Freaks [3/20]
Title: Freaks [3/20]
Author: spazzyskittles/Tiffany
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon, Jon/Spencer
POV: 1st (Ryan's)
Summary: An accident lands Ryan in the hospital. He meets Jon, who tells him of a mysterious patient on their floor. There's something not quite right about him, but then again, there's something not quite right about Ryan as well.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Panic at the Disco. This is all just a by-product of an overactive imagination.
Author Notes: This is a completed story and will be updated every other day. Thanks to my beta pinkkchocolate, I couldn't have done it without you.
1 | 2
Chapter 3
“Jeez, what took you so long?” Jon asks as he sits up a bit better on his bed, his wheelchair resting idly to his right.
Just busy wallowing in self pity. I give him a shrug, or my best attempt at one, since I’m still clutching onto my crutches to keep my body upright. He gestures to the empty chair to the left of his bed so I make my way over, rest my crutches against his bedside table, and carefully lower myself into the chair, stretching my leg out as best as I can.
“So what’s up?” I ask when I’m finally settled.
He grins. “Your friend stopped by earlier.”
I roll my eyes and smile a little. “I figured he would.”
“Ha!” Jon exclaims while pointing at me. “I told you Spencer liked me.”
I chuckle. I guess our heart-to-heart might’ve helped him a little. “What’d he say?”
When Jon smiles this time, I see a distinct twinkle in his eye, and it’s as if a wave of pure joy has come over him. I can figure out what that means without him saying a word. I mean, I read grand tales of love from some of the world’s greatest thinkers of all time everyday. I may not have experienced it, but I can tell. And sure, it might not be love just yet since they hardly know each other, but all great loves had to start somewhere, so why not here? Jon’s about a step away from worshipping Spencer.
“Ryan, you don’t understand. Spencer… he’s so amazing, you know?”
I give a half-hearted smile. “Yeah, I do know. I mean, I like to think he saved my life.”
His brow furrows a little. “Saved your life? But I thought you had cancer back then. How would he…?”
“No,” I shake my head, “I mean, after that. When I couldn’t get out of bed for weeks. When I refused to leave my house for months. He… saved me from myself.”
Jon nods, waiting for me to continue. Instead, I ask him a question because I can sense that he might know better than most people. “After your accident, did you have a bad... episode?”
The muscles in his jaw become taut at my question. “I guess you could call it that.”
“How did you get over it?” I ask him.
He pauses as if reflecting back on the time of his life and then he nods confidently. “My friends and family. They gave me a lot of love and support, helped me through it, you know. Why?”
I sigh. “Spencer’s been my only real friend since middle school. All of my other so-called friends ditched me, and I was never too close to my family. After my surgery, he was the only one that would visit, the only one that cared. Without him, I probably wouldn’t even be here; he kind of gave me a reason to live.”
Another sad smile, and Jon reaches over to pat me on the shoulder. The physical contact takes me by surprise, but I’m grateful for it as I look up at him. There’s so much behind those eyes, and one of the things that jumps out at me right away is “caring”. I can tell that it’s not exactly pity that I’m getting from him. And that’s good because God, I don’t want that at all. It’s more like empathy and just a general concern for me. I barely know this guy, our friendship is a little over a day old, but I have a feeling that I’ve really gained a friend in him.
“Ryan, you’re a good guy, you know. I mean, even if I didn’t like Spencer at all, I’d still be your friend. I don’t want you thinking that… I’m faking it or something,” Jon almost whispers to me, giving my shoulder one last squeeze before he reclines back on his bed.
I shake my head as if to say “No, not at all,” when really, I was afraid of that very thing.
“You know, Ryan, if you want, I’d like to care about you too. Is that okay?” he asks.
I laugh a little and nod as I’m sincerely touched by his words. “Yeah, that’s okay.”
Finally, the grin is back on Jon’s face. Soon, he’s talking about Spencer’s visit, and then I ask him about his surgery the next day.
“Are you scared?” I ask.
“Psh,” he says with a wave of his hand. “I’ve got good doctors, they won’t let me down.” He pauses thoughtfully. “But you know what?” he says, and I lean forward, raising a brow and almost forgetting to be self-conscious about using facial expressions to converse. “While I’m out recovering, you better take up my mission.”
“What mission?”
He sighs, then his face grows serious. “Ryan Ross, your mission, should you choose to accept it - and you’d better since I won’t take no for an answer - is to find out what’s up with that guy down the hall.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes again. “Will you give it up, Jon? I mean, why are you so obsessed about it?”
“Can’t a person be curious?” he asks.
“Curiosity killed the cat,” I reply.
He gives me a look. “Ross, come up with something original. I mean, what cat?”
Um, well, I think he’s got me. “Something happened with the guy and then… a cat got curious… you know.”
“Point is,” Jon says, steering us back to the topic of my ‘mission’, “it’ll keep you from wasting away your time here holed up in your room. There are a lot of people here with stories to tell that are probably a lot more interesting than the ones in those books of yours. I don’t know, maybe you’ll even make another friend.”
I bite my lip. I mean, do I really need another friend? I’ve had Spencer, and Jon’s cool, but I’ve already taken such a huge step with letting someone else in. If I let too many people in, I know I’ll get hurt, even worse than what I’m used to, and I don’t want that.
----------------------
I find myself waking up in the middle of the night, and surprisingly, it’s not because of leg pain. I try my hardest to get back to sleep, but I soon start staring up at the tiled ceiling. My mind then drifts to that head of dark hair poking out from under hospital-issued sheets and the body that can move from the bed but won’t. Even though I have no idea what’s wrong with him (and it could be a number of things since the floor that I’m on is for teens and young adults with various types of cases), I feel like I know a bit of what that person is feeling. I mean, I too had lied on a bed, refusing to talk to anyone as I was ashamed of the way I looked. Not to say that I’m not still, because I totally still am. At least, I got somewhat over it.
I shake my head a little, trying to keep myself from thinking about that time of my life. It’s the past, can’t change it. I then make up my mind to do something about this bout of insomnia. I reach out for my crutches and gingerly swing my legs off my bed and onto the floor, and I hobble out of my room into the dimly lit corridor of the fifth floor of the hospital. When I get to the nurses’ station, I see that it’s the head nurse herself.
“Ryan, dear, what are you doing up? It’s very late,” she says to me with a concerned look on her face.
I give her a half-assed smile because she may be a nurse, but she’s a stranger. “I can’t sleep. You got anything to help?”
After filling out a form, she hands me a medicine cup with two pills and a cup of water. I take them in front of her, thank her, and head back down the hallway, the tips of my crutches squeaking and echoing as I go.
For some reason, I stop at the doorway Jon and I had looked in the day before. It’s still wide-open, and I can’t help peeking inside. There’s a bit of light coming in from the hall, but it’s very dim. I can just make out his shape under the covers and again the back of his head resting on the pillow.
Almost subconsciously, I find myself moving into the room to get a better look. Usually, I keep to myself, but the mystery surrounding this particular individual has got me crossing such boundaries of personal space as the door to a stranger’s room. Suddenly, I stop at the foot of the bed and I gaze at him, not fully seeing his face but still wondering what could possibly be wrong.
“Who’s there?” a deep voice rings out into the air, catching me off guard as my left crutch falls to the floor with a crash that seems a lot louder than it probably is. Instinctively, I duck my head down so as to shield my face as best I can. Poor guy has to wake up to some stranger with a fuck-tastically scary face. I wonder if he’ll think he’s having a nightmare.
“I’m warning you. I heard you come in so I know you’re there.”
What the hell? Doesn’t he see me frozen to the spot right here at the end of his bed?
I chance a glance up as I say, “Um…” to stall since my brain can’t come up with a legitimate explanation for why I just barged into his room.
But then I notice him incline his head to face me, and I breathe in sharply as I can now see his face. His lips are perfectly full, the kind that plastic surgery whores dream of having, and his rounded nose coupled with his bone structure indicates that he is a very handsome man. Since I barely have a complete face myself, I tend to notice such things quickly in others.
What gets me, though, is not how handsome he appears to be, but the fact that I didn’t even need to try shielding my face at all.
-----------------
A/N: I almost forgot this was supposed to go up tonight!
I guess now I can tell you that the name of the book this is based off of is I'll Be Seeing You, and it's by Lurlene McDaniel. I didn't want to say it until now because I didn't want anyone guessing what was going on off the title before the end of this chapter. Read it if you like. The beginnings are very similar but I ended up diverting away from the plot so it's not an actual rewrite, more like the original was a starting point.
And weird, as I was posting this, Misfits by Third Eye Blind came on. Trivia: The title was almost changed to "Misfits and Freaks". Also, that song just missed the cut for the soundtrack (yes, there is one, I'm not sure when I'm going to post it though), it didn't have the right ~feel to me.
Author: spazzyskittles/Tiffany
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon, Jon/Spencer
POV: 1st (Ryan's)
Summary: An accident lands Ryan in the hospital. He meets Jon, who tells him of a mysterious patient on their floor. There's something not quite right about him, but then again, there's something not quite right about Ryan as well.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Panic at the Disco. This is all just a by-product of an overactive imagination.
Author Notes: This is a completed story and will be updated every other day. Thanks to my beta pinkkchocolate, I couldn't have done it without you.
1 | 2
Chapter 3
“Jeez, what took you so long?” Jon asks as he sits up a bit better on his bed, his wheelchair resting idly to his right.
Just busy wallowing in self pity. I give him a shrug, or my best attempt at one, since I’m still clutching onto my crutches to keep my body upright. He gestures to the empty chair to the left of his bed so I make my way over, rest my crutches against his bedside table, and carefully lower myself into the chair, stretching my leg out as best as I can.
“So what’s up?” I ask when I’m finally settled.
He grins. “Your friend stopped by earlier.”
I roll my eyes and smile a little. “I figured he would.”
“Ha!” Jon exclaims while pointing at me. “I told you Spencer liked me.”
I chuckle. I guess our heart-to-heart might’ve helped him a little. “What’d he say?”
When Jon smiles this time, I see a distinct twinkle in his eye, and it’s as if a wave of pure joy has come over him. I can figure out what that means without him saying a word. I mean, I read grand tales of love from some of the world’s greatest thinkers of all time everyday. I may not have experienced it, but I can tell. And sure, it might not be love just yet since they hardly know each other, but all great loves had to start somewhere, so why not here? Jon’s about a step away from worshipping Spencer.
“Ryan, you don’t understand. Spencer… he’s so amazing, you know?”
I give a half-hearted smile. “Yeah, I do know. I mean, I like to think he saved my life.”
His brow furrows a little. “Saved your life? But I thought you had cancer back then. How would he…?”
“No,” I shake my head, “I mean, after that. When I couldn’t get out of bed for weeks. When I refused to leave my house for months. He… saved me from myself.”
Jon nods, waiting for me to continue. Instead, I ask him a question because I can sense that he might know better than most people. “After your accident, did you have a bad... episode?”
The muscles in his jaw become taut at my question. “I guess you could call it that.”
“How did you get over it?” I ask him.
He pauses as if reflecting back on the time of his life and then he nods confidently. “My friends and family. They gave me a lot of love and support, helped me through it, you know. Why?”
I sigh. “Spencer’s been my only real friend since middle school. All of my other so-called friends ditched me, and I was never too close to my family. After my surgery, he was the only one that would visit, the only one that cared. Without him, I probably wouldn’t even be here; he kind of gave me a reason to live.”
Another sad smile, and Jon reaches over to pat me on the shoulder. The physical contact takes me by surprise, but I’m grateful for it as I look up at him. There’s so much behind those eyes, and one of the things that jumps out at me right away is “caring”. I can tell that it’s not exactly pity that I’m getting from him. And that’s good because God, I don’t want that at all. It’s more like empathy and just a general concern for me. I barely know this guy, our friendship is a little over a day old, but I have a feeling that I’ve really gained a friend in him.
“Ryan, you’re a good guy, you know. I mean, even if I didn’t like Spencer at all, I’d still be your friend. I don’t want you thinking that… I’m faking it or something,” Jon almost whispers to me, giving my shoulder one last squeeze before he reclines back on his bed.
I shake my head as if to say “No, not at all,” when really, I was afraid of that very thing.
“You know, Ryan, if you want, I’d like to care about you too. Is that okay?” he asks.
I laugh a little and nod as I’m sincerely touched by his words. “Yeah, that’s okay.”
Finally, the grin is back on Jon’s face. Soon, he’s talking about Spencer’s visit, and then I ask him about his surgery the next day.
“Are you scared?” I ask.
“Psh,” he says with a wave of his hand. “I’ve got good doctors, they won’t let me down.” He pauses thoughtfully. “But you know what?” he says, and I lean forward, raising a brow and almost forgetting to be self-conscious about using facial expressions to converse. “While I’m out recovering, you better take up my mission.”
“What mission?”
He sighs, then his face grows serious. “Ryan Ross, your mission, should you choose to accept it - and you’d better since I won’t take no for an answer - is to find out what’s up with that guy down the hall.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes again. “Will you give it up, Jon? I mean, why are you so obsessed about it?”
“Can’t a person be curious?” he asks.
“Curiosity killed the cat,” I reply.
He gives me a look. “Ross, come up with something original. I mean, what cat?”
Um, well, I think he’s got me. “Something happened with the guy and then… a cat got curious… you know.”
“Point is,” Jon says, steering us back to the topic of my ‘mission’, “it’ll keep you from wasting away your time here holed up in your room. There are a lot of people here with stories to tell that are probably a lot more interesting than the ones in those books of yours. I don’t know, maybe you’ll even make another friend.”
I bite my lip. I mean, do I really need another friend? I’ve had Spencer, and Jon’s cool, but I’ve already taken such a huge step with letting someone else in. If I let too many people in, I know I’ll get hurt, even worse than what I’m used to, and I don’t want that.
----------------------
I find myself waking up in the middle of the night, and surprisingly, it’s not because of leg pain. I try my hardest to get back to sleep, but I soon start staring up at the tiled ceiling. My mind then drifts to that head of dark hair poking out from under hospital-issued sheets and the body that can move from the bed but won’t. Even though I have no idea what’s wrong with him (and it could be a number of things since the floor that I’m on is for teens and young adults with various types of cases), I feel like I know a bit of what that person is feeling. I mean, I too had lied on a bed, refusing to talk to anyone as I was ashamed of the way I looked. Not to say that I’m not still, because I totally still am. At least, I got somewhat over it.
I shake my head a little, trying to keep myself from thinking about that time of my life. It’s the past, can’t change it. I then make up my mind to do something about this bout of insomnia. I reach out for my crutches and gingerly swing my legs off my bed and onto the floor, and I hobble out of my room into the dimly lit corridor of the fifth floor of the hospital. When I get to the nurses’ station, I see that it’s the head nurse herself.
“Ryan, dear, what are you doing up? It’s very late,” she says to me with a concerned look on her face.
I give her a half-assed smile because she may be a nurse, but she’s a stranger. “I can’t sleep. You got anything to help?”
After filling out a form, she hands me a medicine cup with two pills and a cup of water. I take them in front of her, thank her, and head back down the hallway, the tips of my crutches squeaking and echoing as I go.
For some reason, I stop at the doorway Jon and I had looked in the day before. It’s still wide-open, and I can’t help peeking inside. There’s a bit of light coming in from the hall, but it’s very dim. I can just make out his shape under the covers and again the back of his head resting on the pillow.
Almost subconsciously, I find myself moving into the room to get a better look. Usually, I keep to myself, but the mystery surrounding this particular individual has got me crossing such boundaries of personal space as the door to a stranger’s room. Suddenly, I stop at the foot of the bed and I gaze at him, not fully seeing his face but still wondering what could possibly be wrong.
“Who’s there?” a deep voice rings out into the air, catching me off guard as my left crutch falls to the floor with a crash that seems a lot louder than it probably is. Instinctively, I duck my head down so as to shield my face as best I can. Poor guy has to wake up to some stranger with a fuck-tastically scary face. I wonder if he’ll think he’s having a nightmare.
“I’m warning you. I heard you come in so I know you’re there.”
What the hell? Doesn’t he see me frozen to the spot right here at the end of his bed?
I chance a glance up as I say, “Um…” to stall since my brain can’t come up with a legitimate explanation for why I just barged into his room.
But then I notice him incline his head to face me, and I breathe in sharply as I can now see his face. His lips are perfectly full, the kind that plastic surgery whores dream of having, and his rounded nose coupled with his bone structure indicates that he is a very handsome man. Since I barely have a complete face myself, I tend to notice such things quickly in others.
What gets me, though, is not how handsome he appears to be, but the fact that I didn’t even need to try shielding my face at all.
-----------------
A/N: I almost forgot this was supposed to go up tonight!
I guess now I can tell you that the name of the book this is based off of is I'll Be Seeing You, and it's by Lurlene McDaniel. I didn't want to say it until now because I didn't want anyone guessing what was going on off the title before the end of this chapter. Read it if you like. The beginnings are very similar but I ended up diverting away from the plot so it's not an actual rewrite, more like the original was a starting point.
And weird, as I was posting this, Misfits by Third Eye Blind came on. Trivia: The title was almost changed to "Misfits and Freaks". Also, that song just missed the cut for the soundtrack (yes, there is one, I'm not sure when I'm going to post it though), it didn't have the right ~feel to me.