(no subject)
Title: Time and Time Again (and Again, and Again)
Author: DF
Pairing: Panic! at the Disco GSF
Summary: "So I've been having these weird dreams," Spencer says casually, because it's increasingly obvious that nobody else is going to speak up.
Notes: So, this story kind of took over my brain and I'm infinitely glad that I actually managed to finish it. It's a little...odd at some points. If you don't like something, tell me what, and I'll see if I can fix it.
Disclaimer: I own the plot, but I do not own Pete Wentz, anyone in or related to Panic! at the Disco, or unicorns. Unfortunately.
The first time it happens, Ryan is fourteen and Spencer is thirteen. Or, well, that's not precisely true, because the first time it happens, Ryan and Spencer are barely as tall as their kitchen tables and have just met. Thing is, though, they're just kids at that point, they wouldn't have known. So. The first time it happens and they could maybe realise it, but don't, Ryan is fourteen and Spencer is thirteen. They are perhaps not the happiest children in the world.
Spencer's not actually incredibly unhappy, but Ryan is, which upsets Spencer. Also, he's got this nagging feeling that something is wrong - not with their specific situation, but just the world in general, maybe. Something seems off somehow. Also, he doesn't trust anyone besides Ryan. His parents too, maybe.
And Ryan... Well, Ryan doesn't like to talk about why he's so unhappy, so Spencer doesn't pressure him usually, just gives the silent support he knows Ryan is secretly grateful for. But the thing is, Ryan is just retreating deeper inside himself, and getting more and more bitter, and this is one of the things that's off about the world.
"No," he says, and they're standing in the parking lot waiting for a ride from Spencer's mom. The sun is practically blinding and Spencer is pretty sure that the asphalt is melting the rubber off the bottoms of his shoes, but there's no shade in sight.
"No?" Ryan asks, like he has no idea what Spencer is talking about. Spencer grits his teeth.
"I'm not letting you do this to yourself again," he growls, and there are thousands of perfectly plausible explanations for this, for that again. The real reason is none of those.
They could notice, but they don't.
::
The first time they could notice, and actually do, Brent is out and Jon is in and no one regrets that decision at all. Even Spencer's not wary, which in hindsight probably should have tipped them off that something about this was odd, because Spencer's always wary. Still, though, Jon's everything they ever wanted and he comes complete with flip flops and day-old scruff.
If there is something wrong about this, it's the way it's so, so right.
The thing about Jon is that he's incredibly punctual, to the point of being five minutes early for everything. When they walk in yet again to find him waiting for them, Spencer says dryly, "You were the last to come, so you're always the first to arrive?"
He watches the world hesitate, and then all of a sudden they're all different people, subtly; Brendon is perfectly still, looking shyly at Ryan, who seems haughtier than usual. Jon's smile is hopeful, a little anxious, and Spencer himself is aware of an unfamiliar sense of optimism. He's probably smiling like a fool.
"It's fine," Ryan says, after a moment of silence. "Early's cool. It doesn't matter, though, because I'm pretty sure we're not giving you up no matter what." He loses the arrogance and smiles, and the world shivers and goes back to normal.
Jon, as calm and assured as ever, looks a little confused. Spencer feels himself close off again, almost automatically, and exchanges a glance with Ryan. No one says anything.
Brendon is the only one who appears not to notice, but his uncharacteristic quietness vanishes into thin air. He jumps to hug Jon, declaring, "Of course not, Jon Walker! You're our favorite." Jon grins, bright as the sun, and everything feels too right again.
::
Ryan dreams in books, cursive writing in rich black ink, scrawled over creamy white pages. He dreams in vellum and gilt edging and illustrated texts with drawings so detailed, they must have taken days, even weeks to perfect. He dreams of skimming pages and deciphering words for hours on end, until he can't see anymore, his eyes are so blurry. Sometimes there are concerned voices talking to him, and sometimes he talks back, but he can never remember what anyone ever says.
Ryan dreams in books and when he wakes up, there are words in his head. Sometimes they make no sense, and sometimes they disappear only to be remembered a week later, but it's a constant in his life.
He's writing a song, to the distant accompaniment of Jon, Spencer and Brendon playing some sort of video game in the next room, when he remembers that morning's words:
This time around, don't forget to correct/ the underlying disconnect
and it doesn't fit with the song he's writing at all, so he scraps it, but the words stick in his head.
::
When they first meet Brendon, Ryan and Spencer kind of expect to see unicorns. But there's no hint of hooves or horns, not even a design on a shirt or a patch on a backpack, and anyway, unicorns aren't real, so they put it out of their heads.
Then one morning a while later, Jon wakes up, looks at Brendon muzzily, and goes out and buys a pack of unicorn stickers, the kind you get for your eight year old sister. He decorates Brendon's bunk with them, and Brendon doesn't protest at all. Spencer smiles.
Ryan thinks that this is also odd, a little, but nobody says anything so he tries to ignore it.
::
Spencer dreams of conversations, and unlike Ryan, he remembers them; he remembers Ryan scolding him for being too nice, telling him that everyone has ulterior motives and that good people are the exception, not the rule. Ryan wears faintly glowing make-up and flowing coats over tight pants and shirts; "Just because there are certain expectations doesn't mean I can't dress well," he remembers Ryan saying, except he's pretty sure Ryan has never said this before, not out loud.
He dreams of talking to an uncertain Jon, a quiet Brendon; he dreams conversations that never have and never will happen. He dreams of a girl with dark brown hair and a bright smile, and even though he's usually pretty affable in these dreams, whenever he sees her in his head he feels a stab of anger so sharp that he wakes up, no matter what.
::
In hindsight, things get the oddest after Jon joins them; never before has Ryan stood over the sink in their tiny bathroom, using the smallest, sharpest kitchen knife to make a small cut on his index finger. His breath fogs the mirror as he leans forward, watching the blood drip into the sink, leaving red streaks that are almost too vibrant on the white.
Three drops and he straightens up, feeling trancelike as he moves his finger away so he won't get any more blood in the sink. A small noise attracts his attention and he turns to see Jon standing at the door patiently.
There are words that are expected in this sort of situation, but Jon doesn't say anything, doesn't even seem too alarmed. He simply looks at Ryan in a mildly curious way and waits.
"Luck," Ryan explains, not sure where it comes from, but somehow it sounds right.
Jon nods. "Don't do it anymore. We'll get by without it." Ryan nods, too, and Jon picks up Ryan's hand and presses a quick kiss against the cut, somehow without getting any of the drying blood on himself. He leaves, and Ryan finishes getting ready.
Later that night, right before the show, Ryan looks down at his hand, and is somehow unsurprised to see that the cut is gone. It's only strange when he thinks about it the next day.
::
"I think I have an idea for the melody of this one," Brendon says excitedly, tapping a sheet full of Ryan's lyrics. This is before they had met Pete, before they've even heard of Jon, and Brent is sitting on the couch next to Spencer. Spencer who is slightly worried.
"No," Ryan snaps, like Spencer had known he would. Ryan has this pressing need to write all the lyrics, all the music by himself, and while it inevitably turns out well, Spencer's a little worried.
Brendon can be a pushover occasionally, but some strange stubbornness possesses him and he says, "You can say no after you listen to it, if you don't like it."
"I'm saying no now," Ryan says, because for as long as he can remember he hasn't liked collaboration. If it's just one person he can get all the praise or the criticism, but having multiple people makes things complicated. This is his reasoning, anyway.
"Ryan," Spencer warns him, and Brendon adds, "You don't have to do everything on your own, you know."
Brent gives them a weird look, but Ryan pauses and taps his fingers on his leg thoughtfully. "Okay," he agrees abruptly, and when Brendon finishes playing, he doesn't say no.
(Spencer sometimes has a weird thought: there is something broken that they are fixing. The off feeling he gets, maybe. This is part of the fixing.)
::
Jon dreams of watching, which isn't so different from real life. He dreams of seeing, and sometimes he forgets in the morning and sometimes he doesn't, like the morning he wakes up and goes to find Brendon's unicorns.
He doesn't think too much about it; it's just a thing, just weird dreams involving his bandmates, occasionally a few other people. Sometimes, unthinkingly, he'll recall the images from a hazy vision, try to capture them using his camera or just his eyes, if his camera isn't there.
There are pictures he'll never show anyone, and for some reason he thinks of them as before and after: before has Ryan looking coldly prideful, Spencer smiling naively, Brendon huddled on a couch looking small and innocent. After is Ryan grinning warmly and hugging a fan, Brendon playing piano with the depths of his emotion visible on his face, Spencer - well, one is of Spencer glaring at the camera, and the other is Spencer smiling again, still happy but with eyes that are a little bit more jaded, now. As awesome as Spencer's bitchface is, Jon prefers the latter.
These aren't the only photos, of course, and Jon's not entirely sure why he's called it before and after, but this is another one of the things that they don't talk about.
::
Brendon gets hit by a plastic bottle at a concert, and Ryan's heart skips a beat but his fingers don't. It's like dreaming again, but in fast forward and while he's awake. Pages flip, faster and faster until the words become just a blur, and apparently this book has doodles at the bottom of the pages, flipbook style. A stick figure gets hit by something, spins, and eventually collapses to the ground. There's a break of a couple pages and then the crude animation starts again; stagger spin fall stagger spin fall stagger spin fall stagger spin fall and Ryan's playing through it all.
Then reality slams back in and he drops his guitar, runs to Brendon. Spencer and Jon are only just doing the same.
There's a feeling of dread in Ryan's stomach, but it's not even about this, because Brendon's only deathly still for about a minute before getting up again, just as energetic as ever. Ryan's dread is prescient; something is creeping closer and closer, he's just not sure what.
::
After that show, Ryan is freaking out very loudly in the dressing room. Brendon is trying to do something to work off all his nervous energy, drumming on the walls and bouncing anxiously from chair to chair, and Spencer yells at him because he's got a really bad headache and this isn't fucking helping.
Jon walks in and shuts the door behind him, walks to Ryan and murmurs in his ear, gives Brendon a hug, moves behind Spencer and starts to rub his neck. They all calm down almost immediately. There's something about Jon that relaxes and grounds everyone he comes into contact with, which he considers a pretty lucky talent, since almost everyone he knows has their feet so far off the ground they're liable to bump into the moon.
After that, especially at the cabin, Jon wanders in whenever Brendon and Ryan are arguing. Things tend to get a bit more reasonable when he's in the room.
::
"So I've been having these weird dreams," Spencer says casually, because it's increasingly obvious that nobody else is going to speak up.
"Yeah?" Jon asks, looking intrigued and a little relieved that someone else mentioned it.
"Yeah. About us, except it's not exactly us."
"What do you mean?" Jon wonders, every fiber of his being paying attention; Ryan is watching too, eyes serious, but Brendon just looks curious.
"Ryan's even bitchier than usual, and Jon, you act like you don't think anyone likes you."
"How could anyone not like Jon?" Brendon asks, scandalised, but Spencer just continues.
"And Brendon is possibly the most sheltered person ever," Spencer finishes, sparing a glance for the boy - man, technically, but it doesn't really seem like that sometimes.
Jon gets up wordlessly and goes to his room, returning with a portfolio full of photographs. He quickly sorts them into their two categories, but before Spencer can begin looking through them, Ryan grabs the piles and flips through. He's humming absently, something unrecognisable.
"You too?" Spencer asks Jon, waiting for Ryan to finish looking at the photos. Jon nods.
"Ever since I met you guys," he says, smiling faintly. "There are... odd moments, too."
"Me, too," Ryan volunteers absently, looking up. All eyes swung to Brendon, who shrugged.
"I don't remember my dreams," he informed them. "That's cool, though." He fidgeted for a moment on his chair, before bouncing up. "Hey, I think I'm going to go on a walk. I'll see you guys later, okay?"
Before they can answer, he's out the door. This isn't a new thing - Brendon really seems to like the woods, he goes on a walk at least every other day - but they're all kind of worried regardless.
"I'm going to go find him," Ryan declares, pushing the photos over to Spencer. "I'll tell you the rest later." He leaves almost as quickly as Brendon had, and Spencer and Jon sit in the silence that's left.
When Brendon and Ryan come back, they're laughing like everything's normal. Jon grins and challenges Brendon to a game of Guitar Hero, and somehow the subject doesn't come up again for the rest of the night.
::
They talk about it again a couple times over the next week, but Brendon still doesn't know what they're talking about and nobody has any ideas about what this is, besides a bunch of weird dreams that have a couple similarities.
Spencer stills feels something's off, though, and Ryan says something's coming soon - not the dread he felt when Brendon got hit, but something - and Jon just keeps an eye on all of them, because that's what he does.
They try to focus more on the music. After all, that's what they're there for, not speculation on feelings that may be nothing at all.
::
There's one day where Brendon stays outside until one, staring at the trees until he can barely see them, it's so dark. Sometimes he thinks he sees a flash of white behind the panorama of green and brown, but only for a moment; hallucinations, maybe, or someone walking around. Or something else.
When he gets back to the cabin, he falls into bed and dreams of forests and explosions, endless arrays of green and overwhelming pain.
::
For a couple days after that, the cabin is filled with a strange sort of tension, like a wave is just hovering over them, waiting to crash down. Brendon is fidgety; he doesn't seem able to concentrate on anything and Ryan yells at him more than a couple times.
Jon just tries to keep things as calm as he can while they wait for whatever it is they're waiting for. It's tiring, both the waiting and the wave; he and Spencer collapse on the couch together sometimes in the middle of the afternoon, curling into each other as they sleep. Occasionally Ryan joins them.
Brendon doesn't; the waiting is hitting him the hardest and he doesn't usually rest. When he does, it's mostly in his bunk, where his inability to sit still won't bother anyone. Sometimes Jon wonders if Brendon is the reason for this tension, but he can't think of why.
::
"So," Brendon says quietly, watching Ryan, Spencer and Jon drift in and out of partial sleep. They're all mostly awake right now, have been since Brendon walked in and the air started crackling, almost. Spencer thinks this is how it must feel right before lightning hits.
"So," Brendon repeats, "Jon. Thanks for the unicorns."
Jon opens his eyes wide, surprised, before relaxing again and smiling. "Welcome." Ryan holds out his hand and beckons for Brendon to join them, and he does; it's a little tight, all four of them on the couch, but there's space. Of course there is.
Spencer closes his eyes and listens to all four of their hearts beating together.
::
When they go to bed that night, they dream of a life a long, long time ago, and they aren't themselves, but they are.
::
Ryan dreams of being a boy and then a man named Righon, and there are disturbing similarities to his own life but where Ryan was eventually coaxed most of the way out of his shell, Righon simply retreats into himself. He cultivates sarcasm and hates everyone besides Spenser, the foolish idealist who also happens to be his best friend.
He buries himself in his work because he's convinced no one else can do it right, and he is brilliant. Sometimes he is selfish, and sometimes he disconnects from himself, and other times he feels so much he thinks he could die. He doesn't, invariably, but he thinks it's possible he might one day.
Righon is not a nice person, or a happy person, but he genuinely cares about Spenser. He simply doesn't show it very often.
He is also an excellent magician.
::
Spencer dreams of Spenser, who isn't as stupid as Righon says he is, but is more optimistic than is probably healthy. He believes that everyone is good, even if it's sometimes hidden, which Righon says will get him in trouble one day.
It does. One day - after they meet Breanainn, after they meet Yehonatan - Spenser meets a girl with dark brown hair and a bright smile. She is possibly the most beautiful girl he has ever met. (She is not the most beautiful person - that honor belongs to Righon, on the outside. Breanainn has the most beautiful eyes, Yehonatan the most beautiful smile - but she is the most beautiful girl.)
When there is time to spare, when he isn't practicing magic or poring over books or trying to convince Righon to enjoy life once in a while, he seeks her out. He thinks she would seek him out, too, but everyone is wary of the four musicians living on the outskirts of town. Her family probably pressures her to let Spenser come to town, instead.
When they have courted decorously for an entire year, Spenser asks her to marry him. Righon disapproves, but he always has, anyway, so Spenser chooses not to listen this time. Breanainn knows nothing of relationships, for the most part, but he is happy that Spenser is happy. Yehonatan watches, and waits, but if thinks anything he doesn't say it; this is what he does.
Spenser has just begun thinking about wedding plans when he stumbles across his fiancee with another man, with in the most carnal sense; he stumbles out of the room, horrified, and doesn't speak for a day. But when she makes her excuses and begs for forgiveness he believes her, gives her a second chance, and then a third, and then a fourth.
The wedding is postponed and postponed; finally, she breaks it off because, she says, she never really wanted him in the first place; she wanted to see if she could snag a magician, and, anyway, it gave her a certain status. Her new fiance is rich, though, and marriage to a rich man is more advantageous than marriage to a sweet magician with a merely average income.
He goes to see her one night, and her new fiance's brothers find him. When he returns to the cabin he is filthy, bruised and broken.
Yehonatan tends his wounds, Breanainn whispers comforts in his ears, and Righon says, "I told you all along." Spenser thinks maybe Righon has the right of it, this time.
He takes to bitterness, to sarcasm, to walls and shields and sharp edges. What took Ryan years to develop takes him months, because he put humanity on a pedestal so high that when it falls, the sheer momentum crushes him. (At this point, Spencer separates himself from Spenser and realises that, huh, Ryan apparently wrote I Write Sins Not Tragedies about Spencer - or Spenser, rather - without even realising it.
What do you know.)
::
Breanainn dreams of a boy raised to be unicorn bait. It's a difficult process, because the boy doesn't simply have to be a virgin, he has to be pure of heart and mind, as innocent as a newborn. But all the care and trouble pays off, in the end; unicorns are worth quite a lot of money, both whole and as parts, and female unicorns (the only ones boys attract) are worth the most by far, perhaps because it's so much work to keep boys pure in the first place.
Breanainn is a malleable child. He is quiet as he grows up, and his caretakers make sure to keep him content but unspoiled, solitary but not too lonely. He never hears a curse word, never sees a kiss, and the only reason he isn't a eunuch is because they don't want him to have the memory of pain. Also, they're not sure if unicorns count eunuchs as virgins; does remaining celibate matter if you're unable to break said celibacy?
Sometimes he has questions, but the adults - a nurse, a hedge wizard, a merchant, and sometimes others - soothe them away. So he remains unknowing until the day of his sixteenth birthday, when they take him out into the woods to wait for a unicorn.
The caretakers stay behind, of course, close enough to keep a cautious eye on things and capture the unicorn, but far enough away that the beast won't sense them. Breanainn has been told nothing. They trust that Breanainn trusts them; after all, as far as he knows, they have never lied to him.
So Breanainn waits in the woods, singing a little under his breath, and when he isn't paying attention the unicorn arrives.
It's larger than anyone expected, with a coat so blindingly white that the adults have to shield their eyes. Breanainn doesn't seem affected, and before he has time to be surprised the unicorn leans down and touches him with her horn.
There is no way he could ever describe in words what that touch is; it's just a cold tap on his forehead and a small scratch from the point, but at the same time, it's everything. Suddenly, he knows what the past sixteen years have all been about, and in the first act of rebellion in his entire life, he clambers up on the unicorn's back and they're off.
(He has no idea that with this act, he narrowly escapes the fate of all other unicorn bait, to have their virginity auctioned off to the highest bidder. After that, the merchants have no use for them.)
He has no friends to hide with, but the unicorn seems to know what she's doing. She takes him to Spenser and Righon, who accept him into their coven, or group, or whatever it is. They almost don't, or at least Righon almost doesn't, but something about the unicorn convinces him, and he decides later that it was a pretty good choice.
Breanainn's painful innocence is similar to Spenser's overwhelming optimism, but not quite; where Breanainn has not seen any of the world's evils, Spenser simply discredits them. The unicorn gives Breanainn a little knowledge, but after his first experiences with the bustling mass of humanity he chooses to stay in the cabin most of the time, too out of place in the strange world he's been dumped in.
The unicorn comes back sometimes. For the rest of his life, Breanainn remains convinced that it was his singing, and not his innocence, that attracted her in the first place.
::
In his dream, Jon is Yehonatan, and while his life is not as hard as Righon's, it's not easy, either. Righon's life is a sharp, scarring pain, but Yehonatan's is a long, deep ache, spread over decades and sunk into his bones.
He is solicitous of others because no one has ever cared about him; he watches because nobody takes the time to look at him. He has never had friends, and that changed him.
It's too much to tell in one sitting and not substantial enough to make a good story; suffice to say the years of loneliness made him less willing to antagonise anyone, too scared to say anything that might hurt someone's feelings. He considers everything he thinks, and if it might jeopardise his relations with someone, he keeps it inside his head.
It's no way to live, and it's especially dangerous when he's found by the three magicians. Righon needs to be kept in check, Breanainn needs to be coaxed out of his shell, and someone needs to tell Spenser the difference between reality and delusion.
That person isn't Yehonatan, not in this time and age; he grounds them, keeps them safe while they do their magic, but he can't bring himself to do the same outside of the ritual. He's only recently discovered this, whatever it is, and he's too scared to lose it.
::
When Jon wakes up the next morning, he has to shake himself for a second, because something has settled over his skin. He shivers it off and walks into the main room, mostly unsurprised to realise that he's the first one up. Ryan comes in just as Jon is making coffee, Spencer only a step behind.
Brendon is the last to stumble in. He immediately gravitates towards the coffee pot and mumbles, "Jon Walker, you're my hero," before stealing Jon's mug and downing about half of it on the spot.
Watching Brendon sputter and try to soothe his burnt tongue more than makes up for his coffee being stolen, so Jon just tops off the mug and enjoys the show.
"Did anyone else dream anything weird last night?" Spencer demands, because he's a little worried no one else will ask if he doesn't.
"I think we all did, Spence," Ryan says dryly, adding, "Sorry I treated you so badly in our past life, by the way."
Brendon looks up, startled. "Is that what you think it is?" he wonders, because there's always the possibility that it's an alternate universe, maybe, or a mass hallucination, or maybe they've been around each other too long and are finally becoming telepathic and seeing into each other's heads. This seems like it could have come out of Ryan's mind.
Ryan shrugs. "I think so. It would make sense, wouldn't it?"
Spencer and Jon also shrug, almost in unison. Stranger things have happened. Most of them have happened around Pete Wentz.
::
The thing about reincarnation is that it's not just looks and names that are similar.
Yehonatan was the grounding force, the one who kept the others from being so caught up in the magic that they simply disappeared into it; he watched out for the dangers they couldn't see coming. (Jon Walker on bass, ladies and gentleman!)
Spenser gathered the energy, found the leylines and rhythms of the universe and pulled them in, let them swarm around him, directed it towards Righon. (And behind the drumset, we have Spencer Smith!)
Righon focused the energy, shaping and working it, chanting his spells and drawing his symbols. His dedication, obsession, proved its worth; he drove the spell, in all possible ways, and then let it run its course. (Our notable lyricist and guitarist, Ryan Ross!)
Breanainn took Righon's spells and carried them; he spoke to gods and demons, charmed spirits into doing what he wanted, was the face of all their endeavors. Any sort of crippling shyness disappeared when he lost contact with the physical plane. (And of course, our lead singer and sometimes pianist, Brendon Urie!)
The songs they come up with at the cabin end up having a plot, a story, all magic and fairytales; later, they look at them and unanimously decide not to put them in the new album, without ever giving a reason why.
::
"This time around, don't forget to correct," Ryan murmurs, wondering if there's a tune that goes with it, a song that could form around it, "the underlying disconnect."
Brendon laughs. "I hope you're not talking about us, dude. We're pretty much the most connected band I've seen."
Ryan pauses, struck by a thought. "Not yet," he says slowly. "I think something's missing."
::
Spencer has told Ryan about his theory that something about the world is off, which makes a lot more sense now, so Ryan goes to Spencer first with his theory. Jon happens to be there, too, but no one wants to make him move, so they just decide to fill Brendon in later. (Somehow, Brendon always seems to be the last one to know.)
"Of course we need to fix something, I've been thinking that for ages," Spencer says after Ryan has spilled his feelings. "It's getting better, though, so we must be doing something right."
"I think there's more, though." Ryan looks serious, playing with the hem of his t-shirt, and Spencer thinks.
"Is this about that thing you said was coming? What you felt when Bren got hit?"
Ryan shudders at the memory, but shakes his head decisively. "No. It's about us."
"How so?" Jon asks warily, and he's gone from sitting next to Spencer to slouching onto Spencer. Ryan thinks, yes. That.
"Well, we weren't really friends back then," he says instead, because Ryan Ross doesn't say a lot of the things he thinks. That's changing, maybe. In a good way.
Spencer snorts. "I think that's an understatement."
"And we're friends now," Jon added, eyes smiling. "Really good friends, I like to think."
"Me too," Spencer agrees, turning his head so he can smile at Jon, and Jon's head is in danger of slipping off Spencer's shoulder but he just adjusts, wraps his arms more tightly around Spencer. Yes, Ryan thinks again.
"Yes," Ryan says, sighing a little because this is all true but he's not sure they're seeing his point yet. "But don't you think there's something that's still missing?"
Spencer frowns, concentrates. "Maybe? Yeah, you're right." He's still frowning in thought, and Ryan can pinpoint the exact moment comprehension dawns. "You really think -"
Ryan shrugs. "It's a thought."
::
"So basically, you want orgies," Brendon translates when they tell him, and Ryan makes a face, mostly because it's true.
"That's not it -" he tries, but Brendon obviously isn't buying this.
"Orgies," he repeats, with more emphasis this time.
"Just give in, Ryan, it's pretty much the truth anyway," Jon advises. Ryan doesn't miss the days where Jon was terrified to say no to anyone, but he's still kind of annoyed.
Brendon shrugs. "Well, then. Okay. I knew a while ago that we'd all start sleeping together." And apparently Brendon isn't always the last one to know things, after all. Spencer, Jon and Ryan stare at him, shocked. He looks at them. "What? I'm not as sheltered as he was. Correcting for our past lives, remember?" For a moment, his voice sounds almost rueful, but it passes and so Ryan ignores it.
"Is this weird?" he asks instead, because as far as he knows, you don't discuss beginning a polyamorous intra-band relationship, you just... begin it.
"Not even a little bit," Brendon assures him, just as Spencer says, "Maybe a little." They look at each other, raising their eyebrows.
Jon interrupts before they can start anything, saying, "Well, maybe it is, a little. But it's probably better that we talk about it beforehand instead of just jumping in and possibly fucking something up."
"We won't," Spencer declares, and he sounds so sure of himself that they all just turn to look at him. He adds, "It feels right. And I trust you, okay? I trust all of you." Coming from Spencer - coming from Spencer now - that means a whole lot more than it seems.
"Me, too," Jon says immediately.
"Me, three," Brendon pipes in. Ryan just nods.
"So," he begins, absently biting his lower lip, "how do we..."
"Something like this, I think," Jon tells him, grinning, and kisses him.
Distantly, Ryan hears Brendon ask, "Oh, is that so?" with a smile in his voice. Spencer replies, "Let's try it and find out," but Ryan is too wrapped up in Jon, his hand cupping the back of Ryan's head and his teeth scraping just so and the unbelievable rightness that tells him they haven't fucked up after all.
Jon's other hand finds its way under Ryan's shirt, and all Ryan can think is Definitely haven't fucked up before he kind of stops thinking at all.
::
(Righon spent ages creating these spells, the chants and symbols, because this isn't ordinary, even for four men who spend the greater part of their days immersed in so much magic that it's become almost common place.
Spenser and Yehonatan have done their part, but Righon and Breanainn are alone now, their minds up in the stars even if their bodies are technically still in their workroom meditating. Just them, and Righon brought them up there, but it's all Breanainn's show now.)
Ryan fidgets, because he worked for a while on these songs and fuck, what if they're not as good as he thought? Or what if they're good, but not good enough?
And fuck, why couldn't Spencer and Brent be here? They're part of the band, too, and now it's just going to seem like they're not committed and they don't deserve -
"Ryan," Brendon says, looking at him with eyes that are strangely calm for a boy who has to spend most of his days on Ritalin. "It's okay. Your songs are incredible. You did all this, Ryan. Calm down, okay? Let me take some of the pressure."
Oddly enough, Ryan does as he says.
(Breanainn feels a little faint when he comes, because this is Pan, one of the great gods. It's not just fiddling around with some spellbooks and chalk symbols anymore. This is real. This is big.
"You came," he says, a little awed.
Pan quirks a smile. "You called," he says.)
Brendon, despite what he said to Ryan, is getting a little jittery, and he goes and fiddles with the recording of Spencer and Brent simply because he needs something to do. And then he walks in the door, and wow. Brendon thinks he might faint. Or throw up. Or both.
"You came," he says, still a little shell-shocked, and immediately wants to hit himself for sounding so stupid.
Pete grins. "You linked," he says, and with a raised eyebrow gestures for them to get on with it.
Brendon thinks, Okay, this. I can do this. I've done it before (and there are a dozen logical explanations for that thought, but none of them are the right one.) He shares a glance with Ryan, and they launch right in.
("So," Pan begins, looking thoughtful, "what is it that you want from me, mortals?"
Breanainn is perhaps the shyest thing alive when he's on earth, but here, speaking with gods and spirits and stars, he couldn't be more changed. "What more could we ask than the favor of the great god Pan?" he asks, bowing, arm sweeping out and a grin beginning to creep up his face.
Righon gasps, as if Breanainn has gone too far, but Pan seems amused. "Others have asked much more," he says, smiling back. "Much more."
"What can I say?" Breanainn asks, shrugging. "We prefer not to presume like that.")
"So," Pete asks slowly, "what precisely were you hoping for here?"
Brendon knows, theoretically, that he's only a sheltered Mormon kid who knows shit about dealing with other people, but for some reason that doesn't seem to matter. "What more could we ask than the favor of the inestimable Pete Wentz?" he wonders, bowing with a flourish.
Ryan makes a choking noise next to him, and Brendon belatedly wonders if he's gone too far - not everyone is amused by his hamming it up, after all - but there's a strange sound and he realises with a sense of awe that Pete Wentz is laughing.
Pete Wentz. Laughing. At him. In a good way.
"Well," Pete says, and he's sobering up. "Other people have asked for a lot more."
"I like to think we're pretty low-maintenance," Brendon informs him, nodding, and Pete grins again.
("You have my favor, small humans," Pan says, laughing. "And I'll give you something else, as well. You'll know it later.")
"You've definitely got my favor," Pete tells them around a grin. "We'll see about that record contract, too."
::
Spencer hasn't been paying attention, but apparently Brendon has said something incredibly wise and Zack is now gaping at him, bemused and somewhat startled at the same time.
"Fuck, man, where do you get this stuff?" he asks, because Brendon is kind of the most insane kid ever and then he'll come out and say something so spot on it's kind of mind-boggling.
"Unicorns," Ryan says dryly, in that voice where you're never sure if he's joking or serious.
Spencer turns on the steps to the bus, feeling Jon's hand slide onto his shoulder. "I thought unicorns only came to virgins," he says, raising an eyebrow. He's been wondering this for a little while; Brendon spent a lot of time in the woods when they were at the cabin, even after they figured things out, and Spencer's pretty sure he doesn't love nature that much.
"Yeah, me too," Brendon tells him, grinning and bouncing up the steps. "But apparently it's the singing that really gets them." He slides a hand over Spencer's arm as he passes, brushes Jon's hand before hopping -no, really, hopping - into the bus.
Zack laughs at all of them, and Spencer smiles because the joke is actually on Zack, he just doesn't know it.
::
"Do you get along well?" one of the reporters asks, and it's pretty much a fact of life that most reporters are very, very unoriginal. Unfortunately, the corresponding fact is that they're necessary.
"Yes, we do," Spencer answers, and Jon can see him fighting not to roll his eyes.
"How do you think you managed to become friends so fast?" the same reporter wonders, and while Jon is generally pretty well-behaved at these sorts of things, sometimes he just gets bored.
"We all knew each other in a past life, I'm pretty sure that had something to do with it," he says, completely straight-faced.
Brendon hits him. "Dude!" he stage-whispers. "Don't give away all our secrets!"
The reporters titter quietly. Jon loves that, technically, they're not even kidding. It's not their fault the truth is so hard to believe.
::
"Oh, god," Ryan moans, as Brendon slowly works his mouth over the head of Ryan's cock. "Oh, god, Brendon -" Brendon licks, fucking licks up the underside before dipping his head to swallow Ryan whole, or at least make a very valiant attempt, and Ryan's really, really, really close - and then the fucking door fucking opens.
"You started without us?" Jon asks, sounding horrified. "How could you?" Ryan doesn't need to look to know that he's grinning.
"Mm," Brendon says, pulling away to smile at Jon. Ryan could scream. "Come down here, and I'll say hello."
"Finish blowing me, and then you can say hello," Ryan orders, because hasn't anyone ever told Jon and Spencer that interrupting is rude?
Brendon laughs. "I love it when you're bossy," he announces, pressing a small kiss to the inside of Ryan's thigh before looking up at Jon again. "That okay?"
Jon smiles, wrapping an arm around Spencer and pulling them both inside, making sure to shut the door behind them. "We're good with watching."
"For now," Spencer clarifies, and then Brendon gets back to what he was doing and Ryan stops paying attention to the conversation for a while.
::
Spencer's known for a while that there's something else wrong, just one more thing, but he's been kind of distracted recently. With good reason; Brendon, Jon and Ryan are distracting separately. Together? You're lucky if you remember anything you're supposed to be doing that day.
Still, though, there's something off, and eventually he can't just ignore it any longer.
"We need to check this out," he tells Ryan, because he knows that Ryan's vague worries are getting stronger.
Ryan nods. "Yeah, we do."
::
For some reason, they have the strangest urge not to tell Brendon about the plan, but Jon says that it's safer if they're all together and there's really no way that they could not tell him. They're all living on top of each other, now, in and out of each others' pockets, clothes, bunks.
They don't have any sort of workroom, seeing as they're on tour, so they improvise, push the couch out of the way and clear as large a space as they can. Ryan has an urge to start drawing symbols on the ground, but he doesn't actually know what the hell he's doing and anyway, there's nothing to draw with except his good eyeliner and there is no fucking way he's sacrificing that for the cause, not until they're really desperate. He put makeup on instead; it's glowing faintly.
Brendon's the last one to arrive, and when he marches in he's carrying the plush unicorn Spencer got him after they all figured everything out. Spencer had meant it as a joke, but Brendon adores it; sometimes Spencer wonders if, late at night, Brendon whispers all his secrets to the stuffed animal.
"So," Brendon says, setting the unicorn carefully in the corner where it (she?) can watch everything. "What're we doing?"
"We don't really know," Spencer admits.
Jon, remembering three drops of red in a pure white sink, suggests, "Maybe we don't have to know. We could try it on instinct."
Ryan frowns at him. "Of all people, Yehonatan, I would think you would be warning us about something as potentially dangerous as that."
"Righon," Spencer interrupts, smiling lightly, "we all know you would never let us do anything stupid, and Yehonatan would never let us do anything dangerous."
Brendon and Jon exchange a worried look, and Brendon says, "You're not them! You're not them, so stop it, stop it..." He winces, looking as if he wants to do nothing more than reach out and cuddle his unicorn, but he settles for rubbing his temples instead.
Jon can feel it, feel the pressure at the back of his head. He has no idea what the hell he's doing, but someone else does. "Maybe we should let them?" he suggests quietly, as Ryan and Spencer realise what they've been saying and shake their heads, trying to get rid of that vestige of another person's thoughts.
"I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't like him all that much," Ryan says darkly, frowning at his feet for lack of anything else. "I don't want to let him in."
"Not him," Jon clarifies. "Trust me, I don't want to become Yehonatan. But maybe they just want to tell us what to do."
"I don't get this," Spencer complains, because really, he doesn't. "Are they actually in our head? Because that's a little creepy."
Brendon's been staring at the unicorn for the past couple of minutes, just staring, and it's a little odd. Now, in a voice that's almost unsettlingly calm, he says, "No. Just their memories, and those are pretty much blocked. They only come out when we really need it, she says." He blinks, and his face goes from that strange stillness to normal, vibrant.
"Well then," Jon says, choosing to disregard this last, because it'll probably freak him out if he dwells on it too much. "Shall we?"
::
Jon - not Yehonatan, for which he's infinitely grateful - starts them out with the breathing, all four sitting cross-legged on the floor. Breathe in. Their hands are palm down on their knees, completely still. Breathe out. Somehow, the room gets dark, which is odd because it was about noon when they started, and it hasn't been that long. Breathe in. The floor stops being uncomfortable, or else they stop noticing. Breathe out.
In his mind, Jon steps aside and waits, watches. He got them started; now all he has to do is keep everyone tethered.
Spencer realises dreamily that he can see everyone, even though his eyes are still closed; the only difference is that now there are glowing threads connecting everything. He reaches out, pulls one, but it's not just a thread he grabs, it's a pulse. He takes another, and another, and when the air around him is thick and fairly buzzing he reaches for the threads he's amassed and twists them into a shifting, glimmering rope. Ryan holds his hand out without even looking.
"What, no thank you?" Spencer wonders in a hushed voice, and Ryan looks over and grins at him.
"Thank you," Ryan murmurs, and Spencer gives him the rope.
Ryan does something with the rope that Spencer can't even see, and he thinks it's kind of fitting; no one ever really knows what the hell Ryan Ross is thinking. He remembers reporters asking Ryan about his "process", and snorts to himself.
Ryan doesn't hear him. He never does, when he's concentrating. But suddenly he looks up, and the crude rope is... not a rope anymore. Spencer's not actually sure what it is, but it's twisted in on itself and it's full-out shining, not just glimmering or glowing faintly.
"Brendon," Ryan says quietly, and passes it on, like a relay.
Brendon laughs, and there's something bright in his eyes that matches the shine of the whatever-it-is Ryan just handed him. "My turn, huh?" he asks, and before anyone can give a rhetorical answer to the rhetorical question he hops out of his body and runs around tapping everyone on the head with the shining coil.
No, really.
Spencer raises a metaphysical eyebrow as Brendon slides back into his skin and, out loud instead of this weird place in their heads, asks, "Okay, are we done yet?"
Spencer, Ryan and Jon blink open their real eyes and stretch stiff limbs; the clock is saying that they've been sitting like this for about seven hours.
"Wow," Brendon says, looking at the time. "That would explain why I'm so hungry." No one answers, and he looks around curiously. "What? What happened?"
"You don't know?" Spencer asks, his voice almost refusing to let him spit out the words.
Brendon shakes his head. "Nope. You didn't see me hit myself on the head, did you?' He pauses, looks at each of them a little more closely. "What's wrong?"
"You. Um. Died," Spencer tells him, attempting to stay off-hand. "Or he did, anyway."
"Breanainn?" Brendon sounds unconcerned, a little curious. "I figured. I mean, they all did, didn't they? Or they wouldn't have been able to reincarnate or whatever."
"No, Brendon," Ryan interjects sharply, harshly. "You died. You died a long time before the rest of us, and you didn't see it so just stop, okay?"
Brendon considers this, grabbing the stuffed unicorn and hugging it absently as he thinks. "Explosion?" he wonders.
Ryan shakes his head. "No," he states, and repeats, "You didn't see it. You didn't -"
Brendon remembers late-night dreams and the sort of pain you're not supposed to have when you're asleep, and thinks that he didn't see it, but it's entirely possible that he felt it.
"Well," Jon says, and his voice sounds a little croaky. "At least we know what Ryan's feeling of doom was all about, then."
::
The thing is, though, that for some reason Pete Wentz calls and leaves a message telling them not to worry. When Ryan calls him back later, he appears to have no recollection of it.
Still, Ryan stops worrying, at least a little.
::
They're not really expecting it when it comes, because it seems so anticlimactic. They're at another concert, but this time it's not a plastic bottle that comes flying. This time, there's no spin, no stagger, no fall, because Jon looks up and sees something coming at them.
"Spencer!" he yells in his head, but somehow Spencer hears it because he looks up, sees the object whizzing at them. A bullet, maybe, a spell or something else entirely; it doesn't really matter.
With a clash of cymbals that the audience will never hear, Spencer stops time.
And in that frozen moment, it's suddenly easy, so easy, for Spencer to gather up the threads that have winked into existence around him, so easy for him to throw them to Ryan, who lets go of his guitar to shape them into four shining circles that he tosses, one after another, to Brendon.
Brendon juggles them around, and it shouldn't be so easy, but whoever said it had to be hard in the first place? Maybe it's just that they all have a penchant for overcomplicating things.
One, two, three, four. He frisbees the circles at the spell, bullet, explosion, and they blink out of existence one by one. At the end, the thing coming at him - that disappears, too.
Maybe it is that easy.
Brendon claps, and time restarts; they play on.
::
Jon doesn't want to talk to reporters, he wants to go back to his bus and cuddle with his lead singer, who kind of almost died just now but didn't. Unfortunately, he can't say that, so he just has to deal. Fucking reporters.
"So how's the tour going?" one shouts out, and, really. Could she just not think of anything more pointless?
"It's going well," Spencer answers, and he doesn't look any more patient than Jon feels, but no one says anything. Spencer's bitchface is pretty much an accepted fact of life by now; they probably consider themselves lucky that he hasn't walked off yet.
"No disputes?"
"No," Spencer sighs, and Brendon butts in, "I have a theory about that, actually."
Everyone turns to look at him, squinting because the sun is right behind him, but his grin is just as visible as ever. "I think we're magic," he says, eyes wide.
Because it's Brendon, everyone laughs. Jon is just too tired to be amused.
"Hey, so we're going to go now," he says, grabbing Brendon's wrist and starting to tow him away. "See you." He's going to get yelled at later, but it doesn't matter now; Ryan and Spencer are following close behind, looking relieved, and his world has narrowed to his three bandmates and the bus. He thinks he doesn't need anything more than that, except the occasional cup of coffee and maybe a king-size bed.
::
(See, the thing is, that other thing Pan promised? He gives it to them, when they're all kneeling around Breanainn's body, a little shell-shocked and wishing they could do almost everything again, just one more time. He gives them a thousand year rest and a chance to start over.)
"Hey," the message says, Pete's voice coming through the phone's speakers loud and clear. "I told you not to worry, didn't I? I told you it would be all right."
Ryan hums and turns off his cellphone, putting it on the table before snuggling in closer to Brendon, Jon, Spencer. He's comfortable and warm and it's maybe the first time in his life where everything has felt completely right, and he figures thinking can wait until tomorrow.
"Go to sleep," Jon murmurs, and they do.
Author: DF
Pairing: Panic! at the Disco GSF
Summary: "So I've been having these weird dreams," Spencer says casually, because it's increasingly obvious that nobody else is going to speak up.
Notes: So, this story kind of took over my brain and I'm infinitely glad that I actually managed to finish it. It's a little...odd at some points. If you don't like something, tell me what, and I'll see if I can fix it.
Disclaimer: I own the plot, but I do not own Pete Wentz, anyone in or related to Panic! at the Disco, or unicorns. Unfortunately.
The first time it happens, Ryan is fourteen and Spencer is thirteen. Or, well, that's not precisely true, because the first time it happens, Ryan and Spencer are barely as tall as their kitchen tables and have just met. Thing is, though, they're just kids at that point, they wouldn't have known. So. The first time it happens and they could maybe realise it, but don't, Ryan is fourteen and Spencer is thirteen. They are perhaps not the happiest children in the world.
Spencer's not actually incredibly unhappy, but Ryan is, which upsets Spencer. Also, he's got this nagging feeling that something is wrong - not with their specific situation, but just the world in general, maybe. Something seems off somehow. Also, he doesn't trust anyone besides Ryan. His parents too, maybe.
And Ryan... Well, Ryan doesn't like to talk about why he's so unhappy, so Spencer doesn't pressure him usually, just gives the silent support he knows Ryan is secretly grateful for. But the thing is, Ryan is just retreating deeper inside himself, and getting more and more bitter, and this is one of the things that's off about the world.
"No," he says, and they're standing in the parking lot waiting for a ride from Spencer's mom. The sun is practically blinding and Spencer is pretty sure that the asphalt is melting the rubber off the bottoms of his shoes, but there's no shade in sight.
"No?" Ryan asks, like he has no idea what Spencer is talking about. Spencer grits his teeth.
"I'm not letting you do this to yourself again," he growls, and there are thousands of perfectly plausible explanations for this, for that again. The real reason is none of those.
They could notice, but they don't.
::
The first time they could notice, and actually do, Brent is out and Jon is in and no one regrets that decision at all. Even Spencer's not wary, which in hindsight probably should have tipped them off that something about this was odd, because Spencer's always wary. Still, though, Jon's everything they ever wanted and he comes complete with flip flops and day-old scruff.
If there is something wrong about this, it's the way it's so, so right.
The thing about Jon is that he's incredibly punctual, to the point of being five minutes early for everything. When they walk in yet again to find him waiting for them, Spencer says dryly, "You were the last to come, so you're always the first to arrive?"
He watches the world hesitate, and then all of a sudden they're all different people, subtly; Brendon is perfectly still, looking shyly at Ryan, who seems haughtier than usual. Jon's smile is hopeful, a little anxious, and Spencer himself is aware of an unfamiliar sense of optimism. He's probably smiling like a fool.
"It's fine," Ryan says, after a moment of silence. "Early's cool. It doesn't matter, though, because I'm pretty sure we're not giving you up no matter what." He loses the arrogance and smiles, and the world shivers and goes back to normal.
Jon, as calm and assured as ever, looks a little confused. Spencer feels himself close off again, almost automatically, and exchanges a glance with Ryan. No one says anything.
Brendon is the only one who appears not to notice, but his uncharacteristic quietness vanishes into thin air. He jumps to hug Jon, declaring, "Of course not, Jon Walker! You're our favorite." Jon grins, bright as the sun, and everything feels too right again.
::
Ryan dreams in books, cursive writing in rich black ink, scrawled over creamy white pages. He dreams in vellum and gilt edging and illustrated texts with drawings so detailed, they must have taken days, even weeks to perfect. He dreams of skimming pages and deciphering words for hours on end, until he can't see anymore, his eyes are so blurry. Sometimes there are concerned voices talking to him, and sometimes he talks back, but he can never remember what anyone ever says.
Ryan dreams in books and when he wakes up, there are words in his head. Sometimes they make no sense, and sometimes they disappear only to be remembered a week later, but it's a constant in his life.
He's writing a song, to the distant accompaniment of Jon, Spencer and Brendon playing some sort of video game in the next room, when he remembers that morning's words:
This time around, don't forget to correct/ the underlying disconnect
and it doesn't fit with the song he's writing at all, so he scraps it, but the words stick in his head.
::
When they first meet Brendon, Ryan and Spencer kind of expect to see unicorns. But there's no hint of hooves or horns, not even a design on a shirt or a patch on a backpack, and anyway, unicorns aren't real, so they put it out of their heads.
Then one morning a while later, Jon wakes up, looks at Brendon muzzily, and goes out and buys a pack of unicorn stickers, the kind you get for your eight year old sister. He decorates Brendon's bunk with them, and Brendon doesn't protest at all. Spencer smiles.
Ryan thinks that this is also odd, a little, but nobody says anything so he tries to ignore it.
::
Spencer dreams of conversations, and unlike Ryan, he remembers them; he remembers Ryan scolding him for being too nice, telling him that everyone has ulterior motives and that good people are the exception, not the rule. Ryan wears faintly glowing make-up and flowing coats over tight pants and shirts; "Just because there are certain expectations doesn't mean I can't dress well," he remembers Ryan saying, except he's pretty sure Ryan has never said this before, not out loud.
He dreams of talking to an uncertain Jon, a quiet Brendon; he dreams conversations that never have and never will happen. He dreams of a girl with dark brown hair and a bright smile, and even though he's usually pretty affable in these dreams, whenever he sees her in his head he feels a stab of anger so sharp that he wakes up, no matter what.
::
In hindsight, things get the oddest after Jon joins them; never before has Ryan stood over the sink in their tiny bathroom, using the smallest, sharpest kitchen knife to make a small cut on his index finger. His breath fogs the mirror as he leans forward, watching the blood drip into the sink, leaving red streaks that are almost too vibrant on the white.
Three drops and he straightens up, feeling trancelike as he moves his finger away so he won't get any more blood in the sink. A small noise attracts his attention and he turns to see Jon standing at the door patiently.
There are words that are expected in this sort of situation, but Jon doesn't say anything, doesn't even seem too alarmed. He simply looks at Ryan in a mildly curious way and waits.
"Luck," Ryan explains, not sure where it comes from, but somehow it sounds right.
Jon nods. "Don't do it anymore. We'll get by without it." Ryan nods, too, and Jon picks up Ryan's hand and presses a quick kiss against the cut, somehow without getting any of the drying blood on himself. He leaves, and Ryan finishes getting ready.
Later that night, right before the show, Ryan looks down at his hand, and is somehow unsurprised to see that the cut is gone. It's only strange when he thinks about it the next day.
::
"I think I have an idea for the melody of this one," Brendon says excitedly, tapping a sheet full of Ryan's lyrics. This is before they had met Pete, before they've even heard of Jon, and Brent is sitting on the couch next to Spencer. Spencer who is slightly worried.
"No," Ryan snaps, like Spencer had known he would. Ryan has this pressing need to write all the lyrics, all the music by himself, and while it inevitably turns out well, Spencer's a little worried.
Brendon can be a pushover occasionally, but some strange stubbornness possesses him and he says, "You can say no after you listen to it, if you don't like it."
"I'm saying no now," Ryan says, because for as long as he can remember he hasn't liked collaboration. If it's just one person he can get all the praise or the criticism, but having multiple people makes things complicated. This is his reasoning, anyway.
"Ryan," Spencer warns him, and Brendon adds, "You don't have to do everything on your own, you know."
Brent gives them a weird look, but Ryan pauses and taps his fingers on his leg thoughtfully. "Okay," he agrees abruptly, and when Brendon finishes playing, he doesn't say no.
(Spencer sometimes has a weird thought: there is something broken that they are fixing. The off feeling he gets, maybe. This is part of the fixing.)
::
Jon dreams of watching, which isn't so different from real life. He dreams of seeing, and sometimes he forgets in the morning and sometimes he doesn't, like the morning he wakes up and goes to find Brendon's unicorns.
He doesn't think too much about it; it's just a thing, just weird dreams involving his bandmates, occasionally a few other people. Sometimes, unthinkingly, he'll recall the images from a hazy vision, try to capture them using his camera or just his eyes, if his camera isn't there.
There are pictures he'll never show anyone, and for some reason he thinks of them as before and after: before has Ryan looking coldly prideful, Spencer smiling naively, Brendon huddled on a couch looking small and innocent. After is Ryan grinning warmly and hugging a fan, Brendon playing piano with the depths of his emotion visible on his face, Spencer - well, one is of Spencer glaring at the camera, and the other is Spencer smiling again, still happy but with eyes that are a little bit more jaded, now. As awesome as Spencer's bitchface is, Jon prefers the latter.
These aren't the only photos, of course, and Jon's not entirely sure why he's called it before and after, but this is another one of the things that they don't talk about.
::
Brendon gets hit by a plastic bottle at a concert, and Ryan's heart skips a beat but his fingers don't. It's like dreaming again, but in fast forward and while he's awake. Pages flip, faster and faster until the words become just a blur, and apparently this book has doodles at the bottom of the pages, flipbook style. A stick figure gets hit by something, spins, and eventually collapses to the ground. There's a break of a couple pages and then the crude animation starts again; stagger spin fall stagger spin fall stagger spin fall stagger spin fall and Ryan's playing through it all.
Then reality slams back in and he drops his guitar, runs to Brendon. Spencer and Jon are only just doing the same.
There's a feeling of dread in Ryan's stomach, but it's not even about this, because Brendon's only deathly still for about a minute before getting up again, just as energetic as ever. Ryan's dread is prescient; something is creeping closer and closer, he's just not sure what.
::
After that show, Ryan is freaking out very loudly in the dressing room. Brendon is trying to do something to work off all his nervous energy, drumming on the walls and bouncing anxiously from chair to chair, and Spencer yells at him because he's got a really bad headache and this isn't fucking helping.
Jon walks in and shuts the door behind him, walks to Ryan and murmurs in his ear, gives Brendon a hug, moves behind Spencer and starts to rub his neck. They all calm down almost immediately. There's something about Jon that relaxes and grounds everyone he comes into contact with, which he considers a pretty lucky talent, since almost everyone he knows has their feet so far off the ground they're liable to bump into the moon.
After that, especially at the cabin, Jon wanders in whenever Brendon and Ryan are arguing. Things tend to get a bit more reasonable when he's in the room.
::
"So I've been having these weird dreams," Spencer says casually, because it's increasingly obvious that nobody else is going to speak up.
"Yeah?" Jon asks, looking intrigued and a little relieved that someone else mentioned it.
"Yeah. About us, except it's not exactly us."
"What do you mean?" Jon wonders, every fiber of his being paying attention; Ryan is watching too, eyes serious, but Brendon just looks curious.
"Ryan's even bitchier than usual, and Jon, you act like you don't think anyone likes you."
"How could anyone not like Jon?" Brendon asks, scandalised, but Spencer just continues.
"And Brendon is possibly the most sheltered person ever," Spencer finishes, sparing a glance for the boy - man, technically, but it doesn't really seem like that sometimes.
Jon gets up wordlessly and goes to his room, returning with a portfolio full of photographs. He quickly sorts them into their two categories, but before Spencer can begin looking through them, Ryan grabs the piles and flips through. He's humming absently, something unrecognisable.
"You too?" Spencer asks Jon, waiting for Ryan to finish looking at the photos. Jon nods.
"Ever since I met you guys," he says, smiling faintly. "There are... odd moments, too."
"Me, too," Ryan volunteers absently, looking up. All eyes swung to Brendon, who shrugged.
"I don't remember my dreams," he informed them. "That's cool, though." He fidgeted for a moment on his chair, before bouncing up. "Hey, I think I'm going to go on a walk. I'll see you guys later, okay?"
Before they can answer, he's out the door. This isn't a new thing - Brendon really seems to like the woods, he goes on a walk at least every other day - but they're all kind of worried regardless.
"I'm going to go find him," Ryan declares, pushing the photos over to Spencer. "I'll tell you the rest later." He leaves almost as quickly as Brendon had, and Spencer and Jon sit in the silence that's left.
When Brendon and Ryan come back, they're laughing like everything's normal. Jon grins and challenges Brendon to a game of Guitar Hero, and somehow the subject doesn't come up again for the rest of the night.
::
They talk about it again a couple times over the next week, but Brendon still doesn't know what they're talking about and nobody has any ideas about what this is, besides a bunch of weird dreams that have a couple similarities.
Spencer stills feels something's off, though, and Ryan says something's coming soon - not the dread he felt when Brendon got hit, but something - and Jon just keeps an eye on all of them, because that's what he does.
They try to focus more on the music. After all, that's what they're there for, not speculation on feelings that may be nothing at all.
::
There's one day where Brendon stays outside until one, staring at the trees until he can barely see them, it's so dark. Sometimes he thinks he sees a flash of white behind the panorama of green and brown, but only for a moment; hallucinations, maybe, or someone walking around. Or something else.
When he gets back to the cabin, he falls into bed and dreams of forests and explosions, endless arrays of green and overwhelming pain.
::
For a couple days after that, the cabin is filled with a strange sort of tension, like a wave is just hovering over them, waiting to crash down. Brendon is fidgety; he doesn't seem able to concentrate on anything and Ryan yells at him more than a couple times.
Jon just tries to keep things as calm as he can while they wait for whatever it is they're waiting for. It's tiring, both the waiting and the wave; he and Spencer collapse on the couch together sometimes in the middle of the afternoon, curling into each other as they sleep. Occasionally Ryan joins them.
Brendon doesn't; the waiting is hitting him the hardest and he doesn't usually rest. When he does, it's mostly in his bunk, where his inability to sit still won't bother anyone. Sometimes Jon wonders if Brendon is the reason for this tension, but he can't think of why.
::
"So," Brendon says quietly, watching Ryan, Spencer and Jon drift in and out of partial sleep. They're all mostly awake right now, have been since Brendon walked in and the air started crackling, almost. Spencer thinks this is how it must feel right before lightning hits.
"So," Brendon repeats, "Jon. Thanks for the unicorns."
Jon opens his eyes wide, surprised, before relaxing again and smiling. "Welcome." Ryan holds out his hand and beckons for Brendon to join them, and he does; it's a little tight, all four of them on the couch, but there's space. Of course there is.
Spencer closes his eyes and listens to all four of their hearts beating together.
::
When they go to bed that night, they dream of a life a long, long time ago, and they aren't themselves, but they are.
::
Ryan dreams of being a boy and then a man named Righon, and there are disturbing similarities to his own life but where Ryan was eventually coaxed most of the way out of his shell, Righon simply retreats into himself. He cultivates sarcasm and hates everyone besides Spenser, the foolish idealist who also happens to be his best friend.
He buries himself in his work because he's convinced no one else can do it right, and he is brilliant. Sometimes he is selfish, and sometimes he disconnects from himself, and other times he feels so much he thinks he could die. He doesn't, invariably, but he thinks it's possible he might one day.
Righon is not a nice person, or a happy person, but he genuinely cares about Spenser. He simply doesn't show it very often.
He is also an excellent magician.
::
Spencer dreams of Spenser, who isn't as stupid as Righon says he is, but is more optimistic than is probably healthy. He believes that everyone is good, even if it's sometimes hidden, which Righon says will get him in trouble one day.
It does. One day - after they meet Breanainn, after they meet Yehonatan - Spenser meets a girl with dark brown hair and a bright smile. She is possibly the most beautiful girl he has ever met. (She is not the most beautiful person - that honor belongs to Righon, on the outside. Breanainn has the most beautiful eyes, Yehonatan the most beautiful smile - but she is the most beautiful girl.)
When there is time to spare, when he isn't practicing magic or poring over books or trying to convince Righon to enjoy life once in a while, he seeks her out. He thinks she would seek him out, too, but everyone is wary of the four musicians living on the outskirts of town. Her family probably pressures her to let Spenser come to town, instead.
When they have courted decorously for an entire year, Spenser asks her to marry him. Righon disapproves, but he always has, anyway, so Spenser chooses not to listen this time. Breanainn knows nothing of relationships, for the most part, but he is happy that Spenser is happy. Yehonatan watches, and waits, but if thinks anything he doesn't say it; this is what he does.
Spenser has just begun thinking about wedding plans when he stumbles across his fiancee with another man, with in the most carnal sense; he stumbles out of the room, horrified, and doesn't speak for a day. But when she makes her excuses and begs for forgiveness he believes her, gives her a second chance, and then a third, and then a fourth.
The wedding is postponed and postponed; finally, she breaks it off because, she says, she never really wanted him in the first place; she wanted to see if she could snag a magician, and, anyway, it gave her a certain status. Her new fiance is rich, though, and marriage to a rich man is more advantageous than marriage to a sweet magician with a merely average income.
He goes to see her one night, and her new fiance's brothers find him. When he returns to the cabin he is filthy, bruised and broken.
Yehonatan tends his wounds, Breanainn whispers comforts in his ears, and Righon says, "I told you all along." Spenser thinks maybe Righon has the right of it, this time.
He takes to bitterness, to sarcasm, to walls and shields and sharp edges. What took Ryan years to develop takes him months, because he put humanity on a pedestal so high that when it falls, the sheer momentum crushes him. (At this point, Spencer separates himself from Spenser and realises that, huh, Ryan apparently wrote I Write Sins Not Tragedies about Spencer - or Spenser, rather - without even realising it.
What do you know.)
::
Breanainn dreams of a boy raised to be unicorn bait. It's a difficult process, because the boy doesn't simply have to be a virgin, he has to be pure of heart and mind, as innocent as a newborn. But all the care and trouble pays off, in the end; unicorns are worth quite a lot of money, both whole and as parts, and female unicorns (the only ones boys attract) are worth the most by far, perhaps because it's so much work to keep boys pure in the first place.
Breanainn is a malleable child. He is quiet as he grows up, and his caretakers make sure to keep him content but unspoiled, solitary but not too lonely. He never hears a curse word, never sees a kiss, and the only reason he isn't a eunuch is because they don't want him to have the memory of pain. Also, they're not sure if unicorns count eunuchs as virgins; does remaining celibate matter if you're unable to break said celibacy?
Sometimes he has questions, but the adults - a nurse, a hedge wizard, a merchant, and sometimes others - soothe them away. So he remains unknowing until the day of his sixteenth birthday, when they take him out into the woods to wait for a unicorn.
The caretakers stay behind, of course, close enough to keep a cautious eye on things and capture the unicorn, but far enough away that the beast won't sense them. Breanainn has been told nothing. They trust that Breanainn trusts them; after all, as far as he knows, they have never lied to him.
So Breanainn waits in the woods, singing a little under his breath, and when he isn't paying attention the unicorn arrives.
It's larger than anyone expected, with a coat so blindingly white that the adults have to shield their eyes. Breanainn doesn't seem affected, and before he has time to be surprised the unicorn leans down and touches him with her horn.
There is no way he could ever describe in words what that touch is; it's just a cold tap on his forehead and a small scratch from the point, but at the same time, it's everything. Suddenly, he knows what the past sixteen years have all been about, and in the first act of rebellion in his entire life, he clambers up on the unicorn's back and they're off.
(He has no idea that with this act, he narrowly escapes the fate of all other unicorn bait, to have their virginity auctioned off to the highest bidder. After that, the merchants have no use for them.)
He has no friends to hide with, but the unicorn seems to know what she's doing. She takes him to Spenser and Righon, who accept him into their coven, or group, or whatever it is. They almost don't, or at least Righon almost doesn't, but something about the unicorn convinces him, and he decides later that it was a pretty good choice.
Breanainn's painful innocence is similar to Spenser's overwhelming optimism, but not quite; where Breanainn has not seen any of the world's evils, Spenser simply discredits them. The unicorn gives Breanainn a little knowledge, but after his first experiences with the bustling mass of humanity he chooses to stay in the cabin most of the time, too out of place in the strange world he's been dumped in.
The unicorn comes back sometimes. For the rest of his life, Breanainn remains convinced that it was his singing, and not his innocence, that attracted her in the first place.
::
In his dream, Jon is Yehonatan, and while his life is not as hard as Righon's, it's not easy, either. Righon's life is a sharp, scarring pain, but Yehonatan's is a long, deep ache, spread over decades and sunk into his bones.
He is solicitous of others because no one has ever cared about him; he watches because nobody takes the time to look at him. He has never had friends, and that changed him.
It's too much to tell in one sitting and not substantial enough to make a good story; suffice to say the years of loneliness made him less willing to antagonise anyone, too scared to say anything that might hurt someone's feelings. He considers everything he thinks, and if it might jeopardise his relations with someone, he keeps it inside his head.
It's no way to live, and it's especially dangerous when he's found by the three magicians. Righon needs to be kept in check, Breanainn needs to be coaxed out of his shell, and someone needs to tell Spenser the difference between reality and delusion.
That person isn't Yehonatan, not in this time and age; he grounds them, keeps them safe while they do their magic, but he can't bring himself to do the same outside of the ritual. He's only recently discovered this, whatever it is, and he's too scared to lose it.
::
When Jon wakes up the next morning, he has to shake himself for a second, because something has settled over his skin. He shivers it off and walks into the main room, mostly unsurprised to realise that he's the first one up. Ryan comes in just as Jon is making coffee, Spencer only a step behind.
Brendon is the last to stumble in. He immediately gravitates towards the coffee pot and mumbles, "Jon Walker, you're my hero," before stealing Jon's mug and downing about half of it on the spot.
Watching Brendon sputter and try to soothe his burnt tongue more than makes up for his coffee being stolen, so Jon just tops off the mug and enjoys the show.
"Did anyone else dream anything weird last night?" Spencer demands, because he's a little worried no one else will ask if he doesn't.
"I think we all did, Spence," Ryan says dryly, adding, "Sorry I treated you so badly in our past life, by the way."
Brendon looks up, startled. "Is that what you think it is?" he wonders, because there's always the possibility that it's an alternate universe, maybe, or a mass hallucination, or maybe they've been around each other too long and are finally becoming telepathic and seeing into each other's heads. This seems like it could have come out of Ryan's mind.
Ryan shrugs. "I think so. It would make sense, wouldn't it?"
Spencer and Jon also shrug, almost in unison. Stranger things have happened. Most of them have happened around Pete Wentz.
::
The thing about reincarnation is that it's not just looks and names that are similar.
Yehonatan was the grounding force, the one who kept the others from being so caught up in the magic that they simply disappeared into it; he watched out for the dangers they couldn't see coming. (Jon Walker on bass, ladies and gentleman!)
Spenser gathered the energy, found the leylines and rhythms of the universe and pulled them in, let them swarm around him, directed it towards Righon. (And behind the drumset, we have Spencer Smith!)
Righon focused the energy, shaping and working it, chanting his spells and drawing his symbols. His dedication, obsession, proved its worth; he drove the spell, in all possible ways, and then let it run its course. (Our notable lyricist and guitarist, Ryan Ross!)
Breanainn took Righon's spells and carried them; he spoke to gods and demons, charmed spirits into doing what he wanted, was the face of all their endeavors. Any sort of crippling shyness disappeared when he lost contact with the physical plane. (And of course, our lead singer and sometimes pianist, Brendon Urie!)
The songs they come up with at the cabin end up having a plot, a story, all magic and fairytales; later, they look at them and unanimously decide not to put them in the new album, without ever giving a reason why.
::
"This time around, don't forget to correct," Ryan murmurs, wondering if there's a tune that goes with it, a song that could form around it, "the underlying disconnect."
Brendon laughs. "I hope you're not talking about us, dude. We're pretty much the most connected band I've seen."
Ryan pauses, struck by a thought. "Not yet," he says slowly. "I think something's missing."
::
Spencer has told Ryan about his theory that something about the world is off, which makes a lot more sense now, so Ryan goes to Spencer first with his theory. Jon happens to be there, too, but no one wants to make him move, so they just decide to fill Brendon in later. (Somehow, Brendon always seems to be the last one to know.)
"Of course we need to fix something, I've been thinking that for ages," Spencer says after Ryan has spilled his feelings. "It's getting better, though, so we must be doing something right."
"I think there's more, though." Ryan looks serious, playing with the hem of his t-shirt, and Spencer thinks.
"Is this about that thing you said was coming? What you felt when Bren got hit?"
Ryan shudders at the memory, but shakes his head decisively. "No. It's about us."
"How so?" Jon asks warily, and he's gone from sitting next to Spencer to slouching onto Spencer. Ryan thinks, yes. That.
"Well, we weren't really friends back then," he says instead, because Ryan Ross doesn't say a lot of the things he thinks. That's changing, maybe. In a good way.
Spencer snorts. "I think that's an understatement."
"And we're friends now," Jon added, eyes smiling. "Really good friends, I like to think."
"Me too," Spencer agrees, turning his head so he can smile at Jon, and Jon's head is in danger of slipping off Spencer's shoulder but he just adjusts, wraps his arms more tightly around Spencer. Yes, Ryan thinks again.
"Yes," Ryan says, sighing a little because this is all true but he's not sure they're seeing his point yet. "But don't you think there's something that's still missing?"
Spencer frowns, concentrates. "Maybe? Yeah, you're right." He's still frowning in thought, and Ryan can pinpoint the exact moment comprehension dawns. "You really think -"
Ryan shrugs. "It's a thought."
::
"So basically, you want orgies," Brendon translates when they tell him, and Ryan makes a face, mostly because it's true.
"That's not it -" he tries, but Brendon obviously isn't buying this.
"Orgies," he repeats, with more emphasis this time.
"Just give in, Ryan, it's pretty much the truth anyway," Jon advises. Ryan doesn't miss the days where Jon was terrified to say no to anyone, but he's still kind of annoyed.
Brendon shrugs. "Well, then. Okay. I knew a while ago that we'd all start sleeping together." And apparently Brendon isn't always the last one to know things, after all. Spencer, Jon and Ryan stare at him, shocked. He looks at them. "What? I'm not as sheltered as he was. Correcting for our past lives, remember?" For a moment, his voice sounds almost rueful, but it passes and so Ryan ignores it.
"Is this weird?" he asks instead, because as far as he knows, you don't discuss beginning a polyamorous intra-band relationship, you just... begin it.
"Not even a little bit," Brendon assures him, just as Spencer says, "Maybe a little." They look at each other, raising their eyebrows.
Jon interrupts before they can start anything, saying, "Well, maybe it is, a little. But it's probably better that we talk about it beforehand instead of just jumping in and possibly fucking something up."
"We won't," Spencer declares, and he sounds so sure of himself that they all just turn to look at him. He adds, "It feels right. And I trust you, okay? I trust all of you." Coming from Spencer - coming from Spencer now - that means a whole lot more than it seems.
"Me, too," Jon says immediately.
"Me, three," Brendon pipes in. Ryan just nods.
"So," he begins, absently biting his lower lip, "how do we..."
"Something like this, I think," Jon tells him, grinning, and kisses him.
Distantly, Ryan hears Brendon ask, "Oh, is that so?" with a smile in his voice. Spencer replies, "Let's try it and find out," but Ryan is too wrapped up in Jon, his hand cupping the back of Ryan's head and his teeth scraping just so and the unbelievable rightness that tells him they haven't fucked up after all.
Jon's other hand finds its way under Ryan's shirt, and all Ryan can think is Definitely haven't fucked up before he kind of stops thinking at all.
::
(Righon spent ages creating these spells, the chants and symbols, because this isn't ordinary, even for four men who spend the greater part of their days immersed in so much magic that it's become almost common place.
Spenser and Yehonatan have done their part, but Righon and Breanainn are alone now, their minds up in the stars even if their bodies are technically still in their workroom meditating. Just them, and Righon brought them up there, but it's all Breanainn's show now.)
Ryan fidgets, because he worked for a while on these songs and fuck, what if they're not as good as he thought? Or what if they're good, but not good enough?
And fuck, why couldn't Spencer and Brent be here? They're part of the band, too, and now it's just going to seem like they're not committed and they don't deserve -
"Ryan," Brendon says, looking at him with eyes that are strangely calm for a boy who has to spend most of his days on Ritalin. "It's okay. Your songs are incredible. You did all this, Ryan. Calm down, okay? Let me take some of the pressure."
Oddly enough, Ryan does as he says.
(Breanainn feels a little faint when he comes, because this is Pan, one of the great gods. It's not just fiddling around with some spellbooks and chalk symbols anymore. This is real. This is big.
"You came," he says, a little awed.
Pan quirks a smile. "You called," he says.)
Brendon, despite what he said to Ryan, is getting a little jittery, and he goes and fiddles with the recording of Spencer and Brent simply because he needs something to do. And then he walks in the door, and wow. Brendon thinks he might faint. Or throw up. Or both.
"You came," he says, still a little shell-shocked, and immediately wants to hit himself for sounding so stupid.
Pete grins. "You linked," he says, and with a raised eyebrow gestures for them to get on with it.
Brendon thinks, Okay, this. I can do this. I've done it before (and there are a dozen logical explanations for that thought, but none of them are the right one.) He shares a glance with Ryan, and they launch right in.
("So," Pan begins, looking thoughtful, "what is it that you want from me, mortals?"
Breanainn is perhaps the shyest thing alive when he's on earth, but here, speaking with gods and spirits and stars, he couldn't be more changed. "What more could we ask than the favor of the great god Pan?" he asks, bowing, arm sweeping out and a grin beginning to creep up his face.
Righon gasps, as if Breanainn has gone too far, but Pan seems amused. "Others have asked much more," he says, smiling back. "Much more."
"What can I say?" Breanainn asks, shrugging. "We prefer not to presume like that.")
"So," Pete asks slowly, "what precisely were you hoping for here?"
Brendon knows, theoretically, that he's only a sheltered Mormon kid who knows shit about dealing with other people, but for some reason that doesn't seem to matter. "What more could we ask than the favor of the inestimable Pete Wentz?" he wonders, bowing with a flourish.
Ryan makes a choking noise next to him, and Brendon belatedly wonders if he's gone too far - not everyone is amused by his hamming it up, after all - but there's a strange sound and he realises with a sense of awe that Pete Wentz is laughing.
Pete Wentz. Laughing. At him. In a good way.
"Well," Pete says, and he's sobering up. "Other people have asked for a lot more."
"I like to think we're pretty low-maintenance," Brendon informs him, nodding, and Pete grins again.
("You have my favor, small humans," Pan says, laughing. "And I'll give you something else, as well. You'll know it later.")
"You've definitely got my favor," Pete tells them around a grin. "We'll see about that record contract, too."
::
Spencer hasn't been paying attention, but apparently Brendon has said something incredibly wise and Zack is now gaping at him, bemused and somewhat startled at the same time.
"Fuck, man, where do you get this stuff?" he asks, because Brendon is kind of the most insane kid ever and then he'll come out and say something so spot on it's kind of mind-boggling.
"Unicorns," Ryan says dryly, in that voice where you're never sure if he's joking or serious.
Spencer turns on the steps to the bus, feeling Jon's hand slide onto his shoulder. "I thought unicorns only came to virgins," he says, raising an eyebrow. He's been wondering this for a little while; Brendon spent a lot of time in the woods when they were at the cabin, even after they figured things out, and Spencer's pretty sure he doesn't love nature that much.
"Yeah, me too," Brendon tells him, grinning and bouncing up the steps. "But apparently it's the singing that really gets them." He slides a hand over Spencer's arm as he passes, brushes Jon's hand before hopping -no, really, hopping - into the bus.
Zack laughs at all of them, and Spencer smiles because the joke is actually on Zack, he just doesn't know it.
::
"Do you get along well?" one of the reporters asks, and it's pretty much a fact of life that most reporters are very, very unoriginal. Unfortunately, the corresponding fact is that they're necessary.
"Yes, we do," Spencer answers, and Jon can see him fighting not to roll his eyes.
"How do you think you managed to become friends so fast?" the same reporter wonders, and while Jon is generally pretty well-behaved at these sorts of things, sometimes he just gets bored.
"We all knew each other in a past life, I'm pretty sure that had something to do with it," he says, completely straight-faced.
Brendon hits him. "Dude!" he stage-whispers. "Don't give away all our secrets!"
The reporters titter quietly. Jon loves that, technically, they're not even kidding. It's not their fault the truth is so hard to believe.
::
"Oh, god," Ryan moans, as Brendon slowly works his mouth over the head of Ryan's cock. "Oh, god, Brendon -" Brendon licks, fucking licks up the underside before dipping his head to swallow Ryan whole, or at least make a very valiant attempt, and Ryan's really, really, really close - and then the fucking door fucking opens.
"You started without us?" Jon asks, sounding horrified. "How could you?" Ryan doesn't need to look to know that he's grinning.
"Mm," Brendon says, pulling away to smile at Jon. Ryan could scream. "Come down here, and I'll say hello."
"Finish blowing me, and then you can say hello," Ryan orders, because hasn't anyone ever told Jon and Spencer that interrupting is rude?
Brendon laughs. "I love it when you're bossy," he announces, pressing a small kiss to the inside of Ryan's thigh before looking up at Jon again. "That okay?"
Jon smiles, wrapping an arm around Spencer and pulling them both inside, making sure to shut the door behind them. "We're good with watching."
"For now," Spencer clarifies, and then Brendon gets back to what he was doing and Ryan stops paying attention to the conversation for a while.
::
Spencer's known for a while that there's something else wrong, just one more thing, but he's been kind of distracted recently. With good reason; Brendon, Jon and Ryan are distracting separately. Together? You're lucky if you remember anything you're supposed to be doing that day.
Still, though, there's something off, and eventually he can't just ignore it any longer.
"We need to check this out," he tells Ryan, because he knows that Ryan's vague worries are getting stronger.
Ryan nods. "Yeah, we do."
::
For some reason, they have the strangest urge not to tell Brendon about the plan, but Jon says that it's safer if they're all together and there's really no way that they could not tell him. They're all living on top of each other, now, in and out of each others' pockets, clothes, bunks.
They don't have any sort of workroom, seeing as they're on tour, so they improvise, push the couch out of the way and clear as large a space as they can. Ryan has an urge to start drawing symbols on the ground, but he doesn't actually know what the hell he's doing and anyway, there's nothing to draw with except his good eyeliner and there is no fucking way he's sacrificing that for the cause, not until they're really desperate. He put makeup on instead; it's glowing faintly.
Brendon's the last one to arrive, and when he marches in he's carrying the plush unicorn Spencer got him after they all figured everything out. Spencer had meant it as a joke, but Brendon adores it; sometimes Spencer wonders if, late at night, Brendon whispers all his secrets to the stuffed animal.
"So," Brendon says, setting the unicorn carefully in the corner where it (she?) can watch everything. "What're we doing?"
"We don't really know," Spencer admits.
Jon, remembering three drops of red in a pure white sink, suggests, "Maybe we don't have to know. We could try it on instinct."
Ryan frowns at him. "Of all people, Yehonatan, I would think you would be warning us about something as potentially dangerous as that."
"Righon," Spencer interrupts, smiling lightly, "we all know you would never let us do anything stupid, and Yehonatan would never let us do anything dangerous."
Brendon and Jon exchange a worried look, and Brendon says, "You're not them! You're not them, so stop it, stop it..." He winces, looking as if he wants to do nothing more than reach out and cuddle his unicorn, but he settles for rubbing his temples instead.
Jon can feel it, feel the pressure at the back of his head. He has no idea what the hell he's doing, but someone else does. "Maybe we should let them?" he suggests quietly, as Ryan and Spencer realise what they've been saying and shake their heads, trying to get rid of that vestige of another person's thoughts.
"I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't like him all that much," Ryan says darkly, frowning at his feet for lack of anything else. "I don't want to let him in."
"Not him," Jon clarifies. "Trust me, I don't want to become Yehonatan. But maybe they just want to tell us what to do."
"I don't get this," Spencer complains, because really, he doesn't. "Are they actually in our head? Because that's a little creepy."
Brendon's been staring at the unicorn for the past couple of minutes, just staring, and it's a little odd. Now, in a voice that's almost unsettlingly calm, he says, "No. Just their memories, and those are pretty much blocked. They only come out when we really need it, she says." He blinks, and his face goes from that strange stillness to normal, vibrant.
"Well then," Jon says, choosing to disregard this last, because it'll probably freak him out if he dwells on it too much. "Shall we?"
::
Jon - not Yehonatan, for which he's infinitely grateful - starts them out with the breathing, all four sitting cross-legged on the floor. Breathe in. Their hands are palm down on their knees, completely still. Breathe out. Somehow, the room gets dark, which is odd because it was about noon when they started, and it hasn't been that long. Breathe in. The floor stops being uncomfortable, or else they stop noticing. Breathe out.
In his mind, Jon steps aside and waits, watches. He got them started; now all he has to do is keep everyone tethered.
Spencer realises dreamily that he can see everyone, even though his eyes are still closed; the only difference is that now there are glowing threads connecting everything. He reaches out, pulls one, but it's not just a thread he grabs, it's a pulse. He takes another, and another, and when the air around him is thick and fairly buzzing he reaches for the threads he's amassed and twists them into a shifting, glimmering rope. Ryan holds his hand out without even looking.
"What, no thank you?" Spencer wonders in a hushed voice, and Ryan looks over and grins at him.
"Thank you," Ryan murmurs, and Spencer gives him the rope.
Ryan does something with the rope that Spencer can't even see, and he thinks it's kind of fitting; no one ever really knows what the hell Ryan Ross is thinking. He remembers reporters asking Ryan about his "process", and snorts to himself.
Ryan doesn't hear him. He never does, when he's concentrating. But suddenly he looks up, and the crude rope is... not a rope anymore. Spencer's not actually sure what it is, but it's twisted in on itself and it's full-out shining, not just glimmering or glowing faintly.
"Brendon," Ryan says quietly, and passes it on, like a relay.
Brendon laughs, and there's something bright in his eyes that matches the shine of the whatever-it-is Ryan just handed him. "My turn, huh?" he asks, and before anyone can give a rhetorical answer to the rhetorical question he hops out of his body and runs around tapping everyone on the head with the shining coil.
No, really.
Spencer raises a metaphysical eyebrow as Brendon slides back into his skin and, out loud instead of this weird place in their heads, asks, "Okay, are we done yet?"
Spencer, Ryan and Jon blink open their real eyes and stretch stiff limbs; the clock is saying that they've been sitting like this for about seven hours.
"Wow," Brendon says, looking at the time. "That would explain why I'm so hungry." No one answers, and he looks around curiously. "What? What happened?"
"You don't know?" Spencer asks, his voice almost refusing to let him spit out the words.
Brendon shakes his head. "Nope. You didn't see me hit myself on the head, did you?' He pauses, looks at each of them a little more closely. "What's wrong?"
"You. Um. Died," Spencer tells him, attempting to stay off-hand. "Or he did, anyway."
"Breanainn?" Brendon sounds unconcerned, a little curious. "I figured. I mean, they all did, didn't they? Or they wouldn't have been able to reincarnate or whatever."
"No, Brendon," Ryan interjects sharply, harshly. "You died. You died a long time before the rest of us, and you didn't see it so just stop, okay?"
Brendon considers this, grabbing the stuffed unicorn and hugging it absently as he thinks. "Explosion?" he wonders.
Ryan shakes his head. "No," he states, and repeats, "You didn't see it. You didn't -"
Brendon remembers late-night dreams and the sort of pain you're not supposed to have when you're asleep, and thinks that he didn't see it, but it's entirely possible that he felt it.
"Well," Jon says, and his voice sounds a little croaky. "At least we know what Ryan's feeling of doom was all about, then."
::
The thing is, though, that for some reason Pete Wentz calls and leaves a message telling them not to worry. When Ryan calls him back later, he appears to have no recollection of it.
Still, Ryan stops worrying, at least a little.
::
They're not really expecting it when it comes, because it seems so anticlimactic. They're at another concert, but this time it's not a plastic bottle that comes flying. This time, there's no spin, no stagger, no fall, because Jon looks up and sees something coming at them.
"Spencer!" he yells in his head, but somehow Spencer hears it because he looks up, sees the object whizzing at them. A bullet, maybe, a spell or something else entirely; it doesn't really matter.
With a clash of cymbals that the audience will never hear, Spencer stops time.
And in that frozen moment, it's suddenly easy, so easy, for Spencer to gather up the threads that have winked into existence around him, so easy for him to throw them to Ryan, who lets go of his guitar to shape them into four shining circles that he tosses, one after another, to Brendon.
Brendon juggles them around, and it shouldn't be so easy, but whoever said it had to be hard in the first place? Maybe it's just that they all have a penchant for overcomplicating things.
One, two, three, four. He frisbees the circles at the spell, bullet, explosion, and they blink out of existence one by one. At the end, the thing coming at him - that disappears, too.
Maybe it is that easy.
Brendon claps, and time restarts; they play on.
::
Jon doesn't want to talk to reporters, he wants to go back to his bus and cuddle with his lead singer, who kind of almost died just now but didn't. Unfortunately, he can't say that, so he just has to deal. Fucking reporters.
"So how's the tour going?" one shouts out, and, really. Could she just not think of anything more pointless?
"It's going well," Spencer answers, and he doesn't look any more patient than Jon feels, but no one says anything. Spencer's bitchface is pretty much an accepted fact of life by now; they probably consider themselves lucky that he hasn't walked off yet.
"No disputes?"
"No," Spencer sighs, and Brendon butts in, "I have a theory about that, actually."
Everyone turns to look at him, squinting because the sun is right behind him, but his grin is just as visible as ever. "I think we're magic," he says, eyes wide.
Because it's Brendon, everyone laughs. Jon is just too tired to be amused.
"Hey, so we're going to go now," he says, grabbing Brendon's wrist and starting to tow him away. "See you." He's going to get yelled at later, but it doesn't matter now; Ryan and Spencer are following close behind, looking relieved, and his world has narrowed to his three bandmates and the bus. He thinks he doesn't need anything more than that, except the occasional cup of coffee and maybe a king-size bed.
::
(See, the thing is, that other thing Pan promised? He gives it to them, when they're all kneeling around Breanainn's body, a little shell-shocked and wishing they could do almost everything again, just one more time. He gives them a thousand year rest and a chance to start over.)
"Hey," the message says, Pete's voice coming through the phone's speakers loud and clear. "I told you not to worry, didn't I? I told you it would be all right."
Ryan hums and turns off his cellphone, putting it on the table before snuggling in closer to Brendon, Jon, Spencer. He's comfortable and warm and it's maybe the first time in his life where everything has felt completely right, and he figures thinking can wait until tomorrow.
"Go to sleep," Jon murmurs, and they do.