OMNISCIENT

by acareeroutofrobbingbanks

Summary:

Ryan Ross could see the future. He could also see the past and present, but people never seemed to care about that part.

As the one and only Oracle, Ryan Ross has a lot on his plate. He has to deal with frantic rock stars, violent nightmares, visions that rip him out of his ordinary life, and on top of all that, homework.
But when one day at school Ryan is confronted with a horrible vision of the school priest getting murdered, Ryan is thrown from prophesying adventures from the sidelines to the middle of the action. And this all is made even more complicated by the sudden appearance of a boy he has been dreaming about for nearly half his life. Ryan never saw himself as a hero. But with the help of the new boy with the dorky haircut and impossible powers, anything can happen.

(Set in the same universe as The High Way to Hell, but can be read separately.)

Chapter 1: Prologue

“God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. Can anyone tell me what that means?”

Religion class was a bore, but it was the one class that the fourth and fifth graders at Bishop Gorman shared, so it was Ryan's favorite, all because Spencer was there.

“What's Green Day been up to?” Spencer whispered out of the side of his mouth while Mrs. Layden looked around for prey to call on.

“Loch Ness,” Ryan mouthed, and Spencer's eyes widened.

“The Loch Ness-!”

“Mr. Smith, since you're feeling so chatty. Can you tell us what one of those words mean?”

Spencer blanched, and Ryan held back a fit of laughter. He felt bad for Spencer, but mostly he was relieved that he hadn’t been called on.

“No, Mrs. Layden,” Spencer said. He focused his eyes on the top of his desk. Ryan was about to relax, when-

“How about you, Mr. Ross?”

Well, shit.

“Um,” Ryan said. His tie suddenly felt very tight around his throat. He knew this, he knew this, he knew this. “Um, yeah, omni means all, right? And, um, isn’t ‘omniscient’ all-knowing?”

“Correct, Ryan. Omniscient means all-knowing. God knows everything. He knows every thought you have and sees every deed you do. Go on, write this down. And don’t let me catch you boys talking during class again. Now, omnipotent means all-powerful…”

She droned on, but now that he was in the clear, Ryan slumped back against his chair. His dad had overslept again, and he hadn’t had time for breakfast this morning, so he was really looking forward to lunch and recess, where, if he had the time and no one else felt like picking on him and Spencer, he might check in on Green Day again. They weren’t in trouble, the last he saw, but things changed so fast in monster fighting, and Ryan couldn’t believe he had to sit through his usual dull classes while all of his favorite bands were out saving the world.

Well, not Blink 182, for some reason. But it was still fun watching them. They got into all kinds of shit without any magical help.

Ryan's train of thought was broken off when a tiny piece of paper landed on his desk with a soft thud. Ryan unfolded it to reveal a message written in Spencer's messy, blocky handwriting:

Didn't know you were god

Ryan shoved the note deep into his pocket, suddenly nervous. It was one thing to joke around like that outside of school, but blasphemy was the kind of thing that got you more than detention.

And something else about the note bugged him, something Ryan couldn't put his finger on. Comparing him to God. Omniscient. It made him feel hot and clammy at the same time. He put pencil to paper and then set it back down a half dozen times or more before finally giving up and tossing the crumpled note into his desk.

Spencer turned around and cocked his head in question. Ryan gestured towards the teacher in the hopes that Spencer would think he just didn't want to get in trouble.

Omniscient, Ryan thought. It sounded much cooler on paper than it actually was in practice.

***

Ryan bade Spencer goodbye at the bus stop and made his way home alone. Often the two would hang out after school, but Ryan was exhausted and his dad was working late, so today would be the perfect day to just relax by himself. Juicy Juice, a couple episodes of Fresh Prince, and an afternoon of solitude seemed to Ryan to cure all ailments, so he prescribed it to himself to see if it would do anything about the strange, nagging worry in the back of his head. It was a good plan, too, and probably would have soothed his nerves enough to do his religion homework and go to bed.

Except.

There was a van in Ryan's driveway.

Ryan stopped short and groaned because not today, not today of all days, when all he wanted was to rest. When his dad wasn't home. Ryan's dad always warned him not to talk to strangers when he wasn't around, but the strangers that visited the little stucco house didn't always wait.

He could run. Turn around and bolt to Spencer's house and let someone else handle this.

But visitors so desperate to know their future that they found Ryan were not easily dissuaded. Plus, Spencer's parents didn't let them watch Nickelodeon. They thought it was bad tv.

Ryan walked to his house with grim determination. There were five boys leaning against the van, the youngest just a few years older than Ryan and the oldest probably in his mid twenties. Ryan walked right past them and up to his front door, thinking go away go away go away.

“Hey! Hey kid! Hey! Kid! Do you live here?”

Ryan rolled his eyes and turned around.

“I have a key, so. You know. One would hope.”

The oldest of the group, a stocky guy with braids sticking out of his head in crazy directions stepped forward.

“I'm Chris,” he said in a loathsome and sugar-sweet “I’m talking to a child!” voice. “What's your name, sweetie?”

“Ryan,” Ryan said sourly. “What do you want?”

Another older one, this one taller and bearded, had the audacity to bend down to talk to Ryan. Bend down! As if he were three years old and not a fairly tall eleven year old!

“Is your mommy home, Ryan?”

“She hasn't been in seven years,” Ryan said. The five of them looked nervous. Good. Go away.

“Do you have a sister?” A third tried. This one didn't seem to condescend. He had curly hair and a spritely face, and the serious expression he wore didn't seem to fit him. It seemed to Ryan like this one must usually be smiling. And in fact, he looked familiar…

“Were you on the Mickey Mouse Club?” Ryan asked suddenly. The pretty boy gave a brief, sheepish grin.

“Yeah, I was,” he said.

“Cool.” Ryan almost smiled, but then remembered why they were there. “But no. My sisters live with my mom.”

Braids tried again.

“Are there any women living in the house with-?”

“Just me and my dad.”

“But this is the address!” the youngest one said. He sounded betrayed, and the game was getting old.

“Address for what?” Ryan sighed, as if he didn't already know.

“We're looking for the Oracle of Delphi.”

Ryan rolled his eyes again.

“Present. C’mon, let's get inside before the neighbors call the cops on you guys or something.”

Ryan led them out of the hot desert sun into his cool, dark living room. Ryan flicked on the lamps, but didn't touch the buzzing fluorescent overhead out of habit. His dad hated that light.

“Can I get you a drink?” Ryan asked once they'd all found seats-- on the couch, the arms of the couch, the floor, all of them avoiding the big La-Z-Boy that Ryan's dad slept in like they could tell it was off limits. “Um. We've got apple juice, grape juice, milk, water, vodka, beer…”

“What kinda beer?” the young one piped up, and stupid-braids-Chris smacked him on the back of the head with a sharp “Justin!” The kid pouted, and said “I'm good, actually.”

“Not to be rude,” a quiet, baby-faced boy with a southern accent said, “but how do we know for sure you're the Oracle?”

Ryan sighed. He reached out and touched the top of his hand with his finger tips, and as a wave of memories that weren't Ryan's crashed through his skull, his eyes widened. Damn. Vivid.

“So when you were in Berlin, and you met a man named Jack-” Ryan began, and he needed to go no farther. The guy's eyes widened and he yanked his hand back. Ryan smirked, and turned to the tall, condescending one.

“Sorry about the bite,” he said, “that looked gnarly.  Good thing the Backstreet Boys were there to save the day, right? And Justin, interesting the amount of weed you snuck out of Amsterdam without the TSA noticing, couldn't have anything to do with those glowing eyes, right? And JC-”

“Okay, we believe you!” Chris said. “Christ. You're really the Oracle?”

“One and only,” Ryan said.

“Wow,” JC, the pretty boy, said. “That's really cool, dude. So, um, how does this work?”

Oh, suckers. They should know better than to ask something like that.

“Well, first of all, I require payment,” Ryan said. The five of them looked at him blankly.

“I'm serious. Foretelling the future is hard work, and, uh, most of you look over 18, so-”

“We are not buying you porn!” Chris said. Ryan rolled his eyes. Jesus.

“Cool, didn't want you to. There's a book my dad told me I'm too young to read called “Invisible Monsters” and it sounds really cool. Plus, I disapprove of censorship. And I don't have ten dollars right now. So, if you guys pop on down to Barnes and Noble and buy me a copy, I'd be willing to share the future with you.”

“Is it a sex book?” Chris asked.

“For fuck’s sake!” they all cringed back when Ryan swore. “What are you, Baptists? It's just a book, okay? This author is gonna be huge soon. Fight Club. Watch out for it.”

“And we have to pay you before you tell us?” the tall one asked. (Ryan had learned through the brief flash through Lance's memory that his name was Joey.)

“Yup. You're already kinda killing my Fresh Prince and homework afternoon, so I'd like to guarantee I'm getting something out of it.”

“Fine,” Joey said. “But we're gonna leave someone here. Make sure you don't try and run away.”

“This is my house!” Ryan yelled, but four of them were already walking out, leaving baby-face (Lance, part vampire, gay and closeted) with him.

“So.” Lance looked awkward, barely old enough to babysit Ryan.

“I'm gonna watch TV,” Ryan told him, and turned on the TV as promised. He plopped down on the couch, flipping through channels to get where he wanted. Somewhere about twenty channels up from where he started, he noticed that Lance was very quiet. He sniffled next to him. Ryan rolled his eyes.

“It's not a big deal that you're gay,” he sighed, not so much a reassurance as something he was annoyed of having to say.

“Easy for you to say,” the kid sniffed. He was older than Ryan, sure, but still. Basically a kid.

“Yeah, easy for me to say,” Ryan agreed. It was on commercial break. Figured. “You know, I'm younger, I'm not gay, I grew up in Vegas, my dad's got gay friends, oh, and, don't forget, I see the freaking future.”

Lance froze next to him.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“Means you can get married to a dude in about ten years in some states. Now lower your heart rate before your werewolf notices, bask in the glow of the future, and shut up, okay?”

He did shut up, much to Ryan's relief. And Ryan watched a whole episode and a half in piece. He even eventually noticed Lance very quietly laughing along at the jokes.

The rest of the band came back a little after the theme song, and Lance stiffened up, like he’d been doing something embarrassing. Chris thrust the book into Ryan’s hands and crossed his arms over his chest.

“So,” he said. Ryan’s stomach twisted tightly, nerves curling tightly and his breath speeding up. He did not want them to see his hands shaking. He smirked.

 “Alright,” Ryan said. “Whad’you want to know?”

“We think that our manager has done something,” Chris said. He paused. “Something bad.”

“Can you give me any more info? You’re only hurting yourselves if you try to keep this PG for my sake, don’t forget that,” Ryan said.

“We don’t know the details,” Justin piped up. “We just think he’s acting suspicious. He won’t give us any details about what’s going on-”

“What’s going on?” Ryan asked.

“There’s these creatures we’re fighting,” Joey said. “They’re called-- well, we don’t know if they have a real name, but we’ve been calling them singed. They’re like, super strong but look like they’ve been hanging out in a barbecue.”

“That helps,” Ryan said. His heart was racing, and he could feel sweat itching at the base of his skull where it met his neck. You’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine. “Okay. What’s the manager’s name?”

“Lou Pearlman,” Chris said. Ryan nodded. He could already feel memories of things that had happened and things yet to come tugging at him, pulling against him like jabs of wind, but not yet, not just yet.

“Okay. I’ll find out some answers. I can’t guarantee it’ll be what you’re looking for, but I can guarantee you’ll leave with more knowledge than you came with. There’s only one rule: do not interrupt me. I don’t care if I’m screaming or crying or turning blue, you do not interrupt, do not make noise, do not try to wake me up unless my heart stops beating, okay?” Ryan said. “If you’re really worried, call the number on the fridge and ask for Spencer. He’ll know what to do.”

   “Wait, are you gonna have a seizure, or, like-?”

“See you in a few,” Ryan said, and his eyes rolled back in his head as he let the past and future memories overtake him.

The living room swirled out of existence and, for a sickening moment, he was free falling, plummeting past a blur of color and noise, shouting and jet engines and music. Endlessly music. All Ryan had to do was reach out and grab something…

Burning. Joey had mentioned burning. Ryan felt a flash of heat and blindly snatched at it.

He was lying on a table, his limbs big and unwieldy and strapped down to his sides. He was naked, and he didn't know whose body he was inhabiting, but he guessed it wasn't Lou Pearlman.

He, or the person he was inhabiting, looked up and saw a very overweight, sweaty man with beady eyes peering down at him.

“You're sure this is safe?” the person Ryan was in asked. The big man smiled with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

“Don't you worry bout a thing, kid. You're gonna be a star.”

There was a pinch, a resistance on the skin of his inner elbow, and then a flood of endorphins. His eyes grew wide and he could see everything--

He was running on a treadmill, the miles per hour climbing higher, past ten, fifteen, past twenty, and he hadn't even broken a sweat. It felt amazing, his muscles expanding and responding like they'd been waiting his whole life for him to do this. He let out an exhilarated laugh. 25 miles per hour. The beady eyes man looked eager and greedy.

He was in a mirrored room, singing in harmony with four other boys, also lean, also muscular. He could feel power humming in their veins as well. He felt unstoppable. He had a fever, though. A flush that wouldn't leave his cheeks even when he sat down.

He was tied to the metal table again, thrashing against his restraints while the fever roiled inside him. God oh god he wanted to go home he wanted his girlfriend his best friend he want his mom and everything hurt.

“Put him down before it gets worse,” the same man said, and Ryan and the man he inhabited screamed. A pale woman with blonde hair and no facial expression approached him, hypodermic needle in hand. He felt another pinch, something cool and black flowed through him, and he thought again, desperately, mommy.

He woke up again, still the same person but different now. The mind he inhabited was rotting, no, burning. His muscles still ached to be used but he was burning, burning, burning. Everything was fire and when he lifted his hand in front of his face it was charred black. He roared in fear, in pain, in anger. Burnt.

Everything else was flashes, shocks of images that came through the flurries of orange red yellow flame everywhere. An alley populated only by drunks. The faces of the band, angry and scared as they tried to kill him. His smoldering hands. Lou's voice: “we can try again. We just need to dilute the formula some more.”

The burning hit a fever pitch, and Ryan couldn't stop screaming.

Ryan lurched forward and put his head between his knees. His own living room faded back into existence, the sound of concerned voices echoing and bouncing around in brain like shrapnel.

“Should we call?”

“He said if his heart stopped-”

“Guys I don't like this.”

“He's just a kid.”

“Wait, he's stopped screaming.”

“Oh shit, check his pulse. Oh god, oh fuck, tell me we did not kill a kid.”

“Guys, I don't like this!”

“Check his wrist-”

“Shut up,” Ryan said. His voice was weak, but they all grew quiet at his request.

“Are you okay?” Lance asked.

“Like you care,” Ryan said under his breath. He spoke up. “Your manager won't tell you about the singed because he created them. They're people he injected with something, I dunno what, but now they're burning alive.”

They all looked horrified, and rightly so, but Ryan was too drained to feel properly upset anymore. He just wanted to go to sleep. And his dad. He sort of wanted his dad.

“How did he get to them to inject them?” Joey asked. Ryan shrugged.

“I- he was lying on a table, not the manager, the guy. Lou said he would make him a star. That mean anything to you?”

From the looks the all exchanged, it must have. Ryan was so tired, only barely not breaking to pieces in front of them. He was already trembling.

“Can you guys go?” He asked. “I'm tired, and I cant-”

“We can go,” Justin said. Thank God for Fae. “Thank you, Ryan.”

“Anytime,” Ryan said weakly, and didn't so much as stand up to lock the door as they left.

Seeing the future (or, more often than not, the past and present) was Ryan's job, but life was always more complicated than that. He couldn't just have a vision and describe it.

Ryan’s dad, who was the Oracle before the power passed on to Ryan, categorized three types of future telling: sight, search, and prophecy. Sight made the most sense to Ryan. Sight was just visions of things to come, or sometimes things that had happened or were happening. He dreamed in sight. He could seek such visions out, but only if he knew the subject well. That was how he watched Green Day, how he would one day keep tabs on the pop punk scene in Chicago.

Search was what people came to him for. He couldn't see something that had never simply come to him before unless he sought it out. Searching was similar to sight in every way except how it felt. Searching forced him into a first person perspective, making him live out what he was looking for. Usually people searched when there was trouble, so usually it hurt.

Searching also left his mind vulnerable, made him see in his dreams for days all the bad things he could usually block out. It made him defenseless against seeing all the terrible things to come.

Prophecy was simpler, but arguably the most annoying. Ryan would, at complete random, seize and black out, and according to everyone around him, he would spout off a prophecy that he had no memory of. If Spencer or his dad was around, they would write it down, but most prophecies made no sense to Ryan.

And then… there was a fourth type. One his dad had never mentioned, so Ryan did not know if he had even had it. But sometimes Ryan heard a voice. It was very rare, but she would, no more than once a year, whisper something in his mind. A warning, usually. She stopped him and Spencer from getting in a car with a stranger once, and they later arrested the man for killing another boy their age. Ryan thought she might be the real Oracle, the original spirit just living inside him, but he was too afraid to ask.

That night it didn't seem to matter. His dad came home early, cheese pizza in hand and worried expression on his face.

“Are you okay?”

George Ross II’s powers had transferred to Ryan when Ryan was four years old, but he could still see a little. Not as much as The Oracle, but once obtained, sight never truly leaves. He probably only had a vague sense of what happened, but it was enough that he knew Ryan needed him.

Ryan nodded, fiddling with frayed string on his jeans.

“Band came in looking for some help. I found what they were looking for. They were in and out. No big deal.”

His dad clearly didn't believe him, but he nodded anyway, because that was what Ryan needed.

The two of them stayed up late that night, watching action movies send eating pizza. His dad only had two bottles of beer, which was a big deal for him. Eventually, as the credits to Speed rolled and his dad lay snoring in the armchair, Ryan realized he could barely keep his eyes open. He was afraid to sleep, afraid of the things he would see, but oh, he was so tired.

Ryan trudged to his bedroom, and, though he fought to stay awake, fell asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow.

In his dream, Ryan was sitting in the driver's seat of a car, empty pill bottle in one hand and Nokia phone in the other. His brain felt warm and fuzzy like fresh cotton candy, and “Hallelujah” was playing softly on the radio.

He was in a recording studio, guitar in hand, trying to be confident he needed to be confident he needed-

He was flat on his back in a dusty shack in the desert. He watched the grenade soar through the window and thought to himself “goddamn, what will they put in the body bag?” before the world went white.

He was bent over homework in a bedroom filled with music posters, frustrated tears dripping on the same math problem he'd been looking at for hours thinking “god I'm so stupid why am I so stupid!”

He was underwater, swimming past so much bone white coral, all dead, all bleached by acic.

He was curled up in bed, feeling his bones snap and stretch as the wolf inside him took over.

And then, for the first time, he was no one at all. He hovered in the room, like a ghost, but he was still Ryan. He took up no physical space. And on the other side of the room, face pressed up against the glass, was a boy. He was younger than Ryan, nor by much, with messy brown hair and gangly limbs, and he was crying.

Still crying a little, the boy started singing. His voice was soft and small, but it struck Ryan as the sort of voice that would someday be hauntingly beautiful. He, like the radio earlier in Ryan's dream, was singing Hallelujah, very, very softly. He closed his eyes as he did, the thin notes swirling around the room and around Ryan.

“...you don't really care for music, do you?”

The tears slowed as he sang, and Ryan watched him, absolutely transfixed. While he was singing, something had happened. There was something outside, something like flurries of snow, except it wasn't snow. It was sand, Ryan realized, and it undulated in perfect time with the music.

“That's him,” the voice in his head whispered, her voice almost reverent.

The music was calming, lulling Ryan to a calm darkness. Just before the dream faded entirely, he reached out as though to touch the boy, and the image faded like smoke.

 

Chapter 2: Genesis

Summary:

A genesis, or a beginning, wherein Ryan sees a future he isn't prepared for, gets his first sight of a soon to be famous band in Chicago, and meets someone new.

January, 2003

Ryan steeled himself before he walked into the chapel. Father Merrin had it out for Ryan, and Ryan was constantly afraid that one day the priest would discover what was really wrong with him, that he'd declare Ryan a witch and burn him at the stake. Proverbially, of course. There were laws against such things now, even in Las Vegas.

But just in case, Ryan used confession as a chance to throw him off the scent. It was a sacred rite, so Father Merrin couldn't tell anyone what Ryan said, so Ryan made up terrible things (or, at the very least, un-Catholic things) so that the father would not suspect worse. Recently, the priest had been breathing down Ryan's neck more than usual, and two days ago had walked in on the end of a prophecy Ryan had had in the boys’ bathroom. Things were getting dangerous, so Ryan needed to play his trump card.

He had to come out to the priest.

It was dangerous, no denying that, but Ryan was at his wits end. Between homosexuality and witchcraft-- well, they did live in Las Vegas. So long as Ryan seemed plenty contrite, he supposed the priest would accept some gay thoughts.

It wasn't even entirely a lie but that. That was something Ryan really wasn't ready to think about.

So Ryan paced. He walked back and forth in front of the chapel door while the girl in front of Ryan (Samantha Roland, it was in alphabetical order) finished her confession. A part of Ryan (a large part, in fact) wondered about the legality of forcing students to go to confession once a week, even in private school, but he didn’t know what he could do about it. In any case, Ryan used to almost like confession. The dimly lit booth brought him a certain sense of peace, and Father Merrin’s reassuring voice made Ryan feel clean of guilt, born anew, and all of the things that were meant to come with confession.

But Ryan stopped believing, and his visions got more prevalent, and he couldn’t tell the priest about his real problems anymore. Confession had started to feel like something dirty, the air thick and cloying with the scent of incense, and Ryan dreaded his moments in the confessional, where it felt like Merrin’s pale blue eyes where cutting right into Ryan’s soul. When Ryan made up asinine things to say (cheated on a math test, didn’t pray for my father, had lustful thoughts about Marla from Chem, lied during last confession) he could swear that the priest knew, that he was disappointed in Ryan, angry at him. But that, Ryan knew, wasn’t possible. Still, the thought made him squirm, as did spending any amount of time locked in the tiny wooden box with Father Merrin. So. He needed something good and real and damning to get the priest off his back. Gay thoughts was the only solution he could come up with.

As he waited for Samantha’s confession to end (hers always ran over; Ryan didn’t know what she did, what sin she was always committing, but it must be bad) his mind starting seeking out the boy against his will. It had become a habit, whenever he was sad or scared, to ground himself by focusing on the boy, the one who had first showed up in his dream from the night so many years ago and sang him to sleep.

Ryan didn’t know the boy’s name. He wasn’t even so much of a boy anymore, barely younger than Ryan, but he wasn’t quite a man either. He was… cute. Pretty. Not handsome, not yet, but Ryan suspected he would be when he was older. He was pretty, though, if a little gangly and oily-faced. He had soft eyes and soft hair and a voice that made Ryan melt when he heard it. He wasn’t singing all the time, but he must have sang quite frequently, because it seemed that every time Ryan went looking for him in his mind’s eye at night, he was singing softly. A few years back, he had started accompanying himself with guitar some nights, piano others. His voice made Ryan feel safe, his eyes made him feel whole, and he didn’t even know the fucker’s name. (Or his age, which disturbed Ryan ever so slightly. He didn’t suspect that the nameless boy was much younger than himself, given the way they seemed to age together, but he did not want to discover that he was obsessed with a fourteen year old or something. He’d read Lolita. He was not impressed by the excuses Humbert Humbert came up with.)

And there were times-- not frequent, but occasional, where Ryan would see him pulling off his shirt as he got ready for bed, and he didn’t look away, close his eyes, jerk himself back into reality and stop daydreaming. He drew the line at watching the definitely underaged stranger masturbate, thinking of absolutely anything else when he saw the low-quality images behind the boy on his boxy computer screen, but even so, his thoughts weren’t entirely platonic over the years.

The boy in his dreams didn’t stop Ryan from appreciating the senior girls hemming their uniform skirts a little too short, or from glancing down Donna Evan’s too-tight polo when she unbuttoned it to study with him outside, but it definitely meant that he wasn’t entirely straight. He didn’t think that was a sin, but he sure as hell didn’t know what to do with that information, and he knew that as far as the Catholic church was concerned, it wasn’t exactly pure.

But how to phrase that without cluing the priest into his visions? That he wasn’t sure of. And, in his panic, he searched out the boy with the voice.

It didn’t take long, attuned as Ryan was to the sight of him. He soon found him, bent over what looked like a math test with his eyebrows scrunched together in an expression somewhere between horror and disgust. It looked like Trig, that was promising. Freshmen didn’t take Trig if they were going to have that much trouble with it. Unfortunately, if he was in math class, it seemed unlikely that he was going to be singing anytime soon. Ryan’s nerves tightened yet again as he slowly resurfaced into reality, still standing just in front of the chapel doors.

Just in time, apparently, as the door slammed open and Samantha stomped out, hair streaming behind her. Ryan’s stomach flipped over, and he heard Father Merrin’s smooth voice echoing out into the hall: “Come in, Mr. Ross.”

Ryan genuflected at the door, and again at the foot of the altar before turning to the left and walking into the confessional booth. He leaned his head back against the warm wood and took a deep breath. Already the heavy stench of incense made him feel sleepy and stupid, but he focused on keeping his thoughts in order.

“My son,” Merrin said, his voice softer now, like the rustling of old paper.

“Father,” Ryan said. He bowed his head forward.

“May the Lord be with you.”

“And also with you.”

“Let us pray.”

Ryan bent his head further, his chin nearly pressed to his chest as the words fluttered from his lips, so long memorized, so ingrained within him. “Our Father who art in heaven…”

While Ryan rushed through the Lord's Prayer on autopilot, his mind started to drift, tugged gently in one direction by forces unseen, outside of his control. He fought back, determined to stay focused, to not let this moment right now slip away from him.

“...in your name we pray…”

Ryan was gone, out of body like when he visited the boy, in a dark room with Father Merrin. Merrin looked up, pale eyes resigned, and said “I wondered when you would come for me. Oh, Father forgive me for I have-”

Some shadow just outside of Ryan's view lunged forward and Merrin gasped. His eyes grew wide and his breath grew short, and when the shadow disappeared from Ryan's vision, Merrin was clutching his chest with two pale hands that were turning red as blood flowed over them.

Ryan could see the wet shine on his black robes grow larger and larger as Merrin stumbled, and a voice from just behind Ryan asked:

“Did you really think you could atone for your sins?”

Merrin fall to his knees, air whistling in and out of his mouth. His hand hit the floor, smearing the carpet with blood.

Then the voice was in Ryan’s ear, breath hot against his neck.

“Do you still think you can atone for yours?”

Ryan lurched forward. He threw one hand out in front of him to catch his fall, only to strike it against the warm wood of the confessional. His vision returned to him, still dark and dreamlike but concrete, inside the booth. His hand throbbed where he had hit it, and he was struggling for breath.

“Ryan? Ryan? Are you alright?”

“S-s-sorry,” Ryan said. Confessional. Chapel. Confession. Merrin. Bleeding- no, fuck, not bleeding, not murdered, alive! He was right here! And about to notice something was really wrong! Focus on the concrete, then, smell of incense, feel of unforgiving wood. Voice of Father Merrin.

“Sorry,” Ryan said, his voice slightly stronger. “Ahem. I-I fell asleep for a second there. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Ryan,” Father Merrin said, seemed like he was going to say something else, and then said, “Tell me your confessions.”

“I.” Ryan couldn’t keep his thoughts in order. His mind was spinning and he just kept seeing the image of Father Merrin dying, bleeding out, murdered. He had to focus but he simply couldn’t.

“I’ve been having sexual thoughts about boys?” Ryan’s breathing was shallow as it came out like a question.

The other side of the confessional was silent.

“I think about--” make it convincing convince him make him forget-- “I dream about a boy. I don’t know who he is but I dream about him almost every night. And I have… impure thoughts about him. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

Merrin’s silence continued for just a moment.

“My son,” he said, “Ryan Ross. You have committed many sins in your life, but loving someone is not one of them.”

f that, Ryan had no idea what to think.

Merrin sounded suddenly and inexplicably weary.

“Go in peace, my son. There is much to discuss later, but for now, go in peace. I believe the bell is going to ring soon anyway.”

“Thank you, Father,” Ryan said, and he stumbled on his way out of the confessional, hitting his head on the side of the door and falling into his genuflection on the way out. He sprinted to the men’s bathroom, sliding down in front of a toilet with just enough time to bend over and vomit loudly.

The bell rang. Ryan slammed the stall door shut behind him and threw up again, a clammy sweat breaking out on his forehead. Something was wrong, so wrong. Father Merrin did not look much older in Ryan’s vision, and his killer did not look human.

Ryan clutched the toilet to hold himself in place. The bathroom didn’t fill up during passing period, as the toilet next to the chapel never really filled up. He was just about to get to his feet when he heard a voice.

“Ryan? You in here?”

“Yeah.”

Ryan swung the stall door open and looked up at Spencer, arms crossed over his chest. Spencer was shorter than Ryan, but stockier, and he felt more solid than Ryan ever did. Looking up at him, as he did then, from his position on the floor, felt strangely natural, though he would never admit it.

“Father Merrin said you got sick in confession,” Spencer said. The sentence was innocent enough, but Ryan could see a deeper understanding in his eyes. Spencer had a keen ability to see right through Ryan. It was innate, but over the years it had become so fine tuned that they could practically read one another’s minds.

Ryan nodded, and pulled his knees up into his chest. He didn’t know how to tell Spencer, what to say, how to explain that he could still feel incense and blood thick inside his nostrils. Instead, he said:

“You wanna ditch?”

“No, but I feel like we’re going to anyway,” Spencer said. He stuck a hand out to Ryan and pulled him to his feet, then caught him when Ryan staggered. Solid, sturdy, Spencer. Ryan felt better already, half-leaning on his best friend.

“What’d I do to deserve you, Spence?” he asked.

“Not nearly enough,” Spencer said, but he cracked a grin. “Lunch? Taco Bell?”

“Taco Bell.”

***

The two snuck out of the gymnasium exit after the second bell rang, signalling the end of passing period. Ryan, unwilling to pay for student parking, had left his car a couple blocks away from Bishop Gorman High School.

When counting the people he was closest to in his life, with Spencer obviously taking the number one slot, Ryan’s car probably ranked between his dad and Brent. Granted, this position was fairly low on the list, as the list of people (or things) Ryan was close to was exactly five long. Still, it was an honored position, and Matilda (or Tilda for short) the faded red Toyota Camry was a better friend than most people Ryan had ever met. Spencer thought it was creepy that he had personified his car, but Ryan was attached, damn it. He knew it was stupid and kind of douchey to name his car, especially to give it a girl name, but Ryan felt something for her. She really did feel like a friend to him, like someone he could depend on. He didn’t say all of this out loud for fear of Spencer telling him he had lost it completely, but he did insist on the use of her name. To Ryan, his car felt like an older sister, someone who took care of him, someone he could trust to be there for him when the world was falling apart. Spencer and Brent liked to say she was named Matilda because it was the only way Ryan could get a girl to interact with him.

Whatever the case, she was a dependable car. Not flashy like the porches some of the kids at Bishop Gorman drove, or utilitarian like the Range Rovers that could cross all the way across Death Valley and into LA on one tank of gas and not touching wheels to pavement, so designed for off road. No, she wasn’t really a special car except in the way that Ryan loved her. And she could drive. She got the job done, and that was more than Ryan could ask of most things in his life. She took him to and from school, work, and Spencer’s house, and that day, to their frequented lunch locale.  

The two of them screeched into the Taco Bell in record time, pushing past the crowd of hesitant, fat tourists and putting in their orders with a well practiced finesse. The two of them found a booth in the back to sit down in, as it was a brisk sixty degrees outside.

Once Ryan had downed his first extra large Baha Blast in half a second, he leaned forward, voice low.

“I saw something in the confessional,” he said.

“Water is wet,” Spencer rolled his eyes. “What did you see?”

Ryan shivered, suddenly feeling the chill of the soda radiating through his chest.

“I saw Father Merrin-” he felt like there was something choking him. To his shock, Ryan realized that he was getting emotional about the death of the priest. He had never really thought that he liked the priest that much, but then, he’d known the man for so many years. The thought of him dead was… unsettling. More than unsettling. It was making him sad.

“I saw Father Merrin get murdered,” Ryan said. Spencer choked on his drink, spitting bright blue soda all over the table.

“You what?!”

“Keep your voice down!” Ryan hissed. He glanced around, ate a bite, and ducked his head lower.

“I was about to start confession when I was pulled into a vision and I saw-- I saw something stab him. I think.”

“You think? Something?”

“I couldn’t see what it was,” Ryan said. “I wasn’t him. I wasn’t… I wasn’t anybody.”

“Has that ever happened before?”

“Um. Once or twice, in my dreams.”

The one thing Ryan had never told Spencer about was the boy. They had no secrets, they knew each other inside and out, but He was something private. Sometimes Ryan didn’t even know if the guy was real, but in any case, how did he tell his friend he was falling in love with a dream boy?

“Okay,” Spencer leaned back. “But, never for another vision, right? Is there any chance that it… that it isn’t going to happen?”

“Every vision I have either already happened or is going to come true. Case closed,” Ryan said. “I think it’s going to happen soon, and I don’t even know what it is. It looked like just a shadow, but that’s not possible. No such thing exists.”

“And yet,” Spencer said. Ryan waited, and Spencer shrugged. “Look, if every vision you and your dad have ever had always comes true, then it must be true too. Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains--”

“However improbably must be the truth, yeah, thanks Sherlock, but how does that help us?”

“I guess it doesn’t matter,” Spencer said, but he looked troubled. “If there’s nothing we can do, then, well, there’s nothing we can do, right?”

“Right,” Ryan said, but he felt uneasy. “It's just…”

“He's Father Merrin,” Spencer said softly. “Yeah. I know. But what could we do? Warn him?”

Ryan snorted. “Guess not.”

Ryan's hunger after losing his breakfast had dissipated, and he only picked at the remains of his tacos. He didn't even like the damn priest. But all that blood… he couldn't eat, couldn't even think about it. Spencer gave Ryan's tray a pointed glance, but didn't say anything.

They waited at the restaurant until three in the afternoon, so that Ryan could take Spencer home without his parents suspecting they were up to something. Ryan idled outside of Spencer’s door, while Spencer got out.

“Band practice later,” Spencer said. “Don’t forget. And Brent’s bringing the new guitarist he knows today to try out.”

“Ugh,” Ryan rolled his eyes, and Spencer glared.

“Ryan,” he said.

“What?”

“Look, just be-- try and be nice, okay?”

“I’m nice,” Ryan said, affronted. Spencer laughed, a little fondly, a little embarrassed.

“No, you’re not,” he said. “And I like that, but it puts some people off. You’re a little…”

Ryan scowled. “A little what?” he asked, though he knew what. Ryan wasn’t good with people. He was off-putting. He had a tendency to say things that freaked people out and make no secret his disdain for others. But it hurt a little to hear Spencer say it.

Seeming to sense that he had gone too far, Spencer held his hands up.

“Just be nice, and be normal, okay? Give him a chance.”

“Who is he?” Ryan asked wearily.

“I don’t remember his name, but Brent says he’s some kind of musical whiz kid. My grade, band geek. Mormon.”

“Hanging out with Catholics? Damnation awaits us all, doesn’t it?”

“See you later,” Spencer said, clapping the top of the car. “Be nice!”

“No promises!” Ryan yelled out of the window as he rolled away from the curve. Matilda’s engine snarled beneath Ryan’s feet. He sped back home, hoping to maybe get a nap in before practice. He hadn’t slept much the night previously, but then, he didn’t get a lot of sleep most nights.

His dad wasn’t home yet, so Ryan could probably knock himself out with a shot of vodka before lying down, but he didn’t want to sleep through the whole afternoon. Instead, he curled up on his couch, leaving all the lights in the living room out.

It was January in Las Vegas, so it was chilly out, justifiable for Ryan to wear hoodies and fingerless gloves when he changed out of his school uniform. He didn’t turn the heat on, because his dad always said it was “fucking ridiculous” to have heat on in Nevada, so he pulled an old throw blanket up over his shoulders. He layed down on the couch, leaning his head against the back wall and drifted out of consciousness almost immediately.

Ryan knew he was not destined for a particularly restful nap. Some vision had been tugging at him all day, and since he hadn't succumbed while awake, it came to him in his dreams.

The person Ryan was sharing headspace with definitely did not live nearby. Ryan felt half asleep and was surrounded by whorls of thick, wet snow. A timid, nerdy looking guy in front of him said: “you're going to forget this.” Terror and foreboding rushed through Ryan, but the body he was in refused to pull away, and the other man's teeth sank into his neck.

Ryan had seen vampire attacks before, but always from the perspective of a third-party observer or the vampire himself. Being the one getting bitten was horrible. He was overcome with a sickening feeling of lightness, of being drained, like he could feel himself losing volume as he stood. His legs weakened, no longer able to hold him as his vision began to blur, but the vampire held him upright. For a moment. Then someone yelled and he was falling, falling, unconscious before he hit the cold ground.

Then he was someone else, but he had the shocking sensation that it was the same day, the same group of people. He was sitting in an old, straight backed chair and looking over at a man (kid, really, close to Ryan's age) laid out and covered in blankets. There were two small puncture marks on his neck, and snow was melting and dripping out of his hair.

“He really didn't mean to,” a familiar voice said.

“Do his intentions matter all that much? He could have died!” Ryan shouted.

“He feels awful.”

“He should!”

“Shh,” the first voice cautioned. “You'll wake him.”

They both fell silent for a minute. Ryan was the first to speak again.

“Guess magic's out of the bag now. How do you think he'll handle me turning into a wolf?”

“No idea,” the other guy said, “but hopefully the label will force him to stick with us.”

Then Ryan was inside the mind of the first one again, the one whose neck still throbbed with the phantom pain of vampire venom.

He was strung upside down in an industrial kitchen, blood rushing to his face as he remembered the creature making her way towards him. She was skeletal under tight stretches of graying skin, lipless and soaked in blood. Ryan thrashed where he was hung, fear coursing through him. This thing was going to kill him, he was going to die, and the realization was too much. She was going to come back and kill him and he hadn’t even believed monsters were real before today.

“Andy?”

The name escaped his mouth without Ryan thinking it, a panicked plea. He twisted and was able to see the vampire from earlier next to him, strung up the same way. But he was Ryan’s friend. The blood running down his neck, onto his face, that didn’t matter.

“Yeah, I’m right here.”

This Andy person sounded panicked too, thrashing in his bonds and trying to untie the ones connected to his ankles to no effect. He kept talking as he did, but all Ryan could hear was the pounding of blood in his ears, the throb of blood and pain.

He was not shocked when he saw the wendigo come back in, but he was terrified. He’d never seen anything like her before, still hardly believed that he was in a band with a vampire, but there she was. A skeleton with all of her teeth visible and glistening red.

“Eat you?” she responded to something the vampire had said with a high, girlish voice. It was perky, bubble gum-y, and somehow made her gory appearance all the worse. “Well, duh, silly. I’m famished.”

I don’t want to see this, Ryan thought desperately. I don’t want to see anymore.

To his surprise, the industrial kitchen and the bloody waitress vanished. Instead, his vision centered on the boy, hair blown out of his eyes by the wind as he walked down a residential street, singing very quietly to himself.

“...hope you have the time of your life,” he sang, very softly. Ryan felt like he could breathe again, no longer paralyzed by fear. There was still a tug within him, trying to pull him back to the band and their doomed battle with a wendigo, but he didn’t care. He could ignore it, at least for a bit now, he was sure.

Ryan woke up gasping for breath. The light outside had grown dusky and heavy, and he realized before even looking at the clock that he was late. He had questions: who they were, what they were doing, why it was important, what kind of music they played, but all that could wait. It was 5:15 already, and Matilda's engine roared as he raced across Summerlin.

Spencer lived close enough that Ryan didn't really need to drive, but it sped the trip up enough that it was only twenty after when he knocked on the garage door, still rubbing his eyes. His head hurt, and his mouth was dry from sleeping too long, and he could still feel pain that wasn't really there where someone else was bitten by a vampire.

Perhaps due to all of this, he forgot that someone was coming to try out that night. So when the door swung out to reveal three people instead of two crowded around the back card table, Ryan was confused for a moment.

“Oh, he said out loud, still fuzzy with sleep. “The new guy, right? Brent's friend?”

The stranger turned around to nod, and Ryan froze. He didn't need the voice in his head, almost frantic in her intensity to tell Ryan who it was, because he would recognize the face anywhere. The face from his dreams for seven years.

It's him.

 

Chapter 3: Disciples

Summary:

Ryan meets the boy of his dreams. It's never that simple.

            “Hey! I'm Brendon!”

            The Boy, one and only, figment of Ryan's dreams, stuck out his hand. Ryan, for his part, stared. He stared first at the hand then back up at the boy. It was the same face, he was sure of that, even if the expression was unfamiliar. Usually in Ryan's dreams he didn't have a bright and eager smile plastered on his face. The boy Ryan knew usually looked melancholy and focused while he sang, played piano, strummed his guitar. He was also rarely in such good lighting, which had the unfortunate effect of making his rather prominent acne even more noticeable. Also: that truly unfortunate haircut.

            Still, this was literally the boy of Ryan's dreams, and he couldn't help drowning himself in the sight of him. The precise dark shade of his hair that matched his eyes so perfectly, the sharp cut of his nose across his face, the faded colors of his hand-me-down clothes, the nervous but also creeped out look on his face-- oh. Ryan realized too late that he'd been staring, blank faced, for too long. He watched as Brendon slowly let his hand sink. Fuck.

            “Um, right, Brendon?” Ryan tried to collect his thoughts. He was too fresh out of a dream for this, to wild-brained, too scattered. “Sorry. I'm Ryan.”

            It's him it's him it's him! His brain sang. Brendon was still eyeing him oddly. Ryan wanted to melt into the floor.

            Instead, he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and shut up. He was supposed to say something else, he was sure of it, but he didn't know what.

            “Don't get offended,” Brent drawled. “Ryan's this rude with everyone. You get used to it.”

            Why, Ryan wondered, was he born with the power to see the future, instead of something useful like being able to murder people with only a glance?

            “Ruder, when I can manage it,” Ryan said. He glanced Brendon up and down once more, greedy for the sight of him, but trying to act natural. “So. You play guitar.”

            It wasn't a question, but Brendon nodded assent.

            “I play everything,” he said. Somehow, the words didn't sound overtly cocky in his voice. It rang instead with the sureness of someone who knew damn well they could back up every claim they made. “You're the singer, right?”

            Lightning rocked through Ryan. Here was his chance to prove that this was the same boy.

            “Yeah. You sing?”

            Brendon shook his head, and something in Ryan wilted.

            “You don’t like, accompany yourself while playing… everything?” Ryan asked. Brendon laughed uncomfortably.

            “Not really,” he said. His hands were jammed deep into his pockets. Ryan wanted to say something, anything, but he’d made one friend when he was five years old, and he wasn’t really sure how to replicate that. It wasn’t as though he could offer Brendon a juice box. And now he couldn’t prove this was the boy, which was.

            It was a problem.

            “Play any Blink-182?” Ryan asked.

            “A bit,” Brendon said. “You guys cover a lot of Blink?”

            “It’s all we know how to play,” Spencer said. “This isn’t… the best band.”

            “That’s cool,” Brendon said. “We can learn more.”

            They had better, Ryan thought. He had a vision of a photoshoot for Rolling Stone when he was seven years old, but at the moment getting more than two downloads on PureVolume sounded pretty out of reach.

            “You know ‘Dammit’?” Ryan asked. When Brendon nodded his assent, Ryan tossed him a guitar pick. The kid (maybe not the Boy, how could he tell, he looked different, not dream clouded, and maybe the dreams were just dreams, dammit, Ryan didn’t know) caught it and looked terrified.

            “What, you just want me to start playing?”

            “You said you could play guitar. If you’re good, you’re probably better than us,” Ryan said. They didn’t have a microphone yet, didn’t know what to buy and got laughed out of the Guitar Center last time they asked, so for the time being, Ryan just sang loud.

            Brendon could play guitar. He did justice to the song, even if he was kind of stiff at first. He loosened up as they played a collection of Blink-182 greatest hits, joking off and on with Brent, and eventually Spencer. Mostly, he cast Ryan nervous looks. Ryan broke two guitar strings strumming with too much force. Still, at least he didn’t say “I’ve dreamt about you,” when he met Brendon. It could have been worse.

            “Damn, you’re pretty good at this,” Spencer said after a few songs. “And you’re sixteen? What else can you do?”

            “I play bass, piano, trombone, and I do a mean Andy Serkis impression,” Brendon said.

            “Aw, shit, really?” Spencer asked. Ryan rolled his eyes. Hoped that Brendon couldn’t see it.

            Brendon swung his guitar over his shoulder so that it rested on his back and dropped down into a squat, contorting his face and bugging his eyes out. Ryan stared at him in exactly the way he would stare at a train wreck. He was getting secondhand embarrassment and Brendon probably wasn’t even embarrassed.

            “My prrreccciouss,” he hissed, crawling across Spencer’s floor. Ryan sort of wanted to melt into the floor, but also, he couldn’t help it. He laughed. It wasn’t actually a bad Gollum impression.

            Brent and Spencer fell into absolute hysterics, and Brendon, reading a crowd quickly, grabbed hold of Spencer’s shirt and moved the bug-eyed stare up to his face, making Spencer’s guffaws grow even louder. Ryan just snorted a few times, but it was a big deal for him, evident in the way Brent stared at him like he’d grown a second head.

            “Holy shit, he laughs,” Brent said. Ryan flipped him off.

            “I just never laugh around you because your face is so fucking tragic it makes me want to cry,” he said, which made Brendon start laughing. And dammit, but he had a nice laugh. Too loud, and Ryan loved it. He needed to get himself together.

            “So, we’ll see you next week?” Ryan asked. Brendon sobered up and nodded quickly.

            “Just the one practice every week?” he asked.

            “Until hockey season’s over,” Spencer said, his voice betraying some of his long suffering. Ryan suck his tongue out at him, and Spencer grinned. At least one thing felt normal today.

            “Alright, guess I’ll see you later, then,” Brendon said. He waved. Awkwardly. Ryan sighed.

            “You can hang out here for a bit if you want,” he said.

            “It’s my house, dickbag,” Spencer said.

            “Can he?”

            “I mean, yeah.”

            “C’mon,” Ryan said. He pushed his guitar up against the wall of the garage and led the way inside. Brendon looked nervous around him still, but he came inside.

            Walking right up beside Spencer, Ryan whispered: “Am I being nice enough?” and Spencer sighed before nodding. Ryan felt a tiny bit of real relief. Friendship didn’t come to him easily, and his and Brent’s relationship was still tenuous at best, held mostly through Spencer’s personality and a fondness for dirty jokes. Everyone else was… tolerable.

            But Brendon.

            Inside, Mr. Smith had already added an extra pan full of enchiladas, giving Spencer and Ryan specifically a knowing smile.

            “Staying for dinner, Ry?” he asked.

            “If it’s not an intrusion,” Ryan said. He felt a little guilty for not going home, but the warmth of Spencer’s house was irresistible. He had no idea why the Smith’s liked him so much, but he firmly believed in all the advice given about where not to look at gift horses, so he accepted their kindness with as much grace as he could manage.

            “How ‘bout you boys? Brent? And, ah, Spencer, I don’t think you’ve introduced me to this young man?”

            “Dad, Brendon, Brendon, Dad,” Spencer waved his hand between the two of them. “Wanna hang around?”

            “I’m good,” Brent said. “My mom’s picking me up in a half hour or so.”

            “Sure,” Brendon said. He looked bewildered, but happy nonetheless. Ryan could sympathize. Spencer’s family made him feel the same way.

            They went into Spencer’s room, hanging out loosely without any real activities in mind. Spencer and Brendon both sat on the bed, Spencer asking him about some of his preferences in music. While Brendon spoke, Ryan stood by the window watching the last bloody sunbeams sink below the jagged mountaintops and thought. Without the focus lent by playing guitar, his mind was drifting again.

            He could feel a continuation of the vision from earlier tugging at him, pulling his mind like strong wind he was struggling against. It yanked him towards it, towards unconsciousness, and the longer he stared the louder it got until he could hear voices in his ears.

            “Stop being an idiot”

            “Oh my god, you’re okay, Jesus, you’re okay”

            “What was that thing?”

            “Shut up,” Ryan whispered, and he pressed his forehead to the quickly cooling glass.

            “Wendigo-”

            “Are we sure it’s dead?”

            “How do you kill-?”

            “Ryan?”

            “Is he okay?”

            The kitchen was spattered in blood and why was this so important nothing dragged him out of his life like this not twice in the same day and someone was there with a big relieved grin horsey teeth black hair kinda hot fae wrong too powerful calamitous-

            The room swam properly into view. Ryan’s neck throbbed, and he was being hugged.

            “Christ, it’s good you already knew about us,” he laughed. Pete, the brain Ryan was inhabiting offered. His name was Pete Wentz.

            “Ryan!”

            Ryan’s eyes snapped open. He was staring at a familiar ceiling, familiar because he passed out in this room often. A few dirty glow-in-the-dark stars were still stuck up above him, ones he helped Spencer put up back in fourth grade. Spencer. Home. Band practice. Reality. Ground yourself.

            “Sorry,” Ryan said, sitting up and scooting back so he could lean against the wall.

            “Are you okay?” Brendon asked. His eyes were huge with worry which was… sweet. Sort of weird for a stranger. (And probably not the boy no way to prove it and Ryan just felt like if it were Brendon then Brendon would know too. The boy out there would know Ryan like Ryan knew him, he was sure of it. Brendon was just a lookalike. The thought made his chest hurt.)

            “Fine,” Ryan said sourly. Brendon looked too sweet, and he hated being babied.

            “But you-!” Brendon sputtered. “You just collapsed! Should we call a doctor or-”

            “Ryan's got a condition,” Brent said. Bless him. He never did bother to Google Ryan's “condition,” but he defended it rabidly. “You don't have to worry about it.”

            “But,” Brendon's face was scrunched up with worry and confusion. He was excessively animated. “You were unconscious. That's serious.”

            Ryan found that he was a little stunned at being the one addressed about himself. Usually people talked to Spencer about him even when he stood right there.

            “Blood sugar thing,” Ryan said. “Erm. My dad’s Yugoslavian on his mom's side, and anemia runs in the family. Combined with living so close to the equator. You know.”

            “But Nevada isn't that close to the equator.”

            If Ryan hadn't been lying, Brendon would have been very rude. As it was, he was still making Ryan squirm. What was he supposed to say? Usually people heard medical issues and didn’t touch the subject again. The translation for medical was personal, out-of-bounds.

            Ryan got the feeling that Brendon didn’t really believe in personal or out-of-bounds.

            “Closer than Yugoslavia,” Ryan said eventually. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not a big thing.”

            “So we’re not taking you to a hospital?” Brendon asked. Floundering.

            “Definitely not,” Ryan said. “This happens all the time. My blood sugar is just low.” A lie, technically, but the Gatorade Spencer tossed to him from the mini fridge by his desk was definitely going to make Ryan feel better. He drank deeply, his hands trembling when he went to replace the cap. He was still being pulled, but gently now. He knew he hadn’t eaten enough, and the electrolytes and sugar probably were helping him.

            “Brent, your mother’s here!” Mrs. Smith called from the front room. Brent stood up and shrugged his backpack on with gruff goodbyes to Ryan and Spencer and a “see you tomorrow” to Brendon.

            Ryan curled up in the corner made by Spencer’s bed and bedside table, still sipping Gatorade. Pete Wentz, he thought to himself. The name didn’t sound familiar in a way that made him feel like he’d heard it out loud, not in the real world, but still he recognized it. Another oracle perk, he supposed. He could tell things that would be important, and this man, this name was buzzing in his head like a natural disaster. He gave Spencer a meaningful look when he could. Spencer nodded in acknowledgement. More to discuss later.

            Brendon, though he shot occasional nervous glances at Ryan, mostly seemed intent on eating up all the energy in the room. Spencer had to ask him a few times to lower his voice, which Brendon did, only to get louder again as he got excited about something. Still too tired and fighting off the pull of show me show me in his brain, Ryan drifted in and out of conversation, but mostly just listened to the hum of them talking.

            Dinner was a relief, both because cooking at Spencer’s house was a majestic artform rather than the sort of corporal punishment it was treated as at the Ross’s, but also because there were enough people around the dinner table that it went mostly unnoticed if Ryan didn’t speak for long periods of time. The Smiths, as usual, went out of their way to be nice to him, passing him the tub of sour cream without his asking and occasionally drawing him into the conversation with queries on school, but never pressing. Ryan thought idly how nice it would be to live there, and, predictably, felt guilty as soon as he had thought so.

            Mostly he wanted to get Spencer alone so that they could sneak into the computer room and look up who the hell Pete Wentz was, but Brendon still stayed. He first helped wash dishes, and then just kept not leaving. Once it was late enough that Ryan knew his dad would be worried, Ryan was deeply annoyed and knew he had to wait.

            “Well, I’m going home,” he said sourly. “It’s pretty late. See you at school tomorrow?”

            “See you,” Spencer said, a mirror of disappointment on his face. He wanted to know as well, but there wasn’t much to be done.

            “Oh!” Brendon seemed surprised. “Oh, it is late. Um. I guess I should go too.”

            “I didn’t see your car,” Ryan said.

            “I walked,” Brendon said. Ryan could feel an enormous sigh building in his chest, but he suppressed it. Spencer had better be proud of him, he thought.

            “Would you like a ride?” Ryan asked. He had been getting less and less patient and friendly as the night wore on, so he must have sounded borderline murderous. It was therefore a testament to how badly Brendon must have wanted a ride that he nodded eagerly.

            “Super,” Ryan said, voice thick with sarcasm. “Later, man. Thanks for dinner!” he called over his shoulder. He walked out, letting Brendon trail behind him.

            “You have your own car,” Brendon said, which seemed sort of redundant, as Ryan was giving him a ride.

            “My granddad’s,” Ryan offered up. “He bought it new and got put in a home five years later.”

            “Oh,” Brendon said. “I’m sorry.”

            “I’m not,” Ryan said. “He was a racist bastard, but hey, not even a hundred thousand miles on Matilda.”

            “You… named your car?”

            “Lots of people name their cars.”

            “Yeah, but…” Brendon made a face. “You just don’t seem like the type.”

            “What type is that?” Ryan asked, but not quite loud enough for Brendon to hear. Brendon sat down in Spencer’s designated spot, and Ryan gunned it out of the cul-de-sac, letting the tires screech even though Matilda was a Toyota and it wasn’t that impressive at all.

            “Where do you live?” Ryan asked. He glanced over at Brendon and made a face. “Put your seatbelt on.”

            Brendon complied, looking embarrassed already. “Way up North,” he said. “By Red Rock.”

            Ryan raised his eyebrows. “That’s a hell of a walk.”

            “Well,” Brendon shrugged. “We can’t all get cars from our dead grandparents.”

            Ryan fought back a smile.

            “He’s not dead yet, jackass.”

            Brendon laughed, a little nervously, but still a laugh. Be nice, be nice, Ryan was going to be nice if it killed him.

            It was nearly eleven when Ryan dropped Brendon off in front his house, one three stories tall and absolutely indistinguishable from those around it. Brendon waved, but as soon as the door shut Ryan took off, not waiting to see if he got inside. He was so, so late, and though he didn’t have a curfew, Ryan knew his dad.

            There was a light on in the living room window when Ryan pulled up, but that could have meant anything. Ryan’s dad wasn’t especially dependable, so he might have waited up to give Ryan a lecture, or he might have tried and passed out in the living room. Either way, Ryan squared his shoulders before walking in, guiltier than he was nervous.

            George Ross was only half-asleep, his eyelids hanging low and the beer bottle in his hand swaying dangerously. Ryan let the door thud shut to announce his presence, then said: “Hey.”

            “Hey, kid.” His dad did not look up. His eyes were fixed on the TV, but he did tighten his grip on the bottle and sit up a little straighter. “Kinda late, isn’t it?”

            “Yeah, sorry,” Ryan said. He hung his keys on the hook by the door and sat down next to his dad on the couch. “There’s a new guy in the band, so I drove him home tonight.”

            “Does he live in Reno?” his dad asked, but there was a hint of a smile playing at the corner of his lips, so Ryan laughed softly. The TV was so low he could hardly hear it, but his dad left the captions on. Some baseball game.

            “Good day at work?” Ryan asked.

            “Not bad,” his dad said. Ryan doubted that, just based on the number of bottles in the wicker trash can next to the couch, but he didn’t press. “School?”

            “Same as ever,” Ryan said. He waited another minute, and another, and looked at the TV without watching it until he was certain by the commercial cycle that more than fifteen arduous minutes had gone by before he stood up.

            “I should get to bed,” Ryan said. “Night, Dad.”

            “Night, squirt,” his dad said.

            If his dad had already been in bed, Ryan would’ve called the extension that went straight to the phone in Spencer’s room, but he was still awake, and Ryan already felt guilty enough for not spending more time with him. For not being home. Such an outright rejection would feel too mean for him to manage.

            Ryan didn’t know when the chasm between him and his dad had started opening, when it had started getting bad, or when they had stopped being able to talk to each other, but he despised it. And yet, he didn’t know how to speak to him anymore. It was like they lived on separate planets, drifting close to one another but never touching. The sensation was overwhelmingly lonely.

            So, unable to call Spencer, too keyed up for homework, and out of motivation to talk to his dad, Ryan figured it was time to bite the proverbial bullet. He laid down in bed, closed his eyes, and waited to be swept up in images from somewhere else.

            Most of the night, Ryan dreamt the full story of the four he had seen earlier. From the vampire biting Patrick, he learned his name was, to the group of them crashing into sleep in some girl’s basement. (A girl which, after briefly inhabiting, Ryan knew was very much hoping to sleep with the bassist. It seemed a reasonable hope and a likely future from what Ryan gleaned about the group of them.) Mostly, it just made sense of the jumble of images Ryan had seen earlier, but he did also get the name of the band this time, Fall Out Boy, which struck him as a bit of a stupid band name, but which he remembered for research purposes. Once the oracle in his brain seemed satisfied that he had the whole story from this band, it moved on to show him other things. He could not drive his dreams of the future, but these did not have the frenetic pace of dreams uncontrolled. He drifted, from the war in Afghanistan to a group of teenagers in Australia hiding a body back to the boy.

            Seeing him again his dreams, Ryan still couldn’t tell whether this was Brendon. He looked so much more graceful in the dim light of dreams, but still. It was a close resemblance, if nothing else. But Ryan was tired (how could he be tired while he was sleeping? He didn’t know, he simply was) and he didn’t want to puzzle over it. Instead, he let the sound of the boy’s singing soothe him until his dreams faded to nothing.

 

            Ryan woke early the next morning, early enough call Spencer and offer to drive him to school, and early enough to realize that Brendon had left his guitar in Ryan’s backseat, which was exceptionally annoying. Like doing one nice thing required Ryan to do a dozen more. A great reason, he thought, to never be nice again.

            After taking a great deal of time picking over his breakfast, Ryan discovered that it was still too early to go pick up Spencer, but that there wasn’t enough time to try and drop of Brendon’s guitar (and more to the point, he wouldn’t want to on the off chance that someone in Brendon’s family answered the door.) Impulsively, he drove to a twenty-four-hour record store, walking straight up to the counter without checking the shelves. He had seen the recording studio, so he doubted they were stocked locally.

            “Can I help you?” the clerk asked. A college boy, with a carefully manicured superior and bored out of his mind look that Ryan recognized in most college students. Another breed of people that he detested.

            “I’m guessing you don’t carry Fall Out Boy?” Ryan asked. The clerk looked affronted.

            “Have you checked?” he asked.

            “No,” Ryan said. “Do you?”

            “Let me go look for you,” the clerk said, glaring at Ryan. He walked out from behind the counter, glanced around the Fs, and came back empty handed.

            “Right, like I said,” Ryan said. “So can I, like, request some of their stuff?”

            “Do you know what label they’re with?” the clerk asked.

            “No,” Ryan said. “I know that they’re Chicago based. My cousin played me some. It’s good. They’re really big in the midwest.”

            “I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “Come back in a week.”

            Ryan smiled without thanking him and took off towards Spencer’s house.

            “What happened last night?” Spencer asked as soon as they were both in the car.

            “Vampire attack,” Ryan said. “But not exactly? It was super weird. My head just kept dragging me back to some magic band in Wisconsin or some shit.”

            “Friends of Green Day?” Spencer asked.

            “Nah, they’re nobody,” Ryan said. “Or, I think they’re nobody, anyway. I wanted to use your computer last night, but the freaking new guy.”

            “I like him,” Spencer said mildly. “He’s enthusiastic. He could be the sunshine that balances out your… equally sunny disposition.”

            Ryan took one hand off the steering wheel to flip Spencer off.

            “He’s weird,” Ryan said.

            “Pot, kettle,” Spencer replied.

            “I’ll give him a chance,” Ryan grumbled. “He could learn to take a hint, though.”

            “Begging him to leave with your eyes isn’t giving him a chance,” Spencer said. “What about the band is so weird?”

            “I don’t know,” Ryan said. He mashed his hand against the steering wheel  in frustration. “Seems like I don’t know much of anything these days, though.” Before Spencer could try and cheer him up or something equally humiliating, he pressed on. “Anyways, I just get the vibe that they’re important. Usually my head’s not so insistent about showing me something. This was different. Oh, and it was weird because the vampire attack was a vampire in the band attacking a human in the band, and then they made up and fought a wendigo together.”

            “Wendigo?” Spencer said. Ryan couldn’t begrudge him this. Spencer loved the magic, longed for it in a way that Ryan didn’t understand but thought was fantastic anyway. He just adored magic, hung on every word Ryan gave him. It was probably giving Ryan a big head.

            “Yeah, she was impersonating a waitress and had like, massacred the whole diner,” Ryan said. It had actually been horrifying to see it from the bands point of view, but he liked telling stories. Hell, he loved telling stories. “She dragged them to the back where she had hung up all the bodies of the other workers and was bleeding them.”

            Spencer said nothing, but raised his eyebrows.

            “Anyway, they all like, lived and everything, the band, but it was hardcore. She had them strung up and the vampire had to rip apart the bonds to kill her.”

            Spencer didn’t reply, just looked awestruck.

            “Anyway,” Ryan said again, “It was way better than the vision of Father Merrin. I’ve felt something kinda pulling at me, but I’ve been trying to avoid it, in case it’s him.”

            “Don’t you wanna know how it happened?” Spencer asked.

            “Not really,” Ryan said after a pause. “I mean, fuck, I don’t want him to die or anything but. I don’t know. There was something really wrong about that vision.”

            “Wrong how?” Spencer asked. Ryan swung into his usual parking space, in the very back of the lot at the Walgreens a few blocks from their school. He turned the car off and got out without answering, then finally sighed and said:

            “I don’t know. I mean, I do, but. Whoever killed Father Merrin could see me. LIke, could see me having the vision. They spoke to me.”

            “That doesn’t make any sense,” Spencer said. “What do you mean they saw you? Are you going to be there?”

            “I don’t have any fucking intentions of being there,” Ryan said, but that did give him a nasty thought. Perhaps he was going to be there. That would explain why he could see it from his own point of view. The thought was stomach dropping, and he pushed it away.

            “Are you going to tell him he’s in danger?” Spencer asked. They were walking fairly briskly to the campus, Ryan doing his tie while walking. Spencer still had to do his in front of a mirror, but Ryan could tie his tie in his sleep.

            “Hell fucking nope,” Ryan said. “How would I even approach that? ‘Hey, Father, you’ve been a religious inspiration for years, but you need to know that everything you know about the world is wrong, I’m a witch, and you’re gonna die between now and your next haircut.’”

            “It was just a suggestion.”

            “I know, it’s just. It doesn’t really matter, does it? These aren’t the kind of visions I can stop.” Ryan sighed.

            “Guess it’s just a question of whether or not you think he’d want to know,” Spencer said.

            “Who the fuck would want to know that?” Ryan asked.

            “Mr. Ross!”

            Ryan snapped to attention. On school grounds he held himself a little straighter, stiff backed and orderly. He was more careful there. And he tried not to be caught with his guard down.

            “Language, Ryan,” the teacher cautioned. His old English teacher smiled fondly at him, and he tried not to exhale audibly. Nothing bad, nothing yet. Ryan was dreading seeing Father Merrin again, but perhaps just for today he could avoid him…

            “I think I’m gonna ask Haley out,” Spencer announced. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

            “You, wait, who?”

            “Haley,” Spencer said. He paused. “She has been sitting at our lunch table for four months now.”

            “Right,” Ryan said, though the name still didn't sound familiar. “Um. Good for you, man. And, uh, good luck?”

            “You're a great friend, Ry,” Spencer said. He rolled his eyes, though, the Spencer equivalent of saying all was forgiven. The first bell rang, and Spencer gripped Ryan's wrist for a moment.

            “Call me if you need me?” he said. Ryan nodded and walked to class, alone.

            Ryan didn’t talk to many people throughout the day. He wasn’t close to most people he went to school with, only friends with Spencer and acquaintances with long term lab partners. The school days passed in a blur. An annoyingly long blur.

            The thing was that it wasn’t always bad. Ryan didn’t like being alone, but at the same time he didn’t think he was lonely. Being alone was his default state. But some days, he felt a hollowness that he wondered if, perhaps, might have something to do with being alone.

            That morning Ryan felt this hollowness to be especially stinging. Spencer was going to ask a girl out.

            Spencer was going to leave him.

            No, that was ridiculous. Ryan wasn’t going to be some annoying, clingy best friend. It was good that Spencer was branching out and making more friends, even if Ryan had no intentions of doing the same. He would be a supportive best friend, he thought. Perhaps he was a bit jealous, but he knew it would do no good to take it out on this Haley person. Spencer was pragmatic to the core, and Ryan was not getting replaced.

            Since seniors had off campus lunch but sitting by himself in a fast food place was depressing even for Ryan, he usually got Taco Bell for the table. He thought it was just he and Spencer eating it, but we pretty much exclusively bought group sized platters, and girls didn’t usually eat that much, right? Possibly he’d been buying Spencer’s future girlfriend lunch for months and just never noticed.

            As a peace offering, when he was going through the drive-thru he ordered three Baha-Blasts as opposed to the usual two (or one, if he was feeling particularly pissed at Spencer for one reason or another.) He was given a carrying container, which looked a lot more suspicious than just a soda in each hand a backpack stuffed with tacos, but he accepted it with poor grace and drove an extra few times around the block, dreading going back to school and talking to someone else. Two new people in as many days was far too much, though he supposed that this haley person wasn’t actually new. She may as well have been.

            Ryan bent against the wind as he walked the rest of the distance back to the high school, head still busy. He had to get Brendon’s number from Spencer and call him about the guitar- or, better, get Spencer to call him about the guitar. But he’d probably have to be the one to drop it off, which made the whole thing even less appealing. He doubted Brendon in his ratty converse who walked all across Summerlin for band practice had the means to pick his guitar up, and Ryan didn’t really want to interact with whoever else lived in the big Mormon household.

            He was so lost in his thoughts as he walked that he nearly knocked over the street preacher, spilling soda all over the ground. So much for that.

            Soda seeping into his shirt, Ryan looked up and squinted at the too bright sight of a man in a suit backlit by the afternoon sun. It was freezing out, but none of the drinks managed to get onto Suit Guy, who was smiling a toothpaste-commercial smile at Ryan.

            “Hey! Didn’t see you there, sonny!”

            If Stepford made men, that would be what this guy was. A husband from the 1950’s, with perfect hair and teeth and lightly tan skin, wearing a three-piece suit in the middle of the day in an otherwise abandoned high school parking lot.

            “Me either,” Ryan mumbled, shifting his backpack on his back. Soda and ice were still burbling out onto the asphalt, washing cold waves over Ryan’s shoes. The man nodded and held aloft a suspiciously familiar black book.

            “Have you heard the good news?” he asked.

            Ryan stared at him, then at the school, then back at him.

            “Is that a joke?” he asked.

            Suit Guy seemed impervious to Ryan’s rudeness, only smiling wider.

            “You’re a student! Wonderful! You can show my son, Adam, around.”

            Seemingly from thin air, or maybe Ryan just couldn’t see from how he had to squint in the sunlight, Suit Guy pushed forward a miniature version of himself. The kid was, thankfully, not wearing a full suit, but he was already dressed in the school uniform, tie and all, and he looked equally Stepford with his too-bright eyes and too-white smile.

            “Adam,” he said, stretching his hand out. Ryan took his hand mostly out of shock rather than desire to meet Adam, and the second their hands met the voice in Ryan’s head hissed: “Heretic!”

            Ryan froze, but let his hand be shook by Adam. His grip was firm around Ryan’s lifeless, soda-soaked hand.

            “Ryan,” he said numbly.

            “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ryan,” Adam said, leaning in too close on the word “pleasure.” His father’s hand rested on the small of his back, like he was steering him.

            “Do you think you could-?” the father began, and Ryan interrupted immediately with:

            “I have to go.”

            His phone chirped as he walked into school, the screen lit up with an unknown number.

            do u hav my guitar?

 

Notes:

Look at me! Posting kind of regularly! And also finally having a plot for this story, lol. Hope you guys liked it! Tell me what you think and thanks for reading!

Chapter 4: Frankincense

Summary:

Life goes on, but not so much as ever.

            Nobody but Ryan missed the Baja Blast. Spencer said that Ryan “always had shitty taste in soda anyway,” and then in a quieter voice said that he had a spare shirt in his locker. Ryan made an assenting noise in his throat and nodded at Haley. She didn’t seem to notice him, but that was normal for Ryan. He slumped down in his chair and texted Brendon, trying to ignore the shivers that ran through his chest from the soda spilled all over him.

            yeah, it’s in my car. Want me to drop it off?

            “So,” Spencer said, looking so hopeful Ryan felt blinded by the light of looking at him. “I was wondering if you wanted to go out sometime?” Ryan slumped a little bit lower. He smelled like sugar and sweat and artificial lime.

            “Me?” Haley looked stunned. She was a little mousy, but she couldn’t have been that shocked. “Um- sure- when did you-?”

            “Anytime!” Spencer said. Ryan sincerely doubted that he had a day in mind. Or a date, for that matter.

            no no just brng it to practice?

            Ryan wanted push and say it wasn’t a big deal, but he wasn’t going to force his kindness on someone uninterested in it.

            kk.

            Spencer and Haley were both trying hard not to smile, so sweet it made Ryan's stomach hurt. A couple of other people were sitting at their table, quiet hockey players and a nerdy band girl that was probably Haley's friend, but Ryan was really interested in striking up a conversation with anyone who wasn't Spencer, and Spencer was busy. Ryan instead spent most of lunch sulking, half interested in chewing his food and half focused on the slow movement of the second hand round and round the clock. Going to class was almost a blessing, until he walking into the biology lab and saw Adam sitting at one of the rectangular black lab tables. Ryan's lab table, that he was very used to sitting at alone. There was an odd number of people in the class which meant that Ryan could get away with sitting alone. And now the new kid was here. The heretic.

            How easy life without magic must be, Ryan thought.

            Adam jumped up when he saw Ryan walking towards him, broad grin on his face.

            “Hello there,” he said. “Ryan, right?”

            Ryan hadn't remembered giving Adam his name, but he tried, unsuccessfully, to school his face into a smile for a moment.

            “Yeah,” he said at last. “Adam, yeah?”

            Ryan sat down at the lab table without waiting for an answer. He pulled out a book- he didn’t look at what book, it could’ve been the copy of Survivor he brought to school with him or it could have been a math textbook- and opened it to read, but Adam was persistent.

            “That’s me,” he agreed. He had an amicable voice, but wheedling. It reminded Ryan forcefully of politicians, and didn’t really warm him to the guy. “I heard this was the only open seat in the classroom. You unpopular, or just lucky?”

            Ryan glanced up at him. He was in just a bad enough mood to feel combative.

            “I was lucky,” he said. Adam laughed.

            “It’s okay,” he said. “I keep to myself, for the most part.”

            Ryan nodded, and didn’t look up from his book. Adam leaned over and read over the top of Ryan’s shoulder for a minute. The sensation was skin-crawling.

            Class took forever to start, and the teacher was so thrilled to see Ryan “making a friend” that he congratulated him in front of the class. Rather than attempt to correct him, Ryan bent over his lab journal, scribbling furiously into the margins. It was even a lab day, so he and Adam had to pair up on a project. The overwhelming urge to just keep staring at the second hand of the clock got worse and worse.

            “This isn't so bad,” Adam said. Ryan thought of the word jovial when he looked at Adam, a word he'd never before seen outside of British literature. It seemed the kind of word that went hand in hand with descriptions of ruddy cheeks, but it also fit Adam. He was friendly and pompous and Ryan missed Spencer with stupid fervency.

            “Transpiration, I mean, it's pretty easy. Don't know how we're expected to get adequate results in 45 minutes, but I'm guessing you get higher grades than anyone else in this class anyway, huh?”

            “Not really,” Ryan admitted. “Pretty high, but I'm not the best.”

            “Yeah? What's to stop you from being valedictorian?”

            Ryan almost cracked a smile, but resisted.

            “I miss a lot of school, and I never do my homework,” he said.

            “Bet you don't eat green vegetables either,” Adam teased. To Ryan's shock, he did let out a snort.

            “Not if I can avoid it, no,” Ryan said. “So, okay, you tape down the flower, I'll write the measurements every five minutes.”

            “I feel like I'm getting the short end of the quickly withering leaf here,” Adam said, waving their plant cutting around.

            Ryan raised his eyebrows. “Call for help if you need it, then.”

            Adam was good at biology, which was another mercy. He said something about having done a lab like that before when Ryan asked, and even though they ran up until the bell rang, their paper was the most filled out, and their plant had cooperated and best displayed transpiration under not the best of circumstances.

            By the end of class, if Ryan wasn't quite over his childish despair over Spencer liking someone else, he was thoroughly distracted from it. Adam made for a pretty good partner, and didn’t bother Ryan with nonstop chatter like some of the girls did if their partner was sick. All in all, it wasn’t the worst day of Ryan’s life.

            Which really made it all the more disappointing when Ryan got home to see a tour bus in front of it.

            For the past few years, there hadn’t been many people going to Ryan for help. He hadn’t paid too much attention to the politics, but he knew that monster hunting had sort of… died out. The monsters weren’t really getting worse, not in a way that other people would notice, but they were definitely around more often. Ryan supposed he should have been happy that someone was back to start dealing with this kind of thing again, but he mostly felt hollow. It had been a long enough day already without this.

            Ryan shouldered the front door open, waiting for the band to approach him, but he stopped in the door when he realized that the rock band was already inside. Ryan couldn’t make sense of the four tattooed strangers sitting on his couch without him having invited them in until he saw his dad on his usual armchair. His dad glanced up at him, gave him an indecipherable warning glance, and turned back to the band.

            “Who’s the kid?” a blonde man asked, barely glancing at Ryan.

            “My son,” his dad said. “In any case, I think we’re done here. If the two of you combine, the pack can be one with two alphas. It’s going to work out.”

            The men stood up, pushing past Ryan to the front door, apparently oblivious to him. The last one lingered for a moment and looked Ryan up and down.

            “The oracle thing, that hereditary?” he asked.

            “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Ryan’s dad said. The man left, the door swinging shut behind him.

            “Dad?” Ryan said. “Um, why did you tell Metallica that you’re the oracle?”

            “Yes,” his dad said. He pulled himself slowly to his feet, straining under the effort of standing. He too walked past Ryan, but into the kitchen rather than outside. He poured himself a drink using one of the rarely touched bottles of liquor stashed on top of the fridge then walked back into the living room. Ryan's father didn't have a tendency to rush whatever he planned on saying.

            “Why?” Ryan asked when he finally sat back down. “I mean… are they dangerous or something?”

            His dad looked very far away, though he was sitting on the chair right next to him. His eyes were open in the distant, unseeing way that Ryan had grown used to in himself, in losing track of the world when he saw too far away.

            “You're eighteen,” his father said. His voice came out slow and thick as though he were already drunk. “Eighteen, off to college soon, to a good life. A better life than I had.

            “I let you take over when you were too young. It was my weakness, my fault, and I'm sorry for all you had to see. But I don't want you to have to suffer through this position. I don't want you to get tangled up in magic. It's too dangerous. Bands coming here to inspire their quests is one thing, but you can't… can't just go out into the world… all vulnerable.”

            “Dad,” Ryan said. “You're not making sense. I am the Oracle. I am part of the magic. You can't just decide I'm not.”

            George Ross stared up at Ryan, his eyes suddenly very clear and afraid. Ryan took a step closer to him, across the dark cavern of the living room, but his dad held up his hands.

            “I can't decide for you,” he acquiesced. “But you should do your best to live a normal life. I still see the future, see enough to know what's coming. I can take care of any duties that require an Oracle. You should get a chance to live.”

            “Dad,” Ryan hovered a few feet from his dad's chair. The theatrics of all, the dark room and the heavy voice, it grated at Ryan. “Dad, I'm fine. And I have a condition where sometimes I pass out because I have visions, so it's not as though I can turn this off.”

            “I'm not asking you to stop seeing the future,” his dad said. “I'm just saying that your own life matters too. School, college, hockey, that's all more important than the magic you see. Don't let the magic become your life. I don't think I've taught you that enough. I don't think I've taught you enough at all.”

            Even though it was balmy outside and warm inside, dry and cozy with the A/C off for the season, Ryan felt suddenly very cold.

            “Dad,” he said. “Did you see something… bad?”

            His dad wouldn't meet his eyes, and instead gulped down the dark brown liquor in the bottom of his glass. He stared first at Ryan's feet, then out the window.

            “Just be careful,” he said.

 

            When Ryan laid down in bed that night, he found he couldn't sleep. His eyes were closed but his mind wouldn't stop racing, flitting through images of other people's futures that he'd tried to avoid seeing during the day, to focus on other things. The broken handle of a wagon and blood spread across a suburban street, a boy kicking a soccer ball while smoke billowed out of a small, thatched house behind him, a woman with her eyes closed and a bottle in her hand, a few fractured seconds of music through a car radio. Death, pain, joy, loss, the weightless sensation of sudden and complete change. Ryan was there to feel and see it all.

            What his dad didn't seem to understand was this: Ryan did try to keep out the visions, as much as was physically possible. But he couldn’t fight it. The world, the oracle, whatever it was, it had stories that it wanted to show Ryan, and Ryan wasn’t allowed to not see them.

            At first the visions were quick and random. Sometimes he would stay in a person’s mind long enough to here a few words shouted, other times just long enough to see a flash of color. But then they started to slow down. He got a few moments in the back of a van, his head nestled in the crook of someone else’s neck as the vehicle jostled down a bumpy highway, a low voice in the front seat asking when they would get back to Chicago. He paused in a nightclub with flashing lights and screaming twenty somethings, his hand throbbing as he strummed out a basic rhythm line, casting nervous glances to his side at a singer who looked like he was barely standing up straight. Then he was in a bedroom, the same bedroom he’d seen his whole life, where the boy sat, head pressed against the window. He was half-singing, half-whispering, the words coming out slow and hoarse, but still lovely. Ryan knew he wouldn’t remember the tune when he woke up, but he enjoyed it then, and tried to step forward. The boy looked so sad, so unlike the hyperactive creature that had come to band practice that they had to be different, and Ryan yearned to comfort him.

            “Little voyeur, aren’t you?” a husky voice enveloped Ryan. He turned, but there was nothing behind him but the pale beige wall. The boy kept whisper-singing his mournful song, unable to hear the voice Ryan heard.

            “What do you see in him? What do you think he’ll see in you? No one will be able to save you, little fortune teller. You have no future.”

            The room faded to black like an image with ink poured over it. Ryan opened his mouth to shout, and his mouth filled with the same inky black water, tasting like iron on his tongue. He was drowning, the boy was gone, and Ryan couldn’t breathe and no one could see him but this thing could see him heretic heretic-

            Ryan sat bolt upright in bed, coughing and gasping for air. The lights were out, but through the dim street light coming through his window he could faintly see sticky, black phlegm pooling on his bedsheets. He swiped his hand across his mouth, and his palm came back streaked with black.

            This, Ryan thought, was not the sort of oracle business his father had prepared him for.

 

            The week dragged on like always. School and hockey and TV and jerking off and spending an awful lot of time not thinking about Brendon. The only difference between that week and the one before it was who Ryan was spending time with.

            Overnight, Spencer and Haley had become inseparable. Though Ryan had barely even known the girl before, he now couldn’t find Spencer without seeing their fingers twined together. And Ryan was happy for them, he really was, except for the fact that he resented her deeply and missed his best friend.

            But Adam was nice. He remembered the strange warning, but wondered if that might not have been for Adam’s father. Because the thing was, Adam was great. He easily fit in at their lunch table, and was up for all of Ryan’s dark jokes. Ryan lent him a copy of Diary, by Chuck Palahniuk, and Adam read it in a night and referenced it back to Ryan. He was working on Invisible Monsters, after that. He was no Spencer, but he was… tolerant. Tolerant was often the best Ryan, weirdo, bad at talking, faints-in-class Ryan, could ask for of his friends.

            During lunch the two of them sat with their heads bent together. They only shared Biology the first day, but Adam seemed to still be working out his calendar at school, so by the end of the week he was in almost every class with Ryan, which made Ryan’s life easier. They went over homework, Ryan helping Adam with his English Lit, and Adam breezing through both of their math.

            “I’m really not sure how you made it to eighteen without learning this,” Adam said at lunch one day, passing a paper back to Ryan. Adam copied his handwriting flawlessly, so it looked like Ryan had done all the work.

            “I’ve got better things to do than learn linear algebra. You could pick up a book from time to time.”

            The sort of playful jabs they had going made Spencer cast them a concerned look from time to time, but he was usually a little busy to notice. Adam threw his empty Gatorade bottle at Ryan’s head each day when he finished. Ryan had all but decided he liked him. Adam seemed determined to treat him like any other guy, and Ryan couldn’t get enough of it.

            Meanwhile, he kept dreaming about the boy, who may or may not have been Brendon. He didn’t think it was, because real Brendon was annoying and the boy in Ryan’s dreams was, in a word, ethereal, but they looked pretty similar. Pretty gorgeous, too, but Ryan wasn’t really ready to deal with that.

            A week passed in what felt like the blink of an eye, and after another sleepless night, Ryan called Spencer to confirm he was picking him up, then dropped by the downtown music shop again.

            “My CD come in?” Ryan yelled even as the bell was still ringing with the door opening. Without response, he walked to the register in the back of the shop and rang the bell on the counter. Annoyed looking college boy came out of the back and scowled when he saw Ryan.

            “Ah, the kid with the shit taste in music,” the clerk said. “Yeah, your CD came. I don’t know why you want this stuff. It’s like Blink 182 for sad homos.”

            Ryan glanced at the pink-yellow cover and the strangely familiar faces, warped by plastic.

            “That’s the right band,” he said.

            “You said they were big in Chicago?” the clerk asked, dubious.

            “Yup,” Ryan lied. He had no idea if they were big, per se. They were in a real recording studio in his visions, sure, but their van looked like it was going to rust apart. “How much?”

            “Fifteen for the one, but I’ll give you a wholesale deal if you just buy the box. I don’t need to waste the shelf-space.”

            “Just the one, thanks,” Ryan said.

            He put the CD in his car immediately, listening as he drove the familiar route to Spencer’s house. It wasn’t amazing, but he sort of liked it. Then again, Ryan thought, as it moved to yet another track he nodded his head along to, Blink 182 for sad homos sounded exactly like the kind of music he would be into.

            The car was shaking with the music when Spencer got in, eyebrows raised. Ryan turned down the volume knob and shot away from the curb as soon as the door shut. Spencer gestured to the radio.

            “What’s up with this?” he asked.

            “Fall Out Boy,” Ryan said. “They keep showing up in my dreams, so I decided to just buy the damn album.”

            “They’re no Green Day,” Spencer said.

            “Who is?” Ryan asked.

            “Are they the ones with the wendigo, and the vampire and stuff?” Spencer asked.

            “Yeah, that’s them,” Ryan said.

            They drove in silence for a minute, while a boy’s voice filled the car, singing about long van rides.

            “It’s alright,” Spencer said.

 

            Ryan drove Spencer back to his house after school, so the two of them hung out there waiting for Brent and Brendon to show up. In the interim, Spencer talked about Haley.

            “She’s so cool, dude, we’ve got to all hang out sometime,” he said. “She’s planning on going to college for astronomy, and she likes all our kind of music, and she like, reads poetry and stuff, she’s the best.”

            “You’re gushing,” Ryan said. “We have a rule about gushing about girls.”

            “Dickhead.”

            Realistically, the two of them could have been actually practicing their instruments, but they were instead lying on the floor in Spencer’s bedroom, staring at the ceiling while they caught up. Ryan missed him, and they still ate lunch together every day. He was starting to wonder if this qualified as codependent, or if he was just needy.

            “What about you?” Spencer asked. “Any girls?”

            A boy.

            “No one,” Ryan said. “Um. Metallica came to my house, and my dad said he was the oracle. Said he doesn’t want that life for me, or some shit like that. And I’ve been having weird nightmares. Jason, our goalie, he’s been acting like a massive dick. But pretty much everything’s been the same with me, just a little lonelier.”

            “Jealous?” Spencer asked teasingly.

            “You wish,” Ryan said.

            “Yeah, well what about the weird new kid?” Spencer asked.

            “Adam?” Ryan shook his head, though Spencer couldn’t see. “I don’t know. He rubbed me the wrong way at first, but he’s nice enough.”

            “Nice,” Spencer scoffed.

            “For me,” Ryan admitted.

            “You never told me all the details about the Fall Out Boy stuff you’d been seeing,” Spencer said. “What’s up with that?”

            Ryan detailed the events- the blood, the horror, the band made up of mythical creatures, and had just gotten to their return to Chicago when the doorbell rang. Ryan scowled.

            “Brendon rings the doorbell?”

            “He’s polite; don’t be a jackass,” Spencer warned. Ryan’s heart stuttered against his will. It was Brendon and he was something, he just didn’t know what. Ryan stayed on the floor a second too long, so he knew it would be weird to get up and follow Spencer to the door. Instead he stood and hovered by his bedroom door, feeling his palms begin to sweat at the idea of seeing Brendon again. Stupid, he told himself, because he didn’t even know if this was actually the one, the dream boy, but. But.

            “Hey, Ryan!” Brendon said cheerfully. He nearly knocked Ryan over with a zealous wave. “Sorry- is my guitar-?”

            “In my car,” Ryan said. “I can go get it, meet you guys in the garage.”

            “Cool,” Brendon said. His whole body sagged with relief when he said it, and Ryan felt another tick of annoyance. If he missed it so badly, why hadn’t he just let Ryan drop it off, even if he did live way on the north side of town.

            Brendon began tuning his guitar and plucking out chords at random as soon as it was back in his hands. Ryan tuned his guitar too, just trying to listen to it and hope for the best rather than drag a tuner out with him. He felt a little inadequate next to Brendon looking all serious next to him, but it was also hard to focus on tuning with Brendon sitting right next to him.

            Brent showed up late, as was his custom, but once they got into practicing, it kind of sounded good. Or, at the very least, good-adjacent. Ryan sounded “a little more Tom than Mark” according to Brent, and even when all of them individually played their parts well, they couldn’t stay in time with one another for more than a minute or so of a song at a time. But it was something approaching good, and Ryan had the most curious sensation that it had to be because of Brendon. He wasn’t doing much-- just playing mediocre rhythm guitar, like Ryan wanted. But the vibe felt different, a little more serious, a little more intense. With every song they performed, Brendon stood a little closer to Ryan, like he was getting less scared of him. Or maybe like he was trying to make Ryan less scared of him, like Ryan was some kind of skittish animal, but Ryan preferred to think it was the first.

            Ryan was about to suggest (or, about to start working himself up to suggest) that they maybe start talking about writing original songs, maybe even look at something he’d started writing on his own, when he felt a throb behind his eyes.

            “Spence?” Ryan said vaguely. Spencer’s head snapped up, recognizing the tone, and he stood up immediately. Ryan gripped his guitar tightly praying to any god that was listening that he wouldn’t break it, but then he didn’t fall. He felt the tug, but it wasn’t powerful enough to draw him out of the moment. He stood in place, knees locked.

            “What’s wrong?” Brendon asked, way too close to Ryan. He jumped back, the head of his guitar scuffing the body of Brendon’s with a horrible sound as he did.

            “Nothing,” he half-shouted. “Um. Nothing. Feeling faint.”

            “The Yugoslavian thing?” Brendon said dubiously. “Should we get you a fainting couch?”

            It would have been a funny joke if Spencer had made it, but coming from Brendon - probably not even the dream boy - just grated on Ryan’s nerves.

            “Sure it’ll fit right in with the stage decor,” Ryan said. “I should head home, actually. It’s getting late. You want a ride, Brendon?”

            The full name felt overly formal on his tongue, but they definitely weren’t at a nickname phase of their relationship yet.

            “Actually, he was staying the night,” Spencer said. “Did you wanna stay over too, Ry?”

            Yet another surge of unreasonable jealousy ripped through Ryan. So Spencer had no time for him, but plenty for the new guy?

            “I’m fine,” Ryan said tightly. “I need to get home.” He gave Spencer a look as if to emphasize what Spencer should know intuitively- that Ryan was just barely fighting off a vision, was probably about to see something life changing, but Spencer just nodded.

            “Call me when you get home?”

            “Sure,” Ryan said. He flipped his guitar around onto his back and all but stormed out to his car. Matilda, at least, was there for him.

            He slammed the driver’s side door shut and took deep breaths. It was a stupid thing to be freaking out about, he knew. It was childish and idiotic but what if? What if he was losing Spencer when Spencer was all he had?

            The throbbing behind his eyes increased in intensity, and Ryan felt his head slam against the steering wheel before he was pulled into something else.

            The room he was in was dark, and once again Ryan wasn’t inhabiting a body, the way he only did when he was seeing (not Brendon) the boy. The details of the room were uncommonly murky, none of the furniture or walls really discernible, but he could see Adam on the floor, convulsing.

            Ryan tried to run to him, but he couldn’t reach Adam. He had no physical presence, he was just watching, and Adam coughed out thick, crimson blood onto his white shirt. Ryan looked around for something, anything to help, but there was nothing, and in any case, this wasn’t happening, but it would.

            Ryan jerked back to life, and was shocked to see no time had passed. The vision was really just a flash, but that was enough to draw his attention. He glanced back at Spencer’s house to see if anyone had come out to check on him (wishful thinking) but nothing looked out of the ordinary. There was another car driving into the cul-de-sac, though, so Ryan gunned it, in no mood to get into a conversation about school with Brent’s mom.

            The second he got in the door he yanked the phone off the hook and called Adam. He had his number inscribed in the cover of his Biology textbook, for any homework based emergencies, or in this case, vision-of-murder emergencies.

            “Hello?”

            Adam’s voice sounded cheery and stepford as ever, and Ryan let out a long sigh of relief.

            “Hey, Adam, are you- are you okay?” Ryan asked.

            “Fine, why?” Adam asked.

            “I just,” Ryan paused. He should have said homework, or come up with any other excuse, but he felt so drained, so needy all of a sudden. “Can I come over?”

            He could almost feel the smile through the phone line.

            “I’ll give you my address. My dad’s already asleep.”

Notes:

kind of a filler chapter but important setup for later! Sorry for the wait aldkfjaslkdfj I'm gonna update this more I swear. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 5: The Heretic

Summary:

Ryan gets to know Adam and Father Merrin a little better, in lieu of spending time with Spencer.

            Adam’s house wasn’t even in Summerlin. It was in Vegas proper, lodged in the liminal space between the airport and the strip, a lone bastion of pale pink stucco and artfully planted palm trees against the desolate waste that all the taxis speeded past, Autobahn style. It didn’t look as intensely suburban as Ryan and Spencer’s houses, but instead looked very typically Vegas. And very, very expensive.

            Ryan’s hand hovered in front of the door for a second, unsure whether or not he should knock. Adam had said his dad was asleep, so maybe knocking would wake his dad up…

            The problem was solved by Adam swinging the door open before Ryan could knock. He positively beamed.

            “Come on in,” he said. Clearly loud enough that Ryan didn’t have to worry about the noise.

            The house inside was just as spotless as it was outside. The neat landscaping outside turned into non-confrontational beige inside, with all new sofas and end tables and trendy looking lamps.

            “Your house looks… nice,” Ryan said at length. Adam rolled his eyes as he fell onto the arm of the off-white sofa with easy grace.

            “Yeah, my dad sent the decorator ahead of us,” he said, his voice full of derision. “He likes every place we live to look like the very highest end of middle class.”

            “How many places do you live?” Ryan asked. He sat gingerly in a chair facing the sofa, feeling like somehow he would dirty up all the slightly-darker-than-white furniture.

            “All over,” Adam shrugged. “Dad travels for work. You want a beer?”

            Beer kind of disgusted Ryan, but he was out of his depth, so he nodded. Adam disappeared into a side room and came back within seconds, tossing a cold can to Ryan.

            “Is that why you ended up here?” Ryan asked. Adam cracked his can open and drank deeply before nodding.

            “Yeah, he’s got new business in town,” he said. “He’s never sure how long a case will take, so every time we move we just buy a new house. He says it’s cheaper than renting, plus we never have to worry about a lease.”

            “Must pay a lot,” Ryan said. “Doesn’t moving all the time suck?”

            “Always,” Adam said. He looked truly sad for a second, looking off into the middle distance, then pulled another deep draught. He crunched the empty can in his hand and tossed it into the wastebasket across the room. A pretty impressive shot, but Ryan had used up his store of compliments already that night.

            “Could you stay with your mom?” Ryan asked.

            “No mom,” Adam said. He gave Ryan a hard look, one that was strangely familiar, and Ryan felt somehow smaller. More vulnerable.

            “Hey, me either,” he said.

            “Doesn’t it suck?” Adam said mockingly, but not quite meanly. “Anyway, what brings you here?”

            Ryan laughed, embarrassed. He leaned back against the absurdly clean, absurdly new couch, and rested his head on the heel of his hand. “It’s stupid, really,” he said. “Just… I had a kind of nightmare, I guess.”

            “Yeah?” Adam cocked his head. “At- sorry, were you already in bed at nine?”

            “Kind of a nightmare,” Ryan said. “I just. I just wanted to not be in my house.”

            “I feel that,” Adam said. “Sometimes you just have to get out of your own head. You kind of become someone else when you’re with someone else.”

            “Yeah,” Ryan said. He wanted to say something a bit more intelligent, but found that all he could do was nod.

            Adam laughed, the sound warmer the longer Ryan was there, and the more he drank. Just one beer shouldn’t make him as fuzzy as he felt, but he was having an off day. Or year.

            “So, you wanna sit around talking philosophy all night, or do something else?”

            “What’d you have in mind?” Ryan asked.

            “Got a pool table in the basement,” Adam said. Ryan thought about a grateful smile, but instead just nodded.

            “I’m shit at pool,” he said.

            “It’s fine,” Adam said. “I like winning.”

            He did win most of the games. Ryan generally didn’t keep track as they drank a little, TV blaring in the background. Adam’s dad, wherever he was, must’ve been a pretty heavy sleeper. Based on all the alcohol Ryan saw briefly in the kitchen, he wondered if Adam’s dad slept the way his father did: heavy and intoxicated.

            A few hours into this, Ryan was shocked to see the clock on the wall with both hands pointed to twelve. He watched as Adam sunk the eight-ball into the corner pocket, then stretched as Adam cheered.

            “Hey, thanks for this,” Ryan said. “It was, ah, good getting to be around someone tonight.”

            “He has manners,” Adam said, eyebrows raised. “You’re very welcome, Ryan. I’m gonna drink that in now, because you don’t feel like the kind of guy to thank people often.”

            “Especially not if they act like this,” Ryan said tightly. “I should head home, though.”

            Adam laid his pool cue down on the table and walked over to Ryan, eyebrows knit together in concern.

            “I don’t think so,” he said. “You’ve had a few, and you should probably just crash here.”

            Ryan had, in fact, had two beers, and while drinking and driving wasn’t a spectacular idea, neither was just not going home. He had no desire at all to leave his dad wondering where he was all night long. He had even less desire to drive to school in the same clothes he had worn that day, with Adam in the passenger seat rather than Spencer. There was hanging out and venting, and then there was straight up betrayal.

            Still, wouldn’t it just be a great excuse for his dad to go and drown himself in a vat of whiskey if Ryan died from driving drunk of all things? He ought to stay…

            The voice in Ryan’s head rose again, a soft but insistent hiss in the back of his brain: Leave.

            “I’m fine,” Ryan said. He took a step back, and his legs and eyesight didn’t waver at all. “I’ll drink a glass of water first if you want, but I need to get back. My dad, he’ll…”

            “It’s not safe,” Adam said. “I can’t let you go-”

            “I promise I’m fine,” Ryan said. He blinked and scanned the future as quick as he could. He would get home, not that he could tell Adam that. “I will call you when I get there, but I’m absolutely leaving.”

            All the light seemed gone from Adam’s eyes.

            “Fine,” he said. “I’ll see you around.”

            The room felt suddenly cold, and Ryan nodded.

            “See you,” he agreed. He hurried up the stairs, still stunned by the chil. The cold sensation followed him outside, where it had dipped to the low fifties or high forties, dry and snappy, the typical Las Vegas winter. He felt too exposed, no houses around Adam’s. Ryan threw himself in Matilda and turned her engine over a few times, cranking the heat though it shouldn’t have been necessary. He was shivering.

            “What about Adam?” he asked out loud. The boy intrigued him, and he didn’t want to die. But he was getting weird vibes from him, in spite of everything. Unmoving, Ryan leaned his forehead against the steering wheel, his eyes closed.

            If he focused hard enough on Adam, on the hard flash of his teeth and the steely glint in his eyes, Ryan could see him still, sitting in the basement. Ryan could see the annoyance draining from his face. The expression on his face was slowly replaced with fear, and he sank down to the plush carpet, head in his hands. He was frightened, and somehow guilty, like he had done something wrong.

            Ryan snapped back into himself and felt an echo of that guilt wash over him. Adam was just worried about Ryan. Another errant thought - maybe Ryan was making a friend. That was such a foreign idea that he had to fight himself from shaking it off. People made friends. People who played pool with you at eleven at night just so you wouldn’t be alone with your thoughts and didn’t want you to drive drunk, they either had to be drinking buddies or friends, and since Ryan and Adam didn’t exactly get smashed in seventh period.

            Friends. It still felt odd, but Ryan smiled a tiny bit to himself as he drove home.

            His dad was gone when he woke up for school, like usual, but there was no note to signal he had noticed anything wrong. Ryan drove to pick Spencer up again, replaying the same Fall Out Boy CD that was already in his car. It wasn’t till he was nearly to Spencer’s house that he realized he hadn’t been plagued by visions of the future all the previous night. Maybe because he had still been buzzed.

            Ryan thought about his dad, about drinking and visions and all the terrible things he saw, and then tried very, very hard to think about anything else. He wasn’t exactly in the mood to develop an addiction before he even got to college.

            Spencer looked kind of pissed when he got in, but Ryan had expected that. He turned off Matilda, leaned back in his seat, and let out a deep breath.

            “Get it all out of your system,” he said at last.

            “You’re being a dick,” Spencer said. “Brendon’s nice, and he’s trying to get you to like him.”

            “He annoys me,” Ryan said. “I didn’t say anything mean to him.”

            “He’s sensitive,” Spencer said.

            “Maybe he shouldn’t be in a rock band,” Ryan said. “I’m trying my best, okay?”

            “No, you’re not,” Spencer said. “I’ve seen you trying your best, and that’s not it. So we’re having a band sleepover.”

            “I’m emasculated and horrified and absolutely not going to do it,” Ryan said.

            “It might be fun,” Spencer said. “Come on. My mom will make cookies. We will watch Fight Club. Or that Romeo and Juliet movie. I’m trying my damndest here.”

            “Swearing is a sin,” Ryan said halfheartedly. “And I already said I was emasculated. We’re not telling new kid about my thing for Baz Luhrmann movies.”

            “I can say I picked it,” Spencer said.

            “You called it the Romeo and Juliet movie, and it’s called Romeo plus Juliet, and I bet you don’t know the main actors in it.”

            “Whatever, dude, it’s Shakespeare with guns and drag queens: does that mean we’re watching Fight Club?”

            “No! It means I am not having a sleepover with the Mormon kid and Brent.”

            “You kind of like Brent.”

            “Kind of,” Ryan grumbled. He started the car up again. Arguing with Spencer would only get worse if he made Spencer late for school. “When are you doing this to me?”

            “Tomorrow,” Spencer said. “You’re a good friend.”

            “Trying my best,” Ryan said. He turned the music up a little bit louder.

            “It gets better the more you listen to it,” Spencer admitted, pointing to the radio.

            “Doesn’t it?” Ryan said.

            They swerved into the student lot three minutes before the homeroom bell rang. Spencer fumbled his tie into some tangle that almost resembled it being properly tied, and Ryan scooped his books into a bag as quick as he could. The two of them sprinted into the building and were running down the same hall when Father Merrin stepped out of one of the classrooms right in front of them.

            They were running too fast. Ryan had just enough time to instinctively shout “SHIT!” before they collided and knocked the priest and themselves to the ground.

            “Mr. Ross! Mr. Smith!”

            The teacher whose room Father Merrin had just left looked beyond scandalized. Ryan opened his mouth to speak, and was promptly interrupted by the shrill screech of the bell ringing. And there went making it to class on time.

            Ryan jumped to his feet and helped the priest up at once. Father Merrin dusted off his robes and gave the two of them an amused look.

            “Morning, boys. I take it you are both deeply eager to be getting to your studies, then?”

            “Something like that,” Ryan said. The priest’s lip twitched, but he didn’t smile.

            “Why don’t you follow me to my office?” he suggested. Spencer’s shoulders hunched, and Ryan felt a wave of guilt roll over him. Maybe it made sense that Spencer was making other friends.

            The three of them walked in silence. Father Merrin didn't like Ryan, Ryan was sure of it, but he hoped that he wouldn't be too hard on Spencer. Still, while Ryan wasn't sure what sort of sin knocking the local priest to his ass was, he was sure it was a serious one.

            Father Merrin’s office lay just off the hall that connected the school to the chapel. The three of them walked through the hallways at a leisurely pace, Spencer occasionally throwing Ryan looks that seemed to be asking for help.

            When they got to the heavy wooden doors, Ryan realized that he had never actually been in Father Merrin's office before. He saw him at chapel, confession, and in the halls, but never in his office. He tried to reach out ahead of time with his mind, but found that his view of the room via the Oracle was strangely blocked. His mind simply refused to let him see it.

            As such, all Ryan had to go on was his imagination, which drew up for him a slightly bigger confessional with a desk in it. He thought of dark wood and dim lights and the smell of incense. Father Merrin’s office was anything but that.

            The room was unexpectedly airy, with big, bright windows and whitewashed walls, visible only through cracks in the many maps hanging on them. There were two low bookcases under the window and a large desk facing the door, two chairs set in front of it. The room was awash in sunlight.

            Ryan and Spencer sat down in front of the desk, and Father Merrin folded his hands on the desk.

            “Running a little late for class?” he said.

            “It was my fault, Father,” Ryan said. “I was driving, and I stopped the car to talk, and I was also late picking him up because I stopped somewhere else first.”

            “I’m not upset,” Father Merrin said. His face was impassive, but Ryan thought that was a hopeful way to begin. “I just wanted to warn you boys not to run in the halls in the future.”

            It seemed a weird, tiny thing to drag them all the way up to his office for, but Ryan nodded along.

            The priest scribbled onto a hall pass and handed it to Spencer.

            “Best get to class, and slow down in the future. It’s better to be tardy than unsafe,” he said.

            The both of them stood up, but Father Merrin held up a hand.

            “Mr. Ross, stay a moment?”

            Ryan met Spencer’s eyes, and Spencer gave him a sympathetic look before walking out. Ryan slowly sat back down, and Father Merrin met Ryan’s eyes with a cold, cutting gaze. His eyes were pale blue and like ice.

            “Mr. Ross,” Father Merrin said. He didn’t lean forward, but he felt closer to Ryan, their connection more intense. “Is there anything you wish to discuss?”

            Adam flashed to Ryan’s mind, as did Brendon. Visions of the future, getting bloodier by the day, and the voice in his head that warned him away from people. Spencer getting distant. His father getting strange. Coughing up black goo in the middle of the night. None of these things were the kind of things he wanted to bring up with his school priest.

            “No,” Ryan said. “Nothing.”

            Father Merrin sat back, his gaze still narrow and focused.

            “You’re a very talented young man, Mr. Ross,” he said. “I understand you were accepted into UNLV?”

            “Yeah,” Ryan said. “I haven’t sent back my acceptance yet, but it looks like that’s where I’ll be going.”

            “And will you continue your religious instruction when you’re attending college as well?” Father Merrin asked. Ryan squirmed in his seat. He didn’t want to lie to a priest.

            “I’m… struggling with my faith a little, Father,” he said. “I’m not sure If it’s something I’ll have time to pursue.”

            “It is vital that you continue to have a relationship with God,” Father Merrin said. “You especially, I fear the world will try to bear down on. You will need the strength of faith in the coming times.”

            “What makes you say that?” Ryan asked, then hastily added, “Father.”

            “I think you know quite well enough,” Father Merrin said. “You of all students, Mr. Ross, must know of the darkness that is coming.”

            Ryan made an effort not to show how startled he was, but his eyes must still have gone wide with surprise. Father Merrin continued to look completely impassive.

            “If ever you decide that you’re ready to come to me,” he said. “I will always be willing to help you.”

            “What darkness is coming?” Ryan asked. “What are you talking about?”

            A moment passed in silence. Father Merrin leaned back. His back was to the window, and so the sun hit him from behind. His face was the only thing in the room obscured in shadows.

            “You aren’t like most of the students here, Mr. Ross,” he said. “You’re not even human. And I know what you are.”

            Ryan jumped to his feet, distantly aware of his hands shaking.

            “I have to get to class, sir,” Ryan said.

            “Sit back down,” Father Merrin said, but Ryan shook his head.

            “We’re taking a test today,” he lied, “I have to go.”

            Ryan sprinted out of the room and down the hall, ducked into a bathroom and gripped one of the sinks with both hands, trying to steady his breathing.

            Someone had finally figured him out. And he had no idea what to do about it.

 

            Rather than risk getting a detention, Ryan stayed in the bathroom for all of first period and went to his second class first. For skipping class, the school just called home, thinking that was a worse punishment than detention. This policy guaranteed that, so long as Ryan was either on time or skipped, no one would know he had done anything wrong. He got home before his dad nine times out of ten and could delete the messages left on their voicemail, and the rare times his father did hear from the school, he shrugged it off as unimportant. Still, he needed to maintain his GPA if he wanted to keep both his college acceptance and his scholarship, so he tried not to ditch too very often.

            Ryan had history second period, the sort of class he could sleep through and still ace. As such, he let his mind wander while the teacher droned on about the industrial revolution.

            Father Merrin knew Ryan was the Oracle. Or, at the very least, suspected that Ryan was magic. He hoped it was the latter. Magic wasn't that uncommon, if you knew where to look. Oracles were one of a kind-- not a race, not a species, but a mantle passed down through generations, one Oracle at a time. If their location got out, if the wrong person or creature got ahold of them… well, Ryan had heard stories about what happened to Oracles who spoke a little too loudly about their powers. Some people had to know to get prophecies, but it still wasn't the sort of power you advertised.

            Also, if Father Merrin knew anything, Ryan had to wonder why a Catholic priest knew about magic at all.

            Ryan went through his morning classes in a haze. He was still distant and dreamy when he got to lunch, sitting between Spencer and Adam without saying a word to anyone. Spencer nudged his arm, but Ryan just looked down at his tray. Nothing they could discuss there. Spencer leaned into him, a sort of physical reassurement, then went back to talking with Hayley.

            “You got home safe last night?” Adam asked. Ryan hummed his assent without looking up. He wasn't about to have this conversation either, so he studied the peas on his tray.

            “Sorry if I was pushy,” Adam continued. “I just worry, you know. Didn't want you to get hurt.”

            “Mmm,” Ryan said. He ate without tasting, tentatively glanced around the room. He was a senior, so he could feasibly make his escape from the lunchroom without getting into trouble. Spencer was giving the two of them an odd look.

            “You know, guy your size,” Adam continued. “I mean, everyone metabolizes alcohol differently, but I couldn’t have known how fast it’d get out of your system.”

            Spencer was definitely looking at the two of them then, the look in his eyes sharp.

            “Look, Adam, I’ve got to go. Um, paper to finish. I’ll see you in bio,” Ryan said. He accidentally met Spencer’s gaze once more as he stood up, and he quickly turned away from the almost betrayed look of alarm on Spencer’s face. He left the hard plastic tray on the table, swung his bag over his shoulder and sped out of the lunch room, shoulders hunched over and moving so quickly and purposefully that no teacher told him to stop.

            It was not, Ryan decided, one of his better days. And since he had already skipped one period, he couldn’t quite justify missing biology to get out of seeing Adam. But for as chatty as he had been at lunch, Adam seemed to have finally picked up on Ryan’s mood, and said nothing to him all through their science class.

            Ryan should have said something to someone. He should have told Spencer something was wrong, he definitely should’ve told his dad that someone suspected him of being the Oracle, and yet he didn’t. Spencer was being curt enough with Ryan that the situation never arose where he could tell him something was wrong, and his dad just wasn’t there. So, when Spencer still hadn’t said more than a few niceties to Ryan by lunchtime the next day, things were getting out of hand.

            Ryan yanked Spencer out of his seat and into the bathroom, and after the door swung shut on them, he said:

            “Okay, get it out of your system.”

            “You got drunk with the new kid after band practice.”

            “I had A beer with Adam after Brendon pissed me off,” Ryan said. “It wasn’t like I ditched you to go get plastered at a strip club or something.” Technically he had had two, but that wasn't the point.

            “Since when do you drink?” Spencer demanded. Ryan really wished Spencer had been more up to confronting him about this earlier, say, in the car, rather than in the heavily graffitied bathroom that smelled somehow like piss and bleach at the same time.

            “We’ve had glasses of wine with your parents before,” Ryan said. “It’s not like it’s a big deal. And I didn’t want to be alone the other night, and you were busy with Brent and Brendon, so I called Adam. He’s nice.”

            “We weren’t ditching you,” Spencer said. “You know you were perfectly welcome to stay-”

            “I didn’t want that!” Ryan said. “We played pool, talked about biology, and I had one beer. It isn’t the end of the world.”

            Spencer looked him up and down.

            “I’m just worried,” he said.

            “Don’t,” Ryan said. He sighed. The red letters scribbled into the tile above Spencer’s head read “jackie is a slut,” and the words by Ryan’s right hand said “high school is like Ecclesiastes 1:1.” Catholic school.

            Once the silence had stretched out into a painfully awkward length of time, Ryan spoke up again.

            “Do we have to have a slumber party with the weirdos tonight?”

            “They’re not that weird,” Spencer said. “And yes.”

            “Awesome,” Ryan said sarcastically. “Fabulous. I’ll grab my shit after school then head to your house. Want a ride?”

            Spencer smiled at him. It was an endeared smile, the kind that said Ryan drove him crazy, but that all was forgiven.

            “Yeah,” he said. “Always.”

 

Notes:

another kinda boring chapter, but I did it? Yay?

Chapter 6: Prophets and Followers

Summary:

More bonding with dream boy, and thoughts of the distant future.

Notes:

warning for fight club spoilers

            Brendon had never stayed the night at someone else’s house before. Or, if he had, he hadn’t done it enough to get good at it. He was buzzing with even more nervous energy than usual when he showed up, and he positively jumped when Ryan brushed up against him while they were crammed together on Spencer’s sofa, watching Fight Club.

            “That Marla chick is so hot,” Brent said. In terms of Fight Club crushes, Ryan was more of a Brad Pitt kind of guy, but he was fairly certain that saying as much in front of the Mormon kid would give him a heart attack.

            “Shh,” Ryan said instead. “We’re getting to a good part.”

            “You think the whole thing is a good part,” Brent said.

            “I think it’s good,” Brendon piped up. “I like it. But why does she keep calling him Tyler?”

            Ryan and Spencer made eye contact. They had a full conversation while looking at each other, one that ended with Ryan nodding and saying

            “Brendon, have you ever seen this movie before?”

            “No,” he said, voice muffled by a mouth full of popcorn. He swallowed too fast, coughed, and looked at Ryan, eyes streaming. “Is that okay?”

            “Oh, I envy you,” Brent said. “I’ve seen this movie so many Goddamn-”

            “You don’t use the Lord’s name in vain, dickweed,” Ryan said, though from the look on Brent’s face, the sarcasm was lost on him. “Also, shut up, if he hasn’t seen it he’s gotta hear the whole thing.”

            Brendon paid rapt attention for a minute, then went back to leg bouncing, whispering questions out of the side of his mouth, and, to Ryan’s intense annoyance, humming quietly to himself.

            “Brendon,” Ryan sighed. The name tasted odd in his mouth, like he had tried to bite off too big a mouthful of food in saying it. He pushed away the strange, sudden sensation of electricity in his stomach, and focused in on his annoyance. “You’re, like, singing to yourself.”

            “Oh!” Brendon turned bright red, the sort of shade that didn’t make sense for a real person’s skin to turn. “Sorry. I didn’t realize I was doing it, but if you just let me know I can-”

            “It’s fine, shh,” Ryan said. He didn’t have to look up to see that Spencer was giving him a tired look.

            When Tyler and the narrator were revealed to be the same person, Brendon let out a cry of surprise so loud that it made Ryan's head throb. He clutched at his temples with his hands, annoyance shooting through him, and then he realized that this much pain hadn't come from Brendon's voice alone. His heartbeat pounded against the side of his skull like a hammer, and he could hear voices coming from the base of his spine, soft but getting louder every second.

“Bathroom,” Ryan said even as he stood. It was hard to see, like other lights and scenes were pressing into his vision, trying to overtake it.

            “Are you okay?” someone asked, but it sounded like they were shouting from very far away, almost like their voice was echoing off the sides of a canyon. Too loud and too quiet all at once.

            Ryan made a noise that wasn’t quite a word, nor was it distinguishably a yes or a no, and continued to stumble his way out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom. Lucky, he thought, that he knew the Smith house so well that he could literally find his way around blindfolded. He managed to fumble the door shut before pitching forward, his head clanging against the rim of the toilet as he fell to his knees.

            The world was staticky with snow, bitter wind biting at Ryan’s skin like wasps, and there was someone screaming. Everyone screaming. Ryan looked up, saw the dark shape of the clouds moving, forming into the head of a dog, and he opened his mouth to scream when-

            “Ryan? Are you okay in there?”

            Who the fuck asked that? At the bathroom door? Seconds after someone went inside? Ryan’s perplexion with Brendon was so much that it almost pulled him out of his own head, but then his front was warm with blood, the ground beneath him was pitching like a boat on storm tossed waters, and he could hear Brendon screaming, another Brendon.

            Ryan dragged himself till his head hung over the rim of the toilet and he vomited.

            “Ryan!”

            “Leave him alone, man.”

            Yes, please, leave him alone. No one had to witness Ryan losing it completely. The thought was too embarrassing to consider for too long, and in any case. The rest of Ryan, the part of him that wasn’t on the bathroom floor was submerged in icy water, watching as the pale sun grew distant, further away, then further, then disappeared entirely.

            Ryan sat bolt upright, the vision over that fast, and at the same time, Brendon burst through the plywood door. Ryan flattened himself against the wall, blinking up at him in disbelief.

            “Din’t I lock’t?” Ryan slurred. He wiped bile off the side of his mouth. Brendon nodded. He had chewed his lip raw with worry, and images of missing, bloody mouths stained the inside of Ryan’s eyes. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. Just Brendon. The thought was weirdly comforting, then annoying again.

            “Dude, did you break the door?” Spencer asked. Brendon looked distressed as he turned away from Ryan.

            “I-” he looked at the door, his face growing pale. “But, Ryan, he-”

            “He’s got a condition,” Spencer said, a little defensive, a little angry. “You broke the door down?”

            “But he was screaming!” Brendon insisted.

            Still seated, Ryan felt vulnerable and defensive, he was not screaming. Not here, anyway. He made a face at Spencer, now also visible in the doorway, and Spencer just looked confused. So Ryan was right. Spencer would’ve broken down the door before Brendon if he had been screaming. But the thing was... He was screaming. Just not here. Not now.

            Brendon looked pleading, but Ryan was already shaking his head.

            “Just sick, dude,” Ryan said, though he wouldn’t meet Brendon’s eyes. “It’s not that loud. Not as loud as trying to watch TV with you.”

            Spencer shot Ryan a typical “why are you being a dick?” look before sighing.

            “Don’t worry about it,” he said bracingly. “Ryan’s broken half the house at some point or another, they’re probably expecting to have to pay for some sort of damage around here. It’ll be fine.”

            Brendon, for his part, looked fucking miserable.

            “I heard you screaming,” he said, insistent now.

            “Nobody else did, dude,” Brent said. Ryan almost caught himself giving Brent a grateful look, but he stopped himself in time.

            “I’m just sick,” Ryan said.

            “Do you need to head home?” Spencer asked. His eyes were trained on Ryan, looking… disappointed. Ryan felt stung, because this wasn’t his fault. He turned his glare briefly on Brendon, who shied away from it like a floodlight.

            “Yeah, sure,” Ryan said. He leaned on the counter as he made his way out of the bathroom.

            “I was just asking!” Spencer said. “You can stay here if you want!”

            Ryan wanted to drive away for the sake of his pride, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to make it out of the bathroom, much less across town. Going wasn’t going to be an option, so he nodded.

            “Can I just… lay down in your room for a bit?” he tried to make a face at Spencer, to talk to him without words, like they always did, and convey that he needed help, needed Spencer. Spencer gave him a look, and Ryan wasn’t sure what it said, but it didn’t say “Sure man, I’ll be right in.”

            “Need a hand?” Spencer asked. And Ryan did, but he shook his head. He clung to the wall as he slowly made his way down the hall, and into Spencer’s room. He curled up on the bed with sheets that smelled like nice, name-brand detergent, and a duvet so heavy it was practically weighted that Ryan pulled over his head.

            Everything fell apart as soon as he stopped dreaming about the boy, and as soon as Brendon showed up in his life. Maybe they were the same person, but whoever, whatever this was, it was way less helpful in real life than in Ryan’s dreams.

 

            Ryan woke up to the smell of maple bacon and chocolate chip pancakes, a Smith house specialty. Mrs. Smith always cooked breakfast like she was prepping for a slumber party of roughly twenty girls, but Ryan adored her for the maternal instinct, and the sheer amount of chocolate chip pancakes. He could devour four servings worth without even feeling uncomfortably full. Ryan sat up, eager, only to be struck by a wave of loneliness. No one was in the room with him, of course, because he had fallen asleep in Spencer’s bedroom rather than the living room, with everyone else.

            Out in the kitchen, the others were already seated around the table, arguing spiritedly about Blink 182. Ryan slid silently into a chair, smiling vaguely up at Spencer’s mom as she set a plate down in front of him.

            “Are you feeling any better?” she asked, low enough that the boys couldn’t hear her. Ryan thought, not for the first time, how much he wished he were Spencer’s brother, and that he had some kind of claim on this place and this family. His parents were like Ryan’s parents, his home Ryan’s second home, but Ryan knew that those were just words. In reality, none of this was his. All the way down to the fact that Mrs. Smith knew something was wrong with Ryan, but it wasn’t as though he had told his best friend’s mom that he saw the future.

            “I am,” Ryan said. “Thanks.” he wished he could offer up more, some kind of explanation, but what could he say?

            “Didn’t hear Ryan screaming in his sleep, right?” Brent asked around a mouthful of pancakes. Brendon flushed, sinking deeper into his chair.

            “Sorry,” he said, and Spencer glared at Brent. Good. High time he started glaring at someone who wasn’t Ryan.

            “Did you need a ride home later today?” Ryan asked Brendon. Brendon nodded, an eager shine in his eyes. “Cool. Figured Brent wouldn’t want to do it, go out of his way for someone. You wouldn’t have tried to come in if I was screaming bloody murder, right?”

            “Dick,” Brent said, shoving Ryan, but sort of smiling. Better. Ryan was good at fixing things.

            And, for Spencer’s sake, he played nice that day. He soundly kicked everyone’s ass playing video games for a few rounds, then retreated to a corner with a book. He didn’t insult Brendon’s religion, or rib him anymore than he would rib Brent. Even without eye contact, he could feel the approval coming from Spencer, which meant Ryan had done his job. By that afternoon, the disturbing vision from the night before was all but forgotten.

            Brendon sat in the passenger seat in dead silence for the first few minutes of the drive. He was scrunched up in the seat, making himself look tiny, somehow, even though he wasn’t that much shorter than Ryan. Eventually, Ryan caved and spoke first.

            “So, Fight Club. Awesome, right?”

            Ryan had forgotten how terrible he was at small talk. He hardly ever had to make it.

            “Huh? It was cool, yeah,” Brendon said.

            “The book is better,” Ryan said. “But I secretly kind of prefer the ending in the movie.”

            “How does the book end?” Brendon asked.

            “He tries to kill himself to kill Tyler and wakes up in the hospital with all of the guys from Project Mayhem there, promising to bring Tyler back,” Ryan said. “I like the movie, with him and Marla. Dark but not quite so… cynical.”

            “I would never have guessed,” Brendon said vehemently. Ryan snorted. It was still cool out, all desert wind and pale sunlight, but the car was warm, the kind of pleasant temperature that only lasted for a few months. Easy to appreciate, given how damn quiet Brendon was.

            “Can I ask you something?” Brendon asked eventually, and, with great restraint, Ryan didn’t tell him that he just had, and instead he nodded.

            “Did--” Brendon cut himself off, and frowned. He squirmed in his seat, and Ryan glanced over at him. He was biting his lip, looking kind of like he had to piss, or, more realistically, like he was holding something back.

            “Why did you name your car Matilda?” he asked at last. “Was it, like, your mom’s name or something?”

            “No?” Ryan said. “Why- why would I name my car after my mom?”

            “Oh! Sorry, I thought- well, I kind of thought she was dead.”

            “Man, I wish,” Ryan laughed without any humor. Brendon didn’t say anything, and Ryan had pulled onto the interstate, so he couldn’t see the poor kid’s face. “I named her Matilda like the kid’s book. By Roald Dahl, you know. The girl who loved reading and got telekinesis because her parents wouldn’t give her, like, intellectual stimulation? It was my favorite book when I was a kid, and then when I grew up I realized that Roald Dahl was basically baby’s first Chuck Palahniuk, so… Matilda.”

            “I’ve never heard of it,” Brendon said. Ryan threw a glance his way.

            “Are there any books you have heard of?” he asked.

            “Besides the obvious, you know, Book of...?” Brendon said, and Ryan surprised himself by laughing. Maybe Brendon had a better sense of humor than it seemed.

            “I feel like we probably don’t have very similar taste in books,” Brendon continued at last.

            “Okay,” Ryan said. “Fair enough.” He was quiet, would have, maybe should have let the conversation drop there, but he didn’t. He wanted, for some unfathomable reason, to keep talking to Brendon.

            “But you liked Fight Club,” Ryan said. “So… would you want to borrow my copy of the book?”

            “Sure!” Brendon all but shouted. Ryan very determinedly didn’t flinch away from the loud noise.

            Well. Spencer couldn’t complain. And it would certainly give Brendon and Ryan something to talk about.

            After he dropped Brendon off, all Ryan wanted was to get back home, to veg out and get absolutely nothing done, but as usual, he pulled up to the sight of another car in the driveway. Strangers seeking fortunes, as fucking always.

            Ryan had half a mind to tell them to go away, make up some bullshit excuse about homework or sleep or a non-existent girlfriend, but as he got out of the car, he caught sight of the man in the driver’s seat of the car already there.

            A man who looked suspiciously like Mark Hoppus.

 

Notes:

any throam reference in the title is.... beyond unintentional. Anyway, shorter chapter than usual but the ending felt natural. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 7: The High Priest

Summary:

Ryan discovers an enemy and makes a new ally in time to help him combat the figurative and literal darkness that hounds his dreams.

            Ryan didn’t think. He fell out of the car in a heap, wide eyed and heart thrumming like a hummingbird because that was Mark Hoppus . The Mark Hoppus, in the flesh. It was a matter of extreme self-control that Ryan stood himself upright and walked to the door like it was nothing, like he was chill and cool and Mark motherfucking Hoppus wasn’t in his driveway.

            “Hey, kid!”

            And that was his voice, and Ryan could feel himself, even in the hoodie-and-jeans weather nearly melting into a puddle on his own front doorstep. He counted (rapidly) to five in his head, then turned around.

            “Looking for someone?” Ryan asked, trying to keep his voice level and cool.

            “Yeah,” Mark Hoppus stepped out of his car. “You know the Oracle?”

            Ryan puffed out his chest.

            “I am-”

            “DON’T!"

            The voice in his head was so loud, a scream, that Ryan covered his ears instinctively. Mark Hoppus was staring at him. So, the voice was in Ryan’s head. And he was making an idiot of himself in front of the lead singer of Blink-182.

            “I… am… not sure,” Ryan said. “Ahem. Oracle?”

            “He should live here,” Mark Hoppus said. “I need help, see.”

            Ryan cocked his head to the side, waiting and hoping that maybe the voice in his head would say something, some kind of helpful warning. Nothing, as usual.

            “Why don’t you come inside?” Ryan suggested at last. His inner voice continued its silence, and Ryan led the way into his house, flipping on the lights as he went. His dad usually worked Saturdays, so there was no one there but the two of them. Ryan gestured to the couch, where Mark sat while he continued to stand, too antsy to sit down.

            “Can I get you a drink?” Ryan asked. Mark shook his head, his face blank.

            “Right,” Ryan said. He knew musicians weren’t always what they seemed in interviews, but this Mark seemed very cold. And Ryan knew that something was wrong, as soon as the big, stupid “THAT’S MARK HOPPUS!” balloon in his stomach had popped. Wasn’t the big joke of the supernatural world that Blink-182 knew nothing about magic? “So, then, ah. What were you looking for the Oracle for?”

            “I have questions,” Mark said. “Do you know the Oracle?”

            “What did you want to ask him?”

            “Him?” Mark asked. “The Oracle is male?”

            “I said them,” Ryan said quickly. “What did you want to ask them?”

            “I can only ask the Oracle,” Mark said.

            “Of course,” Ryan said. “Well, I’ve heard rumors about the Oracle. People come here searching. But I can’t help you.”

            There was no change in Mark’s face, no flicker of annoyance, no sudden frown.

            “Are you the Oracle?” he asked.

            “Actually, didn't you say he first?” Ryan asked.

            “Are you?” he repeated. And Ryan didn't know what he was talking to was, but he was fairly certain it was not known bassist of Blink 182, Mark Hoppus.

            "I could probably tell the Oracle you were looking,” Ryan said. “What answers do you seek from them?” Mark, or whatever was pretending to be him, scowled.

            “The answers I seek are a matter of life and death,” he said.

            Ryan wished desperately that the voice in his head would come back. He would know better how to handle this if he just knew what it was, the creature in front of him. If it was fae, a lie could kill him. If not, maybe he could play stupid -- unless it was already too late to play stupid.

            “I’m sorry,” Ryan said. “I’ve got to - I’m going inside, now.”

            Mark’s hand shot out, and he grabbed Ryan’s forearm. Ryan could feel the calluses on his hand - bass player calluses - and he pulled him closer. He was strong, and his eyes flashed in the late afternoon sun.

            “Please, Ryan,” he said. “You’re supposed to help me.”

            Even though he was much stronger than Ryan, the man felt human. The strength wasn’t impossible or supernatural, just the strength of a fit 20-something. And Ryan could deal with human strength. He tugged as hard as he could and freed his arm. At that, he ran into his house and slammed the door behind him.     

            It couldn’t have been Mark Hoppus, he thought. But whatever was impersonating him was doing a hell of a job, and Ryan would know. He’s spent a lot of time using his powers to spy on Blink-182 over the years. It looked exactly like him, not like a picture of him. And it had human hands, human strength.

            Ryan pulled aside just the corner of the curtain to look out the window. Whatever it was scowled at the house, and after a minute, got into the big, black SUV, and drove away. Ryan let the curtain drop back into place and sat down on the couch.

            Maybe it was Mark Hoppus. Maybe Ryan had made a terrible mistake, but there was only one way of finding out.

            Ryan lay down on the couch and let his eyes drift closed. He thought about Mark, about the band, and drifted. His vision started to hone in on Mark, the real Mark, planted in front of a television, laughing at that very moment, but almost immediately the sight shattered like thin glass, breaking into pieces as Ryan’s living room reappeared. Ryan lurched forward, coughing into his hand, unable to breathe.

            It was odd, but proof enough, he decided, that he had been dealing with an imposter. That thought was unsettling enough that he almost didn’t notice the spatter of black on the inside of his hand.

***

            “So, were you screaming?” Spencer asked. Ryan was doodling idly on his arm while he was on the phone, and he sighed.

            “You would have heard me,” he said.

            “But were you?” Spencer asked.

            Ryan sighed.

            “I mean, kind of,” he said. “Not really. I- okay, in the vision I think a future version of me was? But I’m not sure. Someone was screaming, maybe two people.”

            “You don’t even know who was screaming in the vision?” Spencer asked.

            Ryan did know. He knew he had heard Brendon screaming, and he had wanted to scream too. But everything had been so fast, so sudden, and the whole thing was swirled with snow. It was too blurry to hone in on anything, so he couldn’t say he was sure. (Wouldn't admit he was sure.)

            “It’s not an exact science,” he said. “But I was upset. I don’t know how he knew that.”

            “It’s kinda weird, isn’t it?” Spencer asked. “That, you know, Brendon could tell something was wrong with you?”

            “I said I was gonna be sick and I ran into your bathroom,” Ryan said. “If Brendon realized something was up, that’s not exactly master detective work.”

            “But he heard screaming.”

            “Maybe he’s delusional too,” Ryan said, dismissive. “But he’s nice, I guess. Really loud.”

            “You think he’s kinda cool.”

            “He’s not the worst LDS kid I’ve ever met,” Ryan said.

            “I feel like you gotta stop making fun of other people’s religions until we get out of Catholic school,” Spencer said.

            “Ah, Spence, I’m never gonna stop making fun of other people. I wouldn’t even be me if I did.”

            “Right,” Ryan could almost hear Spencer rolling his eyes. “So, anyway, what else are you doing this weekend?”

            “Long walks in the moonlight with me, myself, and I,” Ryan said. “You going on a date?”

            “Maybe,” Spencer said, the smile in his voice giving him away completely.

            “You kids being safe?”

            “Ugh, don’t be gross, Ry.”

            “If you think sex with her is gross, then maybe you guys have some issues to sort through.”

            “I’m not gonna spend my night being lectured by you about how to have sex,” Spencer said. “I’ll see you in the morning, yeah?”

            “Yeah,” Ryan said. “Have fun. Think of me if you need help getting it up.”

            Spencer hung up on him, and Ryan smirked down at the phone. Then, as the minutes crawled by and he realized he had absolutely nothing to do for the rest of the evening, he tried not to feel lonely or bitter.

            A large part of Ryan missed spying on the boy. He didn’t know who he was, because he was certain it wasn’t Brendon. But he looked so similar that Ryan now felt uncomfortable at the thought of seeking him out. So that particular comfort blanket of a hobby was out.

            There was Fall Out Boy, he realized. He also realized that his voyeuristic hobby was a little strange, but it was probably better than TV. He set the phone back in its white cradle, leaned back against the pillow, and let his mind probe out Fall Out Boy.

            Bits and pieces of the band came to Ryan in flashing images. Here a flash of a ratty apartment in Chicago, there a snowy winter sky. Ryan didn’t bother focusing in on any one scene, instead he just let himself drift until the images of the steel gray Chicago sky put him to sleep.

            Somewhere between waking and dreaming, Patrick’s (Ryan had learned their names properly from the back of the album) face swam into clarity. His expression was flat, his eyes shadowed.

            “Who will you let in, Ryan? Only strangers?” he asked. Ryan stepped backwards, some foggy part of him noting that his body felt remarkably solid for a dream.

            “You can only love people you don’t know, because if you know them, you see their flaws,” the shadowy Patrick told him. “Luckily, you won’t live long enough to meet your heroes. They won’t get the chance to save you.”

            Patrick tilted back his head and opened his mouth. Ryan felt foreboding hit him like a solid object in the center of his chest, and he tried to run backwards, but his feet were stuck, his whole body immobile.

            Thick, black liquid began to jet out of Patrick’s mouth, spewing like a fountain, splattering his face and hair and clinging to Ryan. The blackness was icy, and the spray of it soon had Ryan covered head to toe. It had formed a layer on the ground, and it was rising.

            Ryan opened his mouth to scream, and the blackness sprayed into his mouth too, thick and gelatinous and so, so cold.

            Ryan sat upright in bed then, still fully dressed, and spat black goo to the ground, the exact color of ink. He was shaking from the cold he felt all over, the cold that wouldn’t go away even when he burrowed down into his blanket. He wiped at his mouth, but no more blackness came, nothing left for proof.

            Once was nothing to worry about, but this was starting to be too much for Ryan. He stood up, still shivering, and padded into his dad’s room.

            Weekends were the only time they saw much of each other, and even then, Ryan didn’t interact all that much with his father. They’d missed each other all that weekend, passing by on their way to the kitchen like estranged roommates, but there was no one else in the world who could possibly understand what Ryan was going through. The familiar shape of his dad, a lump under blankets in the master bedroom, melted some of the ice in Ryan’s chest, and he shook his shoulder gently.

            “Dad,” Ryan whispered. Even his voice seemed to tremble, and he fought to get ahold of himself, to not act like a five year old waking up his daddy because of some stupid nightmare. His dad rolled onto his back and let out an almighty snore, and Ryan shook his shoulder again, firmer this time.

            “Dad,” he said, more insistent. “Dad, get up, something’s happened.”

            Eyes half-open, Ryan’s dad looked at him like a bear that had been woken from hibernation.

            “Whad’ya want?” he asked, sticky with sleep.

            “I-” Ryan felt very small and very stupid all of a sudden. “I had this dream, Dad, but it wasn’t a normal dream. It was an oracle thing, I think, and-”

            “S’just nightmares,” he said, rolling back over.

            “No, but, Dad, it wasn’t,” Ryan said. He felt miserable, ought to just give up and go back to his own room. “I saw this guy, and he turned into a monster, and then I was coughing up black stuff and I couldn’t breathe, and-”

            “Ryan,” he hadn’t even rolled back over to face him. “All of us get nightmares. It’s part of the gig. We just have to live with it.”

            “It wasn’t a normal nightmare,” Ryan whispered.

            “Can’t let it get to ya,” he said, still facing the wall. “Not a job for the weak. Not for some kinda pussy.”

            Ryan felt struck, by both the dismissal and the vulgarity, and so he turned and left. He cleaned up the goo on the floor, drank a big glass of water, and lay in bed until morning came without once closing his eyes to do anything other than blink.

***

            In the midst of everything else that weekend, Ryan forgot to do laundry. Hockey season was almost over, luckily, so he didn’t have to worry about the goddawful smell of a re-worn hockey uniform, but his school uniforms were all rumpled as well, the shirts wrinkled, the ties looking like they had been badly folded from where they’d all been stepped on. He debated for a while between wearing dirty socks and just not wearing socks, because he could get away with wearing black converse with his uniform, and canvas shoes could be washed. Eventually, he went sockless, jumped into his car a good four minutes behind, and started blasting Fall Out Boy again as he drove towards Spencer’s house.

            He pulled up to the curb a minute earlier than usual, leaned on the horn, and then waited. And waited. Honked again, and then pulled out his cell phone, message-less. He honked yet again, but no one came out.

            Ryan waited till he was five minutes late again, then drove off, barely making it to school on time. He ran to his first period class, and didn’t see Spencer anywhere in the halls. By the time he was sitting in his desk, he couldn’t stop shaking his leg, nervous as he was. Ryan had had that nightmare before, coughed up the tar-like substance and felt like he was drowning in bad dreams, but maybe it wasn’t as benign as he thought. Maybe it was a new type of premonition, one that his dad hadn’t warned him about, some sort of omen of death.

            But no, absolutely not, he wasn’t even going to consider the idea that something bad had gotten to Spencer. Monsters, the non-human kind, anyway, didn’t bother Las Vegas. It was part of the reason they lived there, Ryan and his dad. Ryan hadn’t payed much attention to the details, some sort of weird monster mob boss that had a deal with the devil, some such supernatural YA drama bullshit, but the gist of it was that there weren’t monsters, none that lived there. None that could hurt the oracle or the people they loved.

            The monsters could pass through the city, though. And, Ryan realized with a sensation like swallowing a thick piece of ice, had he not run into something pretending to be Mark Hoppus just the other day? Something that couldn’t possibly be human?

            Ryan absorbed none of the lesson, simply staring at the clock and waiting for the bell to ring. He knew Spencer’s schedule, knew where he was supposed to be, and if he wasn’t in his second period class, Ryan would just walk out and go find him. What was another absence on his record this close to graduation?

            As the clock ticked impossibly sluggishly, Ryan kept bouncing his leg, tapping his pencil on the edge of his desk. Maybe he was being stupid. Maybe, he thought, he could just focus hard on Spencer and see him then, so long as no one saw him sliding out of consciousness. He propped his chin in his hand, prayed the teacher didn’t notice, and focused all his attention on Spencer.

            Luck was with him. His mind seemed to want to obey, to sink into second sight, and the high school classroom started flickering in front of him, when his desk jolted underneath him and he was thrown back into his body, the then and there of his history classroom.

            “Space much?” Mary said, looking him up and down. She had kicked the leg of his desk, and she gave him a judgmental once over before focusing back on the board.

            “Mr. Ross?” the teacher said. The familiar face turned on him, a not-upset-just-disappointed face, because Ryan Ross had spaced out again.

            “Sorry,” he said. “Missed the question.”

            “It wasn’t a question, Mr. Ross,” the teacher said, amidst the tittering laughs of the class. “I was saying that you’ve been called down to Father Merrin’s office.”

            “Oh,” Ryan said.

            “Now, if you don’t mind,” she said, and Ryan stood up, shoving his notebook in his half-open backpack while the class giggled behind him.

            Ryan had almost forgotten that the priest had recently called him out for being magic. The fear that he’d cast aside came rushing back in waves, and he very nearly didn’t go.

            Still. Apparently he would be in danger no matter what he did that morning, so he might as well see what the priest wanted.

            Numb with fear, and still terrified for Spencer, wherever he might be, his walk down the hall towards the priest’s office was deadened with fear, his legs moving slow. All too soon, the door loomed in front of him.

            Ryan pulled the door open, the heavy wood resisting him like he was pulling it through water. As with the last time, he felt nearly blinded by the sheer amount of sunlight in the room. The huge windows, the whitewashed walls, and the barrenness of the place made it seem like Ryan was standing inside pure light. Father Merrin, sitting at his plain desk, could have been a statue for all the notice he gave Ryan as he walked in the door.

            “Father,” Ryan said at last, unsure whether or not he needed to announce his presence. Father Merrin looked up slowly and peered at Ryan over the tops of his glasses.

            “Mr. Ross,” he said. “Take a seat, please.”

            Ryan let his eyes dart from side to side, and, seeing nothing but the bright white walls, he plopped himself into the stiff wooden chair on the other side of Father Merrin’s desk.

            “Now, Mr. Ross, I want to preface this by saying that I have no intentions whatsoever to hurt you, and I am deeply sorry that I’m about to frighten you,” Father Merrin said. Before Ryan could leap to his feet, the priest’s eyes light up in a pale shade of purple, the light overwhelming the empty room, overpowering the sun. Ryan had just enough time to despairingly think: fae .

            “ Stay seated, stay still, and listen to me .”

            Father Merrin’s voice echoed around the room, his voice slamming into Ryan and then bouncing against the walls, seeming to repeat back in Ryan’s ears over and over again. Ryan felt himself folding in the middle, bending entirely to the words. Because yes, he wanted to keep sitting, wanted to listen, more than he wanted his dad to listen to him or Spencer to be safe, he wanted to stay right there and listen to whatever the priest had to say, so why on earth would he move?

            Some part of Ryan knew what was happening, had seen the work of the fae in his dreams and his visions, but never before had he felt it, felt what a powerful urge it really was. He knew maybe he didn’t actually want to stay seated, but even thinking about that logical train of thought made him recoil. Fae were dangerous, his father had impressed that on him from a young age. They weren’t evil, not necessarily, but they were impossibly old, impossibly powerful. An old faery could make you kill your best friend with a murmured suggestion. And, Ryan’s dad had added, creatures that old and that powerful rarely had a sense of morality that was in line with humans.

            The lavender light receded, and the room looked entirely normal. Father Merrin hadn’t moved from his seat behind the desk, and he let out a heavy sigh.

            “Ryan, I’m not human,” Father Merrin said. “But you probably guessed that already.”

            In spite of being frozen, Ryan could still move his mouth, but he remained determinately silent.

            “I’ve had my eyes on you for a while,” the priest continued. “I heard whispers, rumors that the Oracle had come to settle in Las Vegas, dubiously protected by the laws of the land. But I did not dare to hope that his son would come to the school I asked to be stationed at. I can only assume that nothing less than the serendipity of God’s will brought us together, and I hope I can be worthy of His plan.

            “I’ve wanted to earn your trust for a while now, Mr. Ross. I’ve wanted to make you trust me, to build our bond slowly. But I’m afraid that we are simply out of time.”

            “You know?” Ryan asked. He had turned his gaze to the floor, to avoid looking at the man’s face, but in that moment he looked up. Even then, scared as he was, Ryan felt ill remembering the sight of the priest collapsing, his blood inching across the ground away from his body.

            “Know what?” Father Merrin asked. He had stood up, his pale eyes trained on Ryan.

            And, well, aside from the fact that Ryan was raised to hate lying to priests, this priest in particular couldn’t be lied to.

            “You’re going to die,” Ryan said. “I saw it.”

            There was a pause, then Father Merrin sighed, long and low.

            “It doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “I have lived too long. Death is, after all, only inevitable.”

            “Not for your kind,” Ryan said. Father Merrin chuckled, and Ryan saw just a flash of yellow teeth before he stifled his smile.

            “There is no such thing as immortality,” Merrin said. “Not on this world or in this life. What we call mortals are just sentient beings with shorter lifespans than the rest of us.”

            “I was told fae live forever,” Ryan said. He was, in fact, almost curious enough to forget to be terrified. Father Merrin’s eyes were twinkling, the corners of his lips almost, but not quite, turning up.

            “A very, very long time,” Father Merrin said. “Thousands of years. But not forever.”

            He paused and moved in front of his desk, leaning on the corner of it. He was so close to Ryan that if he could move, he could touch the priest’s robes with the tips of his fingers.

            “I can’t lie to you, Ryan,” he said. “And I have no intention of hurting you.”

            “Then what do you want?” Ryan asked. He wished that his voice wouldn’t shake, but at least no one else was there to hear it.

            “As I said,” Father Merrin said after a long pause. “I want your help. Need it, even. There is a darkness coming: I can taste it in the air, feel it in the sun on my head, but I don’t know what it is. I thought that a prophet might have a better sense of what we’re up against.”

            “You’ve just got a vague sense something bad is going to happen and you want me to tell you what it is?” Ryan asked.

            “No,” Merrin said. “I don’t expect you to know what it is. I want to help you hone your powers so that you can help me fight this off. Las Vegas is meant to be a safe haven. Something recently came here that’s a threat to that. Together, I think we can stop it.”

            Ryan couldn’t help it. He laughed, in spite of the fear, in spite of the still gnawing anxiety over Spencer. He giggled till he would have doubled over, if he could move.

            “Sorry, sorry,” he said, seeing that Father Merrin was staring at him, somewhere between concerned and disdainful. “Just- a priest, calling Vegas a haven, it’s a little-”

            The priest smirked, just slightly.

            “Safe from the powers of hell. Or, the direct powers of hell, shall I say,” he said. “It’s a dubious protection at best, but it is neutral territory. That’s a peace that I need your help to keep.”

            “How do I know I can trust you?” Ryan asked. He was reeling, trying to figure out what conversation he was in at this point. His dad referred to his powers through vague jerks of his head, and Spencer was there to listen to the stories, but seeing the future was just something Ryan did. He had never seen it as a means to saving the world, because oracles didn’t do that, as far as he knew. They were there for the heroes to get sage advice from, and that was it.

            Even stranger than that, the priest that had been teaching Ryan for years was fae, impossibly dangerous and asking to… team up with Ryan. Against the coming darkness, whatever that meant. The priest was being pretty vague too, but maybe he meant a literal darkness, like the sludge Ryan kept coughing up after nightmares. Either way, he seemed to know more than Ryan did.

            “I can’t lie,” Merrin said. “It’s hard to get more trustworthy than that.”

            “Fae can lie,” Ryan said. He held his chin up and tried to sound more sure of himself than he felt. “They can’t say untruths outright, but there’s many ways to deceive.”

            “Too true,” Merrin said. He knelt down next to Ryan, fixing his gaze on him so they were eye to eye, unable to look away.

            “I joined the clergy for the good of the world,” he said. “For the betterment of all mankind. All I want from you, Ryan, is to help you hone your craft, to make the world a safer place for all those that live on it. I’m proposing a sort of extracurricular, one in which I tutor you privately. But I promise, I vow, that if you ever wish to leave, to never see me again, you will always have the right and the ability to do so.”

            Ryan floundered, rethinking the words in his head and trying to find a loophole in them. When he could discover none, he nodded. He thought of his dad, rolling over, the pervasive loneliness when there was nothing in the world but him and his car, and he nodded a little more assuredly.

            “Okay, Father,” Ryan said. “But I’ve got some questions. First off: I need you to explain the nightmares I’ve been having. And, before you do that, you need to let me go and find Spencer, because I think something bad might have happened to him.”

            “Spencer Smith?” the priest asked. “I saw him in the halls this morning, Ryan.”

            It was shocking how someone saying something totally innocuous could feel like getting kicked directly in the teeth.

            “I don’t know if it was really him!” Ryan said. He made to jump up - no, no, he didn’t want to he wanted to stay seated, he wanted to -

            “Let me out of here!” Ryan said. “I have to find Spencer!”

            “Ryan,” Merrin said. “It was Spencer, truly.”

            “How do you know?! You don’t know him, not like I do!” Ryan said.

            “I see auras, Ryan,” Merrin said. He was trying to placate Ryan, and Ryan did feel strangely calm - but no, no, it wasn’t real, he didn’t feel calm, he didn’t want to stay seated, but he did, he did. “I know my students auras, and that can’t be replicated. Spencer is fine.”

            “Please,” Ryan felt close to tears. “Please, just… please just let me go. You said you’d let me go if I wanted, right?”            

            Father Merrin was silent. The whole clean, bright room was full of a peacefulness that Ryan knew was false, but he could feel himself slackening to it. Would it really be so bad if he did nothing? If he took the priest’s word for it? Spencer was fine, of course he was fine. Everything was fine.

            The peacefulness sapped away from him all at once. Suddenly, Ryan was pitched forward out of the chair, gasping for breath, all of his muscles tight with unbearable panic.

            “I would never take away someone’s will,” Merrin said softly. “But, Ryan-”

            Whatever else the priest had to say, Ryan didn’t hear it. He had thrown open the door to the office and was sprinting through the halls to find Spencer, now, immediately.

            He knew the class Spencer was in, but luck was on his side, and the bell rang just before he got there. The classroom door opened and there, waiting to leave class, was Spencer.

            Spencer looked fine, sandwiched between a group of his friends that Ryan tolerated at the best of times, laughing, and looking fine. He stood up, caught sight of Ryan, and frowned.

            “Ry?” he said. “You okay?”

            Ryan was gasping for breath. His chest was heaving, and Spencer was-

            “You’re okay?” Ryan asked back.

            “Dude, I’m fine,” Spencer said. He stepped out from his bubble of friends, all of him were giving Ryan doubtful side glances, but that wasn’t new. Spencer, for his part, looked frustrated as he and Ryan stepped out of the stream of students leaving class. “Why, what’s wrong?”

            “You weren’t-” Ryan started. “I mean, this morning. You weren’t home.”

            “Oh,” Spencer said. “Yeah, sorry, guess I forgot to tell you. My mom gave me a ride. I was meeting up with Haley before school.”

            Ryan waited for the voice in the back of his head to say… something. To tell him it was dangerous, that this wasn’t Spencer at all, that he had to run. But somehow, he knew that the voice would have nothing to say. Ryan knew without any extra powers that this was Spencer. Nothing evil had happened, he had just forgotten.

            Somehow, it felt worse.

            “Right,” Ryan said. “Cool. Hope you had fun.”

            “Are you okay, dude?”

            “Fucking spectacular,” Ryan said. “I gotta get to class.”

            Ryan wanted to keep walking away while Spencer called out after him, but Spencer said nothing at all.

Notes:

oof. yeah, I don't have an excuse for the posting gaps, but I hope you like it anyway???

Chapter 8: Sacred Texts

Summary:

Ryan learns more about his powers and the world around him, while Brendon learns more about Ryan.

             Band practice was inevitably tense, and Ryan could see why. He was sure that, to Spencer, he looked insane and more than a little controlling. There was no way for Spencer to know why Ryan was acting the way he was, so it was unfair of Ryan to expect him to be sorry.

             And yet.

             Ryan’s list of Best Friends got all out of whack. There was now the LDS kid who could, apparently, read minds, the weird, sage old wizard of a priest, and Adam McWeirdVibes from biology to contend with, and every day, Spencer grew a little more entangled with Hayley and a little too busy for Ryan. Not to mention his dad, backsliding into the distant alcoholic yet again.

             Ryan decided (arbitrarily, and for only his own benefit) that his best friend in the world was Matilda, his car. Matilda was followed by the four strangers in Fall Out Boy that he sometimes watched with Oracle Vision, who were tentatively still followed by Spencer. Ryan could hold a grudge against anyone else in the world, but not Spencer.

             In spite of sliding around Matilda’s backseat for a whole day, Ryan’s guitar didn’t really need tuning, so he plucked at it restlessly while Brendon and Brent got set up. Brendon didn’t look as bubbly as he usually did, but still he gave Ryan a tentative smile.

             “How are you feeling?” he asked. It took nearly a minute of no one else responding for Ryan to realize that Brendon was talking to him, and he started, looking up in shock.

             “Huh?” he said.

             “You were… you were sick, this weekend?” Brendon said. He was making huge, puppy dog eyes at Ryan, nervous, like he was scared that Ryan might kick him if he had brought up the wrong thing. As it was, Ryan rolled his eyes and shrugged.

             “I get sick all the time,” he said. “Crappy immune system, you know, on top of the Yugoslavian anemia condition and stuff. I feel 

             exhausted

             pretty much fine today.”

             “That’s good,” Brendon said, and he smiled his big, hopeful smile at Ryan. Jesus, but he could slip and drown in the sincerity pouring out of the kid, and it just added onto Ryan’s exhaustion. He forced himself to smile back, and he knew it must have looked forced, but hey, he was trying.

             Being nice to Brendon was not something Spencer could get mad about. Ryan was being plenty fucking nice. 

             “Can I ask something?” Brendon asked. You just did, Ryan thought, but he bit his tongue. He was not going to be an asshole today. He could just say that like a mantra enough times and maybe it would come true.

             “Sure,” Ryan said. He did not make the effort to look up from his guitar, but he tried to sound sincere. “Shoot.”

             “What’s the name of your condition?”

             Ryan did look up at that, at the blankly earnest face of Brendon staring back at him. It hit Ryan once again that this was the boy, the boy from his dreams and his visions, the one who sang Ryan to sleep when he was lost and alone and his dad wouldn’t wake up and Spencer was gone. But no, he told himself, it couldn’t be. He refused to let Brendon take up that slot just because he looked similar. The boy was magical, untouchable, and Brendon didn’t even sing.

             Also, Ryan refused to believe that his magic boy, the boy who sang when he was afraid, would ask such a weird and prying question that so rudely invalidated Ryan’s totally made-up illness. 

             “Why does it matter?” Ryan asked.

             “I was just, you know, curious,” Brendon said. He held out his hands, but it was too late to stop Ryan from scowling at him, annoyed once again. It shouldn’t matter to the kid. His big, brown eyes looked innocent and naive, not cutting, nothing that would warn Ryan to yet another person digging too deep into him. “I mean, to Google it. See how I can help.”

             “It’s not really any of your business,” Ryan said. “I have complex anemia with generalized focal seizures and hypertension and I’d rather you leave it alone.”

             He had begun fiddling with the pegs on the head of his guitar, too nervous to keep his fingers still. All of the words and phrases were probably real. Ryan had found them in a medical handbook, and whenever he had to say them, people nodded along, but they meant nothing to him personally. Seizures were his best way of explaining his visions coming on suddenly, and adding in all the other words seemed to placate people. Brendon just cocked his head. He didn’t look sharp or cutting, the way Father Merrin did. He didn’t seem upset, but he did look like he could see straight through Ryan.

             “Can I ask another question?”

             Ryan’s fingers tightened around the head of his guitar. The D-string made a low, warning vibration under his fingers, nails too long, he realized idly. He shrugged in assent, not wanting to encourage Brendon by deigning to answer out loud.

             “Can I still borrow your copy of Fight Club?”

             Ryan let go of the head of his guitar, and the neck swooped down, diving towards the floor of Spencer’s garage. Ryan caught it before it could smash into the unfinished floor, and glanced up at Brendon again. His face was smooth and empty of judgement, like he hadn’t asked Ryan anything at all.

             “Yeah, yeah, of course,” Ryan said. “Ah, sorry, forgot to bring it with me. You have time to wait after practice?”

             Only the faintest indent in Brendon’s eyebrows gave away his anxiety. He smiled at Ryan, trying to make the same, glowing face that he always did, but Ryan had seen through the facade. He was nervous, for some reason. 

             “That would be great,” he said. “Um, as long as it’s quick, anyways? If that’s not too much trouble.”

             Yeesh. Religious kid manners were a little exhausting, even to Ryan, who’d gone to Catholic school his whole life.

             “Dude, we can cut out early if you need,” Ryan said. “Not like we’re doing anything important.”

             Spencer flipped him off, and Ryan grinned at him. Possibly, he thought, they would just forget to be mad at one another. That was what usually happened with the two of them. 

             “Really?” Brendon asked.

             “Yeah, s’no problem,” Ryan said. “Your parents strict?”

             “Something like that,” Brendon said. “But, I mean, you don’t have to worry about it. I’m fine.”

             Ryan had no intention of worrying about it, but he figured that would be a little rude to say to Brendon, so he just hummed and nodded. He rolled his whole head back to look at Brent, who was still fumbling with the strings on his bass.

             “You wanna get going sometime today, or wait until after I’ve graduated?” he called. 

             Brent slowly got to his feet, his bass making an unhappy clang against the metal leg of the card table as he moved. 

             “Have you learned ‘Anthem Part Two’ yet?” Ryan asked. 

             “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I know ever song Blink-182 has ever written,” Brent said. “Should we ever, you know, learn anything else?”

             “Do we have any other bands in common that we all like?” Ryan asked. 

             “The Smiths?” Spencer said. “I mean, maybe?”

             “Smiths covers are always awful,” Ryan said. “And you guys don’t like My Chemical Romance.”

             “Do you guys like Green Day?” Brendon asked. As everyone turned to him, he shrugged. “I mean, if we’re talking about pop punk.”

             “Yeah,” Ryan said. “I have a heartbeat, so I guess I must like them.”

             “We could probably work on something for next time,” Spencer said.

             Brent nodded his assent, and Ryan looked away so he wasn’t blasted by the full impact of Brendon’s smile. Looking at Brendon’s smile was like trying to look into the sun when he was properly pleased with himself, and Ryan told himself that the uncomfortable flutters in his chest were entirely due to annoyance at the cheerful son of a bitch.

             All of them but Brent already knew how to play a song or two, and Brendon, who could do everything on the planet, showed Brent the chords. After an hour, he could sort of stumble along after them. It wasn’t that he was bad at bass, Ryan thought, just that he maybe cared a little less than the rest of them. Brendon, for sure, really did know how to play everything.

             A little earlier than usual, Ryan called it, and raised his eyebrows at Brendon.

             “Book club?” he asked, only a little teasing. 

             “Thanks,” Brendon said. “Night, Spence, Brent.”

             Ryan tried not to let it get to him that Brendon used a nickname. The go to nickname for Spencer was “Spence.” It wasn’t a big thing. It wasn’t. 

             Brendon slid into the front seat without taking a pause for breath.

             “So, if we also get into doing Green Day covers we could expand our horizons to some other pop punk bands? Or even other punk bands, like, some Ramones stuff wouldn’t be too hard to work with. I’m a big fan of older music, you know, crooners and stuff, and then I also love Billy Joel, but for a band like ours we’d have to look for easier stuff, especially easy stuff on bass, at least while Brend is still practicing. Do you guys perform anywhere? I bet I know a couple of performance spaces where we could do a show or two…”

             Brendon didn’t ever stop talking, but Ryan tuned it out after a few minutes. He figured it would be pretty rude to turn the radio on, but it would’ve been nice. Still, the background noise of Brendon chattering was almost wanted and familiar in the usual loneliness of the car. He wished Brendon were the boy he had been waiting for, even if he was a little weird, little annoying.

             “Ryan?”

             Ryan jerked out of his dazed state and turned to Brendon.

             “Huh?”

             “I said, ‘What about original songs?’” Brendon repeated. He had such a transparent face; even when he was trying not to look hurt, it was clear in his eyes, in the set of his mouth. “Have you guys ever written any of your own stuff?”

             “You don’t have to call us ‘you guys,’” Ryan said. “You’re in the band too.”

             “Well, we definitely haven’t written anything together,” Brendon said. “The rest of you, though, have you?”

             Ryan’s hands should’ve been tight around the wheel, but they weren’t. They were loose, barely holding onto the edges. If a stiff wind hit them, the car would careen out into the desert. 

             “Not as a band,” Ryan said. “But I’ve written some stuff on my own.”

             “Did you show it to anyone?” Brendon asked. 

             Ryan let out a huff. 

             “Clearly not,” he said. 

             “Why?” Brendon asked.

             “Your parents were really loose on you as a kid, huh?” Ryan muttered. “Do you want to do the back and forth where I hedge and you pester and I hedge and you pester and we eventually come to the conclusion that I’m scared of rejection? Or you want to drop it?”

             The car was dark and silent for a moment. Then Brendon inhaled, and Ryan braced himself.

             “Is it good?”

             “I don’t know,” Ryan said. “I- why do you ask if it’s good?”

             “Because if you don’t think it’s good, then it’s not good, and we can drop it,” Brendon said. “But if you think it’s good, then you should act like it.”

             Ryan thought about that, and thought also, a little guiltily, that maybe he underestimated Brendon. Maybe he always would.

             “I think it could be good, with a little polish. But it’s personal enough that I don’t wanna go into workshopping it until it is good enough.”

             “That’s not how art works,” Brendon said. 

             “Well, have you written anything?” Ryan shot back.

             “Some music,” Brendon said. “A little guitar, a little piano.”

             “Lyrics?”

             “Only some lame, gay, fourteen-year-old stuff. What about you?”

             “Some lame, gay, eighteen-year-old shit,” Ryan said, giving him a tiny smile. “And some reimaginings of Chuck Palahniuk books. Speaking of,” he pulled into his driveway, and turned Matilda off. “I’m gonna go in and grab the book, you just wait out here, okay?”

             “Okay?” Brendon said. “Can I not come in?”

             “No,” Ryan said, and he slammed the driver’s side door behind him.

             Ryan ran through the dark living room, turned only his bedroom light on, and dug Fight Club out of the pile of books beside his bed. He flipped through the pages, making sure no errant notes from his math class had ended up in it, then glanced out the window. Brendon was still there, looking over at the lit window, faintly bemused. Ryan raised his hand in a wave, then ran back outside.

             “What’s up?” Brendon asked as soon as Ryan was back in the car.

             “Dad just doesn’t like unexpected visitors,” Ryan said. He backed out of the driveway and zoomed down the street, conscious of the time as he hurried towards Brendon’s house. “You’ll have to tell me where to turn, by the way.”

             “Will you be in trouble?” Brendon asked, and Ryan laughed.

             “Yeah, right,” he said. “I’ve never gotten grounded in my life, I just. I just don’t want to make him unhappy.”

             Ryan dropped off Brendon and his book, stashed under Brendon’s shirt, five minutes earlier than Brendon needed to get home. For all that Brendon couldn’t see in Ryan’s life, Ryan wondered, idly, if Brendon had a matched set of secret problems.

***

             There was a note from Father Merrin waiting for Ryan when he got into homeroom the next morning. The teacher was the one who told Ryan the note was from the priest, as the note itself just said “3 to 5 o’clock, my office. Attend if desired.” The “attend if desired” was an interesting addition, Ryan couldn’t help but notice. The priest was trying not to scare Ryan off, and while it helped a little, Ryan was still apprehensive. His dad had taught him not to trust anyone, had told him the dangers of letting people know what you were. Spencer knew, of course, but every exception applied to him. And Ryan supposed that the priest already knew what he was. It couldn’t do any harm for him to go and look further into it, he reasoned. 

             So, he told Spencer at lunch that he’d have to find another ride home, and Spencer agreed a little too quickly, his eyes darting over to Haley. Ryan was still harboring a bit of a grudge against him, but he was too eager and curious about Father Merrin to linger on it.

             The school day dragged by, and Ryan felt as though he’d aged a decade by the time the final bell rang. Still, he forced himself to act as natural as possible. He didn’t know about Merrin’s intentions, but Ryan assumed it was better the less people at their religious institution knew about the two of them practicing magic after hours, the better. He walked down the halls slowly, waiting until most of the students had trickled outdoors before knocking on the heavy office door. 

             “Come in,” Father Merrin said, immediately followed by a low, wordless cry of dismay, and some muffled thudding.

             Ryan shouldered the door open and ran in at once, fearing the worst. He held out his arms, weaponless if there really was some monster in the parish office, but luckily for him, there was only Father Merrin, standing unhappily in the midst of so many spilled books.

             “Father?” Ryan asked, he untensed his muscles and looked around the room, taking in a few of the titles that had spilled. The I-Ching, Ars Goetia, an Edith Bulfinch mythology textbook. “Are you hurt?”

             “Only my pride is, Mr. Ross,” he said with a sigh. “At any rate, you can get a good look at your reading list here, I suppose.”

“Reading list?” Ryan repeated. He started to pile books back up onto the table, paying little attention to them. He was focused still on the priest, who, contrary to what he said, looked very worn and very old as he slowly stretched down to pick up a copy of Phantasmagoria: A Compendium of Darkness. He nearly knocked The Exorcist back over as he did.

“I’m afraid I’ve got quite a great deal I’d like to teach you, and perhaps not much time in which to do it,” Father Merrin said. “I won’t assign you too much homework after class, not in your senior year, but it’s suggested reading. For now, if you’d like to discuss it, or in the future, when I can no longer give you guidance in person.”

“You might not die very soon,” Ryan said. He wasn’t sure if he was trying to comfort the priest or reassure himself. “I mean, if you’re fae, you’ve looked like that for a long time, right?”

“Ah, Ryan,” Father Merrin sat down behind his desk and, after a pause, gave him a fond smile. “You’re far too optimistic to be an oracle, has anyone ever told you?”

“No,” Ryan said. His dad rarely spoke to him about being the oracle at all, if they could avoid it. He couldn’t imagine George Ross senior making jokes about the position. “I don’t think anyone’s ever called me optimistic.”

             “Perhaps you’re just polite,” the priest said. 

             “I’ve never been called that, either,” Ryan said. 

             Father Merrin shook his head, less like disagreeing and more like he was trying to clear his mind of stray thoughts. “You’re kind, Mr. Ross. Don’t be told otherwise, by yourself or anyone else. And don’t start putting on false affectations of unkindness to convince the world of anything. But, pardon me, I’m being quite rude. Have a seat.”

             Ryan sat in the rigid chair in front of Father Merrin’s desk, thinking to himself that it wasn’t really more comfortable than standing. He eyed the massive stack of books again, trying to make some cohesion out of them all. There was, amidst the pile, a slim copy of The Book of Mormon, and Ryan had to stifle laughter. 

             “Why these books?” Ryan asked. “What are they all for, I mean?”

             “All of them offer instruction in the world of magic, in their own way,” Father Merrin said. “Some directly, and some more roundabout. Do not mistake them for instruction guides, they are merely depictions of the world you need to be aware of.”

             “I saw The Exorcist on Halloween when I was thirteen. Are you saying, it’s, what, real?”

             “That specific case?” Father Merrin said. “It was loosely based on a real exorcism, yes, but more important is the spirit of the story. It’s a fairly accurate depiction of exorcism rites, and provides key information as to how to go about dealing with a demon. Not that the demon in the novel is real, of course. I consulted with the author, you know. Marvelous boy.”

             “Of course,” Ryan agreed faintly. As though such a thing were obvious. “There’s other religious texts here too-”

             “Well, you know what they say,” Merrin said. “‘There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ Now, I believe you had some pressing questions for me. You mentioned nightmares?”

             Ryan had, of course, but in that moment he didn’t care at all what he dreamt of. He had so many more questions about the world, questions he didn’t think you were really supposed to ask priests. And, in that vein of thinking, one of them seemed most pressing.

             “Are you really Catholic, father?” Ryan asked. “I mean, I guess you must have gone to seminary, but if you’re fae-”

             “Ah,” Merrin said. He wasn’t smiling, but there was a glint to his eyes, like he wanted to do so quite badly. “Well, there your assumptions are somewhat correct. I was ordained, quite legitimately, in the year 1305.”

             The number seemed to slam back and forth in Ryan’s mind, a loose pinball, and he tensed up in the chair, trying to reckon that number with reality. Ryan only barely remembered the year 1990, but nearly seven hundred years before that, his priest had become a priest. 

The abstract concept of immortality was simple. Forever was just a word, after all, so living forever seemed entirely possible. But Ryan didn’t know a single person who was alive before the year 1900, or anyone who even remembered World War II. He tried to think about 1305, but it didn’t even register as a real year. 

             “Are you quite all right?” Merrin asked. 

             “Yeah, I- sorry,” Ryan said. 

             “Your aura was growing concerning,” Merrin said.

             “But,” Ryan shook his head. “1305 that’s. That’s a very long time ago, Father.”

             “It is,” Merrin agreed. “Though, sometimes it doesn’t seem so very long to me.”
             Ryan laughed, though it wasn’t quite funny. 

             “When were you born, sir?” he asked. Father Merrin gave Ryan a brief, appraising look. 

             “I don’t wish to frighten you,” Father Merrin said. “But I imagine you would be more concerned if you never knew. I don’t know the precise date, but I was born around the year 430 AD.”

             Ryan worked with all his might to keep his face flat and impassive.

             “It’s been a long life,” Merrin continued. “A good life, I think. I’ve done the best I can to leave the world a better place than I found it without causing undue harm. Not as much a some, but all we ought to strive for in life is a net positive, don’t you agree?”

             “Um,” Ryan said. “I suppose, yeah.”

             Father Merrin gave him a smile. Ryan had, in truth, thought very little as to whether or not he was a net positive in the world. He cared deeply for his friends, and told himself that that was unselfish, and yet. 

             “So, as I was saying, you mentioned last week,” Father Merrin began after a pause, “That you were having unusual dreams.”

             Ryan was first shocked that the priest had remembered, then felt the unpleasant, cold sensation of remembering the black fluid, like ink or ichor, seeping out of his throat.

             “Was it more than just… my demise?” he prompted.

             “Much,” said Ryan. “They weren’t- they weren’t normal dreams, Father. It wasn’t like seeing the future - or, maybe it was? But whenever I have, like, a prophetic dream-” Ryan winced even as he said the phrase out loud. Prophetic dream. He sounded like an asshole, and even though the priest believed him, it went against the grain talking about it all so frankly. “-well, it’s just a dream. I mean, I guess I know it’s really happening somewhere, but it doesn’t happen to me, if that makes sense. This one-”

             He cut himself off and looked up at the priest. Merrin was looking at him intently, but Ryan couldn’t discern what emotion might be behind his eyes.

             “I don’t dream about myself,” Ryan started again. “I never see my own future. Except, in these dreams, I do, and I’m me, not just seeing myself from the outside, and then I feel this chill in my chest and start to cough, and when I wake up I’m still coughing, like I’m coughing up blood, but it’s this thick, black stuff.”

             “Thick and black?” Merrin repeated.

             “Not, like, sludgy?” Ryan tried to explain. “But thicker than water.”

             Merrin made no response to this, other than to narrow his eyes at Ryan. 

             “It’s not normal,” Ryan said, trying not to sound desperate, even though he was. “I mean, I have dreams all the time where stuff happens, and sometimes I feel it, but it’s not like this. I can’t bring things from the dream into the real world. Into the now world, anyway. I guess it’s all real.”

             Father Merrin regarded him through his narrow eyes for a moment before speaking.

             “What were you dreaming specifically?” he asked. Ryan sat back, the hard lines of the chair digging into his spine, and tried to remember. 

             “The first time…” he began slowly, “I was trying to see this band. After I saw you die,” the word twisted in his mouth, like Ryan’s body itself didn’t want to say it, but they both knew he was going to die. No use sugar coating it. “That same day, I had this, like, really insistent vision? That’s to say, I always feel things that want to be seen, but some things want to be seen more than others. Does that make sense?”

             “Enough sense,” Merrin said. “Please, go on.”

             “Right, well, it was a super insistent vision about this band in Chicago, called Fall Out Boy. I figured they were kind of important, so a few days later I was trying to watch them again, and I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. I was just getting flashes of stuff, and then I ended up-”

             Ryan remembered where he had ended up. He had been in the room, with The Boy, whoever he was, and suddenly he didn’t want to tell Father Merrin this story. It was private, and it was Ryan’s. But he steeled himself nonetheless and gave him an edited version.

             “I was in a boy’s room all of a sudden,” Ryan said. "Then I heard this voice, not coming from the room, but coming from my head, I guess? He said- I can't remember now what it was he said. But he called me a little voyeur and said I couldn't stop what was coming, I think. Then I started coughing in the vision and when I woke up I was still coughing, coughing up black stuff everywhere." Ryan paused for a moment. "It was the same voice I heard in the vision about you."

"You heard a voice in that vision?" Merrin asked. "Who was it?"

"I didn't recognize the voice," Ryan said. "But I think whoever it was might have been your killer."

The priest had no immediate response to this. He hummed low in the back of his throat and then strode around the desk, walking straight past Ryan to his book shelves. He tapped the spines with the pads of his index finger, flicking through the titles until he at last paused and pulled down an old, leather bound journal. Merrin flicked through the stuff old pages in silence, lips pursed, before slamming it shut again and replacing it on the shelf.

"I don't know what that means," he admitted at last. "But I don't like it. Your visions, they're- well, I suppose they aren't exactly objective but they're merely visions. You aren't there, and no one should be able to see you looking. That worries me more than the- what shall we call it? Goo?"

"Ink," Ryan said. "It's the color of black own ink. Kinda tastes like pen ink, too."

Merrin gave Ryan a look that perhaps was wondering why Ryan knew what pen ink tasted like. In all fairness, Ryan was loathe to admit to the 1300 year old magically creature that he licked pen ink off his fingers, not as a child, but last year, bored and idly curious after the SATs. Luckily, Merrin did not ask, and instead nodded again. "Ink. Interesting."

"At any rate, you have your reading, and I have a great deal to think on, but you came here for lessons, did you not? Stand up, Mr. Ross, and show me what you can do."

"What I can-?" Ryan looked around the room, at a loss. "Did you want me to search for a vision, Father?"

"Heavens, is that what you're calling it now?" he asked. "Determine someone's future. Prophesy for me. Tell me what is going on in the oval office at this very moment, if you prefer a bit of a warm up."

"Um," Ryan said. "Okay. Uh, sure, yeah, just give me…" he trailed off and sat back down in the chair. It was hard and uncomfortable, and usually if he wasn't given a name and a subject he would search idly while laying in his bed, letting his mind wander as he drifted off. But this should, he supposed, be easy. 

Ryan thought about the White House. It seemed silly, but he tried to focus on the mental image of George Bush, the sound of the national anthem, something his brain would click with. After a few minutes of painful silence, Ryan spoke.

"So, it's empty now, but-"

"No, no, my dear boy, show me what you mean," Father Merrin said. "I'm quite capable of handling it, I assure you.”

             “Show you?” Ryan said. “I don’t know what you mean, Father.”

             “You don’t?” Father Merrin said. His eyebrows arched high on his forehead. “Can you project at all?”

             “Project?” Ryan asked.

             “If not projection, then… well, you have the sight, and the dreams. You said you could look for the future or for further information at will, yes?”

             “Searching, yeah,” Ryan said. “It takes a lot out of me, but I’m good at it.”

             “If you’re incapable of physically projecting, how are you with dream travel?”

             “Come again?”

             “Never mind, then. Astral travel?”

             “As in astral projection? I thought that was just, you know, some New Age crap.”

             “I would greatly encourage you not tell a witch that their practice is ‘New Age crap,’” Father Merrin said. “Not every girl can take a mass-produced deck of cards and read the future, but anyone can learn to bend the energies of the universe, not just you and I.”

             “I don’t understand how that works,” Ryan said, and Merrin said “We’ll get back to that.

             “What powers are you fully aware of and master of?” he tried again.

             “I sometimes black out and give prophecies,” Ryan said. “If someone asks to see something, I can search for it and usually tell them something about it. I see things in my dreams, always. The easiest is the tugging, though, do you know? Sometimes something wants to be seen, and I just have to… let it.”

             “Interesting,” Merrin said. “And- forgive me - is that all?”

             Ryan felt a little defensive. It was all, but no one had ever before heard he had super powers and said: “Is that it?” Even his dad, the Oracle before him, had been impressed by the extent of Ryan’s powers. 

             “What else is there?” Ryan asked. Father Merrin laughed once, a strangely delighted noise that seemed too loud to have come from the ancient priest.

             “Oh, my,” he said. “Where to begin?

             They stayed in Merrin’s office for another hour as Father Merrin began to explain some of the other powers he had known oracles to have in the past. He had just started in on travelling through other people’s dreams (the mere concept making Ryan’s head spin) when he glanced at the clock and let out a long, heavy sigh.

             “The hour grows late,” he said. “And you ought to be going. Still, take these books, and I’ll see you again whenever you’re next able.”

             “Whenever I’m next able?” Ryan asked.

             “Oh, scheduling with oracles is always such a delight,” Father Merrin said, smiling to himself. “When you are free after school, picture me in your minds eye. If I’m seated in here, you may come.”

             “Thank you, Father,” Ryan said. He ought to be uneasy, he thought, and recalled that fae could influence the moods of people around them. Still, he couldn’t help but feel at ease in the priest’s office, calm and secure. He scooped up the stack of books and wedged the door open with his foot. He was nearly out when Merrin called his name, and he craned his neck back around.

"Do you trust me, Ryan?"

Ryan was a little taken aback by the frankness in the priest's tone. Surprised enough, evidently, to answer back with equal blunt honesty.

"I don't know," Ryan said. "I think I'm fairly certain that you mean well, but being the Oracle is a funny thing. Very few people have meant to harm me, but many of them have anyway."

"So you're staying on your guard?" Merrin guessed. He surveyed Ryan's aura rather than waiting for an answer and nodded. "Perhaps that's for the best."

***

             Ryan liked keeping his days busy, so Father Merrin coming into his life right after Spencer got a girlfriend was perfect timing so far as he was concerned. He was guaranteed to have something to do after school other than just lying in bed, staring at his ceiling, and thinking about people in far off places doing much cooler stuff than him. Even when he was at home, he had books to read, some of which were instruction manuals and some of which were novels. All helpful, apparently, though he would have to ask the priest why. All of this distraction was almost enough to keep the thoughts of Spencer’s continued absence at bay.

             It wasn’t quite distraction enough to change his dreams, though. The night after his first lesson - if it could even be called a lesson, strange as it was - Ryan seemed to have just drifted off when he found himself alone in a dark room, either too big or too dim for Ryan to make out any details other than his pale hands in front of him. He’d called out to see who, if anyone, was there, but when he opened his mouth he found black goo pouring from it. He tried to say something around the muck, tried to scream for help when the overwhelming volume of it began to choke him, but all to no avail. He coughed and sputtered, feeling the icy slick of it coating his shirt. 

Perhaps, he thought, it was the cold that had woken him up. He didn’t remember it always being so frigid, but the blackness certainly was that night, oozing into his bedclothes like snowmelt. He’d been up half the night trying to scrub the stains out before taking a hot shower and falling back asleep. If he was exhausted at school after that, no one noticed enough to ask him about it. 

             “What are you doing tonight?” Adam asked him in class.

             Ryan looked up from the book he was buried in. They had finished their lab in biology, so the room was filled with the chatter of other students, heads bent together and flip phones pulled out under the tables. Ryan wasn’t especially in the mood to entertain Adam, but he sighed and flipped the book shut anyway. He kept his hand stuck in between the pages, though.

             “Reading, hopefully,” he said. Luckily, Adam seemed to get that it was (mostly) a joke, and he laughed.

             “Would you be interested in reading at my house?” he asked. “Potentially after you’ve helped me go over some bio?”

             “Do I get anything out of it?” Ryan asked. Mostly joking again.

             “Home cooked meal,” Adam said. “More beer, if you’re thirsty. Uh, I’d offer to do your English homework, but-”

             “I’ve got that covered,” Ryan said. “Whatever, sure. I could stand to study more.”

             He didn’t really need to study, but he was working on the whole ‘being polite’ thing that Spencer suggested he do. Besides, he had scrounged up enough cash from his dad’s laundry to take the AP test that May, and maybe he could skip his gen ed science course next year, when he got to college. 

             “Great,” Adam flashed him an even, white-toothed smile. “I’ll see you tonight, then, if you remember the way.”

             Ryan pulled his book out from under the table and went back to reading, struck with the odd feeling that he’d lost something.

 ***

             Ryan skipped his last period class and his optional meeting with Father Merrin. He was eager to see what kind of new powers Father Merrin could help him unlock, but he was also mindful of making sure he didn’t spend too much time with him, didn’t become too conspicuous. Instead, he went straight home and dumped out all his school books aside from his biology textbook and put in a clean uniform for the next day and his toothbrush. Then, after thinking about it, he included one of Father Merrin’s textbooks, because it never hurt to be too careful. He wasn’t likely to sleep much, anyway, given all the nights spent waking up from nightmares and coughing up black goo onto the bed sheets, the floor, himself. 

             That was a thought, actually. Ryan didn’t relish the black nightmares any night, but if they were coming more frequently, he really didn’t want to get inky black phlegm on Adam’s fancy carpet. He resolved to try and stay awake for the whole night, just in case. He wouldn’t be at Spencer’s until the weekend, so he could catch up on sleep later. 

             Ryan waited a good hour for his dad to come home, but he was running late, again. It was no use waiting all night, he decided, so he wrote his dad a note and took off. 

             “Ryan,” Adam said even as he was throwing open the door. “I am so grateful, man, I have got to get my grade up in biology, or my dad will-”

             “It’s whatever,” Ryan said, stepping over the threshold. A strange sense of calm watched over him, and almost sleepy sensation, though it was, Ryan assured himself, a symptom of already being tired. Beside the door, there was an orderly shoe rack, filled with shoes. Had this always been a shoes-off house? Ryan didn’t move to touch his sneakers. If someone had a problem, they could tell him. “Basement again?”

             “Where else do teenagers live?” Adam asked. “I’m like the troll hiding under the bridge, man. It’s not just my bedroom, it’s my lair.”

             Ryan snorted, and though Adam was smiling, he didn’t laugh at his own joke, which was probably for the best. 

             This time around, Adam didn’t offer Ryan any beer, but brought out soda instead. Ryan had the good grace not to make fun of it, though he considered it. Somehow Mrs. Smith’s face popped into his head when he almost spoke, her sincere eyes. Even if Adam’s creepy absent father was in no way like the Smiths, it made Ryan feel oily to make fun of anyone for doing what his favorite family did as well. No way would she offer them anything alcoholic, and that, Ryan had to admit, was probably for the best. 

             Instead, the two of them drank soda and ate shitty, burnt, microwave popcorn, and they poured over biology textbooks, Ryan going back and explaining the concepts with overly elaborate metaphors that Adam swore made sense. The whole thing was so normal, so mundane. Ryan thought it would have bored him to tears for as much as he loved magic, as much as he craved adventure and longed for nothing more than to go and get to the future he had seen, with stadium lights and magazine covers and makeup and groupies and sword fighting with monsters. And yet, somehow… somehow this boring, suburban finished basement was nice. Ryan sort of liked looking over Adam’s work and saying “carry the one, dipshit” and getting burnt popcorn stuffed down his shirt. By all means he shouldn’t have liked it, but it felt warm and pleasant rather than fearful, like everything else seemed to feel those days.

             “Ready to move on to the next chapter?” Adam asked, and then he said: “Ryan?” because Ryan apparently hadn’t replied out loud. His mouth felt dry and gritty, and Adam’s voice came to him as though through many thick and fluffy layers of cotton. 

             “Mm-hm,” Ryan said. He stretched his hand out to turn the page and found his fingers thick and uncoordinated. It was difficult to even grip the page, much less turn it. 

             “You good, dude?” Adam asked, and Ryan made to say “Fine, just a little sleepy,” but could only make out: “F’n, jus’ lil-” before his vision flickered. He was so used to visions of the future dragging him out of his day to day life that he braced himself for a sudden pull into the future, but none came. His vision wavered, and then he was back in his heavy, cumbersome body. He was sleepy, he realized. More exhausted than sleepy, it seemed, as though sleep were something dragging him underwater with many soft tendrils wrapped around him. 

             “Sleep it off, man,” he heard Adam say from very far away, and then Ryan felt something so strange that it didn’t compute for a moment. Something was set on top of him, not very heavy, but soft and covering him entirely. He felt warmer after a moment, and Ryan realized in a rush that Adam had put a blanket on him. He thought people only did that in movies, when they were in love. It felt so intimate that it almost jolted him awake, but by then Ryan was so warm and comfortable and so unbearably sleepy that he drifted off anyway, feeling cocooned and very, very warm. 

***

             Spencer was waiting for Ryan outside of school the next morning. The sight was so shocking that Ryan stopped walking for a moment, then quickly waved Adam off to walk in alone.

             “What’s up, man?” Ryan asked, baffled both by Spencer’s waiting for him and by the almost betrayed look on his face.

             “Are you still pissed at me?” Spencer asked.

             “No,” Ryan said, and he realized as he said it that it was true at last.

             “This isn’t some weird ploy to make me jealous, but, like, in a best friend way?” he asked. 

             “Is it working?” Ryan asked. Spencer didn’t look especially amused.

             “I’m not trying to make you jealous,” Ryan asked. “I’m also done being pissed. You forgot to call, it’s not the end of the world. Adam wanted help with biology and I was free, so I stayed the night.”

             “Wait, is that why you were mad at me?” Spencer asked. Oops.

             “Yeah,” Ryan said, because lying to Spencer was an exercise in futility. “I just- I’ve been having weird visions, so when you weren’t there, I freaked out.”

             “You could’ve mentioned,” Spencer said.

             “Yeah,” Ryan said again, shouldering his backpack and moving towards the entrance. “But, like I said, I’m over it.”

             “Wait, weird visions about me?” Spencer asked as he walked behind Ryan. 

             “No,” Ryan said. “But just- all kinds of weird shit. I’ve been having nightmares, but not, like, normal nightmares-”

             “Aw, baby having bad dreams?!” someone in the hall said. Ryan ignored it.

             “You didn’t mention,” Spencer said. “But, I mean, you always have bad dreams, right?”

             “This isn’t like that,” Ryan said. Someone else barrelled between the two of them, papers streaming out of his backpack. Spencer winced and rubbed his shoulder, but Ryan just righted himself, ignoring the smarting of pain in his arm. “This is something else. Honestly, it’s a miracle nothing weird happened last night. I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but at least I didn’t have a wake-up-screaming nightmare there.”

             “You can stay in my room after practice, if you want,” Spencer said, ever practical.

             “Yeah, I’ve been vomiting up black goo recently, you sure you want that on your sheets?”

             “You’ve been-?!”

             “Spencer!”

             Haley ran up to them, eyes bright, and Spencer’s attention was gone. Ryan, for his part, told himself that it didn’t matter much, because it totally didn’t. He didn’t care. They were allowed to have other friends, even if it was weird that Spencer found kissing more interesting than Ryan upchucking ink with every inexplicable nightmare he had about the future. 

             Besides, it didn’t matter much. Ryan had band practice to worry about, as well as making sure he paid some amount of attention in class that day. He even found, as the day went on, that he didn’t mind that much when Spencer was totally occupied at lunch and in the breaks between classes. Ryan was in an exceptionally good mood after a good night’s sleep.

***

             Brendon was bouncing.

             Ryan was starting to get used to him, his inability to sit still for more than thirty seconds after you begged him to sit still, his endless chatter, his boundless enthusiasm. It was endearing, in a puppyish sort of way, but Ryan wouldn’t admit to that if his fingernails were being ripped out.

             “Okay, so I haven’t finished Fight Club because I really don’t want my parents to see it or for your book to get confiscated at school or anything, but it’s so good, and like, ‘I want to have your abortion’ is just, wow, what a line, why’d they change it in the movie?”

             “There was a different actress hired to play Marla,” Ryan said, only a little pleased with himself for knowing the answer. “She refused to say that line, and the director said they would change it, but she absolutely had to do whatever line they changed it to. When she heard the new line was ‘I haven’t been fucked like that since grade school,’ she quit.”

             “Awesome,” Brendon said. “So, what are we doing today?”

             Ryan did have to give Brendon credit for at least one thing - he was coming to realize that, playful and loud and spastic as Brendon was, he was dead serious about music. He kept them more to task at practice than Ryan ever had, and he was grateful for it. 

             “Adam’s Song?” Ryan suggested. He sneezed, then sniffed, hoping he wasn’t coming down with anything. He didn’t have time to be sick, not this close to graduation with the band and college and magic lessons all to contend with.

             “Sure,” Brendon said amiably. “Then I was thinking, you know, if everyone’s up for it, we could maybe work on something original?”

             Spencer, Brent, and Ryan all looked at Brendon like he had suddenly grown a full set of crab’s legs out of his abdomen. 

             “Did you...write something?” Spencer asked.

             “Sort of,” Brendon said, and he looked nervous. Horribly nervous. Scientist in a disaster movie about to tell the president that he was sorry, there was nothing more they could do and the earth had to be evacuated in full nervous. Ryan wanted to encourage him, but Brendon’s eyes met his looking guilty, and he had a sudden thrill of foreboding. “I did some composing, anyway. I mean, calling it composing is a bit of a stretch, yeah, but I put music to some preexisting lyrics.”

             But there was no way, Ryan thought as the dread mounted in him. Absolutely no way.

             “Whose lyrics?” Brent asked dubiously.

             Perhaps it was still a credit to Brendon that he met Ryan’s eyes, scared as he was.

             “Yours,” he said. 

             It was plain that he expected Ryan to blow up, and Ryan wanted to, but instead he waited, let the heat of anger and disbelief wash over him, and kept his face cold and detached.

             “Let’s hear it, then,” he said. 

             Brendon handed Ryan a sheet of paper - Ryan’s paper, scrawled over with Ryan’s messy handwriting - and started to play his guitar. He hummed a melody along, and some distant part of Ryan acknowledged that it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t what he had in mind for the words, didn’t have the same sense of raw desperation behind it, but it wasn’t bad.

             One day, Ryan might even tell him as much. 

             As it was, when Brendon finished, Ryan nodded once, then ripped the page in his hands into tiny pieces and let them fall to the floor where even if Ryan couldn’t have them, Brendon couldn’t either. Brendon stood there, frozen. They were all frozen, Ryan realized, Spencer and Brent just watching the two of them like the world’s most intense tennis match.

             “Next time you want to break into someone’s house for lyrical inspiration, I’d suggest going bigger,” Ryan said. “Elliott Smith or Morrissey or something. Go big or go home, right?”

             “Look, I know I crossed a bit of a line, but-”

             Ryan didn’t wait for him to finish. He couldn’t think of anything cutting to say, couldn’t think of anything but the roar of white heat in his mind. He scuffed up the paper scraps on the floor on his way out the door, and if someone shouted after him, he couldn’t hear it.

 

Notes:

guess who's back. back again.

regular thwth is????? gonna happen someday i swear. but this chapter has been in the works forever and I"m hella hype for it, so i hope you all like it!!!

Chapter 9: The First Trial of Job

Summary:

What man would still give glory to God after losing his friends and family?

            Spencer and Ryan were fighting again.

            “You should talk to him,” Spencer said.

            “I should kick his scrawny Latter-Day ass is what I should do,” Ryan said, seething.

            “Pretty sure you’re skinnier than him, and he meant well enough,” Spencer said. “Plus, he said he was sorry.”

            “Not to me he didn’t.”

            “Probably because you’re not talking to him.”

            “Look, this isn’t me being unreasonable!” Ryan had said, turning on Spencer fully. Spencer had come over to Ryan’s house on his bike, and while Ryan admired the commitment and willingness to look like a jackass to get to him, it didn’t change anything. They were shouting in the driveway, because Ryan’s dad had the kind of hangover that meant he couldn’t go above a whisper without a hand holding his shoulder just a little too hard and a snarling “Be quiet out there, kid” through his teeth. 

            Which is to say that Ryan was already having a bad day, and a bad weekend, and if he thought too hard about the stupid, shiny Mormon kid pouring over his lyrics, he would start screaming. He was going to start screaming.

            “It’s not at all unreasonable,” Ryan said. “Look, I get that he thinks he was trying to help or what-fucking-ever, but first off, it was a violation of trust, second, I don’t know how he broke into my fucking house-”

            “He didn’t break into your house, Ryan,” Spencer said. “He said you left pages with the lyrics in them in the copy of Fight Club that you lent him.”

            “That’s a lie,” Ryan said. He had checked, double checked to make sure. So there was no way that Brendon had simply found the lyrics because Ryan was being sloppy. Nor did he think it was a coincidence that Brendon found them immediately after asking Ryan about lyrics and original music. And Ryan could have explained all this to Spencer, should have, even, but he couldn’t believe he had to. He couldn’t believe Spencer wasn’t taking his word for it, that Spencer didn’t believe him in favor of Brendon Fucking Urie.

            “So you think he snuck into your bedroom and stole not your wallet or your phone, but your old lyrics? For what, just to spite you?”

            “Oh, I’m sure Saint Urie had nothing but the best of fucking intentions,” Ryan said, the words sticking on his tongue like flypaper. 

            “Then talk to him.”

            “Fuck you!” Ryan said. “When did you start liking everyone in the whole world better than me?”

            “Around the same time you started being a jackass to the whole wide world,” Spencer shot back. The two of them glowered at each other.

            “I’ve always been a jackass, thank you very much,” Ryan said. He tried not to show it, but he felt ill, like he could actually feel the bile swirling in his stomach. Something was changing, something bigger than the monsters that lived in Ryan’s dreams. He and Spencer were changing, and the harder Ryan tried to hold onto him, onto them, the more they slipped away. “You never minded before.”

            “Maybe I wanna have more than one friend in my life!” Spencer said. “What if I like dating people?! And going out on Saturday nights! And not assuming that everyone in my life is so far beneath me that they’re not worth a second thought?”

            “Go have friends and go out!” Ryan said. “Go assume the best of people! I don’t care if you do! But don’t try to make me apologize to some bratty kid for hurting his feelings when he crossed several lines!”

            “Fine,” Spencer said. “Fine, be mad. I’m going home.”

            Ryan watched him walk away for a minute, and just before Spencer hopped on his bike, Ryan caved and called out to him. Please don’t leave me, not you .

            “Spence!”

            Spencer turned around, still looking so disappointed with Ryan that Ryan felt his skin would start curling up at the edges.

            “See you Monday?” Ryan asked weakly, feeling rebuked even though he was right.

            “Yeah,” Spencer said. “See you then.”

            If anything, standing there in the strangely airy and insubstantial late-winter sun, Ryan hated Brendon more than ever. He was taking everything from Ryan that mattered: his band, his words, his best friend. And without all that, Ryan was nothing - nothing but The Oracle.

---

            “How have you been, Ryan?”

            “Not spectacular, Father,” Ryan said. He scuffed the office floor with the toes of his Converse, not uniform regulation, but he was a straight-A senior, so who would call it?

            “More bad dreams?” the priest asked.

            “No- or, yeah, but nothing new,” Ryan said. “Just the dark and the weird dream-vomit.” Father Merrin was still staring at him intently, and because Ryan really didn’t want to complain to a 1500 year old Catholic priest about his teenage drama, he added: “Think I’m coming down with a cold or something.” It wasn’t a lie, either, or he wouldn’t have bothered saying it to a faerie. His throat was sore all weekend, and not from shouting. His nose felt stopped up, and he was generally physically miserable on top of everything else. 

            “Hmm,” Father Merrin said. He looked at Ryan thoughtfully for a moment, like he was about to reveal an ancient secret for relieving colds. Then he said: “I’d take some DayQuil before class then, if I were you. They work you kids pretty hard, and you don’t need the stress on your immune system.”

            Ryan stared at him in disbelief because, yeah, it would never get any less strange to hear all the anachronisms that came from his mouth.

            “What is it?” the priest asked, looking wryly amused.

            “It’s just very odd, Father, to think that a man who lived through the Black Plague can suggest I take DayQuil,” Ryan said. Father Merrin chuckled at that, the smile making him look like a much younger man. Centuries younger, Ryan thought to himself, and all but doubled over giggling at the absurdity of the whole thing.

            The way Ryan rationalized it to himself was thus: believing in magic was all well and good and plausible and possible, sure. Ryan supposed anybody could believe that magic was ~out there~ in a weird, distant sense. Even his visions weren’t that strange, in part because he was used to them, and in part because if Ryan distanced himself emotionally, they weren’t more than very lifelike, sensually immersive movies. 

            Father Merrin was different. There was a real, living, breathing person in front of Ryan who had been living and breathing since before Christianity had spread to the British Isles. With nothing more than a whisper he could bind Ryan to the chair he was sitting in until the sun expanded and swallowed the earth whole. This man could bend nature and convince Ryan that he was a whole other person, could tell if Ryan lied about anything. There was immense power in such an unassuming shell, and it was hard for Ryan to wrap his head around. It was hard to believe that someone so beyond belief could look so… normal.

            “I don’t think DayQuil would have done much about the plague, but I daresay we would have been grateful for it back then anyway,” he said. “But then, are you sure you’re alright?”

            Ryan thought of his dad, of Brendon, and of Spencer, and shrugged.

            “I’m in high school,” he said. “So I can never really be doing that great.”

            “Fair enough,” Father Merrin said. “Going through puberty was a dreadful experience. Quite glad I got it over with before the internet era.”

            Ryan smiled a little at the joke, felt a little included. Father Merrin was good at being there for him, at letting Ryan feel like he belonged. Ryan knew it couldn’t be easy, given how difficult he was to like, apparently, but the priest made it seem effortless.

            “Now, to business,” Father Merrin said. “Are you interested in a bit of specialized training today?”

            “I’m always interested in whatever you have to teach me,” Ryan said. In the back of his mind, he imagined he could hear Spencer calling him a suck-up, and he felt a pang in his chest. No Spencer there, nor would there be. Spencer was busy sucking up to Urie, and Ryan was busy not speaking to him about it. 

            “Now,” Father Merrin said. “I’m not expecting that you’ll see a lot of action in your position, certainly not as much as the people you’ll be seeing for, but in the very likely case that someone attacks you, I want you to be prepared.”

            Ryan nodded loosely, though he was wary, unsure of what was coming next.

            “Are you- are you going to teach me how to fight? Sir?” Ryan asked. 

            “Yes, in a manner of speaking,” Father Merrin said. “Have you seen the Star Wars movies? Marvelous films.”

            “Um,” said Ryan, trying to keep track of the direction of the conversation. “Yes? What does that have to do with-?”

            Merrin stood up from his desk and walked over to Ryan, a scrap of red cloth in his hand. “Hold still,” he said, and he wrapped the cloth around Ryan’s eyes. Ryan tensed instantly, not liking the loss of sensation, the cloud of red that was all he could see, but he stayed still while Merrin tied it. He heard him walk back around to the other side of the desk, and he heard the chair groan under his weight.

            “Now,” said Father Merrin. “I’m going to throw a ball at you, and I want you to catch it.”

            “I can’t see,” Ryan said. He thought it was fairly obvious that he couldn’t see, but perhaps Father Merrin had missed that, somehow.

            “You can’t see the present,” Father Merrin said. “Not blindfolded. Not right here, and not for yourself. You’re not all-knowing. But you can see a few seconds into the future, can’t you? You can see yourself in this office in ten, twenty, thirty seconds, and know where to put your hand. Now, catch!”

            Ryan had a brief mental scramble to try and envision his own future, but it took time, and before he could conjure up an image of the office he was standing in, he felt a hard rubber ball hit him in the forehead.

            “Ow!” he said, more shocked and surprised than hurt. “What the hell, man?”

            “Let’s try again,” Father Merrin said. “Open your mind to the near future, and picture where you should place your hand.”

            “Wait-!” Ryan protested, and the ball hit him in the stomach. Not hard, but irksome. He let out a huff and steeled himself. Even as he was focusing on the future (difficult enough, as he’d never tried to focus on a future so close to him before, on something seconds rather than hours or even minutes into the future) he was smacked in the jaw with yet another ball.

            “Can you give me a second?” Ryan snapped, then promptly remembered that he was talking to his priest, and bit down on his lip.

            “Your enemies will not grant you the time necessary to compose yourself,” said Father Merrin, and he sounded just a little too cheerful about the whole thing. Ass. Ryan gritted his teeth and tried to focus again.

            He was hit twice more by rubber balls in the time it took him to focus on the now familiar interior of Father Merrin’s office, and his brain offered him an image of the two of them sitting on opposite sides of Merrin’s desk, Ryan leaning forward while they spoke about something. He couldn’t see a clock, but as he looked he was hit in the eye with a ball and he was jolted out of the image.

            Ryan didn’t react outwardly. He didn’t complain or even linger on the pain, just refocused, trying to pull the vision inward. Closer, sooner .

            He saw the ball flying at his face and realized that he was doing it, this was it -

            And he was hit in the head before he could move his arm.

            He did not have room to feel frustrated, so he watched again. It was flying towards his hip, he forced his hand to move move move -

            Ryan didn’t catch it, but his hand did flick it away.

            “Nicely done,” Father Merrin said. “Again.”

            It wasn’t easy, and Ryan wasn’t necessarily sure he would call himself competent at the end of an hour, but he was catching two out of every three balls thrown, and covered in tiny bruises, he was certain, when he finally ripped the blindfold off his eyes.

            “Can we call it?” he asked, shocked by how exhausted he sounded. Further shocked to find that his forehead was slick with sweat. 

            Father Merrin, for his part, nodded and gestured to the chair. Ryan sat down and Merrin sat behind his desk, fulfilling the vision Ryan had seen earlier - almost novel enough to make him smile, but he found he was unexpectedly exhausted to the point that even moving his facial muscles sounded like too much work.

            “How are you feeling?” the priest asked, and he handed Ryan a bottle of water.

            “Um,” Ryan shook his head like he was trying to clear his ears of water. “Exhausted all of a sudden, to be totally honest. I didn’t think it was that hard work till I stopped.”

            “It can be difficult to ascertain that with matters of the mind,” Father Merrin said. “Especially when it is so ingrained in your psyche, wired into who you are. But I digress. You did quite well.”

            “You mean that?” Ryan asked, wiping spilled water off his chin. Why were his arms tired? This had all been in his head, for fuck’s sake.

            “I can’t lie,” Father Merrin said with a soft smile. “Often difficult to get around in this modern society without that, but it does make me quite trustworthy with giving compliments.”

            “In that case, I appreciate it,” Ryan said, then paused. “Have you done this with many other oracles?”

            “No,” Father Merrin said. “Not many. But I have spoken to other oracles in the past. Never quite so young, certainly never quite so green.”

            “Thanks,” Ryan said, making a face.

            “It’s not a bad thing,” Father Merrin said quickly. “You can set yourself into good habits as such, focus on creating the best path forward. A blank slate is rarely bad news.”

            “I guess,” Ryan said. “It just… you make it sound like I’m far behind.”

            “Ah, don’t mind me,” Father Merrin said. “I’ve known too many people. I’m old, son. Your youth is not a fault.”

            “You’re definitely talking around my issue,” Ryan said.

            “You know fae well,” Merrin said.

            “It’s my job.”

            “I would expect an oracle who in his full maturity to have a tighter grasp on a wider array of powers,” Father Merrin said. “But you are a fast learner, and have a great deal of raw talent. I’m not concerned about you coming into your own at all.”

            “Thank you,” Ryan said, and with a sly smile, added: “I appreciate the honesty.”

---

            Ryan was not super religious, but suddenly hanging out with his priest was the highlight of his week. Spencer (and by extension, Hayley) wasn’t speaking to him, he had inky black nightmares nearly every night, and by Friday, the only thing keeping him going was the promise hanging out with Adam on Saturday evening. According to the man himself, his dad would be out on business for the whole weekend, and while neither of them harbored any secret dreams of reenacting Risky Business , Ryan didn’t mind the idea of having Adam’s weird Stepford house to just themselves for a while.

            Ryan mentioned to his own dad where he would be on Saturday, and George just raised his eyebrows and said “Funny way of pronouncing ‘Spencer,’ isn’t it?”

            It probably was funny - it was definitely intended to be funny, but maybe his dad caught the sag in Ryan’s shoulders, as he didn’t make any further Spencer related jokes after. He didn’t ask about it either, but that wasn’t his way.

            On Thursday they watched The Shawshank Redemption together, with microwave popcorn and Granny Smith apples, per tradition. Ryan had read the story, but never seen the movie, and his dad had seen the movie but not read the book. They both looked a little misty-eyed at the end, and Ryan thought about bringing up the nightmares again - but his dad hadn’t seemed concerned before, so Ryan figured he should just let it go.

            “You doing alright, squirt?” his dad asked after the post-movie commercials were rolling and Ryan was rinsing off the paring knife in the sink.

            “Same as ever, I guess,” Ryan said. He was lonely, painfully lonely, but he didn’t want to get into it.

            “Good,” his dad said. “That’s good. You still going out this weekend?”

            “That’s the plan,” Ryan said.

            “Hot date?” his dad asked. George Ross was a grizzly bear of a man who never smiled, but Ryan recognized the twinkle in his eye as teasing, as kind. Ryan rolled his eyes.

            “Yeah, my super hot girlfriend, Adam ,” Ryan said. “We’re actually going to start cooking meth for our drug empire.”

            “You’re gonna need some more muscle if you wanna make it selling on the streets,” his dad said. “Gotta look intimidating so they don’t just jump you.”

            “I’ll wear my hockey pads,” Ryan said. 

            “Good man,” his dad said. 

            “Will you buy from me?” Ryan asked.

            “Probably get more use out of your drugs than the popcorn you sold in the boy scouts, so why not?”

            Ryan laughed. He gave his dad a one-armed hug and got his hair ruffled before going to bed, and even without Spencer, without his band or Brendon fucking Urie, he had a nice night.

---

            Even Oracle powers didn’t prepare Ryan for just how shit-awful a day Friday was. He slept through his alarm, tried to slide into class on time rather than just ditching, and got detention. Spencer saw him in the hall and pointedly looked the other direction. The one day he decided he was too broke to go out and get Taco Bell, he discovered that the school cafeteria was fresh out of rectangle pizza. Adam wasn’t in bio. Father Merrin sent him a note saying he had to travel, and couldn’t wait for Ryan to finish with his detention for another lesson.

            All in all, by the time Ryan stomped out to the parking lot that afternoon, he was in a piss poor mood. He stepped in a puddle, and like, it hadn’t rained in ages, so he just knew it was a puddle of something truly disgusting. He saw Spencer as he got into his car and slammed his head back against the headrest. He just wanted to go home, wanted this stupid endless week to give way to something good.             He couldn’t find anything decent on the radio, nothing but ads for jewelry stores and auto repair. And the Fall Out Boy CD that had been in his car for weeks now just grated against his last nerves, so he finally punched the volume knob on his dash and drove home in seething silence.

            Ryan had just pulled into his driveway, bumper nearly touching the garage door, when his cellphone went off - loud and obnoxious enough that he snarled at the noise, his hands clenching into fists. 

            “Hello?” he said. He doubted it was Spencer, and Brent never called him, and assuming it wasn’t his dad, then-

            “Hi,” Brendon said, his voice timid in a way that just served to make Ryan more pissed off than he already was. 

            “What do you want?” Ryan asked. He leaned back in the seat after turning his car off, staring at the faded fabric ceiling and thinking hateful thoughts.

            “I just - you kind of freaked out the other day?” Brendon said, his words tilting up like it was a question. 

            “Did I?” Ryan asked.

            “Uh-huh,” Brendon said. Could you be allergic to a person’s voice? Every word Brendon spoke made the spike of pain in Ryan’s forehead throb. “I was wondering if - look, I’m sorry if I overstepped or             anything, but I’m confused, and-”

            “ If you overstepped?!” Ryan said. “ If ? Of course you overstepped! I never said you could- why in the world would you think that was an okay thing to do, a normal thing to do? Christ alive, I didn’t- What gave you the incredibly mistaken impression that that was something I would want, much less something that was acceptable?”

            “I-” Brendon sounded embarrassingly cowed then, his voice tiny even as it came through the phone. “You- we talked about your lyrics, a little. You said that maybe-”

            “Look,” Ryan cut him off. His head was pounding and he was exhausted. “I am sure you didn’t mean to offend or be a jackass or whatever, but you did offend me and you were a jackass and I’m kind of busy. So go have fun with Spencer and your fucking band and call me again never, yeah?”

            He waited for a second to see if Brendon had anything else to say in his defense, to see if there was anything else coming. When he heard nothing after five whole seconds had passed, Ryan hung up.

            Unsurprisingly, he didn’t feel any better at all. 

            He tried to get his emotions in check before he walked into the house, not really in the mood to hear his dad attempt to discuss feelings with him, but he didn’t think he was doing a particularly good job. Still, he swung open the door and braced himself, only to discover that the lights were off.

            All the lights were off.

            And, sure, this wasn’t so strange, because it was barely after four PM. The sun had not yet fully set. Plus, sometimes Ryan’s dad turned out the lights to watch TV.

            But the TV wasn’t on, and the curtains were drawn. The lights were out all over the house, the bathroom door open to reveal that it was empty.

            This might not have been a reason for concern with any other people, other parents. Ryan had it on good authority that other parents went out on occasion, worked late, visited friends, even went on dates. 

            But Ryan’s dad? George Ross II? He didn’t even like to drink at bars instead of in his own home. He never worked late. He didn’t have friends. There was no reason for him not to be home.

            Ryan shut the front door behind him and flipped on the lights and told himself not to freak out - which wasn’t super helpful, given that he was already definitely freaking out. Because if his dad was not at work and not at home then it meant something was wrong .

            Ryan started towards his dad’s bedroom, just in case, when he stopped statue-still in his tracks.

            The garage door was shut when he pulled in a minute ago. Had it been shut that morning?

            Ryan’s breath came shorter, like his lungs had lost half their capacity all at once.

            Then he ran.

            And damn the idea of not freaking out, of not panicking, because he didn’t have time to care one way or the other. He knocked a rug askew, ran into the kitchen, banged his hip against the island counter and fumbled with the door handle that led from the kitchen to the garage. The handle was slick, his hand was tremulous, and his heart was pounding up in his Adam’s apple.

            Ryan finally got a grip on the handle and yanked the door open. 

            No gaseous fumes enveloped him, but Ryan couldn’t remember if car exhaust was supposed to have a tangible scent or not. The driver’s side door was open. His eyes wouldn’t focus. He flipped on the light. 

            His dad was sprawled half-in and half-out of the car, head slumped on his shoulder. His eyes were closed. 

            Ryan took one step forward, then another, then another, and then he stood right before his dad. He shook his dad’s shoulder and couldn’t tell if his skin felt warm or not.

            There was no response.

            Ryan shook his dad’s shoulder once more, a little firmer. 

            His dad remained limp.

            Ryan took in as deep a breath as his stunted lungs could manage. He shook him again.

            His dad let out a soft, exhausted moan.

            Ryan blinked, and the image before him rewrote itself. His dad’s shoulders stuttered up and down with faltering breaths. The keys were out of the ignition, the car was definitely off. Ryan’s knees were almost too weak to hold him upright, and he gripped the top of the car door to stay on his feet. 

            After his breathing was enough to function, if nothing close to even, he walked away and opened the garage door to let in fresh air (just in case) and the warm glow of afternoon sunlight. Then he went inside and calmly called 911.

            This wasn’t the first time this had happened. The first time had been on Ryan’s eighth birthday, and when he called for help that time he screamed so hard that blood vessels in his eyes had burst and turned the whites a ghoulish red. The emergency operator sounded like she was holding back tears while she dispatched an ambulance to Ryan’s house, and Ryan and Spencer stayed up together all night at the Smith’s house.

            Every time after that got a little less outwardly melodramatic. Even so, Ryan never stopped feeling like the scared eight year old, screaming till his eyes went red: Dad wake up!

            Dispatches didn’t tend to freak out when adults called them and spoke in even tones. The woman on the line asked Ryan all the usual questions with the intensity of someone filling out a crossword. Was his father asleep, or really unconscious? How did his pulse feel? Was his breathing clear and unobstructed? Did he often drink to drunkenness? Did he often drink to the point of blacking out? Had this happened before? Recently?

            Unconscious, Ryan told her. Weak but steady. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. No.

            She told him someone would be there shortly, and Ryan went back out to the garage to sit in the backseat of the car, the doors all open. He listened to the sound of his dad breathing and tried to air out the stale vodka smell in the car.

            When the paramedics pulled up, sirens off, thank fuck, Ryan went to greet them. They loaded his dad up while a cheery faced guy barely older than Ryan clapped him on the back.

            “Your dad?” he said. He was smiling at Ryan, and what the fuck? Was that supposed to be friendly?

            Ryan nodded. He didn’t have the first fucking clue how to explain the way he felt worried and angry and ashamed all at once, but he knew he didn’t want this happy-go-lucky paramedic talking to him for a second longer. Nothing some well-meaning stranger could say would do anything to cheer him, and Ryan, for his part, did not want to be cheered. Nor did he want to be nice or polite. He did not particularly want to start screaming at the kindly paramedic, but he didn’t need to see the future to know it was becoming an increasingly likely outcome to this conversation.

            “Hey, I know this can’t be easy, but he’ll be alright,” said the paramedic, still smiling vapidly. “Sometimes a scare can be good in these situations.”

            Ryan did not scream at the smiling paramedic.

            “Didn’t help last time,” Ryan said. “Or the time before that. Anyway, I’ve got homework. Will someone call me when he’s cleared for visitors?”

            “Oh,” said the paramedic. Mercifully, he stopped smiling. “Um, I believe so, yeah.”

            “Super,” Ryan said. “No medical allergies, blood type O negative, I’ll be out later.” He walked away from the paramedic and slammed the front door shut and drew down the blinds. If his neighbors were staring, he at least didn’t have to see it.

            Ryan stood by the door for a minute, checking in with himself. His heartbeat wasn’t roaring, and his hands weren’t shaking too badly, so he didn’t think he was going to go into some massive freakout or crying jag. That was good. He left the lights off as he moved into his bedroom and lay down on his bed.

            Usually when this happened, he called Spencer. He’d only tried calling his mom once, and she hadn’t answered, so he didn’t bother trying again. In any case, Spencer or one of his parents always picked up the phone, brought him back to their house, made him dinner and told him he wasn’t imposing even when he clearly was. 

            Ryan could call Spencer now . He’d had their home phone number memorized from the time he was five years old. He could dial those seven digits in his sleep. 

            But this hadn’t happened since Ryan was 16. He was a legal adult now and not exactly in need of an emergency babysitter overnight. And even if he didn’t want to be alone (and God, he did not want to be alone) he didn’t know if Spencer would want to see him. 

            Spencer wouldn’t be cruel - he was Spencer . Ryan didn’t think he even knew how to be cruel, didn’t think Spencer could be mean if he tried. But if Spencer resented Ryan quietly? If he decided Ryan somehow orchestrated his dad’s alcohol poisoning just to ruin his stupid date? Ryan didn’t want Spencer to hate him any more than he apparently already did.

            The Smiths were out. Ryan was 18. He could handle it alone. His dad would get pumped full of electrolytes and in the morning Ryan would go pick him up and life would continue as it always had.

            He didn’t think his brain had calmed down enough to read, and he had no interest in going back out to the living room to turn on the TV, but he craved the illusion of human connection if he could not have the real thing.

            Fall Out Boy , he thought to himself, and he closed his eyes to visualize them. 

            He saw in his mind four boys dripping blood and shivering in an empty church. He saw the oldest one, Pete, walking through a dim forest with a fiery glow lighting his face, the red-headed punk meeting a girl and leaning in a little closer, Joe and Patrick standing in front of a dark mirror. Sometimes the visions lasted long enough to get the feel of the situation they were in, but often it was just flashes - fighting and flirting and patching one another up with dry jokes. Watching their adventures was strangely peaceful. It was stressful to see them fighting for their lives, but the after was nice. 

            Ryan felt longing throb in his chest as he watched them. Their camaraderie, the ease they all had around each other, the lack of responsibility - Ryan wished…

            Well, he didn’t exactly wish he could be one of them, not literally. Their music wasn’t exactly what he wanted to write and Chicago looked cold. But he wanted to have what they did. A group of friends - as in plural, as in more than one. A set of adventures stretching out before him. Being looked at like a super hero, worrying about the songs he wrote and not his dad’s BAC. 

            Sure, probably everyone in Fall Out Boy also had complicated family shit to deal with, but none of them were still living in the thick of it. They didn’t have to smell the vodka and hear the moaning of night terrors. They didn’t have to balance paying the water bill with going to high school. None of them were tucking their parents into bed on rough nights. Plus, Ryan didn’t know them. The Fall Out Boy of his imagination didn’t have to suffer any mundane tortures. He watched the adventures, the highlight reel. No absent parents or jackasses at school or lyric-thieving Mormons showed up in their supercut. 

            He slowed on an average night in his mind: a show at a dark and dingy venue. Boys soaked in sweat, girls in cheap makeup, lots and lots and lots of PBR. 

            Ryan just kept watching them talk and play and flirt and mosh and at some point, the ambience of the Chicago hardcore scene put him to sleep. 

            His dreams varied as they always did when he was upset. A woman with her head in her hands, speaking to herself in quiet French. A man in an office, tapping his desk and staring at his phone. Adam kneeling in the dark with a rosary in his hand. Then - the boy.

            Ryan hadn’t gone looking for his dream boy, not since he had met the lookalike Brendon Urie. That had made it easier to lie to himself, to tell himself it was not the same person. If he could make no comparison, he could tell himself they were different people.

            But this was clearly the boy, clearly Brendon, and clearly devastated by something.

            Ryan’s chest ached to look at him.

            It looked like a fiction invented in Ryan’s mind, like the nonsensical sort of dreams regular people had. Brendon was wearing a bright purple hoodie and in the desert, in the dark, in the middle of      goddamn nowhere, it looked like. But it had to be a vision, because the texture of the pale light was unmistakably real - the stars, the moon, the subtle, reflective glow on Brendon’s skin, it was all real. Down to the shine on the tear tracks.

            The boy - Brendon - the only boy in the world - was crying. And Ryan felt the same sweetsad ache he always felt around the boy. He had to help him the way he had to inhale. It was compulsory. All he wanted was for this boy (Brendon) to smile again.

            Ryan moved towards him like the zoom of a camera. Brendon’s lips moved slightly, but Ryan couldn’t hear what he was saying, even in the thin silence of desert night. 

            Ryan drew the vision closer still, which proved almost at once to be unnecessary as Brendon raised his voice in the same moment.

            “ I’m being followed by a moonshadow

            Moonshadow, moonshadow. ” 

            Brendon, who swore he couldn’t sing, was singing. And his voice - fuck, his voice. His voice was crisp and sweet as champagne, soft and safe as a weighted blanket, clear and bright as the stars.

            “ And if I ever lose my legs ,” Brendon sang. “ I won’t moan and I won’t beg. Oh if I ever lose my legs, I won’t have to walk no more. ”

            Ryan was hit with a wave of nostalgia so forcible it took his breath away. His dad used to play Cat Stevens. He used to sing this song to make Ryan laugh.

            The song flowed through Brendon like a spell and pierced straight through Ryan’s heart. Brendon kept singing and Ryan kept listening, trying to commit this vision to memory, trying to keep it behind his eyelids from here to eternity. He wished Brendon weren’t sad, but his voice - Ryan could listen to him sing forever. 

            He changed key at the bridge -

            “ Didn’t take long to find me

            And are you gonna sleep tonight? ”

            And as he did, something in his voice seemed to hitch, then release. When he went into the chorus again Ryan was blown back by the energy in his voice - not a semi-sweet lullaby, but a force of magic, of nature, the sand rippling out around him in waves. 

            Ryan thought for a moment this was in his head, but quickly realized that this too was real. As Brendon sang, grains of sand rose up around him, trembling at first but growing steadier as they climbed higher. There were a few at first, then hundreds, then a deluge - sand rising and twisting to form a living column in the air around him.

            And Brendon - his voice was still beautiful, probably, but it was hard to hear how he sounded technically anymore. His voice had taken on a new caste and texture. Ryan still heard it in his ears but now also felt it behind his eyes and vibrating in his bones, thrumming through the air less like an interruption and more like it had merged with the air and become omnipresent. His voice felt like the heartblood of the universe and Ryan felt it everywhere .

            Ryan tried to clear his head - to at least think around the all-powerful music. When his eyes finally focused again, he saw that though the cyclone of sand remained, Brendon had disappeared.

            No, that was not quite right. Brendon was no longer on the ground, but cradled in the middle of the cyclone, his eyes closed, mouth open as he sang and hung in mid air. The dry hurricane swirled and held him aloft at least twenty feet about the ground. 

            He looked agonized, tear tracks still glimmering under the moonlight, and Ryan’s chest ached with a foreign fierceness. He’d never felt so devastated on behalf of someone else. 

            “Brendon-” Ryan said, certain that no noise would escape him and no one would hear him. He was shocked, then, when his name rang out across the empty desert. Brendon’s eyes flew open and he stared down directly at Ryan, and-

            Ryan sat upright in his bed with a gasp. 

            It was fully dark in his room, the sky outside an unusually thick and velvety black, hanging down with oppressive weight. Ryan felt fuzzy and disoriented, his eyes refusing to focus and his fingers twitching like he’d been pounding energy drinks for hours. He still half-felt like he was dreaming as he turned on his bedside lamp and swung his feet out on the floor, holding his head in his hands while his temples throbbed.

            Could it have just been a dream? It had the texture of prophetic reality, had more senses than mere sight and sound, and yet, how could it have been real? Brendon told Ryan he couldn’t sing, for one, he had no car to get out to mid-nowhere, for another, and by far most importantly, no one Ryan had ever heard of could summon sand-nadoes.

            Then again, what alternate explanations were there? Ryan had either had the most realistic dream of his entire life, or Brendon fucking Urie had the most batshit crazy powers that Ryan, the Oracle, had ever heard of. Both were really stretching the limits of possibility, but only one could be true.

            And obviously, Ryan had to know.

            He pulled his head out of his hands, rolled back his shoulders, and thought about Brendon as hard as he could - both the nerdy twerp from Spencer’s garage and the ethereal character that lived in his dreams, just in case his brain couldn’t find one version of the two. Even with the certainty that accompanied Ryan’s visions that the two boys were one in the same, he was still having a hard time reconciling the idea in his mind. He tried anyway - Brendon the dork, Brendon the singer, Brendon the enigma. Ryan conjured his face in his mind and pushed forward by less than an hour.

            Brendon was in the desert, or he would be very soon. Walking through sand waste at random, or so it looked, and crying. Or, would be crying very soon. He was near enough to a road, though, that Ryan saw a faded interstate sign half buried in the dirt - an old, graffitied sign that he recognized.

            Good enough.

            Brendon was probably already alone, but he wouldn’t be alone soon.

Notes:

did you think I had forgotten this? I think it would be less embarrassing if I had tbh. My playlist for this fic is five hours long.

Chapter 10: Saul's Epiphany

Summary:

Ryan makes peace with his truth and learns Brendon's.

Ryan was disoriented in the dark of his room, but he didn’t pause to turn the house lights back on. His visions didn’t come with a convenient ticking clock at the bottom, and as a result, he didn’t know just how much of a rush he had to be in. He stuffed his feet back into his converse and yanked the front door shut as he jumped from the porch, not bothering to lock it.

Brendon. Mystery boy. Brendon. Dream boy. He was no longer deluding himself into thinking they were not one and the same -- he’d been dreaming of Brendon for all those years, slipping into the safe space of his mind and letting him sing Ryan to sleep.

At least, he thought he had. If it turned out Brendon really couldn’t sing in real life, maybe he’d reconsider, but… the voice.

Like a fairy tale, Ryan thought a little hysterically, turning the ignition and revving Matilda to life. Like the Little Mermaid. He would hear Brendon sing and the annoying little twerp would turn into… what? Ryan’s princess?

He gunned out of the driveway and let the roar of his baby’s overworked engine drown out thoughts of tomorrow. Tomorrow would be dealt with in due time. Today, all Ryan had to do was save Brendon. Find the boy. Save the day. Solve the mystery.

Sure, yeah. He was as likely to be a hero as his dad was to teetotaling. Still, he supposed he had to try something, right?

Luckily, Ryan recognized the sign that Brendon had biked past in his vision - a big green rectangle in plain arial font, so unlike all the billboards for girls and games that marked the roads to and from the strip. This one was notable for being half buried and for the bullet holes in the top right corner that appeared after Nirvana had driven through town and had a run in with an ifrit. Ryan and Spencer used to drive out there and shoot bb guns at the sign, but they were barely able to ding it. 

Ryan shook thoughts of Spencer out of his head. He knew the way, that was what mattered.

He drove out in silence, not wanting to take his eyes off the highway to turn the radio on. The dashboard clock told him it was one in the morning - late enough that all of the day-to-day Clark County residents were asleep, but early enough that no one was stumbling home from the bars just yet. An odd little moment of peace in the midst of all the noise, which would be nice if it weren’t so eerie. There were no other cars on the road and the highway itself was leeched colorless in the moonlight - black road, white sand, black sky, white moon. It was so dark and cold and uncanny that Ryan wanted to dip into his visions once again to remind himself of warmth and light and the boy, the singer, the music. 

But he also didn’t want to careen into a sand dune, so he kept his eyes on the road and his hands at 10 and 2 and pressed his toes infinitesimally harder down on the pedal.

Then, glinting green and white holographic in the yellow beams of his headlights - the road sign.

Ryan slowed his car and pulled over, shivering over the rumble strip and edging into the sand. The ground hissed and shifted under Matilda’s tires until he eased down on the brakes, shifted the car into park, and turned the car off.

The dark and the quiet pounced on him, blanketing him in ominous silence while he waited for his eyes to adjust. He opened the door and shivered in his t-shirt, then he stood tall and waited.

Visions of the future were not always excessively reliable in terms of discerning distance. Following the narrative Ryan was looking for more than the actual walkable space between events was useful when he just needed information, but this time Ryan was trying to get somewhere. He’d thought, seeing Brendon in his dream, that he couldn’t be that far from the marker of the interstate sign that Ryan had noticed. He had thought - had gone so far as to believe! - that he would be able to hear Brendon singing from the edge of the highway.

But all Ryan could hear was the wind. 

He stretched out with his mind again, but couldn’t find any new information. He could replay Brendon singing Cat Stevens to himself in the dark, but when he tried to push back earlier, to what Father Merrin had been teaching him, he hit a wall of goo - thick black sludge that blotted out anything else that would be even remotely of use to him in that moment. Ryan tried to squint through the blackness, but he felt a sharp pain building behind his eyes and drew back.

So, he thought, he would have to do this the old fashioned way. 

Taking one wistful look at his car, Ryan started trudging out into the desert. He could see well enough in the light of the moon and stars, but he wished it were a little brighter, that he knew where he was going or if he was walking in a straight line, after all. He turned back to see the ever further away dark shape of his car, and adjusted his aim when he started to veer. As soon as he couldn’t see his car, Ryan decided, he would turn back. He didn’t want anyone to die, but that included himself. If Brendon wanted to be rescued, he shouldn’t have ridden off into the middle of the fucking desert, anyways.

He was far enough into the sand waste that his car was barely the size of his thumbnail on the horizon when he heard Brendon. The very first, faint strains of “Moonshadow” carried across the deep desert night, and Ryan began to run. 

Running across sand is never as easy as it looks, and after having lived in Summerville his whole life, Ryan didn’t even think it looked easy anymore. His feet failed to grip and his shoes grew loose and every misstep rolled his ankle till he was certain he would simply break his legs and never even speak to Brendon.

But his legs held him up and he heard Brendon singing to himself, louder with every stride Ryan took towards him.

“And if I ever lose my legs

I won’t moan and I won’t beg

Oh, if I ever lose my legs-”

Brendon was seated, cross legged, on top of a miniature dune. He wasn’t particularly high up, nothing Ryan would need to crane his neck for or anything, but elevated as on a pedestal. And as he approached the chorus again, Ryan watched as the grains of sand around his seated form began to twitch.

Though Ryan had been hurrying, when he saw the very earth around him start moving he found himself quite frozen. The sand shifted and began to swirl, not in the tiny eddies kicked up by minor winds, but a large, deliberate curve around the dune, around Brendon. The particles of sand hung low to the ground at first, shifting so subtly that Ryan might not have noticed if he hadn’t known what he was looking for, but with every passing moment the wind grew stronger and the sand blew more insistently, the land itself rising around the singer piece by minuscule piece.

Ryan, for his part, gaped. He should go, he should help, but he was dumbstruck by the image of Brendon in the eye of what was turning into… not a sandstorm, it wasn’t chaotic enough to qualify.

A sand tornado, then. A sand-nado? Ridiculous, and yet.

“ Yeah if I ever lose my mouth,” he sang, and Ryan took a step closer without thinking about it, drawn to the boy’s voice like a lodestone.

“Or my teeth, north and south,” he sang. 

Ryan crept closer, marveling at the way Brendon’s voice was not drowned out by the sand storm, but somehow magnified by it. The wind was like an amplifier and Ryan was first row as he trudged up the dune, closer and closer still to him.

“Oh if I ever lose my mouth,” Brendon sang. 

Ryan crested the dune, looked up and saw Brendon all but glowing in the moonlight, his unlined face turned up to the night sky, his limbs all relaxed in the midst of the chaos.

“Brendon!” Ryan called.

Or, he tried to.

The wind that amplified Brendon’s voice like a microphone robbed Ryan of his volume. Gritty sand clung to the insides of Ryan’s cheeks and he coughed, but made no noise, nothing audible but the wind and the song Brendon sand. 

“Bren-!”

Sand flew into Ryan’s throat and he fell forward, coughing.

“I won’t have to talk-”

Ryan scrambled to his feet and lunged for Brendon. He meant to grab him by the shoulder (or ankle, low down as he was) and get his attention, he wanted to wake him from the trance he seemed to be stuck in, but instead he found himself caught in the current of the sandstorm and he was dragged up into the air, flying.

It was not a peaceful, joyous sort of flight. Ryan was washed in circles around an apparently oblivious Brendon, helpless and battered as a kitten in a dryer. He closed his eyes to keep the worst of the earth and sand and rocks out of them, but he could feel it grating at his skin, slicing through his unprotected arms and pocking him on his cheeks. 

Ryan fell head of feet over elbows over hips as he rolled through the air, caught in a wind so strong he knew it would rip him apart if the sand didn’t tear him to bloody ribbons first. He had the thought that this would be a stupid way to die.

With the last tatters of his coherent thought, Ryan tried to cast out his mind’s eye, to see what would happen mere seconds before it did. Brendon’s hands were outstretched, his voice still filling the air, echoing off of nothing, but Ryan was close, if he stretched his hand out-

Ryan reached blindly towards the voice he’d listened to for a decade. His hand caught on warm solid flesh, and after a millisecond’s jolt of palpable surprise, he felt fingers grip back. 

Their hands gripped one another, and Ryan was anchored to this boy, held more tightly than he could remember. He gripped Brendon back just as fervently - not only to save himself, but so Brendon could also know what it was to be held by someone who meant it. 

Brendon pulled till Ryan’s face was clear of the sandblast, and Ryan opened his eyes. 

Wide, dark eyes stared up at him.

“Ryan?” Brendon asked.

Then Ryan was falling, and his life was flashing before his eyes. 

Not the life he had lived up to that point, but his future. The road ahead which had always been barred to him was suddenly vivid, not in narrative, but in images.

Stage lights rose up and blinded him, enough roses pelting him to drown in. There were too many sweaty limbs, boys piled on top of one another. A massive dog that glowed like the dying embers of a fire, a mountain tumbling forward, calling his name, a ghostly gray ship rising from stormy waters, fire and rain and screaming and blood, cameras flashing and the end of the fucking world.

And all of this was background noise to the face that took the forefront of Ryan’s mind.

In every vision Brendon was there, sometimes awkward and teenaged, then older, devastatingly handsome, his features sharp and then angry content and sad and always, always, always smiling at Ryan, the kind of smile he’d waited his whole life to see, a smile that said he saw him, he knew him, he loved him. Brendon’s face, older, lined, younger and soft, his warm brown eyes showing up over and over and over again, the throughline that stitched every version of Ryan’s future together. 

There were no words, but the message was clear. Brendon was his future. His everything.

He was going to love him. He saw visions of Brendon with lines around his eyes, two gnarled hands intertwined, and felt longing like he’d never known before. His future was mutable where others were not, except not this time. He was going to love Brendon Urie, he just didn’t yet.

Ryan tried to make the pictures make sense, tried to resolve their nonexistent friendship with a future where they were… whatever they were, but it was moving too fast, and when he kept thinking his mental protests, the visions faded again.

The song stopped, the cyclone of sand evaporated, and Ryan came crashing down on top of Brendon, both of them falling back down onto the sand dune in a heap.

Ryan had never been so delighted to be on solid ground before in his life.

“Oh my God,” he croaked, his voice rasping exactly like it had been power washed with desert terrain. “Oh my God that was so stupid. Oh, motherfucking ow!”

Ryan scrubbed sand off his face and didn’t make some embarrassing noise when his hands came away peppered with blood. He brushed off his clothes next, more to have something to do while his shaking hands and breath steadied than to actually clean himself off. He’d be shaking the powdery sand from his shoes for a week at least.

After a second, he turned back to Brendon, concerned that he hadn’t said anything yet. It would be just the way his day was going if Ryan had come with the intention of helping Brendon and had broken his back by falling on him instead.

Brendon did not appear paralyzed, however, nor did he seem in any way broken or injured. He was sitting upright, staring blankly at Ryan. Then Ryan blinked, and Brendon’s lip wobbled once in warning.

And only then did Brendon actually burst into sobs. 

Ryan was prepared for a lot, but he wasn’t prepared for tears. And Brendon was sobbing like an asthmatic bulldog, snot dripping over his lips, shoulders convulsing, eyes screwed up. He wailed aloud, the noise startling in the sudden silence, and Ryan fought the urge to move backwards, flee the scene of the emotion.

Brendon continued to cry. He rubbed his wrist across his nose, smearing the snot without ridding his face of it, and he put his face in his hands as though somehow to hide his outburst way too late.

And Ryan should say something, he was almost sure of it, he should ask if Brendon was okay or offer him a tissue (though of course, he didn’t have a tissue) but all he could do was stare in borrowed mortification, his face growing warm and sticky as tiny droplets of blood beaded down from his sand-scraped skin.

“I’m- so- sorry!” Brendon gasped out after what couldn’t have been more than a minute or two, but felt like a sticky, torturous hour.

“Um,” said Ryan. When Spencer cried back when they were kids, Ryan had cleaned up his scraped knees and told jokes till he calmed down, but Brendon wasn’t a frightened seven year old and there was nothing to put a Band-Aid on.

“I didn’t- I didn’t mean to!” Brendon said. The waterworks had not slowed substantially. “My- your- I’m so sorry!”

Ryan knelt down next to him, put one very tentative hand on Brendon’s thigh, trying to avoid the river of snot.

“Did you know that snot is just tears?” Ryan asked.

Brendon stopped hyperventilating. He stared up at Ryan with his big-

- pretty-

-brown eyes. 

“What?” he said.

“Snot,” Ryan said. “Um. Your snot, it’s not like, a separate thing that gets triggered when you start to cry? Only your tear ducts get activated, and then like, the tears that run backwards loosen up the mucus in your sinuses so snot is a little thicker, but it’s mostly just tears. Tears and like, eroded boogers.”

Brendon stared at him some more.

“What?!” he said again.

“I’m trying to distract you so that you calm down,” Ryan said. “Is it working?”

“Um,” Brendon shook his head side to side. “Maybe a little? I’m confused, now.”

“Why? I thought that was a fairly succinct explanation-”

“Why are you trying to calm me down?” Brendon asked, then sniffled, fighting a battle long-since lost with the orifices of his face. 

“Because… you’re… crying?” Ryan said. 

Brendon made a noise of frustration in the back of his throat.

“What-” he hiccuped. “What are you doing here?”

Ryan swallowed.

“It’s kind of a funny story…” he said. “But, I mean, what are YOU doing here? It’s the middle of the night and the middle of the desert and you can’t even drive. How did you get here? Why did you get here?”

Brendon sniffled again before giving up and mopping his face with the lower half of his t-shirt. 

“I’m sorry,” he repeated again - it was starting to get kind of annoying, all the apologies from Brendon when Ryan hadn’t the foggiest idea of what he was apologizing for. “I didn’t- I came out here to be alone. I didn’t expect you’d come out here. I didn’t expect anyone would.”

“Yeah, nothing like hosting a one-man concert for the rattlesnakes,” Ryan said. “The hell?”

“I-” Brendon hesitated again. “I wouldn’t have done it if I could have avoided it, it’s just it builds up and I have to- I had to do something or I was gonna explode and no one was supposed to be out here!”

Ryan surveyed Brendon.

“The sand…” he said. “You were… doing that?”

It made sense in one way. The way the sand had seemed to echo the sound of Brendon’s voice, the way his vocal power increased with the magnitude of the storm and the way it stopped when Brendon did. It matched him. Brendon was completely unharmed. The event was incredibly localized.

It didn’t make sense in that Ryan had never heard of anything like it. He’d been watching impossible things happen in his mind’s eye all his life and no one had power that intense, that overwhelming. He’d seen vampires and werewolves, demons and gods, lightning at people’s fingertips and women walking on water, but he’d never seen someone controlling the elements like that. Powerful and effortless.

Ryan let himself be boggled for just a minute before defaulting to all the Sherlock Holmes he’d read as a kid. Once you had eliminated the impossible, whatever remained had to be the truth. The sandstorm couldn’t have been random. No one else was out there. Brendon had created that vortex - apparently with his voice.

To Ryan, it was a revelation. But even as he processed his world turning upside down, Brendon’s face crumpled still further.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” he said. His voice had gone from wet to ragged. “Please, I’m begging, you can’t tell anybody!”

“Tell anybody what?” Ryan asked. “That you’ve got… magic sand powers?”

“I’m serious!” Brendon cried. “Please, they’ll take me away, they’ll lock me up, they’ll-!”

“Who?” Ryan asked, and Brendon looked so frightened that Ryan felt vaguely like he was being mean, but he genuinely was baffled as to who exactly Brendon was afraid of. He knew the latter day parents had to be on the stricter side, but if they didn’t know, Brendon must have acquired the powers recently, right?

“Promise me!” Brendon pleaded. “Just- you can keep hating me, and you don’t ever have to see me again, just please, please promise me you won’t tell anyone!”

“Okay!” Ryan held his hands up. “I won’t tell anybody, but for what it’s worth, I don’t know what I’m not telling anyone?”

“You just saw,” Brendon said. “I can do- it’s not normal, I can’t-”

“Hey,” Ryan said, feeling vaguely alarmed as Brendon’s eyes started to get misty again. “Hey, it’s okay, man. I’m not gonna tell anyone.”

Brendon sniffled and nodded. 

“Thanks,” he whispered. He breathed heavy for another moment, then looked Ryan in the eye with what seemed like Herculean effort.

“Are- are you okay?”

Just to be certain, Ryan patted himself down and shook out his limbs. He was bleeding a little from some of the places where the sand and small pebbles had gouged his skin deeply, but nowhere was the blood properly flowing from him, and while he felt sore and winded, he wasn’t deeply in pain.

“Fine,” he said. “Just, um, shocked, mostly. I didn’t expect any of that.”

“What were you doing out here?” Brendon asked again, despairingly.

“Oh,” Ryan said. “Ah. Midnight drive. Clear my head, you know?”

Ryan had not previously thought Brendon possible of giving him a withering glare, but he did then.

“A midnight drive?” said Brendon. “I’m like, over a mile from the road.”

Ryan thought about being mean, but the night was too clear and cold and there was no one to put on a performance of antipathy for.

“Alright, fair enough,” Ryan said. “I’ll be honest if you will.”

Brendon looked hesitant, but nodded nonetheless. Ryan sat beside him, the two of them wedged together atop the sand dune but not face to face, because Ryan could only stare into those big brown eyes for so long before he lost his mind entirely.

“Let’s get some basic stuff out of the way first,” Ryan said, not stalling for time, but not not stalling for time. “It’ll make it easier. So. You’re… magic?”

Brendon snorted, arms wrapped around his knees.

“I’m wrong,” he said. Ryan frowned.

“Alright, we’ll come back to that later, but you definitely did the sand thing and you know you did it, so for the sake of time - you’re magic. Yes?”

Brendon nodded.

“Great,” Ryan said. “Okay, so then. Um. Me too?”

“What do you mean, you too?”

“I mean, I’m also magic,” Ryan said, and in his head this would have been revelatory, a beautiful moment, and in his head Brendon wouldn’t be sullen and crying, and everything wouldn’t be awful. “I mean, I can’t do that, the sand stuff. But I- I’m the oracle.”

Brendon didn’t speak, just made a questioning face at Ryan. 

“Right,” Ryan said, trying not to be disappointed. “Okay. I see the future? And I saw you, and I thought you might be in trouble, so… I came to… rescue… you…”

It sounded lame and implausible out loud, and based on the new, perplexed face Brendon was making, he thought the same thing.

“I didn’t know you were the one controlling it,” said Ryan, defensive. “I mean, obviously if I had I would’ve known you weren’t in trouble, but I just saw you in the middle of this, like, sand-nado, and so I thought you needed help.”
“I- that isn’t- sand-nado?”

“A tornado of sand!” Ryan said, feeling dumber and more useless by the minute. “I had to do something! I’m sorry for interrupting, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“But you hate me!” Brendon said.

“What?!” said Ryan. 

And good lord, somehow Brendon looked tearful again.

“Don’t lie!” he said. “You hate me! It’s obvious that you hate me!”

“But-!” Ryan sputtered. “I mean- I thought you were in trouble!”

“So you do hate me!”

“No? I mean, maybe? I don’t know! What does it matter? I wouldn’t leave you to die if I did, and I don’t think I do. Hate you, that is. I found you super irritating, but I didn’t hate you.”

“You quit your own band because of me,” Brendon said. “You told me to never call you again. You. Hate. Me.”

Ryan shrugged.

“I was… shorter than I should have been earlier, on the phone,” he said. “But in my defense I’ve- look, I’m sorry. I had a really bad day. And a really bad week. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you, but… yeah. I won’t say you don’t annoy me from time to time, but I don’t hate you. And even if I did, I still would have tried to help, if I could. I’m not in the business of just letting people die because they irritate me.”

Brendon just kept staring at Ryan, his face half slack and half wobbly, like he was indeed still on the very knife-edge of bursting into tears.

“Okay, new subject,” Ryan said. If Brendon wanted to keep thinking of Ryan as a heartless villain, Ryan was hardly in the mood to fight the assumption. “Who are you hiding this from? I’m not gonna tell anyone if you don’t want me to, but is this a secret from… your parents?”

Brendon, who had gone very still, nodded once.

“Okay,” Ryan said. “Easy-peasy. I’ve never even met your parents, so-”

“Or anyone!” Brendon blurted. “You can’t- they’ll put me in, like, Area 51 or something, do experiments on me-”

“What?” Ryan laughed out loud. He felt bad, as Brendon adopted the kicked-puppy look on his face again, but he couldn’t help it.

“Sorry,” Ryan shook his head. “Um. Why do you think you’re going to be locked up in Area 51?”

“Because this isn’t normal,” Brendon said. “I’m not normal, I’m- I’m sick, I’m wrong, I’m evil, and-”

“Whoa, whoa, hold up,” Ryan said. “Evil?! What makes you evil? This is just something you can do, right? Something you were born with, like the ability to run or snap your fingers.”

“No,” Brendon said. “It’s dangerous, I’m dangerous, I hurt people!”

“Like who?”

Brendon reached out and stroked Ryan’s face with the tips of his fingers. Ryan watched as he drew his hand back into his chest, holding up evidence of Ryan’s blood on his skin. His fingertips were bright red - even though Ryan was almost sure he hadn’t been bleeding much. 

“Okay, well, that was my own fault,” Ryan said, the phrase uncomfortably familiar. Ryan’s bad. Ryan tripped. Ryan’s clumsy. “I didn’t think about how abrasive sand was when I just kinda ran at you. You didn’t suck me up Wizard of Oz style.”

“It’s not really a tornado.”

“Regardless. You didn’t mean to hurt me. And you wouldn’t have hurt me if I’d been smart about it.”

“It’s evil,” Brendon repeated. And I’m not supposed to- I mean, it’s supposed to be gone. I’m not supposed to do this anymore, but I had to, it hurts, and I didn’t- I’m sorry!”

“Hey, hey, please don’t start crying again,” Ryan pleaded. “It’s not evil, you didn’t hurt me, no apology needed. You’re not even alone! Lots of people aren’t human, they have these incredible powers-”

“What do you mean, not human? ” Brendon asked. 

“Well,” Ryan said. The sand under his butt was uncomfortable, but it was better than standing. “I mean… it’s not natural in that humans can’t do that. Unless you’re a magic practitioner, and I mean, not to stereotype, but your family- that is to say, I figure you’re not doing this intentionally?”

Ryan waited till Brendon shook his head no, then continued.

“Right, so, you’re not human. How long have you been able to do this? Or, do you know what this all is already?”

Brendon wrapped his arms around his knees, curled in as small as possible. He looked small, too. Small and very vulnerable. When it seemed like he wasn’t going to answer, Ryan prompted him again.

“Did you inherit it?” he asked. “Can either of your parents do what you do?”

Brendon shook his head.

“Okay,” Ryan said. “So-”

“My aunt could,” Brendon said. “They said she could do this. Not like me.”

“Okay!” Ryan said. “So, it’s genetic. I’ve never heard of a species like this before, but-”

“It’s not supposed to work like this,” Brendon said. “I- it’s supposed to be water.”

After a pause, Ryan guessed:

“Like a siren?”

Brendon flinched, just a little.

“Like a demon,” he said. “They- where my mom’s from, there’s people who can control the water. The ocean. They say it’s a song in their blood, but it wasn’t supposed to be me! She didn’t have it, and my dad- I can’t be like this. I’m not supposed to. I’m the reason we’re even here, in the desert.”

“Wait, didn’t you grow up here?” Ryan asked.

“No,” Brendon said, voice thick with misery. “No, I- I’m from Hawaii. My parents moved here to turn it off. To try and stop me from being a monster.”

Ryan took a moment to briefly reorganize his thoughts. Brendon was not just a guy with a tan, his skin was that shade. And his parents knew he had powers, but perhaps not the extent of it. And they moved to stop his powers from growing stronger, which meant-

“How did that work?” Ryan asked.

Brendon’s shoulders caved forward, his body slumping in on itself like discarded laundry.

“It’s just water,” he said. “It’s supposed to be water. When I sang, the water danced. That’s how it is for- for things like me. We moved to the desert, where my dad grew up so there would be no ocean. So that I could do that anymore, make people drown with my voice. But I loved singing, and then the earth started- now it’s not water. Now it’s land.”

Ryan fidgeted, burying his fingers down deep into the sand as he thought about this. He thought it might be considered rude if he told Brendon that his parents sounded like psychotic abusive zealots, but he wasn’t sure what else he could say.

“They saw it once,” Brendon continued, negating the need for Ryan to say anything just yet. “I was singing along in the car… they didn’t like it, but I was little, and it was, like, Disney. I didn’t know how NOT to sing. And this wave of dust started to follow the car and so they covered my mouth and-”

Brendon shook his head. 

Ryan pondered the conversation in silence for a moment, worrying over what exactly to say.

“If you think it’s evil, why were you out here?” he asked.

Brendon’s miserable face drew even longer.

“I can’t just… not,” he said. “If I ignore it for too long it hurts. So I go out where I can be alone. Where I won’t hurt anybody else.”

Ryan decided that pushing Brendon any further was likely just going to result in more tears, so he gave up on questioning him. Instead he scooted a little closer, their knees brushing.

“It’s not evil,” Ryan said. “It’s not wrong. You’re magic, Brendon. That’s not a bad thing.”

“It is,” Brendon said. “You wouldn’t get it.”

“I’ve got powers, too,” Ryan said. “It’s not evil, it’s just something I’m born with. What makes powers evil?”
Brendon hiccupped.

“It’s not natural,” he insisted. 

“Neither are Pop Tarts, but I’ve seen you eat an entire family sized box of them in one sitting,” Ryan said. “It’s not evil, Brendon.”

Ryan hadn’t said his name much (had he ever said it before?) but while it tasted unfamiliar in his mouth, he found he liked the shape of it on his tongue. It was a name he could grow fond of saying.

A jolt rushed through him with knowledge of the future - not a vision, not the kind of knowing that came from powers, but a different kind of Knowing - a kind that came from his gut. He realized with a feeling like a static shock mixed with the stomach-swooping sensation of the first drop on a roller coaster that he could fall in love with Brendon. The sudden surety of his vision could snap into place just like that. He could fall for the fairy tale boy with the kind eyes and the magic voice easy as falling asleep. 

He wouldn’t let himself, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t - but oh, Ryan realized half between elation and horror, he could.

The moment passed and Ryan shoved that thought to the bottom of his mind, locked it up, swallowed the key.

Ryan reached out with confidence that did not belong to himself and took Brendon’s hand in his. 

“We’re magic, Brendon,” he insisted. “You’re not evil. I don’t hate you. And it’s kind of freezing out here right now. Do you wanna come back to mine?”

Brendon blinked up at him.

“Am I allowed?”

“Nobody’s home right now,” Ryan said airily. “I’m king of the castle tonight, so let’s go have a slumber party.”

Brendon stared at Ryan, his eyes enormous and his face still splotchy red from the tears.

“It’s more a demand than a request,” Ryan hinted. “I can’t, in good conscience, just abandon you to the elements, especially not in your emotionally vulnerable state. You could get eaten by a tumbleweed or mauled by lost college kids, high out of their mind on whatever the Elvis impersonators sold them.”

Brendon bit his lip, like Ryan had him right on the edge of giggling.

Laugh, pleaded a traitorous voice in the back of Ryan’s head. Please, please, laugh for me.

“I don’t understand this,” Brendon said. “It’s a lot to take in. You don’t hate me? And other people have… powers?”

“There’s more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy,” Ryan quoted. “You think you’re weird? I have dreams about a vegan half-vampire out in Chicago sometimes.”

That did it. Brendon giggled, and the part of Ryan that was annoyed by Brendon’s laugh was oddly absent, the space replaced with an unnamed fondness.

“C’mon,” Ryan said. He got to his feet and tried not to wince, sure that if Brendon could see he actually was hurt at all, it would undo all the good Ryan had just taken great pains to ensure. He stretched out his hand, and when Brendon grasped it, Ryan dragged him up to his feet. 

“Slumber party?” Brendon asked, voice full of trepidation. “You swear you’re not going to drop me off at, like, a lab, or the CIA?”

“How would I drop you off at the CIA?” Ryan asked. “Do you know their address? I don’t. I assumed it was in DC, you know, several thousand miles from here?” When Brendon still looked unconvinced, Ryan sighed and stuck out his pinky finger. “I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m here to help, and tonight, we’re just gonna rest up and try to make sense of this, okay?”

Brendon looked at the outstretched finger like a venomous snake. But he clasped his pinky around Ryan’s eventually, and Ryan began marching back in the direction of the highway, sand sloughing down into his shoes the whole time.

---

“So, your place?” Brendon said. “You said your dad’s not home?”

“Yup,” Ryan said. “Just us.”

Brendon nodded, so Ryan began walking back to the car. Perhaps Brendon could take a hint and not ask follow up questions, he thought, but he didn’t hold out much hope. And sure enough, not thirty seconds had passed before -

“Where is he, then?”

Ryan sighed. He thought about lying for half a second, then decided it wasn’t worth it.

“Hospital,” he said shortly.

“Oh my God,” Brendon said. “Is he okay?”

“Well, they’re going to discharge him in the morning if that’s what you mean,” Ryan said.

Ryan wasn’t looking at him, but he could almost hear the confused face Brendon was making when he next spoke.

“Is he sick or something? Does he actually have a rare Yugoslavian blood disorder?”

Ryan heaved a sigh.

“He doesn’t have a blood disorder,” he said, and since there was no point dodging the question forever, added: “He’s an alcoholic, that’s all. He drinks all the time.”

When he did glance at Brendon this time, the boy’s eyes had gone all Bambi-wide again. Ryan sighed again.

“It’s not like you’re thinking,” he said.

“I didn’t say anything,” he said quickly.

“Everyone thinks it,” Ryan said. “They watch a bunch of shitty Lifetime movies and assume ‘drunk’ equals ‘abusive’ and that since he drinks I must be getting knocked around like some background Stephen King character, but that’s not it.”

“I didn’t- I was just concerned-” Brendon said.

“Well, don’t be,” Ryan said, knowing he was being unnecessarily harsh. “He doesn’t hit me. I don’t think he’s that coordinated when he’s drunk.”

More bitterness seeped into his voice than he’d anticipated, but Ryan didn’t let it break his stride.

“And he’s in the hospital?” Brendon asked softly. 

“Alcohol poisoning, I assume,” Ryan said. “He’s built up something of a tolerance, so sometimes he drinks so much to get drunk that it just. I dunno. Shuts down the system. He was unconscious when I got home today.”

He waited for Brendon to say “I’m sorry,” but he didn’t.

“Does this happen a lot?” he asked. 

“I don’t know,” Ryan said after a pause. “What do you count as a lot?”

“I guess I don’t have a very good gauge for that,” Brendon said. “More than two or three times?” 

“Definitely,” Ryan sighed.”This was the first time in a while, but it happens. He’ll get an IV to rehydrate him while he sleeps it off, pump him full of vitamins, and he’ll be fine in the morning. That’s how it always goes.”

Brendon seemed to consider his response carefully, which Ryan appreciated. 

“Is it hard?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” Ryan said honestly. “Usually, I guess, but it’s like. It’s hard in a way that’s so repetitive that it doesn’t feel hard? Like, it’s hard that I’m used to. Does that make any sense?”

“I think so,” Brendon said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Ryan said. “Waste of a perfectly good apology, that. I’ll drive him back home tomorrow afternoon and he’ll drink a little more water than usual and then it’ll start up again. That’s just how it is.”

There was a beat of silence, nothing but the hiss of sand under their feet making noise.

“Are you mad?” Brendon asked.

“Yes,” Ryan said. “But not at anyone in particular.”

“Not your dad?” Brendon asked. 

“No,” Ryan said. “No point in being mad; it won’t change anything.”

“And not at me?” Brendon asked.

“Not presently,” Ryan said. “Give it time.”

“I’ll wait with baited breath,” Brendon promised, his usual impish grin sliding back into place. It wasn’t often that you got to describe someone’s facial expression as an “impish grin,” Ryan thought, but it was appropriate here. It was like saying someone had ruddy cheeks or a loud guffaw. It felt like a nineteenth century novel, but it suited Brendon.

“What does that mean, anyway?” Brendon asked. “Baited breath. Baited like a fish hook?”

“No,” Ryan said. “It’s spelled different, I think, but I don’t know any other phrase it’s used in.”

“It sounds so, I dunno, spooky, almost,” Brendon said. 

“I’ll pass along your complaints to the old masters,” Ryan said. 

“Oh no, it’s a compliment,” Brendon said. “It sounds so weird.”

“Also a compliment?” Ryan asked.

“Weird is almost always a compliment,” Brendon said. 

“Hmm,” Ryan said. “Am I weird?”

“Oh, you’ve got to be the weirdest person I’ve ever met,” Brendon said, and in spite of everything, Ryan felt his chest grow almost uncomfortably tight, his face warm. 

You don’t love him yet, he reminded himself, but without even the oracle, he knew it was no longer an option, but an inevitability. He was going to love Brendon Urie maybe more than anyone, and the thought scared him half to death.

There were no cars on the highway still by the time they made it out to Ryan’s car, which gave him some clue as to what time it must be. There was a mini rush hour a little while before dawn when the people working late nights at the strip came home to their blacked-out windows to sleep through the day - usually around four in the morning. It was full dark and the streets had been empty when Ryan drove out, it had to be around two or three.

“Witching hour,” he murmured to himself.

“Come again?” Brendon asked. 

“It must be late,” Ryan said instead. 

“Must be,” Brendon agreed. “I left around eleven, but I don’t know how long it was before you got here.”

“Or how long it took to walk back,” Ryan said. “We can probably call this night a loss and sleep tomorrow.”

“What, pull an all-nighter?” Brendon asked, looking innocently excited. 

“Yeah,” Ryan said. “Haven’t you ever done it before?”

“Nope,” Brendon said. “I mean, sometimes I get back late, but it’s not like I do this a lot.”

“It’s not that exciting,” Ryan said. “You just drink a bunch of Red Bull and either study or watch bad TV, if you’re me.”

“What do you watch?” Brenon asked. The two of them were speeding down the highway, but Ryan knew this stretch of desert innately, as though it were etched on the inside of his eyelids.

“Sports with my dad,” Ryan said. “Trashy reality stuff with Spencer - we like to make fun of it. And on my own I mostly watch movies. What about you?”

“I mostly watch movies too,” Brendon said. “But it’s, like, all kid stuff and old movies. I’m not old enough to rent an R-Rated movie, and my family is kind of strict about media consumption.”

“What old movies?” Ryan asked. “My dad and I used to watch a bunch of Hitchcock together.”

“Nothing like that,” Brendon said. It was hard to tell if his skin was flushed in the faint moonlight, but he sounded quiet, embarrassed. “My mom loves the old musicals from the forties and fifties. Singin’ in the Rain and Holiday Inn and His Girl Friday kind of stuff. Though my dad even thought His Girl Friday was kind of racy.”

Ryan made it a point not to laugh at that, and then nodded.

“I love that stuff,” he admitted. “I went through a phase when I was a kid where I watched ‘Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang’ every night in a row for a month.”

“I love that one!” Brendon cried. “The child catcher is nightmare fuel!”

“Yeah, when you’re five,” Ryan said, rolling his eyes. “He’s a creeper, but not actually scary.”

“I bet nothing ever scared you, right?” Brendon said.

“I get scared all the time,” Ryan said. “Just not by movies.”

“By your weird prophetic dreams at all, or just real life?” Brendon asked, and though Ryan automatically bristled because his visions WERE real life, he could tell Brendon meant no offense.

“Both,” Ryan said. “I mean, it’s like how some people are more scared playing Silent Hill than watching horror movies, right? I’m living out the visions, not just watching from a third party perspective.”

“So were you in my head back there?” Brendon asked, jerking his thumb back at the empty swath of desert.

“No,” Ryan said, frowning. “For some reason I was just watching you.”

“Maybe it’s because you actually were there,” Brendon suggested. “Like, you were in the mind of your future self?”

“It’s a good idea, but no,” Ryan said. “That’s… not how that works.”

“Huh,” Brendon said. “That’s so weird. You think my brain is weird or something?”

“Your brain is definitely weird,” Ryan said, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the horizon in front of them. Somehow he could still feel the pleasant weight of Brendon’s smile next to him.

(Like an old song half-remembered from the cradle like the smell of his childhood backyard like a long nap after climbing out of the pool like nostalgia without any bitterness like stiff-sweet Cadbury creme on his tongue and the feel of his old guitar beneath his fingers like music like music like music.)

Ryan wasn’t driving in a mad dash to get back to his house, so the process took quite a lot longer. Though he was sure Brendon could talk him into eternity, Ryan turned on the radio to an oldies station that was playing pre-queued songs with hardly any commercials even at this hour. “Fire and Rain” came out in a static haze, and Brendon began to hum along, then stopped almost immediately, looking frightened and chastised.

“You can sing,” Ryan said almost harshly.

“You know I can’t,” Brendon said. “Suppose a sinkhole swallows your car.”

“Well, I’d be willing to risk it,” Ryan said. “But it doesn’t hurt you to hum, does it?”

“I don’t know,” Brendon said. 

“Nobody’s out but us, and I know what I’m getting into,” Ryan said. “Try.”

Brendon turned his face fully to the window so that Ryan couldn’t look at him. Ryan was just about to demand he try again when he heard the faintest sound coming from Brendon’s seat. Not singing, but humming along, perfectly clear, perfectly in tune.

“I love James Taylor,” Ryan said. “My mom used to play his stuff all the time.”

Brendon went quiet and Ryan made a disgusted noise.

“No, c’mon, if you’re not gonna sing you at least get to hum. Or you can get out and walk.”

Brendon huffed and went back to humming. 

“Have you never gotten to sing along to the radio in the car before?” Ryan asked after the song faded out.

“Am I allowed to speak now?” Brendon asked.

“If you must,” said Ryan blithely.

“No,” Brendon said. “When would I?”

“That just. I dunno. That sucks a lot.”

“Do YOU sing along to the radio in the car?” Brendon asked. 

“Duh,” Ryan said. “I have a soul.”

“I just can’t picture it,” Brendon said. “It seems too… bubbly for you.”

“It’s not- I’m literally the singer for this band,” Ryan said. “Of course I like singing.”

“Yeah, but like, singing along to the radio?” Brendon asked.

“This is a very weird distinction for you to be hung up on,” Ryan told him. “But I think I know what you’re getting at and frankly, I’m a little offended.”

“By what?!” Brendon asked.

“I’m not, like, a full-time grinch,” Ryan said. “I’m often happy. I smile and laugh and everything.”

“You don’t really give that impression,” Brendon said.

“So that is what this is,” Ryan said. “Fucking hell, dude. Am I that bad?”

Brendon gave him a little self-conscious smile and shrug combo, and Ryan rolled his eyes.

“I’m not that bad,” he insisted, though he knew he was.

“You’re right,” Brendon said. “You seem, like, super cheery.”

“You get snarky fast once you’re comfortable,” Ryan said.

“Sorry,” Brendan said at once, and Ryan rolled his eyes.

“Not a bad thing,” he said. “Just an observation.”

“It’s hard to tell when you’re insulting me and when you’re just making observations,” Brendon said. 

“You want me to like, let you know when I mean it as an insult?” Ryan asked.

“Kinda,” Brendon said, and Ryan did laugh at that. 

They made it back to Ryan’s house. It was all dark in the neighborhood. The sparse streetlights seemed to almost be eaten by the heavy darkness of the night, and the moon was pale and wan. Ryan always thought his little rock-and-scrub yard looked pretty desolate, but it felt even more depressing than usual as he led Brendon up to the door. 

Ryan flicked on the light in the entryway and gestured around.

“Home sweet home,” he said. 

He was incredibly aware, all at once, of how the house might look to someone who didn’t live there. The coffee table was a veritable graveyard of liquor bottles, as was the top of the fridge. The little trash can next to the couch was filled with beer cans, The carpet was dirty and matted down, not foul smelling or anything, but Ryan definitely hadn’t vacuumed in quite a few months. The air itself smelled stale and the one houseplant, an old rubber tree in the corner, was limp and drooping. 

It wasn’t like Ryan had seen Brendon’s place, but they had both been at Spencer’s little domestic paradise with its full snack cupboards and Febreze scented air. It wasn’t horrific in here - they weren’t hoarders and didn’t have an incontinent cat or anything, but Ryan felt some indefinable emotion between shame and defensiveness as he watched Brendon glance around the main room.

Ryan waited a good fifteen seconds for some benign compliment. After the sticky-long moment, Brendon cleared his throat.

“It’s nice?” he said, asking it like a question.

“No it’s not,” Ryan said. “Whatever. My room’s this way.”

Ryan’s room was dirtier than the rest of the house, but he felt less of the strange embarrassment-adjacent feeling in there. At least it was lived in and he didn’t have anything horrific out. His hamper was overfull, but not spilling out onto the floor yet. His books were scattered and bed unmade, but there were lamps in there to give off a friendlier glow and posters hanging on the wall. 

Ryan sat down on the bed and then fell backwards, letting out a groan as he laid down. He was starting to feel some of the bruises from getting dropped to the ground, and he knew it would only get worse in the coming days. 

“You can sit down,” Ryan said after a minute of Brendon standing in the doorway, looking awkward.

“Right,” Brendon said, and he sat gingerly on the corner of Ryan’s bed. 

“You ever finish Fight Club?” Ryan asked. 

“Huh? Oh, yeah, it was great,” Brendon said. “But you’re out of your mind thinking the movie ending was better.”

“I am not!” Ryan said. “You liked the book ending better?”

“Duh!” Brendon said. “For one, way less people died, and for another, it feels more realistic. You can’t just shoot a personality out of your head with a literal bullet. That is, ironically, an insane idea.”

“Okay, well, first of all, those buildings were empty when they blew up-” Ryan began, and Brendon let out a guffaw of a scoff.

“Night custodians! Pedestrians! People working late! Project Mayhem members who didn’t get out in time! Firefighters going through the rubble!”

“-for another thing,” Ryan plowed on. “I know it’s less realistic, but doesn’t that make it all so much more interesting? Like, the sun will rise and Marla and the Narrator are gonna have to reckon with all this. And we have no idea what happens next.”

“That’s so unsatisfying,” Brendon said. 

“Your mom is so unsatisfying,” Ryan said. 

“I didn’t like book Marla as much, though,” Brendon said. 

“Yeah, you kinda have to picture Helena Bonham Carter in your mind to make it work.” Ryan said. “She’s pretty gorgeous.”

“I dunno,” Brendon said. “She looks a little like a Tim Burton cartoon. But maybe that’s why you’re into her. Like attracts like.”

“What does that mean?” Ryan asked.

“Look at you,” Brendon said. “You’re so skinny and your face is all eyes.”

“You probably weigh less than me, and you have bigger eyes to boot.” Ryan said.

“I’m shorter than you, so that doesn’t even count,” Brendon said. 

“Doesn’t count?! How does that not count?!”

---

The two of them talked for hours, but Ryan didn’t realize it until he saw pale grey sunlight creeping past the edges of his blinds. He blinked, noticing only then that his eyes were very dry.

“Shit,” he said. “It’s morning.”

“What?!” Brendon cried, jumping to his feet. At some point he’d sprawled out into a lounging position on the bed with Ryan, and he had to grab a bookshelf to regain his balance. 

“Just before 6,” Ryan said upon checking his alarm clock. “Fuck me, man. You need a ride home?”

“Please,” Brendon said. “But pull around back, okay? I don’t want to be caught.”

“Just give me instructions,” Ryan said. 

The drive back was quieter than the drive there, punctuated by Ryan’s occasional yawns. Brendon looked too keyed up to be tired even then, his heel tapping the car mat rhythmically as they drove. He led Ryan back to the street that ran behind his house, and opened the door with an obscene amount of care.

Then, he turned to face Ryan again.

“So, what now?” he asked.

“Sorry?” Ryan said. 

“I mean, you, me, the band…?” he looked too frightened to be hopeful.

“I’ve gotta go talk to Spencer,” Ryan said. “Get raked over the coals a bit. But band practice is still on, and you and I are friends now, so.”

“Friends?” Brendon said.

Ryan shrugged.

“May as well be. It’ll save time and energy if we’re just friends from here on out. But get ready to deal with the consequences.”

Brendon let out one nervous laugh.

“What does that entail that you say it like a warning?” he asked.

“Typical stuff,” Ryan said. “Girly movie nights. Obscene amounts of Taco Bell. I’m gonna have to relearn your birthday every year because I always forget dates.”

“We don’t go to the same school,” Brendon said. 

“I think I can overcome that hurdle,” Ryan said, and he tapped his temple. “I’m actually something of a psychic.”

Brendon let out a real laugh that time, and the first bloody beams of true sunlight crested the horizon. His face melted back into panic, and Ryan waved him off.

“Go,” he said. “I’ll see you, I promise.”

“Okay,” Brendon said. Another shy smile that somehow made Ryan’s heart stutter. too soon . “Bye, then.”

He didn’t close the door all the way, but Ryan drove a few blocks away before getting out and slamming it properly. Then he got back in the driver’s seat and laid his head back against the headrest, feeling his heartbeat pounding in his forehead and his neck and his palms.

“What the fuck?” he said out loud to himself. Then he drove back home with the idea of a long nap.

Notes:

...still updating! yay?

Chapter 11: The Faithful Disciple

Summary:

On resolutions and sleepovers.

In spite of his impromptu nap earlier that evening, Ryan’s eyelids were itching by the time he got to the hospital. The sun had risen with a vengeance and the hospital campus walls all glowed garish pink and yellow as Ryan pulled up to the curb, parked illegally and sprinted toward the reception area. He did not want to linger in a place like this, bare and bright and so far from the surreal, dreamlike encounter he’d had with -

The boy.

-Brendon.

Ryan tripped into the lobby and leaned on the front desk. A woman in Mickey Mouse scrubs flipping through a romance novel didn’t even look up as she spoke to him.

“Visiting hours start at nine.”

“I’m here to pick my dad up,” Ryan said. A surge of embarrassment coursed through him - stupid. He should be used to it.

“He’ll likely not get discharged till nine,” the woman said. “Have you been called?”

“No,” Ryan admitted. “But-”

“Come back later,” she said. With one turquoise-painted claw of a nail, she flipped the page.

“Look, I’m- I’m really not on the best schedule,” Ryan said, tapping on the counter. “Can you just check and see?”

Heaving a sigh, the woman flipped her book upside down on her desk sunken under the counter, the spine so cracked that it slumped flat and Ryan couldn’t read the title. She joggled the mouse, and said:

“Name?”

“George Ross,” Ryan said. He felt itchy under the fluorescence, eager to go be anywhere but there.

“Hmm,” she typed, her long nails tapping the keys dramatically. “He’s not due for discharge till Tuesday afternoon.”

Ryan ceased finger-drumming on the counter.

“What?”

“So I’d suggest coming back later.”

“Wait, no, that can’t be right, is he-?”

“Sir, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave unless you are experiencing a medical emergency. Visitation hours have not begun. There is nothing else I can do for you.”

Ryan stumbled out of the hospital, less light-blinded this time, more like his limbs were too numb to handle any amount of grace.

It wasn’t a big deal - it wasn’t. He was 18 years old, for fuck’s sake, he could handle a few nights home alone, easy. Only-

-they’d never had to keep his dad for more than 24 hours before. Usually it was just overnight. Sobering up didn’t take that long. If they kept him longer than that meant-

-no, it didn’t mean, but it sort of kind of sounded like it meant that something was wrong. Like his dad was sick or injured or something. Ridiculous. Ryan had seen him, he was fine, and nothing was wrong, but.

But.

But if something was wrong? If suddenly Ryan was alone against the world?
The very thought took his breath away. 

Ryan drove back to his house on autopilot, not touching the radio or his CD collection either. The street signs and houses all blurred together, meaningless watercolor background.

His dad wasn’t (couldn’t be!) in any sort of danger. Nothing was (nothing could be!) wrong. Maybe it was routine, like his dad had hit the end of his punch card, spend six nights at the hospital get the seventh free weekend extension!  Maybe he was in talks for a real treatment plan, rehabilitation, fixing what was wrong with him for good.

Ryan did not believe any of these things were true. But he could pretend.

The sun was at full morning blast when he pulled back onto his street, his eyelids as heavy as if strung with silver coins. He nearly turned into his driveway still on autopilot when he realized there was a car blocking his way.

Mrs. Smith’s SUV, to be specific.

Ryan’s stomach bottomed out in dread. He crawled to a stop and put the car in park, tried to prepare a non-mean way of saying “Please not now, I am not in the mood to fight,” even as he saw Spencer slam the car door.

Ryan was, therefore, taken by surprise when Spencer wrenched open the door and pulled Ryan out, enveloping him in a hug.

“Shit, I’m sorry I wasn’t here last night, man. Are you okay?”

Ryan was too tired to process exactly what was happening, so he let himself be hugged, bewildered by the warmth of Spencer’s arms. It felt so much softer than the fever-like warmth of anxiety that had been humming through Ryan’s bones.

“Um,” Ryan said, still being held a little awkwardly, bent slightly at the knees while standing by his open car door. “I’m fine. How did you…?”

He trailed off rather than ask the question, but Spencer knew him well enough not to need all the context.

“Mom saw the ambulance,” he said, pulling away from Ryan at last. Even as he was grateful to stretch to his full height, Ryan was sort of sorry he’d let go. “She thought I came home with you, otherwise she would’ve…”

The backs of Ryan’s eyes gave him a warning prickle. 

“I’m sorry I was a dick about your girlfriend,” Ryan said. Spencer laughed wetly.

“You weren’t, really,” he said. “You were being a dick about other stuff.”

“Well, I was a dick about her in my head, and I’m sorry,” Ryan said. 

Spencer smiled at him with a smile that told Ryan all was forgiven, and though they didn’t hug again, Ryan felt distinctly warm.

“Where’s your-?”

“Still at the hospital, there till-”

“-obviously at mine until-”

“-bring the entertainment since you can’t be trusted-”

The two of them had a way of talking over one another, having a conversation so fast that they skipped saying half the words but still heard and understood absolutely everything. Spencer grabbed Ryan’s wrist and tugged him over to his house, pausing only to park cars. No time was wasted with Spencer asking if Ryan wanted to talk about his feelings. Between the two of them, nothing needed to be said. 

Ryan admitted to being completely wiped out, and Spencer set him up in the bedroom, warning him briefly not to sleep too long, because his mom was making meatballs for dinner and guaranteed to foist three or more servings on Ryan at the least. There was pity in the special treatment, Ryan knew, but he didn’t mind it so much when it was Mrs. Smith. It was nice to be coddled by her, too nice to be embarrassed by. And as he changed into an old t-shirt and shorts left in the bottom of Spencer’s closet expressly for the purpose of his staying over unexpectedly, and nestled down under the same thick quilts that had lived in the Smith’s linen closet since he first met Spencer, Ryan felt very safe and contented and cared for. 

There was only one more thing to contend with.

“Spence?” Ryan said, his voice bleary with sleep as he started to drift off in Spencer’s bed, Spencer himself booting up the PS2 on the other side of his bedroom.

“Yeah?” he said. 

“We should… reschedule band practice,” Ryan said. His heavy eyelids wouldn’t stay open no matter how he fought them. “Made up with the Mormon.”

“You did?”

“I’m gonna love him one day,” Ryan said. 

The next thing he knew he was being woken with a pillow to the face, light but insistent until he sat up. Spencer did not drop the pillow even as he grinned.

“All the way on your feet,” he said. “I don’t trust you not to pass out sitting up straight.”

“You learn one useful skill to get through your catechism class,” Ryan grumbled, but he got out of bed and rubbed his sticky eyes. 

While Ryan stretched, Spencer tossed him clothes, just like everything was forgiven, back to normal, no hard feelings. Spencer prattled about his date - she was beautiful, she was kind, she was so smart - and Ryan ribbed him for it. 

“Already whipped and you haven’t even gotten to first base,” he said, and Spencer turned a delicate shade of pink. 

The two of them went downstairs sock-footed, and Spencer’s mom cooed over Ryan just as much as he had expected. She piled his plate with meatballs and sauce, noodles and vegetables, till the mountain atop the porcelain was in precarious standing. Ryan had a bottomless pit of a stomach, but Mrs. Smith had long been on a mission to outperform him and give him a meal so vast and filling that even he couldn’t conquer it. He grinned and thanked her and kicked Spencer under the table and felt safe. The way coming home at the end of a long journey was supposed to feel.

When Mrs. Smith once more got up from the table, Spencer lowered his voice slightly and said:

“So, you made up with Brendon? How?”

Ryan hadn’t really considered that he’d need an excuse for this. He couldn’t betray Brendon’s secret identity, even if he, Ryan, knew there was no need for secrecy. But then again, he wasn’t especially inclined to tell Spencer about his visions of Brendon, either. They had been private from the beginning, a solace he found when he was alone in the deep, dark night. And the new vision…

“He called me,” Ryan said, which wasn’t a lie. “And he’s got his heart in the right place, I guess.”

Spencer smiled at him like he was proud of something, proud that Ryan could stop being prickly long enough to make a friend. It made his skin crawl, but he pretended not to notice.

“That’s good,” Spencer said softly. “I’m glad you like him. He’s really- he’s kind. I think you two will be good for each other.”

The universe or God or fate or whoever spoke to Ryan in his mind apparently thought the same thing - which he also didn’t share.

“So, Ryan,” said Spencer’s mom as she came back in, heaping potatoes onto his plate. “How long do we get to have you?”

Anxiety crawled back into Ryan’s gut, small and wormy.

“Uh, till Tuesday,” he said. “The hospital- I guess he’s not getting discharged immediately this time.”

If anyone other than Ryan was worried about his dad, they did not show it.

“Wonderful,” she said, squeezing his shoulder like she meant it. 

Most of Saturday having been eaten by sleep, Ryan spent Sunday still recuperating, playing video games and street hockey with Spencer till he could almost forget the twist in his gut. 

Why was his dad still in the hospital?

Ryan could have gone to visit, of course. He told himself he had no time, but it was not a convincing lie. It was the weekend and he had nothing but time, but… he’d never visited his dad in the hospital before. He’d never before needed to. 

Ryan drove Spencer to school on Monday, all forgiven everything going right, except for whatever was going on with his dad. While he worked in the computer lab he sent an email to Brendon (absurdly easy to find his school email, way too easy for kids to get found online, Ryan thought, but it wasn’t his business) and asked him when he was next free to hang out. He didn’t bother asking Brendon if he wanted to hang out - they were going to be friends, Ryan decided, and with his mind made up he was certain that the process would be easy going forward. He stayed busy, actually doing his classwork when it piqued his interest and steadily carving through the homework Father Merrin had given him when the classes were snooze-worthy. 

He tried not to have free time. He tried not to let his mind wander.

At lunch he sat with Spencer and his girlfriend for a whole ten minutes before the gooey-ness was too much for Ryan to ignore, then he went back to the computer lab and checked his email. Brendon was free after school, apparently, so Ryan cast his mind forward to envision the front of Palo Verde high school and see where to go pick him up. He accosted Spencer in the hall and told him to go on another date tonight, Ryan was hanging out with the LDS kid. Spencer looked absurdly pleased about it.

And then in biology, Ryan had a less pleasant but equally time-consuming distraction: Adam was pissed at him. 

Ryan sat down at their chalky-black lab table without comment, not even aware, at first, that anything was wrong. He didn’t notice the problem until the teacher had finished talking and was handing out worksheets, and Adam was still tense, his eyes not seeking Ryan’s. 

Ryan thought about it for a second, then winced internally. 

He did have plans before everything went to hell in a handbasket, didn’t he?

“Hey,” he said to Adam, hoping against hope Adam would say something back so that Ryan could gauge his reaction. 

“Are we speaking?” Adam asked.

“Yeah,” said Ryan. “If that’s alright.”

“Do what you want, Ryan,” said Adam. “But if you don’t mind terribly, can I ask where you were Friday night?”

“At the hospital,” Ryan said blandly. “With my dad, getting his stomach pumped.”

He took the worksheet from his teacher and scribbled his name on it, then slid it across the table to Adam.

“I’m sorry,” Adam said. He still hadn’t looked up at Ryan. “Is he-?”

“He’ll be fine,” said Ryan. His stomach twisted again. He’d better be fine, anyway. He couldn’t leave Ryan alone. He couldn’t. “Look. Sorry I forgot to call, but. It was an emergency, and then after it just slipped my mind.”

“It’s fine, man,” Adam said. “Sorry for being so bitch about it.”

“Call it even?” Ryan said. 

“Only if you come over this Friday.”

“Sure, if you’re gonna do the heavy lifting here.”

“Slacker,” said Adam, but his smile was back, a flash of his teeth half-hidden behind his hair. “This is barely harder than a Punnett square.”

“And yet,” said Ryan. 

“You’re lucky you got accepted to college before they knew how terrible you were at science.”

“For your information, I got accepted into the English track,” Ryan said. “They know I can’t do anything useful already.”

Adam laughed, and it felt to Ryan like a win. Everything went well that day, except for the one thing, and since he Wasn’t Thinking About It, it didn’t matter.

Ryan’s dad was fine. He was going to be just fine. 

***

Ryan rolled up to Palo Verde high just before the last bell rang. He’d already envisioned the moment to come, but it was still satisfying to watch in real life as Brendon stuttered down the front steps before seeing Ryan’s car, his eyes bugging slightly and a shocked smile rising on his face. Seeing him light up, like Ryan was the highlight of his whole damn day, made Ryan feel some kind of way. Foreign and squirmy and like his tie was suddenly too tight around his neck. Since he was out of school, he ripped it off and leaned back in the seat like seeing Brendon didn’t give him cause to react at all.

Seeing the future was ridiculous. His timelines were all muddled. Ryan wasn’t in love with Brendon, he was sure of it, but he was equally sure that he was going to be, if he let himself, if he kept hanging out with the grinny little hyperactive kid. He knew that with prolonged exposure to Brendon he would be head over heels, but he was powerless to stop it. All of time at once converged on Brendon and got tangled, a mix of love and hate and friendship and frustration. 

This is him, the voice at the base of Ryan’s skull insisted, and Ryan waved the voice off. Him or not didn’t matter - what mattered at the moment was feeding the weirdo and getting as much information about his powers as he could. 

“Hi,” Brendon said as he opened the door, hesitating just a moment before he got in.

“C’mon in, little boy,” Ryan said flatly. “I’m a nice stranger and I’ve got candy in the back.”

“Oh boy, candy! Sounds safe!” Brendon laughed, and he jumped in. Ryan drove away before the passenger door was shut - better not to let Brent think he was playing favorites. (He was. He already kinda liked Brendon better, for all he was more trouble.)

“You hungry?” Ryan asked. Brendon’s stomach answered before he could, snarling like it could hear Ryan’s question.

“I’m good,” Brendon said. 

“Don’t be weird,” Ryan said. “I”m hungry, too. Taco Bell?”

“Taco Bell?” Brendon asked. ‘There’s, like, a thousand decent Mexican restaurants within walking distance.”

“I am not craving Mexican, I’m craving Taco Bell,” Ryan said. “It’s a completely different, like, genre of food.”

“Isn’t it just shitty Mexican fast food?” Brendon asked.

“Not remotely,” Ryan said. “Taco Bell isn’t Mexican, that’s offensive. It’s just Taco Bell. It’s its own thing.”

“I’m good,” Brendon said again.

Ryan shrugged. He wasn’t going to fight Brendon, not while he was shuffling in the passenger seat like he had to piss, while he looked so awkward and embarrassed about nothing at all. 

The area around Palo Verde was kind of a bummer, the desert looking more scruffy and sunbleached than Ryan was used to. He drove a little bit further to go to his usual Taco Bell, where the same people worked the counter who had worked there for years and still absolutely didn’t know Ryan’s name, just the way he liked it. There he ordered three of the Twelve Taco Party Packs and two large Baja Blasts, handing the second cup to Brendon and reluctantly telling him to get what he wanted. Brendon got Sierra Mist, for some godforsaken reason, but whatever. Ryan dumped the first bag of tacos out into a pile of turquoise wrappers and the faint smell of dry corn tortillas in the middle of the table, and unwrapped the first one.

“So… this isn’t a band thing?” Brendon asked, fiddling with his straw. He eyed the mountain of tacos, but didn’t touch them.

“Obviously,” Ryan said through a mouthful of soggy taco. “We’re gonna work on the friendship thing. Was that not obvious?”

“No,” Brendon said. “Um, how do you do friendship? Normally?”

“I don’t,” Ryan said. “How do you do friendship normally?”

“I don’t really have a lot of friends either,” Brendon said. “Uh, I think people usually find me annoying? I come on kinda strong.”

And fuck, he looked so sad that Ryan started feeling guilty, because yeah. He thought Brendon was annoying, and that he came on kinda strong. He pushed the thought aside.

“That’s fine,” Ryan said. “People think I’m an asshole.”

“I mean… you can be a little mean?” Brendon said.

“You can be a little annoying,” Ryan said. “Maybe if we’re just up front about our flaws it’ll go easier.”

Brendon looked like he might laugh, but instead he glanced at the taco mountain, then elsewhere.

“You didn’t have to get me a drink,” he said.

“Well, I’m not that big of an asshole,” Ryan said. “At least, I hope I’m not.”

“No, I didn’t mean -”

“Unclench,” Ryan said. “Look, clearly we’re not going to excel at small talk, at least not together. We should talk about the magic stuff.”

“Keep your voice down!” Brendon shouted, even though Ryan had been talking at a perfectly reasonable volume.

“Okay,” Ryan said. “But I promise you, nobody here is paid enough to give a fuck.”

Brendon didn’t say anything, just shook his head, wide-eyed.

Ryan huffed.

“Okay, well, how bout I don’t say anything about-” he gestured at Brendon. “And instead I can tell you more about me. Surely you’re a little curious about my seeing the future-”

“Shut up!” Brendon pleaded. “We’re in public!”

Ryan huffed.

“It’s not your ass on the line.”

“I don’t want anyone listening, not about magic, please,” Brendon said. 

Ryan, with a bit of effort, didn’t roll his eyes.

“Okay,” he said. “So, what would you like to discuss while you watch me eat through like 20 times the normal human amount of tacos?”

“ I don’t know,” Brendon squirmed. “I don’t - this was your idea. You still don’t even like me.”

“Thus the hangout,” Ryan said. “We’re working on it.”

Plus, in truth, a part of him feared he already liked Brendon too much - his big, warm eyes, his soft and nervous smile.

“Fine,” Ryan said after a minute. “Let’s talk music. You like it, I like, we’re in a band together. What’s your guilty pleasure artist?”

“Don’t have one,” Brendon said promptly. 

“Oh, come on,” Ryan said. “You’re so embarrassing. You have to have guilty pleasure music.”

Brendon laughed at this, still looking remarkably un-self-conscious.

“I don’t believe liking music is deserving of guilt,” he said. “I don’t feel guilty about enjoying the music I do. Even when other people think it’s silly.”

“Very self-actualized, but kinda boring,” Ryan said. “C’mon. One.”

“I guess people think pop girls like Christina and Britney are embarrassing?” Brendon said with a shrug. “I don’t care. I like her.”

“Christina Aguilera?” Ryan asked. “For real?”

“Yeah,” Brendon said. “I like pop music. I like rap music. I like some country music. I don’t think liking art is embarrassing.”

The comeback came into Ryan’s brain fast as whiplash. I hardly think that qualifies as art. 

But then… why wouldn’t it? And Brendon, when he wasn’t cosplaying as the Energizer Battery Bunny, was actually quite sensitive. Ryan found himself not wanting to make fun of Brendon.

“Fair enough,” he said instead.

“What about you?” Brendon asked.

“Me?” said Ryan, spraying tortilla crumbs across the table. His face felt unpleasantly warm even as Brendon’s eyes softened a little.

“Your guilty pleasure music, since we’re supposed to feel bad about things we enjoy,” Brendon paused, then added: “Catholic behavior.”

Ryan flipped him off.

“Early white rock and rollers,” he said. “Elvis, the Beatles, the Beach Boys.”

“You feel guilty about that?”

“Well, one, I just listed three of the most popular musicians in human history, so it’s not the most educated stuff to like. And then, you know, rock and roll music was kinda stolen? I don’t know if it’s a guilty pleasure the way, say foot fetish porn is-”

“Ryan!”

“-but it’s a little bit white bread, you know?”

The tips of Brendon’s ears were red, and against Ryan’s will, he thought to himself, adorable.

“You can’t talk like that,” Brendon protested.

“Why? Nobody working here is listening or cares. Life is so short. May as well not waste it worrying if people think I’m weird.”

“ People do think you’re weird,” Brendon said. 

“Exactly, so why should I worry about what I already know to be true?”

Brendon giggled helplessly.

“You don’t get to make fun of me for being religious when I’ve, like, barely heard you swear,” Ryan said.

“I don’t feel the need to swear constantly,” Brendon said. “Filler words are a sign of a lack of intelligence, you know.”

“Pop psychology will rot your brain faster than soda rots your teeth, and yet here we are quoting it to each other,” Ryan said. 

Brendon glanced down at the taco mountain, back up at Ryan.

“So, of the two, whose side are you on? Christina or Britney?” he asked.

“Definitely Britney,” Ryan said. “Who’s your favorite old white bread rocker?”

“The Beach Boys,” Brendon said.

“Right answer,” said Ryan. He took one of the tacos, but instead of unwrapping it, he threw it at Brendon’s head. Brendon caught it on instinct, and Ryan grinned. He tried to grin meanly.

“Eat,” he said.

Brendon unwrapped the taco and took a bite. He still looked embarrassed, but at least he was, indeed, eating. 

Ryan decided it was a win. 

***

Spencer was waiting when Ryan got back to the Smith’s house. He found this a little concerning - he didn’t want Spencer thinking he needed a full time babysitter or anything, and it was barely 6, so there was no call for his super special date to have ended already.

But Ryan smiled like everything was fine (his new full time job, apparently) and the two of them ate cereal in sugary handfuls from the box until they were called to dinner.

God, dinner around a dining room table, with a pitcher of water in the middle. What must it be like, Ryan wondered, to have this every single night? Would he be fiercely grateful, jealously guarding the domestic bliss from the rest of the world? Or would he take it for granted, like most kids seemed to? Spencer didn’t. Spencer helped his dad wash dishes and always saved leftovers for Ryan if it was one of his favorite meals. Still.

Spencer seemed to get it. While Ryan basked in the normalcy of this house, while he leaned into Mrs. Smith’s gentle squeeze of his shoulder, while he closed his eyes like a penitent in church in response to a bite of sliced bread and hummed with contentment at the end of the meal, Spencer didn’t tease him. 

That night, it may have been a little bit less Spencer’s automatic tact and more abstraction. He kept glancing from side to side, his eyes far away and his eyebrows knit close over his nose.

Could Ryan be a good friend three times in one day, to three different people? It seemed a staggering number, but for Spencer, he knew he ought to try.

So with dishes done and the two of them holed up in Spencer’s room, Ryan kicked his friend’s ankle.

“What’s your damage?” he asked.

“What? Nothing, what’s yours?” Spencer said.

“You’re home early and you look all sad, puppy-eyed, and you haven’t even grilled me to make sure I haven’t hazed the life out of your pet Mormon, even though you didn’t babysit us today,” Ryan said. “C’mon. What gives?”

Spencer huffed.

“Should I have grilled you?” he asked. “You didn’t make him streak or, I don’t know, feed him a scorpion-?”

“Well, I’m writing all these down as fantastic ideas for future fear factor game nights, but no, I fed him and we talked about music.”

“I’m proud of you, sounds very kind and non-hostile,” Spencer said. He attempted a smile.

“I’m going to get hives if I have to keep trying to pull the emotional conversation out of you,” Ryan warned. “Tell me what’s wrong on your end.”

Spencer sighed.

“It’s… nothing,” he said. “Nothing real. I think it’s nothing? I don’t know. Haley was fine at school today, but then when I asked her if she wanted to hang out tonight, she seemed, like, reluctant? And then she left early?”

Ryan, out of respect to their friendship, kept his face straight, even nodded sadly. 

“Do you think there’s… a problem?” Ryan asked.

“I mean, what if she’s not that into me?” Spencer said. “She’s funny and pretty and smart and, like. It would make sense if she wasn’t.”

“It really wouldn’t,” Ryan said. “You’re a great dude. She’d be an idiot not to be into you.”

“You have to say that.”

“Um, since when do I say nice things to be socially acceptable?” Ryan asked. This brought Spencer up short.

“Besides,” Ryan said, not sure if he felt more victorious or offended. “Literally why would she date you if she didn’t like you? She’s dating you because she’s into you. Don’t freak out.”

Spencer continued to fidget, evidently unconvinced.

“But like… she didn’t want to come over, and-”

“Yeah, there’s roughly a billion reasons why she might’ve not wanted to hang out,” Ryan said. “Did she tell you why?”

“Yeah, she said she had a ton of homework tonight.”

Ryan massaged his temples. 

“Did it occur to you that she may indeed have been anxious about having a ton of homework tonight? I mean, fuck, isn’t she in Sister Margaret’s chem class? I was stressed all semester. I switched to taking freshman French rather than continuing with Spanish to force myself into a different chemistry timeslot.”

“That… makes sense,” Spencer said, looking justifiably shamefaced. Then he looked puzzled. “Wait, how did you know what chemistry she’s in?”

“Our school isn’t that big and I listen when people talk?” Ryan said. “You were complaining, like, last week about how far out of your way it is to walk her to lunch after chemistry. She’s the only one with a lab in the basement. Ergo…”

He twirled his hand, and Spencer kept frowning, even as his eyes softened.

“She isn’t mad?”

“Maybe a little mad that you ate into time that could’ve better been spent studying a pop quiz.”

Spencer let out a soft little laugh.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’m being ridiculous, right?”

“Eh,” Ryan shrugged. “I’m told everyone’s ridiculous when they experience their first love.”

For no reason at all, big brown eyes flashed in his mind.

Chapter 12: Noah, After the Flood

Summary:

Ryan brings his dad home and has a vision to work towards.

The hospital, again.

Ryan started to think of it capitalized, The Hospital, like a card in the major arcana portending doom. It wasn’t that tall compared to the skyscrapers down on the strip, but still it seemed to loom over him, casting stark shadows in the morning sunshine. Ryan drummed on the steering wheel for a moment, watching the clock tick closer to nine.

It was all fine, of course. He’d spoken to the admin office and gotten the morning out of class (it was shocking, Ryan thought, just how lenient a school could be once you’d gotten accepted into college) and he would pick his dad up as soon as the doors opened. They’d go home, his dad would swear to stop drinking, and Ryan would thank him and ask him quietly but fervently to mean it this time, or to even just cut back, and it would be tense but okay, and then the next day he would go back to work and Ryan would go back to school and everything would carry on exactly the way it always had.

They’d done this song and dance before. Ryan didn’t always like it, but he knew it by heart, and the familiarity, even in the pain, was a comfort. 

It was just that he had a gut feeling (and Ryan really, really hated gut feelings) that something was different this time. Something was off, wrong, no news was bad news. He ached to go poking into the future but-

He couldn’t. He and his dad always had a rule not to look for each other.

“We can’t give everyone privacy,” his dad had said once. “That’s just not in our nature. But we owe it to each other to know one another like real people do, and not in the false way we see the rest of the world. Too much knowledge is a curse.”

It had always been a rule. Ryan had always obeyed it. His dad had always obeyed it, or he would’ve known not to barge in on Ryan when he’d had Kara over last year. That had been humiliating, but better than knowing he’d seen all of it. 

Ryan liked the rule, and yet he’d never been more tempted to break it. He just wanted to see, just wanted to check.

The clock went from 8:59 to 9:00, and he got out of the car, slammed the door loud enough to knock the taboo thought out of his racing mind. Back into The Hospital. Back up to the woman at the front desk, this time in highlighter green scrubs.

“Hi,” Ryan said, palms flat on the counter. “I’m here to pick up my dad?”

“Great,” the woman said without inflection. “Who’s your dad?”

Ryan had assumed she was the same woman who recognized him before, and realized that he was horrendously bad with faces.

“George Ross,” he said, cleared his throat. “I called last night and they said he was definitely cleared to go home today.”

“Alright, hold your horses,” the woman said. She shuffled through papers on her desk. Ryan didn’t start tapping his foot. “I’ll let them know his ride’s here.”

Ryan moved away from the desk, leaned against the brutalist pillar in the middle of the room instead. He wished he were in school, wished he were home, wished he were anywhere but here. He knew everyone hated hospitals, but fuck, he didn’t have to be original. He hated hospitals, too.

It took ten minutes of alternatively pacing and leaning against the pillar, hands stuffed in his pockets, before Ryan saw the elevator doors open and a purple-scrubbed nurse wheeling out his dad.

Ryan all but ran forward, grabbed the wheelchair from the nurse, and thanked her brusquely before wheeling his dad towards the exit.

“Don’t forget to bring the chair back!” the woman shouted behind him, and Ryan ignored her.

“Are your legs - I mean, are you hurt?” Ryan asked.

His dad grunted.

“Can you walk?” Ryan asked. Paralyzed, said the anxiety in his brain. BAC so high it ate through his spinal cord like acid. This wasn’t a real thing, but irrational fear was still fear.

“I can walk,” his dad said. “This is just hospital policy.”

“Huh,” Ryan said. “Kinda weird.”

His dad grunted. Ryan made no further attempts at small talk. He opened the passenger-side door for his dad, but didn’t offer to help him out of the wheelchair. And he did manage fine - a little clumsy, but not like his limbs were nonfunctional. He looked just as Ryan remembered him: tall and far away and cold. Ryan was nearly as tall as his dad, but he never felt it.

Ryan ran the wheelchair back up to The Hospital like he was returning a grocery cart, and then threw himself into the driver’s seat. 

“So,” he said. “You want breakfast?”

His dad grunted.

“You didn’t exactly leave grocery money,” Ryan said - like a joke, but somehow it came out almost apologetic. “There’s no food at home.”

“I’ll order in later,” he said. Ryan’s stomach growled. They ignored it.

Ryan started driving, very conscious of every single move he made. He’d only been driving for two years, but he did it constantly and he was good at it, so he rarely had to think about it anymore. This day, he made an exception. He held his hands deliberately at 10 and 2, checked his mirrors every fifteen seconds like clockwork, drove under the speed limit, monitored traffic on cross streets. His dad was silent, but his presence was loud.

And he shouldn’t have been silent. This was not the script. His dad was supposed to say something, to apologize, to be penitent, to offer to get them breakfast at IHOP like they always did after a bad event.  He was supposed to offer the olive branch. Ryan didn’t know how to ad lib.

“Do you-?” he started, and cut himself off. He tried again: “Are you okay? They had you stay longer than… usual.”

He’d broken an unspoken rule - never talk about previous Incidents. Ryan decided he couldn’t be blamed. He was under extreme duress and his dad wasn’t picking up the slack.

And worse, he didn’t even respond.

“Do you need to see your primary doctor?” Ryan pressed. “Do you need some kind of new medication?”

Please be okay, please be okay, please say it’s okay.

His dad just sighed.

Ryan didn’t cave into the all-consuming desire to prod again. He let the silence in the car marinate.

“It’s nothing,” his dad said at last. “I’m just getting older.”

Ryan let the silence regain its strength for a moment, anxiety growing thicker and thicker under his skin.

“It’s just, it seems kind of odd that-”

“Drop it, kid,” his dad said. Not gently.

Ryan said nothing else, and merely drove them home in sticky silence. 

Ryan finished out his afternoon at school, even though he wished he could stay home with his dad who was slumped on the couch, staring at the black TV screen that showed absolutely nothing. He was visibly not doing well, but Ryan wasn’t going to get any more out of him by asking, so he kept quiet. He returned to school in a state of distraction but made it through the day, telling Spencer at lunch that his dad was back home and lurking outside Father Merrin’s office for a while at the end of the day.

“He’s out of town,” said one of the school secretaries as she passed by. 

“Sorry?” Ryan said, glancing up.

“Father Merrin?” she jerked her head at the office. “He’s out of town, visiting another parish.”

Ryan did his level best to not sound frustrated as he said to her:

“Still?!”

“Mm-hmm,” said the secretary. She leaned in, the smell of her designer perfume overwhelming as it wafted off her permed blonde hair. “Between you and me, there’s a rumor he might be appointed bishop.”

“Is the bishop retiring?” Ryan asked, this time letting himself sound as irked as he was. “Is there not enough sin? In Las Vegas?”

“Aw, I know, it’ll be a real loss for us,” the secretary said, suddenly, embarrassingly sympathetic. “He’s a wonderful educator. But he’s more than qualified, and if the bishop retires, I know the archbishop has been very impressed with his sermons. I didn’t see you at mass last Sunday, did I?”

“My dad was ill,” Ryan said shortly, and he stormed away. He wasn’t entitled to the priest’s time - indeed, sometimes it was still strange that he didn’t dread seeing the man anymore. But still, having a qualified adult to talk to would be… really nice, in all honesty.

Ryan offered to drive Spencer home again after school, and Haley gave Ryan a shockingly affable wave. Ryan, to stay on Spencer’s good side, waved back and even smiled. 

“Why’s she being nice to me?” Ryan said when he was sure Haley was out of earshot. 

Spencer punched him in the arm.

“Because she’s nice, asshole.”

“Yeah, but I’ve been weird enough around her that she isn’t nice to me, so what gives?”

Spencer sighed.

“I told her your dad-”

“You what?!” 

“Was sick,” Spencer said quickly. “No details, just that you had a rough weekend.”

They were dangerously close to talking about the unspoken thing, to mentioning how little Ryan liked to mention things. The silence of things not said hovered between them for a moment, till Ryan gracelessly changed the subject.

“Band practice?” he said. “When are you free?”

“Tomorrow?” Spencer said. “I’d have to check with Brendon and Brent, though.”

“I’ll call Brendon, you deal with Brent,” Ryan said. Spencer looked thunderstruck.

“What?” Ryan asked.

“Nothing,” Spencer said. “It’s just… you said you made up with him, not that you had a profound religious experience with the guy.”

Ryan very nearly asked Spencer how he knew till he realized Spencer was making fun of him. They got to the car and Ryan got in, only playfully peeved.

“I’m capable of making friends,” Ryan said dryly.

“Well, of course you’re capable,” said Spencer. “I just didn’t think you had any inclination.”

Ryan let his foot off the brake before Spencer got inside, just to hear him squawk with dismay. It helped a great deal to sooth his ego.

 

***

 

Spencer’s garage had once been the easiest place in the world for Ryan to be. No matter who else worked their way into the room, there was always Ryan and there was always Spencer and it was always uncomplicated, the old fridge buzzing in the corner and filled with popsicles, the busted green couch sagging in the same spots as ever. Spiders and dust and the occasional mouse aside, it was perfect.

But the next band practice there was… tense.

Ryan arrived early so he wouldn’t have to walk in in front of Brendon or Brent, and he folded himself into the busted green sofa, legs folded up underneath him and ragged paperback splayed on the arm of the couch, not quite covering the burnt patch where a flaming mechanical pencil had melted into the furniture. (The garage had smelled like burning plastic for weeks after and he and Spencer both had minor scarring on their fingers, but Ryan still marked it a successful science experiment.) The Problem of Job wasn’t exactly the sort of light reading that usually helped Ryan take his mind off the troubles of the world, nor was it as instructional as most of the homework Father Merrin gave him, but it was something to do with his hands.

And Spencer never took up space in Ryan’s brain. He took up physical space, sprawling limbs crowding out most of the sofa, his hand brushing against the base of Ryan’s neck, but he didn’t feel claustrophobic. He was too easy to be around. He didn’t bother Ryan.

Then Ryan heard the metallic whamwhamwham of someone knocking on the garage door, and all the muscles in his back tightened. People, company - he’d asked for this, but he still cringed a little closer to his book as Spencer got up to let one of the public school boys in. 

“So,” Brent said. “Band’s back together? Ryan recovered from his hissy fit?”

“Not fully recovered and not declawed,” Ryan said. “Don’t stand too close.”

Brent hissed at him. Ryan smiled without his eyes. For them, it was pretty friendly.

And yet, as Ryan read the same sentence over and over and over again in the book, his eyes hugging the shapes of the words without taking them in, his heartbeat only got faster, his palms sweatier. Brendon was coming, and it was going to be weird.

“Hey!”

Ryan’s left hand curled against his thigh. It didn’t have to be weird, not if he didn’t let it.

“Sorry I was late, some guy on Fairview almost ran me off the road and my bike’s already like, basically a senior citizen.”

Ryan glanced up. He looked at the bike rather than the boy, and yeah, it did look rough - he wasn’t sure how he’d missed it before.

“But, uh,” Brendon waved, and the movement caught Ryan’s eyes. “Here now.”

“You two gonna kiss and make up?” Brent asked, glancing between him and Ryan.

“Apparently they already have,” said Spencer, who seemed to miss the way Ryan’s whole body felt five degrees warmer than it should have. “So, the usual?”

“What about the new songs Brendon promised last time?” Brent asked. 

“You could always write something original for us,” Spencer said cheerfully. “C’mon, we haven’t even managed Brain Stew without getting off track in a month. Let’s just get back into the swing of things for now.”

Bless Spencer, Ryan thought, not for the first time in his life and certainly not for the last. He’d spend his whole life sucking up to Haley if it made him happy.

So Ryan stepped up to the empty space where a microphone would be, guitar slung low over his hips, and he sang.

I’m having trouble trying to sleep.

He glanced at Brendon and nearly fumbled his pick. He was having trouble trying to sleep, and think, and put his feet one in front of the other when he walked. And as he sang and played (not bad, but rusty) he couldn’t help thinking how pretty Brendon’s voice had sounded. Pretty and strong and not so much like he was trying to do the same old Liverpool-by-way-of-So-Cal thing that Mark and Tom and Billy Joe were all doing. He sounded entirely new, entirely like himself. 

If - and it was a big ‘if’ - they were ever going to be a real band, that was what they needed. A strong and unique voice. And, ideally, strong and unique music to go with it.

Ryan thought unhappily of the lyrics he’d yanked back from Brendon. He was under no delusion about being the next Bob Dylan or anything, but he was decent, he thought. And maybe, with a really good voice and really good lyrics and above average playing, maybe-

My mind is set on overdrive

Ryan’s head whirled as the future gripped him. He couldn’t disappear, not right now, but it was tugging at his chest and even as his mouth moved to form the next word, his knees buckled.

 

Then he was bent over a chunky laptop in a tiny, cramped bedroom that smelled faintly of sesame oil and soy sauce. His fingernails were shorter and thicker and had chipped black nail polish, flying over the keyboard as he wrote:

Your singer sounds good. kinda like patrick.

The AIM username he was chatting with was Ryan’s. There was a plastic purple pumpkin sat on the nightstand, a bunch of fun-size candy bars, a green dinosaur costume spilling out of the closet.

you talk to any label guys yet? He wrote.

“Joe!” a familiar voice shouted through thin walls. “If you stay in the shower another fucking minute, I swear-!”

I should come meet you guys. How do you look in person?

He was curious, drawn in. The band was weird, sure, but they were good, and Fall Out Boy was special, but he kind of missed the magic of seeing baby bands start to kick off the ground. Maybe with his help… 

But he wasn’t a businessman! He’d dropped out of school! He didn’t know what he was doing!

He clicked back to another tab, hit play, and:

“Here’s the setting - fashion magazines line the walls now/ the walls line the bullet holes-”

He had to see them in person, see what aura wrote those words that-

 

Ryan wrenched himself back into his own head and slammed down hard onto his knees.

“Holy fuck.”

Then Spencer was on him, hands under his arms wrenching him over to the couch, and Ryan had just enough presence of mind to get to his feet and gently but firmly push Spencer away, tell him he was fine. He still had to sit, but he could do so under his own power still and retain a bit more dignity.

Only a bit, though. He did stagger to his seat, head tilted hack as he gasped for breath. Someone handed him a Capri Sun, which he drained like a hungry vampire.

Like Andy?

“Fuck,” Ryan said, rubbing his forehead.

“You okay?” Brent asked.

“Yeah,” Ryan said. He was back enough in his own body and mind to be embarrassed, then. He had technically just fainted in front of the guys, like, not all the way fainted, but still. The swooning episode wasn’t the peak of cool masculinity. “Fine, just… low blood pressure. Whatever.”

“Yeah…” Brent said, like he, too, didn’t believe Ryan, which was less than ideal.

“Have you slept recently?” Spencer asked. He tried to ask more with his eyes, but Ryan pulled his gaze away, because he knew Spencer’s face too damn well, and knew that Spencer wanted to ask about his dad, and Ryan was absolutely not there for that.

“Yeah, yeah,” Ryan said. “I’m good. We should, uh, get back to it.”

While Ryan was sure the others were looking at him like he’d sprouted extra heads, he didn’t glance up to make sure. Ryan was thinking while they were - he didn’t know, giving each other concerned looks? 

That was Pete Wentz, Pete the monster-slayer from the stories, Pete the boldest and cleverest, Pete the guy who Ryan so desperately wanted to befriend, who could learn to love Ryan’s words, to think he was interesting and clever and not just a fucking weirdo. Pete who wouldn’t see Ryan as a misanthropic weirdo, but a poet, a peer, a friend.

And Pete who was fae, who could make their band not just a shitty way to pass the time and make noise, but something real.

A brand new world of ambition unfolded before Ryan, and he had to get there - there were just a few road blocks in the way.

The biggest one, admittedly, being that Brendon had been singing in that vision, his voice rich and confident and pretty in ways Ryan’s was decidedly not. Ryan was born and raised in Vegas, but he had the SoCal drawl already, kind of sounded like a scratchier version of everyone else. Brendon had the voice, the right voice for the words, the best voice Ryan had heard, the only voice he wanted. For all that, though, Ryan knew it would be challenging, to say the least, to get Brendon to sing. And he didn’t need to see the future to know that if he demanded Brendon sing in front of the others, it would go decidedly poorly.

Talking Brendon into controlling his powers would be a task for another day. Talking him into singing would be a task to come further still after that. But for now-

“I’m good, really,” Ryan said. He got to his feet and, thank fuck, his knees were steady. “I can finish out the song, then we can do something faster?”

“Are you sure?” Brent asked. “You look…”

He paused like he was being polite, so Ryan must really have looked like shit.

“I’m good,” Ryan said, and he was. He felt like someone had poured Pop Rocks into his veins, fireworks crackling in his blood. “You guys good to go again?”

“Well,” Brendon said. “I guess?”

“Great,” said Ryan. He adjusted his guitar strap and smiled with teeth. “Let’s go.”

***

Ryan was incredibly aware of every foul note and every off-beat during that practice, but he went home still feeling elated, still charged up with energy. That was Pete, the one from his head, the one from the fairytale-like scenes of heroes and monsters, and he was talking to Ryan. 

Or, he would be.

The future was looking bright, for once, and all Ryan had to do was figure out how to get there.

Ryan’s house, however, was not as inherently bright as the future.

Home from the hospital, his dad had not gotten off the couch. He must have, Ryan reasoned, to get food and water and use the bathroom, but he hadn’t shown signs of stirring from his seat in the living room while Ryan was around, nor had he slept in his bedroom. Ryan tried not to worry, because worrying did no good, and he tried not to pry, because he wanted his dad to keep extending the same courtesy to him, but.

Well, three days went by, and Ryan’s dad was still just vegetating. He didn’t even turn the TV on, didn’t even get himself worked up over the Cardinals as baseball spring training started. Ryan made food (after begging some grocery money off his dad) and brought plates out to him before and after school, but even so.

Ryan did his best but he simply couldn’t help worrying, because even if he couldn’t do anything, all signs pointed to something being seriously wrong. His dad had gone through this before, and Ryan knew the drill - they carted him off to the hospital, flushed the alcohol out of his system and sent him home with a slap on the wrist. He promised Ryan it would never get that bad again. Long John Silvers. Groceries. A few weeks of his dad actually living up to the promise.

They were off script and his dad wouldn’t get off the couch (and showed no signs of going to work, either) and Ryan knew it was not his role to say something, but he couldn’t go on saying nothing.

So.

“You all right?” Ryan asked one day. His dad, on the couch, said nothing.

Ryan cleared his throat and tried again.

“Is everything okay?” he asked. 

“Kid,” his dad said, voice tight as piano wire. “Knock it off.”

But Ryan was 18 and his dad was off script and as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t.

“You didn’t go to work today,” Ryan said quietly.

“I’ve got plenty of sick time,” his dad said. 

“I just-”

“I said, knock it off!” his dad said, rising to his feet as he spoke.

Ryan’s dad was a cave troll of a man, a hulking, looming figure. He was not as massive as he could have been, given the sheer amount of beer and grease-soaked fast food he consumed, but that was mostly because he was so tall. Ryan didn’t get all his dad’s height, the kind of height that made you stoop under lintels and crack your head on door frames. Not like his dad.

So, when George Ryan Ross II stood at his full height, Ryan was completely in his shadow. His father’s knuckles were white.

Ryan took a step back, his breath too quick in his mouth. An unidentifiable emotion flashed in his father’s eyes, and he unclenched his fingers, sighed hard and heavily.

“Drop it,” said Ryan’s dad. “Alright?”

Ryan swallowed hard.

“Alright,” he said. He found a can of chicken soup in the back of the cupboard, microwaved it until it was too hot to touch the bowl, and carried the soup and a sleeve of saltines into his bedroom.

Then, while he waited for the soup to cool, Ryan closed his eyes, and thought of Fall Out Boy.

 

The sequins on the dress were itchy, digging into his skin in a thousand different places. Andy examined the dress in the mirror, how it draped over his ass, and thought to himself: “This wouldn’t even convince an alligator.”

He stepped back outside and asked the nice saleswoman for another dress to dry, which she agreed to happily and easily. Andy checked his profile again, heard Patrick make a frustrated and embarrassed noise in the dressing room, and laughed to himself. Even Pete was a little self-conscious about the idea, for as much as he put on a big show of bravado, but Andy really didn’t mind. He didn’t look like the kind of girl he’d personally be interested in, but it didn’t bother him, and if it helped them get to the root of the problem…

Andy didn’t really think that sewer alligators were to blame. He didn’t really think there was a serious monster problem in Indianapolis. But there was a part of him that was… uneasy about the whole thing. A stake out with disguises could be fun. And if they did uncover anything, so much the better.

“That is your dress!”

Andy turned to see Patrick in a ridiculously short, tight dress, and he did his level best not to start laughing…

 

When Ryan fully came back into his own body, his heart rate was down, his palms no longer slick with sweat. The soup had cooled enough for him to eat it, scooping mushy noodles and squares of meat-conglomerate into his mouth with salty crackers with one hand, a book on the dubious history of Wicca open in the other. 

And when worries for his father were almost (if not completely) banished from his racing thoughts, he dumped the dirty dishes in the sink and went to bed without a word.

Chapter 13: Joseph Shares His Blessings

Summary:

Ryan longs for an adult to intervene, and when one does, he finds it's not enough.

In second period, Ryan’s phone buzzed against his leg, quiet enough that his teacher didn’t notice. He tucked it between the pages of his textbook and checked.

priest’s back

“Thank you, Spencer,” Ryan said under his breath. He had so much he wanted - needed - to discuss with Merrin, and besides that, Ryan was on the hunt for an adult. An actual authority figure for him to ask questions of sounded ideal, given his present circumstances. And since he didn’t care about this class (and already had a scholarship, again, what reason was there left to care?) Ryan thrust his hand in the air.

“Yes, Ryan?”

“May I be excused?” Ryan said. “I feel ill.”

Ms. Medcalf let him leave, no further questions, and Ryan ran straight to the priest’s office, going only slow enough so that his uniform shoes (found at last!) didn’t squeak against the waxed floors. 

Ryan threw himself into Father Merrin’s office without knocking and found the man behind his desk, shoulders slumped and weary, and gaze fixed on a book. Ryan peered at the title, but couldn’t read it. Latin. 

Ryan knocked on the doorframe.

“Father?”

Merrin startled, dropping the book onto his desk. He smiled faintly, taking off his glasses and setting them down between the pages like a bookmark.

“Ryan, my boy,” he said. “How are you?”

In truth, Ryan had come in mostly to dump out his problems on Merrin’s desk and beg an adult (a real adult) for help, but the priest looked very old and very tired to Ryan, and Ryan realized that he was, perhaps, being rather selfish. Where had he gone for those days he was out? Given that he was millenia old, Ryan didn’t think the man (faery, he supposed) had any living family. What drew him away? What other work did he have?

With an unpleasant and oily warmth in his gut, Ryan realized he’d never wondered about any of that before.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Nothing new, really.”

Father Merrin quirked his eyebrows at Ryan, still smiling kindly.

It took Ryan only a moment to realize his mistake.

“Ah,” he said. “Right. Fae. Damn. Sorry, uh-”

“I teach high school, Ryan,” Father Merrin said. “If I were offended by profanity, I wouldn’t make it long in this career.”

“I’ve had a tough week,” Ryan admitted. “But you look kind of run down yourself, Father.”

“Never mind all that,” Father Merrin said. “It’s sweet of you to be concerned, but I suspect this is just the result of my age catching up to me at last. Now, tell me what it is that’s been concerning you?”

Ryan, with a deep breath, slid into the chair on the other side of the desk, and immediately began to speak.

“It started with my dad,” he said, and boy howdy, didn’t everything in his life? Ryan didn’t mean to give the priest so many gory details, too used to downplaying how bad things could get for the sake of protecting his home life and his father from prying eyes. He had only once in his youth made the mistake of complaining to a teacher that his dad had been drunk for 10 nights in a row and forgotten to pay the water bill and that was why he hadn’t showered - the resulting debacle had taught him better than to bring it up again. But Ryan found himself telling Father Merrin everything - finding his dad and calling the ambulance, the shitty EMT, the not having Spencer there of it all. 

Then he told him about what followed - seeing someone with incredible powers and driving out to find them. He didn’t tell Merrin Brendon’s name, but he told him that there was this impossible thing, this land-siren, and saw as Merrin’s ancient eyes grew bright with shock at something new. 

He told him how he’d come back, how his dad hadn’t been let out of the hospital immediately, how the Smith family had taken him in once again, and how, when he finally did get to pick up his dad, he was different.

By the time he was done talking, his throat was sore and all of his worries seemed a little bit lighter. Was this what it was supposed to be like? Ryan wondered. When normal students grew close to normal teachers and told them the troubles with their home life?

“And I can’t try to see what’s wrong with him,” Ryan finished at last. “That’s a hell of an invasion of privacy. We always agreed not to do that to each other, but I’m worried and he’s-”

The words caught in Ryan’s throat. He knew what he meant to say, and if he could trust anyone, he would trust Merrin. But saying the words out loud would make them so hopelessly real.

He’s the only family I have.

The priest reached his withered old hands across the desk and held them open, palms up. Ryan gingerly touched his fingers to the priest’s, and Merrin clasped his hands tightly, his grip strength stronger than Ryan would have guessed.

“It is hard,” Merrin said. “To be unable to help while we see the ones we love suffering. Sometimes we cannot share their burdens, but can only walk beside them through these dark valleys.”

Ryan laughed mirthlessly.

“You’re giving me more credit than I deserve,” he said. “I- my reasons for wanting my dad to be okay are totally selfish.”

“If they are selfish, they are as natural and old as Eden,” Merrin said. “He is your parent. You want him to take care of you, not the other way round.”

Ryan’s cheeks felt hot. He pulled his hands out of Merrin’s with some effort and shoved them in his pockets. 

“It isn’t fair,” Merrin added. “That you have had to be the adult for so much of your childhood.”

“You know what they say,” Ryan said. “Life isn’t fair. It’s not that big a deal, I just- I want to know what’s wrong so I can do something. I don’t want to lose him to something stupid and preventable.”

“You don’t want to lose him to something tragic and impossible either,” Merrin said.

“Yes, but I could do something about most things!” Ryan said. “I can see the future. What’s the point in having that power if I can’t prevent the bad things that happen?”

“Not everything can be prevented,” Merrin said gravely. “Sometimes it’s simply a blessing to have warning to hunker down and weather the worst of life’s storms.”

Ryan shook his head, but didn’t argue back. Whatever he said, it seemed Merrin would have some rejoinder, and if they didn’t change the subject soon, Ryan was truly worried that the pressure at the backs of his eyes would turn into tears. Even if he had been cool with the priest seeing him cry (and he wasn’t) they were still in the building where Ryan went to high school. There were no circumstances in which Ryan would be willing to walk out into those halls with red-rimmed eyes. He’d sooner clean the floors of all the halls with his tongue.

“I was wondering,” Ryan said after a moment’s pause. “Would you be willing to help me train the guy I was telling you about?”

“Train the land siren?” Merrin asked. “Does he attend Bishop Gorman?”

“No,” Ryan said. “And I don’t mean directly, necessarily? I think he’d be pissed if he even knew… that’s to say, he spooks easily. He thinks his powers are like, devil-work or something.”

Ryan paused a moment.

“He’s LDS,” he admitted.

“Ah,” said Father Merrin. “I see.”

“Yeah,” Ryan said. “But I was thinking, you’ve helped me with my powers - still are - and I was hoping you could, I don’t know, give me some tips on how to help him? I think if he could just control this better he’d see that it wasn’t evil!”

“Do you think religion and religiosity are so logical?” Merrin asked.

“Well… no,” Ryan admitted. “But isn’t it worth trying? He could cause damage if he keeps letting this go unchecked, but I think he could be really happy if he just learned how to channel his powers. I could help him with that. We could help him with that. Isn’t it worth trying to do a good deed?”

Father Merrin laughed.

“I’m sold,” he said. “I’ll see if I can find any texts on regular sirens, or on earth movers in general for you to read up on. In the meantime, I believe the bell is going to ring soon. Do you have class to get to?”

Ryan made a point not to groan.

“Technically,” he said. 

“Mm-hmm,” Father Merrin said. “What are you doing after school Wednesday?”

“Kneeling by the foot of my bed and praying,” Ryan said dryly.

“Try to limit the blasphemy when you can,” Merrin said, his old eyes twinkling. “Come by my office after eighth period. We’ll do some more work on immediate foresight, then see if you can start sharing visions.”

Ryan nodded, and stood up just as the bell rang. 

At least he knew what to practice going forward.

---

“You should swing by my house tonight,” Adam said. His stool was way too close to Ryan’s, practically on top of him, and Ryan was doing his level best to not show how pissy and claustrophobic he felt.

“I’m busy,” he said, too brusque to be polite. “Another time.”

“Busy with what?” Adam asked. He peered over Ryan’s worksheet, his breath hot and wet against Ryan’s neck. “That’s not remotely how Punnett Squares work. Have you never done a genetics section before?”

“Evolution’s a touchy subject at this school,” Ryan muttered. “They only bring it up in AP classes so we don’t fail the tests and make the school look bad. It’s still ‘just a theory’ when the other teachers talk about it.”

“Huh,” Adam said. “Weird. I miss secular education.”

“College is right around the corner,” Ryan said. “I’ve got charity work tonight.”

“You do charity work?” Adam asked, amusement clear on his face.

“Of a sort,” Ryan said. “I’m teaching a Latter Day Saint how to have fun.”

Adam laughed out loud.

“Well, good luck with that,” he said. “Later this week? You really should come over. I think we need to go back to basics. Gregor Mendel. Pea plants. How kids get blue eyes.”

“I know how genetics works,” Ryan said. “You get half and half, and everyone has the four things, each dominant and recessive, and if you get two recessives… um…”

“Friday?” Adam asked. “You can stay over.”

Ryan sighed in resignation. He saw no need to try that hard in school, but there was an  urban legend he heard once, a girl who got into Harvard then coasted on C’s for her final semester till Harvard withdrew their offer. It haunted him for all he knew it wasn’t real.

“Yeah,” he grumbled. “Friday. Some actual studying, not just showing off your ugly showroom house.”

“As you wish,” Adam said. 

---

Ryan didn’t bother asking Brendon if he was free that afternoon. He figured if the goal was to make Brendon cool with magic, the first step was to introduce magic as a useful everyday tool. 

Ryan drove Matilda slowly down the block between Palo Verde and Brendon’s house, slowing to a crawl when he got next to the boy walking a sparkly green bike.

“Hey kid,” Ryan called out the window. “Need a ride?”

Brendon jumped a foot in the air, then brightened immediately when he saw Ryan. Ryan’s heart thudded unevenly in his chest. He did that. He made Brendon’s whole face split into a smile.

“I actually do?” Brendon said. “My bike has a flat-”

“I know,” Ryan said. He tapped his temple pointedly. “Put your bike in the back. How late can you be out?”

“It should take me an hour to walk back,” Brendon said. 

“You ever had a flat before?”

“Not recently, why?”

“Call it two hours, your parents’ll never know,” Ryan said.

Brendon only looked a little scandalized, which Ryan took as a good sign. He had to be a little rebellious, Ryan guessed. He had, after all, joined a rock band with a couple of heathen Catholics. 

Ryan drove Brendon to a playground in between their neighborhoods, one Ryan had gone to only once or twice growing up, but that he remembered as being nice and spacious and somehow completely devoid of other children. He checked the memory against a vision cast into the future and found it true – the place was perpetually empty, which meant there would be no one there to bother him and Brendon for the afternoon.

Ryan parked Matilda halfway up on the curb and got Brendon's door for him – fuck if he knew why. But he saw the faintest pink tinge on Brendon's nose and felt his heartbeat increase like he'd chugged a Monster. Ryan gestured to the park like it wasn't fucking obvious where they were. Stupid.

“Ready?” he asked.

“For what?” Brendon asked back.

“Ready for your first training montage?” Ryan asked him.

“Training?” Brendon asked, his voice tremulous with trepidation.

“Yup,” Ryan said. “Look, you're freaked out by your powers, right?”

“They're not superpowers!” Brendon hissed, drawing closer to Ryan like he was scared the nonexistent passers by would hear. “It's- Ryan, it's wrong what I can do. Evil. I'm not going to practice doing that!”

“It's not wrong,” Ryan said, with what he thought was an astounding amount of patience. “But, fine, let's roll with your argument. Say it's evil. Say your powers are naught but a force to be used for darkness in the world. Don't you think that's all the more reason to learn how to control them?”

Brendon quirked an eyebrow at Ryan – angry and scared still, but a little uncertain, a little curious. Ryan could work with that.

“If it's really that dangerous,” Ryan said. “Which, by the way, good powers can be too – you should learn how to control it. You can't help but use your powers sometimes, right? That's why you told me you were out there the other day, in the middle of nowhere, singing someplace that was empty of other people so you wouldn't hurt anyone because you had to. If we could figure out safer ways for you to channel it, ways for you to temper it when you can't help but use it, then that's like, harm reduction, right?”

Brendon looked dubious, but not entirely unmoved.

“Look, I've scanned the future and no one's gonna be here all afternoon,” he said. “It's just me. I know about this, and you're not going to hurt me. I've already seen it.”

Brendon's face softened just a little bit more.

“You promise?” he said. “You've already looked and I'm not going to hurt you?”

“I promise,” Ryan said. He scanned the next couple of hours in his head – nothing stuck out and he didn't sense any pain. Good enough.

Brendon bit his lip. It was a nice lower lip, plush and pink, like a girl’s. Excellent for biting. Ryan couldn't blame Brendon for doing so, only he found himself absurdly jealous of Brendon's teeth. Fucking stop it already.

“Okay,” Brendon whispered. “I'll try. But if anything happens --”

“Nothing will happen,” Ryan said soothingly. “You're with me.” He tapped his temple. “I would see if something bad was coming.”

The doubt didn't leave Brendon's face, but he looked calmer. He trusted Ryan at least a little, and Ryan, well, he felt some kind of brand new emotion about that.

Whatever. He could deal with feelings later.

The two of them walked into the playground which was, admittedly, pretty sad. Ryan didn't blame the neighborhood kids (if there were any) for leaving this place to the dust and the tumbleweeds. In one corner stood a swingset with space for four swings, though one of them had been twisted so thoroughly around the top bar that it was unusable, seat hanging above Ryan's head, and another dragged on the ground, one of its two chains cut. There was a slide made out of aluminum that looked like it was giving off heat enough to bake cookies, even on that not-so-hot spring day. And the main event, in the center of the sandy pit of the park, was a jungle gym – ostensibly. It looked mostly like a silver skeleton of a Rubix cube, just interlocking silver bars twelve feet high by twelve feet wide. In a small pit in the center, there was a collection of multihued beer bottles.

Ryan led Brendon to the jungle gym and stood the two of them in front of it. He looked at Brendon (still nervous) and said “Okay. Sing just a few bars and try to get the sand to lift you up on top of this thing.”

“What, like now?” Brendon asked. Jesus, he had massive eyes.

“No, next Tuesday,” Ryan said. “Yeah, now.”

Brendon gulped.

“I've never tried to... focus it like that?” he said.

“I figured,” Ryan said. “But you did have the sand kind of, like, levitating you when I found you last, so I know you can. Just try something small, and we'll work our way up.”

Brendon still looked petrified, and Ryan sighed.

“You got all that energy out recently,” he reminded him gently. “So it's unlikely that you're gonna, like, explode. Just try lifting up some of the sand first.”

He brushed his hand against Brendon's, then pulled it back just as fast. That brief contact of skin shouldn't have felt electric.

“Okay,” Brendon mouthed.

Then he closed his eyes, and sang.

“ There is a house in New Orleans// that they call the rising sun// and it's been the ruin of many a poor boy// and God, I know, I'm one.”

Ryan watched, transfixed, as the sand all around them began to vibrate, first slowly and then faster, rising up around their ankles, their legs, their hips, their ribs. It was like a fog coming off the ground after rain, but solid, little granules of sand tickling at Ryan's fingertips.

Brendon paused where the instrumental could be and opened his eyes. The sand dropped back down to the ground like nothing had ever happened, and again he bit his lip.

“Shit,” he said. “That wasn't--”

“It wasn't what we planned,” Ryan agreed. “but it was a start. Try again. Try to focus your thoughts on the patch of ground right in front of you this time.”

Brendon frowned, but he did just that.

“ My mother was a tailor// she sewed my new blue jeans-”

Ryan stepped back as a mass of sand lifted up between them, rising from the ground out of nothing , and had to fight back the awed smile he could feel growing on his face.

Brendon peaked at it.

“Better,” Ryan said. “Let's keep going.”

They didn't get to levitation that day. Eventually, Ryan sat on top of the jungle gym, the heat from the sun-warmed metal bars seeping through his jeans and into his ass. From his higher vantage point, the ground was less a worry for him, and he directed Brendon as best he could – telling him how to focus, tips he'd learned from Merrin, instructions on where to move the sand, what to tighten, how to better control it.

An hour and a half later, Ryan was sick of House of the Rising Sun but more enthralled with Brendon's voice than ever, and Brendon could consistently raise, lower, and somewhat direct a ball of condensed sand with his voice. It was impressive progress, Ryan thought, though Brendon still looked dubious.

“I don't know if this is enough to stop it if I lose control,” he said. “Condensing the sand might just make it more dangerous, don't you think?”

“I don't,” Ryan said. “I think it makes you a little more in control. And you'll be even more in control next time. It's like music, right? Practice makes perfect.”

Brendon glared at him, but it was halfhearted.

“Thanks,” Ryan said softly. “For hearing me out.”

Brendon softened too as Ryan climbed down to the ground.

“Thanks for, um, trying to help me,” he said.

“Alright, that's sappy enough,” Ryan said. “C'mon, let's get you and your flat tire home.”

Brendon smiled at Ryan like he'd hung the moon. Ryan scolded his racing heart like a misbehaving dog.

He could already sense a pattern developing.

---

Ryan dreamed of a great, turbulent sea where the water was all a bruised shade of purple and the waves were capped in foamy red rather than white. The water churned like a garden potion mixed in a child's plastic bucket, waves tossing in every direction without rhyme or reason.

Ryan wasn't within the water, thrashing and pulsating like an open wound, but he was close to it, he knew, because he could feel the warmth coming off of it. He thought of the way his mom had described the bathwater warmth of the Mediterranean once when she called him collect from Greece, but she made that sound wonderful and soft. This water didn't feel inviting. It felt hungry.

Thinking of the Mediterranean, Ryan surveyed the bruised skin color again. He had grown too comfortable with the water, pulled too close, and as the warmth splashed up at him he did not yank his arm back in time.

A hot slice ripped down his forearm, red painting his white skin wrist to elbow.

Blood, he thought with horror. Then a deeper horror gripped him.

My blood.

The sea had sliced into him, blood was pouring from his arm and into the waves which churned ever faster, ever frothier, and he was right — it was hungry it was hunting and the voice that resided always in the back of his head said:

“It's always waiting, the shadow that hides behind every bright and beautiful thing.”

“What?!” Ryan choked out, and blood burbled hot and slick from his lips as he did, drying like tar on his chin. He was being drained, he realized, dying by the second as his life force eked out of him and he lost the strength to stay above water.

The water itself gargled the answer up to him.

Entropy.

Then a wave rose up and swallowed Ryan whole.

Ryan opened his eyes in the darkness, gasping for breath. The sea of blood was gone and he was alone in the cool, safe, dry dark.

A dream, then. A nightmare – the normal, surreal kind that non-prophets got, ones that didn't mean anything other than the dreamer was anxious about their waking world. Ryan released a soft, shaky sigh. He was fine.

Except:

Where was his bedroom?

For when Ryan looked around more closely, all he could see was the dark. Not the faint glow that always came through his blinds from the street lights outside, not the light under the door from the hallway, not the faint outline of his bedside table, his dresser, his hamper, nothing.

And come to think of it, Ryan wasn't even sure he was on his bed.

He stood up and stepped forward. The ground under his feet seemed flat, but he couldn't exactly check and see, so he opted not to keep walking out of fear he might just wander off a cliff's edge.

“Hello?” he called.

His own voice echoed back to him, hello hello hello hello. He sounded young and frightened.

“Is anyone there?!” he called, trying to sound more assertive. Before his echo he shouted: “Father Merrin?”

Why he expected Father Merrin to be there was a mystery, he supposed, but the man was something of an expert on the supernatural. Maybe he could help explain this to Ryan, how he had gotten there, where 'there' even was...

The outlines of shapes began to appear as Ryan's eyes adjusted to the dark. He was in a hallway, it seemed, with greater light coming from a doorway at the end of it. He started walking forward slowly, carefully, testing the ground with his toes before stepping down each time. He walked and kept listening, slow and steady and so careful.

From a distance, he heard the sound of a man speaking – softly, but fervently. As he drew closer, he began to make out the prayer:

“Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God--”

“Lying cunt,” came a second voice, just as soft but with a cruel edge. “There's no God that answers prayer from the likes of you.”

Ryan walked faster – still careful, but now in a hurry to reach whoever it was.

“You know little enough, if you believe that.”

“You believe in God?”

“Many,” came the first voice. A voice that sounded like--

“Father!” Ryan shouted. “Father Merrin!”

He ran through the soft, gray glow of the doorway and found himself in that charnel room, the one he'd already seen.

Father Merrin's eyes met his.

“I'm so sorry,” he said.

And then the other person yanked the knife out of Merrin's chest.

Blood spurted out of the wound, soaking his golden chasuble, and the priest fell to his knees, eyes rolling up as he folded in on himself like crumpled paper.

There, wiping off the knife on his My Chemical Romance t-shirt, was Ryan.

“What?” said the other Ryan. “You're an atheist too, aren't you?”

Ryan screamed.

He woke up screaming, this time truly tangled in his bedsheets, seeing the faded posters on his walls. Midway through his scream, the sound was cut off as thick black ink burbled up his throat, spilling down his face and chest and soaking the bedsheets.

Ryan leaned over the side of his bed at last, vomiting profusely, blank ink thick as mud fountaining from his mouth and onto the dirty carpet below. When it finally felt as though he was going to suffocate from the pressure, the unrelenting stream of viscous liquid that gave him no reprieve to breathe, it cut off just as suddenly.

Ill, still gagging, Ryan fell back onto his pillow and gasped for air. His vision was-- what, changing? Which wasn't supposed to happen. But more vivid, which was also no good. The priest was going to die.

Ryan looked at the door with want aching like a knife in his chest. He'd never so desperately wanted to ask his dad for help – no, he'd never so desperately wanted his dad to offer up his help without having to be asked.

But if George Ross could still see the future, he either hadn't seen this or hadn't thought it was worth attending to. And if he heard Ryan screaming, there was no knock at the door.

Ryan wanted a grown up. He wanted to not qualify as a grown up. He wanted to go back to sleep and have someone else say not to worry, they would take care of it, everything is under control.

None of those things were going to happen, though, so he waited five minutes before getting up and padding to the kitchen for a roll of paper towels and some other cleaning supplies, a sponge and a bucket of soapy water.

---

Ryan slogged through school, picking over the memories of the nightmare in his mind like picking at a scab. He wasn’t particularly masochistic, but he was exhausted. He’d been up till two in the morning scrubbing goo out of the carpet, and then he spent hours after staring at an old water spot on the ceiling, trying to convince himself to fall back asleep. 

The day dragged. Maybe Spencer and Adam sensed Ryan’s black mood, for neither of them made too many attempts to start talking to him. Adam did his part of their lab work in silence, and Spencer chatted with his girlfriend all through lunch less like he was ignoring Ryan and more amiably. Ryan picked at school lunch and watched condensation drip down his bottle of apple juice, waiting for the seconds to tick by so he could go back home and try his hand at sleeping again.

The nightmare had been mostly nonsensical — just the sort of bad dream anyone might have, he guessed. Part of it had felt like a vision, but it couldn’t be. Ryan didn’t have a twin, nor did he have any real enemies — much less ones capable of the sort of magic that could transfigure them into him. The hallway he’d walked down was unreal as any in a haunted house, and Merrin’s words made no sense. It felt real, felt like he was predicting the future, but he couldn’t be.

Ryan didn’t let himself think on the first dream, the endlessly churning ocean. There was nothing to think about, nothing to say. It wasn’t real.

And yet, that surety didn’t stop Ryan’s hands from shaking when he felt the edge of a piece of paper graze the soft skin of his inner arm, when he remembered the way the water had cut him, bled him, sucked him dry—

Oceans were not vampires, Ryan reminded himself. He snapped a mechanical pencil and jabbed the broken plastic into the heel of his hand, bringing him back to the present, to his French teacher droning over the passe compose. What he should focus on was the future he intended to look at, the future with Pete Wentz, a future where Brendon could sing, a future with a real band that really mattered.

Still, the ink that had poured from his mouth hadn’t been imaginary. His red hands, raw from a night of scrubbing, could attest to that. And the details from the dreams stuck. Father Merrin’s brilliant golden chasuble painted red—

“ George, s’il vous plait?”

Ryan grimace. None of the other teachers insisted on using his first name. He wrote the wrong sentence on the chalkboard, the chalk dust from the eraser was so thick he could taste grit on his tongue, and when he sat back down, several kids in the front started snickering for no apparent reason. 

Sure, Ryan couldn’t wait for the day to end — but then, he couldn’t wait for high school to end, too. 

---

Ryan paused in the doorframe, the liminal space between outside his house and in. His dad was where he was supposed to be and where he always was, parked on the couch with his glazed eyes fixed on the screen. Baseball, which was unfortunate. Ryan had the least to say about baseball of any major league sport.

And he really needed to talk to his dad, so a decent intro would’ve been nice. He tried anyway.

“Cards are doing well?” Ryan said. 

His dad grunted.

“Pre-season,” he said. “They won’t take it to the Series.”

Ryan could’ve cried with relief.

“Any new players with potential?”

“Carpenter,” his dad said immediately. “But he knows it. Cocky.”

Ryan nodded. He pulled the door shut behind him, sealing himself into the living room, and he sat down on the couch with his dad. He offered Ryan a greasy bag of microwave popcorn. Ryan took a handful. It was cold and a little stale, but even so.

“Pitcher’s pretty good tonight,” Ryan’s dad offered after a few minutes. “He’s been wobbly, but he’s gonna do better this season. If he really gets his act together he could take this team pretty far. See, watch this — he’s about to put a wicked curve on this next one.”

Ryan watched, saw a man throw a ball and another man not hit the ball with a bat on the fuzzy tv screen, but his dad crowed, smacked his knee.

“That’s good playing,” he said. “Look at that, that’s how you do it.”

He ate some of the popcorn, a slice of green apple. Then he rattled off the players’ stats to Ryan, told him about the previous teams the man had been on, why he was so good at what he did. Ryan almost understood what was going on.

Ryan was so lost in his own world that he didn’t realize for a few minutes that the room had gone quiet, his dad no longer giving sports facts. 

“Um,” Ryan turned back toward the screen with something like desperation. “So, this is a game against the Mariners?”

“White Sox.”

His dad didn’t look angry, but he didn’t exactly look thrilled either. 

Maybe he didn’t look anything at all.

“I wanted to be a sports announcer when I was a kid,” he said at last. 

“Sorry?” 

“I loved sports,” Ryan’s dad said. “Couldn’t play for shit. But I liked watching, you know, I liked the statistics, the knowledge. Had a good voice. I did the announcements at my high school, worked at the radio station down for a few years. That was what I wanted to do.”

Ryan rolled a kernel of popcorn around in his fingers and dared to look back at his dad. He wasn’t looking at Ryan.

“Why didn’t you?” Ryan asked.

“I had a hard time staying present. Kept announcing the moves before they happened.”

He took a long pull from a bottle that did not look like beer. And Ryan knew that tonight was not the night to ask his dad for advice.

Instead, he called Spencer. 

Ryan abandoned his dad to the Cardinals game, went to his room, and let Spencer ramble on about his girlfriend. Ryan kept asking leading questions, Spencer kept answering with more detail than was really necessary.

Eventually, Ryan fell asleep. Mercifully, he did not dream.

Notes:

Thanks so much for reading! For more on this universe, check out http://thehigh-waytohell.tumblr.com

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 9 of The High Way to Hell