(no subject)

[gala_apples]

Title: Ryan Ross Always Has A Plan B
Pairing: Spencer/Brendon/Ian/Dallon
Rating: R
Wordcount: 1987
Summary: Sometimes it's not your old friends that know how to fix everything, but the new ones. And sometimes they both have a role. Spencer needs all the friends he can get, if he's ever going to be a magician.
Disclaimer: This is a non-profit, non-commercial work of fiction using the names and likenesses of real individuals. This fictional story is not intended to imply that the events herein actually occurred or that the attitudes or behaviors described are engaged in or condoned by the real persons whose names are used without permission.
Author's Notes: This is both late, and unsolicited. But I had an idea that I thought you would like, and writing for people motivates me to actually finish.


The first test goes easily.

Ryan’s been waiting a year for him to join the academy. They’ve got nearly a decade’s worth of plans for what’s going to happen next. Spencer’s so certain of them that it is nothing to walk up the three steps to the dais, rest of the city, young and old, clustered on either side of the worn sidewalk. The the others born this year, but in the months before him, they’ve had different reactions having to take the short walk. Most are nervous, a feeling that shows in shuffling, or hands balled into fists, or looking down at the pathway instead of forward. Spencer and Ryan haven’t planned nervousness.

He splays his fingers as the adults in ceremonial robes say their words. They’re in a different language, but that doesn’t stop the rest of the citizens from repeating them in low murmurs. It’s impossible to know what the true words are, everyone merely mimicking what they think they hear. Spencer’s done it fifteen years himself. Never again though. He’ll be following Ryan, and they’ll both be forever separate from this. Letting all their sounds fall to the well trodden grass beyond him, he puts his hand on the pane of glass.

Raising his hand to find a pure white handprint isn’t a surprise, because it was the only possible thing that could happen. He’s not sure why he’s falling to his knees and sobbing with relief. He and Ryan always vowed to not make a scene when they got confirmed.

The second test isn’t much harder, two years later.

The separation between specialised and general studies is small. In fact the younger practitioners still learning general concepts are encouraged to interact with those differentiated. In the ideal situation, each younger practitioner will find three mentors, one in each specialisation. The separation is much smaller than that between magical and untested, or between magical and the unmagical Spencer still has nightmares about being.

But there still is separation. The only way to truly fix the gap between himself and Ryan is to be chosen for the right specialisation.

Spencer walks onto the platform and closes his eyes as the circle begins to revolve. Hanging above him are a coil of rope, a silently flowing loop of water and a burst of colour. He revolves a few times, hoping to hear the water. Of course, he can’t hear any of the items. Listening is not a skill that matters on the platform. Magic doesn’t care about hearing. He can only stick his hand out when what he’s drawn to begins to pass him, forever sealing his fate. Spencer knows this, but he tries to listen anyway. He needs to touch water.

Something is singing to him, reaching inside him. Spencer’s heart falls. Singing is an Intangible, and Ryan is not. But you can’t cheat the test. He could revolve for hours, and devise a way to time it perfectly, and it would fail. If he’s meant to be Intangible, that’s what his reaching will get.

He sticks out his hand. He feels the wetness of water on his palm and fingers. Liquid. He has chosen Liquid, or Liquid has chosen him, semantics don’t matter.

He has chosen Ryan.

He knows the first day that he transfers dorms that it will take him a long time to measure up to the last test. First he needs to control water and it’s derivatives. Steam and ice, sweat and tears, sperm, blood, urine, beverages. He can’t leave until he is a master all things that flow. He doesn’t want to leave. He wants to learn.

Soon Spencer doesn’t want to leave for other reasons. It’s hard to make a lot of friends in general studies. Everyone in those dorms are aware that in two short years you’ll be banned from ever seeing those not your specialisation again, no matter what bond you’ve formed. In the Liquid dorms he’s got friends.

It’s a fast four years. It crushes him the day Ryan graduates, Jon following him less than a week later. Still, he understands. Once you know everything, you cannot stay. If you don’t know everything, you cannot leave. Ryan belongs on the outside, and Spencer belongs inside. He’s beginning to fear he’ll be one of those pathetic students that never leaves.

No one mentions the failures, the students in their thirties who simply cannot learn their last spell. They are shunned by some, as though incompetence is communicable. The others just pity them. Most eventually kill themselves. Their bodies are scavenged; blood for the Liquids, flesh for Solids, memories for Intangibles. It’s only right. They’ve stolen the academy’s teachings without giving anything back, it’s hardly stealing to get something useful from them.

Spencer is well aware of what he can’t learn. So far he’s managed to keep it close to his chest. Ryan and his tutor; they’re the only ones that know what he cannot manage.

No one is supposed to get outside visitors. The unmagical, the graduates, those too young to have been tested yet; none of them have any baring on what it’s like to be a student, and if you’re inside the academy, being a student is all that matters. Spence doubts he’s the only exception to ever exist, but it’s rare enough that he’s shocked when they tell him Ryan is waiting for him in his room. Spencer knows why, of course. They think he needs inspiration. Ryan, beyond being his best friend, was an excellent student. Ryan’s plans worked for him, and for Jon when it became obvious Spencer couldn’t follow through with them all.

They embrace, Ryan still sitting on Spencer’s bed, Spencer hunched over him with Ryan’s face against his chest. For an instant it’s like it used to be. And then Ryan pulls away and crosses his arms, every inch the know it all. “Spencer, you’re not going to graduate if you can’t do a spell with a partner’s come.”

“Yeah, well, everyone here is straight,” he answers. He tries for defiant or confident. It comes out sullen.

Ryan rolls his eyes. “So? Get over yourself, have sex with a girl once, graduate, and then you never have to think about icky vagina again.”

“Ryan.”

It’s a full sentence, a rhetorical statement. Ryan answers anyway because he’s a prick. “Yeah?”

“Do you want to jerk off a guy?”

“No.”

“Then don’t fuckin’ tell me-”

“But I would if I had to,” he interrupts. “If it was the only way I would jerk off like then guys.”

“Hmmph.” He tries to play it like he doesn’t believe Ryan, but he does. Spencer knows Ryan would do anything to be a known magician. And Ryan knows Spencer knows, so all in all, the sounds doesn’t convey much.

“Did you tell Brendon the last area of study you need to accomplish is based on the arousal of someone else?”

“Uh. No?” Spencer can think of approximately zero reasons why he would tell Brendon -or anyone else beyond his tutor, for that matter- about his inevitable inability to graduate.

“Dumbass.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That you’re a dumbass, Spencer Smith.” Ryan shakes his head, then pushes himself off the bed and heads for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Leaving. I promised I would as soon as we figured out the issue.”

“We haven’t figured out anything though!” and even if they had, they could at least fake it a bit, so Ryan could stay for a night.

“Yeah, we have. You stop being a dumbass and everything will be solved.”

Ryan leaves before Spencer can figure out what to say to make him stay. Alone, he sinks to his bed. It’s still warm from where his once best friend was sitting. He’s so fucking alone.

His despair is interrupted before it can really get started, with a knock on his door. Brendon doesn’t wait for permission to enter, just opens the door. Behind him are Ian and Dallon. All three pile in, and Dallon closes the door.

Brendon grins, an emotion Spencer’s just not feeling. “Just consider us the bi-curious brigade, here to rescue you!”

“So you talked to Ryan?” There’s no other way he could know. Spencer’s never said a word about his preferences.

“We wouldn’t have had to, if you had said something.” Maybe it’s the recent conversation with Ryan, but Spencer can easily hear Ian’s unsaid dumbass.

“What was I supposed to say? Who wants to have awkward gay sex with me so I don’t become a failure?”

“We thought about it. Dallon’s already passed these Liquid tests, so he knows what he’s doing, and he thinks it doesn’t have to be full on sex.”

Dallon nods. “Later spells require ingestion of sexual fluids, that’s true. But this introductory one, all that matters is both partners come.”

“So do we just have a circle jerk?”

Dallon shakes his head at Ian. “You need to interact with the other person. People, I guess.”

Spencer would like to know how all this we shit came about. He says as much.

“Ryan told me to go have sex with you, since it was obvious to everyone we both wanted it. I’m not sure how much I actually want it, but I’m interested, you know? And Ian and Dallon were with me with Ryan got all huffy, and they said they were interested too. Hence the bicurious qualifier earlier.” Brendon twists to look at Dallon, who seems incredibly calm against Ian, the latter flat out jittering. “We could do handjobs?”

“Everyone stand in a circle and grab the cock to the right of you.”

Four people turns out to make more of a square than a circle, but it’s still possible. None of them get fully naked. Ian takes his shirt off, Dallon takes off his pants so he can have a wider stance than the fabric would allow and he and Brendon just drop their jeans. Spencer’s not sure any of them are really his type, though he does like Brendon and Dallon’s dark hair. But this isn’t about that. He’s not doing this to find the perfect partner. He just needs to learn the final skill set Liquids have.

It’s the first time Spencer’s had a hand not his own on his dick. Ian’s hand is slick, sweaty from palm to fingertips. Spencer’s not sure what feels it more; his dick or his magic. Sweat is a powerful liquid, and Ian’s covered in it. It’s as arousing as the handjob is, but in a different way. Which of course is the point. Everyone else is feeling it too, Spencer knows. He can tell in the way Brendon is bent in, licking Dallon’s lips, in the way Dallon’s hand moves to the damp small of Ian’s back after Ian comes.

They’ve neglected to use cups or vials, something Spencer only realises when all four of them are standing with ejaculate covered hands. Ian’s the one who figures it out. He squeezes around Dallon to cross the tiny room and opens the dresser. Two pairs of socks become four rags which he promptly hands out.

“In case mixing them nullifies it,” he explains.

Brendon shimmies his pants up to his legs, and smiles a second time. “Good luck in completing what you have to.”

It’s a nice parting sentiment. Spencer’s not sure he can even remember the next step of what he has to do, but it’s nice of Brendon to say it before the three tromp out. And if he does remember incorrectly and fucks it up, the worst that can happen is he’ll have to repeat the scenario. It’s not exactly a hardship. They might not be his ten out of ten ideal, but they’re his friends. Available friends.