violacea | fic: for i was an earthly knight (3/3)

Part One
Part Two

Jon wasn’t surprised when William came to him the next day. “We’ve got a private gig tomorrow night,” he said. “Some kind of corporate thing the record label cooked up. They’ve got all their own techs, and they don’t want any photography, so you’ve got the night off.”

Jon just nodded and said something about drinking and California girls. William left him, but Tom lingered behind, looking hard at Jon. “Seriously,” Tom said, “take the night off.”

“Last time I checked, you weren’t my father.”

“Do you think this is a fucking joke?”

Jon looked at Tom, pale and serious, leaning in the doorway. “No,” Jon said slowly, “I’m pretty sure this is the least funny thing that’s ever happened to me.”

He thought it again – this was pretty much the exact opposite of a joke – later, when he was crouched just inside the door of Spencer and Ryan’s hotel room. Spencer stood above him, aura as calm and quiet as Jon had ever seen it. By the voices in the hallway, Jon could tell Ryan was already waiting with the rest of his band in the hall. “You know what to do?” Spencer said softly.

“Yeah, I think so.” Jon sat in the doorway of the bathroom, close enough to hear the voices outside, but far enough out of the way that no one in the hall would see him when Spencer opened the door. When Spencer put a hand on the doorknob, Jon cleared his throat. “Just checking,” he said, low enough that Spencer had to lean down to hear him, “I’m not walking into something stupid and embarrassing, am I? This isn’t some kind of big practical joke that you all are going to mock me about for the rest of eternity? Because I haven’t quite ruled out that possibility.”

Spencer’s mouth twisted into a humorless smile. “Yes, you have.”

When the door closed behind Spencer, Jon allowed that he was probably right.

Jon waited until the voices outside the door had faded to almost nothing before standing up and cracking open the door. “The doorway will be built in someone’s hotel room, someplace private, where no one is likely to stumble across it,” Spencer had told him earlier. “I don’t know whose, so you’ll have to check them all.” He had pressed a small metal disc into Jon’s hand, approximately the size of his palm, smooth and shiny. When Jon closed his hand over it, he felt a small electric jolt. “That will open any hotel room door you want, just press it against the lock.” When Jon looked at him questioningly, Spencer had smirked. “No, I won’t explain it. And you have to give it back when you’re done.”

So Jon was stuck checking all of the tour’s rooms. Actually, that wasn’t true, he realized as he stood in the middle of the empty hallway. He’d heard the voices fading off to his right, he was sure of it, so he should start with the rooms in that direction. “Work quickly,” Spencer had told him, “the doorway will fade within minutes of the last person walking through.”

He had charmed a list of the tour’s room numbers from a friendly hotel clerk earlier in the day, so armed with a list and the metal disc, Jon began to open doors. He didn’t quite know what he was looking for. “You’ll know it when you see it,” was the only answer Spencer had given.

“That’s really helpful,” Jon muttered, when his foray into the third room – Mike and Butcher’s, judging by the clothes strewn everywhere – turned up nothing out of the ordinary.

He was starting to panic when he reached the end of the hall, and the last room on that floor – his own room, shared with Tom. He figured it would be a dead end; most of them thought Jon was in the dark, so they’d avoid allowing him to see their doorway, wouldn’t they? But he opened the door anyway and peered inside.

The entire far corner shone with a light bright enough to make him shield his eyes. “Shit,” he breathed.

Jon shoved the disc and the paper into his pocket and took a deep breath. Spencer had given him very brief advice about what to do when he found the doorway: “Just go, don’t think, don’t stop.”

He jumped onto the bed and, in the space of one step, hurled himself at the wall.

The next moment, he was somewhere else entirely.

His first visual impression was bathed entirely in white – white walls, white pillars, white floors, and space, so much space that he felt a little lost, like a speck of dust in the middle of the Milky Way. The pillars stretched high above his head, possibly fifty feet or more. When Jon’s gaze followed the length of one pillar, he saw what first looked like an intricately painted sky on the ceiling, like he’d last seen in the casino they visited. But, when his eyes adjusted, he realized that it was the sky, the color of twilight, blue and purple and pink, mixing sunlight and pinpricks of thousands of stars. The vast tangle of sky looked close to the ground, too close, so close that Jon felt dizzy. He closed his eyes and put a hand on one of the pillars to steady himself.

When he opened his eyes, he forced himself to look at the room and not at the sky. At that point, he realized he wasn’t alone; there were people close enough to notice him, if they looked in his direction. He cursed mentally and remembered Spencer’s next instructions. “You’ll be somewhat hidden – I can do that, at least, make it so that they don’t see you unless you make yourself known, but that means you can’t accidentally bump into anyone or ask for directions or anything like that.” He wasn’t quite sure what that meant – how was he hidden, anyway, standing out in the middle of the room? – so he plastered himself to the pillar as a pair of people walked in his direction. There was no place to hide, just pillars and floor and people. He held his breath and waited for them to pass.

As they approached, Jon realized they weren’t people at all – not human, but people like Spencer. Fae. They had colored auras swirling around their bodies, dancing and combining and floating upward until the colors melted into the low-hanging sky. Jon saw the pointed tip of an ear underneath the woman’s large, elaborate hat as she passed. Her male companion hung onto her arm, his skin glowing a translucent color Jon’s eyes had to adjust to. Neither one spared him a glance.

Gingerly, he stepped away from the pillar and turned in a slow circle, surveying the scene. He couldn’t tell where the room began or ended, whether there were doors to anywhere, or where any sort of central location would be. After a moment, though, he heard the faint sound of music from a seemingly faraway location. Exhaling, he stepped forward, in the direction of the music.

He quickly realized that Spencer had been correct; no one there could see him, not if he kept to himself. When he began to walk, partygoers were few and far between, and he could avoid them easily. However, the closer he got to the party – and a party was what it was, he could tell by the smiles and loud voices and more frantic movement he observed as he moved closer to the crowd – the more he found himself sidestepping bodies, walking in an indirect circle to avoid inadvertently touching anyone. Just because he didn’t understand how it worked didn’t mean he didn’t believe Spencer.

When he reached the edge of the party, Jon pressed himself to the far side of a pillar and watched. The people he saw – fae, all of them – were nothing like he’d ever seen before. Not even watching the tangle of color that Spencer, Brendon and Ryan produced could have prepared him for the rainbow riot that permeated the gathering. It felt like double vision; Jon’s senses told him that the multicolored fog he saw should be opaque, like early morning fog coming off of a lake. But, he saw everyone perfectly through the cloud, as if it didn’t exist. And the colors didn’t stop once he looked past the cloud. Everyone at the party was dressed in the most outrageous clothing, a hodgepodge of styles that combined to look entirely inhuman. The party seemed to rotate on a wheel, a synchronized calliope of dancing and talking and gesturing and watching, everyone watching and waiting and observing, even while they danced with abandon. Unconsciously, Jon flatted himself farther against the pillar, wishing to remain invisible to the entire room.

He looked around the crowd. At one end was a small stage; Jon recognized the instruments laid out as Panic’s. No one stood on the stage yet, so he let his gaze wander to the other side of the gathering. He saw a raised platform containing elaborately carved wooden seats, sat at just the right height for those sitting in them to observe the entire party. The largest seat – throne, Jon thought – was yet unoccupied, as were several of the chairs closest to it, but a handful of seats were already taken. Jon looked at all of them, but his gaze froze on the one closest to his own position, a male sprawled elegantly, watching the crowd with lazy brown eyes, bright orange swirls licking the ink displayed on his forearms. Pete.

Jon had never known Pete to be an observer; the Pete he knew always threw himself into the middle of any party he found, ruled it by the time anyone else had thought to check. However, the Pete he knew was also human – or so he’d thought, sometime that now seemed long ago – so this quiet, still Pete was definitely not the biggest shock he’d had in the past week. The look in his eyes, though, was pure Pete; a mask of indifference, not quite hiding a sharpness that noticed everything happening around him. Jon shrunk to the opposite side of his pillar, as far away from Pete as he could physically get. He had the strange feeling that Pete would notice him, strange invisibility spell or not. Whether Pete would interfere in Jon’s task, he didn’t know. He didn’t feel like finding out.

He tore his gaze away from Pete and swept the room again. He didn’t recognize anyone else – none of the guys he’d followed were visible, which worried him. But, as he stared across at a knot of bodies that were either dancing or fucking, it was hard to tell at that distance, he suddenly heard the chiming of a bell … or, less heard it than felt it, deep in his chest, with a reverberation that made him feel momentarily like he was going to puke up his long-ago lunch. (And that might be a little conspicuous, unless his puke was also invisible, which he doubted.) Thankfully, the vibration faded to nothing, and when Jon looked out from behind his pillar again, he saw that the crowd of fae had stilled completely, and were now looking in the direction of the platform.

A figure had appeared, standing in front of the throne. Her hair was jet black, long and loose, and she wore a flowing white dress that was assembled so intricately that Jon couldn’t tell where one piece of fabric ended and another began. It clung to her curves like vinyl, however, displaying the most perfect female form he’d ever seen. Even from the distance Jon observed from, she seemed tall, taller than anyone else in the room. Her skin was a glowing shade of ivory, with sharp facial features that would have marked her as inhuman, even if her ears didn’t show, or if the deep, true purple aura didn’t blaze out behind her like dark angel wings. She didn’t have to wear a crown for Jon to name her as the Queen. This woman didn’t need cheap jewelry to mark her power; she wore it like armor.

She stood utterly still for what seemed like forever. Jon couldn’t tear his eyes from her. He only looked at her face twice, though; the second time, he looked at her eyes, light-colored and fathomless, and without warning Jon’s eyes jerked down, away from the icy color that reminded him too much of the color of the smoke that curled around his own hands when Spencer was close to him, down to the curve of her waist and her long fingers, knotted together placidly in front of her as she accepted the hungry regard of her subjects. Yet, he couldn’t look away from her entirely.

Finally, she sat down, and Jon felt something in the air around his head pop, silently. He blinked and looked around again, at last. The crowd began moving again, slow and restless. When he looked to the side of the platform again, Pete was still standing, eyes on his Queen’s face, still wearing the mask of indifference. His eyes glittered, though, with a look that could mean either fascination or disdain. Jon couldn’t read it well enough to tell the difference.

Slowly, noise began to filter back in – low chatter, nothing like the decadent party that had been rolling before the Queen entered. Jon still saw no evidence of his friends, and he began to worry. What if he was too late? What if the event – whatever it was – had already happened, and Brendon was trapped? The longer Jon remained, the more alone he felt.

Two male fae sat on either side of her; on her right side, a tall, willowy blond who looked as inhuman as his Queen, all sharp angles and unnatural stillness. On her left, though, sat a fae whose skin looked ashen gray, a strong contrast to the brilliant health of everyone around him. His sand-colored hair hung limply around his face, and his breath seemed to be labored. He stared into the crowd as if he didn’t see anything in front of him at all. The only thing that shone about him was the gold necklace that hung around his neck – it was a heavy link chain, with a triangular pendant hanging down his chest. The pendant was bright gold, with a cutout in the center in the shape of a keyhole. As Jon watched, the fae raised a limp hand to the pendant and touched it gingerly.

The Queen turned to him and stroked a long finger down his cheek. His gaze finally focused, and he stared into her eyes as if he looked into the sun. Her lips moved; thanks to several years working in an atmosphere of loud music and too little time to spare for shouting in someone’s ear, Jon could read her words. “Patience, my pet,” she said, and the ashen fae shuddered.

In a heartbeat, Jon knew – this was to be Brendon’s fate. He thought about it, about Brendon’s energy fading until he was a gray-skinned zombie, and he grasped the pillar so hard he saw white lines appear around his knuckles.

Time seemed to go on forever, but yet it seemed like only a breath later when the Queen spoke loud enough to carry across the room. “Where is my entertainment?”

Everyone turned their attention turned towards the stage, and Jon followed suit. The members of Panic! at the Disco stood onstage – they’d appeared when Jon wasn’t looking. Brendon stood at the front, back ramrod straight and face impassive, his hand on the microphone stand and eyes staring into nothing. Ryan’s gaze was downcast, his hand gripping his guitar hard enough that Jon was sure the strings would leave permanent welts in his fingers. Brent shifted from one foot to another, regarding the Queen with the same sort of worship as the rest of the crowd. Spencer sat behind the drum kit, also looking at the Queen, but his stare held less wonder and more challenge. Jon wondered if the Queen noticed, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn his head to see.

Spencer tapped his drumsticks together to count the band in, and then there was music. Jon wondered briefly if their usual songs about teenaged angst would play to this very different crowd, but the minute Brendon opened his mouth for the opening lines of “Martyrdom”, everything about the performance seemed perfect. Brendon’s voice echoed through the open chamber; the sound almost took on a physical form. Jon imagined the sound leaving Brendon’s body on gusts of red-gold and winding around the crowd, caressing everyone in turn, then changing into a flurry of sharp pinpricks as the song changed and new lyrics spoke of anger and bitterness. Usually, Jon saw Brendon’s stage presence as that of an actor, portraying the person Ryan had wished he’d been when he scribbled lyrics in some forgotten notebook. This time, though, it was as though every word was Brendon’s, as if they all lived every syllable.

Later, Jon couldn’t say how many songs they’d played, or for how long, just that he’d been unable to look away from the stage as long as the music lasted. When the last note faded, though, he saw four faces staring out at the throne with varying degrees of concern knitted into their brows. Brent seemed the calmest, but he was taken aback by the fact that Brendon looked nearly as quiet. It was as if Brendon had accepted what was to come. Jon’s throat tightened, and he nodded to himself.

“Come.” The Queen’s voice commanded the room again. Only Brendon responded – perhaps he was the only one meant to. The crowd parted as he walked from the stage to the throne. Jon thought it resembled a funeral march, especially after sneaking a look at the expressions of those left on stage. Brent looked regretful, while Ryan and Spencer both held hard looks in their eyes; they’d look stony to an outsider, but Jon had come to know both of them well enough to see the pain and anger bubbling underneath.

Brendon walked slowly, deliberately, but all too soon he stood on the platform in front of the Queen, looking at her face, but not her eyes, Jon noted as he inched closer to the throne. The Queen held out her hand to the ashen fae on her left. The unknown fae nodded, a look that might have been relief spreading across his face. He slid out of his seat and knelt on the floor in front of her, his back to the Queen. She reached out to him and caressed his hair in an oddly intimate gesture. “Thank you,” she said softly. “You’ve served me well.” Her fingers dropped to the clasp of the gold pendant, and she unfastened it. She reached around to grasp the triangle before it slid down his chest. Once she had the necklace in her hand, the fae’s eye’s brightened, flaring life for one brilliant second before he slid to the floor in a heap. No one in the room reacted, save a guard who had been lurking, unseen by Jon, near the edge of the platform. The guard walked over, picked up the now unconscious fae and carried him off. When Jon looked around the room, no one seemed to be watching the guard or the ashen fae. All eyes were locked on Brendon, who now stared at the pendant in the Queen’s hands with fear in his eyes.

“You have been chosen,” the Queen said to Brendon, dangling the pendant from her fingers. “You are strong, little one, more talented than anyone I’ve had in quite some time. It will be a pleasure to have you by my side.”

Brendon said nothing, just continued to stare at the pendant with wide eyes. Jon snuck forward even farther, his heart pounding in his chest as he reached the stairs that led up to the throne. He looked around. No one saw him, not even Pete, who was mere feet away from him. Pete, like everyone else, stared at Brendon, his face betraying only a small hint of sadness that separated him from everyone else on the platform, all of whom simply looked enthralled. Maybe even a little bit hungry. Jon tried not to think about that.

Jon focused by remembering Spencer’s instructions.

(“She’ll have a necklace. If she gets it around Brendon’s neck, then it’s all over, we’ve lost. You have to prevent that from happening.”

“How do I do that? I’m not magic or anything, I’m pretty sure the Faerie Queen could kick my ass without breaking a nail.”

“Undoubtedly. Just get between the Queen and Brendon, and ask what I’ve told you to ask. The rest will take care of itself.”)

Jon had no idea what Spencer meant, but he did know that chickening out would mean Brendon someday sitting in that chair next to the Queen, all life drained from him, waiting for release. That wasn’t an acceptable outcome, not without a fight.

Jon stopped thinking and ran up the stairs. He wasn’t noticed until he stood in front of the Queen, with Brendon at his back. He heard the moment everyone saw him – heard Brendon’s sharp intake of breath, the surprised murmur of the crowd. He saw the Queen’s shock, a startlingly human expression that morphed quickly into a rage that made his muscles feel like jelly. Before she could open her mouth or raise a hand, however, he spoke. Spencer hadn’t told him precisely how to ask, so Jon’s words came out in an inarticulate rush. “What are you going to do to Brendon?”

The gasp from the crowd would have sounded comical, if the Queen hadn’t stood up like a shot, towering over Jon. Her dark aura clouded over him, covering him and causing his vision to swim in raging violet. “A human,” she spat, grabbing Jon by the shirt and hauling him up to her height. His legs dangled almost a foot from the ground, and his collar began to choke him. “You have no right to ask that of me. Get out of my sight.”

She tossed Jon to the side as if he weighed nothing at all. He barely felt the air whistling around him before his body crunched into the wooden floor. He thought dazedly of broken bones, concussions, pain and suffering and god, he’d failed Brendon, and Spencer …

Until he realized he’d rolled to his feet without thinking about it. He looked down at his own body, his brain registering facts without really processing them. He stood up, without any discernable pain in his left side. His clothing, meanwhile, had … changed, somehow, from the white t-shirt and jeans he’d worn in the hotel to an elaborate suit, styled like almost everyone else in the room; his was icy blue in color. On his chest, he saw a gold shield design he vaguely remembered. He searched his brain before he finally remembered where he’d seen it before. Spencer’s t-shirt, gold and flames melding to form what looked like a coat of arms … he’d first noticed it the day the fan appeared.

She’d tried to warn him, he knew now.

When he looked up again, Spencer stood halfway between him and the Queen. He spared Jon the briefest of glances before facing the Queen. She stared at Spencer with a malice that should have made anyone drop to their knees, but Spencer stood tall. “He has every right, Your Highness. He belongs to me.”

The Queen flicked a glance over Spencer’s shoulder, taking in Jon’s new clothing. Jon steeled himself against the disdain he could feel burning off of her. “A knight,” she said, disbelieving. “You have never taken a knight before, young lordling. Why should I believe that you have one now?”

“Do you believe it’s a trick, Your Highness? Did I somehow counterfeit my own shield?” Spencer gestured backwards. The Queen once again looked briefly at Jon, and he imagined he could feel the strange symbol – the shield, Spencer’s shield - burning into his chest.

Jon opened his mouth – to speak, or to gulp in the air it seemed like his lungs currently missed, he didn’t know – but a hand on his shoulder stopped whatever he was about to do. “Shut up,” Pete hissed harshly in his ear. Jon hadn’t heard him come up behind him, but then again, at this point he probably could have been overtaken by an army without hearing a sound. “Just listen, for the love of god.”

Jon snapped his mouth shut. Beyond Spencer and the Queen, he could see Ryan and Brent walking up the stairs. Ryan placed himself squarely beside Spencer. Brendon stood on Spencer’s other side, closest to the Queen but with his eyes trained on Spencer’s face, as if searching for answers. Brent gave a regretful look to his band mates before moving into the small group of fae standing behind the Queen. The lines were drawn.

Spencer spoke again. “He gave his oath. He passed the three tests. He wears my family crest. He is a knight, he is mine, and you have offered him grave offense.”

“How the hell did that happen?” Jon heard Pete breathe the question behind him. Jon was just as lost. A knight? Him? He hadn’t …

Maybe he had. That day, after he’d run the (perhaps not so) crazy fan off, Spencer had spoken to him, words he hadn’t heard since his Gran had told him stories as a child. He’d responded in kind, as a joke.

“By wind and fire, earth and sea, I ask you pledge your life to me.”

“Ocean and flame, land and sky, I swear my oath until I die.”

Bonding words, and then three tests - honor (the gloves, he’d given Ryan the gloves back, even after he knew they were the reason he won), selflessness (Spencer’s face, shocked, after Jon gave Brendon his dinner for no good reason), and courage – and, well, stepping in front of the Faerie Queen had either been courage or stupidity, Jon would accept either answer.

“Shit,” he said under his breath. He was a knight. Spencer’s knight. He hadn’t exactly planned that.

Spencer finally looked back at him. His eyes were unreadable. Jon felt his shoulders and back straighten, and he met Spencer’s gaze without flinching. Something that might have been the ghost of a smile passed over Spencer’s face before he turned back to the Queen. “As a knight, Jon had the right to ask you to declare your intentions. You offered him grave offense,” he repeated. “And in this case, the rules are the same, for both Queen and subjects.”

The Queen’s expression changed only minutely, but the subtle shift in her brows and mouth made Jon want to take a large step backwards, to run from her reach. He forced himself to stay still with great effort. Pete’s hand, light on his back, helped. He didn’t know what game Spencer played now. “The rules are the same,” she acknowledged, in a voice so cold that Jon wondered how Spencer didn’t freeze on the spot.

“If he prevails,” Spencer said, “then my house is owed a boon. Agreed?”

The Queen simply nodded. She gestured to the blond fae who still stood by her side. “Erik stands as my champion, now and always. Your knight can stand for himself. He may choose the method of battle.”

This time, the sound of the question came up in Jon’s throat, but it was once again stopped when Pete grabbed his arm, hard enough to bruise. “A duel,” Pete hissed. “You have to fight a duel against good old Erik over there. God, if Spencer had a fucking plan, it would have been nice if he’d let you in on it, seriously.” His irritation was so plain, so normal that Jon found himself relaxing, just a bit.

Except, wait … a duel?

Jon stared at the fae – Erik – who now stepped forward, ignoring Spencer in favor of staring back at Jon. Erik probably stood a more than half a foot taller than Jon. He wore a long sword at his side, the kind of sword Jon had only seen when he’d been talked into getting drunk and wandering through the Renaissance Festival a couple of years earlier. It didn’t matter what weapon they used, this guy could probably pound Jon into the ground without breaking a sweat. Jon wasn’t particularly a fighter, pretty much ever.

In that moment, as Erik looked him up and down, Jon was pretty sure he was going to die.

The Queen looked at him, her eerie eyes focused, unblinking, on Jon’s face. “Name the method of battle, young knight,” she said. “The choice is yours.”

He felt Pete step back, away from him, but he heard Pete’s voice, soft on the air behind him. “Choose your instrument, Walker.”

That was helpful, Jon thought irritably. At least he got to choose the way he died? A sword might be quick, or maybe pistols – did faeries have pistols? Maybe he could last long enough to run away if he went hand-to-hand … but, a glance at Spencer – who watched him with an expression that looked serene, until he noticed the agitated leaps the blue aura made around his eyes - reminded him of what was at stake. He cleared his throat, thinking furiously. “Do I have any limitations?” he asked, and was proud to hear his voice sound strong and clear.

He had his answer when he saw Spencer shake his head slightly, but the Queen answered. “None, young knight. The offense was offered to you –“ wow, Jon thought, maybe Ryan had learned his sarcasm skills straight from the source, because that was the driest voice he’d ever heard – “so you choose the contest. Erik will best you in anything.”

The last wasn’t a boast, just fact, as far as Jon could tell. Seriously, if Spencer was hundreds of years old, chances were that Erik was, as well, and therefore had probably had time to master every weapon there was. Probably every game in the world, too – Jon suppressed a hysterical laugh as he remembered Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, his brother’s favorite movie when they were kids. Maybe if he challenged good old Erik to a game of Twister? Battleship? If it worked for Bill and Ted …

… except. Choose your instrument, Pete had said. Perhaps the word choice wasn’t accidental. He heard Spencer’s voice in his head. “Most fae couldn’t play a note of music if their lives depended on it.”

“Guitar!” he blurted, before he could think any farther. “I choose the guitar.”

Spencer’s face remained inscrutable, as did Ryan’s, but Brendon’s expression relaxed minutely. Jon felt triumphant for a brief moment – maybe he’d chosen right! - before looking at the Queen, who appeared as if she’d rather smite Jon in his tracks than look at him. “Very well,” she said, dripping ice with every word. “Someone bring the guitars, and we will begin.”

Someone brought two acoustic guitars from the direction of the stage – Siska, he noticed after he took the guitar from his hands. Siska was dressed in the same sort of stylized clothing as every other fae, and his pointed ears poked straight through his unruly hair. Jon nodded his thanks, and Siska gave him a half smile and furtive thumbs up. Guitar in hand, Jon worried for a brief second – he could play the guitar, but not as well as the bass, but he hadn’t thought that particular fact through when he spoke – but he played a passable version of “Here Comes The Sun” when all was said and done. Nothing special to his ears, but when he looked up, everyone in the crowd (with the exception of the Queen and Erik) was staring at him with something akin to rapture on their faces. The final note of the song echoed through the room long after it should have died; Jon felt dizzy, as energy skimmed underneath his skin. He tried not to tremble, and filed the feeling away in the back of his head.

There was no applause; once the music faded, Jon was overwhelmed with silence. Gazes shifted from Jon to Erik. Jon snuck a look at the Queen, who sat on her throne, her mouth forming a hard line. His stomach flipped over as he remembered more of his great-grandmother’s stories. The Faerie Queen almost never played fair, by human standards. Jon understood very little of what was going on here – what if he’d missed some important point? What if Erik turned out to be one of the rare fae musicians? If he lost, what happened to him? Brendon would belong to the Queen, obviously, but somehow Jon didn’t think the Queen was going to let him walk away from this, either.

A glance at Spencer didn’t help. Spencer’s expression was impassive; behind him, Ryan’s lips twitched as if he wanted to sneer at Erik, while Brendon had schooled his face into a wide-eyed blank stare. Spencer’s eyes slid over to meet Jon’s for a moment. Jon felt his chest tighten. Hopefully he hadn’t let them down.

When Erik picked up his guitar, Jon felt the air rush out of his lungs for a moment. But, then Erik wrapped an inelegant fist around the guitar neck, and Jon breathed again. Erik didn’t even know how to play a chord. He gave what was probably a valiant effort, strumming hard enough to acquit himself in a death metal band, but none of the sounds he made even remotely resembled music. As he played, Jon looked over to Spencer and couldn’t keep a small smirk from playing across his face. Spencer favored him with a small quirk of his lips, not quite a smile, but something like amusement. For a moment, Jon felt entirely normal.

Then, the music stopped, and the Queen stepped forward. Her face was stony, and Jon felt his heart seize in his chest when she captured his gaze. After a long pause, she executed an elegant head bob in Jon’s direction. “Congratulations, clever knight. You’ve won your master a boon.” She turned back to Spencer. “Name your boon. But know that, if you remove your friend from my service-“ she nodded at Brendon – “I will only choose another. Perhaps one just as close to you.” Her gaze lingered on Ryan for a long moment, before she finally stepped back up onto the platform and sat on her throne. “What is your wish, young lord?”

Spencer was silent for a long time. Jon stood in his place off of the platform, in front of the crowd. Behind him, the gathered fae began to get restless, murmuring questions to each other as Spencer stared at the Queen. Brendon and Ryan stood on either side of Spencer, gazing forward, but both snuck looks at Spencer when they thought no one else was looking. On the other side of the platform, Pete had sprawled in his seat again; he watched the Queen and Spencer, his expression marking him as the most unconcerned spectator in the room. Jon didn’t buy it.

When Spencer finally spoke, it was in a voice loud enough to carry across the entire crowd. “Your Highness, I ask that you take Brent, instead of Brendon.”

Jon gaped. Ryan and Brendon stared openly at Spencer. So did Brent - who Jon had all but forgotten – from his place in the middle of the Queen’s supporters. The Queen’s eyes widened in shock, and she pursed her lips. Spencer stood without moving, without reacting. He refused to look at anyone but the Queen.

The Queen held up the gold pendant, still dangling from her fingers. She looked hard at Spencer, then at Brendon. “You may have your reprieve,” she said quietly. Jon shivered at the low sound. She leaned forward and swung the pendant back and forth. Brendon stared at it as if he was being hypnotized. “But I will tell you this: do not find comfort. You will return here soon, when I am once again hungry, and I will taste you. I will have every bit of you. Do you understand?”

Brendon’s answer – “Yes, Your Highness” – came in a strangled whisper, and was nearly lost in the hum of the crowd behind Jon.

“Leave me,” the Queen said, waving her hand. “All of you, out of my sight. And fear the next time I see any of you.”

Jon didn’t need to be told twice. When Spencer turned to walk down the stairs, Jon looked at his face. His eyes were cold, nearly as cold as the Queen’s gaze, and Jon froze. But, then, Spencer looked at him, and the blue aura that had been nearly still during the entire conversation moved, as if in a breeze, and curled close to Jon as Spencer walked past. Jon followed the blue, and Spencer, falling into step next to Ryan. Brendon walked next to Spencer. Jon had the impression of a hierarchy, but damned if he was going to figure it out right then.

When Jon snuck a look backwards, he saw Brent kneeling beside the Queen’s throne. He saw a glint of gold in the Queen’s hands. Ahead of him, Brendon inhaled loudly – out of the corner of his eye, Jon saw Brendon jerk his gaze forward, away from Brent and the Queen. Jon turned his eyes back to Spencer’s back before he saw any more.

***

“Why?” Jon asked, days later.

They sat on the Panic bus – Jon’s bus, now. (“We seem to have an opening in our band,” Ryan had said, as calm as ever. “Want to step in?” It didn’t sound like a request to Jon. Even if it had been, he wouldn’t – couldn’t - have said no.)

He and Spencer sat at the table in the kitchen. Jon had been staring at absolutely nothing – he’d been concentrating hard on not thinking too much about recent events lately, because once he started, he couldn’t seem to stop – before he’d spoken. He wasn’t sure why he asked. The question was entirely unconscious, and he didn’t actually know he’d spoken aloud until Spencer answered him. “There are a lot of answers to that question, Jon, you’ll have to be more specific.”

Spencer sounded tired. He’d held his head high all the way back through the doorway, back into the hotel and the real world, and then he’d gone to his hotel room and hadn’t emerged until soundcheck the next day. When Jon saw him the next day, he looked entirely human, with black smudges under his eyes and a slouched posture.

Jon thought for a moment more. He finally settled on, “Why Brent?”

Spencer blinked. The corner of his mouth turned up into a sneer that Jon suspected was directed more at himself than at anyone else. “Because it had to be someone.” In that moment, Spencer sounded so much like Pete had, sharp and sad. Jon reached across the table without thinking, brushing the back of Spencer’s hand with his fingertips. Spencer’s eyes widened, but his mouth relaxed, and he turned his palm upward just long enough to touch Jon’s hand. For a second, Jon thought that Spencer might grab his hand, but then Spencer withdrew his hand and carded it through his hair, sighing.

They remained quiet. Jon listened to the noise from the back of the bus – a song on Guitar Hero, Brendon yelling gleefully at Ryan during the game. So many normal sounds. The only noise in the kitchen, however, was the sound of Jon’s fingers drumming lightly on the table. He nodded, finally. “So, what happens the next time?”

He heard Spencer sigh next to him. “I don’t know.”

“How long?”

Spencer understood that question. “Brent isn’t as talented as her last pet. He won’t last as long. So, maybe a few years, by your calendar?”

Jon thought of the ashen-faced fae from the Queen’s court. How many years had he been forced to sit at her side? He chose not to ask; some things, he wasn’t ready to hear.

He looked down at his t-shirt – Spencer’s t-shirt, actually, the one adorned with the gold shield Jon still felt burning into his chest when he dreamed. He’d grabbed it from Spencer’s suitcase when he moved onto the Panic bus. It felt like his, now. When he looked up, Spencer was studying his face intently. Jon stretched his arms over his head. “You want something to drink? I’m fucking parched.”

He made a move to push himself to his feet, but Spencer’s hand on top of his own stopped him. “Jon.”

“What?”

“I thought you’d have other questions.” When Jon looked over, Spencer’s expression was more vulnerable than he’d seen in a long time – since before this stupid mess started, he supposed.

Jon had a million questions. What did it mean to be a knight? To be Spencer’s knight? How much of his life was his own any more? How dangerous was it? He looked down at Spencer’s hand, which had inched up to curl halfway around Jon’s forearm, and watched blue tendrils wrap around his skin in a shy embrace. They scurried away when Jon tried stroking them lightly with his fingertip. Spencer drew in a sharp breath at the gesture.

Jon put his other hand over Spencer’s briefly. “I guess I’ve got time to ask them, don’t I?”

Jon’s hand was engulfed in blue. The smile that spread across Spencer’s face was genuine. “Yeah, you kind of do.”

It wasn’t happily ever after, but maybe, Jon thought as he grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator, ‘happily for now’ was the best ending a story could hope for.

~The End~

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