(no subject)
Heart and Tender
by the now deleted but forever in our hearts tarii_cakes*;
Band(s): Panic at the Disco, Fall Out Boy, minor appearances by others
Pairing(s): Brendon/Ryan, others
Word Count: 70170
Rating/Warnings: R, brief mention of underage drinking
Summary: (Sub)urban fantasy, wherein Brendon Urie finds love and loses hearts.
Heart-dealing... Brendon recognizes the term, but in the same vague way that he recognizes the Mafia while really only knowing that it's something he doesn't want to mess with and involves people in suits. The term obviously doesn't mean actual, physical hearts, since the jar looks to be just a wisp of cloudy shine. It's more like the ability to love and hate and feel strongly about anything, all bottled in one jar and stolen out of someone. It's shady shit.
Brendon's not really sure what to do with the heart; should he have gotten instructions from Pete about how this all works? He's mostly flying in the dark so Brendon just puts it next to his bed, covered by a heap of clothing in case his mom walks in without knocking the next morning.
"Night," he tells it as he clicks off the light.
A/N: This entire story would not have been possible without my wonderful beta and amazing friend mockturtletale . Thank you so much bby for holding my hand throughout this entire fic, encouraging me and cheerleading and helping me work out every detail, including the title. This fic is dedicated entirely to you. So many of these ideas came from your head, not mine, and I can't thank you enough for the faith that you had in me. I can't imagine having worked with anyone else on it and I have no idea how to repay you.
*PLEASE NOTE: A couple weeks ago ivesia19 messaged me because she’d seen I beta’d a piece called Heart and Tender by a user who’d left, sadly taking the fic with her. Then this morning, choclitbunny was like ‘Dude where’s that fic!” and long story short it turns out that a lot of people want to read this, and considering that we ourselves are among those that miss it and the fact that Kelly, the author, wants people to be able to read this even though she’s not around anymore, choclitbunny and I have decided to give Heart and Tender a home here in our journal. As previously stated, it’s not ours, we’re posting on Kelly’s behalf. If you want to comment, feel absolutely free and I’ll personally see to it that Kelly gets to read whatever ya’ll have to say.
choclitbunny and I are really excited to be able to give everyone the opportunity to read and re-read this piece as often as they like, so without further ado;
Part One
When he is five, Brendon asks his mother to tell him a bedtime story, one with princes and palaces and magic.
Instead, his mother tells him the story of a man and woman who love each other very much and how they marry and have children who they love just as much.
Brendon wiggles under his covers and whines that that's not the story he wanted. He wants swords and spells and dragons and-
His mother hugs him to her, holding so tightly that Brendon can feel the individual pressure of each finger. "There is no such thing as magic," she whispers, fierce and low, and Brendon's never heard his mom talk like that before so he just nods against her chest. She tucks him in and kisses his forehead and tells him goodnight as softly as always.
Not only was his mother a poor storyteller, she's not a very convincing liar either.
*****
It starts with a trumpet.
A few weeks after his grandpa's funeral, Brendon's mom brought home an old trumpet. Brendon can't have been older than four then and the trumpet has been on top of a cabinet of china in their living room for as long as he can remember. It's not a piece of scenery that he's ever paid much attention to (any more than his mom's ceramic ducks locked in the cabinet's glass doors below, at least) beyond vaguely noting its existence.
In fact, he never even touches it other than quickly running a cloth over it when his mom insists on dusting. It's old and a pain to play. Not something that has anything interesting to offer Brendon.
That is, until Brent comes over to his house for the first time.
Brendon wouldn't say that he's desperate to impress Brent, his first school-friend to come over to his house, but it might come across that way. If Brendon could have a do-over, he would have casually suggested that Brent come over straight after school and hang-out. Instead, he's set up a proper playdate time: 4:00, my house, I'll make snacks!, do not pass go or collect $200.
At least Brent's bringing over his XBox though, which guarantees a couple of hours of Halo. The last time Brendon had friends over, he'd been twelve and it had been for Bible Study.
Brendon's trying to decide whether it'd be a good thing or not if his mom made them snacks (on one hand, they're teenage boys with appropriate appetites. On the other hand, his mom) when the doorbell rings and suddenly Brendon's got more pressing things to worry about.
Brent's not exactly what Brendon would consider cool. Then again, neither is Brendon, with his thick-framed glasses and braces and freckles on pale skin. But Brent is uncool enough that Brendon definitely shouldn't be nervous about him coming over. After all, Brendon isn't worried about making an ass out of himself at school, where he's surrounded by unfamiliar, unfriendly peers, so he should be completely at ease in his own house, his domain.
Brendon wipes his hands on his hands before reaching for the door. Brent is a little sweaty and his XBox is resting on the slight paunch of his stomach and Brendon feels an acute sense of relief when he opens the door to let him in.
They set up the XBox in the living room because Brendon doesn't have a T.V. in his room like Brent does. Actually, Brent attempts to set it up, messing around with cords behind the T.V. while Brendon watches and tries to be helpful.
"I think that cord is the sound- the blue one," Brendon offers. When Brent tugs on it and the screen goes dead, Brendon can only shrug and smile helpfully. "Or maybe not that one?"
He decides it would be more productive to hunt for emergency entertainment, just in case Brent can't get the XBox working. Judging by the amount of under-breath-swearing coming from behind the T.V. (and Brendon actually sends a thankful prayer that his mom is out of the house for now), it's a likely possibility.
He's actually looking for a football (he knows there's one of those foam Nerf-type ones around the house somewhere) when he grabs the trumpet. The football isn't behind it, which is kind of obvious considering there's a layer of dust on the cabinet about an inch deep and Brendon had been tossing the football at the wall just a week ago. It doesn't stop his fingers from scrabbling around hopefully, scattering a shower of dust before coming to rest on a small scrap of paper.
It's scrunched and crumpled and Brendon unfolds it curiously, search momentarily forgotten. The paper- a note maybe?- is smaller than a normal sheet and there's some fancy, artsy design on it, with big sweeping curls around a simpler font.
Brendon doesn't even get to look at what the paper says. The black words start glowing, smoldering red like coals, and Brendon promptly drops it.
The paper flutters to the floor and sits there innocently. Brendon pokes at it with his foot cautiously. Nothing happens and when he turns it over with his foot the text is a harmless black again. Brent swears violently in the living room and Brendon jumps, startled.
Oh fuck Brendon thinks, this is magic.
His mom would shit herself if she realized that magic, actual real magic, had been in her house. Is still in her house.
Brendon quickly crumples the paper and shoves it into his pocket like his mom is going to pop out from behind the cabinet any second now. The paper isn't hot to the touch like he feared it might be and shit, he needs to hide it.
He runs upstairs, throws himself on the ground of his bedroom and rummages around beneath his bed until he finds the box he was looking for, labeled 'Receipts'. It's filled with caffeinated drinks, an almost-empty baggy of weed and pages ripped out of what porn magazines he can find (his mom hadn't flipped out when she'd found his brother's porn years ago, but she'd Sharpied 'I am a daughter of God' and 'I'll make a beautiful wife someday' onto the pictures and, really, that was pretty effective in killing any hopes of jerking off, so Brendon keeps this stuff well-hidden).
The crumpled note goes into that pile and Brendon shoves the box back under his bed just as the garage door rumbles to announce his mom's arrival.
Brendon stomps down the stairs extra loud to drown out any of Brent's possible swearing, nearly running into his mom at the bottom.
"Will you grab the rest of the groceries from the car Brendon?" She glances up at him for a second before continuing to the kitchen with her armload of grocery bags. "Oh!"
"I have a friend over!" Brendon calls over his shoulder as he goes to empty the car. He's not worried about leaving his mom with Brent- they're both pretty harmless, especially if they're both trying to make a good impression.
"I can see that!" Her voice goes quieter as she introduces herself to Brent and by the time that Brendon enters the kitchen with his arms laden with bags, his mom is smiling happily and apparently making Brent a sandwich. For his part, Brent looks a little uncomfortable, moving around the kitchen delicately like he might break anything just by looking at it. He glances up when Brendon sets the bags down heavily on the counter, latching onto his side clumsily.
"I got the XBox hooked up," Brent's eyes cut to his mom. "Halo?"
"Cool, yeah," Brendon leads the way to the living room, although not before his mom can shove the sandwich into Brent's hands. He looks at it before staring at Brendon helplessly. "Mom, we're gonna play Halo. Don't bother checking up on us. If you hear anyone exploding or dying, it's not real."
She gives him an eyeroll and an unamused look. His efforts are so unappreciated.
*****
After dinner, Brendon locks his door and pulls the box out from under his bed. The paper looks just as innocent as it did when he put it there and Brendon pulls it out and sets it gingerly on his pillow. Then he lies on his stomach, head propped up on his elbows, and stares.
He can hear his mom shuffling around in the kitchen downstairs and he feels vaguely guilty, but really, he's jacked off with his parents just next door so this shouldn't be any different or more unholy. His ears are buzzing, but that might just be from nerves.
This is the ABC's of Mormonism, stuff that Brendon's known since he was five: no caffeine, no porn and/or masturbation, no drugs, no magic.
He's broken the rest of those rules since then, although not without some guilt and a healthy dose of paranoia. Even now, Brendon's eyes flicker to his safely locked door. His dad had passed by half an hour ago and Brendon had lain frozen on his bed, hands already pulling the box out, until just a few minutes ago, when the coast was officially clear.
The paper looks old, which is the most fault that Brendon can find in it. No demonic glow, no fire hazard, no sign of what Brendon saw earlier. He pokes it cautiously, feeling incredibly stupid. No reaction.
He freezes again when his mom comes up the stairs, listening as she pauses outside his door. He mentally urges her onward and finally she moves on, into her own bedroom with a safe click of the door closing.
The part that Brendon doesn't understand (other than pretty much everything about this situation, including how something magical ended up in his house) is where the words went. Brendon distinctly remembers there being words on the paper, before they erupted in fire or some shit like that. But now the paper's completely blank.
He frowns down at it for a few more seconds, twisting his head to see if there's something he's missing.
Brendon's breathing a little hard- mixture of fear and excitement, probably- and the edges of the paper curl back and forth under his breath. Thoughtlessly, he smooths out an edge, stopping the back and forth flicker and causing ink to bloom on the paper. And not just plain ink, but blazing, golden words that melt onto the surface of the paper and fade into simple black a few seconds later. Brendon whips his hand back like it's going to burn, but it doesn't, just like it hadn't been hot to the touch earlier. He touches the ink tentatively. It's not hot or wet or much of anything. It's just regular ink.
He still pulls his fingers back quickly though. Everyone knows that magic is shady unless you know how to control it. The paper could burst into real flames any second now, for all Brendon knows. And he knows even less than most people would about how magic works- fucking Mormon rules and all that.
It's easy to read now that he's looking for something, although the words are somewhat hidden amongst a jungle of decorative flourishes. But there, at the top of the paper:
'Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III Presents Decaydance Novels
Books and hearts, gently used and lovingly peddled
Black Coal Road and Fourth Avenue'
Brendon puzzles over the line of thorns underlining the title but can't derive any meaning from it. Or from the rest of the paper, really. Is it a business card or an advertisement or a joke?
Bad news is what it is, says a voice that sounds like a mixture between his mother and a buzzing bee.
Brendon just sees a mystery.
He folds the paper and tucks it into a random textbook on the floor before flopping back onto his stomach and wiggling his toes contemplatively. Brendon's never been able to keep out of trouble when it presents itself so temptingly.
*****
The name on the paper isn't in the phonebook. Brendon flips through it quickly as he's eating breakfast the next morning, trying not to spill Cheerios between the pages, but it's not under the P's or the D's and then the bus is coming and he has to abandon both breakfast and his search.
At school, he checks Google for any combination of 'Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III' 'Decaydance' 'magic' 'glowy words' and 'confusing as shit'.
The school librarian yells at him for that last one, but it's probably better than what his mom's reaction would have been to the third search term so Brendon doesn't regret saving the online search for school. Brendon tries to look repentant and nods along guilty to the lecture before being shooed out of the library.
There weren't any coherent search results on Google, although he did get a link to the Myspace of someone named 'Mrs. Glowy', which sounds promising for entirely unrelated reasons.
So he's still at square one, technically, although enough questions have floated to the surface of his mind that Brendon considers himself a few steps ahead of where he started.
For example, he knows the paper was his grandpa's.
He realizes this sitting in English the next day and jerks out of his light slumber and into a lecture comparing Ophelia and Lady Macbeth. He blinks blearily for a few seconds before lifting his head a little from where it's resting on his desk. This is an important thought and he can't let it just drift away.
His family has been Mormon on both of his parents' sides for as many generations back as Brendon can remember. Good Mormons (with a few deviations) who don't touch things like alcohol or drugs or magic. Upstanding members of the Church.
So why exactly did his mom's father have an enchanted piece of paper stuffed away in an old trumpet?
What Brendon needs to do is talk to Jon.
*****
If Brendon didn't already have a large family, he would say that Jon Walker was the older brother he always wanted.
As it is, he has enough experience with older brothers to know that they aren’t all that they’re cracked up to be. Jon’s more like a slightly older, cool cousin, with all of the warm fuzziness of kinship and none of the sibling rivalry or tattling.
Jon works in a music store next to Brendon's mom's favorite grocery store. For years, Brendon would hang out there while his mom was shopping, browsing the instruments and getting his hand slapped away from the shiniest, most expensive ones. The staff got to know him well enough- Brendon knew all seven employees by name and they all generally recognized him as the Urie kid who played piano but always spent half of his time lingering on the guitars. While they weren't exactly fond of him, they at least tolerated a middle-schooler roaming the small music store for twenty minutes before his mom retrieved him with groceries in tow.
But for the countless hours he'd spent in the store after getting picked up from school by his mom, none of the employees ever took a very personal interest in Brendon until Jon. The manager, Earl, would keep an especially close eye on him, but that was mostly because Brendon had almost knocked over a keyboard with his backpack one time and a year later still hadn't lived it down.
But for all that the employees weren't very fond of Brendon, the music store was his home away from home. It had more to do with the walls of instruments than the people that worked there, but Brendon had eavesdropped on enough phone conversations in the store to know all about Jeremy's latest dating failures and how Amy's diet was going, which was more than he knew about the daily life of his older siblings.
So at first he was a little suspicious of the new guy behind the counter, reading Blender and drumming his fingers on the counter. Tuesday afternoons were Jennifer's shift and Jennifer usually ignored him when he tried to ask questions about their newest guitars, but she was a familiar fixture.
But when the new guy looked up and smiled at him, Brendon was sold. He was scruffy and looked like he’d graduated from high school, which was a quality freshmen Brendon admired in anyone. It helped to know that at least a percentage of kids survived the process.
"Hey. Looking for something?"
Apparently, no one had warned the guy- ‘Jon’, as he’d introduced himself later- about Brendon.
They'd ended up talking about the issue of Blender until Brendon's mom honked out front to signal their departure.
From then on, it seemed like Jon was always working whenever Brendon came in. Apparently, Jennifer was on maternity leave and Larry quit unexpectedly, so Earl hired Jon to cover the afternoon shift. Whatever the reason behind Jon's sudden appearance in his life, it worked in Brendon's favor. Jon didn't mind if Brendon tried out the new guitars that he was never going to be able to afford and he gave Brendon his old issues of Blender and he told hilarious stories about his friends in Chicago. He'd just moved to Summerlin and he was working until he found something he loved enough to go to college for, but for now he was happy just to focus on music.
That was possibly one of the coolest things that Brendon had ever heard.
The fact that Jon's still working at that music store after four years should make it less cool, but Jon seems pretty content with his life. And he still lets Brendon crawl all over the instruments and steal picks from the bowl by the register, so Brendon knows he can count on him to help him work out the paper mystery.
"I'm sure it's magic- the words keep disappearing and reappearing and it glows and-!"
Brendon had made sure the store was empty before he'd started explaining, but Jon cuts him off with a quick jerk of his head as a father and daughter enter the store and Brendon wants to whine with frustration. They browse the violins and Jon keeps his eyes on them with none of the impatience that Brendon is so clearly exhibiting. At least Brendon knows that he doesn't have to worry about his mom picking him up - senior-year Brendon has a car and can drive himself to the music store, unlike his bespectacled freshman counterpart.
The customers take their sweet time and when they finally leave, Brendon whips out the paper and slaps it on the counter as soon as he hears the door jingle shut.
"That's it?" Jon asks, sidling behind the counter and lowering himself onto a stool as he looks down at it curiously.
"Yeah," Brendon replies, trying to smooth out the paper so Jon can read it. The words were gone when Brendon had crumpled the paper in his backpack this morning, but they bloom back into existence as he moves his fingers over the sheet.
Jon's eyebrows shift higher on his forehead, but he doesn't gape like Brendon had expected. Jon's usually pretty unflappable. But seriously - this is fucking magic or something.
Jon stares down at the paper, his brow back to it’s original position and furrowed above the bridge of his nose.
"So?" Brendon prods, eventually.
Jon's quiet for a second. "Looks like it could be magic," he says finally. "But who knows. It could just be a joke."
"A joke with magic?" Brendon asks incredulously.
"Maybe." Jon shrugs, still looking far too calm. "I wouldn't freak out about it Brendon. It's just a piece of paper."
Brendon wants to be chill about it like Jon is, especially because he doesn't want to look like the high-strung, sin-fearing Mormon. He could care less what the Church says about magic. But things like enchanted paper just don't happen to Brendon and he's a little thrilled by it.
"It's just paper," Jon repeats and Brendon nods, but can't necessarily make himself believe that.
Brendon smooths a corner of the paper down and points at the words. "What do you think it means though? I tried Google and the phonebook and if I could ask my mom, I would-"
"My advice? Don't mess around with stuff like this."
Brendon blinks and then wants to stomp his foot childishly. One second the paper's not important enough to worry about and the next it’s too dangerous to mess around with?
Jon frowns and nods. "I'm serious Brendon. You should just leave it alone."
‘Why?’ Brendon wants to ask, but he's already four years younger than Jon and he doesn't want to look even younger, so he literally bites his tongue to keep from asking. He grabs the paper and stuffs it into his pocket.
"Hey, c'mon, we got a new guitar that you definitely need to try - the red one, see it?" Jon claps Brendon on the shoulder and gives him a light shake. He knows it's a distraction, but Brendon allows it anyway.
It doesn't mean he's going to take Jon's advice to heart though.
*****
It's almost a little ironic, the way it does eventually go down about two weeks later.
Brendon had dropped by the music store, hoping to visit Jon, only to find that he'd called in sick and Earl wasn't in nearly a lenient enough mood to let Brendon mess around with the instruments. Brendon had been considering getting a job at the music store, but he's pretty sure that Earl would never hire him and that thought is bumming him out a little. Brent moved away a few days before too, which sucks. They weren't exactly close, but Brent was mostly a good guy and Brendon sat with him at lunch every day. He doesn't have very many other friends.
So naturally Brendon's feeling sorry for himself and more than a little distracted, kicking a wayward rock along the sidewalk, when he spots it.
The used bookstore doesn't look like much - in fact; it looks like the complete and exact opposite of anything popular or prosperous if the shabby exterior is to be trusted. The building itself doesn't look very tall, more squat than steep, and it's painted a humble shade of chocolate brown. It looks entirely out of place next to the cute cafe in artsy mocha or the chipper blue stamp store on either side.
Brendon sideswipes the rock with the toe of his sneaker and follows it across the street.
He's not feeling particularly adventurous but something about the bookstore, for as out-of-place as it looks, is homey and familiar. Piles of books occupy the display window; a few of the covers are turned out toward the street but they're not anything Brendon recognizes. Not something that would entice the casual reader out of the spring sun and into the shade of the shop.
Definitely not the kind of thing that would usually catch Brendon's eye or interest.
The rock skitters off into a gutter and Brendon glances at it before his gaze is drawn inexplicably back to the bookshop.
Brendon doesn't really make a conscious decision to go in, but he's more of a doer than a planner anyways.
The door jingles pleasantly when he pushes it open and Brendon's eyes immediately go up - up to the deceptively tall ceiling that looks like it's supported simply by the towers of books collected in every corner. There's a skylight carved into the ceiling and a beam of sunlight slices through the relative gloom of the rest of the store until it's kissing the toes of Brendon's sneakers. Tangled streams of dust particles swirl, suspended in the stream of light, and Brendon gazes up through them until his eyes blur a little from the brightness and he has to blink away.
As his eyes adjust, Brendon sees that the rest of the interior of the shop is better lit than he first thought, although the small hanging lights are underwhelming in the face of the skylight. But at least he's not stumbling blindly through the dark when he steps out of the beam of sunlight and into the shelves.
The whole store smells like old paper but it's especially strong between the stacks. Brendon was never really one for reading - too active and energetic - and he doesn't have any strong connection with the smell except -
Except for when his grandpa would hand him giant books on wars and history and things that no four-year-old wanted to read. The pages had the same old, yellowed smell and the paper had more personality in the color, darkened around the edges of each page and none of it the crisp white of newness. Brendon never really read the books and he still doesn't consider it disrespectful to his grandpa (because really, there was no way he could have expected a pre-kindergartener to be interested in books written about a time that didn’t matter to them yet) but sometimes he'd crawl into his lap and they'd flip through the pages together, his grandpa's voice vibrating along Brendon's spine as he read.
For as little as he knew the man, those memories constitute most of Brendon's knowledge about his grandpa. He never felt any sort of urgency to get to know him better after he'd died - it wasn't like he'd ever really known him in the first place and his grandma died soon afterward, burying any connection to him with her.
So the smell maybe gets to him, reminds him a little of his grandpa, which is funny considering Brendon hasn't ever given him much thought until a few weeks ago when he'd found the paper. Not that it's really helped him understand the man any more; there aren't many answers at dead ends. If anything, it's opened up some suspicions about what kind of man his grandpa was, if not the rule-abiding, God-fearing-and-loving Mormon that his mother had always referenced.
But Brendon maybe, maybe although he hasn't admitted it yet, likes him better for this mystery. His whole family is so good; living healthy, wholesome lives without question. And Brendon, for as much as he smiles and plays along, maybe doesn't think that he can do it. He doesn't have the same faith and... goodness- or maybe it's just the ability to live blind. There are plenty of things, thousands probably, that mean more to Brendon than God - music, having friends, weed, doing what he wants to with his life, sex, family...
And that last one is really the only thing keeping him tethered to the Church. And fear, maybe - not just love for his family, but the fear that if he turns his back on the church, they'll all turn their back on him. No matter how lonely Brendon is now, feeling like the only person in his family that questions his faith, at least he has them.
So this little bit of scandal - his grandpa's involvement with magic - makes Brendon feel a little less isolated somehow. He may be long dead, but at one point, Brendon's grandpa must have felt like this, lost and alone and curious and questioning, if he was seeking out something as taboo and absurd as magic- at least premarital sex and alcohol are physical sins that might be worth getting kicked out of the Church for. Magic isn't even real.
Brendon's fingers skim over the handwritten title of the shelf ('mysteries' with cobwebs drawn on the 't' and stretching onto the s and e) and he's not sure what he's looking for yet, but he has a feeling that he'll find something worth shelling out a few bucks for. It can't be particularly expensive and Brendon is thinking that he can buy his mom something, a cookbook maybe, for her upcoming birthday, when a guy pops his head into the aisle.
"Need some help?" He grins and Brendon is surprised first by the guy's appearance and secondly by how utterly-toothy his smile is. Brendon had always suspected that second-hand bookstores were run by little old ladies who at one point had been zealous used bookstore patrons themselves. The guy in front of him is certainly little and, judging by the manic grin, zealous, but probably not older than mid-twenties and, despite what Brendon suspects is eyeliner ringing his eyes, not a lady. His smile is blinding and kind of horsey.
Brendon can't decide if he looks kind of cool or entirely lame.
He doesn't really get much of a chance to answer that. "What're you looking for?" the guy asks.
"Cookbook?" Brendon offers, a little at a loss.
The guy nods and beckons him with a waved hand. "Yeah, those are kind of tricky ‘cause they're split up in two different sections." He leads Brendon through a maze of shelves (which don't seem to be ordered in any discernible way), glancing over his shoulder. "I'm Pete, by the way. Although don't think you have to mention my name at the counter or anything- I'm not paid on commission. That would be kind of weird since I write my own checks."
And that throws Brendon for a whole new loop because if bookstores aren't solely employing little old ladies, in Brendon's mind they're at least usually owned by them, not eyelinered guys with flat-ironed hair. Pete's pants are tighter than Brendon's and cinched with a white belt but there's still a hint of his underwear showing at the top. Brendon's grandmother would be beside herself at the scandal.
"I'm Brendon," he replies and then feels stupid because customers don't introduce themselves.
Pete just smiles. "Nice to meet you Brendon."
They stop in front of a table in the back. "The more popular cookbooks should be on the left side of the table," Pete says, patting the cover of one with a smiling, gray-haired woman on it. "And the rest are on that shelf right there."
Brendon nods and shifts through a few of the books on the table, trying to tell them apart. "Cool, thanks."
Pete leans back against a shelf, watching him and Brendon makes a show of considering the books like he has any idea what he's looking for. "Shopping for someone?" Pete asks and Brendon figures it must be pretty obvious.
"My mom. But I'm just looking for now."
Pete must think that that's a dismissal because he moves away easily. Brendon's kind of grateful he's gone. Pete seems like a decent guy, but he makes Brendon nervous.
"Alright, I'll be up at the front. Yell if you need anything." He salutes and wanders off.
Brendon's not going to yell in a used bookstore- it's too much like yelling in a library and he's had enough encounters with school librarians to have learned never to do that- but he makes an assenting noise at Pete's back. Then again, Pete doesn't look like the type that would fit in at a library or follow the rules of it very well.
As Pete disappears between the aisles, Brendon wonders at his existence. As far as he knows, most 20-somethings don't own their own businesses and the building itself looks like it's been around a lot longer than both Brendon and Pete combined. It must be inherited or something.
Brendon looks through the cookbooks for a few minutes, but mostly he's just buying time. He has no idea what cookbooks his mom already has so it's kind of pointless to buy one that she might already own. And he can't imagine having her return it here and interact with Pete, who seems too cartoonish for the bookshop, let alone talking to his mom about cookbooks.
So he flips through one with feigned interest, not wanting to wander away right as Pete had shown him the cookbooks. He takes his time looking at recipes for entrees (Brendon had recently decided that he was going to be a vegetarian after looking at pictures of sad-looking cows and baby chickens but whenever dinner is steak he can't seem to refuse, so it's looking like a hopeless cause at this point) and then slowly arranges the book back on the table before figuring that he's wasted enough time.
Just to stay on the unsuspicious side, he wanders through a few aisles, dragging his feet. Brendon's not sure what exactly was tugging him to come into the store since he's not much of an avid reader and browsing books, while relaxing, isn't his idea of a good time. He does feel a little calmer though -not as mope-y and at least he isn't actively bored like he usually is while shopping. Some of the books are really old and Brendon pulls a few of them out, seeing which ones they are and how old and turning them over in his hands.
The original prices are all covered up by a sticker with a barcode and new price on them, along with what is apparently the logo of the store: a bat-shape with the center cut out and -
Brendon's heart stops, one, two, three seconds, and then kicks in twice as hard. Brendon's pretty sure that he gasps romance-novel-heroine style, which is ironic considering he's now in that aisle, but at least the swooning women on the covers won't judge him.
It takes his brain a few second to recall exactly what the 'Decaydance' on the sticker means, but his gut reacts automatically, twisting and turning cold in some mixture of excitement and shock. There's no doubt in his mind that this is the store he's been looking for for weeks - Decaydance isn't even a real word, Brendon learned upon looking it up, other than a likely-purposefully misspelled version of decadence, and how common could that be? And the books-
It all makes sense, in a way that doesn't really make sense because he didn't put any of the pieces together and just got lucky wandering into the shop. If Brendon had maybe figured it all out - the books! The hearts! His grandpa! It all makes sense! - he'd feel vindicated in finally finding the shop and possibly some answers.
Instead, he feels like maybe he cheated. But then again, Brendon has cheated on tests and after a while he stopped feeling guilty about that, so cheating the mysteries of his life shouldn't be too much of a difference.
And the reward is so much better than passing History.
Brendon had mostly given up on ever figuring the paper out. After Jon's brush-off, he'd kept looking, but there just wasn't anywhere else to go from there. He listened a little harder whenever anyone in the halls at school would mention magic but they tended to be pretty private conversations anyways and Brendon got caught eavesdropping way too many times. He'd scoured the phonebook, Googled every search term he could think of. He'd even gone to the library and looked up 'magic', huddled in between the Paranormal and Travel section and constantly looking over his shoulder for anyone he knew. The librarian, a pudgy, pale little dude, had practically made Brendon shit himself when he'd asked if he needed help finding anything, but at least he'd steered Brendon in the right direction.
The point is - Brendon had given up weeks ago. Sometimes when Pre-Calculus is getting drastically boring, he'll daydream possible adventures he might have had involving enchantments and demons and the occasional unicorn. But the paper itself has been sitting untouched in the box under his bed for over two weeks.
Maybe this is some sort of delayed cosmic reward then, for how hard he'd tried to figure everything out. It was for admittedly selfish, curious reasons, but it seems like most of what people do is for selfish reasons, so why should they get rewards in the form of business promotions and new cars and Brendon didn't, when all he wanted was to maybe have someone to connect with on a dead branch of his family tree?
The universe's answer was that, apparently, Brendon did deserve some sort of reward. It doesn't have the same accomplished feeling that Brendon had expected from finally finding the shop, the subject of countless searching, but at least he doesn't get a sinister feeling, like this is somehow all a ploy that he's falling right into. Then again, Brendon never did have a very developed sense of what was actually dangerous, which always resulted in his mother pulling him away from strangers or his sister snagging him from walking out into a crowded street.
There's no one holding his hand, ready to jerk him back, now though. No-one to warn Brendon to proceed with caution.
So he doesn't. Brendon's heart is hammering far too hard in his chest and his adrenaline is running too high to reason through a plan. He doesn't consider that maybe he should step back, leave his grandpa and whatever secrets he has buried with him alone.
Instead, he quickly shelves the book he'd been looking at and walks to the front of the store, trying not to hurry. "Hey, Pete?" he calls, close enough that he doesn't have to yell, and sees the dark head lift from the middle of an aisle and look in his direction.
"Yeah? Find something you wanted?"
Brendon's empty handed. "Not yet," he replies. "But uh, weird question. Do you run a dating service on the side too? Or specialize in romance novels?" Brendon asks.
Pete's eyebrows furrow. "Not that I know of, no. Why, you have some ideas for expansion kid? Run a singles club for the old ladies that stalk the Nora Roberts section?"
Brendon needs to be careful here. "Um, no?" It would help if he understood what Pete was talking about and knew who Nora Roberts was. "I just heard that you work with... something about love? Hearts. That's what it was."
That definitely catches Pete's attention. He had been restacking books but now turns to look at Brendon over his shoulder. "Oh yeah?" he replies, voice a shade into serious. "And where'd you hear stuff like that?"
"Oh, just around," Brendon answers, but Pete doesn't look satisfied with that vague of an answer so Brendon draws the first name he can think of. "Earl- Earl Chester."
"I don't know any Earls." Pete's hard look is short-circuiting Brendon's lying skills and he has to scramble.
"He's not too far from here- he works at the music store a few blocks over with my friend Jon." Brendon can feel himself babbling, spewing out whatever he can to satisfy Pete, who suddenly relaxes so fractionally that Brendon would doubt anything even changed except he can feel the tension in the air ease.
"Your friend Jon, huh?" Pete stacks a book. "Is he a good guy?"
"Earl or Jon?"
Pete laughs and shrugs. "Either. Although I don't know how much I trust this Earl guy if he's spreading lies about my business. We have a fine name to uphold here at Decaydance."
Considering the name of the place, Brendon thinks that's a little ironic. "I don't know, Earl's fine," Brendon says, although he's not entirely convinced himself.
Pete moves down an aisle into the Comics and Brendon catches up to him. He's obviously losing his audience.
Brendon decides to press. "Look, I know Earl wouldn't lie about this. He was making a pretty big deal about the hearts."
Pete stiffens. Finally he looks up, mouth loose in a cocky grin but voice tight. "Yeah? It seems to me like you're the one making a pretty big deal about it."
Be careful, Brendon reminds himself. "Look, I'm not trying to cause trouble or anything, I swear." Brendon puts his hands up in front of him, palms out and placating. "I just had some questions about my grandpa and I thought I'd ask around and I found the name of this place."
Pete's silent, but he doesn't go back to restocking. His hand hovers over the shelf before finally closing around the wood as he looks up at Brendon sharply. "You love your grandpa, kid?"
Brendon was a little young when he died, but he probably had. "Yeah."
That seems to decide something for Pete. He nods and gets up, stepping over his box of books and heading for his counter. Brendon waits a few seconds, but it doesn't look like Pete's coming back so he follows quickly.
Pete is rummaging in a drawer beneath the counter when Brendon finds him, looking determined as he digs. He's talking under his breath to himself and Brendon hangs back, watching with more than a little trepidation and excitement. Brendon's not exactly sure what he's gotten himself into but he's more eager than scared to find out.
"Here we go," Pete says, grinning as he emerges from the drawer victorious, a small dark glass bottle in hand. He beckons Brendon over with a wave of his hand.
When Brendon approaches obediently, Pete holds up the bottle and swirls it thoughtfully, suddenly somber enough for Brendon to grasp some sense of the gravity of the situation. "You're sure you want to go through with this?"
Brendon starts to ask what exactly he's going through with and then shuts his mouth abruptly. Pete seems to be under the impression that Brendon knows more than he really does (which is mostly nothing - he's kind of groping around blindly in the dark right now) and Brendon doesn't want to close the narrow window of opportunity he's been afforded by revealing his cluelessness.
Instead, he just nods.
That's apparently all the permission needed to get down to business - whatever that business may be.
Pete closes his eyes briefly and Brendon follows suit. He peeks out of one eye but squeezes it shut quickly when Pete opens his eyes and then the light is blocked as something passes in front of his face. Brendon stiffens and Pete makes a low, distracted noise.
"This shouldn't hurt, don't worry," he says and Brendon tries to relax but that isn't very reassuring because he hadn't even considered that it might hurt.
So when Pete touches the bridge of Brendon's nose, it's not surprising that Brendon jolts under the delicate touch. Pete doesn't pause though and draws a line down to the end of his nose and hums something that Brendon feels like is a word but that doesn't sound like anything he understands.
And then there's a noise that Brendon assumes is the bottle being uncorked, a waft of pine scent, an itch and a trickle down his throat and Brendon faints.
*****
When he comes to, it's with a splitting headache. He's laying on the ground and it takes Brendon a full minute to even remember where he is, much less why he's on the ground. By the time he's noticing his surroundings and trying to sit up, there's a hand restraining his shoulder.
"Hey, easy," Pete says, before slowly helping him ease up. "Dude, that was awesome."
"Huh?" Brendon's mouth feels disgusting- like cotton and dirt. What the hell happened? Did Pete knock him out? For a second Brendon is very aware of the fact that Pete's a stranger and it's possibly too late to remember his mother's warnings about strangers.
Pete grins, apparently oblivious to Brendon's worries and over whatever was making him angry at Brendon earlier. "You fainted and hit your head. It was like a sack of potatoes- there was no way I was catching you in time."
Just hearing Pete say that makes Brendon's head hurt and he groans and touches the back of his head carefully. Of course he'd been on wooden floors instead of the carpet that blankets the rest of the store. There isn't any swelling that Brendon can feel but he winces as his fingers probe a sensitive spot.
"Ouch."
Pete nods, looking a little too amused to be completely sympathetic. "Definitely."
Brendon tries not to take the lack of concern personally and pokes the slight swelling once more before squinting up at Pete. "That bottle- what's in it?"
Pete seems to catch some of his thoughts and shakes his head pre-emptively. "A potion."
"Is that what they're calling drugs nowadays?" Brendon says, maybe a little more bitterly than he means to. His head is still radiating little ripples of pain and he winces. "You better not try to take advantage of my delicate condition."
Pete laughs aloud at that and then looks down at Brendon like he might not be a complete waste of time. "No, it's just a potion." Pete pauses. "You know, with magic and shit."
If Pete was expecting a reaction- and from the way he joyfully emphasizes the last sentence, Brendon is pretty sure he was- then he isn't disappointed. Brendon blinks hard, more out of surprise at how openly Pete confirms his suspicions than out of any real disbelief. Brendon's known all along that the paper was magic (even if Jon's dismissal did raise a few brief doubts in his mind) but to hear it said so openly-
But it's not really openly- the shop is empty apart from the two of them and even now in his bravado, Pete's eyes dart occasionally to the door.
Brendon still almost cringes and expects a bolt of lightning to strike Pete down any second now. When no divine retribution is forthcoming, Brendon eventually nods in what he hopes is a casual manner.
"Oh, yeah, I knew that," he says. "But, uh- what kind of potion, I meant."
Pete's wide smile obviously doesn't believe Brendon's bluffing, but he doesn't call him on it. "Standard merchant confidentiality potion." At Brendon's blank look, he clarifies. "That smell that you noticed, probably right before you passed out? It seals off anything you might try to say about my store or the heart-dealing stuff or really magic in general. Can't have word getting out or there's all sorts of unfortunate memory-erasing that has to be taken care of and then people get upset."
Brendon wonders how hard he really did hit his head, because he recognizes all of the words that Pete is using but not any of the phrases they're being combined to make. Brendon shrugs away the feeling that he's missing something, because he likely is but there's no way to figure it out without looking even dumber than he already does.
"Oh."
It's not like Brendon had been planning to run off and tell someone what's happening- he's pretty sure that he'd sound crazy anyways. Jon's the only one that Brendon really would have been able to tell and he clearly didn't want to get involved with anything supernatural, so the potion was probably an unnecessary precaution.
Pete just shrugs when he tells him that. "It's nothing personal, kid. Everyone that I sell more than just books to has to have their voices sealed off." He smiles toothily in amusement. "Just, most people don't faint."
Brendon would be more humiliated if he hadn't spent four years in high school getting picked on already. Besides, who knows who most of Pete's customers are- probably not Mormons with weak tolerances for magic. Brendon settles for feeling mildly embarrassed.
"So, my grandpa?" Brendon asks. He's trying not to be impatient, but who knows how much time had passed with him lying on the floor. Brendon has to be back by 5:30 for dinner and he doesn't want to waste any more time.
And maybe he's just eager to see where his bluffing and hunches end up.
Pete doesn't get up right away. "Yeah, wait a second. Don't want you fainting again."
Brendon struggles upright and definitely doesn't pout, looking up at Pete with an impatient expression. Pete smiles back down at him, in an infinitely better mood now, which Brendon would like to assume isn't a result of his pain.
"Now?" he asks, finally, after what seems like an eternity of silent waiting. Pete looks considering before finally grinning and shaking his head in amusement.
"Yeah, fine, c'mon."
Pete offers a hand and pulls Brendon to his feet. His palms are surprisingly hot and Brendon takes his own away as soon as possible without being obvious. Pete doesn't notice, at least.
"Try not to faint this time, okay?"
Brendon doesn't get a chance to respond besides a quick, indignant look, because Pete holds his hand over Brendon's chest for a second before moving to the space over Brendon's heart. Pete makes a languid, graceful motion with his hand, eyes slipping half-shut in concentration for a minute before he apparently completes the spell or charm or whatever it was. Brendon feels a second of icy coldness but it's quickly washed away by a warmth that makes his cheeks turn pink. It's definitely not a natural feeling but it isn't artificial-feeling or painful or anything that Brendon might have feared.
Pete seems satisfied with his work, face more businesslike than Brendon would have expected. "This way," he says over his shoulder as he walks towards the back.
They pass the cookbooks and then turn right, where Pete unlocks a door marked 'Employees Only' that's mostly hidden by a shelf of books.
He opens it, but stops and turns to face Brendon instead of going in. His body, while small, looms in the doorway. "You're absolutely sure about this?"
Although Brendon has no idea what Pete's asking, he can tell the gravity of the situation from his voice. And Brendon isn't absolutely sure, but he's also not stupid enough (or uncurious enough) to say no.
"Yeah," Brendon says and then amends it when Pete raises his eyebrows. "Yes, I'm sure."
Pete nods and then they seem to simultaneously take a deep, steadying breath before Pete leads him through the door.
It's dark but Pete flips a light and a short hallway is illuminated. They head down it.
"Alright, so you can't talk about this with anyone non-magical, but I'm warning you right now not to try it with anyone at all," Pete says without looking back. "It'd surprise you how many people out there have just enough magic in them to know about these things."
It probably would surprise Brendon, since up until he'd found the note, magic was the stuff of legends and maybe unproven gossip in his school's halls. The idea that people around him - neighbors or kids at his school or clerks at the grocery store-
Pete continues, unconcerned with his silence. "And this isn't all exactly... legal and the people that you can tell aren't going to shut me down but they're also probably not going to like you very much if they know you're buying from me. So just... don't."
Brendon's been pretty good at bluffing so far and normally he'd just keep his head down and not ask questions, but if slips out without permission. "Why would anybody care?"
Pete stops and glances at Brendon seriously. "Heart-dealing doesn't have the best reputation, kid. Why else do you think only demons bother to get involved with it?" And then he grins, simultaneously bright and sharp and self-deprecating and Brendon's legitimately afraid for a second, before Pete unlocks the door they've stopped at and steps inside. After that, there isn't really any time for thinking or wondering about Pete's words as Brendon follows.
The first thing Brendon notices about the room is how much bigger it is than he would have guessed. The hallway itself was narrow- not uncomfortably so but definitely small- and Brendon would have guessed that any room coming off of it would be similarly modest. And they definitely passed other doors (which presumably had rooms attached to them) in the hallway.
But this room- this room is probably twice as big as Brendon's bedroom and filled with shelf upon shelf of faintly-glowing jars. Some are labelled with a piece of tape and the size of the jar varies, but the room is filled with tons of jars and only them.
"So this is it - my collection," Pete says with a sweep of one arm. "And don't worry about breaking the hearts -" Pete grins at the pun - "those jars are spell-sealed. They won't crack if you drop them."
It's a little much to take in all at once, but Brendon nods like he's someone more competent than he really is.
"So... just grab the one you're looking for. It should be glowing the brightest," Pete says and shoos him forward and Brendon balks before allowing himself to be herded a few steps further into the room. He doesn't steer himself towards any 'heart' in particular, gaze sweeping over the collection without settling on one in particular.
There are way too many to choose from. Brendon wants to ask for a hint but Pete's studying his painted nails nonchalantly like this is the easiest thing in the world, so Brendon squares his shoulders and wades in.
None of them are glowing any more brightly than the others. They're different colors so some are lighter- yellow or light blue or pink - but none of them are screaming 'TAKE ME' and maybe they know that Brendon's a faker and really has no idea what he's doing.
Pete's watching him when Brendon glances up and Brendon just grabs the nearest jar- heart. It's warm and tingles in his palm a little and Brendon grips it a little more firmly because, well, maybe that means he grabbed the right one? Pete still looking at him a little weird but Brendon just ducks his head.
"Got it," he says and Pete nods wordlessly and, with one last look at the glowing room, Brendon walks back into the hall and out into the shop.
Brendon's glad he waits for Pete to follow him out before leaving, because he'd completely forgot about paying until Pete leads him back to the counter.
"So, uh, how much?" Brendon asks, hefting the heart to one side so he can dig around in his pocket for money. He hadn't even considered how much it might cost and if it's more than twenty dollars then Brendon's not sure if he even has enough cash on him.
Pete waves him off with an amused look. "You can't pay with money," he says, like it's something Brendon should already know. "Can't buy love, after all."
"Oh right," Brendon replies, completely uncomprehending. "So I'll just..."
"You have to come back for me to release the heart anyways if you want to buy it, so just come back when you're done and we'll talk exchange."
"Okay, yeah, I'll come back. When I'm done," Brendon says. "And you're not afraid that I'll... run off with it or something?"
Pete smirks. "It's not going to be of much use, since you only get one free night. Don't worry Brendon - you'll know what to do. And even if you do try to make off with it, I have ways of getting it back if I really want to."
The grin looks a little more predatory and a little less horsey and Brendon is reminded forcibly of what Pete had said earlier... called himself - demon. "Oh, yeah, no need to worry, I'll be back!" Brendon replies, his voice cracking a little, and he clears his throat to clear out some of the squeakiness. "Thanks for, uh, all your help."
"Happy to be of service," Pete replies amiably enough. "Don't be a stranger Brendon."
When Brendon walks out, the heart warm in the crook of his arm and his own heart beating hard in his chest, he keeps his walk deliberately unhurried.
(Part Two)
by the now deleted but forever in our hearts tarii_cakes*;
Band(s): Panic at the Disco, Fall Out Boy, minor appearances by others
Pairing(s): Brendon/Ryan, others
Word Count: 70170
Rating/Warnings: R, brief mention of underage drinking
Summary: (Sub)urban fantasy, wherein Brendon Urie finds love and loses hearts.
Heart-dealing... Brendon recognizes the term, but in the same vague way that he recognizes the Mafia while really only knowing that it's something he doesn't want to mess with and involves people in suits. The term obviously doesn't mean actual, physical hearts, since the jar looks to be just a wisp of cloudy shine. It's more like the ability to love and hate and feel strongly about anything, all bottled in one jar and stolen out of someone. It's shady shit.
Brendon's not really sure what to do with the heart; should he have gotten instructions from Pete about how this all works? He's mostly flying in the dark so Brendon just puts it next to his bed, covered by a heap of clothing in case his mom walks in without knocking the next morning.
"Night," he tells it as he clicks off the light.
A/N: This entire story would not have been possible without my wonderful beta and amazing friend mockturtletale . Thank you so much bby for holding my hand throughout this entire fic, encouraging me and cheerleading and helping me work out every detail, including the title. This fic is dedicated entirely to you. So many of these ideas came from your head, not mine, and I can't thank you enough for the faith that you had in me. I can't imagine having worked with anyone else on it and I have no idea how to repay you.
*PLEASE NOTE: A couple weeks ago ivesia19 messaged me because she’d seen I beta’d a piece called Heart and Tender by a user who’d left, sadly taking the fic with her. Then this morning, choclitbunny was like ‘Dude where’s that fic!” and long story short it turns out that a lot of people want to read this, and considering that we ourselves are among those that miss it and the fact that Kelly, the author, wants people to be able to read this even though she’s not around anymore, choclitbunny and I have decided to give Heart and Tender a home here in our journal. As previously stated, it’s not ours, we’re posting on Kelly’s behalf. If you want to comment, feel absolutely free and I’ll personally see to it that Kelly gets to read whatever ya’ll have to say.
choclitbunny and I are really excited to be able to give everyone the opportunity to read and re-read this piece as often as they like, so without further ado;
Part One
When he is five, Brendon asks his mother to tell him a bedtime story, one with princes and palaces and magic.
Instead, his mother tells him the story of a man and woman who love each other very much and how they marry and have children who they love just as much.
Brendon wiggles under his covers and whines that that's not the story he wanted. He wants swords and spells and dragons and-
His mother hugs him to her, holding so tightly that Brendon can feel the individual pressure of each finger. "There is no such thing as magic," she whispers, fierce and low, and Brendon's never heard his mom talk like that before so he just nods against her chest. She tucks him in and kisses his forehead and tells him goodnight as softly as always.
Not only was his mother a poor storyteller, she's not a very convincing liar either.
*****
It starts with a trumpet.
A few weeks after his grandpa's funeral, Brendon's mom brought home an old trumpet. Brendon can't have been older than four then and the trumpet has been on top of a cabinet of china in their living room for as long as he can remember. It's not a piece of scenery that he's ever paid much attention to (any more than his mom's ceramic ducks locked in the cabinet's glass doors below, at least) beyond vaguely noting its existence.
In fact, he never even touches it other than quickly running a cloth over it when his mom insists on dusting. It's old and a pain to play. Not something that has anything interesting to offer Brendon.
That is, until Brent comes over to his house for the first time.
Brendon wouldn't say that he's desperate to impress Brent, his first school-friend to come over to his house, but it might come across that way. If Brendon could have a do-over, he would have casually suggested that Brent come over straight after school and hang-out. Instead, he's set up a proper playdate time: 4:00, my house, I'll make snacks!, do not pass go or collect $200.
At least Brent's bringing over his XBox though, which guarantees a couple of hours of Halo. The last time Brendon had friends over, he'd been twelve and it had been for Bible Study.
Brendon's trying to decide whether it'd be a good thing or not if his mom made them snacks (on one hand, they're teenage boys with appropriate appetites. On the other hand, his mom) when the doorbell rings and suddenly Brendon's got more pressing things to worry about.
Brent's not exactly what Brendon would consider cool. Then again, neither is Brendon, with his thick-framed glasses and braces and freckles on pale skin. But Brent is uncool enough that Brendon definitely shouldn't be nervous about him coming over. After all, Brendon isn't worried about making an ass out of himself at school, where he's surrounded by unfamiliar, unfriendly peers, so he should be completely at ease in his own house, his domain.
Brendon wipes his hands on his hands before reaching for the door. Brent is a little sweaty and his XBox is resting on the slight paunch of his stomach and Brendon feels an acute sense of relief when he opens the door to let him in.
They set up the XBox in the living room because Brendon doesn't have a T.V. in his room like Brent does. Actually, Brent attempts to set it up, messing around with cords behind the T.V. while Brendon watches and tries to be helpful.
"I think that cord is the sound- the blue one," Brendon offers. When Brent tugs on it and the screen goes dead, Brendon can only shrug and smile helpfully. "Or maybe not that one?"
He decides it would be more productive to hunt for emergency entertainment, just in case Brent can't get the XBox working. Judging by the amount of under-breath-swearing coming from behind the T.V. (and Brendon actually sends a thankful prayer that his mom is out of the house for now), it's a likely possibility.
He's actually looking for a football (he knows there's one of those foam Nerf-type ones around the house somewhere) when he grabs the trumpet. The football isn't behind it, which is kind of obvious considering there's a layer of dust on the cabinet about an inch deep and Brendon had been tossing the football at the wall just a week ago. It doesn't stop his fingers from scrabbling around hopefully, scattering a shower of dust before coming to rest on a small scrap of paper.
It's scrunched and crumpled and Brendon unfolds it curiously, search momentarily forgotten. The paper- a note maybe?- is smaller than a normal sheet and there's some fancy, artsy design on it, with big sweeping curls around a simpler font.
Brendon doesn't even get to look at what the paper says. The black words start glowing, smoldering red like coals, and Brendon promptly drops it.
The paper flutters to the floor and sits there innocently. Brendon pokes at it with his foot cautiously. Nothing happens and when he turns it over with his foot the text is a harmless black again. Brent swears violently in the living room and Brendon jumps, startled.
Oh fuck Brendon thinks, this is magic.
His mom would shit herself if she realized that magic, actual real magic, had been in her house. Is still in her house.
Brendon quickly crumples the paper and shoves it into his pocket like his mom is going to pop out from behind the cabinet any second now. The paper isn't hot to the touch like he feared it might be and shit, he needs to hide it.
He runs upstairs, throws himself on the ground of his bedroom and rummages around beneath his bed until he finds the box he was looking for, labeled 'Receipts'. It's filled with caffeinated drinks, an almost-empty baggy of weed and pages ripped out of what porn magazines he can find (his mom hadn't flipped out when she'd found his brother's porn years ago, but she'd Sharpied 'I am a daughter of God' and 'I'll make a beautiful wife someday' onto the pictures and, really, that was pretty effective in killing any hopes of jerking off, so Brendon keeps this stuff well-hidden).
The crumpled note goes into that pile and Brendon shoves the box back under his bed just as the garage door rumbles to announce his mom's arrival.
Brendon stomps down the stairs extra loud to drown out any of Brent's possible swearing, nearly running into his mom at the bottom.
"Will you grab the rest of the groceries from the car Brendon?" She glances up at him for a second before continuing to the kitchen with her armload of grocery bags. "Oh!"
"I have a friend over!" Brendon calls over his shoulder as he goes to empty the car. He's not worried about leaving his mom with Brent- they're both pretty harmless, especially if they're both trying to make a good impression.
"I can see that!" Her voice goes quieter as she introduces herself to Brent and by the time that Brendon enters the kitchen with his arms laden with bags, his mom is smiling happily and apparently making Brent a sandwich. For his part, Brent looks a little uncomfortable, moving around the kitchen delicately like he might break anything just by looking at it. He glances up when Brendon sets the bags down heavily on the counter, latching onto his side clumsily.
"I got the XBox hooked up," Brent's eyes cut to his mom. "Halo?"
"Cool, yeah," Brendon leads the way to the living room, although not before his mom can shove the sandwich into Brent's hands. He looks at it before staring at Brendon helplessly. "Mom, we're gonna play Halo. Don't bother checking up on us. If you hear anyone exploding or dying, it's not real."
She gives him an eyeroll and an unamused look. His efforts are so unappreciated.
*****
After dinner, Brendon locks his door and pulls the box out from under his bed. The paper looks just as innocent as it did when he put it there and Brendon pulls it out and sets it gingerly on his pillow. Then he lies on his stomach, head propped up on his elbows, and stares.
He can hear his mom shuffling around in the kitchen downstairs and he feels vaguely guilty, but really, he's jacked off with his parents just next door so this shouldn't be any different or more unholy. His ears are buzzing, but that might just be from nerves.
This is the ABC's of Mormonism, stuff that Brendon's known since he was five: no caffeine, no porn and/or masturbation, no drugs, no magic.
He's broken the rest of those rules since then, although not without some guilt and a healthy dose of paranoia. Even now, Brendon's eyes flicker to his safely locked door. His dad had passed by half an hour ago and Brendon had lain frozen on his bed, hands already pulling the box out, until just a few minutes ago, when the coast was officially clear.
The paper looks old, which is the most fault that Brendon can find in it. No demonic glow, no fire hazard, no sign of what Brendon saw earlier. He pokes it cautiously, feeling incredibly stupid. No reaction.
He freezes again when his mom comes up the stairs, listening as she pauses outside his door. He mentally urges her onward and finally she moves on, into her own bedroom with a safe click of the door closing.
The part that Brendon doesn't understand (other than pretty much everything about this situation, including how something magical ended up in his house) is where the words went. Brendon distinctly remembers there being words on the paper, before they erupted in fire or some shit like that. But now the paper's completely blank.
He frowns down at it for a few more seconds, twisting his head to see if there's something he's missing.
Brendon's breathing a little hard- mixture of fear and excitement, probably- and the edges of the paper curl back and forth under his breath. Thoughtlessly, he smooths out an edge, stopping the back and forth flicker and causing ink to bloom on the paper. And not just plain ink, but blazing, golden words that melt onto the surface of the paper and fade into simple black a few seconds later. Brendon whips his hand back like it's going to burn, but it doesn't, just like it hadn't been hot to the touch earlier. He touches the ink tentatively. It's not hot or wet or much of anything. It's just regular ink.
He still pulls his fingers back quickly though. Everyone knows that magic is shady unless you know how to control it. The paper could burst into real flames any second now, for all Brendon knows. And he knows even less than most people would about how magic works- fucking Mormon rules and all that.
It's easy to read now that he's looking for something, although the words are somewhat hidden amongst a jungle of decorative flourishes. But there, at the top of the paper:
'Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III Presents Decaydance Novels
Books and hearts, gently used and lovingly peddled
Black Coal Road and Fourth Avenue'
Brendon puzzles over the line of thorns underlining the title but can't derive any meaning from it. Or from the rest of the paper, really. Is it a business card or an advertisement or a joke?
Bad news is what it is, says a voice that sounds like a mixture between his mother and a buzzing bee.
Brendon just sees a mystery.
He folds the paper and tucks it into a random textbook on the floor before flopping back onto his stomach and wiggling his toes contemplatively. Brendon's never been able to keep out of trouble when it presents itself so temptingly.
*****
The name on the paper isn't in the phonebook. Brendon flips through it quickly as he's eating breakfast the next morning, trying not to spill Cheerios between the pages, but it's not under the P's or the D's and then the bus is coming and he has to abandon both breakfast and his search.
At school, he checks Google for any combination of 'Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III' 'Decaydance' 'magic' 'glowy words' and 'confusing as shit'.
The school librarian yells at him for that last one, but it's probably better than what his mom's reaction would have been to the third search term so Brendon doesn't regret saving the online search for school. Brendon tries to look repentant and nods along guilty to the lecture before being shooed out of the library.
There weren't any coherent search results on Google, although he did get a link to the Myspace of someone named 'Mrs. Glowy', which sounds promising for entirely unrelated reasons.
So he's still at square one, technically, although enough questions have floated to the surface of his mind that Brendon considers himself a few steps ahead of where he started.
For example, he knows the paper was his grandpa's.
He realizes this sitting in English the next day and jerks out of his light slumber and into a lecture comparing Ophelia and Lady Macbeth. He blinks blearily for a few seconds before lifting his head a little from where it's resting on his desk. This is an important thought and he can't let it just drift away.
His family has been Mormon on both of his parents' sides for as many generations back as Brendon can remember. Good Mormons (with a few deviations) who don't touch things like alcohol or drugs or magic. Upstanding members of the Church.
So why exactly did his mom's father have an enchanted piece of paper stuffed away in an old trumpet?
What Brendon needs to do is talk to Jon.
*****
If Brendon didn't already have a large family, he would say that Jon Walker was the older brother he always wanted.
As it is, he has enough experience with older brothers to know that they aren’t all that they’re cracked up to be. Jon’s more like a slightly older, cool cousin, with all of the warm fuzziness of kinship and none of the sibling rivalry or tattling.
Jon works in a music store next to Brendon's mom's favorite grocery store. For years, Brendon would hang out there while his mom was shopping, browsing the instruments and getting his hand slapped away from the shiniest, most expensive ones. The staff got to know him well enough- Brendon knew all seven employees by name and they all generally recognized him as the Urie kid who played piano but always spent half of his time lingering on the guitars. While they weren't exactly fond of him, they at least tolerated a middle-schooler roaming the small music store for twenty minutes before his mom retrieved him with groceries in tow.
But for the countless hours he'd spent in the store after getting picked up from school by his mom, none of the employees ever took a very personal interest in Brendon until Jon. The manager, Earl, would keep an especially close eye on him, but that was mostly because Brendon had almost knocked over a keyboard with his backpack one time and a year later still hadn't lived it down.
But for all that the employees weren't very fond of Brendon, the music store was his home away from home. It had more to do with the walls of instruments than the people that worked there, but Brendon had eavesdropped on enough phone conversations in the store to know all about Jeremy's latest dating failures and how Amy's diet was going, which was more than he knew about the daily life of his older siblings.
So at first he was a little suspicious of the new guy behind the counter, reading Blender and drumming his fingers on the counter. Tuesday afternoons were Jennifer's shift and Jennifer usually ignored him when he tried to ask questions about their newest guitars, but she was a familiar fixture.
But when the new guy looked up and smiled at him, Brendon was sold. He was scruffy and looked like he’d graduated from high school, which was a quality freshmen Brendon admired in anyone. It helped to know that at least a percentage of kids survived the process.
"Hey. Looking for something?"
Apparently, no one had warned the guy- ‘Jon’, as he’d introduced himself later- about Brendon.
They'd ended up talking about the issue of Blender until Brendon's mom honked out front to signal their departure.
From then on, it seemed like Jon was always working whenever Brendon came in. Apparently, Jennifer was on maternity leave and Larry quit unexpectedly, so Earl hired Jon to cover the afternoon shift. Whatever the reason behind Jon's sudden appearance in his life, it worked in Brendon's favor. Jon didn't mind if Brendon tried out the new guitars that he was never going to be able to afford and he gave Brendon his old issues of Blender and he told hilarious stories about his friends in Chicago. He'd just moved to Summerlin and he was working until he found something he loved enough to go to college for, but for now he was happy just to focus on music.
That was possibly one of the coolest things that Brendon had ever heard.
The fact that Jon's still working at that music store after four years should make it less cool, but Jon seems pretty content with his life. And he still lets Brendon crawl all over the instruments and steal picks from the bowl by the register, so Brendon knows he can count on him to help him work out the paper mystery.
"I'm sure it's magic- the words keep disappearing and reappearing and it glows and-!"
Brendon had made sure the store was empty before he'd started explaining, but Jon cuts him off with a quick jerk of his head as a father and daughter enter the store and Brendon wants to whine with frustration. They browse the violins and Jon keeps his eyes on them with none of the impatience that Brendon is so clearly exhibiting. At least Brendon knows that he doesn't have to worry about his mom picking him up - senior-year Brendon has a car and can drive himself to the music store, unlike his bespectacled freshman counterpart.
The customers take their sweet time and when they finally leave, Brendon whips out the paper and slaps it on the counter as soon as he hears the door jingle shut.
"That's it?" Jon asks, sidling behind the counter and lowering himself onto a stool as he looks down at it curiously.
"Yeah," Brendon replies, trying to smooth out the paper so Jon can read it. The words were gone when Brendon had crumpled the paper in his backpack this morning, but they bloom back into existence as he moves his fingers over the sheet.
Jon's eyebrows shift higher on his forehead, but he doesn't gape like Brendon had expected. Jon's usually pretty unflappable. But seriously - this is fucking magic or something.
Jon stares down at the paper, his brow back to it’s original position and furrowed above the bridge of his nose.
"So?" Brendon prods, eventually.
Jon's quiet for a second. "Looks like it could be magic," he says finally. "But who knows. It could just be a joke."
"A joke with magic?" Brendon asks incredulously.
"Maybe." Jon shrugs, still looking far too calm. "I wouldn't freak out about it Brendon. It's just a piece of paper."
Brendon wants to be chill about it like Jon is, especially because he doesn't want to look like the high-strung, sin-fearing Mormon. He could care less what the Church says about magic. But things like enchanted paper just don't happen to Brendon and he's a little thrilled by it.
"It's just paper," Jon repeats and Brendon nods, but can't necessarily make himself believe that.
Brendon smooths a corner of the paper down and points at the words. "What do you think it means though? I tried Google and the phonebook and if I could ask my mom, I would-"
"My advice? Don't mess around with stuff like this."
Brendon blinks and then wants to stomp his foot childishly. One second the paper's not important enough to worry about and the next it’s too dangerous to mess around with?
Jon frowns and nods. "I'm serious Brendon. You should just leave it alone."
‘Why?’ Brendon wants to ask, but he's already four years younger than Jon and he doesn't want to look even younger, so he literally bites his tongue to keep from asking. He grabs the paper and stuffs it into his pocket.
"Hey, c'mon, we got a new guitar that you definitely need to try - the red one, see it?" Jon claps Brendon on the shoulder and gives him a light shake. He knows it's a distraction, but Brendon allows it anyway.
It doesn't mean he's going to take Jon's advice to heart though.
*****
It's almost a little ironic, the way it does eventually go down about two weeks later.
Brendon had dropped by the music store, hoping to visit Jon, only to find that he'd called in sick and Earl wasn't in nearly a lenient enough mood to let Brendon mess around with the instruments. Brendon had been considering getting a job at the music store, but he's pretty sure that Earl would never hire him and that thought is bumming him out a little. Brent moved away a few days before too, which sucks. They weren't exactly close, but Brent was mostly a good guy and Brendon sat with him at lunch every day. He doesn't have very many other friends.
So naturally Brendon's feeling sorry for himself and more than a little distracted, kicking a wayward rock along the sidewalk, when he spots it.
The used bookstore doesn't look like much - in fact; it looks like the complete and exact opposite of anything popular or prosperous if the shabby exterior is to be trusted. The building itself doesn't look very tall, more squat than steep, and it's painted a humble shade of chocolate brown. It looks entirely out of place next to the cute cafe in artsy mocha or the chipper blue stamp store on either side.
Brendon sideswipes the rock with the toe of his sneaker and follows it across the street.
He's not feeling particularly adventurous but something about the bookstore, for as out-of-place as it looks, is homey and familiar. Piles of books occupy the display window; a few of the covers are turned out toward the street but they're not anything Brendon recognizes. Not something that would entice the casual reader out of the spring sun and into the shade of the shop.
Definitely not the kind of thing that would usually catch Brendon's eye or interest.
The rock skitters off into a gutter and Brendon glances at it before his gaze is drawn inexplicably back to the bookshop.
Brendon doesn't really make a conscious decision to go in, but he's more of a doer than a planner anyways.
The door jingles pleasantly when he pushes it open and Brendon's eyes immediately go up - up to the deceptively tall ceiling that looks like it's supported simply by the towers of books collected in every corner. There's a skylight carved into the ceiling and a beam of sunlight slices through the relative gloom of the rest of the store until it's kissing the toes of Brendon's sneakers. Tangled streams of dust particles swirl, suspended in the stream of light, and Brendon gazes up through them until his eyes blur a little from the brightness and he has to blink away.
As his eyes adjust, Brendon sees that the rest of the interior of the shop is better lit than he first thought, although the small hanging lights are underwhelming in the face of the skylight. But at least he's not stumbling blindly through the dark when he steps out of the beam of sunlight and into the shelves.
The whole store smells like old paper but it's especially strong between the stacks. Brendon was never really one for reading - too active and energetic - and he doesn't have any strong connection with the smell except -
Except for when his grandpa would hand him giant books on wars and history and things that no four-year-old wanted to read. The pages had the same old, yellowed smell and the paper had more personality in the color, darkened around the edges of each page and none of it the crisp white of newness. Brendon never really read the books and he still doesn't consider it disrespectful to his grandpa (because really, there was no way he could have expected a pre-kindergartener to be interested in books written about a time that didn’t matter to them yet) but sometimes he'd crawl into his lap and they'd flip through the pages together, his grandpa's voice vibrating along Brendon's spine as he read.
For as little as he knew the man, those memories constitute most of Brendon's knowledge about his grandpa. He never felt any sort of urgency to get to know him better after he'd died - it wasn't like he'd ever really known him in the first place and his grandma died soon afterward, burying any connection to him with her.
So the smell maybe gets to him, reminds him a little of his grandpa, which is funny considering Brendon hasn't ever given him much thought until a few weeks ago when he'd found the paper. Not that it's really helped him understand the man any more; there aren't many answers at dead ends. If anything, it's opened up some suspicions about what kind of man his grandpa was, if not the rule-abiding, God-fearing-and-loving Mormon that his mother had always referenced.
But Brendon maybe, maybe although he hasn't admitted it yet, likes him better for this mystery. His whole family is so good; living healthy, wholesome lives without question. And Brendon, for as much as he smiles and plays along, maybe doesn't think that he can do it. He doesn't have the same faith and... goodness- or maybe it's just the ability to live blind. There are plenty of things, thousands probably, that mean more to Brendon than God - music, having friends, weed, doing what he wants to with his life, sex, family...
And that last one is really the only thing keeping him tethered to the Church. And fear, maybe - not just love for his family, but the fear that if he turns his back on the church, they'll all turn their back on him. No matter how lonely Brendon is now, feeling like the only person in his family that questions his faith, at least he has them.
So this little bit of scandal - his grandpa's involvement with magic - makes Brendon feel a little less isolated somehow. He may be long dead, but at one point, Brendon's grandpa must have felt like this, lost and alone and curious and questioning, if he was seeking out something as taboo and absurd as magic- at least premarital sex and alcohol are physical sins that might be worth getting kicked out of the Church for. Magic isn't even real.
Brendon's fingers skim over the handwritten title of the shelf ('mysteries' with cobwebs drawn on the 't' and stretching onto the s and e) and he's not sure what he's looking for yet, but he has a feeling that he'll find something worth shelling out a few bucks for. It can't be particularly expensive and Brendon is thinking that he can buy his mom something, a cookbook maybe, for her upcoming birthday, when a guy pops his head into the aisle.
"Need some help?" He grins and Brendon is surprised first by the guy's appearance and secondly by how utterly-toothy his smile is. Brendon had always suspected that second-hand bookstores were run by little old ladies who at one point had been zealous used bookstore patrons themselves. The guy in front of him is certainly little and, judging by the manic grin, zealous, but probably not older than mid-twenties and, despite what Brendon suspects is eyeliner ringing his eyes, not a lady. His smile is blinding and kind of horsey.
Brendon can't decide if he looks kind of cool or entirely lame.
He doesn't really get much of a chance to answer that. "What're you looking for?" the guy asks.
"Cookbook?" Brendon offers, a little at a loss.
The guy nods and beckons him with a waved hand. "Yeah, those are kind of tricky ‘cause they're split up in two different sections." He leads Brendon through a maze of shelves (which don't seem to be ordered in any discernible way), glancing over his shoulder. "I'm Pete, by the way. Although don't think you have to mention my name at the counter or anything- I'm not paid on commission. That would be kind of weird since I write my own checks."
And that throws Brendon for a whole new loop because if bookstores aren't solely employing little old ladies, in Brendon's mind they're at least usually owned by them, not eyelinered guys with flat-ironed hair. Pete's pants are tighter than Brendon's and cinched with a white belt but there's still a hint of his underwear showing at the top. Brendon's grandmother would be beside herself at the scandal.
"I'm Brendon," he replies and then feels stupid because customers don't introduce themselves.
Pete just smiles. "Nice to meet you Brendon."
They stop in front of a table in the back. "The more popular cookbooks should be on the left side of the table," Pete says, patting the cover of one with a smiling, gray-haired woman on it. "And the rest are on that shelf right there."
Brendon nods and shifts through a few of the books on the table, trying to tell them apart. "Cool, thanks."
Pete leans back against a shelf, watching him and Brendon makes a show of considering the books like he has any idea what he's looking for. "Shopping for someone?" Pete asks and Brendon figures it must be pretty obvious.
"My mom. But I'm just looking for now."
Pete must think that that's a dismissal because he moves away easily. Brendon's kind of grateful he's gone. Pete seems like a decent guy, but he makes Brendon nervous.
"Alright, I'll be up at the front. Yell if you need anything." He salutes and wanders off.
Brendon's not going to yell in a used bookstore- it's too much like yelling in a library and he's had enough encounters with school librarians to have learned never to do that- but he makes an assenting noise at Pete's back. Then again, Pete doesn't look like the type that would fit in at a library or follow the rules of it very well.
As Pete disappears between the aisles, Brendon wonders at his existence. As far as he knows, most 20-somethings don't own their own businesses and the building itself looks like it's been around a lot longer than both Brendon and Pete combined. It must be inherited or something.
Brendon looks through the cookbooks for a few minutes, but mostly he's just buying time. He has no idea what cookbooks his mom already has so it's kind of pointless to buy one that she might already own. And he can't imagine having her return it here and interact with Pete, who seems too cartoonish for the bookshop, let alone talking to his mom about cookbooks.
So he flips through one with feigned interest, not wanting to wander away right as Pete had shown him the cookbooks. He takes his time looking at recipes for entrees (Brendon had recently decided that he was going to be a vegetarian after looking at pictures of sad-looking cows and baby chickens but whenever dinner is steak he can't seem to refuse, so it's looking like a hopeless cause at this point) and then slowly arranges the book back on the table before figuring that he's wasted enough time.
Just to stay on the unsuspicious side, he wanders through a few aisles, dragging his feet. Brendon's not sure what exactly was tugging him to come into the store since he's not much of an avid reader and browsing books, while relaxing, isn't his idea of a good time. He does feel a little calmer though -not as mope-y and at least he isn't actively bored like he usually is while shopping. Some of the books are really old and Brendon pulls a few of them out, seeing which ones they are and how old and turning them over in his hands.
The original prices are all covered up by a sticker with a barcode and new price on them, along with what is apparently the logo of the store: a bat-shape with the center cut out and -
Brendon's heart stops, one, two, three seconds, and then kicks in twice as hard. Brendon's pretty sure that he gasps romance-novel-heroine style, which is ironic considering he's now in that aisle, but at least the swooning women on the covers won't judge him.
It takes his brain a few second to recall exactly what the 'Decaydance' on the sticker means, but his gut reacts automatically, twisting and turning cold in some mixture of excitement and shock. There's no doubt in his mind that this is the store he's been looking for for weeks - Decaydance isn't even a real word, Brendon learned upon looking it up, other than a likely-purposefully misspelled version of decadence, and how common could that be? And the books-
It all makes sense, in a way that doesn't really make sense because he didn't put any of the pieces together and just got lucky wandering into the shop. If Brendon had maybe figured it all out - the books! The hearts! His grandpa! It all makes sense! - he'd feel vindicated in finally finding the shop and possibly some answers.
Instead, he feels like maybe he cheated. But then again, Brendon has cheated on tests and after a while he stopped feeling guilty about that, so cheating the mysteries of his life shouldn't be too much of a difference.
And the reward is so much better than passing History.
Brendon had mostly given up on ever figuring the paper out. After Jon's brush-off, he'd kept looking, but there just wasn't anywhere else to go from there. He listened a little harder whenever anyone in the halls at school would mention magic but they tended to be pretty private conversations anyways and Brendon got caught eavesdropping way too many times. He'd scoured the phonebook, Googled every search term he could think of. He'd even gone to the library and looked up 'magic', huddled in between the Paranormal and Travel section and constantly looking over his shoulder for anyone he knew. The librarian, a pudgy, pale little dude, had practically made Brendon shit himself when he'd asked if he needed help finding anything, but at least he'd steered Brendon in the right direction.
The point is - Brendon had given up weeks ago. Sometimes when Pre-Calculus is getting drastically boring, he'll daydream possible adventures he might have had involving enchantments and demons and the occasional unicorn. But the paper itself has been sitting untouched in the box under his bed for over two weeks.
Maybe this is some sort of delayed cosmic reward then, for how hard he'd tried to figure everything out. It was for admittedly selfish, curious reasons, but it seems like most of what people do is for selfish reasons, so why should they get rewards in the form of business promotions and new cars and Brendon didn't, when all he wanted was to maybe have someone to connect with on a dead branch of his family tree?
The universe's answer was that, apparently, Brendon did deserve some sort of reward. It doesn't have the same accomplished feeling that Brendon had expected from finally finding the shop, the subject of countless searching, but at least he doesn't get a sinister feeling, like this is somehow all a ploy that he's falling right into. Then again, Brendon never did have a very developed sense of what was actually dangerous, which always resulted in his mother pulling him away from strangers or his sister snagging him from walking out into a crowded street.
There's no one holding his hand, ready to jerk him back, now though. No-one to warn Brendon to proceed with caution.
So he doesn't. Brendon's heart is hammering far too hard in his chest and his adrenaline is running too high to reason through a plan. He doesn't consider that maybe he should step back, leave his grandpa and whatever secrets he has buried with him alone.
Instead, he quickly shelves the book he'd been looking at and walks to the front of the store, trying not to hurry. "Hey, Pete?" he calls, close enough that he doesn't have to yell, and sees the dark head lift from the middle of an aisle and look in his direction.
"Yeah? Find something you wanted?"
Brendon's empty handed. "Not yet," he replies. "But uh, weird question. Do you run a dating service on the side too? Or specialize in romance novels?" Brendon asks.
Pete's eyebrows furrow. "Not that I know of, no. Why, you have some ideas for expansion kid? Run a singles club for the old ladies that stalk the Nora Roberts section?"
Brendon needs to be careful here. "Um, no?" It would help if he understood what Pete was talking about and knew who Nora Roberts was. "I just heard that you work with... something about love? Hearts. That's what it was."
That definitely catches Pete's attention. He had been restacking books but now turns to look at Brendon over his shoulder. "Oh yeah?" he replies, voice a shade into serious. "And where'd you hear stuff like that?"
"Oh, just around," Brendon answers, but Pete doesn't look satisfied with that vague of an answer so Brendon draws the first name he can think of. "Earl- Earl Chester."
"I don't know any Earls." Pete's hard look is short-circuiting Brendon's lying skills and he has to scramble.
"He's not too far from here- he works at the music store a few blocks over with my friend Jon." Brendon can feel himself babbling, spewing out whatever he can to satisfy Pete, who suddenly relaxes so fractionally that Brendon would doubt anything even changed except he can feel the tension in the air ease.
"Your friend Jon, huh?" Pete stacks a book. "Is he a good guy?"
"Earl or Jon?"
Pete laughs and shrugs. "Either. Although I don't know how much I trust this Earl guy if he's spreading lies about my business. We have a fine name to uphold here at Decaydance."
Considering the name of the place, Brendon thinks that's a little ironic. "I don't know, Earl's fine," Brendon says, although he's not entirely convinced himself.
Pete moves down an aisle into the Comics and Brendon catches up to him. He's obviously losing his audience.
Brendon decides to press. "Look, I know Earl wouldn't lie about this. He was making a pretty big deal about the hearts."
Pete stiffens. Finally he looks up, mouth loose in a cocky grin but voice tight. "Yeah? It seems to me like you're the one making a pretty big deal about it."
Be careful, Brendon reminds himself. "Look, I'm not trying to cause trouble or anything, I swear." Brendon puts his hands up in front of him, palms out and placating. "I just had some questions about my grandpa and I thought I'd ask around and I found the name of this place."
Pete's silent, but he doesn't go back to restocking. His hand hovers over the shelf before finally closing around the wood as he looks up at Brendon sharply. "You love your grandpa, kid?"
Brendon was a little young when he died, but he probably had. "Yeah."
That seems to decide something for Pete. He nods and gets up, stepping over his box of books and heading for his counter. Brendon waits a few seconds, but it doesn't look like Pete's coming back so he follows quickly.
Pete is rummaging in a drawer beneath the counter when Brendon finds him, looking determined as he digs. He's talking under his breath to himself and Brendon hangs back, watching with more than a little trepidation and excitement. Brendon's not exactly sure what he's gotten himself into but he's more eager than scared to find out.
"Here we go," Pete says, grinning as he emerges from the drawer victorious, a small dark glass bottle in hand. He beckons Brendon over with a wave of his hand.
When Brendon approaches obediently, Pete holds up the bottle and swirls it thoughtfully, suddenly somber enough for Brendon to grasp some sense of the gravity of the situation. "You're sure you want to go through with this?"
Brendon starts to ask what exactly he's going through with and then shuts his mouth abruptly. Pete seems to be under the impression that Brendon knows more than he really does (which is mostly nothing - he's kind of groping around blindly in the dark right now) and Brendon doesn't want to close the narrow window of opportunity he's been afforded by revealing his cluelessness.
Instead, he just nods.
That's apparently all the permission needed to get down to business - whatever that business may be.
Pete closes his eyes briefly and Brendon follows suit. He peeks out of one eye but squeezes it shut quickly when Pete opens his eyes and then the light is blocked as something passes in front of his face. Brendon stiffens and Pete makes a low, distracted noise.
"This shouldn't hurt, don't worry," he says and Brendon tries to relax but that isn't very reassuring because he hadn't even considered that it might hurt.
So when Pete touches the bridge of Brendon's nose, it's not surprising that Brendon jolts under the delicate touch. Pete doesn't pause though and draws a line down to the end of his nose and hums something that Brendon feels like is a word but that doesn't sound like anything he understands.
And then there's a noise that Brendon assumes is the bottle being uncorked, a waft of pine scent, an itch and a trickle down his throat and Brendon faints.
*****
When he comes to, it's with a splitting headache. He's laying on the ground and it takes Brendon a full minute to even remember where he is, much less why he's on the ground. By the time he's noticing his surroundings and trying to sit up, there's a hand restraining his shoulder.
"Hey, easy," Pete says, before slowly helping him ease up. "Dude, that was awesome."
"Huh?" Brendon's mouth feels disgusting- like cotton and dirt. What the hell happened? Did Pete knock him out? For a second Brendon is very aware of the fact that Pete's a stranger and it's possibly too late to remember his mother's warnings about strangers.
Pete grins, apparently oblivious to Brendon's worries and over whatever was making him angry at Brendon earlier. "You fainted and hit your head. It was like a sack of potatoes- there was no way I was catching you in time."
Just hearing Pete say that makes Brendon's head hurt and he groans and touches the back of his head carefully. Of course he'd been on wooden floors instead of the carpet that blankets the rest of the store. There isn't any swelling that Brendon can feel but he winces as his fingers probe a sensitive spot.
"Ouch."
Pete nods, looking a little too amused to be completely sympathetic. "Definitely."
Brendon tries not to take the lack of concern personally and pokes the slight swelling once more before squinting up at Pete. "That bottle- what's in it?"
Pete seems to catch some of his thoughts and shakes his head pre-emptively. "A potion."
"Is that what they're calling drugs nowadays?" Brendon says, maybe a little more bitterly than he means to. His head is still radiating little ripples of pain and he winces. "You better not try to take advantage of my delicate condition."
Pete laughs aloud at that and then looks down at Brendon like he might not be a complete waste of time. "No, it's just a potion." Pete pauses. "You know, with magic and shit."
If Pete was expecting a reaction- and from the way he joyfully emphasizes the last sentence, Brendon is pretty sure he was- then he isn't disappointed. Brendon blinks hard, more out of surprise at how openly Pete confirms his suspicions than out of any real disbelief. Brendon's known all along that the paper was magic (even if Jon's dismissal did raise a few brief doubts in his mind) but to hear it said so openly-
But it's not really openly- the shop is empty apart from the two of them and even now in his bravado, Pete's eyes dart occasionally to the door.
Brendon still almost cringes and expects a bolt of lightning to strike Pete down any second now. When no divine retribution is forthcoming, Brendon eventually nods in what he hopes is a casual manner.
"Oh, yeah, I knew that," he says. "But, uh- what kind of potion, I meant."
Pete's wide smile obviously doesn't believe Brendon's bluffing, but he doesn't call him on it. "Standard merchant confidentiality potion." At Brendon's blank look, he clarifies. "That smell that you noticed, probably right before you passed out? It seals off anything you might try to say about my store or the heart-dealing stuff or really magic in general. Can't have word getting out or there's all sorts of unfortunate memory-erasing that has to be taken care of and then people get upset."
Brendon wonders how hard he really did hit his head, because he recognizes all of the words that Pete is using but not any of the phrases they're being combined to make. Brendon shrugs away the feeling that he's missing something, because he likely is but there's no way to figure it out without looking even dumber than he already does.
"Oh."
It's not like Brendon had been planning to run off and tell someone what's happening- he's pretty sure that he'd sound crazy anyways. Jon's the only one that Brendon really would have been able to tell and he clearly didn't want to get involved with anything supernatural, so the potion was probably an unnecessary precaution.
Pete just shrugs when he tells him that. "It's nothing personal, kid. Everyone that I sell more than just books to has to have their voices sealed off." He smiles toothily in amusement. "Just, most people don't faint."
Brendon would be more humiliated if he hadn't spent four years in high school getting picked on already. Besides, who knows who most of Pete's customers are- probably not Mormons with weak tolerances for magic. Brendon settles for feeling mildly embarrassed.
"So, my grandpa?" Brendon asks. He's trying not to be impatient, but who knows how much time had passed with him lying on the floor. Brendon has to be back by 5:30 for dinner and he doesn't want to waste any more time.
And maybe he's just eager to see where his bluffing and hunches end up.
Pete doesn't get up right away. "Yeah, wait a second. Don't want you fainting again."
Brendon struggles upright and definitely doesn't pout, looking up at Pete with an impatient expression. Pete smiles back down at him, in an infinitely better mood now, which Brendon would like to assume isn't a result of his pain.
"Now?" he asks, finally, after what seems like an eternity of silent waiting. Pete looks considering before finally grinning and shaking his head in amusement.
"Yeah, fine, c'mon."
Pete offers a hand and pulls Brendon to his feet. His palms are surprisingly hot and Brendon takes his own away as soon as possible without being obvious. Pete doesn't notice, at least.
"Try not to faint this time, okay?"
Brendon doesn't get a chance to respond besides a quick, indignant look, because Pete holds his hand over Brendon's chest for a second before moving to the space over Brendon's heart. Pete makes a languid, graceful motion with his hand, eyes slipping half-shut in concentration for a minute before he apparently completes the spell or charm or whatever it was. Brendon feels a second of icy coldness but it's quickly washed away by a warmth that makes his cheeks turn pink. It's definitely not a natural feeling but it isn't artificial-feeling or painful or anything that Brendon might have feared.
Pete seems satisfied with his work, face more businesslike than Brendon would have expected. "This way," he says over his shoulder as he walks towards the back.
They pass the cookbooks and then turn right, where Pete unlocks a door marked 'Employees Only' that's mostly hidden by a shelf of books.
He opens it, but stops and turns to face Brendon instead of going in. His body, while small, looms in the doorway. "You're absolutely sure about this?"
Although Brendon has no idea what Pete's asking, he can tell the gravity of the situation from his voice. And Brendon isn't absolutely sure, but he's also not stupid enough (or uncurious enough) to say no.
"Yeah," Brendon says and then amends it when Pete raises his eyebrows. "Yes, I'm sure."
Pete nods and then they seem to simultaneously take a deep, steadying breath before Pete leads him through the door.
It's dark but Pete flips a light and a short hallway is illuminated. They head down it.
"Alright, so you can't talk about this with anyone non-magical, but I'm warning you right now not to try it with anyone at all," Pete says without looking back. "It'd surprise you how many people out there have just enough magic in them to know about these things."
It probably would surprise Brendon, since up until he'd found the note, magic was the stuff of legends and maybe unproven gossip in his school's halls. The idea that people around him - neighbors or kids at his school or clerks at the grocery store-
Pete continues, unconcerned with his silence. "And this isn't all exactly... legal and the people that you can tell aren't going to shut me down but they're also probably not going to like you very much if they know you're buying from me. So just... don't."
Brendon's been pretty good at bluffing so far and normally he'd just keep his head down and not ask questions, but if slips out without permission. "Why would anybody care?"
Pete stops and glances at Brendon seriously. "Heart-dealing doesn't have the best reputation, kid. Why else do you think only demons bother to get involved with it?" And then he grins, simultaneously bright and sharp and self-deprecating and Brendon's legitimately afraid for a second, before Pete unlocks the door they've stopped at and steps inside. After that, there isn't really any time for thinking or wondering about Pete's words as Brendon follows.
The first thing Brendon notices about the room is how much bigger it is than he would have guessed. The hallway itself was narrow- not uncomfortably so but definitely small- and Brendon would have guessed that any room coming off of it would be similarly modest. And they definitely passed other doors (which presumably had rooms attached to them) in the hallway.
But this room- this room is probably twice as big as Brendon's bedroom and filled with shelf upon shelf of faintly-glowing jars. Some are labelled with a piece of tape and the size of the jar varies, but the room is filled with tons of jars and only them.
"So this is it - my collection," Pete says with a sweep of one arm. "And don't worry about breaking the hearts -" Pete grins at the pun - "those jars are spell-sealed. They won't crack if you drop them."
It's a little much to take in all at once, but Brendon nods like he's someone more competent than he really is.
"So... just grab the one you're looking for. It should be glowing the brightest," Pete says and shoos him forward and Brendon balks before allowing himself to be herded a few steps further into the room. He doesn't steer himself towards any 'heart' in particular, gaze sweeping over the collection without settling on one in particular.
There are way too many to choose from. Brendon wants to ask for a hint but Pete's studying his painted nails nonchalantly like this is the easiest thing in the world, so Brendon squares his shoulders and wades in.
None of them are glowing any more brightly than the others. They're different colors so some are lighter- yellow or light blue or pink - but none of them are screaming 'TAKE ME' and maybe they know that Brendon's a faker and really has no idea what he's doing.
Pete's watching him when Brendon glances up and Brendon just grabs the nearest jar- heart. It's warm and tingles in his palm a little and Brendon grips it a little more firmly because, well, maybe that means he grabbed the right one? Pete still looking at him a little weird but Brendon just ducks his head.
"Got it," he says and Pete nods wordlessly and, with one last look at the glowing room, Brendon walks back into the hall and out into the shop.
Brendon's glad he waits for Pete to follow him out before leaving, because he'd completely forgot about paying until Pete leads him back to the counter.
"So, uh, how much?" Brendon asks, hefting the heart to one side so he can dig around in his pocket for money. He hadn't even considered how much it might cost and if it's more than twenty dollars then Brendon's not sure if he even has enough cash on him.
Pete waves him off with an amused look. "You can't pay with money," he says, like it's something Brendon should already know. "Can't buy love, after all."
"Oh right," Brendon replies, completely uncomprehending. "So I'll just..."
"You have to come back for me to release the heart anyways if you want to buy it, so just come back when you're done and we'll talk exchange."
"Okay, yeah, I'll come back. When I'm done," Brendon says. "And you're not afraid that I'll... run off with it or something?"
Pete smirks. "It's not going to be of much use, since you only get one free night. Don't worry Brendon - you'll know what to do. And even if you do try to make off with it, I have ways of getting it back if I really want to."
The grin looks a little more predatory and a little less horsey and Brendon is reminded forcibly of what Pete had said earlier... called himself - demon. "Oh, yeah, no need to worry, I'll be back!" Brendon replies, his voice cracking a little, and he clears his throat to clear out some of the squeakiness. "Thanks for, uh, all your help."
"Happy to be of service," Pete replies amiably enough. "Don't be a stranger Brendon."
When Brendon walks out, the heart warm in the crook of his arm and his own heart beating hard in his chest, he keeps his walk deliberately unhurried.
(Part Two)