But Not The Song: index post

But Not The Song
by ignipes and emilyray

'You can cage the singer, but not the song.' - Harry Belafonte

Fandom:  Panic at the Disco AND MANY OTHERS. (Principally The Academy Is... and My Chemical Romance, but it's kind of panbandom.)
Pairings:  Brendon/Vicky-T, Brendon/Ryan, Jon/Ryan, Spencer/Butcher, Ryan/Spencer, Brendon/Spencer, pre-Panic GSF
Warnings:  EVERYTHING, but especially for rape, character death, lots of violence and people getting hurt, and LOL SEX SLAVES.
Rating: NC-17
Summary:  This is the slavefic. Boys in cages. AU. EPIC hurt/comfort (~200,000 words.) You have been warned. As seimasin put it: this story definitely cannot be summed up in 100 words or less. Unless those words are "slaves! and shooting! and running! and angsting! and kissing! and more angsting! and a bunch of kids named Alex! did we mention the angst?

We have so many people to thank! This entire ridiculous story was originally told in the comments of a friendslocked entry in ignipes' journal and it would never have been finished without the peanut gallery (-slash- members of our friendslists) who very kindly refrained from going WHAT THE SHIT at us when we started flailing about boys! Boys in cages! 

But in particular: sociofemme volunteered to beta the behemoth and has done a fantastic job: she also saved the story from running into the rocks twice while we were in the process of writing it. trinity_clare was our gamma reader and caught a whole host of very stupid mistakes that the rest of us missed. arsenicjade gave us some of the nicest and most in-depth feedback we've ever received on the first draft and clarified a lot of things in our minds. wildestranger cunningly suggested a plot twist early on that turned out to be central to the whole story, and is also responsible for two of the most upsetting scenes in the fic (where 'responsible' = 'she asked, we told her'.) harriet_vane encouraged us and listened to us be ridiculous and told us to FIX IT NOW OMG. And all the other people who read and commented on the story (or parts of it) while it was still being written: thespatz, inmyriadbits, seimasin, elucreh, achika_chan, wordsalone, imntsaying, chebonne, vic_ramsey, nafs - without you guys encouraging us we would probably have given up. You were the best peanut gallery ever. ♥

Thanks also to all the people who made excited noises and waited patiently for us to finish and post. We hope you won't be disappointed!

Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue

Coda #1 - Drop It On A Dime
Coda #2 - don't sit under the apple tree
Coda #3 - We Who Are About To Die [DVD Commentary]
Coda #4 - Midwinter
Coda #5 - If You Meet King George's Men
Coda #6 - Way Manor Has Unusually Large Beds