Panic cupcake!crack!
So, erm. I wrote Panic crack!fic. What does it say that this is the first thing I've actually finished in over a year?
The backstory on this is, ever since we both read this, heartequals and I have been making references to cake frosting whenever we talk about Ryan Ross. And the other day, cupcakes came up. And she said "If you don't want it, I will do it! Because that is too fantastic not to!" So I did it. I think she might have done it better, given the chance, but y'know, I wasn't going to turn down the only proper inspiration I've had in months. So.
cupcake.
panic! at the disco
sort of ryan/spencer-ish?
pg-13 (miniscule amounts of kissing, bad innuendoes, no sex.)
fair cracktastic. lots of frosting.
for heartequals, who will probably get all the accidental references to our conversations that i put in, lolz.
Hmm, Spencer thinks.
He'd woken up several minutes earlier, and the first thing he'd noticed was that there wasn't any sort of noise coming from the bunk below his. Which assumedly meant Ryan was already up. Unexpected, but not unheard of. Without giving Ryan's bunk a second glance, Spencer had jumped down and headed out to the "kitchen", such as it was, and found that huh, Ryan was not up. Brendon was (eating Fruity Pebbles while seated on the counter and swearing that a second ago they spelled out "YO"), and Jon was (drinking coffee while sitting at the table and pointedly not listening to Brendon), but there was a distinct hole where Ryan would have been (also drinking coffee, but telling Brendon that subliminal messages did not appear in Fruity Pebbles, for fuck's sake, and had he been hanging out with Travis again, because that sounded like a very Travis hallucination, if that's what it was) if he was awake.
"Where's Ryan?" Spencer had yawned.
"What? Still asleep, it's like 9:30, man," Brendon had replied with his mouth full of "YO".
"No, he's not. Not in his bunk, anyway."
"Are you sure?" Jon looked up from the gardening section of the paper. "Maybe he's just being really quiet. Brooding. I've noticed he does that sometimes."
Brendon nodded, swallowing. "Brooding is like, his calling. He's like Buffy the Mood Slayer."
Spencer had chosen to ignore this remark at the time, Ryan's absence leaving him in a mood not suited to jokes, but stored it away for later use. He'd headed back out to the bunks to check that Ryan really was kicking some mood butt, and not, y'know, back at their last rest stop, but when he'd knocked on the outside of Ryan's bunk (Ryan could get violent if aforementioned brooding was disturbed) and gotten no answer, he'd assumed it was safe to open the curtains.
Which brought him here. Staring at Ryan's empty bunk.
Well. Empty, except for a single cupcake.
It is, Spencer concedes, a very pretty cupcake. Pink frosting, with small, delicate red sugar roses that were crowned by tiny silver balls, like dewdrops, and a gold embossed white paper casing around the bottom. It looks like something from a little girl's fantasy tea party.
But...it was in Ryan's bunk. Sans Ryan. That made Spencer suspicious of it.
"Erm."
Spencer turns around, expecting to see Jon or Brendon behind him, at which point they can begin to try and fathom why there are baked goods in Ryan's bunk (two heads are better than one, Spencer figures). However, there isn't anyone there. The "erm" seems to have come out of thin air. Spencer shakes his head. Maybe it was like, the bus settling or something. (Do buses settle? Like houses? "No, Spence, they have no foundations to settle on," he imagines Ryan saying firmly.)
(This is turning into a fairly bizarre morning, Spencer muses. Far too many conversations with hypothetical Ryan. He's not sure he likes it.)
"Spence? Help?"
Okay, now that definitely wasn't the bus settling, or any other explainable noise. Spencer knows that the bus settling would not sound like a somewhat bemused and not a little terrified Ryan Ross.
"Ryan? Where are you, man?"
"In my bunk, I think? I can't move or anything, Spencer, it's very not right."
Spencer stares at Ryan's bunk or, more specifically, the cupcake in Ryan's bunk some more. Then he searches the rest of Ryan's bunk for ANY other explanation. Finding none, he comes back to the cupcake.
No. Surely not.
"Ryan," he begins carefully, not knowing how (oh god, what is he thinking, really) a cupcake would cope with being freaked out, "I think you might be a cupcake."
"...Come again?"
"In your bunk, where you say you are, there is a kind of lovely looking cupcake. The only logical explanation for this is that you've somehow become said cupcake."
(If your definition of logical is very elastic, anyway, Spencer thinks.)
"But...I can still talk to you. You can hear me. Please tell me you can actually hear me, and I'm not like, ESP-ing my thoughts to you or something."
No, no, I...I think you're making a noise," Spencer says faintly. "But then, I also think you've become a cupcake. My grip on my sanity is feeling a little tenuous, Ry."
"Well then, go get someone else!" If it was possible for a cupcake to look impatient, the Ryan cupcake was doing so. "If they can hear me, you're not mad, and I'm...oh god, I'm a cupcake."
"Stay cool, dude," Spencer tells the cupcake, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. "I'll go get the others, we'll work this out. You won't be a cupcake for long, I promise."
****
"Huh," Brendon surmises a few minutes later, as they all stand staring at the Ryan cupcake.
"If it helps, Ry, you're a very cute cupcake," Jon offers hopefully. "Nicely decorated."
"It kind of doesn't." Ryan's disembodied voice is sounding more dispondant by the minute.
"Also," Brendon says, sounding genuinely excited, "a talking cupcake. Although," he adds thoughtfully, "when Spence said you'd turned into a talking cupcake, I was hoping you'd sound more like Strawberry Shortcake or something. Cheerful! High pitched!"
"I'm not going to ask why you know what Strawberry Shortcake sounds like." Spencer sinks carefully down onto Ryan's bunk, moving the cupcake gently onto the pillow, out of harm's way.
"Whatever dude, you know you love it too. You know what I think we should do?"
"Get an airtight container?"
"NO!" Spencer glares at Jon for Ryan.
"Maybe," Brendon says thoughtfully. "But I think we should call Pete first."
****
They call Pete.
"Why would you think I would have ANY experience with this at all?"
"Because you're Pete Wentz, duh." They're sitting in a circle in the middle of the lounge area, Brendon's Sidekick on speakerphone in the middle, the cupcake perched precariously on Spencer's knee so Ryan can join in the conversation. ("I'm the one who is currently made of sponge and butter frosting, therefore I get veto on pretty much everything.") "You know weird stuff!"
"Okay, you know what? I'm revoking your right to use that sort of weird almost flattery. ALL of you. It might work when, y'know, you want to get a new bass player or a windmill, but stopping your guitarist from being a cupcake-"
"Pete." Ryan sounds miserable. "Think about that last sentence. I'm a cupcake."
"A pretty cupcake," Jon qualifies.
"Really?" Pete is suitably amused. "Send me a picture, I wanna see this."
Ryan groans. "This is humiliating enough without it getting out that I am apparently the gayest looking cupcake any of you have ever seen."
"It might help if I can see what I'm working with, though!"
"Later, Pete," Brendon promises. "When the Cupcake Princess isn't a carbohydrate anymore, I'll show you some photos and we'll all laugh."
"I won't," Ryan says flatly.
"But you're so cute! And delicious looking..." Brendon trails off, chewing his lip as he surveys the cupcake in a disturbingly lustful manner.
"Don't even, Urie."
"Just...just one fingerful of frosting. Just one."
"No!"
"Butbut...pink! Sugary! And," here Brendon leers lecherously at the cupcake, "you know how much I like fin-"
"O-kay!" Pete clears his throat. "Do not need to hear that. At all."
"I hate you, Brendon Urie."
"You so don't, Ry-cakes."
"Oooh," Spencer breathes. "Low blow, dude."
"Totally," Jon agrees.
"Wait, let me think." Ryan pauses. "Nope, sorry, so do."
Spencer can hear the pout in Ryan's voice. "Oh, look what you've done now, Brendon, you made the cupcake all sulky."
"Since when did I become 'the cupcake'?" Ryan still sounds sulky, but there's an edge of almost hysteria to it now.
"Since you became a disembodied voice. It's not like the cupcake is actually producing your speech or anything. It doesn't even have a mouth!"
"Wait, wait. Mouth. Huh." They've almost forgotten Pete's still on the phone with them, but he's clearly been thinking. "Hold up a minute."
"What?"
"What flavour lip gloss have you been using, Ross?"
"WHAT?" Ryan seems to have pulled out of his sulk long enough to be indignant. "I don't wear lip gloss! I'm not that gay, man."
"Don't even bother, dude, you so do. Just tell me, what flavour?"
Spencer looks down at the cupcake ad he swears it looks almost sheepish. "Cake frosting," Ryan mutters under his breath.
"Oh, no way." Jon looks somewhat incredulous. "Are you saying Ryan's lipgloss turned him into a cake?"
"Totally plausible. Bill turned into a strawberry from his once."
"What?" Jon sounds horrified. "When did that happen?"
"JWalk. You were on the same bus at the time. How did you miss that?"
Brendon lets out a happy sigh and leans over to hug Jon, smacking a kiss on his cheek. "Ahh, dear, oblivious Jon. How I adore you."
Jon shakes his head and looks nonplussed.
"So wait," Ryan cuts in, "there's a way to fix this? Because William wasn't a strawberry last time I saw him."
"Definately," Pete assures him. "Although I'm not sure if you fix strawberries and baked goods the same way."
"Nevermind. We can absolutely work this out. We will. And before the show tomorrow. Piece of cake."
"If the cake puns don't stop, I'm going to smack a bitch. And by 'a bitch', I mean you, Spencer."
"The cupcake is threatening me. I'm terrified," Spencer deadpans.
"So much hate, Spence. So much hate."
Pete snorts. "That's the Ryan Ross I know and love. I'll leave you boys to it."
****
Their first approach was to do nothing. "Maybe it'll wear off," Brendon had remarked hopefully.
By 10:30 that night, it was clear that it, whatever "it" was, wasn't going to just wear off.
"Time for Plan B," Spencer announces.
"Do we have a Plan B?" Jon asked curiously.
"...Not as of yet."
Ryan sighs heavily.
"The internet, maybe?"
Spencer shakes his head. "I looked. A lot of, y'know, nice birthday cake recipes, and some pictures I didn't need to see involving middle-aged women and frosting, but nothing useful whatsoever."
"Did you try ringing William?"
"His phone's set to voicemail," Jon informs them. "I left a message, but I'm fairly sure he's going to think I'm drunk or trying to mess with him."
Brendon lets out his breath through his teeth and taps his fingers nervously on his thighs. "Wouldn't blame him. This is messed up."
Ryan laughs hollowly. "Understatement of the year."
They finally decide to sleep on it, when no one can come up with any better ideas. Spencer takes the cupcake back to his bunk so Ryan won't have to be alone, although he isn't sure whether cupcakes actually sleep or not. He hopes so. "Don't worry, Ry," is the last thing before he drifts off, "we will fix this."
There's no reply.
****
Spencer is awoken by what sounds like very quiet, suppressed sobbing. Coming from his bunk.
He slowly opens his eyes and surveys the cupcake. One of its sugar roses has been knocked askew, and it looks so utterly forlorn that Spencer almsot wants to cry himself.
"Ryan?"
The sobbing is quickly stifled. "Yeah, yeah, Spence, I'm..." there is a conspicuously loud sniffle, "fine. Really."
"No, you're not." Cupcake or not, Spencer knows when his best friend is "fine", and now is not one of those times. Nor, he thinks, should it be, really. "It'll be okay, Ry."
"Yeah."
"You don't sound convinced."
Ryan lets out a huge sigh. "Spencer, what if I'm stuck like this forever?" he babbles, suddenly sounding terrified like he hadn't since the very beginning of the whole affair. "Cupcakes have a shelf life of like, two weeks, tops. What happens when I go stale? What if someone east me by mistake? Maybe Jon was right about the airtight container..."
"Ryan."
"Mmm."
"I promised I'd fix it, didn't I?"
"Yes."
"And when have I ever broken a promise to you? I will. Just..."
Spencer feels stupid doing this, but it's always the best was to calm Ryan down when he's upset or crying, so he leans over and gently kisses where he imagines the cupcake's forehead is.
As his lips get covered in sugary pink frosting, there is a loud pop, and quite suddenly, he is kissing a very startled looking Ryan Ross.
It's a moment before they both pull back, mainly out of shock more than anything else. Ryan looks very confused; he's dressed in yesterday's clothes, and the sugar roses are still scattered through his touseled hair. He blinks and shakes himself slightly. "What just happened?"
Spencer frowns slightly. "I, erm, kissed you. And...you're not a cupcake anymore."
Ryan looks down at his hands. They're a little buttery, but they're definitely his. "Apparently so."
"Huh. What d'you know. If I'd known that was all it was going to take, I'd have let Brendon attempt to eat you."
"Dirty boy." Ryan smiles indulgently. "But, maybe..." He pauses, fiddling with one of the roses he'd pulled out of his hair. "Maybe it's just you."
Spencer smirks. "What, like Prince Charming?"
Ryan bites his lip, keeping his eyes down. Spencer, knowing that this is that moment, the one he can't let slip away, leans over and tips Ryan's chin up.
"Only one way to find out, I suppose."
Both their lips still taste sugary sweet, and the kiss they share when Spencer pulls Ryan closer is slick with the remenants of Ryan's pretty pink frosting.
As Ryan begins trailing kisses down his jaw, Spencer can't reists murmuring, "My little cupcake."
Ryan, quite rightly, smacks him.
****
The next day, when Ryan and Spencer finally crawl out of Spencer's bunk, they find a large box wiating for them in the kitchen. From Pete's favourite bakery in LA.
It's full of pink cupcakes with red and silver sugar roses ("Damnit, Brendon!"), and a note.
In case Ryan gets lonely. xo p.
end.
The backstory on this is, ever since we both read this, heartequals and I have been making references to cake frosting whenever we talk about Ryan Ross. And the other day, cupcakes came up. And she said "If you don't want it, I will do it! Because that is too fantastic not to!" So I did it. I think she might have done it better, given the chance, but y'know, I wasn't going to turn down the only proper inspiration I've had in months. So.
cupcake.
panic! at the disco
sort of ryan/spencer-ish?
pg-13 (miniscule amounts of kissing, bad innuendoes, no sex.)
fair cracktastic. lots of frosting.
for heartequals, who will probably get all the accidental references to our conversations that i put in, lolz.
Hmm, Spencer thinks.
He'd woken up several minutes earlier, and the first thing he'd noticed was that there wasn't any sort of noise coming from the bunk below his. Which assumedly meant Ryan was already up. Unexpected, but not unheard of. Without giving Ryan's bunk a second glance, Spencer had jumped down and headed out to the "kitchen", such as it was, and found that huh, Ryan was not up. Brendon was (eating Fruity Pebbles while seated on the counter and swearing that a second ago they spelled out "YO"), and Jon was (drinking coffee while sitting at the table and pointedly not listening to Brendon), but there was a distinct hole where Ryan would have been (also drinking coffee, but telling Brendon that subliminal messages did not appear in Fruity Pebbles, for fuck's sake, and had he been hanging out with Travis again, because that sounded like a very Travis hallucination, if that's what it was) if he was awake.
"Where's Ryan?" Spencer had yawned.
"What? Still asleep, it's like 9:30, man," Brendon had replied with his mouth full of "YO".
"No, he's not. Not in his bunk, anyway."
"Are you sure?" Jon looked up from the gardening section of the paper. "Maybe he's just being really quiet. Brooding. I've noticed he does that sometimes."
Brendon nodded, swallowing. "Brooding is like, his calling. He's like Buffy the Mood Slayer."
Spencer had chosen to ignore this remark at the time, Ryan's absence leaving him in a mood not suited to jokes, but stored it away for later use. He'd headed back out to the bunks to check that Ryan really was kicking some mood butt, and not, y'know, back at their last rest stop, but when he'd knocked on the outside of Ryan's bunk (Ryan could get violent if aforementioned brooding was disturbed) and gotten no answer, he'd assumed it was safe to open the curtains.
Which brought him here. Staring at Ryan's empty bunk.
Well. Empty, except for a single cupcake.
It is, Spencer concedes, a very pretty cupcake. Pink frosting, with small, delicate red sugar roses that were crowned by tiny silver balls, like dewdrops, and a gold embossed white paper casing around the bottom. It looks like something from a little girl's fantasy tea party.
But...it was in Ryan's bunk. Sans Ryan. That made Spencer suspicious of it.
"Erm."
Spencer turns around, expecting to see Jon or Brendon behind him, at which point they can begin to try and fathom why there are baked goods in Ryan's bunk (two heads are better than one, Spencer figures). However, there isn't anyone there. The "erm" seems to have come out of thin air. Spencer shakes his head. Maybe it was like, the bus settling or something. (Do buses settle? Like houses? "No, Spence, they have no foundations to settle on," he imagines Ryan saying firmly.)
(This is turning into a fairly bizarre morning, Spencer muses. Far too many conversations with hypothetical Ryan. He's not sure he likes it.)
"Spence? Help?"
Okay, now that definitely wasn't the bus settling, or any other explainable noise. Spencer knows that the bus settling would not sound like a somewhat bemused and not a little terrified Ryan Ross.
"Ryan? Where are you, man?"
"In my bunk, I think? I can't move or anything, Spencer, it's very not right."
Spencer stares at Ryan's bunk or, more specifically, the cupcake in Ryan's bunk some more. Then he searches the rest of Ryan's bunk for ANY other explanation. Finding none, he comes back to the cupcake.
No. Surely not.
"Ryan," he begins carefully, not knowing how (oh god, what is he thinking, really) a cupcake would cope with being freaked out, "I think you might be a cupcake."
"...Come again?"
"In your bunk, where you say you are, there is a kind of lovely looking cupcake. The only logical explanation for this is that you've somehow become said cupcake."
(If your definition of logical is very elastic, anyway, Spencer thinks.)
"But...I can still talk to you. You can hear me. Please tell me you can actually hear me, and I'm not like, ESP-ing my thoughts to you or something."
No, no, I...I think you're making a noise," Spencer says faintly. "But then, I also think you've become a cupcake. My grip on my sanity is feeling a little tenuous, Ry."
"Well then, go get someone else!" If it was possible for a cupcake to look impatient, the Ryan cupcake was doing so. "If they can hear me, you're not mad, and I'm...oh god, I'm a cupcake."
"Stay cool, dude," Spencer tells the cupcake, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. "I'll go get the others, we'll work this out. You won't be a cupcake for long, I promise."
****
"Huh," Brendon surmises a few minutes later, as they all stand staring at the Ryan cupcake.
"If it helps, Ry, you're a very cute cupcake," Jon offers hopefully. "Nicely decorated."
"It kind of doesn't." Ryan's disembodied voice is sounding more dispondant by the minute.
"Also," Brendon says, sounding genuinely excited, "a talking cupcake. Although," he adds thoughtfully, "when Spence said you'd turned into a talking cupcake, I was hoping you'd sound more like Strawberry Shortcake or something. Cheerful! High pitched!"
"I'm not going to ask why you know what Strawberry Shortcake sounds like." Spencer sinks carefully down onto Ryan's bunk, moving the cupcake gently onto the pillow, out of harm's way.
"Whatever dude, you know you love it too. You know what I think we should do?"
"Get an airtight container?"
"NO!" Spencer glares at Jon for Ryan.
"Maybe," Brendon says thoughtfully. "But I think we should call Pete first."
****
They call Pete.
"Why would you think I would have ANY experience with this at all?"
"Because you're Pete Wentz, duh." They're sitting in a circle in the middle of the lounge area, Brendon's Sidekick on speakerphone in the middle, the cupcake perched precariously on Spencer's knee so Ryan can join in the conversation. ("I'm the one who is currently made of sponge and butter frosting, therefore I get veto on pretty much everything.") "You know weird stuff!"
"Okay, you know what? I'm revoking your right to use that sort of weird almost flattery. ALL of you. It might work when, y'know, you want to get a new bass player or a windmill, but stopping your guitarist from being a cupcake-"
"Pete." Ryan sounds miserable. "Think about that last sentence. I'm a cupcake."
"A pretty cupcake," Jon qualifies.
"Really?" Pete is suitably amused. "Send me a picture, I wanna see this."
Ryan groans. "This is humiliating enough without it getting out that I am apparently the gayest looking cupcake any of you have ever seen."
"It might help if I can see what I'm working with, though!"
"Later, Pete," Brendon promises. "When the Cupcake Princess isn't a carbohydrate anymore, I'll show you some photos and we'll all laugh."
"I won't," Ryan says flatly.
"But you're so cute! And delicious looking..." Brendon trails off, chewing his lip as he surveys the cupcake in a disturbingly lustful manner.
"Don't even, Urie."
"Just...just one fingerful of frosting. Just one."
"No!"
"Butbut...pink! Sugary! And," here Brendon leers lecherously at the cupcake, "you know how much I like fin-"
"O-kay!" Pete clears his throat. "Do not need to hear that. At all."
"I hate you, Brendon Urie."
"You so don't, Ry-cakes."
"Oooh," Spencer breathes. "Low blow, dude."
"Totally," Jon agrees.
"Wait, let me think." Ryan pauses. "Nope, sorry, so do."
Spencer can hear the pout in Ryan's voice. "Oh, look what you've done now, Brendon, you made the cupcake all sulky."
"Since when did I become 'the cupcake'?" Ryan still sounds sulky, but there's an edge of almost hysteria to it now.
"Since you became a disembodied voice. It's not like the cupcake is actually producing your speech or anything. It doesn't even have a mouth!"
"Wait, wait. Mouth. Huh." They've almost forgotten Pete's still on the phone with them, but he's clearly been thinking. "Hold up a minute."
"What?"
"What flavour lip gloss have you been using, Ross?"
"WHAT?" Ryan seems to have pulled out of his sulk long enough to be indignant. "I don't wear lip gloss! I'm not that gay, man."
"Don't even bother, dude, you so do. Just tell me, what flavour?"
Spencer looks down at the cupcake ad he swears it looks almost sheepish. "Cake frosting," Ryan mutters under his breath.
"Oh, no way." Jon looks somewhat incredulous. "Are you saying Ryan's lipgloss turned him into a cake?"
"Totally plausible. Bill turned into a strawberry from his once."
"What?" Jon sounds horrified. "When did that happen?"
"JWalk. You were on the same bus at the time. How did you miss that?"
Brendon lets out a happy sigh and leans over to hug Jon, smacking a kiss on his cheek. "Ahh, dear, oblivious Jon. How I adore you."
Jon shakes his head and looks nonplussed.
"So wait," Ryan cuts in, "there's a way to fix this? Because William wasn't a strawberry last time I saw him."
"Definately," Pete assures him. "Although I'm not sure if you fix strawberries and baked goods the same way."
"Nevermind. We can absolutely work this out. We will. And before the show tomorrow. Piece of cake."
"If the cake puns don't stop, I'm going to smack a bitch. And by 'a bitch', I mean you, Spencer."
"The cupcake is threatening me. I'm terrified," Spencer deadpans.
"So much hate, Spence. So much hate."
Pete snorts. "That's the Ryan Ross I know and love. I'll leave you boys to it."
****
Their first approach was to do nothing. "Maybe it'll wear off," Brendon had remarked hopefully.
By 10:30 that night, it was clear that it, whatever "it" was, wasn't going to just wear off.
"Time for Plan B," Spencer announces.
"Do we have a Plan B?" Jon asked curiously.
"...Not as of yet."
Ryan sighs heavily.
"The internet, maybe?"
Spencer shakes his head. "I looked. A lot of, y'know, nice birthday cake recipes, and some pictures I didn't need to see involving middle-aged women and frosting, but nothing useful whatsoever."
"Did you try ringing William?"
"His phone's set to voicemail," Jon informs them. "I left a message, but I'm fairly sure he's going to think I'm drunk or trying to mess with him."
Brendon lets out his breath through his teeth and taps his fingers nervously on his thighs. "Wouldn't blame him. This is messed up."
Ryan laughs hollowly. "Understatement of the year."
They finally decide to sleep on it, when no one can come up with any better ideas. Spencer takes the cupcake back to his bunk so Ryan won't have to be alone, although he isn't sure whether cupcakes actually sleep or not. He hopes so. "Don't worry, Ry," is the last thing before he drifts off, "we will fix this."
There's no reply.
****
Spencer is awoken by what sounds like very quiet, suppressed sobbing. Coming from his bunk.
He slowly opens his eyes and surveys the cupcake. One of its sugar roses has been knocked askew, and it looks so utterly forlorn that Spencer almsot wants to cry himself.
"Ryan?"
The sobbing is quickly stifled. "Yeah, yeah, Spence, I'm..." there is a conspicuously loud sniffle, "fine. Really."
"No, you're not." Cupcake or not, Spencer knows when his best friend is "fine", and now is not one of those times. Nor, he thinks, should it be, really. "It'll be okay, Ry."
"Yeah."
"You don't sound convinced."
Ryan lets out a huge sigh. "Spencer, what if I'm stuck like this forever?" he babbles, suddenly sounding terrified like he hadn't since the very beginning of the whole affair. "Cupcakes have a shelf life of like, two weeks, tops. What happens when I go stale? What if someone east me by mistake? Maybe Jon was right about the airtight container..."
"Ryan."
"Mmm."
"I promised I'd fix it, didn't I?"
"Yes."
"And when have I ever broken a promise to you? I will. Just..."
Spencer feels stupid doing this, but it's always the best was to calm Ryan down when he's upset or crying, so he leans over and gently kisses where he imagines the cupcake's forehead is.
As his lips get covered in sugary pink frosting, there is a loud pop, and quite suddenly, he is kissing a very startled looking Ryan Ross.
It's a moment before they both pull back, mainly out of shock more than anything else. Ryan looks very confused; he's dressed in yesterday's clothes, and the sugar roses are still scattered through his touseled hair. He blinks and shakes himself slightly. "What just happened?"
Spencer frowns slightly. "I, erm, kissed you. And...you're not a cupcake anymore."
Ryan looks down at his hands. They're a little buttery, but they're definitely his. "Apparently so."
"Huh. What d'you know. If I'd known that was all it was going to take, I'd have let Brendon attempt to eat you."
"Dirty boy." Ryan smiles indulgently. "But, maybe..." He pauses, fiddling with one of the roses he'd pulled out of his hair. "Maybe it's just you."
Spencer smirks. "What, like Prince Charming?"
Ryan bites his lip, keeping his eyes down. Spencer, knowing that this is that moment, the one he can't let slip away, leans over and tips Ryan's chin up.
"Only one way to find out, I suppose."
Both their lips still taste sugary sweet, and the kiss they share when Spencer pulls Ryan closer is slick with the remenants of Ryan's pretty pink frosting.
As Ryan begins trailing kisses down his jaw, Spencer can't reists murmuring, "My little cupcake."
Ryan, quite rightly, smacks him.
****
The next day, when Ryan and Spencer finally crawl out of Spencer's bunk, they find a large box wiating for them in the kitchen. From Pete's favourite bakery in LA.
It's full of pink cupcakes with red and silver sugar roses ("Damnit, Brendon!"), and a note.
In case Ryan gets lonely. xo p.
end.