FIC: PATD - Six Years Ago - PG-13
Aug. 8th, 2010 08:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
laniew1Something completely self-indulgent while my other stories refuse to play along. There may, eventually, be a companion piece from Spencer’s POV.
Summary: Where Ryan goes home to help his dad and wakes up six years later to find the world a much changed place.
TITLE: Six Years Ago
RATING: PG (for language)
PAIRING: Ryan Gen (maybe leaning toward Ryan/Spencer if you squint), Mikey/Pete, Mike/Tom
AUTHOR: Melanie
SUMMARY Where Ryan goes home to help his dad and wakes up six years later to find the world a much changed place.
DISCLAIMER: If you recognize any of the names contained within as friends or family then you need to hit the back button now, no really, I’ll wait.
Six Years Ago
He feels guilt leaving. Jon is just starting to settle and Spencer is breathing again, finally; leaving them to deal with a Brendon with too much energy and not enough filters is not a good thing. He could return and they could begin the search to replace their lead singer instead of their bassist.
But his mother calls and it’s his father so he goes.
As much as he hates him sometimes, as much as he writes song that talk about what his father did to him… he’s still his father.
So of course he goes.
His father is fine when he gets there, he thinks this might be a quick trip, his mother overreacting to a situation that she’s been removed too many years from.
He realizes that she might not be overreacting when on his first night at home he goes to take a shower, when he comes out his father is standing there and he doesn’t know who he is and hits him.
It’s different then being hit just because he’s there and he’s a viable target, this time he’s being hit because his father is scared of him, doesn’t know him and it takes an hour to calm him down. Speaking in a calm, soothing voice, feeling the bruise form on his jaw.
He hopes now that he’s here long enough for the bruise to fade, the others will get angry, Brendon already hates his father and Spencer does as well even as he understands why Ryan still loves him, it’s his father after all. The only one that he has.
It continues for a week and Ryan starts talking with his mother about getting help for him. When he’s lucid he’s fine, when he’s not lucid he’s starting to scare Ryan.
It takes a lot to scare Ryan.
He’s suffered through broken ribs and sprained wrists and bruises that he both could and couldn’t hide and he was never scared of his father.
He’s felt anger and hate; he’s never felt fear.
He talks with the guys every night and e-mails Pete with updates every day. He doesn’t know what to tell them because he can’t just leave until there’s a plan of what to do with his dad.
There’s no guarantee that if they just leave him at home that his father won’t freak out when the mail man (who’s been their mail man for going on sixteen years) shows up and beat him with a baseball bat.
Ryan contemplates just hiding everything in the house that can be used as a possible weapon and decides that leaving his father in a house with nothing is probably not the best plan.
******************************************************************************
Ryan opens his eyes and blinks. His head hurts and his throat hurts and he feels like he’s been sleeping forever. He wonders why his dad didn’t wake him up; typically he’d be banging on his door and screaming at him to get his lazy ass out of bed.
There’s a nurse standing over him and he thinks oh fuck, shit, the guys are going to freak right out.
She’s talking in quiet tones to him and he tries to concentrate on her until all he sees are stars, then darkness folds over him like an old comfortable blanket and he curls up in it to wait until the pain goes away.
When his eyes open again Spencer’s mom is standing in the nurses’ place, she’s holding his hand and there are tears in her eyes and on her cheeks.
He doesn’t know why she’s crying and he thinks Spencer, please let Spencer be okay.
Mr. Smith comes up behind her, arms wrapping around her waist and he smiles at Ryan over her shoulder and his eyes are filled with relief.
Ryan doesn’t understand, not really, not until his mom who he’d seen the day before appears behind them, tears still streaming from her eyes and she has a head full of gray hair and lines that weren’t on her face the last time he saw her, just a day ago.
He doesn’t say anything.
He doesn’t need to, because apparently he’s attached to every machine known to man and they’re all screaming loudly and in unison for him.
His mom disappears and Mr. Smith backs away, only Mrs. Smith stays right by his bed, stubbornly refusing to move even as the nurses and doctors appear in the empty spaces around him.
He welcomes the darkness again. Because maybe when he opens his eyes this time the world will make sense.
******************************************************************************
He’s alone the next time his eyes open. The machines that had been screaming the last time he’d been awake are quiet, most of them are gone and the room is silent except for the sound of his breathing.
“Good morning Mr. Ross,” the door swings open and a doctor stands before him. Pleasant smile and he’s not even looking at Ryan, just flipping through the folder in his hand. “How are we feeling this morning?”
“Um…” Ryan says slowly, he wonders if that is supposed to be a trick question. He’s in a hospital and he remembers Mrs. Smith’s sad eyes and his moms gray hair, he thinks he’s been sleeping for a very long time and he’s not sure what’s happening to him, “I don’t know what’s going on,” he says in a small voice, he doesn’t recognize it. It sounds rough, gravelly.
The doctor looks at him finally, surprise on his features.
“No one’s told you anything?”
Ryan shakes his head and he wonders where Spencer and Brendon and Jon are, they should be here, they’re his friends.
The doctor starts talking then, slowly, like he thinks Ryan might need the space between the words to figure out what’s not being said.
Talking about his father attacking him and swelling on his brain and a broken arm and a broken leg and broken ribs and Ryan maybe tunes him out after that.
He could have just said that Ryan’s dad had broken him and that would have been the end of it.
He wants Brendon and Spencer and Jon.
******************************************************************************
“They’re on tour,” Spencer’s mom says. Ginger looks calm and collected, her eyes are still sort of puffy and red but Ryan doesn’t comment on them.
At least she’s not crying in front of him, every time his mom comes into the room she bursts into tears.
“Tour?” Ryan asks. Because he’s sitting in a hospital bed, has been for a very long time, how is his band on tour?
“A friend of Jon’s has been playing with them,” Ginger says, to her credit she looks uncomfortable. Like maybe this was a decision that was made that she didn’t agree with but most likely didn’t have any say in.
Ryan looks at her and he doesn’t know if he looks completely betrayed or if Ginger can just read his mind, (Spencer can do it, it’s probably only right that the woman that pretty much raised him after his mom took off could as well) but she lays her hand over Ryan’s and squeezes.
“It’s been a while sweetie,” she says softly.
“Six years,” Ryan says. That’s what the doctor has said, he’s not been brave enough to look in a mirror and see what six years after his father almost beating him to death left him looking like.
“They’ve been back in the studio and they put out another album, and they’re touring now with a group of bands from your label,” she says.
“Their label,” he says. Not his label anymore, because he, apparently, no longer has a band.
She looks at him with sad eyes, she’d promised once to never lie to him, he wonders if he can get her to take that back.
He thinks he needs someone to lie to him for a while. Someone to tell him that he hasn’t been asleep for six years and his band and friends haven’t all grieved for him and moved on.
“I’ve called them, they’re trying to switch things around so they can come home,” she says, he nods once and she squeezes his hand but he looks up at the ceiling instead. It’s easier to not look shattered and broken if he’s not looking directly at anyone he thinks.
“I’m fine,” he says, it sounds weak even to his own ears. He takes a deep breath and tries again. “I’m fine; they don’t need to do that.”
“Sweetie, they’re your friends,” Ginger sounds like she maybe wants to start crying again. Ryan knows the feeling. But it feels like it’s stuck somewhere down near the middle of his chest, it’s a tight lumpy feeling, it hurts.
He thinks when she leaves he might be able to get it out, he also thinks he’s co-opted Spencer’s mom for his own for long enough and it might be time to cut those ties.
******************************************************************************
Brent appears at his door the next morning.
Ryan just looks at him and doesn’t know why he’s standing there, the last time that Brent had said anything to him it had been to call him a spineless, weak asshole that would someday get what he had coming to him, the last time that Ryan had seen him Brent looked at him he’d like he thought he wouldn’t mind doing the time for murder.
Ryan wonders if Brent is here because apparently Ryan has gotten suitable punishment for being party to kicking him out of Panic.
Brent doesn’t look awkward or uncomfortable, Ryan’s kind of jealous that he’s had six years to get used to his own skin and life without the band and somehow seems settled.
Maybe he can get some tips.
“Hi,” he says and Ryan just looks at him.
“Um…” Ryan says, he twists his hands in his blankets and he must look as confused as he feels.
Brent steps inside the room, lets the door close behind him.
“What… are you doing here?” Ryan asks. He tries to not sound confused, he’s hating that sound in his voice. But everything and everyone has changed and he’s afraid that he’s just not handling it all that well.
Brent smiles softly, his eyes have that same relief that he’s seen in his moms’ and Spencer’s parents and a slew of other people that he only just vaguely knew.
Ryan doesn’t know why Brent feels relief. Doesn’t know why Brent cares. Doesn’t know why Brent is sitting down in the chair that Ginger has sat in every day since he woke.
He faked sleeping that morning, he knows he should just tell her that she doesn’t need to come anymore but he’s kind of afraid that if he says the words out loud she won’t come back ever.
Brent reaches out and touches his arm, like he’s checking to make sure that Ryan is really there.
“Don’t pinch me,” Ryan says, one of his cousins had done that. Pinched him to make sure that he was awake and could feel it.
Her nails had dug into his skin, it had hurt and left a bruise marring his skin.
“I won’t,” Brent says. He leaves his hand where it is, touching his arm.
Ryan is still confused.
They stare at each other; Ryan is waiting for Brent to yell at him, to tell him that he got what he deserved. To call him weak and spineless again.
“I was out of town, Shane and I, we were filming some stuff in L.A. for Cobra Starship… Spencer called us to let us know,” Brent says finally.
Ryan just blinks at him because he hasn’t got a fucking clue what’s going on. He doesn’t know why Brent would care, or why Spencer would share that information with him.
“Spencer said that they were having trouble getting a band there to fill in for them,” Brent says.
“I told his mom that they didn’t need to come,” Ryan says. He knows he sounds petulant, like a five year old whining.
“Yeah, good luck with that. If you’d managed to open your eyes two weeks ago they would have all been here, but you had to go and be contrary and wait until they left the country,” Brent sounds amused.
Ryan is glad someone can be amused, he certainly isn’t.
His band has moved on without him, he doesn’t know who they replaced him with but apparently whoever it was had settled in just fine and they’ve recorded a new album and they’re touring for it, and…
And they’d left him with Brent.
Somehow it doesn’t seem like a very fair trade.
******************************************************************************
Brent comes by every day; Ryan doesn’t say much, his life is so not exciting at the moment. He has physical therapy in the morning and then again in the afternoon and if the sessions aren’t bad he can be in a wheelchair for Brent to push around.
On the third day Brent smuggles in a cell phone and it rings ten minutes into his visit.
Brent hits a button then shoves it at Ryan with a smirk.
“Ryan?” the connection is crap, but the voice is utterly familiar.
“Spencer?”
******************************************************************************
“They replaced me,” Ryan finally manages to say a week and a half after he wakes up from his six year nap.
He’s been working up to it, he’s said it to himself in the mirror for the last couple of days so he could make sure he could get the words out without his voice breaking.
Brent is pushing him down the hallway towards the elevator. They’ll sit outside for an hour before Ryan has to be back in his room for his second set of daily pills.
He could walk, the whole point of the double therapy sessions was to get him back on his feet, he’s kind of wobbly, like a newborn calf or something, but he can walk to the bathroom on his own now so he counts it as a win. He’s just normally exhausted after the second physical therapy session of the day and it’s just easier and quicker if Brent wheels him out.
Plus the nurses don’t scowl at them as much if they see Ryan in the hallways in a wheelchair.
He’s apparently been here longer then some of the nurses that take care of him; he should be able to do whatever he wants.
“No they didn’t,” Brent says. His voice is even and calm. He sounds like he means what he’s saying.
“They recorded and they’re touring and…”
“And Tommy Conrad is on loan; Mike Carden will kill everyone involved if he’s not eventually returned in the same manner that he was given up.”
“On loan?” Ryan asks. Spencer’s mom had brought a stack of magazines that had interviews with Brendon and Spencer and Jon and Tom, every single one of them implied that Tom was a permanent addition to the latest incarnation of Panic! At The Disco.
Brent waits until they’re outside, waits until he’s sitting on one of the marble benches, Ryan facing him in his wheelchair before he speaks again.
“You’re still in Panic, if you look at the liner notes of the second album you’re there, even though you were here. Tom’s only filling in until you can take your place back from him.”
“I thought Tom left The Academy Is,” Ryan says. He’s got four interviews in magazines back in his room that talk about him leaving. About the blow up and the final break up.
Brent grins at him, “You should know that you can’t believe everything you read, Bill’s going to call it the biggest practical joke ever once you’re back on stage and they get Tommy back. He’s already got massive plans in place. But the Decaydance group knows that Mike and Tom were dating, are dating, they were getting ready to implode and take their band with them, so Pete co-opted Tom into Panic to keep that from happening. He records his own stuff for their albums and they get someone to back fill in for him when The Academy is touring. They all think it’s hilarious.”
“Tom’s not…” Ryan looks at Brent.
“Your place is safe; they’re probably trying to figure out how long it’ll take you to learn the new songs so they can get back on the road.”
******************************************************************************
Three days later Ryan has his first meeting with his psychiatrist.
He hadn’t wanted to, he kept insisting that he was fine but the doctors had talked over him and Spencer’s mom had found a doctor that dealt with family abuse traumas and they set it all up before they even broached the subject with him.
Dr. David Daniels is non-negotiable if Ryan ever wants to leave the hospital it would seem.
Brent takes him because Brent apparently doesn’t have anything better to do besides hang around Ryan confusing him with his continued presence and easy friendship.
“Don’t you have anything else you can be doing?” Ryan asks, he immediately wants to take it back because if Brent weren’t there then Ryan would spend entire days alone.
“Shane’s editing shit, he yells when I get in the way,” Brent taps the phone on his hip. “He’ll call if he needs me.”
Brent wheels Ryan into the room and shakes hands with his doctor and then leaves him there.
Ryan eyes the doctor and the doctor eyes him in return.
He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say. He just knows that talking to people about his father doesn’t help anything, it never has.
******************************************************************************
Ryan’s goes to both to both his morning and afternoon physical therapy sessions and his meeting with his therapist alone, a nurse pushing his wheelchair back and forth.
Shane had needed Brent for something and Ryan had been surprised at how used to having him there he is until he isn’t.
The nurse wheels him back from his afternoon physical therapy session and he’s sore, tired. She pushes the door open and Brent is waiting for him with someone that Ryan barely recognizes.
They both look pleased to see him, then the smile drops from Brent’s face and he knows that nurse is shaking her head, making some sort of motion hidden behind him to indicate that it had been a bad session.
He’d mind, but just blinking kind of hurts at the moment so he lets it go.
Brent comes forward to offer his arm for Ryan to brace himself on as he pushes himself to his feet; Brent’s arm holds him upright for just a moment while Ryan’s legs decide if they’re going to support his body weight or if they’d just rather give right up, once he has his feet under him Brent lets him lean on him for the twelve steps to the bed.
“I’ll get you something,” the nurse murmurs as she pulls his call button down and places it on the bed beside his hand.
Ryan settles into the bed and shifts awkwardly, his legs hurt, his hips hurt, his fucking head hurts. The therapist had finally worn him down enough that Ryan had told him about the first time his father had hit him.
He’d been thirteen, his mom had already left, he’d hidden from Spencer for a week because he didn’t want to have to explain the bruises.
The nurse returns with pills and Ryan swallows them down with the water that Brent pours for him.
“They should be here in a couple of hours,” Brent says, he sits in the chair right by the bed, touches Ryan’s arm. Ryan is trying not to gawk at Mikey Way leaning against the wall watching him with an inscrutable expression.
It’s easier then he thought, since his whole body feels like it’s been run through a wringer.
And also Mikey looks really different, no glasses and shorter hair.
“Mikey’s here because Pete asked him to come,” Brent says.
“It’s nice to see you finally awake,” Mikey says, he sounds sincere enough. Ryan knows that he doesn’t know him and doesn’t know why Mikey sounds pleased at seeing him awake. He’s still a couple years behind on magazine interviews though. Probably once he gets caught up…
“I’ll probably be asleep,” Ryan warns. Already the pills are starting to mute the pain, he’ll fall asleep pretty quickly once they fully take effect.
“At least you’ll wake up though.” Brent grins and squeezes his arm. “And Spencer and Brendon and Jon will be here when you do.”
******************************************************************************
The room is dark when he wakes; he keeps his eyes closed because he can hear voices. He can feel multiple hands on his arms.
One of them sounds like Spencer and he braces himself and opens his eyes.
Spencer is sitting where Brent would normally be; Pete perched precariously on the arm of his chair. To the left of them Brendon and Jon seem to have managed to get into the same chair.
Brent’s standing at the edge of the bed, Tommy Conrad standing next to him. Brent is the one that actually notices that he’s awake and he beams at him.
“Hey,” Spencer says, his smile lights up the whole fucking room. Ryan can’t help but smile back, he knows it’s not a big one, the drugs are still there and he’ll feel loopy and half-aware for a couple of hours until they fully wear off.
“Hi,” Ryan says back, he lifts a hand and rubs at his eyes. Mikey moves away from the wall he’d been leaning against and puts an arm over Pete’s shoulders. The way they lean into each other should mean something but Ryan’s still too tired to think of what.
******************************************************************************
Spencer is alone in the room with him the next time he opens his eyes. Spencer is leaning forward onto the bed, arms crossed, head resting on them. Ryan moves a hand to touch his hair.
Spencer’s eyes open slowly and he smiles at him when he sees Ryan looking at him. He straightens up, leaving one hand on the bed, touching Ryan’s hand. He waits for Ryan to make the first move and then links their fingers together and squeezes.
“Missed you,” Spencer says softly.
Ryan believes him, it’s written in the lines of Spencer’s face and joy in his eyes.
******************************************************************************
“We, are on vacation,” Brendon announces, his hands are on his hips and he grins at Ryan.
“I thought you were touring,” Ryan says. He doesn’t look over at where Tom is leaning against the window next to Jon. He still can’t get rid of the ‘they replaced me’ feeling that runs through him every time someone talks about the album they were touring in support of or he looks at Tom.
“We were, and now we’re on vacation while you get back on your feet, it’ll give you time to learn all the new stuff and give Bill time to figure out how he wants to announce Tom’s return to The Academy,” Spencer says, he grins at Tom.
“I figure he’s just going to have me show up at some random show and then just never let me leave,” Tom says, he picks at his fingernails. There’s a ring on his right pointer finger that Ryan doesn’t remember him having.
“Is that why Mike’s texting you about handcuffs and chains?” Jon asks.
Tom grins at him. “No, that’s just because he misses me.”
******************************************************************************
Pete is leaning back in a chair, feet up on another one when Ryan gets back to his room. He’s walking slowly, a nurse following along behind him just in case he falls.
The physical therapist says he’s doing great and if he keeps up the fantastic work that he might be able to leave the hospital in a week or so. Finish his therapy as out patient. Ryan is so ready to leave the hospital that its not even funny.
Pete swings his feet down and stands slowly.
“Ross, you’re walking,” he says. His eyes flicker between Ryan and the nurse trailing him.
“Apparently if I want to escape I have to be able to manage it without the wheelchair,” Ryan says. Pete smirks at him as he makes it to the bed. He half collapses on it, lying on his side, the nurse pats his back and doesn’t offer him any pain killers.
He has to be mostly weaned mostly off of those as well, before he can leave.
Pete repositions his chair, sits back down. Ryan is sort of surprised to see him there alone, there’s been very few times that Spencer hasn’t been there when he woke up or returned from a session. And if Pete is there, normally Mikey is right there as well, it’s like they’re joined at the hip and Ryan wants to ask but he’s not sure if he should.
“Mikey and I came out,” Pete says. Like he can read his mind and knows what Ryan’s thinking.
“Um…”
“When this all happened,” Pete waves a hand at the room, probably meaning to encompass Ryan’s attack by his father and his subsequent hospitalization. “Yeah, none of them were dealing with it well, Spencer was close to a nervous breakdown and blamed himself, kept saying that he should have been here, should have known something was going on, Brendon spent most of the time silent and still, which… you know Brendon, that’s like one of the four signs of impending doom. Jon didn’t know how to help any of them and he was barely holding it together himself, so that’s pretty understandable.”
“Mikey came here?” Ryan asks. He kind of doesn’t want to think of anyone, least of all his band or Pete or any member of My Chemical Romance seeing him the way he’d probably looked right after his father had done his worst.
“Patrick called Bob,” Pete says, he wrinkles his nose and looks slightly sheepish. “I probably wasn’t holding it together all that well either.”
Ryan looks at him.
“You’re my friend, Ryan. To see you,” Pete shakes his head. “Spencer’s mom called me, told me what happened, told me they were keeping it quiet and pretty much ordered me to get on a plane and tell Spencer and Brendon and Jon in person. Before it got leaked and made the news and they found out by watching TMZ or something.”
“Patrick came with me, he’s the one that got me on a plane and when I couldn’t get the words out, he told your guys. He got us all back on the plane and back here, and sequestered in a hospital before the media shit storm started. Patrick was pretty much made of puppy dogs and rainbows and leftover miracles during that. Because I’m pretty sure that none of us thanked him. He got Tom here to keep Jon from falling to pieces and made sure that Spencer’s parents were here for him and Brendon, he called Bob and Bob convinced Gerard that putting Mikey on a plane to come here was not the talk of an insane man,” Pete looks rueful and smiles a little. “Then Gerard decided that Mikey wasn’t coming by himself so they all got on a plane and came here.”
“So you and Mikey are together?” Ryan asks. He’s sure they are, the way they lean into each other, the way that Mikey doesn’t ever stray far and Pete always looks for him first…
Pete smiles, a little smile.
“I don’t know why he puts up with me sometimes,” Pete says, Ryan just rolls his eyes.
“You’re an idiot, Pete. He loves you, even I, with six years of missing everything can see that.”
******************************************************************************
Spencer brings him clothes the day that he’s finally able to leave the hospital. He’s never been so excited to wear something that wasn’t sweatpants ever. One of his nurses cries when he comes out of the bathroom and Ryan shifts awkwardly on his feet.
“You ready to go?” Spencer asks, he’s got a bright smile and happy eyes. Spencer’s the only one there, Ryan has a feeling that everyone else is waiting wherever Spencer is taking him when they leave here.
Ryan nods and Spencer takes his bag (there’s was a going away party for him, he’s got stuffed animals and several cards and an envelope that has money in it from the nurses and doctors that have been his constant companions for the last six years) and slings an arm over Ryan’s shoulder.
Ryan leans into his side and lets Spencer propel him out the door.
******************************************************************************
Summary: Where Ryan goes home to help his dad and wakes up six years later to find the world a much changed place.
TITLE: Six Years Ago
RATING: PG (for language)
PAIRING: Ryan Gen (maybe leaning toward Ryan/Spencer if you squint), Mikey/Pete, Mike/Tom
AUTHOR: Melanie
SUMMARY Where Ryan goes home to help his dad and wakes up six years later to find the world a much changed place.
DISCLAIMER: If you recognize any of the names contained within as friends or family then you need to hit the back button now, no really, I’ll wait.
Six Years Ago
He feels guilt leaving. Jon is just starting to settle and Spencer is breathing again, finally; leaving them to deal with a Brendon with too much energy and not enough filters is not a good thing. He could return and they could begin the search to replace their lead singer instead of their bassist.
But his mother calls and it’s his father so he goes.
As much as he hates him sometimes, as much as he writes song that talk about what his father did to him… he’s still his father.
So of course he goes.
His father is fine when he gets there, he thinks this might be a quick trip, his mother overreacting to a situation that she’s been removed too many years from.
He realizes that she might not be overreacting when on his first night at home he goes to take a shower, when he comes out his father is standing there and he doesn’t know who he is and hits him.
It’s different then being hit just because he’s there and he’s a viable target, this time he’s being hit because his father is scared of him, doesn’t know him and it takes an hour to calm him down. Speaking in a calm, soothing voice, feeling the bruise form on his jaw.
He hopes now that he’s here long enough for the bruise to fade, the others will get angry, Brendon already hates his father and Spencer does as well even as he understands why Ryan still loves him, it’s his father after all. The only one that he has.
It continues for a week and Ryan starts talking with his mother about getting help for him. When he’s lucid he’s fine, when he’s not lucid he’s starting to scare Ryan.
It takes a lot to scare Ryan.
He’s suffered through broken ribs and sprained wrists and bruises that he both could and couldn’t hide and he was never scared of his father.
He’s felt anger and hate; he’s never felt fear.
He talks with the guys every night and e-mails Pete with updates every day. He doesn’t know what to tell them because he can’t just leave until there’s a plan of what to do with his dad.
There’s no guarantee that if they just leave him at home that his father won’t freak out when the mail man (who’s been their mail man for going on sixteen years) shows up and beat him with a baseball bat.
Ryan contemplates just hiding everything in the house that can be used as a possible weapon and decides that leaving his father in a house with nothing is probably not the best plan.
Ryan opens his eyes and blinks. His head hurts and his throat hurts and he feels like he’s been sleeping forever. He wonders why his dad didn’t wake him up; typically he’d be banging on his door and screaming at him to get his lazy ass out of bed.
There’s a nurse standing over him and he thinks oh fuck, shit, the guys are going to freak right out.
She’s talking in quiet tones to him and he tries to concentrate on her until all he sees are stars, then darkness folds over him like an old comfortable blanket and he curls up in it to wait until the pain goes away.
When his eyes open again Spencer’s mom is standing in the nurses’ place, she’s holding his hand and there are tears in her eyes and on her cheeks.
He doesn’t know why she’s crying and he thinks Spencer, please let Spencer be okay.
Mr. Smith comes up behind her, arms wrapping around her waist and he smiles at Ryan over her shoulder and his eyes are filled with relief.
Ryan doesn’t understand, not really, not until his mom who he’d seen the day before appears behind them, tears still streaming from her eyes and she has a head full of gray hair and lines that weren’t on her face the last time he saw her, just a day ago.
He doesn’t say anything.
He doesn’t need to, because apparently he’s attached to every machine known to man and they’re all screaming loudly and in unison for him.
His mom disappears and Mr. Smith backs away, only Mrs. Smith stays right by his bed, stubbornly refusing to move even as the nurses and doctors appear in the empty spaces around him.
He welcomes the darkness again. Because maybe when he opens his eyes this time the world will make sense.
He’s alone the next time his eyes open. The machines that had been screaming the last time he’d been awake are quiet, most of them are gone and the room is silent except for the sound of his breathing.
“Good morning Mr. Ross,” the door swings open and a doctor stands before him. Pleasant smile and he’s not even looking at Ryan, just flipping through the folder in his hand. “How are we feeling this morning?”
“Um…” Ryan says slowly, he wonders if that is supposed to be a trick question. He’s in a hospital and he remembers Mrs. Smith’s sad eyes and his moms gray hair, he thinks he’s been sleeping for a very long time and he’s not sure what’s happening to him, “I don’t know what’s going on,” he says in a small voice, he doesn’t recognize it. It sounds rough, gravelly.
The doctor looks at him finally, surprise on his features.
“No one’s told you anything?”
Ryan shakes his head and he wonders where Spencer and Brendon and Jon are, they should be here, they’re his friends.
The doctor starts talking then, slowly, like he thinks Ryan might need the space between the words to figure out what’s not being said.
Talking about his father attacking him and swelling on his brain and a broken arm and a broken leg and broken ribs and Ryan maybe tunes him out after that.
He could have just said that Ryan’s dad had broken him and that would have been the end of it.
He wants Brendon and Spencer and Jon.
“They’re on tour,” Spencer’s mom says. Ginger looks calm and collected, her eyes are still sort of puffy and red but Ryan doesn’t comment on them.
At least she’s not crying in front of him, every time his mom comes into the room she bursts into tears.
“Tour?” Ryan asks. Because he’s sitting in a hospital bed, has been for a very long time, how is his band on tour?
“A friend of Jon’s has been playing with them,” Ginger says, to her credit she looks uncomfortable. Like maybe this was a decision that was made that she didn’t agree with but most likely didn’t have any say in.
Ryan looks at her and he doesn’t know if he looks completely betrayed or if Ginger can just read his mind, (Spencer can do it, it’s probably only right that the woman that pretty much raised him after his mom took off could as well) but she lays her hand over Ryan’s and squeezes.
“It’s been a while sweetie,” she says softly.
“Six years,” Ryan says. That’s what the doctor has said, he’s not been brave enough to look in a mirror and see what six years after his father almost beating him to death left him looking like.
“They’ve been back in the studio and they put out another album, and they’re touring now with a group of bands from your label,” she says.
“Their label,” he says. Not his label anymore, because he, apparently, no longer has a band.
She looks at him with sad eyes, she’d promised once to never lie to him, he wonders if he can get her to take that back.
He thinks he needs someone to lie to him for a while. Someone to tell him that he hasn’t been asleep for six years and his band and friends haven’t all grieved for him and moved on.
“I’ve called them, they’re trying to switch things around so they can come home,” she says, he nods once and she squeezes his hand but he looks up at the ceiling instead. It’s easier to not look shattered and broken if he’s not looking directly at anyone he thinks.
“I’m fine,” he says, it sounds weak even to his own ears. He takes a deep breath and tries again. “I’m fine; they don’t need to do that.”
“Sweetie, they’re your friends,” Ginger sounds like she maybe wants to start crying again. Ryan knows the feeling. But it feels like it’s stuck somewhere down near the middle of his chest, it’s a tight lumpy feeling, it hurts.
He thinks when she leaves he might be able to get it out, he also thinks he’s co-opted Spencer’s mom for his own for long enough and it might be time to cut those ties.
Brent appears at his door the next morning.
Ryan just looks at him and doesn’t know why he’s standing there, the last time that Brent had said anything to him it had been to call him a spineless, weak asshole that would someday get what he had coming to him, the last time that Ryan had seen him Brent looked at him he’d like he thought he wouldn’t mind doing the time for murder.
Ryan wonders if Brent is here because apparently Ryan has gotten suitable punishment for being party to kicking him out of Panic.
Brent doesn’t look awkward or uncomfortable, Ryan’s kind of jealous that he’s had six years to get used to his own skin and life without the band and somehow seems settled.
Maybe he can get some tips.
“Hi,” he says and Ryan just looks at him.
“Um…” Ryan says, he twists his hands in his blankets and he must look as confused as he feels.
Brent steps inside the room, lets the door close behind him.
“What… are you doing here?” Ryan asks. He tries to not sound confused, he’s hating that sound in his voice. But everything and everyone has changed and he’s afraid that he’s just not handling it all that well.
Brent smiles softly, his eyes have that same relief that he’s seen in his moms’ and Spencer’s parents and a slew of other people that he only just vaguely knew.
Ryan doesn’t know why Brent feels relief. Doesn’t know why Brent cares. Doesn’t know why Brent is sitting down in the chair that Ginger has sat in every day since he woke.
He faked sleeping that morning, he knows he should just tell her that she doesn’t need to come anymore but he’s kind of afraid that if he says the words out loud she won’t come back ever.
Brent reaches out and touches his arm, like he’s checking to make sure that Ryan is really there.
“Don’t pinch me,” Ryan says, one of his cousins had done that. Pinched him to make sure that he was awake and could feel it.
Her nails had dug into his skin, it had hurt and left a bruise marring his skin.
“I won’t,” Brent says. He leaves his hand where it is, touching his arm.
Ryan is still confused.
They stare at each other; Ryan is waiting for Brent to yell at him, to tell him that he got what he deserved. To call him weak and spineless again.
“I was out of town, Shane and I, we were filming some stuff in L.A. for Cobra Starship… Spencer called us to let us know,” Brent says finally.
Ryan just blinks at him because he hasn’t got a fucking clue what’s going on. He doesn’t know why Brent would care, or why Spencer would share that information with him.
“Spencer said that they were having trouble getting a band there to fill in for them,” Brent says.
“I told his mom that they didn’t need to come,” Ryan says. He knows he sounds petulant, like a five year old whining.
“Yeah, good luck with that. If you’d managed to open your eyes two weeks ago they would have all been here, but you had to go and be contrary and wait until they left the country,” Brent sounds amused.
Ryan is glad someone can be amused, he certainly isn’t.
His band has moved on without him, he doesn’t know who they replaced him with but apparently whoever it was had settled in just fine and they’ve recorded a new album and they’re touring for it, and…
And they’d left him with Brent.
Somehow it doesn’t seem like a very fair trade.
Brent comes by every day; Ryan doesn’t say much, his life is so not exciting at the moment. He has physical therapy in the morning and then again in the afternoon and if the sessions aren’t bad he can be in a wheelchair for Brent to push around.
On the third day Brent smuggles in a cell phone and it rings ten minutes into his visit.
Brent hits a button then shoves it at Ryan with a smirk.
“Ryan?” the connection is crap, but the voice is utterly familiar.
“Spencer?”
“They replaced me,” Ryan finally manages to say a week and a half after he wakes up from his six year nap.
He’s been working up to it, he’s said it to himself in the mirror for the last couple of days so he could make sure he could get the words out without his voice breaking.
Brent is pushing him down the hallway towards the elevator. They’ll sit outside for an hour before Ryan has to be back in his room for his second set of daily pills.
He could walk, the whole point of the double therapy sessions was to get him back on his feet, he’s kind of wobbly, like a newborn calf or something, but he can walk to the bathroom on his own now so he counts it as a win. He’s just normally exhausted after the second physical therapy session of the day and it’s just easier and quicker if Brent wheels him out.
Plus the nurses don’t scowl at them as much if they see Ryan in the hallways in a wheelchair.
He’s apparently been here longer then some of the nurses that take care of him; he should be able to do whatever he wants.
“No they didn’t,” Brent says. His voice is even and calm. He sounds like he means what he’s saying.
“They recorded and they’re touring and…”
“And Tommy Conrad is on loan; Mike Carden will kill everyone involved if he’s not eventually returned in the same manner that he was given up.”
“On loan?” Ryan asks. Spencer’s mom had brought a stack of magazines that had interviews with Brendon and Spencer and Jon and Tom, every single one of them implied that Tom was a permanent addition to the latest incarnation of Panic! At The Disco.
Brent waits until they’re outside, waits until he’s sitting on one of the marble benches, Ryan facing him in his wheelchair before he speaks again.
“You’re still in Panic, if you look at the liner notes of the second album you’re there, even though you were here. Tom’s only filling in until you can take your place back from him.”
“I thought Tom left The Academy Is,” Ryan says. He’s got four interviews in magazines back in his room that talk about him leaving. About the blow up and the final break up.
Brent grins at him, “You should know that you can’t believe everything you read, Bill’s going to call it the biggest practical joke ever once you’re back on stage and they get Tommy back. He’s already got massive plans in place. But the Decaydance group knows that Mike and Tom were dating, are dating, they were getting ready to implode and take their band with them, so Pete co-opted Tom into Panic to keep that from happening. He records his own stuff for their albums and they get someone to back fill in for him when The Academy is touring. They all think it’s hilarious.”
“Tom’s not…” Ryan looks at Brent.
“Your place is safe; they’re probably trying to figure out how long it’ll take you to learn the new songs so they can get back on the road.”
Three days later Ryan has his first meeting with his psychiatrist.
He hadn’t wanted to, he kept insisting that he was fine but the doctors had talked over him and Spencer’s mom had found a doctor that dealt with family abuse traumas and they set it all up before they even broached the subject with him.
Dr. David Daniels is non-negotiable if Ryan ever wants to leave the hospital it would seem.
Brent takes him because Brent apparently doesn’t have anything better to do besides hang around Ryan confusing him with his continued presence and easy friendship.
“Don’t you have anything else you can be doing?” Ryan asks, he immediately wants to take it back because if Brent weren’t there then Ryan would spend entire days alone.
“Shane’s editing shit, he yells when I get in the way,” Brent taps the phone on his hip. “He’ll call if he needs me.”
Brent wheels Ryan into the room and shakes hands with his doctor and then leaves him there.
Ryan eyes the doctor and the doctor eyes him in return.
He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say. He just knows that talking to people about his father doesn’t help anything, it never has.
Ryan’s goes to both to both his morning and afternoon physical therapy sessions and his meeting with his therapist alone, a nurse pushing his wheelchair back and forth.
Shane had needed Brent for something and Ryan had been surprised at how used to having him there he is until he isn’t.
The nurse wheels him back from his afternoon physical therapy session and he’s sore, tired. She pushes the door open and Brent is waiting for him with someone that Ryan barely recognizes.
They both look pleased to see him, then the smile drops from Brent’s face and he knows that nurse is shaking her head, making some sort of motion hidden behind him to indicate that it had been a bad session.
He’d mind, but just blinking kind of hurts at the moment so he lets it go.
Brent comes forward to offer his arm for Ryan to brace himself on as he pushes himself to his feet; Brent’s arm holds him upright for just a moment while Ryan’s legs decide if they’re going to support his body weight or if they’d just rather give right up, once he has his feet under him Brent lets him lean on him for the twelve steps to the bed.
“I’ll get you something,” the nurse murmurs as she pulls his call button down and places it on the bed beside his hand.
Ryan settles into the bed and shifts awkwardly, his legs hurt, his hips hurt, his fucking head hurts. The therapist had finally worn him down enough that Ryan had told him about the first time his father had hit him.
He’d been thirteen, his mom had already left, he’d hidden from Spencer for a week because he didn’t want to have to explain the bruises.
The nurse returns with pills and Ryan swallows them down with the water that Brent pours for him.
“They should be here in a couple of hours,” Brent says, he sits in the chair right by the bed, touches Ryan’s arm. Ryan is trying not to gawk at Mikey Way leaning against the wall watching him with an inscrutable expression.
It’s easier then he thought, since his whole body feels like it’s been run through a wringer.
And also Mikey looks really different, no glasses and shorter hair.
“Mikey’s here because Pete asked him to come,” Brent says.
“It’s nice to see you finally awake,” Mikey says, he sounds sincere enough. Ryan knows that he doesn’t know him and doesn’t know why Mikey sounds pleased at seeing him awake. He’s still a couple years behind on magazine interviews though. Probably once he gets caught up…
“I’ll probably be asleep,” Ryan warns. Already the pills are starting to mute the pain, he’ll fall asleep pretty quickly once they fully take effect.
“At least you’ll wake up though.” Brent grins and squeezes his arm. “And Spencer and Brendon and Jon will be here when you do.”
The room is dark when he wakes; he keeps his eyes closed because he can hear voices. He can feel multiple hands on his arms.
One of them sounds like Spencer and he braces himself and opens his eyes.
Spencer is sitting where Brent would normally be; Pete perched precariously on the arm of his chair. To the left of them Brendon and Jon seem to have managed to get into the same chair.
Brent’s standing at the edge of the bed, Tommy Conrad standing next to him. Brent is the one that actually notices that he’s awake and he beams at him.
“Hey,” Spencer says, his smile lights up the whole fucking room. Ryan can’t help but smile back, he knows it’s not a big one, the drugs are still there and he’ll feel loopy and half-aware for a couple of hours until they fully wear off.
“Hi,” Ryan says back, he lifts a hand and rubs at his eyes. Mikey moves away from the wall he’d been leaning against and puts an arm over Pete’s shoulders. The way they lean into each other should mean something but Ryan’s still too tired to think of what.
Spencer is alone in the room with him the next time he opens his eyes. Spencer is leaning forward onto the bed, arms crossed, head resting on them. Ryan moves a hand to touch his hair.
Spencer’s eyes open slowly and he smiles at him when he sees Ryan looking at him. He straightens up, leaving one hand on the bed, touching Ryan’s hand. He waits for Ryan to make the first move and then links their fingers together and squeezes.
“Missed you,” Spencer says softly.
Ryan believes him, it’s written in the lines of Spencer’s face and joy in his eyes.
“We, are on vacation,” Brendon announces, his hands are on his hips and he grins at Ryan.
“I thought you were touring,” Ryan says. He doesn’t look over at where Tom is leaning against the window next to Jon. He still can’t get rid of the ‘they replaced me’ feeling that runs through him every time someone talks about the album they were touring in support of or he looks at Tom.
“We were, and now we’re on vacation while you get back on your feet, it’ll give you time to learn all the new stuff and give Bill time to figure out how he wants to announce Tom’s return to The Academy,” Spencer says, he grins at Tom.
“I figure he’s just going to have me show up at some random show and then just never let me leave,” Tom says, he picks at his fingernails. There’s a ring on his right pointer finger that Ryan doesn’t remember him having.
“Is that why Mike’s texting you about handcuffs and chains?” Jon asks.
Tom grins at him. “No, that’s just because he misses me.”
Pete is leaning back in a chair, feet up on another one when Ryan gets back to his room. He’s walking slowly, a nurse following along behind him just in case he falls.
The physical therapist says he’s doing great and if he keeps up the fantastic work that he might be able to leave the hospital in a week or so. Finish his therapy as out patient. Ryan is so ready to leave the hospital that its not even funny.
Pete swings his feet down and stands slowly.
“Ross, you’re walking,” he says. His eyes flicker between Ryan and the nurse trailing him.
“Apparently if I want to escape I have to be able to manage it without the wheelchair,” Ryan says. Pete smirks at him as he makes it to the bed. He half collapses on it, lying on his side, the nurse pats his back and doesn’t offer him any pain killers.
He has to be mostly weaned mostly off of those as well, before he can leave.
Pete repositions his chair, sits back down. Ryan is sort of surprised to see him there alone, there’s been very few times that Spencer hasn’t been there when he woke up or returned from a session. And if Pete is there, normally Mikey is right there as well, it’s like they’re joined at the hip and Ryan wants to ask but he’s not sure if he should.
“Mikey and I came out,” Pete says. Like he can read his mind and knows what Ryan’s thinking.
“Um…”
“When this all happened,” Pete waves a hand at the room, probably meaning to encompass Ryan’s attack by his father and his subsequent hospitalization. “Yeah, none of them were dealing with it well, Spencer was close to a nervous breakdown and blamed himself, kept saying that he should have been here, should have known something was going on, Brendon spent most of the time silent and still, which… you know Brendon, that’s like one of the four signs of impending doom. Jon didn’t know how to help any of them and he was barely holding it together himself, so that’s pretty understandable.”
“Mikey came here?” Ryan asks. He kind of doesn’t want to think of anyone, least of all his band or Pete or any member of My Chemical Romance seeing him the way he’d probably looked right after his father had done his worst.
“Patrick called Bob,” Pete says, he wrinkles his nose and looks slightly sheepish. “I probably wasn’t holding it together all that well either.”
Ryan looks at him.
“You’re my friend, Ryan. To see you,” Pete shakes his head. “Spencer’s mom called me, told me what happened, told me they were keeping it quiet and pretty much ordered me to get on a plane and tell Spencer and Brendon and Jon in person. Before it got leaked and made the news and they found out by watching TMZ or something.”
“Patrick came with me, he’s the one that got me on a plane and when I couldn’t get the words out, he told your guys. He got us all back on the plane and back here, and sequestered in a hospital before the media shit storm started. Patrick was pretty much made of puppy dogs and rainbows and leftover miracles during that. Because I’m pretty sure that none of us thanked him. He got Tom here to keep Jon from falling to pieces and made sure that Spencer’s parents were here for him and Brendon, he called Bob and Bob convinced Gerard that putting Mikey on a plane to come here was not the talk of an insane man,” Pete looks rueful and smiles a little. “Then Gerard decided that Mikey wasn’t coming by himself so they all got on a plane and came here.”
“So you and Mikey are together?” Ryan asks. He’s sure they are, the way they lean into each other, the way that Mikey doesn’t ever stray far and Pete always looks for him first…
Pete smiles, a little smile.
“I don’t know why he puts up with me sometimes,” Pete says, Ryan just rolls his eyes.
“You’re an idiot, Pete. He loves you, even I, with six years of missing everything can see that.”
Spencer brings him clothes the day that he’s finally able to leave the hospital. He’s never been so excited to wear something that wasn’t sweatpants ever. One of his nurses cries when he comes out of the bathroom and Ryan shifts awkwardly on his feet.
“You ready to go?” Spencer asks, he’s got a bright smile and happy eyes. Spencer’s the only one there, Ryan has a feeling that everyone else is waiting wherever Spencer is taking him when they leave here.
Ryan nods and Spencer takes his bag (there’s was a going away party for him, he’s got stuffed animals and several cards and an envelope that has money in it from the nurses and doctors that have been his constant companions for the last six years) and slings an arm over Ryan’s shoulder.
Ryan leans into his side and lets Spencer propel him out the door.
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Date: 2010-08-09 09:43 pm (UTC)