![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
laniew1More psychics!
Read part 1 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 2/8
Spencer James Smith V descended upon the Mid-West Institute three days before Ryan was due to return with Pete.
Bob would have handled it better, he thought, if he hadn’t still been a little raw from not having put any shields up when Ryan and Pete had left. That was one mistake that he wouldn’t make more then once.
He’d been sulking, he knew it, Patrick knew it, Frank knew it and Frank was pretty distracted by Gerard most of the time.
Patrick jokingly said they were in the middle of their honeymoon period.
Director Herbitzer had sent for him that morning and he’d thought that he might actually kill someone if he got another lecture about the whole not shielding thing. He was really ready to move past the whole thing, it was done, it was over with.
Ryan was coming home in three days and Bob had talked to him on the phone every night and sometimes first thing in the morning.
Bob thought that Ryan might be taking down his shields partially at night and changing his sketches, the first night there’d been the dog-antelope looking thing. When he’d gotten up that morning there’d been a lop-sided heart and some sort of squiggly-line thing at the bottom.
He was already in uniform when he got the summons, Patrick was waiting for him when he got there but looked just as confused as Bob felt.
“No clue?” Bob asked. Patrick shook his head, he didn’t look worried and Ryan’s painting and sketch were still there so there was nothing wrong on that front.
The door opened while they were standing there and Director Herbitzer’s aide was standing there. Brian Schecter had been a potential Constant at one time and had somehow ended up working for the Mid-West Institute.
The rumor mill said that Director Herbitzer was grooming him as his replacement for when he retired; Bob thought that couldn’t come fast enough. At least most of them got along with and respected Brian.
The same couldn’t be said for Director Herbitzer.
“Good you’re here,” Brian looked frazzled and Bob wondered if maybe he should have just turned over and gotten another hour of sleep instead of getting up for breakfast.
He ushered them in and Patrick stayed right beside him, he closed the door behind them and then led them into Director Herbitzer’s private conference room.
Director Herbitzer was sitting at the head of it, looking more then a little irritated. There were two young men sitting on one side. They looked to be about Ryan’s age and Bob got a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. One of the young men looked up and his eyes narrowed at him and Patrick, if looks could kill Ryan and Pete would be looking for new Constants right about now.
“Bob, Patrick, why don’t you have a seat,” Director Herbitzer said. He sounded tired and Brian poured him a glass of water then sat next to him. Pad of paper open and pen in hand.
Bob would rather just go right back out the door, instead he sat down, Patrick next to him.
“This is Spencer Smith and Brendon Urie. They’re here representing the Vegas Institute of Psychic Sciences,” Director Herbitzer started.
“I grew up in Las Vegas,” Ryan said. “I didn’t like it much, it was too warm and my dad had this thing with gambling, when he didn’t win he drank.”
Ryan had told him that the night before he and Pete had left, it was one of the few personal things that Ryan had divulged to him. Left unsaid had been the fact that when Ryan’s father drank, Ryan’s father hit him.
Ryan hadn’t told him that there was anyone in Vegas that would know him; hadn’t told him that he’d been affiliated with the Institute out there; there hadn’t been anyone that he’d tried to contact as far as Bob knew.
And they had offered.
He hadn’t told him that there was anyone that should have been looking out for him. If he’d been affiliated with the Vegas Institute he should have had, at the very least, a bodyguard when he was off its grounds. The fact that his father had almost managed to kill him before Pete had gotten there spoke volumes as far as Bob was concerned.
Bob stood up slowly; Patrick wrapped his hand around his wrist and tried to tug him back into his seat.
“He’s mine,” he said clearly, he enunciated each syllable less he be misunderstood. “He belongs to us here now and if you try and take him from here I’ll kill you both.”
Across the table he could almost see Spencer Smith’s feathers ruffling as he stood slowly and glared at him, it was an impressive glare, but it wasn’t the most impressive glare that Bob had ever been subject to.
“And who the hell are you to decide where Ryan belongs?” he snarled.
“He’s my Psychic,” Bob said carefully, enunciating every syllable and he let the words and tone of his voice speak for itself. From the look on both Spencer and Brendon’s faces they both got it.
And then all hell broke loose.
******************************************************************************
“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Patrick said. Bob looked over at him.
“Well at least no one got killed,” Patrick shrugged.
Though not for lack of trying.
Spencer had tried to come over the table at Bob’s pronouncement of his status as Ryan’s Constant; Bob had tried to go over the table to defend himself. Neither one of them had made it very far; Patrick had knocked him to the floor and for a little guy Urie had some strength on his side, because he’d managed to wrestle Spencer into something like submission.
They’d been summarily tossed out of the conference room. Bob didn’t know, or care where Spencer and Brendon ended up and he kind of hoped they’d been booted right off Institute property.
He didn’t think he was going to get that lucky.
“Director Herbitzer is bringing Ryan and Pete back tomorrow instead of waiting until Friday.”
Bob’s eyes narrowed at Patrick.
“Don’t look at me like that. The sooner Ryan is back, the sooner this whole mess will get worked out.”
“This whole mess better not be worked out by me having to transfer to Vegas Institute of Psychic Sciences, they’re a bunch of crackpots there,” Bob said. Plus his mom was here and she would be pissed if he had to uproot her.
“I’m pretty sure it’s not going to come to that.”
******************************************************************************
Patrick and Brendon stood between them at the entry point to the facility. Bob was trying deep breathing exercises and across the length of two little people he could see that Spencer had something that looked like a stress ball clenched in one hand.
The alarm sounded and the doors opened and Pete was the first one through. Throwing himself at Patrick like it had been a year instead of six days.
Ryan came through the door slowly and Bob stepped forward, Brendon was keeping a firm grip on Spencer’s arm and was muttering something in his ear that Bob couldn’t hear.
“Hi,” Ryan said softly, Bob saw his eyes dart over his shoulder at Spencer and Brendon but he still wrapped himself around Bob. The shields came down then and Bob hissed at the sensation, Ryan’s thoughts and emotions flooding through his mind before he got them under control and slowed them to a steady trickle.
He was so unbelievably happy to see Bob.
‘Missed you, missed you, missed you’.
Behind him he could tell, he wasn’t the Psychic, but he could tell that Spencer was getting ready to interrupt them so he drew back and watched as Ryan bit his lip. He stepped to the side and gripped Ryan’s hand tightly.
He wasn’t going anywhere, and maybe the sooner that Spencer and Brendon realized that he wasn’t a threat to whatever their friendships with Ryan entailed, they could all maybe not kill each other.
“There’s some people here to see you,” he said quietly.
Ryan just looked at him, the Ryan in his mind was sitting on the ground, long arms wrapped around his knees that were drawn up to his chest, he looked scared, ‘brother, brother, family’ repeating over and over again on a never-ending loop.
“Hi Spencer.”
******************************************************************************
“I don’t like you,” Spencer said
Spencer didn’t like him. That wasn’t quite the shocker that Bob thought it was supposed to be, he’d figured out that Spencer didn’t like him when he tried to come over the conference room table at Bob when they were first introduced.
Ryan was showing Brendon around the Institute, both Spencer and Bob had to promise to be on their best possible behavior before he would even contemplate leaving them along together.
Ryan wanted them to get along.
‘He’s over-protective, my best friend, my brother.’
Brendon was a Constant with the Vegas Institute; Bob wasn’t sure what Spencer had been. He felt like a Normal. There was none of the buzz that he got from being around other Constants; there was no tickling at the back of his mind that indicated that he was a Psychic.
“If you hurt him I’ll kill you,” Spencer said again. It was the third time.
“It’s not even a remote possibility that will happen,” Bob stated.
Spencer ran a hand through his hair and looked frustrated.
******************************************************************************
Ryan offered up his bedroom to Spencer and Brendon when he and Brendon came back. Bob thought that Brendon had been keeping Ryan occupied so that Spencer could issue thinly veiled death threats.
“Where will you sleep then?” Spencer asked, narrowed eyes. The stress ball was in his hand again and at the rate he was going he would either need a new ball or have a heart attack.
Ryan just looked at him, head cocked to the side looking for all the world like he thought maybe Spencer had lost some brain cells while they’d been separated.
“I don’t like this,” Spencer muttered. Ryan arched an eyebrow and Spencer sighed. Bob valiantly did not raise his arms in victory, at least not where they could see him. In his head Ryan was laughing at him.
“Brendon snores,” he said instead, defeated tone and Ryan squeezed his hand and then went and hugged Spencer tightly.
“I don’t snore,” Brendon protested.
“Yeah, you do,” Spencer said. His arms wrapped around Ryan’s slim frame and his forehead rested on Ryan’s shoulder. Ryan was whispering something softly into Spencer’s ear; Bob stood his ground and didn’t go yank them apart.
Ryan backed away, lifted Spencer’s head until they were staring into each others eyes, then kissed his forehead and returned to Bob’s side.
Bob touched his back lightly, finger winding through the back loop on Ryan’s jeans, tugging him minutely closer. Ryan leaned into his side.
“We have a couch,” he said.
******************************************************************************
Bob was normally the first one awake, he’d trained himself to do that when he was still one of Gerard’s potentials because it meant he didn’t have to shower with the ten other guys that he shared a bathroom with.
The morning after Ryan had offered up his room to Spencer and Brendon he woke and instead of Ryan being curled in a ball sound asleep, Ryan was awake and staring at him.
In the middle of the bed Bob’s hand was resting on top of Ryan’s.
“Brendon was on the short list to being my Constant, there was four of them left and none of them felt right but Brendon felt the closest to right, he was the only one that I felt even something like myself with… if I’d been there another week, if my dad hadn’t come I would have chosen him,” Ryan said softly. His eyes were wide and Bob laced their fingers together, squeezed gently. Didn’t say anything.
“My dad came before I had to make that decision, said that there was a family emergency, trouble. The Institute didn’t question him; he was my dad you know. I was seventeen. He kept me drugged to keep me from calling for help, I don’t know what he wanted, he didn’t ask me for anything or tell me to do anything... he didn’t want me for anything. I don’t even know why he bothered.”
Ryan’s eyes closed and when he opened them again they were wet. The tone of his voice didn’t change, he sounded like he was telling a story of something that had happened to someone else.
“He kept me drugged and handcuffed to a bed in a locked room. If there hadn’t been drugs I probably could have gotten out of the handcuffs, gotten away. I don’t know what was different about that night. It wasn’t unusual for him to be drinking or drunk; he’d normally just sit there, back against the wall, spitting at me how worthless I was, how no one was even looking for me. He’d usually hit me a couple of times and then go pass out somewhere. That night though, he was pissed off, unhappy, I knew he wasn’t going to stop at just hitting me a couple of times, that leaving bruises wasn’t going to quell whatever he had going on in his head that he couldn’t get rid of.… I couldn’t protect myself, for most of it I was barely conscious. I knew that I needed help, that I would die if I didn’t get help.”
Bob inched closer, touched Ryan’s cheek softly, wiping away his tears with their joined hands.
“They keep the Psychics in the Vegas Institute isolated, I’d never met any of them, didn’t know how to reach out to anyone that I hadn’t already met. I’d met Pete once; he doesn’t remember I don’t think. I was twelve and he was Pete Wentz. I’m not sure what he was doing at the Vegas Institute, maybe it was foresight, maybe it was just luck… I shouldn’t have been able to do it, I’m not even sure I could do it again… but I screamed and he heard me and he came when no one else did.”
Bob rolled onto his back and Ryan followed, laying his head on his shoulder. Their hands remained linked on Bob’s stomach, the other one Bob used to rub at the tension in Ryan’s shoulders. It was an awkward position, uncomfortable. Bob didn’t care because the longer he kept it up the more Ryan relaxed into him.
“I was mad, angry. He had me in some hovel barely four blocks from the Institute and no one found me, no one missed me. I felt you as soon as Pete brought me here, that something that was missing with everyone else, that… completeness, stability, home. If I’d said anything, if I’d told them that I was affiliated with the Vegas Institute they wouldn’t have let me keep you, they would have kept me isolated and they would have sent you away.”
Bob kept him close, murmured soft words that promised to not leave him against his forehead as he fell into sleep once more. He wasn’t sure if Ryan heard him.
******************************************************************************
Brendon and Spencer didn’t leave.
Bob waited for that, waited for the moment that Spencer would announce that they were going back to Vegas.
He waited and it didn’t happen. It was confusing to him, he couldn’t figure out how they would even have known Ryan, how they would have thought themselves close enough to him to search when their Institute hadn’t.
Brendon had been one of Ryan’s potential Constants. But Bob knew how that worked, had been through the process with Gerard, until chosen there would have been no way to forge a close bond with the Psychic choosing.
And Spencer… Spencer was a Normal and Ryan would have been taken from his family when he was a child, kept in seclusion, separated from family and friends until he was fully trained and had chosen.
Gerard hadn’t seen his brother since he was seven, Bob didn’t know if Gerard had ever thought of looking for him or if he’d already started looking and couldn’t find him. Gerard’s brother was the one topic that Frank was suspiciously quiet about.
But Ryan called Spencer his best friend, his brother. Called Brendon his friend. He called both of them family when he didn’t even attribute that bond to his father or his mother.
Ryan spent time with them, even with Spencer radiating disapproval every time he curled up with Bob on the couch and they watch the murder mystery shows that Ryan seemed to be addicted to.
“I like knowing that people will always learn the truth eventually,” Ryan would murmur.
Bob didn’t call the way that Ryan curled into him cuddling, not only because that’s not who they are just yet, but also because if he did Frank would figure it out somehow and he’d never hear the end of it.
Spencer glared at them more then the TV and Bob wondered exactly what he hoped to accomplish with all his pissiness.
Ryan had chosen him, not the other way around.
Bob hadn’t even known what he was walking into when he’d followed Patrick into the Infirmary; and even if he had he probably wouldn’t have done anything different. Ryan was his, had been since that day when he’d been battered and bruised and Bob had seen him and knew that he needed someone that was going to be looking out for him and only him.
That person was Bob, and the bonds were in place and there would be no breaking them unless one of them died. He really didn’t think Spencer could pull that off and not make Ryan hate him for eternity as a consequence.
They were living with them and it drove Bob just a little bit nuts. Coming home every night and there was Ryan but sitting right next to him were Brendon and Spencer.
They helped; Bob thought they were trying to make amends for not finding Ryan sooner.
Bob thought that someone would come to fetch them. Someone from the Institute or their families, someone… because they were both at least a year away from even being awarded the title of adult.
They were kids.
Granted they were kids that had traveled by themselves and had no visible support from the Institute that the claimed affiliation with and had traveled from Vegas to Chicago by themselves.
No one came; no one forced them back to Las Vegas.
Spencer, at least, had parents and siblings. He called them every other day.
Brendon didn’t talk to his family, had been cast out the moment that he’d tested high enough to qualify as a potential Constant.
Bob thought that Brendon and Spencer would probably trade spaces in a heartbeat if they could.
They couldn’t of course, that wasn’t even a possibility. And abilities didn’t just manifest because someone wanted them hard enough.
Spencer, Bob thought, was shit out of luck in that regard.
Director Herbitzer had put Spencer to work, apparently he’d been interning in the Human Resource Department doing data entry and they managed to find him a similar position at Mid-West.
Brendon was going to be tagged into one of the potential groups. There were two Psychics that were getting ready to have Constants set loose on them.
No one suggested that they just leave. Bob thought that maybe everyone had finally figured out that Ryan had never even been searched for when he’d been taken from the Vegas Institute.
******************************************************************************
Read part 1 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 2/8
Spencer James Smith V descended upon the Mid-West Institute three days before Ryan was due to return with Pete.
Bob would have handled it better, he thought, if he hadn’t still been a little raw from not having put any shields up when Ryan and Pete had left. That was one mistake that he wouldn’t make more then once.
He’d been sulking, he knew it, Patrick knew it, Frank knew it and Frank was pretty distracted by Gerard most of the time.
Patrick jokingly said they were in the middle of their honeymoon period.
Director Herbitzer had sent for him that morning and he’d thought that he might actually kill someone if he got another lecture about the whole not shielding thing. He was really ready to move past the whole thing, it was done, it was over with.
Ryan was coming home in three days and Bob had talked to him on the phone every night and sometimes first thing in the morning.
Bob thought that Ryan might be taking down his shields partially at night and changing his sketches, the first night there’d been the dog-antelope looking thing. When he’d gotten up that morning there’d been a lop-sided heart and some sort of squiggly-line thing at the bottom.
He was already in uniform when he got the summons, Patrick was waiting for him when he got there but looked just as confused as Bob felt.
“No clue?” Bob asked. Patrick shook his head, he didn’t look worried and Ryan’s painting and sketch were still there so there was nothing wrong on that front.
The door opened while they were standing there and Director Herbitzer’s aide was standing there. Brian Schecter had been a potential Constant at one time and had somehow ended up working for the Mid-West Institute.
The rumor mill said that Director Herbitzer was grooming him as his replacement for when he retired; Bob thought that couldn’t come fast enough. At least most of them got along with and respected Brian.
The same couldn’t be said for Director Herbitzer.
“Good you’re here,” Brian looked frazzled and Bob wondered if maybe he should have just turned over and gotten another hour of sleep instead of getting up for breakfast.
He ushered them in and Patrick stayed right beside him, he closed the door behind them and then led them into Director Herbitzer’s private conference room.
Director Herbitzer was sitting at the head of it, looking more then a little irritated. There were two young men sitting on one side. They looked to be about Ryan’s age and Bob got a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. One of the young men looked up and his eyes narrowed at him and Patrick, if looks could kill Ryan and Pete would be looking for new Constants right about now.
“Bob, Patrick, why don’t you have a seat,” Director Herbitzer said. He sounded tired and Brian poured him a glass of water then sat next to him. Pad of paper open and pen in hand.
Bob would rather just go right back out the door, instead he sat down, Patrick next to him.
“This is Spencer Smith and Brendon Urie. They’re here representing the Vegas Institute of Psychic Sciences,” Director Herbitzer started.
“I grew up in Las Vegas,” Ryan said. “I didn’t like it much, it was too warm and my dad had this thing with gambling, when he didn’t win he drank.”
Ryan had told him that the night before he and Pete had left, it was one of the few personal things that Ryan had divulged to him. Left unsaid had been the fact that when Ryan’s father drank, Ryan’s father hit him.
Ryan hadn’t told him that there was anyone in Vegas that would know him; hadn’t told him that he’d been affiliated with the Institute out there; there hadn’t been anyone that he’d tried to contact as far as Bob knew.
And they had offered.
He hadn’t told him that there was anyone that should have been looking out for him. If he’d been affiliated with the Vegas Institute he should have had, at the very least, a bodyguard when he was off its grounds. The fact that his father had almost managed to kill him before Pete had gotten there spoke volumes as far as Bob was concerned.
Bob stood up slowly; Patrick wrapped his hand around his wrist and tried to tug him back into his seat.
“He’s mine,” he said clearly, he enunciated each syllable less he be misunderstood. “He belongs to us here now and if you try and take him from here I’ll kill you both.”
Across the table he could almost see Spencer Smith’s feathers ruffling as he stood slowly and glared at him, it was an impressive glare, but it wasn’t the most impressive glare that Bob had ever been subject to.
“And who the hell are you to decide where Ryan belongs?” he snarled.
“He’s my Psychic,” Bob said carefully, enunciating every syllable and he let the words and tone of his voice speak for itself. From the look on both Spencer and Brendon’s faces they both got it.
And then all hell broke loose.
“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Patrick said. Bob looked over at him.
“Well at least no one got killed,” Patrick shrugged.
Though not for lack of trying.
Spencer had tried to come over the table at Bob’s pronouncement of his status as Ryan’s Constant; Bob had tried to go over the table to defend himself. Neither one of them had made it very far; Patrick had knocked him to the floor and for a little guy Urie had some strength on his side, because he’d managed to wrestle Spencer into something like submission.
They’d been summarily tossed out of the conference room. Bob didn’t know, or care where Spencer and Brendon ended up and he kind of hoped they’d been booted right off Institute property.
He didn’t think he was going to get that lucky.
“Director Herbitzer is bringing Ryan and Pete back tomorrow instead of waiting until Friday.”
Bob’s eyes narrowed at Patrick.
“Don’t look at me like that. The sooner Ryan is back, the sooner this whole mess will get worked out.”
“This whole mess better not be worked out by me having to transfer to Vegas Institute of Psychic Sciences, they’re a bunch of crackpots there,” Bob said. Plus his mom was here and she would be pissed if he had to uproot her.
“I’m pretty sure it’s not going to come to that.”
Patrick and Brendon stood between them at the entry point to the facility. Bob was trying deep breathing exercises and across the length of two little people he could see that Spencer had something that looked like a stress ball clenched in one hand.
The alarm sounded and the doors opened and Pete was the first one through. Throwing himself at Patrick like it had been a year instead of six days.
Ryan came through the door slowly and Bob stepped forward, Brendon was keeping a firm grip on Spencer’s arm and was muttering something in his ear that Bob couldn’t hear.
“Hi,” Ryan said softly, Bob saw his eyes dart over his shoulder at Spencer and Brendon but he still wrapped himself around Bob. The shields came down then and Bob hissed at the sensation, Ryan’s thoughts and emotions flooding through his mind before he got them under control and slowed them to a steady trickle.
He was so unbelievably happy to see Bob.
‘Missed you, missed you, missed you’.
Behind him he could tell, he wasn’t the Psychic, but he could tell that Spencer was getting ready to interrupt them so he drew back and watched as Ryan bit his lip. He stepped to the side and gripped Ryan’s hand tightly.
He wasn’t going anywhere, and maybe the sooner that Spencer and Brendon realized that he wasn’t a threat to whatever their friendships with Ryan entailed, they could all maybe not kill each other.
“There’s some people here to see you,” he said quietly.
Ryan just looked at him, the Ryan in his mind was sitting on the ground, long arms wrapped around his knees that were drawn up to his chest, he looked scared, ‘brother, brother, family’ repeating over and over again on a never-ending loop.
“Hi Spencer.”
“I don’t like you,” Spencer said
Spencer didn’t like him. That wasn’t quite the shocker that Bob thought it was supposed to be, he’d figured out that Spencer didn’t like him when he tried to come over the conference room table at Bob when they were first introduced.
Ryan was showing Brendon around the Institute, both Spencer and Bob had to promise to be on their best possible behavior before he would even contemplate leaving them along together.
Ryan wanted them to get along.
‘He’s over-protective, my best friend, my brother.’
Brendon was a Constant with the Vegas Institute; Bob wasn’t sure what Spencer had been. He felt like a Normal. There was none of the buzz that he got from being around other Constants; there was no tickling at the back of his mind that indicated that he was a Psychic.
“If you hurt him I’ll kill you,” Spencer said again. It was the third time.
“It’s not even a remote possibility that will happen,” Bob stated.
Spencer ran a hand through his hair and looked frustrated.
Ryan offered up his bedroom to Spencer and Brendon when he and Brendon came back. Bob thought that Brendon had been keeping Ryan occupied so that Spencer could issue thinly veiled death threats.
“Where will you sleep then?” Spencer asked, narrowed eyes. The stress ball was in his hand again and at the rate he was going he would either need a new ball or have a heart attack.
Ryan just looked at him, head cocked to the side looking for all the world like he thought maybe Spencer had lost some brain cells while they’d been separated.
“I don’t like this,” Spencer muttered. Ryan arched an eyebrow and Spencer sighed. Bob valiantly did not raise his arms in victory, at least not where they could see him. In his head Ryan was laughing at him.
“Brendon snores,” he said instead, defeated tone and Ryan squeezed his hand and then went and hugged Spencer tightly.
“I don’t snore,” Brendon protested.
“Yeah, you do,” Spencer said. His arms wrapped around Ryan’s slim frame and his forehead rested on Ryan’s shoulder. Ryan was whispering something softly into Spencer’s ear; Bob stood his ground and didn’t go yank them apart.
Ryan backed away, lifted Spencer’s head until they were staring into each others eyes, then kissed his forehead and returned to Bob’s side.
Bob touched his back lightly, finger winding through the back loop on Ryan’s jeans, tugging him minutely closer. Ryan leaned into his side.
“We have a couch,” he said.
Bob was normally the first one awake, he’d trained himself to do that when he was still one of Gerard’s potentials because it meant he didn’t have to shower with the ten other guys that he shared a bathroom with.
The morning after Ryan had offered up his room to Spencer and Brendon he woke and instead of Ryan being curled in a ball sound asleep, Ryan was awake and staring at him.
In the middle of the bed Bob’s hand was resting on top of Ryan’s.
“Brendon was on the short list to being my Constant, there was four of them left and none of them felt right but Brendon felt the closest to right, he was the only one that I felt even something like myself with… if I’d been there another week, if my dad hadn’t come I would have chosen him,” Ryan said softly. His eyes were wide and Bob laced their fingers together, squeezed gently. Didn’t say anything.
“My dad came before I had to make that decision, said that there was a family emergency, trouble. The Institute didn’t question him; he was my dad you know. I was seventeen. He kept me drugged to keep me from calling for help, I don’t know what he wanted, he didn’t ask me for anything or tell me to do anything... he didn’t want me for anything. I don’t even know why he bothered.”
Ryan’s eyes closed and when he opened them again they were wet. The tone of his voice didn’t change, he sounded like he was telling a story of something that had happened to someone else.
“He kept me drugged and handcuffed to a bed in a locked room. If there hadn’t been drugs I probably could have gotten out of the handcuffs, gotten away. I don’t know what was different about that night. It wasn’t unusual for him to be drinking or drunk; he’d normally just sit there, back against the wall, spitting at me how worthless I was, how no one was even looking for me. He’d usually hit me a couple of times and then go pass out somewhere. That night though, he was pissed off, unhappy, I knew he wasn’t going to stop at just hitting me a couple of times, that leaving bruises wasn’t going to quell whatever he had going on in his head that he couldn’t get rid of.… I couldn’t protect myself, for most of it I was barely conscious. I knew that I needed help, that I would die if I didn’t get help.”
Bob inched closer, touched Ryan’s cheek softly, wiping away his tears with their joined hands.
“They keep the Psychics in the Vegas Institute isolated, I’d never met any of them, didn’t know how to reach out to anyone that I hadn’t already met. I’d met Pete once; he doesn’t remember I don’t think. I was twelve and he was Pete Wentz. I’m not sure what he was doing at the Vegas Institute, maybe it was foresight, maybe it was just luck… I shouldn’t have been able to do it, I’m not even sure I could do it again… but I screamed and he heard me and he came when no one else did.”
Bob rolled onto his back and Ryan followed, laying his head on his shoulder. Their hands remained linked on Bob’s stomach, the other one Bob used to rub at the tension in Ryan’s shoulders. It was an awkward position, uncomfortable. Bob didn’t care because the longer he kept it up the more Ryan relaxed into him.
“I was mad, angry. He had me in some hovel barely four blocks from the Institute and no one found me, no one missed me. I felt you as soon as Pete brought me here, that something that was missing with everyone else, that… completeness, stability, home. If I’d said anything, if I’d told them that I was affiliated with the Vegas Institute they wouldn’t have let me keep you, they would have kept me isolated and they would have sent you away.”
Bob kept him close, murmured soft words that promised to not leave him against his forehead as he fell into sleep once more. He wasn’t sure if Ryan heard him.
Brendon and Spencer didn’t leave.
Bob waited for that, waited for the moment that Spencer would announce that they were going back to Vegas.
He waited and it didn’t happen. It was confusing to him, he couldn’t figure out how they would even have known Ryan, how they would have thought themselves close enough to him to search when their Institute hadn’t.
Brendon had been one of Ryan’s potential Constants. But Bob knew how that worked, had been through the process with Gerard, until chosen there would have been no way to forge a close bond with the Psychic choosing.
And Spencer… Spencer was a Normal and Ryan would have been taken from his family when he was a child, kept in seclusion, separated from family and friends until he was fully trained and had chosen.
Gerard hadn’t seen his brother since he was seven, Bob didn’t know if Gerard had ever thought of looking for him or if he’d already started looking and couldn’t find him. Gerard’s brother was the one topic that Frank was suspiciously quiet about.
But Ryan called Spencer his best friend, his brother. Called Brendon his friend. He called both of them family when he didn’t even attribute that bond to his father or his mother.
Ryan spent time with them, even with Spencer radiating disapproval every time he curled up with Bob on the couch and they watch the murder mystery shows that Ryan seemed to be addicted to.
“I like knowing that people will always learn the truth eventually,” Ryan would murmur.
Bob didn’t call the way that Ryan curled into him cuddling, not only because that’s not who they are just yet, but also because if he did Frank would figure it out somehow and he’d never hear the end of it.
Spencer glared at them more then the TV and Bob wondered exactly what he hoped to accomplish with all his pissiness.
Ryan had chosen him, not the other way around.
Bob hadn’t even known what he was walking into when he’d followed Patrick into the Infirmary; and even if he had he probably wouldn’t have done anything different. Ryan was his, had been since that day when he’d been battered and bruised and Bob had seen him and knew that he needed someone that was going to be looking out for him and only him.
That person was Bob, and the bonds were in place and there would be no breaking them unless one of them died. He really didn’t think Spencer could pull that off and not make Ryan hate him for eternity as a consequence.
They were living with them and it drove Bob just a little bit nuts. Coming home every night and there was Ryan but sitting right next to him were Brendon and Spencer.
They helped; Bob thought they were trying to make amends for not finding Ryan sooner.
Bob thought that someone would come to fetch them. Someone from the Institute or their families, someone… because they were both at least a year away from even being awarded the title of adult.
They were kids.
Granted they were kids that had traveled by themselves and had no visible support from the Institute that the claimed affiliation with and had traveled from Vegas to Chicago by themselves.
No one came; no one forced them back to Las Vegas.
Spencer, at least, had parents and siblings. He called them every other day.
Brendon didn’t talk to his family, had been cast out the moment that he’d tested high enough to qualify as a potential Constant.
Bob thought that Brendon and Spencer would probably trade spaces in a heartbeat if they could.
They couldn’t of course, that wasn’t even a possibility. And abilities didn’t just manifest because someone wanted them hard enough.
Spencer, Bob thought, was shit out of luck in that regard.
Director Herbitzer had put Spencer to work, apparently he’d been interning in the Human Resource Department doing data entry and they managed to find him a similar position at Mid-West.
Brendon was going to be tagged into one of the potential groups. There were two Psychics that were getting ready to have Constants set loose on them.
No one suggested that they just leave. Bob thought that maybe everyone had finally figured out that Ryan had never even been searched for when he’d been taken from the Vegas Institute.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-28 06:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-28 09:29 pm (UTC)