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fics_by_mapleTitle: That Space Between the Sun and the Moon
Pairing/Prompt: Panic GSF (Brendon/Jon/Ryan/Spencer) – Space Opera AU
Word Count: 2000ish
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Mild violence
Notes: Much love to my beta![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
queenb23more and to my outer space linguistic consultant mrsquizzical!
Written for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
no_tags Bandom Ficlet Challenge first posted here.
\\\\
"Owww. For real, ow, guys," Brendon gasps. "Spencer. Ow!"
"Almost there, Bren. Hang on, okay?" Spencer is red in the face, voice going high though he's trying to control it.
"Ow."
"I said I was sorry," Ryan grumbles quietly, as though Brendon's persistent pain should dissipate in the face of his good intentions.
"Ryan, I swear to Mars," Spencer says.
"Ow still."
"You know I didn't do it on purpose," Ryan insists.
"If you had just-"
Blast shots behind them interrupt as Jon fires around the corner they've just turned.
"No time, guys. Move!" Jon shouts.
It really isn't a necessary command. The sound of a pod of Scratleeks clacking down the corridor after them, esophageal sucks rasping though the air like giant beetle-pigs is plenty to keep them running to their ship.
Jon sprints ahead of them into the docking bay and up the loading ramp of the Green Gentleman. Once inside the bay door, Spencer slaps at the control panel to lock it. He, Ryan, and Brendon, who they've been carrying between them, slump against the door. The Green Gentleman's engines roar into life as Jon prepares the ship for a hasty departure, but it doesn't quite drown out the sounds of scratching from the other side of the door.
Ryan and Spencer are panting and pink-faced and Spencer has damp hair sticking to his forehead, but Brendon is pale. "Ow. Can I just die now?"
"You will not be dying today," Spencer instructs, fixing him with a glare before pulling open Brendon's blood-soaked shirt to see his injury. "You've only been stabbed through. You've survived worse than this."
"Yeah, but ow."
"I know it hurts." Spencer's expression softens as he squeezes Brendon's uninjured side. "I just need my med kit, and I'll fix you right up."
"I really am sorry. Please don't die," Ryan says, leaning his forehead to Brendon's temple, nuzzling behind his ear. "Jon would be sad. And I ...and Spencer will be so pissed at me if you die."
Spencer's angry reply gets cut off. The door begins to slide open as the Scratleeks try to manually force through. Ryan tugs Brendon toward the Green Gentleman while Spencer pulls his electro-prod from his belt and shoves it through the opening; high-pitched rattling indicating the voltage makes contact with something.
"Fucking oath of his; won't use a blaster just because he's a healer now," Ryan grumbles under Brendon's weight. "Oh, hey," Ryan pauses at the bottom of the ramp, still supporting Brendon, and asks, "Can you shoot?"
Brendon holds up his blaster, looking more drunk than blood-let and gives him a dopey smile.
Ryan gives him a proud smirk and then hugs him so that Brendon's shooting arm is supported by Ryan's shoulder.
"Spencer, c'mon! Run!" Ryan calls out. Spencer, without question, turns and bolts towards them. Brendon's blaster shots skim right past Spencer's head and through the opening bay door into the crush of oncoming Scratleeks.
Ryan looks over his shoulder to see Brendon's success just as Spencer takes up his other side and they drag Brendon up the ramp as it raises shut.
"Fuck. I knew you'd do it," Ryan says, pressing his forehead to Brendon's, masking his concern with smile at Spencer. "Bleeding out and he's still a hotshot."
"He nearly shot me!" Spencer snaps as the ship's blast door seals behind them.
Brendon beams at Ryan's praise and looks at down at Spencer's electro-prod.
"You know, Spence, ancient weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side."
"Oh, shut up before I kill you myself."
"All clear?" Jon calls from the bridge.
"Clear!" Spencer shouts back, and they jolt with the anti-gravity airlift.
"Ow," Brendon whimpers one more time, and the three of them crumple to the ground.
"Okay. Okay. Okay," Jon is saying, meeting them in the middle of the bridge with Spencer's med kit in hand. "Everyone here? Made it? All three?" He's sweating and breathing hard and pets each of their heads like he's counting missing cats. Ryan is closest and he kisses him though Ryan looks too stunned to react.
"Aw, B," Jon says gently, as he kneels over Brendon, taking in all the blood.
"Hi, Jon Walker," Brendon whispers, trying to smile up at him.
"Hi, beautiful." He touches Brendon's cheek. "You're kinda bleeding all over my bridge," Jon teases, giving Spencer a worried glance and reaching out to squeeze Ryan's elbow.
"Yeah," Brendon says. "Some party, huh?"
"Yeah. I don’t like parties where people try to eat my boyfriends- or try to mate with my boyfriends-" a sensor starts beeping "or try to disable my ship!"
"You gonna fly us to the moon?" Brendon asks, delirious now.
"Anywhere you want," Jon promises. Brendon smiles at Ryan then at Spencer before his eyes flutter shut.
"Spencer?" Jon asks.
"Just give me a second," Spencer grumbles, already digging in his kit. "This is medicine not magic, for crying out loud."
Ryan watches, frozen and expressionless, as Spencer works on the gash in Brendon's side.
"You can do it, Spence," Jon says, rubbing a hand up and down Spencer's back and kissing the back of his neck, before he returns to the navigation console. Spencer throws an appreciative smile over his shoulder but stays focused on the collagen infuser sealing Brendon's wound.
"I didn't know, okay?" Ryan says, reaching out to hold Brendon's limp hand.
"I know." Spencer doesn't look up.
"I didn't!"
Spencer does look up then, lips pursed and eyebrow flexed. "I. Know."
"Scratleeks look a lot like Twi'leks before they mature," Ryan says. "…Could have been hot."
"Ryan!" Jon shouts over the sound of a second beeping alarm. "You need to talk us through the Behlutian check point. I need you on the comm, Ry!" He runs back and forth between control panels, throwing switches and toggles, forcing the Green Gentleman to warm up far before an old ship like this is ready.
"Spencer, we need Brendon to fly us through the asteroid field between the suns. The Scratleeks aren't gonna let us off planet the easy way."
"Well, Brendon is busy not dying at the moment," Spencer replies, voice tight.
"Ryan! I need you, man." Jon pulls off a boot, hopping on one foot, nearly toppling over before righting himself and then tugs the other one off. He has to be barefoot in space or he loses his equilibrium. Spencer says it's psychosomatic but he never presses it.
Jon returns to the three of them on the floor and kneels behind Ryan. "I need your high line linguistic skills to get us through the checkpoint, Ryan. Before they start shooting."
Just then, Brendon's eyes open again. "Whoa," he gasps, taking a deep breath. "Were we playing with breath control again?"
Ryan snorts into Jon's shoulder and Spencer blushes, ignoring the question.
"How do you feel?" he asks, reading a scanner held over Brendon's wound.
"Um… think I have to pee?"
Ryan laughs quietly in slightly hysterical relief. Jon runs a hand over Brendon's head before taking Ryan by both arms and frog-marching him to the communication panel.
"I thought it was going to be fun, you know?" Ryan says, defensive against unspoken accusations. "The words 'sacrifice' and 'festival' are very similar in the Scratleekian dialect, okay?"
"Which you might have detected if you hadn't been eavesdropping," Spencer says.
"I was interpreting highly classified information."
"You listened in to gossip on an intergalactic party line!" Spencer snaps, but Ryan is already speaking the slow tones of Behlutian into his headset. Ryan is great with languages but not so skilled with accents. It takes five times as long to have a conversation in Behlutian than in English so he has to concentrate to get clearance from the planetary system check point.
"Well, I had fun," Brendon says, sitting up, skin warming with color. Spencer probably shot him full of adrenaline, which has always looked good on him. "You know, until they asked for our flesh sacrifice and wanted to mate with Spencer."
Spencer huffs, pushing his hair into place, and begins repacking his med kit with an air of dignity.
"Don't be embarrassed. You looked hot."
"We all looked hot."
"Yeah, but it was you that they wanted to-"
"Don't even say it!" Spencer cuts them off with a shudder.
"Actually, if they hadn't started fighting over whether they wanted to eat Spencer or mate him, we might not have got away. So thanks, Spence!" Jon teases.
Spencer blushes darker and tells them both to fuck off.
"Can you fly, dude?" Jon asks, bending down to look at Brendon's injury. His ruined shirt has been cut away and his breeches are still wet with blood, but the wound is sealed with new pink skin.
"Fuck yeah. Help me up?"
Jon gets him carefully to his feet and Spencer fusses at them to be careful.
"Ryan, how's it coming?" Spencer asks, one eye still on Brendon as Jon straps him into the pilot's seat. "Got that clearance yet?"
Ryan yanks off his headset to snap. "We're still in the fucking middle of formal introductions!"
"Well if you don't get us clearance before we come out of that asteroid field, they'll just blow us up anyway."
"I know that! I'm trying." Ryan throws his headset onto the console but then pouts at it before replacing it on his head.
Jon and Brendon give sympathetic looks from where they're stationed but Spencer goes to him. He reaches out slowly and wraps a hand around Ryan's wrist and Ryan looks up, expression wary of being reprimanded again. Spencer moves in closer, his other hand coming over Ryan's shoulder and squeezing.
"You can do this, Ryan."
"Sorry, okay? It's not like I'd take us to a Celestial Sacrifice on purpose. I just thought it was a party."
"I know you love a good party. I just get pissed off when people want to eat the guys I love."
Ryan smirks and leans into Spencer who stays close to him, rubbing his shoulders, patting his hip while he resumes the slow, careful speech with the Behlutians.
"Okay, guys, here we go," Jon warns, switching the auto-flight over to manual and entirely into Brendon's hands. "Three, two …" and the Green Gentleman shutters and then smooths, as though it's relaxing and submitting to its pilot's control. The guys are pretty sure the ship is partial to Brendon and just gives Jon a hard time by blowing things up.
"Hold onto your balls, boys!" Brendon says, far too gleefully for such a deadly flight ahead.
Jon sinks to his knees next to Brendon, holding onto the panel. Spencer widens his stance and braces Ryan with his arms on the console and then they're off.
The ships lists to the side and shoots off, leaving them all with swooping guts. Brendon curses at the wildly spinning rocks as he navigates around them.
The engine whines and something overhead sparks, and through it all, Ryan continues the formal Behlutian speech to gain their final bid to freedom.
"Jon, do I have cannons?" Brendon asks, voice tight as he corkscrews the ship.
"Um. Should have?" he offers, looking mildly dizzy. Jon re-directs a power source and Brendon swivels in his seat, aligning his sights at an enormous boulder they're flying straight towards.
"Ryan, get that clearance," Brendon calls. "C'mon, Big Green, gimme all you've got!"
Brendon fires and the blast is thunderous. The light of it blinds them all for a moment and then everything fades into serene quiet.
"Got it!" Ryan says and punches in the acquired code.
Tiny asteroid particles sparkle past the black windows like fireworks. They hold their collective breath, Brendon wraps his arms around Jon's shoulders, and Spencer holds Ryan tighter.
Nothing at all happens as they sail through the checkpoint.
"…Well," Spencer breaks the silence, "Mars be damned. We actually made it."
////
Pairing/Prompt: Panic GSF (Brendon/Jon/Ryan/Spencer) – Space Opera AU
Word Count: 2000ish
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Mild violence
Notes: Much love to my beta
queenb23more and to my outer space linguistic consultant mrsquizzical!Written for the
no_tags Bandom Ficlet Challenge first posted here. \\\\
"Owww. For real, ow, guys," Brendon gasps. "Spencer. Ow!"
"Almost there, Bren. Hang on, okay?" Spencer is red in the face, voice going high though he's trying to control it.
"Ow."
"I said I was sorry," Ryan grumbles quietly, as though Brendon's persistent pain should dissipate in the face of his good intentions.
"Ryan, I swear to Mars," Spencer says.
"Ow still."
"You know I didn't do it on purpose," Ryan insists.
"If you had just-"
Blast shots behind them interrupt as Jon fires around the corner they've just turned.
"No time, guys. Move!" Jon shouts.
It really isn't a necessary command. The sound of a pod of Scratleeks clacking down the corridor after them, esophageal sucks rasping though the air like giant beetle-pigs is plenty to keep them running to their ship.
Jon sprints ahead of them into the docking bay and up the loading ramp of the Green Gentleman. Once inside the bay door, Spencer slaps at the control panel to lock it. He, Ryan, and Brendon, who they've been carrying between them, slump against the door. The Green Gentleman's engines roar into life as Jon prepares the ship for a hasty departure, but it doesn't quite drown out the sounds of scratching from the other side of the door.
Ryan and Spencer are panting and pink-faced and Spencer has damp hair sticking to his forehead, but Brendon is pale. "Ow. Can I just die now?"
"You will not be dying today," Spencer instructs, fixing him with a glare before pulling open Brendon's blood-soaked shirt to see his injury. "You've only been stabbed through. You've survived worse than this."
"Yeah, but ow."
"I know it hurts." Spencer's expression softens as he squeezes Brendon's uninjured side. "I just need my med kit, and I'll fix you right up."
"I really am sorry. Please don't die," Ryan says, leaning his forehead to Brendon's temple, nuzzling behind his ear. "Jon would be sad. And I ...and Spencer will be so pissed at me if you die."
Spencer's angry reply gets cut off. The door begins to slide open as the Scratleeks try to manually force through. Ryan tugs Brendon toward the Green Gentleman while Spencer pulls his electro-prod from his belt and shoves it through the opening; high-pitched rattling indicating the voltage makes contact with something.
"Fucking oath of his; won't use a blaster just because he's a healer now," Ryan grumbles under Brendon's weight. "Oh, hey," Ryan pauses at the bottom of the ramp, still supporting Brendon, and asks, "Can you shoot?"
Brendon holds up his blaster, looking more drunk than blood-let and gives him a dopey smile.
Ryan gives him a proud smirk and then hugs him so that Brendon's shooting arm is supported by Ryan's shoulder.
"Spencer, c'mon! Run!" Ryan calls out. Spencer, without question, turns and bolts towards them. Brendon's blaster shots skim right past Spencer's head and through the opening bay door into the crush of oncoming Scratleeks.
Ryan looks over his shoulder to see Brendon's success just as Spencer takes up his other side and they drag Brendon up the ramp as it raises shut.
"Fuck. I knew you'd do it," Ryan says, pressing his forehead to Brendon's, masking his concern with smile at Spencer. "Bleeding out and he's still a hotshot."
"He nearly shot me!" Spencer snaps as the ship's blast door seals behind them.
Brendon beams at Ryan's praise and looks at down at Spencer's electro-prod.
"You know, Spence, ancient weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side."
"Oh, shut up before I kill you myself."
"All clear?" Jon calls from the bridge.
"Clear!" Spencer shouts back, and they jolt with the anti-gravity airlift.
"Ow," Brendon whimpers one more time, and the three of them crumple to the ground.
"Okay. Okay. Okay," Jon is saying, meeting them in the middle of the bridge with Spencer's med kit in hand. "Everyone here? Made it? All three?" He's sweating and breathing hard and pets each of their heads like he's counting missing cats. Ryan is closest and he kisses him though Ryan looks too stunned to react.
"Aw, B," Jon says gently, as he kneels over Brendon, taking in all the blood.
"Hi, Jon Walker," Brendon whispers, trying to smile up at him.
"Hi, beautiful." He touches Brendon's cheek. "You're kinda bleeding all over my bridge," Jon teases, giving Spencer a worried glance and reaching out to squeeze Ryan's elbow.
"Yeah," Brendon says. "Some party, huh?"
"Yeah. I don’t like parties where people try to eat my boyfriends- or try to mate with my boyfriends-" a sensor starts beeping "or try to disable my ship!"
"You gonna fly us to the moon?" Brendon asks, delirious now.
"Anywhere you want," Jon promises. Brendon smiles at Ryan then at Spencer before his eyes flutter shut.
"Spencer?" Jon asks.
"Just give me a second," Spencer grumbles, already digging in his kit. "This is medicine not magic, for crying out loud."
Ryan watches, frozen and expressionless, as Spencer works on the gash in Brendon's side.
"You can do it, Spence," Jon says, rubbing a hand up and down Spencer's back and kissing the back of his neck, before he returns to the navigation console. Spencer throws an appreciative smile over his shoulder but stays focused on the collagen infuser sealing Brendon's wound.
"I didn't know, okay?" Ryan says, reaching out to hold Brendon's limp hand.
"I know." Spencer doesn't look up.
"I didn't!"
Spencer does look up then, lips pursed and eyebrow flexed. "I. Know."
"Scratleeks look a lot like Twi'leks before they mature," Ryan says. "…Could have been hot."
"Ryan!" Jon shouts over the sound of a second beeping alarm. "You need to talk us through the Behlutian check point. I need you on the comm, Ry!" He runs back and forth between control panels, throwing switches and toggles, forcing the Green Gentleman to warm up far before an old ship like this is ready.
"Spencer, we need Brendon to fly us through the asteroid field between the suns. The Scratleeks aren't gonna let us off planet the easy way."
"Well, Brendon is busy not dying at the moment," Spencer replies, voice tight.
"Ryan! I need you, man." Jon pulls off a boot, hopping on one foot, nearly toppling over before righting himself and then tugs the other one off. He has to be barefoot in space or he loses his equilibrium. Spencer says it's psychosomatic but he never presses it.
Jon returns to the three of them on the floor and kneels behind Ryan. "I need your high line linguistic skills to get us through the checkpoint, Ryan. Before they start shooting."
Just then, Brendon's eyes open again. "Whoa," he gasps, taking a deep breath. "Were we playing with breath control again?"
Ryan snorts into Jon's shoulder and Spencer blushes, ignoring the question.
"How do you feel?" he asks, reading a scanner held over Brendon's wound.
"Um… think I have to pee?"
Ryan laughs quietly in slightly hysterical relief. Jon runs a hand over Brendon's head before taking Ryan by both arms and frog-marching him to the communication panel.
"I thought it was going to be fun, you know?" Ryan says, defensive against unspoken accusations. "The words 'sacrifice' and 'festival' are very similar in the Scratleekian dialect, okay?"
"Which you might have detected if you hadn't been eavesdropping," Spencer says.
"I was interpreting highly classified information."
"You listened in to gossip on an intergalactic party line!" Spencer snaps, but Ryan is already speaking the slow tones of Behlutian into his headset. Ryan is great with languages but not so skilled with accents. It takes five times as long to have a conversation in Behlutian than in English so he has to concentrate to get clearance from the planetary system check point.
"Well, I had fun," Brendon says, sitting up, skin warming with color. Spencer probably shot him full of adrenaline, which has always looked good on him. "You know, until they asked for our flesh sacrifice and wanted to mate with Spencer."
Spencer huffs, pushing his hair into place, and begins repacking his med kit with an air of dignity.
"Don't be embarrassed. You looked hot."
"We all looked hot."
"Yeah, but it was you that they wanted to-"
"Don't even say it!" Spencer cuts them off with a shudder.
"Actually, if they hadn't started fighting over whether they wanted to eat Spencer or mate him, we might not have got away. So thanks, Spence!" Jon teases.
Spencer blushes darker and tells them both to fuck off.
"Can you fly, dude?" Jon asks, bending down to look at Brendon's injury. His ruined shirt has been cut away and his breeches are still wet with blood, but the wound is sealed with new pink skin.
"Fuck yeah. Help me up?"
Jon gets him carefully to his feet and Spencer fusses at them to be careful.
"Ryan, how's it coming?" Spencer asks, one eye still on Brendon as Jon straps him into the pilot's seat. "Got that clearance yet?"
Ryan yanks off his headset to snap. "We're still in the fucking middle of formal introductions!"
"Well if you don't get us clearance before we come out of that asteroid field, they'll just blow us up anyway."
"I know that! I'm trying." Ryan throws his headset onto the console but then pouts at it before replacing it on his head.
Jon and Brendon give sympathetic looks from where they're stationed but Spencer goes to him. He reaches out slowly and wraps a hand around Ryan's wrist and Ryan looks up, expression wary of being reprimanded again. Spencer moves in closer, his other hand coming over Ryan's shoulder and squeezing.
"You can do this, Ryan."
"Sorry, okay? It's not like I'd take us to a Celestial Sacrifice on purpose. I just thought it was a party."
"I know you love a good party. I just get pissed off when people want to eat the guys I love."
Ryan smirks and leans into Spencer who stays close to him, rubbing his shoulders, patting his hip while he resumes the slow, careful speech with the Behlutians.
"Okay, guys, here we go," Jon warns, switching the auto-flight over to manual and entirely into Brendon's hands. "Three, two …" and the Green Gentleman shutters and then smooths, as though it's relaxing and submitting to its pilot's control. The guys are pretty sure the ship is partial to Brendon and just gives Jon a hard time by blowing things up.
"Hold onto your balls, boys!" Brendon says, far too gleefully for such a deadly flight ahead.
Jon sinks to his knees next to Brendon, holding onto the panel. Spencer widens his stance and braces Ryan with his arms on the console and then they're off.
The ships lists to the side and shoots off, leaving them all with swooping guts. Brendon curses at the wildly spinning rocks as he navigates around them.
The engine whines and something overhead sparks, and through it all, Ryan continues the formal Behlutian speech to gain their final bid to freedom.
"Jon, do I have cannons?" Brendon asks, voice tight as he corkscrews the ship.
"Um. Should have?" he offers, looking mildly dizzy. Jon re-directs a power source and Brendon swivels in his seat, aligning his sights at an enormous boulder they're flying straight towards.
"Ryan, get that clearance," Brendon calls. "C'mon, Big Green, gimme all you've got!"
Brendon fires and the blast is thunderous. The light of it blinds them all for a moment and then everything fades into serene quiet.
"Got it!" Ryan says and punches in the acquired code.
Tiny asteroid particles sparkle past the black windows like fireworks. They hold their collective breath, Brendon wraps his arms around Jon's shoulders, and Spencer holds Ryan tighter.
Nothing at all happens as they sail through the checkpoint.
"…Well," Spencer breaks the silence, "Mars be damned. We actually made it."
////
