Categories > Celebrities > Panic! At The Disco > To Each His Own
“Okay, stay close to me; it's easy to get lost in here,” Jon instructs as the two hike up what seems to Brendon like the fiftieth flight of steps.
Finally, they reach a beat-up, paint chipped blue door that reads “Ward 227.”
“This, Mr. Urie, is where you'll be living and where I work,” Jon announces, and then throws open the door. “There aren't many guys here. It's a special ward for, our, um, more `needy' cases. You're the sixth patient to arrive.”
Brendon, ignoring the “needy cases” comment from Jon, focuses on the new sights before him. He is at first greeted with a few young men in white outfits like Jon's talking outside of a room that appears to be filled with medicine and similar things.
Jon says,
“That's the nurse's station. Self-explanatory.”
The two step in farther, and Brendon looks around. To his left is a long white corridor with what he thinks are doorways lining the walls, and to his right is an even longer hallway with several room openings and at the very end, what appears to be a TV room.
All of a sudden, Brendon hears anxious footsteps and next thing he knows, a man is face-to-face to him and Jon.
The new arrival is short, pudgy, and has strawberry-blonde hair with sideburns and glasses. He has a red baseball cap on his head, and looks really rather stressed.
“Jon! Where did you go? Why'd you leave me? Are you mad at me or something? If you are, man, I mean, what did I do? I don't mean to—”
Now, if Brendon were the one being bombarded with questions like Jon was, he would have yelled “Shut up!” by now and probably punched the guy in his face, but Jon simply smiles shakily and takes a deep breath in.
“No, Patrick. I didn't leave you.”
Patrick looks relieved. “Oh, good. Now, Jon, do you like this hat?” He points to the red cap on his mop of hair. “I'm not sure if I like it and I mean, I wanna know what you think `cause—”
Once again, Patrick is interrupted, but not by Jon this time.
“Walker! Thank GOD you're back! That friggin' Spencer psycho is driving me outta my mind! He's going off about his godforsaken CDs again! I touched one of them and he practically tackled me!”
Brendon looks to the right to see an approaching figure.
The man is taller than Patrick but shorter than himself, and is really rather dark and handsome. His deep brown hair is shaggily falling over his eye, and a thin coat of eyeliner is present. He's tan, and is wearing a green polo that Brendon likes right away.
Jon sighs and runs a hand through his hair.
“Pete, why did you touch Spencer's CDs? You know he doesn't like that!” he says, and Pete crosses his arms and rolls his eyes.
“I figured he wouldn't mind if I just borrowed one!”
Brendon kind of chuckles and all eyes fall to him. The man now revealed to be Pete narrows his gaze.
“Who's this jerk?” he sneers, and Brendon feels a bit of anger bubble inside of him.
Jon takes a deep breath in.
“This, guys, is Brendon Urie. He's that newcomer we told you about a few days ago. Brendon, this is Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz.”
Patrick smiles shyly. Pete just stares at Brendon with that same death-cold look.
“So do you like my hat?” Patrick suddenly asks, and Pete throws his arms up in the air, groaning.
“And now he's going off about that godforsaken HAT of his! My God, Pat, you've asked every friggin' person in the ward if they like it! They all said that it looks great on you; even I said that, so it does, okay? Get over it and shut up,” Pete cries, and Patrick's mouth drops open in shock.
Jon's face twists in anger, and Brendon is surprised. Jon didn't strike him as one to get angry that easily.
“Hey, Wentz, you shut up! I don't see Patrick running around yelling when you wake up every night screaming and crying!”
Pete's face twists in shame and shock as soon as the words come out of Jon's lips, but Jon's face doesn't show any regret for saying what he did. Pete's lip quivers with fury. Then, with one last cold glare at Brendon, he storms off without another word.
There's an awkward silence, and Brendon finally says,
“Freak.”
Patrick gulps and then scampers off with a low, “Nice to meet you too, Brendon.”
--------------------------
Jon turns to the left and says,
“This is the dorm-hallway. You'll be sleeping, using the bathroom, and other stuff down here.”
Brendon looks for any sign of people, but no doors open and Jon doesn't offer to open any so Brendon resists the urge to say something and stays quiet.
“You'll be staying in room 6. You'll have a roommate—”
“You've got to be kidding me,” Brendon interrupts, his mouth falling open a little. Once again, he's a selfish little jerk and doesn't want to share. The thought of sharing his bedroom with some loony is more than a little distressing to him.
Jon looks at him strangely, as if it's a surprise to him that Brendon's so dismayed about something like that.
“Yeah, but don't worry, he's a nice guy. One of the most normal patients here,” Jon says, and Brendon feels a little relieved at that.
But only a little.
Finally, they arrive at a pale blue door that reads in black “6”, and Jon opens the door.
Brendon peers in over Jon's shoulder and is surprised at what he sees.
A young man about his age or maybe even younger sits on the bed to the left shifting through what looks like music CDs. His dark blonde hair matches his light blue eyes perfectly, and his sort-of-chubbiness adds to his seemingly innocent demeanor. He looks like an angel. One of those cherub things, Brendon thinks.
“Brendon, this is your new roommate, Spencer Smith.”
Spencer looks up from his CD sorting, and Brendon can't help but smile as the other boy's face breaks into a grin. Spencer reaches out a hand in greeting, and Brendon steps forward more, taking his palm and shaking it.
“Oh hey! Great to meet you!” Spencer greets jovially, and Brendon nods in acknowledgment. “I've been waiting for you to arrive,” Spencer says, and Brendon smiles awkwardly.
The thought that these guys knew about him before he knew about them is truthfully a little creepy.
Jon has walked over to the neatly made bed on the right and placed Brendon's belongings down. He now turns to face the two boys, and smiles.
“Well, I'll give you two a little time to chat later. Right now, I have to finish Brendon's tour,” he announces, and then questioningly points to Spencer's CDs sprawled out on the bedspread. “Spence, didn't you arrange those all yesterday?”
Spencer looks insulted suddenly, and shoots a strange side-glance at Brendon. Then, he replies,
“Yeah, but one of them got crooked thanks to Pete,” he spits the name with disgust and then continues, “So I had to re-do them, this time in alphabetical order instead of by the date they were released.”
Brendon stares at the boy in utter disbelief. That was something Brendon never expected to hear in his life.
“That's just messed up,” he says finally, and shakes his head. “Who does that?”
Jon shoots Brendon a glare with his comment, and Spencer looks shocked instead of insulted, but then it fades away to what looks like confusion. Spencer glances at Jon quickly and Jon shrugs, understanding some unspoken question that Brendon didn't quite catch.
“Anyway, c'mon Brendon. We should get going,” Jon says, and motions for Brendon to follow him out of the room. With a quick wave to Spencer, he does.
--------------------------
“So…you gay?”
Brendon chokes on his spit for a split second and stares at Pete, who's all of a sudden popped up next to him on the couch as they watch the news on the small TV.
The TV room was the room everyone hung out in. The living room, with its stiff chairs and Persian rugs, was completely “un-cool” and “everybody hates it”, according to Jon earlier that day. So the place to hang out in was the TV room, right next to the nurses' station, with the table for cards and pool and the huge stack of non-violent, un-disturbing DVDs. Brendon decided to stay there before he got his “nightly medication” as Jon told him earlier.
The layout of the ward was simple. The left hallway was the huge bathroom, with stalls without locks and 6 bathtubs and one or two showers, the 6 dorm rooms, and then the farthest, loneliest room in the ward: the seclusion room. Jon said you only went there if you were extremely disobedient (or “acted out” as the nurses and guards put it), had a meltdown (that word scared Brendon; he wasn't sure if he could get used to the “meltdowns” that Jon mentioned happening) or if you just wanted to scream as loud as you possibly could without people being annoyed (Brendon liked that idea).
Then, to the right was the art room (It was filled with easels and paints and sketchbooks and pencils and most of all it had guitars and an out-of-tune piano that Brendon would probably play sooner or later) where patients could “release their emotions with creativity.” There was the living room, as mentioned before, three phone booths to make calls (only if a number was on your “allowed-to-call list” and a nurse let you through), the nurses' station, and then finally the TV room.
Brendon was relieved that the layout was simple; he wasn't looking forward to having to memorize a confusing bunch of rooms and numbers.
“Excuse me?” Brendon asks, scrunching up his nose in shock.
Pete snorts.
“I said, are you gay? Like, you know, batting for the other team or whatever they call it?”
Brendon stares wide-eyed at the dark-haired man in front of him.
Pete waits a moment more, then rolls his eyes exaggeratedly and groans. “Oh come on. Do you like girls or boys?” he asks again, and Brendon smirks.
“Why? Are you gay or something?”
Pete's face breaks into a goofy, crooked little smile, and his eyes twinkle mischievously.
“Maybe,” he responds. “Maybe.” Then he turns back to the nightly news that he's really not watching.
--------------------------
“Brendon Urie?”
Brendon pushes to the front of the line, squeezing through Patrick and Pete. The man standing at the nurses' station is holding out a plastic cup filled with two pink pills. Brendon gets there and stares at them.
“What are they?”
“Sleeping pills.”
Brendon looks at his watch. “It's only like 9:30, I don't think I'm gonna—”
“God, just take the things!” Someone groans behind him, and Brendon looks and sees Joe Trohman, another patient at the ward for substance abuse, leaning against the wall, arms crossed and dark circles under his eyes. Brendon glares, but bites his tongue and just turns around and tosses the nasty pills to the back of his throat.
The man offers him water, but Brendon gathers up as much saliva as he can and gulps down the pills without it. Then, smirking, he turns around and walks off towards his room.
--------------------------
“Checks.”
The unfamiliar voice stirs Brendon from his sleep, and he wakes up. It's dark and blue in the room, and the window is shining with moonlight. Shadows dance menacingly across the wall, and he gulps, feeling scared only for a moment. His first night sleeping was only going as smoothly as it was because he was drugged up on the pills.
But Brendon knows now that he won't get to sleep for another hour or two because the pills have probably worn off and his mind will be too busy churning over the events of his day to rest for a while, so he turns and faces where the voice came from.
A man is standing in the doorway with a clipboard and flashlight, and quickly he shines the light on both Brendon and Spencer's sleeping form. Then he exits without a word.
Brendon sits there dumfounded for a second, and then whispers into the quiet of the bedroom,
“Spencer?”
No response.
“Spencer,” he urges again, and this time the other boy stirs and turns around to face Brendon with a sluggish,
“Huh?”
Brendon swallows. “What was that?” he asks.
Spencer smiles imperceptibly. “Those were checks. They do that to make sure none of us have run away or hung ourselves or whatever. You get used to it after a while,” he explains, and rubs his blue eyes.
Brendon nods, trying to forget the comment about the guards making sure they haven't “hung themselves”.
There's quiet, and Brendon and Spencer just stare at each other.
“Why is Pete so mean?” Brendon asks suddenly.
Spencer frowns.
“Pete has something called `nightmare disorder'. It's where something's haunting the mind or whatever and they have nightmares usually every night. Really freaky ones, and they feel like it's real,” he explains, and Brendon chuckles.
“Like Freddy Kruger kind of thing?”
Spencer doesn't smile back.
“Yeah. Pete wakes up almost every night screeching and crying about how he was `gonna die' and `it's all over'. Sometimes he wakes up yelling about being `covered in blood'. It's really sick stuff.”
Brendon doesn't think it's funny anymore.
“He barely gets more than four hours of sleep every night. It's rough. They usually douse him with sleeping pills, like tonight, but they're trying to take him off so he's ticked about that, I guess. Add that with the tiredness and the fact he's just a tough Chicago guy and you get Pete's nasty attitude,” Spencer finishes.
Brendon nods.
“What about that fat guy? Patrick? The dude's obsessed with his hat and doesn't talk to anyone.”
“He has something called `avoidant personality disorder'. It's where the people are really socially withdrawn and sensitive to criticism but really want acceptance. That's why he's always asking everyone what they think about him.”
Brendon prods on.
“Joe?”
“Just plain ol' alcoholic and pot-head.'
“…You?”
Spencer swallows.
“I've got OCD. Obsessive-compulsive disorder really, really bad.”
Brendon remembers the incident with the CDs and chews his bottom lip.
“So…anybody else in this place I should be forewarned about?” Brendon asks, smirking.
Spencer's quiet.
“Spencer?”
“Goodnight, Brendon.”
Finally, they reach a beat-up, paint chipped blue door that reads “Ward 227.”
“This, Mr. Urie, is where you'll be living and where I work,” Jon announces, and then throws open the door. “There aren't many guys here. It's a special ward for, our, um, more `needy' cases. You're the sixth patient to arrive.”
Brendon, ignoring the “needy cases” comment from Jon, focuses on the new sights before him. He is at first greeted with a few young men in white outfits like Jon's talking outside of a room that appears to be filled with medicine and similar things.
Jon says,
“That's the nurse's station. Self-explanatory.”
The two step in farther, and Brendon looks around. To his left is a long white corridor with what he thinks are doorways lining the walls, and to his right is an even longer hallway with several room openings and at the very end, what appears to be a TV room.
All of a sudden, Brendon hears anxious footsteps and next thing he knows, a man is face-to-face to him and Jon.
The new arrival is short, pudgy, and has strawberry-blonde hair with sideburns and glasses. He has a red baseball cap on his head, and looks really rather stressed.
“Jon! Where did you go? Why'd you leave me? Are you mad at me or something? If you are, man, I mean, what did I do? I don't mean to—”
Now, if Brendon were the one being bombarded with questions like Jon was, he would have yelled “Shut up!” by now and probably punched the guy in his face, but Jon simply smiles shakily and takes a deep breath in.
“No, Patrick. I didn't leave you.”
Patrick looks relieved. “Oh, good. Now, Jon, do you like this hat?” He points to the red cap on his mop of hair. “I'm not sure if I like it and I mean, I wanna know what you think `cause—”
Once again, Patrick is interrupted, but not by Jon this time.
“Walker! Thank GOD you're back! That friggin' Spencer psycho is driving me outta my mind! He's going off about his godforsaken CDs again! I touched one of them and he practically tackled me!”
Brendon looks to the right to see an approaching figure.
The man is taller than Patrick but shorter than himself, and is really rather dark and handsome. His deep brown hair is shaggily falling over his eye, and a thin coat of eyeliner is present. He's tan, and is wearing a green polo that Brendon likes right away.
Jon sighs and runs a hand through his hair.
“Pete, why did you touch Spencer's CDs? You know he doesn't like that!” he says, and Pete crosses his arms and rolls his eyes.
“I figured he wouldn't mind if I just borrowed one!”
Brendon kind of chuckles and all eyes fall to him. The man now revealed to be Pete narrows his gaze.
“Who's this jerk?” he sneers, and Brendon feels a bit of anger bubble inside of him.
Jon takes a deep breath in.
“This, guys, is Brendon Urie. He's that newcomer we told you about a few days ago. Brendon, this is Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz.”
Patrick smiles shyly. Pete just stares at Brendon with that same death-cold look.
“So do you like my hat?” Patrick suddenly asks, and Pete throws his arms up in the air, groaning.
“And now he's going off about that godforsaken HAT of his! My God, Pat, you've asked every friggin' person in the ward if they like it! They all said that it looks great on you; even I said that, so it does, okay? Get over it and shut up,” Pete cries, and Patrick's mouth drops open in shock.
Jon's face twists in anger, and Brendon is surprised. Jon didn't strike him as one to get angry that easily.
“Hey, Wentz, you shut up! I don't see Patrick running around yelling when you wake up every night screaming and crying!”
Pete's face twists in shame and shock as soon as the words come out of Jon's lips, but Jon's face doesn't show any regret for saying what he did. Pete's lip quivers with fury. Then, with one last cold glare at Brendon, he storms off without another word.
There's an awkward silence, and Brendon finally says,
“Freak.”
Patrick gulps and then scampers off with a low, “Nice to meet you too, Brendon.”
--------------------------
Jon turns to the left and says,
“This is the dorm-hallway. You'll be sleeping, using the bathroom, and other stuff down here.”
Brendon looks for any sign of people, but no doors open and Jon doesn't offer to open any so Brendon resists the urge to say something and stays quiet.
“You'll be staying in room 6. You'll have a roommate—”
“You've got to be kidding me,” Brendon interrupts, his mouth falling open a little. Once again, he's a selfish little jerk and doesn't want to share. The thought of sharing his bedroom with some loony is more than a little distressing to him.
Jon looks at him strangely, as if it's a surprise to him that Brendon's so dismayed about something like that.
“Yeah, but don't worry, he's a nice guy. One of the most normal patients here,” Jon says, and Brendon feels a little relieved at that.
But only a little.
Finally, they arrive at a pale blue door that reads in black “6”, and Jon opens the door.
Brendon peers in over Jon's shoulder and is surprised at what he sees.
A young man about his age or maybe even younger sits on the bed to the left shifting through what looks like music CDs. His dark blonde hair matches his light blue eyes perfectly, and his sort-of-chubbiness adds to his seemingly innocent demeanor. He looks like an angel. One of those cherub things, Brendon thinks.
“Brendon, this is your new roommate, Spencer Smith.”
Spencer looks up from his CD sorting, and Brendon can't help but smile as the other boy's face breaks into a grin. Spencer reaches out a hand in greeting, and Brendon steps forward more, taking his palm and shaking it.
“Oh hey! Great to meet you!” Spencer greets jovially, and Brendon nods in acknowledgment. “I've been waiting for you to arrive,” Spencer says, and Brendon smiles awkwardly.
The thought that these guys knew about him before he knew about them is truthfully a little creepy.
Jon has walked over to the neatly made bed on the right and placed Brendon's belongings down. He now turns to face the two boys, and smiles.
“Well, I'll give you two a little time to chat later. Right now, I have to finish Brendon's tour,” he announces, and then questioningly points to Spencer's CDs sprawled out on the bedspread. “Spence, didn't you arrange those all yesterday?”
Spencer looks insulted suddenly, and shoots a strange side-glance at Brendon. Then, he replies,
“Yeah, but one of them got crooked thanks to Pete,” he spits the name with disgust and then continues, “So I had to re-do them, this time in alphabetical order instead of by the date they were released.”
Brendon stares at the boy in utter disbelief. That was something Brendon never expected to hear in his life.
“That's just messed up,” he says finally, and shakes his head. “Who does that?”
Jon shoots Brendon a glare with his comment, and Spencer looks shocked instead of insulted, but then it fades away to what looks like confusion. Spencer glances at Jon quickly and Jon shrugs, understanding some unspoken question that Brendon didn't quite catch.
“Anyway, c'mon Brendon. We should get going,” Jon says, and motions for Brendon to follow him out of the room. With a quick wave to Spencer, he does.
--------------------------
“So…you gay?”
Brendon chokes on his spit for a split second and stares at Pete, who's all of a sudden popped up next to him on the couch as they watch the news on the small TV.
The TV room was the room everyone hung out in. The living room, with its stiff chairs and Persian rugs, was completely “un-cool” and “everybody hates it”, according to Jon earlier that day. So the place to hang out in was the TV room, right next to the nurses' station, with the table for cards and pool and the huge stack of non-violent, un-disturbing DVDs. Brendon decided to stay there before he got his “nightly medication” as Jon told him earlier.
The layout of the ward was simple. The left hallway was the huge bathroom, with stalls without locks and 6 bathtubs and one or two showers, the 6 dorm rooms, and then the farthest, loneliest room in the ward: the seclusion room. Jon said you only went there if you were extremely disobedient (or “acted out” as the nurses and guards put it), had a meltdown (that word scared Brendon; he wasn't sure if he could get used to the “meltdowns” that Jon mentioned happening) or if you just wanted to scream as loud as you possibly could without people being annoyed (Brendon liked that idea).
Then, to the right was the art room (It was filled with easels and paints and sketchbooks and pencils and most of all it had guitars and an out-of-tune piano that Brendon would probably play sooner or later) where patients could “release their emotions with creativity.” There was the living room, as mentioned before, three phone booths to make calls (only if a number was on your “allowed-to-call list” and a nurse let you through), the nurses' station, and then finally the TV room.
Brendon was relieved that the layout was simple; he wasn't looking forward to having to memorize a confusing bunch of rooms and numbers.
“Excuse me?” Brendon asks, scrunching up his nose in shock.
Pete snorts.
“I said, are you gay? Like, you know, batting for the other team or whatever they call it?”
Brendon stares wide-eyed at the dark-haired man in front of him.
Pete waits a moment more, then rolls his eyes exaggeratedly and groans. “Oh come on. Do you like girls or boys?” he asks again, and Brendon smirks.
“Why? Are you gay or something?”
Pete's face breaks into a goofy, crooked little smile, and his eyes twinkle mischievously.
“Maybe,” he responds. “Maybe.” Then he turns back to the nightly news that he's really not watching.
--------------------------
“Brendon Urie?”
Brendon pushes to the front of the line, squeezing through Patrick and Pete. The man standing at the nurses' station is holding out a plastic cup filled with two pink pills. Brendon gets there and stares at them.
“What are they?”
“Sleeping pills.”
Brendon looks at his watch. “It's only like 9:30, I don't think I'm gonna—”
“God, just take the things!” Someone groans behind him, and Brendon looks and sees Joe Trohman, another patient at the ward for substance abuse, leaning against the wall, arms crossed and dark circles under his eyes. Brendon glares, but bites his tongue and just turns around and tosses the nasty pills to the back of his throat.
The man offers him water, but Brendon gathers up as much saliva as he can and gulps down the pills without it. Then, smirking, he turns around and walks off towards his room.
--------------------------
“Checks.”
The unfamiliar voice stirs Brendon from his sleep, and he wakes up. It's dark and blue in the room, and the window is shining with moonlight. Shadows dance menacingly across the wall, and he gulps, feeling scared only for a moment. His first night sleeping was only going as smoothly as it was because he was drugged up on the pills.
But Brendon knows now that he won't get to sleep for another hour or two because the pills have probably worn off and his mind will be too busy churning over the events of his day to rest for a while, so he turns and faces where the voice came from.
A man is standing in the doorway with a clipboard and flashlight, and quickly he shines the light on both Brendon and Spencer's sleeping form. Then he exits without a word.
Brendon sits there dumfounded for a second, and then whispers into the quiet of the bedroom,
“Spencer?”
No response.
“Spencer,” he urges again, and this time the other boy stirs and turns around to face Brendon with a sluggish,
“Huh?”
Brendon swallows. “What was that?” he asks.
Spencer smiles imperceptibly. “Those were checks. They do that to make sure none of us have run away or hung ourselves or whatever. You get used to it after a while,” he explains, and rubs his blue eyes.
Brendon nods, trying to forget the comment about the guards making sure they haven't “hung themselves”.
There's quiet, and Brendon and Spencer just stare at each other.
“Why is Pete so mean?” Brendon asks suddenly.
Spencer frowns.
“Pete has something called `nightmare disorder'. It's where something's haunting the mind or whatever and they have nightmares usually every night. Really freaky ones, and they feel like it's real,” he explains, and Brendon chuckles.
“Like Freddy Kruger kind of thing?”
Spencer doesn't smile back.
“Yeah. Pete wakes up almost every night screeching and crying about how he was `gonna die' and `it's all over'. Sometimes he wakes up yelling about being `covered in blood'. It's really sick stuff.”
Brendon doesn't think it's funny anymore.
“He barely gets more than four hours of sleep every night. It's rough. They usually douse him with sleeping pills, like tonight, but they're trying to take him off so he's ticked about that, I guess. Add that with the tiredness and the fact he's just a tough Chicago guy and you get Pete's nasty attitude,” Spencer finishes.
Brendon nods.
“What about that fat guy? Patrick? The dude's obsessed with his hat and doesn't talk to anyone.”
“He has something called `avoidant personality disorder'. It's where the people are really socially withdrawn and sensitive to criticism but really want acceptance. That's why he's always asking everyone what they think about him.”
Brendon prods on.
“Joe?”
“Just plain ol' alcoholic and pot-head.'
“…You?”
Spencer swallows.
“I've got OCD. Obsessive-compulsive disorder really, really bad.”
Brendon remembers the incident with the CDs and chews his bottom lip.
“So…anybody else in this place I should be forewarned about?” Brendon asks, smirking.
Spencer's quiet.
“Spencer?”
“Goodnight, Brendon.”
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