Fic: Spyro! (Or, The One Where Spencer is a Small Purple Dragon) | Bandom: Panic!, GSF, PG
Title: Spyro! (Or, The One Where Spencer is a Small Purple Dragon)
Fandom: Bandom: PATD/TYV, FoB, tiny amounts of CS and TAI.
Pairing: PATD/TYV GSF, minor Pete/Patrick, hints of Gabe/William
Rating: PG
Wordcount: ~9,000
Warnings: Ridiculousness. Author who has read too much Discworld.
Summary: It took Spencer approximately five seconds to realize he had wings.
Notes: This fic is entirely monroe_nell's fault. She commented on Twitter about how the shorthand for Spencer/Ryan was "Spyro", which only made her think about the video games. To which I replied, well, obviously Spencer Smith is a small purple dragon! And then suddenly I was writing this fic. XD Except, of course, I'm a huge Spencer/Brendon shipper, so my only recourse was to make it GSF. Sorry, "Spyro" OTP-ers! XD Remarkably, I have written self-indulgent fic with a plot! I am amazed at myself! \0/
HUGE thanks go out to monroe_nell and sansets for their endless enthusiasm for this fic! I couldn't have done it without you! <333
ooo000ooo
By the time Spencer woke up, both the dragon he was supposed to slay and the strange man who had (apparently) tried to slay him were gone. That was fine with Spencer, who had no desire to go for round two when his head felt like someone had bashed it in with a stick. Actually, he vaguely recalled the weird guy actually hitting him in the head with a stick, which would explain a lot. He reached a hand up to rub the sore spot on the back of his skull, stopping when he realized that his arm wasn't bending right. It didn't hurt, it was just ...wrong, somehow. He cracked his eyes open for a second time, fighting against the muddy feeling that was probably a concussion or something equally fun.
He looked at his arm.
He closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
When he woke up again, a number of hours later based on the position of the sun (which was now close to setting; Ryan would be getting worried soon), his arm had not changed.
Spencer Smith prided himself on his ability to Not Freak Out in any number of situations that most people would, indeed, Freak Out in. It was part of what made him successful as an otherwise rather generic wandering Hero. He had taken on any number of creatures that had threatened the lives and livelihoods of small villages throughout the land, and had Not Freaked Out at any point.
Faced with his arm, which was now covered in glistening purple scales and ended in a three-clawed paw, he Freaked Out.
With a shrill cry that was not in any way related to a shriek, he reared up and galumphed around the clearing on four legs, kicking up dirt and grass until he tripped over his sword (which was suddenly a lot bigger than he was used to it being) and went crashing head(horns)-first into a tree. The impact knocked him head-over-tail backwards and he ended up upside-down against a breastplate that he was pretty sure he had been wearing when he had arrived in this forest.
Not only was he now a (very small) dragon, but he was also naked. The indignity was almost too much to bear.
He looked up at the sky and snorted, which sent a tiny ball of flame whizzing past his tail.
Well. At least there was that.
ooo000ooo
Ryan was getting worried.
Scratch that, Ryan was worried, and had been since mid-afternoon, when Spencer still hadn't returned. His worry manifested itself in the form of plaid scarves in shades from aubergine to wisteria, which covered the entire table in front of him and spilled onto the tavern floor. Jon, the tavern keeper, didn't seem to mind, and simply knocked a few of them aside to put down a fresh cup of milk.
"You sure you don't want ale, or something?" Jon had asked, like all the tavern keepers Ryan had ever met had asked. The short answer was, "No." The long answer was, "Last time I had too much ale waiting for Spencer to come back, I started making snakes instead of scarves. Someday someone will wonder where all the blue-and-green checked snakes in Koom Valley came from, and the answer will be 'me'." But that was the long answer, and it took far too much effort to carry on a conversation like that with someone who wasn't Spencer, and Spencer already knew the whole story.
Jon, at least, had not persisted in asking if Ryan wanted ale, as so many tavern keepers did (often with terrifyingly hungry expressions, though Spencer helpfully glared those ones away).
Spencer should have been back hours ago.
The thing was, this was supposed to be an easy job. Unlike most villages--where the inhabitants apparently thought exaggeration would weed out the less mighty and courageous hero-types and accordingly advertised for someone to slay a "50-heded hydra wif VENOMOS FANGS 50p/day plus expenses" when the beast in question was no more than a juvenile sea monster and not "venomos" at all--the residents of this village had been rather up-front about the whole thing.
It wasn't a very large dragon, per-se, the village elders had explained. Only ten meters long or so, based on several reports, and it hadn't done any real menacing, so to speak. Hadn't even demanded any virgin sacrifices (at which several hastily-married young women were a bit put-out). Really, all it had done was live in the woods and occasionally spook the cattle, but still, it was making everyone nervous and couldn't they take care of it? It didn't even need to be slain, really, if they could just drive it off a bit and let it vaguely-unsettle some other village, that would be fine and it'd be drinks all around, room and board for free.
Needless to say, the village elders had bought themselves the services of {Spencer Smith: Dragonslayer, Rescuer of Maidens, Odd Jobs &c.} (Ryan had made up the business cards himself, and they had come in quite handy for spreading word of their services by word-of-traveling-merchants). As a result, the villagers--hastily married or no--had received the opportunity to purchase wares from {Ryan Ross: Magician & Tailor; custom fitting, alterations, repairs}.
(It was becoming easier and easier to trace their route across the countryside, as they left behind them a swath of villages relieved of their malingering beasts and clothed in newly-custom-majiked hats, gloves and scarves that were not only flattering to one's individual skin tone, but would also ward off any number of minor annoyances, like head colds or in-laws.)
Spencer, who had dealt with dragons at least twice that size, should have had no trouble dispatching the thing. Spencer should have ridden (or, well, walked, since they couldn't actually afford horses) off into the woods at dawn (which he did) and come back in time to have a nice lunch with Ryan and regale all the villagers with the heroic tale (which he did not). Spencer should have been back already and now it was getting dark.
Ryan drank his milk in one long chug and stood up, knocking over his chair in a way that made the drunk at the bar give him an appraising look and impressed tip of the mug.
"I have to go find him!" he declared. Jon the tavern keeper stopped polishing the bar and blinked at him laconically, and the only other person (besides the ever-present Drunk Guy at the Bar) in the tavern--a minstrel who had arrived a little before Ryan and Spencer and who had been staying around, presumably, to find out how this whole dragon-slaying business went--stopped fiddling with his lute and looked up with wide eyes.
"You're going after your friend? The dragonslayer? Now?" The minstrel's voice was deeper than Ryan thought it would be, but he still managed to squeak on the last word.
Ryan nodded seriously.
"But it's getting dark!" The minstrel's eyes got even wider. Out the corner of his eye, Ryan could see Jon the tavern keeper looking toward the windows, where bright sunlight still streamed in and made golden pools on the wooden floors. Jon the tavern keeper raised an expressive eyebrow, but Ryan was resolute. Spencer could be out there somewhere, half-dead and lying in a bush, blood gushing from his many dragon-inflicted wounds, limbs charred from the beast's fiery breath! The horror of it was enough that he compulsively majicked up another scarf, a rather depressing gray-on-gray paisley.
"I'm going with you!" Ryan was shocked out of making another scarf, which would probably have ended up maroon if he wasn't careful, when the minstrel stood up and slung his lute onto his back.
"You can't go with me!" Ryan argued out of reflex, breaking his usual habit of monosyllabic responses to anyone who wasn't buying anything.
"Why not?" The minstrel countered, which was underhanded and wrong of him. Ryan took a moment to put on his best expression of annoyance (it was very good; Spencer had said so on several occasions). During that time, the minstrel completely trampled on the Rules for Arguing with Ryan Ross (there was only one, and it was: Don't).
"I'll just follow you if you don't let me go with you. Do you think maybe we'll actually get to see him slay the dragon? I've never seen anyone actually slay a dragon before. I could write a song about it!" He enthused, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "People would probably love a song about an actual dragon slaying! I have one about a lonely manticore but nobody wants to listen to songs about lonely manticores..." The minstrel's gleeful expression faded so fast and so comically that Ryan completely forgot to keep up his annoyed face. The minstrel perked up again a second later, though.
"I'm Brendon, by the way. I've got a card around here somewhere..." He fished around in his pockets and pulled out a worn and wrinkled piece of paper that read {Brendon Urie: Wandering Minstrel & Entertainer (parties by appointment, no clowns!)}. Ryan privately judged that his and Spencer's cards were much better. At the very least, they were less wrinkled. He gave Brendon the Wandering Minstrel & Entertainer a threatening glare.
"If I get Spencer back dead because of you, I will kill you with a scarf. An ugly scarf." He finally stated in the monotone that had scared off at least three people since he'd started counting.
Brendon's eyes got wide again, but he nodded slowly. Ryan nodded back once, decisive, then headed for the door, abandoning the purple-ish pile of scarves on the table. Brendon followed on his heels, nearly tripping over the scarves that had migrated to the floor, and Jon the tavern keeper gave them a cheerful wave (which Brendon returned even-more-cheerfully) as they left.
The Drunk Guy at the Bar (whose name, incidentally, was Rob, and who was mourning the untimely loss of his faithful mule, Stubbins Wycliff III) either did not notice or did not care about any of these events.
ooo000ooo
It took Spencer approximately five seconds to realize he had wings.
It took Spencer approximately five hours to figure out how to make them work.
The first two attempts at actual flight had put him headfirst into the trees again, until he scaled back his efforts and started learning to use the new appendages to balance and steer while still on the ground. It was extremely awkward at first, learning to run with two sails attached to his back, but once he figured out that even if he didn't know how to use them, his body did, he found that they enabled him to make incredibly fast turns that would have sent him tumbling in his human body. And once he had that sorted, it was (quite literally) only a short leap to get himself airborne.
Not that he could exactly fly. He couldn't manage to get more than five or six feet off the ground at most, and he could just barely manage a long glide down to the ground or a brief hover if he flapped really hard. Still, it was sort of like flying, and that was pretty cool.
He was in the middle of a long glide around the clearing, practicing his turns, when he was interrupted by two large shapes crashing through the underbrush at the edge of the trees. Distracted, he managed to fly himself straight into a low, leafy branch and stuck fast.
"Are you sure this is the direction he went? Wouldn't we have heard him by now? Oh, hey what's--"
"SPENCER!!"
Spencer's head whipped around (well, as much as it was able to whip around, given that his horns were snagged in the branches). That was Ryan. His Ryan. The same Ryan that normally stayed as far away from any and all monster-vanquishing as he possibly could. And he was here, which meant Spencer was saved (because Ryan, though his specialty was knitwear, was still a magician, and Spencer being inexplicably dragon-ified was clearly magician territory). He was here, which meant he was... probably staring at Spencer's body-less armor, weaponry, and other assorted dragon-slaying accoutrements. Shit.
Spencer clawed at the branches frantically. He had to get down there, before Ryan--
"He's been EATEN!!" Ryan wailed. Yes. Before that.
Finally the branches cracked, broke, and Spencer tumbled to the ground and rolled end-over-end out into the clearing.
"Ahhhh!" Spencer was pretty sure that wasn't Ryan's voice, which meant it had to be whoever'd come with Ryan to find him. Straining to see who Ryan had consented to accompany him, he got all his limbs sorted out just in time to see his own sword come crashing down at his face.
With a startled squawk, Spencer hopped backwards, fluttering his wings to give himself a little extra speed. The flat of his sword crashed into the ground where he had been only a moment before.
"Ryan!" Spencer yelped (it came out sounding more like "Gwarrrk!", but that was beside the point).
"Ryan!" the stranger yelped.
"WHAT?" Ryan yelped back, clumsily lifting the sword. Spencer readied himself to jump again if necessary, but Ryan seemed preoccupied with swinging the sword around, nearly decapitating the stranger. Who was carrying a lute. Spencer raised an eyebrow. Or moved his face in a way that would have raised his eyebrow if he were human. He wasn't entirely sure what that did to his dragon-face.
"That thing ate Spencer!" Ryan's voice was shrill, and Spencer sympathized with the stranger's wince. Also, he was pretty certain he hadn't eaten himself. ...Actually, he should just stop that train of thought right there.
"I don't think it ate him. I mean, it's so cute and tiny!" The stranger was beaming at Ryan in a way that Spencer was pretty sure the situation didn't warrant. Also, he was not cute. "Hey, little guy," the stranger had knelt down and was extending a hand in Spencer's direction, cooing at him like he was a cat or something. He was definitely not going over there.
Then he spared a glance at Ryan, who seemed to be testing the heft of the sword in preparation for another surprise attack. On second thought... He delicately picked his way over, staying well clear of Ryan's strike range.
"Brendon! It's a vicious man-eater! What are you doing?"
Brendon, previously known as the stranger, was digging his fingers in behind Spencer's horns and scratching, something which was rapidly ascending the list of Spencer's absolute favorite things ever.
"I really don't think this is the dragon your friend was supposed to slay. Wasn't it supposed to be a lot..." Brendon gestured vaguely with the hand that wasn't occupied with petting Spencer. "I don't know. Bigger?"
ooo000ooo
Ryan collapsed on the ground, dropping the sword and morosely pulling a leaf-green plaid scarf into existence. "They always exaggerate," he said glumly, though it was looking more and more like Brendon was right. The little dragon hardly seemed dangerous. In fact, it seemed kind of blissed-out, leaning into Brendon's fingers like an affectionate pet. Ryan's eyes narrowed.
"Hey. Is that a collar?" He pointed, and Brendon looked down, blinking in surprise. It was a collar.
"Yeah, I think it is. Weird..." Brendon didn't stop scratching, but he moved his other hand down to examine the thing. It was made of thin, soft leather, nearly the same shade as the dragon's scales (which was probably why they hadn't noticed it before), hooked together with a decorative silver clasp. "It looks sorta like a bat, don't you think?"
Ryan leaned over to look for himself. He nodded. It did look like a bat.
"Do you think someone was keeping it as a pet?" Brendon suggested. He stopped scratching for a moment, and the little dragon shot him a betrayed look. "Sorry," he told it, and resumed. It gave him a satisfied huff and rested its chin on his knee.
If someone had been keeping it as a pet, that would explain why the villagers were so strange about wanting to get rid of it.
"Probably one of the villagers." Ryan said, hesitantly reaching a hand out toward the dragon. It looked at him with bright blue eyes, and leaned into his hand when he stroked his fingers over a horn.
"It's getting really late," Brendon noted, looking up at the rapidly darkening sky. It was getting late, and not just worried-Ryan's-version-of-late. "I guess... we should just take him with us?"
Ryan nodded. The little dragon had shifted from being practically in Brendon's lap to practically in Ryan's, though it kept giving Spencer's sword worried glances. "We can see if anyone knows who he belongs to."
"I bet Jon would know!" Brendon grinned happily. "Jon knows everything!"
Ryan gave him a withering stare. "Jon the tavern keeper?"
"Yup!" Brendon seemed unaffected by Ryan's glare. The dragon seemed impressed. As much as a dragon could seem impressed, anyway.
ooo000ooo
Spencer was dismayed to realize that he hadn't noticed the collar. It seemed like something he should have noticed, considering that he definitely hadn't been wearing a collar before he was a dragon, but even though he knew it was there, he could barely feel it. The leather was nearly weightless against his scales, and the metal of the clasp didn't scrape or jingle. He tossed his head a few times as he trailed behind Ryan and Brendon on the way back to the village, but it barely even moved.
Jon the tavern keeper was the first one to suggest, "Did you try to take it off?" For which Spencer could've hugged him, except for how he was currently a dragon. Also, Ryan had a tendency to get awkwardly possessive.
"No," Brendon answered instead. "We thought he might have been someone's pet?" He looked at Jon as if Jon held all the answers to the universe. Which, who knew? Maybe he did. Spencer was a dragon. He wasn't counting anything out, at this point.
Spencer had been placed on top of one of the tavern's tables (actually the one that had previously held Ryan's purple-ish scarves, not that Spencer was aware of that fact), and Jon the tavern keeper pulled out a chair and sat so that he could look Spencer straight in the eyes.
Ryan was busily materializing scarves. Most of them were yellow, with multicolored pinstripes. "I knew they were lying. They always lie," he grumbled.
"Who?" Jon asked, breaking his staring contest with Spencer. (Spencer would've won.)
"The village elders," Ryan retorted, the unspoken you moron rolling off Jon like so much smoke.
"What'd they lie about?" Jon picked up a few of Ryan's scarves and started absentmindedly knotting them together. Ryan glared at him, pulling out a vibrant red scarf with silver embroidery. Spencer, who was well-versed in the language of Ryan's scarves, wisely stepped backwards. (This had the beneficial side-effect of putting him in range of Brendon, who seemed unable to stop scratching behind his horns.)
"The dragon?" Ryan seethed. If he could have spit venom he would have, though Spencer wasn't sure Jon would be affected even by that. He just kept knotting scarves. "It was supposed to be ten meters long and not very menacing! That," he pointed at Spencer, who was going sort of melty as Brendon stroked his neck ridges, "is not ten meters long! Also, Spencer was eaten!"
Spencer, who had not been eaten, sacrificed Brendon's fingers to lay down morosely on the table (they returned momentarily; Spencer was growing rather fond of Brendon). He was never going to get back to normal if Ryan kept thinking he was dead, but all attempts at communication had sounded like, "Gwork!" and had resulted not in the expected surprise and sympathy for his plight, but rather in Brendon tugging at Ryan's sleeves and loudly exclaiming about how "cute!" Spencer was.
"But that's not the dragon." Jon shrugged. "And he doesn't look like he would eat anybody." Jon held his hand out, and Spencer obligingly sniffed at it. It smelled like ale, and Ryan's scarves, and a little like cat. Spencer hadn't seen a cat, but maybe it wasn't fond of dragons.
"What do you mean, he's not the dragon? Did you see the dragon?" Brendon's fingers paused, idly resting on Spencer's neck as he looked at Jon excitedly. "Was it scary? Did it try to eat you?" He looked horrified at this last, and started not-so-surreptitiously looking Jon over, as if expecting he'd have a bite out of him somewhere that Brendon hadn't noticed before. Ryan, though he didn't say anything, still looked alarmed.
"Nah. I didn't see it very well. It was about ten meters, though. Maybe a little less. Pretty small for a dragon, I think. And it was kinda bronze, or maybe copper-y?" Jon ran a hand over one of Spencer's horns, then returned to knotting scarves. "Not like this guy."
There was a long pause, during which Ryan's scarves got more and more purple, and started slipping into paisleys.
"Oh!" Jon added suddenly, startling everyone. He continued more normally, "It was also wearing a hat."
Ryan and Brendon both gaped in disbelief, but Spencer sat up quickly. Jon was right. The dragon had been wearing a hat. At the time, it hadn't seemed like anything particularly important. After all, his job had been to slay it (or at least drive it far enough away that the villagers didn't need to worry about the safety of their virgins anymore), not to critique its fashion choices. If that had been the job, he would've sent Ryan to do it. Now, though, any detail could be significant. Especially since he was sure that he hadn't actually gotten to the slaying part, which meant the hat-wearing dragon (and probably the strange guy who'd hit him on the head) were still out there somewhere.
The details of this whole misadventure were coming together in Spencer's mind. The hat-wearing dragon, the weird guy, the collar, his sudden dragon-ness. It all pointed to one inescapable conclusion:
Spencer needed to find them.
But first, he had to get that across to Ryan, and he had a feeling that "Gwork!" wasn't going to get him very far. He thought carefully. Maybe he didn't need to find them. Maybe they could fix this without having to track down a hat-wearing dragon who could probably fly for real and who could be anywhere by now.
They'd gotten sidetracked from Jon's original (brilliant!) suggestion to take the collar off. But Spencer was wily. Spencer had a plan. Spencer had Brendon.
He put on what he felt was a very pitiful expression (he didn't have much practice at pitiful expressions, but he'd seen like, puppies and things), and turned his head to look up at Brendon.
Brendon (wonderful, wonderful Brendon!) looked back and frowned. "What's wrong, boy?" he asked, and leaving aside how he was talking to Spencer like he was a dog (he mentally dropped one of the "wonderful"s from in front of Brendon's name), that was exactly the response Spencer had been hoping for. Keeping his expression as pitiful as possible, he raised one of his back claws (the front ones, no matter how he tried, would just not reach) and picked at the collar unhappily.
"Oh! You don't want the collar?" Spencer whined in response (Ryan was never going to let him hear the end of this, once he was back to being human again), and Brendon looked immensely pleased with himself for having figured it out. "Hey, Jon, I think you were right about taking the collar off!"
Jon nodded like he'd known all along, and Ryan paused in his scarf-making to observe as Brendon fumbled with the clasp. And fumbled with the clasp. And frowned. Spencer began to get worried.
"It won't come off." Brendon finally stated, making a sad face that was truly, epically sad.
"What!? You're just not doing it right. Let me do it." Ryan groused, and Spencer trotted over, content to let him try. Ryan was a magician, after all. Sort of a magician, anyway. And anyway, accessories were his specialty.
Ryan tried. And tried. And mumbled something that might have been some sort of spell but just as easily might have been cursing the collar for its very existence. Either way, it didn't work.
"It's the clasp. The little bat thing looks like its supposed to come apart, but somebody fused it together." He explained, showing it to Jon. After a moment's study of the collar, Jon got to his sandal-ed feet and went around behind the bar, returning with...
Scissors.
Well. Obviously. Spencer sighed with relief (only barely managing to stop the ball of flame that tried to emerge; the burp that came out instead earned him another "cute!" and an enthusiastic head-scratching from Brendon, though).
But the scissors didn't work. Neither did Ryan's pinking shears (Brendon opened his mouth, but at Ryan's glare he wisely decided not to ask), nor Spencer's carefully-applied sword.
Jon slipped a finger between the collar and Spencer's scales and examined it more carefully.
"I don't think it's leather." He decided at last, dropping it again. He looked sort of ill. "I think it might be... dragon hide."
Now Spencer felt sick. Which was new, because he'd had a pair of dragon hide boots he'd adored for years until a unicorn had gotten the better of them two winters ago. (Spencer had learned a valuable lesson: Do Not Mess With Unicorns.)
"Oh. Gross." Brendon's face had taken on a greenish tinge, and Ryan didn't look much better.
ooo000ooo
All three of them avoided looking at the collar as much as possible for the rest of the evening, even as they discussed what to do about the dragon in their midst. Spencer and Ryan had taken a room above the tavern when they'd arrived, and Brendon had apparently done the same, but neither Ryan nor Brendon were anxious to leave the table. Jon seemed content to sit there, nursing a mug of ale that never seemed to empty, occasionally dropping ideas into the conversation. (Brendon privately decided that Jon Walker was magic. Not the kind that Ryan was; more the kind that quietly kept the world running but didn't really want to talk about it.)
Finally, at an hour so late it had probably (definitely) come back around to "early", Ryan made a decision.
"I have to avenge Spencer!" was the decision, and it was greeted with blank looks from Jon and Brendon and a yawn from Spencer, who didn't really feel he needed avenging in the traditional sense.
"So..." Brendon ventured, "You're going to... go find the dragon with the hat?"
"Yes." Ryan was resolute. He was determined. He was sure he had put Spencer's sword down around there somewhere. "I am going to find the dragon and avenge Spencer. And then we can worry about the dragon that didn't eat my best friend in the entire world."
Ryan's face crumpled in a way it usually didn't when it wasn't the middle of the night and he wasn't exhausted and unhappy. For about the thousandth time, Spencer wished he was back in his own body. As it was, he made his way across the tabletop and lightly headbutted Ryan in the chest, burying his snout in Ryan's shirt and doing his best to nuzzle in a comforting way. He wasn't sure if it was working, but then Brendon (wonderful, wonderful Brendon, who'd earned his second "wonderful" back right then) scooted around the table and wrapped Ryan up in a hug that was, miraculously, not rejected.
"Then we're going with you," Brendon said firmly. "Right, Jon Walker?"
Jon nodded, and that was settled. They would leave in the morning, on a quest to find the hat-wearing dragon.
Until then, Jon shoo'd them all upstairs to a room that Spencer was pretty sure neither they nor Brendon had rented out, considering it was full of things that appeared to be Jon's.
Also, it smelled faintly of cat.
But the bed was soft and bigger than the single cots in the other rooms, which was good since Brendon wasn't letting go of Ryan and Ryan was sort of clinging to Brendon's shirt in a way that suggested he would probably deny it if anyone said anything, and there was no way that Spencer was leaving Ryan alone. The mattress was just wide enough for two skinny boys and one small dragon, and Spencer wondered for a moment where Jon was going to sleep but then the door was clicking shut on Jon's heels and Spencer's eyelids were simply too heavy.
ooo000ooo
When they finally ventured down into the tavern proper in the morning (Spencer had a crick in one of his wings where he'd accidentally slept on it, and Brendon had ended up drooling onto Ryan's scarf for half the night, which Ryan was trying to look upset about except he was still sort of holding Brendon's hand a little bit so it wasn't very convincing), they discovered what Jon Walker had been doing while they had been asleep. There were three packs resting against the bar--Spencer recognized his own and Ryan's, and he guessed by the "B" emblazoned on the other that it belonged to Brendon. By the smell of it, Jon had not only packed their things neatly into the bags, but had also packed plenty of food. And, they discovered when Ryan opened his pack, a long, long rope made of knotted scarves.
"I thought it might be useful." Jon shrugged. Brendon beamed at him, and even Ryan seemed pleased. It didn't last long, though. Jon pulled a fourth pack, clearly his own, from behind the bar. "I wasn't sure..." He started hesitantly. "You can leave your friend's things here, if you want. They'll be safe, I promise."
Ryan cast a sad look at Spencer's pack. "Yeah. That would." He stopped, and Spencer noticed the knuckles on the hand that was gripping Brendon's turn white, though Brendon didn't say anything. Spencer brushed along Ryan's calf, putting most of his weight into it. "That would probably be best. Thank you."
Jon picked up the pack and headed toward the stairs, presumably to stow it away in his room while they were gone, but he paused to drop a comforting hand on Ryan's shoulder for a moment.
When Jon had disappeared, Ryan moved forward and grabbed Spencer's sword, which Jon had helpfully left out for him. He sat down at one of the tables and held it in his lap, staring at the worn leather of the scabbard dejectedly. Spencer hopped up into a chair next to him, flapping his wings a little for balance. He rested his chin on Ryan's thigh as Brendon looked on, holding the strap of his lute like he didn't quite know what to do with himself.
They were quiet until Jon returned, and by then, Brendon seemed to have come up with something.
"Ready to go?" He asked Jon, who nodded.
"I asked Zack to look after the tavern for me. I'm good."
Ryan didn't look up from the sword, but he absently scritched Spencer behind the horns and nodded.
"Okay!" Brendon clapped his hands together once, and Ryan did look up at that. "I know exactly what we need, so grab your stuff and we'll get going!" He hefted his own pack onto his back, then picked up his lute and held it like a weapon. Ryan and Jon both blinked at him, but Jon shouldered his pack and Ryan followed suit, belting Spencer's sword around his waist. Spencer extended his wings and glided down from the chair in a graceful spiral, which he had absolutely not been practicing.
"So what are we doing?" Ryan asked, in the flat voice of one who doesn't really care but knows the question needs to be asked.
Brendon beamed at him. "We're going to have a travel montage! And off we go!" He strummed the lute, and whatever protest Ryan was going to make was lost.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They traveled all over the countryside, stopping in at taverns and inns and lonely farmhouses far from the nearest town to ask if anyone had seen or heard of the hat-wearing, not-really-very-menacing dragon.
Everywhere they were met with shakes of the head, but occasionally a well-meaning innkeeper's wife or blushing farmer's daughter (or, occasionally, son) would offer them some supper or a place in the barn for the night (occasionally with the offer of company, at which the three of them would glance at each other sheepishly and reply no, thank you, they were fine).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
During the days they traveled as many miles as they could, while always keeping an eye out for villages or houses in the distance, or other travelers they could question. It was a good season for traveling, sunny but not too warm. They stayed on the roads as much as they could, but sometimes they would cut through fields of wheat or long grass, and Spencer would take the opportunity to practice his pouncing skills.
Jon would just laugh and pat Spencer fondly, picking himself up off the ground like he fully expected to be knocked over by a dragon that day. Ryan affected his best put-out expression and would spend the next half hour obsessively checking his clothes for "claw holes" (but Spencer always caught him smiling, just a little bit). And Brendon would fall into fits of giggles every time Spencer sneak-attacked him, rolling around and wrestling playfully until Spencer had him pinned.
(Spencer always won.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When they didn't have well-meaning innkeeper's wives putting them up in the barn, they made camp wherever was reasonably comfortable and convenient. Ryan and Brendon found wood for the fire and Spencer got it started with a satisfied little huff every time, and Jon somehow turned whatever food they had in their packs into something that actually tasted like dinner.
Sometimes Ryan would tell stories about his and Spencer's adventures, in the telling of which Spencer was possibly a bit more brave and noble and heroic than he had been when the adventures had actually taken place, but Brendon and Jon looked impressed every time, and Spencer had to stop his chest from puffing up with just a bit of pride at that.
Sometimes Brendon would sing songs for them. His voice was good, really good, and Spencer caught himself tapping out the rhythms of Brendon's songs with his tail and claws. A lot of the songs themselves weren't really that great, but Spencer actually liked the one about the lonely manticore. Then Brendon started making up songs out of Ryan's stories, songs about Spencer Smith and his Daring Exploits! (the exclamation mark was very important, Brendon insisted), and Ryan and Jon made suggestions sometimes and Brendon plucked at his lute and sang different versions of lines until he liked the way they fit together.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once when they stopped at an inn for the night, Brendon played one of his new songs and the people there clapped for him and he looked so, so happy, like his face would split in two he was smiling so hard, and Ryan and Jon were smiling, too, and Spencer's tail thumped against the floor in perfect time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Spencer slept, curled up in a ball, tucked into Ryan's side every night, without fail.
But when it was cold at night, or just when Ryan looked especially sad, Brendon would curl up on Spencer's other side (for "dragon cuddles") and not-so-accidentally pull Ryan close. And Jon would tuck himself up on Ryan's other side and Ryan would sort of loosen and Spencer would shift himself so he was sprawled out between Ryan and Brendon, and drape his tail over Jon Walker's thigh, and they'd stay like that until it wasn't so cold and Ryan wasn't so unhappy, and they could sleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once, and only once, Ryan tried to put a scarf on Spencer.
That night, Spencer extricated himself from the sleeping heap of arms and legs and dug through Ryan's pack. He carefully removed every single one of Ryan's personal scarves (he left Jon's scarf-rope alone) and laid them out on the ground. And then, with great precision, he flamed each and every one of them into ash.
Ryan spent most of the next morning howling over his scarves and making replacements he claimed were "never going to be the same!", but he never tried to put a scarf on Spencer again, either.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And then, one day, they found someone who didn't shake his head and tell them he'd never heard of anything like that.
In fact, he said just the opposite.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You're sure he said it was this way?" Brendon wondered aloud, and Spencer, who was in the middle of a long glide that miiiight break his current record, privately agreed. They had been walking through the woods for hours on the basis of the tip they'd gotten from the innkeeper at the last village, and had yet to see any sign of the hat-wearing dragon (or the weird guy who'd clocked Spencer on the head, and who no one had mentioned yet).
But the tip had seemed legitimate enough, though, and Ryan said, "I'm sure," and Jon said, "Yeah," so they kept walking. The innkeeper had heard some of the farmers talking about a smallish dragon that had been frightening their cattle and sheep, though it didn't appear to have eaten any.
"Strangest thing," he'd said, scratching his beard. "They kept sayin' the dragon was wearing a hat! Have you ever heard such nonsense?" The three of them had looked at each other, and Spencer had said, "Gwork!" in his most excited voice, and they traded the innkeeper a few of their remaining coins for all the information he'd heard about the hat-wearing dragon's location.
The woods were thick and seemingly endless, and Ryan had taken to using Spencer's sword like a machete to clear away the underbrush in their path (which made Spencer wince and put "Get Sword Sharpened" on his mental list of Things to Do When Human Again), but it wasn't doing much good. Spencer was just about to give up hope (especially since an unexpected branch had cut short his dream of beating his glide record), when he heard it.
It sounded a bit like humming, accompanied by the general noise that something rather large makes just by existing. (After all, the dragon was small for a dragon. It was still pretty big compared to everyone else.) Spencer knew that humming noise. It was the same one he had heard in the woods, just before he'd stumbled (it was difficult to make a heroic entrance when you didn't have a horse) into the clearing where he'd been dragon-ified.
Spencer galumphed up to Ryan as quickly as his short legs could take him, leaping into the air and hovering as well as he could in front of Ryan's face. "Gwork!" He insisted quietly, indicating the direction with his snout. Ryan stopped in his tracks, and Spencer gratefully dropped back to the ground again.
"Over there?" Ryan said, equally quiet, pointing in the correct direction. Spencer nodded.
"Gwork."
Brendon and Jon had stopped as soon as they noticed that Ryan wasn't with them, turned around and walked the few paces back to Ryan and Spencer.
"What's going on?" Brendon stage-whispered, and Spencer was tempted to roll his eyes. Being quiet was not Brendon's strong suit.
"I think we found it." Ryan replied, still sotto-voiced but wide-eyed with something like triumph and something like fear. He gripped the hilt of Spencer's sword tightly (and incorrectly, but Spencer couldn't do anything about that while he didn't have hands). Jon quietly lowered his pack to the ground, then helped Ryan out of his, which took some doing as he was reluctant to let go of the sword for even a second. Brendon carefully set his own pack down, though he held on to his lute, one hand over the strings to keep them silent.
Spencer tucked his wings tightly to his sides and slid forward through the undergrowth like a shadow. He was on a mission.
ooo000ooo
Ryan didn't know what to expect when they emerged from the trees into a small glade, all dappled sunlight and small flowers. Maybe the dragon would have heard them coming, would charge at them in a furious rage! Maybe they would have been successful in sneaking up on it, and Ryan would be able to use the element of surprise to exact vengeance for Spencer's gruesome demise.
What actually happened was that Brendon tripped over a fallen branch, stumbled, and fell into Ryan, who fell out of the trees and into the glade (barely managing not to impale himself on the sword in the process). Brendon tumbled out right after him, and Jon, throwing caution to the wind, hurried after and tripped on Brendon. When Ryan looked up, he was met with the sight of the most startled-looking dragon he had ever imagined he would see.
It was, indeed, wearing a hat.
It was also, as the villagers had said, about ten meters long from nose to tail, which meant its head loomed a good two feet over Ryan's even though it was sitting back on its haunches. It probably would have been a bit taller, but it seemed to be hunching a little. And, as Jon had said, it was a sort of bronze-ish, copper-ish shade, a warm metal color that Ryan would have to try to match for some scarves at some point.
But first, he had vengeance to exact.
"YOU!" Ryan hollered, bringing Spencer's sword up and pointing it at the dragon, which only looked more startled. "You ate Spencer!"
Ryan didn't really think about what he was doing. He just held the sword in vaguely the manner he'd seen Spencer hold it during his practices and ran at the dragon, who flapped his wings worriedly and, at the last second, dodged away from Ryan's onslaught. Brendon and Jon, who had finally gotten themselves untangled, looked on in horrified fascination.
Brendon was the first one to spot the figure moving in the woods, or so he thought.
"Ryan!!" he called out, trying to indicate that Ryan should turn around right now, but then the shape was charging up behind Ryan, swinging something that looked like a club--
"GWAAAAARK!" Spencer yodeled as he attacked, holding his wings closed until the last possible second to keep up his momentum, claws extended. He didn't put in all that pouncing practice for nothing.
"Ahhh!" The hooded figure dropped the stick he was wielding, holding up his arms to shield himself from the small bundle of fury that was {Spencer Smith: Dragon}.
Ryan whirled around, nearly dropping the sword, and the hat-wearing dragon made a low sound of dismay, its long tail coiling and uncoiling rapidly. Brendon took the opportunity to run to Ryan, and Jon followed after him.
"Are you okay?" Brendon patted Ryan down rather unnecessarily, given that he'd seen the whole, brief fight. Jon hesitantly made his way over to where Spencer was battling the hooded figure, striking out with sharp claws and being thwarted over and over again by the guy's cloak, which was just unnaturally thick.
"Get him off! Get him off!" The hooded guy was shouting, trying to shove Spencer away. "Patrick!!"
The big(ger) dragon made a grumbling noise and walked over. Ryan gripped the sword shakily, preparing to make another attack run if necessary, but the dragon just bent down and picked Spencer up by the scruff of his neck with his teeth, and oh, that was just supremely unfair. Spencer squirmed around, lashing out with his claws, but no matter what he did, he couldn't reach. After a minute, he went grumpily limp, the tip of his tail lashing angrily.
The hooded guy coughed and sat up, brushing stray leaves off his cloak, and found himself faced with the tip of Spencer's sword, which, to Ryan's credit, was only shaking a little bit.
"Who are you," Ryan demanded, his voice flat and angry, "And why are you defending that monster?" Spencer was so proud.
The hooded guy stood up, though he was careful to keep his hands in view. He pushed his hood back, and stared at Ryan with wide brown eyes. There was a twig in his hair.
"I'm Pete. Pete Wentz." Pete said, keeping his hands up. "That's Patrick. And whatever you think he did, he was framed!" The dragon snorted around Spencer, which was somewhat disconcerting.
"What I think he did?" Ryan ground out. "He ate Spencer!" Ryan poked at Pete's chest with the sword, and Pete took a nervous step backwards.
"What!? No, he didn't!" Pete looked up at the dragon, who was apparently called Patrick (which Spencer thought was a stupid name for a dragon, but then, he was a dragon named Spencer, so what did he know?), and for the first time really looked at Spencer, who was still dangling there sullenly.
"Wait! Spencer? That dragonslayer guy?" Pete's eyes widened again as he turned back to Ryan. "But he's right there!" He pointed up at Spencer, who suddenly liked Pete. A lot. (Except, wait, this was probably Pete's fault, and on second thought Spencer didn't like him at all.)
"Gwark!" Spencer agreed, loudly, and started wiggling around again. Catching the hint, Patrick lowered him gently to the ground, where he manfully shook off the indignity of being held like a disobedient puppy.
"WHAT?"
"WHAT?"
"What, really?"
Ryan, Brendon and Jon all stared at Spencer, who stared right back.
"Gwark." He confirmed, then walked over and leaned against Ryan's leg. Ryan dropped the sword and stared down at him.
"Spencer?" He whispered, dropping to one knee and looking Spencer in the eye. Spencer nodded his head and nuzzled into Ryan's scarf (which really wasn't as good as the old one, and Spencer felt a brief pang of regret about burning all of them).
"Spencer is a dragon!?" Brendon gaped, staring first at Spencer and Ryan, then up at Pete, who looked rather shamefaced.
"Um. That was my fault. Sorry?" He smiled, which Spencer could have told him wouldn't help his case, but oh, right, he'd turned Spencer into a dragon.
"Sorry?" Ryan let go of Spencer and stood up, bringing the sword with him. "You're sorry!? Spencer is a dragon!"
Pete put his hands up again. "So's Patrick!" He insisted, pointing at Patrick, who simply stood there, very much a dragon.
"What does that have to do with anything!?" Ryan flailed, and Jon pre-emptively stepped in and took the sword away from him before he decapitated Brendon by accident.
"Look." Jon raised a hand and pointed at Patrick. More specifically, he pointed at Patrick's neck. Ryan followed the line of Jon's arm and gasped when he spotted it.
"He's got a collar!"
And so he did. It looked similar to Spencer's collar, but the band was the same warm metal color as Patrick's scales, and the clasp was golden. And shaped...
"Is that a cobra?" Brendon's face wrinkled up as he squinted at it.
Pete nodded seriously. "It's the symbol of the magician who cursed my beloved Patrick!" Patrick-the-dragon looked mildly embarrassed at this. "We're on a mystic quest to find him and make him reverse the spell!"
Brendon gave Pete an appropriately impressed look, and Spencer could practically hear the song about doomed, dragon-transformed love and epic quests and all the rest of it. It would probably be a big hit with the farmers' daughters (and occasional sons). He tapped his tail against the ground reflexively.
Ryan was mysteriously quiet, staring up at Patrick's collar with a thoughtful expression. After a few moments, he turned to Pete.
"You said that's the symbol of the guy who turned Patrick into a dragon?"
Pete nodded enthusiastically. Patrick-the-dragon made an exasperated noise and seemed to be trying to hide under his hat.
"You mean Gabe?"
Pete's mouth fell open. "You know him!?" Jon and Brendon stared, and Spencer tilted his head and looked up at Ryan quizzically. Even Patrick seemed intrigued.
Ryan gave an embarrassed cough. "Well, sort of. I mean, I went to Magister Beckett's Academy for Young Mages for a while before I dropped out. He was always hanging around."
"Seriously?" Pete's mouth didn't really close, but it changed shape into one of the goofiest grins any of them had ever seen. "Patrick!" He ran over and hugged the dragon around the neck. "We can make him fix you!"
Patrick rumbled in a pleased-sounding way. Then he nudged Pete with a foreclaw.
"What?" Pete didn't let go of Patrick, but he looked up. Patrick made another rumbling noise, and Pete blinked.
"Oh. Oh! I totally forgot!" He turned around and made a beeline for Spencer, who leaped behind Ryan. Being bashed over the head by Pete the one time was more than enough. Pete stopped short.
"I'm sorry! But I can fix him. I mean, if you want me to?" Spencer stuck his head out from behind Ryan's legs.
"Of course I--" Ryan stopped, then corrected, "--we want you to! He's Spencer, not a dragon!" Ryan was flailing again, but Spencer had already made his way around him and was standing in front of Pete expectantly.
"Sorry about all this," Pete said to Spencer. "But you did try to slay Patrick."
Spencer considered this for a moment. He was going to be human again, Patrick was un-slain; they were even. He nodded at Pete, who looked relieved.
"Okay. Good." And then Pete reached down and touched the clasp on Spencer's collar.
The maybe-dragon-hide band melted away into mist and the bat-thing clasp came away in Pete's hand, and then there was a blinding flash of light and ow! and then Spencer was standing there in the clearing, faced with Pete's smirking face.
He was also still naked.
Pete snickered, then, clearly knowing what was best for him, ran to Patrick's side.
"We'll be going now! Thanks!" He hollered, and even though Ryan was probably never going to really forgive Pete Wentz for any of this, he still called out, "Actually, the Academy's that way!" and pointed. Pete and Patrick changed directions, and were quickly lost from sight.
Spencer was still naked.
Spencer was still naked, and Brendon was staring at him with a gobsmacked expression and a blush that had turned him approximately the same color as a ripe tomato. Jon was looking too, but his expression had settled somewhere around a satisfied grin.
Ryan, on the other hand, did not stare. Ryan practically tackled Spencer, who only barely managed to stay on his feet as Ryan clung to him.
"Spencer!" His voice was muffled against Spencer's shoulder. "I thought you'd been eaten!" Spencer hugged him back for a long time, then, keenly aware that Brendon was about to burst a blood vessel if he blushed any harder, he reluctantly let go. Ryan did not.
"Ryan." Spencer said. "Ryan. Ryan. Ryan."
Finally, Ryan looked up.
"Pants." Spencer said seriously, and then it was Ryan's turn to blush.
"Oh. Right."
Ryan's specialty was scarves (and other assorted knitwear), but his cards didn't say "tailor" for nothing, and he had all of Spencer's sizes memorized. Spencer had never been so glad to get dressed (even if the pants were emerald green).
Brendon's blush was finally calming down, but Spencer still turned to Jon first.
"Hi. Spencer Smith." He held out a hand, and Jon took it in a firm handshake.
"Jon Walker." Jon smiled, and Spencer smiled back. And then there was Brendon, who was glancing between Spencer and Ryan, his expression shifting from hopeful to nervous by the second.
"Brendon. Urie." Brendon fumbled a little grabbing Spencer's outstretched hand, but Spencer grinned at him and shot a look at Ryan, whose return expression was shy and sort of pleased, rather than murderous. Spencer grinned wider.
"Yeah," He said to Brendon. "I know." Then he leaned in close, settling one hand on Brendon's hip and putting his lips next to Brendon's ear. "Don't worry. You can still scratch behind my ears if you want."
Brendon managed to trip over nothing while standing completely still. But when he looked up his eyes were bright and his smile was wide enough to encompass all of them.
"So." Spencer stretched, enjoying the way his limbs felt. All back to normal, though he thought he'd miss the wings. "I think you left my stuff at a tavern somewhere?" He asked Ryan, who smirked.
"Guess we're heading back." Jon commented, picking up one of the packs that he'd gathered while no one was looking. (Magic, Brendon thought.)
"Guess so." Ryan agreed, lifting his own. He slipped Spencer's swordbelt from around his hips and gave it back to Spencer, who took it gratefully. He'd missed its familiar weight, and the rhythmic tap of the scabbard against his thigh.
Brendon leaped at Jon, who held him up piggyback without complaint. "Hey, Jon Walker? Can we do a montage again?"
Spencer laughed and Ryan snickered and Jon said, "Why not?" and then Brendon had his lute in his hands and struck the first note.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(And they all lived Happily Ever After.)
(Pete and Patrick, too.)
Fandom: Bandom: PATD/TYV, FoB, tiny amounts of CS and TAI.
Pairing: PATD/TYV GSF, minor Pete/Patrick, hints of Gabe/William
Rating: PG
Wordcount: ~9,000
Warnings: Ridiculousness. Author who has read too much Discworld.
Summary: It took Spencer approximately five seconds to realize he had wings.
Notes: This fic is entirely monroe_nell's fault. She commented on Twitter about how the shorthand for Spencer/Ryan was "Spyro", which only made her think about the video games. To which I replied, well, obviously Spencer Smith is a small purple dragon! And then suddenly I was writing this fic. XD Except, of course, I'm a huge Spencer/Brendon shipper, so my only recourse was to make it GSF. Sorry, "Spyro" OTP-ers! XD Remarkably, I have written self-indulgent fic with a plot! I am amazed at myself! \0/
HUGE thanks go out to monroe_nell and sansets for their endless enthusiasm for this fic! I couldn't have done it without you! <333
ooo000ooo
By the time Spencer woke up, both the dragon he was supposed to slay and the strange man who had (apparently) tried to slay him were gone. That was fine with Spencer, who had no desire to go for round two when his head felt like someone had bashed it in with a stick. Actually, he vaguely recalled the weird guy actually hitting him in the head with a stick, which would explain a lot. He reached a hand up to rub the sore spot on the back of his skull, stopping when he realized that his arm wasn't bending right. It didn't hurt, it was just ...wrong, somehow. He cracked his eyes open for a second time, fighting against the muddy feeling that was probably a concussion or something equally fun.
He looked at his arm.
He closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
When he woke up again, a number of hours later based on the position of the sun (which was now close to setting; Ryan would be getting worried soon), his arm had not changed.
Spencer Smith prided himself on his ability to Not Freak Out in any number of situations that most people would, indeed, Freak Out in. It was part of what made him successful as an otherwise rather generic wandering Hero. He had taken on any number of creatures that had threatened the lives and livelihoods of small villages throughout the land, and had Not Freaked Out at any point.
Faced with his arm, which was now covered in glistening purple scales and ended in a three-clawed paw, he Freaked Out.
With a shrill cry that was not in any way related to a shriek, he reared up and galumphed around the clearing on four legs, kicking up dirt and grass until he tripped over his sword (which was suddenly a lot bigger than he was used to it being) and went crashing head(horns)-first into a tree. The impact knocked him head-over-tail backwards and he ended up upside-down against a breastplate that he was pretty sure he had been wearing when he had arrived in this forest.
Not only was he now a (very small) dragon, but he was also naked. The indignity was almost too much to bear.
He looked up at the sky and snorted, which sent a tiny ball of flame whizzing past his tail.
Well. At least there was that.
ooo000ooo
Ryan was getting worried.
Scratch that, Ryan was worried, and had been since mid-afternoon, when Spencer still hadn't returned. His worry manifested itself in the form of plaid scarves in shades from aubergine to wisteria, which covered the entire table in front of him and spilled onto the tavern floor. Jon, the tavern keeper, didn't seem to mind, and simply knocked a few of them aside to put down a fresh cup of milk.
"You sure you don't want ale, or something?" Jon had asked, like all the tavern keepers Ryan had ever met had asked. The short answer was, "No." The long answer was, "Last time I had too much ale waiting for Spencer to come back, I started making snakes instead of scarves. Someday someone will wonder where all the blue-and-green checked snakes in Koom Valley came from, and the answer will be 'me'." But that was the long answer, and it took far too much effort to carry on a conversation like that with someone who wasn't Spencer, and Spencer already knew the whole story.
Jon, at least, had not persisted in asking if Ryan wanted ale, as so many tavern keepers did (often with terrifyingly hungry expressions, though Spencer helpfully glared those ones away).
Spencer should have been back hours ago.
The thing was, this was supposed to be an easy job. Unlike most villages--where the inhabitants apparently thought exaggeration would weed out the less mighty and courageous hero-types and accordingly advertised for someone to slay a "50-heded hydra wif VENOMOS FANGS 50p/day plus expenses" when the beast in question was no more than a juvenile sea monster and not "venomos" at all--the residents of this village had been rather up-front about the whole thing.
It wasn't a very large dragon, per-se, the village elders had explained. Only ten meters long or so, based on several reports, and it hadn't done any real menacing, so to speak. Hadn't even demanded any virgin sacrifices (at which several hastily-married young women were a bit put-out). Really, all it had done was live in the woods and occasionally spook the cattle, but still, it was making everyone nervous and couldn't they take care of it? It didn't even need to be slain, really, if they could just drive it off a bit and let it vaguely-unsettle some other village, that would be fine and it'd be drinks all around, room and board for free.
Needless to say, the village elders had bought themselves the services of {Spencer Smith: Dragonslayer, Rescuer of Maidens, Odd Jobs &c.} (Ryan had made up the business cards himself, and they had come in quite handy for spreading word of their services by word-of-traveling-merchants). As a result, the villagers--hastily married or no--had received the opportunity to purchase wares from {Ryan Ross: Magician & Tailor; custom fitting, alterations, repairs}.
(It was becoming easier and easier to trace their route across the countryside, as they left behind them a swath of villages relieved of their malingering beasts and clothed in newly-custom-majiked hats, gloves and scarves that were not only flattering to one's individual skin tone, but would also ward off any number of minor annoyances, like head colds or in-laws.)
Spencer, who had dealt with dragons at least twice that size, should have had no trouble dispatching the thing. Spencer should have ridden (or, well, walked, since they couldn't actually afford horses) off into the woods at dawn (which he did) and come back in time to have a nice lunch with Ryan and regale all the villagers with the heroic tale (which he did not). Spencer should have been back already and now it was getting dark.
Ryan drank his milk in one long chug and stood up, knocking over his chair in a way that made the drunk at the bar give him an appraising look and impressed tip of the mug.
"I have to go find him!" he declared. Jon the tavern keeper stopped polishing the bar and blinked at him laconically, and the only other person (besides the ever-present Drunk Guy at the Bar) in the tavern--a minstrel who had arrived a little before Ryan and Spencer and who had been staying around, presumably, to find out how this whole dragon-slaying business went--stopped fiddling with his lute and looked up with wide eyes.
"You're going after your friend? The dragonslayer? Now?" The minstrel's voice was deeper than Ryan thought it would be, but he still managed to squeak on the last word.
Ryan nodded seriously.
"But it's getting dark!" The minstrel's eyes got even wider. Out the corner of his eye, Ryan could see Jon the tavern keeper looking toward the windows, where bright sunlight still streamed in and made golden pools on the wooden floors. Jon the tavern keeper raised an expressive eyebrow, but Ryan was resolute. Spencer could be out there somewhere, half-dead and lying in a bush, blood gushing from his many dragon-inflicted wounds, limbs charred from the beast's fiery breath! The horror of it was enough that he compulsively majicked up another scarf, a rather depressing gray-on-gray paisley.
"I'm going with you!" Ryan was shocked out of making another scarf, which would probably have ended up maroon if he wasn't careful, when the minstrel stood up and slung his lute onto his back.
"You can't go with me!" Ryan argued out of reflex, breaking his usual habit of monosyllabic responses to anyone who wasn't buying anything.
"Why not?" The minstrel countered, which was underhanded and wrong of him. Ryan took a moment to put on his best expression of annoyance (it was very good; Spencer had said so on several occasions). During that time, the minstrel completely trampled on the Rules for Arguing with Ryan Ross (there was only one, and it was: Don't).
"I'll just follow you if you don't let me go with you. Do you think maybe we'll actually get to see him slay the dragon? I've never seen anyone actually slay a dragon before. I could write a song about it!" He enthused, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "People would probably love a song about an actual dragon slaying! I have one about a lonely manticore but nobody wants to listen to songs about lonely manticores..." The minstrel's gleeful expression faded so fast and so comically that Ryan completely forgot to keep up his annoyed face. The minstrel perked up again a second later, though.
"I'm Brendon, by the way. I've got a card around here somewhere..." He fished around in his pockets and pulled out a worn and wrinkled piece of paper that read {Brendon Urie: Wandering Minstrel & Entertainer (parties by appointment, no clowns!)}. Ryan privately judged that his and Spencer's cards were much better. At the very least, they were less wrinkled. He gave Brendon the Wandering Minstrel & Entertainer a threatening glare.
"If I get Spencer back dead because of you, I will kill you with a scarf. An ugly scarf." He finally stated in the monotone that had scared off at least three people since he'd started counting.
Brendon's eyes got wide again, but he nodded slowly. Ryan nodded back once, decisive, then headed for the door, abandoning the purple-ish pile of scarves on the table. Brendon followed on his heels, nearly tripping over the scarves that had migrated to the floor, and Jon the tavern keeper gave them a cheerful wave (which Brendon returned even-more-cheerfully) as they left.
The Drunk Guy at the Bar (whose name, incidentally, was Rob, and who was mourning the untimely loss of his faithful mule, Stubbins Wycliff III) either did not notice or did not care about any of these events.
ooo000ooo
It took Spencer approximately five seconds to realize he had wings.
It took Spencer approximately five hours to figure out how to make them work.
The first two attempts at actual flight had put him headfirst into the trees again, until he scaled back his efforts and started learning to use the new appendages to balance and steer while still on the ground. It was extremely awkward at first, learning to run with two sails attached to his back, but once he figured out that even if he didn't know how to use them, his body did, he found that they enabled him to make incredibly fast turns that would have sent him tumbling in his human body. And once he had that sorted, it was (quite literally) only a short leap to get himself airborne.
Not that he could exactly fly. He couldn't manage to get more than five or six feet off the ground at most, and he could just barely manage a long glide down to the ground or a brief hover if he flapped really hard. Still, it was sort of like flying, and that was pretty cool.
He was in the middle of a long glide around the clearing, practicing his turns, when he was interrupted by two large shapes crashing through the underbrush at the edge of the trees. Distracted, he managed to fly himself straight into a low, leafy branch and stuck fast.
"Are you sure this is the direction he went? Wouldn't we have heard him by now? Oh, hey what's--"
"SPENCER!!"
Spencer's head whipped around (well, as much as it was able to whip around, given that his horns were snagged in the branches). That was Ryan. His Ryan. The same Ryan that normally stayed as far away from any and all monster-vanquishing as he possibly could. And he was here, which meant Spencer was saved (because Ryan, though his specialty was knitwear, was still a magician, and Spencer being inexplicably dragon-ified was clearly magician territory). He was here, which meant he was... probably staring at Spencer's body-less armor, weaponry, and other assorted dragon-slaying accoutrements. Shit.
Spencer clawed at the branches frantically. He had to get down there, before Ryan--
"He's been EATEN!!" Ryan wailed. Yes. Before that.
Finally the branches cracked, broke, and Spencer tumbled to the ground and rolled end-over-end out into the clearing.
"Ahhhh!" Spencer was pretty sure that wasn't Ryan's voice, which meant it had to be whoever'd come with Ryan to find him. Straining to see who Ryan had consented to accompany him, he got all his limbs sorted out just in time to see his own sword come crashing down at his face.
With a startled squawk, Spencer hopped backwards, fluttering his wings to give himself a little extra speed. The flat of his sword crashed into the ground where he had been only a moment before.
"Ryan!" Spencer yelped (it came out sounding more like "Gwarrrk!", but that was beside the point).
"Ryan!" the stranger yelped.
"WHAT?" Ryan yelped back, clumsily lifting the sword. Spencer readied himself to jump again if necessary, but Ryan seemed preoccupied with swinging the sword around, nearly decapitating the stranger. Who was carrying a lute. Spencer raised an eyebrow. Or moved his face in a way that would have raised his eyebrow if he were human. He wasn't entirely sure what that did to his dragon-face.
"That thing ate Spencer!" Ryan's voice was shrill, and Spencer sympathized with the stranger's wince. Also, he was pretty certain he hadn't eaten himself. ...Actually, he should just stop that train of thought right there.
"I don't think it ate him. I mean, it's so cute and tiny!" The stranger was beaming at Ryan in a way that Spencer was pretty sure the situation didn't warrant. Also, he was not cute. "Hey, little guy," the stranger had knelt down and was extending a hand in Spencer's direction, cooing at him like he was a cat or something. He was definitely not going over there.
Then he spared a glance at Ryan, who seemed to be testing the heft of the sword in preparation for another surprise attack. On second thought... He delicately picked his way over, staying well clear of Ryan's strike range.
"Brendon! It's a vicious man-eater! What are you doing?"
Brendon, previously known as the stranger, was digging his fingers in behind Spencer's horns and scratching, something which was rapidly ascending the list of Spencer's absolute favorite things ever.
"I really don't think this is the dragon your friend was supposed to slay. Wasn't it supposed to be a lot..." Brendon gestured vaguely with the hand that wasn't occupied with petting Spencer. "I don't know. Bigger?"
ooo000ooo
Ryan collapsed on the ground, dropping the sword and morosely pulling a leaf-green plaid scarf into existence. "They always exaggerate," he said glumly, though it was looking more and more like Brendon was right. The little dragon hardly seemed dangerous. In fact, it seemed kind of blissed-out, leaning into Brendon's fingers like an affectionate pet. Ryan's eyes narrowed.
"Hey. Is that a collar?" He pointed, and Brendon looked down, blinking in surprise. It was a collar.
"Yeah, I think it is. Weird..." Brendon didn't stop scratching, but he moved his other hand down to examine the thing. It was made of thin, soft leather, nearly the same shade as the dragon's scales (which was probably why they hadn't noticed it before), hooked together with a decorative silver clasp. "It looks sorta like a bat, don't you think?"
Ryan leaned over to look for himself. He nodded. It did look like a bat.
"Do you think someone was keeping it as a pet?" Brendon suggested. He stopped scratching for a moment, and the little dragon shot him a betrayed look. "Sorry," he told it, and resumed. It gave him a satisfied huff and rested its chin on his knee.
If someone had been keeping it as a pet, that would explain why the villagers were so strange about wanting to get rid of it.
"Probably one of the villagers." Ryan said, hesitantly reaching a hand out toward the dragon. It looked at him with bright blue eyes, and leaned into his hand when he stroked his fingers over a horn.
"It's getting really late," Brendon noted, looking up at the rapidly darkening sky. It was getting late, and not just worried-Ryan's-version-of-late. "I guess... we should just take him with us?"
Ryan nodded. The little dragon had shifted from being practically in Brendon's lap to practically in Ryan's, though it kept giving Spencer's sword worried glances. "We can see if anyone knows who he belongs to."
"I bet Jon would know!" Brendon grinned happily. "Jon knows everything!"
Ryan gave him a withering stare. "Jon the tavern keeper?"
"Yup!" Brendon seemed unaffected by Ryan's glare. The dragon seemed impressed. As much as a dragon could seem impressed, anyway.
ooo000ooo
Spencer was dismayed to realize that he hadn't noticed the collar. It seemed like something he should have noticed, considering that he definitely hadn't been wearing a collar before he was a dragon, but even though he knew it was there, he could barely feel it. The leather was nearly weightless against his scales, and the metal of the clasp didn't scrape or jingle. He tossed his head a few times as he trailed behind Ryan and Brendon on the way back to the village, but it barely even moved.
Jon the tavern keeper was the first one to suggest, "Did you try to take it off?" For which Spencer could've hugged him, except for how he was currently a dragon. Also, Ryan had a tendency to get awkwardly possessive.
"No," Brendon answered instead. "We thought he might have been someone's pet?" He looked at Jon as if Jon held all the answers to the universe. Which, who knew? Maybe he did. Spencer was a dragon. He wasn't counting anything out, at this point.
Spencer had been placed on top of one of the tavern's tables (actually the one that had previously held Ryan's purple-ish scarves, not that Spencer was aware of that fact), and Jon the tavern keeper pulled out a chair and sat so that he could look Spencer straight in the eyes.
Ryan was busily materializing scarves. Most of them were yellow, with multicolored pinstripes. "I knew they were lying. They always lie," he grumbled.
"Who?" Jon asked, breaking his staring contest with Spencer. (Spencer would've won.)
"The village elders," Ryan retorted, the unspoken you moron rolling off Jon like so much smoke.
"What'd they lie about?" Jon picked up a few of Ryan's scarves and started absentmindedly knotting them together. Ryan glared at him, pulling out a vibrant red scarf with silver embroidery. Spencer, who was well-versed in the language of Ryan's scarves, wisely stepped backwards. (This had the beneficial side-effect of putting him in range of Brendon, who seemed unable to stop scratching behind his horns.)
"The dragon?" Ryan seethed. If he could have spit venom he would have, though Spencer wasn't sure Jon would be affected even by that. He just kept knotting scarves. "It was supposed to be ten meters long and not very menacing! That," he pointed at Spencer, who was going sort of melty as Brendon stroked his neck ridges, "is not ten meters long! Also, Spencer was eaten!"
Spencer, who had not been eaten, sacrificed Brendon's fingers to lay down morosely on the table (they returned momentarily; Spencer was growing rather fond of Brendon). He was never going to get back to normal if Ryan kept thinking he was dead, but all attempts at communication had sounded like, "Gwork!" and had resulted not in the expected surprise and sympathy for his plight, but rather in Brendon tugging at Ryan's sleeves and loudly exclaiming about how "cute!" Spencer was.
"But that's not the dragon." Jon shrugged. "And he doesn't look like he would eat anybody." Jon held his hand out, and Spencer obligingly sniffed at it. It smelled like ale, and Ryan's scarves, and a little like cat. Spencer hadn't seen a cat, but maybe it wasn't fond of dragons.
"What do you mean, he's not the dragon? Did you see the dragon?" Brendon's fingers paused, idly resting on Spencer's neck as he looked at Jon excitedly. "Was it scary? Did it try to eat you?" He looked horrified at this last, and started not-so-surreptitiously looking Jon over, as if expecting he'd have a bite out of him somewhere that Brendon hadn't noticed before. Ryan, though he didn't say anything, still looked alarmed.
"Nah. I didn't see it very well. It was about ten meters, though. Maybe a little less. Pretty small for a dragon, I think. And it was kinda bronze, or maybe copper-y?" Jon ran a hand over one of Spencer's horns, then returned to knotting scarves. "Not like this guy."
There was a long pause, during which Ryan's scarves got more and more purple, and started slipping into paisleys.
"Oh!" Jon added suddenly, startling everyone. He continued more normally, "It was also wearing a hat."
Ryan and Brendon both gaped in disbelief, but Spencer sat up quickly. Jon was right. The dragon had been wearing a hat. At the time, it hadn't seemed like anything particularly important. After all, his job had been to slay it (or at least drive it far enough away that the villagers didn't need to worry about the safety of their virgins anymore), not to critique its fashion choices. If that had been the job, he would've sent Ryan to do it. Now, though, any detail could be significant. Especially since he was sure that he hadn't actually gotten to the slaying part, which meant the hat-wearing dragon (and probably the strange guy who'd hit him on the head) were still out there somewhere.
The details of this whole misadventure were coming together in Spencer's mind. The hat-wearing dragon, the weird guy, the collar, his sudden dragon-ness. It all pointed to one inescapable conclusion:
Spencer needed to find them.
But first, he had to get that across to Ryan, and he had a feeling that "Gwork!" wasn't going to get him very far. He thought carefully. Maybe he didn't need to find them. Maybe they could fix this without having to track down a hat-wearing dragon who could probably fly for real and who could be anywhere by now.
They'd gotten sidetracked from Jon's original (brilliant!) suggestion to take the collar off. But Spencer was wily. Spencer had a plan. Spencer had Brendon.
He put on what he felt was a very pitiful expression (he didn't have much practice at pitiful expressions, but he'd seen like, puppies and things), and turned his head to look up at Brendon.
Brendon (wonderful, wonderful Brendon!) looked back and frowned. "What's wrong, boy?" he asked, and leaving aside how he was talking to Spencer like he was a dog (he mentally dropped one of the "wonderful"s from in front of Brendon's name), that was exactly the response Spencer had been hoping for. Keeping his expression as pitiful as possible, he raised one of his back claws (the front ones, no matter how he tried, would just not reach) and picked at the collar unhappily.
"Oh! You don't want the collar?" Spencer whined in response (Ryan was never going to let him hear the end of this, once he was back to being human again), and Brendon looked immensely pleased with himself for having figured it out. "Hey, Jon, I think you were right about taking the collar off!"
Jon nodded like he'd known all along, and Ryan paused in his scarf-making to observe as Brendon fumbled with the clasp. And fumbled with the clasp. And frowned. Spencer began to get worried.
"It won't come off." Brendon finally stated, making a sad face that was truly, epically sad.
"What!? You're just not doing it right. Let me do it." Ryan groused, and Spencer trotted over, content to let him try. Ryan was a magician, after all. Sort of a magician, anyway. And anyway, accessories were his specialty.
Ryan tried. And tried. And mumbled something that might have been some sort of spell but just as easily might have been cursing the collar for its very existence. Either way, it didn't work.
"It's the clasp. The little bat thing looks like its supposed to come apart, but somebody fused it together." He explained, showing it to Jon. After a moment's study of the collar, Jon got to his sandal-ed feet and went around behind the bar, returning with...
Scissors.
Well. Obviously. Spencer sighed with relief (only barely managing to stop the ball of flame that tried to emerge; the burp that came out instead earned him another "cute!" and an enthusiastic head-scratching from Brendon, though).
But the scissors didn't work. Neither did Ryan's pinking shears (Brendon opened his mouth, but at Ryan's glare he wisely decided not to ask), nor Spencer's carefully-applied sword.
Jon slipped a finger between the collar and Spencer's scales and examined it more carefully.
"I don't think it's leather." He decided at last, dropping it again. He looked sort of ill. "I think it might be... dragon hide."
Now Spencer felt sick. Which was new, because he'd had a pair of dragon hide boots he'd adored for years until a unicorn had gotten the better of them two winters ago. (Spencer had learned a valuable lesson: Do Not Mess With Unicorns.)
"Oh. Gross." Brendon's face had taken on a greenish tinge, and Ryan didn't look much better.
ooo000ooo
All three of them avoided looking at the collar as much as possible for the rest of the evening, even as they discussed what to do about the dragon in their midst. Spencer and Ryan had taken a room above the tavern when they'd arrived, and Brendon had apparently done the same, but neither Ryan nor Brendon were anxious to leave the table. Jon seemed content to sit there, nursing a mug of ale that never seemed to empty, occasionally dropping ideas into the conversation. (Brendon privately decided that Jon Walker was magic. Not the kind that Ryan was; more the kind that quietly kept the world running but didn't really want to talk about it.)
Finally, at an hour so late it had probably (definitely) come back around to "early", Ryan made a decision.
"I have to avenge Spencer!" was the decision, and it was greeted with blank looks from Jon and Brendon and a yawn from Spencer, who didn't really feel he needed avenging in the traditional sense.
"So..." Brendon ventured, "You're going to... go find the dragon with the hat?"
"Yes." Ryan was resolute. He was determined. He was sure he had put Spencer's sword down around there somewhere. "I am going to find the dragon and avenge Spencer. And then we can worry about the dragon that didn't eat my best friend in the entire world."
Ryan's face crumpled in a way it usually didn't when it wasn't the middle of the night and he wasn't exhausted and unhappy. For about the thousandth time, Spencer wished he was back in his own body. As it was, he made his way across the tabletop and lightly headbutted Ryan in the chest, burying his snout in Ryan's shirt and doing his best to nuzzle in a comforting way. He wasn't sure if it was working, but then Brendon (wonderful, wonderful Brendon, who'd earned his second "wonderful" back right then) scooted around the table and wrapped Ryan up in a hug that was, miraculously, not rejected.
"Then we're going with you," Brendon said firmly. "Right, Jon Walker?"
Jon nodded, and that was settled. They would leave in the morning, on a quest to find the hat-wearing dragon.
Until then, Jon shoo'd them all upstairs to a room that Spencer was pretty sure neither they nor Brendon had rented out, considering it was full of things that appeared to be Jon's.
Also, it smelled faintly of cat.
But the bed was soft and bigger than the single cots in the other rooms, which was good since Brendon wasn't letting go of Ryan and Ryan was sort of clinging to Brendon's shirt in a way that suggested he would probably deny it if anyone said anything, and there was no way that Spencer was leaving Ryan alone. The mattress was just wide enough for two skinny boys and one small dragon, and Spencer wondered for a moment where Jon was going to sleep but then the door was clicking shut on Jon's heels and Spencer's eyelids were simply too heavy.
ooo000ooo
When they finally ventured down into the tavern proper in the morning (Spencer had a crick in one of his wings where he'd accidentally slept on it, and Brendon had ended up drooling onto Ryan's scarf for half the night, which Ryan was trying to look upset about except he was still sort of holding Brendon's hand a little bit so it wasn't very convincing), they discovered what Jon Walker had been doing while they had been asleep. There were three packs resting against the bar--Spencer recognized his own and Ryan's, and he guessed by the "B" emblazoned on the other that it belonged to Brendon. By the smell of it, Jon had not only packed their things neatly into the bags, but had also packed plenty of food. And, they discovered when Ryan opened his pack, a long, long rope made of knotted scarves.
"I thought it might be useful." Jon shrugged. Brendon beamed at him, and even Ryan seemed pleased. It didn't last long, though. Jon pulled a fourth pack, clearly his own, from behind the bar. "I wasn't sure..." He started hesitantly. "You can leave your friend's things here, if you want. They'll be safe, I promise."
Ryan cast a sad look at Spencer's pack. "Yeah. That would." He stopped, and Spencer noticed the knuckles on the hand that was gripping Brendon's turn white, though Brendon didn't say anything. Spencer brushed along Ryan's calf, putting most of his weight into it. "That would probably be best. Thank you."
Jon picked up the pack and headed toward the stairs, presumably to stow it away in his room while they were gone, but he paused to drop a comforting hand on Ryan's shoulder for a moment.
When Jon had disappeared, Ryan moved forward and grabbed Spencer's sword, which Jon had helpfully left out for him. He sat down at one of the tables and held it in his lap, staring at the worn leather of the scabbard dejectedly. Spencer hopped up into a chair next to him, flapping his wings a little for balance. He rested his chin on Ryan's thigh as Brendon looked on, holding the strap of his lute like he didn't quite know what to do with himself.
They were quiet until Jon returned, and by then, Brendon seemed to have come up with something.
"Ready to go?" He asked Jon, who nodded.
"I asked Zack to look after the tavern for me. I'm good."
Ryan didn't look up from the sword, but he absently scritched Spencer behind the horns and nodded.
"Okay!" Brendon clapped his hands together once, and Ryan did look up at that. "I know exactly what we need, so grab your stuff and we'll get going!" He hefted his own pack onto his back, then picked up his lute and held it like a weapon. Ryan and Jon both blinked at him, but Jon shouldered his pack and Ryan followed suit, belting Spencer's sword around his waist. Spencer extended his wings and glided down from the chair in a graceful spiral, which he had absolutely not been practicing.
"So what are we doing?" Ryan asked, in the flat voice of one who doesn't really care but knows the question needs to be asked.
Brendon beamed at him. "We're going to have a travel montage! And off we go!" He strummed the lute, and whatever protest Ryan was going to make was lost.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They traveled all over the countryside, stopping in at taverns and inns and lonely farmhouses far from the nearest town to ask if anyone had seen or heard of the hat-wearing, not-really-very-menacing dragon.
Everywhere they were met with shakes of the head, but occasionally a well-meaning innkeeper's wife or blushing farmer's daughter (or, occasionally, son) would offer them some supper or a place in the barn for the night (occasionally with the offer of company, at which the three of them would glance at each other sheepishly and reply no, thank you, they were fine).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
During the days they traveled as many miles as they could, while always keeping an eye out for villages or houses in the distance, or other travelers they could question. It was a good season for traveling, sunny but not too warm. They stayed on the roads as much as they could, but sometimes they would cut through fields of wheat or long grass, and Spencer would take the opportunity to practice his pouncing skills.
Jon would just laugh and pat Spencer fondly, picking himself up off the ground like he fully expected to be knocked over by a dragon that day. Ryan affected his best put-out expression and would spend the next half hour obsessively checking his clothes for "claw holes" (but Spencer always caught him smiling, just a little bit). And Brendon would fall into fits of giggles every time Spencer sneak-attacked him, rolling around and wrestling playfully until Spencer had him pinned.
(Spencer always won.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When they didn't have well-meaning innkeeper's wives putting them up in the barn, they made camp wherever was reasonably comfortable and convenient. Ryan and Brendon found wood for the fire and Spencer got it started with a satisfied little huff every time, and Jon somehow turned whatever food they had in their packs into something that actually tasted like dinner.
Sometimes Ryan would tell stories about his and Spencer's adventures, in the telling of which Spencer was possibly a bit more brave and noble and heroic than he had been when the adventures had actually taken place, but Brendon and Jon looked impressed every time, and Spencer had to stop his chest from puffing up with just a bit of pride at that.
Sometimes Brendon would sing songs for them. His voice was good, really good, and Spencer caught himself tapping out the rhythms of Brendon's songs with his tail and claws. A lot of the songs themselves weren't really that great, but Spencer actually liked the one about the lonely manticore. Then Brendon started making up songs out of Ryan's stories, songs about Spencer Smith and his Daring Exploits! (the exclamation mark was very important, Brendon insisted), and Ryan and Jon made suggestions sometimes and Brendon plucked at his lute and sang different versions of lines until he liked the way they fit together.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once when they stopped at an inn for the night, Brendon played one of his new songs and the people there clapped for him and he looked so, so happy, like his face would split in two he was smiling so hard, and Ryan and Jon were smiling, too, and Spencer's tail thumped against the floor in perfect time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Spencer slept, curled up in a ball, tucked into Ryan's side every night, without fail.
But when it was cold at night, or just when Ryan looked especially sad, Brendon would curl up on Spencer's other side (for "dragon cuddles") and not-so-accidentally pull Ryan close. And Jon would tuck himself up on Ryan's other side and Ryan would sort of loosen and Spencer would shift himself so he was sprawled out between Ryan and Brendon, and drape his tail over Jon Walker's thigh, and they'd stay like that until it wasn't so cold and Ryan wasn't so unhappy, and they could sleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once, and only once, Ryan tried to put a scarf on Spencer.
That night, Spencer extricated himself from the sleeping heap of arms and legs and dug through Ryan's pack. He carefully removed every single one of Ryan's personal scarves (he left Jon's scarf-rope alone) and laid them out on the ground. And then, with great precision, he flamed each and every one of them into ash.
Ryan spent most of the next morning howling over his scarves and making replacements he claimed were "never going to be the same!", but he never tried to put a scarf on Spencer again, either.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And then, one day, they found someone who didn't shake his head and tell them he'd never heard of anything like that.
In fact, he said just the opposite.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You're sure he said it was this way?" Brendon wondered aloud, and Spencer, who was in the middle of a long glide that miiiight break his current record, privately agreed. They had been walking through the woods for hours on the basis of the tip they'd gotten from the innkeeper at the last village, and had yet to see any sign of the hat-wearing dragon (or the weird guy who'd clocked Spencer on the head, and who no one had mentioned yet).
But the tip had seemed legitimate enough, though, and Ryan said, "I'm sure," and Jon said, "Yeah," so they kept walking. The innkeeper had heard some of the farmers talking about a smallish dragon that had been frightening their cattle and sheep, though it didn't appear to have eaten any.
"Strangest thing," he'd said, scratching his beard. "They kept sayin' the dragon was wearing a hat! Have you ever heard such nonsense?" The three of them had looked at each other, and Spencer had said, "Gwork!" in his most excited voice, and they traded the innkeeper a few of their remaining coins for all the information he'd heard about the hat-wearing dragon's location.
The woods were thick and seemingly endless, and Ryan had taken to using Spencer's sword like a machete to clear away the underbrush in their path (which made Spencer wince and put "Get Sword Sharpened" on his mental list of Things to Do When Human Again), but it wasn't doing much good. Spencer was just about to give up hope (especially since an unexpected branch had cut short his dream of beating his glide record), when he heard it.
It sounded a bit like humming, accompanied by the general noise that something rather large makes just by existing. (After all, the dragon was small for a dragon. It was still pretty big compared to everyone else.) Spencer knew that humming noise. It was the same one he had heard in the woods, just before he'd stumbled (it was difficult to make a heroic entrance when you didn't have a horse) into the clearing where he'd been dragon-ified.
Spencer galumphed up to Ryan as quickly as his short legs could take him, leaping into the air and hovering as well as he could in front of Ryan's face. "Gwork!" He insisted quietly, indicating the direction with his snout. Ryan stopped in his tracks, and Spencer gratefully dropped back to the ground again.
"Over there?" Ryan said, equally quiet, pointing in the correct direction. Spencer nodded.
"Gwork."
Brendon and Jon had stopped as soon as they noticed that Ryan wasn't with them, turned around and walked the few paces back to Ryan and Spencer.
"What's going on?" Brendon stage-whispered, and Spencer was tempted to roll his eyes. Being quiet was not Brendon's strong suit.
"I think we found it." Ryan replied, still sotto-voiced but wide-eyed with something like triumph and something like fear. He gripped the hilt of Spencer's sword tightly (and incorrectly, but Spencer couldn't do anything about that while he didn't have hands). Jon quietly lowered his pack to the ground, then helped Ryan out of his, which took some doing as he was reluctant to let go of the sword for even a second. Brendon carefully set his own pack down, though he held on to his lute, one hand over the strings to keep them silent.
Spencer tucked his wings tightly to his sides and slid forward through the undergrowth like a shadow. He was on a mission.
ooo000ooo
Ryan didn't know what to expect when they emerged from the trees into a small glade, all dappled sunlight and small flowers. Maybe the dragon would have heard them coming, would charge at them in a furious rage! Maybe they would have been successful in sneaking up on it, and Ryan would be able to use the element of surprise to exact vengeance for Spencer's gruesome demise.
What actually happened was that Brendon tripped over a fallen branch, stumbled, and fell into Ryan, who fell out of the trees and into the glade (barely managing not to impale himself on the sword in the process). Brendon tumbled out right after him, and Jon, throwing caution to the wind, hurried after and tripped on Brendon. When Ryan looked up, he was met with the sight of the most startled-looking dragon he had ever imagined he would see.
It was, indeed, wearing a hat.
It was also, as the villagers had said, about ten meters long from nose to tail, which meant its head loomed a good two feet over Ryan's even though it was sitting back on its haunches. It probably would have been a bit taller, but it seemed to be hunching a little. And, as Jon had said, it was a sort of bronze-ish, copper-ish shade, a warm metal color that Ryan would have to try to match for some scarves at some point.
But first, he had vengeance to exact.
"YOU!" Ryan hollered, bringing Spencer's sword up and pointing it at the dragon, which only looked more startled. "You ate Spencer!"
Ryan didn't really think about what he was doing. He just held the sword in vaguely the manner he'd seen Spencer hold it during his practices and ran at the dragon, who flapped his wings worriedly and, at the last second, dodged away from Ryan's onslaught. Brendon and Jon, who had finally gotten themselves untangled, looked on in horrified fascination.
Brendon was the first one to spot the figure moving in the woods, or so he thought.
"Ryan!!" he called out, trying to indicate that Ryan should turn around right now, but then the shape was charging up behind Ryan, swinging something that looked like a club--
"GWAAAAARK!" Spencer yodeled as he attacked, holding his wings closed until the last possible second to keep up his momentum, claws extended. He didn't put in all that pouncing practice for nothing.
"Ahhh!" The hooded figure dropped the stick he was wielding, holding up his arms to shield himself from the small bundle of fury that was {Spencer Smith: Dragon}.
Ryan whirled around, nearly dropping the sword, and the hat-wearing dragon made a low sound of dismay, its long tail coiling and uncoiling rapidly. Brendon took the opportunity to run to Ryan, and Jon followed after him.
"Are you okay?" Brendon patted Ryan down rather unnecessarily, given that he'd seen the whole, brief fight. Jon hesitantly made his way over to where Spencer was battling the hooded figure, striking out with sharp claws and being thwarted over and over again by the guy's cloak, which was just unnaturally thick.
"Get him off! Get him off!" The hooded guy was shouting, trying to shove Spencer away. "Patrick!!"
The big(ger) dragon made a grumbling noise and walked over. Ryan gripped the sword shakily, preparing to make another attack run if necessary, but the dragon just bent down and picked Spencer up by the scruff of his neck with his teeth, and oh, that was just supremely unfair. Spencer squirmed around, lashing out with his claws, but no matter what he did, he couldn't reach. After a minute, he went grumpily limp, the tip of his tail lashing angrily.
The hooded guy coughed and sat up, brushing stray leaves off his cloak, and found himself faced with the tip of Spencer's sword, which, to Ryan's credit, was only shaking a little bit.
"Who are you," Ryan demanded, his voice flat and angry, "And why are you defending that monster?" Spencer was so proud.
The hooded guy stood up, though he was careful to keep his hands in view. He pushed his hood back, and stared at Ryan with wide brown eyes. There was a twig in his hair.
"I'm Pete. Pete Wentz." Pete said, keeping his hands up. "That's Patrick. And whatever you think he did, he was framed!" The dragon snorted around Spencer, which was somewhat disconcerting.
"What I think he did?" Ryan ground out. "He ate Spencer!" Ryan poked at Pete's chest with the sword, and Pete took a nervous step backwards.
"What!? No, he didn't!" Pete looked up at the dragon, who was apparently called Patrick (which Spencer thought was a stupid name for a dragon, but then, he was a dragon named Spencer, so what did he know?), and for the first time really looked at Spencer, who was still dangling there sullenly.
"Wait! Spencer? That dragonslayer guy?" Pete's eyes widened again as he turned back to Ryan. "But he's right there!" He pointed up at Spencer, who suddenly liked Pete. A lot. (Except, wait, this was probably Pete's fault, and on second thought Spencer didn't like him at all.)
"Gwark!" Spencer agreed, loudly, and started wiggling around again. Catching the hint, Patrick lowered him gently to the ground, where he manfully shook off the indignity of being held like a disobedient puppy.
"WHAT?"
"WHAT?"
"What, really?"
Ryan, Brendon and Jon all stared at Spencer, who stared right back.
"Gwark." He confirmed, then walked over and leaned against Ryan's leg. Ryan dropped the sword and stared down at him.
"Spencer?" He whispered, dropping to one knee and looking Spencer in the eye. Spencer nodded his head and nuzzled into Ryan's scarf (which really wasn't as good as the old one, and Spencer felt a brief pang of regret about burning all of them).
"Spencer is a dragon!?" Brendon gaped, staring first at Spencer and Ryan, then up at Pete, who looked rather shamefaced.
"Um. That was my fault. Sorry?" He smiled, which Spencer could have told him wouldn't help his case, but oh, right, he'd turned Spencer into a dragon.
"Sorry?" Ryan let go of Spencer and stood up, bringing the sword with him. "You're sorry!? Spencer is a dragon!"
Pete put his hands up again. "So's Patrick!" He insisted, pointing at Patrick, who simply stood there, very much a dragon.
"What does that have to do with anything!?" Ryan flailed, and Jon pre-emptively stepped in and took the sword away from him before he decapitated Brendon by accident.
"Look." Jon raised a hand and pointed at Patrick. More specifically, he pointed at Patrick's neck. Ryan followed the line of Jon's arm and gasped when he spotted it.
"He's got a collar!"
And so he did. It looked similar to Spencer's collar, but the band was the same warm metal color as Patrick's scales, and the clasp was golden. And shaped...
"Is that a cobra?" Brendon's face wrinkled up as he squinted at it.
Pete nodded seriously. "It's the symbol of the magician who cursed my beloved Patrick!" Patrick-the-dragon looked mildly embarrassed at this. "We're on a mystic quest to find him and make him reverse the spell!"
Brendon gave Pete an appropriately impressed look, and Spencer could practically hear the song about doomed, dragon-transformed love and epic quests and all the rest of it. It would probably be a big hit with the farmers' daughters (and occasional sons). He tapped his tail against the ground reflexively.
Ryan was mysteriously quiet, staring up at Patrick's collar with a thoughtful expression. After a few moments, he turned to Pete.
"You said that's the symbol of the guy who turned Patrick into a dragon?"
Pete nodded enthusiastically. Patrick-the-dragon made an exasperated noise and seemed to be trying to hide under his hat.
"You mean Gabe?"
Pete's mouth fell open. "You know him!?" Jon and Brendon stared, and Spencer tilted his head and looked up at Ryan quizzically. Even Patrick seemed intrigued.
Ryan gave an embarrassed cough. "Well, sort of. I mean, I went to Magister Beckett's Academy for Young Mages for a while before I dropped out. He was always hanging around."
"Seriously?" Pete's mouth didn't really close, but it changed shape into one of the goofiest grins any of them had ever seen. "Patrick!" He ran over and hugged the dragon around the neck. "We can make him fix you!"
Patrick rumbled in a pleased-sounding way. Then he nudged Pete with a foreclaw.
"What?" Pete didn't let go of Patrick, but he looked up. Patrick made another rumbling noise, and Pete blinked.
"Oh. Oh! I totally forgot!" He turned around and made a beeline for Spencer, who leaped behind Ryan. Being bashed over the head by Pete the one time was more than enough. Pete stopped short.
"I'm sorry! But I can fix him. I mean, if you want me to?" Spencer stuck his head out from behind Ryan's legs.
"Of course I--" Ryan stopped, then corrected, "--we want you to! He's Spencer, not a dragon!" Ryan was flailing again, but Spencer had already made his way around him and was standing in front of Pete expectantly.
"Sorry about all this," Pete said to Spencer. "But you did try to slay Patrick."
Spencer considered this for a moment. He was going to be human again, Patrick was un-slain; they were even. He nodded at Pete, who looked relieved.
"Okay. Good." And then Pete reached down and touched the clasp on Spencer's collar.
The maybe-dragon-hide band melted away into mist and the bat-thing clasp came away in Pete's hand, and then there was a blinding flash of light and ow! and then Spencer was standing there in the clearing, faced with Pete's smirking face.
He was also still naked.
Pete snickered, then, clearly knowing what was best for him, ran to Patrick's side.
"We'll be going now! Thanks!" He hollered, and even though Ryan was probably never going to really forgive Pete Wentz for any of this, he still called out, "Actually, the Academy's that way!" and pointed. Pete and Patrick changed directions, and were quickly lost from sight.
Spencer was still naked.
Spencer was still naked, and Brendon was staring at him with a gobsmacked expression and a blush that had turned him approximately the same color as a ripe tomato. Jon was looking too, but his expression had settled somewhere around a satisfied grin.
Ryan, on the other hand, did not stare. Ryan practically tackled Spencer, who only barely managed to stay on his feet as Ryan clung to him.
"Spencer!" His voice was muffled against Spencer's shoulder. "I thought you'd been eaten!" Spencer hugged him back for a long time, then, keenly aware that Brendon was about to burst a blood vessel if he blushed any harder, he reluctantly let go. Ryan did not.
"Ryan." Spencer said. "Ryan. Ryan. Ryan."
Finally, Ryan looked up.
"Pants." Spencer said seriously, and then it was Ryan's turn to blush.
"Oh. Right."
Ryan's specialty was scarves (and other assorted knitwear), but his cards didn't say "tailor" for nothing, and he had all of Spencer's sizes memorized. Spencer had never been so glad to get dressed (even if the pants were emerald green).
Brendon's blush was finally calming down, but Spencer still turned to Jon first.
"Hi. Spencer Smith." He held out a hand, and Jon took it in a firm handshake.
"Jon Walker." Jon smiled, and Spencer smiled back. And then there was Brendon, who was glancing between Spencer and Ryan, his expression shifting from hopeful to nervous by the second.
"Brendon. Urie." Brendon fumbled a little grabbing Spencer's outstretched hand, but Spencer grinned at him and shot a look at Ryan, whose return expression was shy and sort of pleased, rather than murderous. Spencer grinned wider.
"Yeah," He said to Brendon. "I know." Then he leaned in close, settling one hand on Brendon's hip and putting his lips next to Brendon's ear. "Don't worry. You can still scratch behind my ears if you want."
Brendon managed to trip over nothing while standing completely still. But when he looked up his eyes were bright and his smile was wide enough to encompass all of them.
"So." Spencer stretched, enjoying the way his limbs felt. All back to normal, though he thought he'd miss the wings. "I think you left my stuff at a tavern somewhere?" He asked Ryan, who smirked.
"Guess we're heading back." Jon commented, picking up one of the packs that he'd gathered while no one was looking. (Magic, Brendon thought.)
"Guess so." Ryan agreed, lifting his own. He slipped Spencer's swordbelt from around his hips and gave it back to Spencer, who took it gratefully. He'd missed its familiar weight, and the rhythmic tap of the scabbard against his thigh.
Brendon leaped at Jon, who held him up piggyback without complaint. "Hey, Jon Walker? Can we do a montage again?"
Spencer laughed and Ryan snickered and Jon said, "Why not?" and then Brendon had his lute in his hands and struck the first note.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(And they all lived Happily Ever After.)
(Pete and Patrick, too.)