As close as it gets to home (1/3)
Title: As close as it gets to home
Pairings: Gerard/Frank, Ryan/Brendon, Spencer/Jon, Brendon/Mikey
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: This is a complete work of fiction, no disrespect intended.
Warning: Pseudo-character death.
Notes: Telepath police consultant AU. Title taken from the BTE song ‘Our Finest Year.’
Thanks: To adellyna, who has claimed this story as her own and provided more support and encouragement than I have ever deserved; to maleyka and ficklish for reading and sharing their thoughts; and to impasto for the amazing beta.
“Walker’s here.”
Gerard looks up and sees Frank’s head poking around the corner of the door to his office. He waves him in; not like Frank ever waits for his invitation anyway, but they’re been trying to tread more carefully around each other recently, if only to avoid the upheaval that tends to follow.
“What’s he like?” Gerard values Frank’s opinion on most things. He doesn’t technically work for their department; he’s the supervisor and coordinator for the majority of the smaller specialty teams like theirs, which in a way makes him Gerard’s boss. But Gerard heads up the second-best Telepath Response Unit in the country, and he has a higher official rank, which in a way also makes him Frank’s boss.
They try never to get to the point of pulling rank. It’s better for everyone that way.
“Friendly, scruffy, looks kind of like a hobo,” Frank reports, leaning against the door and crossing his arms, clearly thinking it over. “I always expect the shrinks to be more…unapproachable. He’s got a nice smile.”
“Should I be worried?” Gerard says, with more of a genuine twinge than he really wants to admit to himself. If Frank wants to seduce their new psychiatrist, there’s not anything major standing in his way. This isn’t his department, and it’s Gerard’s own fault that he’s out of the picture now as far as Frank’s love life is concerned.
Frank, bless him, forbears to point that out. “He’s kind of short,” he says instead, wrinkling his nose and grinning.
Gerard laughs, leaning back in his chair. “Look who’s talking.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m going back down to help him set his shit up, are you coming?” Frank looks relaxed, eyes sparkling, head cocked to the side. Gerard lets himself look for exactly three seconds before he waves him out.
“I’ll be down in a minute. Try not to tell him too many horror stories, will you?”
Frank’s grin is bright and nothing like innocence. “Gee, you know I only speak the truth.”
It’s sort of true. But there’s enough truth floating around their department to scare off many a psychiatrist, professional or not. “Shoo,” Gerard orders, and Frank scoots.
The new shrink’s coming in today. Ryan drops his shit on his desk and wonders if they’re having some sort of office greeting-party, or if they all have to set up special first-session appointments, but he doesn’t see the new guy and only sees Gerard for a moment. He drifts by on the stairs overlooking their work area, raising a hand in greeting and disappearing again. It’s very Gerard. Ryan shrugs to himself and starts reading his office web-mail.
He feels Spencer come in before he sees him, the low-level buzz in the back of his mind that means Spencer is near. He and Spencer grew up together, trained together, got assigned together, and haven’t been apart for more than a week or two since they were kids. The presence of Spencer in his mind is almost something he takes for granted, and Ryan opens his own mind in response, passing a wordless greeting that he feels returned automatically just as Spencer appears and slides in at the desk across from him.
Spencer logs in and then reaches over to the computer next to them, on the desk shoved up tight sideways between the two of them, and logs Brendon in. Ryan raises an eyebrow, and Spencer shrugs, but Ryan gets enough from the images flitting across his mind to understand that Brendon made a pit-stop to get them coffee.
He’s always buying them coffee. Ryan thinks it might be the primary reason Spencer keeps him around.
“New guy?” Spencer inquires while Ryan flicks through the daily load of office e-mails, stuff about policies and PR and whose turn it is to clean the kitchen and the new signature they’re all supposed to put on the bottom of their outgoing e-mails. Ryan never does.
“Haven’t seen him.” Ryan knows how Spencer feels about shrinks, and privately he shares the opinion. Their last one hadn’t been bad at all, but she and Spencer had definitely not gotten on well, so Ryan sees anyone as an improvement.
There’s the soft sound of a throat clearing, and Ryan jerks back and slams his elbow into the back of chair hard enough to make his eyes water. No one, no one, sneaks up on him like that. He can sense anyone within a hundred feet or more, and his mind’s already cracked, open to the flow of thoughts and impressions from Spencer.
“Hi,” the guy standing at Brendon’s unorthodoxly-positioned desk greets them. He’s got bangs falling in his eyes and a scarf around his neck, and he has one hand outstretched to Ryan clad in fingerless gloves. “I’m Jon.”
Ryan takes in a breath, retreating from Spencer’s mind to brush against the newcomer, but when he reaches there’s nothing there. It’s not shielding, he can feel that, can still sense the smooth telepathic barriers designed to keep him out. This is like soft static, like the television on low at two a.m., and Ryan stares in horrified fascination. They’ve sent a…
“Neg,” Spencer finishes his thought, and Jon grins, dropping his hand easily without a sign of offense that Ryan hadn’t taken it.
“The latest psychiatric craze,” Jon agrees, turning to Spencer instead. He doesn’t extend his hand this time, which is probably a good thing because Spencer probably wouldn’t have taken it either. “Is there someone else working here? I saw three files, but I know you guys usually work in pairs…”
“Oh hey,” Brendon says, appearing like he’s heard his cue to come onstage, juggling a cardboard carrying tray with three enormous cups along with his keys and ID card. He somehow fumbles the whole mess into one hand, and Ryan sees Spencer rise halfway out of his chair, sensing disaster.
Brendon just grins. “Cool scarf,” he says cheerfully. “You must be Jon.”
Brendon’s been with them since August. Spencer doesn’t know what exactly happened with his last partner, just that he’d been pretty screwed up over a suicide call that had started out with Brendon trying to talk a guy down off the ledge and ended with Brendon still in the guy’s head when it hit the pavement.
He’d bounced back in a miraculously short time, which Spencer privately feels has a lot to do with Ryan, and then attached himself to the two of them. For whatever reason, Gerard has yet to find him a partner, so the three of them share calls and divvy up the workload based on personal strengths. Brendon’s desk has been jammed next to theirs for months now, and no one’s ever tried to move it.
Brendon is also the most open, so Spencer isn’t surprised that he’s the one doing most of the chatting with Jon on their way out to the deli-café down the street. Jon had invited them all out, as a treat for his first day. It seems like a get-to-know-you but feels like it could be a session, so Spencer is staying quiet and reserving judgment, and the low hum coming from Ryan confirms that he’s doing the same.
Brendon’s on a vegetarian kick, after too many looks into the soft brown eyes of farm animals with placid, uncomprehending minds, so he orders a portabella burger and silently dares Jon to say anything. Jon wisely doesn’t.
The mushroom comes with a whole wheat bun and brown rice instead of fries, and Brendon looks so crestfallen when his plate is set in front of him that Spencer almost laughs. Jon just pushes his plate between them, a mountain of French fries ripe for the taking, and Spencer is fairly certain that Jon has just won a friend for life.
He sends this thought to Brendon and gets an affectionate ‘fuck off’ shove in return, but Brendon is grinning when he does it. Ryan is still staring at Jon, and Spencer can feel him, a little, pushing and poking. It’s weird for all of them, the empty place where Jon both is and isn’t; a presence with no thoughts floating on the surface, constant white noise.
Jon smiles, stolid in the face of Ryan’s unnerving stare. He’s got a nice smile and warm eyes, something compelling that makes you want to open up to him. Spencer isn’t convinced.
“I know it’s weird for you guys,” Jon says easily, reclaiming one of his fries to dip into the puddle of ketchup. “My friend Bill is a telepath, it drives him absolutely batshit sometimes. He even tries to read my mind through the phone.”
“Why are they hiring Negs as shrinks when you can’t feel anything that’s going on with us?” Ryan asks bluntly. They’ve all been thinking it, but Spencer hadn’t been about to come out and say it. He feels Brendon look up from his burger, curious.
“The theory is that zeroes can’t tell when they’re being manipulated, and telepaths empathize too strongly to be objective,” Jon answers, and if he’s upset by the questioning he doesn’t show it. “They did a study in Chicago, and it turns out Negs have an easier time dealing with telepaths under high levels of stress because they aren’t directly exposed to their emotions.”
Jon sounds like he’s reading from a pamphlet, and Spencer thinks high levels of stress, that’s us, but doesn’t comment. He feels Ryan’s mind brush his and links without conscious thought, listening to the suspicious, unsure buzz of Ryan’s thoughts and returning them with his own.
Brendon joins their silent communion less than a second later, sliding in and around their link with an ease Spencer has never felt with anyone else besides Ryan. Brendon’s thoughts are more positive and more emphatic, tiny multicoloured starbursts of optimism and goodwill. Spencer can feel Ryan wearing down in the face of Brendon’s positive energy, giving ground.
“Wow,” Jon says, jerking them all out of their meld. “It’s really kind of creepy when you do that.”
Ryan’s head jerks up. “You can hear us?” he asks, and the suspicion is back, the edge to his voice. Spencer knows what he’s thinking even without a link; if Jon can hear them but they can’t hear him, Ryan won’t have any part of this.
“No.” Jon shakes his head, but there’s still a faint, wondering smile on his lips. “I can just see the way you look when you’re focused on each other.” He takes a sip of his cola and shrugs apologetically. “I haven’t seen three people do it before, usually just partners. Somehow it’s less creepy.”
“Welcome to the creepfest,” Brendon announces, waggling a french fry in Jon’s direction. Jon laughs, and it’s such an honest sound that Spencer blinks. They’re not linked anymore, but Ryan gives him a look that says maybe, and Spencer’s eyebrow responds, we’ll see.
“Are you ever going to find a partner for Urie?” Frank asks, and Gerard nearly jumps out of his shoes.
“Jesus Christ,” he complains, heart still racing in protest at the start. “Can you knock?”
“You’re supposed to be telepathic,” Frank points out, grinning like the evil bastard he is. “Can’t you feel me coming or something?”
“I was concentrating,” Gerard mumbles, cheeks warm, but the truth is he’s exhausted. His awareness starts slipping when he doesn’t grab enough meals and hours of actual sleep.
“You’re tired.” Frank is too perceptive, always. He pulls out the chair on the other side of Gerard’s desk and takes a seat. If this were six months ago, he’d be standing behind Gerard’s desk, working the knots out of his shoulders and laying a kiss at the nape of his neck.
It isn’t, though, so Gerard stops thinking about it.
“Big case,” he responds, which is answer enough between the two of them. “It’s about to get kicked over to us; they think a telepath will be able to infiltrate and gain enough information to take the syndicate down.”
“The syndicate,” Frank echoes, and then, “You’re not talking about Toro.”
Gerard nods, and rubs the heels of his hands over his eyes until the resulting white spots start to hurt more than the original headache.
“Jesus Christ,” Frank says again. “They want one of your kids on that?”
It’s not exactly an insult. Telepaths aren’t usually sent in on long-term, high-stress jobs like this, out in the field with no touchstones for stability. They mostly consult, or get called in for emergencies that last for a few tense hours before they can walk away and decompress.
“Yeah,” Gerard answers finally, blinking his eyes as the case files on his desk waver back into focus. “They’ve been trying to get someone inside close enough to bust him for months, without success. They don’t think anyone else can do it.”
Frank’s curled up in the chair, chin on his knee and looking thoughtful. “Which one are you sending?” he asks. “Smith’s the most level-headed, but Ross has got nerves of steel, and balls to match. Though they’re going to scream bloody murder when you try split them up, you know.”
Gerard does know. Thankfully for his headache, it won’t come to that. “I’m putting in Urie.”
It’s not often that he shocks Frank. “Urie? You’ve got to be kidding me. He won’t last a day. He won’t even make it in, they’ll see right through him, the kid can’t lie to save his life.”
Gerard is inclined to agree, but he’s also seen Brendon pull his shit together after two rough situations now, and he knows there’s more going on in Brendon’s spazz-monkey brain than the average bystander might think.
“He can make mass-murderers smile and think about phoning their grandmothers,” Gerard points out. “They’ll never suspect him, he’s like a high school kid with ADD.”
Frank opens his mouth to retort but end up chewing his lip instead, thinking. “Point,” he says finally. Then, “You’ve been thinking about this for a while now, haven’t you? That’s why he’s still working solo.”
“He’s not,” Gerard answers immediately. “He’s been doing really well with Ross and Smith, I didn’t want to break them up.”
Frank waits for a beat before saying anything else. “You think he can handle it?” he asks at last.
Gerard can feel the headache coming on again. He really doesn’t want to answer that question, because he’s been asking himself the same thing for weeks. “He won’t be strictly undercover,” Gerard says instead. “He’ll be in and out, he can check in with Walker every time.” And isn’t this a fabulous time for them to bring in a new shrink, too. Damn Katie for getting promoted and pregnant all at the same time.
“You’re taking a big chance,” Frank says, but his tone isn’t judgmental, just concerned.
“I know,” Gerard replies. And he does.
In the evenings, Ryan likes to lie on the worn carpet in his apartment, on his back, arms and legs stretched out, and let his mind roam.
He doesn’t read minds; that’s an invasion of privacy, an abuse of what he does and is, and he would never go in without express consent or in a case of dire emergency with no other option. But he does pick up stray thoughts, wisps of consciousness drifting out into the forgotten, and they pull at his unfocused mind like splotches of bright colour across his vision, full of texture and taste and emotion.
It’s almost a meditation, centering himself and reaching out, across the distance as far as he can reach. He knows what all of his neighbors’ thoughts feel like now, the familiar touch of their minds against his as he unravels, unwinds.
He can’t reach far enough to touch Spencer, but he doesn’t need to. He knows what Spencer feels like, inside and out, all the way to both of their cores; and this isn’t that kind of union anyway, this is something else. Everything on the surface, the vibrant dancing thoughts of a hundred people full of clamour and noise, love and sex and hurt and anger, all blending together into one.
He writes about it afterwards, and thinks that even Brendon might consider this pretentious, if he knew. Ryan doesn’t tell anyone, doesn’t show anyone but Spencer, the lines in his notebooks full of impressions and thoughts and his own possible beliefs.
It’s the human experience, pared down to a few words and blurred by his own interpretation, but it’s still something. Spencer points things out sometimes, an insight or a fragment that Ryan hasn’t been able to capture properly, or sometimes he says yes, I see, and Ryan writes even more after he’s gone, enlightened by the feel of his own thoughts from someone else’s viewpoint.
He doesn’t do it because it’s therapeutic, or because he wants to understand all of humanity, or any psychoanalysis shit like that.
He just likes to reach out and know there’s something else there.
They all have a standing appointment with the department psychiatrist once a week. The other departments only have to check-in every couple of months, or after they’ve gone through something particularly stressful, but it’s different for them. Telepaths are more unbalanced, more likely to break. And what they experience during any given week is a lot more intense than what any of the others go through.
It’s only for half an hour, but it’s still Spencer’s least favourite part of the job, and he approaches his shrink meeting every week with a combination of resentment and dread. This week is even worse; he’s seen Jon around, and they’ve talked a little, but Spencer hasn’t had to sit in his office and bare his soul. He doesn’t like doing it, and he isn’t sure what to expect yet.
With Katie there were lines drawn; she asked questions, he gave answers, she didn’t dig around in his head and he didn’t try to force her out. He hates shrinks, he hates the whole idea of them, and he doesn’t know how well he’s going to interact with Jon Walker.
No one’s around when the clock finally betrays him and ticks over to noon; Ryan’s been sent out on a domestic violence call, and Brendon’s in some sort of private meeting with Gerard. Spencer gives Jon’s office a resentful look and heads over.
The door’s already propped; apparently Jon takes the ‘my door is always open’ policy very literally. Spencer spends a few seconds trying to decide whether to leave it open or shut it, and finally leaves it the way it is. He’s not planning on talking about anything too personal anyway.
“Hey,” Jon says cheerfully, head poking out from behind his desk. “Give me just a second; I lost some thumbtacks down here, and I don’t want to find them later with my toes.”
Spencer takes a seat and arranges himself in a very casual, relaxed, comfortable pose. Rule number one: Jon isn’t getting anything out of his body language that Spencer doesn’t feel like giving.
“So,” Jon says a minute later, thumbtacks safely in hand and spilled back into the Altoids container on his desk, “Do you have any questions for me?”
As an opener, it’s effective. Spencer has heard statements about himself meant to lead to discussion, comments about recent jobs, the ever-popular what would you like to talk about? but this one’s left him a little thrown.
Not for long, though. “Should I?” he asks blandly.
Jon just shrugs, an easy half-smile on his face. “I don’t know, I just thought you might have questions. I know I’m always curious when I meet new people.”
It’s a chance to deflect attention from himself, so Spencer takes it. “You’re from Chicago?” he asks, remembering the personnel file they’d gotten from Gerard right after Jon’s official hire.
“Born and raised,” Jon answers. “I worked in the precinct there my first few years out of school, as part of their test case program I told you about.”
“No shit.” As far as their department goes, Chicago means one thing, one name pretty much everyone has heard of in their line of work. “Hey, does that mean you know…?” and then he cuts off, because he remembers now, although he hadn’t put it together at the time. My friend Bill.
Jon’s grinning like he expected this question. “William Beckett? Yeah, he’s one of the guys they threw at us to see how we stood up to field work.”
Spencer’s a little impressed in spite of himself. Ryan scored extraordinarily high on the exams, a nine out of fifteen, and Spencer’s pretty sure Gerard’s around there too, but official word is that William’s a twelve. Spencer doesn’t know what he’d do with that much power, besides possibly go insane.
“So you passed.” It’s a flat statement, and really an obvious one, because Jon is clearly working here now, so he must have been a success story.
Jon cocks his head a little, and he’s smiling again, almost like he knows something. “You don’t like psychiatrists?” he asks.
Spencer shrugs, deliberately noncommittal. “You have my file,” he answers. He’s pretty sure that after this long, hates shrinks is at the top of his profile.
“I haven’t opened it,” Jon answers.
Spencer stares.
“I like to form my own first impressions,” Jon says, and he’s tapping something on the desk that Spencer finally notices is a personnel file, with the sticky-tape label still sealing it shut. “It leaves me feeling less biased.”
Spencer has no idea what to say to that, but he doesn’t get a chance anyway. Jon grins and nods at the small clock on his desk. Spencer starts; usually by this point he’s counting the minutes.
“Time’s up,” Jon says cheerfully. “See you next week.”
“They just lost Bryar,” is how Frank begins, followed by, “For fuck’s sake, Gee, are you listening to me?”
“Yes,” Gerard answers automatically. He sighs, fingers laced behind his head, staring up at the ceiling like it has answers to offer him. “I know.”
“You’re still sending Urie in?” Frank’s pushing, just this edge of throwing a fit, and Gerard’s actually a little surprised. He doesn’t know why Frank is so worried about one of his kids, this time specifically.
“Next week. There’s a cocaine deal happening in Bolden, it’ll be the perfect opportunity for him to break in. He can work his way up from there.” It sounds so simple, when you lay it out like that. Start at the bottom, work up.
“Work his way up to what? Being crucified by the mob boss himself? A fuck-lot of good that’ll do anyone.” Frank is pacing, a tiny dynamo of energy, frenetic and irate. He’s bouncing across Gerard’s mind in spikes of yellow and red, tumultuous and unstable. Gerard tightens his mental shields a little before the sparks start shooting in his direction.
“I’m talking to Walker before I send him in, and he’ll be back here practically every day,” Gerard tries to reason. “It’s not like with Bryar, we’ll be in contact, he’ll be fine.”
He wonders if Frank is losing it so that Gerard won’t have to, so that he can’t, and that thought alone takes away some of the ache in his shoulders. “He’ll be fine,” Gerard repeats. “I promise.”
Frank stops pacing and hurls himself into the chair across from Gerard’s desk, the one Gerard mostly thinks of as his anyway. “I really fucking hate Toro,” he grumbles finally, and Gerard almost wants to laugh.
“You and me both,” he says seriously, and that’s when Frank finally seems to realize there’s something else going on.
“What is it?”
Gerard draws a little circle around the burn mark on the edge of his desk and doesn’t meet Frank’s eyes. “They’re sending Mikey in, too,” he says finally. He’s been avoiding saying it out loud for some reason, like that will actually change it, make it less real.
Frank sucks in a breath, and Gerard knows he gets it. “He’s smart,” Frank says, a beat too late and too quick. “He knows more going in, he’s been undercover before. It won’t be like Bryar.”
You can’t promise that, Gerard thinks, but instead he stands up and reaches for his winter coat. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s go get a drink.”
“Okay, we’re sending someone in,” booms the deep voice of the hostage negotiator through a megaphone, and Ryan wipes his palms on his jeans. “In exchange for one of the hostages. He is unarmed.”
“Link?” Ryan’s mind is already open, hovering in wait.
Brendon shakes his head, fastening the last strap on his vest and shrugging a law enforcement jacket over it. “Wait until I get in there, I don’t want to be distracted.”
“If they shoot you on sight we’ll be right back where we started,” Ryan points out acidly.
“Are you kidding? Bad guys love me.” Brendon tucks his hands into the pockets of the jacket and says to the officer-in-charge, “Ready.”
Ryan perches on a stool and waits, and everyone around him does the same. He watches Brendon go into the building on the monitor, arms raised with guns trained on him from every angle, and then closes his eyes and reaches out.
Brendon arcs across the empty space and meets him halfway.
“Five gunmen, three on the lower level, one in the vault, one upstairs,” Ryan relays instantly, and hears the scribbling of pens on paper as the officers take it all down. “They know about the snipers. They’re sending out a pregnant girl. There’s fiftee- sixteen other hostages, all alive, the guard is injured but he doesn’t know how bad it is.”
The steady stream of information coming from Brendon is soothing, gives him something to focus on. There’s a brief pause, and the link doesn’t break but Ryan feels Brendon shift focus, and he’s left with a high-energy blur.
“What about the van?” someone at his elbow asks, pushing for more. “Are they prepared to let everyone go if we give them the van?”
Ryan tries to dig, but Brendon slips away, shrugging him off. A second later his attention returns, and with it a stream of thoughts and impressions coming so fast Ryan can barely put them together to relay.
“They don’t trust the police, they don’t actually want the van, it’s a cover for something else. There’s something they haven’t told you, it’s got everybody on edge, they…no, they want the van, they just…” Ryan grits his teeth in frustration. “C’mon, Bren,” he mutters.
“What aren’t they telling us?”
Ryan stretches as far as he can, tempted to go through the link to Brendon and get into the lead bank robber’s mind himself, but he knows better than to overextend. “They’ve agreed to the van,” another voice puts in, distracting him from the chaotic jumble of Brendon’s thoughts. “They’re coming out in ten minutes.”
“Are they?” the officer asks Ryan, and he pushes the thought at Brendon, receives a thoughtful hum of uncertainty in return.
Then, “Yes. They’re leaving the hostages inside the building, they’re all coming out, going to meet a train but they’ll shoot if they’re followed too closely, and they’re taking…” He stops, frowning, trying to interpret that last burst of information. “They’re taking one hostage with them as guarantee. They’ll leave him at the station if nothing goes wrong, they don’t actually want to…” Ryan’s skin chills, understanding finally dawning through the press of unfamiliar thoughts. “Oh fuck, they’re taking Brendon.”
“Stay with him.” It’s an order, but a ridiculous one. As if Ryan would let go. Brendon’s distracted again, but not at all anxious, apparently comfortable and waiting on the floor of the bank with everyone else. Ryan sends a burst of concern and annoyance revolving around the fact that Brendon has once again gotten himself into one of these situations, and Brendon returns with a surge of affection that leaves Ryan blushing and off-balance.
“Fucker,” he mutters. Brendon’s laughter fills his mind, buoying him up in a soft, happy glow.
That’s when he feels the wall.
It’s at the back of Brendon’s mind, and if Ryan hadn’t been so absorbed into Brendon’s thoughts, he never would have felt it. It’s a shield, so subtle and slippery that when Ryan tries to get through it his mind slides off the surface like glass. He tries from several different angles, but each time there’s that annoying, invisible barrier, deflecting his thoughts completely.
Ryan’s trying not to be hurt and failing. It wouldn’t sting so much if Brendon weren’t so open with everything else, so free with his mind and his thoughts that this one walled-off secret feels like a slap in the face.
Brendon feels what he’s doing then, and wraps around him like a blanket, gentle and warm, pulling the shield further back into his mind and away. Ryan tries to follow and Brendon just shoves other thoughts at him, cheerful and unrepentant, images of his life and himself and Ryan and Spencer until Ryan is overwhelmed and has to pull back.
“They’re on the move,” someone reports, and Ryan speaks right over another reply.
“I’m going.” He fends off the expected protest calmly, without leaving any room for argument. “I have to stay close to keep in contact, and they still have Brendon.”
They make room for him in the follow-vehicle and he curls up in the back, listening to the hum of Brendon’s thoughts as they head to the train station.
He already knows Brendon is fine, of course, but it’s still a relief to see him standing by the lamp post waiting, and Ryan flings himself into Brendon’s arms and hangs on ferociously. “Stupid,” he mumbles, face smushed into Brendon’s neck, and Brendon hugs back just as fiercely.
“Can’t get rid of me that easily,” Brendon whispers, and Ryan almost forgets about the wall.
“Hospital. Terrorist cell, or part of it, they’ve got the building locked down. They say they want to negotiate for a patient. We think something’s going on beyond what they’ve told us, because frankly, it doesn’t make any sense. They’re not exactly talking, though.”
It’s the fastest brief he’s possibly ever been given, and Spencer is already reaching out. There are over three hundred people inside, most in a heightened state of panic, and he doesn’t have time to touch them all one-by-one. Ryan would be better at this.
As if he’s reading Spencer’s mind, Iero reappears at Spencer’s elbow. “Ross is on another call, he’ll be here as soon as he can. Urie is unavailable. Gerard’s already on his way, he should arrive in ten, fifteen minutes.”
Spencer has just enough time to be annoyed - what the fuck does unavailable mean? - before something snags his attention. The ones standing guard are on the ground floor, he’s already skimmed over their minds and found nothing, just determination to remain steadfast and keep watch. But a few floors up, there’s a spike of adrenaline and a flicker like a candle going out, and Spencer’s brushed against death often enough by now to know what it feels like.
“Fifth floor,” he murmurs, and Iero is there instantly.
“Psych ward.”
And oh, he can feel it now. Minds like jagged edges, gaping wounds, one girl’s head filled with nothing but screaming. Despair and rage and the intense desire to kill, and among them one sane mind, cool and collected, moving through the rest like a blade of ice.
“Fourth floor.”
“Terminal.” Iero doesn’t touch him - thank God for his relationship with Gerard, he must know better - but he leans closer. “What’s going on, Smith?”
The shrill klaxon of the psych ward is slowing him down, dragging at his mind like quicksand, but he fights it off and follows the thread. “He’s moving down,” Spencer answers, isolating the mind he can feel moving with purpose, a narrowed focus that he still can’t read. “Everyone else is just waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
He can appreciate Iero’s frustration, because he’s feeling the same thing. “I don’t know, I’m not close enough, all I know is that the one on the fourth floor is the one with a plan, all the rest are just…”
Waiting.
The elevator hits the ground floor and Spencer gets a flash, like lightning illuminating the dark, and he pulls back so fast it almost burns, reeling his mind back in and away from the building and slamming up every shield he has.
Spencer says, “Oh God.”
The bomb goes off.
There’s the sound of shrieking and yelling all around him, but drowning that out is the agonized, terrified wail of several hundred minds, all cutting off sharply as if someone had suddenly hit ‘mute’.
Some very dim part of him can hear Iero screaming orders, and then Gerard’s voice, “Get him out, get him out,” and someone tries to touch him. Spencer calmly sparks a shockwave into their brain, an automatic defense because he’s not physically able to protect himself right now, and sends them into a seizure somewhere at his feet.
“Don’t touch him,” Gerard shouts, full of pain, and then there’s someone else, closer, saying in a low voice, “Spencer. Spencer, can you hear me? Spencer, I need you to focus on me.”
He can still hear screaming in his mind. There aren’t any survivors of the explosion itself, but there were people close enough to be badly burned, injured and afraid, out of their minds with pain. Too many. He can’t hear anything else but the screaming.
“Spencer.” Someone is being amazingly patient with him. He vaguely wants them to go away, but it’s too much effort to actually say that. “Spencer, focus on me. Read my mind.”
He doesn’t want to, and the rush of anger snaps him out of it a little, just enough to pull his defenses into another spike, ready to lash out at whoever’s still there.
“Spencer,” Jon says, still calm in spite of the fact that Spencer can see an inferno that used to be a building over his shoulder and hear a shrieking cacophony of alarms crying out that something has gone very, very wrong. “Read my mind.”
He actually means to jab, a warning for Jon to leave him alone, but as soon as they come into contact he feels the screams muffle, like a blanket has been thrown over the rest of the world.
“Focus on me,” Jon murmurs, still there but not touching, safely out of contact. “Link with me, you can do it. Tune everyone else out. Just me.”
It’s like stepping into a quiet room. Jon’s mind is silent, no thoughts or images or sounds bombarding him, peaceful and still. The screaming grows even more distant, barely audible at the back of his mind.
Jon hasn’t made any move towards him, but Spencer takes a shaky step, and when he takes another Jon has his arms open, pulling Spencer close against his chest and enfolding him in calm and silence.
The screaming finally stops.
Spencer loses track of time, focused on nothing but the quiet, still emptiness of Jon’s presence surrounding him, and barely registers Iero’s voice when it finally returns.
“I’ve got Gerard, take Smith and go. Get him out of here.”
Jon shifts, and Spencer’s fingers tense, gripping the fabric of Jon’s shirt and hanging on. “Hey, it’s okay,” Jon murmurs, his hand rubbing slow circles on Spencer’s back, solid and warm. “I’ve got you. I promise. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Are you okay?”
Gerard doesn’t even look up; as hyperaware as he is right now, he’d felt Frank coming from all the way down the stairs. “I’m getting there,” he answers eventually.
He hears the wood creak softly as Frank sits on the edge of his desk, foregoing the chair. “Shouldn’t you be home?”
Gerard clears his throat and forces himself to look up. Frank’s eyes are soft and concerned, probably reading more in Gerard’s than he would like to share. “Spencer asked about the officer he took down,” he says instead of answering the question. It’s almost an answer; it’s the excuse he gave himself when he came here.
“He’ll be fine.” Frank’s tone isn’t dismissive, but he’s not letting Gerard dwell on this, either. “He’s in the hospital and stable. Your kids don’t shoot to kill.”
“Still. He’s pretty broken up about it.”
It’s something of an understatement; Spencer’s still in shock and not making a whole lot of sense yet. Thank God for Jon Walker.
“They know not to touch you,” Frank argues quietly. “They all know better. Faller just forgot himself. He was young, this was his first major disaster. It happens.”
“Nineteen,” Gerard murmurs, mostly to himself.
Frank swings his legs around the desk and puts his hand over Gerard’s. “No. Don’t do this, Gee.”
“He’s nineteen,” Gerard repeats, fingers curling in until his nails bite into the soft flesh of his palm.
Frank squeezes his hand, his grip just a little too tight. “So were you.”
Gerard closes his eyes and Frank leans in, the whisper of his breath and lips pressing soft against his forehead. “Go home, Gee.”
Gerard shakes his head, keeping his eyes closed tight so he doesn’t break down completely. After a minute, he feels the pressure around his wrist ease and Frank’s deceptively strong arm pulls him up out of his chair.
“What…?” He stumbles, but Frank just steers him to the battered couch in the corner of his office, pushing him down gently but firmly.
“Come here,” and Frank hauls him close, tucking Gerard’s head under his chin and holding on tight. Gerard lets out a breath that feels like a sob, and Frank’s embrace only gets tighter.
“You had a rough day too, you know,” Frank says into his hair, and Gerard exhales another one of those choked breaths, almost a laugh. He starts to say something but Frank’s arms tighten again, squeezing hard enough that he can’t breathe.
“Enough,” Frank orders, and he has his ‘I’m-still-the-boss-of-you’ voice on, cutting the words off before they leave Gerard’s throat. “Rest. Let it out. Get some sleep.”
Gerard swallows, and it takes him a minute before he’s sure he can speak without breaking down. “You’re staying?” he croaks finally, and winces at how desperate it sounds.
Frank sighs, and there’s a brush of something against his hair that might have been a kiss. “Yeah. I’m staying.”
“Thanks for getting me out,” Gerard whispers, and Frank chuckles softly, hand squeezing his arm.
“Don’t mention it.”
“Brendon’s hiding something from me,” Ryan announces. “Do you know what it is?”
Jon blinks at him, and slowly sits back in his chair, whatever ‘welcome to therapy, how are you today?’ greeting he’d been about to spout dying on his lips.
“How would I know?” Jon asks finally.
He has a point. Ryan taps the arm of the chair impatiently and thinks. “Is there something he’s hiding from you?” he asks. Because if there is, that’s different than if he’s only hiding it from Ryan.
Jon steeples his fingers on the desk and looks vaguely amused. “I don’t know,” he answers. “I’m not a telepath.”
Ryan narrows his eyes. “You’re a psychiatrist.”
The amused look on Jon’s face quirks crookedly into a smile. “Does that mean I know all there is to know about you?”
Ryan snorts. Jon’s hands open into the international sign of ‘I rest my case.’
“Why do you think he’s hiding something from you?” Jon asks. He has the mildly curious tone of the working psychiatrist now, and Ryan instinctively shies away from answering.
“I can feel it,” is all he says, and promptly changes the subject. “Thank you. For what you did for Spencer.”
Jon looks surprised. “It’s what I’m here for,” he replies.
Ryan starts to shake his head, but then changes his mind and shrugs. “Thank you anyway.”
“You’re welcome,” Jon says graciously, then pauses. “Would you like to talk about your working relationship with Brendon?”
No, Ryan definitely does not. “Do you know where he’s been lately?” he asks suddenly. Jon has to know, Jon’s in charge of listening to them talk about their jobs, and whatever Brendon’s job is lately that he’s not allowed to talk to them about, he must still be talking to Jon.
“I’m not allowed to talk about that with anyone other than Brendon,” Jon answers carefully, and Ryan’s annoyance doubles. “But if you want to talk about…”
“Why don’t you ever wear shoes?” Ryan interrupts.
Jon’s mouth is still open, mid-sentence; Ryan’s caught him off-guard. He follows the conversational lead smoothly, though, ever the professional. “I like my feet to feel free,” he answers. “Why do you always wear scarves?”
Ryan is a bit taken aback; clearly Jon thought this inquisition was going both ways. “Because I fucking like them,” he snaps, fingers tapping an accelerating staccato on the chair arm. The thing with Brendon is still bugging him. And he’s worried about Spencer.
“Do you like Spencer?” Ryan asks abruptly.
Jon seems to have finally given up on trying to take command of this conversation, but he still looks confused. “Spencer? Of course. He’s a nice guy. You all are.”
Ryan rolls his eyes at the stupidity of the populace in general. “Do you like him?” he repeats, because there’s something going on there, and Spencer hasn’t said much more than that he thinks Jon’s a really good guy. He says it with a soft, ridiculous look on his face, though, which is why Ryan is suspicious.
“I…” Jon blinks, at a loss. Ryan gives him ten seconds and then forges on.
“Because if you do anything to hurt him, which you obviously have the power to do, being his shrink and all, I will hunt you down and kill you with the power of my mind. Are we clear?”
Jon doesn’t outwardly react to the threat; Ryan guesses he’s probably heard a lot of them. “What makes you think Spencer is interested in me?” Jon asks, and while there’s nothing in his voice besides professional inquiry, Ryan sees the way his finger twitches against the edge of a pen.
So it’s like that.
“Time’s up,” Ryan says, pushing himself out of the chair. “See you next week.”
Spencer walks into Jon’s office, closes the door behind him, and starts talking.
“About a month after I started working,” he begins, “I got sent out on a suspected domestic violence call.”
Jon’s look of surprise has faded almost immediately into an expression that says he’s listening, intently, and not judging anything Spencer is about to say. Spencer’s grateful for that, and also for the fact that Jon isn’t asking any questions, because it’s hard enough to say this without interruptions.
“They thought it was the father, but it wasn’t. It was the mother. She was…” Spencer shudders, remembering the feel of her, the hectic turmoil of an unbalanced mind. “Not well. She’d lost a child, a long illness, a lot of suffering and…” He shakes his head. “I didn’t know any of that. I just knew there was her, her husband, and three kids in the house.”
Jon doesn’t say anything. Spencer takes a deep breath. “I didn’t know what was going on, although I should have, I should have figured it out a lot sooner, but I felt one of the kids die and I thought it was the father, I was sure because he was drunk, and that’s all I knew, that she was crazy and he was drunk, that’s all I knew.”
He doesn’t need to explain about Ryan and drunk fathers, probably, but that’s not the point of this story anyway. “That’s what I told the cops. I told them he was killing the kids, and they went in. And while they were fighting with him…” Spencer swallows, remembering the grapple for control, the bewildered panic that had set in when the police burst into the house. “She killed the second one.”
It’s harder to talk now, he has to force the words past his lips. He hasn’t spoken to anyone about this in years, hasn’t had to. Whenever he thinks about it all he has to do is open his mind and Ryan is there, immediately, communicating without words. Part of him wishes Jon could do that as well, but it’s both easier and harder to get it out like this, in words that have some distance between them and his thoughts.
“I don’t…I don’t know why not the baby. I think maybe she thought she’d already killed him, but she’d been too gentle, or maybe…” He shakes his head again, focusing on the desk because it’s safer to look at than Jon’s eyes. “I don’t know. Like I said, she wasn’t…well. But the baby started waking up.”
It’s not only hard to speak now, it’s hard to inhale. Spencer feels like he’s going to pass out, and then Jon’s voice washes over him softly, for the first time since he entered the room. “Breathe.”
Spencer sucks in air and forces the last of it out. “The cops were all inside with the husband, and he had a gun, he was drunk, he didn’t know what was going on, I was on my own. I knew I couldn’t get to her in time, so I tried to…I tried to keep the baby quiet. Put him back to sleep. Anything to make her forget about him.”
He has a sudden vision of Ryan’s eyes, and that steadies him, helps him pull it together enough to finish. “The baby was a telepath. Or going to be. He felt me try to touch his mind, and he got scared, and he started crying.” He swallows, remembering the tiny, helpless flare of fear in his mind right before that life was snuffed out. “And she…” Breathe. Get it out. “She killed him. Because I screwed up.”
“Spencer,” Jon says quietly, but Spencer waves a hand and he stops talking, for which Spencer is profoundly grateful.
“I know it’s not technically my fault, I know I couldn’t have stopped her, I know everyone makes mistakes.” He’s heard it all, over and over again, from Gerard and from the department shrink who’d been here then, trying to help him get over it. Whatever that meant, exactly.
“Look, that’s not why I’m telling you.” He finally meets Jon’s eyes, and is relieved not to see any sympathy or pity there waiting to sting him. “I just wanted you to know. That’s what you would have read, if you’d opened my file. That’s what’s in there.”
It’s quiet for a minute, nothing but the sound of Spencer’s breathing, still harsh and loud in his ears. Then Jon says simply, “Thank you.”
Spencer looks away, his ears going hot. “You can read it,” he says. “I don’t mind now, if you do. I trust you. After…I mean. I trust you.”
When he looks back up again, Jon just shakes his head, serious, and puts his hand down flat over the thin stack of closed files on his desk. “I don’t need to.”
Spencer feels as if something that’s been hanging over him, weighing him down, has suddenly lifted and been borne away. And when Jon smiles at him, like he understands and it’s something secret between them, Spencer smiles back.
part two
Pairings: Gerard/Frank, Ryan/Brendon, Spencer/Jon, Brendon/Mikey
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: This is a complete work of fiction, no disrespect intended.
Warning: Pseudo-character death.
Notes: Telepath police consultant AU. Title taken from the BTE song ‘Our Finest Year.’
Thanks: To adellyna, who has claimed this story as her own and provided more support and encouragement than I have ever deserved; to maleyka and ficklish for reading and sharing their thoughts; and to impasto for the amazing beta.
“Walker’s here.”
Gerard looks up and sees Frank’s head poking around the corner of the door to his office. He waves him in; not like Frank ever waits for his invitation anyway, but they’re been trying to tread more carefully around each other recently, if only to avoid the upheaval that tends to follow.
“What’s he like?” Gerard values Frank’s opinion on most things. He doesn’t technically work for their department; he’s the supervisor and coordinator for the majority of the smaller specialty teams like theirs, which in a way makes him Gerard’s boss. But Gerard heads up the second-best Telepath Response Unit in the country, and he has a higher official rank, which in a way also makes him Frank’s boss.
They try never to get to the point of pulling rank. It’s better for everyone that way.
“Friendly, scruffy, looks kind of like a hobo,” Frank reports, leaning against the door and crossing his arms, clearly thinking it over. “I always expect the shrinks to be more…unapproachable. He’s got a nice smile.”
“Should I be worried?” Gerard says, with more of a genuine twinge than he really wants to admit to himself. If Frank wants to seduce their new psychiatrist, there’s not anything major standing in his way. This isn’t his department, and it’s Gerard’s own fault that he’s out of the picture now as far as Frank’s love life is concerned.
Frank, bless him, forbears to point that out. “He’s kind of short,” he says instead, wrinkling his nose and grinning.
Gerard laughs, leaning back in his chair. “Look who’s talking.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m going back down to help him set his shit up, are you coming?” Frank looks relaxed, eyes sparkling, head cocked to the side. Gerard lets himself look for exactly three seconds before he waves him out.
“I’ll be down in a minute. Try not to tell him too many horror stories, will you?”
Frank’s grin is bright and nothing like innocence. “Gee, you know I only speak the truth.”
It’s sort of true. But there’s enough truth floating around their department to scare off many a psychiatrist, professional or not. “Shoo,” Gerard orders, and Frank scoots.
The new shrink’s coming in today. Ryan drops his shit on his desk and wonders if they’re having some sort of office greeting-party, or if they all have to set up special first-session appointments, but he doesn’t see the new guy and only sees Gerard for a moment. He drifts by on the stairs overlooking their work area, raising a hand in greeting and disappearing again. It’s very Gerard. Ryan shrugs to himself and starts reading his office web-mail.
He feels Spencer come in before he sees him, the low-level buzz in the back of his mind that means Spencer is near. He and Spencer grew up together, trained together, got assigned together, and haven’t been apart for more than a week or two since they were kids. The presence of Spencer in his mind is almost something he takes for granted, and Ryan opens his own mind in response, passing a wordless greeting that he feels returned automatically just as Spencer appears and slides in at the desk across from him.
Spencer logs in and then reaches over to the computer next to them, on the desk shoved up tight sideways between the two of them, and logs Brendon in. Ryan raises an eyebrow, and Spencer shrugs, but Ryan gets enough from the images flitting across his mind to understand that Brendon made a pit-stop to get them coffee.
He’s always buying them coffee. Ryan thinks it might be the primary reason Spencer keeps him around.
“New guy?” Spencer inquires while Ryan flicks through the daily load of office e-mails, stuff about policies and PR and whose turn it is to clean the kitchen and the new signature they’re all supposed to put on the bottom of their outgoing e-mails. Ryan never does.
“Haven’t seen him.” Ryan knows how Spencer feels about shrinks, and privately he shares the opinion. Their last one hadn’t been bad at all, but she and Spencer had definitely not gotten on well, so Ryan sees anyone as an improvement.
There’s the soft sound of a throat clearing, and Ryan jerks back and slams his elbow into the back of chair hard enough to make his eyes water. No one, no one, sneaks up on him like that. He can sense anyone within a hundred feet or more, and his mind’s already cracked, open to the flow of thoughts and impressions from Spencer.
“Hi,” the guy standing at Brendon’s unorthodoxly-positioned desk greets them. He’s got bangs falling in his eyes and a scarf around his neck, and he has one hand outstretched to Ryan clad in fingerless gloves. “I’m Jon.”
Ryan takes in a breath, retreating from Spencer’s mind to brush against the newcomer, but when he reaches there’s nothing there. It’s not shielding, he can feel that, can still sense the smooth telepathic barriers designed to keep him out. This is like soft static, like the television on low at two a.m., and Ryan stares in horrified fascination. They’ve sent a…
“Neg,” Spencer finishes his thought, and Jon grins, dropping his hand easily without a sign of offense that Ryan hadn’t taken it.
“The latest psychiatric craze,” Jon agrees, turning to Spencer instead. He doesn’t extend his hand this time, which is probably a good thing because Spencer probably wouldn’t have taken it either. “Is there someone else working here? I saw three files, but I know you guys usually work in pairs…”
“Oh hey,” Brendon says, appearing like he’s heard his cue to come onstage, juggling a cardboard carrying tray with three enormous cups along with his keys and ID card. He somehow fumbles the whole mess into one hand, and Ryan sees Spencer rise halfway out of his chair, sensing disaster.
Brendon just grins. “Cool scarf,” he says cheerfully. “You must be Jon.”
Brendon’s been with them since August. Spencer doesn’t know what exactly happened with his last partner, just that he’d been pretty screwed up over a suicide call that had started out with Brendon trying to talk a guy down off the ledge and ended with Brendon still in the guy’s head when it hit the pavement.
He’d bounced back in a miraculously short time, which Spencer privately feels has a lot to do with Ryan, and then attached himself to the two of them. For whatever reason, Gerard has yet to find him a partner, so the three of them share calls and divvy up the workload based on personal strengths. Brendon’s desk has been jammed next to theirs for months now, and no one’s ever tried to move it.
Brendon is also the most open, so Spencer isn’t surprised that he’s the one doing most of the chatting with Jon on their way out to the deli-café down the street. Jon had invited them all out, as a treat for his first day. It seems like a get-to-know-you but feels like it could be a session, so Spencer is staying quiet and reserving judgment, and the low hum coming from Ryan confirms that he’s doing the same.
Brendon’s on a vegetarian kick, after too many looks into the soft brown eyes of farm animals with placid, uncomprehending minds, so he orders a portabella burger and silently dares Jon to say anything. Jon wisely doesn’t.
The mushroom comes with a whole wheat bun and brown rice instead of fries, and Brendon looks so crestfallen when his plate is set in front of him that Spencer almost laughs. Jon just pushes his plate between them, a mountain of French fries ripe for the taking, and Spencer is fairly certain that Jon has just won a friend for life.
He sends this thought to Brendon and gets an affectionate ‘fuck off’ shove in return, but Brendon is grinning when he does it. Ryan is still staring at Jon, and Spencer can feel him, a little, pushing and poking. It’s weird for all of them, the empty place where Jon both is and isn’t; a presence with no thoughts floating on the surface, constant white noise.
Jon smiles, stolid in the face of Ryan’s unnerving stare. He’s got a nice smile and warm eyes, something compelling that makes you want to open up to him. Spencer isn’t convinced.
“I know it’s weird for you guys,” Jon says easily, reclaiming one of his fries to dip into the puddle of ketchup. “My friend Bill is a telepath, it drives him absolutely batshit sometimes. He even tries to read my mind through the phone.”
“Why are they hiring Negs as shrinks when you can’t feel anything that’s going on with us?” Ryan asks bluntly. They’ve all been thinking it, but Spencer hadn’t been about to come out and say it. He feels Brendon look up from his burger, curious.
“The theory is that zeroes can’t tell when they’re being manipulated, and telepaths empathize too strongly to be objective,” Jon answers, and if he’s upset by the questioning he doesn’t show it. “They did a study in Chicago, and it turns out Negs have an easier time dealing with telepaths under high levels of stress because they aren’t directly exposed to their emotions.”
Jon sounds like he’s reading from a pamphlet, and Spencer thinks high levels of stress, that’s us, but doesn’t comment. He feels Ryan’s mind brush his and links without conscious thought, listening to the suspicious, unsure buzz of Ryan’s thoughts and returning them with his own.
Brendon joins their silent communion less than a second later, sliding in and around their link with an ease Spencer has never felt with anyone else besides Ryan. Brendon’s thoughts are more positive and more emphatic, tiny multicoloured starbursts of optimism and goodwill. Spencer can feel Ryan wearing down in the face of Brendon’s positive energy, giving ground.
“Wow,” Jon says, jerking them all out of their meld. “It’s really kind of creepy when you do that.”
Ryan’s head jerks up. “You can hear us?” he asks, and the suspicion is back, the edge to his voice. Spencer knows what he’s thinking even without a link; if Jon can hear them but they can’t hear him, Ryan won’t have any part of this.
“No.” Jon shakes his head, but there’s still a faint, wondering smile on his lips. “I can just see the way you look when you’re focused on each other.” He takes a sip of his cola and shrugs apologetically. “I haven’t seen three people do it before, usually just partners. Somehow it’s less creepy.”
“Welcome to the creepfest,” Brendon announces, waggling a french fry in Jon’s direction. Jon laughs, and it’s such an honest sound that Spencer blinks. They’re not linked anymore, but Ryan gives him a look that says maybe, and Spencer’s eyebrow responds, we’ll see.
“Are you ever going to find a partner for Urie?” Frank asks, and Gerard nearly jumps out of his shoes.
“Jesus Christ,” he complains, heart still racing in protest at the start. “Can you knock?”
“You’re supposed to be telepathic,” Frank points out, grinning like the evil bastard he is. “Can’t you feel me coming or something?”
“I was concentrating,” Gerard mumbles, cheeks warm, but the truth is he’s exhausted. His awareness starts slipping when he doesn’t grab enough meals and hours of actual sleep.
“You’re tired.” Frank is too perceptive, always. He pulls out the chair on the other side of Gerard’s desk and takes a seat. If this were six months ago, he’d be standing behind Gerard’s desk, working the knots out of his shoulders and laying a kiss at the nape of his neck.
It isn’t, though, so Gerard stops thinking about it.
“Big case,” he responds, which is answer enough between the two of them. “It’s about to get kicked over to us; they think a telepath will be able to infiltrate and gain enough information to take the syndicate down.”
“The syndicate,” Frank echoes, and then, “You’re not talking about Toro.”
Gerard nods, and rubs the heels of his hands over his eyes until the resulting white spots start to hurt more than the original headache.
“Jesus Christ,” Frank says again. “They want one of your kids on that?”
It’s not exactly an insult. Telepaths aren’t usually sent in on long-term, high-stress jobs like this, out in the field with no touchstones for stability. They mostly consult, or get called in for emergencies that last for a few tense hours before they can walk away and decompress.
“Yeah,” Gerard answers finally, blinking his eyes as the case files on his desk waver back into focus. “They’ve been trying to get someone inside close enough to bust him for months, without success. They don’t think anyone else can do it.”
Frank’s curled up in the chair, chin on his knee and looking thoughtful. “Which one are you sending?” he asks. “Smith’s the most level-headed, but Ross has got nerves of steel, and balls to match. Though they’re going to scream bloody murder when you try split them up, you know.”
Gerard does know. Thankfully for his headache, it won’t come to that. “I’m putting in Urie.”
It’s not often that he shocks Frank. “Urie? You’ve got to be kidding me. He won’t last a day. He won’t even make it in, they’ll see right through him, the kid can’t lie to save his life.”
Gerard is inclined to agree, but he’s also seen Brendon pull his shit together after two rough situations now, and he knows there’s more going on in Brendon’s spazz-monkey brain than the average bystander might think.
“He can make mass-murderers smile and think about phoning their grandmothers,” Gerard points out. “They’ll never suspect him, he’s like a high school kid with ADD.”
Frank opens his mouth to retort but end up chewing his lip instead, thinking. “Point,” he says finally. Then, “You’ve been thinking about this for a while now, haven’t you? That’s why he’s still working solo.”
“He’s not,” Gerard answers immediately. “He’s been doing really well with Ross and Smith, I didn’t want to break them up.”
Frank waits for a beat before saying anything else. “You think he can handle it?” he asks at last.
Gerard can feel the headache coming on again. He really doesn’t want to answer that question, because he’s been asking himself the same thing for weeks. “He won’t be strictly undercover,” Gerard says instead. “He’ll be in and out, he can check in with Walker every time.” And isn’t this a fabulous time for them to bring in a new shrink, too. Damn Katie for getting promoted and pregnant all at the same time.
“You’re taking a big chance,” Frank says, but his tone isn’t judgmental, just concerned.
“I know,” Gerard replies. And he does.
In the evenings, Ryan likes to lie on the worn carpet in his apartment, on his back, arms and legs stretched out, and let his mind roam.
He doesn’t read minds; that’s an invasion of privacy, an abuse of what he does and is, and he would never go in without express consent or in a case of dire emergency with no other option. But he does pick up stray thoughts, wisps of consciousness drifting out into the forgotten, and they pull at his unfocused mind like splotches of bright colour across his vision, full of texture and taste and emotion.
It’s almost a meditation, centering himself and reaching out, across the distance as far as he can reach. He knows what all of his neighbors’ thoughts feel like now, the familiar touch of their minds against his as he unravels, unwinds.
He can’t reach far enough to touch Spencer, but he doesn’t need to. He knows what Spencer feels like, inside and out, all the way to both of their cores; and this isn’t that kind of union anyway, this is something else. Everything on the surface, the vibrant dancing thoughts of a hundred people full of clamour and noise, love and sex and hurt and anger, all blending together into one.
He writes about it afterwards, and thinks that even Brendon might consider this pretentious, if he knew. Ryan doesn’t tell anyone, doesn’t show anyone but Spencer, the lines in his notebooks full of impressions and thoughts and his own possible beliefs.
It’s the human experience, pared down to a few words and blurred by his own interpretation, but it’s still something. Spencer points things out sometimes, an insight or a fragment that Ryan hasn’t been able to capture properly, or sometimes he says yes, I see, and Ryan writes even more after he’s gone, enlightened by the feel of his own thoughts from someone else’s viewpoint.
He doesn’t do it because it’s therapeutic, or because he wants to understand all of humanity, or any psychoanalysis shit like that.
He just likes to reach out and know there’s something else there.
They all have a standing appointment with the department psychiatrist once a week. The other departments only have to check-in every couple of months, or after they’ve gone through something particularly stressful, but it’s different for them. Telepaths are more unbalanced, more likely to break. And what they experience during any given week is a lot more intense than what any of the others go through.
It’s only for half an hour, but it’s still Spencer’s least favourite part of the job, and he approaches his shrink meeting every week with a combination of resentment and dread. This week is even worse; he’s seen Jon around, and they’ve talked a little, but Spencer hasn’t had to sit in his office and bare his soul. He doesn’t like doing it, and he isn’t sure what to expect yet.
With Katie there were lines drawn; she asked questions, he gave answers, she didn’t dig around in his head and he didn’t try to force her out. He hates shrinks, he hates the whole idea of them, and he doesn’t know how well he’s going to interact with Jon Walker.
No one’s around when the clock finally betrays him and ticks over to noon; Ryan’s been sent out on a domestic violence call, and Brendon’s in some sort of private meeting with Gerard. Spencer gives Jon’s office a resentful look and heads over.
The door’s already propped; apparently Jon takes the ‘my door is always open’ policy very literally. Spencer spends a few seconds trying to decide whether to leave it open or shut it, and finally leaves it the way it is. He’s not planning on talking about anything too personal anyway.
“Hey,” Jon says cheerfully, head poking out from behind his desk. “Give me just a second; I lost some thumbtacks down here, and I don’t want to find them later with my toes.”
Spencer takes a seat and arranges himself in a very casual, relaxed, comfortable pose. Rule number one: Jon isn’t getting anything out of his body language that Spencer doesn’t feel like giving.
“So,” Jon says a minute later, thumbtacks safely in hand and spilled back into the Altoids container on his desk, “Do you have any questions for me?”
As an opener, it’s effective. Spencer has heard statements about himself meant to lead to discussion, comments about recent jobs, the ever-popular what would you like to talk about? but this one’s left him a little thrown.
Not for long, though. “Should I?” he asks blandly.
Jon just shrugs, an easy half-smile on his face. “I don’t know, I just thought you might have questions. I know I’m always curious when I meet new people.”
It’s a chance to deflect attention from himself, so Spencer takes it. “You’re from Chicago?” he asks, remembering the personnel file they’d gotten from Gerard right after Jon’s official hire.
“Born and raised,” Jon answers. “I worked in the precinct there my first few years out of school, as part of their test case program I told you about.”
“No shit.” As far as their department goes, Chicago means one thing, one name pretty much everyone has heard of in their line of work. “Hey, does that mean you know…?” and then he cuts off, because he remembers now, although he hadn’t put it together at the time. My friend Bill.
Jon’s grinning like he expected this question. “William Beckett? Yeah, he’s one of the guys they threw at us to see how we stood up to field work.”
Spencer’s a little impressed in spite of himself. Ryan scored extraordinarily high on the exams, a nine out of fifteen, and Spencer’s pretty sure Gerard’s around there too, but official word is that William’s a twelve. Spencer doesn’t know what he’d do with that much power, besides possibly go insane.
“So you passed.” It’s a flat statement, and really an obvious one, because Jon is clearly working here now, so he must have been a success story.
Jon cocks his head a little, and he’s smiling again, almost like he knows something. “You don’t like psychiatrists?” he asks.
Spencer shrugs, deliberately noncommittal. “You have my file,” he answers. He’s pretty sure that after this long, hates shrinks is at the top of his profile.
“I haven’t opened it,” Jon answers.
Spencer stares.
“I like to form my own first impressions,” Jon says, and he’s tapping something on the desk that Spencer finally notices is a personnel file, with the sticky-tape label still sealing it shut. “It leaves me feeling less biased.”
Spencer has no idea what to say to that, but he doesn’t get a chance anyway. Jon grins and nods at the small clock on his desk. Spencer starts; usually by this point he’s counting the minutes.
“Time’s up,” Jon says cheerfully. “See you next week.”
“They just lost Bryar,” is how Frank begins, followed by, “For fuck’s sake, Gee, are you listening to me?”
“Yes,” Gerard answers automatically. He sighs, fingers laced behind his head, staring up at the ceiling like it has answers to offer him. “I know.”
“You’re still sending Urie in?” Frank’s pushing, just this edge of throwing a fit, and Gerard’s actually a little surprised. He doesn’t know why Frank is so worried about one of his kids, this time specifically.
“Next week. There’s a cocaine deal happening in Bolden, it’ll be the perfect opportunity for him to break in. He can work his way up from there.” It sounds so simple, when you lay it out like that. Start at the bottom, work up.
“Work his way up to what? Being crucified by the mob boss himself? A fuck-lot of good that’ll do anyone.” Frank is pacing, a tiny dynamo of energy, frenetic and irate. He’s bouncing across Gerard’s mind in spikes of yellow and red, tumultuous and unstable. Gerard tightens his mental shields a little before the sparks start shooting in his direction.
“I’m talking to Walker before I send him in, and he’ll be back here practically every day,” Gerard tries to reason. “It’s not like with Bryar, we’ll be in contact, he’ll be fine.”
He wonders if Frank is losing it so that Gerard won’t have to, so that he can’t, and that thought alone takes away some of the ache in his shoulders. “He’ll be fine,” Gerard repeats. “I promise.”
Frank stops pacing and hurls himself into the chair across from Gerard’s desk, the one Gerard mostly thinks of as his anyway. “I really fucking hate Toro,” he grumbles finally, and Gerard almost wants to laugh.
“You and me both,” he says seriously, and that’s when Frank finally seems to realize there’s something else going on.
“What is it?”
Gerard draws a little circle around the burn mark on the edge of his desk and doesn’t meet Frank’s eyes. “They’re sending Mikey in, too,” he says finally. He’s been avoiding saying it out loud for some reason, like that will actually change it, make it less real.
Frank sucks in a breath, and Gerard knows he gets it. “He’s smart,” Frank says, a beat too late and too quick. “He knows more going in, he’s been undercover before. It won’t be like Bryar.”
You can’t promise that, Gerard thinks, but instead he stands up and reaches for his winter coat. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s go get a drink.”
“Okay, we’re sending someone in,” booms the deep voice of the hostage negotiator through a megaphone, and Ryan wipes his palms on his jeans. “In exchange for one of the hostages. He is unarmed.”
“Link?” Ryan’s mind is already open, hovering in wait.
Brendon shakes his head, fastening the last strap on his vest and shrugging a law enforcement jacket over it. “Wait until I get in there, I don’t want to be distracted.”
“If they shoot you on sight we’ll be right back where we started,” Ryan points out acidly.
“Are you kidding? Bad guys love me.” Brendon tucks his hands into the pockets of the jacket and says to the officer-in-charge, “Ready.”
Ryan perches on a stool and waits, and everyone around him does the same. He watches Brendon go into the building on the monitor, arms raised with guns trained on him from every angle, and then closes his eyes and reaches out.
Brendon arcs across the empty space and meets him halfway.
“Five gunmen, three on the lower level, one in the vault, one upstairs,” Ryan relays instantly, and hears the scribbling of pens on paper as the officers take it all down. “They know about the snipers. They’re sending out a pregnant girl. There’s fiftee- sixteen other hostages, all alive, the guard is injured but he doesn’t know how bad it is.”
The steady stream of information coming from Brendon is soothing, gives him something to focus on. There’s a brief pause, and the link doesn’t break but Ryan feels Brendon shift focus, and he’s left with a high-energy blur.
“What about the van?” someone at his elbow asks, pushing for more. “Are they prepared to let everyone go if we give them the van?”
Ryan tries to dig, but Brendon slips away, shrugging him off. A second later his attention returns, and with it a stream of thoughts and impressions coming so fast Ryan can barely put them together to relay.
“They don’t trust the police, they don’t actually want the van, it’s a cover for something else. There’s something they haven’t told you, it’s got everybody on edge, they…no, they want the van, they just…” Ryan grits his teeth in frustration. “C’mon, Bren,” he mutters.
“What aren’t they telling us?”
Ryan stretches as far as he can, tempted to go through the link to Brendon and get into the lead bank robber’s mind himself, but he knows better than to overextend. “They’ve agreed to the van,” another voice puts in, distracting him from the chaotic jumble of Brendon’s thoughts. “They’re coming out in ten minutes.”
“Are they?” the officer asks Ryan, and he pushes the thought at Brendon, receives a thoughtful hum of uncertainty in return.
Then, “Yes. They’re leaving the hostages inside the building, they’re all coming out, going to meet a train but they’ll shoot if they’re followed too closely, and they’re taking…” He stops, frowning, trying to interpret that last burst of information. “They’re taking one hostage with them as guarantee. They’ll leave him at the station if nothing goes wrong, they don’t actually want to…” Ryan’s skin chills, understanding finally dawning through the press of unfamiliar thoughts. “Oh fuck, they’re taking Brendon.”
“Stay with him.” It’s an order, but a ridiculous one. As if Ryan would let go. Brendon’s distracted again, but not at all anxious, apparently comfortable and waiting on the floor of the bank with everyone else. Ryan sends a burst of concern and annoyance revolving around the fact that Brendon has once again gotten himself into one of these situations, and Brendon returns with a surge of affection that leaves Ryan blushing and off-balance.
“Fucker,” he mutters. Brendon’s laughter fills his mind, buoying him up in a soft, happy glow.
That’s when he feels the wall.
It’s at the back of Brendon’s mind, and if Ryan hadn’t been so absorbed into Brendon’s thoughts, he never would have felt it. It’s a shield, so subtle and slippery that when Ryan tries to get through it his mind slides off the surface like glass. He tries from several different angles, but each time there’s that annoying, invisible barrier, deflecting his thoughts completely.
Ryan’s trying not to be hurt and failing. It wouldn’t sting so much if Brendon weren’t so open with everything else, so free with his mind and his thoughts that this one walled-off secret feels like a slap in the face.
Brendon feels what he’s doing then, and wraps around him like a blanket, gentle and warm, pulling the shield further back into his mind and away. Ryan tries to follow and Brendon just shoves other thoughts at him, cheerful and unrepentant, images of his life and himself and Ryan and Spencer until Ryan is overwhelmed and has to pull back.
“They’re on the move,” someone reports, and Ryan speaks right over another reply.
“I’m going.” He fends off the expected protest calmly, without leaving any room for argument. “I have to stay close to keep in contact, and they still have Brendon.”
They make room for him in the follow-vehicle and he curls up in the back, listening to the hum of Brendon’s thoughts as they head to the train station.
He already knows Brendon is fine, of course, but it’s still a relief to see him standing by the lamp post waiting, and Ryan flings himself into Brendon’s arms and hangs on ferociously. “Stupid,” he mumbles, face smushed into Brendon’s neck, and Brendon hugs back just as fiercely.
“Can’t get rid of me that easily,” Brendon whispers, and Ryan almost forgets about the wall.
“Hospital. Terrorist cell, or part of it, they’ve got the building locked down. They say they want to negotiate for a patient. We think something’s going on beyond what they’ve told us, because frankly, it doesn’t make any sense. They’re not exactly talking, though.”
It’s the fastest brief he’s possibly ever been given, and Spencer is already reaching out. There are over three hundred people inside, most in a heightened state of panic, and he doesn’t have time to touch them all one-by-one. Ryan would be better at this.
As if he’s reading Spencer’s mind, Iero reappears at Spencer’s elbow. “Ross is on another call, he’ll be here as soon as he can. Urie is unavailable. Gerard’s already on his way, he should arrive in ten, fifteen minutes.”
Spencer has just enough time to be annoyed - what the fuck does unavailable mean? - before something snags his attention. The ones standing guard are on the ground floor, he’s already skimmed over their minds and found nothing, just determination to remain steadfast and keep watch. But a few floors up, there’s a spike of adrenaline and a flicker like a candle going out, and Spencer’s brushed against death often enough by now to know what it feels like.
“Fifth floor,” he murmurs, and Iero is there instantly.
“Psych ward.”
And oh, he can feel it now. Minds like jagged edges, gaping wounds, one girl’s head filled with nothing but screaming. Despair and rage and the intense desire to kill, and among them one sane mind, cool and collected, moving through the rest like a blade of ice.
“Fourth floor.”
“Terminal.” Iero doesn’t touch him - thank God for his relationship with Gerard, he must know better - but he leans closer. “What’s going on, Smith?”
The shrill klaxon of the psych ward is slowing him down, dragging at his mind like quicksand, but he fights it off and follows the thread. “He’s moving down,” Spencer answers, isolating the mind he can feel moving with purpose, a narrowed focus that he still can’t read. “Everyone else is just waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
He can appreciate Iero’s frustration, because he’s feeling the same thing. “I don’t know, I’m not close enough, all I know is that the one on the fourth floor is the one with a plan, all the rest are just…”
Waiting.
The elevator hits the ground floor and Spencer gets a flash, like lightning illuminating the dark, and he pulls back so fast it almost burns, reeling his mind back in and away from the building and slamming up every shield he has.
Spencer says, “Oh God.”
The bomb goes off.
There’s the sound of shrieking and yelling all around him, but drowning that out is the agonized, terrified wail of several hundred minds, all cutting off sharply as if someone had suddenly hit ‘mute’.
Some very dim part of him can hear Iero screaming orders, and then Gerard’s voice, “Get him out, get him out,” and someone tries to touch him. Spencer calmly sparks a shockwave into their brain, an automatic defense because he’s not physically able to protect himself right now, and sends them into a seizure somewhere at his feet.
“Don’t touch him,” Gerard shouts, full of pain, and then there’s someone else, closer, saying in a low voice, “Spencer. Spencer, can you hear me? Spencer, I need you to focus on me.”
He can still hear screaming in his mind. There aren’t any survivors of the explosion itself, but there were people close enough to be badly burned, injured and afraid, out of their minds with pain. Too many. He can’t hear anything else but the screaming.
“Spencer.” Someone is being amazingly patient with him. He vaguely wants them to go away, but it’s too much effort to actually say that. “Spencer, focus on me. Read my mind.”
He doesn’t want to, and the rush of anger snaps him out of it a little, just enough to pull his defenses into another spike, ready to lash out at whoever’s still there.
“Spencer,” Jon says, still calm in spite of the fact that Spencer can see an inferno that used to be a building over his shoulder and hear a shrieking cacophony of alarms crying out that something has gone very, very wrong. “Read my mind.”
He actually means to jab, a warning for Jon to leave him alone, but as soon as they come into contact he feels the screams muffle, like a blanket has been thrown over the rest of the world.
“Focus on me,” Jon murmurs, still there but not touching, safely out of contact. “Link with me, you can do it. Tune everyone else out. Just me.”
It’s like stepping into a quiet room. Jon’s mind is silent, no thoughts or images or sounds bombarding him, peaceful and still. The screaming grows even more distant, barely audible at the back of his mind.
Jon hasn’t made any move towards him, but Spencer takes a shaky step, and when he takes another Jon has his arms open, pulling Spencer close against his chest and enfolding him in calm and silence.
The screaming finally stops.
Spencer loses track of time, focused on nothing but the quiet, still emptiness of Jon’s presence surrounding him, and barely registers Iero’s voice when it finally returns.
“I’ve got Gerard, take Smith and go. Get him out of here.”
Jon shifts, and Spencer’s fingers tense, gripping the fabric of Jon’s shirt and hanging on. “Hey, it’s okay,” Jon murmurs, his hand rubbing slow circles on Spencer’s back, solid and warm. “I’ve got you. I promise. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Are you okay?”
Gerard doesn’t even look up; as hyperaware as he is right now, he’d felt Frank coming from all the way down the stairs. “I’m getting there,” he answers eventually.
He hears the wood creak softly as Frank sits on the edge of his desk, foregoing the chair. “Shouldn’t you be home?”
Gerard clears his throat and forces himself to look up. Frank’s eyes are soft and concerned, probably reading more in Gerard’s than he would like to share. “Spencer asked about the officer he took down,” he says instead of answering the question. It’s almost an answer; it’s the excuse he gave himself when he came here.
“He’ll be fine.” Frank’s tone isn’t dismissive, but he’s not letting Gerard dwell on this, either. “He’s in the hospital and stable. Your kids don’t shoot to kill.”
“Still. He’s pretty broken up about it.”
It’s something of an understatement; Spencer’s still in shock and not making a whole lot of sense yet. Thank God for Jon Walker.
“They know not to touch you,” Frank argues quietly. “They all know better. Faller just forgot himself. He was young, this was his first major disaster. It happens.”
“Nineteen,” Gerard murmurs, mostly to himself.
Frank swings his legs around the desk and puts his hand over Gerard’s. “No. Don’t do this, Gee.”
“He’s nineteen,” Gerard repeats, fingers curling in until his nails bite into the soft flesh of his palm.
Frank squeezes his hand, his grip just a little too tight. “So were you.”
Gerard closes his eyes and Frank leans in, the whisper of his breath and lips pressing soft against his forehead. “Go home, Gee.”
Gerard shakes his head, keeping his eyes closed tight so he doesn’t break down completely. After a minute, he feels the pressure around his wrist ease and Frank’s deceptively strong arm pulls him up out of his chair.
“What…?” He stumbles, but Frank just steers him to the battered couch in the corner of his office, pushing him down gently but firmly.
“Come here,” and Frank hauls him close, tucking Gerard’s head under his chin and holding on tight. Gerard lets out a breath that feels like a sob, and Frank’s embrace only gets tighter.
“You had a rough day too, you know,” Frank says into his hair, and Gerard exhales another one of those choked breaths, almost a laugh. He starts to say something but Frank’s arms tighten again, squeezing hard enough that he can’t breathe.
“Enough,” Frank orders, and he has his ‘I’m-still-the-boss-of-you’ voice on, cutting the words off before they leave Gerard’s throat. “Rest. Let it out. Get some sleep.”
Gerard swallows, and it takes him a minute before he’s sure he can speak without breaking down. “You’re staying?” he croaks finally, and winces at how desperate it sounds.
Frank sighs, and there’s a brush of something against his hair that might have been a kiss. “Yeah. I’m staying.”
“Thanks for getting me out,” Gerard whispers, and Frank chuckles softly, hand squeezing his arm.
“Don’t mention it.”
“Brendon’s hiding something from me,” Ryan announces. “Do you know what it is?”
Jon blinks at him, and slowly sits back in his chair, whatever ‘welcome to therapy, how are you today?’ greeting he’d been about to spout dying on his lips.
“How would I know?” Jon asks finally.
He has a point. Ryan taps the arm of the chair impatiently and thinks. “Is there something he’s hiding from you?” he asks. Because if there is, that’s different than if he’s only hiding it from Ryan.
Jon steeples his fingers on the desk and looks vaguely amused. “I don’t know,” he answers. “I’m not a telepath.”
Ryan narrows his eyes. “You’re a psychiatrist.”
The amused look on Jon’s face quirks crookedly into a smile. “Does that mean I know all there is to know about you?”
Ryan snorts. Jon’s hands open into the international sign of ‘I rest my case.’
“Why do you think he’s hiding something from you?” Jon asks. He has the mildly curious tone of the working psychiatrist now, and Ryan instinctively shies away from answering.
“I can feel it,” is all he says, and promptly changes the subject. “Thank you. For what you did for Spencer.”
Jon looks surprised. “It’s what I’m here for,” he replies.
Ryan starts to shake his head, but then changes his mind and shrugs. “Thank you anyway.”
“You’re welcome,” Jon says graciously, then pauses. “Would you like to talk about your working relationship with Brendon?”
No, Ryan definitely does not. “Do you know where he’s been lately?” he asks suddenly. Jon has to know, Jon’s in charge of listening to them talk about their jobs, and whatever Brendon’s job is lately that he’s not allowed to talk to them about, he must still be talking to Jon.
“I’m not allowed to talk about that with anyone other than Brendon,” Jon answers carefully, and Ryan’s annoyance doubles. “But if you want to talk about…”
“Why don’t you ever wear shoes?” Ryan interrupts.
Jon’s mouth is still open, mid-sentence; Ryan’s caught him off-guard. He follows the conversational lead smoothly, though, ever the professional. “I like my feet to feel free,” he answers. “Why do you always wear scarves?”
Ryan is a bit taken aback; clearly Jon thought this inquisition was going both ways. “Because I fucking like them,” he snaps, fingers tapping an accelerating staccato on the chair arm. The thing with Brendon is still bugging him. And he’s worried about Spencer.
“Do you like Spencer?” Ryan asks abruptly.
Jon seems to have finally given up on trying to take command of this conversation, but he still looks confused. “Spencer? Of course. He’s a nice guy. You all are.”
Ryan rolls his eyes at the stupidity of the populace in general. “Do you like him?” he repeats, because there’s something going on there, and Spencer hasn’t said much more than that he thinks Jon’s a really good guy. He says it with a soft, ridiculous look on his face, though, which is why Ryan is suspicious.
“I…” Jon blinks, at a loss. Ryan gives him ten seconds and then forges on.
“Because if you do anything to hurt him, which you obviously have the power to do, being his shrink and all, I will hunt you down and kill you with the power of my mind. Are we clear?”
Jon doesn’t outwardly react to the threat; Ryan guesses he’s probably heard a lot of them. “What makes you think Spencer is interested in me?” Jon asks, and while there’s nothing in his voice besides professional inquiry, Ryan sees the way his finger twitches against the edge of a pen.
So it’s like that.
“Time’s up,” Ryan says, pushing himself out of the chair. “See you next week.”
Spencer walks into Jon’s office, closes the door behind him, and starts talking.
“About a month after I started working,” he begins, “I got sent out on a suspected domestic violence call.”
Jon’s look of surprise has faded almost immediately into an expression that says he’s listening, intently, and not judging anything Spencer is about to say. Spencer’s grateful for that, and also for the fact that Jon isn’t asking any questions, because it’s hard enough to say this without interruptions.
“They thought it was the father, but it wasn’t. It was the mother. She was…” Spencer shudders, remembering the feel of her, the hectic turmoil of an unbalanced mind. “Not well. She’d lost a child, a long illness, a lot of suffering and…” He shakes his head. “I didn’t know any of that. I just knew there was her, her husband, and three kids in the house.”
Jon doesn’t say anything. Spencer takes a deep breath. “I didn’t know what was going on, although I should have, I should have figured it out a lot sooner, but I felt one of the kids die and I thought it was the father, I was sure because he was drunk, and that’s all I knew, that she was crazy and he was drunk, that’s all I knew.”
He doesn’t need to explain about Ryan and drunk fathers, probably, but that’s not the point of this story anyway. “That’s what I told the cops. I told them he was killing the kids, and they went in. And while they were fighting with him…” Spencer swallows, remembering the grapple for control, the bewildered panic that had set in when the police burst into the house. “She killed the second one.”
It’s harder to talk now, he has to force the words past his lips. He hasn’t spoken to anyone about this in years, hasn’t had to. Whenever he thinks about it all he has to do is open his mind and Ryan is there, immediately, communicating without words. Part of him wishes Jon could do that as well, but it’s both easier and harder to get it out like this, in words that have some distance between them and his thoughts.
“I don’t…I don’t know why not the baby. I think maybe she thought she’d already killed him, but she’d been too gentle, or maybe…” He shakes his head again, focusing on the desk because it’s safer to look at than Jon’s eyes. “I don’t know. Like I said, she wasn’t…well. But the baby started waking up.”
It’s not only hard to speak now, it’s hard to inhale. Spencer feels like he’s going to pass out, and then Jon’s voice washes over him softly, for the first time since he entered the room. “Breathe.”
Spencer sucks in air and forces the last of it out. “The cops were all inside with the husband, and he had a gun, he was drunk, he didn’t know what was going on, I was on my own. I knew I couldn’t get to her in time, so I tried to…I tried to keep the baby quiet. Put him back to sleep. Anything to make her forget about him.”
He has a sudden vision of Ryan’s eyes, and that steadies him, helps him pull it together enough to finish. “The baby was a telepath. Or going to be. He felt me try to touch his mind, and he got scared, and he started crying.” He swallows, remembering the tiny, helpless flare of fear in his mind right before that life was snuffed out. “And she…” Breathe. Get it out. “She killed him. Because I screwed up.”
“Spencer,” Jon says quietly, but Spencer waves a hand and he stops talking, for which Spencer is profoundly grateful.
“I know it’s not technically my fault, I know I couldn’t have stopped her, I know everyone makes mistakes.” He’s heard it all, over and over again, from Gerard and from the department shrink who’d been here then, trying to help him get over it. Whatever that meant, exactly.
“Look, that’s not why I’m telling you.” He finally meets Jon’s eyes, and is relieved not to see any sympathy or pity there waiting to sting him. “I just wanted you to know. That’s what you would have read, if you’d opened my file. That’s what’s in there.”
It’s quiet for a minute, nothing but the sound of Spencer’s breathing, still harsh and loud in his ears. Then Jon says simply, “Thank you.”
Spencer looks away, his ears going hot. “You can read it,” he says. “I don’t mind now, if you do. I trust you. After…I mean. I trust you.”
When he looks back up again, Jon just shakes his head, serious, and puts his hand down flat over the thin stack of closed files on his desk. “I don’t need to.”
Spencer feels as if something that’s been hanging over him, weighing him down, has suddenly lifted and been borne away. And when Jon smiles at him, like he understands and it’s something secret between them, Spencer smiles back.
part two