If you know my name, tell it to me
It's a very rare person who is taken for what he truly is. – Schmendrick, The Last Unicorn

It’s a secret, but isn’t, like, a secret. Jon doesn’t like hiding parts of himself. Hiding feels too much like lying, and Bill tells him he has absolutely no sense of self preservation, but Jon can’t help it. Jon is who he is, and he can’t change.

*

Jon is older in years than he’s supposed to be, but younger at heart.

And it’s not—he’s okay with the guys. He can’t help the anxious feeling in the pit of his stomach, and if he gets too close, if they’re breathing hot and damp on his neck, yeah, he’s—he’s going to shy away, okay? It’s mostly reflex. He isn’t going to take off or anything, even though sometimes Bill looks at him like he thinks he will, thinks it’s only a matter of time before Mike presses his palms into Jon’s side, by accident or purpose, and Jon’s going to freak out.

He’s not going to mean to, is what Bill tells him, because Bill’s the most honest out of all of them, and Jon’ll take honesty over purity any day. He’s not going to mean to, but it’ll happen just the same.

“Jonny,” Bill says, and to anyone else it looks like he’s leaning into Jon, pressing all along his side, but Bill’s got his hand braced on the wall over Jon’s shoulder, they’re not even touching, and that half inch is all Jon needs to breathe.

“Jonny,” Bill says again, and he’s drunk. He’s drunk, but Jon only smells beer, so Bill’s not very drunk. “I see the way they look at you. Particularly that little one, the one with all the smiles.”

Jon likes the one with all the smiles. He’s softer in the eyes than Spencer, and he’s younger in his mouth than Ryan Ross. Jon likes his hugs.

“They’re good kids,” Jon says, shrugging. Bill and Jon are used to each other, they don’t dance around the truth, but Jon still catches the hitch, the split-second freeze when Jon’s shirt touches the underside of Bill’s arm.

Then Bill brings up his other hand, wrapped around the neck of a beer bottle, and he extends one finger - the middle one, which makes Jon smile despite himself – and says, “Yes, well, you would know.”

*

It isn’t like the myths.

Jon isn’t a solitary creature. He likes crowds, just—most times he doesn’t like to be in them. And he likes the people themselves more than the crowds, because people are endlessly fascinating.

Once, long ago, Jon was taught to think and see and taste and know in black and white, in good and evil. Eve ate the apple, and paradise disappeared along with ignorance. There are things that Jon is supposed to admire, and things Jon is supposed to condemn, and Jon can probably blame Bill, really, for all of the gray he sees now.

Bill is wicked but truthful. Bill is sly and sometimes petty, but on warm, sunny days he lays sober in the grass with Jon. Their fingers lace together, clover tangled between them, and Bill is so good in that moment, so strong and loved, that Jon feels tears gather at the corners of his eyes.

“Fuck, Jon, are you—are you—“

“Shut up,” Jon mumbles, using his free hand to rub away the moisture, embarrassed.

Bill laughs, bright, and rolls over and brushes a quick kiss over Jon’s cheek. He’s up and running across the parking lot before Jon can even blink. Bill’s kissed Jon maybe a half dozen times over the years, cheek, nose, temple. Jon bites his lip and presses his palm over his face and grins.

*

“I’m a unicorn.”

“What the fuck, Jon,” Ryan says flatly.

Jon flinches. “It’s not a big deal. I just thought you guys should, uh, know.”

Ryan takes a step towards him and Jon doesn’t mean to back up, but he does anyway, retreats until his lower back is cutting into the counter of the bus kitchenette.

“Jon Walker,” Brendon says, soft, and Jon looks over at him and Brendon’s wide-eyed and Jon knows—he projects everything, he lets Brendon see him because it’s Brendon, and he’s maybe only done this voluntarily with Bill and Tom before – there’s a reason he’s still skittish around Pete, even though he knows Pete’s sorry - and Brendon’s eyes get even bigger and he breathes, “Holy shit.”

*

Ryan doesn’t believe him. It’s okay. Only it isn’t okay, not really, but Jon tries not to let it bother him. Pete knew and Bill knew and Tom knew, but not everyone gets it right away.

Jon can lie, but he doesn’t like to. It makes him sick to his stomach. It makes him feel too human sometimes, and Bill gets drunk and says, sprawled out on the lounge floor, arm careful inches from Jon’s, “You are human. You are, you are, look at your fucking face in the mirror, Jonny,” and Jon knows he’s trying to help, but Jon—Jon feels like he’s going to throw up all his insides.

Jon looks in the mirror and can see exactly who he is.

*

Ryan looks down at his notebook and quotes, “The unicorn is the only fabulous beast that does not seem to have been conceived out of human fears. In even the earliest references he is fierce yet good, selfless yet solitary, but always mysteriously beautiful. He could be captured only by unfair means, and his single horn was said to neutralize poison,” and Jon doesn’t know why, because he knows Ryan doesn’t believe him.

Jon nods, “Okay.” He can recite that from heart. It’s not strictly true, but it’s nice enough.

Ryan tilts his head at him, and the tightness around his mouth is mean, but his eyes aren’t nearly as hard as he seems to want them to be. “Are you captured, Jon?”

Jon blinks. There’s Pete, maybe, who sometimes does things wrong without even thinking. “I don’t.” Jon shakes his head. The words don’t mean what Ryan thinks they mean. “If you were going to kill me, Ryan Ross,” Jon says softly, a smile playing around his mouth, because he knows—he knows that maybe Ryan will never believe him about this, “you’d have to lure me close with a maiden.”

*

Jon’s never had sex.

Bill thinks this is a strange and wondrous fact - “Strange and wondrous, Jonny Walker” – and Jon isn’t exactly innocent, because he’s seen—he’s seen almost everything, living the way he does.

He’s seen Tommy and Bill—he’s seen them curled into each other, he’s seen long, slow kisses and frantic—he’s seen them have sex, because Bill’s open about it, and for a while, in the beginning, it was almost a taunt. A come join us, Jonny, thing, before Bill realized how much it cost Jon, how—how human and sick it made Jon feel. Bill isn’t mean, isn’t bitter or cynical, not like Mike.

Jon’s seen Mike, too. He’s seen Mike and nameless boys and girls and he’s seen the way Mike looks at him, sometimes, and Jon knows it’s only a matter of time, and he knows that he can’t stay with Bill forever.

Mike’s a good guy, Jon knows this, he does, but Jon’s—Jon’s who he is, and that can be sort of irresistible.

*

Jon finds Brendon in the middle of the field at a rest stop, sitting cross-legged, idly pulling out blades of grass. He tilts his head up and shades his eyes with a hand.

Jon smiles. Brendon looks like he’s eight, a pile of dandelions in his lap. “Ryan thinks you’re a maiden,” Jon says.

Brendon bites his bottom lip. “Shhh,” he says, “don’t tell.”

Jon mimes locking his mouth and drops down to kneel in front of Brendon, stares at him.

Brendon has never asked him anything about it, not since he’d opened up, and for once Brendon doesn’t even seem curious. There are no questions on his lips, in his eyes. Jon sighs. He sighs and reaches out and touches his fingers to Brendon’s heart and Brendon stops breathing for a second, freezes up like Bill when the contact is unexpected, when he’s not ready.

“You’re one kinky bastard, Brendon Urie,” Jon says, corner of his mouth quirked up. Brendon has just as many secrets written on his soul as any other human. Brendon’s got Bill’s candor, though, and just as much love.

Brendon’s heart is beating fast and his cheeks are pink, hot in the sun.

Jon lowers himself all the way to the ground, rolls slowly over so he’s on his back, pillowing his head on Brendon’s thigh.

Brendon doesn’t really move, not for a long, long while.

*

Spencer’s the one who sneaks up on them.

Jon’s not asleep, not really, but his eyelids are heavy and Brendon’s humming nonsense and the next thing he knows Spencer’s practically giving him a heart attack, dropping down to straddle Jon’s waist and Jon can usually handle touches he sees coming, but everything sparks off at once. Jon’s skin feels like it’s on fire, and he scrambles away, pushing at Spencer so hard he’s too stunned to hold on.

Spencer sprawls back on his ass, legs spread, eyes wide.

Jon’s breathing hard and he hasn’t felt that spike of fear in years, so many years, and maybe he’s been sort of protected by TAI or something, because all of a sudden his entire body is foreign. The way he’s standing, the way his arms wrap around his middle, the way the grass is soft and broken under his bare feet.

“Jon, Jon,” Spencer says. “I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean.” He pauses, and Jon thinks maybe he understands a little better now, and Brendon is standing but isn’t making any move to touch Jon, and Jon’s thankful for that, he is, but at the same time he kind of wants a hug.

Jon chokes out a laugh. “It’s, uh.” It’s not okay, it isn’t, but he’s still not sure whose fault it is. He let his guard down around people who don’t believe, and Jon should know better.

“I believe,” Brendon says, and Jon knows he said that last part out loud, then, and he’s. He’s a little calmer now, and he feels kind of stupid.

Spencer didn’t know. Jon thinks—Jon is sure Ryan asked him to do it, and Jon is sure Ryan—Jon is sure he was wrong, now. Ryan maybe won’t take his word for it, no, but that doesn’t mean he won’t think it’s the truth, eventually.

*

Ryan doesn’t apologize. Ryan rarely apologizes for anything, Jon thinks, but he doesn’t mind. There’s really nothing to actually be sorry for, even though Spencer looks like somebody kicked his dog, so maybe Ryan owes Spencer an apology, instead of Jon.

Jon tries to make up for it. He sidles close before sound check and stands so he’s nearly touching Spence, but not really. He can feel Spencer’s body heat and if Spencer shifted even just a little his hip would maybe brush Jon’s hand, but neither of them moves.

Jon matches his breathing to Spencer’s, then slows it down, watching the tense line of Spencer’s shoulders out of the corner of his eye, watching the stiffness fade little by little, until Spencer uncrosses his arms, mutters, “Thanks,” and Jon reaches out and hooks their pinkies together.

*

Spencer has old eyes, and Jon likes them. Jon likes the worn blue, the sharp smarts they carry. He likes Spencer’s fast tongue. Spencer never uses it against Jon.

*

Jon thinks Ryan’s mouth is tight from holding back smiles—like he’s not supposed to be happy, like all that’s happened to him, all that’s been truly good, has been born out of his abject misery.

Jon likes Ryan a lot more, once he figures that out.

*

“You should come play with us, Jon Walker, for good,” Brendon says, and it’s the second time they’ve asked – they set Spencer on him first; Spencer with a shy cast to his face, toeing at the ground, one of his lovely smiles curving his lips – and Jon says, “No,” but he really means, not yet.

*

Jon has never had sex, but he’s seen his friends make out and he’s seen—he’s seen them fuck, which is only a bad word when you use it outside of love, so Jon shouldn’t be thinking it, doesn’t usually, except that’s the only word that comes to mind when he stumbles over Spencer and Brendon.

It’s dark, but Jon’s always seen well at night, and Spencer’s got Brendon crowded up against the side of their bus and Brendon’s got his jeans dangling from one foot, leg hitched up high around Spencer’s waist, and Spencer’s got his own pants around his knees and Jon. Jon needs to walk away, and he does, but he can still see Spencer’s face pressed into Brendon’s neck, can still hear the broken sounds spilling out of Brendon’s mouth, and all he can think is fuck.

*

“You should come play with us,” Ryan says. “You should—” Ryan breaks off, shakes his head. He’s silent for a while and Jon watches his profile, resists the urge to reach out and push his hair back behind his ear, and he’s maybe never thought so consciously of touching anyone as much as he has with Ryan and Brendon and Spencer and that’s—that’s more scary than Jon has words for.

“Ryan—”

“I don’t like the way Mike looks at you,” he says, and Jon looks down at his hands.

“Mike’s harmless,” Jon says. He knows it’s only half true. Mike has some issues, but he thinks they’re more about Tom and Bill than Jon. “I can handle him.” Jon can, he knows this, even if he hopes he never has to.

“Come play with us anyway,” Ryan says. He turns to look at Jon and Jon.

Jon’s only ever felt it go one way.

He’s opened himself up to Bill and Tom and Brendon – Pete took, and Jon’s forgiven him for that, he has – but no one’s ever—Jon has never seen what he sees in Ryan so freely.

Jon knows the connection between souls and eyes, better than maybe anyone, and Jon can see lots of things just by looking, just by being close, by closing his eyes and breathing in. Jon has never been given anything.

A lump wells up in his throat and he rubs a palm across his chest. He swallows hard and his voice shakes a little when he says, “Okay.”

*

Brendon pushes and Jon lets him.

Bill isn’t bitter, even when Jon catches him watching the easy way Brendon hangs off his back. Bill, Jon sees, doesn’t care that Brendon is closer to Jon than Bill ever let himself be.

To Bill, Jon was one thing first, and then the other, and that’s probably more Jon’s fault than Bill’s.

To Brendon – and to Spencer, too, and Ryan – Jon’s theirs first. And then he’s the other. And sometimes that makes Jon’s heart sick, makes him see something all too human and fragile when he looks in the mirror, Bill’s words echoing in his head, his eyes reflecting nothing but his own stance over the counter.

And sometimes Jon thinks this is exactly what he wants to be.