bandombigbang2012 Red is the Rose, Brendon/Spencer, R, Part 1
Title:Red is the Rose
Author: cloudlessclimes
Band(s):panic! at the disco
Pairing(s):brendon/spencer
Word Count:~29 000
Rating:R
Warnings:violence
Notes: Thank you to my wonderful betas and cheerleaders, ohnoscarlett and prettykitty_aya for all their encouragement, hard work and mostly for listening to me whine and complain. Thank you to look_alive for my beautiful art and to morganya for my wonderful, perfect mix which is honestly a damn fine soundtrack.
There are a smattering of Irish words in this fic, and I’ve provided a glossary at the end. The vagaries and intricacies of Irish spelling are legend, and any errors in transposing are mine.
Summary: A sort of fairy tale. In which Brendon is the much maligned crofters' son and Spencer is the human Guardian of the Faerie King's Roses (yes, roses. it's a job okay. someone has to do it). Their stars briefly align, they fall in love, and have to beat a curse older than time to be together. Loosely, very very very loosely based on the Ballad of Tamlin, with a smattering of various global folk and fairy tales thrown in for good measure. Takes place in a parallel world that is a mishmash of Ireland and Las Vegas just because that's how I roll. Very much an AU.
Brendon makes a frustrated groaning sound in the back of his throat. Hands on his hips he frowns down at the little dog, who is looking expectantly at the cold cellar doors. “You know, Bogart, I’m beginning to think you’re doing this on purpose.” He runs his hands down the smooth wooden buttons sewn carefully along the front of his vest. “It’s a good thing you’re cute. But man, you’re not a puppy anymore!” Brendon smiles at the terrier as he turns his attention to hauling open the rusted and stubborn doors. He gives a cry of victory when the latch gives way with an angry creak.
Wiping his hands on the seat of his trousers, Brendon drops down among the potatoes and turnips harvested at the beginning of the autumn. “If this wasn’t your very favorite toy, you know I wouldn’t be down here,” Brendon grouses as he gingerly searches through the mounds of root vegetables. “I honestly don’t know how you found a crack big enough for it to fall down here.” Squinting in the murky half-light, Brendon clutches the grey wool mouse in his fist and raises his arms aloft in victory, the weak sunbeams streaming through the floorboards making the dust motes dance. “Ah ha!” Brendon cries, “You’d think the faeires had a hand in it.” He throws the toy out to Bogart and can feel a laugh bubbling up inside of him at the sight of his dog stalking the soft toy when he hears the squeak and slam of the front door, and the unmistakable baritone of his father’s voice. “Grace!”
Brendon thinks he should move; go chasing after Bogart since their game had been interrupted by the loss of the dog’s most beloved toy. He thinks he should probably be anywhere on the Urie homestead but where he is. But, his feet won’t move. Instead he cranes his neck, tilting his head back and straining to peer through the knotted pine floorboards, into the great room above.
He tracks the tap-tap-tap of his mother’s quick, nervous foot falls as she hurries from the hearth at the back of the house to greet his father at the front door. “Boyd! You’re back early. We weren’t expecting you. Supper won’t be any time soon, I’m afraid.”
His father makes a grumbling noise and says, “Your son was supposed to meet me at the North Pasture, to help me finally mend that bit of fence before the snows come. He didn’t show up, I’ve come back here to pry him away from your apron strings.” Brendon bites his lip and swallows painfully, eye still pressed to the small strip of daylight.
He hears his mother sigh and the swish of her skirts as she says, “Oh my dear, must you be so hard on him? I’m sure Brendon just got caught up with the sheep or the chickens...”
“Mostly likely he’s off behind a haystack noodling away on his fool guitar.” Boyd interrupts, anger and frustration behind every word.
Much to his shame, Brendon can feel the familiar prick of tears at his father’s harsh words. “He’s just a boy,” his mother offers weakly.
“He’s more than eighteen! A man grown!” Brendon’s father gruffs. “If he doesn’t stop his daydreaming and take some responsibility around here, he’ll never make a decent match!”
Brendon’s mother gasps. “I do suppose I’ve coddled him, some. But he’s the youngest of our five, Boyd. And so very different from his brothers...”
Not waiting to hear more--just glad that, this time, he’s not in the same room and expected to sit through a lecture about his parents’ disappointment in Brendon’s inability to find an acceptable marriage prospect at the Harvest Festival--Brendon quickly boosts himself out of the cellar and back into the warm late fall day. He stops his march to abruptly pick up his guitar and then tears across the door yard and into the green-gold fields surrounding the croft. He runs as far away as he can from his parents and the sting of their bitter words.
He runs and he runs, Bogart nipping at his heels. He’ll show them. His mother and his father both. He heads to the far North Fence, towards the fence he didn’t even know it would be his chore to mend. His father talks so often with Brendon’s brothers, tells them his plans for the small farm, and the business of it, that Brendon sometimes thinks his father forgets that Matt and Mason aren’t him, and that his father hasn’t told him anything at all. He mumbles under his breath about showing them, and fixing the fence so it is the finest in all of Summerlin.
Finally, when he can run no more, he flops down onto the cold ground panting and blinking at the gun metal grey sky. Bogart refuses to believe that this epic game of chase has come to an end, and is dancing around Brendon’s prone form. Brendon laughs and sits up, wiping at his face where the terrier has licked several enthusiastic kisses. “Stop it!” Brendon giggles. Bogart stands still for the briefest of moments, before darting away, eager to continue their game. Brendon slips the guitar’s strap over his head and then takes off after his dog. “Hey! Come back! Stop!” Panic begins to fill Brendon’s voice as Bogart heads towards the very gap in the fence that was supposed to be mended that morning.
“Bogart! Bogey! Boges! No!” Brendon’s eyes go wide and he runs faster as he watches the twitching dog disappear through the hole. His entire life, Brendon had been told to never, ever go past the North Pasture fence, and he’s pretty sure that his father and his father’s father before him had been given the same warning. The Uries had settled the northernmost patch of arable land. Everyone in Summerlin knew that the untamed Wild Wood lay beyond and it was a place of darkness and menace. Everyone, it seems, except Bogart.
Bogart, it seems, has no interest in stopping, or listening to Brendon. So, despite his fears and a life’s worth of warnings, Brendon sets his guitar against a weathered fence post and with more effort than is strictly sensible, manages to wriggle through the gap in the fence. “From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties, and things that go bump in the night, may the good lord deliver us,” he mutters softly under his breath. He stops at the very edge of the tree line and unhooks the age-worn fabric of his trousers from where he’s been snagged on a stray nail. He reassures himself that all of the stories he heard about the Wild Wood as a lad at his granny’s knee are just that--tall tales told to keep in line those with enough imagination to wonder what may lie in the world beyond Summerlin. They’re just foolish children's tales, and nothing more.
It has to be the ghost of those stories whispering in Brendon’s ear that make the trees on this side of the fence seem larger and darker and altogether more menacing than any tree he’s seen on his family’s croft or in the village beyond. Because no matter how tall and gnarled the trees, there’s no way their branches could actually blot out the bright mid-afternoon sunlight to such a degree that Brendon’s left squinting into the gloom, is there? The darkness beneath the trees, their limbs entwined together like skeletal arms, is so great that what little path there is through the ferns and bracken under Brendon’s feet disappears so suddenly that the sound of his dog thrashing through the undergrowth is all that Brendon has to guide him.
The lack of bird song and the thrum of insects in flight can be easily explained away by the turning of the season towards the harvest, and surely has little to do with any sort of ancient curse the women-folk of Summerlin murmur to their children in lieu of lullabies. So Brendon swallows his fear, tugs at the hem of his vest, and continues into the thick of the Wild Wood, ears keen for any sound of Bogart.
In an instant it seems the entirety of the Wild Wood is filled with Bogart’s high, sharp barks. “No! Oh no!” Brendon cries out, rushing blindly forward, tripping on branches and other things littering the forest floor. In his haste, Brendon isn’t exactly sure what he expected to find when he finally caught up to Bogart. But even in his extremely wild imagination, Brendon could never have fathomed this. In his heart he had hoped that Bogart has caught the scent of one of the Wild Wood’s creatures and had given chase, but that isn’t it at all. Bogart is barking, the force of it shaking his entire body. His teeth are bared and his haunches are low to the ground in fear. The focus of all his doggy energy is a large, well Brendon wants to call it a rose bush, but that does little to explain the enormity of the tangle of plants in front of him.
And even though all of the plants Brendon’s come across on his side of the fence have turned the golden-brown of autumn, these roses are in full bloom. The foliage is a hedge of bright green, waxy leaves and the thorns that kept him out of his grandmother’s garden as a child, are nowhere to be found on these strange shrubs. The blooms are the size of dinner plates and a deep pink that Brendon doesn’t know the name for. It occurs to Brendon that he can clearly make out each subtle shift in hue on each petal and leaf. The threatening darkness of the Wild Wood doesn’t exist here; the roses are bathed in a soft, inviting sunlight.
Brendon makes soothing sounds at his dog, snapping his fingers at his side in a familiar gesture and lowly calling Bogart to him. The little terrier jumps into Brendon’s arms, snuggling into the embrace, but whining as Brendon continues to walk towards the rose hedge, drawn by their beauty. As he gets close enough to touch, Brendon is overwhelmed by the spicy, exotic scent the roses are emitting, like no other flower he’s seen, or smelled, before.
Bogart wriggles and struggles in his arms, but Brendon is compelled to feel the delicate blooms in his hands; to inhale their beautiful, intoxicating scent. Maybe, just maybe if he picks one rose, just one, and takes it back to his mother, just maybe she’ll forgive him for being such a failure of a son. He reaches out, cupping the biggest, most beautiful rose in his palms and giving it a gentle tug.
“Hey!” Bogart yelps and jumps from Brendon’s arms. Brendon himself is so startled by the sudden loud voice booming from the roses that he windmills his arms wildly, before falling on his ass. He blinks and swallows and looks up into the face of the most beautiful person he’s ever seen.
“Um...hi?” Brendon twirls the plucked rose between his fingers and swallows nervously, yet unable to look away.
The man--if that’s what he is and not some kind of apparition or hallucination Brendon’s imagination has conjured out of fear--points an accusing finger at the rose in Brendon’s hand, “What do you think you’re doing?” One graceful eyebrow is arched in inquiry and the glacial blue of his eyes is cold with anger.
Managing to draw his glance away from the man’s face, Brendon’s blinks stupidly again, taking in the deep brown of his velvet doublet and surcoat and, most importantly, the glint of light off a broadsword as long as Brendon is tall. The more Brendon looks at the weapon, the more he thinks that it’s not the light glinting off the sword at all. Rather, it seems to emit a glow bright as daylight, like the roses themselves. “I was just...I mean...I thought I’d...” Brendon stammers as he gets to his feet, “I didn’t mean to pluck it. I just...couldn’t help it. I just wanted to find my dog before he got totally lost.” He chews nervously at his bottom lip and ducks a glance at the now strangely silent Bogart.
“The King will have your head!” The stranger growls, lifting his broadsword with a practised ease Brendon finds intriguing rather than frightening.
Awkwardly stumbling to his feet, Brendon manages to ask, “King?” Summerlin has been a free province and Republic ruled by an elected minister since his Grandfather was his age, and Brendon can’t imagine what it is this strange, albeit handsome, man could be talking about.
Eyes gleaming with a coolly un-natural light, the man sighs, allowing the point of the sword to rest against Brendon’s throat, not painful, not piercing. A warning. “The Faerie King,” he explains plainly. “These roses mark the door between your world and his. I am the Guardian of the Roses...”
“Faerie King?” Brendon steps back, well away from the lethal tip of The Guardian’s sword. He chuckles and tries to calculate how probable it is that this man is completely unhinged. “You cannot be serious.”
The Guardian moves forward, his sword thrust out in front of him. “I assure you I am perfectly serious. Deadly serious.” Brendon raises his hands up in surrender and defeat as the sword once again warms against the jumping pulse in his neck.
“It’s just...they’re just stories. I mean...things mothers and grannies tell the little bairns to keep them in line.” Brendon frowns, thinking about all the times he’s laughed at the ridiculous stories that seemed to terrify his siblings and the other children at the parish school.
“There is a Faerie King, these are his roses, and I am their guardian.” The man’s expression shifts from menace to exasperation. “Although I cannot recall another human braving the King’s magic to travel the Wild Wood and discover this portal; these flowers.” It’s the most the man has said to Brendon thus far and Brendon finds himself liking the sound of his voice, the shape of his lips, and his neatly trimmed beard.
Brendon laughs, full out and bright. “That’s because of all the stories about Faerie magic the old ladies fill their children’s heads with. Your boss has done a pretty good job of keeping the villagers on the other side of the fence, I’ll give him that. It takes forever to get anywhere because we have to take the South Road, instead of just cutting through this place.” Brendon holds his arms out wide and Bogart, taking that for invitation, paws at his trouser leg to be lifted up again. Without taking his eyes off The Guardian, Brendon leans down and deftly scoops up the dog. “And Guardian of the Roses? Seriously? That’s supposed to be...frightening? What’d you do to make the King mad?” Brendon chuckles and rubs at the scruff of Bogart’s neck.
Indignant, The Guardian lowers his broadsword to his side and huffs, “I will have you know that I am Spencer, Smithy of the Summer Lands. Guardian of the Roses and Warrior of the Fianna!” He raises his chin and peers at Brendon down length of his nose.
“Fianna!” Brendon smothers his giggle by kissing Bogart’s head, soothing his worried whines. “Are you kidding me with this?” Brendon is beginning to think he should probably be worried for his safety after all, and that he is quite possibly in the presence of an escapee from the lunatics’ workhouse in Primm Valley. “Look, Spencer Smith, the Fianna are definitely part of the tall tales my granny tells. “Long ago and long ago more than a thousand years past, when the streets were paved with butter and the houses painted with gold...” Brendon adopts the stooped posture and quavering, shrill tone of a crone, and points one crooked finger at Spencer.
Instead of laughing, or getting even more exasperated or angry, Spencer just looks defeated. “Truly? There are no Fianna? How can that be?” He slumps then, the cape over his shoulder rustling with the movement. “I know time moves differently in the Seelie Lands but...truly? One thousand years?” Spencer swipes ineffectually at the fall of hair over his eyes.
When those pale blue eyes look up to study Brendon, they are filled with such sadness that Brendon steps forward, resting a comforting hand at the crook of Spencer’s elbow. He rubs his thumb across the soft velvet of the cape and notices that what he thought were roses embroidered along its edge with golden thread are actually roses embroidered with gold. “Well, I don’t know if it’s exactly a thousand years, but it’s been long enough that those stories are just,” Brendon stops and shrugs apologetically, “You know, just stories.”
Spencer stiffens and draws away from Brendon’s touch, adopting a more formal, serious stance, “So everything I know, everyone I love, they are gone now.” He gives a little nod.
“If it’s any consolation, I’m pretty sure everyone I love wishes I was gone, now.” Brendon mutters, his attention on his careful petting of Bogart’s ears.
Spencer studies Brendon, curiosity plain on his face. But instead of asking any questions, he sighs, shaking the hair from his eyes. “The King could demand your head for what you’ve done.” Spencer gestures at the rose Brendon had picked, now drooping forlornly on the forest floor where Brendon had dropped it to pick up Bogart.
“Could?” Brendon swallows audibly and squeezes Bogart a little too tightly, making the dog wriggle in his hold.
“Yes. There must be a payment made for the crime you have committed.” Spencer easily flicks the broadsword from one palm to the other as though it weighed nothing, before reaching around his own shoulder and housing it in the sheath there. Brendon blinks in amazement. “And, as I am the Guardian of the Faerie King’s Roses,” Spencer speaks his title with slow and deliberate formality, finishing with a courtly bow and extension of his gauntleted hand, “It is I who collects payment.”
Licking at his lips, Brendon says, in a voice that squeaks a little, “Payment? So, if not my, uh, my head...then what?”
Spencer strides purposefully towards Brendon, a small smile playing on his lips. “Well, I am fairly sure you didn’t intentionally defile the King’s roses, correct?” Brendon nods eagerly as Spencer gets closer and closer. “I am also certain that you did not seek out the location of the roses in an attempt to unlawfully enter Faerie, did you?” Just as eagerly, Brendon shakes his head back and forth. Reaching out a hand, Spencer strokes at Bogart’s scruff. “So, then, I feel the payment should fit the crime.”
“I don’t understand.” Brendon says dumbly as Bogart hops from his arms to jump and paw at Spencer.
When Spencer is finally as close to Brendon as he can be without touching, he says, “A kiss,” the words whispering across Brendon’s cheek.
Brendon can't breathe. How is that even a choice: his head on a plate for the Faerie King, or kiss Spencer?. He swallows and blinks and finally manages to take a breath. He's only recently admitted to himself that the reason he failed so spectacularly at the matchmakers' Harvest Ball is because their attempts at matches were not people, were not girls he felt he could be matched with. In a secret corner of his heart Brendon has always known he was destined to be a Bachelor. But, to admit as much out loud was to be destined to a life of ostracism and isolation.
In Summerlin, and the whole of the Republic, men who do not marry women; who have romantic relationships with other men, are denied the right to inherit, the right to own property, and the same is true of Spinsters-women who lie with women. They are tolerated, but never allowed to be full and true members of their communities.
He knows it goes against everything his family believes, but he cannot lie to himself. It is customary for first kisses to occur under the wedding banns, which Brendon will never see. While kissing Spencer can be seen by most as a way to survive his trespasses against the Faerie King, Brendon knows that he would also be acknowledging everything he's held inside for so very, very long. "Okay," the one word is barely more than an exhalation.
The little space between them disappears as Spencer lays a gentle hand at Brendon's jaw, tilting his face ever so slightly upwards. He presses his lips to Brendon's in a chaste, brief kiss. His lips are warm and soft and Brendon's arms come up to circle Spencer's waist, fingertips grasping at the velvet of Spencer's surcoat. Brendon opens his eyes, blinking, to see Spencer's face still so very close to his.
Spencer is smiling and he chuckles a little when Brendon groans-a small noise at the back of his throat. "Your debt has been paid." Spencer says softly. Brendon's brown eyes are dark with confusion and then he realises he is standing there, hugging Spencer to him.
Bogart yips happily, and Brendon, cheeks reddened and a sheepish expression on his face, finally draws away, and Spencer steps out of the circle of his arms. "I guess I better get back. You know, take the dog home and I'm sure there are some chores I was supposed to do and haven’t that my father can yell at me about." Brendon's shoulders shake as he giggles.
Spencer stoops to collect the discarded rose, "You are free to go," he says softly, placing the flower in Brendon's open hand and carefully closing his fingers around it.
"I…yeah. Right." Brendon nods and then whistles for Bogart who happily trots over, eager and waiting for Brendon. They start the long dark walk out of the Wild Wood, and Brendon finds that a sense of loss has replaced his earlier foreboding. "Spencer?" He calls over his shoulder and is shocked to see that the unearthly light that bathed both Spencer and the rose bush is even brighter than before and Spencer is, well, he's shimmering.
"Yes?" Spencer's voice sounds like it's coming from very far away, and not the few paces Brendon had walked.
Brendon’s eyes dart from where Bogart, a white shape in the gloom of the woods, is retreating back the way they’d come, and Spencer. “I...um...just, if this is a dream? Do you think I’ll remember it?”
He expects Spencer to laugh, but he looks thoughtful for a moment before he says, “If you want to. If it’s important to you, you will.” And then, he disappears. Brendon is startled by the suddenness of it and he stares at the spot by the roses where Spencer had just been until Bogart circles back to him, yipping his annoyance. Brendon sighs and shakes his head, setting off through the dark, pathless forest, the feel of Spencer’s lips still a cool tingle on his own.
* * *
“Oh! Oh my baby brother! There you are!” Brendon’s trot across the fallow field is brought to an abrupt halt when he finds himself with his arms full of his sister, Kyla. Tears are coursing down her cheeks and she locks her arms around his neck.
Brendon, once he regains the breath that Kyla knocked out of him, is confused. “Um...hey.” He hugs her back and tucks wayward strands of her pale blonde hair behind her ears. “You’d think I’ve been gone for a thousand years, not just a couple of hours.” He chuckles and manages to untangle himself from his sister’s hold.
“A couple of hours! Brendon you’ve been missing for two days!” She fidgets, smoothing the blue calico fabric of her dress over her hips. “Mother and Father have been beside themselves with worry.” She takes Brendon’s hand in hers as they walk towards the dooryard.
Tilting his head Brendon studies Kyla for a moment, her face so much like his, but her features fair where his are dark. She’s only a year older than Brendon but she’s been married for almost two years and has her first child on the way. “Two days? But I left at midday to fix the North Fence!” He blinks at her and then thinks to himself time moves differently in Faerie. Could being near someone from Fairie be enough to change time here?
Kyla affects a stern expression as she shoos the chickens away from the front door, “Brendon, don’t make up stories. You know how it irritates Father. He has no patience for such things. I’m sure if you apologize for causing them worry, that will be enough.”
Brendon wants to protest. He feels the need to defend himself and to explain that he is telling the truth. But he bites his tongue. It won’t matter. His parents have always seen what they want to see when it comes to him. “Okay.” He says instead, as Kyla opens the door to the croft house.
* * *
He can’t stop thinking about the roses in the Wild Wood. Actually, if Brendon’s being honest with himself he can’t stop thinking about Spencer. He finds himself, at the most random times, tracing the feel of Spencer’s lips against his own; absently tracing the fullness of his bottom lip and smiling stupidly at the memory. His behaviour doesn’t do much to discount his mother’s theory that he had been set upon by hooligans and had been hit on the head and rendered unconscious as an explanation for his days long absence.
His father doesn’t really question Brendon any further beyond his initial explanation of him “losing track of time and falling asleep in a barn down in the valley”, or question how that resulted in the loss of two days time, but, he puts Brendon to work, harder than ever, and under constant supervision, leaving him precious little time for daydreaming. He mucks stalls as his father cleans and repairs tack. His brothers watch as he repairs the fence between the family croft and their own.
And, up on the drumlin where Brendon does his very best to usher the sheep homeward, his companion is the shepherd Boyd Urie had hired away from a neighbouring croft farm when it became clear that Brendon is more suited to sing lullabies to the spring lambs than have the flock pay him the slightest attention. Ian is sitting beside Brendon watching out over the hills as the pasture slopes away to the north and the green-gold of Summerlin is swallowed by the darkness of the Wild Wood.
“What, so you’re telling me you spent two days, in there?” Ian glances timorously away from the woods, to Brendon, and back again.
Brendon chuckles nervously. It’s been almost a week since his encounter with Spencer, and while he’s done his best not to speak the details aloud to anyone, he is only human and he does enjoy a good tale; telling or hearing. Ian makes a great audience, his eyes go wide and owlish behind the ridiculously thick lenses of his spectacles at just the right moments in Brendon’s story. “Well, it didn’t seem like two days, to me anyway,” Brendon answers in his own defence. It had only seemed like an hour or so, not nearly enough time at all, judging from the ache in his chest whenever he thinks about it--whenever he thinks about Spencer.
Which is to say, almost constantly.
“So, are faeries real?” Ian asks in awe.
“Spencer said they are.” Brendon laughs, shoulders hitching up and down. He calls out to Bogart, who is weaving back and forth underneath the shaggy legs of Ian’s sheep dog, distracting him from his job.
Ian claps a friendly hand at Brendon’s shoulder. “You should go back and find out! Brendon, you’re amazing. No one goes into the Wild Wood. No one. Ever. But you weren’t even afraid, you just walked right in and found...magic!” Ian stands, wiping bits of dried grass from the seat of rough spun britches and adjusting his cap over his eyes in deference to the low, but bright sunshine. He grabs his crook from where he’d set it down in the grass, and heads after the sheep--while Nell the sheep dog barks, trying to keep the flock out of the gully.
After watching Ian scamper around, blocking the path of the head ewe, Brendon gets up and joins him. “I’m not even sure I could find the same spot again,” he says truthfully, and a little forlorn.
“Well,” Ian answers, leaning on his staff and smiling, “If you never try, I guess you never will find it, huh?” He snickers and shoves his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.
Brendon opens his mouth to protest, and then closes it again. “You know, you’re right!” he finally says. “Make sure Bogart doesn’t follow me, okay?” He gives the little dog a pat on the head and says, “Be good for Uncle Ian, Boges.” and then starts to trot down the hill, in the direction of the Wild Wood.
“Huh? What?” Ian’s expression dances between confusion and surprise. “I didn’t mean now!” Ian starts to follow after Brendon and then stops abruptly. “Wait! What am I supposed to tell your dad?”
Giggling, Brendon raises his arms, palms up, in a comical shrug, “You’re a canty wee lad, I’m sure you’ll think of something!”
“Kiss a faerie for me!” Ian waves, laughing.
Brendon’s happy loping slows as he traces the line of the North Pasture fence. He wishes he had paid more attention to where the hole in the fence had been. When his father had complained of his unwillingness to fix it, Brendon had known exactly where to find it, but now that it had been repaired in the business since his adventure, Brendon was not so sure he could find it again. He sighs and puts his hands on his hips. He narrows eyes, following the endless line of metal and spruce spread out as far as the eye can see. “Well,” he muses, “on this side of the fence, I’ll never see Spencer again.” He takes a deep breath and boosts himself over to the Wild Wood side of the fence, careful not to snag his trousers this time.
Immediately upon crossing the tree line, Brendon regrets not having a plan, or, having given this foray any kind of forethought at all, really. He could use a map, a warmer sweater and a lantern. In the shadows that spread like a stain beneath the trees, Brendon finds it impossible to tell if he is retracing his steps. He stumbles blindly forward, thinking maybe he should have brought Bogart with him after all. He misses his cheerful doggy smile and the dog is an excellent tracker and could have led them back to the roses--and Spencer.
With hope in his heart and a vague notion of which direction he needed to travel, Brendon swallows down his fear at the dark and silent Wild Wood and carries on as best he can. He stumbles and trips and he’s uncomfortably warm from his exertion, and a thin trail of sweat is tracking down his spine. It feels like he’s been at this for hours, yet for all Brendon can tell he’s been going around in circles. Brendon stops his aimless pacing and clenches his fists in frustration.
Brendon can’t even turn back to go home, because he’s not sure exactly which direction will lead him home. He bites his lip and sighs and decides to continue on forward. The toe of his boot catches on a log or a tree root. At least he hopes it’s something so easily explained. He has no time to catch himself, and hits the hard packed dirt with a grunt. He is so disheartened tears prick his eyelids and he thinks maybe he’ll just stay down there on the ground, feeling sorry for himself for a while.
“I just want to see Spencer again,” he whispers, wiping the dirt and leaves from his hands and knees. As he struggles to his feet, favouring his left side where he seems to have twisted his ankle when he fell, Brendon squints. He’s not sure if it’s wishful thinking or what now, but he thinks he sees the shadows around him fading to grey up in the near distance. He sniffles and wipes the crook of his elbow across his dirty face. He quickens his step, ignoring the dull ache throbbing up his leg, eager to investigate the light ahead.
Brendon cannot contain the wide grin that splits his face. It wasn’t wishful thinking. The rose hedge, vines twisting and flashing a brilliant green in the otherworldly glow they cast, looms up ahead. The sight and scent beckon him forward and Brendon reaches out without hesitation to stroke the fragile pink petals of one bloom. “Spencer,” he whispers again. If forced to, Brendon would be unable to explain how seeing Spencer again, when they’d met so briefly, had become so important to him. He rubs the pad of his thumb across his bottom lip and then using the hand that is cupping the rose, gives a tug and the rose comes free into his palm.
“Those are the King’s....oh, Brendon!” Brendon watches, delighted as Spencer’s stern, serious Guardian of the Roses expression morphs into one that perfectly mirrors his own. “I had not thought to see you again.”
Brendon smiles and steps closer to Spencer, “I’ve thought of nothing else but seeing you again.” He answers honestly. His cheeks redden in embarrassment and he ducks his head, shy at his own sudden declaration.
Spencer reaches out and rests his gloved hand on Brendon’s shoulder. “Your people have done a good job preventing anyone wandering into the Wild Wood. I do not get many visitors.”
Brendon tilts his head and studies Spencer. He is bathed in--or emitting--the same soft warm light as the flowers. He’s wearing the same thing he was when last Brendon saw him; soft brown velvet doublet and surcoat, and armour of a metal the likes of which Brendon had never seen. Brendon couldn’t look away from Spencer’s beautiful face. “No? It’s such a friendly, welcoming place!”
The laugh startled out of Spencer is full and rich, and makes Brendon laugh too. “Brendon, no one has ever come this far into the heart of the Wild Wood.”
“Never? But, it’s your job to guard them. That must be lonely.” Brendon leans into Spencer's touch and lays his arm across Spencer’s shoulder in a tentative attempt at a hug.
“Well,” Spencer swallows and smiles but doesn’t pull away from Brendon’s touch, “There are other things to do in Pete’s kingdom.” He’s joking, Brendon thinks. But he can see something else in Spencer’s careful glance, a sadness that keeps his bright smile from reaching his eyes.
Brendon tucks the plucked bloom into a buttonhole in Spencer’s surcoat, and they both laugh rather stupidly. “Pete?”
“It is the...familiar name of the King of the Seelie Lands.” Spencer covers quickly, realizing he’s given away more than he meant to.
“But he’s not your king?” Brendon slips his hand into Spencer’s and squeezes.
Before he answers, Spencer inclines his head, indicating that he would like Brendon to walk with him. Brendon, careful but curious, nods and they start a slow circuit around the wide expanse of the rose bush. “I owe him my life,” Spencer says simply, “but I am of the human world. It is my greatest wish to one day return to the life I had.” He focuses his attention on Brendon’s hand in his, and twines their fingers together. “But perhaps that is only a dream, as you have said, so much time has passed...”
The wistful tone in Spencer’s voice makes Brendon’s stomach clench. “Why can’t you come back to the human world?”
“I am indebted to the King.” Spencer holds a branch out of the way and directs Brendon past it with a hand to his back. “It is for him to decide when my debt is paid,” he shrugs.
Brow creased in frustration, Brendon flings himself down at the roots of a large tree and pats the ground beside him, “So what is this debt? How did you come to live in the Faerie world?”
“I was Fianna. I know to you that means little beyond adventure stories for bairns, but be sure, when I was of the Summer Lands they were a force to be reckoned with.” Spencer carefully unclips his surcoat and lays it on the ground before taking a seat beside Brendon, more gracefully than anyone wearing that much armour and a broadsword hung across his back has a right to. “My father was a Smith on a wealthy lord’s land hold. I was the only son and expected to learn his trade. But, where my father made horseshoes and waggon tack, I wanted to make armour. I studied hard and got good at it. The local Fian got word of my skill and enlisted me. As I had no land to inherit, it seemed a good choice.”
Brendon runs a finger slowly along the articulated joint of the greaves covering Spencer’s lower leg, “Did you make this?”
“Yes.” Spencer answers simply but with pride behind the word. “My sword as well. Fionn mac Cumhaill himself showed me how to be a soldier, a swordsman.”
“Okay,” Brendon says, helping Spencer remove his gauntlets and set them down by the roots of the tree. “But, I still don’t get what that has to do with you being taken to Faerie.”
Spencer picks up Brendon’s hands and once more twines their fingers together. “I think, in my time in the human world, the veil between worlds was...thinner.” He wrinkles up his nose and scratches it, carefully choosing his words. “The Fianna, we kept the Summer Lands safe for all people. All beings. But the Seelie, they have...different ideas about justice. There was a battle. I was struck by a blow from an Ogre's blade and unhorsed. I surely would have died had it not been for the King's mercy. He took me back to his lands and nursed me to health." Spencer shifts beside Brendon, uncomfortable at the memory.
Scowling, Brendon replies, "So he took you away from everything you'd known and…just kept you there?"
Spencer is lost in thought for a moment, using his fingernail to trace along the golden trim of his surcoat. "No kindness comes without a price, Brendon. I proved my usefulness and Pete has not yet found anything I could give him that would be equal to my debt."
Brendon stills the nervous movement of Spencer's hand. "You believe that? You don't think kindness can just be…just because?"
"Perhaps," Spencer's smile is small and tight. "But, that has not been my experience." He sighs and shakes his head, the shaggy brown strands of his hair falling into his eyes. "So, for now I guard the roses, as bidden."
Unable to disguise his shock, Brendon says, "For one thousand years? Spencer! Surely if he meant to the King would have taken something you have done as payment? He saved your life so he could keep you. The rich love their pretty things." Brendon finishes in a mutter, slumping back against the solid weight of the tree trunk.
"You think me pretty?" Spencer laughs and squeezes Brendon's hand.
Looking at their entwined fingers, Brendon is a little disappointed to note that the luminescence of Spencer's skin is not contagious. "Yes," Brendon blushes. "Well…no. You're…beautiful, actually." If the mid afternoon sun dared shine in the Wild Wood, Brendon's entire face would have burned as brightly. He was glad of the gloom, for once. He ignores Spencer's pleased laughter and carries on. "That's not the point I'm trying to make. It's wrong of the King to keep you so long. There must be a way back from the Seelie Lands, don't you think? Why don't you fight to find out?"
Spencer makes a frustrated noise at the back of his throat and untangles his hand from Brendon's to scratch at his beard. "At first, I tried. But, there was no way out, and each time I tried to return to the human world, the King promised I would be kept in Faerie all the longer. But, it does not seem as though one thousand years or more has passed since I came to be of the King's court. Remember, time moves differently between the veils."
Brendon quickly snatches back Spencer's hand, petting it before once more threading their fingers together. "It must be awful for you. All this time, guarding the roses…from nothing."
"It is not as bad as all that, aye? I have made friends, comrades. There is always a need for a standing army in the Seelie Lands. And a need for weapons and armour." Spencer shifts when Brendon leans his head against his shoulder. "I have found my place, for now."
“I wish I could find my place,” Brendon sighs softly.
Curious, Spencer cranes his neck to look down at Brendon and try and read the expression on his face. “Your place is with your family, is it not? Heart, hearth, home?”
The moment Spencer’s words leave his mouth, Brendon snorts and rolls his eyes. “You have no idea. I’m the youngest of five and my other brothers are successful at everything they touch and seem to have known their lot in life from birth--Matt is a crofter like my father, and Mason is a captain in the cavalry. My sisters are both married and happy with families of their own. I think, in the moments my parents aren’t lamenting my lack of initiative, they forget I exist.” He bites his lip and makes a fussy, unimpressed face.
Spencer brings a finger under Brendon’s chin to tilt his face up. “I sincerely doubt that anyone could forget you exist, Bòidheach.” He smiles and smooths Brendon’s hair across his forehead.
“Bòidheach? You speak the Old Words?” Brendon nuzzles into Spencer’s touch. “Only some of the grannies down in the village know what any of the words mean, nowadays.”
“Aye, well, to me they are none so old.” They both laugh at that.
Brendon sits up and wipes his palms on his trousers before taking Spencer’s hand again. “True. But I do know some songs that use the Old Words. I have no idea what they mean, but it quiets the lambs at night when they’re frightened.”
“You sing?” Spencer’s eyes are bright with interest.
“Well,” Brendon wipes deprecatingly at his nose. “I like music, you see. And singing has always come naturally to me. Sometimes I give lessons to the children in Summerlin, and lead the choir at Sunday meetings.”
Spencer swallows and his brow creases, “Would you...would you sing? For me?”
“Now?” Brendon’s cheeks redden with embarrassment again.
“Yes. Please?” Spencer’s eyes are so clear and so blue and so filled yet again with a yearning that makes Brendon’s heart ache inside his rib cage. “It's been so long. I played drums as a child and my father would hum a melody as he worked the forge.”
Brendon blows out a breath and nods, never one to give up an opportunity to put on a show. “Yes, of course.” He swallows and stands up, hands clasps demurely in front of him. “I might mispronounce some of the words, and I apologize for that, but this is how I learned it.” He takes a deep breath, then opens his mouth and begins to sing:
Is dearg an rós a fhásann sa ghairdín úd
Is geal bán lile na ngleanntán
Is fíorghlan an t-uisce a shrúthann sa Bhóinn
Ach is áille mo shearc-rún ná éinne.
Tar anall thar na cnoic, a spéirbhean álainn ó
Tar anall thar na cnoic chugam a ghrá gheal
Roghnaigh tusa'n rós agus tabharfaidh mis'n mhóid
Is beidh mise mar bhuanghrá duit i gcónaí.
Ba thíos na coillte glasa i gCill Airne a d'éalaíomar
Agus an ghealach is na réaltaí go soiléir ar an aer
Ba anuas ar a h-órfholt loinnir na géalaí
Agus gheall sí í féin mar chéile domh i gcónaí.
For the longest moment, Spencer says nothing. He just stares up at Brendon, blue eyes shining bright. “Thank you,” he finally manages and his voice sounds husky and low to Brendon’s ears.
“Did I do okay? “ Brendon takes Spencer’s offered hand and sits down beside him again, back resting against the wide expanse of tree trunk. Spencer gives him a wan smile and nods. “Don’t you have songs in the Seelie Lands?”
“Yes, but music and song are different in Faerie, as are most things. No one sings just for the joy of it. Music is the call to battle, songs are to weave spells, or speak of the glories of the King. ”
“That’s sad,” Brendon links his arm through Spencer’s and leans his head on his shoulder.
Spencer inclines his head, tilting it to rest against Brendon’s, “Thank you for that. It was beautiful. You truly do not know the words you sing?”
“Nope, just that it makes the flock happy. I’m not singing a bunch of curse words, am I?” Brendon snickers.
Looking at the flower drooping a little from where Brendon had secured it in his doublet, Spencer reaches up to touch it softly and says, “Not in the least. It is a love ballad, and compares the beauty and fragility of love to a rose.”
“Oh!” Brendon raises his hands to his mouth and giggles. “Well, that fits, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” Spencer takes the rose and twirls it softly against Brendon’s cheek.
Wriggling against the tickle of the pink bloom, Brendon laughs and clasps his hands around Spencer’s wrists. “So, are you going to collect your payment for my transgression?”
Visibly confused, Spencer looks from Brendon’s grinning face to the rose in his hand. “Transgression?”
“Well, you are the Guardian of the Roses, right? And last time I was here you seemed pretty serious about me paying the price for picking a rose...” Brendon prompts.
Spencer clears his throat and his cheeks turn a delicate pink, “Oh yes, of course. The price for stealing the King’s roses is...”
“A kiss” Brendon says coyly, fluttering his eyelashes. He deftly plucks the rose from Spencer’s loose grip and smiles bright, leaning in close. “Unless of course you think that as a repeat offender, the King deserves to see my head roll.”
Pressing his forehead to Brendon’s, in a low voice Spencer says, “No, a kiss will do. I feel I could become very fond of your...head, Bòidheach.”
“Bòidheach?” Brendon asks quietly. “You keep calling me that. What does it mean?”
“It means...friend.” Spencer finally answers after a long pause. His smile widens, revealing his white, even teeth.
“Friend. I like it...now about that kiss...” Brendon waggles his eyebrows and presses his lips to Spencer. Unlike their first kiss, so chaste and tentative, the moment Spencer tilts his head for a better angle, Brendon groans. That’s all the encouragement Spencer needs to press his tongue to the seam of Brendon’s lips.
Brendon opens his mouth and deepens the kiss, allowing Spencer to slide his tongue across his already slick bottom lip, and then into his mouth. Brendon’s eyes flutter closed at Spencer’s gentle but insistent exploration of his mouth. With a contented sigh Brendon wraps his arms around Spencer’s neck, and smiles as Spencer makes a satisfied grunting noise, pulling Brendon to him by his hips. Brendon pets at Spencer’s cheeks and peppers his face and neck with enthusiastic, sloppy kisses that make Spencer bark out a laugh. Silencing him by once more pressing a teasing kiss to his lips, they explore each others’ mouths for long, quiet moments.
When they finally break apart, chests heaving and faces red, Brendon leans into Spencer, resting his head on the solid warmth of Spencer’s shoulder. “Bòidheach,” Brendon sighs happily, and thinks that Spencer’s smile has never been more beautiful.
* * *
The spring in Brendon’s step doesn’t fade until he crests the hill that leads to his family’s croft and sees the familiar plume of smoke billowing from the hearth fire’s chimney. He slows to a careful walk, laughing as Bogart bounds happily toward him, and wonders exactly how much time has passed since he left Ian minding the flock in the North Pasture. He knows that he spent far more time with Spencer than he had the first time he’s ventured into the Wild Wood. He sighs and turns the latch.
“There he is!” Brendon’s mother exclaims and claps her hands merrily, rushing to the door and gathering Brendon into a hug.
“Uh, yes. Here I am.” Brendon giggles nervously and his eyes dart around the room. The table has been set for evening meal and his father sits at the head of the large wake table, scowling at the interruption. Handing his mother the large rose he’s held carefully in between his fingers on the long walk back from the Wild Wood, Brendon shrugs off his sweater and steps into the room.
Resting her hands lightly at the crook of Brendon’s elbow, Grace guides him over to the table, beaming as she says, “Ian told us you had gone off to Henderson, and we thought perhaps we might never see you again.”
“Henderson?” Brendon picks up a cup and takes a deep draught of the cold well water in it.
“You know Brendon, there are rules about courting. I suppose your mother and I have perhaps indulged your...odder inclinations, but I...we feel very strongly that we should meet this young woman’s parents.”
Shocked, Brendon covers the fact with a sputtering cough, “Oh, well...I...”
“Yes! Ian told us you’ve met a lovely girl from Henderson--that her mother hired you for pianoforte lessons!” Brendon’s mother’s eyes dance with delight and he can almost hear the wedding checklist ticking through her brain.
“I...yes. Henderson, I was in Henderson.” Brendon scowls and cuts viciously at the chop his mother sets on the plate in front of him.
Taking her seat beside him, Grace says, “Three days is quite a long time to be away, my dear. I certainly hope you were chaperoned. And we know nothing of this girl’s people.”
Blushing at the memory of kissing Spencer up against the dark trees in the Wild Wood, Brendon nods and says, “Of course, Mother. I would never think of attempting to spend time with an unescorted young lady. I apologize for not being more forthcoming...”
His father interrupts, “Please tell me she is of the Faith, Brendon.”
“Yes, Father.” Brendon busies himself with buttering his green beans and steadfastly does not meet his father’s eyes.
Passing a bowl of what Brendon thinks might be mashed parsnips, Grace says, “Boyd, we simply must meet this lovely family.”
“Yes, Brendon. We must.”
“Right.” Brendon scowls at his plate. No longer hungry, he slips pieces of meat to Bogart under the table and silently curses Ian and his stupid story.
* * *
Brendon manages to avoid having to plan a meeting of his family with the non-existent family of the fictional Henderson girl he’s courting because of the unexpected but welcome surge in requests for his services as a music teacher and luthier. Summerlin is a vast tract of land that stretches between mountains, lake, great meadows, and of course the darkness of the Wild Wood in the north. It is not unusual for Brendon to be gone before sunrise and back after moonrise. The work is challenging and rewarding and Brendon loves it enough to wish his parents could see it as an honourable trade.
A week goes by before Brendon can wait no longer and, on his way back from a particularly rewarding series of lessons in The Meadows, makes a beeline for the Wild Wood. This time he has the aid of a lantern to light his way. His feet have no difficulty at all in remembering the path to the rose bush. He stops for a moment to breathe deeply, inhaling the intoxicating scent the flowers emit. Exhaling slowly, Brendon extends a careful hand, his fingertips barely brushing a dinner plate sized bloom.
“I was hoping you would come back,” Spencer’s voice is soft behind Brendon, but it still startles him.
“Oh! I didn’t even have to pick a flower this time.” Brendon smiles and turns to Spencer.
Spencer lays a hand at Brendon’s waist, “Magic grows stronger, over time.”
“Do the flowers know what we’re doing?” Brendon whispers and waves a hand in front of the biggest blooms on the bush.
Laughing, full and bright and so beautiful Brendon can’t look away, Spencer gently tugs him from the massive tangle of rose brambles. “Something like that...” he brushes a kiss to Brendon’s temple.
It’s the cue Brendon’s been waiting for, and he slips his arms around Spencer’s neck, kissing him enthusiastically. When they break apart, Brendon’s hand resting lightly on Spencer’s chest, feeling the gentle thump of his heartbeat, he says, “You look...different.” He smiles and gives a small tug on the rough cotton of the shirt Spencer is wearing.
Spencer gazes down his body, and raises an eyebrow, “Well, I was preparing for my night’s rest.”
“Ah!” Brendon takes in Spencer’s loose shirt and tight breeches with an appreciative glance, “So no armour.”
“As a general rule I try not to abed with it, Bòidheach.” He smirks and tucks the tiny, yet lethal looking dagger he’d been brandishing into the waistband of his breeches.
Brendon laughs and hugs Spencer to him again, “Of course you don’t. Silly me. I’m not well versed in...knightly ways.” He likes that he can make Spencer smile, loose and easy without the shadows that plagued the gentle blue of his glance when first they’d met.
Rolling his eyes, Spencer returns Brendon’s hug and says, so close to Brendon’s ear that his voice is little more than a breath, “I would very much like to show you something. Will you come with me?”
“To the Seelie Lands?” Brendon untangles himself from Spencer and is staring at him, eyes wide with trepidation.
Spencer’s shoulders slump and he says, “No, no mo chroí. I cannot bring anyone to Faerie. Only the King can do that.” He cocks his head and gives Brendon a sleepy smile. “But I think it is something you would like. It is not far,” Spencer extends a hand in front of him, indicating the darkness of the Wild Wood beyond the pool of light that bathes the roses.
“Oh, of course, I know that. It’s in all the stories they tell the children.” His shoulders shake as he laughs at himself. “You’re allowed to leave the roses unattended?” Brendon shoves his hands into his pockets and rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet.
Raising an eyebrow Spencer replies, “Well, I don’t know if it’s a matter of allowed, but sometimes, given the right circumstances, I am permitted to wander a little, yes.”
part 2
Author: cloudlessclimes
Band(s):panic! at the disco
Pairing(s):brendon/spencer
Word Count:~29 000
Rating:R
Warnings:violence
Notes: Thank you to my wonderful betas and cheerleaders, ohnoscarlett and prettykitty_aya for all their encouragement, hard work and mostly for listening to me whine and complain. Thank you to look_alive for my beautiful art and to morganya for my wonderful, perfect mix which is honestly a damn fine soundtrack.
There are a smattering of Irish words in this fic, and I’ve provided a glossary at the end. The vagaries and intricacies of Irish spelling are legend, and any errors in transposing are mine.
Summary: A sort of fairy tale. In which Brendon is the much maligned crofters' son and Spencer is the human Guardian of the Faerie King's Roses (yes, roses. it's a job okay. someone has to do it). Their stars briefly align, they fall in love, and have to beat a curse older than time to be together. Loosely, very very very loosely based on the Ballad of Tamlin, with a smattering of various global folk and fairy tales thrown in for good measure. Takes place in a parallel world that is a mishmash of Ireland and Las Vegas just because that's how I roll. Very much an AU.
Brendon makes a frustrated groaning sound in the back of his throat. Hands on his hips he frowns down at the little dog, who is looking expectantly at the cold cellar doors. “You know, Bogart, I’m beginning to think you’re doing this on purpose.” He runs his hands down the smooth wooden buttons sewn carefully along the front of his vest. “It’s a good thing you’re cute. But man, you’re not a puppy anymore!” Brendon smiles at the terrier as he turns his attention to hauling open the rusted and stubborn doors. He gives a cry of victory when the latch gives way with an angry creak.
Wiping his hands on the seat of his trousers, Brendon drops down among the potatoes and turnips harvested at the beginning of the autumn. “If this wasn’t your very favorite toy, you know I wouldn’t be down here,” Brendon grouses as he gingerly searches through the mounds of root vegetables. “I honestly don’t know how you found a crack big enough for it to fall down here.” Squinting in the murky half-light, Brendon clutches the grey wool mouse in his fist and raises his arms aloft in victory, the weak sunbeams streaming through the floorboards making the dust motes dance. “Ah ha!” Brendon cries, “You’d think the faeires had a hand in it.” He throws the toy out to Bogart and can feel a laugh bubbling up inside of him at the sight of his dog stalking the soft toy when he hears the squeak and slam of the front door, and the unmistakable baritone of his father’s voice. “Grace!”
Brendon thinks he should move; go chasing after Bogart since their game had been interrupted by the loss of the dog’s most beloved toy. He thinks he should probably be anywhere on the Urie homestead but where he is. But, his feet won’t move. Instead he cranes his neck, tilting his head back and straining to peer through the knotted pine floorboards, into the great room above.
He tracks the tap-tap-tap of his mother’s quick, nervous foot falls as she hurries from the hearth at the back of the house to greet his father at the front door. “Boyd! You’re back early. We weren’t expecting you. Supper won’t be any time soon, I’m afraid.”
His father makes a grumbling noise and says, “Your son was supposed to meet me at the North Pasture, to help me finally mend that bit of fence before the snows come. He didn’t show up, I’ve come back here to pry him away from your apron strings.” Brendon bites his lip and swallows painfully, eye still pressed to the small strip of daylight.
He hears his mother sigh and the swish of her skirts as she says, “Oh my dear, must you be so hard on him? I’m sure Brendon just got caught up with the sheep or the chickens...”
“Mostly likely he’s off behind a haystack noodling away on his fool guitar.” Boyd interrupts, anger and frustration behind every word.
Much to his shame, Brendon can feel the familiar prick of tears at his father’s harsh words. “He’s just a boy,” his mother offers weakly.
“He’s more than eighteen! A man grown!” Brendon’s father gruffs. “If he doesn’t stop his daydreaming and take some responsibility around here, he’ll never make a decent match!”
Brendon’s mother gasps. “I do suppose I’ve coddled him, some. But he’s the youngest of our five, Boyd. And so very different from his brothers...”
Not waiting to hear more--just glad that, this time, he’s not in the same room and expected to sit through a lecture about his parents’ disappointment in Brendon’s inability to find an acceptable marriage prospect at the Harvest Festival--Brendon quickly boosts himself out of the cellar and back into the warm late fall day. He stops his march to abruptly pick up his guitar and then tears across the door yard and into the green-gold fields surrounding the croft. He runs as far away as he can from his parents and the sting of their bitter words.
He runs and he runs, Bogart nipping at his heels. He’ll show them. His mother and his father both. He heads to the far North Fence, towards the fence he didn’t even know it would be his chore to mend. His father talks so often with Brendon’s brothers, tells them his plans for the small farm, and the business of it, that Brendon sometimes thinks his father forgets that Matt and Mason aren’t him, and that his father hasn’t told him anything at all. He mumbles under his breath about showing them, and fixing the fence so it is the finest in all of Summerlin.
Finally, when he can run no more, he flops down onto the cold ground panting and blinking at the gun metal grey sky. Bogart refuses to believe that this epic game of chase has come to an end, and is dancing around Brendon’s prone form. Brendon laughs and sits up, wiping at his face where the terrier has licked several enthusiastic kisses. “Stop it!” Brendon giggles. Bogart stands still for the briefest of moments, before darting away, eager to continue their game. Brendon slips the guitar’s strap over his head and then takes off after his dog. “Hey! Come back! Stop!” Panic begins to fill Brendon’s voice as Bogart heads towards the very gap in the fence that was supposed to be mended that morning.
“Bogart! Bogey! Boges! No!” Brendon’s eyes go wide and he runs faster as he watches the twitching dog disappear through the hole. His entire life, Brendon had been told to never, ever go past the North Pasture fence, and he’s pretty sure that his father and his father’s father before him had been given the same warning. The Uries had settled the northernmost patch of arable land. Everyone in Summerlin knew that the untamed Wild Wood lay beyond and it was a place of darkness and menace. Everyone, it seems, except Bogart.
Bogart, it seems, has no interest in stopping, or listening to Brendon. So, despite his fears and a life’s worth of warnings, Brendon sets his guitar against a weathered fence post and with more effort than is strictly sensible, manages to wriggle through the gap in the fence. “From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties, and things that go bump in the night, may the good lord deliver us,” he mutters softly under his breath. He stops at the very edge of the tree line and unhooks the age-worn fabric of his trousers from where he’s been snagged on a stray nail. He reassures himself that all of the stories he heard about the Wild Wood as a lad at his granny’s knee are just that--tall tales told to keep in line those with enough imagination to wonder what may lie in the world beyond Summerlin. They’re just foolish children's tales, and nothing more.
It has to be the ghost of those stories whispering in Brendon’s ear that make the trees on this side of the fence seem larger and darker and altogether more menacing than any tree he’s seen on his family’s croft or in the village beyond. Because no matter how tall and gnarled the trees, there’s no way their branches could actually blot out the bright mid-afternoon sunlight to such a degree that Brendon’s left squinting into the gloom, is there? The darkness beneath the trees, their limbs entwined together like skeletal arms, is so great that what little path there is through the ferns and bracken under Brendon’s feet disappears so suddenly that the sound of his dog thrashing through the undergrowth is all that Brendon has to guide him.
The lack of bird song and the thrum of insects in flight can be easily explained away by the turning of the season towards the harvest, and surely has little to do with any sort of ancient curse the women-folk of Summerlin murmur to their children in lieu of lullabies. So Brendon swallows his fear, tugs at the hem of his vest, and continues into the thick of the Wild Wood, ears keen for any sound of Bogart.
In an instant it seems the entirety of the Wild Wood is filled with Bogart’s high, sharp barks. “No! Oh no!” Brendon cries out, rushing blindly forward, tripping on branches and other things littering the forest floor. In his haste, Brendon isn’t exactly sure what he expected to find when he finally caught up to Bogart. But even in his extremely wild imagination, Brendon could never have fathomed this. In his heart he had hoped that Bogart has caught the scent of one of the Wild Wood’s creatures and had given chase, but that isn’t it at all. Bogart is barking, the force of it shaking his entire body. His teeth are bared and his haunches are low to the ground in fear. The focus of all his doggy energy is a large, well Brendon wants to call it a rose bush, but that does little to explain the enormity of the tangle of plants in front of him.
And even though all of the plants Brendon’s come across on his side of the fence have turned the golden-brown of autumn, these roses are in full bloom. The foliage is a hedge of bright green, waxy leaves and the thorns that kept him out of his grandmother’s garden as a child, are nowhere to be found on these strange shrubs. The blooms are the size of dinner plates and a deep pink that Brendon doesn’t know the name for. It occurs to Brendon that he can clearly make out each subtle shift in hue on each petal and leaf. The threatening darkness of the Wild Wood doesn’t exist here; the roses are bathed in a soft, inviting sunlight.
Brendon makes soothing sounds at his dog, snapping his fingers at his side in a familiar gesture and lowly calling Bogart to him. The little terrier jumps into Brendon’s arms, snuggling into the embrace, but whining as Brendon continues to walk towards the rose hedge, drawn by their beauty. As he gets close enough to touch, Brendon is overwhelmed by the spicy, exotic scent the roses are emitting, like no other flower he’s seen, or smelled, before.
Bogart wriggles and struggles in his arms, but Brendon is compelled to feel the delicate blooms in his hands; to inhale their beautiful, intoxicating scent. Maybe, just maybe if he picks one rose, just one, and takes it back to his mother, just maybe she’ll forgive him for being such a failure of a son. He reaches out, cupping the biggest, most beautiful rose in his palms and giving it a gentle tug.
“Hey!” Bogart yelps and jumps from Brendon’s arms. Brendon himself is so startled by the sudden loud voice booming from the roses that he windmills his arms wildly, before falling on his ass. He blinks and swallows and looks up into the face of the most beautiful person he’s ever seen.
“Um...hi?” Brendon twirls the plucked rose between his fingers and swallows nervously, yet unable to look away.
The man--if that’s what he is and not some kind of apparition or hallucination Brendon’s imagination has conjured out of fear--points an accusing finger at the rose in Brendon’s hand, “What do you think you’re doing?” One graceful eyebrow is arched in inquiry and the glacial blue of his eyes is cold with anger.
Managing to draw his glance away from the man’s face, Brendon’s blinks stupidly again, taking in the deep brown of his velvet doublet and surcoat and, most importantly, the glint of light off a broadsword as long as Brendon is tall. The more Brendon looks at the weapon, the more he thinks that it’s not the light glinting off the sword at all. Rather, it seems to emit a glow bright as daylight, like the roses themselves. “I was just...I mean...I thought I’d...” Brendon stammers as he gets to his feet, “I didn’t mean to pluck it. I just...couldn’t help it. I just wanted to find my dog before he got totally lost.” He chews nervously at his bottom lip and ducks a glance at the now strangely silent Bogart.
“The King will have your head!” The stranger growls, lifting his broadsword with a practised ease Brendon finds intriguing rather than frightening.
Awkwardly stumbling to his feet, Brendon manages to ask, “King?” Summerlin has been a free province and Republic ruled by an elected minister since his Grandfather was his age, and Brendon can’t imagine what it is this strange, albeit handsome, man could be talking about.
Eyes gleaming with a coolly un-natural light, the man sighs, allowing the point of the sword to rest against Brendon’s throat, not painful, not piercing. A warning. “The Faerie King,” he explains plainly. “These roses mark the door between your world and his. I am the Guardian of the Roses...”
“Faerie King?” Brendon steps back, well away from the lethal tip of The Guardian’s sword. He chuckles and tries to calculate how probable it is that this man is completely unhinged. “You cannot be serious.”
The Guardian moves forward, his sword thrust out in front of him. “I assure you I am perfectly serious. Deadly serious.” Brendon raises his hands up in surrender and defeat as the sword once again warms against the jumping pulse in his neck.
“It’s just...they’re just stories. I mean...things mothers and grannies tell the little bairns to keep them in line.” Brendon frowns, thinking about all the times he’s laughed at the ridiculous stories that seemed to terrify his siblings and the other children at the parish school.
“There is a Faerie King, these are his roses, and I am their guardian.” The man’s expression shifts from menace to exasperation. “Although I cannot recall another human braving the King’s magic to travel the Wild Wood and discover this portal; these flowers.” It’s the most the man has said to Brendon thus far and Brendon finds himself liking the sound of his voice, the shape of his lips, and his neatly trimmed beard.
Brendon laughs, full out and bright. “That’s because of all the stories about Faerie magic the old ladies fill their children’s heads with. Your boss has done a pretty good job of keeping the villagers on the other side of the fence, I’ll give him that. It takes forever to get anywhere because we have to take the South Road, instead of just cutting through this place.” Brendon holds his arms out wide and Bogart, taking that for invitation, paws at his trouser leg to be lifted up again. Without taking his eyes off The Guardian, Brendon leans down and deftly scoops up the dog. “And Guardian of the Roses? Seriously? That’s supposed to be...frightening? What’d you do to make the King mad?” Brendon chuckles and rubs at the scruff of Bogart’s neck.
Indignant, The Guardian lowers his broadsword to his side and huffs, “I will have you know that I am Spencer, Smithy of the Summer Lands. Guardian of the Roses and Warrior of the Fianna!” He raises his chin and peers at Brendon down length of his nose.
“Fianna!” Brendon smothers his giggle by kissing Bogart’s head, soothing his worried whines. “Are you kidding me with this?” Brendon is beginning to think he should probably be worried for his safety after all, and that he is quite possibly in the presence of an escapee from the lunatics’ workhouse in Primm Valley. “Look, Spencer Smith, the Fianna are definitely part of the tall tales my granny tells. “Long ago and long ago more than a thousand years past, when the streets were paved with butter and the houses painted with gold...” Brendon adopts the stooped posture and quavering, shrill tone of a crone, and points one crooked finger at Spencer.
Instead of laughing, or getting even more exasperated or angry, Spencer just looks defeated. “Truly? There are no Fianna? How can that be?” He slumps then, the cape over his shoulder rustling with the movement. “I know time moves differently in the Seelie Lands but...truly? One thousand years?” Spencer swipes ineffectually at the fall of hair over his eyes.
When those pale blue eyes look up to study Brendon, they are filled with such sadness that Brendon steps forward, resting a comforting hand at the crook of Spencer’s elbow. He rubs his thumb across the soft velvet of the cape and notices that what he thought were roses embroidered along its edge with golden thread are actually roses embroidered with gold. “Well, I don’t know if it’s exactly a thousand years, but it’s been long enough that those stories are just,” Brendon stops and shrugs apologetically, “You know, just stories.”
Spencer stiffens and draws away from Brendon’s touch, adopting a more formal, serious stance, “So everything I know, everyone I love, they are gone now.” He gives a little nod.
“If it’s any consolation, I’m pretty sure everyone I love wishes I was gone, now.” Brendon mutters, his attention on his careful petting of Bogart’s ears.
Spencer studies Brendon, curiosity plain on his face. But instead of asking any questions, he sighs, shaking the hair from his eyes. “The King could demand your head for what you’ve done.” Spencer gestures at the rose Brendon had picked, now drooping forlornly on the forest floor where Brendon had dropped it to pick up Bogart.
“Could?” Brendon swallows audibly and squeezes Bogart a little too tightly, making the dog wriggle in his hold.
“Yes. There must be a payment made for the crime you have committed.” Spencer easily flicks the broadsword from one palm to the other as though it weighed nothing, before reaching around his own shoulder and housing it in the sheath there. Brendon blinks in amazement. “And, as I am the Guardian of the Faerie King’s Roses,” Spencer speaks his title with slow and deliberate formality, finishing with a courtly bow and extension of his gauntleted hand, “It is I who collects payment.”
Licking at his lips, Brendon says, in a voice that squeaks a little, “Payment? So, if not my, uh, my head...then what?”
Spencer strides purposefully towards Brendon, a small smile playing on his lips. “Well, I am fairly sure you didn’t intentionally defile the King’s roses, correct?” Brendon nods eagerly as Spencer gets closer and closer. “I am also certain that you did not seek out the location of the roses in an attempt to unlawfully enter Faerie, did you?” Just as eagerly, Brendon shakes his head back and forth. Reaching out a hand, Spencer strokes at Bogart’s scruff. “So, then, I feel the payment should fit the crime.”
“I don’t understand.” Brendon says dumbly as Bogart hops from his arms to jump and paw at Spencer.
When Spencer is finally as close to Brendon as he can be without touching, he says, “A kiss,” the words whispering across Brendon’s cheek.
Brendon can't breathe. How is that even a choice: his head on a plate for the Faerie King, or kiss Spencer?. He swallows and blinks and finally manages to take a breath. He's only recently admitted to himself that the reason he failed so spectacularly at the matchmakers' Harvest Ball is because their attempts at matches were not people, were not girls he felt he could be matched with. In a secret corner of his heart Brendon has always known he was destined to be a Bachelor. But, to admit as much out loud was to be destined to a life of ostracism and isolation.
In Summerlin, and the whole of the Republic, men who do not marry women; who have romantic relationships with other men, are denied the right to inherit, the right to own property, and the same is true of Spinsters-women who lie with women. They are tolerated, but never allowed to be full and true members of their communities.
He knows it goes against everything his family believes, but he cannot lie to himself. It is customary for first kisses to occur under the wedding banns, which Brendon will never see. While kissing Spencer can be seen by most as a way to survive his trespasses against the Faerie King, Brendon knows that he would also be acknowledging everything he's held inside for so very, very long. "Okay," the one word is barely more than an exhalation.
The little space between them disappears as Spencer lays a gentle hand at Brendon's jaw, tilting his face ever so slightly upwards. He presses his lips to Brendon's in a chaste, brief kiss. His lips are warm and soft and Brendon's arms come up to circle Spencer's waist, fingertips grasping at the velvet of Spencer's surcoat. Brendon opens his eyes, blinking, to see Spencer's face still so very close to his.
Spencer is smiling and he chuckles a little when Brendon groans-a small noise at the back of his throat. "Your debt has been paid." Spencer says softly. Brendon's brown eyes are dark with confusion and then he realises he is standing there, hugging Spencer to him.
Bogart yips happily, and Brendon, cheeks reddened and a sheepish expression on his face, finally draws away, and Spencer steps out of the circle of his arms. "I guess I better get back. You know, take the dog home and I'm sure there are some chores I was supposed to do and haven’t that my father can yell at me about." Brendon's shoulders shake as he giggles.
Spencer stoops to collect the discarded rose, "You are free to go," he says softly, placing the flower in Brendon's open hand and carefully closing his fingers around it.
"I…yeah. Right." Brendon nods and then whistles for Bogart who happily trots over, eager and waiting for Brendon. They start the long dark walk out of the Wild Wood, and Brendon finds that a sense of loss has replaced his earlier foreboding. "Spencer?" He calls over his shoulder and is shocked to see that the unearthly light that bathed both Spencer and the rose bush is even brighter than before and Spencer is, well, he's shimmering.
"Yes?" Spencer's voice sounds like it's coming from very far away, and not the few paces Brendon had walked.
Brendon’s eyes dart from where Bogart, a white shape in the gloom of the woods, is retreating back the way they’d come, and Spencer. “I...um...just, if this is a dream? Do you think I’ll remember it?”
He expects Spencer to laugh, but he looks thoughtful for a moment before he says, “If you want to. If it’s important to you, you will.” And then, he disappears. Brendon is startled by the suddenness of it and he stares at the spot by the roses where Spencer had just been until Bogart circles back to him, yipping his annoyance. Brendon sighs and shakes his head, setting off through the dark, pathless forest, the feel of Spencer’s lips still a cool tingle on his own.
* * *
“Oh! Oh my baby brother! There you are!” Brendon’s trot across the fallow field is brought to an abrupt halt when he finds himself with his arms full of his sister, Kyla. Tears are coursing down her cheeks and she locks her arms around his neck.
Brendon, once he regains the breath that Kyla knocked out of him, is confused. “Um...hey.” He hugs her back and tucks wayward strands of her pale blonde hair behind her ears. “You’d think I’ve been gone for a thousand years, not just a couple of hours.” He chuckles and manages to untangle himself from his sister’s hold.
“A couple of hours! Brendon you’ve been missing for two days!” She fidgets, smoothing the blue calico fabric of her dress over her hips. “Mother and Father have been beside themselves with worry.” She takes Brendon’s hand in hers as they walk towards the dooryard.
Tilting his head Brendon studies Kyla for a moment, her face so much like his, but her features fair where his are dark. She’s only a year older than Brendon but she’s been married for almost two years and has her first child on the way. “Two days? But I left at midday to fix the North Fence!” He blinks at her and then thinks to himself time moves differently in Faerie. Could being near someone from Fairie be enough to change time here?
Kyla affects a stern expression as she shoos the chickens away from the front door, “Brendon, don’t make up stories. You know how it irritates Father. He has no patience for such things. I’m sure if you apologize for causing them worry, that will be enough.”
Brendon wants to protest. He feels the need to defend himself and to explain that he is telling the truth. But he bites his tongue. It won’t matter. His parents have always seen what they want to see when it comes to him. “Okay.” He says instead, as Kyla opens the door to the croft house.
* * *
He can’t stop thinking about the roses in the Wild Wood. Actually, if Brendon’s being honest with himself he can’t stop thinking about Spencer. He finds himself, at the most random times, tracing the feel of Spencer’s lips against his own; absently tracing the fullness of his bottom lip and smiling stupidly at the memory. His behaviour doesn’t do much to discount his mother’s theory that he had been set upon by hooligans and had been hit on the head and rendered unconscious as an explanation for his days long absence.
His father doesn’t really question Brendon any further beyond his initial explanation of him “losing track of time and falling asleep in a barn down in the valley”, or question how that resulted in the loss of two days time, but, he puts Brendon to work, harder than ever, and under constant supervision, leaving him precious little time for daydreaming. He mucks stalls as his father cleans and repairs tack. His brothers watch as he repairs the fence between the family croft and their own.
And, up on the drumlin where Brendon does his very best to usher the sheep homeward, his companion is the shepherd Boyd Urie had hired away from a neighbouring croft farm when it became clear that Brendon is more suited to sing lullabies to the spring lambs than have the flock pay him the slightest attention. Ian is sitting beside Brendon watching out over the hills as the pasture slopes away to the north and the green-gold of Summerlin is swallowed by the darkness of the Wild Wood.
“What, so you’re telling me you spent two days, in there?” Ian glances timorously away from the woods, to Brendon, and back again.
Brendon chuckles nervously. It’s been almost a week since his encounter with Spencer, and while he’s done his best not to speak the details aloud to anyone, he is only human and he does enjoy a good tale; telling or hearing. Ian makes a great audience, his eyes go wide and owlish behind the ridiculously thick lenses of his spectacles at just the right moments in Brendon’s story. “Well, it didn’t seem like two days, to me anyway,” Brendon answers in his own defence. It had only seemed like an hour or so, not nearly enough time at all, judging from the ache in his chest whenever he thinks about it--whenever he thinks about Spencer.
Which is to say, almost constantly.
“So, are faeries real?” Ian asks in awe.
“Spencer said they are.” Brendon laughs, shoulders hitching up and down. He calls out to Bogart, who is weaving back and forth underneath the shaggy legs of Ian’s sheep dog, distracting him from his job.
Ian claps a friendly hand at Brendon’s shoulder. “You should go back and find out! Brendon, you’re amazing. No one goes into the Wild Wood. No one. Ever. But you weren’t even afraid, you just walked right in and found...magic!” Ian stands, wiping bits of dried grass from the seat of rough spun britches and adjusting his cap over his eyes in deference to the low, but bright sunshine. He grabs his crook from where he’d set it down in the grass, and heads after the sheep--while Nell the sheep dog barks, trying to keep the flock out of the gully.
After watching Ian scamper around, blocking the path of the head ewe, Brendon gets up and joins him. “I’m not even sure I could find the same spot again,” he says truthfully, and a little forlorn.
“Well,” Ian answers, leaning on his staff and smiling, “If you never try, I guess you never will find it, huh?” He snickers and shoves his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.
Brendon opens his mouth to protest, and then closes it again. “You know, you’re right!” he finally says. “Make sure Bogart doesn’t follow me, okay?” He gives the little dog a pat on the head and says, “Be good for Uncle Ian, Boges.” and then starts to trot down the hill, in the direction of the Wild Wood.
“Huh? What?” Ian’s expression dances between confusion and surprise. “I didn’t mean now!” Ian starts to follow after Brendon and then stops abruptly. “Wait! What am I supposed to tell your dad?”
Giggling, Brendon raises his arms, palms up, in a comical shrug, “You’re a canty wee lad, I’m sure you’ll think of something!”
“Kiss a faerie for me!” Ian waves, laughing.
Brendon’s happy loping slows as he traces the line of the North Pasture fence. He wishes he had paid more attention to where the hole in the fence had been. When his father had complained of his unwillingness to fix it, Brendon had known exactly where to find it, but now that it had been repaired in the business since his adventure, Brendon was not so sure he could find it again. He sighs and puts his hands on his hips. He narrows eyes, following the endless line of metal and spruce spread out as far as the eye can see. “Well,” he muses, “on this side of the fence, I’ll never see Spencer again.” He takes a deep breath and boosts himself over to the Wild Wood side of the fence, careful not to snag his trousers this time.
Immediately upon crossing the tree line, Brendon regrets not having a plan, or, having given this foray any kind of forethought at all, really. He could use a map, a warmer sweater and a lantern. In the shadows that spread like a stain beneath the trees, Brendon finds it impossible to tell if he is retracing his steps. He stumbles blindly forward, thinking maybe he should have brought Bogart with him after all. He misses his cheerful doggy smile and the dog is an excellent tracker and could have led them back to the roses--and Spencer.
With hope in his heart and a vague notion of which direction he needed to travel, Brendon swallows down his fear at the dark and silent Wild Wood and carries on as best he can. He stumbles and trips and he’s uncomfortably warm from his exertion, and a thin trail of sweat is tracking down his spine. It feels like he’s been at this for hours, yet for all Brendon can tell he’s been going around in circles. Brendon stops his aimless pacing and clenches his fists in frustration.
Brendon can’t even turn back to go home, because he’s not sure exactly which direction will lead him home. He bites his lip and sighs and decides to continue on forward. The toe of his boot catches on a log or a tree root. At least he hopes it’s something so easily explained. He has no time to catch himself, and hits the hard packed dirt with a grunt. He is so disheartened tears prick his eyelids and he thinks maybe he’ll just stay down there on the ground, feeling sorry for himself for a while.
“I just want to see Spencer again,” he whispers, wiping the dirt and leaves from his hands and knees. As he struggles to his feet, favouring his left side where he seems to have twisted his ankle when he fell, Brendon squints. He’s not sure if it’s wishful thinking or what now, but he thinks he sees the shadows around him fading to grey up in the near distance. He sniffles and wipes the crook of his elbow across his dirty face. He quickens his step, ignoring the dull ache throbbing up his leg, eager to investigate the light ahead.
Brendon cannot contain the wide grin that splits his face. It wasn’t wishful thinking. The rose hedge, vines twisting and flashing a brilliant green in the otherworldly glow they cast, looms up ahead. The sight and scent beckon him forward and Brendon reaches out without hesitation to stroke the fragile pink petals of one bloom. “Spencer,” he whispers again. If forced to, Brendon would be unable to explain how seeing Spencer again, when they’d met so briefly, had become so important to him. He rubs the pad of his thumb across his bottom lip and then using the hand that is cupping the rose, gives a tug and the rose comes free into his palm.
“Those are the King’s....oh, Brendon!” Brendon watches, delighted as Spencer’s stern, serious Guardian of the Roses expression morphs into one that perfectly mirrors his own. “I had not thought to see you again.”
Brendon smiles and steps closer to Spencer, “I’ve thought of nothing else but seeing you again.” He answers honestly. His cheeks redden in embarrassment and he ducks his head, shy at his own sudden declaration.
Spencer reaches out and rests his gloved hand on Brendon’s shoulder. “Your people have done a good job preventing anyone wandering into the Wild Wood. I do not get many visitors.”
Brendon tilts his head and studies Spencer. He is bathed in--or emitting--the same soft warm light as the flowers. He’s wearing the same thing he was when last Brendon saw him; soft brown velvet doublet and surcoat, and armour of a metal the likes of which Brendon had never seen. Brendon couldn’t look away from Spencer’s beautiful face. “No? It’s such a friendly, welcoming place!”
The laugh startled out of Spencer is full and rich, and makes Brendon laugh too. “Brendon, no one has ever come this far into the heart of the Wild Wood.”
“Never? But, it’s your job to guard them. That must be lonely.” Brendon leans into Spencer's touch and lays his arm across Spencer’s shoulder in a tentative attempt at a hug.
“Well,” Spencer swallows and smiles but doesn’t pull away from Brendon’s touch, “There are other things to do in Pete’s kingdom.” He’s joking, Brendon thinks. But he can see something else in Spencer’s careful glance, a sadness that keeps his bright smile from reaching his eyes.
Brendon tucks the plucked bloom into a buttonhole in Spencer’s surcoat, and they both laugh rather stupidly. “Pete?”
“It is the...familiar name of the King of the Seelie Lands.” Spencer covers quickly, realizing he’s given away more than he meant to.
“But he’s not your king?” Brendon slips his hand into Spencer’s and squeezes.
Before he answers, Spencer inclines his head, indicating that he would like Brendon to walk with him. Brendon, careful but curious, nods and they start a slow circuit around the wide expanse of the rose bush. “I owe him my life,” Spencer says simply, “but I am of the human world. It is my greatest wish to one day return to the life I had.” He focuses his attention on Brendon’s hand in his, and twines their fingers together. “But perhaps that is only a dream, as you have said, so much time has passed...”
The wistful tone in Spencer’s voice makes Brendon’s stomach clench. “Why can’t you come back to the human world?”
“I am indebted to the King.” Spencer holds a branch out of the way and directs Brendon past it with a hand to his back. “It is for him to decide when my debt is paid,” he shrugs.
Brow creased in frustration, Brendon flings himself down at the roots of a large tree and pats the ground beside him, “So what is this debt? How did you come to live in the Faerie world?”
“I was Fianna. I know to you that means little beyond adventure stories for bairns, but be sure, when I was of the Summer Lands they were a force to be reckoned with.” Spencer carefully unclips his surcoat and lays it on the ground before taking a seat beside Brendon, more gracefully than anyone wearing that much armour and a broadsword hung across his back has a right to. “My father was a Smith on a wealthy lord’s land hold. I was the only son and expected to learn his trade. But, where my father made horseshoes and waggon tack, I wanted to make armour. I studied hard and got good at it. The local Fian got word of my skill and enlisted me. As I had no land to inherit, it seemed a good choice.”
Brendon runs a finger slowly along the articulated joint of the greaves covering Spencer’s lower leg, “Did you make this?”
“Yes.” Spencer answers simply but with pride behind the word. “My sword as well. Fionn mac Cumhaill himself showed me how to be a soldier, a swordsman.”
“Okay,” Brendon says, helping Spencer remove his gauntlets and set them down by the roots of the tree. “But, I still don’t get what that has to do with you being taken to Faerie.”
Spencer picks up Brendon’s hands and once more twines their fingers together. “I think, in my time in the human world, the veil between worlds was...thinner.” He wrinkles up his nose and scratches it, carefully choosing his words. “The Fianna, we kept the Summer Lands safe for all people. All beings. But the Seelie, they have...different ideas about justice. There was a battle. I was struck by a blow from an Ogre's blade and unhorsed. I surely would have died had it not been for the King's mercy. He took me back to his lands and nursed me to health." Spencer shifts beside Brendon, uncomfortable at the memory.
Scowling, Brendon replies, "So he took you away from everything you'd known and…just kept you there?"
Spencer is lost in thought for a moment, using his fingernail to trace along the golden trim of his surcoat. "No kindness comes without a price, Brendon. I proved my usefulness and Pete has not yet found anything I could give him that would be equal to my debt."
Brendon stills the nervous movement of Spencer's hand. "You believe that? You don't think kindness can just be…just because?"
"Perhaps," Spencer's smile is small and tight. "But, that has not been my experience." He sighs and shakes his head, the shaggy brown strands of his hair falling into his eyes. "So, for now I guard the roses, as bidden."
Unable to disguise his shock, Brendon says, "For one thousand years? Spencer! Surely if he meant to the King would have taken something you have done as payment? He saved your life so he could keep you. The rich love their pretty things." Brendon finishes in a mutter, slumping back against the solid weight of the tree trunk.
"You think me pretty?" Spencer laughs and squeezes Brendon's hand.
Looking at their entwined fingers, Brendon is a little disappointed to note that the luminescence of Spencer's skin is not contagious. "Yes," Brendon blushes. "Well…no. You're…beautiful, actually." If the mid afternoon sun dared shine in the Wild Wood, Brendon's entire face would have burned as brightly. He was glad of the gloom, for once. He ignores Spencer's pleased laughter and carries on. "That's not the point I'm trying to make. It's wrong of the King to keep you so long. There must be a way back from the Seelie Lands, don't you think? Why don't you fight to find out?"
Spencer makes a frustrated noise at the back of his throat and untangles his hand from Brendon's to scratch at his beard. "At first, I tried. But, there was no way out, and each time I tried to return to the human world, the King promised I would be kept in Faerie all the longer. But, it does not seem as though one thousand years or more has passed since I came to be of the King's court. Remember, time moves differently between the veils."
Brendon quickly snatches back Spencer's hand, petting it before once more threading their fingers together. "It must be awful for you. All this time, guarding the roses…from nothing."
"It is not as bad as all that, aye? I have made friends, comrades. There is always a need for a standing army in the Seelie Lands. And a need for weapons and armour." Spencer shifts when Brendon leans his head against his shoulder. "I have found my place, for now."
“I wish I could find my place,” Brendon sighs softly.
Curious, Spencer cranes his neck to look down at Brendon and try and read the expression on his face. “Your place is with your family, is it not? Heart, hearth, home?”
The moment Spencer’s words leave his mouth, Brendon snorts and rolls his eyes. “You have no idea. I’m the youngest of five and my other brothers are successful at everything they touch and seem to have known their lot in life from birth--Matt is a crofter like my father, and Mason is a captain in the cavalry. My sisters are both married and happy with families of their own. I think, in the moments my parents aren’t lamenting my lack of initiative, they forget I exist.” He bites his lip and makes a fussy, unimpressed face.
Spencer brings a finger under Brendon’s chin to tilt his face up. “I sincerely doubt that anyone could forget you exist, Bòidheach.” He smiles and smooths Brendon’s hair across his forehead.
“Bòidheach? You speak the Old Words?” Brendon nuzzles into Spencer’s touch. “Only some of the grannies down in the village know what any of the words mean, nowadays.”
“Aye, well, to me they are none so old.” They both laugh at that.
Brendon sits up and wipes his palms on his trousers before taking Spencer’s hand again. “True. But I do know some songs that use the Old Words. I have no idea what they mean, but it quiets the lambs at night when they’re frightened.”
“You sing?” Spencer’s eyes are bright with interest.
“Well,” Brendon wipes deprecatingly at his nose. “I like music, you see. And singing has always come naturally to me. Sometimes I give lessons to the children in Summerlin, and lead the choir at Sunday meetings.”
Spencer swallows and his brow creases, “Would you...would you sing? For me?”
“Now?” Brendon’s cheeks redden with embarrassment again.
“Yes. Please?” Spencer’s eyes are so clear and so blue and so filled yet again with a yearning that makes Brendon’s heart ache inside his rib cage. “It's been so long. I played drums as a child and my father would hum a melody as he worked the forge.”
Brendon blows out a breath and nods, never one to give up an opportunity to put on a show. “Yes, of course.” He swallows and stands up, hands clasps demurely in front of him. “I might mispronounce some of the words, and I apologize for that, but this is how I learned it.” He takes a deep breath, then opens his mouth and begins to sing:
Is dearg an rós a fhásann sa ghairdín úd
Is geal bán lile na ngleanntán
Is fíorghlan an t-uisce a shrúthann sa Bhóinn
Ach is áille mo shearc-rún ná éinne.
Tar anall thar na cnoic, a spéirbhean álainn ó
Tar anall thar na cnoic chugam a ghrá gheal
Roghnaigh tusa'n rós agus tabharfaidh mis'n mhóid
Is beidh mise mar bhuanghrá duit i gcónaí.
Ba thíos na coillte glasa i gCill Airne a d'éalaíomar
Agus an ghealach is na réaltaí go soiléir ar an aer
Ba anuas ar a h-órfholt loinnir na géalaí
Agus gheall sí í féin mar chéile domh i gcónaí.
For the longest moment, Spencer says nothing. He just stares up at Brendon, blue eyes shining bright. “Thank you,” he finally manages and his voice sounds husky and low to Brendon’s ears.
“Did I do okay? “ Brendon takes Spencer’s offered hand and sits down beside him again, back resting against the wide expanse of tree trunk. Spencer gives him a wan smile and nods. “Don’t you have songs in the Seelie Lands?”
“Yes, but music and song are different in Faerie, as are most things. No one sings just for the joy of it. Music is the call to battle, songs are to weave spells, or speak of the glories of the King. ”
“That’s sad,” Brendon links his arm through Spencer’s and leans his head on his shoulder.
Spencer inclines his head, tilting it to rest against Brendon’s, “Thank you for that. It was beautiful. You truly do not know the words you sing?”
“Nope, just that it makes the flock happy. I’m not singing a bunch of curse words, am I?” Brendon snickers.
Looking at the flower drooping a little from where Brendon had secured it in his doublet, Spencer reaches up to touch it softly and says, “Not in the least. It is a love ballad, and compares the beauty and fragility of love to a rose.”
“Oh!” Brendon raises his hands to his mouth and giggles. “Well, that fits, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” Spencer takes the rose and twirls it softly against Brendon’s cheek.
Wriggling against the tickle of the pink bloom, Brendon laughs and clasps his hands around Spencer’s wrists. “So, are you going to collect your payment for my transgression?”
Visibly confused, Spencer looks from Brendon’s grinning face to the rose in his hand. “Transgression?”
“Well, you are the Guardian of the Roses, right? And last time I was here you seemed pretty serious about me paying the price for picking a rose...” Brendon prompts.
Spencer clears his throat and his cheeks turn a delicate pink, “Oh yes, of course. The price for stealing the King’s roses is...”
“A kiss” Brendon says coyly, fluttering his eyelashes. He deftly plucks the rose from Spencer’s loose grip and smiles bright, leaning in close. “Unless of course you think that as a repeat offender, the King deserves to see my head roll.”
Pressing his forehead to Brendon’s, in a low voice Spencer says, “No, a kiss will do. I feel I could become very fond of your...head, Bòidheach.”
“Bòidheach?” Brendon asks quietly. “You keep calling me that. What does it mean?”
“It means...friend.” Spencer finally answers after a long pause. His smile widens, revealing his white, even teeth.
“Friend. I like it...now about that kiss...” Brendon waggles his eyebrows and presses his lips to Spencer. Unlike their first kiss, so chaste and tentative, the moment Spencer tilts his head for a better angle, Brendon groans. That’s all the encouragement Spencer needs to press his tongue to the seam of Brendon’s lips.
Brendon opens his mouth and deepens the kiss, allowing Spencer to slide his tongue across his already slick bottom lip, and then into his mouth. Brendon’s eyes flutter closed at Spencer’s gentle but insistent exploration of his mouth. With a contented sigh Brendon wraps his arms around Spencer’s neck, and smiles as Spencer makes a satisfied grunting noise, pulling Brendon to him by his hips. Brendon pets at Spencer’s cheeks and peppers his face and neck with enthusiastic, sloppy kisses that make Spencer bark out a laugh. Silencing him by once more pressing a teasing kiss to his lips, they explore each others’ mouths for long, quiet moments.
When they finally break apart, chests heaving and faces red, Brendon leans into Spencer, resting his head on the solid warmth of Spencer’s shoulder. “Bòidheach,” Brendon sighs happily, and thinks that Spencer’s smile has never been more beautiful.
* * *
The spring in Brendon’s step doesn’t fade until he crests the hill that leads to his family’s croft and sees the familiar plume of smoke billowing from the hearth fire’s chimney. He slows to a careful walk, laughing as Bogart bounds happily toward him, and wonders exactly how much time has passed since he left Ian minding the flock in the North Pasture. He knows that he spent far more time with Spencer than he had the first time he’s ventured into the Wild Wood. He sighs and turns the latch.
“There he is!” Brendon’s mother exclaims and claps her hands merrily, rushing to the door and gathering Brendon into a hug.
“Uh, yes. Here I am.” Brendon giggles nervously and his eyes dart around the room. The table has been set for evening meal and his father sits at the head of the large wake table, scowling at the interruption. Handing his mother the large rose he’s held carefully in between his fingers on the long walk back from the Wild Wood, Brendon shrugs off his sweater and steps into the room.
Resting her hands lightly at the crook of Brendon’s elbow, Grace guides him over to the table, beaming as she says, “Ian told us you had gone off to Henderson, and we thought perhaps we might never see you again.”
“Henderson?” Brendon picks up a cup and takes a deep draught of the cold well water in it.
“You know Brendon, there are rules about courting. I suppose your mother and I have perhaps indulged your...odder inclinations, but I...we feel very strongly that we should meet this young woman’s parents.”
Shocked, Brendon covers the fact with a sputtering cough, “Oh, well...I...”
“Yes! Ian told us you’ve met a lovely girl from Henderson--that her mother hired you for pianoforte lessons!” Brendon’s mother’s eyes dance with delight and he can almost hear the wedding checklist ticking through her brain.
“I...yes. Henderson, I was in Henderson.” Brendon scowls and cuts viciously at the chop his mother sets on the plate in front of him.
Taking her seat beside him, Grace says, “Three days is quite a long time to be away, my dear. I certainly hope you were chaperoned. And we know nothing of this girl’s people.”
Blushing at the memory of kissing Spencer up against the dark trees in the Wild Wood, Brendon nods and says, “Of course, Mother. I would never think of attempting to spend time with an unescorted young lady. I apologize for not being more forthcoming...”
His father interrupts, “Please tell me she is of the Faith, Brendon.”
“Yes, Father.” Brendon busies himself with buttering his green beans and steadfastly does not meet his father’s eyes.
Passing a bowl of what Brendon thinks might be mashed parsnips, Grace says, “Boyd, we simply must meet this lovely family.”
“Yes, Brendon. We must.”
“Right.” Brendon scowls at his plate. No longer hungry, he slips pieces of meat to Bogart under the table and silently curses Ian and his stupid story.
* * *
Brendon manages to avoid having to plan a meeting of his family with the non-existent family of the fictional Henderson girl he’s courting because of the unexpected but welcome surge in requests for his services as a music teacher and luthier. Summerlin is a vast tract of land that stretches between mountains, lake, great meadows, and of course the darkness of the Wild Wood in the north. It is not unusual for Brendon to be gone before sunrise and back after moonrise. The work is challenging and rewarding and Brendon loves it enough to wish his parents could see it as an honourable trade.
A week goes by before Brendon can wait no longer and, on his way back from a particularly rewarding series of lessons in The Meadows, makes a beeline for the Wild Wood. This time he has the aid of a lantern to light his way. His feet have no difficulty at all in remembering the path to the rose bush. He stops for a moment to breathe deeply, inhaling the intoxicating scent the flowers emit. Exhaling slowly, Brendon extends a careful hand, his fingertips barely brushing a dinner plate sized bloom.
“I was hoping you would come back,” Spencer’s voice is soft behind Brendon, but it still startles him.
“Oh! I didn’t even have to pick a flower this time.” Brendon smiles and turns to Spencer.
Spencer lays a hand at Brendon’s waist, “Magic grows stronger, over time.”
“Do the flowers know what we’re doing?” Brendon whispers and waves a hand in front of the biggest blooms on the bush.
Laughing, full and bright and so beautiful Brendon can’t look away, Spencer gently tugs him from the massive tangle of rose brambles. “Something like that...” he brushes a kiss to Brendon’s temple.
It’s the cue Brendon’s been waiting for, and he slips his arms around Spencer’s neck, kissing him enthusiastically. When they break apart, Brendon’s hand resting lightly on Spencer’s chest, feeling the gentle thump of his heartbeat, he says, “You look...different.” He smiles and gives a small tug on the rough cotton of the shirt Spencer is wearing.
Spencer gazes down his body, and raises an eyebrow, “Well, I was preparing for my night’s rest.”
“Ah!” Brendon takes in Spencer’s loose shirt and tight breeches with an appreciative glance, “So no armour.”
“As a general rule I try not to abed with it, Bòidheach.” He smirks and tucks the tiny, yet lethal looking dagger he’d been brandishing into the waistband of his breeches.
Brendon laughs and hugs Spencer to him again, “Of course you don’t. Silly me. I’m not well versed in...knightly ways.” He likes that he can make Spencer smile, loose and easy without the shadows that plagued the gentle blue of his glance when first they’d met.
Rolling his eyes, Spencer returns Brendon’s hug and says, so close to Brendon’s ear that his voice is little more than a breath, “I would very much like to show you something. Will you come with me?”
“To the Seelie Lands?” Brendon untangles himself from Spencer and is staring at him, eyes wide with trepidation.
Spencer’s shoulders slump and he says, “No, no mo chroí. I cannot bring anyone to Faerie. Only the King can do that.” He cocks his head and gives Brendon a sleepy smile. “But I think it is something you would like. It is not far,” Spencer extends a hand in front of him, indicating the darkness of the Wild Wood beyond the pool of light that bathes the roses.
“Oh, of course, I know that. It’s in all the stories they tell the children.” His shoulders shake as he laughs at himself. “You’re allowed to leave the roses unattended?” Brendon shoves his hands into his pockets and rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet.
Raising an eyebrow Spencer replies, “Well, I don’t know if it’s a matter of allowed, but sometimes, given the right circumstances, I am permitted to wander a little, yes.”
part 2