2008's nano

[parcae]

When Spencer wakes up, it's quiet in his head -- there's a song Ryan was humming before he fell asleep last night playing on endless repeat, and he really should say something about the fact that even though Ryan doesn't get songs stuck in his head, Spencer does. Often. And it's kind of cruel. Other than that, though, it's perfectly silent, which means that Ryan must still be asleep (on the couch, probably, since Spencer can't hear his breathing). Strange, since Spencer heard him fall asleep last night, but they're on break right now, so mostly Spencer just hopes that Ryan gets enough sleep and eats, and leaves the rest up to whoever's governing the universe.

He wakes up a little more, then, and realizes two things in quick succession. One: their lovely queen-size bed has turned into something slightly smaller than a twin. When he opens his eyes, he amends that to "slightly smaller than a twin and also in a dark box" because he barely has to stretch his arm out to touch the ceiling, and there is a wall right next to his left shoulder. It looks like there's a curtain or something on his other side, though, so. Very strange box.

Two: the bed is moving.

He turns the sentence over in his head a few times before it really sinks in, but when it does he comes very close to sitting straight up, and only manages to remember an inch or so before his head would have smacked ceiling. Never a good idea. And it certainly wouldn't have made his morning any better.

When he's calmed down a little, he starts groping around in the sheets in the hopes that his handheld will magically somehow have transported itself to the bed from the coffee table he'd left it on last night. Somewhat unsurprisingly, it doesn't work, but he makes a face anyway.

Ryan? he tries, just in case he's awake and just zoned out, or something.

And then he realizes that if the bed has magically transformed itself, he's probably not in their rooms anymore, which means that Ryan won't be responding anytime soon. It also means that he's not ever going to find his handheld around here, which fuck if there was ever proof that they really needed something implanted in their brains just in case any of them were separated from their handhelds, this would certainly be it.

(Ryan would probably tell him, after hearing that, that he shouldn't have left his handheld on the fucking coffee table, dumbass, how would he know about any incoming messages if it was beeping in the living room, huh? He wouldn't, that's how. Spencer rolls his eyes, and then realizes Ryan's talking in his head and it's not even Ryan, and rolls his eyes again. This is ridiculous.)

He really needs to get out of this bed, though. It's starting to make him uncomfortable. And the motion is starting to fuck with him, too, although standing up might make that worse. He'd be able to hold onto something if he stood up, though, which is definitely a point in its favor.

It is a curtain on his right side, it turns out, and when he grabs it he can feel it move, and a little sliver of light shines into the box of darkness, so he keeps on pulling. It looks like there's another curtain right across from him, and when he cranes his head a little he can see another under that one, so there's probably one under his as well. That would explain the ceiling, anyway.

Of course, since one of his questions has been answered, about twelve spring up in its place. He would probably settle for knowing where he is, though. And why the -- okay, it's not just his bed. Why the bunch of beds are moving. Although it looks like there's a door or something at the end, so maybe he's in a giant moving house.

Yes. That's obviously the answer. He's in a giant moving house, and he's also incredibly thankful that Ryan didn't hear that, because he would never hear the end of it.

Standing is not as much of a challenge as he thought it would be after he gives himself a minute or so to get used to it. There's actually a door on either end of the, uh. Bed tunnel. Or whatever it is. But there's noise coming from one of them and silence from the other, so he figures he might as well go to where the noise is. Maybe it'll help explain whatever is going on.

"Hey, you're awake," says Brendon Urie, dressed in plaid pajama pants and what Spencer thinks was a Superman t-shirt at one point in its life and eating a bowl of cereal, and Spencer blinks.

"Um. Yeah," he says, noncommittally, and nods a little for effect.

"Okay, so, I have an important question for you," Brendon Urie says, and gestures expansively with his spoon. "If Batman decided he was only going to eat one kind of cereal for the rest of his life, like, until he died, what cereal do you think he'd pick?"

"Um," Spencer says again. He thinks he's met this guy in person maybe twice, talked to him on the handheld network maybe twenty times, and yet here he is talking like he knows Spencer well, like they're friends. Like they belong on this -- whatever it is. Demented RV, he thinks, maybe, as he looks around and notices cabinets and a microwave. And windows.

"Jon said Frosted Flakes, and I guess that's a good pick because who doesn't like Frosted Flakes, right? But Ryan said he thinks Batman would pick Honey Nut Cheerios, and I have nothing against the Bee, but those are just not badass enough for Batman, okay?"

Spencer has to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from saying "Ryan?" really loudly. He can't decide whether he's relieved that Ryan is here too, because hey, Ryan, or worried, because Brendon definitely seems to think Spencer is someone completely different than the person that he actually is, and he has a horrible feeling that Ryan probably will too.

And, now he's thinking about it, if Ryan's awake but he couldn't hear him then that must mean that whatever place he is, they're not linked like that. Which is a bad sign, because he likes being able to talk to Ryan. (Well, it's not as if he couldn't talk to Ryan either way, but he likes Ryan being able to talk back. It's nice.)

Brendon must mistake his expression for one of deep thought, or whatever, because he laughs a little. "Yeah, I know, it's a really tough question. and I mean -- maybe Superman would be a fan of Honey Nut Cheerios? They're kind of wholesome, and Superman is definitely a wholesome kind of dude. Obviously regular Cheerios with bananas would be more wholesome, but hey, Superman's allowed a little bit of a twist, he's fucking Superman, right?"

"-- right," Spencer says, when he realizes Brendon's looking at him expectantly because he expects an answer. "Actually I feel kind of sick, so I think I'm going to go lay back down, okay?"

"Yeah, good idea," Brendon says, making a face. "I'll try to be quiet out here, I promise."

"Thanks," Spencer says, and turns around, heading back into the weird room of beds. Bedroom. Not bedroom, that has connotations of a place that has stuff in it besides four sketchy beds and a light fixture.

Oh, wait, maybe they're supposed to be bunks. Bunkroom, then.

He considers going back to sleep once he gets into his bunk. Maybe he'll wake up back at headquarters and everything will be fixed and he can chalk this up to, uh. Strange drug aftereffects, or something. Never mind that he doesn't take drugs.

But that probably wouldn't work out, because he stubbed his toe trying to get into his bunk and it hurt like a motherfucker, so he's definitely here, whether or not he knows where here is. So mostly he just stares at the ceiling, trying to figure out what could have happened to him.

After a while he starts writing a handheld post in his head, for all the good it will do. Dear headquarters, I'm stranded on a moving house and I have no idea where I am. And Brendon Urie is here and has a strange fixation with superheroes and breakfast cereal.

Actually that's probably true at home, for all he knows about the man.

And I think Jon is here, too, he adds, remembering that Brendon had mentioned him. But hell, if an agent is here, why can't a tech be too? It makes just about as much sense as anything else.

He doesn't mention Ryan, though, even in his head, because he's trying really hard not to think about it. To be completely honest he almost doesn't want to meet this Ryan; what if they haven't known each other since they were six, what if they're not best friends, what if they're barely friends at all, what if what if what if. He doesn't want to know. He likes their relationship, doesn't want to know about how it's different other places.

He doesn't really think there should be other places, but that's really beside the point at this particular moment in time.

Please send help, he continues, I would really appreciate it. I'm worried this moving house is going to make me sick after a while.

He must end up dozing off after a while, though, because the next thing he knows he's jerked awake by movement in his bunk. It's dark, so he doesn't know who it is until they're curled into his side, head resting on his shoulder and arm thrown across his waist. His arm automatically comes up around the pair of shoulders, and this must be Ryan, it can't be anyone else.

Well it could be someone else, obviously, but they fall asleep every other night like this. If it's someone else he might actually cry. Which is sad but true.

"-- oh, shit, I woke you up," Ryan says.

Out loud.

Spencer is suddenly very glad that he's laying down, because his legs probably would have given out if he had been standing up.

"I was trying to be quiet," Ryan finishes, making a face into Spencer's shoulder, and Spencer uses all the energy he has trying not to, uh. Hyperventilate. Or something.

Because, sure, he's been talking to Ryan since they were five and six or so, but he hasn't heard Ryan's voice outside of very strange dreams he occasionally has since they were nine and ten, and.

Jesus. He hasn't heard Ryan's voice in thirteen years. But this is what he sounds like, apparently. It's. He really just doesn't even know.

"Don't worry about it," he says, finally, surprised his voice is so even, and squeezes Ryan a little. "What's up?"

"Brendon said you were feeling lousy, I was worried I might have given you what I had last week."

Spencer smiles in the dark despite himself. "Then why did you come in here?"

"I already had it," Ryan says, and some things really don't change, because Spencer can actually hear him roll his eyes. "So obviously I'm not going to get it again. And anyway I was worried."

"Oh, well. I guess that's allowed, then," Spencer says, and Ryan burrows a little closer. Spencer puts his other hand on Ryan's elbow.

If he closes his eyes and ignores how small the bunk is, he can pretend he's home. So he concentrates on not freaking out, listens to Ryan's breathing and replays everything he's just said in his mind a thousand times, wonders what the hell happened where ever he is that Ryan is still talking at, well, probably twenty-three, just like at home. Brendon didn't express any sudden shock at Spencer's age in the kitchen, and Ryan didn't say anything either, so that's something.

Unless this is some weird-ass Quantum Leap thing, or something, but to his knowledge Sam Beckett never leaped into someone with the same name as his, and he never encountered any of the people he knew in his other life except for Al. And nobody else could see Al, anyway -- at least nobody who really mattered -- so he probably didn't count.

Spencer can remember very clearly the last time he lied about being sick to hide from people; it had been a little more than three years ago, and there had been some ridiculous function with all the agents that Brian had insisted he and Ryan attend, despite the fact that Ryan was pretty much the agent that nobody talked to except for over the network -- for obvious reasons -- and Spencer was the agent that nobody talked to except for over the network because he was just like that.

Or possibly because of that. Spencer had never really asked.

Either way, he remembers it so clearly because not long after he'd made his excuses and hidden back in their rooms, he'd been hunched over the toilet, trying to keep his lungs from coming up along with the lining of his stomach.

Dumbass, Ryan had said, getting down on the floor and rubbing Spencer's back all the same. I'm pretty sure this happens every time you pretend to be sick, you know.

Spencer had rolled his eyes, had enough time to tell Ryan to fuck off before he was once again desperately hoping to make it out with all of his stomach.

All the same, he's never faked being sick since then, because he'd thought about it a few days later, the first day he'd actually felt good when he woke up, and Ryan had actually been right. (Of course he had, it wasn't really a surprise. Kind of lame, though.) So he's avoided lying about that since, because all things considered there are a lot of things he hates doing but he'd rather be doing them than throwing up.

Apparently, however, he'd forgotten about that in his complete and utter confusion; it was the only way to explain why he'd done such an incredibly stupid and thoughtless thing to himself for absolutely no reason at all. Because now, of course, he's hunched over the toilet in what he has since discovered is a bus of some kind, wishing he'd had the balls to stay with Brendon in the kitchen, or whatever it was.

He really hates throwing up.

A few minutes later, there's a soft knock on the bathroom door, and when he makes a noise that he really hopes communicates "yes, come on in, you couldn't possibly make this any worse" the door opens, and yeah, Jon Walker's on this ridiculous acid trip of a bus too.

"Dude, are you okay?"

Spencer rolls his eyes.

"... yeah, okay, no," Jon says, making a face, and drops down next to Spencer on the linoleum. "You think you're going to be okay for tonight?"

Tonight? What the hell does that mean?

Instead of answering, Spencer just gives Jon a blank stare, hopefully tinged with just enough nausea -- which he doesn't actually have to fake, he has a feeling he's going to be throwing up again soon -- to give off the impression that no, he won't be okay. And then he actually does start up again, and he thinks he hears Jon wince next to him but isn't really sure.

A second or two later, though, his back's being rubbed gently, so that's nice.

"Yeah," Jon says, "that's probably a no. Wouldn't want you suddenly throwing up onstage."

Onstage?

"Hotel night tonight, though, so you can just sleep for like fifteen hours if you want, or whatever," he continues, completely oblivious to the fact that he's just completely baffled Spencer. "It's gonna suck to cancel the date, though. We're gonna be there soon, though, okay?"

Spencer nods, eyes closed again. He hears the water running, and then a clink, and Jon says "Here's some water, by the way, it's a little bit in front of your left knee. Try not to puke a kidney out, okay?"

"Soon" apparently means "in an hour" to Jon, which is good to know for future reference. Somehow Spencer manages to keep everything down for the last thirty minutes of the trip, instead curling up in his bunk with his knees pulled up, keeping his eyes closed, and trying really hard not to breathe so hard he moves.

It actually kind of works, too.

During the journey from the bus to the room, he keeps himself from walking too fast; there's a real actual bed upstairs, or so he hears, which is going to be amazing if he can avoid dying, but he's also afraid if he walks too fast he actually will die. Brendon helps him along, as it happens, but he's also humming "hotel night, hotel night, I get a bath 'cause it's hotel night" under his breath, and Spencer really doesn't know what's up with that. Possibly it has something to do with the fact that they were on a bus.

(He makes a note to himself to ask Ryan what the fuck onstage meant, later, when he feels less awful. It's not his Ryan, but it's still a Ryan, which was proven earlier when he fell asleep and for a while he felt like he was back at headquarters. He actually woke up really confused, so maybe it hadn't been the best idea, but it had certainly been nice while it lasted.

Also it was nice to know that some things stay the same no matter where he is; Ryan had snuffled into Spencer's collarbone here, too, and left the same tiny, tiny trail of drool on his shirt. Which obviously he would never admit to, so clearly Spencer's chest had spontaneously started to excrete drool. Possibly not the healthiest thing.

... holy shit, he really needs to lay down.)

Brendon walks him to a door on the ... fourth, maybe? ... floor and knocks three times. When the door opens, Ryan laughs a little at the expression Spencer assumes is on Brendon's face, makes a sort of shooing motion, and leads him gently inside, depositing him on a bed that's ridiculously comfortable and also soft and oh, he really isn't going to be able to sleep tonight, and that is a sad, sad fact.

He manages to scoot up the bed until he's leaning against the headboard, though, which feels kind of okay and livable for now, and when he looks around he notices that he's got the bed that's closest to the bathroom. Considerate.

"Have you ever been so sick you couldn't fall asleep?"

Seriously, he hasn't eaten anything all day. How is he even still throwing anything up besides bile? Usually he's not legitimately worried, but he almost expects organs to start showing up in the toilet water sometime soon. Then he would really be fucked, wouldn't he.

"Did you take anything? I think I have some Pepto-Bismol in my bag somewhere."

"No, Ryan," Spencer says, "I'd rather just die quietly on this cheap linoleum floor and hope that I get buried somewhere pretty with a nice marble gravestone."

"Jesus, you really are sick," Ryan says, walking into the bathroom and dropping down so he's sitting cross-legged across from Spencer. "How long's it been?"

"Uh." Spencer thinks for a bit. "An hour, maybe? Hour and a half?" He shrugs, carefully, and closes his eyes, resting his forehead against the awesomely cool porcelain.

"Okay, I have an idea, and you're going to go along with it because I am always right. I'm going to bring you some more stomach medicine, and you're going to take it with a bunch of water, and then I'm going to go see if I can find some NyQuil, and you're going to take that with a bunch of water, and then you're going to wait fifteen minutes and go to the bathroom, and then you're going to pass out and sleep for seventeen hours."

"If I sleep for seventeen hours I think I'll have a ruptured bladder before I wake up."

"Yeah, shut up," Ryan says, flicking Spencer's forehead very gently before disappearing into the main room. He shows up again a minute or two later, with everything he had promised and an incredibly unnerving grin on his face.

"I refuse to take anything from someone who bears more resemblance to a mad scientist than my best friend. Sorry, it's a policy of mine."

"What if your best friend is a mad scientist?"

"Oh, shut up."

Somehow, Ryan's ridiculous plan actually works, and when Spencer wakes up the next morning he's still clutching blankets like there's going to be a warm body burrowed in there somewhere, but he also doesn't feel like vomiting at all, which is really refreshing. The horrible symptoms have never gone away this fast; it's awesome.

When he opens his eyes and tries to go to the bathroom -- seriously, he'd been made to drink like four glasses before he went to sleep last night, what the everloving fuck -- he realizes just exactly why all the symptoms went away. Less than half a second later he slams his eyes shut as tightly as he can and tries not to move, calculating in his head if he can make it back to his bed without falling over.

Probably not.

"Ryan, uh, it would be really cool if you woke up right about now. I'm just saying." Deep breath. Deep breath. He likes roller coasters, damn it all, they never make him this dizzy. Nothing makes him this dizzy, this is such bullshit, he would really like to maybe just go to sleep for a while again. "Ryan?" He says it a little bit louder this time, and this time he can hear the bedding rustle.

"Huh? What's up?" He can't tell which way Ryan's looking, but it sounds as if he's looking at Spencer's back. "Are you okay?"

"No, I'm really, really not okay, please help me back to bed before I fall over and crack my head open." Not that there are any sharp edges around that he remembers, but the carpet's sort of a beige color, which isn't too shocking, and it would be a bitch to try and get blood out of that.

A few moments later, he can feel a body at his back turning him very, very slowly, and then walking him equally slowly back from where he'd started. Ten paces or so later, they stop for fifteen seconds or so, and then he's back in bed and as long as he doesn't move he doesn't have to worry about falling or spinning wildly off into the sky or anything else like that.

He tries opening his eyes, and when he's looking at the ceiling it's not really that bad. Which is nice, he supposes, but also makes sense, because the ceiling's not moving. If the ceiling starts moving he should probably say something, he realizes, it would probably be a sign of something severely fucked up.

"You gonna be okay, Spence?" Ryan's face appears in Spencer's line of vision, and right before he closes his eyes he registers the worried expression. "You kind of just, uh. I don't even know what just happened there."

"I just stood up and I was really, really dizzy." He pauses for a second, and then tries to smile. "But at least I don't feel like throwing up anymore, that's a huge plus."

"Yeah, especially if you're that dizzy. You'd never make it to the bathroom on time, and then there would be a huge mess, and housekeeping people really don't get paid enough for that shit." Ryan laughs softly, and then Spencer feels bony fingers digging into his side.

"Dude, what the fuck," he says, making a face, moving away carefully and moving onto his side a little. "If I throw up on you I refuse to take any responsibility for it, I really hope you know that."

"I thought you said you didn't feel like throwing up," Ryan says, because apparently another thing that stays the same everywhere is that Ryan Ross is a fucking smartass. "And don't worry, I'll take all the blame." Then the bed dips, and the sheets rustle, and it feels like Ryan is getting into bed with him, a suspicion which is confirmed when he feels Ryan's forehead against his, and Ryan's freakishly long toes on his shins.

Instead of saying anything that might be misunderstood as a complaint, Spencer makes a noise which he hopes is vaguely inquisitive.

"You looked really lonely when I woke up in the middle of the night," Ryan mutters. "I don't know. I think I read somewhere that sick people sleep better when they're not alone, anyway."

"If you say so," Spencer says, but he's smiling anyway.