AN: I know, I hate me too. I promise not to leave it so long next time x

Chapter 12

"Ah, hello Ryan. How are you?" Said a gruff voice from the other end of the line. Somewhere at HQ Ryan could imagine Farro sitting behind his desk awkwardly thinking of what to say. Ryan threw a look over to Brendon's bed, the sleeping boy had turned his back towards Ryan- but he wasn't taking any chances.

"Alright thanks Dad, you woke me up actually. I'm in my dorm with Brendon- my roommate?" Ryan squeezed his eyes shut, trying to think of a way to have this conversation without tipping off Brendon. It should be fairly easy- provided Farro picked up on his insinuations.

"Your roommate? I trust the room has been thoroughly bugged and searched Ryan." Ryan was about to protest to the language, before he realised that obviously Brendon couldn't hear Farro. He slapped a palm to his head. Get a grip Ryan. His hands were sweaty as he clenched the phone to his ear and sank back onto his bead.

"Haha, yeah. I've got it under control Dad, don't worry. I haven't had a chance to have a proper look round yet though" Obvious enough, Ryan thought.

"Ryan, it is imperative that you get this information. We received another donation only yesterday. Hence my call to you. Did anyone seem to be acting strangely?" Ryan snorted. Farro certainly didn't beat about the proverbial shrubbery. Ryan put on his best patronising son tone,

"Everyone seems great Dad, nothing weird here. Honest." He smiled, but the happiness was short lived. He knew that Farro was not going to be pleased that Ryan had made no headway at all.

"Ok Ryan, I'll hand you over to Helena. She wants to keep updated on this case. She has the clearance so feel free to insinuate anything about the case if you feel it relevant."

"Ok, Bye Dad, Love you." Ryan shuddered. Ew. He heard the phone being passed to another set of hands before the shrill voice of Helena rang in his ears.

"Ryan?"

"Hey Mum! How are you?" Ryan smiled into the phone, real enthusiasm at hearing her voice. She made him feel a little more grounded, he knew what to expect with her.

"Alright Ross, I miss your face obviously. How is everything down that way? Been hit on yet?" There was a low chuckle from Helena. Ryan failed to see the funny side, but decided he would let Helena know that yes, he had been subject to some...unwanted advances.

"You too Mum, everything's fine- don't fuss. I have yeah, nothing interesting though." Ryan raised an eyebrow as he thought about the past two days. His stomach clenched with fear when he realised his second night at the school was a complete blur. He tuned back in to Helena's chattering and tried to calm himself listening to her voice. The question she asked did nothing to soothe his nerves.

"Have you picked up any information yet?" Helena's voice was casual, but Ryan could almost see Farro standing in front of her holding up pieces of paper with what to say. He cast around for any information that would be worth giving her.

"No I- Oh. Um, I don't..." Ryan kneaded his forehead and listened to a shuffling noise on the other end of the phone. Moments later, Farro was back on the phone.

"Ryan you need to get this information! Concentrate. No matter how attractive the students are" His tone of voice surprised Ryan more than anything. It wasn't angry, more disappointed. Any child who has ever been told that their parents are 'disappointed in them' knows how much worse that feels. Ryan wrestled with his mind, forcing it to think about everything he'd done so far, but what good was that when he could even remember most of it? He sighed; there was no way around it. He'd have to come clean; he would also have to move a bit further away from Brendon.

Ryan shuffled in his towel to the corner of the room and sat down on the clothing-covered chair that was normally shoved up against the desk. He leant heavily on the wood and smiled slightly when he registered all of the makeup products Helena had packed were still scattered around on the papers that littered the desk. He was about to launch into an apology/explanation when the pencil eyeliner that was poking out of the otherwise empty makeup bag caught his eye. The smile disappeared as a fuzzy memory slid into place. Gabe, a sensation of people and noise- and the colour blue. Ryan sucked in a breath.

"Wait- something just, I think there was a party last night" He whispered it, and looked round to see Brendon blearily rubbing his eyes with his hands. Helena's voice cut through over Farro's, they must have put him on loudspeaker Ryan realised.

"You think- Ryan, what's going on?" Helena sounded panicky; she knew him well so it wouldn't be a surprise to him if she had picked up the underlying uncertainty in his words. Ryan raked a hand aggressively through his hair and watched as Brendon's eyes started to flicker open.

"Yeah, well I can't exactly, I'll call you back" He threw the phone onto his bed and just caught the end of "Ross!" that was presumably Farro.

Ryan froze and watched as Brendon gazed at the ceiling for a while before rolling back to face the wall. Ryan waited and listened as Brendon's breathing settled down and after a minute or two he was sure his roommate was asleep. Ryan let out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding. This was not good. His immediate reaction was to ring up Helena and talk to her about it, but Farro would just get involved and he couldn't have that, not when he was so obviously fucked.

Ryan cast around for another name, someone he could trust. Was there anyone? He had arrived on the Thursday and since then had met everyone in his year and several teachers, of that number the only two people he felt himself trusting were Frank and Spencer. He calmed down significantly when he realised they were both just across the hall. Ryan gathered himself, it was now 8am one the Saturday and he was wearing a towel. Would it be socially acceptable to just march over there and demand to know what happened last night?

At 8:05 after some mental preparation, Ryan knocked on the door of the dorm opposite- still wrapped from the armpits down, in Alex' fluffy towel. Spencer opened the door, looked Ryan up and down and dragged him into the room. Ryan looked around the dorm briefly and noticed instantly which bed belonged to who, mainly because the shirt Jon had been wearing the previous day was on one bed, and pictures of Frank were plastered above the other.

"Ryan, what happened to you?" Spencer was working himself up, "I tried to get something out of Frank but he and the Band guys just fucked off to the waffle house in town and then I knocked on your door but I couldn't hear you and Brendon wasn't around which is normal, but Frank looked like he was going to cry- explain!"

Ryan sighed and sank down onto Frank's bed, comforted by the fact that at least someone was worried about him.

"I really don't know," He said softly, "I can't remember anything." Spencer frowned. Several emotions crossed his face; anger, worry and confusion. There was a lot of worry mixed in and Ryan felt weirdly happy to be telling someone about this and that the particular someone was taking it seriously. It was scaring him enough that his own brain was letting him down.

Spencer sat on the edge of his own bed and leant towards Ryan conspiratorially, "Ok, as you may have guessed- I was with Jon last night," Ryan only then took in Spencer's dishevelled appearance and put the shirt on the bed and Spencer's lack of shirt together. He nodded.

"Okay, so I wasn't here for the party at all. So I can't tell you what happened, it was a dick move of me not to be there for your first party- especially after you've been so nice to me-" Ryan cut him off with a wave of his hand. Spencer smiled guiltily.

"It's okay," Ryan replied to his unspoken apology "I guess if you could help me make sense of this?" Spencer nodded. He could do that.

"Ok Ry, what's the last thing you remember about yesterday. It's probably not as bad as you think." Spencer didn't sound convinced- but Ryan thought hard. He remembered finding that kid smoking in the bushes after he finished setting up the tech, he remembered being dragged inside. Bits started to float back into place. He remembered that girl with the hair and the lip ring that Frank didn't like. Cassie maybe?

Ryan's heart leapt into his throat as he remembered Ray pouring his first drink. He gulped and looked up at Spencer.

"I think I might have got really, really drunk."

Spencer grimaced, "That sucks dude but at lea-" Spencer cut himself off this time and didn't try to hide his anger when he growled; "You didn't have to sit opposite someone whilst they gave you alcohol and took their clothes off did you?"

Ryan looked up and nodded as more of the evening slid back into place. Fuck. Brendon, shots, drunk, drama, drinking and then-

"They tricked me into playing with Brendon, who acted really drunk already to throw me off and make me think I could win, but he wasn't really, and I'd been doing that earlier so the guys would leave me alone faster because then I could..." he trailed off realising what he was about to say.

It was so easy to talk to Spencer, so easy he'd almost blown his cover- and the entire operation. Spencer just looked at him for several moments; the anger fell off his face when he read the genuine worry on Ryan's face. It was another occasion where Ryan was surprised to note he had to say surprisingly little to get Spencer to understand.

Ryan sighed, "We kept drinking and I remember taking off my shirt and Brendon throwing his tie at someone, but after that...it's all sort of fuzzy."

"Well, there's not much we can do about it now," Spencer put a comforting hand on Ryan's bare shoulder, "but we can work out what happened okay?" Ryan lifted his head hopefully,

"We?" He wasn't used to anyone helping him, Ryan had got pretty used to doing everything for, and by, himself. Spencer tilted his head and frowned, but there was a slight smile playing around his lips.

"Of course, isn't that what friends do?" He laughed at the look of surprise on Ryan's face, "Ry, in case you hadn't noticed we have some creepy empathetic mind meld going on, I've told you about my secret illegal boyfriend and trusted you enough to not tell anyone else. I think at this point I might be doing you a social injustice to not call you my friend."

Ryan chuckled, he guessed Spencer was right.

"Thanks Spence," He smiled, slipping into that nickname with ease, "Um, do you mind if I hang out with you today? It's just I don't really..."

Spencer nodded, "Sure. Hey- you haven't really been introduced to Bill and Gabe have you?" When Ryan shook his head Spencer gave a satisfied nod, "Okay then, that's the plan of action. We'll attack Gabe and Billiam for information. Gabe was DJing and Bill was probably there if anything did happen, so they'll know. If not, we'll ask Pete." He nodded again, confirming the plan.

Ryan relaxed; Spencer seemed to have things pretty well under control even if he didn't. It was funny. Working for the CIA was great for building certain 'life skills'- but it was not a great career for anyone who valued social connections. They agreed to meet in the common room in half an hour and then search the school for the two boys, if they weren't still in U2 block.

"We should probably start by knocking on all of the dorm doors in this block," Spencer laughed as Ryan gathered his towel and made for the door, "I bet even a newcomer like you have worked out what most of the boys are like."

When Ryan pushed open the door to his dorm he was surprised to see Brendon's bed empty and made. He thought back to what Spencer had said only moments previously, he did know what most of the 'boys' were like -even his limited experiences with Bill and Gabe had left him with a certain opinion of them. He'd character profiled all of them, except Brendon.

He sighed, and dragged on a fresh pair of navy jeans, and the tight white t-shirt from his first day that still faintly smelled of Helena's perfume. He realised, as he reached for the hair gel, that his hands were no longer shaking. He smiled to himself; you couldn't help but love Spencer Smith.

I know, calm down, try not to have a heart attack. This is a chapter. I think I'm sort of back. I know where the next chapter is going, and the one after that. Thank you so much for your endless support over this thing.

Guilt tripping me seems to be the best way of making me update, so feel free to PM me telling me how rubbish and mean I am!

Love as always, Kat x

(shameless self promotion- I have a published Ryden oneshot up that I finished recently, check it out?)