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laniew1Psychics!
Read part 1 and part 2 first.
Summary: Psychics were few and far between. For every one there was at least 150 trained Constants (that wasn’t counting the untrained Constants that could sometimes sneak in and lure a Psychic away).
TITLE: Constants
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: Pete/Patrick, Gerard/Frank, Ryan/Bob
AUTHOR: Melanie
SUMMARY: Psychics were few and far between. For every one there was at least 150 trained Constants (that wasn’t counting the untrained Constants that could sometimes sneak in and lure a Psychic away).
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own any of these boys and I’m pretty sure that this has never happened.
Constants 3/8
Contrary to what everyone else believed Bob was not overprotective.
He just thought that Ryan should never be allowed to go anywhere without him, ever. He’d probably have tried to be okay with Ryan leaving the Institute without him if Ryan could manage to come back to him one time without something horrible happening.
As it was, Spencer and Brendon’s appearance at the Institute that first time that Ryan had left had seemingly set the stage. And it wasn’t like their introduction to Bob had been horrible; no one had gotten killed after all, or even hurt, though not for lack of trying on Spencer’s part.
Now every time Ryan left the facility with either Pete or Gerard, Bob was practically guaranteed to get him back five pounds lighter and with bruises or scrapes and one memorable time a sprained ankle.
It didn’t matter how many talks he had with Zack or Worm, or how many times he made Ryan promise to be careful and to keep one of the guards between him and the rest of the world at all times.
Psychics were few and far between, some people believed that the world was an unnatural place with the Psychics in it and were doing everything in their power to eliminate them completely.
It didn’t matter that statistics showed lower cases of felony behavior, that murders and rapes were at an all time low.
The attempts on their lives were commonplace and constant and they almost always failed
The targets were Psychics after all, even without the bodyguards they were pretty hard to kill, mostly because they could tell when someone was trying in the first place.
Bob still thought that he would never be okay with someone trying to harm Ryan when he wasn’t there to protect him.
******************************************************************************
The attack came on a Tuesday.
No one was expecting it, not on a Tuesday.
They weren’t expecting it at all. One of the Psychics should have raised the alarm, should have sensed something wrong. Some portent of doom imminent. There were at least a half dozen with some form of a pre-cognitive ability.
But they sensed nothing and later those that remained would draw the conclusion that the attacks had been coordinated by someone or a group of someone’s with Psychic abilities.
The worst part of it was they were separated when it happened.
Bob on the third level working with Patrick and Frank.
Ryan was two levels below ground working with Pete and Gerard.
Bob thought that he could have been okay with harm coming to Ryan if he’d at least been with him when it happened.
******************************************************************************
The first explosion caused complete and utter pandemonium. Terror and confusion and Director Herbitzer ended up trapped in his office so Brian was the one trying to get everyone calmed down.
The second and third explosion just upped the terror but seemed to finally shake the confusion off. Either that or the fact that the generators kicked on finally and the emergency lights came on calmed people down.
Bob could feel Ryan, knew he was still there, still alive and breathing. The room in his mind where Ryan had set up shop months prior was completely and utterly dark though.
Bob didn’t like that, it couldn’t bode well.
Patrick managed to get Frank calmed down while Bob tried to flip out really calmly about the fact that Ryan was trapped somewhere without him and likely was unconscious to boot.
Brian brought them all together in one room, all those that could be of some sort of help, Spencer at his elbow while they tried to form some sort of plan.
“They were on UG Level 2,” Patrick said, he leaned forward on the table and he sounded calm and collected, if you didn’t know him, didn’t know what to look for you couldn’t see the way he was trembling.
Bob did know him though, had known Patrick for years, he forced himself to listen. Because this was important. This was Ryan and Pete and Gerard, Frank sat close enough that Bob could feel him shaking next to him.
“Pete’s unconscious,” Patrick said, his voice cracking, Bob reached out and tugged Patrick down into the chair on the other side of him. Frank curled impossibly closer.
They should be doing something. They shouldn’t be just sitting here when Ryan and Pete and Gerard were trapped somewhere without them. Every minute they sat there was another minute that they were alone in the dark.
“He’s alive though,” Brian said, there was no question at the end of the statement. If Pete had been dead Patrick would be worse then he was. They all would.
“Gerard is too,” Frank said softly, he rubbed a hand across his face.
Spencer looked at Bob and Bob looked back, Brian just waited expectantly.
Bob nodded his head; he didn’t say the words out loud because that would make them real. So he didn’t say that ‘yes, Ryan is still alive, but he’s unconscious in the midst of the ruins of the lower level and I am not there with him.’
Spencer made a sound deep in his throat, it sounded like a sob that he just barely managed to squash. He took a deep breath, then another. Squared his shoulders and looked over at Brian.
“We’ll get to them,” Brian promised. “There’s three crews working on that right now. And we have other things to worry about.”
“What could we possibly have to worry about that doesn’t include that fact that our three Psychics are trapped somewhere without us?” Patrick said loudly, angrily.
“We weren’t the only ones hit; every Institute in the U.S. was hit. Right now we’re one of two that are still even remotely standing. Some of them are complete rubble.”
Patrick slumped next to him, Frank gripped at his arm. Bob wondered if this was some form of hell.
“What about…?” Patrick didn’t get the words, Bob was glad of it. He knew people at some of the other Institutes.
“We don’t know about survivors at this point. There are two Psychics enroute to us; they’d been on their way back to the South-West Institute in Texas but…” Brian shook his head.
“Constants?” Spencer asked.
“The files that I have say that one of them has a Constant, that one’ll probably be in a bad way, we’ve got a med crew waiting for them. The other one was doing a training Shadow, he hasn’t chosen yet. If he’s lucid we might be able to use him to get closer to Pete, Gerard and Ryan’s exact location.”
Bob concentrated on breathing, listened to the conversation going on around him with one ear and pushed at the darkness demanding that Ryan respond to him.
Ryan didn’t answer.
******************************************************************************
The Psychics that came to them were bedraggled and worn.
“We were attacked in transit,” the one said, voice full of disbelief. Shaking with shock. His eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out at Brian’s feet.
The other one didn’t say anything, just looked down at his companion crumpled at Brian’s feet. He had a line of blood going down one side of his face and his uniform was in shambles. The bag over his shoulder looked as if he’d been dragging it at some point. He made an attempt to straighten his appearance and seemed to realize that it was pointless.
His eyes looked tired and Bob wondered what he’d seen while they were trying to get to them. Trying to get somewhere safe where no one was trying to hurt them because of what they were.
He looked familiar but Bob couldn’t place him, he could figure it out he knew, he would just need to focus and think about it. Instead Bob kept pushing at the darkness that surrounded Ryan’s area of his mind.
“His Constant is dead,” he said, he blinked at them like he was surprised to see them standing there. “He felt her die.”
Frank made a sound and gripped his arm; Bob went to peel his fingers loose, Frank’s nails really needed to be clipped, Bob thought he might have drawn blood that time. He was going to have bruises in the shape of Frank’s fingers all over his arms.
Bob looked down at him when Frank refused to be pried loose, the expression on his face would probably be comical if Bob could think about anything besides Ryan.
“You’re…” Frank choked out.
“Do I know you?” he peered at Frank, then made a sound and pulled glasses out of his shoulder bag. “I don’t know you,” he said decisively and with just a little confusion.
With the glasses on Bob recognized him too, could figure out with even only dedicating 5% of his brainpower to his current surroundings, who this young man was.
“We know your brother,” Patrick got it too Bob realized. Brian looked at them in surprise and then back at the young man.
“You’re Mikey Way?” Brian asked he sounded like Christmas and his birthday had all come amazingly early this year.
And maybe it had because they now really had the means to getting to Ryan and Pete and Gerard, a blood relative that was also a Psychic trumped a Psychic with no blood connection every time.
******************************************************************************
They were still unconscious when they found them, half buried in a collapsed room. It took four hours to get them out, four hours of Bob keeping his eyes locked on Ryan’s not moving form while all around them rescue crews painstakingly moved the remains of the wall that was keeping them from getting to them, while trying to stabilize the room so that it didn’t collapse any further.
They could see them, but they couldn’t go to them. It was sort of cruel.
There was talk about structural stability and safety measures and ‘you really shouldn’t be here anyway’.
But no one made them leave. Patrick stood on one side of him and Frank on the other and Mikey stood behind Frank, one hand on his shoulder.
They waited and they watched and they kept quiet because demanding that the rescue workers move faster would only serve to get them kicked out.
The workers reached Pete first, he came to with a soft groan the minute the first rescue worker touched him. Next to him Patrick drew in an uneven breath as their connection surged back into place.
“Pete?” Patrick called. His voice was shaky, Bob didn’t think that he even really noticed or cared.
“’trick,” Pete’s voice was soft, filled with pain.
“Are you okay?” Patrick asked. The answer was plain to see, Bob thought that maybe Patrick needed the lie that Pete would utter.
‘Yes he was fine, he was okay, no they hadn’t come anywhere near close to losing them, you’re worrying about nothing and too much.’
“We’re okay, we’re all okay,” Pete said, his voice was barely a whisper and Bob could see where Pete was clenching one of Ryan’s hands and Gerard was clenching the other. The three of them linked together.
The workers were trying to urge Pete to let go, to allow them to move him out so that they could get to Ryan and Gerard. Pete refused, though he shifted his body so that they could get a stretcher under him.
No broken bones then, Bob decided. Pete didn’t move like he’d broken anything.
Ryan was next and one minute there was nothing but darkness and the next there was light and pain and Ryan curled in a ball on the floor though he looked okay. If Bob focused, really tried he could see shadowy forms that were Pete and Gerard on either side of him, all still linked together.
He wondered if Patrick could see them, if Frank would be able to see them when Gerard regained consciousness. The shadow forms of the three of them curled up together.
He could understand why Pete wouldn’t allow himself to be moved away, why Ryan wouldn’t allow himself either. Not until Gerard was awake and aware.
The three of them were linked together, feeding strength and comfort back and forth among each other while they waited for rescue to come.
It was a neat trick, Bob wished there was some way that they could show them how to do it.
******************************************************************************
They were all in a private room, unfortunately it was the same private room as Patrick and Pete and Gerard and Frank.
The doctors had come and gone, declaring them all fit with the exception of some scrapes and bruises and a nasty looking gash on Gerard’s leg that had taken fourteen stitches.
Gerard had passed out at the first sight of the needle and Frank had held his hand while the doctor had put them in.
Ryan was on his side, head close to where Bob had linked their hands together.
He had new bruises and bumps to replace the ones that had healed.
He wasn’t sleeping, he was just laying there. Every so often he would blink at Bob and Bob would rub his thumb against Ryan’s skin to see his little half-smile appear.
When Mikey came in Bob could feel Ryan snap back from wherever he was hiding out in his mind, though to all outward appearances he blinked and shifted minutely on the bed.
Mikey ignored all of them, focused instead intently on Gerard.
Gerard who was muttering under his breath, cursing doctors and needles and mean doctors that wielded needles, when really it should have been plain to see that all he needed was a good night’s sleep.
Bob could see the moment that Gerard realized who was standing at the end of his bed, could see it from the way that Gerard’s eyes opened wide with shock and his mouth opened and closed but no sound came out of it.
“Oh,” he uttered and Bob leaned back in his chair, at least some good would come from being stuck in the same room with the others.
Ryan’s grip on his hand tightened until it was near painful and when he looked over at him Ryan’s eyes were just as wide as Gerard’s, though his had none of the shock and instead he looked like he knew a secret that no one else knew.
His lips were turning up and it wasn’t a full smile, not by any means, but Ryan was pleased about something and he went easily when Ryan tugged on his hand drawing him closer.
He didn’t need Ryan to whisper in his ear (though he let him just to feel the puff of air on the side of his face, to feel Ryan’s lips touch his skin), he could see in his mind what Ryan wanted him to do and he nodded to show he understood.
He looked back over at where Mikey was being hugged to death by Gerard and he couldn’t ‘see’ whatever it was that Ryan was seeing.
But he trusted Ryan to be right.
Just like Patrick had trusted Pete to be right.
******************************************************************************
Read part 1 and part 2 first.
Summary: Psychics were few and far between. For every one there was at least 150 trained Constants (that wasn’t counting the untrained Constants that could sometimes sneak in and lure a Psychic away).
TITLE: Constants
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: Pete/Patrick, Gerard/Frank, Ryan/Bob
AUTHOR: Melanie
SUMMARY: Psychics were few and far between. For every one there was at least 150 trained Constants (that wasn’t counting the untrained Constants that could sometimes sneak in and lure a Psychic away).
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own any of these boys and I’m pretty sure that this has never happened.
Constants 3/8
Contrary to what everyone else believed Bob was not overprotective.
He just thought that Ryan should never be allowed to go anywhere without him, ever. He’d probably have tried to be okay with Ryan leaving the Institute without him if Ryan could manage to come back to him one time without something horrible happening.
As it was, Spencer and Brendon’s appearance at the Institute that first time that Ryan had left had seemingly set the stage. And it wasn’t like their introduction to Bob had been horrible; no one had gotten killed after all, or even hurt, though not for lack of trying on Spencer’s part.
Now every time Ryan left the facility with either Pete or Gerard, Bob was practically guaranteed to get him back five pounds lighter and with bruises or scrapes and one memorable time a sprained ankle.
It didn’t matter how many talks he had with Zack or Worm, or how many times he made Ryan promise to be careful and to keep one of the guards between him and the rest of the world at all times.
Psychics were few and far between, some people believed that the world was an unnatural place with the Psychics in it and were doing everything in their power to eliminate them completely.
It didn’t matter that statistics showed lower cases of felony behavior, that murders and rapes were at an all time low.
The attempts on their lives were commonplace and constant and they almost always failed
The targets were Psychics after all, even without the bodyguards they were pretty hard to kill, mostly because they could tell when someone was trying in the first place.
Bob still thought that he would never be okay with someone trying to harm Ryan when he wasn’t there to protect him.
The attack came on a Tuesday.
No one was expecting it, not on a Tuesday.
They weren’t expecting it at all. One of the Psychics should have raised the alarm, should have sensed something wrong. Some portent of doom imminent. There were at least a half dozen with some form of a pre-cognitive ability.
But they sensed nothing and later those that remained would draw the conclusion that the attacks had been coordinated by someone or a group of someone’s with Psychic abilities.
The worst part of it was they were separated when it happened.
Bob on the third level working with Patrick and Frank.
Ryan was two levels below ground working with Pete and Gerard.
Bob thought that he could have been okay with harm coming to Ryan if he’d at least been with him when it happened.
The first explosion caused complete and utter pandemonium. Terror and confusion and Director Herbitzer ended up trapped in his office so Brian was the one trying to get everyone calmed down.
The second and third explosion just upped the terror but seemed to finally shake the confusion off. Either that or the fact that the generators kicked on finally and the emergency lights came on calmed people down.
Bob could feel Ryan, knew he was still there, still alive and breathing. The room in his mind where Ryan had set up shop months prior was completely and utterly dark though.
Bob didn’t like that, it couldn’t bode well.
Patrick managed to get Frank calmed down while Bob tried to flip out really calmly about the fact that Ryan was trapped somewhere without him and likely was unconscious to boot.
Brian brought them all together in one room, all those that could be of some sort of help, Spencer at his elbow while they tried to form some sort of plan.
“They were on UG Level 2,” Patrick said, he leaned forward on the table and he sounded calm and collected, if you didn’t know him, didn’t know what to look for you couldn’t see the way he was trembling.
Bob did know him though, had known Patrick for years, he forced himself to listen. Because this was important. This was Ryan and Pete and Gerard, Frank sat close enough that Bob could feel him shaking next to him.
“Pete’s unconscious,” Patrick said, his voice cracking, Bob reached out and tugged Patrick down into the chair on the other side of him. Frank curled impossibly closer.
They should be doing something. They shouldn’t be just sitting here when Ryan and Pete and Gerard were trapped somewhere without them. Every minute they sat there was another minute that they were alone in the dark.
“He’s alive though,” Brian said, there was no question at the end of the statement. If Pete had been dead Patrick would be worse then he was. They all would.
“Gerard is too,” Frank said softly, he rubbed a hand across his face.
Spencer looked at Bob and Bob looked back, Brian just waited expectantly.
Bob nodded his head; he didn’t say the words out loud because that would make them real. So he didn’t say that ‘yes, Ryan is still alive, but he’s unconscious in the midst of the ruins of the lower level and I am not there with him.’
Spencer made a sound deep in his throat, it sounded like a sob that he just barely managed to squash. He took a deep breath, then another. Squared his shoulders and looked over at Brian.
“We’ll get to them,” Brian promised. “There’s three crews working on that right now. And we have other things to worry about.”
“What could we possibly have to worry about that doesn’t include that fact that our three Psychics are trapped somewhere without us?” Patrick said loudly, angrily.
“We weren’t the only ones hit; every Institute in the U.S. was hit. Right now we’re one of two that are still even remotely standing. Some of them are complete rubble.”
Patrick slumped next to him, Frank gripped at his arm. Bob wondered if this was some form of hell.
“What about…?” Patrick didn’t get the words, Bob was glad of it. He knew people at some of the other Institutes.
“We don’t know about survivors at this point. There are two Psychics enroute to us; they’d been on their way back to the South-West Institute in Texas but…” Brian shook his head.
“Constants?” Spencer asked.
“The files that I have say that one of them has a Constant, that one’ll probably be in a bad way, we’ve got a med crew waiting for them. The other one was doing a training Shadow, he hasn’t chosen yet. If he’s lucid we might be able to use him to get closer to Pete, Gerard and Ryan’s exact location.”
Bob concentrated on breathing, listened to the conversation going on around him with one ear and pushed at the darkness demanding that Ryan respond to him.
Ryan didn’t answer.
The Psychics that came to them were bedraggled and worn.
“We were attacked in transit,” the one said, voice full of disbelief. Shaking with shock. His eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out at Brian’s feet.
The other one didn’t say anything, just looked down at his companion crumpled at Brian’s feet. He had a line of blood going down one side of his face and his uniform was in shambles. The bag over his shoulder looked as if he’d been dragging it at some point. He made an attempt to straighten his appearance and seemed to realize that it was pointless.
His eyes looked tired and Bob wondered what he’d seen while they were trying to get to them. Trying to get somewhere safe where no one was trying to hurt them because of what they were.
He looked familiar but Bob couldn’t place him, he could figure it out he knew, he would just need to focus and think about it. Instead Bob kept pushing at the darkness that surrounded Ryan’s area of his mind.
“His Constant is dead,” he said, he blinked at them like he was surprised to see them standing there. “He felt her die.”
Frank made a sound and gripped his arm; Bob went to peel his fingers loose, Frank’s nails really needed to be clipped, Bob thought he might have drawn blood that time. He was going to have bruises in the shape of Frank’s fingers all over his arms.
Bob looked down at him when Frank refused to be pried loose, the expression on his face would probably be comical if Bob could think about anything besides Ryan.
“You’re…” Frank choked out.
“Do I know you?” he peered at Frank, then made a sound and pulled glasses out of his shoulder bag. “I don’t know you,” he said decisively and with just a little confusion.
With the glasses on Bob recognized him too, could figure out with even only dedicating 5% of his brainpower to his current surroundings, who this young man was.
“We know your brother,” Patrick got it too Bob realized. Brian looked at them in surprise and then back at the young man.
“You’re Mikey Way?” Brian asked he sounded like Christmas and his birthday had all come amazingly early this year.
And maybe it had because they now really had the means to getting to Ryan and Pete and Gerard, a blood relative that was also a Psychic trumped a Psychic with no blood connection every time.
They were still unconscious when they found them, half buried in a collapsed room. It took four hours to get them out, four hours of Bob keeping his eyes locked on Ryan’s not moving form while all around them rescue crews painstakingly moved the remains of the wall that was keeping them from getting to them, while trying to stabilize the room so that it didn’t collapse any further.
They could see them, but they couldn’t go to them. It was sort of cruel.
There was talk about structural stability and safety measures and ‘you really shouldn’t be here anyway’.
But no one made them leave. Patrick stood on one side of him and Frank on the other and Mikey stood behind Frank, one hand on his shoulder.
They waited and they watched and they kept quiet because demanding that the rescue workers move faster would only serve to get them kicked out.
The workers reached Pete first, he came to with a soft groan the minute the first rescue worker touched him. Next to him Patrick drew in an uneven breath as their connection surged back into place.
“Pete?” Patrick called. His voice was shaky, Bob didn’t think that he even really noticed or cared.
“’trick,” Pete’s voice was soft, filled with pain.
“Are you okay?” Patrick asked. The answer was plain to see, Bob thought that maybe Patrick needed the lie that Pete would utter.
‘Yes he was fine, he was okay, no they hadn’t come anywhere near close to losing them, you’re worrying about nothing and too much.’
“We’re okay, we’re all okay,” Pete said, his voice was barely a whisper and Bob could see where Pete was clenching one of Ryan’s hands and Gerard was clenching the other. The three of them linked together.
The workers were trying to urge Pete to let go, to allow them to move him out so that they could get to Ryan and Gerard. Pete refused, though he shifted his body so that they could get a stretcher under him.
No broken bones then, Bob decided. Pete didn’t move like he’d broken anything.
Ryan was next and one minute there was nothing but darkness and the next there was light and pain and Ryan curled in a ball on the floor though he looked okay. If Bob focused, really tried he could see shadowy forms that were Pete and Gerard on either side of him, all still linked together.
He wondered if Patrick could see them, if Frank would be able to see them when Gerard regained consciousness. The shadow forms of the three of them curled up together.
He could understand why Pete wouldn’t allow himself to be moved away, why Ryan wouldn’t allow himself either. Not until Gerard was awake and aware.
The three of them were linked together, feeding strength and comfort back and forth among each other while they waited for rescue to come.
It was a neat trick, Bob wished there was some way that they could show them how to do it.
They were all in a private room, unfortunately it was the same private room as Patrick and Pete and Gerard and Frank.
The doctors had come and gone, declaring them all fit with the exception of some scrapes and bruises and a nasty looking gash on Gerard’s leg that had taken fourteen stitches.
Gerard had passed out at the first sight of the needle and Frank had held his hand while the doctor had put them in.
Ryan was on his side, head close to where Bob had linked their hands together.
He had new bruises and bumps to replace the ones that had healed.
He wasn’t sleeping, he was just laying there. Every so often he would blink at Bob and Bob would rub his thumb against Ryan’s skin to see his little half-smile appear.
When Mikey came in Bob could feel Ryan snap back from wherever he was hiding out in his mind, though to all outward appearances he blinked and shifted minutely on the bed.
Mikey ignored all of them, focused instead intently on Gerard.
Gerard who was muttering under his breath, cursing doctors and needles and mean doctors that wielded needles, when really it should have been plain to see that all he needed was a good night’s sleep.
Bob could see the moment that Gerard realized who was standing at the end of his bed, could see it from the way that Gerard’s eyes opened wide with shock and his mouth opened and closed but no sound came out of it.
“Oh,” he uttered and Bob leaned back in his chair, at least some good would come from being stuck in the same room with the others.
Ryan’s grip on his hand tightened until it was near painful and when he looked over at him Ryan’s eyes were just as wide as Gerard’s, though his had none of the shock and instead he looked like he knew a secret that no one else knew.
His lips were turning up and it wasn’t a full smile, not by any means, but Ryan was pleased about something and he went easily when Ryan tugged on his hand drawing him closer.
He didn’t need Ryan to whisper in his ear (though he let him just to feel the puff of air on the side of his face, to feel Ryan’s lips touch his skin), he could see in his mind what Ryan wanted him to do and he nodded to show he understood.
He looked back over at where Mikey was being hugged to death by Gerard and he couldn’t ‘see’ whatever it was that Ryan was seeing.
But he trusted Ryan to be right.
Just like Patrick had trusted Pete to be right.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-12 08:17 pm (UTC)*hopes real real hard*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-12 10:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-12 09:47 pm (UTC)i don't know what else i can say about how much i love this story, but i really do. if you ever need someone to blather at you about how wonderful it is, well, you know where to find me now! *blushes*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-12 10:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-25 09:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-28 07:28 am (UTC)