Chapter Text
The thing about people is that they’re great at cognitive dissonance. It’s the thing that really separates humans from machines, and, Ryan truly believes, that the ultimate answer to the Turing test is that a robot will never be entirely, perfectly willing to wholeheartedly believe two opposite things at once. People will.
When he was a teenager, he knew, with one-hundred-percent certainty, that he was gay, but it was years before he ever acted on it or spoke a word of it to anyone, because acting on it or saying it out loud would have ruined the dissonance, and as long as the dissonance was there, it was exactly as real as the fact that he was straight. He was straight in high school. He slept with girls and had himself convinced that he liked them and wanted to do that. He felt emotions about them, he enjoyed sleeping with them, and talking about sleeping with them, and as long as he never said anything about the fact that he knew he liked men more, differently, that wasn’t real. It didn’t matter. He could know he was gay and be straight.
This situation has a slightly more built-in time limit, sure, but that doesn’t mean he can’t draw it out a while longer, and, hey, if he’s wrong about this, then maybe it’ll just go away if he forgets about it. If he simply doesn’t allow himself to admit what’s going on, what he thinks is going on, either by his actions or his words, and winds up being wrong, then it’ll be like this thought never crossed his mind, and, really, that’s the best case scenario, that’s the easiest thing to do, so he’s just going to hold out for that.
He can wait, totally.
Except that the smell of the eggs at the hotel breakfast is about to make him fucking throw up into the nearest trash can, even from across the room, and that’s a little harder to ignore or explain away. He can do it, though. Food poisoning. Stomach flu. Low blood sugar.
Brendon walks over to their table with some eggs, fucking prick, and Ryan says “I gotta go to the bathroom.”
It’s too fucking early for this, way to fucking early for Ryan to be having this realization about symptoms and condoms. Everyone hums in disinterest as Ryan forces himself to walk slowly and normally to the bathroom, as if he’s also just tired and not very, very nervous.
There’s nobody in there, which is nice, because he does actually need to pee, and he hates doing that in front of people, (who aren’t Spencer.) It makes life on the road a little inconvenient.
He can’t read the signs here, but enough people in Denmark speak English that, so far, not speaking the language hasn’t been a problem. He gathers from the images on the mirror that the laminated pictures in here have accompanying text that says something like ‘wash your fucking hands, please,’ and it’s kind of weirdly comforting to know that, even three thousand miles from home, men, as a whole, are still kind of nasty creatures who have to be reminded to wash their hands after they piss.
He splashes cold water on his face after he’s done scrubbing a bit too thoroughly at his hands, and stares at himself in the mirror as blankly as he can manage. Good. Fine. He looks tired, but disinterested. That’s fine. He can do this. He did this for years, he can do it for a couple months until this all blows over. He can think this as loud as he wants in the privacy of his own head, just as long as he never says it out loud. As long as he never makes it real.
He goes back to the table after about five minutes, because he knows it won’t take more than three for Brendon to finish those eggs, and slumps down in his seat next to Spencer, pushing his pancakes around on his plate. If he hadn’t just had the realization he had, and he was this nauseous, this is what he’d be doing, so he does it. He will not act on this thought.
Jon is smiling indulgently at Brendon as he attempts to get Zack to join in on his latest breakfast time Disney sing along, because Zack will never, ever join in, which makes his persistence almost inspirational at this point. Like Ryan expected, Brendon’s plate is clean. He eats like he grew up with older siblings, that’s for sure. He always sort of has the energy of someone who’s trying to finish his food before his older brother can beat him to seconds, even at a buffet-style breakfast.
Spencer kicks at Ryan’s foot, and when Ryan looks up at him he raises his eyebrows, glancing at Ryan’s plate. Ryan shrugs, wrinkling his nose and hunching his shoulders. Don’t feel good.
Out loud, Spencer asks “Something you ate?” and Ryan shrugs again. Spencer looks down at his own plate thoughtfully, then turns his plate so that the two slices of toast he has are facing Ryan. He’s always liked a savory breakfast more than Ryan, who has historically preferred something like pancakes drenched in syrup, or sugary cereal. He rubs two knuckles down the outside of Ryan’s arm, and pushes his juice towards him, too. He raises his eyebrows. That better? Ryan nods, offers him a weak smile, thanks, and takes a piece of toast. Spencer smiles back, and reaches up to half-fix, half-tug-on a piece of Ryan’s hair when it falls into his eyes.
“Do ‘Can You Feel the Love,’” Spencer tells Brendon, as if he’s his own personal iPod for disney songs, which, functionally, he kind of is. Brendon breaks into a grin, and wraps his arms around Zack’s neck, passionately singing to him. He still, somehow, looks for all the world like Zack just might join in any second now, despite the fact that he’s still ignoring him as he eats his breakfast sausage.
Ryan chews Spencer’s toast dutifully, and does not think about how his deodorant has smelled off for a couple days.
People are great at cognitive dissonance.
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The next couple days pass by in a blur of shuffling around from Denmark to Germany to Austria, and Ryan’s always gotten a little sick and tired when there’s a lot of complicated traveling, with passports and bumpy roads involved. Lots of stopping and starting. It becomes easy to ignore, easy to pass off as normal. By the time they’re getting done with their show in Vienna Ryan feels like he could sleep for a thousand years, which is also, frankly, not at all unexpected.
Still, after the show, Spencer knocks his shoulder into Ryan’s as they’re walking off stage, and asks “Are you coming down with something?”
“Nah,” Ryan answers, knocking him back. “Just, you know, traveling.”
“Hotel night tonight,” Brendon comments, turning around to walk backwards just so he can grin wickedly at Ryan and Spencer. Jon, without seemingly even thinking about it, pulls on his arm to keep him from backing directly into one of the concrete pillars backstage on the way to the dressing room, and Brendon, seamlessly, just goes with it. “You, me, absolutely everyone else we can find, and expensive Austrian substances. You in?” Brendon asks, raising his eyebrows.
Ryan is about to say yes, of course he’s in, he’s stressed as hell, but then…
Then there’s the dissonance, and that complicates things a little.
The thing he neglected to consider about this plan to just not think about it is the fact that, if he’s right about this, that actually requires action now. That’s fine, though, that’s totally cool, just a little… shifting and shuffling of how he thinks of this. He can still pretend it’s not real. He can’t act like this isn’t happening and know it is, so instead he’ll just… act like it’s happening and know it’s not. You know, just in case.
Schrodinger’s pregnancy. Not real till he opens the box. Which he will not.
“Think I’m gonna hang back,” Ryan says. “I’m fucking exhausted.”
“I think he’s coming down with something,” Spencer says, matter of fact. Ryan glares, and Spencer bites at the air between them, snapping his teeth. Ryan fake lunges at him, and Spencer fake lunges back, and all of this only results in the two of them getting their faces even closer together, close to kissing.
“You guys are gross and boring,” Brendon huffs, turning back around. “If Ryan does have something I hope it’s sexually transmitted.”
“You can’t make AIDS jokes, Brendon, that’s homophobic,” Spencer bitches back.
“Yes I can, I do guys,” Brendon replies cheerily. “Cancels out.”
“That’s not how that works,” Spencer argues.
“It totally is.” Brendon turns around again, grinning at them, and Spencer looks half murderous, because he’s very clearly also tired from being the person who’s constantly been organizing everyone’s passports and documents recently. Not a great time to be pushing his buttons. But, then again, Brendon doesn’t seem to know that there can be a bad time to push someone's buttons. This is also, Ryan suspects, a result of being a younger brother.
Spencer is about to lunge and start a wrestling match, Ryan can tell by the set of his shoulders, like when a cat wiggles its ass just before pouncing, when Jon says “ladies, ladies, calm down. You’re both very gay and homophobic.” They both turn to him, ready to (playfully) yell at him now, and Ryan grins at Jon as he serenely smiles back, pushing open the dressing room door. He has no idea what they did before they had him as a mediator, truly. Thank God for Jon Walker.
Ryan manages to feel normal as they change, and normal as they get their cabs back to the hotel, and even normal as they take the elevator up to their floor. As he watches Brendon and his gang of partiers go off towards someone’s room at the end of the hall, though, suddenly he feels weird. He wants to go, but he knows he can’t because of the… the thing. Cause of Schrodinger’s little bundle of joy who is and is not inside him right now.
“You can go, if you want,” Spencer points out, gesturing towards them with his head. “Promise I won’t act too much like my mom if you really want to party while ill.”
“I’m not ill,” Ryan argues with a roll of his eyes. “Don’t let me stop you, though. We don’t actually have to be two feet apart at all times.”
Spencer smiles, kicks at Ryan’s foot, and says “Nah, I want a night alone with you, as long as you don’t fall asleep on top of me.” He nods over his shoulder, gesturing for Ryan to follow, which he does, grinning back.
About twenty minutes later, when Spencer is on top of him, wearing nothing but his socks, (because it’s fucking cold and Ryan promised not to laugh if he kept them on,) he considers, for the first time, that there could be an upside to this, if, you know, the cat is alive.
Spencer curses at the condom, unable to get it open. He’s now seemingly unwilling to just use his teeth, since his fingers have already gotten it covered in lube, and Ryan realizes it would be really cool if they just… didn’t use one. Unprotected sex is a novel feeling that usually comes at the cost of a PlanB, and normally, on tour, it’s really not worth it to try to read well enough in a foreign language to both procure and properly consume a morning after pill from some corner store or pharmacy, but if Ryan was already, you know, they wouldn’t even have to worry about that, and that wouldn’t be so bad.
Ryan takes the condom from him, and, after a moment of hesitation that he prays Spencer won’t comment on, he opens it for him, sliding it down over Spencer’s dick.
The thought is there, though, the whole time they’re having slow, sappy, missionary sex, like they never get to do in bunks. It would be cool if there was nothing between them right now, and super hot if Spencer could really come inside him. If he could claim him like that.
Spencer pants against his mouth, his hips snapping quick and jagged, but still at the right angle, and Ryan’s hand speeds up on his own dick, panting right back. He realizes it’s actually super hot to think about the idea of being claimed like that, of Spencer just unapologetically wanting to fucking come inside him and-
He comes with an embarrassingly high-pitched shout as he leans forward to bite Spencer’s shoulder.
Spencer isn’t far behind, because he gets off on a little bit of pain, especially when he’s close, and Ryan slowly lets go of his death grip on Spencer’s back in favor of just loosely draping his arms over his shoulders. Spencer slumps down on top of him, breathing heavily and not even pulling out, and Ryan swallows thickly, because Spencer’s weight on him is a whole lot of pressure on his abdomen, and he refuses to acknowledge the situation enough to google if stuff like that is okay.
“Get off me,” he says, hoping he actually manages to sound playfully annoyed instead of nervous. “You’re heavy.”
Spencer grunts, takes a breath against his shoulder, and then pulls away. They both cringe as he pulls out, lazily tying the condom and tossing it in the trash before he falls to the side next to Ryan. He immediately puts his face back on his shoulder and tangles their legs together. Probably, nobody would peg Spencer as a post-sex cuddler upon first glance, but he really is. Ryan sighs into his hair.
“Can’t wait till we get home after this,” Spencer mumbles into his shoulder.
“Only for, like, three weeks before we have to go back to touring,” Ryan points out, tracing patterns on his back.
“Three weeks of nonstop fucking,” Spencer promises, grinning against Ryan’s neck and reaching down to squeeze his ass. Unprotected, if the cat is alive, Ryan’s head unhelpfully supplies. He hums against Spencer’s hair.
“Round two in the shower?” he suggests, tugging at Spencer’s hair playfully.
“If you can stay awake for it, I’m down,” Spencer says. “But give me, like, five minutes.”
“Now who’s the old man,” Ryan asks, tugging on his hair again. Spencer nips at his shoulder in retaliation.
“Still you, you’re just a horny one.”
“If I’m a horny old man what does that make you, my sugar baby?” Ryan replies, grinning to himself.
“If I am you need to get way better at buying me shit,” Spencer says. “You never even get me expensive lingerie.”
“I’ll buy you a matching bra and panty set in Paris,” Ryan deadpans. Spencer snickers against his shoulder.
Ryan looks at the ceiling, sighing, and bites his lip. Now that he’s, uh, opened Pandora's box, so to speak, he can’t really put the thought back that, well… maybe he’d like the idea of having a cat.
Sure, Ryan doesn’t like most cats, but this cat is different, because, uh, well. If Spencer gave him a little kitten to take care of, he might grumble about communication, but he’d think that was really sweet, and yeah, it’s a lot of responsibility, but what if Spencer also loves the cat, and teaches it to talk and read and call him dad, and what if one day Ryan finds himself watching Spencer sing to this kitten in his weird, scratchy tenor, because that would be perfect.
This metaphor might be getting away from him a little.
The easiest version of this situation, still, is the version where there never was any fucking cat, and maybe, a few years down the line, they talk about acquiring one, but, like… if the cat is alive, maybe Ryan can admit he wants to keep it in their house and give it a name.
Like Mittens… or Amelia. Spencer once mentioned liking that one.
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The next morning everyone gets shuffled back onto the bus grumpily, and Ryan and Brendon wind up fighting over who gets to throw up first, although Brendon has the excuse of a hangover. In the middle of their very unenthusiastic rock paper scissors, Ryan wins by default when Jon reveals that he snatched some scrambled eggs from the hotel breakfast, at which point Ryan has to literally sprint down the hall to make it in time.
Jon says “Woah,” as he presses against the wall to get out of the way, and Ryan actually does have to acknowledge, as he’s emptying what’s left of last night's dinner into this morning's bus toilet, that the jig might be up soon.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Spencer says, suddenly appearing in the doorway and dropping to his knees with a thump. He rubs Ryan’s back as he gags again, coughing at the uncomfortable feeling of bile in his throat. He rubs Ryan’s back as he spits in the toilet, flushes it, and sits back on his heels.
“Should we cancel the show tonight?” Jon asks from the doorway, looking concerned.
Ryan shakes his head, but Spencer says “Yeah,” because he can never, ever live up to his promise of not babying Ryan like his mom. It’s always cute after the fact, and never in the moment.
Ryan glares at him. “I’m fine,” he says in a scratchy voice, and despite the fact that everyone just watched him violently throw up. “Food poisoning, I think,” he offers as an explanation, begrudgingly allowing Spencer to wipe his face with the damp washcloth Jon hands him. “No more corner shop hotdogs.”
“You seemed fine last night,” Spencer argues, and Ryan manages to smile at him, raising his eyebrows suggestively. More than fine. Spencer gives him an impatient look as he holds Ryan’s face by the chin to wipe his forehead with the clean side of the towel.
“Takes a while to set in fully,” he explains, and that is a valid thought, really. He should know better than to eat random gas station hotdogs in foreign countries. “I’ll be fine in a couple hours,” Ryan says, standing up to grab his toothbrush from his bag in the bunks nearby, cause ew. “If I still feel bad in a couple hours we can talk about canceling,” he adds, pointedly looking at Spencer. “But I’ve performed with food poisoning before, we all have, so I really don’t want to cancel unless I'm actively dying.”
“Fine,” Spencer concedes, walking behind Ryan with a hand on his back. Ryan watches a miserable looking Brendon shuffle to the bathroom for his turn to barf, and cringes as he hears him throwing up. It’s Jon's turn on back rubbing duties.
He brushes his teeth in the bus kitchen sink, and absolutely longs for a redbull, but, ya know… The cat.
Cat’s meowing now, he supposes, if he’s sticking with that metaphor, and, yeah, it could be someone playing cat noises nearby, or whatever, but it sure does seem like the sound’s coming from inside the box.
“Okay, everyone who’s thrown up in the past hour is hereby banished to the bunks to nap until further notice,” Jon announces, gesturing towards the bunks like Vannah White. Brendon grumbles, and shuffles towards the bunks, but Ryan rolls his eyes, grabbing a magazine and heading towards the lounge. “That means you, Ross!” Jon calls after him. Ryan flips him off.
“I feel fine now, Jon, just had to rid myself of the evil hotdog,” he calls back, completely ignoring Brendons indignant “SHHHHH!” from the back. He’s such an asshole when he’s hungover, and unnervingly quiet, but Ryan knows, from years of experience, that he just has to sleep it off till noon and he’ll be back to his normal, hyperactive self.
Ryan curls up on the couch, smiling at Spencer a little weakly when he sits down next to his feet. Spencer drapes himself over Ryan’s side a couple seconds after he opens the magazine, and, into his ribs, he asks “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m sure,” Ryan replies, tugging on Spencer’s hair familiarly as he runs his fingers through it. Spencer nods, like that’s good enough, and hugs Ryan around the waist, close to his stomach, which sort of makes his stomach flip over, but he ignores that.
They both end up napping there until the bus stops moving, to the background hum of Jon playing video games, and by that time Brendon is mostly fine again, after a couple Red-Bulls and some sleep, so, really, everything is back to normal.
Ryan has to get up to pee about once every two hours, though, and, inside his head, the cat is fucking
meowing.