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laniew1Next up Gerard/Frank then maybe, finally, the Pete/Patrick.
Read the tagged Constants stories 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: Joe/Ray, Ryan/Bob, Pete/Patrick, Gerard/Frank, Mikey/Brendon, Alex/Cash, William/Gabe, David C/David A/Michael
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 Ficlet #5
The rooms seem empty without Alex and Cash there. Bob knows that they’ll come back, that they need the time to themselves. He’s actually relishing the time alone with Ryan so he can’t find fault in their boys needing the same thing for themselves.
He’s been getting ready for bed, when he comes out he expects Ryan to already be lying across it already, waiting with book in hand for him to settle so he can lay his head on Bob’s shoulder and read the one chapter he allows himself a night. He reads out loud so Bob can hear him.
Except when he comes out of the bathroom Ryan isn’t there, he’s still in the living room, sitting cross-legged on the couch exactly where Bob had left him 32 minutes prior. He’d been watching a Lingo marathon; he gets a kick out of snorting at the TV when the contestants can’t figure out the word with one letter missing.
From the expression on his face Bob is pretty sure he’s not watching Lingo anymore, his hands are resting on his knees and he’s watching the TV with a puzzled look on his face. The Ryan in his head looks puzzled as well.
Bob sits next to him, lays an arm over his shoulder and Ryan leans into him, draws his legs up under him and sets his head on his shoulder.
There’s a news report on the TV, Bob doesn’t normally let Ryan watch the news, it depresses him, makes him sad and Bob doesn’t like things that make Ryan sad.
He’d thought about asking Spencer to move in short term, but there’s something going on with Spencer and Brian and Bob wants to keep that as far away from Ryan as possible if Ryan doesn’t already know (which is highly unlikely, given what Ryan is and the fact that Spencer tells Ryan everything).
Maybe he should have let the David’s and Michael stay in Alex and Cash’s room until their boys came back.
It would have been a distraction, the youngest David, the Constant, had made Ryan smile (as much as Ryan smiled at anyone that wasn’t Bob or Alex or Cash).
There’s a picture of a young man on the screen, dark, wild hair and he focuses past Ryan’s puzzlement to listen to what the news report is saying.
The young mans name is Joe, he’s barely past 19. He’s been missing for going on two days, taken from his parents home by force, blood in his room, outside the room, there are no leads at all, the FBI has been called in.
Behind the woman making the news report he can see the kids parents. The mother is sobbing, the father looks shell-shocked. Bob knows that they’re thinking that you should be safe in your own home, that you shouldn’t need to be worried about your children, no matter the age, being snatched away from their beds in the middle of the night.
“We need to find him,” Ryan says softly, his eyes haven’t moved from the screen. The Ryan in his head is distressed, upset, Bob doesn’t know why though he figures that there’ll be a meeting soon enough to let those of them that are not in the know, into the know.
He can see the hazy shadow of Pete forming beside Ryan in his mind. He looks distressed as well, obviously Pete figured out a way to get past Patrick’s parental locks on his own TV.
He’s wily like that. Bob thinks that Patrick only puts them back to give Pete something to do besides annoy him.
“He’s… we need to find him.”
******************************************************************************
Ryan and Pete together are a force to be reckoned with, Bob isn’t sure how they got Brian to agree to allow them out of the Institute after everything that has happened, from the look on his face Brian doesn’t know how they got him to agree with it either… but he does so out they go.
Bob doesn’t think it’s a good idea, neither does Patrick. It’s only been a few short weeks since they were attacked in their own home; Ryan is barely healed enough for Bob to even consider allowing him to leave their rooms.
But they really have no choice in the matter; Ryan and Pete jump into overdrive and are ready to go within hours of Brian saying that they could.
Zack is one of their six bodyguards, Ryan and Pete both argue that its overkill; Bob and Patrick both think that a couple more guys could be spared and both pull Zack aside to remind him of the proper care and feeding of their psychics.
Ryan had been shot after all; they’d been attacked multiple times in a place that should be one of the safest places in the world.
The thought of one of them not coming back because they didn’t have enough protection isn’t a thought that Bob dwells on because it kind of makes him a little crazy.
Ryan kisses him gently when they leave, Alex looks calm, Cash looks slightly frazzled. Bob knows that both he and Patrick look as bewildered as Brian does.
They still don’t know what is so important about this boy that Ryan and Pete are willing to put themselves at risk to find him.
Everyone looks at him for explanations that he can’t give; he doesn’t try to tell them that just because Ryan lives in his head doesn’t mean that he has any more of a clue as to what’s going on as anyone else.
They all pretty much know that.
******************************************************************************
Joe is apparently a psychic, an untrained one at that. How he’d slipped through the testing cycles and never been tagged as one is a complete mystery. Bob is surprised he’s not completely insane.
They find this out hours after Ryan and Pete have left the Institute.
They find this out because a Constant shows up on their doorstep and he looks about five seconds away from keeling over in shock.
He’s barely lucid and Brian recognizes him immediately as an unchosen Constant from his group.
His name is Ray. He’d left the Institute after their Psychic had chosen; Brian thought he’d gone into music.
Without Ryan or Pete there it falls on the others to step up to the plate.
Gerard and Frank appear first and Bob hovers slightly because he sometimes feels kind of useless when Ryan is gone.
It takes Gerard but seconds to figure out what’s going on and he’s got an expression on his face that Bob has never seen before.
“It’s… he’s bonded to a psychic,” he says, he glances back at the room, at Brian and Bob knows that he wants to dive more fully into Ray’s mind. Find out what’s going on.
Brian nods at him and Bob can feel the slight hum of energy of Gerard focusing completely on Ray, Frank hovers next to Bob, bouncing slightly. Bob restrains himself from clapping a hand Frank’s shoulder to still his movements.
“Where’s his psychic then? Shouldn’t he have come in with him?” Alex asks, Cash is right beside him, Bob knows if he looks he’ll see Cash’s hand rubbing soothing circles on Alex’s back.
He doesn’t, he just leans against the wall.
Gerard separates from Ray’s mind, he makes a motion with his hands and the medical staff swoops in and Ray disappears from their view.
Gerard is rubbing at his forehead and he looks puzzled in the same way that Ryan had looked puzzled when watching the TV.
He glances in the direction that Ray had disappeared.
“You need to call Ryan and Pete,” Gerard says to Brian, he’s looking at him with a very pointed expression on his face, Bob’s back straightens.
Brian stares at him, “Are you sure?” he asks, Bob’s pretty sure he’s still stuck on the fact that Ray was bound. He shakes his head. “I talked to Ray, just a couple of days ago… he would have told me if he’d met someone, if he’d met a Psychic.”
“I don’t think he actually knows him,” Gerard says softly. “Brian, he sees the boy in his mind, but there’s no recognition… it’s… I don’t know how this happened. I’ve never heard of this.”
Bob crosses his arms over his chest.
“A bond that isn’t fostered but knowledge or sight of a Psychic,” Mikey says quietly. He glances at the door and he looks intrigued and more then a little disturbed. “That’s new, different.”
“You think that the Psychic that Ryan and Pete are tracking is bonded to Ray?” Patrick asks.
“No,” Gerard says.
“Then…”
“I don’t think, I know. The boy, the one from the TV is the same one that is unconscious in Ray’s head right now.”
******************************************************************************
Ryan and Pete find Joe two days later.
It would have been quicker but the kid had somehow managed to escape from his kidnappers and was hiding out on the streets. Even though they had his Constant, Ray had been absolutely no help in figuring out exactly where on the streets he was secreting himself.
He was a fully trained Constant, but he’d never met his Psychic, didn’t know how to read his signals and intentions.
“Plus he doesn’t really know what I’m doing in his head,” Ray confides in Bob. “I think he’s scared of me.”
Bob thought it might be Ray’s hair that was doing that, it was… well it was something else.
Its round robin, sit with the patient time again. At least this time the patient is lucid and not prone to crying.
Ray seems really calm about finding himself bound, and sort of thrilled if the smile on his face is anything to go by.
“When I left the Institute I’d sort of made myself be okay with the never having my own Psychic,” Ray says. “But I don’t I ever really was, they train us to be Constants and then to not end up one…”
The kid is conscious Bob knows, Ray has told him that he’s just sitting there, in his head, eyeing him suspiciously.
Ryan and Pete are close to him twice, he runs both times. Bob thinks that the kid might be scared of Ray, but Ray is also the reason that he finally allows Ryan and Pete to find him.
They bring him in and Bob and Patrick meet them in the infirmary, Ray is waiting outside with Brian and Gerard until they’re given the all clear. They’re all three sitting on a bed, the boy is between them and his eyes look kind of haunted.
It’ll probably be a while before that look fades; whatever security Joe had felt sleeping in his own bed in his own home, with his parents on the other side of the wall, has been demolished by people kidnapping him from there in the middle of the night.
Pete is chattering away at him, probably to distract him if the tiny smile curling Ryan’s lips is any indication.
Both Ryan and Pete look exhausted but pleased with the outcome, the boy is barefoot and dirty, he’s got a black eye and a busted lip and he’s bruised and cut.
The wait by the door until the doctors are done. Let the doctors finish checking the boy out, then they can check their own Psychics out.
Ryan leans forward into him as soon as he is within reach.
Bob touches his face, his shoulders, his arms. Reassuring himself that Ryan is okay, that he has not come to any harm while being out of Bob’s presence.
He knows if he looks to the right he’ll see Patrick doing the same thing.
When he’s done he looks at the kid. He looks rough, tired. He’s not looking at any of them; he’s staring at the door expectantly. Like he’s waiting for something and Bob knows that he’s waiting for Ray to walk through it.
Bob glances at the door and when he looks back Joe has got his lower lip pulled between his teeth and is staring at his hands, a look of sadness and resignation on his face.
Pete tugs one of his hands free from Patrick and lays an arm over Joe’s shoulder, both him and Ryan are staring at the door. Ryan is starting to look angry in his head.
Bob knows when they finally let Ray walk into the room because Joe jolts and his eyes fly back to the door. Pete’s beaming now and Bob turns to look at Ray as he walks slowly toward them.
He’s seen this a couple of times, but it never gets old. That feeling of recognition, of knowing.
Joe is already bound to him but Ray still looks like he expects Joe to denounce him and choose someone else.
Joe grins at him, a wild happy thing that Ray returns, Bob can seem him relaxing and Ray holds out his hand.
Joe takes it, doesn’t shake it, just holds it. They don’t say anything, just stare at each other and Bob gets the feeling that they’ve forgotten they’re even there.
He feels oddly cheated that there’s apparently not going to be any crazy introduction to the Psychic that’s already set up shop in your head part of the program.
He was kind of getting used to it.
******************************************************************************
Read the tagged Constants stories 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: Joe/Ray, Ryan/Bob, Pete/Patrick, Gerard/Frank, Mikey/Brendon, Alex/Cash, William/Gabe, David C/David A/Michael
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 Ficlet #5
The rooms seem empty without Alex and Cash there. Bob knows that they’ll come back, that they need the time to themselves. He’s actually relishing the time alone with Ryan so he can’t find fault in their boys needing the same thing for themselves.
He’s been getting ready for bed, when he comes out he expects Ryan to already be lying across it already, waiting with book in hand for him to settle so he can lay his head on Bob’s shoulder and read the one chapter he allows himself a night. He reads out loud so Bob can hear him.
Except when he comes out of the bathroom Ryan isn’t there, he’s still in the living room, sitting cross-legged on the couch exactly where Bob had left him 32 minutes prior. He’d been watching a Lingo marathon; he gets a kick out of snorting at the TV when the contestants can’t figure out the word with one letter missing.
From the expression on his face Bob is pretty sure he’s not watching Lingo anymore, his hands are resting on his knees and he’s watching the TV with a puzzled look on his face. The Ryan in his head looks puzzled as well.
Bob sits next to him, lays an arm over his shoulder and Ryan leans into him, draws his legs up under him and sets his head on his shoulder.
There’s a news report on the TV, Bob doesn’t normally let Ryan watch the news, it depresses him, makes him sad and Bob doesn’t like things that make Ryan sad.
He’d thought about asking Spencer to move in short term, but there’s something going on with Spencer and Brian and Bob wants to keep that as far away from Ryan as possible if Ryan doesn’t already know (which is highly unlikely, given what Ryan is and the fact that Spencer tells Ryan everything).
Maybe he should have let the David’s and Michael stay in Alex and Cash’s room until their boys came back.
It would have been a distraction, the youngest David, the Constant, had made Ryan smile (as much as Ryan smiled at anyone that wasn’t Bob or Alex or Cash).
There’s a picture of a young man on the screen, dark, wild hair and he focuses past Ryan’s puzzlement to listen to what the news report is saying.
The young mans name is Joe, he’s barely past 19. He’s been missing for going on two days, taken from his parents home by force, blood in his room, outside the room, there are no leads at all, the FBI has been called in.
Behind the woman making the news report he can see the kids parents. The mother is sobbing, the father looks shell-shocked. Bob knows that they’re thinking that you should be safe in your own home, that you shouldn’t need to be worried about your children, no matter the age, being snatched away from their beds in the middle of the night.
“We need to find him,” Ryan says softly, his eyes haven’t moved from the screen. The Ryan in his head is distressed, upset, Bob doesn’t know why though he figures that there’ll be a meeting soon enough to let those of them that are not in the know, into the know.
He can see the hazy shadow of Pete forming beside Ryan in his mind. He looks distressed as well, obviously Pete figured out a way to get past Patrick’s parental locks on his own TV.
He’s wily like that. Bob thinks that Patrick only puts them back to give Pete something to do besides annoy him.
“He’s… we need to find him.”
Ryan and Pete together are a force to be reckoned with, Bob isn’t sure how they got Brian to agree to allow them out of the Institute after everything that has happened, from the look on his face Brian doesn’t know how they got him to agree with it either… but he does so out they go.
Bob doesn’t think it’s a good idea, neither does Patrick. It’s only been a few short weeks since they were attacked in their own home; Ryan is barely healed enough for Bob to even consider allowing him to leave their rooms.
But they really have no choice in the matter; Ryan and Pete jump into overdrive and are ready to go within hours of Brian saying that they could.
Zack is one of their six bodyguards, Ryan and Pete both argue that its overkill; Bob and Patrick both think that a couple more guys could be spared and both pull Zack aside to remind him of the proper care and feeding of their psychics.
Ryan had been shot after all; they’d been attacked multiple times in a place that should be one of the safest places in the world.
The thought of one of them not coming back because they didn’t have enough protection isn’t a thought that Bob dwells on because it kind of makes him a little crazy.
Ryan kisses him gently when they leave, Alex looks calm, Cash looks slightly frazzled. Bob knows that both he and Patrick look as bewildered as Brian does.
They still don’t know what is so important about this boy that Ryan and Pete are willing to put themselves at risk to find him.
Everyone looks at him for explanations that he can’t give; he doesn’t try to tell them that just because Ryan lives in his head doesn’t mean that he has any more of a clue as to what’s going on as anyone else.
They all pretty much know that.
Joe is apparently a psychic, an untrained one at that. How he’d slipped through the testing cycles and never been tagged as one is a complete mystery. Bob is surprised he’s not completely insane.
They find this out hours after Ryan and Pete have left the Institute.
They find this out because a Constant shows up on their doorstep and he looks about five seconds away from keeling over in shock.
He’s barely lucid and Brian recognizes him immediately as an unchosen Constant from his group.
His name is Ray. He’d left the Institute after their Psychic had chosen; Brian thought he’d gone into music.
Without Ryan or Pete there it falls on the others to step up to the plate.
Gerard and Frank appear first and Bob hovers slightly because he sometimes feels kind of useless when Ryan is gone.
It takes Gerard but seconds to figure out what’s going on and he’s got an expression on his face that Bob has never seen before.
“It’s… he’s bonded to a psychic,” he says, he glances back at the room, at Brian and Bob knows that he wants to dive more fully into Ray’s mind. Find out what’s going on.
Brian nods at him and Bob can feel the slight hum of energy of Gerard focusing completely on Ray, Frank hovers next to Bob, bouncing slightly. Bob restrains himself from clapping a hand Frank’s shoulder to still his movements.
“Where’s his psychic then? Shouldn’t he have come in with him?” Alex asks, Cash is right beside him, Bob knows if he looks he’ll see Cash’s hand rubbing soothing circles on Alex’s back.
He doesn’t, he just leans against the wall.
Gerard separates from Ray’s mind, he makes a motion with his hands and the medical staff swoops in and Ray disappears from their view.
Gerard is rubbing at his forehead and he looks puzzled in the same way that Ryan had looked puzzled when watching the TV.
He glances in the direction that Ray had disappeared.
“You need to call Ryan and Pete,” Gerard says to Brian, he’s looking at him with a very pointed expression on his face, Bob’s back straightens.
Brian stares at him, “Are you sure?” he asks, Bob’s pretty sure he’s still stuck on the fact that Ray was bound. He shakes his head. “I talked to Ray, just a couple of days ago… he would have told me if he’d met someone, if he’d met a Psychic.”
“I don’t think he actually knows him,” Gerard says softly. “Brian, he sees the boy in his mind, but there’s no recognition… it’s… I don’t know how this happened. I’ve never heard of this.”
Bob crosses his arms over his chest.
“A bond that isn’t fostered but knowledge or sight of a Psychic,” Mikey says quietly. He glances at the door and he looks intrigued and more then a little disturbed. “That’s new, different.”
“You think that the Psychic that Ryan and Pete are tracking is bonded to Ray?” Patrick asks.
“No,” Gerard says.
“Then…”
“I don’t think, I know. The boy, the one from the TV is the same one that is unconscious in Ray’s head right now.”
Ryan and Pete find Joe two days later.
It would have been quicker but the kid had somehow managed to escape from his kidnappers and was hiding out on the streets. Even though they had his Constant, Ray had been absolutely no help in figuring out exactly where on the streets he was secreting himself.
He was a fully trained Constant, but he’d never met his Psychic, didn’t know how to read his signals and intentions.
“Plus he doesn’t really know what I’m doing in his head,” Ray confides in Bob. “I think he’s scared of me.”
Bob thought it might be Ray’s hair that was doing that, it was… well it was something else.
Its round robin, sit with the patient time again. At least this time the patient is lucid and not prone to crying.
Ray seems really calm about finding himself bound, and sort of thrilled if the smile on his face is anything to go by.
“When I left the Institute I’d sort of made myself be okay with the never having my own Psychic,” Ray says. “But I don’t I ever really was, they train us to be Constants and then to not end up one…”
The kid is conscious Bob knows, Ray has told him that he’s just sitting there, in his head, eyeing him suspiciously.
Ryan and Pete are close to him twice, he runs both times. Bob thinks that the kid might be scared of Ray, but Ray is also the reason that he finally allows Ryan and Pete to find him.
They bring him in and Bob and Patrick meet them in the infirmary, Ray is waiting outside with Brian and Gerard until they’re given the all clear. They’re all three sitting on a bed, the boy is between them and his eyes look kind of haunted.
It’ll probably be a while before that look fades; whatever security Joe had felt sleeping in his own bed in his own home, with his parents on the other side of the wall, has been demolished by people kidnapping him from there in the middle of the night.
Pete is chattering away at him, probably to distract him if the tiny smile curling Ryan’s lips is any indication.
Both Ryan and Pete look exhausted but pleased with the outcome, the boy is barefoot and dirty, he’s got a black eye and a busted lip and he’s bruised and cut.
The wait by the door until the doctors are done. Let the doctors finish checking the boy out, then they can check their own Psychics out.
Ryan leans forward into him as soon as he is within reach.
Bob touches his face, his shoulders, his arms. Reassuring himself that Ryan is okay, that he has not come to any harm while being out of Bob’s presence.
He knows if he looks to the right he’ll see Patrick doing the same thing.
When he’s done he looks at the kid. He looks rough, tired. He’s not looking at any of them; he’s staring at the door expectantly. Like he’s waiting for something and Bob knows that he’s waiting for Ray to walk through it.
Bob glances at the door and when he looks back Joe has got his lower lip pulled between his teeth and is staring at his hands, a look of sadness and resignation on his face.
Pete tugs one of his hands free from Patrick and lays an arm over Joe’s shoulder, both him and Ryan are staring at the door. Ryan is starting to look angry in his head.
Bob knows when they finally let Ray walk into the room because Joe jolts and his eyes fly back to the door. Pete’s beaming now and Bob turns to look at Ray as he walks slowly toward them.
He’s seen this a couple of times, but it never gets old. That feeling of recognition, of knowing.
Joe is already bound to him but Ray still looks like he expects Joe to denounce him and choose someone else.
Joe grins at him, a wild happy thing that Ray returns, Bob can seem him relaxing and Ray holds out his hand.
Joe takes it, doesn’t shake it, just holds it. They don’t say anything, just stare at each other and Bob gets the feeling that they’ve forgotten they’re even there.
He feels oddly cheated that there’s apparently not going to be any crazy introduction to the Psychic that’s already set up shop in your head part of the program.
He was kind of getting used to it.
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Date: 2009-07-05 08:10 pm (UTC)