Entry tags:
Spooktober 2023, Day 7/31. Bandom/P!ATD Fic: a familiar bond
***
A day late but this one also refused to be a ficlet, so.
Title: a familiar bond
Author:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kat_lair
Fandom: Bandom/Panic! At The Disco
Pairing: Ryan/Spencer implied
Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Witches, Familiars, Best Friends
Rating: G
Word count: 1,248
Disclaimer: Make-belive!
Summary: Everyone knows you’re not a real witch until you have a familiar.
Author Notes: Spooktober 2023, Day 7/31. Prompt/theme: black cats.
a familiar bond on AO3
Everone knows you’re not a real witch until you have a familiar. Or, as Ryan prefers to think about it, until a familiar deems you good enough, strong enough, to bond themselves to you. Ryan’s been waiting for a long time. Years, even. Not passively waiting either, like a familiar is some kind of entitlement that should just fall into his lap. No, he’s been practicing, and studying, travelling far and wide to learn from magic users across the globe.
“Are you leaving again?” Spencer asks. He takes one look at the open suitcase on Ryan’s bed, sighs, and plops himself next to it, right on top of a stack of freshly ironed t-shirts.
“There’s this witch in Sicily,” Ryan says. “She knows how to brew something really powerful from oranges that…”
Spencer rolls his eyes but listens patiently. They’ve been best friends since school, since Spencer found him crying in the playground because someone had cursed his favourite ball to lose all its bounce.
“Colombia?” Spencer is holding the Ley Line Express tickets in one hand, an extra thick vanilla milkshake in the other. “For how long?”
Ryan feels a twinge of guilt. He’s only been back from Florida for less than a week, but…
“La Madre Monte,” he says, helplessly. “You just don’t refuse an invite like that.”
Spencer tilts his head at him and regards him with narrow eyes for long seconds before conceding. “I hear she only invites those who are deserving.”
Ryan fidgets. It’s true but… “I…” He laughs self-deprecatingly. “I wouldn’t go that far. But I’m…”
Spencer flicks him on the nose, sharp enough to sting. “Stop that,” he says. “You’re amazing and don’t you forget about it.” Then, as if that much emotion was a bit too much to handle, he says “Well, I’m going for a nap, wake me before you leave,” and slinks out of the room.
Ryan rubs his nose, smiling. Living with Spencer is so easy, and even though he grumbles about Spencer’s wildly fluctuating food tastes – one week Mexican is all he wants, the next he can’t stand it, instead subsisting entirely on crackers and smoked salmon – and insistence of having the house ordered a certain way, he wouldn’t have it any other way. And even though Spencer clearly dislikes Ryan being away so much, always being a bit bristly for a few hours when he returns, Ryan thinks that neither would he.
“Finland??” There’s real judgement in Spencer’s voice this time around. “Where even is it?”
“Northern Europe,” Ryan says confidently, but only because he checked it on the world-wide-cauldron last night.
“It’s February,” Spencer points out. “Won’t it be… cold? And… wet??” He shudders exaggeratedly.
“It’ll be fine,” Ryan says.
It’s not fine. It is, in fact, Very Cold, and also Very Wet. Ryan thinks he’d be fine in the cities, but the Sami shaman he’s visiting lives far past the Arctic Circle and the trip there involves a lot of snow. Some of it in places no snow should ever exist. He learns a lot, true, and even gets warm eventually, sweating in a sauna dug into the earth, but in the end he’s still miserably ill by the time he gets back home.
“Why do you keep doing this?” Spencer asks when he brings Ryan tea. He doesn’t have a lot of magic, not like Ryan, but there’s still a little something healing infused into it.
“You know why,” Ryan says, taking the mug carefully and then having to put it down almost immediately when another bout of coughing wrecks through him.
This isn’t the first time Spencer has asked the question, probably not even twentieth. In fact, Ryan is pretty sure that they were both still teenagers when he’d asked it for the first time, right after Ryan had applied for an exchange semester in India and only told Spencer about it when he’d been accepted.
His answer is the same now as it was then. “I’ve got to get better,” he wheezes in between coughs. “I haven’t learned enough yet, I haven’t…”
“You have,” Spencer says, holding the mug for him to drink out of. His reply is the same it has always been throughout their long friendship too, never losing its gentleness but growing fiercer after they moved in together, part convenience but a larger part because they wanted to. “You’re already good enough, Ry,” Spencer says quietly later. He’s curled up next to Ryan, on top of the covers, keeping him warm.
And maybe Ryan believes him a little bit more every time he hears it.
It still takes another year and Kentucky, Ghana, New Zealand, Alaska, Louisiana twice, and Nepal until Ryan admit that he is, perhaps, a bit… Tired.
“I… I think I’m done,” he tells Spencer from the depths of the sofa pillows. His head is swimming with knowledge; spells and lore and potion ingredients and dance steps and plant names and incantations and dreams and… He feels like he’s been studying for a test that just never happens so now he… Well, guess he fails by default.
Spencer, who has been cautiously poking through Ryan’s rucksacks, sniffing at the little bags of spices and items he’s brought home, looks at him in surprise. “You… You are?” he asks, the disbelief audible. “For how long?”
“I don’t know,” Ryan says. With effort he turns to his side. His body feels like it weighs a ton, exhaustion dragging him down. “Maybe for good?”
Slowly, Spencer gets up from where he’d been sitting by the bags and walks over. “And why is that, Ryan?”
Defeat is always difficult to admit. It takes a few tries. “I’m…” He swallows against the lump in his throat. “I’m as…”
And then Spencer is there, crouching in front of him. His eyes are kind. “You’re what, Ryan?” He touches Ryan’s cheek, a quick two-fingered tap. “C’mon. Say it.”
“I’m as good as I can be,” Ryan whispers. “I can’t… I don’t know what else…” His breaths come out shuddery, sad.
“Nothing else,” Spencer says. He’s smiling. “You never needed to do anything else, to learn anything more, to be anything different. You were always good enough.” He sits back on his haunches and the smile that takes over his face is brilliant and sharp and… Shimmering?
Spencer’s whole body glitters moonlight silver and Ryan sits up in alarm, the magic spreading across the room like a warm blanket, nothing like he’s felt before and…
“You just needed to believe it,” Spencer says, winking like he’s letting Ryan in on a secret. Then, between one heartbeat and the next, there’s a large cat on the floor next to the sofa, struggling out from under Spencer’s clothes. Its fur is sleek and midnight black, its eyes a familiar shade of pale blue.
“What… Spencer?” Ryan gasps.
The cat tilts his head to the side and lets out a sharp little ‘meow’, clearly admonishing Ryan for being so slow to understand. Ryan’s familiar was already with him, always with him, just waiting for Ryan to be ready.
With wonder and love so fierce it makes the magic between them sing, Ryan extends his hand. Spencer nudges his head into it, a rattling purr starting deep inside his chest as Ryan strokes along his back. The bond between a witch and his familiar, between a familiar and his witch, settles in softly, an inevitable extension of the one they have been nurturing all this time.
***
A day late but this one also refused to be a ficlet, so.
Title: a familiar bond
Author:
kat_lair Fandom: Bandom/Panic! At The Disco
Pairing: Ryan/Spencer implied
Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Witches, Familiars, Best Friends
Rating: G
Word count: 1,248
Disclaimer: Make-belive!
Summary: Everyone knows you’re not a real witch until you have a familiar.
Author Notes: Spooktober 2023, Day 7/31. Prompt/theme: black cats.
a familiar bond on AO3
Everone knows you’re not a real witch until you have a familiar. Or, as Ryan prefers to think about it, until a familiar deems you good enough, strong enough, to bond themselves to you. Ryan’s been waiting for a long time. Years, even. Not passively waiting either, like a familiar is some kind of entitlement that should just fall into his lap. No, he’s been practicing, and studying, travelling far and wide to learn from magic users across the globe.
“Are you leaving again?” Spencer asks. He takes one look at the open suitcase on Ryan’s bed, sighs, and plops himself next to it, right on top of a stack of freshly ironed t-shirts.
“There’s this witch in Sicily,” Ryan says. “She knows how to brew something really powerful from oranges that…”
Spencer rolls his eyes but listens patiently. They’ve been best friends since school, since Spencer found him crying in the playground because someone had cursed his favourite ball to lose all its bounce.
“Colombia?” Spencer is holding the Ley Line Express tickets in one hand, an extra thick vanilla milkshake in the other. “For how long?”
Ryan feels a twinge of guilt. He’s only been back from Florida for less than a week, but…
“La Madre Monte,” he says, helplessly. “You just don’t refuse an invite like that.”
Spencer tilts his head at him and regards him with narrow eyes for long seconds before conceding. “I hear she only invites those who are deserving.”
Ryan fidgets. It’s true but… “I…” He laughs self-deprecatingly. “I wouldn’t go that far. But I’m…”
Spencer flicks him on the nose, sharp enough to sting. “Stop that,” he says. “You’re amazing and don’t you forget about it.” Then, as if that much emotion was a bit too much to handle, he says “Well, I’m going for a nap, wake me before you leave,” and slinks out of the room.
Ryan rubs his nose, smiling. Living with Spencer is so easy, and even though he grumbles about Spencer’s wildly fluctuating food tastes – one week Mexican is all he wants, the next he can’t stand it, instead subsisting entirely on crackers and smoked salmon – and insistence of having the house ordered a certain way, he wouldn’t have it any other way. And even though Spencer clearly dislikes Ryan being away so much, always being a bit bristly for a few hours when he returns, Ryan thinks that neither would he.
“Finland??” There’s real judgement in Spencer’s voice this time around. “Where even is it?”
“Northern Europe,” Ryan says confidently, but only because he checked it on the world-wide-cauldron last night.
“It’s February,” Spencer points out. “Won’t it be… cold? And… wet??” He shudders exaggeratedly.
“It’ll be fine,” Ryan says.
It’s not fine. It is, in fact, Very Cold, and also Very Wet. Ryan thinks he’d be fine in the cities, but the Sami shaman he’s visiting lives far past the Arctic Circle and the trip there involves a lot of snow. Some of it in places no snow should ever exist. He learns a lot, true, and even gets warm eventually, sweating in a sauna dug into the earth, but in the end he’s still miserably ill by the time he gets back home.
“Why do you keep doing this?” Spencer asks when he brings Ryan tea. He doesn’t have a lot of magic, not like Ryan, but there’s still a little something healing infused into it.
“You know why,” Ryan says, taking the mug carefully and then having to put it down almost immediately when another bout of coughing wrecks through him.
This isn’t the first time Spencer has asked the question, probably not even twentieth. In fact, Ryan is pretty sure that they were both still teenagers when he’d asked it for the first time, right after Ryan had applied for an exchange semester in India and only told Spencer about it when he’d been accepted.
His answer is the same now as it was then. “I’ve got to get better,” he wheezes in between coughs. “I haven’t learned enough yet, I haven’t…”
“You have,” Spencer says, holding the mug for him to drink out of. His reply is the same it has always been throughout their long friendship too, never losing its gentleness but growing fiercer after they moved in together, part convenience but a larger part because they wanted to. “You’re already good enough, Ry,” Spencer says quietly later. He’s curled up next to Ryan, on top of the covers, keeping him warm.
And maybe Ryan believes him a little bit more every time he hears it.
It still takes another year and Kentucky, Ghana, New Zealand, Alaska, Louisiana twice, and Nepal until Ryan admit that he is, perhaps, a bit… Tired.
“I… I think I’m done,” he tells Spencer from the depths of the sofa pillows. His head is swimming with knowledge; spells and lore and potion ingredients and dance steps and plant names and incantations and dreams and… He feels like he’s been studying for a test that just never happens so now he… Well, guess he fails by default.
Spencer, who has been cautiously poking through Ryan’s rucksacks, sniffing at the little bags of spices and items he’s brought home, looks at him in surprise. “You… You are?” he asks, the disbelief audible. “For how long?”
“I don’t know,” Ryan says. With effort he turns to his side. His body feels like it weighs a ton, exhaustion dragging him down. “Maybe for good?”
Slowly, Spencer gets up from where he’d been sitting by the bags and walks over. “And why is that, Ryan?”
Defeat is always difficult to admit. It takes a few tries. “I’m…” He swallows against the lump in his throat. “I’m as…”
And then Spencer is there, crouching in front of him. His eyes are kind. “You’re what, Ryan?” He touches Ryan’s cheek, a quick two-fingered tap. “C’mon. Say it.”
“I’m as good as I can be,” Ryan whispers. “I can’t… I don’t know what else…” His breaths come out shuddery, sad.
“Nothing else,” Spencer says. He’s smiling. “You never needed to do anything else, to learn anything more, to be anything different. You were always good enough.” He sits back on his haunches and the smile that takes over his face is brilliant and sharp and… Shimmering?
Spencer’s whole body glitters moonlight silver and Ryan sits up in alarm, the magic spreading across the room like a warm blanket, nothing like he’s felt before and…
“You just needed to believe it,” Spencer says, winking like he’s letting Ryan in on a secret. Then, between one heartbeat and the next, there’s a large cat on the floor next to the sofa, struggling out from under Spencer’s clothes. Its fur is sleek and midnight black, its eyes a familiar shade of pale blue.
“What… Spencer?” Ryan gasps.
The cat tilts his head to the side and lets out a sharp little ‘meow’, clearly admonishing Ryan for being so slow to understand. Ryan’s familiar was already with him, always with him, just waiting for Ryan to be ready.
With wonder and love so fierce it makes the magic between them sing, Ryan extends his hand. Spencer nudges his head into it, a rattling purr starting deep inside his chest as Ryan strokes along his back. The bond between a witch and his familiar, between a familiar and his witch, settles in softly, an inevitable extension of the one they have been nurturing all this time.
***
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