fic: for i was an earthly knight (2/3)
Jun. 12th, 2008 07:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
violaceaPart One
Mike and Butcher were working on the world’s largest beer can tower on their table – “don’t you dare even breathe in our direction, Walker, or we will hunt you down and pull out all your toenails” – so Jon set his Subway bag down across from Spencer instead. Spencer just raised an eyebrow at him. More than a week had passed since the night Jon had first noticed the strange colors, and in that time, Spencer hadn’t spoken more than three words at a time to Jon. The morning after the casino, Spencer had stared at Jon so hard Jon was almost positive he had lingering laser marks in the back of his head, and the blue swirls that followed him around jumped erratically every time Jon glanced in Spencer’s direction.
Once Jon sat down, Spencer went back to the magazine he was reading, still silent. Jon unwrapped his sandwich. “Isn’t it awesome,” he said casually, “to finally be in a venue that has more than a broken futon backstage?” Spencer didn’t look up. Jon continued, “When I was actually in a band, I used to think we’d made it big when we didn’t have to walk through the crowd to get to the stage for our set. You guys have it so easy, man. I’m totally jealous.”
“You should be, Jon Walker,” Brendon said cheerfully from behind him. “We’re going to be the biggest band in the history of the world, and we’ll have, like, the ability to disappear and reappear wherever we want and not have to deal with silly humans ever!”
Brendon sat on Jon’s leg and draped his arm around Jon’s shoulder. Gold tendrils drifted in front of Jon’s face, causing him to see Spencer’s face – still bent over his magazine – in a hazy glow. “I’m hungry, Jon. Your sandwich smells fantastic!”
Jon shoved lightly at Brendon, but not enough to push him off his lap. Brendon was amazingly light for an eighteen-year-old boy. The gold waves that followed him settled around Jon’s neck like an invisible necklace, “Subway is three blocks away. Go get your own.”
Brendon stuck his bottom lip out. Jon grinned. That kid could pout better than any four-year-old he’d ever seen. “There are girls outside, Jon. Girls who want my body. Going outside is a bad idea.”
Spencer snorted. Jon looked over at him, but Brendon was the one who responded. “Fuck you, Smith, they do too want my body!”
“Absolutely, you are a gigantic stud.” Spencer’s voice was drier than the desert air outside. He still didn’t look up from his magazine.
“A gigantic stud who is wasting away.” Brendon set his chin on Jon’s shoulder. “So Jon should give me his sandwich, because he’s not wasting away.”
“Hey, are you saying I’m fat?” Jon shoved Brendon again, this time a little harder. Brendon clung to Jon’s neck to avoid falling to the floor.
“No! I’m saying you’re awesomely dude-shaped, and I am not. I need help to look as awesome as you!”
Brendon put his chin back on Jon’s shoulder, fluttering his eyelashes for good measure. Jon felt his stomach rumble, but he found himself grinning at Brendon anyway. “What if you get fat and the girls don’t want your body any more?”
“I would live. Besides, if I looked as good as you the girls would want me even more!”
“You have a silver tongue, Urie.” Jon patted Brendon’s head before reaching over and handing him his sandwich. “Go eat it somewhere else. I don’t want to smell it if I can’t have it.”
Brendon laid a smacking, wet kiss on Jon’s cheek, and the gold following him passed in front of Jon’s eyes, temporarily making Brendon and Spencer both glow, as if they sat in a sunbeam. “You are my favorite, Jon Walker! I love you!” he called over his shoulder as he ran away.
Jon made a rude gesture at the doorway Brendon disappeared through, but he was grinning. When he turned back to the table, Spencer was finally looking at him – staring at him, in fact, with wide blue eyes. He seemed even paler than usual. “Are you okay?” Jon asked.
“You gave him your sandwich.” Spencer closed his magazine without looking at it.
“Yeah, he would have bugged me the entire meal if I didn’t. Besides, he has to go on stage, he probably needs more energy than me.” Jon shrugged. “I can go back to Subway while you guys are on stage.”
“You could have sent him back to the bus to get his own food.”
“It wasn’t a big deal. It made him happy, and I’m not dying of hunger over here.” Jon’s stomach rumbled again, and he chuckled. “Not too much, anyway.”
“You …” Spencer put his hands to his face. As Jon watched, the blue trails that always accompanied Spencer moved independently, even as Spencer’s body stayed still. Jon once again felt that peculiar absence of air, like the table he and Spencer sat at existed in its own separate world. He stopped hearing Butcher laughing in the background, or the bad 80s metal playing over the clubs loudspeakers. Spencer’s blue aura was agitated enough that it shot halfway across the table. Without thinking, Jon reached across and tried to touch it. He still couldn’t feel it, but he watched it curl around his fingers as if it wanted to grab hold of him. He looked away from his hand to see Spencer staring at him, his hands fisted in the blue cloud as if he could physically hold it. For a brief moment, Jon felt something tighten around his hand, like he was trapped by the blue light. Then, Spencer relaxed his fist, and the feeling dissipated.
Jon felt air move around his face again, finally, and he reached up to rub his eyes automatically. When he looked again, Spencer was gone.
***
Jon knew when Pete arrived. It was pretty hard to miss Pete Wentz when he was within ten miles of you – he was all braying laugh and perpetual motion. Also, it was hard to miss him when he leaped onto the bench at the front of the bus and shouted, “Rise and shine, fuckheads, southern California is waiting for you!”
After a brief period of torturing every member of The Academy – and Jon – Pete disappeared to the Panic at the Disco bus. “Gotta keep an eye on the children,” William said, a sneer flitting across his face. William’s tolerance of Panic at the disco was waning. Every night, the crowd for the opening acts grew larger and larger, and William’s green shadows wrapped around him almost violently when he spied people leaving after Panic’s set, which happened more often every night.
As Pete bounced down the stairs of the bus, Jon saw a garish orange trail following him, like the flame detail on the side of a car pimped by that stupidly addicting show on MTV. Jon had become enough acclimated to the randomly appearing colors to be amused by this – of course Pete would have an aura that looked like a cartoon.
Later, inside the venue, Jon finished taking photos of William and Tom skateboarding across the stage – the venue manager came in to yell at them, and Jon waved cheerfully at everyone. “I have to go find someplace to plug my camera battery into,” he said, and left the other two to deal with the consequences. (One of the perks of being the official observer, he thought.) He knew he’d seen an outlet in the green room, so he wandered back in that direction, whistling.
When he walked through the green room door, the room was silent, and five pairs of eyes stared at him: Pete and the entirety of Panic at the Disco. Jon looked around the room. Pete, Ryan, and Brent were unreadable, but the set of Spencer’s jaw told Jon the boy was mad, and Brendon? Well, Brendon just looked scared. Jon blinked. “Hey, guys,” he said. “Sorry, did I interrupt something?”
No one spoke for a moment, and then Pete smiled. “Yeah, just a business meeting. Can we have a few minutes?”
Jon shrugged. “Sure, I can go find somewhere else to be.”
Brendon looked at his feet, but Spencer continued to stare at Jon. For some reason, Jon felt like if he could read minds he’d be getting an earful (brainful?) from Spencer at that moment. When Pete cleared his throat, Jon backed out of the room, a sheepish grin on his face. He closed the door, but instead of walking away, he stood next to the door and strained to hear the conversation inside.
It took him a moment to be able to discern words through the door, but when his hearing adjusted, he heard the tail end of a question from Ryan. “… do we go?” His voice was flat – not that Ryan ever had much expression in his voice, but this was frighteningly free of inflection.
“In the time you’re currently using? A week.” Pete paused. “I tried to get her to wait until the end of the tour, but her current … protégé is completely finished.”
“And I’m next in line,” Brendon said, voice bitter. “Or, actually, I’m not, but I’m next on your list, and that’s what counts, isn’t it?” Jon hadn’t thought he was capable of that tone – he’d never heard Brendon sound anything like it. Happy and ridiculous, exhausted and grumpy, sharp and mocking when talking about some of the particularly weird fans who waited for them outside of venues, of course. But this particular tone, the bitterness, made him sound so much older and more jaded than Jon thought possible.
“Enough.” Pete’s voice commanded attention – usually, even his professional voice was casual, as if everything he did business-wise was preceded by “oh, hey, we’re all friends, wouldn’t it be cool if we made money, too?” But, this sounded like a Pete Jon didn’t know. “It is what it is. You play in a week. Everyone will be assembled. You should be prepared.”
“Why Brendon?” Ryan asked.
Pete paused. “Because it has to be someone.”
“And if we refuse?” Spencer, low and calm. “What will she do if we don’t show up?”
“You know that better than I do. You’re not stupid. Don’t act like it.” Pete didn’t quite sound like he was mocking Spencer, but there was an undercurrent there, something sharp.
There was a pause, during which Jon could hear nothing but a few undistinguishable sounds, then he heard Brent’s voice. “Sit down, Spencer. You know …”
“I do.” Spencer interrupted him. “I know what’s coming. I know we’re being sacrificed because Pete wants to keep his own house intact. Don’t think I’ll forget that.”
“Don’t judge me until you’ve been in my shoes, Spencer.” Pete’s statement was matter-of-fact, his tone softer than it had been.
Jon didn’t have time to process the odd statements. He heard shuffling inside the room that might mean they were preparing to leave, which meant he had to get out of sight quickly. He hurried down the hall, to the tiny security office. The man sitting at the desk gave him a surprised look. Jon waved his camera at him. “Need a power outlet. Do you have one I could borrow for a while?”
Jon didn’t see any of them again until Panic was on stage. Pete stood at the side of the stage, watching the show. Jon stood behind Pete and watched for a few songs. Brendon was off, stumbling over words he normally had no problem fitting around his tongue, and Ryan remained completely stationary at his microphone, refusing to look up at the audience. Brent, as usual, played in his own contained world.
Spencer, though … during the songs, Spencer watched Brendon with concern, never missing a beat. In between songs, however, he looked to the side of the stage. He and Pete engaged in a staring contest that made Jon want to slink out of sight, away from either of them; the phrase “out of the line of fire” kept running through his mind.
After three songs, Pete spoke, just loud enough for Jon to hear him. “You have no idea what’s going on, Walker.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Jon replied, stepping up to stand next to Pete.
Pete broke his silent war with Spencer long enough to turn and look at Jon. He studied Jon’s face for a long moment before speaking. “You’re in this somehow. I don’t know how, or why, but I can tell. You weren’t meant to be. So, for that, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what? Seriously, Pete, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Pete looked back at the stage, his face contorted in an expression that might have been a smirk or a grimace, Jon couldn’t tell in the low light. “I do what I need to do. I’m selfish enough to hope that, if you ever do get the whole story, you understand that.”
Pete walked away. Jon remained at the side of the stage for the rest of the song, watching Spencer watch Brendon.
***
Spencer found Jon outside of the buses the next day, the first time Spencer had initiated a conversation between the two of them in weeks. “I need to talk to you,” Spencer said softly. “Can we find someplace?”
Jon found himself nodding. “There’s a Starbucks around the corner, we could go there.”
Spencer shook his head. “Somewhere private. We can go get coffee, though, if you want.”
The venue was down the street from a small park – god bless California, Jon thought, for whatever its flaws its cities tended to be oddly un-city-like in some ways – so he and Spencer walked over with their lattes and sat on the ground, underneath a tree. The park was mostly deserted; it felt like spring to Jon, but the natives probably considered this the dead of winter. Jon sat cross-legged, while Spencer drew his knees to his chest, closed his eyes and breathed in the coffee. Jon watched his face; the steam from the beverage mingled with the blue puffs that seemed to drift off of his hair and eyelashes. When Spencer opened his eyes, he trained his gaze on Jon. Deliberately, Spencer raised his hand between the two of them. His fingers splayed out, and the blue swirls danced between them, curling up and down and eventually chasing itself around in a circle in the palm of Spencer’s hand. Jon stared at it. Spencer let out a breath. “You see.”
Jon looked up, feeling almost guilty. “I thought I was hallucinating for a while. But yeah, I see.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“Not really.”
“But it doesn’t freak you out.”
Jon shrugged. “Sure it does. But, what was I supposed to do, tell everyone I can see you guys in weird colors? I figured anyone who didn’t already have a color following them around would think I was dropping acid or something.”
Spencer nodded, and narrowed his eyes at Jon. “Who all do you see?”
It sounded like a test. Jon scowled for a moment. “You, Brendon, Ryan. William. Siska, though his is really pale and might just be me making things up. Pete had one, too.” Jon fell silent, but then added, “And Brent. I saw his.”
“Yeah,” Spencer said, but Jon couldn’t figure out whether he was acknowledging the whole list or just Brent. “You see too much,” Spencer continued, after a long pause. “More than you should, I think.”
“I don’t understand jack shit, though. Are you going to explain it to me?” Spencer’s mouth twisted, and for a moment, Jon was sure the answer was going to be “no.” “Listen, dude, I don’t know what the hell is going on. I’m seeing impossible shit, okay, whatever, I’ve gotten used to it. But either let me into your weird little thing or don’t, I don’t need this teasing bullshit.”
Jon stood up, but Spencer touched his leg. “Sit. Please.” It sounded less like a plea and more like a royal command, but Jon sat anyway. He settled in slightly farther away from Spencer, though, and looked down at his coffee cup for a few moments before raising his glance to Spencer’s face.
Spencer took a breath. “I need your help,” he said. “Brendon’s in trouble.”
Jon nodded. “I heard. Sort of,” he clarified, when surprise flitted across Spencer’s face. “I heard part of it, when Pete was talking to you guys. What was that?”
Spencer abandoned his coffee and turned to face Jon completely. “That … was complicated.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain this to you. It’s so much harder,” he said softly, almost to himself, “to explain things these days.”
“These days?” Jon asked.
Spencer’s mouth spread in a tiny smile. “Okay. How old am I, Jon?”
“Eighteen. What the hell?”
Spencer shook his head. “I am … older. A lot older.”
“What?”
“When I was born …” Spencer trailed off and leaned back on his elbows. “When I was born, your country was still a shiny new playground for Europeans. My first journey into this world was on a ship sailing from England to the New World. We arrived in a colony that had been abandoned by its settlers. None of the humans ever knew what had happened. It was better that way.”
Jon stared at Spencer. He couldn’t be saying … that was impossible. “Humans.”
“You’re human. I’m not.”
Nothing on Spencer’s face indicated he was joking, but still … “Fuck you.” Jon stood up again. This was a joke. It had to be – in a minute, Spencer would start laughing and pointing, and maybe he’d tell William later, and everyone would laugh for a week about how gullible Jon was … “Fuck you,” he repeated, and started to walk away.
“Jon.” After only a few steps, Spencer’s hand was on Jon’s shoulder. “Stay. Listen. Please.”
When Jon turned back to face Spencer, he was enveloped in blue, in a cloud that contained only the two of them, not quite blocking out the rest of the world but making the park look hazy and distant. He looked up at Spencer – and for a moment, Jon indulged in a feeling of irritation that he was short, because somehow he didn’t think Spencer should be taller than him, not if he was eighteen, and he was, dammit, he couldn’t be anything else – and saw eyes that had no whites, filled entirely with the same color as the cloud surrounding them. Spencer’s skin was bright enough to be almost translucent, and when Jon blinked, he suddenly saw something on the side of his head. A pale, pointed end stuck out from red-brown hair. “Is that … your ear? What are you, a fucking elf or something?”
The cloud dissipated, and Spencer put a hand to his head. The noise he made might have been a laugh, but Jon was a little too lightheaded to judge. “God, I fucking hate Tolkien,” Spencer muttered.
When Jon glanced at Spencer again, he looked perfectly normal. “What the hell was that?” he demanded.
“That was me. For real.” Spencer sat back on the grass, and Jon joined him, as his legs weren’t giving him much hope for continued standing. “I am … an elf, if you want to be so crass. Fae is a better word. We’ve been called a lot of things over the years.”
“You’re a faerie.” The words sounded hollow to Jon, like a joke.
“In many and varied ways.” Now that was a joke, judging by the smile on Spencer’s face. Or maybe not. Jon didn’t really trust his own judgment any more.
“You’re …” Jon rubbed his eyes. “Okay, if this is a big prank, William or Brendon or Pete can jump out from behind the tree any time. I’ll take my lumps like a man, I’m easily fucked with, whatever. I just don’t want to deal with this stupidity any more.”
“Jon,” Spencer said softly.
When he looked back at Spencer – human-looking Spencer, with his blue swirls and eyes that shone a little brighter than they should – he remembered his Gran, her stories of fae and the monsters and magic. “God, how much is actually true?”
“How much of what?”
“Everything. Stories, fairy tales.”
“Ah. More than I’d like to be true.” Spencer scooted closer to Jon and picked his own coffee back up. “How much do you know? What stories do you know?”
“A few. My great-grandmother, she always claimed to have some kind of power, the Sight, she called it …”
Spencer nodded. “That explains so much.”
“What, is that why I can see you?”
“Partly, yeah.”
“Partly?”
“Never mind. That’s complicated – it’s a story for later.” Spencer waved a hand in the air. “For the moment, just assume that any story your grandmother told you was true, okay?”
“No, wait, hold up. I’m still … I’m back on the whole faerie thing. Because faeries don’t exist. They’re myths! You can’t be a faerie, because you exist.” The logic made sense to Jon, and he felt like hitting Spencer when he started to laugh.
“Okay,” Spencer said, “fine, I’m not a faerie. What am I, then?”
“I don’t know. I’ll buy you have some sort of freaky magic thing going on. I’ll believe that magic exists. Weird things can happen here on earth, to humans. I can get behind that. I see weird things with you guys, which can be magic. But you’re human, because …” Jon shook his head. “You have to be.”
“Do you want me to start quoting Shakespeare at you? More things in heaven and earth, all that crap?”
“Shut up, you barely graduated high school.”
“Kiss my ass.” For a moment, Spencer looked like an irritated teenager, and Jon felt much better. But, then, he continued, “Ryan met Shakespeare once. I was Underhill at the time, but Ryan spent some time hanging out in England that century. I can’t get him to admit he had anything to do with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but I can totally tell.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Jon.” Spencer reached out and touched Jon’s shoulder. Jon forced himself to not jerk away – he was still freaked out, and there was a strange feeling of electricity on the skin underneath his t-shirt, where he could see the blue energy skittering across the fabric. “Please listen to me. I need you to believe me. You need to just accept all this and move on, because Brendon’s in trouble, and I need your help.”
Jon rubbed his eyes. When he looked again, Spencer was staring at him, blue eyes wide with sincerity. He decided to throw caution – and sanity – to the wind. “Okay. Okay, for the sake of argument, I’ll buy all of this bullshit. What’s wrong with Brendon?”
Spencer nodded, once. “Our world ... is very different from yours. The human world has changed so much, but our world never really does. That’s one of the reasons I like being here so much more.” Spencer drew his knees to his chest again, and for a moment, Jon once again believed he was just an eighteen-year-old boy. “We have a Queen – she’s been the Queen for longer than I’ve been alive, longer than my parents have been alive. Our world, Underhill, revolves around her. Everyone, everything exists for her enjoyment.” Spencer looked away, over Jon’s shoulder. “The thing is, everyone has a good time at the Queen’s Court, but no one ever does anything new. Most fae don’t know how to be creative. Creativity is magic to us, just as much as anything humans would consider extraordinary.”
“What can you do that I’d consider extraordinary?” Jon asked.
Spencer smiled. “Besides live for hundreds of years?”
“Point. Yeah, besides that.”
“All those things your great-grandmother told you, in stories, I could probably do.” Spencer pulled a handful of grass from the ground. “I could turn each blade into a gold coin, if I wanted – or better, they’d all turn into twenty dollar bills. But everything takes energy, which I don’t have an unlimited supply of. I could turn the grass into money, but I also require the same kind of energy to play onstage, so if I used it now I might, say, accidentally drop my glamour and show my true face when a spotlight is trained on me.”
“That wouldn’t necessarily be a disaster. You could always tell the press that your next tour is going to have a Lord of the Rings theme. They’d totally buy it.”
Spencer laughed, which made Jon relax a little. Spencer’s laugh sounded like it always did, open and unforced. Jon liked being the cause of it. “Also, the twenty dollar bills would eventually turn back into grass. In this day and age, the police are really good at tracking down people they think should be in jail, so manufacturing money is just a bad idea all around.”
“Okay, so you’re not going to make me a millionaire. Got it. There’s one dream crushed.”
Spencer was still smiling, but it faded from his face as he brought the conversation back to the original topic. “Fae value creativity above all else. Boredom is our natural enemy – we live for so many years, but most of us have very little drive to go out and explore new things. The Court can sit and do nothing for decades, until finally someone decides to kill someone else just for fun. Wars are no fun for anyone, not once the killing starts in earnest.” Spencer looked serious enough that Jon smothered the laugh that bubbled up from his chest. Spencer continued, “Most fae couldn’t play a note of music if their lives depended on it. When one of us exhibits any kind of creative energy, we’re immediately sent here to the human world. It’s much easier to nurture that energy in a place so full of it.”
“Which place do you like better?” Jon asked, unable to resist.
Spencer just looked at him. Jon shrugged, conceding the point, and Spencer continued. “Our Queen … well, she’s the most powerful of us all.”
“Duh.”
Spencer flipped him off, a reassuringly human gesture. “The thing is, she gets a lot of her power by … using other fae. Humans sometimes, if they’re spectacularly gifted, but mostly only fae have the levels of power that she wants.”
“I don’t get it.”
“It’s like …” Spencer grinned. “If a human’s creative talent was a single potato chip, a fae’s creative talent would be a whole can of Pringles.”
Jon snorted a laugh at the analogy. “So, when you say she uses them, she …”
“Takes their energy. All of it. She always has a pet; when she’s done, whatever poor fae she’s drained is left in the care of their family. The discarded pet is useless – you’d be lucky to get monosyllabic conversation from them. It’s a better fate than when she picks a human, though. I’ve seen humans when she gets done with them.” Spencer didn’t shudder, but Jon saw something haunted in his eyes before he closed them, briefly. “Fae with creative energy are her favorites.”
“She gets to eat the whole can of chips?”
Spencer gave Jon a small smile. “Yeah, exactly like that.”
“So …” Jon prompted, after Spencer fell silent.
“So … the Queen is between pets. Brendon is next on her list.”
Jon blinked. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” Spencer leaned back on his elbows and looked at the sky. “She’ll make him go back Underhill. He’ll never come back to this world. He’ll be her constant companion, for as long as he lasts. And he’ll last a long time – he’s got an amazing amount of creative energy, more than almost any fae I’ve ever seen. But she’ll take that energy, slowly but surely …” Spencer sat back up and looked Jon in the eye. “You know that energy that follows him around? That gold shine? He won’t have that any more. He won’t have anything any more. He won’t be Brendon.”
Jon shifted his gaze to the grass. It was easier than meeting Spencer’s eyes. “That’s what Pete was here about.”
“Yeah.” This time, Spencer’s laugh was bitter. “Pete … works for the Queen. He plays his own games. Sometimes, they work for us. Sometimes they don’t.”
“I can’t believe Pete would just give Brendon over like that. Condemn him to …” Jon frowned. The Pete he knew loved all his friends enthusiastically, sometimes too enthusiastically; he was obnoxious and smart and incredibly loyal.
“Pete isn’t the person you think he is.”
“Neither are you.”
“True.” Spencer raked his hand through his hair again. “It’s not all Pete’s fault,” he admitted. “Brendon has been on the Queen’s radar for a long time now. He’s younger than me, younger than Ryan. He was presented to Court at a time when our creative pool was … shallow. He stood out. She’s remembered him for a long time now.” Spencer rolled his eyes, a self-deprecating gesture. “My creative abilities aren’t great. I don’t generally make a big impression unless I’m with Ryan. Which saved Ryan’s life, really.” Jon made a questioning face, but Spencer ignored him. “We’re very different here, in your world, than we are in ours.”
“I’m getting that.” Jon stretched his neck; he looked at the sky for a moment, brilliant blue with a scattering of puffy white clouds. A normal sky. Around him, a normal park. It was weird, to be having this conversation on such a normal day. He looked back at Spencer. “But Ryan’s not the one in trouble,” he prompted.
“No. No, Ryan’s family … isn’t good enough for her. Ryan’s got a lot of talent, but to use him would be slumming.” A thought flitted across Spencer’s face, but he didn’t speak it aloud. Jon thought it might amount to thank god.
“What about Brent?” Jon asked.
Spencer’s expression shifted slightly. “Brent isn’t that talented – he’s got enough to play, but as a pet, he wouldn’t last half as long as the talents she’s used to. I wouldn’t, either, really.” Spencer shrugged. “Besides, Brent’s family is part of the Queen’s inner circle. She assigned him to play with us – basically, he spies on us for her.” Spencer sighed. “Brendon, on the other hand, is from a good family, and has more creative talent in his little finger than the rest of her Court combined. He’s exactly the kind of pet she loves, the kind she only gets once every century or so. And apparently, now she’s going to get him.”
“In a week.” Jon flushed when Spencer stared at him. “I told you, I was kind of eavesdropping.”
“In a week,” Spencer acknowledged. “In a week, we’ll play our very last show. And then we’ll lose Brendon forever.” Spencer stared past Jon again, his eyes haunted. Suddenly, Jon wondered just how much worse “forever” seemed to someone who lived as long as Spencer claimed to have lived.
“So, what are you going to do about it?” Spencer’s gaze jerked back to Jon’s face, but Jon just exhaled and continued. “You brought me out here, told me all this bullshit – which, fuck me, I’m actually starting to believe – but first, you told me you needed my help. That tells me you have a plan to save Brendon, because I don’t think I’m the one you’d be going to if you needed help explaining to the world why Panic at the Disco suddenly dropped off the face of the earth.”
Spencer kept staring at him, unblinking. “What makes you think you’d be the one I’d come to for help with that, if I did have a plan? What makes you think you’re qualified?”
“You’re here, aren’t you? Talking to me? You said you need me. You said Brendon’s in trouble.”
Spencer continued to study Jon’s face. Jon forced himself to not look away, to meet Spencer’s gaze. Finally, Spencer nodded, as if to himself. “If I did have a plan, and I asked you to help, would you?”
The air around them seemed to still. Jon felt words bubbling up in his chest – “yes”, he wanted to say, wanted to pledge whatever help he could to Spencer. But, something in his brain kept the words out of his throat. Because, really, how crazy was all of this? Instead, Jon forced himself to say, “You’re going to have to be more specific than that.”
Spencer looked surprised. “I do have a plan,” he said. “Something that might save Brendon’s life. I can’t do it by myself, but I can’t ask Brendon or Ryan to help me.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s dangerous.” Spencer looked at the sky. “Really fucking dangerous. You wouldn’t be entirely safe.” He chuckled humorlessly. “You could be killed, or worse.”
Jon hesitated. After looking at Spencer’s face, at his mouth set in a grim line, he asked, “Brendon, what he’s in for, that probably falls into the ‘or worse’ category, doesn’t it?” When Spencer nodded, Jon exhaled. “Dude, you’re asking me to believe a lot of bullshit here. What am I supposed to say here – yes, of course, I’ll agree to risk my life for someone I just met a few weeks ago? Just because someone else I don’t know that well says he’s not human? I’m still not sure I’m not dreaming this conversation. I don’t fucking know.”
They fell into a long silence. Spencer continued to study Jon’s face, as if he expected to find something written there. Jon tried not to squirm under the scrutiny, and took the opportunity to study Spencer’s face himself. He’d always taken Spencer’s roundness as a sign of his age, the lingering effects of baby fat, but now he saw planes and angles in that face that he hadn’t noticed before. His skin glowed, even now, even while he looked human, and Jon resisted the urge to reach up and run the back of his hand down Spencer’s cheek, just to feel it. Part of him thought that if he tried he’d draw back a bloody stump. Another part of him, the part that was watching Spencer’s eyes, that saw something hidden behind the impassive stare, wondered if Spencer’s reaction would be all together different.
The loud buzz of Jon’s phone broke the spell. Jon jumped, before rummaging around in the pocket of his jeans. “What?” he barked into the phone when he flipped it open.
“Dude. Where the fuck are you?” Tom sounded angry. “We’ve been looking all over the fucking venue!”
“Oh. Sorry, I, um, went out for coffee with Spencer. I guess we lost track of time.”
“You’re not getting paid to babysit the freakshow,” Tom informed him. “Get your ass back here and actually do some work.”
By the time Jon closed his phone, Spencer had stood up. He offered a hand to Jon, who took it and hauled himself to his feet. Before he let go of Spencer’s hand, however, he looked down. His own hand was tinged blue, with smoky curls drifting around their entwined fingers. “What is that, anyway?” Jon asked.
Spencer looked down, to see what he was looking at. When Jon looked up, Spencer was wearing a small smile. “It’s hard to explain. You might call it my soul.”
“Really?” Jon stood there for another moment, his hand locked with Spencer’s, watching the blue light dance. When he pulled away – somewhat reluctantly – he plastered a smirk on his face. “That’s kinda deep, man.” Spencer just raised an eyebrow at him and gestured back towards the venue.
When they reached the stage door – where Tom and William waited, frowning – Spencer leaned in to Jon. “Please think about it,” he murmured. “We need you.”
Jon felt a chill run down his spine when Spencer walked away.
***
After that night’s show, Jon found Brendon sitting on the ground behind his bus, staring off into the distance. Jon sat down next to him. “What are we looking at?”
Brendon didn’t turn his head. “Down there, outside the bar on the next block. Some drunk dude just got kicked out and is about to have his head bashed in by the thick-necked bouncer.”
Jon looked down the street, and sure enough, there was some sort of altercation happening, just loudly enough for him to make out angry voices. “That’s gonna hurt,” he observed, after seeing the barrel-chested bouncer shove the drunk patron to the ground.
“Poor guy,” Brendon said. “He was probably just having a good time. Doesn’t deserve to have some asshole with a bunch of power take him down.”
Brendon’s voice was laced with something darker than normal conversation, and Jon glanced sideways at him. “You okay?” he ventured.
This brought Brendon’s gaze to Jon’s face. “Fine,” Brendon said after a too-long pause. He laughed, a sound so sharp that Jon imagined someone somewhere bled. “If I said I was having a bad week, it’d be kind of like saying the Pacific was a pond in your backyard. But what the fuck can you do?” He looked back out at the street, his chin resting on his knees.
“Can I do anything to help?” Jon asked. Would Brendon ask him the same thing Spencer had? He didn’t even know if anyone else knew what Spencer had told him.
Brendon responded with another laugh, this one a bit softer, but still ugly. “You can pass over the joint I know you have in your pocket, is what you can do.”
Jon dug around in his pocket until he came up with the joint and a lighter. “Seriously, Brendon …” he said, watching the other boy light up. “If you want to talk about it …”
“No.” Brendon took a long drag, exhaling after a pause long enough to make Jon wonder if he ever had to breathe. “I wish this worked better than it does sometimes,” he muttered, staring at the smoke dissipating around him. “I wish it helped me forget.” The smoke mingled with the gold that followed Brendon around, which currently showed a far more muted color than Jon was used to. The red-gold aura that surrounded Brendon usually bounced with the same energy Brendon did; now that he was still and sullen, it pooled around his arms and legs, drifting listlessly. Jon was tempted to reach out and poke it, to see if it responded to him the way Spencer’s had, if he would feel the cloud in the same way. Instead, though, he balled his hand into a fist. It seemed an intrusion, in a way it somehow hadn’t with Spencer.
Jon fell silent, and they sat there for a long time, staring at the bar patrons walking down the street. Finally, Brendon sighed. “I like it here,” he said softly, almost inaudibly. “I don’t want to go.”
“So don’t,” Jon said automatically. Brendon jerked his head around, and Jon felt himself flush. “Don’t go anywhere.” Jon met Brendon’s eyes. “You don’t have to.”
“You don’t know anything, Jon Walker,” Brendon said sadly. “I kinda wish you did.”
“Me too,” Jon whispered.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jon saw Spencer walk out of the venue. He saw Spencer pause to watch the two of them for a few minutes – maybe an hour, Jon lost track of time somewhere. Eventually, he walked onto the bus without comment. Jon was somehow disappointed.
***
Jon waited for three days. Three long days, during which he spent a lot of time watching Panic from afar; he was an outsider to their drama, he told himself. Besides, it was easier to take the dimming of Brendon’s personality when he wasn’t interacting with him – from enough distance, Jon couldn’t see the muted, almost sickly gold dangling around Brendon’s hands when he made the effort to talk normally to someone else on the tour. He didn’t have to watch Ryan’s violet turn nearly black, the only outward sign that Ryan was anything other than his usual reserved, disdainful self. Brent, for his part, seemed almost unaffected – his smoky gray aura flowed like normal, making Jon irrationally angry. The rest of his band seemed to be in mourning. It was only appropriate.
Well, perhaps Spencer wasn’t mourning, not quite yet. Jon didn’t see much of Spencer off-stage. He avoided Panic’s sets for the most part, choosing to sit instead in the green room and listen to William and Butcher shout over each other. He joined in the revelry occasionally, accepting the beer cans that were pressed into his hand and laughing appropriately at Mike’s imitations of groupies outside the venue the night before.
On the third night, Tom sat next to him and watched him quietly. “What are you thinking about in that thick skull?” he asked Jon finally, quietly, low enough that the rest of the room wouldn’t notice.
Jon shook his head. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
“Bullshit.” Tom continued to stare. “What did you get yourself into?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t fuck around with me, man.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have fucked around with me,” Jon snapped.
Tom’s eyes widened, only a millimeter, but noticeable. “Be careful,” he murmured. “Be very, very careful.”
“It might be a little late for that,” Jon said, just as low. “Why didn’t you …”
“I couldn’t.” When Jon looked at him, hard, Tom spread his hands in his lap, a subtle gesture. “I really couldn’t. There are reasons … ways. I just hoped that you …”
At that moment, William decided to drape himself across Tom’s lap. Tom shoved him off onto the floor, starting a wrestling match that spilled Jon’s beer all over his jeans and caused the rest of the room to start hollering bets on the winner. When Jon could extricate himself, he left the room and walked to the stage, where Panic was finishing their set.
Jon couldn’t bear to look at Brendon, going through the motions, so he watched at Spencer as he drummed. Spencer’s blue aura was glowing as brightly as it ever had – brighter, maybe, with a cold edge that made it look like a gas flame, hard and dangerous. When he finally looked over at Jon, the blue flames shot long in every direction. It looked like Spencer was burning in the same cold heat Jon had noticed the first time he’d seen the colored auras. Jon felt an odd calm come over him. The more Spencer seemed to burn, the more at peace he felt. He couldn’t quite grasp it, but it kept him at the side of the stage until the four exited, applause echoing behind them.
When they passed by Jon, Spencer brought up the rear; Jon grabbed his arm. “We need to talk.”
Spencer looked at him gravely, and nodded.
***
Later that night, behind the bus, Jon stared at Spencer. “You know,” he said, almost conversationally, as if there wasn’t a tremble underneath his voice, “I did listen to a lot of my Gran’s stories. You told me that most of them were true –“
“In part,” Spencer interrupted. “They’ve been warped along the way.”
“Still. The main theme of those stories seemed to be ‘don’t fuck with the Faerie Queen’.”
Spencer nodded. “Always a good piece of advice.”
“Except for right now?”
“Desperate times, Jon.”
“Right.” Jon exhaled. “I’m out of my mind. For considering this, and even for believing you in the first place. You know that, right?”
“You might be.” Spencer looked sideways at him, the winter breeze – wintry for California, anyway – blowing his hair into his eyes. “You’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I am.”
Something shone in Spencer’s eyes, and Jon imagined that it was actually the ice-blue flames messing his hair, rather than the wind. “Good.”
Part Three
Mike and Butcher were working on the world’s largest beer can tower on their table – “don’t you dare even breathe in our direction, Walker, or we will hunt you down and pull out all your toenails” – so Jon set his Subway bag down across from Spencer instead. Spencer just raised an eyebrow at him. More than a week had passed since the night Jon had first noticed the strange colors, and in that time, Spencer hadn’t spoken more than three words at a time to Jon. The morning after the casino, Spencer had stared at Jon so hard Jon was almost positive he had lingering laser marks in the back of his head, and the blue swirls that followed him around jumped erratically every time Jon glanced in Spencer’s direction.
Once Jon sat down, Spencer went back to the magazine he was reading, still silent. Jon unwrapped his sandwich. “Isn’t it awesome,” he said casually, “to finally be in a venue that has more than a broken futon backstage?” Spencer didn’t look up. Jon continued, “When I was actually in a band, I used to think we’d made it big when we didn’t have to walk through the crowd to get to the stage for our set. You guys have it so easy, man. I’m totally jealous.”
“You should be, Jon Walker,” Brendon said cheerfully from behind him. “We’re going to be the biggest band in the history of the world, and we’ll have, like, the ability to disappear and reappear wherever we want and not have to deal with silly humans ever!”
Brendon sat on Jon’s leg and draped his arm around Jon’s shoulder. Gold tendrils drifted in front of Jon’s face, causing him to see Spencer’s face – still bent over his magazine – in a hazy glow. “I’m hungry, Jon. Your sandwich smells fantastic!”
Jon shoved lightly at Brendon, but not enough to push him off his lap. Brendon was amazingly light for an eighteen-year-old boy. The gold waves that followed him settled around Jon’s neck like an invisible necklace, “Subway is three blocks away. Go get your own.”
Brendon stuck his bottom lip out. Jon grinned. That kid could pout better than any four-year-old he’d ever seen. “There are girls outside, Jon. Girls who want my body. Going outside is a bad idea.”
Spencer snorted. Jon looked over at him, but Brendon was the one who responded. “Fuck you, Smith, they do too want my body!”
“Absolutely, you are a gigantic stud.” Spencer’s voice was drier than the desert air outside. He still didn’t look up from his magazine.
“A gigantic stud who is wasting away.” Brendon set his chin on Jon’s shoulder. “So Jon should give me his sandwich, because he’s not wasting away.”
“Hey, are you saying I’m fat?” Jon shoved Brendon again, this time a little harder. Brendon clung to Jon’s neck to avoid falling to the floor.
“No! I’m saying you’re awesomely dude-shaped, and I am not. I need help to look as awesome as you!”
Brendon put his chin back on Jon’s shoulder, fluttering his eyelashes for good measure. Jon felt his stomach rumble, but he found himself grinning at Brendon anyway. “What if you get fat and the girls don’t want your body any more?”
“I would live. Besides, if I looked as good as you the girls would want me even more!”
“You have a silver tongue, Urie.” Jon patted Brendon’s head before reaching over and handing him his sandwich. “Go eat it somewhere else. I don’t want to smell it if I can’t have it.”
Brendon laid a smacking, wet kiss on Jon’s cheek, and the gold following him passed in front of Jon’s eyes, temporarily making Brendon and Spencer both glow, as if they sat in a sunbeam. “You are my favorite, Jon Walker! I love you!” he called over his shoulder as he ran away.
Jon made a rude gesture at the doorway Brendon disappeared through, but he was grinning. When he turned back to the table, Spencer was finally looking at him – staring at him, in fact, with wide blue eyes. He seemed even paler than usual. “Are you okay?” Jon asked.
“You gave him your sandwich.” Spencer closed his magazine without looking at it.
“Yeah, he would have bugged me the entire meal if I didn’t. Besides, he has to go on stage, he probably needs more energy than me.” Jon shrugged. “I can go back to Subway while you guys are on stage.”
“You could have sent him back to the bus to get his own food.”
“It wasn’t a big deal. It made him happy, and I’m not dying of hunger over here.” Jon’s stomach rumbled again, and he chuckled. “Not too much, anyway.”
“You …” Spencer put his hands to his face. As Jon watched, the blue trails that always accompanied Spencer moved independently, even as Spencer’s body stayed still. Jon once again felt that peculiar absence of air, like the table he and Spencer sat at existed in its own separate world. He stopped hearing Butcher laughing in the background, or the bad 80s metal playing over the clubs loudspeakers. Spencer’s blue aura was agitated enough that it shot halfway across the table. Without thinking, Jon reached across and tried to touch it. He still couldn’t feel it, but he watched it curl around his fingers as if it wanted to grab hold of him. He looked away from his hand to see Spencer staring at him, his hands fisted in the blue cloud as if he could physically hold it. For a brief moment, Jon felt something tighten around his hand, like he was trapped by the blue light. Then, Spencer relaxed his fist, and the feeling dissipated.
Jon felt air move around his face again, finally, and he reached up to rub his eyes automatically. When he looked again, Spencer was gone.
***
Jon knew when Pete arrived. It was pretty hard to miss Pete Wentz when he was within ten miles of you – he was all braying laugh and perpetual motion. Also, it was hard to miss him when he leaped onto the bench at the front of the bus and shouted, “Rise and shine, fuckheads, southern California is waiting for you!”
After a brief period of torturing every member of The Academy – and Jon – Pete disappeared to the Panic at the Disco bus. “Gotta keep an eye on the children,” William said, a sneer flitting across his face. William’s tolerance of Panic at the disco was waning. Every night, the crowd for the opening acts grew larger and larger, and William’s green shadows wrapped around him almost violently when he spied people leaving after Panic’s set, which happened more often every night.
As Pete bounced down the stairs of the bus, Jon saw a garish orange trail following him, like the flame detail on the side of a car pimped by that stupidly addicting show on MTV. Jon had become enough acclimated to the randomly appearing colors to be amused by this – of course Pete would have an aura that looked like a cartoon.
Later, inside the venue, Jon finished taking photos of William and Tom skateboarding across the stage – the venue manager came in to yell at them, and Jon waved cheerfully at everyone. “I have to go find someplace to plug my camera battery into,” he said, and left the other two to deal with the consequences. (One of the perks of being the official observer, he thought.) He knew he’d seen an outlet in the green room, so he wandered back in that direction, whistling.
When he walked through the green room door, the room was silent, and five pairs of eyes stared at him: Pete and the entirety of Panic at the Disco. Jon looked around the room. Pete, Ryan, and Brent were unreadable, but the set of Spencer’s jaw told Jon the boy was mad, and Brendon? Well, Brendon just looked scared. Jon blinked. “Hey, guys,” he said. “Sorry, did I interrupt something?”
No one spoke for a moment, and then Pete smiled. “Yeah, just a business meeting. Can we have a few minutes?”
Jon shrugged. “Sure, I can go find somewhere else to be.”
Brendon looked at his feet, but Spencer continued to stare at Jon. For some reason, Jon felt like if he could read minds he’d be getting an earful (brainful?) from Spencer at that moment. When Pete cleared his throat, Jon backed out of the room, a sheepish grin on his face. He closed the door, but instead of walking away, he stood next to the door and strained to hear the conversation inside.
It took him a moment to be able to discern words through the door, but when his hearing adjusted, he heard the tail end of a question from Ryan. “… do we go?” His voice was flat – not that Ryan ever had much expression in his voice, but this was frighteningly free of inflection.
“In the time you’re currently using? A week.” Pete paused. “I tried to get her to wait until the end of the tour, but her current … protégé is completely finished.”
“And I’m next in line,” Brendon said, voice bitter. “Or, actually, I’m not, but I’m next on your list, and that’s what counts, isn’t it?” Jon hadn’t thought he was capable of that tone – he’d never heard Brendon sound anything like it. Happy and ridiculous, exhausted and grumpy, sharp and mocking when talking about some of the particularly weird fans who waited for them outside of venues, of course. But this particular tone, the bitterness, made him sound so much older and more jaded than Jon thought possible.
“Enough.” Pete’s voice commanded attention – usually, even his professional voice was casual, as if everything he did business-wise was preceded by “oh, hey, we’re all friends, wouldn’t it be cool if we made money, too?” But, this sounded like a Pete Jon didn’t know. “It is what it is. You play in a week. Everyone will be assembled. You should be prepared.”
“Why Brendon?” Ryan asked.
Pete paused. “Because it has to be someone.”
“And if we refuse?” Spencer, low and calm. “What will she do if we don’t show up?”
“You know that better than I do. You’re not stupid. Don’t act like it.” Pete didn’t quite sound like he was mocking Spencer, but there was an undercurrent there, something sharp.
There was a pause, during which Jon could hear nothing but a few undistinguishable sounds, then he heard Brent’s voice. “Sit down, Spencer. You know …”
“I do.” Spencer interrupted him. “I know what’s coming. I know we’re being sacrificed because Pete wants to keep his own house intact. Don’t think I’ll forget that.”
“Don’t judge me until you’ve been in my shoes, Spencer.” Pete’s statement was matter-of-fact, his tone softer than it had been.
Jon didn’t have time to process the odd statements. He heard shuffling inside the room that might mean they were preparing to leave, which meant he had to get out of sight quickly. He hurried down the hall, to the tiny security office. The man sitting at the desk gave him a surprised look. Jon waved his camera at him. “Need a power outlet. Do you have one I could borrow for a while?”
Jon didn’t see any of them again until Panic was on stage. Pete stood at the side of the stage, watching the show. Jon stood behind Pete and watched for a few songs. Brendon was off, stumbling over words he normally had no problem fitting around his tongue, and Ryan remained completely stationary at his microphone, refusing to look up at the audience. Brent, as usual, played in his own contained world.
Spencer, though … during the songs, Spencer watched Brendon with concern, never missing a beat. In between songs, however, he looked to the side of the stage. He and Pete engaged in a staring contest that made Jon want to slink out of sight, away from either of them; the phrase “out of the line of fire” kept running through his mind.
After three songs, Pete spoke, just loud enough for Jon to hear him. “You have no idea what’s going on, Walker.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Jon replied, stepping up to stand next to Pete.
Pete broke his silent war with Spencer long enough to turn and look at Jon. He studied Jon’s face for a long moment before speaking. “You’re in this somehow. I don’t know how, or why, but I can tell. You weren’t meant to be. So, for that, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what? Seriously, Pete, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Pete looked back at the stage, his face contorted in an expression that might have been a smirk or a grimace, Jon couldn’t tell in the low light. “I do what I need to do. I’m selfish enough to hope that, if you ever do get the whole story, you understand that.”
Pete walked away. Jon remained at the side of the stage for the rest of the song, watching Spencer watch Brendon.
***
Spencer found Jon outside of the buses the next day, the first time Spencer had initiated a conversation between the two of them in weeks. “I need to talk to you,” Spencer said softly. “Can we find someplace?”
Jon found himself nodding. “There’s a Starbucks around the corner, we could go there.”
Spencer shook his head. “Somewhere private. We can go get coffee, though, if you want.”
The venue was down the street from a small park – god bless California, Jon thought, for whatever its flaws its cities tended to be oddly un-city-like in some ways – so he and Spencer walked over with their lattes and sat on the ground, underneath a tree. The park was mostly deserted; it felt like spring to Jon, but the natives probably considered this the dead of winter. Jon sat cross-legged, while Spencer drew his knees to his chest, closed his eyes and breathed in the coffee. Jon watched his face; the steam from the beverage mingled with the blue puffs that seemed to drift off of his hair and eyelashes. When Spencer opened his eyes, he trained his gaze on Jon. Deliberately, Spencer raised his hand between the two of them. His fingers splayed out, and the blue swirls danced between them, curling up and down and eventually chasing itself around in a circle in the palm of Spencer’s hand. Jon stared at it. Spencer let out a breath. “You see.”
Jon looked up, feeling almost guilty. “I thought I was hallucinating for a while. But yeah, I see.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“Not really.”
“But it doesn’t freak you out.”
Jon shrugged. “Sure it does. But, what was I supposed to do, tell everyone I can see you guys in weird colors? I figured anyone who didn’t already have a color following them around would think I was dropping acid or something.”
Spencer nodded, and narrowed his eyes at Jon. “Who all do you see?”
It sounded like a test. Jon scowled for a moment. “You, Brendon, Ryan. William. Siska, though his is really pale and might just be me making things up. Pete had one, too.” Jon fell silent, but then added, “And Brent. I saw his.”
“Yeah,” Spencer said, but Jon couldn’t figure out whether he was acknowledging the whole list or just Brent. “You see too much,” Spencer continued, after a long pause. “More than you should, I think.”
“I don’t understand jack shit, though. Are you going to explain it to me?” Spencer’s mouth twisted, and for a moment, Jon was sure the answer was going to be “no.” “Listen, dude, I don’t know what the hell is going on. I’m seeing impossible shit, okay, whatever, I’ve gotten used to it. But either let me into your weird little thing or don’t, I don’t need this teasing bullshit.”
Jon stood up, but Spencer touched his leg. “Sit. Please.” It sounded less like a plea and more like a royal command, but Jon sat anyway. He settled in slightly farther away from Spencer, though, and looked down at his coffee cup for a few moments before raising his glance to Spencer’s face.
Spencer took a breath. “I need your help,” he said. “Brendon’s in trouble.”
Jon nodded. “I heard. Sort of,” he clarified, when surprise flitted across Spencer’s face. “I heard part of it, when Pete was talking to you guys. What was that?”
Spencer abandoned his coffee and turned to face Jon completely. “That … was complicated.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain this to you. It’s so much harder,” he said softly, almost to himself, “to explain things these days.”
“These days?” Jon asked.
Spencer’s mouth spread in a tiny smile. “Okay. How old am I, Jon?”
“Eighteen. What the hell?”
Spencer shook his head. “I am … older. A lot older.”
“What?”
“When I was born …” Spencer trailed off and leaned back on his elbows. “When I was born, your country was still a shiny new playground for Europeans. My first journey into this world was on a ship sailing from England to the New World. We arrived in a colony that had been abandoned by its settlers. None of the humans ever knew what had happened. It was better that way.”
Jon stared at Spencer. He couldn’t be saying … that was impossible. “Humans.”
“You’re human. I’m not.”
Nothing on Spencer’s face indicated he was joking, but still … “Fuck you.” Jon stood up again. This was a joke. It had to be – in a minute, Spencer would start laughing and pointing, and maybe he’d tell William later, and everyone would laugh for a week about how gullible Jon was … “Fuck you,” he repeated, and started to walk away.
“Jon.” After only a few steps, Spencer’s hand was on Jon’s shoulder. “Stay. Listen. Please.”
When Jon turned back to face Spencer, he was enveloped in blue, in a cloud that contained only the two of them, not quite blocking out the rest of the world but making the park look hazy and distant. He looked up at Spencer – and for a moment, Jon indulged in a feeling of irritation that he was short, because somehow he didn’t think Spencer should be taller than him, not if he was eighteen, and he was, dammit, he couldn’t be anything else – and saw eyes that had no whites, filled entirely with the same color as the cloud surrounding them. Spencer’s skin was bright enough to be almost translucent, and when Jon blinked, he suddenly saw something on the side of his head. A pale, pointed end stuck out from red-brown hair. “Is that … your ear? What are you, a fucking elf or something?”
The cloud dissipated, and Spencer put a hand to his head. The noise he made might have been a laugh, but Jon was a little too lightheaded to judge. “God, I fucking hate Tolkien,” Spencer muttered.
When Jon glanced at Spencer again, he looked perfectly normal. “What the hell was that?” he demanded.
“That was me. For real.” Spencer sat back on the grass, and Jon joined him, as his legs weren’t giving him much hope for continued standing. “I am … an elf, if you want to be so crass. Fae is a better word. We’ve been called a lot of things over the years.”
“You’re a faerie.” The words sounded hollow to Jon, like a joke.
“In many and varied ways.” Now that was a joke, judging by the smile on Spencer’s face. Or maybe not. Jon didn’t really trust his own judgment any more.
“You’re …” Jon rubbed his eyes. “Okay, if this is a big prank, William or Brendon or Pete can jump out from behind the tree any time. I’ll take my lumps like a man, I’m easily fucked with, whatever. I just don’t want to deal with this stupidity any more.”
“Jon,” Spencer said softly.
When he looked back at Spencer – human-looking Spencer, with his blue swirls and eyes that shone a little brighter than they should – he remembered his Gran, her stories of fae and the monsters and magic. “God, how much is actually true?”
“How much of what?”
“Everything. Stories, fairy tales.”
“Ah. More than I’d like to be true.” Spencer scooted closer to Jon and picked his own coffee back up. “How much do you know? What stories do you know?”
“A few. My great-grandmother, she always claimed to have some kind of power, the Sight, she called it …”
Spencer nodded. “That explains so much.”
“What, is that why I can see you?”
“Partly, yeah.”
“Partly?”
“Never mind. That’s complicated – it’s a story for later.” Spencer waved a hand in the air. “For the moment, just assume that any story your grandmother told you was true, okay?”
“No, wait, hold up. I’m still … I’m back on the whole faerie thing. Because faeries don’t exist. They’re myths! You can’t be a faerie, because you exist.” The logic made sense to Jon, and he felt like hitting Spencer when he started to laugh.
“Okay,” Spencer said, “fine, I’m not a faerie. What am I, then?”
“I don’t know. I’ll buy you have some sort of freaky magic thing going on. I’ll believe that magic exists. Weird things can happen here on earth, to humans. I can get behind that. I see weird things with you guys, which can be magic. But you’re human, because …” Jon shook his head. “You have to be.”
“Do you want me to start quoting Shakespeare at you? More things in heaven and earth, all that crap?”
“Shut up, you barely graduated high school.”
“Kiss my ass.” For a moment, Spencer looked like an irritated teenager, and Jon felt much better. But, then, he continued, “Ryan met Shakespeare once. I was Underhill at the time, but Ryan spent some time hanging out in England that century. I can’t get him to admit he had anything to do with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but I can totally tell.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Jon.” Spencer reached out and touched Jon’s shoulder. Jon forced himself to not jerk away – he was still freaked out, and there was a strange feeling of electricity on the skin underneath his t-shirt, where he could see the blue energy skittering across the fabric. “Please listen to me. I need you to believe me. You need to just accept all this and move on, because Brendon’s in trouble, and I need your help.”
Jon rubbed his eyes. When he looked again, Spencer was staring at him, blue eyes wide with sincerity. He decided to throw caution – and sanity – to the wind. “Okay. Okay, for the sake of argument, I’ll buy all of this bullshit. What’s wrong with Brendon?”
Spencer nodded, once. “Our world ... is very different from yours. The human world has changed so much, but our world never really does. That’s one of the reasons I like being here so much more.” Spencer drew his knees to his chest again, and for a moment, Jon once again believed he was just an eighteen-year-old boy. “We have a Queen – she’s been the Queen for longer than I’ve been alive, longer than my parents have been alive. Our world, Underhill, revolves around her. Everyone, everything exists for her enjoyment.” Spencer looked away, over Jon’s shoulder. “The thing is, everyone has a good time at the Queen’s Court, but no one ever does anything new. Most fae don’t know how to be creative. Creativity is magic to us, just as much as anything humans would consider extraordinary.”
“What can you do that I’d consider extraordinary?” Jon asked.
Spencer smiled. “Besides live for hundreds of years?”
“Point. Yeah, besides that.”
“All those things your great-grandmother told you, in stories, I could probably do.” Spencer pulled a handful of grass from the ground. “I could turn each blade into a gold coin, if I wanted – or better, they’d all turn into twenty dollar bills. But everything takes energy, which I don’t have an unlimited supply of. I could turn the grass into money, but I also require the same kind of energy to play onstage, so if I used it now I might, say, accidentally drop my glamour and show my true face when a spotlight is trained on me.”
“That wouldn’t necessarily be a disaster. You could always tell the press that your next tour is going to have a Lord of the Rings theme. They’d totally buy it.”
Spencer laughed, which made Jon relax a little. Spencer’s laugh sounded like it always did, open and unforced. Jon liked being the cause of it. “Also, the twenty dollar bills would eventually turn back into grass. In this day and age, the police are really good at tracking down people they think should be in jail, so manufacturing money is just a bad idea all around.”
“Okay, so you’re not going to make me a millionaire. Got it. There’s one dream crushed.”
Spencer was still smiling, but it faded from his face as he brought the conversation back to the original topic. “Fae value creativity above all else. Boredom is our natural enemy – we live for so many years, but most of us have very little drive to go out and explore new things. The Court can sit and do nothing for decades, until finally someone decides to kill someone else just for fun. Wars are no fun for anyone, not once the killing starts in earnest.” Spencer looked serious enough that Jon smothered the laugh that bubbled up from his chest. Spencer continued, “Most fae couldn’t play a note of music if their lives depended on it. When one of us exhibits any kind of creative energy, we’re immediately sent here to the human world. It’s much easier to nurture that energy in a place so full of it.”
“Which place do you like better?” Jon asked, unable to resist.
Spencer just looked at him. Jon shrugged, conceding the point, and Spencer continued. “Our Queen … well, she’s the most powerful of us all.”
“Duh.”
Spencer flipped him off, a reassuringly human gesture. “The thing is, she gets a lot of her power by … using other fae. Humans sometimes, if they’re spectacularly gifted, but mostly only fae have the levels of power that she wants.”
“I don’t get it.”
“It’s like …” Spencer grinned. “If a human’s creative talent was a single potato chip, a fae’s creative talent would be a whole can of Pringles.”
Jon snorted a laugh at the analogy. “So, when you say she uses them, she …”
“Takes their energy. All of it. She always has a pet; when she’s done, whatever poor fae she’s drained is left in the care of their family. The discarded pet is useless – you’d be lucky to get monosyllabic conversation from them. It’s a better fate than when she picks a human, though. I’ve seen humans when she gets done with them.” Spencer didn’t shudder, but Jon saw something haunted in his eyes before he closed them, briefly. “Fae with creative energy are her favorites.”
“She gets to eat the whole can of chips?”
Spencer gave Jon a small smile. “Yeah, exactly like that.”
“So …” Jon prompted, after Spencer fell silent.
“So … the Queen is between pets. Brendon is next on her list.”
Jon blinked. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” Spencer leaned back on his elbows and looked at the sky. “She’ll make him go back Underhill. He’ll never come back to this world. He’ll be her constant companion, for as long as he lasts. And he’ll last a long time – he’s got an amazing amount of creative energy, more than almost any fae I’ve ever seen. But she’ll take that energy, slowly but surely …” Spencer sat back up and looked Jon in the eye. “You know that energy that follows him around? That gold shine? He won’t have that any more. He won’t have anything any more. He won’t be Brendon.”
Jon shifted his gaze to the grass. It was easier than meeting Spencer’s eyes. “That’s what Pete was here about.”
“Yeah.” This time, Spencer’s laugh was bitter. “Pete … works for the Queen. He plays his own games. Sometimes, they work for us. Sometimes they don’t.”
“I can’t believe Pete would just give Brendon over like that. Condemn him to …” Jon frowned. The Pete he knew loved all his friends enthusiastically, sometimes too enthusiastically; he was obnoxious and smart and incredibly loyal.
“Pete isn’t the person you think he is.”
“Neither are you.”
“True.” Spencer raked his hand through his hair again. “It’s not all Pete’s fault,” he admitted. “Brendon has been on the Queen’s radar for a long time now. He’s younger than me, younger than Ryan. He was presented to Court at a time when our creative pool was … shallow. He stood out. She’s remembered him for a long time now.” Spencer rolled his eyes, a self-deprecating gesture. “My creative abilities aren’t great. I don’t generally make a big impression unless I’m with Ryan. Which saved Ryan’s life, really.” Jon made a questioning face, but Spencer ignored him. “We’re very different here, in your world, than we are in ours.”
“I’m getting that.” Jon stretched his neck; he looked at the sky for a moment, brilliant blue with a scattering of puffy white clouds. A normal sky. Around him, a normal park. It was weird, to be having this conversation on such a normal day. He looked back at Spencer. “But Ryan’s not the one in trouble,” he prompted.
“No. No, Ryan’s family … isn’t good enough for her. Ryan’s got a lot of talent, but to use him would be slumming.” A thought flitted across Spencer’s face, but he didn’t speak it aloud. Jon thought it might amount to thank god.
“What about Brent?” Jon asked.
Spencer’s expression shifted slightly. “Brent isn’t that talented – he’s got enough to play, but as a pet, he wouldn’t last half as long as the talents she’s used to. I wouldn’t, either, really.” Spencer shrugged. “Besides, Brent’s family is part of the Queen’s inner circle. She assigned him to play with us – basically, he spies on us for her.” Spencer sighed. “Brendon, on the other hand, is from a good family, and has more creative talent in his little finger than the rest of her Court combined. He’s exactly the kind of pet she loves, the kind she only gets once every century or so. And apparently, now she’s going to get him.”
“In a week.” Jon flushed when Spencer stared at him. “I told you, I was kind of eavesdropping.”
“In a week,” Spencer acknowledged. “In a week, we’ll play our very last show. And then we’ll lose Brendon forever.” Spencer stared past Jon again, his eyes haunted. Suddenly, Jon wondered just how much worse “forever” seemed to someone who lived as long as Spencer claimed to have lived.
“So, what are you going to do about it?” Spencer’s gaze jerked back to Jon’s face, but Jon just exhaled and continued. “You brought me out here, told me all this bullshit – which, fuck me, I’m actually starting to believe – but first, you told me you needed my help. That tells me you have a plan to save Brendon, because I don’t think I’m the one you’d be going to if you needed help explaining to the world why Panic at the Disco suddenly dropped off the face of the earth.”
Spencer kept staring at him, unblinking. “What makes you think you’d be the one I’d come to for help with that, if I did have a plan? What makes you think you’re qualified?”
“You’re here, aren’t you? Talking to me? You said you need me. You said Brendon’s in trouble.”
Spencer continued to study Jon’s face. Jon forced himself to not look away, to meet Spencer’s gaze. Finally, Spencer nodded, as if to himself. “If I did have a plan, and I asked you to help, would you?”
The air around them seemed to still. Jon felt words bubbling up in his chest – “yes”, he wanted to say, wanted to pledge whatever help he could to Spencer. But, something in his brain kept the words out of his throat. Because, really, how crazy was all of this? Instead, Jon forced himself to say, “You’re going to have to be more specific than that.”
Spencer looked surprised. “I do have a plan,” he said. “Something that might save Brendon’s life. I can’t do it by myself, but I can’t ask Brendon or Ryan to help me.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s dangerous.” Spencer looked at the sky. “Really fucking dangerous. You wouldn’t be entirely safe.” He chuckled humorlessly. “You could be killed, or worse.”
Jon hesitated. After looking at Spencer’s face, at his mouth set in a grim line, he asked, “Brendon, what he’s in for, that probably falls into the ‘or worse’ category, doesn’t it?” When Spencer nodded, Jon exhaled. “Dude, you’re asking me to believe a lot of bullshit here. What am I supposed to say here – yes, of course, I’ll agree to risk my life for someone I just met a few weeks ago? Just because someone else I don’t know that well says he’s not human? I’m still not sure I’m not dreaming this conversation. I don’t fucking know.”
They fell into a long silence. Spencer continued to study Jon’s face, as if he expected to find something written there. Jon tried not to squirm under the scrutiny, and took the opportunity to study Spencer’s face himself. He’d always taken Spencer’s roundness as a sign of his age, the lingering effects of baby fat, but now he saw planes and angles in that face that he hadn’t noticed before. His skin glowed, even now, even while he looked human, and Jon resisted the urge to reach up and run the back of his hand down Spencer’s cheek, just to feel it. Part of him thought that if he tried he’d draw back a bloody stump. Another part of him, the part that was watching Spencer’s eyes, that saw something hidden behind the impassive stare, wondered if Spencer’s reaction would be all together different.
The loud buzz of Jon’s phone broke the spell. Jon jumped, before rummaging around in the pocket of his jeans. “What?” he barked into the phone when he flipped it open.
“Dude. Where the fuck are you?” Tom sounded angry. “We’ve been looking all over the fucking venue!”
“Oh. Sorry, I, um, went out for coffee with Spencer. I guess we lost track of time.”
“You’re not getting paid to babysit the freakshow,” Tom informed him. “Get your ass back here and actually do some work.”
By the time Jon closed his phone, Spencer had stood up. He offered a hand to Jon, who took it and hauled himself to his feet. Before he let go of Spencer’s hand, however, he looked down. His own hand was tinged blue, with smoky curls drifting around their entwined fingers. “What is that, anyway?” Jon asked.
Spencer looked down, to see what he was looking at. When Jon looked up, Spencer was wearing a small smile. “It’s hard to explain. You might call it my soul.”
“Really?” Jon stood there for another moment, his hand locked with Spencer’s, watching the blue light dance. When he pulled away – somewhat reluctantly – he plastered a smirk on his face. “That’s kinda deep, man.” Spencer just raised an eyebrow at him and gestured back towards the venue.
When they reached the stage door – where Tom and William waited, frowning – Spencer leaned in to Jon. “Please think about it,” he murmured. “We need you.”
Jon felt a chill run down his spine when Spencer walked away.
***
After that night’s show, Jon found Brendon sitting on the ground behind his bus, staring off into the distance. Jon sat down next to him. “What are we looking at?”
Brendon didn’t turn his head. “Down there, outside the bar on the next block. Some drunk dude just got kicked out and is about to have his head bashed in by the thick-necked bouncer.”
Jon looked down the street, and sure enough, there was some sort of altercation happening, just loudly enough for him to make out angry voices. “That’s gonna hurt,” he observed, after seeing the barrel-chested bouncer shove the drunk patron to the ground.
“Poor guy,” Brendon said. “He was probably just having a good time. Doesn’t deserve to have some asshole with a bunch of power take him down.”
Brendon’s voice was laced with something darker than normal conversation, and Jon glanced sideways at him. “You okay?” he ventured.
This brought Brendon’s gaze to Jon’s face. “Fine,” Brendon said after a too-long pause. He laughed, a sound so sharp that Jon imagined someone somewhere bled. “If I said I was having a bad week, it’d be kind of like saying the Pacific was a pond in your backyard. But what the fuck can you do?” He looked back out at the street, his chin resting on his knees.
“Can I do anything to help?” Jon asked. Would Brendon ask him the same thing Spencer had? He didn’t even know if anyone else knew what Spencer had told him.
Brendon responded with another laugh, this one a bit softer, but still ugly. “You can pass over the joint I know you have in your pocket, is what you can do.”
Jon dug around in his pocket until he came up with the joint and a lighter. “Seriously, Brendon …” he said, watching the other boy light up. “If you want to talk about it …”
“No.” Brendon took a long drag, exhaling after a pause long enough to make Jon wonder if he ever had to breathe. “I wish this worked better than it does sometimes,” he muttered, staring at the smoke dissipating around him. “I wish it helped me forget.” The smoke mingled with the gold that followed Brendon around, which currently showed a far more muted color than Jon was used to. The red-gold aura that surrounded Brendon usually bounced with the same energy Brendon did; now that he was still and sullen, it pooled around his arms and legs, drifting listlessly. Jon was tempted to reach out and poke it, to see if it responded to him the way Spencer’s had, if he would feel the cloud in the same way. Instead, though, he balled his hand into a fist. It seemed an intrusion, in a way it somehow hadn’t with Spencer.
Jon fell silent, and they sat there for a long time, staring at the bar patrons walking down the street. Finally, Brendon sighed. “I like it here,” he said softly, almost inaudibly. “I don’t want to go.”
“So don’t,” Jon said automatically. Brendon jerked his head around, and Jon felt himself flush. “Don’t go anywhere.” Jon met Brendon’s eyes. “You don’t have to.”
“You don’t know anything, Jon Walker,” Brendon said sadly. “I kinda wish you did.”
“Me too,” Jon whispered.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jon saw Spencer walk out of the venue. He saw Spencer pause to watch the two of them for a few minutes – maybe an hour, Jon lost track of time somewhere. Eventually, he walked onto the bus without comment. Jon was somehow disappointed.
***
Jon waited for three days. Three long days, during which he spent a lot of time watching Panic from afar; he was an outsider to their drama, he told himself. Besides, it was easier to take the dimming of Brendon’s personality when he wasn’t interacting with him – from enough distance, Jon couldn’t see the muted, almost sickly gold dangling around Brendon’s hands when he made the effort to talk normally to someone else on the tour. He didn’t have to watch Ryan’s violet turn nearly black, the only outward sign that Ryan was anything other than his usual reserved, disdainful self. Brent, for his part, seemed almost unaffected – his smoky gray aura flowed like normal, making Jon irrationally angry. The rest of his band seemed to be in mourning. It was only appropriate.
Well, perhaps Spencer wasn’t mourning, not quite yet. Jon didn’t see much of Spencer off-stage. He avoided Panic’s sets for the most part, choosing to sit instead in the green room and listen to William and Butcher shout over each other. He joined in the revelry occasionally, accepting the beer cans that were pressed into his hand and laughing appropriately at Mike’s imitations of groupies outside the venue the night before.
On the third night, Tom sat next to him and watched him quietly. “What are you thinking about in that thick skull?” he asked Jon finally, quietly, low enough that the rest of the room wouldn’t notice.
Jon shook his head. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
“Bullshit.” Tom continued to stare. “What did you get yourself into?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t fuck around with me, man.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have fucked around with me,” Jon snapped.
Tom’s eyes widened, only a millimeter, but noticeable. “Be careful,” he murmured. “Be very, very careful.”
“It might be a little late for that,” Jon said, just as low. “Why didn’t you …”
“I couldn’t.” When Jon looked at him, hard, Tom spread his hands in his lap, a subtle gesture. “I really couldn’t. There are reasons … ways. I just hoped that you …”
At that moment, William decided to drape himself across Tom’s lap. Tom shoved him off onto the floor, starting a wrestling match that spilled Jon’s beer all over his jeans and caused the rest of the room to start hollering bets on the winner. When Jon could extricate himself, he left the room and walked to the stage, where Panic was finishing their set.
Jon couldn’t bear to look at Brendon, going through the motions, so he watched at Spencer as he drummed. Spencer’s blue aura was glowing as brightly as it ever had – brighter, maybe, with a cold edge that made it look like a gas flame, hard and dangerous. When he finally looked over at Jon, the blue flames shot long in every direction. It looked like Spencer was burning in the same cold heat Jon had noticed the first time he’d seen the colored auras. Jon felt an odd calm come over him. The more Spencer seemed to burn, the more at peace he felt. He couldn’t quite grasp it, but it kept him at the side of the stage until the four exited, applause echoing behind them.
When they passed by Jon, Spencer brought up the rear; Jon grabbed his arm. “We need to talk.”
Spencer looked at him gravely, and nodded.
***
Later that night, behind the bus, Jon stared at Spencer. “You know,” he said, almost conversationally, as if there wasn’t a tremble underneath his voice, “I did listen to a lot of my Gran’s stories. You told me that most of them were true –“
“In part,” Spencer interrupted. “They’ve been warped along the way.”
“Still. The main theme of those stories seemed to be ‘don’t fuck with the Faerie Queen’.”
Spencer nodded. “Always a good piece of advice.”
“Except for right now?”
“Desperate times, Jon.”
“Right.” Jon exhaled. “I’m out of my mind. For considering this, and even for believing you in the first place. You know that, right?”
“You might be.” Spencer looked sideways at him, the winter breeze – wintry for California, anyway – blowing his hair into his eyes. “You’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I am.”
Something shone in Spencer’s eyes, and Jon imagined that it was actually the ice-blue flames messing his hair, rather than the wind. “Good.”
Part Three
