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Entry tags:
Fic: Twilight (Panic! carnival AU)
Title: Twilight
Fandom: bandslash RPS (Panic! at the Disco, feat. members of Fall Out Boy and The Academy Is...)
Pairing: Brendon/Jon, with implied Spencer/Jon and eventual Brendon/Jon/Spencer
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 10,000
Warnings: not quite GSF, but close enough...
Summary: The boys work in a carnival during the Depression-era 1930s.
Notes: Many, MANY thanks to everyone who kept asking me to finish this, especially![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shleemeri, who also did the beta work. Much love. <3
Twilight: a soundtrack
Brendon Urie liked to tell people he became a carnie at the tender age of ten, but it wasn't true. He'd just turned fourteen when the carnival pulled into town, full of sights he could only dream of beholding, and years later he could still remember the terror he'd felt when the tiny blonde belly dancer slid her soft fingertips underneath his chin and invited him to partake in the wonders of the sideshow. The terror quickly bled into awe and an almost obsessive wonder, and he'd crawled into his bed well after midnight that night, smelling of bubblegum and sawdust.
He left home the next day and never looked back.
Sometimes, along with the Oliver Twist age change, he'd say he was an orphan, left to roam the country alone until Old Man Adams, the carnival's manager, found him doing juggling tricks in an alley somewhere in New York City. In reality, Brendon's home life had been fairly ordinary; his parents, both devout Christians, believed prayer and good church-going practices had kept them from the experiencing the worst of the Depression's blow. Their house was small but neat, on a nice street in a nice neighborhood. Brendon's father didn't have a car; instead he rode his bicycle to work, an insurance company that had managed to stay afloat after the crash in '29. Brendon had birthday parties every year, presents at Christmas, and a puppy that greeted him when he came home from school.
In the end, Brendon told everyone he was an orphan to deal with the ridiculous irony he lived with every day; most people became carnies to escape all the poverty in their lives. Brendon became one to experience it.
~
Ryan had stolen William's tarot cards again. It was late, the midway put to bed for the night, and he was hunched over a wooden crate in a dimly lit corner of one of the small crew tents, hair hanging in his eyes and cards spread out before him.
He tapped his index finger against a card and said, "You're going to perform a miracle."
"A what?" Spencer wrinkled his nose and sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. He never bought into any of the psychic bullshit, and Brendon, who sat to Spencer's left, wondered why Ryan even bothered sometimes.
"A miracle." Ryan held up the card. "See? Magician. The cards don't lie, I keep telling you --"
"They're cards, Ryan, Jesus. Quit acting like they're some creepy all-knowing cult."
Brendon snorted and slapped his hand against the crate. "My turn, do me, I believe it wholeheartedly."
Spencer rolled his eyes. "I'm gonna go find Doc to look at my hand again. It's still hurting like hell." He flexed his right hand into a fist and winced; the dingy white cloth bandage held a tinge of dark red along his palm, where he'd sliced it open trying to fix a faulty rotation gear on the tilt-a-whirl. Ten stitches with black sewing thread now held the wound shut.
"Just take two shots of whiskey and call it a night," Brendon half-joked as Ryan dealt the cards facedown in front of him.
"Then I'll have a headache in the morning and a fucked up hand. No thanks." He got up and waved goodnight, yawning as he left the tent for Doc Trohman's medic wagon.
Ryan flipped a card over and sighed. "Why do you always get the Star?"
Brendon grinned. "Just lucky?"
"Luck has nothing to do with it."
"Well, the cards don't lie, and evidently they're thoroughly convinced I'm amazing."
Ryan glared at him, but Brendon knew better than to take the look seriously.
~
Brendon had been with the carnival almost year when Ryan and Spencer joined on, arriving after the rest of them had finished a long stint on the north Texas border.
Spencer Smith was good with his hands, liked tinkering and fixing things that were bigger than him and usually made noises that scared the shit out of Brendon. He started off manning the Ferris wheel, and not long after he learned how to make the machine shudder with just enough force to rock the two-man cars, causing the occupants to scramble and fret and somehow lose the belongings from their pockets. Most of the time it was small things, like watches and loose change, and Spencer hid them all in a cigar box under his cot. He'd wait until the carnival had long left the town before letting the rest of the group have their pick of the prizes. Only when a stray wallet fell did Spencer keep the loot--his "shakes"--to himself.
As far as Brendon knew, Ryan Ross had never been outside of the country. Yet he somehow knew the proper ways to handle exotic animals, and he was given the job of animal handler. The lions tended to despise every new handler they acquired, and hearing a man being mauled to death was something no one liked to experience more than once. But much to Old Man Adams's relief, the animals loved Ryan--took to him like a surrogate parent--and soon Ryan began sleeping in one of the half dozen animal wagons. He'd come trudging into the mess tent for breakfast smelling like hay, and during the day he had no hesitation in making small children cry if they dared throw things through the cage bars in the menagerie.
Ryan and Spencer had been childhood friends, although the when and where was lost to Brendon. He knew they were from Nevada and had traveled with a carnival before joining Adams's, but then it had shut down for lack of funds, and they'd been doing odd jobs through the Midwest, barely staying fed. Unlike Brendon, Ryan was honest about his background and the violent, alcoholic father he'd left behind. But he never went into details and Brendon never asked, mostly because Spencer warned him early on to never push the subject.
Brendon had spent his first year as a carnie being the outsider, cared for only by the matrons of the group who took pity on him while the rest thought he was a little too loud and a little too eager, so it was only natural that he would cling to both of them, and they accepted him with the unspoken agreement shared between lost boys.
~
A few days later a photographer arrived, wanting to take pictures for a photo essay he was making on life as carnie. Tom Conrad stayed on for three days, drifting through the midway and trying to look conspicuous whenever he lifted his camera and aimed.
"Told you," Brendon said one evening as he draped himself against Ryan in the animal menagerie tent and posed dramatically in front of the lion's cage. "Star. Cards don't lie." He pursed his lips for Tom, who shook his head and laughed.
"Stop posing," Tom said. "It's not real life." But he snapped the picture anyway, much to Brendon's joy. Jackson, the male lion, snuffled behind them in irritation at the flashbulb.
"We're carnies," Brendon replied matter-of-factly and with pride. "It's never real life." He wondered if the vivid colors of his clown make-up would translate at all to black and white; it would be a shame for Ryan's handiwork to go unnoticed.
Tom laughed again. "Guess you have a point."
From off to their left a llama whined, making Ryan sigh and ask, "Are we done here? Martha needs her dinner." He, too, was still in full make-up, dark charcoal lines around his eyes that flared out at the edges into delicate, swirling patterns; it gave him an air of mystique during the day as he stood at the opening to The Great Exotic Animal Menagerie and beckoned people inside to see creatures they'd probably only seen in books, if ever. It had been all Ryan's idea, and Old Man Adams loved it, as did the dancer girls; within six months Ryan was doing all their make-up as well, the designs darker and more intense depending on his mood.
But he always did Brendon's first, always, not matter how demanding the girls got. Brendon loved him for that.
"Yeah, we're done." Tom slung the camera onto his shoulder. "I'm off to get a stiff drink. You boys done for the evening?"
Brendon yawned in spite of himself. He never liked to go to bed before the rest of the crew; something could happen later in the night and he'd be forced to hear about it secondhand in the morning. "Nope, I'll go with you."
Ryan shook his head. "I've got a llama to feed. Have fun." There was a slight tinge of disapproval in his voice, which Brendon promptly ignored. Ryan never drank and expected everyone else to do the same, but ever since Jon had looked him square in the eye and told him Prohibition was over ("And you sure as hell don't look like a tea-tottling old biddy"), Ryan had been pretty quiet when it came to voicing his opinions on alcohol. (Granted, Jon knew about Ryan's past, and he eventually apologized for the drunken barb, but Ryan stayed quiet nonetheless. Jon, for his part, was still trying to make it up to him.)
Brendon followed Tom through the quiet midway, dark save for the single string of yellow-orange lights meandering through the empty game booths and concession stands flanking them from both sides. In the background loomed the large, almost supernatural silhouettes of the Ferris wheel and the tilt-a-whirl.
There was a light up ahead, streaming from the open flap of one of the crew tents, which stood beyond the border of the midway, partitioned off by chicken wire and wood posts. Raucous laughter drifted through the warm night air, and Brendon's heart thumped hard in his chest.
"I don't know how you do it," Tom mused as they drew closer to the tent. "I'd be exhausted and in bed before sundown if I put in half the work you people do in a single day."
Brendon shrugged. "Yeah, but this is the fun part of the day." He smiled, even though he knew a man who took photographs for a living would never completely understand the idea of freedom after sunset, when the tents didn't need to be taken down and several hours of hard travel weren't looming in the distance. For the moment, they were free to entertain themselves.
The atmosphere of the tent was hot, thick with tobacco smoke and the heavy scent of sweat. Brendon scanned the crowd to get an inventory of who was present--at least, that was the excuse he gave himself. Off in the corner he could see The Butcher, also known as the "Tattooed Man" who worked the sideshow, smoking a cigar as he crouched on top of one of the wooden tables and told explicit, outrageous stories about his life with Barnum and Bailey's. Below him sat Pete, the main barker who held court over the midway during the day. He smirked as The Butcher spun his tales, because he was also used to holding court over the crew at night. Pete fascinated Brendon to no end.
A familiar voice said behind him, "Hey, Clown, want a drink?"
Brendon sucked in a breath and smiled to himself, quick and fierce, but schooled his face into a simple expression of consideration as he turned around. Jon stood there with his hand out stretched, offering him a tin cup of whatever had been brewed the previous night.
"Sometimes I think you don't actually know my real name," Brendon replied casually, although his voice sounded too high.
Jon grinned at him a little sloppily as he leaned forward, close enough for Brendon to feel his hot breath on his chin. He could smell axel grease and alcohol.
"Maybe I just forget when you're all done up pretty like this." Jon reached his thumb out and swiped it over Brendon's cheek; it came away covered in white mixed with blues and magentas.
"Aw, you think I'm pretty?" He tried for one of his goofier smiles as his heart flipped.
Jon shrugged. "Ryan does good work, that's for sure." He took a drink from his cup (he never winced, not once, like he'd spent his whole life drinking Moonshine and learning to love it), and then his eyes landed on Tom and his camera.
"Oh shit, he's back." His face lit up like a kid's on Christmas morning. "He, uh. He promised to let me have a go with it." Jon sighed in disbelief. "A real hand-held. That thing must've cost a goddamn fortune."
Brendon nodded, even though he knew nothing about photography at all, but he knew Jon had been obsessed with Tom and his cameras since the man arrived. He'd watched Jon follow the photographer around like a shadow until finally getting the nerve to shyly ask to see one, to really touch it, and Tom had been more than obliging. Since then Jon had talked about little else.
In the days since Jon had joined the carnival, Brendon had been jealous of several people, namely Spencer, but never in his life would he have thought he'd be green with envy over a camera.
He looked on as Jon made his way over to Tom, his cheeks flushed from drink and excitement. They exchanged a few words Brendon couldn't hear, and then Tom nodded and smiled, shrugging the camera off his shoulder and handing it over to Jon with care. Jon took it with both hands, his fingers curling over the lens as he tucked it close to his chest, cradling it like a child, the flashbulb fitting under his chin.
He glanced up, caught Brendon watching him, and before Brendon could look away, Jon lifted the camera and took Brendon's picture.
Brendon blinked at the flash and forgot to pose.
~
They'd found Jon outside of Tulsa, standing at the side of the road as the dust swirled around him and tousled his hair. He’d been standing there as if he’d been waiting for them all along.
The caravan came to a stop, engines groaning, and Brendon could hear Old Man Adams yell, “You lost?”
He'd smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Nope. Just need a job.”
“Yeah?” Adams laughed, and that was when Spencer jabbed him in the shoulder and hissed, “What’s going on?” It was just the two of them in the tent wagon, surrounded by yards of canvas. Ryan, as usual, was with the animals.
“Some guy, I don’t know. He’s looking for work.” Brendon leaned further out the wagon’s window and watched the way the guy shifted from foot to foot. His clothes held the muted color of dust and looked worn, soft, like they’d rarely left his body. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his dark brown trousers, but he kept his chin tipped up.
He was scruffy as hell, but he didn’t give the appearance of a beggar; he didn’t seem desperate at all, only determined. And Brendon knew—they all knew—that there was a world of difference between the two.
“What’s his name?” Spencer leaned over his shoulder to get a look. Brendon started to shove him off, but then Old Man Adams asked the same question. Spencer smirked.
“Jon Walker,” the guy replied.
“Got any mechanical skills? I need someone to tinker with the carousel.”
He thought for a moment, and finally nodded. “I can handle that,” was all he said.
There was a long pause before Adams grumbled, “Alright then, get your ass in one of the wagons. We’re goin’ until we hit Kansas City.”
Jon pulled his hands out of his pockets, rubbed them together slowly as he looked up and down the line. When he caught Brendon and Spencer gawking at him, he laughed and tilted his head to one side. He suddenly looked shy.
“Can I ride with you two?” he asked as he scrubbed a hand through his hair.
Brendon practically scrambled over Spencer to get the back door open for him, much to Spencer’s huffed displeasure and mumbled, “He’s a Dust Bowl kid, Brendon.” It was funny, really; even though Spencer had spent a decent portion of his life struggling through the poverty-stricken Midwest, he himself was not a Dust Bowl kid, because, in his mind, he'd been born and raised in Nevada. The Midwest had claimed him by default.
Brendon tended to think Spencer just hated seeing people who reminded him of himself.
Jon was from Illinois, somewhere outside of Chicago. His parents had died in a fire when he was ten and he'd been sent to live with cousins on a seven hundred acre farm in central Kansas. The drought had hit them hard, and he'd been wandering from farm to farm doing what he could to earn what little money there was to be had. He never said it out loud, but Brendon had a feeling the farm was long gone by the time he'd come to join Adams's Carnival Spectacular. There wasn't any place else for him to go.
He was a jack-of-all-trades, it turned out; the carousel was up and running within two days, without the high-pitched grinding noise to which everyone had become accustomed. He polished the horses to a shine, lacquered the brass poles, and touched up the paint on their saddles, making them almost look like new, and soon it became a joke among the crew as to who would sneak out in the middle of the night to take a ride on Jon's new "babies".
And the carousel was Jon's pride and joy, but he also patched up tent holes and helped Spencer weld together a new car for the Ferris wheel after an old one rusted through. He helped Spencer fix a lot of things, and it wasn't a rare occurrence for Brendon to find them huddled together in one of the crew tents after dark, drunk and giggling, their skin nearly black with grease and oil. Sometimes Jon would smile at Brendon--"Aw, Bren, c'mere you," he'd slur affectionately--and reach his dirty hand out to muss Brendon's hair.
"He's not bad for a Dust Bowl kid," Spencer said in passing once, and Brendon gritted his teeth and said nothing.
Weeks later, on the night Brendon managed to talk Ryan into sharing his cot for warmth (spring nights in northern California were too damn cold), Spencer came stumbling into their tent in the middle of the night, or the beginnings of early morning--either way, it was pitch black, the majority of the crew fast asleep.
"Brendon, you awake?" Spencer sounded drunk.
He blinked awake slowly and looked over his shoulder; Ryan was curled on his side, pressed up against the wall of the tent, his back to Brendon. He didn't stir when Brendon sat up.
"What is it? What's wrong?" he muttered, rubbing his eyes.
"I kissed Walker. Just now, outside." The words all sort of ran together in one breathless phrase.
Brendon was suddenly wide awake. "Oh." His chest felt tight.
"I just. I had to tell someone. I don't even--shit, I just need, um. I need to sleep, I think." Spencer fumbled around in the dark for his cot that sat adjacent to Brendon's, and he knocked a lantern over in the process. There was a muffled thunk as it hit the ground, and Spencer swore, loudly.
Beside Brendon, Ryan twitched. "'s goin' on?"
"Nothing. Spencer's drunk." Brendon didn't even bother to disguise the bitterness.
"Mmm." Ryan fell back asleep while Spencer finally collapsed on his cot with a dramatic sigh.
It was quiet for several long moments. Brendon lay on his back, staring into the dark and ignoring the cot that sat empty beside his. His lips felt too hot.
"Brendon?"
He closed his eyes and tried not hate him. "Yeah, Spence?"
"I'll say I'm sorry if you want me to."
Brendon bit his lip and waited until he heard the soft snuffles of Spencer's drunken snores before forcing himself into sleep.
Two whole nights would pass before Jon finally slept in the same tent with them again. No one said a word about it, and Brendon liked it that way, for the most part.
He never asked Spencer to apologize.
~
A few weeks before Spencer's accident, Brendon broke up a fight and paid for it with a black eye.
The sun was gradually being blotted out by heavy gray clouds, which dampened the July heat just enough to make rounds through the main midway not completely unbearable. For Brendon, nothing was worse than having make-up drip off your chin as you attempted to casually swallow a sword.
He was gathering a small crowd of children, their eyes flashing wide open when Brendon held up the stage sword and waggled his eyebrows.
"Looks more exciting than juggling, don't you think?" he asked them, and the kids nodded, utterly enthralled and only slightly terrified. Brendon knew the feeling well.
"Alright, don't try this yourselves, kids, because I had special clown training for this. It's very complicated, and never works on a full stomach."
A little girl giggled. Brendon smiled, and he'd barely tipped his head back, loosening the muscles of his throat, when he heard someone yell, "You little bastard! You thief!"
He didn't immediately drop out of character; he cocked his head ever so slightly toward the sound, and instantly placed it as coming from the direction of Patrick's booth. The shouts were getting louder: "You gimme my money back, you son of a bitch, or I'll skin your ass into next week!"
Brendon dropped his arms and said in a rush to the kids, "Intermission time." They whined pitifully as he ran off.
Patrick's booth was one of the simpler ones of the midway, which was fitting, since his game, Three-card Monte, was a simple one, direct and to the point. The better was usually wrong, not because the game was especially hard, but because Patrick almost always performed a sleight of hand that took the money card out of the equation completely. It was a fairly brilliant scam, but one that got Patrick's life threatened more often than not. Many times he got by with his practiced look of innocence and small stature; he didn't look the part of a con man, and people were usually gullible enough to believe it.
But sometimes, people just wanted to pound him into the dirt.
The man was twice Patrick's size, and he'd managed to grab Patrick by the collar of his shirt, shaking him hard. Patrick, to his credit, held his ground, but Brendon could see the tremor in his hand as he held his hat steady on his head. His knuckles were white.
"Look, I explained the rules already, okay?" Patrick yelled in the guy's face. Brendon winced; his short temper never helped. "It's not my fault you don't like 'em."
"It ain't the rules I don't like, it's your cheatin' mug." The guy shook Patrick a little harder, and Brendon knew, could tell by the way Patrick pulled back his free hand and began curling it into a tight fist, that things were about to get a lot worse. Normally about this time Pete would show up, news of Patrick's manhandling making it down the midway to him in record time. Pete was his unofficial body guard, something that had been formed in an unspoken agreement years ago, probably before Brendon's time.
But Pete was nowhere to be found, and while Brendon wasn't exactly the one to be throwing his weight into brewing fight, he couldn't stand by and watch Patrick take a beating.
He swallowed hard and nudged the guy's elbow. "You don't want to be doing that, mister." Brendon pitched his voice lower, like it would somehow swing the outcome in his favor, and held his stage sword low at his side.
There was a split second where Patrick met his eyes over the guy's shoulder; he looked both relieved and a little irritated. He opened his mouth as if to possibly warn Brendon off, but the words never came as the man spun around much too quickly and shoved his fist straight into Brendon's left eye. The force of his punch sent Brendon to the ground, flat on his back, knocking the wind from his lungs.
"You gonna get my money back for me, asshole?" he yelled as he stood over Brendon. "Or am I just gonna have to beat the shit out of you for compensation?" He kicked him twice in the stomach, hard, and Brendon groaned, angry as hell and thoroughly embarrassed by the sharp, heated pain screaming through his eye socket and spreading through his gut.
"Learn to...play the game better," he gasped, barely managing to add a smirk at the end. It was a mistake, he knew, but damn it, it felt good to see the bastard's eyes flare like that.
Brendon would've most likely had more than a few broken ribs to his name had Patrick not grabbed the man from behind and put him into a solid head lock. Pete had also chosen that moment to show up, and the two of them wrestled the guy into submission, Pete's boot heel pinning him face first into the dirt.
"He's got a point," Pete growled in the guy's ear. "No one likes a sore loser."
"Then tell your cheater pal to give me my money back!"
Pete dug his heel in a little harder, making the guy yelp in pain. Then he threw a crumpled dollar bill on the ground, and it landed near the man's nose.
"There's your fucking money, loser. Now get the fuck out of my midway or I'll start getting serious." He let the man up, and the guy merely glared at Pete as he stumbled away, a large red boot heel imprint branded on his cheek. Pete tipped his hat back and spit after him. "Fucking pansy," he muttered, and Patrick replied rather sullenly, "You gave him too much money, Pete."
In the midst of all this, Brendon tried to close his eyes and breathe, his arm curled around his stomach as he swallowed past the sudden rush of nausea. His free hand pawed the ground weakly until his fingertips found his sword. Brendon sighed; he wondered if the kids were still waiting for him.
Suddenly dusty fingers were skimming softly over his face, over the bruised flesh under his eye. "Holy shit, Bren, he got you good, didn't he?"
"And this is what happens when you try to be a goddamn hero." A different voice, exasperation filtered with worry.
Jon and Spencer--they'd come with Pete. Brendon resisted being ridiculously pleased over the fact that Patrick wasn't the only one with his own bodyguard.
He opened his eyes, grimacing as they both pulled him to his feet. "Not a hero, just a--a Good Samaritan." He rubbed at his eye, but Spencer batted his hand away.
"Like Patrick doesn't get roughed up every other day," Spencer huffed, and behind him Patrick yelled, "Hey!" It went mostly ignored except for Pete's snort and "'s true, and you know it."
Jon was smiling at him. "So. First shiner, Mr. Do-Gooder?"
"That I can remember, yeah--ow! Fuck, Spence!" He hissed and jerked his head back when Spencer started to prod at the bruise with his thumb.
"You need to go see Doc. It's starting to swell."
"Yeah, I hadn't noticed," Brendon grumbled just as Patrick patted his shoulder.
"Thanks for trying," he said. "But next time? Use the sword. It'd probably help."
Jon walked with him to Doc Trohman's medic wagon. "You're not having trouble breathing, are you?"
Brendon winced as he pressed his hand against his abdomen. "No, but my stomach hurts like hell. Is that a good thing?"
"Means you don't have any broken ribs, so yeah. It is."
"How do you know that?"
He shrugged. "Got trampled by a horse when I was twelve, nearly shattered my ribcage.
All I can remember is how it hurt so bad to breathe, I wanted to die."
Brendon tried to picture a young Jon, fragile and broken and lying in a bed, holding his breath. He swallowed and concentrated on the pain around his eye.
The doc only poked at Brendon's eye much like Spencer had, and then made Brendon take several deep breaths as he stuck his cold stethoscope to Brendon's bare chest.
"Everything sounds okay. I doubt you really broke anything." He motioned Brendon to button up his shirt and added, "Your eye, however, pretty much lost the fight." He took a clean rag and soaked it in a small basin of water that sat beside his medicine cart. "The water's probably not cold enough, but it'll help."
Brendon sucked in a breath as the cold cloth touched his hot skin. "Thanks, doc."
"Need something for the pain, or are you feeling brave tonight?"
The idea of sleeping without drugs sounded excruciating. "Um, I'll take whatever you wanna give me."
"Trust me, I've got just the thing."
He loaded up a syringe with something that "did wonders for post-bar fight blues," and within a minute of being injected Brendon felt a thousand times better.
"Sleep?" Jon asked him as they left the wagon. He looked ridiculously worried for some reason, and Brendon broke into lazy giggles.
"Don't look so sad, Jon Walker," he said, and suddenly it was very, very easy for him to lean into Jon, nuzzle his nose up under his jaw like a cat. He'd done this before as a joke, of course, always letting Jon know in the end that it was all a game. But now it felt natural. It felt real, or maybe it always had been.
"I'm not sad, I just want to make sure you're okay." He scrubbed his hand through Brendon's hair, nails grazing his scalp in gentle swipes. "And I think you need to call it a night."
The sun was disappearing into the horizon, leaving its dim remains of twilight behind, signifying the beginning of night. He wanted sleep--the drugs made his bones heavy--and yet the best part of the day had only just arrived.
"But I won't get to drink with you and Spencer." Brendon mumbled the words into Jon's neck, his mouth sliding softly over his sweat-tinged skin. He didn't even know if they'd walked the rest of the way to their tent; he was only aware of his body, how it was melting into blissful numbness around Jon's. He knew he should pull away--not a game, not a game--but he was too tired and too content to move.
"It's not as exciting as you make it sound. Spencer's a whiny drunk sometimes, you know that."
Somewhere, in the far corner of his brain, a voice whispered faintly and he kisses you when he's drunk, too, but Brendon shook his head and tried to focus as Jon's hands peeled Brendon's arms from around his shoulders and lowered him down onto his cot. It felt softer than Brendon remembered.
There was enough darkness inside the tent to turn things into vague shadows; he could only see an outline of Jon kneeling in front of him, unlacing Brendon's boots.
Brendon whispered, "Never gotten into a fight before."
He heard Jon's soft laughter "Yeah? That's actually pretty commendable."
"No, it's pathetic." His words slurred a little. "I'm just a goddamn clown who doesn't know how to defend himself." Tired. So, so tired, but he wanted to keep talking, keep Jon there...
When his feet were bare, he felt the cot dip beside him, and Jon's leg pressing into his. "Know what I think?"
"What?" Brendon reached his hand out blindly, found the hard curve of Jon's shoulder and slid his fingers higher, sifting them through the fine hairs along his neck. Jon was warm and solid, and Brendon thought he could fall asleep here, tucked against Jon's side, and sleep for days.
"I think you put your ass on the line for someone today without even thinking about it. And that's gotta count for something, right?" His voice was a soft rumble, and Brendon soaked up the tones more than the words.
"I guess." He could feel himself fading, but he tangled his hand in Jon's shirt and said, "I need to ask you something, Jon Walker."
Jon turned his head just a little, enough to where Brendon could thread his fingers through the coarse scruff on his cheeks. Brendon sighed, tugged him closer. "Can I, just. Can I kiss you like Spencer does?" he whispered.
There was a tension underneath his hands, a small intake of breath that made Jon's chest expand. "He doesn't--"
But Brendon wasn't going to wait for the answer he knew he'd never get, not when his brain felt liquid and his skin heavy-soft. All he needed was to close his eyes and breathe, one slow drag of air after another as he slowly gave in. Maybe he'd remember this dream in the morning, maybe not. Brendon didn't care.
His mouth touched Jon's bottom lip and swept back and forth there, the tip of his tongue tracing along the edge before pulling back, sliding higher, wanting more. Jon didn't move, didn't so much as touch him, and Brendon heard himself say, "Just open your mouth, that's all. I won't--just let me in a little, please."
Lips parted beneath his, said his name with either acquiescence or regret, he couldn't tell. But Brendon wasn't being pushed away, and that was enough for the moment, because he soon had the hot, bittersweet taste of Jon in his mouth and the deep thudding of Jon's heart under his hands, and when he finally felt cool, damp fingertips cup the nape of his neck, Brendon sighed.
"Thank you," he whispered against the corner of Jon's mouth, and he wanted to believe he heard Jon murmur "you're welcome" in return.
He woke with a start to a lantern being flicked on. Ryan stood over him, his hand resting on Brendon's elbow.
"You okay?" He squinted and leaned closer as he held the lantern over the cot. "Christ, your eye's really starting to look like shit."
Brendon's brain felt stuffed with cotton; he rubbed at his chin with the back of his hand, mumbled, "What time is it?"
"I don't know. Sorry I wasn't around earlier for all the excitement, but the hyenas got into a brawl of their own. It's been going on all night, I'm surprised the commotion didn't wake you." He shook his head and laughed. "No, wait, I take that back. Whatever drugs Trohman gave you, they worked like a charm."
It all came back to Brendon in sluggish bits: Fight. Drugs.
Jon.
Ryan nudged his legs over as he sat down on the end of the cot, setting the lantern on ground. "Spencer thinks you're a fucking idiot, but I think you did the right thing. A stupid thing, but the right thing."
Brendon threw an arm over his face and promptly hissed in pain when he hit his bruised cheekbone. "Thanks." He swallowed, glanced over at the two empty cots beside his own.
"They decided to find a real tavern," Ryan said. "Something about Pete wanting to track down 'the fucking sore loser guy'."
Brendon would've pouted at the thought of missing out on a trip into town, but he was too distracted by the fact that he'd woken up alone.
"Hey." Ryan reached over and cupped Brendon's chin gently. "Do you need some more drugs or something? You look like you're in pain again."
"No. I'm fine." He closed his eyes, rolling over onto his side to hide his face in his pillow.
"Want me to go?"
"No." He did, but he couldn't bear the thought of being alone when Jon and Spencer came stumbling back into the tent, all whispers and muffled, private laughter. He buried his face deeper into the pillow, his cheeks burning hot; he wondered if Jon had told Spencer. "No, stay."
Ryan didn't say anything more; he turned the lantern off and slid in beside Brendon, curling up tight along his back, his hand draped over Brendon's hip.
William caught his eye at breakfast the next morning and gave Brendon a long, hard stare, the kind that made Brendon fidget and long to turn his brain off.
"Don't," William said in a simple, quiet voice as he sat down next to Brendon on one of the wooden benches, the bright summer sun already making the mess tent simmer with heat.
"Don't what?" He played the part of a psychic and fortune teller well, but Brendon hated when William tried to make it real.
"Don't think things you don't mean, alright? It never comes to any good."
Brendon snorted, never looking up from his oatmeal. "I'm not thinking anything."
"You are, and if you keep it up, you'll be sorry." William sighed, smiling slightly. "It's not what you think, anyway. The timing's just not right."
He couldn't take anymore of William's mystical code talk; he got up from the table and stalked off, no longer hungry.
~
As Brendon's black eye began to heal, sickly tinges of greenish yellow formed around the edges of dark, angry purple, making Brendon look slightly monstrous to the children who'd pass him. Normally he made it through an entire day without going to the dressing tents to reapply his make-up (or better yet, hunt down Ryan and make him do it instead, although that usually never went over well), but when the white foundation started to fade, the bruise came through, and scaring kids wasn't the point of his job. So while the bruise was at its worst, Brendon made frequent stops to check in the mirror to make sure he wasn't especially frightening.
When Spencer's accident occurred, Brendon had been away from the midway in his little corner of one of the dressing tents, sitting at a vanity and trying desperately to touch up Ryan's design around his bad eye. It was slow going (his hand was never steady enough for the intricacies involved), and he was getting angry at the way the bruise was starting to resemble mold beneath his make-up.
"Should've used the fucking sword," he muttered to himself in mirror. Of course Ryan had glared at him when he'd stuck his head in the menagerie and begged for help ("Now is not the time, Urie"), even though it wasn't his fault he was being punished for doing something nice.
He had just finished what he considered to be the last touches when Andy ran into the tent, gasping for breath. He was one of the other clowns, although he chose never to bother with stage make-up, save the giant red nose he always wore (the one Brendon hated, because you had to breathe through your mouth).
Andy's face was pale, fearful. He wasn't wearing the nose. "Brendon? You need to come with me, quick," he said, and since Andy wasn't one for dramatics, Brendon instantly felt his stomach drop.
"What--"
Andy shook his head, grabbing Brendon's arm and pulling him out of the tent. "Accident at the Ferris wheel. It's Spencer."
Everything after that went mute; Brendon couldn't hear the rest of whatever details Andy chose to tell him as they ran through the midway, to where a crowd had gathered at the Ferris wheel, Pete yelling at those who weren't carnival crewman to stay back, but Brendon didn't hear that, either. He shoved through the crowd, his heart in his throat, and he felt a hand touch his wrist out of nowhere.
"C'mon." It was Ryan, and in all the time he'd known him, Brendon had never seen him look so frightened. He lead him through the Ferris wheel's gate, and when Brendon finally saw what had happened, he stopped in his tracks, unable to move closer.
A mother and her child stood off to the side, sobbing and shaking. The mother kept insisting, "I swear, I didn't mean to, I just got so scared, that's all--" The child clung to his mother's skirts, a small cut on his face.
To her left was one of the two-man cars, rustier and worse for wear than the others. It was lying on its side on the ground, its bolts scattered everywhere, having completely detached from the ride itself.
And pinned underneath the car was Spencer. His chest was held down, right arm completely gone from sight. He was conscious, but his skin was turning a strange shade of gray. Jon was crouched beside him with Doc Trohman, the two of them talking to Spencer, asking him things that made his face crumple a little as he bit his lip and either shook his head or nodded.
"Good fucking Christ," Brendon finally breathed.
"The car started to separate from the frame," Ryan said in a monotone voice. "The mother got scared, wouldn't listen to Spence when he told her to stay put, wait until he brought them in. She tried to grab her kid and climb out...Spence tried to stop them, but...it just. It broke off." He made an odd noise in his throat. "As you can see, the kid only got a scratch." Brendon looked over, watched the way Ryan's hand clinched in and out of a tight fist.
"Will he--is there any--"
"Trohman says they have to be careful moving the seat because we don't know how much damaged was done to...to his chest." Ryan started tapping his fist against his thigh. "He doesn't know if he can save his arm."
"Alright, show's over, everyone!" Pete was getting more insistent. "Come back tomorrow, everything will still be here, I promise. Everyone just needs to go home now--" He herded the crowd back slowly toward the entrance with the help of several crew members, and at that moment Jon looked over and met Brendon's eyes. The determination Brendon was so accustomed to seeing in his expression was gone; he seemed at a complete loss.
Brendon forced his feet to move, and as he drew closer, kept Jon's gaze, William's words suddenly played over and over again in his mind--don't think things you don't mean, alright?
"We're gonna move it here in a sec," Jon said, waving his hand at the seat. He finally looked away, over at Ryan, who sunk to his knees on the ground by Spencer.
"Bad day, huh?" he said, his hand curling lightly around Spencer's good shoulder. Ryan was shaking.
Spencer wasn't breathing well, and he gasped around his words. "You could say that." He tried to smile, which quickly became a wince, and Doc Trohman said something about him going into shock.
Jon stood up, and Brendon resisted taking his hand, leaning against him. "Do you, um. Do you think he'll be--okay?" Brendon asked quietly.
Jon shrugged, still watching Ryan with Spencer. "We have to move the car."
It took five men, including Jon, to lift the broken car; Spencer screamed the instant his arm was free and then passed out, the pain finally becoming too much for him. Brendon nearly threw up at the sound.
They got his body onto a cloth stretcher, and it was slow trip to the doc's medic wagon. Spencer was soon laid on the doc's bed--there wasn't room for an extra cot--and Doc Trohman told them all, "You guys are welcome to wait out here, but I need some time and breathing room alone to look him over. I'll keep you posted." He shut the wagon's door, the sound loud and obtrusive.
Brendon collapsed on the ground and tucked his face between his knees. He refused to cry.
"I'm. I can't stay here. I can't," Ryan mumbled, hands raking through his hair. "I'll be in the menagerie. Come get me if there's news." He disappeared, leaving Brendon alone with Jon, who'd yet to say anything since they'd moved Spencer.
Don't think things you don't mean. Brendon could feel his throat closing and the hot tears blurring his sight. He really, really hated William.
"Hey." He felt Jon's hand against his back, moving in circles. He sat down on the ground beside Brendon, pressed his shoulder against Brendon's.
"It's my fault," Brendon whispered, tears sliding quietly down his cheeks.
Jon's hand paused. "No, it's not. That's impossible, it was an accident--"
"But I wanted it to happen, okay?" He jerked back, away from Jon, stumbling clumsily to his feet as he ran away to nowhere in particular, as long as it was far from him.
He ended up in his dressing tent, and when he was certain the tent was empty, he crawled underneath the vanity and cried until his head hurt and his throat was raw. He tried to remember the last time he'd allowed himself to cry with such abandon; life before the carnival seemed almost surreal, like a dream. He didn't miss that life, but at that moment he longed for the time when things didn't hurt so fiercely.
When Brendon could breathe again and the hiccups from his sobs had passed, he rubbed his face (now mostly free of his stage make-up) and leaned his head out from under the vanity.
There sat Jon, holding his knees to his chest. He didn't say a word.
"How--" Brendon cleared his throat, his cheeks flushing. "How long have you been sitting there?"
"Long enough."
Brendon crawled the rest of the way out from under the vanity. He leaned back against its legs, facing Jon. He didn't have the will to leave him again.
"When you said you wanted this to happen--what did you mean by that?" Jon finally asked, his voice quiet.
Brendon closed his eyes. "That night, after I--" Kissed you would not come out, no matter how hard he tried. "--got in that fight, I kept thinking if something were take Spencer away, you'd--I don't know, I was drugged and stupid, but--"
"You thought I'd what?"
"I didn't mean it, it's not important now--"
"It is if I say it is."
He opened his eyes to find Jon looking at him with an intensity that terrified him, because he didn't know what it meant. "I--I thought you'd. Maybe." He looked away. "Want me."
There was a long bout of silence, and Brendon sort of curled in on himself in preparation for whatever was coming to him. He was too tired and heartsick and scared to run.
"You really think that's what caused all this?"
Brendon blinked and saw Jon smirking at him; there was something else in his eyes Brendon couldn't place. "I wouldn't have, I guess, if William hadn't--"
"Oh, William put it in your head. I get it." And to Brendon's amazement, Jon laughed, a quiet sound that shook his shoulders just a little. "Bren, how many times do I have to tell you that only Bill thinks he's psychic?"
"But he was so--"
"No. He got lucky." Jon scooted across the ground until his knees knocked into Brendon's. "I'm gonna kill that bastard." He winked at him. "Spencer would be incredibly disappointed in you, y'know."
At the mention of Spencer's name, Brendon winced before he could stop himself.
"Look." Jon reached out and skimmed his thumb over Brendon's cheek. His voice dropped to a whisper. "None of this is your fault, okay, no matter what some crazy fortune teller tells you."
Brendon finally huffed out a loud breath. "You're not mad?" he whispered back, his eyes fluttering closed as Jon's thumb traced the faded edge of his black eye.
"I know you wouldn't mean something like that." His chest was up against Brendon's legs; he could feel his heart beating. "You wouldn't be a complete mess right now if you'd meant it."
"I didn't, I swear--"
Jon kissed him softly, a simple press of lips, almost chaste. "I know."
The relief was so sudden, Brendon nearly went limp. "Well. Okay. Good." He wanted to open his mouth, kiss him back, but he waited instead for Jon to continue.
"He'll be okay." The determination was back in Jon's voice. "Spencer's gonna be fine." He nosed his way over Brendon's jaw, kissed his cheek as he wrapped his arms around him in a solid, heavy hug. "Trust me."
Brendon's arms were caught between his chest and Jon's, so he could do nothing by splay his hands over Jon's heart, burying his face in the curve of Jon's neck. He nodded.
"You're fucking ridiculous sometimes, Urie." His voice caught on his name.
Since the town they were in had no hospital (the nearest one was nearly fifty miles away, in Omaha), Doc Trohman was left to his own devices. After several long, fretful hours, he emerged from the medic wagon looking worn and exhausted, but said he was pretty certain Spencer had no internal damage.
The bones in his arm, however, were shattered.
"It'll heal," the doc said slowly as he watched everyone's faces carefully, especially Ryan's. "But it won't be the same. He'll probably have to teach himself to write left-handed."
It was good news as far as they were concerned; Spence was going to live, and that was all that mattered. Some sloppy handwriting was the least of their worries.
The next morning Old Man Adams drove Spencer and Doc Trohman to Omaha so that he could get his arm set in a suitable cast. The hospital did another physical on him, and while he had bruises and a cracked rib, they deemed him otherwise fine.
The night Spencer came back from Omaha, Brendon begged the doc to let him stay with him. Trohman agreed wearily--"Have at it, kid"--and left them alone to sleep in one of the crew tents instead of the floor of the medic wagon.
"Can I sleep with you?" Brendon asked quietly as Spencer eased himself into the bed, his cast arm held close to his body in a sling.
Spencer raised an eyebrow. "You're propositioning me now? Like this?"
"Damn it, you know what I mean."
He sighed and dropped his head back on the pillow. "Yeah, actually, I wouldn't mind the company. Just watch the arm."
"How could I miss it?" Brendon climbed under the blankets and slung an arm around Spencer's stomach, his cheek resting on his shoulder.
"What's with you? You never ask to sleep with me." Spencer didn't sound mad, just...surprised. And perhaps a little flattered and pleased, which for some reason made Brendon's heart tug painfully.
"Maybe I missed you, is that so bad?"
Spencer chuckled and rubbed his chin against Brendon's hair. "Nope."
They faded into sleep in warm, comforting silence, and just as Brendon felt himself dip into unconsciousness, he wished Jon was there with them.
~
Whether it was out of guilt or a sudden possessive sense of obligation, Brendon took to sleeping with Spencer every night, even when Spencer finally was able to move back to his old cot in their tent. And Spencer never objected; in fact, he'd make small groaning noises of protest whenever Brendon would blearily collapse onto his own cot after a particularly rough day, and Brendon would sigh, mumble "sorry", and climb into bed with Spencer without missing a beat.
It changed the dynamic of their nights all together. Since the doc was keeping Spencer in good supply of painkillers, he'd warned him off alcohol, so there were no longer the nightly trips to the crew tent, much to Ryan's delight. The four of them began a nightly ritual of poker in their own tent; by lantern light, they'd play into the night for whatever odds and ends were left in Spencer's "shakes" box until Brendon would fall into Jon's lap, yawning as if his jaw would come unhinged, or Ryan would be glaring intensely at his cards in a desperate effort to stay awake.
Spencer was still running the Ferris wheel, but he no longer did any mechanical work, save the occasional simple tasks that didn't require him to put much stress on his bad arm. The bones eventually healed as best they could, but he couldn't straighten his arm any more; it bent at a slight angle, and his hand was weaker, the fingers slower to react. He hid his frustration well, until Brendon found him late one afternoon huddled on his cot.
He'd sat up quickly, swiped his hand over his face. "Hey, I was just, uh. Getting my pills." His cheeks were damp.
Brendon knew he shouldn't say anything, that Spencer didn't want him to say anything, but he couldn't help it. "You can't push yourself, Spence, it's not gonna--"
"Don't fucking tell me what I can and can't do. I get it from everyone around here, and I sure as fuck am not gonna take it from you." He shoved passed Brendon and didn't speak to him again until that night, when he whispered in the dark, "Sorry, I didn't mean--," and Brendon was already climbing into his bed, saying, "'s okay, don't worry about it."
The strangest part was that Brendon kept waiting for the awkwardness between him and Jon to come; they'd kissed twice and had yet to mention a word about it to one another. But since the accident, the three of them were much more tactile with each other, even Ryan, who'd gradually stopped spending so many nights in the menagerie. Brendon no longer made an attempt to turn simple touches into a joke; he'd slide his hand over Jon's forearm without looking at him, without smirking, and Jon would flip his hand over and thread their fingers loosely together. And the best part, the part Brendon never saw coming, was the flutter of excitement he'd get when he'd catch Spencer watching them, a small contented smile on his face.
Things were being spoken through gestures and carefully planned glances, like a new language he was struggling to learn through touch and sight. It was all very strange, but something told Brendon he shouldn't ask questions.
One day, about a year after the accident, Old Man Adams had pulled Jon off the carousel and made him do work on his Ford. Out of all the guys on the crew, Jon knew the most about engines, having worked on tractors on the farm in Kansas. He was gone all day, making several trips into to town to the local hardware store, and well into the night.
The boys tried to wait up for him, but the severe August heat had beat them hard, lowering their energy reserve, and by ten Brendon was grumbling to Spencer that he was going to bed.
"How long does it take to fix a goddamn truck engine, anyway?" Spencer said as he followed suit, and Ryan replied, "As long as Old Man Adams wants him at it."
"Bet he's getting paid real good," Brendon yawned, tucking into Spencer's chest. "Maybe he'll offer to buy us pretty things."
Spencer snorted, and Brendon felt his warm breath across the top of his head. He closed his eyes and was asleep almost instantly.
And then he was dreaming about Spencer kissing him, deep and slow, his hands framing his cheeks as his thumbs swept over his chin. His heart exploded in his chest, as if this were something he'd always wanted but never knew existed, and he opened his mouth to give back, making Spencer groan all breathy and low. It was a heady sound and Brendon wanted to hear it again, except Spencer was suddenly pushing up against him, rubbing their hips together, and oh, wait. He rose abruptly into consciousness with the realization that he was hard, they were both hard, and Brendon couldn't remember when that had happened. But he was somehow finding a rhythm, or maybe Spencer was, and he thrust his hard cock, trapped in his trousers, against Spencer's, and he could feel the coil building inside him, like a glowing ember waiting to burst into flame.
He wanted it, god, he needed it so much--it had been so goddamn long--and Spencer's hands were clutching his shoulders, and--
"Wait, wait. Please." A voice, someone familiar, whispering in his ear, a damp heat that made Brendon shiver and moan. There were suddenly new hands on his body, hands that seemed to know how much he needed his pants gone and his cock free. He was being coaxed from the cot onto his knees on the ground, turned to where he was somehow facing Spencer, his hands braced on Spencer's bare knees.
Callused fingers splayed across Brendon's skin, sliding down his stomach until they circled around his cock and squeezed. Brendon cried out, and then there was smooth skin pressed against his back and that lovely voice saying in his ear, "God, yes."
Jon's voice. Brendon could've died with happiness.
But it was Spencer's hands that were carding through Brendon's hair, pulling him closer, and Brendon felt his mouth water at the idea of what was expected of him. It was something he'd never done, but had always pondered, and he licked his lips and carefully swallowed Spencer down, as far back into his throat as he could manage, humming at the taste and the heavy weight in his mouth. He pulled back a little and sucked at the tip, and Spencer hissed, digging his fingers tighter into his hair.
The hand--Jon's hand--around Brendon's own cock sped up, thumbing the head, and Brendon lost his breath and his rhythm for a moment, whimpering as Jon pumped him in long, steady strokes. He could feel something nudging his ass, and he instinctively thrust back against it, but Jon only whispered fiercely, "I won't, not tonight, you're not, oh fuck, you're not ready, oh--" He bit down on Brendon's shoulder and sucked him, hard.
It became a bit of a blur after that; he was vaguely aware of being sad when Spencer suddenly came, because he instantly missed the feel of his mouth being full of Spencer's cock. He swallowed just as Jon tightened his hand on an upward twist, and everything was a rush of pleasure and sound. There was a wetness against his back as well, and Brendon smiled in the dark as he gasped for air. Spencer was petting Brendon's face, stroking his hair, and Brendon longed to purr like a cat; his tired brain made him say so out loud.
"I'm your cat," he said as he kissed Spencer's thigh.
Spencer laughed breathlessly. "Really?"
"Yours and Jon's."
Arms enfolded him from behind as lips kissed the back of his neck. "Best cat in the world," Jon whispered.
A thought suddenly hit him. "Did we wake up Ryan?"
"Yes, you did, seeing as how I was asleep twenty minutes ago." Ryan's voice, off to one side, sounded different--deeper, rougher. It, too, made Brendon smile; he didn't apologize.
He pushed Spencer back into bed, saying, "'m sleepy now," and Spencer just laughed again. Brendon tried to pull Jon in after him, but there wasn't room, and when Brendon pouted sleepily, Jon said, "I'm right here, anyway."
"Yeah, you are," Brendon yawned, happier than he'd ever been.
When Brendon woke the next morning to the sight of his trousers on the ground, Spencer's shirt over the lantern, and the sound of Jon and Ryan's loud snores (Jon was naked, sprawled across his cot in nothing but his cotton boxers), he paused, blinking in the early light of dawn.
Against his back, Spencer grumbled in his sleep.
No dream at all.
He closed his eyes, grinning into his pillow.
It wasn't real life, but it was real enough.
Fandom: bandslash RPS (Panic! at the Disco, feat. members of Fall Out Boy and The Academy Is...)
Pairing: Brendon/Jon, with implied Spencer/Jon and eventual Brendon/Jon/Spencer
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 10,000
Warnings: not quite GSF, but close enough...
Summary: The boys work in a carnival during the Depression-era 1930s.
Notes: Many, MANY thanks to everyone who kept asking me to finish this, especially
shleemeri, who also did the beta work. Much love. <3Twilight: a soundtrack
Brendon Urie liked to tell people he became a carnie at the tender age of ten, but it wasn't true. He'd just turned fourteen when the carnival pulled into town, full of sights he could only dream of beholding, and years later he could still remember the terror he'd felt when the tiny blonde belly dancer slid her soft fingertips underneath his chin and invited him to partake in the wonders of the sideshow. The terror quickly bled into awe and an almost obsessive wonder, and he'd crawled into his bed well after midnight that night, smelling of bubblegum and sawdust.
He left home the next day and never looked back.
Sometimes, along with the Oliver Twist age change, he'd say he was an orphan, left to roam the country alone until Old Man Adams, the carnival's manager, found him doing juggling tricks in an alley somewhere in New York City. In reality, Brendon's home life had been fairly ordinary; his parents, both devout Christians, believed prayer and good church-going practices had kept them from the experiencing the worst of the Depression's blow. Their house was small but neat, on a nice street in a nice neighborhood. Brendon's father didn't have a car; instead he rode his bicycle to work, an insurance company that had managed to stay afloat after the crash in '29. Brendon had birthday parties every year, presents at Christmas, and a puppy that greeted him when he came home from school.
In the end, Brendon told everyone he was an orphan to deal with the ridiculous irony he lived with every day; most people became carnies to escape all the poverty in their lives. Brendon became one to experience it.
~
Ryan had stolen William's tarot cards again. It was late, the midway put to bed for the night, and he was hunched over a wooden crate in a dimly lit corner of one of the small crew tents, hair hanging in his eyes and cards spread out before him.
He tapped his index finger against a card and said, "You're going to perform a miracle."
"A what?" Spencer wrinkled his nose and sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. He never bought into any of the psychic bullshit, and Brendon, who sat to Spencer's left, wondered why Ryan even bothered sometimes.
"A miracle." Ryan held up the card. "See? Magician. The cards don't lie, I keep telling you --"
"They're cards, Ryan, Jesus. Quit acting like they're some creepy all-knowing cult."
Brendon snorted and slapped his hand against the crate. "My turn, do me, I believe it wholeheartedly."
Spencer rolled his eyes. "I'm gonna go find Doc to look at my hand again. It's still hurting like hell." He flexed his right hand into a fist and winced; the dingy white cloth bandage held a tinge of dark red along his palm, where he'd sliced it open trying to fix a faulty rotation gear on the tilt-a-whirl. Ten stitches with black sewing thread now held the wound shut.
"Just take two shots of whiskey and call it a night," Brendon half-joked as Ryan dealt the cards facedown in front of him.
"Then I'll have a headache in the morning and a fucked up hand. No thanks." He got up and waved goodnight, yawning as he left the tent for Doc Trohman's medic wagon.
Ryan flipped a card over and sighed. "Why do you always get the Star?"
Brendon grinned. "Just lucky?"
"Luck has nothing to do with it."
"Well, the cards don't lie, and evidently they're thoroughly convinced I'm amazing."
Ryan glared at him, but Brendon knew better than to take the look seriously.
~
Brendon had been with the carnival almost year when Ryan and Spencer joined on, arriving after the rest of them had finished a long stint on the north Texas border.
Spencer Smith was good with his hands, liked tinkering and fixing things that were bigger than him and usually made noises that scared the shit out of Brendon. He started off manning the Ferris wheel, and not long after he learned how to make the machine shudder with just enough force to rock the two-man cars, causing the occupants to scramble and fret and somehow lose the belongings from their pockets. Most of the time it was small things, like watches and loose change, and Spencer hid them all in a cigar box under his cot. He'd wait until the carnival had long left the town before letting the rest of the group have their pick of the prizes. Only when a stray wallet fell did Spencer keep the loot--his "shakes"--to himself.
As far as Brendon knew, Ryan Ross had never been outside of the country. Yet he somehow knew the proper ways to handle exotic animals, and he was given the job of animal handler. The lions tended to despise every new handler they acquired, and hearing a man being mauled to death was something no one liked to experience more than once. But much to Old Man Adams's relief, the animals loved Ryan--took to him like a surrogate parent--and soon Ryan began sleeping in one of the half dozen animal wagons. He'd come trudging into the mess tent for breakfast smelling like hay, and during the day he had no hesitation in making small children cry if they dared throw things through the cage bars in the menagerie.
Ryan and Spencer had been childhood friends, although the when and where was lost to Brendon. He knew they were from Nevada and had traveled with a carnival before joining Adams's, but then it had shut down for lack of funds, and they'd been doing odd jobs through the Midwest, barely staying fed. Unlike Brendon, Ryan was honest about his background and the violent, alcoholic father he'd left behind. But he never went into details and Brendon never asked, mostly because Spencer warned him early on to never push the subject.
Brendon had spent his first year as a carnie being the outsider, cared for only by the matrons of the group who took pity on him while the rest thought he was a little too loud and a little too eager, so it was only natural that he would cling to both of them, and they accepted him with the unspoken agreement shared between lost boys.
~
A few days later a photographer arrived, wanting to take pictures for a photo essay he was making on life as carnie. Tom Conrad stayed on for three days, drifting through the midway and trying to look conspicuous whenever he lifted his camera and aimed.
"Told you," Brendon said one evening as he draped himself against Ryan in the animal menagerie tent and posed dramatically in front of the lion's cage. "Star. Cards don't lie." He pursed his lips for Tom, who shook his head and laughed.
"Stop posing," Tom said. "It's not real life." But he snapped the picture anyway, much to Brendon's joy. Jackson, the male lion, snuffled behind them in irritation at the flashbulb.
"We're carnies," Brendon replied matter-of-factly and with pride. "It's never real life." He wondered if the vivid colors of his clown make-up would translate at all to black and white; it would be a shame for Ryan's handiwork to go unnoticed.
Tom laughed again. "Guess you have a point."
From off to their left a llama whined, making Ryan sigh and ask, "Are we done here? Martha needs her dinner." He, too, was still in full make-up, dark charcoal lines around his eyes that flared out at the edges into delicate, swirling patterns; it gave him an air of mystique during the day as he stood at the opening to The Great Exotic Animal Menagerie and beckoned people inside to see creatures they'd probably only seen in books, if ever. It had been all Ryan's idea, and Old Man Adams loved it, as did the dancer girls; within six months Ryan was doing all their make-up as well, the designs darker and more intense depending on his mood.
But he always did Brendon's first, always, not matter how demanding the girls got. Brendon loved him for that.
"Yeah, we're done." Tom slung the camera onto his shoulder. "I'm off to get a stiff drink. You boys done for the evening?"
Brendon yawned in spite of himself. He never liked to go to bed before the rest of the crew; something could happen later in the night and he'd be forced to hear about it secondhand in the morning. "Nope, I'll go with you."
Ryan shook his head. "I've got a llama to feed. Have fun." There was a slight tinge of disapproval in his voice, which Brendon promptly ignored. Ryan never drank and expected everyone else to do the same, but ever since Jon had looked him square in the eye and told him Prohibition was over ("And you sure as hell don't look like a tea-tottling old biddy"), Ryan had been pretty quiet when it came to voicing his opinions on alcohol. (Granted, Jon knew about Ryan's past, and he eventually apologized for the drunken barb, but Ryan stayed quiet nonetheless. Jon, for his part, was still trying to make it up to him.)
Brendon followed Tom through the quiet midway, dark save for the single string of yellow-orange lights meandering through the empty game booths and concession stands flanking them from both sides. In the background loomed the large, almost supernatural silhouettes of the Ferris wheel and the tilt-a-whirl.
There was a light up ahead, streaming from the open flap of one of the crew tents, which stood beyond the border of the midway, partitioned off by chicken wire and wood posts. Raucous laughter drifted through the warm night air, and Brendon's heart thumped hard in his chest.
"I don't know how you do it," Tom mused as they drew closer to the tent. "I'd be exhausted and in bed before sundown if I put in half the work you people do in a single day."
Brendon shrugged. "Yeah, but this is the fun part of the day." He smiled, even though he knew a man who took photographs for a living would never completely understand the idea of freedom after sunset, when the tents didn't need to be taken down and several hours of hard travel weren't looming in the distance. For the moment, they were free to entertain themselves.
The atmosphere of the tent was hot, thick with tobacco smoke and the heavy scent of sweat. Brendon scanned the crowd to get an inventory of who was present--at least, that was the excuse he gave himself. Off in the corner he could see The Butcher, also known as the "Tattooed Man" who worked the sideshow, smoking a cigar as he crouched on top of one of the wooden tables and told explicit, outrageous stories about his life with Barnum and Bailey's. Below him sat Pete, the main barker who held court over the midway during the day. He smirked as The Butcher spun his tales, because he was also used to holding court over the crew at night. Pete fascinated Brendon to no end.
A familiar voice said behind him, "Hey, Clown, want a drink?"
Brendon sucked in a breath and smiled to himself, quick and fierce, but schooled his face into a simple expression of consideration as he turned around. Jon stood there with his hand out stretched, offering him a tin cup of whatever had been brewed the previous night.
"Sometimes I think you don't actually know my real name," Brendon replied casually, although his voice sounded too high.
Jon grinned at him a little sloppily as he leaned forward, close enough for Brendon to feel his hot breath on his chin. He could smell axel grease and alcohol.
"Maybe I just forget when you're all done up pretty like this." Jon reached his thumb out and swiped it over Brendon's cheek; it came away covered in white mixed with blues and magentas.
"Aw, you think I'm pretty?" He tried for one of his goofier smiles as his heart flipped.
Jon shrugged. "Ryan does good work, that's for sure." He took a drink from his cup (he never winced, not once, like he'd spent his whole life drinking Moonshine and learning to love it), and then his eyes landed on Tom and his camera.
"Oh shit, he's back." His face lit up like a kid's on Christmas morning. "He, uh. He promised to let me have a go with it." Jon sighed in disbelief. "A real hand-held. That thing must've cost a goddamn fortune."
Brendon nodded, even though he knew nothing about photography at all, but he knew Jon had been obsessed with Tom and his cameras since the man arrived. He'd watched Jon follow the photographer around like a shadow until finally getting the nerve to shyly ask to see one, to really touch it, and Tom had been more than obliging. Since then Jon had talked about little else.
In the days since Jon had joined the carnival, Brendon had been jealous of several people, namely Spencer, but never in his life would he have thought he'd be green with envy over a camera.
He looked on as Jon made his way over to Tom, his cheeks flushed from drink and excitement. They exchanged a few words Brendon couldn't hear, and then Tom nodded and smiled, shrugging the camera off his shoulder and handing it over to Jon with care. Jon took it with both hands, his fingers curling over the lens as he tucked it close to his chest, cradling it like a child, the flashbulb fitting under his chin.
He glanced up, caught Brendon watching him, and before Brendon could look away, Jon lifted the camera and took Brendon's picture.
Brendon blinked at the flash and forgot to pose.
~
They'd found Jon outside of Tulsa, standing at the side of the road as the dust swirled around him and tousled his hair. He’d been standing there as if he’d been waiting for them all along.
The caravan came to a stop, engines groaning, and Brendon could hear Old Man Adams yell, “You lost?”
He'd smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Nope. Just need a job.”
“Yeah?” Adams laughed, and that was when Spencer jabbed him in the shoulder and hissed, “What’s going on?” It was just the two of them in the tent wagon, surrounded by yards of canvas. Ryan, as usual, was with the animals.
“Some guy, I don’t know. He’s looking for work.” Brendon leaned further out the wagon’s window and watched the way the guy shifted from foot to foot. His clothes held the muted color of dust and looked worn, soft, like they’d rarely left his body. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his dark brown trousers, but he kept his chin tipped up.
He was scruffy as hell, but he didn’t give the appearance of a beggar; he didn’t seem desperate at all, only determined. And Brendon knew—they all knew—that there was a world of difference between the two.
“What’s his name?” Spencer leaned over his shoulder to get a look. Brendon started to shove him off, but then Old Man Adams asked the same question. Spencer smirked.
“Jon Walker,” the guy replied.
“Got any mechanical skills? I need someone to tinker with the carousel.”
He thought for a moment, and finally nodded. “I can handle that,” was all he said.
There was a long pause before Adams grumbled, “Alright then, get your ass in one of the wagons. We’re goin’ until we hit Kansas City.”
Jon pulled his hands out of his pockets, rubbed them together slowly as he looked up and down the line. When he caught Brendon and Spencer gawking at him, he laughed and tilted his head to one side. He suddenly looked shy.
“Can I ride with you two?” he asked as he scrubbed a hand through his hair.
Brendon practically scrambled over Spencer to get the back door open for him, much to Spencer’s huffed displeasure and mumbled, “He’s a Dust Bowl kid, Brendon.” It was funny, really; even though Spencer had spent a decent portion of his life struggling through the poverty-stricken Midwest, he himself was not a Dust Bowl kid, because, in his mind, he'd been born and raised in Nevada. The Midwest had claimed him by default.
Brendon tended to think Spencer just hated seeing people who reminded him of himself.
Jon was from Illinois, somewhere outside of Chicago. His parents had died in a fire when he was ten and he'd been sent to live with cousins on a seven hundred acre farm in central Kansas. The drought had hit them hard, and he'd been wandering from farm to farm doing what he could to earn what little money there was to be had. He never said it out loud, but Brendon had a feeling the farm was long gone by the time he'd come to join Adams's Carnival Spectacular. There wasn't any place else for him to go.
He was a jack-of-all-trades, it turned out; the carousel was up and running within two days, without the high-pitched grinding noise to which everyone had become accustomed. He polished the horses to a shine, lacquered the brass poles, and touched up the paint on their saddles, making them almost look like new, and soon it became a joke among the crew as to who would sneak out in the middle of the night to take a ride on Jon's new "babies".
And the carousel was Jon's pride and joy, but he also patched up tent holes and helped Spencer weld together a new car for the Ferris wheel after an old one rusted through. He helped Spencer fix a lot of things, and it wasn't a rare occurrence for Brendon to find them huddled together in one of the crew tents after dark, drunk and giggling, their skin nearly black with grease and oil. Sometimes Jon would smile at Brendon--"Aw, Bren, c'mere you," he'd slur affectionately--and reach his dirty hand out to muss Brendon's hair.
"He's not bad for a Dust Bowl kid," Spencer said in passing once, and Brendon gritted his teeth and said nothing.
Weeks later, on the night Brendon managed to talk Ryan into sharing his cot for warmth (spring nights in northern California were too damn cold), Spencer came stumbling into their tent in the middle of the night, or the beginnings of early morning--either way, it was pitch black, the majority of the crew fast asleep.
"Brendon, you awake?" Spencer sounded drunk.
He blinked awake slowly and looked over his shoulder; Ryan was curled on his side, pressed up against the wall of the tent, his back to Brendon. He didn't stir when Brendon sat up.
"What is it? What's wrong?" he muttered, rubbing his eyes.
"I kissed Walker. Just now, outside." The words all sort of ran together in one breathless phrase.
Brendon was suddenly wide awake. "Oh." His chest felt tight.
"I just. I had to tell someone. I don't even--shit, I just need, um. I need to sleep, I think." Spencer fumbled around in the dark for his cot that sat adjacent to Brendon's, and he knocked a lantern over in the process. There was a muffled thunk as it hit the ground, and Spencer swore, loudly.
Beside Brendon, Ryan twitched. "'s goin' on?"
"Nothing. Spencer's drunk." Brendon didn't even bother to disguise the bitterness.
"Mmm." Ryan fell back asleep while Spencer finally collapsed on his cot with a dramatic sigh.
It was quiet for several long moments. Brendon lay on his back, staring into the dark and ignoring the cot that sat empty beside his. His lips felt too hot.
"Brendon?"
He closed his eyes and tried not hate him. "Yeah, Spence?"
"I'll say I'm sorry if you want me to."
Brendon bit his lip and waited until he heard the soft snuffles of Spencer's drunken snores before forcing himself into sleep.
Two whole nights would pass before Jon finally slept in the same tent with them again. No one said a word about it, and Brendon liked it that way, for the most part.
He never asked Spencer to apologize.
~
A few weeks before Spencer's accident, Brendon broke up a fight and paid for it with a black eye.
The sun was gradually being blotted out by heavy gray clouds, which dampened the July heat just enough to make rounds through the main midway not completely unbearable. For Brendon, nothing was worse than having make-up drip off your chin as you attempted to casually swallow a sword.
He was gathering a small crowd of children, their eyes flashing wide open when Brendon held up the stage sword and waggled his eyebrows.
"Looks more exciting than juggling, don't you think?" he asked them, and the kids nodded, utterly enthralled and only slightly terrified. Brendon knew the feeling well.
"Alright, don't try this yourselves, kids, because I had special clown training for this. It's very complicated, and never works on a full stomach."
A little girl giggled. Brendon smiled, and he'd barely tipped his head back, loosening the muscles of his throat, when he heard someone yell, "You little bastard! You thief!"
He didn't immediately drop out of character; he cocked his head ever so slightly toward the sound, and instantly placed it as coming from the direction of Patrick's booth. The shouts were getting louder: "You gimme my money back, you son of a bitch, or I'll skin your ass into next week!"
Brendon dropped his arms and said in a rush to the kids, "Intermission time." They whined pitifully as he ran off.
Patrick's booth was one of the simpler ones of the midway, which was fitting, since his game, Three-card Monte, was a simple one, direct and to the point. The better was usually wrong, not because the game was especially hard, but because Patrick almost always performed a sleight of hand that took the money card out of the equation completely. It was a fairly brilliant scam, but one that got Patrick's life threatened more often than not. Many times he got by with his practiced look of innocence and small stature; he didn't look the part of a con man, and people were usually gullible enough to believe it.
But sometimes, people just wanted to pound him into the dirt.
The man was twice Patrick's size, and he'd managed to grab Patrick by the collar of his shirt, shaking him hard. Patrick, to his credit, held his ground, but Brendon could see the tremor in his hand as he held his hat steady on his head. His knuckles were white.
"Look, I explained the rules already, okay?" Patrick yelled in the guy's face. Brendon winced; his short temper never helped. "It's not my fault you don't like 'em."
"It ain't the rules I don't like, it's your cheatin' mug." The guy shook Patrick a little harder, and Brendon knew, could tell by the way Patrick pulled back his free hand and began curling it into a tight fist, that things were about to get a lot worse. Normally about this time Pete would show up, news of Patrick's manhandling making it down the midway to him in record time. Pete was his unofficial body guard, something that had been formed in an unspoken agreement years ago, probably before Brendon's time.
But Pete was nowhere to be found, and while Brendon wasn't exactly the one to be throwing his weight into brewing fight, he couldn't stand by and watch Patrick take a beating.
He swallowed hard and nudged the guy's elbow. "You don't want to be doing that, mister." Brendon pitched his voice lower, like it would somehow swing the outcome in his favor, and held his stage sword low at his side.
There was a split second where Patrick met his eyes over the guy's shoulder; he looked both relieved and a little irritated. He opened his mouth as if to possibly warn Brendon off, but the words never came as the man spun around much too quickly and shoved his fist straight into Brendon's left eye. The force of his punch sent Brendon to the ground, flat on his back, knocking the wind from his lungs.
"You gonna get my money back for me, asshole?" he yelled as he stood over Brendon. "Or am I just gonna have to beat the shit out of you for compensation?" He kicked him twice in the stomach, hard, and Brendon groaned, angry as hell and thoroughly embarrassed by the sharp, heated pain screaming through his eye socket and spreading through his gut.
"Learn to...play the game better," he gasped, barely managing to add a smirk at the end. It was a mistake, he knew, but damn it, it felt good to see the bastard's eyes flare like that.
Brendon would've most likely had more than a few broken ribs to his name had Patrick not grabbed the man from behind and put him into a solid head lock. Pete had also chosen that moment to show up, and the two of them wrestled the guy into submission, Pete's boot heel pinning him face first into the dirt.
"He's got a point," Pete growled in the guy's ear. "No one likes a sore loser."
"Then tell your cheater pal to give me my money back!"
Pete dug his heel in a little harder, making the guy yelp in pain. Then he threw a crumpled dollar bill on the ground, and it landed near the man's nose.
"There's your fucking money, loser. Now get the fuck out of my midway or I'll start getting serious." He let the man up, and the guy merely glared at Pete as he stumbled away, a large red boot heel imprint branded on his cheek. Pete tipped his hat back and spit after him. "Fucking pansy," he muttered, and Patrick replied rather sullenly, "You gave him too much money, Pete."
In the midst of all this, Brendon tried to close his eyes and breathe, his arm curled around his stomach as he swallowed past the sudden rush of nausea. His free hand pawed the ground weakly until his fingertips found his sword. Brendon sighed; he wondered if the kids were still waiting for him.
Suddenly dusty fingers were skimming softly over his face, over the bruised flesh under his eye. "Holy shit, Bren, he got you good, didn't he?"
"And this is what happens when you try to be a goddamn hero." A different voice, exasperation filtered with worry.
Jon and Spencer--they'd come with Pete. Brendon resisted being ridiculously pleased over the fact that Patrick wasn't the only one with his own bodyguard.
He opened his eyes, grimacing as they both pulled him to his feet. "Not a hero, just a--a Good Samaritan." He rubbed at his eye, but Spencer batted his hand away.
"Like Patrick doesn't get roughed up every other day," Spencer huffed, and behind him Patrick yelled, "Hey!" It went mostly ignored except for Pete's snort and "'s true, and you know it."
Jon was smiling at him. "So. First shiner, Mr. Do-Gooder?"
"That I can remember, yeah--ow! Fuck, Spence!" He hissed and jerked his head back when Spencer started to prod at the bruise with his thumb.
"You need to go see Doc. It's starting to swell."
"Yeah, I hadn't noticed," Brendon grumbled just as Patrick patted his shoulder.
"Thanks for trying," he said. "But next time? Use the sword. It'd probably help."
Jon walked with him to Doc Trohman's medic wagon. "You're not having trouble breathing, are you?"
Brendon winced as he pressed his hand against his abdomen. "No, but my stomach hurts like hell. Is that a good thing?"
"Means you don't have any broken ribs, so yeah. It is."
"How do you know that?"
He shrugged. "Got trampled by a horse when I was twelve, nearly shattered my ribcage.
All I can remember is how it hurt so bad to breathe, I wanted to die."
Brendon tried to picture a young Jon, fragile and broken and lying in a bed, holding his breath. He swallowed and concentrated on the pain around his eye.
The doc only poked at Brendon's eye much like Spencer had, and then made Brendon take several deep breaths as he stuck his cold stethoscope to Brendon's bare chest.
"Everything sounds okay. I doubt you really broke anything." He motioned Brendon to button up his shirt and added, "Your eye, however, pretty much lost the fight." He took a clean rag and soaked it in a small basin of water that sat beside his medicine cart. "The water's probably not cold enough, but it'll help."
Brendon sucked in a breath as the cold cloth touched his hot skin. "Thanks, doc."
"Need something for the pain, or are you feeling brave tonight?"
The idea of sleeping without drugs sounded excruciating. "Um, I'll take whatever you wanna give me."
"Trust me, I've got just the thing."
He loaded up a syringe with something that "did wonders for post-bar fight blues," and within a minute of being injected Brendon felt a thousand times better.
"Sleep?" Jon asked him as they left the wagon. He looked ridiculously worried for some reason, and Brendon broke into lazy giggles.
"Don't look so sad, Jon Walker," he said, and suddenly it was very, very easy for him to lean into Jon, nuzzle his nose up under his jaw like a cat. He'd done this before as a joke, of course, always letting Jon know in the end that it was all a game. But now it felt natural. It felt real, or maybe it always had been.
"I'm not sad, I just want to make sure you're okay." He scrubbed his hand through Brendon's hair, nails grazing his scalp in gentle swipes. "And I think you need to call it a night."
The sun was disappearing into the horizon, leaving its dim remains of twilight behind, signifying the beginning of night. He wanted sleep--the drugs made his bones heavy--and yet the best part of the day had only just arrived.
"But I won't get to drink with you and Spencer." Brendon mumbled the words into Jon's neck, his mouth sliding softly over his sweat-tinged skin. He didn't even know if they'd walked the rest of the way to their tent; he was only aware of his body, how it was melting into blissful numbness around Jon's. He knew he should pull away--not a game, not a game--but he was too tired and too content to move.
"It's not as exciting as you make it sound. Spencer's a whiny drunk sometimes, you know that."
Somewhere, in the far corner of his brain, a voice whispered faintly and he kisses you when he's drunk, too, but Brendon shook his head and tried to focus as Jon's hands peeled Brendon's arms from around his shoulders and lowered him down onto his cot. It felt softer than Brendon remembered.
There was enough darkness inside the tent to turn things into vague shadows; he could only see an outline of Jon kneeling in front of him, unlacing Brendon's boots.
Brendon whispered, "Never gotten into a fight before."
He heard Jon's soft laughter "Yeah? That's actually pretty commendable."
"No, it's pathetic." His words slurred a little. "I'm just a goddamn clown who doesn't know how to defend himself." Tired. So, so tired, but he wanted to keep talking, keep Jon there...
When his feet were bare, he felt the cot dip beside him, and Jon's leg pressing into his. "Know what I think?"
"What?" Brendon reached his hand out blindly, found the hard curve of Jon's shoulder and slid his fingers higher, sifting them through the fine hairs along his neck. Jon was warm and solid, and Brendon thought he could fall asleep here, tucked against Jon's side, and sleep for days.
"I think you put your ass on the line for someone today without even thinking about it. And that's gotta count for something, right?" His voice was a soft rumble, and Brendon soaked up the tones more than the words.
"I guess." He could feel himself fading, but he tangled his hand in Jon's shirt and said, "I need to ask you something, Jon Walker."
Jon turned his head just a little, enough to where Brendon could thread his fingers through the coarse scruff on his cheeks. Brendon sighed, tugged him closer. "Can I, just. Can I kiss you like Spencer does?" he whispered.
There was a tension underneath his hands, a small intake of breath that made Jon's chest expand. "He doesn't--"
But Brendon wasn't going to wait for the answer he knew he'd never get, not when his brain felt liquid and his skin heavy-soft. All he needed was to close his eyes and breathe, one slow drag of air after another as he slowly gave in. Maybe he'd remember this dream in the morning, maybe not. Brendon didn't care.
His mouth touched Jon's bottom lip and swept back and forth there, the tip of his tongue tracing along the edge before pulling back, sliding higher, wanting more. Jon didn't move, didn't so much as touch him, and Brendon heard himself say, "Just open your mouth, that's all. I won't--just let me in a little, please."
Lips parted beneath his, said his name with either acquiescence or regret, he couldn't tell. But Brendon wasn't being pushed away, and that was enough for the moment, because he soon had the hot, bittersweet taste of Jon in his mouth and the deep thudding of Jon's heart under his hands, and when he finally felt cool, damp fingertips cup the nape of his neck, Brendon sighed.
"Thank you," he whispered against the corner of Jon's mouth, and he wanted to believe he heard Jon murmur "you're welcome" in return.
He woke with a start to a lantern being flicked on. Ryan stood over him, his hand resting on Brendon's elbow.
"You okay?" He squinted and leaned closer as he held the lantern over the cot. "Christ, your eye's really starting to look like shit."
Brendon's brain felt stuffed with cotton; he rubbed at his chin with the back of his hand, mumbled, "What time is it?"
"I don't know. Sorry I wasn't around earlier for all the excitement, but the hyenas got into a brawl of their own. It's been going on all night, I'm surprised the commotion didn't wake you." He shook his head and laughed. "No, wait, I take that back. Whatever drugs Trohman gave you, they worked like a charm."
It all came back to Brendon in sluggish bits: Fight. Drugs.
Jon.
Ryan nudged his legs over as he sat down on the end of the cot, setting the lantern on ground. "Spencer thinks you're a fucking idiot, but I think you did the right thing. A stupid thing, but the right thing."
Brendon threw an arm over his face and promptly hissed in pain when he hit his bruised cheekbone. "Thanks." He swallowed, glanced over at the two empty cots beside his own.
"They decided to find a real tavern," Ryan said. "Something about Pete wanting to track down 'the fucking sore loser guy'."
Brendon would've pouted at the thought of missing out on a trip into town, but he was too distracted by the fact that he'd woken up alone.
"Hey." Ryan reached over and cupped Brendon's chin gently. "Do you need some more drugs or something? You look like you're in pain again."
"No. I'm fine." He closed his eyes, rolling over onto his side to hide his face in his pillow.
"Want me to go?"
"No." He did, but he couldn't bear the thought of being alone when Jon and Spencer came stumbling back into the tent, all whispers and muffled, private laughter. He buried his face deeper into the pillow, his cheeks burning hot; he wondered if Jon had told Spencer. "No, stay."
Ryan didn't say anything more; he turned the lantern off and slid in beside Brendon, curling up tight along his back, his hand draped over Brendon's hip.
William caught his eye at breakfast the next morning and gave Brendon a long, hard stare, the kind that made Brendon fidget and long to turn his brain off.
"Don't," William said in a simple, quiet voice as he sat down next to Brendon on one of the wooden benches, the bright summer sun already making the mess tent simmer with heat.
"Don't what?" He played the part of a psychic and fortune teller well, but Brendon hated when William tried to make it real.
"Don't think things you don't mean, alright? It never comes to any good."
Brendon snorted, never looking up from his oatmeal. "I'm not thinking anything."
"You are, and if you keep it up, you'll be sorry." William sighed, smiling slightly. "It's not what you think, anyway. The timing's just not right."
He couldn't take anymore of William's mystical code talk; he got up from the table and stalked off, no longer hungry.
~
As Brendon's black eye began to heal, sickly tinges of greenish yellow formed around the edges of dark, angry purple, making Brendon look slightly monstrous to the children who'd pass him. Normally he made it through an entire day without going to the dressing tents to reapply his make-up (or better yet, hunt down Ryan and make him do it instead, although that usually never went over well), but when the white foundation started to fade, the bruise came through, and scaring kids wasn't the point of his job. So while the bruise was at its worst, Brendon made frequent stops to check in the mirror to make sure he wasn't especially frightening.
When Spencer's accident occurred, Brendon had been away from the midway in his little corner of one of the dressing tents, sitting at a vanity and trying desperately to touch up Ryan's design around his bad eye. It was slow going (his hand was never steady enough for the intricacies involved), and he was getting angry at the way the bruise was starting to resemble mold beneath his make-up.
"Should've used the fucking sword," he muttered to himself in mirror. Of course Ryan had glared at him when he'd stuck his head in the menagerie and begged for help ("Now is not the time, Urie"), even though it wasn't his fault he was being punished for doing something nice.
He had just finished what he considered to be the last touches when Andy ran into the tent, gasping for breath. He was one of the other clowns, although he chose never to bother with stage make-up, save the giant red nose he always wore (the one Brendon hated, because you had to breathe through your mouth).
Andy's face was pale, fearful. He wasn't wearing the nose. "Brendon? You need to come with me, quick," he said, and since Andy wasn't one for dramatics, Brendon instantly felt his stomach drop.
"What--"
Andy shook his head, grabbing Brendon's arm and pulling him out of the tent. "Accident at the Ferris wheel. It's Spencer."
Everything after that went mute; Brendon couldn't hear the rest of whatever details Andy chose to tell him as they ran through the midway, to where a crowd had gathered at the Ferris wheel, Pete yelling at those who weren't carnival crewman to stay back, but Brendon didn't hear that, either. He shoved through the crowd, his heart in his throat, and he felt a hand touch his wrist out of nowhere.
"C'mon." It was Ryan, and in all the time he'd known him, Brendon had never seen him look so frightened. He lead him through the Ferris wheel's gate, and when Brendon finally saw what had happened, he stopped in his tracks, unable to move closer.
A mother and her child stood off to the side, sobbing and shaking. The mother kept insisting, "I swear, I didn't mean to, I just got so scared, that's all--" The child clung to his mother's skirts, a small cut on his face.
To her left was one of the two-man cars, rustier and worse for wear than the others. It was lying on its side on the ground, its bolts scattered everywhere, having completely detached from the ride itself.
And pinned underneath the car was Spencer. His chest was held down, right arm completely gone from sight. He was conscious, but his skin was turning a strange shade of gray. Jon was crouched beside him with Doc Trohman, the two of them talking to Spencer, asking him things that made his face crumple a little as he bit his lip and either shook his head or nodded.
"Good fucking Christ," Brendon finally breathed.
"The car started to separate from the frame," Ryan said in a monotone voice. "The mother got scared, wouldn't listen to Spence when he told her to stay put, wait until he brought them in. She tried to grab her kid and climb out...Spence tried to stop them, but...it just. It broke off." He made an odd noise in his throat. "As you can see, the kid only got a scratch." Brendon looked over, watched the way Ryan's hand clinched in and out of a tight fist.
"Will he--is there any--"
"Trohman says they have to be careful moving the seat because we don't know how much damaged was done to...to his chest." Ryan started tapping his fist against his thigh. "He doesn't know if he can save his arm."
"Alright, show's over, everyone!" Pete was getting more insistent. "Come back tomorrow, everything will still be here, I promise. Everyone just needs to go home now--" He herded the crowd back slowly toward the entrance with the help of several crew members, and at that moment Jon looked over and met Brendon's eyes. The determination Brendon was so accustomed to seeing in his expression was gone; he seemed at a complete loss.
Brendon forced his feet to move, and as he drew closer, kept Jon's gaze, William's words suddenly played over and over again in his mind--don't think things you don't mean, alright?
"We're gonna move it here in a sec," Jon said, waving his hand at the seat. He finally looked away, over at Ryan, who sunk to his knees on the ground by Spencer.
"Bad day, huh?" he said, his hand curling lightly around Spencer's good shoulder. Ryan was shaking.
Spencer wasn't breathing well, and he gasped around his words. "You could say that." He tried to smile, which quickly became a wince, and Doc Trohman said something about him going into shock.
Jon stood up, and Brendon resisted taking his hand, leaning against him. "Do you, um. Do you think he'll be--okay?" Brendon asked quietly.
Jon shrugged, still watching Ryan with Spencer. "We have to move the car."
It took five men, including Jon, to lift the broken car; Spencer screamed the instant his arm was free and then passed out, the pain finally becoming too much for him. Brendon nearly threw up at the sound.
They got his body onto a cloth stretcher, and it was slow trip to the doc's medic wagon. Spencer was soon laid on the doc's bed--there wasn't room for an extra cot--and Doc Trohman told them all, "You guys are welcome to wait out here, but I need some time and breathing room alone to look him over. I'll keep you posted." He shut the wagon's door, the sound loud and obtrusive.
Brendon collapsed on the ground and tucked his face between his knees. He refused to cry.
"I'm. I can't stay here. I can't," Ryan mumbled, hands raking through his hair. "I'll be in the menagerie. Come get me if there's news." He disappeared, leaving Brendon alone with Jon, who'd yet to say anything since they'd moved Spencer.
Don't think things you don't mean. Brendon could feel his throat closing and the hot tears blurring his sight. He really, really hated William.
"Hey." He felt Jon's hand against his back, moving in circles. He sat down on the ground beside Brendon, pressed his shoulder against Brendon's.
"It's my fault," Brendon whispered, tears sliding quietly down his cheeks.
Jon's hand paused. "No, it's not. That's impossible, it was an accident--"
"But I wanted it to happen, okay?" He jerked back, away from Jon, stumbling clumsily to his feet as he ran away to nowhere in particular, as long as it was far from him.
He ended up in his dressing tent, and when he was certain the tent was empty, he crawled underneath the vanity and cried until his head hurt and his throat was raw. He tried to remember the last time he'd allowed himself to cry with such abandon; life before the carnival seemed almost surreal, like a dream. He didn't miss that life, but at that moment he longed for the time when things didn't hurt so fiercely.
When Brendon could breathe again and the hiccups from his sobs had passed, he rubbed his face (now mostly free of his stage make-up) and leaned his head out from under the vanity.
There sat Jon, holding his knees to his chest. He didn't say a word.
"How--" Brendon cleared his throat, his cheeks flushing. "How long have you been sitting there?"
"Long enough."
Brendon crawled the rest of the way out from under the vanity. He leaned back against its legs, facing Jon. He didn't have the will to leave him again.
"When you said you wanted this to happen--what did you mean by that?" Jon finally asked, his voice quiet.
Brendon closed his eyes. "That night, after I--" Kissed you would not come out, no matter how hard he tried. "--got in that fight, I kept thinking if something were take Spencer away, you'd--I don't know, I was drugged and stupid, but--"
"You thought I'd what?"
"I didn't mean it, it's not important now--"
"It is if I say it is."
He opened his eyes to find Jon looking at him with an intensity that terrified him, because he didn't know what it meant. "I--I thought you'd. Maybe." He looked away. "Want me."
There was a long bout of silence, and Brendon sort of curled in on himself in preparation for whatever was coming to him. He was too tired and heartsick and scared to run.
"You really think that's what caused all this?"
Brendon blinked and saw Jon smirking at him; there was something else in his eyes Brendon couldn't place. "I wouldn't have, I guess, if William hadn't--"
"Oh, William put it in your head. I get it." And to Brendon's amazement, Jon laughed, a quiet sound that shook his shoulders just a little. "Bren, how many times do I have to tell you that only Bill thinks he's psychic?"
"But he was so--"
"No. He got lucky." Jon scooted across the ground until his knees knocked into Brendon's. "I'm gonna kill that bastard." He winked at him. "Spencer would be incredibly disappointed in you, y'know."
At the mention of Spencer's name, Brendon winced before he could stop himself.
"Look." Jon reached out and skimmed his thumb over Brendon's cheek. His voice dropped to a whisper. "None of this is your fault, okay, no matter what some crazy fortune teller tells you."
Brendon finally huffed out a loud breath. "You're not mad?" he whispered back, his eyes fluttering closed as Jon's thumb traced the faded edge of his black eye.
"I know you wouldn't mean something like that." His chest was up against Brendon's legs; he could feel his heart beating. "You wouldn't be a complete mess right now if you'd meant it."
"I didn't, I swear--"
Jon kissed him softly, a simple press of lips, almost chaste. "I know."
The relief was so sudden, Brendon nearly went limp. "Well. Okay. Good." He wanted to open his mouth, kiss him back, but he waited instead for Jon to continue.
"He'll be okay." The determination was back in Jon's voice. "Spencer's gonna be fine." He nosed his way over Brendon's jaw, kissed his cheek as he wrapped his arms around him in a solid, heavy hug. "Trust me."
Brendon's arms were caught between his chest and Jon's, so he could do nothing by splay his hands over Jon's heart, burying his face in the curve of Jon's neck. He nodded.
"You're fucking ridiculous sometimes, Urie." His voice caught on his name.
Since the town they were in had no hospital (the nearest one was nearly fifty miles away, in Omaha), Doc Trohman was left to his own devices. After several long, fretful hours, he emerged from the medic wagon looking worn and exhausted, but said he was pretty certain Spencer had no internal damage.
The bones in his arm, however, were shattered.
"It'll heal," the doc said slowly as he watched everyone's faces carefully, especially Ryan's. "But it won't be the same. He'll probably have to teach himself to write left-handed."
It was good news as far as they were concerned; Spence was going to live, and that was all that mattered. Some sloppy handwriting was the least of their worries.
The next morning Old Man Adams drove Spencer and Doc Trohman to Omaha so that he could get his arm set in a suitable cast. The hospital did another physical on him, and while he had bruises and a cracked rib, they deemed him otherwise fine.
The night Spencer came back from Omaha, Brendon begged the doc to let him stay with him. Trohman agreed wearily--"Have at it, kid"--and left them alone to sleep in one of the crew tents instead of the floor of the medic wagon.
"Can I sleep with you?" Brendon asked quietly as Spencer eased himself into the bed, his cast arm held close to his body in a sling.
Spencer raised an eyebrow. "You're propositioning me now? Like this?"
"Damn it, you know what I mean."
He sighed and dropped his head back on the pillow. "Yeah, actually, I wouldn't mind the company. Just watch the arm."
"How could I miss it?" Brendon climbed under the blankets and slung an arm around Spencer's stomach, his cheek resting on his shoulder.
"What's with you? You never ask to sleep with me." Spencer didn't sound mad, just...surprised. And perhaps a little flattered and pleased, which for some reason made Brendon's heart tug painfully.
"Maybe I missed you, is that so bad?"
Spencer chuckled and rubbed his chin against Brendon's hair. "Nope."
They faded into sleep in warm, comforting silence, and just as Brendon felt himself dip into unconsciousness, he wished Jon was there with them.
~
Whether it was out of guilt or a sudden possessive sense of obligation, Brendon took to sleeping with Spencer every night, even when Spencer finally was able to move back to his old cot in their tent. And Spencer never objected; in fact, he'd make small groaning noises of protest whenever Brendon would blearily collapse onto his own cot after a particularly rough day, and Brendon would sigh, mumble "sorry", and climb into bed with Spencer without missing a beat.
It changed the dynamic of their nights all together. Since the doc was keeping Spencer in good supply of painkillers, he'd warned him off alcohol, so there were no longer the nightly trips to the crew tent, much to Ryan's delight. The four of them began a nightly ritual of poker in their own tent; by lantern light, they'd play into the night for whatever odds and ends were left in Spencer's "shakes" box until Brendon would fall into Jon's lap, yawning as if his jaw would come unhinged, or Ryan would be glaring intensely at his cards in a desperate effort to stay awake.
Spencer was still running the Ferris wheel, but he no longer did any mechanical work, save the occasional simple tasks that didn't require him to put much stress on his bad arm. The bones eventually healed as best they could, but he couldn't straighten his arm any more; it bent at a slight angle, and his hand was weaker, the fingers slower to react. He hid his frustration well, until Brendon found him late one afternoon huddled on his cot.
He'd sat up quickly, swiped his hand over his face. "Hey, I was just, uh. Getting my pills." His cheeks were damp.
Brendon knew he shouldn't say anything, that Spencer didn't want him to say anything, but he couldn't help it. "You can't push yourself, Spence, it's not gonna--"
"Don't fucking tell me what I can and can't do. I get it from everyone around here, and I sure as fuck am not gonna take it from you." He shoved passed Brendon and didn't speak to him again until that night, when he whispered in the dark, "Sorry, I didn't mean--," and Brendon was already climbing into his bed, saying, "'s okay, don't worry about it."
The strangest part was that Brendon kept waiting for the awkwardness between him and Jon to come; they'd kissed twice and had yet to mention a word about it to one another. But since the accident, the three of them were much more tactile with each other, even Ryan, who'd gradually stopped spending so many nights in the menagerie. Brendon no longer made an attempt to turn simple touches into a joke; he'd slide his hand over Jon's forearm without looking at him, without smirking, and Jon would flip his hand over and thread their fingers loosely together. And the best part, the part Brendon never saw coming, was the flutter of excitement he'd get when he'd catch Spencer watching them, a small contented smile on his face.
Things were being spoken through gestures and carefully planned glances, like a new language he was struggling to learn through touch and sight. It was all very strange, but something told Brendon he shouldn't ask questions.
One day, about a year after the accident, Old Man Adams had pulled Jon off the carousel and made him do work on his Ford. Out of all the guys on the crew, Jon knew the most about engines, having worked on tractors on the farm in Kansas. He was gone all day, making several trips into to town to the local hardware store, and well into the night.
The boys tried to wait up for him, but the severe August heat had beat them hard, lowering their energy reserve, and by ten Brendon was grumbling to Spencer that he was going to bed.
"How long does it take to fix a goddamn truck engine, anyway?" Spencer said as he followed suit, and Ryan replied, "As long as Old Man Adams wants him at it."
"Bet he's getting paid real good," Brendon yawned, tucking into Spencer's chest. "Maybe he'll offer to buy us pretty things."
Spencer snorted, and Brendon felt his warm breath across the top of his head. He closed his eyes and was asleep almost instantly.
And then he was dreaming about Spencer kissing him, deep and slow, his hands framing his cheeks as his thumbs swept over his chin. His heart exploded in his chest, as if this were something he'd always wanted but never knew existed, and he opened his mouth to give back, making Spencer groan all breathy and low. It was a heady sound and Brendon wanted to hear it again, except Spencer was suddenly pushing up against him, rubbing their hips together, and oh, wait. He rose abruptly into consciousness with the realization that he was hard, they were both hard, and Brendon couldn't remember when that had happened. But he was somehow finding a rhythm, or maybe Spencer was, and he thrust his hard cock, trapped in his trousers, against Spencer's, and he could feel the coil building inside him, like a glowing ember waiting to burst into flame.
He wanted it, god, he needed it so much--it had been so goddamn long--and Spencer's hands were clutching his shoulders, and--
"Wait, wait. Please." A voice, someone familiar, whispering in his ear, a damp heat that made Brendon shiver and moan. There were suddenly new hands on his body, hands that seemed to know how much he needed his pants gone and his cock free. He was being coaxed from the cot onto his knees on the ground, turned to where he was somehow facing Spencer, his hands braced on Spencer's bare knees.
Callused fingers splayed across Brendon's skin, sliding down his stomach until they circled around his cock and squeezed. Brendon cried out, and then there was smooth skin pressed against his back and that lovely voice saying in his ear, "God, yes."
Jon's voice. Brendon could've died with happiness.
But it was Spencer's hands that were carding through Brendon's hair, pulling him closer, and Brendon felt his mouth water at the idea of what was expected of him. It was something he'd never done, but had always pondered, and he licked his lips and carefully swallowed Spencer down, as far back into his throat as he could manage, humming at the taste and the heavy weight in his mouth. He pulled back a little and sucked at the tip, and Spencer hissed, digging his fingers tighter into his hair.
The hand--Jon's hand--around Brendon's own cock sped up, thumbing the head, and Brendon lost his breath and his rhythm for a moment, whimpering as Jon pumped him in long, steady strokes. He could feel something nudging his ass, and he instinctively thrust back against it, but Jon only whispered fiercely, "I won't, not tonight, you're not, oh fuck, you're not ready, oh--" He bit down on Brendon's shoulder and sucked him, hard.
It became a bit of a blur after that; he was vaguely aware of being sad when Spencer suddenly came, because he instantly missed the feel of his mouth being full of Spencer's cock. He swallowed just as Jon tightened his hand on an upward twist, and everything was a rush of pleasure and sound. There was a wetness against his back as well, and Brendon smiled in the dark as he gasped for air. Spencer was petting Brendon's face, stroking his hair, and Brendon longed to purr like a cat; his tired brain made him say so out loud.
"I'm your cat," he said as he kissed Spencer's thigh.
Spencer laughed breathlessly. "Really?"
"Yours and Jon's."
Arms enfolded him from behind as lips kissed the back of his neck. "Best cat in the world," Jon whispered.
A thought suddenly hit him. "Did we wake up Ryan?"
"Yes, you did, seeing as how I was asleep twenty minutes ago." Ryan's voice, off to one side, sounded different--deeper, rougher. It, too, made Brendon smile; he didn't apologize.
He pushed Spencer back into bed, saying, "'m sleepy now," and Spencer just laughed again. Brendon tried to pull Jon in after him, but there wasn't room, and when Brendon pouted sleepily, Jon said, "I'm right here, anyway."
"Yeah, you are," Brendon yawned, happier than he'd ever been.
When Brendon woke the next morning to the sight of his trousers on the ground, Spencer's shirt over the lantern, and the sound of Jon and Ryan's loud snores (Jon was naked, sprawled across his cot in nothing but his cotton boxers), he paused, blinking in the early light of dawn.
Against his back, Spencer grumbled in his sleep.
No dream at all.
He closed his eyes, grinning into his pillow.
It wasn't real life, but it was real enough.
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