A Different Kind of Love Story
Title: A Different Kind of Love Story
Pairings: Zack/Katie Kay, Ryan/Brendon implied
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: This is a complete work of fiction, no disrespect intended.
Summary: He’s really a mellow guy, most of the time. There’s just something about the idea of these boys running amuck in the middle of a rodeo in Arkansas that makes him start to sweat.
Notes: For maleyka, with love. Thanks to adellyna for cheerleading.
“Where’s Brendon?” Zack asks.
If he had a dime for every time he said that, he’d be making twice his salary. It’s an unwritten law of the universe that any time he has three of them corralled and ready to go wherever it is they’re supposed to be, Brendon is the one that’s gone astray.
“He was just here,” Ryan says helpfully.
It’s really time for them to head in, even with the small crowd gathered around the stage door still snapping pictures and waving for autographs, so Zack gets them all clumped together and keeps his eyes open for Brendon.
Ryan starts to go off, presumably to help search, and Zack puts a hand on his shoulder to keep him there. “I’ve got three of you, he’ll turn up,” he says, hoping it’s true. It’s better than losing Ryan to the crowd again and having to chase them both.
“There he is,” Spencer says, pointing. “Number four.”
Brendon dodges people and trips over his shoes into the center of their little group, looking sweaty and exhausted but exuberant, much like his bandmates. “I’m not number four,” he objects, bending down to tie his shoe and nearly tipping over onto the pavement. Zack hooks an arm around his waist to keep him upright and scans the crowd, making sure all is well.
Brendon straightens and continues his protest as they make their way back to the bus. “What are we judging by, popularity? Height? Star quality? Youth and beauty? I’m totally number one. Well, Spencer’s younger and prettier, but I’m still the star, right? And I have better fashion sense, everyone thinks so, right Ry?”
“I think Jon is number one,” Ryan answers, in the deadpan monotone that Zack has yet to fully learn how to read. He thinks maybe only Spencer can truly tell when Ryan is being serious and when he’s being funny. The rest of them just try to hazard their best guess.
Jon, who is currently passing around his bag of cheese doodles to be consumed by ravenous performers, accepts this tribute as his due with a little sketched bow.
“Well I’m number two then,” Brendon proclaims, mouth full of cheese doodles and teeth decidedly orange. “Or, ooh, number one-point-five. Like when you have two-point-five children? I’m totally the point five.”
“In,” Zack says, waving at the stairs to the bus. Brendon beams at him and thankfully obeys.
***
Zack got a lot of crap from his friends when he first took this job. He understands it looks slightly ridiculous, him tagging after four teenaged kids who come up to his armpits and weigh less than he does all combined, who wear girly clothes and hold hands and then go running off in separate directions. Sometimes (most of the time) it’s a chore to keep up.
But he also loves them, and it would be pretty hard not to, when they sit squeezed into a booth together teaching him how to catapult French fries off of spoons with stellar aim (Jon) or sing heartfelt Disney princess songs to him at five o’clock in the morning on the way to an interview (Brendon) or draw a spider’s web creeping over his cheek and down his neck just so he looks more like one of them during a meet and greet (Ryan) or bring him a cherry cola when he hasn’t had time during one of the refueling stops (Spencer).
So he ignores the shit he gets every time one of his friends comes around and his charges (that’s how he thinks of them, his responsibility, like a flock of sheep, adorable but not always particularly aware of their surroundings) are shoe shopping for designer sneakers with glitter on them, or sipping Slurpees and wondering aloud about how girls know when they have to start wearing bras, or god help him, wearing sparkly tiaras and feather boas and singing along to the Pussycat Dolls. It’s worth it.
His friend Roy, who he worked with a few years back on another tour, stands next to him during a soundcheck shaking his head. “They keep you running, don’t they?” he whistles, as Spencer takes off across the stage on his bicycle with Jon chasing him, waving a drumstick while Ryan snaps at them all and yanks his cap further onto his head before strumming a chord.
Across the stage, someone let Brendon have red Kool-aid and he’s currently trying to explain a problem with the monitors, gesticulating wildly and talking about five hundred miles per minute. Spencer’s bike wobbles around for another pass and this time he nearly takes out Ryan, who swears and gets run over by Jon a second later. Zack watches them all with a certain mix of aggravation and fondness, and replies evenly, “That they do.”
***
Early on, Zack sometimes rode in one of the other buses, with the techs or one of the other bands on tour or sometimes the dancers. He did that fairly often for a while, mostly because of Katie Kay. Nothing’s happened, of course, but she always smiles when she sees him and they had hot chocolate together one day after a soundcheck, and once she let him pick her up and spin her around like he was part of the stage act. Her dress flared out to the sides and she laughed and he rode on the dancers’ bus for most of that week.
Then one evening they got a radio call that the Panic! bus (they really did call it the Panic Bus, and not just because of the band name) had made an unscheduled stop at an indoor rodeo because someone had wanted to see if they could find a cowboy shirt with rhinestones and sequins, and by the time Zack had gotten up to the driver and told him they needed to turn around and stop as well, the band had gotten at least a fifteen-minute head start. Brendon was in line to ride the mechanical bull, Jon was on the other side of the arena trying on cowboy hats, Ryan and Spencer had disappeared without a trace, and Zack nearly had a heart attack tracking them all down.
He’s really a mellow guy, most of the time. There’s just something about the idea of these boys running amuck in the middle of a rodeo in Arkansas that makes him start to sweat.
***
There’s a carnival in the town they’re playing in, which to this band is like a siren’s song, so after a full day of interviews and the night before the show, they all troop off to have some fun. Brendon insists he will perish without cotton candy, Ryan is eyeing the colourful scarves hanging from the eaves of a tiny booth, Spencer wants to check out the fun house and Jon will go anywhere led by the promise of caramel corn and funnel cakes.
Half an hour later, they’ve decided it’s time for rides, and all of them have their eyes on the Cyclone, which is of course the biggest, fastest-moving, most dangerous ride in the entire place. They get their tickets at the booth and take off for the entry gate, and then Brendon turns around and runs back, dropping his hotel key and wallet into Zack’s hands with a hopeful look. “Can you watch them for me?” he begs. “I don’t want them to fall out.”
Since the pockets on Brendon’s jeans wouldn’t carry much more than a library card, Zack agrees, which unfortunately seems to be the cue for all of them to follow Brendon’s lead and hand off their personal items until his cargo pants are bulging with various keys, pocket knives, ID lanyards, sidekicks, and Jon’s camera. Spencer presses the giant pink teddy bear that Jon won for him into Zack’s arms and smiles. “Thanks.”
Katie and some of the other girls wander up while he’s standing there, trying to look cool and menacing while holding a stuffed pink animal under his arm, and she giggles. “It’s like having kids, isn’t it?” she asks, cocking her head to look up at the Cyclone, where familiar whooping and hollering reaches their ears all the way down from the spinning wheel in the sky.
Zack considers, shifting and feeling his pockets jangle heavily, holding the ridiculous bear and what’s left of Ryan’s cotton candy. “Actually,” he admits, “it’s more like having a girlfriend.”
***
“Let’s do White Castle tonight,” Ryan says when they get off the bus for a dinner break, eyeing the choices at the food court of the outdoor mall while they sort themselves out and pull on various hoodies, hats and flip-flops.
“We did that yesterday,” Spencer reminds him, arms crossed absently and studying the signs.
“What about Chinese?” Jon offers, gaze following the scent of egg rolls and kung pao chicken.
The other buses are stopping here as well, it’s the best place around for miles, and Zack watches the dancers tumble off of their bus and head for the Chinese joint. “Chinese sounds good,” he seconds. Maybe he can sit with Katie and order some of those donut things to go with his chow mein.
Ryan’s nose wrinkles, and the jut of his chin promises full rebellion should any option besides hamburgers and French fries be considered. Jon will agree just to keep the peace, Zack knows from experience, but Spencer has never catered to Ryan’s bitch fits, and in fact throws some pretty good ones of his own.
“I think I want a wrap,” he says, leaving Brendon bouncing from one foot to the other, the picture of indecision.
“Wraps would be good, we could get, hey, do you think they have hummus, like at that place in Fairfax? We could get, oh wait, are we going to White Castle? Because I think…ooh, tacos!”
“I don’t want tacos,” Ryan announces loudly, lest anyone be unaware of that fact. Spencer completely ignores him, rubbing his stomach absently. Jon is obviously staying neutral, not taking sides and waiting for everyone to sort themselves out. Zack can almost see the white flag waving over his head.
“Well I don’t want hamburgers,” Spencer counters, and that’s done it, Ryan’s eyes narrow and his stance shifts, slightly more aggressive to match the challenge in Spencer’s. It’s been a long, hot day, and tempers are on edge, and Zack really just wants to sit and eat something. He stays silent, like Jon, and waits it out.
Brendon, bless his heart, is completely oblivious. “Do you think they have those little rolled things? Do you remember? Not burritos, but those ch- chic- taq- what were they called? With the sauce?”
Spencer starts to answer, but Jon has apparently caught sight of the lasers about to start shooting from Ryan’s eyes and taken charge. “Why don’t we split up tonight? We’ll meet back at the bus in half an hour, is that okay, Zack?”
Ryan’s already moving. Zack doesn’t have much of a chance to say no, and they won’t be going far, anyway. He watches them all head off in different directions, and with one longing look at Katie and the donuts, he follows Ryan and Spencer.
***
Jon, of all of them, spends the most time with him. Zack has seen Jon with enough people to guess that he can get along with pretty much anyone, anywhere, without really trying, and it’s a good talent to have.
Zack sits outside with Jon one day as the sun is setting over the Arizona desert, watching the others play some game that involves a lot of girly running and the occasional shriek and vehement yelling before the protester (Ryan) gets tackled to the ground and sat on.
Jon has a flower behind his ear that matches the one behind Zack’s, courtesy of Brendon, and he cocks his head while he watches them, visibly framing shots in his head, capturing the moment. Zack just sits back and enjoys the time to relax, fanning away the gnats and keeping one eye on his charges.
One of the things Zack likes most about Jon is that he can keep up with anyone when it comes to banter, and has a great sense of humour, but he can also sit in the stillness of a desert evening while the sun bleeds red and orange into the sky and just be.
Zack thinks about taking the ridiculous flower out of his hair, but Brendon had given him a huge grin when he tucked it in there, so he leaves it.
Spencer throws a ball and Ryan catches it, which in the inexplicable rules to their game means that Brendon abandons his victory lap around Spencer to full-out tackle Ryan again. He goes down cursing, Spencer piling on top a second later, and Zack stretches back on his elbows and smiles.
***
In Milwaukee they go shopping. They’re all going stir-crazy from prolonged confinement on the tour bus and it’s raining outside, so they can’t burn off excess energy on the basketball court, which had been the plan until half an hour ago when the thunderclouds started rolling in.
“You could wear this,” Ryan decides, draping a sweater vest over Spencer’s chest.
“My mother could wear that,” Spencer returns, removing the offending item and picking a pink button-down off the rack. Ryan takes it out of his hands and puts it right back next to the other ones.
“No,” he says firmly. Brendon snickers and adds another pair of jeans to the pile he has in his arms, and Ryan’s fashion-police attention turns on him instead.
“I need to buy socks,” Brendon says, juggling eight pairs of pants in varying shades of denim to reach for an airbrushed t-shirt.
“You need to do laundry,” Jon corrects, wandering through the racks of cargo shorts and looking over everything with vague interest.
“What about this?” Ryan asks, holding another shirt across Spencer’s torso.
“Stop with the ruffles,” Spencer tells him, picking at one of the sleeves and covertly eyeing the shoe section.
“There’s nothing wrong with ruffles,” Ryan defends, sounding stung and jamming the shirt back onto the rack.
“Or glitter,” Brendon pipes up from several rows away, his dark hair sticking up in tufts over the racks of clothing. “I like glitter.”
“We should get you a shirt,” Jon says suddenly, appearing at Zack’s elbow holding a close cousin to the shirt Spencer had just rejected.
Zack shakes his head and folds his arms over his chest, secure in the fact that he can call this trip to a halt well before Ryan gets that dangerous shopping gleam in his eyes, and that practically nothing in this department will fit him. “I don’t do ruffles.”
Jon gives him a knowing look and says, ”Yet.”
***
Zack is on the way back from the best barbecued ribs in Kansas City, satiated and enjoying the warmth of the spring air, when Brendon yells, “Fountain!”
They all immediately change course, like a flock of geese following the leader, and Zack has eaten nearly an entire dead cow tonight, so he’s in the mood to be lenient. They have plenty of time to get back, and even the most compelling fountain can’t be that much of a detour.
An older woman pushing a baby carriage gives them a disapproving look and sniffs, which Zack doesn’t understand until he sees that Ryan and Brendon (mostly Brendon) are skipping. And…holding hands.
He can see how that might look to the average passerby.
Spencer shakes his hair out of his eyes - it’s getting long again, Zack foresees a minor amount of fuss over haircuts in the near future - and pulls his pink hoodie tighter around him. Jon is wearing a lei, courtesy of the restaurant they just patronized, and all four of them are in jeans so tight they’ve gone past suggestive into nearly obscene.
The woman sniffs again. Zack gives her a Look, and she decides to take her opinions elsewhere. He settles back into peaceable barbecue-induced contentment.
Brendon splashes feet-first into the fountain and drags Ryan with him, who tries in vain to shield his hair and eyeliner and only ends up on his ass in the water when Brendon pulls harder. Spencer starts laughing, and Brendon and Ryan team up in retaliation to splash him and finally tug him in after them. Jon pulls out his camera, snaps a couple of pictures, and only remains unmolested by virtue of holding water-sensitive equipment.
Zack is too big for them to drag him in, even all working together, but he lets them get him wet and waits a whole fifteen minutes before telling them it’s time to go.
***
Zack rarely knows what goes on onstage. He can catch pieces of it sometimes, if he’s paying close attention, but the guys have their own language when they’re performing, everything relayed in a flash of eyes or the cock of a hip, and their dynamics are complicated enough as it is without having to decode what it means when Brendon takes a step too close to Jon or Ryan hangs out for a while on the wrong side of the stage.
Once they come off, though, then he knows.
“You did it again,” Ryan snaps at Spencer, and shoves Brendon hard enough out of his way that he stumbles. Zack moves into range just in case a physical barrier is needed, and sees Jon tense up to do the same.
“It works better,” Spencer answers unrepentantly, and the two of them square off in the narrow hallway with the rest of the band uncertainly hanging around the fringes.
“That’s not the point,” Ryan snarls back, hands balled into fists and voice like daggers, each one sharp and cold. “We talked about this.”
Brendon tries to intervene, awkwardly soothing. “It really did work,” he begins, and then backpedals out of shoving range when Ryan turns on him.
“Now you’re on his side? You said it worked the way we had it.”
“No,” Brendon interrupts immediately, “No, I think it does, I just…”
“Of course he’s on your side,” Spencer sneers, arms crossed and legs slightly spread, every inch of his posture challenging. “Where else would he be? It’s not like he’s going to risk…”
“Fuck you,” Ryan spits, taking a step forward, and Brendon is caught in the middle, somewhere between hurt and angry.
“Hey guys,” he tries, arms out, “Guys…”
“Stay out of this, Brendon,” Spencer warns, and this time it’s him pushing, and Zack can’t catch Brendon because he’s falling in the wrong direction.
Ryan steps into Spencer’s personal space and shoves, and that’s as far as Zack is willing to let this go. “Enough,” he says, getting between them. His job is to protect them, even if it’s from each other. “Go shower, it’s time to get back to the bus.”
There won’t be any autograph signing tonight, that’s for sure. Jon has already made himself scarce, choosing discretion as the better part of valor, and Brendon disappears immediately to lick his wounds, the tinny sounds of The Smiths echoing from his headphones. Spencer and Ryan draw battle lines across the bus, and Jon and Brendon tiptoe carefully between them.
“It won’t last,” Jon says the next day as they ride up in the cab with the driver, away from the crackling hostility in the back.
He’s right, of course, but it doesn’t make Zack’s job any easier.
***
“It’s this way,” Brendon chants, bouncing across the grass in search of the hospitality lunch they’ve been promised, the result of a hard day’s work doing publicity and preparing for the concert at the same time. “This way this way this way.”
Zack is hoping the dancers will be at lunch, because he hasn’t talked to Katie in a while, and it would be cool if they were all taking a break together. He doesn’t see any of their crew, but then they’re not at the lunch tent yet, and don’t appear to be getting any closer.
“Are you sure it’s this way?” Ryan asks dubiously, craning his neck to look at the monochrome white buildings surrounding them.
“They said on the mall, that’s the grass, the courtyard thing,” Brendon returns. “That’s here. They said it was here, we’re just not there yet. And they said chicken. Fried chicken!”
“Mmm,” Jon agrees, looking properly appreciative of fried chicken while being distracted by some odd-looking wildflowers growing up between cracks in the stone path they’re crossing. Spencer staggers dramatically and Zack catches him without thinking, automatically sticking out an arm to hold his weight when Spencer mock-swoons.
“I’m starving,” he tells Zack woefully. “I’m faint with hunger. I might not be able to go on.”
Zack gives in because it’s a nice day and they’ve all been on good behaviour, lifting Spencer into his arms and carrying him along in the wake of the others. They pass a pair of local students who give them startled looks, nearly tripping on the pavement. Jon and Brendon have their arms around each other, giggling, and Spencer kicks his legs a little in Zack’s arms while Ryan ignores them all. Zack walks on without acknowledging the goggle-eyed girls, trying to look as though this is all perfectly normal. Which for them, it is.
“There it is!” Brendon yells, jumping up and down and flinging himself into Ryan, who staggers with an ‘oof’ but doesn’t push Brendon off. “There’s the food! The tent thing! Chiiiiicken!”
Spencer points imperiously, face stern and commanding from his lofty perch against Zack’s chest. “Onward!”
***
They have a 6 AM radio interview to get to, and Brendon’s not in his bunk. Zack doesn’t want to know, he really doesn’t, but he already kind of does, which is why the next place he checks (reluctantly) is Ryan’s bunk.
Brendon’s not there, either. But then neither is Ryan, which isn’t all that much of a reassurance.
He finds them both curled up in the back lounge, draped over each other like sleeping puppies, with the DVD player gone to blue and a packet of gummi worms tilted sideways across Ryan’s lap.
He checks his watch, sighs, and looks at them again. Brendon makes a soft whuffling sound into Ryan’s hair and Ryan twitches, but then their fingers brush and he immediately settles again.
Spencer wanders in, scrubbing at his eyes and yawning, hair fluffed like a kitten’s from sleep and newly-woken. He sees the two of them and wanders back out again, presumably in search of breakfast.
Zack goes to pour himself a cup of coffee and lets them sleep another five minutes.
***
It’s after the final show of the tour that Katie finally runs backstage, giggling and flushed from the performance, and kisses him.
Zack is about to take her hand and ask her out properly, possibly kiss her again because that was nice and he wants more while it’s on offer, when he’s hit by the tsunami-force of four band members high on adrenaline and charged from the aftermath of several hundred people singing their music back to them in a packed arena.
“I was like, no wait, did you see it? The girl, with the…anyway, I was trying to…”
“Can we go to La Casa tonight? I think that’s where the crew is going, we should go, even just for a little bit…”
“I can’t believe the feedback during that one break, did you hear it? I thought they’d…well, it’s not like it matters now, and it was still a great show, but I wish we could have…”
“PIGGYBACK!” Brendon yells over the rest of them, and hurls himself onto Zack’s back with the enthusiasm and dexterity of a spider monkey.
Zack catches him before he overbalances and hits the floor, and Brendon wraps his legs around Zack’s waist and wriggles up his body into a more secure position. “I’m so sweaty,” he announces happily, arms and legs now wrapped tightly around Zack’s torso. “Like, really sweaty. I think this is the grossest I’ve ever been.”
“Thanks,” Zack replies dryly. Katie is grinning at him, and his cheeks warm slightly. Only slightly.
“Hey,” Spencer puts in, leaning against his side and stripping off what he can of his costume. “You love us.”
“But you love me best,” Brendon emphasizes, and licks his cheek. Ryan rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. Katie is smiling too, warm and happy. Zack is working up the courage to say something to her, even something vague, before they have to go to the photo thing with the VIPs. He just has no idea what it is.
“I’ll see you later,” Katie says, and there’s a promise in her voice, in the way she looks at him when she says it. Jon raises his eyebrows. Zack pretends not to notice, and watches her hips sway as she walks down the hall.
“Admit it,” Spencer continues. “You’ll miss us when we’re gone.”
They’re all flying out tomorrow, and Zack is going to have a well-earned vacation back home without any responsibilities for weeks. He’s looking forward to it, to the break and the quiet and not being on anyone else’s schedule.
Brendon holds out a hand from his perch on Zack’s back, and Ryan obediently steps in so Brendon can fix one of his rosettes that’s gone askew. Spencer has finished his post-show transformation but isn’t relinquishing his place by Zack’s side, leaning companionably against him. Jon moves in as if answering a silent call, and suddenly they’re all in a group hug with Zack (and Brendon) in the middle.
Zack will be the first to admit it. As much of a pain as this job can be, he’ll miss them when they’re gone.
***
They’re at the airport to drop Jon off, but for once by some miracle they’ve arrived early (“We don’t want to be late!” Brendon had called as the others checked out of the hotel, and “Yes we do, we want to keep Jon forever,” Spencer had called back) so there’s enough time for shaved ice at an ice cream stand along the way.
“What do you have?” Ryan asks, investigating everyone else’s paper cones, and Spencer wordlessly offers it to him for a bite. Jon and Spencer have both already expressed interest in Zack’s Tropical Hurricane, and he’s resigned to only eating half of it once the guys are through taste-testing. For having such tiny bodies, they manage to consume an amazing amount of food. Particularly sugar.
They start passing around cones, and Zack has relaxed back onto one of the picnic benches, thinking idly about meeting up with Katie after he sees the band off, the coffee date they’ve set up in just a few short hours before she too flies home. He’s enjoying the quiet, watching a mother round up her hyperactive brood for ice cream with keen sympathy and understanding, and then he realizes, with the sixth sense that he’s cultivated while on tour, that it’s possibly a bit too quiet.
He counts, looks around, and counts again. Definitely too quiet.
“Guys,” he says, sitting up straight on the picnic bench. “Where’s Brendon?”
Pairings: Zack/Katie Kay, Ryan/Brendon implied
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: This is a complete work of fiction, no disrespect intended.
Summary: He’s really a mellow guy, most of the time. There’s just something about the idea of these boys running amuck in the middle of a rodeo in Arkansas that makes him start to sweat.
Notes: For maleyka, with love. Thanks to adellyna for cheerleading.
“Where’s Brendon?” Zack asks.
If he had a dime for every time he said that, he’d be making twice his salary. It’s an unwritten law of the universe that any time he has three of them corralled and ready to go wherever it is they’re supposed to be, Brendon is the one that’s gone astray.
“He was just here,” Ryan says helpfully.
It’s really time for them to head in, even with the small crowd gathered around the stage door still snapping pictures and waving for autographs, so Zack gets them all clumped together and keeps his eyes open for Brendon.
Ryan starts to go off, presumably to help search, and Zack puts a hand on his shoulder to keep him there. “I’ve got three of you, he’ll turn up,” he says, hoping it’s true. It’s better than losing Ryan to the crowd again and having to chase them both.
“There he is,” Spencer says, pointing. “Number four.”
Brendon dodges people and trips over his shoes into the center of their little group, looking sweaty and exhausted but exuberant, much like his bandmates. “I’m not number four,” he objects, bending down to tie his shoe and nearly tipping over onto the pavement. Zack hooks an arm around his waist to keep him upright and scans the crowd, making sure all is well.
Brendon straightens and continues his protest as they make their way back to the bus. “What are we judging by, popularity? Height? Star quality? Youth and beauty? I’m totally number one. Well, Spencer’s younger and prettier, but I’m still the star, right? And I have better fashion sense, everyone thinks so, right Ry?”
“I think Jon is number one,” Ryan answers, in the deadpan monotone that Zack has yet to fully learn how to read. He thinks maybe only Spencer can truly tell when Ryan is being serious and when he’s being funny. The rest of them just try to hazard their best guess.
Jon, who is currently passing around his bag of cheese doodles to be consumed by ravenous performers, accepts this tribute as his due with a little sketched bow.
“Well I’m number two then,” Brendon proclaims, mouth full of cheese doodles and teeth decidedly orange. “Or, ooh, number one-point-five. Like when you have two-point-five children? I’m totally the point five.”
“In,” Zack says, waving at the stairs to the bus. Brendon beams at him and thankfully obeys.
***
Zack got a lot of crap from his friends when he first took this job. He understands it looks slightly ridiculous, him tagging after four teenaged kids who come up to his armpits and weigh less than he does all combined, who wear girly clothes and hold hands and then go running off in separate directions. Sometimes (most of the time) it’s a chore to keep up.
But he also loves them, and it would be pretty hard not to, when they sit squeezed into a booth together teaching him how to catapult French fries off of spoons with stellar aim (Jon) or sing heartfelt Disney princess songs to him at five o’clock in the morning on the way to an interview (Brendon) or draw a spider’s web creeping over his cheek and down his neck just so he looks more like one of them during a meet and greet (Ryan) or bring him a cherry cola when he hasn’t had time during one of the refueling stops (Spencer).
So he ignores the shit he gets every time one of his friends comes around and his charges (that’s how he thinks of them, his responsibility, like a flock of sheep, adorable but not always particularly aware of their surroundings) are shoe shopping for designer sneakers with glitter on them, or sipping Slurpees and wondering aloud about how girls know when they have to start wearing bras, or god help him, wearing sparkly tiaras and feather boas and singing along to the Pussycat Dolls. It’s worth it.
His friend Roy, who he worked with a few years back on another tour, stands next to him during a soundcheck shaking his head. “They keep you running, don’t they?” he whistles, as Spencer takes off across the stage on his bicycle with Jon chasing him, waving a drumstick while Ryan snaps at them all and yanks his cap further onto his head before strumming a chord.
Across the stage, someone let Brendon have red Kool-aid and he’s currently trying to explain a problem with the monitors, gesticulating wildly and talking about five hundred miles per minute. Spencer’s bike wobbles around for another pass and this time he nearly takes out Ryan, who swears and gets run over by Jon a second later. Zack watches them all with a certain mix of aggravation and fondness, and replies evenly, “That they do.”
***
Early on, Zack sometimes rode in one of the other buses, with the techs or one of the other bands on tour or sometimes the dancers. He did that fairly often for a while, mostly because of Katie Kay. Nothing’s happened, of course, but she always smiles when she sees him and they had hot chocolate together one day after a soundcheck, and once she let him pick her up and spin her around like he was part of the stage act. Her dress flared out to the sides and she laughed and he rode on the dancers’ bus for most of that week.
Then one evening they got a radio call that the Panic! bus (they really did call it the Panic Bus, and not just because of the band name) had made an unscheduled stop at an indoor rodeo because someone had wanted to see if they could find a cowboy shirt with rhinestones and sequins, and by the time Zack had gotten up to the driver and told him they needed to turn around and stop as well, the band had gotten at least a fifteen-minute head start. Brendon was in line to ride the mechanical bull, Jon was on the other side of the arena trying on cowboy hats, Ryan and Spencer had disappeared without a trace, and Zack nearly had a heart attack tracking them all down.
He’s really a mellow guy, most of the time. There’s just something about the idea of these boys running amuck in the middle of a rodeo in Arkansas that makes him start to sweat.
***
There’s a carnival in the town they’re playing in, which to this band is like a siren’s song, so after a full day of interviews and the night before the show, they all troop off to have some fun. Brendon insists he will perish without cotton candy, Ryan is eyeing the colourful scarves hanging from the eaves of a tiny booth, Spencer wants to check out the fun house and Jon will go anywhere led by the promise of caramel corn and funnel cakes.
Half an hour later, they’ve decided it’s time for rides, and all of them have their eyes on the Cyclone, which is of course the biggest, fastest-moving, most dangerous ride in the entire place. They get their tickets at the booth and take off for the entry gate, and then Brendon turns around and runs back, dropping his hotel key and wallet into Zack’s hands with a hopeful look. “Can you watch them for me?” he begs. “I don’t want them to fall out.”
Since the pockets on Brendon’s jeans wouldn’t carry much more than a library card, Zack agrees, which unfortunately seems to be the cue for all of them to follow Brendon’s lead and hand off their personal items until his cargo pants are bulging with various keys, pocket knives, ID lanyards, sidekicks, and Jon’s camera. Spencer presses the giant pink teddy bear that Jon won for him into Zack’s arms and smiles. “Thanks.”
Katie and some of the other girls wander up while he’s standing there, trying to look cool and menacing while holding a stuffed pink animal under his arm, and she giggles. “It’s like having kids, isn’t it?” she asks, cocking her head to look up at the Cyclone, where familiar whooping and hollering reaches their ears all the way down from the spinning wheel in the sky.
Zack considers, shifting and feeling his pockets jangle heavily, holding the ridiculous bear and what’s left of Ryan’s cotton candy. “Actually,” he admits, “it’s more like having a girlfriend.”
***
“Let’s do White Castle tonight,” Ryan says when they get off the bus for a dinner break, eyeing the choices at the food court of the outdoor mall while they sort themselves out and pull on various hoodies, hats and flip-flops.
“We did that yesterday,” Spencer reminds him, arms crossed absently and studying the signs.
“What about Chinese?” Jon offers, gaze following the scent of egg rolls and kung pao chicken.
The other buses are stopping here as well, it’s the best place around for miles, and Zack watches the dancers tumble off of their bus and head for the Chinese joint. “Chinese sounds good,” he seconds. Maybe he can sit with Katie and order some of those donut things to go with his chow mein.
Ryan’s nose wrinkles, and the jut of his chin promises full rebellion should any option besides hamburgers and French fries be considered. Jon will agree just to keep the peace, Zack knows from experience, but Spencer has never catered to Ryan’s bitch fits, and in fact throws some pretty good ones of his own.
“I think I want a wrap,” he says, leaving Brendon bouncing from one foot to the other, the picture of indecision.
“Wraps would be good, we could get, hey, do you think they have hummus, like at that place in Fairfax? We could get, oh wait, are we going to White Castle? Because I think…ooh, tacos!”
“I don’t want tacos,” Ryan announces loudly, lest anyone be unaware of that fact. Spencer completely ignores him, rubbing his stomach absently. Jon is obviously staying neutral, not taking sides and waiting for everyone to sort themselves out. Zack can almost see the white flag waving over his head.
“Well I don’t want hamburgers,” Spencer counters, and that’s done it, Ryan’s eyes narrow and his stance shifts, slightly more aggressive to match the challenge in Spencer’s. It’s been a long, hot day, and tempers are on edge, and Zack really just wants to sit and eat something. He stays silent, like Jon, and waits it out.
Brendon, bless his heart, is completely oblivious. “Do you think they have those little rolled things? Do you remember? Not burritos, but those ch- chic- taq- what were they called? With the sauce?”
Spencer starts to answer, but Jon has apparently caught sight of the lasers about to start shooting from Ryan’s eyes and taken charge. “Why don’t we split up tonight? We’ll meet back at the bus in half an hour, is that okay, Zack?”
Ryan’s already moving. Zack doesn’t have much of a chance to say no, and they won’t be going far, anyway. He watches them all head off in different directions, and with one longing look at Katie and the donuts, he follows Ryan and Spencer.
***
Jon, of all of them, spends the most time with him. Zack has seen Jon with enough people to guess that he can get along with pretty much anyone, anywhere, without really trying, and it’s a good talent to have.
Zack sits outside with Jon one day as the sun is setting over the Arizona desert, watching the others play some game that involves a lot of girly running and the occasional shriek and vehement yelling before the protester (Ryan) gets tackled to the ground and sat on.
Jon has a flower behind his ear that matches the one behind Zack’s, courtesy of Brendon, and he cocks his head while he watches them, visibly framing shots in his head, capturing the moment. Zack just sits back and enjoys the time to relax, fanning away the gnats and keeping one eye on his charges.
One of the things Zack likes most about Jon is that he can keep up with anyone when it comes to banter, and has a great sense of humour, but he can also sit in the stillness of a desert evening while the sun bleeds red and orange into the sky and just be.
Zack thinks about taking the ridiculous flower out of his hair, but Brendon had given him a huge grin when he tucked it in there, so he leaves it.
Spencer throws a ball and Ryan catches it, which in the inexplicable rules to their game means that Brendon abandons his victory lap around Spencer to full-out tackle Ryan again. He goes down cursing, Spencer piling on top a second later, and Zack stretches back on his elbows and smiles.
***
In Milwaukee they go shopping. They’re all going stir-crazy from prolonged confinement on the tour bus and it’s raining outside, so they can’t burn off excess energy on the basketball court, which had been the plan until half an hour ago when the thunderclouds started rolling in.
“You could wear this,” Ryan decides, draping a sweater vest over Spencer’s chest.
“My mother could wear that,” Spencer returns, removing the offending item and picking a pink button-down off the rack. Ryan takes it out of his hands and puts it right back next to the other ones.
“No,” he says firmly. Brendon snickers and adds another pair of jeans to the pile he has in his arms, and Ryan’s fashion-police attention turns on him instead.
“I need to buy socks,” Brendon says, juggling eight pairs of pants in varying shades of denim to reach for an airbrushed t-shirt.
“You need to do laundry,” Jon corrects, wandering through the racks of cargo shorts and looking over everything with vague interest.
“What about this?” Ryan asks, holding another shirt across Spencer’s torso.
“Stop with the ruffles,” Spencer tells him, picking at one of the sleeves and covertly eyeing the shoe section.
“There’s nothing wrong with ruffles,” Ryan defends, sounding stung and jamming the shirt back onto the rack.
“Or glitter,” Brendon pipes up from several rows away, his dark hair sticking up in tufts over the racks of clothing. “I like glitter.”
“We should get you a shirt,” Jon says suddenly, appearing at Zack’s elbow holding a close cousin to the shirt Spencer had just rejected.
Zack shakes his head and folds his arms over his chest, secure in the fact that he can call this trip to a halt well before Ryan gets that dangerous shopping gleam in his eyes, and that practically nothing in this department will fit him. “I don’t do ruffles.”
Jon gives him a knowing look and says, ”Yet.”
***
Zack is on the way back from the best barbecued ribs in Kansas City, satiated and enjoying the warmth of the spring air, when Brendon yells, “Fountain!”
They all immediately change course, like a flock of geese following the leader, and Zack has eaten nearly an entire dead cow tonight, so he’s in the mood to be lenient. They have plenty of time to get back, and even the most compelling fountain can’t be that much of a detour.
An older woman pushing a baby carriage gives them a disapproving look and sniffs, which Zack doesn’t understand until he sees that Ryan and Brendon (mostly Brendon) are skipping. And…holding hands.
He can see how that might look to the average passerby.
Spencer shakes his hair out of his eyes - it’s getting long again, Zack foresees a minor amount of fuss over haircuts in the near future - and pulls his pink hoodie tighter around him. Jon is wearing a lei, courtesy of the restaurant they just patronized, and all four of them are in jeans so tight they’ve gone past suggestive into nearly obscene.
The woman sniffs again. Zack gives her a Look, and she decides to take her opinions elsewhere. He settles back into peaceable barbecue-induced contentment.
Brendon splashes feet-first into the fountain and drags Ryan with him, who tries in vain to shield his hair and eyeliner and only ends up on his ass in the water when Brendon pulls harder. Spencer starts laughing, and Brendon and Ryan team up in retaliation to splash him and finally tug him in after them. Jon pulls out his camera, snaps a couple of pictures, and only remains unmolested by virtue of holding water-sensitive equipment.
Zack is too big for them to drag him in, even all working together, but he lets them get him wet and waits a whole fifteen minutes before telling them it’s time to go.
***
Zack rarely knows what goes on onstage. He can catch pieces of it sometimes, if he’s paying close attention, but the guys have their own language when they’re performing, everything relayed in a flash of eyes or the cock of a hip, and their dynamics are complicated enough as it is without having to decode what it means when Brendon takes a step too close to Jon or Ryan hangs out for a while on the wrong side of the stage.
Once they come off, though, then he knows.
“You did it again,” Ryan snaps at Spencer, and shoves Brendon hard enough out of his way that he stumbles. Zack moves into range just in case a physical barrier is needed, and sees Jon tense up to do the same.
“It works better,” Spencer answers unrepentantly, and the two of them square off in the narrow hallway with the rest of the band uncertainly hanging around the fringes.
“That’s not the point,” Ryan snarls back, hands balled into fists and voice like daggers, each one sharp and cold. “We talked about this.”
Brendon tries to intervene, awkwardly soothing. “It really did work,” he begins, and then backpedals out of shoving range when Ryan turns on him.
“Now you’re on his side? You said it worked the way we had it.”
“No,” Brendon interrupts immediately, “No, I think it does, I just…”
“Of course he’s on your side,” Spencer sneers, arms crossed and legs slightly spread, every inch of his posture challenging. “Where else would he be? It’s not like he’s going to risk…”
“Fuck you,” Ryan spits, taking a step forward, and Brendon is caught in the middle, somewhere between hurt and angry.
“Hey guys,” he tries, arms out, “Guys…”
“Stay out of this, Brendon,” Spencer warns, and this time it’s him pushing, and Zack can’t catch Brendon because he’s falling in the wrong direction.
Ryan steps into Spencer’s personal space and shoves, and that’s as far as Zack is willing to let this go. “Enough,” he says, getting between them. His job is to protect them, even if it’s from each other. “Go shower, it’s time to get back to the bus.”
There won’t be any autograph signing tonight, that’s for sure. Jon has already made himself scarce, choosing discretion as the better part of valor, and Brendon disappears immediately to lick his wounds, the tinny sounds of The Smiths echoing from his headphones. Spencer and Ryan draw battle lines across the bus, and Jon and Brendon tiptoe carefully between them.
“It won’t last,” Jon says the next day as they ride up in the cab with the driver, away from the crackling hostility in the back.
He’s right, of course, but it doesn’t make Zack’s job any easier.
***
“It’s this way,” Brendon chants, bouncing across the grass in search of the hospitality lunch they’ve been promised, the result of a hard day’s work doing publicity and preparing for the concert at the same time. “This way this way this way.”
Zack is hoping the dancers will be at lunch, because he hasn’t talked to Katie in a while, and it would be cool if they were all taking a break together. He doesn’t see any of their crew, but then they’re not at the lunch tent yet, and don’t appear to be getting any closer.
“Are you sure it’s this way?” Ryan asks dubiously, craning his neck to look at the monochrome white buildings surrounding them.
“They said on the mall, that’s the grass, the courtyard thing,” Brendon returns. “That’s here. They said it was here, we’re just not there yet. And they said chicken. Fried chicken!”
“Mmm,” Jon agrees, looking properly appreciative of fried chicken while being distracted by some odd-looking wildflowers growing up between cracks in the stone path they’re crossing. Spencer staggers dramatically and Zack catches him without thinking, automatically sticking out an arm to hold his weight when Spencer mock-swoons.
“I’m starving,” he tells Zack woefully. “I’m faint with hunger. I might not be able to go on.”
Zack gives in because it’s a nice day and they’ve all been on good behaviour, lifting Spencer into his arms and carrying him along in the wake of the others. They pass a pair of local students who give them startled looks, nearly tripping on the pavement. Jon and Brendon have their arms around each other, giggling, and Spencer kicks his legs a little in Zack’s arms while Ryan ignores them all. Zack walks on without acknowledging the goggle-eyed girls, trying to look as though this is all perfectly normal. Which for them, it is.
“There it is!” Brendon yells, jumping up and down and flinging himself into Ryan, who staggers with an ‘oof’ but doesn’t push Brendon off. “There’s the food! The tent thing! Chiiiiicken!”
Spencer points imperiously, face stern and commanding from his lofty perch against Zack’s chest. “Onward!”
***
They have a 6 AM radio interview to get to, and Brendon’s not in his bunk. Zack doesn’t want to know, he really doesn’t, but he already kind of does, which is why the next place he checks (reluctantly) is Ryan’s bunk.
Brendon’s not there, either. But then neither is Ryan, which isn’t all that much of a reassurance.
He finds them both curled up in the back lounge, draped over each other like sleeping puppies, with the DVD player gone to blue and a packet of gummi worms tilted sideways across Ryan’s lap.
He checks his watch, sighs, and looks at them again. Brendon makes a soft whuffling sound into Ryan’s hair and Ryan twitches, but then their fingers brush and he immediately settles again.
Spencer wanders in, scrubbing at his eyes and yawning, hair fluffed like a kitten’s from sleep and newly-woken. He sees the two of them and wanders back out again, presumably in search of breakfast.
Zack goes to pour himself a cup of coffee and lets them sleep another five minutes.
***
It’s after the final show of the tour that Katie finally runs backstage, giggling and flushed from the performance, and kisses him.
Zack is about to take her hand and ask her out properly, possibly kiss her again because that was nice and he wants more while it’s on offer, when he’s hit by the tsunami-force of four band members high on adrenaline and charged from the aftermath of several hundred people singing their music back to them in a packed arena.
“I was like, no wait, did you see it? The girl, with the…anyway, I was trying to…”
“Can we go to La Casa tonight? I think that’s where the crew is going, we should go, even just for a little bit…”
“I can’t believe the feedback during that one break, did you hear it? I thought they’d…well, it’s not like it matters now, and it was still a great show, but I wish we could have…”
“PIGGYBACK!” Brendon yells over the rest of them, and hurls himself onto Zack’s back with the enthusiasm and dexterity of a spider monkey.
Zack catches him before he overbalances and hits the floor, and Brendon wraps his legs around Zack’s waist and wriggles up his body into a more secure position. “I’m so sweaty,” he announces happily, arms and legs now wrapped tightly around Zack’s torso. “Like, really sweaty. I think this is the grossest I’ve ever been.”
“Thanks,” Zack replies dryly. Katie is grinning at him, and his cheeks warm slightly. Only slightly.
“Hey,” Spencer puts in, leaning against his side and stripping off what he can of his costume. “You love us.”
“But you love me best,” Brendon emphasizes, and licks his cheek. Ryan rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. Katie is smiling too, warm and happy. Zack is working up the courage to say something to her, even something vague, before they have to go to the photo thing with the VIPs. He just has no idea what it is.
“I’ll see you later,” Katie says, and there’s a promise in her voice, in the way she looks at him when she says it. Jon raises his eyebrows. Zack pretends not to notice, and watches her hips sway as she walks down the hall.
“Admit it,” Spencer continues. “You’ll miss us when we’re gone.”
They’re all flying out tomorrow, and Zack is going to have a well-earned vacation back home without any responsibilities for weeks. He’s looking forward to it, to the break and the quiet and not being on anyone else’s schedule.
Brendon holds out a hand from his perch on Zack’s back, and Ryan obediently steps in so Brendon can fix one of his rosettes that’s gone askew. Spencer has finished his post-show transformation but isn’t relinquishing his place by Zack’s side, leaning companionably against him. Jon moves in as if answering a silent call, and suddenly they’re all in a group hug with Zack (and Brendon) in the middle.
Zack will be the first to admit it. As much of a pain as this job can be, he’ll miss them when they’re gone.
***
They’re at the airport to drop Jon off, but for once by some miracle they’ve arrived early (“We don’t want to be late!” Brendon had called as the others checked out of the hotel, and “Yes we do, we want to keep Jon forever,” Spencer had called back) so there’s enough time for shaved ice at an ice cream stand along the way.
“What do you have?” Ryan asks, investigating everyone else’s paper cones, and Spencer wordlessly offers it to him for a bite. Jon and Spencer have both already expressed interest in Zack’s Tropical Hurricane, and he’s resigned to only eating half of it once the guys are through taste-testing. For having such tiny bodies, they manage to consume an amazing amount of food. Particularly sugar.
They start passing around cones, and Zack has relaxed back onto one of the picnic benches, thinking idly about meeting up with Katie after he sees the band off, the coffee date they’ve set up in just a few short hours before she too flies home. He’s enjoying the quiet, watching a mother round up her hyperactive brood for ice cream with keen sympathy and understanding, and then he realizes, with the sixth sense that he’s cultivated while on tour, that it’s possibly a bit too quiet.
He counts, looks around, and counts again. Definitely too quiet.
“Guys,” he says, sitting up straight on the picnic bench. “Where’s Brendon?”