, one leg stuck out to the side of him in what looks to be an uncomfortable angle.
Spencer figures out what it’s for when Tom runs back, grabs onto Ryan’s arm and drags him over to Sebastian. All but shoving him up onto him.
“Wait a minute,” Zack starts, he goes to take a step forward and Sebastian’s head swings over to face him, Zack stops.
Tom and Ryan are ignoring them.
“Tom?” Ryan asks, Tom is pulling Giselle from her perch on Ryan’s arm one claw at the time. “Tom, Sebastian is yours.”
“Sebastian is a dragon without a rider, you are a rider currently with a dragon too small to ride,” Tom takes a deep breath and whispers something Spencer can’t hear in Giselle’s ear, it causes her to let go and transfer her footing to Tom.
“I’ve had exactly one flying lesson, I am in no way a ‘rider’,” Ryan says, he sounds calmer, his eyes are clear now.
“You will be, besides you’re not going to have to do anything, they’re going to take one look at Sebastian and bolt, I should have figured they would try something like this while Giselle was still young enough to shuttle back, I didn’t think they’d settle for just getting their hands on Brent.”
Tom moves back up in front of Sebastian, places both hands on his nose and leans forward.
“Fly fast,” he says softly. “Be safe.”
Giselle chirps at him and Spencer thinks if they could understand her that they’d probably hear her telling Sebastian to take care of Ryan, to bring back Brent.
Ryan doesn’t say anything, just looks down at them from his perch on Sebastian’s back. Tom moves back to the group and Sebastian takes off across the ground, he takes four steps and then takes flight, it’s smooth and looks effortless.
They watch until they’re gone.
“Tom?” Zack puts his hand on Tom’s shoulder.
“Sebastian will take care of him, Giselle will let us know if they’re successful.”
Tom touches Giselle’s back and they wait.
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“Who exactly took off with Brent?” Brendon asks.
They’re sitting on the ground, Giselle is staring at the woods like she can make Ryan and Brent and Sebastian appear by her thoughts alone.
His watch says it’s only been an hour, it feels like ten.
“Elves maybe,” Tom says after a minute. “I think, I don’t know, they didn’t really give me a chance to ask before they knocked me unconscious… and they might not even be the ones that took Brent.”
“Someone tried to kidnap you? Why the hell didn’t you say anything?” Pete asks, he sounds angry. Spencer keeps forgetting that he’s sitting there. He’s much quieter; more focused then any version of Pete that Spencer has ever come into contact with.
“Why? By then it didn’t matter, I wasn’t in The Academy anymore, no one but Jon even cared if I disappeared for a few days,” Tom sounds sarcastic, Spencer can hear the sadness in his voice. He wonders if this is what Ryan would have sounded like if they hadn’t found out about Giselle.
“Tom…” Jon starts. Tom shakes his head; he’s evidently not having this discussion with them.
“Where’s Sebastian’s rider?” Brendon asks. He’s bouncing; he’ll probably be volunteering for the job if Tom opens it up for applicants.
“He’s… not in the picture,” Tom says, he averts his eyes and looks sad, Spencer sees Jon’s eyes narrow in response, then widen.
Jon has probably figured out who the rider is with his special Jon Walker skills, Spencer will corner him on the bus when this is all over with and together they’ll figure out how to make Tom not look like that anymore.
Figure out how to fix Tom like they’re fixing Ryan and Brent.
Tom blinks and stands and Giselle starts chirping wildly, wings flapping as she takes to the air.
“Giselle, stay,” Tom says. His voice is low but commanding, Giselle listens to him hovering in the air in front of him.
They all climb to their feet, Brendon is shifting on his feet next to Jon and Zack has his arms crossed over his chest, Pete has his looped through Patrick’s. Everyone else had been sent back to the buses, they’ll get explanations when they get to the hotel, if they’re not making a trip to the hospital for Brent.
Spencer is sure there will be confidentiality agreements waiting for them all to sign when they get back to the hotel, Pete had been on the phone for a while after he sent them away.
It’s maybe a minute later when Sebastian melts from the woods, it’s the only word that Spencer can think of that describes it, one minute he isn’t standing in front of them, the next he is there and Ryan is climbing down.
Spencer wonders if that’s how Tom has been able to hide Sebastian, because Sebastian can just make himself not be there.
Tom’s next to them in a blink of an eye, stroking a hand down Sebastian’s side, the ground rumbles with Sebastian’s resulting purr, then he moves to help Ryan get Brent down.
Brent is holding his arm to his chest like it’s been hurt, he’s got blood on his temple and his lip is bleeding.
He hadn’t given up without a fight, and he’d gotten Giselle away without both of them being taken.
Spencer has to give him credit for that, he’d kept Giselle safe, he’d kept Ryan safe.
He’s wincing as he stands there, Ryan’s arm over his shoulder, keeping him close. Giselle is rubbing noses with Sebastian chirping at him while he answers her with low grumbling noises that sound pleased.
She finishes her discussion with Sebastian and flies over to Ryan, using his free arm as her perch, she rubs her head under Brent’s chin, then under Ryan’s, then chirps at Tom.
“Hospital, I think,” Zack says, he’s walking over to them and he stops to touch Sebastian’s nose, like it’s nothing out of the ordinary that there’s a dragon the size of a bus sitting there, Spencer thinks he’s just proving that Sebastian is real and they all haven’t had gone insane waiting for Ryan to return.
“I’m fine,” Brent says. Zack pokes the arm cradled to his chest with his finger. Brent makes a low pain-filled noise.
“Hospital,” Zack says.
“Yeah, okay.”
Zack takes Ryan’s place at his side and walks away with him. Spencer wonders why Ryan isn’t going but then sees Giselle still there, clinging to Ryan’s arm, both of them watching him go.
“Spence,” Ryan starts. He doesn’t finish before Spencer is taking the twenty steps and pulling him into a fierce, one-armed hug. Giselle leans into his shoulder, chirping in his ear as he stands there holding onto Ryan.
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Ryan doesn’t look like he’s letting go of Spencer any time soon. He’s got his forehead resting on Spencer’s shoulder and Brendon has moved up behind them. He hasn’t thrown his arms around them yet but he looks like he really wants to and is just waiting for the invitation.
“Jon,” Tom says, he lays a hand on Sebastian’s side and looks at his best friend.
Keeping Sebastian from Jon had been the hardest thing that Tom has ever done. He’s not used to keeping secrets from Jon, there were times that he’d forget that Jon didn’t know and almost tell him. And it had never been about lack of trust, he’s always trusted Jon more then he’s trusted anyone else.
It had been more the fear of rejection, of Jon looking at him and Sebastian and seeing a freak instead of his best friend.
In a way he’s kind of grateful that Ryan and Brent had found Giselle’s egg; that it had taken them so long to pull it together for her to hatch.
He’s grateful because it gave him the perfect opening to introduce Sebastian to his favorite people after keeping him a secret for so long, and Ryan and Brent’s baby dragon has kept them from asking him why it had taken him so long in the first place.
It’s a distraction that won’t work for very long and added onto that eventually it appears he’ll have to deal with Mike. Mike has made the perfectly clear.
Jon walks forward and stops right in front of Sebastian, looks him directly in the eye.
“Hi Sebastian,” Jon says. He keeps his voice soft and pleased and Sebastian rumbles at him, then pulls his wings in tight and flops onto his side, the ground shakes a little. He looks at Jon expectantly and the eyes that Jon shoots at Tom are wide and questioning.
“He, uh, wants you to scratch his tummy,” Tom scratches his head, grins. “It’s a sign of trust and affection.”
Pete moves up beside Jon and he’s grinning. “Oh, you’re just a big puppy dog, aren’t you,” he says. “I’ll help you Jon, we’ll give you the best scratches ever.”
“Can I help?” Brendon is there between one blink and the next. His face is beaming and Ryan is laughing hysterically in his head, Tom looks over and he’s still standing next to Spencer, arms over each others shoulders and he’s smirking.
Half his mind is taken up with worrying about Brent, the other half is laughing at Tom for being worried about telling anyone about Sebastian.
In their group, dragons are pretty much going to be considered the norm apparently. Though he really hopes that no one else has found a dragon egg. He thinks hiding Sebastian and Giselle is going to be hard enough.
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Zack brings Brent to the hotel with his arm in a sling.
“It’s not broken,” he says when Ryan looks scared at the thought, Ryan still treats him like he’s a fragile piece of glass. Giselle cuddles with him on the couch, making a point of avoiding that side.
When he takes two of his pain pills and curls up on his side on the bed, Giselle is right in front of him and Ryan lies beside him. Hand touching his back constantly, like Ryan needs to reassure himself that Brent is still there.
He hurts, but he won’t hurt forever and he’s lulled to sleep by the fact they’re all safe.
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Zack sends their car away, he commandeers one of the roadies to drive it back to Ryan’s place after the roadie signs the new confidentially agreement that Pete has had drawn up.
Ryan just looks at him with wide eyes, “Zack?”
“Everyone’s on the buses,” Zack says, Tom shifts on his feet next to Ryan, Brent is sitting in one of the chairs in the lobby, his eyes are closed and he would have been asleep the second they got in the car, but now it appears they’re not going?
“Okay?” Ryan is just confused.
“If I’d known that people were going to be trying to kidnap you, you wouldn’t have been traveling in the car in the first place,” Zack says. He sounds like he’s taking it as a personal affront to his ability to protect them that someone had gotten close enough to snatch Brent.
“You’re not our bodyguard Zack. You’re Brendon and Spencer’s,” Ryan reminds him. Again. This is like the fifth time that he and Zack have had this argument.
It always ends the same way, with Zack shooting him a look that says he’s an idiot and a complete moron.
Like the one that he’s getting right now.
“Bus,” Zack jerks his thumb towards the front of the hotel.
“But…”
“I want everyone in one place, no one that has anything that is small enough to be taken goes for walks without at least two other people, and both those people can’t be people that would also be of interest to those that would be taking them,” Zack’s brow furrows, Tom is shaking next to him, Ryan thinks he’s trying not to laugh out loud.
Ryan taps Brent on the shoulder and Brent’s eyes open.
“We’re ready?” Brent asks, his eyes look heavy and dazed.
“Apparently we’re riding on the bus today,” Ryan says.
Brent manages to get to his feet without using his arm to push himself up. He’s in more pain this morning then he was when Zack brought him back last night.
“Is there a flat surface that I can lay on?” Brent asks, he lists to the right slightly and Ryan puts an arm around his waist to keep him from toppling to the ground.
“I made Brendon clear out the extra bunks, there’s enough room for you guys to have somewhere to crash,” Zack says.
Brent nods. “Okay, are we done then?”
“Buses are out front,” Zack says, Tom takes Ryan’s place and propels Brent out the door. Ryan shifts on his feet; Giselle is a heavy weight against his back, Brent being hopped up on pain meds is resulting in Giselle spending most of the same amount of time sleeping in her backpack.
“Zack.”
“We’re not taking any chances, if I’d known that someone had tried to take Conrad you guys wouldn’t have been driving along all by yourselves anyway.”
“It was only the one time,” Ryan says.
“That’s he’s told us about, I’d rather be safe then have fucking elves manage to actually take one of you somewhere we can’t get you back,” Zack says.
Ryan bites his lip and nods.
“They don’t need to worry about us,” Ryan says softly and Zack gives him that ‘you’re an idiot’ look again.
“Trust me, I’m pretty sure that Spencer worrying about you is part of his full-time job description and this is easier on all of us then having Spencer figure out a way to permanently attach himself to your hip, or Jon handcuff himself to Tom… and those were the other options being bandied about.”
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The phone call is not unexpected and he’s kind of glad that Jon and Spencer and Brendon are hovering over Ryan and Brent because that means that he’s alone to deal with it.
Tom’s been waiting for it since everything went to shit days earlier. When Brent was taken, and Sebastian had been on his way to them before Tom had even called for him.
No matter how much he’s blocking them out he had to have heard Sebastian’s rage.
Jon knows, Tom doesn’t know how, he’s not told him but when everyone had gone to their rooms that night he’d just sat on the edge of the bed that was his and looked at him.
“Mike Carden,” he’d said and Tom had shaken his head.
“It’s old news Jon,” he’d said. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Jon had just looked at him, with eyes that knew him too well. This is his best friend, his brother. The one person that he’d wanted to tell from the beginning.
“I think it does,” he’d said and Tom had shook his head and turned away. He wasn’t talking about this; he had no intention of talking about it.
Except everyone seems to want him to talk about it. To talk about his feelings and his emotions and tell them what went wrong, why he and his rider couldn’t make things work like Ryan and Brent are, and what they need to do to help him fix things.
He doesn’t know how to tell them that his rider thinks he’s a nut job and that at least Ryan and Brent had both thought they were going crazy so they were able to bond over their imminent psychiatric hospital stays.
He can’t say the words anyway because now Jon knows, and Jon, at least, is still friends with The Academy boys, Tom doesn’t want to ruin that for him, not really.
He’s waiting for the call because that night when they’d got back from introducing Giselle to Sebastian and Mike had cornered him in the hotel lobby, his whole purpose for being there to meet them had been to tell that him he wanted to see Sebastian.
Tom had said no, had refused, but he knows that Sebastian knows that Mike has expressed an interest. Knows that Sebastian is pushing at the boundaries of Mike’s mind and that Mike is, apparently, letting him in.
Tom remembers what Mike’s mind had felt like; and he can feel the remnants of Mike’s presence when he reaches out for Sebastian.
He doesn’t know what’s changed, as far as he knows absolutely nothing has, he doesn’t know why Mike is trying now when before it had been big metal walls and cruel reminders of the fact that he was crazy.
He wonders though, if he were to reach out, like Sebastian is, if Mike’s mind would be there. If he’s just waiting for Tom to try before he pushes.
Tom doesn’t try, because he doesn’t want to reach out and find out that Mike’s only reaching out to Sebastian and that he has no intention of reaching out to Tom.
“What the hell happened?” Mike asks. He sounds gruff, abrupt on the phone.
“Someone tried to take off with Brent,” Tom says.
“Someone? That doesn’t tell me who,” Mike says, he sounds mad, Tom can read between the lines, it sounds like he wants to know who he has to beat up.
“Because it doesn’t matter, it’s taken care off. We got Brent back; Zack is keeping all his ducklings, even his adopted ones, under his wing. We’re all fine,” Tom doesn’t know why he’s trying to reassure Mike, maybe because Mike sounds like he actually gives a damn.
If he gave a damn he would have been there when it was Tom and Sebastian they were trying to force through the portal, Tom keeps reminding himself of that. It’s a little too much a little too late.
“Sebastian was pissed off,” Mike says, he sounds impressed at that.
“Yeah, I know, I was there.”
******************************************************************************
Tom is sitting in front of the couch, Brent and Ryan are sitting side by side and Giselle is lounging across their laps. Every so often she’ll move forward and settle her head on Tom’s shoulder. He’ll reach up and scratch her head and she’ll chirp at him.
Spencer is being quiet, he has a book in his hands and he’s got it open but he’s not actually reading anything it.
They’re like their own little close knit family, bonds tightening between them every day. At least now he doesn’t feel like he’s being cut out, if he went over right now, he could sit next to Ryan and Ryan would lay his head on his shoulder and Giselle would butt her head against his leg until he gave her scratches.
“Mike wants to see Sebastian,” Tom says softly. Jon’s hands go still on his guitar and across the length of the bus; in the tiny kitchen area Brendon’s eyes are wide. His mouth opens and Spencer shakes his head.
“What are you going to do?” Ryan asks. He touches Tom’s shoulder, squeezes.
“I don’t know. Sebastian knows, Mike’s been reaching out to him, Sebastian’ll go to him on his own if I don’t decide soon.”
“Sebastian won’t…” Jon starts.
“Mike is our… his rider, you don’t…” Tom shakes his head, his hair covers his eyes and Spencer wonders if that’s why he keeps it long like that, to make it harder for people to see his face, his eyes. For people to see what he’s really feeling.
“It’s like having a part of you not there,” Tom says softly. “Like there’s something missing, only it’s a space that can’t be filled by anything else.”
Spencer sees Brent and Ryan lean into each other. Brent’s chin has dropped and he’s looking at his hands, Ryan has one of his laying over them. Spencer wonders how easily the bond that exists between them could turn romantic, if Brent decided that he wasn’t completely straight, if Ryan decided that he could take a chance.
It would probably be easier for them that way then any other.
******************************************************************************
The End:
Spencer finds them their property.
Honestly he hadn’t even wanted to be involved. The thought of Ryan living with Brent all the time, it doesn’t fill him with warm fuzzy feelings.
Brendon is still pouting, even weeks after the end of the tour, because he’d never got Ryan and Jon on-stage with them. Jon had gone out with Fall Out Boy, pulling on Pete’s bass during the last song so that Pete could go play with the audience.
Ryan and Brent had stood side by side backstage, there’d been pictures taken by venue security posted the day after the concert.
The security guard was fired, but the pictures were still out there, Ryan and Brent with Ryan’s arm over Brent’s shoulder, Brent’s arm still in the sling, heads bent close together. It looks more incriminating then it is and everyone is speculating that Ryan and Brent are dating.
They aren’t. Spencer knows this, but if he were just some average person looking at the pictures he could see how someone might think they were.
He isn’t the average person though, he’s someone who counts Ryan Ross as his best friend and his best friend is telling him that there is nothing going on and Spencer doesn’t care if he’s lying as long as he can believe the words.
Spencer doesn’t think he’s lying though. He hopes.
Spencer finds the property by accident; Tom had told him what he thought they needed; how many acres and the fact that it needed to either have a barn big enough to convert to housing for Giselle and Sebastian or enough land to build one.
Spencer finds it because Brendon has been looking at dude ranches in Wyoming (Spencer doesn’t know, he doesn’t ask either, Brendon will tell them when he’s ready) and sends Spencer a link. Spencer doesn’t know what makes him look, but he clicks on the other links and those links sends him to others and others and four deep in Spencer finds the listing for one that has closed down.
He sends for information from the company handling the sale and has them send him pictures, then e-mails them asking for specific pictures.
Of the inside of the barn.
Those are the ones that he takes to Ryan and Brent and Tom. He sets them down at a table, Jon sitting next to Tom, Brendon hovering over Ryan’s shoulder.
“Oh,” Ryan smiles, the soft real smile that they only really see when he’s happy, relaxed. They’ve been seeing it a lot lately; Spencer hadn’t even realized how much he’d missed it. How long it had been since he’d seen Ryan actually, truly, happy.
“This is perfect,” Tom breathes, Brent is grinning widely.
“It’s an old dude ranch, they went out of business or something so it’s for sale dirt cheap, because apparently not many people actually start them up now. I don’t know. The main house has got like twelve bedrooms, six bathrooms, big kitchen. It’s gated, private,” Spencer shrugs, looks down at the pictures.
They don’t care about the house, they care about Giselle and Sebastian having a place to sleep that’s near them, that their dragons will have a place that is theirs and that is safe.
******************************************************************************
He doesn’t know when Tom calls Mike, or if he even does. He could have just sent the message through Sebastian for all they know.
“Mike’s coming up,” Tom says, he’s leaning against the counter in the kitchen sniffing a cup of coffee. Jon makes the coffee every morning, only the first pot though, if you want special made by Jon Walker coffee you had better set your alarm.
Spencer leans back in his chair, taps his spoon against the edge of his bowl. Brendon had been in charge of picking out cereal during the weekly excursion for groceries, so they have Chocolate Rice Krispie’s, his milk is a really disgusting shade of brown.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asks, Jon is just staring at Tom like he can reach inside Tom’s mind and figure out how he’s really feeling.
Tom shrugs, “I think I’ve put it off long enough, we’re as settled as we’re going to get.”
They’ve been in the house for almost two weeks, Giselle still sleeps with Ryan and Brent, she’s growing every day though and she’s going to be sleeping with Sebastian sooner then Spencer thinks any of them are ready for.
Spencer hopes to distract Ryan with music, when it gets to that point.
Brendon’s helping, giving Ryan stuff he’s working on, things that need words and Ryan seems to be supplying them. They haven’t started fighting yet so Spencer isn’t really sure where they are in the process.
“He’s bringing Bill with him,” Tom says, he frowns at his cup. “I think Pete told him about Sebastian.”
“Is there anyone in our group that doesn’t know,” Jon says.
“It’s Pete,” Spencer pushes his bowl away, Brendon doesn’t get to choose cereal anymore he decides, “we should count ourselves lucky that he didn’t put something up on one of his blogs.”
******************************************************************************
Mike and William show up bright and early on a Thursday morning. The house has barely started moving around, normally Ryan wouldn’t be up but they’d known that today was Mike’s arrival day. He wanted to be ready to lend support if Tom and Sebastian needed it.
Brent is in the barn with Giselle, they go out in the morning to hang out with Sebastian, so Giselle can start getting used to her space in there. She takes up half their bed now, he and Brent have had to get really comfortable with each other in order to keep her with them. Pretty soon that’s not going to be an option.
“Ryan Ross,” William grins at him when he opens the door; he pulls him into a tight hug and pats him on the back. Mike just rolls his eyes.
Ryan can’t feel him in his head, not like he can Brent or Tom. He wonders if that’s because Mike is still shielding.
“I hear you have a dragon,” William says, he sounds disbelieving, like they’re pulling a prank on him, Ryan almost wants to watch him for his reaction when Sebastian comes out, but he’s more interested in Mike’s to Sebastian and Sebastian’s reaction to Mike.
William has an arm over Ryan’s shoulder as Ryan leads them through the house. Everyone is on the back porch waiting for them.
Jon is standing right next to Tom, the look he shoots at Mike promises pain if Mike fucks this up any more then he already has.
Ryan sort of thinks he’s not going to. He doesn’t know why, Mike still isn’t there in his head. But there’s an air of expectation surrounding him and he watches Mike closely for a second, his hands clench and release and he’s pulling at his bottom lip with his teeth, swallowing reflexively. He’s nervous, Ryan thinks.
Scared that Sebastian is going to take one look at him and decide that he was wrong to keep waiting for him to come back.
Brent comes out of the barn and Giselle is following him, wings batting slowly.
He smiles because his girl definitely knows how to make an entrance.
Spencer told him that morning that he had to stop Twittering about her because the Internet thinks he has a girlfriend. But she’s his best girl and no one will let him post pictures so talking about her is the next best thing.
“She’s adorable,” William is saying. “But why do you need so much…”
Ryan can tell the instant that William sees Sebastian’s head peek around the corner.
He’s as nervous as everyone else; Ryan doesn’t think that anyone needed to be nervous. Because Sebastian only has eyes for Mike and Tom, and Mike only has eyes for Sebastian, though his gaze moves to Tom periodically.
Brent comes up on the porch and leans on the railing next to Ryan, Giselle lands on it and makes herself comfortable.
Sebastian takes careful steps across the yard and when he gets close enough he pokes his nose into Tom’s back even as he doesn’t take his eyes off of Mike.
Tom doesn’t either, just rests a hand on Sebastian’s nose when it settles next to him on the railing.
They’re just waiting; Ryan knows they’re waiting for Mike to make the first move.
Because that’s all they’ve been waiting for, for years they’ve waited for Mike to come back and now he’s here and Ryan wonders if he’s going to move.
Mike makes the first move; ignoring William’s gaping, ignoring all of them. He takes five shaky steps across the porch and stops in front of Tom.
They stare at each other and then Tom looks away, looks over at Sebastian and Mike reaches out a hand.
Ryan links his fingers with Brent’s, rests his head on Spencer’s shoulder and watches a rider come home.
******************************************************************************
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: GEN, subtexty Ryan/Brent, Ryan/Spencer
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 6/6
Bus call is always sort of chaotic. Everyone rushing to get their bags packed and get everyone on the road at a specific, designated time, without leaving anyone behind.
They’ve all heard the My Chem horror stories; none of them wants to be Ray.
Even though some of them would love to be Ray.
Spencer is glad they’re almost done, they have maybe a half-dozen shows left then they can figure out what to do about Ryan and Brent and Giselle.
The bus has pulled away and Spencer has just closed his eyes on the couch, listening to Jon strumming on his guitar, listening to Brendon humming.
It’s familiar and he lets it lull him partially to sleep.
He keeps waiting for the minute when Ryan’s guitar would join in, if more then one person is making music everyone’s got to be joining in.
Ryan never joins in and he opens his eyes a crack, Jon sitting on the couch cross-legged. Brendon on the floor with one of Spencer’s tambourines.
“Where’s Ryan?”
******************************************************************************
Brent had put $20 bucks on an hour, Tom on 30 minutes. Ryan had said they were both nuts and abstained.
They still made him hold the phone, he’s in the back with Giselle and she’s sort of flopped on her side, she’ll chirp at him every so often but he thinks the way that she’s relaxing in his mind that she’ll be napping sooner rather then later.
Tom hands Brent the $20 when the phone in Ryan’s hand rings, doesn’t even wait to see who’s on the other end.
He makes a face when he sees Spencer’s name.
“Hey Spence,” he debates not answering but they’ll be meeting up for lunch (Zack made him promise that they wouldn’t disappear without notifying him that they were going to do so first, he’d tried to remind Zack that he wasn’t security for him, just Brendon and Spencer, but Zack had given him that look that told him that he was being stupid and Ryan had just let it drop, he doesn’t like arguing with Zack because Zack can break him in half) and he doesn’t want to deal with Spencer in a pissy mood because he’s not answering the phone.
“Where are you?” Spencer asks. His voice is all calm. Ryan knows him enough to know that Spencer’s all calm voice is really his ‘I’m extremely pissed off and will talk in short clipped tones because they haven’t invented a way for me to reach through the phone and choke you, yet’ voice.
“In the car,” Ryan says. He ignores the smirk that Brent and Tom are sharing.
“You’re supposed to be on the bus,” Spencer says.
“And wouldn’t that be all kinds of uncomfortable,” Ryan mutters, Spencer is silent on the other end.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I know that Zack told you that Brent and I, we’re kind of a package deal, I was there when he did. You haven’t made any secret of how you feel about Brent but I kind of need him at the moment so, Tom and Brent and I, we’re going to be traveling in the car, mostly because it’s less uncomfortable for everyone involved,” Ryan knows he sounds irritated, they shouldn’t even have to be following them. They should be able to find an abandoned field and put up a tent and spend a couple of days with Giselle and Sebastian and not worry about making lunch and dinner breaks on time so no one freaks out.
“If you want you can tell yourself it’s because we want to be able to give Giselle a chance to stretch her wings more frequently then being on a bus would afford her.”
“Ryan,” Spencer sighs. Like Ryan is trying his patience. “You’re at least stopping and eating lunch with us, right?”
“Zack gave us the itinerary,” the times the buses were stopping for food had been highlighted. Normally they’re not that in depth and there are choices involved, that’s evidently not the case when Zack wants to makes sure that Ryan, Brent and Tom make it to the various stops with the rest of the group.
Ryan thinks they’re going to have to talk about this, they can’t follow them from the concert to concert, he doesn’t know what the hell Spencer is thinking, it’ll look like he’s fucking stalking them and then the internet might actually explode.
******************************************************************************
Spencer is trying not to care that apparently Ryan doesn’t ever want to see them perform, or ride with them, or spend any time with them unless he’s joined at the hip with Brent.
He’s trying not to care but apparently he does.
It’s just really hard to be interested in pictures of Ryan and Brent with big balls of twine and them in front of a windmill that apparently shows the shadow of Jesus when the sun hits it just right (evidently it just looks like a shadow of bear when the sun isn’t hitting it just right, Spencer, honestly, doesn’t care) when they barely hit the hotel at the same time that they’re getting back from shows and Ryan always looks like he’d rather be anywhere then with them.
Brendon is still thinking that he’s going to be able to drag Ryan and Jon on-stage with them for the last show at least; popular consensus on-line would agree with him.
Spencer thinks that Brendon, along with everyone else, is completely deluded.
Because Brendon hasn’t managed to convince Jon to come on stage with them, and Jon should have been the easier sell of the two. Plus the fact that they can’t even get Ryan to be in the same city with them prior to them hitting the stage, he thinks that it’s unlikely as hell.
He takes it for a little over a week. Nine days to be exact.
But what’s the point of forcing Ryan to travel with them if Ryan’s just going to pretend they don’t exist.
He starts showing up at their door when they check into the hotels. It becomes his new thing, sometimes Brendon joins him, sometimes Jon does as well. But usually it’s just Spencer because everyone seems to believe that if they’re going to fix anything it’s going to be Spencer and Ryan managing to talk that’s going to do it.
It takes a couple of visits for it to sink into Ryan’s head that Spencer’s just not going to go away.
And it takes about that long for Spencer to realize that Brent isn’t going anywhere either. He’s certainly not going to disappear back to Vegas when they get off the road; Ryan and Brent are talking about buying property together and…
They’re not together, Spencer doesn’t think it’s even been considered as a possibility, but if either of them starts dating the vetting of the new prospective partner is going to be done by either Ryan or Brent (depending on whose dating) and not him and whoever Brent has that should be looking out for him.
Once that settles in Spencer can watch the two of them interact and not feel like he’s fighting Brent to try and get his best friend back.
Because whatever bond Ryan and Brent share it’s almost strictly through Giselle, they’re trying to figure out how to be friends, just like Spencer is trying to fix whatever went wrong.
It would be easier if he knew what had happened; if he could pinpoint the moment when things went bad he could figure out how to undo whatever had been done.
Brent leaves them alone on Spencer’s fifth visit. Just squeezes Ryan’s shoulder and takes himself and Giselle to Tom and Jon’s room.
“He said I should talk to you,” Ryan says after the door closes behind them.
“I just… can you tell me what…” Spencer can’t finish the question, because he doesn’t know what the question is. Doesn’t know how to verbalize, ‘when did drugs and alcohol become the way you dealt with things instead of coming to me?’ without saying those words.
And he doesn’t want to say those words, doesn’t want Ryan to shut himself off again like he had when Spencer first confronted him about the drinking, the way he had when Spencer had confronted him about his double-standard when it came to relationships.
“I was,” Ryan bites his lip; he links his hands together in his lap and squeezes his fingers hard enough that Spencer sees them whiten. He lays his hands over Ryan’s to stop him. “I was hearing things, in my head.”
“Ryan…”
“I thought I was going crazy, you know, and wouldn’t that have just been fitting,” he laughs harshly, bitterly; he still won’t meet Spencer’s eyes. “I just, one drink would make them go away, would… I just wanted everyone to be quiet for a while, but… it started taking more then one drink, or two or… then drugs worked for a while, made everything silent.”
“They weren’t the answer,” Spencer says softly.
“Then what was? I didn’t know what else to do, and what would I even say. All I could hear was you screaming in my head about not being able to trust me to take care of myself, all I could hear was Brendon yelling about me because I wasn’t writing things he wanted to sing, Pete was so disappointed in me that being in the same room with him was painful; Keltie, Jon, Alex. You all were just so loud and mad and angry and disappointed; I just….”
“You should have said something, we could have helped you, could have figured out what was going on.”
“You were already working on things,” Ryan says. “You and Brendon, you already had a plan on how to carry on and what was I going to do? Screw that up for you? Take that chance for you guys to succeed away because I was going crazy?”
Spencer closes his eyes briefly; Ryan’s still not looking at him. The stuff him and Brendon had been working on had been for them, for all of them, and the only reason they were working on it separately was because Ryan and Jon had seemed pretty settled into a routine and they hadn’t wanted to disrupt them.
“We never wanted to do this without you guys,” Spencer says.
“I knew that it was over,” Ryan says softly, his voice barely a whisper. “I knew it was over the day we met for lunch, before you even said a word, because you weren’t there. You weren’t yelling at me in my head, I could hear the guy two tables over contemplating taking an extended lunch break and our waitress was going through scenarios on how her boyfriend was going to react because she was pregnant. But you were quiet.”
“I wouldn’t be now,” Spencer say, he puts one arm over Ryan’s shoulder and tugs him into a loose hug. He thinks it says something that Ryan lets him, that Ryan doesn’t pull immediately away. That maybe Ryan wants to fix things as much as they do, as much as Spencer does. He just doesn’t have any more of an idea on how to do it then Spencer does. “We’ll figure this out, I promise.”
Ryan nods once. Lays his head on Spencer’s shoulder.
“Brent’s not going anywhere,” he says. “I know that you don’t want him here, but he’s not going away and…”
“I know,” Spencer soothes. “I kind of already figured that out, Brent and I’ll figure out how to deal with each other, you don’t need to worry about that.”
He thinks it might not be that hard to remember that Brent was once a friend, as long as Ryan doesn’t start pushing for Brent to be part of the band again.
******************************************************************************
They’re at a diner, they’ve been eating a lot of diner food, Spencer doesn’t know why and it’s starting to annoy him. He’s asked Zack but Zack had just made some shrugging, grunting noise that Spencer took to mean that he didn’t know.
Zack always knows, Zack is the one that tells them when and where to stop, if Zack doesn’t know there is something really wrong and an apocalypse is forthcoming.
Ryan, Brent and Tom are outside; Tom is trying to teach Ryan and Brent to more clearly communicate with their minds.
Spencer’s not sure how he feels about that, but he gives them the space. He’d sat with them once and watching them think at each other was both creepy and off-putting; he lets them have their space to do this.
He thinks he’s been better about Brent. They’d had a five minute discussion that morning that hadn’t devolved into one of them spitting at the other.
Tom has assured them that the bouts of telepathy that Ryan had told him about had been because of Giselle, none of them are sure exactly why it happens; Tom is of the mindset that it’s supposed to allow them to protect themselves and Giselle from attack.
But they don’t know for sure, and it’s not like there’s an Official Care and Feeding of Dragons book to explain it to them.
Ryan has made noises about writing one. Spencer is pretty sure if he does that it’ll have to be marketed in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section.
In Ryan and Brent’s (and Spencer supposes Tom’s as well) case it had just served to make them think they were going crazy and put barriers between them and the people that they cared about.
He’s watching them from the window, he purposefully sits in the front of the diners so he can watch them outside, it makes it easier for the fangirls to spot him, but it also makes it easier for him to keep on eye on the trio outside.
Brent’s not with them at the moment which means that it’s probably his turn to walk with Giselle. Spencer half wonders if the places they eat aren’t being chosen because of their proximity to wooded areas in which to allow them privacy to walk their dragon.
He’d ask Zack again but Zack will just give him that look, again, which means that he doesn’t know.
He’s waiting for Brendon to finish; Jon is already done and is leaning, head tilted back on the top of his chair with his eyes closed.
He only notices that something is going on because of the way that Ryan and Tom both jump, the way they both come to their feet in a split second and then the way that they go running.
“What the fuck,” he says under his breath and tosses his napkin on his plate. Zack has seen whatever he saw as well, he’s only a few steps ahead of him, Brendon and the others right behind.
Spencer hopes someone stayed to take care of the bill.
As they get closer Spencer can hear Giselle shrieking; panicked and frightened. It’s ear piercing and it doesn’t stop. Not even when Ryan reaches her, he holds up his arm and she grasps onto it, and just continues shrieking at him.
“Ryan, you have to calm her down,” Tom’s voice is shaking, and he’s got hold of Ryan’s other arm.
“Brent,” Ryan says, his voice is quiet and his eyes have that vague, distant look that Spencer had learned to associate with the drugs that Ryan had been doing.
He hasn’t been doing any drugs though, so this must be what Ryan going into shock looks like instead.
“Ryan,” Tom grips his shoulders and shakes him. “Ryan, you need to calm her down so we can find out what happened.”
“Okay,” Ryan takes a deep breath, then another. His hands are shaking when he touches Giselle; he runs a hand down her back. “Okay, shh, it’s okay,” his voice trembles, breaks. “Its okay sweetie, it’s okay, we’ll get him back, it’s okay.”
Brendon’s fingers are digging into Spencer’s arm, Spencer would peel them off because Brendon needs to clip his nails and Spencer thinks he’s drawing blood, but he can’t because his own are digging into Jon’s.
Ryan touches his forehead to the top of Giselle’s head, when he lifts his head his eyes are wet looking but he looks steadier.
“Okay,” he says as he looks at Tom and Tom is focused intently on them. They’re all three of them staring at each other and Giselle’s shrieking has stopped, now it’s some sort of whining sound.
Spencer would almost rather have the shrieking back, because the whining sounds like Giselle’s heart is breaking.
“We need Sebastian,” Tom says and his eyes go skyward.
“We need to find them,” Ryan says, shaking his head, he takes a step and Tom grabs his arm again. “We can’t wait.”
“The nearest portal is about two miles away, we’ll never make it there before they get him through it, we need Sebastian,” Tom says his voice is emphatic, like he knows what the hell he’s talking about.
“How do you know where they’ll take him?” Ryan asks, his eyes are wide. Tom doesn’t look at him. “Tom? How do you know where they’ll take him?”
“The closest portal,” Tom stops, takes a deep breath. “The closest portal is the one they tried to take Sebastian and I through,” Tom says quietly, he takes two steps back, away from them and Spencer hears the roar before he ever sees where it comes from.
It’s filled with anger and rage, the shadow that falls over them is huge. Spencer knows that Sebastian is supposed to be big enough to ride, Tom had told them that much, but…
The dragon that glides to a landing in front of them is huge, bigger then Spencer had thought, when Tom had said big enough to ride, he’d thought maybe it would be the size of a horse, with wings. The dragon that is staring at them is much, much bigger then a horse with wings.
If Giselle is going to grow to be that big there is no way that Ryan and Brent are going to be able to hide her. Spencer isn’t even sure how Tom has managed to keep the entire world from finding out about Sebastian.
“Oh my god,” Brendon’s voice is awestruck; it’s intertwined with Patrick’s, “Oh dear lord.”
Tom is leaning into Sebastian’s body, he’s saying something to his dragon too low to hear but Sebastian sinks to the ground, one leg stuck out to the side of him in what looks to be an uncomfortable angle.
Spencer figures out what it’s for when Tom runs back, grabs onto Ryan’s arm and drags him over to Sebastian. All but shoving him up onto him.
“Wait a minute,” Zack starts, he goes to take a step forward and Sebastian’s head swings over to face him, Zack stops.
Tom and Ryan are ignoring them.
“Tom?” Ryan asks, Tom is pulling Giselle from her perch on Ryan’s arm one claw at the time. “Tom, Sebastian is yours.”
“Sebastian is a dragon without a rider, you are a rider currently with a dragon too small to ride,” Tom takes a deep breath and whispers something Spencer can’t hear in Giselle’s ear, it causes her to let go and transfer her footing to Tom.
“I’ve had exactly one flying lesson, I am in no way a ‘rider’,” Ryan says, he sounds calmer, his eyes are clear now.
“You will be, besides you’re not going to have to do anything, they’re going to take one look at Sebastian and bolt, I should have figured they would try something like this while Giselle was still young enough to shuttle back, I didn’t think they’d settle for just getting their hands on Brent.”
Tom moves back up in front of Sebastian, places both hands on his nose and leans forward.
“Fly fast,” he says softly. “Be safe.”
Giselle chirps at him and Spencer thinks if they could understand her that they’d probably hear her telling Sebastian to take care of Ryan, to bring back Brent.
Ryan doesn’t say anything, just looks down at them from his perch on Sebastian’s back. Tom moves back to the group and Sebastian takes off across the ground, he takes four steps and then takes flight, it’s smooth and looks effortless.
They watch until they’re gone.
“Tom?” Zack puts his hand on Tom’s shoulder.
“Sebastian will take care of him, Giselle will let us know if they’re successful.”
Tom touches Giselle’s back and they wait.
******************************************************************************
“Who exactly took off with Brent?” Brendon asks.
They’re sitting on the ground, Giselle is staring at the woods like she can make Ryan and Brent and Sebastian appear by her thoughts alone.
His watch says it’s only been an hour, it feels like ten.
“Elves maybe,” Tom says after a minute. “I think, I don’t know, they didn’t really give me a chance to ask before they knocked me unconscious… and they might not even be the ones that took Brent.”
“Someone tried to kidnap you? Why the hell didn’t you say anything?” Pete asks, he sounds angry. Spencer keeps forgetting that he’s sitting there. He’s much quieter; more focused then any version of Pete that Spencer has ever come into contact with.
“Why? By then it didn’t matter, I wasn’t in The Academy anymore, no one but Jon even cared if I disappeared for a few days,” Tom sounds sarcastic, Spencer can hear the sadness in his voice. He wonders if this is what Ryan would have sounded like if they hadn’t found out about Giselle.
“Tom…” Jon starts. Tom shakes his head; he’s evidently not having this discussion with them.
“Where’s Sebastian’s rider?” Brendon asks. He’s bouncing; he’ll probably be volunteering for the job if Tom opens it up for applicants.
“He’s… not in the picture,” Tom says, he averts his eyes and looks sad, Spencer sees Jon’s eyes narrow in response, then widen.
Jon has probably figured out who the rider is with his special Jon Walker skills, Spencer will corner him on the bus when this is all over with and together they’ll figure out how to make Tom not look like that anymore.
Figure out how to fix Tom like they’re fixing Ryan and Brent.
Tom blinks and stands and Giselle starts chirping wildly, wings flapping as she takes to the air.
“Giselle, stay,” Tom says. His voice is low but commanding, Giselle listens to him hovering in the air in front of him.
They all climb to their feet, Brendon is shifting on his feet next to Jon and Zack has his arms crossed over his chest, Pete has his looped through Patrick’s. Everyone else had been sent back to the buses, they’ll get explanations when they get to the hotel, if they’re not making a trip to the hospital for Brent.
Spencer is sure there will be confidentiality agreements waiting for them all to sign when they get back to the hotel, Pete had been on the phone for a while after he sent them away.
It’s maybe a minute later when Sebastian melts from the woods, it’s the only word that Spencer can think of that describes it, one minute he isn’t standing in front of them, the next he is there and Ryan is climbing down.
Spencer wonders if that’s how Tom has been able to hide Sebastian, because Sebastian can just make himself not be there.
Tom’s next to them in a blink of an eye, stroking a hand down Sebastian’s side, the ground rumbles with Sebastian’s resulting purr, then he moves to help Ryan get Brent down.
Brent is holding his arm to his chest like it’s been hurt, he’s got blood on his temple and his lip is bleeding.
He hadn’t given up without a fight, and he’d gotten Giselle away without both of them being taken.
Spencer has to give him credit for that, he’d kept Giselle safe, he’d kept Ryan safe.
He’s wincing as he stands there, Ryan’s arm over his shoulder, keeping him close. Giselle is rubbing noses with Sebastian chirping at him while he answers her with low grumbling noises that sound pleased.
She finishes her discussion with Sebastian and flies over to Ryan, using his free arm as her perch, she rubs her head under Brent’s chin, then under Ryan’s, then chirps at Tom.
“Hospital, I think,” Zack says, he’s walking over to them and he stops to touch Sebastian’s nose, like it’s nothing out of the ordinary that there’s a dragon the size of a bus sitting there, Spencer thinks he’s just proving that Sebastian is real and they all haven’t had gone insane waiting for Ryan to return.
“I’m fine,” Brent says. Zack pokes the arm cradled to his chest with his finger. Brent makes a low pain-filled noise.
“Hospital,” Zack says.
“Yeah, okay.”
Zack takes Ryan’s place at his side and walks away with him. Spencer wonders why Ryan isn’t going but then sees Giselle still there, clinging to Ryan’s arm, both of them watching him go.
“Spence,” Ryan starts. He doesn’t finish before Spencer is taking the twenty steps and pulling him into a fierce, one-armed hug. Giselle leans into his shoulder, chirping in his ear as he stands there holding onto Ryan.
******************************************************************************
Ryan doesn’t look like he’s letting go of Spencer any time soon. He’s got his forehead resting on Spencer’s shoulder and Brendon has moved up behind them. He hasn’t thrown his arms around them yet but he looks like he really wants to and is just waiting for the invitation.
“Jon,” Tom says, he lays a hand on Sebastian’s side and looks at his best friend.
Keeping Sebastian from Jon had been the hardest thing that Tom has ever done. He’s not used to keeping secrets from Jon, there were times that he’d forget that Jon didn’t know and almost tell him. And it had never been about lack of trust, he’s always trusted Jon more then he’s trusted anyone else.
It had been more the fear of rejection, of Jon looking at him and Sebastian and seeing a freak instead of his best friend.
In a way he’s kind of grateful that Ryan and Brent had found Giselle’s egg; that it had taken them so long to pull it together for her to hatch.
He’s grateful because it gave him the perfect opening to introduce Sebastian to his favorite people after keeping him a secret for so long, and Ryan and Brent’s baby dragon has kept them from asking him why it had taken him so long in the first place.
It’s a distraction that won’t work for very long and added onto that eventually it appears he’ll have to deal with Mike. Mike has made the perfectly clear.
Jon walks forward and stops right in front of Sebastian, looks him directly in the eye.
“Hi Sebastian,” Jon says. He keeps his voice soft and pleased and Sebastian rumbles at him, then pulls his wings in tight and flops onto his side, the ground shakes a little. He looks at Jon expectantly and the eyes that Jon shoots at Tom are wide and questioning.
“He, uh, wants you to scratch his tummy,” Tom scratches his head, grins. “It’s a sign of trust and affection.”
Pete moves up beside Jon and he’s grinning. “Oh, you’re just a big puppy dog, aren’t you,” he says. “I’ll help you Jon, we’ll give you the best scratches ever.”
“Can I help?” Brendon is there between one blink and the next. His face is beaming and Ryan is laughing hysterically in his head, Tom looks over and he’s still standing next to Spencer, arms over each others shoulders and he’s smirking.
Half his mind is taken up with worrying about Brent, the other half is laughing at Tom for being worried about telling anyone about Sebastian.
In their group, dragons are pretty much going to be considered the norm apparently. Though he really hopes that no one else has found a dragon egg. He thinks hiding Sebastian and Giselle is going to be hard enough.
******************************************************************************
Zack brings Brent to the hotel with his arm in a sling.
“It’s not broken,” he says when Ryan looks scared at the thought, Ryan still treats him like he’s a fragile piece of glass. Giselle cuddles with him on the couch, making a point of avoiding that side.
When he takes two of his pain pills and curls up on his side on the bed, Giselle is right in front of him and Ryan lies beside him. Hand touching his back constantly, like Ryan needs to reassure himself that Brent is still there.
He hurts, but he won’t hurt forever and he’s lulled to sleep by the fact they’re all safe.
******************************************************************************
Zack sends their car away, he commandeers one of the roadies to drive it back to Ryan’s place after the roadie signs the new confidentially agreement that Pete has had drawn up.
Ryan just looks at him with wide eyes, “Zack?”
“Everyone’s on the buses,” Zack says, Tom shifts on his feet next to Ryan, Brent is sitting in one of the chairs in the lobby, his eyes are closed and he would have been asleep the second they got in the car, but now it appears they’re not going?
“Okay?” Ryan is just confused.
“If I’d known that people were going to be trying to kidnap you, you wouldn’t have been traveling in the car in the first place,” Zack says. He sounds like he’s taking it as a personal affront to his ability to protect them that someone had gotten close enough to snatch Brent.
“You’re not our bodyguard Zack. You’re Brendon and Spencer’s,” Ryan reminds him. Again. This is like the fifth time that he and Zack have had this argument.
It always ends the same way, with Zack shooting him a look that says he’s an idiot and a complete moron.
Like the one that he’s getting right now.
“Bus,” Zack jerks his thumb towards the front of the hotel.
“But…”
“I want everyone in one place, no one that has anything that is small enough to be taken goes for walks without at least two other people, and both those people can’t be people that would also be of interest to those that would be taking them,” Zack’s brow furrows, Tom is shaking next to him, Ryan thinks he’s trying not to laugh out loud.
Ryan taps Brent on the shoulder and Brent’s eyes open.
“We’re ready?” Brent asks, his eyes look heavy and dazed.
“Apparently we’re riding on the bus today,” Ryan says.
Brent manages to get to his feet without using his arm to push himself up. He’s in more pain this morning then he was when Zack brought him back last night.
“Is there a flat surface that I can lay on?” Brent asks, he lists to the right slightly and Ryan puts an arm around his waist to keep him from toppling to the ground.
“I made Brendon clear out the extra bunks, there’s enough room for you guys to have somewhere to crash,” Zack says.
Brent nods. “Okay, are we done then?”
“Buses are out front,” Zack says, Tom takes Ryan’s place and propels Brent out the door. Ryan shifts on his feet; Giselle is a heavy weight against his back, Brent being hopped up on pain meds is resulting in Giselle spending most of the same amount of time sleeping in her backpack.
“Zack.”
“We’re not taking any chances, if I’d known that someone had tried to take Conrad you guys wouldn’t have been driving along all by yourselves anyway.”
“It was only the one time,” Ryan says.
“That’s he’s told us about, I’d rather be safe then have fucking elves manage to actually take one of you somewhere we can’t get you back,” Zack says.
Ryan bites his lip and nods.
“They don’t need to worry about us,” Ryan says softly and Zack gives him that ‘you’re an idiot’ look again.
“Trust me, I’m pretty sure that Spencer worrying about you is part of his full-time job description and this is easier on all of us then having Spencer figure out a way to permanently attach himself to your hip, or Jon handcuff himself to Tom… and those were the other options being bandied about.”
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The phone call is not unexpected and he’s kind of glad that Jon and Spencer and Brendon are hovering over Ryan and Brent because that means that he’s alone to deal with it.
Tom’s been waiting for it since everything went to shit days earlier. When Brent was taken, and Sebastian had been on his way to them before Tom had even called for him.
No matter how much he’s blocking them out he had to have heard Sebastian’s rage.
Jon knows, Tom doesn’t know how, he’s not told him but when everyone had gone to their rooms that night he’d just sat on the edge of the bed that was his and looked at him.
“Mike Carden,” he’d said and Tom had shaken his head.
“It’s old news Jon,” he’d said. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Jon had just looked at him, with eyes that knew him too well. This is his best friend, his brother. The one person that he’d wanted to tell from the beginning.
“I think it does,” he’d said and Tom had shook his head and turned away. He wasn’t talking about this; he had no intention of talking about it.
Except everyone seems to want him to talk about it. To talk about his feelings and his emotions and tell them what went wrong, why he and his rider couldn’t make things work like Ryan and Brent are, and what they need to do to help him fix things.
He doesn’t know how to tell them that his rider thinks he’s a nut job and that at least Ryan and Brent had both thought they were going crazy so they were able to bond over their imminent psychiatric hospital stays.
He can’t say the words anyway because now Jon knows, and Jon, at least, is still friends with The Academy boys, Tom doesn’t want to ruin that for him, not really.
He’s waiting for the call because that night when they’d got back from introducing Giselle to Sebastian and Mike had cornered him in the hotel lobby, his whole purpose for being there to meet them had been to tell that him he wanted to see Sebastian.
Tom had said no, had refused, but he knows that Sebastian knows that Mike has expressed an interest. Knows that Sebastian is pushing at the boundaries of Mike’s mind and that Mike is, apparently, letting him in.
Tom remembers what Mike’s mind had felt like; and he can feel the remnants of Mike’s presence when he reaches out for Sebastian.
He doesn’t know what’s changed, as far as he knows absolutely nothing has, he doesn’t know why Mike is trying now when before it had been big metal walls and cruel reminders of the fact that he was crazy.
He wonders though, if he were to reach out, like Sebastian is, if Mike’s mind would be there. If he’s just waiting for Tom to try before he pushes.
Tom doesn’t try, because he doesn’t want to reach out and find out that Mike’s only reaching out to Sebastian and that he has no intention of reaching out to Tom.
“What the hell happened?” Mike asks. He sounds gruff, abrupt on the phone.
“Someone tried to take off with Brent,” Tom says.
“Someone? That doesn’t tell me who,” Mike says, he sounds mad, Tom can read between the lines, it sounds like he wants to know who he has to beat up.
“Because it doesn’t matter, it’s taken care off. We got Brent back; Zack is keeping all his ducklings, even his adopted ones, under his wing. We’re all fine,” Tom doesn’t know why he’s trying to reassure Mike, maybe because Mike sounds like he actually gives a damn.
If he gave a damn he would have been there when it was Tom and Sebastian they were trying to force through the portal, Tom keeps reminding himself of that. It’s a little too much a little too late.
“Sebastian was pissed off,” Mike says, he sounds impressed at that.
“Yeah, I know, I was there.”
******************************************************************************
Tom is sitting in front of the couch, Brent and Ryan are sitting side by side and Giselle is lounging across their laps. Every so often she’ll move forward and settle her head on Tom’s shoulder. He’ll reach up and scratch her head and she’ll chirp at him.
Spencer is being quiet, he has a book in his hands and he’s got it open but he’s not actually reading anything it.
They’re like their own little close knit family, bonds tightening between them every day. At least now he doesn’t feel like he’s being cut out, if he went over right now, he could sit next to Ryan and Ryan would lay his head on his shoulder and Giselle would butt her head against his leg until he gave her scratches.
“Mike wants to see Sebastian,” Tom says softly. Jon’s hands go still on his guitar and across the length of the bus; in the tiny kitchen area Brendon’s eyes are wide. His mouth opens and Spencer shakes his head.
“What are you going to do?” Ryan asks. He touches Tom’s shoulder, squeezes.
“I don’t know. Sebastian knows, Mike’s been reaching out to him, Sebastian’ll go to him on his own if I don’t decide soon.”
“Sebastian won’t…” Jon starts.
“Mike is our… his rider, you don’t…” Tom shakes his head, his hair covers his eyes and Spencer wonders if that’s why he keeps it long like that, to make it harder for people to see his face, his eyes. For people to see what he’s really feeling.
“It’s like having a part of you not there,” Tom says softly. “Like there’s something missing, only it’s a space that can’t be filled by anything else.”
Spencer sees Brent and Ryan lean into each other. Brent’s chin has dropped and he’s looking at his hands, Ryan has one of his laying over them. Spencer wonders how easily the bond that exists between them could turn romantic, if Brent decided that he wasn’t completely straight, if Ryan decided that he could take a chance.
It would probably be easier for them that way then any other.
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The End:
Spencer finds them their property.
Honestly he hadn’t even wanted to be involved. The thought of Ryan living with Brent all the time, it doesn’t fill him with warm fuzzy feelings.
Brendon is still pouting, even weeks after the end of the tour, because he’d never got Ryan and Jon on-stage with them. Jon had gone out with Fall Out Boy, pulling on Pete’s bass during the last song so that Pete could go play with the audience.
Ryan and Brent had stood side by side backstage, there’d been pictures taken by venue security posted the day after the concert.
The security guard was fired, but the pictures were still out there, Ryan and Brent with Ryan’s arm over Brent’s shoulder, Brent’s arm still in the sling, heads bent close together. It looks more incriminating then it is and everyone is speculating that Ryan and Brent are dating.
They aren’t. Spencer knows this, but if he were just some average person looking at the pictures he could see how someone might think they were.
He isn’t the average person though, he’s someone who counts Ryan Ross as his best friend and his best friend is telling him that there is nothing going on and Spencer doesn’t care if he’s lying as long as he can believe the words.
Spencer doesn’t think he’s lying though. He hopes.
Spencer finds the property by accident; Tom had told him what he thought they needed; how many acres and the fact that it needed to either have a barn big enough to convert to housing for Giselle and Sebastian or enough land to build one.
Spencer finds it because Brendon has been looking at dude ranches in Wyoming (Spencer doesn’t know, he doesn’t ask either, Brendon will tell them when he’s ready) and sends Spencer a link. Spencer doesn’t know what makes him look, but he clicks on the other links and those links sends him to others and others and four deep in Spencer finds the listing for one that has closed down.
He sends for information from the company handling the sale and has them send him pictures, then e-mails them asking for specific pictures.
Of the inside of the barn.
Those are the ones that he takes to Ryan and Brent and Tom. He sets them down at a table, Jon sitting next to Tom, Brendon hovering over Ryan’s shoulder.
“Oh,” Ryan smiles, the soft real smile that they only really see when he’s happy, relaxed. They’ve been seeing it a lot lately; Spencer hadn’t even realized how much he’d missed it. How long it had been since he’d seen Ryan actually, truly, happy.
“This is perfect,” Tom breathes, Brent is grinning widely.
“It’s an old dude ranch, they went out of business or something so it’s for sale dirt cheap, because apparently not many people actually start them up now. I don’t know. The main house has got like twelve bedrooms, six bathrooms, big kitchen. It’s gated, private,” Spencer shrugs, looks down at the pictures.
They don’t care about the house, they care about Giselle and Sebastian having a place to sleep that’s near them, that their dragons will have a place that is theirs and that is safe.
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He doesn’t know when Tom calls Mike, or if he even does. He could have just sent the message through Sebastian for all they know.
“Mike’s coming up,” Tom says, he’s leaning against the counter in the kitchen sniffing a cup of coffee. Jon makes the coffee every morning, only the first pot though, if you want special made by Jon Walker coffee you had better set your alarm.
Spencer leans back in his chair, taps his spoon against the edge of his bowl. Brendon had been in charge of picking out cereal during the weekly excursion for groceries, so they have Chocolate Rice Krispie’s, his milk is a really disgusting shade of brown.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asks, Jon is just staring at Tom like he can reach inside Tom’s mind and figure out how he’s really feeling.
Tom shrugs, “I think I’ve put it off long enough, we’re as settled as we’re going to get.”
They’ve been in the house for almost two weeks, Giselle still sleeps with Ryan and Brent, she’s growing every day though and she’s going to be sleeping with Sebastian sooner then Spencer thinks any of them are ready for.
Spencer hopes to distract Ryan with music, when it gets to that point.
Brendon’s helping, giving Ryan stuff he’s working on, things that need words and Ryan seems to be supplying them. They haven’t started fighting yet so Spencer isn’t really sure where they are in the process.
“He’s bringing Bill with him,” Tom says, he frowns at his cup. “I think Pete told him about Sebastian.”
“Is there anyone in our group that doesn’t know,” Jon says.
“It’s Pete,” Spencer pushes his bowl away, Brendon doesn’t get to choose cereal anymore he decides, “we should count ourselves lucky that he didn’t put something up on one of his blogs.”
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Mike and William show up bright and early on a Thursday morning. The house has barely started moving around, normally Ryan wouldn’t be up but they’d known that today was Mike’s arrival day. He wanted to be ready to lend support if Tom and Sebastian needed it.
Brent is in the barn with Giselle, they go out in the morning to hang out with Sebastian, so Giselle can start getting used to her space in there. She takes up half their bed now, he and Brent have had to get really comfortable with each other in order to keep her with them. Pretty soon that’s not going to be an option.
“Ryan Ross,” William grins at him when he opens the door; he pulls him into a tight hug and pats him on the back. Mike just rolls his eyes.
Ryan can’t feel him in his head, not like he can Brent or Tom. He wonders if that’s because Mike is still shielding.
“I hear you have a dragon,” William says, he sounds disbelieving, like they’re pulling a prank on him, Ryan almost wants to watch him for his reaction when Sebastian comes out, but he’s more interested in Mike’s to Sebastian and Sebastian’s reaction to Mike.
William has an arm over Ryan’s shoulder as Ryan leads them through the house. Everyone is on the back porch waiting for them.
Jon is standing right next to Tom, the look he shoots at Mike promises pain if Mike fucks this up any more then he already has.
Ryan sort of thinks he’s not going to. He doesn’t know why, Mike still isn’t there in his head. But there’s an air of expectation surrounding him and he watches Mike closely for a second, his hands clench and release and he’s pulling at his bottom lip with his teeth, swallowing reflexively. He’s nervous, Ryan thinks.
Scared that Sebastian is going to take one look at him and decide that he was wrong to keep waiting for him to come back.
Brent comes out of the barn and Giselle is following him, wings batting slowly.
He smiles because his girl definitely knows how to make an entrance.
Spencer told him that morning that he had to stop Twittering about her because the Internet thinks he has a girlfriend. But she’s his best girl and no one will let him post pictures so talking about her is the next best thing.
“She’s adorable,” William is saying. “But why do you need so much…”
Ryan can tell the instant that William sees Sebastian’s head peek around the corner.
He’s as nervous as everyone else; Ryan doesn’t think that anyone needed to be nervous. Because Sebastian only has eyes for Mike and Tom, and Mike only has eyes for Sebastian, though his gaze moves to Tom periodically.
Brent comes up on the porch and leans on the railing next to Ryan, Giselle lands on it and makes herself comfortable.
Sebastian takes careful steps across the yard and when he gets close enough he pokes his nose into Tom’s back even as he doesn’t take his eyes off of Mike.
Tom doesn’t either, just rests a hand on Sebastian’s nose when it settles next to him on the railing.
They’re just waiting; Ryan knows they’re waiting for Mike to make the first move.
Because that’s all they’ve been waiting for, for years they’ve waited for Mike to come back and now he’s here and Ryan wonders if he’s going to move.
Mike makes the first move; ignoring William’s gaping, ignoring all of them. He takes five shaky steps across the porch and stops in front of Tom.
They stare at each other and then Tom looks away, looks over at Sebastian and Mike reaches out a hand.
Ryan links his fingers with Brent’s, rests his head on Spencer’s shoulder and watches a rider come home.
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