(no subject)
YOU HAVE DIED OF DYSENTERY
or: panic! on the oregon trail
(complete with a cameo by frank iero, just for maddy)
pg-13; 2,839 words.
YOU HAVE DIED OF DYSENTERY
Three days from Chimney Rock they realize something is missing.
Namely, Brent.
They left Brent at Chimney Rock.
"Well, good," Brendon says stubbornly once they've set up camp for the night, folding his arms over his chest, "he kept on shooting all the bunnies anyway."
"Brendon," says Spencer. He is sitting indian-style in the back of the Conastoga wagon, attempting to clean the dust from one of his spare shoes with an already-dusty rag. "You know, like, those bunnies were our dinner, right? When you go hunting, all you shoot are trees."
"That's so I don't hit the bunnies," Brendon insists. Spencer sighs and gives his shoe an incredibly long-suffering look.
"You could use water to get it cleaner," Brendon suggests.
"Brendon," says Spencer, "our water is for drinking. Especially now that we're going to starve to death."
"Why would we need to drink if we're going to starve to death?" Brendon looks honestly perplexed. "Wait-- Spencer, we're not going to starve to death! Spencer Smith, how could you say such a thing," he says sullenly.
"Brendon--" Spencer starts, then just shakes his head. "Please just go make sure Ryan doesn't get bit by a snake or something, okay?"
"OW, motherfucker!" Ryan yelps from the other side of the wagon.
*
"Well, at least it wasn't a snakebite," says Jon as he wraps Ryan's broken wrist in a tight split. Jon is from another wagon in their group, and he is good at useful things like fixing broken people and, Brendon thinks suddenly, probably not starving to death.
"Jon, hey, Jon," Brendon says, tugging at his sleeve, "do you know how to not starve to death? Spencer keeps saying we're going to starve to death."
"Ow," Ryan says pointedly as Brendon makes Jon's hands slip on the splint.
"I said it once," says Spencer.
"How did you even break it anyway?" Brendon asks Ryan, eyeing the appendage suspiciously. "You weren't doing anything dangerous." Ryan shrugs. Jon gives the bandages one final tightening tug.
"Everything is dangerous out here," he says, giving Brendon a wink. "I am pretty good at not starving to death, though. Even killed a bear or two before."
"You're kind of short," says Ryan.
"Not as short as Pete," Jon says.
Neither Brendon, Spencer, nor Ryan know who Pete is, but they figure he must be a pretty short dude.
"Jon," says Spencer, "will you kill a bear for us?"
"No, can you just catch it? And not hurt it or anything, that's so mean," Brendon says.
"Brendon," says Spencer, "the point is to eat the bear. And not starve to death."
"See! You said it again."
"Why are we going to starve to death?" asks Ryan, frowning. "Brent usually gets enough rabbits to keep us going."
"We forgot Brent at Chimney Rock," Spencer says resignedly.
Ryan blinks at him, then tilts his head thoughtfully. "Oh."
This is when the three of them realize that Jon has been rendered speechless by a silent, violent fit of laughter.
"Jon Walker, starving to death is no laughing matter!" Brendon says indignantly.
"Oh, hahaha, no, it's totally not, ahaha," Jon says, even though he is definitely laughing. "You know what, next time I see a bear I'll totally catch it for you."
*
They stay at Fort Laramie a few extra days because Ryan has a fever, possibly typhoid. Spencer and Brendon bundle him up as comfortably as possible in the back of the wagon where he spends most of his time sleeping or insisting that he's better, now, really, we can leave now, guys. Spencer calls him on bullshit every time, though, and then spends a lot of time pacing around the fort worriedly and trading some of his least favorite shoes for better blankets to tuck around Ryan. This, Brendon knows, means that he is really, really worried.
After a few restless nights, sitting up with Spencer to make sure Ryan doesn't kick the bucket, Brendon does the only logical thing to do: he goes in search of Jon Walker.
"JON WALKER," Brendon wails, falling to his knees and clutching Jon's leg imploringly, "please save our Ryan Ross!"
"Okay," says Jon, "where is he?"
Jon, Brendon thinks, must be magical. Not only can he fix broken things and catch bears, he also can make Ryan not sick anymore. Also, he can make coffee.
"Ryan gets sick or injured a lot, doesn't he?" Jon asks over a mug of the delicious beverage.
"Fuck you, I do not," Ryan says blearily from his bed of blankets.
"Shut up and keep healing," Spencer says. Spencer has been sitting protectively at Ryan's side since Brendon got back with Jon, and he is blocking the way to the canned beans, but Brendon is fairly certain that asking him to move would result in bloodshed.
Brendon slurps his coffee happily. "Jon Walker, never leave us."
"Er," Jon says, slightly embarrassed. "Well, my wagon is a little crowded."
"Ours has plenty of space, especially since we forgot Brent at Chimney Rock," Spencer says.
"Oh, well." Jon thinks this over for a minute, then shrugs. "Why not?"
"Yes!" Brendon pumps a victorious fist in the air. "Team Jon Walker!"
"Just don't touch my shoes," says Spencer.
*
It seems that Jon's old wagonmates are not exactly thrilled to have lost their coffee-making, bear-catching, Ryan-healing comrade. Brendon hypothesizes this, at least, from the way William Beckett keeps "accidentally" trying to nudge their wagon off the path.
"Whoops, I'm sorry!" he calls over after the fifth or sixth time it happens, waving congenially. "My oxen are just a little feisty today, I guess!"
A shoe comes comes flying from inside the wagon and hits Brendon in the back of the head. "Stop jostling us, Ryan's still recovering!" Spencer snaps irritably.
"Fuck you, I am not," says Ryan.
"Hey, dude, I can't help it!" Brendon whines. Under his breath, he adds sullenly, "if we had a bear they wouldn't bother us."
Jon climbs to sit up front with Brendon, giving William a smile. "Hey, Bill, I'll come visit you tonight when we make camp, okay?"
"I will sic Sisky Business on you," William declares, sniffing with offense.
"Yeah, okay," says Jon.
"Hi, Jon!" says Adam, peeking out from behind the wagon canvas to wave. Jon grins back at him. William gives them both withering looks.
"Whoops, are we still holding a grudge?" Adam asks, and pulls an angry face. "Grrr! I'm angry! Jon is a heathen!"
William rolls his eyes and leans over to whisper something in Adam's ear. Adam blinks, nods, and resumes pretending to glare. "I mean, grr! The pretty boys who stole Jon away from us are heathens!" He pauses for thought. "Hey, you should all come over with Jon tonight--Butcher makes a bitchin' stew-type thing!"
"Oooh, stew," says Brendon, brightening.
William sighs in resignation and drops his head into his hands.
*
Somehow they make it across yet another impossibly wide river--Spencer says it's the Platte, Brendon thinks they all look the same--the wagon wobbling precariously the entire time, and on the other side is an abandoned wagon containing:
3 sets of clothing
158 bullets (Spencer insists on counting)
1 wagon axle
27 pounds of food
Pete Wentz
Brendon knows it is Pete Wentz because Jon says, "Pete Wentz!" and thumps his fist against the abandoned wagon in a manly excited gesture. Also, because he is short.
Pete says, "Jon! Jonny Walker! Jonathan Jacob!"
Brendon looks from Pete to the armful of supplies he had just scooped up from the floor of the wagon. "If these are yours, I am definitely not trying to steal them, I promise," he says solemnly.
"I hope they're not his, where's your people, Pete?" Jon asks, looking a little bit concerned.
Pete shrugs. "As long as I show up at night and pet Patrick until he falls asleep and breathes like a little baby next to me all night, they don't really care where I go during the day."
Spencer says, "Well, we have dibs on the clothes. Ryan's sick again, we need to bundle him up." He gives everyone, including Pete Wentz, a look that suggests if they think about disagreeing with this they will die painfully and swiftly in the night, gathers the garments in one big pile, and strides purposefully back out to their own wagon.
*
"Brendon," says Spencer, "you're going the wrong way again."
"What the hell," Brendon says, nudging the oxen back toward the trail. They've just gone through the South Pass, trudging along through the very beginnings of the Oregon Territory, and every time Brendon zones out they somehow wind up heading southwest off the path.
"Are you sure you don't want someone else to drive?" Ryan asks from the back, where he's got a broken leg propped up on a pile of Spencer's shoes.
"I'll drive!" says Pete, who is sitting with Ryan.
"No, Pete Wentz," Brendon says. "Wait, why are you even here?" Pete shrugs. Ryan shrugs, too, and Jon just kind of gives him a helpless look.
"I'll drive," Spencer says, setting a pair of now-clean shoes aside and climbing toward the front of the wagon. "I don't want to end up in Salt Lake."
Brendon hands over the reigns reluctantly, pouting. "I can't help it that the oxen are crazy," he mutters. "I don't even know what Salt Lake is."
*
The best things about Jon Walker are that he is a mighty hunter and also he can keep Ryan from dying. Brendon kind of hopes that Brent found love and happiness at Chimney Rock, because he is very glad that they have Jon Walker now instead. Spencer agrees with this, he is pretty positive, because Spencer likes to lean on Jon's shoulder in the wagon while Jon is making sure Ryan isn't going to die. Brendon would lean on Jon's shoulder, too, if Brendon didn't have to do important things like drive.
*
It's early June; they've been making good time, and figure they deserve a few days' break from traveling. Soda Springs is a peaceful respite from the grueling pace of the trail. Or, would be peaceful if Ryan didn't keep leaning out of the back of the wagon to puke and Brendon didn't keep finding strange people in/around his wagon.
"Hi," says Pete, giving Brendon a little wave when Brendon pokes his head in the wagon to find dinner. Brendon blinks at him a few times, reaches for a can of beans, then withdraws his hand slowly, keeping a wary eye on Pete, who is apparently very comfortably settled between a pile of Spencer's shoes and Ryan's makeshift Bed of Deathly Illness.
"Um," says Brendon, "hi. Er, why aren't you in your wagon?"
Pete shrugs. "I'm taking care of Ryan?"
Ryan, actually, is not in the wagon at the moment. Brendon points this out, but Pete just shrugs again.
"Um," says Brendon. "Cool, okay then."
Brendon enjoys his beans by a fire Jon has made, settling as close to the warmth as possible without actually catching himself on fire (for once). Jon and Spencer are sitting nearby, conversing quietly over two steaming mugs of that coffee that Jon sometimes just kind of makes appear. Or that's what Brendon figures; there's definitely no coffee in their wagon. He's checked.
"So, uh," Jon says, "where's Ryan? I thought he was sick again."
Spencer shrugs. Brendon gives Jon a guiltless look and takes a bite of beans. Jon looks perplexed.
"Sometimes he just wanders off," Spencer explains. He takes a slow sip of his coffee, looking a particular kind of content that is usually reserved for when he is cleaning his shoes. "He'll come back. Well, he hasn't not yet."
"It's because he's a tortured artist," Brendon adds, because that really explains it all.
Jon considers this. "Oh, okay."
The progression of the meal leads Brendon to find Jon and Spencer very enamored with their coffee, so once he finishes his food he heads back to the wagon, kind of secretly hoping that Ryan is not back yet so he can steal the good quilt for himself without feeling like a terrible horrible person and sneaking back into the wagon to return it to Ryan in the middle of the night, but when he goes to climb into the wagon to retrieve it, something heavy falls on his head with a squeak and a thump.
"OW, fuck, what the hell!" says the falling thing.
Brendon, now sitting on the ground with a lapfull of strange person, rubs his head and blinks dazedly. "Um. Hi, did you just fall from the sky? And that is not a pick-up line, it is a question," he adds hastily.
Dude-from-the-sky makes a pained sort of noise, rolling off of Brendon and climbing to his feet. "Um, no, I fell from the top of your wagon," he says. He is short. Shorter than Pete, which makes him a very short dude. The very short dude offers Brendon a hand up, which Brendon takes gratefully.
"Why were you on top of my wagon?" he asks. It's a logical question, he figures.
"You parked on a good hill, and I wanted to see if I could see Oregon from here!" the very short dude says, waving his arms animatedly. "Mikey says there are moose in Oregon."
"Who's Mikey?" Brendon asks, and then, "Wait, who are you?" and then, "Can you really see Oregon from up there?"
"Mikey is awesome, and I am Frank Iero and I am also awesome," says the very short dude-aka-Frank, "and no, you can't," he finishes sadly.
"Oh," Brendon says, disappointed. But then he brightens. "Hey, when we get to Oregon, I can make Jon Walker catch a moose for you if you want!"
"Yes!" Frank fistpumps triumphantly. "Who's Jon Walker?"
"He," Brendon says solemnly, "is awesome."
*
Snake River, Brendon observes, is very long and curvy. Spencer rolls his eyes at him for this, but Brendon maintains that it is a true fact. "Don't you think so, Ryan?" he asks hopefully.
"I really don't care, as long as we can cross it," Ryan grumbles, picking at the bandage around his ankle. He'd been bitten by a snake a few days after Fort Hall and, even though Jon had said it wasn't a bad bite, was just now getting back to his regular self.
Spencer says, "If we start sinking, we can always just throw Brendon overboard. And all his canned beans."
"I actually kind of like his canned beans," says Jon.
"Hey!" says Brendon. He cannot believe Jon ate his beans without asking. Spencer and Ryan shrug in tandem.
Brendon says, "Jon Walker, you still owe us a bear."
*
Brendon has found wild fruit!
This is very exciting for two reasons: one, Brendon has not seen any fresh food lately that was not previously bleeding, and two, it is really tasty.
*
One bright and sunny day, Jon Walker actually does return to the wagon with a fuzzy black bear cub at his heels.
Ryan says, "Oh my god."
Brendon says, "Oh my god, Jon Walker, you're my hero!"
Spencer says, "That thing better not eat my shoes."
Jon grins.
Pete says, "Let's name it Hemingway!"
"What the fuck kind of name is that?" Brendon asks. He kind of wants to name it Mister Growly, or something equally adorable and appropriate.
"An awesome name," Pete says. "Here, Hemingway!" he says, luring the cub over with a piece of Brendon's own wild fruit. Brendon pouts, but no one notices, so instead he bounds to his feet to give Jon a big hug.
"Thank you for the bear, Jon Walker!" he says. Ryan also makes a weak kind of grateful noise, and Spencer even grins a little bit. Nothing can go wrong now, Brendon thinks. Not now that they have a bear.
*
Ryan has died of cholera.
Everyone is inconsolable.
"I CANNOT GO ON," Brendon proclaims tearfully to the sky.
Spencer pokes his head in the room, looking annoyed. "Could you please shut up? We're trying to watch a movie."
"But Ryan died of cholera!" Brendon protests, jabbing an emphatic finger at the computer screen.
Spencer rolls his eyes and returns to the living area of the bus.
Brendon gives the game one last mournful look before following after him, finding a Ryan curled on the couch, and attaching himself firmly to said Ryan with a firm, insistent hug. "Never die of cholera, Ryan Ross!" he says.
"Oof," says Ryan.
"Or dysentery," Brendon adds as an afterthought.
"What about typhoid?" asks Spencer.
"Not that either," says Brendon.
Ryan says, "Um, movie? Hello?"
Fifteen minutes later, Jon shuffles in looking sheepish.
"Hey, uh, Brendon, I finished your Oregon Trail game for you," he says. "You just left it up on the screen, so--"
"That's alright," Brendon says, waving a dismissive hand. "I abandoned that mission when Ryan died of cholera."
"Oh. Well, good," Jon says. "Because the rest of us drowned in the Columbia River."
(GAME OVER)
or: panic! on the oregon trail
(complete with a cameo by frank iero, just for maddy)
pg-13; 2,839 words.
YOU HAVE DIED OF DYSENTERY
Three days from Chimney Rock they realize something is missing.
Namely, Brent.
They left Brent at Chimney Rock.
"Well, good," Brendon says stubbornly once they've set up camp for the night, folding his arms over his chest, "he kept on shooting all the bunnies anyway."
"Brendon," says Spencer. He is sitting indian-style in the back of the Conastoga wagon, attempting to clean the dust from one of his spare shoes with an already-dusty rag. "You know, like, those bunnies were our dinner, right? When you go hunting, all you shoot are trees."
"That's so I don't hit the bunnies," Brendon insists. Spencer sighs and gives his shoe an incredibly long-suffering look.
"You could use water to get it cleaner," Brendon suggests.
"Brendon," says Spencer, "our water is for drinking. Especially now that we're going to starve to death."
"Why would we need to drink if we're going to starve to death?" Brendon looks honestly perplexed. "Wait-- Spencer, we're not going to starve to death! Spencer Smith, how could you say such a thing," he says sullenly.
"Brendon--" Spencer starts, then just shakes his head. "Please just go make sure Ryan doesn't get bit by a snake or something, okay?"
"OW, motherfucker!" Ryan yelps from the other side of the wagon.
*
"Well, at least it wasn't a snakebite," says Jon as he wraps Ryan's broken wrist in a tight split. Jon is from another wagon in their group, and he is good at useful things like fixing broken people and, Brendon thinks suddenly, probably not starving to death.
"Jon, hey, Jon," Brendon says, tugging at his sleeve, "do you know how to not starve to death? Spencer keeps saying we're going to starve to death."
"Ow," Ryan says pointedly as Brendon makes Jon's hands slip on the splint.
"I said it once," says Spencer.
"How did you even break it anyway?" Brendon asks Ryan, eyeing the appendage suspiciously. "You weren't doing anything dangerous." Ryan shrugs. Jon gives the bandages one final tightening tug.
"Everything is dangerous out here," he says, giving Brendon a wink. "I am pretty good at not starving to death, though. Even killed a bear or two before."
"You're kind of short," says Ryan.
"Not as short as Pete," Jon says.
Neither Brendon, Spencer, nor Ryan know who Pete is, but they figure he must be a pretty short dude.
"Jon," says Spencer, "will you kill a bear for us?"
"No, can you just catch it? And not hurt it or anything, that's so mean," Brendon says.
"Brendon," says Spencer, "the point is to eat the bear. And not starve to death."
"See! You said it again."
"Why are we going to starve to death?" asks Ryan, frowning. "Brent usually gets enough rabbits to keep us going."
"We forgot Brent at Chimney Rock," Spencer says resignedly.
Ryan blinks at him, then tilts his head thoughtfully. "Oh."
This is when the three of them realize that Jon has been rendered speechless by a silent, violent fit of laughter.
"Jon Walker, starving to death is no laughing matter!" Brendon says indignantly.
"Oh, hahaha, no, it's totally not, ahaha," Jon says, even though he is definitely laughing. "You know what, next time I see a bear I'll totally catch it for you."
*
They stay at Fort Laramie a few extra days because Ryan has a fever, possibly typhoid. Spencer and Brendon bundle him up as comfortably as possible in the back of the wagon where he spends most of his time sleeping or insisting that he's better, now, really, we can leave now, guys. Spencer calls him on bullshit every time, though, and then spends a lot of time pacing around the fort worriedly and trading some of his least favorite shoes for better blankets to tuck around Ryan. This, Brendon knows, means that he is really, really worried.
After a few restless nights, sitting up with Spencer to make sure Ryan doesn't kick the bucket, Brendon does the only logical thing to do: he goes in search of Jon Walker.
"JON WALKER," Brendon wails, falling to his knees and clutching Jon's leg imploringly, "please save our Ryan Ross!"
"Okay," says Jon, "where is he?"
Jon, Brendon thinks, must be magical. Not only can he fix broken things and catch bears, he also can make Ryan not sick anymore. Also, he can make coffee.
"Ryan gets sick or injured a lot, doesn't he?" Jon asks over a mug of the delicious beverage.
"Fuck you, I do not," Ryan says blearily from his bed of blankets.
"Shut up and keep healing," Spencer says. Spencer has been sitting protectively at Ryan's side since Brendon got back with Jon, and he is blocking the way to the canned beans, but Brendon is fairly certain that asking him to move would result in bloodshed.
Brendon slurps his coffee happily. "Jon Walker, never leave us."
"Er," Jon says, slightly embarrassed. "Well, my wagon is a little crowded."
"Ours has plenty of space, especially since we forgot Brent at Chimney Rock," Spencer says.
"Oh, well." Jon thinks this over for a minute, then shrugs. "Why not?"
"Yes!" Brendon pumps a victorious fist in the air. "Team Jon Walker!"
"Just don't touch my shoes," says Spencer.
*
It seems that Jon's old wagonmates are not exactly thrilled to have lost their coffee-making, bear-catching, Ryan-healing comrade. Brendon hypothesizes this, at least, from the way William Beckett keeps "accidentally" trying to nudge their wagon off the path.
"Whoops, I'm sorry!" he calls over after the fifth or sixth time it happens, waving congenially. "My oxen are just a little feisty today, I guess!"
A shoe comes comes flying from inside the wagon and hits Brendon in the back of the head. "Stop jostling us, Ryan's still recovering!" Spencer snaps irritably.
"Fuck you, I am not," says Ryan.
"Hey, dude, I can't help it!" Brendon whines. Under his breath, he adds sullenly, "if we had a bear they wouldn't bother us."
Jon climbs to sit up front with Brendon, giving William a smile. "Hey, Bill, I'll come visit you tonight when we make camp, okay?"
"I will sic Sisky Business on you," William declares, sniffing with offense.
"Yeah, okay," says Jon.
"Hi, Jon!" says Adam, peeking out from behind the wagon canvas to wave. Jon grins back at him. William gives them both withering looks.
"Whoops, are we still holding a grudge?" Adam asks, and pulls an angry face. "Grrr! I'm angry! Jon is a heathen!"
William rolls his eyes and leans over to whisper something in Adam's ear. Adam blinks, nods, and resumes pretending to glare. "I mean, grr! The pretty boys who stole Jon away from us are heathens!" He pauses for thought. "Hey, you should all come over with Jon tonight--Butcher makes a bitchin' stew-type thing!"
"Oooh, stew," says Brendon, brightening.
William sighs in resignation and drops his head into his hands.
*
Somehow they make it across yet another impossibly wide river--Spencer says it's the Platte, Brendon thinks they all look the same--the wagon wobbling precariously the entire time, and on the other side is an abandoned wagon containing:
3 sets of clothing
158 bullets (Spencer insists on counting)
1 wagon axle
27 pounds of food
Pete Wentz
Brendon knows it is Pete Wentz because Jon says, "Pete Wentz!" and thumps his fist against the abandoned wagon in a manly excited gesture. Also, because he is short.
Pete says, "Jon! Jonny Walker! Jonathan Jacob!"
Brendon looks from Pete to the armful of supplies he had just scooped up from the floor of the wagon. "If these are yours, I am definitely not trying to steal them, I promise," he says solemnly.
"I hope they're not his, where's your people, Pete?" Jon asks, looking a little bit concerned.
Pete shrugs. "As long as I show up at night and pet Patrick until he falls asleep and breathes like a little baby next to me all night, they don't really care where I go during the day."
Spencer says, "Well, we have dibs on the clothes. Ryan's sick again, we need to bundle him up." He gives everyone, including Pete Wentz, a look that suggests if they think about disagreeing with this they will die painfully and swiftly in the night, gathers the garments in one big pile, and strides purposefully back out to their own wagon.
*
"Brendon," says Spencer, "you're going the wrong way again."
"What the hell," Brendon says, nudging the oxen back toward the trail. They've just gone through the South Pass, trudging along through the very beginnings of the Oregon Territory, and every time Brendon zones out they somehow wind up heading southwest off the path.
"Are you sure you don't want someone else to drive?" Ryan asks from the back, where he's got a broken leg propped up on a pile of Spencer's shoes.
"I'll drive!" says Pete, who is sitting with Ryan.
"No, Pete Wentz," Brendon says. "Wait, why are you even here?" Pete shrugs. Ryan shrugs, too, and Jon just kind of gives him a helpless look.
"I'll drive," Spencer says, setting a pair of now-clean shoes aside and climbing toward the front of the wagon. "I don't want to end up in Salt Lake."
Brendon hands over the reigns reluctantly, pouting. "I can't help it that the oxen are crazy," he mutters. "I don't even know what Salt Lake is."
*
The best things about Jon Walker are that he is a mighty hunter and also he can keep Ryan from dying. Brendon kind of hopes that Brent found love and happiness at Chimney Rock, because he is very glad that they have Jon Walker now instead. Spencer agrees with this, he is pretty positive, because Spencer likes to lean on Jon's shoulder in the wagon while Jon is making sure Ryan isn't going to die. Brendon would lean on Jon's shoulder, too, if Brendon didn't have to do important things like drive.
*
It's early June; they've been making good time, and figure they deserve a few days' break from traveling. Soda Springs is a peaceful respite from the grueling pace of the trail. Or, would be peaceful if Ryan didn't keep leaning out of the back of the wagon to puke and Brendon didn't keep finding strange people in/around his wagon.
"Hi," says Pete, giving Brendon a little wave when Brendon pokes his head in the wagon to find dinner. Brendon blinks at him a few times, reaches for a can of beans, then withdraws his hand slowly, keeping a wary eye on Pete, who is apparently very comfortably settled between a pile of Spencer's shoes and Ryan's makeshift Bed of Deathly Illness.
"Um," says Brendon, "hi. Er, why aren't you in your wagon?"
Pete shrugs. "I'm taking care of Ryan?"
Ryan, actually, is not in the wagon at the moment. Brendon points this out, but Pete just shrugs again.
"Um," says Brendon. "Cool, okay then."
Brendon enjoys his beans by a fire Jon has made, settling as close to the warmth as possible without actually catching himself on fire (for once). Jon and Spencer are sitting nearby, conversing quietly over two steaming mugs of that coffee that Jon sometimes just kind of makes appear. Or that's what Brendon figures; there's definitely no coffee in their wagon. He's checked.
"So, uh," Jon says, "where's Ryan? I thought he was sick again."
Spencer shrugs. Brendon gives Jon a guiltless look and takes a bite of beans. Jon looks perplexed.
"Sometimes he just wanders off," Spencer explains. He takes a slow sip of his coffee, looking a particular kind of content that is usually reserved for when he is cleaning his shoes. "He'll come back. Well, he hasn't not yet."
"It's because he's a tortured artist," Brendon adds, because that really explains it all.
Jon considers this. "Oh, okay."
The progression of the meal leads Brendon to find Jon and Spencer very enamored with their coffee, so once he finishes his food he heads back to the wagon, kind of secretly hoping that Ryan is not back yet so he can steal the good quilt for himself without feeling like a terrible horrible person and sneaking back into the wagon to return it to Ryan in the middle of the night, but when he goes to climb into the wagon to retrieve it, something heavy falls on his head with a squeak and a thump.
"OW, fuck, what the hell!" says the falling thing.
Brendon, now sitting on the ground with a lapfull of strange person, rubs his head and blinks dazedly. "Um. Hi, did you just fall from the sky? And that is not a pick-up line, it is a question," he adds hastily.
Dude-from-the-sky makes a pained sort of noise, rolling off of Brendon and climbing to his feet. "Um, no, I fell from the top of your wagon," he says. He is short. Shorter than Pete, which makes him a very short dude. The very short dude offers Brendon a hand up, which Brendon takes gratefully.
"Why were you on top of my wagon?" he asks. It's a logical question, he figures.
"You parked on a good hill, and I wanted to see if I could see Oregon from here!" the very short dude says, waving his arms animatedly. "Mikey says there are moose in Oregon."
"Who's Mikey?" Brendon asks, and then, "Wait, who are you?" and then, "Can you really see Oregon from up there?"
"Mikey is awesome, and I am Frank Iero and I am also awesome," says the very short dude-aka-Frank, "and no, you can't," he finishes sadly.
"Oh," Brendon says, disappointed. But then he brightens. "Hey, when we get to Oregon, I can make Jon Walker catch a moose for you if you want!"
"Yes!" Frank fistpumps triumphantly. "Who's Jon Walker?"
"He," Brendon says solemnly, "is awesome."
*
Snake River, Brendon observes, is very long and curvy. Spencer rolls his eyes at him for this, but Brendon maintains that it is a true fact. "Don't you think so, Ryan?" he asks hopefully.
"I really don't care, as long as we can cross it," Ryan grumbles, picking at the bandage around his ankle. He'd been bitten by a snake a few days after Fort Hall and, even though Jon had said it wasn't a bad bite, was just now getting back to his regular self.
Spencer says, "If we start sinking, we can always just throw Brendon overboard. And all his canned beans."
"I actually kind of like his canned beans," says Jon.
"Hey!" says Brendon. He cannot believe Jon ate his beans without asking. Spencer and Ryan shrug in tandem.
Brendon says, "Jon Walker, you still owe us a bear."
*
Brendon has found wild fruit!
This is very exciting for two reasons: one, Brendon has not seen any fresh food lately that was not previously bleeding, and two, it is really tasty.
*
One bright and sunny day, Jon Walker actually does return to the wagon with a fuzzy black bear cub at his heels.
Ryan says, "Oh my god."
Brendon says, "Oh my god, Jon Walker, you're my hero!"
Spencer says, "That thing better not eat my shoes."
Jon grins.
Pete says, "Let's name it Hemingway!"
"What the fuck kind of name is that?" Brendon asks. He kind of wants to name it Mister Growly, or something equally adorable and appropriate.
"An awesome name," Pete says. "Here, Hemingway!" he says, luring the cub over with a piece of Brendon's own wild fruit. Brendon pouts, but no one notices, so instead he bounds to his feet to give Jon a big hug.
"Thank you for the bear, Jon Walker!" he says. Ryan also makes a weak kind of grateful noise, and Spencer even grins a little bit. Nothing can go wrong now, Brendon thinks. Not now that they have a bear.
*
Ryan has died of cholera.
Everyone is inconsolable.
"I CANNOT GO ON," Brendon proclaims tearfully to the sky.
Spencer pokes his head in the room, looking annoyed. "Could you please shut up? We're trying to watch a movie."
"But Ryan died of cholera!" Brendon protests, jabbing an emphatic finger at the computer screen.
Spencer rolls his eyes and returns to the living area of the bus.
Brendon gives the game one last mournful look before following after him, finding a Ryan curled on the couch, and attaching himself firmly to said Ryan with a firm, insistent hug. "Never die of cholera, Ryan Ross!" he says.
"Oof," says Ryan.
"Or dysentery," Brendon adds as an afterthought.
"What about typhoid?" asks Spencer.
"Not that either," says Brendon.
Ryan says, "Um, movie? Hello?"
Fifteen minutes later, Jon shuffles in looking sheepish.
"Hey, uh, Brendon, I finished your Oregon Trail game for you," he says. "You just left it up on the screen, so--"
"That's alright," Brendon says, waving a dismissive hand. "I abandoned that mission when Ryan died of cholera."
"Oh. Well, good," Jon says. "Because the rest of us drowned in the Columbia River."
(GAME OVER)